Category Archives: U.S.

U.S.

United Police States of America: TSA deprives diabetic pregnant woman of insulin

“It made me feel upset and made me feel somewhat helpless.”-Aaron Nieman, husband of TSA victim

A pregnant woman flying from Denver to Phoenix, was deprived of her insulin by TSA officials.  They claimed the insulin could be used to make a bomb!

The woman even had a note from her doctor explaining her situation, the Transportation Security Administration official didn’t care.

What makes this even more alarming is that they let the woman keep hair spray, nail polish, and even the syringes used to inject the insulin!

Luckily, the woman managed to sneak half a vial of insulin past the TSA idiots, and she was able to arraign for more insulin when she got to Phoenix.

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

U.S. Debt: The Big Three countries U.S. taxpayers are beholded to, U.S. government bonds drop in rank

Most people know that China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt.  Japan is the second biggest, and the United Kingdom (Britain) is the third.

According to the most recent information, China holds a little more than $1 trillion in U.S. government debt (bonds), Japan holds $912 billion and the U.K. holds $346 billion.  Those bonds are held not only by foreign governments, but by private banks and corporations.

Standard & Poor’s downgrade means that U.S. government bonds are now ranked 2nd place.  Germany, United Kingdom and France still hold their triple A 1st place ranks.  Interestingly the Federal Reserve Bank (not a government agency) says the drop in ranking will not change how they handle U.S. bonds.

The problem is that foreign banks will surely change how they handle U.S. bonds.

The majority of U.S. government debt is still held within the United States, by banks, corporations, individuals and taxpayers via the U.S. Treasury.

 

 

Business/Economics, U.S.

S & P’s says Debt Limit Deal not enough, downgrades the United States anyway, U.S. officials cry foul

Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. from a triple A credit rating to double A plus.  They cited three main reasons.

Reason one is that the GDP to debt ratio is too high for triple A.  They estimate the U.S. has a 74-79% debt to GDP ratio.  Some European countries have higher debt ratios, but S & P’s says those countries have implemented plans that give them a better chance at getting their debt under control (why do you think there’s so much rioting going on over there).  S & P’s says there are no signs the U.S. can get its debt undercontrol.

This brings us the the second reason for the downgrade: The Debt Limit Deal won’t bring down the debt.  The Debt Limit Deal aims to cut government spending by $2.1 trillion over ten years.  Standard & Poor’s says that doesn’t even come close.  They claim at least $4 trillion needs to be cut, and they say $4 trillion would be just a “down payment” against U.S. debt.  Obviously the elected officials in Washington DC still don’t realize the seriousness of the situation.

That brings us to the third reason: Government incompetence.  S & P’s says the lack of performance by elected and appointed federal government officials proves they are not taking the issue seriously: “The effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned.”-Standard & Poor’s

Of course officials at the U.S. Department of Treasury are crying foul.  They claim there are mistakes in the official S & P’s notice of the credit rating downgrade.  S & P’s says they will review it for any mistakes.

 

 

International, U.S.

Russian envoy to NATO reveals planned NATO attack on Syria, says Iran is next

“This statement means that the planning of the military campaign is well underway. It could be a logical conclusion of those military and propaganda operations, which have been carried out by certain Western countries against North Africa.”-Dmitry Rogozin, Russian envoy to NATO

The “statement” refers to the recent UN Security Council’s statement against Syria.

Rogozin also says the U.S. led NATO attacks on Libya, and the build up against Syria are all part of the “west’s” plan to invade Iran, and finally take total control of the oil rich region: “The noose around Iran is tightening. Military planning against Iran is underway.  And we are certainly concerned about an escalation of a large-scale war in this huge region.”


U.S.

United Police States of America: Anonymous political cartoonist to be arrested for posting cartoons about bad cops

Mr Fiddlesticks is wanted by the Renton Police Department, in Washington state.  The anonymous cartoon poster’s crime?  Stalking police by making cartoon parodies of real life cases of bad police behavior.

A local Washington media source broke the story.  The actual court documents show that the local police department is simply out to avenge the parodying of actual cases of cops who got caught misbehaving: “…discussed a past incident that has already been investigated….regarding a dating relationship (a female detective) had with a suspect.”-from the actual search warrant

An attorney who specializes in cyber law says the police action is pathetic and the case won’t stand up in court: “The cyberstalking angle doesn’t pass the laugh test.  It’s a serious stretch and I’d be surprised if somebody looked at it and realistically thought these acts actually fit the statute and we could make somebody criminally liable.”-Venkat Balasubramani

This tells me that the Renton Police Department are afraid that Mr Fiddlesticks might reveal some bad cop behavior that has yet to be made public, and they want to stop him before it happens.

 

Business/Economics, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Ford, GM, Chrysler; can we trust their sales and profit reports? U.S. auto sales actually stagnating

Ford and GM reported profits in July.  They also reported increased U.S. sales.  Ford claims 9% increase, GM an 8% increase, while Chrysler claims an incredible 20% increase in U.S. sales.

This while Japanese car makers Toyota and Honda reported that their U.S. sales crashed by more than 20% each.

Despite Chrysler reporting a 20% increase in sales, they claimed a net loss in profits, from buying back stocks from the U.S. taxpayers (interestingly the U.S. taxpayer also lost money).

Ford reported a small 9% increase in sales, but a big increase in profits.  One reason is because they jacked up the prices of their cars.  According to one report, the price increases accounted for $900 million of Ford’s profit.  Profiting by inflation.  Ford’s Chief Financial Officer, Lewis Booth, said they expect a drop in U.S. sales in the second half of 2011.

GM reported a small 8% increase in July sales, with a profit of $2.5 billion.  Remember GM still owes U.S. taxpayers for the bailout.  However analysts say now would be a bad time for taxpayers if GM decided to buy back its taxpayer (U.S. Treasury Department) held stock.  Just like the Chrysler buy back taxpayers would lose big time.  Most of GM’s sales came from pickup trucks.  The problem is that GM still has a surplus of pickup trucks, equal to a 115 day supply.  In order to get the surplus inventories down GM will continue with planned factory shut downs, that means more people out of work.  GM officials also expect the second half of 2011 to be hard on sales.

Mitsubishi reported an amazing 41% increase in July sales, while sales for most other Japanese companies stalled or crashed.

German car makers did well: Volkswagen reported a respectable 21% increase (not counting their AUDI brand).  Mercedes had a 13% increase.  BMW increased by 11%.

British companies Jaguar and Land Rover went in opposite directions, with Jaguar down 0.3% and Land Rover up 22%.

The problem is that you can’t go by percentages.  Here’s an example: Even though Toyota’s U.S. sales for July were down 22.7%, they still sold 130,802 vehicles in one month.  Compare that to Chrysler’s huge gain of 20%.  In July they sold 112,026 vehicles, still less than Toyota.

For another example of how percentages can deceive, let’s look at Mitsubishi and GM.  Mitsubishi reported an amazing 41% increase in July, but the actual number of vehicles sold that month was only 7,972.  GM reported a 8% increase in U.S. sales.  Sounds small, but the actual number of vehicles they sold in July is 214,915.  That makes GM the sales leader, however GM officials pointed out  they’re still stuck with a surplus of vehicles to sell.

So, is the auto industry on the rebound, or not?  Overall light vehicle (cars & pickup trucks) sales indicate that the auto industry stagnated in the month of July.  Car sales down 3%, pickup truck sales up 4.8%, almost cancelling each other out.

Data from Autodata Corp

 

International, U.S.

Proof that the U.S. military is controlled by Christian Crusaders: USAF “ethics” course is an in your face course on Christianity

30 U.S. Air Force officers revealed that a nuclear “ethics” course they were required to attend was nothing more than a promotion of Christianity, and a bad one at that.

The course constantly referred to biblical quotes, and quotes from Christian saints.  Most of the justification is based on versus from the Old Testament. I like to point out that there were no “Christians” in the Old Testament.  Also, the course uses Saint Augustine’s “Christian” justification of war.  Augustine was born more than 3oo years after the death of Jesus of Nazareth.  Augustine made the statements in order to justify the continued war mongering of the newly Christianized Roman Empire.

One part of the ethics course even stated that Christians view nuclear war as a good thing.

I’d like to remind people that no Hebrew official can speak for Moses, just as no Imam can speak for Mohammad.  And definitely no Saint can speak for Jesus of Nazareth.  Here’s a quote from the New Testament: Mathew 5:39; “But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.”-attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, New American Standard 1984 edition

Amazingly (well, from my experience, maybe it’s not so amazing) USAF officials claim they never realized there was anything “Christian” about the ethics course.  The U.S. Air Force has been teaching the officer ethics course for nearly 20 years.

The USAF says they’ve stopped teaching the course.  There is a detailed report at truth-out.org.  Also the original USAF powerpoint presentation was made available online, you can find it at the Washington Post website.  It was after the presentation hit the internet that the USAF stopped their nuclear “ethics” course.

 

International, U.S.

The Young Indiana Jones got his start in Mexico, turns out the fictional story may have some truth to it

The popularity of the Indiana Jones movie character lead to the short lived TV show, Young Indiana Jones.  The character spent a lot of time doing rogue archeology in Mexico, at the time of the First World War.

If you remember (oh well, most people don’t) the United States actually invaded Mexico at that time (it wasn’t the first time).  It was to try to capture the revolutionary Fransisco “Poncho” Villa.  Turns out the U.S. Army did a little archeological research as well.

Now Mexican officials are reporting that they found 11 (out of 13) mound sites, that were previously explored by U.S. Army soldiers.  The sites are located near San Joaquin, Chihuahua, where 50 U.S. soldiers spent their off duty time digging around.

The testimonies of two U.S. officers are kept in the National Archives of Anthropology at the Smithsonian Museum, in Washington DC.  Mexican archeologists spent time reading those testimonies.  The documents include photographs, maps, sketches and drawings of the sites.

Mexican archeologists say the maps of the U.S. officers were very accurate.  It turns out that a path indicated on the map was actually a major transport route in ancient times.  However, only 11 of the 13 mound sites on the maps have been found, so far.

The U.S. soldiers estimated the sites to be 800 years old, about the time of the Middle Paquimé period (between 1200 and 1450 AD).

No details have been given about what was found.  I guess we have to go to the National Archives of Anthropology in Washington DC, and beg them to let us read those documents.

 

 

 

 

Business/Economics, International, U.S.

What Economic Recovery, What Global Warming? It’s summer time and Crops in Mexico are being threatened by Frost, yet more reasons why food prices will go up

“The involvement is significant, because they are threatening more than 7 million hectares of crops planted in the spring-summer 2011, which are at risk for losing a harvest of 20 million tons of basic grains as well as lost income and liquidity of more 3.5 million basic grain producers.”-Salazar Arriaga, National Confederation of Corn Producers

To be sure Mexico’s agriculture industry is dealing with severe drought, but also flooding and…frost.

23 of Mexico’s 32 states are dealing with drought, but, now that the rainy season is about to start it looks like they’ll get hit with severe flooding, neither of which are conducive to growing crops.

In northern Mexico, winter is predicted to come on colder than normal, resulting in frost damage to many struggling crops.

Some of the worst hit states in Mexico are Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Durango, Sonora, Chihuahua, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, Colima, Chiapas, Campeche, Yucatán and Zacatecas.  Farmers in those states have lost too much of the growing year, which means it’s too late to plant anything.