March 18, 2012, as protest against the U.S. puppet government of Yemen rage on, a U.S. citizen is assassinated.
Witnesses say two men on a motorcycle shot and killed the director of the Swedish Language Center, located in the city of Taez. The director is a U.S. citizen.
This follows the kidnapping of a teacher from Switzerland on Friday, March 16.
How would you like to own a business that’s making money hand over fist, and get paid by the government on top of that? The Oil Industry is!
People are literally going hungry in the United States, and Republican controlled congress keeps cutting welfare for the poor, yet the Oil Industry gets 4 billion of your tax dollars every year!!!
“…the United States government provide a heavy public subsidy to petroleum companies, with major tax breaks at virtually every stage of oil exploration and extraction, including for the costs of oil field leases and drilling equipment.“-WikiPedia
Now realize the Oil Industry has been reporting record profits for the past few years. Recently Exxon Mobil CEO, Rex Tillerson, said his company is spending billions to extract new sources of oil. But wait, if the U.S. taxpayer paid subsidy is supposed to cover those costs, then who’s money is really going where?
On top of the $4 billion taxpayer subsidy, here are a few more tax breaks for the Oil Industry, and its investors:
Enhanced oil recovery credit. Covers the costs to “enhance” a well’s oil or natural gas production.
Non conventional source fuel credit. Tax credit for production of “qualified” fuels such as oil shale, tight formation gas, and certain synthetic fuels produced from coal.
Lease Operating Expense. Covers the day to day costs involved with the operation of a well, and re-entry, or re-work, of an existing producing well.
Intangible Drilling Costs. Labor, drilling rig time, drilling fluids etc.
Intangible Completion Costs. Labor, completion materials, completion rig time, fluids etc.
Depletion Allowance. Investors in a producing well are allowed to shelter some of the gross income derived from the sale of that oil/gas. Generally 15% of the well’s annual production can be sheltered from income tax.
So don’t feel sorry for the A-holes!
The Xinjiang Bureau of Surveying and Mapping has revealed that they detained a U.S. citizen after he was caught using two GPS devices to map out cities in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
The detention happened back on January 31, 2012. Chinese officials say he collected and stored over 90,000 geographic coordinates using his GPS receivers.
Officials with Xinjiang Bureau of Surveying and Mapping were tipped off in August 2011, after several people told them they had spotted a U.S. citizen using GPSs around a local military base.
China’s National Administration Bureau of Surveying and Mapping confirmed the man did not have permission to do any GPS mapping of China. The U.S. citizen claimed he was establishing routes for tourists from the United States!
Governor Butch Otter pays the females in his administration an average of $20,000 less than his male administrators.
“Director Gould is about $38,000 under the newly employed Jeff Sayer. You can’t argue she doesn’t have as many employees. Our state is no different than the national averages that show women reach a ‘glass ceiling’ for promotion and pay.”-Representative Wendy Jaquet of Ketchum
Idaho Agriculture Director, Celia Gould, has worked for Butch Otter since 2007. She’s paid $106,621 per year. Jeffrey Sayer, Commerce Director (running a smaller agency), has worked for Butch Otter since October 2011, yet he gets paid $145,018 per year.
The median salary for females in Butch Otter’s cabinet is $85,446. The median salary for males is $103,002.
Oh, but Idaho is a Right to Work state.
March 18, 2012, California has notified at least 20,000 teachers that they will not be coming back to work.
Tom Torlakson, California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, says the notices reflect a financial emergency: “Though the very future of our state depends on California’s teachers …(they) will now spend months in limbo, worrying about their futures and the future of their students.”
It could be worse. In November elections, Californians will decide if they can afford a huge tax increase, that could keep even more teachers from losing their jobs.
If the tax increase fails to get the vote, then a $4.8 billion trigger cut to education funding will go into effect, which could result in another 55,000 teachers being laid off!
Beware the old saying: “As California goes, so goes the nation.”
March 13, two U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan, one in North Waziristan, one in South Waziristan, killed 15 people. Two of those killed were pro-government militants!
March 11, Israeli drone hits family as mother walked her children home. All ended up in the hospital with cuts and fractures. One 15 year old boy died.
“We were coming back from school along with six of our companions when suddenly a drone hit us. I had the sensation of flying.”-Hani Al-Qanoo, boy injured in attack
“The drones fly low over the night sky, the explosions are now less frequent but nobody is relaxing or being lulled in to any false sense of security, Gaza is awake and will not sleep tonight.”-eyewitness living in Gaza Strip
March 11, nine people killed in Yemen by U.S. drone strike. Three people killed in Jabal Khanfar, a hill overlooking the Abyan town of Jaar. Six people killed in Makhzan, southeast of Jaar. Witnesses say at least six missiles were fired from several U.S .drones.
“Items of interest will be located, identified, monitored, and remotely controlled through technologies such as radio frequency identification, sensor networks, tiny embedded servers, and energy harvesters, all connected to the next generation internet using abundant, low cost, and high power computing. The latter now going to cloud computing, in many areas greater and greater supercomputing, and, ultimately, heading to quantum computing.”-David Petraeus, CIA boss, statement made at meeting of In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture capital firm
Photo via National Security Agency, 28DEC2011.
This is a 2011 photo of the National Security Agency’s $340-million Gordon Regional Security Operations Center at Fort Gordon, Georgia, and it wasn’t big enough so they’re building a bigger one in Utah.
“this is more than just a data center….Everybody’s a target; everybody with communication is a target.”-unnamed intelligence official
Camp Williams is expanding by 240 acres to become Utah Data Complex, run by the National Security Agency. It will be the biggest ever, and should be completed by 2013.
The center will not only spy on, and collect, domestic emails and phone calls, but even what you buy!
The domestic spy center is costing taxpayers $2 billion to build.
Despite being under house arrest in United Kingdom, Assange is getting a new TV show, and running for political office in Australia.
Assange is scheduled to host The World of Tomorrow for RT (Russia Today): “Assange to record TV series for RT while under house arrest – I am sure it will be an amazing show!” -Margarita Simonyan, RT editor in chief
Assange is also running for a seat in Australia’s Upper House. Wikileaks is also sponsoring a candidate to challenge Prime Minister Julia Gillard.
30 years ago, 1,600 hectares (3,953.6 acres) of farmland in Gifu Prefecture, Japan, was contaminated with cadmium. The cadmium came from a mine.
What happened was that the mine was dumping cadmium into the river, the local farms used the river for irrigation. The contamination caused a debilitating condition among local residents, called “itai-itai disease“.
A ceremony was held in Toyama City, on March 17, 2012, to mark to end of 30 years of replacing the contaminated soil! It is considered the biggest restoration project for farm land in history!