XIAM007 - Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World: June 2011

Thursday, 30 June 2011

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has signaled he’s considering leaving after Congress raises the federal debt limit -

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has signaled to White House officials that he’s considering leaving the administration after President Barack Obama reaches an agreement with Congress to raise the federal debt limit, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Geithner hasn’t made a final decision and won’t do so until the debt-ceiling issue has been resolved, according to one of the people. All spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about private discussions.

The Treasury secretary has said that the U.S. risks defaulting on its obligations if Congress doesn’t raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by Aug. 2. The administration and Republicans in Congress are at an impasse in negotiations to raise the limit, which is tied to efforts to cut the nation’s long-term deficit.

Moody’s Investors Service said on June 2 that it expects to place the U.S. government’s Aaa credit rating under review for a possible downgrade if there’s no progress on the debt limit by mid-July. Fitch Ratings said June 21 it would place the U.S. on a negative rating watch if no action is taken by Aug. 2.

An exit by Geithner would complete the turnover in Obama’s original economic team, with Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Austan Goolsbee scheduled to leave in early August to return to the University of Chicago.

Political Impact

That would leave Obama with two key posts to fill as Republicans are seeking to turn the 2012 election into a referendum on Obama’s handling of the economy and as the recovery is slowing. Theunemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent in May, according to the Labor Department, and the economy grew at a 1.9 percent pace in the first quarter, according to Commerce Department figures released June 24.

Jen Psaki, a White House spokeswoman, declined to comment.

New San Francisco bridge built in China to be shipped to US -

Next month, four enormous steel skeletons, the last of the 12 segments of the bridge, will be shipped 6,500 miles from Shanghai to San Francisco before being assembled on site.

The bridge, which will connect San Francisco to Oakland on the other side of the bay, is a sign of how China has moved on from building roads and ports in Africa and the developing world and is now aggressively bidding for, and winning, major construction and engineering projects in the United States and Europe.

After building forests of skyscrapers in Beijing and Shanghai, showpiece buildings like the Bird's Nest stadium and the Guangzhou Opera House, and a high-speed rail network that is the envy of the world, Chinese construction companies are flush with cash and confidence. This week, Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, lobbied David Cameron to give the contract for the UK's new high speed rail link to a Chinese company.

According to Engineering News Record, five of the world's top 10 contractors, in terms of revenue, are now Chinese, with likes of China State Construction Engineering Group (CSCEC) overtaking established American giants like Bechtel.

TSA FAIL: Nigerian Man Flies From NY to LA With Fake ID, Day-Old Boarding Pass...-

CBS News has confirmed that authorities are looking into a shocking security breach that took place at John F. Kennedy International Airport last week.

Investigators say Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi, a Nigerian, boarded Virgin America Flight 415 to Los Angeles without a valid passport or identification, using an expired boarding pass for a flight the day before that belonged to someone else.

Officials say Noibi got through security and was able to board the plane. No one noticed until the flight was airborne when a flight attendant realized Noibi was sitting in a seat that was supposed to be vacant.

He showed the attendant the expired boarding pass that was in someone else’s name and then showed him a University of Michigan identification card with his picture on it.

'To Catch a Predator' Host Chris Hansen Caught in Cheating Sting - caught cheating on wife with 30 year old ex intern -

Chris Hansen, the NBC anchor famous for snagging Internet pedophiles on the show 'To Catch a Predator' has found himself in the center of an ironic scandal, The London Daily Mail reports.
Hansen, 51 has allegedly been having an affair with Kristyn Caddell, a 30-year-old TV Reporter from Florida.
Hansen was caught in a sting organized by the National Enquirer as he was having a romantic dinner with Caddell at the Ritz-Carlton in Palm Beach. After dinner, the pair then drove to her apartment where they were seen leaving together the next morning.
A source says that Caddell is a former intern at NBC and 'there was an immediate physical attraction between them' when they met.
Hansen lives with his wife Mary, 53 in Connecticut but reportedly has been spending time in Florida on a disappearance investigation.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/06/30/to-catch-predator-host-caught-cheating/?test=latestnews

Wednesday, 29 June 2011

Ron Paul On 2012: Establishment, Media Unable To Exclude Me This Time Around -

Texas Congressman Ron Paul feels much more optimistic about his 2012 presidential run than he did prior to his 2008 campaign, primarily because he knows that the establishment can no longer exclude him from debates and national polls.

The Congressman spoke exclusively to The Alex Jones show yesterday to give the inside track on the progress of the campaign, his thoughts on the ailing economy and to express his concerns over the precedent being set by US involvement in the military action in Libya.
Paul addressed those in the media, as well as political opponents, who have previously resorted to dirty tricks and smear in an attempt to discredit The Congressman’s campaign, noting:
“We have made progress, and that is because there are a growing number of people who are onto their tricks and are watching them rather closely, and they are going to hear from the supporters if they start doing that. So, in spite of the obstacles, our job is to keep doing what we’re doing and gain supporters.”
“The laughing and the ridicule so far has gone away,” The Congressman added. “I don’t know whether they’ll go back to that or not but it’s not like when there were just three major networks and hardly anybody on talk radio that would defend our position.”
“Last go around, the first two major debates, the one right before Iowa and one before New Hampshire, they excluded me. This year they’re not going to be able to do it.” Paul asserted.
“As bad as this system is, it still operates reasonably well. That is, over the years I’ve been able to run for Congress and get elected, and now I am still able to compete, even up against these odds and these tricks, because we can get in and organize and our numbers are growing.”
Paul specifically noted that many of his political opponents, even those that have sought to discredit him previously, are now emulating some of his views, because they recognize his growing popularity.
“I think they do have concerns. One place that we think they are revealing that we, our side, is making progress, is that they’re starting to support some of our positions. ” Paul said. “Whether it is backing off on some of this war mongering stuff and saying some things about auditing the Fed. What they believe is that if they just appease or neutralize that a little bit and they can get elected, they don’t have to follow through with the policies.”
Last week we reported on the fact that a long term Paul detractor, Newt Gingrich, has become extremely vocal about wishing to see an audit of the federal reserve, something Paul has been campaigning toward for years.
Paul also noted that he feels an overwhelming wave of support coming from younger people this time around.
“The young people are realizing how much they’re being dumped on… how they are getting ripped off because there’s no way, even if they could get a good job, they can’t pay off debt obligations. But they’re not getting good jobs.”

Read more -
http://www.prisonplanet.com/ron-paul-on-2012-establishment-media-unable-to-exclude-me-this-time-around.html

Russian President Loses Control of SUV and Nearly Hits Crowd -

Russian President Dimitri Medvedev may want to think twice the next time he decides to drive himself to a public appearance.

The Russian leader had a quite a scare on Saturday in the town of Kazan when he lost control of his car while exiting. The car kept going and headed straight for a crowd of cheering, and horrified, supporters. And it was all caught on video (fast forward to about 45 seconds below):

Body found in public pool 2 days after victim drowned - lifeguards were on duty - people were swimming no one noticed body -

The body of a Fall River woman was discovered floating in a state run pool late last night, two days after she apparently drowned in that same pool.

Police say lifeguards were on duty and people were swimming in the Veterans Memorial pool at Lafayette Park Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and it appears no one noticed the dead body.

Investigators identified the body as 36-year-old Marie Joseph.

Police say Joseph was watching her 9-year-old neighbor at the pool on Sunday when she apparently had an accident sliding down a waterside.

Family friends tell FOX25 the little boy told lifeguards that she did not come up from above water but no action was taken.

Body found in public pool 2 days after victim drowned: MyFoxBOSTON.com

North Korea to Chair UN Disarmament Conference - like “asking the fox to guard the chickens,” -

Despite numerous breaches of arms embargoes and continued threats to expand its nuclear weapons program, North Korea has assumed the presidency of the United Nations Conference on Disarmament. In a speech to the 65-nation arms control forum in Geneva, the newly-appointed president, North Korean Ambassador So Se Pyong, said he was “very much committed to the Conference.”
Appointing a North Korean to chair the UN’s only multilateral disarmament forum is like “asking the fox to guard the chickens,” says Hillel Neuer, of the UN watchdog organization UN Watch. Neuer is calling on the U.S. and European governments to protest the appointment, which he says, “damages the UN’s credibility.”

When asked about the controversy over North Korea’s new leadership role, UN spokesman Farhan Haq pointed out that the head of the Conference on Disarmament is selected by the member states that sit on the conference, not the UN secretary general.
Haq added that when Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke at the Conference on Disarmament this January, he urged the states who sit on the conference to do more to advance its work, so that it “does not become irrelevant.”Aware that many nations see the Conference on Disarmament as a place of talk rather than a forum that does substantive work, Secretary General Ban warned: “The very credibility of this body is at risk.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/06/29/north-korea-to-chair-un-disarmament-conference/

Lightning Kills 22 Students, Teacher in Uganda - Another 51 students, aged 7 to 16 were injured -

Twenty-two students and a teacher died when lightning struck their school in Uganda, officials said.

Another 51 students, aged 7 to 16 were injured in the freak strike 160 miles northwest of Kampala, said local police spokeswoman Zura Ganyana.

Lightning strikes in recent weeks have killed at least 38 people around the country in recent weeks, as unseasonably heavy storms have ravaged the area. Experts said the school was prone because it is on high ground and does not have a lighting conductor to ground strikes.

Another lightning strike injured 37 students at a school 200 miles away, officials said.

One member of parliament called the situation a crisis.

"I don't know which minister is in charge of the lightning but let the government come up with a statement to inform the country on what is going on and how we can manage it," Parliament Speaker Rebecca Kadaga told Reuters.

Uganda's Minister of State for Disaster Preparedness Musa Ecweru told the BBC the deaths could be blamed on buildings not having lightning rods.

"There are very many schools and brand new health centres which are lacking lightning arrestors," Mr Ecweru said.

In the 10 years since the September 11, 2001, attacks, spending on the conflicts totalled $2.7 TRILLION & 258,000 lives -

In the 10 years since U.S. troops went into Afghanistan to root out the Al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11, 2001, attacks, spending on the conflicts totalled up to $2.7 trillion.
Those numbers will continue to soar when considering often overlooked costs including obligations to wounded veterans and projected war spending from 2012 through 2020.
They also do not include at least $1trillion in interest payments and expenses.

More than 30,000 Allied personnel have died in the War on Terror

The study, 'Costs of War', brought together more than 20 academics to uncover the expenses of war.
It underlines the extent to which war will continue to stretch the U.S. federal budget and questions what has been gained from the massive investment.
Senator Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, said: 'I hope that when we look back, whenever this ends, something very good has come out of it.'
Catherine Lutz, head of the anthropology department at Brown and co-director of the study, said: 'We decided we needed to do this kind of rigorous assessment of what it cost to make those choices to go to war.
'Politicians, we assumed, were not going to do that kind of assessment.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009371/Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan-wars-US-cost-3-7trillion-258k-lives.html#ixzz1QgN5ED9o

You Thought California State Pensions Were Out Of Control? Wait Until You See This List From Illinois -

Did you know the launch code for the US strategic nuclear arsenal was all zeroes until 1977? -

Sex-crazed turtles shut down a runway at Kennedy Airport this morning as they crawled across the tarmac -

Sex-crazed turtles shut down a runway at Kennedy Airport this morning as they crawled across the tarmac -
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Get the shell out of the way!

Sex-crazed turtles shut down a runway at Kennedy Airport this morning as they crawled across the tarmac heading for their seasonal breeding grounds.

Runway 4L was shut down starting about 9:30 a.m., the Federal Aviation Administration said.

Port Authority workers were still working an hour later to move the slowpokes to safer ground.

"We may have a few delays, but nothing significant," said FAA spokeswoman Arlene Salac.

JetBlue reported the turtle incursion on Twitter around 9:40 a.m.

"Running over turtles is not healthy for them nor is it good for our tires," the airline said.

Seattle Officers leave loaded rifle unattended on trunk of patrol car...then drives away with gun STILL on trunk -

Seattle Officers leave loaded rifle unattended on trunk of patrol car...then drives away with gun STILL on trunk -
Doh: The Seattle Police officer left their loaded rifle unattended on a patrol car outside a busy down town area today

Doh: The Seattle Police officer left their loaded rifle unattended on a patrol car outside a busy down town area today

This is the shocking picture of a fully loaded assault rifle left unattended on the trunk of patrol car in a busy Seattle street.
The bungling officers were nowhere to be seen after leaving the AR-15 on the trunk of their patrol car outside a busy hotel and shopping street on Monday night.
Shockingly, after the officers returned, they failed to notice the menacing rifle and drove off.
It was only after a woman chased the car as it drove away, that the officers realised their mistake.
Passer-by Nick Gonzales, who photographed the shocking scene above, also alerted two bike cops after seeing the rifle at around 9 pm Monday night, describing them as being 'shocked as hell'.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2009273/Keystone-cop-Officer-leaves-loaded-rifle-boot-patrol-car--drives-away-gun-STILL-there.html

Inside the Fed’s Vault: $1 Billion Worth of Unused Coins - they have cost the government $300 million so far -

In the basement of a Baltimore vault the size of a soccer field, 1 billion dollar coins are just sitting there. Thanks, Congress.

NPR’s Planet Money reporters recently investigated the $1 presidential coin program, which was a Congressional effort to get more $1 coins into circulation while also trying to be educational.

The problem is that nobody really wants them. Well, not nobody. Sixty percent of the coins make it into circulation. But that other 40 percent? They’re sitting in vaults. In fact, the Fed’s even running out of space for them.

Each coin costs the government 30 cents to make, so the piles in those vaults have cost the government $300 million so far, according to NPR.

The whole thing started in 2005, when the Presidential $1 Coin Act was written into law. While the legislation seemed to have good intentions, when the U.S. Mint started producing the coins a couple years later, the demand just wasn’t there. I mean, had you even heard of the presidential $1 coins, let alone seen one?

At the same time, the legislation mandated that a certain number of Sacagawea coins be made in conjunction with the presidential coins, which has now amounted to one Sacagawea for every four presidents. And I think we know how well those coins went over.

Read more:
http://moneyland.time.com/2011/06/29/inside-the-fed%E2%80%99s-vault-1-billion-worth-of-unused-coins/

50 U.S. Health Care Statistics That Will Absolutely Astonish You -

#1 What the United States spent on health care in 2009 was greater than the entire GDP of Great Britain.
#2 According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980. Today they account for approximately 16.3%.
#3 The United States spent 2.47 trillion dollars on health care in 2009. It is being projected that the U.S. will spend 4.5 trillion dollars on health care in 2019.
#4 One study found that approximately 41 percent of working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.
#5 According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the United States. Of those bankruptcies that were caused by medical bills, approximately 75 percent of them involved individuals that actually did have health insurance.
#6 Over the past decade, health insurance premiums have risen three times faster than wages have in the United States.
#7 The chairman of Aetna, the third largest health insurance company in the United States, brought in a staggering $68.7 million during 2010. Ron Williams exercised stock options that were worth approximately $50.3 million and he raked in an additional $18.4 million in wages and other forms of compensation. The funny thing is that he left the company and didn’t even work the whole year.
#8 The top executives at the five largest for-profit health insurance companies in the United States combined to receive nearly $200 million in total compensation for 2009.
#9 Even as the rest of the country struggled with a deep recession, U.S. health insurance companies increased their profits by 56 percent during 2009 alone.
#10 According to a report by Health Care for America Now, America’s five biggest for-profit health insurance companies ended 2009 with a combined profit of $12.2 billion.
#11 In the United States, health insurance administration expenses account for 8 percent of all health care costs. In Finland, that figure is just 2 percent.
#12 Health insurance rate increases are getting out of control. According to the Los Angeles Times, Blue Shield of California announced plans earlier this year to raise rates an average of 30% to 35%, and some individual policy holders were slated to see their health insurance premiums rise by up to 59 percent.
#13 According to an article on the Mother Jones website, health insurance premiums for small employers in the U.S. increased 180% between 1999 and 2009.
#14 Since 2003, health insurance companies have shelled out more than $42 million in state-level campaign contributions.
#15 There were more than two dozen pharmaceutical companies that made over a billion dollars in profits each during 2008.
#16 Each year, tens of billions of dollars is spent on pharmaceutical marketing in the United States alone.
#17 Prescription drugs cost about 50% more in the United States than they do in other countries.
#18 Nearly half of all Americans now use prescription drugs on a regular basis according to a CDC report that was recently released. According to the report, approximately one-third of all Americans use two or more pharmaceutical drugs, and more than ten percent of all Americans use five or more drugs on a regular basis.
#19 According to the CDC, approximately three quarters of a million people a year are rushed to emergency rooms in the United States because of adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs.
#20 The Food and Drug Administration reported 1,742 prescription drug recalls in 2009, which was a gigantic increase from 426 drug recalls in 2008.
#21 Children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants than children in Europe are.
#22 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higherthan in any other country in the world.
#23 Lawyers are certainly doing their part to contribute to soaring health care costs. According to one recent study, the medical liability system in the United States added approximately $55.6 billion to the cost of health care in 2008.
#24 According to one doctor interviewed by Fox News, “a gunshot wound to the head, chest or abdomen” will cost $13,000 at his hospital the moment the victim comes in the door, and then there will be significant additional charges depending on how bad the wound is.
#25 Why are c-sections on the rise? It is because a vaginal delivery costs approximately $5,992, while a c-section costs approximately $8,558.
#26 According to the CIA World Factbook, the United States had a higher infant mortality rate than 45 other nations in 2009.
#27 The infant mortality rate in the United States is nearly three times as high as it is in Singapore.
#28 It is estimated that hospitals overcharge Americans by about 10 billion dollars every single year.
#29 In fact, one trained medical billing advocate says that over 90 percent of all the medical bills that she has audited contain “gross overcharges“.
#30 It is not uncommon for insurance companies to get hospitals to knock their bills down by up to 95 percent, but if you are uninsured or you don’t know how the system works then you are out of luck.
#31 Over the last decade, the number of Americans without health insurance has risen from about 38 million to about 52 million.
#32 People living in the United States are three times more likely to have diabetes than people living in the United Kingdom.
#33 Today, people living in Puerto Rico have a greater life expectancy than people living in the United States do.
#34 According to OECD statistics, Americans are twice as obese as Canadians are.
#35 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.
#36 The U.S. government now says that the Medicare trust fund will run outfive years faster than they were projecting just last year.
#37 It is being projected that the federal government will account for more than 50 percent of all health care spending in 2012.
#38 Greece has twice as many hospital beds per person as the United States does.
#39 The state of California now ranks dead last out of all 50 states in the number of emergency rooms per million people.
#40 According to one survey, approximately 1 out of every 4 Californians under the age of 65 has absolutely no health insurance.
#41 According to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report, “inefficient claims processing” costs the U.S. health care system 210 billion dollars every single year.
#42 Today, approximately 40% of all U.S. doctors are age 55 or older.
#43 According to the American Association of Medical Colleges, we were already going to be facing a shortage of more than 150,000 doctors over the next 15 years even before Obamacare was passed.
#44 An IBD/TIPP poll taken back in August 2009 found that 4 out of every 9 American doctors said that they “would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement” if Congress passed Obamacare.
#45 According to a survey published in the New England Journal of Medicine, approximately one-third of all practicing physicians in the United States indicated that they may leave the medical profession because of the new health care law.
#46 According to a Merritt Hawkins survey of 2,379 doctors that was conducted in August 2010, 40 percent of all U.S. doctors plan to “retire, seek a nonclinical job in health care, or seek a job or business unrelated to health care” at some point over the next three years.
#47 According to the executive director of Physician Hospitals of America, Obamacare has already forced the cancellation of at least 60 doctor-owned hospitals that were scheduled to open soon.
#48 According to a report released in 2010, Americans spend approximately twice as much as residents of other developed countries do on health care.
#49 If the U.S. health care system was a country, it would be the 6th largest economy in the entire world.
#50 According to numbers released by Deloitte Consulting, a whopping875,000 Americans were “medical tourists” in 2010.