XIAM007 - Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World: 10/01/11

Saturday, 1 October 2011

The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality - Obama has compiled a hit list of American citizens -

The due-process-free assassination of U.S. citizens is now reality - Obama has compiled a hit list of American citizens -
Mideast Yemen Al Qaida

It was first reported in January of last year that the Obama administration had compiled a hit list of American citizens whom the President had ordered assassinated without any due process, and one of those Americans was Anwar al-Awlaki. No effort was made to indict him for any crimes (despite a report last October that the Obama administration was "considering" indicting him). Despite substantial doubt among Yemen experts about whether he even had any operational rolein Al Qaeda, no evidence (as opposed to unverified government accusations) was presented of his guilt. When Awlaki's father sought a court order barring Obama from killing his son, the DOJ argued, among other things, that such decisions were "state secrets" and thus beyond the scrutiny of the courts. He was simply ordered killed by the President: his judge, jury and executioner. When Awlaki's inclusion on President Obama's hit list was confirmed, The New York Times noted that "it is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing."

After several unsuccessful efforts to assassinate its own citizen, the U.S. succeeded today (and itwas the U.S.). It almost certainly was able to find and kill Awlaki with the help of its long-time close friend President Saleh, who took a little time off from murdering his own citizens to help the U.S. murder its. The U.S. thus transformed someone who was, at best, a marginal figure into a martyr, and again showed its true face to the world. The government and media search for The Next bin Laden has undoubtedly already commenced.

Read more -
http://www.blacklistednews.com/The_due-process-free_assassination_of_U.S._citizens_is_now_reality/15947/0/38/38/Y/M.html

Palestinians are punished by U.S. - block nearly $200M in aid - threatening projects such as food aid, health care -

The United States Congress has blocked nearly $200m in aid for the Palestinians, threatening projects such as food aid, health care, and support for efforts to build a functioning state.

The decision to delay the payments runs counter to the wishes of the Obama administration and reflects Congressional anger at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s so far unrealised pursuit of Fatah-Hamas reconciliation and statehood recognition at the UN.

The freezing of the funds, which were to have been dispersed in the US fiscal year that ends today, is the most tangible sign yet of the seriousness of Congressional leaders’ threats of an even wider halt to funding in the coming year if Mr Abbas continues with his actions at the UN. It was strongly condemned yesterday by the Palestinian Authority. There have been persistent demands in Congress to withhold up to $600m – the average amount given by the US in bilateral assistance to the West Bank and Gaza every year since 2008 – in the next financial year over the issue.

The administration remains, as does Congress, opposed to the Palestinians’ application for full UN membership, which Mr Abbas submitted last week. But it argues that assistance to the Palestinian people is what a US official described as “an essential part of the US commitment to a secure future and two-state solution for Palestinians”.

12 Signs That Americans Who Love Liberty And Freedom Should Watch Their Backs -

Do you love liberty and freedom? If so, you better watch your back. The control freaks that run our society are stripping away our liberties and freedoms a little bit more each day, and lately they seem to be particularly focused on coming after those that are not "integrating" into the system. Just like the rest of the western world, America is being transformed into a "Big Brother" police state control grid. Nearly everything that you do is being watched and monitored. A whole host of organizations know that you are on this website right now. If you want to go to an NFL game next weekend, there is a good chance that you will be on the receiving end of an "enhanced pat-down" and if you are producing raw milk on your farm there is a good chance that the feds will show up for a pre-dawn raid on your property. In many areas of the country, the government forces us to shoot our kids full of vaccines and implant dangerous microchips in our pets. Virtually wherever we go there is a camera that is watching us or there are other Americans that are evaluating whether or not we are engaged in "suspicious activity" that needs to be reported to the government. Once upon a time, America was all about liberty and freedom, but today our nation is undergoing a radical cultural shift. America is being "locked down", and those who love liberty and freedom should watch their backs.

Once upon a time, our founders thought that they were guaranteeing our freedoms by adding a Bill of Rights to the Constitution.

But today there are a lot of freedoms that we simply do not have any longer.

In America today, you do not have the right to say whatever you want. If you say the wrong thing on a blog or a website it can have dramatic consequences.

In America today, you do not have the right to do raise your own children as you see fit.

In America today, you do not have the right to grow whatever food you want and you do not have the right to eat whatever food you do grow.

In America today, you do not have the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

In America today, you do not have a right to privacy. In fact, you should expect that everything that you do is watched, tracked, monitored and recorded.

If you doubt any of the statements above, just check out the examples posted below.

The following are 12 signs that Americans who love liberty and freedom should watch their backs....

#1 A 55-year-old man in Arizona was recently ordered to turn in all his guns because of things that he wrote on his blog. Fortunately, after WorldNetDaily covered the story there was an outpouring of outrage and the order was overturned, but what would have happened if WorldNetDaily had not covered the story?

#2 According to Mike Adams of Natural News, the CDC is starting to call parents all over the nation to question them about the vaccination status of their children....

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which has been comprehensively exposed as a vaccine propaganda organization promoting the interests of drug companies, is now engaged in a household surveillance program that involves calling U.S. households and intimidating parents into producing child immunization records. As part of what it deems a National Immunization Survey(NIS), the CDC is sending letters to U.S. households, alerting them that they will be called by "NORC at the University of Chicago" and that households should "have your child's immunization records handy when answering our questions."

You can see a copy of the letter that the CDC is sending out to selected parentsright here.

#3 According to blogger Alexander Higgins, students in kindergarten and the 1st grade in the state of New Jersey are now required by law to participate "in monthly anti-terrorism drills". The following is an excerpt from a letter that he recently received from the school where his child attends....

Each month a school must conduct one fire drill and one security drill which may be a lockdown, bomb threat, evacuation, active shooter, or shelter-in place drill. All schools are now required by law to implement this procedure.

So who in the world ever decided that it would be a good idea for 1st grade students to endure "lockdown" and "active shooter" drills?

To get an idea of what these kinds of drills are like, just check out this video.

#4 According to licensed private investigator Angela V. Woodhull, hospitals are increasingly using "guardianship" to strip elderly Americans of their liberty and to rapidly drain their bank accounts. The following is one story that Woodhull included in a recent article....

Ginger Franklin, Hendersonville, Tennessee, fell down the stairs in her condo and suffered a bump on her head. She was declared “temporarily mentally incapacitated” and a guardian was appointed through the courts. Within six weeks, the guardian had sold Franklin’s home, car, furniture, and drained her bank account. Today, Franklin has her freedom back, but she is having to start all over.

#5 In a sign of just how far individual liberty in the United States has declined, a judge in Wisconsin has actually ruled that citizens do not have a right to grow and eat whatever foods they want to. The following is a short excerpt from his recent decision....

1) no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to own and use a dairy cow or a dairy herd;
2) no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow;
3) no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to board their cow at the farm of a farmer;
4) no, the Zinniker Plaintiffs’ private contract does not fall outside the scope of the State’s police power;
5) no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume foods of their choice;

#6 The freedom to raise our pets as we want to is also being greatly curtailed in many areas of the country. For example, a new law in St. Louis would require nearly all dogs and cats to be sterilized and microchipped....

Board Bill 107 would require all pet owners to spay or neuter their dogs and cats and microchip them for identification. Those who don't want to sterilize their pets would be assessed a fee of $200 per year.

Will the control freaks that run things want to start sterilizing and microchipping humans someday?

#7 Whenever any politician suggests that we should "suspend elections", that should be a major red flag. North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue recently made national headlines when she made the following statement....

"I think we ought to suspend, perhaps, elections for Congress for two years and just tell them we won't hold it against them, whatever decisions they make, to just let them help this country recover"

#8 As I wrote about recently, many NFL teams are now performing "enhanced pat-downs" of fans before they enter the stadiums. In Green Bay, the Packers are using hand-held metal detectors on fans before they are allowed to enter Lambeau field.

What is next? Will they soon insist that we all undergo full body cavity searches before we are permitted to attend the games?

#9 Many Americans have complained about the horrible treatment that they are receiving at U.S. airports, but now the TSA is bringing their brand of "security" to many other locations throughout America as well.

TSA "VIPR teams" now conduct approximately 8,000 "unannounced security screenings" a year at subway stations, bus terminals, ports and highway rest stops.

#10 Many of our public schools are now being run like prisons. In fact, in many areas of the country, little kids are being publicly arrested by police in their own classrooms and are being marched out of their schools in handcuffs.

#11 If you think that anything that you do on the Internet is private, you should guess again. It has recently come out that Facebook continues to track most of the websites that you visit even after you have logged out of Facebook.

In addition, law enforcement agencies all over the globe are increasingly viewing social media as a law enforcement tool. For example, the NYPD recently createda special "social media" unit dedicated to looking for criminals on Facebook and Twitter.

Also, many large organizations are now setting us very sophisticated systems that keep track of what is being said about them online and who is saying it. For example, the new "Social Media Monitoring Solution" being developed by the Federal Reserve will identify "key bloggers" and monitor "billions of conversations" about the Fed on Facebook, Twitter, forums and blogs.

#12 The U.S. government is ramping up efforts to have all of us watch one another and to report any sign of "suspicious activity" to them immediately. But exactly what does "suspicious activity" entail? According to a shocking document obtained by Oath Keepers, the FBI has really broadened their definition of "suspicious activity". According to the document, "suspicious activity" now includes....

-paying with cash

-missing a hand or fingers

-"strange odors"

-making "extreme religious statements"

-"radical theology"

-purchasing weatherproofed ammunition or match containers

-purchasing meals ready to eat

-purchasing night vision devices, night flashlights or gas masks

According to WorldNetDaily, this document is part of a "series of brochures" that will be distributed "to farm supply stores, gun shops, military surplus stores and even hotels and motels."

Our entire society is becoming extremely paranoid.

The Department of Homeland Security is spending massive amounts of money and running tons of ads to promote the "See Something, Say Something" campaign.

Apparently the Obama administration wants to turn the entire country into a vast network of government snitches.

They spend billions upon billions of dollars watching all of us, and yet now they also want all of us to watch each other.

It is not right.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to end up living in a society that resembles the novel "1984" by George Orwell.

Sadly, the death of our civil liberties is very rarely mentioned by any of our politicians these days.

Both major political parties seem to have fully embraced the growing national security apparatus that is starting to suffocate the life out of this country.

Yes, we will always need security, but security measures should be implemented in such a way that they will never violate the liberty, freedom, honor or dignity of ordinary Americans.

In a previous article, I wrote the following....

If those in charge of our security right now cannot protect us without compromising our liberty, freedom, honor and dignity then they need to immediately resign and allow someone else to do the job.

The Department of Homeland Security should be given a dual mandate. They must be charged with protecting us and they must be charged with protecting our liberty, freedom, honor and dignity at the same time.

If those running the security apparatus in this country right now feel like they cannot do that, then they need to step aside and let someone else take over.

The status quo is not acceptable.

Right now, all law enforcement personnel in this country are trained to bark at us like dogs and to treat us like cattle.

They are actually instructed to be mean and aggressive with us. From the first day of training, they are taught to treat us like dirt.

Things were not always this way in America. Once upon a time there was a clear distinction between the United States and "evil" totalitarian regimes.

Well, today we are becoming a little more "evil" and a little more "totalitarian" with each passing day.

If you love liberty and freedom, you better watch your back.

America is changing, and not for the better.

Prophets Of Doom: 12 Shocking Quotes From Insiders About The Horrific Economic Crisis That Is Almost Here -

We are getting so close to a financial collapse in Europe that you can almost hear the debt bubbles popping. All across the western world, governments and major banks are rapidly becoming insolvent. So far, the powers that be are keeping all of the balls in the air by throwing around lots of bailout money. But now the political will for more bailouts is drying up and the number of troubled entities seems to grow by the day. Right now the western world is facing a debt crisis that is absolutely unprecedented in world history. Europe has had a tremendously difficult time just trying to keep Greece afloat, and several much larger European countries are now on the verge of a major financial crisis. In addition, there is a growing number of very large financial institutions all over the western world that are also rapidly approaching a day of reckoning. The global financial system is a sea or red ink, and when we get to the point where there are hundreds of ships going under how is it going to be possible to bail all of them out? The quotes that you are about to read show that quite a few top financial and political insiders know that things cannot hold together much longer and that a horrific economic crisis is coming. We built the global financial system on a foundation of debt, leverage and risk and now this house of cards that we have created is about to come tumbling down.

A lot of people in politics and in the financial world know what is about to happen. Once in a while they will even be quite candid about it with the media.

As I have written about previously, Europe is on the verge of a financial collapse. If things go really badly, things could totally fall apart in a few weeks. But more likely it will be a few more months until the juggling act ends.

Right now, the banking system in Europe is coming apart at the seams. Because the global financial system is so interconnected today, when major European banks start to fail it is going to have a cascading effect across the United States and Asia as well.

The financial crisis of 2008 plunged us into the deepest recession since the Great Depression.

The next financial crisis could potentially hit the world even harder.

The following are 12 shocking quotes from insiders that are warning about the horrific economic crisis that is almost here....

#1 George Soros: "Financial markets are driving the world towards another Great Depression with incalculable political consequences. The authorities, particularly in Europe, have lost control of the situation."

#2 PIMCO CEO Mohammed El-Erian: "These are all signs of an institutional run on French banks. If it persists, the banks would have no choice but to delever their balance sheets in a very drastic and disorderly fashion. Retail depositors would get edgy and be tempted to follow trading and institutional clients through the exit doors. Europe would thus be thrown into a full-blown banking crisis that aggravates the sovereign debt trap, renders certain another economic recession, and significantly worsens the outlook for the global economy."

#3 Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy, global head of securities services at UniCredit SpA (Italy's largest bank): "The only remaining question is how many days the hopeless rearguard action of European governments and the European Central Bank can keep up Greece’s spirits."

#4 Stefan Homburg, the head of Germany's Institute for Public Finance: "The euro is nearing its ugly end. A collapse of monetary union now appears unavoidable."

#5 EU Parliament Member Nigel Farage: "I think the worst in the financial system is yet to come, a possible cataclysm and if that happens the gold price could go (higher) to a number that we simply cannot, at this moment, even imagine."

#6 Carl Weinberg, the chief economist at High Frequency Economics: "At this point, our base case is that Greece will default within weeks."

#7 Goldman Sachs strategist Alan Brazil: "Solving a debt problem with more debt has not solved the underlying problem. In the US, Treasury debt growth financed the US consumer but has not had enough of an impact on job growth. Can the US continue to depreciate the world’s base currency?"

#8 International Labour Organization director general Juan Somavia recently stated that total unemployment could "increase by some 20m to a total of 40m in G20 countries" by the end of 2012.

#9 Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackerman: "It is an open secret that numerous European banks would not survive having to revalue sovereign debt held on the banking book at market levels."

#10 Alastair Newton, a strategist for Nomura Securities in London: "We believe that we are just about to enter a critical period for the eurozone and that the threat of some sort of break-up between now and year-end is greater than it has been at any time since the start of the crisis"

#11 Ann Barnhardt, head of Barnhardt Capital Management, Inc.: "It's over. There is no coming back from this. The only thing that can happen is a total and complete collapse of EVERYTHING we now know, and humanity starts from scratch. And if you think that this collapse is going to play out without one hell of a big hot war, you are sadly, sadly mistaken."

#12 Lakshman Achuthan of ECRI: "When I call a recession...that means that process is starting to feed on itself, which means that you can yell and scream and you can write a big check, but it's not going to stop."

*****

In my opinion, the epicenter of the "next wave" of the financial collapse is going to be in Europe. But that does not mean that the United States is going to be okay. The reality is that the United States never recovered from the last recession and there are already a lot of signs that we are getting ready to enter another major recession. A major financial collapse in Europe would just accelerate our plunge into a new economic crisis.

If you want to read something that will really freak you out, you should check out what Dr. Philippa Malmgren is saying. Dr. Philippa Malmgren is the President and founder of Principalis Asset Management. She is also a former member of the Bush economic team. You can find her bio right here.

Malmgren is claiming that Germany is seriously considering bringing back the Deutschmark. In fact, she claims that Germany is very busy printing new currency up. In a list of things that we could see happen over the next few months, she included the following....

"The Germans announce they are re-introducing the Deutschmark. They have already ordered the new currency and asked that the printers hurry up."

This is quite a claim for someone to be making. You would think that someone that used to work in the White House would not make such a claim unless it was based on something solid.

If Germany did decide to leave the euro, you would see an implosion of the euro that would be truly historic.

But as I have written about previously, it should not surprise anyone that theend of the euro is being talked about because the euro simply does not work.

The only way that the euro would have had a chance of working is if all of the governments using the euro would have kept debt levels very low.

Unfortunately, the financial systems of the western world are designed to push governments into high levels of debt.

The truth is that the euro was doomed from the very beginning.

Now we are approaching a day of reckoning. We have been living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world, but the bubble is ending. There are several ways that the powers that be could handle this, but all of them will lead to greater financial instability.

In the end, we will see that the debt-fueled prosperity that the western world has been enjoying for decades was just an illusion.

Debt is a very cruel master. It will almost always bring more pain and suffering than you anticipated.

It is easy to get into debt, but it can be very difficult to get out of debt.

There is no way that the western world can unwind this debt spiral easily.

The only way that another massive economic crisis can be put off for even a little while would be for the powers that be to "kick the can down the road" a little farther by creating even more debt.

But in the end, you can never solve a debt problem with more debt.

The next several years are going to be an incredibly clear illustration of why debt is bad.

When the dominoes start to fall, we are going to witness a financial avalanche which is going to destroy the finances of millions of people.

You might want to try to get out of the way while you still can.

As Nobel Prize season starts, who will get those lucky, lucrative calls? -

Scientists, writers and brokers of peace around the world will be holding their breaths for a potentially life-altering, $1.5 million phone call from Scandinavia next week.

Goran Hansson will dial the first one.

“Sometimes they think that I’m joking,” said Hansson, secretary of the Nobel Prize committee for medicine. He will announce the first of the 2011 Nobels on Monday, after he calls the winners.

“I usually speak to them a few minutes,” he told The Associated Press. “And tell them a little bit about the ceremony and so on and then I advise them to make some coffee, catch their breath and prepare a little bit before the media starts calling them.”

The Nobel Prizes, given out annually since 1901, reward groundbreaking achievements in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature and peace. The economics prize is strictly speaking not a Nobel Prize, because it was not in the 1895 will of award creator Alfred Nobel, a wealthy Swedish industrialist who invented dynamite. It was created in 1968 by Sweden’s central bank in Nobel’s memory.

All prizes are announced in Stockholm except for the Nobel Peace Prize, which is presented in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, in line with Nobel’s wishes. During his lifetime, Norway was in a union with Sweden.

While the literature and peace prizes generate the most buzz — winners include well-known people such as Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, Mother Teresa and President Barack Obama — the science awards can have an even bigger impact on the recipients.

Many of them have toiled for decades with little recognition outside their field of research, when suddenly they are thrust into the global media spotlight, if only for a day.

It’s a moving moment when these savants, often white-haired and somewhat awkward in their tail coats or gowns, collect their Nobel diplomas and gold medals from King Carl XVI Gustaf at the annual Dec. 10 ceremony.

ANOTHER satellite to crash land - a German astronomy satellite – called ROSAT- will plunge uncontrolled back to Earth -

ANOTHER satellite to crash land - a German astronomy satellite – called ROSAT- will plunge uncontrolled back to Earth -
Heavens above: An artist's impression of the ROSAT satellite, which is expected to plunge to Earth in the near future

Heavens above: An artist's impression of the ROSAT satellite, which is expected to plunge to Earth in the near future

The world was gripped by the Nasa UARS satellite that fell back to Earth last Saturday – and now there’s another that’s plummeting back from orbit.

In late October or early November a Germany astronomy satellite – called ROSAT- will plunge uncontrolled back to Earth.

While slightly smaller than UARS, the German satellite is expected to have more pieces survive re-entry. The German space agency estimated that it has a 1-in-2000 chance of hitting someone - higher than the 1-in-3,200 odds NASA gave for UARS.

The German ROSAT satellite was launched in 1990, 'died' in 1998 and weighs two and a half tonnes.

The German space agency estimates that 30 pieces weighing less than two tons will survive re-entry. Debris may include sharp mirror shards.

The German space agency puts the odds of somebody somewhere on Earth being hurt by its satellite at 1-in-2,000 — a slightly higher level of risk than was calculated for the Nasa satellite.

Again, it seems certain that information on when - or where - the satellite might land will be scant.