Despair: 38 US Soldiers Killed Themselves This Month, An All Time High -

Despair: 38 US Soldiers Killed Themselves This Month, An All Time High - 



The Army experienced a record 38 suicides in July, the highest monthly total since the service began releasing monthly figures in 2009.

According to an Army report, 26 active-duty soldiers and 12 Army National Guard or Army Reserve members were suspected of or confirmed to have died by suicide.

The soldiers included a 21-year-old air traffic controller who shot himself in his Fort Wainright, Alaska, barracks; a 26-year-old captain who died at an indoor firing range in Virginia, and a 29-year-old sergeant who had deployed four times to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Three soldiers died at their own hands on deployment, and 13 had deployed at least once. But nine had never seen combat, according to the Army.

Read more -
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2012/08/military-army-faces-highest-monthly-total-of-suicides-081612/

40 Points That Prove That Barack Obama And Mitt Romney Are Essentially The Same Candidate -

40 Points That Prove That Barack Obama And Mitt Romney Are Essentially The Same Candidate - 



What a depressing choice the American people are being presented with this year.  We are at a point in our history where we desperately need a change of direction in the White House, and we are guaranteed that we are not going to get it.  The Democrats are running the worst president in American history, and the Republicans are running a guy who is almost a carbon copy of him.  The fact that about half the country is still supporting Barack Obama shows how incredibly stupid and corrupt the American people have become.  No American should have ever cast a single vote for Barack Obama for any political office under any circumstances.  He should never have even been the assistant superintendent in charge of janitorial supplies, much less the president of the United States.  The truth is that Barack Obama has done such a horrible job that he should immediately resign along with his entire cabinet.  But instead of giving us a clear choice, the Republicans nominated the Republican that was running that was most similar to Barack Obama.  In fact, I don't think we have ever had two candidates for president that are so similar.  Yes, there are a few minor differences between them, but the truth is that we are heading into Obama's second term no matter which one of them gets elected.  The mainstream media makes it sound like Obama and Romney are bitter ideological rivals but that is a giant lie.  Yeah, they are slinging lots of mud at each other, but they both play for the same team and the losers are going to be the American people.

Republicans are being told that they have "no choice" but to vote for Romney because otherwise they will get another four years of Obama.

This "lesser of two evils" theme comes out every four years.  We are told that we "must" vote for a horrible candidate because the other guy is even worse.

Well, millions of Americans are getting sick of this routine.  Perhaps that is why it is being projected that as many as 90 million Americans of voting age will not vote this year.

Yes, Barack Obama has been so horrible as president that it is hard to put it into words.

But Mitt Romney would be just like Barack Obama.

Those that are dreaming of a major change in direction if Romney is elected are going to be bitterly, bitterly disappointed.

The following are 40 ways that Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are essentially the same candidate....

1. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both supported TARP.

2. Mitt Romney supported Barack Obama's "economic stimulus" packages.

3. Mitt Romney says that Barack Obama's bailout of the auto industry was actually his idea.

4. Neither candidate supports immediately balancing the federal budget.

5. They both believe in big government and they both have a track record of being big spenders while in office.

6. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both fully support the Federal Reserve.

7. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are both on record as saying that the president should not question the "independence" of the Federal Reserve.

8. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have both said that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke did a good job during the last financial crisis.

9. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both felt that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke deserved to be renominated to a second term.

10. Both candidates oppose a full audit of the Federal Reserve.

11. Both candidates are on record as saying that U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has done a good job.

12. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have both been big promoters of universal health care.

13. Mitt Romney was the one who developed the plan that Obamacare was later based upon.

14. Wall Street absolutely showers both candidates with campaign contributions.

15. Neither candidate wants to eliminate the income tax or the IRS.

16. Both candidates want to keep personal income tax rates at the exact same levels for the vast majority of Americans.

17. Both candidates are "open" to the idea of imposing a Value Added Tax on the American people.

18. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both believe that the TSA is doing a great job.

19. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both supported the NDAA.

20. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both supported the renewal of the Patriot Act.

21. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both believe that the federal government should be able to indefinitely detain American citizens that are considered to be terrorists.

22. Both candidates believe that American citizens suspected of being terrorists can be killed by the president without a trial.

23. Barack Obama has not closed Guantanamo Bay like he promised to do, and Mitt Romney actually wants to double the number of prisoners held there.

24. Both candidates support the practice of "extraordinary rendition".

25. They both support the job-killing "free trade" agenda of the global elite.

26. They both accuse each other of shipping jobs out of the country and both of them are right.

27. Both candidates are extremely soft on illegal immigration.

28. Neither candidate has any military experience.  This is the first time that this has happened in a U.S. election since 1944.

29. Both candidates earned a degree from Harvard University.

30. They both believe in the theory of man-made global warming.

31. Mitt Romney has said that he will support a "cap and trade" carbon tax scheme (like the one Barack Obama wants) as long as the entire globe goes along with it.

32. Both candidates have a very long record of supporting strict gun control measures.

33. Both candidates have been pro-abortion most of their careers.  Mitt Romney's "conversion" to the pro-life cause has been questioned by many.  In fact, Mitt Romney has made millions on Bain Capital's investment in a company called "Stericycle" that incinerates aborted babies collected from family planning clinics.

34. Barack Obama and Mitt Romney both believe that the Boy Scout ban on openly gay troop leaders is wrong.

35. They both believe that a "two state solution" will bring lasting peace between the Palestinians and Israel.

36. Both candidates have a history of nominating extremely liberal judges.

37. Like Barack Obama, Mitt Romney also plans to add "signing statements" to bills when he signs them into law.

38. They both have a horrible record when it comes to job creation.

39. Both candidates believe that the president has the power to take the country to war without getting the approval of the U.S. Congress.

40. Both candidates plan to continue running up more government debt even though the U.S. government is already 16 trillion dollars in debt.

Read more - 
http://www.blacklistednews.com/40_Points_That_Prove_That_Barack_Obama_And_Mitt_Romney_Are_Essentially_The_Same_Candidate/21051/0/38/38/Y/M.html

22 Stats That Show How The Emerging One World Economy Is Absolutely Killing American Workers -

22 Stats That Show How The Emerging One World Economy Is Absolutely Killing American Workers - 


For decades our politicians have promised us that the “free trade” agenda would bring us greater prosperity than ever before.  They insisted that merging our economy into the emerging one world economy would cause millions upon millions of new jobs to be added to the U.S. economy.  Unfortunately, it was all a giant lie.  Trading with other countries is not a bad thing as long as the level of trade is fairly equal on both sides.  When trade becomes very unequal, the consequences can be absolutely catastrophic.  Since 1975, the United States has bought more than 8 trillion dollars more stuff from the rest of the world than they have bought from us.  We are the only economy on earth that could have had 8 trillion dollars drained out of it and still be standing.  Instead of leaving the country, those 8 trillion dollars could have gone to U.S. businesses and U.S. workers.  If we could go back and have a “do over”, how much more prosperous would we be today if we had kept that 8 trillion dollars inside the country?

But instead of pursuing a balanced trade philosophy, our politicians were so enamored with the emerging one world economy that they threw all caution to the wind.

So we have lost tens of thousands of businesses, millions of jobs and trillions of dollars of our national wealth.

And this emerging one world economy is absolutely killing American workers.  It lumps them into a global labor pool with workers in other countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.

Just think of it this way.  Imagine that you are a giant corporation that makes “widgets”.  You can make them in the United States, but you would have to pay your workers about $10 an hour, provide them with a whole bunch of benefits, pay very high taxes, and comply with a dizzying array of laws, rules and regulations.

Or, you could set up shop on the other side of the world where you could pay your workers a dollar an hour.  Those workers would receive no benefits and you would have to deal with very little red tape.

Which would you choose?

The “giant sucking sound” that Ross Perot once warned us about has become a reality.  Big employers are competing with one another to see who can outsource jobs the fastest, and American workers are the big losers in all of this.

As I wrote about the other day, right now there are some American workers that are actually personally training their replacements from overseas how to do their jobs.

If nothing is done about this, jobs are going to continue to pour out of high wage countries such as the United States and into low wage countries on the other side of the globe, and big corporations are going to keep laughing all the way to the bank as unemployment in America gets even worse.

The following are 22 stats that show how the emerging one world economy is absolutely killing American workers….

#1 One professor has estimated that cutting the U.S. trade deficit in half would create 5 million more jobs in the United States.

#2 The United States has a trade imbalance that is more than 7 times larger than any other nation on earth has.

#3 Overall, the United States has run a trade deficit of more than 8 trillion dollars with the rest of the globe since 1975.  That 8 trillion dollars could have gone to support U.S. businesses and pay the wages of U.S. workers.  Federal, state and local taxes would have been paid on that 8 trillion dollars if it had stayed in the United States.  This is one reason why our national debt is getting ready to cross the 16 trillion dollar mark.

#4 When NAFTA was passed in 1993, the United States had a trade surplus with Mexico of 1.6 billion dollars.  In 2010, we had a trade deficit with Mexico of 61.6 billion dollars.

#5 In 2001, American consumers spent 102 billion dollars on products made in China.  In 2011, American consumers spent 399 billion dollars on products made in China.

#6 The Chinese undervalue their currency by about 40 percent in order to gain a critical advantage over foreign competitors.  This means that many Chinese companies are able to absolutely thrive while their competition in the United States goes out of business.  The following is from a recent Fox News article….

To keep Chinese products artificially inexpensive on US store shelves, Beijing undervalues the yuan by 40 percent. It pirates US technology, subsidizes exports and imposes high tariffs on imports.

#7 According to the New York Times, a Jeep Grand Cherokee that costs $27,490 in the United States costs about $85,000 in China thanks to all the tariffs.

#8 The U.S. trade deficit with China during 2011 was 295.4 billion dollars.  That was the largest trade deficit that one nation has had with another nation in the history of the world.

#9 Back in 1985, our trade deficit with China was only about 6 million dollars (million with an “m”) for the entireyear.

#10 U.S. consumers spend about 4 dollars on goods and services from China for every one dollar that Chinese consumers spend on goods and services from the United States.

#11 The United States has actually lost an average of about 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

#12 According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing about half a million jobs to China every single year.

#13 The United States has lost more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001.

#14 During 2010 alone, an average of 23 manufacturing facilities closed their doors in America every single day.

#15 Since the auto industry bailout, approximately 70 percent of all GM vehicles have been built outside the United States.

#16 As I have written about previously, 95 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were middle class jobs.

#17 According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades if current trends continue.

#18 The percentage of working age Americans that are employed right now is actually smaller than it was at the end of the last recession.

#19 The average duration of unemployment in the United States is nearly three times as long as it was back in the year 2000.

#20 Due in part to the globalization of the labor pool, only about 24 percent of all jobs in the United States are “good jobs” at this point.

#21 Without enough good jobs, more Americans than ever before are falling into poverty.  Today, more than 100 million Americans are on welfare.

#22 In recent years the U.S. economy has embraced “free trade” and the emerging one world economy like never before.  Instead of increasing the number of jobs in our economy, it has resulted in the worst stretch of job creation in the United States in modern history….

If any single number captures the state of the American economy over the last decade, it is zero. That was the net gain in jobs between 1999 and 2009—nada, nil, zip. By painful contrast, from the 1940s through the 1990s, recessions came and went, but no decade ended without at least a 20 percent increase in the number of jobs.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

You can get a really good idea of how nightmarish the manufacturing job losses have been in the United States over the past 40 years by checking out this map right here.

And if everything posted above was not bad enough, some U.S. companies even find themselves competing with slave labor here in the United States.

Seriously.

Prison labor is absolutely destroying some businesses here in America.  The following comes from a recent CNN article….

Unicor is a government-run enterprise that employs over 13,000 inmates — at wages as low as 23 cents an hour — to make goods for the Pentagon and other federal agencies.

With some exceptions, Unicor gets first dibs on federal contracts over private companies as long as its bid is comparable in price, quantity and delivery. In other words: If Unicor wants a contract, it gets it.

One company that tries to compete with Unicor has been forced to lay off 150 people over the years because they lose so many contracts to them….

Wilson has been competing with Unicor for 20 years. He’s an executive at American Apparel Inc., an Alabama company that makes military uniforms. (It is not affiliated with the international retailer of the same name.) He has gone head-to-head with Unicor on just about every product his company makes — and said he has laid off 150 people over the years as a result.

“We pay employees $9 on average,” Wilson said. “They get full medical insurance, 401(k) plans and paid vacation. Yet we’re competing against a federal program that doesn’t pay any of that.”

But this is also the kind of thing that U.S. companies are dealing with when they try to compete with big corporations that are exploiting cheap labor abroad.

If you are spending ten times as much on labor as your competitor is, it is going to be really hard to survive.

That is why it has become so hard to find products that are made in America.

Most of our jobs these days are low paying “service jobs”, cushy government jobs or jobs where people push papers around all day.

But those kinds of jobs do not create lasting wealth for a country.

Did you know that there are more tax preparers in the United States than there are police officers and firefighterscombined?

Our economy is a giant mirage.  We consume way more wealth than we produce, but we are able to keep the party going because we are riding the biggest debt spiral the world has ever seen.

But at some point the debt spiral is going to end and the crash is going to come.

Until then, however, those at the very top are still really enjoying themselves.

For example, one of the latest trends is for rich kids to show off pictures of themselves enjoying their enormous wealthon Instagram.

Something has gone very, very wrong with this country.

So what do you think about all this?  Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below….

Read more - 
http://www.blacklistednews.com/22_Stats_That_Show_How_The_Emerging_One_World_Economy_Is_Absolutely_Killing_American_Workers/21052/0/38/38/Y/M.html

A woman's dance moves may give clues to fertility -

A woman's dance moves may give clues to fertility - 



In a new meaning of "fertility dance," a woman's moves on the dance floor may reveal captivating clues about her current likelihood of getting pregnant.
Women in the fertile phase of their menstrual cycle are judged as more attractive dancers by men than are women in a less-fertile phase, a new study finds. The research suggests that ovulation is not as hidden in humans as scientists had once suspected, said study researcher Bernhard Fink of the University of Göttingen in Germany.
"These changes are subtle, and women may not always be consciously aware of them. However, men seem to derive information on women's fertility status from these cues," Fink told LiveScience.


Earlier studies have found hints that women's behavior changes slightly during fertile phases, from an increase in sexual desire to a preference for strong-jawed men. Research also suggests that men prefer the voices, smells and even facial attractiveness of women during fertile compared with nonfertile phases. One famous 2007 study even found that exotic dancers get better tips during the fertile phases of their cycle.
Those exotic dancers came into close contact with their clients, meaning that their possibly increased allure during fertile phases could have been a result of movement, smell or some other factor. In the new study, Fink and his colleagues reduced the variables to a question of movement only.
The researchers asked 48 women ages 19 to 33 to dance to an identical drumbeat during both the late follicular, or fertile phase, of their cycles and the nonfertile mid-luteal phase. Fertility was gauged by counting back from the woman's last period. Two hundred men, mostly undergraduate and graduate students, were then shown silhouettes of the women dancing. Hair was pulled back and the women wore identical form-fitting outfits to reduce the differences between them.
The results revealed that though the men had no idea fertility was even being studied, they judged fertile women as more attractive dancers than women in their nonfertile phase. The researchers also captured video of the women's silhouettes walking and found that fertile women's gait was also judged more attractive than nonfertile women's.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/08/16/woman-dance-moves-may-give-clues-to-her-fertility/?test=latestnews

No One Will Charged With a Crime for the MF Global Collapse - despite loss of more than $1 billion in customer funds -

No One Will Charged With a Crime for the MF Global Collapse - despite loss of more than $1 billion in customer funds - 


Authorities are winding down their criminal investigation of the failed brokarage firm, MF Global, and despite the lack of oversight and the loss of more than $1 billion in customer funds, it now seems unlikely that anyone at the firm will face criminal charges. 

The New York Times is reporting this morning that after ten months of investigation by federal prosecutors, sources say there isn't even enough evidence to charge any of the firm's executives in a criminal probe. The company may have failed spectacularly when it came to oversight and risk management, but the losses cannot be chalked up to outright fraud.

The company placed a grossly outsized bet (more than $6 billion worth) on the health of the European debt market last year and when it went south, the firm "borrowed" money from the accounts of its customers to try and salvage its own losses. Most of the blame for those trades fell on its CEO (and ex-New Jersey governor) Jon Corzine, and while his reputation and firm are ruined, it seems he will escape any legal sanction. He could still face massive civil lawsuits or fines from regulators who have a lower standard than a criminal prosecution, but jail isn't in the cards.

Read more - 
http://news.yahoo.com/no-one-charged-crime-mf-global-collapse-111056124--finance.html?_esi=1

'Who's Your Daddy' Truck Rolls Through NYC, Offers Answers With DNA Tests... -

'Who's Your Daddy' Truck Rolls Through NYC, Offers Answers With DNA Tests... - 



It is a sign of the times — getting a quick DNA test is now as easy as walking up to a truck.

The “Who’s Your Daddy” recreational vehicle is selling DNA tests, mostly to fathers who suspect their children may not actually be theirs.

“They flag us down, they pull us over, they talk to us,” owner and operator Jared Rosenthal said Wednesday. “Sometimes, because of the nature of the services, they want to be a little more discreet about it, but they do come or they’ll call the number.”

In this business, Rosenthal said he deals with all kinds of crazy situations all day, every day.

“We have people that want to get the specimen from their spouse without them knowing about it,” Rosenthal said. “We deal with a lot of drama, it’s constant drama.”

There have been instances where men have walked in with a baby to give DNA samples only to find out later they’re not related.

When asked by CBS 2’s Dave Carlin why he was taking the DNA test from the traveling truck, one unidentified man explained, “I’m paying child support anyways and I would do it anyways. You just want to know.”

“There’s a lot of difficult situations and tough moments and heartbreak,” Rosenthal said, adding that there are happy endings as well. “There’s a lot of good news that we’re able to deliver and there’s a lot of happy moments.”

For example, the test helped a 44-year-old Harlem man find his long lost 20-year-old daughter.

Rosenthal maintained that his credentials are legitimate and that his business is legal. In fact, he said he believes he is providing an essential service.

“It’s not something people talk about, but there is a big need for it,” he said.

Inwood resident Kesha Veras agreed.

“The mother is like ‘You’re the father.’ He says ‘No the heck I’m not.’ You don’t know. Right there, that’s how you find out,” Veras said.

As you might imagine, wherever Rosenthal’s truck goes it attracts attention. Reactions range from people saying ‘How could he?’ to others who saying ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

“Yeah, more power to him,” said Manny Castillo of Elizabeth, N.J.

“It’s a good idea!” added Marlin Martinez of Inwood.

“He’s gonna always have customers, unfortunately,” Dominique Dale said.

Rosenthal said he takes it all in stride.

“Half the job is to be a psychologist to folks,” he said.

The DNA tests, which cost between $299 and $575, require a simple cheek swab from each participant and lab analysis. Results are available in a couple of days.

Read more - 
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/08/15/whos-your-daddy-truck-offers-answers-with-dna-tests/