Another reason not to go to Mexico - drug traffickers kidnapping bus passengers for gladiatorlike fights to the death -

Another reason not to go to Mexico - drug traffickers kidnapping bus passengers for gladiatorlike fights to the death - 

The elderly are killed. Young women are raped. And able-bodied men are given hammers, machetes and sticks and forced to fight to the death.

In one of the most chilling revelations yet about the violence in Mexico, a drug cartel-connected trafficker claims fellow gangsters have kidnapped highway bus passengers and forced them into gladiatorlike fights to groom fresh assassins.

In an in-person interview arranged by intermediaries on the condition that neither his name nor the location of his Texas visit be published, the trafficker also admitted to helping push cocaine worth $5 million to $10 million a month into the United States.

Law enforcement sources confirm he is a cartel operative but not a fugitive from pending charges.

His words are not those of a federal agent or drawn from a news conference or court papers.

Instead, he offers a voice from inside Mexico's mayhem — a mafioso who mingles among crime bosses and foot soldiers in a protracted war between drug cartels as well as against the government.

If what he says is true, gangsters who make commonplace beheadings, hangings and quartering bodies have managed an even crueler twist to their barbarity.

Members of the Zetas cartel, he says, have pushed passengers into an ancient Rome-like blood sport with a modern Mexico twist that they call, "Who is going to be the next hit man?"

"They cut guys to pieces," he said.

The victims are likely among the hundreds of people found in mass graves in recent months, he said.

In the vicinity of the Mexican city of San Fernando, nearly 200 bodies were unearthed from pits, and authorities said most appeared to have died of blunt force head trauma.

Many are believed to have been dragged off buses traveling through Mexico, but little has been said about the circumstances of their deaths.

The trafficker said those who survive are taken captive and eventually given suicide missions, such as riding into a town controlled by rivals and shooting up the place.

The trafficker said he did not see the clashes, but his fellow criminals have boasted to him of their exploits.

Killing 'for amusement'

Former and current federal law-enforcement officers in the U.S. said that while they knew Mexican bus passengers had been targeted for violence, they'd never before heard of forcing passengers into death matches.

But given the level of violence in Mexico — nearly 40,000 killed in gangland warfare over the past several years — they didn't find it tough to believe.

Borderland Beat, a blog specializing in drug cartels, reported an account in April of bus passengers brutalized by Zeta thugs and taunted into fighting.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/topstory/7607122.html#ixzz1PGPpPKCg

Tour Bus Operator Stashes Extra Passengers In Luggage Compartment - put six people in with mattresses and pillows -

Tour Bus Operator Stashes Extra Passengers In Luggage Compartment - put six people in with mattresses and pillows - 

When a tour bus operator found he had more passengers than seats, he put six people in the luggage compartment with mattresses and pillows.

Now the Michigan company has been ordered to cease commercial bus operations after the discovery during a trip to Ohio.

The order against Haines Tours of Gladwin was issued Friday by the U.S. Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.

An Ohio State Patrol officer found six people May 27 in the luggage compartment of a bus traveling from Michigan to Clyde, Ohio. Mattresses and pillows were in the luggage area.

It is reported that the driver told the officer there was no room on the bus for more passengers.

Read more - http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2011/06/12/tour-bus-operator-stashes-extra-passengers-in-luggage-compartment/

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Illinois is so hard up for money that it's studying the possibility of selling ads on state license plates -

Illinois is so hard up for money that it's studying the possibility of selling ads on state license plates - 

Illinois is so hard up for money that it's studying the possibility of selling ads on state license plates.

The idea is to offer special corporate-sponsored plates. Drivers would get a discount on the price, and businesses would put their logos on the plates.

Lawmakers voted last month to have the secretary of state study the pros and cons of corporate plates. The study is supposed to be finished by Jan. 1

Texas already allows corporate plates, which are produced by a firm called My Plates. Spokeswoman Kim Drummond says they're like "little billboards" spreading a company's messages across the state.

Sen. John Mulroe of Chicago says he hopes the corporate plates will bring Illinois more money without raising taxes.

http://www.wlsam.com/Article.asp?id=2211748

Read more - 

The Fed's $600 Billion Stealth Bailout Of Foreign Banks Continues At The Expense Of The Domestic Economy- QE2 Money Went -

The Fed's $600 Billion Stealth Bailout Of Foreign Banks Continues At The Expense Of The Domestic Economy- QE2 Money Went - 

Courtesy of the recently declassified Fed discount window documents, we now know that the biggest beneficiaries of the Fed's generosity during the peak of the credit crisis were foreign banks, among which Belgium's Dexia was the most troubled, and thus most lent to, bank. Having been thus exposed, many speculated that going forward the US central bank would primarily focus its "rescue" efforts on US banks, not US-based (or local branches) of foreign (read European) banks: after all that's what the ECB is for, while the Fed's role is to stimulate US employment and to keep USinflation modest. And furthermore, should the ECB need to bail out its banks, it could simply do what the Fed does, and monetize debt, thus boosting its assets, while concurrently expanding its excess reserves thus generating fungible capital which would go to European banks. Wrong. Below we present that not only has the Fed's bailout of foreign banks not terminated with the drop in discount window borrowings or the unwind of the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, but that the only beneficiary of the reserves generated were US-based branches of foreign banks (which in turn turned around and funnelled the cash back to their domestic branches), a shocking finding which explains not only why US banks have been unwilling and, far more importantly, unable to lend out these reserves, but that anyone retaining hopes that with the end of QE2 the reserves that hypothetically had been accumulated at US banks would be flipped to purchase Treasurys, has been dead wrong, therefore making the case for QE3 a done deal. In summary, instead of doing everything in its power to stimulate reserve, and thus cash, accumulation at domestic (US) banks which would in turn encourage lending to US borrowers, the Fed has been conducting yet another stealthy foreign bank rescue operation, which rerouted $600 billion in capital from potential borrowers to insolvent foreign financial institutions in the past 7 months. QE2 was nothing more (or less) than another European bank rescue operation!

For those who can't wait for the punchline, here it is. Below we chart the total cash holdings of Foreign-related banks in the US using weekly H.8 data.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/exclusive-feds-600-billion-stealth-bailout-foreign-banks-continues-expense-domestic-economy-

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Exchange program cancelled after Afghan students flee U.S. for Canada - after watching scores of students flee to Canada -

Exchange program cancelled after Afghan students flee U.S. for Canada - after watching scores of students flee to Canada - 

The United States government has quietly scrapped a popular exchange program for teens from Afghanistan after watching scores of students flee to Canada as refugees rather than return home.

The defections from the State Department's Youth Exchange and Study (YES) initiative have been occurring since 2005, the second year the program was offered. But they reached the breaking point this year when more than half of the 40 Afghans brought in to attend U.S. high schools vanished.

A Toronto Star investigation has tracked a number of those students to refugee shelters in Fort Erie, Ont., high schools in St. Catharines, universities and provincial government jobs in Toronto, apartments in Burnaby, B.C., and elsewhere in Canada. The newest arrivals are collecting welfare as they attend school and work their way through the immigration system.

The first ones to have fled to Canada give a measure of their potential contributions to their new country. When Ghufran Tarin disappeared from his American host family in 2006, he mused that he wanted to serve Canada as an ambassador.

Tarin, who declined to be interviewed, went to Ryerson University to study business. There he won scholarships and became vice-president of his student union and a counsellor to international students. He is a summer student at the Ontario Finance Ministry.

Partly out of embarrassment and partly out of frustration from seeing federal money go to waste, Washington suspended the YES program this year, denying visa applications for Afghans who were set to arrive in America this fall.

“A year pause is appropriate,” a State Department official in Washington said. “The circumstances might change once people realize that this ... can't be taken for granted as a route for immigration.”

Read more - http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1006662--exchange-program-cancelled-after-afghan-students-flee-u-s-for-canada?bn=1

GOLDEN HOOKAH WINNER: Dope-Smoking, Menstruating Monkey Study Got $3.6 Million in Tax Dollars -

GOLDEN HOOKAH WINNER: Dope-Smoking, Menstruating Monkey Study Got $3.6 Million in Tax Dollars - 

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), a division of the federal government’s National Institutes of Health (NIH), has spent $3,634,807 over the past decade funding research that involves getting monkeys to smoke and drink drugs such as PCP, methamphetamine (METH), heroin, and cocaine and then studying their behavior, including during different phases of the female monkeys’ menstrual cycles.

The study also uses “interventions” as “treatment models” for monkeys who have been taught to use drugs.

NIDA wins CNSNews.com's "What Were They Smoking Award"—symbolized by The Golden Hookah (see video)—for sponsoring an outrageous government spending program that sends taxpayer dollars up in smoke.

Precursor research on drug-using monkeys, also funded by NIDA, discovered that after smoking cocaine monkeys exhibited “dilated pupils and slightly agitated, hyperactive behavior”—which helped researchers conclude that the “physiological effects” of cocaine on monkeys “were similar to those reported in studies of human subjects.”

In yet another federally funded study of drug-taking monkeys, the monkeys were sometimes given “trail mix” after “their daily experimental sessions.”

Back in 2001, the NIH gave $328,364 to a project called “A Primate Model of Drug Abuse: Intervention Strategies.” The principal investigator for the project was Dr. Marilyn E. Carroll, a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Minnesota.

The description of the grant published by NIH said: “Goals of the proposed research are to use a rhesus monkey model of drug abuse, to study factors affecting vulnerability to drug abuse and to evaluate behavioral and pharmacological treatment interventions. Routes of administration that have been developed in this laboratory will include oral drug self-administration and smoking.”

“Vulnerability factors to be examined,” said the NIH description, “are sex and phase of the menstrual cycle as well as patterns/duration of access to drugs.”

Read more - 

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/feds-spent-36-million-research-studies-d

China ratings house says US defaulting - a day after Beijing urged Washington to put its fiscal house in order -

China ratings house says US defaulting - a day after Beijing urged Washington to put its fiscal house in order - 

A Chinese ratings house has accused the United States of defaulting on its massive debt, state media said Friday, a day after Beijing urged Washington to put its fiscal house in order.

"In our opinion, the United States has already been defaulting," Guan Jianzhong, president of Dagong Global Credit Rating Co. Ltd., the only Chinese agency that gives sovereign ratings, was quoted by the Global Times saying.

Washington had already defaulted on its loans by allowing the dollar to weaken against other currencies -- eroding the wealth of creditors including China, Guan said.

Guan did not immediately respond to AFP requests for comment.

The US government will run out of room to spend more on August 2 unless Congress bumps up the borrowing limit beyond $14.29 trillion -- but Republicans are refusing to support such a move until a deficit cutting deal is reached.

Ratings agency Fitch on Wednesday joined Moody's and Standard & Poor's to warn the United States could lose its first-class credit rating if it fails to raise its debt ceiling to avoid defaulting on loans.

A downgrade could sharply raise US borrowing costs, worsening the country's already dire fiscal position, and send shock waves through the financial world, which has long considered US debt a benchmark among safe-haven investments.

China is by far the top holder of US debt and has in the past raised worries that the massive US stimulus effort launched to revive the economy would lead to mushrooming debt that erodes the value of the dollar and its Treasury holdings.

Beijing cut its holdings of US Treasury securities for the fifth month in a row to $1.145 trillion in March, down $9.2 billion from February and 2.6 percent less than October's peak of $1.175 trillion, US data showed last month.

Foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei on Thursday urged the United States to adopt "effective measures to improve its fiscal situation".

Dagong has made a name for itself by hitting out at its three Western rivals, saying they caused the financial crisis by failing to properly disclose risk.

The Chinese agency, which is trying to build an international profile, has given the United States and several other nations lower marks than they received from the the big three.

Read more - 

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/china-ratings-house-says-us-defaulting-report-054309883.html

Record Number Using Retirement Funds As Source Of Immediate Cash - 30% Of People With 401(k) Taken Out A Loan Against It -

Record Number Using Retirement Funds As Source Of Immediate Cash - 30% Of People With 401(k) Taken Out A Loan Against It -

If our readers have been wondering where, in addition to the decision to never make mortgage payments again, do Americans get the money to buy a 2nd iPad (for that real 3D-effect of iTunes porn), preorder the iPhone 12.499, and bid up Amazon stock at 999x P/E, here is your answer: according to a new study by Fidelity, a record number of workers tapped their retirement funds and made hardship withdrawals from their accounts in the second quarter. In other words, just like the country they live in, Americans no longer give a rat's ass about the retirement years in a narrow sense, and the future in a broader one, and since real unemployment is about 20%, wage deflation is everywhere, even as Solitaire time is down to 0 (except for SEC employees), and nobody has any money left, the only logical recourse is to borrow from the self-funded pension fund. According to the Fidelity study, "Among the 11 million workers whose 401(k) plans are run by Fidelity, 11 percent took out a loan from their plan during the 12 months ended June 30, the company said, up from 9 percent at the same point a year earlier. By the end of the second quarter, plan participants with loans outstanding against their 401(k) accounts had reached 22 percent versus 20 percent a year earlier." And if anyone is so deluded to think that these not so gracious retirees have any intention of ever paying these "loans" back, we have some AJ-rated CMBS to sell you at par prime. Which also means that suddenly Fidelity may find itself with worthless liens instead of cash, and should the market plunge again and the fund giant find itself in a need to satisfy billions in collateral calls, it is game over. But why worry: after all, it is not like investors have been steadily pulling cash out of stocks over the past 15 weeks.

More from Reuters:

During the quarter, 2.2 pct of Fidelity's active 401(k) participants took a hardship withdrawal, up from 2 percent a year earlier, and another peak, Fidelity said.

Often those withdrawals were used to prevent foreclosure on a home or pay college tuition.

"People have been looking to their 401(k) plans as a source of relief to help them meet financial hardships," said Beth McHugh, a Fidelity vice president who oversees the area. "For many individuals that is their primary savings vehicle."

Loans and withdrawals were highest among workers between 35 to 55 years old, Fidelity found, peak earnings years.

Fidelity, the Boston mutual fund giant, is also the country's largest administrator of retirement savings plans like 401(k)s, making its quarterly survey a closely watched barometer of saver behavior.

As more companies end traditional "defined benefit" plans like pensions, workers are relying more on "defined contribution" plans like 401(k)s to carry them through retirement.

To encourage savings, tax codes and other rules discourage early withdrawals. Distributions from 401(k) plans are taxed as ordinary income, and withdrawals by individuals younger than aged 59 1/2 may be subject to an early withdrawal penalty.

Balances in 401(k) plans, which tend to be held in mutual funds dominated by U.S. equities, slipped in the second quarter as major stock indexes tumbled more than 10 percent.

The average 401(k) balance as of June 30 was $61,800, up 15 percent from a year ago but down 7.6 percent from $66,900 as of March 31.

Fidelity found signs of continued thrift in the workforce. The average percentage of salary saved in a 401(k) held steady at 8 percent, similar to the rate in the first quarter, while 32 percent saved 10 percent or more of their pay.

And since the administration will most certainly do the expected and react wrongly to this development once again, we expect to see even greater penalties to pension fund redemptions, which will do nothing to decelerate this troubling trend (and quite likely do the opposite), but merely take even more money out of circulation, as the government's bloated machine keeps ever more capital to fund such massively value added activities as the SEC daily porn surfing habits.

Read more - http://www.zerohedge.com/article/record-number-americans-using-retirement-funds-source-immediate-cash

"Human to Canine pairing" - Doggelganger aims to pair people with dog-alikes- ever want a dog that looks like you? -

"Human to Canine pairing" - Doggelganger aims to pair people with dog-alikes- ever want a dog that looks like you? - 

If you don't want to wait until you've lived with your dog for years before you two start looking like alike, the easiest thing to do is adopt a dog who already looks like you. Luckily, there is a new site that can help you find a dog that goes with your face. It uses your picture to match you to a dog in need of adoption that resembles you. (Right now it's only for dogs in New Zealand — though I'm sure it won't be long before this idea is imported to a city near you.) I didn't do it myself because I was too afraid I would fall instantly in love with whatever pup I was matched with, and I can't afford plane fare to New Zealand right this second. But if you are made of stronger stuff, try it out for yourself. - http://www.doggelganger.co.nz/

Read more - http://thehairpin.com/2011/06/adopt-a-dog-that-looks-sort-of-like-you?ref=obhairpin

China Wants To Construct A 50 Square Mile Self-Sustaining City South Of Boise, Idaho -

China Wants To Construct A 50 Square Mile Self-Sustaining City South Of Boise, Idaho - 

Thanks to the trillions of dollars that the Chinese have made flooding our shores with cheap products, China is now in a position of tremendous economic power.  So what is China going to do with all of that money?  One thing that they have decided to do is to buy up pieces of the United States and set up "special economic zones" inside our country from which they can continue to extend their economic domination.  One of these "special economic zones" would be just south of Boise, Idaho and the Idaho government is eager to give it to them.  China National Machinery Industry Corporation (Sinomach for short) plans to construct a "technology zone" south of Boise Airport which would ultimately be up to 50 square miles in size.  The Chinese Communist Party is the majority owner of Sinomach, so the 10,000 to 30,000 acre "self-sustaining city" that is being planned would essentially belong to the Chinese government. The planned "self-sustaining city" in Idaho would include manufacturing facilities, warehouses, retail centers and large numbers of homes for Chinese workers.  Basically it would be a slice of communist China dropped right into the middle of the United States.

According to the Idaho Statesman, the idea would be to build a self-contained city with all services included.  It would be modeled after the "special economic zones" that currently exist in China.

Perhaps the most famous of these "special economic zones" is Shenzhen.  Back in the 1970s, Shenzhen was just a very small fishing village.  Today it is a sprawling metropolis of over 14 million people.

If the Chinese have their way, we will soon be seeing these "special economic zones" pop up all over the United States.

So exactly who is "Sinomach"?

The following description of the company comes directly from the website of Sinomach....

With approval of the State Council, China National Machinery Industry Corporation (SINOMACH) was established in January 1997. SINO-MACH is a large scale, state-owned enterprise group under the supervision of the State Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

As you can see, Sinomach is basically an arm of the Chinese government.

The borrower is always the servant of the lender, and now China is buying up America.

The reality is that Sinomach is not looking only at Idaho.  Sinomach is in discussions to develop "special economic zones" all over the United States.

Sinomach has recently dispatched delegations to Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania to explore the possibility of establishing "special economic zones" in those states.

Will such "self-contained communities" soon start appearing from coast to coast?

According to Dr. Jerome Corsi, the U.S. government has already set up 257 "foreign trade zones" across America.  These "foreign trade zones" will apparently be given "special U.S. customs treatment" and will be used to promote global free trade....

"The FTZs tend to be located near airports, with easy access into the continental NAFTA and WTO multi-modal transportation systems being created to move free-trade goods cheaply, quickly and efficiently throughout the continent of North America."

So what do our politicians think about all of this?

Most of them are greatly in favor of it.

"Idaho’s the last state that should say we don’t want to do business with Asia,"Idaho Lt. Gov. Brad Little said last year. "Asia’s where the money is."

So will all of this "foreign investment" really bring jobs back to the American people?

Perhaps a few, but the truth is that these "special economic zones" that the Chinese are setting up are designed to be self-contained communist Chinese communities.  Some Americans will likely be employed in these areas, but not nearly as many as our politicians would have you to believe.

In addition, these "special economic zones" represent a massive national security threat.  The communist Chinese could potentially be able to bring in and store massive amounts of military equipment virtually undetected.

In the days of the Cold War, we would have never dreamed of giving the Russians a 50 square mile city in the middle of Idaho.

But today we have become convinced that the communist Chinese want to be our great friends.

The following quote originally appeared in the Idaho Statesman, but has since apparently been taken down....

"The Chinese are looking for a beachhead in the United States," said Idaho Commerce Secretary Don Dietrich. "Idaho is ready to give them one."

Indeed.

If relations between the U.S. and China go south someday, we will deeply regret giving China so many open doors.

The truth is that you can never fully trust the communist Chinese.  Their top military officers talk about a coming conflict with the United States all the time.  China is extremely interested in North America.  In fact, the Chinese and the Mexicans have even been holding talks on military cooperation.

But even if you don't consider the communist Chinese to be a military threat, you should be deeply concerned about the economic implications of what is happening.

Today, tens of millions of Americans are wondering why the economy is so bad.

Well, there are a lot of reasons, but the fact that we have sent China thousands of our factories, millions of our jobs and trillions of dollars of our national wealth is a major contributing factor.

If you do not know the truth about how badly the Chinese economy is wiping the floor with the Americen economy then you need to read this article: "40 Signs The Chinese Economy Is Beating The Living Daylights Out Of The U.S. Economy".

Beautiful new infrastructure is going up all over China today, and meanwhile many of our once great manufacturing cities are turning into rotted-out war zones.

China would not be what they are today if we had insisted that they abandon the communist system and respect basic human rights before we ever opened up trade with them.

But that did not happen.  Instead we enthusiastically welcomed China into the WTO and we let the predatory Chinese system run wild.

In 2010, China had a "current account balance" of over 272 billion dollars, which was the largest in the world.

In 2010, the United States had a "current account balance" of negative 561 billion dollars.  According to the CIA world factbook, that put us in last place in the entire world. In fact, our negative current account balance was more than 9 times larger than anyone else in the world.  If you go check out this chart it will give you a really good idea of how nightmarish our trade situation has become.

The world is changing and nothing is ever going to be the same again.

Just ask the residents of Boise, Idaho - they are about to have a 50 square mile self-contained communist Chinese city plopped right into their backyard.

Read more - http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/china-wants-to-construct-a-50-square-mile-self-sustaining-city-south-of-boise-idaho