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TSA Now Forcing Opt-Outs To Walk Through Body Scanners
Agency claims machines are “switched off,” traveler says policy is part of psychological ploy to coerce subservience from other passengers
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
If the experience of a man traveling through Baltimore Washington International Airport last night is anything to go by, the TSA is now forcing people who opt out of the naked body scanner to walk through the machine as part of a psychological ploy to coerce subservience out of other travelers.
Alexander Petersen was passing through security to board a domestic flight to Florida with his wife and three children. After the backscatter x-ray machines were turned on, TSA staff started corralling passengers to go through the naked body scanners. Petersen’s family escaped selection but when he was told to submit to a scan, Peterson declined and opted for the invasive pat down instead.
“They then called for an “opt-out” pat down and still told me I had to go through the machine,” writes Petersen. “I said no, and reiterated that I opt for the pat-down. They said that I just have to walk through the machine and that they won’t turn it on. I said “how do I know it’s not on, just because you say so?” Then, one of the other workers stood inside of the machine where the footprints were and waived for me to go through. With that, I assumed that it was indeed off, and proceeded through the machine for my enhanced pat-down molestation.”
After receiving his advanced grope down, during which a TSA worker felt his crotch and backside, much to the confusion of Peterson’s young son who asked, “what is that man doing to you?,” Petersen reflected on being forced to walk through the machine with assurances that it was “switched off,” even though he had declined to be body scanned.
The Rise of the New Global Elite
F. Scott Fitzgerald was right when he declared the rich different from you and me. But today’s super-rich are also different from yesterday’s: more hardworking and meritocratic, but less connected to the nations that granted them opportunity—and the countrymen they are leaving ever further behind.
By Chrystia Freeland
The Atlantic
If you happened to be watching NBC on the first Sunday morning in August last summer, you would have seen something curious. There, on the set of Meet the Press, the host, David Gregory, was interviewing a guest who made a forceful case that the U.S. economy had become “very distorted.” In the wake of the recession, this guest explained, high-income individuals, large banks, and major corporations had experienced a “significant recovery”; the rest of the economy, by contrast—including small businesses and “a very significant amount of the labor force”—was stuck and still struggling. What we were seeing, he argued, was not a single economy at all, but rather “fundamentally two separate types of economy,” increasingly distinct and divergent.
This diagnosis, though alarming, was hardly unique: drawing attention to the divide between the wealthy and everyone else has long been standard fare on the left. (The idea of “two Americas” was a central theme of John Edwards’s 2004 and 2008 presidential runs.) What made the argument striking in this instance was that it was being offered by none other than the former five-term Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan: iconic libertarian, preeminent defender of the free market, and (at least until recently) the nation’s foremost devotee of Ayn Rand. When the high priest of capitalism himself is declaring the growth in economic inequality a national crisis, something has gone very, very wrong.
This widening gap between the rich and non-rich has been evident for years. In a 2005 report to investors, for instance, three analysts at Citigroup advised that “the World is dividing into two blocs—the Plutonomy and the rest”: Read more…
Giving personal information to websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Gmail is about as secure as putting it on “a postcard”
An Icelandic politician whose Internet records are being targeted by Washington’s WikiLeaks investigation warns that giving personal information to websites such as Twitter, Facebook and Gmail is about as secure as putting it on “a postcard.”
“They are on a fishing expedition,” Birgitta Jonsdottir told The Globe and Mail editorial board, making some of her first public comments since learning that U.S. prosecutors are after her Twitter account. Her private messages, credit-card and telephone numbers are all being sought from the social-networking site – and, almost certainly, from other U.S.-based Internet corporations, too.
The request speaks to how state secrets will be won, lost and protected during the Internet Age, where libraries worth of data can be uploaded onto thumb drives, and where unfathomable amounts of person-to-person correspondence reside on corporate computers inside the United States.
A freedom-of-information advocate, Ms. Jonsdottir, 43, became a crucial WikiLeaks volunteer in 2009, but left last fall amid fallings-out with the leadership of founder Julian Assange. U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration is now under tremendous pressure to charge Mr. Assange amid the deep embarrassment caused by the ongoing disclosure of more than 250,000 diplomatic cables. Read more…
Why Are Commodity Prices Rising? Let Me Count the Ways
Our overview of 2011 ‘What Ifs’ concentrated on the concepts of bifurcation and biflation. Those themes are already playing out just a couple of weeks into the New Year. Inflation in all types of commodities has ramped up even further, leaving countries like China, India, Brazil, Thailand and South Korea to deal with more than their fair share of these inflationary forces. Meanwhile, easy monetary policy in the U.S. and Europe just adds fuel to the inflation fire.
The United Nations food agency (FAO) kicked off 2011 by announcing that December of 2010 saw food prices eclipse the record levels hit during the 2008 food crisis, which triggered riots in Egypt, Cameroon, and Haiti at the time. The current spike in food prices has already caused violent food riots in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen, and Jordan.
Food Inflation by the Numbers
Food inflation has already hit double digits in China, India and Brazil. It’s not hard to see why when you look at how some of the major soft commodities have performed over the last 12 months:
- Corn: + 69%
- Wheat: + 47%
- Soy Beans: + 44%
- Sugar: + 15%
- Coffee: + 65%
- Cotton: + 105%
(Trailing 12-month price moves as of January 12, 2011)
While these price spikes are causing food and clothing prices to rise, those effects will undoubtedly be exacerbated by the simultaneous rise in energy and raw materials we have seen:
- Oil: + 15% over 12 months and + 30% since the August, 2010 low
- Copper: + 30%
Overall, you can see the rise in commodity prices in the CRB Index, up about 30% since August of 2010, but well off the parabolic peak of 2008: Read more…
Tunisia Riots: Government on brink of Collapse
Unity Government in Tunisia Fractured by Resignations
Police formed a line in front of protesters in Tunis on Tuesday.
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
TUNIS — Five or more ministers from opposition parties resigned from Tunisia’s unity government on Tuesday, bowing to a wave of street protests against the cabinet’s domination by members of the ousted president’s ruling party and putting mounting pressure on his prime minister, Mohammed Ghannouchi, to resign as well.
As the leaders of the established opposition parties renounced the unity government, the revolutionary passions unleashed across the region continued to reverberate, as two more men in Egypt set themselves ablaze on Tuesday and a third was stopped before he could do so. Those self-immolations followed six others, all in apparent imitation of the one that set off the Tunisian uprising a month ago.
The new unity government was showing strains practically from the moment it was sworn in on Monday, with new protests focused on its links to the former president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. Read more…
Gold May Gain as Europe Debt Concern, Price Drop Spur Demand
Sungwoo Park
Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) — Gold may gain as concerns that the European sovereign-debt crisis may linger boost demand for precious metals as a protector of wealth, and as a price drop in the past two weeks spurs physical buying. Platinum gained.
Bullion for immediate delivery was little changed at $1,364.18 an ounce at 1:33 p.m. in Seoul. The metal, which rose to a record $1,341.25 in December, dropped 4 percent this month, heading for the first monthly decline since July. The February- delivery contract rose 0.2 percent to $1,363.50 an ounce in New York.
“Around this level, we still see quite good physical demand,” Bruce Ikemizu, head of commodity trading at Standard Bank Plc in Tokyo, said today by phone. “I’m rather pessimistic. The problems won’t be resolved overnight. This European financial problem will be a long-term bullish factor for gold and precious metals.”
The euro was little changed against the dollar after yesterday falling 0.7 percent amid concern that an agreement among European finance ministers will fail to contain the region’s debt crisis. Euro-area finance ministers indicated after a meeting yesterday they aren’t facing immediate pressure to tame the crisis, while pledging to strengthen the safety net for debt-strapped countries.
Morgan Stanley raised its gold forecast through 2015, the bank said in a report today. It expects gold to average $1,400 an ounce this year, 6 percent more than a previous forecast.
Assets in 10 gold exchange-traded products dropped 6.54 metric tons to about 2,078 tons as of Jan. 14, the lowest since Sept. 15, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Platinum for immediate delivery gained 0.5 percent to $1,813.70 an ounce. Spot palladium declined for a fourth day, dropping 0.4 percent to $791.50 an ounce, while silver was little changed at $28.2975 an ounce.
Representative McCarthy Releases Text of Gun Control Bill
Following the tragic Tucson, Arizona shooting, lawmakers quickly reacted by announcing their intent to strengthen gun control laws. On Sunday, Representative Carolyn McCarthy released the draft of the bill that she is planning to introduce to Congress next week, one that would outlaw high-capacity magazines.
Politico reports, “Representative Carolyn McCarthy’s (D-N.Y.) bill also goes further than the assault weapon ban that would expire in 2004, outlawing the sale or transfer of clips that hold more than ten rounds, even those obtained before the law takes effect.”
Likewise, it “closes a loophole in the expired assault weapon ban that let gun owners buy high-capacity magazines made before the ban took effect in 1994.”
Those who violate the provisions of the bill face a possible penalty of up to 10 years.
McCarthy explains of the bill, “The only purpose for the existence of these devices is to be able to shoot as many people as possible as quickly as possible. There is no reason that these devices should be available to the general public.”
Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) has already stated that he will introduce a Read more…
Extent of Corruption in Countries Around the World Tied to Earthquake Fatalities
God is talking and you’re not listening…
A new assessment of global earthquake fatalities over the past three decades indicates that 83 percent of all deaths caused by the collapse of buildings during earthquakes occurred in countries considered to be unusually corrupt.
Authored by Professor Nicholas Ambraseys of the Imperial College of London and Professor Roger Bilham of the University Colorado at Boulder, the study also found that in some relatively wealthy countries where knowledge and sound business practices would be expected to prevail, the collapse of many buildings is nevertheless attributable to corrupt building practices.
A commentary piece on the subject is being published in the Jan. 13 issue of Nature.
Corrupt building practices — which are generally covert and hard to quantify — can include the use of substandard materials, poor assembly methods, the inappropriate placement of buildings and non-adherence to building codes, said the authors.
Ambraseys and Bilham used data gathered by Transparency International, a global organization based in Berlin that operates through more than 70 national chapters around the world. Transparency International annually generates a Read more…
I Warned That Banks Will Soon Be Forced To Walk Away From Homes… Guess What!
About 4 months ago, I claimed that Banks Will Be Forced to Forgo Certain Foreclosures, Even If the Borrower Has Admittedly Defaulted! In summary:
Without an economic incentive to foreclose, it would not be in the bank shareholders best interests to pursue foreclosure even though borrowers clearly defaulted & owe money to the lender. The economics of distressed assets in mortgage and commercial banking are quickly changing. I am quite open to discussing this in the mainstream media if any are interested in hearing the “Truth go Viral!” I want all to keep this in mind when pondering the release of reserves by the banks.
This was taken by many readers as sensationalist and unlikely. As a matter of fact, much of my writing is taken in a similar way, most likely due to the fact that I have an uncommon proclivity to state things exactly as I see them, sans the sucrose patina. This is not a pessimistic (bearish) outlook, nor an optimistic (bullish) outlook. It is simply called, the TRUTH! Realism! Something that is increasingly hard to come by in these days of media for a purpose and embedded agendas.
You see, the United States, much of Europe, and China have sever balance sheet issues that are ravaging their respective economic prospects. The media, analysts, and investors are gingerly mozying along as if this is not the case. Well, no matter how hard you ignore certain problems, no matte how hard you try to kick the can down the road – the issues really do not just “disappear” on their own.
With these points in mind, let’s peruse this piece I picked up from the Chicago Tribune: More banks walking away from homes, adding to housing crisis blight: the bank walkaway.
Research to be released Thursday, the first of its kind locally, identifies 1,896 “red flag” homes in Chicago — most of them are in distressed African-American neighborhoods — that appear to have been abandoned by mortgage servicers during the foreclosure process, the Woodstock Institute found.
Abandoned foreclosures are increasing Read more…
ARkStorm: California’s Other ‘Big One’
For emergency planning purposes, scientists unveiled a hypothetical California scenario that describes a storm that could produce up to 10 feet of rain, cause extensive flooding (in many cases overwhelming the state’s flood-protection system) and result in more than $300 billion in damage.
The “ARkStorm Scenario,” prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey and released at the ARkStorm Summit in Sacramento on Jan. 13-14, combines prehistoric geologic flood history in California with modern flood mapping and climate-change projections to produce a hypothetical, but plausible, scenario aimed at preparing the emergency response community for this type of hazard.
The USGS, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the California Emergency Management Agency convened the two-day summit to engage stakeholders from across California to take action as a result of the scenario’s findings, which were developed over the last two years by more than 100 scientists and experts.
“The ARkStorm scenario is a complete picture of what that storm would do to the social and economic systems of California,” said Lucy Jones, chief scientist of the USGS Multi-Hazards Demonstration Project and architect of ARkStorm. “We think this event happens once every 100 or 200 years or so, which puts it in the same category as our big San Andreas earthquakes. The ARkStorm is essentially two Read more…
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