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Big Brother Gov’t Seeks to Tax and Track All Drivers

May 6, 2011 Comments off

activistpost

Dees Illustration

Eric Blair
Activist Post

“Oh, say can you see…the land of the fee, and home of the slave?” Americans really better wake up before it’s too late. Perhaps it already is.

Today Pete Kasperowicz of The Hill reported that the Obama administration, following a March Congressional Budget Office report, has “floated” the idea of taxing drivers per mile.  Kasperowicz writes:

The plan is a part of the administration’s ‘Transportation Opportunities Act,’ an undated draft of which was obtained this week by Transportation Weekly.

…Among other things, CBO suggested that a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax could be tracked by installing electronic equipment on each car to determine how many miles were driven; payment could take place Read more…

New study: Nations requiring the most vaccines tend to have the worst infant mortality rates

May 6, 2011 1 comment

naturalnews

(NaturalNews) A new study, published in Human and Experimental Toxicology (http://het.sagepub.com/content/earl…), a peer-reviewed journal indexed by the National Library of Medicine, found that nations with higher (worse) infant mortality rates tend to give their infants more vaccine doses. For example, the United States requires infants to receive 26 vaccines — the most in the world — yet more than six U.S. infants die per every 1000 live births. In contrast, Sweden and Japan administer 12 vaccines to infants, the least amount, and report less than three deaths per 1000 live births.

The authors of the study, Neil Z. Miller and Dr. Gary Goldman, conducted a literature review to determine the immunization schedules for the United States and all 33 nations with better infant mortality rates than the United States. The total number of vaccine doses specified for infants aged less than one year was then determined for each country. The 34 nations were then organized into data pairs consisting of total number of vaccine doses specified for their infants and infant mortality rates. A scatter plot of the data pairs provided evidence of a positive correlation: infant mortality rates and vaccine doses tend to increase together.

Nations were also grouped into five different vaccine dose ranges. The mean infant mortality rates of all nations within each Read more…

Osama bin Laden dead: hi-tech secret may end up in China

May 6, 2011 Comments off

telegraph

There are growing fears that top-secret stealth technology taken from the helicopter that crashed during the raid on the home of Osama bin Laden could be smuggled into China and cause a diplomatic row.

Osama bin Laden dead: sniffer dog was helicoptered into compound

Part of the damaged helicopter is seen lying in the compound Photo: AFP
It has become clear that US special forces used a previously unseen stealth helicopter for the mission in order to evade Pakistani radar or being heard on the final approach to the home of the al-Qaeda terrorist.

The American troops used thermite grenades to destroy the helicopter’s main body but its rear section was left intact and taken away by the Pakistani military soon after the night raid on Monday. It is feared that if Islamabad refuses a request from Washington for the return of the tail section that the issue could turn into a diplomatic rift Read more…

Flooding forces more evacuations along Mississippi, Ohio rivers

May 6, 2011 Comments off

cnn

Authorities ordered more evacuations near the Mississippi and Ohio rivers as floodwaters continued to surge southward early Friday, inundating farmlands, highways and homes.

The east-central Arkansas towns of Cotton Plant, Gregory and McClelland were under mandatory evacuations, a spokesman for the state’s emergency management department said.

Waters toppled at least one levee in the area, prompting the evacuation order, the spokesman said. The order affected about 1,000 residents from the three small towns.

In Memphis, Tennessee, riverside parks were flooded and the Shelby County Office of Preparedness warned that homes on the upscale Mud Island were among the 2,832 properties that could be affected by flooding.

“There’s nothing you can do to stop it,” said Ben Ferguson, a syndicated talk show host who lives on the island.

Floods prompted authorities to close more than 20 miles of westbound Interstate 40 in eastern Arkansas. The eastbound stretch of Read more…

U.S. Boosts Order of Anthrax Vaccine

May 3, 2011 Comments off

globalsecuritynewswire

The United States has ordered an additional 3.42 million anthrax inoculation doses under an existing order with the vaccine’s Maryland-based manufacturer, the company announced on Monday (see GSN, July 14, 2010).

An updated contract calls for Emergent BioSolutions to provide 17.92 million doses of BioThrax. The extra vaccine is expected to be supplied starting in the third quarter of this year, after the company wraps up delivery of the initial order of 14.5 million doses, according to a press release.

BioThrax is the only anthrax vaccine licensed in the United States for use against the potential bioterrorism agent. The extra doses are due to be delivered before the end of this year.

Emergent could receive an additional $101 million under the revised contract.

“Emergent proudly supports the U.S. government’s efforts and unwavering commitment to meet its stated need of 75 million doses of anthrax vaccines,” Fuad El-Hibri, company chairman and chief executive officer, said in the release. “This contract is an indication that BioThrax remains a critical component of the government’s arsenal of biodefense medical countermeasures. In addition to this contract modification, we are continuing discussions with the U.S. government regarding a follow-on procurement contract, which we anticipate will cover a multiyear period” (Emergent BioSolutions release, May 2).

Why Is the U.S. Bankrolling IMF’s Bailouts in Europe?

May 3, 2011 2 comments

humanevents
The World Bank and International Monetary Fund held their spring meeting April 14 to 18 in Washington, D.C.  Both financial titans were created after World War II to foster economic cooperation and development around the globe.  With 16.2% of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shares, the United States is the largest shareholder among the 187 nations who belong to the fund—even though its managing director has always been a European.

Remote to most Americans, the IMF has been in the headlines recently because of its role as one of the financial rescuers of three European nations whose economies collapsed last year.  Under Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn (the former French finance minister, who is considered the leading Socialist candidate for president of France in 2012), the IMF has joined with the European Union to sculpt bailout packages for Greece, Ireland, and Portugal.  Coupled with loans from the EU, the price tags on the bailout packages come to $157 billion for Greece, $122 billion for Ireland, and most recently, $116 billion for Portugal.

Obviously, these are quite substantial packages for the three economically devastated countries.  They will become very relevant to U.S. taxpayers when they realize that, because we are the largest single contributor to the organization, and with Spain and Italy now Read more…

Deadliest tornado days in U.S. history

May 3, 2011 Comments off

vision

PRATT CITY, Ala., May 1 (Reuters) – Federal officials vowed urgent support on Sunday for a region devastated by the deadliest U.S. natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina, even as they acknowledged recovery would not be quick or easy.

President Barack Obama’s administration is trying to show an effective response to the storms and twisters that killed about 350 people last week in seven southern states, reduced neighborhoods to rubble and caused damage expected to run into billions of dollars.

Obama visited Alabama on Friday and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Craig Fugate, toured damage on Sunday.

“I don’t think words can fairly express the level of devastation here. I am not articulate enough,” Napolitano said after seeing how killer storm winds had torn through Pratt City, Alabama.

Later in Smithville, Mississippi, Napolitano said the visit had offered an acute sense of urgency about the need to help Read more…

The Strange World of NSA Mind Control

May 2, 2011 Comments off

batr.org

SARTRE, Contributing Writer

The surveillance society is a secretive apparatus of intrusion and deception. An enigma within a disinformation perception of reality is at the core all activities of spooks. One of the most pervasive and all reaching agencies is the NSA. The National Security Administration officially is a cryptologic intelligence agency whose primary function is Signals Intelligence Directorate (SID), which produces foreign signals intelligence information, and the Information Assurance Directorate (IAD), which protects U.S. information systems. The General Accounting Office defines the nature of the structure of the NSA.

“The National Security Agency (NSA) is a combat support agency within the Department of Defense (DOD) established by presidential directive in 1952. NSA has two separate missions: signals intelligence and communications security. For signals intelligence, NSA manages all U.S. signal collection and processing and produces signals intelligence in accordance with DOD and DCI priorities. For communications security, NSA provides leadership, products, and services to U.S. agencies that need to protect their information and communication systems from foreign exploitation. NSA is headed by a three-star flag officer, who reports to the Secretary of Defense. About 80 percent of the NSA workforce is civilian.”

A relative comparison, back in 1996 and pre-911 government of the size and disclosed budgets of intelligence Read more…

Mississippi River nears highest level since ’37

April 26, 2011 Comments off

chicagobreakingnews

VICKSURG, Miss. — The National Weather Service has forecast that the Mississippi River will crest at 52.5 feet in Vicksburg on May 13, the highest level since 1937.”We’ve got water coming down on top of heavy rain,” Marty Pope, senior service hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Jackson, told the Vicksburg Post.”It’s looking pretty bad right now. We have lots of rain to come, too.”

The Mississippi River at Cairo, Ill., at the confluence with the Ohio River, stood at 53.5 feet overnight Sunday, 13.5 feet above flood stage, and it was predicted to crest there May 3 at 60 feet.

The stage at Vicksburg stood at 39.2 feet Monday. It reached 43.3 feet on March 31.

In 1937, the Mississippi River topped out at 53.2 feet. In 2008, the river reached 50.9 feet, the highest since 1973 when it reached 51.6 feet.

The benchmark 1927 flood reached 56.2 feet on today’s gauges.

Pope said that 5 to 8 inches of rain were predicted over the next three days from Read more…

US, China to hold economy meeting in May

April 26, 2011 Comments off

AFP

WASHINGTON — Top officials from the United States and China will meet in Washington early next month, the Treasury Department said Monday, as tensions between the two economic superpowers simmer.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will host Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan and State Councilor Dai Bingguo, amid continued tensions over debt, exports and the value of China’s currency.

The Treasury Department has delayed the publication of a report that could lead to sanctions against Beijing until after the meeting, despite US lawmakers complaining that China is still manipulating its currency for trade advantage.

The semi-annual report, which was due on April 15, has become a focal point for critics who accuse Beijing of unfairly keeping the yuan weak against the dollar to boost Chinese exports.

The US government said it would wait until a meeting of the Group of 20 finance chiefs, the IMF’s annual spring Read more…