Financial Times article ignores monetary inflation
Dear Sirs:
In a recent OpEd Andrew Sentance resurrects the discredited theory of “cost push” as the cause of price inflation. According to this theory rising oil and commodity prices “push up” other prices and lead to widespread price inflation. Left unexamined is how it is possible for ALL prices to rise.
Soldiers don fake belly, breasts to better understand pregnant troops’ exercise concerns
Historically, belief in an empire’s military supremacy outlasts the reality. Soldiers donning “empathy bellies” is a strong sign that the decline of American empire will be accompanied by humiliating military defeats.
he Army is ordering its hardened combat veterans to wear fake breasts and empathy bellies so they can better understand how pregnant soldiers feel during physical training.
This week, 14 noncommissioned officers at Camp Zama took turns wearing the “pregnancy simulators” as they stretched, twisted and exercised during a three-day class that teaches them to serve as fitness instructors for pregnant soldiers and new mothers.
Army enlisted leaders all over the world are being ordered to take the Pregnancy Postpartum Physical Training Exercise Leaders Course, or PPPT, according to U.S. Army Medical Activity Japan health promotion educator Jana York.
Developed by the Army in 2008, the course includes aerobics classes, pool sessions and classroom studies on the physiology of pregnant women. (Read more)
Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan won’t pay back taxes
Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, who is being sued in California by the federal government, said she has a duty to not pay taxes because her son died in what she called an “immoral” war.
An Internal Revenue Service officer, in a federal filing Tuesday in Sacramento, said Sheehan has refused to provide financial information for the 2005 and 2006 tax years. The filing asks the court to order Sheehan to comply.
Sheehan, of Vacaville, told CNN affiliate KXTV she has not paid federal incomes taxes since 2004 — and has not disguised the fact.
“I feel like I gave my son to this country in an illegal and immoral war. I’ll never get him back,” Sheehan said. “And, so, if they can give me my son back, then I’ll pay my taxes. And that’s not going to happen.” (Read more)
Media smears suggest Swedish complicity in a Washington-driven push to punish WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
War by media, says current military doctrine, is as important as the battlefield. This is because the real enemy is the public at home, whose manipulation and deception is essential for starting an unpopular colonial war. Like the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, attacks on Iran and Syria require a steady drip-effect on readers’ and viewers’ consciousness. This is the essence of a propaganda that rarely speaks its name.
To the chagrin of many in authority and the media, WikiLeaks has torn down the facade behind which rapacious western power and journalism collude. This was an enduring taboo; the BBC could claim impartiality and expect people to believe it. Today, war by media is increasingly understood by the public, as is the trial by media of WikiLeaks’ founder and editor Julian Assange.
. . . .
For this, as the American historian William Blum points out, “dozens of members of the American media and public officials have called for [his] execution or assassination”. If he is passed from Sweden to the US, an orange jumpsuit, shackles and a fabricated indictment await him. And there go all who dare challenge rogue America.
In Britain, Assange’s trial by media has been a campaign of character assassination, often cowardly and inhuman, reeking of jealousy of the courageous outsider, while books of perfidious hearsay have been published, movie deals struck and media careers launched or resuscitated on the assumption that he is too poor to sue. In Sweden this trial by media has become, according to one observer there, “a full-on mobbing campaign with the victim denied a voice”. For more than 18 months, the salacious Expressen, Sweden’s equivalent of the Sun, has been fed the ingredients of a smear by Stockholm police. (Read more)
War: Big Government’s Best Friend
Great lecture by a great speaker, Tom Woods:
Iran’s banks to be blocked from global banking system
The economic war is now in full swing. I fear the kinetic war will begin soon.
Swift, the body that handles global banking transactions, says it will cut Iran’s banks out of the system on Saturday to enforce sanctions.
The move will isolate Iran financially by making it almost impossible for money to flow in and out of the country via official banking channels.
It will hit its oil industry, but may also have a heavy impact on Iranians who live abroad and send money home.
The move follows EU sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme. (Read more)
Statement from SWIFT: Following an EU Council decision, SWIFT is today announcing it has been instructed to discontinue its communications services to Iranian financial institutions that are subject to European sanctions.
The new European Council decision, as confirmed by the Belgian Treasury, prohibits companies such as SWIFT to continue to provide specialised financial messaging services to EU-sanctioned Iranian banks. SWIFT is incorporated under Belgian law and has to comply with this decision as confirmed by its home country government.
WikiLeaks Emails: Judge Imprisoned because of Ruling Against Halliburton
A March 2009 email from a top director at Stratfor (released as part of WikiLeaks’ Global Intelligence Files) shows that former US District Court judge Sam Kent, who has been in prison from May 2009 through November 2011 on an obstruction of justice charge, believed the charges against him were a result of him ruling against Halliburton.
The Kent case saw him accused of “aggravated sexual abuse” and he was later sentenced for lying during the investigation. According to the email, Kent was having lunch of Stratfor director Lauren Goodrich, and said that the Bush Administration’s Justice Department had begun “sniffing around for dirt to throw at me just weeks after I ruled a heavy case against Halliburton.”
The Stratfor analyst “told him he was nuts to rule anything against Halliburton.” (Read more)
‘2012 is not 1944’: Netanyahu invokes Auschwitz in warning to Obama over Iran
Benjamin Netanyahu has invoked the US refusal to bomb Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp, in 1944 as he issued a warning to Barack Obama that Israel cannot “afford to wait much longer” before striking against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
. . . .
“We’ve waited for diplomacy to work. We’ve waited for sanctions to work. None of us can afford to wait much longer. As Prime Minister of Israel, I will never let my people live under the shadow of annihilation,” he said in a speech given just hours after meeting Mr Obama for critical talks in the White House. (Read more)
Russia must stay “combat ready” says Orthodox Church
Speaking on matters beyond the realm of the spiritual, a top Orthodox Church cleric said Russia must play a greater role in responding to ongoing global events that could deteriorate into a world war.
“There are many processes occurring in the world in which Russia should play a much more active role,” Vsevolod Chaplin, a high-placed cleric in the Russian Orthodox Church, said in an interview with the Svobodnaya Pressa (‘Free Press’) publishing house. “The economic and social contradictions that have cropped up in the world are so powerful that they are sure to blow up into serious military operations.”
Chaplin said Russia’s military must remain “combat-ready” to prevent the outbreak of military incidents on or around its territory.
“In order to ensure that these military operations not unfold on our territory or in the vicinity of our borders, we need to keep our armed forces combat ready,” Chaplin said. (Read more)
Palestinian Villages May Soon Go Dark Once Again
The best part is when the lights in the tents go on, one by one, says Elad Orian. Electricity here, in the hills south of Hebron, was long unreliable. Either it was not available or it was too expensive, produced for just a few hours each day by a noisy, diesel-guzzling generator. That changed when Elad Orian and Noam Dotan, two Israeli physicians who had tired of conflict, came along three years ago and installed solar panels and erected wind turbines. Since then, such facilities have been installed in 16 communities, providing 1,500 Palestinians with electricity.
The women here no longer have to make their butter by hand; they can refrigerate the sheep’s cheese, which is their livelihood; and their children can do their homework at night. Now they can sit together and watch TV — and connect to a world that seems far removed from their lives on the edge of the Judaean Desert. It is but a small revolution, achieved at little cost. But it is a good example of successful development aid.
The success, though, could soon be a thing of the past. Israel has threatened to tear them down with five municipalities in recent weeks having received “stop work” orders — the first step on the road to demolition. The problem is that the facilities are in the so-called Area C, which covers 60 percent of the West Bank and is administered by Israel. Permission from the Israelis is a requirement before construction projects can move ahead — and permits are almost never given to Palestinians. (Read more)
Ron Paul tells Jay Leno about Brokered Convention
Libertarians Demonized
Expect more of this:
NDAA Nullification Bill Passes Another Step in Virginia
On Friday, February 10th, the Committee of Courts of Justice in the Virginia House of Delegates voted in favor of House Bill 1160 (HB1160) – unanimously. The final vote was 16-0 with 2 abstaining.
The legislative goal of HB1160 is to codify in Virginia law noncompliance with what many are referring to as the “kidnapping provisions” of section 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA). The official summary of 1160:
“A BILL to prevent any agency, political subdivision, employee, or member of the military of Virginia from assisting an agency of the armed forces of the United States in the investigation, prosecution, or detention of a citizen in violation of the United States Constitution, the Constitution of Virginia, or any Virginia law or regulation.”
Feds Shut Down Amish Farm for Selling Raw Milk
Tax dollars at work:
The FDA has won its two-year fight to shut down an Amish farmer who was selling fresh, raw milk to eager consumers in the Washington region, after a judge this month banned Daniel Allgyer from selling his milk across state lines, and he told his customers he’ll shut his farm down altogether.
The decision has enraged Mr. Allgyer’s supporters, some of whom have been buying from him for six years and who say the government is interfering with their parental rights to feed their children. But the Food and Drug Administration, which launched a full investigation complete with a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and a straw-purchase sting operation against Mr. Allgyer’s Rainbow Acres Farm, near Lancaster, said unpasteurized milk is unsafe and said it was exercising its due authority to stop its sale from one state to another. (Read more)