statism watch

Flashback: Lessons of 1976: swine flu, fear, mass vaccinations, wasted millions | Swine Flu: In Mexico, an outbreak of police-state opportunism | Illinois-based Baxter working on vaccine to stop swine flu outbreak in Mexico | ‘Accidental’ Contamination Of Vaccine With Live Avian Flu Virus Virtually Impossible | Officials investigate how bird flu contaminated vaccines in Europe | Researchers unlock secrets of 1918 flu pandemic

Joanna Smith, The Toronto Star
May 14, 2009

OTTAWA–Canada will wait for advice from the World Health Organization before telling pharmaceutical companies to begin making a vaccine for the current strain of swine flu, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq says.

“It’s an international joint decision,” Aglukkaq told reporters today after appearing before the parliamentary health committee.

An advisory group of vaccine-makers and other experts met at the WHO today to tackle the tough decisions involved in immunizing against the A/H1N1 (also known as swine flu) virus that has so far infected more than 6,000 people worldwide.

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Flashback: CIA: Our Drones are Killing Terrorists. Promise. | 500,000 fleeing Pakistani airstrikes, fighting, UN reports | Pakistan is ‘abdicating to the Taliban,’ says Clinton | US military may escalate ‘war on terror’ by striking deeper into Pakistan | Report: CIA runs secret bases in Pakistan | Don’t-ask-don’t-tell Policy: Pakistan and U.S. Have Tacit Deal On Airstrikes | US Allowed Taliban, Al-Qaeda Airlift Evacuation

Declan Walsh, The Guardian
May 14, 2009

Declan Walsh seeks out the refugees trapped in a brutal war between Pakistan’s army and the Taliban after an uneasy and short-lived truce

Army footage shows laser-guided missiles slamming into mountain buildings that explode into a fountain of fragments. Warplanes blast away at Taliban targets in the Swat valley and ground troops push towards the main town, Mingora. When Pakistani forces kill the Taliban, few complain – this is a popular war, for now.

“We are progressing well,” a spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, said.

Sometimes, though, they hit the wrong target. Jan Nawab, a slightly-built man with a scraggly beard, stood outside the house where he has taken refuge, and sobbed softly under the weight of the calamity that had befallen him.

Last Monday morning a fighter jet screamed over Matta, a Taliban-overrun district in the heart of Swat. Its first bomb landed on Jan Nawab’s home, where his wife, four children, his sister-in-law and two other children, were sheltering. All were killed.

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Flashback: Dziekanski ‘would not have died’ if spared Taser, expert tells inquiry | TASER’s medical expert says weapon didn’t cause Dziekanski’s death | Chicago study calls Taser’s safety claims into question

CBC News
May 14, 2009

Robert Dziekanski’s death after an RCMP officer jolted him five times with a Taser stun gun was no coincidence, a physician told the Braidwood inquiry on Thursday.

Dr. G.K. Chambers, an epidemiologist based in Vancouver, rejected the suggestion put forward by a lawyer for Taser International — the firm that manufactures the electrical stun gun — at the inquiry, which is looking into the death of the Polish immigrant at Vancouver International Airport on Oct. 14, 2007.

The fatal heart arrhythmia that led to cardiac arrest was caused by Dziekanski’s struggle with the RCMP, the use of the Taser, or a combination of the two, Chambers, an emergency room physician and an expert in cause of death, testified Thursday.

And, he said, the video of the event shot by a witness makes it obvious which was the more aggravating factor.

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Can you imagine? The appalling gall of this reporter – taking photographs in the general vicinity of his betters. This journal gathers that Greece is one of the few countries extant without a warrant for Bilderberg/Trilateral Group honcho Henry Kissinger’s arrest as a war criminal.

Steve Watson, Infowars.net
May 14, 2009

The comedian covering the Bilderberg meeting for the London Guardian has been detained by authorities in Athens, Greece after taking a photograph close to the site of the annual elite gathering.

Charlie Skelton has also personally contacted the Infowars team to clarify his position and explain why he is approaching the issue from a comic angle.

In Skelton’s third article in today’s Guardian, he details an encounter with armed Greek police close to the Astir Palace resort near Athens, during which he was menaced, asked to identify himself and was and eventually detained after photographing the sea view.

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GM is the canary in the coal mine for the rest of your blue and white-collar jobs in southern Ontario. Now, how do you feel about a position in the growing security industry?

Flashback: GM deal likely involves bigger sacrifices: McGuinty | GM execs dump stock, shares plummet | GM bankruptcy likely, CAW says | Ontario mulls equity stake in GM | US government may take controlling share of General Motors

Tony Van Alphen, Toronto Star
May 14, 2009

OSHAWA–Workers put the finishing touches on a black GMC Sierra pickup late this morning and drove it off the line, ending a 44-year production run in this embattled auto city.

In an emotional scene, Bob Nesbitt, who has worked at GM for 45 years, drove the last truck off the main line as hundreds of employees and retirees crowded around it.

GM, which is fighting for survival, announced the closure and the shutdown of three other truck plants in North America in the spring of last year after gasoline prices spiked and the sale of large pickups collapsed.

The plant hit its peak in 2000 when annual output hit 323,034 on three shifts.

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Paul Joseph Watson, PrisonPlanet.com
May 14, 2009

World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who recently called for global government, will also take his place at elitist confab

According to a London Times report, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will probably be in attendance at this week’s Bilderberg Group meeting, as top globalists meet to plot the financial future of the planet behind closed doors.

The Times article notes that “US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner’s public schedule is mysteriously empty for the next two days,” speculating that he will be in Vouliagmeni, Greece for the annual elitist confab, following in the footsteps of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who attended last year’s conference in Washington DC just months before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the start of the economic crisis.

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Stay-at-home moms should appreciate knowing that doing laundry and chores during the day is going to cost them twice as much now. Happily, there are alternatives to being a customer of Toronto Hydro…

Flashback: Google to enter market for energy use tracking

John Spears, Toronto Star
May 14, 2009

Starting in June, 10,000 Toronto households will be charged different rates for electricity depending on the time of day they use it: High rates during peak periods in the late afternoon and evening, much lower rates overnight and on weekends.

And within a year, most Toronto single family households will be paying the so-called time-of-use rates.

Toronto Hydro announced the kick-off of time-of-use rates this morning.

The first 10,000 households have been randomly selected; they’re all in Toronto’s former suburbs, because the new “smart meters” that are needed to record time of use haven’t yet been fully installed in the city core.

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The majority group on the island is going for broke with its extermination program, knowing full well that by the time any effective opposition is raised among the international community, they’ll have finished the bloody job. As has been pointed out before, after natural causes government is the leading cause of death.

Flashback: ‘More than 1,000 civilians killed’ in attacks on Sri Lanka safe zone | Tamil protesters blockade Gardiner expressway to highlight Sri Lankan plight | Cars moving, but Toronto Tamil protest questioned | UN satellite imagery attests to shelling of Tamil ’safe zone’ | Tamil civilians slaughtered as army shells ‘no-fire zone’ | Seventh Tamil suicide by self-immolation to protest Sri Lankan genocide | Sri Lankans protest genocide at Toronto’s Union Station

Ravi Nessman, Associated Press
May 14, 2009

Sri Lankan shelling of hospital kills 50 as aides hide in bunkers

COLOMBO–Artillery shells tore through a hospital packed with wounded civilians in Sri Lanka’s war zone for a second day yesterday, killing at least 50 people, setting an ambulance ablaze and forcing the medical staff to huddle in bunkers for safety, doctors said.

Health workers at the makeshift facility in Mullivaikal said they were so overwhelmed by the crush of wounded and the unrelenting shelling they could do little but give gauze and bandages to the roughly 1,000 patients awaiting treatment.

The strike on the hospital came as the government marched on with its offensive to destroy the reeling Tamil Tiger rebels and end their quest for a separate homeland.

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