statism watch

Oh, the prosecution accidentally completely violated rules of evidence. That’s not suspicious at all. Think they threw the case? Comment below.

Flashback:CIA admits Blackwater presence in Pakistan | Blackwater guards linked to secret CIA raids | Blackwater’s Erik Prince: Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier, Spy | Taliban: Blackwater to blame for Pakistan attacks | Report: Blackwater approved plan to pay off Iraqi officials | Taliban Chief Blames Blackwater, ISI for Peshawar Blast | Ex-employees claim Blackwater pimped out young Iraqi girls | Blackwater Founder Erik Prince Implicated in Murder | Obama’s Blackwater? Chicago Mercenary Firm Gets Millions for Private “Security” in Israel and Iraq | Blackwater, mired in Iraq controversy, changes its name to ‘Xe’ | Official: Blackwater contract for Iraq not renewed | Blackwater Guards facing Charges in Case of 17 Dead Iraqi Citizens | Madsen: CIA collusion with “Al Qaeda” financiers and attack planners | Blackwater-linked firm to train Canadian troops | Canadian troops continue gearing up, to receive US counter-insurgency training | Blackwater Worldwide, Wal-Mart of modern war

Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian
December 31, 2009

US justice department ‘disappointed’ by decision to throw out charges against five guards accused of killing up to 17 Iraqis

So… not only was there no passport involved in all of this international travel, according to eyewitnesses, but Mutallab didn’t even have a Yemeni visa. The official story just gets more and more ridiculous. But the mainstream media has already moved on, and those who simply skim the news are going to be all for drone attacks in Yemen in a few weeks. Sad.

Flashback: US plots retaliatory strikes against al-Qaida in Yemen over plane bomber | Officials Admit Second Man Detained As More Witnesses Emerge in ‘Underwear Bomb’ Case | Detroit bombing: US had received intelligence suggesting Nigerian was planning an attack | US jet plot suspect ‘was in Yemen in December’ | Obama vows to step up terror fight | U.S. quietly takes terror war to Yemen | ‘Al-Qaeda’ in Yemen claims responsibility for attack on plane | Britain ‘barred US air terror suspect’ | Flight 253 passenger: Sharp-dressed man aided terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab onto plane without passport | Father of Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, Nigerian terror suspect in Flight 253 attack, warned U.S. | British student held over alleged airline bomb attempt

Ahmed Al-Haj, Canadian Press
December 31, 2009

The Nigerian suspected in the attempted attack on a U.S. airliner had stayed on in Yemen illegally after his visa expired three months ago and should have been stopped by authorities from leaving the country, Yemeni security officials said Thursday.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab spent time in Yemen on two occasions before the attempted Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight.

Yemeni officials said Abdulmutallab’s student visa for Yemen, where he studied Arabic at a local language institute, was valid from Aug. 4 to Sept. 21.

After his visa expired, the 23-year-old stayed on in Yemen until the first week in December, they said, but his whereabouts in the country is unknown.

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The following suggests an interesting issue. First, grant that in a rational monetary system, constricted supply of a monetary commodity just means you use less of it to pay for what you need as the value of the commodity – in this case, gold – goes up. So if we’re at a point where we have to destroy our water supply to extract gold, do we not need to say that we are at an end or find a new way of mining that doesn’t cause actual environmental destruction. This sort of environmental destruction is objectively an assault on everyone depending on the watershed. Now, grant that the economic incentives to mine the monetary commodity take us offworld in the future. Gold is a scarce product of supernovae, but what if a rich deposit were found? Would we be forced to move to an alternative, a scarcer metal with the similar monetary characteristics of divisibility and non-reactivity? In either case, the solution certainly is not to move to paper of all things.

Flashback: Gold surges above $1,200 | We’re running out of gold: miners | Gold rallies to record above $1,100 | Gold prices surge as India buys IMF reserves | Plentiful paper currency buffing gold’s shine | Gold continues record-breaking run | Gold price rises to all-time high | IMF approves $13bn gold sale to boost lending fund | Gold regains $1,000 | Gold toys with $1000/oz | Industrial demand for silver sharpens bullish view | Global demand for gold investment soars 38% in past year | Bank crisis spawns new kind of gold rush | Gold Tops $1,000, First Time Since March as Recession Deepens | Manipulation Of Gold And Silver Prices Further Exposed | Analysts Predict Hyper-Inflation To Push Gold To $2000, Oil to $300 | Ottawa warns on gold-backed Web trades

Rory Carroll, The Guardian
December 31, 2009

Villagers and NGOs have accused Goldcorp of poisoning people and livestock by contaminating the Siria valley

Authorities in Honduras are investigating claims that one of the world’s biggest gold mining corporations has contaminated a valley with toxic heavy metals. Villagers and non-governmental organisations have accused Goldcorp of killing livestock and making people sick by polluting land and rivers in the Siria valley.

The environmental prosecutor is undertaking an investigation after being presented with evidence that the Canadian corporation’s San Martin opencast mine discharged highly acidic and metal-rich water in 2008. The company has denied wrongdoing.

The inquiry comes at a critical time when record gold prices are encouraging other mining corporations to explore fresh sites in Honduras. Environmentalists fear the impoverished central American country will lift a moratorium on new mining after a new government takes office in January.

Goldcorp is shutting the decade-old San Martin mine after extracting nearly 12,000 tonnes of ore from its forested slopes. The dynamite explosions have stopped and there are no more ore-laden trucks rattling down rutted, dusty roads.

People in villages bordering the site say the damage is done and the fields and streams are poisoned. “The water tastes like acid, like something out of a car battery,” said Roger Abraham, vice-president of the Siria Valley Environmental Committee, an activist group. “It would have been better if the mine never came. It has done more harm than good.”

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Initial jobs claims dropped ‘unexpectedly’ – in the week before Christmas.

Flashback: Economic picture still not very bright, and more layoffs are in store, manufacturers say | U.S. unemployment claims spike | Unemployed to reach postwar high: OECD

CBC News
December 31, 2009

The number of U.S. workers filing initial claims for unemployment benefits dropped unexpectedly last week, a sign the job market is healing as the economy slowly recovers.

The U.S. Labour Department said Thursday that in the week ended Dec. 26, 2009, the number of newly laid-off workers filing for benefits fell by 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 432,000, the lowest since July 2008. That’s much better than the rise to 460,000 that Wall Street economists were expecting.

The four-week moving average was 460,250, a decrease of 5,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 465,750. Many economists pay closer attention to the four-week average because it smooths out fluctuations. The four-week figure has now declined for 17 straight weeks, so its steady decline is an encouraging sign that the labour market is on the mend. [Ed. Note: Now there's a statistic with some credence - but it could also mean, simply that the economy has contracted to a point at which it will remain indefinitely, with massive unemployment. We'll see.]

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To Dalton McGuinty, ‘Progress’ always equals higher taxes and, more, adopting the European VAT system so we can push through another ‘free trade’ agreement, apparently. We don’t need that kind of progress. How about rolling back to the tax system of a hundred years ago, instead, while keeping our new social attitudes. Economic conservativism and social liberalism. And yet we’re being pushed towards the antithesis. As Marvin Gaye asked – what’s going on? If only we would.

Flashback: Lower tax haul helps widen Ottawa deficit, $56.2B shortfall expected | Ottawa on track for largest-ever deficit | Ontario deficit billions more than expected | Economy was a dud in July | Stephen Harper trumpets economic report card | Ontario deficit $2.5B worse than expected due to drop in corporate tax | Ottawa’s deficit plan would hike EI premiums | Canada’s $1-trillion debt baby | Flaherty sees deficit, debt, and timetable to return to surplus all expanding | Federal deficit hits $7.5B in April-May | Budget officer ‘can’t tell’ if stimulus plan working | Flaherty looks for way to end stimulus | Stimulus cash is flowing — down a hole? | Harper lays out stimulus spending in progress report | ‘Reduced pace of deterioration’ indicates economy on the mend: Flaherty | Auto bailout costs soar, contribute to $50B deficit | Federal deficit to top $50B | Ontario facing massive deficit | Flaherty vows short-lived deficit, consults corporate chiefs on spending initiatives | Harper government plans deficits as deep as $30 billion | Deficits ‘essential,’ Harper says | Flaherty eyes sale of Canadian government assets | Flaherty lauds Keynesian global ‘economic stimulus’ strategies

CBC News
December 31, 2009

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty says it will likely take more time to eliminate the current deficit than any deficit in the province’s history.

In a year-end interview, the premier told CBC News that finding a way out of the roughly $25 billion funding shortfall brought on by the recession will be one of the province’s biggest challenges in 2010.

“The circumstances that gave birth to this deficit were nothing short of extraordinary, so it would be unreasonably painful for us to say we’re going to get rid of it in three or four years,” McGuinty said.

“We’ve lost thousands and thousands of jobs – some communities have been pretty well devastated – and we’ve lost thousands and thousands of businesses,” McGuinty said.

He said the province tried to react to the global recession quickly by introducing $32 billion in stimulus funding and investing in job creation and second-career programs, but he said slow economic growth will continue to be an issue in the province in 2010.

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