statism watch

The mythical ‘climate consensus’ continues to deteriorate.

Flashback: Arctic winds and not global warming ‘responsible for much of record loss of sea ice’ | Revealed: Antarctic ice growing, not shrinking

UPI
April 23, 2010

The Los Angeles-class submarine USS Annapolis is seen on the surface of the Arctic Ocean after breaking through three feet of ice during a training exercise on March 21, 2009. (UPI Photo/Tiffini M. Jones/U.S. Navy)

MOSCOW, April 23 (UPI) — A Russian scientist says the Arctic may be getting colder, not warmer, which would hamper the international race to discover new mineral fields.

An Arctic cold snap that began in 1998 could last for years, freezing the northern marine passage and making it impassable without icebreaking ships, said Oleg Pokrovsky of the Voeikov Main Geophysical Observatory.

“I think the development of the shelf will face large problems,” Pokrovsky said Thursday at a seminar on research in the Polar regions.

Scientists who believe the climate is warming may have been misled by data from U.S. meteorological stations located in urban areas, where dense microclimates creates higher temperatures, RIA Novosti quoted Pokrovsky as saying.

“Politicians who placed their bets on global warming may lose the pot,” Pokrovsky said.

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Flashback: BPA in womb linked to aggression in girls | Reduce fetal exposure to BPA and phthalates, experts say | Bisphenol A traces found in baby food: Health Canada | Elevated BPA levels in people drinking out of plastic bottles, study finds | Tests find Bisphenol A in majority of soft drinks | Chemical ban targets toys, rubber duckies | As in Canada, gender-bending chemicals in UK rivers grow more potent | Chemicals feminizing males, study suggests | Major report to reveal male gender under threat from pollutants | CBC broadcasts “The Disappearing Male”, an expose of hormone-disrupting plastics | Plastics ingredient linked to feminization in children | Health Canada adds bisphenol A to list of toxic substances | Scientists Note Hormones in Water, Feminization of Fish Downstream of Montreal | New study raises concerns Bisphenol-A could be related to heart disease | Air freshener chemicals could impact fertility: study | Bisphenol tied to lower brain function | Chemical Industry Source of Hyped FDA Study ‘Exonerating’ Plastic Bottles

Martin Mittlestaedt, The Globe and Mail
April 23, 2010

Government won’t identify entity or reason for challenge to proposed designation of controversial chemical

Two years after the federal government announced with great fanfare that it would designate bisphenol A as a toxic substance, the plastic-making chemical still isn’t on the list and there is no indication when it will be.

The reason for the delay, The Globe and Mail has learned, is that an entity filed a formal notice of objection to the listing last summer. The government won’t identify the entity or reveal the reasons for the objection.

“The notice of objection is under consideration,” the department said in an e-mailed statement. “A final order to add bisphenol A to the list of toxic substances … has not yet been published.”

The estrogen-like chemical is used to produce everything from CDs to the liners of nearly all tin cans, and Canada — amid scientific disputes over its impact on people’s health and the environment — was the first country in the world to propose declaring it a toxic substance.

That designation could have international ramifications because both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration have recently announced that they are conducting reviews on the safety of the chemical.

The government’s BPA decision has been opposed by the American Chemistry Council, an Arlington, Va.-based association that represents makers of the material and maintains that it poses no health or environmental risks.

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This is being pushed in the Western world as well. If you don’t want to live in Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’, you might want to start letting people know you’re against it, doing your part to resist the resurgent agenda of the eco-fascists. The West has already been to this dark place, and there’s no need to go there again.

Flashback: Copenhagen: Global Population Control Program Suggested To Stop Climate Change | Diane Francis: We need a global one-child policy | Baby emissions fuel global warming | Aging Shanghai pushes for more babies | Obama Science Advisor Called For “Planetary Regime” To Enforce Totalitarian Population Control Measures | Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation | David Attenborough becomes patron for population reduction | UK population must fall to 30m: Optimum Population Trust | Don’t blame right-wing thugs for eugenics – Socialists made it fashionable | Do Swiss parents need a childrearing licence? | Population control thinktank to Britons: Have less children

Peter Sharp, SkyNews
April 23, 2010

Health authorities are planning to sterilise nearly 10,000 people in southern China over the next four days as part of a population control programme.

Some of the people in Puning City will be forced to have the procedure carried out against their will.

Amnesty International says forced sterilisation “amounts to torture”.

Reports in the Chinese media say that Puning Health authorities in Guangdong Province have launched a special campaign to sterilise people who already have at least one child in order to ensure local birth control quotas are met.

Chinese newspaper reports say that those who refuse to be sterilised have seen their elderly mothers or fathers taken away and detained.

Hundreds of people in Puning are said to have been locked up.

Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK, said: “It is appalling that the authorities are subjecting people to such an invasive procedure against their will.

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Scammed again, Canada. And this fact, that these scanners can be blind to an intelligent attempt to hide bomb parts, has been exposed before. Now do you think we can expect the Terahertz-emitting, privacy destroying boondoggles to be removed? Of course not. Because you won’t speak out. Everyone should be writing Parliament and demanding pat-downs over this instead of docilely submitting to these machines. But instead they’re just going to throw a few more layers of paint on that wreck by training airport security in profiling techniques -  and so the militarization of airports, stadiums, etc. shall continue unabated. Clearly building a case for profiling has been the next step all along as travel restrictions are rolled into a global high-tech police state. Next up after the profiling is in place: face scanning.

Related: Government Lied: Naked Body Scanners CAN Transmit Images | UK: Children must go through airport naked body scanners | UK Airport worker warned over harassment using naked body scanner | Body scans eventually mandatory, TSA official says | 11 More U.S. Airports Get Body Scanners | Exposed: Naked Body Scanner Images Of Film Star Printed, Circulated By Airport Staff | Radiation Safety Group Says Naked Body Scanners Increase Risk Of Cancer | UK: Airline passengers have ‘no right’ to refuse naked body scanners | Full-body scanner blind to bomb parts | Airport scanner companies queue for business after ‘underpants bomber’ | German ‘Fleshmob’ Protests Airport Scanners | Body scanners capable of storing, sending images, group says | Dutch police develop mobile body scans | Whole-body airport scanners are basically safe–or are they? | Airport security starts in the parking lot | Body scanners coming to Canadian airports | UK: New scanners break child porn laws | US implements travel profiling: Tougher air screening for ’security-risk’ countries | UK: Full-body scanners being ordered for airports, says Gordon Brown | Group slams Chertoff on conflict of interest in scanner promotion | The ‘Israelification’ of airports: High security, little bother | Underwear Bomber Renews Calls for ‘Naked Scanners’ | Federal Privacy Commissioner raises alarm over terror security measures | Privacy watchdog OKs ‘naked’ airport scanners | Security may soon test ‘virtual strip search’ at large Canadian aiports | US Border Guards to Expand Use of X-Ray Body Scanners | Homeland Security seeks Bladerunner-style lie detector | Greyhound introduces security screening of passengers, bans fruit, carry-ons | Germany rejects full-body scans at airports | Interpol wants facial recognition database to catch suspects | ‘Pre-crime’ detector shows promise | Eye scans, fingerprints to control NZ borders | Air passengers to undergo ‘virtual strip search’ | US Homeland Security Keen on ‘Novel’ Israeli Airport Security Technology | Israel startup uses behavioral science to identify terrorists | Airport scanner a ‘virtual strip search’

Sarah Schimdt, Canwest News
April 23, 2010

Israeli tells MPs high-tech machines can be easily fooled

A leading Israeli airport security expert says the Canadian government has wasted millions of dollars to install “useless” imaging machines at airports across the country.

“I don’t know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747,” Rafi Sela told parliamentarians probing the state of aviation safety in Canada. [Ed. Note: That's because it's a massive payoff to the military companies that make them and people like the ex-DHS head, now a lobbyist for the manufacturers.]

“That’s why we haven’t put them in our airport,” Sela said, referring to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, which has some of the toughest security in the world.

Sela, former chief security officer of the Israel Airport Authority and a 30-year veteran in airport security and defence technology, helped design the security at Ben Gurion.

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It can’t be stressed enough how important it is for all Canadians to examine the fraud of 9/11. This single epochal event has been used as the justification for multiple wars, wars which have caused the death of over a million Iraqis, Afghanis, Pakistanis, and essentially led to the looting and bankruptcy of the American economy and undermined the teetering global financial order. In case you haven’t heard, there was a third building that fell on 9/11, straight down, into its own footprint, looking for all the world exactly like a controlled demolition. No plane ever hit it and it only had a few small sporadic fires inside. Buildings don’t do that on their own. It takes weeks to wire a building for demolition. And that’s not the half of it… here’s the preface to the story written by the owner of PrisonPlanet and Infowars.com alt-media sites: “To truly grasp the magnitude of this story, you really have to read the entire article. Immediately after the “pull it” controversy, debunkers claimed there was no plan to conduct a controlled demolition of the building. Now the fact that officials were considering blowing up the building is established, Silverstein’s consistent denial that this took place is a huge smoking gun. How did Silverstein expect to demolish the building safely when such a process takes weeks or even months to properly set up, even without the additional chaos surrounding WTC 7 on 9/11? How could explosives have been correctly placed on such short notice inside a burning building that had already been evacuated — unless the explosives were already in place? This new revelation is astounding and it needs to be investigated immediately.”

Flashback: Professor fingers Thermite charges as responsible for 9/11 demolition | Study claims ‘highly engineered explosive’ found in WTC rubble | Fire Consumes Beijing Skyscraper, Unlike WTC7 Building Does Not Collapse | National Post Columnist: Who dares to question the ‘Big Lie of 9/11′? | NIST WTC 7 Report: Shameful, Embarrassing And Completely Flawed

Paul Joseph Watson, PrisonPlanet.com
April 23, 2010

Fox News hit piece against 9/11 truth and Jesse Ventura inadvertently reveals a shocking truth; WTC leaseholder was “on the phone with his insurance carrier to see if they would authorize the controlled demolition of the building”

A Fox News hit piece against Jesse Ventura and the 9/11 truth movement written by former Washington D.C. prosecutor Jeffrey Scott Shapiro inadvertently reveals a shocking truth, that World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein, who collected nearly $500 million dollars in insurance as a result of the collapse of Building 7, a 47-story structure that was not hit by a plane but collapsed within seven seconds on September 11, was on the phone to his insurance carrier attempting to convince them that the building should be brought down via controlled demolition.

Writing for Fox News, Jeffrey Scott Shapiro states, “I was working as a journalist for Gannett News at Ground Zero that day, and I remember very clearly what I saw and heard.”

“Shortly before the building collapsed, several NYPD officers and Con-Edison workers told me that Larry Silverstein, the property developer of One World Financial Center was on the phone with his insurance carrier to see if they would authorize the controlled demolition of the building — since its foundation was already unstable and expected to fall.”

In February of 2002 Silverstein Properties won $861 million from Industrial Risk Insurers to rebuild on the site of WTC 7. Silverstein Properties’ estimated investment in WTC 7 was $386 million. This building’s collapse alone resulted in a payout of nearly $500 million, based on the contention that it was an unforeseen accidental event.

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Too little, too late.

Flashback: Pope wouldn’t discipline priest who abused 200 deaf boys | Irish church and police covered up child sex abuse, says report | Police review 1980s allegations against bishop | Bishop facing child porn charges gets bail | Pope ‘led cover-up of child abuse by priests’ | Abuse ‘endemic’ in Irish Roman Catholic schools: Report | Location of Mass Graves of Residential School Children Revealed for the First Time; Independent Tribunal Established

Catherine Jouault, Agence France-Presse
April 23, 2010

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI, by accepting the resignations of bishops implicated in child sex abuse cases, is showing he wants to make a “clean sweep” as the Roman Catholic Church tries to recover from months of scandal, Vatican experts say.

On Friday, the pope allowed the bishop of Bruges, in Belgium, to take early retirement.

Roger Vangheluwe, 73, admitted to sexually abusing a minor several years ago, becoming the first bishop directly implicated as a predator cleric since a wave of scandals involving priests began sweeping Europe and the Americas in November.

The day before, the pope accepted the resignation of Irish Bishop James Moriarty, also 73, named in a damning report that found Catholic authorities in the Dublin archdiocese concealed abuse of children by priests for decades.

Moriarty was the fourth bishop to be allowed to resign over the scandals in Ireland.

Such resignations before the normal retirement age of 75 are allowed by canon law in case of incapacitating illness or other unspecified “serious reasons”.

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The Obama administration is moving ahead with its own national Financial Activity Tax, so it seems the G20 has decided to hold off on pushing on that particular issue (for now). If the American levy is passed it will still represent a substantial victory (and revenue stream) for central bankers on a regional level and a base from which to build outwards.

Flashback: Bankers Prepare To Assault Americans With VAT, Transaction Taxes | The Obama Banking Regulation: Big Banks Are Too Politically Connected to Fail | Obama scolds Wall Street for fighting reform, pushes new regulation package | Global bank tax urged by IMF | Flaherty stands firm against new bank tax | G20 sounds warning over lack of progress on global regulation | Banking reforms urgent, Harper says at G20 sherpas’ meeting | G20 ’sherpas’ meet with IMF, World Bank on Ottawa | Tories hand out $75 billion worth of ’spending restraint’ | Gordon Brown’s plan for global bank tax ‘a step closer’ | Global Bank Insurance Levy Wins Support over Transaction Tax at Davos | Harper urges G20 to follow economic accords | Bankers unite against Barack Obama and Gordon Brown in call for world regulation | IMF warns against retreat from stimulus spending | Banks find gaping loophole in Obama financial reforms | Obama talking tough with banks | EU urged to adopt bank supertax | Obama ponders bank transaction levy to recoup bailout shortfalls | No new stimulus, economy ’stabilized’: Harper | Explosive Leaked Emails Expose Treasury Secretary Geithner’s Deception in ‘Backdoor Bailout’ | Final Copenhagen Text Includes Global Transaction Tax | EU calls for tax on bank transactions | UK: Brown takes campaign for Tobin tax to Commonwealth | UK: Brown proposes global fund to kick-start Copenhagen climate change process | Flaherty, USA say no to global financial tax, yes to continued ’stimulus’ at G20 | Bernanke continues pressing for sweeping new powers for Fed | IMF chief wants global bank tax | G20 nations meet as protests flare on issue of international banking regulation | IMF approves $13bn gold sale to boost lending fund | China Set to Buy $50 Billion in IMF Notes | China calls anew for super-sovereign currency | No one talking about dumping dollar: China minister | China explores buying $50bn in IMF bonds | Chinese economists deem huge holding of US bonds “risky” as Geithner visits | A Bigger, Bolder Role Is Imagined For the IMF | UK PM reveals G20 plan to boost IMF by $1 trillion, hails new world order (again) | UN & IMF Back Agenda For Global Financial Dictatorship | IMF poised to print billions of dollars in ‘global quantitative easing’ | Gordon Brown seeks sweeping reforms to give IMF global ’surveillance role’ | IMF may need to “print money”, act as “world’s central bank” as crisis spreads | Globalists Exploit Financial Meltdown In Move Towards One World Currency | World needs new Bretton Woods, says Brown | IMF prescribes state regulation of ‘global financial order’ | Bilderberg Seeks Bank Centralization Agenda | Banks face “new world order,” consolidation: report

Kevin Carmichael, The Globe and Mail
April 23, 2010

Saying more study is needed, G20 ministers ask IMF to go back to drawing board on bailout levy for financial institutions

The world’s leading economies set aside a contentious debate over a global bank tax as Greece’s fiscal crisis provided a stark reminder that the path out of recession remains treacherous.

With a member of the European Union pushed to the brink of default, the ideological clash within the Group of 20 nations over whether a levy on banks is the best way to ensure taxpayers avoid footing the bill for future financial bailouts took on an air of triviality.

Finance ministers and central bankers entered their meeting with the news that Prime Minister George Papandreou called for the activation of a joint European Union-International Monetary Fund financial backstop, conceding that the mere promise of support failed to persuade investors that Greece could avoid default.

Greece isn’t a member of the G20. Still, the country’s struggles make real what until now had been an abstract threat for the group that emerged last year as the steering committee for the global economy. With sovereign debt the highest since the Second World War, investors are growing wary that governments will make good on their obligations. The risk is Greece’s woes spread, snuffing out the recovery.

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When it comes to REDD, they have a point. As another international program to remove the rights of indigenous people to their own resources and deliver them into the hands of favoured banking cartels and multinationals, people are right to resist it. There’s a reason Copenhagen fell apart – the African countries, who have some direct experience in such matters, identified it as a means for the World Bank to leverage greater control over their economies in a new debt-slavery scam.

Related: Britain pushes for new climate talks; IMF and global taxes to figure into wealth redistribution scheme | IMF chief calls for quota-based global warming slush fund | EU considers general carbon tax | Leaked UN Documents Reveal Plan For “Green World Order” By 2012 | Davos: Global climate fund threatens aid to developing world, campaigner warns | Copenhagen Accord Establishes Global Government Framework | Canada part of Copenhagen climate deal | Final Copenhagen Text Includes Global Transaction Tax | World leaders push for climate deal | UN Chief: We Will Impose Global Governance | Copenhagen climate summit releases draft final text | IMF could fund climate adaptation: Soros | Copenhagen climate summit in disarray after ‘Danish text’ leak | Bombshell UN Climate Documents Reveal Planned “End Run” Around National Sovereignty | Friends of the Earth attacks carbon trading as banker scam | Oil Companies Support Global Warming Alarmists, Not Skeptics | EU agrees to pay developing countries ‘climate aid’ to pass Copenhagen | Copenhagen’s Plans for a New ‘Government’ are Scary | Copenhagen, carbon, and the global corporate agenda

Andres Schipani, The Guardian
April 23, 2010

Cochabamba conference closes with call for rich countries to halve greenhouse gas emissions and set up a court to punish climate crimes

Rich countries should reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% and set up a court to punish climate crimes, according to an international conference of grassroots climate groups and social movements in Bolivia.

President Evo Morales, who organised the gathering, also announced plans to mount a referendum of 2 billion people on solutions to the climate crisis within a year.

Speaking at the close of the four-day World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, Morales called on the UN to listen to the voice of the poorest. “The UN has an obligation to listen to its peoples and social forces. If the UN doesn’t want to lose its authority, they should apply the conclusions of this conference. And if they don’t, I am convinced that the peoples will apply their wisdom, recommendations and documents,” he said.

The conference – which was attended by 30,000 people, according to the organisers, including NGOs, scientists, as well as union and government delegations – resolved to push for proposals that keep fossil fuels in the ground, protect indigenous rights, and reject plans to pay countries not to cut down forests through schemes like Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (Redd). “This alternative has to succeed because the alternative to Cochabamba is Copenhagen and Copenhagen came out with a so-called solution to climate change that in no way meets the severity of the climate crisis,” said Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein.

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Flashback: Russia blames Nato for heroin surge from Afghanistan | Occupiers involved in drug trade: Afghan minister | Afghan leader’s corrupt brother paid by CIA, U.S. officials say | Afghanistan Drug Raid Snares Border Police Commander | Afghanistan’s Hidden Heroin Addicts | Canadian troops could soon target Afghan drug trade: top soldier | Reports reveal concerns over drug use among Canadian military | NATO to let troops fight Afghan drug lords | Karzai’s kin linked to heroin trafficking | Afghani Narco-state Continues to Blossom under Puppet President

Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian
April 23, 2010

Senior soldier says number of attacks on British troops have fallen but he expects them to rise again in summer

The opium poppy harvest in southern Afghanistan means insurgents have temporarily laid down their weapons so there are fewer Taliban-led attacks on British troops, a senior army spokesman said today.

“The reduction in insurgent activity … is a sign the poppy harvest is in full swing and therefore a great deal of young men are involved in harvesting,” said Major General Gordon Messenger. He warned that attacks could be expected to rise once the harvest was over. Official figures show the number of British casualties is relatively low in the spring but increases significantly during the summer.

Messenger was speaking at a briefing in London on the latest situation in central Helmand province, where 9,500 British troops are engaged in counter-insurgency and reconstruction. He disclosed that Royal Marines were recently attacked there by a child suicide bomber.

The general conceded that revenue from the lucrative narcotics trade remained “as important as ever” to the Taliban-led insurgency. However, he said, disrupting it was not a matter for Nato troops, but for the Afghan authorities.

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Just another hole in the official story. Thought everyone interested knew by now that the putative highjackers were seen to be training at Pensacola Naval Air Station and Venice Airfield in Florida, a hub for CIA narcotics trafficking. Of course the British government has ensured there will be no further investigation into this matter.

Karen McVeigh, Paul Lewis
April 23, 2010

Lotfi Raissi eligible for up to £2m compensation after wrongful imprisonment and damage to health

The pilot falsely accused of training the hijackers responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks has won his almost decade-long miscarriage of justice battle.

Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian living in Britain who lost his career as an airline pilot, suffered wrongful imprisonment and damage to his health, will now be eligible for up to £2m compensation.

Raissi became the first person to be accused of participating in the 2001 attack in New York and Washington. He was held for five months in Belmarsh high security prison in London and told he would be charged with conspiracy and murder in the US where he could face the death penalty.

Today he described the last nine years as “hell” but said he was delighted with the decision by Jack Straw, the justice secretary. “I have suffered such a great injustice, I’m grateful for this verdict. They took almost 10 years of my life and now I’m starting to breathe again.”

He added: “I’ve been exonerated, not just by a court, but by the British government. Now I can turn the page, but I can never forgive them for what they did.”

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