Month: April 2014

NPR – by Dina Cappiello

WASHINGTON (AP) — Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, a study shows, challenging the Obama administration’s conclusions that they are a much cleaner oil alternative and will help combat climate change.

A $500,000 study paid for by the federal government and released Sunday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change concludes that biofuels made with corn residue release 7 percent more greenhouse gases in the early years compared with conventional gasoline.   Continue reading “Study: Fuels From Corn Waste Not Better Than Gas”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

While the White House has continually threatened further sanctions against Russia for non-de-escalation (even as it un-de-escalates itself), the specifics of the additional sanctions have been sparse. German CEO warnings over blowback from economic sanctions… the “nonsense” of replacing Russian gas with US gas… the Russian warnings of “interdependence” and “boomerangs”… all reduce the West’s arsenal of financial sanctions. But, as The Times of London reports, perhaps the US has found a crucial pain point for Putin – a sanctions regime that would target Putin’s personal wealth, which includes a reported $40 billion stashed in Swiss bank accounts.   Continue reading “This Means War: US To Target Putin’s Personal $40 Billion Stash”

Washington’s Blog

War Makes Banks Rich

Bankers are often the driving force behind war.

After all, the banking system is founded upon the counter-intuitive but indisputable fact that banks create loans first, and then create deposits later.

In other words, virtually all money is actually created as debt. For example, in a hearing held on September 30, 1941 in the House Committee on Banking and Currency, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve (Mariner S. Eccles) said:   Continue reading “Bankers Love War Because It Creates Massive Profits”

Tom Dispatch – by Tom Engelhardt

How the mighty have fallen.  Once known as “Obama’s favorite general,” James Cartwright will soon don a prison uniform and, thanks to a plea deal, spend 13 months behind bars.  Involved in setting up the earliest military cyberforce inside U.S. Strategic Command, which he led from 2004 to 2007, Cartwright also played a role in launching the first cyberwar in history — the release of the Stuxnet virus against Iran’s nuclear program.  A Justice Department investigation found that, in 2012, he leaked information on the development of that virus to David Sanger of the New York Times. The result: a front-page piece revealing its existence, and so the American cyber-campaign against Iran, to the American public.  It was considered a serious breach of national security.  On Thursday, the retired four-star general stood in front of a U.S. district judge who told him that his “criminal act” was “a very serious one” and had been “committed by a national security expert who lost his moral compass.” It was a remarkable ending for a man who nearly reached the heights of Pentagon power, was almost appointed chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and had the president’s ear.   Continue reading “Knowledge Is Crime”

Global Research – by Joachim Hagopian

There is no greater natural resource on this earth than water. As the sustenance of all life, water keeps every living and breathing organism, every plant, every animal and every human being on this planet alive. In the same way that without air to breathe, without water we humans cannot sustain life for more than a few days.

Due to widespread drought and increasingly polluted water systems, the projected availability of clean freshwater in years to come to meet the rising demands of a growing global population is among the most daunting human challenges of this century. By 2015 a 17% increase in global water demand is projected just for increasing agriculturally produced food. By the same year 2025, the growing global population will increase water consumption needs by a whopping 40%. While oil played the keenly critical role during the twentieth century, water is being deemed the most valued precious natural resource of the twenty-first century.   Continue reading “Privatization of Water as an Owned Commodity Rather Than a Universal Human Right”

Video Rebel’s Blog

Wages are down. Unemployment is up. Inflation is up. The debts owed by individuals are way up along with government debts and Austerity measures from above imposed on those below. In America homes and ranches and farms have been stolen by the government and by the banks. In Nevada the Bureau of Land Management has taken to stealing cattle and hiring Blackwater mercenaries. We are told they needed the Bundy family land as a carbon off sink for a Chinese project and also the water rights for fracking. In Spain riot police chased peaceful demonstrators into the subways and beat them with clubs. They beat young pretty girls in the face with truncheons. I have talked to women who were anti-war demonstrators. They told me that in the old days the male police officers were disposed to treat the pretty girls better than the others. The police preferred to torture the less physically attractive women. Not anymore. The days of chivalry in the constabulary are over.   Continue reading “When Does The Resistance To Global Tyranny Begin?”

New York Post – by Larry Celona, Jamie Schram and Kirstan Conley

A former cop was charged with murder on Sunday after he allegedly shot his wife 10 times in front of their two young children as they watched in horror, prosecutors said.

Kevin Canty, 43, shot his wife, Jessica, 40, once in the stomach, twice in her right arm, three times in her chest and four times in her right armpit at their 104th Street home in Ozone Park, Queens, according to prosecutors.   Continue reading “‘Deranged’ ex cop shot wife 10 times as kids watched: officials”

Clean Technica – Solar Love

Panasonic has a long history of breaking solar efficiency records. The company recently announced that it has broken an efficiency record again.

Its HIT solar cell has achieved a conversion efficiency of 25.6%, a new world record and “a major increase over the previous world record for crystalline silicon-based solar cells,” as Panasonic notes.   Continue reading “Panasonic Sets New Solar Cell Efficiency Record”

Sent to us by a reader who asked for any confirmation on this.

SHTF Plan – by Mac Slavo

Though officials at the World Health Organization are feverishly working to stop the spread of the Ebola virus in what is now seven African nations, their efforts may be for naught. In Guinea, a hot spot for the deadly contagion, government health officials have said that the outbreak is nearly under control. Yet, Reuters reports that the government “planned to stop publicly releasing the death toll to avoid causing unnecessary panic.”   Continue reading “Report: Ebola Suspected In Europe: “Broken Through All Containment Efforts””

Survival Life – by Alex Miklovic

The Motley Fool – by Amanda Alix

As it does every year on April 1, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services made available tens of thousands of H-1B visas, the kind that allow U.S. businesses to bring highly skilled workers into the country to work, full-time, for up to six years. Since 2004, the number of visas was set at 65,000; two years later, another 20,000 were added for foreign graduates of U.S. colleges and universities.

By April 7, the government announced that the cap for 2015 was reached. Companies had filed 172,500 H-1B petitions within that time period, meaning that a lottery would be held to determine which businesses would receive the available 85,000 visas.   Continue reading “Did We Just Lose 85,000 U.S. Jobs to Foreign Workers?”

Yahoo News – by Brad Knickerbocker

Like a mustang tied to a fence post, many westerners for years have resisted Uncle Sam’s control of land they say more properly belongs to states or counties – or to nobody at all except the ranchers, miners, and loggers who work the land for its natural resources.

The tussle over Cliven Bundy’s 400 cows – grazing on federal land, although he refuses to pay the required fees now amounting to more than $1 million – sharpens this debate, which has featured state legislators, county officials, environmentalists, and federal judges (all of whom have ruled against Mr. Bundy).   Continue reading “Nevada range war: Western states move to take over federal land”

GOP USA

Like pieces of a puzzle, Kansas City police used tips about an erratic driver, a fingerprint from a plastic bag of shell casings and a bullet from a house that was shot last year to link Mohammed Whitaker, 27, to a series of recent highway shootings.

Jackson County prosecutors on Friday announced 18 felony charges against Whitaker involving nine separate shootings. Two of the charges relate to cases in which victims were wounded. In each case, police recovered, tested and matched spent .380-caliber bullets.    Continue reading “KC Highway Shooting Suspect Arrested and Charged”

Canada Free Press – by Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh

“Common Core will be raising good little socialists, who are in tune with their feelings, not so much their critical thinking skills.”  – Author unknown

I have seen many educational fads come and go, trying to replace teaching methodology in our public schools with something so revolutionary and never tried before that would make teaching a “science” instead of an art and to place all children into a national standardized one mold fits all in spite of the human variability in intelligence, talent, aptitude, ability, and the desire to learn. All these fads were driven by the Department of Education’s intention to fund new research that justified its existence and the college professors of education who were under the threat of “publish or perish” when it came to obtaining the very sought-after tenure – life employment without dismissal for cause. Education grew more and more liberal, infusing non-science subjects with Chavezism, Castroism, Maoism, Stalinism, feminism, racism, socialism, and communism.   Continue reading “Teach Common Sense not Common Core”