From the Trenches World Report

The Black Sphere

Politicians wonder why we want accountability for our money, well when a state pays $12 million to DEAD PEOPLE, it does raise a few flags.

According to this report, the Illinois Medicaid program paid an estimated $12 million for medical services for people listed as deceased in other state records, according to an internal state government memo. Auditors identified overpayments for services to roughly 2,900 people after the date of their deaths.   Continue reading “$12 million paid to DEAD people in IL Medicaid”

The News Doctors

Slavyansk (Ukraine) (AFP) 4/20/2014 8:33:27 PM

US Vice President Joe Biden will begin a two-day visit to Ukraine on Monday, hours after a fragile Easter truce was shattered and pro-Kremlin rebels in the country’s east appealed for help from Russian “peacekeepers”.

Biden’s arrival in Kiev comes after a deadly gunfight gunfight killed at least two pro-Russian militants, an incident which sparked “outrage” in Moscow.   Continue reading “US Vice President Heads To Ukraine After Fragile Truce Shattered”

Naked Security – by John Hawes

Technology giant NEC’s Hong Kong branch is promoting a small, “easy to install” appliance which will enable businesses to monitor their customers based on facial recognition.

From a recent NEC press release:

The new Mobile Facial Recognition Appliance enables organizations in any industry to offer an ultra-personalized customer experience by recognizing the face of each and every customer as soon as they set foot on the premises.  

Continue reading “Facial recognition – coming soon to a shopping mall near you”

RT News

Katsutaka Idogawa, former mayor of Futaba, a town near the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant, is warning his country that radiation contamination is affecting Japan’s greatest treasure – its children.

Asked about government plans to relocate the people of Fatuba to the city of Iwaki, inside the Fukushima prefecture, Idogawa criticized the move as a “violation of human rights.”

Compared with Chernobyl, radiation levels around Fukushima “are four times higher,” he told RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze, adding that “it’s too early for people to come back to Fukushima prefecture.”   Continue reading “Fukushima radiation killing our children, govt hides truth – former mayor”

RT News

BP, the fifth largest company in the world, is refusing to foot the bill for US government-sponsored studies into its 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, including research into its impact on marine life, according to documents seen by the Financial Times.

The US government in July requested $148 million from BP to fund research work into the consequences of the spill, which started on April 20, 2010 when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sunk in the Gulf of Mexico.   Continue reading “BP caps cash pipeline to research worst oil spill in US history”

Mail.com

HONOLULU (AP) — Officials say a 16-year-old boy is “lucky to be alive” and unharmed after flying from California to Hawaii stowed away in a plane’s wheel well, surviving cold temperatures at 38,000 feet and a lack of oxygen.

“Doesn’t even remember the flight,” FBI spokesman Tom Simon in Honolulu told The Associated Press on Sunday night. “It’s amazing he survived that.” The boy was questioned by the FBI after being discovered on the tarmac at the Maui airport Sunday morning with no identification, Simon said.   Continue reading “Teen OK after riding in wheel well of Hawaii jet”

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”