From the Trenches World Report

ETF Guide – by Ron DeLegge

The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries (^TNX) has surged 66% over the past three months. And bond investors, especially those with jumbo-sized positions, are getting hammered. How much money has the Federal Reserve lost?

At the end of July, the Federal Reserve held $1.98 trillion in U.S. Treasuries. (See chart below) That figure represents just over half of the Fed’s $3.6 trillion balance sheet.    Continue reading “Bond Losses at Federal Reserve Top $192 Billion”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

Earlier, we reported the personal narrative of Michele Catalano who recounted how one day she found herself face to face with six agents from the joint terrorism task force. The reason? “Our seemingly innocent, if curious to a fault, Googling of certain things was creating a perfect storm of terrorism profiling. Because somewhere out there, someone was watching. Someone whose job it is to piece together the things people do on the internet raised the red flag when they saw our search history.”   Continue reading “What Google Knows About You”

MI Stupid

We’ve all been there but don’t like to admit it. We’ve all kicked back in our cubicles and suddenly felt something brew down below. As much as we try to convince ourselves otherwise, the WORK POOP is inevitable. For those who hate pooping at work, following is the Survival Guide for taking a dump at work. Memorize these definitions and pooping at work will become a pure pleasure.   Continue reading “How to Poop at Work”

Washington Times – by Lisa Ruth

In warning about possible al Qaeda attacks against Americans overseas, U.S. officials may have provided too much detail about intercepted chatter and the source of the information, and that may make it more difficult to get such tips next time, former and current intelligence officials say.

On Friday, the U.S. State Department issued a worldwide travel alert for Americans, citing an unspecified al Qaeda threat. The bulletin said that the highest threat levels are the Middle East and North Africa, “and possibly occurring in or emanating from the Arab Peninsula.”   Continue reading “Intel community worried Obama administration disclosed too much about latest al Qaeda threat”

Care 2 – by Michelle Schoffro Cook

I was shocked to read a story in Canada’s highly conservative national newspaper, The Globe and Mail, a couple of days ago in which well-known investor and columnist Chris Umiastowski, P.Eng., MBA, warned of the risk in holding Monsanto stock.  It was refreshing to read the views of an investor who is not just concerned about the bottom line but also the potential health and environmental risks in such a conservative paper. I knew that this was a victory-of-sorts for all of us who share a concern over the increasingly genetically-modified nature of our food supply.   Continue reading “Monsanto Stock in Danger, Investor Warns”

The Hill – by Carlo Muñoz

The Obama administration was forced into damage control on Thursday as officials attempted to walk back Secretary of State John Kerry’s pledge to end armed drone operations in Pakistan.

During a diplomatic visit to Pakistan on Thursday, Kerry told Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif that Washington plans to severely curtail and eventually end armed drone operations in the country.    Continue reading “White House backpedals on Kerry’s pledge to end drone strikes in Pakistan”

Canada Free Press – by Doug Hagmann

There is one thing certain about the publicized threat to our embassies; it is not what it is presented to be. To accept the official explanation of a nebulous threat from al Qaeda as the reason for closing our embassies across the Middle East and North Africa is being dangerously naive and simplistic.   Continue reading “Unmasking the embassy threat”

AlterNet – by Cameron Langford, Courthouse News

A former Harris County jailer must face claims that his rape of a 15-year-old detainee was caught on videotape, a federal judge ruled.

In a November 2012  complaint on behalf of their daughter M.S.H., Michelle and Danny Hall sued Harris County; the executive director of its juvenile probation department, Thomas Brooks; and former correctional officer Robert Robinson.     Continue reading “Caught: 15-Year-Old Texas Female Inmate Has Video Evidence of Jailer Raping Her”

Saving Advice – by Patrick Russo

A bank failure regularly occurs when a bank’s assets become less valuable than its liabilities. The value of an institution’s assets can diminish for a number of reasons, including an increase of noncurrent loans, a decrease in deposits, or a decrease in the loan loss allowance amount on its books. Some banks are able to recover before the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) boards up the windows, but on many occasions the government regulatory agency quickly steps in and closes down operations in an attempt to minimize economic damages. The FDIC has closed 16 banks down so far this year, and so as not to waste an opportunity to learn from these failures, here are 25 lessons you, as a consumer, should take in stride:    Continue reading “Bank Failures: 25 Things Everyone with a Bank Account Needs to Know”

Activist Post – by Mark DeNicola

We all know it by now, cell phones emit radio-frequency energy. The one thing still up for debate is whether or not this radio-frequency energy is harmful to the human body, and if it is to what extent.

Here is what we do know, radio-frequency is a form of electromagnetic radiation (EMR). EMR is a wave-like energy that is emitted and absorbed by charged particles. In the case of a cell phone, the phone emits the EMR (in the form of radio-frequency) and the human operating it absorbs it. EMR can be classified into one of two categories: (1) Ionizing – the more powerful of the two, (2) Non-Ionizing – the less powerful and lower frequency.   Continue reading “The Harmful Effects of Cell Phones and How to Reduce It”