Department of Energy Wants to Let Radioactive Scrap Metal Back into Consumer Products

The overwhelming scientific consensus is that any amount of radiation - no matter how small - can cause cancer and other serious health effects.

(Current safety standards are based on the ridiculous assumption that everyone exposed is a healthy man in his 20s - and that radioactive particles ingested into the body cause no more damage than radiation hitting the outside of the body. In the real world, however, even low doses of radiation can cause cancer. Moreover, small particles of radiation - called "internal emitters" - which get inside the body are much more dangerous than general exposures to radiation. See this and this. And radiation affects small children much more than full-grown adults.)

"Everything the [Ford] Foundation did could be regarded as "making the World safe for capitalism", reducing social tensions by helping to comfort the afflicted, provide safety valves for the angry, and improve the functioning of government (McGeorge Bundy, National Security Advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson (1961-1966), President of the Ford Foundation, (1966-1979))

"By providing the funding and the policy framework to many concerned and dedicated people working within the non-profit sector, the ruling class is able to co-opt leadership from grassroots communities, ... and is able to make the funding, accounting, and evaluation components of the work so time consuming and onerous that social justice work is virtually impossible under these conditions" (Paul Kivel, You Call this Democracy, Who Benefits, Who Pays and Who Really Decides, 2004, p. 122 )

In August 2010, the Yesha Council together with Israel Sheli (My Israel), organized a workshop in Jerusalem to teach people how to edit Wikipedia articles in a pro-Israeli way. (Wikipedia)

The Yesha Council which is the Hebrew acronym for Yehuda Shomron, Aza, lit. "Judea Samaria and Gaza Council") is an umbrella organization of municipal councils of Jewish settlements in the West Bank (and formerly in the Gaza Strip), known by the Hebrew acronym Yesha. (ibid)

My Israel (Israel Sheli) is "an Israel right wing extra-parliamentary Zionist movement", which "deals with PR across the internet and especially social networks".

We bring to the consideration of Global Research readers this short video which features the Yesha Council-Israeli Sheli training program, pertaining to the art of manipulating online content on Wikipedia entries.

Newtown resident, Bill Stevens addresses a gang of CT politicians. His 5th grade daughter's friend was murdered on 12/14/12 'when 911 and lockdown were not enough to protect her from an evil person, not an assault rifle - an inanimate object, an evil person.' He then attempts to educate the group on what the CT constitution and the Bill of Rights say about the right to bear arms.

Doug Casey Interviewed by Louis James, Editor, International Speculator

L: Doug, we've been hearing a lot about this image of the president shooting a shotgun circulating on the Internet. In the wake of the Connecticut massacre and multiple other shootings that have occupied the headlines of late, it's quite striking. There have been so many murders involving guns in the news lately, it's starting to look like a bloody wave of copycat activity. Or maybe, as the Greater Depression deepens, more and more people are just going to go nuts, making this a taste of things to come... What do you think?

Doug: Either of those things could be true. Both may well be; but the elephant in the room no one wants to talk about is that so many of these murderers - the vast majority, actually - turn out to be under some form of psychiatric care and on meds. What's really needed is a deep and thorough review of psychological and psychiatric practices in the US, with strict examination of the correlation between various medications and subsequent violent behavior.

Popular drugs like Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Ritalin, and literally hundreds of others have very serious side effects. Shrinks are in the custom of prescribing them as an answer to the moral problems that everyone has to confront. These drugs don't resolve moral dilemmas; they disguise them and confuse the issue. I find it interesting that random mass murders were never an issue up until the last 20 years or so - roughly coincidental with a substantial portion of the US population, especially kids, being put on meds for all kinds of imaginary psychological disorders... things that used to be considered just part of life. I suggest readers look into the views of Peter Breggin, M.D., an old friend of mine who's done an immense amount of work in the area for years.

L: We need more laws regulating shrinks, not guns?

Doug: I'm not in favor of laws regulating either, but yes, people are confusing the means of violence with the cause of violence. We need to have an honest and unbiased look at what makes people turn murderous. If we don't, the massacres will continue, just using different weapons.

The financial world was shocked this month by a demand from Germany's Bundesbank to repatriate a large portion of its gold reserves held abroad. By 2020, Germany wants 50% of its total gold reserves back in Frankfurt - including 300 tons from the Federal Reserve. The Bundesbank's announcement comes just three months after the Fed refused to submit to an audit of its holdings on Germany's behalf. One cannot help but wonder if the refusal triggered the demand.

Either way, Germany appears to be waking up to a reality for which central banks around the world have been preparing: the dollar is no longer the world's safe-haven asset and the US government is no longer a trustworthy banker for foreign nations. It looks like their fears are well-grounded, given the Fed's seeming inability to return what is legally Germany's gold in a timely manner. Germany is a developed and powerful nation with the second largest gold reserves in the world. If they can't rely on Washington to keep its promises, who can?

Hacker breached AOL account of ex-president's sister, other victims

The apparent hack of several e-mail accounts has exposed personal photos and sensitive correspondence from members of the Bush family, including both former U.S. presidents, The Smoking Gun has learned.

The photos and e-mails were uploaded yesterday to an online account that appears to have been hacked for the purpose of hosting the material.

In e-mail exchanges with the person who claimed responsibility for the hack, the individual claimed to have swiped "a lot of stuff," including "interesting mails" about George H.W. Bush's recent hospitalization, "Bush 43," and other Bush family members.

Included in the hacked material is a confidential October 2012 list of home addresses, cell phone numbers, and e-mails for dozens of Bush family members, including both former presidents, their siblings, and their children. The posted photos and e-mails contain a watermark with the hacker's online alias, "Guccifer."

Correspondence obtained by the hacker indicates that at least six separate e-mail accounts have been compromised, including the AOL account of Dorothy Bush Koch, daughter of George H.W. Bush and sister of George W. Bush. Other breached accounts belong to Willard Heminway, 79, an old friend of the 41st president who lives in Greenwich, Connecticut; CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz, a longtime Bush family friend; former first lady Barbara Bush's brother; and George H.W. Bush's sister-in-law.

Al Madrigal of The Daily Show mocked an anti-Islam conservative activist on Thursday night amid a report on the M1 Abrams tank.

More than 100 members of Congress have called on the Pentagon to build 300 more of the massive tanks at a cost of $3 billion. But the Army has said it has no need for them.

"Well, we need more tanks for the simple reason that we may have to use them," conservative author Alan Caruba explained.

Retired Major General Paul Eaton disagreed emphatically. He noted the U.S. military already had 3,000 tanks "sitting in a boneyard near Reno," causing Madrigal to wonder if Nevada had ever been attacked.

The Senate of North Dakota approved a measure on Thursday that would outlaw abortion by defining a fetus as a person.

"North Dakota is leading the way for equal rights and protections for all human beings," Jennifer Mason, spokesperson for Personhood USA, said. "After the struggles to pass life-affirming amendments in the Senate in the past four years, we are very pleased that the North Dakota Senate has chosen to protect all living human beings. This is a historic day in North Dakota."

The US prosecuted Omar Khadr in Guantánamo for not being a lawful combatant. Exactly the same applies to the civilian CIA

The disclosure Tuesday evening of the Department of Justice white paper on targeted killing (pdf) has sparked a lot of debate, much of it focused on the Obama administration's extraordinarily broad interpretation of what constitutes an "imminent" threat that justifies lethal force as an act of self-defense. As Senator Rand Paul (Republican, Kentucky) told reporters during a conference call on Wednesday, "only a team of lawyers could define 'imminent' to mean the exact opposite" of what the word means in the real world.

There are, no doubt, many Americans alive today who should be thankful their healthcare providers did not apply the administration's interpretation of "imminent" to decide if they had crossed over the line of imminent death and said pull the plug.

Some people have acquired power and profits in post-9/11 America by pandering to and perpetuating fear. As has been the case on a range of legal issues - torture, indefinite detention, warrantless surveillance, kill lists - all it takes is for someone to say "terrorism" and "threat to security" in the same breath for the vast majority of the public to handover its principles. Rather than a serious discussion on the proper law/liberty/security balance, too often the public accepts the false syllogism that whatever it takes to stop "them" from hurting "us" is obviously, as White House spokesman Jay Carney might say, "legal, ethical and wise".