Puppet MastersS


Blackbox

US: Woman's afro prompts TSA pat-down

Is it possible to hide weapons in your hair?

The Transportation Security Administration thinks so.


MIB

UK: Lloyd's of London Pulls Deposits From Banks on Debt Crisis

Lloyd's of london
Lloyds of London

Lloyd's of London, concerned European governments may be unable to support lenders in a worsening debt crisis, has pulled deposits in some peripheral economies as the European Central Bank provided dollars to one euro-area institution.

"There are a lot of banks who, because of the uncertainty around Europe, the market has stopped using to place deposits with," Luke Savage, finance director of the world's oldest insurance market, said today in a phone interview. "If you're worried the government itself might be at risk, then you're certainly worried the banks could be taken down with them."

European banks and their regulators are trying to reassure investors and customers that lenders have enough capital to withstand a default by Greece and slowing economic growth caused by governments' austerity measures. Siemens AG, European's biggest engineering company, withdrew short-term deposits from Societe Generale SA, France's second-largest bank, in July, a person with knowledge of the matter said yesterday.

Binoculars

US: Atlanta Increases Surveillance of City

for public and officer safety on the Digital Integration Video Array (DIVA)
© Jason Getz / AJCAtlanta Police Department Marion Ellis watches a live APD traffic stop to observe for public and officer safety on the Digital Integration Video Array (DIVA) at the Joint Video Integration Center in the 911 Communication Center.
Plans to put Atlanta's public spaces under camera surveillance will move forward this week with the opening of a state-of-the-art video monitoring center.

Whether it's good that Atlanta is joining other big cities in the video surveillance race depends on your comfort level with being watched more often by police.

The downtown "Video Integration Center," funded by a mix of private donations and public money, has already given Atlanta police links to more than 100 public and private security cameras.

Talks are underway to link up with more cameras at CNN Center, Georgia State University, the Georgia World Congress Center and MARTA, along with cameras in Buckhead.

Officials say hundreds or thousands more private-sector cameras will eventually feed into the center. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution toured the center last week, as live footage of a traffic stop and archived video of a DragonCon parade played on a 15-foot screen. Officers can watch up to 128 views at once.

Rocket

U.S. assembling secret drone aircraft bases in Africa, Arabian Peninsula, officials say

Image
© Unknown
The Obama administration is assembling a constellation of secret drone bases for counterterrorism operations in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as part of a newly aggressive campaign to attack al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia and Yemen, U.S. officials said.

One of the installations is being established in Ethi­o­pia, a U.S. ally in the fight against al-Shabab, the Somali militant group that controls much of that country. Another base is in the Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, where a small fleet of "hunter-killer" drones resumed operations this month after an experimental mission demonstrated that the unmanned aircraft could effectively patrol Somalia from there.

The U.S. military also has flown drones over Somalia and Yemen from bases in Djibouti, a tiny African nation at the junction of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. In addition, the CIA is building a secret airstrip in the Arabian Peninsula so it can deploy armed drones over Yemen.

The rapid expansion of the undeclared drone wars is a reflection of the growing alarm with which U.S. officials view the activities of al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and Somalia, even as al-Qaeda's core leadership in Pakistan has been weakened by U.S. counterterrorism operations.

Top Secret

US building secret drone bases in Africa

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© US Dept of Defense
The United States is assembling a series of secret drone bases in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula to launch an aggressive campaign against al-Qaida-linked groups in Somalia and Yemen, the Washingon Post reported Tuesday night.

The Post said the new bases are in Ethiopia, the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean and on the Arabian Peninsula. The military has also flown drones out of Djibouti, at the conjunction of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

In addition to using armed drones in Yemen and Somalia, the U.S. government has used them in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

Libya is the most recent country where the U.S. has used drones. Unarmed Predator drones flew surveillance missions to support the NATO mission against Moammar Gadhafi, officials have said.

The Post said the expansion of the drone program in the Arabian Peninsula reflected U.S. alarm over al-Qaida affiliates in Yemen and Somalia.

Comment: Let's look into the media illusion here shall we? Somalia has no Pirates, they have fishermen who are tired of their waters being a nuclear waste dump site for Europe.

So the U.S. decides to put drones around a country of starving people, does that make sense? Maybe they'll perform some flase flag activity, killing thousands if not more and claim someone else did it?

Of many other things in this article, one that sticks out for me is, the Horrifying, Terror driven, name-brand-monster-machine, A.K.A. (also known as) "al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula". The history of these "ferocious", "fire-brand", "lawless", "dangerous" people and there series of "attacks on U.S. territory", makes me want to run just thinking about them, except I don't actually recall any history of them attacking U.S. territory. The article is seething with fear affect in this editors opinion.


Arrow Down

Occupy Wall Street: Protesters Violently Arrested in New York

Arrest at Zuccotti Park
© LibertyPlazaRevArrest at Zuccotti Park
Eye-witnesses are claiming police brutality accompanied three arrests in New York City's Zuccotti Park. NYPD sought to tear down tents and stop livestream.

Watched in real time by an international audience, New York's police officers moved in on Zuccotti Park. It was 7.20am, on September 20th 2011, and a light rain was falling over the 200-300 people camping out there. They had been there for four days, as part of the Occupy Wall Street protest. What began as a request from police, to remove tents and tarpaulin, ended in seven arrests. Onlookers claimed these were too violent.

The Global Revolution Livestream captured much of the incident, channeling the footage in real time to its 3000 plus viewers. In addition, some protesters were filming the arrests, then they uploaded their videos onto YouTube.

Vader

US: New York City Police Violate Constitutional First Amendment Rights

You may or may not have heard about the occupation of Wall Street by several thousand protestors. The event was organized by "OccupyWallStreet", with the intent of demonstrating to Wall Street (for the first time) that while our politicians and right-wing media may not object to what they've done to our country and its people, the people damn well object.

Wall Street is the biggest contributor to our politicians, so we can never expect our government to stand up to them. Wall Street has long ago been given a green light to rape the country and the citizens without fear of retribution. So it's up to the people to do something about it. But with all that power, the police is directed to violate the protestors civil rights.

Yahoo is getting in on the act of silencing the protestors. They started censoring email messages about the protestors. Just one more nail in the coffin of freedom here in America.

Here are two videos, the first of which is the police attacking and beating some of the protestors. The second is the police tearing down a tarp the protestors had set up to protect their camera equipment from the rain.


Attention

Amazon's Warehouses Are Literally Sweatshops

Chinese Goods
© MinyanvilleSafety first...okay, maybe third.

Ever wonder how Amazon keeps prices so low and ships your books and Blu-Ray discs so quickly? Certainly not by providing a living wage, health benefits, or a safe workplace to the people who pack them.

The Morning Call newspaper of Allentown, Penn., investigated working conditions at the online retail hegemon's Lehigh Valley warehouse, and the results were, well, quite a doozy. It seems a temp agency keeps the shop staffed with $11 and $12-an-hour workers, who endure a breakneck pace, constant threat of dismissal if they can't keep up, and Bikram yoga-like temperatures for a slim chance at a permanent job with Amazon.

Apparently when Amazon offers to bribe California with jobs to avoid paying sales taxes there, these are the sort of jobs it's talking about -- ones that require ambulances parked outside to cart away the casualties:
Workers said they were forced to endure brutal heat inside the sprawling warehouse and were pushed to work at a pace many could not sustain. Employees were frequently reprimanded regarding their productivity and threatened with termination, workers said. The consequences of not meeting work expectations were regularly on display, as employees lost their jobs and got escorted out of the warehouse. Such sights encouraged some workers to conceal pain and push through injury lest they get fired as well, workers said.

During summer heat waves, Amazon arranged to have paramedics parked in ambulances outside, ready to treat any workers who dehydrated or suffered other forms of heat stress. Those who couldn't quickly cool off and return to work were sent home or taken out in stretchers and wheelchairs and transported to area hospitals. And new applicants were ready to begin work at any time.

Sheeple

Hidden Camera Exposes Americans Will Submit and Not Question Authority When Ordered to Do the Most Absurd Things

When I watched John Stossel on Fox Business, He had the man who done Candid Camera for years on and off. The host of Candid Camera tell the audience on all his spoofs on camera might be funny. He also exposes the reality of people will not question authority even doing the most absurd things. You be the judge and you tell me. Is it scary people will not question authority? Watch and enjoy.


Arrow Down

International Monetary Fund sharply downgrades outlook for US economy

The International Monetary Fund has slashed its outlook for the U.S. economy and global growth through 2012.

In its September 2011 World Economic Outlook, released Tuesday, the international lending organization said it now expects the U.S. economy to grow just 1.5 percent this year and 1.8 percent in 2012, down from its June forecast of 2.5 percent in 2011 and 2.7 percent in 2012.


Overall, advanced economies are facing anemic growth of only 1.6 percent in 2011, the IMF said in its latest forecast, adding that the global economic recovery is slowing, with world growth projected at 4 percent in both 2011 and 2012, down from over 5 percent in 2010.

"The global economy is in a dangerous new phase," the IMF said. "Global activity has weakened and become more uneven, confidence has fallen sharply recently, and downside risks are growing."