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US: Vice President's staff lock journalist in a closet for hours during a fundraiser to stop him talking to guests

Simon Neville
The Daily Mail, UK
Sat, 26 Mar 2011 09:37 UTC
The White House website proudly says 'President Obama is committed to creating the most open and accessible administration in American history.'

But try telling Vice President Joe Biden's staff that, after they held a local reporter in a closet for hours after he was invited to cover a Florida political fundraiser because they did not want him talking with the guests.

As the unaware $500-a-head invitees dined on caprese crostini with oven-dried mozzarella and basil, rosemary flatbread with grapes honey and gorgonzola cheese, grilled chicken Caesar and garden vegetable wraps, veteran reporter Scott Powers was locked away.
Image
© The Associated Press and Getty Images
1st Amendment: Freedom of the press was stretched when VP Joe Biden's staff refused to let a reporter talk with guests at a fundraiser with Sen Bill Nelson

The Orlando Sentinel reporter was ushered into the closet inside wealthy property developer Alan Ginsburg's Winter Falls mansion, after being told that Joe Biden and Senator Bill Nelson had not yet arrived.

They were due to speak to the audience to raise money for the 2012 elections.
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Evil Rays

Extreme Radiation Detected at Fukushima No.2 Reactor


NHK (Japan Broadcasting Co)
Sun, 27 Mar 2011 01:13 UTC
Fukushima plant
© n/a
Damaged reactor buildings at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.
Tokyo Electric Power Company says it has detected radioactive materials 10-million-times normal levels in water at the No.2 reactor complex of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

The plant operator, known as TEPCO, says it measured 2.9-billion becquerels of radiation per one cubic centimeter of water from the basement of the turbine building attached to the Number 2 reactor.

The level of contamination is about 1,000 times that of the leaked water already found in the basements of the Number 1 and 3 reactor turbine buildings.

The company says the latest reading is 10-million times the usual radioactivity of water circulating within a normally operating reactor.
TEPCO says the radioactive materials include 2.9-billion becquerels of iodine-134, 13-million becquerels of iodine-131, and 2.3-million becquerels each for cesium 134 and 137.
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Attention

UK: TUC protest march: anarchists on the rampage in London

Patrick Sawer
The Telegraph, UK
Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:58 UTC
Anarchists went on the rampage in central London as hundreds of thousands of people marched in protest at government cuts.


Police fought mobs of masked thugs who pelted officers with ammonia and fireworks loaded with coins.

The anti-capitalists started fires and smashed their way into banks, hotels and shops, bringing chaos to Britain's busiest shopping street.

The violence began as Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, addressed a TUC rally of at least 250,000 peaceful protesters in Hyde Park who had marched from Westminster to demonstrate against government spending cuts.

As he spoke, an apparently co-ordinated attack began on shops and police in Oxford Street as a mob tried to storm into shops including Topshop, BHS and John Lewis.

MPs and retailers said the scenes damaged Britain's reputation around the world.
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Sheeple

The Biggest Threat Facing the Country Today Is Fast Creeping Ignorance

Stephen Pizzo
AlterNet
Fri, 25 Mar 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© AlterNet
It's reached epidemic levels in government. Isn't wanton ignorance among those we trust with nuclear policies, war, famine, jobs, the national debt and more, a concern?

I am old enough to remember the days when what Americans were told to fear most was "Creeping Communism."

There were even hearings. There was a blacklist. There were arrests and even a couple of executions.

In the end all communism turned out to be creeping toward was its own extinction.

We may not be as lucky with the new creep we're facing today: Creeping Ignorance.

As a story from AlterNet put it, "3/4ths of Senate GOP Doesn't Believe in Science: The Tea Party and its allies had made it unacceptable to the GOP base to be anywhere except pandering to the anti-science crowd."

Comment: Perhaps ignorance is not the only or the most dangerous threat facing American society but the creeping epidemic of psychopathic individuals in positions of power. For more information on the destructive nature of psychopaths in our society readPolitical Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes.

      Read More...
Dollar

Elizabeth Taylor's fortune may approach $1B


CBS News
Sat, 26 Mar 2011 00:00 UTC
Elizabeth Taylor
© The Associated Press
A 1983 photo of Elizabeth Taylor.
Few realize the other side of the film legend: mogul; Where will all the money go, and how much can she make from the grave?

Elizabeth Taylor left more than her historic Hollywood legacy when she died Wednesday at 79.

It's believed she was worth between $600 million and $1 billion, most of it, according to Bloomberg Businessweek Senior Editor Diane Brady, from the side of her few fans realized had grown so big - Liz Taylor, businesswoman.

Brady says Taylor was actually "one of the first people out there basically branding her personality."

On The Early Show on Saturday Morning, Brady told co-anchor Rebecca Jarvis estimates of the size of Taylor's fortune fall in a "pretty broad range. You are hearing a billion. You're hearing $600 million. I think $600 million seems to be what most people are settling on.

"But, you know, clearly, they're auctioning off her jewelry collection. They think that's going to be about $150 million. She had real estate that was worth at least $130 million.

"But a lot of the money she made was actually in her perfume business. She had costume jewelry.

"This was an entrepreneur. So it wasn't just an actress who amassed a fortune. She was one of the first people out there basically branding her personality."
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Crusader

Elizabeth Taylor: James Dean was molested by his minister


CBS News
Fri, 25 Mar 2011 04:46 UTC
Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean
© The Associated Press
Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean in a scene from Giant
Elizabeth Taylor shared a shocking secret about fellow screen legend James Dean during an interview 14 years ago, but requested that it not be published until after she died.

"I loved Jimmy. I'm going to tell you something, but it's off the record until I die. OK?" she told writer Kevin Sessums during a 1997 interview for POZ magazine, according to a piece published by the Daily Beast Friday.

"When Jimmy was 11 and his mother passed away, he began to be molested by his minister," she alleged.. "I think that haunted him the rest of his life. In fact, I know it did. We talked about it a lot."

"During Giant we'd stay up nights and talk and talk, and that was one of the things he confessed to me," Taylor said, referring to the 1956 movie the two co-starred in with Rock Hudson.

Dean was killed in 1955 in a car accident at the age of 24. He earned two posthumous Oscar nominations, one in 1956 for East of Eden and in 1957 for his role in "Giant."

Taylor died Wednesday of congestive heart failure at 79. She was 15 minutes late for her own funeral on Thursday.
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Nuke

Where were you between April 26 and May 9, 1986? Animation of Radiation Cloud Over Europe Following Chernobyl


Institut de Radioprotection et de Sûreté Nucléaire
Sat, 26 Mar 2011 17:55 UTC
Translated from French by Sott.net


This animation shows the spread of radiation based on readings taken of the concentration levels of cesium 137 over Europe between April 26 and May 6, 1986.

Download the note accompanying the animation - "Modeling the Europe-wide dispersion of cesium 137 in the air following the Chernobyl accident" (pdf) .fr
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Wolf

The Psychopath

G.A. Dwyer Astaphan
SKNVibes
Sat, 26 Mar 2011 12:50 UTC
Image
© Unknown
Let me tell you about a man, but there are women who also fit his description.

This is a man who knows you. A man who in some way is involved in your life. And you know him too.

Or at least, you think that you know him. But you don't. Really, you don't.

He has no conscience. No feelings of guilt or remorse for anything that he does. He is totally unscrupulous. He has no sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends or even family members. He even enjoys seeing you suffer.

And you are more likely to fall victim to him if you are vulnerable or disenfranchised.

He only cares about himself. He is totally self-centered, totally self-absorbed, being the ultimate Narcissist.

He has little interest in consequences and little fear or concern about the future, because he feels that he can deal with whatever comes.

Comment: See the following link for more information on the destructive nature of psychopaths in our society.
Political Ponerology: A Science on The Nature of Evil adjusted for Political Purposes

      Read More...
Che Guevara

UK: London march may be the biggest in history


Press TV
Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:23 UTC
Image
© unknown

The TUC-organized March for the Alternative in London enjoys the potential to demonstrate unity and solidarity among every member of Britain's labor movement.

Between 100,000 to 300,000 people are expected to turn out in the massive protests organized by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) today to show that they are united and determined to resist the coalition government's cuts program.

Tens of thousands of teachers, council staff, nurses, students, National Health Service (NHS) and other workers are scheduled to partake in the huge demonstration, which is the biggest public backlash against the government's spending cuts since it came to power after May 2010 general elections.

The protest march is the biggest union-organized march for more than 20 years and the largest in the country since the anti-Iraq war march in 2003.

Labour politicians including leader Ed Miliband will also be attending, as well as hundreds of radical activists intent on taking direct action.

A number of protesters have vowed to occupy Oxford Street and key buildings along the protest route.
      Read More...
War Whore

'114 Libyans killed in US-led strikes'


Press TV
Sat, 26 Mar 2011 03:55 UTC
Image
© unknown
A Libyan mourner at the grave of an opposition force killed in the eastern city of Ajdabiya.
Libya says at least 114 people, including several civilians, have been killed and 445 others injured in a week-long campaign of US-led military airstrikes in the oil-rich country.

"From March 20 to March 23, the attacks have killed 114 people and injured 445 people," the Libyan State TV quoted Libyan Health Minister Khaled Omar as saying at a press conference in Tripoli on Saturday.

According to government figures, 104 people were killed in the capital Tripoli -- the city of 2 million that is most firmly in Gaddafi's grip and some other suburbs -- while another 10 civilians lost their lives in Sirte, the hometown of the Libyan strongman.

Meanwhile, on the eight day of the US-led military operations on Saturday, the British, French and US warplanes hit civilian and military sites in Tripoli and Zliten. Several large explosions were heard in Tripoli.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told his US counterpart Barack Obama on Thursday that preventing deaths of civilians in Libya should be the overriding priority for the Western forces participating in the Libya war.

The situation in Libya's third-largest city, Misrata, which is some 210 km (130 miles) east of Tripoli and has a population of more than half a million, is much worse than the other areas.
      Read More...
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