Pennsylvania investigating methane leaks in Sullivan County

ohio/Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection is investigating two methane leaks that may be linked to an orphan well in Sullivan County.
Here's what the Responsible Drilling Alliance reports on the problem:

Orphaned Well Being Plugged In Sullivan Co.

Methane bubbling near Chesapeake drilling operations in Black Creek, Forks Township, Sullivan County, PA. (Image: Responsible Drilling Alliance)

by Morgan Myers and Ralph Kisberg

DUSHORE, PA - The Department of Environmental Protection is investigating two methane migration incidents near Chesapeake Energy drilling operations in Forks Township, Sullivan County. One incident occurred in the Black Creek area, and the other near Pleasant Valley Road.

Although DEP has not yet determined the cause of either methane migration, an abandoned well from the 1950's was discovered around a mile northwest of the Pleasant Valley Road problem area.

DEP detected combustible gas at the surface of the ground above the abandoned BJ Broschart well in Forks Township. A township resident reported to RDA that the well was drilled to a depth of 7,000' and never put into production.

"Since the well is considered an orphaned well, with no viable operator, the department assumed the responsibility of plugging the well through the Orphaned Well Plugging Fund," said Spadoni.

Hydrocarbon Well Services well-plugging site (Image: RDA)

DEP hired Hydrocarbon Well Services to plug the orphaned well through an emergency contract.

"Had we not taken this action, this well would have simply been added to a list of thousands of orphaned wells waiting to be plugged, and it could have taken many years," said Spadoni.

"We first became aware of the [Pleasant Valley Road] situation through a report form Chesapeake, after the company received a complaint from a resident," said DEP's Community Relations Coordinator Dan Spadoni in an email. "The initial investigation led to the temporary evacuation of the resident due to elevated levels of methane in the basement of the home."

Methane vent in Sullivan County. Click the image to hear the eerie sound coming from the vent. (Image: RDA)

Vents and alarms were installed so that the resident could return to the property.

"Screening and further investigation in the area identified several other water supplies, including that of the complainant, with elevated levels of methane," said Spadoni.

According to DEP, there were no obvious problems with Chesapeake's nearby Lambert Farms well that would have contributed to the methane migration.

"[That's] why there is no specific violation in our compliance system," said Spadoni.

The other methane migration occurred in the Black Creek area of Forks Township, which is about 4 miles away from the BJ Broschart well.

"There is one potentially impacted water supply as well as surface expressions of methane in the creek. The nearest gas wells to this occurrence are Chesapeake's Black Creek and Insinger wells," said Spadoni. "Again, there are no obvious problems relating to the construction of these gas wells, which is why there are no specific violations noted."

As drilling activity increases in the Marcellus Shale region, so do the risks posed by abandoned wells.

"When new gas wells are drilled near abandoned wells, the abandoned wells present an increased risk of gas migration," said Laurie Barr of Save Our Streams PA. "Unplugged wells can provide pathways between formation layers and the surface.

"Safety issues arise when abandoned wells are located within close proximity to active drilling," said Barr. "In McKean County a home exploded. The DEP subsequently ordered the operator to plug three abandoned wells that were discovered during the investigation into the house explosion."

When asked to comment, Sullivan County resident and gas industry watchdog John Trallo said, "Not only is the DEP unwilling to hold the industry responsible, it seems like they go out of their way to actually cover up for them without investigation.

The lack of information and transparency by DEP about the these kind of situations leaves the public in the dark as to just how often they are occurring - something you would think would be helpful in analyzing the safety of shale gas development."

RDA would like to know if there are other abandoned wells in the areas of Sullivan County where shale gas drilling has occurred or will occur. At a meeting at Chesapeake event at Sullivan's Elkland Township Fire Hall this summer, RDA Board President Ralph Kisberg asked a Chesapeake representative if they knew of any abandoned gas wells in the county. Kisberg also suggested Chesapeake involve the community in researching old newspapers, county records and family documents and make a PR event out of the project.

When Chesapeake's Andy Travis was asked if they had ever drilled into an abandoned well in the area, Travis truthfully answered no. Perhaps a better phrasing of the question would have yielded a different answer: has hydraulic fracturing of a Chesapeake well ever caused communication with an abandoned well?

 

Ben Stein: More Taxes Needed to Pay Down Bankster Debt

infowars/The “economist” Ben Stein wants to pull a François Hollande and drive the producers out of America the same way the socialists are driving them out of France.
Stein says the government has to raise taxes in order to pay off the national debt we are told we owe or we will suffer the fate of Greece or Argentina in the late 1990s. Ben says the government should start with “very, very rich people,” who he describes as people earning a couple million bucks a year, and work their way down.
The problem with America, the former speechwriter and lawyer for Nixon and Ford told Fox & Friends, is that it has a “too low taxes problem.”
Ben’s analysis has failed consistently in the past. In 2007 he said the economy was not in a recession and the subprime mortgage crisis would “blow over and the people who buy now, in due time, will be glad they did.”
He also dismissed fears of a credit crisis prior to Lehman Brothers going bankrupt, the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac take over by the federal government, the AIG bail out by the Federal Reserve, and the rest of the destructive pile up following the global economic crisis beginning in September, 2008.
“Ben Stein is an Idiot,” Henry Blodget declared after the actor who plays an economist blamed “a few self-interested windbags” for the economic crisis.
Now the idiot Stein thinks you should pay more to the government.

 

FBI Celebrates Foiling Its Own Terror Plot, Again

infowars/Federal agents convinced a naïve, violence-inclined 21-year-old Bangladeshi that he was a member of “al-Qaeda,” giving the dupe fake bombs to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank of New York before swarming in and arresting him on October 17. As has become typical, government officials scrambled to put out press releases patting themselves on the back for their work protecting the “Homeland.”
In reality, however, there was no al-Qaeda, there was no threat, there were no bombs, and the only alleged “plot” the FBI “foiled” was the one it helped hatch with its dupe, Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis. Like the vast majority of recent domestic “terror” schemes against the United States, the latest supposed “operation” was essentially run by authorities from start to finish.
“It is important to emphasize that the public was never at risk in this case, because two of the defendant’s ‘accomplices’ were actually an FBI source and an FBI undercover agent,” Acting Assistant FBI Director Mary Galligan admitted in a press release celebrating the arrest. “The FBI continues to place the highest priority on preventing acts of terrorism.”
The criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court also confirmed that authorities gave their dupe bogus explosives to carry out the bogus attack. “The material that purported to be the explosive material was actually inert and posed no threat to the safety of the public,” the document confirmed, fueling more criticism of the government’s terror-war tactics that include cultivating terrorists and supplying all their terror needs.
The apparently dim-witted young man from Bangladesh was in the United States on a student visa when he allegedly tried to find others to join him in carrying out an attack. According to the criminal complaint, he miraculously managed to find an FBI source to help on his mission. The confidential informant promptly introduced him to government agents who promised to assist.
“I don’t want something that’s like, small,” Nafis allegedly told an undercover agent who was posing as an al-Qaeda member and wearing a recording device. “I just want something big. Something very big. Very, very, very, very big, that will shake the whole country.” He was apparently hoping to “destroy America” with an attack that would bring Muslims closer to running “the whole world.”
Despite claiming to have “connections,” authorities had to convince Nafis that he really was part of al-Qaeda. “The thing that I want to ask you about is that, the thing I’m doing, is it under al-Qaeda?” the confused would-be “terrorist” asked one of his government handlers. The unidentified undercover law-enforcement officer assured the bewildered dupe that the attack would indeed be for “al-Qaeda.”

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t

In numerous similar setups where the FBI has persuaded dupes to help plot “terror” attacks, the government offered big money in an effort to get the schemes off the ground. It remains unclear whether Nafis was given any cash reward for his “services.” However, most everything else was supplied by law enforcement — including the bogus bombs.
The undercover agent, for example, asked Nafis what he would need to carry out his “attack.” The dupe responded that he would need “a big car with lots of fruits and vegetables in there which can blow up the whole New York Stock Exchange building.” Nafis later proudly told a separate government informant, after being convinced by his handler, of course, that he was now officially a member of “al-Qaeda.”
At one point, Nafis told his handlers that he wanted to go home to see his family before the attack. However, the agents told him not to do that because law enforcement might “detect” its own plot. More than likely, Nafis was urged not to go home to ensure that the FBI would have somebody to arrest after hatching its complex bogus terror plot over a period of several months. His handlers told him “al-Qaeda” would stop helping him if he went home, court documents show.
As soon as news of the arrest was publicly announced, commentators across the Internet slammed and ridiculed the FBI and the federal government for continuing to prod dupes into carrying out bogus attacks. Perhaps anticipating that critics would cry foul at yet another “foiled” government-orchestrated “terror” plot, federal officials said they had to proceed with the setup to ensure that Nafis would not go plot an attack on his own.
“We have an obligation to take action to protect the public when an individual expresses a desire to commit violence and recruits others for an attack,” Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd was quoted as saying. “Allowing such individuals to proceed without a government response is not an option, given that they may take action on their own or find others willing to assist them.”
Indeed, if the criminal complaint is to be believed, it is true that Nafis was anything but an upstanding citizen. After the FBI convinced him that he was a member of “al-Qaeda” and that his government handler was working with “al-Qaeda leadership,” for example, the would-be terrorist said he knew there would be innocent casualties, including women and children. Still, he told his handlers he was ready to proceed.
Nafis also purportedly hoped the plot he hatched with the FBI would disrupt the upcoming presidential election. According to the criminal complaint, he was apparently an admirer of former CIA asset Osama bin Laden, too.
The dupe was arrested after using a cellphone to try to detonate the fake bomb the FBI gave him. He was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction (WMD) and attempting to provide material support to al-Qaeda. If convicted, he could face life in prison.
Last year, federal authorities hatched a similar half-baked plot, using a convicted felon to deceive a group of young self-styled left-wing anarchists into trying to blow up a bridge near Cleveland. A separate case in 2009 in which a government informer convinced dupes to plant fake bombs in New York even drew criticism from the judge who oversaw the case, who said: “The government made them terrorists.”
Government-hatched terror attacks, despite generating a lot of headlines, paranoia, and budget increases for the terror war, have still come under increasing scrutiny in recent years. “Without the F.B.I., would the culprits commit violence on their own? Is cultivating potential terrorists the best use of the manpower designed to find the real ones?” wondered author David Shipler in a piece for theNew York Times earlier this year about the absurdity of manufacturing terror plots to stop terror.
Analysts speculated that the most recent bogus “terror” scheme would be seized upon by the privately owned Federal Reserve banking cartel to portray itself as a potential target. The fake attack might also pave the way to helping paint the Fed’s growing number of vocal critics as potentially dangerous — at least if the FBI can find them, radicalize them, and give them money and fake explosives.
While the FBI was busy convincing Nafis that he was a member of “al-Qaeda,” a terror group largely created and funded by the U.S. government decades ago, the Obama administration and Western powers were providing arms and money to real self-styled al-Qaeda fighters waging “jihad” in Syria. Before that, known al-Qaeda leaders were benefiting from overwhelming support from the Obama administration in the fight to oust Libya’s former despot, Moammar Gadhafi.
Whether Nafis would have been able or even willing to carry out any real attack without months of prodding by authorities will remain a mystery — he can be convicted based on current U.S. law regardless. What has become clear, though, is that the vast majority of “attacks” supposedly “foiled” over the last decade would never have made it into even the planning stages without government assistance.

DoD: Population Control Part Of US “Stability Operations”

infowars/James A. Schear, deputy assistant secretary of defense for partnership strategy and stability operations, told an audience at the annual summit of the International Stability Operations Association (ISOA) a few days ago that population control is one of the “core missions” of the U.S. military in relation to stability operations. The DoD press release stated:
“Stability operations, which are usually military operations in civilian environments, include many missions, among them peace operations, combating terrorism, counter-drug operations, population control and nation assistance.”
“While we’re seeking to rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region while maintaining our emphasis on the Middle East, as we must, we’re also viewing security cooperation as a way to sustain our defense commitments within Europe and partnerships across all regions,” Schear stated.
In his speech, Schear stressed that working with the private sector both in Europe and the U.S. is crucial in ensuring that the “stability operations” such as population control are effectively implemented:
“In regions where America’s national interests are at stake, we must make the requisite investment now to help us forego the requirement for larger, more expensive and more intrusive operations later on,” Shear added. He also mentioned that international alliances are needed:
“I would even go further, and say not only the U.S. government but our allies and partners will see increasing needs for private-sector expertise and capabilities in areas such as improving governance, monitoring tenuous situations, and providing an immediate-response capability.”
Population control as a part of America’s geo-political objectives was formulated as far back as 1974 by Kissinger in his infamous report NSSM 200: Implications of Worldwide Population Growth For U.S. Security and Overseas Interests. In this heartless report, population control is being considered as a formidable US security interest, especially in regards to world food supplies:
“Since population growth is a major determinant of increases in food demand, allocation of scarce PL 480 resources should take account of what steps a country is taking in population control as well as food production. In these sensitive relationships, however, it is important in style as well as substance to avoid the appearance of coercion.”
Another one of Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger’s statements:
“(…) overall assistance strategy should increasingly concentrate on selective policies which will contribute to population decline as well as other goals. This strategy reflects the complementarity between population control and other U.S. development objectives, particularly those relating to AID’s Congressional mandate to focus on problems of the poor majority in LDC’s.”
The possibility to use food as a weapon in the demographic chess game is also being mentioned:
“Without improved food security, there will be pressure leading to possible conflict and the desire for large families for “insurance” purposes, thus undermining other development and population control efforts.”
The latest comments by a senior defense official in the U.S. military underscores the fact that population was and is of major concern to the establishment, not only for American security interests but for those of the New World Order.
Jurriaan Maessen’s blog is Explosivereports.com.

Are You A Zombie?

infowars/Are you a zombie? Do you react instinctively to external stimulus without engaging in thought? Are your opinions of what happens in the world shaped by your own intuition and knowledge or by television and mass media? Are you trapped in a state of consciousness that more closely resembles sleep than waking reality?

Chances are that if you are reading this article you don’t consider yourself a zombie, but make no mistake about it, you are surrounded by them. Some of them may be your co-workers, friends or even your family members.
America is fast turning into a zombie nation and it didn’t happen by accident, it happened by design.
The system has declared war on human consciousness. Using every tool available to them, the controllers have set about trying to create through behavioral modification and social engineering a race of beings who more closely resemble fictional zombies than actual properly functioning people.
They have achieved this primarily through the medium of television. As Steve Watson explains in his article, The Idiot Box: How TV Is Turning Us All Into Zombies, studies have confirmed that watching television or even having it on in the background actually impairs brain development in children – damaging their ability to learn cognitive thinking and develop language as well as increasing their chances of developing ADHD and social problems.
Television programs watched by children increase aggressive tendencies while decreasing attention spans, creating a zombie-like reactionary mindset that represents the antithesis of true knowledge and enlightenment.
For adults, television has been proven to alter consciousness by reducing brain activity to below Delta frequency, ensuring that critical thinking is bypassed and whatever message being pushed is emotionally embraced with total disregard for any form of logic.
Watching television also has the effect of releasing endorphins which act as a kind of happy sedative for the viewer, putting them in a trance-like state wherein they become highly suggestible and compliant to brainwashing.
This is why there is just as much propaganda if not more embedded in fictional television shows compared to news programs. In 2006, the Fox network admitted they were inserting messages into sitcoms and dramas as a form of social engineering to make viewers accept the reality of man-made global warming rhetoric.
More recently it was reported that U.S. taxpayers would fund a multi-million dollar effort to have television shows made in Hollywood promote ObamaCare in their storylines.
Television is the modern-day equivalent of Plato’s allegory of the cave. The zombies are beholden to a projection of reality completely manufactured by the controllers. Instead of debating real issues, the zombies can only debate the intricacies of soap operas, sports, or partisan politics which is merely another form of the soap opera in a contrived political context.
TV also projects a false culture on the western world and indoctrinates the viewer that the bizarre, animalistic and decadent behavior they see is normal and should be emulated.
The role of TV is not only to manipulate behavior and opinion, it is to fill the viewer with a sense of self-loathing, inadequacy and worthlessness.
This plays into the controllers’ plan to portray humanity as a cancerous plague upon the earth – much like a horde of zombies – that should at best be micromanaged, dominated and enslaved, and at worst simply eliminated altogether.
Death and decadence are promoted at every opportunity. This attitude was encapsulated most recently by television host Bill Maher when he said that the media should “promote death” – through encouraging abortion, suicide and the death penalty – because there are too many people on the planet.
We are constantly bombarded with the myth that there are too many of us on the earth, that human life is not precious, and that we are pointless scum with no destiny or purpose in our lives. This culture of death is repeatedly rammed down our throats.
This is nothing less than a deliberate ploy to make the zombie accept the notion that he has no dignity and can be rolled over and enslaved at any point.
This culture of death is also contributing to an evisceration of human empathy. How many stories have you seen over the last few years of people simply walking by and ignoring someone who is lying dead or dying in the street pleading for help? We are being zombiefied by being disconnected from our human emotions. The things that separate humans from animals – love, compassion and caring – are under constant attack.
While in the past, our heroes were trailblazers, inventors, poets, great authors, painters and scientists, today’s heroes are reality TV stars and celebrities who exhibit some of the very worst aspects of human nature – greed, selfishness, arrogance, nihilism and superficiality.
Our heroes in the past were people who pushed the envelope of human creativity and endeavor. The people our media now exalts as heroes are treated as Gods for achieving nothing besides fame itself.
While the zombie lives most of his or her life in a trance-like state, a key component of the condition is to be able to tolerate abuse and indignity without feeling the natural human impulse to resist or even complain.
This mass psychological Stockholm Syndrome, where the victim actually feels empathy and positive feelings for their captors, is played out on a daily basis. A recent poll showed that despite the federal agency being caught in scandals and stories about abuse multiple times weekly, the majority of Americans still think the TSA is doing a good job.
Huge numbers of American zombies are living with battered wife syndrome. Their government has screwed them on every front and yet unlike across Europe where civil unrest has raged over the last two years, Americans have sat back and done virtually nothing.
A mass psychosis of normalcy bias has gripped the American zombie. Rather than actually taking steps to respond to, prepare for, or even acknowledge the fact that the economy, the country and society itself are all collapsing, the zombie instead chooses to enter a catatonic state where all warnings are ignored and feel-good propaganda is gleefully embraced as gospel truth.
The zombie is enraptured by a state of suspended disbelief, a dream-like state that makes them sponges for indoctrination and behavior modification.
In a recent article entitled Why Are Americans So Easy to Manipulate?, Bruce E Levine explains how the authoritarian rulers in charge of our society are using mental health and psychological conditioning techniques to lobotomize our free will and ability to think independently.
“Today, the mental health profession has gone beyond behavioral technologies of control. It now diagnoses noncompliant toddlers with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, and pediatric bipolar disorder and attempts to control them with heavily sedating drugs. While Big Pharma directly profits from drug prescribing, the entire corporatocracy benefits from the mental health profession’s legitimization of conditioning and controlling,” writes Levine.
Added to television, Big Pharma along with the poisoning of our air, food and water are the primary drivers of the zombie plague.
- Studies have confirmed that sodium fluoride in the water supply not only causes cancer but according to a recent Harvard study also lowers IQ. Anecdotal evidence clearly suggests that Americans are getting dumber and are more easily led to believe lies as a result of their low intelligence.
- MSG in our food, more and more of which is genetically modified, is causing Americans to become fatter and lazier. Additives and pesticides in food are leading to a general lack of concentration and apathy, impairing brain stimulation.
- Vaccines contain mercury, a deadly toxin that accumulates in the brain.
- More than a quarter of children and an increasing number of adults in America are on anti-depressants that keep them in a permanent state of zombiefied confusion – dazed, mesmerized, and easy to indoctrinate.
Only by withdrawing from the artificial reality that has been woven around us can we hope to avoid being infected by the zombie plague. You have to be in the world but not of it.
While there may be little hope for the hordes of zombies who have already long since sacrificed their free will and capacity for critical thought over to the juggernaut of social engineering, there is ample opportunity for those who continue to reach out for spiritual and intellectual enlightenment to re-assert their individuality by restricting their exposure to mass entertainment and television, avoiding the ravages of Big Pharma, eating the right foods and maintaining a positive outlook on life.
These are all obvious steps to take and yet the majority of Americans will probably fail to take even one of them in their entire life – a fact that pleases the social engineers and helps maintain a steady supply of zombies to help convince the rest of humanity that resistance to zombiefication is futile.

 

What Is A Sinkhole And Why Do Sinkholes Form?

science20/A sinkhole in Saint-Jude, Quebec has just collapsed a house, killing a family of four inside, leading people to ask what they are, how they occur and obviously who is at risk.

Sinkholes are depressions that occur when soil or bedrock has been removed and only air remains - commonly when the rock below the land surface is limestone,  carbonate rock or salt beds that have been naturally dissolved by ground water circulating through them and then the water dries up.

As the rock is dissolved by water(dissolution), spaces are created (suffosion) and typically sinkholes happen suddenly because the surface stays intact until the weight becomes too much.

Sinkholes occur more often in places like Florida and Alabama because they have more underground rivers than most other states.   When sinkholes form it is commonly because the ground has simply collapsed over underground rivers that were once filled with water.

So if you want to look for signs of a major drought in the making, disgruntled skiers at Lake Tahoe are not going to be as accurate as sinkholes.

This map from the USGS shows where underground cavities have more frequently occurred and resulted in sinkholes.   As they note, these susceptible types of rock are called evaporites, such as salt, gypsum, and anhydrite, and carbonates, such as limestone and dolomite.  Evaporite rocks are in 35-40% of the US, but at various depths, which is why not all areas are equally affected.



Can sinkholes be caused by man?

Land-use practices have also been implicated in sinkholes.   When natural water drainage patterns are changed or water is otherwise diverted, the upward pressure of water is no longer keeping the surface stable.   Likewise, heavy industrial building or artificial lakes can cause weight issues that result in sinkholes.

Obviously if underground mining has occurred plain ol' gravity can cause sinkholes.

3 types of sinkholes

Dissolution sinkholes - where water first contacts the rock surface and also in joints and fractures.

Cover-subsidence sinkholes -  usually when the covering is permeable and contain sand.

Cover-collapse sinkholes - usually when the covering contains a large amount of clay and surface erosion and drainage cause the 'bowl' people commonly see.

Related Articles on Science 2.0

• CO2 Sequestration - In Rock Form
• Extract One Million Times As Much CO2 From The Air - Using Rocks
• Storing Carbon Dioxide Below Ground May Prevent Polluting Above
• Whither Limestone? New Clues About The Mars Climate Enigma
• Carbonates Found On Mars Adds To Mystery

Major Airports to Remove Invasive X-ray, Body Scanners

The Transportation Security Administration is removing full-body, X-ray scanners from major U.S. airports, and shipping them to less busy locations.

cnbc/TSA introduced the so-called Backscatter scanners, sometimes referred to as the "naked" X-ray machines, at U.S. airports in 2009. Many travelers were not happy that naked images of themselves were displayed to TSA officers in a nearby room. In addition to privacy concerns, travelers were concerned about radiation exposure. (Read more: The Skinny on Full-Body Scanners)

The replacement scanning machines offer less invasive, cartoon-like images of passengers. And you can even turn around after passing through the machine to see the same image TSA officer review. (Read more: Less Invasive, 'Gumby' Body Scanners to Debut at Boston Airport)

The full-body, X-ray scanners will be removed from New York's Kennedy, LaGuardia and other major airports, the Associated Press reported. TSA said the decision was made to speed up security at busy airports.

TSA spokesperson Sterling Payne said in an email to CNBC.com that, "As part of an effort to maximize the efficiency and deployment of Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT), TSA is strategically moving smaller, faster AIT units to busier airports and moving the larger units to airports with less passenger volume."

"This move will add additional units outfitted with automated target recognition (ATR) software, which enhances privacy even more by providing a generic body outline, and eliminates the need for a separate officer in another to room to participate in screening," Payne says.

The less invasive "Gumby" scanners with the ATR software will be in use at the following airports, the TSA confirms to CNBC.com:

• Boston Logan International Airport
• Chicago O'Hare International Airport
• Los Angeles International Airport
• New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport
• New York's LaGuardia Airport
• Orlando International Airport
• Charlotte Douglas International Airport

Based on frequent flier reports on Flyertalk.com, the more invasive X-ray machines are still in use at some of the busiest U.S. airports, including:

• Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport
• Seattle-Tacoma International Airport
• Lambert-St. Louis International Airport

 

Federal Prosecutors Sue Bank of America Over Mortgage Program

Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesA Bank of America branch in Manhattan. The Justice Department took aim at a home loan program known as the “hustle.”

nytimes/Federal prosecutors in New York sued Bank of America on Wednesday, accusing it of carrying out a mortgage scheme that defrauded the government during the depths of the financial crisis.
In a civil complaint that seeks to collect $1 billion from the bank, the Justice Department took aim at a home loan program known as the “hustle,” a venture that has become emblematic of the risk-fueled mortgage bubble. The complaint adds to a flurry of federal and private lawsuits facing Bank of America’s beleaguered mortgage business.
Bank of America inherited the “hustle” home loan program with its purchase of Countrywide Financial in 2008. Prosecutors say the effort, kept alive by Bank of America through 2009, was intended to churn out mortgages at a rapid pace without proper checks on wrongdoing. The bank then sold the “defective” loans without warning to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-controlled housing giants, which were stuck with heavy losses and a glut of foreclosed properties.
“The fraudulent conduct alleged in today’s complaint was spectacularly brazen in scope,” Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement. Mr. Bharara brought the case with the inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the government watchdog for the bank bailout program.

Daniel Barry for The New York TimesPreet S. Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan.

A spokesman for Bank of America did not immediately return a request for comment.
The case is one piece of a broader federal crackdown on Wall Street, a last-ditch effort to hold firms accountable for perceived misdeeds that fueled the mortgage crisis. In the wake of the crisis, authorities were blamed for the dearth of charges facing financial executives at the center of the crisis.
For all the grumbling about few criminal prosecutions, the government has now mounted dozens of civil cases against the nation’s biggest financial firms, leaving the financial industry to battle a chaotic and somewhat redundant web of litigation. Mr. Bharara sued Wells Fargo this month over questionable mortgage deals. President Obama also formed a federal mortgage task force, which recently filed its first case against JPMorgan Chase over mortgage deals created by Bear Stearns, the defunct firm that JPMorgan bought during the crisis.
The case announced on Wednesday is the latest legal headache for Bank of America stemming from its acquisition spree during the crisis. The bank, which has come to define the excesses that nearly toppled the financial industry in 2008, struck a $2.4 billion deal in September to settle a securities class-action lawsuit that it misled investors about the takeover of Merrill Lynch.
The Countrywide deal has fared far worse. Billions of dollars in soured loans from the subprime lending specialist wreaked havoc on Bank of American’s balance sheet. Securities regulators have also extracted nearly $70 million in fines from Countrywide’s former chief executive, Angelo Mozilo.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday threatens billions of dollars in fines. The Justice Department filed the case under the False Claims Act, which could provide for triple the damages suffered by Fannie and Freddie, a penalty that could reach more than $3 billion.
The case also overlaps with a number of actions that government agencies are pursuing against Wall Street banks. It builds on, for example, the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s decision last year to sue 17 big banks over losses sustained by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The twin mortgage companies, bailed out by taxpayers in 2008, continue to push firms like Bank of America to repurchase billions of dollars in bad loans.

 

Federal Prosecutors Sue Bank of America Over Mortgage Program

Spencer Platt/Getty ImagesA Bank of America branch in Manhattan. The Justice Department took aim at a home loan program known as the “hustle.”

nytimes/Federal prosecutors in New York sued Bank of America on Wednesday, accusing it of carrying out a mortgage scheme that defrauded the government during the depths of the financial crisis.
In a civil complaint that seeks to collect $1 billion from the bank, the Justice Department took aim at a home loan program known as the “hustle,” a venture that has become emblematic of the risk-fueled mortgage bubble. The complaint adds to a flurry of federal and private lawsuits facing Bank of America’s beleaguered mortgage business.
Bank of America inherited the “hustle” home loan program with its purchase of Countrywide Financial in 2008. Prosecutors say the effort, kept alive by Bank of America through 2009, was intended to churn out mortgages at a rapid pace without proper checks on wrongdoing. The bank then sold the “defective” loans without warning to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-controlled housing giants, which were stuck with heavy losses and a glut of foreclosed properties.
“The fraudulent conduct alleged in today’s complaint was spectacularly brazen in scope,” Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement. Mr. Bharara brought the case with the inspector general of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the government watchdog for the bank bailout program.

Daniel Barry for The New York TimesPreet S. Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan.

A spokesman for Bank of America did not immediately return a request for comment.
The case is one piece of a broader federal crackdown on Wall Street, a last-ditch effort to hold firms accountable for perceived misdeeds that fueled the mortgage crisis. In the wake of the crisis, authorities were blamed for the dearth of charges facing financial executives at the center of the crisis.
For all the grumbling about few criminal prosecutions, the government has now mounted dozens of civil cases against the nation’s biggest financial firms, leaving the financial industry to battle a chaotic and somewhat redundant web of litigation. Mr. Bharara sued Wells Fargo this month over questionable mortgage deals. President Obama also formed a federal mortgage task force, which recently filed its first case against JPMorgan Chase over mortgage deals created by Bear Stearns, the defunct firm that JPMorgan bought during the crisis.
The case announced on Wednesday is the latest legal headache for Bank of America stemming from its acquisition spree during the crisis. The bank, which has come to define the excesses that nearly toppled the financial industry in 2008, struck a $2.4 billion deal in September to settle a securities class-action lawsuit that it misled investors about the takeover of Merrill Lynch.
The Countrywide deal has fared far worse. Billions of dollars in soured loans from the subprime lending specialist wreaked havoc on Bank of American’s balance sheet. Securities regulators have also extracted nearly $70 million in fines from Countrywide’s former chief executive, Angelo Mozilo.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday threatens billions of dollars in fines. The Justice Department filed the case under the False Claims Act, which could provide for triple the damages suffered by Fannie and Freddie, a penalty that could reach more than $3 billion.
The case also overlaps with a number of actions that government agencies are pursuing against Wall Street banks. It builds on, for example, the Federal Housing Finance Agency’s decision last year to sue 17 big banks over losses sustained by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The twin mortgage companies, bailed out by taxpayers in 2008, continue to push firms like Bank of America to repurchase billions of dollars in bad loans.

 

CIA Operated Aerial Spraying Plane Shot Down in China

worldtruthtv/Reports circulating in the Kremlin today are stating that a US government contracted airplane piloted by American CIA agents and carrying a cargo of a ‘mutated’ swine flu virus intended for aerial spraying was shot down at China’s Shanghai Pudong airport by a saboteur team of what are believed to be Israeli Mossad soldiers seeking to prevent an American attack upon one of their Central Asian bases located in the Central Asian Nation of Kyrgyzstan.

According to Chinese media reports on this incident the stricken Zimbabwean MD-ll plane, owned by the CIA linked Avient Aviation company operated by a former British military officer named Andrew Smith and registered in the UK, killed 3 American CIA agents and injured 4 other personal who are reported to be from United States, Indonesia, Belgium and Zimbabwe.

————————————————————————————————————————————————

Most interesting to note in these reports on the victims of this plane shootdown is that the Indonesian man currently being treated for his injuries has ‘confessed’ to Chinese secret police forces that he is a technician employed by the United States Navy at their mysterious Naval Medical Research Unit No. 2 (NAMRU-2) located in Indonesia that Indonesian Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono had previously called for the closing of “because its operations were too secretive and were incompatible with Indonesia’s security interests.

Even more interesting to note about this US Navy secret bio-weapons base in Indonesia (the World’s largest Muslim Nation) was its establishment in cooperation with the Rockefeller Institute, especially with it being the main center for the Americans Viral Diseases Program (VDP) they describe as the research of “epidemiologic and laboratory research on viral hemorrhagic fevers, influenza, encephalitis, and rickettsioses” and the head of this institute, David Rockefeller, long calling for a massive reduction in our World’s population. calling for a massive reduction in our World’s population.

John Davison Rockefeller (1839-1937) made his fortune in the oil industry. He founded Standard Oil, which at one time controlled 95 percent of the oil refining business in the country. He and his descendants gave away hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Rockefellers funded the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Germany, when eugenicists were preparing the way ideologically for what eventually became the world’s most infamous slaughter, the Nazi holocaust. The Rockefeller Institute supported Alexis Carrel, who advocated the use of gas to get rid of the unwanted. John D. Rockefeller III founded the Population Council. Rockefeller money made Alfred Kinsey’s sex research possible.

In the fall of 1993, the Rockefeller Archive Center Newsletter published “The Rockefeller Foundation, the Population Council and the Groundwork for New Population Policies” by John B. Sharpless of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Sharpless had been studying the files of the Rockefeller Foundation (RF), the records of the Population Council, and the personal papers of John D. Rockefeller III. He concluded that “Foundations and individual philanthropists are important in understanding the impressively quick and nearly unanimous change in attitudes and ideas about population that occurred during the 1960s.” Such foundations funded the development of contraceptives, but also built the international network of experts who shaped the public debate, who shared “a core body of knowledge and a common mode of discourse” as well as a “shared set of assumptions about how population dynamics worked.”

Sharpless wrote, “The power to accomplish this task was based on their relationship with the philanthropic community. In addition to the Rockefeller Foundation and the Population Council, other Foundations active in this area included the Ford Foundation, the Milbank Memorial Fund and, to a lesser extent, the Carnegie Corporation, and the Conservation Foundation.”

And to the agenda currently underway to radically change our World through the mass death of its population we need look no further for its explanation than David Rockefeller’s own words he spoke before the secretive Trilateral Commission in June, 1991, when he said:

“We are grateful to The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the work is now much more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto determination practiced in past centuries.”

To the United States employing planes to spread a mutated swine flu virus around the World we have further reports from China, and as we can read:

June 26 Suspicious aircrafts were forced to land. A US operated AN-124 changed its call sign from civillian to military which then triggered a response from the IAF upon entering Pakistani air space, the plane was forced to land in Mumbai while the second one was forced down by Nigerian figther jets that also arrested the crew.

———————————————————————————————————————————————-

According to reports China (China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force) contacted the Indian and Nigerian intelligence officials about the presence of these US operated Ukranian aircrafts amidst growing concern that the United States were spreading “biological agents” in the Earth’s atmosphere also which some Chinese officals believed to be a attempt to mass genocide via the spread of h1n1 swine flu.

The strange thing about these reports and arrests as well as the forcing down of the planes were that these aircrafts were carrying “waste disposal” systems that could spray up to 45000kg or 100pounds of aerial type mist from sophisticated network of nano pipes that led throughout the trailing edges of the wings thereby dispersing whatever was in these tanks through a mist.

Reports of these US planes over Ukraine have been reported as well, and as we can further read:

Authorities in the town of Kiev, Ukraine denied any spraying of “aerosolized medication” by aircraft over the city. This after it was reported that light aircrafts were seen flying over the forest market area that sprayed a aerosol substance to fight h1n1 or swine flu.

5 Sources confirms this and the local newspapers of Kiev also received hundreds of phone calls from residents and business owners close to the area the planes were spraying the suspicious substance. Not only that but local businesses and retailers were “advised” to stay indoors during the day by the local authorities.

As if that is not enough, the government authorities also pushed the radio stations in Kiev to deny the reports. Online on forums, websites and blogs reports came in about eye witness accounts that confirms this. There was also reports of helicopters spraying aerosols over Kiev, Lviv, Ternopil and throughout Ukraine.

Most disturbing of the effects of the spraying of this mutated swine flu virus over the Ukraine is the devastating toll it has taken on the people of that country, and as we can read:

“Almost 40 000 people got infected since yesterday in the Ukraine by what we still call the “Ukraine plague” but doctors have said recently that this is a stronger case of h1n1 or swine flu that has mutated and has that affect on the lungs where it destroys the lungs and fills it with blood.”

But, to the most horrible outcome of this mutated swine flu virus is the World Health Organization now reporting that it is killing people in France, Norway, Brazil, China, Japan, Mexico, Ukraine, and the United States as the death toll from this Global Pandemic is now reported to be nearing 8,000 and China now reporting that this deadly disease has now crossed over into dogs.

Important to also note in these reports is that the US spray plane shot down in China was reported to be targeting a secret Israeli base located in the Central Asian Nation of Kyrgyzstan, which many Ashkenazi Jews (Ashkenazi Jews make up approximately 80% of Jews Worldwide) consider their ‘spiritual homeland’ after their long exile their under Soviet Communist rule, and where Russian Intelligence Analysts report the Israelis are nearing the end of their decades long deciphering of the ancient Epic of Manas manuscript (with close to half a million lines of Epic of Manas is twenty times longer than Homer’;s Odyssey in Iliad combined) that they believe contains our World’s oldest warning to our present age and which (coincidentally?) agrees with the ancient Mayan peoples that the year of 2012 will see the ending of our present age.

To the final outcome of these events it is not in our knowing; other than to state the obvious, that the truths of these things are continued to be ignored, even scoffed at, by the very people whose extermination has been longed planned by these monsters and is now being carried out, and who still have no idea whatsoever how truly easy it has become form them to be controlled their propaganda masters.

Unlike the Mossad in China who perhaps shot down the plane that the operatives aboard could not talk of the Mossad operation…India and Nigeria forced the planes down but did not shoot them down. Below link from Dolphin June 2009 – Two US-operated Ukrainian aircraft were forced to land by Indian and Nigerian air forces because they were suspected of spreading “biological agents“

One can only hope that they awaken before all is lost for them, the facts suggest they won’t.

 

Possibility of volcanic eruptions in SW

extinct

extinctionprotocol/ Experts in volcano hazards and public safety have started a conversation about volcanoes in the southwestern United States, and how best to prepare for future activity. Prior to this meeting, emergency response planning for volcanic unrest in the region had received little attention by federal or state agencies. Though volcanic eruptions are comparatively rare in the American Southwest, the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah host geologically-recent volcanic eruption deposits and are vulnerable to future volcanic activity. Compared with other parts of the western U.S., comparatively little research has been focused on this area, and eruption probabilities are poorly understood. “A volcanic eruption in the American southwest is an example of a low-probability, but high-impact event for which we should be prepared to respond,” said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. “No one wants to be exchanging business cards during an emergency, and thus a small investment in advance planning could pay off in personal relationships and coordination between scientists and first responders. The goal of the conference is to increase awareness of volcanism and vulnerabilities in the American Southwest, and to begin coordination among volcano scientists, land managers, and emergency responders regarding future volcanic activity,” said Dr. Jacob Lowenstern, one of the organizers of the conference, and the U.S. Geological Survey Scientist-In-Charge of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory. “This is the first time these federal, state, and local agencies have met to discuss their roles, responsibilities, and resources, should an eruption occur.” The “Volcanism in the American Southwest” conference on Oct. 18-19 in Flagstaff, Ariz. was organized by the USGS, Northern Arizona University, University at Buffalo, and New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, the meeting included interdisciplinary talks, posters, and panel discussions, providing an opportunity for volcanologists, land managers, and emergency responders to meet, converse, and begin to plan protocols for any future volcanic activity. -USGS - October 19, 2012

West in a ‘Colossal Mess’ in Five to 10 Years: Marc Faber

The debt burden in the U.S. and other Western countries will continue to increase, Marc Faber, author of the Gloom, Boom and Doom report told CNBC on Monday, leading to a “colossal mess” within the next five to 10 years.

Axel Griesch | ASFM | Getty Images Dr. Marc Faber

“I think the regimes will try to keep the system alive as it is for as long as possible, which means there’s no “fiscal cliff,” there’s a fiscal grand canyon,” Faber told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Faber argued that the political systems in place in the West would allow the debt burden to continue to expand. Under such a scenario of never-ending deficits, the Western world would rack up huge deficits.

One day, the system would break, he said.

“Eventually, you have either huge changes occurring in a peaceful fashion through reforms, or, usually, through revolutions,” he said. The U.S. is getting closer to such a revolution, he said, as is Europe.

“I think the timeframe would be within five to ten years you have a colossal mess … everywhere in the Western world,” Faber said. “I think the deficit here (in the U.S.) — irrespective of who is in the White House — will stay above a trillion dollars per annum for at least as far as the eye can see.”

Bureaucracies in the U.S., as well as Europe, are far too big, he said, and are a burden on the economy.

“My medicine for the U.S. is: Reduce government by minimum 50 percent,” he said.

Italian court convicts 7 for no quake warning

myfox/An Italian court convicted seven scientists and experts of manslaughter on Monday for failing to adequately warn citizens before an earthquake struck central Italy in 2009, killing more than 300 people.

The court in L'Aquila also sentenced the defendants to six years in prison. Each one is a member of the national Great Risks Commission.

In Italy, convictions aren't definitive until after at least one level of appeals, so it is unlikely any of the defendants would face jail immediately.

Scientists worldwide had decried the trial as ridiculous, contending that science has no reliable way of predicting earthquakes.

Among those convicted were some of Italy's most prominent and internationally respected seismologists and geological experts, including Enzo Boschi, former head of the national Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.

`'I am dejected, desperate," Boschi said after the verdict. `'I thought I would have been acquitted. I still don't understand what I was convicted of."

The trial began in September 2011 in this Apennine town, whose devastated historic center is still largely a ghost town.

The defendants were accused in the indictment of giving `'inexact, incomplete and contradictory information" about whether small tremors felt by L'Aquila residents in the weeks and months before the April 6, 2009, quake should have constituted grounds for a quake warning.

The 6.3-magnitude quake killed 308 people in and around the medieval town and forced survivors to live in tent camps for months.

Many much smaller earth tremors had rattled the area in the months before the quake, causing frightened people to wonder if they should evacuate.

`'I consider myself innocent before God and men," said another convicted defendant, Bernardo De Bernardinis, a former official of the national Civil Protection agency.

Prosecutors had sought conviction and four-year sentences during the non-jury trial, which was led by a judge.

A defense lawyer, Filippo Dinacci, told reporters that the sentence would have `'big repercussions" on public administration since officials would be afraid to `'do anything."

Read more: http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/19882019/italian-court-convicts-7-for-no-quake-warning#ixzz2A3xOMpji

 

Russell Means Dead: American Indian Activist, Actor, Dies At 72

HUFFINGTONPOST/Russell Means never shunned attention. Whether leading Native Americans in railing against broken federal treaties, appearing in a Hollywood blockbuster or advocating a sovereign American Indian nation within U.S. borders, the activist who helped lead the 1973 uprising at Wounded Knee reveled in the spotlight.
But it was only on his terms. Openly critical of mainstream media, the onetime leader of the American Indian Movement often refused interviews and verbally blasted journalists who showed up to cover his public appearances. Instead, he chose to speak to his fan base through YouTube videos and blog posts on his personal website.
When he did speak out publicly, he remained steadfast in his defense of AIM. He found himself dogged for decades by questions about the group's alleged involvement in the slaying of a tribe member and the several gun battles with federal officers during the 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee, but denied the group ever promoted violence.
"You people who want to continue to put AIM in this certain pocket of illegality, I can't stand you people," Means said, lashing out an at audience member question during an April gathering commemorating the uprising's 40th anniversary. "I wish I was a little bit healthier and a little bit younger, because I wouldn't just talk."
Means, who announced in August 2011 that he had developed inoperable throat cancer but told The Associated Press he was forgoing mainstream medical treatments in favor of traditional American Indian remedies, died early Monday at his ranch in in Porcupine, S.D., Oglala Sioux Tribe spokeswoman Donna Salomon said. He was 72.
Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Means grew up in the San Francisco area before becoming an early leader of AIM. He often was embroiled in controversy, partly because of AIM's alleged involvement in the 1975 slaying of Annie Mae Aquash.
But Means also was known for his role in the movie "The Last of the Mohicans" and had run unsuccessfully for the Libertarian nomination for president in 1988.
AIM was founded in the late 1960s to protest the U.S. government's treatment of Native Americans and demand the government honor its treaties with Indian tribes. Means told the AP in 2011 that before AIM, there had been no advocate on a national or international scale for American Indians, and that Native Americans were ashamed of their heritage.
"No one except Hollywood stars and very rich Texans wore Indian jewelry," Means said. "And there was a plethora of dozens if not hundreds of athletic teams that in essence were insulting us, from grade schools to college. That's all changed."
The movement eventually faded away, the result of Native Americans becoming self-aware and self-determined, Means said.
Paul DeMain, editor of News from Indian Country, said there were plenty of Indian activists before AIM but that the group became the "radical media gorilla."
"If someone needed help, you called on the American Indian Movement and they showed up and caused all kind of ruckus and looked beautiful on a 20-second clip on TV that night," DeMain said.
Means and AIM co-founder Dennis Banks were charged in 1974 for their role in the Wounded Knee uprising, but after a trial that lasted several months, a judge threw the charges out on grounds of government misconduct.
Means said he felt his most important accomplishment was the founding of the Republic of Lakotah and the "re-establishment of our freedom to be responsible" as a sovereign nation inside the borders of the United States. His efforts to have his proposed country recognized by the international community continued at the United Nations, he said, even as it was ignored by tribal governments closer to home, including his own Oglala Sioux Tribe.
But others may remember him for his former organization's connection to Aquash's slaying. Her death remains synonymous with AIM and its often-violent clashes with federal agents in the 1970s.
Authorities believe three AIM members shot and killed Aquash on the Pine Ridge reservation on the orders of someone in AIM's leadership because they suspected she was an FBI informant. Two activists – Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham – were both eventually convicted of murder. The third has never been charged.
Means blamed Vernon Bellecourt, another AIM leader, for ordering Aquash's killing. Bellecourt denied the allegations in a 2004 interview, four years before he died.
DeMain, an Indian journalist who researched the case, said AIM's leaders know who ordered Aquash's killing but have covered up the truth for decades.
Also in 1975, murder charges were filed against Means and Dick Marshall, an AIM member, in the shooting death of Martin Montileaux of Kyle at the Longbranch Saloon in Scenic. Marshall served 24 years in prison. Means was acquitted.
In addition to his presidential bid, Means also briefly served as a vice presidential candidate in 1984, joining the Larry Flynt ticket during the Hustler magazine publisher's unsuccessful bid for the Republican nomination. Flynt was typically a Democrat.
But Means always considered himself a Libertarian and couldn't believe that anyone would want to call themselves either a Republican or a Democrat.
"It's just unconscionable that America has become so stupid," he said.
His acting career began in 1992 when he portrayed Chingachgook alongside Daniel Day-Lewis' Hawkeye in "The Last of the Mohicans." He also appeared in the 1994 film "Natural Born Killers," voiced Chief Powhatan in the 1995 animated film "Pocahontas" and guest starred in 2004 on the HBO series "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
Means recounted his life in the book "Where White Men Fear to Tread." He said he pulled no punches in his autobiography, admitting to his frailties and evils but also acknowledging his successes.
"I tell the truth, and I expose myself as a weak, misguided, misdirected, dysfunctional human being I used to be," he said.
Salomon, the tribal spokeswoman, called Means' death a "great loss" for the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
Means' death came a day after former U.S. Sen. George McGovern died in Sioux Falls at the age of 90. McGovern had traveled to Wounded Knee with U.S. Sen. James Abourezk during the 71-day takeover to try to negotiate an end.
"I've lost two good friends in a matter of two to three days," Abourezk said Monday morning. "I don't pretend to understand it."

Students who refuse to be micro-chipped are punished

(NaturalNews) The surveillance society continues to expand across America, with those who refuse to go along subject to recriminations and reprisals.

That's what's happening to students at John Jay High School and Anson Jones Middle School in San Antonio whose parents refuse to have their children tracked by school officials.

According to reports, the school districts implemented new rules Oct. 1 that require each student to attend classes with photo ID cards embedded with a radio-frequency identification (RFID) chip, so officials are able to track every pupil's location. Educators have said the requirement is necessary to stem rampant truancy, which is, in turn, taking a huge chunk out of the school's funding. If the program is eventually judged to be effective, officials plan to roll it out to all 112 schools in the district, covering some 100,000 students.

Kids who won't wear the ID trackers - which are supposed to be carried in pockets or around the neck - complain they are being targeted by teachers and are not permitted to take part in certain school functions. Some have even said they have been refused entrance to common areas like libraries and cafeterias.

Mark of the beast?

One student, Andrea Hernandez, a sophomore at John Jay, said in an interview that educators have turned a deaf ear to her pleas to respect her privacy and have told her she can't participate in school elections if she doesn't comply with the tracking program (apparently the Constitution really isn't taught in many U.S. schools these days).

In an interview with Salon, Hernandez said subjecting herself to such continual monitoring was like being branded with "the mark of the beast," a Biblical reference to the Book of Revelations.

Later, in a separate interview published by WorldNetDaily, Hernandez said the school responded by threatening her with the loss of her right to vote in the school's homecoming king and queen contest for disobeying.

"I had a teacher tell me I would not be allowed to vote because I did not have the proper voter ID," Hernandez told WND. "I had my old student ID card which they originally told us would be good for the entire four years we were in school. He said I needed the new ID with the chip in order to vote."

Upon refusing to wear the RFID-chipped ID, the web paper said Deputy Superintendent Ray Galindo fired off a statement to her parents: "We are simply asking your daughter to wear an ID bad as every other student and adult on the Jay campus is asked to do."

If she still refused; he went on, later repercussions would be stiffer than merely revoking her rights to vote in homecoming contests once the school decides to make the monitoring a mandatory attendance rule.

"I urge you to accept this solution so that your child's instructional program will not be affected. As we discussed, there will be consequences for refusal to wear an ID card as we begin to move forward with full implementation," Galindo wrote.

Steve Hernandez, Andrea's father, told WND that the school seemed somewhat willing to work with his daughter, but went on to say the family is simply unwilling to "agree to stop criticizing the program" and endorse it publicly.

"I told him that was unacceptable because it would imply an endorsement of the district's policy and my daughter and I should not have to give up our constitutional rights to speak out against a program that we feel is wrong," Mr. Hernandez said.

Profiting from privacy destruction

But there's money in tracking and privacy violation, you see - at least in this case.

The Northside Independent School District is set to collect north of $2 million in state funding to revise its poor attendance records; the RFID program will cost only about a quarter of that amount, with another $136,000 in annual maintenance costs.

But that money will likely not offset damages from unintended privacy violations on the back end: Heather Fazio, of Texans for Accountable Government, told WND she filed a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the program, for which she paid a $30 filing fee, and received the names and addresses of every student in the district.

"Using this information along with an RFID reader means a predator could use this information to determine if the student is at home and then track them wherever they go. These chips are always broadcasting so anyone with a reader can track them anywhere," she said.

A spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union told the local San Antonio Express-News earlier this year her organization expects to file a legal challenge to the tracking program.

But Rebecca Robertson, who is with a local branch of the organization said that, "the ACLU of Texas will not be able to represent you or your daughter in this matter," saying the case did not meet the group's criteria.

Sources:

http://www.wnd.com

http://www.theblaze.com

http://rt.com/usa/news/texas-school-id-hernandez-033/

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/037548_students_micro-chipped_public_schools.html#ixzz29bso5YRc

Ground under Fukushima Unit 4 sinking

(NaturalNews) Though the mainstream media has long since abandoned the issue, the precarious situation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility in Japan is only continuing to worsen, according to a prominent Japanese official. During a recent interview, Mitsuhei Murata, the former Japanese Ambassador to both Switzerland and Senegal, explained that the ground beneath the plant's Unit 4 is gradually sinking, and that the entire structure is very likely on the verge of complete collapse.

This is highly concerning, as Unit 4 currently holds more than 1,500 spent nuclear fuel rods, and a collective 37 million curies of deadly radiation that, if released, could make much of the world completely uninhabitable. As some Natural News readers will recall, Unit 4 contains the infamous elevated cooling pool that was severely damaged following the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11, 2011.

According to the Secretary of former Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan, the ground beneath Unit 4 has already sunk by about 31.5 inches since the disaster, and this sinking has taken place unevenly. If the ground continues to sink, which it is expected to, or if another earthquake of even as low as a magnitude six occurs in the region, the entire structure could collapse, which would fully drain the cooling pool and cause a catastrophic meltdown.

"If Unit 4 collapses, the worse case scenario will be a meltdown, and a resultant fire in the atmosphere. That will be the most unprecedented crisis that man has ever experienced. Nobody will be able to approach the plants ... as all will have melted down and caused a big fire," said Murata during the interview. "Many scientists say if Unit 4 collapses, not only will Japan lie in ruin, but the entire world will also face serious damages."

Because there are 31 nuclear units of a similar type to Unit 4 in the U.S., the American government has been downplaying the disaster to protect its own reputation, alleges Murata. This is, in fact, the primary reason why so little has been reported on the severity of Fukushima following the disaster. The American empire, in other words, does not want the world, nor the American people, to know that there is the possibility of literally dozens of Fukushima situations occurring on American soil, should the right disaster situations arise.

You can watch the full 3:51 minute translated interview with Murata at the following link:
http://youtu.be/-LCTv65aqgA

Sources for this article include:

http://enenews.com

http://www.naturalnews.com/035789_Fukushima_Cesium-137_Plume-Gate.html

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/037556_Fukushima_power_plant_collapse.html#ixzz29bo634PP

 

(NaturalNews) The time between today and the day the global debt collapse reaches our shores is finite. The U.S. national debt clock shows a nation spiraling into financial oblivion. When Ron Paul says "Americans should be panicking" over the Fed's new QE unlimited policy of infinite money creation, he was actually holding back. In reality, Americans should have been protesting in the streets... everywhere!

But instead, they're going to deny reality, vote in the upcoming election, and pretend that whoever occupies the Oval Office has both the intention and the power to make any real difference. That belief is delusional, as is the belief that the national debt somehow doesn't really matter.

The delusions are, of course, leading us all directly into a head-on collision with history, where the global debt collapse unfolds at a quickening pace and becomes "real" for hundreds of millions of people in North America who have so far escaped the reality of the financial collapse happening across Europe. Before that day comes, here are 26 things you might want to get done.

26 things to get done before the global debt collapse

See a holistic dentist and get the mercury removed from your mouth.

Buy some hardcopy books so you have something to read when the power grid fails.

Move your money out of the big globalist banks.

Bury your gold and silver. Use an appropriate container to protect from moisture and don't forget to tell someone else where you've buried things, just in case you don't make it.

Get the heck out of the city and learn some country living skills.

Pay off as many assets as you can so you have a clear title to anything you don't want the banks to seize.

Get right with God or whatever spiritual focal point you practice.

Wrap up needed apologies or forgiveness. Don't allow regrets to burden you in a time of crisis.

Make color copies of all your important documents, then store them in a safe place. (BTW, a bank's safe deposit box is NOT a safe place. Those will all be looted.)

Get off prescription meds. Any dependence on prescription drugs is a death wish in a collapse scenario.

Stock up on diatomaceous earth (DE) to protect your garden vegetables. The stuff stores forever.

Stock up on extra glasses or contact lenses if you might need them.

Get fit, you'll need to be more fit if you hope to survive.

Take out some cash and start saving nickels. Why? Because nickels are actually still worth a nickel in terms of what they're physically made of.

Learn to use shortwave radio, or better yet get a radio operator's license.

Learn and practice basic gardening skills.

Learn how to raise chickens, goats or other small animals.

Buy a premium-quality set of basic gardening tools, even if you don't yet garden.

Get training on how to use your firearms. When you really need them, there won't be time to practice. If you want to practice on your own, buy the new book by Joe Nobody, entitled, "The Home Schooled Shootist" and start using it.

If you own rifles, sight them all in and use threadlock on anything that might work itself loose in a firefight. You don't want your gear falling apart when you need it most.

Plant some figs, aloe vera or other low-maintenance food-producing plants. Do it now to give these plants as much time as possible to start producing food.

Stock up on salt, colloidal silver and other hard-to-get items that you'll routinely need.

Spend more time outdoors to get used to sunlight exposure.

Store away an emergency seed kit.

Get a reliable guard dog who can help provide protection for your family and property.

Buy extra pairs of socks. You can never have too many pairs of quality socks. And you absolutely do not want to have to make them yourself later on.

Obviously, this list can go on forever, but these 26 things should be at the top of your "preparedness to-do list." Bang out as many as you can while staying healthy, informed, well stocked and as far away from high density population areas as possible. The cities will suffer the most in almost any conceivable debt collapse scenario, so take advantage of the relative tranquility that exists right now to move out of the city and get squared away out in the country.

Trust me, you'll be glad you did very, very soon. In terms of timelines, many smart people think we are on the verge of a sudden global debt collapse. Others think we're heading into a "slow collapse" that could accelerate over the next 2-3 years. Some people believe a lot is riding on the upcoming election, and what I'm hearing is that if Romney gets elected, many Obama supporters are going to riot in the streets. Whereas if Obama gets re-elected, U.S. business owners may very well revolt against the failed economic policies Obama has so far pursued. Either way, it's not a pretty picture. Either way, you need to get prepared now for the inevitable.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/037577_debt_collapse_checklist_preparedness.html#ixzz29bmz7DRI