The Decade Of Tyranny

Loss of basic freedoms has spurred a mass awakening, next decade will be defined by restoration of liberties

During the first nine years of the new millennium we have been witness to a rapid erosion of freedom. Our basic liberties have been systematically denigrated and diluted by a vast expansion of coordinated global tyranny.

The decade is not over yet, there is still another year to go, however, given that the mainstream media is obsessively compiling it’s own decade lists, we felt it necessary to draw up our own to highlight the major events that have shaped the world we now live in and the future we face.

It is important to stress the fact that while we have indeed experienced a decade of tyranny, we have also seen a mass awakening, an expansion of knowledge and an exponential increase in opposition to the agenda we have come to know as the new world order.

Here in chronological order, follow’s Prisonplanet.com’s defining moments of the decade.

2001 – 9/11

9/11 was the precursor for everything that followed during the decade of tyranny. The immediate invasion of Afghanistan saw the U.S. go to war without a formal declaration.

The passage of the USA PATRIOT Act overnight, with members of Congress not even being afforded time to read it, paved the way for a decade of freedom stripping government legislation.

The expansion of the phony war on terror as justification for big government, a domestic police state and an interventionist foreign policy also stemmed directly from 9/11.

Over the past decade we have ceaselessly exposed the lies behind 9/11. We have seen the 9/11 truth movement blossom from the efforts of a select few individuals to encompass the work of thousands.

While there is no doubt 9/11 is the decade of tyranny’s defining moment, exposing the truth behind it has also led to to an equally influential awakening that is still ongoing.

2002 – Creation Of The Department of Homeland Security

The fallout of 9/11 led to a re-alignment of power in the U.S., with the shadow government stepping out into the open and implementing elements of a long term agenda to subvert Constitutional freedom.

After the passage of the PATRIOT Act in late 2001, the next major step toward tyranny came with the expansion of the federal government through the creation of the DHS.

The DHS has played the role of the domestic police state enforcer agency, encompassing every major law enforcement agency in the nation under one single office.

With multiple subsequent reports and video productions fingering the American people as potential terrorists, the Orwellian titled agency has proven it has nothing to do with security and everything to do with limiting the freedoms of people all over the country.

2003 – Invasion Of Iraq

The March 2003 invasion of Iraq was a war based on a mountain of lies and deceit, and yet at the time the public swallowed the propaganda with wanton bloodlust. The constant invocation of a link between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein was repeatedly debunked both before and after the invasion, but the course for war was set.

The invasion was an illegal attack based on a wholly contrived pretext and the war was not approved by Congress. This set the precedent for unconstitutional global pre-emptive strikes in the name of the war on terror. Conservative estimates put the death told as a result of the invasion at around 655,000, but this number is far higher when the previous years sanctions are taken into account. Upon U.S. occupation of the country, Iraq was turned into one giant gulag, with hundreds of thousands detained and held in internment camps for the most menial offenses.

The occupation of Iraq provided the opportunity to build hundreds of military bases to be used as launch pads for future pre-emptive wars in the key geopolitical region of the Middle East.

2004 – The Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal

The Abu Ghraib torture scandal was shocking for two primary reasons. The first being the treatment of the prisoners themselves, the vast majority of whom were innocents caught up in random sweeps who had nothing to do with insurgents or terrorism whatsoever. However, the photographs that were broadcast around the world only scratched the surface of the the true horror of what happened not just at Abu Ghraib, but what happened and continues to occur at dozens of U.S. torture camps around the world where suspects are illegally kidnapped and imprisoned on a whim via a process euphemistically labeled “rendition”.

The second most disturbing aspect to the story was how the media covered it and how the public’s reaction was carefully manipulated. By only showing the most mild examples of torture, which in reality were disgusting but to a public immersed in violent movies and television were seen as tame, the true depth of the scandal, as revealed in the Taguba military report, was disguised. Abu Ghraib was also about inoculating the public against the idea that torture was something only history’s despotic regimes engaged in. To many who have been completely brainwashed by this tyranny – torture is now as American as Mom and apple pie.

Low-level culprits in the scandal were burned while their superiors who ordered them to torture in complete violation of both the U.S. constitution and the Geneva Conventions were protected by the Bush administration and continue to be protected by Obama who has failed to fulfil his election promise that they would be prosecuted and that similar detention sites like Guantanamo Bay would be closed.

2005 – Hurricane Katrina Fallout

The disaster in New Orleans provided the federal government with the perfect opportunity to wargame a martial law takeover.

Emergency preparedness legislation and FEMA executive orders that have been in effect for decades, were suddenly put into use at the expense of basic freedoms.

The Posse Comitatus Act was overturned as active duty military paraded the streets and aided police in confiscating firearms and implementing mandatory evacuation orders.

The precedent has now been set for natural disasters to constitute broad sweeping changes to ancient laws and rights, overturning and replacing basic liberties with repressive mechanisms of government control.

2006 – Liquid Bombing Scam

The biggest story of 2006 was undoubtedly the staged liquid bomb plot, which led to tighter restrictions on carrying fluids aboard airliners and heralded a new wave of invasive technologies to be implemented in airports and eventually introduced on a day-to-day basis.

Despite the fact that the alleged terrorists involved in the plot to explode multiple airliners were closely tracked for months beforehand, added to the fact that they didn’t have flight tickets or even passports, it was announced on August 10th that authorities had busted the plot amidst a wave of propaganda about continuing the war on terror, similar to what we are hearing in the aftermath of the Christmas Day bombing attempt.

According to news reports the British government and MI5 wanted to wait at least a week before busting the liquid terror cell that their agents had fully infiltrated, including planting a mole within the bomb squad. From the acknowledged timeline and admission that the real attack was scheduled for August 16th – little else can be deduced but the shocking fact that MI5 wanted the bombings to go forward – arresting the perpetrators only after the attack.

A deluge of fearmongering and paranoia ensued, with ridiculous measures hastily enforced in airports which remain with us to this day, such as mothers being forced to drink their own bottled breast milk to prove it is not an explosive liquid.

2007 – Ron Paul Revolution, The Rise Of The Resistance

After years of endless war, economic decline and suppression of basic freedoms, 2007 saw a mobilization of resistance amid a clamor for change.

With a presidential election looming, Congressman Ron Paul, a public representative with an immaculate record, emerged as an icon of counteraction against the growth of big government and the erosion of liberty.

Beginning as an underground phenomenon driven by grassroots activists, the Ron Paul Revolution soon became a mainstream talking point and the Congressman was propelled to the forefront of the debate over America’s future.

Of course, big money and the monopoly of power eventually won out, so the 2008 election saw a new new world order puppet installed in the shape of Barack Obama.

However, Ron Paul’s incredible efforts throughout 2007 and 2008 during his presidential campaign provided a platform for the restoration of liberty and proved that the electoral process has not been completely usurped by those who have shown they have no allegiance to we the people.

2008 – The Bailout Heist

In October 2008, the central banks that own the U.S. government set the course for the most egregious looting of the American public in history with the passage of the TARP “bailout” legislation.

The bailout merely increased the severity of the financial downturn and allowed the same elite to exploit the crisis as a pretext for centralizing control of the world economic system and creating a new world order and a single global currency.

Henry Paulson, one of the chief architects of the bailout and the man who committed financial terrorism by threatening the Congress with martial law and food riots if they didn’t pass the initial TARP package, brazenly pocketed $200 million in Goldman Sachs profits tax free while handing out billions in ill-gotten gains to his bankster buddies, all this after he pulled a bait and switch by changing the entire focus of the bailout from buying up toxic debt to giving money directly to financial institutions.

Following the election of Barack Obama in November 2008, the new President’s actions made it abundantly clear that he would pick up where the Bush administration left off, increasing the looting exponentially to a figure well over $24 trillion by the latest estimates, which don’t even account for the last 6 months.

2009 – Acceleration of World Government

2009 represents the year that the agenda for a world government was both openly announced and the acceleration of its implementation reached breakneck speed as globalists exploited both the engineered financial crisis and the contrived global warming scam to move to finalize total dictatorial control over the planet.

In an October New York Times editorial entitled “We Can Do It,” Ki-moon wrote that efforts to impose restrictions on CO2 emissions “Must include an equitable global governance structure.”

New EU President Herman Van Rompuy said in a December press conference that the Copenhagen conference was, “The first step towards the global management of our planet.”

Similarly, Al Gore said in a speech earlier this year that attempts to regulate CO2 emissions would be driven through “global governance and global agreements.”

Although it failed to ram through a large portion of the global government agenda, the Copenhagen agreement laid the foundation for the introduction of a global transaction tax which would be paid to the World Bank, representing a massive transfer of wealth to the new world government now being primed for total takeover.

Ten years ago, people who warned about a coming new world order bossed by a global government were called paranoid conspiracy theorists. Is the march towards a one world government still a conspiracy theory, even as its architects openly announce its implementation?

The Decade of Freedom?

The battle between tyranny and freedom is a long term game of brinkmanship, however, as we move into 2010, we are reaching a crucial time in modern history. Humanity must decide whether to engage in a battle for freedom or accept a future under the rule of tyranny.


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Another false flag terror attack as justification for war and trampling on our freedoms

I want this country to realize that we stand on the edge of oblivion. I want everyone to remember why they need us!

How impudent we Americans have become, with our “tea parties”, marching on Washington, demanding smaller government, trying to abolish the private Federal Reserve, demanding government get out of our lives, becoming tired of endless war. Who do we think we are?

Well, they’re not going to let us get away with it. They’re going to remind us why we need them. Why they must take more control. Why we need to be degraded and humiliated further. Oh, and they want to bomb more Muslim countries. That will make them stop participating in this government-run black op. Plus, everybody loves a good bombing. It looks like oh so much fun watching it live on Fox News, and you never have to worry about the controlled media showing the mangled bodies of women and children and elderly, who deserve to die anyway because they’re not Americans. And when the families and friends of the dead, or the fortunate survivors of our bombs, decide to seek vengeance for the murder of their loved ones, well they’ll just be more terrorists that we have to kill in order to keep the heimat safe.

Meanwhile, it wasn’t degrading and humiliating enough for the TSA to pull grandma out of line to make her take off her shoes to make sure she’s not another shoe bomber, or have your teenage daughter or your girlfriend or wife felt up by some tax feeding pervert, no. The government put on a show for you Christmas day, and now they will punish you for their crime. They will make you miserable for their purposeful negligence. You or I aren’t allowed to bring a fish hook on board a plane – and if the statist shills in the media have their way, you won’t be allowed to bring perfume or cologne on board either (this is all liberals’ fault, don’t you know?) – yet this patsy was able to board with explosives that are easily detectable, partially contained inside a syringe. You or I need how many forms of ID to get on a plane, yet this person was escorted past security by an unknown person, without any identification or passport, on an international flight. There are well over 1.3 million people on the TSA no-fly list, who have not been charged with a crime, yet this person, with supposed terror connections – his own father throws him under the bus – was on a watch list but not the no-fly list. No, this wasn’t a black op at all. It was al Qaeda, which isn’t really the CIA, trying to scare you again. And the government, which knew this was coming yet, we are to believe, just dropped the ball – totally benign negligence – would have you believe that they can keep you safe now, this time, if only you’ll degrade and humiliate yourself further and give up more liberty and privacy. Just a little more, they swear. It’s FYOG. Hey, freedom isn’t free.

So, it wasn’t convenient at all that this kamikaze hid his “bomb” in his underpants. As if that were the determining factor that allowed him to sneak past security undetected. Now, if only you’ll give up these quaint, antiquated notions (see also here, here, here, here, here…) of a right to be secure in your persons, houses, papers, and effects, and allow them to put millimeter wave scanners in airports so some worthless TSA slob can examine you naked, the government can stop this kind of terrorism, which is of their own making, once and for all. That is, until the people realize it’s all a sham, a theatrical performance, used as justification to oppress them and bomb foreigners, at which point the government will just put on another show to remind us all that we’re slaves, and should keep our mouths shut and our faces in the mud. That’s freedom, baby. Love it or leave it.


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Fluoride's here but Graham's gone

AFTER 15 years loyal service with Fitzroy River Water, Graham Demeny says his career is down the gurgler because of fluoride and an uncompromising council.

Graham, who was responsible for making Rockhampton’s drinking water safe, resigned earlier this month after his request for a transfer within Rockhampton Regional Council was refused.

He said he questioned the safety of adding fluoride to the city’s water supply and ethically wasn’t prepared to do the job.

From today fluoride will be added to drinking water in Rockhampton, The Caves and Gracemere.

Protesters, including councillor Glenda Mather, will rally against the situation this morning outside City Hall.

Yesterday Cr Mather said Graham’s situation was a tragedy.

“I consider staff, especially long-term staff, as the organisation’s most valuable asset and we need to treat them like liquid gold,” Cr Mather said.

“I feel very sad for this family, especially at Christmas time, as clearly the breadwinner has ended a career because he stood by principles.

“I don’t know what I can do, but will certainly be making some internal enquiries to see if a solution can be found.”

Graham, who finished up with council on December 7, said he was one of five people who added the chemicals to the water supply.

“For the last 15 years I have worked at the Glenmore Water Treatment Plant operating the chemical dosing of water taken from the Fitzroy River for the city’s consumption,” Graham said.

“Until now all processes adopted have made the water either clean or safe to consume.

“Fluoride addition does neither and questionably compromises the safety aspect.

“With this ethical, plus a few moral issues, I realised my present position was untenable.”

He said he approached council about a transfer.

“Not wishing to make waves and expecting respect on my stance on fluoride and for the years of loyal service I requested redeployment,” Graham said.

“Without negotiation I was told to leave if I wasn’t prepared to dose the city water supply with fluoride, for there would be no redeployment.”

He said his was just one of many examples of the “consequences of supercilious policies and procedures adopted by council since amalgamation which are drastically reducing morale in the council workforce”.

A council spokeswoman confirmed Mr Demeny had worked for the council before resigning, however said it was not council’s policy to comment on staffing matters.


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Infowars Reader Receives Threatening Letter from Census Bureau

The United States Department of Commerce will send out a threatening letter if a subject refuses to submit to the American Community Survey (ACS). The ACS is a project of the U.S. Census Bureau that replaces the long form in the decennial census. A census is required by the Constitution.

An Infowars reader has sent us a copy of this threatening letter. The anonymous recipient received the letter after he refused to fill out and send in the ACS form. “The Census people have been by my house over a handful of times. They have called my house several times. They even went to my neighbors house and asked when I’m home and what time I go to work,” he writes. “I told her that she was not welcome on my property and I received a threatening letter from census (attached) to this e-mail.”

“The primary goal of this survey,” writes Dennis R. Johnson, regional director of the Census Bureau, “is to provide current information on subjects like the current social, economic, and housing situation in the United States. Your efforts help provide the information needed by your community, county, and state, as well as the Nation, to plan programs at all levels.”

Johnson then threatens the letter recipient with a federal law under title 13 of the United States Code.

The primary goal of a national census, according to the Constitution (under Article 1, Section 3) is to provide “actual enumeration” of the population so that the proper number of congressional representatives can be elected from each state.

The Constitution says nothing about government efforts to collect social, economic, and housing data in the United States so local and national government can determine how to tax and spend the money of Americans. Mr. Johnson’s letter is unconstitutional and a color of law effort to shakedown a citizen who understands he is not obliged to provide anything beyond a head count as mandated by the Constitution.

As Ron Paul correctly notes, the Founding Fathers “never authorized the federal government to continuously survey the American people. More importantly, they never envisioned a nation where the people would roll over and submit to every government demand.”

“Keep in mind the survey is not voluntary, nor is the Census Bureau asking politely. Americans are legally obligated to answer, and can be fined up to $1,000 per question if they refuse!” Paul wrote on July 13, 2004. “The American Community Survey is patently offensive to all Americans who still embody that fundamental American virtue, namely a healthy mistrust of government. The information demanded in the new survey is none of the government’s business, and the American people should insist that Congress reject it now before it becomes entrenched.”


Addendum

In response to the above post, an Infowars reader sent a scan of a letter regarding ACS sent to him by James Sensenbrenner, a member of the Republican Party in the United States House of Representatives, on November 26, 2006.

Contrary to the letter sent by Dennis R. Johnson, Mr. Sensenbrenner indicates there is no legal obligation to complete the ACS form, although he adds that the “Department views compliance with the survey as a citizen’s civic duty.”

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Baca-backed bill would legalize millions of immigrants

Congressional Democrats on Tuesday launched a renewed effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation.
Rep. Joe Baca, D-San Bernardino, is a co-sponsor of the bill that provides a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country.

The bill by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Illinois, would also repeal the 287(g) program that allows local law enforcement agencies to perform some immigration functions.

Baca said the bill is a collaborative effort to "finally fix" America's broken immigration system that has caused "both a humanitarian and economic crisis for our nation."

"This issue affects not just Latinos, but immigrants in all walks of life from all over the globe," Baca said in a statement.

He said the bill increases security at ports and borders, reforms guest-worker laws and creates tough workplace enforcement provisions.

Included in the bill is a measure that Baca introduced to place qualified undocumented high school graduates on "a fast track for citizenship."

The Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America's Security and Prosperity Act of 2009 also includes measures to reduce backlogs in visa processing, improve detention conditions for incarcerated immigrants, and reunite families separated by immigration status.

To qualify for a conditional visa allowing them to work and stay in the country for six years, illegal immigrants must pay a $500 fine and prove

they have made contributions to the country through employment, education, military or community service. They cannot have any felony convictions or three or more misdemeanors on their record.
They can subsequently apply for green cards and eventual citizenship if they pass background checks, meet English and civic requirements and pay taxes.

Area Republican lawmakers said they would oppose any bill that rewards people who are in the country illegally.

Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Redlands, David Dreier, R-San Dimas, and Gary Miller, R-Walnut, said the federal government needs to secure the border and strengthen the E-Verify system that ensures employers hire legal workers.

"As Americans continue to struggle with our economic downturn, there is scant support for legislation allowing millions of illegal immigrants to gain amnesty," Lewis said in a statement.

Dreier urged support for his own bill, the Illegal Immigration Enforcement and Social Security Protection Act, that provides employers with a counterfeit-proof tool to verify employment eligibility.

Despite the opposition, Baca predicted the effort will succeed.

"Working together - we can and will move America forward to keep our nation secure, and ensure that everyone is treated with respect and dignity," Baca said. "Comprehensive immigration reform will be a reality in 2010."

Others don't think so.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, called the bill "political theater" designed to appease Latino activist groups that voted for President Barack Obama on the promise he would enact comprehensive immigration reform.

Because the bill lacks a large guestworker program, he said it is likely to be opposed by big business and defeated in Congress.

"Even though it's a pretty radical bill, it's basically dead on arrival," Krikorian said.

Miguel Tinker-Salas, a professor of Latin American history at Pomona College, said the bill is an effort to "frame the immigration debate before `the right' or anybody else attempts to simply frame it as a question of national security or the scapegoating of immigrants for economic problems we're currently having."

Alondra Velazco, a 21-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico, is eager for the bill to become law.

She arrived in the United States in 1999, graduated from Eisenhower High School in Rialto and attends San Bernardino Valley College.

She hopes to transfer to Cal State San Bernardino next fall and major in international business. After that, she wants to study international law at Harvard University.

To pay for college, she works part-time at a Mexican restaurant.

"I'm praying that they do pass the bill," Velazco said. "It's really necessary to help myself and others work legally after we finish school."

But Democrats don't have the votes or the political capital to pass such a major immigration reform bill right now, said Adrian Pantoja, associate professor of political studies at Pitzer College in Claremont.

"Democrats aren't negotiating from a position of strength," Pantoja said. "I suspect you're going to see a series of compromises if it passes. Those compromises aren't going to please those on the left."

Local illegal immigration foes criticized the timing of the legislation.

"We have more than 15 million unemployed, desperate American workers," said Robin Hvidston, rally organizer for We The People California's Crusader, a Claremont-based anti-illegal immigration organization. "Why are our elected officials putting their time and energy and our tax dollars to work on behalf of lawbreakers?"


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Sanofi-Pasteur Removes Thimerosal Free Vaccine from Market

Sanofi-Pasteur made a similar mistake with the H5N1 vaccine in 2006.

On December 15, 2009 the CDC released a statement announcing the recall of 800,000 doses of H1N1 vaccine from the market. This was a story that should have received widespread coverage in the national media but, instead, largely died out at the local news level. Although some local stations made the recall their top story, many simply reported it as if it were no big deal and mentioned nothing else about it in subsequent broadcasts. Yet you would think that the recall of close to 1 million vaccines would spark the national interest, especially when the vaccines are for a “pandemic” that was initially supposed to kill hundreds of thousands of Americans and disrupt the entire society.

If one chooses to believe the hype about H1N1 then he/she should be quite worried about the reasons given for the recall – that it is not potent enough. The fact that the company who manufactures the vaccine is Sanofi-Pasteur is also significant because Sanofi-Pasteur made a similar mistake with the H5N1 vaccine in 2006. At the time, H5N1 was the virus that was supposed to kill us all. It seems that the lack of potency issue is a recurring theme with this particular company demonstrating, at best, a dangerous level of incompetence.

Since true independent science has never been able to find that vaccines are even effective, let alone safe, potency becomes a non-issue to those of us who do not take Big Pharma’s word as truth. However, there are two peculiar questions regarding this recall that need to be asked.

First, although Sanofi-Pasteur and the CDC cite lack of potency as a reason for the recall, they seem to cast doubt upon their own claims. The “potency” of a vaccine is merely measured by the concentration of the antigen (the active ingredient), and the CDC admits in its’ own statement that the potency of the vaccine is only “slightly below the specified range (CDC FAQ).” Yet they go on to say that “The vaccine in these lots is still expected to be effective in stimulating a protective response despite this slight reduction in the concentration of antigen (CDC FAQ).” If the media and government claim of vaccine shortage is true, it would seem illogical to recall such a large number of them if they were still effective.

Second, and perhaps most disturbing, is the fact that the vaccines being removed from the market are the preservative and thimerosal free versions. In article published by Bloomberg, Tom Randall writes, “The recalled shots are preservative-free syringes of a low-dose version made for children ages 6 months through 25 months, [Anne Shuchat, head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC] said. There are no remaining preservative-free shots available for children under 2 years old (Randall).” According to Randall, Schuchat goes on to say that thimerosal has proven safe in different studies even though some parents are leery of it.

The idea that thimerosal, aluminum, monosodium glutamate, or any of other preservatives used in these vaccines is safe is absolutely ludicrous. The fact is, thimerosal is 49.6% mercury. The EPA itself declares .1 mcg of mercury to be toxic yet there is, on average, 25 mcg in a single flu shot. The science that Shuchat refers to is the new brand of welfare science that relies on research grants from Big Pharma, vaccine makers, and eugenics foundations. True independent science has shown just the opposite of her claims.

Regardless of the lack of coverage by the mainstream media (something informed individuals should be used to by now), this is information that needs to be distributed. This recall has effectively removed all preservative-free vaccines off the market for children under two. So, for those parents who at least know to ask for thimerosal-free vaccines, the option is no longer on the table. With only the thimerosal vaccine now available, one has to wonder if potency was ever an issue at all or if the recall was merely an attempt to leave the plebs with only one option. That is, if they are uninformed enough to be vaccinated to begin with.

References and Works Cited

CDC FAQ about H1N1 Vaccine Recall, “Non-Safety-Related Voluntary Recall of Certain Lots of Sanofi Pasteur H1N1 Pediatric (0.25 mL, for 6-35 month olds) Vaccine in Pre-Filled Syringes Questions & Answers.” http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/vaccination/syringes_qua.htm

Maugh, Thomas H. II. “Swine flu could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans in U.S. if vaccine fails, CDC says,” LA Times July 25, 2009.

Randall, Tom. “Sanofi Recalls 800,000 Swine Flu Shots on Potency.” Bloomberg.com, December 15, 2009.

Roos, Robert. “HHS says stockpiled H5N1 Vaccine is losing potency.” CIDRAP News, November 16, 2006.


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IPCC's Lead Author Admits Deleting Inconvenient Opinions From IPCC Report

The latest installment of Jesse Ventura’s highly successful Conspiracy Theory show exposed millions of viewers on national TV last night to the climate change fraud, blowing a giant hole in the global warming scam by exposing how its adherents comprise wealthy industrialists making billions in profits by fearmongering about the environment.

Ventura and his team attempted to track down the key architects of the scheme, a search which led them to Beijing China and the heavily guarded residence of global warming pioneer and billionaire Maurice Strong.

The show lifts the lid on how the very same alarmists pushing the threat of climate change are profiting in the billions from carbon trading systems in which they have a huge personal stake.

The most damning part of the program is when Ben Santer, a climate researcher and lead IPCC author of Chapter 8 of the 1995 IPCC Working Group I Report, admits that he deleted sections of the IPCC chapter which stated that humans were not responsible for climate change.

Accusing Santer of altering opinions in the IPCC report that disagreed with the man-made thesis behind climate change, Lord Monckton told the program, “In comes Santer and re-writes it for them, after the scientists have sent in their finalized draft, and that finalized draft said at five different places, there is no discernable human effect on global temperature – I’ve seen a copy of this – Santer went through, crossed out all of those and substituted a new conclusion, and this has been the official conclusion ever since.”

“Lord Monckton points to deletions from the chapter, and there were deletions from the chapter, to be consistent with the other chapters we dropped the summary at the end,” Santer admits to the program.

Commenting on The Alex Jones Show today, Lord Monckton said that this was the first time Santer had publicly admitted to deleting the information.

Santer was intimately involved in the Climategate email scandal, communicating with other IPCC-affiliated scientists who conspired to “hide the decline” in global warming.

Does Santer’s shocking admission that he deleted the opinions of scientists who stated that human activity did not cause global warming from a key IPCC report represent Climategate 2?

Watch the clips below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSmnD-MAifg&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObUAAqoSWlo&feature=player_embedded

One of the most insightful moments in the show arrives when Amit Chatterjee, CEO of Hara, a company that sells carbon credits, is confronted with the fact that his business is bankrolled by an investment firm partnered with Al Gore.

After admitting that the “carbon market” will be worth a trillion dollars by 2015, and that his company will rake in billions, but then denying that he will profit from lobbying for cap and trade laws as well as any link to Al Gore, Chatterjee is confronted by Ventura.

Watch the clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuifVNofEtk&feature=player_embedded

“We don’t have any direct relationship with Al Gore,” claims Chatterjee, despite a June 2009 Reuters report headlined, Gore-backed Hara sees profit from low-carbon economy.

“Hara, a 25-employee company that debuted in 2008, provides online software to help companies reduce their carbon footprint — a $2.5 billion market that will grow 10-fold if the proposed energy bill, which will require companies to get permits for emissions, becomes law, Chief Executive Amit Chatterjee said,” states the report.

The Reuters report states that Hara is “An environmental start-up backed by Al Gore’s venture capital firm.”

Ventura challenges Chatterjee on his denial of a connection with Al Gore, at which point Chatterjee’s slick demeanor changes to that of a deer trapped in the headlights.

“No relationship with Al Gore? Let him tell that to me,” comments Ventura. Chatterjee then becomes evasive and refuses to comment when Ventura points out that Chatterjee’s company will make a fortune as a result of Al Gore’s lobbying for cap and trade to be passed. Ventura makes Chatterjee look like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Maybe they never met at the company picnic, but Al Gore owns a piece of his business,” comments Ventura, “He makes sure they make payroll.”

The trail then leads to Maurice Strong, “the world’s leading environmentalist, who just happens to be a billionaire industrialist.”

As we have documented, Maurice Strong, who is regularly credited as founding father of the modern environmental movement, serves on the board of directors of The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). Strong was a leading initiate of the Earth Summit in the early 90s, where the theory of global warming caused by CO2 generated by human activity was most notably advanced.

By using his considerable wealth and influence to lobby for cap and trade and a tax on CO2 emissions, Strong stands to enrich his company’s coffers to the tune of trillions if a binding agreement on carbon dioxide is formulated in Copenhagen.

Strong and his close ally Al Gore come from a stable of elite groups that have long sought to use the environmental movement to advance their agendas.

Strong, who was groomed by David Rockefeller to eventually serve as Director of the Rockefeller Foundation, is also a member of the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Club of Rome.

In their 1991 report, The First Global Revolution, the Club of Rome, a powerful globalist NGO committed to limiting growth and bringing in a post-industrial society, conspired to exploit fears about the environment to make humans the enemy so they could usher in a global government.

“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…. All these dangers are caused by human intervention… The real enemy, then, is humanity itself,” states the report.

Ventura and his team are unable to confront Strong, as he remains ensconced in his heavily guarded Beijing residence, but they do talk to whistleblower George Hunt, an official with the World Wilderness Conference who worked with Strong in 1987. Hunt tells Ventura that Strong is one of the leading conspirators behind a plot on behalf of aristocratic billionaires to use global warming as a justification for a one world bank, a global currency and a global government – which is exactly what’s unfolding right now in Copenhagen with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon insisting that global governance will be imposed to enforce CO2 regulations.

Ventura concludes the show by stating that global warming is a fear tactic invented to control people and make trillions in profit. Ventura signs off by stating that people who preach the global warming gospel, “Are not out to save the world – they’re out to run it.”

Watch the entirety of last night’s show via You Tube below.

The show’s riveting investigative-style approach to the subject matter has attracted droves of viewers for the series. The premiere episode of Ventura’s new show, aired earlier this month, was watched by 1.6 million viewers, truTV’s biggest audience ever for a new series launch.


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D.A.: City crew acted like 'band of brigands'

Nine city workers who were assigned to clean up blight in Northeast Philadelphia instead acted like a "band of brigands" by illegally entering homes and ransacking them of cash, jewelry, TVs and guns, District Attorney Lynne Abraham said yesterday.

The nine are current or former employees of the Department of Licenses and Inspections or the Mayor's Office of Community Services who were assigned to the Community Life Improvement Program (CLIP), an anti-blight program supervised by the Managing Director's Office.

From June 2006 to January 2008, the nine conspired "to invade people's homes" to steal whatever they could, Abraham said at a news conference while announcing the results of a grand-jury investigation into the case.

CLIP was implemented in Northeast Philly in 2002 to deal with quality-of-life issues, such as a homeowner who didn't mow his lawn, who left trash on his property or who didn't fix a broken window. If an owner failed to fix a problem after having been given notice, a city crew was sent to fix it and the owner was billed.

The grand jury's investigation centered on five homes from which items were allegedly raided. In each case, L&I inspectors failed to get a court order to enter the home, Abraham said.

Instead, L&I inspectors and CLIP crew members either broke into the homes or abused their position as city employees to throw residents out of their homes, while alleging that they were at the homes to check on property-code violations, Abraham said.

Once inside, the CLIP crew stole whatever it could, hauling out furniture and other valuables and dumping them into city trucks, she said. This was "a clean-and-seal operation, which very rapidly became a clean-and-steal operation," Abraham said.

In one case, city workers broke into a home on Convent Avenue and forced the elderly residents and their disabled daughter out of the house, she said. The crew stole $25,000 from the house and virtually all of the furniture, Abraham said.

Firearms were also stolen from a few homes. In one case, an elderly widow on Greymont Street whose deceased husband was a gun collector was victimized by the theft of safes containing guns, as well as her husband's tools and other items, Abraham said.

The widow testified to the grand jury that a couple of months after CLIP "cleaned" her house, she received a $17,854.72 bill from the city and had to take out a second mortgage on her house to pay it.

Abraham said of the guns stolen from houses, seven were recovered, but at least 25 are still missing. One was recovered from a murder suspect, she said.

The nine defendants are being charged with corrupt organization, theft, conspiracy, burglary and related offenses.

The two alleged leaders were Rycharde "Rick" Sicinski, 55, of Germania Street near Arendell Avenue, an L&I employee who was head CLIP inspector; and Henry Turrentine, 52, of Brighton Street near Whitaker Avenue, an L&I employee who served as CLIP crew chief.

Crew members testified that these two supervisors would go through the properties first and "take a look around and then tell the workers what was in the houses and where to find it," the grand jury's presentment says.

Others being charged are:

* Algie Cuffee Sr., 57, of Tulpehocken Street near Baynton, a former L&I employee, who was one of two sub-crew chiefs overseen by Turrentine.

* Algie Cuffee Jr., 23, of Upper Darby, Cuffee Sr.'s son. Cuffee Jr. was employed by the Mayor's Office of Community Services and had worked on a CLIP crew. He is accused of selling guns stolen from the "cleaned" houses to other people or giving the guns away in exchange for marijuana.

Five others being charged worked as CLIP crew members:

* Anthony Scarcia, 31, of Knorr Street near Walker;

* Jermaine Adderly, 33, of Wanamaker Street near Media;

* Lamont Williams, 37, of Woodlawn Street near Chew Avenue;

* Wilfredo Cintron, 40, of B Street near Ontario; and,

* William Roldan, 29, of Rising Sun Avenue near Tyson.

Abraham contended that this "crime wave" was encouraged by a lack of oversight by L&I and the Managing Director's Office.

Deputy Managing Director Thomas Conway, who oversees CLIP, did not return a call.

Mayor Nutter said in response to the D.A.'s news conference: "We want to re-emphasize that we have a zero-tolerance policy in our government for corruption of any kind."

Two former managing directors, Pedro Ramos and Loree Jones, who served under then-Mayor John Street during the period the grand jury investigated, said yesterday that they had not been aware of any CLIP complaints.

Councilwoman Joan L. Krajewski, who came up with the CLIP idea with her staff, said yesterday she was "disheartened" to hear of these allegations because CLIP "is a good program" with numerous accomplishments.

The grand-jury investigation stemmed from an investigation by the Gun Violence Task Force.

Anyone believed to have been victimized by a CLIP worker is asked to contact Assistant District Attorney Sharon Piper at 215-686-9582.

Staff writer Catherine Lucey contributed to this report.


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Russians confirm that UK climate scientists manipulated data to exaggerate global warming

Climategate just got much, much bigger. And all thanks to the Russians who, with perfect timing, dropped this bombshell just as the world’s leaders are gathering in Copenhagen to discuss ways of carbon-taxing us all back to the dark ages.

Feast your eyes on this news release from Rionovosta, via the Ria Novosti agency, posted on Icecap. (Hat Tip: Richard North)

A discussion of the November 2009 Climatic Research Unit e-mail hacking incident, referred to by some sources as “Climategate,” continues against the backdrop of the abortive UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (COP15) discussing alternative agreements to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that aimed to combat global warming.

The incident involved an e-mail server used by the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia (UEA) in Norwich, East England. Unknown persons stole and anonymously disseminated thousands of e-mails and other documents dealing with the global-warming issue made over the course of 13 years.

Controversy arose after various allegations were made including that climate scientists colluded to withhold scientific evidence and manipulated data to make the case for global warming appear stronger than it is.

Climategate has already affected Russia. On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office in Exeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.

The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations.

The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature UK (HadCRUT) survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

The HadCRUT database includes specific stations providing incomplete data and highlighting the global-warming process, rather than stations facilitating uninterrupted observations.

On the whole, climatologists use the incomplete findings of meteorological stations far more often than those providing complete observations.

IEA analysts say climatologists use the data of stations located in large populated centers that are influenced by the urban-warming effect more frequently than the correct data of remote stations.

The scale of global warming was exaggerated due to temperature distortions for Russia accounting for 12.5% of the world’s land mass. The IEA said it was necessary to recalculate all global-temperature data in order to assess the scale of such exaggeration.

Global-temperature data will have to be modified if similar climate-date procedures have been used from other national data because the calculations used by COP15 analysts, including financial calculations, are based on HadCRUT research.

What the Russians are suggesting here, in other words, is that the entire global temperature record used by the IPCC to inform world government policy is a crock.

As Richard North says: This is serial.

UPDATE: As Steve McIntyre reports at ClimateAudit, it has long been suspected that the CRU had been playing especially fast and loose with Russian – more particularly Siberian – temperature records. Here from March 2004, is an email from Phil Jones to Michael Mann.

Recently rejected two papers (one for JGR and for GRL) from people saying CRU has it
wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either
appears
I will be very surprised, but you never know with GRL.
Cheers
Phil

And here at Watts Up With That is a guest post by Jeff Id of the Air Vent

And here is what one of the commenters has to say about the way the data has been cherry-picked and skewed for political ends:

The crux of the argument is that the CRU cherry picked data following the same methods that have been done everywhere else. They ignored data covering 40% of Russia and chose data that showed a warming trend over statistically preferable alternatives when available. They ignored completeness of data, preferred urban data, strongly preferred data from stations that relocated, ignored length of data set.

One the final page, there is a chart that shows that CRU’s selective use of 25% of the data created 0.64C more warming than simply using all of the raw data would have done. The complete set of data show 1.4C rise since 1860, the CRU set shows 2.06C rise over the same period.

Not, of course, dear readers that I’m in any way tempted to crow about these latest revelations. After all, so many of my colleagues, junior and senior, have been backing me on this one to the hilt….

Oh, if anyone speaks Russian, here’s the full report.


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NASA Shows Quiet Sun Means Cooling of Earth’s Upper Atmosphere

HAMPTON, Va., Dec. 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- New measurements from a NASA satellite show a dramatic cooling in the upper atmosphere that correlates with the declining phase of the current solar cycle. For the first time, researchers can show a timely link between the Sun and the climate of Earth's thermosphere, the region above 100 km, an essential step in making accurate predictions of climate change in the high atmosphere.

Scientists from NASA's Langley Research Center and Hampton University in Hampton, Va., and the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., will present these results at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco from Dec. 14 to 18.

Earth's thermosphere and mesosphere have been the least explored regions of the atmosphere. The NASA Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) mission was developed to explore the Earth's atmosphere above 60 km altitude and was launched in December 2001. One of four instruments on the TIMED mission, the Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry (SABER) instrument, was specifically designed to measure the energy budget of the mesosphere and lower thermosphere. The SABER dataset now covers eight years of data and has already provided some basic insight into the heat budget of the thermosphere on a variety of timescales.

The extent of current solar minimum conditions has created a unique situation for recent SABER datasets. The end of solar cycle 23 has offered an opportunity to study the radiative cooling in the thermosphere under exceptionally quiescent conditions.

"The Sun is in a very unusual period," said Marty Mlynczak, SABER associate principal investigator and senior research scientist at NASA Langley. "The Earth's thermosphere is responding remarkably -- up to an order of magnitude decrease in infrared emission/radiative cooling by some molecules."

The TIMED measurements show a decrease in the amount of ultraviolet radiation emitted by the Sun. In addition, the amount of infrared radiation emitted from the upper atmosphere by nitric oxide molecules has decreased by nearly a factor of 10 since early 2002. These observations imply that the upper atmosphere has cooled substantially since then. The research team expects the atmosphere to heat up again as solar activity starts to pick up in the next year.

While this warming has no implications for climate change in the troposphere, a fundamental prediction of climate change theory is that the upper atmosphere will cool in response to increasing carbon dioxide. As the atmosphere cools the density will increase, which ultimately may impact satellite operations through increased drag over time.

The SABER dataset is the first global, long-term, and continuous record of the Nitric oxide (NO) and Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the thermosphere.

"We suggest that the dataset of radiative cooling of the thermosphere by NO and CO2 constitutes a first climate data record for the thermosphere," says Mlynczak.

The TIMED data provide a fundamental climate data record for validation of upper atmosphere climate models which is an essential step in making accurate predictions of climate change in the high atmosphere. SABER provides the first long-term measurements of natural variability in key terms of the upper atmosphere climate. As the TIMED mission continues, these data derived from SABER will become important in assessing long term changes due to the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

TIMED is the first mission in the Solar Terrestrial Probes Program within the Heliophysics Division in NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

For more information:

http://stp.gsfc.nasa.gov/missions/timed/timed.htm


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Copenhagen summit veering towards farce, warns Ed Miliband

Climate talks at least 18 hours behind schedule as world leaders set to arrive in Copenhagen

The climate change summit in Copenhagen was in jeopardy tonight with the complex negotiations falling far behind schedule as the climate secretary, Ed Miliband, warned of a "farce".

With just two days remaining, the inability to overcome disagreements about the shape of a deal to combat global warming led to hours of inaction today , while outside the negotiations police clashed with protesters who broke through a security cordon but failed in an attempt to storm the conference centre.

"We have made no progress" said a source close to the talks. "What people don't realise is that we are now not really ready for the leaders. These talks are now 18 hours late."

John Vidal: 'Countries are making tiny concessions' Link to this audio

More than 115 world leaders arrive tomorrow and on Friday and had expected only to bargain over the final details in a prepared draft agreement but the earlier impasse could condemn the talks to failure.

For the first time frustrated negotiators spoke openly of – at best – reaching a weak political agreement that would leave no clear way forward to tackle rising greenhouse gas emissions.

That would mean the negotiations staying in limbo well into next year, increasing the damage caused by global warming.

The day saw thousands of protesters take to the streets to demand a strong deal by Friday but, while they clashed with police, they failed in their objective to enter the conference centre.

A key meeting of 25 government ministers from different countries, chosen to streamline the negotiations, was 18 hours behind track tonight , having failed to meet for the entire day. The group, along with another 25 "shadow" ministers, had been scheduled for its first meeting in the early hours of Wednesday but it was delayed. Ministers from developing countries were shocked to find that, instead of making progress on producing the slimmed-down draft agreement for the leaders, talks starting at 5.45am had seen the document increase in complexity.

Miliband said people around the world would be rightly furious if negotiators failed to get a deal because the talks were delayed not over substance, but over the process. "It would be a tragedy if we failed to agree because of the substance. It would be a farce if we failed to reach agreement because of the process," he said.

"People will find it extraordinary that this conference that has been two years in the planning and involves 192 countries, which is such an important thing, such important stakes, is at the moment being stalled on points of order."

There was, however, some progress on other important issues. The US and China appeared to resolve some of their differences and a proposal from the Ethiopian prime minister on climate funding closed the gap between rich and poor countries. At the heart of the impasse is the fate of the Kyoto protocol, signed in 1997. It is the only legally binding agreement on climate change and requires industrialised nations – but not developing nations – to cut their emissions. Rich nations want a fresh treaty, arguing the world has changed and the major emerging economies such and China and India must commit to curbing their huge and fast growing national emissions. But the developing nations argue that rich nations grew wealthy by polluting the atmosphere and must take primary responsibility for it, which can only be guaranteed by Kyoto.

China, India, South Africa and Brazil brought one half of the talks to a halt in expectation that the Danish presidency was going to introduce a new text which would effectively kill Kyoto. "Things are getting held up by procedural wrangling," said Miliband. "People can kill this agreement with process arguments. It will be tragedy if we cannot reach an agreement on substance, but it will be a farce if we cannot agree on process."


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Hundreds arrested as climate talks sour

With world leaders arriving for final talks, police clash with protesters

COPENHAGEN – Gloom has started turning to doom here at a climate change summit where failure is becoming the expectation and breakthrough would be the surprise outcome.

At a grand opening ceremony, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, Britain's Prince Charles and Danish Prime Minister Lars Rokke Rasmussen warned countries that compromise must pave their path if a climate agreement is to be signed by Friday.

Outside the conference centre, Danish police fired pepper spray and beat protesters with batons as hundreds of protesters tried to disrupt the conference. Police said 230 protesters were detained.

Connie Hedegaard, the former Danish climate minister, resigned the conference presidency to allow Rasmussen to take the reins of the meeting as world leaders began arriving. Hedegaard was to continue overseeing closed-door negotiations.

Meanwhile, officials from a select group of 48 countries were still waiting Wednesday for a draft text for them to negotiate – leaving little time for officials to reach agreement for world leaders, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to sign when they arrive.

"Obviously, this is of concern," Environment Minister Jim Prentice said according to The Canadian Press. He said he didn't know what the hold-up was.

And as the conference rolled into its 11th day, there was yet another dismal signal. This one came from Ban Ki Moon himself.

In an interview with the Financial Times, he warned the critical issue of securing long-term funding of hundreds of billions of dollars each year past 2013 may not be resolved when leaders fly out of the Danish capital. Developing countries want at least $100-billion a year, and negotiators for some have said that price tag should be many multiples higher.

"I'm not quite sure," he said when asked if the financing deal would be found here.

"I don't think the exact number itself should be all of this Copenhagen deal. There are many important issues. If they are not able to agree this time at Copenhagen, then there needs to be some initial arrangement."

"We can start next year discussing this matter," Ban said.

The article had barely landed on newsstands when word started circulating of a proposal backed by four countries including Britain that would see a mix of funding from the coffers of rich governments and private capital to raise $100-billion annually through to 2020.

The big problem, said one veteran of these climate conferences with a long-term view of the matter, was that even if the money arrived there is almost no capacity in the developing world to spend such a sum of cash to adapt to climate change and offset future emissions through clean energy projects.

Such is the state of play here in Copenhagen. Hope rises, then it comes crashing down again.

Negotiators looking at the future of the Kyoto Protocol, one of the two tracks of bargaining that is underway, worked into the early morning hours of Wednesday to come up with a draft agreement they could hand off to political ministers in the hope their decision-making authority could punch through the impasse.

By about 3 a.m., they gave up and vowed to start again after a few hours sleep.

Still, nations continued to speak of success as world leaders, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe began arriving in Copenhagen. One hundred and fifteen heads of state and government are coming here to seal the deal.

"In a sense, it's sad that (negotiators) have been unable to come up with a text by this date in time," said Mohamed Nasheed, president of Maldives, a tiny island nation in the Indian Ocean.

"We cannot now afford to be bogged down in the process. In my mind we need to move forward."

In Washington, a spokesman for U.S. President Barack Obama said he still believed a successful outcome – a political agreement on the main issues, though not a legally binding treaty – was still possible.

"The president believes that we can get an operational agreement that makes sense in Copenhagen," Robert Gibbs said Tuesday.

John Drexhage, climate change director with the International Institute for Sustainable Development, said the talks are in such disarray that negotiators have set up a scenario where their presidents and prime ministers will be arriving here to essentially save the world from the climate damage that all countries say is coming and all say they want to prevent.

"That's all that's left."


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Silicon Valley officials: Flu vaccine given to kids was safe despite recall

Federal health officials Tuesday recalled 800,000 doses of an H1N1 vaccine geared for young children, affecting 900 doses used by Santa Clara County, and an unknown number used by other valley health care providers such as Kaiser Permanente.

The recall is for the shots used for children ages 6 months to 3 years old, made by Sanofi Pasteur, which did a quality control test and found some of the vaccine doses weren't strong enough.

Santa Clara County used those particular doses at free clinics held at the county fairgrounds Dec. 6 and 12, and at the California Children's Services clinic on Empey Way in San Jose. Kaiser also received some of the recalled doses.

Santa Clara County's top health officer says the recall is nothing to be worried about and children don't need to be revaccinated.

"What we're hearing is that the doses are just short of the potency they need to be," Dr. Marty Fenstersheib said. "The children in this age group need to second-dose anyway."

Kaiser spokesman Karl Sonkin said the health care company on Tuesday was still compiling the exact number of recalled doses it received and which facilities received them. He agreed with Fenstersheib that children who received the recalled batch do not need to be revaccinated.

As of Friday, 435,270 doses of H1N1 vaccine for all age groups have been sent to health care providers in Santa Clara County since October, according to state data. As of Dec. 9, 825 people countywide have been hospitalized for serious complications related to H1N1, and 15 have died since May 1. That's 40 more hospitalizations and one more death than in the previous week, according to the county.

Although the antigen level in the recalled batch of vaccines fell slightly short of what's necessary, Fenstersheib pointed to the joint statement by the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention saying the "small decrease in antigen content is unlikely to result in a significant reduction in immune response."

Fenstersheib said that if children received a recalled dose and it was their first swine flu vaccine, they should still get a second dose in about a month, as recommended previously. If the recalled dose was their second vaccination, then he said that would be sufficient. He said children do not need a third vaccine, even if they received one of the less-potent doses.

"The CDC is a conservative agency," he said, "and they tend to err on the side of safety. I'm confident that if they tell us it's potent enough, then it is."

Fenstersheib said the recall is geared mostly for health care providers to send back any of the unused, less-potent batches. He said the shots are perfectly safe and parents shouldn't worry that their children's health has been harmed.

The county receives vaccines from the federal government, and about 90 percent of the H1N1 doses are made by Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of France-based Sanofi-Aventis Group.

The company reported the potency findings to the government officials and did a voluntary recall. A Sanofi Pasteur representative could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.

Sanofi Pasteur bills itself as the No. 1 manufacturer of flu vaccines in the world. It makes flu vaccine at sites in France and in Pennsylvania.

The Santa Clara County Public Health Department has held five large-scale vaccination clinics so far, including Saturday and Sunday, where more than 8,100 people were vaccinated.

County health officials have used a telephone alert system to remind parents to get their children dosed twice. But Fenstersheib said that as of Tuesday, the health department hadn't notified parents of the recall, although he added his team would discuss doing that.

If anyone has questions, the county has a recorded line answering basic questions about H1N1 at 408-885-3980. Information also can be found at www.sccphd.org.


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Report: U.S. Responsible for Dramatic Expansion of Afghan Opium Trade

As United States President Barack Obama and his advisors debated future troop levels for Afghanistan - which resulted in the decision to send an additional 30,000 troops - a new report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) muddied the water on one of the most important issues in the debate - the effects of Afghanistan's drug production.

The report, entitled "Addiction, Crime, and Insurgency: The Transnational Threat of Afghan Opium," gives the false impression that the Taliban are the main culprits behind Afghanistan's skyrocketing drug production. It also implies that drugs are the main reason why the Taliban are gaining in strength, absolving the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) of their own responsibility in fomenting the insurgency.

In fact, the United States and its Afghan allies bear a large share of responsibility for the drug industry's dramatic expansion since the invasion. Buried deep in the report, its authors admit that reduced levels of drug production would have little effect on the insurgency's vigor.

The following annotation rebuffs some of the report's main assertions, puts in perspective the Taliban's role in the opium economy and highlights US/NATO responsibility for its expansion and potential reduction.

Taliban insurgents draw some US$125 million annually from drugs, which is more money than 10 years ago, [and as a result] the perfect storm of drugs and terrorism, that has struck the Afghan/Pakistani border for years, may be heading towards Central Asia. A big part of the region could be engulfed in large-scale terrorism, endangering its massive energy resources.

These claims are supposed to make us shudder in the face of an impending narco-terrorist seizure of a large chunk of the world's energy resources. UNODC states that a decade ago the Taliban earned $85 million per year from drugs, but that since 2005 this figure has jumped to $125 million. Although this is pitched as a significant increase, the Taliban play a more minor role in the opium economy than UNODC would have us believe and drug money is probably a secondary source of funding for them. Indeed, the report estimates that only 10-15% of Taliban funding is drawn from drugs and 85% comes from "non-opium sources".

The total revenue generated by opiates within Afghanistan is about $3.4 billion per year. Of this figure, according to UNODC, the Taliban get only 4% of the sum. Farmers, meanwhile, get 21%.

And the remaining 75%? Al-Qaeda? No: The report specifies that it "does not appear to have a direct role in the Afghan opiates trade," although it may participate in "low-level drugs and/or arms smuggling" along the Pakistani border.

Instead, the remaining 75% is captured by government officials, the police, local and regional power brokers and traffickers - in short, many of the groups now supported (or tolerated) by the United States and NATO are important actors in the drug trade.

The New York Times recently revealed that Ahmed Wali Karzai, President Hamid Karzai's brother, has long been on the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA's) payroll, in addition to his probable shady dealings in drugs. But this is only the tip of the iceberg, as US and NATO forces have long supported warlords, commanders and illegal militias with a record of human-rights abuses and involvement in narcotics. A former CIA officer said, "Virtually every significant Afghan figure has had brushes with the drug trade." According to a New York University report, General Nazri Mahmad, a warlord who "control[s] a significant portion of the province's lucrative opium industry," has the contract to provide security for the German Provincial Reconstruction Team.

UNODC insists on making the Taliban-drugs connection front-page news while not chasing with the same intensity those supported by Washington. The agency seems to be acting as an enabler of US/NATO policies in Afghanistan.

When I asked the UNODC official who supervised the report what percentage of total drug income in Afghanistan was captured by government officials, the reply was quick: "We don't do that, I don't know."

Instead of pointing a finger directly at the US/NATO-backed government, the report gives the impression that the problem lies mostly with rotten apples who threaten an otherwise well-intentioned government.

But the roots of Afghanistan's upsurge in drug production since 2001 are directly related to US policies and the government that was installed in the wake of the invasion. The United States attacked Afghanistan in 2001, in alliance with anti-Taliban warlords and drug lords, showering them with millions of dollars and other forms of support. The empowerment and enrichment of the warlords with whom the US allied itself enabled them to tax and protect opium traffickers, leading to the quick resumption of opium production after the hiatus of the 2000 Taliban ban.

To blame "corruption" and "criminals" for the state of affairs is to ignore the direct and predictable effects of US policies, which have simply followed a historical pattern of toleration and empowerment of local drug lords in the pursuit of broader foreign policy objectives, as Alfred McCoy and others have documented in detail.

Impunity for drug lords and warlords continues: a US Senate report noted in August that no major traffickers have been arrested in Afghanistan since 2006, and that successful prosecutions of significant traffickers are often overturned by a simple bribe or protection from above, revealing counter-narcotics efforts to be deficient at best.

Identifying drugs as the main cause behind Taliban advances absolves the US/NATO of their own responsibility in fomenting the insurgency: their very presence in the country, as well as their destructive attacks on civilians account for a good deal of the recent increase in popular support for the Taliban.

In fact, buried deep in the report, its authors admit that reducing drug production would have only "minimal impact on the insurgency's strategic threat". The Taliban receive "significant funding from private donors all over the world", a contribution which "dwarfs" drug money. Although the report will be publicized by many as a vindication of calls to target the opium economy in order to weaken the Taliban, the authors themselves are not convinced of the validity of this argument.

Of the $65 billion turnover of the global market for opiates, only 5-10% ($3-5 billion) is estimated to be laundered by informal banking systems. The rest is laundered through legal trade activities and the banking system.

This is an important claim that points to the enormous amounts of drug money swallowed by the world financial system, including Western banks.

The report says that over the last seven years (2002-2008), the transnational trade in Afghan opiates resulted in worldwide sales of $400-$500 billion (retail value). Only 5-10% of this is estimated to be laundered by informal banking systems (such as hawala). The remainder is laundered through the legal economy, and importantly, through Western banks.

In fact, Antonio Maria Costa was quoted as saying that drug money may have recently rescued some failing banks: "Interbank loans were funded by money that originated from drug trade and other illegal activities", and there were "signs that some banks were rescued in that way". "At a time of major bank failures, money doesn't smell, bankers seem to believe," he wrote in UNODC's 2009 World Drug Report (emphasis in original).

Afghanistan has the world monopoly of opium cultivation (92%), the raw material for the world's deadliest drug - heroin, [which is] causing up to 100,000 deaths per year.

Tobacco is the world's deadliest drug, not heroin, and kills about five million people every year. According to the World Health Organization, if present tobacco consumption patterns continue, the number of deaths will increase to 10 million by the year 2020. Some 70% of these will be in developing countries, which are the main target of the tobacco industry's marketing ploys. So why does the Taliban get more flak than tobacco companies?

The report estimates there are 16 million opiate users across the world, with the main consumer market being Europe, valued at $20 billion. Europeans are thus the main source of funding for the Afghan drug industry and their governments share a significant part of responsibility for failing to decrease demand and provide more treatment services within their own borders. Lowering drug use in Europe would contribute significantly to reducing the scale of the problem in Afghanistan.

Moreover, the report notes that NATO member Turkey is a "central hub" through which Afghan opiates reach Europe. Perhaps NATO should direct its efforts towards its own members before targeting the Taliban.

Some Taliban networks may be involved at the level of precursor procurement. These recent findings support the assertion that the Taliban network is more involved in drug trafficking than previously thought.

Yes, the Taliban surely take a cut out of the precursor trade (the chemicals needed to refine opium into products like heroin and morphine).

However, Western countries and some of their allies are also involved: The report identified "Europe, China and the Russian Federation" as "major acetic anhydride sources for Afghanistan". For instance, 220 liters of acetic anhydride were intercepted this year at Kabul airport, apparently originating from France. In recent years, chemicals have also been shipped from or via the Republic of Korea and UNODC's 2008 Afghan Opium Survey pointed to Germany as a source of precursors.

It is unclear what the total value of the Afghan trade in chemical precursors is, but from the report's data it can be inferred that the retail value of just one precursor, acetic anhydride, was about $450 million this year. Part of that money goes back to Western chemical corporations in the form of profits. Tighter safeguards should be in place on these products.

Areas of opium poppy cultivation and insecurity correlate geographically. In 2008, 98% of opium poppy cultivation took place in southern and western Afghanistan, the least secure regions.

UNODC associates drugs with the Taliban by pointing to the fact that most poppy cultivation takes places in regions where the Taliban are concentrated. Maps show "poppy-free" provinces in the north and a concentration of cultivation in the southern provinces, linking the Taliban with drugs.

It is true that cultivation is concentrated in the south, but such maps obscure the fact that there is plenty of drug money in the north, a region over which the Afghan government has more control. For instance, Balkh province may be poppy-free, but its center, Mazar-i Sharif, is awash in drug money. Nangarhar was also poppy-free in 2008, although it still remains a province where a large amount of opiates is trafficked.

Some Western officials are now implying that political elites in northern Afghanistan are engaging in successful counter-narcotics while the southern drug economy expands. But the fact is that although the commanders who control northern Afghanistan today may have eliminated cultivation, none have moved against trafficking. Most of them continue to profit from it, and some are believed to have become millionaires.


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