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Following this brief introduction is an attempt to enumerate powerful propaganda techniques being used on the American public by the corporate or so called "mainstream" media. Give this a good read, and my guess is that after you are armed with this important information, you will be able to spot these techniques as they are being deployed against you. The best way to counter propaganda is to understand the techniques and how they are used.

framing the debate Debate a legitimate issue, and ostensibly have both sides represented, but instead on the continuum of opinion, have one from the middle and one from an extreme view and thus contain the debate to meet your ideological framing and goals. Alternatively, have a strong debater for one side, and a weak debater for the point of view you would like to suppress.

programming the viewers attitudes This is one of the most common propaganda techniques. Cover a story, complete with your ideological spin, and then follow up with interviews of "ordinary people" who support your point of view but frame it as the popular point of view or the only point of view. The viewer walks away with a powerful form of sub conscious attitude programming.

distraction This is another common technique in use today. Instead of covering stories that matter, cover irrelevant, trivial stories about entertainers or celebrities and blow them up into grand productions so you don't have to discuss anything that really matters, or when something happens that you don't want to discuss but ordinarily would be forced by popular opinion to discuss, generate a distraction which you discuss instead.

fluff and ice cream cones. Run feel good stories about puppies and teddy bears. artificial realityBy framing the entire programming of the network, you create an artificial reality, posing as the truthdirect programmingIn this method, a story is covered with the specific intent of a viewer walking away holding a desired point of viewspecial interest ads posing as news storiesIn this technique, a special interest advertisement will be crafted as if it is a news story and presented as such.

the big lie technique Tell a lie so large that no one will question the authenticity because of the size of the lieomissionThis is a simple technique. For news that doesn't fit your agenda, or news that might cause your advertisers or special interest supporters to withhold support, for news that might not fit with the overall story line and talking points...just don't cover the story. Alternatively, if a high profile person carries an opinion or message you would like to suppress, don't ever invite that person as a guest.

friendly fire Repeatedly have as guests, people who strongly support your causes, or alternatively have weak debaters appear to represent causes you don't supporthistorical revisionOmit unflattering feedback and generate your own positive feedback

winning the viewer Attempt to foster goodwill and viewer loyalty by covering fluff stories using likable or attractive people and personalities in a way that ordinary viewers or readers can identify with. In this way, people are more likely to swallow the dope.emphasis and repetition.Cover stories which match your agenda over and over and over......and over.

shills invite often, people with so called "credentials", who pose as "experts", "professors" or other lofty titles who support the network point of view as if it is the truth. Often, these so called experts will have a financial or career interest, or some other political or ideological affiliation regarding their point of view that is not disclosed.

repeating a lie George Orwell said that if you repeat a lie frequently enough, people will take it to be true

vilification People or personalities whose opinion or positions are to be suppressed are subtly (or not so subtly) vilified and sabotaged, usually by over blowing a trivial issue relating to something people are sympathetic to

keep only team players If a newscaster, commentator or journalist or editor has the wrong opinion, fire them and replace them with someone with the correct opinion.imbedded editorial views in news stories In Journalism, the editorial page is where opinion is expressed, but editorial views can be subtly introduced into "news" to program the viewer or reader

lies as truth Run a story or headline that you know isn't true to support your point of view. In a subtler form, mis translate or misquote to suit. Alternatively, publish or sponsor polls intended to give a desired result.

deciding who is sane on behalf of the viewer or readerportray points of view you would like to suppress as extreme, or crazy, dangerous or not legitimate. If necessary, call in one of your "experts" for emphasis

advertising as news Run goodwill stories about advertisers, or for that matter about your parent company, as if you are covering news or human interest stories.

the hostile or friendly interview Interview people whose views you support in a friendly manner. Interview people whose views you would like to suppress in a hostile manner. This technique is most effective when kept low key.A variation of this techinique is to invite a guest for an "interview", then have an aggressive personality talk over them the whole time and repeat as truth things they never said or things they said out of context.

humor as a propaganda tool feature comedic acts or jokes that support your point of view. Alternatively, feature humor that is in poor taste which supports your point of view or ideological agenda.unflattering (or flattering). handles corral an entire group of people into a pidgeon hole, by crafting handles that carry positive or negative connotations.Examples:He is a "conspiracy theorist" (negative connotation) used to tar anyone who contradicts the party lineHe is a "goldbug" (negative connotation) used to subliminally encourage the idea that someone favorable to owning gold is a kook or single minded extremist.use the power of words to emphasize or de emphasize acts or informationThe crowd was "peppered" with hellfire missiles

divide and conquer create simple minded divisions between groups of people to keep them distracted and arguing among themselves over mostly trivial issues.

using anonymous sources Generate "news" using anonymous sources. This technique could range from mis quoting, to outright fabrication and lying. ie. an anonymous source that is entirely fiction and created to generate a certain reaction or artificial reality.

using guided imagery This is an advanced technique which is now pervasive in all PR, Advertising and corporate programming as well as central banking. The idea is a takeoff on the idea popularized by George Soros which is that "markets influence events they anticipate". By the same token, there is an assumption that if the people are told something as if it is true, then it will in fact become true. You could call this moulding public opinion. An example of this would be saying as if it is fact, "70 percent of the country is in favor of xyz". The idea is that this repeated, will have the effect of causing the public opinion to actually be that. Another would be "we have green shoots" or "the country is out of the recession", with the idea being that if you state this as fact, then people will have more confidence and spend and it will become true.

using music, lighting and effects Music and lighting effects can be powerful promoters of feelings and emotion. Both are heavily employed, and deployed against the public. For example, when promoting the party line, be sure to have the music set to create all the right feelings and emotions. Create emphasis by dramatic lighting or by talking loud and fast of soft and somber. Have your points of view represented by people who are just like you.

fabricated evidence This technique is practiced by promoting as self sourced or repeating evidence that could range from non existent to fabricated. This could include doctored photographs to include, exclude or exaggerate information, audio recordings and video productions, as well as dossiers or written documents. Any or all of which promoted as "the truth" and may in fact have only some basis in truth or be entirely fabricated. It could in fact have been a paid for promotion.

leveraging the media empire The media empire can be used by the parent company for advertising, propaganda and goodwill. This is a very broad arena where subtle or overt techniques can be used. You can use your music empire to promote your viewpoint or more importantly, eliminate alternative points of view. You can advertise for your theme park in the name of news. You can promote your ideals with a consistent message throughout your subsidiaries and enterprises. You can promote or demote points of view you agree or disagree with. As media empires become ever fewer, ever larger, and ever more powerful, this tactic becomes more and more potent.

serialization of a related chain of events and the memory hole This technique works to reconcile incompatible truths by deconstructing all events to a serial chain, and discarding all past information unless doing so proves particularly useful. This is what George Orwell referred to as the "memory hole" where if you remember the past version of the truth, then the current version of the truth is not compatible with that version of the truth; therefore there should be no memory of the past unless it is a reverse engineered version. Otherwise incongruences are generated. At least the news isn't covering it. That's the point. You are supposed to forget the past and concentrate on what you are being told today. It's all a serial chain of sound bites and propaganda intended to give desired current results.

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials.

A tiny part of a tiny part of the population of the earth will set the terms for the future of all humans. A tiny part that is broken, spent out, and increasingly disillusioned. That sliver of humanity is the broken, spent out, and increasingly disillusioned American middle class, burdened with the task of spending all America out of catastrophe. When they break under the weight of desperate impossibility, how will the heartlands good citizens react, and what will they do?According to the World Bank, there are 6,692,030,277 human beings on the earth. 308,108,741 of them live in the United States, about 4.6% of the total. Of these fortunate Americans, about 231,000,000 are of voting age. In general elections in history's greatest democracy, about half those eligible to vote actually do...115 million people. History's greatest democracy has only two options every election, a choice between two almost similar positions, and the winning option typically enjoys the support of only half of those who choose, approximately 60 million individuals.For a scant 90 years, America has been the wealthiest, most powerful group of humans in all 20,000 years of recorded civilization. Decisions made by Americans can and do affect the lives of every other human on the planet, often for both present and future, good and bad. By brute force of American economics alone, a single, small 0.9% of the 6.6 billion people who call earth home set the agenda for each and every one of all the rest of us. Not even by force of arms has there ever been a time in glorious history when so few people dominated so many in so complete a way.Centuries from now, historians will want to know whom these few people were, if only to understand how they lived and thought, and better know the cause of global events that shaped the world they live in. As we in our time grapple to understand who the powers were that made a Roman, a Roman, future thinkers will want to dissect the condition of the less than one per cent of all humanity who call themselves American, and who alone make America, America... and the earth, American as well.It cost 1 billion dollars and four years to have .9% of the earth elect the President of the United States in 2008. It took a similar amount of time and money to be the guy that lost. Hundreds of millions more are expended to elect the 435 people who make up the United States Congress. No statistical analysis is required to understand that these are among the wealthiest and most privileged humans in all of history. A tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of the population of the planet. This, we are led to believe is democracy, and so this small sliver is at least nominally responsible to those few who elected them, and nobody else.Like all great empires, America has a well-defined class structure. As a fedora on a table, at one brim is the thin cruel line of poverty and disenfranchisement, at the other brim another thin line of luxury and excess, and a middle where the head goes which has historically been the big, fat, American middle class. The middle class sets the agenda by dearth of weight, the luxury class promoting the agenda where and when it suits them. The lower class don't matter at all.The great American middle class, then, at least nominally controls the fate of the planet. They do so by electing wealthy folks who pander to their interests, those wealthy folks whose interpretations of the middle class becomes policy. Future folks will want to understand how representative those interpretations were, and will want to see if changes in the middle class over time were responsible for changes in American policy towards the world.If anything defines the great American middle class, it is the concept of the American Dream. The basic building block of the American Dream is the family - mom, dad, 2.4 kids and a dog. The "dream" part is the very American right to economic freedom, freedom to accumulate stuff. A box on a postage stamp in a sea of urban sprawl called home, a couple of cars, a good education for the kids, and unrestricted ability to consume as much surplus crap as possible. Americans define success completely in economic terms and then attach the flag, religion, and everything else to it. Without this absolute right to consume hordes of junk, there is no American Dream, and no middle class. There is left only a lower class, (whatever that is), and a powerful capitalist class existing as it always has throughout time, changing flags and philosophy depending on how the winds blow. Caesar, Czar, King, or CEO of Goldman Sachs.The rise of the middle class at the end of the 19th century tracks the rise of wealth and power for most western, industrialized nations. Production, trade, and consumption of machine made goods became a near universal indicator of the rise of modern civilization. However, 40 years of crushing war amongst European powers stalled the growth for most, but emerging America remained unscathed, benefiting from the misdemeanours of a now dead age. History will fix the date of the birth of absolute America to the year 1914, the dawn of the American age to 1945, and no doubt, the golden era to the short period that began to erode in 1971. Of the time since, we the generation here and now and in the teeth of it, can only speculate.In the summer of 1914, America was an outlier in a world of teetering monarchies, festering colonial empires, and rancid landed aristocracies. While the rest of the world fed its gold and its young to the insatiable maw of industrial war, Americans were building a dream from limitless resources and the economic opportunities of a conflict that left America unspoiled and prosperous. By the close of hostilities in 1945, with the capital of the planet spent and exhausted, America burst from the ruins to begin the greatest run of prosperity and innovation of all time. The American middle class exploded, living the dream so thoughtfully given to them over a generation of global war.Powerhouse America imposed its vision of a liberal, free market democracy on the "free world" through the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944. The United States became the world's greatest manufacturer of goods, trader of goods, and consumer of goods. Rebuilding the planet became a God given mission, the profits manna from heaven. The American dollar became the world's dollar. Freedom and cash registers rang.But with the US greenback backed by gold, American economic expansion was limited to the bullion it horded. Wars in Korea and Viet Nam, and the massive expansion of "entitlements" with Social Security and Medicare among others, began to strain the American Dream. By the early 1970's the US had ceased to be an exporter of stuff, and the middle class began to buy increasingly cheaper stuff from abroad - at the expense of their own manufacturing and jobs. Given that the dream of freewheeling consumption was the bedrock of the burgeoning, voting middle class, politics insisted on a populist solution to the increasingly broke US economy. In 1971, Richard Nixon elected to abandon Bretton Woods, leave the gold standard, and America was free to print its way out of deficit and keep the dream alive.At the same time as the US set the world awash in USD's, untold wealth and prosperity inflated its way through the massive baby boomer cohort. Women were entering the workforce in exponential numbers, soaking up inflated dollars with double incomes - and less expensive kids. American politics became a contest of pandering to the hedonistic desires of the American household, boom times embraced and fuelled by lax regulation and credit, busts fought off with the simple printing of even more money. Good times.The American household saved 11% of its income in 1970, and had only 1.4% of its cash going to newfangled credit cards and auto loans. Everything else exchanged for clothes, appliances, food, houses, and shiny happy stuff, increasingly from overseas. Unknown to all, it was to be the high water mark for the middle class of America.In 1971, American imports exceeded exports for the first time in modern history, by 2.6 billion dollars. At a time when a billion was a lot, America began paying to simply exist. Gross Public Debt had grown from 43 billion in 1940, to 381 billion by 1970. Within a single generation - the age of narcissism, the computer age, the age of globalization - the baby boomers of the American middle class had tilted the entire planets resources towards an unsustainable consumer culture. No longer living the dream, those alive just moments before Lehman Brothers listed over, rolled under, and disappeared below the waves of history, were fighting simply to keep the stuff they had.The future had evaporated right before their shuttered eyes, and for over forty years.The current version of the American middle class bears no resemblance at all to that of the end of the golden era in 1970. Forty years ago, Americans saved 11% of their earnings - which had evaporated by 2005, reaching the oxymoron of negative savings. Credit card debt shot from 1.4% to 15%. In the space of a generation, a single income family flush with cash, savings, and dreams had become a double income nightmare staggered with debt.In 2008, there were more household bankruptcies than divorces.The cost of crap fell and Wal Mart rose. Debt enslaved suburbanites now spend 32% less on clothing than they did a generation ago. 18% less on food, 52% less on appliances, and 24% less on cars. The middle class is consuming as voraciously as it ever has, however they have replaced sturdy $400.00 American Lawn Boy lawn mowers with $99.00 tin cans from China, and buy them now on credit. Some call that progress, others, value. In reality, it's inflation. The simple fact of the matter is Americans no longer have the disposable income to consume their way out of trouble, and that trouble lies in why it is the American middle class is broke, struggling, and increasingly angry.At the same time that consumables were falling in price, the fixed portions of the American Dream began an exponential increase. Two incomes meant two cars - or three, or four - and despite the fact that cars were cheaper, the cost of cars to the two-income family rose by 52%. Houses got bigger, and mortgages increased 76% - with 10 million of them in various states of distress and foreclosure. Health insurance rose 76%, taxes 25%. Childcare was an expense nobody had a generation ago, but one that became essential with two adults working. The cost of education had increased - as did the length of time necessary to obtain that education. A ticket to the middle class that cost 12 years of school - grade one through high school - now includes daycare, preschool, grade school, high school, and then college. Americans must now pay for the additional time.In 2005, that .09% of the earth that set the agenda for the planet was spending over 66% of its income on the fixed costs of the American dream alone, where it once spent less than a third. Or, to frame it in a way that defines the great problem, the American system that depends on rabid consumerism has left its heartland with exponentially decreasing amounts of disposable income, falling from 66% to 33% in a single lifetime. When George W Bush implored the middle class to spend its way out of the 9/11 chaos, in stunned and terrified whispers the American middle class muttered, "With what?""The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country"- Edward Bernays, 1928"Our enormously productive economy...demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption.... We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate"- Victor Lebeau, 1947"Too much consumption and too little investment, too many imports and too few exports. We have not been on a sustainable economic track and that has to be changed. But those changes don't come overnight, they don't come in a quarter, they don't come in a year. You can begin them but that is a process that takes time. If we don't make that adjustment and if we again pump up consumption, we will just walk into another crisis."- Paul Volker, 2009“If you look around, you see how many people is out of work, number one, and you see how many people is in foreclosure or lost their homes or in default because they've lost their jobs, that tells you right there what the economy is doing.” - Middle Class American, 2009A tiny part of a tiny part of the population of the earth had constructed a global economic architecture that sustained it in wealth and excess, security and predictability. In a scant forty years that wealth, excess, security, and predictability have proved to be entirely unsustainable. The approaching political climate of the American middle class will reflect the shock and desperation that may now be starting to manifest itself. How Americans react to their fast changing circumstance and what they will do about it will deeply affect the 95% of the earth's humans who are really only along for the ride.In 2008, America gambled on hope, as hope is all it had. A new administration faced the growing catastrophe in the only way it could understand, frantically pumping in dollars to resuscitate a prostrate consumerism. An insane amount of debt piled up, the annual deficit soaring through $1,000,000,000.00. One trillion dollars. Absolutely none of it was used to purchase plasma TV's, hot tubs, or bling. The richest of Americans - as they always have - prospered along Wall Street and summered in the Hamptons while the drought stricken middle class waited for a rain that will never fall.The American middle class will not spend its way out of disaster, if only because it can't. There are no savings. The house is worthless. The credit cards are gone. Jobs are disappearing. Today is bad and tomorrow looks worse. People are nervous, frightened, worried. They are behind in the mortgage, and struggle to make health insurance payments. All the while, they watch the stock market explode, the bonuses arrogantly roll on, and their government lie to their faces that the "recovery" is underway. China is booming, so is India and Brazil. Beneath the hope, patriotism, and the flag, the American middle class can feel it all slipping away.In a nation consumed by politics, where pandering and lobbying are two sides of the same platitude, what will the increasingly angry gentle folks of Ohio, Iowa, and Florida demand of their philandering representatives in Washington? What form of instant remedy will some baseless political hack come to offer them as the snake oil for what ails them? How will those decisions come to dominate the lives of those in Canada, Ecuador, and Ghana?In the distant future, historians will consider the rise, fall, and collapse of the great American Dream and conclude that was the cause of all that followed. None will be surprised at the all too human response of anger, frustration, and action in the teeth of injustice and inequality. After all, history is full of angry people who just weren't going to take it anymore. They will wonder only how it was we could not see it coming - how we could be so stupid to have blown it.The coming fury of angry America is as palpable as it is silent. What will that tiny part of a tiny part of the earth's population do when the utter hopelessness of the situation washes over them and the tides of history curl around and bear them, inexorably, into the past?What will they do?

A protracted cold spell eased somewhat Wednesday, but wide areas of the US—from the Northern Plains to the East Coast and stretching to the South—were bracing for more winter weather and freezing temperatures this weekend. The cold snap has spelled misery for many, especially in areas unaccustomed and ill-prepared for the frigid conditions.
The freezing weather has placed in sharp relief the devastating social impact of mass unemployment, growing poverty and the refusal of the Obama administration to provide any serious relief for the victims of the economic crisis.
The arctic blast began last weekend and has been blamed for a least seven confirmed deaths. The number is likely far higher, and confirmed deaths can be expected to climb as packed shelters turn away people seeking refuge and communities struggle to provide a warm place for the growing ranks of the homeless.
Other households may have a roof over their heads, but have had their utilities shut off due to non-payment. The use of space heaters, fires, candles and other unsafe sources of heating and electricity leaves families vulnerable to house fires.
Three people died early Tuesday morning in Detroit when their home caught fire. It is believed the house—without gas or electrical service in below-zero temperatures—was being heated by a space heater. (See “Cut off from heat in freezing temperatures—Three die in Detroit house fire”)
A National Fire Protection Association report showed 73 percent of home heating fire deaths can be attributed to space heaters. These conditions can only be expected to worsen under conditions of bitter cold and increasing utility shutoffs. Over the past week in Georgia, six families have lost their homes to fires, all of them trying to heat their houses with space heaters. The families narrowly escaped death.
The Red Cross reports a 200 percent surge in house fires. The Red Cross’s Ryan Logan attributes this to a combination of the cold weather and the economic situation, commenting, “Some of the most critical cases, I mean, people are actually heating their homes with their stoves and so things like that is really kind of what we’re seeing and I really believe it’s just a result of the economy at this point.”
Logan also says that because many families have consolidated to save money and are now living under one roof, these fires are affecting more people as well.
A broad swath of the nation’s midsection was under winter storm warnings Wednesday as parts of Missouri, Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois braced for more snow and frigid temperatures. South Dakota was under a blizzard warning until Thursday morning.
In the South, a region unaccustomed to such brutal winter weather, parts of Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana were under a hard freeze warning Wednesday morning. In Florida, Governor Charlie Crist ordered a state of emergency Tuesday as the state’s $9 billion citrus crop was threatened by freezing temperatures overnight.
At least four cold-related deaths were reported in Tennessee. Three people were found dead in Memphis within a 24-hour period. Leroy Jones, 68, was found frozen to death in his home in South Memphis on Sunday. Although his utility bill had been paid, for some reason he hadn’t turned on his heat.
Jones, who lived alone, was paralyzed on one side and had other health conditions. Shelby County Medical Examiner Dr. Karen Chancellor commented to the local media that hypothermia can affect the brain and an individual’s decision-making. “Your sensations may be altered,” she said, “and you may not realize that you’re becoming too cold. Those most at risk include the elderly, chronically ill, people with heart disease and those who abuse drugs and alcohol.”
Two homeless men also succumbed to the cold in the Memphis area. The body of 51-year-old Daniel Foust, from Ohio, was found next to the railroad tracks in Bartlett. Another man, 55, whose identity has yet to be released by authorities, was discovered frozen to death at Memorial Park Cemetery in East Memphis.
In Nashville, Tennessee, John Anderson, was found dead outside his home Monday morning. Anderson, 81, who was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer’s Disease, wandered outside in his bathrobe overnight, when area temperatures fell to a low of 12 Fahrenheit (-11 Centigrade). His case exposes the plight of millions of elderly Americans across the US living alone with serious medical conditions and with little or no social assistance.
Since the cold snap took hold, several Nashville area shelters have reported turning away up to 75 people a night. USA Today reports that the Nashville Rescue Mission, which has 747 beds, is filled to overcapacity.
State and local authorities wash their hands of the homeless crisis, leaving it mainly to charities and churches to deal with the growing numbers of individuals and families thrown onto the streets by the deepening economic crisis. The Nashville Rescue Mission sends out a “cold patrol” when the temperatures drop below 36 Fahrenheit (2 Centigrade).
In Broward County, Florida, the body of a homeless man was found Monday near Hollywood’s Young Circle, a victim of the unusually cold weather for this region. Investigators were working to identify the 6-foot, 128 pound man who reportedly went by the name “Oklahoma.”
Medical Examiner Dr. Joshua Perper said that the freezing temperatures are likely a contributing factor in other deaths in Broward County, particularly among elderly people who have other underlying conditions. Staying outside in the cold exposes the homeless to hypothermia, pneumonia, bronchitis and frostbite.
With temperatures dipping near the freezing mark, the Broward County Outreach Center in Hollywood, which normally takes in 15 to 20 people, has been averaging 40 people this week and is prepared to serve 70.
In Kansas City, Missouri, police found the frozen body of a homeless person in an underpass. It is likely the man had been there for days. The Salvation Army and other shelters and charities in the area report a desperate need for donations of hats, gloves and socks for the homeless.
In Cook County, Illinois, six people have died from exposure so far this year. The most recent victim was Raymond Baylock, 58, whose body was found partially clothed early morning December 31 in Jackie Robinson Park. The medical examiner’s office determined he died of cold exposure in an accident.
More than four years after Hurricane Katrina, thousands of displaced people are still living in abandoned houses in New Orleans, Louisiana. With overnight temperatures expected to fall into the mid-20s this week, many people living in these homes without heat are at risk.
Martha Kegel of UNITY of Greater New Orleans, a network of agencies aiding the homeless, told USA Today that while a team is out looking for people who need shelter, “There is no way to get to all of them.” She added, “I have a sickening feeling we’re going to lose people to exposure.”
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, a city where frigid temperatures in winter are not unexpected, the local Salvation Army Harbor Lights shelter has been packed. Workers from the shelter have been combing the downtown area looking for people who need a place to stay. Harbor Lights is funded by contributions from individuals, churches and businesses, and donations are down this year.
While no cold-related deaths have yet been reported in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma this year, homeless shelters report increasing numbers seeking refuge. Grace Rescue Mission, which serves up to 120 men, has been full since mid-summer. Scott Allen, the shelter’s director, points to the poor economy and increasing unemployment as contributing factors.
Even before the current extreme weather conditions, Maryland’s state medical commissioner determined that hypothermia was a contributing factor in four deaths in November and December. As a warning of what is to come, last winter as a whole hypothermia contributed to 54 deaths across the state.
As the cold wave ravages the US, snow and winter weather continue to bring dangerous conditions to many areas of Europe. In Britain on Tuesday, up to 8 inches of snow fell in parts of Scotland and Northern England, disrupting travel for millions of people. London’s Gatwick airport was closed Wednesday morning, while Heathrow, Birmingham, Luton and Southampton airports were operating with delays and cancellations.
The severe winter weather is expected to last at least another week. In Sussex, about 5,000 homes are without electricity. Thousands of schools have been closed and about half the UK workforce has reportedly stayed home as authorities have warned people to use their vehicles only in an emergency.
Temperatures plunging to as low as -22 Centigrade (-8 Fahrenheit) have claimed the lives of 122 in Poland this year, mostly the homeless. The main river, the Vistula, has frozen over, raising fears of major flooding.
WSWS

Why is WBZ covering up critical 9-11 evidence? Updated 8/29/09 PTech investigation proves too hot to handle, for some at WBZFormer I-Team reporter Joe Bergantino was set in 2002 to expose a major 9-11 bomb shell, until WBZ management got a call from the governmentAugust 23, 2009by Rich AucoinIn early 2002, Manhattan risk architect Indira Singh was innocently helping JP Morgan Chase find a reputable software company that could help them update their security needs for a post-911 world, when she accidentally discovered that an alleged Saudi terrorist named Yassin Al-Kadi was running a tiny software company out of Quincy, MA, called PTech.The most shocking part of Singh's discovery was PTech's unbelievable client roster, which included:The FAA, the USAF, the CIA, FBI, DoJ, Dept of Energy, Customs, Enron, NATO, the Secret Service, and even the White House.Singh immediately phoned the Boston office of the FBI to notify them that an accused terrorist had gained backdoor access to the highest levels of the U.S. government, but month after month passed by with no apparent action being taken against PTech, until Singh was finally forced to question whether PTech was being protected.Growing increasingly nervous, Singh began notifying every local, state and federal authority she could think of. But not only did her screaming from the rooftops accomplish almost nothing, she even lost her job at JP Morgan after her bosses there (who evidently enjoyed a considerable Saudi client base) told her to drop the issue, or else.It quickly became apparent to Singh that she'd stumbled upon a key element of the 9-11 story that was aggressively being covered up by the government, for if the story of PTech's software were to get out, then many, many dots would start being connected regarding how 19 cave dwellers armed only with box cutters had somehow outfoxed the most sophisticated and impenetrable defense systems in the world.Feeling abandoned and terrified, Singh went to legendary WBZ I-Team reporter Joe Bergantino in May of '02, primarily to ensure that her story would at least be made public, in case something happened to her. Bergantino took her allegations seriously and commissioned a four-month investigation in Washington, DC to verify her story. Not only did Bergantino's team verify Singh's story, they told her afterward that PTech's terrorism connections ran far deeper than even she knew.Bergantino planned to run his bombshell story on 9/11/02, but the station reportedly was "asked" by "authorities" to hold off, for "national security reasons." (Singh claims to possess proof that WBZ was ordered by the Bush/Cheney White House to drop the investigation).On December 6th, 2002, PTech's Quincy office was finally raided by the FBI -- but only after the company had had months of warnings that a raid might be coming -- and the White House immediately issued a statement saying the FBI had goofed, that Al Qadi was a swell guy.Fast forward six years to 2008: Bergantino leaves WBZ while still waiting for FBI's final conclusions about PTechBergantino left WBZ in 2008 to take a job at Boston University, where he continued to sit on his PTech evidence, pending the outcome of the FBI's own investigation. His long wait finally ended in July, 2009, when the PTech indictments finally came down.After all its years of investigating, the FBI had managed to charge PTech's terror suspect merely with loan fraud. That's it! Loan fraud!!! Not a word about how a tiny software startup somehow amassed such incredibly intimate, under-the-hood access to our national security systems! Not a single question about whether Ptech's magical software had played a role in the unprecedented and inexplicable failures of 9-11. Poor Joe Bergantino; after waiting nearly seven years to see the fruits of the FBI's investigation -- which had been the government's justification for "asking" him to sit on his own evidence -- and all he gets is loan fraud??!!!It appears that Joe Bergantino has been robbed of a once-in-a-lifetime bombshell Exclusive that could have been his Pentagon-Papers career moment. He could have been THE guy to blow the lid off the 9-11 coverup, and early on, too, before its foul-tasting "Patriot" Act could be jammed down our throats and before the Bush cabal could sell its bogus Iraq war in 2003. Bergantino's story could have ended the Afghanistan war before it killed large numbers of US soldiers needlessly. But it wasn't to be. The government's sheer determination to protect PTech, as confirmed now by these sham indictments, stole it all away from Bergantino -- and us.Indira's BurdenIndira Singh was lucky, in retrospect. She'd had the luxury of unloading her terrible Ptech burden on Joe Bergantino back in 2002. His courage and willingness to investigate her explosive claims may well have saved her life, as he managed at least to expose the Ptech controversy.But now that her burden has been transferred to Bergantino's shoulders, where can he turn? Who will take his story seriously? Who will stand by him?Evidently not his former bosses at WBZAll the available evidence shows that WBZ knows at least as much about PTech as Bergantino knows. So it is now their turn to step up to the plate for Bergantino, the way he did for Indira Singh in her hour of need. But, so far, WBZ is staying eerily silent about PTech, leaving poor Joe hanging out to dry.Write or call WBZ and ask them to release ALL the details of their I-Team investigation from June to September of 2002. Ask them to stand behind the best investigative reporter in WBZ's history. Call channel 5 and channel 7. Tell them that their CBS rival is covering up a major element of 9-11. Give them the PTech scoop.Indira Singh's PTech discovery has been dubbed: "the one golden thread you pull on and the whole 9-11 story unravels." That is precisely why Bergantino's old-school journalism had to be muzzled by his corporate bosses at WBZ.WBZ management must do the right thing by Joe Bergantino, and by America.. They must tell ALL they know about PTech. Now.Watch Indira Singh's PTech testimony at 2004's 9/11 Citizens' Commission here.http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4861158466699324733&hl=en# For a more in-depth look at Singh's amazing story, download the MP3 audio interview here.http://corbettreport.com/index.php?i=Documentation&ii=88

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=x1g&q=p-tech+mossad&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

For Those Who Want To Know
This website provides a concise, reliable introduction to vital information of which few are aware. We specialize in providing fact-filled news articles and concise summaries of major cover-ups which impact our lives and world. All information is taken from the most reliable sources available and can be verified using the links provided. Sources are always noted, with links direct to the information source provided when possible. The WantToKnow.info team presents this information as an opportunity for you to educate yourself and others, and to inspire us to strengthen democracy and to work together for the good of all.
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Twenty leading journalists, including winners of several Emmys and a Pulitzer, have described being prevented by corporate media ownership from reporting riveting stories on major cover-ups.
BBC News has exposed plans of the U.S. military to "provide maximum control" of the Internet, as detailed in a declassified secret Pentagon document signed by a former U.S. Secretary of Defense.
A CBS News report quotes former U.S. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, "According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions." That's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America.
Government documents released through the Freedom of Information Act show that the top Pentagon generals once approved plans to foment terrorism in major U.S. cities and even kill innocent civilians.
Multiple, reliable sources show that you may be eating genetically modified food every day which scientific experiments have repeatedly demonstrated can cause sickness and even death in lab animals.
Detroit's leading newspaper reported that the 1908 Ford Model T boasted a fuel economy of 25 miles per gallon. Yet over 100 years later, the EPA average mileage for all cars is under 21 mpg.
A highly decorated US General wrote a book titled War is a Racket, which clearly depicts how he was manipulated and how most wars are waged largely to keep the coffers of certain big corporations filled.
The former chief of a prestigious medical journal has revealed that the total profits of the ten drug companies in the Fortune 500 were more than the profits of the other 490 businesses combined.
Declassified CIA documents open to the public leave no doubt that through hypnosis, drugs, and electric shock, secret mind control projects created super spies, terrorists, assassins, and more.
More than 50 senior government officials and 100 professors have publicly expressed significant criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report. Many even allege government complicity in the 9/11 attacks.
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37 million people now live below the poverty line -- 12.9 million of those are children.
The official poverty line is an income of $19,157/yr for a family of four.
A single parent working full-time for minimum wage makes $10,712/yr.
3.9 million families had at least one member go hungry because they couldn't afford enough food.
1,600,000 jobs lost in the private sector since Dubya took office.
45.8 million people lack health coverage.
1.7 million VETERANS -- including some Iraq War Veterans -- have no health insurance.Are these the moral values of the Republican Party?
Dubya's World - http://www.dubyasworld.com/home.html

Flying has become a nightmare thanks to the CIA, not al-Qaeda
The world's largest intelligence agency is always one step behind

For the millions of Britons who will soon be obliged to submit to the indignity of full body scans every time they take a flight, the overwhelming temptation will be to curse the al-Qaeda masterminds responsible for the increased disruption to our normal travel routines.
If it weren't for the terrorists' obsession with targeting transatlantic aircraft, the public would not be subjected to these tiresome, and increasingly intrusive, checks on their persons and belongings before boarding a flight.

The last vestiges of glamour were removed from air travel after al-Qaeda operatives hijacked a number of American aircraft on September 11. Since then, they have proved to be an extremely convenient means of attacking the West, in increasingly ingenious fashion. There was Richard Reid, who made a failed attempt to detonate his shoes on an American Airlines flight in December 2001, which resulted in passengers being required to remove their belts and footwear at security. Then there were the severe restrictions imposed on bringing fluids on board after the failed 2006 Heathrow bomb plot, in which Islamist terrorists tried to smuggle liquid explosives on to 10 transatlantic flights, which would have killed an estimated 3,000 people.
Our enemies' latest brainwave again involved flights into the US, with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempting to detonate explosives sewn into his underpants. The authorities have responded by promising to introduce body scanners, the electronic equivalent of conducting a strip search on every passenger boarding a flight out of the UK.
Yet the fundamental problem facing those charged with protecting the world's air traffic is that no sooner have they devised a new security system to counter the latest al-Qaeda tactic, then the terrorists come up with yet another ploy. In Saudi Arabia last September, a suicide bomber went one better than Abdulmutallab and concealed an explosive device in his anal cavity. One shudders to think how British security officials would respond after a similar attempt here.
Security checks at airports undoubtedly serve their purpose in protecting flights from terrorist attacks, but they have their limits. By far the best way to prevent al-Qaeda from achieving its objectives is to have good intelligence, as was the case in the 2006 Heathrow plot. And the main reason the world's transport network has again been plunged into chaos is that Abdulmutallab's attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight as it prepared to land at Detroit on Christmas Day was as much a failure of intelligence as a mark of al-Qaeda's resourcefulness.
America's intelligence agencies, in particular, failed miserably to process the wealth of information they had on the Abdulmutallab plot, and must share much of the blame for the extreme discomfort passengers will now suffer as a result of the invasive new security procedures.
Since September 11, Western democracies have conceded much in terms of privacy and civil liberties in order to assist the intelligence-gathering operation against Islamist extremists. We have granted the police and other security agencies greater surveillance powers, and have amended the criminal justice system to take account of this existential threat to our freedom.
But as the war on Islamist terror enters its ninth year, we find that, despite the billions of dollars that the Americans have invested in giving their intelligence-gathering capability a serious upgrade, the approach to tackling the threat remains as naive today as it was on the morning that three hijacked aircraft caused the worst terrorist atrocity in American history.
The official report of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission blamed, in part, the lack of co-operation between America's rival intelligence agencies, so President Bush set up a new structure to ensure improved co-ordination. And yet in Abdulmutallab's case, those agencies still managed to overlook basic intelligence leads, such as an explicit warning from the terrorist's father that his son had been radicalised by Islamist extremists, and highly credible reports that a Yemen-based al-Qaeda plot was in the offing.
The CIA and America's other main intelligence-gathering agencies have now been subjected to a stinging rebuke by President Obama for their collective failure "to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had".
And, as if Abdulmutallab's bombing attempt was not a crushing blow for the CIA's morale, the organisation is also trying to come to terms with a suicide bomb attack that killed seven CIA officers last month at their base at Khost, close to Afghanistan's border with Pakistan. US officials say that those killed included five of their leading experts on al-Qaeda, who agreed to attend the meeting because they believed they would receive key information as to the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.
Instead, it now appears they were set up by the Haqqani clan, the pro-Taliban tribe that is widely held to be protecting bin Laden and the rest of the al-Qaeda leadership in north-west Pakistan. The CIA officers were so convinced of the bona fides of their source, a Jordanian doctor, that they did not even bother with basic security procedures – such as searching his belongings – before allowing him on to the base, with the inevitable catastrophic consequences.
If this is how the CIA takes care of its own security, we should not be surprised by its failure to address that of the wider public. Professional and effective intelligence-gathering lies at the heart of the battle to defeat Islamist extremists. Unless there is an immediate improvement in the approach and performance of the world's largest intelligence-gathering operation, we stand little chance of success.

File under - "You Can't Make This Shit Up!"

The political sex scandal which broke last week in Northern Ireland is now threatening to wreck the country’s power-sharing deal. Revelations about Iris Robinson, an MP and wife of Northern Ireland’s first minister, could split her husband’s unionist party and even let Sinn Fein into power.
Robinson was 59 when she had an affair with a 19-year-old whom she helped start in business as a cafe owner. Yesterday she was dumped by her party, Ian Paisley’s fiercely religious Democratic Unionists (DUP), amid allegations of financial impropriety.
If the DUP should split over “Irisgate” it could even lead to Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness, a former IRA commander, taking over as first minister.Robinson’s husband, Peter, 61, the current first minister and leader of the DUP, has now ordered an official inquiry into his own conduct. He says he is being undone by “insinuation and innuendo” and will defend the attacks on his character.
“I am not even in the position where I can question my wife about these issues,” he said. The DUP has given him a week to clear his name.

His wife, now 60, was previously known as an evangelical Christian and a member of the Free Methodist Church. She was notorious for attacks on homosexuality, which she described as wicked, sickening and an abomination.
She went on radio phone-ins to defend Mary Whitehouse, the morality campaigner, and told a Commons committee that “there can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing children”.
Last week she had to admit that she had committed adultery with a teenager young enough to be her grandson.
“It had no emotional or lasting meaning but my actions have devastated my life and the lives of those around me,” she said. She also admitted that she’d asked friends to bankroll her young lover’s cafe venture.
Suffering from depression, she is thought to have escaped to Chamonix, the French ski resort which Elin Nordegren, wife of Tiger Woods, also chose as a hideaway after her husband’s affairs were exposed.
Details of her affair have emerged in a series of texts given by a former adviser, Selwyn Black, to BBC Northern Ireland’s Spotlight programme. It started in February 2008 when Robinson’s friend and butcher Billy McCambley died of cancer. As he neared death, she promised him that she would look after his only son, Kirk, 19.
There ensued a series of walks and heart-to-heart talks. During this stage of the relationship, Robinson sent a text that read: “As for Kirk, he is the other son I would have loved to have been a mother to.”
By June they were lovers and she was using her position as a councillor to spot a business opportunity for him — the sale of a former visitors’ centre on the River Lagan, which she believed McCambley could turn into a cafe. She also approached two businessmen whom she knew and got them to provide £25,000 each to fit out the premises, which was called the Lock Keeper’s Inn.
McCambley never met either of them and when Robinson handed over the cheque to McCambley, she allegedly demanded £5,000 as her cut. “She stipulated it was cash and as far as I was concerned that was all above board,” he said last week.
Robinson, who had been mayor of the borough three times and whose party controlled the council, voted for McCambley to be awarded the lease. In doing so she did not declare a financial or personal interest, a potential criminal offence. Contrary to parliamentary rules, she did not declare the money on the register of interests in Westminster, Stormont or Castlereagh.
One of the businessmen, multi-millionaire Fred Fraser, has since died. The other, Ken Campbell, a property developer, has denied any wrongdoing and has obtained a High Court injunction banning any mention of his business addresses. At the time that Robinson was asking him for money, she also allegedly lobbied on Campbell’s behalf for one of his building projects in her parliamentary constituency.
When the affair ended that autumn, Robinson demanded the money be paid back to her personally from the fledgling business, forcing McCambley to sell half of it. “It seems cruel but I am not going to soften until he has paid back the £45,000 and he has got until Christmas,” she texted.
She also lamented her affair with a text that read: “Everything is a reminder wherever I go. My home, my church, my car, my music and of course the roads we drove.”
As the deadline for repayment approached, she stipulated that there should be two cheques, one made out to her and one to the Free Methodist Church she attended, where the minister was Pat Herron, her sister-in-law. She also asked that one third of the profits of the cafe be paid into church funds.
Black, the former clergyman who revealed the texts, was asked to assist. Disturbed at being asked to act as a fixer in the affair, he said: “Where is God in all this?”
Robinson explained that she had proposed the payment to the church as “a gesture of giving something back. I never intended this to be a buy-off to God. It was an honest and honourable decision”.
Herron says that her church never received any money.
In December 2008, as the Robinsons were holidaying in their Florida apartment, Peter found out about the payments to McCambley, but not about the £5,000 his wife had kept. The first minister immediately insisted that the money be paid back to the developers.
When the couple returned home, the family found a letter from Iris to her former toy boy, in which the sexual nature of the relationship was made clear. Exposed, Robinson took a drugs overdose around midnight on March 1. Her husband spoke to a doctor on the phone, managed to bring her round and went to work.
He was taking questions in the assembly as Black phoned an ambulance to take Robinson to hospital. “I went to the hospital later that day,” he said in answer to questions on Friday.
The first minister has now announced an independent inquiry into the propriety of his actions, and whether he should have reported his wife to the assembly authorities.
He is pinning his hopes on the scandal subsiding within days. Whatever the outcome, the couple will hardly be missed at Westminster where their role in the expenses scandal earned them the nickname of “Swish family Robinson”.
Iris once tried to claim £300 for a Mont Blanc fountain pen — and both claimed the maximum food allowance, which amounted to £30,000 of food over a four-year period.
Robinson has already said she intends to resign as an MP, member of the Northern Ireland Assembly and councillor in Castlereagh.
It is still unclear whether throwing herself on a political funeral pyre will be enough to save her husband, or if the scandal will bring down the precarious power-sharing executive he leads at Stormont.
Meanwhile, the Lock Keeper’s Inn is not in the same league as Westminster restaurants, but it is still doing brisk business. For now, though, it’s mainly from journalists.
And here’s to Mrs R
There can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing children (House of Commons)
I cannot think of anything more sickening than a child being abused. It is comparable to the act of homosexuality (Belfast Telegraph)
I have a very lovely psychiatrist who works with me in my offices and his Christian background is that he tries to help homosexuals — trying to turn away from what they are engaged in. I'm happy to put any homosexual in touch with this gentleman (Radio 5)

One in five working-age American men does not have a job, according to the latest federal employment numbers, an all-time high that illustrates the extraordinary toll this recession has taken on male-dominated professions in particular.
Men are more likely to work in sectors like manufacturing and construction that are more sensitive to economic downturns. But this downturn has been particularly brutal on those industries, leading some observers to call it a "mancession."
Only 80.3 percent of men age 25-54 had jobs in December -- the lowest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started collecting that data in 1948 -- at which point the figure was 94.4 percent. When the recession began in December 2007, less than 13 percent of men in this age bracket were out of work.
The numbers are derived from what the BLS calls its employment-to-population ratio. While the non-working number in this case includes men who have voluntarily chosen to stay out of the workforce, such as students and stay-at-home dads, in many ways it provides a clearer picture of the depth of the nation's unemployment situation.
The percentage of women age 25-54 who have work is also down, but not as dramatically. Some 69.1 percent of those women are employed, about the same as in 1998. Women dominate the fields such as education, health services and government. The health industry and government payrolls are booming, and are expected to continue growing, thanks to an aging population and recently-enacted stimulus programs to boost the economy, respectively.
Overall, the percentage of Americans over age 16 that holds a job continues to slide, reaching 58.2 percent. That's a 25-year-low.
"It is striking that we have managed to reverse more than 26 years of increasing labor force participation in this downturn," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. "It will take a long time for workers to get over the effects of this recession."
The official unemployment rate, which doesn't include people who are underemployed or who have given up looking for work, remained at 10 percent.

According to the BLS, employers nationwide shed an additional 85,000 jobs in December. Analysts had predicted a decline of just 10,000 jobs.
The extent of the job losses indicates that the optimism generated by last month's slight dip in the unemployment rate (from 10.2 to 10 percent) may have been unfounded. Revised figures released today show an actual increase of 4,000 jobs in November - but that's now been offset 20 times over in December.
More than 6.3 million people are looking for jobs, according to the new figures, a 14 percent increase from December 2008.
Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, points out that 1.9 million workers have left the labor force since May. These are people who are either seeking work or working. More than 660,000 workers left the labor force between November and December alone."Absent this flight from the labor market the unemployment rate would have risen substantially in December, up 0.4 percent, rather than hold steady," he said in an e-mail.Mishel also notes that the population has grown, which should have led to a rise in the labor force. Instead, just the opposite has happened. He writes:
Over the last year, the working age population grew by 0.8 percent, so we would have expected a growth in the labor force, those working or seeking work, by 1.2 million people. Instead, the labor force fell 1.5 million, indicating that the labor force is missing 2.7 million people, more than half of whom abandoned the labor force. The erosion of the labor force started occurring after May, with 271,000 withdrawing each month for the last seven months. Two-thirds of those fleeing the labor market since May have been adult men.
Visit this link for a deeper dive into the numbers.

BY:
Shahien Nasiripour
shahien@huffingtonpost.com HuffPost Reporting