The state is excellent when it comes to the production of "bads". Mass murder is, unfortunately, one of those things that the state is accomplished at, creating large amounts of weapons (nuclear and non-nuclear) designed specifically for this purpose. It was brought to my attention recently that had the United States captured, lined up, and shot hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians during WWII the world would have been outraged. However, dropping two bombs to do essentially the same thing is defended vigorously. Why is that?
North Korea Conducts Nuclear Weapons Test Posted By Jason Ditz On May 24, 2009
South Korea’s cabinet is holding an emergency meeting this morning after it detected an “artificial earthquake” in North Korea, a sign that the nation may have conducted a test explosion of an atomic weapon.
Those fears were later confirmed by North Korea’s Central News Agency (KCNA), which confirmed that the nation conducted its second underground nuclear test at approximately 10:00 am Monday local time (roughly 9 pm Sunday EST). The seismic activity detected was similar to the October 2006 test. The South Korean stock exchange plummeted over the news. The Japanese market lost some of its gains as well.
Yet the news was not entirely shocking, as South Korean officials said they had detected “brisk” activity at the nation’s nuclear test site earlier this month. Japan’s Foreign Ministry has promised to respond responsibly, while the European Union termed the test “worrying.”
North Korea pulled out of 6-party talks last month after the United Nations condemned them for what they claimed was a satellite launch but which the West dubbed a “missile test.” The nation ordered International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors out and said it was preparing new nuclear tests.
This will not end well. It now seems inevitable that the American people will be on the hook for sinking auto companies burdened by regulations, unions, mismanagement, and backward thinking. What fresh hell will tomorrow bring?
U.S. Expected to Own 70% of Restructured G.M. By MICHELINE MAYNARD Published: May 26, 2009
DETROIT — The government will hold a large share of General Motors after the company emerges from bankruptcy protection, and will provide G.M. with about $50 billion in financing so that it can reorganize, people with direct knowledge of the situation said Tuesday.
The Treasury Department will receive about 70 percent of the new G.M., while the United Automobile Workers union will hold 17.5 percent through its retiree health care fund. The fund also would receive warrants for an additional 2.5 percent of stock in the new G.M., with a price to be determined later, potentially giving it a total of 20 percent.
That is about half of the stock that the U.A.W.’s fund, called a Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association, or VEBA, was expected to receive under plans drafted this spring.
The figures were outlined to union leaders in Detroit, who met Tuesday to consider a new agreement between the U.A.W. and G.M.
Bondholders will receive about a 10 percent stake of the new company, and others will receive a smaller percentage, these people said.
G.M., which has already received $19.4 billion in financing from Treasury, would get an additional $50 billion or slightly more in debtor-in-possession financing, which it would draw upon during its reorganization.
The Treasury plans to create a new version of G.M. with its most attractive assets, like Chevrolet, Cadillac and some of its manufacturing operations. The rest of G.M. would be sold or liquidated.
The Israeli Military is labeled "Made In The USA".
US Promises to Fully Fund Israeli Missile Defense System, While Cutting Its Own Posted By Jason Ditz On May 20, 2009 @ 5:12 pm
Even as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was being raked over the coals in Congress for the decision to cut funding to America’s missile defense systems, Israeli defense officials have revealed that Israel’s own Arrow 3 missile defense system will be “fully funded” by the United States yet again this year.
Israel has been working on the Arrow defense system for over 20 years with heavy US backing. It is reported that the costs for the upcoming year will be nearly $100 million. Israel’s system will be showcased later this year in a joint operation with the US military.
A successful test of a long-range Iranian missile today brought the issue of America’s missile defense systems in Europe into focus, though the missile’s maximum range still put it well short of the US bases in Poland and the Czech Republic, ostensibly being built for that purpose.
Secretary Gates defended the $1.2 billion in cuts to the Missile Defense Agency, despite criticism from some members of Congress. Gates said the suitability of some of the cut programs for their purposes were “highly questionable.” The newfound concern over the usefulness of US weapons programs will not, it seems, extend to foreign military aid.
So, let me get this straight... some guys with animosity toward the USA's foreign interventions are stirred up by state agents, who also sell them fake weapons they would not have been able to obtain otherwise, get arrested because they would have blown up innocent people had the federal agents made real weapons available to them? Unfortunately, this is going to fool a lot a people, and these poor saps will go to jail for having listened to and accepting help from undercover agents.
4 Accused of Bombing Plot at Bronx Synagogues
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ and AL BAKER Four men were arrested Wednesday night in what the authorities said was a plot to bomb two synagogues in the Bronx and shoot down military planes at an Air National Guard base in Newburgh, N.Y.
The men, all of whom live in Newburgh, about 60 miles north of New York City, were arrested around 9 p.m. after planting what they believed to be bombs in cars outside the Riverdale Temple and the nearby Riverdale Jewish Center, officials said. But the men did not know the bombs, obtained with the help of an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, were fake.
The arrests capped what officials described as a “painstaking investigation” that began in June 2008 involving an F.B.I. agent who had been told by a federal informant of the men’s desire to attack targets in America. As part of the plot, the men intended to fire Stinger missiles at military aircraft at the base, which is at Stewart International Airport, officials said.
“This latest attempt to attack our freedoms shows that the homeland security threats against New York City are sadly all too real and underscores why we must remain vigilant in our efforts to prevent terrorism,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in a statement. The mayor was expected to appear at 6:45 a.m. Thursday at the Riverdale Jewish Center morning services, joined by Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly.
The charges against the four men represent some of the most significant allegations of domestic terrorism in some time, and come months into a new presidential administration, as President Obama grapples with the question of how to handle detainees at the Guantánamo Bay camp in Cuba.
Rabbi Jonathan I. Rosenblatt, the senior rabbi at the Riverdale Jewish Center, a modern Orthodox congregation, said the police informed him on Wednesday evening that his synagogue was a target of the plot, as well as the Riverdale Temple, a Reform synagogue that is a short distance away, on Independence Avenue. The two buildings are about six blocks apart, each with a brick facade. Outside the synagogues on Wednesday night, the streets were eerily quiet.
Rabbi Rosenblatt said in a phone interview that he took the news with “shock, surprise — a sense of disbelief that something which is supposed to belong to the world of front pages and the evening news had invaded the quiet world of our synagogue.”
Jonathan Mark, associate editor of The Jewish Week newspaper who grew up in Riverdale, said it would have been the third plot in the past decade against the synagogues in Riverdale.
Law enforcement officials identified the four men arrested as James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen, all of Newburgh. Some of the men were of Arabic descent, and one is of Haitian descent, according to law enforcement officials. At least three were United States citizens, according to officials. They are all Muslim, a law enforcement official said.
Mr. Cromitie, whose parents had lived in Afghanistan before his birth, had told the informant that he was upset about the war in Afghanistan and that that he wanted to do “something to America.” Mr. Cromitie stated “the best target” — the World Trade Center — “was hit already,” according to the complaint.
In April, Mr. Cromitie and the three other men selected the synagogues as their targets, the statement said. The informant soon helped them get the weapons, which were incapable of being fired or detonated, according to the authorities.
Mr. Kelly told Jewish leaders Wednesday evening that the attackers planned simultaneous attacks, and the men planned to leave the bombs in the cars in front of the two synagogues, drive back to Newburgh and retrieve cellphone-detonating devices and then proceed with the attack on the air base — simultaneously shooting down aircraft while remotely setting off the devices in the cars.
On Wednesday night, they planted one of the mock improvised explosive devices in a trunk of a car outside the temple and two mock bombs in the back seat of a car outside the Jewish center, the authorities said. Shortly thereafter, police officers swooped in and broke the windows on the suspects’ black sport utility vehicle and charged them with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction within the United States and conspiracy to acquire and use antiaircraft missiles.
Around 9 p.m., a law enforcement official said an 18-wheel New York Police Department vehicle blocked the suspects’ black sport utility vehicle at 237th Street and Riverdale Avenue. Another armored vehicle arrived and officers from the department’s Emergency Service Unit took the men out of the truck and handcuffed them.
After the plot was broken up, the team of uniformed officers took the suspects away.
Three of the four men were escorted by federal agents from Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan around 1 a.m. Thursday. They were handcuffed and did not respond to reporters’ questions as they were loaded into the back of vehicles to be taken to the nearby Metropolitan Correctional Center. There, they emerged one by one.
Mr. Cromitie, who was wearing a dark blue shirt and jeans, gazed at the assembled reporters and photographers but again did not respond to questions. David and Onta Williams also did not answer questions as they quickly walked by, staring at the ground. The four defendants were to be taken to White Plains later on Thursday morning, where they were to appear in federal court.
A federal law enforcement official described the plot as “aspirational” — meaning that the suspects wanted to do something but had no weapons or explosives — and described the operation as a sting with a cooperator within the group.
“It was fully controlled at all times,” a law enforcement official said.
Stewart International Airport is used by the New York Air National Guard and United States Air Force, according to the complaint, and it stores aircraft used to transport military supplies and personnel to the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Political leaders responded to the news of the arrests with statements expressing relief.
“This was a very serious threat that could have cost many, many lives if it had gone through,” Representative Peter T. King, Republican from Long Island, said in an interview with WPIX-TV. “It would have been a horrible, damaging tragedy. There’s a real threat from homegrown terrorists and also from jailhouse converts.”
Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said in a statement: “If there can be any good news from this terror scare it’s that this group was relatively unsophisticated, infiltrated early, and not connected to another terrorist group. This incident shows that we must always be vigilant against terrorism — foreign or domestic.”
To the State, people are just resources to be used.
U.S. military: Heavily armed and medicated Prescription pill dependency among American troops is on the rise By Melody Petersen updated 7:30 a.m. CT, Tues., May 19, 2009
Marine Corporal Michael Cataldi woke as he heard the truck rumble past.
He opened his eyes, but saw nothing. It was the middle of the night, and he was facedown in the sands of western Iraq. His loaded M16 was pinned beneath him.
Cataldi had no idea how he'd gotten to where he now lay, some 200 meters from the dilapidated building where his buddies slept. But he suspected what had caused this nightmare: His Klonopin prescription had run out.
His ordeal was not all that remarkable for a person on that anti-anxiety medication. In the lengthy labeling that accompanies each prescription, Klonopin users are warned against abruptly stopping the medicine, since doing so can cause psychosis, hallucinations, and other symptoms. What makes Cataldi's story extraordinary is that he was a U. S. Marine at war, and that the drug's adverse effects endangered lives — his own, his fellow Marines', and the lives of any civilians unfortunate enough to cross his path.
"It put everyone within rifle distance at risk," he says.
In deploying an all-volunteer army to fight two ongoing wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon has increasingly relied on prescription drugs to keep its warriors on the front lines. In recent years, the number of military prescriptions for antidepressants, sleeping pills, and painkillers has risen as soldiers come home with battered bodies and troubled minds. And many of those service members are then sent back to war theaters in distant lands with bottles of medication to fortify them.
According to data from a U. S. Army mental-health survey released last year, about 12 percent of soldiers in Iraq and 15 percent of those in Afghanistan reported taking antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, or sleeping pills. Prescriptions for painkillers have also skyrocketed. Data from the Department of Defense last fall showed that as of September 2007, prescriptions for narcotics for active-duty troops had risen to almost 50,000 a month, compared with about 33,000 a month in October 2003, not long after the Iraq war began.
In other words, thousands of American fighters armed with the latest killing technology are taking prescription drugs that the Federal Aviation Administration considers too dangerous for commercial pilots.
