No TARP? No problem.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Two years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, it seems safe to say that there is still a lot of resentment toward the financial sector. Lehman's bankruptcy set into motion a chain of events that ultimately led to the creation of the government's controversial Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. But some banks avoided bailout rage.


Meet the TARP refusers who said no to government support. Two years later, they remain elated that they never had to accept a dime from Washington.

"It was one of the best decisions of my adult life to say no to TARP. We never seriously considered taking bailout funds," said David Kemper, chief executive officer of Commerce Bancshares (CBSH), a Kansas City-based bank with more than $18 billion in assets.

Kemper said regulators in Washington urged the bank to take part in TARP to show that even strong banks were doing so. But he felt his bank had adequate capital, despite all the fear at the time, and that taking bailout funds would have actually put it at a disadvantage.

That sentiment is shared by Dick Evans, the CEO of Cullen/Frost Bankers (CFR), a San Antonio-based bank with $17 billion in assets and founded in 1868.

"I look at the 142 years the bank has been in business and not participating in TARP is probably one of the top 3 decisions we ever made," Evans said. "It gave us the ability to stay focused on customers. We were able to keep building the company and not be distracted by the government."

That last part is key. At the time TARP was proposed, it was billed as a way for banks to rid themselves of the toxic mortgage assets that got them into trouble in the first place. But that didn't wind up happening.

For many banks that took TARP funds hoping a government lifeline would nurse them back to health, it became quickly obvious that the disadvantages outweighed the benefits.


Read the rest here: http://bit.ly/aXvLdO

Written by Nicola Grace

Since the 60 Minutes program aired with Allan Smith being cured of Swine Flu (and hairy cell Leukaemia) using high dose intravenous Vitamin C, much activity and excitement has resulted.

One of our members has recently been contacted by someone whose family member just died of Swine Flu after the medics refused to administer high dose intravenous Vitamin C.

It comes as no surprise to HFNZ that the medicos are closing ranks, and since Allan Smith’s recovery not one other patient has been permitted to have high dose intravenous Vitamin C administered. Intravenous Vitmain C is a registered medicine in New Zealand and refusing to administer treatment that has been requested, we see as a breach of both health freedom and patients rights.

As of today there have been 10 deaths caused by Swine Flu this year. We say that most (if not all of these people) would still be alive today if they had been given high dose intravenous Vitamin C.

When we have an iatrogenic (Caused by Doctor) death toll three times that of the road toll, one wonders why the medicos wouldn’t want to decrease this death by doctor statistic and administer life saving therapies. There are numerous documented cases and research on the benefits of high dose Vitamin C. In the words of Allan Smith’s brother “you’d have to be a bit thick” not to see that it works.

Link: http://ondemand.tv3.co.nz/Living-Proof/tabid/59/articleID/923/MCat/22/Default.aspx

In response to the people that have had their rights violated by the medical profession through their failure to serve therapy that heals, the “Vitamin C Can Cure Coalition” has been formed by a number of patients and family members, and Health Freedom NZ will be spearheading the campaign in association with them.

You are invited to join the coalition. The purpose is to:

1. Support the right of the patient to have intravenous Vitamin C administered if they choose.

2. Support the right of the patient to have a second opinion if their Doctor refuses, and their right to have the physician of their choice.

3. Raise awareness to the nation as to the legitimacy of Vitamin C as a cure for swine flu and other diseases.

4. Provide patients and their families with advice regarding their rights.

5. Provide support in the form of protest Vigils outside hospitals that continue to refuse the high dose intravenous Vitamin C treatment that saved Alan Smiths Life.

Do you want to be part of making History once again? We have a unique opportunity to participate in turning the tide in our healthcare system and have Vitamin C accepted as a legitimate treatment - the time is ripe!

We are looking for a team of people to represent Health Freedom New Zealand in the Vitamin C Can Cure Coalition. We have a number of public meetings, vigils and letter writing campaigns planned for everyone to attend, but right now we desperately need team leaders to help with various aspects of the campaign. It doesn’t matter what skills you have, passion and drive are all that is needed. We can define roles and tasks once the team has formed.

If you feel a calling to be part of a team to help get Vitamin C into our hospitals and stop needless deaths occurring, please step forward and email Sarah at sarah@healthfreedom.co.nz with your phone number, town you live in and best times to contact you. Thanks for your support as always.

Nicola Grace
Spokeswomen for HFNZ

WASHINGTON — The Homeland Security Department plans to test futuristic iris scan technology that stores digital images of people's eyes in a database and is considered a quicker alternative to fingerprints.
The department will run a two-week test in October of commercially sold iris scanners at a Border Patrol station in McAllen, Texas, where they will be used on illegal immigrants, said Arun Vemury, program manager at the department's Science and Technology branch.

"The test will help us determine how viable this is for potential (department) use in the future," Vemury said.

Iris scanners are little used, but a new generation of cameras that capture images from 6 feet away instead of a few inches has sparked interest from government agencies and financial firms, said Patrick Grother, a National Institute of Standards and Technology computer scientist. The technology also has sparked objections from the American Civil Liberties Union.

ACLU lawyer Christopher Calabrese fears that the cameras could be used covertly. "If you can identify any individual at a distance and without their knowledge, you literally allow the physical tracking of a person anywhere there's a camera and access to the Internet," he said.

Iris scans can be quicker than fingerprints. "You can walk up to a wall-mounted box, look at the camera, and that's it," Grother said.

Homeland Security will test cameras that take photos from 3 or 4 feet away, including one that works on people as they walk by, Vemury said.

In 2007, the U.S. military began taking iris scans of thousands of Iraqis to track suspected militants. The technology was used in about 20 U.S. airports from 2005 to 2008 to identify passengers in the Registered Traveler program, who could skip to the front of security lines.

Financial companies hope the scans can stop identity fraud, said Jeff Carter of Global Rainmakers, a New York City firm developing the technology. "Iris is going to completely reshape the fraud environment," he said.

Link: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/surveillance/2010-09-13-1Airis13_ST_N.htm

After a year of humiliating setbacks, United Nations Secretary General Ban ki-Moon and about 60 of his top lieutenants — the top brass of the entire U.N. system — spent their Labor Day weekend at a remote Austrian Alpine retreat, discussing ways to put their sprawling organization in charge of the world’s agenda.

Details concerning the two-day, closed-door sessions in the comfortable village of Alpbach were closely guarded. Nonetheless, position papers for the meeting obtained by Fox News indicate that the topics included:

-- how to restore “climate change” as a top global priority after the fiasco of last year’s Copenhagen summit;

-- how to continue to try to make global redistribution of wealth the real basis of that climate agenda, and widen the discussion further to encompass the idea of “global public goods”;

-- how to keep growing U.N. peacekeeping efforts into missions involved in the police, courts, legal systems and other aspects of strife-torn countries;

-- how to capitalize on the global tide of migrants from poor nations to rich ones, to encompass a new “international migration governance framework”;

-- how to make “clever” use of new technologies to deepen direct ties with what the U.N. calls “civil society,” meaning novel ways to bypass its member nation states and deal directly with constituencies that support U.N. agendas.

As one underlying theme of the sessions, the top U.N. bosses seemed to be grappling often with how to cope with the pesky issue of national sovereignty, which — according to the position papers, anyway — continued to thwart many of their most ambitious schemes, especially when it comes to many different kinds of “global governance.”

Not coincidentally, the conclave of bureaucrats also saw in “global governance” a greater role for themselves.

As a position paper intended for their first group session put it, in the customary glutinous prose of the organization’s internal documents: “the U.N. should be able to take the lead in setting the global agenda, engage effectively with other multinational and regional organizations as well as civil society and non-state stakeholders, and transform itself into a tool to help implement the globally agreed objectives.”

And for that to happen, the paper continues, “it will be necessary to deeply reflect on the substance of sovereignty, and accept that changes in our perceptions are a good indication of the direction we are going.”

Hammering away at perceptions that nation-states cannot adequately meet global challenges, but the U.N. can, is a major theme of the position papers, which were assembled by a variety of U.N. think tanks, task forces and institutions, including the United Nations Development Program, and the U.N.’s Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

National sovereignty — meaning the refusal of major powers like India, China and the United States to go along with sweeping global agendas — was specifically indicted for the failure of the much ballyhooed Copenhagen summit on climate change. “National sovereignty remains supreme,” as one position paper noted.

Nonetheless, the U.N. leaders intend to keep trying to change that, especially when it comes to the climate agenda. “The next 40 years will prove pivotal,” one paper argues, while laying out the basis of a renewed U.N. climate campaign, the “50-50-50 Challenge.”

That refers to a projection that by 2050, the world’s population will reach an estimated 9 billion (50 percent higher than today), at the same time that the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — producer of the scandal-tainted 2007 Global Assessment of global warming — is calling for a 50 percent reduction in world green house gas emissions.

According to the paper prepared by Secretary General Ban’s own climate change team, however, the newly rebranded challenge still depends on the same economic remedy proposed for Copenhagen: a drastic redistribution of global wealth, “nothing less than a fundamental transformation of the global economy.”

Rolling just about every U.N. mantra into one, the paper declares that “nothing is more crucial to preventing run-away climate change than lifting billions out of poverty, protecting our planet and fostering long-term peace and prosperity for all.”

And to do that, the paper suggests, equally dramatic shifts in political power may be needed. “Is the global governance structure, still dominated by national sovereignty, capable of responding with the coherence and speed needed?” it asks. “Or do we need to push the ‘reset’ button and rethink global governance to meet the 50-50-50 Challenge?”

Yet even as the U.N. bosses talk of delivering billions from poverty, their main aim, the papers argue should be much, much larger: to limit and redirect the aspirations for a better life of rising middle classes around the world.

As the opening session paper puts it: “The real challenge comes from the exponential growth of the global consumerist society driven by ever higher aspirations of the upper and middle layers in rich countries as well as the expanding demand of emerging middle-class in developing countries. Our true ambition should be therefore creating incentives for the profound transformation of attitudes and consumption styles.”

The answer to that “real challenge,” as well as many others addressed in the position papers, is that the U.N. and its proliferating array of funds, programs, institutes, and initiatives, should push themselves forward as the great synthesizer of solutions to global problems: “connecting the dots,” as the climate change paper puts it, across a “range of issues,” including "climate, water, food, energy, and health.”

“At the practical level, through the U.N. system we have all kinds of expertise and capacities, even if not adequate resources, to actually do something,” the paper notes.

How to get more of those resources is another major theme of many of the papers. As one of the documents focusing on food security notes, “development assistance funding is less readily available and the donors are ever more focused on demonstrable results.” One suggestion: tap global philanthropies, as well as link together “a broad range of public sector, business and civil society partners.”

The U.N. bosses also need to make sure that the institution sits at top tables where the world’s financial decisions are made. It is “urgent to secure U.N. participation” at regular meetings of the G-20 finance ministers and their deputies,” according to one of the papers, a group that the U.N. Secretariat, based in New York City and Geneva, does not interact with very much.

That observation ties into another Alpbach theme: pushing global financial regulation even further.

“The much paraded reform of financial governance institutions has not gone far enough,” the position paper for the U.N. leadership’s keynote session asserts, and the voting power of emerging players and developing world, in general, which demand a greater say on these matters, remains inadequate.”

The answer? “An enhanced political will is clearly needed to avoid return to status quo, to push forward regulatory mechanisms, and improve financial governance.”

Along with planting a new flag in the field of international financial regulation, the U.N. chiefs also contemplated the further growth of the U.N. as the world’s policeman. As another paper notes, U.N. peacekeeping operations “will soon have almost 17,000 United Nations police officers serving on four continents” — little more than two years after establishing what one papers calls the institutions “Standing Police Capacity.”

The peacekeepers are now also building a “standing justice and corrections element” to go with the semi-permanent police force — a permanent strike force to establish courts and prisons in nations where peacekeepers are stationed.

In essence, as another paper observes, the U.N. peacekeeping effort is transforming into a new kind of supervisory organism in which not only conflicts but also national institutions and cultures must be regulated for longer and longer periods of time.

“Even where a semblance of stability is achieved,” the paper by Ban’s peace-building support office argues, the achievement of peace may involve more than “adopting a constitution or holding elections.” It adds that “more fundamental change may be needed in a country’s institutions and political culture as well as in public perceptions and attitudes.”

(At the same time, as another paper makes clear, “some” U.N. peacekeepers come from countries “where the armed forces and police are seriously implicated in human rights violations,” including sexual crimes. While such actions “cannot be tolerated,” the paper makes clear the U.N. has no clear answers on how to police its own behavior.)

The answer to many if not most of the problems outlined in the U.N. papers is, as the opening session paper puts it: “multilateralism is instrumental to the success of our response to global challenges.”

But not any old multilateralism. The other major theme of the position papers is that the world organization, a haphazard array of at least 37 major funds, programs, and institutions, and a proliferating number of regulatory and other authorities, should be knitting itself into a much more close-knit global system, with greater control over its own finances, along with a stronger role in setting the international agenda.

How successful Ban and his chieftains will be at pushing that agenda may soon be seen, as the secretary general hosts the lead-off event of the fall diplomatic season, a two-day summit starting September 20 on the so-called Millennium Development Goals.

That refers to the U.N.-sponsored compact among nations to halve the number of the world’s poorest people, achieve global primary schooling, reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and enhance the standing of women, among other goals, by 2015.

The position papers from Ban’s conclave make clear that Ban and his team are deeply concerned that momentum toward the MDGs, as they are known, is faltering, although one paper notes that “with the right policies, adequate investment and reliable international support, the MDGs remain achievable.”

In that sense, the secretive session in Alpbach was not only a planning session, but also the equivalent of a half-time locker room huddle.

What is at stake, the papers make clear, is not only the alleged betterment of the world, but the U.N.’s soaring ambitions for itself — no matter what roadblocks national sovereignty may throw in its way.

George Russell is executive editor of Fox News

Link to original article: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/09/08/years-setbacks-looks-world-leader/

As if the sputtering U.S. economy weren’t in enough trouble already, the Obama administration is cooking up a new scheme that will extend the heavy hand of Washington to somewhere it has never gone before.

Unveiled with precious little fanfare on July 19 in the form of an Executive Order, the White House’s Ocean Policy Initiative will subject America’s waterways — oceans, rivers, bays, estuaries, and the Great Lakes — to federal zoning.  Under the scheme, these areas would be managed according to the Orwellian-sounding notion of “coastal and marine spatial planning.”  As an unnamed administration official told the Los Angeles Times: “This sets the nation on a path of much more comprehensive planning to both conservation and sustainable use of [ocean] resources.”

An elaborate, multi-layered bureaucratic structure would oversee all of this. Nine regional commissions, composed of federal, state, and tribal officials, would decide which commercial and recreational activities are appropriate.  Their recommendations, however, would have to be approved by a newly created National Ocean Council, which the White House says will “strengthen ocean governance and coordination.”  The council will consist of spatial planners drawn from the likes of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Aeronautic and Space Agency (NASA), and the departments of Interior, Commerce, Agriculture, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services.

State and local officials, hoping to have some input on zoning decisions affecting their jurisdictions, will soon find that the deck has been stacked against them.  To cite but one glaring example: Both the Commerce Department and NOAA are represented on the National Ocean Council.  But NOAA is a division of the Commerce Department.  The feds get two votes for the price of one.

As if on cue, NOAA dutifully rolled out its own “Next-Generation Strategic Plan” weeks in advance of Obama’s Executive Order. In language that would have done honor to the late Eastern Bloc’s most renowned central planners, NOAA proclaimed that, “Comprehensive planning will address competing uses to protect coastal communities and resources from the impacts of hazards and land-based pollution on vulnerable ecosystems.”

The scope of what the administration is putting together is no less ambitious than its healthcare and cap-and-trade initiatives. Industries — from agriculture, timber, and shipping to fishing, mining, and oil and gas — stand to be affected.  The inclusion of the Great Lakes in the plan signals the reach of the new policy.  Indeed, the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio River Valleys will be targeted every bit as much as coastal North Carolina or Alaska.

Federal departments and agencies included in the plan are directed to “take all such action as necessary to implement the policy set forth” in the Executive Order.  The EPA — far and away the nation’s most powerful regulatory agency — could, for example, determine that emissions from power plants are harming the oceans.  And if Congress fails to pass a cap-and-trade bill, the EPA could use the pretext of protecting the oceans to clamp down on greenhouse-gas emissions as another extra-legislative way to pursue the administration’s global-warming agenda.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/09/09/obamas-ocean-policy-initiative-washingtons-latest-power-grab/#ixzz0zR1jvADh

Researchers have found that pollination levels of some plants have dropped by up to 50 per cent in the last two decades.

The "pollination deficit" could see a dramatic reduction in the yield from crops.

The research, carried out in the Rocky Mountains, Colorado, is the first to show that the effect is real and serves as a "warning" to Britain which if anything has seen an even greater decline in bees and pollinators.

"This serves as a warning to other countries," said Professor James Thomson at the University of Toronto, who carried out the research.

"For quite some time people have been suggesting that pollinators are in decline and that this could have an effect on pollination.

"I believe that this is the first real demonstration that pollination levels are getting worse. I believe it is a significant decline. I believe the pollination levels have dropped by as much as 50 per cent.

Source: http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-10471-0-6-6--.html

A poll running on The Firm magazine's website during August has closed with 93% of respondents saying the Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini, should disclose whether she or taxpayers funded a series of legal actions against sectors of the media that had reported developments on the Hollie Greig case.

Last year the Lord Advocate threatened to sue The Firm for reporting complaints from the family of Hollie Greig, a young Down’s Syndrome child at the time she claimed to be the victim of an alleged paedophile ring.

Levy and McRae represented Angiolini and reported The Drum magazine to the Press Complaints Commission over a report on a failed Freedom of Information request to find out who paid the bill for the Lord Advocate’s action against The Firm, and also for another letter sent out by Levy & McRae in the name of the Lord Advocate, which appeared to threaten an English website with libel action for naming a Sheriff at the centre of the allegations.

The Drum is continuing to try to establish how much was paid by the Lord Advocate in legal fees and who Levy and McRae was representing in these matters.

Both approaches to the Crown Office have been rejected so far and the outcome of an appeal to the FOI Commissioner suggests that he is barred from investigating Crown Office financial matters.

A further appeal has been lodged.

The Press Complaints Commisison ruled against the Lord Advocate and found that the Drum had not breached the Press Complaints Commission Code of Practice.

Source link: http://www.thedrum.co.uk/news/2010/09/03/15472-magazine-poll-says-lord-advocate-should-say-who-paid-to-hush-the-media/

The time has come to start preparing for the worst and hope for the best.

John Buchanan from 4/22/2005 speaking event. -- This excerpt deals with the death threat against Senator Mark Dayton (D) Minn - when he aggressively challenged the Pentagon and FAA lies to Congress. -- Buchanan also details the 9/11 Truth movement's lost opportunity with Elliot Spitzer. (This is was sent to me by Kathy in California).

The sheer magnitude and complex web of deceit surrounding the individuals and organizations involved in this conspiracy is mind boggling, even for the most astute among us. Most people react with disbelief and skepticism towards the topic, unaware that they have been conditioned (brainwashed) to react with skepticism by institutional and media influences. Author and de-programmer Fritz Springmeier (The Top 13 Illuminati Bloodlines) says that most people have built in "slides" that short circuit the mind's critical examination process when it comes to certain sensitive topics. "Slides", Springmeier reports, is a CIA term for a conditioned type of response which dead ends a person's thinking and terminates debate or examination of the topic at hand. For example, the mention of the word "conspiracy" often solicits a slide response with many people. What most people believe to be "Public Opinion" is in reality carefully crafted and scripted propaganda designed to elicit a desired behavioral response from the public. Public opinion polls are really taken with the intent of gauging the public's acceptance of the New World Order's planned programs. A strong showing in the polls tells them that the programming is "taking", while a poor showing tells the NWO manipulators that they have to recast or "tweak" the programming until the desired response is achieved.