from kurt nimmo: Discovery Communications, the mega-entertainment corporation, will air a show at the end of this month called "The Colony." According to the Discovery Channel website, the show “is a controlled experiment to see exactly what it would take to survive and rebuild” after a global catastrophe, specifically a worldwide viral pandemic scheduled to strike this autumn.
china argues to replace US dollar from bbc: China's central bank has reiterated its call for a new reserve currency to replace the US dollar. The report from the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said a "super-sovereign" currency should take its place. Central bank chief Zhou Xiaochuan has loudly led calls for the dollar to be replaced during the financial crisis. The bank report called for more regulation of the countries that issue currencies that underpin the global financial system. "An international monetary system dominated by a single sovereign currency has intensified the concentration of risk and the spread of the crisis," the Chinese central bank said. The dollar fell after the report was released. The US currency dropped 1% against the euro to $1.4088, and declined 0.8% versus the British pound to $1.6848.
video: 'hyperinflation nation' from inflation.us: 'Hyperinflation Nation' starring Peter Schiff, Ron Paul, Jim Rogers, Tom Woods, Gerald Celente and others. Prepare now before the US dollar is worthless.
could your post office be closing? from msn: As mail volume declines, the US Postal Service could shutter up to 3,200 post offices and retail outlets. Most people say they understand - unless it's their post office. A rallying cry can be heard across the country, from the swanky streets of New York's SoHo to the tiny town of Randolph, Kan.: "Save our post office!" As the United States Postal Service, weighed down by a crippling multibillion-dollar deficit, shrinks its operations, post offices across the country are on the chopping block. Each year, hundreds of postal operations shutter, but this coming fall could be the single biggest consolidation in Postal Service history. Over the next three months, more than 3,200 post offices and retail outlets - out of 34,000 - will be reviewed for possible closure or consolidation.
update: fdic thursday [jul3] from cnn: Seven banks were shut down by authorities Thursday, pushing the tally of failed banks for 2009 to 52, more than doubling the failures in 2008. Six regional banks in Illinois and one in Texas closed their doors, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The rash of Illinois failures are interlinked: All six banks were controlled by one family and followed a similar business model that "created concentrated exposure in each institution," according to the FDIC... State regulators shuttered John Warner Bank, based in Clinton, Ill., and named the FDIC the receiver. The State Bank of Lincoln, based in Lincoln, Ill., will assume all of the deposits of the failed bank... Later Thursday, state regulators closed First State Bank of Winchester, based in Winchester, Ill., and named the FDIC the receiver. Federal regulators entered into a purchase and assumption agreement for The First National Bank of Beardstown, based in Beardstown, Ill., to assume all of the assets and deposits of the failed bank... Rock River Bank, based in Oregon, Ill., was shuttered by state regulators. The FDIC was named the receiver and it entered into an agreement with the The Harvard State Bank, of Harvard, Ill., to assume all of the deposits of the failed bank and almost all of the assets... Elizabeth State Bank, based in Elizabeth, Ill., was closed down by state regulators and the FDIC was named the receiver. Galena State Bank and Trust, based in Galena, Ill., entered into a purchase and assumption agreement to take over all of the deposits of the failed bank... The First National Bank of Danville, headquartered in Danville, Ill., was shuttered by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the FDIC was named the receiver. First Financial Bank, N.A., based in Terre Haute, Ind., entered into a purchase and assumption agreement to take over all of the deposits of the failed bank... State regulators shut down the Millennium State Bank of Texas, based in Dallas, Texas, Thursday and named the FDIC the receiver. The FDIC entered into a purchase and assumption agreement with an Irving, Texas bank, called the State Bank of Texas... The biggest to fall: State regulators shut down Founders Bank, based in Worth, Ill., and named the FDIC the receiver. The PrivateBank and Trust Company, head-quartered in Chicago, Ill., entered into a purchase and assumption agreement to take over the assets of the failed bank.
police stage mock terrorist attack in hamilton ontario from hamilton spectator: Operation Midnight Express was about as close to a terrorist attack as Hamilton would ever want to experience. It was an exercise staged over a 14-hour period at Pier 15 on the bay and was designed to test the ability of police and other agencies to deal with a major threat to public security. It started as a single-car accident in east Hamilton at about midnight Monday and escalated into a clash between several police agencies and a group of gun-toting extremists bent of blowing up infrastructure in the Golden Horseshoe.
4 philly cops to be fired over video beating from ap: Philadelphia's police commissioner said Monday that four officers will be fired and four others disciplined for their roles in the beatings of three shooting suspects, an encounter that was captured on videotape and drew widespread outrage... The video, shot by WTXF-TV, shows the suspects being pulled from their car on the side of the road and groups of officers kicking, punching and beating the men. A total of 19 officers — 18 city police and one transit officer — were involved.
main core: mass surveillance for nat'l emergencies from thinkprogress: Last year, former deputy attorney general James Comey revealed that in 2004, he refused to “certify” the legality of certain aspects of the National Security Agency (NSA) spy program... Comey’s testimony implied that “other programs exist for domestic spying” outside of the NSA program. Radar’s Christopher Ketcham suggests that another spy program does exist: “Main Core,” a program that authorizes “computer searches through massive [unspecified] electronic databases” in order to discover “potential threats” in the event of a “national emergency”.
lieberman demands google & youtube censorship from kurt nimmo: Joe Lieberman, senator and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chairman, wants to censor what you watch on Google and YouTube. Lieberman has sent a letter to Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, accusing the corporation of allowing “offensive material” on its site, namely “videos produced by al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist groups.” Joe wants these taken down immediately and demands Google “prevent them from reappearing.” No word if Schmidt has responded, but a letter sent by a bigwig commissar such as Lieberman is nothing to take lightly. Schmidt and his corporate lawyers have likely confabbed.
spanish firm offers $12.8b to lease penn turnpike from philadelphia inquirer: A Spanish toll-road operator won the bidding war to operate the Pennsylvania Turnpike, offering $12.8 billion for a 75-year lease, Gov. Rendell said today. The proposal by Abertis Infraestructuras, of Barcelona, must be approved by the Pennsylvania legislature, and legislative leaders in Harrisburg have said the plan faces tough sledding with lawmakers. In making the largest bid ever for the private operation of a U.S. toll road, Abertis partnered with a subsidiary of U.S. investment bank Citigroup, and Spanish investment firm Criteria CaixaCorp.
seattle expands red light camera program from the newspaper: A city traffic engineer admitted reducing the length of yellow lights at downtown Seattle, Washington intersections by half-a-second. Seattle Traffic Management Director Wayne Wentz told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper that the reduction was not designed to increase the profit of the city's expanding red light camera program. Instead, the changes made at more than 200 intersections in March were designed to increase traffic flow. "Many of our downtown signals were operating with four seconds of yellow time, then going directly to green for the other direction," Wentz said. "During our recent optimization, we changed the signals to 3.5 seconds of yellow time." flashback: 6 US cities tamper with traffic cams for $
Unless more funding and effort are put into saving the nation’s infrastructure, it will continue to crumble, say experts. An estimated $1.5 trillion over the next five years could be needed to avoid large-scale disaster.
“When infrastructure declines, we’re going to become a second-rate country,” says engineer and former New York City transportation commissioner “Gridlock Sam” Schwartz.
“No matter where you live, there are critical infrastructure issues,” says David Mongan, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers. “In some cities, bridges, roads, power lines, pipelines; are simply too old. In others, the explosive population growth has outpaced [their] infrastructure’s ability to satisfy the needs.”
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