World-News

Ana Veciana-Suarez, The Miami Herald: "Hit hard by the slumping economy and surviving on fixed incomes, senior citizens have experienced the sharpest increase in bankruptcy filings. In 2007, Americans 55 and older accounted for 23 percent of the more than one million Americans who filed for bankruptcy, a threefold increase from 1991, according to a recent AARP study."

http://www.truthout.org/033009E



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=bankruptcy+filings
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Ana+Veciana-Suarez

Dean Baker, Truthout: "The new consensus among the experts who missed the housing bubble (EMHB) is that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's plan to subsidize the purchase of junk mortgages and their derivatives will help alleviate the stress on the banking system.... Oh, by the way, some people will get very rich off the Geithner plan. Some hedge and equity fund managers could make hundreds of millions or even billions off the Geithner plan. And, under current law, they will pay a lower tax rate on this money than a schoolteacher or firefighter. Are you sold yet?"

http://www.truthout.org/033009A



Pay for Play? Tax Credits for Paid Time Off

Dean Baker, The Center for Economic and Policy Research: "Economists are increasingly coming to the recognition that the current downturn is likely to be longer and more severe than they had expected at the time the last stimulus package was approved in February. As a result, there is likely to be interest in additional stimulus in order to boost the economy and lower the unemployment rate. This paper briefly outlines a method for Congress to quickly boost demand in the economy, while at the same time promoting important public ends: an employer tax credit for paid time off."

http://www.truthout.org/033109A



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Geithner
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By Jonny Fordham

March 30, 2009

Families are furious after a council blunder meant its ban on plans for a 10 metre phone mast arrived in the post at Vodafone one day too late under planning regulations.

The company has ploughed on with the project in Westdene Crescent in Caversham after Reading Borough Council failed to submit its refusal within the designated 56 days.

The letter, which council officials claim was posted in time, did not arrive until the 57th day, giving the mobile phone giant the green light for the controversial mast.

People living in the crescent believed they had successfully fought off the proposal when it was submitted in 2006, until paper plans for the positioning of the mast blew into Parveen Whitehead’s driveway last Monday when builders began work on the mast.

Read More...
http://www.getreading.co.uk/news/s/2048113_anger_after_phone_mast_ban_turns_up_a_day_late

Alzheimers' 21st Annual Public Policy Forum Washington, D.C. March 23-25, 2009
http://groups.google.com/group/omeganews/browse_thread/thread/455cae5d72b22c26?hl=de



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30. März 2009

Zu Rücktrittsspekulationen um Bahnchef Mehdorn erklärt das Mitglied des Parteivorstandes Jan Korte (MdB):

Der Eigentümer, also die Bundesregierung, muss jetzt schnell und konsequent handeln. Es war nicht hinnehmbar, als vor Monaten bekannt wurde, dass Daten von Bahnmitarbeitern verdeckt ausgeforscht und verdachtsunabhängig abgeglichen wurden. Es ist auch nicht hinnehmbar, dass E-Mails anlasslos überwacht, gelöscht und gespeichert wurden. Die gezielt Ausspähung der Gewerkschaften ist der sprichwörtliche Tropfen, der das Fass zum Überlaufen bringt. Bahn-Mitarbeiter müssen endlich vor ihrer Konzernführung geschützt werden. Dieser Schutz kann nicht allein mit der seit langem überfälligen Kündigung von Bahn-Spitzel-Chef Hartmut Mehdorn hergestellt werden. Nein, vielmehr müssen die aktuellen Debatten endlich zu einem wirksamen Arbeitnehmerdatenschutz führen. DIE LINKE hatte bereits im Dezember vergangenen Jahres einen umfangreichen Antrag (Drs. 16/11376) hierfür dem Parlament vorgelegt. Im Kern geht es – und dies zeigt das Beispiel Bahn deutlich – um eine stärkere Kontrolle der Aktivitäten von Betriebsführungen, die stärkere Beteiligung der Beschäftigten an Betriebsentscheidungen, einen wirksamen Schutz personenbezogener Daten von Beschäftigten, eine nachhaltige und ausreichende materielle, personelle und finanzielle Ausstattung der von uns geforderten Betriebsdatenschützer und ein Verbot der anlasslosen und massenhaften Video-, Audio und E-Mail-Überwachung von Beschäftigten. Seit LIDL und den Affären bei der Deutschen Telekom wissen die Große Koalition und die Regierung um Datenschutzverstöße in Unternehmen. Diese zu beheben wäre seit langem ihre Aufgabe gewesen. Angesichts der Untätigkeit der Mehrheit im Bundestag in Sachen Arbeitnehmerdatenschutz, sollten mit Herrn Mehdorn gleich auch die politisch Verantwortlichen in Parlament und Regierung ihr letztes Ticket lösen: Endstation Ruhestand.

Quelle: http://www.die-linke.de/nc/presse/presseerklaerungen/detail/artikel/bahn-mitarbeiter-brauchen-schutz-vor-weiteren-ueberwachungen/

--------

Datenaffäre bei der Deutschen Bahn: Diesmal Mehdorns Ende?

10 Jahre später und 100.000 Mitarbeiter weniger: Bilanz super!

1999 wurde Hartmut Mehdorn Vorstandsvorsitzender der Deutschen Bahn AG. Zu verdanken hatten wir dies Gerhard Schröder. Am heutigen Tage [30. März 2009] wird er seinen Rücktritt anbieten. Hört sich gut an: Seinen Rücktritt anbieten. Diese Chance hatten fast 100.000 Menschen nicht, sie wurden einfach entlassen. Ausbaden dürfen das nun noch 237.000 Menschen, welche zur Zeit bei der Bahn unter z.T. unmenschlichen Arbeitsbedingungen die Entlassungen kompensieren müssen sowie Millionen von Bürgern, die sich für viel Geld den A.. am Bahnsteig abfrieren dürfen, weil mal wieder weit und breit kein Zug in Sicht ist. Jetzt bietet dieser Mensch seinen Rücktritt an, er habe sich zwar nichts vorzuwerfen und sei Teil einer Kampagne, also eigentlich selbst Opfer und so weiter. Naja, er wird mit ein paar Milliönchen seine Opferrolle sicherlich bei einem guten Wein genießen können. Jetzt ist die Reizfigur also endgültig weg und alles wird gut? Schön wär es ja, allein uns fehlt der Glaube... Siehe dazu: „Aus Bahnchef wird Hartmut: Mehdorn tritt zurück“ bei n-TV vom 30.03.2009 http://www.n-tv.de/1128945.html


Der König der Schnüffler

„Der Schnüffelskandal bei der Deutschen Bahn weitet sich aus. Entgegen bisheriger Aussagen forschte der Staatskonzern auch den kompletten E-Mail-Verkehr der Belegschaft aus, suchte ohne Wissen der Mitarbeiter nach Kontakten zu Wissenschaftlern, Journalisten und Bahn-Kritikern. Das geht aus einem Zwischenbericht der Sonderermittler hervor. Die Gewerkschaften Transnet und GDBA fordern deshalb erstmals den Rücktritt von Bahn-Chef Hartmut Mehdorn. Auch in der Regierung schwindet der letzte Rückhalt für den Manager…“ Artikel von Thomas Wüpper und Matthias Thieme in der Frankfurter Rundschau vom 28.03.09 http://www.fr-online.de/top_news/1701787_Datenaffaere-bei-der-Deutschen-Bahn-Der-Koenig-der-Schnueffler.html


Aus: LabourNet, 30. März 2009



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Classically Liberal
by CLS

03/29/09

Obama’s popularity is plunging. President Obama is proving himself to be relatively incompetent. And, after eight years of George Bush, the bar for competency was set quite low. Obama is proving he can do more damage to the economy than Bush, can spend more than Bush, can create bigger deficits than Bush, can expand the Afghan war beyond Bush, ad nauseam. Add in his bungling appointments and his clear cut radical agenda regarding the economy and Obama is earning his decline in support. It isn’t that I’m opposed to a radical change in the economy. But Obama’s radicalism is to magnify all the bad things that Bush did several fold over...

http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2009/03/obama-slide.html



Hounding Obama, part 6: Failing, and should be

from Reason to Freedom
by Peter Namtvedt

03/29/09

Obama’s policies are failed policies. They were tried before. They failed before. I should certainly want them to remain failed policies, and want them to fail. I want them to not even get out of the gate. I want Obama to fail. If he does not, this recession will get worse, as we find out it is more costly than we expected and that the ills of the recession are not really getting cured...

http://tinyurl.com/c5yyzp


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

--------

The Great Afghan Bailout: It's Time to Change Names, Switch Analogies

Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch.com: "Let's start by stopping. It's time, as a start, to stop calling our expanding war in Central and South Asia 'the Afghan War' or 'the Afghanistan War.' If Obama's special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke doesn't want to, why should we? Recently, in a BBC interview, he insisted that 'the "number one problem" in stabilizing Afghanistan was Taliban sanctuaries in western Pakistan, including tribal areas along the Afghan border and cities like Quetta' in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan. And isn't he right? After all, the US seems to be in the process of trading in a limited war in a mountainous, poverty-stricken country of 27 million people for one in an advanced nation of 167 million, with a crumbling economy, rising extremism, advancing corruption, and a large military armed with nuclear weapons. Worse yet, the war in Pakistan seems to be expanding inexorably and in tandem with American war planning from the tribal borderlands ever closer to the heart of the country."

http://www.truthout.org/033009L



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
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by Ayn R. Key

03/27/09

The phrase ‘too big to fail’ is too often used to describe why various companies should receive bailouts from the federal government. Some financial companies are allegedly too big to fail because if they do fail it would create a series of failures as those who do business with the failing companies would be hurt by the failure of the initial company. Some automobile companies are allegedly too big to fail because if they do fail then parts suppliers and dealerships would all fail as well. Perhaps it is time to introduce a new phrase into the national lexicon, ‘too big to succeed.’ A company is too big to succeed if it grows so big that it cannot make a profit anymore, and as a result it must fail...

http://aynrkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/aig-too-big-to-succeed.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=AIG+insurance
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http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=too+big+to+fail
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http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Ayn+R.+Key

Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G. Hornberger

03/27/09

With the possible exception of the war on drugs, it would be difficult to find a greater terrorist-producing machine than the U.S. government’s occupation of Afghanistan. Think about it: For almost 8 years, they’ve been killing terrorists in that country, fulltime. Yet, today there are more terrorists than ever before. From the standpoint of a lover of big government, this is a dream come true. They kill one terrorist, they get 10 more, which means ever-increasing federal power and budgets...

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0903l.asp


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
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CNN

03/29/09

President Obama said Sunday that his administration remains prepared to order strikes against ‘high-value’ targets within Pakistan. Obama reiterated a previous assertion that the U.S. military would pursue extremists within Pakistan’s borders after consulting with the Pakistani government...

http://tinyurl.com/d8h8fy



The Obamaites go to war

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

03/30/09

The Obamaites have inherited the central thesis of Bush’s ‘war on terrorism.’ In spite of renaming it, they’ve kept the essential element of the Bushian strategy, which is to mount an offensive campaign, to go after al-Qaeda’s leaders in their nests. Yet this is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the enemy. This nonsensical idea that al-Qaeda is a regular military formation, not a viral spore spread throughout the globe, is why bin Laden is laughing at us a decade later. Even if the U.S. succeeded in killing or — better yet — capturing bin Laden, it would have little effect on the effort to eradicate his influence or the movement he created. Indeed, it would promote the world’s most famous terrorist and symbol of evil into a mythic figure, even larger in death than in life, aside from imbuing him with the martyr status all Islamists crave...

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/03/29/af-pak-fever/



Don’t go there, Mr. President!

The Nation
by Tom Hayden

03/27/09

The Obama plan instead will accelerate any plans Al Qaeda commanders have for attacking targets in the United States or Europe. The alternative for Al Qaeda is to risk complete destruction, an American objective that has not been achieved for eight years. A terrorist attack need not be planned or set in motion from a cave in Waziristan. The cadre could already be underground in Washington or London. The real alternative for President Obama should be to maintain a deterrent posture while immediately accelerating diplomacy to meet legitimate Muslim goals, from a Palestinian state to genuine progress on Kashmir. President Obama is right, at least politically, to take very seriously the threat of another 9/11 from any source. Besides the suffering inflicted, it would derail his agenda and perhaps his presidency. This is all the more reason he must understand that by repeatedly threatening to ‘kill Al Qaeda’ he is provoking a hornets’ nest without protection against a devastating sting...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090413/hayden


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
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Jason Leopold, Truthout: "These are the conclusions I arrived at after reading Marine Capt. Tyler E. Boudreau's first-person exposé of the time he spent in Iraq and the struggles he and his comrades faced in the aftermath of their deployment."

http://www.truthout.org/032909A



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Tyler+E.+Boudreau
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Jason+Leopold

http://www.lewrockwell.com/suprynowicz/suprynowicz123.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/suprynowicz

http://www.lewrockwell.com/bonner/bonner372.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=civil+unrest
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/bonner

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff285.html



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http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/rozeff

http://list.lewrockwell.com/t/1366529/12759198/79620/0/



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NewsMax.com - West Palm Beach, FL, USA

An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) is a by-product of detonating an atomic bomb above the Earth’s atmosphere. When a nuclear weapon is detonated in space, ...

http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/grigrich_emp_weapon/2009/03/29/197257.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=electromagnetic+pulse
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Newt+Gingrich

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/8492/


Informant: jensenmk
From ufpj-news



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