World-News

http://www.infowars.net/articles/december2008/181208Paul.htm

Bloomberg Misquotes Ron Paul Seconds After He Speaks
http://www.prisonplanet.com/bloomberg-misquotes-ron-paul-seconds-after-he-speaks.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=bailout
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Ron+Paul

Ein-Euro-Job mit Arbeitszeit von 30 Stunden kann zulässig sein

„Der Kläger dieses Verfahrens, der eine Ausbildung zum Ingenieur für Kunststoffe absolviert hat, steht seit September 2001 im Bezug von Leistungen wegen Arbeitslosigkeit. Die beklagte Arbeitsgemeinschaft bot ihm im August 2005 eine bis 17. Dezember 2005 befristete Arbeitsgelegenheit gegen eine Mehraufwandsentschädigung von 1,50 €/Stunde als Gemeindearbeiter im Umfang von wöchentlich 30 Stunden an. Der Kläger trat die Arbeitsgelegenheit nicht an. Daraufhin senkte die beklagte Arbeits­gemeinschaft die Regelleistung (Arbeitslosengeld II) für Oktober bis Dezember in Höhe von bisher 345 Euro monatlich um 30 vH (= 103,50 Euro). Hiergegen wandte sich der Kläger ua mit der Begründung, die angebotene Tätigkeit überschreite mit 30 Stunden das Maß des Zulässigen. Das Sozialgericht hat die Klage abgewiesen, das Landessozialgericht ihr teilweise stattgegeben. Der 4. Senat des Bundessozialgerichts hat am 16. Dezember 2008 im Verfahren B 4 AS 60/07 R entschieden, dass die Beklagte dem Kläger eine Arbeitsgelegenheit angeboten hat, die den gesetzlichen Anforderungen genügt…“ Medieninformation des Bundessozialgerichts vom 16. Dezember 2008 http://juris.bundessozialgericht.de/cgi-bin/rechtsprechung/document.py?Gericht=bsg&Art=ps&Datum=2008&nr=10707&pos=0&anz=57

Siehe dazu:

DGB zum Urteil über „Ein-Euro-Jobs“: Unvereinbar mit internationalen Arbeitsnormen

„Ein arbeitsloser Ingenieur hatte geklagt und verlor. Er verweigerte, 30 Stunden wöchentlich Hilfstätigkeiten wie ‚Folien um Bäume wickeln’ auszuüben – für 1,50 Euro die Stunde. Reguläre Beschäftigung werde verdrängt, argumentierte der Mann. Das Bundessozialgericht entschied, ihm könne das Arbeitslosengeld II um 30 Prozent gekürzt werden. DGB-Vorstandsmitglied Annelie Buntenbach: „Ein-Euro-Jobs gehören auf den Prüfstand.“..“ Pressemitteilung vom 16.12.2008 http://www.dgb.de/2008/12/16_ein_euro_jobs.htm/


Bundessozialgericht legalisiert Zwangsarbeit

Mit der Zulassung einer Wochenarbeitszeit von 30 Stunden bei Arbeitsgelegenheiten hat das Bundessozialgericht den Bundesarbeitsdienst ausgebaut. Kommentar von Volker Ritter, Vorsitzender des ver.di-Ortserwerbslosenausschuss Hannover http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/arbeit/realpolitik/hilfe/ritter.html


Aus: LabourNet, 18. Dezember 2008

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Bundessozialgericht: 30 Stunden-Woche bei Ein-Euro-Jobs für rechtens erklärt

Als skandalös kann man das neuerliche Urteil des Bundessozialgerichtes (BSG) betiteln: Das oberste Gericht sah es als rechtens an, dass Hartz IV Betroffene 30 Wochenarbeitsstunden arbeiten müssen und dafür gerade einmal einen Hungerlohn erhalten. Dabei hob das BSG das Urteil des Landessozialgerichts in Bayern auf. Nimmt ein ALG II Empfänger die Arbeitsgelegenheit nicht an, so kann von der Arge das ALG II um 30 Prozent gekürzt werden, so die Bundessozialrichter.

Lesen Sie den ganzen Artikel: http://www.gegen-hartz.de/nachrichtenueberhartziv/eineurjob2823901.php



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Thursday, December 18, 2008, 10:30

THERE has been a victory for residents protesting against a telephone mast being put up in their street after town planners turned down the application.

Tamworth Borough Council's planning committee voted against having the 10m high mast in Brindley Drive, to the rear of Selker Drive, Amington, but said they would work with applicants Vodafone UK to find a suitable alternative site – across the street has been put forward as a possibility.

The committee went against its planning officers' advice to refuse the application at a meeting on Wednesday night.

Their decision came after hearing the arguments of angry residents, who were all against the mast.

Lawrence Bright, who lives in Selker Drive, said residents had not been properly informed of the facts, and that the area was already saturated with telephone masts.

"We are going to end up with masts all the way down this place," he told the planning committee.

Read More...
http://www.thisistamworth.co.uk/news/Victory-Amington-residents-phone-mast-battle/article-557982-detail/article.html

Für Soja wird der Cerrado abgefackelt Für Soja wird der Cerrado abgefackelt

In dem kleinen Ort Haßleben in Brandenburg ist eine der größten Schweinemastbetriebe Europas geplant. Bis zu 67.000 Tiere sollen hier gemästet werden – ein Horror für Tier- und Umweltschützer sowie Anwohner. Gemästet werden die Schweine neben Mais mit Sojaschrot aus Südamerika und Palmölkuchen aus Südostasien. Für Sojaäcker und Ölpalmplantagen wird der Regenwald niedergebrannt. Stoppen sie das Projekt. (Start: 17.12.2008)

http://www.regenwald.org/protestaktion.php?id=342



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Illegal lending practices

Reason
by Jacob Sullum

12/17/08

Even Americans whose knowledge of the legislative process is limited to the ‘I’m Just a Bill’ episode of Schoolhouse Rock know about the veto: If Congress approves legislation the president doesn’t like, he can refuse to sign it, in which case the law can be enacted only by a two-thirds vote of each chamber. President Bush’s plan to aid the auto industry relies on a more obscure maneuver: If Congress rejects a bill the president likes, he can act as if the vote went the other way. This maneuver, unlike the veto, is illegal by definition, not to mention unconstitutional, violating the separation of powers and the rule of law. But it is business as usual for Bush, who has shown no compunction about ignoring the law when it prohibits him from doing what he considers necessary in response to what he considers an emergency...

http://www.reason.com/news/show/130600.html



The bailout state

Future of Freedom Foundation
by Sheldon Richman

12/15/08

Ours is the Age of the Bailout. Bailing out failing companies is not new, but today the scale is unprecedented and the opposition is scant. The government today is committed to more than $7 trillion in various forms of stock purchases, loans, and guarantees. The Treasury secretary has been given awesome discretionary power to buy bad securities or shares in banks. The Federal Reserve now lends money to investment banks, not just commercial banks. It is also now buying securities that have no market value...

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0812h.asp


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



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Salisbury Post

12/17/08

Anxious to jolt the economy back to life, President-elect Barack Obama appears to be zeroing in on a stimulus package of about $850 billion, dwarfing last spring’s tax rebates and rivaling drastic government actions to fight the Great Depression. Obama has not settled on a grand total, but after consulting with outside economists of all political stripes, his advisers have begun telling Congress the stimulus should be bigger than the $600 billion initially envisioned, congressional officials said Wednesday...

http://tinyurl.com/4zwcja


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



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Published Date: 18 December 2008

By Ben Truslove

THURSDAY 10AM: Protesters who thought they had beaten the world's largest mobile phone company were dealt a blow recently when an application to build a mast were re-submitted.

Vodafone's plans for the base station on the corner of Grange Drive and Sapcote Drive appeared sunk when it was revealed the land belonged to Bargain Booze owner Amarjid Singh who refused permission.

But angry residents were shocked to discover a second application this month just six metres away on an area belonging to Leicestershire Highways - affectively tying planning officials hands.

Catherine Langley, who lives just yards away in Grange Drive, is prepared to chain herself to the railings to stop the mast being built.

Read More...
http://www.meltontimes.co.uk/news/Blow-for-phone-mast-protesters.4801388.jp

US-Vizepräsident Dick Cheney verteidigt zum Abschied die nach dem 11.9. eingeführten Mittel zur "Verteidigung der Nation".

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/29/29375/1.html



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US-Notenbank hat ihren geldpolitischen Spielraum fast völlig ausgereizt.
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/29/29379/1.html



Von der Immobilienspekulation zum Zusammenbruch der globalen Defizitkonjunktur

Kurze Geschichte der Weltwirtschaftskrise.
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/29/29356/1.html

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„Aktiv werden für eine soziale Antikrisenpolitik!“

Beschluss des ver.di-Gewerkschaftsrats am 04./05. Dezember 2008 in der uns zugesandten Version als Beschlussvorlage (pdf) http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/wipo/finanz/krise08verdigr.pdf

Aus dem Text: „…Die ver.di hat, gemeinsam mit attac Europa, den Friends of Earth Europe und anderen am 10. Januar 2009 nach Paris eingeladen, um über die Konsequenzen aus der Wirtschafts- und Finanzkrise zu diskutieren, um eine Verständigung über die weitere Vorgehensweise auf der europäischen Ebene zu erreichen. Der EGB hat auf starken Druck des DGB, der Uni Europa und anderer deutschsprachiger Gewerkschaftsverbände erreicht, dass ein europäischer Aktionsplan beschlossen wurde. Dieser sieht vor, dass für den 1. Mai mit den Schwerpunkten Europa und Wirtschafts- und Finanzkrise mobilisiert werden soll und RednerInnen im europäischen Raum ausgetauscht werden. Darüber hinaus soll der EGB am 4. Dezember 2008 beschließen, dass in mehreren europäischen Städten Demonstrationen im März/Mai 2009 stattfinden. Dazu werden wir Materialien entwickeln. Der DGB Bundesvorstand hat einen Kapitalismuskongress beschlossen, auf dem über die zu ziehenden Konsequenzen aus der Wirtschafts- und Finanzmarktkrise diskutiert werden soll. Die ver.di wird sich für einen offenen Kongress einsetzen, der noch im Frühjahr 2009 stattfindet…“


Konjunkturkrise - Hintergründe und Forderungen

Die wichtigsten Informationen zur Krise und ihren Folgen für Arbeitnehmer. Sonderseite bei der IG Metall http://www.igmetall.de/cps/rde/xchg/SID-0A456501-DBE71E40/internet/style.xsl/view_19945.htm


Aus: LabourNet, 18. Dezember 2008



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http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2008/12/17-15



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

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/12/17

America: The Choice Ahead
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/12/17-5



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Mohammed+Mesbahi
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Adam+Parsons

Stephen Leahy, Inter Press Service: "The roof of our house is on fire while the leaders of our family sit comfortably in the living room below preoccupied with 'political realities' - that was essentially the message from 1,000 scientists from around the world along with northern indigenous leaders gathered in Quebec City for the International Arctic Change conference that concluded last weekend. Presenting data from hundreds of studies and research projects detailing the Arctic region's rapid meltdown and cascading ecological impacts, participants urged governments to take 'immediate measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.'"

http://www.truthout.org/121708EA

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Has the Arctic Melt Passed the Point of No Return?
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/12/17-3



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Arctic+meltdown
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Arne Duncan and the Corporate Model of Schooling

Henry A. Giroux and Kenneth Saltman, Truthout: "Barack Obama's selection of Arne Duncan for secretary of education does not bode well either for the political direction of his administration nor for the future of public education. Obama's call for change falls flat with this appointment, not only because Duncan largely defines schools within a market-based and penal model of pedagogy, but also because he does not have the slightest understanding of schools as something other than adjuncts of the corporation at best or the prison at worse."

http://www.truthout.org/121708R



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ACTION ALERT

PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!

By Ecological Internet's Rainforest Portal http://www.rainforestportal.org/
December 17, 2008

TAKE ACTION HERE NOW: http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=bolivia_rainforest

President Morales must be encouraged to live up to his grand rhetoric, and end his government's hurried measures to decimate massive indigenous rainforest protected areas and their biodiversity and climate values, in a manner eerily reminiscent of the capitalistic system against which he rallies.

BRIEF BACKGROUND: Bolivia's Madidi National Park and Pilón Lajas Biosphere Reserve are communal lands containing some of the most biodiverse areas on earth. With the assent of President Evo Morales, the oil giant Petrobas and collaborators have begun an oil exploration assault that threatens not only these remarkable ecosystems, but also the culture and livelihood of the resident indigenous peoples. Mr. Morales must be encouraged to live up to his grand rhetoric, and end his government's hurried plans to decimate indigenous protected areas, local sustainable livelihoods and their rainforest lands' biodiversity and climate values.

TAKE ACTION NOW: http://www.rainforestportal.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=bolivia_rainforest

DISCUSS THIS ALERT: http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2008/12/alert_bolivias_amazon_riches_t.asp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=rainforest
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Dec 17 2008

by Lynda Nicol, East Kilbride News

EAST Renfrewshire’s planning convener has put out the call to the Scottish and United Kingdom Governments to examine health concerns around mobile phone masts.

Councillor Ian McAlpine, who chairs the council’s planning applications committee, has contacted the area’s MP and MSP to call on an examination of the issue.

He said: “When we receive a planning application for a mobile phone mast it is examined by our council planners strictly on planning grounds.

“But residents keep raising health concerns. As planning convener, I cannot take these into account, our planners cannot examine them and our committee members cannot consider them when making a decision.

“Our residents are concerned but neither we, our national Governments nor the mobile phone industry are doing enough to answer their questions.”

Read More...
http://tinyurl.com/4lwtkl

In almost one home in five (18 percent) someone has lost a job in recent months, and in more than a quarter (27 percent) a worker has had his or her pay cut or working hours reduced, the poll found.

http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=78781&sectionid=3510213


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=recession

AN Algerian-born man who has just been freed from Guantanamo Bay has described the US "war on terror" camp as the worst place on Earth, in an interview published in a Bosnian newspaper.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24816310-12335,00.html


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Guantanamo

A senior Russian military official expressed concern on Tuesday about what he said were U.S. plans to set up military bases in the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20081216/118886117.html


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=military+bases
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By Robert Redford

In three days, this Friday, 110,000 acres of majestic Utah wild lands go on the auction block, to be sold to the highest bidders in the oil and gas industry. It's a last-ditch effort by a corrupt administration to further enrich its friends in the dirty fuels business. If they succeed, they'll leave a wasteland behind them.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21491.htm



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By Chris Hedges

The multiple failures that beset the country, from our mismanaged economy to our shredded constitutional rights to our lack of universal health care to our imperial debacles in the Middle East, can be laid at the feet of our elite universities. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford, along with most other elite schools, do a poor job educating students to think.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21487.htm



Why I Am a Socialist

By Chris Hedges

The corporate forces that are looting the Treasury and have plunged us into a depression will not be contained by the two main political parties. The Democratic and Republican parties have become little more than squalid clubs of privilege and wealth, whores to money and corporate interests, hostage to a massive arms industry, and so adept at deception and self-delusion they no longer know truth from lies.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21586.htm



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By Mike Whitney

It is now clear to me that policy makers in the West are determined to apply every available resource to underpinning failure, misallocation and executive excess. As this discourages the honest saver from parting with cash, policy makers are ensuring that deflation will wreak its havoc on the financial and real economies of the world.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21486.htm



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By John R. MacArthur

So far, the president-elect's Cabinet choices make a joke of the liberals who backed him in the hope that something fundamental might change in America's belligerent behavior abroad. As the neo-conservative Max Boot approvingly observed, the appointment of Gen. James Jones as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the retention of Robert Gates as defense secretary "could just as easily have come from a President McCain."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21492.htm



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A Million McVeighs Now

By Chris Floyd

The "Good War" in Afghanistan - the Bush-launched war that Barack Obama tells us we must fight and win - continues to deteriorate before our eyes. Just like every other operation in the so-called "War on Terror" (another Bush-launched campaign that Obama has fully embraced as his own), the Afghan war, now in its seventh year, has proven entirely counterproductive to its stated aims.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21488.htm

--------

What's Next for Afghanistan?

Friday on Bill Moyers Journal: "As a new administration is set to take over in the White House, Bill Moyers checks in with author Sarah Chayes on the state of affairs in America's other war in Afghanistan. An author and former journalist, Chayes has lived the last seven years in Afghanistan, helping to rebuild the country."

http://www.truthout.org/121708U



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http://www.lewrockwell.com/gaddy/gaddy37.html



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http://list.lewrockwell.com/t/1219283/12759198/68808/0/



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http://www.lewrockwell.com/armentano-d/armentano15.html



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Published Date: 16 December 2008

Holbeach residents are up in arms over plans to put up a three-antenna phone mast near their homes.

People living in Mondemont Close were horrified to see Telefonica O2 UK's plan for the mast at Carter's Park, saying health risks have not been ruled out.

Read More...
http://www.spaldingtoday.co.uk/news/New-scheme-for-phone-mast.4794230.jp

cnn.com — Between 1.5 trillion and 2 trillion tons of ice in Greenland, Antarctica and Alaska have melted at an accelerating rate since 2003, according to NASA scientists, in the latest signs of what they say is global warming. Using new satellite technology that measures changes in mass in mountain glaciers and ice sheets, NASA geophysicist Scott Luthcke concluded that the losses amounted to enough water to fill the Chesapeake Bay 21 times. "The ice tells us in a very real way how the climate is changing," said Luthcke, who will present his findings this week at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco, California.

http://ga3.org/ct/_d20pgF14E8O/



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Greenland
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Antarctica

Francois Vidal, writing for France's premier business paper, Les Echos: "Beyond the shock of an affair that promises to be worthy of a Hollywood screen play, the first elements of this new scandal prove that there is decidedly something broken on Wall Street."

http://www.truthout.org/121708D



Wall Street Still Flying Corporate Jets

Stevenson Jacobs, The Associated Press: "Crisscrossing the country in corporate jets may no longer fly in Detroit after car executives got a dressing down from Congress. But on Wall Street, the coveted executive perk has hardly been grounded. Six financial firms that received billions in bailout dollars still own and operate fleets of jets to carry executives to company events and sometimes personal trips, according to an Associated Press review."

http://www.truthout.org/122208O



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Wall+Street
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=bailout
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=bankruptcy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Francois+Vidal
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William Rivers Pitt, Truthout: "I met a chef from Texas who was like an oak tree with tattoos, and made a mean barbecue sauce. He'd been in the 101st Airborne and was about to be deployed to Iraq, but destroyed his knee in a training exercise and wound up getting discharged. He knew the war was nonsense and thought the Bush guys all deserved to rot in jail, but he still wanted to go to Iraq, and wept whenever a soldier he knew died over there because he should have been there and maybe could have saved that person if his knee hadn't buckled."

http://www.truthout.org/121708A



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=deployed+to+Iraq
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=William+Rivers+Pitt

With 11 masts holding 28 antennae, the village of Essington, near Wolverhampton, must be one of the best places in Britain to find a mobile phone signal.

But it is not so great for villagers, who find their homes surrounded by metal towers and who continue to be concerned about the effect of the masts on their long-term health.

Telecoms companies are clamouring to site their transmitters in the South Staffordshire village because of its proximity to the M54 and M6. Drivers using hands-free kits can continue talking while travelling down the motorways without having to worry about their signals cutting out.

But villagers and parish councillors say enough is enough.

Read More...
http://www.expressandstar.com/2008/12/17/rage-over-phone-masts-forest/

Strauss-Kahn says advanced countries would see violent civil unrest if elite continue to exploit financial chaos for their own ends.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/imf-chief-warns-of-riots-in-response-to-economic-crisis.html

--------

Man Is a Cruel Animal

Chris Hedges, Truthdig: "It was Joseph Conrad I thought of when I read an article in The Nation magazine this month about white vigilante groups that rose up out of the chaos of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans to terrorize and murder blacks. It was Conrad I thought of when I saw the ominous statements by authorities, such as International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, warning of potential civil unrest in the United States as we funnel staggering sums of public funds upward to our bankrupt elites and leave our poor and working class destitute, hungry, without health care and locked out of their foreclosed homes. We fool ourselves into believing we are immune to the savagery and chaos of failed states. Take away the rigid social structure, let society continue to break down, and we become, like anyone else, brutes."

http://www.truthout.org/122208S



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=economic+crisis
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Dec 17 2008

By Daniel Bissett

Jon Cannon, of Cwrt Hwfa, says he’s "very upset" after receiving a letter from Mono Consultants Ltd asking for his views on the proposed siting of a 12m tall Vodafone 3G base station.

Mr Cannon is worried about potential adverse health effects that may result from radiation as the mast would be very close to his daughter’s bedroom, as well as having the view of the Menai Strait obstructed which could lower the price of his house in the future.

He has talked to residents and businesses in Upper Bangor and within a couple of hours, more than 100 people had signed the petition against the base station.

"My wife, Sara, and I were so upset at the prospect of this station beaming radiation through our daughter’s bedroom that out first reaction was to consider selling the house, but why should we?" said Mr Cannon.

"This house was meant to be our dream home and we do not want to look at a very tall mast from our back garden.

Read More...
http://tinyurl.com/5aafxn

A pressure group determined to block the construction of a 17.3 metre high mobile phone mast in Whitstable will meet planners at a site meeting tomorrow.

Due to government regulations which state that decisions on masts must be made within 56 days, a final decision must be made at the meeting which will determine whether the mast is built or not.

Campaigners are concerned that the Vodaphone mast, which is proposed to be installed on land off Molehill Road in Chestfield, could pose a health risk to those living nearby, and argue Vodaphone has not followed best practice by failing to consult residents in nearby streets.

Read More...
http://www.yourcanterbury.co.uk/kent-news/Whitstable-residents_-group-fights-phone-mast-plan-newsinkent18986.aspx

Salon
by Mike Madden

12/17/08

Oh, for those flush days of October. This won’t be news to anyone with a 401K or without a winning lottery ticket, but even though Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has burned through almost all of the first $350 billion Congress authorized, it didn’t quite turn things around. The infusion of money may have kept credit from tightening up further, but it certainly didn’t jump-start the economy — banks didn’t resume lending to businesses and consumers. Stock prices never really recovered from their early autumn plunges, and more than half a million jobs vanished just last month. With the benefit of hindsight, lawmakers now express regret about the way the bailout was handled — with few provisions for oversight of the banks or the Bush administration — and the public hates it more than ever. The feeling that money and political capital were squandered even helped endanger the far cheaper and more popular bailout of the auto industry. So what went wrong — and where did all that money go?

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/12/17/700_billion/



Paulson’s bailout was a scam

OpenMarket.org
by Hans Bader

12/16/08

National Review editor Rich Lowry, who mistakenly supported the financial system bailout because he trusted the Bush Administration, now realizes that he was deceived by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and that the bailout was sold to the public under false pretenses. Having promised to use bailout money to buy up troubled assets, the Bush Administration instead used the money for completely different purposes, and now wants to use some of it to bail out an entirely different industry — the automakers...

http://tinyurl.com/56ozrf



Disgusting political humbug

Independent Institute
by Robert Higgs

12/15/08

Turned away by the Senate, the Big Three auto makers have resorted to begging the Bush administration to rescue them from the plight in which they now find themselves as a result of decades of poor management. Wailing and gnashing of teeth are all the rage in Washington as these wannabe plunderers warn us of dire consequences unless the government acts as the middleman in their attempts to raid the taxpayers’ bank accounts. Well, ho-hum, auto makers are scarcely unique in their lack of scruple and their desire to loot the Treasury. What strikes me in the latest reports on this sordid business is not so much the auto executives’ undignified prostration and supplication before the Almighty Government, but the statements being spewed out by our ever-faithful public servants...

http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2391


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=$700
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Treasury
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Paulson
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=bailout
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=financial+system
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=taxpayer
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=automaker
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Mike+Madden
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Hans+Bader
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Higgs

"There's no place like home"
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/29/29366/1.html



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

Spanien ist besonders betroffen, deutsche Banken wollen keine großen Investitionen gemacht haben.

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/29/29367/1.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Madoff

Art Levine, The Huffington Post: "Even as the auto industry teeters on collapse, union-bashing continues as the mainstay of a GOP propaganda war against organized labor."

http://www.truthout.org/121608LA



Down on Upward Mobility

Dan Carpenter, The Indianapolis Star: The labor movement, which made teachers into empowered professionals and factory workers into middle-class taxpayers, has been under attack for a generation from the forces of phony simplicity. The idea that collective bargaining has achieved a standard of living that is unfair and unsustainable, rather than one that society as a whole should pursue, is one of our most powerful national myths. Like the glory of war and the frivolousness of environmental protection, union bashing is a bill of goods sold by the most myopic of special interests and bought by ordinary folks against their own interests."

http://www.truthout.org/121708LA



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=GOP
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=automaker
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=trade+unions
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=labor+movement
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Art+Levine
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Dan+Carpenter

Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: "Not long ago I was talking to someone who once had been a deficit hawk but the current recession had turned into a full-blooded Keynesian. He wanted a stimulus package in the range of $500 to $700 billion. 'Consumers are dead in the water,' he said, fervently, 'so government has to step in.' I agreed. But I didn't tell him his traditional Keynesianism is based on two highly-questionable assumptions in today's world, and the underlying logic of Keynes leads us toward something bigger and more permanent than he has in mind."

http://www.truthout.org/121608T



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=recession
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=stimulus
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Keynesianism
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Reich's+Blog

Maya Schenwar: Truthout: "Last week, with President-elect Obama's blessing, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the beginning of a troop 'surge' in Afghanistan. As the US embarks on a slow redeployment of troops away from the widely condemned occupation of Iraq - though that occupation is not by any means ending - it is easy to frame Afghanistan as a milder war, a war that can even, perhaps, be 'won.' However, sending more American forces to Afghanistan is a peculiar first project for a supposedly peacemaking president-elect, according to Stephen Kinzer, a former New York Times correspondent who has covered more than 50 countries on five continents, and has written extensively on US interventionism around the world."

http://www.truthout.org/121608R



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Gates
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=troop+surge
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=interventionism
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Stephen+Kinzer
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Maya+Schenwar

http://www.lewrockwell.com/murphy/murphy146.html



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Federal+Reserve
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=housing
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/murphy

The fall was the second straight month of record declines in the consumer price index (CPI) and the biggest since 1947, when the Labour Department began recording the figures, it said on Tuesday.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/12/20081216154853641784.html



Unemployment: Worse Than it Looks

The most publicized measure of U.S. unemployment tells only part of the story.
http://tinyurl.com/5w8765



More people on S.F. streets newly homeless

Across the country, the nose-diving economy isn't just causing home foreclosures and stock market dips, it is squeezing people, particularly families, out of their homes. The number of hungry people has also jumped.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/16/BA5N14OGCD.DTL


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=consumer+price+index
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=unemployment
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=homeless
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=foreclosure
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=stock+market

Even if Barack Obama draws down troops in Iraq like he's promised, a new report finds the US is on pace to have spent nearly $2 trillion on military operations including Iraq and Afghanistan over the next decade.

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Report_Cost_of_wars_could_top_1216.html


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=cost+of+wars

By Sarah Baxter, Washington
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21479.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Rahm+Emanuel
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Sarah+Baxter

By Paul Craig Roberts

We have to ask ourselves why American service men and women and CIA operatives delight in torturing people about whom they know nothing? It has been well known since the Stalin era that torture never produces accurate information.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21482.htm



Welcome to Our World

By David Glenn Cox

You thought your white collar and your wealth would protect you as you nodded in agreement that outsourcing was vital to a growing economy. You thought these things could never reach you?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21483.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=torture
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Paul+Craig+Roberts
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=David+Glenn+Cox