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Wednesday, December 13, 2006 |
Spiegel: "A few days before he was put in quarantine in a Moscow hospital, Russian businessman Andrei Lugovoi, believed to be one of Scotland Yard's main suspects in the killing of Alexander Litvinenko, spoke to DER SPIEGEL about his meetings with the former spy.
Scotland Yard regards Lugovoi with his trail of radiation as a walking dirty bomb."
TheNation: "So many news organizations - even the most reputable - have rushed to confuse speculation and rumor-mongering with fact-based reporting? 'It seems safe to say,' wrote a Western commentator in Moscow news, 'that the juridical dictum 'innocent until proven guilty' does not apply to Russia'.
But what is also emerging, as the investigation and radioactivity spread to Germany, is an alternative hypothesis, a counter-story - focusing on the business dealings of members of Russia's private security industry and the security (and health) risks posed by trafficking of the dangerous (and extremely valuable) radioactive isotope polonium 210.
And in 'The Polonium Puzzle: The Alternative Hypothesis', Epstein suggests the alternative hypothesis to murder: polonium smuggling - for profit rather than assassination.The real question we have to ask, Epstein says, is not who killed Litvinenko but how did it come about that he was exposed to a very rare isotope - one which is produced only in a few grams? In his latest blog, 'A Diversion From Hell: The Polonium Mystery' (December 10), Epstein raises a whole new set of questions - specifically about the relationships Litvinenko had with his contaminated associates - that need to be answered in order to resolve the extraordinary mystery of the poisoned ex-spy."
These 'businessmen' were nuclear traffickers, allowed to do their dirty business by the Western powers (the relation with Chechnya has been mentioned before).
Putin is embarrassed by his inability to do anything and apprehend the criminals. The 'businessmen' involved are émigrés and if he would attempt to arrest their helpers in Russia, the West would immediately shout foul.
If the Western secret services are involved - which they probably are - they will want to protect their agents or political allies, Litvinenko, Lugovoi, Kovtun, etc.
1:28:12 PM 
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TimesOnline: "Ice is melting so fast in the Arctic that the North Pole will be in the open sea in 30 years, according to a team of leading climatologists."
And by now we all know that this global warming can result in a new ice age soon.
ABC: "Some of the scientists who first advanced the controversial 'nuclear winter' theory more than two decades ago have come up with another bleak forecast: Even a regional nuclear war would devastate the environment.
Using modern climate and population models, researchers estimated that a small-scale nuclear conflict between two warring nations would cause 3 million to 17 million immediate casualties and lead to a marked cooldown of the planet that could lead to crop failures and further misery."
LATimes: "As President Bush weighs new policy options for Iraq, strong support has coalesced in the Pentagon behind a military plan to "double down" in the country with a substantial buildup in American troops, an increase in industrial aid and a major combat offensive against Muqtada Sadr, the radical Shiite leader impeding development of the Iraqi government."
LATimes: "Federal prosecutors are backing away from some of the aggressive tactics they have employed against corporate crime amid growing criticism that their methods have trampled on the rights of white-collar defendants.
Prosecutors will largely refrain from demanding that companies refuse to pay for the legal defense of executives who are under investigation, and significantly limit their demands for privileged attorney-client communications, the Justice Department said Tuesday."
So the corporate criminals will be defended at the expense of the general public (the corporations will only charge it to their customers and deduct it from their taxes).
While the problems caused by the neocon economy are increasing and endangering our and other species, the criminals are shielded and the total collapse is coming nearer. Only this time it won't be the collapse of civilization limited to a small area, but the collapse of life on earth.
1:09:16 PM
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Brookings: "Modern medicine has the capacity to extend and improve the quality of life in ways that previous generations could not even imagine. Yet almost half of all Americans do not receive scientifically recommended care when they see a doctor or are admitted to a hospital. Nearly 100,000 people die annually and still more suffer avoidable debility and pain from preventable medical errors. In fact, the gap between what modern medicine can deliver and what it does deliver is huge and may be getting larger."
12:43:26 PM
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Journalismus: "The savings and loan scandal of the 1980s has been depicted in a myriad of ways. To some, it is the greatest ... scandal in American history (Thomas, 1991: 30). To others it is the single greatest case of fraud in the history of crime (Seattle Times, June 11, 1991).
Some analysts see it as the natural result of the ethos of greed promulgated by the Reagan administration (Simon and Eitzen, 1993: 50). And to some it was a premeditated conspiracy to move covert funds out of the country for use by the U.S. Intelligence Agency (Bainerman, 1992: 275). All of these depictions of the S & L scandal contain elements of truth.
But to a large degree, the savings and loan scandal was simply business as usual. What was unusual about it was not that it happened, or who was involved, but that it was so blatant and coarse a criminal act that exposure became inevitable. But with its exposure, three basic but usually ignored 'truths' about organized crime were once again demonstrated with startlingly clarity:
- There is precious little difference between those people who society designates as respectable and law abiding and those people society castigates as hoodlums and thugs.
- The world of corporate finance and corporate capital is as criminogenic and probably more criminogenic than any poverty-wracked slum neighborhood.
- The distinctions drawn between business, politics, and organized crime are at best artificial and in reality irrelevant. Rather than being dysfunctions, corporate crime, white-collar crime, organized crime, and political corruption are mainstays of American political-economic life."
Many people in the Netherlands were duped by the banks and insurance companies who sold them their investment-based mortgages, savings schemes and life-annuity policies. It appears that at the end of the term there is no profit, only a negative balance. Only a small part of the money paid, is invested in stocks and most of the money goes to 'costs' and 'insurance'.
The neocon economy creates poverty. It's the biggest scam ever. They will sell anything, including Polonium-210. You see, they need your money and blood to fight their wars.
12:38:55 PM
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