Dakryn's Batshit Theory of the Week

Some details on AIG, which has apparently been assigned about $170 billion of tax money in the past year to keep it running. This gives a good idea of how utterly irresponsibly some of the most powerful people in the country are handling our money.

AIG Discloses $75 Billion in Bailout Payments
Insurer Reveals List of Taxpayer Funds Doled Out to Settle Debts With Companies, Municipalities

By Brady Dennis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 16, 2009

In the six months since the government's bailout of insurance giant American International Group, a rescue that has become increasingly costly and contentious, one question has loomed above all others: Where did the money go?

The answer became a little clearer yesterday when AIG unexpectedly released the names of dozens of trading partners it has paid using billions in taxpayer dollars. The disclosure, which the company said was made after consulting the Federal Reserve, revealed that AIG paid more than $75 billion in the final months of 2008 to numerous domestic and foreign banks, as well as to various U.S. municipalities.

The funds were paid from the government's initial $85 billion emergency loan in September and included major firms such as Goldman Sachs, Societe Generale, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Barclays.

The payments were made between Sept. 16 -- the date that government assistance began -- and Dec. 31.

More than $34 billion of the money went to trading partners of AIG Financial Products, the small subsidiary whose exotic derivatives brought AIG to the edge of collapse. In recent years, the firm had written massive numbers of credit-default swaps, insurance-like contracts that other companies bought as protection against the default of mortgage-backed securities. When the housing boom began to go bust, banks that had purchased the swaps demanded collateral from AIG, burying the company under a tidal wave of debt. Federal officials, wanting to keep the company from failing because they feared it was too intertwined with the global economy, stepped in to help.

In the last months of 2008, AIG Financial Products paid more than $22 billion in taxpayer money to satisfy debts caused by its swap contracts. Another $12 billion went to pay off municipalities in dozens of states for whom the firm had created complex investment agreements.

Nearly $44 billion went to pay debts that AIG incurred under its "securities lending" program, according to the company. In those instances, various companies borrowed securities from AIG in exchange for cash. In turn, AIG invested much of the money in mortgage-backed assets that plummeted in value, leaving the insurer on the hook for billions.

Yesterday's disclosure was an about-face for AIG and the Fed. In recent weeks, public outrage and pressure from lawmakers demanding to know who benefited from the AIG bailout has reached a crescendo. But until yesterday, AIG executives and federal officials had repeatedly refused to release such details, arguing that trading partners had a right to privacy and that any disclosure could harm their businesses.

"These are extraordinary times," AIG spokeswoman Christina Pretto said yesterday in explaining the company's decision. "And we and our partners at the Fed thought this was right thing to do."

Fed spokeswoman Michelle Smith agreed, saying, "We commend the company for finding a balance between its concerns with confidentiality and the concerns of the public interest."

AIG's disclosure came on the same day that President Obama's top economic adviser berated the firm for its plans to dole out hundreds of millions of dollars in employee bonuses and retention pay, despite posting a record $62 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2008.

"There are a lot of terrible things that have happened in the last 18 months, but what's happened at AIG is the most outrageous," Lawrence H. Summers, chairman of the White House National Economic Council, said yesterday during an appearance on ABC's "This Week." "What that company did, the way it was not regulated, the way no one was watching, what's proved necessary, it is outrageous."

Summers was but one in a chorus of administration officials and lawmakers who took to the airwaves yesterday to excoriate AIG, whose rescue package from the federal government stands at an estimated $170 billion.

"This is an example of people at the commanding heights of the economy misbehaving, abusing the system," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.

Their anger stemmed in large part from AIG's decision to move forward with retention bonuses for executives at the troubled Financial Products unit. In early 2008, before the government rescue, the firm's employees had been promised more than $400 million in retention pay this year and next. Lawyers for the government and AIG have agreed that most of those payments, however unsavory, are legally binding.

"We are a country of laws. There are contracts," Summers said yesterday. "The government cannot just abrogate contracts. Every legal step possible to limit those bonuses is being taken by Secretary Geithner and by the Federal Reserve system."

In addition, AIG is in the process of paying $121 million in previously scheduled corporate bonuses and hundreds of millions more in retention payments to more than 6,000 employees throughout the company's global insurance units.

The bonuses and other payments have infuriated the public and government officials. After a contentious call on Wednesday between Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and AIG chairman Edward M. Liddy, first reported by The Washington Post, Liddy agreed to alter the terms of some executive bonuses and make future payments contingent on the company's progress with its restructuring and paying back taxpayers.

But in a letter that followed, Liddy said he had "grave concerns" about the impact on the firm's ability to retain talented staff "if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury."

Speaking on CBS's "60 Minutes" last night, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke once again expressed frustration with the bad will that AIG has wrought.

"I understand why the American people are angry," he said. "It's absolutely unfair that taxpayer dollars are going to prop up a company that made these terrible bets, that was operating out of the sight of regulators, but which we have no choice but to stabilize, or else risk enormous impact, not just in the financial system, but on the whole U.S. economy."
Click to expand...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/15/AR2009031501909_pf.html
 
On the brighter side, I thought this was really cool. Apparently the Maldives just had its first successful democratic election this past November, and the new guy has some great plans for the micro-nation, which will hopefully be influential to other larger nations.

Maldives vows to be first carbon-neutral nation
Sun Mar 15, 2009 2:00pm EDT

MALE (Reuters) - The Maldives will shift entirely to renewable energy over the next decade to become the first carbon-neutral nation and fight climate change that threatens the low-lying archipelago's existence, the president said on Sunday.

President Mohamed Nasheed said the Indian Ocean islands would swap fossil fuels for wind and solar power, and buy and destroy EU carbon credits to offset emissions from tourists flying to visit its luxury vacation resorts.

"Climate change threatens us all. Countries need to pull together to de-carbonize the world economy," Nasheed said in a statement. "We know cutting greenhouse gas emissions is possible and the Maldives is willing to play its part."

The $1.1 billion plan would require 155 wind turbines supplying 1.5 megawatts each and a half a square kilometer of solar panels to meet the needs of the islands' 385,000 people.

"We aim to become carbon-neutral in a decade," he said.

The state-owned electricity monopoly will be privatized, and investors and donors invited to take part in the plan.

The program envisions installing battery backup in case wind and solar sources are inadequate, and a power plant to be run off coconut husks in the capital, Male.

The Maldives' economy, based almost entirely on fishing and tourism, is worth about $800 million a year, so it will need outside help.

Nasheed last year unseated Asia's longest-serving ruler, 30-year incumbent President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, in the islands' first multiparty presidential election. Gayoom has become a vocal advocate for mitigating climate change.

Nasheed drew global attention shortly after his election when he said the Maldives would start looking to buy land in other countries to resettle people once the seas rose, but later acknowledged the plan was not feasible financially.

The new plan could pay for itself in 10 years because of the savings on oil imports, said Mark Lynas, an environmentalist and author of three books on climate change who worked with the Maldivian government on the plan.

"It's going to cost a lot of money but it will also save a lot of money from not having to import oil," he said.

The Maldives imports diesel and fuel oil to power its 200 inhabited islands.

"The point of doing it is that it is something the Maldives can lead the world in," Lynas told Reuters. "No rich country has the excuse that it is too expensive and we can't do anything."

In 2007, a U.N. climate change panel predicted an increase in sea levels of 58cm, which would submerge many of the Maldives' 1,192 islands by 2100.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/envi...0090315?feedType=RSS&feedName=environmentNews
 
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/17/guns-on-a-plane-obama-secretly-ends-program-that-l/

Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Guns on a plane Obama secretly ends program that let pilots carry guns

After the September 11 attacks, commercial airline pilots were allowed to carry guns if they completed a federal-safety program. No longer would unarmed pilots be defenseless as remorseless hijackers seized control of aircraft and rammed them into buildings.

Now President Obama is quietly ending the federal firearms program, risking public safety on airlines in the name of an anti-gun ideology.

The Obama administration this past week diverted some $2 million from the pilot training program to hire more supervisory staff, who will engage in field inspections of pilots.

This looks like completely unnecessary harassment of the pilots. The 12,000 Federal Flight Deck Officers, the pilots who have been approved to carry guns, are reported to have the best behavior of any federal law enforcement agency. There are no cases where any of them has improperly brandished or used a gun. There are just a few cases where officers have improperly used their IDs.

Fewer than one percent of the officers have any administrative actions brought against them and, we are told, virtually all of those cases “are trumped up.”

Take a case against one flight officer who had visited the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles within the last few weeks. While there, the pilot noticed that federal law enforcement officers can, with the approval of a superior, obtain a license plate that cannot be traced, a key safety feature for law enforcement personnel. So the pilot asked if, as a member of the federal program, he was eligible. The DMV staffer checked and said “no.” The next day administrative actions were brought against the pilot for “misrepresenting himself.” These are the kinds of cases that President Obama wants to investigate.

Since Mr. Obama's election, pilots have told us that the approval process for letting pilots carry guns on planes slowed significantly. Last week the problem went from bad to worse. Federal Flight Deck Officers - the pilots who have been approved to carry guns - indicate that the approval process has stalled out.

Pilots cannot openly speak about the changing policies for fear of retaliation from the Transportation Security Administration. Pilots who act in any way that causes a “loss of confidence” in the armed pilot program risk criminal prosecution as well as their removal from the program. Despite these threats, pilots in the Federal Flight Deck Officers program have raised real concerns in multiple interviews.

Arming pilots after Sept. 11 was nothing new. Until the early 1960s, American commercial passenger pilots on any flight carrying U.S. mail were required to carry handguns. Indeed, U.S. pilots were still allowed to carry guns until as recently as 1987. There are no records that any of these pilots (either military or commercial) ever causing any significant problems.

Screening of airplane passengers is hardly perfect. While armed marshals are helpful, the program covers less than 3 percent of the flights out of Washington D.C.'s three airports and even fewer across the country. Sky marshals are costly and quit more often than other law-enforcement officers.

Armed pilots are a cost-effective backup layer of security. Terrorists can only enter the cockpit through one narrow entrance, and armed pilots have some time to prepare themselves as hijackers penetrate the strengthened cockpit doors. With pilots, we have people who are willing to take on the burden of protecting the planes for free. About 70 percent of the pilots at major American carriers have military backgrounds.

Frankly, as a matter of pure politics, we cannot understand what the administration is thinking. Nearly 40 House Democrats are in districts were the NRA is more popular than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We can't find any independent poll in which the public is demanding that pilots disarm. Why does this move make sense?

Only anti-gun extremists and terrorist recruits are worried about armed pilots. So why is the Obama administration catering to this tiny lobby at the expense of public safety?
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AIG Out of Fucking Control, Gov't Tries to Intervene

I think this guy has the right idea:
Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa [...] spoke with Cedar Rapids, Iowa, radio station WMT.

"I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little better toward them [AIG executives] is if they follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, 'I am sorry,' and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide," he said.

"And in the case of the Japanese, they usually commit suicide."
Click to expand...
 
r2299118557.jpg


Fossil sea monster's bite makes T-Rex look feeble
By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent
Mon Mar 16, 4:13 pm ET

OSLO (Reuters) – A giant fossil sea monster found in the Arctic and known as "Predator X" had a bite that would make T-Rex look feeble, scientists said Monday.

The 50 ft (15 meter) long Jurassic era marine reptile had a crushing 33,000 lbs (15 tonnes) per square inch bite force, the Natural History Museum of Oslo University said of the new find on the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.

"With a skull that's more than 10 feet long you'd expect the bite to be powerful but this is off the scale," said Joern Hurum, an associate professor of vertebrate paleontology at the museum who led the international excavation in 2008.

"It's much more powerful than T-Rex," he said of the pliosaur reptile that would have been a top marine predator. Tyrannosaurus Rex was a top land carnivore among dinosaurs.

The scientists reconstructed the predator's head and estimated the force by comparing it with the similarly-shaped jaws of alligators in a park in Florida.

"The calculation is one of the largest bite forces ever calculated for any creature," the Museum said of the bite, estimated with the help of evolutionary biologist Greg Erickson from Florida State University.

Predator X's bite was more than 10 times more powerful than any modern animal and four times the bite of a T-Rex, it said of the fossil, reckoned at 147 million years old. Alligators, crocodiles and sharks all now have fearsome bites.

The teeth of the pliosaur, belonging to a new species, were a foot (30 cms) long. The scientists reconstructed the reptile from a partial skull and 20,000 fragments of skeleton.

The pliosaur, estimated to have weighed 45 tonnes, was similar to but had more massive bones than another fossil sea monster found on Svalbard in 2007, also estimated at 50 feet long and the largest pliosaur to date.

"It's not complete enough to say it's really bigger than 15 meters," Hurum said of the new fossil.

Hurum had said of the first fossil pliosaur that it was big enough to chomp on a small car. He said the bite estimates for the latest fossil forced a rethink.

"This one is more like it could crush a Hummer," he said. referring to General Motors' large sport utility vehicle.

Among other findings were that the pliosaur had a small thin brain shaped like that of a great white shark, according to scans by Patrick Druckenmiller of the University of Alaska.

Pliosaurs preyed upon squid-like animals, fish, and other marine reptiles. Predator X had four huge flippers to propel itself along, perhaps using just two at cruising speeds and the others for a burst of speed.
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PREDATOR X :kickass:
 
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ce2431c4-126b-11de-b816-0000779fd2ac.html

A long-simmering trade dispute boiled over into sanctions on Monday after Mexico said it would raise tariffs on $2.4bn of US exports in retaliation for ending a pilot programme to allow Mexican trucks on American roads.

The announcement marks one of the first big tests for trade policy under President Barack Obama, who has sought to tread a fine line between assuaging his domestic constituencies and upholding the US’s international obligations.

Mexico said it would increase tariffs on 90 industrial and agricultural goods, likely to include politically sensitive farm products, after Congress last week killed a pilot programme allowing a limited number of Mexican trucks on American highways. Mexico obtained a judicial ruling in 2001 under the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) allowing it to impose such sanctions, but has held off since the US introduced the pilot scheme.

The sanctions, which Mexican officials say are set to be imposed later this week, will be one of the largest acts of retaliation against US exports. US goods exports to Mexico totalled $151.5bn last year. On Monday, Gerardo Ruíz Mateos, Mexico’s economy minister, said: “We believe that the action taken by the US is wrong, protectionist and in clear violation of Nafta.”

The White House said on Monday it would seek to create a new programme that would address what it called the “legitimate concerns of Congress” while meeting the US’s Nafta commitments. But Mexican officials said they would not be bought off with promises.

The pilot programme has been opposed by many lawmakers and by the Teamsters Union, which says that Mexican trucks are unsafe. Because they are largely restricted to short-run hops over the border, most Mexican trucks entering the US are run by so-called “drayage” operations that use older vehicles more likely to fail inspection tests. But a study funded by the US Department of Transportation found that when comparing like with like, Mexican trucks were often safer than their US counterparts.

“The Mexicans have been extraordinarily patient on this,” said Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The pilot project was enough to give them glimmerings of hope for a long time.”
Click to expand...
 
http://www.prisonplanet.com/accidental-contamination-of-vaccine-with-live-avian-flu-virus-virtually-impossible.html

from a few weeks ago

Czech newspapers are questioning if the shocking discovery of vaccines contaminated with the deadly avian flu virus which were distributed to 18 countries by the American company Baxter were part of a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic.

The claim holds weight because, according to the very laboratory protocols that are routine for vaccine makers, mixing a live virus biological weapon with vaccine material by accident is virtually impossible.

“The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses,” reports the Canadian Press.

Baxter flu vaccines contaminated with H5N1 - otherwise known as the human form of avian flu, one of the most deadly biological weapons on earth with a 60% kill rate - were received by labs in the Czech Republic, Germany, and Slovenia.

Initially, Baxter attempted to stonewall questions by invoking “trade secrets” and refused to reveal how the vaccines were contaminated with H5N1. After increased pressure they then claimed that pure H5N1 batches were sent by accident. This was seemingly an attempt to quickly change the story and hide the fact that the accidental contamination of a vaccine with a deadly biological agent like avian flu is virtually impossible and the only way it could have happened was by wilful gross criminal negligence.

According to a compiled translation from Czech newspaper stories, the media over there is asking tough questions about whether the contamination was part of a deliberate attempt to start a pandemic.

“Was this just a criminal negligence or it was an attempt to provoke pandemia using vaccination against flu to spread the disease - as happened with the anti-B hepatitis vaccination with vaccines containing the HIV virus in US? - and then cash for the vaccines against H5N1 which Baxter develops? How could on Earth a virus as H5N1 come to the ordinary flu vaccines? Don’t they follow even basic precautions in the american pharma companies?” states the translation.

The fact that Baxter mixed the deadly H5N1 virus with a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses is the smoking gun. The H5N1 virus on its own has killed hundreds of people, but it is less airborne and more restricted in the ease with which it can spread. However, when combined with seasonal flu viruses, which as everyone knows are super-airborne and easily spread, the effect is a potent, super-airbone, super deadly biological weapon.

As the Canadian Press article explains, “While H5N1 doesn’t easily infect people, H3N2 viruses do. If someone exposed to a mixture of the two had been simultaneously infected with both strains, he or she could have served as an incubator for a hybrid virus able to transmit easily to and among people.”

There can be little doubt therefore that this was a deliberate attempt to weaponize the H5N1 virus to its most potent extreme and distribute it via conventional flu vaccines to the population who would then infect others to a devastating degree as the disease went airborne.

The Canadian Press article states, “That mixing process, called reassortment, is one of two ways pandemic viruses are created,” but then claims that there is no evidence that this is what Baxter were doing, despite there being no clear explanation as to why Baxter has samples of the live avian flu virus on its premises in the first place.

However, to reiterate, the key aspect of this story is that it is virtually impossible for live avian flu virus to find its way into a vaccine by “accident”.

As health expert Mike Adams points out, “The shocking answer is that this couldn’t have been an accident. Why? Because Baxter International adheres to something called BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3) - a set of laboratory safety protocols that prevent the cross-contamination of materials.”

As explained on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosaf…):

“Laboratory personnel have specific training in handling pathogenic and potentially lethal agents, and are supervised by competent scientists who are experienced in working with these agents. This is considered a neutral or warm zone. All procedures involving the manipulation of infectious materials are conducted within biological safety cabinets or other physical containment devices, or by personnel wearing appropriate personal protective clothing and equipment. The laboratory has special engineering and design features.”

Under the BSL3 code of conduct, it is impossible for live avian flu viruses to contaminate production vaccine materials that are shipped out to vendors around the world.

This leaves only two possibilities that explain these events:

Possibility #1: Baxter isn’t following BSL3 safety guidelines or is so sloppy in following them that it can make monumental mistakes that threaten the safety of the entire human race. And if that’s the case, then why are we injecting our children with vaccines made from Baxter’s materials?

Possibility #2: A rogue employee (or an evil plot from the top management) is present at Baxter, whereby live avian flu viruses were intentionally placed into the vaccine materials in the hope that such materials might be injected into humans and set off a global bird flu pandemic.

Spreading bird flu would create an instantaneous surge of demand for bird flu vaccines. The profits that vaccine companies such as Baxter International could reap out of such a panic are astronomical.

In addition, as we have previously reported, those that have a stake in the Tamiflu vaccine include top globalists and BIlderberg members like George Shultz, Lodewijk J.R. de Vink and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Authorities in both Europe and the U.S. have openly detailed plans for martial law, quarantine and internment should a bird flu pandemic occur.

The other motivation, as we have exhaustively documented on this website for years, is the fact that elites throughout history have openly stated that they want to see a world population reduction of around 80 per cent. Shocking stories like this take the plausibility of that narrative out of the realms of conspiracy theory and into the dangerous reality of conspiracy fact.

“Baxter is acting a whole lot like a biological terrorism organization these days, sending deadly viral samples around the world. If you mail an envelope full of anthrax to your Senator, you get arrested as a terrorist. So why is Baxter — which mailed samples of a far more deadly viral strain to labs around the world — getting away with saying, essentially, “Oops?”, Adams concludes.

This is not the first time that vaccine companies have been caught distributing vaccines contaminated with deadly viruses.

In 2006 it was revealed that Bayer Corporation had discovered that their injection drug, which was used by hemophiliacs, was contaminated with the HIV virus. Internal documents prove that after they positively knew that the drug was contaminated, they took it off the U.S. market only to dump it on the European, Asian and Latin American markets, knowingly exposing thousands, most of them children, to the live HIV virus. Government officials in France went to prison for allowing the drug to be distributed. The documents show that the FDA colluded with Bayer to cover-up the scandal and allowed the deadly drug to be distributed globally. No Bayer executives ever faced arrest or prosecution in the United States.
 
I'm convinced big corporate buildings are pumped with cold and flu viruses through the heating and air conditioning duct systems. :lol:

Paranoid :ill:
 
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