Global Toad News

Alexander Cockburn whose bio at the Nation States:

He is co-editor, with Jeffrey St Clair, of the newsletter and radical website CounterPunch (http://www.counterpunch.org) which have a substantial world audience. In 1987 he published a best-selling collection of essays, Corruptions of Empire, and two years later co-wrote, with Susanna Hecht, The Fate of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers, and Defenders of the Amazon (both Verso). In 1995 Verso also published his diary of the late 80s, early 90s and the fall of Communism, The Golden Age Is In Us. With Ken Silverstein he wrote Washington Babylon; with Jeffrey St. Clair he has written or coedited several books including: Whiteout, The CIA, Drugs and the Press; The Politics of Anti-Semitism; Imperial Crusades; Al Gore, A User’s Manual; Five Days That Shook the World; and A Dime’s Worth of Difference, about the two-party system in America.

Has recently written about the response to his attempt to bring reason to the global warming debate.  Apparently he feels quite set upon for pointing out the flaws in the “humans control the heat of the planet” argument:

In magazine articles and essays I have described in fairly considerable detail, with input from the scientist Martin Hertzberg, that you can account for the current warming by a number of well-known factors – to do with the elliptical course of the Earth in its relationship to the sun, the axis of the Earth in the current period, and possibly the influence of solar flares. There have been similar warming cycles in the past, such as the medieval warming period, when the warming levels were considerably higher than they are now.

Yet from left to right, the warming that is occurring today is taken as being man-made, and many have made it into the central plank of their political campaigns. For reasons I find very hard to fathom, the environmental left movement has bought very heavily into the fantasy about anthropogenic global warming and the fantasy that humans can prevent or turn back the warming cycle.

He continues on, pointing out that the supposed concern for the environment and the focus on whether the world is heating up or cooling down (it does both depending on the sun) ignores the other environmental factors.  No longer are we worried about pollutants like Mercury,  which is a neurotoxin, instead we pass laws pushing light bulbs with Mercury in them.

Maybe the goal of all of this is to dumb people down.  There appears to be little concern about putting drugs out that impair cognition, while the FDA is going after vitamins.  You can’t get tryptophan in the United States, but you can drink fluoride every day and be forced to get vaccinations.

Adverse reactions to vaccines are ignored, and deaths are brushed aside, because rather than focus on other ways to prevent illness, the highly profitable business of vaccination is promoted by politicians with close ties to pharmaceutical companies who want other people to be vaccinated.

The are real problems that are solvable, but Global Temperature Change is something that is effected largely by the SUN.  Let’s focus on solving the problems that we have control over, like war, starvation and oppression, not  create new vehicles and reasons for them.

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AT&T Tilt Batteries
If you use the AT&T Tilt phone for internet a lot, the stock battery tends to go done pretty quickly.  I was looking around at batteries for the AT&T Tilt, and the best battery seems to be the 3000 mAh at TalkiTech.

The Tilt is a decent enough phone, though I have to say that the Nokia N95 looks good.

The Nokia web browser with MiniMap allows you to view web pages as they were originally intended. You can browse the entire page and then zoom in to the content you need. Featuring wireless LAN technology, quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900) and WCDMA, this phone keeps you connected virtually anywhere you go. Supporting MP3/AAC/eAAC/eAAC+/ M4A/WMA playlist formats, it ensures you easy playlist configuration and keeps your favorite music in your pocket. Equipped with 8 GB internal memory it can store up to 6000 songs and ensures a store house for your music. Its Integrated A-GPS support provides maps and access to maps of more than 100 countries and 15 million POIs (Point of Interest), while the Nokia Mobile Search enables you to search and connect to local services, websites, images, and content.

The Nokia N95 also has a 30 fps video capture rate, and a 5 mega pixel camera.  Since in general the current best resolution seems to be 6 Mega pixels (read this for why), this means that the Nokia N95 is probably the best phone for those people who don’t already have an investment in a PDA, but want a PDA phone.

Of course, I will have to wait until one appears on my door to compare it with the AT&T Tilt (aka HTC Kaiser).

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Maybe instead of trying to read all of the internet traffic, AT&T could just figure out how to keep their wireless internet network up.  Or maybe the network going down across 30 states is part of the “upgrade” so AT&T can better monitor who is doing what, but the AT&T Wireless internet is down, has been down for a while, and might be back up about 3:30 EST January 31st.

Sort of screws over the government people who use Blackberry’s and are on AT&T’s network.

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As you may be aware the RIAA has been going around suing people for copyright infringement, sending swat teams after dj’s and going after single moms. Apparently $9,250 per song isn’t enough, so the RIAA is going to their paid puppets the elected representatives in Washington to get a whopping $150,000 per song law passed. It’s not as if we don’t have enough people in prison already, now we are going to go after people for music sharing while ignoring the fact that our currency is being debased.

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Personally I don’t have a problem with the VA, but then again I am not hospitalized there.  According to the Chicago Tribune:

Substandard care at the Marion VA Medical Center left nine patients dead and 34 others seriously injured during a two-year period ending last September, investigators reported Monday.

…

But U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said he was disappointed that “after a five-month investigation, so little has been added to the original facts and the VA is still dragging its feet.” Durbin said he would like the VA to move faster to correct problems.

This comes on the heels of reports from the UK of doctors wanting old and sick people to be refused medical care because of the costs.

Makes you feel so well cared for.  Medical care for only healthy people.

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Well, this might make the news, Ron Paul came in 5th finally (usually its higher) since this is one of the lowest showings he has made, it might make the news.  Results are from the Florida Secretary of State page (here).

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Is it because of the members of the Armed Forces?  Not according to Blackwater, rather:

Since then, Adame has been on the receiving end of “some pretty rough stuff,” he says. “I received all kinds of hate mail from Blackwater people. They use a lot of vulgarity. They tell me how Blackwater is defending America’s rights, and that we’re free because Blackwater is fighting for us. Give me a break! That is so erroneous and misleading. It’s just totally dishonest, but those people really believe it. Blackwater is a large organization, and they have a great way of propagandizing their product.”

Nice things to say to a retired marine.   Remember it’s the mercenaries that we now owe our “freedom” to, so let’s kick the vets to the curb.  Rather than supporting our troops, the money in the defense budget goes to support Erik Prince’s profits.

Personally I support the troops, and especially the National Guard, who have had to RUN AWAY when protecting our borders because of the insane policies of the current administration.

But heck give Erik another billion or so, he feels he deserves it.   After all he did “help” with Katrina.

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I have to admit that I was eating McDonald’s double cheeseburgers for a couple of days, with no bun, no ketchup, and they did a nice job of presenting it.  However I started to have an allergic reaction to the burgers.  I think there might be soy or msg in the something that they use to prepare the burgers.  It’s really sad in a way, because I thought McDonald’s had reasonably decent food choices, but I am now concerned about what I am getting when I go there.

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While the media guides us through the selection of the new despot of America, we see farmers who:

In a state where water has become an increasingly scarce commodity, a growing number of farmers are betting they can make more money selling their water supplies to thirsty cities and farms to the south than by growing crops.

With the government operating the printing presses in overdrive to pump more fiat currency into the economy, and numerous warnings about the end of cheap food (see this article in the Christian Science Monitor), America, once the breadbasket of the world may have to go begging for food soon.

Think that is unlikely?

Take Zimbabwe  which has gone from breadbasket to basket case.  According to the Asian Times:

But can one imagine the lives of people living in a country where inflation has touched 1700 percent —yes, 17 followed by two zeros. That dubious distinction goes to Zimbabwe in Africa.

Never has any country seen inflation reach that height or the spectacle of people—those who can afford it—carrying virtually sack-full of currency notes to buy things like bread and sugar. A salary of a million (Zimbabwe) dollars may sound impressive but will have little purchasing power in the country. Eighty per cent of the people live in poverty; unemployment is rampant.

It must be a miracle of sorts or supreme act of benediction that keeps the Zimbabweans alive when inflation is heading heavenwards and on top of it all there is little or no freedom to express dissent. The African state of Zimbabwe, and more particularly its leader Robert Mugabe, must be lucky to be surviving under such conditions, for nations that had at least managed to keep a modest supply of food to the majority of their people have been punished with invasion and deposition.

The state in which Zimbabwe finds itself today is almost unbelievable because till very recently the country was known as the breadbasket of Africa. Now the living standards have fallen to astonishingly low levels. Droughts have made it even more difficult to produce sufficient food for the 12 million population. The price of many commodities can rise within a matter of few hours in the course of a day. People cannot keep their money in bank, not only because their salaries are inadequate but also because the best way to maximise the money’s worth is to spend it fast. Many young persons want to migrate but cannot because they cannot get the travel document from the passport office which does not have the paper on which it is printed.

Most African states, if not the third world countries, have been shy of denouncing Zimbabwe because Mugabe is looked upon as some kind of a continental hero.

A government cannot just keep creating money out of thin air (which Ron Paul warned about in 2006 in his speech on the inflation tax) without adversely impacting the poor and middle class (and even the wealthy, though obviously to a lesser extent).

Even now there are laws in congress to restrict criticism of the government, and a whole new group of people are being positioned to be the new terrorists.

That said, I am coming to the conclusion that throughout history there have been forces that want to majority of the people to live in some kind of serf state.  From the pharaohs to the Catholic church, there have been attempts to limit the knowledge of the masses, resulting in many people people living in abject poverty.

Now, ignorance is passed off as knowledge, as people spout off whatever the media pours into their brains as if it was the ultimate knowledge.  Teachers no longer engage in critical thinking, but teach the test and little else, while some countries are even allowing people to use “text speak” on nation exams.

Maybe it’s just that most people want to be lead.  It allows for them to escape responsibility for their actions always blaming problems on someone else, and of course when you have little freedom (because you gave it up in favor of security), you really aren’t able to be responsible.  So maybe it’s that people want to be treated as children who never grow.

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If you are a fascist that is. According the London Telegraph:

Doctors are calling for NHS treatment to be withheld from patients who are too old or who lead unhealthy lives.

Smokers, heavy drinkers, the obese and the elderly should be barred from receiving some operations, according to doctors, with most saying the health service cannot afford to provide free care to everyone.

In other words, if you aren’t “productive” enough, you will die.  This is the end result of socialism.  At some point the money runs out and there are the serfs and the elite.  Most people can’t think past today, so they believe the false promises made by the would be despots and spurn truth.

Look to England for where that gets you.

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An Army Sargent has been demoted for disloyalty according to this note:

Since joining the Army in 1987, he had risen to the rank of sergeant first class, serving in both Gulf Wars, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Korea. He ended up with shrapnel scars and a Purple Heart and, back in the U.S. after his last tour in Iraq, a job as intelligence analyst at Fort Sam Houston.

He couldn’t have foreseen that one e-mail could derail his career and put him on his way out of the Army. One e-mail, speculating about events that millions of people have questioned for the last six years, was all it took…

Sgt. Buswell wants to know: What really happened on 9/11? And he said so in his e-mail. In the few paragraphs of that August 2006 message — a reply not to someone outside the service, but to other soldiers — Buswell wrote that he thought the official report of what happened that day at the Pentagon, and in the Pennsylvania crash of United Airlines Flight 93, was full of errors and unanswered questions.

I guess this is the new don’t ask, because we won’t tell you policy that the military has.

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If you use the internet, it might now be a crime to get publicly available domain name information from servers unless you get written permission, at least that is how some people are reading the decision of a judge in North Dakota who signed an order that said, in part:

2. On February 27, 2005, David Ritz (“Ritz”) connected to Sierra’s DNS server. In the course of that connection, he issued a host -l command which requested a zone transfer from Sierra’s DNS server. Sierra’s server responded with a full zone transfer, providing Ritz with the network map showing all of Sierra’s private domain names, private host names, and internal non-routable IP addresses.

A brief explanation of what DNS is might be in order, as I realize that some people might not quite understand this issue.  DNS is like a phone book, for example gloadtoad.com is a Domain Name, and when you query a DNS (Domain Name Server) with the request to for globaltoad.com, it returns some information, usually:

the ip that globaltoad.com maps to at that time (it could change)

the mail exchange server for globaltoad.com

AND any other information that I want the Domain Name Server to make public.  Some judge in North Dakota has ruled that if you request and get more information from a Domain Name Server than I RETROACTIVELY intend to make public, then you might be a criminal.  Welcome to the wacky world of slippery slopes.

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I often try to explain to people that the Federal Reserve Bank is not a part of the government, but they don’t believe me. Maybe this decision by the United States 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will explain it:

The district court dismissed, holding that the Federal Reserve Bank is not a federal agency within the meaning of the Act and that the court therefore lacked subject matter jurisdiction. We affirm.

…

Examining the organization and function of the Federal Reserve Banks, and applying the relevant factors, we conclude that the Reserve Banks are not federal instrumentalities for purposes of the FTCA, but are independent, privately owned and locally controlled corporations.

Of course you can subscribe to the conspiracy theory that the federal government and the courts are lying when they publish their decisions, but then you are in worse shape than when you were just arguing (without basis in fact) that the Federal Reserve Bank is owned by the government.

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Over at Crooks and Liars there is a partial transcript of Lou Dobbs from CNN:

DOBBS: Where are the free marketeers now? Where are those faith-based economists who said let Mr. Market smile and everything will be fine?

KUTTNER: Well, they look like damn fools, as they ought to. And we’ve some had foxes in chicken coops for third years often under republicans and sometimes democrats. We’ve had regulators who didn’t believe in protecting the consumer.

This is a bunch of bull.  While a private entity (The Federal Reserve Bank) did a lot to cause this problem it was at the behest of congress and the executive branch. According to the New York Times:

“Lyndon took Martin to his ranch and asked the Secret Service to leave the room. And he physically beat him, he slammed him against the wall, and said, ‘Martin, my boys are dying in Vietnam, and you won’t print the money I need.’ ”

Martin was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve at the time.  But let’s blame it on “Free Markets”, rather than looking at how government regulation created the sub prime market.  Walter E. Williams at World Net Daily explains:

As with most economic problems, we find the hand of government. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, whose provisions were strengthened during the Clinton administration, is a federal law that mandates lenders to offer credit throughout their entire market and discourages them from restricting their credit services to high-income markets, a practice known as redlining. In other words, the Community Reinvestment Act encourages banks and thrifts to make loans to riskier customers.

But then again, you don’t have to have facts to support your position if you are a mainstream news person, you can always just pick a source and ignore the facts.  In fact even insiders to the news game have false stories about them.

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According to the Canadian:

Italian newspaper suggests Hilary Clinton’s victory in New Hampshire was a miracle of technology

Edited by Peter Tremblay

Il Giornale, reports that all Democratic candidates except Hillary Clinton made gains when the New Hampshire ballots were manually tabulated, while Ms. Clinton made inexplicably large gains where ballots were tabulated by computerized scanners.

According to the report, Republican maverick candidate Ron Paul should have finished third in the Republican primary rather than fifth. Thus, it would appear that both Barack Obama and Ron Paul were the primary targets of vote-rigging operations in New Hampshire.

Now it does seem strange the even though the Republicans who wanted a recount had to pony up the money 2 weeks ago because the vote counting was legally supposed to start then, the Secretary of State for New Hampshire says that the Republican recount won’t start until January 24th now.

Oh what a tangled web.

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It’s apparently against the law for Wireless Phone Companies to tell you how much in taxes you are paying, according to the Associated Press:

In a loss for wireless communications providers, the Supreme Court on Tuesday let stand a lower court ruling preventing the industry from listing taxes and other government fees as separate line items on consumers’ bills.

So why do you see SOME taxes, because those are the taxes that the government ALLOWS the phone companies to report, other taxes are HIDDEN from you.

When governments claim to derive their authority from the consent of the governed, but then operate in secret, it bodes ill for society.

But that’s okay, because the court also ruled (according to the New York Times):

Federal law enforcement officers are immune from lawsuits for mishandling, losing or even stealing personal property that comes under their control in the course of their official duties, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday in a 5-to-4 decision.

So everything belongs to government now.

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From ArsTechnica comes the story with the headline “Analysis: Metcalfe’s Law + Real ID = more crime, less safety
” which includes:

in early 2000, Pacheco accessed DHS’s billion-record Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS) database looking for any information that the feds had on Estrada. (Hat tip to CNET’s Declan McCullough, whose blog post brought this story to my attention.) Pacheco also went into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database in order to dig up information on the warrants that were out for Estrada’s arrest. Pacheco then fed the info back to Estrada, who was better able to elude law enforcement in as he plied his narcotics trade.

So in the United States we are going to put everyone’s data into one big database much like they do in Britain,  data that when LOST is worth Billions to Criminals (according members of the British Parliament).  So how much do you think a database with all the details of Americans will worth?

Feel safer?  If you want to stop the real id, maybe you should support Ron Paul.

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Over the weekend Ron Paul came in second in Nevada. It would have been nice to have done better, but what can you do when people are given the wrong information on where to vote? Of course the big news was how well Rudy was going to do, somewhere, sometime.

As Ron Paul told Mr. Bernanke, printing money will only cause problems for the dollar, but that didn’t stop “Whirly” Ben from calling for more money to be created. Well as Ron Paul has been saying for years, it’s not money that is created, it’s debt, and the world just can’t absorb any more debt from the United States.

While the stock market might not be doing well, Ron Paul has raised over a million dollars today, so there is some good financial news. Also Ron Paul has gotten a 20% increase in votes in New Hampshire, but the recount has only been going on since last week, and anyways that is in the past. You can follow the recount news at BlackBoxVoting.org, it’s interesting that 100 years ago, ballot boxes were made of metal, but now according to the Secretary of State of New Hampshire, they just go to the trash and get some beat up boxes and throw the ballots in those.

I guess that’s about all the top news of the day, since the U.S. stock market is closed, I can’t report on how the Dow dropped by 300+ points, but it might tomorrow.

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I saw a video that had this math quandary:

Let a = x

a+a = x +a [add a to both sides]

2a = x + a  [a+a=2a]

2a-2x = a + x -2x   [subtract 2x from each side]

2(a-x) = a + x – 2x  [2a-2x = 2(a-x)]

2(a-x) = a -x           [x - 2x = -x]

2 =1                         [divide both sides by a-x]

So 2= 1

Something to think about.

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Actually multiply, by way of WhyHomeschool, I got this video:

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