World's First Sex Robot, 8 Year Old on Terror Watch List, Swine Flu a "False Pandemic"
Revealing News Articles
January 18, 2010
Dear friends,
Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on the world's first sex robot, an eight-year-old boy on the US terror watch list being crudely frisked, claims that the swine flu is a 'false pandemic', and more. Each excerpt is taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link provided. If any link fails to function, click here. The most important sentences are highlighted. By choosing to educate ourselves and to spread the word, we can and will build a brighter future.
With best wishes,
Tod Fletcher and Fred Burks for PEERS and WantToKnow.info
Special note: To read the annual report of PEERS, click here. Thanks again to all of you who donated and helped to keep us in the black for 2009. Former governor Jesse Ventura's recent episode on mind control, though somewhat sensational, is actually quite well researched. Watch it at this link. For an even more powerful documentary on mind control by the History Channel, click here. And WantToKnow.info founder Fred Burks will be speaking on mind control and global transformation at the respected UFO Congress on Feb. 22nd in Laughlin, Nevada. For any who might be interested in meeting Fred and joining him for this fascinating event, click here.
Meet Mikey, 8: U.S. Has Him on Watch List
January 14, 2010, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/nyregion/14watchlist.html
The Transportation Security Administration ... has on its web site a "mythbuster" that tries to reassure the public. Myth: The No-Fly list includes an 8-year-old boy. Buster: No 8-year-old is on a T.S.A. watch list. "Meet Mikey Hicks," said Najlah Feanny Hicks, introducing her 8-year-old son, a New Jersey Cub Scout and frequent traveler who has seldom boarded a plane without a hassle because he shares the name of a suspicious person. "It's not a myth." Hicks's mother initially sensed trouble when he was a baby and she could not get a seat for him on their flight to Florida at an airport kiosk; airline officials explained that his name "was on the list," she recalled. The first time he was patted down, at Newark Liberty International Airport, Mikey was 2. He cried. After years of long delays and waits for supervisors at every airport ticket counter, this year's vacation to the Bahamas badly shook up the family. Mikey was frisked on the way there, then more aggressively on the way home. "Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch – someone is patting your 8-year-old down like he's a criminal," Mrs. Hicks recounted. It is true that Mikey is not on the federal government's "no-fly" list, which includes about 2,500 people, less than 10 percent of them from the United States. But his name appears to be among some 13,500 on the larger "selectee" list, which sets off a high level of security screening.
Note: For many reports from major media sources on the extreme loss of liberties brought about by the highly touted "war on terrorism," click here.
Foxy 'Roxxxy': world's first 'sex robot' can talk about football
January 11, 2010 The Telegraph (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/6963383/Foxy-Roxxxy...
The world's first "sex robot", a life-size rubber doll called Roxxxy who can have real conversations with her owner, including about football, has been unveiled. The dark-haired, negligee-clad, life-size robotic girlfriend comes complete with artificial intelligence and flesh-like synthetic skin. Standing five feet, seven inches tall, the doll weighs 120 pounds, comes with five "personalities", [and] is "ready for action" her developers said. Aspiring partners can customise her features, including race, hair colour and breast size. Coming with a laptop the doll, priced between US$7,000 (�4,350) to US$9,000 (�5,993), was unveiled at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas. Douglas Hines, the robot's football loving inventor, said the real aim was to make the doll someone the owner can talk to and relate to. "She can't vacuum, she can't cook but she can do almost anything else if you know what I mean," the New Jersey-based artificial intelligence engineer said. Mr Hines said it was not only a recreational innovation but also something that shy people with sexual dysfunction, and those who want to experiment without risk, could use. In a 2007 book, Love and Sex with Robots, British chess player and artificial intelligence expert David Levy argues that robots will become significant sexual partners for humans, answering needs that other people are unable or unwilling to satisfy.
WHO to Study H1N1 Response Amid False Pandemic Debate
January 13, 2010, BusinessWeek/Bloomberg News
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-01-12/who-to-review-swine-flu-response-amid-false-pandemics-debate.html
The World Health Organization said it plans to conduct a review of its response to swine flu as policymakers in Europe prepare for an "urgent debate" on the influenza pandemic. Yesterday, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe said "false pandemics, a threat to health" will be a major theme of its next plenary session. Health authorities worldwide are assessing whether their response to swine flu is justified by its threat as cases retreat in the U.S. and Western Europe. The new H1N1 virus, which has targeted children and younger adults, has so far resulted in fewer deaths than attributed to seasonal strains, which kills mostly the frail elderly. Council of Europe parliamentarian Wolfgang Wodarg said last week he and several colleagues had called for a commission of inquiry into a "false pandemic" and the way it was handled at national and European levels, claiming pressure from pharmaceutical firms. The WHO moved to the top level of its six-step pandemic alert in June after the discovery of swine flu in Mexico and the U.S. in April.
Note: BusinessWeek deleted this article days after posting it. Could someone have pressured them to do this? If you click the above link, the article is gone, though you can still see a promo here and read it on BusinessWeek in the Google cache available here. For a link to the article on the Bloomberg website, click here. For revealing reports of the corruption surrounding the swine flu and previous health scares, click here.
Swine flu 'false pandemic' claim
January 11, 2010, The Sun (One of the largest-circulation dailies in the UK)
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2803049/Swine-flu-false-pandemic-claim.html
A leading health expert says the swine flu scare was a "false pandemic" led by drugs companies that stood to make billions from vaccines. Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, claims major [drug] firms organised a "campaign of panic" to put pressure on the World Health Organisation to declare a pandemic. He believes it is "one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century" – and has called for an inquiry. Dr Wodarg said: "It's just a normal kind of flu. It does not cause a tenth of deaths caused by the classic seasonal flu. The great campaign of panic we have seen provided a golden opportunity for representatives from labs who knew they would hit the jackpot in the case of a pandemic being declared. We want to clarify everything that brought about this massive operation of disinformation. We want to know who made decisions, on the basis of what evidence, and precisely how the influence of the pharmaceutical industry came to bear on the decision-making." He added: "A group of people in the WHO is associated very closely with the pharmaceutical industry."
Note: For powerfully revealing reports of the corruption regarding swine flu and previous health scares, click here.
Swine flu: Ministers 'preparing to offload millions of unwanted vaccines'
January 9, 2010, The Telegraph (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/swine-flu/6952793/Swine-flu-Ministers-preparing...
Ministers are preparing to offload millions of unwanted swine flu vaccines, it has emerged, as officials predicted that there will be no third wave of the pandemic this winter. Millions of [dollars] could be wasted if the Government is unable to get out of orders for the vaccine it has placed with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the pharmaceutical giant. Officials confirmed that they are considering a number of options, including attempting to sell or give away millions of the vaccines. They also considering whether to stand down the National Pandemic Flu Service, the network of call centres which diagnose swine flu and hand out antiviral medications. In May, even before a pandemic had been declared, ministers had signed contracts thought to be worth around �100 million to deliver 90 million vaccines to Britain. Britain has now received almost 29 million doses of the H1N1 vaccine, but only just over 3.7 million have been given out and in total the Government has announced plans to inoculate only 14 million people.
Note: For a powerful insight into the corrupt symbiosis between pharmaceutical corporations and government, read this analysis by Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. For lots more on the swine flu scare, click here.
Fed paid record $46.1B to Treasury last year
January 12, 2010, Houston Chronicle/Associated Press
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/6811506.html
The Federal Reserve paid a record $46.1 billion in earnings to the Treasury Department last year, reflecting gains as the central bank bulked up its portfolio of securities to revive the economy and fight the financial crisis. The payment marks an increase of $14.4 billion from what the Treasury was provided in 2008 and is the largest since the Fed began operating in 1914, the central bank announced. The Fed's net income of $52.1 billion in 2009 also was a record, according to preliminary figures. It was up from $35.5 billion in 2008. Such income rose largely because the Fed's holdings of securities mushroomed, though increases in the value of the securities also helped, Fed officials said. Under one program that ended last year, the Fed snapped up $300 billion in government debt. Under another program, the Fed is on track to buy a total of $1.25 trillion in mortgage securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by the end of March. Those programs have boosted the value of securities held by the Fed.
Note: How interesting that the trillions of dollars of US taxpayer money funneled to the big banks brought record income in 2009, while the average American saw little to no benefit. For key background on the Federal Reserve, click here. For a trove of reports from major media sources that reveal hidden realities of the government bailout of the biggest financial firms, click here.
The Other Plot to Wreck America
January 10, 2010, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/opinion/10rich.html
In the 16 months since ... the crash precipitated by the ... failure of Lehman Brothers, most of us are still ignorant about what Warren Buffett called the "financial weapons of mass destruction" that wrecked our economy. What we don't know will hurt us, and quite possibly on a ... devastating scale. Americans must be told the full story of how Wall Street gamed and inflated the housing bubble, made out like bandits, and then left millions of households in ruin. And without reform, another massive attack on our economic security is guaranteed. Now that it can count on government bailouts, Wall Street has more incentive than ever to pump up its risks – secure that it can keep the bonanzas while we get stuck with the losses. The window for change is rapidly closing. [The] voices of Americans who have lost pay, jobs, homes and savings are either patronized or drowned out entirely by a political system where the banking lobby rules in both parties and the revolving door between finance and government never stops spinning.
Note: For many reports from reliable sources which reveal how the biggest Wall Street firms intentionally created and then cashed out on the financial crisis which destroyed the livelihoods and wealth of millions, click here.
Want to protest bank bailouts? Move your money, a new campaign urges.
January 7, 2010, Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/new-economy/2010/0107/Want-to-protest-bank-bailouts...
Mad about the bank bailouts? Had enough of huge bonuses and too-big-to-fail apologies? Here's one way to do something about it. Take your money out. That's right. Take your checking and savings account out of that big money-center financial institution and move it to a community bank or credit union. There's even a movement afoot to help consumers make the switch, called Move Your Money. The website offers search tools so consumers thinking about switching can type in their zip codes to find a credit union or a strong community bank nearby. Even in 2008, the latest numbers available, credit unions and community banks have seen an increase in depositors. Now "other people are taking up the call to move their money into a community bank," says Karen Tyson, senior vice president for communications at the Independent Community Bankers of America. "We can't help but be happy with that." Amber Taylor of Arlington, Va., is one of those who's actually switching. "I never thought about what bank I chose before," she says. "I don't know what huge difference this will make in the big world [but] it's one little thing that I discovered I could do."
U.S. Companies Join Race on Iraqi Oil Bonanza
January 14, 2010, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/world/middleeast/14rebuild.html
A wave of American companies have been arriving in Iraq in recent months to pursue what is expected to be a multibillion-dollar bonanza of projects to revive the country's stagnant petroleum industry, as Iraq seeks to establish itself as a rival to Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil producer. Since the 2003 American-led invasion, nearly all of the biggest reconstruction projects in Iraq have been controlled by the United States. Many rebuilding contracts are expected to be awarded as soon as this month. Concerns have been heightened by the prominent role expected to be played by American companies that have been criticized in the past ... for overcharging by hundreds of millions of dollars, performing shoddy work and failing to finish hundreds of crucial projects while under contract in Iraq. Halliburton and its former subsidiary KBR, as well as Bechtel and Parsons, have been singled out for criticism by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction for their previous work in Iraq.
Note: The contracts just keep on coming for this key group of US corporations with connections to the highest levels of the US government. For many revealing reports from reliable sources on the profiteering which is such a major drive to modern war, click here.
Israeli Robots Remake Battlefield
January 13, 2010, Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126325146524725387.html
Israel is developing an army of robotic fighting machines that offers a window onto the potential future of warfare. Sixty years of near-constant war ... and its high-tech industry have long made Israel one of the world's leading innovators of military robotics. "We're trying to get to unmanned vehicles everywhere on the battlefield for each platoon in the field," says Lt. Col. Oren Berebbi, head of the Israel Defense Forces' technology branch. "We can do more and more missions without putting a soldier at risk." Among the recently deployed technologies that set Israel ahead of the curve is the Guardium unmanned ground vehicle, [which] is essentially an armored off-road golf cart with a suite of optical sensors and surveillance gear. In the Gaza conflict in January 2009, Israel unveiled remote-controlled bulldozers. Israel pioneered the use of aerial drones. Within the next year, Israeli engineers expect to deploy the voice-commanded, six-wheeled Rex robot, capable of carrying 550 pounds of gear alongside advancing infantry. The Protector SV [is] an unmanned, heavily armed speedboat that today makes up a growing part of the Israeli naval fleet.
Note: For many revealing reports from reliable sources on war manipulations and advanced weapons developments often being used against civilians, click here.
Who will pay for Amazon's 'Chernobyl'?
January 10, 2010, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/who-will-pay...
So severe is the environmental damage [at Lago Agrio, on the fringes of the Ecuadorian Amazon] that experts have called it an "Amazon Chernobyl". But the people of Lago Agrio and its surrounding area have been fighting back. Sixteen years ago, 30,000 Ecuadorians began legal action against the US oil company – now owned by Chevron – they hold responsible. This week, while both sides await the verdict, a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the case goes on release in Britain. Directed by Joe Berlinger ... "Crude" tells a story [that] began when Steve Donziger, a lawyer acting for the Ecuadorians, arrived at the film-maker's office. "The story the lawyer told me was indeed shocking," said Berlinger. Within a few days of Berlinger's trip to Ecuador, he realised that the case was virtually demanding to be made into a film. "I noticed a group of indigenous people sitting by the riverbank, preparing a meal by an open fire using processed tuna fish from a big industrial-sized can. They were eating this canned tuna because the fish that swam in their river, which had fed these proud people for millennia, were dead." "Crude" is a head-on culture clash bursting with strong personalities where brash US lawyers on both sides are at loggerheads, and Ecuador's indigenous – incongruous in New York with their traditional dress and warpaint – are carefully coached to fight their case in a foreign system.
Note: To watch the trailer for the film "Crude," click here.
Antidepressant Pills May Help Only Most Severe Cases
January 6, 2010, Bloomberg News
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601124&sid=aIjvgTRz2PN8
Antidepressants ... may be no better than dummy pills for people with mild or moderate depression, according to a study that suggests 70 percent of patients wouldn't benefit from the drugs. In a review of six trials of antidepressants involving more than 700 patients published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers led by Jay Fournier at the University of Pennsylvania found the drugs helped only those patients with the most severe depression. Doctors, policy makers and sufferers should be made aware that there's little evidence to show the treatments will benefit patients with less severe symptoms, the authors said. "This important feature of the evidence base is not reflected in the implicit messages present in the marketing of these medications to clinicians and the public," they said. The researchers combined data from six trials. The drugs had a "nonexistent to negligible" effect on patients with mild, moderate and severe symptoms, compared with those who took a placebo, according to a commonly used scale used to measure the disorder. The pills had a large effect on patients with very severe symptoms, the study found.
Note: For a treasure trove of important reports on corruption regarding major health issues, click here.
C.I.A. Is Sharing Data With Climate Scientists
January 5, 2010, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/science/earth/05satellite.html
The nation's top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government's intelligence assets – including spy satellites and other classified sensors – to assess the hidden complexities of environmental change. The collaboration ... has the strong backing of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Secrecy cloaks the monitoring effort ... because the United States wants to keep foes and potential enemies in the dark about the abilities of its spy satellites and other sensors. Controversy has often dogged the use of federal intelligence gear for environmental monitoring. About 60 scientists – mainly from academia but including some from industry and federal agencies – run the effort's scientific side. All have secret clearances. The C.I.A. runs the program and arranges for the scientists to draw on federal surveillance equipment, including highly classified satellites of the National Reconnaissance Office. Officials said the effort to restart the program originated on Capitol Hill in 2008 after former Vice President Al Gore argued for its importance with Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, who was then a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee; she became its chairwoman in early 2009.
Note: What happens to the public perception of science if research relies increasingly on secret data and collaboration with spy agencies? How could the results of important studies be verified by independent researchers? For lots more on the ever-expanding world of government secrecy, click here.
Origin of the Species, From an Alien View
January 10, 2010, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/nyregion/10alone.html
Where did humankind come from? If you're going to ask Zecharia Sitchin, be ready for a "Planet of the Apes" scenario: spaceships and hieroglyphics, genetic mutations and mutinous space aliens in gold mines. It sounds like science fiction, but Mr. Sitchin is sure this is how it all went down hundreds of thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia. Humans were genetically engineered by extraterrestrials, he said, pointing to ancient texts to prove it. [He] has spent his life arguing that people evolved with a little genetic intervention from ancient astronauts who came to Earth and needed laborers to mine gold to bring back to Nibiru, a planet we have yet to recognize. Mr. Sitchin has been called silly before – by scientists, historians and archaeologists who dismiss his theories as pseudoscience and fault their underpinnings: his translations of ancient texts and his understanding of physics. And yet, he has a devoted following of readers. His 13 books, with names like Genesis Revisited and The Earth Chronicles, have sold millions of copies and been translated into 25 languages. Starting in childhood, he has studied ancient Hebrew, Akkadian and Sumerian, the language of the ancient Mesopotamians, who brought you geometry, astronomy, the chariot and the lunar calendar. And in the etchings of Sumerian pre-cuneiform script – the oldest example of writing – are stories of creation and the cosmos that most consider myth and allegory, but that Mr. Sitchin takes literally.
Note: To visit Sitchin's website, click here. For a site devoted to debunking his theories, click here.
Guantanamo guard reunited with ex-inmates
January 12, 2010, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8452937.stm
Why would a former Guantanamo Bay prison guard track down two of his former captives - two British men - and agree to fly to London to meet them? The last time Ruhal Ahmed met Brandon Neely, he was "behind bars, behind a cage and [Brandon] was on the other side". The location had been Camp X-Ray - the high-security detention camp run by the US in Guantanamo Bay. Mr Ahmed, originally from Tipton in the West Midlands, was among several hundred foreign terror suspects held at the centre. Mr Neely was one of his guards. The scene of this current exchange of pleasantries couldn't be more different from where they last met - a television studio in London. Also here is Shafiq Rasul, a fellow ex-Guantanamo prisoner, without whose Facebook page the reunion would never have happened. Mr Neely, 29, ... left the US military in 2005 to become a police officer and was still struggling to come to terms with his time as a guard at Guantanamo. He felt anger at a number of incidents of abuse he says he witnessed, and guilt over one in particular. "The news would always try to make Guantanamo into this great place," he says, "like 'they [prisoners] were treated so great'. No it wasn't. You know here I was basically just putting innocent people in cages."
Note: The video of this reunion at the BBC link above is quite extraordinary for what it represents. How did these innocent men end up suffering so much? For a possible answer and wake-up call, click here.
Key Articles From Years Past
Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto: Osama bin Laden is Dead
November 2, 2007, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7070000/newsid_7075800/7075843.stm
David Frost: Does anyone know exactly who was responsible for this assassination attempt? There is one report that said that you arranged to send President Musharraf a letter ... in the event of your death by assassination, urging him to investigate certain individuals in his government. Is that true? Benazir Bhutto: Yes it is true that I wrote to General Musharraf. I feel these are the forces that really want to stop not just me, but the democratic process and the will of the people [from] triumphing. David Frost: In terms of these three people you mentioned where they members of or associated with the government? Benazir Bhutto: One of them is a very key figure in security. He is a former military officer. He is someone who has had dealings with Jaish-e-Mohammad, one of the band [of] groups of Maulana Masood Azhar, who was in an Indian jail for decapitating three British tourists and three American tourists. And he also had dealings with Omar Shiekh, who murdered Osama bin Laden.
Note: The key statement on bin Laden's murder happens at minute five in the video at the above link. If the link fails, click here. For a Jan. 9, 2010 BBC article also suggesting bin Laden may be dead and his death covered up, click here.
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