Between the financial crisis, the in-coming Obama administration, and the terror attacks in Mumbai, there is too much news of this sort to keep up with.  Ideas that would have raised a skeptical eyebrow in the past are now being reported in the mainstream media with unflinching ease.  It would have been crazy six months ago to mention a  “new world order,” to do so you would be guaranteed to open yourself up to being labelled with the pejorative term “conspiracy theorist.”  Yet, now we are hear calls for “global governance” and a “new world order” almost everyday by economists and world leaders.  Should we all just resign ourselves to a “new world order,” much as we have America’s move to fascism?  ["Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.]

This article was taken from the Financial Times (FT.com).

And now for a world government

By Gideon Rachman

Published: December 8 2008 19:13 | Last updated: December 8 2008 19:13

  have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

A “world government” would involve much more than co-operation between nations. It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.

So could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might.

First, it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national governments are international in nature: there is global warming, a global financial crisis and a “global war on terror”.

Second, it could be done. The transport and communications revolutions have shrunk the world so that, as Geoffrey Blainey, an eminent Australian historian, has written: “For the first time in human history, world government of some sort is now possible.” Mr Blainey foresees an attempt to form a world government at some point in the next two centuries, which is an unusually long time horizon for the average newspaper column.

But – the third point – a change in the political atmosphere suggests that “global governance” could come much sooner than that. The financial crisis and climate change are pushing national governments towards global solutions, even in countries such as China and the US that are traditionally fierce guardians of national sovereignty.

Read the rest of the article here.

23 published studies report an association of reduced IQ
with high fluoride exposure

Read the report here.

How bad do you really need fluoride?  What if they are half-right?  Does the government really care that much about our teeth? 

Mumbai bombers ‘took cocaine and LSD’ before carrying out attacks

By Nikhita Mahajan

The Mumbai terrorists may have pumped themselves full of drugs to keep going during their murderous three-day rampage.

Indian police sources say tests on the bodies of dead Islamic fanatics revealed traces of stimulant drugs.

One said: “We found injections containing traces of cocaine and LSD left behind by the terrorists and later found drugs in their blood.

“There was also evidence of steroids, which isn’t uncommon in terrorists. These men were all toned, suggesting they had been doing some heavy training for the attacks.

“This explains why they managed to battle the commandos for over 50 hours with no food or sleep.”

The source said one gunman is thought to have injected himself with large doses of stimulant so he could keep on fighting after he was seriously wounded.

Indian newspapers yesterday carried a dramatic picture of the sole surviving terrorist hooked up to a life support machine.

Azam Amir Kasav, 21, is shown lying on his back with his eyes open, seemingly dazed. It is not known when or where the picture was taken. Kasav was yesterday thought to be in a secure location.

Read the rest of the story here.

These individuals should be treated with disdain, as they are very dangerous.  A good test to determine if someone is an incompetence theorist is ask them if Dick Cheney or Henry Paulson are idiots, if they say yes, you know that you have a live one.  Proceed with caution.

 Guard fatally shoots man armed with swords at Scientology Building

Portugal angry over sale of papers ‘vital to nation’s literary heritage’

By Elizabeth Nash in Madrid
Saturday, 14 June 2008

A row has broken out in Portugal’s literary world over plans by heirs of the nation’s most famous modern poet, Fernando Pessoa, to auction his unpublished manuscripts and letters.

When the poet died in obscurity in 1935, he left a trunk full of documents that included extensive correspondence with the eccentric English astrologist and magician Aleister Crowley, a practitioner of the occult said to have inspired satanism in Britain.

Portugal’s National Library fiercely opposes the private sale of documents considered vital to the nation’s literary heritage, and warns it will take all legal measures to stop the sale and dispersal of the archive, the Lisbon daily Publico reports.

Pessoa’s nephews favour selling the material, piece by piece. Scholars say that would make a definitive study of the poet’s unpublished work impossible. The government has declared no formal interest, apparently reluctant to inflame the market, Publico says.

The angst-ridden poet died in 1935 of cirrhosis of the liver, aged 47, leaving his papers in turmoil. His best known work, The Book of Disquiet, the tormented fictional diary of an accountant, was – like most of his output – published posthumously.

But collectors have long coveted the so-called Crowley Papers – whose value one expert said this week was “incalculable” – to illuminate the friendship between these two odd characters.

The dossier includes voluminous correspondence with Crowley, and hundreds of pages of an unfinished novel about Crowley’s faked suicide. The work is called Boca do Inferno, (Hell’s Mouth) after a rocky inlet near the Portuguese resort of Cascais.

Pessoa, intrigued by Crowley’s mysticism, struck up a correspondence with the Englishman. The flamboyant Crowley visited Lisbon in 1930, and the friends played chess together. Crowley then disappeared, leaving his cigarette case and a handwritten suicide note on the clifftop above the crashing waves at Hell’s Mouth.

It was a trick, apparently to elude a discarded lover. Crowley slipped across the border to Spain, emerged weeks later in Berlin and died in Hastings, Sussex, in 1947, penniless and addicted to heroin. Pessoa mounted a polemical play about the “suicide” and doubts swirled over his role in the affair, and the nature of his relationship with Crowley.

Read the rest of the article here.

The information in the case of the shooting death of Roland Carnaby  continues to trickle in.  According to the Houston Chronicle,

The Houston police officers involved in the shooting death of a man who claimed to have ties to federal law enforcement were disciplined for not trying to talk to the man before they approached his car after a high-speed chase earlier this year, according to the department’s investigation of the case. [1]

The same investigation determined that the shooting was justified, yet did reveal that the supervisor on the case had been discliplined previously for violently striking a prisoner.  

Carnaby was shot while reaching for his cell phone following a high speed chase.   He claimed to be a CIA agent, which was denied by HPD and the CIA, though unsealed documents show that he was questioned a few years back by Pearland Police on a case in which he identified himself as a federal agent.  In the investigation, Pearland Police called the FBI, who asked the Pearland department to drop the matter as they could vouch for Carnaby.  HPD fought to keep those records sealed in the civil case brought by Caranby’s widow against HPD.  Houston Police Chief Harold L. Hurtt, pictured with Carnaby above, capitulated on his initial statement that Caranby was not employeed by any agency, later stating that is was probable that Carnaby worked for the FBI as an informant.

It is difficult to sort out the facts in this case due to the vast amount of misinformation floating around the blogosphere.  The truth is out there, but it is obscured by the yarns of ex-intelligence operatives wanting to shed their light on the situation.   I have been following the story from the beginning, and the only conclusion that I have been able to come about Carnaby is that there has been a hidden hand controling the public narrative, and that hand doesn’t want us to know the truth.

When I heard of the charges being brought against Mark Cuban for insider trading, the first thing that crossed my mind is that he is the victim of a political hit-job.  Today there is an interesting article in the New York Times that shows the awareness and hostility of the SEC towards Cuban’s involvement in Loose Change.    This sends a powerful message: “You can believe what you want, but keep your mouth shut.”

Insider Trading, or Political Persecution?

Floyed Norris

Notions on High and Low Finance

The post was updated at 4:30 p.m., with S.E.C. statement and closing stock price. It was updated at 7 p.m. to correct the percent of the Mamma.com stock Mr. Cuban owned.

Did Mark Cuban, the Internet entrepreneur turned owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, and would-be buyer of the Chicago Cubs, violate insider trading laws in a particularly egregious fashion?

Or is he the victim of a political hit job because he helped finance a movie that was scathingly critical of President Bush?

Either way, the insider trading complaint from the Securities and Exchange Commission today arouses a lot more interest than most enforcement actions.

I’ll get to the facts of the complaint in a minute, but first here is Mr. Cuban’s reaction. His lawyers issued a statement saying:

This matter, which has been pending before the commission for nearly two years, has no merit and is a product of gross abuse of prosecutorial discretion. Mr. Cuban intends to contest the allegations and to demonstrate that the commission’s claims are infected by the misconduct of the staff of its enforcement division.

Mr. Cuban stated, “I am disappointed that the commission chose to bring this case based upon its enforcement staff’s win-at-any-cost ambitions. The staff’s process was result-oriented, facts be damned. The government’s claims are false and they will be proven to be so.”

A person close to Mr. Cuban provided me with a copy of an e-mail message said to have been sent by Jeffrey Norris, an S.E.C. lawyer in the Fort Worth regional office (and no known relation to me.) This e-mail message seems to have been sent after an exchange in which Mr. Norris complained that Mr. Cuban had financed a movie called “Loose Change” that discusses the president’s actions relating to Sept. 11.

From: Norris, Jeffrey B. [mailto:NorrisJ@SEC.GOV]
Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2007 2:27 PM
To: Mark Cuban
Cc: Cox, Christopher
Subject: RE: “Lose Change”

I AM SHARING THIS WITH CHAIRMAN COX. NEITHER HE NOR THE COMMISSION ENDORSE MY OPINIONS, BUT IN LIGHT OF YOUR THREAT, I THOUGHT SHOULD SEND THIS TO HIM.

Mark:
If this upsets you, I wonder how George Bush feels. I assume that Mr. Cox would view your involvement with “Loose Change” much as I do. After all, he served his country as a Republican Congressman from Orange County for nearly 20 years and was appointed by President Bush. If you feel like sharing my thoughts with Chairman Cox, be my guest.

Previously, I thought you were merely foolish and naïve. Now, however, I see that you are also a hypocrite. I guess your belief in free speech has severe limitations. If someone else is the victim of an absurd conspiracy theory, you defend your right to participate in smearing the good name of a patriot like President Bush. But, when you are the subject of a parody of the attack you have endorsed, you suddenly issue threats.

I think I will e-mail this to Chairman Cox myself. I think he will enjoy it. I’m sure he is also a Laker fan.

Since Chairman Cox may not know the background, I will explain. Mark Cuban is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and has participated in distributing the vicious and absurd documentary, “Loose Change,” which posits that President Bush planned the demolition of the World Trade Center as a pretext for going to war against Iraq. We have had some past exchanges about my opinion the Mr. Cuban’s support for this project is irresponsible and immoral. Below, I parodied his position that every opinion, no matter how absurd and vicious, deserves to be broadly disseminated.

The copy sent to me does not include the previous parody.

John Nester, an S.E.C. spokesman, said this afternoon that the investigation was conducted by the S.E.C.’s Washington office, and that Mr. Norris was not involved in it. He added:

“Chairman Cox has never met the individual who corresponded with Mr. Cuban, nor has he spoken or corresponded with him in any way. After those communications came to light, the matter was referred for disciplinary action against the individual. To avoid any potential appearance issues, Chairman Cox recused himself from the Commission vote, and he has not been involved in this investigation at any time.”

The vote he refers to was the commission’s vote to file the case.

Article continue here.