SEC Charges New Jersey with Securities Fraud
August 21st, 2010You’ll love the penalty: “The state was not required to pay any civil fines or penalties, but ordered to cease and desist from future violations.”
Via: Reuters:
U.S. regulators said on Wednesday they charged New Jersey with securities fraud for not disclosing to municipal bond investors that it was underfunding its pensions.
New Jersey, the first state ever hit with securities fraud charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission, agreed to settle the case without admitting or denying the findings, the SEC said. The state was not required to pay any civil fines or penalties, but ordered to cease and desist from future violations.
New Jersey offered and sold more than $26 billion of municipal bonds in 79 deals between August, 2001 and April, 2007, according to the SEC.
The offering documents “created the false impression that the Teachers’ Pension and Annuity Fund (TPAF) and the Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) were being adequately funded, masking the fact that New Jersey was unable to make contributions to TPAF and PERS without raising taxes, cutting other services or otherwise affecting its budget,” the SEC said.
“The state of New Jersey didn’t give its municipal investors a fair shake, withholding and misrepresenting pertinent information about its financial situation,” Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, said in a statement.
Scientists Simulate Terror Attack on Boston Subway
August 20th, 2010Test results will be used to craft ways to quickly detect an attack so authorities can shut down subways to limit the spread of contaminants.
Or, the test results will be used to plan the attack.
Via: Globe and Mail / AP:
Scientists are releasing gases and fluorescent particles into Boston’s subway tunnels on Friday to study how toxic chemicals and lethal biological agents could spread through the nation’s oldest subway system in a terrorist attack.
It’s part of a weeklong study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to figure out ways to quickly minimize the impact of an airborne assault on the nation’s 15 subway systems and protect the nation’s infrastructure. U.S. subway systems include 810 miles of track in tunnels and accounted for about 3.45 billion trips taken last year, according to the American Public Transportation Association.
The scientists are monitoring concentration of the gases — which are invisible to the naked eye and nontoxic — and particles as they move throughout the system and then up into the streets above, pushed by turbulence created by trains thundering through the tunnels. Researchers use electronic devices to take air samples at more than 20 Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority stations and in subway cars.
Test results will be used to craft ways to quickly detect an attack so authorities can shut down subways to limit the spread of contaminants.
Nearly 50 Percent Leave Obama Mortgage-Aid Program
August 20th, 2010Oh man, what a cluster f*@#.
Via: AP:
Nearly half of the homeowners who enrolled in the Obama administration’s flagship mortgage-relief program have fallen out.
A new report issued Friday by the Treasury Department said that approximately 630,000 people who had tried to get their monthly mortgage payments lowered through the effort have been cut loose through July. That’s about 48 percent of the 1.3 million homeowners who had enrolled since March 2009. That is up from more than 40 percent through June.
The report suggests foreclosures could rise in the second half of the year and weaken the ailing housing market, analysts say.
Another 421,804, or 32.3 percent of those who started the program, have received permanent loan modifications and are making their payments on time.
Many borrowers have complained that program is a bureaucratic nightmare. They say banks often lose their documents and then claim borrowers did not send back the necessary paperwork.
Gerald Celente on Goldseek Radio
August 20th, 2010Gulf of Mexico: Continuous Oil Plume Over 35KM in Length, at Approximately 1100M Depth
August 20th, 2010See Scientific proof that the Deepwater oil plume is over 20 miles long, for an image of the water column at various depths.
Via: Science:
The Deepwater Horizon blowout is the largest offshore oil spill in history. We present results from a subsurface hydrocarbon survey using an autonomous underwater vehicle and a ship-cabled sampler. Our findings indicate the presence of a continuous plume over 35 km in length, at approximately 1100 m depth that persisted for months without substantial biodegradation. Samples collected from within the plume reveal monoaromatic petroleum hydrocarbon concentrations in excess of 50 µg L–1. These data indicate that monoaromatic input to this plume was at least 5500 kg day–1, which is more than double the total source rate of all natural seeps of the monoaromatic petroleum hydrocarbons in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Dissolved oxygen concentrations suggest that microbial respiration rates within the plume were not appreciably more than 1 µM O2 day–1.
More: New York Times: Oil Plume Is Not Breaking Down Fast, Study Says
The Event
August 20th, 2010Via: NBC:
Saudi Judge Considers Severing Spine of Attacker Who Paralyzed Man
August 20th, 2010Dr. Mengele, please pick up the white courtesy phone.
Via: USA Today:
In a variation of the ancient eye-for-an-eye punishment, a judge in Saudi Arabia has asked hospitals whether doctors would sever the spinal cord of an attacker convicted of paralyzing a man with a cleaver.
The Arabic-language newspaper Okaz reported that one hospital in the northwestern province of Tabuk said it could perform the operation, while a prominent hospital in Riyadh refused, on apparent ethical grounds, saying “inflicting such harm is not possible.”
Abdul-Aziz al-Mutairi, 22, was left paralyzed and subsequently lost a foot after a fight more than two years ago, his older brother, Khaled al-Mutairi, told the Associated Press. He said the assailant, whom he and the paper did not identify, was sentenced to 14 months in prison, released after seven months in an amnesty and now teaches at a university.
Under Islamic (sharia) law in Saudi Arabia, victims can ask that criminals receive punishments similar to the harm they inflicted. It is not uncommon for thieves to have their hands cut off.
“We are asking for our legal right under Islamic law,” Khaled al-Mutairi said. “There is no better word than God’s word — an eye for an eye.”
Judge Saoud bin Suleiman al-Youssef sent letters to several hospitals in and outside the region, Emirates 24/7 says. A verdict is pending.
Related: U.S. to Sell $30 Billion Worth of Fighter Jets to Saudi Arabia
Wikipedia Editing Courses Launched by Zionist Groups
August 20th, 2010Zionist PSYOP teams will be kept extra busy with the ‘I would gladly kill Arabs – even slaughter them’ former IDF girl on the loose.
Via: Guardian:
Since the earliest days of the worldwide web, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has seen its rhetorical counterpart fought out on the talkboards and chatrooms of the internet.
Now two Israeli groups seeking to gain the upper hand in the online debate have launched a course in “Zionist editing” for Wikipedia, the online reference site.
Yesha Council, representing the Jewish settler movement, and the rightwing Israel Sheli (My I srael) movement, ran their first workshop this week in Jerusalem, teaching participants how to rewrite and revise some of the most hotly disputed pages of the online reference site.
“We don’t want to change Wikipedia or turn it into a propaganda arm,” says Naftali Bennett, director of the Yesha Council. “We just want to show the other side. People think that Israelis are mean, evil people who only want to hurt Arabs all day.”
Related: Israel Recruits ‘Army of Bloggers’ to Combat Anti-Zionist Web Sites
McDonald’s Sells Yuan Bonds in Hong Kong, First by Foreign Firm
August 19th, 2010Via: Bloomberg:
McDonald’s Corp., the world’s largest restaurant chain, became the first foreign non-financial company to sell yuan-denominated bonds in Hong Kong.
McDonald’s, based in Oak Brook, Illinois, sold 200 million yuan ($29 million) of 3 percent notes due in September 2013, offer manager Standard Chartered Plc said in an e-mailed statement today.
The issue “opens up more potential issuers to tap this market, especially those who have sizable operations in China,” said Arthur Lau, a Hong-based fixed-income fund manager at JF Asset Management Ltd.
…
McDonald’s sold its bonds in a private placement to Hong Kong institutional and professional investors, it said in a separate statement today. Money raised will provide working capital for expansion in China, where it will open as many as 175 restaurants this year, according to the statement.
The Purpose Behind Engineered Economic Collapse
August 19th, 2010Via: Neithercorp:
When one understands how Elites view economy, and realizes their primary motivations, the fact that they purposely triggered a collapse is perfectly logical. Nothing besides all out war inspires more fear and desperation in a society than a financial upheaval. Such elements on a mass scale allow changes in our collective psychology that were never possible before. Most people tend to falter under such an overwhelming threat and turn towards any authority (or fake authority) to save them from harm. Some people scoff at this idea, but it is likely they have never actually been in the wake of a real national catastrophe before. Men, especially those who know little of themselves, can change quickly in the face of calamity. The Elites recognize this, engineer tragedy, then waltz into the aftermath to merrily lord over the rubble.
Research Credit: pookie
