FDIC encourages pension funds to buy failed banks.

 

Here is an interesting article excerpt from Bloomberg:

March 8 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is trying to encourage public retirement funds that control more than $2 trillion to buy all or part of failed lenders, taking a more direct role in propping up the banking system, said people briefed on the matter.

Direct investments may allow funds such as those in Oregon, New Jersey and California to cut fees for private-equity managers, and the agency to get better prices for distressed assets, the people said. They declined to be identified because talks with regulators are confidential.

Oregon’s retirement fund may contribute $100 million as regulators seek “the support of state pension funds to solve the crisis surrounding ongoing bank failures,” Jay Fewel, a senior investment officer at the Oregon State Treasury, said in a presentation at the fund’s Feb. 24 meeting. New Jersey’s fund may also participate, said Orin Kramer, chairman of New Jersey’s State Investment Council.

The FDIC shuttered 140 lenders last year and expects the tally may be higher in 2010. Regulators have avoided signing up private-equity firms as rescuers on concern that they might take too much risk. Pension funds, whose 100 largest members manage $2.4 trillion, could provide capital to acquire deposits and outstanding loans from collapsed banks, according to the people.

Welcome Mat

“The FDIC is constantly looking at structures where we can get the greatest opportunity to tap into capital that we have not had the success reaching through previous disposition methods,” FDIC spokeswoman Michele Heller said in an e-mailed statement. “We welcome and work with all investors.”

Current rules don’t prohibit pension funds from buying failed banks. Until now, they have typically chosen to invest through private-equity firms using limited partnerships, which gives pension funds little to no control over the day-to-day management of the investments. They also pay management fees levied on the amount of money committed as well as a percentage of any profit.

“We’ve been examining a broad range of alternatives to take advantage of what I believe are attractive transactions coming out of the FDIC,” said New Jersey’s Kramer. The state pension system faced a shortfall of about $46 billion as of last year because of investment declines and a failure to make full contributions, according to annual financial reports.

==========================

 

OK, so the FDIC is running out of money (this might be a good time to mention that the top 25,000 bankers in the U.S. received bonuses averaging $308,000.00) and now wants to make it easier for the average American to lose their retirement savings. Who bails out the pension funds?

 

If you can't see the handwriting on the wall by this point, there is no hope for you. 

 

Dem. Rep. Eric Massa vs Rahm Emanuel

 

 

It looks like Dimocratic Representative Eric Massa and Rahm Emanuel aren't getting along:

 

 

 

 

And from the National Journal.com this:  "Embattled Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) lashed out in an emotional radio appearance Sunday, accusing Dem leaders of what he suggested was an orchestrated campaign to force his resignation."................

 

"When I voted against the cap and trade bill, the phone rang and it was the chief of staff to the president of the United States of America, Rahm Emanuel, and he started swearing at me in terms and words that I hadn't heard since that crossing the line ceremony on the USS New Jersey in 1983," Massa said. "And I gave it right back to him, in terms and words that I know are physically impossible."

"If Rahm Emanuel wants to come after me, maybe he ought to hold himself to the same standards I'm holding myself to and he should resign," Massa said.

Massa slammed House Maj. Leader Steny Hoyer for discussing a House ethics committee inquiry, accusing Hoyer of lying in an effort to eliminate an opponent of health care. Hoyer said last week he heard in early Feb. about allegations against Massa, and that he told Massa's office to report the allegations to the ethics committee.

"Steny Hoyer has never said a single word to me at all, never, not once," Massa said. "Never before in the history of the House of Representatives has a sitting leader of the Democratic Party discussed allegations of House investigations publicly, before findings of fact. Ever."

"I was set up for this from the very, very beginning," he added. "The leadership of the Democratic Party have become exactly what they said they were running against."

=========================

 

The Dim implosion continues.  

 

Ignored History: Japanese unit 731.

 

 

Although the Holocaust gets the majority of publicity as far as WWII atrocities go, there is a much lesser known Japanese unit that performed Mengele-like atrocities on hundreds of thousands of Chinese and a smaller number of allied prisoners and civilians.

 

I am referring to the notorious Japanese unit 731. The Chinese are understandably still pissed at the Japanese for the horrors committed by unit 731. This unit's history is well known in China, but not too well publicized elsewhere. From a political standpoint, keeping unit 731 activities continually fresh in the minds of the Chinese people takes their mind off the atrocities done to them by good ol' Chairman Mao. (Who killed millions more Chinese than the Japanese)

 

Another irritant for the Chinese is the fact that General MacArthur did not want to prosecute unit 731 members for war crimes because we (and the Russians) recovered data dealing with the chemical and biological experiments done to people by this unit. As an aside, I've tended to regard MacArthur as an egomaniac scumbag. One example of this can be see in how he awarded LBJ a bogus Silver Star that LBJ used for political advantage.(Link) "Much to no one’s surprise perhaps, the more evidence that surfaces about Lyndon Johnson’s war record, the less there seems to it, according to two new reports filed on CNN.

Johnson you’ll recall was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in the summer of 1942 by Douglas MacArthur. LBJ, then a member of Congress, had persuaded FDR to send him on an inspection tour of our forces in the Pacific. The trip had always seemed like a political stunt by a politician who wanted to burnish his credentials in anticipation of future campaigns for higher office. Johnson, who had been the first congressman after Pearl Harbor to sign up for active military duty, had agreed to fly as an observer on a single bombing mission over Lae, New Guinea. But before the plane could reach the target a generator went out, forcing the pilot to turn back home to base.

This much is agreed on. Where accounts differ is on what happened next. Johnson always claimed the plane came under enemy fire. His Silver Star citation says, "As our planes neared the target area, they were intercepted by eight hostile fighters." A book published in 1964, The Mission, quotes two members of the crew who substantiated Johnson’s story, adding that the future president was "cool as ice" under fire.

But critics always suspected LBJ had inflated the danger he faced. Now there’s reason to believe they were right. The lone member of the crew still living, Bob Marshall, the gunner, insists the plane never came under fire that day. "No way," Marshall told CNN. "No, that story was made up, put in there in my mind by the author of the book. 'Cause we never seen Zero, was never attacked. Nothing."

After CNN aired the interview with Marshall, the son of another member of the crew came forward. Billy B. Boothe, Jr., said his father, the plane’s navigator, confirmed in a newspaper story in 1986 that the plane LBJ was on had not faced Japanese Zeros. The navigator told the paper he had tried to set the record straight at the time The Mission appeared. "I called Air Force intelligence, said that I didn't necessarily go along with the book that was being written and what should I do? And they said don't make any comments unless I could go along with what was being said."

 

So, alas, LBJ is just another John Kerry.

 

No use trying to reinvent the wheel. The following Wiki summary of unit 731 activities is as good as any you will find:

Unit 731 (731 部隊, Nana-san-ichi butai^?) was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japanese personnel.

Unit 731 was the code name (tsūshōgō) of an Imperial Japanese Army unit officially known as the Kempeitai Political Department and Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory. It was initially set up under the Kempeitai military police of the Empire of Japan to develop weapons of mass destruction for potential use against Chinese, and possibly Soviet forces.

Description

Unit 731 was based at the Pingfang district of Harbin, the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (now Northeast China).

Shiro Ishii, commander of Unit 731

More than ten thousand people,^[1] from which around 600 every year were provided by the Kempeitai,^[2] were subjects of the experimentation conducted by Unit 731.

More than 95 percent of the victims who died in the camp based in Pingfang were Chinese and Korean, including both civilian and military.^[3]The remaining 5 percent were South East Asians and Pacific Islanders, at the time colonies of the Empire of Japan, and a small number of the prisoners of war from the Allies of World War II.^[4]

According to the 2002 International Symposium on the Crimes of Bacteriological Warfare, the number of people killed by the Imperial Japanese Army germ warfare and human experiments is around 580,000.^[5]According to other sources, the use of biological weapons researched in Unit 731's bioweapons and chemical weapons programs resulted in possibly as many as 200,000 deaths of military personnel and civilians in China.^[6]

Unit 731 was the headquarters of many subsidiary units used by the Japanese to research biological warfare; other units included Unit 516 (Qiqihar), Unit 543 (Hailar), Unit 773 (Songo unit), Unit 100 (Changchun), Unit Ei 1644 (Nanjing), Unit 1855 (Beijing), Unit 8604 (Guangzhou), Unit 200 (Manchuria) and Unit 9420 (Singapore).

Many of the scientists involved in Unit 731 went on to prominent careers in post-war politics, academia, business, and medicine. Some were arrested by Soviet forces and tried at the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials; others surrendered to the American Forces.

On 6 May 1947, Douglas MacArthur, as Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, wrote to Washington that "additional data, possibly some statements from Ishii probably can be obtained by informing Japanese involved that information will be retained in intelligence channels and will not be employed as 'War Crimes' evidence."^[7]The deal was concluded in 1948.

Because of their brutality, Unit 731's actions have since been declared by the United Nations to have been crimes against humanity.^{[citation needed]}

Formation

In 1932, General Shiro Ishii (石井四éƒÅ½ Ishii Shirō), chief medical officer of the Japanese Army and protégé of Army Minister Sadao Araki was placed in command of the Army Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory. He and his men built the Zhong Ma Prison Camp (whose main building was known locally as the Zhongma Fortress), a prison/experimentation camp in Beiyinhe, a village 100 kilometers south of Harbin on the South Manchurian Railway.

Ishii organized a secret research group, the "Togo Unit", for the conduct of various chemical and biological investigations. A jailbreak and later explosion (believed to be an attack) in 1935 led Ishii to shut down Zhongma Fortress. He moved to Pingfang, approximately 24 kilometers south of Harbin, to set up a new and much larger facility.^[8]

In 1936, Hirohito authorized, by imperial decree, the expansion of this unit and its integration into the Kwantung Army as the Epidemic Prevention Department.^[9]It was divided at the same time into the "Ishii Unit" and "Wakamatsu Unit" with a base in Hsinking. From August 1940, all these units were known collectively as the "Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army (関東è»Âé˜²ç–«çµ¦æ°´éƒ¨æœ¬éƒ¨)"^[10] or "Unit 731" (満å·Å¾ç¬¬731部隊) for short.

Activities

A special project code-named Maruta used human beings for experiments. Test subjects were gathered from the surrounding population and were sometimes referred to euphemistically as "logs" (丸太, maruta^?).^[11]This term originated as a joke on the part of the staff due to the fact that the official cover story for the facility given to the local authorities was that it was a lumber mill.^[12]

The test subjects were selected to give a wide cross section of the population and included common criminals, captured bandits and anti-Japanese partisans, political prisoners, and also people rounded up by the secret police for alleged "suspicious activities". They included infants, the elderly, and pregnant women.

Vivisection

• Prisoners of war were subjected to vivisection without anesthesia.^[13][11]
• Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Scientists performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body. These were conducted while the patients were alive because it was feared that the decomposition process would affect the results.^[14][11]The infected and vivisected prisoners included men, women, children, and infants.^[15]
• Vivisections were also performed on pregnant women, sometimes impregnated by doctors, and the fetus removed.^[16]
• Prisoners had limbs amputated in order to study blood loss.^[11]
• Those limbs that were removed were sometimes re-attached to the opposite sides of the body.^[11]
• Some prisoners' limbs were frozen and amputated, while others had limbs frozen then thawed to study the effects of the resultant untreated gangrene and rotting.
• Some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed and the esophagus reattached to the intestines.^[11]
• Parts of the brain, lungs, liver, etc. were removed from some prisoners.^[17][13][11]

In 2007, Doctor Ken Yuasa testified to the Japan Times that, "I was afraid during my first vivisection, but the second time around, it was much easier. By the third time, I was willing to do it." He believes at least 1,000 people, including surgeons, were involved in vivisections over mainland China.^[18]

Weapons testing

• Human targets were used to test grenades positioned at various distances and in different positions.^[11]
• Flame throwers were tested on humans.^[11]
• Humans were tied to stakes and used as targets to test germ-releasing bombs, chemical weapons, and explosive bombs.^[11]

Germ warfare attacks

• Prisoners were injected with inoculations of disease, disguised as vaccinations, to study their effects.^[11]
• To study the effects of untreated venereal diseases, male and female prisoners were deliberately infected with syphilis and gonorrhea, then studied^[11].
• Prisoners were infested with fleas in order to acquire large quantities of disease-carrying fleas for the purposes of studying the viability of germ warfare^{[citation needed]}.
• Plague fleas, infected clothing, and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed around 400,000 Chinese civilians.^[11]
• Tularemia was tested on Chinese civilians.^[19]
• Unit 731 and its affiliated units (Unit 1644, Unit 100, et cetera) were involved in research, development, and experimental deployment of epidemic-creating biowarfare weapons in assaults against the Chinese populace (both civilian and military) throughout World War II. Plague-infested fleas, bred in the laboratories of Unit 731 and Unit 1644, were spread by low-flying airplanes upon Chinese cities, coastal Ningbo in 1940, and Changde, Hunan Province, in 1941. This military aerial spraying killed thousands of people with bubonic plague epidemics.^[20]

Other experiments

Prisoners were subjected to other experiments such as:

• being hung upside down to see how long it would take for them to choke to death.^[11]
• having air injected into their arteries to determine the time until the onset of embolism.^[11]
• having horse urine injected into their kidneys.^[11]
• being deprived of food and water to determine the length of time until death.
• being placed into high-pressure chambers until death.
• being exposed to extreme temperatures and developing frostbite to determine how long humans could survive with such an affliction, and to determine the effects of rotting and gangrene on human flesh.^[11]
• having experiments performed upon prisoners to determine the relationship between temperature, burns, and human survival.
• being placed into centrifuges and spun until dead.
• having animal blood injected and the effects studied.
• being exposed to lethal doses of x-ray radiation.
• having various chemical weapons tested on prisoners inside gas chambers.
• being injected with sea water to determine if it could be a substitute for saline.
• being buried alive.

Biological warfare

Japanese scientists performed tests on prisoners with plague, cholera, smallpox, botulism, and other diseases.^[21]This research led to the development of the defoliation bacilli bomb and the flea bomb used to spread the bubonic plague.^[22]Some of these bombs were designed with ceramic (porcelain) shells, an idea proposed by Ishii in 1938.

These bombs enabled Japanese soldiers to launch biological attacks, infecting agriculture, reservoirs, wells, and other areas with anthrax, plague-carrier fleas, typhoid, dysentery, cholera, and other deadly pathogens. During biological bomb experiments, scientists dressed in protective suits would examine the dying victims. Infected food supplies and clothing were dropped by airplane into areas of China not occupied by Japanese forces. In addition, poisoned food and candies were given out to unsuspecting victims and children, and the results examined.

Unit members

• Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii
• Lieutenant Colonel Ryoichi Naito
• Dr. Masaji Kitano
• Yoshio Shinozuka
• Yasuji Kaneko

Divisions

Unit 731 was divided into eight divisions:

• Division 1: Research on bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax, typhoid and tuberculosis using live human subjects. For this purpose, a prison was constructed to contain around three to four hundred people.
• Division 2: Research for biological weapons used in the field, in particular the production of devices to spread germs and parasites.
• Division 3: Production of shells containing biological agents. Stationed in Harbin.
• Division 4: Production of other miscellaneous agents.
• Division 5: Training of personnel.
• Divisions 6–8: Equipment, medical and administrative units.

Facilities

One of the buildings is open to visitors

The Unit 731 complex covered six square kilometers and consisted of more than 150 buildings. The design of the facilities made them hard to destroy by bombing. The complex contained various factories. It had around 4,500 containers to be used to raise fleas, 6 cauldrons to produce various chemicals, and around 1,800 containers to produce biological agents. Approximately 30 kg of bubonic plague bacteria could be produced in several days.

Some of Unit 731's satellite facilities are in use by various Chinese industrial concerns. A portion has been preserved and is open to visitors as a War Crimes Museum.

Tons of biological weapons (and some chemicals) were stored in various places in northeastern China throughout the war. The Japanese attempted to destroy evidence of the facilities after disbanding. 29 people were hospitalized in August, 2003 after a construction crew in Heilongjiang inadvertently dug up chemical shells that had been buried deep in the soil more than 50 years before.

Anta testing site

This site was an open air testing area about 120 km from the Pingfang facility.

Hsinking (Changchun) HQ

Headquarters of "Wakamatsu Unit" (Unit 100), under command of veterinarian Wakamatsu Yujiro. This facility dedicated itself to both the study of animal vaccines to protect Japanese resources, and, especially, veterinary biological-warfare. Diseases were tested for use against the Soviet and Chinese horses and other livestock. In addition to these tests, Unit 100 ran a bacteria factory to produce the pathogens needed by other units. Biological sabotage testing was also handled at this facility: everything from poisons to chemical crop destruction.

Peking (Peiping) HQ

This HQ served as the headquarters of Unit 1855. It was also an experimental branch unit based at Tsinan, Shantung. Pandemic diseases were extensively studied at this facility.

Nanking HQ

This section was the headquarters of the "Tama Unit" (Unit Ei 1644) and conducted extensive joint projects and operations with Unit 731.

Kwangtung (Canton) HQ

The headquarters of the "Nami Unit" (Unit 8604). This installation conducted human experimentation in food and water deprivation as well as water-borne typhus. In addition, this facility served as the main rat-farm for the medical units to provide them with bubonic plague vectors for experiments.^{[citation needed]}

Syonan (Singapore) HQ

Formed in 1942, by Ryoichi Naito, Unit 9420 had approximately 1000 personnel based at the Raffles Medical University. The unit was commanded by Major General Kitagawa Masataka and supported by the Japanese Southern Army Headquarters.

There were two main sub units: the "Kono Unit," which specialized in malaria, and "Umeoka Unit," which dealt with the plague. In addition to disease experiments, this facility served as one of the main rat catching and processing centers. Evidence points towards this facility supplying a medical sub-unit operating in Thailand, with diseases for unknown operations and or experiments.^{[citation needed]}

Hiroshima HQ

A top secret factory in ÅŒkunoshima produced chemical weapons for the Japanese military and medical units. Starting with mustard gas production in 1928, the factory moved on to such poisons as Lewisite, and Cyanogen. During the 1930s, as the war in China grew worse, the island the factory sat on was removed from most maps to strengthen secrecy and security.

Manchuria HQ (Unit 200)

This unit was associated directly with Unit 731, and worked mainly in plague research.

Manchuria HQ (Unit 571)

This section, with unknown headquarters, was another unit that worked directly and extensively with Unit 731.

Special Mobile Teams

Special units led by Ishii Shiro's elder brother and only staffed with members from Ishii's home town operated separately from the regular medical organizations as roving researchers and trouble shooters.^{[citation needed]}

Special Operations units

Units with special and unknown assignments in Manchuria and the Asian mainland. It has been suggested that nuclear weapons research was conducted in Manchuria towards the end of the war by this branch.^{[citation needed]}

Disbanding and the end of World War II

Information sign at the site today.

Operations and experiments continued until the end of the war. Ishii had wanted to use biological weapons in the Pacific conflict since May 1944, but his attempts were repeatedly foiled by poor planning and Allied intervention.

With the Russian invasion of Manchukuo and Mengjiang in August 1945, the unit had to abandon their work in haste. The members and their families fled to Japan.

Ishii ordered every member of the group "to take the secret to the grave", threatening to find them if they failed, and prohibiting any of them from going into public work back in Japan. Potassium cyanide vials were issued for use in the event that the remaining personnel were captured.^[11]

Skeleton crews of Ishii's Japanese troops blew the compound up in the final days of the war to destroy evidence of their activities, but most were so well constructed that they survived somewhat intact as a testimony to what had happened there.

After Imperial Japan surrendered to the Allies in 1945, Douglas MacArthur became the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, rebuilding Japan during the Allied occupation. MacArthur secretly granted immunity to the physicians of Unit 731 in exchange for providing America with their research on biological warfare.^[7]American occupation authorities monitored the activities of former unit members, including reading and censoring their mail.^[23]

The United States believed that the research data was valuable because the Allies had never conducted or condoned such experiments on humans due to moral and political revulsion. The United States also did not want other nations, particularly the Soviet Union, to acquire data on biological weapons, not to mention the military benefits of such research.^[24]

The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal heard only one reference to Japanese experiments with "poisonous serums" on Chinese civilians. This took place in August 1946 and was instigated by David Sutton, assistant to the Chinese prosecutor. The Japanese defense counselor argued that the claim was vague and uncorroborated and it was dismissed by the tribunal president, Sir William Webb, for lack of evidence. The subject was not pursued further by Sutton, who was likely aware of Unit 731's activities. His reference to it at the trial is believed to have been accidental.

Although publicly silent on the issue at the Tokyo trials, the Soviet Union pursued the case and prosecuted twelve top military leaders and scientists from Unit 731 and its affiliated biological-war prisons Unit 1644 in Nanjing, and Unit 100 in Changchun, in the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials. Included among the prosecuted for war crimes including germ warfare was General Otozo Yamada, the commander-in-chief of the million-man Kwantung Army occupying Manchuria.

Many Russian civilians, including women and children, and Soviet POWs held by Japan were killed in chemical and biological warfare experiments by Unit 731, along with the Chinese people, American POWs, Russian and other nationalities.^[25]The trial of those captured Japanese perpetrators was held in Khabarovsk in December 1949.

A lengthy partial transcript of the trial proceedings was published in different languages the following year by a Moscow foreign languages press, including an English language edition: Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1950). This book remains an invaluable resource for historians on the organization and activities of the Japanese biological warfare "death factory" lab-prisons. The lead prosecuting attorney at the Khabarovsk trial was Lev Smirnov, who had been one of the top Soviet prosecutors at the Nuremberg Trials.

After World War II, the Soviet Union built a biological weapons facility in Sverdlovsk using documentation captured from Unit 731 in Manchuria.^[26]

The Japanese doctors and army commanders who had perpetrated the Unit 731 atrocities and germ warfare experiments received sentences from the Khabarovsk court ranging from two to 25 years in a Siberian labor camp.

Some former members of Unit 731 became part of the Japanese medical establishment. Dr. Masaji Kitano led Japan's largest pharmaceutical company, the Green Cross. Others headed U.S.-backed medical schools or worked for the Japanese health ministry. Shiro Ishii in particular moved to Maryland to work on bio-weapons research.^[27]

Mengele, the Zionists and Big Pharma.

Below: Josef Mengele "Angel of Death"

I recently completed a post on the SS resort at Auschwitz and showed a photo of several SS officers that included Josef Mengele, who is known as the Angel of Death. Although most people should have some idea of his atrocities, I'll show some boilerplate history on him:

"In May of 1943, Mengele replaced another doctor who had fallen ill at the Nazi extermination camp Birkenau. On May 24, 1943, he became medical officer of Auschwitz-Birkenau's "Gypsy camp". In August 1944, this camp was liquidated and all its inmates gassed. Subsequently Mengele became Chief Medical Officer of the main infirmary camp at Birkenau. He was not, though, the Chief Medical Officer of Auschwitz — superior to him was SS-Standortarzt (garrison physician) Eduard Wirths.^[6]

During his 21-month stay at Auschwitz, Mengele earned the sobriquet "Angel of Death" for the cruelty he visited upon prisoners. Mengele was referred to as "der weisse Engel" ("the White Angel") by camp inmates because when he stood on the platform inspecting new arrivals and directing some to the right, some to the left, his white coat and white arms outstretched evoked the image of a white angel. Mengele took turns with the other SS physicians at Auschwitz in meeting incoming prisoners at the camp, where it was determined who would be retained for work and who would be sent to the gas chambers immediately.^[7] In one instance, he drew a line on the wall of the children's block 150 centimeters (about 5 feet) from the floor, and sent those whose heads could not reach the line to the gas chamber. (Lifton, p. 346.)^[8]

"He had a look that said 'I am the power,'" said one survivor. When it was reported that one block was infested with lice, Mengele gassed every single one of the 750 women assigned to it."^[9]

Human experimentation

Block 10 - Medical experimentation block in Auschwitz

Mengele used Auschwitz as an opportunity to continue his research on heredity, using inmates for human experimentation. He was particularly interested in identical twins; they would be selected and placed in special barracks. He also recruited Berthold Epstein, a Jewish pediatrician. As a doctor, Epstein proposed to Mengele a study into treatments of the disease called Noma that was noted for particularly affecting children from the camp.^[10]

While the exact cause of Noma remains uncertain, it is now known that it has a higher occurrence in children suffering from malnutrition and a lower immune system response. Many develop the disease shortly after contracting another illness such as measles or tuberculosis.^[11]

Mengele took an interest in physical abnormalities discovered among the arrivals at the concentration camp. These included dwarfs, notably the Ovitz family - the children of a Romanian artist, of whom seven of the 10 members were dwarfs. Prior to their deportation, they toured in Eastern Europe as the Lilliput Troupe. Mengele often called them "my dwarf family"; to him they seemed to be the perfect expression of "the abnorm".^{[citation needed]}

Mengele's experiments also included attempts to change eye color by injecting chemicals into children's eyes, various amputations of limbs and other brutal surgeries. Rena Gelissen's account of her time in Auschwitz details certain experiments performed on female prisoners around October 1943. Mengele would experiment on the chosen girls, performing sterilization and shock treatments. Most of the victims died, either due to the experiments or later infections. According to a website, "Once Mengele's assistant rounded up 14 pairs of Roma twins during the night. Mengele placed them on his polished marble dissection table and put them to sleep. He then injected chloroform into their hearts, killing them instantly. Mengele then began dissecting and meticulously noting each and every piece of the twins' bodies."^[8]

At Auschwitz, Mengele did a number of twin studies. After the experiment was over, these twins were usually murdered and their bodies dissected. He supervised an operation by which two Romanie children were sewn together to create conjoined twins; the hands of the children became badly infected where the veins had been resected, this also caused gangrene.^[8]

The subjects of Mengele's research were better fed and housed than ordinary prisoners and were, for the time being, safe from the gas chambers.^[12] When visiting his child subjects, he introduced himself as "Uncle Mengele" and offered them sweets. Some survivors remember that despite his grim acts, he was also called "Mengele the protector".^[13]

The book Children of the Flames, by Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Shiela Cohn Dekel, chronicles Mengele's medical experimental activities on approximately 3,000 twins who passed through the Auschwitz death camp during World War II until its liberation at the end of the war. Only 100 pairs of twins survived;^[14] 60 years later, they came forward about the special privileges they were given in Auschwitz owing to Mengele's interest in twins, and how as a result they have suffered, as the children who survived his medical experiments and injections.^[8]

^{OK, there's no doubt that Mengele was a completely sadistic scumbag. The Jews have endlessly recounted the atrocities he committed in order to keep the Holocaust fresh in everyone's mind and to gain worldwide sympathy and to ensure Israel benefits financially as well.}

^{So, one would think that in light of the horrors perpetrated against the Jews that they would be especially sensitive in their treatment of others, especially those that they considered enemy combatants. Yet we see in the case of the Gaza action that Israel has been using white phosphorus against civilians and has been ruthlessly murdering innocent women and children.}

Now comes this (Link): (My bold)

February 25, 2010

The Israeli occupation forces have been accused by a Palestinian Researcher of carrying out "thousands of experiments on Palestinian prisoners every year" which have lead to an increase in the number diagnosed with cancer. The specialist in Palestinian prisoners' affairs, Abdul Naser Ferwana, himself a former prisoner of the Israelis, claims that "more than five thousand experiments using serious drugs put prisoners' lives at risk".

According to Ferwana's research, dozens of former prisoners have been diagnosed with cancer months and even years after their release; some have died while others are living with the disease. He believes that the experiments prisoners have been exposed to in prison are the direct cause of the high incidence of cancer in this section of the population. Deliberate medical neglect by the prison authorities also cannot be ruled out, he added.

Ferwana accused the Israeli Ministry of Health of granting permits for conducting clinical trials for certain medication on detainees. He also accused the Israelis of building prisons and detention camps in the Negev desert, in particular, to subject the prisoners to environmental experiments and determine the effects on the environment and human beings in close proximity to the Dimona nuclear reactor and its toxic waste buried nearby.(!!!) In early January the Israeli Environment Ministry published a report which warned of the presence of toxic waste, including nuclear waste and asbestos - both are carcinogens in the Negev area in which the prisons of Nafha and Reymon, and the Negev detention centre, are situated. This may, advised the ministry, cause malignant diseases including cancer due to being in the vicinity of the Dimona reactor.

He explained that the former Chair of the Israeli parliamentary science committee, Dalia Isik MK, who now leads the Kadima Party in the Knesset, revealed as long ago as July 1997 details of one thousand serious experiments and medication tests which are conducted on Palestinian and Arab prisoners yearly. She confirmed that she had an equal number of permits from the Ministry of Health to conduct such experiments on behalf of Israeli pharmaceutical companies. This was confirmed by Amy Leftat, Chief of the Division of Medicines in the Ministry of Health, in the same Knesset meeting. It was added that there is an annual increase in the number of permits of about 15 percent.

Mr. Ferwana pointed out that if there were 1000 experiments 13 years ago, with a 15 percent annual increase ever since, "then today we're talking about more than five thousand experiments a year", something that the Israeli occupation authorities have not denied and clearly have no intention of stopping. Coupled with the rise in cancers amongst prisoners and ex-prisoners, this is, he said, a clear indication that the experiments are ongoing.

The evidence of a prisoner who has a degree in nursing suggests that prisoners in Ramla Prison Hospital are given doses of toxic substances. The authorities there, it is claimed, are "indifferent" to the effects on prisoners' health.

According to statistics used by the researcher, the number of sick prisoners inside Israeli jails is now more than 1,500 with various illnesses, chronic and malignant, including dozens in need of urgent operations and special care. He pointed out that there are still an estimated 16 prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention camps suffering from various cancers. An accurate number can be ascertained if access is given to an independent medical research team in order to complete proper tests.

Source: Quds Press

So, the Israelis are subjecting Palestenian prisoners to deadly radiation exposure and attempting to treat them with various, usually ineffective, medications with the result that many of these prisoners are suffering slow, painful deaths. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!!

So, why would Israel be helping their pharmaceutical industry in this manner? Follow the money (Link):" Israel has a large, successful and growing pharmaceutical industry. The major companies include several which are traded on the New York Stock Exchange, most notably Teva, whose market valuation in July 2002 was approximately US $8 billion."

Again, I personally separate the Zionist Jews from the devout Jews that follow the Torah, but it is no wonder, in light of facts such as these, that worldwide anti-semitism is growing. As Zionist atrocities continue to get worldwide attention, the support for the United States in assisting Israel when they finally attack Iran diminishes.

It is also important to factor in Russian and Chinese politics as well. The Russians have been pressuring China to dump the dollar and the Chinese have liquidated some of their U.S. Treasury Bonds in an effort to continue to weaken the U.S. China is also upping their anti-U.S. rhetoric.

Bottom line is that America puts itself at great risk by continuing to be a slave of the Zionists. Certainly, there is trouble on the horizon and an already weakend U.S. can hardly afford another long term military conflict......though we may have no choice at this point.

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I do not think there is any doubt, despite this video's assertion, that Iran IS developing nuclear weapons, but this video gives a good, brief history on the Israeli nuclear weapons program too.

11.3 million underwater mortgages.

Some more good economic news from 247wallst.com : 

"There is a reason that 702 American banks, nearly one in ten, were on the FDIC “problem list” as of the end of 2009. A large number of small and mid-sized banks are burdened with home and commercial mortgages that are in default and may even go into foreclosure.

New data from First American CoreLogic shows why the solution to the problem banks face is so difficult to find. Eleven million, three hundreds thousand homes had underwater mortgages as of the fourth quarter of last year. That number represent 24% of all residential homes loans in America.The mortgage numbers are much worse when homes with equity of less than 5% are included. First American reports that ”an additional 2.3 million mortgages were approaching negative equity at the end of last year, meaning they had less than five percent equity.” That means that three out of ten homes have virtually no financial value to their owners.

The pressure that the home value trouble puts on banks is clear. The aggregate dollar value of negative equity was $801 billion at the end of last year, up $55 billion from $746 billion in Q3 2009. People who believe there is no hope of their homes ever having any economic value are more likely to default on mortgages, especially in an environment where unemployed and under-employed people make up 17% of the total available workforce nationwide. Many homeowners are as concerned about their employment future as they are about the value of their houses.

Problem home loans are concentrated in the regions where real estate values have fallen the most–Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Michigan, and California.  First American says that “among the top five states, the average negative equity share was 42 percent, compared to 15 percent for the remaining 45 states.” In other words, the odds are relatively high that some of the home owners in those states will never sell their houses for more than the amount of their mortgages. That creates a vicious cycle in which high numbers of people with underwater loans default in the states where real estate values have dropped the most. There is no easy way to create a foundation under home prices.

The FDIC has closed 20 banks this year, Five of those were in the five states where mortgage equity problems are at their worst. The agency closed 15 banks in December. Of those, five were in Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Michigan, or California. The bank failure and mortgage failure problems area inextricably linked.

The First American numbers do not leave much hope for a home price rebound this year. It is too hard to sell a house with an underwater mortgage because the bank has to be paid the balance of the loan in cash at closing. Many people do not even try make home payments or cannot afford to under those circumstances.  The Mortgage Bankers Association reported that a record 15% of American mortgage holders are either in foreclosure or at least one payment behind.

The difficulties that face small and mid-sized banks, which ultimately are a problem for the FDIC, are to a large extent still a fallout of the deteriorating real estate sector. The underwater mortgage problem is still growing and that almost certainly means bank closings will be high again this year as well.

Douglas A. McIntyre

==================================

 

Hmmmmmm, I'm not sensing much hope and change. As long as the idiots still run the show, there won't be any. 

 

Black on white robbery? It's just slave reparations.

Every now and again, I ponder why blacks are "statistically 50 times more likely to attack whites than vice-versa." Well, I now have the answer:

Do We Have The Right to Take White People's Property for Slave Reparations?

ghettobraggingrights posted on Dec 31, 2009 views: 240 Tags: White Racism, Black Slavery, BOW Reparations

In a Reparations Protest, when you ask a person to turn over their possessions, if, for example, you asked a white woman to turn over her purse or a white man to turn over his car, and he or she refuses, do we have the right to, then, take their property because of black slavery? Many brothers ask.

BOW Reparations artist Nead Diggers says, "No Reparations, No Peace." BOW Reparations activist St. Nicolas Thief says: "we will call for an end to Black On White (BOW) crime when reparations are paid. National Black Foot Soldier Network spokesman Cedishon Angelou says, Reparations By Any Means Necessary.

But do whites deserve to have all their race has done to others done unto them?

In South Africa, because of whites' denial of that they owe for their atrocities, when a legitimate government was finally seated, rather than whites doing the honorable thing and returning and making proper restitution for their race's crimes and, thus, returning (with interest) all they'd stolen, the new government had to confiscate the property.

Of course the children of the thieves thought this action was wrong.
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Looks like Rev. Manning was right. There's trouble brewing on the horizon. And then we have some more gems from savannahghettobraggibgrights.com:

Link:

Who knew?

All this time I thought crime was crime. I admit I failed to see the politics behind black on white crime. Below is an example of a white "reparations offender" who refused to yield to her black attacker:

As a bonus, I am including the 10 point platform of the New Black Panther Party (Oh and BTW, since the signing of the civil rights legislation, our government has spent over $100,000 in aid for every black man, woman and child in the U.S.---money well spent?)

What the New Black Panthers Want
What the New Black Panthers Believe

1. We want freedom. We want the power to practice self-determination, and to determine the destiny of our community and THE BLACK NATION.
We believe in the spiritual high moral code of our Ancestors. We believe in the truths of the Bible, Quran, and other sacred texts and writings. We believe in MAAT and the principles of NGUZO SABA. We believe that Black People will not be free until we are able to determine our Divine Destiny.2. We want full employment for our people and we demand the dignity to do for ourselves what we have begged the white man to do for us.
We believe that since the white man has kept us deaf, dumb and blind, and used every “dirty trick” in the book to stand in the way of our freedom and independence, that we should be gainfully employed until such time we can employ and provide for ourselves.
We believe further in: POWER IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE! WEALTH IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE! ARMS IN THE HANDS OF THE PEOPLE!3. We want tax exemption and an end to robbery of THE BLACK NATION by the CAPITALIST. We want an end to the capitalistic domination of Africa in all of its forms: imperialism, criminal settler colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, sexism, zionism, Apartheid and artificial borders.
We believe that this wicked racist government has robbed us, and now we are demanding the overdue debt of reparations. A form of reparations was promised 100 years ago (forty acres and a mule) as restitution for the continued genocide of our people and to in meaningful measure and repair the damage for the AFRICAN HOLOCAUST (Maangamizo/Maafa).
We believe our people should be exempt from ALL TAXATION as long as we are deprived of equal justice under the laws of the land and the overdue reparations debt remains unpaid. We will accept payment in fertile and mine rally rich land, precious metals, industry, commerce and currency. As genocide crimes continue, people’s tribunals must be set up to prosecute and to execute.
The “Jews” were given reparations. The Japanese were given reparations. The Black, the Red and the Brown Nations must be given reparations. The American white man owes us reparations. England owes us reparations. France owes us reparations, Spain and all of Europe. Africa owes us reparations and repatriation. The Arabs owe us reparations. The “Jews” owe us reparations. All have taken part in the AFRICAN HOLOCAUST and the slaughter of 600 million of our people over the past 6,000 years in general and 400 year in particular. We know that this is a reasonable and just demand that we make at this time in history.4. We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human beings, free health-care (preventive and maintenance). We want an end to the trafficking of drugs and to the biological and chemical warfare targeted at our people.
We believe since the white landlords will not give decent housing and quality health care to our Black Community, the he housing, the land, the social, political and economic institutions should be made into independent UUAMAA “New African Communal/Cooperatives” so that our community, with government reparations and aid (until we can do for ourselves) can build and make drug free, decent housing with health facilities for our people.5. We want education for our people that exposes the true nature of this devilish and decadent American society. We want education that teaches us our true history/herstory and our role in the present day society.
We believe in an educational system that will give our people “a knowledge of self.” If we do not have knowledge of self and of our position in society and the world, then we have little chance to properly relate to anything else. 6. We want all Black Men and Black Women to be exempt from military service.
We believe that Black People should not be forced to fight in the military service to defend a racist government that holds us captive and does not protect us. We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black People, are being victimized by the white racist government of America. We will protect ourselves from the force and violence of the racist police and the racist military, “by any means necessary.”7. We want an immediate end to POLICE HARRASSMENT, BRUTALITY and MURDER of Black People. We want an end to Black-on-Black violence, “snitching,” cooperation and collaboration with the oppressor.
We believe we can end police brutality in our community by organizing Black self-defense groups (Black People’s Militias/Black Liberation Armies) that are dedicated to defending our Black Community from racist, fascist, police/military oppression and brutality. The Second Amendment of white America’s Constitution gives a right to bear arms. We therefore believe that all Black People should unite and form and “African United Front” and arm ourselves for self-defense.8. We want freedom for all Black Men and Black Women held in international, military, federal, state, county, city jails and prisons.
We believe that all Black People and people of color should be released from the many jails and prisons because they have not received a fair and impartial trial. ‘Released’ means ‘released’ to the lawful authorities of the Black Nation.9. We want all Black People when brought to trial to be tried in a court by a jury of their peer group or people from their Black Communities, as defined by white law of the Constitution of the United States.
We believe that the courts should follow their own law, if their nature will allow (as stated in their Constitution of the United States) so that Black People will receive fair trials. The 6th Amendment of the United States Constitution gives a man/woman a right to an impartial trial, which has been interpreted to be a “fair” trial by one’s “peer” group. A “peer” is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this, the court will be forced to select a jury from the Black Community from which the Black defendant came. We have been and are being tried by all white juries that have no understanding of the “average reasoning person” of the Black Community.10. WE DEMAND AN END TO THE RACIST DEATH PENALTY AS IT IS APPLIED TO BLACK AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE IN AMERICA. WE DEMAND FREEDOM FOR ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS OF THE BLACK RED AND BROWN NATION!
We want land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace. And, as our political objective, we want NATIONAL LIBERATION in a separate state or territory of our own, here or elsewhere, “a liberated zone” (“New Africa” or Africa), and a plebiscite to be held throughout the BLACK NATION in which only we will be allowed to participate for the purposes of determining our will and DIVINE destiny as a people. FREE THE LAND! “UP YOU MIGHTY NATION! YOU CAN ACCOMPLISH WHAT YOU WILL!” BLACK POWER! History has proven that the white man is absolutely disagreeable to get along with in peace. No one has been able to get along with the white man. All the people of color have been subjected to the white man’s wrath. We believe that his very nature will not allow for true sharing, fairness, equity and justice.
Therefore, to the Red Man and Woman, to the Yellow and to the Brown, we say to you

“THE SAME RABID DOG THAT BIT YOU, BIT US TOO!” ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Rev. Manning discusses the "Long-legged Mack Daddy"

Good ol' Rev. Manning is at it again. I particularly enjoyed his comments about MSNBC. Ya just gotta love this guy. (Sort of...)

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U.S.Army/CIA spray aerosol LSD on French town in 1951.

 

 

Link: 

Washington, DC (Vocus) February 3, 2010 — Prompted by a new book release, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research has received a confidential inquiry from the office of Erard Corbin de Mangoux, head of the French intelligence agency, Directorate General for External Security (DGSE), concerning a recent account of American government complicity in a mysterious 1951 incident of mass insanity in France. The DGSE is the French counterpart of the CIA.

The incident took place in the village of Pont-Saint-Esprit in southern France, and is described in a recent book about the 1953 death of an American biochemist, A Terrible Mistake: The Murder of Frank Olson and the CIA’s Secret Cold War Experiments (http://aterriblemistake.com/). The book, by investigative journalist H.P. Albarelli Jr. (http://www.albarelli.net/), was published in late November 2009 by TrineDay (http://trineday.com/), which specializes in books about “suppressed information.”

The strange outbreak severely affected nearly five hundred people, causing the deaths of at least five. For nearly 60 years the Pont-St.-Esprit incident has been attributed either to ergot poisoning, meaning that villagers consumed bread infected with a psychedelic mold, or to organic mercury poisoning. But Albarelli reports that the outbreak resulted from a covert LSD aerosol experiment directed by the US Army’s top-secret Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, Maryland. He notes that the scientists who produced both alternative explanations worked for the Sandoz Pharmaceutical Company, which was then secretly supplying both the Army and CIA with LSD.

 

The effect was devastating, as a contemporary French report made clear: “It is neither Shakespeare nor Edgar Poe. It is, alas, the sad reality all around Pont-St.-Esprit and its environs, where terrifying scenes of hallucinations are taking place. They are scenes straight out of the Middle Ages, scenes of horror and pathos, full of sinister shadows.” Even Time magazine took notice: “Among the stricken, delirium rose: patients thrashed wildly on their beds, screaming that red flowers were blossoming from their bodies, that their heads had turned to molten lead. Pont-Saint-Esprit’s hospital reported four attempts at suicide.”

A Department of Justice website on the dangers of LSD states that in the early 1950s “the Sandoz Chemical Company went as far as promoting LSD as a potential secret chemical warfare weapon to the U.S. Government. Their main selling point in this was that a small amount in a main water supply or sprayed in the air could disorient and turn psychotic an entire company of soldiers leaving them harmless and unable to fight.” The CIA entertained a number of proposals from American scientists concerning placing a large amount of LSD into the reservoir of a medium-to-large city, but, according to former agency officials, “the experiment was never approved due to the unexpected number of deaths during the operation in France.”

 

If this article isn't an eye opener, I do not know what is. Sandoz Pharmaceutical is now owned by Novartis. We tend to think of our Gov. shacking up with big pharma as a fairly recent gig, but it's been going on for over 50 years.

 

Also, the fact that a number of American scientists entertained the idea of placing a large amount of LSD into the reservoir of a medium to large American city should give us all pause. The fact that the experiment was even considered is disturbing. Is there any doubt our government could give a rats ass about us?

 

As a side note, I can imagine the conversation between the Army and Then President Truman...............

 

Army General: "Mr. President, we have a new chemical that may have potential as a weapon. It's called LSD and we want to test it on a small American town, perhaps a small town mostly populated by Negros."

 

President Truman: "Are you guys out of your minds!?! No way in hell are we going to chem bomb a small town full of Negros, if word of that ever got out we could lose their vote for generations. Now, if you can find a small town of Republicans.................no wait, I have a better idea, just go ahead and test that LSD stuff on a bunch of "cheese eatin' surrender monkeys", the French.

 

Army General: "Great idea Mr. President, instead of a small French town, can we try it on Paris?"

 

As a side rant, I must say I tire of our Government constantly berating other countries for their record on human rights violations while we ignore our own.

 

Lets see, we initiated biowarfare on the Native American population by giving them smallpox infected blankets, then there was that Trail of Tears thing. In WWII we rounded up Japanese Americans and put them into concentration camps. We routinely overthrow governments so we can install "our" guys, who are usually ruthless dictators.

 

Hmmmmmm, then we have torture, the mass bombing of civilians during wartime (we needed to nuke Japan though, no doubt about that one) blah, blah, blah.........

 

Just what kind of scumbags are we to chem bomb a small town of an allied nation. (Admittedly, it IS France, but still) 

 

Another sad chapter in our history.