Clinton aide's idea: Let Iraq shoot down U.S. plane...A new book says a cabinet member proposed letting Saddam kill an American airman as a pretext for war

Clinton aide's idea: Let Iraq shoot down U.S. plane - War Room - Salon.com

At one of my very first breakfasts, while Berger and Cohen were engaged in a sidebar discussion down at one end of the table and Tenet and Richardson were preoccupied in another, one of the Cabinet members present leaned over to me and said, “Hugh, I know I shouldn’t even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out Saddam is a precipitous event — something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough — and slow enough — so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?”

The hair on the back of my neck bristled, my teeth clenched, and my fists tightened. I was so mad I was about to explode. I looked across the table, thinking about the pilot in the U-2 and responded, “Of course we can ...” which prompted a big smile on the official’s face.

What this cabinet member suggested to Gen. Shelton is called a "false flag" attack. It is not a conspiracy theory, it is a commonly-used tactic to emotionally move an electorate in a direction you want to move them.  There is a long list of documented cases of these being used, if you want to do a Google search for "false flag."  In this instance, notice the off-the-cuff suggestion to kill Americans. Notice the casual use of scheming to manipulate the American public, and the lengths he was willing to go to make it happen.

Doesn't knowledge of this change the way you read news stories and events?  Understanding how these people think, and the lengths they are willing to go, aren't you forced to look through a more skeptical lens at events as they are reported?

The Fed's Magic Money-Printing Machine, Act 2 - Matt Taibbi

The Fed's Magic Money-Printing Machine, Act 2 -- RollingStone.com

It’s amazing, given the attention the Tea Party allegedly is paying to
government waste and government spending, that there hasn’t been more
controversy about the now-seemingly-inevitable arrival of “QE2” – a
second massive round of money-printing cooked up by the Fed to prop up
both the government and certain sectors of the economy. A more overtly
anticapitalist and oligarchical pattern of behavior than the Fed’s
“Quantitative Easing” program could not possibly be imagined, but the
country is strangely silent on the issue. (bold and underline mine)

The Fed is the problem.  Matt Taibbi sums it up perfectly.

Google Plans Alternative Inflation Index Using Web Data

Economy - Google Plans Alternative Inflation Index Using Web Data - CNBC

chief economist, Hal Varian, highlights how economic data can be gathered far more rapidly using online sources. The official Consumer Price Index data are collected by hand from shops, and only published monthly with a time lag of several weeks.

Private enterprise doing something we've all been told only the government can provide.

U.S. apologizes for Guatemala STD experiments

U.S. apologizes for STD experiments in Guatemala - relationships - TODAYshow.com

U.S. government medical researchers intentionally infected hundreds of people in Guatemala, including institutionalized mental patients, with gonorrhea and syphilis without their knowledge or permission more than 60 years ago.

Again, if I had suggested that the U.S. government was medically-experimenting on people, you would have called me a conspiracy theorist.  Don't stories like this make you read stories about U.S. policy with more skepticism?  I don't see how it wouldn't have that effect, but so many people still seem to think, "Well, they would never do something like that!"

U.N. Report finds Israel "summarily executed" U.S. citizen on flotilla

U.N. Report finds Israel "summarily executed" U.S. citizen on flotilla - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com

Last week, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights released a comprehensive report detailing its findings regarding the May, 2010, Israeli attack on the six-ship flotilla attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Israel-blockaded Gaza. The report has been largely ignored in the American media despite the fact (or, more accurately: because) it found that much of the Israeli force used "was unnecessary, disproportionate, excessive and inappropriate and resulted in the wholly avoidable killing and maiming of a large number of civilian passengers"; that "at least six of the killings can be characterized as extra-legal, arbitrary and summary executions"; and that Israel violated numerous international human rights conventions, including the Fourth Geneva Conventions (see p. 38, para. 172).

Let me suggest that if this same report had come out about Iran, it would be running 24 hours a day on Fox News, and demands of an immediate trillion-dollar war would be thrust upon Washington.

Google's CEO: 'The Laws Are Written by Lobbyists'

Google's CEO: 'The Laws Are Written by Lobbyists' - Derek Thompson - Technology - The Atlantic

"The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists" to protect incumbent interests, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Atlantic editor James Bennet at the Washington Ideas Forum. "It's shocking how the system actually works."

The image you have in your mind of Washington politicians as dutiful servants of their electorate is a fantasy.  When are you going to realize that?

Walter Cronkite: Conspracy Theorist!

Cronkite: Osama bin Laden c/o Karl Rove?

CRONKITE: What we just heard. So now the question is basically right now, how will this affect the election? And I have a feeling that it could tilt the election a bit. In fact, I'm a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing.

Army embeds active-duty PSYOPS soldiers at local TV stations

Army embeds active-duty PSYOPS soldiers at local TV stations | The Upshot Yahoo! News - Yahoo! News

The U.S. Army has used local television stations in the U.S. as training posts for some of its psychological-operations personnel, The Upshot has learned. Since at least 2001, both WRAL, a CBS affiliate in Raleigh, N.C., and WTOC, a CBS affiliate in Savannah, Ga., have regularly hosted active-duty soldiers from the Army's 4th Psychological Operations group as part of the Army's Training With Industry program. Training With Industry is designed to offer career soldiers a chance to pick up skills through internships and fellowships with private businesses. The PSYOPS soldiers used WRAL and WTOC to learn broadcasting and communications expertise that they could apply in their mission, as the Army describes it, of "influenc[ing] the emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign audiences."

If I had suggested to you that some of American media is in collusion with spy elements of the U.S., you'd have laughed at me and called me a conspiracy theorist.

Big Pharma Scores Big Win: Medicinal Herbs Will Disappear in EU

A Voice In The Wilderness: Big Pharma Scores Big Win: Medicinal Herbs Will Disappear in EU

It's almost a done deal. We are about to see herbal preparations disappear, and the ability of herbalists to prescribe them will also be lost.

Big Pharma has almost reached the finish line of its decades-long battle to wipe out all competition. As of 1 April 2011—less than eight months from now—virtually all medicinal herbs will become illegal in the European Union.

Regulations, especially now with the corporate-government cronyism in full swing, are nothing more than one industry trying to hurt their competitors. How is making herbs ILLEGAL in the EU helping citizens?  Come on people, wake up.

Killing Each Taliban Soldier Costs $50 Million

poorrichard's blog: Killing Each Taliban Soldier Costs $50 Million

The Pentagon will not tell the public what it costs to locate, target and kill a single Taliban soldier because the price-tag is so scandalously high that it makes the Taliban appear to be Super-Soldiers. As set out in this article, the estimated cost to kill each Taliban is as high as $100 million, with a conservative estimate being $50 million. A public discussion should be taking place in the United States regarding whether the Taliban have become too expensive an enemy to defeat.