A few months ago we looked at Irish CurrencyFair, a peer-to-peer site that effectively removes banks and other middlemen from currency exchange. Pushing the peer-to-peer concept even further into the world of finance, Bitcoin is a collectively managed and open-source digital currency that's completely independent of any central authority.
Now in beta, Bitcoin bills itself as “the first digital currency that is completely distributed.” In essence, that means that it's managed collectively by a global network of users, so no bank or payment processor is required between buyers and sellers in any transaction. Users begin with Bitcoin by downloading its client program for Linux, Mac or Windows, thereby creating a digital wallet and associated Bitcoin address for themselves. Next, very small quantities of Bitcoins are available for free from the Bitcoin faucet, but to get larger ones, users can visit various currency exchanges and sites. They can also accept Bitcoins as payments for goods and services. Either way, once they have Bitcoins — abbreviated “BTC” — users can spend them at various participating online merchants for a wide variety of goods and services. It's free for merchants to accept Bitcoins, and there are no chargebacks or fees. Currently, there is no charge for processing Bitcoin transactions, but eventually a small fee of about one bitcent will be charged every transaction to one of many competing Bitcoin “miners,” who create Bitcoins in a controlled way by running a dedicated program. Avideo on YouTube explains the Bitcoin concept.
Bitcoins have rapidly appreciated in value over the past few months, going from USD 0.50 at the end of January to more than USD 1 in early February. Transactions worth the equivalent of some USD 30,000 in Bitcoins now take place every day, according to a reportin Forbes. Is it any wonder? Given the global financial crisis, consumers have good reason to seek more control over the financial system. Bruce Wagner, organizer of New York's Bitcoin developer's meet-up, put it nicely in Forbes: “No banker can control it. No evil dictator tyrant can print zillions and destroy the value." One to get your business involved in? (Related: P2P lending arrives down under — Peer-to-peer student loans.)
The debt crisis in Greece has taken on a dramatic new twist. Sources with information about the government’s actions have informed SPIEGEL ONLINE that Athens is considering withdrawing from the euro zone. The common currency area’s finance ministers and representatives of the European Commission are holding a secret crisis meeting in Luxembourg on Friday night.
Greece’s economic problems are massive, with protests against the government being held almost daily. Now Prime Minister George Papandreou apparently feels he has no other option: SPIEGEL ONLINE has obtained information from German government sources knowledgeable of the situation in Athens indicating that Papandreou’s government is considering abandoning the euro and reintroducing its own currency.
Alarmed by Athens’ intentions, the European Commission has called a crisis meeting in Luxembourg on Friday night. In addition to Greece’s possible exit from the currency union, a speedy restructuring of the country’s debt also features on the agenda. One year after the Greek crisis broke out, the development represents a potentially existential turning point for the European monetary union — regardless which variant is ultimately decided upon for dealing with Greece’s massive troubles.
Given the tense situation, the meeting in Luxembourg has been declared highly confidential, with only the euro-zone finance ministers and senior staff members permitted to attend. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Jörg Asmussen, an influential state secretary in the Finance Ministry, are attending on Germany’s behalf.
Greece's economic problems are massive, with protests against the government being held almost daily. Now Prime Minister George Papandreou apparently feels he has no other option: Spiegel Online has obtained information from German government sources knowledgeable of the situation in Athens indicating that Papandreou's government is considering abandoning the euro and reintroducing its own currency. Alarmed by Athens' intentions, the European Commission has called a crisis meeting in Luxembourg on Friday night. In addition to Greece's possible exit from the currency union, a speedy restructuring of the country's debt also features on the agenda. One year after the Greek crisis broke out, the development represents a potentially existential turning point for the European monetary union - regardless which variant is ultimately decided upon for dealing with Greece's massive troubles.
I have personally interrogated underage criminal suspects who could lie better than White House Press Secretary Jay Carney. It has been four days since the P.T. Barnum (“There’s a sucker born every minute”) proclamation of the death of Osama bin Laden (OBL). President Obama’s account of the firefight has had zero credibility from the outset and it continues to fray and wear thin as each day passes.
First, bin Laden was shooting. Then he wasn’t. Now, no pictures are going to be released. Ridiculous arguments on CNN, by House members stating that releasing photos would inflame and invite retaliation, flatly contradict what I suspect every grunt who ever earned a Combat Infantry Badge would say:
“Release the damn pictures. Give us some to hand out to the “indigs”. We got our man and that’s a message to anyone who would mess with us…Hoo Ah!”
However, as with 9-11, in order to fully appreciate the stupidity of the Obama Administration’s ploy it is only necessary to focus on one glaring inconsistency. With our focus on this inconsistency, demand an answer to it and bring down a house of cards that is already falling. This approach is essentially the same path I have taken with the War Game exercises that were being conducted on September 11th. The issue that follows is to focus on what to do with this inconsistency.
This also raises a fair question: Is 9-11 back on the table for me?
The answer is yes and no. Especially when “no” applies to any expectation that a competent, trustworthy court with jurisdiction would act with a budget and full approval of the U.S. Congress and the American people to actually reveal the truth and take action.
It is yes when, as you will hear below, responsible and credible academics and journalists see the direct connection between September 11,2001 and where we are today… and where we are headed as a planet.
This is because it is not possible to accurately understand or respond to Collapse without “seeing” all the criminality that led to it. Moreover, it is not possible to effectively deal with Collapse until the criminal behavior has been identified, addressed, and effectively terminated. Otherwise, the human race is left to confront Collapse as it is now; on an ad hoc basis, without any participation of sincere, honest and focused governmental bodies.
There is a massive awakening-taking place globally. However, the difference between this and what could be accomplished if governments were actively and helpfully involved is… maybe three billion human lives.
Now, back to Osama bin Laden.
Let’s start with what I consider the most-obvious proof that the Obama administration is lying. It comes from a world-class microbiologist who allowed me to use this quote on condition of anonymity. The simple proof of his accuracy is to just ask any microbiologist experienced in DNA sequencing about his statement. There are tens of thousands of them around the world.
Here is what he wrote me:
I am a molecular biologist and I’ve built a lucrative career in human genetics. I have run one of the world’s largest and most productive DNA genotyping facilities and now I am helping to build the global market for clinical whole human genome sequencing for the world’s largest human genome sequencing facility. I have worked with the absolute best genome scientists from the military, academia, medicine, and industry from around the world. I know DNA. And, one thing I know about DNA is that you cannot, repeat CANNOT: take a tissue sample from a shot-in-the-noggin-dead-guy in a north central Pakistan special forces op, extract the DNA, prepare the DNA for assay, test the DNA, curate the raw DNA sequence data, assemble the reads or QC the genotype, compare the tested DNA to a reference, and make a positive identity determination…. all in 12 hours- let alone transport the tissue samples all the places they’d need to have gone in order to get this done.
Some might try to argue that ruggedized, field ready kits could test a DNA sample- which is true if one is attempting to determine the CLASS of a bacteria. It is not true if one is trying to determine the specific identity of an individual. Any way you slice it, the real work would require days, and I find it unlikely (although not impossible) that an aircraft carrier would have a laboratory outfitted for this kind of work… it is not the Starship Enterprise out there.
So, maybe they did get Osama. But there is no fucking way they had any genetic proof of it by the time they dumped the body over the side. What is it that we are not supposed to see with all this distraction? I think the French call it “legerdemain”.
The only things necessary to prove or disprove this statement is to question anyone who is an expert on DNA identification.
Two more examples illustrate the lack of credibility enjoyed by the U.S. government. The first is from Tuesday’s (5-3-2011) World News Desk. The second is from today’s (5-5-2011).
Example 1
White House backtracks on how Osama bin Laden died in US raid – Telegraph
“Claims that the al-Qaeda leader had died while firing an automatic weapon at commandos were withdrawn, with President Barack Obama’s spokesman admitting “he was unarmed”. A dramatic description of bin Laden using his wife as a “human shield” and forcing her to sacrifice her life also proved to be false. The woman was still alive and was taken into custody with several of the terrorist’s children.
In an embarrassing climb-down, Barack Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, admitted that the previous version of events — which came mostly from the chief US counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan — had been put out “with great haste”.
The about-turn left the US open to accusations of a cover-up and led to calls for video footage of the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, and images of bin Laden’s body to be released to end conspiracy theories.”
Example 2
Even the Pentagon is staying away from the White House circus. Here’s a quote from a DoD publication. The story’s title? “The Bin Laden Information Drought”.
No one is complaining that bin Laden is dead. But every time Washington has to change details about what happened, it damages its credibility on the whole story. And instead of continuing to feed the ravenous reporters clamoring for information, officials are starving them: The Pentagon today cancelled its regular briefing for the second day in a row, even as the White House refers some questions about the bin Laden story to the Defense Department.
Now I am not going to do what we found necessary to do after 9-11, by making a huge (ever-growing) list of the galaxy of inconsistencies available. I am not going to repeat the work of myself and others, likeMichel ChossudovskyandPaul Thompson, on the mythological intelligence construct that was the legend of OBL. That is all meticulously documented in “Crossing the Rubicon”.
But as the world continues to ask the obvious questions and the story continues to fray, I note that the indignant refusal by Barack Obama to produce a photo is really setting off alarms. In the past, it was an essential foreign requirement to produce death photos of Josef Goebbels, Herman Goering and Saddam Hussein. No one thought that unseemly. Granted their bodies were all intact, but I should probably note that the credibility of the United States Government was – like the dollar – more intact then.
I saw a “crawl” on CNN stating that George W. Bush declined to appear at Ground Zero with President Obama for a planned extravaganza today. Even W has got enough sense to avoid that black hole. And today we see that apparently the plans for a PR extravaganza were quashed by someone telling the President to “Shut the f*** up” and keep it simple. Obama laid a wreath, shut his mouth and got the Hell out of Dodge.
The more Barack Obama beats the 9-11 drum, the more he is going to invite a bitch slap from people and even governments around the world who understand that the 9-11 story has been a lie since before the attacks occurred.
The following interview, which I gave to a German radio station catering to intellectuals and academics, about a week before the announcement of OBL’s death, is real evidence that much of the world is waiting to pounce on 9-11 anyway, especially as the rubble threatens to bury us.
You see people will accept lies if their lives get better. As their lives get worse, they will inevitably ask questions. And as their lives disintegrate, they will start looking for both answers and suspects. That was and is the swimming pool full of gasoline that Barack Obama is lighting matches in.
If the United States of America does not immediately announce a massive drawdown in Afghanistan, the world will keep asking questions about OBL because our lives will be getting worse, not better, by the day. And every time Mr. Obama opens his mouth about 9-11, he pours more gasoline into the pool and asks for another box of matches.
It was not my choice. Barack Obama has placed 9-11 back on the table again. Mainstream media, of course, can’t say Jack Diddly about this theater of the absurd, even though they’ve been cornered into asking a few pseudo-hardball questions. They are, after all, criminally culpable for the endorsement and concealment of something they damn well knew was a lie, murder, and high treason ten years ago.
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The German radio interview which follows was recorded approximately a week before Barack Obama announced the killing of OBL. Within a few days, we will be bringing you an interview with Radio New Zealand that adds more to the picture.
MIKE RUPPERT DISCUSSES 9-11 A IN DETAIL FOR THE FIRST TIME IN SEVEN YEARS – ACADEMIC PANEL SEES CLEAR CONNECTION TO CURRENT COLLAPSE
In 2008, Old-Thinker News reported on a 1994 strategic paper published by the U.S. Army War College titled “Revolution In Military Affairs And Conflict Short Of War,” written by Dr. Steven Metz (who works for the RAND Corporation) and James Kievit. Recent events have made this paper even more precient than ever. The document outlines an eerily familiar scenario in which a group of revolutionaries within government hijack control of the levers of power and begin a program of pre-emptive war, psychological operations at home and abroad, and false flag attacks blamed on “…computer generated insurgent leader[s]“.
This week, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner proposed raising the debt ceiling by $2 trillion. I thought, this should be big news! After all, a trillion is a thousand billion. This adds up to 2 thousand billion over the next 2 years!! The mainstream media greeted this story with a great big yawn. I do not get that because the Republicans and Democrats fought for weeks to only cut the budget a measly $38 billion. The press was non-stop, and Congress was only an hour away from shutting down the government. Even the $38 billion cut was a big fat lie according to CBS News. The story said in mid-April, “Well, thanks to the Congressional Budget Office and some great reporting by the Washington Post, it turns out the government won’t be cutting $38 billion in one year after all. No, the real cuts will be more like $352 million! You heard me right, $352 million, NOT $38 billion. The rest? Mostly smoke, mirrors and accounting gimmicks.” (Click here for the entire CBS News story.)
Both parties want to cut roughly $4 trillion out of the budget over the next 10 to 12 years. Can someone please explain how that is accomplished by tacking on another $2 trillion to the national tab? I do not get the math and neither does Bill Gross, the head of the biggest bond fund in the world. He said in early January, “We have a deficit in the $1 trillion plus arena, which means we must borrow at least a trillion dollars additional a year in order to fund the deficit. And, so, the debt ceiling currently at $14.3 trillion, which is 95% of GDP, has to go up by another trillion or so every 12 months.” (Click here to read my original post on the debt ceiling.) Not long after Gross made this statement, he sold most, if not all, of his U.S Treasuries. What do you know? He was right on the money. The proposal from the Treasury is a $2 trillion increase in the debt ceiling to cover the next 2 years.
You see, it’s not just the Treasuries he’s worried about, but the currency he will be paid back in. A Treasury bond pays interest. Investors buy them, if they think they can get paid back enough dollars to offset inflation and make a profit. Mr. Gross is betting the dollars he would get paid back would actually be worth less when the bond matures, and thus he holds very little U.S. government debt. In a recent article, he said, “I spoke last month to the reality of investors being “skunked” and having their pockets picked simply by receiving yields less than inflation, and suggested that as a major reason why the PIMCO ship was carrying a limited supply of Treasuries on board.” (Click here to read the latest post from Bill Gross.)
The debt ceiling currently stands at $14.3 trillion and word is we will exceed that amount by August (although some say we have already exceeded it). Reuters reported this week, “Geithner said he could avoid default until August 2, but repeated his warning that a failure to raise the borrowing cap would have a “catastrophic” impact on the economy. . . .If the debt ceiling is not raised, investors may fear that the United States could not repay its loans and so would sell U.S. government bonds. That would drive down bond prices and force the United States to offer higher interest rates to make its debt more attractive to lenders — a move that would lead to a dangerous spike in interest rates throughout the economy.”(Click here for the complete Reuters story.)
But, Mr. Geithner may have another reason for the big debt limit increase. It is continued back-door bank bailouts! Earlier this year, Geithner forgave Bank of America $127 billion in possible buy-backs of toxic mortgage debt packed into government owned mortgage giant Freddie Mac. (Click here to read more on this story.) What do you bet the other big banks want the same deal? What they should be getting is investigated and indicted for ripping off the American taxpayer. Not a single financial elite has gone to jail for causing the $12 trillion meltdown of the economy and causing millions to be foreclosed upon. The U.S. Justice Department cannot find a single crime in the entire financial debacle, but Wall Street banker bonuses keep getting bigger.
Raising the debt cap by $2 trillion will be granted to Mr. Geithner. That’s about all that will get done because if Congress can’t even cut $38 billion, how can it cut $4 trillion? (That’s 4 thousand billion.) It can’t—the cuts will never materialize. America will just get more and more inflation as the dollar is printed out of thin air to cover the cost. There is no way this ends well.
The Obama administration and the corporate media are concocting an ever-more elaborate and spectacular theater around the “heroic” murder of the CIA intelligence myth/CIA asset Osama bin Laden. Not content to simply to exploit the 9/11 atrocity for political gain, the administration is heaping new layers of lie and cover-up to the original crime.
The growing cover-up
The desperation is palpable. Just days since the “big announcement,” Obama administration officials have already been forced to backpedal, issuing multiple corrections, adding to the confusion over the location of the killing, whether bin Laden was armed or unarmed, whether there was a “firefight,” if an alleged wife was involved, the burial at sea, whether to release “graphic photos,” etc. The mainstream corporate media—following approved CIA/White House narratives—is spewing and regurgitating a tidal wave of red herrings that add to the inconsistencies.
Seasoned observers will not be fooled, no matter how many Obama lies, doctored photos, fake footage, lurid new testimonials and CIA pronouncements are pushed forth. As put simply by Paul Craig Roberts:
“As the alleged body has been dumped into the ocean, nothing remains but the word of the US government, which lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda connections, about yellowcake, about Iranian nukes, and, according to thousands of experts, about 9/11. Suddenly the government is telling us the truth about bin Laden’s death? If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I’ll let you have for a good price.”
The “war on terrorism” is a fabrication, war propaganda that continues to serve as the eternal pretext for global resource war. That 9/11 was a false flag operation—that the official story is a lie and cover-up—has been definitively proven in numerous investigations, such as Mike Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon, Michel Chossudovsky’s America’s “War on Terrorism,” the work ofPaul Thompson, and others.
Osama bin Laden is a product and asset of the CIA. “Al-Qaeda” is a covert operation, a “database” of intelligence legends, exhaustively detailed in the work of Chaim Kupferberg (Part 1 and Part Two). Pakistan’s ISI, a virtual branch of the CIA, was central to 9/11 and a player in subsequent “terror” operations. It is not surprising that Pakistan and the ISI is at the heart of the “death of bin Laden” as well.
The “death of bin Laden” changes nothing about the factual record that indicts (among others) Bush/Cheney, Anglo-American military-intelligence, and elite war/oil interests.
Tragically, none of this matters. The minority of individuals with unscrambled brains is not the target of this imperial charade.
Euphoria, brainwashing, and “imperial mobilization”
To borrow from the lexicon of world planner Zbigniew Brzezinski, 9/11 was a successful attack “on the order of Pearl Harbor” that “united” the American people behind an “imperial mobilization”—the “war on terrorism” for oil. With 9/11, the masses fully supported nearly a decade of war, atrocities, subversion, and unprecedented government criminality.
The militant and unquestioning public embrace of “war on terrorism” lies underscores how that the 9/11 has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of the Anglo-American war criminals who orchestrated it.
Now Barack Obama, who has spoken incessantly over the years about wanting to “unite” America again “just as it was after 9/11,” has been granted his moment to “unite” the masses again, but do an even better job of population control than Bush/Cheney (who, in their clumsiness and hubris, partially “squandered” their “political capital”). The swaggering Obama will “get it right.” He is a better actor, the more devious and mendacious corporatist who was selected for this specific purpose.
The 9/11 “shock effect” remains fully potent, as evidenced by the frenzy, euphoria, and stomach-turning jubilation of crowds of Americans joining in celebration orgies over a fictional murder of the fictional Osama bin Laden, a fictional revenge. Even the “intellectuals” and “experts” are treating this charade as if it is real. Corporate media headlines have declared that “the world has changed,” and the masses love it.
The post-9/11 era has spawned an entire generation of vicious and ignorant drones, whose moral compass has been shaped by war, lies, violent entertainment, and brainwashing. The future American police state will be built upon this new culture of thuggery. This is “Obama’s Animal Farm”.
To Obama, this is “what makes America great.”
Rescripting reality
In Orwellian fashion, the legend of the death of Bin Laden changes nothing in reality, but turns the mass perception of this reality upside down.
Suddenly, an unpopular Obama and his failing presidency are recast, in true Bush/Cheney fashion, as a heroic—and now successful—“war president.” He is now Obama the 9/11 avenger, protector of the American people, and the great military master.
This burnished new image, which is preposterous as the one given to George W. Bush during his reign of terror, grants Obama his own new “political capital.” Two years of flummoxing and failure, wiped out. Attacks from all sides, stopped. Obama has a political weapon to fend off attacks from the right wing. They can no longer attack Obama for being weak on foreign policy. At the same time, Obama’s corporate liberals (who care only about gaining political points on the Republicans) can return to deluding themselves about Obama’s populism, appeal and effectiveness, despite two years of absolute failure and purposely broken campaign promises. With one stroke, Obama is being handed the 2012 election.
Suddenly, Obama is not only just as “great” as Bush, but an even “cooler customer,” who singlehandedly ordered and carried out a covert operation that Bush/Cheney could not.
(This writer had expected the “I Killed Osama” prize to be granted to Bush/Cheney. Apparently, their handling of Iraq/Afghanistan did not earn them the permission.)
What real objectives will be met with this new propaganda? As noted by Paul Craig Roberts:
“My initial interpretation of the faked bin Laden death was that Obama needed closure of the Afghan war and occupation in order to deal with the US budget deficit. Subsequent statements from Obama regime officials suggest that the agenda might be to give Americans a piece of war victory in order to boost their lagging enthusiasm. The military/security complex will become richer and more powerful, and Americans will be rewarded with vicarious pleasure in victory over enemies.”
Just as the Nixon administration declared a false “victory” in aborting the disastrous war in Vietnam, Obama can declare a similar “mission accomplished” with his “Osama Kill.” This will allow the administration to redeploying forces from Afghanistan to elsewhere in the region. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other critical oil-related geography remain in US cross-hairs. The new image of Obama the “heroic anti-terrorist” will convince at least some international leaders to cooperate with the administration. The mass resistance to the US-backed regimes in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia will be at least partially neutered.
The CIA, soon to be under the command of Iraq/Afghanistan war criminal David Petraeus, is also given a new green light to continue their “war on terrorism” atrocities. This massive criminal mafia is viewed as a heroic protector of America.
A redeployment of forces back to the US is long overdue, for the continued buildup of “Obama’s Animal Farm” within US borders. The militarization of the US homeland will be ratcheted up, in order to stop domestic unrest, union protests, and popular responses to the continuing collapse of the US economy.
“Al-Qaeda,” under new leadership, will be continue to be unleashed. The next phase of the CIA deception is likely to involve the legend of jihadists avenging Osama bin Laden, including, if necessary, “new 9/11s.” The so-called Al-Qaeda number two man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who himself has “died” multiple times, will be the new boogeyman, along with other recently named “operational chiefs”, such as Adnan Shukrijumah.
The final atrocity
To add a grotesque and sickening final insult, the swaggering Barack Obama grandstanded at New York’s Ground Zero, in a staged celebration of a fictional murder, on the hallowed ground where thousands of people actually died at the hands of the US government and its covert operatives.
Obama even invited George W. Bush to share his “victory lap.”
This act of exploitation will dispel all illusions about the criminal nature of this liar who has done Bush/Cheney one better by stooping even lower into the depths of depravity.
The original Big Lie gets its bookend Big Lie.
Larry Chin is an Associate Editor of Intrepid Report.
