WHO chief yet to be vaccinated against swine flu

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article
GENEVA — World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan revealed Tuesday that she has yet to be vaccinated against the swine flu virus, which has killed over 11,500 people world-wide.

"I have asked my medical service to enquire where I can go to get my vaccination," she told reporters in Geneva, pointing out that she has just returned from leave.

Are Presidents Afraid of the CIA?

By Ray McGovern
December 29, 2009
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/122909b.html

Not Just Paranoia

President Obama stands in the tradition of a dozen American presidents. Harry Truman and John Kennedy were the only ones to take on the CIA directly. 

Truman wrote that he was “disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment” to keep the President promptly and fully informed and had become “an operational and at times policy-making arm of the government.”

[During a 27-year career at CIA, Ray McGovern served under nine CIA directors and in all four of CIA’s main directorates, including operations. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).]

Serco - The biggest UK company you have never heard of

Traffic lights, prisons, air traffic control and much more...

How Goldman Sachs Made Tens Of Billions Of Dollars From The Economic Collapse Of America In Four Easy Steps

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/how-goldman-sachs-made-tens-of-billions-of-dollars-from-the-economic-collapse-of-america-in-four-easy-steps

The following is how Goldman Sachs made tens of billions of dollars from the economic collapse of America in four easy steps...

Step 1: Sell mortgage-related securities that are absolute junk to trusting clients at vastly overinflated prices.
Step 2: Bet against those same mortgage-related securities and make massive bets against the U.S. housing market so that your firm will make massive profits when the U.S. economy collapses.
Step 3: Have ex-Goldman executives in key positions of power in the U.S. government so that bailout money can be funneled to entities such as AIG that Goldman has made these bets with so that they can get paid after they win their bets.
Step 4: Collect the profits - Goldman Sachs is having their "most successful year" and will end up reporting approximately $50 billion in revenue for 2009.

NYPD Closes Down Times Square in Response to Suspicious Van

Dow Jones Newswire    December 30, 2009
A New York Police Department spokesman said it was too early in the investigation to comment on the nature of a suspicious van in Times Square on Wednesday, but police had evacuated some nearby buildings as a precaution.



OK, lets recap.. in the last week have an Underwear bomber who was escorted onto the plane without a passport by a man in a suit and then was filmed on the plane, a suspected Capitol hill gunman, National Guard to the NY airports, full body scanners, expanded war plans to Yemen, and now a suspicious van in Times Square. Oh, and its all believed to be linked to Al-Qaeda. 

And what's going on with the healthcare bill?

US, Yemen gear up for flight 253 retaliatory strike

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=114979&sectionid=351020206
Press TV   December 30, 2009
Washington and Sana'a are reviewing targets for a possible retaliation strike on Yemeni soil in the wake of a failed Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound airliner, which al-Qaeda in Yemen claims to have organized.

Two senior US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNN on Tuesday that the effort is aimed at devising options for the White House, in case President Barack Obama orders a retaliatory strike.

Bankers Get $4 Trillion Gift From Barney Frank: David Reilly

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=a48c8UpUMxKQ
Commentary by David Reilly
Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- To close out 2009, I decided to do something I bet no member of Congress has done -- actually read from cover to cover one of the pieces of sweeping legislation bouncing around Capitol Hill. 

Hunkering down by the fire, I snuggled up with H.R. 4173, the financial-reform legislation passed earlier this month by the House of Representatives. The Senate has yet to pass its own reform plan. The baby of Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, the House bill is meant to address everything from too-big-to-fail banks to asleep-at-the-switch credit-ratings companies to the protection of consumers from greedy lenders.

French court throws out Sarkozy’s carbon tax

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/court-throws-out-sarkozys-carbon-tax-20091230-ljyq.html  
PARIS: France's new carbon emission tax, due to have gone into effect tomorrow, has been ruled illegal by the country's constitutional court because it exempted too many polluters.

The Conseil Constitutionnel struck down the tax on Tuesday because the exemptions breached ''the principle of [tax] equality''.

Officials Admit Second Man Detained As More Witnesses Emerge

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2009/12/flight_253_passenger_tells_msn.html
The news about a person being taken into custody comes after two passengers aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 said they saw a second man being taken away in handcuffs on Christmas Day while they and others were waiting to be interviewed by FBI agents at the airport.

Kurt Haskell, a Taylor, Mich., attorney who says he was seated a few rows behind suspected terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, told MLive.com on Saturday that he saw a second man taken into custody after search dogs appeared to find something in his carry-on bag.

Daniel Huisinga of Fairview, Tenn., who was returning from an internship in Kenya for the holidays, says he also saw a man being taken away in handcuffs at the airport after a dog search. A third person, Roey Rosenblith, told The Huffington Post on Sunday that he saw a man in a suit being placed into handcuffs and escorted out, as well.

So why does the FBI say this?

Bill Carter, a spokesman with the FBI in Washington, D.C., said in an interview Tuesday that Abdulmutallab was the only person arrested or charged in relation to Friday's foiled attack.

Secret CIA Jails in Lithuania: Legacy of Nazi Collaborationism

http://en.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=2678
Nil Nikandrov
Strategic Culture Foundation
December 30, 2009

"The exact number of inmates who had been to the CIA jails in Lithuania is unknown. In most cases, eight individuals are reported to have been held in the Antaviliai torture chamber by the time it was closed in November, 2005. The truth is that chartered planes from Afghanistan came to Lithuania with certain regularity, and the number of people tortured had probably been some ten times higher."