First UFO Conference Under Way In Joburg

November 29, 2011

The Citizen

By KARABO MAHLAKA

“UFOs are a hot topic everywhere. Even in Africa.” –KTRN

Academics and amateurs gathered at the first UFO Science and Consciousness conference in South Africa, at the Linder Auditorium –Wits education centre yesterday.

Scheduled discussions at the conference, which runs from November 25-27 includes; the origins of humankind, outlays in the universe, the infinite number of human beings, the creation of the universe, divine creation of the force and God, physics and controversial topics of unidentified flying objects (UFOs)

“Extra terrestrial objects (advanced beings) in the form of UFOs, technologies, machines, are sometimes visible and flying, and do exist .” Michael Tellinger, coordinator of the conference said

“Just because we cannot see it, does not mean unidentified flying objects do not exist”

The science and consciousness conference houses keynote speakers from around the world who have dedicated years of research and evidence in theology, physics and astrology.

“South Africa has been dubbed as the cradle of human kind and the place where all life form began, thus the reason SA was selected as the host for the UFO science and consciousness conference.”

We have scientific evidence that there was physical life before humans which were African knowledge keepers and custodians of secret knowledge” added Tellinger.

Click here for the full report.

What’s Next for Mars Exploration?

November 29, 2011

Space.Com

By Denise Chow

“Wouldn’t it be nice if NASA told us the truth about Mars?  Why is the sky blue? What are these weird ruins? Explain the possible vegetation.  How is there current flowing water on Mars? And will they please explain this image? And to think Mars is a dead planet.   Highly unlikely.  Maybe we’re the Martians …” –KTRN

NASA launched its newest, largest and most sophisticated rover yet to Mars on Saturday (Nov. 26), marking an important step toward the agency’s ambitious goal of one day landing humans on the surface of the Red Planet.

The Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity rover, lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. After an 8 1/2-month journey, the rover is expected to arrive at the Red Planet in August 2012. Once on the surface, Curiosity will investigate whether the planet is or ever was habitable.

The rover is also equipped with 10 different instruments that will allow it to dig, drill, and shoot a laser into rocks to examine the chemical makeup of Martian soil and dust. The mission will help scientists understand the environment and atmosphere of Mars, which will be essential for planning a manned mission to the planet.

“The goal [is] to send humans to Mars and return them back again safely — in order to return them back safely, we really need to know about the surface properties,” Doug Ming, a co-investigator for the Mars Science Laboratory, said in a news briefing Wednesday (Nov. 23) from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Curiosity will characterize Martian dust by drilling into rocks and studying their chemical properties, Ming explained. The rover will also be able to determine how pervasive the dust is on the surface of the planet.

Click here for the full report.

Lawyers For RFK Assassin Sirhan Say Bullet Was Switched At Trial

November 29, 2011

Fox News

By The Associated Press

“Since many of us think that Lee Harvey Oswald never could have carried out the assassination of JFK by himself, it’s perfectly normal to be skeptical of the official story on RFK’s assassination too.” –KTRN

Lawyers representing convicted assassin Sirhan Sirhan argue in newly filed court documents that a bullet was switched in evidence at his trial and new forensic details show he is innocent of the 1968 killing of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.

In the latest of many appeals filed on behalf of Sirhan, the attorneys are seeking to overturn his conviction. They repeated a previous assertion and presented reports from experts who said Sirhan was programmed through hypnosis to fire shots as a diversion for the real killer.

Prosecutors had no comment, said Lynda Gledhill, a spokeswoman for the California attorney general’s office, which is handling the appeal.

The lawyers, William F. Pepper and Laurie Dusek, also said sophisticated audio tests recently conducted on recordings from the assassination night show 13 shots from multiple guns were fired — five more than Sirhan could have fired from his small pistol.

Authorities have claimed eight bullets were fired, with three hitting Kennedy and the rest flying wildly around the kitchen and striking five other victims who survived.

Paul Schrade, who was struck by gunfire, refused to comment on the new filing, saying he is working on his own new analysis of the assassination.

Pepper and Dusek argue that before Sirhan’s trial, someone switched a bullet before it was placed in evidence because the bullet taken from Kennedy’s neck did not match Sirhan’s gun. The lawyers suggest a second gun was involved in the assassination, but they do not know who fired it.

Pepper said the new evidence outlined in a 62-page federal court brief filed in Los Angeles is sufficient to prove Sirhan is innocent under the law.

“They put fabricated evidence into court before the judge and jury” Pepper told The Associated Press. “We are satisfied that for the first time in 43 years of this case we think we have the evidence to set this conviction aside,”

The motion was filed last week in federal court in Los Angeles

Whether it has any chance of success is questionable, said leading appellate lawyer Dennis Fischer of Santa Monica.

“It’s a longshot in the longest way,” he said, “but they certainly are raising intriguing questions.”

He said the passage of time weighs against defense appeals, with courts tending to ask what took so long to raise the issues. However, he said federal courts frequently are willing to take a closer look at cases in which governmental misconduct is alleged, even if it is long after the fact.

“The current thinking by the U.S. Supreme Court is these things need to end,” said Fischer. But he added in case with such historical importance, “No one will ever be satisfied.”

Sirhan, now 67, a Palestinian immigrant, was denied parole after a hearing last March where he denied any memory of shooting Kennedy on June 5, 1968, moments after he claimed victory in the California presidential primary.

Parole officials said he doesn’t understand the enormity of his crime that changed U.S. history.

Pepper and Dusek are the latest attorneys to take up Sirhan’s case after his conviction and argue on his behalf before parole boards and courts.. All of his appeals have been turned down. Pepper, who has taken on other unpopular cases including that of Martin Luther King assassin James Earl Ray, stepped in after Sirhan’s previous lawyer died.

Click here for the full report.

$707,568,901,000,000: How (And Why) Banks Increased Total Outstanding Derivatives By A Record $107 Trillion In 6 Months

November 29, 2011

Zero Hedge

By Tyler Durden

While everyone was focused on the impending European collapse, the latest soon to be refuted rumors of a quick fix from the Welt am Sonntag notwithstanding, the Bank of International Settlements reported a number that quietly slipped through the cracks of the broader media. Which is paradoxical because it is the biggest ever reported in the financial world: the number in question is $707,568,901,000,000 and represents the latest total amount of all notional Over The Counter (read unregulated) outstanding derivatives reported by the world’s financial institutions to the BIS for its semi-annual OTC derivatives report titled “OTC derivatives market activity in the first half of 2011.” Indicatively, global GDP is about $63 trillion if one can trust any numbers released by modern governments. Said otherwise, for the six month period ended June 30, 2011, the total number of outstanding derivatives surged past the previous all time high of $673 trillion from June 2008, and is now firmly in 7-handle territory: the synthetic credit bubble has now been blown to a new all time high. Another way of looking at the data is that one of the key contributors to global growth and prosperity in the past 10 years was an increase in total derivatives from just under $100 trillion to $708 trillion in exactly one decade. And soon we have to pay the mean reversion price.

What is probably just as disturbing is that in the first 6 months of 2011, the total outstanding notional of all derivatives rose from $601 trillion at December 31, 2010 to $708 trillion at June 30, 2011. A $107 trillion increase in notional in half a year. Needless to say this is the biggest increase in history. So why did the notional increase by such an incomprehensible amount? Simple: based on some widely accepted (and very much wrong) definitions of gross market value (not to be confused with gross notional), the value of outstanding derivatives actually declined in the first half of the year from $21.3 trillion to $19.5 trillion (a number still 33% greater than US GDP). Which means that in order to satisfy what likely threatened to become a self-feeding margin call as the (previously) $600 trillion derivatives market collapsed on itself, banks had to sell more, more, more derivatives in order to collect recurring and/or upfront premia and to pad their books with GAAP-endorsed delusions of future derivative based cash flows. Because derivatives in addition to a core source of trading desk P&L courtesy of wide bid/ask spreads (there is a reason banks want to keep them OTC and thus off standardization and margin-destroying exchanges) are also terrific annuities for the status quo. Just ask Buffett why he sold a multi-billion index put on the US stock market. The answer is simple – if he ever has to make good on it, it is too late.

Which brings us to the the chart showing total outstanding notional derivatives by 6 month period below. The shaded area is what that the BIS, the bank regulators, and the OCC urgently hope that the general public promptly forgets about and brushes under the carpet.

Try not to laugh. Or cry. Or gloss over, because when it comes to visualizing $708 trillion most really are incapable of doing so.

Click here for the full report.

Banking System Rotten to the Core

November 29, 2011

Financial Sense

By Professor William Black

“William Black calls for criminal prosecution of bankers and he’s right.”  –KTRN

In the Savings and Loans crisis, which was 1/70th the size of this crisis, our agency made over 10,000 criminal referrals that resulted in the conviction on felony grounds of over 1,000 elites in what were designated as major cases. And to pick up on what’s just been said, this is not just some sidelight to economics, this is why we have recurrent intensifying crises, is these epidemics of fraud from the C-Street—from the CEOs and CFOs.

In the Savings and Loans crisis, the inevitable National Commission said that fraud was invariably present at the typical large failure. In the Enron era, always frauds from the very top of the organization, and in this crisis the frauds came from the very top of the organization again. But what’s different in this crisis? In this crisis, the same agency that I worked with that made over 10,000 criminal referrals in a tinier crisis made zero criminal referrals. They got rid of the entire function. And so there are zero convictions of anybody in the elite ranks of Wall Street. And if they can defraud us with impunity they will cause crisis after crisis and they will produce maximum inequality.

The group that has the audacity to refer to itself as the productive class is the largest destroyer of lives, jobs, and of wealth of any group ever produced in this world. They wiped out six million existing jobs and five to six million jobs that would’ve been created. As you’ve heard, they’ve left 26 million Americans wanting full-time work with no ability to find that work. If you look at just losses in the household sector, it is $11 trillion. A trillion is a thousand billion. And then they have the nerve to say they are the productive class; and, not this journalist, but what we get as faux journalism today, repeats this endlessly as if it were a fact—that they create jobs. They destroy jobs. They are mass destroyers of jobs.

I told you I would bring you a message of hope. I will disagree a little bit with a fact pattern about the Reagan administration and re-regulation on Savings and Loans, because that’s where I was. I will tell you this: everyone opposed our re-regulation of the industry. The big deregulation bill, the equivalent of the repeal of Glass-Steagall and such, occurred in 1982 and became effective in 1983. By November 1983, we were already re-regulating the Savings and Loan industry. And we were called re-regulators because that was the greatest swear word the Reagan administration believed existed—to call people re-regulators. But this was not partisan—a majority of the members of the House at the time it was controlled by Democrats co-sponsored a resolution saying do not go forward with re-regulation.

Click here for the full report.

The Shocking Truth About The Crackdown On Occupy

November 29, 2011

The Guardian

By Naomi Wolf

“The cops love protests.  It gives them the opportunity to finally use pepper spray on innocent citizens.  Let us not forget what happened at Kent State.  Don’t think it can’t happen again because it can.”  -KTRN

US citizens of all political persuasions are still reeling from images of unparallelled police brutality in a coordinated crackdown against peaceful OWS protesters in cities across the nation this past week. An elderly woman was pepper-sprayed in the face; the scene of unresisting, supine students at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed by phalanxes of riot police went viral online; images proliferated of young women – targeted seemingly for their gender – screaming, dragged by the hair by police in riot gear; and the pictures of a young man, stunned and bleeding profusely from the head, emerged in the record of the middle-of-the-night clearing of Zuccotti Park.

But just when Americans thought we had the picture – was this crazy police and mayoral overkill, on a municipal level, in many different cities? – the picture darkened. The National Union of Journalists and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a Freedom of Information Act request to investigate possible federal involvement with law enforcement practices that appeared to target journalists. The New York Times reported that “New York cops have arrested, punched, whacked, shoved to the ground and tossed a barrier at reporters and photographers” covering protests. Reporters were asked by NYPD to raise their hands to prove they had credentials: when many dutifully did so, they were taken, upon threat of arrest, away from the story they were covering, and penned far from the site in which the news was unfolding. Other reporters wearing press passes were arrested and roughed up by cops, after being – falsely – informed by police that “It is illegal to take pictures on the sidewalk.”

In New York, a state supreme court justice and a New York City council member were beaten up; in Berkeley, California, one of our greatest national poets, Robert Hass, was beaten with batons. The picture darkened still further when Wonkette and Washingtonsblog.com reported that the Mayor of Oakland acknowledged that the Department of Homeland Security had participated in an 18-city mayor conference call advising mayors on “how to suppress” Occupy protests.

Click here for the full report.

Why Is The American Establishment Media Sanitizing Reality?

November 29, 2011

Activist Post

By Madison Ruppert

“So Time Magazine prints different covers for the US edition of its magazine.  In European, Asian, and South Pacific version, the cover shows chaos in the streets of Egypt.  The American version is a cartoon about anxiety.  No wonder we’re nervous!”  –KTRN

The December 5th, 2011 cover of Time Magazine represents a disturbing truth: the American corporate-controlled establishment media presents a picture of the world that is meant to placate and pacify the people of the United States in favor of presenting reality as it is.

While the covers of the European, Asian, and South Pacific editions have an image of chaos in the streets in Egypt with “Revolution Redux” in bold white letters in the center, the American edition is a cartoon with the headline “Why Anxiety is Good for You.”

Is this just a meaningless marketing tactic or does it exemplify the greater trend in how the American corporate media presents the world to the people of the United States?

I tend towards the latter, given the fact that this is something that is inescapable when consuming media marketed to people in the United States.

When I have the unfortunate pleasure of turning on the radio and listening to National Public Radio, I never cease to be amazed by the topics they choose to cover.

While much of the economies of the world are in shambles, uprisings both real and manufactured are occurring around the globe, brutal police crackdowns are taking place in the United States and the federal government is attempting to legalize indefinite military detention of civilians, even American citizens, without trial or charge, they opt for fluff stories with little-to-no meaning whatsoever.

This is the unfortunate nature of the “infotainment” industry that appeals to the lowest common denominator instead of attempting to inform and educate their audience.

The debatable aspect of this grim fact is if it is simply a result of sacrificing information and content in favor of ratings or if it is a calculated agenda to dumb down the American people.

I tend to fall into the camp of people who believe that this has been too pervasive and relentless to be the product of just doing whatever it takes to get ratings.

Take, for instance, the recent study that found that viewers of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News were actually less informed about current events than people who watched no news at all.

While this probably seems like a somewhat obvious conclusion to anyone who has sat down and watched Fox News, the fact that it was actually shown in a study is quite surprising.

Then again, when their own hosts don’t watch the entire clips they are covering and supposed legal experts claim that pepper spray is a food product while proving they are wholly ignorant of California legal precedent, one can’t expect much.

The poll was conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University and utilized 612 New Jersey natives. Fans of Fox News failed questions about Syria and Egypt, even when compared with people who said they didn’t watch the news.

The New York Daily News wrote, “Fox News fans flunked questions about Egypt and Syria when compared with people who don’t watch the news. Fox viewers were 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians toppled their government and 6 points less likely to be aware that Syrians have not yet overthrown theirs.”

That being said, I might point out that the Egyptians did not in fact “topple their government” instead they ousted Mubarak and replaced him with an arguably even more brutal military junta.

Dan Cassino, a professor at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the poll said that since they controlled for partisanship, this was not a question of Republicans or other groups being more prone to watch Fox News.

The results actually found, “there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions that those (sic) who don’t watch any news at all.”

How can this happen? Is it just that they are seeking to entertain and not really inform? Or are news outlets like Murdoch’s Fox News actually there to make the American people perpetually ignorant?

Click here for the full report.

Judges Gone Wild: 9,000+ Juveniles Processed Yearly Into Adult Jails, 2/3 For Nonviolent Crimes

November 29, 2011

Scripps News

By Issac Wolf

“The only people who should be in jail are those convicted of murder, rape, robbery, assault, massive theft, and anything that physically harms another person.  Being caught with heroin doesn’t hurt anyone – except for the user.  How bout a fine instead?  Or treatment?  Nah, let’s just send them to jail with rapists – they deserve it.”  –KTRN

Nine thousand times a year, U.S. judges move the cases of juvenile suspects into criminal court, opening the door to a stay in adult jail.

While judges say these transfers are meant for youths suspected of the most dangerous offenses, only two out of five transferred youths stand accused of a violent crime against another person, the Scripps Howard News Service found in analyzing data from almost a quarter-million cases. Most youngsters moved to adult court are charged with crimes involving drugs, weapons or property.

A case transfer flags a suspect 17 or younger as an adult. Forty-seven states allow these “certified” juveniles to be held in adult jail, the U.S. Justice Department says; 14 of them sometimes require it.

Most transferred juveniles face charges for crimes other than murder, rape, robbery or assault, National Center for Juvenile Justice data show. The Pittsburgh-based nonprofit publishes records covering 228,771 cases moved from youth court to the adult criminal justice system from 1985 to 2008.

Transfers to the adult system can negatively affect young suspects, reducing their access to social services, lengthening the time needed to resolve a case and increasing the chances that the youths will reoffend, some researchers and youth advocates say.

Judges transfer far too many juveniles, suggested Kevin Burke, president of the American Judges Association.

“There are a fair number of not-very-serious offenders who end up getting certified. I don’t quite understand that, to be honest with you,” Burke said, responding to the Scripps findings. The Minneapolis-area district court judge has served 27 years on the bench.

Even a very young age doesn’t exempt defendants from transfer. The database shows some 1,528 suspects 12 or younger were transferred, including 623 charged with violent crimes. More — 651 — faced charges of property crimes.

Those data may not reflect the scope of the crimes, Burke said, explaining that some juveniles who committed more serious crimes pled to lesser charges.

Burke said he would encourage his organization’s 3,000 members to reduce judicial transfers.

The volume of transferred youths somewhat mirrors teen crime rates. A national teen crime wave in the early 1990s increased the number of transfers, which crested at 13,710 in 1994, then declined and leveled off at about 9,000 a year by 2000.

Click her for the full report.

Congress To Vote Next Week On EXPLICITLY Creating A Police State

November 29, 2011

Blacklisted News

By Blacklisted News

“The National Defense Authorization Act will let the powers that be arrest anyone for no reason without a trial right from their backyards.  How could anyone think this is a good thing?” –KTRN

The police brutality against peaceful protesters in Berkeley, Davis, Oakland and elsewhere is bad enough.

But next week, Congress will vote on explicitly creating a police state.

The ACLU’s Washington legislative office explains:

The Senate is gearing up for a vote on Monday or Tuesday that goes to the very heart of who we are as Americans. The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself.

The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world.

The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself. The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday.

I know it sounds incredible. New powers to use the military worldwide, even within the United States? Hasn’t anyone told the Senate that Osama bin Laden is dead, that the president is pulling all of the combat troops out of Iraq and trying to figure out how to get combat troops out of Afghanistan too? And American citizens and people picked up on American or Canadian or British streets being sent to military prisons indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. Really? Does anyone think this is a good idea? And why now?

In support of this harmful bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) explained that the bill will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield” and people can be imprisoned without charge or trial “American citizen or not.” Another supporter, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) also declared that the bill is needed because “America is part of the battlefield.”

The senators pushing the indefinite detention proposal have made their goals very clear that they want an okay for a worldwide military battlefield, that even extends to your hometown.

Click here for the full report.

Ron Paul Explains His Plan For “Monetary Freedom” And Returning To The Gold Standard

November 29, 2011

Prison Planet

By Zero Hedge

“Ron Paul is only candidate who is talking about the issues that really matter. He is the obvious choice. A debate between Ron Paul and Obama would be something special to watch. Let’s make it happen.” –KTRN

Ron Paul lays it out: “We know what to do – we did it once after the Civil War period, we went from a paper standard back to the gold standard, and the event wasn’t that dramatic. But today the big problem is that both the conservatives and liberals have an big apetite for big government for different reasons, therefore they need the Fed to tie them over and monetize the debt. So if you don’t get rid of that appetite it’s going to be more difficult, but the transition isn’t that difficult. You have to get your house in order; you have to balance the budget, you have to not run up debt, and you have to promise not to print any more money… I would like to have a transition period and just legalize gold money, gold and silver as legal tender, and work our way back… We want to legalize the use of gold and silver as the constitution dictates, rather than punishing the people who try to do that… I am quite convinced that the system we have will not be maintained – that’s what these last 4 years was all about, and that’s what the turmoil in Europe is all about.

Click here for the full report.

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