The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Special Update Report: Terrorism in North, West, & central Africa – From 9/11 to the Arab Spring
Professor Yonah Alexander, Director, International Center for Terrorism Studies, and Senior Fellow, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies
55 Page PDF
Chutzpah, thy name is Silverstein! Larry wants more billions for blowing up the WTC
If you thought Andrew “assassinate Obama for Israel” Adler was the last word in chutzpah…think again.
Kevin Barrett
truthjihad.blog, Saturday, February 4, 2012
Larry “blow up the World Trade Center for Israel” Silverstein is light-years beyond Adler.
Larry Silverstein, you may recall, is a reputed mobster who allegedly got his start in the sex services business and then oozed into real estate. Two months before 9/11, Silverstein finalized his 100-year-lease on the white elephant, condemned-for-asbestos World Trade Center complex – and proceeded to double the insurance and hardball his insurers into changing the policy to “cash payout.”
On 9/11/01, Silverstein skipped his usual breakfast at the top of the North Tower. He says his wife reminded him of an appointment with his dermatologist. Other family members also stayed away, with other excuses. All of those who breakfasted there died. Silverstein and family survived.
After confessing on national television to blowing up World Trade Center 7, Silverstein went to court and asked for – and received – double indemnity, including almost a billion dollars for WTC-7 – the very building he had confessed to blowing up. Larry had the chutzpah to claim that there were two separate, unrelated terrorist attacks (the two planes) so he should get twice the money. Somehow that worked, presumably thanks to a mobbed-up judge. “Lucky Larry” walked away with more than five billion dollars, plus rights to rebuild.
But that wasn't enough chutzpah for Larry. For the past several years he's been back in court, asking for 11 billion dollars from the airlines' insurers. Now Silverstein has somehow convinced AMR, the parent company of American Airlines, to give him a special dispensation. Even though AMR has filed bankruptcy, which theoretically should stop all lawsuits against it, the company's attorneys have – for unstated reasons – chosen to insert a special rider into their bankruptcy agreement which allows Silverstein to continue suing the company.
According to the Wall Street Journal:
Silverstein’s company, which leased the Twin Towers and two other World Trade Center buildings from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is seeking billions of dollars in damages for alleged negligence by the airline, according to the lawsuit. It is also seeking compensation for the lost rental income; the developer had signed 99-year leases for the space just two months before the attack.
Lost rental income?! Larry, those Towers were condemned for asbestos! You would have had to spend many billions, probably double-digit billions, to scrape every bit of asbestos off the frames of those buildings to legally collect rental income. Not only that, but the Towers had a very high vacancy rate and antiquated communications infrastructure. New York City had been desperately seeking a way to demolish the Towers for at least a decade, but could not do so because of the asbestos. The WTC complex was a gigantic money-loser for the City, and it would have quickly bankrupted any private owner…had not a certain act of urban renewal by other means taken place on 9/11/01.
As if all that isn't enough chutzpah, get this: Larry Silverstein used his 9/11 insurance fraud money to buy Chicago's Sears Tower!
How could Lucky Larry possibly top all of his previous acts of over-the-top chutzpah?
Simple: He could blow up the Sears Tower, brag about it on national TV, and collect more double-digit billions in insurance money on the premise that it was somehow the fault of the Muslims.
After all, Lucky Larry is on a winning streak.
Will he roll the dice one more time?
Phi Beta Iota: All indications are that this was an insurance scam with the full collaboration of the insurance companies. They are not stupid and they know how to spot and document fraud. Now it may well be that the airline lawsuits are also an orchestrated scam, essentially cheating all of the stockholders twice over.
AUDIO: John Williams ShadowStats 31:05
Boy oh boy, do I ever have a timely treat for you today. Back on Thursday, I was able to visit with John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics. In light of today's heavily-manipulated BLSBS report, I'd say this podcast is rather timely.
As most of you know, my college degree is in Econ so getting a chance to visit with John was a real pleasure. I mention at the end of the podcast that I could have gone on speaking with him for another hour or two but, in respect of his time, I had to cut us off after just 30 minutes. Please take the time to listen to the entire thirty minutes, though. The information that John provides, particularly near the end of the podcast as he discusses the CPI and the coming “hyperinlationary depression”, is extremely important.
I'd also like to pass along a hearty and sincere endorsement of John's work and his website. He provides plenty of information free of charge but if you want to go in-depth, you should seriously consider purchasing a subscription. The site can be found here: http://www.shadowstats.com/
I'm confident you'll enjoy this podcast and I hope to have a follow-up conversation with John sometime soon. TF
Phi Beta Iota: “Nothing like this ever before.” Ties in with a Financial Times commentary that down-graded the near future from an earlier statement “similar to 1929” toward “closer to the Dark Ages.”
See Also:
Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge, 02/03/2012
We have examined the nuance of the euphoric jobs data this morning from every angle and by now there should be plenty of ‘information' for investors to make their own minds up on its credibility. However, the avuncular CEO of TrimTabs, who despite channeling Lewis Black lately, likely knows this data a little better than the average Jim on the street having collected tax witholdings data for the past 14 years, is modestly apoplectic at the adjustments. In one of his more colorful episodes, and rightfully so, Charles Biderman notes that “Either there is something massively changed in the income tax collection world, or there is something very, very suspicious about today’s BLS hugely positive number,” adding, “Actual jobs, not seasonally adjusted, are down 2.9 million over the past two months. It is only after seasonal adjustments – made at the sole discretion of the Bureau of Labor Statistics economists – that 2.9 million fewer jobs gets translated into 446,000 new seasonally adjusted jobs.” A 3.3 million “adjustment” solely at the discretion of the BLS? And this from the agency that just admitted it was underestimating the so very critical labor participation rate over the past year? Finally, Biderman wonders whether the BLS is being pressured during an election year to paint an overly optimistic picture by President Obama’s administration in light of these ‘real unadjusted job change' facts. Frankly, in light of recent discoveries about the other “impartial” organization, the CBO, we don't think there is any need to wonder at all.
The Crucial Pillar of the New World Order
by Gary North
LouRockwell.com, February 4, 2012
One of the most alluring temptations that face men is the desire to enter the inner ring. C. S. Lewis wrote a wonderful essay with this title. It should be part of every person's rite of passage into adulthood.
The desire to enter the inner ring is closely related to the desire to maintain a New World Order. There is always an institutional claimant to New World Order status. It is always structured in terms of a series of concentric rings. These rings are always vertical. They are part of a pyramid of power. They are best represented by a stepped pyramid. (See Genesis 11.)
Every empire has been founded in the name of – on behalf of – some version of a New World Order. Empires all have this in common: they are eventually replaced. There is nothing more defunct than a New World Order that has failed. Think “Ottoman Empire.” Think “Thousand-Year Reich.” Think “British Empire.” Think “Soviet Union.”
When they are riding high, they seem unbeatable. What could possibly replace them? Most people cannot imagine anything. But there are always a few who can. They get together informally to help arrange the transition. Then they get together formally. They screen access to meetings. They set up a new inner ring.
In our day, the cry is “Next year, in Davos!” The best book on this is an insider's book, David Rothkopf's Superclass. It is not a conspiracy theory-type book. It is a “look how we've made it” book. It's a “top of the world, Ma!” book. He also sees that this superclass is vulnerable to changes outside of its control: in Asia, in the Third World. “We've made it” can become “we've lost it.”
Count on it.
David Weinberger
Released 3 January 2012
“Too Big To Know is Weinberger's brilliant synthesis of myriad little debates—information overload, echo chambers, the wisdom of crowds—into a single vision of life and work in an era of networked knowledge.”
His earlier books include The Cluetrain Manifesto, Everything Loose Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web, and Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder.
NET SMART: How to Thrive Online
Howard Rheingold
Available for Pre-Order Release Date 16 March 2012
Rheingold outlines five fundamental digital literacies, online skills that will help us do this: attention, participation, collaboration, critical consumption of information (or “crap detection”), and network smarts. He explains how attention works, and how we can use our attention to focus on the tiny relevant portion of the incoming tsunami of information. He describes the quality of participation that empowers the best of the bloggers, netizens, tweeters, and other online community participants; he examines how successful online collaborative enterprises contribute new knowledge to the world in new ways; and he teaches us a lesson on networks and network building.
Iran: Supreme Leader Khamenei made a significant statement of defiance against sanctions and Israel during a rare Friday prayer lecture at Tehran University. “‘From now onward, we will support and help any nations, any groups fighting against the Zionist regime across the world, and we are not afraid of declaring this,' Khamenei said.
Comment: This threat looks serious. Iran's retaliation for sanctions will be unconventional. The hostility of its leaders to Israel looks implacable. Long before Iran executes the threat, the Ayatollah Khamenei must deal with the consequences of losing Syria as an ally and a bridge to its proxies, Lebanese Hezbollah and Hamas. The threat rings increasingly hollow, plus Iran is undergoing a monetary meltdown which provides a motive for the Ayatollah to appeal to the external threat to shore up national unity.
NIGHTWATCH KGS Home
Phi Beta Iota: Between the Israelis, the US, and Saudi Arabia, Iran can be put in a very tight box. One can only marvel at the hubris of these governments, and recollect how the same treatment of Cuba produced Che Guevara, how the arrogance of the British in thinking they new best produced a divided India, with Pakistan the rogue and Bangladesh the cesspool, both suffering for going against Gandhi's wisdom. Governments stink at geo-politics. In fact they stink at pretty much everything. It's time for a mass non-violent uprising of collective intelligence.
See Also:
The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State
The full force of the author's thinking comes into full stride in the concluding portions of the book as he integrates new concepts of international law, history, social relations, and new forms of intergovernmental relations truly representative of the species as a whole and the people as a moral force. He laments the manner in which an extraordinarily global elite has been able to “separate” people from morality and from one another, leading to a common acceptance of five intolerable things: 1) unequal social development; 2) war and armaments; 3) governmental oppression; 4) physical degradation; and 5) spiritual degradation.
THE OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING MANIFESTO: Transparency, Truth, & Trust
