more than $1 trillion a year is paid in bribery globally-Mariam Mendoza Steinbuch, who was a staff sergeant deployed as a contracting specialist in 2006, was arraigned Tuesday in federal court in Washington. pleading guilty to accepting a $25,000 bribe in exchange for awarding numerous contracts to a Lebanon-based company at Camp Fallujah in Iraq. Court filings do not disclose the name of the company or the value of the contracts it was awarded in the scheme. Greed and competition are not a result of immutable human temperament. All told, about 239,451 contractors work for the Pentagon in battle zones around the world. Currently, the Pentagon and the State Department employ some 18,800 armed “private security contractors” in Iraq and another 23,700 in Afghanistan to protect convoys, diplomats and other personnel, and military bases and other facilities at a cost estimated to run into billions of dollars a year.
October 7, 2010
gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman …
The rich will strive to establish their dominion and enslave the rest, They always did. They Always will. The hand that gives is above the hand that takes. The ruling class, being small and largely specialized, is motivated to think about its economic interests twenty-four hours a day… They are constantly at work trying to preserve and expand their privileges. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman-she had employed an undocumented worker, Nicandra Diaz, as her housekeeper, Whitman said the state should crackdown on employers who hire illegal immigrants while doing the same herself.
October 6, 2010
U.S. corruption probe/war against drugs
The agencies responsible for past errors are too concerned to preserve not only their reputations but their alliances and, above all, the corrupt social systems in which such alliances have thrived. Consequently an international drug traffic, which the United States helped enlarge, continues to thrive.
The suspects include a dozen prison guards, two soldiers in the U.S. Army, three National Guard soldiers and civilians. In pre-dawn raids, about 1,000 federal agents swept up about 130 people, including nearly 90 law enforcement officers accused of providing security to drug dealers on a U.S. territory where police are struggling to curb spiraling crime and rampant drug smuggling.
The hidden stakes in the war against drugs can be summed up in a single word: MONEY.
Stripper, drugs, guns
A 67-year-old federal judge’s wild relationship with a stripper started with a lap dance, prosecutors said, and quickly escalated into escapades of prostitution and gun-toting drug deals for cocaine and prescription pills.
the survival of the slickest. “loyal only to themselves” the creation of money corruption in high places It is a corporately planned and controlled. When the money’s on the table, virtually everyone’s going to take some. There is only one thing in this world, and that is to keep acquiring money and more money, power and more power.
October 5, 2010
U.S., UK raise terrorism threat level in Europe
Terrorism has become a sort of screen created by policymakers in Washington … It is fabricated to keep the population afraid and insecure, and to justify what the United States wishes to do globally.
The United States and Britain warned their citizens on Sunday of an increased risk of terrorist attacks in Europe, with Washington saying al Qaeda might target transport infrastructure.
October 4, 2010
October 3, 2010
US apologizes for ’40s syphilis study in Guatemala
WASHINGTON – American scientists deliberately infected prisoners and patients in a mental hospital in Guatemala with syphilis 60 years ago, a recently unearthed experiment that prompted U.S. officials to apologize Friday and declare outrage over “such reprehensible research.” However, The Tuskegee Syphilis Study is one of the most horrendous examples of research carried out in disregard of basic ethical principles of conduct. The publicity surrounding the study was one of the major influences leading to the codification of protection for human subjects.
In 1928, the director of medical services for the Julius Rosenwald Fund, a Chicago-based charity, approached the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) to consider ways to improve the health of African Americans in the South. At the time, the PHS had just finished a study of the prevalence of syphilis among black employees of the Delta Pine and Land Company of Mississippi. About 25% of the sample of over 2000 had tested positive for syphilis.
The PHS and the Rosenwald fund collaborated in treating these individuals. Subsequently, the treatment program was expanded to include five additional counties in the southern U.S.: Albemarle County, Virginia; Glynn County, Georgia; Macon County, Alabama; Pitt County, North Carolina; and Tipton County, Tennessee (Jones, 1981).
During the set-up phase of the treatment program, the Great Depression began. The Rosenwald Fund was hit hard and had to withdraw its support. Without the Rosenwald Fund, the PHS did not have the resources to implement treatment.
During this period, there was a debate occurring in health circles about possible racial variation in the effects of syphilis. Dr. Taliaferro Clark of the PHS suggested that the project could be partially “salvaged” by conducting a prospective study on the effects of untreated syphilis on living subjects. Clark’s suggestion was adopted.
In the beginning stages of the project, the PHS enlisted the support of the Tuskegee Institute. Since the Tuskegee Institute had a history of service to local African Americans, its participation increased the likelihood of the “success” of the experiment. In return, Tuskegee Institute received money, training for its interns, and employment for its nurses. In addition, the PHS recruited black church leaders, community leaders, and plantation owners to encourage participation.
At the time of the project, African Americans had almost no access to medical care. For many participants, the examination by the PHS physician was the first health examination they had ever received. Along with free health examinations, food and transportation were supplied to participants. Thus, it was not difficult to recruit African American men as participants in the study. Burial stipends were used to get permission from family members to perform autopsies on study participants (Jones, 1981).
While study participants received medical examinations, none were told that they were infected with syphilis.
