Shedding light: Initiative to monitor EU lobbyists

"...In early October, a small group of activists charged that ... it was money and secretly wielded influence that was deciding important issues. At a lunch-time protest, the activists covered the tree with dozens of yellow paper cut-outs of the Euro, and held up a sign of their own: "End Lobbying Secrecy." The activists charge that powerful industry groups such as SEAP, which represents more than 200 corporate lobbyists, exert undue influence on European legislative decisions, operate in secret and avoid oversight.

"Nobody knows who's actually lobbying on behalf of whom," says Caroline Lucas, a British Member of the European Parliament (MEP), who came out the official buildings to join the activist protest. "There's a massive corporate lobby here, but it's secretive and it has access to the Commission in a way that we, as parliamentarians, frankly can only dream of. There is no kind of register -- I think it is absolutely crucial. That's the only way to ensure that people have confidence in the system, in the decisions that are made here."

The system now includes more than 15,000 lobbyists who work in Brussels to aggressively lobby the dozens of major European Union (EU) institutions that control tens of billions of Euros in funding as well decide the strict environmental, labor and financial rules that govern the 27 EU member countries. Some 90 percent of these lobbyists are believed to work on behalf of industry, with civil society groups such as environmentalists and trade unions making up less than ten percent. Together they spend an estimated 750 million Euros ($1 billion) a year to influence the European bureaucrats..."   Read on...

File as 'underappreciated': The venerable toilet seat

From Toiletology:

$600 Toilet Seat

There was a man who computed his taxes for 1997 and found that he owed $3407. He packaged up his payment and included this letter:

Dear IRS:

Enclosed is my 1997 Tax Return & payment. Please take note of the attached article from the USA Today newspaper. In the article, you will see that the Pentagon is paying $171.50 for hammers and NASA has paid $600.00 for a toilet seat.

Please find enclosed four toilet seats (value $2400) and six hammers(value $1029). This brings my total payment to $3429.00. Please note the overpayment of $22.00 and apply it to the 'Presidential Election Fund', as noted on my return. Might I suggest you send the above mentioned fund a '1.5 inch screw'. (See attached article - HUD paid $22.00 for a 1.5 inch Phillips Head Screw.)

It has been a pleasure to pay my tax bill this year, and I look forward to paying it again next year. I just saw an article about the Pentagon and 'screwdrivers'.

Sincerely,

(Name withheld to protect the innocent)

From Wikipedia:

In 2004 Senator Chuck Grassley (R Iowa) said: "I exposed the spending scandal in the ‘80s when federal bureaucrats saw no problem in spending $600 for a toilet seat . . .". Some now claim that neither that nor his also famous revelation of the Pentagon spending $400 for a hammer actually ever happened. Others say the prices paid were fair and justifiable.

The $600 dollar toilet seat was determined to be "fair and reasonable" by a Naval Contracting Officer, based on his detailed knowledge of the manufacturing processes and degree of effort known to be required from the vendor, to manufacture this item.

The United States military services are often in the position of making equipment last decades longer than originally designed. For example the B-52 bomber is more than 50 years old and expected to be useful for another 20 years. The famous toilet seat came about when about twenty Navy planes had to be rebuilt to extend their service life. The onboard toilets required a uniquely shaped fiberglass piece that had to satisfy specifications for the vibration resistance, weight, and durability. The molds had to be specially made as it had been decades since the planes original production. The price of the "seats" reflected the design work and the cost of the equipment to manufacture them.

The problem arose because the top level drawing for the toilet assembly referred to the part being purchased as a "Toilet Seat" instead of its proper nomenclature of "Shroud". The Navy had made a conscious decision at the time, not to pay the OEM of the aircraft the thousands of dollars it would take to update their top level drawing in order to fix this mistake in nomenclature.

Later some unknown Senate staffer combing lists of military purchases for the Golden Fleece Awards found "Toilet Seat - $600" and trumpeted it to the news media as an example of "government waste." The Senate then wrote into the appropriations bill that this item would not be purchased for anything more than $140.00. The shroud has never been purchased since, as no one can make the shroud at that price.

President Reagan had actually held a televised news conference, where he held up one of these shrouds. During the press conference, he explained the true story. The media of the time, and still today, incorrectly reports that the Pentagon was paying $640.00 for a $12.00 toilet seat.

From Sen. Charles Schumer:

NEW HALLIBURTON MISCUES REVEALED: $45 CASES OF COKE, "$85,000 OIL FILTERS", EMPLOYEES PAID NOT TO WORK

Whistleblowers' statements confirm: Halliburton gouging the federal government at every turn - from laundry service to supply truck repairs; Haliburton defying Army orders and inflating prices by up to 300%

Schumer, Durbin, Waxman call on the GAO to launch a full investigation into all Haliburton contracts and requisitions

Halliburton equivalent of the "$600 toilet seat" uncovered

US Senators Charles E. Schumer and Richard Durbin and Congressman Henry Waxman today revealed shocking examples of jaw-dropping price gouging and extraordinary waste by Halliburton and its subsidiaries that have put our men and women in uniform at risk and cost Americans billions in misspent tax dollars. Pointing to Halliburton's equivalents of the famed "$600 toilet seats", including $45 dollar cases of coke and "$85,000 oil filters". Based on these reports Schumer, Durbin and Waxman called for a full investigation by the GAO into every Halliburton contract and requisition...

bits of the puzzle

From the WantToKnow website:

Ten Verifiable Facts To Change Our World and Build a Brighter Future

".. The ten easily verifiable facts below are taken from the home page of www.WantToKnow.info. This empowering website specializes in providing fact-filled news articles and concise summaries of major cover-ups which impact our lives and our world. All information is taken from the most reliable sources available and can be verified using the links provided to trusted information sources. The WantToKnow.info team presents this information as an opportunity for you to educate yourself and others, and to inspire us to strengthen democracy and to work together for a brighter future.

Did you know that:

• Twenty leading journalists, including winners of several Emmys and a Pulitzer, have described being prevented by corporate media ownership from reporting riveting stories on major cover-ups.
• BBC News has exposed plans of the U.S. military to "provide maximum control" of the Internet, as detailed in a declassified secret Pentagon document signed by the U.S. Secretary of Defense in 2003.
• A CBS News report quotes U.S. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, "According to some estimates, we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions." That's $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America.
• Government documents released through the Freedom of Information Act show that the top Pentagon generals once approved plans to foment terrorism in major U.S. cities and even kill innocent Americans.
• You may be eating genetically modified food every day which scientific experiments have repeatedly demonstrated can cause sickness and even death in laboratory animals.
• Detroit's leading newspaper reported that the 1908 Ford Model T boasted a fuel economy of 25 miles per gallon. Yet almost 100 years later, the EPA average mileage for all cars is under 21 mpg.
• A highly decorated US General wrote a book titled War is a Racket, which clearly depicts how he was manipulated and how most wars are waged largely to keep the coffers of the big corporations filled.
• The former chief of a prestigious medical journal has revealed that the total profits of the ten drug companies in the Fortune 500 were more than the profits of the other 490 businesses combined.
• London Times reported that several 9/11 hijackers listed in the 9/11 Commission Report are alive. "Five of the alleged hijackers have emerged, alive, innocent and astonished to see their names and photographs appearing on satellite television. The hijackers were using stolen identities." See also BBC report.
• More than 50 senior military, intelligence, and government officials have expressed significant criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report. Many even allege government complicity in the 9/11 attacks.
• For more highly revealing media articles hidden in plain sight with links for verification, click here.

If the facts presented here were reported in headline news where they belong, concerned citizens would be astounded and demand to know more. This has not happened, which is why WantToKnow.info was created. The verifiable information presented here may at first disturb you. It may even change the way you look at the world. Yet we invite you to see this as a powerful opportunity for building a brighter future. By sharing this vital information with friends and colleagues, you can play a key role in restoring a true democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people.

We encourage you to be skeptical in exploring this information. Some of what you read may at first seem quite unbelievable. Yet we also encourage you to do a little research using the links to the reliable sources provided and determine for yourself whether there is truth to the information provided. And as some of the material presented can be difficult to digest, we invite you to explore this information and our website at a pace that is appropriate for you. If you find yourself feeling upset or overwhelmed, consider taking a break and possibly enjoying some of the excellent inspirational articles and resources provided on WantToKnow.info to keep things in perspective. We also highly encourage you to open to divine guidance as you explore this material.

Many people don't want to know about the major cover-ups going on in our world. Feeling relatively secure and content in their personal lives, they choose to avoid matters which might disturb their contentment. Yet as long as we choose complacency over awareness, these major cover-ups will continue. In fact, they will likely grow in magnitude until people are finally forced to open their eyes and deal with the consequences. The sooner each of us decides that we do want to know, and that we are willing to invite others to open their eyes, the more easily we will be able to build a world that supports the good of all of us..."

 

Allen Dulles' part-time project for Carl Jung

As profiler of Hitler for the OSS. Link

Marines in Iraq see writing on the wall

"...before the Brits close the door behind them, someone else wants to leave too: the United States Marines, America's answer to ancient Greece's Spartan warriors.

According to a remarkable Wednesday article in The New York Times, the Marines have told the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that they'd much prefer to leave Iraq and go take over the fighting in Afghanistan from the U.S. Army, which has some 26,000 troops over there -- just about the same number as the 25,000 Marines currently mired in Iraq.

Very convenient. And very telling..."

"...He said the assault on the 300,000-population city Fallujah (the largest single battle the Marines fought in the war) was itself a war crime -- a collective punishment of a whole city for the butchering by insurgents based here of four American mercenaries earlier that year. Collective punishment -- a tactic routinely used by the Nazis in World War II -- was banned by the Nuremberg Charter, signed by the U.S., but was a stated reason for the leveling of Fallujah.

The UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and other laws aimed at making war less barbaric, mean nothing to this administration.

Such a war and such battle tactics are not what Marines, or what any decent human being, wants to be a part of. And yet, just looking at the death toll in Iraq -- over 1 million by one account, in a country of 24 million -- and a study by the Christian Science Monitor that showed the U.S. kill ratio, of enemy fighters to civilians to be 1:30, how can the Marines have avoided it?

Secretary Gates is trying to play down the Marines' proposal, but the very fact that it has been made should show how desperate the military in Iraq is becoming..." Full article...

Seeming to conform to all the traditional stereotypes

From The Jerusalem Post:

It's a list of "the world's most powerful people," 100 of the bankers and media moguls, publishers and image makers who shape the lives of billions. It's an exclusive, insular club, one whose influence stretches around the globe but is concentrated strategically in the highest corridors of power.

More than half its members, at least by one count, are Jewish.

It's a list, in other words, that would have made earlier generations of Jews jump out of their skins, calling attention, as it does, to their disproportionate influence in finance and the media. Making matters worse, in the eyes of many, would no doubt be the identity of the group behind the list - not a pack of fringe anti-Semites but one of the most mainstream, glamorous publications on the newsstands.

Yet the list doesn't appear to have generated concern so far, instead drawing expressions of satisfaction and pride from the lone Jewish commentator who's responded in writing.

Published between ads for Chanel and Prada, Dior and Yves Saint Laurent, it's the 2007 version of "The Vanity Fair 100," the glossy American magazine's annual October ranking of the planet's most important people. Populated by a Cohen and a Rothschild, a Bloomberg and a Perelman, the list would seem to conform to all the traditional stereotypes about areas of Jewish overrepresentation.

Joseph Aaron, the editor of The Chicago Jewish News, thinks it's a list his readers should "feel very, very good about."

"Talk about us being accepted into this society, talk about us having power in this society," Aaron wrote this week, in apparent reference to Jewish life in the United States. "Talk about anti-Semitism being a thing of the past, talk about Jews no longer needing to be afraid to be visible and influential."   Read full article...

Howard sees no cause for apology to Aborigines

"...Millions of Australians will never entertain saying sorry to Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders because they think there is nothing to apologise about, Prime Minister John Howard says.

Mr Howard has promised to hold a referendum within 18 months, if re-elected, on formally recognising indigenous Australians in the constitution.

Indigenous groups view the promise as a step in the right direction but say reconciliation will not be achieved unless Mr Howard apologises on behalf of non-indigenous Australians for past treatment..."

Read full article...

A role for the Eastern Orthodox Church in Europe

"...At the heart of much of the miscommunication between Russia and Europe today lies the unacknowledged and untapped longing of Orthodox Christians to be recognized as part of a common European cultural family again. The latest effort to bridge this divide was Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei II's remarks in France, where he spoke poignantly of how the Christian identity Europeans historically share should promote dialogue on issues like human rights and peace, even with atheists and members of other faiths.

The patriarch was pointing out that, while they may differ on specific political issues today, a profound religious bond actually underpins Western and Eastern European cultural and political values. Sadly, this common bond is rarely mentioned, in either Russia or the West. Today's Slavophile Russian nationalists seem uncomfortable recalling that, despite his uncompromising critique of Western secularism, their avatar Fyodor Dostoyevsky always regarded Europe as Russia's "mother" civilization.

In the West, this oversight has more to do with the fact that Catholic and Protestant Christianity have so often denied an equal voice to those who disagreed with them. In both instances, Orthodox Christianity is seen as part of the problem in East-West relations, instead of part of the solution, as it should be.

Western suspicion of Eastern Orthodoxy can be traced back to before the Great Schism that divided the Christian Church in 1054. One hundred and fifty years later, it fueled the Crusaders' zeal for the sacking of Constantinople. In the 18th century, it became a main theme of Edward Gibbon's influential interpretation of the Roman Empire, which was later echoed in the writings of Oswald Spengler and Arnold Toynbee. And in modern times, Samuel Huntington, among others, has warned direly of the potential for clashes between "Slavic-Orthodox" civilization and the Catholic-Protestant West..."    Read full article...