A sham AIDS clinic -- complete with patients getting kickbacks but no treatment -- stole $4.5 million from Medicare. According to Reuters, similar schemes are bilking hundreds of millions of dollars from Medicare.

At some of the meetings, the politicians arrived with campaign materials and occasionally with aides. The sessions were organized much like corporate-style job fairs. The gang representatives conducted hourlong interviews, one after the other, talking to as many as five candidates in a single evening. Like supplicants, the politicians came into the room alone and sat before the gang representatives, who sat behind a long table.

Medicines to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are in such short supply that hundreds of patients complain daily to the Food and Drug Administration that they are unable to find a pharmacy with enough pills to fill their prescriptions. ... Caught in between are millions of children and adults who rely on the pills to help them stay focused and calm. Shortages, particularly of cheaper generics, have become so endemic that some patients say they worry almost constantly about availability.

Giant weapon makers are not the only ones cashing in on US wars. Unbeknownst to the public, the companies behind some the most familiar household name brands constitute the backbone of what has mushroomed into a military-corporate complex of "civilian" firms, which rake in huge profits while helping the Pentagon to carry out its wars and foreign occupations. Unsurprisingly, at least five of these companies have seen their contracts with the Defense Department skyrocket since 9/11.

Marijuana arrests now comprise more than one-half (52 percent) of all drug arrests in the United States. Police made 853,838 arrests in 2010 for marijuana-related offenses, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’ annual Uniform crime report, released today. The arrest total is among the highest ever reported by the agency and is nearly identical to the total number of cannabis-related arrests reported in 2009.

Das ganze Ausmaß dieser Partnerschaft zeigen die nun öffentlich gewordenen Mitgliederlisten. Insgesamt 300 Großkonzerne gehören Alec demnach an, darunter Schwergewichte wie ExxonMobil, Wal-Mart, Amazon, Philip Morris, Bayer und der Finanzier der Tea-Party-Bewegung, Koch Industries. Die Mitgliedergebühren der Firmen von jährlich bis zu 25.000 US-Dollar sowie hoch dotierte Spenden machen 98 Prozent des Council-Budgets aus. Die Beträge der Politiker betragen gerade einmal die restlichen zwei Prozent des Haushalts.  Im Gegenzug für ihre Investitionen erhalten die Unternehmen Einfluss und Abstimmungsrecht, beim Formulieren und Abstimmen der Gesetzesvorlagen, zitiert Lisa Graves, Direktorin des Center for Media and Democracy, Passagen aus einem internen PR-Dokument des Councils. Entsprechend eindeutig ist die Sprache der geleakten Gesetzesentwürfe: wirtschaftliche Deregulierung, Steuererleichterung für Konzerne, das Aufheben von Umweltbeschlüssen, Privatisierung öffentlicher Schulen und Gefängnisse, Maßnahmen gegen den Einfluss von Gewerkschaften.  

An Open Letter to Terry Allen, Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, David Corn, Chris Hayes, George Monbiot, Matthew Rothschild, and Matt Taibbi: According to several left-leaning critics of the 9/11 Truth Movement, some of its central claims, especially about the destruction of the World Trade Center, show its members to be scientifically challenged. In the opinion of some of these critics, moreover, claims made by members of this movement are sometimes unscientific in the strongest possible sense, implying an acceptance of magic and miracles. After documenting this charge in Part I of this essay, I show in Part II that the exact opposite is the case: that the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center implies miracles (I give nine examples), and that the 9/11 Truth Movement, in developing an alternative hypothesis, has done so in line with the assumption that the laws of nature did not take a holiday on 9/11. In Part III, I ask these left-leaning critics some questions evoked by the fact that it is they, not members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, who have endorsed a conspiracy theory replete with miracle stories as well as other absurdities.

Belegen soll das nun eine Reihe von Dokumenten aus einer privaten Klage (King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association et al v. J. Kenneth Blackwell et al), die letzte Woche veröffentlicht wurden und es IT-Experten ermöglichen sollten, die Plausibilität des Verdachts selbst zu prüfen. Denn darunter befinden sich eine detaillierte grafische System-Konfiguration des elektronischen Wahlsystems, die Verträge zwischen den Behörden Ohios und der EDV-Firma sowie das Protokoll von Connells' Befragung, der sechs Wochen nach seiner Aussage bei einem bis heute ungeklärten Flugzeugabsturz starb und zuvor massiv bedroht und zum Schweigen verpflichtet worden sein soll.

Last summer, the world’s top software-security experts were panicked by the discovery of a drone-like computer virus, radically different from and far more sophisticated than any they’d seen. The race was on to figure out its payload, its purpose, and who was behind it. As the world now knows, the Stuxnet worm appears to have attacked Iran’s nuclear program. And, as Michael Joseph Gross reports, while its source remains something of a mystery, Stuxnet is the new face of 21st-century warfare: invisible, anonymous, and devastating.

"Die Furcht vor Geldentwertung treibt Politiker in den USA zu einem ungewöhnlichen Schritt: Der Mormonenstaat Utah hat Gold und Silber als offizielle Zahlungsmittel zugelassen. Auch 13 weitere US-Bundesstaaten planen ähnliche Gesetze."

"In their heyday, the Fab Five were widely portrayed as the root of all evil in college sports. They wore baggy shorts and black socks. They blasted hip-hop music in the locker room. They talked trash. A lot. Those types of uniforms and behavior might be commonplace today, but 20 years ago it was revolutionary, polarizing and heavily influential to a generation of young athletes. Although the Fab Five never got into serious trouble off the court, the players symbolized to many people a clear shift in the sports world and youth culture. Fans of all races and demographics spent millions of dollars on Michigan jerseys, shorts and the like, trying to capture a tiny slice of the group's mystique. By the end of their second year together, the Fab Five were routinely battered in the national media for the way they carried themselves. Articles and television reports painted them as brash villains or worse -- as thugs. Now, two decades later, Rose, Jackson, King and Howard have come together in ESPN's "Fab Five" documentary to tell the inside story of the freshman class that was feted as rock stars. Notably absent is Webber, the No. 1 recruit from the Class of '91, who isn't yet willing to discuss two sticky subjects: the payment scandal, which led to legal problems for Webber and the removal of the Fab Five's banners from Crisler Arena, and the infamous timeout gaffe at the end of the 1993 national championship game."  

"The revelations, contained in a July 18, 2008, cable obtained by Wikileaks, portray a massive, all-out effort by the Congress Party to win a confidence vote in India’s parliament that could have toppled the wobbly coalition government and doomed the nuclear deal. In the cable, written five days before the critical vote, a political aide to an influential Congress Party lawmaker told a United States Embassy diplomat that one small regional political party had already been paid millions of dollars in bribes for support. The aide also “showed the Embassy employee two chests containing cash and said that around Rupees 50-60 crore (about $25 million) was lying around the house for use as pay-offs,” according to the cable. Another Congress Party member told an American diplomat that Kamal Nath, a government minister, “is also helping to spread the largesse” and was offering jet airplanes as enticements."

"The moves in both states continue the fallout from the January announcement that Hospira Inc., the only American producer of sodium thiopental, had stopped making the anesthetic. The shortages began after the company suspended production in 2009 because of problems obtaining an ingredient. They now have become dire because the drug’s shelf life is typically no more than two years. Tuesday’s seizure by the Drug Enforcement Administration presumably responded to a February complaint lodged by a lawyer for Andrew Grant DeYoung, who faces execution for killing his parents and sister in 1993. The lawyer, John T. Bentivoglio of Washington, wrote Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. on Feb. 24 that Georgia’s Department of Corrections appeared to be importing sodium thiopental from a British distributor. Because the state does not have a federal license to import controlled substances, that would violate the Controlled Substances Act, Mr. Bentivoglio charged."  

"The US-Military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda.Centcom spokesman Commander Bill Speaks said: "The technology supports classified blogging activities on foreign-language websites to enable Centcom to counter violent extremist and enemy propaganda outside the US." He said none of the interventions would be in English, as it would be unlawful to "address US audiences" with such technology, and any English-language use of social media by Centcom was always clearly attributed. The languages in which the interventions are conducted include Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Pashto." "

"To my knowledge — and I challenge the reader to offer one example — no-one in the entire history of photography, since its invention in 1826 by another Frenchman, Nicéphore Niépce, has produced an image like the Naudet film of American Airlines Flight 11. No other world-shattering event, as sudden, as rapid and as totally unexpected to the people of New York as the arrival of that plane was — which is why, essentially, nobody else got it — has ever been recorded on film: least of all with only six seconds to spare, after a 90-degree camera pan and with the buildings that were both about to be hit over the next 20 minutes centered in the shot, and framed by the buildings on the sides of the street next door, like curtains framing the action on a theatrical stage. There had been nothing like it in the previous 175 years, and there has been nothing like it since. In the putative "Complete History of Documentary Photography," in the chapter entitled "Accidental Pictures of Moments that Changed the World," the only name mentioned would be Jules Naudet's: how many other photographers have a whole branch of the art all to themselves? The unique 9/11 event was the subject of an equally unique photographic achievement."

"Demokratische Senatoren aus dem US-Bundesstaat Wisconsin verstecken sich in Motels irgendwo in der benachbarten Metropole Chicago, nur um eine Abstimmung zu verhindern. Sie werden nun von ihren republikanischen Kollegen per Haftbefehl gesucht. Zwei Wochen lang haben zudem Demonstranten das Parlamentsgebäude in Wisconsins Hauptstadt Madison belagert. Seit Donnerstag dürfen sie laut Gerichtsbeschluss nur noch zu Bürozeiten im Kongress kampieren, singen und skandieren....Weitgehend unbeachtet vom Rest des Landes haben die Republikaner in Ohio indes mittlerweile Fakten geschaffen. Der Senat des US-Bundesstaats billigte ein drakonisches Anti-Gewerkschaftsgesetz, das es den Angestellten des Öffentlichen Dienstes unmöglich macht, Lohnforderungen mit Hilfe von Gewerkschaften durchzusetzen...Streiks werden künftig ein strafwürdiges Vergehen sein.

"You have the clocks, we have the time" Afghan proverb

The fattest industrialized nation is now the United Arab Emirates, with an average body-mass index (BMI, or a calculation based on height and weight that estimates a person's fatness) of 28.9, followed closely by Qatar at 28.5.