At KFC in China the Ice Cubes are “Dirtier than Toilet Water”

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I’ve covered food fraud, stealth inflation and related topics rather consistently for the past couple of years. As one might expect, China has been a hot spot for such activity, including the classic example of rat meat being served as lamb on the streets of Shanghai. Well here’s the latest controversy, ice cubes at KFC that are not just dirtier than toilet water, but 13x dirtier. YUM! From Business Week:

Having battered KFC with reports last year that the company sold chicken fattened on illegal drugs, China Central Television now says the ice cubes at a KFC restaurant are dirtier than toilet water. The state-owned broadcaster found that ice in a Beijing outlet had 13 times as much bacteria as water from a toilet bowl and 20 times the national limit. (McDonald’s ice, according to the CCTV report, had less bacteria than toilet water but still didn’t meet national standards.)

Sure, we’re talking about a cup of ice from one of KFC’s 4,429 restaurants in China. But that didn’t stop CCTV’s report this week from spawning global headlines or getting reposted more than 100,000 times over the weekend on Sina Weibo (SINA), China’s largest microblogging site. With Yum Brands planning to open at least 700 new KFC stores across China this year, the fallout raises questions about the depth of the challenge to the Colonel’s reputation.

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NSA Holds “Top Secret” Meeting to Stop Powerful Anti-Spying Amendment

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In case you aren’t aware, there is a very significant amendment set for a vote in the House of Representatives tomorrow. The amendment was authored by libertarian-Republican of Michigan Justin Amash, and it is to be attached to the Defense Appropriations Bill (which provides funding for the NSA). It is a bipartisan amendment, co-sponsored by Michigan Democrat John Conyers, and it would remove funding for NSA programs using the Patriot Act for blanket collection of phone records and metadata from phone service providers. Here is a summary as it appears on the House of Representatives website:

Ends authority for the blanket collection of records under the Patriot Act. Bars the NSA and other agencies from using Section 215 of the Patriot Act to collect records, including telephone call records, that pertain to persons who are not subject to an investigation under Section 215.

The amendment’s supporters have even set up a web page dedicated to spreading the word and I strongly suggest you check it out at www.defundthensa.com 

While I know many people will tend to dismiss such amendments by saying “it doesn’t matter,” I would say that if it “doesn’t matter” then why did NSA chief Keith Alexander hold a secret meeting today to lobby against it? Because it matters. From the Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — The National Security Agency called for a “top secret” meeting with members of the House on Tuesday to lobby against the first House amendment to challenge the agency’s authority to cull broad swaths of communications data, according to an invitation circulated in Congress.

NSA head Gen. Keith Alexander scheduled a last-minute, members-only briefing in response to the amendment, according to an invitation distributed to members of Congress this morning and forwarded to HuffPost.

The invitation warned members that they could not share what they learned with their constituents or others. “The briefing will be held at the Top Secret/SCI level and will be strictly Members-Only,” reads the invite.

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How Does America’s Middle Class Rank Globally? #27

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We are number 1 right? USA! USA! No one can beat our wealth creation machine, our economic dynamism, our level playing field and our bastions of higher education. We have a middle class that is the envy of the world, right?

Well, like so much of the “American dream” we have been force fed for a generation or more, this perception is not based in reality whatsoever. Sure it may have been the case for a couple of decades immediately after World War 2. Before the military-industrial-Wall Street complex fully took over the political process, but it certainly isn’t true any longer. Myths die hard and this one is particularly pernicious because it prevents people from changing things. As James Baldwin said:

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

From the Huffington Post:

America is the richest country on Earth. We have the most millionaires, the most billionaires and our wealthiest citizens have garnered more of the planet’s riches than any other group in the world. We even have hedge fund managers who make in one hour as much as the average family makes in 21 years!

This opulence is supposed to trickle down to the rest of us, improving the lives of everyday Americans. At least that’s what free-market cheerleaders repeatedly promise us.

Unfortunately, it’s a lie, one of the biggest ever perpetrated on the American people.

Our middle class is falling further and further behind in comparison to the rest of the world. We keep hearing that America is number one. Well, when it comes to middle-class wealth, we’re number 27.

The most telling comparative measurement is median wealth (per adult). It describes the amount of wealth accumulated by the person precisely in the middle of the wealth distribution — fifty percent of the adult population has more wealth, while fifty percent has less. You can’t get more middle than that.

American Middle Class

* Side note: May want to cross Cyprus off the above list…

The Huffington Post also provides a list as to why this is the case. While I don’t agree with all of them, I agree with most. Here are a few:

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The EU Prepares to Launch its Own Media Outlet

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A couple of years ago, I would have responded to the above headline with a focus on how disturbing and creepy it is. These days, my reaction leans more toward how pathetic and desperate it is. Let’s face it, mainstream media is getting its head kicked in by alternative media, and distrust of centralized political … Read more

The Truth About Drones

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A lot of Americans have an impression that drone strikes are less damaging to civilian populations that conventional airstrikes. This would be false. In fact, earlier this month I highlighted an article from the Guardian that demonstrated how in reality drone strikes are 10x more likely to harm civilians per incident. Now, thanks to a recently leaked document we find that many more civilians including children have been killed in these strikes than many of us would like to admit. In fact, of the 746 people killed in drone strikes in Pakistan from 2006-2009, an incredible 20% were civilians and 94 (13% of the total) were children. More from the Huffington Post:

London’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism released a leaked Pakistani report on Monday that details numerous civilian casualties by drone strikes in the country’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The document provides crucial new data on civilians casualties of U.S. and NATO strikes in Pakistan.

The 12-page dossier was compiled for the the authorities in the tribal areas, the Bureau notes, and investigates 75 CIA drone strikes and five attacks by NATO in the region conducted between 2006 and 2009. According to the document, 746 people were killed in the strategic attacks. At least 147 of the victims were civilians, and 94 were children.

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Google’s Ultimate Goal: A Chip Inside Your Brain

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I know many of you will see this headline and assume I am about to link to some unknown conspiracy theory website with questionable sources, but you’d be wrong. This post is based on an article from the UK’s Independent that ran this past weekend. In it, reporter Ian Burrell visits Google’s headquarters and essentially … Read more

Gold Backwardation (GOFO) Goes Mainstream

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Back on April 19, I highlighted an excellent write up by Professor Antal Fekete on gold backwardation and the end of fractional reserve bullion banking titled: Who Said the Hydra Would Take it Lying Down. In it he wrote:

In waking up too late that there was a problem after gold futures markets have been flirting with backwardation for a year or so, officialdom was forced to act. Act it did in a typically haphazard fashion. A few days ago, on April 12 and 15 the paper gold market was demoralized by a ferocious attack on the lofty gold price. This in and of itself is proof that Bernanke is fully aware that permanent gold backwardation is imminent, and that it will create and unmanageable situation. It’s got to be stopped in its track at all hazards.

In fact, however, a lower gold price is making the problem more intractable, not less. The Fed is diving from the frying pan into the fire. This is the point missed by almost all observers and market analysts. They ignore the underlying flight into physical gold that continues unabated, in spite of (or, better still, because of) the panic in the paper gold market. The Fed’s intervention in bankrolling short interest is going to back-fire, for the following simple reason. The Fed’s strategy is inherently contradictory. A lower price for paper gold makes it easier, not harder, to demand delivery on maturing futures contracts. 

Several months later it appears Professor Fekete’s comments have been spot on, and the “hydra” has continued to employ brute force on the paper gold market in an effort to shake whatever supply they can from the financial trees. Unfortunately for them, it’s not working and gold’s backwardation continues to expand. Zerohedge has done a great job covering this ahead of the mainstream media as usual, most recently here.

Amazingly , it appears the mainstream media is now picking up on this huge development. In an article two days ago Reuters wrote:

July 19 (IFR) – A dislocation in the gold futures market indicating that demand for physical delivery of the metal is now far outweighing supply has intensified in recent weeks, increasing concern in the market that the change may not be a momentary blip and participants may have become over-leveraged.

Gold went into backwardation in comparison to the three-month futures contract in early January, meaning the spot price rose above the short-dated future contact. Now that process looks set to creep out the futures curve to longer-dated maturities, signalling some cause for alarm.

“The fact that has remained and widened … indicates that the physical market has tightened up substantially, a postulation that is corroborated by the growing premiums being paid … and the ongoing wholesale delays in the delivery of substantial bullion tonnage,” wrote Ned Naylor-Leyland of Cheviot Asset Management in a report this month.

“What is happening now is that the absolutely inevitable ‘run’ on the 100:1 leveraged bullion banking system is truly underway.”

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The Drone That Killed My Grandson

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I’ve covered the death of Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16 year old son Abdulrahman previously. They were both American citizens killed without a trial using our latest preferred war toy, drones. While Anwar was on the U.S. “kill list,” his teenage son was not and he was killed by a drone in an entirely separate incident two weeks after the death of his father. The U.S. government has never explained his murder, and all I can recall hearing is Eric Holder statement that he wasn’t “specifically targeted.” Last week, his grandfather wrote a powerful and impassioned Op-Ed in the New York Times. Here are some excerpts:

SANA, Yemen — I LEARNED that my 16-year-old grandson, Abdulrahman — a United States citizen — had been killed by an American drone strike from news reports the morning after he died.

The missile killed him, his teenage cousin and at least five other civilians on Oct. 14, 2011, while the boys were eating dinner at an open-air restaurant in southern Yemen.

I visited the site later, once I was able to bear the pain of seeing where he sat in his final moments. Local residents told me his body was blown to pieces. They showed me the grave where they buried his remains. I stood over it, asking why my grandchild was dead.

The attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., said only that Abdulrahman was not “specifically targeted,” raising more questions than he answered.

Abdulrahman was born in Denver. He lived in America until he was 7, then came to live with me in Yemen. He was a typical teenager — he watched “The Simpsons,” listened to Snoop Dogg, read “Harry Potter” and had a Facebook page with many friends. He had a mop of curly hair, glasses like me and a wide, goofy smile.

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MIT Moves to Block the Release of the Aaron Swartz Files

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Unfortunately, this is just further proof that most of our celebrated institutions, including prestigious palaces of “higher learning,” are nothing more than apologists and gatekeepers for plutocratic power. It was only a little less than two weeks ago that I wrote a story celebrating how a U.S. judge decided the government must release thousands of pages of secret service files on the late Aaron Swartz. Apparently, MIT isn’t comfortable in the many skeletons they likely have in their closet coming out, so they have moved to block the release. The plaintiff in the case, Kevin Poulsen explains below in a Wired article:

Lawyers representing MIT are filing a motion to intervene in my FOIA lawsuit over thousands of pages of Secret Service documents about the late activist and coder Aaron Swartz.

I am the plaintiff in this lawsuit. In February, the Secret Service denied in full my request for any files it held on Swartz, citing a FOIA exemption that covers sensitive law enforcement records that are part of an ongoing proceeding. Other requestors reported receiving the same response.

When the agency ignored my administrative appeal, I enlisted David Sobel, a top DC-based FOIA litigator, and we filed suit. Two weeks ago U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered the government to “promptly” begin releasing Swartz’ records. The government told my lawyer that it would release the first batch tomorrow. But minutes ago, Kollar-Kotelly suspended that order at MIT’s urging, to give the university time to make an argument against the release of some of the material.

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Inaugural Interview with Jay Taylor

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This past Tuesday, I had the distinct pleasure of being interviewed by mining analyst, radio show host, liberty lover and all around great guy Jay Taylor. While I had heard of Jay before since we have mutual friends and contacts, I never had the chance to meet Jay until the Liberty Mastermind Conference late last … Read more