Homosexual History Month?
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What I warned about for years is coming true. The Homosexual Lobby is taking over our schools and using them to promote their radical agenda to our children and grandchildren. And they are attacking anyone who tries to stop them. The above photo was taken by Viki Knox at New Jersey’s Union High School where she teaches. You see, Mrs. Knox understands the importance of mothers, fathers and traditional marriage, she even advises a student prayer group. When she saw this disgusting display promoting the homosexual lifestyle to her students, it upset her greatly. But the worst part is why they are attacking Viki Knox: She expressed her opinion on her private Facebook page that the display was wrong to have in a school. She said homosexuality is “against the nature and character of God.” Public schools are “not the setting to promote, encourage, support and foster homosexuality.” And for that she is being smeared by the New York Times, pro-homosexual websites, and now her school district has launched a “very serious” investigation into the matter. I warned about this. For decades that the Radical Homosexuals have worked to turn America into a nation in which sexual deviants are openly promoted. They want to brainwash our children into their perverted lifestyle and criminalize anyone who speaks out against them. Public Advocate will not stand by and let this injustice happen. Call or email these people and let them know how you feel! Principal Edward Gibbons 908.851.6500 egibbons@twpunionschools.org Superintendent Patrick Martin 908.851.6422 pmartin@twpunionschools.org School Board President Ray Perkins 973.602.3462 frperkins@comcast.net For the Family,  Eugene Delgaudio President, Public Advocate of the United States |
Satan Behind Occupy Wall Street?
I know that the people who are participating are well-meaning, but through my research I find that it is likely that the Devil and those who serve him are up to their tricks again, getting good people to unknowingly further their agenda. Christians beware!
http://www.henrymakow.com/occupy_wall_street_is_cointelp.html
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/after-igniting-wall-st-protests-m...
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/from-canada-to-meetup-com-the-jou... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1332046/Indian-Americans-upset-Newswe...
http://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-draws-closer-to-occupy-wall-street...
Wells Fargo Debit Fee Questioned As Bank Records Record Profit
Wells Fargo Debit Fee Questioned As Bank Records Record Profit
In this Jan. 19, 2010 photo, a banking customer walks into a Wells Fargo Bank in Los Altos, Calif. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Just days after Wells Fargo announced a $4 billion profit over the past three months, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) has asked the bank why it feels forced to jack up debit fees on its customers.
“It is certainly surprising that your bank would pursue this fee strategy in light of the consumer reaction that has been prompted by Bank of America’s recent imposition of a monthly debit fee on its customers. If you were hoping that your new fee would go unnoticed, it has not,” Durbin wrote Wednesday in a letter to John G. Stumpf, Wells Fargo's chairman and chief executive officer.
A Wells Fargo spokeswoman didn't immediately return a request for comment.
“It is unfortunate, though not surprising, that your bank is now blaming swipe fee reform for your decision to impose this significant new fee on your loyal customers. … Because Wells Fargo has not made publicly available any of its own cost or revenue data regarding debit transactions, I will inform you what the publicly-available data reveals," Durbin wrote. "Wells Fargo will make at least an estimated $1.22 billion in annual debit interchange revenue after swipe fee reform. This amount far exceeds any reasonable measure of the cost to Wells Fargo of conducting debit transactions. Instead of making up costs, your new consumer fee appears to be a plain attempt to increase your profits- even though your bank just reported third quarter profits that hit a record high.”
Wells Fargo is testing a new fee on debit cards, which it says is needed to make up for lost swipe fee revenue that resulted when the Durbin Amendment capped the fees banks could charge merchants for swiping debit cards. Wells Fargo announced a record profit on Monday, a jump of 21 percent from the previous quarter.
A movement organized by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee to flee banks that are hiking fees has collected some 85,000 participants. An similar effort affiliated with Occupy Wall Street is encouraging thousands of people to move their money out of big banks and deposit it with credit unions and community banks on November 5. A $5 debit fee imposed by Bank of America has become a political issue, with President Obama harshly criticizing the bank and Republicans blaming Democratic regulation for the new charge. The Chicago Tribune dubbed it "the Durbin fee."
Wells Fargo CEO Stumpf has felt pressure from the Occupy Wall Street movement as well as Durbin, saying that he understands the "angst and anger" that fuels the protests, according to the Associated Press.
"This downturn has been too long. Unemployment is too high. And people are hurting. We get that," he said. Despite the bank's record profits, revenue was down and Wall Street punished the bank's stock.
Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) is pushing legislation that would make it easier for consumers to switch accounts. “If we can find a way to introduce real competition into banking, that'd do more than any regulation," Miller told HuffPost. "The biggest banks have turned the switch for market forces to the off position. If consumers could shop around for banks the way they can for everything else, banks wouldn’t think they had a God-given right to pay their executives vulgar bonuses and still make enormous profits, and consumers would get a much better deal."
Durbin has similarly encouraged consumers to drop their BofA debit cards and move to smaller banks which don't charge the fee.
Survey: One-Third Of U.S. Customers Say Debit Card Fees Would Push Them To Switch Banks
The Huffington Post Jillian Berman
For many, debit card fees could be enough to push customers to go through the hassle of switching banks.
About one-third of consumers say they'd leave their bank if it put debit card fees in place, according to a survey by the Research Intelligence Group, Bloomberg reports. More than 40 percent of respondents say they would use cash or credit cards instead of debit cards in response to the fees.
The findings come as big banks face criticism for implementing fees on once-free checking account surveys including debit cards. Bank of America announced last month that it would charge customers $5 per month starting in 2012 to use their debit card for purchases. After the announcement angry consumers took to Twitter with some urging Bank of America customers to switch banks.
Two Bank of America customers in Santa Cruz, California tried to do just last Sunday and were almost arrested. The two women, who are affiliated with Occupy Santa Cruz, walked into a Bank of America branch and attempted to close their accounts. In response, the bank’s manager threatened to lock the doors and call the police.
In New York, about two dozen protesters were arrested after they entered a Citibank branch Saturday and refused to leave.
Wells Fargo -- another bank testing a debit card fee -- is hoping that by charging a smaller debit fee customers will remain with the bank. CEO John Stumpf told analysts on an earnings call earlier this week that the bank would only try to recoup some of the revenue lost through new regulations by upping debit card fees for customers, Consumer Affairs reports.
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan has said that the new debit card fees are necessary for banks to offset revenue that will be lost through the implementation of financial reform regulations in the Dodd-Frank Act, including a cap on the amount banks can charge merchants per debit card swipe. The bank reported a $6.2 billion profit in its third quarter Tuesday.
Still, the bank may not be able to remain so profitable once the fees are put in place if customers do indeed decide to switch banks. The nation's largest credit union experienced a volume of new account openings that was more than 20 percent higher than normal the weekend after Bank of America announced the fees.
Greece: National Strike Largest In Years
Greece: National Strike Largest In Years
Protesters throw petrol bombs to riot police as they demonstrate in front of the Greek parliament in Athens on October 19, 2011 as a two-day general strike began against a new austerity bill demanded by Greece's international creditors to avert bankruptcy.
ATHENS, Greece — Hundreds of youths smashed and looted stores in central Athens and clashed with riot police during a massive anti-government rally against painful new austerity measures that won initial parliamentary approval in a vote Wednesay night.
The rioting came on the first day of a 48-hour nationwide general strike that brought services in much of Greece to a standstill, grounding flights for hours, leaving ferries tied up in port and shutting down customs offices, stores and banks.
More than 100,000 people took to the streets of the Greek capital to demonstrate against the austerity bill, which includes new tax hikes, further pension and salary cuts, the suspension on reduced pay of 30,000 public servants and the suspension of collective labor contracts.
Creditors have demanded the meaures before they give Greece more funds from a euro110 billion ($152.11 billion) package of bailout loans from other eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund. Greece says it will run out of money in mid-November without the euro8 billion ($11 billion) installment.
But Greek citizens said they already are reeling from more than one-and-a-half years of austerity measures.
"We just can't take it any more. There is desperation, anger and bitterness," said Nikos Anastasopoulos, head of a workers' union for an Athens municipality, as he joined the demonstration early in the day.
The bill won initial approval in the 300-member Parliament late Wednesday, with 154 deputies voting in favor on principle and 141 against. A second vote, on the bill's articles, is due Thursday. Only after that procedure will the bill have passed. A communist party-backed union has vowed to encircle Parliament Thursday in an attempt to prevent deputies from entering the building for the procedure.
Hours before the vote, one of Athens' largest demonstrations in years degenerated into violence as masked and hooded youths pelted riot police outside Parliament with gasoline bombs and chunks of marble smashed from buildings, metro stops and sidewalks.
Police responded with tear gas and stun grenades. Authorities said 50 police were injured in the clashes, along with at least three demonstrators, while 33 people were detained for questioning or arrested for alleged involvement in the rioting. At least three journalists covering the riots were also slightly hurt.
The new measures have even prompted some lawmakers from the governing Socialists to threaten not vote for at least some of the articles in the bill. But Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos insisted there was no choice but to accept the hardship.
"We have to explain to all these indignant people who see their lives changing that what the country is experiencing is not the worst stage of the crisis," he said in Parliament. "It is an anguished and necessary effort to avoid the ultimate, deepest and harshest level of the crisis. The difference between a difficult situation and a catastrophe is immense."
Long after Wednesday's demonstration was over, violence continued, with police fighting running street battles with youths setting up burning barricades along the back streets near Athens' main Syntagma Square and near the tourist area of Monastiraki.
Thick black smoke billowed from burning trash and bus-stops, and debris lay strewn along the capital's broad avenues. A hurled gasoline bomb set fire to a sentry post used by the ceremonial presidential guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier outside Parliament.
In Greece's second city of Thessaloniki, protesters smashed the facades of about 10 shops that defied the strike and remained open, as well as five banks and cash machines. Police fired tear gas and threw stun grenades.
The general strike is set to continue Thursday, with all sectors, from dentists, hospital doctors and lawyers to tax office workers, pharmacists, teachers and dock workers – staying off the job.
Air traffic controllers scaled back their strike from 48 hours to 12, allowing flights to take off and land after noon on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, European countries are trying to work out a broad solution to the continent's deepening debt crisis, before a weekend summit in Brussels. It became clear earlier this year that the initial bailout for Greece was not working as well as had been hoped, and European leaders agreed on a second, euro109 billion ($151 billion) bailout. But key details of that rescue fund, including the participation of the private sector, remain to be worked out.
Derek Gatopoulos and Nicholas Paphitis in Athens and Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki contributed to this report.
Military Biofuels: Animal Fat To Replace Crude Oil As Fuel For F-16s And Tanks
Where is PETA at in this?
Military Biofuels: Animal Fat To Replace Crude Oil As Fuel For F-16s And Tanks
It might surprise you to hear that the U.S. military may be advancing the field of alternative fuels.
But rising petroleum costs and a desire to cut dependence on oil have pushed the military to take alternative biofuels very seriously. In fact, a recent Bloomberg interview shows that the Air Force plans to certify all of its aircraft models to burn biofuels, especially those derived from animal fats and plants, by 2013. That figure is three years ahead of previous targets.
While biofuels currently cost too much for the military to consistently use, officials feel they can "create a market," and drive down the price of such materials. In January, The New York Times reported that the military's current plans to use biofuels were unlikely to be cost-effective, but recent progress shows that may not be the case.
"Reliance on fossil fuels is simply too much of a vulnerability for a military organization to have," U.S. Navy Secretary Raymond Mabus said in an interview with Bloomberg. "We’ve been certifying aircraft on biofuels. We’re doing solar and wind, geothermal, hydrothermal, wave, things like that on our bases."
NPR has also reported that the Air Force and the Navy have been testing fuels based on plants and animal fats recently, and have been showing tremendous promise. Bloomberg shows that these fuels have other benefits than cost:
While the big problem right now is cost, a large military contract may be just what biofuel companies need to get off the ground. “You can’t take a 10-year contract from an American airline to the bank and get the financing that you need,” James Rekoske, vice president of renewable energy at Honeywell’s UOP unit told Bloomberg. “You can if you have a 10-year contract from the U.S. Navy.”
With money for more refineries, the price of these fuels may quickly decrease, according to NPR. Additionally, the government has begun to offer incentives for farmers who have begun to grow camelina, which is used for some fuels.
The military isn't the only organization thinking about the future. The Huffington Post's Rebecca Dolan detailed the airline industry's attempts to focus on biofuels, as companies also look to reduce emissions and dependency on oil.