Link: http://www.321gold.com/editorials/schoon/schoon071410.html

When the end-game began, gold was $35 per ounce. Today, gold is $1200. When the end-game is over, gold will be far higher. Midway through 2010 we are approaching the end of the end-game, the resolution of the monetary imbalances that began in 1971. For more than 2500 years, gold was money: but, in 1971 that changed. After 1971, money was no longer connected to gold. For the first time in history, money had no intrinsic value.

Link: http://www.truth-out.org/investigation-confirms-pennsylvania-fracking-well-blowout-was-easily-preventable-potentially-catastr

First responders used cell phone cameras to photograph natural gas and wastewater spewing from the EOG Resources "fracking" gas well during the June 3 blowout in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania. (Photo Courtesy of the PA Department of Environmental Protection) Pennsylvanians are wondering if their state could become the next environmental ground zero after officials confirmed Tuesday that irresponsible drilling practices and a failed "blowout preventer" caused the June 3 blowout of a gas well in Clearfield County, Pennsylvania. Well operator EOG Resources uses controversial "fracking" techniques to harvest gas from the massive Marcellus Shale reserve, where the state has permitted thousands of wells.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25938.htm

Harvard professor and prolific author Niall Ferguson opened the 2010 Aspen Ideas Festival Monday with a stark warning about the increasing prospect of the American “empire” suddenly collapsing due to the country’s rising debt level. “I think this is a problem that is going to go live really soon,” Ferguson said. “In that sense, I mean within the next two years. Because the whole thing, fiscally and other ways, is very near the edge of chaos. And we’ve seen already in Greece what happens when the bond market loses faith in your fiscal policy.”

Link: http://beforeitsnews.com/story/102/545/BP_And_Feds_Stonewalling_Congress_About_Well_Bore_Integrity_And_BP_Gulf_Oil_Spill_Sea_Floor_Leaks.html

On July 2nd the Chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee Rep. Ed Markey ordered BP to release any data of damage to the wellbore, sea floo leaks, and the time frame and design of the relief wells that BP is drilling. It is a good thing he did because Reuters News has just reported that the blowout preventers that BP is using for both of the relief wells had critical flaws that caused them to fail initial testing.

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10596057

The US state department has told the BBC it believes an alleged whistle-blower obtained secret diplomatic data despite being at a field base in Iraq. Serviceman Bradley Manning, 22, faces two charges related to the illegal transfer and transmission of classified information from a US military network.

Link: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iJwXzrq3lD7vHJJH4DU8uNjjihPwD9GUQP0G1

If such impacts continue, the scientists warn of a grim reshuffling of sealife that could over time cascade through the ecosystem and imperil the region's multibillion-dollar fishing industry.

Link: http://www.thenation.com/article/37425/theres-just-no-pleasing-some-robber-barons

The flight from reason that now marks American public discourse came home for me last Friday when I found myself on public radio debating whether Barack Obama is anti-business. The “news hook” for KCRW’s Left, Right & Center show, which I have co-hosted for fifteen years, was an absurd spate of charges from Obama’s former big-business allies that he had become their enemy. If only it were so.

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1294513/EU-clears-way-fast-track-GM-crops.html

The European Commission today published proposals that it said were designed to give countries more freedom and flexibility over the cultivation of genetically modified crops. But opponents of 'Frankenstein foods' warned that the changes would speed up the approval regime.

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1294607/Busted-YouTube-video-watched-2m-proves-police-officer-lied-claiming-cyclist-ran-him.html

A former police officer faces jail after an internet video exposed his bid to prosecute a cycling protester for running into him as a lie.
Patrick Pogan claimed activist Christopher Long steered into him and knocked him down during a demonstration in New York. But a YouTube video seen by two million people so far has exposed him as a liar. Caught on camera: Still video images show how officer Patrick Pogan knocked over Christopher Long, despite opposite claims The video shows Pogan walking over to the cyclist and shoving him to the ground instead. Mr Long was acquitted of assault charges and received a £40,000 payout from the city’s police. Now Pogan, who was a recent recruit at the time of the protest two years ago, has been forced to quit his job in disgrace and has been convicted of lying. The 24-year-old faces four years in jail when he is sentenced later today, although it is likely that he will be handed probation instead.

Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52150

The failed "war on drugs" has not only badly damaged countries where it is waged, it is responsible for driving up HIV infection rates in some countries, says an official declaration endorsed Wednesday by three former Latin American presidents in advance of the XVIII International AIDS Conference that begins Jul. 18 in Vienna

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/dropkin07132010.html

Three weeks after the massacre on the Freedom Flotilla, ILWU dockworkers in the San Francisco Bay area delayed an Israeli Zim Lines ship for 24 hours, the Swedish Dockworkers Union began a week-long blockade of Israeli ships and containers, dockers in the Port of Cochin, India, refused to handle Israeli cargo, and the Turkish dockworkers union Liman-Is announced their members would refuse to service any Israeli shipping. In South Africa, Durban dockers had already boycotted a Zim Lines ship in response to the invasion of Gaza last year. On the 5th Anniversary of the United Palestinian Call for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions, Israel faces the prospect of targetted industrial action to implement boycotts. How did it happen, what does it mean, and how can the solidarity movement respond to the new opening?

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/abdu07142010.html

I used to tell my husband, Ameer Makhoul, “One day, they’ll come for you.” As chairman of the Public Committee for the Protection of Political Freedoms he’d begun to organize an awareness-raising campaign to push back against the security services’ harassment of our community, the Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/15/world/asia/15vietnam.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

In an echo of the debates over the discredited intelligence that helped make the case for the war in Iraq, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday released more than 1,100 pages of previously classified Vietnam-era transcripts that show senators of the time sharply questioning whether they had been deceived by the White House and the Pentagon over the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/07/2010714155457582415.html

Millions of gallons of oil have spilled into the Gulf since the April 20 explosion on the drilling platform. BP has again delayed tests on a new cap on its Gulf of Mexico wellhead for 24-hours to reduce risks of worsening the leak that has been spewing into the ocean for months.

Link: http://america-hijacked.com:80/2010/07/14/president-petraeusthe-neocons-choice/

As we move past the mid-term elections, the question as to the Republican candidate for the presidency in 2012 will come to the fore. Obama’s approval rating is falling. And given the economic situation it is very unlikely that there will be any significant improvement in how he is viewed by the voters. Even if increased federal spending might be able to keep the unemployment level stationary or lower it slightly for the short term—i.e., until the 2012 election—the ballooning deficit will still turn substantial numbers of voters against him because of their fears of what will happen in the future.

Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article20006

Within the next 20 years, the most profound changes in economic history will sweep the globe. The economic chaos and turbulence that we are now experiencing are merely the opening salvos in what will prove to be a long, disruptive period of adjustment.