British Columbia
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Marc Emery's Lawyer Cites Possible U.S. Deal
The extradition hearing for marijuana activist Marc Emery, which was scheduled to begin next week, has been adjourned.
Emery's lawyer, Ian Donaldson, told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Anne Mackenzie that he needed more time to finalize an agreement with U.S. prosecutors that would end the need for the hearing.
Donaldson noted that two of Emery's co-accused have pleaded guilty to their part in a scheme in which marijuana seeds were sold for use in grow-ops south of the border.
He said that since the pleas by Michelle Rainey and Gregory Williams were entered in
Seattle last month, he has been in discussions with the U.S. prosecuting counsel.
"He and I have a general framework capable of resolving the case for Mr. Emery," said Donaldson.
He said that, under the agreement, Emery would consent to be committed for extradition on one of the three criminal counts he faces. He noted that the Canadian authorities are opposed to such a move.
He asked for an adjournment of two to three weeks so he could further discuss the matter with a U.S. defence lawyer who would handle the case in Seattle.
Kerry Swift, a lawyer for the federal justice department, told the judge that her superiors in Ottawa were opposed to the adjournment.
She noted that the case had already been delayed a number of times and previous negotiations to resolve the matter had gone off the rails.
But the judge said she accepted that Donaldson had made efforts to resolve the case and agreed to put off the matter for several weeks. The next court appearance is June 3 to address the availability of a Crown witness, an undercover officer, who is to testify if the hearing goes ahead. Emery was arrested on the drug charges in 2005.
NORML.ORG CN BC: Extradition Hearing Delayed In Medical Marijuana Case
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Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Marc Emery, Delays Extradition
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Looking Back on the Greatest Depression
Looking Back on the Greatest Depression
05/06/09 Kingston, New York On average, world trade fell 31 percent in January 2009. To varying degrees, recession and depression gripped globally.
“The outlook for global consumption remains bleak. Exports are likely to remain lackluster until global consumers regain their appetite for consumption,” wrote Jing Ulrich, managing director at JPMorgan in Hong Kong, in response to the dire data.
To track and make practical use of trends requires critical analysis of not only the data but also of the interpretations arising from the data. This becomes particularly essential when interpretations express a virtual media consensus. “Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect,” advised Mark Twain.
A case in point: On the surface, Ms. Ulrich’s assessment above does not seem unreasonable. It is a theme expressed, with minor variations, by a majority of economic analysts reported by the media. But that assessment rests upon a set of false or questionable assumptions.
The first assumption was that all consumers need to do is “regain their appetites” for exports. But it has nothing to do with “appetites.” Consumers were broke. They were no less hungry for products – they just didn’t have the money to buy them.
The second assumption was that once consumers started consuming again exports would regain luster. Implicit in this statement was that as exports grew, economies would rebound and everything would go back to normal. This “normal” refrain was endlessly repeated, not only by economic analysts, but by politicians and business leaders.
Unquestioned was not only the inevitability, but also the virtue and desirability of a return to “normal.” What was normal?
Normal, prior to “The Greatest Depression,” meant unchecked over consumption and over development made possible by the availability of cheap money and easy credit.
On the consumer end, “normal” was a death wish, “shop ‘til you drop” – an obsessive compulsion by the profligate many to spend money they didn’t have but had to borrow. The spending spree extended to buying expensive new cars rather than affordable used ones. It had people building extensions and making home improvements when neither were necessary. It meant buying a McMansion when a Cape Cod would do. Splurging on expensive vacations, elaborate weddings and extravagant bar-mitzvahs to impress family and friends.
Borrowed money financed a major lifestyle upgrade that otherwise could not have ever been imagined, but that corresponded to what most people considered the “American Dream.” Borrow to the limit now, and pay sooner or later was “normal.”
On the commercial/financial end, “normal” was also the obsessive compulsion to endlessly acquire, not merely upgrade. Borrowed billions, lots of leverage and little collateral provided financiers and developers with the power to acquire ever more money, assets and prestige – through mergers and acquisitions, building developments, equity market speculation and predatory business practices that gobbled up or drove out the competition.
Give or take a bit of regulation and self-restraint, this was the “normal” the popular new President promised to return to.
Which brings us to the third assumption, and arguably the most important which was that the crisis – inability of banks to lend and businesses to borrow – was mainly responsible for the economic disaster. As President Obama put it, “Our goal is to quicken the day when we restart lending to the American people and American business, and end this crisis once and for all.”
He said, “You see, the flow of credit is the lifeblood of our economy. The ability to get a loan is how you finance the purchase of everything from a home to a car to a college education; how stores stock their shelves, farms buy equipment, and businesses make payroll.”
Sounds positive, doesn’t it? Ease the “flow of credit.” Make it easier “to get a loan.”
But what the President meant and did not say was … take on more debt, borrow more money.
Sound familiar? Turn back the clock. Remember the advertisements at the start of the decade encouraging Americans to take out home equity loans, to buy new cars, to move up from a starter home into the dream house? With interest rates at 46 year lows and credit flowing, the public were suckered into betting on their futures with borrowed money they could only pay back as long as they had jobs, could make payments and the economy didn’t collapse.
But when they lost their jobs, they couldn’t make payments and the economy began to collapse. Total unemployment (including discouraged workers and those with part time jobs looking for full time) was nearing 15 percent. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the net worth of American households fell by the largest amount in more than a half-century of record keeping. By February 2009, the foreclosure rate was up 30 percent from February 2008.
What Mr. Obama promised as the solution was, and had been, the problem. The country was already overwhelmed with debt … debt that it couldn’t pay back. In what way could incurring more debt “end this crisis once and for all”?
It was a plain fact; the flow of easy credit produced a torrent of debt. In 2009, private sector credit market debt was 174 percent of GDP. Household debt-service ratio was at an all-time high. US households had 39 percent more debt than income. (In 1962, consumers had 37 percent less debt than income. To promote policies encouraging people to take out more loans and sink still deeper into debt was abnormal, not “normal.” The abnormal had been renamed the normal.
Instead of encouraging people to live within their means, cut back, save money, and distinguish between “wants” and real needs, the official policy was to turn on the credit tap and flood the world with more debt.
The sanity of the policy was never in question. Arguments raged only over the quickest and most effective way to turn on the money spigot.
Everyone was looking for someone, somewhere, for rescue, and most eyes were turned to the United States. Even though the US was blamed for the flagrant economic abuses that brought on the crisis, given its economic clout and Superpower status, America was still looked to for the leadership needed to pave the way to recovery.
With its globally popular new president, hopes ran high that American know-how would know how to fix the problem … as though it were an intellectual exercise that could be solved by applying the correct economic formula.
No such formula existed. Yet so desperate was the world that it placed its hopes on the very people responsible for the deregulation of the financial industry largely blamed for the crisis. The deregulators now occupied key positions within the cabinet of that globally popular new President.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett added a military dimension, dubbing the meltdown an “economic Pearl Harbor.” Buffett called on Congress to unite behind President Barack Obama, comparing the economic crisis to a military conflict that needed a commander-in-chief. “Patriotic Americans will realize this is a war,” he said.
If it was an economic Pearl Harbor, the enemies were Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, A.I.G., Countrywide, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Bear Stearns, and all the other banks, brokerages, speculators, insurance companies, hedge funds and leverage buyout specialists that had launched the sneak attack on the American economy.
It had nothing to do with patriotism, unless being a “Patriotic American” meant appeasing and rewarding the enemy with trillions of dollars of taxpayer money and not being allowed to know where the money went.
Fed Refuses to Release Bank Data,
Insists on SecrecyMarch 5, 2009 (Bloomberg) – The Federal Reserve Board of Governors receives daily reports on bailout loans to financial institutions and won’t make the information public, the central bank said in a reply in a Bloomberg News lawsuit.
The Fed refused yesterday to disclose the names of the borrowers and the loans, alleging that it would cast “a stigma on recipients of more than $1.9 trillion of emergency credit from US taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
The public had been cozened into believing:
- That disclosing the identities of the recipients would poorly reflect upon their public image and therefore their ability to function. Secrecy, on the other hand, allowed them to continue making disastrous decisions, while bamboozling clients who would not know they were dealing with incompetents – who stayed in business only because of huge taxpayer-financed infusions of corporate welfare.
- The “too big to fail” had to be bailed out by taxpayers in order to keep “the credit markets from seizing up.” But the consequences of seized up credit were rarely if ever spelled out.
Many financial analysts no less “expert” than those pushing through the bailouts were convinced that allowing the credit markets to seize up would, in the long run, prove far less costly than endlessly printing money and pouring it down a plush-lined sink hole. Buffett was wrong. It wasn’t a “war” at all. It was a criminal case, or should have been, but the accused took a financial Fifth Amendment – the right to remain silent, since any statement made could be used as evidence against them – and got away with it.
When, at a hearing before the Senate Budget Committee, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was asked, “Will you tell the American people to whom you lent $2.2 trillion of their dollars?” He answered, “No.”
Regards,
Gerald Celente
for The Daily Reckoning
Gerald Celente
Gerald Celente is founder and director of The Trends Research Institute, author of Trends 2000 and Trend Tracking (Warner Books), and publisher of The Trends Journal. He has been forecasting trends since 1980, and recently called “The Collapse of ’09.” Also a Close Combat practitioner and black belt trainer, Celente has made many media appearances including Oprah, CNN, The Today Show, Good Morning America, NBC Nightly News, C-Span, and CNBC. He has been cited in the Economist, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Entrepreneur, USA Today, and many other publications.
Looking Back on the Greatest Depression
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Sunday, May 3, 2009
Dr. Jeff Sutherland's Electronic Medicine
Dr. Jeff Sutherland's Electronic Medicine: "Swine Flu Update 30 Apr 2009
Frequency Foundation ongoing research indicates that there are three virus strains circulating. Two variants of swine flu and one of bird flu. This may account for mixed genetic material seen in viruses cultured by other researchers. The frequencies appear to be the same as one of the many hundreds of viruses that those infected with Lyme disease have been fighting for years with minor changes. So they are likely variants of the many viruses studied and released into the atmosphere at the Plum Island laboratory through decades of violation of EPA safety regulations. At least one United Nations expert thinks these viruses were produced in a lab. See Dr. Mercola's excellent article on swine flu.
Frequency Foundation subscribers will receive updated frequencies today as part of their normal subscription (see link on lower left side of page to subscribe). The current swine flu virus variant has produced mild symptoms in infected people so far in the United States and these frequencies might be helpful for prevention purposes.
Oscillicocinum is strongly indicated for this infection and recommended for anyone who thinks they have been exposed. You can buy it at any Whole Foods Market."
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YouTube - Gerald Celente on Wisconsin Public Radio on pt 1/5, April 27 2009
YouTube - Gerald Celente on Wisconsin Public Radio on pt 1/5, April 27 2009:
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Swine Flu Fear is Useless: Use Precaution, Faith, Common Sense
Be aware, but be at Peace. Remember, we have been given the treasure called Faith! To end with the words of the Lord: fear is useless: what is needed is trust.(Mark 5:36 New American Bible). Swine Flu Fear is Useless: Precaution, Faith and Common Sense are needed.
Patients with asthma or other pulmonary issues may need oxygen or short term bronchodilator medications for breathing difficulties. But, the majorities of patients, at least in this country, need to stay home, eat nutritional meals, drink water and electrolyte fluids such as Gatorade or Pediolyte, and not go out to the mall or to work while you have symptoms. Swine Flu can be spread via hand to hand contact, drinking out of an infected cup, or coughing in someone’s face. How do you prevent this? Simply wash your hands often. Don’t use a communal towel. If you have a high fever, body aches or flu symptoms don’t go to work or to class. The concepts are simple; we need to follow good hygiene.
may i add colloidal silver is a tremendous defense. God forbod i do get the swine flu i would invert the frequencies of the disease and apply it back to the body in numerous ways. the frequencies for the swine flu are already out as seen here:http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1406618 there is a cure for everything using this method. -st0ckman
article continues here:
Ask Dr. Denton: Swine Flu Fear is Useless: Use Precaution, Faith, Common Sense
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Friday, May 1, 2009
Thank you Christopher Wishnie of Carriage Hill Partners
The st0ckman would like to thank Chris Wishnie from Carnegie Hill Partners on Park Ave in N.Y.C. I look forward to working closely with Chris on many projects and highly recommend him in the area of Investment Banking.
It was a pleasure assisting Chris develop his latest endeavor outside of his normal Wall Street activities.
Take a peek at http://wellnessrevolutionhomebusiness.com/
Chris is right on the money with his projections on the "wellness revolution" and its growth rate.
If you contact Chris Tell him the st0ckman sent you.
Christopher Wishnie
Vice President
Mr. Wishnie is a seasoned business intermediary and sales professional with twenty-five years of business development experience. Mr. Wishnie founded Principal Business Advisors, Inc., and directed its growth to become a market leader in small business brokerage. Prior to launching PBA, he was one of the first hires of Focal Communications Corp., a CLEC start-up, where he rose to the position of national sales manager. In that position, he led a team to implement business development strategies that resulted in over $300 MM of annual revenue in just four years. He led the sales effort to introduce the first wireless Internet trading platform to leading financial institutions like Muriel Siebert & Co., E*Trade, and Wall Street Discount Corporation. Early in his career he pioneered the sale of competitive long-distance services to small businesses following deregulation of the telecommunications industry. Mr. Wishnie has earned the distinction of President’s Club membership by producing outstanding sales results that consistently ranked in the top one percent nationwide.
cwishnie@carriagehillpartners.com
Carriage Hill Partners :: Christopher Wishnie
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