Author: admin
-
$20million for Iraq victory party
The original legislation empowered the president to designate “a day of celebration” to commemorate the success of the armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to “issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States to observe that day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.”
The celebration would honor the soldiers, sailors, air crews and marines who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it would be held in Washington, with the $20 million to cover the costs of military participation.
Democrats called attention to the measure, an act that Republicans are likely to portray as an effort to embarrass them five weeks before the midterm election. The Democrats said both the original language and the extension were pushed by Senate Republicans. A spokesman for the Republican-controlled Senate Armed Services Committee said it was protocol not to identify sponsors of such specific legislation.
The overall legislation was approved in the Senate by unanimous consent and overwhelmingly in the House after a short debate.
Democrats nevertheless said they were not pleased.
“If the Bush administration had spent more time planning for the postwar occupation of Iraq, and less time planning ‘mission accomplished’ victory celebrations, America would be closer to finishing the job in Iraq,” said Rebecca M. Kirszner, communications director for Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader.
Lt. Col. Brian Maka, a Pentagon spokesman, said late Tuesday that the event was envisioned as an opportunity for “honoring returning U.S. forces at the conclusion” of operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. “As the funds were not used in F.Y. 2006,” the official said, using the initials for fiscal year, “the authorization was rolled over into F.Y. 2007.”
-
Google Again Censors 9/11 Film Statistics
A brief appraisal of the viewership figures for the multiple different versions of Terror Storm again shows that Google have deliberately reset the viewership stats to prevent the film getting a foothold in the Popular, Featured, or Movers and Shakers categories. It is only when a film enters these prominent categories that it really begins to spread like wildfire and enter a cycle of exponential multiplication.
Figures that were heading towards 500,000 views for different uploads of the film are now back in the low hundreds and tens of thousands. The number of viewer submitted comments remains the same but the viewership numbers have clearly been unfairly doctored.
Loose Change appears in the featured video section of Google Video on almost every visit to the website because of its immeasurable viral impact and we are delighted for Dylan Avery and the rest of his crew that such a dynamic film is reaching tens of millions of people.
————————————————————————————————————
"The DVD of the resistance!" Get TerrorStorm on DVD today! Subscribe to Prison Planet.tv and see it in high quality or watch it for free at Google Video.
————————————————————————————————————Its viewership figures have not been reset and continue to multiply, along with other popular truth movement films such as 9/11 Mysteries: Demolitions. Google’s alleged "mistake" only seems to apply to Terror Storm and no other video.
From past behavior and clear evidence of statistical manipulation, it is reasonable to conclude that an executive level decision has been made to artificially trim the numbers for Terror Storm and prevent it from becoming an underground blockbuster.
Such a policy would not come as a surprise as we have consistently run into censorship issues with Google.
During our Charlie Sheen coverage, Google intentionally blocked news stories pertaining to Sheen’s comments which were first made on the Alex Jones Show and turned into a nationwide media spectacle.
Even after the story had gone supernova, and our original write-up had been linked all over the web, including the Drudge Report, Google’s main search engine did not list the article.
After we blew the whistle on this act of censorship, the story was re-listed and Google even began carrying some of our content in their news section – a practice that has now also ceased.
Google’s penchant for abandoning their founding principle of "don’t be evil" and kissing up to Communist China for privileged access into the world’s biggest untapped Internet market, was exemplified in February this when Google completely erased the Space War website from its search engine. Space War is a large mainstream news website that carries articles about geopolitics and the defense industry from AFP.
Space War speculated that it was their reporting on advancements in China’s military technology and missile programs that provoked a censorship order from the totalitarian Chinese government which Google acted upon. Again, after a mass e mailing campaign which we fully supported, Google re-indexed the Space War website.
Please e mail Google and ask them why they keep trimming the viewership figures for Terror Storm. Demand an answer as to why they are unfairly blocking Terror Storm from reaching large numbers of people. We appreciate the great service that Google Video provides for free but what are they so afraid of that they would deliberately alter viewership totals and suppress the impact of this movie?
-
Hey, boss – buy me a bike
"The undue bureaucracy hampering this excellent idea appears to have been overcome, so the more people who hear about it the better," says Yannick Read of the CTC, the national cyclists organisation.
The basic principle of Cycle2Work is simple. Your employer is allowed to provide you with a bike to travel to work as a tax-free benefit – you can use the bike as often as you want for leisure riding, as long as you also use it to commute.In practice, you choose the bike you want. Your employer then buys it and leases it to you over a set period, which is typically from one to three years. At the end of this term, you can buy the bike to keep for a nominal payment, usually between 2.5 and 5 per cent of the original purchase price.
You make big savings because each monthly payment comes out of your salary before tax and National Insurance have been deducted. You can even add the cost of a lock, a helmet, reflective clothes and bike lights to the deal.
So, for example, you choose a bike costing pounds 400, plus gear worth pounds 100. Your employer coughs up the cash, and is entitled to reclaim the VAT on the purchases, reducing the cost to pounds 425.
Lease the bike for a year, say, and you will pay about pounds 35.50 a month. For a basic-rate taxpayer, making the payment out of pre-tax wages reduces the cost each month to pounds 24, or pounds 288 over the year. At the end of the year, you buy the bike and safety gear at 2.5 per cent of its original price – pounds 12.50. In total, you get pounds 500 worth of bike and kit for just pounds 300.
The easiest way for your employer to implement Cycle2Work is through one of three providers that currently run the scheme on behalf of companies. Hal-fords has been involved with the scheme since the launch, but has recently been joined by Booost and Cycle scheme, which both have links to independent bike shops.
Laura Mason of Hal fords says the simplified scheme rules will make Cycle2Work even more attractive. "We have in excess of 300 employers running the scheme this year," she adds. They include companies such as the Royal Mail, Lloyds TSB and Microsoft, as well as several local authorities.
Using a Cycle2Work provider should ensure employers can introduce the scheme without burdening payroll departments.
Hal fords, www.halfordsb2b.com’ Cycle scheme, www.cyclescheme.co.uk’ Booost, www.booost.uk.com
HE COST OF A BIKE FOR WORK
Copyright 2006 Independent Newspapers UK Limited