TV News LIES

We’ve had an increase in the Initial Unemployment Claims number for the second straight week, and this may or maybe not bad news. It’s too early to get really worried about it, we’re still way below the 400,000 number that seems to indicate a failing economy these days.

The numbers are seasonally adjusted and thanks to global warming we had no winter to speak of, causing the normal spring spike in activity to start in January. Low winter heating bills put an average of $400 per family into the economy with twice that in the northeast. Unfortunately,  high gasoline prices are taking it back again.

Imagine birthdays, Valentine's Day, special occasions of all kinds without the Post Office's stamp of approval and thumbs-up.  Imagine America without Post Offices in its histories and small towns.

More to the point, imagine playing Post Office with a new, for-profit corporation: Imagine having to kiss up to and keep any new avocational CEO stocked up with vacation homes, wingtips, private jets.

The Arizona government can now officially involve itself in your sex life. Whether it’s during sex, after sex or before you’ve ever met that special someone, state officials in Arizona have determined life to begin before conception.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed her name to a controversial bill on Thursday, authorizing the state to outlaw abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. According to the legislation, however, the state considers the starting point of the life of a fetus to begin on the first day of the mother’s last menstrual period, essentially establishing life to begin before scientifically possible.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein's compensation increased 14.5 percent to $16.2 million in 2011 despite a sharp decline in profits and share price during the year, leaving the bank open to more attacks on its pay policies.

Blankfein's pay boost includes stock awards from previous years that vested in 2011, and therefore does not reflect the amount that Goldman's board awarded him strictly for the company's performance last year.

Bacteria that have never before come in contact with humans, their diseases or their antibiotics, but are nevertheless resistant to a variety of antibiotics, have been discovered in a U.S. cave.

"This supports a growing understanding that antibiotic resistance is natural, ancient," and an integral part of the genetic heritage of microbes, suggest researchers from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. and the University of Akron in Akron, Ohio, in a new study published this week in the journal PLoS ONE.

The American government “is using its power to intimidate, prosecute and prevent government employees from sharing information about state officials’ misconduct”, insists Stephen Kohn, attorney and author of The Whistleblower's Handbook.

­This attack on whistleblowers in America is an attack on fundamental freedom of speech, “preventing the American people from learning about the abuses of their government,” warned the attorney.

One of the most important parts of the lawsuit is that it is seeking “an injunctive relief to prevent police from keeping the press further back than the general public,” according to Osterreicher.

This is part of a much larger and thoroughly troubling trend of Americans being beaten, arrested and harassed for exercising their right to legally film police, which is just part of the growing American police state and the general erosion of our most essential liberties.

Spanish interior minister Jorge Fernandez Diaz yesterday announced in Congress planned reforms that would introduce harsh new punishments for those involved in organising street protests that "seriously disturb the public peace". A minimum jail term of two years could be imposed on those found guilty of instigating and carrying out violent acts of protest, and organising such demonstrations through social networks would carry the same penalty as involvement in a criminal organisation.