'Women, children among 18 Afghans dead in NATO wedding strike'

A NATO airstrike in the eastern Afghan province of Logar has killed 18 people, including women and children, local officials report. A NATO spokesperson said a team had been deployed to investigate the claims of civilian casualties.

Afghan authorities say the pre-dawn attack aimed at militants in the area hit a wedding. An AP photographer at the scene reported seeing the bodies of five women, seven children and six men piled in vans. AFP news agency also released a photo with victims piled into the back of a vehicle.

Local villagers are now reportedly driving the bodies to the capital of Logar province to protest the NATO strike which they say hit a house in the district of Baraki Barak.

In A Gold Standard, How Are Interest Rates Set?

Submitted by Keith Weiner, President of the Gold Standard Institute, USA
In A Gold Standard,How Are Interest Rates Set?
Today, short-term interest rates are set by the diktats of the central bank.  And long-term interest rates are set in a “market” in which the central bank is obliged to keep coming back to buy ever more bonds, and speculators front-run the central banks to buy ahead of them.  The result has been that, for 30 years and counting, the bond price has been rising, which is the same as to say that the rate of interest has been spiraling into the black hole of zero.  When it gets there (and probably sooner) the entire monetary system will collapse.

This is the terminal stage of the disease of irredeemable paper currency.  They have banished money (gold) from the monetary system, and the result is a positive-feedback-loop that destabilizes the rate of interest.  The rate of interest has a propensity to fall, just like the value of the paper currency itself.

This leads to the question of how interest rates are set by a free market under a gold standard.  This is a non-trivial question, and the answer is profoundly important as we debate what sort of role gold ought to play and evaluate the various gold standards being proposed.

If people are free to own gold coins directly, then the mechanics of setting the rate of interest are simple.

The Treasury and the Fed are Robbing Savers - James Rickards

Casey Research's Chief Technology Investment Strategist, Alex Daley sits down with James Rickards, Senior Managing Director at Tangent Capital Partners and author of "Currency Wars", at the latest Casey Research Conference, "Recovery Reality Check" in Weston, Florida. Source

The Commonwealth Is A Colonial Relic - Africa Today + 'UK monarch's costly display, disgusting'

"Nothing common and no wealth going around!"
Critics allege that the Commonwealth is a colonial relic, a neo-imperial conspiracy and nothing but ''a collection of not very important states brought together by accident of having been colonized by Britain''.

Max Keiser gives Soros Gold advice

The Eurozone debt crisis is getting dangerously close to the monetary union's powerhouse - Germany. Moody's has cut the ratings of several German banks, including the country's second biggest lender. Austria is also affected. Max Keiser, RT's financial guru and host of The Keiser Report smells a rat in all this. He says, the crisis is the chance for some to make a fast buck. Source

Will Greece and Spain's youth jobs crisis spread to the UK?

A skills mismatch has intensified youth joblessness on the Continent, taking it above 50pc in some nations, and the worry is it could happen in Britain.

By Louisa Peacock: Dimitrios Makrystathis feels let down. A fourth-year engineering student from Greece, he has kept his side of the bargain by studying hard but knows when he graduates next year there will be no decent jobs. Young Greeks are so "pessimistic" about their future they have stopped looking for work, the 23 year-old says.

"It's tragic to be around people who have lost their jobs and don't have enough money for their children. Pensioners don't have enough money to buy medicines. It's not the best environment to grow up in and do something innovative," he says.

Makrystathis is in Geneva for a three-day conference on youth unemployment organised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), joining 100 other young people from Europe to discuss ways of finding work.

But in reality, he has put his dream of becoming a well-paid software engineer in Greece to one side. He knows he will be overqualified for the jobs on offer when he graduates and his educational background won't match companies' needs.

The so-called "skills mismatch" is a problem many UK employers will recognise. The economic crisis has unmasked structural problems in the supply of candidates in the British labour market, which laid dormant in the boom years, and mean scores of young people leaving university without "job-ready" skills are now finding it difficult to get work.

Banksta BBQ and The Straw Man

The TSA’s number one enemy: Rand Paul

By Brent Daggett: The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) could be permanently grounded if freshman libertarian-minded Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky has his way. While Rand’s legislation is not yet complete, his bills will included a passenger’s bill of rights as well as a bill to privatize the TSA.

Editor’s note: previous proposals include the creation of “consumer advocates” although nothing has been done to begin to push back against the expansion of the TSA outside of airports. Rand’s online petition released last month, which can be viewed on dailypaul.com, reveals the rationale behind the opposition to the TSA other than the fact that he was detained in January for refusing a pat down. However, Rand is no stranger to brush ins with the TSA.

On June 22, 2011, Rand spoke at a Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee meeting about invasive TSA searches and questioned TSA Administrator John S. Pistole.

PETITION TO THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS

Whereas: Our constitutional rights are being violated every day by an out-of-control agency that was created in a misguided attempt to interject the government into a place it was not needed; and

Whereas: The TSA does not make us more secure; it simply wastes time and money; and

Whereas: The TSA has set up rules and procedures that harass ordinary citizens at the expense of actually finding terrorists; and

TSA Ideology: Guilty Until Proven Slave!

Noted radio and television host John B. Wells guest hosts the Alex Jones Show today, Tuesday, June 5. Alex co-hosts today's show from the road via video Skype as he works his way back to Texas from the 2012 Bilderberg confab in Virginia. Wells is heard on radio and television stations throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, South Africa, Australia, and South America, and is one of the world's most recognized voice artists. Source

New Rules: YOU are 'GUILTY Until Proven Innocent!' Fascist Police Stop, Handcuff Every Adult at Intersection in Search for Bank Robber

Police in Aurora, Colo., searching for suspected bank robbers stopped every car at an intersection, handcuffed all the adults and searched the cars, one of which they believed was carrying the suspect.

Police said they had received what they called a “reliable” tip that the culprit in an armed robbery at a Wells Fargo bank committed earlier was stopped at the red light.

“We didn’t have a description, didn’t know race or gender or anything, so a split-second decision was made to stop all the cars at that intersection, and search for the armed robber,” Aurora police Officer Frank Fania told ABC News.

Officers barricaded the area, halting 19 cars.

“Cops came in from every direction and just threw their car in front of my car,” Sonya Romero

Nomi Prins on Banker's Gone Bad "Where's the FBI, this is Larceny" - MF'ers, BoA, and Spanish Bond Bashing

MF Global's creditors could have more than three billion dollars in claims against the failed firm. That's according to the creditors' bankruptcy trustee -- former FBI director Louis Freeh. Guess who is NOT in the front of the line for the money according to Freeh's report? Customers. This is after a report came out yesterday from the trustee for the creditors, James Giddens. Lot's to unpack, and we have just the guest to help us do it, author and former Goldman Sachs managing director Nomi Prins.