New Study Indicates Voters Reward Politicians Who Push Disaster Relief Not Disaster Preparedness

When most of us think of what we should be doing to prepare for disasters, we often forget that exercising our role as citizens and voters can be as important as the more well known tasks like storing emergency supplies or creating a communications plan.

That point is underscored by an intriguing new study, “Preferring A Pound of Cure to an Ounce of Prevention: Voting, Natural Disasters, and Government Response” by Andrew J. Healy, an economics professor at Loyola Marymount University.

By studying data on natural disasters, government spending and election returns, Healy found that “voters reward disaster relief spending but not disaster prevention spending.” As he further concludes: “This aspect of voter behavior creates a large distortion in the incentives that governments face, since data show that prevention spending substantially reduces future damage.” ....

'Suzie Wong' agents training for Olympic 'Games'

LONDON -- China's Secret Intelligence Service, CSIS, has trained more than 1,000 of its most beautiful female agents to launch "honey trap" missions against British and other foreign businessmen and key diplomatic aides accompanying foreign leaders to the Olympic Games, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.

The warning has come in a detailed briefing by Britain's two intelligence chiefs -- Jonathan Evans of MI5 and John Scarlett of MI6 -- to the British team and businessmen. Similar warnings have been issued by the U.S. State Department and European foreign ministries to their teams.

Earlier this year a senior aide of prime minister Gordon Brown was caught in a "honey trap" by a Chinese female agent he met in a Beijing nightclub and took back to his hotel room. In the morning, the aide discovered she had stolen his Blackberry. It contained secret Whitehall contact numbers.

"They would be invaluable to the Chinese, enabling them to bug the numbers," said an intelligence source. The numbers have now been changed -- and the aide severely reprimanded.

Both MI5 and MI6 have sent teams to Beijing to watch over the hundreds of British businessmen who see the Games as an opportunity to do business. The intelligence officers also will keep an eye on celebrating British athletes when they go clubbing in Beijing's night spots.

"We know that many of those places have been chosen as ideal pick-up places for foreigners. They are particularly looking for people who work in the IT industry, or who have links with major banks or financial services firms," Evans warned Whitehall mandarins, ministerial aides and top businessmen before they left for Beijing.

He explained the key objective of the "Suzie Wongs" of China's Secret Intelligence Service.

"Their role is to persuade a target to take them to his hotel room and then try and steal any documents or his cell phone," Evans warned.

He identified a number of Beijing hotels his agents regard as "high risk."

These have been fitted with state-of-the-art surveillance software and cameras to blackmail a businessman or government officials.

The State Department in Washington has issued an official warning to all U.S. travelers attending the Games: "There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in those hotels. The Chinese authorities will be monitoring all e-mails and phone calls."

World Ban Fired Wolfowitz to Hide Corruption: Former Official

(Compiler's note: Tell me this is not true. rca)

By: Kenneth R. Timmerman

Senior officials at the World Bank have admitted that the firing of former Bush administration official Paul Wolfowitz as World Bank president was a scheme to block an unpopular anti-corruption campaign he had championed, a former World Bank official told Newsmax.

“The stuff about his girlfriend was all contrived,” former World Bank official Steve Berkman told Newsmax. “It was a mini-scandal people at the Bank used to nail him.” ...