SOS

Alert: Signs showing an integrated North America have begun showing up on U.S. Interstate highways for NORPASS, a new electronic system that allows participating truckers in Canada and the U.S. to by-pass roadside weigh stations through the use of a transponder mounted on the windshield.

The NORPASS website describes the organization as "a partnership of state and provincial agencies and trucking industry representatives who are committed to promoting safe and efficient trucking throughout North America."

Truckers that register to participate in NORPASS receive a small transponder that signals to a computer in participating weigh stations. As the participating truck approaches the NORPASS weigh station, a roadside reader detects the transponder and a computer in the weigh station checks the truck's credentials.

If the truck is certified, the NORPASS transponder signals a green light, allowing the driver to bypass the station. If a problem is detected, a red light flashing on the transponder indicates a need for the truck to stop and be checked. Participating NORPASS truckers are charged $45 to purchase a windshield transponder directly from NORPASS.

Melanie Coon, a spokesperson for the Washington Department of Transportation, or WaDOT, told WND the purpose of the system is to contribute to the state's efforts to introduce "automated intelligence systems to assist trucks and people in crossing the U.S.-Canadian border more efficiently."

Along with Washington, states participating in NORPASS include Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, South Dakota, New York, Connecticut, Kentucky and North Carolina. Two Canadian provinces, British Columbia and Quebec, are NORPASS participants.

A map on the NORPASS website indicates NORPASS weigh station by-passing is also compatible with the transponders issued by BestPass, another U.S.-Canadian truck transponder system.

While the NORPASS road sign and corporate emblem clearly portray North America including Canada, the United States and Mexico NORPASS currently has no Mexican states participating. Coon could not tell WND why no Mexican states were included in the program. Aves Thompson, the executive director of the Alaska Trucking Association, serves as the president of NORPASS.

In a telephone interview with WND, Thompson could not think of any reason why Mexican states were not included in the program, other than that NORPASS was currently focusing on recruiting new participants in U.S. states and Canadian provinces contiguous to current NORPASS members. Thompson said NORPASS was a private, not-for-profit organization that is not a part of any state or federal government organization.

"The goal of NORPASS is to provide for safe, legal and efficient transport of freight," Thompson said. "Electronic by-pass in systems like NORPASS allow trucks to by-pass weigh stations more quickly and allow the law enforcement personnel to focus on the bad actors.

"Law enforcement agencies across the U.S. appreciate any electronic screening that separates out safe and legal trucks from trucks that need more attention," he stressed. "We are doing outreach to other states and provinces that are upgrading their capabilities to conduct electronic screening of vehicles," Anne Ford, the WaDOT commercial vehicles services administrator, told WND.

"Each state and province has their own electronic screening system," Ford said. "As the truck approaches the weigh station in Washington state, the transponder signal is read against the WaDOT database to check the information related to the vehicle. The trucks are supposed to be in the right lane when they approach a weigh station. In the right lane WaDOT has 'weigh in-motion' scales built in the roadway that can electronically weigh the vehicle at freeway speeds."

Ford added that at the national level, "there is a database called SAFER that is part of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that some states use to first gather the vehicle data. From SAFER, the data is then sent out to other NORPASS participating states." SAFER, which stands for "Safety and Fitness Electronic Records," collects a wide range of data on commercial vehicles, including inspection reports, crash reports and enforcement actions.

WaDOT sends data for a Washington state vehicle registered with a transponder in NORPASS to the SAFER system in Washington, D.C. From the nation's capital, the vehicle data is then sent to other states for electronic screening, whether or not they are NORPASS participating members, Ford explained to WND.

The WaDOT website indicates that as of April 1, the Commercial Vehicle Information Systems and Networks, or CVISN, program was providing electronic screening at 11 weigh stations in Washington state to 8,647 trucking companies with 61,373 trucks equipped with transponders. The NORPASS website includes downloads of NORPASS brochures in both French and Spanish.

e system's Western Service Center. (WND)
Alert: The U.S. economy is in for a "lasting slowdown" and could face a Japan-style period of relatively low growth coupled with high inflation, billionaire investor George Soros said on Monday.

Soros, speaking to Reuters Financial Television, also warned that rescuing U.S. banks could turn them into "zombies" that draw the lifeblood of the economy, prolonging the economic slowdown.

"I don't expect the U.S. economy to recover in the third or fourth quarter so I think we are in for a pretty lasting slowdown," Soros said, adding that in 2010 there might be "something" in terms of U.S. growth.

Soros' view contrasts with the majority of economists, who expect the U.S. economy to stop contracting in the third quarter and resume growing in the fourth quarter, according to the latest monthly poll of forecasts conducted by Reuters.

The recovery will look like "an inverted square root sign," Soros said. "You hit bottom and you automatically rebound some, but then you don't come out of it in a V-shape recovery or anything like that. You settle down—step down."

What's more, the Treasury's Public-Private Investment Fund is going to work but it won't be enough to recapitalize the banks in a way that they are able to or willing to provide credit.

"What we have created now is a situation where the banks who will be able to earn their way out of a hole, but by doing that, they are going to weigh on the economy," he said. "Instead of stimulating the economy, they will draw the lifeblood, so to speak, of profits away from the real economy in order to keep themselves alive. This is the zombie bank situation."

The stress tests being conducted by Treasury could be a precursor to a more successful recapitalization of the banks, he added.

Dollar is Vulnerable

Soros, whose latest book, "The Crash of 2008 and What it Means," has made prescient calls during the current credit crisis.

Exactly one year ago, he told Reuters that global losses are likely to top $1 trillion from the credit crisis. To date, U.S. and European banks have recorded more than $700 billion in losses and write-downs, as of Feb. 5. 2009, according to Reuters data.

Soros also said the U.S. dollar is under selling pressure and may eventually be replaced as a world reserve currency, possibly by the IMF's Special Drawing Rights, a synthetic currency basket comprised of dollars, euros, yen and sterling.

"I think the dollar is now under question and I think the system will need to be reformed, so that the United States will be subject to the same discipline as is imposed on other countries," said Soros, whose famous bet against the British pound earned his Quantum Fund $1 billion in 1992. "Being the main issuer of international currency, we have been exempt and we have abused that because we have effectively consumed 6.5 percent more than we have produced. That is now coming to an end."

China recently proposed greater use of Special Drawing Rights, possibly as an eventual global reserve currency. "In the long run, having an international accounting unit rather than the dollar may, in fact, be to our advantage so we can't splurge—you know, it felt very good for 25 years but now we are paying a very heavy price," Soros said.

China will be the first country to emerge from recession, probably this year, and will spearhead global growth in 2010, Soros said. He said world policymakers are "actually beginning to catch up" with the crisis and efforts to fix structural problems in the financial system.

The system was "fundamentally flawed, and there is no returning to where we came from," he said.

Euro Zone Not in Danger

In Europe, he said the crisis provides an incentive for countries that use the euro to remain inside the monetary union, though countries on the periphery still face serious problems.

The euro has been "a tremendous advantage" to countries that use it, adding there's "no question of a weaker country dropping out," Soros said.

While additional resources for the International Monetary Fund will help it stabilize struggling Eastern Europe, he said the Baltic states still face "serious problems" and Ukraine is not far from default.

Widespread use of credit default swaps has worsened the risks for Europe, he said, though he added that Germany, the euro zone's biggest economy, is becoming more open to offering help. "Germany, which has been the most reserved about being the deep pocket of the rest of Europe, has recognized that it too has a responsibility toward the new member states."

Germany has been one of the most reluctant major economies to meet U.S. calls for more fiscal stimulus spending to boost the global economy and fight the financial crisis.

Mexico's Fox wants European Union here!

Tells Texas audience he wants 'integration' to speed up!

The former president of Mexico told a Texas audience he envisions a European Union-like plan working well across North America, and he would like the "integration" process to speed up.

The comments raised red flags for officials with Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, who wrote, "Does everyone understand now why they have let over 15 million illegal aliens enter and remain in the U.S.?"

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox spoke in San Antonio March 27, talking about trade, the drug war immigration reform and other issues.

According to the San Antonio Express, Fox expressed the hope that Canada, the United States and Mexico would function like the European Union.

"It's an extremely successful model," said Fox. "My vision is to speed up the process of further integration."

His address was before the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute's Future Leaders Conference.

The report said Fox acknowledged the difficulty of establishing such a union in the Americas because of opposition, but he noted the ascent to the White House of President Barack Obama and his administration.

"Hope is back again," Fox said.

He said the North American Free Trade Agreement, which already is in place, has been a "success," raising the annual per capita income in Mexico from $3,500 to $8,500.

On other issues, Fox admitted his own nation's citizens are involved in drug use, but agreed with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's statement that blamed the "insatiable" drug consumption in the U.S. for the cartel violence throughout the region.

He also said he hopes Obama will follow up on previous attempts to provide "comprehensive immigration reform," which has included plans to legalize the millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. already.

On the Express forum page, readers were outraged.

"If this country ever becomes part of a union of nations with Mexico, I'm moving to Australia. For all of you who love Mexico and want to wave the Mexican flag in the faces of true Americans, you should just go back across the border and be with your fellow countrymen so that you can all love Mexico together on the OTHER side of the border from the USA," said one.

"REMEMBER THE ALAMO!!!!!" shouted another. "We need to keep our independence from such garbage as this. Fox is probably in cahoots with Abomination wanting to set up a socialist regime. Comrade Fox....not in my life time."

Yet another was succinct: "This is a BAD idea!"

"His extremely successful model is falling apart because of the deteriorating economic conditions, where successful countries have to prop up the poorest members of the EU, just to save the value of the euro," wrote one.

The move under the administration of President George W. Bush to implement comprehensive immigration reform was stymied when Washington was flooded with e-mails and telephone calls and faxes from Americans opposed to the plan. "FaxDC played a big part in protecting our nation."

But as WND reported, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger openly called for the Obama administration to manipulate the current financial crisis to create a "new world order."

Kissinger's commentary in the International Herald Tribune made clear globalists intend to utilize the current financial meltdown.

"The economic world has been globalized," Kissinger proclaimed. "Its institutions have a global reach and have operated by maxims that assumed a self-regulating global market."

Rather than focus on domestic politics, Kissinger said the solution involves creating global political institutions to better govern and regulate global economic markets and institutions.

WND also reported when Obama, then president-elect, appointed to his economic transition team a known socialist activist who previously lobbied for the creation of a North American Parliamentary Union, a governing body to run Mexico, Canada and the U.S.

The individual was former Rep. David Bonior, who has been honored by socialists in America. David Bonior is the new socialist demanding the merger of Mexico, Canada and the U.S. under one Parliament.

Bonior was a longtime critic of NAFTA, a trilateral trade bloc created by the U.S., Canadian and Mexican governments. But he argued that as long as NAFTA was in effect, a joint parliament should be formed to oversee the agreement.

"How do we democratize this globalization argument (NAFTA)?" Bonior has stated. "One of the ideas we came up with was forming a North American Parliamentary Union. A North America Parliament, with Mexico, Canada and the United States, with people – probably first appointed, but eventually elected like they are in the European Parliament – so we can begin to raise these issues of human rights, civil rights and labor rights and immigration, which never get talked about here."

NOTE: Minuteman Steve says: Bonior is a Pink-o Communist!

Tell those scallywags on Capitol Hill they are not going to get away with this!

STOP! SELLING OUT AMERICA!