Это критически важно

In a meeting with, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu obtained President Obama's guarantee that the White House would continue a 4-decade-old secret deal to allow Israel keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections, The Washington Times reported on Friday quoting officials familiar with the matter

Gay секретаря

This is a critically important move, because it absolutely pulls the rug out from any possible true non-proliferation in the Middle East.

You cannot talk about non-proliferation with a straight face while Israel maintains a sizable nuclear arsenal.

And secondly, this "dispensation" by Obama, and other presidents before him, is illegal, according to the statutes of the Symington Amendment, which states in no uncertain terms that the US shall provide no aid to countries which develop nuclear weapons, and refuse to sign the NPT.

Israel has nuclear weapons; there is nothing "alleged" about it, and there is no ambiguity. As reported in

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/dec/13/israel

"Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was yesterday trying to fend off accusations of ineptitude and calls for his resignation after he accidentally acknowledged for the first time that Israel had nuclear weapons.

"After decades in which Israel has stuck to a doctrine of nuclear ambiguity, Mr Olmert let slip during an interview in Germany that Israel did indeed have weapons of mass destruction."

'He told Germany's Sat.1 channel on Monday evening: "Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly, threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel and Russia?" '

So there you have it, right out of the mouth of Israel's former Prime Minister.

Even former President Jimmy Carter has confirmed this, as reported in:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4004300.ece

"Israel has 150 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, former President Jimmy Carter said yesterday, while arguing that the US should talk directly to Iran to persuade it to drop its nuclear ambitions."

So the bottom line here is that Obama continues to lie about the absolute reality of Israel's nuclear arsenal so that US checks and military aid keep flowing to Israel

...while US infrastructure crumbles, and homeless Vets sleep on our streets.

Join Today, Get HIV Tomorrow

American Scofflaw
11,000 veterans who had colonoscopies at U.S. Veterans Affairs hospitals may have been exposed to hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV.

The veterans were advised equipment used during their treatment was not sterilized. Of those so far that responded by having follow-up blood checks, 8 have tested positive for HIV. Twelve of the veterans have tested positive for hepatitis B, and 37 have tested positive for hepatitis C.

This week it was learned a 55-year-old North Miami man, Juan Rivera, a thirteen-year Army veteran with a wife and 5 children, filed notice last month that he will sue the Federal Government claiming he was infected with HIV during a colonoscopy at the Miami Veterans Administration hospital. He had a colonoscopy at the hospital in May last year.

Rivera is suing the government for $20 million.
On March 28, the VA department wrote to more than 3,000 veterans who had colonoscopies at the Miami VA hospital advising them that improperly cleaned equipment might have exposed them to hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV.

VA officials say endoscopy equipment was rinsed instead of being sterilizing as was required by the manufacturer's directions.

Similar problems were uncovered at VA hospitals in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Augusta, Ga. The total number of veterans subsequently blew out to more than 11,000.

Following congressional inquiries, Miami VA hospital director Mary Berrocal disciplined up to 10 employees.

Boston As Baghdad

American Scofflaw

I kid you not. This is the reasoning used by the FBI. The cops need automatic weapons to respond if the city falls victim to a Mumbai-like terror attack. It’s more likely Boston will get hit by a hurricane, but you don’t see the government building levees and boarding up windows. A terror attack launched against Boston figures pretty low on the probability chart.

“Warren Bamford, the special agent in charge of the FBI in Boston, said Tuesday that he is baffled by opposition to a proposal to give some neighborhood police officers the semiautomatic weapons,” reports the Associated Press. “In May, Boston Mayor Tom Menino criticized a proposal to arm up to 200 officers with M-16s that the police department had ordered from the U.S. military. Menino said only specially trained units should have the guns.”

Menino, after all, has to face the wrath of citizens who will naturally resent the cops walking around as if Boston is Baghdad.

The FBI is merely playing its assigned role. From the Pentagon to the Department of Homeland Security to the FBI, the government is on the fast track to turn the country into a police state from sea to shining sea. A major part of that effort is the militarization of the police, a process already well along.

Let’s hand it to Boston Mayor Tom Menino — he didn’t buy into the FBI’s malarkey about a terrorist event that will probably never happen.

תזכיר אל נשיא Obama

זה נגמר

War with Russia, Anyone????

American Scofflaw

Well, at least you can credit Tel Aviv for wanting to be upfront about waging a clandestine intelligence war against Iran, prior to an actual invasion!

But do take a second, hard look at that statement ".....Failing that, Israel, which is widely assumed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, has hinted at a military option, though many analysts think Iranian sites are too dispersed and fortified for its air force to take on alone."

Guess who is going having to go to bat for Israel, should there be a military confrontation? None other than the good old US of A.

Your kids' lives and your tax dollars will pay for this next war, should it happen.

Any of our troops left in Iraq, and elsewhere in the Middle East, will be sitting ducks for a counter attack by Iranian military forces.

And here's something to chew on. Russia is Iran's 7th largest trading partner; what are they going to do when they see their 7th largest trading partner attacked?

It's a Bird, A Plane, no, It's a Geek Spy

American Scofflaw

To the list of collegiate types -- nerds, jocks, Greeks -- add one more: spies in training. The government is hoping they'll be hard to spot.

The Obama administration has proposed the creation of an intelligence officer training program in colleges and universities that would function much like the Reserve Officers' Training Corps run by the military services. The idea is to create a stream "of first- and second-generation Americans, who already have critical language and cultural knowledge, and prepare them for careers in the intelligence agencies," according to a description sent to Congress by Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair.

One has to wonder just how many of these people will be recruited for international operations, and how many for domestic surveillance of "terrorists" like Quaker anti-war groups, people who can actually speak coherently in complete sentences, etc., etc., etc.,

We are rapidly devolving into a society where "thought crime" is any logical disagreement with any policy or position this government may take, and that is chilling in the extreme.

Is This Big Time's Assassin??

It was reported on Tuesday that Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal will be taking over command of US forces in Afghanistan, pending Senate approval.

McChrystal is presently director of the Joint Chiefs staff, but from September 2003 to August 2008, he headed the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which oversees such elite units as the Army's Delta Force and the Navy SEALs.

Famed investigative reporter Seymour Hersh recently described the JSOC as an "executive assassination wing" controlled for many years by the office of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

Speaking to a University of Minnesota audience in March, Hersh called JSOC "a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. ... They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. ... Congress has no oversight of it. ... It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on."

Although McChrystal's efforts with JSOC were not widely reported at the time, Newsweek did run a brief article on him in June 2006:

No one would have mentioned his name at all if President George W. Bush hadn't singled him out in public. Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, West Point '76, is not someone the Army likes to talk about. He isn't even listed in the directory at Fort Bragg, N.C., his home base. That's not because McChrystal has done anything wrong—quite the contrary, he's one of the Army's rising stars—but because he runs the most secretive force in the U.S. military. That is the Joint Special Operations Command, the snake-eating, slit-their-throats "black ops" guys who captured Saddam Hussein and targeted Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi.

JSOC is part of what Vice President Dick Cheney was referring to when he said America would have to "work the dark side" after 9/11. To many critics, the veep's remark back in 2001 fostered his rep as the Darth Vader of the war on terror and presaged bad things to come, like the interrogation abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. But America also has its share of Jedi Knights who are fighting in what Cheney calls "the shadows." And McChrystal, an affable but tough Army Ranger, and the Delta Force and other elite teams he commands are among them. ...

Rumsfeld is especially enamored of McChrystal's "direct action" forces or so-called SMUs—Special Mission Units—whose job is to kill or capture bad guys, say Pentagon sources who would speak about Special Ops only if they were not identified. But critics say the Pentagon is short-shrifting the "hearts and minds" side of Special Operations that is critical to counterinsurgency—like training foreign armies and engaging with locals.

McChrystal, however, may not be quite as much of a white knight as Newsweek made him out to be. A far less flattering impression of him is given by an Esquire article which ran at the same time as the Newsweek piece. This article details revelations by a military interrogator, "Jeff," about the use of torture "at a secret camp used by Task Force 121, the ultimate Special Ops team, the elite titanium tip of Donald Rumsfeld's spear."

It was a point of pride that the Red Cross would never be allowed in the door, Jeff says. This is important because it defied the Geneva Conventions, which require that the Red Cross have access to military prisons. "Once, somebody brought it up with the colonel. 'Will they ever be allowed in here?' And he said absolutely not. He had this directly from General McChrystal and the Pentagon that there's no way that the Red Cross could get in--they won't have access and they never will. This facility was completely closed off to anybody investigating, even Army investigators."

Given Task Force 121's history, that was a remarkable promise. Formed in the summer of 2003, it quickly became notorious. By August the CIA had already ordered its officers to avoid Camp Nama. Then two Iraqi men died following encounters with Navy Seals from Task Force 121--one at Abu Ghraib and one in Mosul--and an official investigation by a retired Army colonel named Stuart Herrington, first reported in The Washington Post, found evidence of widespread beatings. "Everyone knows about it," one Task Force officer told Herrington. Six months later, two FBI agents raised concerns about suspicious burn marks and other signs of harsh treatment. Then the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency reported that his men had seen evidence of prisoners with burn marks and bruises and once saw a Task Force member "punch [the] prisoner in the face to the point the individual needed medical attention."

Fred Kaplan at Slate and Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Dish have already noted Task Force 121's involvement in harsh interrogations and General McChrystal's apparent protection of the abuses. Hopefully, these questions about McChrystal will not be overlooked during his confirmation hearings.

Jail Cells May Vary Says The Sick Woman

Proposed congressional legislation would demand up to two years in prison for those whose electronic speech is meant to “coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person.”

Instead of prison, perhaps we should say gulag.

The proposal by Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Los Angeles, would never pass First Amendment muster, unless the U.S. Constitution was altered without us knowing. So Sanchez, and the 14 other lawmakers who signed on to the proposal, are grandstanding to show the public they care about children and are opposed to cyberbullying.

The meaasure, H.R. 1966, is labeled the Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act. It’s designed to target the behavior that led to last year’s suicide of the 13-year-old Meier.

In response to Meier’s suicide, prosecutors turned to an anti-hacking statute, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and prosecuted Lori Drew. She was accused of violating MySpace’s terms of service agreement in what prosecutors said was a complex conspiracy to harass Meier via a fake MySpace online profile.

The judge presiding over the case is weighing a motion to nullify the jury’s verdict on allegations the authorities failed to prove Drew knew the MySpace terms of service existed — allegations that would be mooted had Drew been prosecuted under Sanchez’s proposal. Drew’s case was the nation’s first cyberbullying prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Sanchez’s bill goes way beyond cyberbullying and comes close to making it a federal offense to log onto the internet or use the telephone. The methods of communication where hostile speech is banned include e-mail, instant messaging, blogs, websites, telephones and text messages.

We can’t say what we think of Sanchez’s proposal. Doing so would clearly get us two years in solitary confinement.

The bill has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

שטויות

המערב מתעלם איראן genocidal האנטישמיות כתוצאה פסיכולוגי "טראומה מודל", לדברי פרופ 'ישראלי.
נשיא איראן מחמוד ...

נשיא איראן מחמוד אחמדינג 'אד gestures במהלך הנאום שלו לעבר האו"ם גזענות ועידה בשעה ארצות במטה בז' נבה, שוויץ.
צילום:

ד"ר הדר לובין, מנכ"ל משותף של דחק פוסט טראומטי Center in New Haven, קונטיקט, וכן עוזר פרופסור קליני בחוג של פסיכיאטריה ב אוניברסיטת ייל, מסירת הרצאה בנושא "טראומה ב הסווה: אנטישמיות" בוועידה האחרונה שבוע.

ישנה "הזדהות עם aggressor מתוך פחד" כי מבצע יגרום נזק נוסף, לובין אמר 'רוזלם פוסט. זה מסייע להסביר מדוע איראן "האיום להשמיד את ישראל, שהיא פשוטה מאוד, מאוד מדאיגה, היא התעלמה על ידי המערב," היא אמרה.

את יוזמת ייל עבור הבינתחומי ללימודי אנטישמיות (YIISA), הראשון US מבוססי המכון מוקדש אך ורק למחקר אקדמי המכסים עולה יהודי גלובלי-שנאה, אירחה את כנס שכותרתו: "השפעה נפשית של האיום של מידע Genocidal אנטישמיות: מ הכחשה ואת שתקת כדי להבין את האתגר ", אשר ביקש תשובות על נושאים כגון הגדה של אי האיסלאמי לחדור לעומק אנטישמיות בעולם המוסלמי ואיראן שואפים להשמיד את ישראל.

Is Flu Scare A Scam???

American Scofflaw

Is This The Gameplan?

1. Declare a pandemic
2. Use this declaration as grounds for arrest and imprisonment without charge, without representation and for an undetermined amount of time
3. Compel vaccination
4. Remove any liability from the drug companies involved if their products kill and maim

Pleaseeee..Help

The Gay Secretary
According to a report by Jeff Stein, published in the latest issue of Congressional Quarterly, the NSA in 2006 recorded Rep. Harman negotiating with an alleged Israeli agent about helping Israel win a reduction in the espionage charges filed by the US in 2005 against two members of the AIPAC lobby accused of providing US intelligence information to the Israeli government (the case against AIPAC’s Stephen Rosen and Keith Weissman is still waiting to go to trial). According to the transcript, a copy of which was obtained by CQ, the Israeli agent offered to have AIPAC lobby, and more specifically to have a it arrange for a wealthy Jewish pro-Israel donor in California donate money to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, in order to get her, once she became House Speaker, to name Harman as chair of the House Intelligence Committee. At the end of the phone conversation, Rep. Harman, who offered to help, was heard to say, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”

Merck Hit List

American Scofflaw

The international drug company Merck had a hit list of doctors who had to be "neutralized" or discredited because they had criticized the painkiller Vioxx, a now-withdrawn drug that the pharmaceutical giant produced.

Staff at the company emailed each other about the list of doctors. The email, which came out during a class-action suit against the drug company, included the words "neutralize," "neutralized" or "discredit" alongside some of the doctors' names.

The company is alleged to have used intimidation tactics against researchers, including dropping hints that the company would stop funding their institutions, and possibly even interfering with academic appointments.

"We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live," a Merck employee wrote, according to an email excerpt read to the court.

Drug companies have been hiring outside firms to purchase data on doctors from pharmacies since the mid-1990s. The reports let drug sales representatives see a doctor’s prescribing habits, among other things, which lets them know:

1. If their sales pitches are working
2. How to change their sales pitch if they’re not

For example, if the report shows a doctor generally prescribes a drug’s competitor, they can prepare a sales pitch specifically to discredit the competing drug. Meanwhile, those doctors who do regularly prescribe their drugs would likely be singled out to receive some “incentives” to keep doing so. But it’s not only doctors who are being quietly influenced.

Now What's Going On????

American Scofflaw
Now the police have changed their story, Freddie Mac CFO shot himself in the head. Was this before the hanging?

Autopsy results for David Kellermann, the acting chief financial officer of Freddie Mac, may be released as early as Thursday, police say.

Police say Kellermann's death was an apparent suicide. Sources tell WTOP he hanged himself in the basement of his upscale home. The Washington Post reports Kellermann hanged himself on a piece of exercise equipment.

The medical examiner's autopsy will determine the cause of death.

"We were called from inside the house to come investigate an apparent suicide," said Fairfax County Police spokeswoman Mary Anne Jennings Wednesday. Kellermann's wife, Donna, made the 911 call at 4:48 a.m. Wednesday.

"We're not going to give you details of the condition of the body, except to say it was an apparent suicide."

Authorities have not commented on whether Kellermann left a suicide note.

"We will not confirm, as is the policy of our department, if there even is the existence of any note," Fairfax County Police Officer Eddy Azcarate says.

Shoot me, I Need $$$

American Scofflaw
The federal government has agreed to pay $150,000 to a mob hit man who was accidentally shot by an FBI agent during his arrest.

Federal court records filed Wednesday disclosed the amount to be received by Frankie A. Roche, whose attorney agreed to the settlement in February. Roche had initially sued the government for $10 million in 2007.

Court records said the Massachusetts-based Roche pleaded guilty last year to a federal murder charge. He admits he was paid $10,000 to fatally shoot Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno in 2003. Bruno was the regional boss of the Genovese crime family.

Roche is cooperating with prosecutors and will be in the witness protection program.

Drum Roll, Please!

Steven Hoffenberg

The 1992 episode was troubling enough but a search of court records shows Sorkin and his former law firm of 20 years, Squadron Ellenoff, were targets of more serious charges in one of the largest Ponzi schemes of the 1990s, Towers Financial Corporation, run by Ponzi mastermind Steven Hoffenberg.

Steven Hoffenberg’s heist involved $462.5 million, which in 1994 the SEC called “one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history.”

"Bernie" Madoff's Ponzi scheme, which is now approaching 177 BILLION.

"Mikey" Milken, a rogue from the 1980's who helped bamboozle investors thru what would later be called "junk bonds."

Drexel and Milken were accused of manipulating stock prices, of keeping false records, and of defrauding their own clients. Drexel plead guilty to six felony counts of securities fraud on December 21 and paid a $650 million settlement fee. The company also agreed to assist in the indictment against Milken. Two months later, Milken was indicted on ninety-eight counts, including insider trading and racketeering.

Citigroup's Sandy Weill.

Citigroup faces federal, state, and industry investigations for a host of allegations that stem from the conflicts of interest that have emerged in the very post-Glass-Steagall world Weill helped create: hyping the stocks of lackluster companies in order to rake in those companies' IPO business; using loans as loss leaders to encourage companies to give Citigroup their investment-banking business; helping Enron and WorldCom conceal their massive debts; "spinning" rocketing IPO shares to executives in exchange for business from the executives' companies.

Arthur Nadel--who has conveniently "disappeared?"

Hmm, wonder where to?

In what has been called a "mini-Madoff' scandal, the 76-year-old Nadel is accused of bilking investors of up to $300 million. But until Thursday, when a federal judge remanded Madoff to jail, the two men had been treated very differently, even though both are being prosecuted by the same U.S. Attorney's Office in New York.

Jakob Abraham Merkin Has Been Charged

The lawsuit, filed under state charity and securities laws, claims that Mr. Merkin improperly collected more than $470 million in fees for collecting $2.4 billion for Mr Madioff.

“Merkin’s deceit, recklessness, and breaches of fiduciary duty have resulted in the loss of approximately $2.4 billion,” according to the complaint filed by Mr. Cuomo’s office, which opened an investigation of Mr. Merkin soon after the Madoff scheme collapsed in mid-December.

Julius Meinl

Julius Meinl V, the scion of a Viennese business dynasty whose name has been synonymous since the days of the Hapsburgs with luxuries like exotic coffee, handmade tortes and discreet private banking, has been jailed on suspicion of fraud at a company linked to the family.

A lawyer for Mr. Meinl, Herbert Eichenseder, said his client “rejects all the accusations.” The suspected $3 billion euro fraud ($4 billion) could also ensnare a former finance minister of Austria, Karl-Heinz Grasser, who has worked with Mr. Meinl in the past.

Mr. Meinl was jailed late Wednesday after five hours of questioning, investigators said. According to Mr. Jarosch, Mr. Meinl was arrested “after a string of searches in his home and office and because of a suspicion that he could flee the country since he also has British citizenship.”

Herb and Marion Sandler

The Sandlers were featured in a 60 Minutes segment that originally aired on February 15, 2009. This segment focused on a former World Savings employee's account of how the company was breaking the law, and how he brought it to his superiors' attention before the financial meltdown.

Time Magazine in its issue of February 23, 2009, named Herb and Marion Sandler "One of 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis." Others have suggested that the Sandlers' should use the gains from the sale of Golden West to bail out the many non-profits who will suffer losses of donations due to the mortgage crisis and recession.

Ivan Boesky

But on November 14, 1986 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Boesky with illegal stock manipulation based on insider information. Sentenced to prison, barred from dealing in securities, and ordered to pay $100 million in penalties, Boesky cooperated with the SEC in an insider-trading probe that rocked Wall Street.

Dennis Levine

Dennis Levine, managing editor of Drexel Burnham Lambert, was charged with illegal trading in May 1985, the SEC learned that Boesky had cut a deal with Levine in which the former paid the latter a percentage of profits for insider tips.

Maurice Greenberg of AIG, the defrauded company American taxpayers are being held up to support to the tune of hundreds of billions. Where did AIG's money go?

All of that sweet stuff they made off MBS and CDO's? Gone. Vanished? Where did that money go? Yes, it "vanished" but it sure as hell didn't evaporate.

Robert Rubin of Citigroup and his 122 BILLION dollar Ponzi scheme

Wamp: Eat Shit And Die Already

American Scofflaw

Choose?????"

Is this guy deranged????????

Nobody chooses not to have insurance. We cannot afford it, and even those of us who have it are faced with ever more energetic efforts to eject us from the insurance if we actually dare get sick!

Obviously, Rep. Zach Wamp is one of those politicians who are so rich they cannot conceive of life as ordinary Americans know it, where one must choose between health insurance, mandated car insurance, putting food on the table, or paying that mortgage at a time when US GOVERNMENT TAX POLICY HAS LEACHED HIGH PAYING JOBS FROM THIS COUNTRY AND SENT THEM TO FOREIGN SHORES.

This is Wamp's "Let them eat cake" comment!

The Button That Deletes Votes

Following three months of investigation, California's secretary of state has released a report examining why a voting system made by Premier Election Solutions (formerly known as Diebold Election Systems) lost about 200 ballots in Humboldt County during the November presidential election," Kim Zetter reports.

Zetter continues, "But the most startling information in the state's 13-page report (.pdf) is not about why the system lost votes, which Threat Level previously covered in detail, but that some versions of Diebold's vote tabulation system, known as the Global Election Management System (GEMS), include a button that allows someone to delete votes from the system."

Up Yours, US Taxpayer

The Fed refused yesterday to disclose the names of the borrowers and the loans, alleging that it would cast “a stigma” on recipients of more than $1.9 trillion of emergency credit from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

American Scofflaw
Let's see...If a private entity wanted to suck $700 billion from your hard earned private money to save the economy, wouldn't you want to know -- before you let them have it -- exactly who would get that money and on what terms?

Yet here we are in a situation where private entities - the Federal Reserve Banks - have already swindled $700 billion from private tax payer wallets, which they extorted from us through a bought and paid for public intermediary, which we euphemistically call our government, and they have the gall to tell us it's none of our goddamn business!

Pardon me if I ask (rhetorically) - what on earth could they be trying to hide???

A whole lot of stolen dollars and the vast criminal networks behind it...

And The Rats Shall Inherit

American Scofflaw

Brace yourselves for more fun news: recessions, it turns out, while bad for humans, may be good for cockroaches and mice.

Veterans in the pest control industry said that their customers, both residential and commercial, appear to be sacrificing on regular exterminations as a cost-cutting measure. While restaurants are bound by the threats of steep fines, apartment landlords and office buildings are cutting back services, the exterminators said.

Robert Agatowski, with Control Exterminating Company on East 33rd Street in Manhattan, recalled a recent call from a general manager of a business.

“He said, ‘It’s very simple. I don’t know if we can make the rent or the payroll,’” Mr. Agatowski recalled. “‘So in other words, you’re out. We’ll step on the bugs and kick the mice.’ The exterminating almost becomes like a luxury item.”

He and other exterminators interviewed this week were careful not to name names.

“People are being penny wise and pound foolish,” said Gil Bloom, with Standard Pest Management in Long Island City, Queens. “Monitoring pest control is very much pest prevention. It’s not just killing what’s there today. One mouse, a month later, could easily be a dozen mice.”

Exterminators said they are too busy to be hurt by any slowdown. “Business is a little lackluster, but they’re able to keep above water because of the bedbug situation,” said Leonard Douglen, executive director of the New Jersey Pest Management Association. “I would be concerned about it if people start cutting down on that service, because it’s essential. Especially in New York City.”

Restaurants do not have much leeway when it comes to pest control. If an inspection turns up pests or evidence of pets, like rodent droppings, then stiff fines follow.

“They end up spending as much as they would have spent if they’d maintained the whole time,” said Jeff Eisenberg, president of Pest Away Exterminating in Manhattan. “You want to change your oil every month, or you want to spend the $700 for a whole new something or other?”

So far, so good: The city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene reported a slight decrease in pest-related violations from inspections in the last quarter of 2008, compared with the same period in 2007.

Exterminators said it was too soon to blame a slowdown in service calls solely on the recession, as the cold winter months are typically when people cut back. “I’ve been doing this 17 years, so I know the cycles,” Mr. Eisenberg said. “I don’t panic.”

False Flag Scofflaws EXPOSED