Aug 9, 8:50 AM (ET)

By ROHAN SULLIVAN

BEIJING (AP) - A knife-wielding Chinese man attacked two relatives of a coach for the U.S. Olympic men's volleyball team at a tourist site in Beijing, killing one and injuring the other on the first day of the Olympics on Saturday, team officials and state media said.

The man then committed suicide by throwing himself from the second story of the site, the 13th century Drum Tower just five miles from the main Olympics site.

The brutal attack shortly after midday was all the more shocking because of the rarity of violent crime against foreigners in tightly controlled China, which has ramped up security measures even more for the Olympics.

The stabbing came only hours after what by many accounts was the most spectacular opening ceremony in Olympic history and it has already dampened some of the enthusiasm.

"They are deeply saddened and shocked," Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee, said of the volleyball team.

The U.S. Olympic Committee said in a statement that two family members of a coach for the men's indoor volleyball team were stabbed at the Drum Tower "during an attack by what local law enforcement authorities have indicated was a lone assailant."

One of the family members was killed and the other was seriously injured, it said, without giving details.

The official Xinhua News Agency identified the attacker as Tang Yongming, 47, from the eastern city of Hangzhou. It said Tang attacked the two Americans and their Chinese tour guide, who was also injured, at 12:20 p.m. on the second level of the ancient tower, then leapt to his death immediately afterward. The second level of the tower is about 130 feet high.

Seibel said the two Americans who were attacked were not wearing anything that would have identified them as Americans or part of the U.S. team. He could not name the coach.

"They were not wearing apparel or anything that would have specifically identified them as being members of our delegation" or as Americans, he told The Associated Press.

He said it is "too early to say" whether the U.S. delegation or athletes will require additional security.

U.S. Embassy spokesman Richard Buangan said it was aware of an incident involving two Americans and was working with Chinese authorities to find out more. He said U.S. officials were in contact with relatives of the two Americans who are in Beijing.

"Out of respect for the families involved, we can't say more than that," Don Q. Washington, another embassy spokesman, told reporters.

Police blocked off streets leading to the Drum Tower immediately after the attack and cordoned off the area with yellow police tape. Security officers were examining the scene on the tower and below.

Attacks on foreigners in China are extremely rare. A Canadian model was murdered last month in Shanghai, but police said that was because she stumbled onto a burglary.

In March, a screaming, bomb-strapped hostage-taker who commandeered a bus with 10 Australians aboard in the popular tourist city of Xi'an was shot to death by a police sniper.

Shanghai and Beijing are still safer than most foreign cities of their size. Punishments for crimes against foreigners are heavier than for crimes against Chinese, and police-linked neighborhood watch groups are highly vigilant. Chinese are not allowed to own guns.

Even so, the U.S. government now warns Americans against muggings, beatings and even carjackings, especially in the nightlife and shopping districts of large cities.

Built in the 13th century, the Drum Tower is one of the few ancient structures still in Beijing, and was used to tell time in imperial China for the city, using drummers who pounded their instruments to mark the hours. It is located on an important central axis of the city, to the north of the Forbidden City, the former home of the emperor.

The White House saidPresident Bush, who is in Beijing for the opening days of the games, was informed of the incident, and his heart goes out to the families of the victims. It said the administration and the Beijing U.S. embassy have offered those families any assistance they need. Also, U.S. officials have been speaking to Chinese authorities about the incident.

International Olympic Committee spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said in a statement that the committee had received reports of the attack and was in contact with Beijing Games organizers "to find out full details, and are ready to provide whatever assistance we can."

    
                          
                         
            
                    The Federal Reserve (Bank)
                       Yes It's a Corporate Owned Bank

The central banking system in the U.S. is the Federal Reserve System, commonly known as "The Fed".

The Fed's creation was controversial. The Owen-Glass Federal Reserve Act of 1913 created an institutionalized monopoly of special-purpose banks located in major cities throughout the country. 12 Federal Reserve Banks are led by the Bank of New York, which is a publicly traded corporation started by New York businessmen and Alexander Hamilton on June 9, 1784.

As America's central banking system, the Fed is a system of banks for bankers. The Federal Reserve Board (board of governors) members are appointed by the U.S. president. The Regional Federal Reserve Banks are corporations whose stock is owned by member banks located within the region of each branch Fed bank. The Fed is highly regulated and thus has great credibility.

There was great resistance in Congress and the press to the Fed's inception. Conspiracy theories, and predictions of America becomming a slave state to the European bankers, were popular topics in the papers. William Jennings Bryan's eloquent speech before congress, the Cross of Gold Speech dramatically illuminated the situation.

In 1916, three years after its inception, President Woodrow Wilson denounced the Federal Reserve System:


"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world, no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

- President Woodrow Wilson
 

The Fed issues American currency and functions as the bank of the federal government. The Fed regulates the credit system, oversees commercial banks, manages exchange reserves and acts as a "lender of last resort." The Fed clearly has a unique and critical mandate as a core entity of America's federal government. While the Fed is organized under the administrative arm of government, it is largely independent of politics. The Fed reports regularly to the Congress and represents the United States within such international financial non-governmental organizations as the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).

A monetary policy is the means by which the Fed influences the demand, supply, and price of money and credit, in order to direct the nation's economic objectives. The Fed was given the authority to formulate U.S. monetary policy. Within the Federal Reserve, the Federal Open Market Committee is responsible for implementing open-market operations, while the board of governors looks after the discount rate and reserve requirements.

As a prerequisite of official membership and participation in the American banking system (the Fed), all commercial banks are required by the Federal Reserve Act to own shares in the local regional branch of the Fed, proportional to assets and deposits in each member commercial bank. The regional Fed banks harvest "profits" of hundreds of millions of dollars per year, from the daily fluctuations of the American economy and the interest generated by interbank loans among themselves and the commercial banks. Ninety-seven percent of the "profit" is returned to the U.S. Treasury. The remaining three percent is used to maintain the system and pay interest on securities and bonds.

Link #1

Link #2 

Once again the fed is bailing itself out (Freddie Mac-Fannie Mae) by giving itself hundreds of millions of new dollars they will print up. We need a new law, say the "Federal Citizen Reserve act" that let's the American people print our own money to help pay for our mortgage's, gas, Food and college tuition, etc. I mean why should the large Corporations have all the safety nets?

I put this fact check on because I was amazed at the amount of people that think the "Fed" is a U.S. Federal Government agency.(this is why they dropped the word "Bank" from the name). Well as you may have just found out yourself, it's not. It's a corporate owned Bank.

                                 
                                                      
     
                                                             Please

                                           

                                                   YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

          
                     
                                     
           
                             Let us not forget 
                    
                    All those that have given everything for
                    us in the last 229 years of our country.

As of Friday, Aug. 8, 2008, at least 4,136 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.