Israel recently conveyed a warning to Syria through a third party that it would hold Damascus accountable if Lebanese Hezbollah launched attacks on the Jewish state, Israeli and European sources said on Friday.
Translation: expect some kind of "false flag" operation against Israel which Israel will pin on Hezbollah, and they're off an running in a military confrontation with Lebanon and Syria. - M. R.
Lt. Gen. William M. Fraser III, the new American peace envoy, held his first three-party meeting with Israelis and Palestinians, but Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, did not attend, irking the Palestinians.
This cannot be a surprise to Lt. Gen Fraser: he has to know that Barak has complete contempt for any possible peace process. - M. R.
Thousands in anti-war demonstration...
"I don't think Americans understand that their financial transactions are being reported and routinely examined," said Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Apparently, any right to financial privacy, except for the very, very wealthy and truly well-connected, has gone the way of the dodo for average Americans. - M. R.
The FBI has increasingly used administrative orders to obtain the personal records of U.S. citizens rather than foreigners implicated in terrorism or counterintelligence investigations, and at least once it relied on such orders to obtain records that a special intelligence-gathering court had deemed protected by the First Amendment, according to two government audits released yesterday.
Apparently, the Constitution and Bill of Rights has been scrapped by this administration in favor of Code Napoleon law, where the suspect was considered guilty until proven innocent. - M. R.
"Neutral" or "objective" news agencies like AP and Reuters, on the other hand, typically operate by certain long-standing traditions and rules. They're not supposed to express their political opinion or taint fact with opinion if it is not an Op-Ed or editorial. They should relate the story and not paint it with gratuitous content. They should not try to make a story fair and balanced. They should report the news as it went down. And they usually do.
Sort of.
They have clever ways of bending the rules to benefit one side--usually "the state," e.g., the USA or Israel or Great Britain. AP does it to perfection. In a short March 7 report titled "Israeli Warplanes Fly Over Beirut," the news giant uses the typical corporate media tools of omission and selective context to misinform the reader, but also employs creative quoting and extraneous content to further marginalize the source and tacitly apologize for the state's wrongdoing.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Friday Russia had shown some interest in U.S. ideas on cooperating on plans to build a missile shield in Europe but remained fundamentally opposed to the system.
Memo to Secretary Rice: Madam Secretary, how do reconcile Russia as showing some interest in US concepts about cooperating on plans to build a missile shield in Europe while it remains "fundamentally opposed to the system"?
Forgive me, but but this observation does not pass the geopolitical "smell test".
Of course, thinking people understand that this is primarily the cover story of why you and Sec Def Gates are off to Moscow next week.
It is the same reason Cheney is off to the Middle East.
This is about garnering whatever tacit support might be possible for an impending attack on Iran. - M. R.
The dollar has plummeted against all major currencies on dire US retail sales and fears that the Federal Reserve may need to slash interest rates further to stop the downward spiral in the credit markets.
The President insists the US economy is simply going through what he calls "a tough time" and that has led to criticism that the President is on a different economic planet to everyone else.
To characterize this as a "tough time" economically is tantamount to saying that the Titanic "hit a little ice"
This man has absolutely no clue about what it takes to keep a national economy alive and thriving, and he and his minions have spent the nation into potential bankruptcy (out of which the taxpayers are, of course, expected to bail it out) through the funding of their wars without end.
The members of the Bush family don't know, and have no memory of, trying to keep a family fed and clothed on a budget more and more impinged by taxes in which they are are drowning. - M. R.
OOOPS! DANG!!!...
Video: Army Lasers Zap Bikers in Afghanistan...
What happens when the newly-blind people start to complain? - M. R.
Now the taxman gets the power to turn up unannounced to your home and demand to see tax records...
But do We The People get to see the records of Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force?
The White House emails? We paid for them. They belong to us! - M. R.
FBI headquarters officials sought to cover their informal and possibly illegal acquisition of phone records on thousands of Americans from 2003 to 2005 by issuing 11 improper, retroactive "blanket" administrative subpoenas in 2006 to three phone companies that are under contract to the FBI, according to an audit released Thursday.
Iranian conservatives were poised on Saturday to win a two-thirds parliamentary majority but with reformists retaining a foothold despite losing hundreds of candidates to pre-election vetting.
The consistent US attacks against Ahmadinejad and Iran, coupled with US and Israeli led sanctions, have caused his countrymen to rally around him and his party.
The US couldn't have done better at creating this kind of outcome if they'd come out in massive support of him. - M. R.
Gold futures soar to record above $1,000 an ounce...
It isn't the gold that is changing value. - M. R.
A host of other banks, broker dealers, and hedge funds have played the same game, deploying massive leverage at the top of the credit bubble to eke out extra yield. Dozens of them are saddled with the same toxic debt - sub-prime property, credit cards, auto loans, and mountains of unsold paper from the merger boom.
The United States says it still intends to work with the former army chief, whom Pakistani lawmakers elected to a five-year presidential term in October. But the Bush administration appears to be shifting from making support for Musharraf the core of its Pakistan policy, which many U.S. lawmakers and Pakistani opposition leaders have long wanted.
On Fox and Friends, Geraldo declared Times Square is a "magnet for these crazy people, for anarchists... that's what I think this is, this bomber isn't al-Qaeda, isn't anything like that, he is more like -- it's a man -- he's more like those 9/11 was an inside job kind of guys, they... they protest things in a violent way, but in a violent way almost like the eco-terrorist where they don't intend the inflict casualties."
Geraldo has absolutely no evidence the event in question was connected to anybody associated with the 9/11 truth movement and his characterization of the movement and its members as violent, at first glance, is so at odds with the facts as to be ludicrous.
President Nicolas Sarkozy's decision to select Israel as guest of honor at the International Book Fair (salon Due Livre) in Paris underscores his government's obscene embrace of Israel's manifestly criminal policies in the occupied Palestinian territories, including apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide.
FORTY YEARS OF OCCUPATION ON CAMERA...
The dark side of this surreality is that the places far from these hallowed urban cores are experiencing unprecedented decline and, according to some experts, threaten to become tomorrow's slums.
PALESTINE MUST HAVE ONE VOICE ~~ TIME TO DISMANTLE THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY...
HAMAS WON THE ELECTION.
HAMAS WON THE ELECTION.
HAMAS WON THE ELECTION.
- M. R.
Holding gold is protection or insurance against government's proclivity to debase its currency. The purchasing power of gold goes up not because it's a so-called good investment; it goes up in value only because the paper currency goes down in value. In our current situation, that means the dollar.
The Bird Feeder...
Iran is enduring inflation of almost 18 percent, a problem economists blame on the government injecting massive amounts of cash into the economy to fund infrastructure projects promised on the president's provincial tours.
A rather odd comment in the article about election, but as a reader points out, this is just done to excuse why the US Government has been neglecting American infrastructure.
"We can't fix the levees, repair the bridges, or clear the dead brush, because that would cause inflation!" -- Official White Horse Souse.
Of course, inflation is caused not by fixing the roads but by printing up tons of new money to spend on the wars, and to prop up the banks and lending institutions that loaned money to Americans just as Bush helped ship off high-paying manufacturing jobs to other countries.
- M. R.
FOXNews.com - State Department: Anti-Zionism is the New Anti-Semitism...
Claiming that people only criticize Israel because they hate Jews is like trying to claim that people only criticized the Nazis because they hate Germans, or that they only criticized the communists because they hate Russians.
The First Amendment gives us all the right to say what we want about politics. Indeed it is political speech that is the intended beneficiary of the First Amendment.
That the US State Department is trying to sell this lemon to the American people only illustrates how totally under the thumb of Israel the US Government has become. - M. R.
To illustrate the way these narrative attacks work, clips are shown of Fox News hosts or guests making a statement about Obama, along with the date of the statement, followed by a later statement from a pundit on a different channel. The idea, the filmmakers suggest, is that attacks are repeated by Fox News hosts and guests on the channel over the course of weeks and months until they eventually spill over into other news outlets.
It's always the same story:
Undercover police dress up as protesters and incite, or even engage in, violence.
Uniformed police then take advantage of this to assault legitimate protesters, sometimes brutally.
It's the oldest trick in the book and the French have a phrase for it: "Agent Provocateur."
In an annual response to Washington's criticism of China's human rights record, the Chinese government labelled the United States arrogant, and highlighted what it said were widespread US failures at home and abroad.
March 14, 2008
The Pulaski County Sheriff's Department is using a new system that scans license plates of passing cars, checking up to 800 vehicles per hour to see if any are stolen or if the owners are subjects of warrants.
... or simply someone the government is "curious about." - M. R.
If my email is any indication, a goodly number of folks wonder if they're living in America in 2003 or Germany in 1933.
I get the same sort of email. - M. R.
* A CBS News reporter on stated: "All of a sudden I heard a roar and I saw one of the towers blow ... I saw from street level as though it exploded up, a giant rolling ball of flame..."
* The same reporter stated: "I hear simultaneously this roar and see what appears to be a gigantic fireball rising up at ground level . . . giant ball of fire come out of the earth" (pages 119 & 239)
In testimony to a House committee yesterday, GAO general counsel Gary L. Kepplinger announced the results of another study, this one of provisions in the 2008 defense authorization, which found more of the same. The GAO examined how 21 agencies executed 29 different provisions of the law that Bush asserted his right not to follow -- and found that in nine cases "the agencies had not executed the provisions as written."
Commodities may have ``explosive rallies'' in the next couple of years, with crude oil rising to $175 a barrel, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Commodities are in their seventh year of gains as underinvestment in refineries, mines and land sent prices for oil, gold, platinum and wheat to records. More natural resources are controlled by political entities than at any time since the 17th century, according to the Goldman report.
The government's debt limit would be raised to $10.2 trillion under a budget plan for next year approved by the U.S. House of Representatives.
The two chambers in coming weeks are expected to try to work out their differences and then pass a budget for next year that would spend $3 trillion while projecting a deficit in the range of $340 billion to $366 billion for the year.
The house and senate seem to be doing a terrific job of forgetting that this is NOT their money: It is the taxpayer's money, meant to take care of the needs of the taxpayers.
And what do we find them spending it on?
Wars and more wars.
Just take a look at the roads you drive, full of potholes and divots
Take a look at your schools.
Take a good, hard look at the infrastructure in your neighborhood.
And take a good look at your last grocery bill.
The members of congress do not care, as they have become simply the assets of those corporations which support them, and We the People mean absolutely nothing - except when it comes time to extract more and more taxes from us, which consistently never come back to our communities.
Also notice the cute new weapons they've developed, like the "pain ray" and sound devices that cause nausea.
Were I a betting person, I would almost be willing to wager that these gadgets were really not developed for deployment in America's wars: they will be deployed domestically, with brutal efficiency, first. - M. R.
Peter Schiff, a dollar-bear at Security Pacific Capital, told the London Telegraph that the greenback faced the danger of outright collapse as countries in Asia and the Middle East mull plans to break their dollar pegs, which are fueling inflation across the region.
When this nation was started, it was founded on a monetary system of fixed value. The dollar is, as originally defined, a weight measure of silver, 371.25 grains, to be exact. Our American silver dollars are actually heavier, since other metals were added for durability. But that 371.25 grains of silver WAS the dollar, matching in weight an unbroken chain of accepted monetary units that reached back through the Spanish Milled Dollar, the Dutch Daller, back to the German Thaler; the product of a silver mine which sold its product in coins of an exact weight. The Coinage Act of 1792 defined our dollar to exactly match in weight the silver dollars in use around the world, and then defined the gold dollar to be that amount of gold which would equal the worth of silver in a silver dollar, 24.75 grains, 1/15 the weight of the silver in a silver dollar.
When you, as a citizen, hold a silver dollar or a gold dollar in your hand, you hold that actual worth of metal. Nothing the government can do can change the worth of the money in your control.
But greedy bankers and corrupt politicians pulled a fast one over Christmas holiday back in 1913, suspended the requirement for a Quorum, and voted in the Federal Reserve Act. Later that same year, the 16th Amendment was falsely declared ratified, allowing a direct non-apportioned tax on the income of Americans, to cover the ocming debts.
The swindle of the system is simple. The Federal Reserve Bank hires the US Treasury to print up some money. The Federal Reserve only actually pays the treasury for the cost of the printing, they do NOT pay $1 for each 1$ printed. But the Federal Reserve turns around and loans out that money (or credit line) to banks at full face value, those banks which have exhausted their deposits then loan that Federal Reserve fiat money to you, and you must repay it in the full dollar value (plus interest) in work product, even though the Federal Reserve printed that money for pennies, or created it out of thin air in a computer.
As the Federal Reserve overprints more money, the money supply inflates, and too much money starts chasing too few goods and services, which means prices go up. But contrary to the charade put on by the Federal Reserve, inflation doesn't just come and go due to some arcane sorcery. The Federal Reserve can halt inflation any time it wants to by simply shutting down those printing presses. It therefore follows that both inflation and recession are fully under the control of the Federal Reserve. This means the cycle of inflation and recession is an intentional one; a gigantic heartbeat that pumps paper certificates out to the working class, while pumping real wealth in to the owners of the banks. - M. R.
After failing to anticipate Hamas's victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.
Forget talk of soft landings. Ignore those who say that the Federal Reserve is in control of events. Take with a pinch of salt suggestions that the problems at Bear Stearns are a one-off.
The rescue package orchestrated for America's fifth-biggest investment bank makes it abundantly clear that this is now a different sort of market and a different sort of crisis. It is no longer hyperbole to state that the US is facing the most serious threat to its financial system since the Depression of the 1930s.
The likely liquidation of Carlyle Capital Corp.'s remaining assets sent the fund's shares plummeting more than 90 percent Thursday and rattled stock markets around the globe. It was also a high-profile setback for private equity fund Carlyle Group.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Carlyle Group may have just sorted out their assets, dumped the poor ones into Carlyle Capital Corp, and kept the good ones at Carlyle Group. This isolates the good assets from the bad ones, so that when Carlyle Capital Corp collapses, the banks cannot come after Carlyle Group itself. The investors in Carlyle Capital Corp get to eat the losses! - M. R.
Police in riot gear intervened Wednesday when hundreds of people seeking a chance at subsidized housing grew frustrated after officials ran out of applications.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: LOOK OUT BELOW!...
Canned foods and shotguns, people. Canned foods and shotguns. - M. R.
Now into the seventh year of their occupation and with the American economy on the point of collapse, NATO is looking to Russia for help in transporting troops and equipment into Afghanistan. With the skyrocketing oil prices boosting the Russian ruble to dizzy new heights and no one asking for their troops to fight and die in Afghanistan, it would seem that the wheel of fate has turned a full circle.
If you want to drive this point home, go out and rent an old copy of Rambo III. That's the sequel wherein Sylvester Stallone fights alongside the guerrillas, and the final credits dedicate the movie to "the brave mujahedeen in Afghanistan."
I kid you not.
School backs off Skittles suspension...
Journalists should be allowed to make money from speaking engagements, but I find Beinart's appearances unseemly. AIPAC is a "controversial" organization (the adjective routinely used for Walt and Mearsheimer's book in the mainstream media). Or anyway, it's an important advocacy group on a central issue in the election. I wonder what a Time and Washington Post columnist is advocating to advocates about.
What is at stake here, and it is critical, is which Presidential candidate can be the best for America's interests, rather than Israel's interests? - M. R.
The following photos and sketches speak for themselves....
America, Without you this would not be possible... from the bottom of our hearts (oops, forgot we don't have one) Thank You!
McCain says al Qaeda might try to tip U.S. election...
I need a category for "total BS" - M. R.
Demand swamps "Winter Soldier" streaming feed...
It may be that there is a lot of interest in seeing these hearings.
Or the cyber-warfare boys may be playing their games to make sure you only see the "official" version of what is going on in Iraq. - M. R.
According to the paper left behind by the consul general, he wanted to pressure Abu Mazen to take action that would annul the outcome of the elections that had catapulted Hamas to power. The author of the article, David Rose, reminds his readers that President George W. Bush had pressed for the elections to be held, contrary to the advice of several experts, who warned that Hamas would emerge from them strengthened. But Bush wanted democracy. Now he effectively wanted Abu Mazen to cancel the elections in retrospect.
Under the old rules, whenever the oversight board learned of intelligence activity that it believed might be "unlawful or contrary to executive order," it had a duty to notify both the president and the attorney general. But Bush's order deleted the board's authority to refer matters to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation, and the new order said the board should notify the president only if other officials are not already "adequately" addressing the problem.
The Bill of Rights and the Constitution are getting "nip-tucked" in ways that practically render them inoperable under this administration's watch. Fewer politicians, short of Nixon, demonstrated such a contempt of these pillars of our government as have Bush and Cheney. - M. R.
One of the allegations in the amended complaint will involve MediaSentry's status as a private investigator. "MediaSentry claims it is able to gain access to people's hard drives without their permission and collect information," notes Lybeck. "It's illegal because they're not licensed to do that work."
As co-owner of a company that produces content for commercial release, I have (and will continue) to support the rights of copyright owners against illegal copying.
That being said, I am finding it more difficult to support the RIAA itself, given that it is acting illegally, abusively, and worse still, not sharing the money recovered with the artists the RIAA purports to represent.
- M. R.
The Irish banking system faces acute strains and may require a phase of temporary nationalisation as the property slump leads to a wave of defaults, according to a leading Irish economist.
This is the downside of economic globalization.
National borders serve the same function for Earth that fireproof doors serve for buildings, and watertight bulkheads serve for ships. They contain problems so that the entire structure is not threatened.
The globalists tore out the fire doors and the watertight bulkheads because doing so allowed them to move around the building or ship more quickly, and as long as there was no fire or flood, things went along fine.
But now there is a fire in the lobby, and the ship is taking on water and is down by the bow.
And there is nothing in place to contain the disaster.
- M. R.
PLO: "Israel killed 274 residents, including 50 children, 18 women, since the beginning of 2008"...
Bear Stearns Cos., one of Wall Street's venerable investment banks, received a bailout Friday by the federal government and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in a surprise, last-ditch effort to save the 86-year old institution.
Seen any government/bank bailouts to keep you from losing your home yet?
Don't hold your breath. - M. R.
Fed pledges to supply cash...
Just not to you and me.
- M. R.
MTV gets it!...
MTV's new website, "Think MTV", signals a new involvement in the political process by America's youth!
The 60's are back!!!!! :)
- M. R.
Bush: Economy Is Going Through A 'Rough Period'...
Bush: The Titanic has hit 'a little ice'.
Bush: The Hindenburg has suffered 'a small fire'.
Bush: Columbia had 'a small mishap'.
(Feel free to add your own)
- M. R.
Ethiopia's national bank has been told to inspect all the gold in its vaults to determine its authenticity.
It follows the discovery that some of the "gold" it had bought for millions of dollars was gold-plated steel.
I have a weird feeling about this story. Gold is weighed to validate its value, and the steel should have produced an obviously different result. Second, the metal-detectors used in such institutions should have pegged when that much steel rolled through.
I wonder if this is a propaganda piece to discourage people from buying gold? - M. R.
They have no choice: Israeli blockade has cut the provisions of chlorine to disinfect the water. Those who can't afford to buy bottled water have to drink that poison or die of dehydratation.
Palestinian Gazans cannot even boil the water to purify it , because with Israel's fuel rationing, there is not fuel with which Palestinians can boil it .
The medical results of drinking polluted water are all outcomes Israel knew would happen, including outbreaks of cholera and diarrhea - M. R.
With each passing week, anguish and atrocity are deepening in Somalia, the third "regime change" target of George Bush's Terror War. Thousands of innocent people have been killed and a million have been driven from their homes by an Ethiopian invasion backed, funded and armed by the Bush Administration, which has also intervened directly with air strikes, naval shelling, renditions of fleeing refugees (including U.S. citizens) to Ethiopia's notorious prisons and, on at least one occasion, with a U.S. death squad sent in after an airstrike with orders to "kill anyone left alive."
Recent evidence suggests that the NSA has been focusing on widespread monitoring of e-mail messages and text messages, recording of Web browsing, and other forms of electronic data-mining, all done without court supervision. Taken together, those activities raise unique privacy and oversight concerns greater than those posed by large-scale monitoring of voice communications.
Dear "No Such Agency."
Monitor THIS! - M. R.
"I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank could describe events in South Africa."
~Archbishop Desmond Tutu
The United States is in a recession that could be "substantially more severe" than recent ones, National Bureau of Economic Research President Martin Feldstein said on Friday.
Okay, so we have gone from admitting there is a recession, to admitting it is a "severe" recession. Give it another couple weeks and they'll finally admit we are in a depression. - M. R.
For thirty years, I have been writing, speaking, imploring, and begging others to make rational, concrete plans for a time in life that would offer no quarter, give no mercy, and that would in a word be-------catastrophic. We are coming face to face with that moment. You have so little time left to do anything that will give you a fighting chance. What are you doing?
The waning months of the George W Bush administration represent a golden opportunity for Israel to ignite another Middle East conflict that, in essence, is rooted in Israel's structural inability to make peace with the Arab and Muslim world.
The pieces of the puzzle are coming together for some kind of US/Israeli-led attack against Iran.
SecDef Gates, with Secretary Rice, are on their way to Moscow to see what kind of a deal can be hammered out there to prevent Russia from attacking US/Israeli troops should such an attack place. Cheney is on his way to the Middle East to soothe the Saudis and make sure that there is some logistical support from other Middle Eastern Countries for this attack.
Of course, the US economy is in an absolute melt-down, largely from financing the debacles of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but that won't stop the slaughter-seekers in Washington and Tel Aviv from moving forward. - M. R.
Bill Clinton: 'Paranoid' hecklers 'come and scream at me everywhere'...
Stay home. - M. R.
We all know that the Pentagon has more space weapons technology in mind than just a single, satellite-shooting missile. But trying to pin down how much the Defense Department is spending on space combat research -- and on what projects -- is an absolute bitch. The programs are spread across at least a dozen different accounts; much of the technology involved is "dual use" -- meaning, it could help with another military matters, too; and that's before you get into the Defense Department's "black," classified budget.
Britain's biggest teachers' union has accused the Ministry of Defence of breaking the law over a lesson plan drawn up to teach pupils about the Iraq war. The National Union of Teachers claims it breaches the 1996 Education Act, which aims to ensure all political issues are treated in a balanced way.
Teachers will threaten to boycott military involvement in schools at the union's annual conference next weekend, claiming the lesson plan is a "propaganda" exercise and makes no mention of any civilian casualties as a result of the war.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the UK.
There are some, in many governments, who fervently believe that pro-military indoctrination of their countries' children cannot ever start too young.
If you ever go to any US military bases' "open house"., where there is a combination of military and carnival-type exhibits, watch carefully for the very articulate, "warm-looking" soldiers, chosen expressly for their comfort level with kids, and how they present the guns and weapons to children, particularly the little boys.
The kids are, as kids naturally are, brimming with curiosity, and these soldiers have an opportunity to make a big impression on these children.
What is never discussed is that these instruments, guns, bombs, etc., are engineered to kill and maim with maximum, deadly effect.
They're never told of the costs of war for civilian non-combatants.
War is not "fun": it is simply a government's extension of its foreign policy, period, end of discussion.
...
What this article teaches us is that governments to order schools to alter history, and that prior to 1966, there was no law to prevent it in Great Britain.
Presumably, the United States (aka Britain-Lite) follows the same patterns, which we know because the school textbooks still sell the claim that Lee Oswald acted alone in the assassination of John F. Kennedy even though that claim has long been discredited.
It is for this reason, and especially in light of the lies that led to war in Iraq, that nothing we have ever been taught in the state-sponsored schools can be trusted. Nothing. Not one bit of it.
History is a joke played by the victors on the vanquished before an audience too afraid to laugh. - M. R.
Colombian officials warned French envoys away from the meet
Documents show that Washington is backing Right-wing opposition to Bolivia's democratic reforms.
Money was not much of an issue five years ago when President Bush led the country into war in Iraq. Instead, all eyes were on allegations, later proven unfounded, that then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and could use them against the United State
But $500 billion later, experts worry about the impact on the world's biggest economy, already facing a crippling housing crisis.
Very little mention of how the costs of Bush's endless wars have bankrupted this economy in his speech this morning, were there? - M. R.
Whether battered wives, abused children, or Palestinians long subjected to the brutality of the horrendous Israeli military occupation, the first (and last) resort of the cowardly is in maligning the victim, in accusing him/her/them of having brought about the deserved cruelty of the crime.
The U.S. economy lost the title of "world's biggest" to the euro zone this week as the value of the dollar slumped in currency markets.
"The curious outcome of breaching this latest milestone is that the size of the euro zone's annual output has now exceeded that of the U.S.," the economics department of Goldman Sachs, the Wall Street investment bank, said in a note to clients.
Bush's "legacy" will have been the utter destruction and devastation of Iraq and Afghanistan, coupled with the destruction of the US economy. - M. R.
Public awareness of the number of American military fatalities in Iraq has declined sharply since last August. Today, just 28% of adults are able to say that approximately 4,000 Americans have died in the Iraq war. As of March 10, the Department of Defense had confirmed the deaths of 3,974 U.S. military personnel in Iraq.
"BRITNEY! PARIS! KIRSTEN! O.J.! BRITNEY! PARIS! KIRSTEN! O.J.! BRITNEY! PARIS! KIRSTEN! O.J.! BRITNEY! PARIS! KIRSTEN! O.J.! BRITNEY! PARIS! KIRSTEN! O.J.! BRITNEY! PARIS! KIRSTEN! O.J.! BRITNEY! PARIS! KIRSTEN! O.J.!" -- ABCNNBBCBS - M. R.
Blair declares Occupied West Bank 'open for business'...
Note that he is pushing the occupied portion of Palestine, not the Palestinians' portion. - M. R.
How the Bush Administration Stopped the States From Stepping In to Help Consumers
Underscoring how the administration has lost all traces of credibility, President Bush's bumbling attempt to lend the ailing greenback some strong rhetorical support only backfired, preceding a new all time low against the Euro, while one expert expressed fears of a complete dollar crash.
Bush's speech this morning set a new standard for "lame." - M. R.
NOAA: Coolest Winter Since 2001 for U.S., Globe...
The cult will come back claiming that global warming makes the Earth COOLER! (They saw it in "The Day after Tomorrow", so it MUST be true!) - M. R.
Blair to lead campaign on climate change...
"Global Warming could become irreversible within 45 minutes" - Bliar - M. R.
The dollar fell below parity with the Swiss franc for the first time on Friday as fears about more credit turmoil and a U.S. recession sparked broad selling of the U.S. currency.
As we know from history, controlling the oil wealth of Iran mattered more to the West than anything else. Given the choice between watching Iran construct pillars of Democracy or finding a way for the West to construct - and control - oil drilling platforms, there was no hesitation.
In 1953, the United States and United Kingdom launched Operation Ajax. It was a covert CIA operation to destabilize and remove the democratically elected government of Iran, including Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh.
House, Senate endorse tax hikes...
Factories closing, home in foreclosure, food prices soaring ... sure, great time to raise taxes!
What is needed to save the economy is LOWER TAXES BY 1/3 ACROSS THE BOARD and for the Federal Government to cut spending, mostly by ending these wars based on lies. - M. R.
When a rabbi preaches hate or genocide against Palestinians, nothing is done. Even if the rabbi in question is one of the Chief Rabbis of Israel, he is permitted to twist the doctrines of the Jewish people's Holy Books and say the opposite of what is written in those Books...
But when a rabbi takes the side of the Palestinians, when he lives by the Words of those texts and points out what is wrong in Israeli society he winds up in jail. In effect, Israel has outlawed Judaism....
And Israel thinks it's wrong to let the world know this. They have declared a boycott against AlJazeera for exposing the crimes committed by the zionist state. It has not yet come to censorship... but it still might.
Facebook, the Social Network Internet Site, took a bold step this week, they chose a number of illegal settlements listed under Israel, and transfered them to listings under Palestine...
Having failed to stop piracy by suing internet users, the music industry is for the first time seriously considering a file sharing surcharge that internet service providers would collect from users.
In recent months, some of the major labels have warmed to a pitch by Jim Griffin, one of the idea's chief proponents, to seek an extra fee on broadband connections and to use the money to compensate rights holders for music that's shared online.
Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, said the protests were a result of public resentment of the "brute force" employed by China to maintain control of the region for more than 50 years.
The Chinese will crush this rebellion with every bit of force they can muster.
A successfully defiant Tibet can lead to other successfully defiant regions, which have been absorbed by China, and China does not want to see this happening. - M. R.
When Hussein started selling oil in Euros, it attacked the dollar's dominance as the world currency. And of course, two other countries tried, or are trying, to follow suit. Venezuela tried in 2001, and within a year Chavez was almost removed in a military coup.
And now Iran is starting its own oil bourse (exchange).
Notice a trend here?
Governments might have to intervene with taxpayers' money to shore up the financial system and prevent a "downward credit spiral" from taking hold, the International Monetary Fund said yesterday.
I warned you. The bastards are gonna stick the taxpayers with the bill for this whole mess. - M. R.
US investment giant Bear Stearns, citing a potential cash crunch, said Friday it was getting an emergency loan from JPMorgan Chase in coordination with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The company said its liquidity position had "significantly deteriorated" in the last 24 hours, forcing it to seek aid.
In Sydney a conference is now under way challenging the official version and lack of investigation into what happened during the September 11, 2001 attacks in the USA.
I have reached the point where I don't care to investigate 9-11 any longer. I don;t need to waste time picking at tiny details. The facts is that the government lied to us about what happened, and that is all I need to know. That is all W THE PEOPLE need to know. Now we have reached the point where we must decide what we shall do with a government that lies to us.
- M. R.
General David Petraeus, set to testify on the Iraq war to the US Congress next month, told the Washington Post "no one" in the US and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services.
Translation: we are not leaving Iraq any time soon. - M. R.
"When it went through the plume, it was not working properly," Mitchell said in a telephone interview, expressing disappointment. "We had tested that software very carefully. We don't know why it didn't work properly."
You gotta stop using Windows on those spacecraft! :) - M. R.
With gold about $1,000 an ounce, everyone including Aunt Maude is digging out jewelry and coins from musty drawers and attics -- and cashing in.
Not so fast. This article may be planted to get you to sell your gold to the pawnshops NOW, so that THEY can make the profits from the continuing slide of the dollar. If you really want to sell your gold, wait until the dollar bottoms out and then heads back up in another year.
Don't sell your gold until you absolutely have to. - M. R.
The Palestinian Authority president has accused Israel of maintaining policies in Jerusalem that are tantamount to "an ethnic cleansing campaign".
Roughly $7 trillion has been wiped from world stock markets since the beginning of the year amid fears of a severe US economic recession and financial institutions reporting more mega losses. "The market crisis will preoccupy us well into 2008," he said German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck on Feb 15th. "The financial risks securitized by banks contained packaged explosives," and he accused rating agencies of having a conflict of interest in the role they played in the process.
The release of the NIE - the consensus view of all 16 US intelligence services - and its conclusion that Iran halted efforts to pursue nuclear weapons "in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure" appeared to be a serious blow to proponents of military action.
Yet some believe the Bush administration could still choose to attack Iran, perhaps so as to ensure a Republican victory in the upcoming November presidential election.
To all the parents of military families, what this means is that your son or daughter serving in the Mideast is now a campaign tool, as cheap and as disposable as a label pin or a bumper sticker. - M. R.
While New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was paying an 'escort' $4,300 in a hotel room in Washington, just down the road, George Bush's new Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Ben Bernanke, was secretly handing over $200 billion in a tryst with mortgage bank industry speculators.
Both acts were wanton, wicked and lewd. But there's a BIG difference. The Governor was using his own checkbook. Bush's man Bernanke was using ours.
Could we really run out of food?...
We could eat the politicians? - M. R.
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for the last 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's south side, has a long history of what even Obama's campaign aides concede is "inflammatory rhetoric," including the assertion that the United States brought on the 9/11 attacks with its own "terrorism."
Setting aside the fact that 9-11 was probably a US/Israel; false-flag to justify invading a bunch of oil countries, Rev. Wright is correct on principle. People don't just wake up one morning and decide it's a good day to be a terrorist. It takes years of attacks and oppressions by a conquering empire to drive someone to the point where they are ready to sacrifice their own lives in an attack on that empire.
I remember right after 9-11, even as the US Government was trying to pin the blame on Arab Muslims, there was this constant drumbeat that 9-11 had nothing to do with US policy with regard to Israel and Palestine. That message was repeated far too often, for it called attention to itself.
- M. R.
Price Of Bread Goes Up...
"Let them eat cake. BWAH HA HA HA HA HA! Oh man, I am SOOOOOOOOOO funny!" -- Official White Horse Souse - M. R.
If Israel acknowledge, and stopped, its ongoing attempt at Genocide perhaps you would earn more friends. Until then we can only remind people that Israel is a Zionist state not a Jewish one, there can be no Jewish state until the Messiah comes, and that Zionists are racists not Jews
Rabbi Joel -
Prisoners in their own land: 'I need my son to know that Palestine is bigger than just our town and a few checkpoints'...
A landmark court case that would destroy the so-called "consensus" behind man-made global warming could be in the works after Weather Channel founder John Coleman expressed his intention to sue Al Gore for fraud.
Companies that sell "carbon credits" on the basis that they offset carbon emissions could also be in the firing line as Coleman stated his conviction that man-made advocates would lose the case if a fair debate, something that the establishment is loathe to allow, was allowed to take place.
Coleman is correct here. The man-made global warming claim is a total scam, to literally create the "product" of carbon-credits out of thin air, in order to grow rich by trading these legal fictions like a commodity.
- M. R.
The plummeting dollar broke through an important benchmark against the Japanese yen Thursday and hit another low against the euro, continuing an unnerving plunge that shows little sign of easing.
Ordinarily, it only takes one major setback to drive down the value of the dollar: huge trade and current account deficits, falling Federal Reserve interest rates, rising U.S. inflation or a loss of confidence in the U.S. economy.
But the United States is grappling with all of those economic problems at once, and yesterday that sent the dollar to record lows against the euro and pushed it below 100 yen for the first time since 1995. Gold topped $1,000 an ounce as investors sought to invest in something they thought would retain value.
Median home prices plunged in many of California's most populous counties in February, with Southern California leading the slide with an overall drop of 17.9 percent compared to a year earlier, according to new housing data released Thursday.
The FBI has increasingly used administrative orders to obtain the personal records of U.S. citizens rather than foreigners implicated in terrorism or counterintelligence investigations, and at least once it relied on such orders to obtain records that a special intelligence-gathering court had deemed protected by the First Amendment, according to two government audits released yesterday.
The FBI has a long history of not following the rules. See
The History of COINTELPRO, the covert destabilization program by the FBI against the 1960s Peace Movement, Native Americans, the Civil Rights movement, and the feminists. - M. R.
On 18 February 2008, the British Government was forced to release a draft dossier on Iraq's so-called "weapons of mass destruction" under the Freedom of Information Act. But it succeeded in persuading a Freedom of Information Tribunal to allow a handwritten reference to Israel in the margin of the document to be suppressed.
...
"On page 3 of the document, I refer to the marginal references in the first paragraph to Israel. The reference to Israel is linked (by a hyphen) to a sentence which reads: 'No other country has flouted the United Nations' authority so brazenly in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction'. I interpret this note to indicate that the person who wrote it believes that Israel has flouted the United Nations authority in a manner similar to that of the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein."
Stocks plunged early Friday as investors worried that a plan to ease a liquidity crisis at Bear Stearns Cos. indicates how severe credit troubles have become. Each of the major indexes lost more than 1 percent; the Dow Jones industrials fell about 140 points.
March 13, 2008
The House held a closed session Thursday for the first time in 25 years to discuss a hotly contested surveillance bill.
Secrecy begets tyranny.
I'll bet something other than the surveillance bill went on behind those closed doors. - M. R.
Yesterday's action by the Federal Reserve proves that the banking system is insolvent and the US economy is at the brink of collapse. It also shows that the Fed is willing to intervene directly in the stock market if it keeps equities propped up. This is clearly a violation of its mandate and runs contrary to the basic tenets of a free market. Investors who shorted the market yesterday, got clobbered by the not so invisible hand of the Fed chief.
There is now a Hawaii Senate Resolution authored by Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland, which requests the Department of Health and National Academy of Sciences to review existing reports and studies related to aspartame, by funding source.
Jews worldwide are facing a new form of anti-Semitism disguised by hatred toward Israel, in addition to more traditional forms of anti-Semitism, a new US report said Thursday.
"This new anti-Semitism is common throughout the Middle East and in Muslim communities in Europe, but it is not confined to these populations," the US State Department said in a report for 2007.
If the criticism of Israel and its current government) appears to be "unremitting", perhaps it is the price Israel must pay in the court of world opinion regarding its treatment of the Palestinians.
Before the days of cell phone cameras and laptops, much of this was talked about, but never documented.
Now it is impossible not to know about the daily struggle of Palestinians (and particularly, Gazan Palestinians) to merely stay alive.
The UN Human Rights Commissioner, and even Israeli human rights organizations, do not document these abuses because they don't exist: they document them because they do.
60 odd years ago, a certain group of people in Germany decided to enslave and abuse all who didn't live up to their definitions of "pure" , and classified them as sub-human, not to be afforded any of the rights and privileges they kept for themselves.
and here is the tremendous and terrible irony.
It is the children and grandchildren of those who were persecuted and died during the Holocaust who are driving the policies which are creating the glaringly negative attention that Israel absolutely doesn't want. - M. R.
Aretha Franklin could lose her home to tax collectors. The singer says an attorney's mistake caused her $700,000 mansion in Detroit to slip into foreclosure over $445 in 2005 taxes and late fees.
In September 2007, the Inspector General of the Justice Department reported that the Terrorist Screening Center (the FBI-administered organization that consolidates terrorist watch list information in the United States) had over 700,000 names in its database as of April 2007 - and that the list was growing by an average of over 20,000 records per month.
... which pretty much makes the list useless. - M. R.
Dr Ruth Westheimer was an Israeli Sniper!...
Don't miss any sessions if you know what's good for you! - M. R.
US President George W. Bush has said he would love to fight in Afghanistan if he was younger.
President Bush suggested fighting on the frontline was "romantic" during a video conference with US military and civilian personnel in the war-torn country.
"I must say, I'm a little envious," he said.
What an ASSHOLE! - M. R.
Antique store owners in lower Manhattan, ticket vendors at India's Taj Mahal and Brazilian business executives heading to China all have one thing in common these days: They don't want U.S. dollars.
By the time to finish the sale and walk the bills over to the money exchange, they'll lose another 15 cents' value! - M. R.
Europe openly discusses war with Russia...
The U.S. has finally slid into recession, according to the majority of economists in the latest Wall Street Journal economic-forecasting survey, a view that was reinforced by new data showing a sharp drop in retail sales last month.
You ain't seen nuthin' yet! - M. R.
Bush, Democrats clash over new spy bill, immunity...
"You guys never let me have ANY fun!" -- Official White Horse Souse - M. R.
The US administration has been conducting secret talks on the deployment of a mobile radar of its missile defense system in another European country - Turkey. The USA may start official negotiations on the matter during the NATO summit. For the time being it is known that US Defense Secretary Robert Gates touched upon the issue during his recent visit to Turkey. The new plans of the US administration may seriously aggravate its relations with Moscow.
Saying that "The new plans of the US administration may seriously aggravate its relations with Moscow." is like saying that the Titanic hit a little piece of ice. - M. R.
Israeli aircraft have attacked the northern Gaza Strip after Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel.
The Israeli air force said it was targeting a rocket-firing team. There is no word on casualties.
Although the 1971 Winter Soldier meeting inspired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to hold a hearing that featured Vietnam Veteran John Kerry -- "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" he famously asked -- it failed to receive wide ranging media coverage.
"I don't think we had nearly the effect we had hoped for," Vietnam veteran William Crandell told Salon's Mark Benjamin. "The reporters on the scene were very impressed," he said. "But the networks sat on it."
As they will again. - M. R.
Analysts said the Commerce Department's report that retail sales fell in February raised new worries that the economy is headed for recession, and might curtail demand for oil. Those concerns limited oil's gains, but analysts expect any oil price weakness to be short-lived, and for oil to
