At least a dozen earthquakes hit China's remote northwestern region of Xinjiang on Friday, flattening or damaging more than 2,000 houses, but no casualties had been reported so far, Xinhua news agency said.

EASTER IS CANCELED!...

The French blogosphere is abuzz with outrage and derision over a 24-year-old appointed by Nicolas Sarkozy to keep an eye on what is being said about the president on the World Wide Web. ADVERTISEMENT

"Sarkozy's little cop," "Sarkozy's eye on the net," and "KGB Web" are some of the comments and videos posted since Nicolas Princen on Monday joined the president's communications team as an Internet advisor at the Elysee palace.

The White House on Friday sought to back pedal on comments by President George W. Bush accusing Iran of having said it was seeking a nuclear bomb.

As you read this newspaper, Palestinians are being forced out of their homeland without the chance to return. These seven million refugees are being stripped of their basic human rights by the countries that they end up in, say the organizers of a symposium that will take place on campus this week and next.

The Hawai'i Symposium on Palestine, "Who are the Palestinians? Remembering the Nakba," will feature faculty, guest speakers and community members sharing a narrative about Palestine that organizers say rarely gets attention.

US Vice President Dick Cheney, during a trip to the Middle East aimed at consolidating Washington's position in its ongoing wars of aggression and preparing new ones, gave vent Wednesday to his utter contempt for the will of the American people.

Historians might argue over ranking, but there's no doubt he has been an unmitigated disaster

PAIR OF QUAKES, 6.2 AND 6.4, HIT NEAR ADAK ALASKA...

Regarding recent 'rulings' by extremist rabbis in Israel, HaAretz responds...

From Wall Street to Capitol Hill, calls are growing for the government to get into the mortgage business as the only way out of the housing crisis roiling the economy and the financial markets.

Ever wonder what happens when you press that red emergency fire button at a gas station? This dumb woman pushes it accidentally and reveals the mystery.

"There is a prevailing perception in America , even in conservative circles, that Jewish interests are American interests, and that unwavering support for Israel is a requirement for all Americans to avoid being labeled as the worst of racists."

Abe Lowell, the attorney representing Rosen, told Haaretz today that "It now appears that the government does not want to try this case".

Water will be source of war unless world acts now, warns minister...

Israel and powerful Zionist circles in Europe and North America have been seeking of late to spread the message that criticizing Israel and her brutal policies and actions in occupied Palestine borders on anti-Semitism.

The ultimate purpose of this campaign is obviously to silence critics of Israel in order to allow the racist entity to murder Palestinians as quietly as possible and to steal their land as quietly as possible, and to get away with impunity.

In the months leading up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration threatened trade reprisals against friendly countries who withheld their support, spied on its allies, and pressed for the recall of U.N. envoys that resisted U.S. pressure to endorse the war, according to an upcoming book by a top Chilean diplomat.

"Oh, honest Americans, as Christians hear me for my downtrodden people! Their form of government is as dear to them as yours is as precious to you. Quite warmly as you love your country, so they love theirs. With all your goodly possessions, covering a territory so immense that there yet remain parts unexplored, possessing islands that, although new at hand, had to be neutral ground in time of war, do not covet the little vineyard of Naboth's, so far from your shores, lest the punishment of Ahab fall upon you, if not in your day, in that of your children, for"be not deceived, God is not mocked." The people to whom your fathers told of the living God, and taught to call "Father," and now whom the sons now seek to despoil and destroy, are crying aloud to Him in their time of trouble; and He will keep His promise, and will listen to the voices of His Hawaiian children lamenting for their homes." - Lili`uokalani, Last Queen of Hawai`i

Welcome to the website of the Hawaiian Kingdom Government presently operating within the occupied State of the Hawaiian Islands. Since the Spanish-American War, 1898, our Nation has been under prolonged occupation by the United States of America. Our web pages tell you about the range of activities carried out by the Hawaiian Government in developing our relations with the community of Nations in regards to the occupation and the profound economic benefits that arise from its exposure.

On November 23, 1993, President Clinton signed United States Public Law 103-150, which not only acknowledged the illegal actions committed by the United States in the overthrow of the legitimate government of Hawaii, but also that the Hawaiian people never surrendered their sovereignty. The latter is the most important part of United States Public Law 103-150 for it makes it quite clear that the Hawaiian people never legally ceased to be a sovereign separate independent nation. There is no argument that can change that fact.

United States Public Law 103-150, despite its polite language, is an official admission that the government of the United States illegally occupies the territory of the Hawaiian people.

BATF orders custom leatherman tools engraved with "Always Think Forfeiture". as in asset forfeiture. as in "our mission is to take everything you own."...

FOUR CIA jets, two of which were identified last year in a special EU report into the practice of extraordinary rendition, have landed at Shannon Airport in recent days, leading to renewed calls for the Government to ban aircraft suspected of participating in the practice.

The planes, operated by Centurion Aviation Services, a shelf company for the CIA, were identified in the EU report on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners, which was published in November 2006. Despite this, both jets continue to stop at Shannon.

We can only conclude that following the occupation, the US had no intention of rebuilding Iraq and indeed as I've pointed out, the US is on record as saying that it's not in the business of 'nation-building', so, what is the 'Plan'?

The creation of a 'failed state' destabilises the region which weakens opposition to imperial plans and as we have witnessed, it also creates the pre-conditions for extending the 'area of instability' Eastward.

It is within this context that we see that the never-ending 'rumours of war with Iran' spread by the US and its faithful minions in the media make sense. This is classic psychological warfare waged not only by the Fort Bragg posse but also by a complicit media.

Friday afternoon is not the best time for major news developments, but in the case of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) trial it seems to have become a habit.

The four-day exercise, codenamed "Juniper Falcon" was part of a standing agreement between the two strategic allies to hold regular joint training to boost "interoperability, understanding and cooperation" a military statement released on Thursday said.

The statement stressed that the exercise, which ended on Wednesday, had been planned a year in advance and was not related to actual events.

Pakistan's new coalition government will hold talks with militants believed to have carried out suicide bombings and will use military force as a last resort, the New York Times reported, citing political party leaders.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc's and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc's credit rating outlooks were cut on Friday by Standard & Poor's, which said volatile markets could result in lower profit and revenue.

S&P revised its outlook to "negative" from "stable" on Goldman's "AA-minus" and Lehman's "A-plus" long-term credit ratings, suggesting a possible downgrade in one to two years.

Rudy Giuliani's priest has been accused in grand jury proceedings of molesting several children and covering up the molestation of others. Giuliani would not disavow him on the campaign trail and still works with him.

Mitt Romney was part of a church that did not view black Americans as equals and actively discriminated against them. He stayed with that church all the way into his early thirties, until they were finally forced to change their policies to come into compliance with civil rights legislation. Romney never disavowed his church back then or now. He said he was proud of the faith of his fathers.

Jerry Falwell said America had 9/11 coming because we tolerated gays, feminists and liberals. It was our fault. Our chickens had come home to roost, if you will. John McCain proudly received his support and even spoke at his university's commencement.

Reverend John Hagee has called the Catholic Church the "Great Whore." He has said that the Anti-Christ will rise out of the European Union (of course, the Anti-Christ will also be Jewish). He has said all Muslims are trained to kill and will be part of the devil's army when Armageddon comes (which he hopes is soon). John McCain continues to say he is proud of Reverend Hagee's endorsement.

Reverend Rod Parsley believes America was founded to destroy Islam. Since this is such an outlandish claim, I have to add for the record, that he is not kidding. Reverend Parsley says Islam is an "anti-Christ religion" brought down from a "demon spirit." Of course, we are in a war against all Muslims, including presumably Muslim-Americans. Buts since Parsley believes this is a Christian nation and that it should be run as a theocracy, he is not very concerned what Muslim-Americans think.

John McCain says Reverend Rod Parsley is his "spiritual guide."

What separates all of these outrageous preachers from Barack Obama's? You guessed it. They're white and Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not.

Hillary Clinton's boasts that she gained major foreign policy experience as First Lady have been undermined after 11,046 pages of her White House schedules provided scant evidence to back up her claims.

Soldiers, under pressure to show progress in a U.S.-funded war, allegedly are killing civilians and passing them off as rebels.

The University of Hawaii held a symposium entitled "Understanding the Nakba" that lasted from February 26th until March 14th. A number of lectures and films, along with open discussions, dealt with the history of Palestine, the present structure of apartheid in the country, and the links between Hawaii and Palestine.

Moscow - Russia's parliament on Friday voted 355 to 3 in favour of draft legislation limiting foreign investment in strategic sectors including oil and gas, publishing, telecoms and fishing, news agency Interfax reported.

Under the bill, foreigners are forbidden from buying a significant stake in companies without government approval in industries defined as crucial to national security.

Ron Paul took this man to the woodshed.

Beat your swords into plowshares...

A U.S.-based company that has controversially laid claim to nearly all of the Arctic Ocean's undersea oil said Thursday that new geological data suggests a "potentially vast" petroleum resource of 400 billion barrels.

That figure is backed by a respected Canadian researcher who recently signed on as the firm's chief scientific adviser.

Las Vegas-based Arctic Oil & Gas has raised eyebrows around the world with its roll-of-the-dice bid to lock up exclusive rights to extract oil and gas from rapidly melting areas of the central Arctic Ocean, currently beyond the territorial control of Canada, Russia and other polar nations.

As more and more people get tested for hepatitis and HIV, the courts are trying to figure out how to handle all of the lawsuits now filed against the clinic that put patients at risk.

Some 40,000 people were urged to be tested after it was found the clinics regularly reused dirty syringes and vials.

Big commercial search engines are not free. They collect as much personal information about you as possible every time you log on, they collect your searches, they analyze them, and they find ways to make money from that information.

The worst is Google. Privacy International (PDF) provided privacy rankings for major search engines and other widely used sites like MySpace and YouTube. At the bottom was Google that PI ranked as absolutely hostile toward its customers' privacy.

Ixquick is different. The core of their privacy policy is a commitment to delete information about your searches within 48 hours. Their policy has been reviewed favorably by a long list of computer experts, including those published in CNET, ZDNet, the London Guardian and the New York Times.

Ecuador's decision not to renew the U.S. lease for the forward operating base at Manta (see Yankees Head Home) is the culmination of just one of many long-term and recently initiated community-based and national struggles to remove these military installations that are often sources of crime and demeaning human rights violations. A growing alliance among anti-bases movements in countries around the world, including the United States, is preventing the creation of new foreign military bases, restricting the expansion of others, and in some cases may win the withdrawal of the military bases, installations and troops that are essential to U.S. wars of intervention and its preparations for first-strike nuclear attacks.

President Bush on Wednesday said something demonstrably false and inflammatory about Iran -- asserting that the Iranian government has "declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people."

We all have families, some of us are fortunate enough to have what we call 'extended families'. I am one of those fortunate ones as I love my friends as if they were family and treat them as such.

Because of this 'mini philosophy' of mine I have a 'son' who is a Muslim and a 'daughter' who is a Christian. We all rejoice in each others' Holidays and Festivals, but it is a special treat when they all fall out on the same days. We all go by different calendars, but every so often they coincide as was the case this year.... read the following to see what I mean, in a post written by the woman referred to as 'my daughter' above... my dear Nola, a very special person.

People continue to refer to Israel as Israel, no matter onto whose land it expands or how far, as if Palestine could be made to disappear by neglecting to mention it, ever again. In fact, at this writing (March 2008), Palestine is alive and well, if excruciatingly battered and beleaguered, just beneath the surface of Israel, and is rising up all over the place, through the cracks in the sidewalk, in the most unstoppable manner imaginable. Palestine will not be suppressed. Whether we stand for it or against it, Palestine is unsuppressable. However new or not new the Palestinian identity may be, however indigenous or imported the name itself, Palestine is a fact, and Palestinians likewise. We Jews are not the only ones here. However long we have been here, in numbers large or small, we have never been alone here! Get used to it! I deal with this problem by referring to the country as Israel/Palestine, for now. Sometimes (for parity) I call it Palestine/Israel. Not a perfect solution, but not bad.

News slowly trickles out of Gaza, the blockade makes it near to impossible for reporters to get in or their reports to get out...

US Vice President Dick Cheney was poised to visit Israel on Saturday to promote Middle East peace and highlight the US ally's "right to defend itself" after Saudi talks on sky-high oil prices, aides said.

The Pentagon on Friday ruled out including Adm. William Fallon as a witness before Congress when the top U.S. military and diplomatic officials in Baghdad testify next month on the way ahead in Iraq.

"I know there have been requests, in fact, from members of Congress to have Adm. Fallon testify with Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, and I can tell you that Adm. Fallon will not be testifying" with them, Morrell told a Pentagon news conference.

Witnesses said Thursday that Jose Luis Buenrostro-Gonzalez, 15, had his hands in the air and was unarmed when he was fatally shot by Oakland police Wednesday.

Thanks to its stake in Visa's initial public offering this week, JPMorgan Chase & Co. has enough money to pay for its Bear Stearns purchase and still have about a billion dollars left over.

In case you've been so caught up in the battle royale of the Democratic primaries, Joe Lieberman has been escorting John McCain around Iraq and Israel, acting as his assisted living caretaker.

Not only has Lieberman once or twice bailed McCain out of his confusion between Sunnis and Shiites, he most recently saved McCain from his equating the Jewish Holiday of Purim with Halloween while jaunting around Israel.

The government has failed to pay farmers the foreign currency component for wheat deliveries to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) because of the critical hard currency shortage.

Farmers this week complained that, in addition to the delays by the GMB and the Reserve Bank to process their payments, the producer price of the crop, pegged at $72 million last year, is now almost worthless because of high inflation of more than 100 000 percent.

The FBI has recently adopted a novel investigative technique: posting hyperlinks that purport to be illegal videos of minors having sex, and then raiding the homes of anyone willing to click on them.

Undercover FBI agents used this hyperlink-enticement technique, which directed Internet users to a clandestine government server, to stage armed raids of homes in Pennsylvania, New York, and Nevada last year. The supposed video files actually were gibberish and contained no illegal images.

Many people ask "just what is considered illegal or suspicious activity when moving cash?" Some people have gone to the bank with the cash proceeds of a garage sale or a car sale on the weekend, and recounted horror stories of multiple questions by bank employees and have sometimes been reported to the government as suspected criminals.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah in a meeting with visiting US Vice President Dick Cheney has rejected any US military strike against Iran.

Over the past few days, the IDF completed a large-scale exercise simulating a takeover of Gaza. The exercise was one of the largest held in recent years.

Israeli military sources said that in the course of the exercise, "the army's fear that a ground operation in Gaza would lose international legitimacy and would be stopped because of international pressure on Israel was given expression." They said that because of this concern, one of the goals given the Southern Command was to attain achievements quickly and in tandem to act to prevent a humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. Therefore, during the "combat," dozens of trucks with food were brought into the Gaza Strip even during the course of the fierce battles.

The emperor says he doesn't care if two-thirds of the public was now against the Iraq war. The emperor's spokesperson says that the public's input into the Iraq war ended in 2004.

Our company and industry are struggling to cope with unprecedented increases in feed-ingredient costs this year due largely to the U.S. government's ill-advised policy of providing generous federal subsidies to corn-based ethanol blenders.

Based on current commodity futures prices the company's total costs for corn and soybean meal in fiscal 2008 would be more than $1.3 billion higher than two years ago.

The Associated Press later identified Stanley, Inc. as the Virginia-based contractor whose two employees were terminated. One prescient blogger who guessed correctly that Stanley was the contractor in question noted that its CEO is a GOP donor:

...[O]ne thing that would add to the appearance of impropriety is that CEO Nolan has, according to the Open Secrets database, been a campaign contributor to Sen. Joe Lieberman, a leading supporter of Obama's Republican adversary John McCain. In March 2005 Nolan gave $1,000 to Lieberman's reelection campaign.

The NBC News 'Deep Background' blog has more on Stanley and its CEO, including the revelation that Nolan "gave $1,000 to Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign on Feb. 20, 2008."

Telescopic measurements show that the burst -- which occurred when the universe was about half its current age -- was bright enough to be seen

The French alternative website Alterinfo.net is threatened with closing down as they face legal complaints and accusations of "antisemitism" by the Zionist lobby.

The French associative AlterInfo news agency is facing what it qualifies as a "new attempt of intimidation and destabilization".

To stop holding Israel to a higher standard because of a fear of anti-Semitism is an insult to the Jewish state. To allow any behavior the human mind can conjure without criticism is the surest way to condemn the state. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Scientists who conducted the most comprehensive survey to date of New Zealand's Antarctic waters were surprised by the size of some specimens found, including jellyfish with 12-foot tentacles and 2-foot-wide starfish.

Attempts to silence President Jimmy Carter obviously failed. He is still determined to help bring about a peaceful settlement in the Middle East. He is joined by other former world leaders, Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela among them.

As our roads crumble beneath our wheels, and our schools starve for cash for books and supplies, we need to look at how Bush gambled and lost New Orleans and wonder just how wide spread the risk is? Has Bush bet other cities on his war? Has he bet the entire nation?

Is there a gambler's ruin waiting for all of us?

The facts remain the same:

* The Fed will print as much money as is needed and bail out the big names.

* The big Wall Street banks and other institutions still have exposure to third party defaults that have not been declared or acknowledged or are even known about at this time.

* There are plenty of deflationists believing in a financial blow up who will buy gold to protect themselves.

* There are plenty of others believing in inflation who will also buy gold to protect themselves.

* Inflation is in the pipeline and everyone sees it everyday when they buy goods. This is a global phenomenon and will take gold higher in the coming years.

Michael Corbin: A Tireless Crusader for Truth...

Hopper said that she had gone to the state party's headquarters in Jefferson City on Thursday to look at the reports turned in by the various sites' chairmen from last Saturday's caucuses.

Craighead refused to allow Hopper to look at the reports.

In the case where a citizen mistakenly (and allegedly) shot through his door at a raiding police officer, the citizen is facing a murder charge; in the case where a raiding police officer mistakenly shot through a door and killed a citizen, there were no criminal charges.

Over the last quarter century, we've seen an astonishing rise in paramilitary police tactics by police departments across America. Peter Kraksa, professor of criminology at the University of Eastern Kentucky, ran a 20-year survey of SWAT team deployments and determined that they have increased 1,500 percent since the early 1980s--mostly to serve nonviolent drug warrants.

This is dangerous, senseless overkill. The margin of error is too thin, and the potential for tragedy too high to use these tactics unless they are in response to an already violent situation (think bank robberies, school shootings or hostage-takings). Breaking down doors to bust drug offenders creates violent situations; it doesn't defuse them.

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's campaign has collected the signatures necessary to appear on the ballot for the June 3, 2008 Montana Republican primary.

A State Department official in charge of the department during two of the three breaches into the passport files of Sen. Barack Obama has a direct tie to Bill and Hillary Clinton and department officials are investigating whether she furnished information to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

Aimee Allen's *Unofficial* Ron Paul Revolution Video...

- The family had been mourning for 16-year-old Ahmed Abu Salamah. What was left of what was thought to be his body had been buried. After two weeks of mourning, they found Ahmed alive in the intensive care unit at Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital.

But a boy had been buried. And, a family had spent two weeks outside the intensive care unit, believing the boy inside was theirs. It was their boy who had died.

The battle lines are being drawn and the Canadian Action Party (CAP) is front and center, fighting the North American Union agenda. They are very adamant that Canada 's sovereignty should not be negotiated away.

Lamperd, a "firearm training system" company, has patented a bracelet that delivers debilitating shocks when remotely triggered. Their killer app for this is aviation safety: they're proposing that the TSA could force everyone who flies to wear one of these and then flight-attendants could zap us into a stupor if we turn out to be Al Quaeda.

The good news for Obama is that his numbers have stopped falling since his speech on Tuesday. The bad news is that they haven't bounced back.

Looks like the State Dept. is highlighting the breach of all 3, as the cover for the key snooping on Obama, targeted at finding something to spin to stop him gaining the Presidency.

Given the common media rhetoric of "supporting the troops" to ignore these same troops when they speak out about the horrors of the war is unconscionable. On the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War, it is particularly important that the media reverse this silence, and include the voices of the vets who are speaking out about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan in national news coverage.

A senior aide to Mr Cheney was forced to deny that the nine-day trip to Turkey and the Middle East was part of a strategy by the vice-president to build support for military action against Iran.

There have been few experiments as reckless, overhyped and with as little potential upside as the rapid rollout of genetically modified crops.

Patrick Cockburn: This is the war that started with lies, and continues with lie after lie after lie...

Stunned Bear Stearns shareholders who saw investments virtually wiped out overnight when a takeover deal with JPMorgan Chase was unveiled are demanding to know how it was put together in the first place.

President Peres tells Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov that Israel distrusts Syrian peace overtures; Earlier, Lavrov meets with Assad, says Moscow peace conference aims to restart Israel-Syria talks

Severstal, Russia's largest steel producer, is to purchase a steel mill in the U.S. for $810 million, the company announced on Friday.

Some officers said pressure from Gates resulted in one plan that could have taken the Air Force down a path similar to the German Luftwaffe, which cut back training in World War II to get more pilots in the air.

"That was the end of their air force," said Col. Chris Chambliss, commander of the Air Force's Predator wing.

Russian FM warns military action on Iran 'disastrous'...

President Bush said Thursday that Iran has declared that it wants to be a nuclear power with a weapon to "destroy people," including others in the Middle East, contradicting the judgments of a recent U.S. intelligence estimate.

Cheney downplays Americans' opposition to Iraq war...

Russia's firebrand envoy to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization said Thursday that US military aid to Kosovo amounted to arming "former terrorists."

Responding to news of US President George W Bush approval of military aid to Kosovo, Russia's ambassador to NATO Dmitry Rogozin warned that such a move could lead to "new terrorist clashes in the Balkans."

Big Wall Street investment companies are taking advantage of the Federal Reserve's unprecedented offer to secure emergency loans, the central bank reported Thursday.

Today Donald Rumsfeld is known throughout the world as the zealous U.S. Secretary of Defense who is waging a global "war on terror" in search of "terrorists" and "weapons of mass destruction." Most people, however, are not aware that Rumsfeld himself unleashed a chemical weapon of mass destruction upon the world in 1981--and it's still out there destroying people all over the world. That "WMD" is aspartame and it has been scientifically and anecdotally linked to millions of chronic illnesses and deaths.

The evidence shows that, with full knowledge of aspartame's neurotoxicity and carcinogenicity, Rumsfeld, as the CEO of G.D. Searle, Co., "called in his markers" to achieve U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for the artificial sweetener aspartame, better known by its trade name "NutraSweet."

US police crack down on Iraq rallies...

The report said: "Without US support, Nato has no future. But US support depends on Nato becoming more capable, deployable and flexible, and on the European allies contributing more."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Thursday warned that any military means to solve Iran's controversial nuclear programme would have a "disastrous" effect.

"Any forceful attempts to resolve this issue by non-peaceful means would undermine all that has been done to bring clarity into the Iranian nuclear programme," Lavrov said in a press conference with his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Livni.

Feds Open Criminal Probe Into Alcoa...

If you have some tinfoil handy, now might be a good time to fashion a hat. At the Digital Living Room conference today, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast's senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who's in your living room.

"All visitors should be aware that they have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public or private locations," the fact sheet says. "All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times. Hotel rooms, residences and offices may be accessed at any time without the occupant's consent or knowledge."

Forget "Holocaust Denial."

There is a far more appropriate term to describe the growing phenomenon of doubting that the Holocaust occurred as we're told by zionist orthodoxy - Holocaust Infidelity..

Those who doubt are not Holocaust Deniers - they're Holocaust Infidels, being persecuted because they don't believe.

Even though the "surge" appears to have been effective in quelling violence in much of Iraq, there are still pockets of hard-core resistance. One of those is the city of Mosul in the north, where according to Britain's Channel 4 News, "US troops are battling the last concentration of Sunni insurgents, in what the Americans are calling 'the final stand against al Qaeda in Iraq.'"

The unmitigated arrogance that's emanated from the White House since before the Iraq invasion has been absolutely infuriating. It started with all the lies and deception in justifying the war; the sheer post-invasion-planning incompetence of the Busheviks; the now-infamous "we will be greeted as liberators" and "Mission Accomplished" delusions by VP Dick Cheney and President Bush respectively; the myriad distortions of truth and reality during the prosecution of the war; false claims of progress and success at every turn; and a swaggering insistence to this very day that, despite every Bushevik claim being untrue, that the war was justified and worth it.

A useful rule of thumb in evaluating spectacular scandals around prominent public figures is to ask what and who might want to eliminate that person. In the case of Governor Spitzer, a Democrat, it is clear that the spectacular "leak" of government FBI wiretap records showing that Spitzer paid a high-cost prostitute $4,300 for what amounted to an hour's personal entertainment, was politically motivated. Why?, is the interesting question.

AND NONE AT ALL TO MCCAIN'S RIGHTWING MINISTER PAL AND CLINTON'S MEMBERSHIP IN A GROUP OF RELIGIOUS EXTREMISTS?

A Colorado wife and mother with no criminal record has spent five days in jail because a police detective identified her as a suspect in a robbery, even though her name was different, she was seven years older than the suspect, and weighed 90 pounds more.

Aloha Airlines filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Thursday, a little more than two years after emerging from bankruptcy.

Campy and educational video showing citizens examining ballot chain of custody by following the pickup van.

The US Department of State has fired two contractors and disciplined a third for accessing the passport file of presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

The homelessness situation has grown so rapidly in the United States that certain cities are issuing color-coded wristbands.

Almost half a century after he fled to India, the Dalai Lama has raised the extraordinary prospect of travelling to Beijing and holding face-to-talks with the Chinese regime in an effort to resolve Tibet's most serious crisis for two decades.

A rule change that has made it easier for short-sellers to execute trades may be partially responsible for wild swings in the stock market over the last several weeks.

Experts on Iran and nuclear proliferation said the president's statement was wrong. "That's as uninformed as [Sen. John] McCain's statement that Iran is training al-Qaeda. Iran has never said it wanted a nuclear weapon for any reason. It's just not true. It's a little troubling that the president and the leading Republican candidate are both so wrong about Iran," said Joseph Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation.

Others said it is unclear whether the president believes what he said or was deliberately distorting Iran's position.

A new bill aimed at combating global warming currently being considered by the Senate would, if passed, inflict a new great depression on America by reducing GDP by 6.9 percent - a figure comparable with the economic meltdown of 1929 and 1930.

We swallowed a load in 2001 and we're seeing signs and wonders and signs and wonders all over the place now. We are seeing a collection of related events that are all indicating that 'the future is now' or just around the corner. Ominous evidence of three dimensional chess pressures are pushing circumstance ...and daring it to do something stupid. Food shortages; high fuel costs, housing foreclosures, bank failures, the falling dollar and assorted saber rattling all seem to indicate that 'the boys in the backroom' are getting all sub rosa before they go nova.

What is the real story behind his days as a POW? The U.S. Veteran Dispatch had an article in June of 1996 entitled "POW Songbird McCain Wrongly Described As A Hero." It recounted numerous instances where John McCain violated the Military Coda of Conduct, which specifically orders American personnel to give the enemy no information other than name, rank, serial number, and date of birth. It requires that they accept no favors from the enemy, and to make no written or oral statement disloyal to the United States.

The fact is, in exchange for better medical treatment, McCain violated this code four days after being captured on Oct. 26, 1967. In a U.S. News and World Report interview dated May 14, 1973, two months after he was released, McCain admitted that he exchanged military information in exchange for spending six weeks in a hospital normally reserve for North Vietnamese Military officers.

Police said an argument escalated between Turner and one of his supervisors at a Food Lion on Prosperity Church Road. Officers said the teen assaulted a store manager by throwing an object after officers arrived on scene.

Police released a statement reading, "[Turner] was highly agitated and refused all verbal commands and began walking toward the officer." At that point, the officer used his Taser on Turner.

Turner went to Carolinas Medical Center-University, but he died a short time later.

Commodities plunged, heading for the biggest weekly decline in more than 50 years, on speculation a slowing global economy will curb demand for energy, metals and grains.

THE NAZARENE...

Throughout the Occupied West Bank today, in thousands of homes, children are asking the following questions...

(in Christian homes)... 'Mamma, today is Good Friday, why aren't we going to church services at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City?'

(in Muslim homes)... 'Mamma, yesterday was the Birhday of Our Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), why aren't we going to Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem for special Friday Prayers?'

How is a parent supposed to answer those questions? How is a parent supposed to explain to a child that the wall that separates them from the rest of the world is locked today because it is also a holiday for the Jewish People (Purim) and we are not allowed to go to Jerusalem today.

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who sought to become the nation's first Hispanic president this year, plans to endorse Senator Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination on Friday at a campaign event in Oregon.

A swarm of small earthquakes were felt in the East Bay Thursday afternoon and evening.

This video provides some of the backstory for the discovery of a potentially devastating method of rigging audits, recounts and mail-in votes. While this particular segment took place in New Hampshire, what we learned about chain of custody and a previously unknown attack vector may have affected all states in the primaries. A project funded and produced by Black Box Voting, these videos show a unique collaboration of citizen volunteers who set out to coordinate and share videotaped evidence.

White House documents reveal that Hillary Clinton lied to voters about her opposition to a trade pact blamed in industrial states for killing jobs, Barack Obama's campaign said Thursday.

The Bush administration issued a fresh warning Thursday to U.S. banks that Iran is using "an array of deceptive practices" to hide its alleged involvement in nuclear proliferation and terrorist activities.

Mortgage industry makes it harder to borrow -- even for good credit risks

At first, it sounded like another in a long line of credit card breaches: Up to 4.2 million account numbers were stolen by thieves who cracked computers at Hannaford Bros. Co., an Eastern supermarket chain.

But the specifics of the crime, revealed this week, included some troubling twists that might expose big holes in the payment industry's security standards.

For one thing, Hannaford said the sensitive data were exposed when shoppers swiped their cards at checkout line machines and the information was transmitted to banks for approval.

Union officials in Colorado say a Qwest supervisor tried to cut down on lengthy bathroom breaks by telling workmen to use disposable urinal bags in the field.

A woman was asking a 911 dispatcher for help when her pleas were interrupted by gunshots, then silence. She was shot to death.

The woman told the dispatcher someone was trying to break into her home in upscale West Covina, Los Angeles County sheriff's Lt. Dan Rosenberg said. "Deputies heard gunshots followed by silence and an open phone line," he said.

After several decades of growth in size and sophistication, the leading pro-Israel Lobby in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has become a major force in shaping United States policy in the Middle-East.

A city inspector has been charged with lying about checking on a construction crane that collapsed 11 days later, killing seven people in a dense Manhattan neighborhood.

UK Parliament Expresses 'Deep' Concern for Aspartame Products, Leading Supermarket Chains in England to Pull These Products from Their Shelves...

7.2-Magnitude Earthquake Strikes China...

FLASHBACK: Bush on the Start of the Iraq War: "I feel good!"...

State fires 2 for looking at Obama file...

The recent coverage of Rev. Jeremiah Wright has often cast him as a marginal, almost fringe figure, but Trinity Church is a major Chicago institution, and Wright has long been a prominent pastor on the American scene.

And an anonymous blog set up to defend his church offers some compelling photographic evidence of this: A photograph of Wright and President Clinton, which it says was taken on September 11, 1998 -- the date of a White House gathering for religious leaders.

Two contract employees of the State Department were fired and a third person was disciplined for accessing passport records of Sen. Barack Obama "without a need to do so," State Department officials confirmed to NBC News.

The facts are clear: The Clinton machine joined with K Street to manufacture the very international economic policies that are destroying the economy. And yet, this same machine now claims to have had nothing to do with those economic policies - at the very moment, the machine is pushing a NAFTA-style Colombia Free Trade Agreement in Congress. We are, in short, experiencing the renaissance of "Clintonism" - an ideology that treats Americans like we are stupid and treats basic undebatable facts as commodities to be manipulated and perverted for personal gain. And that renaissance should make everyone question all the recent promises by Clinton about changing NAFTA.

Russia's secret service has charged two Russian-Americans with industrial espionage, the service was quoted as saying Thursday, a day after raids on the offices of British oil major BP in Moscow.

Today, five years exactly from that day, "Shock & Awe" has failed. We are the most powerful nation on the earth, militarily, and despite the fact that this 'war' will cost us three trillion dollars so far: we have not prevailed. Bush spoke to the nation today from deep inside the War Department, and proclaimed our success: But when America wins a war, we hold ticker-tape parades down Fifth Avenue in New York City-we do not need to have 'victory' explained to us by a third rate cheerleader who does not know one end of a weapon from the other. The Decider knows nothing about the need for winning anything beyond our bombs our torture, our own infliction of terror upon the innocent that we dispense so freely, with every bullet that is fired in fear.

Just when consumers and the U.S. economy need banks to lend more freely, the mortgage industry is making it harder to borrow -- even for those with good credit.

Mortgage insurers, whose backing is required for borrowers who can't afford the traditional 20 percent down payment on a home, have already flagged nearly a quarter of the nation's ZIP codes where they refuse to insure some home loans.

WAR AGAINST 'TERRORISM' RUNNING OUT OF PUFF? YOU CAN COUNT ON 'BIN LADEN' TO BRING IT BACK TO LIFE - OR, AT LEAST, YOU USED TO!...

Hackers can drop malicious code into systems running Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox when the browser is armed with any of several high-profile add-ons, including Google Toolbar and Yahoo Toolbar, a researcher revealed today. Mozilla has acknowledged the risk posed by some extensions.

All of this is occurring while: the US government bails out Wall Street; credit card companies raise record amounts of money by issuing shares; the economic crisis draws comparison to the 1929 stock market crash; investigation of predatory banks gets killed; The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. prepares for bank failures; and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta releases a crisis peparedness video.

And some thought that Stocking the Root Cellar was only for conspiracy theorists.

A startling result from the Cassini mission has just been announced: Titan, Saturn's giant moon, may have an ocean of water and ammonia under its surface.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day says he is waiting for details on how the blueprints for the Canadian Armed Forces new counter-terrorism building to be based in Trenton, Ont., ended up in a garbage can in downtown Ottawa.

"An emboldened al Qaeda with access to Iraq's oil resources could pursue its ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction to attack America and other free nations."

MICROSOFT'S first update to the Windows Vista operating system could cause even more problems for some users.

Media Hacks Call Cheney A "Hero", Say They Love Him For Not Caring What Americans Think...

'New Jewish laws' do not forbid killing innocent children or pregnant women. They don't forbid the stealing of lands from their rightful owners, neither do they forbid the complete annihilation of an entire nation....

But, recent additions' to these 'laws' forbid the hiring of non Jews by Jews... and now it is forbidden to rent homes to Arabs.

7.2 QUAKE HITS CHINA...

First off, let's get something straight once and for all...Israel is neither a religion nor a people; it is a politically established nation. Opinions, discussions, reports, analyses or commentaries about Israel have nothing to do with "Jews," "Jewish" people or "Judaism!" Once you understand this you can now understand how anyone who stifles accurate commentary about Israel by slapping the commentator with an anti-Semitism label is using, and may I say exploiting the Jewish people by directly connecting all Jewish people with the actions of the State of Israel.

EBay Inc. said Thursday it is cutting 125 jobs in Europe and North America, including 70 positions at the online auctioneer's headquarters in San Jose, Calif.

Lieberman putting the yamulke on McCain...

Royal Dutch Shell has been quietly working with Iraq's oil ministry over the past two years, advising it on how to increase the production of two oilfields. Under an agreement struck after the 2003 invasion, no one from the company, Europe's largest oil group, has set foot in the troubled country; instead, monthly face-to-face meetings with the oil ministry have been held in Amman, the Jordanian capital, and weekly contact has been maintained by video-link.

he US Treasury said Thursday it had struck a series of agreements with big sovereign wealth funds based in Abu Dhabi and Singapore on investments in US markets.

Russia has requested an emergency meeting of the Russia-NATO council to discuss U.S. authorisation for arms supplies to Kosovo, Itar-Tass news agency quoted Russia's envoy to NATO as saying on Thursday.

U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday authorised arms supplies to Kosovo, saying it would "strengthen the security of the United States and promote world peace", according to a document on the White House Web site.

Germany's national Jewish body said Thursday it has filed suit against YouTube and its parent company Google, demanding a court order for the site to be permanently purged of anti-Semitic videos.

A rise in jobless claims and a drop in a key forecasting gauge provided the latest evidence that the U.S. economy is faltering and may be slipping into recession.

Dick Cheney refuses to see the reality of our 12 billion dollar a month debacle in occupied Iraq ~ claiming phenomenal improvements in security and ignoring the grim reality of over one million civilian deaths, continued suicide bombings and a thoroughly demoralized populace: Allen L Roland

Iraq WMD Lies: The Words of Mass Deception...

Republican John McCain's campaign suspended a staffer who sent out a provocative video linking Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama to the comments of his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Rachel Corrie came by her beliefs and convictions honestly, they were gifts given to her by her parents, Cindy and Craig. Both are in Israel this week to attend the first Arabic-language performance of the acclaimed one-woman play, My Name is Rachel Corrie.

An eagle ray leaped onto a boat off the Florida Keys on Thursday and stabbed a woman with its barb, knocking her to the deck and killing her, a Florida wildlife investigator said.

In recent weeks, conservative talk radio stars Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham have urged loyal listeners to vote for the much-despised Clinton in open Democratic primaries so as to prevent Obama from sealing the nomination, and there are some indications that their calls have already been heeded in states like Texas and Mississippi.

The illusion the Fed is trying to create of a strong dollar while at the same time pushing a policy of printing unlimited quantities of cash can't hold for long. The reality is driven by the market, and the market is running dry. Every supplier of silver and gold is running out due to huge consumer demand to trade in worthless dollars for something that will hold its value.

Video: Police Violence At March 20 San Francisco Anti-War Protests...

Levee Breaks in Southwest St. Louis County...

It was the first explosion in Kilauea's main Halemaumau Crater since 1924, scattering debris over about 75 acres, said Jim Kauahikaua, scientist-in-charge at Hawaiian Volcano Observatory on the Big Island.

Scooter Libby disbarred...

"I expected that if I lost one of my sons (in the war), it would be due to an IED or firefight," Maseth's mother, Cheryl Harris, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "I never expected to hear