The recent attempt by Nouri al-Maliki to take on Moqtada al-Sadr has demonstrated two points; first, Maliki has no real powerbase without US support, and secondly, even with US support, al-Sadr has the ability to take on the Iraqi puppet government and the US in a guerrilla war with recruits joining any future insurgency that al-Sadr leads actually coming from the US-trained Iraqi police and army while others simply refuse to fight against the insurgents.

FIVE British hostages who were kidnapped in Iraq last year may be being held in Tehran, the Iranian capital, according to intelligence reports received by the Foreign Office.

The disclosure, supported by two security sources in London and officials in Iraq, means that any rescue attempt by British special forces would be almost impossible.

The latest intelligence follows statements last year by General David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, that he believed the five men had been abducted by a group funded, trained and armed by Iran.

Iran joined militias in battle for Basra...

Over the last five weeks, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York has featured in her campaign stump speeches the story of a health care horror: an uninsured pregnant woman who lost her baby and died herself after being denied care by an Ohio hospital because she could not come up with a $100 fee.

The woman, Trina Bachtel, did die last August, two weeks after her baby boy was stillborn at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens, Ohio. But hospital administrators said Friday that Ms. Bachtel was under the care of an obstetrics practice affiliated with the hospital, that she was never refused treatment and that she was, in fact, insured.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates reaffirmed to the leader of Oman on Saturday that Washington wanted to resolve its disputes with Iran diplomatically, a senior U.S. defense official said.

As an investor, it is in your interest for your portfolio to do as well as possible with the least risk possible. Unfortunately, this is not the goal of most of the people you may rely on for news and advice. There are conflicting incentives everywhere in the world of finance.

Academics at Southampton University, who carried out an official study into seven additives for the Food Standards Agency (FSA), said children's intelligence was being significantly damaged by E-numbers. After receiving the advice last month, officials at the FSA have advised their directors to call for the food industry to remove six additives named in the study by the end of next year.

Ray claimed he was driving his yellow 1966 Ford Mustang in Memphis - where he was part of a gun-running scheme with a smuggler named Raoul he'd met in Montreal during Expo 67 - when he heard of King's shooting on the car radio.

Ray possessed a heightened alertness and rat-like cunning that could only belong to an escaped convict. Fearing Raoul had set him up - the pair had been staying above Jowers' restaurant, overlooking the crime scene - he fled for Atlanta.

DJ German MOF Opposing Interventions To Boost Weak Dollar...

THE CLINTON'S ARE A LEGEND IN THEIR OWN MIND / AND IT'S GETTING OLD...

The biggest problem with the 9/11 Truth Movement is where it leads: a place dark and evil beyond imagination. Even if deep down you believed it was an inside job, you would need to deny it.

So when hundreds of American military officers, pilots, engineers, and CIA veterans stepped forward to say they believed the official story to be a monstrous lie, I was shaken to the core.

In public, NATO is demanding that all allies contribute their fair share to the ongoing effort in Afghanistan. But behind closed doors, a paper has been circulated that may provide the beginnings of an exit strategy. Germany is pushing the plan.

The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, has called for a comprehensive review of the policy on biofuels as a crisis in global food prices - partly caused by the increasing use of crops for energy generation - threatens to trigger global instability.

Your countrymen have been murdered and the more you delve into it the more it looks as though they were murdered by our government, who used it as an excuse to murder other people thousands of miles away.

If you ridicule others who have sincere doubts and who know factual information that directly contradicts the official report and who want explanations from those who hold the keys to our government, and have motive, means, and opportunity to pull off a 9/11, but you are too lazy or fearful, or ... to check into the facts yourself, what does that make you? Scholars for 9/11 truth have developed reams of scientific data. Michael Ruppert published an exhaustive account of the case from the viewpoint of a trained investigator. David Ray Griffin provides a context for the unanswered or badly answered questions that should nag at anyone who pretends to love this country.

Are you afraid that you will learn the truth and you can't handle it?

When a congressional committee examines how nearly $300 million in government contracts for an arms deal to Afghanistan's army and police was given to a tiny Miami Beach-based company led by 22-year-old Efraim Diveroli, it is expected to question how the company, AEY Inc., qualifies as minority-owned, as was listed on the application.

Minority-owned companies, also classified as "disadvantaged," receive preferential treatment in the awarding of contracts.

While oil's surge above $100 over the last month has boosted gas prices so far this year, analysts now expect gas prices to continue rising regardless of what direction crude takes. The U.S. Energy Department expects prices to peak near $3.50 a gallon later in the spring, but many analysts predict the spike could approach $4.

That's because gasoline supplies are falling, in part because producers are cutting back on output of the fuel due to the high cost of crude - the more expensive crude is, the more refiners have to pay and the lower their profits are. They're also in the process of switching over from producing winter grades of gasoline to the less polluting but more expensive grade of fuel they're required to sell in the summer.

"That cuts back on some of the supply and helps to pump up the price," said Mike Pina, a spokesman for AAA.

In a dramatic reversal, Iraq's prime minister ordered a nationwide freeze Friday on Iraqi raids against Shiite militants, bowing to demands by anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr only one day after promising to expand the crackdown to Baghdad.

"100% of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the Federal Debt ... all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services taxpayers expect from government." -Grace Commission report submitted to President Ronald Reagan - January 15, 1984

President Bush told a NATO summit that the United States would increase its number of troops in Afghanistan, administration officials said Friday, as the president sought to assure partners of Washington's long-term commitment to the campaign.

Michelle Kuly went to U.S. Customs at Winnipeg's James Armstrong Richardson International Airport to catch a flight home and renew her work visa -- something she has done in each of the past two years to work at a magazine in Pennsylvania.

But border personnel refused to renew her papers and told her she shouldn't have qualified in the first place.

Moqtada al-Sadr Friday called a mass rally for April 9 in Baghdad against US forces in Iraq, as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered his troops to halt raids on the Shiite cleric's militiamen.

The venue for the protest had earlier been set as the central shrine city of Najaf but a Sadr spokesman said it would be more effective in the Iraqi capital and allow more people to take part.

At least four million people do not have enough food while around 40 percent of the 27.5 million population do not have access to clean drinking water, and 30 percent do not have access to reasonable health services. Most of the increasing number of internally displaced people have little or no access to proper health care, food assistance, sanitation and other services, he said.

Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported on Friday evening that an infant and a woman died in the Gaza Strip after the Israeli Authorities barred their transfer to hospitals outside the Gaza Strip for medical treatment.

Dictatorial behaviour may be partly genetic, study suggests.

Militiamen loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr are positioning explosives to defend the major routes into Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood in anticipation of a major battle with U.S. and Iraqi government forces, residents said yesterday.

The unease in Baghdad comes amid calls by Sheik al-Sadr for a massive anti-American rally Wednesday to mark the fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.

When "enhanced interrogation techniques" get a little too "enhanced," they can always be outsourced to private contractors like CACI... for the right price.

A tribal audit last year revealed that Utah-based provider OnSat Network Communications Inc. may have double-billed the tribe.

Russia is set to drastically increase its number of strategic aviation patrol flights over the world's oceans to 20-30 a month, the Air Force commander said on Friday.

"We will be making 20-30 flights a month, not two or three, as was the case until recently," Col. Gen. Alexander Zelin said.

The US military has been using depleted uranium in Hawaii.

NOBODY wins when a home enters foreclosure -- neither the borrower, who is evicted, nor the lender, who takes a loss when the home is resold. That's the conventional wisdom, anyway.

The reality is very different. Behind the scenes in these dramas, a small army of law firms and default servicing companies, who represent mortgage lenders, have been raking in mounting profits. These little-known firms assess legal fees and a host of other charges, calculate what the borrowers owe and draw up the documents required to remove them from their homes.

The Clintons' 2006 tax return shows that, through a blind trust, the couple acquired an interest of an undisclosed size in a private investment fund known as the Quellos Alpha Engine, based in the Cayman Islands. At the time, the fund was controlled by the Quellos Group of Seattle, one of the world's largest managers of mutual funds made up of hedge funds. Hollywood mogul Haim Saban is one of the biggest investors in Quellos and is also one of Hillary Clinton's most prolific fundraisers.

A 2006 investigation into abusive tax shelters by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations reported that Quellos used offshore shell companies to engage in fake transactions that generated billions of dollars in capital losses on paper. One series of transactions, the report said, erased more than $2 billion in capital gains that would have been taxed, costing the U.S. Treasury hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed Baghdad government.

Driven by a painful mix of layoffs and rising food and fuel prices, the number of Americans receiving food stamps is projected to reach 28 million in the coming year, the highest level since the aid program began in the 1960s.

Western politics is infected with a lethal virus

The unemployment rate rose from 4.8 to 5.1 percent in March, and nonfarm payroll employment continued to trend down (-80,000), the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Over the past 3 months, payroll employment has declined by 232,000. In March, employment continued to fall in construction, manufacturing, and employment services, while health care, food services, and mining added jobs. Average hourly earnings rose by 5 cents, or 0.3 percent, over the month.

Or the endgame, at least, of a surprisingly drawn-out Democratic presidential contest. Four months and 42 states after the opening Iowa caucuses, the primary in North Carolina on May 6 now looms as a pivotal final showdown between Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Dollar chilled by rise of euro...

Quellos was front and center in an Aug. 1 report by a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating offshore tax haven abuses. The report said Quellos "designed, promoted, and implemented" a tax shelter called POINT, which was used to shield $2 billion in capital gains from U.S. taxes, costing the U.S. Treasury $300 million in revenue. The report said the POINT tax strategy "was based upon billions worth of fake securities transactions that were used to generate billions of dollars in fake capital losses" in a bid to avoid paying taxes.

When American politicians talk about strategic interests, they are talking about just what I called it, manure. We have no strategic interests in the Middle East whatsoever. We wish to buy oil there. Last time I checked, those countries that produce oil were selling it to any country willing to buy it, whether that country had troops in the area or not. Since oil isn't edible, there's not a heck of a lot you can do with it if you don't sell it.

Aluminum Tubes - The Sequel...

Ted Gunderson, now a private investigator, has told the US Globe tabloid that Bono, who served as mayor of Palm Springs for four years, did not die after hitting a tree on a Nevada ski slope in January 1998 as everyone believed.

"It's nonsense for anyone to now try to suggest that Bono died after crashing into a tree. There's zero evidence in this autopsy report... to show such an accident happened. Instead, there's powerful proof he was assassinated.

"This was an evil plot that was carried out to almost perfection by ruthless assassins," Mr Gunderson told the paper.

The former agent, who has been researching Bono's accident for the past decade, said top officials linked to an international drug and weapons ring feared the singer-turned-politician was about to expose their crimes - so they had him killed on the slopes.

Bono, an experienced skiier, was ambushed on the slopes by hired hitmen, who beat him to death and then staged a tree collision, Mr Gunderson said.

Soaring precious metal prices, accompanied by a national economy that is suddenly on the skids, is spurring a modern-day gold rush across northern California, and other sections of the western United States and Canada, that veterans of panning and sluicing have not seen in many a decade.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says that the U.S. intends to send many more combat forces to Afghanistan next year, regardless of whether troop levels in Iraq are cut further in the second half of this year.

It's the first time the Bush administration has made such a commitment for 2009.

North Carolina: Obama 47% Clinton 40%...

"No one can seriously think that Iran would dare attack the U.S.," a source in the Russian delegation at the NATO-Russia summit in Bucharest quoted Putin as telling leaders. "Instead of pushing Iran into a corner, it would be far more sensible to think together how to help Iran become more predictable and transparent."

Rasmussen daily graph for 4/5/08 - Obama up 3 (51), Clinton down 1 (41)...

I still vividly remember my father's face - wrinkled, apprehensive, warm - as he last wished me farewell fourteen years ago. He stood outside the rusty door of my family's home in a Gaza refugee camp wearing old yellow pyjamas and a seemingly ancient robe. As I hauled my one small suitcase into a taxi that would take me to an Israeli airport an hour away, my father stood still. I wished he would go back inside; it was cold and the soldiers could pop up at any moment. As my car moved on, my father eventually faded into the distance, along with the graveyard, the water tower and the camp. It never occurred to me that I would never see him again.

Yesterday, one of Israel's most prominent religious leaders issued another statement which belongs in the cesspool of hatred. It was the same rabbi that has been darkening the name of the Jewish people with his 'rulings' and opinions regarding the current situation in the region.

Mordecai Eliyahu, a former chief rabbi declared that the "life of one yeshiva boy worth more than 1,000 Arabs". That was the theme of his speech at a memorial ceremony marking 30 days since the attack at a Jerusalem Yeshiva. Rather than teach tolerance and understanding, he continues to preach hatred and destruction.

Palestine, a nation almost completely forgotten by the world, a nation that continues to suffer daily under the yolk of zionist occupation. But, Palestine survives and will be reborn despite all odds that are against Her.

Finesh and his extended Bedouin family didn't intend to live in the middle of the Israeli military's training grounds. The Israeli government came along a few years ago and transformed the unauthorized Bedouin community into a military training site.

Last month, Israeli officials returned with a new warning for Finesh and the 200 other Bedouin residents: Move, or we'll demolish your homes.

The American military has charged a contractor with assault in a case that may emerge as a major test of the military's legal jurisdiction over civilians who accompany the armed forces into the field, military officials and legal experts said Friday.

President Vladimir Putin lashed out at NATO plans to continue its eastward expansion, saying Russia would see the induction of Ukraine and Georgia as an "immediate threat" to its security and react accordingly.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Wednesday a recession is possible and policymakers are "fighting against the wind" in trying to steady a shaky economy. He would not say if further interest rate cuts are planned.

The Iranian general who helped broker an end to nearly a week of fighting between Iraqi government forces and Shiite Muslim militiamen in southern Iraq is an unlikely peacemaker.

Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani, who helped U.S.-backed Iraqi leaders negotiate a deal with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr to stop the fighting in Iraq's largely Shiite south, is named on U.S. Treasury Department and U.N. Security Council watch lists for alleged involvement in terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear and missile technology.

VIDEO - "No End in Sight" - Director Charles Ferguson...

With Clinton expected to win Pennsylvania handily, it appeared that her campaign was already looking ahead to North Carolina, the next big state to hold a primary contest. However, with polls showing Obama opening up a huge lead in the Tarheel state, it appears that attention has shifted to Indiana.

British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the US-backed Baghdad government.

A strong statement from General David Petraeus about Iran's intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a US attack on Iranian military facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment.

The humiliation of the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki by the Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in fighting in Basra last week triggered top-level warnings over Iran's strength in Iraq.

I've heard Hillary Clinton tell the story many times in speeches, and it rarely fails to bring a horrified gasp from the crowd: An uninsured and pregnant Ohio woman, working for minimum wage at a pizza parlor, is turned away from a hospital because she can't come up with $100. The baby dies, and so does the woman.

Except, it turns out, it didn't happen--at least, apparently, not the way Clinton said it did. There was indeed a tragedy last August in Athens, Ohio, in which a woman, Trina Bachtel, gave birth to a stillborn baby and subsequently died herself. But the New York Times reports this morning that the hospital involved says Bachtel had coverage,and received treatment.

Canada's privacy office is looking into allegations that federal human-rights investigators tapped into an unwitting woman's Internet connection to post messages on white supremacist websites, a spokesman said Friday.

The unauthorized use of someone's computer or network could constitute a serious breach of privacy, the office of Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart said.

One of the few states in the greater Middle East that Gates has not visited since becoming defence secretary in December 2006, Oman has in the past given the United States access to its ports and airfields in times of crisis.

I'm not saying everything is okay and we should relax. I am saying that the battle isn't over yet. Liberty and justice and sanity can still prevail.

Risen's book also confirms the most damning element of the British Cabinet Office memos popularly called the "Downing Street memos;" namely, that "the intelligence and the facts were being fixed around the policy." The result is that it is no longer credible to maintain that the failures in the Iraqi intelligence were the product of a broken intelligence community. The Bush administration deliberately fabricated the case against Iraq, lying to Congress and the American people along the way.

The government wants to force everyone off, buy up the land from the desperate then resell it to wealthy people from Jersey to build second and third million dollar homes. This has already happened on a portion of the island hit hard by storms. All the tourists that visit the Island all the people living there year round or part time, no one wants to close the beach. But the people of the Island have no say in the matter. Bureaucrats from the mainland who never visit the island and don't live there have gotten together is what amounts to nothing more than a massive land grab. Cape Hatters accounts four 1/3 of the tourism to North Carolina. The people up north would be more than happy to ruin Hatteras because without the beach tourists are more likely going to stay in Duck, Nags Head or some other location. This is ALL about economics and this is the real reason for the assault on our freedoms. It has nothing to do with the environment it has everything to do with manipulating the tourist industry to move Hatteras's traffic up further North where the very same "environment" goons just so happen to own or work in collusion with real estate.

The US State Department said Friday it is extending its diplomat protection contract for private security firm Blackwater USA, despite the incident last September in which Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians.

Foreign security companies at present are not subject to Iraq law, but at the same time are not governed by US military tribunals, allowing them to operate without any repercussions for their actions.

The number of individuals filing for bankruptcy surged during the first-quarter as American households struggled to stay on top of debt, according to a report released Wednesday.

Those documents you agree to -- usually without reading -- ostensibly allow your ISP to watch how you use the Internet, read your e-mail or keep you from visiting sites it deems inappropriate. Some reserve the right to block traffic and, for any reason, cut off a service that many users now find essential.

The Associated Press reviewed the "Acceptable Use Policies" and "Terms of Service" of the nation's 10 largest ISPs -- in all, 117 pages of contracts that leave few rights for subscribers.

"The network is asserting almost complete control of the users' ability to use their network as a gateway to the Internet," said Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group. "They become gatekeepers rather than gateways."

BT tested secret "spyware" on tens of thousands of its broadband customers without their knowledge, it admitted yesterday.

It carried out covert trials of a system which monitors every internet page a user visits.

Companies can exploit such data to target users with tailored online advertisements.

An investigation into the affair has been started by the Information Commissioner, the personal data watchdog.

A couple of readers spotted this on the Clintons' 2003 return, in an addendum to the form for "Expenses for business use of your home."

ven though we can't seem to find our way out of Iraq, it looks like our new Attorney General Robert Mukasey will soon find a way out of the AIPAC espionage trial. It is now more than likely that the Rosen, Weissman espionage/treason trial will go out with a whimper. The effective appointment of Mukasey to head the Department of Justice by AIPAC's Chuck Schumer looks like it has paid handsome dividends. We may have another idiot on our Government payroll that thinks torture is fine, but AIPAC treason will not be prosecuted in this country under any circumstances.

Employers slash jobs for third straight month while unemployment jumps to 5.1%, a nearly three-year high.

A U.S. B-1 bomber crashed at an air base in Qatar on Friday, a U.S. defense official said, adding the cause was still unknown.

The Metropolitan police have embarrassingly removed posters which used a cartoon of a "shifty" looking Bill Clinton to warn of the dangers of gambling.

First she "misspoke," now she misheard.

Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday seemed to deny that she told New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson that Barack Obama could not win the presidency.

But her campaign later said she misheard a reporter's question.

Like distant thunder and lightning that warn of an approaching storm, recent events strongly suggest a false-flag attack on the Catholic Church-either in the form of an assassination on the Pope himself or a terrorist attack on the Vatican-may soon be in the works for those wishing to widen the present 'clash of civilizations' between the Christian and Muslim worlds for Israel's benefit.

For years we in the West have been looking for a new Evil Empire to fill the gap left when Russia - a genuine threat - retired from the job and deprived us of an enemy. What were all those spies to do? How could we justify those missiles and bombs? What should we be scared of now?

At one stage we were reduced to pretending that Panama's General Noriega was a menace to our way of life. Then it was Slobodan Milosevic. Finally, we inflated the piffling Saddam Hussein into a looming Hitler.

Now the same experts think they have found something to be afraid of in Iran.

Israel, while supposedly observing an ironclad boycott of all things Iranian, is happily buying Iranian oil

Michigan Democrats officially have declared they won't hold a do-over presidential primary. Members of the state party's executive committee issued a statement Friday saying "we have concluded that it is not practical" to conduct a party-run primary or caucus as a way to get the state's Democratic National Convention delegates seated.

While I do not usually post articles so quickly after such a length post, this is a special case as this is a special day. On this day, forty years ago, one of the greatest humans to have walked the face of the earth, the Reverend Martin Luther King Junior, had his life snuffed out by the callous act of assassination; an act that, to this day, remains in the minds of many an act as unresolved as the assassination of that other icon of the 1960's, JFK. The death of this great man came only a few short months before my birth, in August 1968, and I grew up with the collective memories of my parents and their experiences with MLK being recounted to me virtually from the day I was born.

The Army and Marine Corps bought hundreds of thousands of sets of body armor -- without the equipment being properly tested, according to a report by the Defense Department's inspector general.

As we wind our way towards an election between the numerous professional liars who have been put forward as candidates for U.S. President, it seems to be a great time to remind us all about the financial issue being routinely ignored by virtually everyone (except Ron Paul, of course, who was never really embraced by the "please lie to me" mainstream public). To what financial issue am I referring? The national debt, of course.

A study, written for U.S. Special Operations Command, suggested "clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers."

Is This What Happened on 9/11?...

The Iraqi military's offensive in Basra was supposed to demonstrate the power of the central government in Baghdad. Instead it has proven the continuing relevance of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, stood its ground in several days of heavy fighting with Iraqi soldiers backed up by American and British air power. But perhaps more important than the manner in which the militia fought is the manner in which it stopped fighting. On Sunday Sadr issued a call for members of the Mahdi Army to stop appearing in the streets with their weapons and to cease attacks on government installations. Within a day, the fighting had mostly ceased. It was an ominous answer to a question posed for months by U.S. military observes: Is Sadr still the leader of a unified movement and military force? The answer appears to be yes.

FORTY years after Martin Luther King was murdered, black Americans are torn between the hope that Barack Obama will reach the White House and the fear that he, too, could fall to an assassin's bullet.

"Remember those pesky student attorneys from the University of Maine School of Law's Cumberland Legal Aid Clinic, who inspired the Magistrate Judge to suggest monetary fines against the RIAA lawyers? Well they're in the RIAA's face once again, and this time they're trying to shut down the RIAA's whole 'discovery' machine: the lawsuits it files against 'John Does' in order to find out their names and addresses.

Motorola Inc. is laying off 2,600 employees across the company, resulting in a pretax charge of $104 million for the first quarter, the Schaumburg-based telecommunications equipment-maker disclosed in a regulatory filing Thursday

Weight discrimination "occurs in employment settings and daily interpersonal relationships virtually as often as race discrimination, and in some cases even more frequently than age or gender discrimination," the researchers report in the current issue of the International Journal of Obesity.

Overweight women are twice as vulnerable as men, and discrimination strikes much earlier in their lives, the report states.

"This is a form of bias that remains very socially acceptable in our culture," research scientist Rebecca Puhl, lead author of the study, said in a telephone interview.

Puhl, who was trained as a clinical psychologist, and co-author Tatiana Andreyeva, studied data collected from 3,437 adults as part of a national survey conducted in 1995-1996. They have just updated the work in a disturbing paper showing that weight discrimination has accelerated through 2006.

Puhl, who has been studying weight discrimination for nine years, said our culture has made it clear that it's wrong to discriminate against someone because of race, color, creed, gender, age and so forth, but that it's OK to show someone the door because he or she is fat.

VIDEO - Israel's Nuclear Weapons Programme...

Chinese paramilitary police have killed eight people after opening fire on several hundred Tibetan monks and villagers in bloody violence that will fuel human rights protests as London prepares to host its leg of the Olympic torch relay this weekend.

Coretta Scott King: There is abundant evidence of a major high level conspiracy in the assassination of my husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. And the civil court's unanimous verdict has validated our belief. I wholeheartedly applaud the verdict of the jury and I feel that justice has been well served in their deliberations. This verdict is not only a great victory for my family, but also a great victory for America. It is a great victory for truth itself. It is important to know that this was a SWIFT verdict, delivered after about an hour of jury deliberation. The jury was clearly convinced by the extensive evidence that was presented during the trial that, in addition to Mr. Jowers, the conspiracy of the Mafia, local, state and federal government agencies, were deeply involved in the assassination of my husband. The jury also affirmed overwhelming evidence that identified someone else, not James Earl Ray, as the shooter, and that Mr. Ray was set up to take the blame.

He was incompetent when it came to rifles. He had a virtually non-existent marksmanship score when he took his test in the Army. He didn't know much about guns. When he was instructed to buy a weapon that became the throw-down gun in the assassination he bought a .243 Winchester rather than a thirty-ott-six [.3006] that he was told to get. He didn't know the difference between them. When he showed the weapon he had bought to Raul, who was controlling him, he sent him back to exchange it. It was a matter of record. He went back and exchanged this one rifle for another the next day. That's not something he thought of himself. It just was the wrong gun. The guy wanted a .3006 caliber rifle so they had a .3006 rifle as the throw-down gun. So he had to go back and exchange it.

After the interview we became convinced, Abernathy and I became convinced that he was not the shooter. We didn't know what other role he might have played. But it was clear he was not the assassin of Martin Luther King. This guy couldn't have done that. But he raised so many questions that I had never heard raised before, that had never been answered, that I decided I would begin to go into Memphis and talk to some people, become familiar with the terrain and the crime scene and see if I could get some answers to those questions.

Hillary Clinton's road to the White House is not going as planned. Instead of a steady procession to coronation at the Denver convention, she is involved in a real struggle against credible opponents led by Obama. No wonder she and her handler were tempted to imply the existence long ago of a teen-ager in Chicago's suburbs who never really existed.

The president of the Pacific nation of Palau was briefly stranded in the Philippine capital when a U.S. airline refused to allow him aboard a flight without being frisked, officials said Thursday.

Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.

Review raises questions over aspartame and brain health...

In a state that pollsters and analysts call tailor-made for Hillary Clinton, Obama is seriously challenging the fit.

So much so, some wonder if an unraveling's in the offing.

The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, say it's possible. But another journalist, Thomas Friedman (not part of the group), is skeptical

Wind Powers 40% Of Spain...

"We are against killing innocent people or harming children," he added, "but once terrorists hide behind children, we have to strike back.

Appearing Wednesday on "The Alex Jones Show," a syndicated radio program, Ventura said based on his demolition training as a Navy SEAL, a visit to Ground Zero a few weeks after 9/11 and watching "super-slow motion" video of the falling buildings, he's concluded the structures look like they fell because of a controlled demolition.

Jonathan J. Pollard, the American convicted of spying for Israel, has tried to slip classified information into 14 of his letters from prison, Defense Secretary Les Aspin has told the White House.

In one of his final acts in office, Mr. Aspin told President Clinton in a confidential letter last week that Mr. Pollard should not be given leniency, as some American Jewish groups and the Israeli Government have requested, because the Pentagon still considers him to be a security risk and because of the severity of his offense.

April 1st I participated in a debate in San Francisco that raised the question of US aid to Israel.

It was highly appropriate that this debate was held two weeks before tax day, since in Israel's sixty years of existence, it has received more US tax money than any other nation on earth.

During periods of recession, when Americans are thrown out of work, homes are repossessed, school budgets cut and businesses fail, Congress continues to give Israel massive amounts of our tax money; currently, about 7 million dollars per day.

A United Nations military observer sent e-mails home to Canada reporting that Israel was bombing schools and waging "a campaign of terror against the Lebanese people" shortly before he was killed by an Israeli bomb in Lebanon, said his widow.

Recently the makings of a plot for a 7/7 style terrorist attack by Israeli Mossad terrorists against Montreal's Metro was exposed.

Song by Japanese 9/11 Truth activist

Despite assurances from the state's chief election official that counties are prepared for a record turnout for the April 22 primary, at least one lawmaker remains worried about disenfranchised voters and partisan vote-counting sullying the outcome.

COUNTDOWN: Law Prof Turley - Bush Ordered WAR CRIMES!...

If there remained the slightest doubt as for the major influence Iran has on the affairs of its Iraqi neighbor, the cease-fire concluded on Sunday 30 March, between the radical militia chief, the Shi'ite Moqtada Al-Sadr and three missi dominici representing the Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, also Shi'ite, should have definitively raised it.

Because it was in Qom, the headquarters of the Iranian religious authority that the negotiations took place. And it is, according to a reliable source, under the supervision of an Iranian soldier, and not a simple one, but that of General Qassem Suleimani, the Commander of the notorious Al-Qods brigades of the Pasdarans, that this cease-fire was finally concluded.

The Federal Reserve reports Thursday that those firms averaged $38.1 billion in daily borrowing over the past week from the new lending program. That compared with $32.9 billion in the previous week and $13.4 billion in the first week the lending facility opened.

A month after Detroit Public Schools officials announced that most of the district's vacant schools had been carefully secured, Joy Middle School on the city's east side sat last week with unlocked doors, rubble-filled hallways trashed by vandals, a room full of new computers left behind and a stash of students' personal records scattered on the floor.

What happens when a country, its government, and its army, is entirely taken over by religious fruitcakes?

When it comes to this blood feast, the Beast isn't picky. It can be the blood of Palestinians or Syrians or Iraqi's or the Lebanese, as long as the blood is at body temperature, with the recently deceased human sacrifice to the Beast cured with artillery shells, US made smart bombs or tank shells screaming into the victim's homes. As long as the Beast gets fed, the Beast is happy. The Beast is hungry.. The Beast must be fed... The Beast is.... Israel

After the publication of information by the BBC regarding the role Britain played in Israel's development of Nuclear weapons Tony Benn is interviewed on the topic by Democracy Now. They also discuss Nuclear Power and the power of protest amongst other interesting pieces of history.

A month after reporting $47 million in revenue, a record for Detroit casinos, MGM Grand Detroit is laying off workers.

You simply cannot enjoy being the financial center of the world but start bleating for government bailout whenever asset prices dip a few percent. As Paulson is demonstrating, the regulatory price for being bailed out is far too high. We must all grow up and take a full measure of punishment. The banks must take theirs.

Israel has increased the number of times it sends fighter jets to the Syrian border, 'in preparation' for a possible confrontation.'

Weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration declared the military exempt from a major plank of the US Constitution's bill of rights, according to a legal memorandum uncovered this week.

"Helicopter Ben" is living up to the nickname he earned after he remarked in a 2002 speech that he would stave off a recession even if he had to drop money from helicopters to do it.

The results of these policies have been destructive. The dollar is collapsing not only against foreign currencies -- we're now at par with the Canadian dollar and rocketing toward a 2-1 deficit against the Euro -- but also against commodities. Gold was passing the $1,000-an-ounce landmark, silver $20. Even industrial metals like copper and zinc are fetching record prices.

A recently discovered fish that crawls instead of swimming and has forward-looking eyes like humans could be part of an entirely unknown family of fishes, a University of Washington professor reported Wednesday.

5th-grader points out mistake at Smithsonian...

The U.S. military has too many troops tied down in Iraq to send needed reinforcements to Afghanistan this year, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs said Wednesday.

"There are force requirements there [in Afghanistan] that we can't currently meet," Adm. Mike Mullen said. "Having forces in Iraq at the level they're at doesn't allow us to fill the need that we have in Afghanistan."

Along with 'our economy is resilient and the fundamentals strong,' Gordon Brown has been assuring us that his government 'will continue to take whatever action is necessary to maintain economic stability.' I see in my mind's eye a cartoon in which Brown is standing on the bridge of the Titanic, and as it sinks beneath the waves, he is saying 'I will do whatever is necessary to maintain the stability of this ship.'

Astronomers have captured the first footage of a solar "tsunami" hurtling through the Sun's atmosphere at over a million kilometres per hour.

Governments across the developing world are scrambling to boost farm imports and restrict exports in an attempt to forestall rising food prices and social unrest.

Crude oil rose before a report expected to show that the labor market shrank for a third month in the U.S., the world's largest energy consumer.

The Labor Department will probably say payrolls fell by 50,000 workers, according to a Bloomberg News survey, signaling the U.S. economy may continue to slow. That may cause the dollar to falter, bolstering demand for commodities priced in the U.S. currency and used to hedge against inflation.

Scott Ritter, former head of weapons inspection in Iraq who protested there were no weapons of mass destruction to justify an invasion, believes the same is true for Iran.

But there is an 80 percent chance of war with Iran, he told about 200 people Wednesday at Middlebury College as part of a series of talks facilitated by the Vermont Peace and Justice Center.

Dancing bears filmed in the wild...

'UK is European center of anti-Semitism'...

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reports that lava activity on Puu Oo continues with little change over the past few days.

South Korea's leader Lee Myung-bak has accused the North of fuelling tensions.

Since taking office, Mr Lee has angered Pyongyang by linking aid to progress on denuclearisation and human rights.

The chill between the Koreas comes as talks aiming to implement the North's denuclearisation deal appear to have stalled.

How do you measure the state of the world's biggest economy? The IMF thinks US growth will slow this year and fears of a recession have unsettled markets. But what do the people think? The BBC's Matthew Price hitched a ride on a freight truck across six states, and asked those he met on the road.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak canceled a trip to Germany because of anticipated provocation from Syria on the death of a Hezbollah leader, sources said.

Tax Cheat Worth $1.8 Billion Evades $52 Million in Taxes, Gets Probation and $3,500 Fine...

Elected representatives from Canada, the U.S., and Mexico have agreed to a plan to introduce simultaneous legislation in an effort to stop the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America. This cross border cooperation will go a long way in further exposing the North American Union agenda.

Engineers Make Good Terrorists?...

Clinton jokes about sniper fire on The Tonight Show...

A SMALL Israeli company has refuted claims by the opposition party in Zimbabwe that it was hired by President Robert Mugabe to provide software to rig the elections.

Events leading to this weekend's widely watched election in Zimbabwe took an unexpected turn when opposition parties alleged that the Israeli company compiling the electronic voter rolls was linked to the Mossad and was working to sway the vote in favor of Robert Mugabe, the country's longtime autocratic leader.

A letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey demands he explain a recent public statement in favor of warrantless wiretapping that suggests that federal authorities, prior to the 9/11 attacks, failed to intercept a call from suspected terrorists in Afghanistan, when doing so could have prevented the attacks from taking place.

RECORD HOME FORECLOSURES SHOWS BANKING ACT OF 1999 HAS BACKFIRED ON PUBLIC

Man, poll numbers and finances are looking near catastrophic for Hillary tonight...

Members of the U.S.Congress have as much as $196 million (€126.2 million) collectively invested in companies doing business with the Defense Department, earning millions since the start of the Iraq war, according to a new study by a nonpartisan research group.

The review of lawmakers' 2006 financial disclosure statements, by the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics, suggests that members' holdings could pose a conflict of interest as they decide the fate of Iraq war spending.

Sen. Barack Obama has a huge lead among younger voters in Indiana, Sen. Hillary Clinton holds the same lead with voters older than 60, and both candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination will have a tough race ahead of them in the Hoosier state.

Lawmakers from California to Kentucky are trying to save money with a drastic and potentially dangerous budget-cutting proposal: releasing tens of thousands of convicts from prison, including drug addicts, thieves and even violent criminals.

The administration recently admitted what it had long denied and what journalists, human rights investigators, and others had long suspected: The island has also been part of the CIA's secret "rendition" program for captured terrorist suspects.

She trails him in fundraising and in pledged delegates. Now her superdelegate edge has shrunk to 30, from 87 in February. Even some who back her say they might reconsider.

Over the next month and a half, she says, she faced a series of hurdles. She would be discouraged from reporting the incident by several KBR employees, she says. She would be confused by the lack of any written medical protocol for sexual assault (as the only medical person on site, she treated herself with doxycycline). She would wander through a tangled maze of interviews with KBR and Army investigators about the incident without any clear explanation of her rights. She would be asked to sign several documents agreeing not to publicly discuss the incident, she says. She describes having her computer -- which she saw as her lifeline, her main access to the outside world -- confiscated by Army investigators as "evidence" within hours of receiving her first email from a stateside lawyer she had reached out to for help.

Nebraska may have backed Republican presidential candidates so consistently in the past that national GOP officials already are coloring the state red for 2008.

At least that's the worry of Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb.

"Right now, we're one of a handful of states that they're ignoring," Terry said Thursday.

PAKISTAN'S new, democratically elected leaders came face to face with the country's coup-making military commanders for the first time yesterday and made it plain US forces would no longer be able to operate unilaterally within the nation's borders.

La-Z-Boy and Whirlpool are moving jobs to new plants in Mexico, bringing job losses to hundreds of workers in Dayton and Cleveland.

Meanwhile, some 350 Whirlpool employees are losing their jobs at the former Maytag facility in Cleveland.

It is said that there are two sides to every story. In the case of occupied Palestine, there are often many more sides and opinions... the side of Israel, the occupier, the side of Hamas, the legally elected government of Palestine, the side of Fatah, the 'Palestinian Voice of Israel', and of course the side of the Bush administration...

An independent inquiry commission made up of Palestinian parliamentarians not affiliated with either Fatah or Hamas has held the Palestinian Authority (PA), especially its General Intelligence or "Mukhabarat, " fully responsible for the death of a Palestinian detainee in PA custody in mid February.

Israel and the U.S. decided a few weeks ago to boycott the Durban II conference scheduled for early 2009 and likely to harshly criticize Israel's human rights record unless they receive firm guarantees that the event will not turn into anti-Israel festival.

The 60's was not only an age of action for change, but was also an era of political assassinations to stop that change. In more than one of those cases, the murders basically remain unsolved despite the fact the the 'books were closed' on them.

U.S. employers cut payrolls for a third consecutive month in March and the jobless rate jumped to a 2-1/2 year high, adding more evidence that a housing downturn and credit crisis may have pushed the economy into recession.