An 82-year-old retired high school math teacher and business owner with diabetes and leukemia shot out a tire on a pickup truck loaded with stuff allegedly stolen from his house near here and held two men at gunpoint until police arrived. Webmaster's Commentary: If that had happened here in Hawaii he would still be waiting!
With part of the freeway closed Sunday until Monday, many turned back, waited in parking lots or simply stood by their cars. Conditions could remain dangerous through Tuesday.
The Fed that destroys and The Fed that claims to repair, Milken still rich, wake up to revolution in 2011, few jobs created last year, billions in costs to taxpayers, tax breaks for the mega rich, flat Christmas, TSA gets in your pants, understanding the looming crisis.
Congress is likely to pass a 2011 military funding package that includes $160 billion for wars. That is likely to be insufficient. When a "supplemental" spending bill (kept off the books to make the budget look better) is brought up in 2012, we may see a record number of congress members vote against it. The number of members voting No has increased steadily to a high point of 114 this past July (with 218 needed for a majority).
Webmaster's Commentary: A military confrontation against Iran on the part of the US and/or Israel may well result in Russia and China joining the fray on the part of Iran: both nations are nuclear armed. With things going spectacularly badly in Afghanistan and Iraq, one would have to wonder if the Obama administration can actually wait until 2012 to engineer such a a conflict. My sense is that they cannot; they are hoping that such a "distraction" would redirect American fury at every single campaign promise this President has broken during his term of office, not to mention the economic misery his administration's policies have inflicted on the American people.However, before those in the bowels of power in DC decide that this is a really good idea, they need to soberly confront the following facts:
1. Our military is stretched almost beyond tolerance in accomplishing the missions with which it has been tasked. Many of our soldiers are in their third deployments to various parts of the world, and burned out beyond belief. And although the failing US economy has been a boon to recruiters in terms of numbers of applicants, many do not have the skills to pass the basic qualifying tests for military service. http://www.dailynews.com/rss/ci_16915964
2. Unless such an attack is an absolute successful blitzkrieg, the US is incapable of mounting a sustained war for an extended period, because most of our manufacturing has been offshored.
The smell is there, like a phony bin Laden tape, like the mysterious Wikileaks “sensitivity” to Israel, like the takeover of Wikipedia, like the firing of Helen Thomas. Welcome to “game theory warfare,” welcome to the information age. For years, America’s minorities have been exploited by hate mongers of all kinds. At times, the hate was real, America has a racist and Antisemitic history.
In a recent editorial, “The EPA’s Utility Men: Anticarbon regulations and the corporate rent-seekers who love them,” the Wall Street Journal notes that eight leading utility CEOs are cheering on the EPA’s new draconian, climate regulations and other policies because they stand to make huge profits by redistributing wealth to them. As the Journal notes: [T]here are the utility CEOs cheering on the Obama Administration’s plans to wipe out large portions of U.S. electric power capacity.
What might help? How about encouraging the U.S. government to accept North Korean offers to engage in good faith negotiations aimed at signing a peace treaty to officially end the Korean War as a first step toward normalized relations. The fact that our government is reluctant to publicly acknowledge the contested nature of the NLL or pursue an end to the Korean War raises important questions about the motivations driving foreign policy.
The five largest mortgage loan servicers, including Bank of America Corp and JPMorgan Chase & Co, may be the first to settle with 50 state attorneys general who are investigating foreclosure practices, Bloomberg reported, citing Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller. Webmaster's Commentary:
So, the people behind the mortgage fraud loot Americans for trillions of dollars worth of homes, then pay a hundred million or so in fines to the states, and we're supposed to think that is the end of it?
Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer paying victims of BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill, said he anticipates about half the $20 billion fund set up by the company should be adequate to cover claims for economic losses. Feinberg said on Bloomberg Television yesterday that it is too early to project how much of the fund will be needed to pay individuals and businesses. He said $10 billion may be enough to compensate victims.
Webmaster's Commentary: Oh, really?!? As reported on 28 June 2010 at:
There are people whose lives have been absolutely ruined, not to mention the entire physical enviornment of the Gulf itself, though this disaster. Putting a price on this is difficult; but as long as human beings are still suffering the consequences of exposure to both the oil and Corexit, these compensation funds should not in any way be diminished or capped. The Corexit BP chose to use as a dispersant is highly toxic.
ou and I live in a totally different world than the ultra-rich and the international banking elite do. Many of them live in a world where they simply do not pay income taxes. Today, it is estimated that a third of all the wealth in the world is held in offshore banks. So why is so much of the wealth of the globe located in places such as Monaco, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas, and the Isle of Man? It isn't because those are fun places to visit. It is to avoid taxes.
Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer paying victims of BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill, said he anticipates about half the $20 billion fund set up by the company should be adequate to cover claims for economic losses.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but officials hastily blamed either Al-Qaida or the Israeli Mousad of being behind the blast, but none of them mentioned the Egyptian state security which is viewed by Copts as the real culprit. Webmaster's Commentary:
I still think Mossad was involved both because of the historical precedent of the Lavon affair and because as soon as the bomb went off my mailbox was flooded with, "See? See? The Muslims are killing Christians! See?" which is a neon sign pointing at Israel's involvement.
Yes, but how can that be? Global warming is in full swing so how can an Ice Age creep or crash in on us? If you are really paying attention to what is happening all around us in the world you will see the shaping story and a tragedy of staggering proportions. Most everything is pointing away from the concept of global warming, everything but the mainstream media and the corporate tyrants that rule it...
Fran Howard Agweb The corn market is extremely tight heading into the New Year, and analysts expect short supplies and heavy use to keep upward pressure on corn prices in 2011...
In the talks he gave in 1972 and 1978, Friedman examined a unique Jewish paradox : “Here are two propositions,” he said. “Each of them are validated by evidence yet they are both incompatible one with the other.” The first proposition is that “there are few peoples if any in the world who owe so great a debt to free enterprise and competitive capitalism as the Jews.“ The second proposition is that “there are few peoples or any in the world who have done so much to undermine the intellectual foundation of capitalism as the Jews.” How do we reconcile these two contradictory propositions?
U.S. troops in Afghanistan have spent $2 billion over six years on 16,000 humanitarian projects through the Commander's Emergency Response Program, which gives a battalion-level commander the power to treat aid dollars as ammunition. A report slated for release this month reveals that CERP projects can quickly slide into neglect after being transferred to Afghan control. The Afghans had problems maintaining about half of the 69 projects reviewed in eastern Laghman province, according to an audit by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.
Webmaster's Commentary:This is what is going to make the construction (and functioning) of the Trans Afghanistan Pipeline so dicey. Which ever consortium is chosen to engineer,build, and maintain this pipeline is going to have to have 24/7 protection of the highest order. The US government keeps saying that ultimately, it will be Afghans who will be guarding this pipeline; but right now, I wouldn't bet on it. My sense is that there will need to be a permanent contingent from somewhere (read: US and/or NATO)which will wind up guarding the construction and maintenance of this pipeline.
Look at religion's explanations. How was the universe created? A big man in the sky just poofed it into existence. Where did humans come from? Same big man created two people — just like a mommy and daddy — and everyone arose from them. What about our history? One chosen people, a remarkable population bottleneck (humanity was reduced to 8 people, all from the same tribe, four of whom were closely related!), all languages traceable to one Middle Eastern source and dispersal. These are cartoon explanations. They're the kind of thing a five-year-old might come up with…and not a very bright five-year-old at that. All of them are clearly drawn from simplistic assumptions about how the world works. They're pathetic.
The site was bought by Fox's parent company, got saturated with spam ads, and censorship of political dissidents and so people quit using it. Webmaster's Commentary:
Rupert Murdoch never realized that the popularity of the internet is not the whiz-bang technology but the content. FOX thought they could buy a social network, then control it the way they control their news programs and everyone would be happy. But the reality is that the public is now aware that the glitzy corporate media has been lying to them all along. People want the truth, and they will go where they can find the truth, whether it is a network connection of a clay tablet.
About 40 mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria will be released at every fourth home at Yorkeys Knob and Gordonvale in the next 12 weeks. The bacteria blocks mosquitoes from infecting people with the dengue fever virus. The $18 million world-first experiment has the potential to lead to a sustainable solution to dengue outbreaks in the tropics.
Webmaster's Commentary: ... and a very pissed-off population when they find out the government is behind the millions of mosquitoes keeping them awake at night.
Here in Hawaii, so much tax money has been spent keeping Michael Chertoff rich that mosquito control is gone, Dengue is back, and I have never seen such a problem with mosquitoes in the 12 years I have lived here in Hawaii. I hope the government hasn't intentionally released some of these experimental mosquitoes because a neighborhood boy has reacted very badly to the bites. This whole idea of using mosquitoes as flying hypodermics strikes me as having a huge potential for abuse, like administering covert birth control or tranquilizers without our permission.
Iran has invited Russia, China, the European Union and its allies among the Arab and developing world to tour its nuclear sites, in an apparent move to gain support ahead of a new round of talks with six world powers. In a letter made available Monday to The Associated Press, senior Iranian envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh suggests the weekend of Jan. 15 and 16 and says that meetings "with high-ranking officials" are envisaged. While no reason was given for the timing of the offer, it comes just weeks before Iran and the six powers follow up on recent talks that ended with agreement on little else but to meet again.
Webmaster's Commentary: Is this the action of a government which believes that it has something to hide?!? Logic would indicate absolutely not.
The number of U.S. consumers who filed for bankruptcy protection in 2010 was the highest in five years, and the figure could rise as Americans struggle with excess debt in an uncertain economy, a report issued Monday said.
Roughly 1.53 million consumer bankruptcy petitions were filed in 2010, up 9 percent from 1.41 million in 2009, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute, citing data from the National Bankruptcy Research Center. Webmaster's Commentary:One cannot say the phrase "economic recovery" with a straight face, looking at numbers like these.
A group of peaceful protesters in front of the US embassy in Reykjavík have been told by police to leave the area, but they refuse to clear out. Police allegedly took down the information of every journalist who arrived at the scene.
Webmaster's Commentary: The Icelanders know that it was Wall Street fraud that killed their economy.
U.S. Bank has filed a federal suit in Washington against the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., alleging that the failed bank for which the FDIC was acting as receiver gave U.S. Bank bad tax advice that cost it millions in IRS penalties.
Massive leaks of secret files have recently been shaking many governments, and Israel is no exception. But for the nation's army, the problem appears to come from its own ranks - with sodiers posting secrets on social networks. Paula Slier looks at the Israel Defence Force's struggle to keep its skeletons in the closet.
Although, at first glance, the finger is pointed at extremist Wahabi or Salafi groups, it goes without saying that no Muslim, whatever their political leanings may be, will ever commit such an inhumane act. Attacks on churches in Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and Tunisia can be analyzed in the context of a Zionist scenario aimed at driving a wedge between Muslims and Arab Christians. Since the emergence of Islam, Muslims and Christians in the East have always coexisted peacefully as Islam pays due respect to the freedom of divine faiths -- especially Christianity. In Egypt, too, Muslims and Christians are living in peace and harmony. Never, ever have the Christians in Egypt complained of any problems keeping them from carrying out their religious duties.
The American Dream What in the world is happening in the middle of the United States right now? Thousands of birds are falling dead from the skies, tens of thousands of fish are washing up on shore dead, earthquakes are popping up in weird and unexpected places and people are starting to get really freaked out about all of this. Well, one theory is...
Mark Hemingway The Examiner The U.S. isn't the only place that's facing a major pension fund crisis. The Christian Science Monitor has this alarming report: People’s retirement savings are a convenient source of revenue for governments that don’t want to reduce spending or make privatizations...
The House will vote next week to repeal the new health care law, making good on a top-tier GOP campaign promise and setting up a showdown with President Barack Obama over his signature domestic policy achievement. The House will vote on a separate resolution that would, in effect, take steps toward creating an alternative Republican health care plan. The repeal effort is not expected to succeed, given that Democrats maintain control of the Senate and the president can veto the legislation.
Rosen also has many options outside his lawsuit. He could become an IRS informant and claim a $5 million share of any retroactive disgorgement of benefits improperly claimed by AIPAC as a tax-exempt charity. Or, with his insider knowledge (and related secret AIPAC documents), he could become an expert witness and indispensable counter-suit asset for information about AIPAC’s illegal campaign contributor and political action committee coordination in a newly filed civil lawsuit over election law violations.
WMR has learned from a long-time Republican Party consultant that the CIA used Sweden to launder the transfer to Wikileaks of carefully screened and redacted State Department cables and the subsequent release of the cables to pre-selected corporate news media entities. Sweden was chosen because of its so-called “press freedom and freedom of expression” traditions in an effort to make the release of the cables by Wikileaks appear to be unconnected to a covert CIA and Pentagon psychological operations program designed to place further controls on the Internet.
One of the mistakes that foreigners make about the United States, millions of Americans make themselves with much less justification: they overestimate the difference between members of the Democratic and Republican Parties in Washington, D.C.
The two parties scream at each other on television quite a lot and attract supporters who come from two very different cultures. But over half of every dollar of income tax in the United States is spent on the military, and that number reliably increases every single year regardless of who is in power. The Afghan and Iraq wars were launched with overwhelming support from both parties' officials, and the Iraq War with Democratic control of the Senate.
The price of energy-saving light bulbs will treble as the final supplies of traditional bulbs dry up, industry experts have warned. The Government has ordered energy companies to scrap the subsidies that have kept the price of eco-bulbs artificially low for the last few years. At the same time, manufacturers are increasing wholesale prices to take advantage of the European ban on ‘energy guzzling’ old-style bulbs.
Flight Attendants! There are two kinds:The ones that work as a flight attendant and then those that think they are flight attendants. The later are the ones that walk through the terminal with their noses so high in the air that that they hit the hanging signs from the ceiling! hehehe They are not the majority, but enough to give us all a bad name. It is a tough job! Well? For us regional airline employees. Well? The job is great and easy, but the hours that we forced to work, more than an average Joe on the street, is enough to make one hate his job, like me. So it is an impossible job. I am so sick of people, although I love working with people.
Lake Washington High School closed early on Monday because it was simply too cold inside. The Lake Washington School District said it wasn't sure if the heat would be fixed in time for classes on Tuesday.
Legal actions against Bank of America are piling up, this time from Attorneys General in Nevada and Arizona, housing bubble ground zero. See a list of all the lawsuits...
What was John P Wheeler III doing at the Mitre Corporation? And why was he found dead New Year’s Eve at the Cherry Island Landfill? The Mitre Corporation - probably the creepiest private not-for-profit US intelligence organization you've never heard of...
The California Highway Patrol began escorting cars across the Grapevine on Monday morning, but thousands remained stranded amid a snowstorm that stymied traffic between Northern and Southern California. Even with escorts, Interstate 5 remained jammed along with other routes into the Los Angeles area. While rains will die down this afternoon, snow is expected to continue not just in the mountains but in valley locations as low as 1,000 feet, according to the National Weather Service. In fact, the Santa Clarita Valley could see an accumulation of 4 inches of snow.
163121.ME.0103.Weather.14.KDM The National Weather Service issued a hazardous weather outlook Monday for area mountains and valleys.
This is a message of hope in modern societies' capacity to overcome conflicts by mutual understanding and patience vigilant. To so, it must be based on rights, violation of which, what that ' in is the ' author, should provoke our indignation. There is not compromise on these rights. For a peaceful uprising J ' have noted - and I'm not the only - government response Israel faces the fact that every Friday citizens Bil'id will, without throwing stones without using force, to the wall against which they protest. The Israeli authorities have called the march of "non-violent terrorism." Not bad ... It should be Israel to a terrorist nonviolence.
Afternoon Price Check, January 3: Crude Oil Hits 2-Year High, Oil Prices Fall from Early Rally to Turn in Moderate Gains The price of crude oil hit a 26-month high point before falling in late trading at the NYMEX today. Crude and heating oil prices started 2011 off with a bang at the NYMEX this morning, shooting upwards out of the gate and touching record highs before paring gains later in the day. In the interim, the price of crude oil rose to $92.58 a barrel, its highest price since October of 2008.
It was revealed today by the AP that the state of Pennsylvania is allowing "wastewater so salty, and so polluted with metals like barium and strontium" to be flushed into local waterways. This wastewater is a result of natural gas extraction method called "fracking" which has been a sore spot with the effected community.
The Canadian Boat to Gaza initiative continues to be a target for a smear campaign that has little regard for law or facts. Rather incredibly, the executive of the University of British Columbia’s Alma Mater Society has subjected a routine donation for our campaign from the student Social Justice Centre to an “investigation” into potential “links to terrorism” A final decision on this so-called investigation is expected at the Jan. 12 AMS meeting. This episode in part reflects the growing desperation of those who seek to justify Israel’s ongoing collective punishment of Gaza. Exactly two years ago, the world’s eyes were opened to Israeli brutality during a three-week attack on Gaza that claimed more than 1,400 lives.
“If you thought it was especially cold in December, it’s not just your imagination. The facts prove it, according to the National Weather Service, which announced Saturday that December 2010 set a record as the coldest December ever in Ft. Lauderdale. Miami, and Key West,” writes CBS News. It is also confirmed now that that Dec 2010 in Britain and probably West Europe, was indeed the coldest for at least a 100 years. Floridians endured bone-chilling blasts in the 30s, from Fort Lauderdale to Jacksonville. Miami is experiencing its coldest December in 115 years, according to the local branch of the National Weather Service. This time of year, the temperature in Miami usually reaches 77°. Last Monday, the mercury stopped 20° below that, at 57.
About a hundred pro-Palestinian activists arrived in Egypt on a humanitarian flotilla and made their way to the Gaza Strip through Rafah crossing on Monday.
A law professor being paid $950 an hour with BP's money has declared that the czar of the $20 billion claims fund for Gulf oil spill victims is independent of the oil giant.
Fund administrator Ken Feinberg said Thursday he has agreed to pay NYU professor Stephen Gillers for his advice. Since being hired, Gillers has written a letter stating that Feinberg is neutral and not subject to BP's direction or control.
Webmaster's Commentary: And if you believe that one, I have some of Saddam's 'nookular' bombs to sell you!
In the early 1990s, the biggest names in the mortgage industry hatched a plan for a new electronic clearinghouse that would transform the home loan business - and unlock billions of dollars of new investments and profits. At the time, mortgage documents were moved almost exclusively by hand and mail, a throwback to an era in which people kept stock certificates, too. That made it hard for banks to bundle home loans and sell them to investors. By contrast, a central electronic clearinghouse would allow the companies to transfer thousands of mortgages instantaneously, greasing the wheels of a system in which loans could be bought and sold repeatedly and quickly.
Martha Kunkle has come back to life. She died in 1995. Yet her signature later appeared on thousands of affidavits submitted by one of the nation's largest debt collectors, Portfolio Recovery Associates Inc., in lawsuits filed against borrowers. Some regulators complain that the use of Ms. Kunkle's name reflects an epidemic of mass-produced, sloppy and inaccurate documentation in the debt-collection industry. Lawsuits have surged as more borrowers fall behind on payments and collection firms turn to courts to get what they are owed.
There are no end of websites offering to sell tools to remove this nasty virus, and some of these websites will actually install more malware on your machine while you visit them. Bunch of fucking vultures out there in virus-land, if you ask me.
There are some free resources available and this article points to one.
This is a very nasty virus, hard to detect, hard to remove, and according to Semantic, the reason it can wreck machines trying to remove it is an incompatibility between the Windows API and the Trojan, leaving a batch of bad pointers ready to brick a system.
The good news is that this virus did not get out of the netbook and into the rest of the network, and after purchasing a USB DVD drive I was able to restore the netbook to factory settings. Since this is my travel netbook, intended for TSA to fondle (and hopefully not drop again), there was little of any value lost.
That is not to say that I am still nor furious with hackers for their arrogant assumption that other peoples' computers are their personal playground and profit centers, and wish a painful slow death upon them all.
Nor will I be shy about pointing out that all the fondling at the airports and listening to our phone calls does not obfuscate the government's total impotency in the face of real threats to the nation. Hacking costs the American people billions of dollars every year, and so far, the FBI, CIA, DOJ, DHS and TSA are totally helpless to do anything about it, so they justify their paychecks setting up patsies for phony terror arrests and grabbing our "junk" at the airports. The fact is that for all the money spent for naked scanners and luggage swabs, this nation is wide open to a real terror attack carried out by a simple computer virus like Israel's Stuxnet.
Google 911 and you get about 1,560,000,000 results. That’s right – one billion, five hundred and sixty million results. A search for videos turns up 15,100,000 results. The Search for 9/11 Truth Continues The fact that the 9/11 responders and others effected by 9/11 are going to receive Health Coverage, though long overdue, is great news – even at this late a date.
Indignez vous! (Cry out!), a slim pamphlet by a wartime French resistance hero, Stéphane Hessel, is smashing all publishing records in France. The book urges the French, and everyone else, to recapture the wartime spirit of resistance to the Nazis by rejecting the "insolent, selfish" power of money and markets and by defending the social "values of modern democracy".
I previously proposed in this column the idea that Muslim scholars should attempt to differentiate between the prophets mentioned in the Holy Quran and the prophets of the Jews who are mentioned in the Torah, since any history student in any major Western university (but not an Arab university) will learn that Jewish history is only an amalgamation of biblical myths about prophets, kings and kingdoms that never existed.
Israeli activists protesting the killing of Bil’in’s Jawaher Abu Rahmah 'returned’ spent tear gas canisters to the residence of the American ambassador to Israel late Saturday evening. Jawaher Abu Rahmah, 36, was evacuated to the Ramallah hospital on Friday after inhaling massive amounts of tear-gas during the weekly protest in Bil’in, and died of poisoning Saturday morning. The tear gas used by the Israeli forces in Bil’in is manufactured by Combined Systems Inc.; a United States company based in Jamestown, Pennsylvania. This is the first protest where empty tear gas canisters have been returned to an ambassador’s home.
Webmaster's Commentary: As reported today, 3 January, 2011 at:
"Some of the tear gas canisters used by the Israeli military are manufactured by the American company Combined Systems Inc., which is based in Jamestown, Pennsylvania. The company manufactures a variety of grenades, aerosols, impact munitions, and arms launchers.
"While Combined Systems Inc. and the Israeli military maintain that the canisters being used are non-lethal, on its product notes Combined Systems recommends the use of a full face respirator with organic filter cartridge, or self contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) for those deploying the canisters. A SCBA is a device worn by rescue workers, firefighters, and others to provide breathable air in an Immediate Danger to Life and Health Atmosphere. Combined Systems further recommends ventilation, local exhaust, protective gloves, eye protection, protective clothing to prevent skin contact, and washing thoroughly after handling.
"The tear gas being used by the Israeli military is commonly known as CS gas. Following the 1993 American FBI raid on a compound in Waco, Texas, in which large amounts of CS gas was used and dozens died, an investigation was conducted into the possible lethal effects of CS tear gas."
"Because there are no scientific tests studying the effects of CS gas on humans, the report explores the toxicity of the gas on animals and then lends that information to an understanding of how CS might, and in past instances has, affected humans.
“In inhalation experiments, only delayed deaths were observed after exposure to high concentrations of CS. This response indicates a different mechanism of action of CS depending on the type of exposure. After inhalation exposure, the toxic response focuses primarily on the lung, with direct effects on the mucous membrane and the epithelial cells,” noted the report, following experiment with different animal groups.
“In addition to strong irritation at higher concentrations, inflammation and damage to the alveolar capillary membrane also occur followed by the development of edema, emphysema, hemorrhages, and atelectasis due to reduced synthesis and/or destruction of the surface active material (surfactant) in the lung. These effects lead to compromised oxygen transfer from the lung to the blood capillaries and eventually, after some time, to death from suffocation.”
Bank of America Corp. is settling some buyback claims on bad home loans sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as it attempts to separate itself further from one of the of the housing downturn's biggest headaches. Webmaster's Commentary:
This is an admission of what I have been saying all along. The financial institutions that sold fraudulent mortgage-backed securities are being forced to buy them back. In order to keep the losses from the forced repurchases from driving the banks into insolvency, the banks needed new assets on their balance sheets, in this case the homes of Americans. That is the reason for the orgy of foreclosures, many against homeowners not actually delinquent in their payments, and some without even having a mortgage at all. This is wealth confiscation from the people to prop up the bankers, done in a covert way to trick Americans into thinking it is their own fault they lost their homes.
I can say that Isabel Kershner's comment in the New York Times, that these demonstrations "inevitably end in clashes, with young Palestinians hurling stones and the Israeli security forces firing tear gas, stun grenades and rubber bullets" completely reverses the course of events. The IOF commenced firing tear gas long before any demonstrators neared them. There was little stone throwing during the demonstration and it did not commence until long after the tear gas.
Webmaster's Commentary: Sycophantic defenders of everything Israel does can no longer get away with lying; the truth is out there, documented, and sent across the world faster than a heartbeat.
Israel on Sunday extended for six months a ban preventing Palestinians married to Israelis immigrating to the state, the premier's office said in a statement.
"The ministerial committee for security affairs decided tonight [Sunday] to extend for six months a text on family unification, which expired December 31," said a statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. That extension until June 30 denies Palestinians the right to acquire Israeli citizenship or resident status through marriage.
Webmaster's Commentary: "The only 'democracy' in the Middle East", my astrolabe! The Israeli government has shown its completely racist face to the world yet again.
The caravan began in India and passed through Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and finally Egypt. In Syria, materials were loaded onto the boat "Salam" (peace in Arabic) and waited at the port of Latakia for final permission to enter the Egyptian port of Al-Arish. According to organizers, the boat carried $1 million worth of medicine, foodstuffs and toys, as well as four buses and 10 power generators for hospitals. The convoy included activists from more than 15 countries, including, Iran, India, Japan, Indonesia, Pakistan, Malaysia, New Zealand and Kuwait. The Egyptian government gave permits to 120 activists to pass through into Gaza with the goods, but denied entry to participants from Jordan and Iran.
Webmaster's Commentary: All the convoys to follow this with aid to Gaza must continue until the Israeli siege of Gaza is broken irreparably, once and for all.
Air strikes, drone and cruise missile attacks, special forces operations, helicopter gunship raids, counterinsurgency campaigns, multinational armed interventions, cluster bomb and depleted uranium weapons use, and the entire panoply of military actions associated with the Afghanistan-Pakistan war are already being conducted in Africa and will only be increased.
Webmaster's Commentary: In terms of unexploited resources, Africa is essentially the "new Middle East", which is why these military interventions will continue until there is "US/NATO-friendly" leadership installed in all of these countries.
Evidence is now clear. Wikipedia, the vast online encyclopedia used as a reference source by amateur and professional scholars, journalists and researchers of all kinds is now proven to be subject to a massive assault by the government of Israel. Hundreds of Wikipedia editors are being recruited and trained each week, tasked by the Israeli government with instilling open “Zionist” bias in even the most innocent areas, not just news, but personal biographies and, especially history.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Such a deal! The US Government gives Israel billions of your tax dollars so that Israel can then buy up and control all the media both traditional and online.
We have often stated that the Gaza Strip is the world’s largest open air concentration camp. Recent developments in the West Bank have turned that besieged area into the largest open air gas chamber. Apologists for zionism are constantly arguing against our comparisons of what is going on in Palestine today with the holocaust of Eastern Europe. Their biggest comeback is “where are the gas chambers?” Perhaps if they read the following report their tune will change …. needless to say, all made possible by gifts from the United States Government….
From the chorus of an obviously drug induced song…. Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose, Nothing don’t mean nothing honey if it ain’t free, now now.
The writer obviously never visited Palestine or any other area where Freedom is nothing but a dream…. a very expensive one at that.
The real US unemployment rate is not 9.8% but between 25% and 30%. That is a depression level of job losses - so why doesn't it look like a depression for many people? How can so large of a statistical discrepancy exist, and how is it that holiday shopping malls are so crowded in a depression?
The true devastation is hidden by essentially placing the job losses inside three different "boxes": the official unemployment box, the true full unemployment box, and most importantly, the staggering and persistent private sector job loss box that has been temporarily covered over by a fantastic level of governmental deficit spending. The "recovering and out of the recession" cover story is only plausible when nobody connects the dots and adds all the boxes together.
Webmaster's Commentary:
What this government could do to ease, or in fact, end this depression is threefold:
1. Cut taxes. 2. Stop funding these illegal and immoral wars without end. 3. Incentivize companies to keep jobs in the US.
Of course, all these would be logical; unfortunately, the relationship between logic and Federal government is tenuous at best.
Creating artificial "free money" on a massive scale that artificially boosts short-term employment is how you segment depression level unemployment into the separate boxes and hide what is really happening. It is this radical strategy that most distinguishes the current downturn from the 1970s and 1930s. The ultimate source of most of the current "free money" that hides the depression is the government risking the impoverishment of US savers and investors for potentially decades to come, with the worst of the damage concentrated on retirees and Boomers.
The medical establishment doesn't want to treat sick people anymore; they complain and sue too much. So the new business model is to sell medicines to people who aren't sick at all! Even if nothing happens, the customers thinks they got value for money.
Tensions are on the rise again in the Gaza Strip after Israeli attacks on two refugee camps left at least two civilians wounded. Israel insisted the attacks were “retaliation” for rocket fire from the strip. Israel insisted the attacks on the refugee camps were aimed at targeting Hamas and that they blame Hamas for the rocket fire, even though officials have repeatedly conceded that Hamas is not the ones firing the rockets and are indeed struggling to prevent such fire by their rivals
Webmaster's Commentary: So let me get this straight: Israel is indiscriminately bombing a refugee camp and wounding civilians in alleged "retaliation" for alleged rocket fire Israeli officials concede Hamas didn't start?!?
MUTANT canola crops genetically engineered to survive repeated sprayings of herbicide have been approved for planting. This is despite the furore over GM contamination of an organic farm. The West Australian Minister for Agriculture and Food, Terry Redman, has called on the organic industry to bend its rules to permit some GM material, declaring purity to be "unrealistic".
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on Saturday following the deadly church bombing in Alexandria, saying that they must stand as a united front in the war on terror.
"All nations which support freedom stand as a united front in the the war on terror," Netanyahu told Mubarak regarding Saturday's bombing which killed 21 people and wounded at least 97.
Webmaster's Commentary:
"Except if the terror is against Palestinians!!!"- official Tel Aviv Souse.
Francesca Esposito, 29 and exquisitely educated, helped win millions of euros in false disability and other lawsuits for her employer, a major Italian state agency. But one day last fall she quit, fed up with how surreal and ultimately sad it is to be young in Italy today.
Actually the deep snow above at Mammoth Mountain is nothing compared to the snow at one Vancouver Island ski resort, which was practically completely snowed-in. Mount Washington has been pummeled with three meters of fresh snow over a recent three-day period, burying lodges, cars, and even ski lifts.
“If you thought it was especially cold in December, it’s not just your imagination. The facts prove it, according to the National Weather Service, which announced Saturday that December 2010 set a record as the coldest December ever in Ft. Lauderdale. Miami, and Key West,” writes CBS News. It is also confirmed now that that Dec 2010 in Britain and probably West Europe, was indeed the coldest for at least a 100 years...
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed US President Barack Obama for cancelling a package of incentives in exchange for a three-month settlement freeze.
Webmaster's Commentary:
My recollection is that Netenyahu canceled the freeze, then demanded the F-35s anyway.
Home foreclosure sales slowed down at the end of 2010 for two reasons: the regular holiday foreclosure freezes, and the remnants of the so-called robo-signing scandal. In the fall, many lenders put evictions on hold while they reviewed their foreclosure procedures. Rick Sharga of RealtyTrac says that's behind us now — and the pace of foreclosure is about to pick up.
"I'd be really, really surprised if we didn't see a probably record quarter in the first quarter of this year," he says. Sharga expects banks to repossess close to 100,000 homes in January alone.
Webmaster's Commentary: One cannot use the phrase "economic recovery" with a straight face, looking at potential numbers like this.
Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers, said if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling, the “impact on the economy would be catastrophic.”
“I don’t see why anybody’s playing chicken with the debt ceiling,” Goolsbee said today on ABC’s “This Week” program. “If we get to the point where we damage the full faith and credit of the United States, that would be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.”
The government is slated to hit the legal limit on borrowing, $14.3 trillion, early this year. Congress must agree to raise that ceiling or the U.S. could be forced to default on its obligations.
Webmaster's Commentary: Not raising the debt ceiling would be "catastrophic"?!? Catastrophic for whom, I have to wonder. If We the People have to live within our means, why can't the US Congress?!?
Just in time for the new deficit-conscious Republican Congress, Sen. Lindsey Graham is calling for the American military to be in Afghanistan permanently. His call for permanent U.S. bases in Afghanistan is not particularly novel -- his close Senate buddy John McCain has been saying the same thing since at least 2005. But Graham's formulation, that an American military presence is something to be "earned" by a foreign population, is a striking reflection of his neo-imperialist worldview. As he said on Meet the Press Sunday:
Webmaster's Commentary: Forgive me, but has Senator Graham gone absolutely barking mad to make this recommendation? Does he not, in fact, recognize that the US already well and truly "dug in" in Afghanistan?!?
"In fiscal year 2009, for example, the civilian U.S. Agency for International Development awarded $20 million in contracts for work in Afghanistan, while the U.S. Army alone awarded $2.2 billion -- $834 million of it for construction projects. In fact, according to Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, the Pentagon has spent "roughly $2.7 billion on construction over the past three fiscal years" in that country and, "if its request is approved as part of the fiscal 2010 defense appropriations bill, it would spend another $1.3 billion on more than 100 projects at 40 sites across the country, according to a Senate report on the legislation."
Bogged Down at Bagram
Nowhere has the building boom been more apparent than Bagram Air Base, a key military site used by the Soviet Union during its occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. In its American incarnation, the base has significantly expanded from its old Soviet days and, in just the last two years, the population of the more than 5,000 acre compound has doubled to 20,000 troops, in addition to thousands of coalition forces and civilian contractors. To keep up with its exponential growth rate, more than $200 million in construction projects are planned or in-progress at this moment on just the Air Force section of the base."
The US and NATO are in Afghanistan for two reasons, and two reasons only: the installation of the TAP pipeline, through which natural gas from Turkmenistan will be pumped through Afghanistan into Pakistan, and the profits from the drug trade. A short memo to Senator Graham: we are already in Afghanistan permanently.
Wiki bills The Real Housewives of etcetera as they “follow the lives of relatively affluent, bourgeois housewives and professional women (not to mention self-described ‘alpha women’) in the suburban or urban areas of several American cities. . . .” Oh but it’s so much more, and less . . . Could they really be real? Are they the real class of super-rich locusts that sit atop America, their hubbies its top 2 percent of earners, getting all those Bush tax cuts, the doctors, hedge funders, football stars, lotharios, while their women cut each other up, wondering whose husband or boyfriend is sleeping with whom?
Webmaster's Commentary:
My wife and I say part-way through one of these, and the two thoughts I had were that I wouldn't want these women as friends, and second, that these shows are giving the rest if the world a very negative image of Americans.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the second largest party in the ruling coalition, said Sunday it would join the opposition, leaving Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani's government short of majority support in parliament. The political crisis could distract the government from its alliance with the U.S. against Islamist militants in neighboring Afghanistan, though security is largely the purview of the powerful military. But the turmoil also all but guarantees lawmakers will make no progress anytime soon on solving the critical economic problems that have forced the country to rely on $11 billion in loans from the International Monetary Fund.
Webmaster's Commentary: This situation leaves Pakistan ripe for a military coup, a process which has happened several times before in Pakistan's history.
Experts fear the missing emails - on computer hard disk drives that have reportedly vanished - could have major implications for the multiple investigations into claims the newspaper was involved in widespread hacking into the phone messages of targets from the worlds of politics, royalty and entertainment.
The effects of the disaster that poured millions and millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico last spring will have global ramifications, a Gulf Coast activist recently warned.
"What's been done in the Gulf is going to eventually affect every single American citizen," Kindra Arnesen told Project Gulf Impact in a recent interview. She continued, "This is still going to go global because as the economy and the United States goes under the sledgehammer... the rest of the world is going to feel it."
Webmaster's Commentary: This administration will continue to cover up and deny because BP was one of the largest campaign donor to the Obama campaign. Therefore, the people in the Gulf who have been massively effected will get no substantive assistance, medical or financial, because that would be an admission of guilt that BP had, in fact, played fast and loose with safe drilling practices, causing this disaster.
When CFR Director, Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the most feared power brokers in Washington or anywhere else, openly attacked Wikileaks as an intelligence operation, siding with Jeff Gates, Dr. Alan Sabrosky, William Engdahl, Lila Rajiva, Gordon Duff and so many others of the independent alternative media, Wikileak’s days were numbered. The failed UFO scare, whatever it was supposed to do, has backfired, putting a bullet in the heart of Wikileaks. After a “bang up” start, the Iraq helicopter video, Wikileaks spent its credibility supporting Israel and attacking, not only the Islamic world but the United States as well, in a clearly biased and “ham-handed” manner.
With every New Year’s resolution, optimism and even the expectation that the future will get better has long been a staple within the popular culture. By nature, people want to believe in a better society. The American Dream means different things to diverse people, but it always had a vision for great achievements and daring exploits. America was great because she dared to forge an independent and freedom loving country.Las Vegas is the kind of region that evokes strong and varied reactions. Many people see Vegas as freedom and a state of mind, while others curse it as a Sodom and Gomorrah, den of iniquity. Yet when you strip away the glitz, glamour and gambling, you get down to the real guts of the metropolis – MONEY...
The state Department of Health says severe budget cuts have left its Vector Control Branch unable to treat mosquito infestations, but it can provide information over the phone.
Webmaster's Commentary:
But the state can blow millions on police and other services while the Obamas are here, right?
Britain faces the prospect of a fresh wave of fuel protests after campaigners and MPs condemned new tax rises that will see the price of petrol increase by more than 3p a litre this week.
Patrick Sawer Telegraph A campaign group of farmers and hauliers which was behind the fuel blockades a decade ago has threatened new action against the rises, while a cross-party group of MPs has called for the Government to help motorists and essential road users by cutting fuel duty...
Zero Hedge It was the night before Christmas Eve, and CNBC trucked out TrimTabs' Charles Biderman to a de minimis audience, knowing full well that a man with his understanding of money flows would very likely repeat his statement from last year, that there is no real, valid explanation for the inexorable move in stocks higher, as equity money flows in 2010 were decidedly negative...
Martin Hickman lifts the lid on the secret Whitehall policy unit dreaming up psychological tricks to alter our behaviour Martin Hickman -- The Independent Shame, vanity, laziness and the desire to fit in are all to be used as tools of Government policy by ministers acting on the advice of a new psychology unit in Whitehall...
On January 1st, Hungary will take over the Presidency of the EU Council. On the same day, a controversial new law will come into force that even the OSCE’s media freedom representative has openly criticised - arguing in a recent report that “regulating online media is not only technologically impossible but it exerts a chilling, self-censoring effect on free expression.”
“”Reporting on crime that “doesn’t serve the interest of the democratic public” must be restricted to 20% of the time devoted to news.”” That would be nice wouldn’t it, simply removing the inconvenient news by not reporting it. Believe it or not, that is one of the planks of an authoritarian new media law recently introduced by a European Union country, a country that takes up the EU’s Presidency as of today. And it gets worse.
I address you in this letter from the place of my confinement, as my attempt on the basis of my moral, human, and constitutional responsibility so that no one among you might say that no one came to us with a message of peace after the war began, refuting the arguments for it and desiring peace for you and for our upright, loyal, heroic people.
On 26 December thousands turned out in Istanbul to welcome the Mavi Marmara back to the port. A large banner on the starboard side featured photos of the nine martyrs from the Israeli raid. The ship had spent more than four months in Iskenderun where forensic experts had checked out the bullet holes that Israeli operatives had filled and painted over. Blood stained clothing and heaps of ransacked baggage have been cleared away.
TEHRAN: A senior Iranian judiciary official blasted the West's performance in fighting drugs in Afghanistan, and stressed that the western states, particularly the US, are now in control of the drug trade in the war-torn country.
"Today, Afghans have no special influence in the issue of narcotics but the NATO and western states control drug production and dealings and are busy in this fields," First Deputy Head of the Judiciary Ebrahim Raeesi said at a conference of the anti-drug police chiefs here in Tehran on Tuesday.
We didn't stand up for truth, we didn't stand up for the Constitution, we didn't stand up for the rule of law. And now the day of reckoning is upon us. Please, prepare. Please consider protecting yourself & your loved ones with Physical Silver and/or Gold.
Editor's Note: The surveillance program is actually called "Gorgon Stare" -- just great.
AFP WASHINGTON — The US military plans to deploy a new intelligence drone in Afghanistan, which military experts say will allow US troops to monitor much larger operational theaters than before, The Washington Post reported Sunday...
Matt Smith and Gavin Garrison of Project Gulf Impact were recently harassed by TSA agents who claimed filming them was illegal. From the onset, Matt was able to tell that something was up when he couldn't' secure his boarding passes because TSA needed more "information." Matt also mentioned some sort of label on their boarding passes that may have indicated to other TSA agents that they were "trouble."
When Gavin told the agent that he would not be going through their radiating scanners they immediately radioed in, "we have an opt out." The TSA has taken tyranny to new levels. This is absolutely absurd behavior from an agency that has NEVER stopped a terrorist attack.Are activists now being unfairly targeted as potential terrorists?
This video documents Downtown Oakland, California -- the Main Street of one of the most politically and artistically influential cities in the US. Empty office building after empty storefront after empty business. Side streets are even worse.
The price of energy-saving light bulbs will treble as the final supplies of traditional bulbs dry up, industry experts have warned. The Government has ordered energy companies to scrap the subsidies that have kept the price of eco-bulbs artificially low for the last few years. At the same time, manufacturers are increasing wholesale prices to take advantage of the European ban on ‘energy guzzling’ old-style bulbs.Retailers also claim bulbs that currently cost only 33p are expected to sell for more than £1 within three months. Some will cost £3 or more.
America has become crazed with Islamophobia, many politicians have come out and used Islam as a scapegoat. All of this hate has produced an outburst of arson attacks on mosques, campaigns to stop their construction, and the branding of the Muslim-American community, overwhelmingly moderate, as a hotbed of potential terrorist recruits.
The US’s failure under Barack Obama to impose peace between Israel and the Palestinians makes a new war likely.This deadlock is forcing the Israeli army to draw up plans for further wars based on the “security concept” – that anyone who refuses to accept Israel’s rule in the region is a “terrorist” to be eliminated. No other country, not even the US, has such a comprehensive security concept, which means that Israel is permanently at war.
India may drop the US dollar as payment for oil from Iran. The replacement would be the Japanese yen and the Emirates dirham. According to London’s Asharq Al-Awsat, the switch could help India avoid American retaliation for dealing with the Iranians.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Revenge is an expensive luxury, especially when it is Israel's revenge we pay for.
Christopher BookerIt's 'the hottest year on record', as long as you don't take its temperature Much of the data cited to support warmist claims is pure conjecture, says Christopher Booker We have lately heard much of the claim that 2010 will turn out to have been “the hottest year on record”. No one has done more to promote this belief than Dr James Hansen, head of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), responsible for one of the four main official global temperature records.
Christopher Booker As we count the cost of the freeze, Government prepares for global warming The authorities continue to prepare for 'rising temperatures' despite a succession of unprecedentedly cold winters.
On Monday Obama is set to sign the much needed bill that will provide 9/11 responders with the healthcare coverage they have fought so hard to get. Obama will sign the bill during his vacation in Hawaii in a non-public manner. This could draw even more attention to the alternative media which in turn could give 9/11 even more mainstream coverage. Jesse Ventura really kicked the 9/11 issue into the mainstream lately as well with his TV series on TRU TV. More and more the evidence that 9/11 was a false flag attack is making it into the mainstream.
Virginia's textbooks came under scrutiny after a book published by Five Ponds Press claimed that many African American soldiers fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, a controversial claim.
Lawrence Davidson views the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through the prism of the spokespersons of the Palestinian and Israeli causes: Susan Abulhawa on the one hand, and Alan Dershowitz and Bernard-Henri Levy on the other.
The Israeli spokesman said the military targeted a "terror-activity center" in northern Gaza and a "weapons manufacturing facility" in central Gaza. He confirmed direct hits on both targets. A security official for Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement that controls Gaza, said the northern strike hit an airfield that Hamas uses for military training. The second strike hit an old house in central Gaza, he said.
Asia’s first humanitarian aid convoy is on its way to Palestine with medical and other aids seeking to break the siege on Gaza. The Asian convoy left New Delhi on December 2, 2010 and passed through Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Syria. The 130-member convoy includes people of all faiths and religions, men and women, from India, Pakistan, Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, Bahrain and Azerbaijan. The Indian Lifeline to Gaza, as the Indian team is called, consists of 50 people from different states, representing various student organizations, civil society groups and trade unions etc like the Awami Bharat (Feroze Mithiborwala), Solidarity Youth Movement, Student Islamic Organisation (Shaheen K Moidunni) and the New Trade Union Initiative (Ashim Roy).
Along with the staggering theft in broad daylight of Americans’ assets that has occurred in the course of the ongoing financial crisis, as taxpayers funded multi-trillion bank bailouts and banks stole homes through foreclosures with the help of fraudulent paperwork, American companies have also been picking the pockets of workers more directly. This second round of paycheck theft has come in the form of stolen productivity gains.
China has unveiled the world’s longest sea bridge, which stretches a massive 26.4 miles – five miles further than the distance between Dover and Calais and longer than a marathon.The Qingdao Haiwan Bridge, completed earlier this week, links the main urban area of Qingdao city, East China’s Shandong province, with Huangdao district, straddling the Jiaozhou Bay sea areas. The road bridge, which took four years and cost a cool £5.5billion to build, will be open for use in the New Year and is almost three miles longer than the previous record-holder, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana.
Shepherds are unable to graze their flocks freely on their own land and farmers are unable to access their fields to harvest wheat and olives due to the area's designation as a 'closed military zone' (see the video below). Israeli settlers in the South Hebron Hills, who have a reputation for being some of the nastiest settlers around, often direct their venemous aggression at Palestinians from Susiya who are surrounded on all sides.
So you might think it logical that if mild winters validate predictions of future global warming then a winter with record low temperatures would contradict those predictions, right? Wrong, according the the acolytes of the Global Warming/Climate Change political movement who would brand you an ignoramus.
Currently, there is only a faint hint that Members of Congress, many of whom rely on Israeli lobby or arms industry political action committee money to keep their seats and sinecures, have the gumption to advocate a U.S. policy, consistent with American notions of substantial justice or which upholds Palestinian rights as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Was it the fault of stubborn travelers too determined to get home on time after Christmas, some of whom later abandoned cars in the middle of snow-covered streets? Was it unprepared, unaware city leaders who didn't shut down the transit system or send plows into streets on time? A staged slowdown by disgruntled sanitation supervisors? Or, as Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others said again and again, did the snow just fall too fast? Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association union, simply said: "We lost this blizzard."
More than 10,000 people, about a fifth of them civilians, lost their lives in violence in Afghanistan last year, an AFP count based on official figures and an independent website tally showed Sunday. Webmaster's Commentary:These people had to be "neutralized" (what a sanitary word for "murdered", isn't it?!?)in order to begin the construction of the pipelines with which to control Eurasian oil and natural gas, as well as control the drug traffic.
The war in Afghanistan is a very publicly funded war for private profit, and has absolutely nothing to do with the safety or security of the American people.
On January 1 the U.S. and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will enter not only a new year but a second decade of war in Afghanistan.
The air and cruise missile attacks that commenced on October 7, 2001 and the insertion of U.S. and British ground troops that followed have been succeeded by a 48-nation, 152,000-troop occupation and counterinsurgency campaign that is also conducting almost daily deadly drone missile strikes and helicopter gunship raids into neighboring Pakistan. In recent weeks reports have disclosed that the U.S. will supplement CIA drone missile strikes and NATO helicopter gunship raids in Pakistan’s tribal areas with special forces operations. A Russian analyst commented on that development in ominous tones:
Webmaster's Commentary: One of the classic definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting a different outcome. Given the exorbitant levels of corruption in both the Pakistani and Afghani governments, until the basic fundamentals change in both countries, insurgency to those with nothing left to lose will continue to look attractive,and not all the US/NATO bombs in the world are going to change that.
Stupidity and vanity is a great match. Together they can easily turn the whole world into shit and retarded Blade Runner replicants, whose singular calling is to make shit into God and work over the face of beauty with box-cutters, until Picasso is the babysitter and Edvard Munch tells you what you’ve done. Don’t worry; you’ve got eternity to enjoy it in. Let me explain to you the meaning of Heaven and Hell. You get to live forever in a world of your own creation, depending on your inspiration. Looks like stupidity and vanity are going to have some interesting holiday get-togethers.
Rescue efforts are under way to evacuate more than 600 crew on 10 ships trapped in ice in the Sea of Okhotsk. The ice is up to 30cm (12 inches) thick in some places, according to the Russian news agency Itar-Tass.
