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M5 Readers: Keep in Mind That Political News, By Nature, May Reflect Sequential Agenda
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April  2009 

TX: Bill Limits Gun Regulation [ 04/30/09 ]  "A bill by state Rep. Leo Berman exempting Texas-made firearms, gun accessories and ammunition sold within the state from federal regulation and law -- including registration -- was heard in a House committee on Monday. The bill also provides for the Texas Attorney General's office to defend Texans who run afoul of the federal government because of this law. Berman, a Tyler Republican who has pushed several "states' rights" measures this legislative session, said his bill would affect more than 300 manufacturers in the state. "Under the 9th and 10th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, states have responsibility for regulating intrastate commerce," Berman said. "The federal government has no role."

OPED: House Passes Hate Crime Bill - Jewish Groups Rejoice  [ 04/30/09 ]  "There are many opinions on what the negative effects of this law will be to free speech and how it may be twisted to prosecute and censor anyone who may decide to speak about a 'repressed' minority. One thing is not an opinion. The Feds will be able to step into state and local jurisdictions in violation of the constitution just by crying 'hate.'

Billboards criticizing US aid to Israel taken down under pressure [ 04/30/09 ]  "According to information from Lamar, it appears groups claiming to be pro-Israel have conducted a campaign to pressure Lamar to remove the billboards. The Coalition believes this is a deliberate attempt to silence its right to free speech because the humanitarian message of the billboards supports equal rights for the Palestinian people, thereby necessitating criticism of Israel."

Israel: "Do genetic disorders actually make Ashkenazi Jews smarter?" [ 04/30/09 ]  "Anthropology professors argue that neurlogical diseases like Tay Sachs carry 'heterozygote advantage.' "   Note: They never stop with their shit. Talk about arrogance. I like the Sampson Option better. Besides, I vote that genetic inbreeding has created instability and pathological conditions. Smart doesn't outweigh insanity and destruction of the civilization. In 2003, Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at Israel’s Hebrew University, thought that the Al-Aqsa Intifada then in progress threatened Israel's existence. Van Creveld was quoted in David Hirst's "The Gun and the Olive Branch" (2003) as saying "I consider it all hopeless at this point. ... We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen, before Israel goes under." He quoted General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."

Obama, National Socialism, and Control of Big Corporations  [U.S. in Control: Its Goal To Fix, Not Run, Firms] [ 04/30/09 ]  "...Yet the Obama administration, on behalf of American taxpayers, has become -- or will soon become -- the controlling shareholder of General Motors and Chrysler, mortgage behemoths Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and insurance giant AIG, not to mention the 29 banks taken over this year by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. And that puts the president in the awkward position of balancing public policy goals with the financial interests of taxpayers as investors in these ailing corporations..."

US 'losing control' in Afghanistan  [ 04/30/09 ]  "Richard Armitage, a former US deputy secretary of state, has told Al Jazeera that the conflict in Afghanistan may be "spinning out of control"."

ODD:  Man walking nude on beach says he was 'reliving jesus' life'  [ 04/30/09 ] "He no doubt planned to walk on water, then hand out unlimited supplies of fish and loaves. His arrest ruined that, though." (NewsTimes.com) | Man drinks wine while tooling through store on electric cart  A man who apparently drank blackberry wine while cruising through a Publix grocery store on an electric cart was arrested after leaving without paying. Joseph Leonardi, 68, reportedly also said he took a bite out of a candy bar while doing his "shopping." (TCPalm.com) |Radio Shack employee arrested after punching a customer |  Autistic boy satisfies burning desire to take a plane ride  The 13-year-old bought a ticket, snatched his dad's car, drove to the airport and took a cross-country flight. "I can't believe he pulled this off," says his mom. "I'm flabbergasted." (Palm Beach Post)  

U.S. marshal guilty of leaking secrets to mob  [ 04/29/09 ]  "A deputy U.S. marshal has been convicted in Chicago of leaking secret information to the mob about a protected witness in a federal organized crime investigation. Deputy marshal John T. Ambrose stared straight ahead as jurors returned the verdict Tuesday following almost three days of deliberation. Prosecutors say it was the first time in the 39-year history of the government's witness security program that its secrecy was deliberately violated. Prosecutors say they realized there was a leak when two mobsters were overheard in a prison visiting room talking about having a "mole" inside federal law enforcement."

'Truth commission' to proceed 'despite Obama’s wishes' [ 04/29/09 ]  "Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) plans to proceed with a special commission to investigate alleged Bush administration abuses of power, despite lacking President Barack Obama’s support, according to a report Tuesday."  Wink Wink.  Here comes the whitewash!

Court allows landmark torture renditions case to proceed [ 04/29/09 ]  "A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday to reinstate an ACLU lawsuit against a Boeing subsidiary that allegedly helped the CIA transport terror war prisoners to so-called black sites where they were tortured. The Obama administration had argued the case’s very existence would endanger national security and pressed the court to dispose of it. “Today’s ruling demolishes once and for all the legal fiction, advanced by the Bush administration and continued by the Obama administration, that facts known throughout the world could be deemed ’secrets’ in a court of law,” said Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, in a media advisory. “In a 26-page ruling, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the federal government failed to document how the lawsuit would reveal state secrets, sending the case back to San Jose U.S. District Judge James Ware for further proceedings,” reported Mercury News. “Ware dismissed the lawsuit last year, concluding that litigation over the controversial flight program could prompt the disclosure of CIA secrets ..."   Related: Former Senior Intelligence Officer Dismantles Arguments for Covering Up CIA Torture  Melvin Goodman is a former high-level intelligence officer. He was the Division Chief of the CIA’s Office of Soviet Affairs, who served as Senior Analyst from 1966 - 1990. He also served as Professor of International Security at the National War College from 1986 - 2004. Goodman says that the arguments for covering up the extent of torture by the CIA are all bogus.

FAA Memo: Feds Knew NYC Flyover Would Cause Panic [ 04/29/09 ] [Threatened Federal Sanctions Against NYPD, Secret Service, FBI & Mayor's Office If Secret Ever Got Out - Furious Obama Apologizes: "It Will Never Happen Again" ] "A furious President Barack Obama ordered an internal review of Monday's low-flying photo op over the Statue of Liberty. Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and Air Force One to buzz ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay, but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public. In a memo obtained by CBS 2 HD the Federal Aviation Administration's James Johnston said the agency was aware of "the possibility of public concern regarding DOD (Department of Defense) aircraft flying at low altitudes" in an around New York City. But they demanded total secrecy from the NYPD, the Secret Service, the FBI and even the mayor's office and threatened federal sanctions if the secret got out. What are your feelings on federal officials demanding the NYC flyover be kept secret by the NYPD and the mayor's office? "To say that it should not be made public knowing that it might scare people it's just confounding," Sen. Charles Schumer said. "It's what gives Washington and government a bad name. It's sheer stupidity." The flyover -- apparently ordered by the White House Office of Military Affairs so it would have souvenir photos of Air Force One with the Statue of Liberty in the background -- had President Obama seeing red. He ordered a probe and apologized. "It was a mistake. It will never happen again," President Obama said. The NYPD was so upset about the demand for secrecy that Police Commissioner Ray Kelly vowed never to follow such a directive again and he accused the feds of inciting fears of a 9/11 replay. "Did it show any insensitivity to the psychic wounds New York City has after 9/11? Absolutely. No questions about it. It was quite insensitive." The cost of the frivolous flight was about $60,000 an hour and that was just for Air Force One. That doesn't include the cost of the two F-16s that came along. The mayoral aide who neglected to tell Mayor Michael Bloomberg about it was reprimanded." 

Air Force Says New York Flyover Cost $328,835  [ 04/29/09 ] " The flight of a backup Air Force One plane and two fighter jets over New York yesterday cost about $328,835, Air Force spokeswoman Vicki Stein said. The cost includes $300,658 for the Boeing 747, which flew a three-hour mission, and $28,178 for the two F-16 jets, which flew 1.8 hours each, Stein said in an e-mailed statement." 

Military Schedules Airborne NY Photo Shoot Which 'Looks Like Another 911'; fails to notify Port Authority [ 04/28/09 ]  "People evacuated from office buildings in Lower Manhattan and Jersey City after a commercial-sized jet was seen circling the city with two fighter jets following it. It turns out, the planes were part of a planned photo shoot by the military involving the presidential plane. Shortly after the incident, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said he had no information about the flight, but by Monday evening, the head of the White House Military Office apologized for the flight ...The FAA said planes circling Lower Manhattan were part of "photo op." Spokesman Jim Peters told the Wall Street Journal that the Defense Department was conducting a photo shoot that involved two F-16s escorting a Boeing 747 in the vicinity of Lower Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty. He said the maneuver is not an emergency and was coordinated in advance with the FAA and state and local officials. But the Port Authority told the WSJ that it was not notified of the event ..." 

Mayor Daley Marks 20 Years in Office   [ 04/28/09 ]  "Today marks a milestone in the career of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. He's now held the job for 20 years. But the mayor wouldn't dwell on it at a press conference today."   The "non-change" town. 

ODD:  ‘Odor’ prompts money laundering probe  [ 04/28/09 ] "Perhaps a suspect in a money laundering case should have spent more time in the shower before going to a Eugene bank to withdraw cash in January 2008. Michael James Walsh and two other Lane County residents face federal money laundering charges following a drug investigation that arose from a bank employee’s report to police that a man “with a very foul odor” made several large cash transactions a week. The stench “made one of their tellers vomit and also caused customers to complain,” according to court records in the case. The bank employee who contacted Eugene police on Jan. 30, 2008, described the odor as “a fertilizer smell.” A federal grand jury last week indicted Walsh on one count of “structuring transactions to avoid reporting requirements” based on scores of cash transactions totaling nearly $500,000 between July 2007 and February 2008. Suzan Dione and Fernando Marcelo Bispo de Jesus, who live in the Gimpl Hill area southwest of Eugene, also were indicted. The married couple face multiple money laundering charges and one count each of conspiracy to manufacture and distribute hallucinogenic mushrooms, ecstasy and at least 220 pounds of marijuana (in a futile attempt to remain grounded) ...." | Pastor says 'god' approves of his $600,000 pay package | School threatens to boot church over "Great Sex" worship series |  Man cut off finger to protest overdue wages  I bet it wasn't his middle finger, as he'll need that.

Fox: First broadcast network to turn down a request by President Barack Obama for time  [ 04/28/09 ]  "Fox became the first broadcast network to turn down a request by President Barack Obama for time, opting to show its drama "Lie to Me" on Wednesday instead of the president's prime-time news conference ..."  How apropos ...

Iraq calls U.S. raid "crime" that violated pact  [ 04/28/09 ]  "Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki views a U.S. military raid that killed two people overnight in the southern city of Kut as a a crime that violated a bilateral security pact, and wants U.S. forces to hand those responsible to the courts, an Iraqi official said on Sunday...."

Merck Drew Up Hit List of Doctors Who Needed to Be “Neutralised”  [ 04/27/09 ]  "An international drug company made a hit list of doctors who had to be "neutralised" or discredited because they criticised the anti-arthritis drug the pharmaceutical giant produced. Staff at US company Merck &Co emailed each other about the list of doctors - mainly researchers and academics - who had been negative about the drug Vioxx or Merck and a recommended course of action. The email, which came out in the Federal Court in Melbourne yesterday as part of a class action against the drug company, included the words "neutralise", "neutralised" or "discredit" against some of the doctors' names. It is also alleged the company used intimidation tactics against critical researchers, including dropping hints it would stop funding to institutions and claims it interfered with academic appointments. "We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live," a Merck employee wrote, according to an email excerpt read to the court by Julian Burnside QC, acting for the plaintiff. Merck & Co and its Australian subsidiary, Merck, Sharpe and Dohme, are being sued for compensation by more than 1000 Australians, who claim they suffered heart attacks or strokes as a result of Vioxx. The drug was launched in 1999 and at its height of popularity was used by 80 million people worldwide because it did not cause stomach problems as did traditional anti-inflammatory drugs." 

UK: Every phone call, email or website visit 'to be monitored'   [ 04/27/09 ]  "Every phone call, email or website visit will be monitored by the state under plans to be unveiled next week."  Related: Eminent Cancer Scientist Found Dead in His Car with Toxic Chemicals 

MA: Bill could criminalize senior citizens and people with disabilities and affect right to expression  [ 04/27/09 ]  "State Representative Kathi-Anne Reinstein thought she was sponsoring a bill to protect a vulnerable population from sexual predators. But the legislation has fueled a firestorm of protest, locally and nationally online, mostly from senior citizens and people with disabilities who said the bill could criminalize their right to sexual expression ... no other state has a law that criminalizes sexual pictures of senior citizens or adults with disabilities regardless of consent."

OPED: 'You cannot have pre-emptive justice' [ 04/27/09 ]  "... Premeditative action against civil disobedience is a dangerous precedent ..."

Forgotten Franklin letters offer glimpse into U.S. history [ 04/26/09 ]  "An American professor doing research in London stumbled across a series of previously unknown letters written by, to, and about Benjamin Franklin, a stunning find that sheds new light on early U.S. history."

ICE Raids Liberate Terrible New Jobs, Homes for Americans [ 04/26/09 ]  "A series of coordinated raids by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) has liberated hundreds of terrible jobs and homes for Americans, ICE officials report. Conducted over the past two weeks, the raids targeted illegal aliens where they live - in low income housing tenements and encampments throughout California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. An estimated 2,000 decrepit homes, tents and terrible, low paying jobs previously occupied by the migrants have been made available for American citizens as a result of the campaign, authorities say. Michael Winter of Stockton, California, unemployed for more than ten months in large part due to competition posed by mostly illiterate, indigenous natives of Mexico who speak little English or Spanish, is thankful for his awful new job picking strawberries five times slower than his predecessors ..."

Jordan's King Abdullah: Israel must choose integration or isolation [ 04/26/09 ]  "... The Jewish state can "integrate into the region...or to remain fortress Israel, isolated, holding itself and the entire region hostage to continued confrontation," Abdullah said during his visit to Washington ..."

OPED: Do-It-Yourself Governance [ 04/26/09 ] By Elizabeth Sanders. "Without new social movements, there will be no new New Deal ..."

OPED: How to tell I'm not a terrorist (with my Pre-Approved Muslim card) [ 04/26/09 ] by Sarfraz Manzoor. "We Muslims clearly need to help panicking police and border officials. Would a big tattoo help? So it turns out that the 12 Muslims arrested two weeks ago – you know, the ones who, according to ­Gordon Brown, were planning a "very big terrorist plot" – were ­doing nothing of the sort. The ­arrests and subsequent release highlight how, in a time of heightened concern, anyone who is male and Muslim – and, even worse, happens to have ­Pakistani heritage – can get mistaken for a potential terrorist. It isn't just the police who have a problem telling the difference. The trouble is that it isn't obvious who is a benign, peace-loving Briton who happens to be Muslim, and who is a rage-filled Islamist intent on causing mayhem. It used to be simple to spot the fundamentalist: they would have tell-tale signs such as metal hooks and carry a charred copy of The Satanic Verses or a "Death to Israel" placard. It isn't so easy now. What does a moderate Muslim look like? ...."

Appeals court rules Gitmo detainees are not 'persons' [ 04/25/09 ]  "A Court of Appeals for the Washington, D.C. Circuit ruled Friday that detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are not "persons" according to it's interpretation of a statute involving religious freedom."

Family claims Chicago police officer beat autistic teenager [ 04/25/09 ]  "Despite Guzman's parents yelling to the officers that he was a "special boy" with "special needs," one of the officers struck Guzman in the head with a baton, cutting a gash that would require eight staples, his sister said. The parents witnessed the blow being struck, she said. On the ground, blood pouring from his head, Guzman, who has the mental capacity of a 5th grader, mumbled again and again, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I submit. I submit," his family said."

Passengers Subdue 'Unruly' Israeli Man Who Charges Cockpit [ 04/25/09 ]  "A plane was diverted to Logan Airport just after 10 p.m. Friday after a passenger on a transatlantic flight tried to break into the cockpit and was subdued by passengers, Massachusetts State Police said. The incident was not terrorism, according to officials at Massport, the agency that runs the airport. The passenger, identified as Itay Atmor, may have been suffering from an anxiety attack, officials said. Delta Flight 86 was en route from JFK to Tel Aviv over the Atlantic when Atmor stormed the cockpit, police said. Five passengers subdued Armor, an Israeli national, and secured him in a passenger seat. The plane had left New York about two hours earlier. Atmor, 22, was charged with interfering with a flight crew and will be arraigned at East Boston District Court on Monday. The plane was parked in an isolated area of the airport while the FBI and Massachusetts State Police boarded and searched the plane. It continued its flight to Israel about three hours after landing in Boston."

Top UN Torture Investigator: Decision Not to Prosecute Violates International Law [ 04/25/09 ]  "An Austrian newspaper quotes the U.N.'s top torture investigator as saying President Barack Obama's decision not to prosecute CIA operatives who used questionable interrogation practices violates international law. Manfred Nowak is quoted in Der Standard as saying the United States has committed itself under the U.N. Convention against Torture to make torture a crime and to prosecute those suspected of engaging in it. Obama assured CIA operatives on Thursday they would not be prosecuted for their rough interrogation tactics of terror suspects under the former Bush administration. Nowak also says in the newspaper interview published Saturday that a comprehensive independent investigation is needed, and that it is important to compensate victims."

U.S. actually did execute Japanese soldiers for waterboarding [ 04/25/09 ]  "We made a mistake the other day when Paul Begala left Ari Fleischer dumbstruck by saying: BEGALA: We -- our country executed Japanese soldiers who water- boarded American POWs. We executed them for the same crime that we are now committing ourselves. How do you defend that?" ... I was referencing the statement of a different member of the Senate: John McCain. On November 29, 2007, Sen. McCain, while campaigning in St. Petersburg, Florida, said, "Following World War II war crime trials were convened. The Japanese were tried and convicted and hung for war crimes committed against American POWs. Among those charges for which they were convicted was waterboarding."  See Video 

David Duke Detained In Prague On Suspicion Of 'Denying The Holocaust' [ 04/25/09 ]  "Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke was detained by police in the Czech Republic on Friday on suspicion of denying the Holocaust. Police spokesman Jan Mikulovsky said the action was taken because Duke does that in his book "My Awakening," which is punishable by up to three years in Czech prisons. Duke traveled to the republic to promote the book's Czech translation of the book at the invitation of neo-Nazis. Mikulovsky declined to give any further details, citing an ongoing investigation ..."

12 nations open naval warfare exercises  [ 04/25/09 ]  "Navies from the United States and 11 other countries launched two weeks of war exercises off Florida's Atlantic coast that will include training in combating piracy and drug smuggling." 

Brazilians Using Improvised Radio Gear to Communicate Over Old U.S. Navy Satellites  [ 04/25/09 ]  "The problem goes back more than a decade, to the mid-1990s, when Brazilian radio technicians discovered they could jump on the UHF frequencies dedicated to satellites in the Navy’s Fleet Satellite Communication system, or FLTSATCOM. They’ve been at it ever since. Truck drivers love the birds because they provide better range and sound than ham radios. Rogue loggers in the Amazon use the satellites to transmit coded warnings when authorities threaten to close in. Drug dealers and organized criminal factions use them to coordinate operations. Today, the satellites, which pirates called “Bolinha” or “little ball,” are a national phenomenon. To use the satellite, pirates typically take an ordinary ham radio transmitter, which operates in the 144- to 148-MHZ range, and add a frequency doubler cobbled from coils and a varactor diode. That lets the radio stretch into the lower end of FLTSATCOM’s 292- to 317-MHz uplink range. All the gear can be bought near any truck stop for less than $500. Ads on specialized websites offer to perform the conversion for less than $100. Taught the ropes, even rough electricians can make Bolinha-ware. “I saw it more than once in truck repair shops,” says amateur radio operator Adinei Brochi (PY2ADN) “Nearly illiterate men rigged a radio in less than one minute, rolling wire on a coil.”

Napolitano Issue Splits GOP: Leaders Not Calling For Resignation [ 04/24/09 ]  "The White House and senior lawmakers on both sides of the aisle defended Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday as a cadre of Republicans continued to call for her resignation. But House GOP leaders did not bring the topic up during a meeting with President Obama, according to a source with knowledge of the meeting ... Former presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) agreed that the calls for Napolitano’s resignation were attempts at political posturing. “I think this is all about the politics,” said Paul. “I think she was wrong in issuing [the report] and I think she made a political mistake, but this is mostly about politics.”

MT: Hardin jail tries for detainees from Gitmo [ 04/24/09 ]  "Economic development officials in Hardin are looking at the soon-to-close detention facility in Guantanamo Bay as a possible fix for the jail sitting empty in Hardin. President Barack Obama signed an executive order Jan. 22 to close the Guantanamo detention facilities in Cuba where hundreds of enemy combatants have been held since 2002. The closure is to occur in a year, during which time remaining detainees must be returned to their home countries or detained elsewhere. Meanwhile, a 460-bed detention facility sits empty in Hardin. Built by Two Rivers Authority, the city's economic development arm, the facility was meant to bring economic development to Hardin by creating more than 100 high-paying jobs. While leaders continue to look for contracts to open the jail, which was completed in 2007, people in Hardin have approached Two Rivers executive director Greg Smith saying they have the answer: Get the contract to hold those prisoners from Guantanamo."  Related:  Obama Plans To Accept Some Gitmo Detainees Into U.S.

OPED:  What I Learned From Prison Inmates- The Freedom To Choose [ 04/24/09 ]  "Before you dismiss the experience of someone in prison as the polar opposite of your own...here is a quiz."

Sen. Kit Bond: Obama Is Building A Banana Republic [ 04/24/09 ]  "Sen. Kit Bond suggested on Thursday that the openness of the Obama administration to merely investigating the possibility of criminal activity during the Bush years amounts to creating a banana republic government of the type seen in the Third World countries. The Missouri Republican, in an appearance on MSNBC, was asked to opine about the possibility of investigations -- either through Congress, the Justice Department or an independent commission -- into the use of torture by the Bush administration. "This whole thing about punishing people in past administrations reminds me more of a banana republic than the United States of America. We don't criminally prosecute people we disagree with when we change office. There were a lot of questions that could have been asked of the Clinton administration failing to recognize the war on terror. They did not. The Bush administration went forward and that's the way our country should. The president said he was going to be forward looking and now he has opened up a stab in the back, said Bond."

ODD:  Child who was sent home with feces will change schools [ 04/24/09 ]  "The school says it's taken "appropriate action" against the kindergarten teacher who allegedly packed a bag of fecal matter into the boy’s backpack along with a sticky note that read: "This little turd was found on the floor in my room." (Yakima Herald) | Student who said 'she'd kill 10' may have been trying to duck a test

British soldiers 'tortured and murdered 20 Iraqis, then covered it up with firefight claim'  [ 04/24/09 ]  "British soldiers tortured and murdered up to 20 Iraqis in cold blood, the High Court was told yesterday. It happened after a three-hour gun battle at an Army checkpoint near Basra, a lawyer claimed. Rabinder Singh said a group of local men were taken prisoner and transported to an Army camp where they were beaten with a rusty tent pole, punched, slammed against walls, denied water, blasted with loud music and 
forced to strip naked in the presence of a woman – a humiliation for Muslim men." 

Armenians mark anniversary of Ottoman-era killings [ 04/24/09 ]  "Armenians on Friday marked the 94th anniversary of mass killings of their kin under the Ottoman Empire amid signs that decades-old tensions with Turkey may be easing. Under sunny skies thousands of people carrying wreaths and flowers climbed to a hilltop memorial in Yerevan to commemorate the killings that began in 1915 and led to a mass exodus of Armenians from what is now eastern Turkey. Armenians insist the killings constituted genocide and the issue remains a major stumbling block in relations with Turkey, which strongly rejects the label. But this year's commemorations came as Armenia and Turkey -- nudged by the United States -- have been edging towards reconciliation."

Yad Vashem fires employee who compared Holocaust to Nakba [ 04/24/09 ]  "Yad Vashem has fired an instructor who compared the trauma of Jewish Holocaust survivors with the trauma experienced by the Palestinian people in Israel's War of Independence. Itamar Shapira, 29, of Jerusalem, was fired before Passover from his job as a docent at the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, after a teacher with a group of yeshiva students from Efrat made a complaint. Shapira had worked at Yad Vashem for three and a half years ... A Yad Vashem official said the institution objects to any political use of the Holocaust, especially by a docent working for it. Note: The whole state of Israel makes political use of their Holocaust. What a disconnect. 

Avigdor Lieberman: "Iran Is Obstacle To Mideast Peace"   [ 04/24/09 ]  "(Former nightclub bouncer) Avigdor Lieberman told The Jerusalem Post that it will be "impossible to resolve any problem in our region" without dealing with Iran's nuclear program and its support for militant groups opposed to Israel, such as Hezbollah and Hamas. His comments come as differences have appeared between the hard-line government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Obama administration over the peace 
process. President Barack Obama has said the U.S. seeks a "two-state" solution, with the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel, while Netanyahu has not publicly embraced the principle ..."

Poland 'to ban' Che Guevara image [ 04/24/09 ] "The iconic image of Che Guevara found adorning students' walls and t-shirts across the world could be banned in Poland under a government proposal to outlaw materials that incite "fascism and totalitarian systems". Poland's equality minister, Elzbieta Radziszewska, wants to expand a Polish law prohibiting the production of fascist and totalitarian propaganda so that it includes clothing and anything else that could carry an image related to an authoritarian system. Anybody found guilty could face a two-year prison sentence." Note: Of course, banning things only happen in an atmosphere of fascism and totalitarianism - an irony apparently beyond their ability to appreciate. 

Clinton Admits US Role In Pakistan Insecurity  [ 04/24/09 ] "The US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Friday said that the US was also partly responsible for the present conditions in Pakistan as it virtually abandoned country after the Soviets left Afghanistan." Related: U.S. Questions Pakistan’s Will to Stop Taliban 

Pelosi briefed on waterboarding in '02  [ 04/24/09 ] "In September 2002, four members of Congress met in secret for a first look at a unique CIA program designed to wring vital information from reticent terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. For more than an hour, the bipartisan group, which included current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was given a virtual tour of the CIA's overseas detention sites and the harsh techniques interrogators had devised to try to make their prisoners talk. Among the techniques described, said two officials present, was waterboarding, a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill. But on that day, no objections were raised. Instead, at least two lawmakers in the room asked the CIA to push harder, two U.S. officials said ..."  

Senate Leaders Opposes Interrogation Inquiry Panel  [ 04/24/09 ]  "Senate Democratic leaders, joining forces with the Obama White House, said they would resist efforts by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other prominent Democrats to create a special commission to investigate the harsh interrogation methods that the Bush administration approved for terrorism suspects ... Reid said that it was premature to act without facts to be provided by the intelligence committee. “They will make a public report,” he said. “I hope that it will come toward the end of this year.”

Bush-era detainee photos show Abu Ghraib 'was not aberrational.'  [ 04/24/09 ]  "The pictures show Americans' alleged abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. An ACLU lawyer says they prove that Abu Ghraib 'was not aberrational.' At least 44 pictures will be released by May 28 -- making public for the first time images of what the military investigated as abuse that took place at facilities other than the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq ..."

GOP leaders asked to call for Napolitano resignation   [ 04/23/09 ]  "Conservative House Republicans are calling on their leaders to ask President Obama for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s resignation. And GOP Conference Secretary John Carter (Texas) became the first member of leadership to call for the secretary's resignation, saying Wednesday that Napolitano should be removed or resign. “No search or arrest warrant should ever be issued on the pure speculative grounds contained in the DHS report, and this report should never have been issued either. The fact that it was, coupled with Secretary Napolitano’s failure to issue an unqualified retraction and apology, displays a level of contempt for a healthy democracy that demands she be removed from office immediately," the judge of 20 years said. Conservative House GOPs think Napolitano should resign because of the release of a report that singled out conservatives as “right-wing terrorists,” according to several GOP lawmakers. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) are set to meet with Obama at the White House on Thursday. It is unclear whether they will request Napolitano’s resignation, but several lawmakers said it was under discussion. “I think leaders are going to bring it up with the president, maybe call for (her) resignation,” one conservative member told The Hill on Wednesday."  Note: What they fail to note is that Napolitano, who did what she did with approval of the current administration, is just the face of 'those who should be removed' - those same people who continue policies sent forth in the last administration. In the end, it's much ado about nothing, and the game continues.

China puts naval might on display  [ 04/23/09 ]  "China is staging a military parade to celebrate its navy's 60th anniversary - and show the world its latest warships. At least one of the country's nuclear-powered submarines is on display at the naval parade, being held in the port city of Qingdao. Twenty-one foreign naval vessels from 14 countries are also taking part, including the US, France and Russia ..."

A Rahm Bomb for Jane Harman?  [ 04/23/09 ]  "So the inside-the-Beltway question is: Who, high up in the administration, authorized the leak of a super-secret NSA wiretap against a sitting member of Congress, Rep. Jane Harman (who also happens to be the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee) And how do the anonymous sources know they will not be prosecuted? Who would have authorized it? If I had to bet, it would be the President or his Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, or the National Security Advisor ..."  If Rahm is indeed "Mega", Israel's top spy inside the US Government, then getting his fellow Israeli spies off of the hook would be a priority. Indeed Rosen and Weissman might even be blackmailing Rahm to get them set free. The leak about Harman may have been a warning to let the two spies go free or risk even more embarrassing disclosures.

Wiretap reveals reach of US pro-Israel lobby  [ 04/23/09 ]  "Rep. Jane Harman (Jewish) , the California Democrat with longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on a National Security Agency (NSA) wiretap telling “a suspected Israeli agent” that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the most powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington, according to a report released Sunday night in Congressional Quarterly (CQ)."  Related:  US may drop AIPAC staffers espionage case  "The US Justice Department is considering dropping charges of illegally disclosing national defense secrets against two former AIPAC staffers. Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman from the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) were in 2005 indicted for passing along secret US documents to Israel in violation of the 1917 Espionage Act. Among other things, they had attempted to supply Israel with information on the US policy in Iran, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz. Government officials on Tuesday revealed that the Justice Department is uncertain about the chances of proving the case after a number of recent rulings in favor of the suspects spawned legal complications ..."  See previous articles

OPED:  AIPAC is Not above The Law  [ 04/23/09 ]  "A story in today's Washington Post (April 22, 2009) suggests DOJ may drop its espionage case against AIPAC. I find this incredulous, outrageous, and a blatant application of double standards. The timing of this story after the revelation that Rep. Jane Harman was recorded speaking to an "agent" regarding a quid pro quo interference in this case in exchange for AIPAC’s support to become Chairwoman of the House's Intel Committee is certainly troubling and smells of a deal to prevent further embarrassing revelations."

Nike VP to lead federal agency for U.S. national service programs  [ 04/23/09 ]  "What this legislation does, then, is to help harness this patriotism and connect deeds to needs...'" The national service bill, says Obama, will "remake the nation." I noted this statement from the article: "Obama on Tuesday also nominated Nike Inc. vice president Maria Eitel to lead the federal agency that oversees the country's national service programs." Imagine that. From a Nike VP to a government central planner. Eitel's title will be 'CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service.' How can you be a CEO of a government program that takes in no revenues, but only steals from citizens? How can a government entity be a "corporation?" Of course, it can't. This is the abuse of language and definition that occurs under a propagandizing, totalitarian state that wishes to disguise its tyranny 'neath the cover of red roses and picket fences. Government agencies are now graced with private business labels and its head agents are given private sector titles. This is yet another example of the merger of state and corporate powers that Gerald Celente has written about. In Nike's words, "Just Do It." Indeed, my fellow Americans, you live and (barely) breathe in a fascist, totalitarian state."

UK: Government Hits British Middle Class With 50% Tax Rate [ 04/23/09 ]  "Mr Darling stunned Westminster by introducing a new 50 per cent tax band for those earning more than £150,000 which will come into force next year."

EU nations eye prosecution of Bush officials   [ 04/23/09 ]  "European officials and lawyers seek to criminalize former US officials over torture charges amid the reluctance of President Barack Obama. A number of European authorities and human rights groups have expressed dissatisfaction with Obama's failure to press charges against ex-CIA authorities who sanctioned or administered the so-called 'enhanced interrogation methods' to terror suspects, saying that they will make an effort to delve into the torture case under a "universal jurisdiction" code. Civil rights campaigners say the legal code adopted by some EU countries, authorizes lawyers across the globe to file lawsuits against war criminals, perpetrators of genocides and other human rights offenses, regardless of their country of residence. In Spain and Germany, lawyers and social liberties activists have brought charges in domestic courts against former US authorities including the ex-defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld ..." 

CIA Ludicrously Claims Torture Prevented L.A. Terror Plot That Never Existed In The First Place  [ 04/23/09 ]  "As the controversy surrounding revelations of the Bush administration's torture program builds, the CIA has attempted to diffuse the furore by claiming that the torture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed prevented a terror attack on an L.A. skyscraper, a completely ludicrous assertion since the credibility of the alleged "L.A. attack plot" was debunked by scores of intelligence professionals years ago." 

Bob Graham: Bush Criminal Prosecutions Should Be On The Table  [ 04/22/09 ]  "Bob Graham, the former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Wednesday that the criminal prosecution of Bush administration officials involved in implementing torture policies should not "be taken off the table," as the Obama administration decides how best to deal with potential illegalities from its predecessor in the White House ..."

Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' Seen As ' Self-Help Guide' For India's Business Students  [ 04/22/09 ]  Life sure is a struggle.

Israeli minister compares Iran to Nazis  [ 04/21/09 ]  "Iran is trying to replicate Nazi Germany's treatment of the Jewish people, Israeli deputy prime minister Silvan Shalom said Tuesday ahead of a Holocaust ceremony at a former death camp."  Note: Here we see the phenomena of psychological projection, and the 'pot calling the kettle black'. See this:   Ashkenazi 1940 vs. Ashkenazi 2009

CA: Feinstein may have directed more than $1 billion to companies controlled by her husband  [ 04/21/09 ]  " ... California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) chairs the Senate Rules Committee, but she’s also a Cardinal. She is currently chairwoman of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies subcommittee, but until last year was for six years the top Democrat on the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (or “Milcon”) sub-committee, where she may have directed more than $1 billion to companies controlled by her husband. If the inferences finally coming out about what she did while on Milcon prove true, she may be on the way to morphing from a respected senior Democrat into another poster child for congressional corruption. The problems stem from her subcommittee activities from 2001 to late 2005, when she quit. During that period the public record suggests she knowingly took part in decisions that eventually put millions of dollars into her husband’s pocket — the classic conflict of interest that exploited her position and power to channel money to her husband’s companies ..."   Related: Senator Feinstein's husband cashes in on crisis

FL: Criminal probe of 21 dead Venezuelan polo horses dying suddenly  [ 04/21/09 ]  Interesting, now that Obama and Chavez have 'made some peace'. Someone doesn't like that and killed off the entire competitive team from Venezuela. It's a whodunnit.   

ODD: Tipsy passenger tells pilot: "I've got about five pounds of C4 in here"  [ 04/21/09 ]  "That remark about explosives delayed the flight for hours, and got the guy sentenced to four years of probation .... According to investigators, Rayborn, who was intoxicated, was seated next to the off-duty Northwest pilot as the aircraft left a gate at Denver International Airport. As the plane pulled back, Rayborn reached down, gripped his carry-on bag with both hands and said, "They didn't even check my bag, and I've got about 5 pounds of C4 in here." C4 is a military high-grade explosive. The off-duty pilot recognized that there was a low probability that Rayborn had C4 in his bag but felt he had to report the remark to the flight crew. "

TX: Gov. Rick Perry Gets Bipartisan, First-hand Demonstration of How to Cut a Budget [ 04/21/09 ]  "Regular Americans made tough decisions in their own budgets all the time. Texas Gov. Rick Perry might have to learn that skill, if TX House proposals become law. His office budget would shrink from about $23.5 million to $900,000, and that may include products to take care of his "good hair." But then politicians should learn to spend more wisely, not less government, but wiser spending."

Professor Stephen Hawking 'very ill' in Cambridge hospital [ 04/21/09 ]  I hope this sequential with limited conceptual skills finds his own black hole acceptable. Talk about an over-hyped cultural replacement for Einstein metaphor. Like they really have a handle on reality.  Related: "Profoundly gifted" boy started taking college classes at 10  Another sequential being hyped.

What would be the timetable for Israel strike on Iran? [ 04/21/09 ]  "The timing of Saturday's Times of London article, which claimed that the Israel Defense Forces is training for an attack on Iran on very short notice, is certainly no coincidence. Israel is trying to make clear that even though the United States plans to begin a diplomatic dialogue with Iran, it holds a realistic military option against Tehran's nuclear program. Without a deal that assuages Israel's concerns, there may be no other choice but to attack .." Related: 2007 Flashback: Israel desperate enough to use their nuclear weapon on a US city and blame Iran? "... One alleged radiation hot spot on Manhattan's east side has the potential for becoming a political hot spot: A strong radiation spike from the area of the Israeli Embassy. Officials would not comment on why they thought that particular area allegedly showed such a stunning peak in radiation. Has israel smuggled a dirty bomb into the US for a false flag hoax? Is this how WWIII is going to start? -Iran being falsely blamed for an israeli terror operation in New York?"  

Pink Floyd Sues EMI Over Royalties  [ 04/21/09 ]  Dark side of the baboon.

271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals in US water [ 04/21/09 ] "U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water — contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation. Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking: For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder; nitroglycerin is a heart drug and also used in explosives; copper shows up in everything from pipes to contraceptives. Federal and industry officials say they don't know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them — as drugs. But a close analysis of 20 years of federal records found that, in fact, the government unintentionally keeps data on a few, allowing a glimpse of the pharmaceuticals coming from factories ..."

'IDF soldiers forced to take part in medical experiment' [ 04/21/09 ] "Less than a month after an expert panel accused the defense establishment of "grave ethical failures" in testing an experimental anthrax vaccine on hundreds of soldiers, Israel Radio revealed Sunday that soldiers from the Duhifat Battalion were forced to participate in another experiment 15 years ago...."  Note: Of course, the Americans, Nazis, British, Japanese, Chinese and many many nations have also had this penchant.

UK: MPs to examine G20 police tactics as new claims emerge [ 04/21/09 ] "The policing of the G20 protests will be scrutinised by two influential parliamentary committees this week as the continuing fallout from the death of Ian Tomlinson threatens to provoke a crisis in public order policing. The Independent Police Complaints Commission will today also receive a batch of new complaints about the actions of officers in the City of London on 1 April, compiled from the testimony of legal observers who attended with camcorders. The watchdog is now dealing with the largest number of complaints received in relation to a single policing operation in its history."

The Larger Scandal Behind "WireTapGate" : Israeli Spying in the U.S. [ 04/21/09 ] "Here's the question that isn't being asked: Why is Harman and AIPAC, itself, such an advocate of expanded warrantless wiretapping? Along with Jane, AIPAC and its beneficiaries in Congress have been a constant force against accountability for warrantless wiretapping programs. There is a reasonable explanation for Israeli support for expanded wiretapping inside the U.S.: Narus/Verint/NICE (surveillance) systems The NSA has long relied on Israeli produced wiretapping systems for much of its domestic telephone/e-mail intercepts that are gathered through CALEA-mandated diverters put in place by the phone companies beginning in the 1990s. Much of this equipment is manufactured by NARUS, VERINT, and NICE, companies founded and still operated by retired Israeli signals intelligence officers ..."

Hill Holds Fire on Harman  [ 04/21/09 ] "House leaders in both parties were publicly mum in response to a story that nonetheless lit up Capitol Hill on Monday, alleging that Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) engaged in a quid pro quo with a suspected Israeli agent to advance her stature in Congress."

Rep. Harman Recorded On Wiretap Promising To Intervene For AIPAC, Say Sources [ 04/20/09 ] "Rep. Jane Harman , the California Democrat with a longtime involvement in intelligence issues, was overheard on an NSA wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department reduce espionage-related charges against two officials of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful pro-Israel organization in Washington. Harman was recorded saying she would "waddle into" the AIPAC case "if you think it'll make a difference," according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript. In exchange for Harman's help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win. Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, "This conversation doesn't exist." Harman declined to discuss the wiretap allegations, instead issuing an angry denial through a spokesman ... Justice Department attorneys in the intelligence and public corruption units who read the transcripts decided that Harman had committed a "completed crime," a legal term meaning that there was evidence that she had attempted to complete it, three former officials said. And they were prepared to open a case on her, which would include electronic surveillance approved by the so-called FISA Court, the secret panel established by the 1979 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to hear government wiretap requests. First, however, they needed the certification of top intelligence officials that Harman's wiretapped conversations justified a national security investigation. Then-CIA Director Porter J. Goss reviewed the Harman transcript and signed off on the Justice Department's FISA application. He also decided that, under a protocol involving the separation of powers, it was time to notify then-House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Minority Leader Pelosi, of the FBI's impending national security investigation of a member of Congress — to wit, Harman. Goss, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, deemed the matter particularly urgent because of Harman's rank as the panel's top Democrat. But that's when, according to knowledgeable officials, Attorney General Gonzales intervened ..."  Related: Major scandal erupts involving Rep. Jane Harman, Alberto Gonzales and AIPAC | Alberto Gonzales And Five Top Associates To Be Indicted By Spanish Prosecutors

Right-Wing Israeli Lawmaker Sends Letter To Rahm Emanuel To "Remind Him He's Jewish" [ 04/20/09 ] "National Union chairman Ya'acov "Ketzele" Katz sent a letter to White House chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel last week admonishing him not to forget his Jewish and Israeli origins ... Katz's missive came in response to a reported verbal exchange between Emanuel and an unidentified American Jewish leader ... Emanuel was born in Chicago in 1959. His father, Benjamin M. Emanuel, a Jerusalem-born pediatrician, was a member of the IZL (Irgun). "  Note: They have arrogance in common. Rahm's real last name isn't Emanuel. His father was considered a terrorist by some, and he cavorts with the mob and Israeli power brokers.

Dimon: Iraq War, Greed Contributed To Economic Collapse [ 04/20/09 ] "JPMorgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, in a letter to shareholders, touched on a theme that critics of the Iraq war were highlighting more than a year ago: That spending on the war was damaging to the economy. Dimon cited "an expensive war in Iraq" as one of the possible triggers of the economic collapse. Spending on the war ballooned the deficit and crowded out investment in domestic priorities. Meanwhile, the trade deficit soared ..."  

McCain Unequivocally Says That Waterboarding is Torture  [ 04/20/09 ] "Credit where credit is due. Sen. John McCain on Fox News this morning said, in no uncertain terms, that waterboarding is undoubtedly torture. Reacting to the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times, McCain had this to say:"

US Marine Arrested At Airport With Gun, Bomb-Making Materials [ 04/20/09 ] "A US Marine was arrested today at Logan International Airport after federal airport screeners discovered a gun, bomb-making materials, and ammunition in his checked baggage, State Police and Transportation Security Administration officials said .... TSA screeners in Terminal B called State Police at 7:10 a.m. after a screen discovered the following items in his checked baggage: a locked handgun box containing a semi-automatic handgun, a fully loaded gun magazine, several boxes of 9 mm and 7.62 mm ammunition, three model rocket engines containing an explosive mixture, military pull-type fuses, switches, electronics kit boxes with various components, and a hand grenade fuse assembly with detonator ...Reed was charged with 'possession of an infernal machine' and possession of a concealed weapon in a secure area of an airport. He was booked at the State Police barracks at Logan and held in lieu of $50,000 bail. He will be arraigned at East Boston Municipal Court on Tuesday ..."

Gunshot to the head doesn't stop woman from making tea [ 04/20/09 ] "A rural woman shocked deputies when they found her alert and coherent after being shot in the head at close range by her husband. She even made a cup of tea, according to one of the deputies. "There's no way she should be alive," Jackson County Sheriff Mike Byrd said. "The bullet completely passed straight through her brain. It entered at the middle of her forehead and exited from the back of her head. She should be dead. It's one of the most unreal, bizarre things I've ever seen ..."  Now, that's a HS intervention.

UK: Schools call in police 100,000 times a year [ 04/20/09 ] "The figure means police are visiting each of England’s 21,500 schools on an average of four occasions every year to investigate suspected offences. The most common crimes reported are violent or rowdy behaviour, followed by theft and vandalism. Some forces also reported muggings and sexual offences. In their Easter conferences, teaching unions repeatedly raised concerns about fighting and rowdiness ..." 

CIA waterboarded suspect 183 times in 1 month, memo reveals [ 04/19/09 ] "Perhaps more shocking than these newly revealed torture methods is a memo's reference to the fact that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (still in U.S. custody) was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003 and Abu Zubaydah (the man who allegedly fears insects) was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002."  Note: 'This has nothing to do with 'intelligence gathering', and everything to do with the collective mental illness of the torturers doing this, who obviously derived tremendous emotional pleasure from the process. We have known from the times of the Catholic Inquisition that torture doesn't produce intelligence; it simply gets the tortured person to say whatever they think their torturers want to hear to get the torture to stop. Torture is never about obtaining the truth: it is about garnering confessions, period, end of discussion. - WRH'

Australia to boycott UN's Geneva racism talks [ 04/19/09 ] "The Australian Government has decided not to attend a United Nations anti-racism conference in Geneva this week. The Durban Review Conference is supposed to work towards reducing racism, xenophobia and discrimination. But it has been mired in controversy since the 2001 meeting saw Israel and the US walk out over anti-Semitic comments made by some delegates. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says he has decided not to go to the conference because he is concerned it will again be used to air 'offensive views'." (Note: Views offensive to Israel, in other words. ) Related: US confirms boycott of UN conference against racism "The US will not reverse a decision to boycott the upcoming UN conference on the elimination of racism in spite of the removal of a clause from a document that identified Israel as a perpetrator of racist policies...."  The whole issue becomes convoluted and ridiculous. Israel IS a monster. Period. They are known for their ACTIONS, and actions ARE reality, no matter what level of denial arises from the perp (Israel)  or cohorts in crime. The psychological stance which Israel and it's supporters take is clearly pathological. If pathology is desired, then Israel might as well just do the Samson Option now and get it over with, and get the hell out of everyone's lives for good. More on the Samson Option

'A Ton More People Were Wiretapped Than We've Been Led to Believe': FBI Whistleblower Thomas Tamm [ 04/19/09 ] "This week the New York Times revealed that the National Security Agency has continued spying on Americans well into the Obama era, with government officials listening in on phone conversations and monitoring e-mails on a massive scale."

Israel Stands Ready to Bomb Iran's Nuclear Sites [ 04/19/09 ] "The Israeli military is preparing itself to launch a massive aerial assault on Iran's nuclear facilities within days of being given the go-ahead by its new government."  Related: Iran takes Israeli war threats up with UN

US court: Ex-Israeli cabinet member cannot be sued [ 04/19/09 ] "A federal appeals court says a former Israeli security chief cannot be sued in the United States for 15 deaths in a Gaza City bombing. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued the ruling Thursday in New York. The court said Avraham Dichter was immune under common law from being held responsible for the July 2002 bombing of an apartment complex. Dichter was director of the Israeli Security Agency at the time. A lower court rejected a 2005 lawsuit. It sought class action status for bombing survivors and victims' families. They tried to sue under laws used by Holocaust survivors and relatives of people killed or tortured under despotic regimes." 

AIG systematically denies claims of injured US contractors [ 04/18/09 ] "Insurance giant AIG is already in trouble with the taxpayers from whom it has received billions in bailout money. Now an investigation by ABC News, the Los Angeles Times, and the non-profit Pro Publica has found that AIG has been ripping off its own insurance customers as well. According to ABC’s Brian Ross, “AIG covers about 90% of the people who get hurt working overseas for American defense contractors.” Pro Publica analyzed 30,000 of those cases and found that, although minor injuries were covered without question, AIG had challenged an astonishing 43% of the more serious claims."

MT: New gun law aimed at asserting sovereignty [ 04/18/09 ] "Gov. Brian Schweitzer has signed into law a bill that aims to exempt Montana-made guns from federal regulation, adding firepower to a battery of legislative efforts to assert states’ rights across the nation. “It’s a gun bill, but it’s another way of demonstrating the sovereignty of the state of Montana,” Democrat Schweitzer said. Since the law applies only to those guns that are made and kept in Montana, its impact is limited. The state is home to just a handful of specialty gun makers, known for recreating rifles used to settle the West, and most of their customers are out-of-state ... Along with the gun bill, Montana legislators are considering a resolution that affirms the 10th Amendment principle that the federal government only has those powers that are specifically given to it by the U.S. Constitution ..."

Union Intensifies Efforts to Organize Workers at Wal-Mart  [ 04/18/09 ] "The United Food and Commercial Workers union is ramping up organizing at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. after a five-year lull, dovetailing with its efforts to win support in Congress for a bill to make union organizing easier. The Bentonville, Ark., retailer, a leading opponent of the legislation, said managers have seen increased union activity at a number of stores, prompting mandatory meetings to discuss unionization. "We have noticed that the UFCW has been working harder lately in its attempts to get Wal-Mart associates to sign union cards, but we don't think our associates have any reason to be more interested than before," said Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar."

CA: State Senate approves bill banning language discrimination [ 04/18/09 ] "Alarmed that a professional golf association proposed to exclude competitors who don’t speak English, the state Senate acted today to prohibit businesses in California from discriminating against customers, including refusing them service, based on the language they use."

Blago's Judge: Trial to Begin in 2011 and last 6 Months  [ 04/18/09 ] "Zagel said at the hearing Thursday that the Blagojevich trial will take six months, and likely will not begin for two years."

Former Mexican Intelligence Director: "We've Lost Half the Country" to Organized Crime [ 04/17/09 ] "Ex-Intelligence Directors and Attorney General Medina Mora Contradict Clinton and Calderon on Drug War. Clinton and Calderon's have so vehemently argued that the Mexican government is in complete control of its national territory not simply because they wish to defend the Calderon administration's international reputation. They're also defending a drug war that is increasingly unpopular in the US, but also increasingly worrisome for US officials. As Mexico drug war headlines are splashed across US newspapers with increasing frequency, US officials are finding themselves constantly defending failed drug war policies such as the Merida Initiative and Plan Colombia ..."

UK: Surveillance society at town hall as Big Brother councils spy on their staff [ 04/17/09 ] "Town halls are routinely using controversial 'Big Brother' surveillance powers to spy on their own employees in the workplace, a survey has revealed. Council bosses are sanctioning bugging and secret CCTV operations to gather evidence of workplace theft or even 'inappropriate relationships'. Privacy campaigners called the tactics 'disgusting' and said they 'would make the KGB nervous'."  Councils will face restrictions on the use of covert surveillance measures to stop them targeting "trivial" offences, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said. Local officials have been condemned as "Bin Stasi" for using the powers to target people who put their bins out on the wrong day or let their dogs foul in the street. Councillors or senior officials might in future be required to approve their use, under plans set out in a review of changes to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers (RIPA) Act. RIPA powers have been criticised as an extension of the "surveillance state". Councils were found to be using them to investigate parents accused of lying about where they live to get their children in to better schools. The Tories have called for the use of the powers to be restricted to offences that carry a prison sentence ..."

UK: 3,609 new offences created since 1997 [ 04/17/09 ] "Wake up and smell the pepper spray. These new laws are to control us, not protect us."

Officials Say U.S. Wiretaps Exceeded Law [ 04/17/09 ] "The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits established by Congress last year, government officials said in recent interviews. Several intelligence officials, as well as lawyers briefed about the matter, said the N.S.A. had been engaged in “overcollection” of domestic communications of Americans. They described the practice as significant and systemic, although one official said it was believed to have been unintentional."

'General Growth' Files Biggest U.S. Property Bankruptcy   [ 04/17/09 ] "General Growth Properties Inc. filed the biggest real estate bankruptcy in U.S. history after amassing $27 billion in debt during an acquisition spree that turned it into the second-largest shopping mall owner."

CIA employees won't be tried for waterboarding  [ 04/17/09 ] "The Obama administration on Thursday informed CIA officials who used waterboarding and other harsh interrogation tactics on terror suspects that they will not be prosecuted. The memos, released to meet a court-approved deadline in a lawsuit against the government in New York by the American Civil Liberties Union, detail the dozen harsh techniques approved for use by CIA interrogators, the officials said. One memo also specifically authorized a method for combining multiple techniques, a practice human rights advocates argue crosses the line into torture even if any individual methods does not. Read the released memos (.pdf) The Obama administration last month released nine legal memos, and probably will release more as the lawsuit proceeds. But the four released Thursday represent the fullest, and now complete, accounting by the government of the methods authorized and used, the officials said."

Israel turns back 250 tons of truckloads of food [ 04/17/09 ] "Israeli troops manning the land Al-Ojah checkpoint in Central Sinai sent back 13 truckloads of 250 tons of flour dispatched by the Egyptian Red Crescent to Gaza Strip on Thursday. The official Egyptian news agency, the Middle East News Agency, quoted a source in the association as saying that the Israeli authorities have hampered dispatch of aid to the Palestinians in Gaza Strip through this checkpoint ..."

Pentagon Closes Office Accused of Issuing Propaganda Under Bush [ 04/17/09 ] "A Pentagon office responsible for coordinating Defense Department information campaigns overseas has been abolished in an effort by the Obama administration to distance itself from past practices that some military officers called propaganda, senior officials said Wednesday."

UK: Police Erase London Sightseer Photographs, Citing Terrorism [ 04/16/09 ] "Two Austrian tourists visiting London were forced to erase large portions of their holiday photographs by police officers who told the pair that they were duty bound to "prevent terrorism" .... Despite police pronouncements that photographing buildings and transport facilities is "forbidden", there is no actual law that says so. This is not an isolated incident, it has been ongoing for some time. One year ago, close to 200 MPs signed up to an Early Day Motion introduced in the House of Commons by Austin Mitchell, urging the 'Home Office and the Association of Chief Police Officers to agree on a photography code for the information of officers on the ground, setting out the public's right to photograph public places, thus allowing photographers to enjoy their hobby without officious interference or unjustified suspicion'. The motion was introduced after the Metropolitan Police launched an advertising campaign calling for citizens to report any 'odd-looking' person taking pictures - to the disgust of both amateur and professional photographers, who say they are increasingly demonised ...." Related: Man Detained As Terror Suspect For Photographing Misbehaving Police Car "Despite police claiming that an ambiguous section of the UK Counter Terrorism Act of 2008 would not outlaw taking photographs or film of police, a man was detained as a terror suspect this week simply for taking a photograph of a police car in order to document police misconduct. 62-year-old Malcolm Sleath, who is chairman of his local park society, saw a police car driving erratically down a North London park footpath, despite the fact that by law police are supposed to investigate on foot in such circumstances ..."  Note: Another article on this incident revealed that the police involved were reprimanded, and Mr Sleath was released.

Human Trafficking in Europe Outweighs Drug Smuggling  [ 04/16/09 ] "1.2 million people globally become victims of human trafficking every year, according to estimates provided by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Most of the victims are women and children used for cheap labor and sexual services by organized multinational criminal groups, warns the EC...."

Man throwing away cash arrested  [ 04/16/09 ] "Taiwan police have arrested a 55-year-old man for lobbing bank notes worth about T$1 million ($41,000) from vehicles, causing disorder in the streets. The man tossed the bills from a taxi in a crowded part of Taichung city yesetrday as people stopped to pick up the cash, Changhua police official Lin Shih-ming said. "He might have had a nervous condition, as his state of mind wasn't normal," Mr Lin said. He is believed to have thrown heaps more money on an earlier road trip starting in the capital Taipei. The man also burned about T$400,000 ($16,500) and had two more sacks of cash, apparently the proceeds of a property sale, Mr Lin said. Some of the passers-by who picked up the bills turned the money over to police, while others pocketed it, he said. The taxi driver turned the man in to police in Changhua county, just south of Taichung. The suspect would be charged with public endangerment and destruction of currency, Mr Lin said."

Commentary: China’s threat to the U.S. is exaggerated  [ 04/16/09 ] "The Pentagon’s annual publication, “Military Power of the People’s Republic of China 2009,” accused China of stocking its military with weapons that can be used to intimidate or attack Taiwan and mitigate U.S. air and naval superiority near its territory. Even if the Department of Defense’s report has not exaggerated the threat from China -- unlikely since the department has an inherent conflict of interest in evaluating threats and building weapons to counter those threats -- the report is good news."  Related:  China Reserves at $1.954 trillion

1,500 farmers commit mass suicide in India  [ 04/16/09 ]  Note: 'How very odd. This article says nothing at all about Genetically Modified crops failing to produce as advertised, and yet only last November this was reported as the main cause for the crops failures driving Indian farmers to suicide. The biotech spin doctors are working overtime.'

UK: Behaviour experts to go into thousands of schools [ 04/16/09 ] "Behaviour experts will be sent in to a quarter of all schools to tackle discipline problems, Ed Balls said today. The Schools Secretary also said that pupils who are persistently suspended should face permanent exclusion and heads should use their powers to get rid of repeat offenders. Figures obtained by the Tories showed that more than 800 pupils were each suspended more than ten times last year – almost triple the number in 2003/04 ..."  Related: Parents to be hit with penalties if children misbehave at school  

OPED: Resist or Become Serfs [ 04/16/09 ] "America is devolving into a third-world nation. And if we do not immediately halt our elite’s rapacious looting of the public treasury we will be left with trillions in debts, which can never be repaid, and widespread human misery which we will be helpless to ameliorate. Our anemic democracy will be replaced with a robust national police state. The elite will withdraw into heavily guarded gated communities where they will have access to security, goods and services that cannot be afforded by the rest of us. Tens of millions of people, brutally controlled, will live in perpetual poverty. This is the inevitable result of unchecked corporate capitalism. The stimulus and bailout plans are not about saving us. They are about saving them. We can resist, which means street protests, disruptions of the system and demonstrations, or become serfs ..."

ODD:  Hair Stylist Keeps Armed Robber as Sex Slave [ 04/16/09 ] "This Kaluga region incident is going to win some sort of Crime Watch award. She tied him to the radiator with handcuffs covered in frilly pink fabric, gave him some Viagra and had her way with him several times over the next 48 hours. When she finally let him go on the evening of March 16, Viktor had been "squeezed like a lemon," Life.ru reported. First, he went to the hospital to have his injured genitals treated; then he went to police and filed a complaint asking that Olga be brought up on criminal charges for committing "actions of a sexual nature" that left him with injured sexual organs, according to a copy of the complaint posted on Life.ru ..."

CA: Laborers Union takes bribes and kickbacks from members [ 04/15/09 ] "The Laborers International Union Local Union 304 takes bribes and kickbacks from members in exchange for work assignments, and when a member collected more than 100 signatures from union members who share his suspicions, it barred him from its union halls, Jose Lechuga claims in Federal Court."  (See legal document PDF ) Related: CA: Editors Sue New York Times in Gender Harassment Claim  Times and Press Democrat newspapers have been sued by two award-winning female editors who were allegedly lured away from other papers and then harassed by male editors who spread rumors about them.  (See legal document PDF )

TX: Border Patrol Agent Was a Smuggler [ 04/15/09 ] "A Texas-based Border Patrol agent pleaded guilty on Tuesday to trying to buy Tanzanian leopard tortoises and have them shipped to the United States in violation of federal law. Leopard tortoises are protected by international treaty."

NY: SEC Says Church Leaders Swindled Old People to Pay for High Life [ 04/15/09 ] "Seven leaders of a church in Queens, N.Y., defrauded elderly parishioners of more than $12 million by encouraging them to invest in hedge funds - then using the money to buy themselves a Bentley, jewelry and overseas trips, the SEC says in Brooklyn Federal Court. (See legal document PDF ) The SEC sued Isaac I. Ovid, Aaron Riddle, J. Jonathan Coleman, Stephen Cina, Cory A. Martin, Timothy Smith, and Robert J. Riddle, and the two entities they allegedly used to carry out the scheme: Jadis Capital Inc., hedge fund manager of the Logos Fund and the Donum Fund, and Jadis Capital's subsidiary, Jadis Investments LLC. SEC prosecutors say that the church leaders raised more than $12 million from more than 80 investors, mostly elderly parishioners, by promising returns as high as 75 percent. But as soon as the defendants received the money - from January to November 2005 - they bought luxury cars, jewelry, clothes, meals, and expensive foreign trips, says the SEC. They also allegedly paid operating expenses at Jadis Capital and Jadis Investments, built lavish offices, and old debts owed by Ovid. The SEC says the defendants lied about the amount of assets under management, the identity and skill of the portfolio managers, the level of supervision of the portfolio managers, and the registration status of the Donum Fund with the SEC. 

YouTube Is 'Doomed'  [ 04/15/09 ] "Believers would have us think that Google (GOOG) will sustain YouTube, indefinitely if necessary. Proponents of online advertising argue that increased understanding of the medium will lead to more advertising dollars at better CPMs, lifting all boats in a sea of monetization. In the short term, however, neither celebrity presidents, a rabidly growing customer base, nor a brand which has in three short years injected itself into the global cultural lexicon can forestall the inevitable: YouTube is soaring towards the future like a pigeon towards a plate glass window ..."

Port Authority paying Larry Silverstein $21.5 million for 'development' tips  [ 04/15/09 ] "The Port Authority is paying Larry Silverstein $21.5 million to develop the Freedom Tower - even though he has absolutely no role in building the 1,776-foot icon, the Daily News has learned...." Note: 'Justice' would see Silverstein and other 911 criminals hog-tied and left inside a building that is imploded when 911 survivors pull a switch! But ... no. There are many who wish him ill.

Pentagon looks to move battle against pirates ashore  [ 04/15/09 ] "As the Defense Department weighs options to prevent a repeat of the drama that unfolded on the seas this weekend, those who patrol the waters say pirates must be rooted out before they leave land. Pentagon planners are preparing a variety of options for dealing with Somali pirates, and a United Nations resolution gives them the authority to conduct operations inside Somalia ..."

US Loopholes Let Gun Smuggling To Mexican Drug Cartels Flourish  [ 04/15/09 ] "The federal system for tracking gun sales, crafted over the years to avoid infringements on Second Amendment rights, makes it difficult to quickly spot suspicious trends and to identify people buying for smugglers, law enforcement officials say. As a result, in some states along the Southwest border where firearms are lightly regulated, gun smugglers can evade detection for months or years. In Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, dealers can sell an unlimited number of rifles to anyone with a driver’s license and a clean criminal record without reporting the sales to the government. At gun shows in these states, there is even less regulation. Private sellers, unlike licensed dealers, are not obligated to record the buyer’s name, much less report the sale to the A.T.F." 

10 years later, the real story behind Columbine [ 04/15/09 ] "Their rampage put schools on alert for "enemies lists" made by troubled students, but the enemies on their list had graduated from Columbine a year earlier. Contrary to early reports, Harris and Klebold weren't on antidepressant medication and didn't target jocks, blacks or Christians, police now say, citing the killers' journals and witness accounts. That story about a student being shot in the head after she said she believed in God? Never happened, the FBI says now ..."

Strange Ironies: Bankrupt Lehman Brothers Sitting On Enough Uranium Cake To Make A Bomb  [ 04/15/09 ] "Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is sitting on enough uranium cake to make a nuclear bomb as it waits for prices of the commodity to rebound, according to traders and nuclear experts. The bankrupt bank, in the throes of paying off creditors, acquired uranium cake “under a matured commodities contract” and plans to sell it when the market improves “to realize the best prices,” Chief Executive Officer Bryan Marsal said. Lehman, once the fourth-largest investment bank, has an estimated $200 billion in unsecured liabilities left to pay. The uranium, which may be as much as 500,000 pounds, might fetch $20 million at today’s prices of about $40.50 per pound, said traders who asked not to be named because of the confidential nature of the data. Marsal said the traders’ estimate of Lehman’s uranium holding is “reasonable,” while declining to be more specific. Uranium has dropped for five straight months from $55 a pound on Dec. 1 on concerns that countries including China and India would delay nuclear power projects because of the global economic crisis, and because Lehman might dump its radioactive material on the market, the traders said. More than 43 million pounds of uranium-oxide concentrate, or yellowcake equivalent sold on the spot market last year, more than doubling the 2007 trading volume, according to Roswell, Georgia-based Ux Consulting Co ....."   Related: Ukraine Arrests Lawmaker, Businessmen For Trying To Sell Plutonium

Biden Won't Comment On State Secrets Law He Co-Sponsored [ 04/15/09 ] "The Vice President's office is declining to weigh in on a bill that would restrict use of the "state secrets privilege" by the Department of Justice, despite the fact that, as a senator, Joe Biden co-sponsored that very piece of legislation. "No comment on this from here," emailed Jay Carney, the vice president's communications director, when asked for Biden's position on a bill that would limit DOJ's ability to dismiss cases against government officials involved in warrantless wiretapping on grounds that sensitive information would be publicized. The silence from the Vice President's office comes as the White House, too, has refused to comment on the new version of the legislation, introduced by Sens. Patrick Leahy, Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold. The administration's general stance, as described by a White House official, has been that the DOJ "is reviewing the state secrets privilege to determine when it should be invoked" -- meaning that a new set of standards could be advocated by the Obama White House irrespective of Congress. Already, however, critics and observers are taking the president to task for resorting to a Bush administration-used policy that he himself had criticized on the campaign trail. The friction came to a head during the case Jewel v. NSA, in which the Obama Department of Justice argued that, "after careful consideration," it was determined that pursuing this case "could unavoidably put at risk the disclosure of sensitive information that would harm national security." Under the law introduced by Leahy, Kennedy and Feingold (and earlier, by Biden), the government could "intervene in any civil action in order to protect information that may be subject to the state secrets privilege." Authorities, however, could not use the state secrets privilege "for dismissal of a case or claim."

Protests Causing Scares, Evacuations At Congressional Offices [ 04/15/09 ] "A recent email to hundreds of thousands of conservatives exhorted them to "Send a Tea Bag to Washington, D.C. for $1." Other activists have organized local efforts to mail tea bags to the offices of their members of Congress. It's all part of the anti-Obama, anti-tax "tea party" movement, backed aggressively by corporate-funded "astroturf" organizations like FreedomWorks. But now one of their symbolic protests is drawing attention for the wrong reasons. Local reports indicate that the practice of mailing actual tea bags to legislators has repeatedly raised security concerns, and sometimes forced the evacuation of congressional offices in anthrax-like scares ..."

China housing prices could halve by 2011 [ 04/15/09 ] "A senior Chinese economist, Cao Jianhai, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Financial Times newspaper that the current rebound in the property market was unsustainable and driven by a flood of liquidity and fraudulent activity rather than real demand. He was cited as saying urban residential property prices would decline by 40% to 50% in the next two years from their levels at the end of 2008. However, he added that housing prices may not fall in the near term, but rather were likely to collapse next year, followed by many years of stagnation. Recently government investigations had turned up examples of fraud, including developers using fake mortgages to offload apartments onto the books of state-run banks. Many of these state-run banks are facing political pressure from Beijing to ramp up spending as part of the central government's plan to boost the economy." 

3-judge panel declares Franken winner [ 04/14/09 ] "A Minnesota court ruled Monday night that Democrat Al Franken has defeated Republican Norm Coleman and should be granted the election certificate that will allow him to take his seat in the U.S. Senate. The Coleman camp immediately vowed to appeal." Related: GOP Silent On Minnesota Senate Ruling "While the Democratic National Committee and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee released statements last night congratulating Al Franken and ratcheting up the pressure for Norm Coleman to bow out, we haven't heard a peep from national Republicans. Nothing yet from Michael Steele's RNC. Nothing from John Cornyn's NRSC. And we've yet to spot a post on yesterday's three-judge decision from prominent conservative blogs like Red State or National Review's The Corner. The silence is pretty deafening... National Review's The Corner posted a quick update on Minnesota: "The three-judge panel's unanimous decision hands the Senate election to Al Franken (D), but Norm Coleman (R) will appeal to the state Supreme Court. Later today, his legal team will hold a conference call with reporters."  Related: GOP Strategist:  Norm "Mr. Dentures" Coleman Risking Long-Term Damage | Norm Coleman is the real "Sore Loserman"   

U.S. May Drop Key Condition For Talks With Iran [ 04/14/09 ] "The Obama administration and its European allies are preparing proposals that would shift strategy toward Iran by dropping a longstanding American insistence that Tehran rapidly shut down nuclear facilities during the early phases of negotiations over its atomic program, according to officials involved in the discussions. The proposals, exchanged in confidential strategy sessions with European allies, would press Tehran to open up its nuclear program gradually to wide-ranging inspection. But the proposals would also allow Iran to continue enriching uranium for some period during the talks. That would be a sharp break from the approach taken by the Bush administration, which had demanded that Iran halt its enrichment activities, at least briefly to initiate negotiations ..." Related: Gates - Iran Attack Would Create Backlash

Guns, Drugs Seized From Homeland Security Officer   [ 04/14/09 ] "A Homeland Security employee at Orlando International Airport is in the Brevard County Detention Center on numerous drug trafficking and gun charges. Monroe was caught with 40 grams of cocaine, 65 grams of marijuana bagged for sale, a shotgun, two pistols, close to 100 rounds of ammunition and more than $6,000 in cash ..."

Germany to ban cultivation of Monsanto GMO maize   [ 04/14/09 ] "Germany will ban cultivation and sale of genetically modified (GMO) maize despite European Union rulings that the biotech grain is safe, its government said on Tuesday. The ban affects U.S. biotech company Monsanto's MON 810 maize which may no longer be sown for this summer's harvest, German Agriculture and Consumer Protection Minister Ilse Aigner told a news conference. The move puts Germany alongside France, Austria, Hungary, Greece and Luxembourg which have banned MON 810 maize despite its approval by the EU for commercial use throughout the bloc ..."

Secret Homeland Security Threat Assessment Labels Gun Owners Potential Terrorists  [ 04/14/09 ] "Department of Homeland Security intelligence assessment equates gun owners with violent terrorists and states that radical extremists are "stockpiling" weapons in fear of an Obama administration gun ban. This newly uncovered document is just the latest in a long sordid line of training manuals in which the federal government characterizes millions of American citizens as potentially violent terrorists who are a threat to law enforcement. The document is entitled Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment (PDF link) and was released just a few days ago. The paper is labeled Law Enforcement Sensitive and states, "No portion of the LES information should be released to the media, the general public, or over non-secure Internet servers. Release of this information could adversely affect or jeopardize investigative activities."

Federal Authority Over the Internet? The Cybersecurity Act of 2009  [ 04/14/09 ] "There's a new bill working its way through Congress that is cause for some alarm: the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (PDF summary here), introduced by Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). The bill as it exists now risks giving the federal government unprecedented power over the Internet without necessarily improving security in the ways that matter most. It should be opposed or radically amended. Essentially, the Act would federalize critical infrastructure security. Since many of our critical infrastructure systems (banks, telecommunications, energy) are in the hands of the private sector, the bill would create a major shift of power away from users and companies to the federal government. This is a potentially dangerous approach that favors the dramatic over the sober response. One proposed provision gives the President unfettered authority to shut down Internet traffic in an emergency and disconnect critical infrastructure systems on national security grounds goes too far. Certainly there are times when a network owner must block harmful traffic, but the bill gives no guidance on when or how the President could responsibly pull the kill switch on privately-owned and operated networks. Furthermore, the bill contains a particularly dangerous provision that could cripple privacy and security in one fell swoop ..."

  Religious police apologise for controversial kiss arrest  [ 04/14/09 ] "Saudi Arabia’s religious police have been forced to issue a rare apology after a member of one of the country’s most influential tribes said he was beaten by police for allegedly kissing his wife in public. Mohammed al Qahtani, of the Qahtan tribe – the largest in Saudi Arabia – had threatened to present his case to King Abdullah after the police spokesman issued a statement eight days ago accusing Mr al Qahtani of lying about the incident. Damaging the reputation of a tribal member in Saudi is considered an insult to the entire tribe, and releasing personal information of

Saudi Arabia:  Religious police apologise for controversial kiss arrest  [ 04/14/09 ] "Saudi Arabia’s religious police have been forced to issue a rare apology after a member of one of the country’s most influential tribes said he was beaten by police for allegedly kissing his wife in public. Mohammed al Qahtani, of the Qahtan tribe – the largest in Saudi Arabia – had threatened to present his case to King Abdullah after the police spokesman issued a statement eight days ago accusing Mr al Qahtani of lying about the incident. Damaging the reputation of a tribal member in Saudi is considered an insult to the entire tribe, and releasing personal information of those involved in the arrest is something rarely done by the religious police ..." Related: Fahad al-Ruwaily, Senior Al Qaeda Leader Surrenders "Saudi Arabia says a senior al-Qaida leader has returned to the country voluntarily and turned himself in. The Interior Ministry says Fahad al-Ruwaily was on a list of the kingdom's 85 most wanted militants living abroad. Ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki said he returned to Saudi Arabia Wednesday, but he refused to give more information. A news Web site close to the ministry said Thursday that al-Ruwaily was a key figure in al-Qaida training camps along Syria's border with Iraq. The Doaa Web site said he provided fighters with weapons and forged travel documents to help them enter Iraq from Syria. The Saudis appealed in February for 85 suspects to surrender, offering to reunite them with their families after rehabilitation." | Gaddafi Storms Out Of Arab Summit, Slams Saudi King For Pro-Americanism  

Iran Mulls Death Penalty For Offensive Bloggers  [ 04/14/09 ] "A new Al Jazeera English video reports that Iran is considering a law that would make "offensive" blogging punishable by death. The video notes an Amnesty International report claiming that 90 percent of all state-sanctioned execution in 2008 occurred in Iran, China or Saudi Arabia ..."  (Video) [2:11]

Colombian President Push To Outlaw Concept of Personal Drug Use  [ 04/14/09 ] "Sitting in the bedroom of her home in one of Bogotá's well-heeled neighborhoods, Alicia Fajardo takes a deep toke of a marijuana joint and exhales the thick smoke. With that breath, Fajardo is exercising a right granted her by Colombia's Constitutional Court. But it's a right that President Alvaro Uribe believes is wrong. The Colombian Congress this month will begin discussing a bill introduced by the government that would prohibit possession of any drug and would punish addicts and drug users with mandatory clinical treatment. The bill would overturn a 1994 Constitutional Court sentence which ruled that prohibiting the use of drugs violated the right to ''free development of personality'' set forth in Colombia's constitution. Since then, adults can possess up to 20 grams of marijuana and one gram of cocaine for consumption in the privacy of their homes ... Since he first began campaigning for president, Uribe vowed to outlaw possession of drugs but in more than six years as president he has failed to see the measure pass. He included the issue in a broad referendum in 2003, which was defeated. On four other occasions he has tried to push legislation through Congress outlawing possession, but all have failed ...."  Note: People have used personal drugs for 5,000 years in the current civilization. All this from a country that produced a scourge of cocaine that severely disrupted human society. One's own 'right' to 'free development of personality' would seemingly preclude an external 'law' in the first place. The sequentials are the true plague on this planet.

Secret Homeland Security Threat Assessment Labels Gun Owners Potential Terrorists  [ 04/14/09 ] " Department of Homeland Security intelligence assessment equates gun owners with violent terrorists and states that radical extremists are "stockpiling" weapons in fear of an Obama administration gun ban. This newly uncovered document is just the latest in a long sordid line of training

Mystery of what drives us to offer unconditional love is being unraveled [ 04/13/09 ] "The secrets of unconditional love, one of the most mysterious emotions, are being uncovered by scientists tracing the unique brain activity it creates. They have found that the emotion, experienced as a desire to care for another person without any thought of reward, emerges from a complex interplay between seven separate areas of the brain. Such brain activity has only limited overlap with the cerebral impulses seen in romantic or sexual love, suggesting it should be seen as an entirely separate emotion. Of the seven brain areas that became active, three were similar to those of romantic love. The others were different, suggesting a separate kind of love. Beauregard’s discoveries showed that some of the areas activated when experiencing unconditional love were also involved in releasing dopamine. This chemical is deeply involved in sensing pleasure, with rising levels strongly linked to feelings of reward and even euphoria. In a research paper in an academic journal, he said: “The rewarding nature of unconditional love facilitates the creation of strong emotional links.”  Sigh ... Of course, we know it is the individual who is behind this ... what happens in the brain is a result of the intent and will of the person.

ODD:  Passenger safely lands plane after pilot suffers fatal seizure  [ 04/13/09 ] | Man sells mold of Tiny Tim's teeth to accountant for $1,500 "The accountant who bought the mold plans to give it to friend Bucks Burnett, who produced a Tiny Tim album in 1996. "He's going to flip out," says the winning bidder." | Panhandler drowns after fighting with 81-year-old woman  "The guy put the woman in a headlock after she refused to hand over a buck. She fought back, though -- "I'm not a sissy," she says -- and the man ran into a lake and never came back up. (St. Petersburg Times)" | Neighbors say purple "Barney" house lowers their property values  "One neighbor plans to plant a weeping willow tree between his home and the purple building. "I need to somehow mask that house out of my view." (Peninsula Daily News)" | Dead goat found hanging from Harry Caray statue at Wrigley Field  "The goat was hanging on one of Harry Caray’s outstretched arms outside of the Chicago Cubs' ballpark. The incident is related to the 1945 "Billy Goat Curse" that was cast upon the ball team. (Chicago Sun-Times)" | Man burns down his house after his wife and son leave him  "After his $75,000 home was destroyed, the guy was found hiding in nearby woods. (Cincinnati Enquirer)"| Karate expert kills two over lice infection   "A Russian karate expert has been charged with beating to death a 61-year-old woman and her son, whom he accused of infecting his wife with lice. "He literally beat them to death with his hands and feet," Abdullin said. "The family were poor and drank a lot. He blamed them for infecting his wife and the entire corridor with lice. The suspect, who studied karate for seven years, faces life in prison if convicted. (Reuters)" | New England Man Gets Face Transplant In 17-Hour Procedure   "In one room, doctors removed the facial tissue of the donor, and in the next, they attached it to the recipient, who wishes to remain anonymous, according to the Boston Globe." | Dad of 14 jailed for owing more than $500,000 in child support   "He has fourteen children by 13 different women. "This guy gives fathers a bad name," says a court official. The 42-year-old man believes that only three of the children are actually his; the rest, he says, were born of women he may have slept with but who lied and claimed he was the father. (Flint Journal)" 

Contractor Must Pay in Iraq Fraud, Court Rules [ 04/13/09 ] "The appeals ruling, said Victor A. Kubli, a lawyer for the whistle-blowers, showed that the United States government’s operations abroad were not “free-fraud zones” for contractors ..."

Date With Destiny: Fort Lewis soldier accidentally killed by wife [ 04/13/09 ] "A Fort Lewis soldier died instantly early Sunday when his wife accidentally shot him in the head as he was teaching her how to handle a handgun...."   Will they ban wives?  Related: Giants Pitcher Struck in the Head By Line Drive

Spain: Indictment of Bush Officials May Come in Days [ 04/13/09 ] "The imminent indictment in Spanish courts of former officials of the Bush Administration is being applauded by civil and human rights organizations and legal scholars. The popular wave of support for indictment of Bush officials will inevitably lead to Bush himself ..."

Retired NYPD officer fires at wife, her friend in jealous rage before killing himself on Long Island [ 04/13/09 ] "A retired NYPD officer overcome with jealousy snapped Saturday in Long Island, opening fire on his wife and her male friend - both city cops - before killing himself, Suffolk County police said."

Despite a Crashing Economy, Private Prison Firm Turns a Handsome Profit [ 04/13/09 ] "While the nation’s economy flounders, business is booming for The GEO Group Inc., a private prison firm that is paid millions by the U.S. government to detain undocumented immigrants and other federal inmates. In the last year and a half, GEO announced plans to add a total of at least 3,925 new beds to immigration lockups in five locations. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and the U.S. Marshals Service, which hire the company, will fill the beds with inmates awaiting court and deportation proceedings. GEO reported impressive quarterly earnings of $20 million on February 12, 2009, along with an annual income of $61 million for 2008 – up from $38 million the year before. But the company’s share value is not the only thing that’s growing. Behind the financial success and expansion of the for-profit prison firm, there are increasing charges of negligence, civil rights violations, abuse and even death ..."

The dark religious side of Israel [ 04/13/09 ] "... We must admit that this society has rather dark religious aspects. Foreigners landing in Israel might ask themselves what country they're in: Iran, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia? In any case, it's not the liberal, secular and enlightened society it purports to be ..."  Related: Peres makes rare hint at possible strike on Iran "President Shimon Peres had some unusually aggressive words for Iran Sunday, seemingly threatening military action if US President Barack Obama's overtures to the Islamic republic fail to bear fruit."  Israeli Occupation Places Baby under House Arrest "In an arbitrary act that is probably the first of its kind in human history, the Israeli occupation forces placed one-year-old baby Fahd Shuqeir under house arrest for two years simply for being born in Damascus. The baby was born to parents from Majdal Shams who were studying in Damascus University, and upon their return to their hometown with their firstborn son, they were informed by the occupation forces of the decision to place the baby under house arrest."

UK: NHS can’t afford to keep on saving lives, says cancer expert [ 04/13/09 ] "One of Scotland's leading cancer specialists will tomorrow call on the public to confront the 'ultimate' NHS taboo: life cannot be "priceless" in a health system where cash is finite ..."  

EU Passes Controversial Internet Law [ 04/12/09 ] "Last week the EU updated its data retention laws to include the internet, and it's opened up considerable issues about the role of the internet in law enforcement and how far governments should be able to delve into the lives of private citizens to protect the mass population. Telephone systems both fixed and cellular have been monitored for years in many countries around the world, but governments are only really catching on to applying similar laws to the net. Under new laws, data will be kept by ISPs for an entire year. They'll collect information such as IP addresses, email information and web browsing history. What won't be collected is the actual content. For example, the government will be able to find out what IP sent an email, who it was sent to and when it was sent, but it won't be able to actually say what the email contained. Although the law itself was passed with little opposition, privacy groups have criticised the new law as being costly and impractical. They're not alone either. Even the president of the European Confederation of Police confirmed, reaffirmed, these doubts: "it remains easy for criminals to avoid detection through fairly simple means."- The result would be that a vast effort is made with little more effect on criminals and terrorists than to slightly irritate them ..."

U.S. Marshal first to be charged with leaking inside information to a criminal organization [ 04/12/09 ] "ABC Video report. Top Chicago Outfit bosses described a deputy with the U.S. Marshal service as the "Mob's Babysitter." The deputy goes to trial next week on charges that he provided sensitive witness information to the Outfit. When the court bailiff announces "United States versus John Thomas Ambrose" on Monday in a Chicago courtroom, history will be made. It will be the only time since George Washington swore in the first U.S. Marshals that a deputy has ever been charged with leaking inside information to a criminal organization."

Inventing the Terrorist Threat [ 04/12/09 ] "Virginia is for lovers, but there's a terrorist behind every dogwood. Or so you might gather from the "2009 Virginia Terrorism Threat Assessment" by the "Commonwealth of Virginia Department of State Police Virginia Fusion Center" which is part federal and therefore not Virginian and part private and therefore not commonwealth. The motto of the fusion center on the cover of the report reads "Scienta Est Potentia," but they forgot to add that a little bit of scienta can be dangerous."

Ex LAPD officer in Rampart scandal takes the 5th  [ 04/12/09 ] "One of the former police officers convicted in the Rampart corruption scandal said he will refuse to answer questions in a related upcoming lawsuit because he doesn't want to incriminate himself with more crimes ..."  Related: Police chief fired for using taser on wife

Iran’s ‘Outlawed’ Nuclear Program  [ 04/12/09 ] "A common refrain in the Western media is that Iran’s nuclear program is illegal, “outlawed”, or otherwise of a proscribed nature. This assertion is based on the fact that the U.N. Security Council passed a number of resolutions calling on Iran to halt its enrichment activities and imposing sanctions on the country for disinclining to acquiesce to the U.N. demand. The U.S. view, adopted elsewhere as well, is that the resolutions are binding and by failing to heed their demands Iran is in violation of international law ..."

The smooth criminal transition from Bush/Cheney to Obama  [ 04/12/09 ] "To sober, clear-eyed observers of history and political deception, the ascension of Barack Obama held the promise for unprecedented new dangers: a revitalized New World Order, led by the Anglo-American empire’s neoliberal criminal faction and an iconic, deceptive new facilitator; and a continuation of Bush/Cheney criminality and war, under smarter and much more effective management. Now, just months into their tenure, the Barack Obama administration has more than fulfilled the murderous promises he made to his elite constituency, deepening the mass destruction of Bush/Cheney, while charming its victims all over the world into enjoying their own demise ..."

CDC covered up Washington DC high levels of lead contamination  [ 04/11/09 ] " ... The health agency did not publicize the new findings or alert public health authorities in D.C. or other federal agencies that regulate lead, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or Housing and Urban Development ..."

LAPD Officer Shoots Himself, Blames Others  [ 04/11/09 ] "Anthony Razo, a 14-year veteran, pleaded guilty to insurance fraud for torching his car and filing a false report that he had been shot outside his home when he had wounded himself."  

Russian man survives five storey fall - twice  [ 04/11/09 ] "A Russian man survived after downing three bottles of vodka and leaping from a fifth floor balcony - twice. Alexei Roskov says he jumped the second time because he couldn't take his wife's nagging about the first time. Wife Yekaterina had watched in horror as her drunken hubsand opened the kitchen window of their Moscow apartment, and hurled himself out. Astonishingly Mr Roskov, 22, survived and managed to stagger back upstairs with barely a scratch after the 50ft fall. But while his wife called for an ambulance and began to scold him, he jumped again."

Gates Unveils Largest Military Budget in History to Support Endless series of Iraq-Afghan style Wars [ 04/10/09 ] "For all its pretensions of "change" and all the popular illusions attached to Obama’s supposed "anti-war" stance, the new administration is as committed to the ruthless pursuit of the interests of American imperialism as its discredited predecessor." Note: It's the sequential way, isn't it? They're all insane. If they devoted $680 Billion to the US infrastructure, jobs and helping people, it would be sane.

Western internet censorship: The beginning of the end or the end of the beginning?  [ 04/10/09 ] " ... As newspapers and other publications migrate to an exclusive life on the internet, such totalizing censorship systems are able to instantly snatch "pages" from the laps of citizens across an entire nation, interdicting communications between publisher and reader, and the new civil discourse between readers and each other. The scale, speed and potential impact of this centralized intervention has no historical precedent. Secret national censorship systems are dangerous and unaccountable. They are an afront to natural justice, due process and the balancing power of the fourth estate. They must be, and will be, stopped. The Australian Government has stated it plans to increase the size of its blacklist list by 10 fold, from roughly 1,200 blocked pages to over 10,000, although the plan is now seems unlikely to pass the Australian Senate after the revelations of the last month ..." 

Leaked Australian blacklist reveals banned sites  [ 04/10/09 ] "The Australian communications regulator's top-secret blacklist of banned websites has been leaked on to the web and paints a harrowing picture of Australia's forthcoming internet censorship regime. Wikileaks, an anonymous document repository for whistleblowers, obtained the list, which has been seen by this website, and plans to publish it for public consumption on its website imminently."  Related: Australian government secret ACMA internet censorship blacklist, 18 Mar 2009  |  A Blacklist for Websites Backfires in Australia 

Mobster accidentally shot by FBI gets $150,000  [ 04/10/09 ] "Federal court records filed Wednesday disclosed the amount to be received by Frankie A. Roche, whose attorney agreed to the settlement in February. Roche had initially sued the government for $10 million in 2007. Court records said the Massachusetts-based Roche pleaded guilty last year to a federal murder charge. He admits he was paid $10,000 to fatally shoot Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno in 2003. Bruno was the regional boss of the Genovese crime family. Roche is cooperating with prosecutors and will be in the witness protection program."

Dead mayor re-elected by US town  [ 04/10/09 ] "Voters in a small town in the US state of Missouri have re-elected their popular mayor to a fourth term, several weeks after he died of a heart attack. Harry Stonebraker died at the age of 69 in March - after ballot papers had been printed and absentee voting in the town of Winfield had begun. He won by a landslide, securing 90% of the vote in the 723-population town. Winfield will appoint a temporary mayor to serve until a special election is held in April 2010. Lincoln County Clerk Elaine Luck likened the outcome to Missouri's US Senate race in 2000, which was won by Democrat Mel Carnahan who had died in a plane crash weeks earlier. She said Harry Stonebraker was a popular mayor who had helped lead the community after flooding in 2008 damaged dozens of homes and large tracts of farmland. "I figured he'd win because he seemed to get even more popular after he died, just like Carnahan," she was quoted by the Associated Press as saying. Mr Stonebraker was a life-long resident of the Winfield area, some 50 miles (80km) north-west of St Louis. He was a retired construction superintendent who had nearly completed his third two-year term as mayor, AP said." 

FBI suspects link between truckers, serial killers  [ 04/10/09 ] "The FBI suspects that serial killers working as long-haul truckers are responsible for the slayings of hundreds of prostitutes, hitchhikers and stranded motorists whose bodies have been dumped near highways over the past three decades."

De Beers braced for turnover to fall  [ 04/10/09 ] "De Beers, the world’s biggest diamond miner, is planning for its turnover to halve this year, it emerged on Wednesday, in the latest sign of how the once-mighty group is struggling to cope with a downturn in an industry it no longer controls."

SoCal execs charged with bribing foreign officials  [ 04/10/09 ] "Six former executives of an Orange County-based valve company were charged Wednesday with bribing foreign officials with millions of dollars to obtain contracts ..."

ODD:  Drunk man tries to impress woman by "playing Rambo"  [ 04/10/09 ] "The guy was arrested after shooting arrows at neighboring residences in his townhome complex with a powerful bow. A complaint says Kyle Kenneth Fletcher, 30, appeared "extremely intoxicated" when questioned by police, as did his female friend. (St. Paul Pioneer Press)" |Woman kills son at shooting range, says 'god' ordered it "I'm so sorry," Marie Moore, 44, wrote in one note. "I had to send my son to heaven and myself to Hell." The dead man was 20. (Orlando Sentinel) "  |"Sex offender for life" jailed after flirting on Facebook "Former Christian school teacher Cynthia Horvath, 45, was told not to contact teens on the Internet because of her past flings with kids, but she went ahead and befriended teens on Facebook. She's been tossed in the slammer again. (Orlando Sentinel)" |Dad takes hammer to teen's phone after getting a $4,756 bill "The 13-year-old girl's parents thought texting had been disabled, so they were mighty surprised when they got their monthly phone bill for $4,756.25. "It just hit us like a rock, like you're stepping into a bus," says the dad. (Denver Post)" | Man says a stranger bit a chunk of flesh out of his arm "Then swallowed it. The man used a rake to fight off the guy, but the stranger still got a bite out of his arm. (New Orleans Times-Picayune)"| Distraught woman jumps, lands on teen relaxing in massage chair  "Mary Lovelace jumped 60 feet and fell onto 17-year-old Derrik Munoz, who was chatting with his girlfriend on a reclining, dollar bill-operated massage chair on the ground floor of a mall. Tenth-grader Derrik is OK; the jumper is dead. (New York Daily News)" | Laughing man prompts rescue bid  "A helicopter rescue team were scrambled after screams were heard in a German forest - only to find a man laughing his head off at a new book. A woman dialed 999 after she thought she could hear someone being tortured at the woodland near Elmstein, western Germany. But 'victim' Roland Hofmann was astonished when armed police surrounded his car which he had driven into the forest and ordered him to give himself up and release his hostage. He told police he had gone to the forest to read "in peace and quiet". "We realise that people think the sound of Germans laughing is unusual, but we're sure the caller meant well," said one officer." | UK: Sat nav gaffe nearly took driver over cliff  "A South Yorkshire motorist was charged with careless driving after he nearly followed his sat nav over the edge of a cliff." 

Ex-CIA operative tied to Cuba terrorist bombings  [ 04/09/09 ] "A federal grand jury has accused anti-Castro Cuban exile and former CIA operative Luis Posada Carriles of lying to U.S. authorities about his role in bomb attacks against tourist sites in Cuba in 1997. In an indictment filed against Posada by the grand jury in El Paso, Texas, on Wednesday, he is accused of seeking to "obstruct and impede" the work of the U.S. government by lying during an immigration interview about his role in the attacks. An Italian man was killed in the 1997 bomb blasts in Cuba in a case the indictment highlights as an "offense involving international terrorism."

California's anti-tax crusaders talk revolt [ 04/09/09 ] "Taking inspiration from a landmark 1970s tax revolt, a determined group of activists say the moment is right for another voter uprising in California, where recession-battered residents have been hit with the highest income and sales tax rates in the nation. And like Proposition 13, the 1978 ballot measure that transformed the state's political landscape and ignited tax-reform movements nationwide, they see the next backlash coming not from either major political party, but from the people."

Keith Olbermann's scathing criticism of Obama's secrecy/immunity claims [ 04/09/09 ] "Salon has two great videos you should watch. It appears Obama is no fan of civil liberties."  

UK: Policeman convicted over school crash death [ 04/09/09 ] "A traffic officer who drove his patrol car at 94mph without blue lights or sirens moments before knocking down and killing a schoolgirl was convicted today of causing death by dangerous driving."

Gun Permits: What The Latest Mass Killings Have In Common [ 04/08/09 ] "Nearly every gunman in this monthlong series of mass killings was legally entitled to fire his weapons ... Despite eight rampages that have claimed 57 lives since March 10, "it hasn't sparked any national goal to deal with this epidemic. In fact, it's going the other way," said Scott Vogel of the Freedom States Alliance, a gun control activist group. Even President Barack Obama has felt that sway. Last month, 65 House Democrats said they would block any attempt to resurrect an expired federal ban against assault weapons ... Kansas plans to put a measure on its 2010 ballot that would rewrite the state constitution to make gun ownership a personal, rather than collective, right. In Tennessee, lawmakers made progress this month toward allowing guns to be carried in state and local parks ..."

Army Psychologists Under Pressure to Hide Troop Problems [ 04/08/09 ] "... I and other [doctors] are under a lot of pressure to not diagnose PTSD. It's not fair. I think it's a horrible way to treat soldiers, but unfortunately, you know, now the V.A. is jumping on board, saying, 'Well, these people don't have PTSD,' and stuff like that ... McNinch told Salon that the pressure to misdiagnose came from the former head of Fort Carson's Department of Behavioral Health. That colonel, an Army psychiatrist, is now at Fort Lewis in Washington state. "This was pressure that the commander of my Department of Behavioral Health put on me at that time," he said. Since McNinch is a civilian employed by the Army, the colonel could not order him to give a specific, lesser diagnosis to soldiers. Instead, McNinch said, the colonel would "refuse to concur with me, or argue with me, or berate me" when McNinch diagnosed soldiers with PTSD. "It is just very difficult being a civilian in a military setting ...""

Obama Passover Seder: First Ever Held At White House [ 04/08/09 ]  This has been coming for a long time. Church and State violation, albeit with a foreign power in cahoots illegally getting funds and having influence over the United States government.

Global Economic Collapse Means Boom Times for Criminal Syndicates By Michael T. Klare [ 04/08/09 ] "In all catastrophes, there are always winners among the host of losers and victims. Bad times, like good ones, generate profits for someone. In the case of the present global economic meltdown, with our world at the brink and up to 50 million people potentially losing their jobs by the end of this year, one winner is likely to be criminal activity and crime syndicates. From Mexico to Africa, Russia to China, the pool of the desperate and the bribable is expanding exponentially, pointing to a sharp upturn in global crime. As illicit profits rise, so will violence in the turf wars among competing crime syndicates and in the desperate efforts by panicked governments to put a clamp on criminal activity ..."

ODD:  Dad robs couple at gunpoint to get money for diapers  [ 04/08/09 ] "The move, which apes a comedy convenience store diaper heist in the 1987 movie "Raising Arizona," landed a 21-year-old man in the clink." (Southtown Star) |Man topples Moses statue, threatens to throw acid at artwork "The 42-year-old man knocked over a plaster of Paris cast replica of Michelangelo’s famous marble sculpture of Moses in anger after contesting a 20-year-old speeding ticket that kept him from getting his driver’s license renewed. (Worcester Telegram & Gazette)" Note: The whole issue of a 20 year old ticket is ludicrous enough ...

Vermont Legalizes Gay Marriage, Overrides Governor's Veto [ 04/08/09 ] "Vermont, the state that invented civil unions, on Tuesday became a pioneer once again as the first state to legalize gay marriage through a legislature's vote. The House barely achieved the votes necessary to override Gov. Jim Douglas' veto of a bill that will allow gays and lesbians to marry beginning September 1. Four states now have same-sex marriage laws and other states soon could follow suit ..."

Twenty-four indicted in San Diego in real estate fraud [ 04/08/09 ] "Two dozen people have been charged with racketeering in a fraudulent mortgage scheme allegedly run by a street gang member, according to an indictment unsealed in San Diego federal court today. The group allegedly profited from loans arranged for amounts in excess of the price of the housing, among other tactics. The homes quickly went into foreclosure, according to the indictment ..."

Lew Rockwell: Government Based on Coercion Cannot Be Tamed   [ 04/08/09 ] "The U.S. federal government is on a course of self-destruction. People of many political persuasions know this. People who are against coercive government know this. People who favor coercive government know this. People who do not mind if the federal government self-destructs know this, and people who want to save the federal government know this. From a scientific viewpoint, one of the interesting aspects of a government that is self-destructing is that the process cannot be stopped, even when people who want to stop it, try. Government based on coercion cannot be tamed. It keeps on running until the clock stops ticking and the bomb goes off ..."

NY Gunman Blames Police In Purported Letter  [ 04/07/09 ] "The man who gunned down 13 people in an immigrant center thought police had harassed him for years, even spreading rumors about him and touching him in his sleep, and apparently was intent on killing people before returning "to the dust of the earth," according to a rambling letter in broken English mailed to a TV station the day of the massacre."

Bob Dylan On Obama: "He's Like A Fictional Character" [ 04/07/09 ] "As the campaign for the American presidency went on last June, Bob Dylan lent his support to Barack Obama, telling The Times that his candidacy was "redefining the nature of politics". But in an interview to be published on Dylan's website today, the hero of 1960s counterculture seems to have cooled on the prospects of the recently elected American leader.... "He’s got an interesting background. He’s like a fictional character, but he’s real. First off, his mother was a Kansas girl. Never lived in Kansas though, but with deep roots. You know, like Kansas bloody Kansas. John Brown the insurrectionist. Jesse James and Quantrill. Bushwhackers, Guerillas. Wizard of Oz Kansas. I think Barack has Jefferson Davis back there in his ancestry someplace. And then his father. An African intellectual. Bantu, Masai, Griot type heritage - cattle raiders, lion killers. I mean it’s just so incongruous that these two people would meet and fall in love. You kind of get past that though. And then you’re into his story. Like an odyssey except in reverse ..."

IDF planning largest-ever drill to prepare Israel for war [ 04/07/09 ] "The Home Front Command is preparing to hold the largest exercise ever in Israeli history, scheduled to take place in about two months, in hopes of priming the populace and raising awareness of the possibility of war breaking out." Related: IDF Officer, Soldier Indicted Assaulting Palestinians

US 'anger' at Israeli weapons sale to China  [ 04/07/09 ] "A statement from the Israeli defence ministry said arms exports to China were being clarified with US officials in what it called a good spirit. The statement followed Israeli reports that the sale of a sensitive weapons system to China had angered Washington. This "sensitive" weapons system was nuclear in nature (see article), and together with this article proves that the United States KNOWS Israel is trafficking in nuclear weapons technology, which means the US Government KNOWS it is in violation of the 1976 Symington amendment regarding foreign aid to nations that refuse to sign the NNPT." Related: (2004) Israel secretly sells American nuclear weapons to China | U.S. Senate moves to illegally fund  Israeli aid   

India to cut off 30 million mobile phones to preclude possible 'terrorist phone calls' [ 04/07/09 ] "India is to disconnect more than 30 million Chinese-made mobile phones amid concerns that the devices could be used by terrorists ...Connections will be terminated at the end of this month, immediately stripping out an estimated eight per cent of India's 375 million mobile phone users. India's mobile phone rolls are growing by around 12 million per month. Unlike mainstream manufacturers, many cheap Chinese handsets on sale in India have no International Mobile Equipment Identity IMEI) code, which means neither ownership nor the user's position can be traced when it is switched on ..."

Barack Obama goes ahead with missile defence shield despite disarmament pledge [ 04/07/09 ] "The United States would continue to develop a missile defence shield until Iran abandoned its nuclear ambitions, President Barack Obama said in the Czech Republic."  Note: Another play against the Russians.  Related: America 'to slash military spending'  "Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, will on Monday offer proposals to slash spending on major military projects in what aides called a "fundamental shift in direction".  

PA: Narcotics officers rob stores - caught by hidden hard drive  [ 04/07/09 ] " ... What the officers didn't count on was that Duran's high-tech video system had a hidden backup hard-drive. The backup downloaded the footage to his private Web site before the wires were cut. Although Duran has no video of the alleged looting, he has a 10-minute video that shows the officers using a bread knife, pliers, milk crates and their hands to disable the surveillance system. ... The officers also confiscated cash from the stores - a routine practice in drug raids - but didn't record the full amount on police property receipts, the shop owners allege. Six more store owners or workers, including Duran, contacted the Daily News after the March 20 article. All six described similar ordeals involving destroyed cameras and missing money and merchandise. The officers arrested the stores' owners for selling tiny bags, which police consider drug paraphernalia. Under state law, it's illegal to sell containers if the store owner "knows or should reasonably know" that the buyer intends to use them to package drugs."  Since it's impossible for anyone to read minds, the law is unenforceable.  

“Queen Elizabeth II the largest landowner on Earth”  [ 04/06/09 ] "Queen Elizabeth II, head of state of the United Kingdom and of 31 other states and territories, is the legal owner of about 6,600 million acres of land, one sixth of the earth’s non ocean surface. She is the only person on earth who owns whole countries, and who owns countries that are not her own domestic territory. This land ownership is separate from her role as head of state and is different from other monarchies where no such claim is made – Norway, Belgium, Denmark etc. The value of her land holding. £17,600,000,000,000 (approx). This makes her the richest individual on earth. However, there is no way easily to value her real estate. There is no current market in the land of entire countries. At a rough estimate of $5,000 an acre, and based on the sale of Alaska to the USA by the Tsar, and of Louisiana to the USA by France, the Queen’s land holding is worth a notional $33,000,000,000,000 (Thirty three trillion dollars or about £17,600,000,000,000). Her holding is based on the laws of the countries she owns and her land title is valid in all the countries she owns. Her main holdings are Canada, the 2nd largest country on earth, with 2,467 million acres, Australia, the 7th largest country on earth with 1,900 million acres, the Papua New Guinea with114 million acres, New Zealand with 66 million acres and the UK with 60 million acres ..."

California's Unethical Drive to Milk Freelance Contractors  [ 04/06/09 ] " The letters, sent in March, were follow-ups to people who have worked as independent contractors but missed a Feb. 28 deadline for registering their businesses with the city's tax and permit division ... Seemingly assuming the best about these freelancers' businesses, the city calculated an "estimated assessment" - one based on $200,000 in gross income for each of the past three years. That figure reflects the annual average for city business taxes. The city then added interest and late penalties and came up with the $4,000-plus demand. Never mind that, in some cases, the letters' recipients are people whose income from one or two freelance gigs amounts to less than the tax requested. Or that the letters might rattle more people than usual in a year when many laid-off employees work as independent contractors or scramble to pick up odd jobs.  ....About 33,000 of the notifications were mailed over a two-week period to individuals, partnerships and corporations ... the letters stem from a program begun in 2002 to identify unregistered businesses, using records disclosed to the city by the California Franchise Tax Board. She said it has added about 100,000 businesses to the city tax rolls, and $107 million in revenue has been collected. Because the tax board doesn't pass along residents' incomes, the city asks them to report those figures and uses the $200,000 estimate if they don't .... "Every government agency is trying to generate as much revenue as possible since the tax base has shrunk (in the recession) ... and reporting requirements (between government agencies) are tighter." 

Israeli economy hurt by boycott  [ 04/06/09 ] "Israeli exporters have been forced to cut prices in part because of a worldwide boycott of Israeli products in protest against Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, a leading industry association reported this week. Israeli exporters have been “losing foreign markets and customers because of the global economic crisis and a growing anti-Israel boycott of locally made products following [the recent assault on Gaza]”. The findings were made available by the Israel Manufacturers Association on March 29 and published in the Jerusalem Post the following day. According to the report, 21% of Israeli exporters face difficulties selling abroad, particularly to Britain and Scandinavian countries. The boycott and the financial crisis were cited as the issues behind a forced price cut of 66% to Israeli exporters. The report emerged as boycott campaigners announced that they are stepping up their efforts in Palestine and internationally. On March 30 in Ramallah, a press conference was held by the Palestinian National Boycott Committee (BNC) urged local and international parties to continue their boycott actions. They called the boycott a “tool to realise long-denied Palestinian national rights”.  Related:  Depressive crisis now haunting the Israeli economy "The main challenge facing the new right-wing government in Israel is not going to be the moribund peace process with the Palestinians, but rather the depressive crisis now haunting the Israeli economy. Some economists label the current crisis as the “harshest in Israel’s history.” Manifestations of the present deepening crises includes decreasing exports, mainly due to the world-wide recession, growing insolvency and bankruptcy, rampant unemployment, shrinking investments and huge losses incurred by both the public and private sectors. Added to this is what one Israeli economist called “widespread pessimism” throughout the Israeli economic organs due to the international financial crisis ..."

Moderate Taliban leader warns Barack Obama's plan will make Afghanistan worse [ 04/06/09 ] "NATO's planned troop surge to Afghanistan will lead to an escalation in fighting and jeopardise secretive peace moves, a senior Taliban moderate has warned. In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mullah Abdul Salem Zaeef said the surge of mainly American troop reinforcements would only deepen the country's problems and was likely to act as a magnet to foreign fighters. His comments appeared to dent hopes that President Barack Obama's strategy could produce rapid progress towards peace in Afghanistan."

Montana Poised to Buck Federal Gun Control [ 04/06/09 ] "We'd like to just be able to make our own guns here in Montana and have the feds stay out of it," said Gary Marbut of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, which helped draft the bill."  Related: New laws on minds of gun owners 

Is The End Near For Free Thinking On The Internet?  [ 04/06/09 ] "A pair of articles posted within the past 24 hours raises disturbing questions regarding free speech as we know it on the Internet as well as 2nd Amendment rights ..." 

WA: 5 children, father die in murder-suicide [ 04/06/09 ] "A father apparently shot to death five of his children, ages 7 to 16, at their mobile home and then killed himself near a casino miles away, police in Washington state said Saturday. Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriff, called it a domestic violence situation and a murder-suicide ...Dozens of investigators were on the scene trying to reconstruct the crime and discover a motive."

University maths test 'impossible to solve' [ 04/05/09 ] "A maths test presented to students at the prestigious Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm contained a series of errors. Despite the errors the students will not be able to re-take their exam. ..." 

Fainting in This Country Can Carry a $10,000 Price Tag [ 04/05/09 ] "There's really no good time or place for a blackout, though some are significantly worse than others. Mine, one subzero evening in downtown St. Paul, Minn., last December, fell solidly on the inauspicious side of the spectrum ..."

Calif woman gets 6 years for fatal texting crash [ 04/05/09 ] "A woman who crashed into a line of stopped vehicles while text-messaging on her cell phone has been sentenced to six years in a California prison for killing a woman in one of the vehicles. Deborah Matis-Engle was sentenced Friday by a judge in Redding, Calif." 

Gitmo Lawyer Facing Six Months in Prison For Writing Letter Detailing Torture of Client [ 04/05/09 ] "Lawyers for Binyam Mohamed face the incredible prospect of a six-month jail sentence in America after writing a letter to President Obama detailing their client's allegations of torture by U.S. agents. The privilege review team -- officials from the U.S. Department of Defense who monitor and censor communication between Guantánamo prisoners and their lawyers -- have previously been accused of using their powers to suppress evidence of the abuse and mistreatment of detainees ..."

Aircraft Carriers Are (Expensive) Defenseless Sitting Ducks [ 04/05/09 ] "Every single change in technology in the past 50 years has had "Stop building carriers!" written all over it. But the Navy paid no attention." 

Israel is brutalizing international law and changing rules of war [ 04/04/09 ] "The extent of Israel’s brutality against Palestinian civilians in its 22-day pounding of the Gaza Strip is gradually surfacing. Israeli soldiers are testifying to lax rules of engagement tantamount to a license to kill. One soldier commented: "That’s what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn’t have to be with a weapon, you don’t have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him." Since 2001, Israeli military lawyers have pushed to re-classify military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from the law enforcement model mandated by the law of occupation to one of armed conflict. Under the former, soldiers of an occupying army must arrest, rather than kill, opponents, and generally must use the minimum force necessary to quell disturbances. While in armed conflict, a military is still constrained by the laws of war - including the duty to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and the duty to avoid attacks causing disproportionate harm to civilian persons or objects - the standard permits far greater uses of force ..."

Democrats Duck Bush Torture Probe  [ 04/04/09 ] "Despite now overwhelming evidence that ex-President George W. Bush and many top aides engaged in a systematic policy of illegal torture, national Democrats appear to be shying away from their recommendation last year for a special prosecutor to investigate these apparent war crimes ..."

NY Gunman Angry Over Poor English Skills, Job Loss [ 04/04/09 ] "Jiverly Wong was upset over losing his job at a vacuum plant, didn't like people picking on him for his limited English and once angrily told a co-worker, "America sucks." Police and Wong's acquaintances portrayed him as an angry, troubled 41-year-old man who struggled with drugs and job loss and perhaps blamed his adopted country for his troubles. His rampage "was not a surprise" to those who knew him, Zikuski said."

UN to hush up report on Israel conduct? [ 04/04/09 ] "UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon may not release the findings of a report he ordered into the Israeli war on Gaza, Press TV has learned. On Thursday, a spokesperson for Ban cast doubt on whether a report ordered into the three weeks of Israeli military operations in Gaza was meant for public use. "No. As I said, (the secretary general) is going to first examine the report and decide what to do about it then. This is a report directed to him," said spokeswoman Michele Montas, answering a question posed by a Press TV correspondent." [ Ban must be compromised in some way.]

ODD:  Man who escaped from prison just wanted to see his pen-pal  [ 04/04/09 ] ""I actually wasn't trying to escape," the 41-year-old inmate told a newspaper reporter. "I was going to set it up so I could run up to the highway, meet a girl, spend about 15, 20 minutes with her, come back. I stepped into a mud bog, it took me about 20 minutes to get out of that and I realized I was an escape." (Orlando Sentinel) |  SUV driver bites bicyclist's ear off during dispute over speeding "The driver hit the bicyclist in the face, then "took him to the ground, where he struck him some more with his hands, then bit off his ear," says a police report. "[The victim] stated the man then got up and spit his ear out at him," and drove away in his SUV." | Germany: Thief nabbed with 68 tubes of toothpaste  "Noticing his bulging jacket, a store worker grabbed the man when he refused to stop and the tubes of toothpaste spilled all over the floor, police said. The thief struck the woman in the face and ran out." | "High Unemployment Means The Worst Is Over" (Except for the Unemployed) " Economists are predicting that the jobless rate as of March will be around 8.5%, a new 25 year high. But the good news is that, according to David Jones of DMJ Advisors, "It almost can't get any worse." It is believed that companies have been laying off workers due to banks refusing to loan money to preserve their own capital. The experts believe that this practice should be coming to an end soon and will allow employers to have added flexibility."  

Oil to be moved from huge tanks near Alaskan volcano  [ 04/04/09 ] "The Mount Redoubt volcano started erupting on March 22, shooting ash up to 65,000 feet in air, dusting parts of the state and stopping air traffic in the area. Officials will remove oil from two massive storage tanks near the base of erupting Mount Redoubt in Alaska, a spokesman said Friday. Coast Guard Officer Sara Francis said the oil is being reduced to protect against "the potential threat by the volcanic activity" and the potential effect on the environment near the storage locations. Francis said the workers will remove about 75 percent of the 6.3 million gallons of oil in the tanks. Workers may also work on other facilities upstream, Francis said."

Legislation Introduced To Curtail Patriot Act Abuse [ 04/03/09 ] "Congressmen Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) introduced legislation today to narrow the overbroad subpoena power in the National Security Letter (NSL) provision of the Patriot Act. The bipartisan bill, National Security Letters Reform Act of 2009, aims to curb rampant abuse of that power by federal law enforcement following the expansion of the Patriot Act and was introduced with 17 cosponsors. NSLs are secret subpoenas used to demand personal customer records from Internet Service Providers, financial institutions and credit companies without prior court approval ..."

US reconciliation offer lunatic idea, say Taliban [ 04/03/09 ] "Taliban rejected on Wednesday a US offer of “honourable reconciliation” as a “lunatic idea” and said the withdrawal of foreign troops was the only way to end the war in Afghanistan."  Related: U.S. Weighs Putting 70,000 Troops in Afghanistan 

National Lawyers Guild: Israel Violated International Law, US Domestic Law in Gaza [ 04/03/09 ] "Israel violated international law by targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, misusing weapons, deliberately denying medical care to the wounded and attacking medical personnel, the National Lawyers Guild Delegation to Gaza said today upon releasing a 37 page report containing new evidence on the facts surrounding Israel’s 22 day military offensive in Gaza ..." 

Gates: 'Israel unlikely to attack Iran this year' [ 04/02/09 ] "U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Financial Times on Wednesday that Israel is unlikely to launch military operations against Iranian nuclear installations this year in a bid to derail the Islamic regime's drive to attain atomic weapons. "I guess I would say I would be surprised if they did act this year," Gates told the Financial Times."   Note: Yes, he will be 'surprised'.

Plan to seize control of Turks and Caicos approved by British MPs  [ 04/02/09 ] "An influential group of MPs supported the Government's proposal yesterday to seize control of a group of Caribbean islands, despite angry claims in the region of a return to colonialism. The Commons Foreign Affairs Committee welcomed the plan for a British governor to take over the running of the Turks and Caicos Islands after an investigation into political corruption. Evidence of a high probability of systemic corruption or other serious dishonesty involving present and past politicians on the islands, a British Overseas Territory, has been claimed by an interim report of the investigation. A final decision on taking over the running of the islands will be taken after Sir Robin Auld, a former Lord Justice of Appeal, hands over his full report by the end of this month ..."

Israel FM rejects Annapolis deal  [ 04/02/09 ] "Israel's new ultra-nationalist foreign minister has said it is not bound by a US-sponsored 2007 agreement to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians. "The Annapolis conference, it has no validity," Avigdor Lieberman said."   Note: Israel wonders why the world never trusts their promises. Avigdor Lieberman's dismissal of the Annapolis conference declaration could swiftly steer Israel and Netanyahu onto a collision course with U.S. President Barack Obama, who last week reaffirmed Washington's commitment to Palestinian statehood.  Related: Israeli police question FM Lieberman "Israeli police questioned Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman under caution for over seven hours Thursday on suspicion of bribery and money laundering, a police spokesman said. Ultranationalist Lieberman, who has denied any wrongdoing, became Israel's foreign minister Tuesday. His anti-Arab rhetoric has alarmed Palestinians and Arab leaders in the region. "Avigdor Lieberman was questioned under caution by police today for seven-and-a-half hours on suspicion of carrying out the following: bribery, money laundering and breach of trust," said the police spokesman, Micky Rosenfeld."

Report: Chinese Develop Special "Kill Weapon" to Destroy U.S. Aircraft Carriers  [ 04/02/09 ] "With tensions already rising due to the Chinese navy becoming more aggressive in asserting its territorial claims in the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy seems to have yet another reason to be deeply concerned. After years of conjecture, details have begun to emerge of a "kill weapon" developed by the Chinese to target and destroy U.S. aircraft carriers. First posted on a Chinese blog viewed as credible by military analysts and then translated by the naval affairs blog Information Dissemination, a recent report provides a description of an anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM) that can strike carriers and other U.S. vessels at a range of 2000km." 

Irony: PETA Killed 95% Adoptable Pets In Its Care In 2008  [ 04/02/09 ] The nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) published documents online showing that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) killed 95 percent of the adoptable pets in its care during 2008. Despite years of public outrage over its euthanasia program, the animal rights group kills an average of 5.8 pets every day at its Norfolk, VA headquarters ..."  Note: The 'holier than thou' attitude, no matter which dynamic it involves ... always seems to have a hypocritical or ironic aspect underneath. All this, aside from the 'life is sacred' thing.

Michelle Obama Breaks Protocol, Touches Queen  [ 04/02/09 ]  Now she's up for being a pod person. Sssssssssss. Ha! She 'hugged' the Queen. Who hugs queens? Don't answer that.

UK: Novel Legal Concept - "Theft By Finding"  [ 04/02/09 ] "A college student who found a mobile phone while out celebrating his 18th birthday was arrested after handing it in to police. Teenager Paul Leicester was arrested for 'theft by finding' and detained for four hours. The Southport College A-level student eventually had the case against him withdrawn but said it was a 'shocking experience' .... The teenager was kept by Merseyside Police in Southport police station for four hours and had his fingerprints taken, along with a DNA swab and a photo for police records. Officers then grilled him for 15 minutes about the alleged 'theft' ... A police spokesman explained the complaint of theft was subsequently withdrawn and Paul was released without charge. Sefton Area Commander, Chief Supt Ian Pilling, said: 'Merseyside Police has contacted Mr Leicester in relation to the incident and he does not wish to make a complaint against the police. As a matter of course we are reviewing the circumstances of the arrest."

ADL slams archbishop who said more Catholics than Jews died in Holocaust  [ 04/02/09 ] "The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) [one guy, Abe Foxman] has condemned the words of a Brazilian Catholic Archbishop who suggested in a magazine interview that "more Catholics than Jews have died in the Holocaust, but this is usually not told because Jews own the world's propaganda."

UK: 'neighbour from hell' commits suicide by blowing up home minutes before eviction  [ 04/02/09 ] "Wheelchair user Donald Joyce, 58, had been ordered to leave his two-bedroom bungalow after a campaign of harassment against neighbours during which he blocked access to their homes, filmed them through windows, and shouted abuse. Bailiffs were due to remove him at 10.30am yesterday but at 9.45 a series of explosions blew apart the building in Cherry Hinton, Cambridge, and it burned to the ground ."  

Obama Going To Moscow In July : US, Russia Pledge To Reduce Nuclear Arms  [ 04/01/09 ] "The United States and Russia committed Wednesday to resetting strained relations, as presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev issued sweeping statements on global cooperation, including a headline-grabbing agreement to quickly negotiate a new treaty to limit nuclear weapons. As they sat down for their first face-to-face meeting, Obama and Medvedev declared in their joint statements that the "era when our countries viewed each other as enemies is long over." Obama and Medvedev made it clear that progress on a new arms-reduction deal must be made by the time of the U.S. president's planned visit to Moscow in July, the officials said. Both sides recognize that negotiating a new treaty will be difficult, with many thorny issues to resolve. Both men directed their negotiating teams to finish the task of setting broad outlines for a treaty to replace START by the end of July. That conceivably would leave time to get the new treaty approved in the U.S. Senate by the December expiration of the current agreement. But arms control experts say December is not a hard deadline so long as there is progress ..." 

US Senators: Cuba Travel Ban To Be Lifted [ 04/01/09 ] "A bipartisan group of senators predicted Tuesday that Congress was ready to pass legislation to allow all Americans to travel to Cuba. Removing the travel ban would produce a burst of tourism, create thousands of jobs and generate as much as $1.6 billion in business a year, an independent research group said."

Minneapolis cops planted pistol on teen after they gunned him down [ 04/01/09 ] "The handgun found near a teenager shot and killed by a Minneapolis police officer in 2006 could not have been carried by the teen, new court documents allege: It had last been in possession of police before it was found next to the body of Fong Lee."

Netanyahu to Obama: Stop Iran—Or I Will [ 04/01/09 ] "In unusually blunt language, Netanyahu said of the Iranian leadership, “You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran.”  Note: I seem to remember that on 3/27/09, in special articles, we feature The Samson Option: Israel's Own 'Final Solution' detailing people in Israel who essentially constitute a messianic apocalyptic cult which also controls atomic bombs, who would sacrifice the people of Israel, which would be no different than that which is in the mind of Netanyahu.

Bill would limit ‘overboard’ Patriot Act subpoena power  [ 04/01/09 ] "A bipartisan bill introduced to Congress on Monday aims to curtail “overboard” subpoena power given to federal authorities by the Patriot Act."

US, Iranian Diplomats Break The Ice [ 04/01/09 ] "In the first high-level talks between the countries in many years, senior U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke briefly met with Iran's deputy foreign minister Tuesday at an international conference on Afghanistan. The rare diplomatic approach was the first official face-to-face interplay between the Obama administration and the Iranian regime. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton cautioned that the talks between Holbrooke and Iranian diplomat Mehdi Akhundzadeh were promising but not "substantive." 

Russia: No 'violent solution' possible on Iran [ 04/01/09 ] "Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says there can be no "violent solution" to Western concerns about Iran's nuclear activities. In an interview with the Financial Times published on Thursday, Lavrov reiterated his country's opposition to the use of force against Iran to halt nuclear activities conducted by the country. The US, Israel and their European allies -- Britain, France and Germany -- accuse the country of pursuing military goals. Israel has long advocated a military option to halt Iranian enrichment activities. Iran, however, denies the allegation that it is seeks to build a bomb and argues that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) -- to which it is a signatory -- grants it the right to a domestic, civilian nuclear industry. "I certainly believe there is no violent solution to this problem," he said, describing President Barack Obama's offer of better ties with Iran as a "very welcome step". Obama promised "new beginnings" with Iran in an unprecedented Nowruz message that heaped praise around the world. The top Russian diplomat also called Iran as Russia's "historic neighbor, historic partner". Lavrov had on Saturday rejected claims that Iran is developing its nuclear program with the aim of making a bomb. "There is no proof that Iran even has decided to make a bomb. The West should respect and reach out to the Islamic Republic," he told the Brussels Forum conference. Lavrov said that the UN nuclear watchdog is the best-placed international body to monitor Iran's nuclear activities and decide whether the country might try to covertly develop a weapon under the guise of peaceful work."