MPG'S DAILY RAPSHEET AND BLOTTER  ON THE "GREAT GAME"  --  05-20-09  to 05-26-09 -- links page

@ www.reficultnias.org
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Editor's note : From now on each weekly blog page will have several items culled from the past called  "9/11 - From The History File" : It's for those who didn't know, and also for those who forgot....or are trying to forget.

Editor's note - War Update, War Alert, War Warning, Red War Warning and War Imminent - refer to articles regarding the upcoming war with Iran.  In the order they appear as shown above, they  represent less serious to more serious possible threats of war. - mpg

As of 08-08-08 a new category of war warning will be included, the above warnings will have the prefix (WWIII) added to them to indicate the possible outbreak of greater hostilities. - mpg
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Tuesday May 26th 2009 - links page

Osama Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive? - The Eight-Year-Long Psychological Operation
  ---  http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/05/osama-bin-laden-dead-or-alive.html
Must Read - Book Review - A quote...."Osama Bin Laden: Dead Or Alive?"
  ---  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1566567831?ie=UTF8&tag=informati06f8-20&link_code=as3&camp=211189
&creative=373489&creativeASIN=1566567831    ---  by David Ray Griffin is a crucially important and timely examination of the whole range of evidence bearing on the question, is Osama bin Laden still alive? The importance of this question for the present comes from the fact that the United States under its new president is escalating its offensive in Afghanistan and expanding the war into Pakistan, and has claimed that the “hunt for bin Laden” is one of its principal motivations for doing so. Either explicitly or implicitly, the US government and major media outlets such as The New York Times and Washington Post continue to assert that bin Laden is alive, hiding in the tribal territories on the “AfPak” border, posing an undiminished threat to US security." -- For more on this issue see....US Fake Intel / Propaganda - al Qaeda Videos
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206#ALQAEDAVIDEOS
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The Great but Unacknowledged Wisdom of Doing Nothing  ---  http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2009/05/great-but-unacknowledged-wisdom-of.html
Must Read -  - A quote...."The U.S. ruling class, almost all of American media, and virtually all commentators across the "respectable" political spectrum regard the "right" of the United States to dictate events around the globe as an axiomatic truth, never to be challenged or questioned in even the smallest particular. This quasi-religious belief, precisely identified by William Pfaff as the "unjustified utopianism" that permits "Americans [to] think that history has an ultimate solution, and that the United States is meant to provide it," has served as the foundation for American foreign policy for over a century, and it has become imperishably engraved in our profoundly distorted national self-conception in the decades following World War II."
also posted at Uruknet  ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54589&hd=&size=1&l=e
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Beyond Obama’s Rhetoric  ---  http://obamboozled.blogspot.com/2009/05/beyond-obamas-rhetoric.html
A quote...."With each passing day, president Barack Obama provides more and more evidence that the line distinguishing him from his predecessor George W. Bush is one of style rather than of substance. This is revealed by Obama’s recent statement about the explosion of a nuclear device by North Korea. -- Obama said, "North Korea’s nuclear ballistic missile programs pose a great threat to the peace and security of the world and I strongly condemn their reckless action."
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Backlash grows against Obama's preventive detention proposal  ---  http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/25/obama/index.html
A quote...."The backlash against President Obama's extraordinary proposal for indefinite "preventive detention" -- already widespread in the immediate aftermath of his speech -- continues to grow.  On Friday, Sen. Russ Feingold sent a letter (.pdf) to Obama which, while praising some aspects of his speech, vowed to hold hearings on his detention proposal, and in the letter, Feingold rather emphatically highlighted the radical and dangerous aspects of Obama's approach:" -- also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/26-2
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Afghan was 12 when US locked [him] up in Guantanamo: Rights group  ---  http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=42391
A quote...."An Afghan who has spent over six years at illegal Guantanamo prison was only around 12-years-old when he was detained, an Afghan rights group said."
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Another Outrage  ---  http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/42995
Contains Video - A quote...."Last week, after being bombarded with pseudo-patriotic images of graveyards, gravestones and flags, I decided to begin posting images of maimed and killed Iraqis, but especially children and transform the mega-pseudo-patriotic Memorial Day to Remembrance of Victims of US Empire Day." -- also posted at ICH  ---  http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22711.htm
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Plain & Simple. [Iraqi Outrage]  ---  http://arabwomanblues.blogspot.com/2009/05/plain-simple.html
Special Note - A quote...."I met with a friend today for coffee...I have already warned that friend about 10000 times, that if she wants to bring anyone along - she should inform me in advance and not leave me with a fait accompli."
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Eyes Wide Shut: Gross Negligence with NIST Denial of Molten Metal on 9/11  ---  http://www.rinf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9862
Alt - (YuTb - 2 min 15 sec - 05/21/09  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fs_ogSbQFbM
Video - A quote...."John Gross, lead structural engineer of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) denies the vast witnessed and documented evidence of molten metal found at all 3 World Trade Center towers destroyed on 9/11. Examine the evidence at http://www.ae911truth.org/
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Jet Fuel Laughs  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/jetfulelaughs-dees2dotcom-cached-052609
Must See Photo -- Also check out the websites listed, some of the photos are absolutely hilarious. - mpg
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The Ultimate Cheney Deception is 9/11 Conspiracy
  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Ultimate-Cheney-Decept-by-Allen-L-Roland-090526-153.html
Must Read - A quote...."Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are the key co-conspirators in the 9/11 cover up and all will soon have their day in court when the appalling truth of America's most treasonous act is laid bare for the world to see ~ If Obama allows it to happen: Allen L Roland"
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IraqTortureGate: Powell Denies Knowing He Used Tortured Evidence for UN Case
  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/IraqTortureGate-Powell-De-by-Robert-Naiman-090526-988.html
Special Note - A quote...."The most damning credible allegation to emerge regarding the Bush Administration is arguably that Dick Cheney and other Bush Administration officials ordered the use of torture to produce false evidence of a connection between Iraq and al-Qaida to justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq."

For more regarding the two articles shown above see....Making Up Stories - With Torture
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/rapsheetarch/mpgrap-051309-051909#MAKINGUPSTORIES
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MoveOn Remains Silent on Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan
  ---  http://www.alternet.org/story/140264/moveon_remains_silent_on_wars_in_iraq%2C_afghanistan_and_pakistan/
A quote...."The most powerful grassroots organization of the peace movement, MoveOn, remains silent as the American wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan simmer or escalate."
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ANALYSIS / Netanyahu bringing Israel closer to war with Iran  ---  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088184.html
War Alert - A quote...."Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu considers the lifting of the Iranian nuclear threat his life's mission. Before coming to power, he had mentioned that such an operation might cost thousands of lives, but the price was justified in view of the threat's severity. His comments yesterday at the meeting of Likud's Knesset faction put to rest Ariel Sharon's doctrine that Iran is not just Israel's problem but the entire world's problem, and Israel must not be at the forefront of the struggle. Israel is now at the forefront."
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Nasrallah: Israel behind Lebanon assassinations  ---  http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=32282
A quote...."Hezbollah chief says Tel Aviv behind Der Spiegel report, Israel seeking to divide Lebanese. --  BEIRUT - Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Monday accused Israel of being behind a report implicating his party in the killing of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri and called the claim "very, very dangerous."
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Bolivia, Venezuela deny Israeli spook story  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=96110&sectionid=351020101
Quote of the Day....."Bolivia has strongly denied Israeli reports that the Latin American country has been supplying uranium to Iran for its nuclear program. - Bolivian Presidential Minister Juan Ramon Quintana declared that the Israeli report is nonsense and labeled Israel's intelligence agency a bunch of incompetent "clowns”, AP reported. - Bolivian Mining Minister Luis Alberto Echazu has also said that Bolivia does not even produce uranium, let alone exporti the metallic element." - bold by website editor
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Italian spies to take stand at CIA kidnapping trial
  ---  http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/international/2009/May/international_May1928.xml&section=international
A quote...."MILAN - Italian secret service officials were Wednesday to begin answering charges of colluding with their US counterparts in the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian imam from a Milan street. - The abduction was part of the CIA’s covert ‘secret rendition’ programme under which terror suspects were transferred outside the judicial process to third countries known to practise torture. - The former head of Italian military intelligence, Nicolo Pollari, who was forced to quit over the affair, is among the seven Italian defendants in the trial, two of whom are accused only of aiding and abetting the abduction. - Successive Italian governments have declined to seek the extradition of the 26 US defendants in the case, 25 CIA agents and a US air force colonel, who are being tried in absentia."
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Iran Freed Saberi; When - Will US Free Jassam?  ---  http://original.antiwar.com/scahill/2009/05/26/iran-freed-saberi/
Special Note - A quote....."Last week, we reported on how retired U.S. Army Col. Ralph Peters penned an essay for a leading neocon group calling for future U.S. military attacks on media outlets and journalists. In the journal of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), Peters wrote, "future wars may require censorship, news blackouts, and, ultimately, military attacks on the partisan media. … [A] media establishment that has forgotten any sense of sober patriotism may find that it has become tomorrow’s conventional wisdom. The point of all this is simple: Win. In warfare, nothing else matters. If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win." - also posted at CommonDreams   ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/26-7
For more on this issue see....US - Killing the Messenger  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/uskillingthemessenger-weblist-mpg-112907
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Access to Facebook restored in Iran  ---  http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=32293
A quote...."Facebook is now accessible after Iran reportedly blocked it to prevent Mousavi supporters using it for his presidential campaign."
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Iran's Ahmadinejad rejects Western nuclear proposal  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090525/wl_nm/us_iran_nuclear_ahmadinejad
A quote...."TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday rejected a Western proposal for it to "freeze" its nuclear work in return for no new sanctions and ruled out any talks with major powers on the issue."  That's not a proposal, that's been the demand by Israel and the US-NRE of Iran (which is totally illegal according to the NPT regime) for the last TEN YEARS!  They haven't changed a thing. - mpg
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Iran courts the US's allies  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KE27Ak02.html
A quote...."As the prospect of much-discussed dialogue between the United States and Iran on Afghanistan languishes ahead of Iran's June 12 presidential elections, Tehran is not wasting any time in deepening its ties with Pakistan and Afghanistan. A trilateral mini-summit in Tehran over the weekend brought the leaders of the countries together and culminated in a comprehensive "Tehran declaration"."
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North Korea's Second Nuclear Test - Fearful Pride  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/garcia05262009.html
A quote...."The US Geological Survey detected a 4.7 magnitude seismic event at 00:54 GMT on the 25th of May at Hwaderi, near Kilju City in North Harnkyung province in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK = "North Korea") at 10 km (6 miles) below the surface. The nature of the seismic signals indicated this to be the second nuclear test carried out by the DPRK, and the yield of the device was between 10 kT and 20 kT (kT = kilo-tons of TNT explosive power, 1 kT = 4.184 x 10-to-12th-power Joules). The Hiroshima bomb was 13 kT, and the Nagasaki bomb was 21 kT. The DPRK also conducted three short-range missile tests on the same day, a few hours after their nuclear detonation."
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World powerless to stop North Korea  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/KE27Dg01.html
A quote...."North Korea's decision to carry out its second nuclear test on Monday could have far-reaching consequences, if South Korea and Japan conclude that nothing can be done to persuade Pyongyang to denuclearize. Under such circumstances, developing their own nuclear weapons might become increasingly desirable for Seoul and Tokyo."
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Russia stands by Hezbollah on Der Spiegel  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95931&sectionid=351020203
A quote...."Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemns as 'provocative' a recent report by a German magazine, which attempts to link Hezbollah with Hariri's death." -- also posted at WarInIraq  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/197963
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Libya, Ukraine sign nuclear power deal  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090526/wl_africa_afp/libyaukraineenergynucleardefence
A quote...."TRIPOLI (AFP) – Libya and Ukraine on Tuesday signed deals to cooperate in both peaceful civilian nuclear energy and in defence during a visit by Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko."
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Georgians rally against Saakashvili  ---  http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2009/05/2009526141623986780.html
A quote...."More than 50,000 opposition supporters have rallied in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, to demand the resignation of Mikheil Saakashvili, the country's president. "We will fight for this country - Saakashvili cannot stay as president," Nino Burjanadze, a former parliamentary speaker, told protesters at a stadium in the Georgian capital on Tuesday."
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Georgia's opposition blocks railway  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Georgia_s_opposition_blocks_railway_05262009.html
A quote...."Thousands of anti-government protesters temporarily blocked Tbilisi rail station paralysing traffic at the strategic railway artery between the energy-rich Caspian region and the West. -- The move marks a new spiral in Georgia's political turmoil as daily opposition protests since April 9 to demand President Mikheil Saakashvili's resignation mobilised more than 50,000 supporters at a Tuesday rally."
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Venezuela and Ecuador Deepen Latin American Integration with Bilateral Agreements  ---  http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4468
A quote...."Mérida, May 26th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) - Over the weekend Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez visited President Rafael Correa in Ecuador to review various bilateral agreements. In what was their fifth meeting, the two presidents discussed the creation of a Latin American Human Rights Commission, and also discussed joint oil exploration, food sovereignty, tourism, and mining initiatives."
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Don’t say I didn’t warn you: Big Brother is back!  ---  http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4737.shtml
A quote...."On April 20, I wrote an article, Big Bro’s Cybersecurity ACT: A means to shut down the Internet. Lo and behold, yesterday, this article Obama Set to Create A Cybersecurity Czar With Broad Mandate appeared in the Washington Post. -- The Post reported, “President Obama is expected to announce late this week that he will create a ‘cyber czar,’ a senior White House official who will have broad authority to develop strategy to protect the nation’s government-run and private computer networks, according to people who have been briefed on the plan."
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The Bilderberg Plan for 2009: Remaking the Global Political Economy
  ---  http://dprogram.net/2009/05/27/the-bilderberg-plan-for-2009-remaking-the-global-political-economy/
A quote...."From May 14-17, the global elite met in secret in Greece for the yearly Bilderberg conference, amid scattered and limited global media attention. Roughly 130 of the world’s most powerful individuals came together to discuss the pressing issues of today, and to chart a course for the next year. The main topic of discussion at this years meeting was the global financial crisis, which is no surprise, considering the list of conference attendees includes many of the primary architects of the crisis, as well as those poised to “solve” it."
also posted at GlobRsrch  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13738
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The Lynching of Bruce Ivins  ---  http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/42976
A quote...."On May 14, The Frederick News-Post’s lead editorial celebrated the agreement by the FBI to pay $880,000 to the National Academy of Sciences for a review of the science used in the FBI’s investigation of the anthrax letters case (“Amerithrax”). According to the FBI, it took years and millions of dollars to develop and apply the science that incriminated Bruce Ivins." -- For more on this issue see....9/11 the Sequel - Return of the Jihadi - 08-23-08 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/911thesequel-returnofthejahadi-mpg-blog-082308
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Cheney and Rumsfeld pressured CIA to mislead Congress in the 1970s, too  ---  http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4736.shtml
A quote...."The first time Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld pressured the CIA to mislead Congress was in 1975 and 1976, when Cheney was chief of staff to President Gerald Ford and Rumsfeld was Ford’s secretary of defense. -- Cheney, having held a series of positions alongside Rumsfeld -- starting under him in the Nixon administration -- also became campaign manager for Ford’s reelection campaign. George H. W. Bush was head of the CIA, appointed by Jerry Ford when Ford switched Rumsfeld from White House chief of staff to secretary of defense.*
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Gaza: Scientific Mission Finds Evidence of Israeli Use of Depleted Uranium and White Phosphorous -- http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54590&hd=&size=1&l=e
Special Note - A quote...."In April 2009 a four-person mission including Jean-Francois Fechino, an international specialist in the effects of banned weapons upon the environment and sustainable development, visied Gaza under the auspices of the Arab Commission for Human Rights. The samples of earth and dust that they brought back from Gaza were analyzed by a specialist laboratory. - While a United Nations committee under Richard Goldstone, the former International War Crimes Prosecutor, has not been authorized by the Israeli government to investigate such incidents in Gaza, the findings of the ACHR team raises the possibility that the use of depleted uranium, in addition to white phosphorous bombs, by the Israeli military during Operation Cast Lead will be confirmed." -- See weapons discriptions listed below....
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That means Israel has used the following weapons against a civilian population, tightly packed in an urban area, with nowhere to go.

Depleted Uranium
Wiki,  ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium
 SourceWatch  ---  http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Depleted_Uranium
DIME Weapons
Wiki,  ---  http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Depleted_Uranium
GlobSec  ---  http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/dime.htm
White Phosphorus
Wiki,  ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_Pete
GlobSec,  ---  http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/wp.htm
SourceWatch,  ---  http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=White_Phosphorus
GoglSrch - photos - warning, grim images
  ---  http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&as_epq=White+Phosphorus&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=10&lr=&as_filetype=&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all
&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images&q=photos+%22White+Phosphorus%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=a_gYSur3Oq
XutQPA1dySDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title
Flechette Weapons
Wiki,  ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flechettes
Amnesty,  ---  http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/israeli-army-used-flechettes-against-gaza-civilians-20090127
18.5mm Flechette Shell - (example only)  ---  http://weapons.travellercentral.com/ammo/shotgun_flechette.html

For more on this issue see....Gaza Invasion of 12/27/08
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/thegazainvasion-mpg-weblist-122708
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Italian senator condemns world silence towards Gaza siege
  ---  http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7blTpEFchMC7DHtizCM04
sjdN57LRNwdRPpTlURUSqNQJaCKyI86kOaZh8AKSH5lZpT2bWxWSoxKGtiWMAmV7SOKJzPa1%2bbhj7MznIfdWyXA%3d
A quote...."GAZA, (PIC)-- Italian senator Fernando Rossi, who is leading the “Hope” convoy of medical assistance to the Gaza Strip, has denounced the Israeli siege of Gaza and the world silence towards such a humanitarian crisis."
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Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Maguire detained by USA homeland security
  ---  http://www.freegaza.org/en/home/press-releases/888-nobel-peace-laureate-mairead-maguire-detained-by-usa-homeland-security
A quote...."On Friday 17th May, 2009, Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace laureate, was detained on her entry into Houston Airport, USA, by Homeland Security Immigration. Maguire was on her way home to Northern Ireland, after attending a 3 day conference in Guatemala, which was hosted by herself and three Sister Nobel Peace Laureates, Rigoberta Menchu, Jody Williams, and Shirin Ebadi. 150 women activists from around the World attended the Nobel Womens' Conference to discuss, ‘Redefining Democracy, Human Rights and Peace.' "
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Back to the future with Netanyahu's subterfuge  ---  http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10554.shtml
A quote...."As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared for his first meeting with US President Barack Obama earlier this week, preliminary construction began on the Maskiot settlement in the Jordan Valley, which forms the Eastern Bantu of the occupied West Bank. According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, it will be Israel's first new settlement in the northern West Bank in 27 years."
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Occupation authorities issue new demolition orders in occupied Jerusalem
  ---  http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7k4ewe%2blhf1bk1g2ZjG19ftY
QllgTtPlI0waW5etZYssA4%2fYHoYgIlJHVcVGeRkM2FLNfgr3dDwgGGl3Fwoh4HHjb9As1O2XXIAoKw4cgN0w%3d
A quote...."OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Zionist occupation municipality of Jerusalem handed on Tuesday new demolition orders to Palestinian owners of homes that were built without a permit. -- Local sources in Jerusalem said that 17 such orders have been issued to Palestinian residents in the neighbourhoods of Ashqareyya, Beit Hanina, Shu'fat, Eisaweyya and Jabal al-Mukabber, adding that lawyers are working to get court orders to stop or freeze the demolition orders."
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'The Israelis have returned us to the 5th century'  ---  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1088195.html
A quote...."Hussam, a resident of Gaza City, is an eternal optimist. He expected good tidings to emerge from Sunday's cabinet meeting on the Gaza Strip's border crossings - namely, that due to American pressure, Israel had finally decided to reopen them. -- But for now, Israeli policy remains unchanged: Numerous basic items, including certain types of food and drink, are barred from entering Gaza. According to Hussam, the banned list includes shoes, clothing, glassware and, of course, cement and steel."
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Why Palestinians are calling for a boycott of Israeli universities  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/may/26/why-boycott-israeli-universities
Boycott Action Alert - A quote....."Palestinian academics have been heartened by the outpouring of solidarity with our people on the part of British academics and students – the latter attested to by the creative "student occupation movement" in the wake of the brutal Israeli war against the Palestinian people in Gaza last December and January." - For more on how to boycott Israel see the sites listed in the upper-left-corner of  the "Front Page" - http://www.reficultnias.org/  ---   on this website. - mpg
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VICTORY! Israeli tourism posters removed from London Underground!  ---  http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article960
A quote...."The Palestine Solidarity Campaign welcomes the removal of these adverts, which had a map showing Israel as including the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights – which are all illegally occupied by Israel. These adverts wiped Palestine off the map. It was particularly grotesque to use this map in an advert for tourism, given that under the Israeli blockade of Gaza, even humanitarian aid staff are denied entry."
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PROGRESS OF THE HOPE CONVOY IN GAZA  ---  http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/progress-of-the-hope-convoy-in-gaza/
A quote...."May 26, 2009 at 10:06 am (Activism, Gaza, International Solidarity, Palestine) -- Direct from Ireland -- Sorry for being so late in posting today, but it has been difficult to both make and receive phone calls from Gaza. Additionally, the electricity cycles on and off, so I have been unable so far to get the photos upload to me. After several attempts, we got lucky and I managed to get a report directly from Gerry MacLochlainn. I am posting it below and when I get the photos and other updates they will appear as usual on this blog. FREE PALESTINE:(UPDATE X1 I just noticed that some photos are now coming through and I will add them to this post, so check back soon!!)"
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The Next Leg Down  ---  http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22714.htm
Special Note - A quote...."May 26, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- Collapsing home prices and credit markets continue to put downward pressure on consumer spending, forcing the Federal Reserve to take even more radical action to revive the economy. Last week, Fed chief Ben Bernanke raised the prospect of further monetizing the debt by purchasing more than the $1.75 trillion of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) already committed. The announcement sent shock-waves through the currency markets where skittish traders have joined doomsayers in predicting tough times ahead for the dollar. Foreign central banks have been gobbling up US debt at an impressive pace, adding another $60 billion in the last three weeks alone. That's more than enough to cover the current account deficit and put the greenback on solid ground for the time-being. But with fiscal deficits ballooning to $3 trillion in the next year alone, dwindling foreign investment won't be enough to keep the dollar afloat. Bernanke will be forced to either raise interest rates or let the dollar fall hard." -- also posted at CounterPunch  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney05262009.html
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Liquidity drowns meaning of 'inflation'  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KE27Dj07.html
Special Note - A quote...."The conventional terms of inflation and deflation are no longer adequate for describing the overall monetary effect of excess liquidity recently released by the US Federal Reserve, the nation's central bank, to deal with the year-long credit crunch. - This is because the approach adopted by the Treasury and the Fed to deal with a financial crisis of unsustainable debt created by excess liquidity is to inject more liquidity in the form of both new public debt and newly created money into the economy and to channel it to debt-laden institutions to reflate a burst debt-driven asset price bubble."
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Traditional company pensions are going away fast
  ---  http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/retirement/2009-05-21-traditional-pensions-dying_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip
A quote...."The number of companies offering traditional defined benefit pension plans was shrinking even before the recession, but the downturn has accelerated the decline. Since the beginning of the year, at least 20 companies have frozen their defined pension plans, exceeding the number of plan freezes for all of 2008. A recent survey by Watson Wyatt found that, for the first time, the majority of Fortune 100 companies are offering new salaried employees only one type of retirement plan: a 401(k) or similar "defined contribution" plan."
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Waterboard the Fed - Why Won't the Democrats Back a GAO Audit?  ---  http://obamboozled.blogspot.com/2009/05/waterboard-fed.html
A quote...."To my knowledge, no one has proposed waterboarding the Fed. However, the response of much of the country’s political leadership to the suggestion that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) audit the Federal Reserve Board might lead people to think that waterboarding is on the agenda." -- also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/26-1
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Home prices still falling at record pace in first quarter - Case-Shiller shows national prices down 19.1% in past year
  ---  http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-home-prices-still-falling-at-record-pace
A quote...."WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- U.S. home prices fell a record 19.1% in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, according to the national Case-Shiller home price index released Tuesday. - On a month-to-month basis, prices in 20 selected cities fell 2.2% in March and were down 18.7% in the past year. - "We see no evidence that a recovery in home prices has begun," said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee for Standard & Poor's, which compiles the Case-Shiller index."
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Monday May 25th 2009 - links page

9/11 Shock Opera… Act 4 – Building 7 and Flight 93: The Grand Finale that Wasn’t
  ---  http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2009/05/25/911-shock-opera-act-4-%E2%80%93-building-7-and-flight-93-the-grand-finale-that-wasn%E2%80%99t/
Must Read - 9/11 Analysis -- Some quotes...."Take yourself back to that day when you watched or listened to the attack on America; the day that everything changed. Remember where you were, who you were with, and most importantly, how you felt." -- "To start off with, we are going to put aside all the other volumes of research done by well meaning, dedicated researchers on the subject of proving the feasibility of an alternative narrative of the events of 9/11. An alternative narrative, that is, to the “official story” of 19 (or is it 16 now?) angry Muslims with “box-cutters”. For the most part, there is some really good information out there compiled by skilled researchers, engineers, chemists, architects, intelligence agents, politicians, fire-fighters, pilots, and even simply concerned citizens trying to help make a difference. Not all of the theories out there are valid, not all follow the standardized scientific method of research, but there are enough honest efforts (albeit they are often clouded by the obvious “disinformation” efforts) to prove beyond the point of “reasonable doubt” that the official story is not only not plausible, it is simply not possible."
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If Obama cedes ground on torture to Cheney, we'll all pay a heavy price -- http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/24/obama-torture-cheney
Article  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22704.htm
 also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
Must Read - A quote...."In short, by acknowledging the crimes while refusing to pursue the criminals he has promised to rectify America's grim recent history without ever ­reckoning with it. -- Events over the past few weeks have shown just how ethically and politically untenable this situation really is. His first term looks as though it may be ­consumed by these issues anyway – and not on his terms. Having released the torture memos, Obama then reversed his position on releasing photographs that accompanied them on the grounds that to do so would endanger US troops. Having opposed trying Guantánamo prisoners under military commissions, he now supports it. His decision to close Guantánamo has been delivered a huge blow by the Senate, which voted 90-6 to deny the funds necessary to do so. Now he has proposed that suspects who cannot be tried in a federal court because evidence against them was obtained under torture could be held in "prolonged detention" in the US ­without trial. -- In essence, he would transfer the legal architecture of Guantánamo to the mainland, as though the problem were one of geography rather than principle. So much for core American values."
also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/25-0
For more on this issue see....Making Up Stories - With Torture
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/rapsheetarch/mpgrap-051309-051909#MAKINGUPSTORIES
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Torturing the Rule of Law  ---  http://lewrockwell.com/paul/paul530.html
Special Note - Contains Audio - by  Ron Paul  (2008 presidential candidate) -- A quote...."While Congress is sidetracked by who said what to whom and when, our nation finds itself at a crossroads on the issue of torture. We are at a point where we must decide if torture is something that is now going to be considered justifiable and reasonable under certain circumstances, or is America better than that? -- “Enhanced interrogation” as some prefer to call it, has been used throughout history, usually by despotic governments, to cruelly punish or to extract politically useful statements from prisoners. Governments that do these things invariably bring shame on themselves."
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Is Canada Becoming A Safe Haven For War Criminals?  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13719
Article  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22703.htm
 also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
A quote...."The Canadian parliament in its history has never stood in such public execration as it does contemporarily for both its tacit and overt support for some of the worst mass murderers ever to afflict humanity. War criminals emanating from Canada’s behemoth southern neighbour are apparently welcome to spread their malicious propaganda, leaving with a hansom speaker’s fee, all for the pleasure of the wealthy few who can afford the ticket to enter the Gestapo protected venues. In the past eight weeks there have been visits by George W Bush to Calgary (hosted by the Calgary Chamber of Commerce), Condoleezza Rice to Calgary (hosted by the so called U of C School of Public Policy) and imminently George W Bush and Bill Clinton plan to descend upon Canada again, as if it were merely the fifty-first state of the U.S.A, rather than a sovereign country with its own laws and international obligations."
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Obama Betrays The Liberals  ---  http://mwcnews.net/content/view/30805/26/
(a.k.a. Sheepals with a "use me anyway you want to, I'm a sucker" sticker affixed to their collective foreheads) -- A quote...."America’s liberals stand betrayed. Their new president, the one they sweated to elect----a brilliant, charismatic leader with a professional background in constitutional law---has transmogrified himself from the champion who denounced in his campaign the illegalities of the Bush White House into a president bent on their perpetuation."
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"My Son Is a Murderer" - The Gut-Wrenching Realities Facing Conscientious Mothers of Soldiers
  ---  http://www.sott.net/articles/show/185124-My-Son-Is-a-Murderer-The-Gut-Wrenching-Realities-Facing-Conscientious-Mothers-of-Soldiers
Must Read - Interview - A quote...."Author Susan Galleymore shares her dramatic encounters with mothers living in Mid-East war zones and American military moms. - In 2004, Susan Galleymore traveled 7,472 miles from Alameda, Calif., to deliver a message to her Army Ranger son stationed on a military base in Iraq's Sunni Triangle. - "Don't do anything you'll regret or be ashamed of because it will haunt you for the rest of your life," she told him."
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Who will do justice to victims of U.S. invasion of Iraq?  ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54570&hd=&size=1&l=e
A quote...."Iraqis killed, maimed, turned into refugees, and made homeless as a direct or indirect result of the 2003-U.S. invasion are in millions. Who will do justice to them?  The victims of the past six years, it seems, have turned into meaningless numbers about which nobody cares. They have apparently turned into erased lines in Iraq's book of darkness, or graves with erased epitaphs in the desert of death.
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Hundreds 'tortured' in Iraqi prisons  - With the ever so gracious "help" of the US-NRE. - mpg
  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95896&sectionid=351020201
A quote...."Iraq's Ministry of Human Rights has declared in a report that hundreds of people were tortured in Iraqi prisons last year. - According to the report published in Baghdad's al-Sabbah newspaper Sunday, of the 306 cases of torture and abuse in Iraqi prisons, 107 took place in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq."
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Massive Police Desertions Reported in Swat Valley -- also posted at WarInIraq  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/197927
  ---  http://news.antiwar.com/2009/05/25/massive-police-desertions-reported-in-swat-valley/
A quote...."Since the Pakistani military began its offensive in the Swat Valley, police across the valley and surrounding area have been deserting from their respective departments at an alarming rate. Over 30 percent of the overall force of the Malakand division have quit or simply stopped showing up for work in the past several months."
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Iran's Ahmadinejad wants to debate Obama at UN   ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090525/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran
- link posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
A quote...."TEHRAN, Iran – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed on Monday a face-to-face debate with President Barack Obama at the United Nations if he is re-elected next month as Iran's president."
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Advanced attack chopper joins Iran fleet  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95824&sectionid=351020101
A quote...."The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)'s latest homemade attack helicopter, the Shahed (Witness) 285, has joined Iran's aerial fleet. - The Shahed 285 was unveiled Sunday on the anniversary of the 1982 liberation of the Iranian city Khoramshahr -- which was occupied by Iraqi forces during the 1980-88 war." -- also posted at WarInIraq  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/197927
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China and Russia forge closer military cooperation  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/chin-m26.shtml
A quote...."As the US war in Afghanistan and US-sponsored fighting in Pakistan intensify, Russia and China are stepping up military cooperation, with 25 joint manoeuvres announced this year. Previously, China had held a total of just 21 military exercises with foreign countries since 2002."
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Shanghai Cooperation Organization: representing half of humanity
  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/Shanghai-Cooperation-Organ-by-Rick-Rozoff-090522-591.html
Must Read - A quote...."On June 15th and 16th the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) will hold its ninth annual heads of state summit in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. - It will be attended by the presidents of its six full members - China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - and by representatives of various ranks from its four observer states - India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan - and from several aspiring partner nations yet to be announced. - The SCO as an institution and as a concept represents the world's greatest potential and in ways is its major paradox as its capacities and their realization to date are so far apart."
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Experts: North Korean Test Nuke About Hiroshima-Level Power - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://news.antiwar.com/2009/05/25/experts-north-korean-test-nuke-about-hiroshima-level-power/
A quote...."This morning’s test explosion of an atomic weapon in North Korea was between 10 and 20 times more powerful than the one it tested in 2006, according to Russian defense experts. The estimated yield of 10 to 20 kilotons puts in about on par with the US bombs used at the end of the second world war against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki."
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Time for Transparency at Der Spiegel?  ---  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15135
It's terribly sad to see a paper like Der Spiegel whore themselves and their reputation to the highest bidder just as the New York Times did. Keep in mind ever since people found out the Times trumpeted false claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq in an effort to help the American administration start a war there, and later, after they watched the Times become embroiled in the “Judy Miller” scandal, the Times proceeded to steadily lose much of their readership and financial income . It appears it's a lesson that Der Spiegel just didn't take the trouble to learn. – mpg-- A quote....""We don't know where the Der Spiegel magazine did get their information from and we don't know where they brought this story from. No one in the prosecutor's office has spoken to the German magazine about anything. We have a clear policy of not leaking any information about the tribunal through media outlets, and we have been stressing this since the beginning."
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Letter: America 'getting tired of footing the bill' for wars in Iraq, Afghanistan
  ---  http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/may/25/letter-america-getting-tired-footing-bill-wars-ira/
link posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
A quote...."Disapproval ratings for military efforts in Afghanistan are rapidly rising. In a March USA Today/Gallup poll, 42 percent of respondents said the United States made a mistake in sending military forces to Afghanistan, up from 30 percent in February." -- So....who cares what the "little people" think, they're not the "one percent" that counts -- end of story.  --  This website editor doesn't understand why anybody even bothers with these surveys.  In prior surveys the majorities polled were dead-set against the war in Iraq, "taking impeachment off the table" and the Bankster bail-outs,  yet they all happened anyway. And they happened because the sheeple of this country who took the polls kept on voting for DemoRepubs, it's all so completely, totally, futile.  As has been said many times before...."it's a mark of insanity when you keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result each time".   When the sheeple in this country wake-up and learn to stop voting for DemoRepubs, than -- and only than – will things finally change in this country. Till that time comes the people in this country are going to receive EXACTLY the government they vote for. – mpg
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Regime Change: Georgia's Rose Revolution Fades to Black  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13728
A quote...."It seems political turmoil is becoming increasingly common in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. More than five years after the 2003 Rose Revolution, it looks like another regime change might put an end to Mikheil Saakashvili's presidency. During the last few weeks, several protests have been organized by many groups demanding that President Saakashvili tenders his resignation effective immediately. Even former Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze suggested "the country's embattled president to resign to avoid bloodshed... [because] the situation in Georgia at the moment is very tense - I would say almost catastrophic."[1] "
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Russia-Ukraine gas row: heating up again - Gee whiz, it sounds like they're married. - mpg
  ---  http://www.russiatoday.com/Politics/2009-05-25/Russia-Ukraine_gas_row__heating_up_again.html
A quote...."Another fuel row seems to be brewing between Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine needs about $5 billion dollars to fill its gas reservoirs for next winter – a pressing problem for Kiev with Ukraine in financial crisis. -- It looks like the "gas game” is back in play."
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“Timoshenko hasn't been honest with Russia or the IMF” – expert
  ---  http://www.russiatoday.com/Politics/2009-05-25/_Timoshenko_hasn_t_been_honest_with_Russia_or_the_IMF____expert.html
Timoshenko should never have borrowed from the IMF, that was her biggest mistake.  Her and her people have this website editor's deepest sympathies. - mpg -- A quote...."Stephen Lock, the regional director for MMD Eurasia joined RT to share his view on what looks like an early gas crisis in Ukraine." 
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Yes, North Korea is a nuclear power  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/KE26Dg02.html
A quote...."WASHINGTON - The United States will have to stop refusing to "recognize" North Korea as a nuclear power after the North's second underground nuclear test on Monday appeared to have caught it entirely by surprise. -
Although the test was widely anticipated, it came much faster than expected by American as well as South Korean officials. Nor does a report that North Korea notified the US secretly in advance of the test remove the sense of shock at the speed with which the North carried out the explosion. - Russia has confirmed the underground test near Kilju in the north of the country as about equal in power to the atom bomb dropped by the US on the Japanese city of Nagasaki in 1945 at the end of World War II."
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Open Veins of Latin America  ---  http://pulsemedia.org/2009/05/25/open-veins-of-latin-america/
A quote...."Addressing the Summit of the Americas Obama explained “I didn’t come here to debate the past, I came here to deal with the future.” -- Well the past is inextricably linked with the future and Chavez created a media sensation by forcing that past into Obama’s hand in the form of a handshake with a copy of
Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent   ---  http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/184668742X?ie=UTF8&tag=pulse02-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=184668742X  ---  [GlglSrch]  ---    The book then shot to #2 on the Amazon bestseller list. -- In case you missed all that excitement, the foreword by Isabel Allende, which is quite excellent, and a short extract of Eduardo Galeano’s work, In Defence of the Word, are included below to further entice."
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9/11 Commission Documents on Referral of False Statements by FAA and NORAD
  ---  http://www.scribd.com/doc/15677016/911-Commission-Documents-on-Referral-of-False-Statements-by-FAA-and-NORAD
A quote...."A set of documents about the referral of false statements by FAA and NORAD officials. The file includes:
1 - A letter from the Department of Transportation inspector general acknowledging the receipt of the referral.
2 - A letter from the 9/11 Commission referring the false statements to the Pentagon and DoT inspectors general for investigation.
3 - An 11-page memo from the commission about the false statements.
4 - A four-page memo from Philip Zelikow, the commission's executive director, to the commission's heads about the false statements.
5 - An e-mail exchange between Zelikow and other staff members, including team leader John Farmer, discussing what to do about the false statements.
6 - An e-mail from NORAD officer Robert Marr forwarded to the commission containing blatantly false information about the air defense on 9/11.
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Info on NORAD, FAA, NTSB, Aircraft Capabilities, Piloting Issues, Phone calls from planes, "War Games"
  ---  http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/norad,faa,ntsb,aircraftcapabilities,pilo
9/11 Article list - mpg
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Government Experiments on U.S. Soldiers: Shocking Claims Come to Light in New Court Case
  ---  http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/140206/government_experiments_on_u.s._soldiers:_shocking_claims_come_to_light_in_new_court_case/
Special Note - A quote...."That government scientists conducted human experiments at Edgewood is not in question. "The program involved testing of nerve agents, nerve agent antidotes, psychochemicals, and irritants," according to a 1994 General Accounting Office (now the Government Accountability Office) report (PDF). At least 7,800 US servicemen served "as laboratory rats or guinea pigs" at Edgewood, alleges Erspamer's complaint, filed in January in a federal district court in California. The Department of Veterans Affairs has reported that military scientists tested hundreds of chemical and biological substances on them, including VX, tabun, soman, sarin, cyanide, LSD, PCP, and World War I-era blister agents like phosgene and mustard. The full scope of the tests, however, may never be known."
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Video: Cop Slams Innocent Man Head First Into A Coma  ---  http://infowars.net/articles/may2009/250509Cop.htm
Video - Special Note - It's called "wall slamming", it was done to many innocent detainees by members of the US-NRE armed forces, it's coming here now to this country.  Just think of it as your tax dollars at work. - mpg -- A quote...."Video was released late last week of an innocent man being slammed head first into a wall by a Seattle police officer, in an exchange that has left the victim in a coma. -- 29-year-old Christopher Harris was left in a critical condition after a sheriff's deputy twice his size forcibly rammed him, sending him flying against the side of a building."
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'Cry, the Beloved Country'  ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54560&hd=&size=1&l=e
Special Note - A quote...."Jaffa. The word itself conjures up images of warmth, comfort, beautiful sandy beaches and miles of blue-green sea and the smell of oranges mingled with the misty sea breeze. These are the sights and smells I always look forward to whenever I visit Jaffa, the beautiful city by the Mediterranean."
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Human Rights Situation in Occupied Palestine  ---  http://mwcnews.net/content/view/30807/26/
A quote...."On March 15, 2006, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly 170 to 4 (with only the US, Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau against) "to establish the Human Rights Council (HRC), based in Geneva, in replacement of the Commission on Human Rights, as a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly....responsible for promoting universal respect for the protection of all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction of any kind and in a fair and equal manner."
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Israel passes draft law to ban 'Nakba Day'  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95907&sectionid=351020202
Unbelievable!  The Israelis have gone stark raving mad.  This would be the EXACT equivalent of passing a law making it illegal to commemorate the holocaust. – mpg -- A quote...."Israeli cabinet has passed a draft law to punish Palestinians who mark the Nakba or Catastrophe Day--the anniversary of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. -- The Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday approved a preliminary proposal which would make it illegal to hold events or ceremonies marking Nakba Day, which Israelis consider as their independence day following the 1948 war which forced many Palestinians to leave their lands."
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Occupation of Red Cross, Gaza 25/5/2009  ---  http://palestinevideo.blogspot.com/2009/05/occupation-of-red-cross-gaza-2552009.html
Alt - (YouTube - 1 min 59 sec - May 25, 2009)  ---  A quote...."As they do every Monday, families of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails, they peacefully occupied the yard of the Red Cross buiding protesting for the inhuman conditions, the torture and other violations of human rights that suffer the more than 11,000 Palestinian prisoners. The families of Gazan prisoners have not been able to see their relatives for almost 2 years now. " - bold by website editor
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Palestinian fishermen hemmed in  ---  http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090526/FOREIGN/705259853/1002
A quote...."GAZA CITY // At the helm of his fishing vessel, Naheth Abu Ameera, 49, apologised for not being able to show his guests a haul. By way of explanation he reached down and picked out a tiny sardine from the net strewn on the side of the deck."
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Israeli settlers attack Palestinian shepherds near Hebron  ---  http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=38095
A quote...."Hebron – Ma’an – Israeli settlers attacked four Palestinian shepherds who were herding sheep on their landnear Israeli settlements of Ma’on and Beit Yatir, east of Yatta in the southern West Bank on Monday. -- Palestinian security sources named the shepherds who were assaulted as Isma’il Abu Qbeita, Issa Makhamra, Ibrahim Zein, and Ali Makhamra. The sources confirmed that all four shepherds sustained bruises after more than 20 Israeli settlers attacked them with clubs."
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Leaflets dropped on Gaza ordering citizens to stay away from border areas - In other words, their family farms. - mpg
  ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54563&hd=&size=1&l=e
A quote...."GAZA, (PIC)-- Israeli helicopters dropped on Monday morning thousands of leaflets ordering the Palestinians to stay away from border areas in the Gaza Strip, and threatening to open fire at any citizen approaching the borderlines."
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Time for US to stop fueling the conflict  ---  http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10552.shtml
A quote...."In pledging to trim ineffective spending, US President Obama declared that "there will be no sacred cows and no pet projects. All across America, families are making hard choices, and it's time their government did the same."
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HOPE CONVOY~Moving Through Gaza Now  ---  http://irish4palestine.blogspot.com/2009/05/hope-convoymoving-through-gaza-now.html
A quote...."There was a massive greeting for the convoy members. The press conference is over now and all the speeches have been done. The convoy members are now being driven up through Gaza to another location, I could hear the cheering in the background, there must be hundreds of people cheering for the convoy as they pass by. Sirens and cheering, that's all you can hear, it's amazing. Then my friend had to hang up but I will get another call when they arrive at the next location. Hoping to have photos as well, can't wait:)"
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Ramallah 61 years since the Nakba  ---  http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article950
Photos - A quote...."On 15th May Palestinians gathered in Ramallah to mark the 61st anniversary of the Nakba or “the catastrophe”. This refers to the mass exodus of Palestinians from their homeland in the 1948 war: at least 80% of Palestinians were made refugees."
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Evidence of Government Manipulation of the Stock Market
  ---  http://www.myprops.org/content/EVIDENCE-OF-GOVERNMENT-MANIPULATION-IN-THE-STOCK-MARKET-
Dan-Shaffer-explains-on-Fox-Business-News-video-and-transcript/
Video - War Update - A quote...."Dan Shaffer explains on Fox Business News (video and transcript) -- Editor's Note: This may not actually constitute "direct government manipulation", more likely it would be characterized as Bankster and hedge fund manipulation. However since the banksters and hedge funds have already received around thirteen trillion dollars in backstops, guarantees and actual pay-outs, which they are busily leveraging at twenty to one, and thirty to one ratios with Obama's, Bernanke's, Paulson's and Geithner's blessing (see - Enforcing the Rules -- Too Little, Too Late - 02-27-09)  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/enforcingtherulestoolittletoolate-mpg-reficultnias-022709  ---  it essentially amounts to the same thing as government manipulation. – mpg

For why this is a "war update" and also for the investment disclaimer, see....Standard Disclaimer and the Ten Year Cycle
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/disclaimer-blog-mpg-070207.html
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Job Losses Push Safer Mortgages to Foreclosure  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/business/economy/25foreclose.html
A quote...."As job losses rise, growing numbers of American homeowners with once solid credit are falling behind on their mortgages, amplifying a wave of foreclosures. In the latest phase of the nation’s real estate disaster, the locus of trouble has shifted from subprime loans — those extended to home buyers with troubled credit — to the far more numerous prime loans issued to those with decent financial histories."
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China stuck in ‘dollar trap’  ---  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5b47c8f8-488c-11de-8870-00144feabdc0.html
link posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
The BRIC countries along with Japan, Germany and France should simply stop buying US bonds and either buy Credit Default Swaps on the dollars and bonds they currently own (backed by options and/or contracts in gold or other commodities because everyone knows the US-NRE Banksters won't honor them otherwise), short the dollar, buy puts on the dollar and/or a whole bunch of long contracts on gold with as much leverage as possible and than demand physical delivery.  The investments should be structured to be as cheap as possible keeping in mind the worlds economy, especially the US-NRE's, is still -- despite all the Fed pumping and priming -- a highly deflationary environment for investment purposes and may remain so for many years. - mpg
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China warns Federal Reserve over 'printing money'
  ---  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/5379285/China-warns-Federal-Reserve-over-printing-money.html
Related Article - A quote...."Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, said: "Senior officials of the Chinese government grilled me about whether or not we are going to monetise the actions of our legislature." - "I must have been asked about that a hundred times in China. I was asked at every single meeting about our purchases of Treasuries. That seemed to be the principal preoccupation of those that were invested with their surpluses mostly in the United States," he told the Wall Street Journal."
also posted at RogueGov  ---  http://www.roguegovernment.com/China_Says_Federal_Reserve_Overprinting_Money/15745/0/8/8/Y/M.html
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Dallas Federal Reserve: Unfunded Pension and Health-Care Liabilities Exceeds $99 Trillion Dollars
  ---  http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/05/dallas-federal-reserve-unfunded-pension.html
A quote...."You've heard some big numbers thrown around. -- For example, total U.S. government liabilities are at least $65 trillion dollars. -- But the head of the Dallas Federal Reserve bank says:"

"[There is a] "very big hole" in unfunded pension and health-care liabilities built up by a careless political class over the years. "We at the Dallas Fed believe the total is over $99 trillion," he said in February."

"Over $99 trillion? That's a serious shortfall."
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Spain: Unemployment could soar to one-in-four next year  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/span-m26.shtml
A quote...."In a series of recent gloomy economic forecasts by the European Commission, the European Central Bank, the Spanish Central Bank and government institutions, the Spanish unemployment rate could soar to a staggering 20 percent and possibly to one in four workers in 2010."
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Sunday May 24th 2009 - links page

America's Nightmare: The Obama Dystopia - Manipulation, propaganda, imagery & PR wizardry
  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13716
Must Read - Obama™ Update - A quote...."After 8 years of the Bush-Cheney nightmare during which we saw the wanton destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, the cynical  negation of centuries of Law designed to protect the most basic human rights and a foreign policy worthy of Genghis Khan, there came along the "Great Black Hope" in the persona of Barack Obama. The collective world consciousness turned uncritically to what was presented as a new era for peace, change and trust in Government. --  Never before had one witnessed such an accomplished use of manipulation, propaganda, imagery and public relations wizardry to sell the public a man who was to take the baton from Bush and run with it in the race to destroy the economy, the rights of the people and help birth a nation totally controlled by those who have always lurked in the shadows of power. "Change" was promised and was delivered in the form of a deepening of the already Dystopic  nightmare. - Promises were broken with no apology, the same creative legalese that infested the Bush administration, in the form of John Yoo and Alberto Gonzalez, was again used to deny justice to the inmates of Guantanamo, It was used to justify more torture, more destruction of the Constitution and more illegal surveillance of U.S. citizens." -- also posted at Uruknet  ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54540&hd=&size=1&l=e
& DProgram  ---  http://dprogram.net/2009/05/23/americas-nightmare-the-obama-dystopia-manipulation-propaganda-imagery-pr-wizardry/
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Obama’s Democratic Authoritarianism -- He's bad – really bad – on civil liberties - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/05/24/obamas-democratic-authoritarianism/
Must Read - Obama™ Update - A quote...."He’s not closing Guantanamo, he’s continuing the "preventive detention" policy of the Bush administration under a new rubric ("prolonged detention"), he’s on board with military commissions ("reformed," of course) and the denial of habeas corpus – and last, but certainly not least, his supporters in Congress have launched a campaign to give him and his cabinet officials the power to close down the Internet in the name of "national security.""
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Obama likely to keep Gitmo running  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95865&sectionid=3510203
Obama™ Update - A quote...."US President Barack Obama says deciding what to do about prisoners of great threat is the main issue on Guantanamo's closure. -- In yet another retreat from his promises, the US president claimed that his government should not release some 'dangerous' detainees held at the infamous detention center - an announcement that could be interpreted into an indefinite extension to the ominous prison's life."
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Spain's Judges Cross Borders In Rights Cases  ---  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/23/AR2009052301795.html?hpid=topnews
link posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
A quote...."MADRID -- Spanish judges are boldly declaring their authority to prosecute high-ranking government officials in the United States, China and Israel, among other places, delighting human rights activists but enraging officials in the countries they target and triggering a political backlash in a nation uncomfortable acting as the world's conscience."
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Day of the Dead  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/Day-of-the-Dead-by-Cindy-Sheehan-090524-722.html
Must Read - A quote...."by Cindy Sheehan  -- I was on an airplane flying to Orange County from Sacramento to attend the al-Awda Conference; which is a Palestinian Right’s Conference. Al-Awda translates to “The Returning"; when the Pilot voice filled the cabin to make an announcement that I think went unnoticed by most of my fellow passengers, but I heard it. -- As the plane was on the approach to John Wayne airport, the Captain came on the intercom to remind us all to “remember our brave troops who have died for our freedom.” Even in this post 9-11 paranoid paradigm, if I wasn’t belted in for landing, I would have popped out of my seat at 13D and charged up to the cockpit to let the pilot know that my son was killed in Iraq and not one person anywhere in this world is one iota more free because he is dead."
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A Bitter Cup of Joe: Bagman Biden's Bully-Boy Diplomacy
  ---  http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1768-a-bitter-cup-of-joe-bagman-bidens-bully-boy-diplomacy.html
Must Read - A quote...."Anyone who lived through the howling, roaring exhalation of meaningless noise that was the 2008 race for the Democratic nomination and still retained some fleeting, desperate, hope against hope that Barack Obama might represent at least some modicum of substantial change surely had that last, microscopic flicker extinguished for good the instant they got the news that Obama had picked Joe Biden as his running mate."
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Yet Another Bogus 'Terror' Plot  ---  http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dreyfuss/437864/yet_another_bogus_terror_plot?rel=hp_picks
Article  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22695.htm
 also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
A quote...."By the now, it's maddeningly familiar. A scary terrorist plot is announced. Then it's revealed that the suspects are a hapless bunch of ne'er-do-wells or run-of-the-mill thugs without the slightest connection to any terrorists at all, never mind to Al Qaeda. Finally, the last piece of the puzzle: the entire plot is revealed to have been cooked up by a scummy government agent-provocateur."
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Jihad-lite?  ---  http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/jihad-lite/
A quote...."This terrorism sting case from New York keeps getting stranger. In two New York publications, the girlfriends of those accused are stepping out to defend their men. What they're saying is certainly enough to raise eyebrows....."
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For more on the two articles shown above see....

In Bronx Bomb Case, Missteps Caught on Tape - posted 05-22-09
  ---  http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/in-bronx-bomb-case-missteps-caught-on-tape/
FBI Agent on Synagogue Case Has Questionable Record - posted 05-22-09
  ---  http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/05/the_fbi_agent_w.php
Exactly As We Predicted; Deadly NY Terror Cell Are Semi-Retarded Potheads - posted 05-22-09
  ---  http://www.prisonplanet.com/exactly-as-we-predicted-deadly-ny-terror-cell-are-semi-retarded-potheads.html
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The Empire Is Bankrupting America  ---  http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2009-05-22.asp
A quote...."While Barack Obama was delivering his flowery speech justifying the indefinite imprisonment without trial of people suspected of violating laws against terrorism, the New York Times and Bloomberg were reporting on the financial consequences of out-of-control federal spending."
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22 Dead, Dozens Wounded in Mosul, Falluja Attacks; Sunni leaders Arrested in Diyala
  ---  http://www.juancole.com/2009/05/22-dead-dozens-wounded-in-mosul-falluja.html
A Juan Cole round-up of events in Iraq - Monday, May 25, 2009 -- A quote...."he NYT reports that various attacks in Mosul and Falluja killed 22 on Sunday, including a suicide bombing targeting a US convoy in Mosul that missed and hit a restaurant instead. As many were wounded in the attacks as killed. There was also an assault on national police in Mosul, and a roadside bombing that killed Iraqi troops and wounded by-standers. In Falluja, guerrillas threw a grenade into a family home, killing an infant and wounding family members."
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U.S. holds journalist without charges in Iraq  ---  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq-journalist24-2009may24,0,2581320.story
A quote...."Reuters cameraman Ibrahim Jassam has been held since September. The U.S. military rejected a court order to release him, saying he is a 'high security threat.' No evidence has been presented." -- Well according to our new Emperor, no evidence needs to be presented. - mpg
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US Holds Journalist Without Charges in Iraq  ---  http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/05/us-holds-journalist-without-charges-in.html
Related Article - A quote...."Ibrahim Jassam is the latest journalist the US has arrested but not charged. A journalists advocacy group says such actions hurt US standing when it speaks for press freedom and rule of law." -- For more regarding the two articles shown above see....US - Killing the Messenger
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/uskillingthemessenger-weblist-mpg-112907
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Summit Shows Iran a Regional Power - Trilateral Summit [Attendees] Agree to Eliminate Terrorism - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://news.antiwar.com/2009/05/24/summit-shows-iran-a-regional-power/
A quote...."Today in Tehran, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held a trilateral summit with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The three agreed to an official statement (available below) in which they pledged, among other things, to work together to eliminate all terrorism in the region."
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Ahmadinejad slams presence of foreign forces in region  ---  http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=102321
A quote...."TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attacked the presence of foreign forces in the region at a summit with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday aimed at tackling terrorism and other security problems. The three neighbors' first such meeting, which ended with pledges of cooperation but without any specific measures being announced, took place as Pakistan and Afghanistan are battling the spread of Taliban insurgencies in their countries."
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Obama orders Gates to update plan for Iran strike  ---  http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3720065,00.html
War Alert - A quote...."American defense secretary tells NBC television president has instructed him to refresh plans for military action against Tehran prepared during Bush era. 'Presidents always ask their military to have a range of contingency plans available to them,' he says."
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Israeli exercise envisions total regional war  ---  http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=38068
War Alert - A quote...."Bethlehem – Ma’an/Agencies – Israel will launch a nationwide military readiness drill next Sunday simulating an all-out regional war in addition to an uprising by Palestinians in the interior of the country."
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Two million rendered refugees by fighting in Pakistan  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/paki-m25.shtml
A quote...."The Pakistan military offensive against pro-Taliban militia in the country’s North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) has produced a massive humanitarian crisis. More than one-and-a-half million people have fled their homes during the past month—the largest number of people to have been displaced by violence since the Rwandan genocide of 1994, reports the United Nations High Commission for Refugees."
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North Korea Conducts Nuclear Weapons Test - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://news.antiwar.com/2009/05/24/north-korea-conducts-nuclear-weapons-test/
South Korea’s cabinet is holding an emergency meeting this morning after it detected an “artificial earthquake” in North Korea, a sign that the nation may have conducted a test explosion of an atomic weapon. - Those fears were later confirmed by North Korea’s Central News Agency (KCNA), which confirmed that the nation conducted its second underground nuclear test at approximately 10:00 am Monday local time (roughly 9 pm Sunday EST). The seismic activity detected was similar to the October 2006 test."
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Full text: N Korea test statement  ---  http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/05/20095254615318501.html
Related Article - A quote...."The following is the full-text of a report released on Monday by the North Korean state-run Korean Central news Agency (KCNA), confirming the country had conducted a nuclear test."
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Putin warns outsiders over Ukraine  - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/05/24/putin-warns-outsiders-over-ukraine/
A quote...."Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned the West on Sunday not to meddle in relations between Russia and Ukraine, according to remarks cited by state-run news agencies. - After laying a wreath at the grave of Anton Denikin, who fought against the Red Army after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and is now cast by the Kremlin as a patriot, Putin urged journalists to read Denikin's diaries, RIA-Novosti and ITAR-Tass reported. - "He has a discussion there about Big Russia and Little Russia — Ukraine," they quoted Putin as saying. "He says that nobody should be permitted to interfere in relations between us, they have always been the business of Russia itself."
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London 7/7 bombing investigation a “whitewash  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/ukte-m25.shtml
A quote...."Families of victims of the July 7, 2005 bombings in London have denounced a parliamentary investigation into the events as a “whitewash”. They accuse Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), which issued a report of its investigation last week, of covering up the failure of MI5 to stop the four suicide-bombers who killed 52 people and injured 700."
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The Palestinians; The Right of Return and the Right of Choice
  ---  http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/05/21/the-palestinians-the-right-of-return-and-the-right-of-choice/
Must Read - A quote...."Today, May 15th marks the 61st anniversary of the Nakba, or Exile of Palestinians from their homes, villages and farms: driven out by the raging Jewish terrorist groups in their mission to establish the State of Israel. 45 years also passed since the establishment of the PLO as the Palestinian Liberation Organization dedicated to the liberation of Palestine from Zionists. Rather than liberation and the realization of the Right of Return, the PLO and its leaders of Arafat, Abbas and Qurai exchange the "Right of Return" for the "Right to Manage" the Jewish Occupation of what remained of historic Palestine, of course minus Jerusalem, minus all the land taken for Jewish Settlements and Jewish Roads and the Apartheid Wall and the more than 615 Israeli Security Checkpoints. 15 years passed since the signing of Oslo and the present Palestinian leadership continues to negotiate, failing at every step, failing to even achieve minor relief for the millions of Palestinians, such as the removal of one single checkpoint or allowing a dying mother to pass through to go to a hospital. If the past is an indication of the future, then the Diaspora Palestinians will have a long time to wait. Perhaps the best thing they can do is to exchange the "Right of Return" for the "Right of Choice"."
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Pro-Israel forces attempt to silence University of California Santa Barbara professor  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/prof-m25.shtml
A quote...."On January 19 University of California Santa Barbara sociology Professor William Robinson sent an email to students on the roster of his Global Affairs course in which he compared the Israeli occupation of Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto. He was subsequently brought up on disciplinary charges by the Academic Senate of the university, as well as subjected to harassment and persecution by pro-Israeli elements." -- For more on this issue see....Judeo-Christian C/C & US  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/judeochristianconflictcontrolwithinus-weblist-mpg-010409
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Obama offers nothing to the Palestinians  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/isra-m25.shtml
Not true, he offers them lies, pain, brutal oppression, endless suffering, and death. Think that's a tad harsh? Than just keep in mind Obama's coronation as the New Roman Empire's newest Emperor was literally bathed in blood. - mpg -- See article shown below... -- A quote...."His three hour meeting last week in the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu made clear that President Barack Obama has no more intention of acting as an “honest broker” to secure a settlement with the Palestinians than his predecessor, George W. Bush." -- Article - No Leadership From Obama. - Oh Contraire! - 12-28-08 - mpg  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/noleadershipfromobama-ohcontraire-mpg-reficultnias-122808
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Israel Steals Palestinian Heritage, History  ---  http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/05/israel-steals-palestinian-heritage.html
A quote...."Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayad has made a formal complaint to the Canadian government regarding the intention of Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum to collaborate with the Israel Antiquities Authority to host “Dead Sea Scrolls: Words that Changed the World” from June 27 to January 3, 2010."
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Fatah facing deepest crisis ever
  ---  http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s72YnwYrvBbfOmVBxWp3WZrp6JsI
HrxIW3P6xUX7LfU0uEEYDcIoyUPUTHjWXyTYRceW40Pwa6NyJbNwWldzDrVA0NdTjv%2bkdvf01n%2bgB%2ffLI%3d
A quote...."Fatah leaders have accused Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his allies of seeking the “dismantling” and “disintegration” of the movement in order to facilitate “the liquidation” of the Palestinian cause."
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Palestinian internal strife drags on  ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54541&hd=&size=1&l=e
A quote....""The picture in Palestine today is worthy of a surreal masterpiece: dialogue between factions in Cairo has come to nil, though it may well have been their last chance; there is an old government in Gaza, usually referred to as dissolved; then there is a new government in the West Bank, ordered by Mahmoud Abbas, which predictably piqued Hamas and spurred, for the first time ever, opposition from within Fatah itself," wrote Mamdouh al Sheikh in an opinion piece for the Emirati daily Al Bayane." -- For more on this issue see....US Sponsored Civil Wars - Palestine
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/ussponsoredcivilwars-weblist-mpg-101107#PALESTINE
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The Swine Flu Outbreak and Other Bio-Warfare Matters....

Queens woman becomes second confirmed swine flu death in NYC
 -- http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/05/24/2009-05-24_woman_in_her_50s_becomes_second_confirmed_swine_flu_death_in_new_york_city.html
Tamiflu might not work against swine flu, Government’s scientists warn
  ---  http://www.prisonplanet.com/tamiflu-might-not-work-against-swine-flu-governments-own-scientists-warn.html
WHO: World Should Prepare For Severe Flu Crisis
  ---  http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N22387871.htm
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An Avalanche of Claptrap  ---  http://lewrockwell.com/bonner/bonner384.html
Must Read - A quote...." Illusions pile up… They’re sure to come down sooner or later -- Like snow at high altitudes, the central banks’ new money is piling up. As reported last week, all the world’s major central banks have turned on their snow machines. The US Federal Reserve has been authorized to “print” $1.75 trillion worth of new money in order to buy Treasury bonds. The Bank of England has its own program – worth 75 billion pounds, so far. Even Switzerland has been printing money – so much that its money supply, as measured by M2, is growing at 30% per year. And two weeks ago, the European Central Bank announced that it too would begin creating money in order to buy corporate bonds."
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Early retirement claims increase dramatically  ---  http://www.latimes.com/news/la-na-retirement24-2009may24,0,1972892.story?track=rss
Financial Alert - A quote...."Instead of working longer as the economy worsens, more Americans are calling it quits before age 66. The ramifications could be profound for the retirees, families, government and social institutions." -- For more on this issue see quote and articles shown below....

"....bare in mind the US-NRE is currently expending huge sums on various unnecessary military operations and self-inflicted Imperial "adventures" worldwide, is spending more on  its vast, bloated, military establishment per year than the rest of the entire world combined, is deeply in debt along with its entire population, a population which has increased their debt load per capita, inflation adjusted, every ten year cycle   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/fedfundschart-photopg-cached-032407  ---  for the past sixty years, is a population that has reduced its savings rate recently to the point where it became negative, is a nation that has a substantially diminished manufacturing base and finally, is a nation now undergoing a large unavoidable demographic shift as tens of millions of baby-boomers retire from the workforce.  ---  NONE  of these additional burdens existed during the Great Depression.  This does not bode well for the next two years, or for that matter the next two decades in offering any support for a positive outlook regarding the future of this nation’s economy. - mpg"  -- Quoted from Enforcing the Rules -- Too Little, Too Late - 02-27-09 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/enforcingtherulestoolittletoolate-mpg-reficultnias-022709
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California faces its day of fiscal reckoning  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090523/ap_on_re_us/us_california_day_of_reckoning
A quote...."SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The day of reckoning that California has been warned about for years has arrived. The longest recession in generations and the defeat this week of a package of budget-balancing ballot measures are expected to lead to state spending cuts so deep and so painful that they could rewrite the social contract between California and its citizens. They could also force a fundamental rethinking of the proper role of government in the Golden State."
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Row at Royal Bank of Scotland over multimillion-pound bonuses  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/may/24/rbs-banking-bonus-scheme-criticism
A quote...."Royal Bank of Scotland is under fire over new bonus schemes for its chief executive, Stephen Hester, and other top bankers amid concern about the performance criteria attached to multimillion-pound awards by a bank 70% owned by the taxpayer."
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Saturday May 23rd 2009 - links page

Torture and 9/11  - posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22684.htm
Absolute Must Read - A quote...."May 22, 2009 "Information Clearing House" --- It could be argued that of the panoply of evil of which human beings find themselves uniquely capable, nothing is as abominable as the deliberate infliction of mental or physical pain on a helpless captive person.

That a nation grandiosely referring to itself as the world’s lone ‘superpower’ would, on the basis of very thin manufactured evidence stoop to such behavior as using sodomy (even against innocent children), cramming people into coffin-like boxes, chaining them in stress positions, karate-kicking them (even to death), suffocating them, slamming their heads into walls, taking away their clothing, freezing them, using sensory deprivation and drowning, plus a hundred other cruel measures gives the lie to that assertion. An evil power, certainly. Hardly a ‘shining city on a hill’.

And now that we know that orders for torture came right from the very top of the unrepentant Bush Administration even before the twisted entitlement of the Yoo/Bybee memos, and even as it is revealed that torture was employed not to gain information but to bolster the false assertion that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Quieda and thus justify the indefensible invasion of Iraq, we are treated to ad nauseam appearances by the previously mute and bunkered Dick Cheney defending his cretinous actions and calling for more of the same. It is unbelievable that a nation that calls itself Christian could even countenance a debate on torture, and, after killing perhaps a million innocent Iraqi citizens in an illegal war, call for more of the same in Afghanistan. Or to employ white phosphorous and other war crime weapons in either location. The combination of hypocrisy and self-serving delusion is stunning. These ‘Christians’ are statistically more likely to favor torture than non-believers."

For more on this issue see....Making Up Stories - With Torture
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/rapsheetarch/mpgrap-051309-051909#MAKINGUPSTORIES
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Military tribunals not the same as U.S. courts  ---  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/23/MN9Q17OTTB.DTL
A quote...."President Obama says his proposed reforms to the military commissions his predecessor established to try suspected terrorists will bring the tribunals "in line with the rule of law." But it isn't the same law that applies in U.S. courts. -- Pentagon officials appoint the judges and can remove them. Military commanders choose the jurors, who can convict defendants by non-unanimous votes, except in death penalty cases. The military can monitor defense lawyers' conversations with their clients. -- Prosecutors can also present evidence that would never pass muster in civilian courts. Confessions made under physical or mental pressure could be admissible, despite Obama's disavowal of torture and coercion. There's no ban on evidence from illegal searches. And defendants may be convicted on the basis of hearsay - a second hand report of an out-of-court accusation by another person, perhaps a fellow suspect, whom the defense never gets to see or question." -- For more on this issue see....The Convenient Silence of Guantanamo Bay - 05-31-08 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/theconvenientsilenceofgitmo-blog-mpg-053108
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The Awful Sound of Silence  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/23-3
A quote...."And no one dared disturb the sound of silence. " -- *Paul Simon* -- "While I suppose one could argue that it's too early to start identifying the most under-reported story of the 21st century to date, I should think that the actual death and human suffering toll in Iraq might top the list of almost any discerning journalist, academic, policymaker, or for that matter, peacemaker. The fact that the scale and scope of the tragedy has been successfully obscured, so far, is in itself quite a story, though perhaps one with an ending that may leave our collective sense of fundamental goodness more than a bit shaken." -- For more on this issue see....US Fake Intel / Propaganda - Iraq Death Toll  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206#IRAQDEATHS
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The Good News Flower Hour #22 - Donald Rumsfeld, War Criminal   ---  http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/42925
Alt  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qumwmkg7yOk  ---  (YouTube - 1 min 58 sec - May 22, 2009)
Video - Groovy! - mpg -- A quote...."Donald Rumsfeld's holy war art!"
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Scott Horton Interviews David Bromwich - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/05/21/david-bromwich-3/
Audio Interview - Special Note - A quote...."David Bromwich, professor of literature at Yale University, discusses Edmund Burke’s warnings on excessive concentrations of power, misleading coverage of the Obama/Netanyahu conference in which the New York Times exaggerated Obama’s hawkishness on Iran and the administration’s position on a Palestinian state."
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Provoking the Inevitable  ---  http://www.truthout.org/052309A
A quote...."On Monday, Iraqi government security forces arrested two prominent Sunni leaders in Iraq's volatile Diyala Province. One of them, Sheikh Riyadh al-Mujami, not coincidentally, is a prominent leader in the local Sahwa (Sons of Iraq), the 100,000-strong Sunni militia that was set up by the US military to quell attacks against occupation forces and launch an effort to battle al-Qaeda in Iraq. Both of those objectives were accomplished, but these efforts are being erased by ongoing missions by Iraqi government security forces, sometimes backed by the US military, to kill or capture both Sahwa leadership and fighters. The results of these attacks against the Sahwa are already evident in an escalation in violence that has taken two forms - a dramatic increase in spectacular attacks against Iraqi civilians and increasing attacks ag ainst occupation forces." -- also posted at GlobRsrch -- http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13718
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Battles rage in Pakistan's Swat  ---  http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/05/2009523111020448920.html
A quote...."Pakistani soldiers have entered the main town in the Swat valley and engaged in fierce street battles with Taliban fighters, the military has said."
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New Indian govt extends 'hand of friendship' to Pakistan - link posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090523/wl_sthasia_afp/indiapoliticsdiplomacylead
A quote...."NEW DELHI (AFP) – India's new government said Saturday it was ready to extend "the hand of friendship" to arch-rival Pakistan as long as Islamabad moves to dismantle Islamic militant groups based on its soil."
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Russia, Jordan sign nuclear cooperation agreement  ---  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1087518.html
A quote...."Russia and Jordan have signed a nuclear energy cooperation agreement, according to media reports in Moscow over the weekend. According to terms of the deal, Russia will provide the Hashemite Kingdom with power plants, nuclear research facilities, and training centers."
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Israeli spy confesses to Nasrallah assassination plot  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95734&sectionid=351020203
A quote...."An Israeli spy arrested in Lebanon has confessed to being involved in a plot to facilitate the assassination of Hezbollah leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah." -- also posted at WarInIraq  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/197805
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Nasrallah: Death penalty must be imposed on Israeli spies  ---  http://www.imemc.org/article/60516
Special Note - Full quote...."The Lebanese authorities are holding up to 30 suspects in what security sources say is a widening investigation into espionage for Israel.  At least 18 suspects have already been charged. Lebanon says at least two spies managed to escape to Israel earlier this week and it demanded that Israel hand them back through the UN peacekeeping force.  Senior Lebanese security officials have stated that the arrests have dealt a critical blow to Israel's spy networks in Lebanon.  They say many of the suspects played crucial roles in identifying Hezbollah targets that were bombed during the 2006 Lebanon war. On the Lebanese side this war resulted in the death of around 1,200, mainly civilians, whereas 160 people died on the Israeli side.  After Nasrallah's speech, Lebanon's security forces arrested another two suspected of espionage, including one woman, Israel Radio reported on Saturday morning. - bold by website editor. -- These people are in a great deal of trouble, if it can be proved that they actually helped Israel during the war and selected targets for them, they will be executed.  It's what any country would do. - mpg
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Mousavi campaign denied Facebook access  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95777&sectionid=351020101
A quote...."Iran's officials have blocked the access of Iranian internet surfers to the free-access social networking website, Facebook, ahead of the June 12th presidential vote."
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Hu Jintao calls for powerful air force to fulfil PLA's missions  ---  http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/23/content_11421509.htm
A quote...."BEIJING, May 22 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Hu Jintao urged Friday to build a powerful air force to meet the demands of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) for missions in the 21th century." -- also posted at WarInIraq  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/197754
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Uphill road to the EU-Russia summit in Khabarovsk - what's next?  ---  http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20090521/155058771.html
A quote...."It was clear even before the summit that Russia will not achieve its main goal there, which was to try and persuade Europe to sign a new agreement on energy security to replace the Energy Charter, which runs against our grain. A week before the summit, Brussels made it clear that it was ready to discuss any Russian proposals, but only in the context of the Energy Charter. In other words, the EU is satisfied with the charter and does not want to sign any other document, although in principle Europeans understand Russia's intention to update the charter to protect its rights in gas transit countries."
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Ex-President of Industrial Bank of Venezuela Arrested for Corruption  ---  http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4461
A quote...."Mérida, May 21st 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- On Tuesday, Venezuelan authorities arrested the former president of the Industrial Bank of Venezuela (BIV), Luis Quiaro, on charges of embezzlement."
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Venezuela Completes 22 Trimesters of Consecutive Economic Growth  ---  http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/4460
A quote...."Mérida, May 21st 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) - Venezuela's GDP grew by 0.3% in the first trimester of this year, bringing the number of consecutive trimesters of economic growth in Venezuela to twenty-two, according to the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV)."
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Files on Priest Sex Abuse to Be Opened  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/nyregion/23abuse.html?_r=3
A quote...."Connecticut’s highest court ruled on Friday that thousands of pages of documents from sexual-abuse lawsuits filed against priests in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport that had been kept sealed for more than a decade must be made public."
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Federal judge threatens to sanction Obama administration over secrecy
  ---  http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/23/federal-judge-threatens-to-sanction-obama-administration-over-secrecy/
A quote...."U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco warned the Obama administration on Friday of severe sanctions if it does not comply with the court’s order to turn over a secret document an Islamic group says proves they were illegally spied upon. -- The case, Al-Haramain v. Obama (see also: Al-Haramain V. Bush), springs out of a government mistake in which a secret document detailing the wiretapping of calls between attorneys and Saudi charity Al-Haramain was turned over to the charity’s counsel."
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Zelikow Caught in a Whopper; Made False Statements to Author about Criminal Referral for NORAD, FAA
  ---  http://www.prisonplanet.com/zelikow-caught-in-a-whopper-made-false-statements-to-author-about-criminal-referral-for-norad-faa.html
Special Note - A quote...."Documents recently found in the National Archives cast doubt on the integrity of the 9/11 Commission’s Executive Director Philip Zelikow. In an e-mail exchange with author Philip Shenon, Zelikow claimed that he first learned of a dispute on the commission over the investigation of false statements made by NORAD and FAA officials after it had been “percolating for a while” and was not involved in the initial stages of the argument. However, an e-mail chain (scroll down) found in the Archives by History Commons contributor paxvector shows that Zelikow had been involved in the issue from very near the beginning." -- For more on this sort of issue see....9/11 - NORAD  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/911norad-weblist-mpg-091308
& 9/11 - WTC7   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/911-wtc7-weblist-mpg-082308
& 9/11 - Commission   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/911commission-weblist-mpg-091306
& 9/11 - Punish or Reward   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/911punishorreward-weblist-mpg-021409
& 9/11 - WTC-1&2   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/911WTC1&2-weblist-mpg-030709
& 9/11 - Planning Guidance  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/911-planningguidance-weblist-mpg-040409
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Don Siegelman Isn't Giving up and Neither am I
  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/DON-SIEGELMAN-ISN-T-GIVING-by-Marilyn-Noyes-090521-688.html
A quote...."There is so much press given to torture and political prisoners outside of our U.S. borders, but there were many good people targeted during the Bush years, and they are in desperate need of our attention.  One of those is Don Siegelman, former governor of Alabama.  Our justice department is deafeningly silent on the political persecution of this good man."
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Lavrov meets Mashaal, favors Hamas bonds  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95787&sectionid=351020602
A quote...."Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says that Moscow deems it necessary to maintain contact with the Palestinian resistance group Hamas."
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France: Jerusalem should be capital of two states  ---  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1087483.html
A quote...."France accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday of prejudicing the outcome of the Middle East peace process by declaring that Jerusalem would forever be Israel's undivided capital."
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Haneyya's gov't urges Muslim FMs to declare Jerusalem capital of Palestine
  ---  http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7tl4Nnf21habdJDornUZvcFB4I%2bT
c2d%2bE09tKJpXMgeYx0FDPJnJwfp8dV0xy%2fbbdKwFPKahMeYV%2bs6qJmBpV%2bq7BYAMuup76MkRrUfPTRWk%3d
A quote...."GAZA, (PIC)-- The democratically elected PA caretaker government of Premier Ismael Haneyya has called on Muslim foreign ministers to declare the occupied city of Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, and urged them to bridle the Israeli activities in the city."
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King Abdullah’s '57-State Solution'  ---  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15130
A quote...."What we are talking about is not Israelis and Palestinians sitting at the table, but Israelis sitting with Palestinians, Israelis sitting with Syrians, Israelis sitting with Lebanese. And with the Arabs and the Muslim world lined up to open direct negotiations with Israelis at the same time. So it’s the work that needs to be done over the next couple of months that has a regional answer to this – that is not a two-state solution, it is a 57-state solution."
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Armed soldiers, police, attempt to shut down Palestine Festival of Literature opening night
  ---  http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=38040
Special Note - A quote...."Jerusalem – Ma’an – Israeli police and armed border officials shut down the Palestinian National Theater in East Jerusalem on Saturday, in an effort to quash the Palestine Festival of Literature and prevent international writer and poets from addressing Palestinians."
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Israeli forces shoot Ni’lin demonstrator in the head with tear-gas projectile  ---  http://palsolidarity.org/2009/05/6777
A quote...."Residents of Ni’lin gathered in the olive groves near the village to hold the weekly prayer before the start of the demonstration at 12:30. Several speeches were made to commemorate the 1 year anniversary since Ni’lin’s resistance against the Apartheid Wall began. Israeli soldiers positioned themselves around the people praying. Several soldiers occupied a nearby under-construction house."
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Israel used depleted uranium in offensive on Gaza -- NGOs  ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54508&hd=&size=1&l=e
A quote...."GENEVA, May 23, 2009 (KUNA) -- Action of Citizens for the total Dismantling of Nukes (ACDN) said Saturday that it has just produced a 33-page report concluding that the presence of as much as 75 tons of depleted uranium in Gaza soil is highly probable to the Israeli "Operation Cast Lead" offensive."
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That Means Israel has used the following weapons against a civilian population, tightly packed in an urban area, with nowhere to go.

Depleted Uranium
Wiki,  ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium
 SourceWatch  ---  http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Depleted_Uranium
DIME Weapons
Wiki,  ---  http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Depleted_Uranium
 GlobSec  ---  http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/dime.htm
White Phosphorus
Wiki,  ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willy_Pete
GlobSec,  ---  http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/wp.htm
SourceWatch,  ---  http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=White_Phosphorus
GoglSrch - photos - warning, grim images
  ---  http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&as_epq=White+Phosphorus&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=10&lr=&as_filetype=&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all
&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images&q=photos+%22White+Phosphorus%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=a_gYSur3Oq
XutQPA1dySDw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title
Flechette Weapons
Wiki,  ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flechettes
Amnesty,  ---  http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/israeli-army-used-flechettes-against-gaza-civilians-20090127
18.5mm Flechette Shell - (example only)  ---  http://weapons.travellercentral.com/ammo/shotgun_flechette.html

For more on this issue see....Gaza Invasion of 12/27/08
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/thegazainvasion-mpg-weblist-122708
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China unveils first sovereign credit rating standards  ---  http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-05/23/content_11424652.htm
Financial Update - Special Note - Since China is probably going to invest its vast hoards of cash on the basis of these standards, it would behoove everyone to pay close attention to them. – mpg -- A quote...."Compared with other rating agencies, Dagong pays more attention to the different economic stage of each country, and examines the features of its credit risks in a holistic and systematic view, according to Dagong. -- Jiang Yong, director of the Center for Economic Security Studies under the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, said the financial crisis exposed a risk of the international society relying solely on the credit rating institutions of a single country, which is the largest risk of the world economy." - bold by website editor -- Ouch!!  The Chinese are so nice, to put what they said above in plain English, China doesn't want to ever again rely on criminally negligent, financially biased, credit rating agencies whose ratings aren't worth the paper they were printed on.  In deference to the Chinese attempts to be polite these agencies will remain nameless.  In any case everyone already knows who they are. - mpg
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Rebuilding The Banks  ---  http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/42933
Financial Alert - Chart - A quote...."The costs of this failure are massive. Frantic efforts by governments to save their financial systems and buoy their economies will do long-term damage to public finances. The IMF reckons that average government debt for the richer G20 countries will exceed 100% of GDP in 2014, up from 70% in 2000 and just 40% in 1980."
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Bill to Audit Fed Gains Serious Momentum  ---  http://www.prisonplanet.com/bill-to-audit-fed-gains-serious-momentum.html
Special Note - Some quotes...."It looks like the Federal Reserve may finally have something to worry about now that HR 1207 is finally gaining serious steam. If enacted, HR 1207 will amend title 31 of the United States Code and reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States. In other words, for the first time since 1950, the criminals at the Federal Reserve will be forced by law to open their books." -- "If passed, the bill will force the Fed to give a public accounting of the trillions of taxpayer “loans” handed over to the banksters. It will force Congress to audit the Fed and this will force out into the light of day the Fed practice of inflating the currency for the gain of a small number of international bankers. It will reveal the bankster practice of engineering financial crises and depressions — or scientifically created, as Congressman Charles A. Lindberg Sr. said after the Federal Reserve Act was passed in the dead of night — in order to consolidate illicit gains and eliminate competition (as the bankers are monopoly men)."
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Quantizing The S&P 500  ---  http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/05/quantizing-s-500.html
Quant - Analysis - This website editor had trouble seeing the charts, although it's probably due to the monitor that was being used (click charts to enlarge). - And although this is a highly technical read for some people, (including this editor), it's also highly entertaining.  The author's basic conclusion is that garbage stocks did well during the last two months because everybody ignored quant analysis and poured their money into....garbage stocks. - mpg -- There may yet come a time, when chasing Beta is no longer the preferred approach to generating returns, and together with Keno, Black-Jack, Craps and No Limit Hold Em, investors drop this most ridiculous of "investing" strategies. There may, indeed, yet come a time, when such old-school, boring, mundane and critical concepts as valuation, cash flow and profitability once again figure in research analysts' reports instead of trying to determine which is the next sector to be socialized under the guise of too big to fail, or where the short interest is highest, and ploughing enough cash in the most shorted stocks with hopes of destroying those who are reminded of the old maxim that when you are short, your downside is unlimited.
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Credit Default Swaps; The Poison in the Financial System  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13717
Article  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22697.htm
 also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
Some quotes...."In a little more than a decade, Credit Default Swaps (CDS) have ballooned into a multi-billion dollar industry which has changed the fundamental character of the financial system and increased systemic risk by many orders of magnitude. CDS, which were originally created to reduce potential losses from defaulting bonds, has turned into a cash cow for the big banks, generating mega-profits on, what amounts to, nothing more than legalized gambling."  ---  "In December 2007, the Bank for International Settlements reported derivative trades tallying in at $681 trillion - ten times the gross domestic product of all the countries in the world combined." ("Credit Default Swaps: Evolving Financial Meltdown and Derivative Disaster Du Jour", Dr. Ellen Brown, globalresearch.ca)" -- also posted at CounterPunch  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney05222009.html
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Two Illinois Banks Seized, Bringing U.S. Tally This Year to 36  ---  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a42Xg57jVTzM
A quote...."May 22 (Bloomberg) -- Two Illinois banks with combined assets of almost $1 billion were closed by regulators, pushing the toll of failed U.S. lenders to 36 this year amid the longest recession since the 1930s."
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Continued job losses seen in 44 states  ---  http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/continued-job-losses-seen-in-44-states/
A quote...."All but six states lost jobs in April and double-digit unemployment persisted in every corner of the country as companies squeezed by the recession slashed payrolls. -- For the fifth straight month, California led the nation in net job losses, with 63,700 jobs disappearing in April."
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Friday May 22nd 2009 - links page

Article #1 -- In Bronx Bomb Case, Missteps Caught on Tape  http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/in-bronx-bomb-case-missteps-caught-on-tape/
Must Read - A quote...."(Informant – arrested on Federal Identity theft charges – turned FBI confidential informant. According to the “official story” the informant had been hanging around the mosque since 2007 trying to get people to “join his team”.  He had even offered people “large sums” of money.  I guess it’s hard to find dumbass losers at a mosque these days.  The informant was there when they had lunch (he paid the tab), when they bought cell phones (he paid the tab), when they bought their one stupid gun (he paid the tab), and when they bought a camera to case out the targets (he paid the tab). -- but the official story is… “The full nature and extent of the informant’s role in facilitating the plot is unknown.” … yeah, right."
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Article #2 -- FBI Agent on Synagogue Case Has Questionable Record - http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/05/the_fbi_agent_w.php
Must Read - **BREAKING** - Village Voice Exposé - The FBI agent with a high-profile role in yesterday's arrests of four men for plotting a terror attack in New York has a pretty interesting -- and controversial -- track record. -- Special Agent Robert Fuller, whose name appears at the top of the federal criminal complaint in the case, had a hand in the FBI's failure to nab two of the 9/11 hijackers, had one of his informants set himself on fire in front of the White House, and was involved in misidentifying a Canadian man as a terrorist leading to his secret arrest and torture -- a case that is now the subject of a major lawsuit. -- Fuller is listed as the lead agent in the arrests of four men yesterday who officials say were trying to blow up a couple of synagogues and shoot a military jet from the sky. But as in other cases of seemingly inept homegrown terrorists, the four suspects were supplied (inert) weapons from an FBI informant, and in coming weeks we'll learn more about how much that informant goaded the four suspects into carrying out the supposed acts of terrorism."
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Article #3 -- Exactly As We Predicted; Deadly NY Terror Cell Are Semi-Retarded Potheads
  ---  http://www.prisonplanet.com/exactly-as-we-predicted-deadly-ny-terror-cell-are-semi-retarded-potheads.html
Special Note - A quote...."As in ever other major case, terror group hyped by media turn out to be low IQ bums radicalized by federal provocateurs -- Exactly as we predicted in our headline story yesterday, two of the ringleaders in the “deadly” New York terror plot salaciously hyped by the media and government officials have turned out to be semi-retarded potheads. -- “The men will likely turn out to be semi-retarded dropouts,” we stated in our article yesterday, basing our forecast on the fact that in every other major terror sting in the west given so much prominence by officials and the corporate media, the poor suckers rounded up by the feds always turn out to be low IQ petty criminals down on their luck, provocateured and armed by federal agents."

Regarding the three articles shown above -- Mind you folks, this is the EXACT same FBI who flew over a hundred and eighty members of the Saudi Royal and bin Laden families out of the country just days after 9/11, at the request of Osama bin Laden himself....don't believe this website editor?  Check it out here.  It was also the SAME FBI who somehow completely botched the anthrax investigation.
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/falseflagops-weblist-mpg-082006#ANTHRAX  ---     Anthrax that was supplied by a US military installation and was mailed to Democratic Congressmen just days before they were scheduled to vote on new dictatorial "enabling" legislation.  Of course it must be just another set of "dem dare coincidences". -- mpg
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Two Sides of the Same Coin: Heads-Heads  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/Two-Sides-of-the-Same-Coin-by-sibel-edmonds-090522-139.html
Must Read - A quote...."In politics we presume that everyone who knows how to get votes knows how to administer a city or a state. When we are ill... we do not ask for the handsomest physician, or the most eloquent one." -- *Plato*
 
"During the campaign, amid their state of elation, many disregarded Presidential Candidate Senator Barack Obama's past record and took any criticism of these past actions as partisan attacks deserving equally partisan counterattacks. Some continued their reluctant support after candidate Obama became grand finalist and prayed for the best. And a few still continue their rationalizing and defense, with illogical excuses such as 'He's been in office for only 20 days, give the man a break!' and 'He's had only 50 days in office, give him a chance!' and currently, 'be reasonable - how much can a man do in 120 days?!' I am going to give this logic, or lack of, a slight spicing of reason, then, turn it around, and present it as: If 'the man' can do this much astounding damage, whether to our civil liberties, or to our notion of democracy, or to government integrity, in 'only' 120 days, may God help us with the next [(4 X 365) - 120] days."
also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/23
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First Principles ... or Why I Cannot Support Barack Obama  ---  http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2009/05/first-principles-or-why-i-cannot.html
Must Read - A quote...."Let us begin with the fact that George Bush and Dick Cheney were never legitimately elected to the Oval Office: not in 2000, and not in 2004. In the American system, the authority of our government is based on the consent of the governed. This consent was not earned in either "election". Therefore, the Bush-Cheney administrations of 2001-2009 were illegitimate, and the policies implemented by these illegitimate administrations are themselves illegitimate. Period."
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Obama administration sides with Bush officials against outed CIA agent  ---  http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/21/obama-plame-lawsuit/
Obama™ Update - This is unbelievable, totally, utterly, unbelievable!  We all now live under the dictates of a completely lawless administration. This betrayal by Obama and his cohorts now means that NO government employee is safe from political retaliation -- retaliation which might illegally endanger their life, liberty or property, for the simple and decent act of doing their constitutional duties. – mpg -- A quote...."The Obama administration has decided to oppose the reinstatement of a civil lawsuit filed by outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson. - The move represents the first public position by the administration on the issue. Obama’s position mirrors that of President George W. Bush, whose aides found themselves in the cross-fire after the agent, Plame Wilson, was outed by conservative columnist Robert Novak."
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Human Rights Attorney Vince Warren: Obama’s “Preventive Detention” Plan Goes Beyond Bush Admin Policies
  ---  http://i1.democracynow.org/2009/5/22/vince_warren
A quote...."We get reaction to President Obama and Vice President Dick Cheney’s dueling speeches on torture from Vince Warren, the executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Warren took part in a secret meeting Wednesday between Obama and several human rights groups. Warren says although he welcomes Obama’s willingness to hear critical views, he’s disappointed in Obama’s new support for preventive detention. [includes rush transcript]"
||  Real Video Stream  ||  ---  http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2009/may/video/dnB20090522a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=00:16:15
||  Real Audio Stream  ||  ---  http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2009/may/audio/dn20090522.ra&proto=rtsp&start=00:16:15
||  MP3 Download  ||  ---  http://media.libsyn.com/media/democracynow/dn2009-0522-1.mp3
||  More…  ||  ---  http://i1.democracynow.org/2009/5/22/stream
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Senate OKs war funding, blocks release of detainee pictures - link posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/21/senate-oks-war-funding-blocks-release-of-detainee-pictures/
Obama™ Update - A quote...."WASHINGTON (CNN) –The Senate late Thursday easily passed a $91 billion spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. After stripping it of funds to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and placing restrictions on the transfer of its detainees, the bill was adopted 86 to 3."
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Obama Orders Update to Iran Attack Plan - Gates Says "All Options Are On the Table" - posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/
  ---  http://news.antiwar.com/2009/05/22/obama-orders-update-to-iran-attack-plan/
War Alert - Obama™ Update - A quote...."On NBC’s Today Show this morning, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that President Obama has ordered him to update the plans for a US attack on Iran, plans which were last updating during the Bush Administration. Gates says the plans are “refreshed” and insists that “all options are on the table” with respect to the potential attack."
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As Israel rages, US plans for Iran war re-emerge  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95621&sectionid=351020104
War Alert - Obama™ Update - Related Article - A quote...."As Washington gets updates on Israeli plans to strike Iran, US President Barack Obama orders the Pentagon to rejuvenate contingency plans for the use of military in Iran. -- Despite the prospects of diplomatic engagement with Tehran over its nuclear program, Defense Secretary and Pentagon chief Robert Gates said Friday that the White House has not ruled out the possibility of a military strike if diplomacy was to fail." -- Right on the AIPAC/PNAC schedule, for more on that see....Effective Fed Funds Rate & Total Nonfarm Payrolls
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/fedfundschart-photopg-cached-032407
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Understanding the Long War  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13708
Special Note - A quote...."The concept of the "Long War" is attributed to former CENTCOM Commander Gen. John Abizaid, speaking in 2004. Leading counterinsurgency theorist John Nagl, an Iraq combat veteran and now the head of the Center for a New American Security, writes that "there is a growing realization that the most likely conflicts of the next fifty years will be irregular warfare in an 'Arc of Instability' that encompasses much of the greater Middle East and parts of Africa and Central and South Asia." The Pentagon's official Quadrennial Defense Review (2005) commits the United States to a greater emphasis on fighting terrorism and insurgencies in this "arc of instability." The Center for American Progress repeats the formulation in arguing for a troop escalation and ten-year commitment in Afghanistan, saying that the "infrastructure of jihad" must be destroyed in "the center of an 'arc of instability' through South and Central Asia and the greater Middle East." -- The implications of this doctrine are staggering. The very notion of a fifty-year war assumes the consent of the American people, who have yet to hear of the plan, for the next six national elections. The weight of a fifty-year burden will surprise and dismay many in the antiwar movement. Most Americans living today will die before the fifty-year war ends, if it does. Youngsters born and raised today will reach middle age. Unborn generations will bear the tax burden or fight and die in this "irregular warfare."
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How Long Does It Take?  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05222009.html
Must Read - Obama™ Update - A quote...."How long does it take a mild-mannered, antiwar, black professor of constitutional law, trained as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, to become an enthusiastic sponsor of targeted assassinations, “decapitation” strategies and remote-control bombing of mud houses the far end of the globe?"
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The Obama-Cheney “debate” and the threat of dictatorship in America  ---  http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/pers-m22.shtml
Obama™ Update - A quote...."The fragile state of constitutional government and deep crisis of American democracy has been laid bare by the extraordinary public confrontation between President Barack Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday morning."
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Obama’s Betrayals  ---  http://mwcnews.net/content/view/30747/26/
Obama™ Update - A quote...."Obama has adopted Bush’s position on state secrecy and more to stop lawsuits over torture and eavesdropping. Translation: People who were wronged by the government may not sue to bring abusive officials to justice. -- Consistent with that, Obama appears to have no interest in prosecuting the Bush officials who illegally authorized and carried out torture. Even a “truth commission” seems unlikely. In the name of looking to the future, we are being asked to forget the past. -- Obama still says he wants to close the Guantanamo prison, but the one at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan — where detainees have zero rights — is still in operation. And Obama’s pledge on Guantanamo must be judged against the fact that he is considering indefinite and even preventive detention of terrorist suspects his administration is afraid to bring before even a military tribunal."
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US general linked to Abu Ghraib abuse  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/22/iraq.usa1
A quote...."Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, head of coalition forces in Iraq, issued an order last October giving military intelligence control over almost every aspect of prison conditions at Abu Ghraib with the explicit aim of manipulating the detainees' "emotions and weaknesses", it was reported yesterday."
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Fear of Crime and Things to Come  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22687.htm
 posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
A quote...."May 22, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- Fear resides in all living creatures. It’s what keeps us alive down at the watering hole or out on the street. - The fear of crime strikes all who live with its dread, as well as those who are personally victimized. Fear keeps us from doing what we want to do; it causes us to distrust friends and to view strangers with prejudice; and it can trick us into trading freedom for a false sense of security."
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Hezbollah criticises "US meddling" with Biden visit ahead of vote  ---  http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=42200
A quote...."Hezbollah criticised VP Biden's visit as "US meddling" in Lebanon ahead of key elections."
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US seeking to buy Lebanese votes?  ---  http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=32229
Related Article - Never!  The US-NRE never buys the pathetic votes of the "little people".  The US-NRE simply buys the little-people's pathetic leaders and pays them to steal the votes and then gets them to sell their nation’s resources or infrastructure to the US-NRE's elites for pennies on the dollar. It's a much more efficient system. – mpg -- A quote...."US Vice President says Washington to assess aid to Lebanon based on outcome of vote."
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China picks core new leaders  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/KE23Ad02.html
A quote...."While the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) administration seems preoccupied with the twofold task of baoba and baowen - maintaining an 8% growth rate and upholding social stability - it is also giving priority to the rejuvenation of the party's leadership."
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Turkey and Brazil to explore for Black Sea oil  ---  http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=42210
A quote...."President of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, announced that Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) and Brazil's PetroBras would jointly explore oil in the Blacksea, as the initial findings inspired hope. - President Gul and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva who is visiting Turkey, held a joint press conference in Ankara following a tete-a-tete meeting and the signing of an oil exploration agreement between TPAO and PetroBras."
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Japanese Eye Energy Cooperation with Iran  ---  http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8803020745
A quote...."TEHRAN (FNA)- Japanese corporations will be heading Iran soon in a bid to increase energy cooperation. - Iranian Oil Minister Deputy for International Affairs, Hossein Noqrekar Shirazi, told ISNA on Saturday that Japanese delegation will travel to Iran in next two months for talks on optimizing energy system."
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Iran to Host Tri-Nation Summit on May 24  ---  http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8803010820
A quote...."TEHRAN (FNA)- A tripartite summit of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan' heads of state will be held in Tehran on May 24, a senior Iranian envoy said on Friday."
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540 Reporters from 45 Countries to Cover Iran's June Election - (The TENTH bi-annual election since the revolution)
  ---  http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8803010832
A quote...."TEHRAN (FNA)- Hundreds of reporters from different world countries will be in Iran on June 12 to cover the 10th presidential election in the Islamic Republic, a senior Iranian Culture Ministry official said on Friday. " -- For more on this issue see quote shown below....

Oh My Gawd - LOOK!!!  The dirty towel heads are doing it again; they're actually holding elections WITHOUT US-NRE or Israeli permission!!!  The US-NRE doesn't permit Iraq or Afghanistan or even Pakistan to allow candidates to run for office without our input or say-so. It wouldn't even permit the Palestinians to have the government they voted for back in 2005!  Heck, we don't even permit candidates in this country to run for office without AIPAC's (i.e. Israel's) permission and blessing!  How could Obama let them backwards Iranians get away with this stuff.   How can the New Roman Empire just stand by and ALLOW these Iranian animals, these evil people, these "terrorists” to just go-ahead and hold an honest, fair, and freely monitored election???  It's indecent, it's disgusting, it's like they don't need us?  Doesn't Obama UNDERSTAND that if the Iranians keep holding these elections by THEMSELVES, without our PERMISSION, in their very own, unoccupied, non-colonized, non-bombed to shreds, nation-state, it sets a terrible example for the ENTIRE Middle East!!!  Soon other countries could ask the US-NRE to leave so they too, could hold their own elections without our "help".  And than where would we be as the New Roman Empire - hmmmmmm??? – *mpg* -- posted 05-10-09
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Gorbachev and Deng changed the world 20 years ago  ---  http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20090515/155024227.html
A quote...."MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Dmitry Kosyrev) - Some events are important but others are so formidable they change the world. On May 15, 1989, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Chinese President Deng Xiaoping changed the course of world history during their meeting in Beijing."
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UPDATE 2-Venezuela Chavez nationalizes iron companies  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSSP47538420090522
Hugo is making an error. Does he really want Venezuela to wind up with an economy that's completely moribund?  Free markets that are well regulated and well controlled actually do work better than national bureaucracies at distributing most consumer goods, (for the exceptions see articles below). It appears Chavez is tragically taking Venezuela down the wrong road.- mpg -- A quote....CARACAS, May 21 (Reuters) - President Hugo Chavez on Thursday ordered the nationalization of iron companies that include Japanese capital, part of a drive to build a socialist state in the OPEC nation." -- For more on this issue see....Two Methods Which Lead to the Same End - 08-25-07 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/thetwomethods-essay-mpg-082507
& Beware of Bloated Bureaucracy - 01-23-07 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/bloatedbureaucracy-blog-mpg-012307.html
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Internet Threatened By Censorship, Secret Surveillance, And Cybersecurity Laws  ---  http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman220509.htm
A quote...."At a time of corporate dominated media, a free and open Internet is democracy's last chance to preserve our First Amendment rights without which all others are threatened. Activists call it Net Neutrality. Media scholar Robert McChesney says without it "the Internet would start to look like cable TV (with a) handful of massive companies (controlling) content" enough to have veto power over what's allowed and what it costs. Progressive web sites and writers would be marginalized or suppressed, and content systematically filtered or banned." -- also posted at Creative-i  ---  http://www.creative-i.info/?p=6976
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A New CIA Log Of Torture Communications - link posted at BuzzFlash  ---  http://www.buzzflash.com/
  ---  http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/05/20/a-new-cia-log-of-torture-communications/
Special Note - A quote...."The source says nearly every day, Mitchell would sit at his computer and write a top secret cable to the CIA's counterterrorism center. Each day, Mitchell would request permission to use enhanced interrogation techniques on Zubaydah. The source says the CIA would then forward the request to the White House, where White House counsel Alberto Gonzales would sign off on the technique. That would provide the Administration's legal blessing for Mitchell to increase the pressure on Zubaydah in the next interrogation."
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Rob Kall Interviews Sibel Edmonds  ---  http://www.sott.net/articles/show/184847-Rob-Kall-Interviews-Sibel-Edmonds
A quote...."....currently we review the mainstream media as the culprit, because if they were to do their jobs, they would put pressure on the people in the congress, because these people want to get re-elected, and therefore that pressure would act as a catalyst to get these things that we, the people, have been asking for - the real hearings and accountability. But without the mainstream media putting that pressure, going after them, well, they don't have anything really to fear. You know, you have to have carrots, you have to have sticks, but there have been no sticks for these people. They get away with everything." -- *Sibel Edmonds*
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Douglas Frantz and Nuclear Black Market  ---  http://lukery.blogspot.com/2009/05/douglas-frantz-and-nuclear-black-market.html
Related Article -- A quote...."A couple of extra notes regarding my earlier post, CIA and the Nuclear Black Market.   ---  http://lukery.blogspot.com/2009/05/cia-and-nuclear-black-market.html  ---  I was going to post them in that piece, but didn't want to cover too many issues at once.  ---  By all accounts, the SFRC's Douglas Frantz is a good investigator and well-regarded. His 2007 book 
  ---  http://www.amazon.com/Man-Pakistan-Dangerous-Nuclear-Smuggler/dp/0446199583/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242789435&sr=1-1  ---  (co-written with his wife) on AQ Khan, The Man from Pakistan: The True Story of the World's Most Dangerous Nuclear Smuggler, was well-received (also see Adrian Levy's Deception: Pakistan, the United States   ---  http://www.amazon.com/Deception-Pakistan-United-Nuclear-Weapons/dp/1843545330/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b  ---  and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons, and William Langewiesche's The Atomic Bazaar: Dispatches from the Underground World of Nuclear Trafficking)."  ---   http://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Bazaar-Dispatches-Underground-Trafficking/dp/0374531323/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242885905&sr=1-6
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The lie Cheney told about A.Q. Khan  ---  http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/cheney-lies-in-defense-of-torture/
Related Article - A quote...."Somewhere among the strategically placed references to September 11, 2001 and his unapologetic defense of torture, Dick Cheney managed to lie about a series of topics and events that are well documented. It is, after all, the electronic age and facts are not difficult to come by." - also posted at Larisa Alexandrovna   ---  http://www.atlargely.com/atlargely/2009/05/cheney-lied.html  ---  For more regarding the three articles shown above see....US - Nukes for Everyone  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/nukesforeveryone-weblist-mpg-010608
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Independent UN Probe Committee slams Israel for lack of cooperation  ---  http://www.imemc.org/article/60512
A quote...."The independent investigation committee appointed by the United Nations to investigate Israeli violations during the offensive against the Gaza Strip, slammed Israel for the lack of cooperation, and said that this issue is obstructing their investigation."
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France denounces Netanyahu's Jerusalem vow  ---  http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=32230
A quote...."Israel kills two Palestinians in besieged Gaza Strip, wounds ten others in occupied West Bank."
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British MPs Call For End to Blockade of Gaza  ---  http://www.alternativenews.org/english/1939-british-mps-call-for-end-to-blockade-of-gaza.html
A quote...."A group of MPs has called for an immediate end to Israel’s blockade of Gaza, in a new report published today (available online here-PDF)."
  ---  http://www.richardburden.com/uploads/1bb85b99-db9e-6124-3da0-ca8ee2120c27.pdf
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Convoy of Hope for Gaza Update  ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54492&hd=&size=1&l=e
A quote...."The Hope for Gaza Convoy, organised by the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG), are making final preparations in Port Said for departure this morning, heading to Al Areesh and Al Rafah."
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PA official: Israel must allow construction materials into Gaza  ---  http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=38011
A quote...."Gaza – Ma’an – A senior official in the Palestinian caretaker government demanded on Friday that Israel allow all kinds of goods into Gaza "to enable its residents to live in dignity."
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Israel destroying Gaza's farmlands  ---  http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10550.shtml
A quote...."On the morning of 4 May 2009, Israeli troops set fire to Palestinian crops along Gaza's eastern border with Israel. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported that 200,000 square meters of crops were destroyed, including wheat and barley ready for harvest, as well as vegetables, olive and pomegranate trees."
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PCHR : Spain, do not give in to pressure  ---  http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article958
A quote...."PCHR call on lawyers, human rights organizations, civil society, and all concerned parties, to combat any proposed amendment to the law, and to fight to ensure that the interests of justice, and the rights of victims, are upheld. The constitutionality of any proposed amendment to the law will be challenged."
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Palestinian rights deserve Anglican action  ---  http://pulsemedia.org/2009/05/23/palestinian-rights-deserve-anglican-action/
A quote...."Ben White writes that “a obsession with even-handedness is stopping Anglicans taking a firm stand on Israel’s disregard for Palestinian rights.” -- However I’d argue that the obsession with even-handedness is not a cause but an effect — an effect of paranoia induced by the Israel lobby, strongly represented in the Anglican community by Anglican Friends of Israel. -- This group spread the fear that criticising Israel will damage relations with the Jewish community, even if this were so, should it stop the church’s quest for justice?"
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Bill Moyers Journal - Whence Single-Payer?  ---  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05222009/watch2.html
Must View Video -- Bill Moyers interviews Dr. Sidney Wolfe and Dr. David Himmelstein -- A quote...."Washington's abuzz about health care, but why isn't a single-payer plan an option on the table? Public Citizen's Dr. Sidney Wolfe and Physicians for a National Health Program's Dr. David Himmelstein on the political and logistical feasibility of health care reform." -- ||  Transcript  ||  ---  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/05222009/transcript2.html
||  Podcast Mp3  ||  ---  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/rss/media/BMJ-1306.mp3
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US Treas and Fed Reserve Fed Reserve holding over $2 trillion in the Darkest Bal Sheet in Financial History
  ---  http://www.mybudget360.com/us-treasury-and-federal-reserve-federal-reserve-holding-over-2-trillion-in-the-darkest-balance-sheet-in-financial-history/
Must Read - Financial Alert - Charts - Graphs - A quote...."The U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve have arguably two of the least transparent balance sheets known to humankind.  This wouldn’t be such a big issue if the amount of money funneled into these organizations was small.  That is not the case.  The Federal Reserve since October of 2008 has held on its balance sheet over $2 trillion in reserve bank credit and also, Federal Reserve Holdings of U.S. Treasuries.  This of course is the biggest bait in switch in history because in exchange for U.S. Treasuries, banks can offload practically any collateral (i.e., mortgages, auto loans, credit card loans, etc).  The U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve are creating the biggest put option in the history of the world and the American taxpayer stands to lose big."
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Trouble Ahead: Millions of Mortgages Will Ratchet Upward Soon -- http://moneynews.newsmax.com/headlines/option_arm_adjustable/2009/05/21/216954.html
link posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
A quote...." Zacks Research analyst Dirk van Dijk warns that another major mortgage crisis lies ahead as huge numbers of homeowners who have been making only minimum payments on their “pick a payment” mortgages have to start paying in full. - This can cause huge jumps in the monthly payment, with increases of over 50 percent not uncommon, van Dijk says, making these the ultimate “exploding mortgages.”
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Easy bets with other folks' cash  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KE23Dj02.html
A quote...."When you give someone US$1 billion as an interest-free loan, with an uncertain payback period and no interest costs, do you think they will:"

a. Settle all their outstanding debts and start earning money to repay this new facility?
b. Invest in some safe securities to eke out a secure return?
c. Bet the whole thing on red?

"If you answered "c", then congratulations - you are now eligible to become a banker in the United States. The unsaid part of the current global rally in risk assets is that the process is being driven almost exclusively by financial institutions that are currently in the intensive care unit of the US Treasury."
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Recession Turns Malls Into Ghost Towns  ---  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124294047987244803.html
A quote...."CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Malls, those ubiquitous shopping meccas that sprang up in the 1950s, are dwindling in number, with many struggling properties reduced to largely vacant shells. -- On the low-income east side of Charlotte, N.C., the 1.1-million-square-foot Eastland Mall recently lost a slew of key tenants, including a Dillard's and, next month, a Sears. Sales per square foot at the venue fell to $210 in 2008 from $288 in 2001."
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Dollar hits new multimonth low vs euro, pound, yen  ---  http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D98BCFJO0&show_article=1
A quote...."       NEW YORK (AP) - The dollar kept falling Friday, notching fresh multimonth lows against the euro, pound and yen as a warning that Britain's debt level may result in its credit rating being cut ricocheted into worries about the massive U.S. deficit."
also posted at DProgram  ---  http://dprogram.net/2009/05/22/msm-dollar-hits-new-multimonth-low-vs-euro-pound-yen/
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U.S. Jobless Rate Likely to Pass Europe’s - link posted at BuzzFlash  ---  http://www.buzzflash.com/
  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/23/business/economy/23charts.html?_r=1&8au&emc=au
Well, the Times just has to understand, it's the little bits of printed paper that are important....not the people. - mpg -- A quote...."FOR many years, unemployment in the United States was lower than in Western Europe, a fact often cited by people who argued that the flexibility inherent in the American system — it is easier to both hire and fire workers than in many European countries — produced more jobs."
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Morgan Stanley to Boost Executive Salaries as Bonuses Decline --- http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aoz7URVpwVro&refer=home
A quote...."May 23 (Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley, the sixth-biggest U.S. bank by assets, will increase some executive salaries and double Chief Financial Officer Colm Kelleher’s pay as bonuses come under scrutiny from the Obama administration and lawmakers." -- For more on this issue see....Having Fun With Your Tax Dollars  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/havingfunwithyourtaxdollars-weblist-mpg-reficultnias-110808.html
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British Airways reports record loss  ---  http://english.aljazeera.net/business/2009/05/2009522141041394413.html
A quote...."British Airways, Europe's third biggest airline, has reported a record £595m loss in the last year, its worst result in two decades."
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[British] Car production dives 55% as demand plummets
  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/car-production-dives-55-as-demand-plummets-1689818.html
A quote...."At 68,258, the number of cars built was more than 55 per cent lower than in the same month last year, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) reported yesterday. The total fall in car-making since January was by 56 per cent, compared with 2008, it added. Commercial vehicles fared even worse: nearly 22,000 were built in April 2008 but last month the total was just 7,655, a massive 65.2 per cent fall."
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Thursday May 21st 2009 - links page

Barack Obama: Son of a Gipper  ---  http://mwcnews.net/content/view/30720/26/
Must Read - A quote...."The cost of elevating appearance above substance is never worth the price.  I said it under both the presidency of John F. Kennedy and Ronald RayGun.  I am now saying it about the presidency of Barack Obama.  We have elected a clean, well-spoken flim-flam man who is in reality just another house servant of the military/industrial/media complex. -- The moral, spiritual, intellectual and aesthetic bankruptcy of our present condition is beyond bearing.  Paradoxically, it was actually more manageable under the past administration than it is at present.  At least we felt no complicity with Bush.  The dividing line between the Philistine and those who knew better was bright and well defined.  Now everything is confusing.  The sad disparity between appearance and substance in this new president is about the only thing that is beginning to emerge with some degree of clarity."
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Obama’s course is set and his presidency is already stained the familiar blood-red
  ---  http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/47696,opinion,barack-obama-from-anti-war-law-professor-to-warmonger-in-100-days
Article  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22670.htm
 also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
Must Read - A quote...."How long does it take a mild-mannered, anti-war, black professor of constitutional law, trained as a community organiser on the South Side of Chicago, to become an enthusiastic sponsor of targeted assassinations, 'decapitation' strategies and remote-control bombing of mud houses at the far end of the globe?"
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Watching Obama Morph Into Dick Cheney  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22671.htm
posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
Must Read - A quote...."May 21, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- - America has lost her soul, and so has her president. A despairing country elected a president who promised change. Americans arrived from every state to witness in bitter cold Obama’s swearing-in ceremony. The mall was packed in a way that it has never been for any other president. - The people’s good will toward Obama and the expectations they had for him were sufficient for Obama to end the gratuitous wars and enact major reforms. But Obama has deserted the people for [other] interests. He is relying on his non-threatening demeanor and rhetoric to convince the people that change is underway. - The change that we are witnessing is in Obama, not in policies. Obama is morphing into Dick Cheney. - Obama has not been in office four months and already a book could be written about his broken promises."
also posted at CounterPunch  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts05212009.html
& DProgram  ---  http://dprogram.net/2009/05/21/watching-obama-morph-into-dick-cheney/
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Obama Says, "There will be NO prosecutions of anyone in Bush administration"  ---  http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/42846
Alt - (YuTb 9m10s 05/20/09)  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evCeWcRJxSg
Must View Video - A quote...."No 9/11-Type Commissions, either. **BREAKING NEWS**- On The Rachel Maddow Show, Michael Isikoff reports a secret meeting at the White House today with Obama and AG Eric Holder and human rights activists. Obama announced, emphatically, "There will be NO prosecutions of anyone in the Bush administration" and "No 9/11-type commission either." 5/20/09" -- For more on this issue see....A Funny Thing Happened On The Way to the New American Century" - 10-31-08 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/afunnythinghappenedonthewaytothenac-mpg-reficultnias-103108
& Do It for the Sake of Your Children - 04-26-09 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/doitforthesakeofyourchildren-mpg-reficultnias-042609
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Enhanced Interrogation Technique 101 – Sodomize Children in Front of Mothers
  ---  http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2009/05/21/enhanced-interrogation-technique-101-sodomize-children-in-front-of-mothers/
Article  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22675.htm
 also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
A quote...."Seymore Hersh reported, too little fan-fare years ago, that raping a young Iraqi boy in front of his mother was just one horrible thing on one of these “enhanced interrogation” videos.....

He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, ‘You haven’t begun to see evil…’ then trailed off. He said, ‘horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run.’ He looked frightened.”  -- *Salon Mag*  ---  http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/07/15/hersh/
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Sen. Whitehouse Prepares the Nation for Torture Horrors  ---  http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22124.htm
 posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
Must View Video - Alt  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTzJf7m2NL0
 - (YouTube - 4 min -February 25, 2009) -- From the History File - posted Fri Feb 27, 2009 -- A quote -- But the path back from the dark side may lead us down some unfamiliar valleys of remorse and repugnance before we can return to the light. We may have to face our fellow Americans saying to us, "No, please, tell us that we did not do that, tell us that Americans did not do that" - and we will have to explain, somehow. This is no small thing, and not easy; this will not be comfortable or proud; but somehow it must be done. "
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Center for Constitutional Rights Launches Website to Expose Health Professionals' Complicity in Torture  ---  http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/42865
Name them, shame them, than sue the heck out of them!! - mpg -- A quote...."Faced with a steady current of evidence that doctors and psychologists participated in the torture of prisoners detained overseas, federal officials, state licensing boards and professional associations defend their failure to take action against those health professionals by saying that they "do not have enough information." -- We disagree. In response, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has launched the website for When Healers Harm,  ---  http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=r5LbtcXesYohIwwC254VL0uMb3mCbmTT  ---  our campaign to hold health professionals accountable for torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."
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Rachel Maddow: Indefinite detention? Shame on you... President Obama  ---  http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/42858
Video - Special Note - Alt   ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uuWVHT1WUY ---  (YouTube - 7 min 42 sec - May 21, 2009) - **BREAKING NEWS** - President Obama has just declared new unconstitutional presidential powers to hold people without charge, or the right to see evidence against them, or a trial to determine the facts -- indefinitely, If that word is to complicated for some of you sheeple out there, it means FOREVER.   For more on why he's doing this see....Making Up Stories - With Torture
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/rapsheetarch/mpgrap-051309-051909#MAKINGUPSTORIES
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Obama Is Considering Doing Something Even Bush Didn't Try: "Preventive Detention" of People Who Will Never Get a Trial
  ---  http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/05/obama-is-considering-doing-something.html
The New York Times is reporting :

President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried...

What justification could their possibly be for refusing someone a trial? Remember, there are well-established procedures for making sure that sensitive information which would actually detrimental to national security if released is kept away from the general public, such as "in camera" hearings (which is legal talk for a hearing held "in chambers").
also posted at OpEdNews   ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-Is-Considering-Doing-by-George-Washington-090521-615.html  ---  For more on why Obama doesn't want to give anybody involved with 9/11, or the Bush admistration, or both, a trial, see....Making Up Stories - With Torture
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/rapsheetarch/mpgrap-051309-051909#MAKINGUPSTORIES
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The American Way: In Defense of George W. Bush
  ---  http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1767-the-american-way-in-defense-of-george-w-bush.html
Must Read - A quote...."If George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and other principals of the previous administration were ever brought to trial for war crimes, I would offer my services, in all sincerity, to their defense. For I think they would have a strong case to make, one that would be of vital, perhaps decisive importance for the future of the nation -- and the world." -- also posted at OpEdNews
  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-American-Way-In-Defen-by-Chris-Floyd-090521-92.html
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US Col. Advocates US 'Military Attacks' on 'Partisan Media' in Essay for Neocon, Pro-Israel Group JINSA
  ---  http://rebelreports.com/post/110980714/us-colonel-advocates-us-military-attacks-on-partisan
Article posted at  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22678.htm
ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
Special Note - A quote...."A new report for a leading neoconservative group which pushes a belligerent “Israel first” agenda of conquest in the Middle East suggests that in future wars the US should make censorship of media official policy and advocates “military attacks on the partisan media.”
also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/21-11
& AtheoNews   ---  http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/05/us-colonel-advocates-us-military.html
&
Uruknet   ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54466&hd=&size=1&l=e
&
Pulse  ---  http://pulsemedia.org/2009/05/22/shoot-the-messenger/
For more on this issue see....US - Killing the Messenger  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/uskillingthemessenger-weblist-mpg-112907
& Judeo-Christian C/C & US  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/judeochristianconflictcontrolwithinus-weblist-mpg-010409
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Spain revives US army murder case  ---  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8061747.stm
link posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
Related Article - A quote...."A Spanish judge has reinstated charges against three US soldiers over the death of a Spanish journalist in Iraq. -- Judge Santiago Pedraz said there was new evidence to suggest that the three soldiers were responsible for the 2003 death of cameraman Jose Couso."
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Spain charges 3 US soldiers for killing cameraman in Iraq  ---  http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=42141
Related Article - A quote...."A Spanish judge on Thursday charged three U.S. tank crewmen for killing a Spanish television cameraman during the invasion of Iraq. - Sergeant Thomas Gibson, Captain Philip Wolford and Lieutenant Colonel Phil de Camp, none of whom are now in Spain, fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on April 8, 2003, killing Telecinco cameraman Jose Couso and Reuters' Ukrainian cameraman Taras Protsyuk." 
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NYT Helps the Bushies, Again  ---  http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/052109.html
 posted at Consortium News  ---  https://secure.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/consortiumnews/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=2043
Related Article - A quote...."The New York Times, which helped sell the Iraq War with a bogus story about aluminum tubes for nuclear centrifuges and withheld evidence of illegal spying on Americans for more than a year, is again mishandling a sensitive story in a way that panders to the Right."
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John R. MacArthur: As Hitler tightened the screws: Hypocrisy and conniving in France  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/21-8
Related Article - A quote...."HAVE YOU EVER asked yourself what you would have done if you had found yourself in Paris on June 14, 1940, when the German army rolled into town? Collaboration so quickly became the norm that this fundamental question — would I have run, fought, played ball or just kept my head down? — rarely gets posed in public. Of course, the answer would have depended largely on whether you were Jewish, or French, or both. But whatever your origins, or your politics, the practical and moral choices presented that day still trouble the conscience and demand debate." -- also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/CT_rick20_05-20-09_EAED12N_v10.3d97e30.html
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Italian Prosecutor: Enough Evidence for CIA Convictions  ---  http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2009/05/italian-prosecutor-enough-evid.html
Special Note - A quote...."FLORENCE, Italy -- The chief prosecutor in a trial related to the U.S. "rendition" of a suspected terrorist believes there is more than enough evidence to secure a conviction of over two dozen Americans charged in the case despite a ruling that excludes key Italian documents and testimony under  "state secrecy" laws."
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CIA interrogation briefing list contains more errors
  ---  http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/content/news/2009-05-20/cia-interrogation-briefing-list-contains-more-errors/
A quote...."WASHINGTON May 20, 2009 (AP) — New questions surfaced Wednesday about the accuracy of a CIA document meant to settle who in Congress knew about severe interrogation methods approvedCIA memo by the Bush administration. - Three new errors appeared to emerge in the CIA's matrix of 40 congressional briefings on so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. Those techniques include waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, which President Barack Obama has called torture."
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The March of Folly, Continued By Norman Solomon  ---  http://www.creative-i.info/?p=6951
Must Read - A quote...."To understand what’s up with President Obama as he escalates the war in Afghanistan, there may be no better place to look than a book published 25 years ago. “The March of Folly,” by historian Barbara Tuchman, is a chilling assessment of how very smart people in power can do very stupid things — how a war effort, ordered from on high, goes from tic to repetition compulsion to obsession — and how we, with undue deference and lethal restraint, pay our respects to the dominant moral torpor to such an extent that mass slaughter becomes normalized in our names. -- What happens among policymakers is a “process of self-hypnosis,” Tuchman writes. After recounting examples from the Trojan War to the British moves against rebellious American colonists, she devotes the closing chapters of “The March of Folly” to the long arc of the U.S. war in Vietnam. The parallels with the current escalation of the war in Afghanistan are more than uncanny; they speak of deeply rooted patterns."
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U.S. Pullout a Condition in Afghan Peace Talks  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/world/asia/21kabul.html?_r=3&ref=world
A quote...."KABUL, Afghanistan — Leaders of the Taliban and other armed groups battling the Afghan government are talking to intermediaries about a potential peace agreement, with initial demands focused on a timetable for a withdrawal of American troops, according to Afghan leaders here and in Pakistan."
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Going for Broke - Six Ways the Af-Pak War Is Expanding  ---  http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175074/the_pressure_of_an_expanding_war
A quote...."Yes, Stanley McChrystal is the general from the dark side (and proud of it). So the recent sacking of Afghan commander General David McKiernan after less than a year in the field and McChrystal's appointment as the man to run the Afghan War seems to signal that the Obama administration is going for broke. It's heading straight into what, in the Vietnam era, was known as "the big muddy."
also posted at AsiaTimes  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KE23Df01.html
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Lebanon complains to UN on Israel's alleged spying  ---  http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/05/21/lebanon-complains-to-un-on-israels-alleged-spying/
A quote...."Lebanon said Thursday it has complained to the United Nations about alleged spying by Israel, accusing its archenemy of violating a 2006 truce and the country's sovereignty."
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Israeli Air Force conducts drill simulating regional war  ---  http://www.imemc.org/article/60503
War Alert - A quote...."The Israeli Air Force concluded Thursday a three-day drill which simulates a comprehensive regional war; the drill included interception, attack aircraft, helicopters, refueling aircraft, in addition to testing the air force system and ground force readiness."
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Opposition Blocking Two Key Roads in Tbilisi  ---  http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=20963
A quote...."Opposition leaders and activists blocked the capital city’s two key roads on both banks of Mtkvari (Kura) River in protest against, what the opposition said was, “an illegal seizure” of cars belonging to its activists and supporters."
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Russia says 'no' to Energy Charter, urges new agreement  ---  http://en.rian.ru/russia/20090522/155062766.html
A quote...."KHABAROVSK, May 22 (RIA Novosti) - Russia reaffirmed on Friday it will not ratify the existing Energy Charter and called for a new energy agreement to ensure future global energy security. - Energy security was among the key issues on the agenda of a Russia-EU summit in the Far Eastern city of Khabarovsk on Friday."
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Russia Second Largest Arms Exporter; South America Promising Market
  ---  http://en.mercopress.com/2009/05/11/russia-second-largest-arms-exporter-south-america-promising-market
A quote...."Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI latest data on global arms transfers published this week reveal that Russia remains the second largest arms exporter in the world, accounting for a quarter of global exports of major conventional arms." -- Sure, with a mindless thug of a country currently on a world wide rampage trying to steal as much oil as it can, not to mention trying to "help" (see article shown below) Latin America with "public safety programs" (Hah! Is that what they're calling it nowadays?)....everyone down south could use as much home defense as they can possibly afford. – mpg
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Reinventing Demons - The Obama administration plans a new round of ‘public safety’ programs in Latin America
  ---  http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4417/reinventing_demons
OH NO!!  More School of the America's "stuff" coming soon to Latin American countries everywhere.  And they were doing so well while the New Roman Empire continued to be "distracted" by its attempts to "help" the poor little peoples of the Middle East.  Now however, the New Roman Empire has decided its going to "help" the poor little peoples in Latin America...again.  As they say....there goes the neighborhood.....again. -- A quote...."At an April 7 press conference, President Barack Obama’s special advisor for the Summit of Americas Jeffrey Davidow announced the administration’s new plan to provide U.S.-funded “public safety” programs to other governments throughout the Western Hemisphere. U.S. public safety programs are necessary now, Davidow said, because “Latin America [and] the Caribbean are witnessing an increase in criminality and are having difficulty confronting this because of judicial and police systems that need assistance, need more training, need more equipment.” -- For more on this issue see....Strangers In the Night - 10-04-06 - mpg  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/strangersinthenight-essay-mpg-100406
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Brazilian aircrafts for nationalized Aerolineas Argentinas  ---  http://en.mercopress.com/2009/05/22/brazilian-aircrafts-for-nationalized-aerolineas-argentinas
A quote...."The Argentine government signed Thursday a contract to purchase twenty mid range aircrafts from Brazilian manufacturer Embraer for recently nationalized flag carrier Aerolineas Argentinas. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner said these will be the first new aircrafts for Aerolineas in 16 years."
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Columbia Space Shuttle Investigation Cost $175 Million. Challenger Investigation Cost $100 Million. 9/11 InvestigationOnly Got $15 Million
  ---  http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/05/columbia-space-shuttle-investigation.html
Special Note -  Many people have written on the 9/11 Commission's budgetary constraints. See this.  ---  http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2008/01/whitewash.html  ---  Want to Know   ---  http://www.wanttoknow.info/911/9-11_pentagon_missile_defense  ---  has a great new summary of the Commission's scandalously inadequate budget:"

"The 9/11 commission was originally allotted only $3 million.  ---  http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/about/faq.htm#q5  ---   Eventually, after much begging and haggling, the commission was given $15 million. Yet a CNN article   ---  http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/04/01/starr.costs/  ---  lists the cost of the Lewinsky investigation at $30 million. A Los Angeles Times article   ---  http://articles.latimes.com/2003/mar/15/nation/na-probe15  ---  states the cost of the Columbia space shuttle disaster investigation was $175 million. --   How could 9/11 – the greatest disaster in American history – be given such a small budget for investigation?

Remember, the Commissioners stated that government did everything it could to cover up and obstruct their investigation:"
also posted at AtheoNews   ---  http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/05/columbia-space-shuttle-investigation.html
&
OpEdNews  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/Columbia-Space-Shuttle-Inv-by-George-Washington-090521-843.html

For more on this issue see....9/11 - Commission  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/911commission-weblist-mpg-091306
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New York "Terror Plot" Another Government Provocateured Set-Up  ---  http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/may2009/052109_terror_plot.htm
A quote...."The corporate media and the authorities are having a field day lavishing saturation coverage on the so-called New York "terror plot" in which four men, three of them U.S. citizens, supposedly planned to blow up a Jewish temple and shoot down military planes, feverishly citing it as another example of why we should accept police state measures in major cities and the targeting of American citizens as "domestic terrorists"."
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Liberty City Case Leaves Bitter Aftertaste  ---  http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/05/liberty-city-case-leaves-bitter.html
Related Article - A quote...."Like the Mounties, they finally got their men. -- And all it took was three years, three trials, and millions of taxpayer dollars. At that price, you’d like to feel a certain satisfaction from last week’s guilty verdict against five men from inner-city Miami who stood accused of conspiring with al-Qaeda to launch terrorist attacks in this country. You’d like to feel you’d seen justice done. -- Instead, you are left with the nagging suspicion that all you’ve seen is justice miscarried." - More like massacred. - mpg
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Federal Agency Says It Can Search Your Home Without A Warrant  ---  http://infowars.net/articles/may2009/210509Search.htm
A quote...."The Federal Communications Commission has confirmed that its own guidelines claim the right to enter and search your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night."
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Democracy Going Dark: The Electronic Police State  ---  http://dprogram.net/2009/05/21/democracy-going-dark-the-electronic-police-state/
A quote...."The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2010 reveals that America’s political police intend to greatly expand their high-tech surveillance capabilities."
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The Days of Your Friendly Neighborhood Cop are Over  ---  http://candidblogger.blogspot.com/2009/05/days-of-your-friendly-neighborhood-cop.html
A quote...."Lately you can't find a day that goes by without watching another violent police beating of a civilian. Our local police look more and more like the military, and harsh treatment is becoming the rule, instead of the exception. Here's a video of a police chase that ends with the suspect's vehicle being overturned and the suspect being thrown clear and lying unconscious by the side of the road. Watch the heroic actions of the police as they take this dangerous unconscious suspect into custody. Thankfully, five of them have been fired."
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A Moratorium on Genetically Manipulated (GMO) Foods  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13701
A quote...."The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) has just issued a call for an immediate moratorium on Genetically Manipulated (GMO) Foods. -- In a just-released position paper on GMO foods, the AAEM states that ‘GM foods pose a serious health risk’ and calls for a moratorium on GMO foods. Citing several animal studies, the AAEM concludes ‘there is more than a casual association between GMO foods and adverse health effects’ and that ‘GM foods pose a serious health risk in the areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, and metabolic, physiologic and genetic health.’ The report is a devastating blow to the multibillion dollar international agribusiness industry, most especially to Monsanto Corporation, the world’s leading purveyor of GMO seeds and related herbicides"
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Abbas’ New Government Broadly Rejected As “Illegal” and “Unconstitutional”  ---  http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article957
A quote...."A new transitional government was sworn in on Tuesday, May 19 by President Mahmoud Abbas to replace the previous emergency government. This new government was immediately rejected as “illegal” and “unconstitutional” by almost every political party—including Hamas, Fatah, leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the Palestinian People’s Party (PPP)."
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A Misbegotten Government
  ---  http://www.palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7OsYOBRjJLSyd72j6rl3MNqlqn
V9i%2btH4JpJKtUX3rytuRLyWtJauN0UJmxMwxyOVnH0ZLLrnOteMWKElTonOJUVswAH7UTilJ9ROir4HsZY%3d
A quote...."The new Palestinian Authority (PA) government which was sworn in Ramallah Tuesday, 19 May, is another prescription for failure. Hence, one would exaggerate little by saying that the new cabinet will be a deformed replica of the previous government whose main task was confined to carrying out instructions and orders from the American “High Commissioner” in the West Bank , Gen. Keith Dyaton."
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Int'l study: Israeli control in occupied territories 'is a breach of the prohibition of apartheid'
  ---  http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/05/17/intl-study-israeli-control-in-occupied-territories-is-a-breach-of-the-prohibition-of-apartheid/
A quote..."The following international report concluding that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories "has become a colonial enterprise which implements a system of apartheid" was sent out by journalist Ben White. Another stinging statement from the report: "The Wall and its infrastructure of gates and permanent checkpoints suggest a policy permanently to divide the West Bank into racial cantons." (White's book 'Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide',
   ---  http://us.macmillan.com/israeliapartheid  ---  will be published this summer."
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Gaza reality videos by ANERA   ---  http://www.freegaza.org/en/home/56-news/880-gaza-reality-videos-by-anera
Alt   ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46s_9DEhmWU  ---  (YouTube - 1 min 44 sec - May 15, 2009)
Video - A quote...."Anera,  ---  http://www.anera.org/  ---  American Near East Refugee Aid, produced the first of a series of monthly videos about the current situation in Palestine, fully produced in Gaza. - Full announcement is available on their website."  ---  http://anera.convio.net/site/MessageViewer?em_id=3161.0&dlv_id=15301
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Beit Ommar farmers continue to challenge closed military zones in order to reach their lands  ---  http://palsolidarity.org/2009/05/6760
A quote...."On the morning of the 16th, Palestinian farmers from Beit Ommar village with lands in Saffa close to the illegal Israeli settlement of Bet Ayn, defied a closed military zone order issued by the army in order to work their lands. At around 7am, about a dozen farmers and their families accompanied by a large group of Israeli and international solidarity activists, went to their fields in a valley just below Bet Ayn settlement. Farming in this valley is often dangerous, as the villagers face harassment from settlers and the Israeli military."
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"The next generation must continue our struggle"  ---  http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10549.shtml
Interview -- A quote...."Rami Almeghari writing from the occupied Gaza Strip interviews Dr. Abdullah al-Hourani, Live from Palestine, 21 May 2009 -- A quote...."Dr. Abdullah al-Hourani is a Palestinian politician and researcher based in the Gaza Strip. He is the director of the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for National Studies in Gaza and chairman of the Palestinian Popular Committee for the Defense of the Right to Return. Al-Hourani was displaced by Zionist forces, along with more than 750,000 other Palestinians, from historical Palestine in 1948. On the occasion of the 61st aniversary of the disposession of Palestine, The Electronic Intifada correspondent Rami Almeghari interviewed Dr. al-Hourani at his Gaza City office."
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Belgian campaign targets bank financing Israeli settlements - Hip Hip Hooray for the Belgians!! - Boycott Israel!! - mpg
  ---  http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article949
Action Alert - A quote...."In a remarkably short period of time, activists in Belgium have built a strong basis for the campaign "Israel colonizes — Dexia funds," asking the bank to divest from its subsidiary Dexia Israel because of its financing of the expansion of illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Israeli settlements violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, prohibiting the Occupying Power to deport or transfer parts of its civilian population into the territory it occupies, as well as Article 53 prohibiting the destruction of property on occupied territory. The Dexia campaign is flourishing in Belgium and may potentially spread to other countries where Dexia subsidiaries are based." - For more information on how to boycott Israel see the upper-left-corner of the "Front Page" of this website. - mpg
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Hopes and dreams on the Gaza coast  ---  http://www.sott.net/articles/show/184869-Hopes-and-dreams-on-the-Gaza-coast
A quote...."Every day, as the sun sets on the coast of Gaza, people make their way to the coffee shop-lined beaches and the pot-holed streets that run parallel to its coastline. -- On the terrace of the famed Al Deira Hotel, patrons jostle for position, sipping sweet Arabic coffee as the sounds of legendary Arab musicians delicately waft through the air, mingling with the aroma of flavoured tobacco."
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Palestinians to hold 2nd international literature festival in Jerusalem  ---  http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=41180
A quote...."The second Palestine Festival of Literature will take place from 23-28 May 2009, MA'an news agency said. -- Palestinians tries to make their cultural life survive via several festivals and activities as they have kept long-running struggle against occupation to regain state rights and territorial unity. Annual Palestine Festival of Literature is one of these festivals."
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US Treasury injects $7.5 bln more into GMAC  ---  http://rawstory.com/08/afp/2009/05/21/us-treasury-injects-75-bln-more-into-gmac/
A quote...."The US Treasury said Thursday it had injected an additional 7.5 billion dollars into cash-strapped US auto finance giant GMAC to enable it continue providing loans to dealers and consumers."
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631K new jobless claims, total benefit rolls 6.7M  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090521/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/us_economy
A quote...."WASHINGTON – The number of newly laid-off workers requesting unemployment insurance dropped slightly last week after spiking due to auto layoffs, while continuing jobless claims inched closer to 7 million."
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May 21: Leading Indicators up 1%  ---  http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/20390/May+21:+Leading+Indicators+up+1%25
A quote...."The Conference Boards’ Leading Indicators Index increased by 1% to 99.0 (2004=100) in April, which is the first increase in 7 months, following a -0.2% reduction in March. Positive contributions to the index were stock prices, interest rate spread, the index of consumer expectations, average weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance (inverted), average weekly manufacturing hours, index of supplier deliveries (vendor performance), and manufacturers’ new orders for consumer goods and materials. The negative contributions to the index were real money supply, building permits, and manufacturers’ new orders for nondefense capital goods -- The Coincident Indicators decreased by 0.2% to 101.1 (2004=100), following a decrease of 0.6% in March."
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US-Philly Fed factory activity contracts in May  ---  http://uk.reuters.com/article/marketMovers/idUKN2126034620090521
A quote...."  Manufacturing in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic area contracted in May, a regional Federal Reserve survey released on Thursday showed. -  The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank said its business activity index came in at minus 22.6 in May, compared with the analyst expectation for a reading of minus 18. -  Any reading below zero represents contraction in the sector."
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US shuts down BankUnited FSB in biggest failure this year  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_shuts_down_BankUnited_FSB_in_big_05212009.html
A quote...."Bank United FSB had assets of 12.80 billion dollars and deposits of 8.6 billion dollars as of May 2."
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Bonds Hit by Ratings Fears  ---  http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB124289673880242719-lMyQjAxMDI5NDIyMTgyOTE2Wj.html
link posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
A quote...."Britain was warned by Standard & Poor's Ratings Service that it may lose its coveted triple-A credit rating, triggering a drop in U.K. bonds and sparking global fears about the consequences of massive debts being incurred by the U.S. and other major nations as they try to dig out from the economic crisis."
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"The Odds on the Dollar, Treas. Bonds and the U.S. Govt’s AAA Grade All Heading for the Dumpster are Shortening"
  ---  http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/05/odds-on-dollar-treasury-bonds-and-us.html
A quote...."I've written numerous essays on the facts that the dollar is losing its status as world reserve currency, the bubble in treasury bonds may be ending, and the U.S. may very well lose its AAA sovereign credit status."
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World economy in freefall  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2009/may2009/econ-m22.shtml
A quote...."Governments of the world's major economies announced staggering first-quarter contractions in the past few days, as real indicators of the economic crisis continue to worsen."
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Wednesday May 20th 2009 - links page

Obama’s Foreign Policy Failures: Diplomacy, Militarism and Imagery  ---  http://pulsemedia.org/2009/05/21/obamas-foreign-policy-failures/
Special Note - Obama™ Update - A quote...."President Obama’s greatest foreign policy successes are found in the reports of the mass media. His greatest failures go unreported, but are of great consequence. A survey of the major foreign policy priorities of the White House reveals a continuous series of major setbacks, which call into question the principal objectives and methods pursued by the Obama regime."
also posted at AxisOfLogic  ---  http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_55818.shtml
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Why Obama Refuses To Release Torture Pictures  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22663.htm
posted at ICH  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/ichsfundingpage-cached-reficultnias-111908
A quote...."Information Clearing House" -- - There is a smug group of men and women in the US intelligence services who knew President Barack Obama was never going to release the photos and videos of detainees being tortured. -- They knew those images are still too shocking to reveal to the o utside world and the sad truth is they will still be too shocking 50 years down the line. -- I knew it as well, but the realisation only hit me just a few weeks ago during an event to raise public awareness about the legacy of George W Bush’s War on Terror." -- also posted at Uruknet -- http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54433&hd=&size=1&l=e
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Military attorney: Waterboarding is ‘tip of the iceberg’  ---  http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/05/20/worse-than-waterboarding/
Contains Video - She goes in this website editor's "hero book" - mpg -- A quote...."Bradley told CNN that when she was first assigned to represent Mohamed, she did not question he was a hardened terrorist, because “my government was saying these were the worst of the worst.” However, she now says, “There’s no reliable evidence that Mr. Mohamed was going to do anything to the United States.” -- also posted at RogueGov
  ---  http://www.roguegovernment.com/Military_Attorney%3A_Waterboarding_Only_Tip_Of_The_Iceberg_/15694/0/7/7/Y/M.html
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Red Herrings and The “War on Terrorism” - The ironclad bipartisan consensus  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13688
A quote...."A red herring is a fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is used to divert attention from the original issue. The furor over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s knowledge of the Bush/Cheney administration’s use of torture is the latest Washington noise that conveniently diverts attention from the illegitimate “war on terrorism” that continues to serve as the justification for torture, murder and war." - also posted at OnlineJournal
  ---  http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4720.shtml
& AtheoNews  ---  http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/05/what-pelosi-knew-is-war-on-terrorism.html
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Congresswoman: "Not One Person Has Been Prosecuted For The 9/11 Attacks, Although Seven And A Half Years Have Gone By" And Many Were Tortured
  ---  http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/05/congresswoman-not-one-person-has-been.html  ---  Obama™ Update - A quote...."Former Congresswoman and prosecutor Liz Holtzman makes a good point:"

"The criminal justice system identified and convicted some of those involved in the 1993 World Trade Center attacks. By contrast, not one person has been prosecuted for the 9/11 attacks, although seven and a half years have gone by. Even Khalid Sheik Mohammed, one of the masterminds of 9/11, is unlikely ever to be convicted in US courts because he was repeatedly subjected to torture. Significantly, the cruel and torturous methods used on detainees never yielded enough information to capture Osama Bin Laden or his chief deputy. So much for the claims of torture's efficacy."
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Obama Is Considering Doing Something Even Bush Didn't Try: "Preventive Detention" of People Who Will Never Get a Trial
  ---  http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/05/obama-is-considering-doing-something.html
Related Article - Obama™ Update - A quote...."President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried..."
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Judge says US can hold detainees indefinitely  ---  http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i4xYyvWDfL4tuqx_gqzGLQCH0i9gD98A1OH80
Related Article - Obama™ Update - A quote...."ACLU attorney Jonathan Hafetz said the opinion "flouts the Constitution's prohibition against indefinite detention without charge." -- "The decision wrongly concludes that terrorism suspects at Guantanamo may continue to languish in military detention rather than being prosecuted in our civilian courts," Hafetz said. "Like the president's recent decision to revive military commissions, this ruling perpetuates rather than ends the failed experiment in lawlessness that is Guantanamo."
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Dick Cheney - Tortured Evidence  ---  http://www.sott.net/articles/show/184730-Dick-Cheney-Tortured-Evidence
Special Note - Related Article - A quote...."In 2002 the Bush administration was gearing up to launch an illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq for profit (and Israel). The CIA at that point was tasked with providing justification in the form of 'evidence' that Saddam had links to "al-qaeda". Under the direction of the office of the VP and the Sec of Defense, the CIA began torturing individuals that they had picked up in random sweeps of Afghanistan and Pakistan (and later Iraq after the invasion). -- To seasoned sadists like Cheney and high level members of the CIA it was clear that far from being a reliable way to extract accurate information from a prisoner, torture was much better suited to forcing a prisoner to state something that was not true - prisoners like Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (who coincidentally appears to have been suicided recently in prison in Libya) and Abu Zubaydah who remains in Gitmo to this day."

For more on the four articles shown above see....Making Up Stories - With Torture
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/rapsheetarch/mpgrap-051309-051909#MAKINGUPSTORIES
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U.S. Officials Admitted that Boys Were Sodomized In Iraq Prison  ---  http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/05/us-officials-admitted-that-boys-were.html
A quote...."Many people have heard Nobel prize winning reporter Seymour Hersh's claim that boys were sodomized at Abu Ghraib and that the Pentagon has video of the rapes. Many people think that they'll believe it when and if they ever see the video. But we don't need to wait for the military to release the videos. There is already proof that Hersh is right." - also posted at Uruknet   ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54436&hd=&size=1&l=e  ---  For more on this issue see....US - Torture & Sex Perv.  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/ustorture&sexualperversion-weblist-mpg-031309
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Iraq to slap foreign oil firms with 35% corporate tax  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090520/wl_mideast_afp/iraqoiltax
A quote...."BAGHDAD (AFP) – Iraq's cabinet has approved a bill that will slap foreign oil firms with a minimum 35 percent corporate tax in a bid to boost revenues, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Wednesday."
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EXCLUSIVE: U.S., Israel forming working group on Iran  ---  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/20/us-israel-forming-working-group-on-iran/
Fake Intel, Propaganda and War Prostituting Alert -- A quote...."The United States and Israel are quietly forming a high-level working group to assess the progress of President Obama's [phony] outreach to Iran and to share intelligence about the Islamic Republic's nuclear weapons program, officials familiar with the two countries' deliberations said Tuesday." -- For more on this issue see....Judeo-Christian C/C & US
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/judeochristianconflictcontrolwithinus-weblist-mpg-010409
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Obama restores visa to former spy, Netanhayu adviser  ---  http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/05/netanyahu-adviser-steps-out-of-shadows.html
A quote...."As might be expected of a former senior official with Israel’s spy agency Mossad, Uzi Arad -- the most trusted political adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister -- has got used to being in the shadows as he exerts influence."
also posted at Uruknet  ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54426&hd=&size=1&l=e
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Obama and the Warlord - Courting Hekmatyar  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp05202009.html
A quote...."In a Newsweek interview last week President Obama explained his assessment of the war in Afghanistan as of February when he announced his decision to increase U.S. forces in the country by 17,000."
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US 'supports cross-border terrorists against Iran'  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95222&sectionid=351020101
Related Article - A quote...."Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who is on an 8-day tour in the western Iranian province of Kordestan, spoke of enemy plans to destabilize the Iranian government from behind the western borders. - "The United States is promoting terrorism behind [Iran's] western frontiers... They [the US government] directly finance operations and organize terrorist movements to undermine the Islamic Republic," Ayatollah Khamenei said on Tuesday."
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Al-Qaeda seeks a new alliance  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KE21Df03.html
Related Article - A quote...."Al-Qaeda has in the past had some reservations about the Iranian Jundullah, an insurgent Sunni Islamic organization opposed to Tehran, on suspicion it had links to US and Pakistani intelligence. In the past three years, a few Pakistani Balochi anti-Shi'ite elements who were previously part of the Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi worked with Jundullah. They carried out joint operations against Iranians and Shi'ites in the region. -- These Pakistani Balochi elements played a role in bringing al-Qaeda and Jundullah closer, making it clear that Jundullah is now an independent organization with its headquarters in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi. It has bases, though, in Pakistani Balochistan and the Iranian province of Sistan-Balochistan." - bold by website editor
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Ron Paul: Israel created Hamas, US created Osama bin Laden  ---  http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fc0_1242693222
Must View Video - Related Video - A quote...."Amazing. US Congressman,against the resolution support Israel, tells on the floor on Congress that Israel created Hamas for their own agendas like the US created Osama bin Laden." -- For more on the four articles shown above see....US Support of Terror
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/ussupportofterror-weblist-mpg-090306
& US Sponsored Civil Wars - Palestine  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/ussponsoredcivilwars-weblist-mpg-101107#PALESTINE
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Italy breaks ranks with 'surprise' visit to Tehran  ---  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/20ef8a7e-44d6-11de-82d6-00144feabdc0.html?nclick_check=1
A quote...."Franco Frattini, Italy's foreign minister, plans to break with European Union policy of shunning high-level contact with Iran by flying to Tehran today for talks on the Islamic republic's strategic role in the region and possible openings for direct engagement with the US."
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Iran to sign $1.5b oil deal with Italy's Eni  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95372&sectionid=351020103
A quote...."Iran is to sign a USD 1.5 billion deal with Italian energy firm Eni for the development of the third phase of Iran's Darkhovin oil field. -- Eni has submitted a feasibility study of Darkhovin's third phase to Iran's Oil Engineering and Development Company (OEDC), a spokesman for the Iranian company said on Wednesday." -- also posted at AtheoNews  ---  http://atheonews.blogspot.com/2009/05/iran-to-sign-15b-oil-deal-with-italys.html
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Iran successfully tests Sejjil 2 missile  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=95359&sectionid=351020101
A quote...."The Islamic Republic of Iran has successfully test-launched its new deterrent missile, Sejjil 2, pushing forward its long-term defense program. -- The 2000-km-range surface-to-surface missile was launched in the central Iranian province of Semnan on Wednesday."
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Iran Announces Official Candidates for Presidential Election - Their TENTH election since the revolution. - mpg
  ---  http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/5/20/733496/-Iran-Announces-Official-Candidates-for-Presidential-Election
Chart - A quote...."The power structure established in the two years after the 1979 Revolution certainly entrenches power in the clergy, and insures that Iran will continue as the Islamic Republic for some time to come. However, it remains important to note that while a great deal of power is concentrated in the Supreme Leader; the Guardian Council and the role of elections allow for diverse opinions within a certain range. Moreover, with a very young population (over 50% born after the Revolution) Public Opinion cannot be ignored."
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Saudis’ Local Elections Delayed for Two Years - The "Royals" (our "friends") don't want to be voted out just yet.
  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/world/middleeast/20saudi.html
A quote...."CAIRO — Saudi Arabia’s brief and limited experiment with electoral democracy has suffered another setback with an announcement that the royal family has decided to postpone local council elections by at least two years."
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Central America Summit in Nicaragua  ---  http://www.prensa-latina.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=84697&Itemid=1
A quote...."Managua, May 20 (Prensa Latina) Central American presidents are scheduled to meet on Wednesday in Nicaragua to discuss migration, a trade agreement with the European Union (EU) and other key regional issues. The heads of state are expected to arrive in Managua at noon to open the 36th Summit of the Central American Integration System (SICA), which is presided over by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega."
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A Key 911 “Witness” Turns Out to be an Actor  ---  http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2009/05/20/a-key-911-witness-turns-out-to-be-an-actor/
Special Note - Contains Video - A quote...."This is the guy who, somehow or another, just happened to know the “official story-line” about how the Towers collapsed right after the event on Sept. 11th 2001. And he just HAPPENED to be interviewed, ready with his analysis. And he just HAPPENED to fade away into history, never coming forward and never beeing identified. This is what he said that day…"
For more on this sort of issue see....9/11 - NORAD   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/911norad-weblist-mpg-091308
& 9/11 - WTC7   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/911-wtc7-weblist-mpg-082308
& 9/11 - Commission   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/911commission-weblist-mpg-091306
& 9/11 - Punish or Reward   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/911punishorreward-weblist-mpg-021409
& 9/11 - WTC-1&2   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/911WTC1&2-weblist-mpg-030709
& 9/11 - Planning Guidance  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/911-planningguidance-weblist-mpg-040409
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The history of the synthetic H1N1 flu virus and a not-so-rosy future  ---  http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4724.shtml
Special Note - A quote...."(WMR)  ---  http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/  ---  The history of the extraction of the genetic material from the corpses of victims of the 1918 Spanish influenza virus who were buried in Arctic permafrost is part “X-Files” and part “Jurassic Park.” -- After an unsuccessful 1951 mission, that involved U.S. biological warfare specialists, to extract 1918 Spanish flu genetic material in 1951 from a cemetery in the Inupiat Eskimo village of Brevig Mission, Alaska, scientists made another attempt, a successful one it turns out, in 1997. -- Dr. Johan Hultin, from the State University of Iowa, successfully extracted genetic material from the corpse of an obese 30-something female who died from the Spanish flu in 1918, along with 85 percent of Brevig Mission’s (called Teller Mission in 1918) villagers in a single week. The pandemic killed at least 50 million people around the world."
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Hamas rejects new Palestinian government  ---  http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C05%5C21%5Cstory_21-5-2009_pg4_9
A quote...."RAMALLAH: The Palestinian rift widened on Wednesday after a new government, again headed by Western-backed Salam Fayyad took power, with Hamas categorically rejecting the cabinet." -- also posted at WarInIraq  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/197665
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Rift deepens between Palestinian factions  ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54430&hd=&size=1&l=e
A quote...."....as the Cairo talks foundered over disagreements on almost all the fundamental issues separating the main Palestinian political factions, Mr Abbas's Fatah faction and Hamas, which since it ousted Fatah-backed security services in June 2007 has been in sole charge of the Gaza Strip � Mr Fayyad found himself under increasing pressure to continue in the post. -- Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in 2006 but whose government was sacked by Mr Abbas in July 2007 after the movement's takeover of Gaza, never recognised the legitimacy of Mr Fayyad�s first government and yesterday rejected the new government as well. - "This government is illegal and we will not recognise it," a Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, said in a statement, adding that its creation was evidence of "political, legal and constitutional chaos".
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Abbas losing support from Fateh  ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54440&hd=&size=1&l=e
A quote...."Mahmoud Abbas is supposed to be the head of the Fateh movement, as well as of the PLO (!) and the US-supported Palestinian Authority (PA.) -- Yesterday, Abbas swore in a new PA 'government', headed as before by the strongly US-backed Salam Fayyad... and most members of Fateh's own parliamentary bloc opposed the move and refused to join!"
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Just Another Ridiculous Bill…  ---  http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article953
Some quotes...."Last weekend, Palestinians around the World commemorated the Nakba, the tragic mass exodus in the 1948 war. Today the celebration of this event is not only a day of mourning, but has become a symbol of the unity of a population without freedom and without a state." -- "Despite this, the Israeli Knesset member Alex Miller (Yisrael Beiteinu) submitted a proposal of legislation that would criminalize commemoration of the Nakba. According to this law Palestinian citizens in Israel will be punished with jail terms of up to three years for commemorating their “catastrophe”." - bold by website editor -- Just think of what the Jews would do if any country in the world "criminalized" commemoration of the Holocaust. - mpg
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[Video Free Gaza] First edition 20th May 09   ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54435&hd=&size=1&l=e
Alt   ---  (YouTube - 3 min 5 sec - 20th May 2009)
Video - A quote...."First edition of Free Gaza video : FG Wendesday News - by Greta Berlin - Media Team"
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International Human Rights Workers to accompany Palestinian farmers in Gazan ‘buffer zone’  ---  http://palsolidarity.org/2009/05/6741
Contains Video - Alt   ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1gf74y3cCE  ---  (YouTube - 4 min 36 sec - May 19, 2009) -- A quote...."Thursday, 21 May 2009: Five international human rights workers from the ISM-Gaza Strip will be accompanying 10 farmers from Khoza’a as they harvest crops several hundred metres from the Green Line. - In the morning, human rights workers will join Palestinian farmers in Khoza’a village, located east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, to farm land 300-350 meters from the ‘Green Line’. - Farmers and international accompaniers were last fired upon in Letaemat, Gaza by Israeli forces on the 9th of May."
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An Interview with Khalida Jarrar of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)  ---  http://www.uruknet.com/?p=m54422&hd=&size=1&l=e
Interview - Enrico Bartolomei for the Alternative Information Center (AIC) interviews Khalida Jarrar, member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. -- A quote....EB - "Let's start with the PFLP opinion about the Obama administration and the new Israeli government. Do you think that the new US administration will bring any change to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?"  ---  KJ - "We do not think individuals can do a lot for the policy of a country. I believe that Obama will not bring any substantial change, at least with regard to the American foreign policy. We are talking about institutional policies, not those of individuals. Of course, each President, each party has a different approach on how to implement foreign policy, and there will be no crazy policies anymore like Bush did, but Obama cannot change the system, and the contradictions are within the system itself:"
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Thousands beaten, raped in Irish reform schools & Irish church knew abuse 'endemic'  ---  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8059826.stm
  ---  http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hG7UpOwvc_tTJz3KkFUHO9AUBnBAD98A0DOO0  ---  A quote from article number one...."DUBLIN (AP) — A fiercely debated, nine-year investigation into Ireland's Roman Catholic-run institutions says priests and nuns terrorized thousands of boys and girls in workhouse-style schools for decades — and government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation." - also posted at RogueGov   ---  http://www.roguegovernment.com/Thousands_beaten%2C_raped_in_Irish_Roman_Catholic_Reform_Schools/15687/0/12/12/Y/M.html  --- The Catholic Church MUST get this under control. They are going to have to allow, nay they are going to have to insist, that their priests be married, family practicing, law abiding, members of their community. They will have to insist that those of other "persuasions" and "predilections" leave the Church and go elsewhere. This would not be a guarantee of good morals and behavior, but it would be a step in the right direction. – mpg
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The Housing Debacle - It Isn't Getting Any Better  ---  http://www.thestreet.com/story/10503387/1/schiff-housings-big-picture-isnt-pretty.html
Must Read - A quote...."While economists and real estate investors "celebrate" the slight deceleration in the pace of home price declines in the recent data, a quick look at home price trajectories over the past 100 and 50 years reveals little to cheer about and much to be feared."
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The Toll Booth Economy  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article22668.htm
Must Read - A quote...."For the time being we are being fed Wall Street defenses of the Bush-Obama (that is, Paulson-Geithner) attempt to re-inflate the bubble by a bailout giveaway that has tripled America’s national debt in the hope of getting bank credit (that is, more debt) growing again. The problem is that debt leveraging is what caused our economic collapse. A third of U.S. real estate is now estimated to be in negative equity, with foreclosure rates still rising. -- In the face of this stultifying financial trend, the book-buying public is being fed appetizers pretending that economic recovery simply requires more “incentives” (special tax breaks for the rich) to encourage more “saving,” as if savings automatically finance new capital investment and hiring rather than what really happens: money lent out to create yet more debt owed by the bottom 90 percent to the economy’s top 10 percent."
also posted at CounterPunch  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson05202009.html
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Financial Implosion and Stagnation - Back To The Real Economy  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13692
A quote...."The financial crisis, as the above suggests, was initially understood as a lack of money or liquidity (the degree to which assets can be traded quickly and readily converted into cash with relatively stable prices). The idea was that this liquidity problem could be solved by pouring more money into financial markets and by lowering interest rates. However, there are a lot of dollars out in the financial world—more now than before—the problem is that those who own the dollars are not willing to lend them to those who may not be able to pay them back, and that’s just about everyone who needs the dollars these days. This then is better seen as a solvency crisis in which the balance sheet capital of the U.S. and UK financial institutions—and many others in their sphere of influence—has been wiped out by the declining value of the loans (and securitized loans) they own, their assets."
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Pension guarantor: unprecedented deficit  ---  http://money.cnn.com/2009/05/20/news/economy/PBGC/index.htm?section=money_latest
A quote...."NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which guarantees private pension payments for 44 million Americans, said on Wednesday that it faces a massive, unprecedented deficit. - The PBGC reported a $33.5 billion deficit for the first half of fiscal year 2009, a period that ended on March 31. This means the agency could have problems paying back pensioners in the event that their private plans fail."
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The Credit Crisis is Over!   --  http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/05/credit-crisis-is-over.html  --- The economic crisis however, is just beggining. - mpg
A quote...."So says Agora Financial - one of the best-performing investment newsletters: -- Rejoice! The credit crisis is over. -- Sort of… maybe. -- Most of the complicated lending spreads that define a crisis in credit have returned to normal levels. For starters today, the mighty “TED spread”
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Ford Motor Company, Goldman Sachs, the SEC, and the ‘New’ Wall Street  ---  http://lewrockwell.com/englund/englund53.html
A quote...."Why in the world did Goldman Sachs recommend buying Ford stock? The answer came nearly three weeks after Goldman’s recommendation. On May 12, 2009, Ford announced it had raised approximately $1.4 billion in a stock offering consisting of 300 million common shares. Shortly before Goldman made its buy recommendation, Ford’s common stock was selling for $3.80 per share. Immediately after Goldman’s recommendation, Ford’s stock zoomed up to $4.33 per share. By May 12th, Ford was able to price its 300 million share offering at $4.75 per share."
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Calif. Voters Reject Budget Measures  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/us/20vote.html?_r=2  ---  Up Yours Terminator!! - mpg
A quote...."LOS ANGELES — A smattering of California voters on Tuesday soundly rejected five ballot measures designed to keep the state solvent through the rest of the year. - The results dealt a severe setback to the state’s fragile fiscal structure and to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state legislators who cobbled together the measures as part of a last-minute budget deal passed in February."
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Russia Dumps US Dollar as basic reserve currency  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13691
A quote...."The US dollar is not Russia’s basic reserve currency anymore. The euro-based share of reserve assets of Russia’s Central Bank increased to the level of 47.5 percent as of January 1, 2009 and exceeded the investments in dollar assets, which made up 41.5 percent, The Vedomosti newspaper wrote."
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