Tuesday October 7th 2008 - links page

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The Kingdom of Leprosy
10-07-08
mpg

Syria plays hardball with the Saudis  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JJ08Ak01.html
A quote...."DAMASCUS - In a further sign of just how low Syrian-Saudi Arabian relations have sunk, Syrian authorities have banned the distribution of al-Hayat, the Saudi-owned mass circulation Arab daily. -- The step came nearly two years after al-Sharq al-Awsat, another Saudi daily, was banned from Syria for running articles that were considered critical of the Syrian government during the Israeli war in Lebanon in 2006. -- Subsequently, the Syrians hailed Hezbollah in Lebanon as a resistance organization while the Saudis criticized it because of its links to Iran, claiming that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was an "adventurer". -- President Bashar al-Assad snapped back in a speech that those who had conspired against Hezbollah in the Arab world (in clear reference to Saudi Arabia) were "half-men"."

The Saudi Royals seem to think all the peoples who live in the Middle East are just plain stupid.  They have for thirty years co-opted or corrupted every single nationalist movement throughout the Middle East in the furtherance of US and Israeli geopolitical interests.

They have for thirty years consistently and aggressively, just as has the United States, supported every single radical, rejectionist, fundamentalist, violent, terrorist organization that exists in that region to serve as "agent provocateurs" to disrupt or discredit any movements that would legitimately represent the interests of the civilian populations in the region...the poor, the disenfranchised, and the down trodden

They have for thirty years pretended to support the Palestinian cause while secretly maneuvering behind their backs to thwart any of their efforts to achieve their own independent nation state or their rights to live equally along side the Israelis in one state.

They have, at the subtle urgings of this nation's MIOC PNAC'ing Neocons, sent fifteen out of nineteen of their fellow citizens to carry out 9/11, enabling the elites of the United States to use that discredited fig leaf of a false flag operation to initiate a massive war of aggression against several nation states surrounding the Gulf to seize their oil resources.

They have, in the end, allowed Islam to be deliberately besmirched, degraded, denigrated and twisted in front of the entire international community so they could continue to engage in a program, along with the United States, to "pacify" the unruly peoples of the Middle East in order to make them conform with the "New World Order", adopt "Neo-Liberal" economic policies and submit to the will of these elites while ensuring the Saudi Royals continual comfort and security.

Their plans are as obvious and as childish as they are corrupt and utterly evil.

The Saudi Royals remind this editor of a character in the film Braveheart, the farther of Robert the Bruce.  His farther was portrayed as being slowly eaten alive by leprosy all the while consoling his son that "great" men are "great" precisely because of their ability to "compromise", by their ability to lie and play one side off against another, by their ability to betray their followers, friends, and comrades.  That in the end to "survive" and  be crowned King of Scotland, Robert the Bruce would have to betray all of his beliefs.

And the Saudi Royals certainly have done so, to the dismay and horror of just about every person throughout the world. - mpg

For more on this issue see....The CONversation - 09-04-06 - mpg  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/theconversation-blog-mpg-090406
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US backs Taliban return to power in Afghanistan - Guess that's the end of this current ten year cycle...for now.  mpg
  ---  http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/USA/US_backs_Taliban_return_to_power_in_Afghanistan/rssarticleshow/3571370.cms
To all those people out there who want to "get dem dare terrorists"....could we please stop pretending now? - mpg -- A quote...."US defense secretary Robert Gates on Monday endorsed efforts to reach out to members of the Taliban or other militants in Afghanistan who may be considered reconcilable, much like what has happened in Iraq. And he rejected assertions made by a British commander that the Afghan war is not winnable."
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Delta Force officer: US officials stopped plans to kill bin Laden  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/2008/US_officials_stopped_plans_to_kill_1006.html
A quote...."After September 11, 2001, a team of elite Delta Force commandos was sent into Afghanistan with an assignment to find and kill Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora -- but that mission failed."
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You've Bin Conned  ---  http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/10/youve-bin-conned.html
Related article - A quote...." A lot of us said that Bin Laden was being used as a prop in the propaganda effort to promote the "war on terror". -- We said that Bin Laden might very well be dead, with the U.S. covering it up so Americans remain scared. If he wasn't dead, we said that the U.S. is intentionally letting him run free in order to keep their "boogeyman", in order to sustain fear among Americans (so they'll support the "war on terror")."
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Turkish moves to crush PKK may hurt US, EU ties  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/177675
A quote...."Turkey faces increasing pressure at home after Friday's deadly ambush to launch a major offensive against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq that would hurt its ties with Washington and the European Union, analysts say. Tapping into widespread indignation and nationalism sparked by the attack that killed at least 15 Turkish soldiers, newspaper Vatan's front-page headline said, "Enough is enough!", along with photos of the dead soldiers." - -For more on this issue see....US Support of Terror  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/ussupportofterror-weblist-mpg-090306
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McCain linked to private [terrorist] group in Iran-Contra case  ---  http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jzQtw1kATj1xCqPcAmwgCKDtNpDQD93LJ79O0
A quote...."WASHINGTON (AP) — GOP presidential nominee John McCain has past connections to a private group that supplied aid to guerrillas seeking to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua in the Iran-Contra affair."
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Yemen disbands 'Mossad-sponsored cell'  ---  http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=71460&sectionid=351020206
A quote...."Yemen has reportedly disbanded a 'terrorist cell' which was allegedly operating under the supervision of Israeli intelligence services. -- A terrorist cell was arrested five days ago and will be referred to the judicial authorities for its links with the Israeli intelligence services," Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh told Saba news agency on Monday."
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Exclusive: Rumsfeld Updated Army's Continuity of Operations Plan before 9/11  ---  http://antifascist-calling.blogspot.com/
Special Note -- Must be "a'nodder one'ol dem dare co-in-cee-din-cezzz" -- A quote...."Ten months before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved an updated version of the U.S. Army's secret operational Continuity of Government (COG) plans. -- A draft document published by the whistleblowing website Wikileaks entitled, "Army Regulation 500-3, Emergency Employment of Army and Other Resources. Army Continuity of Operations (COOP) Program," dated 19 January 2001, spells out changes in Army doctrine."
Also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20960.htm
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The Ultimate 9/11 ‘Truth’ Showdown: David Ray Griffin vs. Matt Taibbi
  ---  http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2008/10/07/the-ultimate-911-truth-showdown-david-ray-griffin-vs-matt-taibbi/#more-2008
A quote...."(Good morning. What I am about to post here today is 10 pages long. It is the entire 1st Part of the interview/discussion between Matt Taibbi and David Ray Griffin on the topic of the 9/11 Truth Movement and the need for a real investigation into the events of 9/11. Taibbi is listed here as one of the leading skeptics of the 9/11 Truth movement, but I don’t really think that holds up. In fact, the second part of this, linked at the end, is Taibbi’s attempt at rebuttal to Prof. Griffin, and in fact, he starts that off by saying he was so unbalanced by Griffin’s work here, that he eventually had to come to the decision that he would ignore the facts that Griffin presents. Let me repeat that: Matt Taibbi comes the conclusion that he has to ignore the facts in order to keep his belief system intact. Then he proceeds to use smear tactics and name calling to go after David Ray Griffin. This “debate” is as one sided as it gets, people."
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Former CIA Operative: "Of Course Bin Laden is Dead"  ---  http://infowars.net/articles/october2008/071008Baer.htm
He's been dead for years, all the tapes the stupid drooling morons who watch Fox news have been viewing are completely and totally fake...by the way -- PS: To all the wealthy elites of this country, go right ahead and remove his frozen popsicle corpse from that Saudi freezer, thaw him out and stage his death right before the US elections take place....go ahead, be this editor's guest, you'll be fooling absolutely no one. - mpg -- A quote...."An important news item that flew under the radar for the most part last week was the assertion from former CIA operative turned whistleblower Robert Baer that Osama Bin Laden is long dead. -- The hugely respected intelligence & foreign policy expert told Terry Gross, host of National Public Radio show Fresh Air, "Of course he is dead, where are the DVDs? Bin Laden wouldn't dye his hair, all these things can be manipulated."
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Judge Orders Guantanamo Releases  ---  http://www.truthout.org/article/judge-orders-chinese-muslims-guantanamo-freed
A quote...."The judge said there was no evidence the detainees, who have been held at Guantanamo for nearly seven years, were "enemy combatants" or a security risk, and that the U.S. Constitution prohibits indefinite detention without cause. --     He ordered them brought to his courtroom for a hearing on Friday and scheduled another hearing for Thursday of next week." -- But didn't our lovely un-elected, elite selected, White House squatting, little smirking monkey state unequivocally that the former United States' (now known as the New Roman Empire's) constitution was "just a God damn piece of paper"? - mpg

Secrets of Iraq's death chamber  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/secrets-of-iraqs-death-chamber-953517.html
Must View (for the outrage) -- A quote...."Like all wars, the dark, untold stories of the Iraqi conflict drain from its shattered landscape like the filthy waters of the Tigris. And still the revelations come. -- The Independent has learnt that secret executions are being carried out in the prisons run by Nouri al-Maliki's "democratic" government." -- Also posted at CommonDreams   ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/07-0
& AfterDowningStreet  ---  http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/36701
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Palestine, Israel Fairy Tale -- a.k.a. "To dream the impossible dream". - mpg
  ---  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14244
A quote...."It has happened. -- In a solemn ceremony, on a stage bedecked with Israeli and Palestinian flags, the peace treaty between Israel and Palestine has been signed. -- Negotiations did not take long. The essential elements of the treaty had been known for a long time. The document held no real surprises. -- Israel agreed to recognize the State of Palestine. The border between the two states was based on the so-called Green Line (the pre-1967 line), but both parties agreed on a limited exchange of territory. About 5% of the West Bank, including several "settlement blocs", were joined to Israel, in exchange for an equivalent area alongside the Gaza Strip. Both sides expressed the wish to keep the border open for the movement of people and goods."
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A War of Self-Destruction  ---  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080804_a_war_of_self_destruction/
From the History File -- Just a timely heads-up reminder - mpg -- A quote...."Posted on Aug 4, 2008 --  An attack on Iran, which Israeli and Bush administration officials appear set to carry out if Iranian uranium enrichment is not halted, would ignite a regional war in the Middle East and lead to economic collapse and political upheaval in the United States. -- “In short and simple terms, we would be plunged into a depression that would make the Great Depression of the 1930s in which I spent my childhood look like boom times,” said William R. Polk, former professor of history at the University of Chicago and a member of the Policy Planning Council under President Kennedy."
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Russia accuses US of letting arms controls treaties lapse
  ---  http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1435250.php/Russia_accuses_US_of_letting_arms_controls_treaties_lapse_
A quote...."Moscow - Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called a Russian attack on the United States 'absolutely unimaginable', but accused Washington of dangerously shrugging off the nuclear arms control regime set at the end of the Cold War, in an interview published Tuesday. -- Lavrov ridiculed the recent Western commentary that has fretted over Russia renewing Soviet-era military alliances in South America, with planned Venezuelan-Russian military exercises in the Caribbean this year."
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Russia and Bolivia ink helicopter deal
  ---  http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2484&updaterx=2008-10-07+11%3A30%3A16
Video - A quote...."Russia and Bolivia strengthened their ties this week with Moscow concluding a deal with La Paz to purchase five Russian civil defence helicopters. The deal also forms part of a strategy of Latin American integration, sidelining the United States, as countries like Venezuela, Brazil, and Argentina among others, attempt to re assert control over their own progress. Forrest Hylton states that " there used to be a recognition of spheres of influence. All that is over. "
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The US Neocon's New Proxy War in Georgia - 1 article - Tuesday - [ Day 61 ] =====  ==========

I survived the Georgian war. Here's what I saw.  ---  http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1008/p09s02-coop.html
A quote...."By Lira Tskhovrebova -- from the October 8, 2008 edition -- Tskhinvali, South Ossetia - In a speech before the United Nations last month, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili implored world leaders to set up an international investigation to find out the truth about the war in South Ossetia. -- I couldn't agree more. But I think the results of an honest investigation would reveal a very different "truth" than what President Saakashvili claims. -- I know this because I was in Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, on Aug. 7 when Georgian troops marched into the city and killed my friends and neighbors. I huddled with my family in terror for three nights while Saakashvili's tanks and rockets destroyed hundreds of our homes, desecrated cemeteries, gutted schools and hospitals."
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End - The US Neocon's New Proxy War in Georgia - 1 article - Tuesday - [ Day 61 ] ===  ==========

GOP Judges Aid White House Cover-up  ---  http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/100708a.html
A quote...."A Republican-dominated federal Appeals Court panel has blocked the enforcement of a congressional subpoena, effectively guaranteeing that George W. Bush will leave the White House without his senior aides having to explain the firings of nine prosecutors."
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Cindy Sheehan Reveals Plan for New National Party  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20963.htm
Action Alert -- A quote...."07/10/08 "Digital Journal" Anti War activist and challenger for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Congressional Seat (CD 8, California), Cindy Sheehan has indicated her intention to launch a National political party after the U.S. Election of Nov. 4 -- Inspired in part by Mark Twain's involvement in The American Anti Imperialist League in reaction to the annexation of the Philippines by the United States in the late 19th Century, Sheehan said that the party will have a progressive platform and that after Nov. 4, "no matter what happens, we need to consolidate the energy against Imperialism and work on building another party movement."
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The Good News About the Bailout  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/pike8.html
A quote...."We just had a $700 billion bailout bill that was signed into law and done in defiance of the American people at large. This money is on top of many more billions that have already been spent bailing out Wall Street. We have a runaway government and we will likely experience economic depression or very high inflation, or possibly both, in the near future. Yet, I am smiling about the whole thing."
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AIG Congressional Hearing: "They Were Getting Manicures... While American People Were Footing The Bill"
  ---  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/07/aig-congressional-hearing_n_132614.html
A quote...."Have you heard of anything more outrageous - a week after taxpayers commit $85 billion dollars to rescue AIG, the company's leading insurance executives spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at one of the most exclusive reports in the nation...Let me describe for some of you the charges that the shareholders, taxpayers, had to pay."
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U.S. Debt Too Big for National Debt Clock  ---  http://infowars.net/articles/october2008/071008Debt.htm ---  Oh this one is funny. - mpg
Video - Special Note - A quote...."The National Debt Clock, launched in 1989 when the nation's debt was less than $3 trillion, cannot keep pace with the growing national debt, now at more than $10 trillion."
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Finance crisis: in graphics  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-1777-0-13-13--.html
Multiple Charts - A quote...."It is shaping up to be one of the most tumultuous times on record in the global financial markets. -- The financial landscape is going through a period of upheaval with some major firms folding, other operations merging and a limited number of companies in both the Europe and the US, being rescued at a governmental level."
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Bank bailout: Alistair Darling unveils £500billion rescue package
  ---  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3156711/Bank-bailout-Alistair-Darling-unveils-500billion-rescue-package.html
A quote...."The plan will see the taxpayer take large stakes in the major banks in return for a massive injection of money to prop up their shattered balance sheets. -- The part-nationalisation deal comes as a last-ditch effort to prevent the banks from a catastrophic collapse, following another day of hammering on the stock market."
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Prime Minister calls meeting with finance chiefs after nightmare day for banks  ---  http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article4898553.ece
A quote...."Last Updated: 8:14AM BST 08 Oct 2008 -- Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling were tonight meeting with finance chiefs to discuss the recapitalisation of the UK banking system after a turbulent day on the markets which also saw British savers hit by the collapse of the Icelandic bank Icesave."
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Iceland nationalizes second-largest bank  ---  http://www.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/10/07/iceland.loan.collapse.ap/index.html?section=cnn_latest
A quote...."REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) -- Iceland nationalized its second-largest bank Tuesday under emergency legislation and said it was negotiating a 4 billion-euro ($5.4 billion) loan from Russia to shore up the nation's finances amid a full-blown financial crisis."
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Knock Out: CNBC Confirms Lehman CEO Punched at Gym  ---  http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2008/20081006150152.aspx
A quote...."It seems anxiety from the financial crisis is reaching new highs, but the tipping point for one individual came at the Lehman Brothers gym in the midst of the company’s collapse."
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American financier kills his family and himself after losing fortune in credit crunch
  ---  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1070935/American-financier-kills-family-losing-fortune-credit-crunch.html
A quote...."A businessman gunned down five members of his family then shot himself after seeing his family's fortune wiped out by the stock market collapse. -- Karthik Rajaram, 45, who had made almost £900,000 on the London stock market, shot his wife, three children and mother-in-law in the head before turning the gun on himself at the family home near Los Angeles."
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Down the Road to Serfdom  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/orig/berga.php?articleid=13554
Must Read - A quote...."Threatening an imminent economic collapse, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke have bamboozled Congress into enacting the most brazen confiscatory scheme ever concocted by government. The scheme would have American taxpayers fork over $700 billion of their cash to help recapitalize some of the country's biggest banks – the same banks that recently larded their bigwigs with $62 billion in bonuses.
   ---  http://cubajournal.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default  ---  Sensing a pushback by the world's dollar-surplus regions – Asia and the Mideast – to finance the largest debtor economy, the U.S. government will now plunder its own countrymen to keep capital running "uphill."
  ---  http://www.imf.org/external/np/vc/2008/061008.htm  ---  As with most statist remedies, it is being marketed as a boon for Main Street, tantalizing its inhabitants with the prospect of profits wafting westward from those malodorous Wall Street investments. However, Congress has inured the Treasury from accountability and legal recourse, giving Paulson dictatorial power over the nation's financial sector. Rather than let this bloated segment of the economy   --- 
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94525264  ---   shrink and consolidate, Paulson and his successor will extend it unlimited life support, bloodletting everything else, in a final ruin of the nation." -- Also posted at ICH   ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20952.htm
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We're on "the edge of the abyss”  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20954.htm
Must Read - A quote...."06/10/08 '"ICH" -- "The recent financial recovery plan that Congress enacted will not rebuild lending and credit flows. That requires a program to stop a downward overshooting of house prices and the resulting mortgage defaults....The prospect of a downward spiral of house prices depresses the value of mortgage-backed securities and therefore the capital and liquidity of financial institutions. Experts say that an additional 10% to 15% decline in house prices is needed to get back to the prebubble level. [that's not the "downward overshooting" part, that's just the "getting back to normal part"....it could get a lot worse.]  That decline would double the number of homes with negative equity, raising the total to 40% of all homes with mortgages. The mortgages of five million homeowners would then exceed the value of their homes by 30% or more, which could prompt millions of defaults." (Martin Feldstein, "The Problem is still Falling house Prices", WS Journal)" -- Also posted at CounterPunch  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney10062008.html


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The Dollar's Spike
10-06-08
mpg

Passport's Burbank warns of deflationary bust
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/passports-burbank-warns-deflationary-bust/story.aspx?guid=%7B8806076E-7CCB-4C82-AF1B-9F78299E1161%7D
Special Note -- A quote...." Passport generated big returns last year betting against subprime mortgages. The fund has also been investing in energy and basic materials companies in a bet on global economic growth and rising demand from countries like India.  Other hedge funds took similar positions based on this fundamental idea, betting against financials in the U.S. and against the U.S. dollar while going long energy and other commodities. -- bold/underline by webiste editor

It appears that a very LARGE number of hedge funds figured Bernanke could pull a rabbit out of the hat and inflate his way out of the current crisis.  However, it's beginning to look as if Bernanke couldn't inflate his way out of this total catastrophe even if he threw a trillion dollars a day at the deflationary wave that's currently towering over the US and world economy.  As a result of this massive unwinding of over leveraged positions, ALL the commodities and financials are plunging in price while the dollar is getting a deflationary "flight to safety" boost forcing the hedge funds to cover their short positions thereby causing even more of a dollar surge.

This state of affairs will not last for very long the way things are going (think Weimar Germany).  And this is one of the surest signs that the chances for an actual depression have substantially increased, the fact that so many smart people were caught believing this would be just another re-play of the late sixties and early seventies stagflation.

You can include this website editor in that prediction, but it has been pointed out repeatedly on this website that each ten year cycle   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/fedfundschart-photopg-cached-032407  ---   has caused a substantial - per capita, inflation adjusted --  increase in the debt levels in the US which could result in a "sudden shift" or "adjustment"   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/disclaimer-blog-mpg-070207.html  ---  to the economy.  This appears to be it, a massive, uncontrollable deflationary spiral.

If Bernanke manages to pull the US economy out of its deflationary death spiral (a big if) you will see inflation in this country like you have NEVER EVER seen it before.  Proving the hedge funds were right in their prognostications -- one or two years too early.....an unfortunate and extremely expensive matter of ill timing for them. - mpg
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US Economy Collapsing   ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dpJL6ANnV0  ---  (YouTube - 9 min 51 sec - Added:  October 05, 2008)
Must View Video - A quote...."A View from the Southern Hemisphere.......Please subscribe, rate and pass this video along as quickly as possible. Thank you." -- For more on this issue see....$1.3 Quadrillion and Counting - 09-18-08 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/1.3quadrillionandcounting-blog-mpg-091808
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An economic hurricane is about to wipe out the US and collapse the global economy: What the future holds  ---  http://www.chycho.com/?q=node/1864
A quote...."I have been trying to put together a piece for the economics section of the wrap-up of politics and economics,  ---  http://www.chycho.com/?q=node/1771  ---  but I’ve been having a hard time. How do you begin to describe a scene where your witnessing the bloody victims   ---  http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/03/eviction.suicide.attempt/  ---  of the largest train wreck in history   ---
http://www.financialpost.com/analysis/story.html?id=3fa7f0cc-cf33-41d4-96b9-8f70b2deec82  ---  be robbed by the authorities,  --- http://money.cnn.com/ 2008/10/03/news/economy/house_friday_bailout/index.htm?postversion=2008100309
http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/03/news/economy/house_friday_bailout/index.htmlet alone the part where bystanders are applauding as rescuers use kerosene  ---  http://www.agorafinancial.com/5min/smells-like-pork-feels-like-tsushima-watch-this-sector-and-more/  ---  to put out the ensuing fire?"
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Germany takes hot seat as Europe falls into the abyss  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=71561
Special Note - A quote...."Germany is now in the hot seat. The collapse of a rescue deal for Hypo Real Estate on Saturday threatens a €400bn (£311bn) bankruptcy that nearly matches the Lehman Brothers debacle for sheer scale. --
Chancellor Angela Merkel has been forced to pull her head out of the sand, guaranteeing all German savings, a day after she rebuked Ireland for doing much the same thing. Reality intrudes."
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The Wall Street bust  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JJ07Dj01.html
A quote...."Growth [of Total Non-Financial Debt (NFD)] rose to $2.319 trillion in 2005, $2.428 trillion in 2006 and then to last year's record $2.561 trillion. -- Importantly, this historic credit inflation inflated asset prices, incomes, corporate cashflows/earnings, government revenues, and various types of spending throughout the US and global economy. It was a self-sustaining bubble bolstered by ongoing credit excesses, asset inflation and resulting purchasing power gains. But NFD growth slowed sharply to an annualized $1.726 trillion during this year's first quarter and then sank to $1.127 trillion annualized during the second quarter. Credit growth is now in the process of collapsing. -- At this point, there is clearly insufficient credit expansion to support inflated asset markets;...."
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"This was the largest single act of class warfare in the modern history of this country." --Dennis Kucinich Dennis Kucinich on the Democrats' Bailout Betrayal   ---  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081006_dennis_kucinich_on_the_democrats_bailout_betrayal/  ---  By Chris Hedges 05 Oct 2008 The passing of the $850-billion bailout pulled the plug on the New Deal. The Great Society is now gasping for air, mortally wounded, coughing up blood. It will not recover. It was murdered by the Democratic Party. We are on our own. And don't expect any help from Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who lobbied hard for the bill and voted for it. Ignore their rhetoric. Look coldly at the ballots they cast against us. We, as citizens, have only a handful of representatives left in Washington, most of whom were left sputtering in rage and frustration on the House floor. The sad irony is that some of them were Republican." -- Paragraph quoted form CLG   ---  http://www.legitgov.org/  ---  See also....You Have a Choice Democracy or Empire 07-24-08 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/youhaveachoice-democracyorempire-blog-mpg-072408
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Lehman burns HK's low-risk investors  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/JJ07Cb01.html
A quote...."HONG KONG - Thousands of Hong Kong retail investors have seen their savings disintegrate after buying what they thought was a low-risk product from failed US investment bank Lehman Brothers. -- Amid calls for the ruined investors, many retirees, to show restraint and calm, the city's two chief financial regulatory institutions are pointing fingers at each other and have yet to come up with a solution that includes any form of restitution. -- Calls are growing for the government of Hong Kong, hailed as the world's freest economy, to intervene in the incident and to strengthen its supervision on the imports of "tainted" financial products from Wall Street into this international financial center." -- That's it!!  Wall Street has infected everybody in the world with a case of "Financial Herpes" (or worse). - mpg
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Lehman sought millions for execs while seeking aid  -- It's just to much, all you poor peons out there. - mpg
  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081006/ap_on_go_co/meltdown_lehman
Fed Considers Plan to Buy Companies’ Unsecured Debt
  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/business/07markets.html
Fed up with Fed credit
  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JJ04Dj02.html
The End of American Hegemony
  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20955.htm
Investor Jim Rogers predicts lost decade to USA
  ---  http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/06-10-2008/106525-jim_rogers-0
Ron Paul: Bailout Unconstitutional, Special Interests Forced Bill Through Congress
  ---  http://infowars.net/articles/october2008/061008Paul.htm
Thursday's auction for Lehman's credit default swaps (CDS)
  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10474
Neel Kashkari; The $700 Billion Bailout Czar
  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/Neel-Kashkari-The-700-Bi-by-Rob-Kall-081006-853.html
Wall Street Panic, Main Street Pain and Policy Choices
  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10466
Worst-case scenario is approaching rapidly
  ---  http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article4888251.ece
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Credit doors are closing  ---  http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/05/business/views06.php
A quote...."The market for commercial paper, which is high-quality, short-term debt, shrank by a record $95 billion last week, to $1.6 trillion, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve. That's down from nearly $2 trillion before the credit crunch."
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Fed to provide as much as $900B in loans to banks -- http://www.examiner.com/a-1624370%7EFed_to_provide_as_much_as__900B_in_loans_to_banks.html
That's on top of the $850 billion bailout (up from $700 billion) passed just three days ago....think about it. - mpg -- WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve will provide as much as $900 billion in cash loans to squeezed banks in an urgent effort Monday to break through a dangerous credit clog."
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Full of Doubts, U.S. Shoppers Cut Spending  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/business/06econ.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
A quote...."Recent figures from companies, and interviews across the country, show that automobile sales are plummeting, airline traffic is dropping, restaurant chains are struggling to fill tables, customers are sparse in stores. -- When the final tally is in, consumer spending for the quarter just ended will almost certainly shrink, the first quarterly decline in nearly two decades."
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No rescue in sight for what ails economy  ---  http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-econ5-2008oct05,0,4474545.story?track=ntothtml
A quote...."WASHINGTON -- While Americans have spent the last month transfixed by the spectacle of one financial giant after another crashing to the ground, the rest of the U.S. economy has been sinking in the muck. -- By now, the process is so far advanced that, even after passage of the Bush administration's $700-billion financial rescue plan Friday, the nation's economic options span the unappealing gamut from bad to worse."
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Pakistan Facing Bankruptcy  ---  http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=12280
A quote...."While Mr Musharraf's prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, frequently likened Pakistan to a "Tiger economy", the former government left an economy on the brink of ruin without any durable base. -- The Pakistan rupee has lost more than 21 per cent of its value so far this year and inflation now runs at 25 per cent. The rise in world prices has driven up Pakistan's food and oil bill by a third since 2007."  -- This is what happens when you do "business" with the "west".  It will happen every single time. - mpg
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Taliban, Afghan Officials Met in Saudi Arabia  ---  http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=5963344
A quote...."Taliban representatives met with Afghan government officials last month in Saudi Arabia, a former high-level Taliban ambassador said Monday, but he denied the meeting could be construed as peace talks."
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The Wounded Shark: 'Good War' Lost, But the Imperial Project Goes On
  ---  http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1623-the-wounded-shark-good-war-lost-but-the-imperial-project-goes-on.html
A quote...."Don't tell Obama and McCain, but the war they are both counting on to make their bones as commander-in-chief -- the "good war" in Afghanistan, which both men have pledged to expand -- is already lost. Their joint strategy of pouring more troops, tanks, missiles and planes into the roaring fire -- not to mention their intention to spread the war into Pakistan -- will only lead to disaster."
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Germany not to renew special forces' Afghan mission  ---  http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=410067
A quote...."BERLIN, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Germany will no longer make troops from its elite KSK special forces available to support U.S.-led counterterrorism missions in Afghanistan, the Defence Ministry said on Monday."
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Central American states vow to promote regional economy  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-1756-0-9-9--.html
A quote...."MANAGUA - Member states of the Central American Integration System (SICA) Saturday agreed to launch a joint campaign to promote regional economic development and seek possible alternatives to ease the impact of the U.S. financial crisis, according to news from Honduras's capital of Tegucigalpa."
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Nigerian Conflict a Warning for Big Oil in Iraq  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/177573
A quote...."BAGHDAD (AP) — Recurrent violence in oil-rich parts of Nigeria may provide a sobering lesson for oil companies hoping to work in Iraq — a place that is much more dangerous despite the fact that attacks are at their lowest level in more than four years. "
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Russia-Belarus joint anti-missile possible  ---  http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/31467
A quote...."Russia and Belarus may strike a deal on creating a joint anti-missile shield very soon. A source in the Russian government has said the timeframe of the deal mainly depends on the Belarusian side."
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The US Neocon's New Proxy War in Georgia - 1 article - Monday - [ Day 60 ] =====  ==========

Russian peacekeepers to leave Georgia in 72 hours  ---  http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/31471
A quote...."October 7, 2008, 8:12 -- All Russian peacekeepers are set to dismantle their checkpoints in the security zone around South Ossetia before October 10. They will be replaced with EU monitors, who are watching the Russian pullout."
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End - The US Neocon's New Proxy War in Georgia - 1 article - Monday - [ Day 60 ] ===  ==========

Exclusive Interview With Former Diebold Contractor  ---  http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0810/S00012.htm
Contains Video - A quote...."VR has an exclusive interview with former Diebold contractor Chris Hood that talks about many disturbing actions by Diebold during prior elections, including illegal, uncertified and unreported patches, and improper feeding of tabulation results by Diebold Chief Bob Urosevitch. This interview was prepared for a major news program special that was supposed to air two weeks before the 2006 midterm election. At the last moment, however, the special was killed by the corporate media. Check out this important ten minute interview."
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Principles, not money, power Guantanamo defense lawyers  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Principles_not_money_power_Guantana_10062008.html
A quote...."The 700-odd lawyers defending the suspected foreign terrorists held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay say they share a common mission -- to make amends for the US government's actions in its "war on terror". -- Some go to work in pinstripe suits, others in crisp military uniforms. Some get paid, others do it for free."
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Juan Cole's McCain Round-Up
McCain in 1992: Christianity and Oil Drive US Wars in Middle East
  ---  http://www.juancole.com/2008/10/mccain-in-1992-christianity-and-oil.html
McCain 1991: Unwise for US to Invade Iraq
  ---  http://www.juancole.com/2008/10/mccain-1991-unwise-for-us-to-invade.html
McCain Funded Righwing Contra Death Squads
  ---  http://www.juancole.com/2008/10/mccain-funded-righwing-contra-death.html
Keating: "Certainly hoped" he Bought Influence with McCain
  ---  http://www.juancole.com/2008/10/keating-certainly-hoped-he-bought.html
McCain Campaign No. 1 at Self-Parody; McCain support for Mujahideen Papered Over
  ---  http://www.juancole.com/2008/10/mccain-campaign-no-1-at-self-parody.html
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Mangled Economics in Democratic America  ---  http://watchingamerica.com/News/7828/mangled-economics/
Must Read - Some quotes...."To become a superpower once again, the U.S. needs either a miracle or a war. (and our elites have ruled out any miracles for the forseeable future -- for more on this issue see....Effective Fed Funds Rate 03-24-07 - mpg)"  --- 
http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/fedfundschart-photopg-cached-032407  ---  "Indeed, what’s happening? Having driven the country into the deepest debt hole, and having built the largest financial pyramid in history, the Bush administration realized that the only way to escape is to forget about freedom and democracy. The White House invited America to do what it mercilessly criticized, and why it often bombed and ruined other countries: To introduce the dictatorship of financial authorities, to nationalize the most important companies, to buy up all and everything, after pouring into the economy 700 billion dollars."
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How to Break the Money Monopoly  ---  http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081020/howl
Must Read - A quote...."Once again, the small group of financial organizations and the few thousand people who constitute what we call Wall Street have brought the country to the verge of ruin. It's been barely ten years since they visited the dot-com boom and bust on the nation and twenty years since they took us to the edge of ruin in the savings and loan scandals." -- As always, they accompanied their financial schemes with a nice little war. - mpg
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Massive US military budget passed - Part 1  ---  http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2450
Last days of the American Republic? - Part 2  ---  http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2494
Must View Videos - A quote from Pt1...."Chalmers Johnson: US wrong to believe it can maintain both a military and civilian economy -- While debate over the Paulson bailout package dominated the headlines, the US Congress quietly passed a landmark $615 billion defense spending bill. One of the few people to comment on the measure was Chalmers Johnson, in his article "We have the money."  ---
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174982/chalmers_johnson_the_pentagon_bailout_fraud  ---  Chalmers explains to Real News Network's Senior Editor Paul Jay how the military-industrial complex is a driving force behind the current financial crisis and a determinant of much of what happens in Washington. He also criticizes the omission of the military-industrial complex from the political discourse determined by the two major parties and the media."
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The Culprits Condemn Themselves  ---  http://watchingamerica.com/News/7912/the-culprits-condemn-themselves/
Must Read - A quote...."When I telephoned two Arab friends this week to congratulate them on the Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan, as soon as we had gotten past the obligatory pleasantries the talk immediately turned to the United States; the superpower’s crisis, the financial meltdown, the implosion of their image as role model. Both my friends gave me a wide spectrum of Arab opinion, and that’s why I think it’s worth passing along what they told me in condensed form here."
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Busted American Dreams  ---  http://www.countercurrents.org/franklin041008.htm
A quote...."'You feel bad, you don't want to take their wedding rings from them, that's their memories and everything," says Michael Bruce from behind a row of thick steel bars. "But they need the money and that's what we are here for." - Bruce holds out a black velvet jewelry tray, each row holds a dozen wedding rings: big diamond, little diamond, stylish or gaudy, he has dozens. "While they take the ring off their finger, they get all choked up. It's just something you got to deal with... That's just the way the economy is, it's trash."
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More blowback from the war on terror  ---  http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/10/01/africa_renditions/
Must Read - A quote...."Oct. 1, 2008 | IFO REFUGEE CAMP, Kenya -- Ishmael, a 37-year-old shepherd from the Ogaden region in Ethiopia, looked at me with tears in his eyes. Ethiopian forces -- who had already killed his mother, father, brothers and sisters -- murdered his wife days after they were married. They then slaughtered his goats, beat him unconscious, and slashed his shoulder to the bone, he said. -- In December 2006, Ishmael crossed through Somalia into Kenya, heading for the nearest refugee camp in search of medical care. But when he didn't have enough money to pay a 1,000 shilling ($15) bribe, the Kenyan police bundled him into a car and took him to Nairobi. Less than a month later, he was herded onto an airplane with some 30 others, flown to Somalia and handed over to the Ethiopian military -- the same forces that he previously fled. -- Ishmael is a victim of a 2007 rendition program in the Horn of Africa, involving Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and the United States."  -- Also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/02-4
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US Raid Kills 11 Members of Mosul Family  ---  http://news.antiwar.com/2008/10/05/us-raid-kills-11-members-of-mosul-family/
A quote...."US forces conducted a dawn raid on a house in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in which they believed a “suspected insurgent” was hiding. When the clash was over, 11 members of a single Iraqi family were dead. -- The US wasn’t specific about the nature of the deaths, citing only someone with a suicide vest. However, an Iraqi security source said the US troops killed all 11. An Iraqi medic said the dead were five men, three women, and three children. The US report said five “terrorists,” three women, and three children. Surviving the raid were a three year old child and a three month old infant. The child is in Iraqi army custody, while Iraqi police are tending to the infant."
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When is a Holocaust Not a Holocaust?  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20943.htm
A quote...."04/10/08 "ICH" - -- Although the "surge" has failed as policy, it appears to be succeeding as propaganda. It seems to be the only thing that supporters of the war have to point to, and so they point, and they point, and they point. Allow me to point out that while there has been a reduction in violence in Iraq -- now down to a level that virtually any other society in the world would find horrible and intolerable, including Iraqi society before the US invasion and occupation -- we must keep in mind that thanks to this lovely little war more than half the population of Iraq is either dead, crippled, traumatized, confined in overflowing American and Iraqi prisons, internally displaced, or in foreign exile."
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Despite Ruling, Detainee Cases Facing Delays  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/us/05gitmo.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
A quote...."When the Supreme Court ruled in June that detainees at Guantánamo had the right to challenge their detention in federal court, the justices said that after more than six years of legal wrangling the prisoners should have their cases heard quickly because “the costs of delay can no longer be borne by those who are held in custody.” -- But nearly four months later, as the Bush administration has opened a new defense of its detention policies in federal court, none of the scores of cases brought by detainees have been resolved by any judge." -- Also posted at CommonDreams
  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/us/05gitmo.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
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UAE firms start pumping Kurdish gas over Iraq objections  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081004/wl_mideast_afp/iraqenergygaskurduae
A quote...."DUBAI (AFP) - United Arab Emirates-based firms Dana Gas PJSC and Crescent Petroleum announced on Saturday that they had begun producing gas under a deal with Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region over Baghdad's objections."
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After Siege, Wall Sadr City’s New Oppression  ---  http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2008/09/22/after-siege-wall-sadr-citys-new-oppression/  ---  ("Flash" is easiest)
Video - A quote from the comments section...."If you listen carefully to the news you may hear the odd glib comment about the concrete walls that have gone up around Baghdad. But, to truly understand the devastation these walls cause to the communities that are divided by them one must listen to the voices of the ordinary Iraqis. Which is exactly what Alive in Baghdad does."
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What happened in Sadr City?    ---  http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2008/09/08/what-happened-in-sadr-city/  ---  ("Flash" is easiest)
Video - Some commentaries regarding what happened during the fighting in Sadr City and it's aftermath. - mpg
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Poland finally ends Iraq mission  ---  http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=28159
A quote...."900 Polish troops to leave Iraq by end of month after over five years of unpopular presence."
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West Bank and Gaza, Fatah and Hamas Palestinians: divided we fall  ---  http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m47753&s1=h1
A quote...."Two locations, two rival political powers. Solidarity against Israel is gradually disintegrating as both regimes, and many individuals living under them, begin to see the future only in terms of their personal survival."
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IAEA calls for nuke-free ME  ---  http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=71304&sectionid=351020206
A quote...."The IAEA member states have called for a nuclear free Middle East to send a strong message to Israel, the only nuclear country in the region."
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EU powers mulling 'new international financial system'  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/2008/EU_powers_meeting_to_form_new_1004.html
A quote...."PARIS (AFP) – The leaders of Europe's four biggest economic powers were to hold crisis talks on the global financial meltdown on Saturday in Paris, despite disputes that killed off talk of a joint bailout package."
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Correa Threatens to Expel Foreign Oil Companies Over Output --- http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&sid=av0XV7SnCqlM&refer=energy
A quote...."Oct. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa said he may expel foreign oil producers, including Spain's biggest energy company, Repsol YPF, and Brazil's state-owned Petroleo Brasileiro SA, because of declining production."
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The Problems of Latin America and the Caribbean  --- http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20941.htm --- Latin America should reject ALBA. - mpg
A quote...."The ALBA is often described as an alternative to the US-sponsored "Free Trade Area of the  Americas," though the terms are misleading. It should be understood to be an independent development, not an alternative. And, furthermore, the so-called "free trade agreements" have only a limited relation to free trade, or even to trade in any serious sense of that term; and they are certainly not agreements, at least if people are part of their countries. A more accurate term would be "investor-rights arrangements," designed by multinational corporations and banks and the powerful states that cater to their interests, established mostly in secret, without public participation or awareness. That is why the  US executive regularly calls for "fast-track authority" for these agreements - essentially, Kremlin-style authority."
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South American nations move toward legislative amalgamation  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-1751-0-13-13--.html
And they should embrace the economic aspects of UNASUR. - mpg -- A quote...."Caracas - Experts of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) took the firststeps to create a regional system in legal issues, as part of the integration process that is currently in progress."
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[Russian] Parliament siege remembered   ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7gj071wYk8  ---  (YouTube - 5 min 13 sec - Added:  October 03, 2008)
Video - A quote...."Russia is marking 15 years since the constitutional crisis which almost led to the civil war."
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The US Neocon's New Proxy War in Georgia - 3 articles - Sunday - [ Day 59 ] =====  ==========

Russian soldiers leave Georgia  ---  http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/31400
A quote...."Russian peacekeepers are dismantling more of their checkpoints on the Georgian side of the security zone on the Georgian-South Ossetian border. Moscow has promised to complete the withdrawal by the October 10 as part of the Sarkozy-Medvedev plan agreed by all sides involved in the conflict."
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Yulia Tymoshenko on weapons supplies to Georgia  ---  http://en.rian.ru/video/20081004/117436527.html
Video - A quote...."Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with his Ukrainian counterpart Yulia Tymoshenko to discuss economic cooperation priorities. When asked about Ukrainian weapons supplies to Georgia during the recent Georgian-Ossetian conflict, the Ukrainian Prime Minister expressed hope that the fact of weapons supplies would not be confirmed. (81 sec./3.02Mb, shows: 38)"
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Kazakhstan has no plans to review ties with Russia over Caucasus  ---  http://en.rian.ru/world/20081005/117441691.html
A quote...."14:09 | 05/ 10/ 2008 -- ASTANA, October 5 (RIA Novosti) - Kazakhstan does not intend to review its relations with Russia over the recent conflict between Moscow and Tbilisi, Kazakh Foreign Minister Marat Tazhin said on Sunday."
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End - The US Neocon's New Proxy War in Georgia - 3 articles - Sunday - [ Day 59 ] =====  ==========

The Bush Doctrine &  The 9/11 Commission Report: Both Authored by Philip Zelikow  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20947.htm
Special Note - A quote...."04/10/08 "ICH  " -- - Thanks to the interview of Sarah Palin by Charles Gibson of ABC News on September 11, the “Bush Doctrine” has become part of American political discourse much more fully than it was before. Thanks to that interview and the commentary that followed, Governor Palin and millions of other Americans learned of the existence and meaning of this fateful doctrine---fateful because, as New York Times reporter Philip Shenon has pointed out, it was used to “justify a preemptive strike on Iraq.”1" -- For more on this issue see....9/11 - Commission
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/911commission-weblist-mpg-091306
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Army combat unit to deploy within US - http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/03/army.unit/index.html - More on Nothern Command's upcoming deployment  mpg
A quote...."Use of active-duty military as a domestic police force has been severely limited since passage of the Posse Comitatus Act
  ---  http://www.legitgov.org/posse_comitatus_act_101602.html  ---  following the Civil War. 03 Oct 2008 The United States military's Northern Command is dedicating a combat infantry team to deal with catastrophes in the U.S., including terrorist attacks and "natural" disasters. The 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry, which was first into Baghdad, Iraq, in 2003, started its controversial assignment Wednesday. The First Raiders will spend 2009 as the first active-duty military unit attached to the U.S. Northern Command since it was created. The unit has been training with equipment generally used in law enforcement, including beanbag bullets, Tasers, spike strips and roadblocks. That kind of training seems a bit out of line for the unit's designated role as Northern Command's CCMRF (Sea Smurf), or CBRNE Consequence Management Response Force. CBRNE stands for chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive incidents." -- Paragraph quoted from CLG  ---  http://www.legitgov.org/
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Guidelines Expand FBI's Surveillance Powers  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=71382
A quote...."The new road map allows investigators to recruit informants, employ physical surveillance and conduct interviews in which agents disguise their identities in an effort to assess national security threats. FBI agents could pursue each of those steps without any single fact indicating a person has ties to a terrorist organization." -- So they're not going to even bother trying to pretend anymore. - mpg
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Pentagon Iraq Propaganda Also Targets "US Audiences" -- More on the US DOD's propaganda program. - mpg
  ---  http://www.atlargely.com/2008/10/pentagon-iraq-p.html#more
A quote...."It's quite easy to identify administration stenographers in the foreign press who create most of their reports around deliberate propaganda items. In the UK Con Coughlin and Phil Sherwell at the Daily Telegraph and Sarah Baxter at Murdoch's London Times are the most common conduits for stories to be imported back into the US at one deniable stage of removal from their agency source. In Israel, the Jerusalem Post (another Murdoch paper) -  and in particular deputy managing editor Caroline Glick - does admirable service for the Fourth Branch's preferred narratives. Murdoch's Australian outlets are just as bad. Glick, Coughlin and the Time's Uzi Mahnaimi double up on their stenography on behalf of Mossad too. Baxter and Sherwell for MI6." -- For more on this issue see....Fake Intel / Propaganda - DOD's Presstitutes  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206#DODS_PRESSTITUTES
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Ike: The Silent Storm  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/03-3
A quote...."The Media was not allowed to film people being rescued from rooftops in Texas. They were prohibited from flying over the small towns and beaches isolated by flooding and decimated by the hurricane. Local press raged about the conditions, then fell silent in a game of play-nice hoping to be allowed at least limited access. Not once did the national press report this suspension of the first amendment. The sound of black hawk helicopters could be heard for miles. -- With cable TV down, and electricity at a premium, the primary source of information was local radio. Listeners tuned in hoping for updates and relevant information which seemed to come irregularly between endless chatter. If you had an antennae and power you might have been able to tune into the local news."
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All that's missing are the uniforms!  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/All-that-s-missing-are-the-by-W-Christopher-Epl-081005-380.html
A quote...."It's like being in a theater with a raging fire in the basement, but practically everyone is so hypnotized (drugged?) by the movie that by the time they realize the building is on fire, it's already too late and they go up in smoke with the rugs. -- THAT'S America.  That is a nearly an exact description of the collective mind set of most citizens."
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Kosovo Serbs earning their living in U.S. Army  ---  http://www.russiatoday.com/features/news/31377
A quote...."Although they still remember the American bombing of Serbia almost ten years ago, Kosovo Serbs are joining the U.S. Amy and they’re choosing to go to Iraq or Afghanistan to put food on the table back home."
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UK Plans Live, Realtime Citizen Telecom Spying  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-1749-0-13-13--.html
A quote...."LONDON - The U.K. authorities are considering spending up to 12 billion pounds ($21 billion) on a database to keep information on Internet intercepts, e-mail and telephone records of everyone in Britain, The Sunday Times reported."
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Saying ‘No Deal’ to This New Deal  ---  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081003_saying_no_deal_to_this_new_deal/
A quote...." The marriage of American capitalism and democracy has always been a Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee affair—stormy and erratic since its hasty wedding. But during the debate over a Wall Street bailout this week, we watched that matrimonial knot unwind into a tangled tale of terror. -- As a financial crisis became a political panic, capitalism murdered democracy (ironically, while pursuing a vaguely socialist bailout). Only, unlike a typical horror story, the dead body wasn’t hidden, it was dumped in the nation’s public square." -- Also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/03-7
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Debt bondage: A Christian Perspective on the Paulson Bank Bailout  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10458
A quote...."An unprecedented popular protest led Congress to reject the Treasury’s initial bailout plan on Monday, September 29. Most commentators have noted how ironic and seemingly out-of-character it was that the bailout was defeated mainly by Republicans, and indeed by the party’s right-wing Bible Belt Conservatives. But would it be too much to hope that these Congressmen bore in mind the Christian ethic embodied in Matthew 18 – almost literally a Biblical condemnation of the bailout’s terms?"
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Thanks for the Inflationary Depression -http://www.lewrockwell.com/podcast/?p=episode&name=2008-10-05_041_thanks_for_the_inflationary_depression.mp3
Audio Commentary - A quote...."Peter Schiff podcast on what's ahead. courtesy of the government."
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History: And being doomed to repeat it, Depression II -- http://www.opednews.com/articles/History-And-being-doomed-by-harmony-hackney-081004-456.html
Special Note - A quote...."For some reason I see a lot of similar things in that crisis and the one happening today. But it just may be me. -- For example: In the 20's and 30's people bought things like cars, radios and other luxury items on credit. The unstable market lead to job losses and people began defaulting on those loans. Right now, people bought cars and homes, lost jobs, and now are defaulting on those loans. In the 20's and 30's this meant that banks were less likely to make new loans, same as today, which reduces consumer spending on everything causing even more instability in the market."
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Jim Cramer – Mr. Potatohead  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/murphy-a2.html
A quote...."If there was ever a financial show which should have the words, "For entertainment uses only" that would be Mad Money with Jim Cramer. It is no secret that Cramer’s stock picks have done worse than the market averages. However, the other day, Cramer went off the deep end with a 14-minute rant of hyper-Keynesianism, historical revisionism of Herbert Hoover and blaming the Irish Potato famine of 1847 on laissez-faire."
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The Problem Is Still Falling House Prices - The bailout bill doesn't get at the root of the credit crunch.
  ---  http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB122307486906203821-lMyQjAxMDI4MjAzNDAwNzQ0Wj.html
Special Note - Financial Warning - A quote...."The prospect of a downward spiral of house prices depresses the value of mortgage-backed securities and therefore the capital and liquidity of financial institutions. Experts say that an additional 10% to 15% decline in house prices is needed to get back to the prebubble level. That decline would double the number of homes with negative equity, raising the total to 40% of all homes with mortgages. The mortgages of five million homeowners would then exceed the value of their homes by 30% or more, which could prompt millions of defaults." -- bold by website editor
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Paulson To Hire 10 Firms To Hand Out Money - Let the feast begin! -mpg
  ---  http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=12250
With bailout passed, lobbyists look to get in the game  -- Let the games begin also! - mpg
  ---  http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/with-bailout-passed-lobbyists-look-to-get-in-the-game-2008-10-04.html
The Golden Parachute Survives - Ahhhh!  After the games and the final feast, let the golden retirements begin. mpg
  ---  http://www.truthout.org/100508C
The Political Class Crosses the Rubicon
  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/ostrowski/ostrowski90.html
The Rebellion That Failed
  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff10042008.html
It’s Not as Though Anyone Saw It Coming
  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/suprynowicz/suprynowicz95.html
Lessons from the Collapse of Wall Street
  ---  http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_28415.shtml
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After House OKs bailout, credit markets tighten on fears the plan isn't enough to help economy
  ---  http://www.canadianbusiness.com/markets/market_news/article.jsp?content=D93J9MV00
Special Note - Financial Warning - A quote...."On Friday, the London Interbank Offered Rate, or LIBOR, for three-month dollar loans rose to 4.33 percent from 4.21 percent Thursday. That bank-to-bank lending rate has been rising all week, showing that banks are growing less and less willing to lend out their cash for longer than overnight."
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Mass. may seek a US loan as credit markets dry up -- Does that make it the second state to do so? - mpg
  ---  http://www.boston.com/business/markets/articles/2008/10/04/mass_may_seek_a_us_loan_as_credit_markets_dry_up/
A quote...."State Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill this week approached the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston about lending Massachusetts money under the same extraordinary terms the government is giving banks and Wall Street firms during this financial crisis." -- See also.... California gov says may seek US Treasury financing   ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0334144120081003  ---  posted 10-03-08
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A.I.G. Uses $61 Billion of Fed Loan  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/business/04insure.html
A quote...."The American International Group said on Friday that it had already drawn down $61 billion of the $85 billion emergency bridge loan it received from the Federal Reserve two weeks ago, an announcement that startled credit ratings agencies."
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Report shows Michigan economy in 8-year depression  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=71318
A quote...."The report analyzed Michigan’s economic performance and showed that Michigan’s job losses from July 2000 to July 2008 percentage-wise are worse than U.S. job losses suffered during first eight years of the U.S. Great Depression from 1929-1937. It also showed that Michigan has had worse gross domestic production (GDP) growth from 2000 to 2007 than did the United States during the Great Depression era of 1929-1936."
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Germans agree on USD 68b bailout plan  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=71406&sectionid=351020604
A quote...."Berlin has expanded its bailout plan in a bid to rescue troubled banks and guarantee the deposits in banks held by German citizens."
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Irish “bail-out” rash rapidly extending to rest of Europe  ---  http://www4.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=14769&formato=HTML
A quote...."Germany offered a blanket bank deposit guarantee on Sunday in a bid to contain the spreading credit crisis as European officials clinched deals to rescue Germany's Hypo Real Estate and recapitalize two other European banks."
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The party's over for Iceland, the island that tried to buy the world  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/05/iceland.creditcrunch
A quote...."Iceland is on the brink of collapse. Inflation and interest rates are raging upwards. The krona, Iceland's currency, is in freefall and is rated just above those of Zimbabwe and Turkmenistan. One of the country's three independent banks has been nationalised, another is asking customers for money, and the discredited government and officials from the central bank have been huddled behind closed doors for three days with still no sign of a plan. International banks won't send any more money and supplies of foreign currency are running out."

Friday October 3rd 2008 - links page

A little problem with capitalism -- The financial crisis gripping the U.S. isn't an anomaly. We just have short memories
  ---  http://www.thestar.com/article/507302
Must Read - A quote...."What's happening now on Wall Street is seen as a new story. It is not. It is a very old one. --Karl Marx wrote about it; so did John Maynard Keynes. More recently, tycoon George Soros has pronounced on it, as has the redoubtable Economist, a decidedly pro-free market financial magazine. --This old story is quite simple: Capitalism is unstable. It is an economic system that can be ruthlessly productive. But is also one of wheels within wheels – internal contradictions Marx called them – that can, and regularly do, spin out of control."
Also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20932.htm
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The Month When Reality Invaded  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north659.html
Must Read - A quote...."In September, confidence was at long last shattered. At the beginning of the month, Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson was still assuring people that the banking system was perfectly sound. On Sunday, September 7, he unilaterally announced the Federal government was taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, along with their $5 trillion of mortgage debt. He did not ask Congress. Congress did not complain. That act ended anything resembling a free market in housing."
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Creatures of Capital  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn10032008.html
Must Read - A quote...."Normally, in these elections, one  tries to peer forward into the future, to  alert people to impending villainies, still dim in contour.  Rare is it to have corrupt servility to the Money Power so brzenly displayed by the Democratic ticket merely a month before the ballot. We have just witnessed  a class struggle where, for once,  we had a huge popular coalition stretching all the way across the political spectrum. The coalition was there; the anger was there;  the timing was perfect. “ The great appear great to us,” James Connolly wrote, “only because we are on our knees. Let us rise.” This time it was Paulson who was on his knees. Could not Obama, at this moment of  extraordinary power, have extorted extraordinary concessions from these frantic bankers? He could, but he fled the task.   Could not Bernie Sanders have filibustered the bill? Of course not. That would have taken the Vermont blowhard “independent” far beyond his ritual bluster. -- Obama’s designated role in these fraught times is to de-fuse, not inspire; to urge the angered crowd to remain calm, and disperse quietly, not to march upon the citadel, pitchforks upraised."
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Iraq war a mistake, Harper admits  ---  http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5hApa9Z2Czbrt3zjYP85qnvWxBMDw
A quote...."OTTAWA — Stephen Harper admitted Thursday that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was a mistake - one that Canadian troops would have been plunged into had he been prime minister in 2003."
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Scott Horton Interviews Robert Dreyfuss  ---  http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/10/02/robert-dreyfuss-8/
Audio Interview - A quote...."Robert Dreyfuss, reporter for The Nation, discusses the Iraqi resistance, the myth of the surge’s responsibility for the reduction in violence, Iran’s brokering of Sadr’s cease-fire, Maliki’s tightrope act in needing the U.S. to back him now, but leave soon, the problem of Kirkuk and Russia’s role in the changing Mideast dynamic."
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US threatens to steal Iraq oil money  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=71202&sectionid=351020201
A quote...."Washington has threatened to seize Iraqi assets and oil money if Baghdad rejects a controversial US-proposed security pact, Iraq says."
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Pentagon Hands Iraq Oil Deal to Shell  ---  http://www.truthout.org/100308S
A quote...."The US government secretly facilitated dealings between Shell and the Iraqi Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts. --   In June of this year, Andrew Kramer, writing in The New York Times, broke the story that the world's oil giants, "Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP ... along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies" were "in talks with Iraq's Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq's largest fields." Subsequently, the Times went on to report that "A group of American advisers led by a small State Department team played an integral part in drawing up contracts between the Iraqi government and five major Western oil companies...."
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Sadr repeats call for US troops to go home  ---  http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=96473
A quote...."BAGHDAD: Hard-line Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr issued a fresh call on Friday for US troops to withdraw from Iraq, saying there would be no sectarian violence after foreign forces quit the country. His followers also set fire to a large Pokemon doll decked out in small US flags after Friday prayers in Baghdad's sprawling Sadr City quarter, a bastion of the cleric, where some 2 million people live."
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Wolfowitz up to more mischief?  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/JJ03Ad01.html
A quote...."WASHINGTON - Just 15 months after being forced to resign as president of the World Bank over a conflict of interest regarding his professional and personal relationship with his girlfriend, former deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz may be involved in another, far more geostrategic conflict of interest."
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Chomsky: "The Majority of the World Supports Iran"
  ---  http://www.alternet.org/audits/101290/chomsky:_%22the_majority_of_the_world_supports_iran%22/?page=entire
A quote...."On Wednesday night, in a vote of 86 to 13, the U.S. Senate passed a historic nuclear deal with that will allow the United States to trade with India in nuclear equipment and technology, and to supply India with nuclear fuel for its power reactors. The deal is considered hugely consequential by its supporters and opponents alike -- and a significant victory for the Bush administration."
Also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20937.htm
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Iran: Better Ties with US Impossible unless White House Shifts Policy  ---  http://www.farsnews.com/English/newstext.php?nn=8707120642
A quote...."TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Thursday ruled out any improvement in his country's ties with the United States unless Washington alters its foreign policy following the election of a new president next month."
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Iran, Oman Reach Agreement on Gas Deal  ---  http://www.farsnews.com/English/newstext.php?nn=8707120636
A quote...."TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran has agreed to export substantial gas volumes from its Kish field to Oman in a deal promising Tehran access to liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities."
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Republicans Block Iran Sanctions  ---  http://www.farsnews.com/English/newstext.php?nn=8707120626
A quote...."TEHRAN (FNA)- Republicans blocked Iran sanctions legislation in the US Senate."
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Pakistan claims "right to seek" N-deal with China  ---  http://www.rttnews.com/Content/PoliticalNews.aspx?Node=B3&id=730010
A quote...."(RTTNews) -  Islamabad announced its intention to strike a deal with its ally China similar to the Indo-US civilian nuclear treaty, immediately after the U.S. Senate approved it by more than the required three-fifth majority Wednesday."
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French troops: We don't go to Afghanistan  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=71254&sectionid=351020603
A quote...."Troops in a military base in France have opposed their deployment to Afghanistan amid dwindling support of French forces being there."
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REFILE-Taliban leader rejects talks with Afghan government  ---  http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=405382
A quote...."SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan, Oct 3 (Reuters) - A senior Taliban commander on Friday rejected reconciliation with what he called the "puppet" Afghan government, the latest in a series of pronouncements from both sides on potential peace talks."
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Oslo at 15 Years: A Vanishing Dream - posted at the Palistine Chronicle  ---  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14215
  ---  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14225
A quote...."This month marked 15 years since the signing of the Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles on the South Lawn of the White House, launching the Oslo process and a new hope for the Middle East. The anniversary was largely ignored, overshadowed by the latest rounds of political uncertainty and upheaval in both Israel (where the ruling Kadima party elected Tzipi Livni its new leader) and in the Palestinian territories. Indeed there was little cause for fanfare or celebration. The latest incarnation of Oslo, the Annapolis effort, is sputtering toward another unrealised peace deadline, the end of '08."
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RIGHTS:  U.N. Report Castigates Israel for Harassing Journalists  ---  http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44116
A quote...."UNITED NATIONS, Oct 3 (IPS) - A new United Nations report on the human rights situation in Palestinian territories blasts the Israeli government for its heavy-handed treatment of journalists reporting on the military occupation."
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The Bolivian Crisis, the OAS, and UNASUR  ---  http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5567
A quote...."On Sept. 9, separatist groups in the resource-rich eastern "half-moon"1 states of Bolivia launched violent attacks on the offices of the government of President Evo Morales. Rebel state governors,2 who lead the National Democratic Assembly (CONALDE),3 seek to prevent new laws on distribution of oil and gas revenues, and land reform."
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US denied permission to fly over Bolivia  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=71222&sectionid=351020706
A quote...."Bolivia has denied US anti-drug flights permission to use the country's airspace as relations between the two countries further sour."
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POLITICS-US:  Bush Seen as Out of Touch on Latin America  ---  http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44119
A quote...."WASHINGTON, Oct 3 (IPS) - The policies of the George W. Bush administration lag behind public opinion on a host of issues relating to Latin America, according to a new poll of likely voters across the U.S."
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The US Neocon's New Proxy War in Georgia - 2 articles - Friday - [ Day 57 ] =====  ==========

South Ossetia blames Georgia for deadly Tskhinval blast  ---  http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/31352
A quote...."A car bomb is reported to have killed seven people near the headquarters of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinval. Apart from the fatalities, seven people are believed to be injured. Tskhinval has blamed the explosion on Georgia."
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Opposition Condemns Saakashvili as a Rights Abuser  ---  http://news.antiwar.com/2008/10/03/opposition-condemns-saakashvili-as-a-rights-abuser/
A quote...."In another embarrassing incident at a time when the Bush Administration is pressing for NATO membership for Georgia, key members of the Caucasus nation’s opposition have launched an attack on President Mikheil Saakashvili, condemning him as an anti-democratic human rights abuser bent on creating an “authoritarian regime.”
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End - The US Neocon's New Proxy War in Georgia - 2 articles - Friday - [ Day 57 ] ===  ==========

Tales of Torture Overseas in a Case Testing U.S. Law
  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/us/03taylor.html?_r=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all&oref=slogin
A quote...."MIAMI — One witness described having flaming plastic melted onto his skin. Others accused Liberian soldiers of cutting their genitals or forcing prisoners to play “stone football,” kicking large stones until their bare feet were bruised and bleeding.
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US embassy in London to switch to former industrial site
  ---  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4870269.ece?print=yes&randnum=1222972748406
A quote...."The United States is to abandon its embassy in London’s diplomatic quarter for a high-security compound south of the Thames that will offer better protection against the terrorist threat. -- After 200 years in Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, the embassy will transfer to a site overlooking the river between Battersea power station and the headquarters of MI6 at Vauxhall. -- Diplomats will swap London’s premier residential and shopping district for a former industrial site in an area renowned for its hard-core gay clubs." -- Hah, welcome to the New Roman Empire. - mpg
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Judge orders more searches for Abramoff visits  ---  http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jqNPqvQT05DQyiW1KlCSU0XQpPBgD93IGEDO0
A quote...."WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has rejected the Bush administration's attempt to shield records that may shed light on the White House visits of now imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff."
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Cheney Petitions Court to Block Addington Deposition  ---  http://www.citizensforethics.org/node/34444
A quote...."1 Oct 2008 // Washington, D.C. - On the eve of the first scheduled deposition in CREW, et al. v. Cheney, et al., Vice President Cheney and the other defendants filed an emergency petition for a writ of mandamus with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Mandamus is an extraordinary remedy, and was filed here in an attempt to make the D.C. Circuit Court intrude directly into the district court litigation by demanding that the district court judge vacate her discovery orders."
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Defying White House recommendations, Miers refuses to talk to DOJ investigators.  ---  http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/03/miers-doj-investigators/
A quote...."Today, DOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine testified about his recent report on the U.S. Attorney scandal. Harriet Miers, who defied a subpoena regarding her role in the scandal, refused to talk to Fine’s investigators. Fine said she ignored the IG despite the White House in fact encouraging her to speak to them:"
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Report Shows White House Engineered U.S. Attorney Firings -http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/10/report_shows_white_house_engineered.php
A quote...."Now that the dust has settled on the U.S. attorney firings report, released Monday morning by the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General, we thought it was worth taking some time to lay out what it tells us. -- Almost since the scandal broke early last year, there have been clear signs that the plan to fire U.S. attorneys as a means of advancing the Bush administration's political goals was being driven by the White House. That impression has been strengthened as top current and former White House officials, including Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, have consistently stonewalled efforts to look into the matter.
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Non-profit offers $100k reward for info tying Rove to election rigging  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Nonprofit_offers_100k_reward_for_info_1003.html
Special Note - Action Alert - A quote...."A non-profit organization has offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who can supply information tying Republican strategist Karl Rove and computer expert Michael Connell to illegally manipulated elections, according to a Friday press release." - bold/underline by website editor -- Let's also offer rewards for information regarding this administration's complicity with the attack on 9/11.  This website editor would cheerfully pony up for that. - mpg
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News from the Complete 911 Timeline -- HistoryCommons.org  ---  http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20081003161607299
A quote...."This week, a massive amount of new entries have been added to the timeline, dealing with a whole range of different issues. We will start with the day of 9/11, in particular the Pentagon, which a fire chief warned could be a target nearly 20 minutes before it was hit. The attack itself created confusion by setting off 300 fire alarms, although some medical workers thought the ensuing evacuation was a drill. After wandering about outside the building, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld refused to follow the established emergency plan and evacuate, instead sending deputy Paul Wolfowitz to an alternate military command center, where the computers and communication systems did not work."
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The Non-Debate  ---  http://www.juancole.com/2008/10/non-debate.html
A quote...."The news organizations and civic groups that sponsor political debates have allowed the campaigns to push them around so vigorously that nothing like a debate is any longer possible. The Bushies even tried to force the networks to hide the fact that John Kerry was taller than his rival in 2004. It is not about debating but about how your candidate looks on television. -- Not only was there no debate but Sarah Palin was not required actually to answer any of the questions put to her, and she announced before she began that she was just going to throw up on us all the talking points that she had binged on in Arizona for the past few days. -- She mugged for the camera, winked like a bar fly, and just went on talking and talking and talking, oblivious to whatever anyone else said"
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America pays the piper, big time Pt.1 video  - (RN/YouTube - 3 min 44 sec - Added:  October 03, 2008)
  ---  http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2431&updaterx=2008-10-03+23%3A16%3A42
Video - A quote...."Robert Parry: After 28 years of drunken optimism and blind nationalism the US wakes up to a grim future" -- See also the article, posted on the FRONT PAGE.....America Pays the Piper, Big Time  ---  http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/092408.html
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National debt topped $10 trill this week  ---  http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/10/national_debt_topped_10_trilli.html
Charts - A quote...."President Bush signed legislation in July that raised the debt ceiling to $10.615 trillion. Meanwhile, the financial bailout legislation passed by the Senate last night would raise the debt ceiling further to $11.315 trillion." -- bold by webstite editor
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Get Your Dollars Out Now! FAST!!!  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20939.htm
Website Editor's Note: Dollars have been going up lately, and unless the currency fails, the dollar might very well stay above its all time low as the credit markets dry up and until the damage to Europe's economy can be ascertained. -- added 09-05-08 6:55 pm PST  -- Some Quotes........"Like Argentina in 2001, or Brasil in 1999, or Mexico in 1997. In short, these four pillars are:" -- "#3 Debt - This is the key concept that "fuels" private and public economies replacing the far more economically sound concept of reinvesting company profits and promoting a savings culture. Those who benefit from the unnecessary creation of debt need to promote and instigate among the public at large in all countries, fericiously undisciplined consumerism and greed, which goes hand in hand with total rejection of the very concept of saving and preparing for a rainy day. (4)"
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"Small People." -- Bailing Out Wall Street by Selling out Main Street  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20936.htm
Action Alert - A quote...."

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Betrayed by the Bailout: The Death of Democracy  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10433
A quote...."On this date, October 3, 2008, the American people were betrayed by those whom they had elected to represent them. The members of Congress who voted for the Wall Street "bailout" violated their oath of office to "support and defend the Constitution" ... "that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same" ... "and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: ..." -- Without holding any meaningful hearings or public discussions and listening only to those most responsible for the economic disaster, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Congress abdicated its responsibility to the American people."
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Shock and Awe: Bipartisan Beltway Terrorists Launch Economic 9/11 on the American People
http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1622-shock-and-awe-bipartisan-beltway-terrorists-launch-economic-911-on-the-american-people.html
A quote...."You've seen the news. You know the score. The House of Representatives has now completed the economic terrorist attack inflicted on the American people by the nation's elite. -- The bailout bill -- or as Arthur Silber more rightly terms it, the "Extortion Bill" -- is already law, thanks to the Democrats in Congress, and to Barack Obama, who spent the day working the phones and twisting arms to make sure the $700 billion bonanza for the filthy rich passed without any more of the hiccups that held it up earlier this week." -- bold/underline by website editor
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The Global Casino, Currency Devaluation and Giant Fire Sales
  ---  http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/10/the-global-casino-currency-devaluation-and-giant-fire-sales/
Website Editor's Note: Dollars have been going up lately, and unless the currency fails, the dollar might very well stay above its all time low as the credit markets dry up and until the damage to Europe's economy can be ascertained. -- added 09-05-08 6:55 pm PST  -- A quote...."Of course, obligatory lip service and mostly illusory assistance will be offered to a select assortment of hapless homeowners, struggling businesses and vociferous taxpayers. But despite the ballyhoo, deal sweeteners and leftover crumbs tossed around by politicians, the bulk of support, financed largely if not wholly by taxpayers, will be directed toward shoring up selected banking institutions and blocks of international bondholders who, through the global casino, have speculated heavily in sophisticated derivatives instruments made up of bundled debt, or “debt on debt”."
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House Bows to Blackmail, Passes Unconstitutional Bailout
  ---  http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/10/house-bows-to-blackmail-passes.html
'Free enterprise for the poor, socialism for the rich': Vidal's claim gains leverage
  ---  http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/0920/1221835126413.html?via=mr
Bail Out the Homeowners! Why Paulson's Plan is a Fraud
  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts10032008.html
Wary of Public Outcry, Revised $800B Wall St. Bailout Stuffed with Earmarks to Sway Election-Year Incumbents
  ---  http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/3/wary_of_public_outcry_revised_800b
||  Real Video Stream  ||  ---  http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2008/oct/video/dnB20081003a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=46:10
||  Real Audio Stream  ||  ---  http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2008/oct/audio/dn20081003.ra&proto=rtsp&start=46:10
||  MP3 Download  ||  ---  http://media.switchpod.com/users/democracynow/ftp/dn2008-1003-1.mp3
||  More…  ||  ---  http://www.democracynow.org/2008/10/3/stream
The Bailout: How Capitalism Killed Democracy
  ---  http://www.alternet.org/story/101523/the_bailout%3A_how_capitalism_killed_democracy/
House Backs Bailout, Despite Lingering Concerns
  ---  http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/368207
There's No Difference Between Martial Law and the Threat of Martial Law
  ---  http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/10/theres-no-difference-between-martial.html
Former Head of Fed's Open Market Operations Says Bailout Might Make Things Work
  ---  http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/10/former-head-of-feds-open-market.html
Naomi Klein Weighs In On US Bail-Out from Canada - audio
  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=71037
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AIG subsidiary parties in style in OC, two weeks after bailout -- Hah Hah Haaaaaaaaa.....it just never ends!! -  mpg
  ---  http://taxdollars.freedomblogging.com/2008/10/02/after-federal-bailout-aig-fetes-in-style-in-oc/
A quote...."Financial crisis? What financial crisis? -- Less than two weeks after Uncle Sam gave American International Group (AIG) an $85 billion loan - staving off financial collapse - execs from one of its insurance subsidiaries, AIG American General, gathered for a conference at the uber-swank St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort, billed as “California’s only Mobil Travel Guide Five-Star Resort,” where ocean-view rooms start at $565 a night and “world class luxury” is the rule."
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Commodities Head for Biggest Weekly Decline in Over 50 Years  ---  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601207&sid=aNUz2LML3U90
Special Note - A quote...."Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Copper, corn and silver are leading commodities toward the biggest weekly drop in more than 50 years on concern that demand will weaken as global economic growth slows, and as the dollar reached a one-year high against the euro."
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Q3 Earnings: Not So Pretty  ---  http://www.cnbc.com/id/27012865
Special Note - A quote...."This earnings season is looking ugly and there hasn't been much talk about which sectors are bringing the pain. -- What's different this quarter is that expectations for everyone are falling. -- Until now, the weakness has been concentrated in banks. But this quarter, the consumer discretionary sector is getting crushed. Estimates have plunged from +15% on July 1st to -9% today."
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Global crisis 'will kill off 50 airlines'  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=71209
A quote...."MORE than 50 of the world's airlines are expected to fold this year with the industry struggling to stay aloft in the worst business conditions since September 11 and the SARS crisis."
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Basic grocery items rise 10.5% from last year
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/filling-grocer-cart-costing-105/story.aspx?guid=%7B41F26EF6-FF28-4EA7-9BD5-F8AFA64A01BA%7D&dist=hpts
Special Note - A quote...."A basket of 16 basic food items cost $48.68 over the past three months, up 10.5% from a year ago, the American Farm Bureau Federation said Thursday."
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Payrolls shrink by 159,000 in September, most in 5 years  ---  http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2008-10-03-jobs-sept_N.htm
A quote...."WASHINGTON — U.S. businesses slashed 159,000 jobs in September — the biggest slide in more than five years — the Labor Department said Friday in a report providing new evidence the economy is tumbling toward recession."
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California gov says may seek US Treasury financing  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0334144120081003
Special Note - A quote...."SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 3 (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has informed U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson that the most populous U.S. state may need to turn to the federal government for short-term financing because of a lack of liquidity in credit markets."
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Reality check -- Commentary: How does recent stock market volatility stack up historically?
  ---  http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/how-does-recent-market-volatility/story.aspx?guid=%7B3436DA66-E72B-4FE7-A4CB-FC33DFDDB043%7D
Special Note - A quote...." It's important to ask the question. After all, while Monday's 778-point drop in the Dow was the biggest point-drop its 112-year history, it was "only" the 17th biggest drop in percentage terms. ( See Sept. 30 article.) -- To find out how recent volatility stacks up historically, I analyzed the Dow's daily closing values back to 1896, when this benchmark was created. I looked in particular for any six-day period in which the total of daily swings (in percentage points) was greater than what we've experienced lately. -- It turns that that there have been no fewer than 123 such days over the past 112 years, or more than once a year on average."
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Brits To Still Be Paying Mortgages In Retirement  ---  http://www.roguegovernment.com/news.php?id=12238
A quote...."More than a million people over 55 still have more than 10 years left to pay on their mortgage term."
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Electric vehicles light up Paris Motor Show - posted at BuzzFlash  ---  http://www.buzzflash.com/
  ---  http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-neil3-2008oct03,0,5794566.story?track=ntothtml
A quote...."PARIS -- At the Paris Motor Show on Thursday, Pelata announced that the French carmaker would build a pure electric version of the Fluence, a mid-size sedan, and sell as many as 40,000 in 2011. "But we could double that" in the following year, Pelata said."
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Europe Bids Adieu to Common Financial Crisis Approach  ---  http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,582072,00.html
A quote...."The idea of an EU rescue fund to address financial crisis symptoms in Europe is off the table. A summit meeting on Saturday of Europe's largest economies may end up being little more than a sharing of national strategies."
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The New American Century: Cut Short By 92 Years  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20926.htm
Must Read - A quote...."02/10/08 'ICH" -- - America's time as a superpower is coming to an end. The financial crisis was just the last straw. Whatever good faith was left after the invasion of Iraq, the shrugging off of international treaties and the shameless disregard for human rights, is now gone. The United States has polluted the global economic system with worthless mortgage-backed securities and, by doing so, has pushed 6 billion people closer to a long and painful recession. That's not something that can be easily forgiven. "
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The Collapse Is Not the End, But a Beginning  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/schmidt8.html
Special Note - A quote...."It is passing strange. Several months ago, it was not possible to obtain an obscure academic text originally published in 1988 from the New York Public Library   ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/nypl.org  ---  without a wait of several weeks. That the citizens of the city that in the late 1990s called itself the "capital of the world"
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A06E6DE1F3DF931A35751C1A9669C8B63&scp=7&sq=%22capital%20of%20the%20world%22&st=cse should in late 2007 be so interested in Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse Of Complex Societies   ---  http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Archaeology/dp/052138673X/lewrockwell/  ---   that a borrower couldn’t even extend the loan on a book by a week indicated that there was an undercurrent of understanding: civilization, in its broad sense and the narrower one of living in cities, was imperiled and hanging in the balance."
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Will the Pentagon Be the Next U.S. Institution to Crash? http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081002_will_the_pentagon_be_the_next_us_institution_to_crash/
Special Note - A quote...."Georgi Arbatov, former head of the U.S.A. and Canada Institute of the Soviet Union, said to an American interlocutor: We are about to do something truly terrible to you. We are going to deprive you of your enemy. -- Without the enemy, the machinery of power begins to race, with nothing to resist it; megalomania sets in. The end of the Cold War coincided with the beginning in the United States of globalized finance, launched under the Clinton administration. It operated with ever more dazzling and daring gambles in which the constraints and tension of the Cold War were replaced by the psychology of greed and excess. -- The economic crisis that has now overtaken the United States can be interpreted as the logical result of a financial system that reached the point where there was no limit to what you could take out of it even when you were incapable of understanding the transactions taking place."
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Scorched-Earth Presidency  ---  http://www.fpif.org/fpifzines/wb/5566
Special Note - A quote...."An army in retreat often destroys the land so that it can't be used by the adversary. This scorched earth policy began in agricultural times when retreating armies burned the fields to deprive their opponents of food. Later, the militaries would level entire cities, as the Nazis did to Warsaw before they left it to the Soviet army. -- The really smart army does something a little different. It sets booby traps. Only when the victorious army walks in and establishes its headquarters do the bombs go off, destroying the city and the soldiers too. -- The Bush administration has been putting fuses in place for some time now. The Iraq War is the biggest booby trap. The next administration will be saddled with the bulk of the costs — up to $3 trillion, according to estimates by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes. It will also have to figure out how to pull the knife out of the bleeding country of Iraq without letting the victim die."
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The LAT reports that the Iraqi government,  ---  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq2-2008oct02,0,6057110.story  ---  dominated by fundamentalist Shiites, on Wednesday took control of the Sunni Arab Awakening Councils or "Sons of Iraq" that had previously reported to the US military. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has long opposed the program and has brought vanishingly few into the Iraqi security forces. Only about 11,000 of the 56,000 such fighters in Baghdad will be admitted to the police or army, while the other 80% will be retrained, disarmed,and given civilian jobs. One big problem with this plan is that as soon as they are no longer in the Awakening Council, they are open to being assassinated by the fundamentalist vigilantes whom they fought on behalf of the US. Al-Maliki also plans to charge and arrest some of these Awakening Council members for the crimes they committed when they were part of the guerrilla resistance to the new government." -- Paragraph quoted from Informed Comment   ---  http://www.juancole.com/2008/10/22-killed-in-iraq-attacks-bombings-at.html
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Genocide in Iraq  ---  http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m47690&s1=h1
A quote...."The gaping discrepancy between the stated goals of American foreign policy and its praxis is best exemplified by the apogee of war crimes: genocide.  In its pursuit of these lofty goals, the United States has committed genocide in Iraq."
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US cross-border attacks a form of terrorism - PM  ---  http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Pakistan/10249278.html
A quote...."Islamabad: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani yesterday said that attacks by US drones on targets inside Pakistan's tribal region bordering Afghanistan amounted to "terrorism"."
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Pakistan wants civil nuke deal with US  ---  http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/200810/s2380971.htm?tab=latest
A quote...."Pakistan's prime minister says his country wants a similar nuclear deal as its neighbour, following India's landmark agreement with the United States." -- And how could the US (NRE) deny such a request from it's ally in the "war on terror" after having given such a deal to India?  So much for the N.P.T. - mpg
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Iran: We will not suspend enrichment  ---  http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=71149&sectionid=351020104
A quote...."Iran's ambassador to the IAEA says there is no technical or legal justification for Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities." -- And here's a country that is not only a signatory to the NPT, a country that has not only complied with the NPT, (unlike India and Pakistan) but a country which has voluntarily submitted to an even stricter regime than that spelled out in the NPT.  A country the US (NRE) intends to bomb because it has accused them of trying to obtain nuclear "weapons of mass destruction" from their enrichment program.... without a single shred of proof....just like it did when it attacked Iraq. - mpg
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Without assured nuclear supply Iran will keep enriching: envoy  http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081002/wl_mideast_afp/irannucleardiplomacyiaea_081002113306
A quote...."BRUSSELS (AFP) - Iran will continue to enrich uranium while there is no legally-binding international assurance of a nuclear fuel supply, the country's envoy to the UN's nuclear energy watchdog said Thursday."
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Iran says won't go down "unending road" with IAEA  ---  http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=402921
A quote...."NEW YORK (Reuters) - Iran will not be dragged down an "unending road" in dealings with the U.N. atomic watchdog, Iran's foreign minister said Thursday, adding Washington was perpetuating a "huge lie" about Iran's nuclear ambitions."
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The Peace of Make Believe, President Bush Legacy - posted at Palestine Chronicle  ---  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14215
  ---  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14223
A quote...."President Bush foreign policy legacy in the Middle East is not limited to the human tragedy that he inflicted on Iraq and the region or the destruction of Lebanon and the massacres of civilians including children that was described by his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as the "birth pangs" of a new Middle East. Bush will leave a lasting legacy in Palestine too."
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Project Censored -- Top [15] Censored Stories for 2009  ---  http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/category/y-2009/
  ---  http://www.projectcensored.org/
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Mexican activists remember 1968 massacre - 2 Oct 08  --  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UnQP1F4Njg -- (YuTb - 2m 11s - Added:  October 02, 2008)
Video - A quote...."October 2 is an [in]auspicious date in Mexico, when the nation remembers the bloody massacre of 1968."
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Gold, manipulation and domination  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/JJ02Cb03.html
A quote...."All over the world, trade in gold had been the favored device for evading national foreign exchange controls from the end of World War II to 1971. In 1946, the Bretton Woods regime adopted in 1944 became operational, thereby forbidding the importation of gold for private speculative purposes in signatory nations. Britain was a signatory but Portugal was not."

Part 1: Breaking free from dollar hegemony  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/JG30Cb01.html
Part 2: Developing China with sovereign credit  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/JI04Cb01.html
Part 3: History of monetary imperialism  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/JI26Cb01.html
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Caspian States Convene in Astrakhan  ---  http://www.farsnews.com/English/newstext.php?nn=8707110402
A quote...."TEHRAN (FNA)- Representatives of Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan and representatives of international companies convened in the port of Astrakhan, Russia on Thursday to attend the first Intergovernmental Economic Conference of the Caspian littoral states."
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Ukraine’s parliament on the brink of dissolution  ---  http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/31306
A quote...."Ukraine's political parties have failed to meet the deadline to create a new parliamentary coalition after the previous one ceased to exist a month ago. So President Viktor Yushchenko can now dissolve it and call a new general election."
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Russia's strategic bombers to drill with full combat payloads  ---  http://en.rian.ru/russia/20081002/117389135.html
A quote...."MOSCOW, October 2 (RIA Novosti) - Russian strategic bombers will conduct training flights with full combat payloads and live fire all cruise missiles on board for the first time in over two decades, an Air Force spokesman said."
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Russia to deploy new nuclear missile  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/177173
A quote...."MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia hopes to deploy a new nuclear missile next year designed to penetrate anti-missile defenses and will build eight submarines to carry it, defense officials said on Thursday."
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The US Neocon's New Proxy War in Georgia - 5 articles - Thursday - [ Day 56 ] =====  ==========

Council of Europe: Georgia used ‘disproportionate force’  ---  http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/31260
A quote...."October 2, 2008, 17:32 -- The war in South Ossetia was the result of a serious escalation of tension and a worsening of the security situation, says the draft resolution of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly. It also recognises that the shelling of Tskhinval by Georgian forces led to full-scale military action."
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Putin calls Ukrainian arms supplies to Georgia 'crime'  ---  http://en.rian.ru/russia/20081002/117399519.html
A quote...."22:01 | 02/ 10/ 2008NOVO-OGARYOVO, October 2 (RIA Novosti) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that he considered alleged Ukrainian arms supplies to Georgia during the recent war over South Ossetia 'a crime.'"
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Yushchenko had ordered shipment of Ukrainian arms to Georgia  ---  http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=13130850&PageNum=0
A quote...."02.10.2008, 15.10 -- MOSCOW, October 2 (Itar-Tass) - Georgia had planned from the very outset an offensive war not only against South Ossetia, but against Russia, too, the Thursday issue of the newspaper “Izvestia” writes. The article, titled “President Yushchenko had sold to Georgia weapons, removing them from places of their deployment”, adduces convincing proofs of the fact that “the seller was perfectly aware against whom he was arming Saakashvili”."
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Putin slams Ukraine on Georgia arms sales, agrees gas deal  ---  http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jBdBzy-Mfnx5PcEnttvLjOPGu2Jw
A quote...."1 hour ago - 6:50 pm PST -- MOSCOW (AFP) — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin lashed out at Ukraine for delivering weapons to Georgia, overshadowing talks with his Ukrainian counterpart that ended in a draft agreement on gas pricing. -- Putin sharply criticised the ex-Soviet republic Thursday over what he said were weapons used by Georgia to fight Russia during a brief conflict in August. -- "A more serious crime than arms deliveries in a conflict zone cannot be imagined," Putin said. -- "Several years ago, we could not have imagined Russians and Ukrainians making war against each other, but that has happened and it's a crime."
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Putin warns Ukraine over arms  ---  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7649654.stm
A quote...."Page last updated at 22:05 GMT, Thursday, 2 October 2008 23:05 UK -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has expressed outrage at reports that Ukraine supplied arms and technicians to Georgia before the recent war."
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End - The US Neocon's New Proxy War in Georgia - 5 articles - Thursday - [ Day 56 ] ===  ==========

Lawyers say UK Guantánamo suspect has no hope of fair trial  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/02/guantanamo.terrorism
A quote...."The system of US military courts is so politically biased that Binyam Mohamed, a British resident held at Guantánamo Bay, has no prospect of a fair trial, his lawyers said yesterday. -- A number of prosecutors appointed by the US defence department have resigned in protest at the procedures' perceived prejudice. Judges presiding over the military commissions, as they are called, have also attacked the way trials have been conducted at the detention centre in Cuba." -- Also posted at CommonDreams   ---  http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/10/02-0  ---  See some recent posts shown below...
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U.S. to Fund Pro-American Propaganda in Iraqi Media  ---  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/02/AR2008100204223.html
A quote...."Four companies to share in contract: SOSi, the Lincoln Group, MPRI, Leonie Industries 03 Oct 2008 The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to "engage and inspire" the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government. The new contracts, awarded last week to four companies, will expand and consolidate what the U.S. military calls "information/psychological operations" in Iraq far into the future. Contractors will also develop and maintain Web sites; assess news articles in the Iraqi, U.S. and international media; and determine ways to counter coverage deemed negative, according to the contract solicitation the government posted in May. Polls and focus groups will be used to monitor Iraqi attitudes under a separate three-year contract totaling up to $45 million." -- paragraph quoted from CLG  ---  http://www.legitgov.org/
For more on this issue see....Fake Intel / Propaganda  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206
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NorthCom Denies Troops To Be Used For Crowd Control  ---  http://www.prisonplanet.com/northcom-denies-troops-to-be-used-for-crowd-control.html
A quote...."Following the alarming admission that active duty U.S. Army would be on call to deal with “civil unrest” inside the United States from October 1st, the US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) has publicly denied that troops will engage in law enforcement duties, but concedes that forces will be armed with both non-lethal and lethal weapons as well as having access to tanks."
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Blackwater Machine Gun Found in Raid on Iraqi Insurgents  ---  http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5931528&page=1
A quote...."Incident Was Kept Secret and Raises More Questions About the Firm's Iraq Operations -- An M4 machine gun sent to Iraq by the Blackwater private security firm somehow disappeared from the company's storage facility in Baghdad and was later discovered during a US military operation, apparently against suspected insurgents, people familiar with the situation have told ABC News." -- For more on this issue see....US Support of Terror - Guns for Everyone
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/ussupportofterror-weblist-mpg-090306#GUNS4EVERYONE
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BBC reveals how Britain’s spies monitored Omagh bombers  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/177157
A quote...."According to a BBC Panorama programme, “Omagh—What the Police Were Never Told,” the British government’s intelligence monitoring service, Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ), was actively monitoring mobile phones used in the 1998 car bombing of Omagh, Northern Ireland, in which 29 people died."
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Byron Dorgan’s Crystal Ball - (ANP video - 2 min 34 sec)
  ---  http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2469&updaterx=2008-10-02+13%3A21%3A34
Must View Video - November 1999 -- A quote....

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"Grand Larceny" on a Monumental Scale: Does the Bailout Bill Mark the End of America as We Know It?
  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10413
A quote...."OCTOBER 1, 2008—Tonight the Senate passed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill by a vote of 74-25. This follows the rejection of the bill by the House on Monday. In an MSNBC poll, 62 percent of Americans oppose the giveaway, but the lobbyists are doing everything possible to assure the rejection is overturned. According to Bob Borosage, co-director of The Campaign for America’s Future, House leaders "are bringing in the small business lobby and the banking lobby to buy the twelve Republican votes they need." -- The Senate took up the bill in order to pressure House members who voted against it to change their positions when it returns to a vote on the House floor on Friday. This procedure may be unconstitutional, because revenue bills must originate in the House, but there is no time or political will for anyone to mount a challenge on constitutional grounds. As another means of inducement—or blackmail—the bill includes the repeal of the wildly unjust alternative minimum tax." - bold by website editor -- A nation that has forsaken even the semblance of complying with its own constitution will not remain a nation for very long. - mpg
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The Bubble Boys  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13544
A quote...."The $700 billion bailout for the Wall Street poobahs looks ready to sail  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE4910V620081002  ---  through the House of Representatives, which earlier – and uncharacteristically – listened to the popular will and voted a resounding "No!"
  ---  http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/29/news/economy/bailout/index.htm?cnn=yes  ---  heard ‘round the world. After going back to the drawing boards, and doing what they did with the war funding vote – packing plenty  ---   http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-revised-700-billion-bailout-package-includes-better-tax-breaks-for-tv-a/  ---  of pork into it – the Democratic-controlled Senate gave its assent ,  ---  http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1079385/senate_vote_passes_700_billion_wall.html  ---  as expected. --  The history of this tactic is recent. When left-wing Democrats rebelled and threatened to vote against war funding, Pelosi festooned   ---  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_/ai_n19186959  ---  the "off-budget" appropriations bill with plenty of midnight basketball
  ---  http://www.amblp.com/home.html  ---  and similar bridges-to-nowhere: in Washington, a little bribery goes a long way.
  ---  http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/spyagency200703?printable=true%C2%A4tPage=all  ---  Same with the bailout bill: it went from 3 pages to novel-size   ---  and by the time it gets through the House it may be the legislative equivalent   ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/023286.html  ---  of Atlas Shrugged
  ---  http://www.manhattanrarebooks-literature.com/images/autumn2007/Rand%20Atlas%20Gray%201000.jpg  ---  – although, I fear, our story will have a different ending.
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The Recession Reader  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/recession-reader.html
Article List - A quote...."Someone once remarked that the best indicator of a recession is the number of times "Mises" "Hayek" or "Austrian" appear in the newspapers. During the boom, no one wants to listen to the lessons of the Austrian economists. No one wants to hear that we need to live within our means – that the Federal Reserve does not have the power to print us into prosperity by artificially creating credit. So while the writers of LewRockwell.com were warning against the housing bubble and the inflationary nature of the Fed, the mainstream was touting the economic wisdom of Bernanke and Greenspan. When this recession hit, it seems everyone except the Austrians was caught off guard. Commentators, bureaucrats, and politicians began panicking, "Something must be done! This is Something…therefore it must be done!"
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WaMu CEO could get $13.65 million for 18 days work - Haa, haa, haaaaaa....it's just simply toooooo funny. - mpg
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE48P8LG20080926
Special Note - (for the hilarity of it all) -- A quote....."NEW YORK (Reuters) - The chief executive of the failed savings and loan Washington Mutual Inc (WM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) could get $13.65 million for the 18 days he was on the job, a regulatory filing shows." - bold by website editor
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Tomgram: Steve Fraser, Wall Street and the Return of the Repressed
  ---  http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174984/steve_fraser_wall_street_and_the_return_of_the_repressed
How the Media Sold Their Souls to Wall Street
  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/02-3
Senate Sells Us All Out
  ---  http://www.countercurrents.org/swanson021008.htm
Bailout Passes Senate; 9 Reasons That's Bad News for You
  ---  http://www.alternet.org/workplace/101224/bailout_passes_senate%3B_9_reasons_that%27s_bad_news_for_you/
Speaking in the Tongues of Brokers The Bailout in Plain English
  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/bageant10022008.html
Dominic Lawson: Democrat fingerprints are all over the financial crisis
  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/dominic-lawson/dominic-lawson-democrat-fingerprints-are-all-over-the-financial-crisis-949653.html
US congressman: “If we don’t pass this bill, we’re going to have martial law in the United States”
  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2008/oct2008/sher-o03.shtml
Can a Bailout Succeed? - Not Without These Elements (and Perhaps Not Even With Them)
  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts10022008.html
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U.S. Stocks Decline on Concern Bank Rescue Won't Stop Slowdown  ---  http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aeelyBI721Bo&refer=home
A quote...."Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks dropped for a second day as a jump in borrowing costs and reports showing a worsening economy spurred concern that the government's $700 billion bank bailout plan won't be enough to stimulate growth.  -- OF COURSE IT WON'T, isn’t Bloomberg fully aware that the representitutes in Washington and their co-conspirators from Wall Street know that already?  This is just the teaser rate (sound familiar gentle reader?), the banksters and their friends on the Fed are going to eventually "borrow" trillions of dollars more.   And let us for once be honest about the word “borrow” folks.  With 1.3 quadrillion dollars of worthless liabilities secreted within the bowels of all these “needy” institutions, you can rest assured the American taxpayer will never see a dime of any "borrowed" money ever again. - mpg
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IMF: deep recession awaits US  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=71172&sectionid=3510203
A quote...."The US could face a deep, prolonged recession from the current financial turmoil, with the euro zone less at risk, the IMF says in a report."
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Factory orders drop 4% in August, most in 2 years
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/factory-orders-drop-4-august/story.aspx?guid=%7B1173861B-AD58-4D7A-BA24-6B3B5279A431%7D&dist=
A quote...."WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Demand for U.S. factory goods dropped at the fastest rate in two years in August on much lower orders for metals, machinery and vehicles, the Commerce Department reported Thursday."
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U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Reach Seven-Year High (Update1)  ---  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ahsFufwfz46Q&refer=home
A quote...."Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- First-time applications for U.S. jobless benefits rose to the highest level in seven years as more Americans were thrown out of work in the aftermath of the Gulf Coast hurricanes and employers cut staff to meet slowing demand."
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[US] Job Losses at 600,000 - and Counting  ---  http://www.truthout.org/article/job-losses-600000-and-counting
A quote...."New York - Job losses have been mounting, and the slowing economy and credit crunch is likely to take an even greater toll in the coming months."
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Real Estate Crisis Threatens Spanish Economy  ---  http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,566701,00.html
A quote...."Spain's economy is in trouble. Rising property values earlier this decade lured many Spaniards into the market. Now that the bubble has burst, the crisis is quickly spreading through the country's economy."
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Number of new [British] homes being built plunges to 50-year low
  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/number-of-new-homes-being-built-plunges-to-50year-low-949709.html
A quote...."New private house-building is at a 50-year low, according to an analysis of the latest official data by The Independent, adding to the evidence that the UK is in recession."
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Britain: Forty percent of children live in poverty  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2008/oct2008/chld-o03.shtml
A quote...."More than 40 percent of children in the United Kingdom are living in poverty, according to the latest research. That is some 5.5 million children."
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France, Germany clash over US-style rescue package  ---  http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2008-10/03/content_7075209.htm
Special Note - A quote...."France and Germany clashed over how to prevent a global credit crunch from sinking European banks, kicking off a version of the debate that has been raging in the US for two weeks."
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ECB Holds Rates Steady as Financial Crisis Buffets Europe  ---  http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3683851,00.html
Special Note - A quote...." 02.10.2008 -- The European Central Bank left its key interest rate unchanged at 4.25 percent as its president delivered a bleak assessment that EU growth was weakening amid high inflation and fears of a widening financial crisis."
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Bush signs $600 billion stopgap bill  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=71000&sectionid=3510203
Special Note - Breaking News - Wed, 01 Oct 2008 02:11:16 GMT  -- Oh Goody, the markets are saved!!!   Hip Hip Hooray!!   Wasn't it supposed to be $700 billion though?  Oh wait, this isn't the Bailout Bill this is the Mighty Military Budget Bill....oh wait....that's not right either, that bill was supposed cost everyone $612 billion (actually it will cost everyone over one trillion, but who's counting anyway?).
  ---  http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/100524/with_all_eyes_on_the_bailout,_house_passes_trillion-dollar_defense_bill/  ---    Hold on folks, this website editor's finally got it right, this is Paulson's $600 billion dollar, "Currency Swap" for all his friends at the banks......Dang It!   That ain't right either, Paulson's currency swap cost $630 billion dollars!!.  ---  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aP5hzUWla7Jg&refer=home  ---    This is all just sooooo confusing!!   Oh wait folks, this is probably what it is, it's the $600 billion dollar, six month, "Spending Stop-Gap Bill", (isn’t spending such a wonderful thing?  After all who doesn’t like to go out and shop all the time?) which will bring this nation's total national deficit to well over ten trillion dollars.  Whew!!   Finally figured it out, with all these trillions of dollars flying around during the last two weeks one's apt to get a little confounded by such a blizzard of large numbers.  However, isn't it great that we don't have to worry about all these numbers because they truly don't represent anything real, all they represent are tiny, insignificant, little, itsy, bitsy, pieces of green paper.   After all, didn't Cheney himself once say "debt doesn't matter"?  He'd certainly be the one to know after having helped create so much of it. - mpg
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National Debt to Exceed $10 Trillion Tomorrow [Oct 1st 2008]  ---  http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/09/national-debt-to-exceed-10-trillion.html
Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - A quote...."It now looks like the National Debt will be over $10 Trillion tomorrow. - As of Sept 29th, the debt was $9,945,578,231,981.59 - The surge in the National Debt over the last two weeks has been because of the Supplementary Financing Program (SFP) with the Treasury raising cash for the Fed's liquidity initiatives (announced a couple of weeks ago). - Today the Treasury sold $45 billion in 15 day Cash Management Bills that are all for the Fed. Tomorrow the Treasury will sell $50 billion in 42 day bills also for the Fed. And that Wednesday auction should put the National Debt over the $10 Trillion mark (we will know on Thursday). - For good measure, the Treasury is also selling another $45 billion for the Fed on Thursday."
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Senate approves $700 bln financial bailout  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081002/bs_nm/us_financial
Breaking News - 28 minutes ago at 8:45 pm PST -- A quote...."NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate approved a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry late on Wednesday that political and financial leaders called crucial to averting economic catastrophe."
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The Elephant in the Room: Credit Default Swaps  ---  http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/10/elephant-in-room-credit-default-swaps.html
Special Note - A quote...."Studies show that people often fear the wrong things. We are terrified of things which probably won't hurt us, but blissfully unconcerned with things that might really kill us (see this,  ---  http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1562978,00.html  ---   this   ---
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_1_24/ai_58545672  ---  and this)  ---  http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1299209  ---  . So we put a tremendous amount of energy into solving non-problems, and get blindsided by things that we don't know about or which we are too afraid to even think about. -- The same applies to the economic crisis."
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Bailout Lesson: Capital Crisis Will Wreck Both Parties http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=806&Itemid=1
Must Read - A quote...."Understandably disoriented from having had to charge backwards - pretending to lead the people while simultaneously assaulting them - Obama peered across the field at the hastily-erected barricades that had broken Hank Paulson's Charge.  "I'm confident we're going to get there," said the frustrated thief-enabler, "but it's going to be rocky." -- To paraphrase Oscar Brown, Jr., "What you mean WE, Obama-man?" The Illinois senator and his pretend-opponents in the other business party just had their colluding asses kicked by the most motley, disorganized crew imaginable: the American public, who bombarded their legislators with threats of retaliation in November if they bowed to Wall Street's extortionist demands."
Also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20917.htm
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Bailout Truth: Inflationary Crony Capitalism  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/butler-b2.html
Must Read - A quote...."In proving motivation and intent, timelines often provide the best evidence of why someone acted as they did. A murderer who insures the life of his victim months before the crime provides the jury with compelling evidence of his motive. When looking for reasons for government action, it is often more difficult because government and its accomplices are powerful, omnipresent and criminally adept at hiding the real reasons for their actions. In looking for motivation, one should therefore always follow the money." -- bold by website editor
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Once 3 pages, bailout bill now length of novel  [451 pages]  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081001/ap_on_bi_ge/meltdown_bill_grows
Special Note - A quote...."Once the Senate was finished adding sweeteners Wednesday to entice reluctant House Republicans to change their minds and vote for the bailout, the bill heading for passage had grown to 451 pages." -- By the time the House gets done adding their "sweeteners" to the bill, it'll be over a thousand pages long....sort'a like the US budget no? - mpg
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Congress approval rating just 10% as Bush goes from 'lame to dead duck'  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/01/georgebush.congress
A quote...."A political establishment held in higher regard may have been able to hold together some kind of coalition of the willing," wrote Joel Achenbach in the Washington Post. "But distrust of the nation's leaders, from the leaders of Congress to the president, foreclosed that possibility." -- This was not mere rhetoric. Congress's public approval rating was down to 18% before the crisis hit. By some estimates, it is now 10% and falling. Washington has seen a "throw the bums out" mood before, notably Newt Gingrich's 1994 anti-government "Republican revolution". But this is something else." -- The American voter SHOULD THROW THE BUMS OUT --  JUST DON'T VOTE FOR THEM!!  --  JUST VOTE NO by voting for anybody but a DemoRepub -- See....You Have a Choice - Democracy or Empire - 07-24-08 - mpg   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/youhaveachoice-democracyorempire-blog-mpg-072408  ---  Also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20913.htm
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House of Representatives' Web site overwhelmed  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=70932
A quote...."WASHINGTON (CNN)  -- The servers hosting the Web sites of the House of Representatives and its members have been overwhelmed with millions of e-mails in the past few days, forcing administrators to implement the "digital version of a traffic cop" to handle the overload."
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CBS News: New Study Details Massive Voter Roll Purges Underway in At Least 19 States  ---  http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6453
Special Note - A quote...."CBS Has Noticed, Why Hasn't Obama or the DNC? -- Tonight's CBS Evening News finally covered what may well be the November Surprise that we've been trying to warn about for months here at The BRAD BLOG: Massive voter roll purges being done in secret, with little or no oversight, and often under federal Justice Department cover, in states and counties around the country."
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Lawyers, Guns, and Money  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10408
A quote...."Why would anyone phone the United States and ask for lawyers, guns, and money? Primarily because, other than bad movies, that's most of what the United States produces. What else could you phone home for if you wanted to? We produce weapons and movies about weapons and weapons that were in movies about weapons, and so on . -- And we produce lawyers who push money a*round desks and into drawers and out of envelopes. They manipulate money all day and night, and they call that work, and we compensate them royally for it. But the money is increasingly play money because we're not producing anything else, except the lawyers and the guns."
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Not One Dime!  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20915.htm
A quote...."01/10/08 - "ICH" - -- The mystery has been solved. -- For nearly a year, we have been asking ourselves why the investors and foreign banks that bought up hundreds of billions of dollars of worthless mortgage-backed securities (MBS) from US investment banks have not taken legal action against these same banks or initiated a boycott of US financial products to prevent more people from getting ripped off?" -- For more on this issue see....Obama, the Yang to Bush's Yin - 06-20-08 - mpg  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/obamatheyangtobushsyin-blog-mpg-062008
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They Stood Up to the Banks  ---  http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=2985
Well "they" did, whether their bought and paid for representitutes will or not is a completely different question. - mpg -- A quote...."The American people stood up, and the bailout package went down. - Like other moments in U.S. history when the robber barons or the big banks went too far, the American people reined them in this week, refusing to hand over billions of dollars that would put themselves and their children and grandchildren into debt to pay off the collapsing fortunes of some over-sized and under-regulated banks. In the face of predictions of economic calamity, they said “no” to more help for the super-rich. They told their representatives in Washington they’d had enough." -- Also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/01-7
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Nearly 1 in 5 car dealerships could fail  ---  http://www.besternews.com/article/Bester+News+-+US+News/Nearly+1+in+5+car+dealerships+could+fail/?ref=bis
A quote...."DETROIT (Reuters) - As many as 3,800 U.S. car dealerships could fail this fall and into 2009 -- nearly one in five -- because of weak sales, increased operational costs and the credit crunch, according to a forecast released on Wednesday."
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Factory sector weakens to near seven-year low - ISM drops unexpectedly to 43.5% in sharpest fall since 1984
  ---  http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ism-factory-sector-marks-sharpest/story.aspx?guid=%7B154120DB-1C5E-46C6-8657-483621B89419%7D
A quote...."WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The nation's manufacturing firms were contracting at a much faster pace than expected in September, one of the clearest signs to date that the economy has entered recession territory, according to a closely watched survey of top executives released Wednesday."
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Chrysler's September U.S. sales fall 33 percent
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE49083020081001
Ford U.S. sales fall 34.6 percent in September
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUSWNAB448720081001
Honda U.S. auto sales down 21 percent in September
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUSWNAB451420081001
Nissan U.S. September sales down 37 percent
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE4907WW20081001
Toyota U.S. sales fall 29.5 percent in September
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0151592320081001
GM September sales fall 16 percent
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUSN0151638620081001
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Recession now certain, economists say Consumer spending on track for first quarterly decline since early 1990s
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/recession-now-certain-economists-say/story.aspx?guid=%7B19786F11-56EF-4FCF-94CA-88189A007276%7D
Special Note - Chart - A quote...."WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Even before the latest squeeze in the credit markets, the U.S. economy had slipped into what could be a relatively lengthy recession, economists say. -- The latest data, covering activity in August and September, make it all but certain that the academic economists will eventually declare that the economy is in a recession."
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Oppose Barack Obama? How Dare Thee!!  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/frank/frank39.html
A quote...."Increasingly, antiwar voters I talk with admit they are starting to get a little disgusted with the antics of Barack Obama, that great agent of change. It wasn't too long ago that these same folks were overly optimistic Obama would deliver on his varied promises, beckoning a new era of Washington politics, an end to the war in Iraq, and a new, peace driven foreign policy. Nonetheless, they all plan on voting for the Democrat regardless of how dismayed they have become with him and his campaign."
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Bad tidings in Iraqi Kurdistan  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/177078
A quote...."COLUMBIA, Missouri - Tensions between Iraqi Kurds and the government are on the rise, raising fears of ethnic clashes just as the country begins to recover from years of sectarian violence between Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs."
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Iraq: They Make It a Desert and Call It Peace  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis124.html
A quote...."The real reason for the drop in violence and attacks on US occupation forces lies in three other areas. First, ethnic cleansing. The US occupation quietly abetted the ethnic cleansing by Shia militias of millions of Sunni Iraqis. The US took yet another page from Israel’s West Bank occupation copybook by segregating off entire neighborhoods of Iraqi cities with high, concrete walls, and conducting round-the-clock house search operations."
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British envoy says mission in Afghanistan is doomed, according to leaked memo  ---  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article4860080.ece
A quote...."Britain’s Ambassador to Afghanistan has stoked opposition to the allied operation there by reportedly saying that the campaign against the Taleban insurgents would fail and that the best hope was to install an acceptable dictator in Kabul."
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War and 'Cash for Trash' Gareth Porter: The state of the empire Pt. 4
  ---  http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2425
RN Video - A quote...."Gareth Porter discusses US hawkishness in the Caucasus with Real News Network senior editor Paul Jay. As the US and NATO pursue their containment policy, the threat of a new cold war emerges."
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U.S. raids hurt terrorism fight-Pakistan minister  ---  http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=400999
A quote...."PRINCETON, NJ (Reuters) - U.S. military raids against militants inside Pakistan threaten to hurt progress being made against them by Pakistani forces and are an intrusion on Pakistan's sovereignty, the country's new foreign minister said Wednesday."
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US warned against destabilizing Pakistan  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=71063&sectionid=351020101
A quote...."The Leader of the Islamic Revolution says US plans to wreak havoc in Pakistan will only add to the failures of the Bush administration. "
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Syria: Israel not after real peace  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=71099&sectionid=351020206
A quote...."Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told the London-based daily Asharq al-Awsat on Wednesday that the recent remarks by Israeli President Shimon Peres calling on the Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to follow in the footsteps of the former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, were a sign of the regime's unwillingness to achieve real peace. -- He termed the Israeli president's comments as "putting the cart before the horse". -- "We had four rounds of talks, promising talks, in Istanbul. We agreed to have the fifth round... But because of the situation in Israel, the Israeli side asked the Turks to postpone it," he added. "We are waiting to see what the position of Ms. Livni's government will be."
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Silent Surge: Bipartisan Terror War Intensifies in Somalia
  ---  http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1619-silent-surge-bipartisan-terror-war-intensifies-in-somalia.html
A quote...."Somalia is the invisible third front of the Terror War, an American-backed "regime change" operation launched by the invading army of Ethiopia and local warlords in December 2006. In addition to helping arm, fund and train the army of the Ethiopian dictatorship, the United States has intervened directly into the conflict, carrying out bombing raids on fleeing refugees and nomads, firing missiles into villages, sending in death squads to clean up after covert operations, and, as we reported here long ago, assisting in the "rendition" of refugees, including American citizens, into the hands of Ethiopia's notorious torturers. [See note below for more links.]"
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RIGHTS-MEXICO:  Tlatelolco Massacre - 40 Years of Impunity  ---  http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44086
A quote...."MEXICO CITY, Oct 1 (IPS) - The rivers of ink that have been spilled in investigations, trials and the collection of testimony on the Oct. 2, 1968 massacre of student demonstrators in Tlatelolco square in Mexico City have made it clear that the state was responsible. But not one person has been sentenced, and no one even knows exactly how many young protesters died."
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Venezuela and South American Allies Advance Integration  ---  http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3845
A quote...."Mérida, October 1, 2008 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- The presidents of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Brazil met in Manaus, Brazil, on Tuesday to advance the economic and political integration of the South American continent."
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Evidence against Terror Suspects Crumbles  ---  http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,581639,00.html
A quote...."Following the spectacular arrests of two terror suspects at the Cologne-Bonn Airport on Friday, some are now questioning the timing of the police action. The arrests appear to have been made too hastily, and the decisive evidence may have been a love letter."
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North Korea upgrading missile test site
  ---  http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/international/2008/October/international_October130.xml&section=international
A quote...."SEOUL - North Korea has been upgrading the facilities at the site of its past missile tests in what may be preparations for another long-range missile launch, a news report said on Thursday quoting government sources. -- The report comes after North Korea declared in recent weeks it was stepping away from a nuclear disarmament-for-aid deal and restoring a reactor that made bomb-grade plutonium. A U.S. envoy went to Pyongyang on Wednesday in a bid to rescue the pact."
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European security a priority at Russia-Germany summit - RT Video  ---  http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/31254/video
  ---  http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/31254
Contains Video - A quote...."A number of issues - from the war in South Ossetia and the current economic crisis to the Nord Stream gas pipeline – are on the agenda for Thursday’s meeting between the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev in St. Petersburg. But the main focus of the summit is expected to be a new European collective security policy."
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Putin&Timoshenko to discuss gas…and other things - RT Video  ---  http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/31256/video
  ---  http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/31256
Contains Video - A quote..."Gas prices and Ukraine’s gas debt to Russia will dominate Thursday's meeting between Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Yulia Timoshenko, in Moscow. It’s also believed that in visiting Putin, Timoshenko has another aim in mind, namely securing Russia’s support ahead of the upcoming presidential election."
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Russia's Iskander-E missile systems see strong foreign demand  ---  http://en.rian.ru/russia/20081001/117366006.html
A quote...."MOSCOW, October 1 (RIA Novosti) - Several countries have shown an interest in purchasing Russia's advanced Iskander-E short-range ballistic missile systems, state arms exporter Rosoboronexport said on Wednesday."
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The US Neocon's New Proxy War in Georgia - 2 articles - Wednesday - [ Day 55 ] =====  ==========

EU military observers begin work in Georgia  ---  http://en.rian.ru/video/20081001/117367048.html
A quote...."17:01 01/10/2008 -- EU military observers have begun monitoring the ceasefire in buffer zones near South Ossetia and Abkhazia. (41 sec./1.66Mb, shows: 116)"
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Georgia Unleashed Conflict in South Ossetia, EC Official Said  ---  http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?id=-13318
A quote...."Oct. 01, 2008 -- Head of the European Commission Directorate General for External Relations Eneko Landaburu has agreed that Georgia unleashed the conflict in South Ossetia, Russia’s Deputy Ambassador to the EU Nikolay Kobrinets told RIA Novosti Tuesday."
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End - The US Neocon's New Proxy War in Georgia - 2 articles - Wednesday - [ Day 55 ] === ==========

Davison Army Airfield and the 12th Aviation Battalion on 9/11: Pentagon Attack Oral Histories Reveal New Details  ---  http://www.911blogger.com/node/18006
A quote...."Minutes after the Pentagon was hit on September 11, two aircraft were seen on the radar screen at a nearby Army airfield, circling the Pentagon and rapidly descending, with one of them emitting an emergency distress signal. The identities of these aircraft are unclear, as is the reason one of them was emitting the distress signal. These and other details about the 9/11 Pentagon attack were revealed by a supervisor of air traffic control at the airfield, in one of over 1,300 oral histories relating to the attack that were recorded by military employees. To date, only a small number of the oral histories have been publicly released, which raises questions about what important details might be in the other, unreleased interviews."
For more on this issue see....9/11 - NORAD  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/911norad-weblist-mpg-091308
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FBI Prevents Agents from Telling 'Truth' About 9/11 on PBS  ---  http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/spytalk/2008/10/fbi-prevents-agents-from-telli.html
A quote...."The FBI has blocked two of its veteran counterterrorism agents from going public with accusations that the CIA deliberately withheld crucial intelligence before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. -- FBI Special Agents Mark Rossini and Douglas Miller have asked for permission to appear in an upcoming public television documentary, scheduled to air in January, on pre-9/11 rivalries between the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency." -- For more on this issue see....Fake Intel / Propaganda  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206
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Alberto Gonzales and other Republicans could face criminal charges in US
  ---  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/republicans/3110808/
  ---  Alberto-Gonzales-and-other-Republicans-could-face-criminal-charges-in-US.html
A quote...."The US Department of Justice has appointed a prosecutor to investigate potential criminal charges against Alberto Gonzales, the former attorney general, and other ex-Bush administration officials and Republicans in Congress."
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Russian international reserves up $3.4 bln in week  ---  http://en.rian.ru/business/20081002/117381325.html
A quote...."MOSCOW, October 2 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's gold and foreign currency reserves rose $3.4 billion to $562.8 billion in the week from September 19 to September 16, the Central Bank said on Thursday."
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UK house prices suffer record fall  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/uk-house-prices-suffer-record-fall-948814.html
A quote...."House prices dived at a record rate during the year to the end of September, losing 12.4 per cent of their value, figures showed today. - Nationwide Building Society said the annual drop was the biggest ever recorded by its index. - Prices slid by a further 1.7 per cent during September, the 11th consecutive month of falls, to leave the average property in the UK costing £161,797." -- They're going to go a lot lower. - mpg
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Banking crisis hits Germany with full force  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2008/oct2008/bank-o02.shtml
A quote...."For the past 10 years, all of the cuts made in the public services have been justified with the argument that it was necessary to balance the German federal budget by the year 2011. This includes the anti-social measures (Agenda 2010) introduced by the previous Social Democratic Party-Green Party government. -- Now, Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück (Social Democrats—SPD) has made €26.5 billion available to bail out a single German bank. Overnight, his budget targets have been thrown overboard." -- That's peanuts, just think of what's going to happen here. - mpg
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Largest fall in remittances from Mexicans in US  ---  http://www4.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=14724&formato=HTML
A quote...."Remittances from Mexicans living in United States dropped 12% in August, the largest fall since the Bank of Mexico began tracking records twelve years ago, the country’s Central bank reported on Wednesday."