MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• Nevada voting machines automatically checking Harry Reid's name; voting machine technicians are SEIU members.Since early voting started, there have been credible reports that voting machines in Clark County, Nevada are automatically checking Harry Reid's name on the ballot:Voter Joyce Ferrara said when they went to vote for Republican Sharron Angle, her Democratic opponent, Sen. Harry Reid's name was already checked.Ferrara said she wasn't alone in her voting experience. She said her husband and several others voting at the same time all had the same thing happen."Something's not right," Ferrara said. "One person that's a fluke. Two, that's strange. But several within a five minute period of time -- that's wrong."Clark County Registrar of Voters Larry Lomax said there is no voter fraud, although the issues do come up because the touch-screens are sensitive. For that reason, a person may not want to have their fingers linger too long on the screen after they make a selection at any time.Now there's absolutely no independently verified evidence of chicanery with the voting machines (yet), but it is worth noting that the voting machine technicians in Clark County are members of the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU spent $63 million in elections in 2008 and is planning on spending $44 million more this election cycle -- nearly all of that on Democrats. White House political director Patrick Gaspard is formerly the SEIU's top lobbyist, and former SEIU president Andy Stern was the most frequent visitor to the White House last year.Hmmmm....transparency?This kind of "Anomalies" not happening would have been surprising looking back at the last two years.Read the full scam story here.Click here for comments.

• Breaking: Ship burns off coast United Kingdom, France.A rescue operation was launched Wednesday to retrieve 111 people from a burning ship hundreds of miles off the coast of United Kingdom and France, authorities said.Most of the crew of the Athena -- a fishing ship that processes fish on board -- have been evacuated to life rafts, while the remaining 30 members battle the fire, according to Britain's Maritime and Coastguard Agency.Read the full story here,more here.Click here for comments.

• Israel to get its own ‘Tea Party’ movement.Version promises to be just as patriotic, provocative and antagonistic to Obama as American version; opening rally held at ZOA house in TA.A new grassroots effort is beginning that is modeled after the American conservative social movement. The Israeli version promises to be just as patriotic, just as provocative and just as antagonistic to US President Barack Obama.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:CompassDirect.Pakistani Muslims Beat Elderly Christian Couple Unconscious. An 80-year-old Christian in southern Punjab Province said Muslims beat him and his 75-year-old wife, breaking his arms and legs and her skull, because he refused a prostitute they had offered him.Berkat said the Muslim assailants initially intimidated Fateh Shah police into refraining from filing charges against them. After intervention by Berkat and Albert Patras, director of human rights group Social Environment Protection, police reluctantly registered a case against the Jutt brothers and two unidentified accomplices for attempted murder and “assisting to devise a crime.”Berkat added, however, that police appeared to be taking little action on the case, and that therefore she had filed an application in the Vehari District and Sessions Court for a judge to direct Fateh Shah police to add charges of ransacking to the FIR.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Video :Bags of Cash: Are Iran, Karzai Playing All Sides?

• Pakistani boy who dreamed of being a suicide bomber.Islamist militants told Abdus Salam he would go to heaven if he blew himself up. Initially he believed them, and trained to become a suicide bomber. Now 14, he tells the BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan how he narrowly escaped a violent death."Zahir, Sher Rahman and Zainullah are all older than me. They are all Taliban. Zahir and Rauf are actually from Afghanistan and have fought there.They never told me where I was to carry out the attack, but they recently told me to be ready for it on any day. If you met them you wouldn't be able to tell what they were really like - they appear to be normal, straightforward people.During this period, every waking moment, all I thought about was being a fidayee. I thought I would carry out a fidayeen attack and go to heaven. When my teacher used to come for lessons, and while I was working, all I could think about was being a fidayee. Twenty-four hours a day I would think: 'Heaven, fidayee, fidayee, heaven.'My father is diabetic and his health has got worse since he learnt about this. Now he can't sleep at night. But now Allah has given me a new life. I want to concentrate on my studies and I want to work hard and join the Pakistan army."Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Obama approval rating falls to all-time low of 37% as mid-term elections draw closer.Barack Obama’s plunge in popularity continued today with a new poll putting his approval rate at just 37 per cent.Coming just a week before mid-term elections on November 2, the Harris Interactive survey set more alarm bells ringing for Democrats desperately hoping to cling to power on Capitol Hill.But belief that Democrat nominees will be able to cling onto the president’s coattails faded with Mr Obama’s lowest public standing of his presidency.Some early voters were also raising questions about the legality of the ballot in Las Vegas.Joyce Ferrara said that when she went to vote for Republican Sharon Angle, the name of her Democrat opponent, Senator Harry Reid, was already checked in the box.Electoral officials put the incident down to the sensitivity of the touch screen voting machines and insisted there was no attampt at voter fraud.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Be sure it’s your wife or….A Saudi man who wanted to joke with his wife in a crowded shopping mall got the shock of his life when she reacted with a big slap on the face. For the woman who he tapped on the back was not his wife.But the woman did not stop there. She started to swear, lunged at him with more slaps and fists and yelled to other women in the mall to help her, the Saudi Arabic language daily Kabar reported on Wednesday.Scores of women joined her and the man, still under shock, leaned against the wall just to receive the blows and curses.Hmmm.....the advantages of wearing a Burka?Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Iran admits funding Afghan government. Says money intended to aid reconstruction, not to buy influence. Iran acknowledged Tuesday it has been sending funds to neighboring Afghanistan for years, but said the money was intended to aid reconstruction, not to buy influence in the office of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.Mehmanparast said Iran's help began years ago. He said peace and stability in Afghanistan is important for Iran.The acknowledgment prompted a challenge from seven Iranian lawmakers who demanded that Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki appear before parliament to clarify the payments, according to the news website www.Khabaronline.ir.In a letter, the lawmakers demanded to know the amount of money sent over the past five years, where it came from, the way it was transferred and the legal basis for the payments.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:NewZeal.Communist Party USA Leader Openly Backs Obama and the Democrats.Jarvis Tyner, national executive vice-chair of the Communist Party USA, spoke in Detroit October 7, on the need to for "left and progressive" minded people to help insure a huge voter turnout for the midterm election.Tyner is uncompromising in his support for the Democrats and Communist Party "friend" Barack Obama.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:RightTruth.Non-Citizens Gain Right To Vote.The citizens of Portland and San Francisco will vote November 2 on propositions that will grant non American citizens the right to cast a vote in upcoming elections.The new measure is not without precedent.In Chicago, legal residents who are not U.S. citizens already possess the right to cast ballots in school board elections.Similarly, non-American citizens may vote in municipal elections within many districts in Maryland.And it doesn't end there.Opponents of the measure say immigrants already have an avenue to cast ballots — by becoming citizens. Allowing non-citizens the right to vote dilutes the meaning of American citizenship, they say, and will open the floodgates to fraud and will unfairly sway election results.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:IsraelMatzav.Obama's best chance for re-election: Attack Iran. Here's a summary of a lengthy article from Stratfor (via Real Clear World) whose bottom line is that President Obama's best chance for re-election is to attack Iran. I am arguing the following. First, Obama will be paralyzed on domestic policies by this election. He can craft a re-election campaign blaming the Republicans for gridlock. This has its advantages and disadvantages.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• EXCLUSIVE: Aide to Harry Reid Lied to Feds, Submitted False Documents About Sham Marriage.An aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid repeatedly lied to federal immigration and FBI agents and submitted false federal documents to the Department of Homeland Security to cover up her illegal seven-year marriage to a Lebanese national who was the subject of an Oklahoma City Joint Terror Task Force investigation, FoxNews.com has learned."As exhibited in the court documents, the case prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's office in Oklahoma City was a straightforward case involving two individuals who entered into a fraudulent marriage during college in order for one to evade immigration laws and obtain lawful residence."Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:EmergingCorruption.ACORN’s Insidious Work Continues.With exactly one week left before one of the most important mid-term elections in America’s history, a certain party has once again decided to throw out the rule of law.Dr. Melissa Clouthier explains.“Republicans don’t run fraudulent election operations. Democrats do. It’s systemic.Entering this election cycle is a group, True The Vote, who decided to do what they could to keep Houston elections clean and fair. They are not looking to influence the outcome. They’re looking to influence the process. That is, they want an idealistic vision fulfilled: a lawful, clean, fair and fraud-free election.True the Vote is getting results…The problem, it seems, is that the Democrats don’t care that it’s their organizations responsible for this and then, the Justice Department, which turns out to be a highly politicized and racist organization these days won’t prosecute.So systemic fraud goes unchecked, and tacitly approved. And what is particularly galling is that those who risk exposing the fraud are then accused of racism and then sued. The criminals, in a sense, count on not being examined because the charge of racism is so toxic–especially to conservatives.But we know this fraud exists Democrat-wide and it’s not a black phenomenon. Blacks just happen to be overwhelmingly Democrat.”Read and see the full story here.Click here for comments.

• U.S. slips to historic low in global corruption index.The United States has dropped out of the "top 20" in a global league table of least corrupt nations, tarnished by financial scandals and the influence of money in politics, Transparency International said on Tuesday.Somalia was judged the most corrupt country, followed by Myanmar and Afghanistan at joint second-worst and then by Iraq, in the Berlin-based watchdog TI's annual corruption perceptions index (CPI).The United States fell to 22nd from 19th last year, with its CPI score dropping to 7.1 from 7.5 in the 178-nation index, which is based on independent surveys on corruption.This was the lowest score awarded to the United States in the index's 15-year history and also the first time it had fallen out of the top 20.In the Americas, this put the United States behind Canada in sixth place, Barbados at 17th and Chile in 21st place.Heh......"Change you can see"?Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:TheNewAmerican.Obama Adm. Targets Pro-life Activists as Terrorists.The Obama administration has aligned the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI with militant abortion advocates in a concerted effort to target peaceful pro-life activists as terrorists and to characterize their lawful, free-speech activities as “violence.” At least, say pro-life leaders, that is the reasonable conclusion they draw from a training program sponsored jointly by the DOJ, FBI, Planned Parenthood, and other pro-abortion groups this past August in Portland, Oregon.“On August 25, 2010, the FBI and the United States Department of Justice co-sponsored a training seminar with Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Federation and the Feminist Majority Foundation,” Steven Ertelt of Lifesitenews.com reported on September 30.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• European court convicts Turkey in Cyprus property cases.The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) fined Turkey on Tuesday with more than 15 million euros in 19 cases filed by Greek Cypriots for their abandoned properties in the northern part of the divided island of Cyprus.The cases concerned the applicants’ complaints that the 1974 Turkish military intervention in the northern part of Cyprus deprived them of their homes and properties. In judgments issued in September 2009 and one in October 2009, the ECtHR already upheld the view that there had been a continuous violation of Article 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which covers the protection of property, in all 19 cases and of Article 8, which covers the right to respect for private and family life, in 11 of them. The question of the application of Article 41, which covers just satisfaction, was reserved for a later date.Another key ruling is expected to be announced by the European court on Nov. 2 in a case jointly filed by a well-known Greek Cypriot businessman, Andreas Lordos, and others against Turkey. The applicants similarly allege that the 1974 Turkish intervention deprived them of their homes and properties.Particular importance is attached to the Nov. 2 ruling since the case concerns properties in Varosha (Maraş in Turkish), the sealed-off section of Famagusta [Gazimağusa in Turkish]. Varosha, once a prime vacation resort run mainly by Greek Cypriots, is now in a military zone and closed to civilians.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Turkey’s radar map ready in case of eventual missile deal.Although still harboring strong reservations about supporting a planned NATO missile defense system, which it fears could be seen as a program aimed against Iran or Russia, Turkey has begun technical studies as preparation for a possible NATO decision on the matter during the alliance’s upcoming Lisbon summit on Nov. 19-20.Another issue that came up in the negotiations was whether there would be any ships operating as part of the missile shield in the Black Sea. The proposed anti-missile system is planned to be mostly ship-based in the earlier stages, with elements being deployed on land later. Ankara says the terms of the 1936 Montreux Convention, which restricts the passage of non-Turkish military vessels through the straits, should be respected, and thus no ship carrying missile defense system elements can pass through the straits to reach Black Sea. The US authorities have given assurances that there is no such plan since the terms of the 1936 arrangement are clear.Hmmmm.....with such allies you don't need ennemies?Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Failure Shuts Down Squadron of Nuclear Missiles.President Obama was briefed this morning on an engineering power failure at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming that took 50 nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), one-ninth of the U.S. missile stockpile, temporarily offline on Saturday. The base is a main locus of the United States' strategic nuclear forces. The 90th Missile Wing, headquartered there, controls 150 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic nuclear missiles. They're on full-time alert and are housed in a variety of bunkers across several states.On Saturday morning, according to people briefed on what happened, a squadron of ICBMs suddenly dropped down into what's known as "LF Down" status, meaning that the missileers in their bunkers could no longer communicate with the missiles themselves. LF Down status also means that various security protocols built into the missile delivery system, like intrusion alarms and warhead separation alarms, were offline. In LF Down status, the missiles are still technically launch-able, but they can only be controlled by an airborne command and control platform like the Boeing E-6 NAOC "Kneecap" aircraft, E-4B NAOC aircraft or perhaps the TACAMO fleet, which is primarily used to communicate with nuclear submarines. Had the country been placed on a higher state of nuclear alert, those platforms would be operating automatically because the frequencies used to transmit nuclear codes would be interfacing with separate systems, according to officials.An administration official, speaking about the president's ability to control nuclear forces, said: "At no time did the president's ability decrease," an administration official said. "National Journal's Megan Scully contacted a spokesperson for Sen. Jon Kyl, a top GOP critic of START, who said that "We don't know what happened and why." The spokesperson refused to comment on "media reports."Hmmmm....There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy".Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:TeaAndPolitics.Hector Aleem’s trial for blasphemy: Mullahs gather outside of courtroom.As you probably know, Hector Aleem is being tried in Pakistan for blasphemy against Mohammed, Islam’s prophet. On October 21st and 25th, the days of the hearings, some Mullahs were assembled in the main entrance of the court at Rawalpindi to chant slogans calling for his death and against Christianity and to shout “Allah Akbar“. His family has made some videos from a mobile phone.Read and see the full story here.Click here for comments.