MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• Michelle Obama’s $400 Million ‘Food Desert’ Scam.First Lady Michelle Obama has called on Congress to create a $400 million-a-year program to encourage the establishment of supermarkets in places she calls “food deserts.”The situation in these “food deserts,” as Mrs. Obama describes it, is quite dire indeed. American children are growing fat because their parents cannot get to a supermarket—to buy fruits and vegetables—without undergoing the hardship of boarding a bus or riding a taxi. As a consequence, food-desert-dwelling children are forced to eat fast food and junk procured at chain restaurants and convenience stores.Congress includes only a $40 million earmark for the program.But does it deserve a single penny?In the 2008 farm bill, Congress mandated that the department conduct a $500,000 study of “food deserts.” The study—“Access to Affordable and Nutritious Food: Measuring and Understanding Food Deserts and Their Consequences”—was published in June 2009.The report demonstrates that Mrs. Obama’s depiction of American “food deserts” is fatuous at best. Lower-income Americans live closer to supermarkets than higher-income Americans.“However,” says the report, “93 percent of those who live in low-income areas with limited access traveled to the grocery store in a vehicle they or another household member drove.”Only 0.1 percent—one-tenth of one percent—of Americans living in low-income areas more than 1 mile from a supermarket took public transit to the store, the report said.For them, Mrs. Obama would create a new $400 million entitlement.Read the full scam story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:Memri.Video : Bin Laden in Audio Message to France: As You Kill, So Shall You Be Killed.Read and see the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:AnnCoulter.Standing in front of pastor manning's church." Look at this sign !"Read and see the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Tragedy or Travesty of human rights?Iran to sit on UN women's rights board?State that sentences adulterous women to death by stoning may help govern new UN Women agency.Iran, where a woman convicted of adultery has been sentenced to death by stoning, is likely to become a member of the board of the new UN agency to promote equality for women, prompting outrage from the US and human rights groups.Some rights groups are also upset that Saudi Arabia, where women are not allowed to drive and are barred from many facilities used by men, is also vying to join the governing body of UN Women.Philippe Bolopion, UN advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said it was "puzzling that Iran would have the nerve to be a candidate for the board of UN Women"."Having on top of it Saudi Arabia, a country with a track record on women's rights as horrendous as Iran's, would add insult to injury," he said.It's becoming more clear every day that the U.N. has outlived his usefulness and purpose.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Unwitting Western couple mocked as 'infidel' and 'swine' by 'minister' during foreign language wedding ceremony at luxury Maldives resort.A luxury resort in the Maldives has sparked outrage after a video appeared on You Tube showing members of staff abusing and mocking their guests using a language they were unable to understand.Employees at the Vilu Reef Beach and Spa resort can be seen calling an English-speaking couple ‘infidel’ and ‘swine’ and calling their guests' marriage illegal in their native Dhivehi tongue throughout the 15-minute wedding ceremony.According to the Maldives news service Minivan News, the video which was uploaded to You Tube ‘as a joke’, shows an employee named Hussein Didi conducting a service as a 'celebrant' - a person who is empowered to perform a religious ceremony.Asking the couple and other ‘officials’ to raise their hands as is customary for Muslim prayers, the ‘celebrant’ begins his marriage vows.‘Fornication has been legalised according to Article six, 1.11 of the Penal Code,' he chants in a tone favoured by religious scholars. ‘That is, frequent fornication by homosexuals. Most fornication is by males,’ he continues.‘You are swine. The children that you bear from this marriage will all be bastard swine,’ he says to his guests.The video has sparked outrage from tourism authorities in the country. Deputy Tourism Minister Ismail Yasir said ‘we are investigating the matter through the resort management.'The management informed us in writing that it would send us its findings as the matter involves the company’s employees.The 1997 Constitution designates Islam as the official state religion in the Maldives.Islam the religion of peace.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:PajamasMedia.Offensive Jihad: The One Incontrovertible Problem with Islam.What is the root problem between the Muslim world and the West? Muslims point to U.S. support for Israel and other grievances; Westerners point to Islam’s lack of freedoms and equality. In fact, the ultimate problem is offensive jihad — and that’s entirely Islam’s problem.A recent MEMRI report titled “Arab Columnists: Stop Talking About Offensive Jihad” alludes to the ultimate problem between Islam and the non-Muslim world: offensive jihad — the Islamic imperative to subjugate the world. The report opens by saying: “One dominant theme during Ramadan in the Arab world is the discussion, in the media and in religious circles, of the commandment of jihad and the obligation therein to wage war against the infidels.” It then focuses on two recent op-eds, written by Arab-Muslims, that discuss the need to tone down Muslim talk of offensive jihad.One writer, Khaled Al-Ghanami, states that the “wiser” supporters of offensive jihad believe that Muslims “must sit and wait until the era of our strength returns.” In the meantime, according to these Muslims, “there is nothing shameful about taqiyya [deception] until the time is ripe.” Al-Ghanami bemoans the fact that such Muslims operate naively “on the assumption that the world doesn’t read, doesn’t monitor … and is not paying attention to the calls for killing, tyranny, and aggression that we are spreading.”Read the full story here.Click here for comment.

• HT:InfidelBloggers.White House Insider: "President Obama is lost. Absolutely lost."In your email to me last week, you indicated a scandal was coming to the White House. Could you elaborate a bit more on that now? Sadly, with this White House it is no longer a matter of a scandal, but of scandals. I see you did a story recently on the Justice Department situation surrounding the voting rights case. Continue watching that – it’s going to break open more soon after Republicans take the House. As you stated, it’s going to be investigated.Enough people are sniffing in the same garbage pile anyways, including the Times. Though I suspect they are burying it at the moment, or trying to. They are still heavily invested in Obama, but that may change soon… Go back to Chicago. That is the key. There is other crap around the White House, other things that could trip them up, but Chicago is where the real heavy deal is that could bring the administration down. Go back and review Blagojevich. Go back and review Rezko, Barton, Stern, Giordano, Carothers, Jarret. It’s one and the same. It’s all connected, and it’s big. And people know. The White House is -expletive- itself over this stuff. Pelosi has it. Clintons have it – more of it than they had in 2008."Et tu, Brute?" seems again in fashion in politics .Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• California's Prop 19 Fuels Mexico's Debate On Drugs.When California voters go to the polls Tuesday to decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana use, the ballot initiative will be closely watched in Mexico.In California, supporters of Proposition 19 say one reason to legalize pot in the state is to help reduce the violent illegal drug trade south of the border, where Mexico's drug war has claimed some 29,000 lives over the past four years.But in Mexico, there is no clear consensus on how the passing of Proposition 19 would affect the Mexican drug trade.Benitez notes that the Catholic Church remains a powerful force in Mexican society, and that on social issues, such as drug use, most of Mexico remains quite conservative. So while the ballot initiative in California is causing debate in Mexico, Benitez says it is unlikely to change Mexican drug policy in the short term.The Dutch tried this for a number of years and are now running away from it.Hmmm.....on the other hand "anything to get votes"?Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• FDIC Probes Further into ShoreBank.The demise of the politically connected ShoreBank has sparked yet another investigation -- one that could spell trouble for FDIC chief Sheila Bair.The FDIC Inspector General’s office has launched a wide-ranging probe into the failure of Chicago-based ShoreBank earlier this year, including the role played by Bair in prodding Wall Street’s biggest firms, from Goldman Sachs (GS: 160.24 ,0.00 ,0.00%) to JPMorgan (JPM: 37.55 ,0.00 ,0.00%) to Morgan Stanley (MS: 24.40 ,0.00 ,0.00%), in donating tens of millions of dollars to prevent the bank, with close ties to the Obama administration, from failing.Officials on Wall Street have told the FOX Business Network that they felt political pressure from the Obama administration to contribute a total of about $150 million to recapitalize ShoreBank and the new institution. Valerie Jarrett, the president’s senior economic adviser has close ties to the bank, and the president himself has singled out the bank for praise for its community lending and for financing environmentally friendly green jobs. Jarrett has adamantly denied any involvement in the matter.But now the FDIC’s IG is looking at what, if any, improper political pressure was put on Wall Street executives in trying to bail out ShoreBank, and in funding the Urban Partnership Bank, which could mean big trouble not just for senior administration officials but also for Bair, since she was on the front line in trying to convince top banking executives to cough up the money for the bailout during summer.We had already a number of posts here at MFS about shorebank and the possible Obama administration involvments this little bank could be the Achilles heel. Just like the "Loch Ness monster" it keeps popping up.Read the full story here.And much more here.Click here for comments.

• Images reveal Indonesian tsunami destruction.Aerial images from the tsunami-hit Mentawai Islands in Indonesia have revealed the extent of destruction, as officials raised the death toll to 311.Flattened villages are plainly visible on the images, taken from helicopters circling the islands.Read and see the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Saudi mulls pre-marriage psychiatric test.The kingdom introduced mandatory pre-marriage medical examination five years ago.The Shura council (appointed parliament) is considering the new law following a recommendation by the Saudi Charity Association for Schizophrenia patients, Wujooh electronic Arabic language daily said.Heh....any divorsed man/woman will tell you you have to be mad to get married.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• NATO missile shield in Turkey highly suspicious, Iran says.Iran has criticized NATO’s plans to deploy elements of a ballistic missile defense system in Turkey, saying the alliance’s intentions are highly suspicious.“We think NATO’s aim to deploy military forces in the region is seriously suspicious,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast was quoted as saying during a weekly press conference on Tuesday. “We think the stationing of NATO military forces would disrupt security in the region.”Mehmanparast said the countries in the region are able to maintain their own security and “they have no need for foreigners.”Hmmm.....sounds like an "exciting" period is starting for NATO and Turkey.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Man arrested over 'plot to bomb Washington DC Metro'.A man has been arrested over a plot to bomb Metro stations in the US capital.Farooque Ahmed, 34, of Ashburn in the state of Virginia was conspiring with people he believed were from al-Qaeda, the Department of Justice said.Mr Ahmed was taken into custody on Wednesday morning. If convicted he faces up to 50 years in prison.The suspect allegedly conducted surveillance of Metro stations in Arlington, on the outskirts of Washington DC, on four occasions.Mr Ahmed, according to the indictment, later provided a USB stick with video of the station to a person he believed was from al-Qaeda. On 28 September, Mr Ahmed allegedly handed over another USB drive with more images of stations.In that meeting, he also allegedly suggested terrorists use rolling suitcases to blow up Metro stations, rather than backpacks.Hmmmm....lets guess what his religion is.Read the full story here and here.Click here for comments.

• HT:BigPeace.DC Subway Bombing Plot Part of a Wider Plan.Federal agents arrested a man Wednesday for plotting to bomb the Washington, D.C., subway system, the Justice Department announced. It was the second arrest in as many days involving Americans hoping to wage violence for al-Qaida or the Taliban, and federal law enforcement officials believe it is part of a wider attempt to launch terrorist attacks.Ahmed and Shehadeh are considered to be part of a wider plan by U.S. citizens or residents hoping to serve elements of the Taliban and al-Qaida to conduct terrorist attacks throughout the country, a federal law enforcement official told IPT News.There are multiple ongoing investigations of radical Muslims who are believed to have received training or direction from Pakistan-based terror groups in order to carry out attacks here, the official said. In the last eight months, U.S. authorities have detected a dramatic increase in the number of planned Islamic terrorist attacks in the United States or against Western targets abroad.Hmmmmm......perhaps keep ignoring the problem and outreach to the Islamic world isn't the best aproach?Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:Memri.Video : Sheik Khaled Al-Khlewi, Against Equality For Women, Al-Majd TV (Saudi Arabia).Read and see the full story here.Click here for comments.

• The Lost Cause Against Wilders. The case against the Dutch politician has backfired in every way imaginable.When even the prosecution calls for a defendant's acquittal and the trial judges have been disqualified for the appearance of bias, maybe it's time to drop the charges. Rather than a retrial, a dismissal would be the best outcome in the case of Geert Wilders, the Dutch lawmaker accused of insulting and inciting hatred against Muslims.Prosecuting Mr. Wilders has backfired in every way imaginable, not least politically. The trial has seemed to confirm his charge that avoiding debate over the implications of Muslim immigration leads to the erosion of Western freedoms, most notably freedom of speech. Despite, or perhaps because of, the trial, Mr. Wilders' Party for Freedom became the third-strongest parliamentary faction in last June's elections. This allowed Mr. Wilders to become a political king-maker by backing the new center-right minority government. Meanwhile, as part of his defense Mr. Wilders has been putting the entire Muslim religion on trial. His defense includes not only invoking free speech but also calling expert witnesses to testify on the accuracy of his views of Islam. Before the judges could rule on whether it's a hate crime to compare the Quran to "Mein Kampf," Mr. Wilders wants them to rule on whether he was correct to make the comparison. This is only contributing to further religious animosity.A retrial will achieve nothing but exacerbate these tensions. It's time to drop the charges against Mr. Wilders before it further undermines the credibility of the Dutch legal system and the country's tradition of free political discourse.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• [ANALYSIS] Al Qaeda fishes for Turks seeking jihad.Turks have been bit part players in al Qaeda's global jihad, but a recent security scare in Europe pointed to a small but growing number in Germany and Turkey who have joined militant ranks in Pakistan.Muslims from many parts of the Islamic World went to Pakistan during the jihad to end the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. There may be nothing new about Turks taking that path, but recent obituaries on jihadi websites and tales of the exploits of Turkish jihadis have been eye-catching.Turks returning from Afghanistan were involved in the November 2003 bombings that killed 57 people in Istanbul and wounded hundreds more in a series of attacks that targeted the British consulate, an HSBC bank and two synagogues.If militancy is growing, it remains at least for now on the fringe.Israel's Gaza offensive two years ago fuelled sympathy for militant causes among some, analysts say."The Israeli incursion into Gaza in 2008 had a profound effect, leading to increased recruitment of Turks by al Qaeda and allied groups," Williams said. "We believe that the numbers increased dramatically in the wake of that operation." The ISU is itself a by-product of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a Central Asian jihadi movement that has forged ties with al Qaeda and actively recruits in Europe.Jihadis who do not fit easily into South Asian or Arab militant camps gravitate to groups like Taifatul Mansura which, according to the Pakistani official, is made up of Turkic-language speaking Central Asians, as well as Turks and European Muslims, notably Germany.Hmmmmm....Pakistan....Al Qaeda....Turkey....perhaps a bit more "Outreach to Muslims Mr president"?Read the full story here.Click here for comments. 

• HT:IsraelMatzav.Ouch! New weapons won't help Saudis against Iran. If you thought all that fancy equipment that the US is selling to the Saudis was going to help the Saudis to defend themselves against Iran... you were wrong. If you thought it was going to be used against Israel, you were, thankfully, probably wrong too.What's most likely is that it will be used to defend the Royal Family against the Saudi army, or possibly be deployed by Pakistani pilots for use defending Saudi Arabia against Iran and other enemies.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:TheAmericanDream.22 Statistics That Prove The Elite Are Becoming Fabulously Wealthy While The Middle Class Is Being Ripped To Shreds.In the United States today, the only group that is "doing better" each year financially is the folks at the very top of the income pyramid. Everyone else has seen their incomes decline. Once upon a time, America had a relatively egalitarian system where just about anyone could "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" if they just worked hard enough. But today, there are millions of Americans that can't seem to get jobs no matter how hard they try. Millions of others feel their tenuous hold on the American Dream slipping out of their grasp just a little bit more each month. The truth is that we don't have true capitalism in the United States anymore. Over the past several decades, the financial system in the U.S. has been carefully molded and shaped in such a way that all the wealth is funneled to the elite at the very top and to the monolithic predator corporations that now dominate the global economy. Power has become concentrated in the hands of very few individuals, and they are nearly impossible to compete against. If you doubt this, go set up a general store right next to your local Wal-Mart and see how long you can survive. In America today, the elite are becoming fabulously wealthy and the middle class is being ripped to shreds. One of the things that our Founding Fathers were extremely concerned about was not allowing too much power to be accumulated in the hands of any one person or institution, but today we have turned our backs on that principle and now we are paying the price.So what is the solution? Well, Democrats tell us that we just need to "spread the wealth" a bit more. But raising taxes and giving people more handouts is not going to solve a thing. What the American people need are good jobs.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• HT:BigPeace.Obama’s Foreign Policy: Iran Rising, U.S. Receding.President Obama’s major foreign policy initiatives–the “reset” with Russia, outreach to the Islamic world, and the end of combat operations in Iraq–have accomplished one undeniable achievement: they have brought Russia, Turkey, Iraq and Afghanistan closer to Iran.What do all of these have in common? Iran is pulling the strings. After years of war, counterinsurgency, and infrastructure rebuilding in Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran is choosing who will lead Iraq and having Afghan governors fired for opposing them. Though Turkey has been an ally since the early days of the Cold War, the country is now vetoing anti-Iranian legislation at the U.N. and threatening to do the same for NATO missile defense. And we have squandered our negotiating leverage with Russia by allowing them to purge our allies in their near-abroad of our instruments of common defense.No one expected Iran to have this much clout in the international sphere unless and until they acquired nuclear capability–that’s how abysmally counterproductive this administration’s conduct in foreign affairs has been. Conservatives have been derided by the left for their promotion of “peace through strength,” but Obama’s foreign policy has given us neither, putting both increasingly out of reach.To put it bluntly the whole Obama aproach is a failure since day one.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Iran urges UN to condemn Israel's 'nuclear weapons'.Iranian ambassador to the UN says Israel should stop ignoring international demands that it join non-proliferation treaty. Despite being a signatory to the agreement, the United States has criticied mentioning Israel in the statement."We strongly oppose efforts to single out Israel and will oppose actions that jeopardize Israel's national security," PressTV quoted US President Barack Obama as saying in May.On the other hand the Obama administration signed the document also,so talk about two faced actions.The Obama administration is certainly not pro - Israel.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• During Breast Cancer Month Obama’s FDA Ponders Delisting Cancer Drug.So you have Avastin, a drug used to treat breast cancer that has a record of extending the lives of sufferers for at least five and a half months, and it’s October, the month declared Breast Cancer Awareness Month. If you are the Obama Federal Drug Administration, what do you do? Apparently you look to delist the drug.But in this month of breast cancer awareness month the specter of delisting looms for those that feel the drug works for them. The biggest question here is one of propriety. Is it a good idea that we give government the power to take away drugs that are successful for some people just because its costs too much? Should we give government the power to decide how much is too much to save lives?Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Vote by mail mess in Illinois.An Illinois county election official says that thousands, and potentially hundreds of thousands, of voters who are expecting a ballot sent to them by mail may be disenfranchised.Chicagoan Rosia Carter is one of 404,000 registered Illinois voters who recently received vote-by-mail requests that were sent by the Illinois Democratic Coordinated Campaign.“By the time I filled it out and sent it in, my vote would not get counted,” Carter said.She and others called the I-Team when they noticed the return address is not their local election official but instead a PO box for the organization. IDCC officials claim they are entering ballot request information into their own database before sending the mailings on to election authorities who then mail voters the ballot. . . .IDCC told the clerk that another 1,500 ballot requests are headed to her office, which, she says, may not give her enough time to process all the ballots, potentially disenfranchising voters.Read the full scam story here.Click here for comments.

• Russian bears treat graveyards as 'giant refrigerators'.A shortage of bears' traditional food near the Arctic Circle has forced the animals to eat human corpses, say locals.From a distance it resembled a rather large man in a fur coat, leaning tenderly over the grave of a loved one. But when the two women in the Russian village of Vezhnya Tchova came closer they realised there was a bear in the cemetery eating a body.Russian bears have grown so desperate after a scorching summer they have started digging up and eating corpses in municipal cemetries, alarmed officials said today. Bears' traditional food – mushrooms, berries and the odd frog – has disappeared, they added.The Vezhnya Tchova incident took place on Saturday in the northern republic of Komi, near the Arctic Circle. The shocked women cried in panic, frightening the bear back into the woods, before they discovered a ghoulish scene with the clothes of the bear's already-dead victim chucked over adjacent tombstones, the Russian newspaper Moskovsky Komsomelets reported."In Karelia one bear learned how to do it [open a coffin]. He then taught the others," she added, suggesting: "They are pretty quick learners."According to Vorontsova, the omnivorous bears had "plenty to eat" this autumn, with foods such as fish and ants at normal levels. The bears raided graveyards because they offered a supply of easy food, she said, a bit like a giant refrigerator. "The story is horrible. Nobody wants to think about having a much loved member of their family eaten by a bear."Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• Christian man fined the equivalent of seven years of salary for possessing Jesus movie.A court in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent convicted Murat Jalalov, a Protestant, for possessing a copy of a movie about Jesus. Although he avoided a 15-day prison sentence, he was slapped with a 3.1 million Soms (US$ 1,900) fine. In a country that has high levels of poverty, and where the average monthly salary hovers around US$ 23, the fine represents seven years of salary. Jalalov, who said he did not have the money to pay such a huge fine, also lost his passport, seized by the authorities who told him that he could get it back only when he paid the fine.Uzbekistan is 90% Muslim and 8 % of Orthodox Christians.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• More hands amputated in Iran.Seven people lost a hand to set an “example” for other convicts. This comes a year after the Iranian parliament announced it would eliminate stoning and amputation sentences.More and more people are getting their hands chopped off in Iran. In the last few months, seven have had a hand amputated by the state to serve as an “example” for others, this despite the fact that Ali Shahrokhi, head of the Majlis judiciary committee, announced a year ago that the Iranian parliament (Majlis) would pass a bill to eliminate stoning and amputation sentences.The numbers cited by the Mehr news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Propaganda Organisation, are alarming.Akbar Biglari, chief prosecutor in Hamedan province, defended the judiciary decision to have hands chopped off inside prison. “The Shiite nation has always been subjected to oppression in history. Global imperialism will abuse the execution of this punishment and claim that Iran does not respect human rights.”Read the full story here.Click here for comments.

• And now for something completely different!City offers cash for cigarette butts.A northern Chinese city has come up with an innovative way to encourage residents to keep the streets clean - it is paying five fen (just under one US cent) for every used cigarette butt they pick up.Authorities in Shaanxi province's Xianyang city launched the campaign in September and so far enthusiastic residents have handed over seven million butts, the official China Daily said.In return, the local government has paid out 100,000 yuan (15,000 dollars) for two million of the butts and still owes for the remaining five million.Still, the campaign appears to be working.After seeing an old man pick up the cigarette butt he had just discarded, resident Zhao Ang said he had learned a lesson."From then on, I stopped throwing anything away in public places," he was quoted as saying.Read the full story here.Click here for comments.