MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• HT:RightTruth.Der Allah Fuehrer: Islamophobia versus Islamofascism.“Even though I walk in the dark valley, I fear no evil; for you are at my side…And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for years to come.” PSALM 23.Read the full story here.

• UN's Ban Favors Expanded Security Council.UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says he is in favor of adding more members to the UN Security Council.Ban made his comments in a wide-ranging interview with RFE/RL today in the Kazakh capital, Astana.Ban said it was the prevailing view among UN members that the current format of 15 council countries -- including five permanent veto-wielding members -- needed to be reformed.But he declined to specify if countries such as India should gain a permanent seat, as U.S. President Barack Obama recently suggested."As secretary-general, and also personally, I believe that the Security Council should be expanded to reflect the changing situation and to address all the challenges of the 21st century," Ban said.Hmmmm.....Do i hear the birth of the Islamic and United Nations?Read the full story here.

• HT:NorthEastIntelligence.Stuxnet: Made in the USA ? 1 December 2010: Speculations on Stuxnet’s national point of origin have run as rampant as the trojan malware has within the Iranian nuclear weapons infrastructure since the discovery of the super cyber weapon by the Belarus security firm VirusBlokAda on 17 June 2010. The vast majority of those subject-matter-expert commentaries leading corporate media-driven speculations have centered on Israel and its secretive military intelligence Unit 8200 as that point of origin.One of those so-called experts, Richard Falkenrath, a former Senior Director of Policy and Plans with the United States Office of Homeland Security, was on Bloomberg Television as recently as September 24th pointing a very accusative finger at Israel. When asked directly by the interviewer what were the chances that the United States was the nation-state of origin Falkenrath responded(at the 1:57 mark of the linked video), “It is theoretically impossible that the U.S. government did this, but in my judgment it is a very remote possibility. More likely is, frankly, Israel. That Israel did it.” Richard Falkenrath needs to have a conversation or two with his former government peers, or at the least with the New York Times’s David E. Sanger about an article he wrote a full 17 months prior to the discovery of Stuxnet. Published by the Times on 10 January 2009 Sanger’s article, headlined “U.S. Rejected Aid for Israeli Raid on Iranian Nuclear Site,” clearly references the United States as the point of origin of Stuxnet during the last year of the administration of President George W. Bush..Quoting Sanger’s article:“President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials…. The White House denied that request outright, American officials said, and the Israelis backed off their plans, at least temporarily. But the tense exchanges also prompted the White House to step up intelligence-sharing with Israel and brief Israeli officials on new American efforts to subtly sabotage Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, a major covert program that Mr. Bush is about to hand off to President-elect Barack Obama.”Stuxnet. Made in the USA.Hmmmm....blame the Joooooos?Read the full story here.

• Californian bomb factory so dangerous it must be burnt to the ground, authorities say.A San Diego house which was turned into a virtual bomb factory is so full of dangerous explosive materials it has to be burned down, authorities have said.Resident in Escondido gasped in shock after county officials showed slides of the rental home of George Djura Jakubec which was packed full of hand grenades and powdered explosives in jars and on the floor.Last week, explosive experts pulled out of the house, saying it was too dangerous to continue investigating and removing the substances.Sheriff Bill Gore told around 300 residents gathered at a middle school: 'There is no viable method to render the property safe.'It is also not habitable. The most effective way is to destroy the residence by fire.'Mr Gore said the house would be destroyed on December 8, depending on the weather.Hmmmmm......what are they hiding there.Read the full story here.

• "The War on Christmas" - U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe says he won't take part in Tulsa holiday parade of Lights until organizers put ""Christ'' back in the event's title."Last year, the forces of political correctness removed the word ‘Christmas’ and replaced it with ‘Holiday’ instead,'' the Oklahoma Republican said. "I am deeply saddened and disappointed by this change.'' Inhofe, who served as Tulsa's mayor from 1978 to 1984, said he had participated in the parade annually, riding horseback as his children and grandchildren watched. "I did not do so last year, because I’m not going to ride in a Christmas parade that doesn’t recognize Christmas,'' he said. "I am hopeful that the good people of Tulsa and the city’s leadership will demand a correction to this shameful attempt to take Christ, the true reason for our celebration, out of the parade’s title. Until the parade is again named the Christmas Parade of Lights, I will not participate.Scheduled this year on Dec. 11, the downtown parade dates back more than 70 years.Hmmm.....makes me wonder how Christmas will be celebrated this year in the White House?Read the full story here.

• Health Care Union Drops Coverage For Children.Perhaps you have to be familiar with New York politics to understand how truly bizarre this story is: 1199 is dropping its health care coverage for children. 1199 is the extraordinarily powerful local health care workers' union which has pushed New York State's Medicaid reimbursements into the stratosphere. The state not only has much higher than average Medicaid enrollment, but also spends more per-enrollee than any state but Alaska. Every time a governor tries to cut into, say, the funds for home health care workers, the union runs tear jerking ads which imply that the governor is trying to end health care for everyone in the state.Naturally, 1199--and its national parent--were a powerful force advocating for a national health care program. An article on their website from June speaks approvingly of PPACA as a "first step", though also complains that it didn't go far enough in creating a public option.That article also says that "1199ers in the major health funds such as the 1199SEIU National Benefit Fund (NBF) should see little or no change in their coverage." Just a few months later, the Journal is reporting that the SEIU is dropping its coverage for children, citing, among other things, the impact of the new healthcare law:In fairness, this is not exclusively related to the new law; the union is complaining that the state has forced them to buy more expensive third party insurance, and the state is saying that they did no such thing, but that the union fund has been struggling with shortfalls for a while. Reading between the lines, it sounds like their self-insured health fund was underfunded, and the state told them they couldn't keep operating that way. When the budget scramble began, ObamaCare was making coverage for children more expensive, so it ended up on the chopping block.Update: 1199 writes to clarify that this is only happening to one of its healthcare funds, the one that covers low-wage home healthcare workers.The fund also says that this had nothing to do with ObamaCare.This does not explain why a letter to their members said otherwise; I have emailed to clarify whether they are denying that they sent such a letter.
  Hmmmmm....Obamacare and kids don't seem to match very well?Read the full scam story here.

• Bolton: Military strike only way to stop Iran nukes.Former US ambassador to UN during Bush administration tells 'Post' he is mulling GOP presidential run to reassert strong US foreign policy. John Bolton is mulling a run for president because he believes the US needs to recover its international standing and be more assertive, including being willing to bomb Iran and scrap the two-state solution.“Both our friends and our adversaries alike have assessed this as a very weak administration, uncomfortable with asserting American interests or defending them, particularly through the use of force internationally,” Bolton told The Jerusalem Post in an interview Tuesday.Bolton, who would seek the Republican nomination should he run, rejected the idea that sanctions could eventually affect Iran’s nuclear ambitions as some in the US and even Israel have suggested.“The most likely outcome with respect to Iran is that it gets nuclear weapons and very, very soon,” he said. “Given that diplomacy has failed, given that sanctions have failed, the only alternative to an Iran with nuclear weapons is a limited military strike against the nuclear weapons program.”“A preemptive military strike against Iran’s nuclear program would not cause chaos in the Middle East because the Arab states don’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons any more than Israel does,” he said.Hmmmm....what could go wrong?Read the full story here.

• US Complicit in Human Rights Abuses.Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani's imminent execution in Iran -- by being stoned or hangied - has elicited protests across the globe. Ms. Ashtiani has been found guilty of adultery; tortured by women-hating prison guards, and has become a symbol of Sharia inspired laws that mistreat women.Ironically and poignantly, Iran is on the United Nations Committee for Women's Rights and will soon join the Executive Committee for the Asian region. Yet remarkably Ambassador Susan Rice has not uttered a word on behalf of Ms. Ashtiani, or said anything about Iran's representation on the UN committee, a silence that is once again telling about the moral collapse and indifference to human rights of this administration.Even the New York Times and the Washington Post have covered the story. Mina Ahadi, a spokesman for the International Committee Against Stoning and Execution, has been engaged in non-stop demonstrations against the Iranian government and its perverse judicial decision.Remarkably, Ms. Ashtiani probably has no idea that there is vocal support for her cause. Iranian mullahs do not react to appeals of reason and fairness: Only when their positions are watched and challenged with condemnation, do the mullahs pay attention.My suspicion is that if former Ambassador John Bolton were representing American interests at the United Nations, a protest voice would be heard. Unfortunately Ms. Rice, his successor, and President Obama, have chosen appeasement as their strategy, perhaps believing that if we offend the Iranian mullahs, negotiations with them on nuclear weapons and other matters would be impossible.This is a fool's errand. Our silence on human rights matters is interpreted as acceptance. Every gesture of compliance is a victory for barbarism.Iranian feminists know what the Obama administration does not: a global campaign against the imminent execution of Sakineh Ashtiani can make a difference. It can both cause the mullahs to pause, and raise questions about the strategy adopted by the U.S. government.Hmmmm....perhaps the Ambassador has too many parties to attend?Read the full story here.Ht :IsraelMatzav.

• All Airlines Gathering Passenger Information to Check Against Terror Lists.All 197 airlines that fly to the United States are now collecting names, genders and birth dates of passengers so the government can check them against terror watch lists before they fly, the Obama administration announced Tuesday. Getting all air carriers that travel to or through the United States to provide this information marks a milestone in the government's counterterror efforts and completes a recommendation of the special commission that studied government shortcomings before and after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The program, called Secure Flight, has been delayed for years because of privacy problems and went through three versions before it was approved. It is designed to give U.S. authorities more time to identify and remove suspected terrorists from flights and reduce instances when passengers are mistaken for people on terror watch lists. Misidentification of passengers has been one of the biggest inconveniences in post-Sept. 11 air travel, and widely known for putting thousands of innocent travelers and well-known figures such as the late Sen. Ted Kennedy through extensive searching and questioning before they were allowed to fly.Previously, airlines have been responsible for checking passenger lists against terror watch lists. But the airlines did not have any information other than a name. Now the screening is done by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration. The more information available about a passenger, the less likely a passenger will be mistaken for someone on a watch list. When someone makes a flight reservation, that information goes to the Secure Flight database within seconds, TSA Administrator John Pistole said.Hmmmm....i for one would like to see the staff working at airports being security screened in the same way on a daily base,because the staff working at airports are the weakest link ,remember the Fort Hood shooter. Read the full story here.

• British Airways worker 'offered to be suicide bomber and advised terrorists of airline's weaknesses'.A British Airways computer expert who is alleged to have offered himself as a suicide bomber appeared in court today to deny terrorism charges.Rajib Karim, 31, of Newcastle upon Tyne, remains in custody and is due to go on trial on January 24 at Woolwich Crown Court in south east London.Bangladesh-born Karim appeared via videolink today at the Old Bailey where he pleaded not guilty to two charges of preparing for terrorism.Each count covers the period from April 13 2006 to February 26 2010 and includes the allegation that he 'offered to be a martyr or suicide bomber'.Hmmmmm...the "Enemy" within working at the airport just like i'm warning for it to happen.TSA ....answer....we're groping passengers as much as we can!Read the full story here.

• In slideshow, Rep. Joe Barton declares war on the Obama administration.If the Obama administration was hoping to see hints of bipartisanship from the Hill, it might want to skip over the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The committee's ranking Republican, Rep. Joe L. Barton (Tex.), has a slide presentation that he's e-mailing to colleagues, pledging to do for the administration what Gen. George Patton and company did for Germany. The first slides are standard campaign material, with Barton asking to be elected by the new House Republican majority to be chairman of the committee.He naturally touts his conservative credentials, saying, "I know the ropes and can hit the ground running immediately." He especially appeals to the newly elected members, saying he would make sure they are represented on the powerful committee. Then comes the money slide, titled: "What's in Store for the Obama Administration," with photos of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Generals Omar Bradley and George Patton in uniform. "Speaker Boehner is our Dwight Eisenhower in the battle against the Obama Administration. Majority Leader Cantor is our Omar Bradley. I want to be George Patton - put anything in my scope and I will shoot it."Hmmm....Hey i really like the latter part!Read the full story here.

• UAE oil resources to deplete in 70 years.Arab Science and Technology chief urges focus on R&D.The UAE must focus on investment in scientific research and innovation technology as oil resources will deplete in the next 40-70 years, says Dr Abdullah Abdul Aziz Al Najar, Head of Arab Science and Technology.Progress in science and technology is vital to national security as it will help enhance political, economic, military and cultural capabilities of the nation, he adds.Investments made by Arab countries in scientific research does not exceed 0.3 per cent of GDP, compared to 2.5 per cent in Western countries, says Dr Najar. This is also an answer to the unemployment problem facing the region. About 100 million jobs are needed by 2030, he says.Hmmmm...back to the basic camel drive in 70 years?Read the full story here.

• HT:TheOpinionater.Warning graphic images.Muslim Serial Offender Jailed for Slash Attack.All the above are recipients of one or more Religion of Peace-er's slashing, kicking or bludgeoning. Unfortunately they are just a small sample of the ever growing numbers of victims of street jihad and other muslim violence - stories normally tucked away in local newspapers and web sites. The mainstream media has yet to 'connect the dots' and show the glaring pattern of muslim attacks against the indigenous British public preferring instead to robotically chant the mantra of (Myth of) Islamophobia. The latest unprovoked attack has Mohammed Miah glassing Ian Parkinson in a local pub. Mr. Parkinson was left with lacerations to his eye and cheek. Miah has plenty of experience with assault:"Miah, who has 13 previous convictions, was earlier jailed for two years for affray and was on bail for that offence, committed in the same pub, when he injured Mr Parkinson."Read and see the full story here.

• No need for women to cover up: Saudi police.A Saudi religious police commander criticised the kingdom's ban on gender mixing on Tuesday and said women did not have to veil their faces to applause from his female audience.Sheikh Ahmed Al Ghamdi, outspoken head of the Makkah branch of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, also said there was nothing in Islam to prevent women from driving, despite the Saudi ban on the practice."There is a difference in interpretation of the (Koranic) verse... which leads some scholars to rule that the whole body must be covered ... However other scholars approve showing the face, hands and elbows. And some even okayed the hair," he said.He said the kingdom's mixing ban should be applied only to men and women meeting in secret, not in public places -- a rule normally enforced by the religious police.Islam "orders a woman to cover her body to allow her to participate in social life, not to prevent her from doing so," he said.Read the full story here.

• Leading rabbi says Europe risks being 'overrun' by Islam.One of the luminaries of the international Jewish community, Rabbi David Rosen, has warned that Europe risks being "overrun" by Islam unless it rediscovers its Christian roots.Speaking to journalists at a meeting in Jerusalem on Friday (26 November), Rabbi Rosen, the director of inter-religious affairs at the Washington-based American Jewish Congress, said that a predominantly secular and liberal Western European society is under threat from the rapid growth of Islamic communities which do not want to integrate with their neighbours."I am against building walls. My humanity is my most important component. But Western society very clearly doesn't have a strong identity. I would like Christians in Europe to become more Christian ... those who do not have a strong identity are easily overrun by those who do," the rabbi warned."I think there is a pretty good chance that your grandchildren, if they are not Muslim, then they will be very strong Roman Catholics," he told one Italian reporter. "I don't think a tepid identity can stand up to the challenge."Nachman Shai, a member of parliament for the centrist Kadima party in Israel, noted that the alleged soft threat to Western European identity is matched by the hard security threat of radical Islamist groups."If you follow the current streams in the Arab world, and you all have Muslim communities in your own countries now and you read about these developments, and you can see them there too, then you see that the Muslims are moving to the extreme, not to the centre, not toward compromise. They keep their own traditions. They keep their own way of life and they are becoming more and more religious and more and more radical," he said.Hmmmm......"the truth ...nothing but the truth"?Read the full story here.HT:TROP.

• Tehran executes footballer's 'temporary' wife.Iran on Wednesday hanged a woman convicted of murdering a love rival, her lawyer told the official IRNA news agency.Shahla Jahed was hanged at 5:00 am (01:30 GMT) after the verdict was confirmed by the supreme court and the judiciary chief, lawyer Abdolsamad Khoramshahi said.The London-based rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday called on Iran to halt Jahed's execution, saying "there are good reasons to suggest that she may have been wrongly convicted."Jahed, who had a so-called "temporary" marriage with Nasser Mohammad Khani, a former striker for the Iranian national team, was convicted of stabbing to death his "permanent" wife eight years ago.In the Shiite faith that is the majority religion in Iran, men and women can marry for an agreed period of time. Afterwards, the marriage is null and void, although it can be renewed.Read the full story here.More here.

• US Condemns Palestinian Claim On the Kosel.The Obama administration today strongly condemned a Palestinian official’s claim that the Kosel has no religious significance for Jews and is actually Muslim property.The State Department said the U.S. rejects the claim as “factually incorrect, insensitive and highly provocative.” Spokesman P.J. Crowley said statements of that kind damage U.S. efforts to revive stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and could incite violence.“We have repeatedly raised with the Palestinian Authority leadership the need to consistently combat all forms of delegitimization of Israel, including denying historic Jewish connections to the land,” he told reporters.“As the United States has long maintained, the status of Jerusalem must be resolved in final status negotiations between the parties,” Crowley said. “We recognize that Jerusalem is a deeply important issue to Israelis and Palestinians, to Jews, to Muslims and to Christians everywhere.”Read the full story here.

• WikiLeaks: Interpol issues wanted notice for Julian Assange.WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange facing growing legal problems around world.The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, is tonight facing growing legal problems around the world, with the US announcing that it was investigating whether he had violated its espionage laws.Assange's details were also added to Interpol's worldwide wanted list. Dated 30 November, the entry reads: "sex crimes" and says the warrant has been issued by the international public prosecution office in Gothenburg, Sweden. "If you have any information contact your national or local police." It reads: "Wanted: Assange, Julian Paul," and gives his birthplace as Townsville, Australia.Friends said earlier that Assange was in a buoyant mood, however, despite the palpable fury emanating from Washington over the decision by WikiLeaks to start publishing more than a quarter of a million mainly classified US cables. He was said to be at a secret location somewhere outside London, along with fellow hackers and WikiLeaks enthusiasts.In contrast to previous WikiLeaks releases, Assange has, on this occasion, kept a relatively low profile. His attempt to give an interview to Sky News via Skype was thwarted today by a faulty internet connection.But he was able to give an interview to Time magazine in which he called for Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, to resign. "She should resign, if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering US diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the US has signed up. Yes, she should resign over that," he said.Hmmmm.....London ...interview was in a Mosque,Islam is a great religion.Read the full story here.

• HT:TpmMuckRacker.Steve King: Black Farmers' Settlement Is 'Slavery Reparations'(Video).The Senate last week finally approved the multi-billion-dollar funding for the Pigford II and Cobell settlements, which will allow the government to pay out claims to African-American farmers and American Indians who were discriminated against in recent decades by government agencies. Now, the House -- which has passed the funding several times over -- will have to approve it, probably this week. The House, in fact, was voting on procedural motions surrounding the bill as this post was written.That means the opponents are coming out of the woodwork.Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who's been one of the most vocal opponents of the Pigford settlement for black farmers, has taken to cable news and the floor of the House to speak against the settlement. King's argument is that the bulk of the Pigford II claims are fraudulent because there are fewer black farmers than claimants. On Monday night, he suggested that President Obama, as a senator, may have been prejudiced to help the black farmers. "Figure this out, Madame Speaker: We have a very, very urban Senator, Barack Obama, who has decided he's going to run for president, and what does he do?" King said. "He introduces legislation to create a whole new Pigford claim." He then said the claims -- which stem from discrimination against black farmers in the 1980s and 1990s -- are "slavery reparations." "We've got to stand up at some point and say, 'We are not gonna pay slavery reparations in the United States Congress,'" he said. "That war's been fought.Hmmmm....Something really,really smells bad there.Read the full story here.

• 'Don't Tread on Me' License Plates Become a Growing Trend in the U.S.Fans of the Gadsden Flag may soon be able to display its familiar rattlesnake and "Don't Tread on Me" message every time they pull out of the driveway.At least three states -- Virginia, Nevada and Texas -- are weighing or have already approved proposals to add "Don't Tread on Me" specialty license plates to their state rosters.The Gadsden Flag, originally used by the U.S. Marine Corps during the American Revolution, was meant to represent the 13 original colonies and their battle for independence from the British monarchy. It has recently been adopted by some Tea Party groups as a message against big government.Several supporters of the symbol say they will seek to have Gadsden plates available in other states throughout the country.But critics say the flag's "Don't Tread on Me" message is political in nature, and has no place on any government-issued license plate.In Texas, the first state to propose and approve the plates, officials said they didn't have politics in mind, but simply getting more people interested in displaying specialty plates, which bring the state more money then regular plates.Read the full story here.

• HT:LogisticsMonster.The 15 Republican Traitors That Voted For S. 510 Passage And What Monsanto Had To Do With It.…and of course, every single democrat in the Senate. For a complete listing of the vote, go to the Senate Roll Call Votes Page.There is ‘talk’ that the House will just pass the Senate version ‘as is’ in order to avoid the FDA’s lock on your food being stalled before the end of the lame duck session. Well folks, let’s just add this bill to the list of laws that will need to be recalled; FinReg, Obamacare, Bailouts, etc. For those that weren’t awake in July, 2009 for the House passage of H.R. 2749, here is the text of that POS bill that was passed by Nancy’s Nazis on July 29, 2009.Read the full story here.

• HT:globalresearch.Related:Monsanto's Man in the Obama Administration.The Return of Michael Taylor.Michael R. Taylor’s appointment by the Obama administration to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on July 7th sparked immediate debate and even outrage among many food and agriculture researchers, NGOs and activists. The Vice President for Public Policy at Monsanto Corp. from 1998 until 2001, Taylor exemplifies the revolving door between the food industry and the government agencies that regulate it. He is reviled for shaping and implementing the government’s favorable agricultural biotechnology policies during the Clinton administration.Yet what has slipped under everyone’s radar screen is Taylor’s involvement in setting U.S. policy on agricultural assistance in Africa. In collusion with the Rockefeller and Bill and Melinda Gates foundations, Taylor is once again the go-between man for Monsanto and the U.S. government, this time with the goal to open up African markets for genetically-modified (GM) seed and agrochemicals.Read the full story here.

• HT:TheJewishWeek.Sarah Palin Gaining in Support from ‘Educated Jews’.In recent weeks, a number of prominent Jewish intellectuals have been publicly praising Sarah Palin. This despite a recent poll, reported by veteran analyst James Besser (Nov. 26), that well-educated Jews appear to be overwhelmingly opposed to Palin. How do we explain this discrepancy?Besser focuses on a recent poll showing Palin with stronger support among voters in general who are "less educated" and "less affluent." That poll made no reference to Jewish voters, but Besser argues that since Jews are "more educated than the population at large and more affluent," therefore one may safely assume they oppose Palin too.Let’s recall that pundits made similar assumptions about Ronald Reagan when he was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980. Reagan also had considerable appeal among the less educated and the less affluent; surely educated and affluent Jews would support President Jimmy Carter – or so the pundits reasoned. But on election day, the majority of American Jews repaid Carter's disdain for Israel, his impotence in rescuing the Americans held hostage in Iran, and his mismanagement of the American economy, by abandoning him for Ronald Reagan, the most conservative Presidential candidate of the post-Vietnam era. Reagan received the largest share of the Jewish vote of any Republican presidential nominee in U.S. history.While it is certainly too early to assume that 1980 will repeat itself in 2012, there are signs of growing respect for Gov. Palin’s policies and positions – especially among some of the Jewish intellectuals whom Besser presumes now oppose her.Read the full story here.

• HT:DdanielGreenfield.Won’t You Please Hug a Terrorist ?The working theory among the think-tanks, academic campuses, newsrooms and diplomatic offices is that terrorists are just like us. Except depressed and insecure about it. Filled with self-loathing and in desperate need of anger management classes. If only some kind soul could plop them down on an analyst’s couch and stuff them chock full of Prozac or Paxil, hug them without letting go, while reading passages from Jonathan Livingston Seagull– then they’d be just as right as rain. And twice as wet.The news media has already activated its brilliant powers of long distance psychoanalysis on the Oregon Christmas Tree Bomber, and diagnosed him as suffering from his parent’s divorce and vicious Oregonian college bullies. Sure Mohamed O. Mohamud might say he’s a Muslim terrorist who wants to kill Americans– but the good people at NBC know better. He’s not a terrorist. He’s just misunderstood. Deep down inside him, there’s gushing oil wells of untapped good.Mohamed O. Mohamud joins Fort Hood terrorist Major Nidal Hassan (who came down not with Muslim Murder Madness, but a virulent airborne form of PTSD) and Times Square bomber Faisal Shazad (suffering from uncontrollable Foreclosure Fever) on the analyst’s couch. Another misunderstood victim of poorly articulated rage that led him to snap and try to kill a whole bunch of people, who coincidentally happened not to be Muslim.Read the full story here.

• Europe Debt Fears Hit More Secure Countries.Fears among European bondholders spread Tuesday from the weakest members of the euro zone to other countries, including Italy and Belgium, spurring a stepped-up search for a solution to a crisis that is increasingly putting political as well as financial strain on Europe’s decade-old monetary union. Reflecting those worries, the euro slipped to $1.3008 at midafternoon in the United States from $1.3125 late Monday. As recently as Nov. 5, the euro traded above $1.40. Despite the commitment of 200 billion euros, or $260 billion, in bailout funds to Europe’s two most stricken nations — Greece and Ireland — institutional investors were unimpressed with the rescue effort this weekend of Ireland and continued to sell bond holdings in the weaker euro-zone economies.But what is worse for the European Union and an increasingly stretched International Monetary Fund is that investors have begun to disgorge some of their positions in Belgium, Italy and even Germany. Even as the yields on the 10-year bonds of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain ended trading Tuesday off their highs for the day, attention in Brussels turned to the rise on Italian sovereign debt to 4.64 percent, of Belgian bonds to 3.97 percent and the recent increase of German bonds, the European benchmark, which at 2.67 percent were down from Monday but well above the 2.1 percent of last summer.Read the full story here.

• Smithsonian Pulls Video of Ant-Covered Jesus But Leaves Images of Naked Brothers Kissing, Genitalia, Men in Chains, and Ellen DeGeneres Grabbing Her Breasts. The Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery announced today that it will remove a video that includes images of ants swarming over Jesus Christ on a crucifix, but will keep in place images of brothers kissing, Ellen DeGeneres grabbing her breasts, a video of a young man entering the gay life, sadomasochism, and a painting made with nail polish and the cremated ashes of a man with AIDS who committed suicide.The action by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery came after CNSNews.com reported details of the exhibit on Monday and reaction to the report sparked criticism from religious leaders and members of Congress.“I regret that some reports about the exhibit have created an impression that the video is intentionally sacrilegious. In fact, the artist’s intention was to depict the suffering of an AIDS victim.“It was not the museum’s intention to offend. We are removing the video today.”Read the full story here.

• HT:AmnonandJonathan.The rescue of Jews in the Italian Zone of occupied Croatia.Daniel Carpi. Between Mussolini and Hitler: The Jews and the Italian Authorities in France and Tunisia.Aside from a couple of misspellings of proper nouns, the translation from Hebrew reads well and the scholarship fills a gap in the historiography of Fascist behavior in the Holocaust. This thorough investigation is at times exceedingly complex because of the intricacies of tri-national political relations in a period of world war. One wishes that Carpi had taken additional space to explore further some of the motivations of the Italian officials in going the extra step to save certain Jews and not others. As he himself points out throughout this exhaustive study, protection of the Jews by the Italians went beyond political and economic considerations, yet the personalist aspect remains beyond the scope of what Carpi set out to do in his otherwise excellent book. Read the full story here.

• There should be no orphans in Russia - Medvedev.Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said there should be no orphans in Russia because the main goal for orphanages is to help families to adopt children."In our country, unfortunately, there are still 130,000 children, who remain without a family; they have neither parents nor guardians. They are denied the most important thing: family warmth," the president said in his state of the nation address to both houses of parliament."Guardianship must be directly focused on child placement in families and helping foster families," Medvedev said. There should be no un-adopted children in our country."The president said that much needs to be done in the country "so the phrase 'abandoned children' disappears from our lives."Read the full story here.

• And now for something completely different.Frozen Britain grinds to a halt as 57% of commuters arrive late for work... and police advise them to head home early.More than half of Britain arrived late for work today after heavy snow and ice caused widespread travel chaos.But those who did manage to make it in on time are being urged by police to leave early to avoid a repeat of last night's nightmare journey home.Large swathes of the country have been brought to a standstill - with many roads, rail lines and airports forced to close, while thousands of children have been forced to stay at home after their schools were shut. Up to 600 flights have been delayed or cancelled at Gatwick Airport alone.It comes after a night of more heavy snow in which passengers were forced to sleep in broken-down trains.Shops are even running out of basics such as milk and bread, as lorries struggle to make deliveries.Hmmmm.....дед мороз came back with a vengeance?Read the full story here.