MFS - The Other News

                          Morning Posting.

• China Bank Moves to Buy U.S. Branches. CHICAGO—China's biggest bank signed an agreement that would make it the first Beijing-controlled financial institution to acquire retail bank branches in the U.S., though regulators could still block the deal.Under the deal, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., by some measures the world's largest bank, agreed to acquire a majority stake in Bank of East Asia Ltd.'s U.S. subsidiary. ICBC will pay $140 million for an 80% stake. Bank of East Asia, which is a publicly traded company based in Hong Kong, has a total of 13 branches in New York and California. ICBC and Bank of East Asia have talked to U.S. regulators about the deal, these people said.The move represents what could be the start of big expansions by Chinese financial institutions in the U.S. Signed in Chicago on the last day of Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit to the U.S., the move, comes as both Beijing and Washington are calling for greater commercial ties between the two countries.The agreement was signed at the Hilton Chicago as part of a slew of pacts announced by roughly 60 U.S. and Chinese companies at a giant "signing ceremony" organized on Friday by China's Commerce Ministry and its U.S. counterpart. The deal, if approved by U.S. regulators, would allow ICBC to gain relatively quick access to American depositors. Right now, ICBC has one branch in New York, but it isn't involved in the retail-banking business. Bank of China Ltd. is the only mainland Chinese bank that has a retail license in the U.S. market. The bank, also state owned, has two branches in New York and one in Los Angeles. It recently has started allowing American customers to buy and sell the Chinese currency through its U.S. branches.The decision by Bank of China is the latest move by China to allow the yuan, whose value is still tightly controlled by the government, to become an international currency that can be used for trade and investment.Read the full story here.

• Suicide bombing - Explosion at Domodedovo Airport in Moscow kills 35, injures 130.MOSCOW - An explosion ripped through the international arrivals hall at Moscow's busiest airport on Monday, killing 35 people and wounding about 130, officials said.Eyewitnesses said two terrorists blew themselves up as people emerged from the international arrivals zone at 16:40.The Russian president called it a terror attack.The state RIA Novosti news agency, citing law enforcement sources, said the mid-afternoon explosion at Domodedovo Airport may have been caused by a suicide bomber.Amateur video posted on YouTube showed the terminal engulfed by smoke, with a pile of bodies in one section and other bodies scattered around the floor. Luggage lay strewn across the ground and there were several small fires. A dazed man in a suit pushed a baggage cart through the carnage."From the preliminary information we have, it was a terror attack," President Dmitry Medvedev told officials in a televised briefing.He ordered authorities to beef up security at Moscow's two other commercial airports and other key transport facilities, including the subway system, the target of past terror attacks. He said the explosion demonstrated that security regulations had been breached.Medvedev postponed his planned Tuesday departure for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he was to give the opening address on Wednesday.Read the full story here,Fifty-one people have been hospitalized after Moscow Domodedovo International Airport's deadly suicide bombing that killed at least 35 and injured another 130,more here and here from Russian Novosti (English).Video report RT,here. and here.Live news updates here from RT.

• BREAKING: Court Tosses Emanuel Off Ballot!CHICAGO (CBS) – The Illinois Appellate Court has tossed mayoral frontrunner Rahm Emanuel off the ballot, reversing the decision of a lower court.The Appellate Court reached a 2-1 decision to remove Emanuel.Appellate judges Thomas Hoffman and Shelvin Louise Marie Hall ruled against Emanuel. Justice Bertina Lampkin voted in favor of keeping President Obama’s former chief of staff on the Feb. 22 ballot.“It’s a surprise,” said Kevin Forde, the attorney who argued on Emanuel’s behalf.Emanuel’s attorneys are expected to use Lampkin’s dissenting opinion to appeal the case to the Illinois Supreme Court.In today’s ruling, Hoffman wrote: “We … order that the candidate’s name be excluded (or if, necessary, be removed) from the ballot from Chicago’s Feb. 22, 2011.”Read the full story here.

• UPDATE! Police may have known about terror attack in advance!Police may have had a tip off about the terrorist attack at Domodedovo – but were unable to prevent three men from getting into the airport, helping an accomplice blow himself up and leaving again.An unofficial source told RIA Novosti that law enforcement officials knew there would be an attack on Monday afternoon at one of the city’s airports and that police had been on the trail of three suspects.But they were apparently unable to stop the trio getting into the airport and unleashing the deadly blast, which killed 31 and injured 130.The suicide bomber detonated his weapon at 4:37 pm in an area outside the exit from the customs green channel.This part of the airport is typically crowded with friends and families waiting to meet passengers and taxi drivers looking for fares.And eye-witnesses returning to Aeroexpress terminal at Paveltsky Railway Station told The Moscow News that the area had been covered in blue plastic as a clear-up operation got underway.There were unconfirmed reports of a second explosion at the scene, but officials would not comment on that.Meanwhile Interfax reported that airport staff were doing everything possible to prevent a further blast – including shutting down mobile phone connections.The emergency services have opened up a hotline with more information for those who are concerned that their friends and relatives might have been caught up in the blast.Read the full story here.

• HT:LegalInsurrection.Exclusive - First Draft of Obama's SOTU Speech!First draft of Obama's upcoming State of the Union Address, as edited by the White House communications team:My Fellow Americans, I have a plan, but I can't tell you about it because you are worried about jobs. If I really cared what you thought about jobs, I would have focused on jobs from day one instead of Obamacare. But one of my jobs was to transform the nation regardless of what you thought, so your jobs really didn't matter to me.Read the full "speech" here.

• HT:NewsRealBlog.Washington Post and Salon Put Christianity in the Silencing Crosshairs.Warning: Christianity is violent, we must put it in the crosshairs and get rid of those defending it.Anti-Christian, Israel-loathing leftists gnash their teeth whenever Christians attempt the intolerable—defend Christianity as peace-loving. Just don’t utter anything negative about Islam or its violent practices–murdering non-Muslims and honor killing its followers. Such daring may put you in the crosshairs of media silencing.Washington Post’s “On Faith Blog” columnist and theologian Dr. Willis E. Elliot found himself silenced by the Post for expressing historical facts: Islam is violent, Christianity practices peace. Such rhetoric is simply too much for the Post to handle. Islam deserves absolution and complete tolerance for doing such a bang-up job beheading the West and annihilating as many nasty Jews as possible.Salon.com agrees with the Post pulling Dr. Elliot’s column. After all, Christianity is violent, because a “monster” anti-abortion Christian fanatic murdered abortionist Dr. George Tiller and Westboro Baptist Church crazies protest funerals, demanding all U.S. soldiers be murdered. Oh yes, that proves Christianity is aggressive!Salon.com’s Alex Pareene attacked Dr. Elliot for stating:Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” Islam, to the contrary, is essentially hostile to “the infidels.” Humanist: Calling evil good is bad news, but the worst news is violence done in the name of God (spelled out, for example, in Mohamed Atta’s theological justification for the attack he led, “9/11”). Blasphemy… is currently in the news only when Muslims become violent, or threaten violence, when they feel offended: when we Christians feel offended, almost never do we become violent, and almost always we suffer the disrespect in silence.Read the full story here.

• HT:JIDF.Canada - Wave of antisemitic crime strikes Montreal!(Jewish Tribune) In what police are calling related incidents, six Jewish institutions in the cities of Cote St. Luc and Hampstead were the targets of vandalism Sunday morning.Between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. one or more individuals hurled rocks shattering windows at five Cote St. Luc institutions: the Shaare Zedek, Beth Rambam, Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem, the Hebrew Day school attached to Beth Zion synagogue and the Yeshiva Yavne as well as one Hampstead synagogue: the Dorshei Emet congregation.“Events of mischief were perpetrated towards Jewish institutions where objects were thrown at the windows of those buildings, causing minor damage. At this point, no suspects have been arrested and the investigation is ongoing,” said Simon Delorme, a Montreal police spokesperson. “We do not know how many suspects there are, however, our investigation team is looking into surveillance videotape from one of the institutions.”As of now, police could not say whether Sunday’s events are related to the October act of vandalism at the Young Israel of Chomedey Synagogue, however, they did not rule out the possibility.For what is normally a peaceful community, the string of events are shocking. However, they are being viewed as a clear call to action.“The latest rash of antisemitic acts, committed all on the same night and simultaneously on multiple Jewish institutions, cannot be simply dismissed as random acts of vandalism, nor can they be ignored,” said Moïse Moghrabi, Quebec Chair, League for Human Rights of B’nai Brith. “These hate crimes are specifically designed to shake the sense of security and to terrorize the Jewish community and it is no longer enough or acceptable that these crimes be merely reported and classified.As victims of the attack, both Rabbi Alan Bright of the Shaare Zedek Synagogue and Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz from the Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem see the need to act swiftly to prevent any escalation of violence towards the Jewish community.“Growing up in the UK where the Jewish community was constantly victimized by these type of incidents, I can say that unless our public officials respond in a swift and unrelenting manner to all types of racial hatred, we are in for a very tough ride here,” said Rabbi Bright. “Canadians need to wake up and realize they are no longer the sleepy peace haven immune from such virulent hatred. It starts with bricks being thrown through windows and progresses to the burning of buildings and attacks on individuals.”“These hate crimes are specifically designed to shake the sense of security and to terrorize the Jewish community.“All levels of authority must take the necessary active steps to properly protect our community and all Quebecers must clearly and loudly condemn these crimes and reiterate that tolerance is the cornerstone of Quebec society and that these cowardly acts will not be tolerated.”Hmmmm.....It's high time for the Canadian Government to stop this ridiculous PC policy it's only used by these Hate mongrels to grow stronger.Read the full story here.

• Three SEIU Locals--Including Chicago Chapter--Waived From Obamacare Requirement. (CNSNews.com) – Three local chapters of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)--whose political action committee spent $27 million supporting Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election--have received temporary waivers from a provision in the Obamacare law.The three SEIU chapters include the Local 25 in Obama’s hometown of Chicago.The waivers allow health insurance plans to limit how much they will spend on a policy holder’s medical coverage for a given year. Under the new health care law, however, such annual limits are phased out by the year 2014. (Under HHS regulations, annual limits can be no less than $750,000 for 2011, no less than $1.25 million in 2012 and no less than $2 million in 2013.)The SEIU, with more than 2 million members nationally, includes health care workers, janitors, security guards, and state and local government workers.The three SEIU locals, covering a total of 36,064 enrollees, are covered by the federal waivers, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.So far, the Obama administration has issued waivers to 222 entities, including businesses, unions and charitable organizations. Of that total, 45 were labor organizations.A total of 1,507,418 enrollees are now included in the waivers. More than one-third -- 512,315 – of the enrollees affected were insured by union health plans.The SEIU's Committee on Political Education made $27,829,845.91 in independent expenditures on Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008. SEIU-affiliated groups in Illinois have long supported Obama’s campaigns and endorsed him for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in 2004. In 2008, the national union backed Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.Hmmmmm......Chicago politics?Read the full story here.

• HT:TheAmericanSpectator.A Natural Born Job Killer.Don't believe the media. Obamacare is already adding to the unemployment rolls.Commenting on the mainstream media of his day, Thomas Jefferson famously observed that "The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." Coming from the Sage of Monticello, whose credentials as an advocate of the free press were pretty darned solid, this is an arresting statement. And it is evident that the news business has changed little during the two centuries that have come and gone since he penned that uncivil passage. Even if one ignores the "reporting" perpetrated by the New York Times and other leading lights of journalism in the wake of the Tucson shooting, the continuing relevance of Jefferson's comment can be verified by perusing the stories appearing in most prominent publications about the GOP effort to repeal Obamacare .The job losses have by no means been limited to health insurance companies. The actual providers of health care, including community hospitals, are beginning to eliminate jobs. Memorial Hospital in South Bend, Indiana, has had to cut nearly 50 jobs because Obamacare "has already started to cut reimbursement rates to hospitals across the region and the country and we expect that reality to get worse moving forward." Another small hospital, in Leominster, Massachusetts, will eliminate about 50 positions. The spokesman for that institution said the cuts were made necessary by "health care reform, with its reductions in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements." Yakima Valley Memorial, in the state of Washington, will also cut 70 to 100 jobs because "Under federal health care reform, Memorial must reduce its expenses."Read the full story here.

• HT:IsraelMatzav.Ban 'Islamophobia'! Michael Ledeen discusses an article by Pascal Bruckner which calls for banning the use of the term 'Islamophobia.' He notes that the term was coined by Iranian Islamists, as part of their campaign against the modern Western world, which was the point of the 1979 revolution that brought down the shah. And he goes on to analyze the several ways in which the word is used. First, it equates secularism with fundamentalism, by branding critics of Islam as intolerant fanatics, even when they criticize Muslims for intolerance. Second, it masks the jihad, using “Islamophobia” to deny the accuracy of their critics.Hmmmm......It's not Islamophobia ....it's Islamosophia.Read the full story here.

• Iran: Warships to sail to Mediterranean.Fleet of ships may soon enter waters very close to Israeli coast as part of drill, says admiral.A senior official in the Iranian navy revealed Sunday that the Islamic Republic plans to extend its naval range to Mediterranean waters near Israel. Rear Admiral Gholam-Reza Khadem Bigham says an Iranian fleet of warships will soon set sail for the Mediterranean and Red seas. It will be the first time Iranian ships stray so far from home. Bigham says the move is part of a year-long drill. "In addition to the drill the fleet will also collect intelligence in the region," he was quoted by the Fars agency as saying.The admiral did not say how many ships would participate in the drill. It remains unclear whether Egypt will allow the fleet to pass through the Suez Canal.Bigham added that a fleet of submarines would also be launched soon, though the Islamic Republic is currently known to have just a small number of submarines with conventional abilities under its command.Hmmmm......Of course the Leviathan gas field and the recognition of the Lebanon Sea Borders has nothing to do with this?Read the full story here.More here.

• Iran: 64 people executed in 24 days.Six people executed in Islamic Republic on Monday alone, including two opposition activists, three rapists, one serial killer. Unprecedented wave of executions in the Islamic Republic. Iran executed six people on Monday bringing the number of executions since the beginning of 2011 to 64, an average of one person every nine hours.It was reported that among those executed were two activists who were members of an exiled group that joined post-election protests. The Tehran prosecutor's office named the two as Jafar Kazemi and Mohammad Ali Hajaghaei. In addition, those executed included three men accused of sexual assault and a serial killer who was sentenced to a public flogging. Besides drug charges, the Iranian constitution gives out a death sentence for murder, rape, adultery, armed robbery and espionage. Most of the citizens executed since the beginning of the year were convicted of drug offences. Just last week, ten drug smugglers were executed. National media outlets reported that the ten were flogged and fined before they were killed.The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran accused the regime's security forces of participating in an "execution celebration" though Tehran claims that they stiffened drug offence sentences in a bid to cope with the phenomenon.Iran is considered the country with the highest rate of executions in the world, relative to the population, and ranked second after China, in the number of annual executions. Last year, at least 180 people were executed in Iran. Read the full story here.

• "Life or Death in Iran's prisons".Executed Political Prisoner’s Wife: “They Didn’t Inform Me Or His Lawyer”.On Monday morning, January 24, 2011, two political prisoners, Jafar Kazemi and Mohammad Ali Haj Aghaie were executed by the Islamic Republic of Iran.In a telephone interview with the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Jafar Kazemi’s wife said that when she went to visit her husband at Evin Prison a few hours ago, she was informed that he had been executed earlier this morning. “They executed him without informing us or his lawyer. They took my husband last week and asked him to give a [television] interview. The interrogator told him ‘whether or not you give an interview, you will be executed in less than a week.’ My husband did not agree to give the interview. They took him from there to the Sentence Implementation Unit, where they put a noose around his neck, but then they changed their mind and returned him [to his cell]. This is supposed to have been a miracle,” Roudabeh Akbari told the Campaign.“This morning we went to visit with him. We filled out a [visitation request] card, too. But they came back and told us that they had hanged him. They said ‘If we want to give you his body, we will call you. Go and take it easy. It’s all finished now.’ Of course, that’s if they want to give his corpse to us. Because in the case of Mr. Saremi, they took the body and buried it. It is very likely that they may want to do the same thing with my husband,” said Jafar Kazemi’s wife.“Please, I only ask you to tell the world what kinds of criminals and felons they are. Let the world know. How long does the world want to wait? How long do you want to issue statements and put up with them? Can you hear me?” said Roudabeh Akbari.“They hanged him at 4:00 a.m., because they perform [the executions] early in the morning. They had no evidence, only a few photographs or videos taken and sent during the post-election gatherings. Is the punishment for this the death penalty? According to their own Constitution…punishment for someone who propagates against the regime is one to six years in prison. Look at the sentences they have been handing out. But God is great and he is up there, and he will seek my and my children’s revenge,” said the political prisoner’s wife.“I went to the Prosecutor’s Office last Saturday to ask for an appointment. They said the Prosecutor has told them: ‘Don’t let this woman in here. We want nothing to do with her and we will not accept any letters from her.’ And now they want to threaten me again, saying ‘why do you interview?’ When they would not hear me at all, shouldn’t I have said what was happening to us?” she said about her recent efforts to pursue her husband’s case.
  Hmmmm......Reaction from the Obama administration.....Busy with the re-election?Read the full story here.

• The World from The Hill: U.N. funding an early target for House Republicans.A key House Republican is quickly pressing forward with her goals to scale back U.S. funding for the United Nations. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told The Hill that oversight would be a key function of the panel, particularly funding to the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) that is "a waste of taxpayer dollars.""I'd like to make sure that we once and for all kill all U.S. funding for that beast," she said last month. "Because I don't think that it advances U.S. interests, I don't think that that's a pro-democracy group, it's a rogue's gallery, pariah states, they belong there because they don't want to be sanctioned."Neuer told The Hill that UN Watch is going to release new data at the briefing on how the HRC has been run since then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan dissolved the Human Rights Commission in 2006. Annan called the commission "politicized" at the time, but the commission's replacement, the HRC, has attracted many critics as well. "We will commend the efforts of the U.S. delegation here in Geneva, including [Ambassador] Eileen Donohoe" in briefing the Foreign Affairs Committee, Neuer said, saying the team is "working hard to minimize the damage of the council," but is often in the minority to powerful, controversial members such as Libya, Cuba, China, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia."They're the ones who run the shop," he said, adding of Obama's initiative to place a U.S. representative on the council with the intention of reforming from within that it was "naive for anyone to have thought it would change significantly."Ros-Lehtinen, one of many lawmakers critical of Obama for that 2009 decision, led the charge against the United Nations in the 111th Congress, introducing bills urging transparency and accountability as well as the withholding of funding.Read the full story here.

• The mean 'Helmand' streets where British troops are trained by Afghan villagers... in NORFOLK.Afghans in traditional dress loiter in the bazaar while the commander of Army unit reassures village elders that his troops are here to protect them.Yet this Helmand marketplace is in fact buried deep in the eastern English county of Norfolk – more than 3,000 miles from where the soldiers’ comrades are fighting the Taliban.The village, Ishmara, which lies within the 30,000-acre Stanford Training Area complex, seven miles from Thetford, is designed to look, feel, and sound like the real thing.It is currently being used by troops from 1 Rifles who are preparing to be deployed in Helmand province this spring.Central to the training is soldiers' interactions with the ‘locals,’ around 120 Afghan exiles, who have volunteered to help British forces navigate the culture of southern Afghanistan.The facility, built in 2008, has houses, shops and open markets, while the exiles play the role of villagers.Soldiers patrol the bazaar, where plastic fruit fills the crates.How long the village will exist remains to be seen, however. If Prime Minister David Cameron keeps his promise and all British combat troops are pulled out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014, the area could well be transformed into another part of the world.Or even back to Norfolk.Read the full story here.

• Another myth revived about Israel.Ex-CIA officers warn of violence without peace progress. “American lives are being lost today because of the perpetuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” says Bruce Riedel in Washington.The Jerusalem Post reports:A former CIA officer warned Thursday that a new conflict in the Middle East awaited if there was no progress in making peace between Israelis and Palestinians. "In the absence of a new American initiative to try to break the stalemate, there will be another war in the Middle East," argued Bruce Riedel, who said that building economic prosperity for Palestinians in the West Bank was not sufficient, as history has demonstrated.This was the same hooey that got Gen. David Petraeus tied up in knots a while back when he suggested in written testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Palestinian conflict "foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel" and that the failure to satisfy the Palestinians' desire for a state poses a threat to our national interests. Petraeus quickly backpedaled (even going to the U.S. Holocaust Museum to make amends) with the help of loyal admirers. However, the damage was done. Israel's most vicious critics ran with the argument.Indeed, the administration has piped down on its assertion of "linkage" between a peace deal and progress on containing the Iranian threat. And it has been a long time since Obama asserted that Americans risk losing "blood and treasure" so long as the non-peace process fails to reach a successful conclusion.Therefore, as Danielle Pletka of AEI told me last night, it's disturbing to see the argument revived by a former CIA official "smart enough to know that the plight of the Palestinians has nothing to do with the motivations of jihadists or the lives of Americans." She reminds us, "Peace between Israel and the Palestinians has become uninteresting to the vast mass of the Arab world, a rhetorical commitment and nothing more."Unfortunately, myths die hard, especially ones that help Israel's foes.Hmmmmm......"They don't trust me because of my middle name"?Read the full story here.

• HT:Debka.Obama to withhold veto on Palestinian settlement condemnation!Israel and the US are set for a collision if President Barack Obama stands by his refusal to veto a Palestinian-Arab motion due to be tabled at the UN Security Council condemning Israel for its settlement policy in the West Bank and Jerusalem, debkafile's Washington sources report. If he did, he would be the first US president to let an anti-Israel motion go through the Security Council; building on the West Bank and even in the forty-year old suburbs of East Jerusalem would become illegal, as would also municipal, police and military actions in these places.This situation would throw Israel's relations with the US, the UN and the European Union into deep crisis. By failing to block such a motion, Obama would encourage the Palestinians and hostile Arab states to continue to use the UN Security Council to undermine Israel's legitimacy and even recognize a unilateral Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders without negotiations.The White House in Washington is maintaining a façade of normalcy in relations with the Netanyahu government. Last week, two senior US officials – Dennis Ross, presidential adviser on Iran and the Middle East, and Fred Hof, George Mitchell's deputy and adviser on Syria and Lebanon, arrived in Jerusalem with a new proposal: The Obama administration and Netanyahu government would work out the security arrangements to be incorporated in a potential peace accord with the Palestinians and so ease the path toward a deal on borders.However, debkafile's sources point out that by failing to veto a Palestinian motion on settlements, Obama is a priori dictating future borders which no mainstream Israeli party. even the dovish Kadima, would accept, because it would entail turning the clock to the period before the 1967 war, one of the most hazardous of Israel's history. Every Israeli government since then its absolutely committed to obtaining secure and defensible borders in any accommodation.Hmmmmm......"They don't trust me because of my middle name"?Read the full story here.

• HT:BigGovernment.Agenda 21 Part II: Globalist Totalitarian Dictatorship Invading a Town near You–With Your Permission.Part I traced the sustainable development movement to longstanding U.N. environmental and population initiatives with unmistakably Marxist goals. They talk about saving the environment, but most of the fine print refers to “equity,” “social justice,” “fair distribution” and other Marxist terms. “Global warming” is the latest scare tactic, but population control never left the scene. The U.N.’s answer: free condoms.As I said before, these people are nuts.The discredited work of Dr. Paul Ehrlich, population prophet of doom, and Obama’s lunatic Science Czar, John Holdren, are referred to in U.N. population studies, and Ehrlich was cited in Agenda 21’s Biodiversity Assessment Report under “Gender Perspectives.” That’s right; the feminists have a special perspective on global warming too.So the pretext doesn’t matter. They will always find one, because in their minds the solution to everything, poverty, overpopulation, environmental degradation, or even who should win Dancing with the Stars, is Socialism. And the way they get there is by creating a crisis.To promote their socialist nightmare, Marxists must use deceptive language and tactics. In “Sustainable Development” they have found a magic mantra. It has allowed them to insinuate all their socialist fantasies into our legal code, under our noses, with little or no fanfare, scant public debate and graveyard noises from our treacherously AWOL mass media, right down to the local level – with our permission. Agenda 21, a UN initiative that was never endorsed by the U.S. Senate, as all international agreements must be, has penetrated into the ordinances of county and city governments all over America.Next: Agenda 21 Part III: Globalist Totalitarian Agenda Demands the Extinction of Man – Except for the “Good Guys”Read the full story here.

• HT:AmnonAndJonathan.Yad Vashem launches Farsi YouTube channel.JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Yad Vashem has launched a YouTube channel in Farsi and an expanded version of its Farsi website.The Farsi YouTube channel launched Sunday contains survivor testimonies, archival footage and mini-lectures by Holocaust historians on topics such as contemporary anti-Semitism, and what makes the Holocaust a unique historical event.The comprehensive new website includes a chronological and thematic narrative about the Holocaust with related video, photos, documents and artifacts; frequently asked questions about the Holocaust; a lexicon of terms; online exhibitions including a multimedia presentation of the Auschwitz Album in Farsi; and stories of Righteous Among the Nations.“One of our primary goals is to make credible information about the Holocaust accessible to as wide an audience as possible,” said Avner Shalev, the chairman of Yad Vashem. “Today, when there is so much disinformation and distortion easily available online, we provide an alternative to anyone who is interested in the truth.”Hmmmm.......‘Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses -because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened’General Dwight Eisenhower.Read the full story here.

• In China, Hu’s Successor Is Being Quietly Groomed.BEIJING — President Hu Jintao of China returned home this weekend after a trip intended to repair relations with the United States. But the next time the White House marches out the honor guard and polishes the crystal for a Chinese leader, it is unlikely to be for Mr. Hu. Following a secretive succession plan sketched out years ago, Mr. Hu has already begun preparing for his departure from power, passing the baton to his presumed successor, a former provincial leader named Xi Jinping, now China’s vice president. While Mr. Xi is expected to formally take the reins next year in China, the world’s second-largest economy and fastest-modernizing military power, he remains a cipher to most people, even in China. Read the full story here.

• Tucson Hero to Sit With Michelle Obama at State of the Union on his Birthday.Daniel Hernandez Jr., one of the heroes of the mass shooting in Tucson, Ariz., two weeks ago, tells ABC News that he will be sitting, along with his father, Daniel Hernandez Sr., with Michelle Obama at the State of the Union on Tuesday, which happens to be his 21st birthday."I'm both honored and excited to have the opportunity to travel to our nation's Capitol for a once in a lifetime event. Also the chance to bring my father along for his first trip to Washington, D.C. The State of the Union is a pivotal moment because it is our opportunity to find where we are and where we will be going as a nation in this upcoming year," Hernandez said.Two weeks ago, Hernandez, an intern for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, rushed to her aid when Jared Loughner allegedly opened fire at one of her public events, killing six people and wounding 14 others, including Giffords.Hmmmm....."Together We Thrive" on the murder of innocent people,how long will they keep "Milking" this tragedy?Read the full "story" here.

• HT:BigPeace.Muslim Mass Prayers in the Streets: First We Take Paris, Then We Take Pleven.Over the last few years, we’ve all become familiar with the sight of masses of Muslim men clogging up public spaces in major Western European cities with their posteriors pointed skyward as they pray towards Mecca.Paris is the most notorious in this regard, although similar occasions have been observed in Switzerland, Germany, Britain, and other countries — even across the Atlantic in front of the U.S. Capitol. To devout Muslims, such actions are well understood to be a symbolic occupation of infidel territory, and a preliminary claim of that territory for Islam.Now the same thing has happened in the Bulgarian city of Pleven. Libyan tourists hold prayer in the center of Pleven [fifth-largest Bulgarian city — translator].Libyan tourists held their prayer in the middle of the very central square of Pleven yesterday. Despite the cold and freezing temperatures, the group of youths visiting our country as tourists spread their prayer rugs and performed their regular act of worship…RR offers this commentary:The journalist goes on to say in a playful tone that the passersby were curious and impressed by the unusual sight.No comment in the article that:

1. There is a functioning mosque, a relic of the 500-year Turkish Muslim yoke over this country, about 500 meters from the place of unlicensed public worship. It could easily accommodate this group of “tourists”.
2. The “regular act of worship” was rather irregular, as there are no facilities on the central square of Pleven for the ablutions that must necessarily precede Muslim prayer. Thus the Libyan “youth tourists” deliberately broke some rules in favor of the bigger aim — to hold this demonstration of reconquista.
3. It is a demonstration of reconquista indeed, as the prayer was held immediately opposite the building visible in the background of this photo:This is a huge memorial building hosting a chapel, dedicated to the Russian and Romanian soldiers who fell for the Liberation of Bulgaria during the Siege of Plevna of 1877. The remains of many of these soldiers are preserved in the mausoleum.The “Libyan tourist youths” according to the photo in the first link are singing their Allahu akhbar facing this chapel just 50-60 meters away. I know the place very well, as I lived for fifteen years in Pleven.In short, this “curious event” was in effect a highly symbolic act.Suffice it to add that organized worship in public places in Bulgaria is regulated, so if a Protestant group, a Catholic parish, or even an Orthodox priest (the traditional denomination) plan some public ceremony or prayers, they are required to have permission from the local mayor.But — when the powerful nations of Great Britain, France, and Germany tolerate the Muslim conquest symbolically sealed by the “faithful” occupying public places, what remains to a nation of seven million in the backyard of Europe? Submit and relax…Hmmmm......"We don't want to take over your country"?Read the full story here.

• HT:NewsRealBlog.How Was School Today, Honey? Great! I Practiced Fellatio.Oh, the irony. While Americans are busy chastising ‘Tiger mom’ Amy Chua for her observations about the state of parenting in the United States, at Markham Elementary School in Oakland, CA, second grade students got naked in their classroom. And engaged in oral sex. And the teacher was there. In the classroom. While it was going on.Here we are, publicly debating whether or not parenting in America is seriously lacking, and along comes a story about seven-year-olds who are licking each other’s private parts in school.Good Lord, America: wake up. This is pathetic. Pitiful. Egregious. Flat out disgraceful. Amy Chua may not have used this terminology to describe how American parents, or just adults in general, have failed our nation’s kids – but she could have. And she’d be right.When I heard this story, I was reminded of Chua’s Today show interview with Meredith Vieira. Chua used teen sex, or teenage pregnancy, as an example (along with rampant drug use and the abdication of parental authority) of where Western parenting has gone wrong. Vieira was horrified. Wait a minute, she said.“It’s not like we condone that.”Vieira did what one would expect of any left wing member of the media elite: she defended the parents of America. She had to – otherwise they’d feel bad about doing a bad job of raising their kids. And we can’t have that.Meanwhile, while second graders in China are busy learning their ABCs in a traditional classroom environment where the teachers – not the kids – are in control, second graders in America are doing something else altogether. And we wonder why China is running circles around America.One has to wonder what images the children are seeing on television, at home or with their friends that lead to this kind of behavior,” writes Boyce Watkins, Ph.D.It’s time we called a spade a spade. American parenting is, as Chua and her Asian friends say, “shocking.’ Perhaps a little stigma is just what American parents need.Hmmmmm.......Where are the "Good old Days"?Read the full story here.