MFS - The Other News

                      Morning  Posting.

• Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.

• Libya Live Blog - April 21. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Syria Live Blog - April 21. Here (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world low seismic activity in Japan  today between 4.5 and 4.7! More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 93.On 21.04.2011 at 03:34 GMT+2
  
  Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan visited the Fukushima prefecture as the 20-km evacuation area around the crippled nuclear power plant was officially declared a no-go zone on Thursday, Japan Today reported. The authorities officially banned all unauthorized entry to areas within a 20-kilometer radius of the plant starting from midnight local time. The prime minister was "to discuss the plans for strict enforcement of the evacuation zone" with local officials and evacuees during his visit, the news portal said. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the move was aimed at preventing radiation exposure and looting. Until Thursday, police could not legally deny entry to evacuees, who returned to their homes after the evacuation announcement on March 12. Japanese officials plan to organize short trips for residents willing to collect their belongings in the near future. Despite growing concern of radioactive fallout on the Russian territory, the Russian emergencies ministry said that radiation levels in Russia's Far East remained within the norm and ranged from 11 to 19 micro roentgen per hour on Thursday. Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was seriously damaged by a powerful earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11. Fukushima's operator has since been struggling to stop radioactive leaks from the plant's crippled reactors. Almost 80,000 people living within the evacuation zone were forced to flee their homes.Source : Here .

• Japan  : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to : Paul Langley's Nuclear History Blog

• FBI Seeks 'Person of Interest' in Attempted Mall Bombing in Colorado.(Foxnews).The FBI is seeking a “person of interest” in an attempted bombing on a Colorado mall, Fox 31 Denver reported Wednesday.The incident came 12 years to the day of the deadly school shooting at Columbine High School, which is located just one mile away from the mall.The FBI released two images of the person that were recorded on surveillance video, and investigators are asking for the public's help in identifying the man."He's a person of interest, not a suspect," Jefferson County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Jackie Kelley said. "He was in the area, so he may be a witness."Police describe him as a white male with graying hair and a silver mustache. He was wearing a dark colored cap with a light colored logo on the front, along with a gray and white horizontally stripped shirt, dark jacket with silver buttons, blue jeans, and dark colored shoes.The first device was found at about 11:50 a.m. when a mall employee noticed a fire in a hallway near the food court, the witness told Fox 31. The worker immediately contacted security officers who began evacuating the sprawling indoor shopping center.The employee said the device was attached to two camping propane tanks, neither of which exploded.The Jefferson County Bomb Squad responded and later found a pipe bomb in the same hallway, Kelley said.When crews tried to explode the pipe bomb using a remote-controlled robot, it appeared to fall apart and detonation became unnecessary.Kelley refused to elaborate on the level of sophistication involved in the bombs' designs, but she did say the bombs could have been potentially devastating to such a high traffic area.“We obviously have a suspect who is still at large. We have a case that we want to prosecute and an arrest we want to make, so we’re going to be a little tight lipped around that,” Kelley said earlier Wednesday afternoon.The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirms that it is assisting in the investigation, but would not immediately classify this as a case of domestic terrorism.“It's too early to speculate," FBI spokesman Dave Joly told Fox 31. He said the devices could have caused “serious" damage, if they had detonated.Read the full story here.

• Obama, Let My People Go.(SultanKnish).3,000 years after the Jewish people left Egyptian slavery bound for the land of Israel, their freedom remains as elusive as ever. A new Pharaoh adjacent not to the Nile, but the Potomac, looks out from the White House and issues his decrees regarding the Jews.No sooner does a Jew build a house in Jerusalem, than one of the Pharaoh's flunkies rushes to condemn him for it. A week before Passover, one of those flunkies announced that the administration was both "deeply concerned" and "very worried" about new Jewish homes in Jerusalem. A day later Jewish families hoping to be able to live in their own holy city were greeted with the announcement that approval for more housing had been suspended to avoid offending the little man with the big ears in the White House.The Obama Administration has spent more time condemning housing in Jerusalem, than genocide in the Sudan. If some parts of Israel are constantly being shelled by terrorists, the Gilo neighborhood of Jerusalem is constantly being shelled by administration spokesmen. Year after year, the people of an overcrowded city are frustrated in their efforts to find a place to live, when some White House or State Department flunky finishes sipping his coffee, gets up in front of a microphone and expresses the grave concern of his master that a new condominium might go up in a place where Jews had been living long before the religion of Obama's grandmother was even a twinkle in her mad prophet's eye.Building permits in Jerusalem now undergo a perverse kind of astrology. Approvals for every stage of the process must happen at a time when no administration official is visiting Jerusalem, and no Israeli official is visiting the US. When Biden visited Jerusalem at the same time that a municipal housing approval came through-- the administration staged a convulsive spectacle.Biden threw a fit and stood up Netanyahu, Hillary Clinton shrilled that the housing approvals "were not only an insult to Biden, but an insult to the United States" and then spent 43 minutes berating the prime minister over the phone over what would have been a minor municipal issue in her own country. "There was an affront, it was an insult", chimed in David Axelrod. A hundred media outlets took up the theme. The theme being that the Jews had gotten so arrogant that they were approving construction in their own city at the same time that a politician who had three times endorsed Jerusalem as the undivided capital had stopped by for a visit. Pharaoh was determined to prevent the Jewish people from going off to build their own country. And now Obama is determined that Jews should not build in their own city. There is a vicious irony in the administration applying such repression before Passover, a holiday of free men and women taken out of the bonds of Egypt against the will of its tyrant. A reminder that the millions of Jews who cry out, "Next Year in Jerusalem" are reminded that a new tyrant bars their way."Let My People Go", redefined the men and women who had been Pharaoh's slaves as "Ami", the People of G-d. Not slaves of a tyrant, but a people and a nation whose only allegiance was to their Creator. To say to a tyrant, "Let My People Go" is to deny his physical and moral authority. His right to dispose of their lives as he sees fit. It begins the process of breaking the chains of the flesh, by breaking the chains of the spirit that binds a people to slavery.Obama, Let My People Go. Let them go live in Jerusalem and throughout their land. Take away your chains and your pyramids and your Palestinian state. Stop your financing of Islamic terrorists. Keep your press releases and your flacks, and your notes of "deep concern" every time a hammer hits a nail in territory claimed by your Islamic friends. Your way is not that of peace, but of appeasement. Your law is the will of terrorists and their enablers. This is not your land. It is not the land of the Muslim conquerors whose rights you so assiduously defend. You have no physical or moral authority here.Read the full story here.

• The loaf is out there: How frozen Siberian 'alien' really was BROWN BREAD.(DailyMail).We said it was too good to be true and, sadly, it was.The students behind the discovery of an alien's body at a UFO 'crash site' have admitted that it was a 'crummy' hoax made out of stale bread.Friends Timur Hilall, 18, and Kirill Vlasov, 19, shot the video that showed the alien's mangled remains frozen in snow in Irkutsk, Siberia.The pair were questioned by police over their 'extraterrestrial discovery' but admitted to their stunt.But not before their creation became an internet sensation, drawing almost 700,000 hits on YouTube.Their find was deemed serious enough for the Kremlin to get involved and a spokesman from the Russian interior ministry confirmed the hoax.'We found the alien in one of the student's homes,' he said.'It was lying under his bed and an examination of it revealed it had been made of bread crumbs which were covered in chicken skin.'Prosecutors are now considering whether or not the pair have committed any crimes.Local UFO expert, Alex Komanov, from the Russion UFO Research Centre, dismissed the find saying: 'The body is interesting. The texture is similar to a real bological entity.'However, the creature has no clothes and I am sure that intelligent beings would be dressed in something like a space suit or coveralls.'However, conspiracy theorists have already started accusing the government of a cover up. One said: 'We know what we saw. Powerful people in the military just don't want us to see this.Read the full story here.

• Debra Burlingame: Standing Down in the War on Terror.(BigPeace).“Here we have a very perverse situation where our own government knows that these people are associated with the effort to bring down America and they are not just coddling them. They are inviting them into the highest places of our national security infrastructure and giving them a guided tour.” – Debra BurlingameToday on Frank Gaffney’s Secure Freedom Radio, Debra Burlingame of Keep America Safe weighs in on the D.O.J.’s failure to prosecute un-indicted co-conspirators of the Holy-land terrorism finance trial for what whistle blowers are calling political cover. Listen here.

• 'Journalist killed' in Misrata: Tim Hetherington attacked by Gaddafi's troops.(DailyMail).Oscar-nominated war photographer Tim Hetherington killed in Libya mortar attack by Gaddafi's troops.A highly acclaimed British war photographer who was nominated for an Oscar has been killed in a mortar attack by forces loyal to Colonel Gaddafi inside the besieged city of Misrata.Tim Hetherington, 41, a four time winner of the world press photographer award, died along with an American agency journalist when they were apparently deliberately targeted by Gaddafi's forces this morning.Born in Liverpool and educated at Oxford Univeristy, Mr Hetherington also won an award last year at the Sundance Film festival for his highly-acclaimed documentary Restrepo, a film about the war in Afghanistan. The film was nominated for an Oscar this year.Chris Hondros, a New York-based photographer for Getty Images, also died yesterday after being seriously wounded, according to the company's director of photography, Pancho Bernasconi. Two other journalists were injured and last night being treated in hospital.Mr Hetherington's devastated family members and colleagues paid tribute to Mr Hetherington, a contributor to Vanity Fair magazine who lived in New York.In a statement on Vanity Fair’s website, Mr Hetherington’s family said: 'It is with great sadness we learned that our son and brother, photographer and filmmaker Tim Hetherington, was killed today in Misrata, Libya by a rocket-propelled grenade.The tragedy came as doctors in Misrata – a city of 300,000 under intense bombardment – pleaded for a ceasefire as hospitals were swamped with civilian casualties of the conflict and told how Gaddafi’s forces were indiscriminately targeting women and children.Against a backdrop of screaming from patients critically injured in the latest bombardment last night, Dr Khalid Abuflaga said that more than 200 patients were being brought to the only remaining hospital in Misrata, which is surrounded on three sides by Gaddafi tanks and fighters.The doctor added: ‘There are children with injuries from tank shells, mortar rounds and sniper fire. The United Nations is supposed to be protecting civilians – but look around you. More than 80 percent of the people here are civilians.’Aid workers said Gaddafi’s snipers were now firing on ambulances, humanitarian convoys and journalists – after the Libyan dictator claimed that he was hunting down ‘terrorists’ in Misrata.Read the full story here.

• Muslim Brotherhood Demands Appearance Before US Congress.(Ikhanweb)Dr. Mohamed Morsy, media spokesman and member of the Executive Bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood(MB) demanded that US Congress hold a special session to hear directly from the MB about their programs as Congress held a session recently with the MB.Dr. Morsy stated on Al Jazeera Satellite Channel that US fears of the MB are unfounded. He rejected the intervention of the US in Middle Eastern affairs and accused it of seeking to dominate the region for the exploitation of its raw materials, especially oil, and to make the Arab markets promote its products, especially since the real development of Egypt is definitely against American interests.Dr. Gamal Abdel Gawad, an expert on international relations at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, ruled out the possibility that Egypt will be similar to the Iranian model of governance, saying: “Egypt is like Turkey in terms of its relations with the US and the Zionist entity.”Hmmmm....And your point is ? Turkey hates Israel but just loves Iran.Read the full story here.

• Idaho GOP Gov. Otter Signs Executive Order Banning ObamaCare in His State.(AP) Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter signed an executive order on Wednesday that prohibits receiving federal funding for or otherwise implementing the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.The governor vetoed a bill to block portions of the federal health insurance overhaul in the state.Otter said Wednesday that while he is among the strongest opponents of the insurance reform, the bill passed by state lawmakers in the 2011 session would require Idaho to forego the creation of an insurance exchange.Otter said that would open the door for the federal government to step in and develop the system. The executive order allows the state to develop its own “health care solutions.”Otter was the first governor to sign a law requiring his state to sue over the federal health overhaul, branding it a government overreach.Read the full story here.

• Obama May Use Executive Order to Force Companies to Disclose Political Contributions Before Obtaining Government Contracts.(Politico).The Obama administration is considering a number of measures to compel disclosure of the kind of anonymous campaign contributions that helped finance millions of dollars of attack ads against Democrats during the 2010 elections.The White House last week began circulating a draft executive order that would require companies seeking government contracts to disclose contributions — including those that otherwise would have been secret — to groups that air political ads attacking or supporting candidates.The proposed order follows several actions by regulatory agencies that have a similar intent of making corporate and individual donations more transparent.Last month the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a decree that could result in shareholders having more say in corporate election spending. Democratic appointees to the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Election Commission are pushing measures that could make public currently anonymous contributions to outside groups.Taken together, the moves represent a broad administrative push to implement reforms that Congress failed to pass last year to blunt the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United vs. FEC in January 2010.Calling the draft executive order “an affront to the separation of powers . . . (and) to free speech,” chamber spokeswoman Blair Latoff said it “lays the groundwork for a political litmus test for companies that wish to do business with the federal government” and is “less about disclosure than intimidation.”But congressional Democrats and White House allies applauded the draft executive order as an overdue effort to prevent the 2012 elections from being hijacked by undisclosed big moneyed special interests — on both sides of the partisan divide.Hmmmm.....Eighter you're with me ,or you're against me?Read the full story here.

• End of Europe without borders? (DailyMail).Row over African immigrants threatens free travel.The EU’s scheme to abolish national borders and allow free movement of people between member states is under threat as a wave of migrants flees to Europe from strife-torn North Africa.Five major European countries are bringing back border checks on travellers to try to deter the arrival of thousands of North Africans escaping political upheaval.A major row is developing between France and Italy after the French abandoned their agreement to allow free travel and stopped trains carrying Tunisian migrants on the Italian border.Checks on documents at borders are being reintroduced by France, the Netherlands and Belgium, which is demanding that Tunisians arriving on Italian temporary permits show they have at least 10,000 euros. Austria has indicated that it is looking for ways to curb the movement of migrants, and German interior minister Jens Teschke said there would be ‘more intensive observation’ of people arriving at road and rail borders and airports.The return of inspections of travel documents is a major blow to the Schengen Agreement which allows people to move between 25 EU countries without passports or visas and without being held up by customs or immigration checks at borders.France acted on Sunday, halting trains at the northern Italian border town of Ventimiglia to prevent groups of Tunisians from entering France.Italian politicians reacted with fury. Foreign minister Franco Fattini said France had broken Schengen rules and added: ‘If the situation persists, we would save time by just saying that we are changing our minds about free circulation, which is one of the fundamental principles of the union.’However the mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, an ally of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, responded: ‘It’s easy for Italy to be generous with other people’s territory.’Read the full story here.

• Obama Being Pummeled on His Facebook Wall Prior to Today’s Townhall.(WZ).Here .

• Turkey sees Israel becoming 'apartheid island'(Ynet).Turkish President Abdullah Gul writes op-ed for NYT saying Israel-Palestinian peace necessary for democracy to be established after Arab uprisings.Turkish President Abdullah Gul wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times saying his country is interested in returning to its former role as mediator of Mideast peace talks – between Israel and the Palestinians, and the entire Arab world."The new generation of Arabs is much more conscious of democracy, freedom and national dignity," he wrote in the piece published Thursday. "In such a context, Israel cannot afford to be perceived as an apartheid island surrounded by an Arab sea of anger and hostility." Gul believes a Palestinian state will strengthen Israel, and says Turkey will do all it can to assist negotiations. The article, entitled "The Revolution's Missing Peace", says Israel is instrumental in leading the Arab countries around it towards democracy following the uprisings. "Israel, more than any other country, will need to adapt to the new political climate in the region. But it need not fear; the emergence of a democratic neighborhood around Israel is the ultimate assurance of the country’s security," Gul writes.Turkey abandoned its role as mediator for peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians after Operation Cast Lead, after heaping criticism on the state for its incursion into the Gaza Strip.But now, Gul says, "It will be almost impossible for Israel to deal with the emerging democratic and demographic currents in the absence of a peace agreement with the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world. Turkey, conscious of its own responsibility, stands ready to help."Hmmmm...."Help to stab them in the back" would be more accurate.Read the full story here.

• Anti-Israel film to be screened in Cairo.(Ynet).(Video) Turkish film about IDF raid on Marmara ship reaches Egypt. Distributor says screening scheduled to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day events in Poland.VIDEO - A special screening of an anti-Israel Turkish film is scheduled to take place in Cairo under the auspices of the Turkish ambassador on Saturday. "Valley of the Wolves – Palestine" tells the story of the IDF raid on the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara last May and has already prompted massive criticism in Israel. The plot focuses on a group of Turkish commando combatants which was ordered to eliminate a senior IDF officer who the film suggests gave the order "to murder Marmara passengers."The film's last scene shows IDF soldiers with the bodies of nine Marmara passengers. On May 31, 2010 a Navy force raided the Marmara ship which had broken the naval blockade on the Gaza Strip. Nine passengers were killed in clashes between the soldiers and IHH terrorists.The film's Egyptian distributor, Adel Adib, said that the special screening was set for a date ahead of the March of the Living in Poland marking the Holocaust Remembrance Day. The march is set to take place on May 2.The Turkish film will be screened in 10 movie theatres across Egypt after the festive premier.Hmmmm...... "Turkey, conscious of its own responsibility, stands ready to help",yeah to stab them in the back!Read the full story here.

• Say cheese: 'America's toughest Sheriff' lets public rate mugshots online.(DailyMail). He is known for dressing inmates in pink underwear and feeding them green baloney.And now America's toughest Sheriff has come up with a new initiative to give the public a voice in law enforcement - an online Mugshot of the Day competition.Arizona-based Joe Arpaio, known for his uncompromising stance on crime, is letting the public browse through the mugshots of those arrested each day and then vote for their favourite.The Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff says he hopes the increased Web traffic will highlight the work of his employees.He also says more crimes may be uncovered if the public can view the photos.The top picks so far aren't unexpected: They're the most dishevelled, unusual looking people among those booked into an Arizona jail.And while the new scheme may be controversial, it has the overwhelming backing of those using the site, with 4102 out of the 4964 people who have voted so far agreeing with Arpaio.Visitors to the Sheriff's page mcso.org are greeted with the day's current most popular shot.The top seven most popular pictures are displayed first.Users can also sort those arrested by crime, picking via a menu ranging from sexual offences to assault.And this month an examination of Maricopa County's finances found that the sheriff's office, inappropriately spent $99 million from two jail funds over the last eight years to pay for other law enforcement operations – including immigration patrols.The $99 million figure is an update to an estimate made in September by budget officials who said the sheriff's office was believed to have used $60 million and $80 million over four or five years from a jail tax on other purposes. Since then, officials said they discovered that the sheriff's office had inappropriately spent money from a second jail.The findings by county budget officials discussed at a meeting Wednesday were sent to federal prosecutors who were already investigating Arpaio on abuse of power allegations.The mugshot initiative is just one of a long list of unorthodox methods employed by the notorious Sheriff.According to the Maricopa County website, Arpaio served in the U.S. Army from 1950 to 1953 before working as a policeman in Washington, D.C. and Las Vegas.He rose to worldwide fame In August 1993, when he started the nation’s largest Tent City for convicted inmates.Nearly two thousand convicted men and women now serve their sentences in the temporary canvas city, sweltering in the unrelenting heat.During the summer of 2003, when outside temperatures exceeded 43 °C, Arpaio famously said to complaining inmates, 'It's 120 degrees in Iraq and the soldiers are living in tents, have to wear full body armor, and they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your mouths.'He is also known for bringing back chain gangs to carry out road repairs, painting public buildings and even working as part time undertakers burying the county's dead.His tough line on stealing led to perhaps his most memorable stunt, making inmates in the county's prison system wear pink underwear.He has also banned smoking, coffee, movies, pornographic magazines, and unrestricted TV in all jails.Hmmmm.......Welcome to "the Chaingang"?Read the full story here.

• Obama regime snubs Congress (Issa) on subpoena for ATF documents.(DailyCaller).For the first time since Republicans took control of the House and gained the power of congressional subpoena, the Obama administration has declined to comply with a subpoena issued by top GOP oversight official Rep. Darrell Issa.In the face of a subpoena by Issa, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) provided no documents by the April 13 deadline, according to an April 20 letter from Issa to ATF’s director, Kenneth Melson.Issa is threatening contempt proceedings if ATF does not comply.At issue are documents related to Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious, in which ATF allowed American guns to be smuggled into Mexico and sold to Mexican drug cartels. The goal of the program was to track the illegal weapons and drug markets after they were used in crimes and abandoned using ballistics information and serial numbers for the guns.“We are not conducting a concurrent investigation with the Department of Justice, but rather an independent investigation of the Department of Justice,” Issa says in his April 20 letter, citing three historical examples of congressional oversight of Justice Department investigations, including during the Teapot Dome scandal in 1922.ATF did provide access to four documents for “in camera” review at Justice Department headquarters, Issa says, but the documents were “general” and did not “directly pertain” to Operation Fast and Furious, in which guns were permitted to be smuggled to Mexico.In his letter threatening contempt proceedings, Issa provides as attachments several documents he has obtained independently from his official request to the agency.One of the documents included is a “significant information report” showing that two AK-47 rifles allowed to be sold to Mexican drug cartels were recovered from the scene of border patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder.Issa says any decision to allow American guns to be sold to Mexican drug cartels was likely made by top-ranking Justice Department officials.“It is nearly unfathomable that our government would allow straw purchasers to illegally acquire automatic weapons and transport them into Mexico, in furtherance of an ATF-led and inspired investigation. As I understand Department of Justice operations, such programs would require the approval of top officials,” Issa says.Hmmmm.....Dictators usually don't care much for democratic procedures.Read the full story here.

• Ann Barnhardt gets death threats, Ann handles them in her own unique kind of way.(TundraTabloids).

Death Threat #1: Dr. Moshen El-Guindy.Dear Dr. ElGuindy-

If you can dismount your six year old nephew (who is also your half-brother and your double-cousin) for long enough to read this, hear me clearly. I will never, ever, ever submit to islam, which is a satanic political system, founded by an insane con-artist pedophile dirtbag. Here’s what you need to do, Mo.

COME AND GET ME.

9175 Kornbrust Circle, Lone Tree, CO 80124. Come and get me, you pathetic, simpering, pants-pissing coward. Come and see what it is like to find yourself on the business end of the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America coupled with the righteous wrath of a seriously, seriously pissed off Roman Catholic. Come taste my lead. Let’s re-enact the Battle of Tours right on my front stoop. I’ll be Charles the Hammer, and you can be anonymous dead muslim number 25,497. Sound good? Anytime, you quivering sow. Anytime.Warmly, Ann Barnhardt.Hmmmmm......Who said history lessons are boring?Source .

• 10 Examples That Should Convince Anyone That We No Longer Live In The Land Of The Free And The Home Of The Brave.(TheAmericanDream).Do you know people that still believe that America is a free country? Do you have friends or family that are proud to live in "the land of the free and the home of the brave"? If you do, just show them this article. The things that you are about to read are enough to make the blood of any red-blooded American boil. We don't live in a free country anymore. Instead, we live in a "Big Brother" police state control grid that is becoming more restrictive every single day. Most of our politicians seem to be control freaks that are obsessed with running every single little detail of our lives. These days there has to be a "rule" or a "regulation" for everything. The radical social engineers in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and communist China never even dared to try some of the things that are going on in America today. We are all being treated little better than cattle and we are all being taught that it is best to just sit in our homes and absorb all of the television "programming" that is being provided for us. Meanwhile, our public schools have become little more than prison grids. Our children are being taught to enjoy living as docile slaves in a world where imagination, liberty, freedom and adventure are all greatly discouraged.Unfortunately, none of this is an exaggeration. Our politicians love to give speeches about "liberty" and "freedom", but they always seem to have excuses to justify the endless parade of liberty-killing laws that they are imposing on all the rest of us.Almost all of the freedoms listed in the Bill of Rights have been severely eroded. In fact, a number of them are almost totally gone at this point.The things that you are about to read should make you mad. In fact, if none of these things make you mad there is a problem. Sadly, millions of Americans have actually embraced tyranny, and if you are not outraged by any of the items listed below than you are likely one of them.The following are 10 examples that show that we no longer live in the land of the free and the home of the brave.Read the full story here.

• Former Saudi Navy Commodore and U.S. Liaison Officer on British, U.S. Think Tanks: 'Do The Analysts Even Speak Arabic?... It Is Like Having Someone from Tasmania, Australia Being Tasked With Writing About Washington D.C. Politics – Without Setting Foot Near the Washington Monument'.(MEMRI)."The year was 1978. "It was the beginning of the uprising against the Shah of Iran, but there was not a single think tank in the U.S. that even mentioned any possibility of a revolution in Iran. This is what opened my eyes to the futility of relying on the so-called think tanks for any guidance on global affairs"One year later (1979), the Shah was deposed and Ayatollah Khomeini took over. And in September 1980, the think tank teams were again taken by surprise when war broke out between Iraq and Iran. It lasted eight years."After the end of the Iran-Iraq war, one of my American classmates suggested that I serve in a think tank. That was in 1989, during the 10th annual class reunion at SUNY Maritime College in New York. I told him there was no think tank in Saudi Arabia. "After that, I read a lot of think tank reports. I have noticed that a lot of reports about Saudi Arabia were written by non-Saudis. When I read those reports I felt I was reading reports about a country in another planet. Yes, they were written in a beautiful way, but they were far from reality.

"The think tanks fail to notice even when there are a lot of visible signs of an approaching global crisis. There was the breakup of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the invasion of Kuwait, the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the 2003 American miscalculations in Iraq, the global economic crisis, the Tunisian revolt, the Egyptian crisis and the Libyan upheaval. These are examples of the major events that simply happened unnoticed or unpredicted by the think tanks.""Some years ago, I happened to read some reports about Saudi Arabia and the Saudi royal family written by some British think tanks, and I just couldn't stop myself from laughing. If I didn't see the words Saudi Arabia, I would have thought they were talking about an African country that was just emerging after a protracted civil war.

"Saudi Arabia and the Saudi royal family are the most written-about topics in the British think tank reports. Yet I have never seen any report about any Saudi analyst participating in the writing of such reports. Some of the analysts had never been to Saudi Arabia and some of them were in Saudi Arabia for a very brief period of time. It is like having someone from Tasmania, Australia being tasked with writing about Washington D.C. politics without setting a foot near the Washington Monument.

"The think tank reports are written by people who are very professional writers – people who have the ability to put words together in a very beautiful way. I sure hope they don't charge any money for their analysis or reports."Now, when I need to evaluate events in the world, I just read the American and British think tank reports backward. Then they would make some sense." Read the full story here.

• ‘Arabizi is destroying the Arabic language’.(ArabNews).JEDDAH: Arabizi, a term that describes a system of writing Arabic in English, is now more popular than ever, especially online.Parents and teachers are becoming more concerned over the popularity of this new trend. Some see it as a threat to the Arabic language.A non-English speaker does not need to speak the language to communicate with others in Arabizi. Numbers are also mixed in Arabizi to represent some letters in Arabic, such as 2, 5, 6, 7 and 9.Most Arab Internet users find this way easier than typing in Arabic. Teachers fear that this will weaken their Arabic language ability or even replace the language in the future. Arabic professional professors from the Arab world consider it a war against the Arabic language to make it disappear in the long run.Miral Dibawy, a 21-year-old university graduate, is using Arabizi because she finds it easier when typing on the Internet and sending text messages. She also admitted that it has weakened her Arabic language ability when it comes to writing.[NOTE: I distinguish between Arabizi, the transcription device, and Arabish, the introduction of English vocabulary items into Arabic. I think this is more in keeping with the similar constructs as Chinglish, Spanglish, and the like, but I won’t break out in a sweat if you disagree!Read the full story here.