MFS - The Other News

              Afternoon  Posting.

• Live broadcast info from Japan directly ! Here.

• Libya Live Blog - April 06. Here .(Al-Jazeera)And  here (BBC).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan between 5.1 and 6.0 today. More info here.

• Latest official Situation Update No. 76.

• HT:IsraelMatzav.Who will keep their commitments? To hear Jennifer Rubin tell it, Dore Gold was a fascinating speaker at an on-the-record luncheon on Tuesday.The real issue is whether the United States, its Quartet partners, the United Nations and Russia will live up to the commitment made in U.N. Resolution 242 ( which provided for “Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force” ) and by presidents of both parties to ensure that Israel has defensible borders. The U.N. commitment to secure borders was reiterated by the Clinton administration in a January 1997 letter from then-Secretary of State Warren Christopher to the Israeli prime minister.The Obama administration has repeatedly refused to indicate whether it is repudiating or standing by that commitment. One additional note: a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood would also violate the Oslo II Interim agreement signed by the PA and Israel and witnessed by the U.S., the EU, Norway, Egypt and Jordan. (This would be pretty much the same set of characters now pressuring Israel to recognize a Palestinian state.)Congress can pass a resolution reminding the Obama administration of its obligations to adhere to the Christopher and Bush letters and reaffirming that a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state violates international agreements and U.S. commitments. And finally, some probing oversight can take place. The United States is a member of the Quartet, so why aren’t we using our power to block a unilateral declaration of recognition?Hmmm....."Peres noted that the US president reiterated his commitment to Israel's security"Yeah whatevah.Read the ful story here.

• Factcheck - A Brief Look at Candidate Obama's 2008 Campaign Promises.With the news that President Obama is officially running for re-election in 2012, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at where some of candidate Barack Obama's 2008 campaign trail promises stand today.The president has said he keeps a check list of promises he made during the campaign in his pocket. Last fall Mr. Obama told "Rolling Stone" he figured his administration had "probably accomplished 70 percent of the things that we said we were going to do."The watchdog organization Politifact.com* has been keeping track and puts candidate Obama's list of promises at a staggering 506, of those they say the president has kept 122, or 24 percent. Coincidentally, of the 25 selected as the most significant promises, politifact.com says Obama has followed through on six, for a 'promise-kept percentage' of 24 percent.Hmmmmm......Skyhigh energy prices?Read the full story here.

• UN slams plans for settlement building as 'illegal'. After approval of new construction, Obama administration says Israel's actions run counter to efforts to resume direct talks. The United Nations on Tuesday reacted harshly to Israel's approval of 942 housing units in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood as well as the approval of master plans for several West Bank settlements that is expected to lead to increased building in those areas, saying the moves were illegal."We reiterate that Israeli settlement activity anywhere in occupied territory, including in east Jerusalem, is illegal and contrary to the Roadmap. We call on the Israeli Government to halt further planning for new settlement units, which undermines efforts to bring about resumed Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and prejudices final status discussions," Richard Miron, spokesman for the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry said in a statement.The UN statement came after the US expressed concern over settlement expansion on Monday."The United States is deeply concerned by continuing Israeli actions with respect to settlement construction," ABC News quoted White House National Security Staff spokesman Tommy Vietor as saying."Not only are continued Israeli settlements illegitimate, Israel’s actions run counter to efforts to resume direct negotiations," Vietor added.The US statement came as President Shimon Peres was in Washington where he met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday and was scheduled to meet with US President Barack Obama on Tuesday.The Defense Ministry’s settlement adviser, Eitan Broshi, said that the move simply adjusted a technical oversight.“We are talking about already existing legal settlements, located on state land,” Broshi said.“These are not outposts,” he added. “This is a statutory change and is not a shift in policy.”No new building permits were issued, and the Defense Ministry would have to issue more authorizations before construction could begin as a result of the plans’ approval, he said. The move merely strengthens the legal standing of these communities with respect to state funding, utilities and expansion projects in existing homes, he explained.Hmmmm....Obama"What i say and what i do are two completely different things!Read the full story here.

• 'The Imam's Army'.Arrested Journalist's Book Claims Turkish Police Infiltrated by Islamic Movement.Islamic theologian Fethullah Gülen is one of the most powerful men in Turkey, even though he lives in exile in the US. The recent arrest of prominent Turkish journalist Ahmet Sik shows what can happen to those who cross his Gülen movement. Sik was about to publish a book alleging that Gülen sympathizers have infiltrated Turkey's police force.While certain sections of the Turkish press have become little more than a mouthpiece for the government, other journalists such as Sik and Sener have stayed true to their cause. Although the special prosecutor who has been conducting the investigation in the Ergenekon case since 2007 emphasized after the March 3 raids that the two writers had not been arrested because of their journalistic work, interrogation records which were made public on the weekend show the exact opposite.

At the time of his arrest, Ahmet Sik had almost completed work on a new book that was supposed to be published in May. The book, titled "Imamin Ordusu" ("The Imam's Army"), contains explosive material. It describes in detail how followers of the Islamic theologian Fethullah Gülen have allegedly infiltrated the Turkish police since the mid-1980s. Gülen's followers currently comprise by far the most influential Islamic brotherhood in Turkey. The Gülen movement is mainly known outside Turkey because of its schools, which are also present in Germany. Fethullah Gülen has lived in exile in the US since a trial in the 1990s. In interviews, he likes to cultivate the image of an old, wise, tolerant Islamic scholar.

According to Fikret Ilkiz, Ahmet Sik had found out that "80 percent" of the Turkish police force already belongs to the Gülen movement. It is of secondary importance whether the value is really that high. The key thing is that anyone who criticizes the movement is currently at risk in Turkey. The last author who wrote a book that was critical of the Gülen movement was Hanefi Avci, a former senior police officer who had himself been a Gülen sympathizer. Last autumn, Avci published a spectacular tell-all book about his time with the organization. The book has sold nearly a million copies to date. But Avci is unable to enjoy his success: He has been sitting in jail since November, charged with being a supporter of a radical left-wing terrorist organization.

Nedim Sener also seems to have become a problem for the Gülen movement. Sener's latest book deals with alleged lies told by Turkey's security agencies about the background of the assassination of prominent Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in 2007. Sener accuses members of the military, as well as many senior police officers who are Gülen sympathizers, of being involved in the crime.The weeks that have passed since the arrest have underscored the degree to which the book, "The Imam's Army," has unsettled the Gülen movement and the AKP government. The public prosecutor and investigative judges claim that the book was commissioned by the Ergenekon network, in order to foment unrest in the run-up to the election. They made possession of the unpublished manuscript a punishable crime, and hundreds of police have since been searching for copies.The law offices of Fikret Ilkiz were ransacked, Ahmet Sik's publishing house was searched as well as the offices of the editorial staff of the newspaper Radikal, where Sik is a journalist. But the authorities were unable to stop "The Imam's Army" from being posted, in its entirety, on the Web last Thursday. By the end of its first day online alone, the book had been downloaded more than 100,000 times. The next day, a public reading of the book took place on Istanbul's central Taksim Square, attended by hundreds of the journalist's supporters.Reaction to the book has been so overwhelming that public prosecutors had to declare that they would not -- at least initially -- pursue people who had downloaded the book via the Internet. More importantly, after almost four years in office, the leading special prosecutor in the case, Zekeriya Öz, has been reappointed to another post. What does that mean for the investigations? In the opinion of Sik's lawyer, Fikret Ilkiz, the staffing change is proof of the collapse of the Turkish justice system.Hmmmmm........How far do his tentacles spread in the US?Read the full story here.

• Samantha Power’s Power. By Stanley kurtz.On the ideology of an Obama adviser.A member of the president’s National Security Council who shares Noam Chomsky’s foreign-policy goals? An influential presidential adviser whom 1960s revolutionary Tom Hayden treats as a fellow radical? A White House official who wrote a book aiming to turn an anti-American, anti-Israel, Marxist-inspired, world-government-loving United Nations bureaucrat into a popular hero? Samantha Power, senior director of multilateral affairs for the National Security Council and perhaps the principal architect of our current intervention in Libya, is all of these things.

These scary-sounding tidbits might be dismissed as isolated “gotchas.” Unfortunately, when we view these radical outcroppings in the full sweep of her life’s work, Samantha Power emerges as a patriot’s nightmare — a woman determined to subordinate America’s national sovereignty to an international order largely controlled by leftist bureaucrats. Superficially, Power’s chief concern is to put a stop to genocide and “crimes against humanity.” More deeply, her goal is to use our shared horror at the worst that human beings can do in order to institute an ever-broadening regime of redistributive transnational governance.

Samantha Power has refused to give interviews of late, and the White House seems to be downplaying her influence on the intervention in Libya, and on the president generally. Yet numerous press reports indicate that Power “has Obama’s ear” and was in fact critical to his decision on Libya. Liberal foreign-policy expert Steve Clemons actually calls Power “the primary architect” of our Libyan intervention. The New York Times has gone so far as to characterize our humanitarian action as “something of a personal triumph” for Power.

If anything, these reports may underplay Power’s influence on Obama. The two met in 2005, when Obama contacted Power after reading her Pulitzer Prize–winning book on genocide, A Problem from Hell. Power quickly became then-senator Obama’s senior foreign-policy adviser, and so has a longer history with the president than do many others on his foreign-policy team.A survey of Power’s writings indicates her long preoccupation with a series of issues now associated with Obama’s most controversial foreign-policy moves. In a 2003 piece for the New York Times, for example, Power bemoaned the reluctance of American policymakers to apologize to other countries for our supposed past mistakes. While Obama’s controversial (and so far unproductive) willingness to engage with the leaders of rogue states was initially attributed to a novice error during a 2007 debate with Hillary Clinton, the need to deal directly with even the worst rogue states is a major theme of Power’s second book, Chasing the Flame. That book was written in 2007, while Power was advising Obama’s presidential campaign. A 2007 piece by Power in The New York Times Book Review attacked the phrase “War on Terror,” which of course the Obama administration has since dropped.The novel doctrine of “responsibility to protect,” which Power means the Libyan action to enshrine in international law, could someday be used to justify military intervention to impose a “two-state solution” on Israel (apparently this is one of Power’s longstanding goals, although she now disavows it). The International Criminal Court, which Power has long defended, may someday enable the leftist Europeans who run it to place American soldiers and politicians on trial for supposed war crimes.On rare occasions, Power comes straight out and admits that the sorts of interventions she favors constitute an almost pure cost to American national interest, traditionally defined. More often, she retreats into the language of “pragmatism” and “self-interest” to justify what she knows Americans will not support on its own terms. That is Samantha Power’s way and, not coincidentally, Barack Obama’s way as well.At some point, after we’ve all done our best to fit the president’s puzzling Libyan adventure into our accustomed conceptual frameworks, we just might wake up and discover what has been going on behind the curtain. When we do, the answer will be found in the writings of Samantha Power.Hmmm....May God protect Israel and her allies!Read the full story here.

• HT:BigPeace.Brigitte Gabriel on Oppressive Religion."You give it an inch, they take the whole shabang!” – Brigitte Gabriel of Act! for America and author of her newest book They Must Be Stopped goes into great detail of the cultural oppression involved in radical Islam. In her latest interview on Frank Gaffney’s Secure Freedom Radio, Brigitte puts into proper perspective General Patreaus’ handling of the Islamist response in Afghanistan to Terry Jone’s bonfire and much much more.Listen to the whole thing here.

• HT:WND.Palestinian forces unite against Israel, U.S.American-backed PA shares 'operations room' with terrorist Hamas.TEL AVIV – The so-called military wing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization has formed a common operations room with the Hamas terrorist organization, according to information obtained by WND. Sources inside the Palestinian militant apparatus told WND of a meeting that took place last week in the Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis between Hamas' so-called military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam, and the Gaza branch of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the "military wing" of Abbas' U.S.-backed Fatah party. At the meeting, the decision was taken to open what the sources called a common operations room. The sources claimed the cooperation was aimed at fending off any Israeli operation inside the Gaza Strip, where Hamas has recently increased its firing of rockets into nearby Israeli population centers. Just last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israel may respond with "great force" if the Hamas rocketing continues. The stepped up Hamas-Fatah cooperation comes as the PA has been engaged in an intense effort to convince the Hamas terrorist organization to join it in a new unity government.The PA official told WND that recent developments in Egypt and the greater Arab world force the Palestinian leadership to take a public position against the U.S. "The Obama administration's abandonment of (U.S. ally President Hosni) Mubarak in Egypt sent a big sign to the moderate Arab world that we can no longer depend on American support," said the official. The official further argued that popular sentiment on the Palestinian streets dictates the PA must orient itself away from the U.S. Indeed, the PA's official media outlets have been railing against the U.S. in recent weeks, with 28 PA municipalities even announcing boycotts of "the American consulate, its diplomats, and the American institutions in Jerusalem," according to a translation by Palestinian Media Watch. In direct response to the protests that already toppled regimes in Tunisia and Egypt, the PA two weeks ago announced it finally will hold long-delayed parliamentary and presidential elections in September.Hmmm....Obama"The changes in the Arab world may benefit Israel"?Read the full story here.

• Obama's Planned Visit to Spanish Wind Company Irks Some American Businesses.An ill wind is blowing through the energy industry over President Obama's planned visit Wednesday to the Pennsylvania arm of a foreign-owned wind turbine maker. The president will tour and speak to workers at a Gamesa Technology Corporation plant in Fairless Hills, where about 300 workers labor in a former U.S. Steel industrial site making wind turbines. It is a nearly perfect example of the president's goal of forging 20th century manufacturing into the new green industries he envisions. But while the company claims to employ about 900 Americans at plants in the United States, Gamesa is headquartered in Madrid, Spain.That's a problem for Howard Makler, president of California-based wind turbine maker WePower."There are plenty of businesses that he could visit that are owned by Americans," Makler told Fox News Radio. Makler argued the choice shows a lack of sensitivity to American businesses."We are owned in America, we do our business in America. I think that focusing on businesses that are owned in American certainly would go a long way toward demonstrating the president's sensitivity to the needs of American businesses."The moral of the story appears to be that when it comes to creating green jobs, you have to be careful which companies you choose to highlight or the green you create may be envy.Hmmmm.....Don't tell me they're friends Michelle made during her Spain visit?Read the full story here.

• Man With Anti-Obama Sign Attacked In San Francisco.SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF/ BCN) — A man who set up a table with political literature and a sign opposing President Barack Obama was attacked in San Francisco’s North Panhandle neighborhood, police and witnesses said Tuesday.Initial police accounts had indicated that the man had a sign supporting Obama, but witnesses later said it was an anti-Obama sign with a Hitler mustache drawn over the president’s face. The attack happened around 11:30 a.m. Monday in the 1200 block of Fell Street, where the victim, a 29-year-old Daly City man, had set up his table, said Capt. Denis O’Leary of the SFPD’s Park Station.A man and woman approached the victim, tore the sign and shook the table, causing the political literature to fall to the ground.The attackers also kicked the man in the hand, O’Leary said.The SFPD captain said he did not know whether the victim was a supporter or opponent of Obama, but a witness who was in the area Monday said the victim was a supporter of Lyndon LaRouche, a left-wing political activist who opposes the president.The witness, Wayne Friday, a former San Francisco police commissioner and local journalist, said he was stopping by the Bank of America at Fell and Broderick streets and saw a sign that read “Impeach Obama” with a picture of the president with a Hitler mustache.Friday said he did not see the attack happen.The two attackers, who had dogs with them, fled south on Broderick Street before officers arrived, and hadn’t been located, O’Leary said.Hmmmm.....the attackers who had dogs with them?Read the full story here.

• "Sticker shock" for Obama's pricey April SF fundraiser -- $35,800 PER PERSON?Even loyal Obama supporters are raising their eyebrows at the very pricey fundraising -- like that exclusive $35,800-per-person dinner in San Francisco -- planned as part of the President's April 20 visit to the Bay Area.The April Western U.S. swing by the President, which includes a stop in Reno and Los Angeles as well as San Francisco, is part of Obama's 2012 re-election kickoff campaign. But also scheduled is what the White House promises will be a jobs and economy event in the Bay Area on April 20.On April 21, Obama heads to Los Angeles.Obama supporters acknowledge that the $35,800 per person San Francisco Obama Victory Fund dinner may represent a new pricetag high for political fundraising. After all, loyal Dems thought the ceiling was reached last Oct. 21, when tickets to that Obama dinner in the Palo Alto home of Google executive Marissa Mayer hit an astonishing $30,800 per person.Yes, "there's a little bit of sticker shock,'' one Dem told us this week. The explanation: $30,800 of that donation will go to the Democratic National Committee, with $5,000 going to the Obama campaign -- $2,500 for the primary and $2,500 for the general election.Here's the details of the Obama fundraising schedule as we know them so far.Hmmm.....What would you get at the playboy mansion for this kind of money?Read the full story here.

• HT:IsraelMatzav.Some sage advice to Israel from a foreign policy expert.Israel is dependent on the US as no other country is on a friendly power. Increasingly, Washington is the sole capital to stand by Israel in international forums. We are its exclusive military supplier, its only military ally (though no formal obligation exists)... It takes a special brand of heroism to turn total dependence into defiance, to insist on support as a matter of right rather than as a favor; to turn every American deviation from an Israeli cabinet consensus into a betrayal to be punished rather than a disagreement to be negotiated. And yet Israel's obstinacy, maddening as it can be, serves the purposes of both our countries best....Cont..Read the full story here.

• HT:Memri.Obama Advisor: Bahrain's Going The Way Of Egypt.Dr. Dalia Mujahid, advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama, has said that the U.S. administration supports the democratic revolution in Egypt and in the countries of the region because they are aiding the struggle against extremism and violence and against enemies such as Al-Qaeda. She said that the administration did not support the revolution in Bahrain because of the suspicion of Iranian influence in the Gulf, but that it is clear that Bahrain will go the way of Egypt. Hmmmm....Perhaps she can advise him to give the Muslim Brotherhood in Bahrain also 1,5 Billion Dollar?Read the full story here.

• After Upsetting Saudis, Obama Sends Defense Secretary Gates to Discuss Arab Upheaval With Saudi King.Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in the Saudi capital Wednesday for talks with King Abdullah on coping with the political upheaval sweeping the Arab world, blunting Iranian efforts to exploit the unrest, and upgrading the kingdom's defenses against Iranian missiles.In a sign of the depth of the Obama administration's concern about the political earthquake that has shaken the region, including the island of Bahrain off Saudi Arabia's Persian Gulf coast, this was Gates' third trip to the area in the past month. He has echoed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's cautioning of authoritarian Arab governments on the risks of moving too slowly in response to peaceful protests for political freedom.A senior defense official traveling with Gates from Washington said the kingdom's internal political situation was unlikely to be broached in Gates' talks with Abdullah. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss Gates' thinking in advance of his closed-door meeting with the king.The official said Gates would assure Abdullah that the $60 billion arms deal is progressing on schedule, while also urging the king to buy an upgraded version of its U.S.-made Patriot air defense missiles. Gates also planned to pitch a more sophisticated U.S. defense system called the Theater High-Altitude Area Defense system, which is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles of longer range. The United Arab Emirates already has agreed to purchase that system, the official said. It is part of a broader U.S. plan to improve Gulf Arab states' defenses against Iranian missile threats.Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters on Gates' flight to Riyadh that "Iran will be a major focus" of Gates' talks with Abdullah -- not just its missile development, but also its nuclear weapons ambitions and concerns that Iran is seeking to exploit political upheaval in the Arab world."Saudis believe their concerns in Bahrain -- containing Iran, protecting Gulf monarchies and sending a clear message to their own Shiite population -- are best addressed by a hardline policy of suppressing the protests," Marina Ottaway, director of the Middle East program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in an analysis Monday.On March 14 -- two days after Gates visited Bahrain's rulers -- the Saudis sent more than 1,000 troops into Bahrain, at that government's request, for security assistance. Ottaway concluded from Washington's muted response that it has chosen to implicitly back the Saudis."Washington has seemingly accepted that for the time being the Saudis have won the battle for influence in Bahrain and concluded that mending relations with Saudi Arabia should take precedence right now," she wrote.Hmmmm.......Beware of the snakes your majestyThis snake might never turn on Iran or Turkey.Read the full story here.

• HT:PajamasMedia.Iran’s Supreme Leader: ‘We Have Won on the Nuclear Front’Also from Ayatollah Khamenei: America is now “clearly weak, and even succumbing.”In a recent meeting that took place between Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and a group of his top-ranking military commanders, the nuclear matter was a focal point (Farsi link here).The supreme leader commented on the fact that the (Western) oppressors have employed all of their political, propaganda, and economic might in forcing the Islamic Republic to abandon its nuclear pursuits. Then, he said:And now, after eight years of pressure, the Islamic Iran has won out.The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported that, in another part of his commentary, Khamenei discussed the shifts that have been occurring in several of the countries in the region:The welcome developments that have started taking place in our region are as a result of Iran’s resistance and in the future there will be many more shifts in the region.Khamenei pointed out that the victory of the Islamic revolution is an example of the resistance of Iranians who stood up to difficulties and pressures, which became a movement that was accompanied by impetus and pride. On this matter, he added:Almost all analysts around the world are noting that that movements currently sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa are as a result of the Iranian people’s revolution.Ayatollah Khamenei considered the Iranian nuclear issue to be a shining example of Iranian resistance. He maintained:What is clear in view of the remarkable progress in the nuclear development is that when it comes to a contest of the wills, Iran is mightier than all of the world powers. The Islamic Republic of Iran has been in a thirty-two year long battle with the Western oppressors and not only have we not surrendered but we have in fact progressed, putting America, which was at the top of those oppressors, on the defensive to the point where they are now clearly weak and even succumbing.Hmmmm......A 'weak' Obama administration or is it more?Read the full story here.

• Malaysian Government: Non-Muslims Can Be Charged With Koran Abuse by Reciting it Unfavorably.The government can take action against people who abuse Quranic verses for certain interests and dispute all forms of worship by Muslims in this country.Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom said this followed the special conference of the National Fatwa Council on Dec 3 last year to discuss issues including abuse of Quranic verses.“The muzakarah agreed that non-Muslims who cite Quranic verses according to their own understanding without sincerity is an affront to the sanctity of al-Quran and can cause doubt and slander in society,” he told Dewan Rakyat Wednesday.He was responding to a question from Datuk Ibrahim Ali (Independent-Pasir Mas) on whether the government intends to enact legislation so that non-Muslims did not dispute all forms of worship by Muslims like the ‘azan’ (call to prayer) and the Maulidur Rasul (Prophet Muhammad’s birthday) celebration.Jamil said that any person who caused disharmony in society could be charged under Section 298 and 298A (1) of Penal Code (Revised) 1997.Hmmmm......The religion of peace.Read the full story here.

• HT:SHTF.Do You Qualify as a Domestic Terrorist?A few weeks ago Bernard von NotHaus, purveyor of the gold/silver backed “Liberty Dollar”, was convicted on numerous charges including making, possessing, and selling his own coins, as well as conspiracy against the United States. Western District of North Carolina US attorney Anne Tompkins issued a Department of Justice press release that should raise blaring, high decibel sirens across the entire Union:“Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism,” U.S. Attorney Tompkins said in announcing the verdict. “While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country,” she added. “We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption, and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government.”The definitions for what is or is not a “terrorist” are ambiguous as defined by the Patriot Act, and have been progressively, hastily and secretively expanded over the course of the last decade. A “terrorist,” it seems, is now anyone who actively engages in an activity – whether it’s violent, peaceful, public or private – perceived to threaten the legitimacy and/or stability of our government.An eighteen year veteran of law enforcement recently published an article at James Rawles’ Survival Blog detailing how perceptions in law enforcement are being molded to fit the new paradigm. The use of the term “terrorist” to describe a wide variety of crimes, and more alarmingly, the passive behaviors of those who intend to do no harm to the government or the public, is being injected into the broader consciousness and everyday semantics of the American people.During the past several years, I have witnessed a dramatic shift in the focus of law enforcement training. Law enforcement courses have moved away from a local community focus to a federally dominated model of complete social control. Most training I have attended over the past two years have been sponsored by Department of Homeland Security (DHS), namely the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).So how does a person qualify as a potential domestic terrorist? Based on the training I have attended, here are characteristics that qualify:
  
  Expressions of libertarian philosophies (statements, bumper stickers)
  Second Amendment-oriented views (NRA or gun club membership, holding a CCW permit)
  Survivalist literature (fictional books such as “Patriots” and “One Second After” are mentioned by name)
  Self-sufficiency (stockpiling food, ammo, hand tools, medical supplies)
  Fear of economic collapse (buying gold and barter items)
  Religious views concerning the book of Revelation (apocalypse, anti-Christ)
  Expressed fears of Big Brother or big government
  Homeschooling
  Declarations of Constitutional rights and civil liberties
  Belief in a New World Order conspiracy
  Given the direction things are going, and the sheer scope of the tentacles of the ever-growing police state, it’s only a matter of time before everyone, regardless of lifestyle choice, preferred reading genre, political leaning, religious conviction, shopping behavior, hobbies and interests, will qualify as a ‘domestic terrorist.’Be advised: You are now a “person of interest.”Read the full story here.

• Iran asks Ban to stop West 'intervention' in region.TEHRAN — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a telephone conversation has asked the UN chief to stop US and Europe "intervention" in the region, the website of his office reported on Monday."The intervention of some European countries and America in the regional nations increases concern and makes circumstances more complicated," Ahmadinejad was quoted as telling UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.The website said the Iranian president told the UN secretary general to prevent "catastrophes" as occurred in Afghanistan and Iraq happening in the region."The time has come for the secretary general of the United Nations to play the historical and decisive role in solving the existing issues based on dialogue and understanding so the catastrophes which occured in Afghanistan and Iraq do not happen again," Ahmadinejad said."The double standard action of the Western countries in Bahrain and Libya and their silence towards the atrocities of the Zionist regime against the innocent Palestinians shows their contradictory performance in the world."The hardliner's call came a day after Tehran blamed rising tensions between the Islamic republic and Gulf Arab states on a "Western and Zionist conspiracy.""Sowing discord between Islamic countries, especially between Iran and the countries of the region, is a Western and Zionist conspiracy," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said on Sunday, according to state media.Hmmmm....I knew it it's a zionist plot!Read the full story here.

• Opec cannot control $120 oil.Speculators betting on 'worst case' scenarios.Opec can do little to control prices driven by speculators betting on "worst case scenarios" and has already supplied the market with the oil it needs, members of the producer group said on Wednesday.Oil on Wednesday traded above $122 a barrel for Brent crude, near two half-and-a-half year highs set this week."There is little we can do in terms of price control," UAE Oil Minister Mohammed bin Dhaen Al Hamli told an oil conference in Paris.Already, he said, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries had increased output in response to the disruption of supply from Opec member Libya.The group, which pumps around a third of the world's oil, has resisted calls for an emergency meeting before its next scheduled conference in June in Vienna."International markets are choosing to ignore market fundamentals and bet on the worse case scenarios," Hamli said, adding the market was well-supplied."All that Opec can do is provide the market with the oil it needs and it is doing that," he said.So far he said there was no sign prices had damaged economic growth and he did not anticipate the current rally would be followed by a crash as happened in 2008.Hmmmm.....Good luck with that economic rebound Mr President!Read the full story here.

• Ahmadinejad predicts oil at $150 a barrel.TEHRAN: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad predicted today that the price crude oil will increase in future to USD 150 a barrel due to "political circumstances" and not market factors."The political circumstances are deciding the prices ... not the market ones," Ahmadinejad whose nation is the current president of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) told reporters at a news conference.Hmmm....Remember what i said last year when experts called for 85$/Barrel oil"Wait till Iran is chairman of opec"!Read the full story here.More here .