MFS - The Other News

                       Afternoon  Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - June 01. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - June 01. Here (Al-Jazeera). 

• Yemen Live Blog - June 01 . Here. (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan  today 5.0  ! Lots of activity in Greece and Turkey.More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 127.Source : Here .

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

• "Assad the reformer".Tortured and killed: Hamza al-Khateeb, age 13.(Al-Jazeera).The mutilation and death in custody of a 13-year-old child has sparked further furious protests in Syrian city of Daraa. Hamza al-Khateeb used to love it when the rains came to his small corner of southern Syria, filling up the farmers' irrigation channels enough so that he and the other children could jump in and swim.But the drought of the last few years had left the 13-year-old without the fun of his favourite pool.Instead, he'd taken to raising homing pigeons, standing on the roof of his family's simple breeze-block home, craning his neck back to see the birds circling above the wide horizon of fields, where wheat and tomatoes were grown from the tough, scrubby soils.Though not from a wealthy family himself, Hamza was always aware of others less fortunate than himself, said a cousin who spoke to Al Jazeera."He would often ask his parents for money to give to the poor. I remember once he wanted to give someone 100 Syrian Pounds ($2), and his family said it was too much. But Hamza said, 'I have a bed and food while that guy has nothing.' And so he persuaded his parents to give the poor man the 100."In the hands of President Bashar al-Assad's security forces, however, Hamza found no such compassion, his humanity degraded to nothing more than a lump of flesh to beat, burn, torture and defile, until the screaming stopped at last.Arrested during a protest in Saida, 10km east of Daraa, on April 29, Hamza's body was returned to his family on Tuesday 24th May, horribly mutilated.The child had spent nearly a month in the custody of Syrian security, and when they finally returned his corpse it bore the scars of brutal torture: Lacerations, bruises and burns to his feet, elbows, face and knees, consistent with the use of electric shock devices and of being whipped with cable, both techniques of torture documented by Human Rights Watch as being used in Syrian prisons during the bloody three-month crackdown on protestors.Hamza's eyes were swollen and black and there were identical bullet wounds where he had apparently been shot through both arms, the bullets tearing a hole in his sides and lodging in his belly.On Hamza's chest was a deep, dark burn mark. His neck was broken and his penis cut off."Where are the human rights committees? Where is the International Criminal Court?" asks the voice of the man inspecting Hamza's body on a video uploaded to YouTube."A month had passed by with his family not knowing where he was, or if or when he would be released. He was released to his family as a corpse. Upon examining his body, the signs of torture are very clear."The original clip has since been removed, but a version with Hamza's castrated genitals blurred is still running [Note: this video is extremely graphic]."When Hamza's mother came to see the body she was only shown his face," said the cousin, who was present at the time."We tried to tell the father not to look, but he pulled the blanket back. When he saw Hamza's body he fainted. People ran to help him and some started filming - it was chaos.April 29 was dubbed "The Friday of Ending the siege on Deraa", the border city where the torture of children had lit the spark for the Syrian uprising and where Maher al-Assad's forces lead the assault on a civilian population that killed hundreds.Hamza didn't burn for politics, said his cousin, "but everybody seemed to be going to the protest, so he went along as well," walking with friends and family the 12km along the road from his home town of Jeezah north-west to Saida.The firing began almost as soon as the villagers reached the edge of Saida, said the cousin."People were killed and wounded, some were arrested. It was chaotic we didn't know at that point what had happened to Hamza. He just disappeared."A second source from the region, an activist, also spoke to Al Jazeera, confirming that Hamza had been among 51 protesters detained on April 29, he said, by Airforce Intelligence, which a number of detainees have reported as using brutal torture."They were all arrested by the anti-terrorism branch of the Airforce Intelligence," said the activist."They were all alive when they went into prison, but we received 13 bodies back this week and all had been tortured. The Airforce Intelligence are notorious for torture, they're barbarians. We're expecting another dozen bodies back in the coming days."Responding to the video of Hamza's mutilated body, Syria's only private TV station, the pro-regime Al Dunia, aired an interview (Arabic) with a forensic doctor from Damascus' Tishreen Militarily Hospital.Dr. Akram al-Shaar, who claimed to have supervised the autopsy of Hamza in Tishreen, said he found no signs of torture, claiming the marks on Hamza's body had been caused by natural decomposition.Dr Shaar's testimony, however, is also the first public admission by a Syrian official that civilians arrested or injured or killed during the military assault on the Deraa region have been collected and transported to security facilities in Damascus."Hamza's father, Ali al-Khateeb, wanted to press charges against the army and security forces, said Hamza's cousin. Instead, Ali and his wife were visited by the secret police and threatened."They said: 'Enough of what has happened because of you already. You know what would happen if we heard you had spoken to the media,'" said Hamza's mother, clearly terrified as she spoke to the local activist, refusing to give further details on the circumstances of her son's arrest or death.Hamza's father was briefly detained late Saturday afternoon, said his wife, after the secret police demanded he tell state media that Hamza was killed by armed Salafists, Sunni Muslim extremists, which the regime has claimed are driving the popular uprising."The father was asked to go to the security branch for half an hour so they could tell him their point of view about Hamza," said the cousin. "He was well treated."Torture in Syrian prisons, long known as some of the worst in the world, is now "rampant" according to a report by Human Rights Watch."When you have mass execution and torture it rises to the level of a crime against humanity. In Syria, it appears clear that this has become widespread and systematic," said Ricken Patel, director of Avaaz, which has been documenting human rights abuses in the country."This is a campaign of mass terrorism and intimidation: Horribly tortured people sent back to communities by a regime not trying to cover up its crimes, but to advertise them."If advertising its crimes is indeed the regime's strategy then it appears to be working: Within hours of the video of Hamza's mutilated body going online a protest broke out in Daraa city by hundreds of furious residents, defying the ongoing military siege to express their outrage at Hamza's torture and killing."People here are really furious about what happened to Hamza and this is another sign that the secret police and the authorities are criminals who cannot be trusted to make any reforms," said the activist, who travels widely in the Deraa region.Hmmmm....these are the 'people' Erdogan and Hillary called "Reformers".Read the full story here.

• Islamo-Nazism In Egypt,alive and kicking.(BigPeace).“Omar Amin” von Leers: The Nazi Who Found a Haven in Egypt and Embraced a More Potent Ideology to Destroy the Judeo-Christian West—Islamic JihadWednesday May 25, 2011 a group of Egyptians, led by founding member Emad Abdel Sattar proclaimed the establishment of “a contemporary frame of reference” Nazi Party.Sattar reportedly stated that the party, whose founding deputy is a former military official, would bring together prominent figures from Egyptian society, and vest all powers in a “carefully selected” president.The Egyptian Leftist publication Al-Masry Al-Youm, at its English website, further contends the Nazi party operated clandestinely during the Mubarak regime which had prevented party leaders from carrying out their activities in the open. Two Facebook pages which appeared recently under the title of “the Egyptian Nazi Party,” may confirm the party’s public emergence since Mubarak was deposed.Whether or not the inchoate new Egyptian Nazi Party, operating within a “modern framework,” becomes a significant political force, Nazism and its ugly resonance with the country’s Muslim masses, has a prolonged, disturbing legacy in Egypt.

Aribert Ferdinand Heim, was a member of Hitler’s Waffen-SS, and a psychopathic “medical doctor” who committed the most heinous atrocities at the Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and Mauthausen concentration camps, including: the performance of operations on prisoners without anesthesia; removing organs from healthy inmates, who were then left then to die on the operating table; injecting poison, including gasoline, into the hearts of others; and taking the skull of at least one victim as a “souvenir.”As revealed in this February 4/5, 2009 New York Times story, Heim, like many Nazi war criminals, lived safely in Egypt, perhaps for up to three decades, following his flight from Europe in 1962.

A dusty briefcase with rusted buckles, sitting nearly forgotten in storage here in Cairo, hid the truth behind Dr. Heim’s flight to the Middle East. Obtained by The New York Times and the German television station ZDF from members of the Doma family, proprietors of the hotel here where Dr. Heim resided, the files in the briefcase tell the story of his life, and death, in Egypt.Josef Kohl, a former inmate at Mauthausen, gave the following testimony regarding Heim to a United States war crimes investigating team on Jan. 18, 1946, less than a year after the German surrender.

Dr. Heim had a habit of looking into inmates’ mouths to determine whether their teeth were in impeccable condition. If this were the case, he would kill the prisoner with an injection, cut his head off, leave it to cook in the crematorium for hours, until all the flesh was stripped from the naked skull and prepare the skull for himself and his friends as a decoration for their desks.During 1979, Heim (who died on Aug. 10, 1992, according to his son and the death certificate), wrote a letter to the German magazine Spiegel, after the publication of a report about his war-crimes case. Whether he ever sent the letter, which was found in his files (along with numerous others were “written in meticulous cursive style in German or English”) is unclear. According to the Times report,the letter…accused Simon Wiesenthal, who was interned at Mauthausen, of being “the one who invented these atrocities.” Dr. Heim went on to discuss what he called Israeli massacres of Palestinians, and added that “the Jewish Khazar, Zionist lobby of the U.S. were the first ones who in 1933 declared war against Hitler’s Germany.” The Turkic ethnic group the Khazars were a recurring theme for Dr. Heim, who kept himself busy in Cairo, researching a paper he wrote in English and German, decrying the possibility of anti-Semitism owing to the fact, he said, that most Jews were not Semitic in ethnic origin.Heim converted to Islam (in his case, at the Cairo mosque of Sunni Islam’s foremost religious teaching institution, Al Azhar), becoming “known to locals” as Tarek Hussein Farid. Apparently, Heim, aka, Dr. Death, became a devout Muslim, “maintained the discipline to walk some 15 miles each day through the busy streets of Egypt’s capital…to the world-renowned Al Azhar mosque”, and bonded with his Muslim neighbors, who knew him as “Uncle” Tarek Hussein Farid.He formed close bonds with his neighbors, including the Doma family, which ran the Kasr el Madina hotel, where Dr. Heim lived the last decade before his death. Mahmoud Doma, whose father owned the establishment, said Dr. Heim spoke Arabic, English and French, in addition to German. Mr. Doma said his neighbor read and studied the Koran, including a copy in German that the Domas had ordered for him. Mahmoud Doma, 38, became emotional when talking about the man he knew as Uncle Tarek, whom he described giving him books and encouraging him to study. “He was like a father. He loved me and I loved him.”He recalled how Uncle Tarek bought rackets and set up a tennis net on the hotel roof, where he and his siblings played with the German Muslim until sundown. But by 1990, Dr. Heim’s good health began to fail him and he was diagnosed with cancer. Thus Heim epitomized scores of other Nazis, who found safe haven in Egypt, most importantly, the pious Muslim jihadist and Nazi ideologue, Johannes “Omar Amin” von Leers. Historian Bat Ye’or has described this phenomenon, as follows (here, pp.154-55):

…they lived under false names and worked in anti-Zionist propaganda centers, such as the Institute for the Study of Zionism, which was founded in Cairo, in 1955. Its director, Alfred Zingler (alias Mahmoud Saleh), worked together with Dr. Johannes von Leers (d. 1965, alias Omar Amin), who had been a specialist on the “Jewish Question” in Josef Goebbels’ propaganda department. Zingler’s main assistants were Dr. Werner Witschale and Hans Appler (Saleh Shafar), who had also served on the staff of Goebbels’ ministry, as well as Louis Heiden. Heiden was the editor of one of the many Arabic versions of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and of a translation of Hitler’s Mein Kampf into Arabic. In 1955, the Cairo Egyptian special services for anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist propaganda hired Appler.

Other Nazis settled in Egypt as well. Most of them worked with the Egyptian government as advisers on anti-Zionist propaganda or assisted with the organization of police forces or as military trainers in Palestinian terrorist camps. In 1957, according to Frankfurter Illustrierte [August 25, 1957], the number of Nazis in Egypt was two thousand. [emphasis added] Erich Altern (Ali Bella), the chief of the Jewish section of the Gestapo in occupied Galicia [Eastern Central Europe, between Poland and Ukraine] during the war, escaped to Egypt in the early 1950s, where he served as a military instructor in the Palestinian camps. [Standartenfuhrer (an SS regiment leader)] Baumann (Ali Ben Khader), who had collaborated in the extermination of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto and went into hiding, became a military specialist in Egypt for the army of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).

The pervasive impact of this ugly mentality is perhaps best illustrated by then Colonel Anwar El-Sadat’s 1953 “Letter to Hitler”. When, in September, 1953 several news agency reports were circulated claiming that Hitler was still alive, the Cairo weekly Al Musawwar, posed this question to a number of Egyptian personalities, including Sadat: “If you wished to send Hitler a personal letter, what would you write to him?” In response, Sadat wrote the following, published September 18, 1953: (here, p. 155 )

My dear Hitler,

I congratulate you from the bottom of my heart. Even if you appear to have been defeated, in reality you are the victor. You succeeded in creating dissensions between Churchill, the old man, and his allies, the Sons of Satan. [emphasis added] Germany will win because her existence is necessary to preserve the world balance. Germany will be reborn in spite of the Western and Eastern powers. There will be no peace unless Germany once again becomes what she was. The West, as well as the East, will pay for her rehabilitation—whether they like it or not. Both sides will invest a great deal of money and effort in Germany in order to have her on their side, which is of great benefit to Germany. So much for the present and the future. As for the past, I think you made mistakes, like too many battlefronts and the shortsightedness of Ribbentrop vis-a vis the experienced British diplomacy. But your trust in your country and people will atone for those blunders. We will not be surprised if you appear again in Germany or if a new Hitler rises up in your wake. [emphasis added]

Almost 40 years ago (1973/74) Bat Ye’or published a remarkably prescient analysis of the Islamic antisemitism and resurgent jihadism in her native Egypt, being packaged for dissemination throughout the Muslim world. The primary, core Antisemitic and jihadist motifs were Islamic, derived from Islam’s foundational texts, on to which European, especially Nazi elements were grafted.

Nazi academic and propagandist of extermination Johannes von Leers’ writings and personal career trajectory — as a favored contributor in Goebbels’ propaganda ministry, to his eventual adoption of Islam (as Omar Amin von Leers) while working as an anti-Western, and antisemitic/anti-Zionist propagandist under Nasser’s regime from the mid-1950s, until his death in 1965 — represents the apotheosis of this convergence of jihad, Islamic antisemitism, and racist, Nazi antisemitism, described by Bat Ye’or.

Upon his arrival in Egypt in 1956, it was the jihadist and Nazi ally, Hajj Amin el-Husseini, former Mufti of Jerusalem, who welcomed von Leers, stating, “We are grateful to you for having come here to resume the struggle against the powers of darkness incarnated by international Judaism.” The ex-Mufti oversaw von Leers’ formal conversion to Islam, and remained one of his confidants. And von Leers described the origins of the Muslim “forename,” Omar Amin, that he adopted as part of his conversion to Islam in a November, 1957 letter to American Nazi H. Keith Thompson,

I myself have embraced Islam and accepted the new forename Omar Amin, Omar according to the great Caliph Omar who was a grim enemy of the Jews, Amin in honor of my friend Hajj Amin el Husseini, the Grand Mufti.

Already in essays published during 1938 and 1942, the first dating back almost two decades before his conversion to Islam while in Egypt, von Leers produced analyses focused primarily on Muhammad’s interactions with the Jews of Medina. These essays reveal his pious reverence for Islam and its prophet, and a thorough understanding of the sacralized Islamic sources for this narrative, i.e., the Koran, hadith, and sira. which is entirely consistent with standard Muslim apologetics.Hmmmm...........Geert Wilders vindicated?Read the full story here.

• Please elaborate?MSNBC Under Bush – Natural Disasters Create Jobs; MSNBC Under Obama – Natural Disasters Wipe Out Jobs.(EmergingCorruption).Perhaps using a preemptive strike to help combat the May jobs report to be released on Friday, MSNBC has already found an excuse for lost jobs, and an increased unemployment rate – storms, tornadoes and flooding. According to a business report:

“…homes or places of business have been destroyed in this year’s wave of storms, tornadoes and flooding. That means thousands of workers in the South and Midwest could be out of work for some time, potentially pushing up the nation’s jobless rate and further taxing financially strapped state unemployment funds.”

Yet in 2004, when reporting on an October jobs report in which hiring had increased at the fastest pace in seven months, MSNBC somehow managed to find analysts who said the jump in hiring was due mainly to another form of natural disaster – hurricanes. The business report at that time read:

“Some analysts were skeptical about the latest surge of hiring, pointing out that much of the unusually large jump in October stemmed from cleanup and rebuilding in Florida and other states that were ravaged by four hurricanes…”That assessment is buoyed by an accompanying CNBC video in which Senior Economics Reporter, Steve Liesman, asks President Bush’s economic advisor, Gregory Mankiw, about the ‘Hurricane Effect’ on a jobs report.

Liesman: The concern here is that there was a lot of hurricane related with bounce back from September and a lot of construction related activity that added to jobs in October. Greg, take a step back from the number, the 339,000, where is the trend as far as you can tell?

Considering the devastation and destruction wrought by the recent spate of tornadoes, would there not be an uptick in construction related activity as well?MSNBC followed that report with another forecast on job growth in November of 2004, which anticipated glowing numbers due to a ‘post-hurricane rebound’. That report read:

“Economists, who have been burned over the past few months by reports that fell short of expectations, are once again looking for a solid report, partly because of an expected rebound after four hurricanes tore through Florida and other southern states in August and September.”That said, the biggest contradiction to the aforementioned ‘tornadoes wipe out jobs’ report may have come from an AP article run on the MSNBC site itself just four days ago. The headline?Natural disasters probably won’t bruise US economy.That piece stated:

The tornadoes and floods that have devastated parts of the South and Midwest have also hammered the local economies — flooding farmlands, suspending factory work and disrupting energy production. Yet for the U.S. economy overall, the damage will likely be scant. At most, the disasters might knock one-tenth of 1 percentage point off national economic growth in the April-June quarter, Wells Fargo economist Mark Vitner estimates.“It’s so small, you aren’t going to notice it,” said Patrick Newport, an economist at IHS Global Insight.Also of interest is the next sentence which reads:

Others caution, though, that the tornado season hasn’t ended yet, and the hurricane season has yet to arrive. Further major disasters could begin to weigh on the U.S. economy.

So in the view of MSNBC, hurricanes and natural disasters in 2004 actually helped to create jobs, while in 2011 they will likely eliminate jobs. What’s the biggest difference leading to two very contradicting conclusions in these jobs reports?Who was running for re-election in October of 2004, and who is running for re-election now?Hmmmmm.....It reminds me of the 1939 Goebbels era.Read the full story here.

• Major Oil Find in Texas, 3,000 Wells in 12 Months (Unless Obama Stops This Also).(YidWithLid).Texas has a reputation of doing things in a big way and this time is no different, one of the worlds largest oil fields have been found right here in the U.S. in the western part of Texas.And companies are rushing to get it out of the ground. More than a dozen companies plan to drill up to 3,000 wells around here in the next 12 months.Eagle Ford the name of the Texas field, is just one of about 20 new onshore oil fields that industry sources say could collectively increase the nation’s oil output by 25 percent within a decade.The "problem" is, at least to environmentalists, the oil fields are of the "shale oil" variety, and the way to get it it out of the ground is by fracking a process that makes environmentalists nervous. Fracking involves injecting water, with sand and other additives, into the rock to push the oil and/or gas into accessible pockets. Improvements in technology allow drilling horizontally from a single, above-ground well, reducing the above-ground hit on the environment.The Eagle Ford, where the first well was drilled only three years ago, is already producing more than 100,000 barrels a day and could reach 420,000 by 2015, almost as much as Ecuador, according to Bentek Energy, a consultancy. That's only four years from now, but don't start celebrating yet environmentalists are trying very hard to stop the use of fracking. According to a recent report released by Congressman Issa, the Obama administration is doing its best to make it difficult to use the fracking method of extracting oil and gas.Oh and there is that other "thing." According to the Washington Examiner, the 3-inch dunes sagebrush lizard could hinder drilling in West Texas, as it could be named a new endangered species. If put on the list in December, drillers fear the lizard’s new status would slow down or halt drilling in the area.Based on his track record of preventing drilling in the guild and the canceling of shale drilling contracts in Utah, it will not be surprising if President Obama finds a way to stop this drilling also.Hmmmm.....If he wanted to destroy America, would he do anything different?Read the full story here.

• Bibi: ‘We’ll Protect Jerusalem and Jerusalem Will Protect Us’.(ArutzSheva).Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu spoke during Tuesday’s Jerusalem Day celebration at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva in Jerusalem. As he entered the Beit Medrash, over a thousand students sang the words with which Moses blessed the tribe of Binyamin: "And to Binyamin he said: Beloved by God, he will dwell in security."The head of the yeshiva, Rav Yaakov Shapira, welcomed the Prime Minister with warm words for his forthright speech in the US Congress, adding that our "roadmap" is the Bible and that all of the land of Israel stems from Jerusalem and has the same indivisible status as the hoy city.Netanyahu started by recalling how the government ministers sit during their meetings and browse through letters and other reports. He noted, however, that one minister browses through the Tanach and sometimes the Talmud. That minister, said Netanyahu, is Justice Minister Ya’akov Ne’eman, who was sitting on the dais to the right of him.“For Ne’eman, public service is holy work,” said Netanyahu, “and as such, from time to time he shares with me something new that he’s found. So I’m happy to be here with him and many other great people such as the Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yona Metzger, the former Chief Rabbi of Israel and current Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, Rabbi Lau, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, and Rabbi Ya’akov Shapira who heads the Mercaz Harav yeshiva.”Addressing Rabbi Shapira directly, Netanyahu said: “I just heard the song ‘Od Avinu Chai’ (our Father still lives, sung by the students as the PM took his seat). Your father still lives, too. I remember the great Rabbi Shapira, and he still lives in you, in your spirit, in the spirit of all the great rabbis, but above all, he lives in the spirit of all of you students of Mercaz Harav.”Netanyahu thanked those present for their support during his visit to the United States last week.“When I was overseas, I received all your blessings and support,” he said. “You wanted to strengthen me and you did it, because during that entire week I kept remembering one verse: ‘Chazak Chazak v’Nitchazek.’ (Be strong, be strong, and may we be strengthened). May we strengthen one another. We need that strength every day of the year. We’re undergoing a great struggle but we also have some great achievements. 44 years ago, Israel’s soldiers fulfilled the vision of the prophets and brought back Jerusalem to its proper place.“My friends, almost 2,000 years have passed since the destruction,” continued Netanyahu. “And today Jerusalem is beautiful and is a pride to the entire country. We came back to Jerusalem as builders, and today Jerusalem is growing and flourishing. We need to continue and build and develop the city. We see how the citizens of Jerusalem walk in it proudly. Jerusalem has once again become the capital of the Jewish people. Jerusalem is built, it is joined and unified forever,” he ended paraphrasing Psalm 132. The Prime Minister did not repeat his words to the Congress about finding creative ways to keep the city united and satisfy the Palestinians.He recalled the government meeting this week, which took place at Migdal David in honor of Jerusalem Day. “Before the meeting I went down to the basement and saw a model of the city from the middle of the 19th century. In the model you see the synagogue standing upright, and then you see another synagogue. And you see the Jewish Quarter. We know that we were turned away from the city, but we came back and rebuilt. The synagogue now stands, complete, just like in its glory days.”The Prime Minister ended with a blessing, perhaps a hint of no building freezes, in honor of Jerusalem Day.“There’s nothing more holy to us than Jerusalem,” he said. “We’ll keep Jerusalem, we’ll keep its unity, we’ll build it. We’ll protect Jerusalem and Jerusalem will protect us. I say to you not just Chag Sameach, but L’Shana Haba’a BiYerushalyim Habenuya Yoter (Next year in Jerusalem which is built even more)!”Read the full story here.

• Sesame Street Spreads Secret Political Messages, Insiders Admit.(AtlanticWire).In his new book Primetime Propaganda, conservative writer and columnist Ben Shapiro called the seemingly innocuous show Sesame Street a vehicle for spreading left-wing propaganda, according to the Daily Mail. Shapiro apparently interviewed "hundreds of industry insiders," some of whom actually admitted using their shows to "spread secret political messages.""I was shocked by the openness of the Hollywood crowd when it came to admitting anti-conservative discrimination inside the industry," Shapiro told The Independent. "They weren't ashamed of it. In fact, some were actually proud of it." The Independent summarizes some of Shapiro's findings:

The TV series Friends undermined family values; Sesame Street taught ethnic minorities about civil disobedience; Happy Days had a subtle anti-Vietnam subtext; and the 1980s cop show MacGyver tried to persuade pistol-packing Americans that guns are bad.

But Sesame Street, which targets us when we're young, is worst of all. Shapiro quotes Mike Dann, one of the show's founding executives, saying it "was not made for the sophisticated or the middle class." Early episodes featured the character Grover breaking bread with a hippie. Oscar, who lived in a rubbish bin, was supposed to address "conflicts arising from racial and ethnic diversity." Dann also told Shapiro he used the program in the wake of 9/11 to highlight how there were peaceful alternatives to war. Shameful! Criminal, even! In fairness to Shapiro, however, Sesame Street was criticized in the past for having an anti-right agenda in 2009, when it mockingly referred to America’s Fox News channel as "Pox News.""Sesame Street tried to tackle divorce, tackled 'peaceful conflict resolution' in the aftermath of 9/11, and had [gay actor] Neil Patrick Harris on the show playing the subtly-named 'fairy shoeperson'," writes Shapiro. And since 95 percent of Americans have watched the show by the time they're three years old, well, the levels of brainwashing must be astronomical!"Television isn't just about entertainment," said Shapiro. "It's an attempt to convince Americans that the social, economic, and foreign policy shaped by leftism is morally righteous." And, he added to the Independent, "It's not paranoid to speak the truth."Hmmmm......Dictatorship or democracy?Read and see the full story here.

• U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission:HP Expands Recall of Notebook Computer Batteries Due to Fire Hazard. Consumers urged to recheck notebook models and batteries

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed. It is illegal to resell or attempt to resell a recalled consumer product.

Name of Product: Lithium-ion batteries used in HP and Compaq notebook computers

Units: About 162,600 additional batteries (54,000 and 70,000 batteries were previously recalled in May 2010 and May 2009, respectively)Importer: Hewlett-Packard Company, of Palo Alto, Calif.

 Hazard: The recalled lithium-ion batteries can overheat and rupture, posing fire and burn hazards to consumers.

Incidents/Injuries: Since the May 2010 recall expansion, HP has received 40 additional reports of batteries that overheated and ruptured, resulting in seven burn injuries, one smoke inhalation injury, and 36 instances of property damage.

Description: The recalled lithium-ion rechargeable batteries are used with various model series of HP and Compaq notebook computers and include batteries that consumers were informed were not included in previous recalls. The chart below includes all notebook model numbers associated with batteries recalled to date. The computer model number is located at the top of the service label on the bottom of the notebook computer. Not all batteries matching the bar codes are being recalled.Read the full story here.

• Press Preview for “What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam?” Exhibit at the National Archives.Groundbreaking exhibit explores nation’s love affair with, fear of, and obsession with food.What's Cooking, Uncle Sam? is a thoughtful selection of records culled from thousands of pages of material that chronicle the story of the government’s efforts to feed Americans an ample, safe, and nutritious diet. Spanning the Revolutionary War-era through the late 1900s, the documents, films, and photographs in the exhibition echo many of our current concerns about the Government's role in the health and safety of our food supply. There are over 100 original records in the exhibit—including folk songs, war posters, educational films, and even seed packets. Passing over the traditional chronological approach, the exhibition is arranged into four themes: “Farm,” “Factory,” “Kitchen,” and “Table.” What's Cooking, Uncle Sam?" is made possible in part by the Foundation for the National Archives with support from Mars Incorporated and Mars Food.At the preview, the press will be invited to sample tastes from several of the recipes featured in the exhibition and the companion cookbook.Hmmmm....Why do i get a bad feeling about this?Read and see the full story here.

• Iran dominates Nato "Ally" Turkey oil imports in Q1.(PressTV).The Islamic Republic of Iran has topped the list of oil exporters to Turkey in the first quarter of 2011, a report has revealed.According to a report released by Turkey's Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EMRA), the country imported six million tons of oil during the period.Iran was also the main country from where Turkey imported oil throughout the first quarter of 2011, Anatolia News Agency reported on Monday.The report added that some 4.2 million tons of the overall six million tons of oil imports was crude, 1.4 million tons was diesel, 135,379 tons was fuel, 56,471 tons was jet fuel, 53,225 tons was 95 octane unleaded gasoline, and 2,082 tons was aviation fuel.Iran's share in Turkey's oil imports amounted to 30 percent, whereas Iraq and Russia followed by 12 and 11 percent respectively.The EMRA report comes as Iran and Turkey have in recent years considerably expanded their economy, trade and energy cooperation.Hmmmm....."Sanctions that bite"?Why not end this whole sharade and get Turkey out of NATO.Read the full story here.

• Sheik Sau'd Al-Shreim In Friday Sermon At Mecca's Al-Haram Mosque:Western Women Contemptible Merchandise In Houses Of Whoring And Abomination, Channel 1 (Saudi Arabia).Read and see the full story here.

• Dr. Aleida Guevara, Daughter Of Che Guevara, Meets Hizbullah Leaders In Lebanon: "If We Do Not Conduct Resistance, We Will Disappear From The Face Of The Earth".(Memri).Read and see the full story here.

• Islamic Movement leader Sheikh Salah charged with obstructing officer.(Ynet).Islamic Movement leader charged with violently refusing security checks on Jordanian border. An indictment was filed with the Jerusalem Magistrates' Court Wednesday against the leader of the Islamic Movement's Northern Branch, Sheikh Raed Salah, charging him with obstructing a law enforcement officer on duty.The indictment cites an incident that occurred in March, when Salah arrived at the Allenby Bridge crossing with Jordan together with his wife and asked to cross into Israel. The couple was taken to a separate wing to be checked, due to Salah's public post.The prosecution claims that the Islamic Movement official refused to comply with the security requirements, declining to have his baggage and person checked. But he lost all control when a female officer tried to examine his wife, screaming at the officer that she was being disrespectful and bodily denying her access to his spouse, the indictment says. The commander of the crossing asked Salah to calm down and leave the examination room, but he continued to yell and obstruct the officer, and ordered his wife to leave the room as well, it adds. Two other officers were alerted to the scene and they forced him out of the room, but the prosecution claims he continued to argue loudly and, after having been seated, got up, pushed the officers out of the way, and tried to enter the room again, kicking at the door. The prosecution claims that the kicked-in door caused injury to one of the officers.It was Salah's second arrest this year. In February he was nabbed by police on suspicion of setting fire to a eucalyptus grove in southern Israel, in protest against conservation work being done there by the Jewish National Fund. He had just been released from Ayalon Prison a few months prior, where he was serving a five-month sentence for assaulting a police officer. Other prior offenses include taking part in the May 31 Gaza flotilla.Hmmmmm.......Something tells me he will miss the boat this time.Read the full story here.

• Violent clashes erupt during Jerusalem Day parade.(Ynet).Traditional 'Flag Dance' procession commemorating Jerusalem's reunification becomes scene of violent clashes between marchers and Arab residents of capital's eastern neighborhoods. Several rioters detained by police .Violent clashes broke out on Wednesday during the traditional "Flag Dance" parade in east Jerusalem. Police detained at least 15 people, both Jewish and Arab, some of whom are suspected of hurling stones. Three people were lightly wounded.Marchers and local business owners hurled stones and fruit at each other near Damascus Gate. Large police forces were deployed and arrested two rioters.A marcher and an Arab resident were injured near Damascus Gate from stones they pelted at one another. Another marcher was lightly injured from a stone that was pelted at him near Sheikh Jarrah. All three received medical treatment at a nearby hospital. Hamed, a shopkeeper, accused the marchers of hurling stones at Arab shops near the Damascus Gate. "We closed the shops because they're throwing stones at us. These people don't want to celebrate, they want to fight," he told Ynet. Several protestors were arrested near the site after chanting nationalistic slogans and trying to harm Arabs. Two protestors were also arrested in Silwan on suspicion they hurled stones at security forces. Among the marchers were extreme-right activists carrying stickers reading "Kahane was right." Two Jewish rioters were arrested in Nevi'im street after hurling objects at Arab passersby. There were no injuries. The clashes broke out earlier between marchers and left-wing activists near the Tomb of Simon the Just in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Police arrested two protestors. The activists, who waved signs reading "Jewish-Arab solidarity against apartheid," claimed that police used excessive force. Clashes continued later when several Sheikh Jarrah residents waved Palestinian flags over rooftops. Some of the marchers shouted "death to Arabs" in response, which prompted the hurling of stones. No injuries were reported. Police detained several rioters. Officers also dispersed several Kahane followers in the Tomb of Simon the Just who assaulted several leftists. A right-wing activist who entered a local mosque with an Israeli flag was also arrested.Read the full story here.

• Turkey - The mysterious case of the multiplying voters a.k.a. how to 'gain' an extra 10 % of the votes.(StopTurkey).Important Article About Possible Election Fraud in Turkey's Upcoming Elections.The author notes that the number of registered voters in Turkey has mysteriously increased in recent times. Only last year at the Sept. 12 referendum, the number of eligible registered voters was around 49 million and in 2007 it was 42 million and in 2002 it was 41.4 million. In 2010 and 2011, it all of a sudden reached 49 and 52 million, respectively. How? Are Turks multiplying like rabbits? Particularly, how have Turks multiplied by three additional million since September 2010, resulting in the number of eligible voters increasing from 49 million to 52 million? What has happened? Or, has someone placed in his pocket in advance some 10 percent of the vote in case of any emergency? It smells bad, does it not?Disturbingly, opinion polls in the country also show massive variation in support for political parties. My problem with the public opinion polls is that so far I could not come up with a public opinion research company in this country who successfully and accurately forecasted three consecutive general or local elections. For every election there is generally a public opinion company, which came very close in its reports to the actual outcome of the poll. And, of course there is nothing surprising in that as there are companies suggesting that the ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, will have an electoral support as low as 36 percent in the June 12 election, while there are companies claiming the ruling party will do very well and get support of some 52 percent of the electorate. If the AKP receives between 35 and 54 percent of the vote, then there will be companies declaring victory and celebrating their accurate forecast on the June 12 evening. For God sake, there is almost 20 percentage points between the lowest and the highest forecasts, how scientific can such forecasts be?In first-world nations, professional polling is normally very reliable. There tends to be only a slight variation between polls done by different companies and between polls and the election result itself.Read the full story here, more here.