MFS - The Other News

                        Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Tonga 6.8 ! More info here.

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

• First images of NASA satellite as it falls toward earth here.

• Complete Coverage of NASA's Falling Satellite UARS Here.

• Black Friday Arrives: Biggest Weekly Move In 30 Year Bond Since Black Monday.(ZeroHedge).30Y rates move more than three standard deviations this week - the greatest move since Black Monday (1987) - as it drops 55bps - Hmmmmm.......stability.Source.

• Nigel Farage: Financial “Cataclysm” To Come, Gold to Unimaginable Levels.(SHTF).Mr. Farage is a former commodities broker on the London Metals Exchange, so he understands the financial markets and monetary system (unlike 99% of the other politicians in the EU and DC), as well as the implications of the current debt crisis facing not just Europe, but the entire world. You’ll rarely hear a politician come out from behind the curtain as Nigel Farage does. Like most of us, he’s not very optimistic about what’s to come, and he lays out his views in an interview with King World News which is well worth listening to in full Here.

• Breaking News! Independence Day Rocks - 2 Jews killed by Arab Independence Rocks near Hebron on Highway 60. Car was stoned,The 2 that were murdered were a 30 year old from the area and his baby.Source.Updated: IDF says no rock throwing took place, here

• Another Day, Another Power Grab.(WHD).By Keith Koffler. What’s the major difference between George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind law and the new education program that will be announced by President Obama today?It’s there in the very sentence above.The Bush law is a law. It was the result of arduous bipartisan negotiations that led to an agreement between, of all people, Bush and the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.The Obama program is a program. It is federal fiat, a decision about what’s best by your superiors in the Obama administration. It’s a unilateral move to bypass the legislative process. It may or may not be good education policy. But the Chinese Politburo also may or may not be doing good education policy.In an August briefing previewing the new policy, Duncan encapsulated the Administration mindset: BIG BROTHER KNOWS BEST.

I want to thank the President for doing the right thing, stepping up. Congress, we would have loved them to act. They should have acted, didn’t happen, and we can’t afford to sit here and not support states.This is the right thing to do for the country. Congress just hasn’t acted. And we can’t afford to wait. People are begging, they’re imploring us to do the right thing.So it’s not my job to psychoanalyze Congress; it’s my job to move forward the children.

So you see, instructs Mr. Duncan, democracy is a slow and cumbersome process. But when you know what is right and other’s don’t – especially if others don’t – you just have to take action.Even though once, long ago, our Founding Fathers decided that democracy was the “right” thing to do.Hmmmm....“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776.Read the full story here.

• Close Obama Pal Embroiled In Grant Fraud Scandal.(JW).More than two months after a Chicago nurse got criminally charged for stealing half a million taxpayer dollars from minority outreach programs one media outlet has dared to reveal that a close friend, advisor and donor of President Obama’s is embroiled in the scandal.It’s the taboo portion of the story that’s been ignored by the mainstream media and conveniently omitted in government press releases announcing the June federal indictment a month after it was filed. The one-time director of the Chicago Chapter of the National Black Nurses Association (Margaret Davis) faces two decades in prison for defrauding various state grant programs out of approximately $500,000, according to federal authorities.What the feds haven’t revealed is that the state agency that gave Davis all the money, the Illinois Department of Public Health, was run by one of Obama’s closest pals, Dr. Eric Whitaker, when the cash was disbursed. We know this only because Chicago’s conservative-leaning newspaper has been digging around. This week it published a lengthy article connecting the dots between Whitaker and the corruption scheme.The state’s convicted felon governor (Rod Blagojevich) appointed Whitaker health director in 2003 after Obama, a state senator at the time, recommended him. During Whitaker’s four-year tenure, the agency spent millions of taxpayer dollars on highly questionable publicity campaigns to educate African-Americans and other minorities about common diseases in their communities, mainly AIDS.Nearly $600,000 of it went to Davis and her Black Nurses Association, which received an additional half a million dollars in state grants from other agencies. Whitaker referred to the indicted nurse as “the ultimate advocate for health care and human services” and even gave her a no-bid contract to train college nursing students in administrative areas.Similar minority programs, many of them “faith-based,” also received big chunks of taxpayer dollars from Whitaker’s agency while he was in charge. Among them is a defunct AIDS awareness program that has been sued by the Illinois Attorney General’s office for misspending $523,546. Whitaker claims that thousands of grants were distributed when he ran the agency and he “couldn’t have known about the transgressions such as the alleged embezzlement related to a contract with the Chicago Chapter of the National Black Nurses Association.”He seems to have little worries as he enjoys his lucrative, private-sector job. In 2007 Whitaker resigned to join Michelle Obama at the University of Chicago Medical Center where he makes more than $670,000 a year as executive vice president for strategic affiliations and associate dean for community-based research.Hmmmm.....Anyone has a theory about coincidence?Read the full story here.

• Dem. Rep. and Muslim Ellison Slams Obama As “Wrong” To Vote Against Palestinian Statehood At UN.(TheHill).Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), the co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Friday that Obama is “wrong” to oppose the vote for Palestinian statehood at the United Nations.“The key issue of statehood is something that we can do now, that we should do now,” Ellison said on the progressive Bill Press radio show. “I think it will bring great stability to the region.”Ellison said Obama is missing an opportunity to get the Palestinian state he has previously said he wanted. Ellison’s position represents a break with top House Democrats, who have agreed with Obama on the possible U.N. vote.House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) sided with Obama last week in a letter sent to 40 European heads of state urging them not to support the Palestinian bid.Not being a recognized state “puts [the Palestinians] at a considerable disadvantage when they try to bargain with Israel,” Ellison argued. “The move we should be making is welcoming Palestinians … as a sovereign nation.”Our opposition “will have a negative impact on our already hurting credibility,” Ellison said.Hmmmm....."I will stand with my Palestinian brothers?"Read the full story here.

• Palestine to defy Obama's warning of violence and push ahead with bid for independence.(DailyMail).Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is preparing to submit his bid for UN recognition of Palestine as an independent state today in defiance of a US-led bid to stop him. He said he would deliver the application to UN chief Ban Ki-moon as planned.A top aide, Mohammed Ishtayeh, said that Mr Abbas asked Mr Ban and the Security Council's Lebanese president this month to process the application without delay.'We're going without any hesitation and continuing despite all the pressures,' Mr Abbas told members of the Palestinian diaspora at a hotel in New York on Thursday night.'We seek to achieve our right and we want our independent state.'Mr Abbas will address the UN general assembly in New York later today and he will be followed soon afterwards by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who opposes the move.U.S. President Barack Obama has also pleaded with Mr Abbas to drop the application in case it causes further violence in the region.Mr Abbas' appeal to the UN to recognise Palestinian independence in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip would not deliver any immediate changes on the ground: Israel would remain an occupying force in those first two territories and continue to severely restrict access to Gaza, ruled by Palestinian Hamas militants.Beyond that, Security Council action on the membership request could take weeks or months.The strategy also put the Palestinians in direct confrontation with the US, which has threatened to veto their membership bid in the UN Security Council, reasoning, like Israel, that statehood can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties to the long and bloody conflict.The US and Israel have been pressuring council members to either vote against the plan or abstain when it comes up for a vote. The vote would require the support of nine of the council's 15 members to pass, but even if the Palestinians could line up that backing, a US veto is assured.The resumption of talks seems an elusive goal.Israel insists that negotiations go ahead without any preconditions.But Palestinians say they will not return to the bargaining table without assurances that Israel would halt settlement building and drop its opposition to basing negotiations on the borders it held before capturing the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza in 1967.Israel has warned that the Palestinian appeal to the UN will have a disastrous effect on negotiations.Mr Netanyahu opposes negotiations based on 1967 lines, saying a return to those frontiers would expose Israel's heartland to rocket fire from the West Bank.Read the full story here.

• Canada - Horrific video captures moment cop shoots teen in face with Taser to break up street fight.(DailyMail).There is growing outcry after a police officer was videotaped breaking up a street fight by shooting a Taser in the face of one of the teenage participants.The 17-year-old is recovering in hospital, with his mother saying it took three surgeons to remove the prongs from her son's ear.Witnesses to the incident at 11.55am yesterday in London, Ontario, claim the officer did not shout a warning. High-school students are threatening a protest in response.A cell phone video of the clash was posted on YouTube.It shows one youth hitting the other with a chair when a London Police officer on foot walks in from the street and shoots a dart from a Taser stun gun at a young man wearing jeans and a black shirt.From the video, it appears the two males had separated when the officer approached.The crowd gasps in horror as the Taser's prongs appear to hit the male in the face. He falls to the ground and is motionless for nearly one minute.'Why would you tase him? You shot him in the head. You never even asked him to stop,' screams a male on the video.The officer walks and stands over the teen, motioning for bystanders to step back.Vivian Greening was riding her scooter down Dundas St. when she came across the melee, the London Free Press reported.The officer did not give any warning before using his stun gun, Ms Greening said.He just pulled out the Taser and shot him,' she told the paper. 'They didn't even try to talk to the kids (or) yell at the kids.'Onlookers to the fight in the area of Dundas Street and Maitland Street spilled onto the street, many of them students at nearby H.B. Beal secondary school.Read and see the full story here.

• Top Hezbollah man 'disappears'.(YNet).A senior Hezbollah militant has been missing for several days and according to Lebanese sources, his disappearance may be connected to the arrest of four people suspected of collaborating with Israel, London-based Asharq Al-Awsat reported on Thursday.According to the Lebanese sources, the said Hezbollah member, who serves in the organization's command room, disappeared from his home in the district of Dahiya, south of Beirut, several days ago. The sources claimed his relatives were told he "will not be coming back anytime soon," which led them to believe that he was either killed or kidnapped.If the reports prove to be true, this may be the highest ranking Hezbollah militant to have been attributed such allegation, as he was one of the members summoned to give testimony in front of the International Criminal Tribunal for Lebanon, which investigated the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.In august, the special court published a 47-page indictment against four members of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah for alleged involvement in the deadly truck bombing that killed Hariri.Hezbollah has denied involvement and said it will never turn over the suspects.Read the full story here.

• Obama tells rabbis: Bond with Israel unbreakable.(YNet).New York – A day after he made what is being called his "Zionist speech" at the UN General Assembly in New York, US President Barack Obama was back in the White House where he held a conference call with over 900 orthodox, conservative and reform rabbis from throughout the US ahead of the Jewish new year. During the 30 minute call, Obama assured the rabbis that the US-Israel alliance was stronger than ever before."Prime Minister Netanyahu knows he can count on the United States," Obama told the rabbis. "We will not abandon the pursuit of a just and lasting peace that will end the conflict." He then noted that "the bonds between the US and Israel are unbreakable and the commitment of the security of Israel is ironclad. Since coming into office, I haven't just talked the talk, we've walked the walk." Obama also spoke about the recent events in Egypt and the Middle East uprisings and noted that the progress towards peace with the Palestinians could cool down the region. "The most important thing we can do to stabilize the strategic situation for Israel is if we can actually resolve the Palestinian-Israeli crisis because that's what feeds so much of the tumult in Egypt. "That's what I think has created the deep tension between Turkey and Israel and Turkey has historically been a friend and ally of Israel's. That's why we think direct negotiations are so critical." Hmmmm....Just don't construct anything in Israel, my God how badly does he need the Jewish vote.......may God grant the Rabbis wisdom and insight.Read the full story here.

• I Hate Israel! I Hate America! I'm a Muslim! I've Got it All! Let Me Be Your Leader!(Doc'sTalk)By Barry Rubin.First it was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the Iranian revolution.Hey, he said in effect, Yes, I’m a Persian, Yes, I’m a Shia, but I hate Israel and want to destroy it! And besides we’re all Muslims. So let me lead the Middle East. I know the way to kick the Americans out of the Middle East, too. By force! And the blood spilled and behold, Iran was popular for a while. But the Arabs and Sunni eventually found other heroes, and some became frightened of Iran’s power.

Then there was Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi dictatorship.

Hey, he said in effect, I am an Arab, I am a Sunni. True, I am a Godless atheist who kills believers. But I not only hate the Americans and Israelis but I also hate the Shia and those Shia heretics. So let me lead the Middle East. I know how to defeat them! By force! And the blood spilled and behold, Iraq was popular for a while. But then he led Iraq to disaster, and was defeated and then killed.

Then there was Usama bin Ladin. He said, I am an Arab, I am a Sunni. True, I am no trained cleric. But I hate the Americans. What? Oh, yes, forgot about that one. I also hate Israel. I know how to defeat them! By force! So let me lead the Middle East. By force! And the blood spilled and behold, Usama bin Ladin was popular for a while. And then he was killed, too.

Then there was Muhammad Fadlallah of Hizballah.

He said in effect, I am an Arab, though a Shia. I am a cleric! I have it all. I hate the Americans (though many of them don’t even realize it) and Israel. I know how to defeat them! By force! See, I won the war! Oops! Spoke too soon, heh! And the blood spilled and Fadlallah was popular for a while, Lebanon was in ruins though, still, Hizballah seized state power there. But he sided with Iran and the Syrian dictatorship so the Sunni Arabs waxed wroth.

And now, there is Yusuf al-Qaradawi and the Muslim Brotherhood and they can say: We’re Arab! We’re Muslim! We’ve got it all, including the most respected Sunni Islamist in the world as our guide! We don’t need no stinkin’ Persians or Shias! (Film reference: “Treasure of the Sierra Madre.”)

Soon we will take over Egypt. We hate the Americans and Israel. We know how to defeat them! By force! True, Egypt lost in 1948 and 1956 and 1967 and, ultimately, in 1973, too. Still, a few Allahu Akhbar’s will take care of that. True, if we were aggressive we might lose all that U.S. aid but what’s money compared to the Will of Allah and the prospect of heaven? Besides, America is collapsing; Israel is losing its support—the more concessions, the more aggressive we will be. And we have our Hamas friends.

There is something different this time, however, since there is still another savior of Islam in the field: Turkish President Recep Erdogan. He says: True, I’m not an Arab but I’m Sunni. And I hate the United States, though I don’t say so in public. And I know how to defeat them: by force! Let’s go and fight! And the Arab League leaders erupt in cheers and chant his name. Then the Muslim Brotherhood discovers he is too subtle for them, he wants to keep the Islamism secret until all power is seized and they disagree with that strategy.Still, Erdogan is making his leadership bid. Here he is at the Arab League foreign minister’s meeting: “It is time for us to take responsibility for our common future….We are entitled to meet the righteous demands of our people using any legitimate means.” Note two phrases: “our common future” means forget about Arab nationalism. All us Muslims got to stick together. Seeing Turks as Europeans is an obsolete notion for him. Ninety years of secular, Western-oriented nationalism is over. “Any legitimate means” means the right and need to go to war against Israel. Of course, the U.S. government still acts as if nothing has changed, that Turkey is not just a reliable ally but an especially honored role model, star ally. Incidentally, don’t waste any time on the lies and denials, here’s Turkey’s foreign minister explaining the new policy of Turkey being leader of the Middle East as he secretly expressed it to a meeting of high-level ruling party officials and as made available to us by Wikileaks. And let’s not forget Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser; and Syria’s Assad dynasty; and, of course, Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasir Arafat. All of them also had the same basic program. All of them failed miserably and left their people worse off.I keep thinking of George Costanza of “Seinfeld” explaining, “You think sickness like that grows on trees? Nobody is sicker than me, nobody….I’m disturbed! I’m depressed! I’m inadequate! I got it all!”There were some others—King Abdallah of Jordan; Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt; Bashir al-Gemayel of Lebanon. They were all murdered, though, by other locals. King Hussein of Jordan isn’t around any more. So let’s see, demagogues who back terrorism and violence, hate the West, and refuse compromise fail miserably and become heroes. Moderates who want to focus on economic progress (including here Husni Mubarak) and peacemaking are jeered and killed or deposed by their own people.

Might there be a pattern here? Meanwhile, like Bart Simpson, President Barack Obama and other Western leaders keep writing on the blackboard one hundred times: Now, if only we prove to them we’re their friends they’ll like us.Maybe, say the Europeans, if we recognize a Palestinian state they will like us! Maybe if we say enough things about Muslims they’ll like us! After all, it is all our fault, or Israel’s fault, that they are angry. They couldn’t possibly want a revolution based on a radical ideology followed by a repressive dictatorship because that’s what they really want!Reminds me of the lyrics to “I Hope I Get It” from “A Chorus Line”:

          “I think I’ve got it.
           I think I’ve got it.
           I knew he liked me all the time.
           Still it isn’t over….What does he want from me?
           What should I try to be?”

In other words, Western leaders aren’t protecting their interests. They’re auditioning for the role of Middle East hero against those who can say they are a Muslim or even an Arab. Guess who’s going to get the part? Are they going to persuade the producers that they hate Israel more than Qaradawi or Erdogan or Fadlallah? That they will promote Islam as well as people like that? That they will kick the West (that is, themselves) out of the Middle East?In contrast, a Gulf Arab, who hates all this stuff, gave the alternative in a private conversation: “I don’t want an American president to behave like an Arab. I want an American president who will behave like an American.”The United States and Europe should be preparing to audition for a very different part in a very different production. How about “Casablanca” or “High Noon”? Obama might be better advised (and it would be less of a stretch) to go out for the Noel Coward role for “In Which We Serve.” Or even “The Four Feathers” in which a coward finds his inner hero.(Warning: Watch only the 1939 version.) Funny, they don’t make films like those any more.They better start making politicians like that very soon!The good news: If you are reading this you have already learned. Explain it to everyone you know.Read the full story here.

• Turkish 'Brain Power' - ‘2000 Turkish students drop out of school daily’.(HurriyetDaily).Some 2,000 students drop out of Turkey’s secondary schools every day during the educational year, and those who remain enrolled are often failing to learn key skills, a new report has said.The report, sent to Parliament by the Education Reform Initiative, or ERG, also noted problems with poor training for teachers and a lack of sufficient public spending on education.Some 360,000 students dropped out of Turkey’s secondary schools in the 2008-2009 school year, while another 295,000 dropped out in the following term, according to ERG, which operates under Istanbul’s Sabancı University. This means an average of 2,000 students drop out each day during the school year.The report also noted that 40 percent of girls and 25 percent of boys between the ages of 15 and 19 are neither working nor studying.More than a third of 15-year-olds in Turkey are not attending school, while 42 percent of juveniles in the same age category are unable to solve basic math problems, according to ERG’s report, which cited figures from the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA, a project of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD.Turkey’s results on PISA’s 2009 exam are among the worst in OECD countries, with some 25 percent of 15-year-olds also unable to comprehend written texts, and another 30 percent unable to solve science and technology problems they could face in real-life circumstances.Despite the upswing in recent years, total public spending on education is still low, according to the report. Some 3.8 percent of public funds in Turkey will be allocated to education in 2013, compared to an OECD average of 6 percent.Teachers in Turkey are not trained and supported the way they should be, the report also said.Hmmmm.......It's all becoming clear now.Return to the Ottoman period?Read the full story here.

• Pakistani Christians Denied Flood Aid by Government, Muslim Groups.(Vinienco).Christian and Hindu flood victims are being denied aid by the Pakistani government and Muslim organizations, charges Father Mario Rodrigues, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies.“The only channel to get humanitarian aid to displaced people belonging to religious minorities, Christians and Hindus, is Caritas [the Church’s charitable agency] ” he told the Fides news agency.“What seems clear from this latest tragedy is that the government has failed in the prevention,” he added. “It wanted the floods and allowed the floods to devastate, in order to receive money from abroad. The poor people suffer the consequences. Among the thousands displaced are Christians.”An estimated seven million Pakistanis have been displaced by recent flooding.“The only channel to get humanitarian aid to displaced people belonging to religious minorities, Christians and Hindus, is Caritas, although government agencies and other Muslim NGOs deny it” says Fr. Mario Rodrigues to Fides, national Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) in Pakistan, after severe floods hit Sindh in past weeks, causing over 7 million refugees and 1.1 million homes damaged or destroyed. The Director of the PMS said: “We must be careful: After the floods of 2010, Catholic organizations have also provided humanitarian aid through local NGOs, but did not give assistance to religious minorities”.During the severe floods of 2010, several sources denounced discrimination in the distribution of humanitarian aid, which were denied to religious minorities. Now such incidents have been repeated in the district of BedinFr. Rodrigues complains: “What seems clear from this latest tragedy is that the government has failed in the prevention. It wanted the floods and allowed the floods to devastate, in order to receive money from abroad. The poor people suffer the consequences. Among the thousands displaced are Christians, who live in almost all the districts of Sindh”.The United Nations has issued an appeal for solidarity to raise 365 million dollars in favor of the affected populations. But the donor countries are asking the Pakistani government to establish a monitoring system to ensure transparency in aid management and to control that the funds actually reach the flood victims. Much of the money raised in 2010, in fact, according to the denunciation of some observers, went lost in the rivulets of corruption, cronyism and misgovernment.Read the full story here.

• Jihadi Book Justifies Killing of Non-Muslim Women and Children in Retaliation for Killing of Muslim Women and Children.(Memri).On July 30, 2011, the jihadi forum Ansar Al-Mujahideen published a new e-book by Sheikh Abu Al-Hassan Al-Azdi titledThe Just Scale – On the Permissibility of Killing the Infidels' Children and Women as Reprisal. As its title suggests, the book seeks to provide religious justification for killing women and children in attacks that come in response to aggression against Muslims. The author presents alleged proofs for his position from the Islamic sources, as well as commentary on each proof by Islamic scholars. In certain cases he also rebuts theoretical arguments that might be brought against the proof's validity.Read the full story here.