Erdoğan: "No one has the right to use coercive force against a country whose activities are aimed at peaceful nuclear purposes".

Erdoğan: "No one has the right to use coercive force against a country whose activities are aimed at peaceful nuclear purposes".HT: EA Worldview.Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has met Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani. Iranian State outlet IRNA is putting out standard lines: "Iran and Turkey are working closely together to manage the many complex issues and problems", "development of trade-economic relations", and a "line of resistance against the Zionist regime.

 State outlet IRNA's summary of the Erdoğan-Ahmadinejad meeting did not appear for some time after the Turkish version. It reads as a boiler-plate press release, rather than a re-cap of anything that was actually said by either man.
According to IRNA, Ahmadinejad "pointed to the friendly and brotherly relations between Iran and Turkey and the need to maintain and deepen bilateral relations in all fields: political, economic, and cultural", with an emphasis on the expansion of trade between the two countries.
IRNA, a pro-Ahmadinejad outlet, adds rhetoric such as "the use of existing capacities in the two countries should expand with exchanges " with "promotion the multilateral political relations, economic and cultural advancement of the interests, welfare and security of the two nations". There is an appreciative "clear and explicit recognition of Turkey's stance on the Iranian nuclear issue", with Tehran and Ankara standing against "Western domination". Ahmadinejad, in this release, said Iran and Turkey will always be strong against "common enemies" and "vigilant against plots".
Erdoğan  "Turkey's government and people always have expressed clear support of Iran's nuclear stance and in the future will follow this policy seriously."The sharp-eyed reader will notice that there is absolutely no reference to Syria, which was supposed to be one of the main concerns raised by the Turkish Prime Minister.State outlet IRNA uses the occasion for more platitudes such as "emphasis on the need to deepen cooperation" with an "association in favour of Iran and Turkey and the Muslim world", with the Supreme Leader asserting that the US does not want any country in the region to be independent.
There is a mention of Syria, with Ayatollah Khamenei saying that Iran will defend Syria, with its support of resistance against the Zionist regime, against any foreign interference in its internal affairs.In addition to the emphasis on "beneficial alliance and cooperation"with Turkey, Ayatollah Khamenei said that they were glad to see their "Muslim brothers in power in Turkey".Hmmmm.....Don't you feel save knowing that Pres Obama has a relation of Trust with Erdogan?Israel better get ready to do things on its own.Read the full story here.

Video - WHY Israel Never Can Trust Obama !

"Trust me said the scorpion to the frog" After Meeting With Obama British PM Cameron Says UK Would Not Support Israeli Attack On Iran

"Trust me said the scorpion to the frog" After Meeting With Obama British PM Cameron Says UK Would Not Support Israeli Attack On Iran.(CriticalAnalist).

(Hitler on the Munich Agreement with Chamberlain) If ever that silly old man comes interfering here again with his umbrella, I'll kick him downstairs and jump on his stomach in front of the photographers.

(Weasel) Otherwise known as mission accomplished for Barack.

(JPost) —The UK would not support an Israeli strike on Iran, British Prime Minister David Cameron said in an interview with NBC published Thursday.
“I don’t think as we stand today that military action by Israel would be justified.” Cameron said. “I don’t think the Israelis should take that action now, we’ve told them they shouldn’t, and we’ve said that we wouldn’t support it if they did.”
In a bid to dispel the idea that there might be a rift in Israel-UK relations, Cameron added that “we are a friend of Israel. Israel has a right to exist as a democratic state. It’s very important that Israel knows it has strong allies like America and like the United Kingdom.”
That said, Cameron stressed that sanctions remain the preferred tactic for ending the Iranian regime’s nuclear program. “I don’t support action now because, frankly, we’ve got more road to run in putting in place sanctions, in putting in place tough measures against the Iranian regime.Hmmmm.....Obama to Bibi "Trust you i've got your back, i'm Israel staunchest enemy ally"Read the full story here.

MFS -The Other News - What the main papers don't say.

  Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Russia 5.8 - 5.6 ; Japan 4.8 !More info here.

• How Obama Is Choking Off U.S. Oil Production.(NR).The news wires are reporting that President Obama actively lobbied Senate Democrats to defeat the Keystone pipeline yesterday. The effect of blocking the Keystone XL Pipeline is to defer 700,000 barrels of oil per day. And as I reported at The Weekly Standard recently, the president’s policy of choking off oil production under federal leases will prevent another 1 million barrels of oil per day this year, and even more next year. Obama will soon be personally responsible for preventing some 2 million barrels per day of possible North American crude oil production from reaching the American economy. The U.S. currently produces only about 6 million barrels of domestic crude oil, so that would be more than a 30 percent increase in domestic production. Two millions barrels per day of oil production would affect not just the price of gasoline in North America, but also the economics of world oil production: The president is preventing the U.S. from increasing oil production by an amount nearly equivalent to Iran’s total oil exports. He insists that gasoline prices are rising because of “fears” about a disruption in Iranian supply, but he wants you to believe that gasoline prices would be unaffected by a 30 percent increase in domestic U.S. oil production in the next two years.Hmmmm.....If he really wanted to destroy america as a Superpower would he do anything different?Read the full story here.

• WALL STREET INSIDER: My God…My God…What Has Become Of America?(TUR).By Ulsterman.WSI: True – but before we start I wish to tell you…rather… congratulate you on something.

UM: Oh?

WSI: Your War for America article. It was spot – on. Perhaps you are not aware how much so…but it shows you’re much improved in putting the pieces together. Well done

UM: The pro-Israeli group – the campaign against President Obama? You’re part of that? That was my assumption. Something like that takes money…it…the timing of it made me think of you as soon as I learned of it.

WSI: As I said – much is being done to…educate voters in 2012. It is a collective effort by some to counterbalance the collective effort of others. Two opposing forces if you will…(pause)…a war. Good vs evil. And I mean that. That is not simple…exaggeration. I believe that. What is now underway is perhaps THE political war of this generation. No, not perhaps – it IS the political war of this generation.

WSI: Obama revealed himself to us…in full. While it was suspected…certainly we feared the possibility…but to have it so openly confirmed was…it was very unsettling to people who, shall we say…don’t unsettle easily.

UM: Please explain. Something. Explain something on that.

WSI: I will simply say this – and someday this information will get out…I likely will be long dead when it does…but the truth will be spoken of this someday.

WSI:You wish to know something of that meeting between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanhayu? The prime minister stared into the eyes of our president…and he saw the truth of the man. He understood fully and completely the corruption of his heart.Read the full story here.

• Bell, via Kagan, on Critical Race Theory: The Constitution Is the Problem.(Breitbart).In November 1985, the Harvard Law Review published an article by Derrick Bell that was a "classic" in the development of Critical Race Theory. The article was edited by then-student Elena Kagan, and was cited by Prof. Charles Ogletree in support of her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Barack Obama in 2010. The article makes clear that Critical Race Theory sees the U.S. Constitution as a form of "original sin"--a view later embraced by Obama as a state legislator, and reflected in his actions and appointments. The following is an excerpt from the non-fiction portion of the article; much of what follows is a fictional story that Bell intended as a parable of racial "fantasy." Read the full story here.

• Declare the Muslim Brotherhood A Terrorist Organization.(LFR).Please read the article and sign the petition to urge Congress to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization! They are a threat to our country, our Constitution and our freedom and must be stopped!20,295 Letters and Emails Sent So Far. The Obama Administration has resisted naming the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. But if any group deserved to be on that list, the Brotherhood does. Ever since 1962, it has worked to convert Americans to jihad and Islamist extremism. It is actively building terrorist cells in the United States.And the evidence is that it is succeeding. More and more of the terrorist attacks on American soil are coming from people who live here, many of whom converted to Islam through the work of the Brotherhood.Since 9-11, 156 men have been indicted for terror-related activities. 127 of them had lived in the U.S. for ten years or more at the time of their arrest. One-third of these terrorists converted to Islam in their teens or twenties, most often through the efforts of the Muslim Brotherhood.Internationally, of course, the Muslim Brotherhood is working zealously to replace the secular liberalism of the Arab Spring with hard-core, Shariah-compliant, theocratic dictatorships. Suppressing women, eliminating free speech, persecuting Christians, and preaching hatred of Jews, Israel, and America, the Brotherhood is gradually taking over the Middle East as first dictators and now monarchs fall from power.To fight an enemy, you need to name it as your adversary and that is why including the Muslim Brotherhood on the list of terrorist groups is so important.Legislation is pending in Congress to require the State Department to include the group on their terrorist list. With your help, we have a good chance of passing this important legislation.For more information about the Muslim Brotherhood and to enlist in the battle to contain it, go to Citizens for National Security (www.cfns.us), a group struggling to “out” the Brotherhood. They the the leading group advocating inclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood on the terrorist list.Read the full story and sign the petition here.

• Non-Nuclear U.S. Means a Bleak Future for World Stability.(Heritage).“Nuclear weapons will continue to serve critical foreign- and defense-policy objectives,” write Bradley Thayer and Thomas Skypek in their recent op-ed.Since the end of the Cold War, U.S. nuclear weapons have contributed to global stability and prevented attacks on U.S. homeland and its allies. The White House now thinks it is possible to achieve the same objectives without nuclear weapons. It assumes that once the United States gets rid of its nuclear arsenal, other countries will follow.This proposition is fundamentally at odds with historical evidence. States have their own reasons for obtaining nuclear weapons, and these reasons have very little to do with whether the U.S. increases or decreases its nuclear weapons arsenal. South Africa gave up its nuclear weapons amid the U.S. nuclear buildup and nuclear weapons testing. North Korea and Pakistan joined the nuclear club after the U.S. decreased its nuclear arsenal and stopped testing.According to recent reports, the Administration is planning on further reducing U.S. nuclear forces. How many nuclear weapons the U.S. maintains should be determined by the current developments of the strategic environment. Russia is modernizing its nuclear forces and increasing the number of its operationally deployed warheads. China, India, Pakistan, France, and the U.K. have substantial nuclear modernization programs. North Korea has the capability to develop six to eight nuclear weapons. Iran is getting closer to developing a nuclear weapon of its own. This is clearly not the time for the U.S. to reduce its nuclear weapons.Even more troublesome is President Obama’s lack of commitment to nuclear modernization. The Administration recognized that the U.S. nuclear weapons infrastructure is under-funded during the Senate’s consideration of the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty and committed to increased funding. This commitment, however, has barely survived the first year after the treaty entered into force. In his fiscal year 2013 budget request, President Obama asked for $372 million less than what the Administration pledged to provide. In addition, the Administration proposed to defer the construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement facility at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which would replace a nuclear production facility that is over 60 years old.In addition, a significant lowering of the number of operationally deployed nuclear weapons would require a shift in U.S. targeting strategy—from counterforce (e.g., military posts, nuclear weapons, nuclear production capabilities) to countervalue (e.g., populations and cities). A country that values freedom—for itself and others—above anything else should not divest itself of weapons that allow it to destroy enemy forces instead of civilian populations.Read the full story here.

• International Herald Tribune takes Tear Gassed Women Photograph out of context.(CA).Women's Day Israeli soldiers in Ramallah, West Bank, fired tear gas and aimed a water cannon at about 50 women marching Thursday in support of Hana Shalbi, who has gone without food for 22 days to protest the holding of Palestinians without formal charges. In Gaza, about 500 women marched to support the hunger striker.For whatever reason, the information about the Palestinian rock throwing did not make into the Tribune cutline, although it is critical to understanding the day's circumstances. Indeed, the AFP, like the AP, noted that the Palestinians were throwing stones:At Qalandia, hundreds of women arrived by bus from across the West Bank for a rally organised by women's groups and local unions.They carried posters of Shalabi, who has accused Israeli forces of mistreating her and imprisoning her without evidence.Israeli troops used water cannons against the protesters and also utilised the "scream truck," a military vehicle that emits a high-pitched noise intended to disperse demonstrations.Towards the end of the demonstration, a handful of youths began throwing stones at Israeli forces, who responded by firing tear gas.Read and see the full story here.

• Yemeni woman sweats blood, cries stones doctors unsure of ailment.(BM).SANA’A: Saboora Hassan Fakeih, a young woman from Yemen’s Hodeida, who until 6 months ago was perfectly healthy, revealed puzzling symptoms, which so far have left medical professionals flabbergasted, unable to determine what ailments the 20-year-old bride is suffering from.She told the press that soon after her marriage she started to faint, remaining unconscious for hours on end, adding that her tummy would swell up as if she was pregnant.When her husband took her to get examined, doctors assured him that all her exams had come back normal, giving her a clean bill of health.Despite those reassuring claims, Saboora took a turn for the worse over the past few weeks. For some unknown reason, the young woman started to sweat blood and cry little stones. Complaining from acute pain, Saboora is now in great distress, unable to eat or sleep, but more importantly desperately seeking a diagnosis.Several concerned residents told Bikyamasr.com that they suspected some malicious witchcraft or the intervention of some “devil” as such a thing could not possibly be “normal.”As it happens, Saboora is not the only person to have ever suffered from such extraordinary symptoms, as scientists in India recorded a similar event with a young girl. However she did not like Saboora complain from pain while crying stones, but her only side effect was the swelling of the eye.In this case too the medical profession was left wondering.As for the sweating of blood, such cases have been recorded before with doctors explaining that in time of great stress, blood vessels could dilate so extensively that they would rupture and bleed within the sweat glands, leaving the body to perspire blood.Saboora is now calling on the international community to extend a helping hand and end her nightmare.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                        Afternoon Posting.

• Libya Live Blog - April 30. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Syria Live Blog - April 30. Here (Al-Jazeera).

• Live feed and highlights of the Royal wedding from :

"The Royal Channel"  here.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world low seismic activity in Japan  today between 4.9 and 5.0! More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 101.
  On 29.04.2011 at 18:40 GMT+2
  
  Pumping radioactive water out of the underground premises of the turbine room at the second reactor of the crippled Japanese Fukushima-1 NPP has been suspended. This was announced by the Tokyo Electric Power company which is the operator of the NPP. The work is to be resumed on the 30th of April and two pumps will be used instead of one used before. The work will last until the middle of May and all in all it is planned to pump 10 tons of radioactive water out of the underground premises. This highly radioactive water will be temporarily placed in special tanks inside the station.Source : Here .

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

• Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney we’re going to have to hang the ‘Obama Misery Index’ around his neck.”(Politico).Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney stumbled over an explosive turn of phrase Friday night, telling an audience here that Republicans would figuratively “hang” President Barack Obama with bad economic news.Speaking at an Americans for Prosperity dinner, Romney’s comment came as he recalled Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign.“Reagan came up with this great thing about the ‘misery index’ and he hung that around Jimmy Carter’s neck,” Romney said. “Well, we’re going to have to hang the ‘Obama Misery Index’ around his neck.”“I’ll tell you, the fact that you’ve got people in this country really squeezed, with gasoline getting so expensive, with commodities getting so expensive, families are having a hard making ends meet. So we’re going to have to talk about that,” Romney said.Romney continued, “We’re going to hang him —” before stopping mid-sentence.“So to speak — metaphorically,” he clarified. “You have to be careful.”Any reference to hanging — however unintentional — would be especially loaded in a campaign against the country’s first black president, as Romney apparently recognized.He quickly recovered from the gaffe and continued his remarks. Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for the former governor, said the context of Romney’s comment was obviously benign.“It is not what the governor meant and that was very clear in what he actually said,” Saul wrote in an email, responding to a Boston Globe report on Romney’s remark. “It’s a ridiculous exaggeration of his actual comments.”The Globe’s Glen Johnson first highlighted Romney’s comment online, noting that the “mix of nervous laughter with applause indicated that some in the audience realized its potency.”Hmmmm.........Meanwhile the "Misery Index" is real and cutting deep both for black and white!Read the full story here.More here.

• Obama Promises Illegal Alien grads He’ll Keep Pushing DREAM Act.Miami (AP) — Stepping up his demand to change the nation’s immigration laws, President Barack Obama promised graduates at a vast, multicultural community college in Miami on Friday that he’ll keep working to help students not legally in the U.S. to become American citizens.The president’s renewed endorsement of the DREAM Act, which has become a rallying cry for Hispanic and other students around the country, drew enthusiastic applause from more than 3,000 graduates of Miami Dade College at their commencement ceremony. The students are part of an increasingly important political constituency in a state that will be crucial to the president’s 2012 re-election hopes.The college graduates more Hispanic students than any other higher education institution in the U.S. Obama took note that some students had recently identified themselves publicly as immigrants without legal status in the country.“Some were brought here as young children and discovered the truth only as adults,” he said. “They put their futures on the line in hopes they will spur the rest of us to live up to our most cherished values.”Hmmmm.....Some were brought here from God knows where, then proceeded to destroy America from within?Read the full story here.

• Will Obama Go Golfing Twice This Weekend?It’s about 70 degrees in the Washington area both days. Perfect weather.It's not like there's turmoil in the Middle East or hundreds of people died because of tornados?Hmmmm....“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”Daila Lama.Now i know why he got the back door.

• Police break up Muslim mob threatening to burn Christian church in eastern Pakistan.(AhmadiyyaTimes).LAHORE, Pakistan — Police broke up a mob of people armed with sticks that was threatening to attack a church Saturday after word spread that two copies of the Qur’an had been burned in eastern Pakistan, officials said.The tiny Christian minority in predominantly Muslim Pakistan is often intimidated and subjected to mob violence. The crowds marching toward the church in the city of Gujranwala blamed Christians for the burning of the Qurans.Police charged the crowd of 300 people marching toward the church, lightly injuring several protesters, said Saeed Wahla, the top administrator in the city. The protesters blocked a street with barricades of burning tires.A burned Qur’an was found Saturday, and two weeks earlier several burned pages from the holy book turned up, said Nabil Awan, another local official.Pakistan's Christians, who make up 1.6 per cent of the country's population of 180 million, live in fear of being persecuted or arrested under the country's harsh laws against blasphemy, which are often misused to settle personal scores or family feuds. The laws call for the death penalty for anyone insulting Islam, its holy book or the Prophet Muhammad.The All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, a Christian group, condemned Saturday's march and demanded the government hold an inquiry to find out who was responsible for organizing it. The group said such incidents are "just a conspiracy to destabilize the country."Hmmmm......The religion of peace.Read the full story here.

• Related- Pakistan: Ten people wounded in attacks on Christian community residences.Lahore, April 30(ANI): At least ten people, including police officials, were wounded in attacks on houses of Christian community members in Lahore on Saturday.Demonstrators attacked the residences of members of the Christian religious community in Gujranwala, and also shattered the windows of a Christian school in the neighbourhood.The attackers accused certain members of the Christian community of committing blasphemy, the Dawn reports.Police and authorities in the area arrested 25 people for their involvement in the disturbances. Three Christians, including a priest, are among those arrested by the police.The police are now patrolling the area of the incident. However, most members of the Christian community have reportedly locked their residences and fled the area. Hmmmm......The victims are arrested??Read the full story here.

• Obama Oblivious to Religious Persecution of Christians.(TheNewAmerican).All over the world, Christians are persecuted for their faith. The murder of Coptic Christians in Egypt and the protests of radical Muslims against the appointment of a Christian Governor of an Egyptian province are recent examples of that oppression.Native Christian Iraqis, in a nation where Obama still has American troops, have fled their ancestral homeland in droves to escape the brutal persecution of Muslims and the “blessings” of democracy without individual rights. Christians in China are arrested, their Bibles confiscated, and their churches ransacked — all for the state offense of practicing their faith as they wish. In fact, no communist regime allows the free practice of religion.Nations such as India, with an unmerited reputation for tolerance, allows attacks on Christians as brutal as anything seen in the Islamic world — almost especially upon those Dalits, or “untouchables,” who have converted to Christianity.Though America does not have an established state religion (despite the fretting of federal judges and the ACLU), there are plenty of other nations of the world that do: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Sikkim, Bhutan, and a host of others. These countries with non-Christian state religions do not trouble the Obama administration at all. Though President Obama delivers serious messages to celebrate Ramadan, Kwanza, and just about every religious holiday except those of the Christian religion such as Easter, leaders of Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic nations would not dream of giving an official government Easter or Christmas message.Many people in European nations such as England, Denmark, Scotland, and Norway — which still have established state churches — have a low view of Christianity, even as brutal Muslim religious law is being enforced in their countries by street thugs, as well as by anti-religious government offices and court systems.The definition of “hate crimes” in much of the West has come to mean any sincere profession of the ancient Christian faith.So it should surprise no one that since President Obama took office, his administration has not designated a single “country of particular concern” (CPC) for religious freedom violations. The term CPC is grounded in the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, which was intended to tie America's foreign policy to the promotion of religious freedom. It identifies any country that is a "systematic, ongoing, and egregious" violator of religious freedom. President Bill Clinton in 1999 designated Burma, China, Iran, Iraq, and Sudan as CPCs. President George W. Bush, on January 16, 2009, gave eight nations that designation — Burma, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Uzbekistan.Though it is highly doubtful that the Religious Freedom Act can do much to help persecuted Christians in other countries, President Obama's failure to even make a symbolic gesture to protect such people may violate this federal law, which requires him to take specific actions against any CPC, including sanctions and diplomatic protests.None of this should be very surprising to Americans. President Obama has shown a profound, though often subtle, disdain for serious Christian faith, and has almost never condemned anti-Semitic comments from his friends in the radical Left. It should also come as no surprise that federal statutes and specially created federal commissions have failed woefully to protect liberties in America or to champion religious freedom abroad.When Americans have acted effectively to protect Christians and Jews, it has almost always come from private, voluntary cooperation (such as the boycott of German goods in the 1930s to protest Nazi anti-Semitism, or the church protests against the imprisonment of prelates in the Soviet empire. Likewise, the promotion of faith and the dispelling of slanders of Judeo-Christian traditions comes most effectively from the private donations and missions of individual Americans and organizations, who go around the world with help, comfort, and love.Hmmmm.....You are a Christian by your actions,not by pretending to be one!It's time for the Pope to expose this Anti Christ(ian) president,in the old days he would have been excommunicated a long time ago.Read the full story here.

• Egypt’s Islamists form own political party, contending they are not “theocratic”.(Al-Arabia).Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, long-banned under the toppled regime of President Hosni Mubarak, announced on Saturday the formation of a party to contest up to half of parliament’s seats in a September election.In a statement issued after a meeting of its decision-making Shura (consultative) council, Reuters reported the group as saying that it had decided to contest “between 45 and 50 percent of parliament’s seats.”Mohammed Hussein, the group's secretary general, said at a news conference that the movement’s consultative council decided at a meeting to adopt a decision to form the new Freedom and Justice Party.“We have adopted the measures taken by the guidance council regarding the Freedom and Justice Party and adopted its program,” Agence-France Presse quoted him as saying. He said the party, which will be headed by the Brotherhood’s politburo member Mohammed al-Mursi, will be “independent from the Brotherhood but will coordinate with it.”Mr. al-Mursi also said in the conference that party was not “theocratic,” and was willing to cooperate with secular groups in the upcoming September elections. The Brotherhood, which is considered the most or the only truly organized block in Egypt was banned under the Mubarak regime, and ran in elections only as independents. The group won a fifth of the seats in a 2005 elections, but fared much worse in a November 2010 election which was dubbed by Egyptians as rigged and favoring the former ruling National Democratic Party. “It is not an Islamist party in the old understanding, it is not theocratic,” Mr. al-Mursi added.“It is a civil party,” he said at the news conference.Hmmmm......Meanwhile Obama has pledged 1,57 Billion Dollars to Egypt for 2012,"I will stand with my Muslim Brothers"? Read the full story here.

• Ahmadinejad Reportedly Not Showing Up for Work, Sparking Rumors of a Possible Power Shift.(FoxNews).Deep rifts among Iran’s ruling elite have reached an all-time high in recent weeks, according to sources, who say things have gotten so bad that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may have stopped showing up for work. Iran’s complex power structure has for years been compared to a multi-headed hydra, with multiple points of strength. But the struggle now appears to have boiled down to a showdown between Ahmadinejad and Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – once viewed as Ahmadinejad’s biggest cheerleader. Dr. Mohsen Sazegara, one of the founders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and now an opposition figure living in the U.S., says it’s a classic Iranian power struggle. “We have always had this divide by two system, since the founding of the Islamic Republic. The main problem here is a lack of democratic mechanisms in the constitution of the country. There will always be disagreements, and competition for power.” And no clear way to resolve them. There have been disputes over positions in the cabinet, with the apparent sidelining of longtime Ahmadinejad confidante Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, often viewed as the man to take the torch from Ahmadinejad when his term runs out.There are also rumors that Ahmadinejad wants to give an upcoming report on the economy and subsidies live on state television next week, but is being told he can only do it on tape, fueling speculation he may be censored. Also, the Mehr News agency reported Wednesday that a cabinet meeting three days ago was presided over by Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi rather than the president. And Ali Banaei, a member of parliament from the religious city of Qom, has announced that Ahmadinejad’s tour of the city this week had been cancelled. Ahmadinejad’s absence at the presidential palace this week has thrown even the usually compliant supporters of the president into speculation frenzy. Qom cleric Ahmad Najmi, previously a diehard Ahmadinejad fan and head of the Rasa News Agency, had been silent about the president’s recent absence from the scene. But his angry online commentary alleges the president’s actions aim to “weaken the Supreme Leader and strike key revolutionary organs.” And IRNA news agency’s release of only part of a statement by the supreme leader broke with the rule of publishing the leader’s remarks only in entirety. Many blamed Ahmadinejad for that oversight, according to former Iranian diplomat Mehrdad Khonsari.Khonsari says Ahmadinejad, by boycotting work and as such trying to force certain concessions, is playing a futile game of “chicken.” The dispute has proved a source of much amusement and glee to opposition cyber-activists. One has suggested that a president who has always hungered for the international limelight can only be coerced “out of his room with a special UN summit” invite -- a clear reference to Ahmadinejad's penchant for grandstanding when he visits New York City.Ahmadinejad’s big sulk may have to do with his fear of what will happen next, as, according to Sazegara, members of parliament are preparing a mechanism to impeach the president. Clerics close to Ahmadinejad have tried to convince him to find a way to compromise with Khamenei. Websites close to the president have warned that if he is removed, things could get very messy – even violent. “If Ahmadinejad is removed, the Supreme Leader will have two problems on his hands. His first, most powerful enemy could become the people of Iran. The leader tortured and repressed people to keep the president in power. His second problem will be the hardcore inside of the organization, like the Revolutionary Guard and the Ministry of Intelligence, those who presided over the repression and torture.” If Ahmadinejad loses, Sazegara believes, Iranian Foreign Policy will continue unchanged, because, in the end, it is the Supreme Leader, who as his title indicates, has the last say. Cliff Kupchan of the Eurasia Group does not believe this all spells the end of Ahmadinejad. “This is the most intense and public clash yet between the two. It’s over control of the Intelligence Ministry, Ahmadinejad’s growing power, and momemtum behind competing factions in the run up to next year’s Parliamentary elections. But the core fact remains that Khamenei and Ahmadinejad are dependent on each other, they jointly anchor this regime’s hard-line policies. It’s very unlikely that the ambitious and combatative Ahmadinejad will quit or be impeached.” The airing of Iran’s dirty laundry prompted the Supreme Leader to warn, “If there are disputes, we mustn’t frown in front of the people, and give ammunition to foreign media.” Hmmmm...."Impeach the President",lets hope it's contagious.Read the full story here.

• Iranian armed forces chief: The Gulf is ‘Persian’ and ‘has belonged to Iran forever’.(Al-Arabia).A top Iranian military officer on Saturday denounced what he called an “Arab dictatorial front” and claimed that the “Persian Gulf has belonged to Iran forever,” media reports said.“The Arab dictatorial regimes in the Persian Gulf are unable to contain the popular uprisings,” Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, was widely quoted as saying by Iranian media on Saturday.“Instead of trying and failing to open an unworkable front against Iran, these dictators should relinquish power, end their savage crimes and let the people determine their own future,” General Firouzabadi said.He also denounced “plots” by the Gulf Arab monarchies to “carve out an identity for themselves by rejecting the identity of others,” referring to Iran.“The Persian Gulf has always, is and shall always belong to Iran,” he said.General Firouzabadi, speaking on the annual “National Day of the Persian Gulf,” also condemned the regional Arab monarchies for refusing to call the waterway between Iran and its Arab neighbors by its “historical name.”“With the arrival of the British and later the Americans in the region, plots were hatched to try and change the name with fake identities... to distort the history and identity of the Persian Gulf,” General Firouzabadi said.Iran says it gives “moral support” to Bahrainis but is not involved in the protests there.Bahrain and Kuwait have in turn expelled Iranian diplomats, accusing them of espionage.On Monday, the state-owned Bahrain News Agency reported that Hujatullah Rahmani, the second secretary at the Iranian Embassy in Manama, was declared a persona non grata and ordered out of Bahrain within 72 hours.Iran has in the past claimed Bahrain as part of its territory, and it controls three islands in the southern Gulf that are also claimed by the United Arab Emirates.Last week, Bahrain’s foreign minister said the Saudi-led force would stay indefinitely to counter perceived threats from Iran.Hmmmm....."It's mine...All mine!Read the full story here.

• IHH Netherlands was designated by the Dutch Foreign Ministry Wednesday as a terrorist organization.(Investigativeproject).All assets of the organization have been frozen and transactions with IHH Netherlands are prohibited.IHH is a Turkish-based organization that has extensive ties to Hamas, and was behind the flotilla that triggered last year's deadly confrontation with Israeli commandos in the Mediterranean Sea. Germany banned the Frankfurt-based IHH group last July for funneling money to Hamas. The Turkish IHH organization denied having any ties with the Frankfurt organization; however, German media reports suggested cooperation between the two groups.IHH Netherlands was founded in 1993 in Amsterdam during the Bosnian war. Its connections to the Turkish IHH remain unclear; IHH in Turkey denies having any links with organizations in Europe that utilize its same name and logo.IHH Netherlands is not planning to take part in the upcoming flotilla to Gaza, or Freedom Flotilla II, of which the Turkish IHH is one of the leading organizers.The United States is considering a designation of the Turkish IHH (Insan Haklari Ve Hurriyetleri Vakfi). "I believe we're looking at the IHH, but it's a long process to designate something – an organization a Foreign Terrorist Organization and there's nothing to announce on that," State Department spokesman Marc C. Toner said last July. In a letter to members of Congress the next month, State's Office of Legislative Affairs said "U.S. government agencies are taking a close look at IHH" for designation by the Treasury Department because "serious questions of support to terrorist organizations have been raised."Israel banned the Turkish IHH in 2008 because it is a member of the Union of Good, and added it to its terror watch list last June. The Union of the Good was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2008 for its financial support to Hamas. "In addition to providing cover for Hamas financial transfers, some of the funds transferred by the Union of Good have compensated Hamas terrorists by providing payments to the families of suicide bombers," according to the Treasury press release.IHH head Bulent Yildirim told an audience in Turkey earlier this month, "The Mediterranean does not belong to Israel... Just because we have had shahids [martyrs], we are not fearful... We will not step back... Let all know this: Until the blockade on Gaza is lifted... and until our march to al-Aqsa is completed, this sea intifada and land intifada will continue!Hmmmmm....Don't even think that the Obama regime will act against their Turkish buddies.Read the full story here.

• Egyptian official: Mubarak may face execution.(Ynet). Cairo Justice Ministry officials say deposed president could face death penalty or life imprisonment if convicted of corruption, complicity to murder.Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak could face execution or life imprisonment if he is convicted of the charges of corruption, complicity to murder, and embezzlement of public funds, Cairo's al-Ahram weekly reported.Mubarak, who has been hospitalized due to his failing health, has been remanded for an additional 15 days this week.Egypt's Justice Minister Mohammed al-Gindi told the publication that Mubarak could face the death penalty if he was found guilty of ordering the shooting of demonstrators during the uprisings that brought him down. Mubarak's sons and wife are also under investigation. Mubarak has vehemently denied ever giving orders to open fire on protesters.Read the full story here.

• New Saudi Law Tells Media, ‘Shut Up’.(CrossroadArabia).Royal Decrees amend Press Law with violations and penalties.RIYADH: A number of Royal Decrees were issued Friday containing amendments to the Press and Publications Law of Nov. 2000, addressing violations in the content of published materials, the authorities tasked with investigating and ruling on offenses, and the penalties they incur.

The first of the five amendments concerns Article 9 of the law, with the text now reading:

“All officials in printed materials will heed to objective and constructive criticism in the public interest based on facts and correct testimonies, and are barred from publishing in any form whatsoever the following:

1. – Anything that violates Islamic Shariah rulings or laws in force.
2. – Anything calling for breaches of the security of the country or its public law, or anything that serves foreign interests in conflict with national interests.
3. – Anything affecting the reputation or dignity of, or slandering or personally insulting, the Grand Mufti of the Kingdom or members of the Board of Senior Ulema, or dignitaries of the state or any of its employees, or any person of ordinary standing or any legal person.
4. – Inciting and propagating division between citizens.
5. – Promoting or inciting to crime.
6. – Anything damaging to the country’s public affairs.
7. – Details of investigations or trials without obtaining permission from the legally authorized authority.”The second amendment made in the Royal Decrees concerns Article 36, which now reads:

“The Ministry may – according to need – remove any publication without compensation, if it is found to contain anything barred from publication by Article 9 of the law.”Hmmmm.......Welcome to A.D. 620?Read the full story here.

• Warning ! Viewer Discretion Advised, Very violant , graphic images :Muslims Burn Homosexuals Alive in Cruel Execution. Source :Walid Shoebat.

• And now for something completely different.Amazing "New Face On Mars Discovered".(BeforeitisNews). Sent to us from Matteo Ianneo in Italy. Bravo .Sure looks like a face to me .The coordinates, Latitude 33°12'29.82"N, Longitude 12°55'51.21"W, are confirmed and are found in the Google map of Mars below.Forty-six year old Ianneo says he is passionate about the riddles of Mars. He is from from the Puglia Region and the town of Cerignola.Ianneo says he discovered the new face on Mars by examining pictures sent back to Earth from an ESA probe orbiting the Red Planet and worked into Google's map of Mars. He presents the photos below. He is unsure if the photos are optical illusions or a real sculptured face but feels the images will never-the-less cause a sensation around the world. Here's a link to Google Earth download www.google.com/earth/index.html which also contains Google's map of Mars, if you wish to confirm the images for yourself. Read and see the full story here.

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 .