MISSOURI - Seven people injured after two freight trains collided, taking out a nearby overpass.

MISSOURI - Seven people injured after two freight trains collided, taking out a nearby overpass.(USAToday).

MISSOURI - Seven people were injured early Saturday morning in southeastern Missouri after two freight trains collided, taking out a nearby overpass. 

A Union Pacific train t-boned a Burlington Northern train at an intersection, Scott County Sheriff Rick Walter told KFVS-TV. The collision, which occurred around 2:30 a.m., caused one of the trains to derail and hit a pillar under the overpass, collapsing it.
There were no cars on the overpass when it collapsed, but Trooper Clark Parrott with Missouri Highway Patrol said two vehicles crashed after coming upon the bridge after it had fallen. Five people from those cars were taken to the hospital with arm and ankle fractures. A train conductor and locomotive engineer on the Union Pacific train were also injured. Six of the victims were treated and released. A seventh remains hospitalized in good condition.
One of the drivers, Christopher Cantrell, 22, said he didn’t see the bridge had collapsed until it was too late. At least a dozen Union Pacific train cars and an unknown number of Burlington Northern cars derailed in the accident.
The Union Pacific train was hauling auto parts from Salem, Ill., to Arlington, Texas, according to Union Pacific spokesperson Calli Hite.
The Burlington Northern train was hauling scrap metal, according to a spokesperson.
The crash, which occurred near Chaffee, Mo., also ignited a fire that crews were able to extinguish quickly. The National Transportation Safety Board has been dispatched a team to investigate the incident.
The collision comes just two days after a span of an Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River in Washington collapsed — caused when an oversized truck hit an overhead girder — and just over a week after a commuter train derailed in Bridgeport, Conn., suspending rail service along the heavily traveled New York-Boston corridor.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                      Afternoon Posting.

• Libya Live Blog - May 03. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Syria Live Blog - May 03. Here (Al-Jazeera). 

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Nicaragua  today  5.3! More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 101.
  Source : Here .

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

• Live Blog on Qsama Bin Laden  Here (Al -Jazeera).

• In Will, Bin Laden Tells Children Not To Join Al-Qaeda, Wives Not To Remarry. Cautions Against Treachery.(Memri).On May 3, 2011, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anba published what it said was Osama bin Laden's will, dated December 14, 2001, three months after the U.S. launched its hunt for him.Source.

• White House to delay the release of 'gruesome' bin Laden death photos due to Muslim 'sensitivities'.(DailyMail).The White House has delayed the release of photographs showing Osama bin Laden's body. White House officials are afraid that releasing the images, described as 'gruesome' and thought to show the dead al-Qaeda leader with a massive head wound, would offend 'sensitivities' in the Muslim world.It had been previously thought President Barack Obama had decided to release at least one photo showing Osama Bin Laden shortly after he was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs.The news came as a Taliban spokesman demanded to see photographic evidence of the assassination.The White House says the photograph of a dead Osama bin Laden is 'gruesome' and that 'it could be inflammatory' if released. White House press secretary Jay Carney said the White House is mulling whether to make the photo public, but he said officials are concerned about the 'sensitivity' of doing so.Senior military officials confirmed to CNN there were three sets of pictures of bin Laden.The first set was taken during the raid itself, and is thought to show two dead brothers, and bin Laden's dead teenage son.The second, and most 'identifiable' set of pictures were taken of his mutilated body at an Afghan airbase.These are the most troubling set of images as they show 'massive open head wounds' - but are the most clear pictures of bin Laden's face.The third set were taken aboard the USS Carl Vinson, and show a washed and shrouded bin Laden being lowered into his watery grave.Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement emailed to journalists: 'This news is only coming from one side, from Obama's office, and America has not shown any evidence or proof to support this claim. 'On the other side, our sources close to Osama bin Laden have not confirmed or denied the news.'Until there is news from sources close to Osama bin Laden it will be too early to provide any reaction.'Officials are also considering whether to release a video showing Osama Bin Laden being buried at sea.The dead terror chief was given an Islamic burial in the North Arabian Sea in a bid to stop his fanatical followers turning his final resting place into a shrine.An official said preparations for the al Qaeda leader's burial lasted nearly an hour.His body was washed aboard the USS Carl Vinson before being covered in a white sheet and religious remarks translated into Arabic by a native speaker were read over the corpse.'The burial of bin Laden's remains was done in strict conformance with Islamist precepts and practices,' said John Brennan, U.S. President Barack Obama's top counter-terrorism adviser.Preparations for burial began at 1:10 am EST (0510 GMT) and were completed at 2 am EST. His corpse was lowered toward the sea on one of the aircraft carrier's elevators.'The body was placed in a weighted bag. A military officer read prepared religious remarks which were translated into Arabic by a native speaker,' the U.S. official said.'After the words were complete, the body was placed on a prepared flat board, tipped up, whereupon the deceased's body eased into the sea.'Muslim clerics are predicting revenge attacks against American targets because of the way the government decided to dispose of the leader's body.A wide range of Islamic scholars interpreted it as a humiliating disregard for the standard Muslim practice of placing the body in a grave with the head pointed toward the holy city of Mecca.Sea burials can be allowed, they said, but only in special cases where the death occurred aboard a ship far from the coast.But Omar Bakri Mohammed, a radical cleric in Lebanon, said it should not have been done in this way: 'The Americans want to humiliate Muslims through this burial, and I don't think this is in the interest of the U.S. administration.'The haste has also been questioned, as the U.S. has not always observed the 24-hour rule for Muslim burials. In 2003 the bodies of Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay were embalmed and held for 11 days before they were released for burial.Mohammed al-Qubaisi, Dubai's grand mufti, said about bin Laden's burial, said: 'They can say they buried him at sea, but they cannot say they did it according to Islam. If the family does not want him, it's really simple in Islam: You dig up a grave anywhere, even on a remote island, you say the prayers and that's it.'Sea burials are permissible for Muslims in extraordinary circumstances. This is not one of them.'Hmmmm.....Just can't stop 'appeasing'his Muslim Brothers?I thought he said "Osama Bin Laden doesn't represent Islam"?Read the full story here.

• Osama bin Laden dead: Pervez Musharraf jogged in area during military training.(Telegraph).Mr Musharraf said that when he was training in the military he used to go running right where the world's most wanted man was found. Bin Laden was discovered in a compound which was custom-built in 2005 a few hundred yards from the Pakistan Military Academy, described as Pakistan's Sandhurst or West Point. The city, Abbottabad, is home to thousands of soldiers and is under government control. "It surprises me it was next to the Pakistan military academy," Mr Musharraf said. "The location is next to the place where I used to run nine miles, en route, maybe passing in front of the house. That is surprising." Osama Bin Laden was probably hiding in Abbottabad  for the last 5 years,Hmmm....In 2006, King Abdullah's visited Pakistan for the first time as King. Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis lined the road from the airport to welcome the Saudi King. President Musharraf honored King Abdullah by conferring upon him Pakistan’s highest civil award Nishan-e-Pakistan.On 21 Jan 2007, King Abdullah conferred the King Abdul Aziz Medallion, the Kingdom’s top honor, on Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf during a ceremony at his palace in Riyadh.He became the first Pakistani leader ever to receive this honor.Read the full story here.

• "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"!(Hurriyetdaily).Turkish FM to attend Palestinian reconciliation ceremony.Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu will attend the official ceremony of the reconciliation deal between rival Palestinian al-Fatah and Hamas on Wednesday.Following President Mahmoud Abbas’ initial call for help in establishing a unity government, Turkey moved to build dialogue between the two groups. Mediating to see the grounds of a possible dialogue with al-Fatah, Davutoğlu met with Hamas leader Khalid Mashaal in Damascus in order to bring the two rival leaders to Istanbul.The plan to bring the leaders of al-Fatah and Hamas together in Istanbul was removed from the agenda after the two Palestinian groups announced a unity pact in Cairo through mediation of Egypt last week.Read the full story here.

• Israel - MK Eldad: No doubt Obama is greater threat to Israel than Osama was.(JPost).MKs and officials on the Right expressed concern on Monday that Israel would end up paying the price for the American decision to assassinate al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.MKs questioned why Israel is routinely condemned by the world for assassinating mass murderers and terrorists, while the bin Laden assassination has been celebrated internationally. They also asked why an international leadership that has not criticized the Palestinian leadership for making a deal with Hamas, has universally praised the killing of the leader of al-Qaida.They warned that Israel could be targeted by Islamic fundamentalist groups avenging bin Laden’s death, and suggested that US President Barack Obama could use the assassination as an excuse to pressure Israel.“Israel will need to take action to prevent Obama from appeasing the Muslim world at our expense,” National Union MK Aryeh Eldad said. “Bin Laden was never a direct threat to Israel. Ahmadinejad, Arafat and our other real enemies didn’t need bin Laden for inspiration. There is no doubt that Obama is a greater threat to Israel than Osama was.”Eldad predicted that the assassination would only boost Obama’s political support temporarily, and then his popularity would fall again due to the economy in the US, and other reasons. Other frequent critics of Obama on the Israeli Right found themselves issuing rare praise for the president.“The elimination of bin Laden proves that even a president who carries out totally mistaken foreign and security policies can also make correct decisions, and on those few occasions he should be commended without reservation,” said Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria Chairman Danny Dayan.Deputy Negev and Galilee Development Minister Ayoub Kara (Likud) said “I am Israel’s sharpest critic of Obama, and I don’t want him to be in power, but I could tolerate Obama as long as he targets people like Osama. Obama in the past gave breathing space and support to the terrorists due to his naivete, but if he returns America to [former president George W.] Bush’s policies of fighting terror, I have no problem with him.”Kara suggested marking every Yom Hashoah by killing an international terrorist.Likud MK Danny Dannon added that he hoped the American administration realized that the fight against terror was far from over.“I am worried about the festivities at Times Square and the White House, because we in Israel have learned the hard way that fighting terror requires a daily struggle and not just one knockout punch,” Dannon said. “The president should focus his energy on targeting terrorists who threaten the US and Israel – and not on an ill-fated attempt to implement an unrealistic Middle East peace plan based on wishful thinking.”Hmmmm....I fear they're right Pakistan already a hotbed of terrorisme and Islamic extremisme could become the biggest threat to the world because of their nuclear arms stock pile!Read the full story here.

• Obama's 'Peaceplan' partners:Fatah military wing calls Bin Laden killing "catastrophe".(Pallwatch). The military wing of Fatah, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, published a long statement in reaction to the killing of Osama bin Laden calling it a "catastrophe." They said that those who killed Bin Laden were "gangs of heretics."Fatah's military wing promises that the Jihad fighters will not be deterred in their path and ends its announcement vowing: "We say to the American and Israeli occupier: the [Islamic] nation which produced leaders who changed the course of history through their Jihad... is capable of restoring the glory of Islam and the flag of Allah's oneness, Allah willing."Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is the chairman of the Fatah movement, whose military wing released this statement.The announcement continued: 'We say to the American and Israeli occupier: the [Islamic] nation which produced leaders who changed the course of history through their Jihad and their endurance, is a nation that is capable of supplying an abundance of new blood into the arteries of the resistance and is capable of restoring the glory of Islam and the flag of Allahs oneness, Allah willing.'"Hmmmm.....Just Keep financing them Barack HUSSEIN Obama!Read the full story here.

• Obama Regime White House doesn't show up to House probe into its lack of transparency.(WashingtonExaminer).The Republican-led House Energy and Commerce's subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is holding a hearing on the Obama White House's lack of transparency, but the White House did not send any representatives to testify, despite a GOP request.Though President Obama vowed to run a transparent administration and to bar lobbyists, the reality has been quite different.Republicans on the committee highlighted reports that lobbyists started deregistering from the official lobbying disclosure system in 2008 as Obama spoke of not allowing them to hold positions in the White House, and the deregistration rate spiked in 2009 once Obama announced the policy. Meanwhile, the committee said, that "White House staff have purposely and repeatedly circumvented ... visitor logs by meeting with lobbyists at Caribou Coffee and other locations outside of the White House."Subcommittee chairman Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., also noted that the Obama administration granted 32 waivers from the lobbying ban.One of the witnesses, Anne Weismann, is the chief counsel of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a transparency group that had to sue to the Obama administration to get it to release visitor logs that are supposed to be released under the Freedom of Information Act.President Obama has said that, "The Freedom of Information Act should be administered with a clear presumption: In the face of doubt, openness prevails." Yet the committee argued, "Unfortunately, like so many of the President's other transparency policies, the policy has no teeth -- there is no system in place to monitor compliance and no enforcement mechanism in place to penalize agencies that adopt a different presumption."Weissman said that what concerns her the most is what's going on at the agency level.In addition to Weissman, the committee is hearing testimony from Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch and John Wonderlich, policy director Sunlight Foundation.But the Obama administration did not send a representative to testify as Republicans had requested.In the White House's defense, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said that because the GOP only gave six days notice and wouldn't rescheduled the hearing, it was understandable that administration officials would have conflicts that prevented them from appearing before the committee.Hmmmm....An arrogant dictatorship,ignoring the rule of law.Read the full story here.

• Bin Laden's daughter, 12, sees her father shot as it emerges human shield was NOT wife.(DailyMail).Osama Bin Laden's 12-year-old daughter was present when U.S. forces shot and killed her father at a Pakistani compound, it has emerged.New details about the deadly Special Forces raid in Abbottabad emerged as U.S. officials backtracked on a claim made earlier that a wife of Osama Bin Laden acted as a human shield in an unsuccessful bid to save the Al Qaeda leader's life.Officials first said that Bin Laden had stood behind a younger woman - identified in some sources as one of his wives - while firing at U.S. troops with an AK-47.But as fresh details emerged that up to 19 other people had been living inside the house, it was today unclear which woman had been killed.Officials from Pakistan's main intelligence agency, the ISI, today gave new details about the operation.An ISI official told the BBC 17 or 18 people were inside the compound at the time of the attack.One of those in the building was a daughter of Bin Laden's, thought to be 12, who saw her father fatally shot by U.S. forces, the official claimed.Further details about the raid were revealed as U.S. officials corrected earlier remarks which suggested a wife of Bin Laden's had died after being used as a human shield.Initially, counter-terrorism official John Brennan had said. 'There was family at that compound, and there was a female who was, in fact, in the line of fire that reportedly was used as a shield to shield Bin Laden from the incoming fire.'However, a different White House official said that account had turned out not to be the case. Bin Laden's wife was injured but not killed in the assault.Mr Brennan has since told Fox News that, to his knowledge, Bin Laden's wife was injured rather than killed, adding it was unclear whether she and another female in the Abbottabad compound had been trying to attack U.S. personnel.'One individual woman was killed, and it appears she was the wife of one of the facilitators who lived in the building with him,' Mr Brennan said. His remarks came after the U.S. website Politico quoted an unnamed senior officials as saying: ''Two women were shot here. It sounds like their fates were mixed up.'The anonymous official was quoted as adding: 'This is hours old and the full facts are still being ascertained as those involved are debriefed.'U.S. officials have said a small U.S. strike team, dropped by helicopter to bin Laden's hide-out near the Pakistani capital of Islamabad under cover of night, shot the A; Qaeda leader dead with bullets to the chest and head. He did not return fire.John Brennan said earlier yesterday that a female at the compound in Pakistan who 'was, in fact, in the line of fire that reportedly was used as a shield to shield bin Laden from the incoming fire'Pressed on reports the woman shot dead by Navy SEALs during a firefight at a compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan was one of Bin Laden's four wives, Brennan had told the White House briefing: 'That's my understanding.'Brennan had said it was not entirely clear 'whether or not Bin Laden or the son or whatever put her there or she put herself there' or whether the Al Qaeda chief himself fired rounds during the exchange.Bin Laden was killed by a bullet to the head and senior US officials said two brothers believed to be his couriers and one of the Al Qaeda chief's adult sons also perished in the raid.Confusion about the identities of those killed in the raid came despite the attack being viewed live by U.S. president Barack Obama and other senior officials.Secret photos of the dead Bin Laden seen by U.S. officials show a precision kill shot above his left eye, it was claimed today.According to the U.S. account, the assault team on the compound in Abbottabad came away with hard drives, DVDs, documents and more that might tip U.S. intelligence to Al Qaeda's operational details and perhaps lead the manhunt to the presumed next-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri. 'We're moving with great dispatch to mine that' material for insights into terrorist plots that may be in the works and for clues as to the location of senior al-Qaida officials, said John Brennan today.Mr Brennan also asked today the question that was reverberating around the world: 'How did Osama bin Laden stay at that compound for six years or so and be undetected?'He went on: 'We have many, many questions about this. And I know Pakistani officials do as well.'Mr Brennan said Pakistani officials were trying to determine 'whether there were individuals within the Pakistani government or military intelligence services who were knowledgeable'.Hmmmm.....This could only lead to one conclusion if the Pak Gov helped, it's NOT Al-Qaida It's Islam !Read the full story here.

• Patrick Poole: Do We Understand the Threat Now?(BigPeace).Today on Frank Gaffney’s Secure Freedom Radio, Patrick Poole of Pajamas Media explains what the death of Osama bin Laden really means for US security. In the wake of his death at the hands of US Navy SEALs Team Six, America should expect retaliation but is this event a major blow to terrorism worldwide? Poole also explains the upcoming Congressional hearings that Attorney General Eric Holder will attend in which he must answer some difficult questions into the Department of Justice’s scuttling of several prominent Islamic leaders.You can hear the interview between Frank and Patrick Poole right here.

• Turkey Destroying Armenian, Greek, Assyrian Cultural Artifacts.(Aina).Armenia has to intensify activities in relevant international organizations to draw attention to Turkey's demolition of non-Turkic cultural heritage, a Turkish Studies expert stated.At news conference in Yerevan, Ruben Melkonyan cited as an example Turkey's transforming a Kars-based Armenian church into a mosque, as well as a failure to point out Armenian origin of cultural monuments in Western Armenia.As the expert stressed, Turkey has similar attitude to all non-Muslim artifacts, specifically Assyrian and Greek ones. According to him, Turkey is using the other nations' cultural heritage and tourist attractions to gain its ends, setting monuments, allegedly commemorating "victims of Turkish genocide perpetrated by Armenians" right next to them.Read the full story here.

• Armenian Parliament Calls for Recognition of Armenian, Hellenic, Assyrian Genocides.(Aina).Yerevan -- The Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC Australia) reports that the parliament of the Republic of Armenia called upon parliaments and legislative bodies throughout the world to recognise and condemn the genocide of the Armenians, Hellenes and Assyrians perpetrated by Ottoman Turkey from 1915 to 1923.In a Parliamentary Declaration on the occasion of the 96th anniversary commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, the Republic of Armenia National Assembly Speaker, Hovik Abrahamyan stated that recognition of the genocides perpetrated against the Armenians, Hellenes and Assyrians would lead to the restoration of justice and the of prevention other genocides in the future.He said: "For the resolution of this injustice, the prevention of further genocides and the establishment of good neighbourly relations between Armenia and Turkey, the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia calls on the parliaments of the world to recognise and condemn the genocides perpetrated against the Armenian, Hellenic and Assyrian peoples in Turkey at the beginning of the last century."Directing his message to Turkey, Abrahamyan then declared: "The National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia calls upon the legislative and executive authorities of Turkey to remove all the legal, political and other obstacles, that prevent Turkish society from freely studying and discussing the past, especially the facts of the genocide for which Ottoman Turkey is responsible."ANC Australia Executive Director Varant Meguerditchian welcomed the Parliamentary Declaration."The National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia's policy regarding Turkish responsibility for and denial of the Armenian, Hellenic and Assyrian Genocides is clear and unequivocal," he said. "ANC Australia takes this opportunity to reaffirm its commitment to work with the Australian Hellenic Council and the Assyrian Universal Alliance Australia to advocate for the recognition of the Armenian, Hellenic and Assyrian Genocides by the Federal government of Australia."Hmmmm....Erdogan "Muslims don't commit Genocide".Read the full story here.

• Pakistan says Osama family members under arrest, and defends inaction on al-Qaeda.(Al-Arabia).Pakistan authorities said on Tuesday that they have arrested members of Osama Bin Laden’s family. They were taken into custody at Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, which US Special Forces raided on Sunday, killing the Al-Qaeda leader.Sources told Al Arabiya that some of those arrested had been wounded. The US Navy SEALs who killed Bin Laden spirited away his body, and gave the terrorist a sea burial in the North Arabian Sea on Sunday, observing Muslim last rites.Earlier on Tuesday, President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan defended his country against accusations it did not do enough to track down Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and acknowledged that his security forces were left out of the US operation to kill him.“Although the events of Sunday were not a joint operation, a decade of cooperation and partnership between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama Bin Laden as a continuing threat to the civilized world,” Mr. Zardari said in an op-ed article for The Washington Post.Underneath a headline reading “Pakistan did its part,” he said: “We in Pakistan take some satisfaction that our early assistance in identifying an Al-Qaeda courier ultimately led to this day.”But the Pakistani president provided no detailed explanation on how Mr. bin Laden managed to live for years undetected in Abbottabad, a hillside retreat popular with retired Pakistani generals just an hour’s drive from Islamabad, the country’s capital.

“He was not anywhere we had anticipated he would be, but now he is gone,” Mr. Zardari wrote.It was the first public comment by any Pakistani civilian or military leader on the raid by a secret US assault team on Mr. Bin Laden’s compound on Sunday night.Pakistan’s main Taliban faction threatened to attack Pakistan and the US, calling them “the enemies of Islam.”“If he (Bin Laden) has become a martyr, it is a great victory for us because martyrdom is the aim of all of us,” spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP by phone.Vows to avenge Al-Qaeda leader’s death appeared quickly in Islamist militant forums, a key means by which Al-Qaeda leaders have passed on information. “God’s revenge on you, you Roman dog, God’s revenge on you crusaders,” one forum member wrote, according to Reuters.The Obama administration was weighing whether to release a photo of Bin Laden’s body as proof that he had been killed. There is also a video of the sea burial but it was not clear if it would be released, a US official said.US helicopters entered Pakistani airspace making use of blind spots in the radar coverage due to hilly terrain. US helicopters’ undetected flight into Pakistan was also facilitated by the mountainous terrain, efficacious use of latest technology and “map of the earth” flying techniques. It may not be realistic to draw an analogy between this undefended civilian area and some military / security installations which have elaborate local defense arrangements.On receipt of information regarding the incident, PAF scrambled its jets within minutes. This has been corroborated by the White House Advisor Mr. John Brennan who while replying to a question said, “We didn’t contact the Pakistanis until after all of our people, and all of our aircraft were out of Pakistani airspace. At the time, the Pakistanis were reacting to an incident that they knew was taking place in Abbottabad. Questions have also been asked about the whereabouts of the family members of Osama bin Laden. They are all in safe hands and being looked after in accordance with law. Some of them needing medical care are under treatment in the best possible facilities. As per policy, they will be handed over to their countries of origin.Notwithstanding the above, the Government of Pakistan expresses its deep concerns and reservations on the manner in which the Government of the United States carried out this operation without prior information or authorization from the Government of Pakistan.This event of unauthorized unilateral action cannot be taken as a rule. The Government of Pakistan further affirms that such an event shall not serve as a future precedent for any state, including the US.Hmmmm.....We did not inform the Pakistani Government cause we did not want to run the risk of Osama Bin Laden being warned?Read the full story here.

• Flashback 2008 - Obama's Energy Sec. Wants Gasoline Prices To Be Three Times Higher.(Allamericanblogger).Gasoline where I am is back down to $1.49 a gallon. The national average right now is about $1.65 a gallon. The Eco-Marxists aren’t happy with the price of gasoline being low. If you remember during the primaries, even Barack Obama said the price wasn’t bad, it just rose too fast.To the green mafia, the price of gasoline should be so high that people can’t drive to work and have to rely on public transportation. And if the market won’t keep the price high, government will.Steven Chu is Obama’s nominee for Energy Secretary. Here’s what he thinks about gas prices:In a sign of one major internal difference, Mr. Chu has called for gradually ramping up gasoline taxes over 15 years to coax consumers into buying more-efficient cars and living in neighborhoods closer to work.“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” Mr. Chu, who directs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal in September.The price of petrol in Europe right now is more than three times the price of gasoline in America. So, given Mr. Chu’s preference, instead of paying $1.49 per gallon, I would be paying $4.50 a gallon. Instead of a tank of gas costing me $17 and some change, it would take $54 out of my wallet. For the record that would be $37 in taxes for each tank of gas I buy.Believe it or not, this is what the environmentalists voted for. This is exactly what they want from an Obama government. This is the change they believed in, and we can expect more of the same across the board.One last quote from Mr. Chu to illustrate my point:“Coal is my worst nightmare.”What do you think will happen to energy prices under him? Hmmmm.....A dictator forcing his way upon 'We the people'.Read the full story here.

• Army blows 11,000-foot hole in Missouri levee to save town from flooding.(DailyMail).Meanwhile there is more rain on the way.At the moment a mighty explosion lit up the night sky, the Mississippi River gushed through the hole in an action which was to save the homes of thousands. The 11,000-foot hole in a Missouri levee was intentionally blown open by the Army Corps of Engineers.Even as the corps' carried out its bid to protect Cairo, Illinois, floodwaters were rising downriver, including in Memphis, Tennessee. And the breach in the Birds Point levee wasn't expected to ease those flooding concerns.The Army Corps exploded the Birds Point levee after nightfall Monday, sacrificing 130,000 acres of rich farmland and about 100 homes in Missouri to spare the Illinois town of 2,800 residents that is at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.Farmers and residents of Wyatt, close to the levee, gathered just after dawn Tuesday to survey the several feet of murky brown waters inside. A small cluster of cattle stood grazing on the slope of the levee, and National Guard soldiers patrolled the area.Travis Williams, 34, a farmer who owns more than 1,000 acres now under water, said his home is safe because it is on 'the good side of the levee'.He said: 'It's a life changing event. My heart goes out to all the farmers who lost their land and homes.'Billy and Tammy Suggs, who live in Wyatt, opened up the town's tiny city hall so people would have a place to gather and mourn together as the blast occurred Monday night. They said it was a lot stronger than expected, knocking out windows in several homes.'We went around putting boards up to keep the rain out,' Billy Suggs said.Read the full story here.