NASA: Our only Solar Storm warning satellite ACE ‘could falter soon’ – Coincidence or Cover-Up?

NASA: Our only Solar Storm warning satellite ACE ‘could falter soon’ – Coincidence or Cover-Up?(TTBTS).NASA: A US satellite that offers the only advance warnings of incoming solar storms is more than a decade past its expected orbital lifetime and is possibly on its last legs, researchers say.
Stationed around 1 million miles from Earth. NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer satellite, nicknamed ACE, cautions about incoming high-energy particles from the sun which can wreak havoc on radio, GPS, satellite communications that are now embedded in modern life.
“It would be a very bad day for us if that spacecraft was not working,” the Discovery News quoted William Murtagh, program coordinator for NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., as saying.“When an eruption occurs on the sun, there are still quite a few question marks as to if it’s going to hit the Earth and when it’s going to hit the Earth,.”
Until the sun’s free-flying and highly energetic outbursts, known as coronal mass ejections, hit the ACE spacecraft, forecasters are not acquainted with the orientation of their embedded magnetic fields.
Depending on the polarity, or alignment, Earth’s magnetic shield will either peel away, giving the highly charged particles more freedom to disturb electrically sensitive equipment and communications, or rebuff the particles, like what happened during this week’s outburst.
NOAA has asserted that over 22,000 utility operators, airlines, satellite owners, GPS users and others are signed up to receive space weather alerts and millions more get the information on NOAA’s website.“ACE is a single point of failure and it’s old,” Murtagh said.“Every time I have a space weather storm I cringe a little bit that our very own space weather satellite doesn’t succumb to the storms I’m relying on it to help forecast.”
Another satellite with space weather sensors was slated to be launched in 2003 by the doomed shuttle Columbia crew, but the spacecraft, known as Triana, was nixed by the Bush administration as it was supported by former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore.
Gore championed the spacecraft for its ability to incessantly relay live pictures of Earth from the vantage point of 1 million miles away in space, in hopes that the global view of the blue planet would rally environmental awareness.“There were no technical reasons why it couldn’t go. We were getting ready to send it the Cape (Kennedy Space Center) for launch and we got an order that the mission was not going to go,” project scientist Adam Szabo, with NASA’s Heliospheric Physics Laboratory at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said.
After its ride was called off, Triana was put into storage at Goddard. It is presently undergoing checkouts and refurbishments in preparation for rebirth as NOAA-operated space weather sentry.
Launch is targeted for June 2014. The sun’s 11-year solar cycle is expected to peak in May 2013!!
Heightened solar activity, which is ramping up this year, will carry on for nearly the next six years.
NASA Issues 2012 Warning

NASA, along with The National Academy of Science and other world renowned scientist are so concerned about this up and coming solar maximum in late 2012, that way back in March 10, 2006 NASA issued a solar storm warning for 2012.

Then in 2010, NASA again warns the general population of a pending solar storm, telling the population to get ready for a once in a lifetime solar storm

And Astrophysicist Alexei Dmitriev further supports NASA’s original 2012 solar storm warning issued back in March of 2006.

Dmitriev: “Our sun, as well as our entire solar system, is now moving into an interstellar energy cloud and as this interstellar energy cloud continues to excite/charge the sun, it causes the sun to become more active, resulting in greater output from the sun. IE: Bigger and more frequent solar storms and CME’s resulting in the Carrington effect. This interstellar cloud of electrical energy is also absorbed by the Earth, and Scientist have found that it results in more earth quakes, all while dramatically effecting our weather here on earth”.Read the full story here.

The "Perfect Solar Storm" Could Lead to Atomic Armageddon.

Bestselling Author/Environmentalist Matthew Stein Says Solar Storm-Caused Grid Collapse Could Lead to Atomic Armageddon.(FC).Solar flares are all over the news as we head towards the next solar maximum in 2012-2013. With recent brilliant displays of northern lights, scientists are concerned that this "solar max" could deal a devastating blow to America's electronic power grid and communications systems."If a super solar storm of such intensity were to strike today, it would massively disrupt modern electronics, wipe out communication satellites, and collapse the electric power grid over much of the industrialized world for months and possibly years," says bestselling author and environmentalist Matthew Stein. "What most people don't realize is that a long-term grid collapse would also start a chain of events leading to a nuclear Armageddon caused by hundreds of simultaneous Fukushima-like nuclear meltdowns occurring in reactors around the world."
The last extreme geomagnetic solar storm occurred in 1921, The largest solar storm on record, known as the Carrington Event, occurred just 62 years earlier in 1859.

These storms were decades before the advent of nuclear power, microelectronics, and the widespread electrical power grid, which are extremely vulnerable to storms of such magnitude.

According to Stein, "as our nuclear power plants and electric power grid are currently configured, a solar-induced nuclear Armageddon is 100% guaranteed to happen."
Catastrophe is now a matter of when, not if, he says, adding that it does not have to be this way.
"For the price of a single stealth bomber (about $2 billion) we could protect our grid from collapse and our nuclear reactors from catastrophic meltdown," Stein says.
He says that due to a lack of understanding of the seriousness and breadth of the problem, Congress has failed to pass legislation mandating protective measures to prevent catastrophic grid collapse caused by extreme solar flares or an EMP attack.
More than a third of all Americans live within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor. If most of the 104 American reactors were to fail, including Indian Point just outside of New York City, it would be the end of America for many generations to come, Stein says.

Stein has a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and is the bestselling author of When Disaster Strikes: A Comprehensive Guide for Emergency Planning and Crisis Survival.Read the full story here.

Incoming - Largest Solar Storm Since 2005 to Hit Earth Tuesday !

Strongest Solar Storm Since 2005 Headed to Earth

Last night the sun unleashed a flash of radiation called a solar flare, along with a generous belch of ionized matter that is now racing toward Earth at thousands of kilometers a second. The solar storm front from the ionized blast, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), should arrive tomorrow morning, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). The forecasters called the event the strongest solar storm since 2005.
When a solar storm hits Earth, the impact can have a number of consequences, especially in Earth orbit and at high latitudes, where the planet’s geomagnetic shielding is thin. Solar storms can knock out satellites, cause blackouts, and force aircraft to avoid polar routes. Storms can also bring the aurora borealis, a.k.a. the northern lights, down to unusually low latitudes. (You can see a slideshow of recent low-latitude auroras here.)
The SWPC is forecasting that the inbound storm will reach G2 (“moderate”) and possibly G3 (“strong”) levels on the geomagnetic storm scale, which tops out at G5. A G3 storm should not cause severe problems for satellite operators or power companies but could interrupt satellite-based navigation systems and some radio communications. Such storms can also produce auroras visible as far south as Illinois and Oregon, according to the SWPC.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                    Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Turkey 5.5 !More info here.

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

• #OccupyWallStreet Is Obama’s America.(BigGovernment).By AWR Hawkins.When Barack Obama was seeking the Democrat nomination in early 2008, warnings of his inexperience coupled with the fact that he was an ideologue were ubiquitous. Again and again, the facts were placed before us that Obama’s only claim to significant leadership was as a community organizer in Chicago. Mark Levin, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and others repeatedly said that Obama would be a reckless President who lacked governing knowledge and who was ruled only by his desire to put America in its place.And here we are. It’s late 2011, and the Organizer-in-Chief has proven that his only strength lies in his ability to organize those who hate America—hating both the economic system embedded in her and the ideals on which she stands.To put it bluntly, “Occupy Wall Street” is Obama’s America. He has organized it, perhaps indirectly, but has done so nonetheless via his relentless venom for “the rich” coupled with his ongoing calls for more people to sacrifice and to “pay their fair share.” Of course, he doesn’t mean the hippies and freaks in the protests should pay their share. Rather, he is fostering a feeling of betrayal in them so they will continue to “rage against the machine.”Look at it, folks–Obama’s America. Ain’t it great? It’s a place where law is disparaged (you can defecate on police cars), capitalism is hated (“eat the rich”), and people are entitled to take money from others even if the takers played no role in earning the money they crave (especially if they played no role in earning it).Hippies, freaks and union goons, all together in Obama’s community, have organized to oppose everything great about America. All the little ideologues are trying their best to imitate the masters: Obama, Marx, and that Jimmy Hoffa dude who loves to tell Obama “this is your army”, “we are ready to march” and a bunch of other nonsense.Since this is Obama’s army–the community he has organized–I suppose he gets the credit for their great accomplishments. You know, the vandalism in Oakland, the sexual assault at Occupy Dallas, the policemen attacked at Occupy Denver, the drug overdose at Occupy Vancouver, the kidnapping at Occupy Cleveland, and sexual predator/Seattle Occupier who was busted for exposing himself to kids at Seattle’s classy occupation. This is what “hope and change” looks like when you flesh it out, when you take it out of the leftist playbook and apply it to the real world.Our Organizer-in-Chief has really outdone himself this time. Welcome to Obama’s America.Read the full story here.

• How the Grinch Obama Couldn’t Wait: Christmas Tree tax.(The Foundry) — President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees — the Christmas Tree Tax — to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry” (7 CFR 1214.46(n)). And the program of “information” is to include efforts to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States” (7 CFR 1214.10).To pay for the new Federal Christmas tree image improvement and marketing program, the Department of Agriculture imposed a 15-cent fee on all sales of fresh Christmas trees by sellers of more than 500 trees per year (7 CFR 1214.52). And, of course, the Christmas tree sellers are free to pass along the 15-cent Federal fee to consumers who buy their Christmas trees.Acting Administrator Shipman had the temerity to say the 15-cent mandatory Christmas tree fee “is not a tax nor does it yield revenue for the Federal government” (76 CFR 69102). The Federal government mandates that the Christmas tree sellers pay the 15-cents per tree, whether they want to or not. The Federal government directs that the revenue generated by the 15-cent fee goes to the Board appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture to carry out the Christmas tree program established by the Secretary of Agriculture. Mr. President, that’s a new 15-cent tax to pay for a Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.Nobody is saying President Obama doesn’t have authority to impose his new Christmas Tree Tax — his Administration cites the Commodity Promotion, Research and Information Act of 1996. Just because the Obama Administration has the legal power to impose its Christmas Tree Tax doesn’t mean it should do so.The economy is barely growing and nine percent of the American people have no jobs. Is a new tax on Christmas trees the best President Obama can do?And, by the way, the American Christmas tree has a great image that doesn’t need any help from the government.Hmmmm......." Can the ACLU please intervene in this? This is a tax on Christians. You certainly won’t see Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists having to pay this tax. Is this not a law respecting the establishment of religion?"Read the full story here.

• No 'gutsy call' for this President?Obama faces choice on Keystone pipeline: Big Labor or Big Green.(WE).President Obama lamented recently that Americans have "lost our ambition, our -- our imagination, and -- and -- our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge." There are at least two facts that must be pointed out here. First, the Golden Gate Bridge was built by private enterprise, not government. If anything, government was the biggest obstacle to the bridge, thanks to opposition from the Department of Defense and the mistaken opinion of a San Francisco city engineer that the ground under the bay to be spanned would never support such a structure. It's also worth noting here that Bank of America founder and president A.P. Giannini, a member of the much-maligned one percent, stepped forward at a critical moment after the Stock Market Crash of 1929 to provide critically needed private financing to complete the project. The bridge was finished in 1937, 16 years after architect Joseph Strauss first began the project. He completed the project $1.7 million under its total budget of $35 million. Second, Obama is almost certainly correct in doubting that grand projects like the Golden Gate Bridge could be done today, but not for the reasons he would want to acknowledge. For proof, we need look no further than the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that TransCanada first proposed in 2008. The company wants to spend $7 billion in private capital to build the pipeline. It would transport crude oil produced in Canada's Alberta tar sands region to refineries in Texas. Not only would U.S. dependence on OPEC nations for oil be significantly reduced, building the pipeline would also, according to the Canadian Energy Research Institute, create as many as 435,000 jobs in the U.S. by 2035.But incessant delays since 2008 caused by the cumbersome permitting process and environmental impact assessments have put the project in jeopardy.Further complicating this picture is Obama's decision to delay making a final decision until after the 2012 election. The pipeline creates opposition between two of Obama's most important groups of political supporters: environmentalists who want to force Americans to stop using fossil fuels, and Big Labor, which wants the construction jobs. These groups provide millions of dollars in campaign donors and thousands of campaign workers, and Obama needs both if he is to have any hope of winning a second term. The only way to keep both in his corner is to delay the Keystone decision till after the election. But by then, TransCanada says it may be too late.Hmmmm......Give us another Reagan instead of this 'President'. Read the full story here.

• It’s Official: Obama Administration Promotes Islamist Regimes; Insists They are Moderate.(BarryRubin).Note:let me be clear: I am in a state of shock at this speech. It isn't just what they are doing--we knew about that--but how they are doing it--no reservations, no balance, no subtlety, leaving themselves (and the rest of us) with no escape route. They are endorsing the Muslim Brotherhood! Remember to quote some of the viciously antisemitic rhetoric of that group which can now say it is U.S.-sponsored. BR.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech justifying Obama Administration Middle East policy changes everything. True, it isn’t surprising. I’ve been writing for almost three years about how the current U.S. government thinks these things.Do not underestimate this speech's importance. It isn't a reluctant acceptance that Islamists might win elections and take over coutries. It is an enthusiastic endorsement of that idea.But now there can be no doubt that Obama’s Middle East policy is engaged in what might be the biggest blunder in the history of U.S. foreign policy. Millions of people will bemoan it as delivering their countries into the grip of repressive dictatorships. The speech can be summarized as follows: Islamist regimes—at least those whose “behavior” is proper--are good. If Islamists exercise political power they will be moderate. Thus, the United States will not merely tolerate but will actually support Islamists taking power.The Obama Administration is now on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hizballah, and the Taliban (“moderate” wing). It is the equivalent of an American government telling you that Communism and fascism are no threat because they can be tamed by participating in elections and being in power.Thus, the Obama Administration has openly sided with Israel’s enemies. I don’t mean the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Saudi Arabia. That would be tolerable. We’re talking here about openly genocidal, antisemitic groups.It has also sided with the enemies of the PA, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan. It has sided with the enemies of democratic forces in Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Lebanon. Indeed, the U.S. government is working to empower the most dangerous enemies of democracy in the Middle East. What’s especially remarkable is that this strategy is based on no evidence. All Clinton can cite is a single case—Turkey—that proves the exact opposite of what the Obama Administration claims.Here are five examples on the other side:

1. The Oslo peace process was based on the belief that the radical nationalist PLO would be moderated by being given power, guns, and money. Has the result been peace and moderation?
2. The U.S. government favored the participation of Hamas in the Palestinian election. It won and then staged a coup. Today Gaza is ruled by a radical regime that foments war on Israel and openly proclaims its intention to commit genocide on Jews.
3. Hizballah participated in the Lebanese elections, won, and while it cannot institute a Shia Islamist regime in a country where 70 percent aren’t Shia Muslims and its opponents are armed, it is doing all it can to make that country a dictatorship that will attack Israel when it thinks the timing is right.
4. In Egypt, we have seen the descent into anarchy and violence; the persecution of Christians, the unleashing of fanaticism. Where is the debate in the Muslim Brotherhood to indicate moderation? Where is the renunciation of past extremism? Where is the reinterpretation of Islamic texts to justify a totally different worldview? These things don’t exist.
5. Turkey, the great role model, is seeing democracy wane as the Islamists arrest their enemies, take over the media, and adopt an anti-Western foreign policy that backs radical Islamists elsewhere.

March of folly indeed. This is a sprint. Clinton claims:

“Not all Islamists are alike. Turkey and Iran are both governed by parties with religious roots, but their models and behavior are radically different. There are plenty of political parties with religious affiliations—Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Muslim—that respect the rules of democratic politics. The suggestion that faithful Muslims cannot thrive in a democracy is insulting, dangerous, and wrong. They do it in this country every day.Let’s review

1. True, Not all Muslims are alike but all Islamists are alike.
2. By the same token, not all Russians are alike but all Communists under Lenin and Stalin were alike.
3. And, not all Germans were alike but all Nazis were alike.
4. Not all organizations composed of Caucasians are alike but all members of the Klu Klux Klan are alike.
5. The fact that European Christian Democratic and Israeli religious parties respect the rules of democratic politics has no connection with whether the Muslim Brotherhood will do so.

Is that clear?What’s striking about the administration’s position is the lack of the most basic logic. True, a political party with religious affiliations might “respect the rules of democratic politics.” But that doesn’t mean parties favoring a Sharia state in which, say, Muslims who convert to another religion are sentenced to death, fall into that category. There is no proof that Islamist parties “respect the rules of democratic politics” except their willingness to run in elections. The Nazis and Communists also ran in elections. So what?And what is a moderate Muslim? He might be a conservative traditionalist; liberal reformer; Kurdish or Berber nationalist; tribal loyalist; etc. But that doesn’t apply to an Islamist, someone who wants to fundamentally transform the existing society into one governed by Sharia law under a hardline interpretation, wiping of Israel off the map, subordinating Christians and women; and driving Western influence out of the region.Winning an election and forming a government is only the first step. What does that government do? It passes laws that enforce an Islamist conception of society; puts its people into the bureaucracy, rewards imams who are radical and fires those who are moderate; rewrites textbooks and what appears on the media, chooses judges and the commanders of the armed forces; and sponsors terrorism against other states. It would be something else completely for the U.S. government to say: We will accept the Muslim Brotherhood in government if it takes power in an election, but we will do everything possible to stop that from happening. That would be a proper U.S. interests’ policy.Clinton did set some conditions but in no way hinted that any Islamist party might violate them:“Parties committed to democracy must reject violence; they must abide by the rule of law and respect the freedoms of speech, religion, association, and assembly; they must respect the rights of women and minorities; they must let go of power if defeated at the polls; and in a region with deep divisions within and between religions, they cannot be the spark that starts a conflagration. In other words, what parties call themselves is less important to us than what they actually do.”

Where to begin?

1. The Islamists do not reject violence. The Muslim Brotherhood supports terrorism against Israel, Americans, and Iraqi Shia. It will soon be backing violence, at least covertly, against Christians, secularists, and others. That is their doctrine.
2. Abide by the rule of law. Well, they will democratically change the law into a repressive dictatorship. The Communists and fascist regimes also had laws that they enforced.
3. Freedom of speech. No speech that criticizes Islam, their interpretation of Islam, or themselves, as we already see in Turkey where a former general was just sentenced to prison on the charge of having criticized the judgment in conversation with a villager.
4. Freedom of religion. No building or repair of churches, no equality of treatment for Christians. In Turkey a great historic church is now being converted into a mosque.
5. Association and assembly. Even now, look what happens if Christians try to demonstrate in Cairo.
6. Respect the rights of women and minorities. Laws will be changed to take away women’s rights because Sharia will govern.
7. And what will the U.S. government do if these democratic practices don’t happen? Might it ot be too late?
8. “The suggestion that faithful Muslims cannot thrive in a democracy is insulting, dangerous, and wrong. They do it in this country every day.” Can you really be that dangerously stupid? There is a difference between non-Islamists and Islamists; a difference between a group that is a tiny minority in the United States and that is—in Egypt—90 percent of the population. Clinton is suggesting that to say Islamists are not moderate democrats is to be an Islamophobe and a racist.That paragraph is thus full of careless and ignorant rhetoric. The U.S. government seems to be defining a “faithful Muslim” as someone who supports the Muslim Brotherhood. Who do you think is going to be filling the prisons of Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Gaza, and Lebanon? Faithful Muslims, that’s who.She continues, “In Tunisia, an Islamist party has just won a plurality of the votes in an open, competitive election. Its leaders have promised to embrace freedom of religion and full rights for women. To write a constitution and govern, they will have to persuade secular parties to work with them. And as they do, America will work with them, too, because we share the desire to see a Tunisian democracy emerge that delivers for its citizens and because America respects the right of the Tunisian people to choose their own leaders.”Notice that she says “as they do” and not “if they do.” She assumes moderation. A proper approach would be to say: If they do we will work with them and if they don’t we will work against them. Moreover, she assumes that the Islamists “share” America’s desire for Tunisian democracy. They don’t have to prove anything or pass any tests.Who is writing these speeches? The premise Clinton employs toward the Islamists is the exact equivalent of Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize before making any peace. They are certified as moderate democrats without doing anything democratic except for participating in elections. There are so many problems with this speech that I will continue this discussion in a second article discussing Clinton’s answer to her question, “Why does America promote democracy one way in some countries and another way in others?”Hmmmm......Is it Imam Rauf or Huma who's writing her 'speeches'?Read the full story here.

• You have to see this.. DOJ Government Web site Funding the enemy!(DocsTalk).Using the stage of the federal government to advance the personal agendas. Many Government sites as well as twitter updates from Government sites are basically taking sides on issues. This is really, really wrong and has come to a head with the latest on the DOJ site. This is a clear example of the root problem that using any and all resources to promote a personal agenda is OK because "we know better". This has gone on for a long time but it seems to be so blatant and in our face as if they have no fear because they know there will be no consequences. Why does this matter? This matters because all of our tax dollars go to funding these sites so citizens have access. As you will see in the mission statement below this is to be an unbiased fair to all system, but then they put an oped advertisement up defending something that we all in this country do not agree on. They are effectively taking a side and making it obvious that they are doing so. In a free country you should not have to pay to fund your enemy, be it Ford funding GMC or you funding the opinion of the President through use of government funded sites. The government basically has unlimited resources, avenues and coercive powers because of it's nature and under no circumstances should it be allowed to pick sides and uses tax payer money to promote on side or the other.Mission Statement taken from the Department of Justice web site. http://www.justice.gov/02organizations/about.html .-  OUR MISSION STATEMENT -- To enforce the law and defend the interests of the United States according to the law; to ensure public safety against threats foreign and domestic; to provide federal leadership in preventing and controlling crime; to seek just punishment for those guilty of unlawful behavior; and to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans.Also on the DOJ web site is a link in nice big text stating DEFENDING THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT. When you hit the link http://www.justice.gov/healthcare/ it takes you to a page that has this info.This is their main heading introduction and it is completely fact less and opinion based. "The Affordable Care Act was enacted on March 23, 2010. This comprehensive health care reform law makes health insurance affordable for millions of Americans and protects them against potentially catastrophic medical expenses. This law has become the subject of several lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the provision requiring Americans who can afford it to maintain basic health insurance coverage. The Department is vigorously defending the law in these cases."WE must defend the core base principals that the government does not use your money and it's power to push, promote or denounce individual businesses, movements and personal agendas or opinions. Read the full story here.

• Obama Joins the Chorus.(ElliotAbrams).If Prime Minister Netanyahu were to ask a fair-minded, balanced, sensible adviser what he could realistically do to win the confidence and approbation of President Obama, the answer would have to be “nothing.”Two examples prove the point.In May, Netanyahu moved the Likud Party considerably to the center in his speech to the opening of the summer session of the Knesset. In that speech he discussed relations with the Palestinians and called for a “long term IDF presence along the Jordan River,” and said “we agree that we must maintain the settlement blocs.” In other words, he was saying that the Israeli presence along the Jordan would be that of soldiers only, not settlers, and that it would in any event not be permanent; and he was saying that only the settlement blocs, not all settlements no matter how small and isolated, would remain with Israel.The Obama administration’s reaction to these important statements was, well, nothing. Zero. They did not commend them, or even acknowledge that they were important. They were so certain in their view of Netanyahu as a recalcitrant right-winger that they did not even pay attention to what he was saying.This week, Netanyahu has started to move on the issue of “outposts,” small and unauthorized encampments in the West Bank. Prime minister Sharon repeatedly promised president Bush that he would act to remove them—and repeatedly failed (as did prime minister Olmert). At some political cost (see this and this), Netanyahu plans now to act.

The Wall Street Journal explained it this way:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled he plans to dismantle some unauthorized Jewish dwellings in the West Bank, setting up potential clashes with extremist settlers and the hard-liners in his government who back them. Such a move could mark the largest evacuation of settlers since the 2005 Gaza withdrawal, and could boost Mr. Netanyahu’s credibility among mainstream Israelis as well as abroad.Well, apparently not “abroad.” No sooner does Netanyahu take this courageous step than he is denounced by French President Sarkozy and President Obama, in a private conversation that has now been revealed. According to press reports,

Sarkozy told Obama, “Netanyahu, I can’t stand him. He’s a liar.” Obama did not object to the characterization, and responded: “You are sick of him, but I have to work with him every day.”So we return to what our wise adviser might tell Netanyahu. In the very week that he moves on outposts—something Sharon and Olmert completely failed to do—he is called names by the French and the insults are apparently accepted and approved by the Americans. The advice to Bibi would have to be “forget it. Forget the possibility that Obama will ever treat you fairly. Forget the idea that he will give you a fair shake or pay attention to what you are actually doing.”If this were only a matter of personal relations between Obama and Netanyahu, it could be left at that. But it is far more consequential, for by that comment—and especially as it was made in private and can be interpreted as his actual view—President Obama has joined the chorus of assaults on the Jewish State. We only have one president at a time and they only have one prime minister. To treat the prime minister of Israel in this way is disgraceful.Read the full story here.

• GOP Senators Demand Investigation Into Obama Admin’s $730 Million Loan To Russian Steel Company.(TheHill) — Two GOP senators want the Energy Department’s (DOE) internal watchdog to investigate a planned $730 million loan for a company to manufacture high-strength automotive steel in Michigan.Sens. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) are asking DOE Inspector General Gregory Friedman to probe whether Severstal North America — a subsidiary of Russian steel giant OAO Severstal — should receive public financing to retool and expand facilities in Dearborn, Mich.“Given the tremendous fiscal crisis that we find ourselves in today, it does not seem appropriate for the program to subsidize technologies that have already achieved commercial success through private-sector means,” their Nov. 7 letter to Friedman states.The letter follows House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) letter to Energy Secretary Steven Chu last month attacking the potential financing.Hmmmm.......Creating jobs for overseas 'sponsors'?Read the full story here.

• Republican Congressman Demands Obama Apologize To Netanyahu.(TheHill).A Republican congressman from New York is calling on President Obama to apologize to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for comments Obama made that were caught on a live mic.French President Nicolas Sarkozy said to Obama that he “cannot bear Netanyahu, he’s a liar.”“You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you,” Obama responded according to a French interpreter.Sarkozy and Obama were unaware that they were speaking in the range of an open mic.In response, Rep. Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.) is calling on Obama to formally apologize for his remarks.“I find President Obama’s criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu highly offensive and call on him to issue a formal apology on behalf of the American people,” Grimm said in a statement Tuesday. “Whether the microphones are on or off, the message to our allies in Israel should always remain the same: ‘We stand with you.’Read the full story here.

• Sarkozy gaffe rekindles talk of US-J'lem tensions.(Jpost).An open microphone has stirred the waters of an Israeli diplomatic nightmare: a crisis with its staunchest ally, the US.During what French President Nicolas Sarkozy thought was a private conversation with US President Barack Obama, the French leader called Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu “a liar” at last week’s G-20 summit in Cannes, France. But his comments were only publicized on Tuesday.One Israeli official with a sense of humor quipped in response, “You should hear what [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel says of Sarkozy.”The Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry refused to comment, and officials who spoke with The Jerusalem Post tried unsuccessfully to focus the conversation on French-Israel relations.But while Sarkozy’s comments made for a good headline, it was Obama’s response, of being “fed up” with Netanyahu, that caught everyone’s attention in Israel.From his election campaign and until today, foes of Obama have portrayed him as bad for the Jews and bad for Israel.In an interview with the Post this summer, John Bolton, a Republican and former US ambassador to the UN, said of Obama that he was “the most anti-Israel president in the history of the state, without any question.”In contrast, just last week in Jerusalem, US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro spoke of Obama’s support for the Jewish state and of the strong ties between the two countries.Israelis hope Shapiro is correct, but fear Bolton’s assessment is more accurate.“Obama’s true face was revealed, as are his cold and disrespectful policies toward Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu,” MK Danny Danon (Likud) told the Post. “Anyone who had doubts about the way Obama treats Israel doesn’t have them anymore. Obama is bad for Israel.”The possibility of bad blood between Netanyahu and Obama, as well as the specter of a crisis in US and Israel relations, comes at a critical moment between the two long-standing allies.The two countries are joined together in their battle against a nuclear Iran. It’s a fight whose significance was highlighted by the publication, on the same day, of a report by the International Atomic Energy Association which confirmed that Iran had not stopped its atomic program.The US has stood firmly with Israel in its insistence that negotiations are the only way to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.The threat of a US veto and American lobbying efforts have been instrumental in helping to thwart the Palestinian bid at the UN Security Council to attain UN membership.The attack on Netanyahu’s diplomatic abilities also comes just one day after the prime minister faced a crisis in his party and his coalition. Those in the opposition could not help but note that there was an internal political message here for Israel as well.Labor MK Daniel Ben-Simon told the Post on Tuesday that he is “embarrassed as a citizen and as a MK” by Sarkozy’s words.“I was embarrassed to read what Sarkozy thinks about our prime minister, and I was even more embarrassed to hear that the US President agrees with him,” Ben-Simon said.“I am filled with shame that this is the way two of our greatest allies treat our prime minister,” he added. “I think this is the first time such comments have been publicized.”“If [Netanyahu] lies so easily to important officials, just imagine how much he lies to us,” Ben-Simon said.Kadima, whose last Knesset campaign slogan was “Bibi, I don’t believe him,” chose not to comment on the matter.“What Sarkozy said is more than enough,” a party spokesman quipped.One Israeli official, however, said that the ties between allies were not necessarily frayed by such side-line conversations.Relations exist between countries and not leaders.While one influences the other, ultimately nations are tied together more by their joint interest than the warm feelings between their leaders, the official said.Hmmmm......“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”Read the full story here.

• U.S. Government Confirms Link Between Earthquakes and Hydraulic Fracturing.(BlacklistedNews).By. John C.K. Daly.On 5 November an earthquake measuring 5.6 rattled Oklahoma and was felt as far away as Illinois.Until two years ago Oklahoma typically had about 50 earthquakes a year, but in 2010, 1,047 quakes shook the state.Why?In Lincoln County, where most of this past weekend's seismic incidents were centered, there are 181 injection wells, according to Matt Skinner, an official from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the agency which oversees oil and gas production in the state.Cause and effect?The practice of injecting water into deep rock formations causes earthquakes, both the U.S. Army and the U.S. Geological Survey have concluded.The U.S. natural gas industry pumps a mixture of water and assorted chemicals deep underground to shatter sediment layers containing natural gas, a process called hydraulic fracturing, known more informally as “fracking.” While environmental groups have primarily focused on fracking’s capacity to pollute underground water, a more ominous byproduct emerges from U.S. government studies – that forcing fluids under high pressure deep underground produces increased regional seismic activity.As the U.S. natural gas industry mounts an unprecedented and expensive advertising campaign to convince the public that such practices are environmentally benign, U.S. government agencies have determined otherwise.According to the U.S. Army’s Rocky Mountain Arsenal website, the RMA drilled a deep well for disposing of the site’s liquid waste after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “concluded that this procedure is effective and protective of the environment.” According to the RMA, “The Rocky Mountain Arsenal deep injection well was constructed in 1961, and was drilled to a depth of 12,045 feet” and 165 million gallons of Basin F liquid waste, consisting of “very salty water that includes some metals, chlorides, wastewater and toxic organics” was injected into the well during 1962-1966.Why was the process halted? “The Army discontinued use of the well in February 1966 because of the possibility that the fluid injection was “triggering earthquakes in the area,” according to the RMA. In 1990, the “Earthquake Hazard Associated with Deep Well Injection--A Report to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency” study of RMA events by Craig Nicholson, and R.I. Wesson stated simply, “Injection had been discontinued at the site in the previous year once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.”Twenty-five years later, “possibility” and ‘established” changed in the Environmental Protection Agency’s July 2001 87 page study, “Technical Program Overview: Underground Injection Control Regulations EPA 816-r-02-025,” which reported, “In 1967, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) determined that a deep, hazardous waste disposal well at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal was causing significant seismic events in the vicinity of Denver, Colorado.”There is a significant divergence between “possibility,” “established” and “was causing,” and the most recent report was a decade ago. Much hydraulic fracturing to liberate shale oil gas in the Marcellus shale has occurred since.According to the USGS website, under the undated heading, “Can we cause earthquakes? Is there any way to prevent earthquakes?” the agency notes, “Earthquakes induced by human activity have been documented in a few locations in the United States, Japan, and Canada.The cause was injection of fluids into deep wells for waste disposal and secondary recovery of oil, and the use of reservoirs for water supplies. Most of these earthquakes were minor. The largest and most widely known resulted from fluid injection at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver, Colorado. In 1967, an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 followed a series of smaller earthquakes. Injection had been discontinued at the site in the previous year once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.”Note the phrase, “Once the link between the fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established.”So both the U.S Army and the U.S. Geological Survey over fifty years of research confirm on a federal level that that “fluid injection” introduces subterranean instability and is a contributory factor in inducing increased seismic activity.” How about “causing significant seismic events?”Fast forward to the present.Overseas, last month Britain’s Cuadrilla Resources announced that it has discovered huge underground deposits of natural gas in Lancashire, up to 200 trillion cubic feet of gas in all.On 2 November a report commissioned by Cuadrilla Resources acknowledged that hydraulic fracturing was responsible for two tremors which hit Lancashire and possibly as many as fifty separate earth tremors overall. The British Geological Survey also linked smaller quakes in the Blackpool area to fracking. BGS Dr. Brian Baptie said, “It seems quite likely that they are related,” noting, “We had a couple of instruments close to the site and they show that both events occurred near the site and at a shallow depth.”But, back to Oklahoma. Austin Holland’s August 2011 report, “Examination of Possibly Induced Seismicity from Hydraulic Fracturing in the Eola Field, Garvin County, Oklahoma” Oklahoma Geological Survey OF1-2011, studied 43 earthquakes that occurred on 18 January, ranging in intensity from 1.0 to 2.8 Md (milliDarcies.) While the report’s conclusions are understandably cautious, it does state, “Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located.”Sensitized to the issue, the oil and natural gas industry has been quick to dismiss the charges and deluge the public with a plethora of televisions advertisements about how natural gas from shale deposits is not only America’s future, but provides jobs and energy companies are responsible custodians of the environment.It seems likely that Washington will eventually be forced to address the issue, as the U.S. Army and the USGS have noted a causal link between the forced injection of liquids underground and increased seismic activity. While the Oklahoma quake caused a deal of property damage, had lives been lost, the policy would most certainly have come under increased scrutiny from the legal community.While polluting a local community’s water supply is a local tragedy barely heard inside the Beltway, an earthquake ranging from Oklahoma to Illinois, Kansas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas is an issue that might yet shake voters out of their torpor, and national elections are slightly less than a year away.Read the full story here.

• Israel believes it could carry out strikes on Iran with under 500 civilian fatalities.(TheTelegraph).Ehud Barak raised the prospect of military action with Iran once again as he hinted that splits in the international community over imposing sanctions regarded as crippling enough by Israel could leave the Jewish state with no option but to take matters into its own hands.The warning came as a report by UN weapons inspectors into Iran's nuclear activities was made public, concluding that the Islamist regime is closer to building an atom bomb than ever before.Mr Barak conceded that the price of air strikes against Iran would be high, with Iran retaliating by firing long-range missiles at Israeli cities and encouraging its allies Hizbollah and Hamas to unleash their vast rocket arsenals at the country.But he insisted that claims of huge destruction in Israel were overblown and that the country could survive the retaliation."There is no way to prevent some damage," he said. "It will not be pleasant. There is no scenario for 50,000 dead, or 5,000 killed – and if everyone stays in their homes, maybe not even 500 dead."Mr Barak said the International Atomic Energy Agency's report represents "the final opportunity" for the United Nations Security Council to punish Iran with sanctions of sufficient severity to force Iran into abandoning its nuclear ambitions. Demanding that the international community finally take action to target Tehran's vital energy sector, he called for a naval blockade to prevent Iran exploiting oil.Although such a measure would undoubtedly do serious harm to Iran's energy-dependent economy, even the United States is said to be concerned about the impact it would have on oil prices at a time of heightened vulnerability for the world economy.Mr Barak predicted that opposition by Russia and China would make it impossible to achieve consensus in the Security Council for such sanctions, leaving military action increasingly as the only option."I don't think it will be possible to form such a coalition," he told Israeli radio."As long as no such sanctions have been imposed and proven effective, we continue to recommend to our friends in the world and to ourselves not to take any action off the table."US officials said they hoped the IAEA report would increase leverage for tougher sanctions, rather than short term pressure for air strikes.The "war camp" in the Israeli cabinet is believed to be in a minority that is championed primarily by Mr Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister.But many Israeli politicians will agree with the defence minister's assertion that the IAEA report represents "the last opportunity for coordinated, lethal sanctions that will force Iran to stop".Israel believes that Iran is intent on moving the bulk of its nuclear production underground within months, after which it will be harder than ever to launch effective military action.Read the full story here.

• UNSC split over Palestinian statehood bid.(Ynet).A draft report by a key UN Security Council committee, obtained by Reuters on Tuesday, declared that members could not reach consensus on whether Palestine should be accepted as a UN member state. "The committee was unable to make a unanimous recommendation to the Security Council," said the draft report of the council's committee on admitting new member states.It was circulated to all 15 Security Council members on Tuesday.The four-page draft appears to confirm that the Palestinian move to join the world body as a full member, which Western envoys said was doomed from the outset due to a US vow to veto it if it ever came to a vote in the council, is set to fail due to the council's unresolvable deadlock.Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas applied for full UN membership for the state of Palestine on Sept. 23.The Palestinians can still call for a vote in the Security Council, but diplomats say it is not clear whether they will do so given that Washington will likely not need to use its veto to block it.The Palestinians would score a moral victory and force Washington to cast its veto if they are able to muster nine votes to support them in the council. A council resolution needs nine votes in favor and no vetoes to pass.But UN diplomats say the Palestinians have so far secured only eight backers.The draft report details how the council is divided into three groups – those planning to support the Palestinian bid, those opposing it and those planning to abstain from any vote on it. It does not identify the countries.The draft may be revised before it is formally presented to the Security Council on Friday, diplomats said on condition of anonymity.Read the full story here.

• German expert indicates possible use of chemical weapons by Turkish army.(Firat).German military and secret service expert Erich Schmidt-Eenboom says chemical weapons could have been used. Following the examination of photographs of the body of HPG guerrilla Ebru Muhikancı, who was among 36 guerrillas who lost her life following the Turkish army operation in Çukurca district of Hakkari on 22-24 October, well-known German military and secret service expert Erich Schmidt-Eenboom remarked that the Turkish army could have used new chemical weapons in Kazan Valley. The white stains seen on the photographs of Muhikancı’s body are the most remarkable proof of chemical weapons, said Eenboom who spoke to ANF. Defining the photographs as “utterly terrifying”, Eenboom expressed doubts concerning chemical weapon use saying that “The plenty of white stains and marks on the photographs are absolute evidence to the use of chemical weapons since these can’t be made by standard bombs.”Mentioning the statements of HPG guerrillas who survived the bombardment in Kazan Valley, Eenboom commented the expressions of “a smell resembling the smell of fruit and milk” and “great nausea, sore throat and suffocation feeling after the bombs”. Eenboom said that “These descriptions are beyond the effects of napalm or other bombs which do not spread that kind of smell. If survivors really felt this smell, a new kind of chemical weapon was used there with a high degree of probability.”Pointing out that the Turkish army violated international conventions by using this kind of weapons, German expert commented that; “It seems that Turkey wants to display a show of force and give message to the states in the region by means of the fight against PKK.”Hmmmm......"Beware of The smell of fruit and milk in the morning"?Read the full story here.

• Turkey doubles efforts of distorting the historic facts ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.(ArmRadio).Turkey has doubled its efforts of distorting the historic facts ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. Young Turkish historian Mehmed Perincek has published his recurrent masterpiece, where he presents his views on the Armenian Genocide. In” The Armenian Cause in 120 documents of Russian state archives” book published in Moscow the author tries to persuade that massacres were perpetrated by both sides, and blames the imperialistic powers and Russia for this. The Turkish historian tries to prove the authenticity of his doctrine, saying it is based on 120 Russian archive documents. “When you look through the book, it becomes clear that the author has used only 63 documents, the rest are different Soviet-era publications against the Armenian Revolutionary Federation,” Director of the Armenian National Archive Amatuni Virabyan told a press conference today. According to him, the Genocide-related materials kept in Russia archives are rather modest. There are more documents in the archives of the countries, which had diplomatic representatives in Turkey at the turn of the century. In particular, the German, American, Austrian, and even Spanish diplomats were reporting to their respective governments about the brutalities against Armenians of Turkey. Director of the National Archive has prepared an article to be translated into Russian in the near future. This is a response to Mehmer Perencek’s book, where Amatuni Virabyan has enlisted all of the above-mentioned documents. Ahead of the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide the National Archive is preparing to publish “Vshtapatum” (The Story of Sorrow) - a 1 500-page work, which presents the Armenian Genocide by the eyes of eyewitnesses, in Armenian, English and Russian, and possibly French. In the near future the National Archive will publish about 1 200 documents on the massacre of the Armenian population of Kars in 1918-1920. The documents were collected by the commission set up by Hovhannes Tumanyan in 1919 and were to be presented at the Paris Peace Conference.Hmmm.....Erdogan:" A Muslim could not commit genocide".Read the full story here.

• Kaplan: Erdoğan trying to build an empire of fear.(Firat).Holding a speech at the meeting with civil society organizations, Kaplan pointed out the painful bairam process and said the followings; “Clashes and deaths continue on one side, while the great pain and wounds of Van earthquake have still not been healed on the other side. However, we are not going through usual times since all the elected except from me in Şırnak region have been arrested and put in prison. Despite all these, we continue to do politics as usual. BDP and DTK Co-chairs are currently in Erbil and our party is also contributing to the formation of the new Constitution in the Parliament.”Responding to PM Erdoğan who unfairly insulted the BDP and asked ‘where municipalities and mayors of the BDP were for help’ in the after quake process, Kaplan said that; “The mayors of the BDP were put in prison because of the KCK operation you yourself launched. You know but you still ask where they are. Our deputy mayors and city council members gave every effort and reached the aids to Van in a timely manner. We have most recently surveyed the earthquake area for two days and the single complaint victims made was “where the government and the state was”. Kaplan also mentioned the meeting of Erdoğan and Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani and underlined that Barzani gave a definite reply to Erdoğan by refusing three options of war presented by Turkey to Iraq with the intention of hitting Qandil and finishing with the PKK. Kaplan continued as follows; “The options proposed by Erdoğan all intended a war, not negotiations. However, brothers will not kill each other anymore since Barzani replied that ‘he wouldn’t be involved in this war’. Commenting Erdoğan’s most recent statement where he said that “The supporters of KCK support terror as well”, Kaplan said the followings; “In PM’s opinion, everyone thinking unlike him is a terrorist. He wants to build an empire of fear in Turkey by making an effort to suppress those who criticize him. Erdoğan’s warning to not to expect KCK investigations and operations to stop indicates that these arrests are leaded by him, not by the judiciary.”Kaplan ended his speech saying that; “There will be no peace and everybody will be considered as guilty in a place where there is no justice. However, everyone should know well that this people will spoil this game.”Hmmm......."Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty". ~ Plato.Read the full story here.

• Syrian Mufti threatens Europe with suicide bombers if Nato acts against Assad.(Spiegel).For some he is a holy man, for others he is little more than a rabble-rouser. But no one can dispute that Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, 62, is one of the most important men in Syria, a man who, as the country’s most senior religious scholar and a close political advisor to President Bashar Assad, plays a role in shaping war and peace in his country and in the entire Middle Eastern region.Sheik Hassoun, a Sunni religious scholar at Al-Azhar University in Cairo and a member of parliament for eight years, has always found conciliatory words in the West. He sharply criticized the term “Holy War” in front of the European Parliament, saying: “Only peace is holy.” At the Ecumenical Church Congress in Munich, he impressed fellow participants with his plea for interfaith dialogue and stunned German bishops with the proposal that the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) should remove the letter C from its name, for reasons of secularism.Now, in October, Hassoun has adopted a decidedly different tone in his homeland. The following passage was leaked from the eulogy he gave for his son Saria, who had been killed by militant regime opponents: “The moment the first (NATO) missile hits Syria, all the sons and daughters of Lebanon and Syria will set out to become martyrdom-seekers in Europe and on Palestinian soil. I say to all of Europe and to the US: We will prepare martyrdom-seekers who are already among you, if you bomb Syria or Lebanon. From now on, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”Hmmmm.......Riyadh under the chairmanship of Grand Mufti, Shiekh Abdul Aziz Al Sheikh, to discuss issues related to financing of terrorism. Subsequently, the Board issued a Fatwa on April 12, 2010 on the issue. The Fatwa declared ‘any act of terrorism, including financial support to terrorists’, a crime, regardless of the place of its occurrence. It further classified the person providing financial aid to terrorists as a “partner” in the act. The Fatwa described terrorism as an act that involved ‘ targeting of public resources, hijacking of planes and blowing of buildings’. Read the full story here.

• Video - Iranian ex-Muslim tells her story of rape and torture.(Tundratabloids).Warning contains graphic images,not suitable for children.Read and see the full story here.

• Suffering Christians Crying Out for Prayers.(ODN).The U.S. State Department reported in October that Afghanistan now has no church buildings and no Christian schools.Can you imagine the fear and isolation that must grip the hearts of Christian men and women in places like this?More than 100 million Christians are persecuted globally, and it's getting worse every year. A recent report by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found more than 2.2 billion people live in countries where social hostilities or government restrictions rose substantially from 2006 to 2009. The most powerful way Christians in the West can show their support for the small number of believers in Afghanistan and millions of other suffering Christians around the world is through prayer. Millions will be gathering in churches, small groups and homes this Sunday for the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP). IDOP began in 1996 and today is one of the largest prayer events in the world.“IDOP presents a tremendous opportunity for millions of people to make a difference in the lives of those faithful Christians who are literally under the gun in countries such as North Korea, Iran, Nigeria and Afghanistan,” said Open Doors USA President/CEO Dr. Carl Moeller. “Compass Direct News reported suspected Islamic extremists threw a grenade into the home of the guard of an East Africa Pentecostal Church congregation on Saturday, killing an 8-year-old girl and a member of the church. Three others were seriously injured. Please pray for their families. They and many more are crying out for our prayers.”The top 10 persecutors on the Open Doors 2011 World Watch List include North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Somalia, Maldives, Yemen, Iraq, Uzbekistan and Laos.An estimated 100 million Christians worldwide suffer interrogation, arrest and even death for their faith in Christ, with millions more facing discrimination and alienation.Hmmm......The American president's reaction?......"Tax the Christmas Trees!".Read the full story here.

• "The Perfect Solar Storm ?" - NOAA Warns of Monster Solar Storm Region Facing Earth for Next Two Weeks; Fully Capable of Producing X-Class Flares.(SHTF).Last Thursday the sun produced an X1.9 rated solar flare that narrowly missed Earth. Although it wasn’t aimed directly at us, about 45 minutes after leaving the sun it was still powerful enough to disrupt radio communications.Now, that same area responsible for producing the X-class flare may pose a direct threat to Earth.National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center says that the region on the sun known as AR11339 and affectionately called the “Benevolent Monster” will set its sights on Earth. It will move into a position that poses the largest risk to our planet around November 9th, 2011 and remain on a direct line of sight with earth for the following two (2) weeks as it rotates: Scientists at the federal Space Weather Prediction Center say that area is the most active part of the sun since 2005. It has dozens of sunspots, including one that is the size of 17 Earths..........“It’s still growing. The size is what blows me away.”Thursday’s flare wasn’t aimed at Earth. However, this active region is now slowly turning toward Earth, and scientists say it will be directly facing Earth in about five days.That storm region will only affect Earth if it shoots off flares and they hit our planet, which doesn’t always happen with stormy areas, said prediction center space scientist Joe Kunches.The region will be facing Earth for about two weeks as it rotates, he said.Solar flares send out bursts of electromagnetic energy that can occasionally disrupt communications and electrical systems.Sourced Via The Intel Hub.   We’ll be facing the monster starting sometime this evening into tomorrow. Considering that it has just recently ejected an X-class flare towards Earth and another towards Venus, we should consider the region to be active and fully capable of affecting our planet.While NOAA’s warnings fall short of any imminent ‘end of the world as we know it’ event, the risk over the next two weeks of a Carrington-like event are higher now than at anytime in the last decade. The 1859 Carrington Event, caused by a solar flare, reportedly knocked out telegraph operations around the world. It is believed that such an event, were it to occur today, could potentially take down the U.S. power grid for months or years and paralyze the entire globe: Physicist Michio Kaku:

It could paralyze the economy of the planet earth. In 1859 we had a gigantic solar storm which knocked out telegraph wires back then, 150 years ago. If that had happened today it would knock out almost all our satellites, knock out power stations, there would be food riots around the country because refrigeration would stop, airplanes would probably crash without radar.…And again, this is a once in a century, once in two centuries storm…We do have them and we have to worry about them.…We’d be thrown back 100 years. Source: Top Physicist Says Solar Flare Would Set Us Back 100 Years. Patrick Geryl of How to Survive 2012 contacted us recently and contributed a short video describing the potential fall out of such an event. The consequences would be devastating and would include everything from power grid failure and food shortages, to savage riots and, eventually, a meltdown of nuclear reactors across the globe.There would be very little warning, if any, with estimates suggesting that once a solar event is detected it could take anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of days to impact earth.Read the full story here.

• North Pacific 'super storm' makes its way toward Western Alaska coastline.(AlaskaDispatch).On the edge of the vast emptiness between North America and Russia, the remote Pribilof Islands -- the Galapagos of the North -- were among the possible targets for a brewing Arctic hurricane. National Weather Service officials in Alaska spent the day monitoring weather sensors as a pair of polar lows converged and began to gather strength south of St. Paul and St. George, the two biggest islands in the five-island chain some 200 miles offshore, about 750 miles west of Anchorage, Alaska's largest city.Monday evening, the weather service posted a "hurricane force wind warning (for) Tuesday." Winds built overnight from less than 20 mph to 50 mph by Tuesday morning. Storm trackers forecast winds really intensifying, up to 65 knots -- 75 mph -- by Tuesday afternoon. That's into the Force 12 hurricane range on the Beaufort Wind Scale, which warns of structural damage with winds as low as Force 9 and notes Force 10 winds are of such force they are "seldom experienced on land. (Expect) trees broken or uprooted, considerable structural damage.If the winds weren't enough, the weather service warned that seas that batter the islands were likely to build to 32 feet -- higher than many three-story buildings. Imagine walking through an average American suburb where the waves rise higher than all the houses around you. The people of the Pribilofs were getting ready as best they could. Few live there.Less than 450 people live in St. Paul, the largest community in the islands. Nearby St. George is home to but 102. Most are Alaska Natives who struggle to eke out a living from commercial fishing or tourism.Tanadgusix Corp., a village business formed after the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, opened a new hotel just six years ago on St. Paul to try to house tourists who come to the island from all over the world to view its unique collection of summer bird life. The windswept island is also home to a relatively new fish processing plant, but a lot of the 175 structures in St. Paul date back to shortly after World War II, when Aleuts who had been evacuated from the islands were returned from internment in Southeast Alaska to help the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries manage fur seals. St. Paul Island is also home to a Russian Orthodox church more than a century old. Sts. Peter and Paul Church was built in 1907 and added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1980.Though the Pribilofs were shaping up as ground central for an Alaska version of The Perfect Storm, there were concerns about high winds and coastal flooding developing all over Western Alaska.Hmmmm......After the storm....A new 'Nome gold rush' on the beaches?Read the full story here.

• Canary Islands Eruption: Undersea Volcano Now Just 70 Meters from Surface, 22 pictures.(Spiegel).In the Atlantic Ocean, off the Canary Island of El Hierro, 20-meter high jets of water are being spat into the air as the sea boils amid the stench of sulfur. The undersea volcano, which is set to create new land, is growing ever-nearer to the surface -- but is the existing island at risk from the explosive eruptions?"The monster rises out of the water", screamed the Spanish newspaper La Provincia. Scientists, meanwhile, are being a bit more level-headed about the undersea volcano south of El Hierro in the Canary Islands; they now believe it is in the third phase of its eruption -- fountains of water have been shooting out of the Atlantic up to 20 meters in the air over the last few days. On Tuesday, some local residents even saw stones being catapulted out of the sea.A seething maelstrom, dozens of meters across, is bubbling away in the ocean. Measurements show that the vortices are significantly warmer than the surrounding water.So far, the volcano has only shown its explosive power beneath the water. But now the outbursts to the south of El Hierro are frothing up the surface, as if the ocean had hiccups. The lava is piling up on an underwater mountain. That the eruption is capable of firing jets of water into the air shows that this mountain is growing -- the center of the eruption is approaching the surface. Geologists believe that new land could soon emerge from the sea, and islanders are already looking for a name for the new territory. There are only 70 meters to go until the mountain reaches the surface, experts from Spain's National Geographic Institute (IGN) have reported.But how big is the risk to nearby residents? Last weekend, hundreds of people had to leave their homes in the southern part of El Hierro as streets were closed. And locals can quite literally smell the danger -- stinking sulfur fumes are drifting across the ocean. The Volcanology Institute of the Canaries, Involcan, has reported a three-fold increase in carbon dioxide levels -- a warning signal that further volcanic activity can be expected.Seismic disturbances on the seabed have also been spreading. Since July, more than 10,000 minor earthquakes have shaken El Hierro, but since Oct. 22, the tremors have become increasingly stronger with some even surpassing four on the Richter scale. The quakes are showing a pattern typical of flowing magma, the so-called harmonic volcanic tremor -- a clear sign of impending eruptions.And scientists have been warning since September that if and when those eruptions do occur, they could well happen on land. In recent days, the tremors have shifted from the south to the north of El Hierro. Because most of the quakes there had occurred at a depth of ten kilometers or greater, there was probably no immediate risk of an eruption in the area, the local authorities had said. The magma had been confined to the deep.But it has now started moving upwards -- the most recent earthquakes have been shallower.There could soon be eruptions in or near the El Golfo valley on the northern coast, the IGN has warned. And an outpouring of lava could prove dangerous not only if it happens on land, but also in shallow water, where it could result in large steam explosions, says Ramon Ortiz, scientific adviser to the local government.Most so-called hot spot volcanoes, like those in the Canaries, produce basaltic magma with a relatively small proportion of silicon dioxide (SiO2). SiO2 acts like a glue, producing very viscous magma, leading to a buildup of gases which results in an explosive mixture. The Geochemist Torrent said the El Hierro volcano, however, is feeding off two supplies of lava; a less volatile basalt magma and a much more explosive, SiO2-rich magma.The risk of large, explosive eruptions in the Canary Islands "should not be neglected," warned geoscientist Rosa Sobradelo from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Barcelona in a report in the "Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences" journal. How often such events happen is unknown. But even the most momentous explosions of the past few centuries remained localized.And there are no fears of large eruptions on land, according to the IGN. The only risk is in the immediate vicinity of the eruption site, where there may be lava flows and rocks flung into the air.Read the full story here.

MFS - The Other News

                        Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Solomon Island 5.7 and 5.1 in Japan, 5.4 Fiji and 5.2 St Lucia! More info here.

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

• S&P warns of a second downgrade.(Politico).One day after lowering the nation’s platinum triple-A credit rating, Standard & Poor’s analysts warned Saturday that the U.S. government could face a second downgrade if the economy continues to struggle and the government fails to make the cuts outlined in the debt ceiling agreement.The ratings agency on Friday downgraded the nation to AA+ for the first time in history, saying partisanship in Washington is preventing dramatic deficit reduction.S&P managing director John Chambers told reporters on a Saturday conference call that the toxic mix of a listless economy and political infighting will cause government debt to grow.“Compared to some other highly rated governments, the U.S. government does not have the proactive ability to put public finances on a firm footing,” Chambers said.His colleague David Beers said the partisan discord increases the risk that Washington will not achieve effective policy remedies.“For that reason, there’s a lot of uncertainty about the future debt burden,” Beers said.The White House on Saturday issued its first public comments on the fiscal developments, without directly citing either S&P or the downgrade.“The president believes it is important that our elected leaders come together to strengthen our economy and put our nation on a stronger fiscal footing,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. “The bipartisan compromise on deficit reduction was an important step in the right direction. Yet, the path to getting there took too long and was at times too divisive. We must do better to make clear our nation’s will, capacity and commitment to work together to tackle our major fiscal and economic challenges.The possibility of a second downgrade could increase the pressure on the White House and House Republicans to find common ground on deficit reduction and measures to stimulate the economy.On Tuesday, Moody’s and Fitch credit agencies affirmed the government’s platinum rating, though both firms cautioned that a downgrade could occur if the next rounds in deficit cuts prove unsatisfactory.Hmmmmm......Something like Obama's 'We don't need a balanced budget'?Read the full story here.

• Today, There's A Much Bigger Story Than The S&P Downgrade.(BusinessInsider).Worried about the Monday open? You probably should be, but really, the S&P downgrade isn't the big worry.It's Italy.Italy has the third largest bond market in the world (after the US and Japan), and it's teetering on the brink of disaster.The belief in Germany is that existing bailout mechanisms aren't sufficient to save the country and that expanding them isn't the right idea, since at that point you're talking about placing massive risk on Germany's sovereign debt itself.The last backstop is the ECB, which will be deciding today (call at 12:00 PM ET) whether it will begin intervention in the Spanish and Italian markets. Last week German leaders (not surprisingly) opposed this, however that was before Berlusconi came out on Friday with an announcement of accelerated austerity.It's also not clear whether, at the margins, ECB bond buying will be enough to halt the crisis, unless it really brings a gigantic bazooka to the game.Regardless, concerns about the US debt, the changed perception of the dollar, and the political mess are all valid. Tonight and tomorrow, It's about Italy.Read the full story here.

• “A Closed ‘Super Congress’? Oh, I Don’t Think So.”(Cato).By Jim Harper.That was my inner conversation when I heard that the “Super Congress”* (or “Super Committee”) created by the debt ceiling deal might operate behind closed doors.Congress is free to create any committee it wants, of course. Congress determines the rules of its proceedings. But ordinary committees and subcommittees are too opaque. A “Super Committee” should lead—not lag—in transparent operations.In a forthcoming report on government transparency, we’ll be looking at the kinds of things committees should be publishing in computer-useable formats, and in real time or near-real-time: meeting notices, transcripts, written testimonies, live video, original bills, amendments to bills, motions, and votes. There are ways that many of these documents and records can be optimized for transparency, including by flagging agencies, programs, dollar amounts, and so on in the texts of published documents.That’s why I’m glad to see transparency stalwart the Sunlight Foundation calling for a transparent Super Committee. “Congress pushed through the ‘Debt Ceiling’ bill with almost no transparency,” they say. “Let’s make sure the new ‘Super Congress’ committee created by this bill operates in the open.”The things they highlight, reflecting priorities of transparency groups across the ideological spectrum, include: live webcasts of all official meetings and hearings; the committee’s report being posted for 72 hours before a final committee vote; disclosure of every meeting held with lobbyists and other powerful interests; Web disclosure of campaign contributions as they are received; and financial disclosures of committee members and staffers.The legislation creating the Super Committee calls for some minimal transparency measures: public announcement of meetings seven days in advance; release of agendas 48 hours ahead of meetings, and:  Upon the approval or disapproval of the joint committee report and legislative language pursuant to clause (ii), the joint committee shall promptly make the full report and legislative language, and a record of the vote, available to the public.

By my read, that’s a requirement to release the language the committee is voting upon after the vote has been taken.I’m not havin’ it. Kudos, Sunlight Foundation, for pressing an open Super Committee.Hmmmmm.......Supreme Council...Soviet style?Read the full story here.

• 4.2 earthquake hits Israel.Tsunami warning issued for Greek Islands.(Ynet).Epicenter of tremor at sea, 60 kilometers deep and 800 kilometers off Israel coastline; An earthquake measuring 4.2 on the Richter scale was felt throughout the country on Sunday. The epicenter of the tremor was 40 kilometers west of Binyamina. The Coastal District Police Department stated that it received many calls from frightened citizens, mainly in the coastal region and Haifa. Magen David Adom in the Carmel Subdistrict also received many calls but they noted that there have been no reports of injuries or damages.Director of the Seismology Division at the Geophysical Institute, Rami Hofstetter, said the earthquake was a rare occurrence both in potency and location."The area in which the quake took place this time is usually far less active, but this happens too, as we can see," he said, adding that it had also been one of the most severe quakes of the past 20 years.Hofstetter also believes it could be a warning sign. "A 4.2-level quake does not cause damage or casualties, but could sometimes, as occurred in Japan, mean the beginning of movement in the ground," he explained.Eran Agami felt the earthquake in Rehovot and said: "The entire house shook left and right. My parents in Elad felt it too."The last earthquake that was felt throughout Israel occurred last April. Israel's Geophysical Institute said that the epicenter of the tremor was at sea at a depth of 60 kilometers and 800 kilometers off the Israel coastline.Read the full story here.

• Saudi government daily 'Okaz, titled "Obama – Get Out!" (Memri).Khalaf Al-Harbi accused U.S. President Barack Obama of applying a double standard in dealing with the revolution in Egypt and the revolution in Syria. He went on to demand – just as protestors are demanding of dictatorial Arab leaders – that Obama resign."All last month, I kept my eyes out for Mr. Obama, who appeared so often at the outset of the 'Arab Spring' and suddenly disappeared, leaving the tyrants' armored vehicles to wreak havoc in the land. I sought 'Abu Hussein' [i.e. Obama] everywhere [and] wondered where he was hiding – this man whose [face] did not leave the TV screen throughout the Egyptian revolution, and who had asked [Egyptian president Hosni] Mubarak to step down, appearing every five minutes to say to his erstwhile ally: 'Get out today, not tomorrow!'"Obama got lost in the old neighborhoods of Damascus. He 'dissolved like a lump of salt,' as our brothers in Egypt say. [He did so] even though, [in contrast to] the U.S.'s [close] ties with Hosni Mubarak's regime, U.S. relations with the Syrian regime [are weak], and even though the number of victims in the protests of the Egyptian revolution [was far smaller] than the number of victims in the protests now sweeping Syria's cities. "In Egypt, 'mother America' pressured Hosni Mubarak to step down immediately, while in Syria, 'mother America' has pressured the opposition to engage in dialogue with the regime."How is one to interpret this? Who supports whom, and who is against whom? What is Obama thinking? And why did 'mother America' become so hard of hearing the minute the cries broke out in Der'a, Hama, Homs, and Aleppo?"Obama is not the only one who uses a double standard [vis-à-vis the revolutions in Egypt and in Syria]. The Arabs as a whole are toeing his line. The press, the intellectuals, and the revolutionary parties all tried to coordinate [their positions] with the cries of the revolution of Egypt's youth, raising Cain throughout the world when [Libyan ruler Mu'ammar] Al-Qadhafi began to oppress his people, and demanding that the president of Yemen step down when the revolution broke out there. [But] less than an hour after the bloody events began in Syria, they all fell silent, as if a raven were sitting on their heads and pecked at the bodies of the innocent."When [Hizbullah leader] Hassan Nasrallah praised the revolution of Egypt's youth and then became an enemy of the youth in Syria, by asking them to adhere to their regime – it was not difficult to understand [his motives], nor was [it difficult to understand Iranian Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei's stance. But the position of the U.S., which is not very different from that of Iran in both cases – the Egyptian and the Syrian – is difficult to understand. Where is Obama hiding?"We do not want him to say a thing. This time, we want to say to him: Obama – get out!"Hmmmm....... Gore : "America Needs An Arab Spring”?Read the full story here.

• Riot blaze: North London in flames as police cars, bus and shops burn over police shooting of 'gangster'.(DailyMail).

Twenty-six police officers hurt in clashes, with eight treated in hospital.

Scotland Yard still dealing with 'isolated pockets of crime' this morning.

Mob of 500 people protest about death of father-of-four Mark Duggan who was shot by officers .

100 riot police on the streets as Tottenham burns.

Fears that violence was fanned by Twitter as picture of burning police car was re-tweeted more than 100 times.

Shop looted and youths storm McDonald's and start cooking their own food.

Mail on Sunday photographers beaten and mugged by masked thugs.

Twenty-six police officers were injured in riots that broke out two days after a man was shot dead by police.Scotland Yard said at least one of the officers had suffered head injuries after protesters clashed with police in Tottenham, north London.Scotland Yard said this morning: 'There remain isolated pockets of criminality in the Tottenham area involving a small number of people. Officers are currently taking steps to deal with these incidents.'

In a statement, Commander Adrian Hanstock said: 'Last night's disorder and violence in Tottenham is completely unacceptable. The behaviour by a criminal minority put police officers, fire brigade personnel and the public at significant risk.'The death of Mr. Duggan is extremely regrettable and will be the subject of an independent investigation by the IPCC. It is absolutely tragic that someone has died, but that does not give a criminal minority the right to destroy businesses and people's livelihoods and steal from their local community.'There was no indication that the protest would deteriorate into the levels of criminal and violent disorder that we saw. We believe that certain elements, who were not involved with the vigil, took the opportunity to commit disorder and physically attack police officers, verbally abuse fire brigade personnel and destroy vehicles and buildings. 'We do not believe that this is something that the vast majority of law abiding citizens in Tottenham would condone or would want.'So far police have made 42 arrests in connection with the trouble, which flared after members of the community took to the streets last night to demand 'justice', after Mark Duggan, 29, was shot dead by police on Thursday.Patrol cars, a shop and a double-decker bus were set ablaze and there were reports of looting amid scenes reminiscent of the violent unrest in the same area 26 years ago when PC Keith Blakelock was hacked to death.More than 100 officers and specialist riot police faced crowds of more than 500 people protesting about the death of Mr Duggan, who lived on the estate and was described last week by police sources as a ‘gangster’. Senior political figures were united in their condemnation of last night's unrest.Home Secretary Theresa May said: 'I condemn utterly the violence in Tottenham last night. Such disregard for public safety and property will not be tolerated, and the Metropolitan Police have my full support in restoring order.'I want to pay tribute to the officers who put themselves in harm's way.'Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: 'I'm appalled at the scenes of violence and destruction in Tottenham. The Acting Commissioner has assured me that the police are doing everything they can to resolve this situation. The events leading to these disturbances are rightly being investigated by the IPCC. Harming people and property will do nothing to facilitate the investigation, it will only make the situation worse.'There was concern that the disturbances were fanned by Twitter, with some of those taking part posting inflammatory comments from the scene and calling for reinforcements.One picture of a police car on fire in the area was re-tweeted more than 100 times on the social networking site within an hour.Mr Duggan was shot by officers from the Metropolitan Police’s CO19 unit on Thursday evening after the minicab he was travelling in was stopped. There was an apparent ‘exchange’ of fire and a bullet was found lodged in a police radio.Mr Duggan died at the scene and an officer was injured, but left hospital after treatment. The violence last night started soon after a crowd of about 120 had begun to gather at the High Road, near Tottenham Hotspur’s football ground, from about 5.30pm.Their target was the police station which was being guarded late last night by lines of officers and police vans. As the disorder spread, and the numbers of demonstrators swelled, two police cars being used to block the road were set ablaze by masked youths.Flames began to billow from a shop and then a double-decker bus was engulfed in flames and quickly reduced to a twisted shell. Witnesses also reported seeing a jewellery shop and a bookmakers being looted. Teenagers and younger children were seen carrying valuables through the shattered glass front of an electrical shop. Windows were smashed at a Barclays Bank and pictures on Twitter appeared to show the building being looted. There were also reports that youths had stormed McDonald’s and had started frying their own burgers and chips.Hmmmm.......What has become of the land of Shakespeare?Read and see the full story here.More here :Pictured: The 'gangsta' gunman killed in shoot-out with police whose death sparked riots.

• Report: SEAL Team Six Was on a Rescue Mission to assist military personnel pinned down by insurgents.(CNN).Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- In the single deadliest loss for U.S. troops since the Afghan war began in late 2001, 30 service members died early Saturday when a helicopter carrying them went down while they were reinforcing other troops, officials said.Insurgents are believed to have shot down the CH-47 Chinook, a U.S. military official said. The Taliban claimed militants downed the helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.Among the 25 U.S. special operations forces killed in Wardak province were 22 Navy SEALS, considered to be the "best of the best." Seven Afghan troops also died.The majority of the Navy SEALs who died belonged to the same covert unit that conducted the raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May, though they were not the same men, the military official said.The troops died during a "quick reaction" mission to assist military personnel pinned down by insurgents in a fierce firefight, a U.S. military official told CNN."It's a big loss" for the SEALs, one of the officials said. "The numbers are high."Reflecting on the sobering loss, President Barack Obama said the deaths were "a reminder of the extraordinary sacrifices made by the men and women of our military and their families, including all who have served in Afghanistan."NATO's International Security Assistance Force said 30 U.S. service members in ISAF, one civilian interpreter and seven Afghan commandos were killed. The nationality of the interpreter was not known late Saturday.The Chinook went down as an Afghan and coalition force operation targeted a bomb-making cell leader in Wardak, leading to the detention of numerous insurgents Friday, according to ISAF. It is not clear if the helicopter incident and the raid were connected.Mohammad Hazrat Janan, head of the provincial council, said Tangi village elders reported that insurgents shot at the craft when it was returning from an operation.Officials are being especially tight-lipped because recovery operations at the site are still underway and body identifications and family notifications are just beginning, a U.S. military official said.ISAF has not said how the incident occurred. Spokesman Justin Brockhoff acknowledged the helicopter had been flying in an area where there was reported insurgent activity.Hmmmmm.......Nice start for Panetta's career as secretary of defense?Read the full story here.

• As The Details Worsen, ‘Fast and Furious’ Becomes Dem. Party’s Trip To Jonestown.(TheOtherMCCain).Doug Ross offers an excellent summary of the whole fandango. I still maintain that, as this scandal is rolled out, either it or the threat of it running its course will be the real reason for Obama to resign.The Dems, especially Invertebrate Harry in the Senate, have got to see BHO as a liability. The question becomes at what point the cost/benefit analysis is such that it’s easier to eat the impeachment than drink the fatal political kool-aid of hanging on to him.One likely damage control course of action is to highlight the thuggery of Fast and Furious, and tie that to BHO personally, instead of the Dems as a whole. Or not. Maybe the Progressive cult goes full political suicide pact.This clip is NSFW, but captures the idiocy of both the Dems and, later, Ben Bernanke rather well: Obama: Debt Ceiling Deal A Prime Example Of Democrats And Democrats Sacrificing For The Greater Good.Read and see the full story here.

• How Obama Will React To U.S. Downgrade And How Conservatives Should.(Riehl).No one should welcome, or interpret any welcoming of a U. S. debt downgrade on the Right, as simply a chance to rejoice at a perceived personal failure for Obama. In part, it is also a failure for a big government Washington mentality that includes far too many Republicans. That is the critical point here. Conservatives should primarily view Standard and Poor's downgrading of America's debt as proof of the failure of Obamanomics and previous irresponsible Republican supported spending. That, more than any personal failure for Obama, is the far more important point to be made from the downgrade. S&P has already addressed a reported miscalculation, stating it does not change their determiniation. It shouldn't. We've acquired far too much debt, especially in proportion to GDP, thanks to an out of control, out of touch and unresponsive Washington. I believe S&P is correct and they do tend to be correct while also setting the ultimate course for other rating agencies that tend to follow.If recent negotiations and actions on the debt ceiling revealed anything, it's that Washington remains broken as anything much more than an ATM filled by the pocketbooks of hard working Americans. At least, the ones that still have jobs are hard working, while Washington refuses to get out of the way of industry and innovation to allow the market place to once again flourish, post correction.Unfortunately, an ideologue like Obama is not likely to heed any warning and alter his view. He might talk the talk but he will not walk the walk of prudence. Most likely, Obama will look to use the downgrade as supportive of the need to increase taxes. On the campaign stump, Obama is more likely to begin talking about shared sacrifice and the need for all Americans to step up and do their fair share in bad economic times. He will also likely focus much of his rhetoric on the rich to continue his never-ending class warfare; however, we should all know better than that.The kind of wealth Obama needs to drain from the private sector to prop up an ideology that has already failed world-wide does not sit in the bank accounts of some number of millionaires. It rests in the hands of a suffering, if not dwindling, middle-class. Obama will not hesitate to confiscate as much of it as he can to empower his failing agenda.In the end, what this represents is a tremendous opportunity for America, as well as fiscal conservatives. Obama's deceptive rhetoric in support of his Leftist politics and economics must not be allowed to dominate the public discourse during the coming election year. Along with focusing on jobs, the Right must also make this election about prudent economic policy to educate Americans on the need for and wonder of free market capitalism.That debate, more than anything else, has the potential to direct the future course of this great nation. For America's sake, our children's sake and our own sake, the Right must win that debate, as well as next November's elections. The long-term future of our nation may well depend upon it.Hmmmmm........If he really wanted to destroy America, would he have done anything different?Read the full story here.

• Gunwalker: It Must Have Been Eric Holder... Or higher. An informed examination of the facts leaves no other answer.(PajamasMedia).By Bob Owens. Now that the debt ceiling debate is over and done, let’s turn our attention back to Operation Fast and Furious and its alleged sister operations. The multi-agency operation (or operations) of the U.S. government allowed thousands of guns to be supplied to Mexican drug cartels, while American federal law enforcement effectively provided the straw purchasers and smugglers with the cover to operate with impunity.Despite the tens of thousands of words of outrage written about the Obama administration’s botched Operation Fast and Furious, most of the focus has been on the horrific impact of the program as measured by the number of firearms smuggled over the border and the number of lives lost. Some attention has been consequently paid to the potential political and criminal impact of the operation and cover-up within the Department of Justice.Sadly, the media has focused very little attention on the probable origins of the plot, or why Gunwalker was created as an adjunct of the longer-running and more successful Gunrunner campaign.Of course, that may not be entirely true. The crack investigative reporters of print, network, and cable news organizations may very well have done the research and followed the various clues about the origins of Gunwalker to their logical conclusion, and then simply decided that the most probable story was one they not dare tell.The story is this: no competent federal law enforcement officer would ever have concocted an operation as obviously doomed to catastrophic failure as Operation Fast and Furious.Let us count the reasons why:

1.Federal law enforcement agents don’t let guns “walk.” A gun that is allowed to flow into criminal hands is a gun that could end up killing a fellow cop or citizen. As a result, all prior known operations under the long-running and successful Gunrunner program ended when a straw purchaser was allowed to make the purchase, and then arrested on the spot or shortly thereafter. Throughout the process of these stings, the suspects were under constant surveillance whenever they had firearms in their possession, and officers considered it catastrophic failure if surveillance was lost.

2.Federal law enforcement agents knew that this operation would not lead to cartel kingpins. The profiling of criminal activity has become a blend of art and high science in recent decades, and when combined with the intelligence provided by informants and a history of thousands of arrests, the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, and IRS agents assigned to the task force knew from the beginning that cartel leaders could not be implicated in Fast and Furious, because they simply aren’t involved. Obtaining weapons for cartel gunmen is a problem for the lower to middle ranks of a cartel’s hierarchy, no different than acquiring vehicles or safehouses. The most commonly used cartel weapons are viewed by the organizations as consumable commodities to be bought, used, and discarded. Do CEOs, company presidents, and vice presidents, or even middle managers go out shopping for paper clips and pens?

3.Federal law enforcement agents knew from the outset that they could never arrest their targets, who were outside of their jurisdiction. Jurisdictional battles between federal, state, and local agencies are legendary, and sensitivity to jurisdictional issues is something every law enforcement agent learns, often with frustration. Knowing for a fact that the individuals running cartel gun acquisition would be based in Mexico, and staying in Mexico, agents would have realized from the mission planning phase — well before operational implementation — that effecting arrests of the operation’s stated targets was nearly impossible.

4.Middle managers in government would never dare to try such a dangerous, high-risk operation without express orders from above. All agencies — public or private — are saddled with bureaucracy, internal politics, and institutional inertia, which forms a powerful and pervasive cultural force that significantly inhibits change. Changes that threaten the equilibrium of agencies are viewed as a threat, and the more radical the proposed change, the more resistance there is to block it from occurring. Resistance to change occurs even when change is thought to be strongly beneficial.From the ground up and at the very beginning, Fast and Furious was a radical and dangerous proposal that would threaten the very existence of the ATF.

There is no way a politically experienced operative like Phoenix Special Agent in Charge (SAC) Bill Newell would have offered up such a plan merely out of the self interest of furthering his own career. Federal law enforcement officers never would have conceived of and did not support the implementation of Operation Fast and Furious. Agents fought tooth and nail with supervisors over the plot, as has been documented extensively in congressional testimony.

Operation Fast and Furious would not have come from agents in the field.

Operation Fast and Furious could not have come from regional SACs.

The one and only way that this multi-agency operation could have been organized and forced into action against the wishes and better judgment of seasoned professionals is through a top-down push from high-level executives within the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, State, and Treasury, which all played a role in the plot. Four executive branch departments, led by cabinet-level political appointees loyal to the Obama administration, worked on an operation together that was explicitly doomed to failure from the outset.

Was the goal of the project ever law enforcement?

The most logical explanation for Fast and Furious and related operations was that it was not a law enforcement operation, but a political operation designed to advance an anti-gun political agenda that Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama have been pursuing since the beginning of this presidency.This explosive scandal at the heart of Gunwalker isn’t a matter of “what did he know and when did he know it?” It now instead seems to be a matter of who will come forward, and how much evidence will they provide to implicate officials at the highest levels of a lawless government.Hmmmm........Gunwalker....These boots will go on walking, one of these days these boots will walk all over you.Read the full story here.

• The U.S. Is Downgraded, and Obama Will Be Too.(CommentaryMagazine).This is a terrible day. For the first time, the creditworthiness of the United States has been called into question by an independent entity, Standard and Poor’s, which has downgraded the country’s credit rating from AAA to AA+. Its statement features this terrifying phrase: “The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed.” S&P assigns blame to all players, and by seeing a “negative outlook” down the road, is saying it expects to downgrade to a simple AA within two years.The Left will and is already blaming the Tea Party and Republicans. The Right will and is blaming the growth of the federal debt and the refusal to deal with the unsustainable path created by the entitlement programs. This is a grinding battle that will lead to an intellectual and ideological stalemate. There’s truth to the Leftist charge that the conservative Republican decision to use the debt ceiling fight as leverage to force a cut in the national debt at a particularly risky time was unsound. But that is nothing next to the liberal fantasy that the U.S. can stay on its current course—the most destructive notion in present-day politics.But the ideological stalemate does not mean the political fallout will be evenly distributed. This is a colossal disaster for Barack Obama​, and anybody who says otherwise is kidding himself or trying to spin you. We know that the election of 2012 is going to be fought on jobs, the economy, and the wisdom of health care. But now the GOP has an overarching theme that I predict will be at the core of a $500 million advertising campaign: “America needs its good name back.”Hmmmm......."Change you can forget about"?Read the full story here.

• Power companies prepare as solar storms set to hit Earth.(Reuters).Three large explosions from the Sun over the past few days have prompted U.S. government scientists to caution users of satellite, telecommunications and electric equipment to prepare for possible disruptions over the next few days."The magnetic storm that is soon to develop probably will be in the moderate to strong level," said Joseph Kunches, a space weather scientist at the Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).He said solar storms this week could affect communications and global positioning system (GPS) satellites and might even produce an aurora visible as far south as Minnesota and Wisconsin.An aurora, called aurora borealis or the northern lights in northern latitudes, is a natural light display in the sky in the Arctic and Antarctic regions caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere.Major disruptions from solar activity are rare but have had serious impacts in the past.The NOAA Space Weather Scale measures the intensity of a solar storm from one being the lowest intensity to five being the highest, similar to scales that measure the severity of hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.The first of the three solar explosions from the sun this week already passed the Earth on Thursday with little impact, Kunches said, noting, the second was passing the Earth now and "seems to be stronger."And the third, he said, "We'll have to see what happens over the next few days. It could exacerbate the disturbance in the Earth's magnetic field caused by the second (storm) or do nothing at all."Power grid managers receive alerts from the Space Weather Prediction Center to tell them to prepare for solar events, which peak about every 12 years, Tom Bogdan, director of the center said.He said the next peak, called a solar maximum, was expected in 2013."We're coming up to the next solar maximum, so we expect to see more of these storms coming from the sun over the next three to five years," Bogdan said.Read the full story here.

• Ayatollah of the RAF: Academic 'university' head is Muslim convert who claims Nazi gas chambers were British propaganda and criticises Libya air strikes.(Dailymail).The head of studies at the Royal Air Force pilot training college is a convert to Islam who has criticised Nato air strikes on Libya in a Muslim magazine.Dr Joel Hayward is dean of the college at Cranwell, the RAF’s equivalent of Sandhurst, and has taught many of the pilots spearheading the military operation against Colonel Gaddafi.But, to the dismay of defence chiefs, he has cast doubt on the widely held belief that the Nato actions averted the mass killing of civilians in Benghazi. He also warned against the RAF becoming ‘the air corps of a rebel army’.Dr Hayward has previously expressed remorse after appearing to claim that far fewer Jews were killed by the Nazis than generally thought and that the gas chambers of the Holocaust were British propaganda.In another article recently he likened Churchill to Mohammed.The magazine article on Libya was published under the headline ‘The West runs the risks of its good intentions (and inconsistencies) leading to distrust’.Dr Hayward wrote: ‘When western aircrafts began to destroy tanks and a downpour of missiles wrecked Libya’s air force and air defence system, various leaders congratulated themselves for preventing an “atrocity” or “slaughter” - evocative words which conjured up images of a Srebrenica-style massacre [the 1995 killing of Bosnian Muslims].‘Yet we do not know that his army would have “slaughtered” civilians in a Srebrenica-style massacre.’Dr Hayward also takes issue with the UN Security Council resolution authorising ‘all necessary measures’ to protect civilians from the dictator’s forces.Describing the resolution as ‘elastic’, he says: ‘Strangely, that resolution condemned human rights abuses and torture to which the world (and the UN) had turned a blind eye for decades.’His views and behaviour have caused disquiet among senior officers at RAF Cranwell, Lincolnshire, where he is the most senior academic and taught Prince William.In a letter to The Mail on Sunday entitled The Air Force Ayatollah, one senior officer expressed concern that Dr Hayward was focusing more on ‘Islamist activities that are nothing to do with the RAF’.He also accused him of giving Muslim cadets preferential treatment and making other students take a ‘softly, softly line when writing about Muslim terrorists/Islamist extremists’.Another officer claimed cadets and lecturers ‘are in fear’ of expressing anything that might be construed as anti-Muslim sentiment. ‘Anyone who fails to follow the line that Islam is a peace-loving religion is hauled into his office for re-education,’ he said.Last night Dr Hayward said he did not ‘recognise’ the allegations.The Mail on Sunday understands that Dr Hayward’s views have embarrassed RAF chiefs, who feel that while he is entitled to his opinions, it was unwise for him to air them in a Muslim magazine.It is not the first time the New Zealand-born academic has attracted controversy. In 2000, he was accused of denying the Holocaust after the publication of a thesis he had written in 1993 questioning the number of Jews killed. He claimed the idea of gas chambers being used was propaganda invented by Britain, the US and Jewish lobbyists. He has since expressed remorse over the ‘mistakes I made as an inexperienced student’.Dr Hayward has frequently challenged claims of Islamic aggressiveness. Most recently, he wrote on the subject for the Cordoba Foundation, described by David Cameron as a front for the Islamist group, the Muslim Brotherhood. In that article, Dr Hayward likens the prophet Mohammed’s inspirational qualities to that of Sir Winston Churchill. He said Mohammed had to go to extra lengths – just as Churchill did in the Second World War - to exhort his people to believe in victory and fight for it.Dr Hayward was appointed to RAF Cranwell in 2007, but was investigated the following year over complaints of ‘harassment and bullying’. It is not clear what became of the investigation. He is employed not by the RAF but by King’s College, London, which runs academic courses at Cranwell.An RAF spokesman said: ‘Dr Hayward writes for a number of publications. These activities are conducted in his own time and do not impinge on his duties in support of the RAF.’Hmmmmm........ Sir Winston Churchill must be rolling over in his grave.Read the full story here.

• Kuwait manhunt on to find kidnapped Filipina being raped daily by seven men.(Emirates24/7).Kuwait police have launched an extensive campaign in search of a Filipina believed to have been kidnapped and raped by seven men and they hope she will just switch her mobile phone on to pinpoint her location by satellite.The search campaign has been triggered by a report by the Philippine embassy, which told police that it had received a mobile phone call from the Filipina saying she had been kidnapped and that seven men are taking turns in raping her daily.The embassy in Kuwait City provided police with details of a taxi cab which the unnamed girl said was involved in her kidnap.When police found the car and interrogated its owner, they were surprised to find out he had not used his taxi for 23 days because of a leg fracture.“Police have tried many times to call the kidnapped girl’s number but her phone was always turned off,” the Kuwaiti Arabic language daily Alanba said on Sunday. “It seems that the only hope now is that she turns her mobile on so police can locate her whereabouts by satellite and free her.”Read the full story here.

• Greece to Build Ditch To Stem Flow of Illegal Immigrants from Turkey.(Novinite)According to an August 04 publication of Greek newspaper To Vima, as cited by Bulgarian Sega daily, the trench will be seven meters deep and 30 meters wide and will run along the Maritsa River, which forms the Greek-Turkish border.The area is reported as the most common overland entry point for illegal immigration to the EU.The European Union border guard Frontex has reported that 48 000 illegal aliens enter the EU through this territory, including illegal immigrants and refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine.According to unofficial statistics, a total of 128 000 undocumented immigrants managed to set foot in Greece in 2010, highest for any European Union member state.Earlier on, Greece planned to build a 12.5-km fence along a section of the north-eastern border with Turkey, but the plan was met with opposition from leftists and human rights organizations, including the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).The plan to build a trench has already come under fire from German human rights organization Pro Asyl, which stated that "Such actions only increase the tribute paid by refugees crossing the border".Hmmmm.......What no alligators in the ditch?LOLRead the full story here.

• PAKISTAN - Punjab: Christian woman forced to convert and marry her kidnapper.(AsiaNews) – Another young Christian woman in Pakistan has been abducted and forced to convert to Islam and marry her kidnapper. Despite a formal complaint, police did not intervene because the author of the crime is a “respectable businessman”. Local Muslim religious authorities also claim that the woman’s conversion was legal. However, her case however is similar to that of Farah Hatim (see Jibran Khan, “The drama of Farah Hatim, common to many women in Pakistan,” in AsiaNews 25 July 2011) and is indicative of a climate of impunity for people who abuse Christian women. The bishop of Islamabad warns that the “the cases of forced conversion are rising at an alarming rate”.Mariam is a young Christian woman from Kahota, a town some 20 kilometres from Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad. She was abducted on Wednesday by one Muhammad Junaid, a local Muslim, who forcibly converted her to Islam and married her.The young woman’s father, Munir Gill, said that Junaid is an “important businessman”. He had “his eyes on my daughter and asked her for marriage.” He complained to the man’s fathers “without results”.“Mariam went to the market on Wednesday, but never returned,” said her brother Sohail Gill. “We searched for her everywhere. Some people in the market told us that they saw Muhammad Junaid forcefully taking Mariam from the market. We went to the police to register a case, but they delayed the application and showed no interest in the matter.”Yesterday, a local Muslim religious leader, Maulana Hafeez Aziz, “converted Mariam to Islam and celebrated her marriage with Muhammad Junaid”.“Muhammad Junaid is a respectable Muslim businessman,” said Amir Mirza, a police officer in Kahota. “The young woman converted and married him of ‘her own free will’.For Maulana Hafeez Aziz, “Muhammad Junaid is a true follower of Prophet Muhammad. He has fulfilled Sharia. Converting a non-Muslim is a pious act. Only a true Muslim can do that.”Yesterday, Mariam Gill was interrogated by local officials. She told them that she was abducted and forced to convert and that she has no intention of abandoning Christianity. At the end of the meeting, they decided to return the young woman to her family, urging the two sides to reach an agreement. However, Muhammad Junaid issued threats, saying that if he did not get the young woman back, there would be “terrible consequences” to pay.Contacted by AsiaNews, the bishop of Islamabad Rufin Anthony described the case as “a dreadful incident”. In his view, “the cases of forced conversion are rising at an alarming rate. The matter needs to be checked, kidnapping of Christian girls is becoming a common practice in Punjab. Law enforcement agencies need to enforce the law.”Young Christian women are not alone. Many young Hindu women have been forced to flee across the border into India in the face of government and police indifference.“It is time to take concrete action to guarantee the safety of minorities in Pakistan,” the prelate said.Hmmmm........Read the full story here.

• Activist in Belarus Faces Up to 7 Years in Prison.(TheMoscowTimes).The detained leader of the most prominent human rights group in Belarus faces up to seven years in jail for helping political prisoners and government critics, the group said Friday. Police detained Ales Belyatsky of the Vesna group outside his home in the capital, Minsk, on Thursday and also conducted searches in his apartment, country house and the group's offices. The U.S. Embassy in Minsk condemned Belyatsky's detention as "another, unfortunate sign of Belarus' self-isolation and further deviation from European standards and principles." Belyatsky faces up to seven years in jail on charges of "concealment of income," the group said in a statement. It said Belyatsky received large amounts of cash in neighboring Lithuania from the group's Western donors since his group was officially barred from receiving grants in Belarus. The charges against Belyatsky "are punishment and revenge for many years of his work as a human rights advocate," said the statement posted on the group's web site. The group criticized Lithuanian authorities for providing information on Belyatsky's activities to Belarussian police, saying their cooperation "created favorable conditions for initiating a criminal case" against him. But a Lithuanian Justice Ministry official said the country wasn't aware of the intentions of neighboring Belarus to use the information against an opposition member. The ministry said it will now cut off communication channels that were used to provide legal information to Belarus. "These agreements were quite convenient in criminal or civil cases, but now that we see that they use the data for political purposes, we stop providing information," Vice Justice Minister Tomas Vaitkevicius said. Since 1996, Vesna has provided legal assistance to thousands of Belarussians who were fined, arrested or imprisoned for criticizing President Alexander Lukashenko's authoritarian policies. In 2003, authorities terminated the group's official registration for reporting violations during the presidential elections. Vesna has also been active in reporting on the police crackdown on a recent series of peaceful rallies that have reflected mounting public discontent against Lukashenko whom the West has dubbed "Europe's last dictator." The German government's human rights commissioner, Markus Löning, demanded Belyatsky's immediate release. Germany "condemns in the strongest terms this political abuse of criminal law," Löning said in a statement. Meanwhile, Europe's main security and rights watchdog delivered one of its sharpest attacks on Belarus, saying Friday that Minsk was systematically persecuting the opposition and civil society while gagging the media. The Vienna-based Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe has been a vocal critic of a crackdown on opposition protesters and journalists following Belarus' disputed presidential election in December. Belarus, which is under U.S. and European Union sanctions over the clampdown, describes itself as a victim of discrimination and says the OSCE has double standards. Using some of his strongest language so far, OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Audronius Azubalis condemned the government's actions, including the arrest of Belyatsky, which he called "the latest example of persecution."A group of 14 Western states, led by the Czech Republic and backed by the United States, has been trying to raise diplomatic pressure on Belarus at the Vienna diplomatic body. They asked the OSCE to carry out a rare report on human rights in Belarus — which concluded in June that the state was using fear, harassment, torture and blackmail in its clampdown. The findings infuriated Belarus, which had already forced the OSCE to close its field office there after election monitors raised concerns about the conduct of the vote and its aftermath. Azubalis said Belarus must comply with its OSCE commitments, which include upholding a democratic society, allowing free media and protecting human rights.Hmmmm......Lukashenka the last Sovjet era dictator.Read the full story here.