Catholic cojones?...
It is a source of no small irony that, even as radical feminists within and without the Church have railed for 2 generations against patriarchy and phallocentrism, it can be quite plausibly said that the post-conciliar Church in this country has, for all intents and purposes, been run by women.
Prosecutors in Düsseldorf and government regulators in Berlin are looking into how a German bank became overexposed in the US subprime mortgage lending crisis, but stopped short Friday of announcing a formal investigation. Smaller-scale shock waves continued to reverberate, however, even as financial heavyweights like Allianz sought to reassure their investors they would not be hit. The revelation of the scale of the problem prompted the head of the German central bank to call repeatedly for calm in the market.
The German government intends to take a direct stake in the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company to keep it from falling into non-European hands.
It has managed for 2 months without a national government, as its leaders squabble over who should run the country. Now a political crisis in Belgium, fuelled by long-running animosity between its French and Flemish-speaking populations, threatens to undermine the very existence of the country.
A multi-millionaire businessman has issued a rallying call for members of all parties to unite in a campaign to force Gordon Brown to hold a referendum over the new EU treaty. Paul Sykes said that the British people had just 12 weeks to stop Britain becoming part of "a new country called the European Union".
Russia stirred memories of the Cold War yesterday when the country's senior admiral called for the establishment of a permanent naval base in the Mediterranean for the first time since the Soviet era. His remarks raise doubts about the Kremlin's denial last year of a newspaper claim that new moorings were being built in the Syrian port of Tartus. Coming a day after an audacious mission to the North Pole to bolster Russia's territorial claims in the Arctic, Moscow's renewed naval ambitions are likely to spread further unease in NATO capitals.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman has said the Islamic Republic of Iran will never accept suspension of uranium enrichment.
The General Secretary for the Iran and Italy chamber of commerce called the American claims to block the Iranian assets as baseless. After 2 years of Iranian accounts blockade, Italian Supreme Court rejected the American claims against Iran and called them baseless. Dr. Pier Luigi d'Agata said that the US allegations have caused the blockade of the Iranian accounts in Italy and have led to a slow down in the commercial relationships between the 2 countries.
Iran is to help Nicaragua develop its infrastructure in return for farm products, according to a trade deal between the two countries. Under the agreement, Iran will help develop a port and build houses and industrial sites. In return, Nicaragua will export coffee, meat and bananas to Iran. But the US has warned Nicaragua that closer ties with Iran could harm its relation with Washington.
Iran is the new Nazi Germany and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the new Hitler. Or so Israeli officials have been declaring for months as they and their American allies try to persuade the doubters in Washington that an attack on Tehran is essential. But there is an interesting problem with selling the "Iran as Nazi Germany" line. If Ahmadinejad really is Hitler, ready to commit genocide against Israel's Jews as soon as he can get his hands on a nuclear weapon, why are some 25,000 Jews living peacefully in Iran and more than reluctant to leave despite repeated enticements from Israel and American Jews?
A potential "Iran option" for Bush, whether it emerges out of a diplomatic engagement or a military confrontation, be it on Iraq or on Iran per se, would embroil Arabs adversely and directly because both protagonists are waging their political as well as military battles on Arab land and skillfully using Arab wealth, oil, space, diplomacy and even Arab proxies to settle their scores towards either political engagement or military showdown.
Since the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration has repeatedly demonstrated that it does not feel bound by the law or the Constitution when it comes to the war on terror. It cannot even be trusted to properly use the enhanced powers it was legally granted after the attacks. Yet, once again, President Bush has been trying to stampede Congress into a completely unnecessary expansion of his power to spy on Americans. And, hard as it is to believe, congressional Republicans seem bent on collaborating, while Democrats (who can still be cowed by the White House's with-us-or-against-us baiting) aren't doing enough to stop it.
Bush Administration officials have announced that President Bush will use a claim of "Executive Privilege" to thwart congressional investigation into the firings of several US attorneys. This claim is the latest in a long series of unconstitutional invocations of the notion of Executive Privilege by presidents prominent and obscure. In fact, Executive Privilege is itself a myth unfounded in the language or original understanding of the Constitution. The Constitution was not supposed to give presidents power to withhold information from Congress. The Executive Branch was intended by the Constitution's authors and ratifiers to be precisely that – the executor of policies made by Congress, not a competing power center empowered to thwart Congress's attempts to gain information.
President Bush has become dangerously steeped in ideas of Armageddon, the Apocalypse, an imminent war with Satanic forces in the Middle East, and an urgency to construct an American theocracy to fulfill God's end-of-days plan, according to close observers. Historians and investigative journalists following the "end-time Christian" movement have grown alarmed at the impact it may be having on Bush's Middle East policies, including the current war in Iraq, the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian crisis, the strife in Lebanon and the administration's repeated attempts to find a cause for war against Iran.
Federal officials insist that the Oklahoma City bombing case was solved a decade ago. But a Salt Lake City lawyer in search of his brother's killers has dug up some remarkable clues—on cross-dressing bank robbers, the FBI, and the mysterious 3rd man.
...The community [Elohim City] was patriarchal and polygamous, with all residents, including children, trained in the use of weapons by a visitor they called "Andy the German"—Andreas Strassmeir, a former German military officer. ... There has been much speculation, aired most recently on the bbc show Conspiracy Files this year, that Strassmeir had ties to US and German intelligence and might (along with his government contacts) have had advance knowledge of the plot.
No it shouldn't...
Gordon Brown was under mounting pressure yesterday to end the ban on Roman Catholics marrying into the Royal Family after one of his key constitutional advisers called for the law to be changed. The outspoken comments from the respected peer came after it emerged that Peter Phillips, the Queen's eldest grandson and 10th in line to the throne, might have to surrender his place in the succession. Mr Phillips, the son of the Princess Royal, is now engaged to Autumn Kelly, a Canadian management consultant who was baptised a Catholic. The fact was not mentioned in the Buckingham Palace announcement of the engagement last week. But in a never-repealed provision of the 1701 Act of Settlement, which enshrined the Protestant ascendancy, British monarchs and their heirs are forbidden to become or even marry Catholics.
(LT op-ed: Is it an anachronism?)
(LT op-ed: Lesser of 2 evils)
Taking advantage of the exchange rate?...
Nicolas Sarkozy, whose first 2 months as president of France were marked by a dazzling round of high-profile appearances, has resurfaced in a lakeside resort in the US after a 1-day vacation from the limelight. Although French officials would not confirm numerous news reports that Sarkozy and his family were staying in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, they announced, after 24 hours of refusing to comment, that he had arrived Friday in a lakeside town near Boston.
Investment bank Bear Stearns precipitated one of the worst market slumps of the year yesterday after admitting that the US credit markets were the worst it had seen in more than 2 decades. The Dow Jones Industrial Average had been trading just a shade lower when CFO Sam Molinaro compared the current crisis on Wall Street to the 1987 stock market collapse, the Asian debt crisis of the 1990s, the collapse of hedge fund Long Term Capital Management and the recent dotcom bubble. "These times are pretty significant. I've been out here for 22 years, and this is as bad as I've seen it in the fixed-income markets." The Dow immediately plummeted, closing 280 points lower at 13,182. It was the 3rd consecutive Friday that the Dow lost more than 100 points as investors were unwilling to hold their positions going into the weekend.
If you're baffled by Wall Street's performance this past week, consider the increasing influence hedge funds have in manipulating the market. Hedge fund managers have been making bets on how far down or up the market will move in a given day by making sophisticated "short" and "call" investments. But the market hasn't always cooperated — going in the opposite direction from what hedge funds have expected and leaving them to scramble at the day's end to cover positions by buying or selling stocks.
Warren Buffett once said that when the tide goes out, you find out who's been swimming naked. There is suddenly a lot of skin showing on Wall Street. Now that most markets have gone haywire, it is time to take stock of what hedge funds and private equity firms are wearing.
Near record high crude oil prices have put the US economy in the "danger zone" and the world's producers must boost supply to prevent shortages, US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman has said. "We're in a. . . danger zone right now, so that's why I hope that both OPEC and non-OPEC nations will look carefully at the facts."
So when is the manure going to hit the fan? Schiff doesn't know, but "when the bubble is this big, there are just so many potential pins that it is impossible to guess which one it will find first." Ignore Mr. Schiff at your financial peril.
At its hopelessly rotten core, capitalism, which is manifested most strongly in the US, is about exploitation, hyper-competitiveness, "rugged individualism," survival of the fittest, concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, profits above all, property over people, greed, and selfishness. Perhaps worst of all, this pyramid scheme masquerading as a "moral" economic system inevitably leads to wars fueled by its insatiable demands for new markets, more resources, and cheaper labor.
No, I'm not the "communist bogeyman" that Ronald Reagan warned you about. How could I be? Communists, socialists, and Marxists are only potentially threatening to those amongst us who will waste eternity desperately attempting to squeeze camels through the eyes of needles. Forget worrying about the "communist threat." We need to turn the moneyed establishment's idiocy on its head and focus our energies on answering a question that affects the 90% of us who aren't obscenely affluent: How will humanity survive the capitalist threat?
Described by its creators as "the ultimate off-road vehicle", the saucer-shaped vehicle can take off and land vertically and travel at a maximum speed of 100mph.
A stem-cell scientist branded a cheat for faking research has been commended for achieving a breakthrough discovery, albeit by accident. According to a US study, a line of human embryonic stem cells created by Professor Hwang, which he claimed fraudulently to have cloned, were in fact the first to have been made by a different process that has significant medical potential. Analysis of the cells has shown that they were derived by parthenogenesis, a method of reproduction by which unfertilised eggs start to divide to form embryos, as if they had been fertilised by sperm.
Twilight is my favorite part of the whole 24-hour cycle. It's a magical time, the transition between the humdrum workaday world and the mysterious world of night. Twilight is officially divided into 3 bands (civil, nautical, and astronomical). First comes civil twilight, which starts immediately after sunset and ends when the Sun's center is 6° below the horizon. During this period, normal civilian activities like playing ball or reading a newspaper can be done without artificial illumination. If it's clear, the sky remains bright blue during civil twilight.
[WAR: How 'bout that!! Twilight begins AFTER sunset - with the 1st of 3 parts being when "the sky remains BRIGHT BLUE"! So those that end their "Jewish" Sabbath at sunset are still actually in YAHWEH/YAHSHUA's Sabbath - but are not observing/remembering it like they should, and therefore are sinning. Why? Because "whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it." (James 2:10) The Bible is VERY clear on this subject - but we (you!) have been blinded by Babylonian/Jewish traditions. The day starts at dawn and ends at dark. How simple. How easy. How plain-as-DAY!]
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