Sunday

The Daily WAR (12-10)

Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
 
 
 
    Benedict XVI is urging priests to face the economic crisis by speaking out against avarice on a large scale, and forming justice in the hearts of all people.
    He addressed a pastor's question about how to help people deal with the present economic crisis. On the level of macroeconomics, he said, it "is a duty of the Church" to "denounce" the "underlying errors."
    "It is a task of the Church, to enter into this discernment, into this reasoning, to make itself heard, including at the various national and international levels, to help and to correct. We must do everything possible to implement corrections that are at least provisional, sufficient to enable humanity to live and to put obstacles to the dominance of egoism, which presents itself under pretexts of science and of national and international economy."
 
    I now answer the question that touches the sensitive point of the problems of our time. I would make a distinction between two levels.
    The first is the level of macroeconomics, which is made a reality and reaches even the last citizen, who suffers the consequences of an erroneous construction. Naturally, to denounce this is a duty of the Church.
    As you know, for a long time we have been preparing an encyclical on these issues. We must speak with a great ethical consciousness, created and inspired by a conscience forged by the Gospel.
    Hence, these fundamental errors must be denounced, the underlying errors, which have now manifested themselves with the bankruptcy of the large American banks.
 
Preparare il suo velenoso vino per le nazioni!...
    As the 16-month-old disintegration of the post-WW2 financial system seems to be accelerating to a climax, Pope Benedict XVI is preparing a major papal encyclical outlining the principles behind a just and stable economy.
    He is about to address the global crisis with a papal letter called an "encyclical," so named because it is circulated everywhere, around the world. So his message will be intended first for all Catholics, but also all men in every corner of the world, whether in Africa or Asia, in Russia or America.
    The Pope's message fundamentally will be one of hope, no matter how devastating the global financial crisis becomes. But it will not seem hopeful to some, because it will be filled also with truth about how false economic principles and moral ideals can lead mankind toward the abyss, and into it.
 
    The bishop of Viana, Angola, said that Benedict XVI's scheduled visit to his country this month has inspired a flurry of preparations and hopes for political and personal peace.
 
    Pope Benedict XVI has confirmed the first papal trip to the Holy Land since Pope John Paul II's visit in 2000. The pontiff will visit the sites of Jesus' life in an 8-15 May trip taking in parts of Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan.
    [WAR: Oh, what timing! Just as B16 was inaugurated on Passover ('05), he's going to be in the Holy Land during this coming-up Passover.
    And once again, because people are using the Sun, instead of the stars, as the co-regulator with the Moon to determine the appointed times, the significance of the timing is lost on them.
    Just like Jeremiah said: "Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons (mowed), and the dove, the swift and the thrush observe the time of their migration. But my people do not know the requirements of YAHWEH." (Jer 8:8)]
 
    The Israeli ambassador to the Holy See on Friday said that Pope Benedict XVI will not visit Israel's Holocaust Museum which accuses Pope Pius XII of inaction on the Holocaust.
    The news comes as a researcher announced on Friday that he had discovered a message from Pius XII that ordered monasteries to give refuge to Jews.
 
    The Vatican's newspaper is reiterating Catholic teaching that embryonic stem cell research is immoral as Barack Obama prepares to lift a federal funding limit on such work.
    L'Osservatore Romano wrote Saturday that such research in the eyes of the Catholic church is "deeply immoral" and lamented that US taxpayers' money will help fund embryonic stem cell research.
 
 
 
    Pressure is growing on Chancellor Merkel to show stronger leadership amid eroding popular support for her conservative Christian Democratic Union.
    With national elections due in the autumn, the unlikely alliance has been hamstrung by what voters perceive as a lack of political will to push through major policy changes.
    Merkel's position has been further undermined by the Christian Social Union, whose chairman Horst Seehofer has adopted a combative style since assuming the party leadership.
 
    As a candidate, Barack Obama sparked considerable enthusiasm in Germany. Now he's coming for his first official state visit.
 
 
 
    President Sarkozy has launched a controversial plan to alter the political map of France via a shake-up of local and regional government.
    But in the face of fierce opposition to ideas to merge regions, do away with entire departements or counties, and create a "Greater Paris", some of the more radical proposals have been shelved.
 
    Poll after poll tells us that the British people do not want to be signed up to the Lisbon treaty, but our political masters carry on regardless, says Nigel Farage.
 
    The 1930s, haunts Europe. This year violent anti-government protests have spooked leaders across the EU.
    The European elections are in June. This time, extremists on right and left may do well — including in Hungary, home to some of Europe's least savoury political groups.
    Could 1930s economics lead Europe back to 1930s politics?
    The biggest reason to think that the 1930s will not be repeated is that EU membership binds national politicians into a set of essentially liberal, free-trading, internationalist standards.
    But bad things could happen as this crisis deepens. In one nightmare, a fragile EU member could become a failed state.
    [WAR: The EU itself will become a failed "state" -- and this will unleash the nation-states to pursue their own agendas, at the cost of other nation-states.]
 
    The European Union is in danger of being crushed by the current economic and democratic crises unless Brussels starts to give power back to the member states.
    The EU cannot continue with its current structure. Politicians can no longer rely on the electorate's implied consent or promote deeper political integration by stealth without making the institutions accountable.
    Trying to create political union, let alone any European identity, from above undermines any tendency for one to grow naturally; and to establish monetary union – now in so much difficulty – without political union was asking for trouble.
    The single currency is not helping economies in the way its proponents said it would. It has led to economic divergence rather than convergence.
    Europe is in crisis and many of the critical comments which used to be so typically British can now be heard elsewhere. Proponents of further integration and political union are playing with fire.
    Europeans will never view the union as the citizens of California and Texas see the American union. Without this, political union in Europe is impossible.
    If the potential benefits of co-operation between Europe's nation states are to be realised, the EU needs to be closer to the vision of the former West German chancellor Ludwig Erhard, a fellow native of Bavaria: a commitment to free trade, but otherwise much less power to the union and much more for member states.
 
    This week will again be dominated by the economic crisis, as EU economy and finance ministers meet in Brussels to prepare the forthcoming spring EU summit, as well as the April G20 meeting.
 
    Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev lashed out at Vladimir Putin's United Russia party yesterday, comparing it to the worst of the Soviet Union's Communist regime.
    Gorbachev also attacked Russia's parliament and court system in some of his most outspoken criticisms of the country's rulers.
 
    They are larger-than-life figures at home and abroad, men who saw themselves as the Carnegies or Rockefellers of Russia. They are known as oligarchs, and they may soon be thrown into the dustbin of history by the economic crisis.
 
 
 
    A confidential EU report accuses Israel of "actively pursuing the illegal annexation" of East Jerusalem, the British newspaper the Guardian reported early Saturday.
    The report says that Israel has accelerated its plans for East Jerusalem, and is undermining the Palestinian Authority's credibility and weakening support for peace talks.
    "Israel's actions in and around Jerusalem constitute one of the most acute challenges to Israeli-Palestinian peace-making."
 
    Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned that it would not be possible to reach a peace accord with the Palestinians if Israel did not cede part of Jerusalem to them.
    "There won't be peace if part of Jerusalem does not become the capital of the Palestinian state."
 
    A solution to Jerusalem could be a "special regime" that administers the Old City without dividing it, leaving the thorny issue of sovereignty for a future date, 2 former diplomats wrote.
    They suggest creating an impartial, Old City Special Regime (OCSR) chosen by the Israelis and Palestinians together, that would appoint a chief administrator.
    "The most promising alternative to a street-by-street, site-by-site division of the Old City is to construct a special regime that defers the issue of sovereignty and instead focuses on how to administer and manage the Old City with strong 3rd-party participation."
 
    Avigdor Lieberman, the head of a provocative nationalist Israeli party, is on course to become the country's next foreign minister in a move likely to damage hopes of a peace deal for the region.
 
    Israeli defence minister and Labour party leader Ehud Barak said he was willing to join a government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.
 
    In these days of economic crisis, budget overruns, earmarks, and multi-billion dollar bailouts, when Americans are being forced to tighten their own belts, one of the most automatic earmarks — a bailout by any measure — goes to a foreign government but is little understood by most Americans.
    US military aid to Israel is doled out in annual increments of billions of dollars but remains virtually unchallenged while other fiscal outlays are drastically cut.
 
    A US military document has classified Israel as "a nuclear power" -- a status Tel Aviv has for years refused to either confirm or deny.
 
    On the road with Hillary Clinton, 2 distinct secretaries of state are emerging: the loose, unscripted politician who roamed Asian neighborhoods and schools, and the tightly controlled diplomat who marched through the Middle East.
 
    Recently, a top US diplomat warned that Pakistan poses a bigger security threat to the world than Afghanistan. This ominous statement tracks a series of alarming developments.
 
    India's home minister said Pakistan could become a failed state and raised doubts about who was in control of the nuclear-armed country, a news report said Saturday.
 
    Coups occur in Pakistan only when the politicians have created such a mess that the stability of the state is threatened. Then they become unavoidable.
    People fear that if this week's "long march" of lawyers to Islamabad gets out of hand and there are riots and unrest, the army could be forced to intervene.
 
    Taliban militants on Saturday shot down a suspected drone aircraft in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan, officials said. The US military -- which has been suspected of carrying out attacks by unmanned aircraft in the region -- denied it had lost a drone on Saturday.
 
    With growing instability and political turmoil inside Afghanistan and Pakistan, due in no small measure to American efforts on both sides of the "Afpak" divide to "stabilize" the region for multinational energy companies, this spring will see the rise of combat operations inside both countries.
    Pakistan is already feeling the heat generated by the imperialist Dracula and the jihadi Frankenstein.
 
    Overall, judging from the US mass media, you might think that there's not much to debate about US military escalation in Afghanistan.
 
    On no question is international law more clear or more ancient than on piracy. Law has recognized pirates as "enemies of all mankind" since the Roman Empire. They are outlaws who anyone may kill on sight.
    Piracy is a barometer of 2 related qualities in the world of states: the state's belief in itself and the state system, and international order.
    When order weakens, pirates flourish. When order returns, pirates are hunted down and hanged. The piracy barometer tells us order is vanishing fast.
    That should not surprise us, since order in the post-Westphalian world of the past 360 years depends on states.
    Piracy is only the barometer; the storm will be something else. That storm is coming, and soon, as Brave New World's promise of unending material wealth in return for acceptance of an administered life proves a lie.
    By the time the storm is over, the elites who fear to hang pirates will be facing far more immediate and deadly dangers themselves.
 
    Sudan's president has issued a warning to peacekeepers, diplomats and aid staff while visting Darfur, in the wake of a war crimes warrant against him.
    Omar al-Bashir said all foreign missions in Sudan must obey the law or face expulsion.
    "I have a message to all the diplomatic missions in Sudan, the non-governmental organisations and the peacekeepers. They have to respect the rule of the country. If anyone goes further than the rule of the country, we will kick them out directly."
 
    Key powers at the United Nations have failed to agree on a statement asking Sudan to reverse its decision to expel aid agencies.
    Russia, China, France, the US and Britain met to discuss a statement which called on Sudan to reverse the expulsions. But diplomats say China, Sudan's key ally and trading partner, objected.
    A delegation from the African Union and the Arab League is due in New York soon to ask the Security Council to suspend the war crimes case against Sudan's president.
 
    In Sudan this week, as the ICC issued a warrant from the arrest of President Bashir, the BBC's Owen Bennett-Jones found echoes of a 100-year-old conflict.
 
    The wife of Zimbabwean leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been killed in a car crash in what his party claims may have been an assassination attempt.
 
 
 
    Iranian media reported today that Iran had test-fired a new missile, but differed over its range and purpose.
 
     A motley crew – assembled by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and misleadingly labeled The Presidential Task Force on Iranian Proliferation, Regional Security, and US Policy – has just issued President Obama a warning: "If the international community appears unable to stop Iran's nuclear progress, Israel may decide to act unilaterally. Whatever Americans may think, Israeli leaders seem convinced that at least for now, they have a military option."
    So, Obama, you've been warned. What should you do? How do you prevent the Israeli paranoids from precipitating WW3?
 
 
 
Outrageous!...
    A federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit questioning Obama's eligibility to be president, because the issue already has been "blogged, texted, twittered and otherwise massaged."
    "The issue of the president's citizenship was raised, vetted, blogged, texted, twittered, and otherwise massaged by America's vigilant citizenry during Mr. Obama's 2-year-campaign for the presidency, but this plaintiff wants it resolved by a court."
    [WAR: Unbelievable! This guy does not deserve to be a judge! It's not up to the opinions/theories of citizens to determine Obama's eligibility. It's a matter of law and all comes down to what his original birth certificate states.]
 
    An organization that serves as a watchdog on the US government for American taxpayers has launched a campaign to uncover exactly how much tax money is being spent on parties at the Obama White House.
    "Barack and Michelle Obama have been throwing taxpayer funded parties nearly every night with their 'friends' and supporters, with Michelle even exhorting them not to 'break' White House property."
 
    Three of Barack Obama's nominations for key government positions have withdrawn from the running on a single day in another blow to his faltering attempts to fill his administration.
    According to the White House Transition Project, there are some 1,200 government jobs that require Senate confirmation -- about 360 of which are considered policy jobs. Only about 70 of those jobs have been filled so far.
 
    Now, there are new rumblings across the land that give new hope to those who still believe that the US Constitution must not be ignored.
    It may be safe to conclude that the several states have had enough of their constitutional rights usurped by the feds. It's about time.
    Both Congress and the president act as if the federal government were king and the states nothing more than feudal allocations that operate at the pleasure of the king.
    They have forgotten that the states existed long before there was a federal government. The federal government was created by the states to serve the states – not the other way around.
 
BY THE WAY
    "Members of Congress should be compelled to wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers, so we could identify their corporate sponsors." [Thanks MK-Ultra!]
 
    Bush's public re-emergence after 6 weeks of post-White House seclusion coincides with an unexpected shift in popular attitudes to the president who left office with some of the worst approval ratings on record.
    It turns out that he may not have been quite so bad after all. "If Bush policies were disastrous, as [Barack] Obama claims, then why is he continuing them?"
 
    The documents currently being released by the Justice Department that demonstrate the Bush administration's view of the president's constitutional power in a "state of war" tell us things we suspected but didn't want to know.
    The first 7 of these official memorandums issued last week dealt with claimed presidential powers to unilaterally abrogate international treaties; suspend constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and press; and order warrant-less searches, wiretaps and seizures of documents and indefinite imprisonment inside the US without trial or criminal charges.
    The memorandums claimed that Congress has no overriding authority in these matters.
 
    An ex-UN prosecutor has said that following the issuance of an arrest warrant for the president of Sudan, George W. Bush could -- and should -- be next on the International Criminal Court's list.
 
    Congressman Ron Paul says that the US recession is due to Washington's spending of trillions of dollars to maintain the "American Empire."
 
    Days after he predicted there would be rioting from a public angry with all of the federal bailouts, Republican Senator Jim DeMint made another judgmentally-questionable statement: that students at DC public schools have a higher likelihood of joining gangs than of graudating from high school.
 
RINGLEADER RUSH (Cartoons)
 
    We're in for some very rough times. Is it time for last rites? Is it time for us to start planning a decent Christian burial for this great country?
    Like Jeremiah, I warned that we were on the wrong course 6 years ago in my book "Taking America Back." I offered a simple prescription for moral, political and spiritual renewal.
    [WAR: The US does not need a Christian burial -- it needs to bury Christianity, the biggest deceptive/covert evil in the land:
    "Isaiah (29:13) was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites: 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men. You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!" (Mark 7:6-9)
    And since the author of the article brought up Jeremiah and being "on the wrong course":
    "When you tell these people all this and they ask you (in the very near future): 'Why has YAHWEH decreed such a great disaster against us? What wrong have we done? What sin have we committed against YAHWEH our ELOWAH?'
    "Then say to them: 'It is because your fathers forsook Me and followed other gods and served and worshiped them. They forsook Me and did not keep My law. But you have behaved more wickedly than your fathers. See how each of you is following the stubbornness of his evil heart instead of obeying Me.'" (Jer 16:10-12)]
 
 
 
    Alarm is growing that Obama's Administration, as it seeks to navigate a course away from the jagged rocks of the worst recession in a generation, lacks hands on deck.
    Tim Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, is being forced to operate virtually on his own without any of the 17 deputies his department is supposed to have representing him in important negotiations or helping make crucial decisions.
    British officials and other diplomatic sources are already privately expressing concern that the crucial G20 summit in London, now less than a month away, could be disrupted by the US failing to prepare properly for the talks.
    The prospect of American negotiators "coming late to the table" – where they might suddenly raise objections or propose alternative measures – threatens to undermine the chances of sealing what the Prime Minister has called a "global new deal."
 
    When Obama announced his champion to rescue the world from economic ruin, it was the first time most Americans had ever heard the name Tim Geithner.
    If anyone in the US media had thought to ask a former Australian prime minister for his assessment, they would have heard a different view. And they would not have been so surprised at Geithner's performance since.
    In a speech to a closed gathering at the Lowy Institute in Sydney on Thursday, Paul Keating gave a starkly different account of Geithner's record in handling the Asian crisis.
    "Tim Geithner was the Treasury line officer who wrote the IMF program for Indonesia in 1997-98, which was to apply current account solutions to a capital account crisis."
    In other words, Geithner fundamentally misdiagnosed the problem. And his misdiagnosis led to a dreadfully wrong prescription.
    Geithner, through his influence on the IMF, imposed the same cure the IMF had imposed on Latin America and Mexico. It was the wrong cure. Indeed, it only aggravated the problem.
 
    American businesses were forced to shed more than 23,000 jobs every day last month as recession tightened its grip on the economy, pushing the unemployment rate to a 25-year high.
    The US economy has lost 4.4 million jobs since the beginning of the slowdown, with more than half of these positions disappearing in the past 4 months alone.
 
    The debate now raging across the US over whether or not to nationalize the banking system is largely a fraud. What the debate over nationalization really is, is a debate over how to proceed with the bailout.
    Naturally, the British Empire is also in the mix, trying to force the Obama Administration further down the bailout path, as a way of both bailing out their own interests, and sinking the US.
    The financiers of the empire know full well that the costs of the bailout will not only bankrupt the US, but push us further down the path towards Mussolini-style corporatist fascism.
    This descent into fascism, a feature of the Bush/Cheney years, is a virtual replay of the attempt to impose fascism in the US in the early 1900s. That attempt was defeated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but it remains to be seen whether Obama will rise to that level.
    It's not just the prospect of fascism, a bankers' police state, that we face. The real danger is a complete breakdown of the global economy, combined with the paralysis of governments unable to cope with the crisis.
    The danger is of a breakdown of civilization itself, and a descent into a new Dark Age.
 
    For those who argue that the rate of growth of economic activity is turning positive – that economies are contracting but at a slower rate than in the 4th quarter of 2008 – the latest data don't confirm this relative optimism.
    There is, in fact, a rising risk of a global L-shaped depression that would be even worse than the current, painful U-shaped global recession.
 
    We are at a watershed point in our country's history.  Historians may look back on it as a turning point comparable in scope to the New Deal, the Progressive Era, or even the Civil War.
    The issues we are dealing with are not matters for genial debate. They involve the very survival of the republic.
 
    Morgan Stanley's UK equity strategist painted a bleak economic picture for the UK. In his forecast, he warned that UK profits could fall by 60% in the current downturn - a worse performance than the great depression of the 1930s.
 
    A silent $1 trillion "Run on Britain" by foreign investors was revealed in the latest statistical releases from the Bank of England.
    The revelation will fuel fears that the UK's reputation as a safe place to hold funds is being fatally compromised by the acute crisis in the banking system and a general trend to financial protectionism internationally.
 
    CEO's of leading banks from Japan, Europe and the US will meet in London to discuss regulation of the financial sector, according to a report. The British government will host the talks on March 24, ahead of an April summit of Group of 20 leaders.
 
    Markets need morality, Gordon Brown announced as he claimed his plan for new global financial rules on banking regulation is gaining acceptance among world leaders.
    The Prime Minister told Labour activists in Scotland that he is now pushing for common international standards to curb the pay of bankers and "end the short term bonus culture."
    "Only government can make the markets work in the public interest and not their own interest. We believe that markets need not just money-men but morals, that being fair matters far more than being laissez faire and that banks must always serve the public, not just serve themselves."
 
    The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has blamed the financial crisis on a "spectacular failure" of responsibility by the Government.
    At a lecture in Cardiff he railed against the "curse" of short-termism affecting not just finance and production industries but also the historic professions of law, teaching and academia as well as the public service.
    In a damning indictment of the failure of successive governments to foresee and prevent the economic meltdown, Williams said the roots went "much deeper" than individual greed. He blamed excessive pride for bringing about the economic downturn and argued against embarking on any economic protectionism.
    "It is a little too easy to blame the present situation on an accumulation of individual greed, exemplified by bankers or brokers, and to lose sight of the fact that governments committed to deregulation and to the encouragement of speculation and high personal borrowing were elected repeatedly in Britain and the United States for a crucial couple of decades."
 
    Lord Mandelson has called on world leaders to reject protectionist policies, ahead of a G20 business conference he will host at Downing Street on March 18.
     "It's right and perfectly possible for governments to act to boost demand and help businesses and families without a return to protectionism or economic nationalism."
 
    It is as synonymous with Switzerland as chocolate and cheese but the lid may about to be lifted on the secretive world of Swiss banking.
    The country's banks are now under pressure from the US and the EU to crack down on tax evasion.
 
 
 
 
The truth finally coming out?!...
    Thirty-seven legal, medical and research professionals have sent a letter to the journal Science, asking it to officially retract the original 4 papers making the case for HIV as the cause of AIDS.
    According to the letter's authors, widespread evidence has now emerged that the studies were not only poorly carried out, but that their results were falsified.
    "I was shocked when I read the original draft of the key scientific paper now widely cited as proving HIV causes AIDS," said the author of Fear of the Invisible. "Gallo's handwritten last-minute changes had reversed what the scientists in his lab had originally concluded."
 
    Aspartame is comprised of the following ingredients: Phenylalanine (50%), Aspartic Acid (40%) and Methanol (10%).
    In the body, methanol (a serious metabolic poison) breaks down into formaldehyde (or embalming fluid) and formic acid (ant sting poison).
    Aspartame, a neurotoxin, is found in the widely popular artificial sweeteners, NutriSweet, Equal, Benevia and NutraTaste, along with approximately 6,000 products that we buy in our grocery stores every day.
 
Paranoid Protestant Prophesying Poop...
    In Luke 21:25, we read that there will be signs all around us prior to the return of Christ. Stating that we must discern the signs of Jesus' 2nd Coming, Dr. Hindson noted 6 modern developments indicating that the stage is being set for the return of Christ.
    [WAR: Well, none of the 6 developments listed in the article are mentioned in the Bible -- but at least #6 is inferred as a way to bring about certain prophecies.]
 
Paranoid Protestant Pastor Prophesying Poop...
    A respected pastor, best-selling author and founder of a major ministry to teens predicts an imminent "an earth-shattering calamity" centered in New York City that will spread to major urban areas across the country and around the world – part of what he sees as a judgment from God.
 
    The world's earliest astronomical chart is 300 years older than previously believed, according to research by the British Library.
    The chart was among 40,000 ancient documents found in a cave in Dunhuang, China, a trove compared with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
 
 
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