Friday

The Daily WAR (12-29)

Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
 
 
 
 
 
    The bulk of the 6 proceedings challenging the compatibility of Lisbon Treaty and the German Constitution initiated by the conservative MP Peter Gauweiler (Christian Social Union) and a number of left-wing deputies from The Left party, revolves around the question of whether the Lisbon Treaty erodes the German parliament's powers of participation in EU decision making.
    It has all the ingredients to become the most influential pronouncement that the German Federal Constitutional Court has ever made regarding the EU.
 
 
 
    French President Sarkozy is ready to renounce his title of co-prince of Andorra if it does not change its secretive banking laws, a government minister said on Thursday.
    The French president and a Spanish bishop are co-princes of Andorra, a tiny territory in the Pyrenees that is on the OECD blacklist of uncooperative financial centres.
 
    The populist right-wing party of Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi today officially merges with the post-fascist Alleanza Nazionale at the founding congress of Il Popolo della Liberta (People of Freedom), the powerful new rightist bloc that is not only set to dominate Italian politics for the foreseeable future, but will also wield considerable power in the European Parliament after the June elections.
    The Italian leader has already set the cat amongst the pigeons in the European Parliament's centre-right grouping, the European People's Party-European Democrats, in which Il Popolo della Liberta is set to be the largest party after June.
    The largest national delegation in the grouping, Germany's Christian Democrats and their Bavarian cousins, the Christian Social Union, are expected to shrink following the EP elections and the UK Conservatives have announced they are to exit the group.
(And: FI+AN=PDL)
 
    On Tuesday, Prime Minister Topolanek, acting president of the European Union, lost a no-confidence vote in the Czech parliament.
    Martin Schulz, chairman of the Socialist group in European Parliament, argues that now the EU has to struggle not just for leadership, but for its very survival.
 
    With the collapse of the Czech government, which holds the European Union's rotating presidency, the EU faces a power vacuum at a crucial time.
    Will Prime Minister Topolanek's fall spell the end of the Lisbon Treaty? German commentators express deep concern.
 
    Chancellor Merkel on Thursday called for NATO to overhaul its security strategy, saying the defense alliance needed to face up to new global threats.
    "Neither Europe nor America can master these challenges alone," she said.
 
    Russia is planning to create a dedicated military force to help protect its interests in the disputed Arctic region.
 
 
 
    A mysterious air strike on a convoy of arms smugglers in Sudan has provoked speculation that Israel has launched an attack hundreds of miles from its borders.
 
    Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister-designate, clearly hoped to win international favor by signing up his Labor Party rivals to share power in a new government.
    But the coalition contract fails to mention a 2-state solution -- which could isolate Israel on the world stage.
 
    With Netanyahu about to establish a new government, early signs of strain in Israel's relations with Europe are showing.
 
    Israeli Prime Minister Olmert proposed to return 93% of the West Bank to the Palestinians and to handle the Jerusalem question under an international framework as his "final offer," local news service Ynet reported Thursday.
    He made the promises to Palestinian National Authority Chairman Abbas during a meeting in September, with senior officials as saying that the pledges marked Olmert's "final offer to end the conflict."
 
    Palestinian Authority President Abbas' Fatah organization suspects its US-backed militias and official intelligence service have been infiltrated by the rival Hamas terrorist organization, according to PA sources speaking to WND.
 
    The Lebanese Shiite armed group Hezbollah said that the US is the "top terrorist state" which supports terrorism in the world.
 
    A British intelligence report says al-Qaida is trying to recruit disaffected nuclear scientists from Russia and Pakistan, according to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
    The report from the British intelligence agency MI6 comes as part of an alert that has been issued in preparation for the G20 meetings to be held in London.
    Al-Qaida has "access to nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union. In the past 10 years there have been 1,300 separate incidents of nuclear material smuggling."
 
    Success here could see the American-led coalition adopt similar tactics across the country. Failure would be a major blow to Obama's entire Afghan strategy.
 
    Russia is hosting an international conference it hopes will help bring about stability in Afghanistan. The hosting of the conference is seen as the Kremlin's desire to expand its role in regional affairs.
 
    Whether you want to fight the Taleban, help them or simply talk to them, it is hard to avoid going through the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence -- the agency that created them in the first place.
    Ever since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 the ISI has played a double game: helping the War on Terror while maintaining links with the Taleban.
    To outsiders that may look like treachery. To the ISI it is realpolitik.
 
    The bloodstream of the global energy war is the pipelines that crisscross the planet's potential imperial battlefields.
    What happens on the immense battlefield for the control of Eurasia will provide the ultimate plot line in the tumultuous rush towards a new, polycentric world order, also known as the New Great Game.
 
    The past 2 days have seen pirates hijack 2 European-owned chemical tankers off the coast of Somalia in the highest-profile captures since international navies began patrolling the region's sea lanes.
 
    The Japanese government has ordered its military to destroy any part of the rocket that North Korea is planning to fire early next month should it approach Japanese territory.
    Patriot surface-to-air missiles are being deployed north of Tokyo, while 2 Maritime Self-Defence Force destroyers are expected to put to sea.
 
 
 
    Iran's former president, Mohammed Khatami, has dismissed as a "satanic conspiracy" claims the Islamic republic was secretly developing nuclear weapons.
 
    Following unconfirmed reports that the US or Israel attacked a convoy of trucks carrying weapons headed for the Gaza Strip in Sudan, a new report by Sudanese sources cited an additional strike on a ship possibly making its way to Sudan from Iran.
    "There were indeed 2 strikes in Sudan, in January and February," Sudan's deputy transportation minister said. "I cannot confirm that Israel or the US were behind the attack, but I know that the US controls the airspace there."
    Another official said that "the 2nd strike was against a ship at sea and it was completely destroyed."
 
 
 
    A top constitutional scholar has said that recently released Justice Department memos prove that nefarious elements within the Bush Administration were planning a massive military takeover of the country and that the documents should be used to bring charges of treason.
    In an interview with author Naomi Wolf, legal expert Michael Ratner explains how the move toward total elimination of 1st, 4th and 5th amendment rights, as outlined in the memos, cannot be taken in isolated relation to terrorism related prosecutions and instead represents a smoking gun of a larger intention toward the general population.
 
    A lawsuit filed on behalf of Ambassador Alan Keyes challenging Obama's eligibility to hold office under the requirements of the US Constitution will be appealed, according to a lawyer working on the case.
    "It has been publicly reported that Obama as far back as 2006 had a relationship to a law firm that was coincidentally researching ways to get around the Article 2 requirements of the US Constitution for service as president. This appears to be an ongoing attempt by Obama to obtain the presidency while avoiding and evading all questions on his eligibility."
    [WAR: Speculation: Obama's eligibility causes constitutional crisis, then chaos (rioting), then return of Bush-Cheney (via military) as "caretakers" until "legal" elections can be held? "Expect the unexpected" and "never say never."]
 
    The man who created 2 phenomenally successful "We The People" YouTube videos urging Americans to stand up against Congress and reclaim their republic now – or perhaps lose it forever – reportedly has been summoned to the White House by Obama to discuss the subject matter of the short films.
 
    Benjamin H. Freedman was one of the most intriguing and amazing individuals of the 20th century. He was born in 1890, and was a successful Jewish businessman of New York City.
    He broke with organized Jewry after WW2, and spent the remainder of his life and the great preponderance of his considerable fortune, at least $2.5 million, exposing the Jewish power structure which dominates the United States.
 
    America's coming confrontation with Israel has been foreshadowed for quite some time by several under-the-radar signals, but the media has been too invested in the "special relationship" narrative to notice -- at least until the Obama administration took the reins.
    With the victory of the Israeli far-right in the recent Israeli elections, and the likelihood that the ultra-nationalist whack-job Avigdor Lieberman will serve in the new government as foreign minister, US-Israeli relations are headed for a crisis that will test the power of the Israeli lobby as it has never been tested before.
    [WAR: Netanyahu "expects"? Is it possible that Obama's eligibility issue is the Jewish sword hanging over Obama?
    Are they keeping this issue on the back burner -- via their influence ("control") of the mainstream media and gov't -- to bring out and strike Obama down if he gets a wild hair and doesn't go along with the program?]
 
    The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General James Cartwright, told an audience invested in missile defense that the bad guys have already abandoned the notion of shooting ballistic missiles toward the US.
    What Cartwright was saying is that US foes - who to date have shown no ability to marry a warhead of any kind to a simple, garden-variety ocean-spanning ballistic missile - are going to simply skip that step and deploy craftier weapons atop their rockets.
 
    A US marshal accused of stealing US government property has been shot dead execution-style in the lawless Mexican border town of Juarez in the latest murder along the violence-gripped Rio Grande frontier.
 
    American officials say ties between Shiite organization, Mexican drug lords for trafficking of drugs, money, people into US strengthening over recent year. One official voice concern that al-Qaeda may use same routes.
 
Bingo gringo!!...
    Rather than responding to some sudden crisis, it appears that the Obama administration is executing plans drafted and developed under the Bush administration, and particularly the Pentagon and the US national intelligence apparatus.
    Why would the US administration continue and even escalate a policy that its chief foreign policy representative admits is a failure?
    The answer lies in the fact that the "war on drugs," like the "war on terrorism," is a façade behind which are concealed strategic aims of US imperialism, which seeks to exert its hegemony over resource-rich regions of the globe by military means.
    Mexico is the 3rd largest source of US imported oil, trailing only Saudi Arabia and Canada.
    In addition to military support, Washington has provided strong political backing to the Calderon government's bid to open the state-owned oil monopoly Pemex to foreign capitalist investment.
 
    US law enforcement agencies are keeping tabs on Americans in order to thwart terrorism. But how accurate is their intelligence? And what is good intelligence? This is where things get scary.
 
    So, if the long, heroic effort to elect federal legislators has failed, does there remain any governmental Horatius who can stand in the gap; who can lead the Battle for America and restore the Constitution?
    There is. Lock and load, mount up and prepare for the return of the sheriff.
 
 
 
Silver lining...
    As more Americans lose their jobs, the US government is actively discouraging the recruitment of foreign workers, from dude ranchers and fruit pickers to lifeguards and computer programmers.
 
    With loan defaults rising, analysts say the struggling commercial real estate industry is poised to fall into the worst crisis since the last great property bust of the early 1990s.
    Delinquency rates on loans for hotels, offices, retail and industrial buildings have risen sharply in recent months and are likely to soar as companies lay off workers, downsize or shut their doors.
 
    The slowdown in investment in oil and gas production could lop off nearly 8 million barrels a day of future oil supply growth, setting the stage for another big crude price surge in years to come, according to a new study.
 
    This crisis is getting more and more dangerous.
    If the G-20, when gathered in London next April 2nd, is not able to adopt a number of bold and innovative decisions, focused on the essential issues and problems, and to initiate them by summer 2009, then the crisis will entail a general geopolitical dislocation by the end of the year, affecting the international system as well as the very structure of large political entities such as the US, Russia, China or the EU.
 
    At this stage nothing is certain, but the country is currently headed straight into a period of very rapid price hikes and a very bad recession.
    I  predict that things will get much worse before they get better, and that the US will be mired in a malfunctioning economy for at least a decade, with price inflation in the double-digits (possibly higher) the entire time. We can call this condition "hyper-depression."
 
    The heads of some of the world's largest banks will meet with Obama today to discuss recovery of the financial sector and how it is tied to the entire economy.
(Cartoon: END OF AMERICA)
 
    After much pious posturing – and criminal wastage of time – the European Central Bank at last seems ready join the Anglo-Saxons, Japanese, Swiss, and Isrealis in printing money to fend off disaster.
    Two key governors tipped us off that the bank is ready to buy assets outright on the open market, including mortgage debt.
    This is a huge development, exactly what is required to help restore the animal spirits of global investors.
    ECB president Trichet has been insisting for month after month that there is no risk whatsover of deflation.
    (Or perhaps that is unfair to Trichet's boss – Bundesbank chief Axel Weber. One suspects that Weber does indeed understand what is happening but knows that once the ECB starts buying bonds, it is on the slippery slope to an EU debt union – at German expense.)
    If they move fast enough they may even prevent the eurozone breaking. Big if.
 
No!...
    The euro is coming under severe pressure.
    Now even the Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the Euro Group (former Chief of the Bundesbank) fear that the euro may be in danger.
    The problems that confront the eurozone today have their origins in the fatally flawed notion that one exchange rate and one interest rate are appropriate for economies with very different and disparate histories, structures, performances and sovereign governments.
    The euro was meant to bring convergence to the economies of the European Union. Yet it has caused even greater divergence.
    These economic imbalances and distortions will continue to worsen. The euro as a hybrid fixed exchange rate regime is unsustainable, and the issue of its failure must be addressed.
 
    The program — known as "Kurzarbeit," which translates as "short work" — and others like it lie at the heart of a heated debate that has erupted on the eve of next week's Group of 20 meeting, creating a rift between the Obama administration and European governments.
    Virtually all European governments, led by budget-conscious Germany, are resisting the American pitch, saying the focus should be on stricter regulation of financial markets.
    The Europeans say they have no need for further stimulus right now because their social safety nets, derided in good times by free market disciples, are automatically providing the spending programs that the US Congress has to legislate.
 
    German Finance Minister Steinbrueck today said the high debt levels being built up currently worldwide might cause another crisis.
    Speaking at a conference on sustainable fiscal policy in Berlin, he said: "I think we are in an epoch-making situation," and no one knows when...
 
    Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman has blasted Germany's Peer Steinbrück for his resistance to economic stimulus spending.
    Now the "boneheaded," "know-nothing" finance minister has sent Krugman an invitation to come to Berlin to discuss their differences.
 
    US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner confessed that he had not read the plans by China's central bank governor for a "super-sovereign reserve currency" run by the International Monetary Fund, but nevertheless let slip that Washington was "open" to the idea.
    Whoops! This is how matters quickly escalate in geo-finance.
    But the pitfalls of a world central bank are obvious. It is hard enough for the ECB to run policy for 16 states. The politics of global monetary management would be poisonous.
    The heads of the Fed, the ECB, and the Bank of England, must all testify before parliaments and answer to democracy. There is no world parliament, no world government [and won't be!]. Who would control a super-IMF?
 
Good question!...
    Members of Congress and the New York Attorney General demanded detailed information on how tens of billions of taxpayer dollars flowed through the American International Group during its crisis last fall and ended up in the coffers of several dozen big banks, shielding them from losses.
    Some have also been dismayed to learn that taxpayer money had ended up bailing out foreign banks. Some of the biggest beneficiaries of the bailout of AIG were banks in Europe.
 
    Pumping hundreds of billions to the banks will not solve the problem.
    You can bet your last dollar that when millions are caught in the debt trap and there is no way out, and they see billions been given to the Wall Street fat cats, lynching parties will be the order of the day!
    The Count Down has started...
 
    A United Nations document on "climate change" that will be distributed to a major environmental conclave next week envisions a huge reordering of the world economy, likely involving trillions of dollars in wealth transfer, millions of job losses and gains, new taxes, industrial relocations, new tariffs and subsidies, and complicated payments for greenhouse gas abatement schemes and carbon taxes — all under the supervision of the world body.
 
    Brazil's President Da Silva has blamed the global economic crisis on "white people with blue eyes" and said it was wrong that black and indigenous people should pay for white people's mistakes.
    "This crisis was caused by the irrational behaviour of white people with blue eyes, who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing. I do not know any black or indigenous bankers so I can only say [it is wrong] that this part of mankind which is victimised more than any other should pay for the crisis."
 
    This country was bought and paid for a long time ago and it's run by the banks and the state.
 
 
 
    If you think peak oil is a big deal, then just wait until the peak water crisis is in full swing.
    Experts say that in many areas aquifers and rivers are starting to run dry as human consumption and other factors are straining one of our most essential resources: fresh water.
    A senior health and science adviser for the US Environmental Protection Agency says he worries that these water issues that are currently emerging will eventually develop into bitter conflicts in the not too distant future when these dry states become increasingly desperate.
    "We will, in fact, get into major water wars. You will see water wars coming in every way, shape or form. In the US, there are some leading politicians who have said the Great Lakes do, in fact, belong (to everyone) and all water should be nationalized and this certainly is a concern."
 
    You may be gasping for that freshly brewed cup of tea or coffee, but waiting 5 minutes before drinking it could save your life.
    Researchers have found that a taste for very hot drinks may be linked to cancer of the oesophagus and that the risk of contracting the disease may increase 8-fold as a result of drinking tea hotter than 70C (158F).
 
    Print media is besieged. Foreign bureaus of newspapers and national magazines have been closed by the score all over the world.
    Daily newspapers are dying in print and reincarnated online, where they compete with everything from free blogs to free social networks.
    Unedited blogs are rapidly becoming news sources.
    Much of it is scary stuff, from nightmarish economic and financial meltdowns to chilling war attractions to come in the Middle East.
    How to distinguish between clutter and good stuff is a constant challenge as attention becomes a scarce resource.
 
    An unexpected new subatomic particle has been discovered in Illinois's Fermilab atom smasher, scientists announced last week.
    The new particle may break all known rules for creating matter, say the researchers who created the oddity.
 
    Standard supplements of vitamins and minerals may quickly and significantly improve cognitive skills involving attention, a new study reports.
 
    Calling for a paradigm shift in the field of clinical psychology, Theodore Beauchaine and colleagues make the case in a new paper that "the current under-appreciation of biological processes in prevention and intervention research is striking."
    The researchers note that most clinical psychology programs offer little or no training in the biological foundations of behavior, and that articles on this topic are rare in the field's journals.
    "Perhaps of more importance," they say, "neuroscientific principles are almost completely absent from current theoretical formulations of prevention and intervention."
 
    Old age may be approaching faster than many of us think, with a survey suggesting many adults have the health of an older person.
 
    An online movie documenting the close ties between ancient pagan religions and today's Christianity is "antichrist" in nature, destroying the faith of believers by combining some astonishing truth with plenty of error.
    That's the claim of a Christian historian and author who, ironically, has himself been educating the public about the impact heathen sun worship has had on traditional Christianity.
    [WAR: Christianity itself combines "some astonishing truth with plenty of error," and that's why it's so deceptive and evil -- a big wolf in sheep's clothing.
    And the chief doctrine-of-error is the foundational one that Yahshua was a God-man ("fully God and fully man" / "God in the flesh").
    So the Yahshua revealed in the Bible is the true Messiah, while Christianity's "Jesus" is the false Messiah, and the spirit of "antichrist" that John warned us about.
    In John 6:29, Yahshua gives the only definition of "the work of God": "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent."
    So we are to believe in the Yahshua/Immanuel that's revealed in the Bible, not the paganized god-man that comes from the traditions of men -- which are inspired by Satan.
    Conclusion: Both Zeitgeist (the new movie) and Christianity (all of it, not just "today's", "modern", "worldly" or "so-called") combine "astonishing truth with plenty of error" -- Satan's best tactic of propaganda and deception.]
 
Tonight's sky...
    Springtime is the best time of year to see a young Moon. That is a thin waxing crescent Moon visible in the west in evening twilight.
    The thinnest moons of the year are typically seen in spring. The (dark) moon was yesterday (when the Moon was most directly between the Earth and Sun).
    So tonight is your chance to see a very young moon in the west, shortly after sunset, in front of the faint constellation Pisces the Fish.
    [WAR: According to Skyglobe (but verified thru observation), the crescent Moon should rule with the stars tonight -- which will make tomorrow the 1st day of the 13th month.
    This means that in about 2 weeks, almost all the people who attempt to observe Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread will be celebrating it when the Sun is in the constellation Pisces.
    But Josephus mentions (Antiquities of the Jews, Book 3, Paragraph 5) that when Israel left Egypt, the Sun was in Aries -- where it will be when I, and some others, observe Passover/DUB next month.]
 
 
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