Reading between the lines, and thinking outside the box . . .
In the general audience, held this morning in St. Peter's Square, the Pope dedicated his remarks to Holy Week.
"For us as Christians, this is the most important week of the year, offering us the chance to immerse ourselves in the central events of Redemption, to relive the Easter Mystery, the great Mystery of the faith."
Pope Benedict XVI said Wednesday that he would visit the shocked and injured people of the area as soon as possible.
A longtime John Kerry supporter is about to land the prized position of US ambassador to Italy, and Caroline Kennedy may join him nearby as ambassador to the Vatican, an Italian news magazine has claimed.
Tony Blair has challenged the "entrenched" attitudes of the Pope on homosexuality, and argued that it is time for him to "rethink" his views.
Speaking to the gay magazine Attitude, the former Prime Minister, himself now a Roman Catholic, said that he wanted to urge religious figures everywhere to reinterpret their religious texts to see them as metaphorical, not literal, and suggested that in time this would make all religious groups accept gay people as equals.
Destroy each other!...
The spokesman of the Archdiocese of Mexico City warned this week about the "terrorist" nature of the call for a "holy war" against the Catholic Church by the leader of followers of "St. Death."
David Romo Guillen, leader of the devotion to "St. Death," especially popular among drug traffickers and criminals, called for a "holy war" against the Catholic Church after the Mexican Army destroyed several places of worship it suspected to be criminal hideouts, especially in the northern part of the country.
(Cartoons: TERROR IN MEXICO)
Hitler did not want a war with Poland. Nor did he want war with a Britain he admired and always saw as a natural ally. Nor did he want war with France.
Repeatedly, Hitler tried to negotiate Danzig. Repeatedly, the Poles rebuffed him.
Seeing the Allies courting Josef Stalin, Hitler decided to cut his own deal with the detested Bolsheviks and settle the Polish issue by force.
German exports for the month of February have plummeted to their lowest level since 1950, following a similar decline in January.
The drop means Europe's largest economy will contract more than expected.
European Union proposals for the regulation of hedge funds should go further in forcing them to use more of their own capital and reflect risks on their books, Germany's Finance Minister said."
When they went to bed on Sunday night, the lives of L'Aquila's inhabitants were still normal. But catastrophe struck as they slept.
The survivors of one of Italy's worst earthquakes in modern history are now in a state of shock, and nightmare scenes continue to unfold around them.
German press...
With rousing speeches and a diplomatic manner, Barack Obama quelled fears that differences of opinion would end Europe's love affair with him.
German commentators applaud how he handled himself during his European visit but worry that rougher times lie ahead.
Barack Obama says Turkey's future is in the European Union. Not everyone agrees.
Numerous politicians in Germany have gone on the attack, and even French President Sarkozy is unimpressed.
Turkey's role at the NATO summit has soured the mood.
"It is a meddling in the internal affairs of Europe," a member of the European Parliament from Bavarian's conservative Christian Social Union, blustered in an interview. "The EU is not Obama's plaything. ... He should accept Turkey as America's 51st state instead."
Markus Ferber, the CSU's lead candidate in European Parliament elections set for early June, echoed his party colleague. "There is no question that the US has a voice in NATO. But when it comes to membership in its own club, the EU decides by itself. We don't need any tutoring from abroad."
Party head Horst Seehofer said that Europe's "internal harmony" is dependent on "common cultural and spiritual roots." He went on to say that "Turkey, as self-proclaimed representative of the Muslim world, clearly doesn't fit in."
It appears that the era of dividing states along "moderate and "extreme" lines and between good Islam and "the axis of evil" is over.
As expected, Obama took his first European tour in his charismatic stride.
But while most experts call the visit a success, some warned that Europe won't always be this accomodating.
The South Caucasus is rapidly becoming a critical strategic crossroads in 21st century geopolitics, encompassing the most ambitious energy transit projects in history and the consolidation of a military corridor reaching from Western Europe to East Asia, one whose command centers are in Washington and Brussels.
Nothing less is at stake than control of world energy resources and their transportation routes on one hand and the establishment of a global army under NATO auspices fanning out in South and Central Asia and ultimately Eurasia as a whole on the other.
The end of the Cold War and the aggressive US policy in the Middle East have placed increasing strains on the ties binding Turkey to NATO and Washington.
Underneath these changes in style, however, the Obama administration, no less than that of Bush, is pursuing the geopolitical and economic interests of America's financial oligarchy.
In the trip to Turkey, what predominated was the continuing quest for American hegemony over markets and strategic resources — above all energy — that motivated the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Under conditions of deepening economic crisis, this drive carries with it the threat of even bloodier conflicts.
Obama continued to use his bully pulpit on Tuesday to call for Israelis and Palestinians to make the compromises necessary to reach a Middle East peace accord.
In an unprecedented move, the Obama administration is readying for a possible confrontation with Prime Minister Netanyahu by briefing Democratic congressmen on the peace process and the positions of the new government in Israel regarding a 2-state solution.
The Obama administration is expecting a clash with Netanyahu over his refusal to support the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
(And: OBAMA'S SEDER)
Under intense American pressure and following a nearly unprecedented behind-the-scenes US campaign, the Israeli government has decided not to bulldoze Palestinians homes built illegally on Jewish-owned property in Jerusalem, WND has learned.
The issue is critical since the 80 homes in question are located in Silwan, an eastern Jerusalem neighborhood close to the Temple Mount and Jerusalem's Old City that the Palestinians claim as a future capital.
Pirates commandeered a US-flagged container ship with 20 American crew members off the coast of Somalia today, the first time an American-crewed ship was seized by pirates in the area.
The Maersk Alabama was at least the 6th commercial ship commandeered by pirates this week off the Horn of Africa.
President Ahmadinejad is expected to announce Iran has mastered the final stage of nuclear fuel production when the Islamic state celebrates its National Nuclear Day on Thursday.
You can't accuse the Israelis of not crying wolf.
What's going on here? Israel, as it has for nearly 2 decades, is trying to lock in American support and avoid any disadvantageous change in the Middle Eastern balance of power, now overwhelmingly tilted in Jerusalem's favor, by portraying Iran as a monstrous pariah state bent on imminent nuclear war.
Paranoid Protestant Prophecy Poop Preacher Michael Evans interviews Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Joe Biden said Tuesday the new Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be "ill-advised" to attack Iran, but stressed that it was unlikely to do so.
"I don't believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu would do that. I think he would be ill-advised to do that."
Iran poses no threat to the United States, Russia said Tuesday, rebuffing a key argument of Obama on whether to go ahead with a European missile shield bitterly opposed by Moscow.
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi called Barack Obama a "flicker of hope in the middle of the imperialist darkness," but said he feared the president could be assassinated.
Gaddafi did not say who might want to kill Obama but gave the examples of the assassinations of Presidents Kennedy and Lincoln, as well as black rights leader Martin Luther King.
"I fear that they could liquidate this young man or force him to submit to their imperialist policies."
Russian Intelligence Analysts are reporting in the Kremlin that Turkish and US Security Police foiled an assassination attempt on Obama due to take place during his visit to Turkey.
These reports state that the 3 assassins planning Obama's murder had arrived in Turkey last week on a flight from Rome carrying Moroccan and Syrian passports and what are believed to be forged press credentials from the Arab News Service Al-Jazeera and that one of the cell phones recovered from the 'safe house' being used by these plotters in Istanbul showed 'repeated' calls placed to and from Tel Aviv and the Vatican.
It is believed by Russian Intelligence Experts that both Israel and the Vatican harbor strong fears against Obama who they believe is in the process of shifting American Foreign Policy towards the Arab and Persian peoples and that by his assassination in a Muslim Nation, by what was intended to be Islamic terrorists, would re-shift US power back towards the Jewish state.
Israel's new right-wing government under Prime Minister Netanyahu is stated in these reports to be 'enraged' over the US opening up to Iran.
"Fatetur facinus qui judicium fugit." If your Latin is a little rusty, that means, "A person who flees judgment confesses guilt."
It is a principle of the law that can be traced back at least to Black's Law Dictionary, published in 1718 and immensely influential to America's founders.
It is almost a self-evident principle, but because we live in an age in which much of what was previously self-evident has become obscured, it's worth mentioning again – particularly with regard to Barack Obama's determined effort block any effort to ascertain whether or not he is actually constitutionally eligible to serve as president of the United States.
When American citizens demand proof that Obama is indeed a natural-born citizen, as the Constitution requires, it's not like a criminal indictment of someone who is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
In this case, the burden of proof is on Obama – and he has done everything humanly possible to avoid releasing that proof to controlling legal authorities and the people he serves.
A security analyst who provides intelligence information to a wide range of law enforcement, private corporation and security interests has written in a publicly released "white paper" that the issue of Barack Obama's eligibility to be president could become a "flashpoint" in the United States.
Obama has not attended church services on any of the 11 Sundays since he took office.
Here's another story that underlines how ludicrous the media have been in insisting Barack Obama was a natural choice for traditional Catholic and evangelical Christian voters.
As Obama launches a military effort that promises to dwarf the Bush administration's Iraqi adventure in scope and intensity, the "progressive" community is rallying around their commander in chief as obediently and reflexively as the neocon-dominated GOP did when we invaded Iraq.
America is devolving into a 3rd-world nation. Our anemic democracy will be replaced with a robust national police state.
Tens of millions of people, brutally controlled, will live in perpetual poverty. This is the inevitable result of unchecked corporate capitalism.
Hunter-killer drones armed with Hellfire missiles are patrolling the Pentagon's expanding global battlefields: It's a scene right out of Terminator.
Cyberspies have penetrated the US electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.
The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the US electrical system and its controls.
Fox News is playing an increasingly erratic and dangerous game by embracing paranoid insurrection rhetoric and conspiracy theorists.
Disinfo operative Glenn Beck's shabby and comical attempt to "debunk" FEMA camps was theater of the absurd at its most revealing.
Idaho started the ball rolling and seceded from these united States. A total dissolution of America quickly followed as schisms and fissures erupted across North America...
More US consumers are falling behind on their mortgages, an indication that the housing market has yet to hit bottom, a top credit bureau executive told Reuters.
The US Treasury Department is planning to delay the release of any completed bank stress test results until after the 1st-quarter earnings season to avoid complicating stock market reaction, a source familiar with Treasury's discussions said.
Though some economic measures are improving, the financial crisis "is far from over" and "appears to be taking root in the larger economy."
These were the findings released in a report today by the Congressional Oversight Panel.
"We still have a long way to go. A very long way," said Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law School professor who chairs the panel.
There's still bad news ahead for the US economy -- and by extension for Canada -- and the bear market for stocks is not over yet, according to a prominent economist who foretold much of the current turmoil.
Greece is on the brink of bankruptcy despite the fact that the global recession has yet to hit the country with full force.
Strikes are paralyzing the country and the EU is putting on the pressure. But the government is still trying to put a positive spin on things.
The prophets of globalization who saw a new world order ushering humanity into a new age of plenty for all are now adding a little crow -- not yet enough to qualify as humble pie -- to their editorial menus.
Globalization has turned out to be mostly globaloney.
Democratic capitalism has steadily deteriorated since the end of the Cold War, morphing first into the fixed roulette wheel of a crooked casino and more recently into the heads-I-win-tails-you-lose bandit capitalism that brought the world economy to its knees and revealed the Masters of the Universe to be non-productive creators of worthless financial instruments that added zilch to America's productive capacity.
For the first time since the crisis erupted 2 years ago, global leaders went a few millimetres beyond what was expected of them.
But the London summit comprehensively failed to do what it set out to do.
Not one of its resolutions will move the world a small step closer to resolving the global economic crisis.
As world leaders return home, they will be confronted by the reality of the decisions they have not taken.
They will return to economies in which bankruptcies and unemployment are about to rise to the highest levels since the Great Depression.
World trade has been collapsing faster than during the Great Depression, and the monetary indicators are also absolutely awful.
If the crisis shows no sign of ending in the autumn, our great leaders may gather for another desperate summit, in another city, facing another set of protesters, producing yet another series of desperate but ineffective pledges to save the world economy...
We have not yet seen panic. I think we will before the end of 2009. If not in 2009, then in 2010.
When I was a college student, I found that this method of learning how things work was also useful in acquiring an understanding of theories and commonly accepted doctrines.
As a result, I found that many of these, upon analysis, had little if any significant content.
The Law of Supply and Demand is one such doctrine. If one disassembles this doctrine, important things are revealed.
The Law of Supply and Demand is an empty, tautological doctrine that is not supported by observations of the marketplace and merely serves as an excuse used by some producers to increase prices to the detriment of consumers.
It is not an economic law; it is an economic flaw. It is not even a legitimate idea; it is a mere notion.
A small but growing number of cash-strapped communities are printing their own money.
Borrowing from a Depression-era idea, they are aiming to help consumers make ends meet and support struggling local businesses.
The systems generally work like this: Businesses and individuals form a network to print currency.
Shoppers buy it at a discount — say, 95 cents for $1 value — and spend the full value at stores that accept the currency.
During the Depression, local governments, businesses and individuals issued currency, known as scrip, to keep commerce flowing when bank closings led to a cash shortage.
We tend to forget that the worldwide plunge into recession last year was the result of 3 separate phenomena that combined to breed disaster.
The financial crisis was joined by a food crisis and a fuel crisis as the prices of food and energy soared, triggering food riots across the world.
And now there are ominous signs of another food crisis in the making this year, spurred in part by the ongoing credit crunch that has made it difficult for farmers to get loans.
Alarm bells are starting to ring about another food crisis this summer.
[CFR Opinion Roundup][Newseum][Global Incident Map][Earthweek][Day-Night Map][Tonight's Sky][Moon phase]
Spirko, an Army veteran and self-described "stark-raving-mad Libertarian," is part of a growing movement of people who are preparing for a disaster — natural, economic or man-made.
Referred to as "modern survivalists" or "preppers," they are taking steps to protect and provide for their families should something bad happen.
Theirs is a different breed of survivalist, far from the right-wing militants or religious extremists who hole up in bunkers, live off the land and wait for the apocalypse.
Preppers are regular people with regular jobs who decided after 9-11, after Hurricane Katrina or when their 401(k)s tanked that they can't rely on someone else to help them if something goes awry.
Yes!...
Food marketers have come to realize that simplicity sells.
Advocates for healthful eating have long tried to steer Americans away from highly processed foods that contain dozens of unnatural and unpronounceable ingredients.
The hope: that consumers will equate fewer ingredients with healthfulness, even when it comes to ice cream and chips.
Across the world Jewish people have been celebrating Birkat Hachama, or the Sun Blessing.
The blare of a ram's horn filled the early morning air, alerting the thousands of people gathered at the Western Wall that the sun was about to rise.
When it finally appeared above the ancient stones this morning, the crowd gasped in unison and then began to recite a special blessing: "Blessed are you, Lord our God, king of the universe, who makes the works of creation."
To those standing at Judaism's holy place, known to them as the Temple Mount, this was no regular sunrise but one that only occurs every 28 years.
The source of the ancient tradition comes from the Talmud.
[WAR: Hmmm, let's see ... why does this sound familiar? ... "He then brought me into the inner court of the house of YAHWEH, and there at the entrance to the temple, between the portico and the altar, were about 25 men. With their backs toward the temple and their faces toward the east, they were bowing down to the sun in the east. He said to me: "Have you seen this, son of man? Is it a trivial matter for the house of Judah to do the detestable things they are doing here?" (Eze 8:16,17)]
CALENDAR BATTLE NOT ENGAGED, BUT WAR CONTINUES
[WAR: YesterdayI went to my meeting with the AZDOT detective earlier today about me obtaining an AZ drivers license with an altered birth certificate.
What I did was a criminal offense, yet he didn't want to issue me a ticket (even though asked for one!) or arrest me -- since I didn't do it "with malicious intent."
But he did "lock" my DL file/record -- so my DL is now invalid.
So if I use my back-up duplicate (which I left at home) at all -- even presenting it to a potential employer for indentification -- I'll be commiting an offense.
Which means that in order for me to be able to work for any company, I have to accept the pagan-papal date of my birth as part of my personal identity.
The detective said that I needed to have the state of Texas change my date of birth on the BC, then present it to him to unlock the DL.
But Texas won't do that without a court order.
And when I went before a judge here in AZ, she said that while she could change my name, she didn't have the authority (no specific law) to change my date of birth.
So now I'm in a Catch-22 situation -- I have to have a court order to change my BC, but there's no law that allows it to be changed.
That's why I was wanting to get the legal ball rolling so that a judge would have to make a ruling on this issue -- which is me being forced to accept the authority/jurisdiction of the Gregorian Calendar in determining my date of birth -- which is half of my legal identity as a person!!
So, all this AZDOT encounter did was eliminate the drawn-out state courts step and force me to take it to the federal level.
Now I have to decide: do I want to file a petition in the federal courts or provoke an "incident" to force the issue -- like trying to cross back from Mexico with an invalid ID?...]
WAR for military: YAHOO! WARriors
WAR fund: PayPal (payable to thedailywarrior@gmail.com)
The Daily World Affairs Report / PO Box 1059 / Pearce, AZ 85625
