Thursday

The Daily WAR (08-08)

Reading between the lines;
Thinking outside the box...
 
[WAR note: No, I'm not breaking my sabbatical just yet. I just thought I'd post an issue on this Thanksgiving Day...]
 
 
 
    Benedict XVI is inviting the faithful to imagine what the world would be like if family, parish and community relationships were modeled on the Trinity, with people not only living together but also for each other.
 
    Charity, truth and justice are key words in the articulation of a new social and economic humanism, the Vatican secretary of state told the students and professors of the European University of Rome.
    Cardinal Bertone noted that in economic humanism, human behavior "is not inspired by subjectivism, directed to egoism, through hedonist calculations, but by solidarity based on the common good."
 
    Widespread child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in Dublin was covered up for decades by senior clerics, a damning report will say.
    Four Archbishops will be named over their mishandling of hundreds of allegations, including not reporting crimes to the police.
    The senior clerics' motive was to protect the church above defenceless children, the report will find
 
 
 
    Foreign Minister Westerwelle and Defense Minister Guttenberg are the 2 new leading men in German politics. With their post-election confidence surging, a rivalry is developing.
 
    General Schneiderhan, one of Germany's top commanders, has been fired after he allegedly withheld details of an air strike that killed Afghan civilians in September.
 
 
 
    An astounding exchange took place in the European Union Parliament earlier this week when MEP Nigel Farage was reprimanded for daring to expose the fact that the EU is an authoritarian dictatorship ruled by unelected bureaucrats to the detriment of national sovereignty.
    Farage effectively broke a tyrannical 1999 law that states it is illegal to criticize the EU.
 
    France has run into opposition over its bid to have a powerful European Commissioner in Brussels who would have been seen as an opponent of the City of London.
 
 
 
    The 18-year-old project of Wolfowitz, Brzezinski et al. to destroy the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States and effect a cordon sanitaire around Russia, enclosing it with NATO member states and partners, has continued uninterruptedly since 1991.
    Washington will not tolerate rivals and will ruthlessly attempt to eliminate even the potential of any nation to challenge it globally or regionally. In any region of the world.
    Russia, because of what it was, what it is, where it is and what it has - massive reserves of oil and natural gas, a developed nuclear industry and the world's only effective strategic triad outside the US - is and will remain the main focus of efforts by the US and NATO to rid themselves of impediments to achieving uncontested global domination.
 
    A much-touted alternative northern route through a number of Central Asian countries to bring critical supplies to US troops in Afghanistan may be threatened by increasing Taliban attacks, according to a report from Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
 
 
 
    In a message to the pilgrims of the holy mosque in Mecca, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution warns of forces that are sponsoring terrorism in the region.
    "Occupiers… organize and mastermind violent sectarian terrorism among regional nations. The Middle East and North Africa were once colonized and humiliated for more than a century by the Western governments of Britain and France and subsequently by America; their natural reserves were plundered, their free spirit was trodden upon and their nations were taken hostage."
 
    The outgoing head of the UN atomic energy agency has once again verified the non-diversion of declared nuclear material in Iran.
    "There has been no movement on remaining issues of concern which need to be clarified for the agency to verify the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program."
 
    Outgoing International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei urged the Iranian government to endorse the 3rd party draft enrichment deal exactly as it is currently structured, cautioning that proposals which kept the uranium in Iranian territory would not be acceptable.
 
    Two weeks before Obama visited China, 2 senior White House officials traveled to Beijing on a "special mission" to try to persuade China to pressure Iran to give up its alleged nuclear weapons program.
    If Beijing did not help the US on this issue, the consequences could be severe, the visitors, Dennis Ross and Jeffrey Bader, both senior officials in the National Security Council, informed the Chinese.
 
    Iran's defence minister on Wednesday predicted more wars in the volatile Middle East, ISNA news agency reported.
    The general said Iran's armed forces should always be fully prepared and especially show their power of deterrence to assure enemies that any attacks would be futile.

 
    When he entered office, Barack Obama promised to inject US foreign policy with a new tone of respect and diplomacy. His recent trip to Asia, however, showed that it's not working. A shift to Bush-style bluntness may be coming.
 
    The Obama administration is close to announcing its decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan.
    Tragically, it appears that Obama is doing exactly what his neoconservative critics desired.
    The Obama-enamored media is trying to spin the 35,000 troop escalation as a pragmatic compromise but Antiwar.com reports that the troop build-up only reflects how over-extended the US Armed Forces are.
 
    Modern definitions of nation and state are the product of centralization and the mischaracterization of the federal government as a "national government."
 
 
 
    An animated US map shows the "geography of a recession" – unemployment rates over the past 2 years.
 
    The US dollar has hit a 14-year low against the Japanese yen with low interest rates in the US making the greenback less attractive to investors.
 
    Gold climbed to the highest price ever ($1,189), capping the longest rally in 27 years, as the dollar's slump deepened and on a report that India's central bank may add to last month's 200 metric-ton purchase.
    "There is a lot of central-bank buying, hedge-fund buying and gold is obviously getting to $1,200 an ounce before the end of the year. Funds and central banks around the world are nervous about the future of the US dollar and the world economy, and that's why they are buying gold."
 
    Stephen Jen from the hedge fund Blue Gold Capital has a warning for those who think that gold has risen far too high, is necessarily in a speculative bubble, and must soon come clattering back down.
    Jen is an expert on sovereign wealth funds from his days at Morgan Stanley.
    The gold story — essentially — is that the rising economic powers of Asia, the Middle East, and the commodity bloc are rejecting Western fiat currencies. China, India, and Russia have all been buying gold on a large scale over recent months.
 
    At present, the Federal Reserve is trying to prevent a total economic collapse. But the US economy shows no signs of coming back, with no economic driver emerging that could bring it back.
 
    An offshore corporate cartel is bankrupting the US economy -- by design.
    Could it be that a worldwide regime, controlled by an unelected corporate elite, is implementing a system that will dominate all human activity and establish a system of neo-feudal slavery?
    Watch the Fall of the Republic, and decide for yourself.
 
    This is the ultimate poker game and whosoever blinks first loses and will suffer irreparable financial consequences.
    The US economy will be spiraling out of control in the coming months and will reach critical point by the end of the 1st quarter 2010 and implode by the 2nd quarter.
    The massive US$ trillions of dollars stimulus has failed to turn the economy around. The massive blood transfusion may have kept the patient alive, but there are numerous signs of multi-organ failure.
    There will be another wave of foreclosures of residential and more importantly commercial properties by end December and early 2010. And the foreclosed properties in 2009 will lead to depressed prices once they come through the pipeline.
    Home and commercial property values will plunge. Banks' balance sheets will turn ugly and whatever "record profits" in the last two quarters of 2009 will not cover the additional red ink.
 
    Within Germany's top political circles fear is growing of a 2nd international financial crash exceeding in intensity and impact that of autumn 2008.
    The enormous stock market bubble that has formed over the past 8 months is seen as the biggest source of danger of another crash. The prices of crude oil, copper and other raw materials have also more than doubled. These enormous increases are not based upon any corresponding economic growth.
    The rally in stock prices is due to the enormous liquidity that governments and central banks have pumped into the economy. Financial establishments are able to borrow unlimited sums of money from the central banks at virtually zero interest, and thus make high profits from their speculative deals.
    This is the background to the warnings of Merkel, Schäuble and Trichet. They fear that the shameless enrichment of the financial oligarchy, linked with a new crisis on the financial markets, could unleash an uncontrollable social rebellion.
    Many experts consider another financial crash to be inevitable.
    This week's edition of Der Spiegel, ran the following sensationalized headline, comic book-style, on its front page: "The trillion-bomb."
    The 12-page accompanying article begins by asserting that the question is not whether the present stock market bubble bursts, but when.
 
    Dubai has shocked investors by asking for a debt standstill at Dubai World, the government's flagship holding company that has developed some of the world's most extravagant real estate projects. The move raised the spectre of default in the Middle East's trading hub.
 
    A growing number of American shops will be opening on Thanksgiving Day amid retailers' fears of low consumer spending over the crucial holiday period.
 
    So we go back to square one: A distorted and troubled economy. A population addicted to buying things. A manipulated media.
    And, many signs of deeper trouble ahead as wars are escalated and Congress is paralyzed along parochial and partisan lines.
    Unfortunately, a feast followed by a shop till we drop orgy will not change any of this.
 
 
 
    Canada is still investigating an unusually high rate of a side effect known as anaphylaxis from a batch of GlaxoSmithKline Plc's swine flu vaccine, health officials said.
 
    Adrian Gibbs, the virologist who said in May that swine flu may have escaped from a laboratory, published his findings, renewing discussion about the origins of the pandemic virus.
    The new H1N1 strain, which was discovered in Mexico and the US in April, may be the product of 3 strains from 3 continents that swapped genes in a lab or a vaccine-making plant, Gibbs, and fellow Australian scientists wrote in Virology Journal.
    They analyzed the genetic makeup of the virus and found its origin could be more simply explained by human involvement than a coincidence of nature.
 
 
 
    As a sobering example of how members of Congress can be spoon-fed the views and even the exact words of high-powered lobbying firms, consider remarks inserted into the Congressional Record after the debate and vote on health care reform in the House.
    Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world's largest biotechnology companies.
    There should be no doubt about the power the drug industry wields in shaping the US health care system.
    Big pharma has been the driving force behind conventional medicine, and the beneficiaries of exploding health care costs for well over a century, and there are no signs that the current health care reform will change any of this.
 
     Part of the country is effectively under martial law. Is this evidence of a creeping coup by the military? A war between drug cartels? Between the president and his opposition? Or just collateral damage from the (US-supported) war on drugs?
    Nobody knows: Mexico is where facts, like people, simply disappear. The stakes for the US are high, especially as the prospect of a failed state on our southern border begins to seem all too real.
 
    The Senate's leading global-warming skeptic says he plans to demand an investigation into the allegedly fraudulent data manipulation unveiled at a highly influential British research center, and another prominent analyst says he's heard enough and there should be prosecutions.
 
    Worshippers travelled long distances, many coming from neighbouring India, to attend the Gadhimai festival which is held every 5 years in southern Nepal to appease the Hindu goddess of power.
 
    Jesus Christ could have come to Britain to further his education, according to a Scottish academic. Church of Scotland minister Dr Gordon Strachan makes the claim in a new film entitled And Did Those Feet.
    He examines the story of Jesus' supposed visit, which survives in the popular hymn Jerusalem.
    "It is generally suggested that he came to the west of England with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, who was here for tin."
 
    Traditionally, religious wars were fought with swords and sieges; today, they often are fought with books. And in literary circles, these battles have usually been fought at the extremes.
 
    With all due respect to the King James Version of the Bible, its books are quite out of order!
    Now, 400 years later, a new Bible is making headlines — The Holy Bible In Its Original Order.
    It is the only complete Bible ever published — with Old and New Testaments — that follows the original, canonical manuscript order.
 
    Astronomers have found the best evidence yet for the weird idea that our universe is one of many in the 'multiverse'.
    What's more, these parallel universes seem to be exerting a strange force on our own, causing galaxy clusters to stream across space towards the edge of the known universe.
 
 
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