SATELLITES UNEARTHING ANCIENT EGYPTIAN RUINS

via CNN

(CNN) – Archaeologists believe they have unearthed only a small fraction of Egypt’s ancient ruins, but they’re making new discoveries with help from high-tech allies — satellites that peer into the past from the distance of space.art_temple_dg

“Everyone’s becoming more aware of this technology and what it can do,” said Sarah Parcak, an archaeologist who heads the Laboratory for Global Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “There is so much to learn.”

Images from space have been around for decades. Yet only in the past decade or so has the resolution of images from commercial satellites sharpened enough to be of much use to archaeologists. Today, scientists can use them to locate ruins — some no bigger than a small living room — in some of the most remote and forbidding places on the planet.

In this field, Parcak is a pioneer. Her work in Egypt has yielded hundreds of finds in regions of the Middle Egypt and the eastern Nile River Delta.

Parcak conducted surveys and expeditions in the eastern Nile Delta and Middle Egypt in 2003 and 2004 that confirmed 132 sites that were initially suggested by satellite images. Eighty-three of those sites had never been visited or recorded.

In the past two years, she has found hundreds more, she said, leading her to amend an earlier conclusion that Egyptologists have found only the tip of the iceberg.art_columns

“My estimate of 1/100th of 1 percent of all sites found is on the high side,” Parcak said.

These discoveries are of no small significance to the Egyptian government, which has devoted itself anew to protecting archaeological sites from plunder and encroachment.

The Supreme Council of Antiquities has restricted excavation in the most sensitive areas along the Nile — from the Great Pyramids at Giza on the outskirts of Cairo to the carvings of Ramses II in the remote south.

Antiquities officials hope the move will encourage more surveys in the eastern Nile Delta in northern Egypt, Parcak said, where encroaching development in the burgeoning nation of 82 million poses the greatest threat to the sites.

Old and modern methods

Parcak’s process weds modern tools with old-fashioned grunt work.

The archaeologist studies satellite images stored on a NASA database and plugs in global positioning coordinates for suspected sites, then tramps out to see them. Telltale signs such as raised elevations and pot shards can confirm the images.

As a result, the big picture comes into view.

“We can see patterns in settlements that correspond to the [historical] texts,” Parcak said, “such as if foreign invasions affected the occupation of ancient sites.

“We can see where the Romans built over what the Egyptians had built, and where the Coptic Christians built over what the Romans had built.

“It’s an incredible continuity of occupation and reuse.”

The flooding and meanders of the Nile over the millennia dictated where and how ancient Egyptians lived, and the profusion of new data has built a more precise picture of how that worked.

“Surveys give us information about broader ancient settlement patterns, such as patterns of city growth and collapse over time, that excavations do not,” said Parcak, author of a forthcoming book titled “Satellite Remote Sensing and Archaeology.”

The vagaries of climate in the region make satellite technology advantageous, too.

“Certain plants that may indicate sites grow during certain times of the year,” Parcak said, “while sites may only appear during a wet or dry season. This is different everywhere in the world.”

Archaeologists working in much more verdant climates, such as Cambodia and Guatemala, also have used the technology to divine locations of undiscovered ruins.

They have been able to see similarities between the vegetation at known sites and suspected sites that showed up in fine infrared and ultraviolet images covering wide areas of forbidding terrain.

“For the work I do [in Egypt], I need wet season images as wet soil does a better job at detecting sites with the satellite imagery data I use,” Parcak said. “I can pick the exact months I need with the NASA satellite datasets.”

Benefits of a bird’s-eye view

Remote subsurface sensing has been used in archaeology in one form or another for years, though the term “remote” doesn’t necessarily imply great distance. Typically, a surveyor has wheeled a sensing device over a marked-out area to determine what lies below.

The sensing devices employ any of an array of technologies, such as Ground Penetrating Radar. They bounce signals off objects below the surface and translate the data into images that a scientist’s trained eye can decipher.

Multispectral imaging encompasses technologies that “see” what the human eye can’t, such as infrared and ultraviolet radiation. Scientists have used it for years to study the Earth’s surface for a variety of purposes. Until resolution of these images improved, though, the only way to produce a sharp image was to be relatively close to the ground.

For those lugging unwieldy gear across jungle and desert, an effective bird’s-eye view can change the world. It lets them leave behind the days and days of meticulous “prospecting” and get results from airplane-mounted sensors or, later on, a flyover by an advanced satellite.

One of the most advanced is called QuickBird, which has been in orbit since 2001 and can provide high-resolution images of 11-mile-wide swaths. The satellite can collect nearly 29 million square miles of imagery data in a year, according to DigitalGlobe, which developed and operates QuickBird.

The company, based in Longmont, Colorado, is working on an upgrade. WorldView-2, to be launched in 2009, will offer sharper resolution of visual and multispectral images than QuickBird, according to the company’s Web site.

In the end, though, a tool is only as useful as its wielder.

“Most of the advances have come through processing on the ground by end users such as Dr. Parcak,” said DigitalGlobe spokesman Chuck Herring.

ISRAEL'S CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY CANNOT SUCEED

Israel's decision to launch its devastating attack on Gaza on a Saturday was a "stroke of brilliance", the country's biggest selling paper Yediot Aharonot crowed: "the element of surprise increased the number of people who were killed". The daily Ma'ariv agreed: "We left them in shock and awe".

Of the ferocity of the assault on one of the most overcrowded and destitute corners of the earth, there is at least no question. In the bloodiest onslaught on blockaded Gaza since it was captured and occupied by Israel 41 years ago, at least 310 people were killed and more than a thousand reported injured in the first 48 hours alone.

As well as scores of ordinary police officers incinerated in a passing-out parade, at least 56 civilians were said by the UN to have died as Israel used American-supplied F-16s and Apache helicopters to attack a string of civilian targets it linked to Hamas, including a mosque, private homes and the Islamic university. Hamas military and political facilities were mostly deserted, while police stations in residential areas were teeming as they were pulverised.

As Israeli journalist Amos Harel wrote in Ha'aretz at the weekend, "little or no weight was apparently devoted to the question of harming innocent civilians", as in US operations in Iraq. Among those killed in the first wave of strikes were eight teenage students waiting for a bus and four girls from the same family in Jabaliya, aged one to 12 years old.

Anyone who doubts the impact of these atrocities among Arabs and Muslims worldwide should switch on the satellite television stations that are watched avidly across the Middle East and which - unlike their western counterparts - do not habitually sanitise the barbarity meted out in the name of multiple wars on terror.

Then, having seen a child dying in her parent's arms live on TV, consider what sort of western response there would have been to an attack on Israel, or the US or Britain for that matter, which left more than 300 dead in a couple of days.

You can be certain it would be met with the most sweeping condemnation, that the US president-elect would do a great deal more than "monitor" the situation and the British prime minister go much further than simply call for "restraint" on both sides.

But that is in fact all they did do, though the British government has since joined the call for a ceasefire. There has, of course, been no western denunciation of the Israeli slaughter - such aerial destruction is, after all, routinely called in by the US and Britain in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan.

Instead, Hamas and the Palestinians of Gaza are held responsible for what has been visited upon them. How could any government not respond with overwhelming force to the constant firing of rockets into its territory, the Israelis demand, echoed by western governments and media.

But that is to turn reality on its head. Like the West Bank, the Gaza Strip has been - and continues to be - illegally occupied by Israel since 1967. Despite the withdrawal of troops and settlements three years ago, Israel maintains complete control of the territory by sea, air and land. And since Hamas won the Palestinian elections in 2006, Israel has punished its 1.5 million people with an inhuman blockade of essential supplies, backed by the US and the European Union.

Like any occupied people, the Palestinians have the right to resist, whether they choose to exercise it or not. But there is no right of defence for an illegal occupation - there is an obligation to withdraw comprehensively. During the last seven years, 14 Israelis have been killed by mostly homemade rockets fired from the Gaza Strip, while more than 5,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel with some of the most advanced US-supplied armaments in the world. And while no rockets are fired from the West Bank, 45 Palestinians have died there at Israel's hands this year alone. The issue is of course not just the vast disparity in weapons and power, but that one side is the occupier, the other the occupied.

Hamas is likewise blamed for last month's breakdown of the six-month tahdi'a, or lull. But, in a weary reprise of past ceasefires, it was in fact sunk by Israel's assassination of six Hamas fighters in Gaza on 5 November and its refusal to lift its siege of the embattled territory as expected under an Egyptian-brokered deal. The truth is that Israel and its western sponsors have set their face against an accommodation with the Palestinians' democratic choice and have instead thrown their political weight, cash and arms behind a sustained attempt to overthrow it.

The complete failure of that approach has brought us to this week's horrific pass. Israeli leaders believe they can bomb Hamas into submission with a "decisive blow" that will establish a "new security environment" - and boost their electoral fortunes in the process before Barack Obama comes to office.

But as with Israel's disastrous assault on Lebanon two years ago - or its earlier siege of Yasser Arafat's PLO in Beirut in 1982 - it is a strategy that cannot succeed. Even more than Hezbollah, Hamas's appeal among Palestinians and beyond doesn't derive from its puny infrastructure, or even its Islamist ideology, but its spirit of resistance to decades of injustice. So long as it remains standing in the face of this onslaught, its influence will only be strengthened. And if it is not with rockets, its retaliation is bound to take other forms, as Hamas's leader Khalid Mish'al made clear at the weekend.

Meanwhile, the US and Israeli-backed Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has been further diminished by being seen as having colluded in the Israeli assault on his own people - as has the already rock-bottom credibility of the Egyptian regime. What is now taking place in the Palestinian territories is a futile crime in which the US and its allies are deeply complicit - and unless Obama is prepared to change course, it is likely to have bitter consequences that will touch us all.

THE MYTHS OF ISRAELI VICTIMHOOD

Palestine's Guernica and the Myths of Israeli Victimhood
Mustafa Barghouthi, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative

Posted December 29, 2008

The Israeli campaign of 'death from above' began around 11 am, on Saturday morning, the 27th of December, and stretched straight through the night into this morning. The massacre continues Sunday as I write these words.

The bloodiest single day in Palestine since the War of 1967 is far from over following on Israel's promised that this is 'only the beginning' of their campaign of state terror. At least 290 people have been murdered thus far, but the body count continues to rise at a dramatic pace as more mutilated bodies are pulled from the rubble, previous victims succumb to their wounds and new casualties are created by the minute.

What has and is occurring is nothing short of a war crime, yet the Israeli public relations machine is in full-swing, churning out lies by the minute.

Once and for all it is time to expose the myths that they have created.

1. Israelis have claimed to have ended the occupation of the Gaza Strip in 2005.

While Israel has indeed removed the settlements from the tiny coastal Strip, they have in no way ended the occupation. They remained in control of the borders, the airspace and the waterways of Gaza, and have carried out frequent raids and targeted assassinations since the disengagement.

Furthermore, since 2006 Israel has imposed a comprehensive siege on the Strip. For over two years, Gazans have lived on the edge of starvation and without the most basic necessities of human life, such as cooking or heating oil and basic medications. This siege has already caused a humanitarian catastrophe which has only been exacerbated by the dramatic increase in Israeli military aggression.

2. Israel claims that Hamas violated the cease-fire and pulled out of it unilaterally.

Hamas indeed respected their side of the ceasefire, except on those occasions early on when Israel carried out major offensives in the West Bank. In the last two months, the ceasefire broke down with Israelis killing several Palestinians and resulting in the response of Hamas. In other words, Hamas has not carried out an unprovoked attack throughout the period of the cease-fire.

Israel, however, did not live up to any of its obligations of ending the siege and allowing vital humanitarian aid to resume in Gaza. Rather than the average of 450 trucks per day being allowed across the border, on the best days, only eighty have been allowed in - with the border remaining hermetically sealed 70% of the time. Throughout the supposed 'cease-fire' Gazans have been forced to live like animals, with a total of 262 dying due to the inaccessibility of proper medical care.

Now after hundreds dead and counting, it is Israel who refuses to re-enter talks over a cease-fire. They are not intent on securing peace as they claim; it is more and more clear that they are seeking regime change - whatever the cost.

3. Israel claims to be pursuing peace with 'peaceful Palestinians'.

Before the on-going massacre in the Gaza Strip, and throughout the entirety of the Annapolis Peace Process, Israel has continued and even intensified its occupation of the West Bank. In 2008, settlement expansion increased by a factor of 38, a further 4,950 Palestinians were arrested - mostly from the West Bank, and checkpoints rose from 521 to 699.

Furthermore, since the onset of the peace talks, Israel has killed 546 Palestinians, among them 76 children. These gruesome statistics are set to rise dramatically now, but previous Israeli transgressions should not be forgotten amidst this most recent horror.

Only this morning, Israel shot and killed a young peaceful protester in the West Bank village of Nihlin, and has injured dozens more over the last few hours. It is certain that they will continue to employ deadly force at non-violent demonstrations and we expect a sizable body count in the West Bank as a result. If Israel is in fact pursuing peace with 'good Palestinians', who are they talking about?

4. Israel is acting in self-defense.

It is difficult to claim self defense in a confrontation which they themselves have sparked, but they are doing it anyway. Self-defense is reactionary, while the actions of Israel over the last two days have been clearly premeditated. Not only did the Israeli press widely report the ongoing public relations campaign being undertaken by Israel to prepare Israeli and international public opinion for the attack, but Israel has also reportedly tried to convince the Palestinians that an attack was not coming by briefly opening crossings and reporting future meetings on the topic. They did so to insure that casualties would be maximized and that the citizens of Gaza would be unprepared for their impending slaughter.

It is also misleading to claim self-defense in a conflict with such an overwhelming asymmetry of power. Israel is the largest military force in the region, and the fifth largest in the world. Furthermore, they are the fourth largest exporter of arms and have a military industrial complex rivaling that of the United States. In other words, Israel has always had a comprehensive monopoly over the use of force, and much like its super power ally, Israel uses war as an advertising showcase of its many instruments of death.

5. Israel claims to have struck military targets only.

Even while image after image of dead and mutilated women and children flash across our televisions, Israel brazenly claims that their munitions expertly struck only military installations. We know this to be false as many other civilian sites have been hit by airstrikes including a hospital and mosque.

In the most densely populated area on the planet, tons upon tons of explosives have been dropped. The first estimates of injured are in the thousands. Israel will claim that these are merely 'collateral damage' or accidental deaths. The sheer ridiculousness and inhumanity of such a claim should sicken the world community.

6. Israel claims that it is attacking Hamas and not the Palestinian people.

First and foremost, missiles do not differentiate people by their political affiliation; they simply kill everyone in their path. Israel knows this, and so do Palestinians. What Israel also knows, but is not saying public ally, is how much their recent actions will actually strengthen Hamas - whose message of resistance and revenge is being echoed by the angry and grieving.

The targets of the strike, police and not Hamas militants, give us some clue as to Israel's mistaken intention. They are hoping to create anarchy in the Strip by removing the pillar of law and order.

7. Israel claims that Palestinians are the source of violence.

Let us be clear and unequivocal. The occupation of Palestine since the War of 1967 has been and remains the root of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Violence can be ended with the occupation and the granting of Palestine's national and human rights. Hamas does not control the West Bank and yet we remain occupied, our rights violated and our children killed.

With these myths understood, let us ponder the real reasons behind these airstrikes; what we find may be even more disgusting than the act itself.

The leaders Israel are holding press conferences, dressed in black, with sleeves rolled up.

'It's time to fight', they say, 'but it won't be easy.'

To prove just how hard it is, Livni, Olmert and Barak did not even wear make-up to the press conference, and Barak has ended his presidential campaign to focus on the Gaza campaign. What heroes...what leaders...

We all know the truth: the suspension of the electioneering is exactly that - electioneering.

Like John McCain's suspension of his presidential campaign to return to Washington to 'deal with' the financial crisis, this act is little more than a publicity stunt.

The candidates have to appear 'tough enough to lead', and there is seemingly no better way of doing that than bathing in Palestinian blood.

'Look at me,' Livni says in her black suit and unkempt hair, 'I am a warrior. I am strong enough to pull the trigger. Don't you feel more confident about voting for me, now that you know I am as ruthless as Bibi Netanyahu?'

I do not know which is more disturbing, her and Barak, or the constituency they are trying to please.

In the end, this will in no way improve the security of the average Israeli; in fact it can be expected to get much worse in the coming days as the massacre could presumably provoke a new generation of suicide bombers.

It will not undermine Hamas either, and it will not result in the three fools, Barak, Livni and Olmert, looking 'tough'. Their misguided political venture will likely blow up in their faces as did the brutally similar 2006 invasion of Lebanon.

In closing, there is another reason - beyond the internal politics of Israel - why this attack has been allowed to occur: the complicity and silence of the international community.

Israel cannot and would not act against the will of its economic allies in Europe or its military allies in the US. Israel may be pulling the trigger ending hundreds, perhaps even thousands of lives this week, but it is the apathy of the world and the inhumane tolerance of Palestinian suffering which allows this to occur.

'The evil only exists because the good remain silent'

From Occupied Palestine. . .

-- Dr. Mustafa Baghouthi

OP ED:TODAY I WITHDRAW MY SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL

israel_flag

via Daily Kos

Like davidminzer, I’m Jewish and descendant of holocaust survivors. Moreover, I’ve been a Zionist all of my life. I went to a Zionist school, I was active in Zionist youth groups. I’ve always been a fervent supporter of Israel as a refuge for Jews around the world who seek a place to exercise their traditions and embrace their identity in peace.

I sang the Israeli anthem in the train rails of Aushwitz-Birkenau and I pledged to fight every day of my life to make sure the savage crimes that had taken place there would never happen again. Every year I pledged: Never Again. Remember and Never forget.

Well, I haven’t forgotten. And so to honor that pledge, to honor the memory of my family members who died in those death camps and because “there comes a time when silence is betrayal”, today I finally and publicly end my support for the state of Israel.

I do this with great pain in my heart, but nonetheless with the overwhelming conviction that it is the only right thing to do. I was patient: I tolerated the destruction of the Oslo process by refusing to end or slow down the constant and criminal construction of settlements. I held my nose and stood my ground when Barak killed the final status negotiations at Taba 2001. I even remained loyal after Sharon’s massacres in the West Bank, the brutal Annexation wall, the illegal “selective assassinations” and Olmert’s war crimes in Lebanon.
I had to defend Israel and Israelis with my friends and others who demanded I be consistent with my progressive views and oppose a country that was responsible for horrible crimes against innocent human beings. “Israelis are scared, they are traumatized, you have to understand…”, “Israel is responding to attacks on itself, tell me one other country that wouldn’t respond when attacked…”, I demanded understanding, I pleaded for a fair and comparative analysis.

ENOUGH. I’m done justifying crimes against humanity by a country that claims to be an illuminated western democracy. I’m done defending a country that is unwilling to grant self-determination to a neighboring people because it won’t let go of a few settlements and divide a city. I’m done tolerating the slaughtering of innocent kids, the murderous and barbaric occupation of an impoverished people, the utter disregard for human life.
Fuck them.
If they think their daily peace of mind is worth the lives of hundreds of innocent people, Fuck them.
If they think the best way to go right now would be to vote for Natanyahu (who is so far winning in the polls), Fuck them.
If they won’t bat an eye before keeping millions without electricity or water, before bombing civilian neighborhoods at exactly the time when kids are leaving schools, before breaking every standard of international law or moral decency, Fuck them.
It’s time for every true progressive in this country and around the world to do the only thing that our consciences should allow us to do, the only thing that can keep us consistent with our supposed beliefs that human life is precious and that unnecessary violence is always criminal, barbarous and unacceptable. We must demand that Israel stop violence and immediately put an end to its colonialist military occupation of Palestine.
And until they do so, we must organize and do everything we can to make sure our money is not financing mass murder and oppression.
It is time for the progressive movement to demand immediate Divestment from Israel, just like we divested from other oppressive states like South Africa.
The only reason not to do so is willful hypocrisy.
And I don’t know about you, but I’m done being a hypocrite.
Unnecessary murder of innocents is always wrong.
Selfish and unjustifiable occupation is always wrong.
Inaction in the face of massive suffering and injustice is always wrong.
It is thus our responsibility to make sure Obama and the rest of our leaders understand that this time we will be relentless, this time we mean business and this time we will honor our pledges.

NEVER AGAIN!

DIVEST NOW!

Peace
Salaam
Shalom

PRESIDENT SCHWARZENEGGER?? ARNOLD IS READY FOR THE TOP JOB IN 2012

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California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger tells "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley that he would "absolutely" like to be U.S. president if the Constitution could be changed to allow foreign-born Americans to run for the White House.

"Well, you're a man of no small ambition. If the Constitution was changed, you'd like to be president, wouldn't you?" Pelley asked.


"Yeah, absolutely," Schwarzenegger acknowledged. "I think that I am always a person that looks for the next big goal. And I love challenges. I always set goals that are so high, that are almost impossible to achieve. Because then, you're always hungry for climbing and climbing. Because it's always interesting. The climb is always interesting. When you get there you just have to pick another goal."

Schwarzenegger also reveals one of his classic weight-lifting tricks: put smaller weights on for the camera and use wooden plates to make it seem as if you're lifting more:

"I mean, when you do it for the cameras you do only 50, so you take it easy. You don't kill yourself," Schwarzenegger replied, laughing.


Asked if that's the trick, Schwarzenegger said, "Oh yeah. Absolutely. I remember when I did this scene in 'Stay Hungry' at the squats with Sally Fields watching there. And I had to do it over and over again. And I had 225 pounds on it, as I learned very quickly, put on wooden plates."

MEXICAN BEAUTY QUEEN ARRESTED IN TRUCK FILLED WITH GUNS & THUGS

GUADALAJARA, Mexico -- A reigning Mexican beauty queen from the drug-plagued state of Sinaloa was arrested with suspected gang members in a truck filled guns and ammunition, police said Tuesday.

Miss Sinaloa 2008 Laura Zuniga stared at the ground, with her flowing dark hair concealing her face, as she stood squeezed between seven alleged gunmen lined up before journalists. Soldiers wearing ski masks guarded the 23-year-old model and the suspects.

Zuniga was arrested shortly before midnight Monday at a military checkpoint in Zapopan, just outside the colonial city of Guadalajara, said Jalisco state police director, Francisco Alejandro Solorio.

Zuniga was riding in one of two trucks, where soldiers found a large stash of weapons, including two AR-15 assault rifles, 38 specials, 9mm handguns, nine magazines, 633 cartridges and $53,300 in U.S. currency, Solorio said.

Zuniga told police that she was planning on traveling to Bolivia and Colombia with the men to go shopping, Solorio said.

When the former preschool teacher won Miss Sinaloa in July she gave an impassioned speech about how society should value women more, especially mothers. In October, she won the Hispanoamerican Queen beauty contest in October against competitors from across Latin America.

She placed third in the Nuestra Belleza Mexico pageant in Monterrey in September. That pageant sends its winner to the Miss Universe contest. For placing third, she was expected to represent Mexico in the 2009 Miss International contest.
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Zuniga is from the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa, the home of the powerful cartel of the same name. It was not immediately known whether Zuniga and the men were being investigated for drug ties.

Lupita Jones, the national director of Nuestra Belleza Mexico, released a statement distancing the organization from Zuniga. Jones also said Nuestra Belleza knew nothing about "any illicit activity in which she could be involved."

The organization also says it will await the results of the investigation before making any decision about whether to strip Zuniga of her crown.

"Since 1994, Nuestra Belleza has been a serious, honest and transparent organization dedicated exclusively to preparing Mexican women to successfully represent our country en various contests and whose object is to show the beauty, value and intelligence of each one of them," Jones said.

Tatiana Limpias of Gloria promotions, which organizes the Hispanoamerican contest in Bolivia, told The Associated Press that their lawyers were also looking into the matter before making a decision about her crown.

WORLDS BIGGEST PONZI SCHEME UNFOLDING BEFORE YOUR EYES

The Purpose of the Economic Meltdown
December16, 2008
By: Carolyn Harris

We all know economic depression here, and some of us have an inkling about what is coming. The governments vacillate between spewing gloom and doom and ridiculous ‘happy fun clown time’ gibberish at the great unwashed masses depending upon whether they want fools to buy into the stock market at that particular time to make certain fat cats even richer, or they want those fools to sell and lose almost everything.
The housing bubble has been popped, the stock market is crashing and pensions are being siphoned off minute by minute. It’s clear that gold is being manipulated at the same time the dollar is going down. The contortionate “credit instruments” and exotic book-keeping (what an oxymoron that is) methods of investment houses, bankers and large businesses have all happened in a top-down way on purpose. The more they ripped off the little guy the bigger their commission and bonus; it is a system that thrives, indeed lives off of insatiable greed. And the monsters near the top aren’t sweating one bit. They know what is happening and they know what is coming next.
The fiat currency house of cards is tumbling down because the international bankers just exhaled a puff of the expensive smoke from their Cuban Cohiba Behike cigar and blew on it. In other words, it was planned. It is time now for the next phase of their plan.
It’s high time someone put it all together, without focusing on individual trees. There is a reason that the system was set up this way; there is a reason why home loans were offered to folks who couldn’t possibly pay them back and there is a reason why this all happening.
Put succinctly, this is all part of the Agenda 21 plan. Look closely at the map and notice just how much land area are “little or no human activity” zones. Notice how the small towns have disappeared and there are only major cities with specific travel corridors between them. That’s right, losing your job, your house, your land is part of their plan. NAFTA, CAFTA and GATT were part of this plan were enacted to get rid of the American manufacturing base and all the associated jobs. Without a home (or any viable housing options), a job and food, you have no other choice but to go where those necessities are located: the city.
The massive migration to the cities. The documents state in no uncertain terms that they “predict” (read: plan) class warfare (.pdf) as the middle class disappears and most will be reduced to abject poverty in said swelling cities. The documents and articles explain that the “bio-fuel” scam will wreak havoc with the world’s food supply, that GMO crops lead to less yield and that the uber rich are going to have to hide for a while to escape the hordes of angry, hungry and dirty people.
Realize that when one takes out a home loan, the bank actually owns the house until it’s completely paid off. If a mortgage isn’t paid, possession reverts to the banks. Only the wealthy are able to buy property at this time, and they certainly don’t want your three bedroom 2.5 bath brick rambler. This begs the question - what will be done with all these vacant houses?
Logic dictates that they must be rendered unusable. Most likely they will be stripped of copper and condemned and later bulldozed. They can’t have any “non-cooperative human subjects” fleeing the stinking cesspit cities for the fresh air of the country, now can they? They will have to render all repossessed houses unlivable in the “little or no human activity” zones.
Concomitant to the orchestrated mortgage meltdown, there is the Orwellian-sounding planned “credit crunch” - meaning that businesses who operated on the knife-edge and had to use credit to continue operating day-to-day are no longer able to get the credit they require. No more ships bringing in goods, truckers able to deliver goods, employers able to pay employees. The domino effect which we have begun to see will enlarge to horrific corporations, rendering those crappy burger-flipping jobs an enviable situation, except that people won’t even be able to afford those crappy burgers. Grocery stores run completely out of stock in three days; without stock being brought to them by trucks, it makes for a desperate situation and desperate people.
Without jobs, no one can consume, without consumption the entire US economy collapses. The US government is in the process of defaulting on it’s debts - SmartMoney.com said, “short-term Treasury yields actually turned negative.” The US Dollar will have to be demonetized at some point in 2009 which will instantly render all paper currency worldwide totally valueless. With empty grocery stores and no means of exchange, there will be food riots very quickly. Be assured that power companies, television and cable will still be working at that time, even though other business will not be. This is important to the plan because everyone will be glued to their “tee-vee” waiting for Mother Government to tell them what is going on and what they should do. And the New World Order plan will shift into high gear at that point.
Local representatives of Mother Government will announce that all hungry, desperate people should all go quietly and calmly to the nearest school, community center or some other large place and Mother Government will “help” them, feed them and their children. This, of course, will be the pick up points to transport people to FEMA camps (all 1400 of them) so they can be ‘taken care of’ and provided with the things they need. Here is the document that says exactly how people will be processed in. Here is the list of Executive Orders allowing the President to nix the Constitution, suspend the Congress and institute Martial Law, separate families, remove entire communities, take possession of all communication, food sources, water supplies and so on. And woe unto you if you have a skill that would be helpful to Mother Government! You can be conscripted, without remuneration and they don’t have to return you. How is that for an employer from hell?
After most hungry and scared sheeple obey the talking head on the “tee-vee” and go willingly to the camps, there will be some who have heeded the advice and taken steps necessary to provide emergency food, buy guns and ammunition and safety gear for themselves and their families. These hold-outs will be problematic for Mother Government and the New World Order plan. Rest assured that as people are processed into the camps and their information entered into the IRIS system, it will be checked against the consolidated databases and the hold-out’s names will be noted. Remember, once Martial Law is declared due to the emergency of dollar demonetization, there is no more Constitution, there are no more rights. Hold-outs will be considered enemies of the State.
When most Americans are ’safely’ within the clutches of FEMA, the squalid conditions, lack of medication, forced vaccinations, and sub-standard, irradiated and non-nutritive food will cause many deaths, but that’s fine because it is further depopulation. More people dead = less slaves to manage. Some will be assigned to work crews to demolish the abandoned and repossessed houses in the “no human activity zones,” others will be working on the cities for the massive influx of slaves [EO 1104], once the work is done and the controllers are ready to repopulate the cities.
Mother Government has an electronic dossier on each person containing any and all information obtainable - that given willingly to Mother Government and that gleaned from extensive data-mining operations, legal and illegal. It contains not only school and medical records, travel, employment and purchasing history, social network, communications, your political leanings and everything else they can get their hands on, and it all adds up to your “data double” for which they run algorithms to figure out your personality, and mental and emotional state. It contains everything there is to know about you that they can obtain, and they think they know you. With this information, they run simulations to determine what your reaction will be to any given stimulus, and the reaction of others with a similar profile, to determine the best way to eliminate you.
With extensive satellite and land-based surveillance, smart dust and other technologies, they will be able to determine where the hold-outs are, and with the results of their simulations, the best way to mitigate the trouble a hold-out may cause. This will include massive aerial spraying in order to sicken hold-outs, ruin crops and kill livestock not already in the hands of Mother Government. There will be no mercy, as those who think for themselves and truly value freedom are the most dangerous to their plan.
But do no forget that more people are waking up every day due to the dedicated and dynamic efforts of Patriots everywhere; and there are many, many more of us than there are of them. If we redouble our efforts at education (especially of law enforcement and military) and preparation, we have a real chance at not only slowing down the nefarious New World Order plan, but stopping it. Only five per cent of the population fought the British in the Revolutionary war - the colonists were out-gunned, out-manned and out-spent, but their determination to be free outweighed everything that was thrown at them. What we face is a much greater tyranny and truly diabolical people who are bent on the near destruction of the human race.
This is a hellish, nightmarish scenario, but if one reads the documents the plan is laid bare for all to see. Time is very, very short, and those who understand must do everything in their power to educate others and prepare for what is coming. If you don’t take care of yourself, Mother Government will.

BIGGEST BAILOUT PAYOUT TO EXCEED 8 TRILLION DOLLARS!!!

As the holiday season commences, it’s worth taking stock of the last gift that President George W. Bush and the 110th Congress have left for U.S. taxpayers.

It’s a package of about $8.7 trillion dollars’ worth of potential taxpayer commitments for loans, guarantees and other bailout goodies for businesses and distressed homeowners.

Amid the tissue paper:

• More than $1.5 trillion in Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. loan guarantees, including a $139 billion assist to the lending arm of General Electric Corp.

• $1.8 trillion in cash, tax breaks and loan guarantees doled out from the Treasury Department to taxpayers, financial institutions and credit companies.

• $300 billion for homeowners from the Federal Housing Authority.

• $25 billion in assistance for auto companies from a program overseen by the Energy Department, which is separate from the bailout proposal that tanked last week in the Senate.

• And $5 trillion worth of new money, loan guarantees and loosened lending requirements from the Federal Reserve Bank.

According to Bianco Research President James Bianco, who crunched these numbers, that amounts to more government aid and assistance than nine other historic bailouts and big government outlays combined.

The New Deal, for instance, cost an estimated $32 billion in its day, which would be about $500 billion in today’s dollars. The Marshall Plan cost about $12.7 billion, which is the equivalent of a paltry $115.3 billion. The Louisiana Purchase? The French got $15 million, which would be worth about $217 billion today.

If you take those three items, add in the adjusted costs of the Race to the Moon, the savings and loan crisis, the Korean War, the Iraq war, the Vietnam War and assistance for NASA, you still get to just $3.92 trillion — not even half of the taxpayers’ exposure today, according to Bianco.


If that weren’t enough to make you want to upgrade your holiday gift list, it’s useful to remember that Congress isn’t done and President-elect Barack Obama’s team hasn’t even started.



They are promising a newer and bigger stimulus package early next year — one that could make last spring’s $168 billion government giveaway to taxpayers (remember that fixer?) look like pocket change.

Asked just how much the taxpayers are on the hook for, Bianco said: “I just say you should use the number infinity, because nobody understands these numbers, and I would include the Treasury secretary and chairman of the Fed in that group.”

There is a bright side, sort of. Only about $2.9 trillion of the government money, loans and guarantees have actually been spent or committed.

And some of the deals are structured with the idea that taxpayers could one day make money off them by selling pieces of companies or the government’s new stake in them.

But that can’t be done until the economy rebounds, something that most economists aren’t yet willing to predict — probably because it would be even more depressing.

Now, all this is not to say that these measures weren’t necessary to save consumers from an even worse fate. That’s a big unanswered question that now will be left to speculators.

But the vast majority of the smart economic crowd, from both sides of the aisle, say the job losses and economic calamity that would have ensued without government intervention today would make the Great Depression look like an economic hiccup.

“If we don’t fix this, it doesn’t matter if we can’t pay for it,” said Heather Boushey, a senior economist at the Center for American Progress. “The problem will only get worse and become harder and even more expensive to fix.”

Meanwhile, she said, unemployment rates could soar abruptly, as they did during the Depression. “Every person who loses a job could also lose a house and health insurance and the ability to pay for college,” she added. “We could lose a generation.”

Given that, it was something of a wonder when Senate Republicans quashed a $14 billion rescue plan last week for domestic automakers.

Republicans had taken a beating on Election Day, in part because of resentment within their own base at the bailout bonanza in Washington.

But the automakers’ request seems a pittance given all the taxpayer cash already flooding the private market.

Part of the answer might have come from an Obama-style Internet campaign launched by FreedomWorks, a grass-roots organization led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas).

FreedomWorks purchased Google search ads that popped up any time someone clicked for information about the auto bailout. The ad urged people to oppose the measure.

Thomas Keeley, the organization’s online advertising specialist, said the ad helped them generate nearly 100,000 messages to Congress. “We did very well, especially given the limited time we had on this,” he said.

The auto industry wasn’t idle. General Motors and Ford also took out Google search ads urging support for the package — a message that would have been tough to deliver in a big television ad campaign.

The cyberspace campaigns are likely a harbinger of how future bailout battles will be waged once Obama takes office with an e-mail list of more than 10 million supporters.

Already, Peter Greenberger, who’s heading up Google’s new issues advocacy sales team, says he’s warning interest groups that may take a stand on either side of the Democrats’ expected trillion-dollar stimulus package not “to organize a 20th-century advocacy campaign against a 21st-century administration.”

WELCOME TO THE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT

via Financial Times

I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

A “world government” would involve much more than co-operation between nations. It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.

So could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might.

First, it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national governments are international in nature: there is global warming, a global financial crisis and a “global war on terror”.

Second, it could be done. The transport and communications revolutions have shrunk the world so that, as Geoffrey Blainey, an eminent Australian historian, has written: “For the first time in human history, world government of some sort is now possible.” Mr Blainey foresees an attempt to form a world government at some point in the next two centuries, which is an unusually long time horizon for the average newspaper column.

But – the third point – a change in the political atmosphere suggests that “global governance” could come much sooner than that. The financial crisis and climate change are pushing national governments towards global solutions, even in countries such as China and the US that are traditionally fierce guardians of national sovereignty.

Barack Obama, America’s president-in-waiting, does not share the Bush administration’s disdain for international agreements and treaties. In his book, The Audacity of Hope, he argued that: “When the world’s sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these are rules worth following.” The importance that Mr Obama attaches to the UN is shown by the fact that he has appointed Susan Rice, one of his closest aides, as America’s ambassador to the UN, and given her a seat in the cabinet.

A taste of the ideas doing the rounds in Obama circles is offered by a recent report from the Managing Global Insecurity project, whose small US advisory group includes John Podesta, the man heading Mr Obama’s transition team and Strobe Talbott, the president of the Brookings Institution, from which Ms Rice has just emerged.

The MGI report argues for the creation of a UN high commissioner for counter-terrorist activity, a legally binding climate-change agreement negotiated under the auspices of the UN and the creation of a 50,000-strong UN peacekeeping force. Once countries had pledged troops to this reserve army, the UN would have first call upon them.

These are the kind of ideas that get people reaching for their rifles in America’s talk-radio heartland. Aware of the political sensitivity of its ideas, the MGI report opts for soothing language. It emphasises the need for American leadership and uses the term, “responsible sovereignty” – when calling for international co-operation – rather than the more radical-sounding phrase favoured in Europe, “shared sovereignty”. It also talks about “global governance” rather than world government.

But some European thinkers think that they recognise what is going on. Jacques Attali, an adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, argues that: “Global governance is just a euphemism for global government.” As far as he is concerned, some form of global government cannot come too soon. Mr Attali believes that the “core of the international financial crisis is that we have global financial markets and no global rule of law”.

So, it seems, everything is in place. For the first time since homo sapiens began to doodle on cave walls, there is an argument, an opportunity and a means to make serious steps towards a world government.

But let us not get carried away. While it seems feasible that some sort of world government might emerge over the next century, any push for “global governance” in the here and now will be a painful, slow process.

There are good and bad reasons for this. The bad reason is a lack of will and determination on the part of national, political leaders who – while they might like to talk about “a planet in peril” – are ultimately still much more focused on their next election, at home.

But this “problem” also hints at a more welcome reason why making progress on global governance will be slow sledding. Even in the EU – the heartland of law-based international government – the idea remains unpopular. The EU has suffered a series of humiliating defeats in referendums, when plans for “ever closer union” have been referred to the voters. In general, the Union has progressed fastest when far-reaching deals have been agreed by technocrats and politicians – and then pushed through without direct reference to the voters. International governance tends to be effective, only when it is anti-democratic.

The world’s most pressing political problems may indeed be international in nature, but the average citizen’s political identity remains stubbornly local. Until somebody cracks this problem, that plan for world government may have to stay locked away in a safe at the UN.

ANARCHIST YOUTH RIOT THRU GREEK STREETS!!

ATHENS, Greece (AP) - The fatal police shooting of a teenager has set off Greece's worst rioting in years, with hooded youths rampaging through Athens and the northern city of Thessaloniki over the weekend.

Gangs smashed stores, torched cars and erected burning barricades in the streets of the Greek capital and the country's second largest city in a dramatic eruption of a long-tolerated self-styled anarchist movement.

Rioting began in several cities within hours of the death of a 15-year-old who was shot Saturday night in Exarchia, a downtown Athens district of bars, music clubs and restaurants that is seen as the anarchists' home base. Soon dozens of stores, banks and cars were ablaze. Police said 24 policemen were injured, and one remained in hospital on Sunday morning.

The violence was the most severe since rioting in 1999 during a visit to Greece of then U.S. President Bill Clinton. The last time a teenager was killed in a police shooting - during a demonstration in 1985 - it sparked weeks of frequent rioting.


(AP) A firefighter gestures in front of a burning Emporiki Bank branch during clashes in central Athens...
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The circumstances surrounding Saturday's shooting were unclear, and Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos has promised a thorough investigation and the punishment of anyone found responsible.

"It is inconceivable for there not to be punishment when a person loses their life, particularly when it is a child," he said. "The taking of life is something that is not excusable in a democracy."

Police said the two officers involved claimed they were attacked by a group of youths, and that three gunshots and a stun grenade were fired in response.

The two officers have been suspended, arrested and charged, one with premeditated manslaughter and the illegal use of a weapon, and the other as an accomplice. They are to appear before a court Wednesday. The Exarchia precinct police chief has been suspended.

A blurry video shot by a bystander from a nearby balcony that purportedly shows the incident has been shown on local television and posted on the Internet. Two sounds that could be gunshots can be heard, but the image is too blurry and distant to show the sequence of events clearly.


(AP) A riot policeman throw a stone at protesters during clashes in central Athens on Sunday, Dec. 7,...
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Pavlopoulos and Deputy Interior Minister Panagiotis Chinofotis submitted their resignations after Saturday's rioting, but they were not accepted by the prime minister.

The violence died down Sunday morning, only to begin again as afternoon demonstrations in Athens and Thessaloniki to protest the boy's death degenerated into running battles between Molotov cocktail-throwing youths and riot police firing tear gas.

In Thessaloniki, protesters attacked City Hall, two police precincts, several shops and a bank, as well Greek television channel vehicles.

Dozens of stores in central Athens went up in flames or saw their storefronts smashed. At least two buildings were destroyed by fire, as was a Ford car dealership. Streets were littered with jagged chunks of paving stones and rocks thrown at riot police, as well as shattered glass from storefronts and banks.

"I understand the anger (for the teenager's death) and the right to demonstrate it," Pavlopoulos said Sunday night. "What is inconceivable is the raw violence that undermines social peace and turns against the property of innocent people."


(AP) A Ford dealership burns during clashes in central Athens on Sunday, Dec. 7, 2008. Riots broke out...
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As darkness fell, groups of youths, some masked and others wearing motorcycle helmets, used trash cans and overturned cars to erect burning barricades in the streets around the Athens Polytechnic. Clouds of tear gas hung in the air, sending passers-by rushing for cover. Other curious onlookers peeped out from street corners, using mobile phones to snap pictures.

Local media reported several people sought treatment for breathing problems, but no serious injuries were reported.

Greece has seen frequent and sometimes violent demonstrations in recent months against the increasingly unpopular conservative government of Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and his economic reforms. Karamanlis has also seen his popularity plummet due to a land scandal that has put the opposition Socialists consistently ahead in opinion polls.

Violence often breaks out during demonstrations in Greece between riot police and anarchists, who also attack banks, high-end shops, diplomatic vehicles and foreign car dealerships in late-night fire-bombings that rarely cause injuries.

The self-styled anarchist movement partly has its roots in the resistance to the military dictatorship that ruled Greece from 1967-74. The youths often take refuge inside university buildings or campuses, from which police are barred under Greek law.

The youths, who often march in demonstrations under the red and black anarchist banner, espouse general anti-capitalist and antiestablishment principles, and have long-running animosity toward the police as well as the media.

Full details of how much damage was caused in the two days of rioting were not immediately available.

---_

Associated Press writers Costas Kantouris in Thessaloniki and Dimitris Nellas in Athens contributed to this report.

BREAKDOWN OF BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMAS NAME

EDITORS NOTE:INTERESTING ARTICLE VERY INFORMMATIVE TO ALL THOSE WHO WISH TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THEIR NEW PRESIDENT THIS PHENOMANAL BLACK ASIATIC WHO COMES OUT OF NOWHERE AND CAPTURES THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF MILLIONS,TO ALL MY MOORS YOU WILL NOTICE THE AUTHOR MENTIONS HIS BLOODLINE IS TIED INTO SPAIN AND THE MOORS WHO RULED THAT REGION DURING THAT TIME
Informed Comment

Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute

Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Barack Hussein Obama, Omar Bradley, Benjamin Franklin and other Semitically Named American Heroes

At Cincinnati, Bill Cunningham, according to the LAT, who "introduced presidential candidate John McCain at a rally here today accused Barack Obama of sympathizing with 'world leaders who want to kill us' and invoked Obama's middle name -- three times calling him 'Barack Hussein Obama.' " John McCain repudiated Cunningham's low tactics and said that using the middle name like that three times was "inappropriate" and would never happen again at one of his rallies.

I want to say something about Barack Hussein Obama's name. It is a name to be proud of. It is an American name. It is a blessed name. It is a heroic name, as heroic and American in its own way as the name of General Omar Nelson Bradley or the name of Benjamin Franklin. And denigrating that name is a form of racial and religious bigotry of the most vile and debased sort. It is a prejudice against names deriving from Semitic languages!



Christian, Western heroes have often been bequeathed Middle Eastern names. Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, the medieval Spanish hero, carried the name El Cid, from the Arabic al-Sayyid, "the lord."

Barack and Hussein are Semitic words. Americans have been named with Semitic names since the founding of the Republic. Fourteen of our 43 presidents have had Semitic names (see below). And, American English contains many Arabic-derived words that we use every day and without which we would be much impoverished. America is a world civilization with a world heritage, something Cunninghamism will never understand.

Barack is a Semitic word meaning "to bless" as a verb or "blessing" as a noun. In its Hebrew form, barak, it is found all through the Bible. It first occurs in Genesis 1:22: "And God blessed (ḇāreḵə ) them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth."

Here is a list of how many times barak appears in each book of the Bible.

Now let us take the name "Hussein." It is from the Semitic word, hasan, meaning "good" or "handsome." Husayn is the diminutive, affectionate form.

Barack Obama's middle name is in honor of his grandfather, Hussein, a secular resident of Nairobi. Americans may think of Saddam Hussein when they hear the name, but that is like thinking of Stalin when you hear the name Joseph. There have been lots of Husseins in history, from the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, a hero who touched the historian Gibbon, to King Hussein of Jordan, one of America's most steadfast allies in the 20th century. The author of the beloved American novel, The Kite Runner, is Khaled Hosseini.

But in Obama's case, it is just a reference to his grandfather.

It is worth pointing out that John McCain's adopted daughter, Bridget, is originally from Bangladesh. Since Hussein is a very common name in Bangladesh, it is entirely possible that her birth father or grandfather was named Hussein. McCain certainly has Muslim relatives via adoption in his family. If Muslim relatives are a disqualification from high office in the United States, then McCain himself is in trouble. In fact, since Bridget is upset that George W. Bush doesn't like her "because she is black," and used her to stop the McCain campaign in South Carolina in 2000, you understand why McCain would be especially sensitive to race-baiting of Cunningham's sort. The question is how vigorously he will combat it; he hasn't been above Muslim-taunting in the campaign so far. (And, the McCains really should let Bridget know that she is Asian, not "black." The poor girl; Bush and Rove have done a number on her, and Cindy's confusion can't help.)

The other thing to say about grandfathers named Hussein is that very large numbers of African-Americans probably have an ancestor ten or eleven generations ago with that name, in what is now Mali or Senegal or Nigeria. And, since so many thousands of Arab Muslims were made to convert to Catholicism in Spain after 1501, many Latinos have distant ancestors named Hussein, too. In fact, since there was a lot of Arab-Spanish intermarriage, and since there was subsequent Spanish intermarriage with other European Catholics, more European Americans are descended from a Hussein than they realize. The British royal family is quite forthright about the Arab line in their ancestry going back to Andalusia.

Obama, being a cousin of Dick Cheney on one side and having relatives in Kenya on the other, is just more and more typical of the 21st century United States.

So, anyway, Obama's first two names mean "Blessing, the Good." If we are lucky enough to get him for president, we can only hope that his names are prophetic for us.

Which brings me to Omar Bradley. Omar is an alternative spelling of Umar, i.e. Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph of Sunni Islam. Presumably General Bradley was named for the poet Omar Khayyam, who bore the caliph's name. Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat, in the "translation" of Edward FitzGerald, became enormously popular in Victorian America.

Gen. Omar Bradley, who bore a Semitic, Muslim first name, and shared it with the second Caliph of Sunni Islam, was the hero of D-Day and Normandy, of the Battle of the Bulge and the Ruhr.



Would Mr. Cunningham see Omar Bradley as un-American, as an enemy because of his name?

What about other American heroes, such as Gen. George Joulwan, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander of Europe? "Joulwan" is an Arabic name. Or there is Gen. John Abizaid, former CENTCOM commander. Abizaid is an Arabic name. Abi means Abu or "father of," and Zaid is a common Arab first name. Is Cunningham good enough to wipe their shoes? Is he going to call them traitors because they have Arabic names?



What about Congressman Darrell Issa of California? ("`Isa" means Jesus in Arabic). Former cabinet secretary Donna Shalala? (Shalala means "waterfall" in Arabic).

I won't go into all the great Americans with Arabic names in sports, entertainment and business, against whom Cunningham would apparently discriminate on that basis. Does he want to take citizenship away from Kareem Abdul Jabbar [meaning "noble the servant of the Mighty"] and Ahmad Jamal [meaning "the most praised, beauty"]? What about Rihanna ["sweet basil," "aromatic"]? Tony Shalhoub [i.e. Mr. Monk]?

Let us take Benjamin Franklin. His first name is from the Hebrew Bin Yamin, the son of the Right (hand), or son of strength, or the son of the South (yamin or right has lots of connotations). The "Bin" means "son of," just as in modern colloquial Arabic. Bin Yamin Franklin is not a dishonorable name because of its Semitic root. By the way, there are lots of Muslims named Bin Yamin.

As for an American president bearing a name derived from a Semitic language, that is hardly unprecedented.

John Adams really only had Semitic names. His first name is from the Hebrew Yochanan, or gift of God, which became Johan and then John. (In German and in medieval English, "y" is represented by "j" but was originally pronounced "y".) Adams is from the biblical Adam, which also just means "human being." In Arabic, one way of saying "human being" is "Bani Adam," the children of men.

Thomas Jefferson's first name is from the Aramaic Tuma, meaning "twin." Aramaic is a Semitic language spoken by Jesus, which is related to Hebrew and Arabic. In Arabic twin is tau'am, so you can see the similarity.

James Madison, James Monroe and James Polk all had a Semitic first name, derived from the Hebrew Ya'aqov or Jacob, which is Ya`qub in Arabic. It became Iacobus in Latin, then was corrupted to Iacomus, and from there became James in English.

Zachary Taylor's first name is from the Hebrew Zachariah, which means "the Lord has remembered."

Abraham Lincoln, of course is, named for the patriarch Abraham, from the Semitic word for father, Ab, and the word for "multitude," raham,. Abu, "father of," is a common element in Arab names today.

So, Mr. Cunningham, Barack Hussein Obama fits right in this list of presidents with Semitic names. In fact, we haven't had one for a while. We are due for another one.

A blessed and good one

INDIAN GROUP-AL QAEDA IS CIA -MOSSAD FRONT SAYS INDIAN GROUPS

Indian Group - Al Qaeda
Is CIA-Mossad Front
Al-Qaeda is a front organization of CIA and MOSSAD
says Mumbai based group of intellectuals and human rights activists
India Daily

The Mumbai based group alleged that Al-Qaeda is a front organization of CIA and MOSSAD. "There is enough evidence that the Al-Qaeda is a front organization of the CIA and MOSSAD. The Bush junta has used the bogey of terror and of Al Qaeda to justify his unending and ever expanding Global War on Terror, which is only a means of capturing the resources of the world and of establishing the sole hegemony of Israel in West Asia," said the group of activists and intellectuals. The group is holding a press conference in Mumbai on Wednesday to "expose the links between Al-Qaeda and the CIA-MOSSAD".

Holding American-Israeli operation accomplices of the 9/11 attack on the WTC, the spokesman of the group said that this has been widely written about in USA and Europe itself and more than 50% of the American people and far more Europeans, now believe and are convinced about this fact. He said that sections of the Indian ruling political and military elite are importing the same Bush-Olmert formula into India. "The increasing terror attacks only serve the cause of the Indian elite and divide the masses along communal lines. It is only the ordinary Indians who are the victims of terror either in temples, mosques, buses or trains," he said adding that practically no political leader suffers a similar fate, where the terrorists are apprehended and killed in "encounters".

"Every terror attack is meant to push and drag the Indian masses further into the waiting arms of Uncle Sam and the Israeli Goliath. Every terror attack spreads further hatred for Muslims and Islam and weakens the Indian Muslim community," he said.

RELATIVES:OBAMA'S GRANDFATHER WAS TORTURED BY BRITISH ARMY

President-elect Barack Obama's paternal grandfather was brutally tortured by the British during Kenya's Mau Mau uprising, according to Obama's Kenyan relatives and reported in the Times of London.

Hussein Onyango Obama, Mr Obama's paternal grandfather, became involved in the Kenyan independence movement while working as a cook for a British army officer after the war. He was arrested in 1949 and jailed for two years in a high-security prison where, according to his family, he was subjected to horrific violence to extract information about the growing insurgency.


"The African warders were instructed by the white soldiers to whip him every morning and evening till he confessed," said Sarah Onyango, Hussein Onyango's third wife, the woman Mr Obama refers to as "Granny Sarah"...."He said they would sometimes squeeze his testicles with parallel metallic rods. They also pierced his nails and buttocks with a sharp pin, with his hands and legs tied together with his head facing down," she said The alleged torture was said to have left Mr Onyango permanently scarred, and bitterly antiBritish. "That was the time we realised that the British were actually not friends but, instead, enemies," Mrs Onyango said. "My husband had worked so diligently for them, only to be arrested and detained."

The Guardian questions how this new information will affect Obama's relationship with the UK and view of interrogation techniques.

Obama, with more pressing contemporary problems on his plate, is unlikely to be fixated on extracting revenge from the UK. But he may draw the broader historical conclusion that the imposition of torture and repressive violence has a habit of undermining the political legitimacy of world-class powers.


He has already signalled his determination to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre and speed up withdrawal from Iraq. We will have to wait and see whether his grandfather's experience has a bearing on his policies on Afghanistan and international terrorism.

HOW DID THE $700 BILLION DOLLAR BAILOUT TURN INTO THE $700 TRILLION DOLLAR BAILOUT????

via Web of Debt

“We make money the old fashioned way. We print it.”
- Art Rolnick, Chief Economist for the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank

The $700 billion that was arm-twisted from Congress by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson in October was evidently just the camel’s nose under the tent. According to a November 24 Bloomberg report, the Paulson/Bernanke team is now prepared to pay $7.76 trillion to rescue the financial system.[1] Prepared to pay how? Congress has not raised its debt ceiling to anywhere near that level; but the approval of Congress, which originally voted down the controversial $700 billion bailout, is apparently no longer necessary. The door has been opened, and the Treasury Secretary and Fed Chairman feel they can now pledge whatever they want. Perhaps they are inching up a zero at a time just to see what the public’s tolerance is for unrepayable debt.

The new sum – $7.76 trillion – represents $25,000 for every citizen in the country, or half the value of everything produced in the nation last year; yet it’s not clear that a mere half of our net worth will rescue the financial system. One bankrupt bank after another has been bailed out with public money, in a futile effort to prevent a collapse of a massive multi-trillion dollar derivatives pyramid created by the banks.[2] But according to the Comptroller of the Currency, U.S. commercial banks now carry over $180 trillion in derivatives on their books. The public is liable to be bankrupted before this mess is resolved.

On top of the $700 billion initially extorted from Congress, an additional $2 trillion in loans and commitments has already been made by the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. Yet that wall of money has not kept the imperiled banks from collapsing. Citigroup was one of the nine lucky recipients of Paulson’s largesse in October, when he set out to recapitalize the banks by trading dollars for shares. The bank received $25 billion from the Treasury; yet this handout was insufficient to keep its stock from dropping below $4 a share. Citigroup was then bailed out by the Treasury to the tune of another $20 billion, along with a commitment to guarantee $306 billion in toxic assets on its books. That equals half the $700 billion bailout, just for one bank; yet Citigroup’s books, which sport derivative bets of $37 trillion, won’t look much better than before.

Meanwhile, commentators are scratching their heads over where the money is supposed to come from to pay for all this. Congress hasn’t approved these multi-trillion dollar sums, and the Federal Reserve doesn’t show them on its books. Some clues to this mystery came on November 25, when according to The New York Times:

“In the first of two new actions . . . , the Treasury and the Fed said they would create a $200 billion program to lend money against securities backed by car loans, student loans, credit card debt and even small-business loans. The Treasury would contribute $20 billion to the so-called Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility and assume responsibility for any losses up to $20 billion. The Federal Reserve would lend the new entity as much as $180 billion. The new facility would then lend money at low rates to companies that post collateral based on securities backed by consumer debt or business loans.”[3]

It appears that the $20 billion in Treasury money will be serving as the “reserves” to create $200 billion in credit on the books of the Fed and its network of banks. Ten to one is the reserve requirement established by the Federal Reserve for private bank lending under the “fractional reserve” system. The New York Fed has now deleted its earlier discussion of this process from its website, but as it explained the money-creating process in 2004:

“Reserve requirements . . . are computed as percentages of deposits that banks must hold as vault cash or on deposit at a Federal Reserve Bank. . . . As of June 2004, the reserve requirement was 10% on transaction deposits [deposits immediately available to depositors]. . . . If the reserve requirement is 10%, for example, a bank that receives a $100 deposit may lend out $90 of that deposit. If the borrower then writes a check to someone who deposits the $90, the bank receiving that deposit can lend out $81. As the process continues, the banking system can expand the initial deposit of $100 into a maximum of $1,000 of money ($100+$90+81+$72.90+ . . . =$1,000).”[4]

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In a revealing booklet called “Modern Money Mechanics,” the Chicago Federal Reserve detailed how fractional reserve lending allows money to “expand.” The booklet is now out of print, perhaps because it revealed too much; but it is still available on the Internet. On page 11 of the booklet is a helpful chart (above), which shows that the original deposit is not actually “lent” but remains in the bank throughout the expansion process. What is lent is an additional sum created on the bank’s books valued at 90 percent of the original deposit. Then another sum is lent that is 90 percent of the second deposit, and so forth, until the total sum generated is 10 times the original deposit, with tidy sums collected in interest at each step along the way.

The November 25 New York Times article continued:

“The Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., made it clear that the new lending facility was just a ‘starting point’ and could be expanded to many other kinds of debt, like commercial mortgage-backed securities. . . . It was the first time that the Fed and the Treasury have stepped in to finance consumer debt. The $200 billion program comes close to being a government bank.”

A government bank that makes credit available to all qualified borrowers is not a bad idea. It would seem to be a more useful idea than manipulating interest rates, the conventional tool used by the Federal Reserve to regulate the money supply. When Paul Volcker raised interest rates to 20% in 1980, he bankrupted much of the Third World; and when Alan Greenspan lowered the short-term interest rate to 1% in 2001, he precipitated the housing and derivatives bubbles that are bankrupting the U.S. today. A government-owned bank that put credit into the economy in an open, accountable and impartial way could be just what the doctor ordered. The problem is, the Federal Reserve isn’t government-owned (it is owned by a consortium of private banks[5]); and it is not distributing the public credit openly and impartially. The Fed has kept the recipients of its largesse largely secret (something Bloomberg News is currently suing about under the Freedom of Information Act[6]). However, it is clearly favoring its banking cronies over consumers.

Note that the “consumer debt” the Fed is now supposedly financing does not consist of loans directly to consumers. The loans are to lenders holding consumer debt (“companies that post collateral based on securities backed by consumer debt or business loans”). Like with subprime mortgages, lenders have pushed credit cards and student loans onto anyone who would take them, because the lenders had no intention of keeping those risky loans on their books. They intended to package them up as “securities” and sell them to investors. But the investors are catching onto this scam and are no longer buying; so the Fed is stepping in to underwrite the debt, advancing “credit” created on its books with accounting entries. When these loans are not paid back, we the taxpayers pick up the tab, either directly or through the “hidden tax” of inflation. The benefit goes to the lenders, who get off scot-free for their risky ventures, while the people bear the risk and pick up the losses.

If these investments are too risky for investors, they should also be too risky for the “government bank.” We don’t need more consumer debt to keep the economy going. We need more wages and salaries, and that means more jobs. Rather than propping up the “finance” industry (the business of money making money), the Fed should be furnishing low-interest loans directly to businesses, state and local governments and other qualified members of the producing economy.

Watching the Paulson/Bernanke bailout scenario unfold is a bit like watching the end of the Charlton Heston movie El Cid, where the Spaniards prop up their dead general on his horse and charge the Moors, giving the illusion that the champion is still alive and leading them. In this case, what they are propping up are not national heroes but banking pretenders who are not only unnecessary but have established their incompetence at managing the banking business. Congress could avoid this costly masquerade by either nationalizing the Federal Reserve or setting up its own publicly-owned lending facility, one that created credit on its books just as private banks do now and made it available openly, impartially, and at modest interest rates to all qualified borrowers. Unqualified borrowers should be denied, and that includes insolvent private banks, which should be put into FDIC receivership, had their books washed clean in bankruptcy, and reorganized as truly “national” banks advancing the “full faith and credit of the United States” for the benefit of the people of the United States.

[1] Mark Pittman, Bob Ivry, “U.S. Pledges $7.7 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit,” Bloomberg.com (November 25, 2008). [2] See Ellen Brown, “It’s the Derivatives, Stupid! Why Fannie, Freddie and AIG All Had to Be Bailed Out,” www.webofdebt.com (September 18, 2008). [3] Edmund Andrews, “U.S. Details $800 Billion Loan Plans,” New York Times (November 26, 2008). [4] Federal Reserve Bank of New York, “Reserve Requirements,” www.ny.frb.org/aboutthefed/fedpoint/fed45.html (June 2004). [5] See Ellen Brown, “The Fed Now Owns the World’s Largest Insurance Company – But Who Owns the Fed?”, www.webofdebt.com (October 7, 2008). [6] Mark Pittman, et al., “Fed Denies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Disclose,” Bloomberg.com (November 10, 2008).