Colonel Gaddafi denounces Nato-backed Charade!

A desperate-sounding Colonel Gaddafi, whose main desert stronghold is now on the verge of falling to rebel forces, tried to claim in a message on a Syrian television station that the fall of his regime is a delusion. "Do not rejoice and don't believe that one regime has been overthrown and another imposed with the help of air and maritime strikes," he said. "The political system in Libya is a system based on the power of the people. It is impossible that this system be removed!" Talk of toppling the "magnificent " regime triggered laughter and sarcasm, he added. The rebel forces appeared to be on the verge of an important breakthrough as he made his speech. After being driven back from two northern towns remaining loyal to loyal to Colonel Gaddafi, Bani Walid and Sirte, a brigade of troops that had pushed into the far south seized Sabha airport on Monday, and continued to move into the city itself on Tuesday. Sabha, which is 480 miles south of Tripoli, is the heartland of the Gaddafi tribe, and most of those involved in the search for the former leader believe he was staying as recently as last week in farms nearby with a retinue of hundreds, perhaps thousands of men, including fellow tribesmen.

Dr. Webster Tarpley, PressTV: West is after Libyan oil Riches

An analyst says the Western military alliance in Libya, including the NATO forces, have nothing to do with democracy, but it has merely launched a cynical imperialist attack to provide the West with Libya's oil and riches. Press TV has interviewed author and historian Dr. Webster Tarpley to get his views on the current situation in Libya. PressTV: Do you think that Gaddafi is still strong enough to remain in power, and do you think that what Obama said today, that this is a humani -tarian mission that has been continuing in Libya, and of which he says, will continue? Tarpley: "Well, I think we have to remember that there are two traditions in the United States. You have a certain kind of imperialist politician like Nixon, and Bush the younger. These are brutal thugs. They talk about bombing people back into the Stone Age. Then, you have the other tradition, the tradition of the hypocrites. We had Woodrow Wilson, and we have Obama today. Based on that performance at the United Nations today, I think Obama should get the Nobel Prize for hypocrisy. Libya is a country that has been raped. Libya had the most advanced standard of living in Africa, measured by the UN in development programs, in terms of health, education, welfare, the status of women, and in many other social and economic measures. It also had the most advanced water infrastructure of just about any place in the world, and of course its oil industry, and many other things that were being promoted!

American Free Press: Perry's Trail of Corruption!

Several Marlboro men, Wayne McLaren and David Mclean died of lung cancer. McLaren testified in favor of anti-smoking legislation, but the phony Madison Avenue icon lives on, but the deadliest Marlboro Man phony ad is the one portraying politician Rick Perry as a cowboy. The ads are clearly rustling the Reagan brand and marketing it as his own. Neighbors in his hometown of Paint Creek and Haskell County clearly think Perry is riding to power on a rustled horse with a false brand. Big city Texans agree. Perry has enjoyed lavish perks and travel, paid for by crony capitalists who have funded Perry's jetting around the world, staying in luxury hotels, vacationing in exclusive Colorado ski towns, expensive sporting events and concerts, at least nine hunting trips entertainment-even paying the cable bill at the 4,600-square-foot mansion with a heated pool that the taxpayers are paying for -$8,500 a month. As the Houston Chronicle said: "Perry's a long way from the cotton farm." Perry's acceptance of such perks feeds a corrupt pay-to-play political culture in Texas. His campaign paid $426,000 last year to settle an opponent's lawsuit alleging it accepted illegal contributions from a top donor.

Kareem Fahim: NATO Extends Libya Bombing ??

With armed loyalists of Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, the fallen Libyan leader, still ensconced in his hometown and a few other redoubts as the seven-month-old Libyan conflict winds down, NATO announced a three-month extension of its bombing campaign on Wednesday. "We are determined to continue our mission for as long as necessary, but ready to terminate the operation as soon as possible," the NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said in a statement from the alliance's Brussels headquarters. It is the second 90-day extension, and it was approved less than a week before the campaign was set to end. NATO's aerial campaign in Libya, authorized under a United Nations Security Council mandate to protect civilians from Colonel Qaddafi's military reprisals, effectively became a major weapon of the rebels who supposedly toppled him last month. The so-called Transitional National Council, the so-called interim government of anti-Qaddafi forces that have taken control in much of Libya, and which are currently raping and pillaging their way throughout Libya, has expressed gratitude to NATO for its role. Colonel Qaddafi, who remains at large, has expressed outrage over the growing international acceptance of these murderers. In an audio message broadcast Tuesday, Colonel Qaddafi taunted his opponents by predicting that their new government would collapse once NATO ended its attacks!

MoJtaba Hosseini: Palestinians should NOT negotiate NOW!

When I earned my MBA (Master of Business Administration) from The University of Texas at Arlington, Texas, my sly Business teacher advised all of his students to be a good negotiator, and you can do this only if you have something to trade with! Let us take that concept to the Israeli and Palestinian peace talks, and see if we can identify what each party "have" what the other wants. The aim of negotiation is to find a solution that is acceptable to both parties, and leaves both parties feeling that they've won, in some ways, after negotiation! Let us take that concept to the Israeli and Palestinian peace talks, and see if we can identify what each party "has" for "trade" during their negotiations. Israel comes to the table as an occupier. They took over the rest of Palestine during the 1967 war with the Arabs, the war that Israelis started. They have been controlling all of the Palestinian land, sea, and air for the past 44 years, and they have been much stronger militarily, with approximately 6 billion US military aid ever since, daring even to destroy and sink the USS Liberty, while I served as Intelligence Operations Officer for the 4th US Armored Division in Goeppingen, Germany. When brought the horrible news to General Sherrer, the commander of our division, he had only one comment: "With friends like the Israelis, we have no need of enemies!" But I digress: The US and Israel still insist that the Palestinians should continue the direct negotiation for "Statehood" with the Zionist Regime, and should NOT go to the UN to ask for Palestinian Statehood!

Which Politician Won The Orlando Debate?

In an upset victory during his debate in Orlando, Ron Paul got 27,573 votes, or 39.27%, Mitt Romney received 16,073, or 22.89%, and Rick Perry barely eked out 12.8%, 8.989 votes! AND the winner, to replace Obama, and return the America I fought for in Vietnam to sanity, is: RON PAUL
WELL DONE!!

Guardian: A Palstinian State is a Moral Right!

For the Zionist movement seeking an independent state of Israel, desire became reality in November 1947, when the General Assembly of the United Nations passed Resolution 181, supporting the establishment of a Jewish state in partitioned Palestine. The state was declared on 14 May 1948 by David Ben Gurion and the Jewish people's council in a Tel Aviv museum. The state of Israel was recognized that evening by President Truman of the United States, and by the Soviet Union a few days later. More than six decades later, Palestinians, who at first refused to accept the partition plan of the newly minted UN, are seeking similar recognition, first in front of the Security Council, asking for their own state, based on the 1967 borders, free from occupation and settle- ment by half-a-million Israelis, able to determine their own affairs. The idea of a Palestinian state should be uncontroversial. The United States supports the notion, as does the UK. Indeed, in his 2009 Cairo speech, President Barack Obama insisted: "Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's." Yet Obama appears to be determined to veto the move towards Palestinian statehood, while Britain has hinted it is likely to abstain in a Security Council vote.

Stephen Lendman: Obama To Palestinians: Go To Hell!

On Friday, September 23, Abbas and Netanyahu will address the body of the UN, while Obama plans to do it on Wednesday, September 21. "The president's actions have gotten him anger on all sides, and accolades on none," with good reason. "I don't know an easy way to get out of this problem." Put another way: He made his bed. Now he has to sleep in it! So does the New York Times. It's long-standing editorial policy notoriously turns a blind eye to the most egregious injustices, notably on Israel/Palestinian issues. As a result, it virulently opposes Palestinian statehood, and full UN membership, no matter how just, right, and timely. Supporting the right thing, in fact, was NEVER the Times long suit. It's September 11 editorial is one of many examples Headlined, "Palestinian Statehood," it calls a UN vote for it "ruinous," adding: "If a UN vote takes place, Washington and its partners will have to limit the damage". On September18, Times writer Neil Mac Farquhar headlined, "Palestinians Turn to UN, where Partition Began," referring to the 1947 partition plan. According to America's UN ambassador Susan Rice: "There is no magic wand. There is no magic piece of paper here or anywhere else."

What withdrawal? Obama wants $100 million prison in Afghanistan!

While President Obama insists that the US will save $1 trillion over the next decade, by pulling out of the Afghan War, he has devoted little time to discuss his plans to build a new prison in Afghanistan, at a cost of $100 million. Whether or not Obama wants to talk about it during his ongoing, indulgent pleas for Congress to pass his American Jobs Act, the US is looking towards spending upwards of $100 million on the construction of a prison in the city of Bagran, Afghanistan. A call-for-work posted on a federal government website last week revealed that the US is intending on erecting a facility which will feature accommodations for as many as 2,000 detainees, with an estimated construction cost of $25,000,000 to $100,000,000. Posted on September 13 to FedBizOpps.gov, a solicitation for work from the US Army Corps of Engineer's Middle East District is asking area contractors to offer proposals for the construction of the facility, which will include guard towers, security surveillance, control gates and housing for around 2,000 prisoners. Regardless of Obama's insistence that troop withdrawals are around the corner, the Human Rights First group recently wrote that the United States is "still imprisoning more than 2800 men outside the United States without charge or trial." Even if thousands of soldiers are expected to come back stateside in the months to come, it looks as though the footprint of the American military will live on in Afghanistan for years to come. Meanwhile, back in America, the Supreme Court ruled this May that the state of California had to reduce its prison population by more than 30,000, claiming that conditions in jails within the Golden State were equivalent to cruel and unusual punishment. Perhaps the best solution is to export our inmates to the Middle East? Coincidently, that is roughly the number of soldiers President Obama announced in June of this year that he would have out of Afghanistan during the next 12 months.

Pravda.ru: The Sickening Filth our International Community has become!

Never have I felt so revolted, disgusted, disappointed and violated at belonging to the same species as those sickening creatures crawling around our international community today. The Libya Question and the subsequent UN General Assembly in September was a study in spinelessness, lack of morals, absence of fiber and total disrespect for the law. The analogy is perfectly simple to understand. an evil neighbor covets someone's rich lands, turns his son into a drug addict, supplies him with heroin for free, and then gets him to leave the door open one night. The son trashes the house, smashing everything, breaking the furniture and setting fire to it, while the evil neighbor rapes the wife and kills the remaining three children. The evil neighbor uses his influence to bully, cajole or bribe the other members of the community to recognize his right to the house, claiming he will keep the son under control, and expects the owner to hand him the keys. The owner valiantly and courageously fights back. The other members of the community call on him to stand down and to hand over his keys. He refuses, saying the house is his, and he has the right to defend himself. The other members of the community come together and have a General Assembly at which the vast majority recognize the new ownership rights and draw up plans to recognize the evil neighbor and the drug addict as the rightful representatives of that house in the community. A small handful refuse, saying that under the law, the intruder is always an intruder, and that outside forces cannot impose ownership by force. Moral of the story: If someone breaks into your house, torches it, rapes your wife and kills your kids, you just bow down and hand him the keys. Moral 2: Arm yourself to the teeth, so that if someone breaks into your house, you have the firepower to destroy him and his property, and punish those members of the community which recognize the intruder's rights!

Stephen Lendman: Obama and Netenyahu To Palestinians: Go To Hell!,

The UN General Assembly is scheduled to meet in regular session commencing on the Tuesday of the third week in September, counting from the first week that contains at least one working day. The 66th session began Tuesday, September 13. Access its agenda through the following link". http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/66/250. On Friday, September 23, Abbas and Netanyahu will address the body. Obama plans to do it Wednesday, September 21. According to Middle East expert Jon Alterman: "The president's actions have gotten him anger on all sides, and accolades on none," with good reason. "I don't know an easy way to get out of this problem!" Put another way: He made his bed, now he has to sleep in it! So does The New York Times. Its longstanding editorial policy notoriously turns a blind eye to the most egregious injustices - notably on the Israeli/Palestinian issues. As a result, it virulently opposes Palestinian statehood and full UN membership, no matter how just, right and timely. Supporting the right thing, in fact, was NEVER The Times long suit. It's September 11 editorial is one of many examples. Headlined, "Palestinian Statehood," a UN vote "ruinous", adding: "If a UN vote takes place, Washington and its partners will have to limit the damage". What damage?
Before my duty in Vietnam, where I served as Advisory Tea Leader in the Central Highlands, north of Kontum, I was the intelligence operations officer for our 4th US Armored Division in Goeppingen, Germany. There, I was the first to listen to the painful shrieks of the US men on our USS Liberty, which were being machine-gunned by our "friends" the Israelis. General Sherrer, the commander of our division, had only one comment: "With friends like the Israelis, we have no need of enemies!!" As Susan Rice, our UN Ambassador commented: "There is no magic wand. There is no magic piece of paper, here or anywhere else. In order to achieve the creation of a Palestinian State with clear boundaries, with sovereignty, with the ability to secure itself and provide for its people, there has to be a negotiated settlement."

Putin: Don't be Afraid of Russia: We are civilized!

The economies of the United States and Western Europe are on the edge of recession again. It is not clear when and how the current problems are going to be solved. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said at the economic forum in Sochi. He also said that he did not see any clarity about the recovery of the world's largest economies. Western publications agree with Putin. They believe that the US economy is very close to the moment when it begins to decline. Many experts doubt that the Federal Reserve System will be able to do anything to change the state of affairs for the better. According to Putin, the crisis of sovereign debts of developed countries means that politicians, economists, and investors have to think about traditional approaches. "The summer shake-up in global economy has proved it again - the models of development based on growing debts don't work," Putin said. According to him, it is obvious that the recent leaders of the economic development lose their positions and can no longer serve as examples of the macro-economic policy of the rest of the world.

Iran Press TV: Freed US Nationals Leave Iran

The two US nationals convicted of illegal entry and espionage in Iran have departed from Mehrabad Airport, after their release from jail! According to IRNA, the Iranian news organization, Shane Michael Bauer and Joshua Felix Fattal headed for the airport on Wednesday. Earlier, Branch 36 of Teheran's Appeals Court agreed to commute the detention sentences of the two to release on a bail of $1,000,000. Together with Sarah Shourd, another US national, Bauer, Fattal were arrested on Iranian soil in July 2009, after illegally crossing the border from the mountains of the Iraqi Kurdistan region in the north of Iraq. The three were charged with espionage after Tehran Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi found "compelling evidence" that they had actually been cooperating with US intelligence agencies. Iran released Shourd on bail of USD 500,000 in September 2010, 14 months after her arrest. The decision was made based on humanitarian grounds. Bauer and Fattal were each sentenced to eight years in prison.

Pravda: Washington Destroys All Peace Initiatives For Israel

Many Western and Israeli experts stated that Mahmoud Abbass's intention to bid for the UN membership for Palestine was a "Palestine Provocation". The Palestinian authorities believe that Israel will no longer be able to conduct military operations in the West Bank of Jordan and in the Gaza Strip, after the international community recognizes Palestinian independence. Israel, a US ally, believes that Abbas's claims contradict previous agreements and UN resolutions. The Palestinian administration claims that the establishment of a separate Arab state in Palestine is an inalienable part of international agreements. According to Palestinian officials, it is about time these plans must be turned into reality. Palestine does not hold many chances to become the 194th member of the international organization. Abbas says that over 150 countries will approve the bid. With so many Jews in powerful positions in the USA , it is certain that the Obama administration will veto the Palestinian proposal. What are Israel's motives? Their crafty politicians say that the Palestinian state is not viable, not even financially. Everyone knows that Israel is also not viable, unless the US continues to keep supporting that outlaw and corrupt state. If Abbas bids for recognition, the US will deprive the Palestinian nation of annual grants worth $400 million, but Arab and Muslim countries have already announced their intention to fill that gap in the Palestinian budget, including Saudi Arabia with $200 million, Kuwait with $50 million, etc.. Even Iran, the so-called "bete noir", according to the faulty analysis of the Obama administration, has promised to provide considerable assistance.

Joshua Holland: Has Obama Finally Shaken Up Washington?

On Monday, Barack Obama proffered a deficit reduction package that would complement his call last week for a new focus on jobs. The proposals, especially the president's endorsement of the "Buffet Principle", which holds that the richest Americans should pay the same share of their incomes as their secretaries do, appears to have fired up the Democratic base. "This is not class warfare, it's math" became the line of the day, and even Firedoglake , a site known for attacking Obama from the left, acknowledged that while he "spent the first 2.5 years of his presidency courting" pundits and blue dog Democrats, Obama now appears to "on the right track." Yet the president didn't offer a lot of new proposals in the jobs package he presented last week, nor in the deficit reduction plan he offered on Monday. Rather, he struck a new tone, which is itself significant. As the New York Times put it, "Obama confirmed that he had entered a new, more combative phase of his presidency." Substance aside, the proposals have already had a salutary effect, refocusing the attention of a media obsessed with process onto a devastating jobs crisis to which they'd given short shrift over past few years.

Steven Hill: Israel's Short-sighted Opposition to Palestinian Statehood

Who would have imagined even a year ago that the Arab Spring would blow a fresh wind across the Middle East, opening minds and hearts to new possibilities. Now, in the next chapter of this remarkable story, the Palestinians are taking their quest for statehood to the United Nations. Perhaps no other issue in the Middle East packs as much symbolic value as this one, and holds as much potential as this one, and holds as much potential to be a catalyst for profound change. But the reactions of the US and Israeli governments are key to what happens next. Both should jettison their fears and old thinking, and embrace this wind of change. How? By boldly supporting the Palestinians' bid at the UN. The reason to do this is not only that it's undeniably the right thing to do morally, but also because it's a smart thing to do from Israel's economic standpoint. The Israeli economy is a mess, which has resulted in massive demonstrations and occupations of city centers by Israeli protesters that have crippled the domestic scene. On September 3, some 450,000 Israelis thronged the streets of Tel Aviv and three other towns, calling for affordable housing, cheaper basic food and better social services. Israel has much to gain from a peaceful and prosperous Middle East, as well as to contribute to it.

Chris Hedges: The Reverend Jeremiah Wright Recalls Obama's Fall From Grace

Barack Obama's politically expedient decision to betray and abandon his pastor,the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, exposed his cowardice and moral bankruptcy. In that moment, playing the part of Judas, he surrendered the last shreds of his integrity. He became nothing more than a pawn of power, or as Cornel West says, "a black mascot for Wall Street." Obama, once the glitter of power fades, will have to grapple with the fact that he was a traitor not only to his pastor, the man who married him and Michelle, who baptized his children and who kept him spiritually and morally grounded, but to himself. Wright retains what is most precious in life, and what Obama has squandered, his soul. The health of a nation is measured by how it treats his prophets. When these prophets are ignored and reviled, when they become figures of ridicule, when they are labeled by the chattering classes and power elite as fools, then there is no check left on moral decay and the degeneration of the state. Wright, who spent 36 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's South Side, since the 2008 presidential campaign, has endured slander and calumny and weathered character assassination, misinterpretation and abuse, and yet he doggedly continues Sunday after Sunday to thunder the word of GOD from pulpits across the country. I grew up as a Christian. My father was a pastor. I graduated from a seminary. I can distinguish a Christian pastor from the slick impostors and charlatans, from TD Jakes to Joel Osteen. Wright preaches the radical and unsettling message of the Christian Gospel. He calls us to live the moral life. He knows that the measure of our lives as individuals and as a nation is reflected in how we treat our most vulnerable, and he knows on whose side he stands. Obama, who like Judas took his 30 pieces of silver and betrayed someone who loved him, withers into moral insignificance in Wright's presence. Obama, although his subservience to the war machine and Wall Street, mocks the fundamental values of Dr. Martin Luther King, will preside October 16 over the dedication of the King memorial on the Mall in Washington. He will lend himself to the venal cabal of the corporate and political elites who have hijacked King's image.

Arianna Huffington: For Voters to Believe Obama's Second Term Will Bring about Change, He Needs to Acknowledge What Needs to Change in Himself!

We don't know yet what the overarching theme of President Obama's reelection campaign will be, but the word "change" is likely to once again play at least a co-starring role, but this time it's different. We have now seen the ways in which the president went about trying to effect that change over the last three years. So, while his ideas about the changes the system needs in his second term are welcome and necessary, there is another kind of change he needs to talk about, if the change he proposes is to be believed. He needs to make clear the changes he intends to make in himself, in the way he governs, and in the way he approaches the big, systemic changes he claims to want to see. In order for voters to believe that things will be different in the president's second term, there has to be some recognition of what did NOT work in the first!

E.J. Dionne,Jr.:Unhappy Democrats Threaten Obama Jobs Bill!

The talk in the political class is that this is the beginning of the end of the Obama administration, while the talk in the Obama administration is that this is the end of the beginning. Which will it be? Last week was NOT exactly what President Obama hoped for, when he rolled out his big jobs initiative. He expected push back from Republicans. He did not anticipate the resistance he is getting from Democrats, or, perhaps more to the point, he did not expect the questions about the bill, that might inevitably arise on his side, to get quite so much attention. The administration's own strategy was clear enough, and for the first few days it was working as planned. By putting together a rather large but relatively uncontroversial package of measures to boost the economy, Obama sought to put the Republicans on the defensive and rally Democrats, including his progressive critics, behind a push for action. In a series of campaign-style rallies, Obama exuded new energy. The friendly crowds he gathered radiated with a spirit that has been largely absent since the 2008 campaign. Cries of "Pass this bill!" seemed comfortingly similar to the shouts of "Yes, we can!", and the initial response fro congressional Republicans (they pointedly did NOT reject all of his ideas) suggested that things just might be turning the president's way. The poll ratings of congressional Republicans, after all, are awful. Their leaders sensed that rejectionism might not be good politics.

Ron Paul: Government as a Venture Capitalist!!

In January 2009, the current administration claimed that if Congress passed a rush stimulus bill, the United States would be saved from economic catastrophe that was threatening to send unemployment figures above 8 percent. Government stimulus was the answer, and if we cared about our country, we would set aside our reservations and do what is needed to be done to pass the bill. Congress passed the bill. Unemployment continued to go up, and has been well over 8 percent ever since! (In fact, economist John Williams of Shadow-Stats finds unemployment to be closer to closer to 23 percent, using traditional methodology!) Yet some are claiming the first stimulus worked, and all we need to bring back prosperity is MORE government stimulus. Stimulus might appear to work for some people for a short time. It worked for a short time for Solyndra. For a time, they could pretend to be engaging in productive activities that would help the economy. For a time, unemployment was 1,000 people less, but the recent bankruptcy of Solyndra shows that the government is a terrible venture capitalist. This charade cost the American people over half a billion dollars they could not afford, yet there is no mea culpa. The administration is not questioning its calculations, or how they could have been wrong on their unemployment predictions in the wake of the last stimulus. Instead, they want more money. Once again, we are hearing the cry that if we care about our country, we will approve more spending and more taxes, and that will create more jobs. They promise! Yes, you could have gone to the Solyndra factory, and you would have seen jobs. What you could not have seen were the productive jobs that were never created. Real venture capitalists make decisions based not on politics and photo opportunities, but on complex estimations of risk and reward. They don't simply throw piles of other people's money at a factory, and expect magic to happen. The uncreated jobs you can't see might still be around! Instead, we have more government debt, which will lead to more inflation, and more taxes! These, in addition to an already hostile regulatory environment, only add to the burden and risk of job creation in the private economy. It has been said that when you have a hammer, everything is a nail. Our government is full of people who sincerely believe big government and more spending is the answer to every problem. They automatically look to the government for every solution. Government is their hammer, and all they know to do is to keep hammering: When government "solutions" still don't solve the problems, they are unfazed. They keep calling for more government, more laws, and more programs. Americans are tired of being treated like nails! This government-centric mind set is the root of our problems. People who think this way are naturally drawn to politics and government. To them, the Constitution is an annoying road block, something to get around or ignore. We must become interested in real, lasting, productive jobs - careers that allow families to build up a solid foundation of prosperity and economic security -not pretend make-work government jobs that waste resources and vanish overnight: We have to choose one or the other!

News from the so-called: "Bermuda Triangle" !!!

Recently, American scientists who studied the sea near the famous "Bermuda Triangle" have found another "anomaly". Perhaps because of the huge British Petroleum oil spill, they saw that the surface waters in the area are teeming with a wide variety of viruses. Supposedly, the viruses do not represent any danger to humans. (yeah, right, BP: Pay those people, including for their pain and suffering, as well as the damage to their lively hood!) The very phrase "Bermuda Triangle" has appeared only recently, coined by a fan of Spiritualism, and esoteric Vincent Gaddis in 1964! By this toponym, he meant an area located between the island of Puerto Rico, the Florida coast and Bermuda. According to the famous mystic of the last century, this area of the Atlantic became notorious due to the fact that hundreds of ships and aircraft disappeared there. Some ships, however, were found later, but without their crews and passengers. All this made Gaddis suggest that there was some anomaly in this area. However, he was not the first one to express this idea. In 1950, an American journalist Alexander Jones wrote an article about the mysterious disappearance of ships in this region. Yet, the Bermuda Triangle acquired real popularity in 1974, when Charles Berlitz, a science writer, published a book under the same title, where he collected descriptions of various mysterious disappearances in the area!

David Hoffman: Obama and the Abandonment of Hope!

Somewhere in the elation, optimism and dreams of progress that many, if not most Americans felt immediately following the election of Barack Obama, one critical reality was forgotten: Obama is a politician! This became conspicuously evident when one of his first official acts was to declare an egregious, "look forward, not backward" policy, when it came to dealing with the war crimes, tortures, corruption and mendacity of the Bush dictatorship. As a result of this policy, torturers, liars and war criminals now profit by writing books, giving lectures, appearing on television, teaching at major universities, and even securing appointments as federal judges, yet America's government still has the audacity to condemn human rights abuses in other countries, and to hypocritically demand that those who commit such abuses be brought to justice. If it isn't disillusioning enough, America's first African-American president is also terrified to deal with any issue containing racial overtones. Unlike the self-loathing, ethically corrupt and sadistic supreme court "justice" Clarence Thomas, who is using undeserved position to wage some perverse vendetta against African-Americans, Obama has refused to grant a posthumous pardon to America's first African-American heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson, despite the fact that Johnson was convicted on trumped-up charges, because he courageously refused to play the role of the obsequious black man during a time when refusal to play such a role could have easily resulted in lynching.

The Coming Depression Rises to 22.8% - US Real Unemployment Rises to 22.8%

First, the REALLY bad news: Just before it reaches the US: Ford Canada closes one of its last remaining plants! last Crown Victoria ever built will roll off the assembly line at the plant Thursday, marking the end for both the Detroit automaker's iconic rear-wheel drive sedans and its 44 year old factory. The St. Thomas, Ontario plant is in many ways an anachronism. Not only were the design's of rear-wheel drive sedans produced there, but across the border, Detroit closes all stores. The In a 'modern' capitalist economy, the creation of abundance of money that accrues very unevenly in the hands of individuals can aggravate poverty. Milton Friedman, a well-known monetary economist, says inflation is predominantly a monetary phenomenon: By now, our REAL Unemployment rate is at 17 percent, while Obama, according to the Washington Post has a plan??: He wants to tame the nation's rocketing federal dept by finding at least $3 trillion in new savings, to be released Monday, including $1.5 trillion in new taxes, according to the "Washington Post". In order to tame the nation's rocketing federal debt. Combined with his earlier call for $1.5 trillion, yes, I did say TRILLION, in new taxes. What a MORON!!!

Finian Cunningham: Is Washington Preparing for 'Regime Change' in Bahrein??

The persistence of pro-democracy protests in Bahrain in the face of brutal repression may be giving Washington second thoughts about its unwavering support for the royal rulers of the strategically important Persian Gulf Kingdom. Are we about to witness a cosmetic regime change, not so much for the genuine sake of democratic rights in Bahrein, but more to save Washington's vital interests across the region? The tiny island situated between Saudi Arabia and Qatar serves as a base for the Navy's Fifth Fleet, comprising 16,000 personnel and 30 vessels, is staging ground for US military projection across the Middle East and Central Asia. It also monitors the sea-lanes of the Persian Gulf, through which some 30% of the world's oil passes every day. Since the mainly Shia population of Bahrain took to the streets on February 14 in protests against the unelected Sunni monarchy of the Al Khalifa dynasty, Washington has given unrelenting support to the regime, invariably describing Bahrein as an important ally. Apart from the US Fifth Fleet, the US has a free trade agreement with Bahrein, selling some $20 million in weapons every year to the kingdom, and Bahrein is a financial hub for American and global capital.

Nick Turse: Obama's Arc of Instability!!

Nick Turse lays it on the line: It's a story that should take your breath away: The destabilization of what, in the Bush years, used to be called "the arc of instability." It involves about 97 countries, across the bulk of the global south, and much of it coinciding with the oil heartlands of our planet. A startling number of these nations, thanks to Obama, are now in turmoil, and in every single one of them, from Afghanistan and Algeria to Yemen and Zambia, Washington (read Obama) is militarily involved, overtly or covertly , in outright war, or for what passes for peace. Garrisoning the planet is just part of it. The Pentagon, which I visited with CIA man Steve Mayfield, before I trained in the Jungle Operations training center in Panama, and US intelligence services, are also running covert special forces and spy operations, launching drone attacks, building bases and secret prisons, training, arming, and funding local security forces, and engaging in a host of other militarized activities right up to full-scale war. But while you consider this, keep one fact in mind: the odds are that there is no longer a single nation in the "arc of instability" in which the United States is in no way militarily involved. Our so-called president claims "that freedom is on the march in the broader middle east". What he really means is that he has authorized our Pentagon, together with other NATO forces, to destroy any nation which refuses to sell us cheap oil, OR ELSE!! Resistance, my friend, is futile.
Adolf Hitler could not have said it better! Freedom, my ass. What we are now looking at is the military march of Gestapo boots across any country which denies our right to conquer!

Yahoo News: China paper warns US against Palestinian UN Veto

A Chinese state-run newspaper on Friday warned of a spike in tensions in the Middle East, if the United States vetoed the Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations next week. As peace-talks with Israel stall, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is expected to formally submit a request for UN membership in the United Nations next week, despite strong objections from Washington (not George, but the "idiots" who have now taken his place). "If the US chooses to fly in the face of world opinion and block the Palestine UN bid next week, not only will Israel become more isolated, but tensions in the region will be heightened even more" said the China daily. "The majority of the international community deems an independent state as the inalienable right of the Palestinians," said the English-language daily in an editorial, echoing Beijing's official position on the issue. The planned request by the Palestinians for UN membership comes almost a year after direct peace talks with Israel ran aground due to a dispute over Israel's construction of settlements on occupied Palestinian land, but the US (Obama) has threatened to veto the move, if it is made within the UN Security Council, saying it would "harm" prospects for peace talks, and that a Palestinian state can only result from negotiations with Israel! (FAT CHANCE!!)

James Petras: Chavez Versus Obama Facing Presidential Elections

Two incumbent presidents are running for re-election in 2012: Hugu Chavez in Venezuela, and Obama in the United States. What makes these two electoral contests significant, is that they represent contrasting responses to the global economic crises: Chavez, following his democratic socialist program, pursues policies promoting large-scale long-term public investment and spending directed at employment, social welfare, and economic growth: Obama, guided by his ideological commitment to corporate financial capitalism, pours billions into bailing out Wall Street speculators, focuses on reducing the public deficit, and slashes taxes, offering government subsidies to business, in the hope that the banks will lend, and the private sector will invest. Obama "hopes" the corporate sector will start to hire the unemployed, hoping for a "trickle down" effect. Chavez's economic recovery program is based on the public sector, the state, taking the lead in light of the capitalist market induced crises, and the failure of the private sector to invest. Obama's economic recovery and employment program depends wholly on the private sector, utilizing tax handouts to stimulate domestic investments which generate employment! If you are currently unemployed, which alternative would you like to see 'employed' in our United States?