According to Ynet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are extremely concerned by the "Iranian threat". Yedioth Ahronoth, the Israeli leading paper, reported this week that Netanyahu and Barak are pushing for action against Iran.

According to Israeli leading columnist Nahum Barnea the heads of the armed forces - and Mossad are opposed to taking action against Iran at this time.

Former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan had previously stated that an aerial attack on Iran was "a foolish idea" and warned against the disastrous consequences that would follow such action - an all out regional war. As it seems Dagan lost his job for expressing his views on the matter.

It looks as if Israel are preparing the ground for an attack on Iran that would probably escalate into a vile world conflict. Israeli leadership seems to fail to grasp the meaning of it all. This leadership has managed to buy itself the reputation of being impervious to the notion of culpability and responsibility. It basically fails to understand the consequences of it is actions.

Western powers risk causing an "earthquake" across the Middle East if they intervene in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad said, after protesters called for foreign protection from a crackdown in which 3,000 people have been killed.

Assad's warning came ahead of Syrian government talks on Sunday with the Arab League aimed at starting a dialogue between the government and opposition and ending violence which has escalated across Syria in recent days.

Activists said Syrian forces killed more than 50 civilians in the last 48 hours and one activist group said suspected army deserters killed 30 soldiers in clashes in the city of Homs and in an ambush in the northern province of Idlib on Saturday.

Assad's suppression of the seven-month uprising has drawn criticism from the United Nations and Arab League. Western governments have called on him to step down and imposed sanctions on Syrian oil exports and state businesses.

Western countries "are going to ratchet up the pressure, definitely", Assad told Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

"But Syria is different in every respect from Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen. The history is different. The politics is different."

"Syria is the hub now in this region. It is the fault line, and if you play with the ground you will cause an earthquake."

Jacob Hornberger is understatedly upset about the recent murder of the 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, the son of Anwar al-Awlaki.

Hornberger writes:

There are several things that are especially fascinating about the U.S. government's assassination of this American teenager, who apparently traveled to Yemen looking for his father before his father was assassinated:

First, the U.S. government has assassinated a minor.

Second, no one except the assassins knows why they assassinated the boy.

Third, the people who planned and carried out the assassination - from President Obama, to the Pentagon, to the CIA - aren't talking.

Fourth, nobody can force them to explain why they killed the boy.

Fascinating indeed.

After driving home the fact that nobody knows why this innocent 16-year-old American was murdered, Hornberger concludes:

But one thing is for sure: The assassination of 16-year-old American Abdulrahman al-Awlaki confirms that we now live in a country whose government has the unfettered authority to assassinate anyone it wants, adult or minor, foreigner or American, and remain mute about it.

GOP Tries To Raise Campaign Bucks by Tarring Occupy Wall Street

Is the Jewish congressional representative from heavily Jewish Long Island, Steve Israel, "standing with those calling for the killing of Jews"? Does the Jewish representative from heavily Jewish Florida, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, "agree with various calls for Jews to be 'run out of the country' and to oppose and 'destroy' the State of Israel"?

Sean Spicer, who holds the title of communications director of the Republican National Committee, apparently thinks these are reasonable questions. Or perhaps he merely thinks that some Jews are sufficiently stupid to think that they might be. But most likely, he thinks that if he can tar the protesters at Occupy Wall Street with the taint of these anti-Semitic statements, and condemn certain Democrats as guilty by association, he can gin up contributions to the Republican Party as he simultaneously weakens Jews' instinctive identification with the Democratic Party.

Spicer is joined in this effort by something called the Emergency Committee for Israel, a group co-founded by neoconservative William Kristol, conservative Christian agitator Gary Bauer and Rachel Abrams, wife of disgraced neoconservative politico Elliott Abrams (convicted of lying to Congress during the Reagan administration), daughter of neoconservative activist Midge Decter and stepdaughter of Decter's husband, former Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz. They have produced and distributed a video that asks, "What is happening at the Occupy Wall Street protests?" only to cut to a gentleman who is holding a "Hitler's Bankers" sign and can be seen screaming, "Jews control Wall Street." This is followed by a shot of a nasty kid shouting at a Jewish man, "You're a bum, Jew," with another protester explaining that "the small ethnic Jewish population in this country, they have a firm grip on America's media.

Col. Gaddafi is dead and details of his murky deals with Western leaders have been buried with him. But Gaddafi's son is safe and reportedly ready to surrender to the International Criminal Court, where he may spill secrets of his father's regime.

The court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, said on Friday he is in contact with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi through intermediaries. He has reportedly crossed the border from the Libyan desert into Niger. If he does eventually stand a trial, he could spill some of the secrets of the regime's hidden dealings with the same governments that helped topple his father.

From the perspective of Blair, Sarkozy and many others, Muammar Gaddafi was a man who knew too much. Expediency dictated that he be buried along with his secrets.

What's so patriotic about the Patriot Act? Tonight: Assaulting the Constitution, and resisting the assaults.

The claims led to Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary delaying a report into undercover police tactics at the last minute.

It had been due to be published today and was thought to be critical of the police.

Lawyers for a convicted protester claim a Metropolitan Police officer called Jim Boyling, posing as an activist, was prosecuted alongside their client and lied under oath to conceal his true identity.

Solicitors from the law firm Bindmans claim Boyling pretended to be Jim Sutton between 1995 and 2000 and joined the non-violent organisation Reclaim the Streets, the Guardian newspaper reported.

As part of his role, Bindmans claim, he was prosecuted at Horseferry Road magistrates court in London in 1997 for disorderly behaviour in a three-day trial.

When the Industrial Revolution began in Britain, in the late 1700s, there was lots of money to be made by investing in factories and mills, by opening up new markets, and by gaining control of sources of raw materials. The folks who had the most money to invest, however, were not so much in Britain but more in Holland. Holland had been the leading Western power in the 1600s, and its bankers were the leading capitalists. In pursuit of profit, Dutch capital flowed to the British stock market, and thus the Dutch funded the rise of Britain, who subsequently eclipsed Holland both economically and geopolitically.

In this way British industrialism came to be dominated by wealthy investors, and capitalism became the dominant economic system. This led to a major social transformation. Britain had been essentially an aristocratic society, dominated by landholding families. As capitalism became dominant economically, capitalists became dominant politically. Tax structures and import-export policies were gradually changed to favour investors over landowners.

It was no longer economically viable to simply maintain an estate in the countryside: one needed to develop it, turn it to more productive use. Victorian dramas are filled with stories of aristocratic families who fall on hard times, and are forced to sell off their properties. For dramatic purposes, this decline is typically attributed to a failure in some character, a weak eldest son perhaps. But in fact the decline of aristocracy was part of a larger social transformation brought on by the rise of capitalism.

The business of the capitalist is the management of capital, and this management is generally handled through the mediation of banks and brokerage houses. It should not be surprising that investment bankers came to occupy the top of the hierarchy of capitalist wealth and power. And in fact, there are a handful of banking families, including the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, who have come to dominate economic and political affairs in the Western world.

The President's Jobs Bill doesn't have a chance in Congress - and the Occupiers on Wall Street and elsewhere can't become a national movement for a more equitable society - unless more Americans know the truth about the economy.

Here's a short (2 minute 30 second) effort to rebut the seven biggest whoppers now being told by those who want to take America backwards.

On Friday, the law firm of Steven J. Baum threw a Halloween party. The firm, which is located near Buffalo, is what is commonly referred to as a "foreclosure mill" firm, meaning it represents banks and mortgage servicers as they attempt to foreclose on homeowners and evict them from their homes. Steven J. Baum is, in fact, the largest such firm in New York; it represents virtually all the giant mortgage lenders, including Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

The party is the firm's big annual bash. Employees wear Halloween costumes to the office, where they party until around noon, and then return to work, still in costume. I can't tell you how people dressed for this year's party, but I can tell you about last year's.