Puppet Masters
During a three-day trip ending on Thursday, the eight prelates visited Christian congregations in the Gaza Strip, Bethlehem, the West Bank town of Beit Jalla and Madaba and Zarqa, in neighbouring Jordan.
"In the Cremisan Valley we heard about legal struggles to protect local people's lands and religious institutions from the encroachment of the security barrier ('the wall')," they said in a joint statement at the end of the annual Holy Land Coordination visit.
In the valley, near Bethlehem, the barrier threatens to separate Palestinian communities from one another and from the land they till.

In this image taken from video obtained from the Shaam News Network, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, smoke rises due to heavy shelling in Taftanaz, Idlib province, northern Syria, on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013.
At stake is the biggest field for helicopters used to bomb rebel-held areas in the north and deliver supplies for regime forces.
Opposition fighters and activists said rebels broke into Taftanaz air base in the northern Idlib province Wednesday night and by Thursday had seized control of more than half of it. Intense battles were still raging, and one activist said rebels had suffered losses.
On Thursday evening, an activist near Taftanaz said the government bombed the air base from warplanes in a desperate attempt to push back rebels who seized several helicopters. The account from the activist, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisals, could not immediately be confirmed.
An amateur video posted by activists online showed smoke rising from behind helicopters parked at the Taftanaz tarmac, and a narrator said it was the result of an airstrike. The video appeared consistent with Associated Press reporting.
Meet the "Precious Metal Purchasing Act" or SB3341, brought to you by the lovely folks at the Illinois 97th General Assembly:
Synopsis As Introduced
Creates the Precious Metal Purchasing Act. Provides that a person who is in the business of purchasing precious metal shall obtain a proof of ownership, create a record of the sale, and verify the identity of the seller. Provides that a person who is in the business of purchasing precious metal shall not pay for the precious metal in cash and shall record the method of payment. Requires the purchaser to keep a record of the sale for one year or, if the purchase amount is over $500, for 5 years.
Read more on the bill here.
In Liberty,
Mike
Justices across the ideological spectrum seemed to recoil during oral arguments from what Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. described as the "pretty scary image of somebody restrained, and, you know, a representative of the state approaching them with a needle."
There seemed to be little, if any, support for the proposition that the usual constitutional protections that require a warrant for searches do not apply in drunk-driving arrests. Missouri, backed by the Obama administration, argued that a suspect's dissipating blood-alcohol content meant that, in effect, evidence was being lost and thus drawing blood should not require consent or a judge's order.
That argument drew fire almost immediately.

A demonstration in Pakistan last week against drone attacks. 'Three-quarters of Pakistanis are now declared enemies of the US
The greatest threat to world peace is not from nuclear weapons and their possible proliferation. It is from drones and their certain proliferation. Nuclear bombs are useless weapons, playthings for the powerful or those aspiring to power. Drones are now sweeping the global arms market. There are some 10,000 said to be in service, of which a thousand are armed and mostly American. Some reports say they have killed more non-combatant civilians than died in 9/11.
I have not read one independent study of the current drone wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the horn of Africa that suggests these weapons serve any strategic purpose. Their "success" is expressed solely in body count, the number of so-called "al-Qaida-linked commanders" killed. If body count were victory, the Germans would have won Stalingrad and the Americans Vietnam.
Neither the legality nor the ethics of drone attacks bear examination. Last year's exhaustive report by lawyers from Stanford and New York universities concluded that they were in many cases illegal, killed civilians, and were militarily counter-productive. Among the deaths were an estimated 176 children. Such slaughter would have an infantry unit court-martialled. Air forces enjoy such prestige that civilian deaths are excused as a price worth paying for not jeopardising pilots' lives.
As even the target of his rant, Piers Morgan says, Alex Jones outburst "was the best advertisement for gun control you could have wished for".
Indeed.
Piers Morgan went on to say that Jones's "vitriol, hatred, and zealotry is really quite scary" and that was precisely the intention. For Jones's bluster was nothing more than a calculated attempt to demonise opponents of gun control through association and scaremongering.
Thereby helping to smooth the passage for stricter gun legislation, which is exactly what the authorities want.
What's criminal about that message?
The U.S. federal courts construed the message as exhorting the members of Abdel-Rahmn's Islamic organization in Egypt, which U.S. officials had labeled a terrorist organization, to use violence to overthrow the Egyptian government. They said that made Stewart a supporter of terrorism.
The case is fascinating on several levels, not the least of which was that many Egyptian citizens were of the mindset that the Egyptian government was one of the most brutal, tyrannical military dictatorships in the world, one that had long oppressed the Egyptian people. It was, in fact, that deep-seated discontent among the Egyptian citizenry that ultimately led to the ouster of Egypt's dictator, Hosni Mubarak.
For December's new jobs we return to the old standbys: health care and social assistance and waitresses and bartenders. These four classifications accounted for 93,000 of December's new jobs, 60% of the 155,000 jobs.
Obviously, the economy is not going anywhere except down. It takes approximately 150,000 new jobs each month to stay even with population growth and new entrants into the work force. Few of the jobs that are being created pay well, and the constant, consistent demand for more poorly paid waitresses, bartenders and hospital orderlies is difficult to believe. If Americans cannot afford toys for their kid's Christmas, how can they afford to eat and drink out?
Bank of America sold bad mortgages that led to numerous foreclosures via subprime mortgage lenders Countrywide Financial Corporation and Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. that it acquired in 2008. "Through a program aptly named 'the Hustle,' Countrywide and Bank of America made disastrously bad loans and stuck taxpayers with the bill," said Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York when he sued the company for $1 billion on behalf of the government last October.
"With respect to Private Manning, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are." - Barack Obama, White House Press Conference, March 10, 2011.Few if any articles that I've written produced as much backlash as my 15 December 2010 column reporting on the oppressive and inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention, the first time that story was reported. The anger at my article primarily came not from right-wing venues but from the hardest-core Obama supporters, who (as they always do since 20 January 2009) reflexively defended the US government. Led by former Obama campaign press aide and now MSNBC contributor (the ultimate redundancy) Joy Reid, these particularly fanatical Democratic partisans literally adopted the anti-Manning rhetoric from the further right-wing precincts and repudiated the liberal tradition of defending whistleblowers and opposing oppressive detention conditions - all in order to insist that Manning was being treated exactly how he should be (this warped reaction was far from unanimous, as many progressives protested Manning's treatment).