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Early election looms in Ireland as Green Party withdraws from coalition government

Fionnan Sheahan, Aine Kerr & Fiach Kelly
Irish Independent
Mon, 24 Jan 2011 08:23 UTC
Image
© Martin Nolan
Leader John Gormley and chairman Dan Boyle leading the Green Party out of government at Government Buildings in Dublin yesterday.
An early general election is on the cards after the Green Party dramatically pulled out of government yesterday.

In the Fianna Fail leadership race , three out of five TDs had yet to publicly declare who they were backing, although Micheal Martin remained the clear front-runner.

Cross-party talks involving Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, the Labour Party, Sinn Fein and the Greens will begin today to find a way to get the law needed to implement the Budget passed quickly.

The opposition is offering to facilitate the debate, but is not promising to vote for it.

But if Finance Minister Brian Lenihan cannot guarantee the Finance Bill will be passed by the end of this week, Fine Gael and Labour are threatening to push motions of no confidence, which Brian Cowen's minority Government cannot win.

Mr Cowen and Mr Lenihan both claimed last night that the legislation could not be passed in just one week, as it was too complex.
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Chess

Irish PM Cowen resigns as party leader, remains in power


RTE
Sat, 22 Jan 2011 08:19 UTC
Image
© RTE
Brian Cowen - Intends to remain as Taoiseach in order to push through IMF's reforms
Brian Cowen has said a united party is the most important thing going into a General Election, as four senior party members confirmed that they will contest the leadership of Fianna Fáil.

Brian Cowen has announced that he is resigning as leader of Fianna Fáil.

Speaking at a press conference in Dublin, he said he had made this decision on his own counsel.

He will remain as Taoiseach.

Asked when he had made his decision, Mr Cowen said it was only when he went home last night and discussed the matter with his family, and made a political assessment of the situation, that he decided to come up this morning and make the announcement.

Brian Cowen says that a united party is, in his view, the most important thing going into the General Election.

Speaking in Irish he said he had done 'the right thing' given the events of the week.
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2 + 2 = 4

The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America


NaturalNews.com
Mon, 24 Jan 2011 00:00 UTC
This video was originally created to be part of an art exhibit for Exposed the Art Project, a multimedia collaboration raising awareness of social issues. The group decided that the message in the Deliberate Dumbing Down of America shouldn't be put on hold. So here it is


Please download the free E-BOOK by Former assistant minister of Education under the Reagan administration, Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt. This book is selling for $100 USED on Amazon, but you can download a FREE PDF version at this link;
      Read More...
Wall Street

The Larger Banks Cripple American Industry Through 'Credit Hoarding'


Washington's Blog
Sat, 22 Jan 2011 21:39 UTC
money lending chart
© Unknown
Dennis Santiago - CEO and Managing Director of Institutional Risk Analytics (Chris Whalen's company) - notes:
The really shocking numbers are in the unused line of credit commitments of banks to U.S. business. This is the canary number I like to look at because it is a direct expression of banking and finance confidence in Main Street industry. It's gone from $92 billion in Dec -2007 to just $24 billion as of Sep-2010. More importantly, the vast majority of this contraction of credit availability to American industry has been by the larger banks, C&I LOC from $87B down to $18.8B by the institutions with assets over $10B. Poof!
This once again confirms what I have been saying for years: the giant banks are causing most of the credit contraction.
      Read More...
Radar

Yes, Virginia, A Climate Cover-Up


Investors
Sat, 22 Jan 2011 07:08 UTC
Junk Science: Democrats in Virginia are trying to stop their attorney general from probing climate fraud carried out by university researchers at taxpayer expense. Are they afraid of finding the inconvenient truth?

It's not the crime, it's the cover-up, as the saying goes. In the case of former University of Virginia climate scientist Michael Mann and his supporters, it may be both. Not only did Mann participate in perhaps the greatest scam of modern times, but he may have also have fraudulently used taxpayer funds to do so.

At least Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli thinks so, and has been diligently trying to obtain from U.Va. documents and e-mails related to Mann's work there. Mann reportedly received around $500,000 from taxpayer-funded grants from the university for research there from 1999 to 2005.
      Read More...
Radar

Mexico to become first country to use iris scans on ID cards


Telegraph UK
Sat, 22 Jan 2011 06:51 UTC
Image
© Getty

Mexico will on Monday become the first country to start using iris scans for identity cards, according to the government.

The documents, which will include the eye's image as well as fingerprints, a photo and signature, will be 99 per cent reliable, according to Felipe Zamora, who is responsible for legal affairs at the Mexican interior ministry.

"The legal, technical and financial conditions are ready to start the process of issuing this identity document," Felipe Zamora, responsible for legal affairs at the Mexican Interior Ministry, told journalists Thursday.
      Read More...
Cult

High-ranking members of US military part of 'Knights of Malta,' 'Opus Dei,' reporter claims

Stephen C. Webster
RawStory
Fri, 21 Jan 2011 21:54 UTC
Image
© unk
Seymour Hersh
Seymour Hersh has broken some massive stories in his day, but uncovering secret societies within the highest echelons of America's military would probably be the biggest of his career.

Well, get ready for the media storm, because that's essentially what Hersh told an audience in Doha, Qatar recently, according to a report published earlier this week by Foreign Policy.

Speaking at a campus operated by Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, Hersh said he was working on a new book that details "how eight or nine neoconservative, radicals if you will, overthrew the American government."
      Read More...
Eye 1

British Prime Minister's Spin Doctor Resigned Over Illegal Phone Hacking

Jill Lawless
The Associated Press
Fri, 21 Jan 2011 09:41 UTC
andy coulson
© AP Photo/Oli Scarff
In this April 13, 2010 file photo, Andy Coulson, the ruling Conservative Party's Director of Communications speaks on the phone in London, England. Coulson quit as Downing Street communications chief Friday Jan. 21, 2011, saying the continuing row over phone-hacking when he was editor of the News of the World newspaper was distracting from his job.
The British prime minister's powerful spin doctor resigned Friday amid claims he sanctioned widespread illegal phone hacking against politicians, celebrities and royalty when he was editor of a top-selling tabloid newspaper.

Andy Coulson denies any knowledge of the hacking, but admitted he'd committed a cardinal sin for a back room operator - he became the story.

Coulson said "continued coverage of events connected to my old job at the News of the World has made it difficult for me to give the 110 percent needed" in his role as Downing Street communications chief.

"I stand by what I've said about those events but when the spokesman needs a spokesman, it's time to move on."

A reporter and a private investigator working for the News of the World were caught illegally eavesdropping on the phones of the British royal family's entourage in 2007. Coulson quit the paper when the pair were convicted, but says he knew nothing of the hacking.

His resignation is a blow to Prime Minister David Cameron, who has resisted calls to fire Coulson despite the scandal.
      Read More...
Arrow Down

America must brace itself for turbulence

Peter R. Orszag
cfr.org
Tue, 11 Jan 2011 00:00 UTC
America is experiencing the hard slog of recovering from the financial crisis. Prospects have turned more positive over the past two months. But a year ago growth was picking up too - and then it stalled, at about the same time Greece's fiscal problems infected the global economy. The question now is whether a home-grown fiscal crisis could derail this year's rebound.

Some analysts have reached dramatic conclusions, suggesting the near-certainty of hundreds of billions of dollars in government defaults within the US over the next 12 months. Such predictions will undoubtedly turn out to be substantially overblown. Yet the rejection of one extreme is not the affirmation of the other. International investors would be wise to pay close attention to fiscal trends within the US.

The severity of fiscal risk varies considerably depending on which level of government is under discussion. At the federal level the combination of ongoing weakness in the labour market and large structural budget deficits means that the right policy mix should be more stimulus now and much more deficit reduction, enacted now, to take effect in two to three years. Policymakers have acted on the first part, most prominently through the payroll tax holiday announced in December - one of the factors making the short-term outlook more promising.
      Read More...
Rocket

Massive 235ft rocket carrying a secret spy satellite replacement blasts off from California coast

Graham Smith
Daily Mail
Fri, 21 Jan 2011 00:00 UTC
It is the largest rocket ever launched from the U.S. West Coast.

The 235ft-tall Delta IV Heavy Launch Vehicle lifted off at 1.10pm local time yesterday with a classified U.S. government defence satellite on board.

Carrying cargo for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the booster rose into the sky over California's central coast and arced over the Pacific Ocean, a spectacle visible from 50 miles away.
Delta IV -1
© Reuters
Blast off: The Delta IV Heavy Launch Vehicle lifts off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in the California desert at 1.10pm local time yesterday

record breaker rocket
© AP
Record breaker: The 235ft-tall spacecraft is the largest ever rocket to launch from the U.S. West Coast
      Read More...
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