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What does North Dakota have that other states don't? A $1.2 billion surplus (and its own bank)

Ellen Brown
Global Research
Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:56 UTC
Playing the Banking Game - How Cash Starved States can Create their Own Credit
"He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator." Francis Bacon
On February 19, 2009, California narrowly escaped bankruptcy, when Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger put on his Terminator hat and held the state senate in lockdown mode until they signed a very controversial budget.1 If the vote had failed, the state was going to be reduced to paying its employees in I.O.U.s. California avoided bankruptcy for the time being, but 46 of 50 states are insolvent and could be filing Chapter 9 bankruptcy proceedings in the next two years.2

One of the four states that is not insolvent is an unlikely candidate for the distinction - North Dakota. As Michigan management consultant Charles Fleetham observed last month in an article distributed to his local media:

"North Dakota is a sparsely populated state of less than 700,000, known for cold weather, isolated farmers and a hit movie - Fargo. Yet, for some reason it defies the real estate cliché of location, location, location. Since 2000, the state's GNP has grown 56%, personal income has grown 43%, and wages have grown 34%. This year the state has a budget surplus of $1.2 billion!"

What does the State of North Dakota have that other states don't? The answer seems to be: its own bank. In fact, North Dakota has the only state-owned bank in the nation.
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Coffee

Destabilising Pakistan: The US-India-Mossad Connection

Asif Haroon Rajar
Pakistan Daily
Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:18 UTC
Both Israel and India aspire to become unchallenged military powers of Middle East and South Asia respectively. USA provides requisite backup support to accomplish their ambitions. In order to retain their regional ascendancy both have laid particular attention towards modernising conventional and unconventional military means far outmatching their neighbours. Apart from building their military power it becomes necessary for the duo to ensure that none of its neighbours acquires any weapon system superior to its own or is in a position to flex muscles or group together to pose a credible challenge.

Above all, they over ensure that no Muslim country possess nuclear capability and be in a position to avert blackmailing and bullying tactics. In other words, both desire weak and subservient states doing their biddings. Nuclear capability with any country is a death knell for their megalomaniac aspirations and hence a binding necessity to prevent its acquisition.
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Chess

The Unravelling Continues As More People Suffer

Donald Hunt & Simon Davies
SOTT.net
Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:27 UTC
World stock indexes fell sharply again the week ending 23rd February, down 6-7% on average.

Gold bumped up against the $1000 barrier on Friday as it became clear that all countries are prepared to go deeply in debt to stimulate their economies and to bail out their banks.

In the background of the economic news there have been some significant moves on the world chessboard. The United States is moving closer to Russia and Iran while escalating the war in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Russia will now formally allow the United States to resupply their forces in Afghanistan through Russian controlled territory. US diplomatic overtures to Iran continue although the UK Financial Times and other mainstream sources continued to bang the Zionist inspired nuclear weapons drum.

China and the United States are as close as can be economically and neither side seems to need to deny it. China has the productive capacity and the money and the United States has the borrowers, the consumers, and the international police force. The United States, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to China, has ended the hypocritical ritual of "denouncing" Chinese human rights violations. It looks like the world powers are joining forces to institute the next step of the plan. Meanwhile a new overtly fascist government has been formed in Israel by the right-wing schemer, Netanyahu; an event that does not bode well for humanity.
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Attention

Did Mossad Mole Arrested in Lebanon Recruit his Cousin as a 9/11 hijacker?


Pakistan Daily
Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:49 UTC
A new Israeli connection to the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001 has recently been unveiled. Buried in a New York Times story on Feb. 19 was the eye-opening revelation that a Lebanese Muslim Arab who has been taken into custody by the Lebanon - which has accused him of being a spy for some 25 years for Israeli intelligence - just happens to be a cousin of one of the Muslims alleged to have been one of the 9-11 hijackers.

Although Ali al-Jarrah was - publicly - an outspoken proponent of the Palestinian cause, it now turns out that he was actually working as a paid asset of the Mossad for more than two decades, betraying his own nation and conducting spying operations against Palestinian groups and the pro-Palestinian party Hezbollah.

Comment: The Mossad had more than 'advance knowledge' of 9/11. It was instrumental in its delivery:

Missing Links

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Chess

Cutting through the illusion - The Grand Chessboard

Simon Davies
SOTT.net
Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:14 UTC
Image

The US and Israel - the Reality
It may seem blindingly obvious, but I'm going to say it anyway as we often seem to forget, that clear communication is essential to mutual understanding. Without a common understanding of what we say to each other we find ourselves adrift in Babel-land. The risks to us all from a lack of common understanding cannot be overstated.

In the midst of the deluge of bailouts, rescues and stimulus packages there is no clear communication as to just why these measures are being taken and how they are meant to improve the lives of ordinary people. It is abundantly clear that this is deliberate. If we, the normal people of the planet, were to gain a common understanding of what is really happening, we would decide that we don't approve, we would agree on exactly why we don't approve and we would likely agree on what we wish to see happen instead. Those that control our world know this so they ensure that no common understanding is reached; they need the confusion. In fact, they create the confusion.
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Health

Obama taps Sebelius for health secretary

Charles Babington
NineMSN
Sun, 01 Mar 2009 10:35 UTC
Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is US President Barack Obama's choice for secretary of health and human services, a White House source said on Saturday.

The source, who was not authorised to speak on the record, said Obama will formally announce the nomination on Monday.

Sebelius, 60, was an early Obama supporter. She picked his presidential campaign over that of Hillary Rodham Clinton, now the secretary of state. Sebelius worked tirelessly for Obama's bid and was a top surrogate to women's groups.
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Eye 1

Elie Wiesel: 'Psychopath Is Too Nice a Word' for Bernie Madoff

The Staff at wowOwow.com
wowOwow
Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:25 UTC
Elie Wiesel's comments, while understandable, show how little is commonly known about psychopaths.

Comment: Many people share Mr. Wiesel's sentiment. They also share his lack of understanding of psychopathy. This lack of understanding ensures that the Madoffs of the world will continue in their evil ways relatively unabated.

Wiesel stated that Madoff, "presented himself as a philanthropist." This is precisely how a psychopath would approach a man like Wiesel. Psychopaths maintain a mask of sanity. That mask changes based on who is it being put up for.

Wiesel goes on to say, '"psychopath" is not the word to describe the weasel because "he knew what he was doing." Apparently, Mr. Wiesel is confusing the psychopath and psychotic. They are not the same. Psychopaths are well aware of what they are doing. The fact that they can knowingly commit acts that are rightfully called "inhuman" stems from the fact that they really are not human. While they may appear human on the surface, they lack the emotions and empathy that are a part of being human.

The punishment Mr. Wiesel proposes, that he be placed in a cell and forced to face what he has done, "Look what you have done to this old lady, look what you have done to that child," would be meaningless to a psychopath. A psychopath knows full well what he is doing when he does it. Such a punishment would be as meaningful to a psychopath as it would be to a lion forced to look at pictures of its gazelle victims.

The truth of psychopaths is, unfortunately, lost to Mr. Wiesel and the vast majority of the population of the planet. Our ignorance of psychopathy allows them to work in anonymity.

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Blackbox

Mumbai: The killers were NOT Muslims

Shablon@comcast.net
Soc.Culture.Jewish - Google Newsgroups
Fri, 05 Dec 2008 01:02 UTC
If the Mumbai terrorists' background was consistent with the single captured survivor, then the terrorist actions were not performed by Muslims, but by mercenaries, that is soldiers of fortune, hired criminals, paid to murder and terrorize, for non-religious reasons, and funded by unknown criminal gangs for purposes also unknown. The obvious motivation of such gangs might be to encourage political instability in the region, and heighten military and diplomatic pressure on the government of Pakistan. This certainly suggests that the criminal gangs who hired the mercenary terrorists in Mumbai, were like their soldiers, motivated also by financial gain, as criminal gangs tend to be so engaged, and that the gangs themselves were hired by perhaps non-Pakistani actors, with ambitions for control of the government of Pakistan.
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Coffee

Rescuing Capitalism or Grand Theft & Military Dictatorship?

Simon Davies & Donald Hunt
SOTT.net
Sat, 21 Feb 2009 00:05 UTC
Image
© Matson

World stock indexes fell the week ending 16th February led by the Dow losing more than 5% while gold continued to inch its way towards the psychologically important $1,000/oz level, driven by the approach of what looks like another emerging market crisis in Eastern Europe which is driving the Euro and Sterling lower, sending - it would seem - mobile money towards gold. The big US news, however, was the passage of the almost $800 billion stimulus package in the United States and the decidedly lukewarm reception to US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's much heralded $2 trillion bank rescue plan.

The G7 finance ministers met in Rome in an exercise in hot air generation, stating, as if we needed reminding, that the "downturn" will persist through 2009 and that the various "stimulus measures" won't have any noticeable effect for a while as they "build over time". The ministers did pledge to restore confidence to financial markets and growth to the world economy but didn't happen to mention how they plan to do it. Timothy Geithner demanded "exceptional measures" from his counterparts which we can only assume means "exceptionally large amounts of money" to prop up the international banking system so that it can continue to concentrate even greater wealth in even fewer hands.
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Attention

Cousin of alleged 9/11 hijacker exposed as Mossad agent

Robert Worth
New York Times
Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:52 UTC
Super spy
© Unknown
Ali al-Jarrah: Mossad mole
For 25 years, Ali al-Jarrah managed to live on both sides of the bitterest divide running through this region. To friends and neighbors, he was an earnest supporter of the Palestinian cause, an affable, white-haired family man who worked as an administrator at a nearby school.

To Israel, he appears to have been a valued spy, sending reports and taking clandestine photographs of Palestinian groups and Hezbollah since 1983.

Now he sits in a Lebanese prison cell, accused by the authorities of betraying his country to an enemy state. Months after his arrest, his friends and former colleagues are still in shock over the extent of his deceptions: the carefully disguised trips abroad, the unexplained cash, the secret second wife.
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