Puppet Masters
© US Weekly
Katherine Hiegl hates Balls...So what?
Katherine Hiegl hates Balls...So what?
As I write, The top search term on Yahoo is Katherine Heigl. I must confess, I've never heard of her, but I think that is a good thing. According to the New York Daily News, she is an actress who stars in a 'hilarious' Public Service Announcement entitled 'I Hate Balls'. The video is to promote a spay-and-neuter animal campaign, in which she jokes that the real reason she's such an advocate for spaying and neutering animals is because she simply hates "terrible, terrible testicles." She goes on to say:
"Hate balls, fix pets, save lives. It's just that simple,".I suppose if we just read the MSM then life would be simple. But take a tour around the alternative news media sites and they are reporting on something that might just be a little more important to the average American than dogs' balls: the new legislation in process that will enable the U.S. Government to declare a suspect U.S. Citizen a terrorist, who can then be taken to foreign prisons without a court process. The new signs of terror include those who have food storage for more than 7 days, missing fingers, or own guns and ammo!
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Unfortunately, despite this fact, the masses often treat these industrious vermin and the plagues of society that they build with the same reverence as they would a sincere and honorable body politic.
Government is not nor has it ever been a foregone conclusion. Government is not concrete. It is not tangible. It is not the foundation of society. Instead, government is an abstraction; a fantastic dream of collectivist paternity in the face of individual hardship. Those who fear to wander the world on their own courage, strength, and merit, seek to elevate and empower "decision makers" to provide the comfort of limited liability. Through this process, governments are created out of thin air. All governmental authority is, thus, HANDED to those in positions of leadership. What makes one man a "king" and another man a "peasant"? Only the people of a country, and where they choose to place their personal control; in their own hands, or the hands of others.
To put it simply, there is no power over us but that which we give away, and no freedom lost, that cannot be regained.
© iranbriefing.net
We believe that the integrity of embassies should always be honored; there is no justifying any country attacking any other country's embassy. Even if war breaks out, embassies are the last thread that should be severed.
That being said, and whilst it is unclear who agitated and mobilized Iranian protesters to attack the British Embassy in Tehran, the local police certainly came out in full force trying to restore order in what has become an all-too-common scene throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
First question: who benefits from this attack which the Western media are highlighting in red alert colors and harsh tones? British Foreign Secretary William Hague immediately ordered the closure of the Iranian Embassy in London, whilst US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton condemned this as an "affront on the British, but also on the International Community," on whose behalf (i.e., the "international community's") the US and UK somehow feel they are empowered to speak.
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Former Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Hank Paulson
Former Secretary of the U.S. Treasury Hank Paulson
The article is entitled, "Hank Paulson's Inside Jobs," emphasizing the fact that this wasn't some one-off lapse of ethics on Paulson's part, but instead a disturbingly regular practice.
For those who are unaware, Paulson was the CEO and chairman at Goldman Sachs from 1999-2006 and he clearly provided them with actionable information that epitomizes the plague upon our economy, and the greater global economic system, that is crony capitalism.
However, this isn't quite a brand new revelation given the fact that in October of 2009 Andrew Ross Sorkin exposed that Paulson met with the entire Goldman Sachs board in a hotel suite in Moscow at the end of June 2008.
© Assmaa Waguih/Reuters
Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Araby (L) and Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim (C) attend the Arab Foreign Ministers' emergency meeting about Syria, at the Arab League Headquarters in Cairo November 12, 2011.
Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Araby (L) and Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim (C) attend the Arab Foreign Ministers' emergency meeting about Syria, at the Arab League Headquarters in Cairo November 12, 2011.
Before the vote, Damascus slammed the vote as a betrayal of Arab solidarity. Besides punishing an already ailing economy, the sanctions are a huge blow for a Syrian regime that considers itself a powerhouse of Arab nationalism.
At a news conference in Cairo, Qatari Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim said 19 of the League's 22 member nations approved the sanctions, which include cutting off transactions with the Syrian central bank and halting Arab government funding for projects in Syria. Iraq and Lebanon abstained.
"We aim to avoid any suffering for the Syrian people," Mr. bin Jassim said.
© realclearliberty
Washington - U.S. citizens are legitimate military targets when they take up arms with al-Qaida, top national security lawyers in the Obama administration said Thursday.
The lawyers were asked at a national security conference about the CIA killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen and leading al-Qaida figure. He died in a Sept. 30 U.S. drone strike in the mountains of Yemen.
The government lawyers, CIA counsel Stephen Preston and Pentagon counsel Jeh Johnson, did not directly address the al-Awlaki case. But they said U.S. citizens do not have immunity when they are at war with the United States.
Johnson said only the executive branch, not the courts, is equipped to make military battlefield targeting decisions about who qualifies as an enemy.
© file
American rights activists have slammed the US Senate for gearing up to vote on a bill on Monday that would define the whole of the United States as a 'battlefield' and allow the military to arrest American citizens in their own back yard without charge or trial.
The reactions comes after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said last week that "the senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president-and every future president - the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. The power is so broad that even US citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself."
The ECB announced today it was acting with the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the US Federal Reserve and the Swiss National Bank to lower the cost of US dollar swaps by 50 basis points.
The central banks also agreed to set up liquidity swap arrangements to provide liquidity in each jurisdiction in its national currency.
The ECB said in a statement: "The purpose of these actions is to ease strains in financial markets and thereby mitigate the effects of such strains on the supply of credit to households and businesess and so help foster economic activity."
The move is designed to head off a liquidity crunch in the banking sector as banks are increasingly wary of lending to each other.
"To some people, the European Central Bank seems like a fire department that is letting the house burn down to teach the children not to play with matches."So wrote Jack Ewing in the New York Times last week. He went on:
"The E.C.B. has a fire hose - its ability to print money. But the bank is refusing to train it on the euro zone's debt crisis.Why not? According to the November 28th Wall Street Journal, "The ECB has long worried that buying government bonds in big enough amounts to bring down countries' borrowing costs would make it easier for national politicians to delay the budget austerity and economic overhauls that are needed."
"The flames climbed higher Friday after the Italian Treasury had to pay an interest rate of 6.5 percent on a new issue of six-month bills . . . the highest interest rate Italy has had to pay to sell such debt since August 1997 . . . .
"But there is no sign the E.C.B. plans a major response, like buying large quantities of the country's bonds to bring down its borrowing costs."
