Puppet MastersS


Igloo

Coldest Arctic Start To Autumn Since 1996

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Daily mean temperatures for the Arctic area north of the 80th northern parallel, plotted with daily climate values calculated from the period 1958-2002.
Temperatures north of 80N have been normal to below normal for five months,obliterating global warming theory.

"The early and fast start to winter in the Arctic is due to cold temperatures not seen since 1996," says this article on Real-Science.com

Source of graph

See real-science.com

Thanks to Marc Morano for this link

Butterfly

Palestine State Quest Wins First Victory in UNESCO Vote

palestine
© unknown
Palestine won a first diplomatic victory in its quest for statehood on Wednesday when the UNESCO executive committee backed its bid to become a member of the cultural body with the rights of a state.

Palestine's Arab allies braved intense US and French diplomatic pressure to bring the motion before the committee's member states, which passed it by 40 votes in favour to four against, with 14 abstentions.

The Palestinian bid will now be submitted to the UNESCO general assembly at the end of the month for final approval, a victory for a territory already seeking recognition as a state from the United Nations Security Council.

This request, which Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas presented to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on September 23, is being studied by council members, who are expected to vote in the coming weeks.

The United States wields a veto on the Security Council, and has said it will veto any statehood bid before Palestine comes to an agreement with US ally Israel over their longstanding territorial standoff.

Stormtrooper

Human Rights Going Downhill in Britain

police
The UK, which used to boast of being a cradle of democracy and human rights, has in recent months witnessed a terminally downward trend in human rights on internal and international planes.

True to God, the Old Imperialist could have seen better days. Until recently, the history of human rights abuse in Britain pertained to its impish role in other countries but the violation of human rights in recent months has sufficed to put Britain high on the black list of countries with deplorable human rights abuse.

The first instance of such violation is the brutal crackdown on the peaceful student protests against the inconsiderate Tory-Liberal Democrat cuts and the massive cuts to third level education which shoved the British government closer to the verge of collapse as far as human rights are concerned. Tens of thousands of students took to the streets of London in November 2010 and protested against plans by the government to raise tuition fees by up to three times. However, the protests were received with the heavy-handed brutality of the British police who used the notorious technique known as kettling. Also known as containment or corralling, kettling is a violent tactic used by British police for controlling protesters. The tactic consists of forming large cordons of police officers who move onto the crowd to limit their movement or escape to the extent that the protestors are denied access to toilet, water or food.

Star of David

US Walks Out After Syria Charges Genocide

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© unknownSyrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar Ja'afari
Syria has bluntly alleged that the US manipulates its veto power at the UN Security Council (UNSC) chiefly to protect the Israeli regime, prompting the American UN envoy to lead a walkout from the chamber.

The incident took place Tuesday, following the opposition of UNSC permanent members Russia and China to the US-led anti-Syria draft resolution, which triggered the openly-displayed US outrage.

Officially, the anti-Damascus resolution was drafted by US and Israeli allies, France, Britain and Germany, threatening sanctions against Syria over an alleged crackdown on protesters within the country.

The nine affirmative votes for the anti-Syria move were cast by the US, Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, Bosnia, Gabon, Nigeria and Colombia. While permanent UNSC members China and Russia opposed the motion, effectively vetoing it, South Africa, Brazil, Lebanon and India abstained from voting.

Following the vote, Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar Ja'afari accused the Western countries that perpetrated the UNSC effort of turning a blind eye on Israeli crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Hourglass

Oil sands imports could be banned under EU directive

Tar Sands
© Veronique De Viguerie/GettyOil sands projects have proved controversial as they produces greater greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil drilling.
Oil from controversial and environmentally destructive tar sands is likely to be all but banned from Europe after a decision on Tuesday. The move also casts doubt on the future of other controversial energy sources such as shale gas.

Tar sands (also known as oil sands) have been a target of green campaigners for several years, as the extraction of low quality oil from sands - chiefly in Canada to date - produces far greater greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil drilling operations, and requires vast quantities of water. The exploitation of tar sands has also led to the destruction of swaths of forest and is blamed for water and air pollution.

In a victory for Connie Hedegaard, the EU's climate change commissioner, the commission has decided to back a new directive on fuel quality. This will set minimum environmental standards for a range of fuels, including tar sands, coal converted to liquid and oil from shale rock.

Attention

Ignore David Cameron - dealing with our UK debt would be disastrous

Cameron
© Phil Noble/ReutersDavid Cameron is to urge the public to pay off its credit card and store card debts.
In 1931 Andrew Mellon, then the secretary of the US treasury, advised President Herbert Hoover thus: "Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate ... it will purge the rottenness out of the system."

To our ears that sounds both callous and wrong. But that's partly hindsight - Mellon was speaking before Keynes wrote The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. David Cameron has no such excuse. He is set to tell us today in his conference speech that "the only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts. That means households - all of us - paying off the credit card and store card bills".

But with fiscal policy set on what Martin Wolf has rightly described in the Financial Times as "kamikaze tightening", the UK needs the private sector to pick up the slack. If all sectors - the government, firms and households - increase saving simultaneously, in an effort to reduce debt, it will further depress domestic demand, reduce output and jobs, and we will end up in a downward spiral. This is what Keynes described as the paradox of thrift.

Eye 1

US: Spy vs. Spy games come to New York for UN General Assembly

International organization founded in name of peace and security is also a hotbed of clandestine operations

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© Unknown
When Iran's president accused the U.S. at the United Nations General Assembly last year of orchestrating the 9/11 attacks, American diplomats were not caught flat-footed by the tirade.

Even before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad finished his incendiary rant, U.S. diplomats marched out of the cavernous U.N. hall in protest and were ready with a written statement condemning his comments.

It was as if the U.S. knew exactly what Ahmadinejad intended to say.

The walkout hinted at one of the well-known but seldom spoken truths about the United Nations: The international organization, which was founded in the name of peace and security, is also a hotbed of spying and clandestine operations, where someone might very well be listening to your conversations and monitoring your emails - or perhaps reading your speeches in advance.

Arrow Down

US: Fed chairman says 'Recovery is close to faltering'

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told lawmakers Tuesday that the economic recovery is close to faltering and recent economic indicators point to "the likelihood of more sluggish job growth" ahead.

Appearing before the Joint Economic Committee in Washington, D.C., Tuesday to deliver his outlook for the U.S. economy, Bernanke said recent data on jobless claims and surveys of hiring plans suggest job growth will continue to be weak.


The Fed chief also said the economy is growing more slowly than the Fed had expected and that the most significant factor depressing consumer confidence is poor job growth.

"The recovery is close to faltering," Bernanke told lawmakers, adding that the Fed is prepared to take further steps to prop up the recovery. "We need to make sure that the recovery continues and doesn't drop back and that the unemployment rate continues to fall downward."

Dollar

Best of the Web: Is Hang a Banker Day coming to a Theater near You?

pig bankers
© unknown
Dog Poet Transmitting.......

May your noses always be cold and wet.

Watch it happen in front of your eyes. The Occupy Wall Street phenom is going viral, diversifying like a stock portfolio and popping up all over the US and in other countries as well. Look at the media not covering it. Look at the media giving out false information concerning the motivation, even to the extent of saying the protestors are protesting against people making 40 to 50 thousand dollars a year, as well as global warming. Understand that the media is owned and operated by the same people who operate at and influence Wall Street. Look at the important names that are appearing in the mix and the American Marines showing up on behalf of the protest as well. In its genesis and presentations, it is about as authentic and threatening to go nova as it can get. This is the real deal.

The traders and bankers are celebrating their imagined invulnerability. In the delusion of their fevered hubris, they are drinking champagne and talking about pouring it on the protestors, in emulation of the bankers and traders at The City of London, who waved banknotes out of their windows as they jeered the protestors. Does this look like they may and should have their heads chopped off and put on display? Does this give you the impression that Hang a Banker Day might be coming to a neighborhood near you soon? This is not an argument in favor or against this. This is an observation of the anger of the vast majority coming up against the defiance, indifference and ridicule of the minority of those causing the conditions for the anger in the first place.

Handcuffs

Billionaire Koch brothers in the dock over trades with Iran

Koch
© unknown
Tea Party backers made multimillion-dollar deals with Tehran, report claims

The leading financiers of the Tea Party movement were last night attempting to rebut claims that a portion of their wealth comes from secretly doing business with the most un-American trading partner imaginable: the hard-line government of Iran.

Charles and David Koch, the prominent billionaires who fund a string of influential conservative think-tanks, stand accused of selling tens of millions of dollars worth of petrochemicals to Tehran, despite a longstanding US trade embargo against the nation that the former President, George W Bush, dubbed a pillar of his "Axis of Evil".

It has been reported that Koch Industries used foreign subsidiaries to supply the products, in an apparent effort to stay within the letter - if not the spirit - of the law. It has been suggested that the company used dozens of lawyers to help find a way around the embargo, and was trading with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime as recently as 2007.