The nation's just-retired No. 2 intelligence official Tuesday defended a controversial year-old estimate on Iran, saying he stood by its conclusion that Iran suspended a nuclear-weapons program in 2003.

As the world falls asleep under the spell of Obama's supposed change, the Zionists sneak onto his staff roster and take the opportunity to siege Gaza. With astoundingly accurate timing, India gets its own shocking 9/11 and the fingers are pointed at Pakistan.

More blood is expected to run, as we keep seeing signs of war and hearing predictions of catastrophic terrorism.

As this happens, Mother Nature takes notice of the human madness and gives the world a very cold shoulder. As above, so below: the cosmic weather responds with fireballs and other mysteries.

An American company is believed to have made an agreement in principle with the Cyprus government to exploit oil and gas in the Exclusive Economic Zone of Cyprus.

The revelation is made by Politis newspaper and comes at a time of heightened tensions off the coast of Cyprus.

An independent review has been launched into the case of a rapist who fathered seven children with his two daughters. The 56-year-old, who was sentenced to 25 life sentences, repeatedly raped his daughters, who between them went through 19 pregnancies, over a period spanning more than quarter of a century.

Judge Alan Goldsack QC ordered the Sheffield man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to serve 25 life sentences that will run concurrently. He said the minimum term the rapist should serve in jail should be 19-and-a-half years.

Sheffield City Council's Children and Young People's Specialist Services confirmed a Serious Case Review had been launched.

Remember back in 2005 when Ariel Sharon decided to make a "historical sacrifice" by withdrawing some 9,000 illegal Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip? Remember the drama whipped up by the world's media and the tears on the faces of those who were leaving behind their ill begotten houses and farms? Remember the debates about civil and human rights - the rights of the settlers, that is because as we all know, the Palestinians have no rights. Remember as well how Sharon - the same man who years before was responsible for the massacre of the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in southern Lebanon - was applauded for his restraint and sensibility.

Well, all of that was nothing but the theatrics that came with a calculated step in a long-term war strategy and which is now reaching a climax with the siege of Gaza.

"By that, I mean, 'Get me a lead singer. He's got sort of an androgynous blonde hair, very pretty. We need a guitar player, sort of hatchet-faced, wears a hat, plays very fast, very dramatic. He must be very dramatic. Get me a pound of bass player, pound of drummer ... they're making little cardboard cutouts. They hire a producer, they hire writers ... And in the current stuff now, they don't even bother getting people to play. Don't bother with that guitar player, bass player, drummer - nonsense ... The people in those bands can't write, play, or sing."

David Crosby, describing the synthetic, manufactured nature of today's rock bands

"David was obnoxious, loud, demanding, thoughtless, full of himself - of the four of them [David Crosby, Steven Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young], the least talented."

David Geffen

First of all, before getting back into the Laurel Canyon scene, I need to say that some of you people really need to mellow out on the visits to my website. Seriously. This isn't a crack-house, for fuck's sake, so just chill out a little bit. I mean, I've grown accustomed to the fact that you feel free to drop in unannounced at all hours of the day and night, but maybe, just maybe, you could consider doing it a bit less frequently. Is that so much to ask?

Don't get me wrong here - I'm flattered by the attention. I really am. The problem though is that you have overloaded my now-overworked website, causing it to spontaneously disappear on, of all days, the morning of September 11, 2008. And to add insult to injury, the generic, no-frills page that popped up instead, proclaiming that my site was under house arrest for the crime of exceeding its bandwidth allocation, was arguably more attractive than my actual homepage.

Luckily, this problem was quickly brought to my attention by a few alert readers and I was able to liberate my site by digging deeply into my pockets to come up with the bail money that the jailers were demanding (I think they referred to it as "adding resources" to my site, but I wasn't really fooled by that. And I didn't, by the way, really dig that deeply into my pockets. But that's not the point. No, the point is that my site is - and I'm sure that there are many of you who do not know this - primitive by design. It is my belief that the 'retro website' look will soon be all the rage, and I want to be at the forefront of that movement. Everything old will someday become new again, and the 'net has been around for long enough now, given our collectively short attention span, that a return to basics - to those first tentative baby-steps some of us took in creating one of those newfangled things called 'websites' - is all but guaranteed. My site, needless to say, will become the template that will be followed by everyone who wants to run with the in-crowd. I will, of course, be regarded as something of a visionary. Unfortunately though, I will ultimately be revealed as a fraud when, a few years down the road, legions of fans suddenly realize that, long after the fad has passed, my site is still retro. Self-righteous critics will denounce me as a poser, a charlatan - they may even invoke that most demeaning of future slurs and label me a 'Palin.' But before that happens, the brief time during which I shall have basked in the limelight will have made it all worthwhile.

A top City banker is due in court today charged with murdering his wife who was found strangled at their home.

Neil Ellerbeck, 45, a senior HSBC executive based at Canary Wharf, was arrested at the detached property in Enfield.

His wife, Katherine, 46, was pronounced dead at the house after paramedics and police were called to the cul-de-sac on Friday afternoon.

The couple's children, a 13-year-old son and daughter aged 10, are not thought to have been at the £650,000 four-bedroom home at the time and are being cared for by Mrs Ellerbeck's sister who lives nearby.

The family were too distressed to talk. The couple had been married for 14 years.

The murder of Charalambos Christodoulides was one of Scotland Yard's most baffling modern cases. The victim was a 57-year-old eccentric whose greatest pleasure was to dress in a Savile Row suit and designer accessories to make forays to the West End from his dingy flat in Kilburn. He would sit alone until the early hours of the morning in fast food restaurants around Piccadilly, talking to no one. He spent his days making minuscule bets at bookmaker shops and he didn't have much money.

When he was found, tortured and strangled, apparently killed by experienced criminals, the police were at a loss. Why would professional villains want to murder this harmless old loner?

Another young person has been found dead in a South Wales county blighted by suicide victims, police have said.

The 25-year-old's body was discovered at her house in Bridgend on Monday morning.

A spokesman for South Wales Police said the death was not being treated as suspicious.

The woman is the 24th young person in or from the county believed to have killed themselves in less than two years.

The police spokesman said while there were similarities between recent sudden deaths in the county, there was no criminal link.

"In the event of a sudden death, we will investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident, our primary aim being to determine whether or not the death is suspicious," said the spokesman.

From DailyKos

According to [Carl] Cameron,

Palin did NOT know Africa was a continent.
She did NOT know who the parties to NAFTA were.
She threw dramatic temper tantrums over bad press.
She refused to prepare for the Gibson or Couric interviews.