Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Chile 5.3 and 5.2 Atlantic Ocean ! More info here.

 

• Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to: Paul Langley’s Nuclear History Blog.Here.

 

• Hurricane Katia : Latest Updates here.

 

• Memorials of Grief.By DanielGreenfield.I think Daniel has summerized it perfectly what every American feels on 9-11.

“September 11 is not the day we cry, it is the day we get angry. It is the day we remember who our killers were, how many have been lost, and how little has been done to bring down the ideology responsible as completely as they brought the towers down. It is the day we remember not to forget. It is the day we remember that the war has just begun and that until it ends, there can be no comfort or solace. The fight goes on.”Read the full story here.

 

• What is the Super Congress their mission?Pay for Obama’s plans?The term Super Congress refers to a select group of 12 members of both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate chosen to identify ways to reduce the national debt by $1.5 trillion over 10 years.The Super Congress, or super committee, was created under the Budget Control Act of 2011. The law was passed by the U.S. Congress in the first two days of August 2011 to increase the nation’s $14.294 trillion debt ceiling in order to avoid a potential default. It was the fourth increase of the mandatory borrowing cap in President Barack Obama’s first term.The Super Congress consists of six members of the House and Senate, evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. The House members were chosen by Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. The Senate members were chosen by Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.The official name for the Super Congress is the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.

Super Congress Responsibilities

The Budget Control Act of 2011 immediately raised the nation’s debt ceiling by $400 billion, to $14.694 trillion, so the federal government could meet spending obligations previously approved by Congress. But it required the Super Congress to find ways to reduce the national debt by $1.5 trillion before the end of 2011. If the panel’s plan is approved by Congress, the debt ceiling can be increased by the same amount. If the committee fails in its mission, automatic spending cut measures will be triggered.Proposals from the Super Congress would be placed on a fast track through the House and Senate, with no allowance for the legislation to be amended by lawmakers.Hmmmmm…..President Obama wants $ 220Billion of his ‘plan’ financed by the ‘Supercommittee’……..find ways to reduce the national debt?

 

• KUHNER: Obama and the lunatic left.President and his followers intend to end America’s greatness.(Washingtontimes).President Obama is politically insane. This is the real meaning of his speech Thursday night in front of a joint session of Congress. Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. By that definition, Mr. Obama is a lunatic leftist.Much of his speech called for more of the same – government activism; massive spending on infrastructure, bridges and roads; extending the payroll tax cut; and more public aid to states and municipalities. In short, he seeks to perpetuate the dismal policies of Obamanomics. He is a reckless ideologue masquerading as a pragmatist.Mr. Obama’s presidency has been dominated by one seminal reality – failure. His nearly $1 trillion stimulus; record budget deficits; unprecedented levels of public spending; the government bailouts of the auto, insurance, housing and banking sectors; billions heaped on “green jobs”; Obamacare; Dodd-Frank to reform Wall Street, and huge outlays for food stamps and unemployment benefits – all have failed to restore the economy.In fact, they have done the opposite. Unemployment is 9.1 percent. Growth is anemic. In August, no new net jobs – none – were created. Consumer confidence is low. Inflation is rising. The value of the dollar plummets. Burdensome regulations are strangling business. America is being buried under a mountain of debt. For the first time in history, its credit rating has been downgraded. The country is not only on the verge of national bankruptcy, but of economic collapse.Any reasonable person would change course – but not Mr. Obama. He is a big-government liberal who worships at the altar of statism. The fact that we are broke and can no longer afford his borrow-and-spend policies means nothing. Like all fanatics, he is disconnected from reality.Contrary to popular myth, liberalism is not politics committed to science or rational thought. It is a substitute religion – a secular philosophy similar to Marxism that seeks to replace Christianity and provide believers with existential meaning. Hence, it must be defended at all costs, even in the face of irrefutable evidence or logic. Mr. Obama is not an anomaly among progressives. They share his stubbornness. Reassessment is not possible. If Mr. Obama truly were to tack to the center, it would represent a fatal admission of error. The liberal faith would collapse.In 2009, Mr. Obama vowed that if the stimulus were passed, the jobless rate would remain under 8 percent. Under his tenure, America has lost more than 2 million private-sector jobs. Mrs. Wasserman Schultz is the equivalent of a Stalinist-era hack jabbering about the Soviet economic miracle. No one believes her – not even her staunchest supporters.This leaves political gangsterism. Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa recently said that it’s time for unions to declare “war” on Republicans and Tea Partyers. “President Obama, this is your army,” Mr. Hoffa thundered at a Sept. 5 Labor Day rally in Detroit. “We are ready to march. Let’s take these SOBs out and give America back to an America where we belong.” Mr. Hoffa’s comments were vile, reprehensible and could foment civil violence. Labor unions, such as the Teamsters, have a long history of street brawls and physically intimidating opponents. Once these kinds of furies have been unleashed, it is difficult to contain them.The Democrats’ hypocrisy is staggering. For days following the Tucson shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others, leading Democrats and the liberal media blamed conservative talk radio, Sarah Palin and a “climate of hate” for the massacre. Mr. Obama even called for a “new civility” and “tone,” tacitly chastising his critics. Yet, now that a key ally has called for blood to flow in the streets, the White House is silent.Mr. Obama is a man of the hard left. He deeply loathes everything America stands for – capitalism, limited government, individual freedom and Christian civilization. In particular, he despises our exceptionalism. His stated goal is to create a “post-American world” where the United States is simply one of many countries – no bigger, better or stronger. He exhibits a form of madness, a self-loathing, reminiscent of the late pop singer Amy Winehouse. Mr. Obama keeps injecting the heroin of class warfare and socialism into our national bloodstream. And he can continue to play on the biggest stage and boast a huge audience. In the end, however, it leads to the same result: insanity and death.Read the full story here.

 

• Obama’s Illegal Alien Uncle Quietly Released From Jail: House chairman; Obama’s Uncle Got Backdoor Amnesty.(BirtherReport).Boston Globe: Officials released President Obama’s uncle from Plymouth County jail yesterday after holding him for more than two weeks on an immigration detainer for violating an order to return to his native Kenya in 1992.US officials refused to disclose any other information about Onyango Obama, who remained in the United States undetected until Framingham police arrested him Aug. 24 on drunken driving and other charges.Yesterday, federal immigration officials refused to say whether the 67-year-old Framingham resident posted bond, whether they are keeping track of his whereabouts, or even whether they are still seeking his deportation, raising questions about public accountability in the case.

Washington Times: The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said Friday that President Obama’s half-uncle, an illegal immigrant who was picked up but has reportedly been released from jail, appears to have benefited from the new “backdoor amnesty” the administration announced last month.“It appears there is a double standard — one for President Obama’s family and one for everyone else,” Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, said. “Last year, President Obama’s illegal immigrant aunt was granted asylum and now his illegal immigrant uncle has been released from [the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency] custody, even though he was arrested by authorities for drunk driving.”Mr. Smith said the case will be the first “test case” for a new Homeland Security policy announced last month that gives immigration authorities more discretion to let illegal immigrants go, rather than pursue efforts to deport them.Hmmmm……”Let my ‘people’ go”.Got suddenly a whole different meaning.Read the full story here.

 

• FACT CHECK: Obama’s jobs plan paid for? Seems not.(AP). By Calvin Woodward and Tom Raum.WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama’s promise Thursday that everything in his jobs plan will be paid for rests on highly iffy propositions.It will only be paid for if a committee he can’t control does his bidding, if Congress puts that into law and if leaders in the future – the ones who will feel the fiscal pinch of his proposals – don’t roll it back.Underscoring the gravity of the nation’s high employment rate, Obama chose a joint session of Congress, normally reserved for a State of the Union speech, to lay out his proposals. But if the moment was extraordinary, the plan he presented was conventional Washington rhetoric in one respect: It employs sleight-of-hand accounting.A look at some of Obama’s claims and how they compare with the facts:

OBAMA: “Everything in this bill will be paid for. Everything.”

THE FACTS: Obama did not spell out exactly how he would pay for the measures contained in his nearly $450 billion American Jobs Act but said he would send his proposed specifics in a week to the new congressional supercommittee charged with finding budget savings. White House aides suggested that new deficit spending in the near term to try to promote job creation would be paid for in the future – the “out years,” in legislative jargon – but they did not specify what would be cut or what revenues they would use.Essentially, the jobs plan is an IOU from a president and lawmakers who may not even be in office down the road when the bills come due. Today’s Congress cannot bind a later one for future spending. A future Congress could simply reverse it.Currently, roughly all federal taxes and other revenues are consumed in spending on various federal benefit programs, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans’ benefits, food stamps, farm subsidies and other social-assistance programs and payments on the national debt. Pretty much everything else is done on credit with borrowed money.So there is no guarantee that programs that clearly will increase annual deficits in the near term will be paid for in the long term.

OBAMA: “Everything in here is the kind of proposal that’s been supported by both Democrats and Republicans, including many who sit here tonight.”

THE FACTS: Obama’s proposed cut in the Social Security payroll tax does seem likely to garner significant GOP support. But Obama proposes paying for the plan in part with tax increases that have already generated stiff Republican opposition.For instance, Obama makes a pitch anew to end Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, which he has defined as couples earning over $250,000 a year or individuals over $200,000 a year. Republicans have adamantly blocked what they view as new taxes. As recently as last month, House Republicans refused to go along with any deal to raise the government’s borrowing authority that included new revenues, or taxes.

OBAMA: “It will not add to the deficit.”

THE FACTS: It’s hard to see how the program would not raise the deficit over the next year or two because most of the envisioned spending cuts and tax increases are designed to come later rather than now, when they could jeopardize the fragile recovery. Deficits are calculated for individual years. The accumulation of years of deficit spending has produced a national debt headed toward $15 trillion. Perhaps Obama meant to say that, in the long run, his hoped-for programs would not further increase the national debt, not annual deficits.

OBAMA: “The American Jobs Act answers the urgent need to create jobs right away.”

THE FACTS: Not all of the president’s major proposals are likely to yield quick job growth if adopted. One is to set up a national infrastructure bank to raise private capital for roads, rail, bridges, airports and waterways. Even supporters of such a bank doubt it could have much impact on jobs in the next two years because it takes time to set up. The idea is likely to run into opposition from some Republicans who say such a bank would give the federal government too much power. They’d rather divide money among existing state infrastructure banks.Hmmmm……..Indeed there is a ‘serious threat to America’.Read the full story here.

 

• Reaction Roundup: Heritage Responds to Obama’s Jobs Speech.Heritage’s experts are watching President Barack Obama’s address on jobs to a joint session of Congress. Here are some of their immediate reactions.

 

• The market stall jihadists: Ex-Afghan camp extremist used inner city stall to peddle hatred.(DailyMail).A Muslim who used his market stall as a front to persuade people to join a holy ‘Jihad’ war against the UK was facing jail last night.Munir Farooqi, 54, turned his inner city book stall into a secret Al Qaeda recruiting school.He targeted young British men and used literature and films to brainwash them to convert to Islam.Using fanatical Islamic manuals, books and DVDs at the market stall in Manchester, he converted a former British soldier, an estate agent and even members of a local crime gang.Over a two year period Farooqi – who boasted of being a Taliban fighter and was detained in Afghanistan in the wake of the 9/11 attacks – tried to persuade people visiting his stall to travel to training camps and battlefields abroad to fight in Afghanistan.Last night he was facing jail after he was convicted of soliciting multiple murder and a series of terrorism offences.Matthew Newton, 29, an estate agent, was convicted of preparing acts of terrorism and distributing terrorist publications.Farooqi was arrested in November 2009 after two white undercover policemen infiltrated the recruiting school and underwent radicalisation ceremonies in the basement of his terraced home in Longsight, Manchester.During the undercover investigation one of the detectives taped Farooqi boasting: ‘If we die, we win. You have Allah on your side, how can we lose?‘You know Jihad is not about you giving your life away. If we’re going to go there you make sure you take at least 40 or 50 people with us so we’ve done something.’ When police raided his house they found a haul of extremist literature and pamphlets and up to 5,000 DVDs.Manchester Crown Court heard Farooqi had been born in Pakistan and came to England in 1962 with his family when he was five-years-old.But he became an active supporter of the Taliban in Afghanistan and went there in 2001 after the attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Centre.He was captured by authorities in Afghanistan and jailed from November 2001 to May 2002 before being released.He returned to the UK after his wife flew out with some money and successfully applied for a new UK passport in 2003.A 12 month undercover anti-terror operation was launched in November 2008 with officers monitoring his market stall in Longsight, Manchester.Speaking from behind a screen, one undercover officer told the court: ’I was playing the part of someone who has very low social ties, somebody who was for want of a better word down on their luck.‘Mr Farooqi asked me if I was an atheist and I asked what he meant by that. He said: ‘Do you believe in God?’’ The jury heard the pair later exchanged mobile phone numbers and the officer was handed a series of Islamic leaflets, a copy of the Koran and some DVDs.He was given the Islamic name Abdul Rahman and converted to Islam on December 30, 2008 in a ceremony.One imam was secretly filmed by the undercover officer conducting a lecture at Indian restaurant in which he discussed the 9/11 terror attacks – but told followers not to record his speech as it could be used against him.The undercover officer said Farooqi told him he had been jailed for fighting in Afghanistan and he had been trailed by MI5 after returning to Britain.Among the literature found at his terraced house were two books described as in court as ‘classic jihadi texts‘.There was no evidence that anyone from the UK had travelled abroad to fight as part of a Jihad.Farooqi’s son, Harris Farooqi, 27, who ran a perfume stall was acquitted of various terror charges.Jurors are still deciding on verdicts upon former Trafford centre shop assistant Israr Malik, 22.Read the full story here.

Apocalypse Now is a 1979 American war film set during the Vietnam War, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The central character is US Army special operations officer Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen), of MACV-SOG, an assassin sent to kill the renegade and presumed insane Special Forces Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando).

Coppola’s and John Milius’s script is based on Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness, and also draws from Michael Herr’s Dispatches, the film version of Conrad’s Lord Jim (which shares the same character of Marlow with Heart of Darkness), and Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972).

The film drew attention for its lengthy and troubled production. Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse documented Brando showing up on the set overweight, Sheen’s heart attack, and extreme weather destroying several expensive sets. The film’s release was postponed several times while Coppola edited millions of feet of footage.

Honored with the Palme d’Or at Cannes, and nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama, the film was also deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant” and selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 2001.

Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen), a seasoned and deeply troubled special operations veteran, has returned to Saigon from deployment in the field. He drinks excessively and has difficulty adjusting to life in the rear-area. Two intelligence officers, Lt. General Corman (G. D. Spradlin) and Colonel Lucas (Harrison Ford), and a civilian (Jerry Ziesmer) approach him with an assignment: follow the Nung River into the remote Cambodian jungle to find Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando), a member of the US Army Special Forces who has gone insane, and kill him. Their claims are supported by bizarre radio broadcasts and recordings made by Kurtz himself.

Once considered a model officer and future general, Kurtz has gone rogue and is commanding a legion of his own Montagnard troops deep inside neutral Cambodia. Ordered to terminate the Colonel’s command “with extreme prejudice”, Willard joins the crew of a Navy Patrol Boat, Riverine (PBR) composed of boat commander George “Chief” Phillips (Albert Hall), and crewmen Lance Johnson (Sam Bottoms), Jay “Chef” Hicks (Frederic Forrest), and Tyrone “Mr Clean” Miller (Laurence Fishburne).

Willard and the PBR crew rendezvous with Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall), commanding a squadron of Air Cavalry attack helicopters, for escort to the Nung River. Initially scoffing at their request for escort, Kilgore, a keen surfer, learns Johnson is a professional surfer and befriends him. When Willard suggests the coastal mouth of the Nung River for the boat and crew to be taken, Kilgore is reluctant to approach the heavily fortified position held by the Viet Cong, but changes his mind after learning of the excellent surfing conditions there. The beach is taken amid napalm strikes and “Ride of the Valkyries” played over the choppers’ loudspeakers, after which Kilgore orders Lance and other surfers in his command to surf the beach amid enemy fire. While Kilgore nostalgically regales all around him of a previous napalm strike, Willard gathers his men to the PBR, which has been dropped from a helicopter into the river, and they begin their journey.

While navigating upstream, the crew has a run-in with a tiger, watches a USO show featuring Playboy Bunnies, and encounters a sampan, mistakenly killing almost all civilians onboard. Willard shoots the one survivor to prevent any delay of his mission. On reaching a US Army outpost at a bridge under constant attack, Willard is informed that an army captain named Colby (Scott Glenn) was sent to find Kurtz and is now missing. The next day, the boat is fired upon by an unseen enemy hiding in trees by the river, killing Mr Clean and causing Chief, who had a close relationship with Clean, to become increasingly hostile toward Willard.

Later, Montagnard warriors begin shooting arrows at them. The crew opens fire and Chief is impaled with a spear. Willard tries to help the dying Chief, who tries to kill Willard by pulling him onto the spear tip protruding from his chest. Willard grapples with Chief, who finally dies. Afterwards, Willard confides in Chef and Lance about his mission, and the two surviving crew of the boat reluctantly agree to continue their journey upriver. As they draw closer to Kurtz’ camp, they see the coastline is littered with bodies. After arriving at Kurtz’ outpost, Willard takes Johnson with him to the village, leaving Chef behind with orders to call in an airstrike on the village if he does not return. In the camp, the two men are met by a manic freelance photographer (Dennis Hopper), who explains that Kurtz’ greatness and philosophical skills inspire his people to follow him. As they proceed, they see bodies and severed heads scattered about the nearby Buddhist temple that serves as Kurtz’s living quarters, and encounter the missing Captain Colby, who is nearly catatonic.

Willard is brought before Kurtz in the darkened temple, where Kurtz derides him as “an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks to collect a bill”. Bound to a post, he watches helplessly as Kurtz drops Chef’s severed head into his lap. After some time in captivity, Willard is released and given the freedom of the compound. Knowing that Willard would not leave, Kurtz lectures him on his theories of war, humanity, and civilization. As Kurtz explains his motives and philosophy while praising the ruthlessness and dedication of the Viet Cong, he asks Willard to tell his son everything about him in the event of his death.

That night, as the villagers ceremonially slaughter a water buffalo, Willard enters Kurtz’ chamber as Kurtz is making a recording, and attacks him with a machete. Lying bloody and dying on the ground, Kurtz whispers “The horror … the horror …” before dying. Willard descends the stairs from Kurtz’ chamber and drops his weapon. The villagers do likewise, and silently allow Willard to take Lance by the hand and lead him to the PBR. The two of them sail away as Kurtz’ final words echo.Hmmmm…..what can you say?”I love the smell of Napalm in the morning?”

For nearly three years as Americans have struggled through this Great Recession, President Obama has given speeches that relied on failed Keynesian economic theory and the politics of class warfare and envy. As his big government policies have spent this nation to the brink, the employment picture continues to worsen.

His rhetoric is nearly as lofty as the nation’s unemployment rate.

On Thursday, President Obama will deliver a major economic address before a Joint Session of Congress. The MacIver Institute expects it will be more of the same rhetoric and promotion of government solutions we’ve been hearing for the last 3 years.

The timing of the speech also conflicts with the pomp and circumstance surrounding the kickoff of the 2011 NFL season. As a public service, we’ve combed through the hundreds of speeches President Obama has already made to give you a concise two-minute preview of his latest ‘big speech.’

Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan 4.6 !More info here.

 

• Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to: Paul Langley’s Nuclear History Blog.Here.

 

• Hurricane Katia : Latest Updates here.

 

• No clergy at Ground Zero Sunday? Yes, DrTerryDJones will be there and PRAY.PRESS RELEASE UPDATE: DR. TERRY JONES in New York City, Sept 10, 11.(StandupAmerica).Dr Terry Jones and Pastor Wayne Sapp will appear in Times Square, at the Red Steps at 47th Street and Broadway Saturday, September 10th at 4pm and at Ground Zero, Sunday, September 11th at 11am,  at Dey Street near Church Street by the Century 21 Building,(Point A on Maps) to respond to Mayor Bloomberg’s exclusion from the official ceremony of First Responders, the real heroes of the 9/11 tragedy, and the clergy. This is an un-American outrage, and we invite First Responders and clergy to stand with us. WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED!We will be joined by the 911 Ground Zero Truck, owned by Mark Anthony Niemczyk.Read and see the full story here.

 

• Stocks edge lower after unemployment claims spike.(Breitbart).NEW YORK (AP) – Stocks edged lower in early trading Thursday after the government reported that claims for unemployment rose last week, a sign that layoffs are increasing. First-time applications for unemployment benefits rose last week to 414,000. Economists had expected a slight fall to 405,000. The prior week’s estimate of new claims was also revised higher. Thirty minutes after the market opened, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 42 points, or 0.41 percent, to 11,373. The Dow jumped 275 points Wednesday after a German court cleared the way for that country’s participation in the bailout of Greece and other European countries. The Standard and Poor’s 500 index was down 8, or 0.7 percent, to 1,190. The Nasdaq composite fell 12, or 0.5 percent, to 2,536. The Nasdaq had been up in the first few minutes of trading. Weekly applications for unemployment benefits are a closely-watched figure on Wall Street. Rising claims can add to concerns that the job market is stalled and the U.S. economy is headed for another recession. Applications need to fall below 375,000 to indicate sustainable job growth. Last week the government reported there was zero job growth in the U.S. economy in August. Not all of the economic news Thursday was negative. American exports of cars, airplanes and other goods reached an all-time high in July, the Commerce Department reported. Economists said the jump in exports suggest future growth in the U.S. economy. Investors are waiting for two-closely watched speeches Thursday. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will give a speech in the afternoon detailing his outlook for the U.S. economy. President Barack Obama will appear before Congress tonight and lay out his jobs plan. Hmmmm…….Read the full story here.

 

• Israeli Airliners to Get Missile Protection Systems.(TIP).Concerns that terrorists may be planning to attack passenger airplanes are prompting Israeli officials to expedite a plan to arm their airplanes with a system to divert missile fire.It’s an idea first debated after an attempted 2002 attack in which missiles were fired at a chartered Israeli airplane flying from Kenya. It has been held up, though, by budget issues.The system is similar to that already used on fighter planes, releasing flares to divert any missiles fired at a plane. It reportedly has been installed on some El Al aircraft already.There has been a spike in attempted terrorist attacks against Israel in recent months, and officials believe there may be plans to use shoulder-fired rockets to target commercial aviation.CNN reports that a cache of Grinch SA-24 shoulder-launched missiles have gone missing in Libya. “They can shoot down a plane flying as high as 11,000 feet and can travel 19,000 feet straight out,” the report said.While other weapons smuggled out of Libya are believed to be heading to al-Qaida operatives, Israeli officials last week indicated some Libyan arms have been smuggled into Gaza.Read the full story here.

 

• Union Violence: Longshoremen Storm Port, Damage Railroad.(BigGovernment).Hundreds of Longshoremen stormed the Port of Longview early Thursday, overpowered and held security guards, damaged railroad cars, and dumped grain that is the center of a labor dispute, said Longview Police Chief Jim Duscha.Six guards were held hostage for a couple of hours after 500 or more Longshoremen broke down gates about 4:30 a.m. and smashed windows in the guard shack, he said.No one was hurt, and nobody has been arrested. Most of the protesters returned to their union hall after cutting brake lines and spilling grain from car at the EGT terminal, Duscha said.The International Longshore and Warehouse Union believes it has the right to work at the facility, but the company has hired a contractor that’s staffing a workforce of other union laborers.Thursday’s violence was first reported by Kelso radio station KLOG.Police from several agencies in southwest Washington, the Washington State Patrol and Burlington Northern Santa Fe responded to the violence to secure the scene that followed a demonstration Wednesday.“We’re not surprised,” Duscha said. “A lot of the protesters were telling us this in only the start.”One sergeant was threatened with baseball bats and retreated, Duscha said. “One officer with hundreds of Longshoremen? He used the better part of discretion.”This is why we take notice when union leaders, like Jimmy the Lesser, say they have an “army” and are going to “take people out.”Read the full story here.

 

• Republicans Remind Obama: Democrats Are Blocking House-Passed Jobs Bills.(CNSNews).Republican leaders are reminding President Obama that the House of Representatives has passed more than a dozen “pro-growth” measures to spur job creation, but with one exception, Senate Democrats have refused to consider any of those bills.In a letter to the president on Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) listed all the House-passed “jobs” bills that are now languishing in the Senate. They include a bill to reduce the regulatory burdens on farmers and small business owners; a bill to block a “job-destroying national energy tax,” and a bill to boost offshore energy production. Boehner and Cantor also outlined “potential opportunities for Congress and the White House to work together” on job-creation.An infrastructure initiative is one of those areas: “We are not opposed to initiatives to repair and improve infrastructure,” the Republican leaders said, but instead of new spending, they’re calling for spending “reforms,” as follows:

“Current law requires that states set-aside 10 percent of their surface transportation funds for transportation enhancements, which must be used for items such as establishment of transportation museums, education activities for pedestrians and bicyclists, acquisition of scenic easements, historic preservation, operation of historic transportation facilities, etc.,” Boehner and Cantor noted.”While many of the initiatives funded by this mandatory set-aside may be worthy projects, eliminating this required set-aside would allow states to devote more money to the types of infrastructure programs you are advocating without adding to the deficit. We believe such a reform would be consistent with your statement last week that we should ‘reform the way transportation money is invested, to eliminate waste, to give states more control over the projects that are right for them.'”

Other areas of possible cooperation, according to Republican leaders, include a proposal to speed up the permitting process for construction projects; reforms to the unemployment system; and completing free trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea.”These reforms alone are not a substitute for a comprehensive pro-growth jobs agenda, such as the one House Republicans have put forth and continue to implement. But they are potential areas for common ground,” Boehner and Cantor told the president.Because Democrats and Republicans “sincerely believe” that their own policies are the right way to get the economy growing, it’s unlikely that either side will completely give in to the other. But, Boehner and Cantor added, it is “critical” that both sides focus on areas of common agreement: “We should not approach this as an all or nothing situation,” they said.The Republican leaders said they would like to meet with President Obama before he gives his “jobs” address to a joint session of Congress on Thursday. Such a meeting – including leaders from both parties — would give lawmakers “the opportunity to constructively discuss your proposals.”Boehner and Cantor said they are specifically interested in learning the cost estimates for 212 new regulatory actions planned by the Obama administration.Read the full story here.

 

• Gibson CEO to attend Obama’s jobs speech, will be guest of Speaker Boehner.(TheHill).The guitar company has tried to tap into anti-government sentiment following a raid on its factories by federal agents.Henry Juszkiewicz, the CEO of Gibson Guitar, will attend President Obama’s address to Congress on Thursday as a guest of Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) announced in a tweet that he will host the Gibson CEO in the Speaker’s box.Federal agents raided Gibson factories in Tennessee last month as part an investigation into whether its wood was illegally imported from India. The company has sought to tap into anti-government sentiment as it tries to rally public support to its side.On Twitter, the company uses the hashtag “ThisWillNotStand” for posts about the investigation, and Juszkiewicz has appeared on several conservative radio shows to discuss what he describes as bullying by the federal government.“Gibson Guitar is at the heart of this jobs debate, and is an example of exactly why President Obama has it wrong when it comes to getting our economy back on track,” Blackburn said in a statement. “Big government doesn’t create jobs, small businesses like Gibson Guitar do.”Read the full story here.

Mohsen Dalloul: If you examine the [Americans’] foundational texts, you will see that many of their forefathers were critical of American policy. Even presidents, like Jimmy Carter… If you want, you can even go further back, to the speeches of George Washington…

In a very important speech, George Washington called not to trust the Jews, saying that the Jews are blood-suckers. In the constitutional convention, Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers, stood up and said – and I quote – “Gentlemen, let me warn you that the Jews might gather on American soil. They are bad seed, and so on and so forth. I propose adding an article to the constitution preventing the entry of Jews into the US.” He was a president and one of the founding fathers.

Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in the Philipines 5.1 and 5.2 in russia! More info here.

 

• Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to: Paul Langley’s Nuclear History Blog.Here.

 

• Hurricane Katia : Latest Updates here.

 

• “The War On Christianity” – Hindu, Buddhist & Muslim Religious Leaders Invited to 9/11 Tribute Event — But No Evangelicals?(TheBlaze).The head of the Southern Baptist Convention is asking President Barack Obama to reconsider attending a September 11 commemorative event at Washington National Cathedral. Why, you ask?The planned observance of the 10th anniversary of America’s worst terror attack will include the Bishop of Washington, a Hindu priest, a Buddhist nun, the president of the Islamic Society of North America and a Muslim musician – but not an evangelical Christian. This exclusion has caused SBC President Frank Page to call upon the president to reconsider his presence at the event.Obama is slated to speak at a “secular” program on Sunday night. According to reports, five faith leaders are scheduled to deliver prayers, but these individuals have not yet been publicly identified.Considering evangelical Christianity’s influence in America, it’s interesting that the event, entitled “A Call to Compassion,” will exclude this large subset of the faith. According to Fox News, Page has voiced his frustrations:“It’s not surprising. There is a tragic intolerance toward Protestants and particularly toward evangelicals and I wish the president would refuse to speak unless it was more representative.I think it would send a very strong and very positive signal to the left wing extremists in our country that the president ought not show up.”Christian leader Tony Perkins (head of the Family Research Council) reiterated these statements, also claiming that the exclusion is unacceptable:

“Three quarters of the American people identify as Christian and nearly a third of them are evangelical Christian. And yet, there is not a single evangelical on the program.There’s no doubt that this is clearly politically correct. It is historically inaccurate that in times of need or mourning that Americans pray to the Hindu or Buddhist Gods or the God of Islam. America is overtly a Christian nation that prays to the Judeo-Christian God – and specifically to Jesus Christ.”But the Cathedral claims that there is nothing sinister in its exclusion of evangelicals. Richard Weinberg, the director of communications for the Cathedral, claims that the goal was to have interfaith representation and that the church’s own involvement balances the need for Christian representation:“The Cathedral itself is an Episcopal church and it stands to reason that our own clergy serve as Christian representatives.We certainly aim to appeal to as many in the country as possible and feel that our events are not any one slice that could ever represent the entire country — but that we are doing our best commemorate the events as it fits with our mission.”So far, no official response has come from the White House and all signs point to the president ignoring Page’s plea. Regardless of intentions, this could create — or further perpetuate — the perception that the president is not sympathetic to evangelical causes and concerns.That said, this event is private in nature and Obama has been invited as a guest. Considering that his administration doesn’t have control over the guest list, perhaps most will simply blame the Cathedral (and not the president) for refusing — at least until this point — to include evangelical Christians in the commemorative mix.Hmmmm…..”Divide et impera”. Let me guess that the representative for the Islamitic faith might be ‘Imam Rauf’?Read the full story here.

 

• Up to 25 killed and scores injured in two suicide blasts in Quetta, Pakistan.(AlArabiya).Two suicide bombers targeting a senior security official struck near government offices in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Wednesday, killing at least 25 people and injuring scores of others, Al Arabiya correspondent said.There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Pakistan’s Taliban militants, who are close to al-Qaeda, often carry out such attacks as part of a campaign designed to topple the US-backed government.Quetta is the main town of Baluchistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, police said.Autonomy-seeking militants demanding a greater share of the profits from oil and other resources in the province of Baluchistan, of which Quetta is the capital, have also waged a low-level insurgency for decades.One of the suicide bombers blew himself up in a vehicle packed with explosives near the car of the deputy head of the paramilitary Frontier Corps in Baluchistan, a police official told Reuters.Farrukh Shehzad said the other suicide bomber entered his house and blew himself up. The dead included his guards. The explosions brought down the walls of his house and nearby offices.Although al-Qaeda is reeling from the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan by US special forces, the Pakistani Taliban are still highly effective. They vowed to avenge bin Laden’s death.Read the Full Story Here.

 

• More deaths reported as Syrian forces storm Homs, block telecommunications.(AlArabiya).Syrian security forces stormed the city of Homs and cut off telecommunications as heavy shooting was heard while troops raided homes, Al Arabiya reported on Wednesday. Syrian activists told Al Arabiya that more deaths have been reported as the security forces swept through Homs and fired at the Khaled bin Walid Mosque. According to AFP, seven people have been shot dead by the fire of security forces in Homs.“Most land and cell phone lines and the Internet have been cut off. Tanks moved in at dawn and began firing heavy machineguns randomly at houses in Bab Tadmur, Warsha district and Bab Dreib,” Syrian activists told Reuters.“Troops also deployed in Bab Sbaa, two explosions were heard in al-Khader neighborhood and they sealed off the city center,” said a statement by Homs City Neighborhoods Union sent to Reuters.The operation comes after Syria asked Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi to postpone a visit to the Arab country for talks on the violent crackdown on protests that broke out mid-March.President Bashar al-Assad faces the biggest challenge to his rule since inheriting power from his father 11 years ago, with increased international condemnation of the violence. The European Union on September 3 added four people and three companies to an asset freeze and travel ban on Syria, where the unrest began in mid- March. A day earlier, the EU banned imports of Syrian oil. More than 2,450 civilians and 700 members of the security forces have been killed during the crackdown, while 15,000 people have been injured and at least 20,000 are in prison, according to Mahmoud Merhi, head of the Arab Organization for Human Rights. The UN puts the death toll at more than 2,200.Security forces have failed to halt the protests, which were inspired by unrest across the Middle East and North Africa that unseated Tunisian President Zine Elabidine Ben Ali in January and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak the following month. Muammar Qaddafi is in hiding after an uprising ended his control over most of Libya.Tanks and troops, largely from Syria’s minority Alawite sect, moved into Homs four months ago and occupied the main square in the city to try to end protests demanding the removal of President Assad.The Alawite sect dominates Syria’s security forces and core army units that have besieged numerous towns and cities across the country to crush the six month uprising.Homs, 165 km (100 miles north of Damascus) is mostly Sunni Muslim, like the rest of Syria. The hundreds of casualties reported in the city since the army deployment has been caused by assaults on Sunni areas. Activists have also reported the death of several Alawite residents in apparent revenge killings.Residents said an Alawite militia loyal to Assad, known as shabbiha, has played a leading role in the raids and are responsible for some of the killings, raising tension between the two sects.Activists and residents have reported an increasing number of defections among the mostly Sunni rank and file military in Homs and its surrounding countryside.Residents of Rastan, a town near Homs, published footage purportedly showing defecting soldiers on a balcony greeting a crowd of several thousand people at a pro-democracy rally in the town last week.Syrian authorities, which have not allowed independent media in the country since the uprising began in March, say there have been no defections in the military.They say the troops were deployed in Syrian cities in response to appeals by inhabitants frightened by “armed terrorist gangs.”Hmmmmm………Big noise Turkey……..silent.Read the full story here.

 

• Beware: Emperor Obama’s executive fiat,White House plans to circumvent Congress to spend more.(WashingtonTimes).It’s official: President Obama is presiding over the worst era of unemployment in U.S. history since this nation was embroiled in World War II. On Friday, it was announced zero net jobs were created nationwide in the whole month of August. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis stammered, “I do believe that we’re going in the right direction, but we need cooperation and it begins with members of the House and the Senate agreeing to do something now.” Going in the right direction? It’s a perfect admission of the cluelessness of this White House that the head of the Labor Department thinks zero new jobs and a permanent unemployment rate above 9 percent mean the country is headed the right way.In White House talking points leaked to The Washington Times by an executive-branch employee, administration officials are told what to say to the press and the public about Mr. Obama’s Sept. 8 speech to a Joint Session of Congress. The document is devoid of specifics, which will be proclaimed from the podium on Thursday, but it does say that ideas announced to “provide economic security for the middle class … will be both legislative and executive actions.” The key words are the last two: executive actions. This is a tacit acknowledgment that the president is planning to take unilateral action to force through what he cannot get a divided Congress to do.Mr. Obama has a profound resistance to the Constitution’s separation of powers, whereby the legislature is the lawmaking body and the executive branch implements the laws passed on the other side of Pennsylvania Ave. He’s overstepped his bounds on numerous issues already, ignoring the law to further his liberal agenda through federal agencies. Oppressive environmental regulations against businesses and property owners jump to mind.“We need to lock arms, reach across the aisle and start acting as one community,” the kumbaya White House marching orders say. Propaganda aside, a panicking Obama administration will be less collaborative than ever in the days ahead.Hmmmm……Congress must act and stop this walking,talking Doomsday machine, It’s clear that the American people had enough……..impeachment is needed.Read the full story here.

 

• Is the Obama Administration about to endanger American troops for political gains?(Aina).Obama Administration to Drop Troop Levels in Iraq to 3,000.The Obama administration has decided to drop the number of U.S. troops in Iraq at the end of the year down to 3,000, marking a major downgrade in force strength, multiple sources familiar with the inner workings and decisions on U.S. troop movements in Iraq told Fox News.Senior commanders are said to be livid at the decision, which has already been signed off by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.The generals on the ground had requested that the number of troops remaining in Iraq at the end of the year reach about 27,000. But, there was major pushback about “the cost and the political optics” of that decision that the number was then reduced to 10,000.Commanders said they could possibly make that work “in extremis,” in other words, meaning they would be pushing it to make that number work security-wise and manpower-wise.Now, sources confirm that the administration has pushed the Pentagon to cut the number even lower, and commanders are concerned for the safety of the U.S. troops who would remain there.”We can’t secure everybody with only 3,000 on the ground nor can we do what we need to with the Iraqis,” one source said.A senior military official said by reducing the number of troops to 3,000, the White House has effectively reduced the mission to training only.”There is almost no room for security operations in that number; it will be almost purely a training mission,” this official said. The official added that a very small number of troops within that 3,000 will be dedicated to counter-terrorism efforts, but that’s not nearly what Gen. Lloyd Austin, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, wanted.This shift is seen by various people as a cost-saving measure and a political measure. The only administration official fighting for at least 10,000 forces to stay in Iraq at the end of the year was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sources said. But she has lost the battle.Responding to the news, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who has traveled to Iraq many times, said that in all the conversations he has had on force strength, he has “never heard a number as low as 3,000 troops to secure the gains Iraqis have won over the years.”Lieberman said his first question for the administration is whether the number is one Iraqis had requested or if it was chosen according to other criteria.Any of the plans will require Iraqi approval, and on that front, the Pentagon recently secured a commitment from the Iraqis to start negotiations, but they have not agreed to any number.”Discussions with the Iraqis on our post-2011 strategic relationship are ongoing, and no decisions on troop levels have been made,” said Panetta spokesman George Little. “We continue to proceed with troop withdrawals as directed by the president.”On Tuesday, the head of the three-province Kurdish autonomous region in the north of Iraq, warned that if American troops leave sectarian violence might resurface. Massoud Barzani urged the central Iraqi government to sign an agreement with the U.S. to keep forces in the country.Hmmmmm…….”The Commander In chief decided?”Read the full story here.

 

• GM aka Government Motors (Obama administration) about to hire workers?(CarAndDriver).Joe Biden : GM is on schedule. They’ve paid back a significant portion. We still hold 33.3 percent of GM common equity, but the point is that 33.3 percent is worth something. So taxpayers have an asset. But the best news is GM is talking about hiring back essentially the last of the laid-off workers by  year’s end. No one ever thought we’d get there.Hmmmm……Another Big Government expantion with taxpayer money.Read the full story here.

The MEMRI 9/11 Documentation Project – An Educational Resource Focusing on the Ideological Roots of the Terrorist Threat to America.(Memri).

Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has documented what Middle Eastern and South Asian media have said about it, starting that day and up until the present time. Many immediate responses to the attacks from prominent journalists, members of academia, and leading religious figures espoused conspiracy theories, as did Arab government officials. Notable conspiracy theories from the Arab world and Iran put the blame for the attacks on Jews, Israel, Christian Zionists, the Vatican, the Mossad, Britain, white supremacist groups, and the U.S. government agencies and officials including: CIA, FBI, National Security Council, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and others.

Following the 1995 terrorist attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, in which 168 people, including young children, were killed, an official museum and memorial was erected at the site. The museum focuses on the victims. Neither the museum nor the memorial deal with the perpetrators’ ideological roots, presenting the atrocity they perpetrated as a senseless crime.

Advance reports of the commemorations planned for 9/11 suggest that its legacy will follow a similar path, focusing on the victims, and again leave out the ideological roots of the attacks. This ideology is largely avoided in the public discourse, since it is deemed a politicized and controversial matter that is best omitted.
America’s ability to defend itself and to ensure a safer future for its citizens is directly related to its ability to tackle the ideological roots of 9/11. America’s security cannot be assured by fighting terrorist threats emanating from foreign countries through active war on terror; nor can it be assured by confronting homegrown terrorism through law enforcement and treating it like ordinary domestic crime. Neither strategy is effective as long as the ideological roots of the terrorist threat are avoided. Regardless of all the tactical and strategic achievements of the war on terror, on both the domestic and foreign fronts, these ideological roots will, if left unchallenged, continue to produce new generations of young adherents to replace the terrorists who have been imprisoned or killed.

This situation cannot be resolved through the American legal system – because this system indicts only criminals themselves, not their ideological motivations. Alternatively, these ideological roots could be exposed in museums modeled after the Holocaust museums – but to date there are no such initiatives planned. It could also be documented in academic centers – but so far all the archives known to be documenting 9/11 focus on the victims and on the attacks, not on the ideological roots of the perpetrators.

So that the remembrance and commemoration of the victims of 9/11 may bear a lesson for the future, efforts should go beyond monuments, annual ceremonies, and prayers for the dead. There should be meaningful engagement with the ideology that led to these deaths. There should be a meaningful exposure of the root ideas that led to these deaths. Such exposure is the only thing that can create a barrier to the continued influence of the ideology that produced 9/11.

Ten years after 9/11, a battle is raging in the Arab world – between liberal circles that wish to steer it toward agreed-upon humanistic values and circles that espouse the ideologies that brought about 9/11 and that are threatening to hijack the Arab Spring revolutions. Exposing the ideology behind 9/11 in the West will help determine the outcome of this battle in the Arab and Muslim world.

A focus on the ideology that led to the 9/11 attacks does not of course exclude any other efforts to expose other ideologies that lead to hatred and violence, in America and throughout the world.

Announcing the MEMRI 9/11 Documentation Project.

Today, MEMRI is launching the 9/11 Documentation Project website, dedicated to the ideological roots of the attack. The website includes primary source material from the Arab and Islamic printed and electronic media, as well as from TV channels and other types of content published elsewhere. MEMRI already possesses the most extensive archives on these subjects, which it has accumulated over the past decade.

Among the subjects included in this website’s archives are written documents from Al-Qaeda and affiliate organizations, speeches and interviews by leaders of Al-Qaeda and affiliate organizations, wills and statements of the 9/11perpetrators and their colleagues, and recruitment and indoctrination material of these organizations.

The project also documents ongoing efforts to deny responsibility for 9/11 and to attribute it to others, through various conspiracy theories.

To visit the MEMRI 9/11 Documentation Project, visit:

http://www.memri.org/9-11project

To view MEMRI TV clips from the MEMRI 9/11 Documentation Project, visit:

http://www.memritv.org/9-11project

To donate to this project, please visit our donation page.Source Memri.

Salvatore Licitra, a tenor known in his Italian homeland as the “new Pavarotti” for his potent voice, has died at the age of 43 after a motor scooter accident.Source.

Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in carabian Sea – Anguila 5.3 ! More info here.

 

• Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to: Paul Langley’s Nuclear History Blog.Here.

 

• Hurricane Katia : Latest Updates here.

 

• Biden At AFL-CIO Rally: “You Are The Only Folks Keeping The Barbarians From the Gates” (Video).(HotAirPundit). The opposition is called “son of a bitches” at one Labor rally and “barbarians” at another rally. Here’s an angry Joe Biden at the AFL-CIO rally in Cincinnati just a short time ago.Hmmmmm…….”He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”– Sir Winston Churchill.Read and see the full story here.

 

• Is the Obama Administration about to endanger American troops for political gains?(Aina).Obama Administration to Drop Troop Levels in Iraq to 3,000.The Obama administration has decided to drop the number of U.S. troops in Iraq at the end of the year down to 3,000, marking a major downgrade in force strength, multiple sources familiar with the inner workings and decisions on U.S. troop movements in Iraq told Fox News.Senior commanders are said to be livid at the decision, which has already been signed off by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.The generals on the ground had requested that the number of troops remaining in Iraq at the end of the year reach about 27,000. But, there was major pushback about “the cost and the political optics” of that decision that the number was then reduced to 10,000.Commanders said they could possibly make that work “in extremis,” in other words, meaning they would be pushing it to make that number work security-wise and manpower-wise.Now, sources confirm that the administration has pushed the Pentagon to cut the number even lower, and commanders are concerned for the safety of the U.S. troops who would remain there.”We can’t secure everybody with only 3,000 on the ground nor can we do what we need to with the Iraqis,” one source said.A senior military official said by reducing the number of troops to 3,000, the White House has effectively reduced the mission to training only.”There is almost no room for security operations in that number; it will be almost purely a training mission,” this official said. The official added that a very small number of troops within that 3,000 will be dedicated to counter-terrorism efforts, but that’s not nearly what Gen. Lloyd Austin, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, wanted.This shift is seen by various people as a cost-saving measure and a political measure. The only administration official fighting for at least 10,000 forces to stay in Iraq at the end of the year was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sources said. But she has lost the battle.Responding to the news, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who has traveled to Iraq many times, said that in all the conversations he has had on force strength, he has “never heard a number as low as 3,000 troops to secure the gains Iraqis have won over the years.”Lieberman said his first question for the administration is whether the number is one Iraqis had requested or if it was chosen according to other criteria.Any of the plans will require Iraqi approval, and on that front, the Pentagon recently secured a commitment from the Iraqis to start negotiations, but they have not agreed to any number.”Discussions with the Iraqis on our post-2011 strategic relationship are ongoing, and no decisions on troop levels have been made,” said Panetta spokesman George Little. “We continue to proceed with troop withdrawals as directed by the president.”On Tuesday, the head of the three-province Kurdish autonomous region in the north of Iraq, warned that if American troops leave sectarian violence might resurface. Massoud Barzani urged the central Iraqi government to sign an agreement with the U.S. to keep forces in the country.Hmmmmm…….”The Commander In chief decided?”Read the full story here.

 

• Deutsche Bank CEO Just Gave A Terrifying Speech In Frankfurt.(BusinessInsider).Josef Ackermann just gave a terrifying speech about the fragility of the Euro banking sector right now.At a conference in Frankfurt he said, “It is an open secret that numerous European banks would not survive having to revalue sovereign debt held on the banking book at market levels.”We have translated the speech based on Handelsbatt’s, the organizer of the event where Ackermann spoke, account of it.”In recent weeks, the distrust of the financial markets has spread to the banks because they are now suffering from the debt crisis in Europe and have a lot of exposure to, for example, Greek bonds.””Since the financial crisis, some European banks have lost a third or more of their market capitalization,” he said, according to Google Translate.”Most institutions have a rating of “below the book value or at best.”There are three major stress factors crushing Euro banks right now, he says: the debt crisis, structural factors and financial regulation. With them together, it will be hard for the European banks to increase their revenues.The implication is that not just Eurozone countries are buckling under the pressure of Greece’s, France’s, and Italy’s debts, but banks are too. It sounds like a desperate call for a bailout. Now.Read the full story here.

 

• Bring Out Your Dead – UBS Quantifies Costs Of Euro Break Up, Warns Of Collapse Of Banking System And Civil War.(ZeroHedge).Any time a major bank releases a report saying a given course of action is too costly, too prohibitive, too blonde, or simply too impossible, it is nearly guaranteed that that is precisely the course of action about to be undertaken. Which is why all non-euro skeptics are advised to shield their eyes and look away from the just released report by UBS (of surging 3 Month USD Libor rate fame) titled “Euro Break Up – The Consequences.” UBS conveniently sets up the straw man as follows: “Under the current structure and with the current membership, the Euro does not work. Either the current structure will have to change, or the current membership will have to change.” So far so good. Yet where it gets scary is when UBS quantifies the actual opportunity cost to one or more countries leaving the Euro. Notably Germany. “Were a stronger country such as Germany to leave the Euro, the consequences would include corporate default, recapitalisation of the banking system and collapse of international trade. If Germany were to leave, we believe the cost to be around EUR6,000 to EUR8,000 for every German adult and child in the first year, and a range of EUR3,500 to EUR4,500 per person per year thereafter. That is the equivalent of 20% to 25% of GDP in the first year. ” It also would mean the end of UBS, but we digress. Where it gets even more scary is when UBS, like many other banks to come, succumbs to the Mutual Assured Destruction trope made so popular by ole’ Hank Paulson : “The economic cost is, in many ways, the least of the concerns investors should have about a break-up. Fragmentation of the Euro would incur political costs. Europe’s “soft power” influence internationally would cease (as the concept of “Europe” as an integrated polity becomes meaningless). It is also worth observing that almost no modern fiat currency monetary unions have broken up without some form of authoritarian or military government, or civil war.” So you see: save the euro for the children, so we can avoid all out war (and UBS can continue to exist). The scariest thing, however, by far, is that for this report to have been issued, it means that Germany is now actively considering dumping the euro.Read the full story here.

 

• IDF to simulate missile attack on Dimona nuclear reactor.(JPost).The IDF Home Front Command and the Israel Atomic Energy Commission will hold a large exercise on Tuesday to simulate a missile attack against the Dimona nuclear reactor in the Negev.Called “Fernando,” the drill is named for the nuclear meltdown in 1959 in the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles.It took workers a month to regain control of the reactor and more than 50 years for the United States to clean up the contaminated site.The drill will simulate a number of scenarios including a possible missile attack by Hezbollah, Syria or Hamas against the reactor or a possible earthquake that could destabilize the reactor’s core and spark a nuclear meltdown.Israel has closely studied the recent crisis in Japan following the earthquakes in Fukushima that led to a nuclear meltdown at a number of reactors, to draw lessons that can be applied in the event of a missile strike on the Dimona facilities.The last “Fernando” exercise was held in 2004. On Monday, the IAEC released a statement ahead of the drill claiming that its facilities were secure and that high-safety measures were in place to prevent nuclear disasters.“The chance that a problem will occur and radioactive material will escape at a level that will endanger the public is extremely small,” the commission said.Read the full story here.

 

• Turkish hackers target 350 Israeli websites.(YNet).Turkish hackers hijacked some 350 Israeli websites on Sunday evening, lunching a Domain Name System (DNS) attack on dozens of other websites as well. IT experts Yedioth Ahronoth on Tuesday that there is some concern that the DNS hijacking was, in fact, a “test-run” ahead of a major attack on Israeli domains.Visitors to some of the sites were diverted to a page declaring it was “World Hackers Day.” At least seven high-profile websites were hijacked, including those of The Telegraph, Acer, National Geographic, UPS and Vodafone. Hackers calling themselves the “TurkGuvenligi group” calimd the cyber-attack. “TurkGuvenligi translates as “Turkish security.” “The hack represents a 10%-15% spike compared to the average number of daily hacks of Israeli websites,” Shai Blitzblau, head of Maglan-Computer Warfare and Network Intelligence Labs, explained.The operation was very sophisticated and probably entailed a significant financial investment, Blitzblau added. The Israeli inquiry into the hack discovered a clear link to “TurkGuvenligi,” as well as several failed attempts to hack other websites.Hmmmm……Time to pay Turkey a visit by Stuxnet?Read the full story here.

 

• It’s a two-way street you Turkey.(TheMuqata).Turkey has now officially cut all trade ties with Israel. Earlier this week they terrorized some Israeli/Jewish businessmen at their airport. They are kicking out most of Israel’s diplomats tomorrow. And they’ve been hinting at using naval force against the IDF at sea.To begin with, Turkey has a lot more to lose than Israel does, so if they want to shoot themselves in the face, that’s their business. It’s been clear that they’ve wanted to rejoin the Arab third world, and have been pushing to leave modern society for a while and become an Iranian sock-puppet.Of course, there are consequences that perhaps they aren’t considering. First of all, not only will they likely be kicked out of NATO (which they should be anyway) if they try any naval shenanigans against Israel, but NATO might even be obligated to come to Israel’s defense if Turkey tries anything.Secondly, this is a two way street. Turkey wants to support Hamas. Israel can start showing their support for Turkey Occupied Cyprus, for Turkey Occupied Western Armenia, and even for the oppressed Kurds.In fact, Israel might go to the Hague to demand that Turkey get out of Cyprus and the other lands they are illegally occupying. Not to mention free all their Kurdish Prisoners of Conscience.We might want to start exposing their war crimes against the Kurds (which we should do anyway). We will want to better publicize the Armenian Genocide that Turkey perpetrated.You know what? Reading the above, you realize that Turkey is not such a nice country after all. Who wants ’em.Read the full story here.

 

• Killing me Softly: Ode to Turkey.(RaiNovosti).I seem to be in the vacation mode lately while most have already finished taking theirs. The outcome over the summer for Russian tourists in other countries is murderously outrageous, particularly in Turkey…. The other day I took some really nasty cuts at Sochi on Russia’s Black Sea as a bad place to vacation. I still hold to my story; however, a worse place has turned out to be Turkey over this summer, which is also a favorite among Russian tourists. Many Russians “enjoy” vacationing in Turkey, mainly in Antalya in the country’s south on the Mediterranean Sea. It’s a nice warm place, plenty of sun and beach, some adequate recreation, not that expensive and only about three hours by plane to get there….but once you’re there, you might find that you’ve really screwed up in your choice.So this summer I paid particular attention to news coming out of Turkey of Russian vacationers and was a bit disturbed. It seemed like every week someone (or several) were killed while on vacation for various reasons. For instance, a group of people were out on a yacht organized by a Turkish tour agency. The tour was for tour agents who specialize in selling tours to Turkey. So they’re out enjoying themselves on a cruise, being wined and dined on board the yacht. Several agents on the yacht began to feel ill that evening once they returned to shore. Later they were hospitalized and several actually died from: bootleg whiskey imported from Cyprus. It wasn’t that they drank that much, it was because the whiskey had an alcohol content similar to pure medicinal alcohol in the 90-percent range. Then there’s the occassional Russian pedestrian being hit by a car, someone on a moped being wiped off the road by some other vehicle, excursion bus crashes, drownings, food poisoning, broken bones, etc. Another problem this year was the number of instances of groups of tourists hitting their destination only to find out that the tour agency they booked everything through went bankrupt and didn’t pay for the tourists’ accommodations. So, picture that you’ve arrived with your family and the hotel clerk says: “I’m sorry, we have no rooms for you because nothing was paid for.” In fact, you remember paying the tour company, but the hotel didn’t get the money and they literally have no rooms available so that you could possibly spend the extra money to enjoy your vacation and deal with the mess once you’re back home in Russia. Not only have tour agencies gone belly up, but some experienced the shocking news that the airline they flew with has also gone bankrupt. So you have your vacation planned, get to the airport only to find out you’re not flying anywhere…or just the opposite where you enjoyed (survived) your vacation in Turkey, but now you can’t make it back home. I lived in Turkey on the Black Sea in the mid-1980s and it was a totally different country back then. Since then, I’ve only gone to Turkey once on vacation (to Antalya) since I moved to Russia. Never again! It’s not that I’m afraid of dying (I covered the Egyptian revolution as a correspondent earlier this year and survived), it’s because you don’t know who to trust and if you’ll survive all the little surprises you find on the way. One of the things Russians love is the “all inclusive package,” which means you have at least three meals if not four a day, free drinks, accommodations and depending on the package other freebies like spas, massages or belly dancing lessons. I avoid these packages like the plague. First of all, your entire schedule seems to be surrounded by “feeding time.” So you’re out somewhere enjoying yourself and look at your watch and notice that if you don’t get back to the hotel in the next hour, you’ll be left without dinner, which means you have to immediately drop everything you’re doing and run to get your feedbag on. I don’t think a vacation should be structured and scheduled…that’s what work is, not vacation! And one of the favorites to put on the table in Turkey is eggplant, which I abhor in any shape or form.Read the full story here.

It’s civility week! Another Twitter montage of #NewTone was just sent our way this afternoon. Good timing, too, on the heels of Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa Jr.’s warm remarks yesterday.

Lets not forget the lessons in civility that our dutiful media and President Obama conveyed in the wake of the Tucson tragedy. The vitriol does not seem to have died down. Perhaps this video will help remind people what’s lurking out there on the Twitter public timeline about all you “Sons of Bitches” and “Hobbits” of Terror.

I’ll leave you with a message from the video’s creator: “All tweets posted to Twitter are public. Therefore, I will not remove this video, names or any details that were publicly available. If you can’t stand by your hate, then you should have never said it.”By Liberty Chick .HT: Big Government.