Weekday NEWS to Comfort the Disturbed and Disturb the Comfortable.

Friday 08.20.2010

Iran watch . . . updated Friday mid-day

Is War with Iran imminent?
by Claude Salhani - OilPrice.com
Iran, it is believed, is on the fast track to develop nuclear weapons which Israel sees as a direct threat to not only its security, but to its very existence. The question is just how real is the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran?
Would the Islamic Republic deploy nukes against the Jewish state? In spite the rhetoric from its leadership, primarily its president, the possibility of an Iranian strike against Israel is most unlikely. Iran knows the repost will be instantaneous and devastating.

A major military surprise is close.
Galant scandal a smokescreen
DEBKAfile Special Report
War preparations are reported by DEBKAfile's military sources in Tehran and Damascus, DEBKAfile's military sources report.
In Tehran, Iran's Revolutionary Guards announced Friday, Aug. 20: "IRGC is in full readiness to encounter firmly with the stupidity of the US and the Zionist regime."
In Damascus, Syrian prime minister Naji al-Otari gathered his ministers and heads of security and emergency services Thursday and ordered them to place all their services on immediate war readiness.
And sources close to the Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas quoted him as saying that direct talks with Israel were not in the offing because "a big military surprise awaits the Middle East."

Worst-Case Scenarios: Possible Strike Plans for Iran Involve Risky Options
By Judson Berger - FOXNews.com
At some point, military leaders in the United States and in Israel will have to decide: Which is more dangerous -- an Iran capable of launching a nuclear weapon? Or an Iran that just got hit with tons of artillery and is out for revenge?
Both scenarios are frightening, particularly to the Israelis. U.S. officials have described the prospects of a nuclear-armed Iran and a military confrontation as equally terrible, particularly at a time when the Obama administration is trying to end nearly a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But the thought of military action is not far-fetched. The United States acknowledges it possesses an attack plan for Iran, and the Israelis reportedly have drawn up specific scenarios for a strike.

Gulf States Pushing for Attack on Iran
by Hillel Fendel - IsraelInternationslNews.com
First it was the United Arab Emirates ambassador in Washington, now it's a Saudi Arabian editorial, and John Bolton says the entire Persian Gulf feels the same: an attack on Iran is the only option - if it's not too late.
An editorial in an official Saudi Arabian newspaper indicates that a military attack against Iran might be the only way of stopping it from obtaining nuclear weapons. "Tehran is moving its conflict with the international community into high gear," the Al Madina daily wrote this week, "and [in this case] some may consider the military option to be the best solution."

Israelis Conducting Covert Maritime Operations in Persian Gulf
by Wayne Madsen - OilPrice.com
Chinese and Japanese intelligence agencies, which closely monitor events in the Persian Gulf due to the dependence of both countries on oil from the region, report that Israeli Navy commandos have recently been active in creating maritime incidents in the Gulf that could be blamed on Iran.
The five incidents that have Israel under the scrutiny of the intelligence services of China and Japan, the world's second and third largest economic powers, respectively, are the "robbery" attacks on four merchant ships off Basra, Iraq on August 8 and the July 28 explosion on the Japanese supertanker MV M. Star in the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Al-Qaida prepares for Israel-Iran war
By JPOST.COM STAFF
Report: Al-Shehri warns against "the greater state of Israel."
Al-Qaida is ready to exploit a war "by the Jews against Iran," the Sunni group's second-in-command in Yemen, Saeed al-Shehri, said in an audio message this month, according to the Daily Beast.
The mostly Shi'ite nation of Iran is an enemy to Al-Qaida, and al-Shehri predicted that after Israel attacked Iranian nuclear installations, Iran would blame Saudi Arabia - which reports say may let Israel fly through its airspace to attack Iran - and use the opportunity to seize the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

U.S. Assures Israel That Iran Threat Is Not Imminent
By MARK MAZZETTI and DAVID E. SANGER - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration, citing evidence of continued troubles inside Iran's nuclear program, has persuaded Israel that it would take roughly a year - and perhaps longer ... for Iran to complete what one senior official called a "dash" for a nuclear weapon, according to American officials.
Administration officials said they believe the assessment has dimmed the prospect that Israel would pre-emptively strike against the country's nuclear facilities within the next year, as Israeli officials have suggested in thinly veiled threats.

Will Israel attack Iran's nuclear reactor?
By Chet Nagle - DailyCaller.com
Russia will begin loading fuel rods into Iran's new nuclear reactor on Friday. Ultimately, the Bushehr complex will produce Plutonium (Pu239) much faster than centrifuges can deliver Uranium (U235), and Pu239 is better material for atomic weapons. But unlike attacks on similar reactors in Iraq (1981) and Syria (2007), the Israelis will not attempt to destroy Bushehr in the next two days or, indeed, two months. Why not?
There are sound reasons for Israel to allow the fueling of the complex's first reactor, the Bushehr 1. The main reason is that the Obama administration agreed not to oppose starting Bushehr 1 in exchange for Russia's support of UN sanctions on Iran. Though those sanctions are largely useless, and though Russia, China, and others will continue to cheat on sanctions, Israel will not overtly oppose U.S. policy unless there is a clear and present danger to Israel. To embellish his policy of no military action against the Islamic Republic of Iran, President Obama signaled he wants to talk to Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - a futile wish he has made at least twice before. Echoing that sentiment, the State Department pooh-poohed the latest UN report on Iran's uranium enrichment violations by saying,"We are hopeful that Iran will express a willingness to come to the table. We stand ready to have that dialogue."

America Cannot Go to War for Israel
by Ahmed Moor - HuffingtonPost.com
The mongrel dogs of war are foaming at the bit. For years they've cowered in their damp trenches, bristling in the heat. But they're back now. They've gathered their sagging flesh and cast their milky, crusty eyes at Iran. The mongrel dogs of war are planning another war.
The Zionists Benjamin Netanyahu, Jeffrey Goldberg and George Will want young American men and women to attack Iran on behalf of Israel. These are the same men who wanted young American men to attack Iraq. But Iran is not Iraq, and many thousands of Americans will die in the next war. This will not be a cakewalk or a slam dunk. And no enwreathed children will greet Americans in the streets with lily-white flower petals.

HOMEOWNERS' REBELLION:
COULD 62 MILLION HOMES BE FORECLOSURE-PROOF?
Ellen Brown, WebOfDebt.com
.... MERS was convenient for the mortgage industry, but courts are now questioning the impact of all of this financial juggling when it comes to mortgage ownership. To foreclose on real property, the plaintiff must be able to establish the chain of title entitling it to relief. But MERS has acknowledged, and recent cases have held, that MERS is a mere "nominee" - an entity appointed by the true owner simply for the purpose of holding property in order to facilitate transactions. Recent court opinions stress that this defect is not just a procedural but is a substantive failure, one that is fatal to the plaintiff's legal ability to foreclose.
That means hordes of victims of predatory lending could end up owning their homes free and clear - while the financial industry could end up skewered on its own sword.

REPEALING OBAMACARE: HR 4972 and HR 5444
by William F. Jasper - Liberty News Online
Repealing ObamaCare is not an option - it is absolutely essential. It is absolutely essential, that is, if the United States of America is to survive as a constitutional republic with a federal government of limited powers. Repealing ObamaCare is also absolutely necessary if we hope to avoid national economic collapse.
To those who may think such statements are overblown, we strongly advise that they read, in particular, Thomas R. Eddlem's "Outcome of ObamaCare" as well as Michael Tennant's "The New World of ObamaCare." As these articles amply demonstrate, the mammoth "health care reform" bill that was rammed through Congress last March and signed by President Obama is jam-packed with dangerous language that will provide federal bureaucrats with vast new powers that are compatible with totalitarian systems of government, but not with the American tradition of liberty.

Analysts See $1.3 Trillion Deficit
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congress' budget analysts are estimating that this year's federal deficit will exceed $1.3 trillion, slightly below last year's total but still a huge ocean of red ink.

China Dumps the Dollar as Yields Sink
BY DON MILLER, Associate Editor, Money Morning
China cut its holdings of Treasury notes and bonds by the most ever in June, instead favoring the debt of Europe, Japan and Korea. The move has fueled speculation that plummeting U.S. yields are driving away the Asian giant, which has ambitions for its currency, the yuan, to replace the dollar as the world's main reserve currency.
China's holdings of long-term Treasuries fell by $21.2 billion in June to $839.7 billion, a U.S. government report showed recently. Total Chinese investment in U.S. debt declined 2.8% to $843.7 billion, the smallest in a year, following a 3.6% slide in May.
The shift comes as President Barack Obama increases U.S. debt to record levels, making it harder to finance sales to sustain the U.S. economic expansion.

Western profits wilt on China's surging wages
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - Telegraph.co.uk
Rising wage and production costs in China are eating into the profits of Western companies and may soon set off an exodus of multinational companies to cheaper locations.
A report by Credit Suisse said the vast majority of US and European companies in China are expecting a "margin hit" over the next 12 months and fear they will not be able to pass on the costs to consumers, with the biggest worries in electronics, clothing, and retail.
The bank said Footlocker, Liz Claiborne, and Office Depot would tip into outright loss in a worst-case scenario, defined as a 20pc rise in costs without any pass-through to customers.

We're Rolling Over Even With The Fed Openly Juicing The Market?
By: Graham Summers - iStockAnalyst.com
Is that all she wrote?
The bulls have gunned for 1,100 on the S&P 500 twice now in the last two days. Both times they got strongly rejected. In fact, yesterday's ramp job failed to even take out the Tuesday high of 1,099. This is hardly a bullish development especially given what's going on "behind the scenes."
As I've mentioned countless times, options expiration week is when the Federal Reserve makes its largest money pumps into the Wall Street banks. In fact, the Fed continued this practice even AFTER QE 1 officially ended in March 2010.

Gold manipulation: Central banks are now in deep trouble
FinanceAndEconomics.org
Central banks have routinely manipulated the gold market since the beginning of fractional reserve banking, but they have always eventually failed in their quest. This time there is circumstantial evidence that we could be on the verge of the most spectacular failure so far.
Physical bullion differs from other investment media because today there is no secondary market. Buyers of bullion are not speculators, or even investors: they take delivery, hoarding it from the market, and are not tempted to resupply it at any price. To some degree this loss from the market has been replaced by newly mined gold and scrap, but the size of the market is such that gold from these sources is now insufficient for hoarding demand. So when the bullion banks try to shake out the bulls, as they have recently, they may manage to reduce their short position in the paper markets; but the lower prices for bullion simply generates extra physical demand. The result is that the size of the paper market has become increasingly dangerous relative to the physical gold actually available.

The Failure of the Second London Gold Pool
By: Adrian Douglas - GoldSeek.com
This article is a sequel to my article entitled "Gold Market is not "Fixed", it's Rigged" which is essential reading before reading this article. The previous article demonstrated that had a trader consistently bought gold on the London AM Fix and sold it the same day on the London PM Fix and repeated it every day from April 2001 through to today the cumulative loss would be $500 per ounce. Yet gold has been in a bull market during that time and a "buy and hold" strategy over the same time period would have returned a gain of $950 per ounce.
I have termed the arithmetic difference between the PM Fix and the AM Fix the "intraday change." Figure 1 shows the evolution of the cumulative intraday change from 2001 to 2010 along with the gold price evolution as expressed by the London PM Fix price.

The Stealth Debt Restructuring: Inflation
By JACK EWING - NYTimes.com
Europe's sovereign debt crisis seems to have gone on holiday along with most of the rest of the Continent during August. But many economists warn that the underlying debt problem is merely in remission and could recur at any moment, once again upsetting world markets.
Joachim Fels, co-head of global economics at Morgan Stanley, talked Thursday about how Europe is ultimately likely to deal with excessive debt in Greece, Spain, Portugal and several other countries. His answer boils down to one word: inflation.

Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German and American Inflations [Rare book PDF] by Jen O. Parsson
Most of us have at least a general idea of what we think inflation is. Inflation is the state of affairs in which prices go up. Inflation is an old, old story. Inflation is almost as ancient as money is, and money is almost as ancient as man himself.

Top feeds off the bottom
by Yogibear101 - Wall Street Examiner Forums and Bears Chat
You, we and 6 billion others are the bottom
The center of the financial universe is London, it's been in control since a calendar was invented.
Credit is money
No credit=no money
No money=the bottom is dead
The bottom dies=the top dies (in style of course)
If you wish to survive the die back, buy a tent and bic lighters.

The Great American Bond Bubble
If 10-year interest rates, which are now 2.8%, rise to 4% as they did last spring, bondholders will suffer a capital loss more than three times the current yield.
By JEREMY SIEGEL AND JEREMY SCHWARTZ
Ten years ago we experienced the biggest bubble in U.S. stock market history-the Internet and technology mania that saw high-flying tech stocks selling at an excess of 100 times earnings. The aftermath was predictable: Most of these highfliers declined 80% or more, and the Nasdaq today sells at less than half the peak it reached a decade ago.
A similar bubble is expanding today that may have far more serious consequences for investors. It is in bonds, particularly U.S. Treasury bonds. Investors, disenchanted with the stock market, have been pouring money into bond funds, and Treasury bonds have been among their favorites. The Investment Company Institute reports that from January 2008 through June 2010, outflows from equity funds totaled $232 billion while bond funds have seen a massive $559 billion of inflows.
We believe what is happening today is the flip side of what happened in 2000.

Hawker, union to start talks today
WICHITA BUSINESS JOURNAL - BY Chris Moon
Contract talks begin today between the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and Hawker Beechcraft Corp. - a discussion that could play a pivotal role in the plane-maker's future presence in Wichita.
The two sides are reopening talks after Hawker has said it is considering moving work outside of Wichita and, possibly, outside the United States.
The union's negotiating committee has said not reopening negotiations with Hawker "would be grim, drastically affecting the employment levels and the future of Wichita operations." The union has been talking with Hawker for the past several weeks about reopening negotiations.

NO GOLDEN EGG FROM THIS GOOSE
PowerLine.com
Fox News reports that new applications for unemployment insurance reached the half-million mark last week for the first time since November. According to the Department of Labor, there were no special factors that distorted the numbers. Therefore, this news is more evidence that employers are cutting jobs again as the economy slows.
Many economists had warned that a robust recovery was by no means guaranteed. Now, some are now predicting a double-dip recession and/or a lengthy period of stagnation like the one Japan experienced for about a decade.

Taxpayers on the hook for $3 trillion in pensions
By Hibah Yousuf,
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Even if the costly state pension system undergoes reform, taxpayers could get stuck with a hefty bill.
Under the current system, unfunded benefit liabilities -- the amount states owe in promised retirement benefits beyond what they've collected -- exceed $3 trillion.
But even moderate policy changes, which are highly controversial, would only trim that amount by a pinch, according to a recent study released Thursday by Northwestern University economist Joshua Rauh.

Jobless claims rise to highest level in 9 months
By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER - AP - MSNBC.com
WASHINGTON - New applications for unemployment insurance reached the half-million mark last week for the first time since November, a sign that employers are likely cutting jobs again as the economy slows.
The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for jobless benefits rose by 12,000 last week to 500,000, the fourth increase in the past five weeks. Wall Street economists forecast that claims would drop.

Jobless Data Overshadows Intel Deal on Wall Street
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Shares on Wall Street retreated Thursday after the Labor Department said claims for unemployment benefits rose unexpectedly, renewing concerns about the pace of a recovery.
The disappointing news about the jobs market came minutes after investors learned that the chip maker Intel was acquiring McAfee. The acquisition, valued at $7.68 billion, helped cushion the fall from the rise in unemployment benefit claims. Under the deal, Intel will pay $48 a share in cash, a 60 percent premium over McAfee's Wednesday closing price of $29.93.

Michael Moore: Profits Are Way Up at General Motors ...
So Why Aren't They Hiring?
"If we want a life worth living for ourselves and our kids, we have to go get it ourselves. We can't keep waiting for the cavalry to come. That's because we're the cavalry."
Michael Moore - AlterNet.com
So General Motors is back to making billions in profit. And if the past is any guide, we know what that means: time for some layoffs!
Or maybe not. Back in the '80s and '90s, when GM was consistently posting giant profits, they were simultaneously firing tens of thousands of workers in my hometown of Flint and across Michigan. Right now it looks like the only person being canned is CEO Edward Whitacre. (Only last week Whitacre was saying he wasn't planning to leave anytime soon-kind of ironic that the former president of the Boy Scouts of America failed to Be Prepared.)
But if they're not laying people off yet, they're also not hiring.

Four bankruptcies in Kansas per 1,000 residents
WICHITA BUSINESS JOURNAL - BY Emily Behlmann
There were 4.04 bankruptcy filings in Kansas for every 1,000 residents during the year that ended June 30, 2010, according to data released this week by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.
The data shows increases in bankruptcy filings nationwide.
Kansas' total means the state had the 32nd highest rate of per-capita bankruptcies nationwide.
Nevada had the highest rate, with 11.74 bankruptcies filed during the year for every 1,000 people.
A majority of bankruptcy filings on the nationwide report - about 90 percent - were by individuals, not businesses.

Four Banks May Face $42B Loss
By: Zacks Equity Research
The four largest U.S. banks may incur losses of up to $42 billion if housing finance giants Fannie Mae (FNMA - Snapshot Report) and Freddie Mac (FMCC - Analyst Report) force them to repurchase faulty mortgages, Fitch Ratings stated on Wednesday.
The four banks are JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM - Analyst Report), Citigroup Inc. (C - Analyst Report), Bank of America Corp. (BAC - Analyst Report) and Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC - Analyst Report). According to the rating agency, if these banks repurchase 25% of the mortgage giants' troubled loans, the expected loss would be $17 billion. However, if the government-sponsored entities (GSEs) compel them to repurchase half of their faulty loans, the loss could extend to $42 billion.
Fitch also said that if the scenario becomes extremely worse, the faulty loan amount for these four banks could total $175 billion to $180 billion.

5 Trillion More Dollars To Fix Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac???
TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have become gigantic financial black holes that the U.S. government endlessly pours massive quantities of money into. Unfortunately, if the U.S. government did allow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to totally implode, both the mortgage industry and the housing industry in the United States would completely collapse. So essentially the U.S. government finds itself between a rock and a hard place. Prior to the financial crisis of the last few years, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were profit-seeking private corporations that also had a government-chartered mission of expanding home ownership in America. But now that they have been officially taken over by the U.S. government, they have become gigantic bottomless money pits. It is hard to even describe just how much of a mess Fannie and Freddie are in. However, the unprecedented intervention by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the mortgage market over the past couple of years has been about the only thing that has kept it from plunging into absolute chaos. So what does the future hold for Fannie Mae and for Freddie Mac? Well, according to one estimate, it could take another 5 trillion dollars to "fix" Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac.

Foreclosure rate soars in suburbs
Affluent areas now are among the hardest hit
BY STEVE LAW - The Portland Tribune
While Portlanders continue to be plagued by home foreclosures, the number of distressed homeowners is spiking even faster in the suburbs these days.
Foreclosure actions filed against homeowners in upscale Lake Oswego mushroomed 20 percent the first six months of this year, compared with the same period last year, and rose 10 percent in jobs-rich Hillsboro, according to RealtyTrac Inc., an Irvine, Calif., real estate data services company. RealtyTrac counted nearly 300 Lake Oswego properties socked with foreclosure actions from January through June and more than 500 Hillsboro properties.

Refinancing homeowners are going short
By Bill Briggs - msnbc.com contributor
Many customers take 30-year loans down to 15 or 20
After being blindsided by a job loss last spring, sales exec Ren Chirakos didn't need his new MBA degree to calculate the scary numbers: The math got simple real fast.
Zero income + new COBRA bills + a house payment = something had to give in the Chirakos family budget. The answer: refinancing his 30-year home loan to a shorter mortgage that tapped into the trend of ever-shrinking interest rates.
"I needed to keep my house," said Chirakos, who since has found work at a different company in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. His wife is a stay-home mom who cares for their two daughters. "It forces you to look at 'OK, where is our money going?' You start looking for ways to shave fixed expenses. It really gives you cause to think."

Many renters don't ever plan to buy a house
BIRMINGHAM BUSINESS JOURNAL
More than a quarter of people who rent a place to live do not plan to buy a home, ever, according to a survey by real estate information business Trulia Inc.
San Francisco-based Trulia found that 27 percent of renters don't ever plan to buy, and that two-thirds of those who do plan to buy will wait more than two years. Such postponed buying could delay the U.S. housing market's recovery, Trulia said.
Pete Flint, Trulia's CEO, said, "Renters converting into buyers are crucial to turning around the housing slump."

California close to issuing IOUs - again
By Tami Luhby, senior writer
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- California is once again running out of money and may have to issue IOUs within a few weeks.
The state's financial crunch stems from the fact that it does not have a budget for the current fiscal year, which began July 1. The governor and lawmakers continue to squabble over how to close an estimated $19 billion shortfall.
State Controller John Chiang said Wednesday that the state could have to issue IOUs in two to four weeks to keep the state solvent. He estimates there are $2.2 billion in expenses -- mainly to social service agencies, vendors and schools -- that will go unpaid in August.

Pizza Hut Cuts Prices Again to Counteract the Slow Recovery
By STUART ELLIOTT - NYTimes.com
MONTHS after stirring up the pizza category with promotional price cuts, Pizza Hut is putting its products on sale.
Pizza Hut, part of Yum Brands, plans to introduce a campaign on Sunday for new everyday low prices on its mainstay menu items. Most medium pizzas will cost $8, most large pizzas will be priced at $10 and most so-called specialty pizzas - like the new behemoth Big Italy pie, which has 18 slices - will cost $12 each.

Intel to buy McAfee for $7.68 billion
by Lance Whitney - CNETNews.com
Intel plans to buy security company McAfee for $7.68 billion--the biggest acquisition in its 42-year history.
The chipmaker said Thursday it has entered into a definitive agreement to buy all of McAfee's common stock at $48 per share in cash. McAfee's stock closed Wednesday at $29.93, making Intel's offer a 60 percent premium.
The boards of both companies have approved the deal.
Security has become an essential element of online computing, on par with energy-efficient performance and connectivity, Intel said. But today's security isn't adequately addressing the array of new Net-connected machines on the market, such as mobile devices, TVs, cars, ATMs, and medical gadgets, according to Intel. Offering protection requires a new approach that can tie together software, hardware, and services, the company said.

Court OKs Covert iPhone Audio Recording
By David Kravets - Wired.com
Using an iPhone to secretly record a conversation is not a violation of the Wiretap Act if done for legitimate purposes, a federal appeals court has ruled.
"The defendant must have the intent to use the illicit recording to commit a tort of crime beyond the act of recording itself," (.pdf) the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.
Friday's decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which involves a civil lawsuit over a secret audio recording produced from the 99-cent Recorder app, mirrors decisions in at least three other federal appeals courts.

Oil Plume From Spill Persists, Data Show
By ROBERT LEE HOTZ - WSJ.com (free)
Oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill formed an underwater plume of hydrocarbons the size of Manhattan, scientists said Thursday, raising fears of a lingering cloud of trace chemicals in the Gulf with an unknown long-term impact.
The new findings from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution add to evidence from other research groups this week that the offshore spill - the largest in history - is confounding scientists' assumptions about how the Gulf waters are interacting with the mass of oil.

BP and the Government Are Underplaying the Difficulty of Stopping the Oil Leak - Washington's Blog
While BP and the government say that permanently capping the oil well is no problem, they act like they have little idea of what they're doing.
Indeed, Admiral Thad Allen is now saying "We're concerned about the vital signs of this well":

"Concerned about the vital signs of this well --
We continue to be concerned about the vital signs"

He's also saying that completion of relief well will be delayed until mid-September, at the earliest, and that the government is looking for problematic "material" in the well:

JUST IN: Feds delay completion of relief well until MID-SEPTEMBER... "HOPEFULLY"

What's really going on?
Well, initially, if the well had structural integrity, there wouldn't be concern about the "vital signs" of the well, there wouldn't have been delay after delay in completing the relief wells, there wouldn't be never-ending rounds of new tests, there wouldn't have been an attempt to seal it (or perhaps more accurately, patch it) from the top using cement, there wouldn't be an attempt to remove "material" from the well.

Oil Plumes May Be More Toxic Than Thought, Scientists Warn
By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF - NYTimes.com
Undersea plumes of microscopic oil droplets extending dozens of miles from the BP wellhead may be more toxic to marine microorganisms in the Gulf of Mexico than previously believed, according to preliminary experimental results from Florida researchers.
Scientists from the University of South Florida, working from a research vessel northeast of the wellhead, found oil droplets scattered in sediment along the gulf floor and in the water column, they said in a report on Tuesday. The dispersed oil appeared to be having a toxic effect on bacteria and phytoplankton, a photosynthetic microorganism that serves as a vital food for fish and other marine life.

The Age of Treason: 1958 Book Exposes Chemical Attack on Humanity
By Daniel Taylor - Old-Thinker News
Dr. R. Swinburne Clymer was in many ways a man ahead of his time, and most certainly controversial. He was attacked by the medical establishment for connecting diet with disease and mental health in his 1917 book Dietetics. Dr. Clymer received his medical degree in 1902 from the College of Medicine and Surgery in Chicago and began practicing Osteopathy. Accusations of fraud surround Dr. Clymer's career, including this 1923 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association which claims that, "Our records fail to show that this man was ever regularly graduated by any reputable medical college." What Clymer had to say more than likely had something to do with the denouncement that he received from the medical establishment.
Though Dr. Clymer may be surrounded with controversy, his 1958 book Your Health and Sanity in the Age of Treason exposes toxic food additives and fluoride with documentation - the majority of which are mainstream scientific studies - that can be verified many times over. What makes this book unique is the fact that Dr. Clymer was one of the first to point out that statements by the elite indicated that these toxins were to be deliberately released "...for the mental deterioration and moral debasement of the mass..."

Growing number unsure of Obama's religion
by Mike Memoli - The Swamp - Chicago Tribune in Washington
For the first time in its polling, the Pew Research Center finds that more Americans don't know what President Obama's religion is than correctly identify him as a Christian.
All told, more than two-in-five Americans say they aren't clear about the president's religion, up 9 percent from the previous survey in March 2009. Only 34 percent say Obama is Christian, down a whopping 14 percent.

THE GREAT DECEIVER - Mike Fischer

Sheriff's Challenge to Obama:
Give Me Half Hour, I'll Show You How to Secure Border
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief
(CNSNews.com) - Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County, Ariz., is issuing an invitation to President Barack Obama: If the president will come and spend a half hour with Babeu in Arizona, the sheriff says, he will convince the president he can succeed in securing the border and thus make himself a hero who transcends partisan politics.
Babeu's southern Arizona county, while not contiguous with the border, has been designated by the Justice Department as part of a High Intensity Drug Trafficking region that is a major route for drug and alien smugglers bringing narcotics and illegal aliens into the United States from Mexico. Babeu has joined with Sheriff Larry Dever of neighboring Cochise County, Ariz.-which does sit on the border - as well as with Arizona's two senators, John McCain and Jon Kyl, in endorsing a ten-point plan for securing the border.

Nearly Half of United States Considering Arizona-Style Immigration Legislation - By Fred Lucas, Staff Writer
(CNSNews.com) - Twenty-two states are now in the process of drafting or seeking to pass legislation similar to Arizona's law against illegal immigration. This is occurring despite the fact that the Obama administration has filed a lawsuit against the Arizona law and a federal judge has ruled against portions of that law - a ruling that is now being appealed.
Next month, two Rhode Island state lawmakers, a Democrat and a Republican, will travel to Arizona to speak with Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, local sheriffs, and other officials about how to better craft their own bipartisan immigration bill for Rhode Island, which already has been enforcing some federal immigration laws.

Mexico Under Siege
Business Heads Plead as Drug Gangs Terrorize Wealthy City
By NICHOLAS CASEY - WSJ.com (free)
MONTERREY, Mexico - A surge of drug violence in Mexico's business capital and richest city has prompted an outcry from business leaders who on Wednesday took out full-page ads asking President Felipe Calderón to send in more soldiers to stem the violence.
The growing violence in Monterrey, long one of Mexico's most modern and safe cities, is a sign that the country's war against drug gangs is spreading ever further from poorer battlegrounds along the border and into the country's wealthiest enclaves.

La Raza: Deporting 12 Million Illegal Aliens
'Not a Realistic Solution' and U.S. Should Stop Trying
By Adam Cassandra
(CNSNews.com) - The United States cannot deport all 12 million illegal aliens in the United States and should stop trying, a spokeswoman for the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) told CNSNews.com last week.
"We have to recognize that our immigration system has been broken for 20 years and there are now 12 million people living and working and praying among us who are here without documents. Many have spouses who are citizens or children fighting for our country," NCLR Immigration Field Coordinator A. Elena Lacayo said in an e-mail response to a question from CNSNews.com.
"Deporting 12 million people is not a realistic solution," she wrote. "It's time we create a rational immigration system, take these people out of the shadows and restore the rule of law."

Stepping Toward Nuclear Armageddon
Brad MacDonald - theTrumpet.com
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a step closer to his goal of setting off a nuclear apocalypse.
If reports are accurate, in less than 48 hours the Islamic Republic of Iran will begin feeding uranium into its first and only nuclear power plant.
The moment this "irreversible step" is taken, stated Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for the Russian nuclear agency assisting Tehran, the "Bushehr plant will be officially considered a nuclear energy installation." If all goes well, Iran will be producing fissile material by October.
Across the world, news of Bushehr's activation has been met with emotions ranging from apathy to alarm. The indifferent argue that Bushehr's activation was merely a matter of time, and that the facility will not pose a significant threat because it will be used for the production of nuclear energy for civilian consumption. Many others, such as Michael Anton in the Weekly Standard, are deeply concerned because Bushehr, once fueled and operating, "will produce plutonium 239, which can be used to make nuclear weapons."

Pyongyang on its knees: only potatoes to stave off famine
The capital's population had grown accustomed to a slightly better diet compared to the rest of the country. But the sanctions, the five-year plans and currency reform are beginning to be felt. And the population shows signs of timid protests against the regime.
Seoul (AsiaNews) - The population of Pyongyang, the capital of the Stalinist regime of North Korea, is increasingly frustrated because of the price of basic necessities and lack of basic foods in stores, according to former residents, who have fled to South Korea. They point the finger at the last year's disastrous currency reform and against the five years economic plan, which the regime insists on continuing.
According to one source, "market prices continue to rise. The population is angry, and complains of these factors. According to some estimates, 60% of the population is dissatisfied with the authorities". On the other hand the inhabitants of Pyongyang, given its proximity to political power, were used to having better access to goods passing through the country: now they have to survive on potatoes.

U.S.-South Korea Exercises Rile China
Beijing Says Joint Military Drills in Yellow Sea Risk
Imperiling Chinese National Security and Provoking Pyongyang
By ANDREW BROWNE And EVAN RAMSTAD - WSJ.com - $$
BEIJING-Plans by the U.S. and South Korea to conduct military exercises in the Yellow Sea aimed at North Korea, despite China's strong objections, are ratcheting up tensions between Beijing and Washington, already at loggerheads over sensitive regional security issues.
Chinese officials warn that the exercises threaten a crisis on China's doorstep by provoking North Korea, and could inflame public opinion in China.
"There's a real danger things could get out of control - and that would be a real threat for China's national security," a senior official said.

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