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Whither Qaddafi and Libya?
By Franklin Lamb
The Strange Calm Over Tripoli
The large gold framed portrait of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi that adorned the wall behind the reception desk of my hotel since it opened many years ago has vanished. Also gone are the 72 green flags that flew on the white poles have also been removed. It’s not polite to inquire of the skeleton staff about who removed these items because the act of removal could become very serious offenses depending on the final outcome here. But, my friend Ismail, manning the front desk, just grinned at me when I commented on the hotels fine new mirror that hangs in the leader’s space.
Looking over the skyline of Tripoli at 7:30 a.m. 8/22/11 from the 26th floor of the Corinthia Hotel it seems that it’s just about over for the Qaddafi regime.
All night one heard in central Tripoli mainly celebratory gunfire from areas like the nearby newly renamed “Martyrs Square” (formerly ‘Green Square’) but so many questions are on most people minds this morning. Some ask, Are the Qaddafi forces opening a trap for the rebel forces allowing them to come in quickly and easily and then when they are gathered in public celebrations and seek rest, counter attack?
Arab Authoritarian World is Changing But How to Make Sense - Out of Nonsense?
By Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D
Individualistic absolutism is an epidemic across the oil enriched Arab world and has its own flourishing history. Paradoxical as it appears, changing fortunes of time have brought the cruel monsters that have darkened the history of mankind and the victims face to face in a court of law. Of course, that did not happen yet in much talked movement - War is a Crime that some of the Western thinkers and institutions plan to do to freely roaming and killers of three million Iraqi people - George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Tony Blair but it happened this week in Egypt. Hosni Mubarak, yesterday’s Pharaoh was attending prison roll call in an Egyptian court of law televised worldwide. Authoritarianism is nothing new. In recent history, Hitler, Mussolini, George W. Bush, Tony Blair and many more – all were produced by liberal democracy to run down the humanity with full insanity glorified as political order of the day and to become cancerous disease with treacherous consequences for the generations to come. Time must be reversed if you can that the 21st century civilization of conscientious human beings should continue to experience the bogus war on terrorism, and witness massive killings of innocent human beings and destruction of habitats for no other purpose except being an object and agenda of the few cruel monsters of history.
THE SPARK OF LIFE IS LOVE / NOT THE HIGGS BOSON
By Allen L Roland
Large Hadron Collider ( LHC ) proton-proton collision in which two energetic electrons and two energetic muons, elementary particles similar to electrons, are observed—the type of event that the decay of a Higgs boson might produce, although there are other explanations as well. © 2011 CERN
Scientists have concluded that the Higgs “God Particle” does not exist confirming the prediction of both Stephen Hawking and myself in 2008. It’s time now to realize that the ultimate spark of life is a Unified Field of love and soul consciousness, whose principle property is the urge to unite, which permeates the universe and also exists deepest within ourselves: Allen L Roland
Gaza Not Represented In Blockade Whitewash
By Stuart Littlewood
Warped “Inquiry” Invites Mega-mischief
"Israel faces a real threat to its security from militant groups in Gaza. The naval blockade was imposed as a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea and its implementation complied with the requirements of international law... the flotilla acted recklessly in attempting to breach the naval blockade."
That’s the conclusion of the Palmer inquiry, brought to you by that freak-show the United Nation, under its Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon.
It’s completely at odds with what other experts have said. The UN itself has already accepted that Israel's blockade is illegal. One of its own fact-finding missions declared that it constituted collective punishment of the people living in the Gaza Strip and thus was illegal and contrary to Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The action by Israel’s military in intercepting the Mavi Marmara on the high seas was "clearly unlawful" and couldn’t be justified even under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations [the right of self-defence]. “No case can be made for the legality of the interception and the Mission therefore finds that the interception was illegal”.
President Obama, and the Democratic Dilemma
By Ron Radosh
“If Obama is pursuing policies similar to those taken by George W. Bush, why do we not see any giant protests against him from the Left, of the kind regularly seen during the Bush years?”
Recently, some of our most able pundits have been arguing that neoconservatism is dead. As usual, The Daily Beast’s Peter Beinart leads the pack. He could not have stated his case more clearly than here: “the ideology that 9/11 made famous — neoconservatism — has died.” Beinart is certain of this. His evidence? Al-Qaeda is finished; not only Osama bin Laden is dead, but now his second in command, Abd al-Rahman, has been killed by the U.S. No longer is jihadism a major threat, “a threat on par with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union,” he argues. It is “sliding into irrelevance,” leaving the U.S. with quite a different challenge — that of China’s authoritarian capitalism. What killed al-Qaeda, he says, is “exactly the narrow targeted policies that neoconservatives derided.”
You Only Think You’ve Got Rights
By Edgar J. Steele
Part I – No Attorney-Client Privilege
As you know, I have been serializing parts of my upcoming book, “Evil Edgar,” to my list on the internet, as I have been writing it. We have just finished up (most of) “Sex, Lies and Audiotape,” a chapter about those phony recordings and how my experts were prohibited by the judge from proving them false.
Next up (or so I intended): “Love and Other Four-Letter Words,” about the Russian bride scam I was investigating and the possible involvement of the “Russian Mafia” in my takedown. I have that entire chapter almost done. The very recent, stupefying dismissal by the Idaho Supreme Court of my ethics complaint against the lead prosecutor in my show trial forces me to take the basis of that complaint up now, however.
Labor Day, GM and Libya
By Timothy V. Gatto
It’s Labor Day. Of course the holiday is meaningless due to the fact that labor has lost most of its clout. The death of organized labor started the day Ronald Reagan fired the air traffic controllers who were striking for better working conditions mainly because the enforced overtime they were subject to were leaving air traffic controllers exhausted and falling asleep on the job and putting the public in danger. So today we still celebrate Labor Day, even though labor is almost totally controlled by the corporate state. It looks good on paper though.
The labor union (UAW) now owns shares of GM corporate stock. They also run the union’s pension plan. The wage for new workers went from $27.00 an hour to $14.00. Now union members must ask themselves the question; When the union makes a decision on where the company should be heading, are they making the decision as the head of the worker’s labor union or as an investor of the company? You can see that GM is off-shoring many manufacturing jobs to China and Brazil. I’d say that the question has been pretty well answered.
NORTH DAKOTA’S ECONOMIC “MIRACLE”—IT’S NOT OIL
By Ellen Brown
North Dakota has had the nation's lowest unemployment ever since the economy tanked. What's its secret?
In an article in The New York Times on August 19th titled “The North Dakota Miracle,” Catherine Rampell writes:
Forget the Texas Miracle. Let’s instead take a look at North Dakota, which has the lowest unemployment rate and the fastest job growth rate in the country.
According to new data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics today, North Dakota had an unemployment rate of just 3.3 percent in July—that’s just over a third of the national rate (9.1 percent), and about a quarter of the rate of the state with the highest joblessness (Nevada, at 12.9 percent).
North Dakota has had the lowest unemployment in the country (or was tied for the lowest unemployment rate in the country) every single month since July 2008.
Its healthy job market is also reflected in its payroll growth numbers. . . . [Y]ear over year, its payrolls grew by 5.2 percent. Texas came in second, with an increase of 2.6 percent.
Why is North Dakota doing so well? For one of the same reasons that Texas has been doing well: oil.
Oil is certainly a factor, but it is not what has put North Dakota over the top. Alaska has roughly the same population as North Dakota and produces nearly twice as much oil, yet unemployment in Alaska is running at 7.7 percent. Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming have all benefited from a boom in energy prices, with Montana and Wyoming extracting much more gas than North Dakota has. The Bakken oil field stretches across Montana as well as North Dakota, with the greatest Bakken oil production coming from Elm Coulee Oil Field in Montana. Yet Montana’s unemployment rate, like Alaska’s, is 7.7% percent.
Sanctioning messenger Dr. Bouthainia Shaaban assaults American values
Franklin Lamb, Tripoli
As part of its 7th set of US sanctions against Syria, which began in June, 2011, the Obama administration has targeted a messenger, a sometime spokeswoman, a positive image of Syria, someone people of all religions and cultures have easily identified with over the past several years, Dr. Bouthainia Shaaban. The US administration acted thus for the sole purpose of pressuring the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, but has succeeded in undermining American values of freedom of expression much more.
On August 28, 2011, the US Treasury and State Departments targeted Dr. Bouthainia Shaaban, and froze any assets she might have in the US.
According to State Department spokesman, Victoria Nuland, who two US Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffers speculate may view Dr. Shaaban as a rival of sorts given their job descriptions, and Dr. Shaaban’s stellar performances during meetings with US officials both in the US and Syria, the explanation for blacklisting a Syrian nationalist and media advisor remains: “She (Dr. Shaaban) has served as the public mouthpiece for the repression of the regime.”
Lawlessness and Injustice Define America and Israel
by Stephen Lendman
Rogue state lawlessness and contempt for humanity define both nations.
At home, America is plagued by police state laws, contempt for human and civil rights, out-of-control corruption, banker occupation, corporate control of Washington, record budget and national debt levels, as well as depression-sized unemployment, poverty, homelessness, hunger and despair.
Abroad, America wages permanent wars on humanity, killing millions for wealth, power, and unchallengeable global dominance at the expense of suffering billions.
The rancid stench of Washington's war on the world permeates everywhere, threatening human and environmental survival.
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