Greece was bracing for more rioting in its capital Athens and other cities on Monday after two nights of violent clashes between thousands of demonstrators and police following the fatal shooting of a 15-year-old boy by a police officer on Saturday night.

...On Sunday, protesters chanting "Cops, Pigs, Murderers" had hurled petrol bombs at ranks of Athens riot police while helicopters clattered overhead and tear gas choked the city. By Sunday night, the Athens police appeared to have exhausted its tear gas supply and resorted to hurling stones back at the masked protestors.

...The rioting has left the center of Athens looking like a war zone. More than 40 people have been injured, over 100 cars have been burned, and dozens of shops and bank branches have been torched. Cars and pedestrians returned to Athens streets on Monday as Greeks went back to work, but the mood was tense. More than 500 Athens city employees began removing the car wrecks from the streets. The violence left behind charred police stations, car dealerships, government buildings and private apartments.

(That's far beyond anything we had in Budapest.)

Despite the arrest of police officers, the Greek Communist Party announced a mass demonstration in Athens for Monday evening and the socialist PASOK opposition, which has taken the lead in opinion polls recently, called for peaceful mass demonstrations.

With a 24-hour general strike scheduled for Wednesday against pension reforms and the government's economic policies, many Greeks fear the demonstrations could last for days.

Queues grew and tempers frayed in the departure lounge at Stansted Airport after budget airline Ryanair cancelled 56 flights as a result of the early-morning protest by Plane Stupid.

Activists broke into a secure area at around 3am, forcing the runway to remain closed for three hours.

...Today's protest was sparked by the Government's decision to allow the expansion of the airport with a second runway.

Activist Lily Kember, 21, a third-year anthropology student at Edinburgh University, said the group used bolt-cutters to get into a secure area around 55 yards (50m) from the runway.

In a Monday article in the mass-circulation tabloid Bild, Merkel said that she will not approve any European Union climate rules "that endanger jobs or investments in Germany."

The Green Party in Berlin, which has for years had to stand by and watch as Merkel appropriated one of its central issues, was quick to react. "Merkel has abdicated her position as climate chancellor," said Bärbel Höhn, acting floor leader for the Greens in parliament. "The fact that the chancellor is trying to play the issue of jobs off against the environment shows her economic ignorance and her amnesia when it comes to climate issues."

The environmental and development group Oxfam echoed the sentiment, saying that "with her behavior, Ms. Merkel has demonstrated to developing countries that protecting climate-harming industries in Germany is more important than preventing a global climate catastrophe."

I always viewed Merkel's greenery as phony.

(Note Bärbel Höhn is the former Northrhine-Westphalia state environment minister who long battled Wolfgang Clement, then state PM for SPD-Coal Lobby now just coal lobbyist, also see Exit Clement by nanne.)

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

Dutch anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders confirmed Monday he would tour Britain, France and Israel in the coming months to present his controversial Islam-critical film "Fitna."

The film was denounced by nations such as Iran, Jordan and Pakistan, while the Dutch national anti-terrorism coordinator said early December...

"As I come to terms with the substantial level of threat during the last three years, there are underlying issues now that make it (the threat) stronger," Tjibbe Joustra was quoted as saying in an interview with Dutch daily De Volkskrant.

Attempts to prosecute Wilders for alleged discrimination, racism or incitement were unsuccessful after the Dutch public prosecutor established "Fitna" did not violate national legislation.

What seemed liberating when couched in the language of campaign promises now seems oppressive, now that the president's cleanup operation is affecting both France's good and bad traditions alike. While constantly citing the loftiest values, the most attractive ideals and the best motives, Sarkozy is doctoring around on the aging body of French democracy, but his incisions are now coming dangerously close to its vital organs. Suddenly such fundamental historical achievements like the separation of powers, freedom of the press and the protection of minorities are at stake in France today.

Some anecdotes:

Scene 1: Hervé Eon, a protestor who, during a Sarkozy visit to a rural area, carried a sign around his neck that read "Get lost, you imbecile" was brought to trial and found guilty of "insulting the head of state." Sarkozy, for his part, used the same words to reproach a citizen who had refused to shake his hand: "Get lost, you imbecile." Scene 2: The daily newspaper Le Figaro, owned by Serge Dassault, an arms merchant and friend of Sarkozy, published, on its front page, a retouched teaser photo of Justice Minister Rachida Dati. A €15,600 ($20,000) ring on the minister's hand was airbrushed out. Scene 3: After a demonstration by Corsican nationalists on the property of another Sarkozy's friend, actor Christian Clavier, the region's police chief was sacked, at the behest of Paris. Scene 4: A former managing editor of the leftwing daily Libération was taken away in handcuffs early one morning because of a letter to the editor published two years earlier, addressed as "scum" by police officers and subjected to multiple body searches.

More stuff you don't commonly read in non-French MSM:

...the precarious situation within the system is exacerbated by the fact that the president, upon taking office, appears to have forgotten everything he once promised to the weaker elements of society, while strictly keeping all the promises he made to society's strongest members.

But, don't celebrate too early... the article contains a lot of neolib standard wisdom on France.

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

41 members of the PSD voted for negotiations with PD-L, while 17 voted against during talks today.

Should such negotiations lead to the formation of a new government, it would leave out the Liberals (PNL), who came third in the general elections.

According to statements made by PSD leaders over the past several days, there were two trends within party ranks - one led by PSD leader Miron Mitrea who wanted a government with PD-L and another led by Ion Iliescu and Adrian Nastase, who would like an alliance with the PNL either in power or in opposition.

For his part, PD-L president Emil Boc said on Monday following a party leadership reunion that the group would continue talks with "both parties" as a new round of negotiations would start on Tuesday morning.

And UDMR leader Marko Bela, quoted by Antena 3 news television, said he would not believe PD-L would drop a deal with his political group to include UDMR in a future government with PD-L participation.

The Army's General Officer Commanding is leaving and a Brigadier will be put in charge.

It will be the first time since the foundation of the State in 1921 that there has been no GOC, but the move is a clear reflection of the changed times in Northern Ireland.

Major General Chris Brown packs his bags on 1 January and heads off to Iraq to take up a new command in Baghdad.

...Where once there were up to 30,000 soldiers on duty, there is now a peacetime garrison of just under 5,000 scattered around bases across the province.

A major Government report today called for urgent reforms to protect primary schools struggling to cope with an overloaded curriculum.

Under proposals outlined by Sir Jim Rose, the Government's top adviser on primary schools, traditional lessons such as history and geography would be axed to allow teachers greater flexibility to teach fewer subjects in greater depth.

HUH!!?????

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

Topolanek successfully saw off the challenge of Prague Mayor and Klaus ally Pavel Bem in a convincing 284-162 vote. With his renewed mandate, Topolanek is now expected to put the treaty to vote in an extraordinary meeting of the Czech parliament on Tuesday.

In a Prague weekend full of political intrigue, Vaclav Klaus - who founded the ODS in 1991 and served as prime minister for two terms before becoming president - resigned from the party, expressing discontent with its current direction: "These are not the policies with which I founded and led the ODS for many years," he said.

Klaus' resignation took place on Saturday and is likely to have been a calculated strategy to influence Sunday's leadership contest. With this clear statement of intent, Klaus effectively made the leadership contest a single-issue ballot, based on the Lisbon Treaty.

However, despite having seen his candidate defeated, Klaus may have other methods at his disposal to continue his opposition to Lisbon. He has previously threatened to refuse to sign the treaty, even if it should be approved by a parliamentary majority. The treaty requires the presidential seal for final constitutional ratification.

"Incandescent bulbs will be phased out between September 2009 and September 2012," said a spokesman for the EU Presidency.

The proposals will be studied by the European Parliament and member states, and if no objection is raised, they could be adopted in a fast-track procedure by the end of March.

...The move could play into the hands of manufacturers of the most efficient CFL bulbs, mostly based in China, and could lead to the loss of 2,000 to 3,000 EU jobs, mostly in eastern Europe.

But Europe could save between 5 and 10 billion euros on energy bills, which could be used to create new jobs, including in emerging green industries.

The man suspected of being the new military chief of the Basque separatist group Eta has been arrested in France, police say.

He was arrested along with two others near Gerde in south-west France, carrying guns and fake identity papers, French police said.

Spain's interior ministry said one of those held was Aitzol Irionda, thought to be Eta's new military chief.

The arrests follow last week's murder of a businessman in the Basque region.

It was the first attack linked to Eta since the arrest of its former military head, Mikel Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina, also known as "Txeroki", last month.

Le diplomate en chef de l'UE Javier Solana, en marge d'une réunion des 27 ministres européens des Affaires étrangères à Bruxelles, a annoncé que l'opération Atalante, d'une durée d'un an, venait d'être officiellement "activée".

Au moins huit pays - Allemagne, Belgique, Espagne, France, Grèce, Pays-Bas, Royaume-Uni et Suède, auxquels se joindra peut-être le Portugal - participeront à l'opération qui regroupera six navires de guerre et trois avions de patrouille, sous le commandement d'un officier britannique, le vice-amiral Phillip Jones. <...>

"Les règles d'engagement (document confidentiel sur les conditions d'un recours aux armes ndlr)" entérinées lundi par les 27 "sont très robustes", a souligné M. Solana.

Elles permettront de "recourir à tous les moyens y compris à la force pour protéger, dissuader et poursuivre en justice tout acte de piraterie", a-t-il précisé, se félicitant de la grande "clarté" du mandat de la force navale européenne.

"Cette opération, sous commandement britannique, permettra, je l'espère, d'établir les prémices d'un ordre international des mers qui sont vitales pour commercer autour du monde", a déclaré pour sa part le ministre britannique David Miliband.

Sorry, just as I finished the translation, Firefox crashed on me.  No time to re-do.

Very strange, but I could not find ANY coverage of this in the English press.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

Vandals carried out a fresh attack on the graves of hundreds of Muslim war veterans in France's biggest military cemetery in an assault President Nicolas Sarkozy denounced Monday as "revolting."

The graves in Notre Dame de Lorette cemetery were sprayed with graffiti on Sunday night, the eve of Islam's Eid al-Adha feast, a police spokesman said, adding that a hunt was under way to find the culprits.

The cemetery, near the northern border with Belgium, commemorates the tens of thousands of victims of a series of long and bloody battles for control of northern France at the start of World War I.

It had already been hit in April this year, when vandals desecrated 148 Muslim graves, hanging a pig's head from one tombstone and daubing slogans insulting France's Muslim justice minister, Rachida Dati, who is of North African descent. <...>

Two young men with neo-Nazi sympathies are awaiting trial over April's desecration. They deny involvement.

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos will pay a working visit to Moscow on Monday, the Spanish government said in a statement.

The minister is expected to arrive in Moscow on Monday afternoon, following an EU ministerial meeting in Brussels.

During the visit, Moratinos will meet with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, to discuss security, economic and energy cooperation.

There is an interview with a Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Spokesman from December 5 about the meeting which makes no mention of Lukoil, or even "energy":

Miguel Angel Moratinos will make a working visit to Moscow on December 8-9 at the invitation of the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov. We note with satisfaction that this will be Moratinos's third arrival in the Russian capital since he assumed office. Thorough talks between the heads of Russian and Spanish diplomacies will constitute another link in the dynamically evolving bilateral political dialogue between Moscow and Madrid at the highest and a high level.

The focus of the attention of Lavrov and Moratinos will be questions of further strengthening of Russian-Spanish cooperation in all fields. The ministers will examine a schedule of meetings at the highest level for the upcoming period, and exchange views on different aspects of the reinvigoration of bilateral interaction. Apart from the successfully maintained political contacts, they are expected to discuss the prospects for the intensification of economic and trade ties in the light of the accords reached at the sixth meeting of the Russia-Spain Intergovernmental Mixed Commission on Economic and Industrial Cooperation held in Madrid this past November. In conditions of the continuing world economic and financial crisis it appears to be fundamentally important to use the mechanisms of bilateral cooperation to mitigate its negative consequences for the economic operators and citizens of both countries.

The talks had long been kept secret, but Deutsche Börse AG apparently had plans to merge with the New York Stock Exchange. Now that the news is out, Deutsche Börse is saying the deal fell through. The plans, though, were highly developed.

Wagon, which employs more than 500 people in the UK, is set to appoint administrators for its British operations this week after car makers cut orders for Wagon's vehicle components. BA said yesterday that it would cut more than 100 jobs at Gatwick airport as part of a plan to reduce services there by 15 per cent from the middle of next year. The cuts to ground staff will be made voluntarily as aircraft based at Gatwick are reduced from 41 to 37, the airline pledged.

A political movement in Bulgaria launched a campaign aimed at encouraging Bulgarian citizens to consume local products, Novinite informs. The campaign, entitled "Let's increase the consumption of Bulgarian products" and plans to negotiate with producers to label their produces as Made in Bulgaria.

This way, the initiators want to make sure that citizens know what products they buy. Plus, as people will purchase local goods, a 0.01 leva will be transferred to a special account to help those who lost their jobs due to the financial crisis.

Over 10 days, the movement will launch the video campaign on all local televisions.

Discounts of up to 75 per cent saw shoppers flood the high street over the weekend, prompting hopes that reluctance to spend because of the credit crunch may finally be easing. In central London, traffic was banned from Oxford Street and Regent Street on Saturday as part of West End VIP Day - an annual event to make Christmas shopping easier. Organisers believe the event attracted about 1.5 million people, up from around a million last year. Sales, however, were expected to be flat at about L100m, given heavy discounting.

Gordon Brown has said more investment is needed in technology and environmentally friendly industries in an effort to tackle the downturn.

The prime minister held Downing Street talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Jose Manuel Barroso, head of the European Commission.

Afterwards he said technology could help governments in their efforts to "invest out of the downturn".

EU leaders are to hold an economic summit in Brussels later this week.

Also taking part in Downing Street meetings were representatives of companies including Vodafone, Tesco, British Telecom, the National Grid, Corus, Prudential and Diageo.

Japan's biggest bond investors say Barack Obama has room to unleash a flood of Treasuries without driving up borrowing costs as he tackles the worst economy since World War II.

The U.S. is starting to look like Japan in the 1990s, when the Bank of Japan struggled to revive growth as the combination of deflation and recessions stranded the nation in the so-called Lost Decade. Yields on Treasuries are falling as the government sells a record amount of debt to prop up the American economy. Two-year note yields have fallen to 1 percent, compared with 0.57 percent for Japanese government bonds of similar maturity. The gap last week touched the narrowest since 1992.

"History repeats itself," said Hiroyuki Bando, chief manager for fixed income, equities and currencies in Tokyo at Mitsubishi UFJ Trust & Banking Corp., which manages the equivalent of $200 billion and invests on behalf of Japan's biggest bank. "Based on our experience in Japan, the same thing will happen in the U.S. The U.S. has more room to borrow."

Bando bought Treasuries, as did Mizuho Asset Management Co., which oversees $41.9 billion and bet all year that inflation in the U.S. will turn into deflation, buoying government debt. JPMorgan Asset Management Japan Ltd., part of the largest U.S. lender, is buying Treasuries, speculating the Federal Reserve will purchase the securities to keep yields down and spur the economy, just as the Bank of Japan did a decade ago.

Fed holdings of Treasuries on behalf of foreign central banks and other institutions rose 12 percent since September, compared with a 7.7 percent increase last quarter.

This article seems to be using the phrase "Obama bonds" in a different sense than it was used here:

Japan economists call for 'Obama bonds' | Asia Times - Kosuke Takahashi (2008 November 19)

"The US will be forced to issue foreign currency-denominated US Treasures in its hour of need," said Mizuno [Kazuo, chief economist in Tokyo at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co, a unit of Japan's largest publicly traded lender by assets]. "The US cannot finance its deficit by itself. The US financial system cannot survive without foreign investors. We will see 'Obama Bonds' in the future." <...>

You asked, Is there a problem here? There's your answer. That's the problem. When you stopped worrying about the curliness of your fries, when workers like you stopped worrying about the curliness, or creaminess, or deadliness of their respective fries, that's when this country got on the wrong track; that's when the bankers and the C.E.O.s all disappeared into that underground paradise they've been building since the eighties; that's when women's skin started falling off; that's when the Treasury Department, in a last-ditch effort to solve the financial crisis, certified all Monopoly and other board-game moneys; that's when the rivers ran red, and gelatinous, with what many thought was strawberry Jell-O but really, really was not; that's when the post office finally followed through on its threats to stop Saturday delivery; that's when dogs mated with cats, producing a pet that was unfriendly yet still slobbered all over you; that's when the President and the Congress went on a fact-finding mission to Subterrania and never came back; that's when baboons gained speech but only used it to make hurtful comments; that's when the dead rose and flooded the job market with cheap, disposable labor, and the serpents, seeing an opening, took dominion over this once great nation of ours.

You and your uncurled fries.

Oh, yeah, sure. And the asteroid. Let's all blame the asteroid.

A leaked intelligence document issued by Spain's CNI spy agency in October warns that Russia is aggressively pursuing a plan to "monopolize access to energy supplies to Europe." The report validates what many analysts have been saying for a long time, namely that Moscow is using Russian energy companies to gain geo-strategic control over northern, central and southern Europe.

Now Russia's largest independent oil company, Lukoil, is negotiating the purchase of a 30 percent stake in Repsol YPF SA, Spain's largest oil company. The deal, which is valued at 5 billion euros ($6.5 billion), calls for Lukoil to buy a 20 percent stake in Repsol from Sacyr Vallehermoso SA, a debt-laden Spanish construction company, and another 10 percent stake from La Caixa, a Catalan savings bank. Lukoil is now seeking financing in order to close the deal.

News of the politically sensitive acquisition has come as a shock to many Spaniards, who now are fiercely debating the wisdom of giving effective control of their "national energy champion" to a Russian company. Analysts say the deal could lead to a full-scale takeover or break-up of Repsol, which has lagged rivals in profitability and in reserves growth in recent years. Under Spanish takeover law, a shareholder must launch an offer for the entire company once it passes the 30 percent threshold.

This is becoming a huge political deal in Spain and the Russia scaremongers in the Western™ press are having a field day.

Most economists teach a theoretical framework that has been shown to be fundamentally useless. -- James K. Galbraith

Less than a week after over a hundred countries came together in Oslo to sign a far-reaching ban on the use of cluster bombs, Germany's role in the agreement is being closely examined...

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has made clear that he sees Germany as a leader on the cluster-bomb issue.

...the government has long delayed passing a cluster bomb deal that might negatively impact German munitions manufacturers such as the Düsseldorf firm Rheinmetall or Diehl, which is based in Nuremberg.

In the past, the two munitions companies benefitted from large orders for the bombs from the German army. The stockpiles were never used. But the companies have developed a new generation of so-called "intelligent" cluster munitions, and the German government was able to prevent the new "smart" bombs from falling under the cluster munitions ban. Berlin argued for an exception of such munitions that can be programmed to hit pre-determined "point targets."

Despite appeals from the United Nations for peacekeeping troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the European Union is hesitant to commit. Germany, in particular, prefers a diplomatic solution.

..."It is urgent that we take a decision on such a bridging force (to DR Congo), which to my mind is absolutely necessary," said Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht.

...Some 250,000 civilians have been displaced in the east of the DR Congo since the summer as a result of renewed clashes between government forces and Tutsi rebels led by renegade general Laurent Nkunda.

De Gucht said an EU mission would need up to 3,000 heavily-armed soldiers, which would fill in immediate shortages.

Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said the EU should consider deploying its battle groups.

..."If we don't send them to Congo, where do we send them?" Stubb asked.

Perhaps into a lost war in Afghanistan?...

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

Germany's foreign intelligence agency has said it spied on the office of a German food aid organization in Afghanistan to glean information on the country's security situation and on possible terror attacks. The agency is threatening legal action and has called for a government inquiry.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana weighed into the debate...

"The moment has arrived to put on the pressure for Mugabe to step down and give the opportunity once again to the people of Zimbabwe to get their life together and begin to move the country forward," Solana told reporters as he arrived for talks with EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Monday.

"The important thing is the political pressure now," he said.

The US has also called for Mugabe to step aside, as have several African nations including Kenya and Botswana.

The self-styled mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and four co-defendants told a military judge at Guantanamo they wanted to confess and plead guilty.

A note to the judge said the defendants made the decision on 4 December, which was the day Barack Obama was elected to become the next US president...

Several of the defendants had said at previous hearings that they welcomed martyrdom, and they may have felt that opportunity slipping away with Obama's election.

The five men, who face a variety of charges including manslaughter in relation to the killing of 17 people, gave themselves up following prolonged legal action with their lawyers claiming that it was a "politically motivated prosecution".

The guards, however, gave themselves up in Utah, their home state, and want the case tried at Salt Lake City where, their legal teams hold, they can find a generally conservative poll of jurors supportive of the Iraq war. The prosecution had been demanding that the surrender takes place in Washington where trials for alleged crimes abroad are normally tried and will ask a Federal judge to ensure the trial takes place in the US capital.

Pakistan appears to be moving more forcefully against extremists based in the country. Pakistani authorities have arrested several members of an aid organization with ties to the radical Islamist rebel group Laskhar-e-Taiba in connection with the terrorist attacks on Mumbai. Reports suggest that between three and 15 men have been detained.

Ghana's two main presidential candidates are running neck-and-neck as votes continue to be counted a day after the country's peaceful elections.

It is a public holiday and people are glued to their radios and television sets as the results trickle in.

A number of ministers have lost their seats in the parliamentary elections.

Poll officials reported a huge voter turnout and monitors hailed the exercise as a shining example of democracy in action for Africa.

President John Kufuor, 70, is stepping down in January after serving the maximum two terms.

The main opposition party in Thailand has called for an emergency session of parliament to prove it has sufficient support to form a new government.

The Democrat Party will propose that its leader, Abhisit Vejjajiva, becomes the next prime minister.

Thailand's ruling party was dissolved last week by the courts, after being found guilty of electoral fraud.

But some of its members have formed a new party, Phuea Thai, and insist they can also form a new government.

The BBC correspondent in Bangkok says any administration that emerges is likely to be a messy coalition.

The authorities in the eastern Chinese city of Xintai have been abducting citizens who make complaints, according to a state newspaper.

These people are held in mental hospitals until they withdraw their grievances, the Beijing News reports.

An investigation found that at least 18 people had been detained in this way, after trying to take complaints about local officials to higher authorities.

Some of those held were reportedly forced to take powerful drugs.

This is hurting me very much, and not because the Blue Angels flew over Frisco every year.  This hurts because exactly twenty years ago TODAY, a US military jet crashed into the town where i've lived the past seven years.  With much controversy.

One of my best friends there has her family scarred for life.  Her one year old son lost an eye, and she lost five of her neighbors, in horrible circumstance that i won't describe here.

The cancer cluster that emerged is still being debated.  The cover-up by the US military with the complicity of the German government is a horror show of power against citizens.

She tells me as the house began to roar and shake, she ran to the front door to get one of her sons.  She swears she could see the eyes of the pilot as he swerved at the last minute and hit the house next door.

This is not funny, and whether it's a training run in San Diego or a bombing run in Baghdad or Kabul, the end result is still a horror that we pay for with our taxes.

Twenty years ago exactly!

This woman's work as a designer of the first sustainable industry centers in Germany for the state gov is top rate, as opposed to the rain of destruction from the powers that be elsewhere.  I'm so pissed and shaken.

FAKT german version

Skennah Kowa

Osama bin Laden...Remember him? Seven years after President Bush pledged to capture bin Laden "dead or alive," he is still at large. Or is he? We'll spend the hour talking about a man, who conspicuously, isn't in the news lately and ask the question, "Is Osama bin Laden "Dead or Alive"?

Forensics Expert Examines Authenticity of bin Laden Tapes

Hany Farid -- Professor of Computer Science at Dartmouth College; Specializes in digital imaging forensics

Is bin Laden Still Alive and Does it Matter?      
Robert Baer -- Former C.I.A. Officer stationed in the Middle East; Author of the book See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism AND most recently, The Devil We Know: Dealing With the New Iranian Superpower

Robert Baer's November 18, 2008 Time magazine article "When Will Obama Give Up the Bin Laden Ghost Hunt?"

Professor Hany Farid is totally unconvincing when trying to rebut the host's evidence that the latest bin Laden video (from 2007) suggests bin Laden is dead.  Later in the interview, he admits that he also works for federal law enforcement agencies.

Robert Baer also said he believes Bin Laden is dead in this video, though I did not transcribe that section of the interview.

After listening to this Worldview broadcast, I am seriously starting to believe that bin Laden is dead, or if not, completely incapacitated by his illness.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

Berliners are worried about their Brandenburg Gate after a four-meter high crack appeared in its north wing. It looks as if an earthquake has struck, but the city has given its assurance that the treasured landmark, which has survived two world wars, won't fall down.

...Berlin's Monument Protection Agency said the refurbishment work may have been faulty but said vibrations caused by the construction of a subway station nearby could also be to blame.

Said subway station is on the isolated U55 shuttle line, the long-delayed only new project on Berlin's subway. It is part of a project that would have connected East and West Berlin while touching all the main downtown landmarks (the U5 extension), aborted years ago due to the city's desolate financial situation.


*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

The most affected counties are Cluj, Salaj and Covasna. Other counties where problems are registered are Harghita, Mures and Sibiu. 18 electric lines and 281 transformation posts were damaged.

Anti-retroviral drugs used to treat HIV/Aids are being bought and smoked by teenagers in South Africa to get high.

Reports suggest that the drugs are being sold by patients and even healthcare staff for money.

Schoolchildren have been spotted smoking the drugs, which are ground into powder and sometimes mixed with painkillers or marijuana.

Aids patients themselves have been found smoking the drugs instead of taking them as prescribed.

Anti-retrovirals are used to boost the immune system of people with HIV and to suppress the virus in the blood.

"I couldn't believe it. I was shocked at first, these were school boys in their school uniforms," documentary-maker Tooli Nhlapo told the BBC World Service's Outlook programme.

"They take a pill and grind it, until it is a powder. Some also mix it with painkillers and others mix it with marijuana," said Ms Nhlapo. "They showed me how they roll it and smoke it."

John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono is marking the 28th anniversary of the musician's death by playing a special memorial concert in Tokyo.

Japan is one country where John Lennon's memory is kept very much alive. Beatlemania has never really died.

Every night in Tokyo, bands dressed as John, Paul, George and Ringo faithfully reproduce their sound.

Even though many of the musicians would struggle to hold a conversation in English, they know every word of the entire Beatles songbook.

Fans of all ages sing along, but only the older generation can remember the momentous occasion when the Beatles performed in Japan.

They played Tokyo's Budokan Arena for five nights in the summer of 1966, with each show lasting just thirty minutes.

All Things Considered, December 8, 2008 - If you were near a radio or in a bar this past summer, you might have found it impossible to avoid the string-saturated "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay.

Guitarist Joe Satriani heard the song, too, and it made him think about a song he wrote and performed in 2004: an instrumental called "If I Could Fly." When Satriani tried to contact Coldplay and didn't hear back after several months, he filed a copyright-infringement lawsuit against the band last week.

To add fuel to Satriani's fire, Coldplay's CD Viva La Vida is a number-one-selling album in 36 countries and a Grammy Award nominee, while Satriani's song never made it big.

<...>

"It happens quite often for ... a lot of different reasons," English says. "One, there is just a large quantity of recorded music. And rock music as a genre is now well over 50 years old. The amount of originality you can have may be starting to get limited."

They are pretty damn close, at least based on the clips played in the story.  If a musician accidentally comes up with the same melody as a copyrighted song, do they not have the right to use that melody, even if they had never the heard the song before?

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

A drunk Briton, who killed two people in a car crash, had been masturbating moments before he caused the fatal accident, a court was told on Monday.

Imran Hussain, 32, who was twice over the legal alcohol limit, was pleasuring himself and driving at speeds of up to 120 mph when he ploughed into the back of a Fiat Punto carrying a family who were heading for a trip to the United States.

The smash killed Gary Proctor, 47, and his 16-year-old son James.

Manchester Crown Court heard that motorists who came to Hussain's aid afterwards saw that his penis was partially exposed, the Press Association reported.

"At the least it must have been a symptom you were not giving your full attention to driving," said Judge Andrew Blake.

The latest issue of MaxPlanckForschung, the flagship journal of the Max Planck Institute, has China as its focus. To honor the theme of the issue, the editors asked one of the journalists who worked for the magazine to find an elegant Chinese poem to grace the cover. This was the result:

No sooner had the journal fallen into the hands of Chinese readers than it set off a frenzy of indignation, uproarious laughter, and animated discussion.

This is a rough translation of what the text says:

With high salaries, we have cordially invited for an extended series of matinées

KK and Jiamei as directors, who will personally lead jade-like girls in the spring of youth,

Beauties from the north who have a distinguished air of elegance and allure,

Young housewives having figures that will turn you on;

Their enchanting and coquettish performance will begin within the next few days.

Regardless of how we interpret the quadripartite character, we can tell from context that it indicates the two individuals who are in charge of the girls in the show. Clearly this is an advertisement for some kind of burlesque business. I did find quite a few references on the Web to a "KK Juggy" from a group called "Machine Gun Fellatio," and apparently the KK in her name stands for "Knickers" and "Knockers." <...>

The expression that I have rendered as "turn you on" is actually more graphic: RE3HUO3惹火 ("stir up [sexual] heat").

That's about all the time or stomach I have for commenting on this immortal Chinese text. What I still need to do, however, is point out that -- when the powers that be at MPI found out what the characters on the front of their journal actually said -- they immediately issued the following heartfelt apology:

<snip>

The moral of this story is that, if one is not deeply versed in Classical Chinese, one would be well advised to refrain from commenting on anything written in it, especially if the text in question is likely to be distributed all over the world by a renowned institute of scientific research.

People affected by worsening storms, heatwaves and floods could soon be able to sue the oil and power companies they blame for global warming, a leading climate expert has said.

Myles Allen, a physicist at Oxford University, said a breakthrough that allows scientists to judge the role man-made climate change played in extreme weather events could see a rush to the courts over the next decade.

He said: "We are starting to get to the point that when an adverse weather event occurs we can quantify how much more likely it was made by human activity. And people adversely affected by climate change today are in a position to document and quantify their losses. This is going to be hugely important."

Open the Future: Legacy Futures

In some respects, the jet pack is the canonical legacy future, especially given how the formulation (originally from Calvin & Hobbes, I believe), of "where's my jet pack?" has become a widely-used phrase representing disappointment with the future instantiated in the present.

People who follow my Twitter stream may recognize another example of a legacy future: Second Life. While the jet pack never really became part of anything other than Disneyfied visions of Tomorrowland, over the past five years or so Second Life came to represent for professional forecasters and futurists the vision of the Metaverse. Even though Second Life has yet to live up to any of the expectations thrust upon it by people outside of the online game industry, it has doggedly maintained its presence as a legacy future.

Just like legacy code makes life difficult for programmers, legacy futures can make life difficult or futures thinkers. Not only do we have to describe a plausibly surreal future that fits with current thinking, we have to figure out how to deal with the leftover visions of the future that still colonize our minds. If I describe a scenario of online interaction and immersive virtual worlds, for example, I know that the resulting discussion will almost certainly include people trying to map that scenario onto their existing concept of how Second Life represents The Future.

The 90-year-old Briton, who only wanted to be known in reports by his first name, Chris, died on Friday afternoon in the company of his wife and a close friend after being cleared by British and Swiss doctors to fly to Switzerland to take a lethal dose of barbiturates.

According to a London hospital psychiatrist's report, seen by The Independent, Chris described how in his early life, after the death of his parents, he fled Austria and then Prague to escape persecution by the Nazis. He arrived in Britain in 1938, teaching physics and maths in Newcastle, before being interned on the Isle of Man as an "enemy alien".

Britain's Internet Watch Foundation added a Wikipedia article on a heavy metal music group to its list of banned web sites because it contained a picture of a nude girl judged to be pornographic, foundation spokeswoman Sarah Robertson said.

...German rock band Scorpions...

a diary would be shown to have, say, 48 comments in total (24 new); when i click on the story, the number of comments is different (no new ones, or the total is 24).

while it's a minor thing, it confuses me somewhat.

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government -- Edward Abbey

You'd better watch out
You'd better not cry
You'd better keep cash
I'm telling you why:
Recession is coming to town.

It's hitting you once,
It's hitting you twice
It doesn't care if you've been careful and wise
Recession is coming to town

It's worthless if you've got shares
It's worthless if you've bonds
It's safe when you've got cash in hand
So keep cash for goodness sake, HEY

You'd better watch out
You'd better not cry
You'd better keep cash
I'm telling you why:
Recession is coming to town!

Finance products are confusing
Finance products are so vague
The banks make you bear the cost of risk
So keep out for goodness sake, OH

You'd better watch out
You'd better not cry
You'd better keep cash
I'm telling you why:
Recession is coming to town.

(courtesy of a former derivatives dealer)

You can't be me, I'm taken