Mr Jones said the church was "very concerned" after hearing Gen Petraeus' warning and was taking his words seriously. He said the church was praying on the matter but he said the group had "firmly made up our minds".

"How long do we back down?" he said on CNN.

In Kabul on Monday, about 500 protesters chanted "long live Islam" and "death to America" as they set fire to an effigy of Mr Jones.

The questions were raised at a meeting of the committee on September 2. A plenary session of the European Parliament scheduled for September 7 is to debate the overall position of Roma people in Europe.

When will the Commission be able to say yes or no, these actions are in conformity with European law?," asked Simon Busuttil (EPP, MT), according to a media statement by the European Parliament.

...

European Commission officials are currently examining evidence supplied by the French government to assess whether the returns comply with free movement law and with the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, which enshrines the principle of non-discrimination, which became binding when the Lisbon Treaty entered into force, Le Bail said, according to the statement.

Plus a few other things. I think I should have caught an earlier train.

keep to the Fen Causeway

Is there anything more patriotic than a get-rich-quick scheme? The folks over at TeaPartyBizOpp, a pyramid scheme targeted at the tea party set, don't seem to think so.

Billed as the "first ever patriotic home based business opportunity" and the place "where you get paid to help defend our freedom and stop Liberal Tyranny!!", TeaPartyBizOpp offers like minded liberty-lovers the chance to "make up to $50,000 or more a year helping raise funds to defend our freedom."

The pitch begins like this: You pay a minimum of $12 a year and get a "Platinum" membership (for $24 a year you can get the "Platinum Silver" plan, and "Platinum Gold" would cost you $50). And then, according to the site, "50% of your annual membership fee goes to finance conservative causes, and a large portion of the rest of that membership fee goes into our dynamic compensation plan, that pays each Independent Rep for their efforts to enrol [sic] other members...."

For the last 12 years, I've dedicated immense amounts of time, money and energy to end violence against women and children. As a victim of violence myself, I'm deeply committed to destroying any institution or individual leveraging the sex-power matrix that results in child trafficking, nonconsensual prostitution, domestic violence and other abuses. If I believed that censoring Craigslist would achieve these goals, I'd be the first in line to watch them fall. But from the bottom of my soul and the depths of my intellect, I believe that the current efforts to censor Craigslist's "adult services" achieves the absolute opposite. Rather than helping those who are abused, it fundamentally helps pimps, human traffickers and others who profit off of abusing others.

Get weaving

Now we have more details from the study, conducted by the Princeton economist Angus Deaton and famed psychologist Daniel Kahneman. It turns out there is a specific dollar number, or income plateau, after which more money has no measurable effect on day-to-day contentment.

The magic income: $75,000 a year. As people earn more money, their day-to-day happiness rises. Until you hit $75,000. After that, it is just more stuff, with no gain in happiness...

"Giving people more income beyond 75K is not going to do much for their daily mood ... but it is going to make them feel they have a better life," Mr. Deaton told the Associated Press.

He added that, "As an economist I tend to think money is good for you, and am pleased to find some evidence for that."

And why would workers be striking in France?

France was gripped Tuesday by a major strike and protests against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to raise the retirement age to 62 from 60.

And in London?

Workers there oppose a plan by the Underground operator, Transport for London, to lay off 800 employees.

Seems to me the headline should read: Conservative Policies in France and London Hamper Travel.

Europe, for the first time in hundreds of years, has become a strategic backwater. Europe is history.

Why? Europe is peaceful compared to the rest of the world.

The other foreign capitals speak for themselves as hubs of war, conflict or escalating nuclear tensions.

Cohen writes of Obama:

Since taking office, President Obama has reached out to the Muslim world as a whole, to China, to Turkey and to Iran, but has devoted scant serious diplomatic energy to Europe. In many ways, he is the first post-Atlanticist president, drawn by temperament, upbringing and circumstance to focus elsewhere.

"Europe is the object of benign U.S. neglect," said Camille Grand, a prominent Paris-based defense analyst. "Obama has not established or re-established a strategic relationship with any single European country or with Europe as a whole."

He adds, who can blame the Americans? Europe won't fight America's wars or waste more money on defense. NATO? What a joke.

I can understand the U.S. attitude: Europe is at peace and reluctant to spend on defense. Some 2,000 Dutch troops are quitting Afghanistan at a critical juncture. NATO, in search of a relevant doctrine, has become an aging experts' dilemma. France and Britain are smallish countries even if they account for 43 percent of E.U. defense spending. There are jihadis to fight and a broken American economy to fix.

But ignoring Europe is bad, because Europeans are cheap dates and used to being pushed around directed by the U.S.

With its huge debt, America needs affordable influence; Western allies are the way to find it.

If Obama and America continues to ignore Europe, Europeans may find someone else, or worse, their own way.

Coolness can be reciprocated, the benign turn malign.

Heh.

Genetically modified salmon which grow at twice the speed of their natural counterparts are safe to be farmed and eaten, US regulators have ruled.

The decision by scientists from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) paves the way for the first GM animal to be sold as food.

The fish, called AquAdvantage salmon, could be on American plates within two to three years, raising fears among environmental and food-safety campaigners.

What happens when one of those Salmons escapes and mates with wild ones?

For Immediate Release: GATES FOUNDATION INVESTS IN MONSANTO - Community Alliance for Global Justice

Seattle, WA - Farmers and civil society organizations around the world are outraged by the recent discovery of further connections between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and agribusiness titan Monsanto. Last week, a financial website published the Gates Foundation's investment portfolio, including 500,000 shares of Monsanto stock with an estimated worth of $23.1 million purchased in the second quarter of 2010 (see the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission). This marks a substantial increase from its previous holdings, valued at just over $360,000 (see the Foundation's 2008 990 Form).

"The Foundation's direct investment in Monsanto is problematic on two primary levels," said Dr. Phil Bereano, University of Washington Professor Emeritus and recognized expert on genetic engineering. "First, Monsanto has a history of blatant disregard for the interests and well-being of small farmers around the world, as well as an appalling environmental track record. The strong connections to Monsanto cast serious doubt on the Foundation's heavy funding of agricultural development in Africa and purported goal of alleviating poverty and hunger among small-scale farmers. Second, this investment represents an enormous conflict of interests."

A group of American investors have filed several lawsuits to pressure Germany to honor bonds issued by the Weimar Republic. Hitler banned repayment of the bonds and Berlin says a deadline for registering the bonds passed decades ago. Should Germany lose, it could cost the country billions.

Their age and provenance are clear enough: The bonds were issued by the Weimar Republic some 80 years ago to raise cash. Just how much they might be worth today is open for debate. But six investors in the US are taking Germany to court to find out -- and to force the country to pay up.

The certificates were issued by the Weimar Republic in the 1920s as a way to help pay debts and reparations demanded after World War I. They are still, in fact, being traded with investors hoping they can eventually be redeemed.

Now a handful of investors hope lawsuits filed in several federal courts in the US will force Germany to pay off the bonds. Their value could be hundreds of millions of dollars, with some estimates going into the billions. A month ago, a Miami court ruled against Germany's request to dismiss the lawsuits; Germany had argued that US courts did not have jurisdiction.

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in a major speech on Tuesday morning said the EU has survived the economic crisis.

"Over the last year, the economic and financial crisis has put our Union before one of its greatest challenges ever ... As I look back at how we have reacted, I believe that we have withstood the test," Mr Barroso told MEPs in his first ever so-called State of the Union address. "Those who predicted the demise of the European Union were proved wrong."

His remarks come after a threat of sovereign default by eurozone countries such as Greece and Spain threatened to pull apart the single currency in a potentially deadly blow to the 50-year-old European project.

European companies doing business with Iran are being hit by the toughening of sanctions against the government in Tehran. EU firms feel at a disadvantage compared for example to United States concerns, because the new European rules governing trade with Iran go further than those implemented by the United Nations.

Marloes Bosboom, of the Netherlands Centre for the Promotion of Trade (NCH), says Dutch firms will be badly hit. Companies attending a NCH meeting on the issue earlier this month were pessimistic.

Cross-section
The new sanctions will directly or indirectly affect all companies supplying goods or services to Iran. "These are a cross-section of Dutch businesses," says Michel Raas. His firm has been doing business with Iran for decades. He has been hit by sanctions before, but never was it as bad as it is now.

Mr Raas does not want his company named because of the delicacy of the situation. He is also unwilling to give figures detailing his firm's trade with Iran. However, he does say that 30 percent of its business is dependent on the Middle East market, which includes Iran.

On 7 September Europe's 27 member states approved plans for the launch of European authorities to supervise banks, insurers and financial markets. However, De Standaard argues that the new watchdogs have not been provided with the resources they will need if they are to be truly effective.

"To prevent a future repeat of the Fortis debacle." With this idea in mind, on 7 September the finance ministers of Europe's 27 member states approved a "historic agreement" for reinforced financial supervison in the EU, which will establish three new European supervisory authorities. But will the new watchdogs have any bite?

"Certainly, they will," insists Karel Lannoo, chief executive of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), which is a critical observer of financial policy in the EU. "It is in many ways a historic agreement that will amount to a major step forward." But what exactly will it change? Here is a rundown on the pros and cons.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy is the latest political to be "Google Bombed". Just type in the French word for a*hole, "trou du cul," to see the president's Facebook page come up as the number one search result.

For several days now, beginning over the weekend, the French words "trou du cul" (a*hole) have been atop the list of Google's most popular search terms in France. The surge of interest in such salty language is courtesy of none other than the French president himself. There it is, right at the top of the results in the number one spot, Nicolas Sarkozy's very own Facebook page.

MOSCOW -- For months, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin  has done nothing to dampen speculation that he is seriously considering a bid to return to the presidency in the 2012 election. On Monday night, he offered another hint at his plans by referring to the political career of a former president of a different country: Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Mr. Putin, asked whether he would damage Russia's political system if he chose to run again, noted that Roosevelt was elected four times in the United States because at the time, it was allowed under the Constitution.

Mr. Putin seemed to be suggesting that if he ran again, it would be as proper because he would be complying with Russia's Constitution.

Tony Blair has cancelled a planned book signing in London on Wednesday to prevent causing the public and the police "a lot of hassle".

Mr Blair said: "I don't want the public to be inconvenienced by the inevitable hassle caused by protesters."

Eggs and shoes were thrown at the former UK prime minister at a similar event in Dublin at the weekend.

Mr Blair earlier told ITV it was "not as if we need" to do signings to sell copies of his memoirs.

1. X-File marathon on the ScyFy channel today.

2. 3 hours into the first day of the new semester at Sac State ... just got my first tutoring call. Was concerned that the crappy economy would chew into my business. Now I think everything will be fine.

Blade Runner revisited by François Vautier. From the artist's statement:

An experimental film in tribute to Ridley Scott's legendary film "Blade Runner" (1982)
This film was made as a unique picture with a resolution of 60.000 x 60.000 pixels (3.6 gigapixels)
It was made with 167,819 frames from `Blade Runner'.

http://www.democracynow.org/

I love the smell of roast chicken in the morning!