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Vanity Fair writer arrested for sneaking into Bohemian Grove

EU Overturns French 12-year ban on energy drink Red Bull

Father-of-three branded a ‘pervert’ - for photographing his own children in public park

Some in Congress calling for war crimes trials - in some countries Bush, and Cheney would be arrested and tried.

U.S. says Iran has missile that could hit Europe

Feature Stories SEC Subpoenas Wall Street in Hunt for `Manipulators’

US soldier who deserted over Iraq is deported

Bush Claims Executive Privilege In CIA Leak Case

Democrats Weigh More Tax Rebates, Pelosi Says

Reporter Critical Of TSA Put On Terror Watch List

FBI Looking Into Fraud At IndyMAC

Sarkozy: Ireland Must Vote On EU Treaty Again

Reports: 8,763 Vets Died Waiting For Benefits

One of every four California students drops out

Military May Get Sent To Chicago To Fight Crime

Dems & Paulson Push Fannie/Freddie Bailout

Is the ethics beyond religion, or is it part of religion?

Download audio file (TheState-2008-07-15-Big-Banks-Go-Bust-The-Federal-Reserve-Vaccines-Kill-Babies-Bohemian-Grove-Karl-Rove3.mp3)

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Subscribe to The State podcast with FeedBurner

View The State at Podcast Alley

If you want to manually subscribe to The State with iTunes just search for “Adam Naranjo” on iTunes, or open iTunes, click on advanced and then ’subscribe to podcast’ and put in the following URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/the-state.

Bad Banks, Iran in Israel’s sights, Terrorist Watch Lists, Torture, Police States, and Ron Paul.

The U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve announced steps Sunday to shore up mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. - Shares of the two companies have plunged in recent weeks as losses from their mortgage holdings surged, threatening their financial survival.

Chinese Government is Top Foreign Holder of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Bonds - $376 Billion in Chinese Agency Bond Holdings Subject to Taxpayer Bailout Proposals According to FreedomWorks Analysts.

Things may get worse…because the Government does not expected to help more companies, even while Analysts Say More U.S. Banks Will Fail. The U.S. government is signaling it won’t throw a lifeline to struggling financial companies, marking a shift to a new and potentially more volatile phase of the credit crisis

In response: Bank Shares Plummeted Amid Stability Fears. But don’t worry, if it gets really bad the fed will just bail them out with more of our money, or buy them up with Federal Reserve banks that get their money by colluding with the Government to print money that we have to repay. This is what happened with Bear Sterns.

IndyMAC Customers Line Up To Withdraw Cash. If they had more than the FDIC program insures than their out. Folks who had 350,000 loose 250,000 dollars.

The move toward bail outs puts the government in the position of the great provider. Michael Lind, a fellow at the New America Foundation, “If you’re a socialist, you should be happy, But you should really wonder whether you want people’s ability to pay for housing and college dependent on the motives of people in Washington.”

Several investigative reports, and whistleblowers are saying that US is Backing Jundullah - a socialist Islamic terrorist group -To Destabilize Iran.

And even while an OPEC chief warns of ‘unlimited’ oil prices if Iran is attacked, George Bush is backing an Israeli plan to strike on Iran. Of course, if Iran fights back, America will nuke them straight away - as the British say.

Meanwhile Iran says they will target ‘32 US bases’ if attacked. “If America and Israel shoot any bullets and missiles against our country, Iranian armed forces will target the heart of Israel and 32 US bases in the region before the dust from this attack has settled,” … They even said they will Vow to ‘cut off enemies’ hands’ if attacked.

At least 12 babies who were part of a clinical study to test the effectiveness of a vaccine against pneumonia have died over the past year in Argentina, the local press reported Thursday.

The study was sponsored by global drug giant GlaxoSmithKline and uses children from poor families, who are “pressured and forced into signing consent forms,” the Argentine Federation of Health Professionals, or Fesprosa, said.

Britain urging return to wartime food frugality. British families are being urged to cut food waste and use leftovers in a nationwide effort to fight sharply rising global food prices.

Bush, McCain & Obama To Visit Bohemian Grove?

Anti-Gay Republican Caught Having Gay Sex. Alabama Attorney General Troy King, who has called homosexuality the “downfall of society,” has allegedly been caught in a gay sex scandal. a conservative Republican, was reportedly caught by his wife Paige King having sex with a male assistant in their Montgomery home. Reports say King was kicked out of his home by his wife and is set to resign over the scandal.

Marine’s graphic interview describes killing of Iraqi prisoners. two Marines told how they and a third Marine killed four unarmed prisoners in Iraq.

Meanwhile, British soldiers are accused of sexually assaulting an Iraqi boy, 14yrs old.

The Great Biofuels Con

Frequent Mobile Phone Use Boosts Tumor Risk by 50 Percent

UK: Pubs To Search Customers For Knives

The American Medical Association has agreed to support proposed legislation that, some physicians say, could make make having a planned birth in one’s home difficult, to virtually impossible. Women who give birth outside of a clinical setting risk putting themselves and their newborns at risk, Phillips told ABCNEWS.com.

Kucinich Demands Congress Issue Subpoenas for Continuity of Government Plans. Meanwhile Karl Rove leaves the country to escape Subpoenas.

CIA Expert: Terror Threat Exaggerated. He spent 23 years in the CIA, and was involved in many of the government’s most senior assessments of the threats facing our country, and he says: “We do not face a global jihadist “movement” but a series of disparate ethnic and religious conflicts involving Muslim populations, each of which remains fundamentally regional in nature and almost all of which long predate the existence of al-Qaeda.” Osama bin Laden and his disciples are small men and secondary threats whose shadows are made large by our fears.

This hasn’t stopped the government from using the threat of terrorism to add millions of to a Terrorist Watch list. “Members of Congress, nuns, war heroes and other ’suspicious characters,’ with names like Robert Johnson and Gary Smith, have become trapped in the Kafkaesque clutches of this list, with little hope of escape,” said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office

With the Iraqi Government calling for a timetable for withdraw, the British government ‘to pull troops out of Iraq by mid-2009’.

Bush Lifts Ban On Offshore Drilling.

Abstinence Program Big Failure In Texas

Media Ignores Ron Paul March For Liberty

Drug Injections Used To Subdue Prisoners

McCain Doesn’t Use Internet Or E-Mail

When Human Rights Extend To Non-Humans

This is The State for July 9th 2008.

Here’s the news:

The Senate Approved the Surveillance Bill that gives telecommunications companies immunity after they broke the law in cooporating with the intelligence community to wire tap in the US.

When corporations like AT&T, and Verizon break the law, they just work with the government to pass a law saying that they didn’t break the law.

Tele-comms are now protected from an civil lawsuits arising from the fact that they helped, and are continuing to help eavesdrop on American phone and computer lines.

Now, you better hope that your not on the receiving end of a misdial from a terrorist suspect. Once the CIA, FBI, or any other unconstitutional entity finds out that a terrorist called your phone you’ll be headed to Egypt on Gulfstream never to be heard from again if your lucky.

Back to the story… about 40 lawsuits have been filed against the tele-comms for breaking the law, and violating the privacy rights of their customers. The passage of this law seams to be nothing more than a last ditch effort to save these guys from some massive lawsuits…for again, breaking the law.

How did this law pass?

The Washington Post claims a deal was cut: the Democratic Leadership would support the FISA bill if the President would agree to add $95 billion in DOMESTIC spending to the latest Iraq appropriation. The big news seems to be the fact that Obama voted with those Democrats to sell the 4th amendment for 95 Billion,

Bush becomes a socialist, and the Democrats become Neo-Cons. I supposed that assumes there is a difference between the two - an assumption I don’t hold.

But as Bill Clinton once said, “We can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans…” - Bill Clinton

Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, who explained, “What the Democrats are doing here with the White House is they’re trying to conceal a crime that is hiding in plain view. … Nobody wants to have a confrontation over the fact that the president committed a felony. … That’s a very inconvenient fact right now in Washington.”

“The Democrats have learned well from Bush,” Turley said in amazement. “They’re just going to change the rules. … It’s otherworldly. … I am completely astonished by Senator Obama’s position — and obviously disappointed.

“It’s like all those stories where someone is assaulted on the street and a hundred witnesses do nothing,” continued Turley. “In this case, the Fourth Amendment is going to be eviscerated tomorrow, and a hundred people are going to watch it happen because it’s just not their problem. … There’s not an ounce of principle, not an ounce of public interest in this legislation.”

THE ACLU PLANS to fight the bill
“This fight is not over. We intend to challenge this bill as soon as President Bush signs it into law,” said Jameel Jaffer, Director of the ACLU National Security Project. “The bill allows the warrantless and dragnet surveillance of Americans’ international telephone and email communications. It plainly violates the Fourth Amendment.”

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SPY ON THEM
from AfterDowningStreet.org - Impeach Bush and Cheney Now! by davidswanson

They tossed out the Fourth Amendment. They believe that an out-of-control dictatorial president should be free to order the government and communications corporations to spy on you with no warrant, with no probable cause, and with no accountability. Therefore, you should feel no qualms about spying on them: everywhere they go, including in their homes: get them on video. We want to see Youtube’s of them sleeping! Do not give them a moment outside of the gaze of the public they have betrayed

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Ancient ‘Dead Sea’ Stone Tablet Might Rewrite the Bible

A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew found near the Dead Sea in Jordan that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is raising eyebrows in biblical and archaeological circles.

Daniel Boyarin, a professor of Talmudic culture at the University of California at Berkeley said that “Some Christians will find it shocking — a challenge to the uniqueness of their theology — while others will be comforted by the idea of it being a traditional part of Judaism,”

The stone was found ten years ago after being passed around by dealers, and the first scholarly paper to be written on it’s content was published a year ago. The stone describes a prophecy from the Angel Gabriel, but is illegible in parts, particularly the part which describes the resurrection of a “Prince of Princes” from the dead.

Sadly, artifacts like this start out hot:
Ossuary Tales - On October 21, 2002, the discovery of an inscription on the side of a light brown, chalky limestone box was announced at a Washington press conference. http://www.archaeology.org/0301/newsbriefs/ossuary …

But end in flames:
The James Ossuary - Five individuals have been indicted in Israel for forging biblical artifacts including the James Ossuary. Follow our coverage of the unraveling of this alleged forgery ring. http://www.archaeology.org/ossuary/index.html

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U.S. war resister narrowly avoids deportation
from AfterDowningStreet.org - Impeach Bush and Cheney Now! by davidswanson

By Becky Rynor, Canwest News Service

OTTAWA - U.S. war resister Corey Glass is looking at spending “at least a couple more months in Canada” after a federal court granted him a stay of removal.

“I was shocked,” Glass said shortly after receiving the phone call Wednesday afternoon telling him he could stay in Canada.

“I had my bags ready and had moved out of my apartment. So I’m in the process of looking for another apartment,” said Glass, 25.

Glass was scheduled to be deported to the United States on Thursday.

“We’re feeling very relieved today because we firmly believe he faces very, very harsh treatment in the United States,” said one of his lawyers, Geraldine Sadoway. “We’ve seen what happens to other deserters and we are very concerned about his personal, physical and psychological well-being if he was removed to the United States.”

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9 Million Brits to Pay Greenhouse Gas Tax

Brits are facing a massive increase in road taxes. Driving is going to cost a lot more in a country that is starting to look a lot like communist China.

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Former head of MI5 (Britain’s counter terrorism intelligence agency) says that a pending law that would allow for 42-Days of Detention for anyone being arrested on terrorist related charges, before any charges are brought, is impractical, and un-principled. Lady Manningham-Buller, an anti-terrorism specialist who led MI5 during the London Tube bombings three years ago denounced the plans

he told peers: “I have weighed up the balance between the right to life – the most important civil liberty – the fact that there is no such thing as complete security, and the importance of our hard-won civil liberties. Therefore, on a matter of principle, I cannot support 42 days’ pre-charge detention. I do understand different views and that there are judgments honestly reached by others, and I respect these views.”

Lord Goldsmith “I cannot support this. I believe that detention without charge for a long period would undermine fundamental freedoms on which this country is based, of which this country should be proud, of which I will say my party ought to be proud. I will not undermine them in this way.”

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Tasters file lawsuits against Cadbury
from WhatReallyHappened.com
They had one sweet job.

In mid-March, while they were still in training, their class sampled an experimental high-intensity sweetener that Cadbury hoped would be the next big thing in flavor.

Instead, it left them with oral lesions and chemical burns that they say are affecting their ability to taste normally and eat certain foods without a burning sensation.

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US Backs Jundullah To Destabilize Iran
Press TV

Pakistan’s former Army Chief, Retired General Mirza Aslam Baig, says the US is supporting the outlawed Jundullah group to destabilize Iran.

He said that the US is providing training facilities to Jundullah fighters–located in eastern areas of Iran–to create unrest in the area and affect the cordial ties between Iran and its neighbor Pakistan.

Baig added that Iran and Pakistan are under the siege of western conspiracies.

The intelligence agencies of the coalition forces are very active in Afghanistan and work against the interests of Iran, Pakistan, China and Russia in the region, he said as quoted by Pakistan Daily newspaper.

The former Pakistani official hailed Islamabad’s decision to hand over the captured Jundullah members to Iran, saying those working against the interests of Iran and Pakistan should be dealt with iron fist.

Jundullah is a terrorist group, headed by Abdolmalek Rigi, which operates in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan and Pakistan’s Baluchistan.

Last month Pakistan handed over Abdolhamid Rigi, brother of Abdolmalek, to Iran.

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Obama: Blackwater Here To Stay

“There are going to be uses for private contractors,” he said. And not just in the mess hall, or behind a fork lift.

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EU Police Stations May Open In UK
07-09-2008
London Telegraph

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EU police stations could be opened in Britain under plans to bring Brussels closer to its citizens.

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Rockefeller’s Modern Day Hitler Youth Group

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US may have sold mass surveillance gear to Chavez

“Although Phoenix Worldwide Industries has been in business for many years, until now, we’ve kept ourselves a secret to meet the classified data requirements of the U.S. government intelligence, investigative, and enforcement agencies that have been our principal clients.
Now that certain information is no longer classified, we are in a position to serve the law enforcement, investigative, and security needs of police departments that have the same, demanding high standards as the U.S. government agencies that rely on our products and services.”[1]

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Higher CO2 Levels May Be Good For Plants
07-08-2008
AFP
The dangerous rise in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may be troubling scientists and world leaders but it could prove to be a boon for plants, German researchers said Tuesday.

Increasing exposure to carbon dioxide appears to boost crop yields, Hans-Joachim Weigel of the Johann Heinrich von Thuenen Institute for rural areas, forestry and fisheries in the central city of Brunswick told AFP.

“Output increased by about 10 percent for barley, beets and wheat” when the plants were subjected to higher levels of carbon dioxide, Weigel said.

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Iran To Hit Tel Aviv U.S. Ships If Attacked

Cars In CA To Display Global Warming Score
07-07-2008
Green Biz

OAKLAND, Calif. — California is making it mandatory for cars to be labeled with global warming scores, figures that take into account emissions from vehicle use and fuel production.

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Intel Report: Iran Resumed A-Bomb Project
07-07-2008
London Telegraph
Iran has resumed work on constructing highly sophisticated equipment that nuclear experts say is primarily used for building atomic weapons, according to the latest intelligence reports received by Western diplomats.

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U.S. Planned to test Nerve Gas On Australian Soldiers
07-07-2008
Courier Mail
THE US military planned to test deadly nerve gas on Australian soldiers in far north Queensland during the Cold War, declassified documents reveal.
The Defence and Prime Minister’s office files show that the US was strongly pushing then prime minister Harold Holt’s government in the 1960s to allow tests of two of the deadliest chemical weapons ever developed — VX and GB, better known as Sarin nerve gas.

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Jail knife carriers, says Cameron
Conservative leader David Cameron calls for tougher measures to tackle knife crime
Anyone caught carrying a knife without a good excuse should expect to go to prison, Tory leader David Cameron says.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has argued that anyone over 16 caught with an illegal knife should be prosecuted, rather than escaping with a caution.

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Quacks: Give Cholesterol Drugs To 8-Year Olds

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Americans United: Obama Support For Expansion Of ‘Faith-Based’ Program Is Disappointing, Says Americans United

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‘More robust’ regulation needed for Wall Street firms: Bernanke
ACLU: U.S. blocking payments to Guantanamo attorneys

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The U.S. government is blocking the American Civil Liberties Union from paying attorneys representing suspected terrorists held here, insisting that the ACLU must first receive a license from the U.S. Treasury Department before making the payments.
More Mexicans leaving U.S. under duress

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Two hours were enough for José Luis Sánchez and his family to pack their most valuable belongings in two vans – items accumulated in 10 years of living in the Dallas area. ( 26 Comments )
Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke called Tuesday for legislation to provide “more robust” supervision of Wall Street investment firms. ( 8 Comments )

In today’s episode of The State podcast, I discussed:

NATO, US forces suffer deadliest month in Afghanistan

June was the deadliest month for foreign troops in Afghanistan since 2001

Royal Dutch Shell Wants Oil Refiners to be Exempt from the European Unions New Carbon Dioxide Caps - They want Co2 Emission Permits. This is interesting given the fact that Royal Dutch Shell helped found the European Union. They’ve been financial backers of global government for a long time, but what will happen when a super state they helped create pushes for laws that may effect Shells bottom line? Will the EU cave in?

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Food Companies are shrinking the size of their food products, but not their cost.

Americans Are World’s Top Drug Users -
Americans are the world’s top consumers of cannabis and cocaine despite punitive US drug laws, according to an international study published in the online scientific magazine PLoS Medicine

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Fed-Up Families Turn To Barbed Wire, Shotguns To Police Neighborhood -
Families in a crime-ridden Central Florida neighborhood are arming themselves with shotguns and talking about adding electric barbed wire to stop thieves targeting their homes.

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Pentagon Official Warns of Israeli Attack on Iran -
Senior Pentagon officials are concerned that Israel could carry out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities before the end of the year, an action that would have enormous security and economic repercussions for the United States and the rest of the world

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Resolution calls for embargo against Iran
House resolution 362

The resolution makes several claims that are not entirely accurate:

The resolution states that:

Whereas the IAEA has confirmed such illicit covert nuclear activities as the importation of uranium hexafluoride, construction of a uranium enrichment facility, experimentation with plutonium, importation of centrifuge technology, construction of centrifuges, and importation of designs to convert highly enriched uranium gas into metal and shape it into the core of a nuclear weapon

None of these supposed “covert” activities are illegal under non-proliferation, or the IAEA’s agreements with Iran.

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A response to last weeks ‘all of the ice on the north pole will melt this summer’ hysteria

Last week the the claim was made that the North pole ice is on its way to disappearing completely this summer.

However, the polar regions are in fact experiencing the most dramatic increase in average temperatures ONLY in computer models. In fact, the south pole is gaining ice mass, and cooling, while the north pole has more ice than last year.

The new York times backed away from the story on it’s blog and said that the claims go way beyond the National Snow and Ice Data Center information.

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Saudi King: Get Used To High Oil Prices
King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, whose nation is the world’s number one oil exporter, called on consumer countries to get used to high prices in comments published on Tuesday.

“Consumer countries have to adapt to the prices and the mechanisms of the market,” the king said in an interview published by the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassah.

“We have nothing to do with the current sharp increase in crude prices,” he said reiterating the Saudi position that speculation, rising demand and the taxation of oil products in consumer countries were to blame.

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Global Warming as Mass Neurosis
BRET STEPHENS

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the mass hysteria phenomenon known as global warming. Much of the science has since been discredited. Now it’s time for political scientists, theologians and psychiatrists to weigh in.

But mother nature has opinions of her own. NASA now begrudgingly confirms that the hottest year on record in the continental 48 was not 1998, as previously believed, but 1934 … …six of the 10 hottest years since 1880 antedate 1954… …3,000 scientific robots in the world’s oceans show there has been slight cooling in the past five years…

…The Arctic ice cap may be thinning, but the extent of Antarctic sea ice has been expanding for years. At least as of February, last winter was the Northern Hemisphere’s coldest in decades…

…German climate modelers reported in the journal Nature that global warming is due for a decade-long vacation…

…Nature that global warming is due for a decade-long vacation…

…If even slight global cooling remains evidence of global warming, what isn’t evidence of global warming? What we have here is a nonfalsifiable hypothesis, logically indistinguishable from claims for the existence of God. This doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist, or that global warming isn’t happening. It does mean it isn’t science….

…The real place where discussions of global warming belong is in the realm of belief, and particularly the motives for belief….

…The first is as a vehicle of ideological convenience. Socialism may have failed as an economic theory, but global warming alarmism, with its dire warnings about the consequences of industry and consumerism, is equally a rebuke to capitalism. Take just about any other discredited leftist nostrum of yore – population control, higher taxes, a vast new regulatory regime, global economic redistribution, an enhanced role for the United Nations – and global warming provides a justification…

…And surely it is in keeping with this essentially religious outlook that the “solutions” chiefly offered to global warming involve radical changes to personal behavior, all of them with an ascetic, virtue-centric bent: drive less, buy less, walk lightly upon the earth and so on. A light carbon footprint has become the 21st-century equivalent of sexual abstinence….

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A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 18 countries finds that in 14 of them people mostly say their government should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Just three countries favor taking the Palestinian side (Egypt, Iran, and Turkey) and one is divided (India). No country favors taking Israel’s side, including the United States, where 71 percent favor taking neither side.

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Hitchens says drowning practice is ‘torture’

Christopher Hitchens, the British journalist who is among the staunchest defenders of the war in Iraq, was waterboarded for a recent article in Vanity Fair.

“Believe Me, It’s Torture” is the article’s title.

“I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: ‘If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.’ Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture,” Hitchens wrote after enduring the procedure.

Hitchens is one of the staunchest defenders of the Bush administration’s decision to go to war in Iraq, arguing on the 5th anniversary of the invasion that he was right all along. After the photos of prisoner mistreatment at Abu Ghraib became public he wrote that such conditions nonetheless made the prison an improvement from its pre-war state.

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Two continents. Two Presidential candidates. Two secret deals. One frame up.

Last fall a forged version of a Memorandum of Understanding between Prime Minister of Kenya, Raila Odinga, and Kenya’s National Muslim Leaders Forum, was circulated in the leadup to the presidential election in Kenya. The forged document was written to make it sound as though Odinga had agreed to turn Kenya into a new Saudi Arabia.

Odinga happens to be a friend of Barack Obama and so questions arose regarding Obama’s involvement with a pro-islamic-theocrat.

Wikileaks published the first document on its website, listing it as a likely fake on November 14, 2007. Wikileaks just published the real document after it was leaked by an insider. It can be viewed at their website, and they claim this document is the real deal.

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Mass. Pregnancy Pact Stirs Debate Over Child Care

GLOUCESTER, Mass. (AP) - The high school where the principal claimed girls formed a pact to get pregnant is one of the few in Massachusetts with a day care center, leading some to wonder whether that sent a message that teen motherhood is OK.

Christopher Farmer, superintendent of the Gloucester school system, said the district would look into whether its day care center, which opened in 1996, somehow contributed to the spike in teen pregnancies from about four a year to 17 this school year.

“Clearly people are saying that it’s possible that the presence of the day care center may encourage teenage pregnancy,” Farmer said. “Since people have raised the question, clearly it would be wise for us to address the question.”

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World Bank Chief: World Entering Danger Zone
07-02-2008
Xinhua

WASHINGTON, July 2 (Xinhua) — World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick has called on leaders of the G8 as well as the major oil producers to act now to deal with surging food and energy prices, warning that the world is now “entering a danger zone.”

Zoellick’s call is contained in a July 1 letter to the head of the upcoming G8 summit in Japan, in which the Bank, World Food Program (WFP) and International Monetary Fund estimate that about 10 billion dollars is needed to meet short term needs of people hit hardest by the crisis.

“What we are witnessing is not a natural disaster — a silent tsunami or a perfect storm: It is a man-made catastrophe, and as such must be fixed by people,” Zoellick said in the letter made available to Xinhua on Wednesday.

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Teachers get guidance on how to relay the lessons of Sept. 11
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
BY JOHN MOONEY
Star-Ledger Staff

As chairman of the national 9/11 commission, former Gov. Thomas Kean has gone before the president, Congress and other powerful dignitaries with lessons of Sept. 11.

Yesterday, Kean spoke to an ar guably more-influential audience when he shared many of those same lessons with educators crafting a curriculum for teaching New Jersey’s children about the attacks.

“You have an enormous responsibility,” Kean told the group gathered at Liberty Science Center in Jersey City. “How to teach this terrible event and get across these things to our children, you are vested with that incredible responsibility. But if I have faith in anything, I have faith in teachers.”

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Waxman: White House Knew Of Iraqi Oil Deal
07-02-2008
CBS

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(The Politico) In September 2007, the Kurdish Regional Government, which runs the semi-autonomous region of Northern Iraq, announced that it had entered into an oil contract with U.S.-based Hunt Oil. The deal complicated negotiations over a revenue-sharing agreement and the Bush administration declared itself shocked at the news. “I know nothing about the deal,” said President Bush.

Documents uncovered by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform indicate that the White House probably shouldn’t have been so surprised. Among the many pieces of evidence that the administration knew and approved of the deal:

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China Inspired Interrogations At Gitmo
07-02-2008
IHT

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The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

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Paul Calls For Hearings On Falling Dollar
07-02-2008
Fort Bend Now

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In the face of $4 per gallon gasoline and predictions the price will rise to $7 by the end of summer, Congressman Ron Paul (R-Lake Jackson) is calling on Congress to explore how the weakened value of the dollar may be contributing to the rise in oil prices.

“The price of oil is currently among the most pressing issues to American workers,” Paul said. “Congress should be examining all factors contributing to the high cost of oil, and monetary policy is one of the key factors in the run-up in price.”

Paul’s letter pointed out that the price of oil in dollars has risen 39 percent this year. Oil in Euros has only risen 30 percent, resulting in degraded purchasing power of the dollar of at least 80 cents of the increased price of a gallon of gas.

“Neither the Federal Reserve nor the Treasury Department have been willing to take responsibility for the dollar’s slide over the past several years, while American consumers have been forced to pay continually higher prices for gasoline, heating oil and numerous other imported products upon which Americans depend,” Paul noted in his letter.

“American consumers cannot afford to allow continued lax Congressional oversight of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department’s duties as stewards of the dollar, especially since the dollar is a major factor in the skyrocketing price of oil.”

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Thieves Stealing Manhole Covers - crime spree that police tie to the weak economy.

“It’s a sign of the times,” says Sgt. Jay Baker of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia, where 28 manhole covers disappeared in April and May. “When the economy gets bad, people start stealing iron.”

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VIDEO: CBS: Report predicts $7/gallon gas
A new energy report predicts that oil will cost $200 a barrel in two years. If that happens, gas would go up to $7 a gallon. CBS News’ Priya David reports on the huge impact that would have on American lives.

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Texas PC Repair Now Requires PI License
Published on 02-07-2008

Source: PC Magazine

From its Texas Rangers to its enthusiastic take on the death penalty, the Lone Star State has long been known for its aggressive stance on law enforcement. Thanks to a strange new law, it’s a sting that may soon be felt by a number of the state’s computer-repair people.

A recently passed law requires that Texas computer-repair technicians have a private-investigator license, according to a story posted by a Dallas-Fort Worth CW affiliate.

In order to obtain said license, technicians must receive a criminal justice degree or participate in a three-year apprenticeship. Those shops that refuse to participate will be forced to shut down. Violators of the new law can be hit with a $4,000 dollar fine and up to a year in jail, penalties that apply to customers who seek out their services.

Some of the area’s larger companies already employee technicians with PI licenses, a fact which generally doesn’t apply to small computer repair shops.

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Dow Jones breaks Great Depression record for poor performance
The Dow Jones index has plunged more than 10 percent this month, marking the worst June performance since the Great Depression

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Download audio file (TheState-2008-06-30-The-Grand-New-Party-American-Financial-Meltdown-Brits-and-Torture-Mercury-is-Toxic.mp3)

Alleged Coverup of a rape/murder causes Chinese citizens to riot.

Iran prepares for Israeli preemptive attack

Carbon Tax Expected to Cause Decreased Air Travel in the Netherlands

Dictator’s Henchman Continue to Enjoy Barclays Bank Accounts

British Government Gives Millions of Pounds to Palestinian security forces which use methods of torture

Scientists seek to quell doomsday fears over atom-smasher - Some fringe scientists say it could cause a black hole that will destroy our galaxy

IMF tells off the Federal Reserver.

Iran Revolutionary Guards Warns Israel - Iran is not as weak as Afghanistan or Iraq.

Author of EU constitution says that they will get it passed even if they have to change EU voting conventions.

American stocks markets down, along with the rest of the world.

FDA admits mercury fillings lead to heart disease and Alzheimers. Report admits that mercury is toxic - of course anyone who’s been in a high school science class knows that mercury is extremely dangerous.

They’re in millions of mouths worldwide, but have been linked to heart disease and Alzheimer’s. Now a report concedes they may have a toxic effect on the body

Amalgam dental fillings – which contain the highly toxic metal mercury – pose a health risk, the world’s top medical regulatory agency has conceded.

After years of insisting the fillings are safe, the US government’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a health warning about them. It represents a landmark victory for campaigners, who say the fillings are responsible for a range of ailments, including heart conditions and Alzheimer’s disease.

Earlier this month, in an unprecedented U-turn, the FDA dropped much of its reassuring language on the fillings from its website, substituting: “Dental amalgams contain mercury, which may have neurotoxic effects on the nervous systems of developing children and foetuses.” It adds that when amalgam fillings are “placed in teeth or removed they release mercury vapour”, and that the same thing happens when chewing.

U.S. escalating covert operations against Iran - US using black ops in Iran to force a war.

Bill Clinton won’t Back Iran - According to insider Bill said that Obama would have to “kiss my ass” before he would endorce him.

Several European Banks Warn of A Complete Collapse of American Economy only Weeks Away - Fortis, and Barclay’s were among them.

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Police Provocateurs, President Glenn beck, Britan is Dangerous, Pentagon’s Pakistan Money, 12 Year Old Blonde Al-Qaeda, Bank Bailout.

I had great - more in depth - show notes, but lost them…sorry. But here is some of the news we discussed.

Police Used “Agents Provocateurs” At UK Bush Protests
Americans’ loss of confidence: Worse even than it looks
President Beck: I Wouldn’t Detain Terror Suspects, I’d “Shoot Them All In The Head”
Is Britain Turning Into A Dictatorship?
CCTV doesn’t keep us safe, yet the cameras are everywhere
Pentagon cannot account for $2 billion in anti-terror funds to Pakistan
Police Say 12-Year Old Is With Al-Qaeda
Has EU’s Terminal Crisis Begun?
U.S. Senate To Pass Bank Bailout Bill
More Fear Mongering: No Ice At North Pole
Scott Ritter: Iran Not Pursuing Nuclear Weapon, But U.S. Determined to Attack

Download audio file (TheState-2008-06-27-Police-Provocateurs-12-yr-old-terrorist-glen-beck-Britan-Sucks-Pentagon-Pakistan-.mp3)

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Here is a list of some of the news we discussed:

Growing Right-Wing Chorus Backs Impeachment. When Will Pelosi?
Bush Impeachment Focus on Rove Subpoenas
But A Comedy Web-Series with An Actual War Crimes Trial for Bush Administration
Mandatory In-Car Breathalyzers Coming
Black’s Terror Comment: “Breathtaking Stupidity” or Business as Usual?
Are You Ready for a Bioweapons Lab in Your Town?
An Unelected Appointee Will Have Power to Take Property - The Supreme Court Guarantees It
Rockets fired at Israel from Gaza shake truce
Bush ‘war crimes conference’ to convene in Mass., plan prosecution of admin. officials
Poll: 44% of Americans favor torture for terrorist suspects
Every Military Base in Google Earth Mash-Up
Nation’s Spies: Climate Change Could Spark War
Federal Reserve expected to leave key rate at 2%Religious Americans: My faith isn’t the only way

Download audio file (TheState-2008-06-25-Conservatives-for-impeachment--EU-Israel-torture-climate-change-Obamaand-the-bible.mp3)

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It seems important to first establish the fact that church and politics can never be entirely separated. We vote our consciences, and church informs those same consciences - often profoundly. That a church might think that abortion is murder should come as no surprise. That a church might want to discourage its members from voting for a proponent of abortion should also come as no surprise. Voting is not an amoral act, and what with all the talk of “duty” and this being an historic period in America, is it proposterous to even pretend that it could be. No: voting is moral, and Christians believe that God will judge their votes on the last day. Nor is voting an individual act that occurs in a vacuum. It is an act of community that influences community, and as such should be informed by community as well. And my pastor, as the head of that community and a dispenser of wisdom, should be allowed to shape the political sphere of my life as he does any other.

So what do we do? The government believes that freedom from taxation is a privilege, not a right. So do our churches surrender their moneys to Uncle Sam? Does a tithe of my tithe fund Planned Parenthood?

The answer, I think, can be found all the way back at the Boston Tea Party. What we were worked up over then, and what we should be worked up over now, isn’t taxation. It’s taxation without representation. The argument from privilege presumes that the government has a right to tax, and to tax everybody, but that isn’t true. The State’s ability to tax us is a privilege - with an onus of representation - and it is a privilege very much misunderstood in our society today. If I’m forking money over to the government, I’d better have a say. The argument that lesbians would not want to subsidize a church that might stone them cuts both ways.

One might argue that if a church chooses representation - by voting from its pulpit - then the government may tax it, and no charge of “taxation without representation” applies. If they exercise the privilege to avoid taxation, they must forfeit their representation. But therein lies the problem. The right for the government to tax is assumed, and suddenly eclipses a more basic right to representation. We are told that we must forfeit certain rights - representation - to avoid the penalties of a more basic right - that of the State to tax. The assumptions are all mixed up.

This is difficult because “representation” is easy to equivocate, but that is a product of the system itself. We don’t even know what representation means anymore. The nuance in the word “Republic” has been forgotten. How, in a system where church and state are to be separate, do we propose that a church is to be represented? How, in a system where the government collects our moneys to be distributed as it pleases, can differing religions make sure their money talks the way they want it to? How can a church be “represented” when it is silenced at schools, or when its 10 most basic beliefs are removed from the walls of courthouses throughout the nation? Does each denomination get a Senator? Does the Speaker of the House have to wear a Mitre now? It seems that the government, in order to protect our right to representation, shouldn’t tax our churches at all. Nor should it give money to them. Separate means separate. Taxation and coercion ultimately restrict our freedoms of speech and religion, two of the rights held most dear in this nation.

So we return to the very basic premise from the episode, this time from a different direction. If Church and State really are to be separate, why is money changing hands? If the government can’t represent us, why are they charging us? Hey! Politicians! Leave those churches alone.

In todays episode of the state we discussed a ton of news, and spent some time on a Weekly Standard article meant to give conservatives hope that Obama will lose to McCain because he’s an academic and not a “warrior”.

We also discussed McCain’s illegal fundraiser in London with the worlds wealthiest and most mysterious banking family, the Rothschilds.

Impeachment gains support; Italy says no to US Military base; Colsen embraces bigger government; Obama supports telecom immunity; War funding won’t go to planned parenthood; Pentecostal Group Backs Televangelist in Probe Protest; U.S. Religious Freedom Body Split Over Blacklisting Iraq; Casey: Army Needs 3-4 Years To Recover;Billions more needed to secure US embassies; Defiant Ireland rejects European constitutional treaty but Germany is pressuring a revote; South American Union To Have Single Currency

Download audio file (TheState-2008-06-23-McCain-impeachment-war-funding-Bush-may-bomb-iran-obama-an-academic.mp3)

In this episode of Flack we discuss ministers who are challenging the IRS and the notion that a church cannot endorse or attack a political candidate and retain its tax-exempt status. What is the difference between a right and a privilege? Should the First Amendment be invoked here?

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