the conference room (TCR)

[rstar]

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/detailed-look-global-wealth-distribution

[arizona1]

There's just one small problem with that. 1,000,000 X 40,000,000 = $40,000,000,000,000 dollars. That's a whole lot of zeros.

[Rover_az]

lol

Dear Mr. President:

Please find below my suggestion for fixing America 's economy.

Instead of giving billions of dollars to companies that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan.

You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:

There are about 40 million people over 50 in the work force.

Pay them $1 million apiece severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:

1) They MUST retire. Forty million job openings - Unemployment fixed.

2) They MUST buy a new American CAR. Forty million cars ordered - Auto Industry fixed.

3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage - Housing Crisis fixed.

4) They MUST buy their own health insurance. - Health Plan for seniors just fixed!!!

It can't get any easier than that! If more money is needed, have all members of Congress and their constituents pay their taxes... If you think this would work, please tell everyone you know.

If not, please disregard. Then shoot yourself!!!! - 1 job opening

God Bless America.

[Rover_az]

oh wait - it worked....

[Rover_az]

fail...
lol

[Rover_az]

test

[rstar]

Flap in Jerusalem over Aug. 21 activation of Iran's first reactor
DEBKAfile Special Report August 14, 2010, 11:40 PM (GMT+02:00)
http://www.debka.com/article/8970/

Iran's first nuclear reactor at Bushehr
The sudden announcement in Moscow and Tehran on Aug. 11 that Russia is set to activate Iran's first nuclear power reactor by loading the fuel on Aug. 21 has caused a major flap in Israel in view of the military aspects of the plant. DEBKAfile's military sources report that only last week, high Israeli officials asked Washington for clarifications on the latest intelligence information that Moscow had decided to finally activate the Bushehr reactor after innumerable delays.
The White House called the Kremlin and was assured that President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minster Vladimir Putin stood by their pledge to President Barack Obama that the Russian-built nuclear plant would not go on line this year.
This pledge now proves worthless.Indeed, Rostratom director Sergei Kiryenko will attend the Bushehr launching ceremony.
Jerusalem is also worried by the news that Russia has stationed S-300 anti-missile batteries in Abkhazia on the Black Sea because it ties in with the imminent activation of the Bushehr reactor. It is taken as a signal that Israel's air route to Iran is hereby closed and Moscow will do its utmost to thwart an Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.
John Bolton, former US ambassador to the United Nations and adviser to the Bush administration, defined Moscow's date for loading nuclear fuel rods into the Iranian reactor as touching off a point of no return. Talking to Fox News Friday, Aug. 11, he said Aug. 21 is a deadline "by which Israel would have to launch an attack on Iran's Bushehr reactor before it becomes effectively 'immune' to assault."
Once they are loaded, he warned, "an attack risks spreading radiation in the air and perhaps in the water of the Persian Gulf."
Bolton gave Israel no more than a week to destroy Iran's nuclear program. "If they're going to do it, that's all the window they have," he said, noting that Israel attacked the Iraqi Osirak reactor in 1981 and the nuclear plant Syria was building in 2007, before the fuel rods were in place.
The head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi said Friday, Aug. 13, "The process of loading fresh fuel into the reactor building would begin on Aug. 21. Then the reactor will be officially classified as a nuclear energy installation. The testing phase will be complete and the physical launch begin."
According to DEBKAfile's military sources, the Bushehr reactor billed as a peaceful project is in fact integral to Iran's military program because the fuel rods powering it can also produce weapons-grade plutonium. Attached to the main plant too are a number of smaller facilities connected to the weapons program.
An earlier report in the Atlantic magazine estimated that the chances of a military strike against Iran in the next 12 months are "better than 50%." It is the result of extensive research for the magazine by Middle East expert Jeffrey Goldberg. After interviewing some 40 current and past Israeli decision makers and as many American and Arab officials, Goldberg expects Israel to launch an attack with the next few months, possibly supported by the US and UK.
But that was before the rescheduled Bushehr launching. Bolton has since made a point of narrowing the window of months to days.

[rstar]

It was an Iranian Sub which Struck the Japanese Supertanker in Hormuz
http://warsclerotic.wordpress.com/2010/08/06/iranian-us-tit-for-tat-covered-up/
A dense veil of secrecy continues to cloud the attack of Wednesday, July 28 on the Japanese M.STAR supertanker near the Straits of Hormuz.
At 5:30 a.m., several things happened on the Mitsui O.S.K.-owned tanker as it turned toward Japan, its holds full of 270,000 tons of crude, through the territorial waters of Oman in the strategic straits.
The huge vessel was rocked by a powerful shock. A big fire broke out on its port side and, when the flames licked the top deck, the lifeboats tethered there disintegrated, sending a shower of burning fragments into the sea. The crews’ mess hall was completely destroyed as were some of the sailors’ cabins.
From that moment, the accounts of what had happened aboard the M.STAR became muddled, contradictory and enigmatic. A cover-up had clearly gone into action, managed by US officials and the US Fifth Fleet command in Bahrain, which is responsible for security in a broad region encompassing the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, the Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Sea – up to the fringes of the Indian Ocean.
First, it was claimed that the tanker had been struck by a mammoth freak wave, even though nothing of the kind had been seen by crew members standing on the deck. One or more crewman had in fact noticed a large flash approaching the vessel from the distance.
Next, the Omani coast guard suggested the ship had been roiled by a mild earthquake around Bandar-Abbas on the Iranian shore of the Strait of Hormuz. This notion was seconded by a spokesperson of the Iranian Seismological Institute who cited its magnitude as being precisely 3.4 on the Richter scale – until America’s national seismological institute debunked the theory. The last earthquake in this region had occurred Saturday, July 24, said its spokesman, and there had been no tremors since.
US, Iranian accounts converge – up to a point
That afternoon, however, the Japanese owners of the supertanker came forward with a statement asserting that it had been damaged in an explosion “from a suspected attack from the outside.” There is nothing that can explode in that part of the vessel, they said, insisting the explosion was caused by something from outside the tanker.
Wednesday night, American and Iranian officials sang the same tune – up to a point. They agreed the Japanese supertanker had been damaged by an explosion as the result of an attack from an unknown source.
But then their accounts diverged.
The US Navy spokesman added nothing further, whereas the Iranian spokesperson said the fire which was caused by an explosion on the deck was contained “with the help of the crew and regional forces.”
The way the episode was treated indicated to DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military sources that the US Navy and Washington had been caught unawares and were embarrassed by an attack on a oil supertanker in this busy shipping lane – through which about 40 percent of the world’s oil supply passes every day and which ought to have been the most thoroughly-secured maritime route in the world.
Yet the next day, Thursday, July 29, a US Fifth Fleet spokesman said that there were no US Navy or coalition vessels anywhere near the supertanker when it was hit: “No, there were none close to the ship… none of our vessels were involved,” he said.
The US cover-up disguised ignorance, the Iranian – guilt
But what the Iranian statement revealed was that it had maintained a naval presence in the immediate vicinity of the damaged vessel and kept it under close scrutiny from the moment it was hit until it reached the United Arab Emirates dockyards at Fujairah early Wednesday evening.
Unlike the US and NATO fleets, the Iranians were on hand for manipulating the accounts of the incident, first spreading disinformation about a non-existent earthquake, then describing events aboard the M.STAR which could only have been seen from close up.
According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s intelligence and Iranian sources, Tehran issued the vivid account of a concerned onlooker to conceal the fact that an Iranian Revolutionary Guards-IRGC Tarig-type submarine was responsible for the attack on the Japanese tanker and had rammed its portside hull to create the effect of an explosion.
A second Iranian sub, a Yunis, hovering nearby in case of trouble and as mission back-up, fired a dummy missile or shell to engender the flash effect witnessed by the ship’s crew.
Knowledge of this attack was not meant for general consumption. It was designed by Tehran as a warning-off message to Washington against US or NATO fleets venturing to intercept Iranian ships in the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf of Aden or Gulf of Oman and search them for goods prohibited by UN sanctions.
Washington warned, Iranian submariners rewarded
Iran pulled its punches for the Japanese supertanker to convey a warning that next time, a loaded oil supertanker would not just be dented, but sunk and the Strait of Hormuz blocked to choke the most important oil transit sea lane in the world DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Iranian sources report.
Tuesday, August 3, the Commander of the Iranian Army, Maj. Gen. Ataollha Salehi, on a visit to Bandar Abbas, stressed that Iran would not tolerate any inspections of its ships. “There is no difference between Somali pirates and US pirates for Iran,” he said.
He did not reveal that he was at Bandar Abbas, home base of the IRGC’s navy, to shake the hands of the two Iranian submarine crew members who took part in the operation against the Japanese supertanker. They were awarded medals together with a one-thousand dollar handout for each crewman, a gift from Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
More ominously, he inspected the construction of submarines of the four homemade types, Al-Gadir, Noah, Yunis and Tarig, which he said would be handed to the Naval Forces in the next ten days “for exploitation.”
If this was the first round of an Iranian-US showdown in the Persian Gulf, Tehran came out on top, an outcome which, despite the attempted cover-ups, was not lost on the Persian Gulf Arab emirates which are keeping a worried watch on US military moves.
To deprive Tehran of the last word, the Obama administration, which is up to its ears in the perplexities of Afghanistan and Iraq (see next item), is reported by our sources to have sent unmanned aerial craft to bomb the Iranian nuclear reactor at Bushehr on Sunday, Aug. 1.
Tehran will not let anything get in the way of its response.

[rstar]

Tanker Damage Caused by Attack, Inquiry Finds
By ROBERT F. WORTH
Published: August 6, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/07/world/middleeast/07tanker.html?ref=global-home
WASHINGTON — Investigators in the United Arab Emirates said Friday that a terrorist attack caused the mysterious damage a Japanese oil tanker suffered last week as it passed through the Strait of Hormuz, raising fears of future attacks in the narrow channel that serves as a passageway for shipping crude oil from the Middle East to the rest of the world.

.
The damage to the tanker — which an Emirati official said was caused by “homemade explosives” aboard a dinghy — was not considered serious, and there was little immediate impact on oil markets on Friday.

But the news instantly fanned worries about shipping security. If confirmed, the attack would be the first of its kind in the volatile strait, which has long been a focal point for tensions with Iran, just across the water from the Arabian Peninsula.

About 17 million barrels of oil a day pass through the strait, close to 40 percent of the oil shipped by tankers worldwide.

The account of the attack came in a report published Friday by the state-run Emirates news agency WAM, from an Emirati coast guard official.

Earlier this week, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, a militant group with ties to Al Qaeda, claimed it had carried out a suicide attack against the tanker, the M. Star.

American officials on Friday would not confirm that the episode was a terror attack, but one intelligence official said that the damage to the tanker — a large square dent on the hull’s port side — was “from an external explosion.” The official said it remained unclear whether the group taking credit for bombing the tanker was indeed involved.

Lt. John Fage, a spokesman for the Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, said that a team of Navy divers had recently traveled to Fujairah to assess the ship’s damage.

The Japanese government was conducting its own investigation. Japan’s transportation minister, Seiji Maehara, said at a news conference in Tokyo that the government had obtained samples taken from the damaged portion of the tanker and would “conduct analyses for all possible causes, without prejudice.”

The ship, loaded with two million barrels of oil, was heading toward Japan on July 28 when a sudden force shattered windows, ripped off deck railings and blew off a lifeboat, in addition to punching the dent into its black-and-red hull. One crew member was slightly hurt.

The ship’s owner, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, said in a statement that it was still investigating the extent and the cause of the ship’s damage. Last week, Mitsui officials said they suspected an attack. Crew members aboard the ship said they had seen a flash and heard an explosion, officials said, but there were no reports of a boat approaching the tanker.

Maritime security experts and port officials in the Middle East had raised the possibility that the tanker had collided with a submarine, hit a degraded sea mine — perhaps left over from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s — or had even been hit by a “freak wave” — a theory quickly discarded once investigators began to examine the damage to the ship.

Last week, American military officials and security experts were dubious about the possibility the ship had been attacked, suggesting that a collision of some kind was more likely.

Despite the seemingly amateurish nature of the alleged attack, its implications are serious, analysts said.

“Before, the Iranian naval threat was seen as key,” said Mustafa Alani, a security analyst at the Gulf Research Institute in Dubai. “Now, we have the possibility of Qaeda-type groups that appear to be learning from the tactics of pirates.”

One crucial question, Mr. Alani added, was where the presumed attacker would have come from. The coasts in the region are closely watched.

Recently, jihadist Web sites have seen a number of exchanges about attacking tankers in the Persian Gulf to disrupt international oil markets, said Evan F. Kohlmann, a terrorism analyst at Flashpoint Global Partners, a New York security consulting firm.

The Abdullah Azzam Brigades has been known mostly for its claims to have launched missiles at Israel from southern Lebanon, Mr. Kohlmann said. In its claim of responsibility for the tanker attack, the group said it had aimed at wreaking havoc in international markets.

In that sense, the attack failed, analysts said, coming at a time when OPEC producers have large amounts of spare capacity, global oil inventories are high and oil demand remains sluggish. Oil futures barely reacted to the news, with prices actually falling on Friday in New York by about 1 percent to $81.20 a barrel.

“Back in 2008, there might have been a 50-cent blip, but today it is not even making headlines in terms of its impact on the oil market,” said Greg Priddy, an energy analyst at Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm. “It is not going to impede the tanker business or the oil market in any significant way.”

The Abdullah Azzam Brigades is unusual among jihadist groups in that it operates as a “patchwork of free-floating militant cells” affiliated with Al Qaeda but not directly controlled by it.

The only previous maritime terrorist attacks in the region have taken place on the coast of Yemen, on the southern side of the Arabian Peninsula. In 2000, an Al Qaeda suicide bomber rammed the American destroyer Cole in the port of Aden, killing 17 American sailors. In 2002, a French tanker, the Limburg, was attacked in a similar way a few miles off the coast of Aden, and one crewman was killed.

While tankers are slow and hard to maneuver, making them easy targets, attacks against tankers have been extremely rare. Modern tankers typically have twin hulls, many separate compartments to store oil, and are sturdy enough to withstand a direct hit from rocket-propelled grenades, for instance.

Aside from the attacks on ships that occurred during the Iran-Iraq war, the attack on the Limburg is the only other instance analysts cite of a tanker being attacked by terrorists. That attack, carried out by a small fishing boat packed with explosives, was believed to have been the work of Al Qaeda operatives in Yemen, and was the group’s first successful strike against an oil target.

The Limburg was crippled and leaked some oil, but did not sink.

The damage to the M. Star was even less severe. After a week docked in the Port of Fujairah for repairs and an examination, the tanker departed Friday and began returning to Japan, Emirati and Japanese news agencies reported.

Reporting was contributed by Jack Healy and Jad Mouawad from New York, Nada Bakri from Beirut, Lebanon, Hiroko Tabuchi from Tokyo and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.

[rstar]

'Obama misplaced trust in Netanyahu'
By LAHAV HARKOV
08/05/2010 16:06

Intel organization accuses Israel of 'blindsiding' US on Iran.

http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=183772
A letter from a group of former intelligence professionals imploring US President Barack Obama to prevent a war with Iran sharply critiqued Israel and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's policies, saying they should not be trusted.

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) said on Tuesday that "comments by senior American officials, you included, reflect misplaced trust in Israeli Prime Minister [Binyamin] Netanyahu" and that Obama's friendly tone with Netanyahu "was distinctly out of tune with decades of unfortunate history with Israeli leaders."

The VIPS letter quoted Obama as saying about Netanyahu “neither of us try to surprise each other," adding that the president "may wish to ask Vice President Biden to remind you of the kind of surprises he has encountered in Israel."

VIPS is a group of former intelligence professionals of current and former US intelligence officials that was founded in 2003 to protest the use of faulty intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq. It is headed by former top officials from the CIA, State Department, Department of Deffense, US military and other agencies.

The organization accused Israel of consistantly deceiving the US: "Blindsiding has long been an arrow in Israel’s quiver. During the emerging Middle East crisis in the spring of 1967, some of us witnessed closely a flood of Israeli surprises and deception, as Netanyahu’s predecessors feigned fear of an imminent Arab attack as justification for starting a war to seize and occupy Arab territories...We had long since concluded that Israel had been exaggerating the Arab 'threat.'"

VIPS then quotes Ha'aretz columnist Gideon Levy, who called Netanyahu “a con artist … who thinks that Washington is in his pocket and that he can pull the wool over its eyes."


The letter also accuses the "Likud Lobby" of having a disproportionate influence on American policy, citing a recent visit by Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Joseph Lieberman as proof. VIPS quotes Lieberman as saying that Congress would use "military actions if we must" to keep Iran from becoming a nuclear power, and Graham as saying "Congress has Israel's back." The organization then adds that 47 House Republicans have signed a declaration of “support for Israel’s right to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by Iran … including the use of military force.”

"Israel might mousetrap the US into war with Iran"

VIPS also estimated that Israel would attack Iran in the next month, without American approval.

"Israel’s leaders would calculate that once the battle is joined, it will be politically untenable for you to give anything less than unstinting support to Israel, no matter how the war started, and that US troops and weaponry would flow freely. Wider war could eventually result in destruction of the state of Israel," the letter reads.

"[Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael]Mullen returned with sweaty palms from a visit to Israel in February 2010," VIPS wrote. "Ever since, he has been worrying aloud that Israel might mousetrap the US into war with Iran, while adding the obligatory assurance that the Pentagon does have an attack plan for Iran, if needed."

VIPS's recommendation for preventing an Israeli attack on Iran is as follows: "A strong public statement by [Obama], personally warning Israel not to attack Iran would most probably head off such an Israeli move. Follow-up might include dispatching Adm. Mullen to Tel Aviv with military-to-military instructions to Israel: Don’t even think of it."

VIPS's compared what it calls Israel's "faux intelligence" to reports that preceded America's invasion of Iraq, calling it “uncorroborated, contradicted, and nonexistent."

The letter concludes with this advice for Obama: "They are probably telling you that, since you have privately counseled Prime Minister Netanyahu against attacking Iran, he will not do it. This could simply be the familiar syndrome of telling the President what they believe he wants to hear."

"Quiz them; tell them others believe them to be dead wrong on Netanyahu. The only positive here is that you — only you — can prevent an Israeli attack on Iran.

[rstar]

in USO sept 40 calls

[rstar]

Al-Qaeda Linked Group Claims Gulf Tanker Attack
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704017904575408624038183854.html
By MARGARET COKER, NOUR MALAS And SUMMER SAID

ABU DHABI—An Islamic militant group affiliated with al Qaeda claimed responsibility for an attack on a Japanese-owned oil tanker while it traveled through the Strait of Hormuz last week, raising fresh worry about the vulnerability of the world's delicate oil-supply routes.

In a statement posted to a militant website, the Abdullah Azzam Brigade said they targeted the supertanker M. Star in what they hoped would be a dramatic blow to the global economy and oil markets.

View Full Image

European Pressphoto Agency
A photo released by Emirates News Agency shows the M. Star oil tanker near Fujeira port, United Arab Emirates, on July 28, 2010. An explosion occurred on board the Japanese tanker in the Strait of Hormuz, the ship's owner said in a statement, with the cause of the blast still to be clarified.

"After midnight last Wednesday, the martyr hero Ayyub Al Tayshan blew himself up in the Japanese oil tanker M.Star in the Strait of Hormuz between the U.A.E. and Oman," according to the statement, referring to an apparent suicide attack against the ship.

The statement didn't give any precise details about how the group attacked the gigantic supertanker or chose that specific ship. However, the statement said that the group deliberately chose the location of the attack, as it wanted to "weaken the global infidel order that has assumed authority over Muslim lands, looting their resources, and to lift the oppression of Muslims."

The claim—whether a legitimate one, or an opportunistic publicity stunt—could rattle oil markets. Oil prices have been tempered by lackluster global demand and excess pumping capacity around the world. But the Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most important chokepoints. It is the gateway for some 20% of the daily global supply coming from the oil-rich Persian Gulf, and al Qaeda has threatened to attack shipping there in the past.

On Wednesday, U.S. Benchmark crude was down 63 cents at $81.92 a barrel on Globex, after hitting three-month highs a day earlier.

A spokesman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet, which patrols the Gulf waterways, said he couldn't comment on the credibility of the militants' claim of responsibility. The officer at the Bahrain-based command said that U.S. Navy divers had taken part in the investigation that is still underway and being conducted on the tanker by the owner of the vessel, Japan's Mitsui O.S.K. The spokesman said he didn't know the results of those tests.

Junto Endoh, the general manager for Mitsui's office in Qatar, said that the company believed that the damage was consistent with an "outside explosion." However, he said that the investigation could still take weeks to complete.

"We have no idea if [the militants' claim of responsibility] is true at this point, we are still continuing to inspect the damage in the ship to determine the cause," Mr. Endoh said in a telephone interview.

The company claimed last week that its vessel had come under attack while sailing in the Strait of Hormuz, reporting damage to the tanker but no casualties among its crew. Authorities in the United Arab Emirates and Oman, countries close to the tanker at the time of the incident, initially sought to downplay these claims, saying instead that a freak giant wave was the cause of the damage.

Later that same day, when the tanker docked at the Port of Fujairah, officials there said that a large dent in the tanker's hull appeared to have been caused by a collision.

Officials at the port weren't immediately available for comment Wednesday. Fujairah is one of the seven city states that make up the U.A.E.

Named for a now-deceased religious mentor of Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam Brigades has claimed responsibility for numerous past terrorist attacks in the Middle East.

Between 2004 and 2005 the group claimed responsibility for a string of bombings at Egypt's resort of Sharm el-Sheikh and the Sinai Peninsula that killed more than 100 people. In a separate 2005 attack, the group also claimed responsibility for firing rockets from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula at two U.S. naval vessels docked in the nearby Aqaba port in Jordan.

—Tahani Karrar-Lewsley contributed to this article.
Write to Margaret Coker at [e-mail], Nour Malas at [e-mail] and Summer Said at [e-mail]

[Rover_az]

I blame Mel

[rstar]

Iran Blames US for Deadly Mosque Bombing

[rstar]

whoa... it is already pretty hot...

Iran on war alert over "US and Israeli concentrations" in Azerbaijan
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 23, 2010, 1:23 PM (GMT+02:00)
Tags: Azerbaijan Iranian war preparations US-Israel

Iran's land forces on the ready
In a rare move, Iran has declared a state of war on its northwestern border, DEBKAfile's military and Iranian sources report. Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps men and equipment units are being massed in the Caspian Sea region against what Tehran claims are US and Israeli forces concentrated on army and air bases in Azerbaijan ready to strike Iran's nuclear facilities.
The announcement came on Tuesday, June 22 from Brig.-Gen Mehdi Moini of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), commander of the forces tasked with "repelling" this American-Israeli offensive. He said: "The mobilization is due to the presence of American and Israeli forces on the western border," adding, "Reinforcements are being dispatched to West Azerbaijan Province because some western countries are fueling ethnic conflicts to destabilize the situation in the region."
In the past, Iranian officials have spoken of US and Israel attacks in general terms. DEBKAfile's Iranian sources note that this is the first time that a specific location was mentioned and large reinforcements dispatched to give the threat substance.
Other Iranian sources report that in the last few days, Israel has secretly transferred a large number of bomber jets to bases in Azerbaijan, via Georgia, and that American special forces are also concentrated in Azerbaijan in preparation for a strike.
No comment has come from Azerbaijan about any of these reports. Iranian Azerbaijan, the destination of the Revolutionary Guards forces reinforcements, borders on Turkey, Iraq and Armenia. Witnesses say long IRGC convoys of tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft units and infantry are seen heading up the main highways to Azerbaijan and then further north to the Caspian Sea.
On Tuesday, June 22, Dr. Uzi Arad, head of Israel's National Security Council and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's closest adviser, said "The latest round of UN Security Council sanctions on Iran is inadequate for thwarting its nuclear progress. A preemptive military strike might eventually be necessary."
DEBKAfile's intelligence and Iranian sources point to three other developments as setting off Iran's war alert:
1. A certain (limited) reinforcement of American and Israeli forces has taken place in Azerbaijan. Neither Washington nor Jerusalem has ever acknowledged a military presence in this country that borders on Iran, but Western intelligence sources say that both keep a wary eye on the goings-on inside Iran from electronic surveillance bases in that country.
2. Iran feels moved to respond to certain US steps: The arrival of the USS Harry S. Truman Strike Group in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea and its war games with France and Israel, which included live-fire bombing practices against targets in Iran.
3. The execution of Abdolmalek Rigi, head of the Sunni Baluchi rebel organization (including the Iranian Baluchis), on June 20 was intended as a deterrent for Iran's other minorities. Instead, they are more restive than ever. Several Azeri breakaway movements operate in Iranian Azerbaijan in combination with their brethren across the border. Tehran decided a substantial buildup in the province would serve as a timely measure against possible upheavals.

http://www.debka.com/article/8868/

[rstar]

if that shituation gets hot i will likely buy a load of DIG calls
cause persian gulf oil shipping will be shut down
and oil will go over 100 pretty fast

[rstar]

ME war tensions mount over Gaza-bound "enemy ships." Hizballah pledges reprisal
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report June 24, 2010, 1:11 PM (GMT+02:00)

Ominous clouds gathered over the Mediterranean Thursday, June 24 after Israel announced that ships bound for Gaza would be deemed "enemy vessels" and halted by its navy by whatever means were necessary. Hizballah shot back with a threat of violent retaliation, while Israel's northern commander warned that the IDF was prepared to deal with threats from Lebanon by "appropriate means."
With two ships, one Lebanese and one Iranian, already at sea, the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri was reported by DEBKAfile's intelligence sources as coupling his public support for the sea campaign to break Israel's blockade of Gaza with a quiet bid to stall it.
He privately asked Cypriot President Demetris Christofias, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and the Maltese Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi to deny Lebanese ships bound for Gaza permission to drop anchor, refuel or load provisions at their ports, in order to prevent them from proceeding to Gaza.
Hariri explained that he feared the flotilla campaign to break the Israeli blockade would precipitate a new Middle East war.
Last week, the freighter "Julia," docked at the North Lebanese port of Tripoli was denied permission to head to Gaza Port. Refusing to be put off, the activists decided to sail first to Cyprus and then head for Gaza. Permission was granted by the Lebanese Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi Wednesday, June 23.
On Thursday, June 24, Israel repeated its warning that ships trying to breach its blockade against the Gaza Strip would be deemed "enemy vessels." The Israeli Navy has been instructed to employ every available means to bar their access to Gaza's shore. Israel OC Northern Command Gen. Gadi Eizenkot said: "The Lebanese side is issuing threats against Israel and we are confident that the Israeli army is preparing to confront these threats in an appropriate manner."
He was referring to Hizballah's announcement: "We will not stand by idly if Israel attacks ships bound for Gaza. Detainees taken into Israeli custody (aboard those vessels) will be deemed prisoners of war who must be released.
As the climate over the Mediterranean heats up, two ships are either at sea or hours away from embarkation - the Julia from Lebanon and an Iranian ship, which is said to be making for the Suez Canal from the Persian Gulf port of Khorramshahr.
In his calls to the Greek, Turkish, Cypriot and Maltese leaders, the Lebanese prime minister admitted that the embarkation of the pro-Palestinian vessels from his ports violates US Resolution 1701 enforcing the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire which ended the 2006 war, but he was helpless to stop them because they were backed by powerful elements. Hariri did not say who they were, but they were understood to be Syria and Hizballah.
He stressed that more urgent issues confronted Beirut than the Gaza blockade, such as the Shaaba Farms on the Hermon slopes, which he said, "Hizballah only talks about liberating but has not fired a single shell." Hariri made it clear that by sponsoring the ships for Gaza, Hizballah is bringing Lebanon dangerously close to a clash with Israel.
Unlike the May 31 episode, when the activists who resisted Israel's raid of a Turkish ship to prevent if from reaching Gaza were unknown quantities, this time, on Thursday, Israeli intelligence sources released the identities of the ships' owners and the organizations mounting the expeditions.
The Lebanese "Julia" belongs to a Syrian shipping firm headed by a cousin of President Bashar Assad, who made it available to Hizballah for the challenge to Israel. The Lebanese flotilla effort is funded by a Palestinian by the name of Yasser Kashlak who, posing as a wealthy businessman, serves as Tehran's secret channel for remitting funds to Hizballah and Palestinian terrorist organizations, including Hamas.
Therefore, Israel's designation of these ships and those of Iran as enemy vessels meets the case.
From Washington, DEBKAfile reports that when Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak met US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on June 22, he voiced extreme concern about the Lebanese Prime Minister's inability to rein in Hizballah. Because of this, the situation in the region could rapidly deteriorate, said Barak.
Right after the meeting, the US issued a statement about the "aid" flotillas saying, "Direct delivery by sea is neither appropriate nor responsible, and certainly not effective, under the circumstances. There is no need for unnecessary confrontations, and we, along with our partners in the Quartet, call on all parties to act responsibly in meeting the needs of the people of Gaza."
http://www.debka.com/article/8869/

[rstar]

the sickness coming to the gulf from all of the toxic exposure....



TILT: The illness afflicting workers exposed to BP's oil disaster?

Workers cleaning up the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico have reported suffering from flu-like symptoms that may be the consequence of exposure to chemicals in the oil as well as the petroleum-derived solvent being used to disperse the spill.



The illness -- marked by headaches, fatigue, upset stomach, and problems with memory and concentration -- has been dubbed toxicant-induced loss of tolerance, or TILT. People suffering from TILT lose the ability to tolerate exposures to household chemical products, medication or even food, Dr. Claudia Miller of the University of Texas Health Science Center told WOAI TV:
"Things like diesel fuel, exposure to fragrances, cleaning agents that never bothered them before suddenly bother them," adds Dr. Miller.
Miller first described TILT in 1996, but it remains a controversial diagnosis among the medical community. The syndrome is also known as multiple chemical sensitivity and idiopathic environmental intolerance. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a division of the National Institutes of Health, has defined the illness as a "chronic, recurring disease caused by a person's inability to tolerate an environmental chemical or class of foreign chemicals."

Regardless of whether the illness being reported in Gulf cleanup workers and residents ends up being confirmed as TILT, the fact remains that the chemicals people are being exposed to in the oil and dispersants are known to have health impacts including eye, skin and respiratory irritation, as well as headaches, dizziness, weakness, nausea and confusion. An analysis of EPA air testing data has found levels of these chemicals in coastal communities exceeding safety standards.

As of this week, the Louisiana Department of Health has documented 109 reports of illnesses among residents exposed to the spill, with 74 of those complaints coming from cleanup workers, according to ProPublica. In Alabama, another 19 cases of illness have been reported among people exposed to chemicals in the spill.

As Facing South reported, the Louisiana Environmental Action Network has been distributing safety equipment including respirators to cleanup workers -- but some workers have been threatened with firing if they wear them, apparently because of BP's liability worries.

In the U.S. Coast Guard photos accompanying this story, oil spill cleanup workers along Louisiana's coast can be seen performing their duties without respiratory protection. Concerns have also been raised about inadequate safety training being provided to workers.

Monique Harden, co-director of Advocates for Environmental Human Rights in New Orleans, blasted the lack of worker protections during an interview yesterday with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

"What's happened in this situation is BP with the approval of our government has placed expediency over health protection," she said.

Watch the full interview with Harden here:

http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/06/tilt-the-illness-afflicting-workers-exposed-to-bps-oil-disaster.html

[Rover_az]

shocking shit to watch.

rent it!
Share it with anyone you know.

[rstar]

oh yeah ..the hydrofracting... incredibly environmemtally damaging...

most of the catskills ( where i hope to relocate)
have already banned it as it is the nyc watershed area

but its happening a little bit in deleware water gap. western ny just north of PA

[Rover_az]

drilling for natural gas.

It's going on all over in New York.
It it a must see for you.
Check netflix, blockbuster etc... to find it.
I'm watching it on HBO right now.
No idea if there is a bootleg on the youtubes.

[rstar]

nope... whats it abt?

[Rover_az]

Have you seen the documentary "Gasland" yet?

I could puke

[Rover_az]

wha?

Where the hell is skull valley?
Geez, Arizona has MASSIVE economic problems. They have much better chit to do than this.
We miss you Janet Napolitano!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Makes us look like absolute buffoons. If you visited, you would find that we are very progressive here.
Obviously, we need to get the younger population voting. This has become madness.

I hope peeps remember that the repubs have brought an economic boycott on us come election time.
Farking teabaggers.

[rstar]

FSNR so far i like as an oil cleanup tech with good chances of seeing major action,
looking for smallcaps that will run up huge in face of this disaster of epic proportions...
BUGS and EVXA already have, though they will not actually benefit in any way that i can see,
just subbers tht have oil cleanup in their "business descriptions"...

also might be good time to get back into some solars/ ethanols/ alt energy

i hope this disaster creates an opportunity for US energy policy to stop being written by the multinational corps,
how was there no fucking safety valve on that rig??!!!
and forces the switch to cleaner alt energy....

[rstar]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/louisiana-oil-spill-2010_n_558287.html#s86875

[rstar]

saw that linked in frank rich's:

If Only Arizona Were the Real Problem


By FRANK RICH
Published: May 1, 2010
DON’T blame it all on Arizona. The Grand Canyon State simply happened to be in the right place at the right time to tilt over to the dark side. Its hysteria is but another symptom of a political virus that can’t be quarantined and whose cure is as yet unknown.

If many of Arizona’s defenders and critics hold one belief in common, it’s that the new “show me your papers” law is sui generis: it’s seen as one angry border state’s response to its outsized share of America’s illegal immigration crisis. But to label this development “Arizona’s folly” trivializes its import and reach. The more you examine the law’s provisions and proponents, the more you realize that it’s the latest and (so far) most vicious battle in a far broader movement that is not just about illegal immigrants — and that is steadily increasing its annexation of one of America’s two major political parties.

Arizonans, like all Americans, have every right to be furious about Washington’s protracted and bipartisan failure to address the immigration stalemate. To be angry about illegal immigration is hardly tantamount to being a bigot. But the Arizona law expressing that anger is bigoted, and in a very particular way. The law dovetails seamlessly with the national “Take Back America” crusade that has attended the rise of Barack Obama and the accelerating demographic shift our first African-American president represents.

The crowd that wants Latinos to show their papers if there’s a “reasonable suspicion” of illegality is often the same crowd still demanding that the president produce a document proving his own citizenship. Lest there be any doubt of that confluence, Rush Limbaugh hammered the point home after Obama criticized Arizona’s action. “I can understand Obama being touchy on the subject of producing your papers,” he said. “Maybe he’s afraid somebody’s going to ask him for his.” Or, as Glenn Beck chimed in about the president last week: “What has he said that sounds like American?”

To the “Take Back America” right, the illegitimate Obama is Illegal Alien No. 1. It’s no surprise that of the 35 members of the Arizona House who voted for the immigration law (the entire Republican caucus), 31 voted soon after for another new law that would require all presidential candidates to produce birth certificates to qualify for inclusion on the state’s 2012 ballot. With the whole country now watching Arizona, that “birther” bill was abruptly yanked Thursday.

The legislators who voted for both it and the immigration law were exclusively Republicans, but what happened in the Arizona G.O.P. is not staying in Arizona. Officials in at least 10 other states are now teeing up their own new immigration legislation. They are doing so even in un-Arizonan places like Ohio, Missouri, Maryland and Nebraska, none of them on the Department of Homeland Security’s 2009 list of the 10 states that contain three-quarters of America’s illegal immigrant population.

Outbreaks of nativist apoplexy are nothing new in American history. The last derailed George W. Bush’s apparently earnest effort to get a bipartisan immigration compromise through the Senate in 2007. At the time, the more egregious expressions of anti-immigrant rage — including Arizona’s self-appointed border-patrol militia, the Minutemen — were stigmatized as a fringe by the White House and much of the G.O.P. establishment. John McCain, though facing a tough fight for the Republican presidential nomination, signed on to the Bush reform effort despite being slimed by those in his party’s base who accused him of supporting “amnesty.”

What a difference the Tea Party makes. This time McCain endorsed his state’s new immigration law as “a good tool” and “a very important step forward,” and propagandized in favor of it with his widely ridiculed televised canard that illegal immigrants were “intentionally causing accidents on the freeway.” McCain, like other mainstream conservative Republicans facing primaries this year, is now fighting for his political life against a Tea Party-supported radical. His opponent, the former congressman and radio shock jock J. D. Hayworth, is an unabashed birther who frames the immigration debate as an opportunity to “stand up for our culture,” presumably against all immigrants, legal and illegal alike. In this political climate, he could well win.

McCain, like Arizona, shouldn’t be singled out for censure: He is far from alone in cowering before his party’s extremists. Neither Mitch McConnell, John Boehner nor Eric Cantor dared say a word against Arizona’s law. Mitt Romney, who was mocked during the 2008 campaign for having employed undocumented Guatemalan immigrants as landscapers on his Massachusetts estate, tried to deflect the issue by vacillating (as usual). So did Mike Huckabee, who told The Dallas Morning News last week that “it’s not my place to agree or disagree” with what happened in Arizona. If it’s not the place of a talk-show host and prospective presidential candidate to take a stand on an issue of this moment, whose place is it? There are few profiles in courage among the leaders in this G.O.P. — only a lot of guys hiding under their desks.

The one group of Republicans that has been forthright in criticizing the Arizona law is the Bush circle: Jeb Bush, the former speechwriter Michael Gerson, the Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge, the adviser Mark McKinnon and, with somewhat more equivocal language, Karl Rove. McKinnon and Rove know well that Latino-bashing will ultimately prove political suicide in a century when Hispanic Americans are well on their way to becoming the largest minority in the country and are already the swing voters in many critical states.

The Bushies, however, have no power and no juice in the new conservative order. The former president is nearly as reviled in some Tea Party circles as Obama is. Even conservatives as seemingly above reproach as Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina now invite the nastiest of blow-back if they fail Tea Party purity tests. When Graham had the gall to work with Chuck Schumer of New York on an immigration reform bill, the hard-line Americans for Legal Immigration punished him by spreading rumors about his private life as loudly as possible. Graham has been backing away from supporting the immigration bill ever since.

It’s harder and harder to cling to the conventional wisdom that the Tea Party is merely an element in the G.O.P., not the party’s controlling force — the tail that’s wagging the snarling dog. It’s also hard to maintain that the Tea Party’s nuttier elements are merely a fringe of a fringe. The first national Tea Party convention, in Nashville in February, chose as its kickoff speaker the former presidential candidate Tom Tancredo, a notorious nativist who surely was enlisted precisely because he runs around saying things like he has “no idea where Obama was born.” The Times/CBS poll of the Tea Party movement found that only 41 percent of its supporters believe that the president was born in the United States.

The angry right and its apologists also keep insisting that race has nothing to do with their political passions. Thus Sarah Palin explained that it’s Obama and the “lamestream media” that are responsible for “perpetuating this myth that racial profiling is a part” of Arizona’s law. So how does that profiling work without race or ethnicity, exactly? Brian Bilbray, a Republican Congressman from California and another supporter of the law, rode to the rescue by suggesting “they will look at the kind of dress you wear.” Wise Latinas better start shopping at Talbots!

In this Alice in Wonderland inversion of reality, it’s politically incorrect to entertain a reasonable suspicion that race may be at least a factor in what drives an action like the Arizona immigration law. Any racism in America, it turns out, is directed at whites. Beck called Obama a “racist.” Newt Gingrich called Sonia Sotomayor a “Latina woman racist.” When Obama put up a routine YouTube video calling for the Democratic base to mobilize last week — which he defined as “young people, African-Americans, Latinos and women” — the Republican National Committee attacked him for playing the race card. Presumably the best defense is a good offense when you’re a party boasting an all-white membership in both the House and the Senate and represented by governors who omit slavery from their proclamations of Confederate History Month.

In a development that can only be described as startling, the G.O.P.’s one visible black leader, the party chairman Michael Steele, went off message when appearing at DePaul University on April 20. He conceded that African-Americans “really don’t have a reason” to vote Republican, citing his party’s pursuit of a race-baiting “Southern strategy” since the Nixon-Agnew era. For this he was attacked by conservatives who denied there had ever been such a strategy. That bit of historical revisionism would require erasing, for starters, Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms, not to mention the Willie Horton campaign that helped to propel Bush 41 into the White House in 1988.

The rage of 2010 is far more incendiary than anything that went down in 1988, and it will soon leap from illegal immigration to other issues in other states. Boycott the Diamondbacks and Phoenix’s convention hotels if you want to punish Arizona, but don’t for a second believe that it will stop the fire next time.

[rstar]

are you serious? lmao!!!
House Republicans approve 'birther bill'

It aims to verify presidential candidate's citizenship

by Mary Jo Pitzl - Apr. 22, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic
The Arizona House of Representatives has approved the "birther bill," which would require the Arizona secretary of State to verify the citizenship of U.S. presidential candidates.

The measure, Senate Bill 1024, passed with the minimum 31 votes, all from Republicans.


Several Republicans joined Democrats to oppose the bill, which Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett has said is of questionable constitutionality.

Democrats complained the bill is a frivolous distraction and another black eye to a state that is becoming a national joke because of its legislative actions.

"This is the straw that will break the state's back," Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, said. "We are the laughingstock of the nation."

The House's vote comes two days after the Senate gave final approval to a wide-ranging immigration bill that, if signed into law, would make it a state crime to be in the country illegally and would require police to check the citizenship status of anyone whom they might have a "reasonable suspicion" is in the country illegally.

The "birther bill" has to return to the Senate for a concurring vote before it would go to Gov. Jan Brewer's desk.

Rep. Daniel Patterson, D-Tucson, said the bill is a waste of time when Arizona faces grave problems.

"What I have a hard time with is our priorities," he said. "Right now, someone's home is being foreclosed on in Arizona because we failed to act. Right now, someone is driving by a closed rest stop."

Republicans said the bill is constitutional. Arizona already has statutes that specify presidential qualifications, said Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Gilbert, and this just adds to them.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Judy Burges, R-Skull Valley.

Four Republicans broke rank and voted against the bill. They are representatives Rich Crandall of Mesa, Adam Driggs of Phoenix, Russ Jones of Yuma and Vic Williams of Tucson.

Type Size: A A APrintEmailRetweet


Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2010/04/22/20100422politics-birther0422.html#ixzz0mm2zIgE9

[Rover_az]

I've been watching that one.
thanks!

[rstar]

seems likely... was watching LGAL today, going to keep a closer watch on it and be quicker to scoop up cheapies...

check out GTLL, i'm thinking it has serious monster potential...

[Rover_az]

Oh - lol

Yeah, our state legislators and governor are nutz.
I can't see how that bullshit is gonna last.
Hoping the courts slap it down quickly.

[rstar]

i spose out of humiliation or protest?

[Rover_az]

why?

I still live in the oven

[rstar]

your going to remove the "az" from yr sig, right?

[craigw]

it was pretty cool...

[rstar]

i thinks its LA airport... was a pic in the NYT...

[craigw]

pretty cool picture, where's that at?

[rstar]

on the lookout:

[rstar]

do you really know so little history?

[mthead]

Hi rkor, responding to your PM: I thought you had deleted my post to avoid a pissing contest between Asus and me. I guess he complained to admin.

Asus sent me a PM accusing me of slandering him which is silly. I said something like Asus gets his weird views on race from David Duke, the ex Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, and then posted a link to Duke's website - <http://www.davidduke.com/>; as proof. How many times has Asus posted "affirmative action is racist"? How many times has Asus accused me of being a racist because of my posts in favor of affirmative action?

Here's the David Duke video, titled, oddly enough, Affirmative Action is Racist - <

; in which Duke accuses anyone who believes in AA of being a racist.

Like Asus, Duke claims "I'm not a racist" but that's gotta be a tough sell for the Grand Dragon. Instead of buying into Duke's racist philosophy, Asus would do better to reexamine his own views than call those who disagree with him racists.

If Ihub admin finds this post objectionable, they can remove it but telling the truth isn't slander.

[asus]

I am not a racist, I'm a realist. Those who uphold Affirmative Action and the favoritism are the racists. I am against it, as is anybody with a little bit of intelligence above the median.

In your profile signature you say that "Racial Profiling Is Wrong", yet you violently defend affirmative action, which is pure racial profiling.

People have been banned recently from my board because IHUB upholds the biased double standard by removing select posts made by Albacora. Until that time the board was a free speech board, now it is censored.

[rstar]

uchh.... so sad and disturbing....

[rstar]

nice gmpw today!

[The Rainmaker]

thanks

[rstar]

Item 1.01 Entry Into a Material Definitive Agreement.

On January 5, 2010, NeoMedia Technologies, Inc., a Delaware corporation (the “ Company ”), entered into an investment agreement (the “ Investment Agreement ”) with YA Global Investments, L.P., a Cayman Island exempted limited partnership (“ YA ”). Pursuant to the Investment Agreement, the Company agreed to issue and sell to YA 25,000 shares (the “ Series D Shares ”) of the Company’s Series D Convertible Preferred Stock for a subscription price of $2,500,000. Each Series D Share entitles the holder thereof to vote on an as-converted basis with the holders of the Company’s common stock, par value $0.01 per share (“ Common Stock ”), for a period of one hundred twenty (120) days following the effective date of the Series D Certificate (defined in Item 3.03 below), resulting in one hundred thousand (100,000) votes for each one (1) share of the Series D Shares. Pursuant to the Investment Agreement, the Company also agreed to pay a structuring fee to Yorkville Advisors LLC (“ Yorkville ”) in the amount of $20,000. The Company also agreed to place $80,000 into escrow to compensate Yorkville for monitoring and managing YA’s $2,500,000 investment in consideration of Yorkville’s existing advisory obligations to YA. In addition, the Investment Agreement (a) contained customary representations and warranties of the signing parties, (b) indemnification rights, (c) a lock-up provision regarding sales by the Company’s officers and directors of Common Stock, (d) a lock-up provision regarding YA’s conversion of certain existing Series C Convertible Preferred Stock and certain outstanding debentures, both held by YA, into Common Stock, (e) a prohibition regarding the Company’s filing of registration statements without YA’s consent, (f) provisions regarding the Company’s affectation of a 100:1 reverse stock split of the issued and outstanding shares of Common Stock (but without a reduction of the authorized amount of Common Stock) and a reduction of par value from $0.01 to $0.001, of its Common Stock, and (g) other matters as fully set forth in the Investment Agreement. This summary description is qualified in its entirety by the terms of the Investment Agreement as fully set forth and attached hereto as Exhibit 10.1 which is hereby incorporated by reference herein.

[The Rainmaker]

I read today's 8K for NEOM....where did you see the paret about the R/S? thanks

[soupoftheday]

dat sucks!

[rstar]

total pos mf NEOM rs grrrrrrrr!!!!

[rstar]

lbsr- sold .0045 too much convertible debt..
still has potential if they get a jv partner.. and watching...

[mthead]

Right! Should be at the bottom now. With no storms it should be an easy double in the next few months. A hurricane landfall in the US will take it up to a few cents. I think the best strategy is to buy at .0007, then sell half when it doubles and hang onto the other half for a possible hurricane this summer.