Sunday, September 27, 2009

中國‧風水輪流轉‧美國人到中國淘金

面對國就業市場的萎縮,雷斯貝克自波士頓大學畢業後所能找到最的工作,就是在一家藥行裡兼職,薪酬每小時7美元。在今年2月,飽受失業之苦的她終於下定決心,到中國碰碰運氣。

中國工作機會多

來到北京才一個禮拜,她就找到了一份教授英語的全職工作。她說:“曾寄出求職信給全美國的公司,但就是沒人聘請我。在中國,遍地都是工作機會,不怕找不到。”

23歲的雷斯貝克對中文一竅不通,卻無阻她在這片神州大地上的通行;她還曾在2008年北京奧運會舉辦期間擔任志工。

在全球金融危機的衝擊下,許多美國和加拿大的大學畢業生,都紛紛飛來到中國尋求發展機會。

相較於美國、歐洲以及部份亞洲國家所受到重創,中國在這一波的金融危機中似乎還有能力穩住陣腳。

他們大部份都從事像英語教學這類的工作,但也有越來越多的外開始踏入電腦、金融以及其他專業領域。

逾21萬外國人打工

人力仲介公司“MR I中國集團”經理沃特金斯說:“比起他們的故鄉,中國的就業機會可說是俯拾即是。現在不僅是大學畢業生,連世界各地商界人士、企業家和執行人員,都紛紛轉移陣地到中國來了。”

畢業自名校康納爾大學的卡爾,在同學紛紛前往華爾街金融中心尋求發展之際,選擇了在中國展開他的職場生涯。他深信,中國會是更有保障的選擇。

通曉漢語的他表示,他的同學最後都從事一些冷門的行業,譬如說,在阿拉斯加擔任漁船導航員。

根據中國國家統計局的數據,截至去年底為止,獲得工作准證的外國人多達21萬7000人,較前年增加了7000人,這還不包括那些持短期商務簽證,長期居留當地的外國人。(亞洲新聞網‧中國《中國日報》)

泰國‧隱藏百萬年‧湄公河發現163新物種

(泰國‧曼谷)跨越東南亞多國的湄公河原來“臥虎藏龍”,科學家單是去年便在大湄公河地區發現的163種新物種。

世界自然基金會(WWF)早前公佈科學家去年在這區新發現的100種植物、28種魚類、18種爬蟲類、14種兩棲類、2種哺乳類和1種鳥類。


科學家在越南發現長有大眼睛的豹紋壁虎。(圖:法新社)


領導研究計劃的查普曼表示:“經過百萬年的隱藏後,這些物種現在終於曝光,顯然仍有更多物種有待發現。”

但他警告,由於氣候變化影響,大部份物種無法適應,可能導致大規模滅絕。

台灣‧乳房變小也會患乳癌

(台灣‧台北)按照一般醫學常識,若乳房腫大且有硬塊,可能是患上乳癌,但原來乳房無故變小,也可能“中招”!

台灣署立新竹醫院放射科最近以數位式乳房攝影篩檢出篩檢出2名60歲的乳癌患者,她們表示有注意到單邊乳房這1、2年慢慢變小,但由於沒有摸到明顯腫塊,以為是年紀大,乳房自然萎縮,沒想竟到罹患乳癌,腫瘤約有3厘米大小。

新竹醫院放射科主任李孟儒解釋,侵犯性乳癌會造成乳頭或表皮凹陷,導致乳房變小覺,若腫瘤位置較深,可能會摸不到硬塊。

他警告,如果等到乳房外觀改變才檢查,通常不是早期乳癌,且治療效果變差,常無法保留乳房。

因此,李孟儒建議,即使無異狀,40歲以上婦女最定期接受乳房攝影檢查,若能早期發現、早期治療,不需要切除整個乳房,且乳癌存活率可達90%以上。

菲律賓‧熱帶風暴凱薩娜來襲‧逾72人死28萬流離失所

(菲律賓‧馬尼拉)熱帶風暴“凱薩娜”為菲律賓帶來42年來最嚴重的洪災,首都馬尼拉80%面積水浸,死亡人數增至最少72人,近28萬人流離失所。

國防部長兼災難協調委員會主席特奧多羅宣佈,馬尼拉及鄰近25進入“災難狀態”,以利地方當局動用緊急資源及時救災。

12小時內降一個月雨量

特奧多羅指出,上週六吹襲呂宋島的“凱薩娜”在短短12小時內,便降下了一個月的充沛雨量,是自從1967年以來的最大降雨量,引發了山崩和水災。

他透過電台呼吁被困居民冷靜,留守屋頂等候救援。逾4萬千人已疏散到庇護中心暫避。

隨著天氣在週日(9月27日)轉晴,救援人員加快救援工作。海軍以及海岸巡防隊派出兩棲艦艇及橡皮艇,協助疏散與救援災民。目前已經拯救超過4000人。

海陸空交通癱瘓

馬尼拉巿內多處斷電,機場3個客運站的其中一個被迫暫停運作,加上跑道被水淹沒,多個航班要延誤,取消或轉降他處,逾千名乘客在機場滯留。

另外,連結馬尼拉與南部諸省的南呂宋高速公路積水及胸,車輛受困。

海陸空交通癱瘓,總統阿羅約夫人週日亦要乘搭高架輕軌列車前往救災委員會辦公室主持會議。

馬尼拉有至少4間醫院低層被水淹浸。

馬尼拉週邊的黎剎省有40人死亡,至少一個城鎮完全被洪水淹沒。

黎剎省災難因應中心官員馬隆索指出,這次災情非常嚴重,許多地區是第一次遭水災。他說:“居民被困在屋子裡,一些試圖逃難的人被洪水沖走。”

馬尼拉街道滿目瘡痍

陽光週日(9月27日)在馬尼拉短暫地露臉,暴露出災難令人觸目驚心的畫面,遭摧毀的房子、翻覆的車子以及碎片和泥濘覆蓋的高速大道。

ABS-CBN電視台播出的一個震撼性畫面顯示,逾12人擠在被拔起的屋頂隨洪水漂流,隨後又撞上一座橋樑的柱子而四分五裂,而這些人生死不明。

在低窪地區,街道淹水,從高處鳥瞰宛如東方威尼斯,停在路旁的汽車僅剩下車頂外露,強行涉水的車輛拋錨路中。

陸軍首長依布拉多週日早上帶領記者乘坐空軍直升機巡視災區,在一些被洪水淹沒的地區,還有居民被困在屋頂等待救援。

電視台和電台連夜接到受困居民和親友的求救電話和電郵。一名叫做瑪莉亞的女子撥電DZBB電台說:“那患病的兒子一個人在家,他沒有食物,有可能正在屋頂等待救援。”

阿羅約呼吁人們向災區捐款,並保持冷靜。

中掀動四級預警

對菲律賓造成重創的“凱薩娜”,已於週日(9月27日)凌晨5時增強為強烈熱帶風暴,目前正逼近海南,中國氣象局發佈四級災害應急預報,國家減災委、民政部亦啟動救災預警。

“凱薩娜”預料未來3天將對華南沿海地區,帶來影響劇烈的風雨天氣。中央氣象台週日早上已發出颱風橙色警報。當局已向浙江、福建、廣東、廣西、海南等省區發出通知,緊急部署救災工作。

美國‧醫生錯置他人受精卵‧無辜代母還回男嬰

國‧俄亥俄)因為醫院疏失而意外當上“代理孕母”的一名美國婦人發揮天使之愛,無條件把她懷胎9月生下來的小寶寶,還給他的血緣父母,給這起烏龍事件,畫下圓滿句點。

來自俄亥俄州的薩維奇夫婦,和住在底特律郊區的莫雷爾夫婦在同一家婦產科診所進行“試管嬰兒”人工受孕。

40歲的薩維奇太太今年2月植入受精卵,10天後,醫生告訴她一個消息和一個壞消息,好消息是她已成功懷孕,壞消息是,胚胎不是她和丈夫的――醫生錯將莫雷爾夫婦精卵培植成的受精卵,植入她的子宮!

夫婦倆頓感晴天霹靂,形容這是場噩夢,而無辜當上“代理孕母”的薩維奇太太,更是一度深感“受侵犯”。

但她最後還是決定生下孩子,他們跟莫雷爾夫婦達成協議,上週五生下一名2.285公斤重的健康男嬰後,立即交還給男嬰的血緣父母。

莫雷爾夫婦發表聲明表達對薩維奇的感激,稱她是莫雷爾家的“守護天使”。

台灣‧“人民最大黨”成立‧“台灣阿嬤”任主席

(台灣)有“台灣阿嬤”之稱、前立委許榮淑(圖)所號召的“人民最大黨”週日(9月27日)成立,由她出任黨主席,前農委會主委范振宗出任榮譽主席,許榮淑強調,今年底縣市長、縣市議員選舉,人民最大黨不會缺席。

許榮淑、范振宗所號召的“人民最大黨”舉行成立大會,並發表一份“人民無敵,天下為公”

的創黨宣言,與會的內政部官員表示,該黨將成為台灣第153個政黨。

許榮淑表示,人民最大黨強調以人民的利益為主,該黨的黨員自由參加不收黨費,以社會捐款為主。

Pittsburgh G-20 Summit Day 2 Recap 9/25/09

Pittsburgh G-20 Summit Day 2 Recap 9/25/09
SoCal Martial Law Alerts



A collection of various news reports, videos, and radio broadcasts of the protests at the G-20 Summit in Pittsburgh, September 25, 2009.

Included:

Russia Today
KDKA

Videos from many YouTubers including:

fwt2051
xhosstylex
vajradog
pripatel09

A Grayson - Has the Federal Reserve Ever Tried to Manipulate the Stock Mark

Check this link ...... http://bit.ly/3pkBQ8

Osama bin Laden:

A dead nemesis perpetuated by the US government
Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December [2001] and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. The remnants of Osama's gang, however, have mostly stayed silent, either to keep Osama's ghost alive or because they have no means of communication. Click for full sized image
With an ego the size of Mount Everest, Osama bin Laden would not have, could not have, remained silent for so long if he were still alive. He always liked to take credit even for things he had nothing to do with. Would he remain silent for nine months and not trumpet his own survival? [New York Times. July 11, 2002]

Bin Laden has often been reported to be in poor health. Some accounts claim that he is suffering from Hepatitis C, and can expect to live for only two more years. According to Le Figaro, last year [2000] he ordered a mobile dialysis machine to be delivered to his base at Kandahar in Afghanistan. [Guardian]

Peter Bergen: Bin Laden has aged 'enormously'

This is a man who was clearly not well. I mean, as you see from these pictures here, he's really, by December [2001] he's looking pretty terrible.

Bin Laden December 27, 2001 video

Healthy bin Laden

But by December, of course, that tape that was aired then, he's barely moving the left side of his body. So he's clearly got diabetes. He has low blood pressure. He's got a wound in his foot. He's apparently got dialysis ... for kidney problems. [CNN]

The [December 27, 2001 video] was dismissed by the Bush administration ... as sick propaganda possibly designed to mask the fact the al-Qa'eda leader was already dead. "He could have made the video and then ordered that it be released in the event of his death," said one White House aide. [Telegraph]

Pakistan's Musharraf: Bin Laden probably dead

Pakistan's president says he thinks Osama bin Laden is most likely dead because the suspected terrorist has been unable to get treatment for his kidney disease.

[A Bush administration official] said U.S. intelligence is that bin Laden needs dialysis every three days and "it is fairly obvious that that could be an issue when you are running from place to place, and facing the idea of needing to generate electricity in a mountain hideout." [CNN]

Renal dialysis -- talking about hemodialysis -- is something that really is reserved for patients in end-stage renal failure. That means their kidneys have just completely shut down. The most common cause of something like that would be something like diabetes and hypertension. Once that's happened, if you're separated from your dialysis machine -- and incidentally, dialysis machines require electricity, they're going to require clean water, they're going to require a sterile setting -- infection is a huge risk with that. If you don't have all those things and a functioning dialysis machine, it's unlikely that you'd survive beyond several days or a week at the most. [CNN]

Karzai: bin Laden 'probably' dead

Osama bin Laden is "probably" dead, but former Taliban leader Mullah Omar is alive, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said. [CNN]

FBI: Bin Laden 'probably' dead

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation's counter-terrorism chief, Dale Watson, says he thinks Osama bin Laden is "probably" dead. [BBC]

Magazine runs what it calls bin Laden's will

The editor-in-chief of a London-based Arab news magazine said a purported will it published Saturday was written late last year [2001] by Osama bin Laden, and shows "he's dying or he's going to die soon." [CNN]

Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who allegedly attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader. "The Coalition troops are engaged in a mad search operation but they would never be able to fulfill their cherished goal of getting Usama alive or dead," the source said. [FOX News]

Translation of Funeral Article in Egyptian Paper:
al-Wafd, Wednesday, December 26, 2001 Vol 15 No 4633

News of Bin Laden's Death and Funeral 10 days ago

A prominent official in the Afghan Taleban movement announced yesterday the death of Osama bin Laden, the chief of al-Qa'da organization, stating that binLaden suffered serious complications in the lungs and died a natural and quiet death. [Welfare State]

Osama bin who?

Israel does not view bin Laden as a threat. [Janes]

Israeli intelligence: Bin Laden is dead, heir has been chosen

Israeli sources said Israel and the United States assess that Bin Laden probably died in the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan in December. They said the emergence of new messages by Bin Laden are probably fabrications, Middle East Newsline reported. [World Tribune]

Global Warming hype what's it's for.

Global Warming is doomsday hype to create pork projects, a carbon tax, more government intervention, monopolies, and to control any business threat to the status-quo. Further explained here

You never see these chats
Image
Image

You only see this one over and over again
.
Image
It's always the same stretch from 1860 to 2000. (a mere 140 years, what a joke!)

They also like to omit the last 9 years because it has been getting cooler.
http://home.comcast.net/~pdrallos131681 ... adcrut.jpg

Global Warming cultist only want to show you portions of the graph for their scare tactics. Heretics however will openly show you as much data as you want because the empirical data is on their side. The earth has been cycling in hotter and cooler times for thousands of years.


Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says

More Lies, More Deception

“What does imperialism mean? It means the assertion of absolute force over others.” ~~Robert Lowe 1878

The G-20 ministers declared their meeting in Pittsburgh a success, but as Rob Kall reports in OpEdNews.com, the meeting's main success was to turn Pittsburgh into “a ghost-town, emptied of workers and the usual pedestrians, but filled to overflowing with over 12,000 swat cops from all over the US.”

This is “freedom and democracy” at work. The leaders of the G-20 countries, which account for 85% of the world's income, cannot meet in an American city without 12,000 cops outfitted like the emperor's storm troopers in Star Wars. And the US government complains about Iran.

The US government's complaints about Iran have reached a new level of shrillness. On September 25 Obama declared: “Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow.” The heads of America's British, French, and German puppet states added their two cents worth, giving the government of Iran three months to meet the “international community's demands” to give up its rights as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty to nuclear energy. In case you don't know, the term “international community” is shorthand for the US, Israel, and Europe, a handful of arrogant and rich countries that oppress the rest of the world.

Who is breaking the rules? Iran or the United States?

Iran is insisting that the US government abide by the non-proliferation treaty that the US originated and pushed and that Iran signed. But the US government, which is currently engaged in three wars of aggression and has occupying troops in a number of other countries, insists that Iran, which is invading and occupying no country, cannot be trusted with nuclear energy capability, because the capability might in the future lead to nuclear weapon capability, like Israel's, India's, and Pakistan's--all non-signatories to the nuclear proliferation treaty, countries that, unlike Iran, have never submitted to IAEA inspections. Indeed, at this very moment the Israeli government is screaming and yelling “anti-semite” to the suggestion that Israel submit to IAEA inspections. Iran has submitted to the IAEA inspections for years.

In keeping with its obligations under the treaty, on September 21 Iran disclosed to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it is constructing another nuclear facility. The British prime minister Gordon Brown confused Iran's disclosure with “serial deception,” and declared, “We will not let this matter rest.”

What matter? Why does Gordon Brown think that Iran's disclosure to the IAEA is a deception. Does the moronic UK prime minister mean that Iran is claiming to be constructing a plant but is not, and thus by claiming one is deceiving the world?

Not to be outdone in idiocy, out of Obama's mouth jumped Orwellian doublespeak: “The Iranian government must now demonstrate through deeds its peaceful intentions or be held accountable to international standards and international law.”

The incongruity blows the mind. Here is Obama, with troops engaged in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan demanding that a peaceful nation at war with no one demonstrate “its peaceful intentions or be held accountable to international standards and international law.”

It is the US government and its NATO puppet states, and militarist Israel, of course, that need to be held accountable to international law. Under international law the US, its NATO puppets, and Israel are war criminal governments. There is no doubt about it. The record is totally clear. The US, Israel, and the NATO puppet states have committed military aggression exactly as did Germany's Third Reich, and they have murdered large numbers of civilians. Following the Fuhrer's script, “the great democratic republics” have justified these acts of lawlessness with lies and deceptions.

Rudy Giuliani, the former US Attorney who framed high profile victims in order to gain name recognition for a political career, keynoted a rally against Iran in New York on September 25. According to Richard Silverstein at AlterNet, the rally was sponsored by an Israeli lobby group and an organization with connections to an Iranian terror organization (probably financed by the US government) that calls for the violent overthrow of the Iranian government.

The efforts to build pressure for acts of war against Iran continue despite the repeated declaration from the IAEA that there is no sign of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, and despite the reaffirmation by US intelligence agencies that Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program years ago.

Meanwhile, the US and Israeli governments, who are so solicitous of international law and holding accountable countries that violate it, have moved to prevent the report of Judge Richard Goldstone from reaching the UN Security Council.

Why?

Judge Goldstone's report found Israel guilty of war crimes in its massive military assault against civilians and civilian infrastructure in Gaza.

The continuous efforts of the world's two militarist-aggressor states--the United States and Israel--to demonize Iran was addressed by Ahmadinejad in his speech to the UN General Assembly (September 23). Ahmadinejad spoke of the assault on human dignity and spiritual values by the selfish material interests of the US and its puppet states. Seeking hegemony “under the mantle of freedom,” the US and its puppets use “the ugliest methods of intimidation and deceit” to disguise that they are “the first who violate” the fundamental principles that they espouse and apply to others.

Why, Ahmadinejad asked the UN General Assembly, do the countries of the world sit there while Israel murders and dispossesses the Palestinian people?

Why, asked Ahmadinejad, do the countries of the world sit there while the US, from thousands of miles away, sends troops to the Middle East, “spreading war, bloodshed, aggression, terror and intimidation in the whole region,” while blaming the countries that are suffering the West's naked aggression?

Ahmadinejad told the General Assembly what most of the UN representatives already know, that “selfishness and insatiable greed have taken the place of such humanitarian concepts as love, sacrifice, dignity, and justice. . . . Lies have taken the place of honesty; hypocrisy has replaced integrity, and selfishness has taken the place of sacrifice. Deception in foreign affairs is called foresight and statesmanship, looting the wealth of other nations is called development efforts; occupation is said to be a gift that promotes freedom and democracy; and defenseless nations are subjected to repression in the name of defending human rights.”

It could not be put any clearer. However, if Ahmadinejad's speech is reported by the US print and TV media, statements will be taken out of context and used to enrage the conservatives and Christian Zionists in order to unify them behind the Obama/Israeli assault on Iran.

America will not be satisfied until, like Rome, she has more enemies and more wars than she can survive.

By Paul Craig Roberts (about the author)

University of California campuses erupt into protest

University of California Berkeley students and faculty protest against fee increases and budget cuts

University of California Berkeley students and faculty protest against fee increases and budget cuts. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty

In the sweltering California heat with their placards, posters, red armbands and chants of "no cuts, no fees, education should be free", the demonstrators packed in to Sproul Plaza at the centre of University of California Berkeley campus today meant business.

The crowd cheered and passing cars hooted as speakers implored them to fight state authorities' plans to hike student fees and lay off workers.

Daniella, a petite second-year Latina undergraduate sitting quietly in the shade echoed what many making the rallying calls were articulating. "My whole life I wanted to come here. If they increase the fees I will have to drop out. We have to fight this."

The Berkeley protest was one of many held across California in an unprecedented day of action directed at university authorities and state governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger as he attempts to curb the state's multibillion-dollar budget crisis. Faculty, students and unions from the University of California's 10 campuses including its two most prestigious, UCLA and Berkeley, joined forces in what was the biggest student protest for more than a generation.

The scale of the protests has come as a shock to state authorities. What began as a marginal dispute in the summer between university faculty and their management over cuts in salaries has in recent weeks escalated into a statewide walkout by students and faculty as well as a day of strike action by campus technical workers against layoffs and diminished terms and conditions.

The turning point came two weeks ago when university authorities warned of savage budget cuts to deal with a $750m (£466m) shortfall and mooted huge increases in the cost of tuition. "UC regents vote next week to raise student fees, already up 250% over the last decade, by an additional 30%," was how one group of protesters summed up the situation today.

In a move that will reignite debates around racial inequities in education one group demonstrating labelled the proposed hike in fees as "twisted and racist", saying it would mean more low-income and ethnic minority students would be unable to afford a college education. They also criticised proposals to increase the proportion of out-of-state students - who pay markedly higher fees - to 26% alleging it would further reduce the opportunities for young people from low-income groups or ethnic minorities living in California to secure a university place.

In a swipe clearly directed at the governor's office one provocative leaflet read: "Annually the state pays $49,000 per prison inmate and less than $14,000 per UC student. If the state can lock us up, it can invest in our education for one-third of the cost."

A spokesman for the group Graduate Students of Colour said: "Students of colour are asking a crucial question: Why now, and why us? California's population of college-age adults is majority black and brown. Whatever other reasons are cited, that underlying condition is left unspoken."

In recent years student demonstrations in California have been small-scale and largely single issue-led such as those held after Hurricane Katrina when students protested against the Bush administration's response in the immediate aftermath. Signs that the latest protests were different and that feelings were running especially high were evident in the run-up to the walkout with fringe meetings mushrooming across campuses to galvanise support. At UC Berkeley activists could be seen donning red armbands while at UC Davis one preliminary protest yesterday included a "naked" demonstration by a small group of students accusing authorities of "stripping" the education system.

Facebook and Twitter campaigns were also launched while over a thousand faculty members across all campuses signed an online petition rejecting budget cuts and proposing alternative ways to save money such as trimming the salaries of education bosses and senior officials plus tapping into reserve funds.

For many this latest wave of protest in California is reminiscent of the 1960s when UC Berkeley in particular earned a reputation as the epicentre of student activism when it spawned the Free Speech Movement. It was also the last time a former Hollywood actor, Ronald Reagan, was governor. Author and scholar at UC Berkeley's geography department Gray Brechin, who was an undergraduate at Berkeley during the 60s unrest said the current dispute had been "simmering" under the surface for months.

He said many in the university are concerned that California's budgetary problems are being used as "an excuse" to dismantle the state's public university system and move it toward a system reliant on private donors for funding. "California is beyond broke. The wealthiest state in the nation is bankrupt. These problems began a long time ago. What we need is a more progressive tax system to fund the university, not to dismantle it."

The UC system, the largest network of its kind in the US with over 220,000 students and more than 170,000 faculty, is widely regarded as a flagship public university often outperforming privately-funded prestigious schools such as Stanford just a few miles from Berkeley in the home of hi-tech, Silicon Valley. University authorities have staunchly denied suggestions of an attempt to undermine public education.

California's colossal budget crisis has become an ever-increasing thorn in the side of the governor as more people feel the pain of cuts in expenditure on schools and other services on top of the fallout from recession. The state is an estimated $15bn in debt with no way out in sight.

Today's protests come close on the heels of another politically sensitive initiative. Just last week the governor granted early release to thousands of prisoners in a cash-saving exercise. But if the prisoner release controversy was embarrassing, the dramatic public education furore looks set not only to be a more enduring and contentious problem but possibly one that attracts nationwide attention.

The Day Today - Bombdogs

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Is Obama a literary fraud? Can of worms reopened

Barack Obama

As well as providing juicy titbits about the Obama marriage, a new book supports the right-wing theory that the president needed help to produce ‘Dreams From My Father’

FIRST POSTED SEPTEMBER 25, 2009

The long-held suspicion in American right-wing circles that Barack Obama was not the sole author - not even the lead author - of his brilliantly received 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, has been rekindled by the publication of a new book about the Obamas, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage.

The book by Christopher Andersen, author of a string of unauthorised celebrity biographies, has received considerable media coverage in recent days because of its claim that Barack and Michelle came close to splitting up. She apparently was bitter about her husband devoting too much time to his political ambitions and not enough to his family. She hated his chain-smoking and snoring, and he complained to friends that his wife was unreasonable, Andersen claims.

Receiving much less attention is the fact that the book has opened a can of worms concerning the provenance of Dreams From My Father. It appears to support the theory that Obama needed considerable help to produce Dreams - labeled by Time magazine "the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician" - and yet has never owned up to using a ghost writer or even co-author.

The man most excited by this revelation is Jack Cashill, an American writer who has been producing articles since last summer for the conservative site American Thinker in which he argues that Obama could not have written Dreams on his own. Cashill argues that his likely collaborator was his controversial Chicago neighbour, Bill Ayers.

Ayers was the former anti-Vietnam war activist whose relationship with Obama came up during the presidential election campaign in 2008. John McCain tried to make capital out of Obama befriending a known radical who had co-founded of the Weather Underground group. The controversy eventually dropped out of the headlines after Obama dismissed Ayers as just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood".

But if Cashill's theory is right, Ayers was far more than that: indeed, he should perhaps be taking the credit for the fabulous reviews and prizes Dreams has received since publication. Forget Dreams From My Father - a more accurate title might be Thoughts From My Neighbour.

The anecdotal evidence in Andersen's book - some of it thought to have come direct from Michelle Obama, though there is no proof of that - certainly supports Cashill. Amid the juicy morsels about Michelle and Barack's sometimes miserable marriage is a passage in which Andersen reveals how in the early 1990s Obama was under real pressure from his publishers to deliver the manuscript of Dreams.

Obams had been given the chance to write the memoir not because anyone thought he would one day be President of the United States, but because, in 1990, he became the first African-American to be elected president of the Harvard Law Review.

Simon & Schuster offered an advance of $125,000, but despite taking a holiday in Bali in an effort to get going on it, the contract had to be cancelled because Obama could not deliver.

A second publisher stepped in - the Time Books division of Random House - and it was their deadline that was looming when, according to Andersen's book, Michelle, fearing a second failure, suggested that Barack should seek the help of "his friend and Hyde Park neighbour Bill Ayers".

Obama had made taped interviews with relatives about his family history, and, according to Andersen, those "oral histories, along with a partial manuscript and a truckload of notes, were given to Ayers".

Andersen quotes a neighbour in the Hyde Park area of Chicago, where Obama and Ayers lived, who said of the two, "Everyone knew they were friends and that they worked on various projects together. It was no secret. Why would it be?"

Andersen concludes by saying: "In the end, Ayers's contribution to Barack's Dreams From My Father would be significant - so much so that the book's language, oddly specific references, literary devices, and themes would bear a jarring similarity to Ayers's own writing."

Jack Cashill was cockahoop yesterday following the publication of Andersen's book. Writing on American Thinker, he said Andersen had laid out the scenario of how Dreams came about "just as I had envisioned it".

He added: "Andersen has blown a huge hole in the Obama genius myth without intending to do so."

In the course of Cashill's detective work, which can be followed in a series of articles for American Thinker since July 2008, he sought to establish that Obama showed no signs of being a decent writer - certainly not one who would win literary prizes - before Dreams.

Cashill dug up two early pieces of Obama's writing, a 1983 article, Breaking the War Mentality, for the Columbia University news magazine, Sundial, and a 1988 essay titled Why Organize, which was reprinted two years later in a book called After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois.

"In the Sundial article there are an appalling five sentences in which the subject noun does not agree with the verb," says Cashill. "In some sentences, like the following, the punctuation and word selection are as random as the grammar: 'The belief that moribund institutions, rather than individuals are at the root of the problem, keep SAM's energies alive'.

"Although Why Organize seems to be better edited, in neither of these two clunky essays does Obama turn a single phrase that is clever, concise, or even vaguely memorable."

Cashill also found an unsigned student case comment for the Harvard Law Review written by Obama in 1990. "The prose here, although reasonably well edited, is even more dull and leaden," said Cashill.

Could Obama have learned to write between then and setting pen to paper on Dreams only a couple of years later?

No way, says Cashill. He quotes the neurologist Daniel Levitin's "ten-thousand-hour rule" as laid out for Malcolm Gladwell in his bestselling book on success, Outliers. This 'rule' dictates that "ten thousand hours of practice [in any subject] is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert".

"Obama appears to have lopped about 9,900 hours off that standard," says Cashill.

Remember, Dreams From My Father wasn't just good, it was superb. Jonathan Raban called Obama "the best writer to occupy the White House since Lincoln". The Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison said: "I was astonished by his ability to write, to think, to reflect, to learn and turn a good phrase... This was not a normal political biography.''

It certainly wasn't, if Jack Cashill's theory is correct. On the other hand, Cashill appears to have conveniently forgotten the pronouncement of an Oxford don, Dr Peter Millican, who said last year that it was "very implausible" that Dreams was written by Ayers.

Millican was contacted by a Republican congressman, Chris Canon, and his brother-in-law, a businessman called Robert Fox, who had heard that Millican had devised a computer software program that could detect whether works were by the same author by comparing favourite words and phrases.

The don offered to run the test on Obama's Dreams and Ayers's own memoir, Fugitive Days for a fee of $10,000 - but insisted the result must be made public. It has never been totally clear whether Millican actually ran his programme or simply made his prognosis after a brief comparison of the two texts.

If he didn't, now might be the time - if anyone's got $10,000 to spare to sort this matter out once and for all.

12 Percent of U.S. Population on Food Stamps Highest Since Records Kept in 1969.

There are a few statistics that you can look at to see actual human pain in the real economy. You can look at the recent stock market rally yet even a 50+ percent rally is unable to create jobs or stem the economic pain of those at the lower end of the economic spectrum. Looking at food stamp participation from the United States Department of Agriculture shows us a very disturbing picture. When we did a report on this in August of 2009 we had 34 million Americans on food stamps. In the span of one month, the number jumped by over a million.

The raw data shows us that a stunning 12 percent of our entire population is receiving some form of food stamp assistance. The program is now called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program but the theme is still the same. Let us look at some of the raw data:

snap

Source: Sudden Debt

This is the highest percentage of Americans receiving food stamps since records started being kept back in 1969. The average person receiving assistance now receives $133 per month but even a number this low with such a high number of participants is costing the government $56 billion on an annualized basis.

Here are the top 5 states:

-1. Texas - 3.068 million participants

-2. California - 2.99

-3. New York - 2.57

-4. Florida - 1.77

-5. Illinois - 1.71

What is telling with the data above is that Texas has 24 million people while California has 37 million yet Texas has more people receiving food stamps. Florida and Illinois have nearly the same amount of participants although Florida has 18 million people while Illinois has 13 million people.

When we look at food stamp participation we see the real pain in the economy. I drive around many local areas in California. In many lower to middle class areas you will see department store traffic down to levels unseen in decades. Yet if you look at local dollar stores they are booming with traffic. People are asking about tent cities or soup lines but some of the “hidden” pain is mitigated by people simply buying at lower priced stores. After all, you can buy a loaf of bread, some sliced ham, a few cans of soup, and feed your family for a week. Although this is living on the margins you won’t be starving either but might explain why we haven’t seen a gigantic jump in tent cities or soup lines.

Yet there is a significant jump in traffic to local charities and shelters as you would expect in any deep recession. Those receiving food stamps will pump practically all the money back into the local economy. With $133 a month there isn’t much you can do. Yet it might be enough to provide a tiny buffer. I can only imagine how our country would look like right now if there were no food stamps or unemployment insurance. Can you imagine 35 million people out on the street in the United States of America?

Yet the stock market boosted by the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve is only helping the top bracket of our country. Most Americans have seen their hours cut, wages slashed, and are dealing with declining housing prices and a smaller stock portfolio. This is the reality on the ground. If we look at the real unemployment rate we are approaching Great Depression levels:

Chart of U.S. Unemployment

The headline unemployment rate is 9.7 percent. If we look at the government U-6 rate a broader and better indicator of the true employment situation we find that 16.8 percent of people are either unemployed or underemployed. A more broader measure already shows the unemployment rate at 20 percent. Some people have a hard time seeing this in action. Take a look at Detroit that has an unemployment rate of 28.9 percent. That is right, 28.9 percent of a city that once had 1.8 million people and was the hub of the automotive industry.

Even though the pundits and the Wall Street crowd are breathing happy in their custom made suits, the reality on the ground is very different. Those collecting food stamps are only growing. The unemployment rate is only moving up. It is hard for most Americans to except the “lagging indicator” argument when we are breaking records left and right. This is not your typical recession so why are we to expect that things will move out in a typical fashion? Ask those 35 million Americans if they feel the recession is over.

Oversold US Dollar threatens stock, commodity, bond prices

When we wrote “Inflating a Bull Market,” we mentioned the inverse relationship between the US dollar and stock prices. In March, the US dollar peaked from overbought levels and began to decline. At the same time stocks bottomed from oversold levels and began to move up. The reason is simple – Stocks are priced in US dollars. As the dollar weakens, it takes more of them to buy stocks (or anything priced in Dollars), which causes prices to rise.

The US Dollar is now oversold and may be poised for a move-up (at least in the shorter term) which should cause the price of “things” priced in dollar to decline (Stocks, Bonds, Commodities, etc)

usdThe relationship between the US dollar and assets priced in Dollars is illustrated in the chart below. The steady dollar decline caused prices of stocks, oil, commodities, and corporate bonds to rise.

USD_OIL_CRB_SPXThe US Dollar-Stock market relationship is shown in the next chart.

dollar_sp500

Crude Oil was one of the weaker commodities this week and broke below a support line after failing to move above the August highs. oil

Girl w Bike Shoved and Arrested by Police during G20 in Pittsburgh 9/25/09

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evidence of economic collapse martial law preparations

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Jason Bermas on Alex Jones TV: Reports From The G-20″Hell” Summit in Pittsburgh PA

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www.infowars.com

Message to PBS ombudsman Michael Getler about "Blueprint for Truth"

Dear mr. Getler,

In your column, which can be found at http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/2009/09/pbs_yes_and_no.html

you say the following about "9/11: Blueprint for Truth":

"I'm not going to review the films, but on a personal level I find the idea embedded in "Blueprint" of a government conspiracy to blow up those buildings to be preposterous and simply beyond belief and I fault the station for promoting this as part of a pledge drive and presenting it without an accompanying on-the-air program in which critics have their say."

Sir, unless you DO review those films, you have no business commenting on them whatsoever.

In your column, you commit the following logical fallacies in order to sway your readers towards your viewpoint:

1. Appeal to emotion
2. Argument from personal incredulity
3. Special pleading

The third and last point applies to the comments cited from viewers: the reactions were overwhelmingly positive and yet you misrepresent this by choosing to post only outspoken negative comments and one moderately positive comment. For AE911Truth's presentation however, plenty of "balance" is given by gross distortions in mainstream media to which a helpless and uninformed public is exposed every day.

Why do I, a foreigner, contact you about this? Because 9/11 affects us all, profoundly. Soldiers from my country are dying in Afghanistan. People from Afghanistan seek refuge in my country. Civil rights in Western countries now exist only in theory. I do not deny the involvement of foreign terrorists in 9/11, but I do deny the ability of terrorists to bring down buildings in ways that violate various laws of physics. Especially if these events are at the core of what happened that day. You may or may not have heard about initiatives by 9/11 victims family members. Visit their website http://www.nyccan.org/ for more information. This organization has collected around 80000 signatures from New York City residents.

Furthermore, may I note that it is public knowledge that your government kidnaps and tortures men and even children in a lawless prison on Cuban territory, kills hundreds of thousands of men in Iraq over lies, yet you are confident it cannot conceivably be an accomplice to mass murder on 9/11.

Note that the 9/11 commission has already admitted that it was "set up to fail". It even considered referring NORAD for criminal prosecution. A cover-up under these circumstances amounts to a criminal conspiracy to commit treason.

Note that licensed Dutch controlled demolition expert Danny Jowenko confidently asserts that the destruction of WTC 7 was a professional demolition. He is not alone among his peers. He later noted that if one speaks about this in public in the United States, one is certain to lose his or her career opportunities.

As if that wasn't enough, exotic explosive materials have been found in World Trade Center dust. This perfectly augments other WTC dust studies by RJ Lee which indicate extremely high temperatures during the collapse of the Twin Towers. Temperatures that far exceed the range of any jet fuel or office fire, for particles that cannot possibly have been released during clean-up operations, but only during the exact moment of destruction.

You do not review this presentation because you can't. Because those who attempt to refute it, fail. If you think you can, you may attempt to answer one question. Use any expert consultancy you may require.

"How can WTC 7 collapse through the path of most resistance at a rate indistinguishable from freefall for a minimum of 2.25/2.5 seconds or eight storeys?"

Remember, NIST publically admitted this freefall event in their 2008 report on the destruction of WTC 7, after being forced to do so by physicist David Chandler. Watch this confrontation here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0GHVEKrhng

The initial response from NIST is nothing short of scandalous. They later turn around completely and baldly assert this as fact without proper explanation. Have you read their report?

David Chandler is a member of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Visit their website http://www.ae911truth.org/ to review the signed statements of more than 800 licensed architects and engineers passionately calling for a new investigation.

What is wrong with NIST's response?

Newton's second law of motion dictates: F = m * a.

Therefore if a (acceleration) is identical to the acceleration of gravity g (9.8 m/s2) for eight storeys, F from gravity is maximal and unimpeded. This means the resisting force is ZERO.

Something destroyed eight floors across the width of this building and it sure as hell wasn't gravity. For this to happen without the aid of explosives, Newton's third law of motion MUST be violated. In order for the top section of the building to crush the lower section at all, it MUST either decelerate or show a decline in acceleration from complete freefall. In this sense, there is a profound difference between acceleration and speed.

Some have argued that the building collapsed internally first, leaving a half empty shell for us to look at. Well allow me to put forth my own argument from personal incredulity: I find this a preposterous suggestion. No such internal collapse would have been possible without large visible deformations of the building's exterior. Furthermore, even then the reasoning in the paragraph above applies.

If you can answer the question plausibly, I will withdraw my comments and publicly apologize. Remember, you are convinced you are right. Please put your religious belief, which you convey to others with some degree of authority, to the test. If it turns out you cannot answer my question, I suggest you fully and publicly support KBDI in their airing of independent and honest documentaries and presentations from now on. The real skeptics will be thankful.

Regards,

Michiel de Boer
The Netherlands

Attorney: 9/11 plot claim missing key ingredient

Prosecutor says Zazi was ready to unleash attack, but no explosives found

Image: Man alleged to be Zazi in beauty supply store
AP
This image from a security video aired by CNN shows a man believed to be Najibullah Zazi shopping at Beauty Supply Warehouse in Aurora, Colo.
Video
Official: Terror suspect 'within weeks' of building bomb
Sept. 26: U.S. intelligence officials say Najibullah Zazi was very close to pulling off a terrorist attack in New York. NBC's Jeff Rossen reports.

Nightly News

Video
Probe botched?
Sept. 23: Najibullah Zazi is at the center of an investigation into a possible al-Qaida plot. WNBC's Jonathan Dienst reports that New York police might have inadvertently compromised the FBI's surveillance.

msnbc tv

Video: Security
Official: Terror suspect 'within weeks' of building bomb
Sept. 26: U.S. intelligence officials say Najibullah Zazi, was very close to pulling off a terrorist attack in New York, the city where he grew up and worked as a coffee cart vendor. NBC's Jeff Rossen reports.

NEW YORK - Claims that an Afghan immigrant was on the verge of unleashing a terrorist attack on New York City on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 are missing a key element: explosives or the chemicals allegedly used to make them, the man's attorney said.

FBI agents have yet to find those elements and connect them to Najibullah Zazi, charged with conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction in a plot authorities say was aimed at commuter trains, attorney Arthur Folsom told a federal judge in Denver Friday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer ultimately ordered Zazi's transfer to New York, and Zazi was taken there by federal marshals.

"No traces of any kind of chemical was found in his vehicle," Folsom said of an FBI search of Zazi's car.

A federal prosecutor argued that Zazi was planning an attack to coincide with the 9/11 anniversary.

"The evidence suggests a chilling, disturbing sequence of events showing the defendant was intent on making a bomb and being in New York on 9/11, for purposes of perhaps using such items," prosecutor Tim Neff told Shaffer.

Zazi was stopped by police on Sept. 10 as he entered New York, and he dropped his plans for an attack once he realized that law enforcement was on to him, prosecutors allege.

He was sent to New York on Friday by federal marshals to face charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.

Prosecutors said Zazi received explosives training from al-Qaida in Pakistan and returned to the U.S. bent on building a bomb.


Israel's Dimona Nuclear Weapons Factory In 3D

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Hitman: $25 million bounty on Hugo Chavez

hugo-chavez

A Colombian hitman recently disclosed to the Venezuelan government that over 2,500 paramilitary fighters are in the country, each chasing a $25 million bounty on the life of Venezuela President Hugo Chavez, according to Arab news network Al Jazeera.

The man, who is reportedly in the custody of Venezuelan officials, said the bounty was offered by Manuel Rosales, Chavez’s most prominent political foe, during a secret meeting 10 years ago.

Rosales allegedly said “that he would give $25 million to kill [Chavez], but that he himself would not give the money directly,” the man said, as translated by Al Jazeera.

Rosales fled into Peru in April after a warrant was issued for his arrest. He protested in the media, calling the corruption charges a political lynching.

“Right now, there are two thousand, five hundred paramilitaries from Colombia inside Venezuela with one objective: with the objective of taking down Chavez, with the objective of destabilizing him” a translator says on the video.

The network was unable to obtain comment from Rosales, and the Venezuela attorney general’s office would not confirm nor deny the veracity of the man’s claims.

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, speaking to a South American newspaper recently, claimed the United States may have been involved in an attempted overthrow of Chavez’s regime.

“I think there is no doubt that in 2002, the United States had at the very least full knowledge about the coup, and could even have been directly involved,” he told El Tiempo last week.

Carter told El Tiempo that he believed Chavez was elected in a “fair” vote in 1999, had carried out necessary reforms for Venezuela and ensured that “those who are traditionally excluded are able to get a larger share of the national wealth.”

But he also said he was worried by the Venezuelan leader’s drift towards “authoritarianism.”

In August, Colombian officials announced a deal with the United States that will allow U.S. troops to be stationed at Colombian military bases, which will serve as a hub for remote surveillance in the region. Their mission will allegedly use advanced Predator drone technology to aid in fighting the drug trade and to combat terrorism, according to published reports in August.

In Venezuela, officials bristled at the news. Chavez warned: “The winds of war [are] beginning to blow.”

Chavez has already accused Colombian troops of making an incursion over the border and regional tensions are running high.

By Stephen C. Webster

The following video was released via Al Jazeera English on September 26th,2009: