Friday, June 20, 2008

Another Angle 21 - 06 - 08


ANOTHER ANGLE
NATIONAL:



State finds gas-station rip-offs
The state crackdown comes amid more complaints from New Jersey drivers that they are being ripped off as they pay gas prices hovering near $4 a gallon -- not as bad as many other places in the country but still more than $1 per gallon higher than the $2.91 average price of a year ago.

The investigation, Milgram said, was "deeply troubling," because it found that one-third of the inspected stations had violations. A similar crackdown after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 found that a quarter of the inspected stations had violations.






Is the Tyranny of Right-Wing Radio Coming to an End?
Conservative fears of an impending Democratic attack on talk radio - dubbed the "Hush Rush" effort in an homage to top-rated radio talker Rush Limbaugh -- continue to escalate, despite ample evidence that such an assault is unlikely to occur when (as is likely) Democrats sweep back into power in the forthcoming elections in November.



Passengers virtually stripped naked by 3-D airport scanner
The new body imager unveiled on Thursday uses high frequency electromagnetic waves known as millimetre waves to create a detailed 3-D image of what a person looks like underneath their clothes.



INTERNATIONAL:


Zimbabweans set to vote with their feet
This one really grinds my gears! Whatever Mugabe is, is a direct result of AmeriKKKan and European actions that have driven this country to where it is now. They decided when they declared independence and drove out the white farmers that they would take it back, no matter what the cost. Well, that cost has been many, many lives in Zimbabwe. And the suffering has just begun.



Israel flexes muscles with 'Iran attack' drill
Israeli aircraft have conducted a long-range mission designed to prepare for a possible strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities and to send a message to the world that it is ready to take military action if diplomacy fails to halt Tehran’s atomic programme.
Hamas: "Israel violated ceasefire three times today"




Chavez threatens Europe oil ban
Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, has threatened to stop selling oil to European countries if they implement tough new legislation against illegal immigrants.

The move follows the EU parliament's new guidelines in which illegal migrants can be held in detention centres for up to 18 months before being expelled.




How Iran would retaliate if it comes to war
With an active military manpower of 540, 000 – the largest in the Middle East – dependent on some of the lowest per capita defense spending in the region. Iran "can deal fatal blows to aggressor America by unpredictable and creative tactical moves," the senior commander Brig. Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid said in late May. "It is meaningless to back down before an enemy who has targeted the roots of our existence."

Iran's supreme religious leader Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Khamenei also warned of far-reaching revenge in 2006. "The Americans should know that if they assault Iran, their interests will be harmed anywhere in the world that is possible," he said. "The Iranian nation will respond to any blow with double the intensity."




IRAQ:



Oil giants return to Iraq
The deals are for repair and technical support in some of the co untry's largest oilfields, the Oil Ministry in Baghdad said yesterday. The return of "Big Oil" will add to the suspicions of those in the Middle East who claimed that the overthrow of Saddam was secretly driven by the West's desire to gain control of Iraq's oil. It will also be greeted with dismay by many Iraqis who fear losing control of their vast oil reserves.



ECONOMY:



Morgan Stanley warns of 'catastrophic event' as ECB fights Federal Reserve
"We see striking similarities between the transatlantic tensions that built up in the early 1990s and those that are accumulating again today. The outcome of the 1992 deadlock was a major currency crisis and a recession in Europe," said a report by Morgan Stanley's European experts.



OP-ED:



McCain: War Hero or Go-To Collaborator?
This is the lesson of McCain’s experience as a POW: a true politician, a hollow man, his only allegiance is to power. The Vietnamese, like McCain’s campaign contributors today, protected and promoted him and in return, he danced to their tune.



The wrong side of history

Since that memorable evening, my thoughts turned to the Blacks in leadership who were on the other side of history the night Obama became the presidential nominee. I wondered ab out people like billionaire Robert Johnson, who personally attacked Obama for "doing something in the neighborhood" that he would not say while Hillary and Bill Clinton were on the front lines for black people.



Will the Mossad Assassinate Obama?
Established governments almost never in the past used assassination as a tool until the rise of mind-control assassination techniques. Even then, assassination appeared to be largely a tool by rogue elements of the CIA to eliminate political undesirables within the US. Only the Israelis appear inclined to assassinate foreign politicians since they are immune from criticism in the Western press, and the MOSSAD has been largely successful at blaming certain terrorist events and assassinations on the Muslims.



The Poverty of Reaganism-Bushism
Because your education in self-destructive political foolishness is not yet complete, it remains necessary to pretend that this is a real ideology with real economic principles that are actually adhered to. You know, stuff like 'market discipline' and the 'invisible hand', which only ever seem to apply to the already vulnerable, not to the friendly rich people forever espousing these ideas. In truth, there actually are a set of operating principles here. Just not the ones that are advertised.



SCIENCE&TECHNOLOGY:



The Next Big Data Breach

It’s not that hard to fake a fingerprint," Swire told the panel. "Google it and you can find a way to fake one for less than 10 bucks."

It's true. A Google search for "fake fingerprint" returns a whole page on how to fake a fingerprint -- even a You Tube video. And most don't even charge for the information.



FOOD&DRINK:



Why Are Those Wacky Koreans Dissin' Our Beef?
You wouldn't know it from reading the newspapers, but the streets of Seoul are packed with tens of thousands of angry protestors who've brought business and government to a standstill. The demonstrations have dragged on for more than a month and show no sign of ending anytime soon. President Lee Myung-Bak's decision to lift the ban on US beef imports has set off a political firestorm that is likely to bring down the government and put the kibosh on free trade agreements for years to come




HUMOR?: