Israel Has Been Buying Iranian Oil For Years — And The Israeli Government Has Kept It Secret

Oil Behind Israel’s Iran Links. If you’ve ever wondered about the definition of hypocrisy you’ll find the answer right here. Last month the Swiss foreign minister visited Iran and, together with President Ahmadinejad, attended the signing of a multibillion euro contract for Iran to supply Switzerland with large amounts of natural gas over the next 25 years. The US State Department immediately condemned the deal. Israel complained too, describing the Swiss minister’s visit to Tehran as an “act unfriendly to Israel”. Various Jewish groups also joined in the protests. This righteous indignation was entirely predictable but more than a little odd nevertheless. On March 30, the Swiss newspaper Sonntag retaliated with the revelation that Israel, supposedly observing an ironclad boycott of all things Iranian, has been buying Iranian oil for years. The story is in German but Israeli journalist Shraga Elam has provided me with a translation which I’ll quote from here: “Israel imports Iranian oil on a large scale even though contacts with Iran and purchasing of its products are officially boycotted by Israel. Israel gets around the boycott by having the oil delivered via Europe. A reliable Israeli energy newsletter, EnergiaNews, reported this last week (March 1 … “EnergiaNews got the information about the Iran trade from sources with ties to the management of Israeli Oil Refineries Ltd … According to EnergiaNews the Iranian oil is liked in Israel because its quality is better than other crude oils. “The report by EnergiaNews editor Moshe Shalev states that the Iranian oil reaches various European ports, mainly in Rotterdam. It is bought by Israelis and the necessary European bill of lading and insurance papers are supplied. Then it is transported to Haifa in Israel. The importer is the Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Co (EAPC), which keeps its oil sources secret.” EAPC was established in 1968 as a joint Israeli-Iranian company to transport oil from Iran to Europe. After the fall of the Shah, Iran ceased to play an active role in its affairs and there are ongoing legal disputes between the two partners. The Swiss report continued: “It is not clear if the Iranian exporters know about Israeli purchases of their oil. At the other end, the Israeli buyers and governmental offices are well aware of where the high-grade oil comes from, although it is a blatant defiance of the boycott. The EnergiaNews article even made it through Israeli censorship, which asked only for some changes in the text. The fact that the report cleared the censors increases the credibility of the information. In the past, such reports were forbidden. “When questioned by Sonntag, an energy expert of one of the leading Israeli papers confirmed the EnergiaNews report: Israel has been importing Iranian oil for many years. The expert stressed, however, that the purchases were made on the free market and not directly from Iran.” Sonntag quoted a spokesman for Oil Refineries Ltd as denying that his company imports and processes Iranian oil. However, Sonntag pointed to a report in Haaretz newspaper last October which said that an Israeli energy company called Paz would be refining Iranian oil and supplying it to the Palestinian Authority from the start of this year. This begs the question: If Iran is, as Bibi Netanyahu argues, an existential threat to Israel, why does the government allow such trade? Would Israel have the US attack Iran’s nuclear program and provoke a potential regionwide conflict while it cannot seem to wean itself from high quality Iranian crude? You’d think if Israelis are cowering in fear from an Iranian bomb and the arch anti-Semite Ahmadinejad, they wouldn’t want to trade with such an enemy. When is a boycott not a boycott? If Israel doesn’t honor its self-declared boycott of Iran, why should the rest of the world honor its boycott of Hamas and Gaza? If Israel doesn’t honor its own boycott, then why should members of Congress vote with AIPAC when it proposes a measure that even Israel honors only in the breach? It’s interesting to note from a discussion (in Hebrew) on the Kedma website that Israel does not formally define Iran as an “enemy nation” and therefore in a strictly legal sense such trade is permissible. Ironically, Iran too has a boycott against Israel in place and is violating its own measures in that regard. Furthermore, the same commenter notes that Israel last week dismissed attempts to engage Syria in a diplomatic process as a failure because Syria refuses to renounce its ties with Iran. Do I hear the word “hypocrisy”?

http://www.mywire.com/pubs/ArabNews/2008/04/04/6116197/print/

Senator Dodd Will Hold Hearings Next Week On Issues At The Heart Of America’s Housing Crisis

Senator Dodd Will Hold Hearings Next Week On Issues At The Heart Of America’s Housing Crisis
The chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, reacting to criticism that a bipartisan housing bill would do little for homeowners facing foreclosure, vowed yesterday to move quickly on broader legislation to help troubled borrowers get cheaper mortgages backed by public funds. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) said he will hold hearings next week on the measure, which is aimed at assisting distressed borrowers, particularly those who owe banks more than their homes are worth because of plummeting prices - an issue at the heart of the nation’s housing crisis. Under the proposal, the Federal Housing Administration would encourage lenders to forgive a portion of the loans and issue new, more affordable mortgages in exchange for the federal government’s financial backing. In the House, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) will hold hearings next week on a similar measure. He and Dodd said they hope to bring the matter to a vote in their respective chambers by the end of May. In a conference call with reporters, Dodd said he “tried desperately” this week to persuade Senate Republicans to support the FHA proposal as part of a bipartisan agreement to address the mortgage meltdown . But Republicans declined to include the complex measure in the hastily drafted housing bill being debated in the Senate. That measure would provide tax breaks for homeowners and home buyers, more money for foreclosure counseling, and $4 billion in grants so cities can buy foreclosed properties. But most of the money in the bill - $25.5 billion through 2010 - would be the in form of tax rebates to the slumping home-building industry and other businesses that are losing money, a fact that has drawn fire from some economists and consumer groups. Yesterday, Dodd acknowledged that he had reservations about the business-tax breaks. “I would have been more moderate on that, to put it mildly,” he said. But he defended the overall housing bill, saying it contains some “very good provisions” and has broken the political impasse that had prevented lawmakers from addressing the problems driving the nation toward recession. “Let me remind you, this is the first time we’ve gotten anything done. So it’s a little frustrating when I hear people say you didn’t get as much as you’d like,” Dodd said. “Would I have liked more in this bill? You bet. But a month ago, we couldn’t even debate a bill.” Yesterday, the Senate voted to expand the bipartisan housing bill, agreeing to add tax breaks for struggling Rust Belt manufacturers and for Gulf Coast residents who have received grants to rebuild homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. A long line of senators has formed to offer other provisions, including a temporary tax break for first-time home buyers, a plan to let people who are late with mortgage payments take money penalty-free from their retirement accounts, and a proposal to overhaul the oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, government-chartered companies that buy up mortgages. Senate leaders expect to wrap up work on that bill early next week. Then it would move to the House, where its fate is far from certain. Frank said the House is likely to concur with the portion of the housing bill that would streamline the FHA, one of the top priorities of the Bush administration. That proposal would increase the size of the loans the FHA can insure, to $550,000 in the nation’s most expensive housing markets. The economic stimulus bill recently signed by the president temporarily raised the limit to $729,750 from $362,790. The FHA provision in the housing bill is separate from the proposal by Dodd and Frank to permit the FHA to underwrite risky mortgages. The House is also likely to approve of the Senate’s plan to authorize an additional $10 billion in tax-exempt mortgage revenue bonds, Frank said. That provision of the housing bill would permit state and local housing-finance agencies to help an additional 80,000 borrowers, including, for the first time, homeowners trying to shed expensive subprime loans. But Frank said there is “a lot of opposition in the House to the other tax cuts.”

[01]
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040508D.shtml
[02]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/04/AR2008040403440.html?hpid=moreheadlines
[03]
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/04/05/lawmakers_push_mortgage_assistance_bills/5048/
[04]
http://politicom.moldova.org/stiri/eng/109594
[05]
http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/onair/transcripts/080404b/
[06]
http://www.kansas.com/508/story/361524.html
[07]
http://www.housingwire.com/2008/04/04/the-mortgage-mess-takes-center-stage-on-capitol-hill/
[08]
http://www.connpost.com/ci_8814545?source=rss
[09]
http://biz.yahoo.com/ibd/080404/general01.html?.v=1
[10]
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9355.html

81% In Poll Say Nation Is Headed On Wrong Track

.. ..Americans are more dissatisfied with the country’s direction than at any time since the New York Times/CBS News poll began asking about the subject in the early 1990s, according to the latest poll.. ..But the issues have switched places in just a few months’ time. In the latest poll, 17 percent named terrorism or the war, while 37 percent named the economy or the job market. When looking at the current state of their own finances, Americans remain relatively sanguine.. ..Democrats have asserted recently that the lack of wage growth has made people more open to government intervention in the economy than in the past, and the poll found mixed results on this score.. ..In the poll, 81 percent of respondents said they believed “things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track,” up from 69 percent a year ago and 35 percent in early 2002.. ..Only 21 percent of respondents said the overall economy was in good condition, the lowest such number since late 1992, when the recession that began in the summer of 1990 had already been over for more than a year. In the latest poll, two in three people said they believed the economy was in recession today.. ..Respondents were more pessimistic when asked in general terms about the next generation, with only a third saying it would live better than people do today. (Polls usually find people more upbeat about their personal situation than about the state of society, but the gap is now larger than usual).. ..The poll found that Americans blame government officials for the crisis more than banks or home buyers and other borrowers. Forty percent of respondents said regulators were mostly to blame, while 28 percent named lenders and 14 percent named borrowers.. ..When the presidential campaign began last year, the war in Iraq and terrorism easily topped Americans’ list of concerns. Almost 30 percent of people in a December poll said that one of those issues was the country’s most pressing problem. About half as many named the economy or jobs.. ..

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/us/04poll.html?ei=5065&en=701f7a0c0a5d183c&ex=1207972800&adxnnl=1&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print&adxnnlx=1207310831-lEFJAyE0ER+h7EMbIZDnDw

Hastily Cobbled Together Housing Bill Is Of Limited Use To Borrowers Who May Soon Be In Trouble

For anyone hoping to buy a home, sell one or hold onto the one they have, the $15 billion housing bill unveiled in the Senate yesterday may mean nothing more than a bit of extra cash in the pocket. The housing bill, hastily cobbled together by Republican and Democratic leaders, would allow state and local property tax deductions this year of up to $1,000 for families and $500 for individuals who now can’t deduct that money. It also aims to spur demand for homes by providing a $7,000 tax break, split over two years, to anyone who buys a foreclosed home within a year of the bill’s enactment. But many consumer advocates say the Senate’s “Foreclosure Prevention Act” does not live up to its name. They say it fails to deliver swift help to the most distressed homeowners and is of limited use to borrowers who may soon be in trouble. “Anybody who gets money in their hands out of this bill will be happy, but that does not mean it will solve the larger social problem or larger economic problem,” said Peter Morici, economist and business school professor at the University of Maryland. Those who stand to benefit the most are home builders and businesses hit by the economic downturn. Through 2010, the entire tax package would cost about $28.8 billion, of which $25.5 billion would go to money-losing businesses in the form of tax rebates. They would give up other tax breaks, reducing the cost of the entire housing bill to $15 billion by 2018. The House plans to offer its own version of the legislation, and Democratic leaders said they would focus on different priorities. “Hopefully, the balance will swing to be in favor of the families who are in danger of losing their homes,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said. For consumer groups, the biggest setback was the Senate’s decision to strip the bill of a provision that would have allowed bankruptcy court judges to rewrite the terms of troubled loans for people who filed for personal bankruptcy. The Senate yesterday killed an effort to restore the measure. The measure could have saved more than half a million borrowers from foreclosure through 2009, according to its supporters, by allowing judges to lower the interest rates of mortgages, extend the life of the loans or forgive part of the debts. Of all the legislative proposals aimed at helping homeowners, consumer advocates said this one offered the most relief. But the lending industry lobbied against it, saying it would increase borrowing costs and encourage some to use bankruptcy as a cheap alternative to refinancing. Without the provision, “there’s no guarantee of any help whatsoever for many of the clients I work with,” said Nancy Ryan, a bankruptcy lawyer in Fairfax.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040304030.html

Iraqi Plans For Million-Strong March Against U.S. Occupation

Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called on Thursday for 1 million Iraqis to march against U.S. “occupation” next week after his Mehdi Army militia battled U.S. and government troops. The government said it would not attempt to block the march if it was peaceful although Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who ordered a crackdown on militia in the southern city of Basra last week, threatened more strikes against Sadr’s strongholds. A statement released by Sadr’s office in the holy city of Najaf called on Iraqis of all sects to descend on the southern city, site of annual Shi’ite pilgrimages that attract hundreds of thousands of worshippers. “The time has come to express your rejections and raise your voices loud against the unjust occupier and enemy of nations and humanity, and against the horrible massacres committed by the occupier against our honorable people,” it said. The demonstration, called for the fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad on Wednesday, raises the prospect of unrest coinciding with a politically sensitive progress report to Congress by the top U.S. officials in Iraq. “If his intention is to get a whole lot of people together and go and make trouble in Najaf, I don’t think that is going to be very popular,” U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker told a briefing. U.S. forces called in helicopter strikes during a clash with suspected Sadr gunmen on Thursday in the city of Hilla and bombed a house in Basra overnight, after days of relative calm that followed a truce Sadr announced on Sunday. The truce ended six days of fighting that spread through southern Iraq and Baghdad. Officially, the Iraqi government is sanguine about the march. Interior Ministry spokesman Major-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf told Reuters: “The right to hold a peaceful demonstration and express opinions is guaranteed by the constitution, and we don’t mind as long as the demonstration is peaceful.” But Maliki has been uncompromising toward the Sadrists, fellow Shi’ites who helped install him in power in 2006 but broke with the government last year. The prime minister told reporters the Basra crackdown could be repeated elsewhere, listing the Shula and Sadr City districts, Sadr strongholds in the capital. “Basra was a prisoner and now it has been freed,” Maliki said. “Other cities need the same battle, and also Baghdad in areas where people are still in the hands of these gangsters.” A senior member of Sadr’s bloc in parliament said the prime minister “must stop playing with fire, or the Sadr bloc and the Mehdi Army are ready for this battle, a crucial battle”. “The prime minister is trying to escalate the situation, and the brothers from the Sadr bloc are calling for calm,” Sadrist lawmaker Bahaa al-Araji told a news conference. Sadr has millions of followers and was able to summon tens of thousands of people on to the streets in Baghdad for demonstrations during last week’s fighting. A march to Najaf would potentially mobilize swathes of Shi’ite Iraq. The cleric also called for a “peaceful sit-in” in Baghdad on Friday to protest against bombings, arrests and vehicle bans that continue to seal off parts of the capital. Police sources in the Shi’ite city of Hilla said five people were killed in Thursday’s predawn clash and helicopter strike, including four policemen. U.S. forces said the clash erupted when gunmen fired on them as they attempted an arrest. A U.S. military spokesman said an air strike in Basra killed “one enemy” late on Wednesday. Reuters television pictures showed a woman’s body in the rubble and rescue workers searching for more dead. Police sources said at least three people had died including a mother, father and son, and three were seriously wounded. Last week’s violence exposed a deep rift within Iraq’s majority Shi’ite community and served as a reminder of the instability after months of security improvements. Hundreds died, making March the deadliest month for Iraqi civilians since last August, according to government figures. Nevertheless, the chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said Washington would not alter plans to withdraw about 20,000 troops by the end of July. Crocker and General David Petraeus, the top U.S. civilian and military officials in Iraq, are due to report to Congress next week and are expected to recommend a pause in withdrawals after July to safeguard the past year’s improvements.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080403/ts_nm/iraq_dc

Banks Held Mortgages On Their Balance Sheets As Derivatives Securities

Vicious Cycle For Borrowers As More Mortgages Are Withdrawn
Jpmorgan Memo Shows Dirty Tricks Of Mortgage Trade
Leaked Memo Shows “Cheats And Tricks” Used To Give Out Unqualified Mortgages
Clash Over Mortgage Mess
New Regulations May Come Too Late To Clean Up Minnesota’s Mortgage Mess
Rising Mortgage Rates Bully Daytona Beach Company Into Ch. 11
Subprime Mortgage Crisis Wallops Regional Charity
Democrats Prod Bush On Mortgage Crisis

.. ..the bank doesn’t want you to default on your loan, and them have to repo your house.. ..a bank who holds the loans would have just the opposite incentive.. ..if bosses are encouraging such things then they too are wrong.. ..mortgage brokers and agents shouldn’t game the system.. ..there are some banks who don’t hold the mortgages so their incentives might be closer to that of the mortgage broker.. ..a mortgage broker might have alot of reasons to sell loans to crappy customers.. ..I don’t want to lose my home…so I probably should only mortgage what I can pay.. ..the concept that an automated system gives you a go or no is just crappy.. ..if your rating comes back way in the NO category, obviously you have little to no chance.. ..

[1]
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080331/BIZ/303310005/1076/rss01
[2]
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=103786
[3]
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/cityregion/s_559797.html?source=rss&feed=7
[4]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/vicious-cycle-for-borrowers-as-more-mortgages-are-withdrawn-802454.html
[5]
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-na-econ29mar29,1,5212950.story?track=rss
[6]
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/29/chase-mortgage-leake.html
[7]
http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/stories/2008/03/31/story14.html?ana=from_rss
[8]
http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=502908

Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson To Resign

The U.S. housing secretary will resign Monday morning under pressure after accusations of improper allocation of federal contracts, the Wall Street Journal reported in its Monday edition. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson will step down on Monday morning, the paper reported. The department announced late Sunday that Jackson will make a statement to the press on Monday morning. Jackson has faced calls for his resignation after lawmakers have said he behaved improperly in awarding federal contracts. The Federal Housing Administration, overseen by HUD, runs the largest government program to aid home buyers and is seen by many lawmakers as the key to a federal effort to stem foreclosures.

[1]
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/bush-housing-secretary-expected-resign/story.aspx?guid=%7BE04EBF46%2D8B54%2D48E0%2D9293%2DC199C2D9BBC0%7D&dist=hplatest
[2]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080331/bs_nm/usa_economy_housing_dc
[3]
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-dha_31met.State.Edition1.3b3c495.html
[4]
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/americas/2008/03/31/149706/U%2ES%2E%2Dlawmakers.htm
[5]
http://www.lucianne.com/threads2.asp?artnum=393573
[6]
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10501044&ref=rss
[7]
http://www.kristv.com/global/story.asp?s=8090019
[8]
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2004315537_conghousing30.html?syndication=rss
[9]
http://money.cnn.com/2008/03/29/news/economy/white_house_housing_plan.ap/index.htm?section=money_news_economy

Congress Drafting Bills To Impose Tougher Supervision Over Wall Street

Plan To Give Fed New Power To Examine The Practices And Even The Internal Bookkeeping Of Brokerage Firms, Hedge Funds, Commodity-Trading Exchanges And Any Other Institution That Might Pose A Risk To The Overall Financial System

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/business/29regulate.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

The Bottomless Pit of Cash — AKA — The Federal Reserve

Even the chairman of the House Banking Committee claimed that the Federal Reserve is a government agency, and that it is not privately owned. The fact is that the government has never owned a single share of Federal Reserve Bank stock. This charade stems from the fact that the President of the United States appoints the Governors of the Federal Reserve Board, who are then confirmed by the Senate. The secret author of the Act, banker Paul Warburg, a representative of the Rothschild bank, coined the name “Federal” from thin air for the Act, which he wrote to achieve two of his pet aspirations, an “elastic currency”, read (rubber check), and to facilitate trading in acceptances, international trade credits. Warburg was founder and president of the International Acceptance Corporation, and made billions in profits by trading in this commercial paper. Section 7 of the Federal Reserve Act provides “Federal reserve banks, including the capital and surplus therein, and income derived therefrom, shall be exempt from Federal, state and local taxation, except taxes on real estate.”

[01]
http://propagandamatrix.com/archivefederalreserve.html
[02]
http://michaeljournal.org/fedreserve.htm
[03]
http://www.geocities.com/northstarzone/FED.html
[04]
http://www.federalreserve.gov/kids/
[05]
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/reserve.htm
[06]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/in_fed_we_trust
[07]
http://www.wndu.com/consumernews/headlines/16381451.html
[08]
http://www.federalreserveeducation.org/fed101_html/policy/money_print.htm
[09]
http://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/fomc.htm
[10]
http://www.save-a-patriot.org/files/view/frcourt.html
[11]
http://www.fdrs.org/fed.html
[12]
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north564.html
[13]
http://sonic.net/sentinel/naij2.html
[14]
http://www.strike-the-root.com/62/walker/walker1.html
[15]
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51078
[16]
http://www.federalreserve.gov/
[17]
http://www.libertydollar.org/
[18]
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6/hist/h6hist1.txt
[19]
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6/Current/

Is there ever a 100% consensus on anything important?

***Decisions are not an end in themselves. Decisionmaking is a process which starts with an idea and ends with the actual implementation of the decision. While it may be true in an autocratic process that decisions can be made quickly, the actual implementation will take time. When one person or a small group of people makes a decision for a larger group, the decision not only has to be communicated to the others, but it also has to be acceptable to them or its implementation will need to be forced upon them. This will certainly take time, perhaps a considerable amount of time. On the other hand, if everyone participates in the decisionmaking, the decision does not need to be communicated and its implementation does not need to be forced upon the participants. The decision may take longer to make, but once it is made, implementation can happen in a timely manner. The amount of time a decision takes to make from start to finish is not a factor of the process used; rather, it is a factor of the complexity of the proposal itself. An easy decision takes less time than a difficult, complex decision, regardless of the process used or the number of people involved. Of course, Formal Consensus works better if one practices patience, but any process is improved with a generous amount of patience. Many people know that the state actively surveilles, infiltrates, and disrupts nonviolent domestic political and religious groups. To counteract anti-democratic tactics by the state, a group would need to develop and encourage a decisionmaking process which could not be covertly controlled or manipulated. Formal Consensus, if practiced as described in this book, is just such a process. Since the assumption is one of cooperation and good will, it is always appropriate to ask for an explanation of how and why someone’s actions are in the best interest of the group. Disruptive behavior must not be tolerated. While it is true this process cannot prevent openly disruptive behavior, the point is to prevent covert disruption, hidden agenda, and malicious manipulation of the process. Any group for which infiltration is a threat ought to consider the process outlined in this book if it wishes to remain open, democratic, and productive. Formal Consensus is a specifc kind of decisionmaking. It must be defned by the group using it. It provides a foundation, structure, and collection of techniques for effcient and productive group discussions. The foundation is the commonly-held principles and decisions which created the group originally. The structure is predetermined, although fexible. The agenda is formal and extremely important. The roles, techniques, and skills necessary for smooth operation must be accessible to and developed in all members. Evaluation of the process must happen on a consistent and frequent basis, as a tool for self-education and self-management. Above all, Formal Consensus must be taught. It is unreasonable to expect people to be familiar with this process already. In general, cooperative nonviolent confict resolution does not exist in modern North American society. These skills must be developed in what is primarily a competitive environment. Only time will tell if, in fact, this model will fourish and prove itself effective and worthwhile***

http://www.vizu.com/poll-vote.html?n=84280

POLL —- Should smart people be allowed to vote more times than stupid people?

No, because I’m stupid.

Yes, because I’m stupid.

Yes, because I’m smart.

No, because I’m smart.

I’m too stupid to understand the question.

I’m too smart to answer the question.

http://www.vizu.com/poll-vote.html?n=83559

POLL —- Elections. The Person, The Party, His/Her Own Policy. Which is the most important to you?

The character of the candidate is the most important to me.

The party he/she represents is the most important to me. I would not vote for a different party.

I would switch to a different candidate if his/her own policy was important to me.

http://www.vizu.com/poll-vote.html?n=83474

POLL — Temperature and Molten Metal on 9/11

Do you believe that at the end of September 11, the temperature at the base of the Twin Towers and the temperature at the base of WTC7, was almost the same?
http://www.vizu.com/poll-vote.html?n=83240

Do you believe there was molten metal at the base of the Twin Towers?
http://www.vizu.com/poll-vote.html?n=83238

Do you believe there was molten metal at the base of WTC7?
http://www.vizu.com/poll-vote.html?n=83239

Politician’s Sex Scandal Cheat Sheet

http://static.crooksandliars.com/2008/03/361.gif

http://www.crooksandliars.com/

Everyone Is Entitled To Their Own Opinion, But Not Their Own Facts

Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
[1927 - 2003]

…..With Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s death, Washington lost another member of an all but extinct breed: the politician as unapologetic intellectual. The former New York Senator, who died Wednesday at 76 from complications arising from a burst appendix, was known for his sharp wit and his nimble mind. He was also known for his refusal to toe to the party line. As such, he was occasionally a thorn in the side of both parties, frustrating liberals and conservatives alike. He defied easy categorization, and brought an academic sensibility to a town better known for its sensationalism…..

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,437570,00.html

http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/dpmoynihan.htm

“Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts”

The man said it, and he was right.