How Did the Two Camels and a Goat Ride in a Car?

A boy peers from behind camels and a goat riding in the trunk of a butcher's car in the city of Hebron, on 31 January 2009.

Very carefully, even they get tired of walking and enjoy a ride.

Shoe monument for man who threw footwear at Bush

A statue built for Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, who hurled his shoes at former U.S. President George W. Bush; is seen in Tikrit, 150 km (95 miles) Baghdad, on 27 January 2009.

30 January 2008

TIKRIT, Iraq – An Iraqi town has unveiled a giant monument of a shoe in honor of the journalist who threw his footwear at former U.S. President George W. Bush.

The two-meter (six-foot) high statue, unveiled on Thursday in former dictator Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit, depicts a bronze-colored shoe, filled with a plastic shrub. "Muntazer: fasting until the sword breaks its fast with blood; silent until our mouths speak the truth," reads an inscription, in honor of journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, who hurled his shoes at Bush and called him a "dog" at a news conference during the former president's final visit to Iraq.

Zaidi has been held in jail in Baghdad since the incident, facing charges of assaulting a visiting head of state.

Fatin Abdul Qader, head of an orphanage and children's organization in the town, said the one-and-a-half-tonne monument by artist Laith al-Amiri was titled "statue of glory and generosity."

"This statue is the least expression of our appreciation for Muntazer al-Zaidi, because Iraqi hearts were comforted by his throw," she said.

Update:
Iraq shoe-throwing monument removed

"Those orphans who helped the sculptor in building this monument were the victims of Bush's war," (orphanage director Faten Abdulqader) al-Naseri was quoted as saying. "The shoe monument is a gift to the next generation to remember the heroic action by the journalist."

The Wolf in the Gaza Crisis

Introduction

by HRM Deborah

As to the fabrication, of there being a Gaza crisis and the overwhelming amount of lie’s subjected to the media in every aspect of the situation that there is a crisis when there is not; brings to mind of the fable of the boy who lied about a wolf, as retold below.

For anyone to believe a lie not only walk’s in darkness from the truth, they stumble along the path of life, until in this case when they actually need help; the wolf get’s them instead, for they are not believed.

So case in point, one should always tell the truth in all thing’s, for a liar while they never prosper’ also uses more energy to balloon the lie; then it took to tell the truth. In telling the truth, one not only lives longer due to the lack of pressure a lie put’s upon a person; but they will live happier and much more prosperous lives and no one I am sure would ever care to meet the wolf, that will surely eventually come.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

The Boy Who Cried Wolf, illustrated by Milo Winter in a 1919 Aesop anthology.

Is a fable attributed to Aesop who was of Greek origin, but some also considered it a old Russian fable.

There once was a shepherd boy who was bored as he sat on the hillside watching the village sheep. To amuse himself he took a great breath and sang out, "Wolf! Wolf! The Wolf is chasing the sheep!"

The villagers came running up the hill to help the boy drive the wolf away. But when they arrived at the top of the hill, they found no wolf. The boy laughed at the sight of their angry faces.

"Don't cry 'wolf', shepherd boy," said the villagers, "when there's no wolf!" They went grumbling back down the hill.

Later, the boy sang out again, "Wolf! Wolf! The wolf is chasing the sheep!" To his naughty delight, he watched the villagers run up the hill to help him drive the wolf away.

When the villagers saw no wolf they sternly said, "Save your frightened song for when there is really something wrong! Don't cry 'wolf' when there is NO wolf!"

But the boy just grinned and watched them go grumbling down the hill once more.

Later, he saw a REAL wolf prowling about his flock. Alarmed, he leaped to his feet and sang out as loudly as he could, "Wolf! Wolf!"

But the villagers thought he was trying to fool them again, and so they didn't come.

At sunset, everyone wondered why the shepherd boy hadn't returned to the village with their sheep. They went up the hill to find the boy. They found him weeping.

"There really was a wolf here! The flock has scattered! I cried out, "Wolf!" Why didn't you come?"

An old man tried to comfort the boy as they walked back to the village.

"We'll help you look for the lost sheep in the morning," he said, putting his arm around the youth, "Nobody believes a liar...even when he is telling the truth!"


The moral is stated at the end of the fable as:
Even when liars tell the truth, they are never believed. The liar will lie once, twice, and then perish when he tells the truth.

On second thought, never mind about that bailout

A man holds a sign with the words: "Need Food For Family, God Bless You, Will Work," at an intersection in Miami, Florida. US lawmakers are set to hand Barack Obama the first major win of his week-old presidency, overriding chiefly Republican objections to pass a highly questionable $825bln economic stimulus plan.

30 January 2008
By MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON – A small but growing number of community banks are backing out of the government's bailout, which they see as fraught with hidden strings and government interference.

About 20 banks so far that applied for or had been approved to receive about $1 billion combined in taxpayer money have reversed course in the past month and refused to take the money. That's just a fraction of the hundreds of billions of dollars the government already has spent, but it shows that taxpayers aren't the only ones anxious about the financial bailout.

"The government's going to own a good portion of these banks," said David Heintzman, president of Stock Yards Bank & Trust in Louisville, Ky. The bank recently turned down $43 million in approved bailout money.

After Congress approved the $700 billion bailout in October, the government gave banks only a few weeks to decide whether they wanted to take part in the government investment program. Many applied to get a foot in the door, in case predictions of an economic collapse came true.

"We drank the Kool-Aid," said Michael Ross, president of Fidelity Bank in Dearborn, Mich., which applied for about $29 million in November.

But as details emerged, the deal didn't look so good. For Fidelity, taking the money would mean the government would have owned about 25 percent of the company's outstanding stock. Then Congress and the White House could start calling the shots, Ross said. He remembers the government's failure overseeing Freddie Mac and its sister company, Fannie Mae, the two housing companies so badly mismanaged they were taken over by the Bush administration.

"These are the guys who brought you Hurricane Katrina. These are the guys who were supposed to be watching Fannie and Freddie," Ross said. "I've not seen anything like this, where they really are talking about nationalizing banks."

Much of the criticism about the bailout has focused on the lack of oversight, which allowed banks to take money and refuse to say where it's going. Wall Street executives, who make millions of dollars and enjoy lavish perks like private jets, earned the ire of consumer watchdogs who said taxpayers were getting a raw deal.

But some community banks, which had little or nothing to do with the subprime mortgage crisis, say the deal didn't look great for them, either.

Congress wants banks to make loans, so businesses can expand and people can start buying houses again. But lawmakers also want them to make only trustworthy loans. But there are only so many good loans to make in a weak economy with high unemployment.

Explaining that to investors is easy. To politicians, it might looks like you're hoarding taxpayer money.

"Then what? Then they have a guy at our board meeting?" said William Campbell, president of Pamrapo Savings Bank, a Bayonne, N.J., bank that walked away from its $11 million bailout application.

The government also can force banks to cut dividends to shareholders, making a bank's stock less attractive to investors. President Barack Obama has said he wants to prohibit banks from buying other banks. And at any time, Congress can change the law and add new terms.

"Are you going to enter into a contract that will cost you millions of dollars if you can't live with the rules and you don't even know what the rules are?" said Steve Buster, CEO of Richmond, Calif.-based Mechanics Bank, which refused $60 million in bailout money. "I don't know of any other forum that parties can change the contract at will. This is not fair."

The banks that turned down the money said they were comfortable their own finances will allow them to weather the storm. For some, taking the money seemed riskier than turning it down.

"We finally said, 'Hey do we really want to go down this path?'" said Michael Blodnick, chief executive of Glacier Bancorp of Kalispell, Mont. "I understand a lot of banks do, and a lot of banks need to."

Saving a Child's Heart

Helping us save the world one heart at a time…

A Canaanite mother Houda Siam sits next to her son Abdullah's hospital bed in an intensive care ward shortly after a Jewish medical team repaired a congenital defect in his heart at the Wolfson Medical Center, on 29 January 2009; in Tel Aviv.

The 6-year-old Canaanite boy is the first child from the Gaza area to cross the border to the Jewish hospital for life-saving heart surgery, since 18 January ceasefire was initiated.

Abdullah Siam's open heart surgery is seen on a computer monitor as the Jewish medical team repairs a congenital defect in his heart at the Wolfson Medical Center.
A Jewish medical technician (R) keeps an eye on Abdullah Siam's vital signs as another tends to the heart-and-lung machine keeping the boy alive during his open heart surgery at the Wolfson Medical Center.

Steel sutures are used to close Abdullah Siam's chest after a Jewish medical team repaired a congenital defect in his heart at the Wolfson Medical Center.

Jewish Pediatric Cardiologist Dr. Lior Sasson (C) leads his medical team in repairing a congenital defect in Abdullah Siam's heart at the Wolfson Medical Center.

Siam was brought over by the Christian charity Shevet Achim to repair the hole in his heart through Save a Child's Heart (SACH), a Jewish-based international humanitarian project whose mission is to improve the quality of pediatric cardiac care for children from not just in Palestine, but developing countries as well; who suffer from heart disease and to create centers of competence in these countries.

US Continues Economic Implosion

Job seekers queue up to attend a job fair 27 January 2009, in Chicago. The number of people receiving unemployment benefits has reached an all-time record, the government said Thursday, and more layoffs are spreading throughout the economy.


The Labor Department reported that the number of Americans continuing to claim unemployment insurance for the week ending 17 January was a seasonally adjusted 4.78 million. That's an increase of 159,000 from the previous week and worse than economists' expectations of 4.65 million.

The total released by the department doesn't include about 1.7 million people receiving benefits under an extended unemployment compensation program authorized by Congress last summer. That means the total number of recipients is actually closer to 6.5 million people.

With further momentous job cut’s in the near future as the US economic situation further implodes into a deeper depression.

As it is not also forgotten, that consumer spending is further dropping as American’s continue seeing the sliding economic downfall.

As to US President Barack Obama’s current idea of a stimulus package to shore up the problem is in the works, as it is put across in the media; apparently he has not learned anything from his predecessor or from the history of his own country.

US Postmaster General: Mail days may need to be cut

U.S Postmaster General John Potter takes note on Capitol Hill in Washington, on 28 January 2009; while testifying before the Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee.

28 January 2008

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

WASHINGTON – Massive deficits could force the post office to cut out one day of mail delivery, the postmaster general told Congress on Wednesday, in asking lawmakers to lift the requirement that the agency deliver mail six days a week.

If the change happens, that doesn't necessarily mean an end to Saturday mail delivery. Previous post office studies have looked at the possibility of skipping some other day when mail flow is light, such as Tuesday.

Faced with dwindling mail volume and rising costs, the post office was $2.8 billion in the red last year. "If current trends continue, we could experience a net loss of $6 billion or more this fiscal year," Postmaster General John E. Potter said in testimony for a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee.

Total mail volume was 202 billion items last year, over 9 billion less than the year before, the largest single volume drop in history.

And, despite annual rate increases, Potter said 2009 could be the first year since 1946 that the actual amount of money collected by the post office declines.

"It is possible that the cost of six-day delivery may simply prove to be unaffordable," Potter said. "I reluctantly request that Congress remove the annual appropriation bill rider, first added in 1983, that requires the Postal Service to deliver mail six days each week."

"The ability to suspend delivery on the lightest delivery days, for example, could save dollars in both our delivery and our processing and distribution networks. I do not make this request lightly, but I am forced to consider every option given the severity of our challenge," Potter said.

That doesn't mean it would happen right away, he noted, adding that the agency is working to cut costs and any final decision on changing delivery would have to be made by the postal governing board.

If it did become necessary to go to five-day delivery, Potter said, "we would do this by suspending delivery on the lightest volume days."

The Postal Service raised the issue of cutting back on days of service last fall in a study it issued. At that time the agency said the six-day rule should be eliminated, giving the post office, "the flexibility to meet future needs for delivery frequency.

A study done by George Mason University last year for the independent Postal Regulatory Commission estimated that going from six-day to five-day delivery would save the post office more than $1.9 billion annually, while a Postal Service study estimated the saving at $3.5 billion.

The next postal rate increase is scheduled for May, with the amount to be announced next month. Under current rules that would be limited to the amount of the increase in last year's consumer price index, 3.8 percent. That would round to a 2-cent increase in the current 42-cent first class rate.

The agency could request a larger increase because of the special circumstances, but Potter believes that would be counterproductive by causing mail volume to fall even more.

Dan G. Blair, chairman of the Postal Regulatory Commission, noted in his testimony that cutting service could also carry the risk of loss of mail volume. He suggested Congress review both delivery and restrictions it imposed on the closing of small and rural post offices.

The post office's problem is twofold, Potter explained.

"A revolution in the way people communicate has structurally changed the way America uses the mail," with a shift from first-class letters to the Internet for personal communications, billings, payments, statements and business correspondence.

To some extent that was made up for my growth in standard mail — largely advertising — but the economic meltdown has resulted in a drop there also.

Potter also asked that Congress ease the requirement that it make advance payments into a fund to cover future health benefits for retirees. Last year the post office was required to put $5.6 billion into the fund.

"We are in uncharted waters," Potter said. "But we do know that mail volume and revenue — and with them the health of the mail system — are dependent on the length and depth of the current economic recession."

He proposed easing the retirement pre-funding for eight years, while promising that the agency will cover the premiums for retirement health insurance.

At the same hearing the General Accounting Office agreed that the post office is facing an urgent need for help to preserve its financial strength. But the GAO suggested easing the pre-funding requirement for only two years, with Congress to determine the need for more relief later.

Potter noted that the agency has cut costs by $1 billion per year since 2002, reduced its work force by 120,000, halted construction of new facilities except in emergencies, frozen executive salaries and is in the process of reducing its headquarters work force by 15 percent.

___

On the Net:

U.S. Postal Service: http://www.usps.com

Video: Postmaster General: Mail days may need to be cut

Bird’s of the Same Feather

There is a saying that bird’s of a feather flock together, with the US President Barack Obama's White House; it is indeed so, for it is another former US President George W. Bush, foreign and domestic policy all over again.

And to think it has only taken Obama eight day’s, to get blood dripping from his hands for crimes against humanity and to work diligently towards continuing the plummeting of American economic system.

'We Shall Never Forget'

A Jewish man visits The Yad Vashem exhibition 'BESA: A Code of Honor '- which features 17 portraits of Muslim Albanians who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, and were recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, at the Ramle Museum a mixed Jewish, Muslim, Christian city in central part of Palestine, on 27 January 2009; during the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

A Jewish Holocaust survivor visits The Yad Vashem exhibition 'BESA: A Code of Honor, 'during the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

A Muslim high school student (R) visits The Yad Vashem exhibition 'BESA: A Code of Honor, ' during the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

We as Muslim’s and Jew’s where both slaughtered in what became known as the Jewish Holocaust, in what may not be so well known by some; is during this atrocity we helped and cared for each other as much as possible no matter where we may have been.

Even on this particular day, we as Muslims and Jew’s are faced with another threat similar to what occurred before because of the U.S. self-imposed, instigated war against the whole of the Islamic Ummah and the Jewish Community.

While we as a people 0f two religions, have never forgotten nor will we do so in the future; the atrocity of the Jewish Holocaust nor will we stand and be allowed to be slaughtered at this time.

For we as Muslim’s and Jew’s stand in the faith, in truth and justice, surrounded in the love that Allah (G-d) has gave to us from the beginning; with His protection.-HRM Deborah

Four Steps to being an Affective Propagandist

Hear not the truth, See not the truth, ALWAYS have your shoe in your mouth; as you stand on the facts in your briefcase.

Let’s Scream for Ice Cream

A man standing eating an ice cream cone in Gaza City, on 23 January 2009; as the non-citizen terrorist organization continues to make false claims of Gaza suffering from severe food and water shortages.

US Forces Still Murdering Afghan Civilians

An Afghan man gestures to media representatives during an anti-US and Afghan government protest in Mehtarlam city, capital of Laghman province, on 24 January 2009.

While US-led coalition forces said they killed 15 ‘armed militants’ in eastern Afghanistan, but local legislators say the casualties were civilians including women and children.

Meanwhile, President Hamid Karzai condemned a U.S. operation he said killed 16 Afghan civilians, while the hundreds of villagers denounced the American military during the angry demonstration on Sunday.

As the US media propaganda, exaggerates claims of what is going on in Afghanistan to justify there contention and to reinforce there allegations of more troops within the country.

The death toll towards civilians not just in Afghanistan, but also neighboring Pakistan by the same means is staggering.

This goes along with the US self-imposed, instigated war not just against the Islamic Ummah; but the Jewish community as well, which can be seen by activities perpetrated against these two religious groups.