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When a foreclosed home burns, what happens next? - Los Angeles Times

Nov 16, 9:06pm    (1 review)  economics  http://articles.latimes.com/2007/oct/28/...

I live in Southern California and we just had another firestorm. Firestorms are something new. What it is strong winds pushing along a flame that is either intentionally lit or accidentally lit. This flame builds up into an inferno and continues along where ever the wind pushes it. The real cause of this new phenomena is our capitalistic greed mongering government and bankers. If they aren't spending our tax dollars on stupid shit, they are allowing bankers to rip off the country and then making the country bails them out. In the mean time those same banks now own much of the property that burned yesterday and what happens when a bank owned house burns to the ground because the government has made sure the firefighters don't have the resources to do what they are paid to do? They get the full insurance pay off for the entire structure AND they sale the vacant lot for an extra profit! Man what a racket.

Nov 10, 8:41pm

Hague prosecutor says Bush-Blair could face war crimes charges: 1 million Iraqis killed
By Tom Mellen
Mar 19, 2007, 09:41

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International Criminal Court prosecutor announced on Sunday that US President George W Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair could face war crimes charges at the Hague, after it emerged that up to one million Iraqis have been killed since the illegal invasion.

Chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said that he could envision a situation in which Mr Bush and Mr Blair found themselves in the dock.

"Of course that could be a possibility. Whatever country joins the court can know that whoever commits a crime in their country could be prosecuted by me," Mr Moreno-Ocampo affirmed.

Days before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein approached lawyers in Britain about signing up to the International Criminal Court, but his effort was overtaken by events.

Had he succeeded, the actions of the occupation forces in Iraq would fall within the court's jurisdiction.

Mr Moreno-Ocampo said that it was still possible for an investigation to be launched, if Iraq signed up.

Iraq's ambassador to the UN Hamid al-Bayati said that Baghdad is actively considering joining.

Respect [Britain political party, ed.] councillor for Birmingham Salma Yaqoob said: "It would be a step forward for the Iraqi people if Baghdad signed up to the ICC, as seeing Bush and Blair face justice for their flagrant violations of international law would help to relieve the sense of hopelessness in Iraq."

An Australian scientist has published a new estimate of casualties in Iraq, using four sets of independent data, including information from UNICEF and the UN population division, as well as medical literature.

Dr Gideon Polya's figure is far higher than the previous largest estimate of 655,000.

"The most comprehensive and authoritative literature and UN demographic data yields an estimate of one million post-invasion excess deaths in Iraq," Dr Polya said.

A Stop The War Coalition spokesperson said: "Four years after the start of the conflict, we can see that everything the anti-war movement predicted has taken place, but it has been far worse than we feared."

And Labour leadership contender John McDonnell said: "These figures confirm that Blair has taken us into the bloodiest conflict we have been engaged in since the second world war," adding:

"[Blair] legacy is the barbarism that he unleashed on Iraq."

The father of a British soldier who was killed in Iraq branded Mr Blair a liar who had betrayed the armed forces.

Eddie Hancock spoke of the pain of losing his "fearless" and "patriotic" son Jamie, who was shot dead while on sentry duty in Basra in November.

"I have been utterly sickened by this government's treatment of our armed forces," said Mr Hancock.

"Our soldiers should be brought home now," he demanded, adding: "They are dying for nothing."

Just three weeks after Mr Blair announced that troop levels in Iraq would be reduced by 1,600, the Ministry of Defence is sending a battery of six 105mm cannon to Basra in a bid to outgun resistance fighters, who have been bombarding occupation bases with mortars and rockets that can be fired from several miles away.

It will be the first time that British artillery has been deployed in Iraq since the overthrow of the Ba'athist regime in 2003.

The financial cost of the Iraq campaign to the British taxpayer is likely to exceed �5 billion by the end of this month.

Despite government claims in the run-up to the invasion that it was aiming for a diplomatic solution, �847 million was spent on the Iraq operation in 2002-3.

In the year leading up to the aggression, the military spent �34 million on manpower, �218 million on equipment and �170 million on supplies

Nov 10, 12:34am

Below are blog entries that are actually a sloppy but pretty accurate transcript of the video below it called, "The Men Behind Obama". Like I said I didn't vote for Obama but everyone I know that voted did. I am not badmouthing voters for their choice. I just think that everyone should be as open minded as possible when it comes to political leaders. Don't let loyalty to a party blind you.

Nov 10, 12:31am

2001 - 2007 The entire 911 myth used to start wars, the Afghan and Iraq war and the possibility of the war with Iran. Which is no longer an issue since mid July 2007.

The new dangerous covert operation centers around Obama. The policy that Obama represents is more aggressive, more militaristic and generally speaking more catastrophic than what the Bush neocons brought.
There's nothing good to say about McCain and there is even less good to say about Obama. He is a world tragedy in the making. He is a puppet of the tri-lateral commission and in particular Zbigniew Brzezinski, Counselor, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC. They are a clique of bankers. They ran the Carter administration which was pretty disastrous and he created FEMA during the Carter years. This was a bad presidency both economically and strategically.

Obama ran on the Hope and Change theme, but in reality he represents policies that are qualitatively worse and more destructive, and he can deliver Europe as pawns, puppets, as expendable assets. The project in the United States with Obama as president will not be wars in the Middle East but wars on a grander scale. Obama's owner Brzezinski says the center of power in the world is not Iran, but its Bejing and Moscow and therefore he is determined to essentially smash Russia and China in the next years ahead, in order to let the U.S.-British domination continue another 100 years. This will be Obama's project as president. This is more ambitious and more dangerous and more destructive than the agenda of the past 8 years under the Neocons.

Nov 10, 12:29am

Obama is a puppet of finance circles (David Rockefeller, George Soros and that type). Their project is of extreme austerity, savage reductions in the standard of living, basically the evisceration and impoverishment of the United States, that is the domestic policy. In terms of foreign policy it is the plan to have a global showdown with China and Russia. For this they need a left cover. The right wingers don't know how to attack this so they call him a communist (this is not accurate because he's a servant of the finance capital so how could he be a communist? Or that he's a Moslem because his middle name is Hussein. He lived in Indonesia for a while and he may indeed have considered himself a Moslem at some point in his life. Looking at the two fathers he knew, one from Kenya who basically deserted him and his mother, and then his stepfather in Indonesia a guy called Logos Satero; both of these male role models were more devoted to Johnny Walker Black Label Scotch Whiskey than they ever were to Islam. So the Moslem connection doesn't make much sense, but if your president of the United States you are going to be able to get your finger on the thermal nuclear button that launches intercontinental ballistic missiles with H bombs. Because of this we the public want to know everything about Obama, if he was a Moslem at some point, lets find out. Lets find out did he sign up for the selective service, is he HIV positive, does he have a criminal record, is he bi-sexual, does he smoke crack cocaine? These are all allegations that have been made about him.

Nov 10, 12:28am

One thing that is for sure Obama is a puppet of the worse circles of imperialism. He's interested in the same imperialist projects carried out by the neocons ultimately in a more insane way. Take Iran for instance, McCain looks at Iran and says, I want to bomb Iran. Brzezinski, Obama's handler says, Your crazy. You can't do that. Your too weak, your too bankrupt, your too isolated. You know what you do with Iran? I don't want Iran at war with the U.S. I want Iran at war with Russia. Let's turn Iran into a tool, into a puppet, and play Iran against Russia. He understands how to do this because he helped play Afghanistan against the Soviets and he destroyed the Soviets. The Neocon says, I want to bomb Syria. Brzezinski says don't bomb Syria. Make a deal with Syria. There's a very important Russian Naval base in a place called Tartus in the Mediterranean. Brzezinski has just been in Iran. He went for the Rand Corporation a couple of months ago. The goal would be to get the Russians out of Tartous and try to turn Syria against Russia. So Brzezinski's plan would not be to have the Moslems as targets but as cannon fire for the project against Russia and China. In Chinese Turkistan there is a Moslem minority there. Brzezinski's plan for them is to fight and die in some sort of insurrection. He's got an insurrection going on in Tibet. The idea right now is forget about the target that we've known, the target list is getting bigger. A couple of more on the target list is Sudan, an Arab country, Arab league. Why is Sudan being targeted? Why are we going in to Darfur? Are we really concerned about a humanitarian emergency? No. The concern is that seven percent of the oil for China comes from Sudan. So the interest in Darfur is desperation in finding a pretext to go into Sudan, overthrow General Basher and cut off that oil going from Sudan to China. Now lets look at the really big one on the target list. Up until now, everyone has been focused on Iran. The question has been will the U.S. or the British attack Iran? Will the Israelis attack Iran? No. They won't. The U.S. and the British will not. I can't totally exclude some of the Israeli crazies. But even that is not likely.

Nov 10, 12:26am

There's an attack that is going on right now and its Pakistan. Pakistan is another Moslem country with a 160 million people, and they have nuclear weapons. During the primary debates among the democrats, Obama came out and said, I want to have the unilateral U.S. bombing of northwestern Pakistan. Hillary Clinton said, "No, you don't want to do that." McCain said, "No, you don't want to do that." Even Bush disagreed. This debate was in July and it was held in Chicago. Right now our military is carrying out Obama's plan even though the current leader and others disagreed and said it was a bad idea. Right now the U.S. troops, along with Nato troops and Afghans is preparing to invade Pakistan across the Afghan border. Why are they doing it? (Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida, the war on terror and all of that idiotic mythology). Why are the really doing it? They want to destroy the Pakistani central government. The other night a statement was made by the Pakistan prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. He said, "Our national honor and soventary is not to allow foreign troops to come into our country." The U.S. and Nato are now going to do that under the new policy. The goal is to destroy Pakistan. Just as Iraq is now carved into three parts, Pakistan will be carved into four parts. Why do this? Not so much that it is an Islamic country although it does figure in as far as the public is concerned. The main reason is because Pakistan is a potential ally for China. It is traditionally friendly to China and under conditions of world crisis it would tend to gravitate back towards China. So look at the current hit list, Iran is not in the hit list anymore. Instead they are a candidate to be played against Russia. The hit list is now Sudan and Pakistan. That is the "change" and remember that Obama was the one who demanded the attacks on Pakistan, when everyone else disagreed. So ironically McCain was a better a friend to the Moslems. McCain said I talked to General Mosharif about these things and I wouldn't do it unilaterally, and Obama said, "No. It has to be unilateral." That is the Brzezinski policy. Obama has no idea, he doesn't even know where Pakistan is. He is spouting the line that Brzezinski gave him. Brzezinski's argument to the Neocon's is your fools, your bunglers, you're so obsessed with Israel and the Persian Gulf and Iraq and Iran that you've lost the big picture and the big picture is that the real power in the world is Russian and China because these are countries that are seriously capable of resisting the U.S. and the British. The focus needs to be put on them and India of course would become a big asset in that regard. Japan is another one. There was a summit of Japan and China and the big question there was would Japan become a staging area, for the kinds of destabilization that Brzezinski is planning. Japan has essentially said, No. The Japanese defense minister said that chaos in China would be the worst possible outcome for the interest of Japan. So far, Japan has said, No. Taiwan has said, No. Right now the world is in the process of choosing sides.

Nov 10, 12:24am

The point of having Obama is you've got the same old Imperialism but it has a face lift; give it cosmetic surgery. One goal is to have that face for Africa. Looking at Africa for a second. The goal in the case of Africa is to kick the Chinese out. This would deprive China of the oil as we see with Sudan and the Darfur scam. In addition to depriving them from oil, also raw materials. Ultimately Brzezinski wants to isolate China and encircle it and then when it reaches the point that China has no where to turn for its oil except the Russian oil wells in Eastern Siberia. The end result of this entire policy is to finally play Russia against China and get rid of both of them, let them destroy each other (oh ya that worked really well with Iraq and Iran). This would allow the U.S. and the British to settle in for another 100 years of world domination.

Why Europe needs to beware of Obama. With Bush and McCain the U.S. is hated and distrusted and hated, the policy is discredited by Europeans. No one wants to go along with us. The demigodry of Obama is that somehow with this new face you can get throngs of young groups and individuals who really have no idea what they are doing to support this stuff. In other words Obama wants Europe as a tool against Russia. Europeans should not go there and realize that this is what they are being offered. So when Obama travels from London to Paris to Berlin don't show support and get the message out that they don't want any part of the plan.

Nov 10, 12:23am

The policy that Brzezinski has been following is NATO expansion far beyond the plans that had been agreed upon way back in the early 90's. Remember there was an agreement that said that the U.S. would not even go into East Germany, and now we are all the way to Lithuania and Georgia and Ukraine and all these places. This is leading to a Polish missile crisis. Remember the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, that was bad enough. The Polish missile crisis is going to be worse. There are elements in Poland and the Czech Republic and an element in Lithuania, there's a forward tentacle that leads right to Russia's doorstep...it's the ability to carry out a surprise attack to destroy the Russian nuclear internment on the ground and then the second strike of the Russians can somehow be suppressed by these missiles in Poland. This is all a huge step towards WWIII, and its Brzezinski. Another angle that goes with it is the independence of Kosovo, what amounts to a criminal organization, this too is a Brzezinski project. This too is an affront towards Russia. Possibility of war between Russia and Georgia. All of this the policy that is already in affect and Obama is not even president yet. This is all the brainchild of Brzezinski and its being implemented in the U.S.