Break for Humor

With all this dire news of the world economy potentially being crashed on purpose by Iran and the Hojatieh sect of Ahmadi_Nejad, I feel a touch of humor - front and center - is appropriate.

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OPEC ABANDONING THE U.S. DOLLAR AS OIL CURRENCY

OPEC Abandoning U.S. Dollar with potential dire consequences for the USA outlined in the TWO "Chatter Articles" below.

Oil-producing countries have reduced their dollar holdings to the lowest level in two years and shifted oil income into other currencies, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia reduced their dollar holdings from 67 percent in the first quarter to 65 percent in the second quarter.

At the same time, they increased their holdings of euros from 20 percent to 22 percent, the BIS said. They also boosted holdings of the yen and British pound.

Eighteen months ago, the oil-producing countries’ exposure to the dollar was above 70 percent.

"The revelation in the latest BIS quarterly review … confirms market speculation about a move out of dollars and could put new pressure on the ailing U.S. currency," the Financial Times reports.

The BIS, the central bank for the developed world’s central banks, disclosed that OPEC’s dollar deposits fell by $5.3 billion, while euro and yen-denominated deposits rose $2.8 billion and $3.8 billion, respectively.

The last time oil-exporting countries reduced their exposure to the dollar — in late 2003 — it pushed the euro to an all-time high against the dollar.

The BIS noted: "While the data are not comprehensive, they do appear to indicate a modest shift over the quarter in the U.S. dollar share of reporting banks’ liabilities to oil exporting countries."

According to the Times, "the dollar has suffered weakness because of concerns about global imbalances and the future course of the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy.

Note:

Even as the stock market is hitting new record highs almost every day, the Federal Reserve and Treasury Department are quietly coordinating a devaluation of the dollar that the Bush administration hopes will be a slow decline rather than a dollar collapse.

This week, in an unusual move, the Bush administration is sending virtually the entire economic "A-team" to visit China for a "strategic economic dialogue" in Beijing Dec. 14 and 15. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are leading the delegation, along with five other cabinet-level officials, including Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez.

Also in the delegation will be Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, Energy Secretary Sam Bodman, and U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab. The Bush administration wants to get China's cooperation in preventing a dollar collapse.

That's the conclusion of John Williams, an experienced professional econometrician, who writes the "Shadow Government Statistics" blog.

Williams has re-created M3, a money-supply measure whose data the Federal Reserve simply stopped publishing after issuing a technically worded March 2006 announcement.

Williams reports M3 is currently growing at close to a 9.6 percent rate and trending higher, compared with an 8 percent rate early this year, when the Fed quit reporting the measure. "The Fed is pumping liquidity into the U.S. economy," Williams told WND, "and the Fed evidently did not want the markets to follow too closely what the Fed was doing with the money supply."

China today is holding a historically unprecedented $1 trillion in foreign exchange reserves. During the Thanksgiving holiday, an announcement by China that their central bank planned to diversify foreign-exchange holding away from the dollar caused the dollar to drop in value on international currency markets.

Since then, the dollar has hit a 20-month low against the euro.

"This was almost an orchestrated announcement," Williams claimed. "Around Thanksgiving the markets were thinly traded. I'm not sure who was playing games there, but the signal was clearly heard."

"You're dealing with mass psychology here," Williams argued. "The central bankers around the world know they are going to take a hit on their dollar holdings. None of the central bankers want to start a dollar panic, but none of the central bankers want to be the last out of the dollar, either."

Williams explained that the Federal Reserve is in a bind.

"Raising rates would kill any chance of avoiding a recession, but in terms of the dollar, we can't raise the rates fast enough when the dollar starts to slip quickly."

Are we experiencing a dollar collapse? "Not yet," Williams answered.

"I believe we're going to have a dollar collapse, but the Fed is going to do its best to slow play the dollar's decline in value, so that it takes a year or two for the dollar value to reach its low point."

Williams explained the risk of collapse the dollar faces: "There will be a central bank, most probably in Asia, who will start the move away from the dollar and when it happens, you're going to see other central bankers covertly trying to follow.

The move will magnify very quickly and it could become a full-fledged panic and a dollar collapse."

The Fed is struggling right now to contain inflation and stimulate economic growth. All the Fed is doing right now with all their grand policy shifts is using a lot of propaganda and market massaging to try to prevent a financial panic."

Recent reports have shown that U.S. gross domestic product growth slowed to 1.6% in the third quarter, the lowest in more than 3 years.

Will a declining dollar help narrow the U.S. trade deficit with China?

"You could take a 30 percent decline in the value of the dollar," Williams argued, "and it wouldn't make much of a dent in our trade deficit with China, not as long as Bush administration trade policy continues to be one-sided in favor of China."

"The Fed is faced with an impossible circumstance with the trade and budget deficits being run by the Bush administration," Williams told WND, "and they are just playing games with the markets and the public by not publishing M3, the broadest measure of money supply and the best indicator we have of long-term activity."

M3 is the broadest measure of the total money in the economy, including checking and savings accounts, cash, time deposits, and money-market funds.

Economist Milton Friedman, one of the key economists contributing to the conservative theories that led to the development of "Reaganomics," argued that money supply is a key measure correlated both with economic growth and inflation.

Warren Buffet is betting over $10 billion the dollar will crash in 2007- he is right too often for this not to be a strong warning.

Serious CURRENCYChatter 2

View comments and rebuttals in Denial or Disbelief to my first Chatter article.

Islamic Hojatieh mindsets and ill-intentioned misuse of global currency vulnerability are so beyond Western cultures and mental limits, that how people like Ahmadi-Nejad and Ayatollah Taghi Mesbah Yazdi cogitate or their willingness to use currency frailty to sink the world economy, cannot register. Meeting disbelief and denial.

Read prior Chatter article below:

http://noiri.blogspot.com/2006/12/heads-up-serious-chatter.html

Which is why we, in the USA, and Europeans, are unable to come to grips with these "evils". And, so far, are succumbing to their nefarious designs.

Including within the infamous Baker Iraq Group Report , which has so delighted our enemies.

DISBELIEF /DENIAL 1:

There is no way the Iranians are going to crash the US economy. If they do, they crash the world economy and theirs right along with it.

The one thing the world doesn't understand is that in a depression, the US will still survive.

RESPONSE 1:

As if Iran cares if their economy gets destroyed.

You might, the powerless Iranian populace might, the hugely rich, old timer Mullahs with something to lose might but not Ahmadi-Nejad and Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.

I continue to fail to get across that your logic is not the logic of Ahmadi-Nejad and his Hojatieh Moslem sect. They would rejoice in the world crashing and Iran with it.

You have to climb out of your logical reasoning and assessment of NORMAL human emotions and goals. You are not dealing with anything you have ever encountered so it's almost impossible for you and most Americans and even most people in general to get their minds around this.

Pol Pot, (simplistically) killed a couple of million of his countrymen, who wore glasses, because their poor eyesight was an indicator they had read books or studied. And he did not want anyone with knowledge to be around and perhaps confront or challenge his dictatorship.

He is a sane, logical person compared to the Hojatieh sect and their desire for Armageddon and apocalyptic intentions.

The Hojatieh control President Ahmadi-Nejad and are the power looking to take over the "dying" Ali Khamenei throne and they have nukes. Not new ones from their centrifuges yet, but old ones they have had for years. At least four of which are operational on Islamic Regime missiles.

NUKES are not the threat. Unlinking oil from dollars is.

DENIAL/DISBELIEF 2

a) A crash in the dollar would have more impact outside the US than inside it, because the Chinese economy would be crushed, and Europe would notice a decline in higher end auto exports. But anyway, currency fluctuations: Google

Similarly, they will ask the next Democrat president: "are you willing to send the US into depression during your administration? No? We didn't think so."

b) "Wonderful! Goods manufactured in the US will become more marketable."

RESPONSE 2:

I think you are assuming there is or there will be a choice - for the Democrats or any world governments..

The Islamic Iran's Hojatieh aim is not blackmail but eradication and return of the 12th Imam.

All this is so strange to our values and mind sets that we look at it but fail to see it. My effort is to have people truly see what they are seeing.

Yes! They would rather see millions - tens of millions - of Moslems dying of hunger and bringing them closer to their spirtual goal of creating enough death and destruction for their 12th Imam to have reason to return and redeem the world.

That is what the Hojatieh is all about and so inconceivable to you and almost everyone else in the world.

They do not believe in countries, separate economies, they believe in an Islamic caliphate that rules the whole world under one Islamic Sharia law as it was 1,300 years ago, according to the word of Allah as written in the Koran and as spoken by the Prophet Mohammad.

NOTHING else counts or has value. Nor can be an impediment to their holy mission. The Hojatieh label anyone who prevents the global oppression and destruction for which they yearn and strive as a heretic! Now do you get it?

2b) Marketable? Not when the rest of the world has NO money either with which to buy even cheap American goods. Or any goods from anywhere. A dollar crash crashes the rest of the world with it though it may take a few years to sink it worldwide and restructure civilization. Barter will eventually become the sole viable channel of commerce of any kind.

You speak as if of familiar "currency fluctuations" - you should perhaps speak of crashes of demolition derbies as economies crash into each other outside the USA they destroy what's left of ours in the process.

The Chinese are the biggest holders of our outstanding debt and we would not be able to service our debt, not even pay the interest on it, so our own economy would crash.

When there is nobody to whom to export our goods, nor because they ceased to manufacture for lack of cashflow, anyone to sell us goods we need, what do you think happens? To our economy?

You describe a chicken or the egg situation but it is more likely, since the value of the dollar is artificially kept high by being the sole currency with which to buy oil, that if it is unlinked from oil, the crash will arise inside the USA and our crash will bring down everyone else. With China clearly at the forefront.

DISBELIEF / DENIAL 3 QUESTION

"While the dollar is falling, another currency is strengthening, right?"

RESPONSE 3

Only for a very brief period till the falling weight of the dollar drags it down in a crash of its own.

A dollar collapse is so heavy no efforts to support it can succeed. Other currencies will shoot up against the dollar but because global economies are so interwoven, also apart from oil, the collapse becomes like a black hole sucking even other currency into it and also virtually every other economy.

Theoretically final survivors are those who grow their own food, weave their own cloth and can somehow need very little medical care. Barter becomes the final arbitor.

Unfortunately, as one of my friends remarked on this, if you hit people with a sledgehammer of truth and reality - as in this case - fear will make them reject you and the facts behind the premise.

DENIAL/DISBELIEF 4 - QUESTION

1) "They would be willing to create a global bloodbath to achieve their aims?"

"They might not be willing to provoke a bloodbath that would result in the eradication of Islam with the US left standing at the end."

2) "I'm assuming at least some rationality in the sense of them wanting to achieve their objective, rather than victory-less suicide" .

RESPONSE 4

1) If the scenario of the currency change comes to pass in full, there will be parts, often numerous smallish enclaves, of America that survive - in my estimate perhaps one third of the population might get by - but in the long run sink to virtual hunter gatherer levels. (Some interwoven industry may remain on a fairly basic level).

Internal territorial squabbles over food supplies, raids against each other would likely bring us back to the time of the pilgrims and the Wild Wild West. With an underlying technological ability to soften some local, group lives but not on a national scale.

We could be too busy killing each other over food or possessions, somewhat per the gang warfare among Crips and Bloods or mindless, senseless intergang rivalry we read about today.

Which, confess, you barely fathom or feel.

The USA would not survive in the terms you envisage, nor would the Islamic countries spread around the world perish the way you portray or infer.

Most of these are at third world level and have a much greater survivability factor as agricultural rather than agro-Industrial profiles, certainly not fully industrial like the Western world.

Like Ahmadi-Nejad and his tea, cheese and daily stew, they will get by comnfortably with their chickens and ducks. Much as they do now. (Just to encapsulate).

They are far more likely to survive in large numbers than the USA and European populations. Even if their countries sink into chaos and robber barons and tribal chieftains exact tolls and rule certain areas like times of old.

RESPONSE - part 2

You mis-state their objectives, which are not rational - nor were so in the past even to revolution founder Ayatollah Khomeini, who banned the Hojatieh sect that now rules Iran through Ahmadi-Nejad and his mentor Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.

Their prime objective is the return of their Messiah the 12th Imam.

In their minds, to achieve this, they must destroy everything they can - if need be THEMSELVES included - to create enough misery and suffering to get the attention of the 12th Imam and make it worthwile (in their fanatical minds) for him to bother with the world and return to redeem it.

NOTE: His return saves ALL Moslems, so having died is no big deal, and Islam spreads across the planet, so even if the USA were to survive, as you suggest, he would take care of that when he descends and turn everyone into Moslems.

So why would that not be a TOTAL victory in their "unusual" minds?

You describe an objective that has logic and common sense as the basis. They have neither in their mix.

Remember, martyrdom is an honor and a sure path to eternal salvation in paradise. So why worry about being destroyed? Or in context care about destroying their fellow countrymen for the sake of their salvation? Voluntary or involuntary does not enter their minds.

They are on a mission for Allah. What makes you pause to even think they care?

Because Ahmadi-Nejad does not rant and rave while foaming at the mouth on TV? He is not THAT kind of insane. He is the "cold-blooded", determined zealot, type of insane.

This is all so far removed from our culture, except in occasional tiny splinters, mind sets and beliefs that we fail to have a slightest concept of what goes on inside those heads. You almost have to have met them and lived among them. Or among similar ones. Usually small sects in distant parts of the world.

The closest you and most of us can come is to consider cults and our surface knowledge of them. But even then we do so at a distance, as spectators, never able to fathom their deepest thoughts and motivations.

You cannot do so using your Western mind - unless you can perform a wrenching shift from normal human patterns to those of an unfamiliar type of zealot you have never encountered and whom, until August 2005, you had no chance to observe, nor ever even heard about.

Anyone reading this has to shift mental gears when trying to assess what we face. For most of us it is beyond the range of our radar.

DISBELIEF/DENIAL 5

It's all about Iranian desire to reduce the buying power of the US dollar by demanding all buyers pay in Euros dollars. And this is but one small portion of the world's trade.

If all nations that export oil/gas along with OPEC decided to switch to Euro dollars as their means of payment then it would be a different story.

And if countries, as well as the private sector who purchase oil/gas and must use US dollars as their main means of payment for Iranian oil, tell Iran they will not go along with the deal then Iran is in a deep hole.

What I do see is their using it as a carrot/bribe to convince the European nations to not side with the US as far as economical sanctions go.

Will the Russians, Chinese, South and Central Americans, Canada, exporting European nations (oil), Far East, Pacific Rim countries (all who export oil) go along with the Iranian wish to not accept US dollars in oil sales?

Iran can only push this stupidity so far. And surely growing numbers of the core Mullahs in Iran are becoming quite disenchanted with the policy changes of a few. I do believe Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad and his promoters are going to find themselves out on the streets begging in the near future.

Along with his purging of old school Mullahs and other things like his demand to restructure where Iran keeps it's holdings etc., with of course his immediate master's approvals, he must be seen as a threat to the majority of Iranian of influence that do not go along with his mystical visions.

I believe we shall see him get the boot in the near future.

RESPONSE 5

There is such a demand for oil - artificial or otherwise - that removing Iran's production from the market will jeopardize the price and supply. Though I will note that not too long ago Iran had a whole lot of unsold oil - buyers were trying to teach them a lesson - so they had to store in oil tankers at huge cost.

Unfortunately, the West cannot "control" Iran and its forthcoming Oil Exchange (Bourse) it is starting, because China, India and many of the former Soviet states, some with borders to Iran, require the oil and natural gas.

They will be happy to pay in other currrency, even more so to barter and with Iran still the second or third biggest producer, withdrawal of that quantity from the normal market and available only through Iran's new "Bourse" will bypass any efforts to resist a currency change.

Specially as initially, till everything hits the fan, oil prducing countries that follow suit will make more money for their oil by selling in Euros. So they will not cooperate willingly with the West and Venezuela, possibly Nigeria and even Russia may add weight to the currency change.

Ex-KGB Putin would not mind making more money at the pleasant cost of seeing the USA go under.

Russia is one those economies that could survive since it has little trade with the USA, imports/exports comparatively little even from Europe, and can manufacture most of its needs (quality aside) from domestic capabilites and mining. For Russia, the dollar crash could be the rise of the Russian Empire.

Also the Russian populace still has an ingrained submissiveness of the Communist era and much lower living standards,so might not rise up as would most European or Western countries against their governments. Futile though these actions might be since no government strongly involved in the global marketplace will have the resources to avoid or repair the crash of the dollar.

DENIAL/DISBELIEF 6

I believe Iran at best is rated fourth largest exporter of crude oil.

As for your comments on the Russians. No problem whatsoever. (??)

One thing we have to consider is not all the OPEC countries will like what Iran is up to. The Saudis, and the other countries on the Arabian peninsula as well as Canada are not going to screw the US. Same goes for the African countries.

Will Malaysia, Indonesia, and others in the Pacific go along with Iran.Iran is one of some fifty plus countries that drill and export crud oil. And this will not be the first time the US dollar fluctuates.

It has many times before and recovered. Our Economy is not dependent on Iranian crude, nor what the Iranians do with their money. They are a little fish in the world economy. I do not see how Iran is going to break the back of the US econonmy.

We continue exporting huge amounts of raw materials and finished goods world wide, as well as using things we grow, build and design, manufacture internally.

Iran if anything is a very fragile country. They have little to offer other then their oil/gas, rugs, specialty fruit/nuts.We can break them long before they can break us.

However. If, all the countries you mention as well as a number more were to go along with their demand, then yes, we will see the dollar drop. I have no problem with that. But again. This has happened many times before within other senarios. And the US economy did not cave in, only weaken to yet again gain strength.

Too many variables are not being considered in this equation. Iran is but one element in how US dollars are used around the world.

RESPONSE 6

Once again it is NOT oil but currency that can/will sink us.

This shift will crash the dollar and in very a short time crash every other currency in the world. So who will buy our goods - as you state?

Every Arab country, on the Peninsula or not, even with the best intentions, cannot oppose a nuclear Iran. The risk of being attacked, even with conventional weapons by an almost one million man military and paramilitary force available to Iran, with enough fairly decent equipment and armor, gives all the Persian Gulf countries pause, let alone if they suddenly have a nuclear aggressor.

Yes, the Asian countries, generally Moslem or with huge Moslem sectors in their populations will definitely back Iran's position - not the USA - specially if we back down in Iraq and the region as per the Baker proposals.

You are confusing a dollar "fluctuation" with a total and irreversible dollar crash. A probable drop in the region of 40% (according to far more knowledgeable economists than I could ever be) in a matter of weeks or at best months. That size of "fluctuation" is like a nose dive of an aircraft from which it cannot pull out.

Again, you miss the point. This has nothing to do with Iran's participation in our economy, nor even within the world at large. It is what the little fish can do to the dollar - and it only takes a little fish to ruin it - which will do the damage as described.

You mention "We continue exporting huge amounts of raw materials and finished goods world wide, as well as using things we grow, build and design, manufacture internally."

Some of the "Internal" part will help one third of our nation survive. Forget the export part. NO other country will have money to buy our exports or import anything from anywhere - not too long after a dollar crash. And the consequent crash of their own money.

It does not take all or many other countries for this to occur. Do read the "Oil Story Revisited" on http://www.antimullah.com/ and click on the Archive Details link in the left hand column to find the Permalink. More details are given there, so I do not wish to reinvent the wheel.

And no, this has NEVER happened before, so that's a false element in your view of things and Iran does not have to be anything more than the little fish it is - as you describe it - to wreak the havoc described.

Somewhat like the tiny, invisibly transparent box jellyfish, less than a half inch across, found in Australia, whose tiny tentacle venom can kill a human quite easily. Or cause excrutiating pain for quite a long period of time if it fails to terminate you.

That's Iran's role in this scenario. It's all it takes.

FINAL COMMENT

Oh, please! For as long as the world has been in existence, there have been worry worts who could not seem to go a day without predicting some sort of inevitable doom. Of course, if you are consistent and predict gloom and doom constantly, then eventually you may be partially right.

When I hear all this, it sounds so familiar to the same crud I have heard all my life. First thing I remember was the fear of a nuclear war with Russia. Then it moved into deficits and debt. Then terrorism. Now it is currency. It is always going to be something. And eventually, sure, something at some time will cause some economic catastrophe.

You say there are experts much smarter than you that agree with you. But I contend that there are plenty of experts much smarter than you that disagree. No one can predict the future.

Anyone who tells you different is selling something.

FINAL RESPONSE:

Are you telling me that the Soviets were never a threat to the USA or Europe? Their nukes were not poised at us? Ever?

These threats failed to happen because some people changed the path sufficiently to dodge the bullet. Like Reagan and the Soviets. (And the Soviets at their and Carter's worst were logical compared to today's Islamic Iran, so don't equate the threats).

The Soviets may falsely appear to have had greater destructive power because of their huge nuclear capability. The currency threat was not even on the horizon until the suicidal Islamic groups, in the form of suicidal countries like Islamic Iran, instead of individual suicide bombers, came into power.

Hamas and Hezbollah verge on this "me too, martyrdom" scene.

Had Carter won a second term, the deficits you mention with disdain would have happened the way the "gloomers" stated. Luckily someone else won. Happened to be Reagan, who also deflected the nukes events from the Soviets.

You and I have had the good fortune, sporadically, to have had some people in power who took action against these "doom and gloom scenarios" and made them go away or alleviated them.

Kennedy and Cuban missiles for instance. Or was that, too, just crying wolf? It wasn't and would have had dire consequences.

Does this mean the doom and gloom, like the warning I am shouting out as loudly as I can, is and was invalid?

It needs action to remove it. I believe it is past the point of deflection to get our from under.

What's horrific now is that we have the most insane finger on the "destroy the world" button since Hitler, facing not Reagan but the most absolutely anti-American, appeasist group of Democrats ever, like Pelosi, Leahy etc., who will self-destruct the USA to get Bush.

Like burning down your barn to get the rats. (Pun in there somewhere?)

You, like so many of us, have lived through good and bad times, where the bad has been "softened" to where it has been bearable. Only just making it in the 1930's.

So you argue optimistically, based on good luck and some power plays by men like Bush - like going into Iraq and preventing oil disconnecting from the dollar to some other form of payment. Doesn't matter what that is as long as it is no longer the Dollar.

For the first time in my fairly long life, given the prevailing factors, I no longer believe we can achieve this with the givens we face.

Which we have NEVER had to face before. And around which we totally fail to wrap our minds.

Your optimism is laudable and a brave positive aspect of America but there is a time and place where whistling in the dark no longer suffices and we are not walking past a cemetary but past a bunch of lunatic assassins ready, willing and sadly now able to pounce and slit our throats.

Right now the only viable pragmatic option, horrible as it may appear to be, is to do what is outlined in "Iran, Final Justified Solution" on http://noiri.blogspot.com/2006/08/iran-justified-final-solution.html

But first we have to realize the extent of what we face - with only Hitler as a "prior" and long since forgotten indicator. And dig deep to find the resolve to do what needs to be done.

The world is currently in a similar state to a patient with fairly advanced cancer, which the doctors either failed to spot or for which they have avoided performing badly needed surgery.

They have interminable second, third and thousandth opinions (UN Resolution Drafts) to avoid doing what MUST be done.

The result? Eventually send the patient home to die as the cancer will no longer be operable or thepatient dies due to their indecision and neglect. You and I and every other American - and millions of other nationals around the world - are the patient.

END COMMENT : Gloom is real. Doom is real. Both have been in abundance and history's landscape is littered with occurences. Nukes are real. Terrorism is real. Deficits are real. Debt is real. Currency is real. Threats are real. However, I do not agree with you that current monetary trends portend a terrible fate for our civilization.

Alan replies: That's your American privilege and a respected if perhaps daffy one. :-))

The "Ahmadi Code" - What a Blast

How Cox & Forkum entered Islamic Iran's Cartoon contest using Ahmadi-Nejad's likeness.

Click on the title to go to their site and read the story.

Later today I will complete "Serious Chatter 2" below.

HEADS UP - SERIOUS CHATTER

SERIOUS CHATTER INDICATES SOME HEAVY DUTY EVENTS ARE ABOUT TO TAKE PLACE IN OR RELATIVE TO IRAN.

Far bigger activity than Human Rights student demonstrations scheduled for Iran today. More when I get clearer details but it appears some serious political activity or plan has come into play.

By the way, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has colon cancer, is reportedly hospitalized with serious heart problems. And may not survive.

Or is this just a ploy for next week's elections of the Council of Experts - to gain sympathy from a body that elects the Supreme Ruler and can replace him through choosing someone else?

ALSO look at News Round-ups for updated short news posts by the weekend.

As a side bar, note Iran has virtually stopped accepting Dollars for oil payments being made to it. This unlinking of the dollar from oil can create a worldwide disaster as the Dollar loses its underpinning - oil.

NOTE: the Dollar has already lost strength against other currencies in the past couple of weeks.

Central Banks would begin to lighten their Dollar holdings to minimize their losses as the value of the dollar declines, putting ever more pressure on the Dollar.

Even creating a run on it, similar to a run on a bank which becomes insolvent and depositors rushing to withdraw their money. Destabilizing the bank even further.

The downward spiral of the Dollar will soon drag down other currencies. One of the reasons we went into Iraq was to prevent this slippery slope. Russia, Saddam Hussein and a couple of other countries like Nigeria had put selling their oil mostly in Euros on the table.

Had OPEC been allowed to follow suit, the whole world, not just the USA would have suffered inconceivable economical dislocation.

Go to "Oil Story Revisited" via the Archive Details link in the left hand column. Far more dangerous than nuclear weapons, if the dollar crashes - and under some circumstances it will be hard, or impossible, to prevent this. The world economy crashes with it.

Because there was some vestige of sanity in the old Iranian Mullah leadership, till about a year ago, when Ahmadi-Nejad was "selected" President, mostly to protect their own enormous wealth, the Mullahs were careful not to destabilize the value of the Dollar.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who was a destitute cleric at the time of the 1979 Khomeini revolution, fairly recently moved some two BILLION Dollars of personal assets from various holdings around the world into a couple of Moslem Asian countries like Malaysia, Brunei and also Singapore. (Ahmadi-Nejad - on behalf of Iran, emptied Swiss bank vaults of gold bullion owned by Iran at around the same time).

Khamenei used to live in a two room dwelling in the poorest part of town feeding himself and his family through sporadic, tiny, charitable donations in the city of Mash'had in North-East Iran.

His only income came from joining (unsolicited) a multiple of other insignificant clerics at burials, following the casket or shroud to the grave and singing "dirges" hoping to receive a tip from the family and mourners. Were it not "religious" we would rightly term it begging.

By contrast, Ahmadi-Nejad, also coming from an impoverished family has lived frugally all his life, owns little or nothing and cannot imagine not being able to supply himself with the unleavened bread and Fetta cheese, tea and daily stew on which he lives. World crash or no world crash.

Interestingly, when "ayatollah" Khamenei was an indigent cleric, he was asked his philosophy about how he might operate were he to wake up and find himself the most powerful man in Iran. The allegory used was "find himself in the shoes of the Shah".

After protests he could not imagine himself in such a high position, he stated he would take the wealth of the nation and distribute it all among the populace, specially the poor, so nobody would have to face the misery and poverty he was enduring.

Look at the misery, torture, imprisonment and poverty he has inflicted since then on his erstwhile (beloved??) fellow citizens.

He showed the same mentality and ignorance of fiscal and economical requirements that Khomeini did when he arrived on scene in 1979. Both these ignorant clerics could recite the Koran but in all other subjects knew next to nothing - and I am not exaggerating. They resemble students who go to school forever but only study one subject - philosophy - to the exclusion of everything else.

Shortly after his return, Khomeini responded to a question about Iran's forthcoming budget, with "I have it on a piece of paper in my pocket!" Referring to what required several thick volumes (just as indexes) and suitcases in which to carry them to the Majliss (parliament) for ratification.

By the way, the self-righteous Ahmadi-Nejad, apparently is not as righteous as he pretends, reportedly passing sizeable contracts to his brother while mayor of Tehran and according to some sources lining his own pockets.

And the pockets of the representative of the Hojatieh spiritual leader, Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, attached his personal office/secretariat and "keeper of the gate" without whose approval nobody gets to see Ahmadi-Nejad. Not even his own staff or Cabinet Ministers.

Putting all this into perspective, Ahmadi-Nejad has suddenly ratcheted up his threats to cover the whole Western civilization, not just Israel, disappearing from the face of the earth. He only has a half dozen nukes, so he is certainly referring to his oil/currency disruptive capability.

A far deadlier weapon than the subject of nuclear weapons, which has kept focus off the radar screen of the news media, tactical and strategic analysts, intel assessments and those in power.

Hopefully, the new Democrat Congress will get over their myopic Bush bashing and rise to the occasion and literally help save the world. If they wish to be around long enough to enjoy their win. Not politicially but in real life as millions of Americans lose jobs, incomes etc., which even the US government cannot help overcome with Welfare or soup kitchens.

This applies in Spades to the European Union that still has its head stuck deep in the sand, pretending it cannot happen, when it certainly will. Unless stopped just as drastically as the drastic consequences of not doing so.

Hitler will have been a walk in the park compared to what we are about to receive.

I ask this question of all readers: better destroy 400,000 Revolutionary Guards and all of their equipment (simply burying the entrances to nuclear facilities will suffice for now on that aspect), perhaps inflict somewhere in the region of 40,000 civilian deaths as collateral damage and thus open the way for a suddenly freed populace to rise up and destroy the Mullahs - or play nice and civilized (they do not) and suffer tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of casualties around the globe, in death and suffering when the global economy crashes?

Inconceivable? Not if you follow the dotted lines and know your global economy and how fragile it really is. There is not enough money in the world to buy up suddenly available dollars to bolster the currency, even if every Central Bank decided to do that instead of divesting itself out of self-preservation.

Think carefully about being goody-goody two shoes in this clash of cultures led by an Islamic nutcase.

By-pass Islamic Iran Internet Filters

Pass this on to friends and contacts with communication into/from Iran. Or other restrictive countries.

Also posted on www.RegimeChangeIran.com

http://psiphon.civisec.org/

The software is downloaded onto a computer in an uncensored country; this becomes the host computer.

The host owner then gives the login and password to a trusted friend, family member, or colleague in a censored country.

This individual can then use the host computer as a proxy to search the net, censor-free.

In a promotional presentation, all you can see on the video clip is a laptop computer and a man's hands. He goes to Google and enters a search: "women's issues." When he clicks on the resulting links, though, every site is blocked.

He is in Iran, one of more than 40 countries that filter the Internet in some way, and one of 12 that have a pervasive filtration system that blocks content.

Now he logs onto a program labeled Psiphon and tries the Google search again. This time the results are in the tens of thousands.
"Thank you, guys," he says.

The 25-second clip plays on the laptop of Ronald Deibert, director of the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, the birthplace of Psiphon, which officially launches tomorrow.

Combining a passion for human rights and technology, Prof. Deibert and Citizen Lab members have spent more than two years developing a program to help tunnel through walls of Internet censorship.

Looking over Prof. Deibert's shoulder is lead software developer Michael Hull. "The best thing," he says, "is hearing that guy say thank you."

Psiphon started as a small side project for Prof. Deibert, who teaches political science at U of T, several years ago and blossomed into a full-time job when the lab was granted $3-million (U.S.) from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation last January.

With this financial boost, the team, tucked away in a small basement lab, dedicated itself to perfecting Psiphon.

The software is downloaded onto a computer in an uncensored country; this becomes the host computer. The host owner then gives the login and password to a trusted friend, family member, or colleague in a censored country. This individual can then use the host computer as a proxy to search the net, censor-free.

"You are essentially loaning someone your computer," Prof. Deibert said.

The most important detail is that codes are encrypted and enter users' machines via a port otherwise used for the transfer of financial data -- port 443.

"It looks for all intents and purposes like a financial transaction," Prof. Deibert said.

With his team of three programmers, a graphic designer and a research technician, he has spent the past four months testing the software for glitches.

"We've been addressing some of the issues of usability," Prof. Deibert said. "People now are not only able to access information but will be able to post comments, like on blogs."

The Citizen Lab, along with partners at Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard universities, is part of the OpenNet Initiative, which documents Internet censorship.

Psiphon is by no means the first effort to evade censorship online. One widely used system is called Tor, which uses host computers that can be accessed on the Web.

Tor's flaw is that it is easy to block, says Andrew Lih, a former Hong Kong University professor who specializes in issues of censorship and new-media technology in China. But so far China has decided not to do so.

Psiphon is hard to block because it piggybacks on existing streams of financial data, but Mr. Lih is not completely convinced.

"Citizen Lab folks are smart, so they may have found some nice ways to make it more seamless, but nonetheless, it is still a challenge to find folks you trust to host it," he said.

There are an estimated 110 million Internet users in China.

In Iran estimates range from less than a million to somewhere in the region of five million. Unfortunately the figures count the myriad government organizations that have easy access and tens ofthousands who use the Internet socially to interact with each other as "dating" is forbidden by the Islamic regime, so Internet communication serves as a "replacement" option where boys and girls can discuss music, poetry, exchange jokes and so on without having to risk arrest and 80 lashes (if the are lucky and do not also get raped, tortured or end up dead while in custody).

That exceedingly large China base prompted the popular search engine Google to agree this past January to self-censor its operation in that country.

Save Kosovo from Islam Take Over and Help Save Yourselves

While we all dwell on Al Qaeda and the Taleban in their conventional apperance, we lose sight fo the white Al Qaeda and Islamic life and death tug of war between Christianity and Islam in Eastern Europe.

The Islamic "religion of peace" once again resorts to violence to impose religion and Sharia laws on non-Moslems.

Remember ll this is happending in EUROPE. Not African Sudan or some other remote locations far from where you live.

http://www.savekosovo.org/


Editorial comment from the American Council for Kosovo:

As expected and feared, violence has erupted in Kosovo following the November announcement delaying a future status for the Serbian province, as Muslim Albanians demanded the international community appease their demands regarding Kosovo's future status.

Following recent prognostications in western media op-eds published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times warning of such violence should the original end-of-2006 artificial deadline for an imposed solution on Serbia not be met, thousands of enraged Muslim Albanians attacked U.N. headquarters in Pristina.

The American Council for Kosovo has warned for months that Kosovo’s Muslim Albanian population uses violence and intimidation in its push for independence.

Reuters correspondent Matt Robinson reported on November 28:

U.N. police in Kosovo fired teargas on Tuesday to disperse ethnic Albanians who smashed the windows of parliament and stoned U.N. headquarters, angry at a delay to their demand for independence from Serbia.

Thousands of protesters converged on the main symbols of authority in the capital, Pristina, throwing red paint on the buildings of the U.N. mission and Kosovo's interim government.

They dispersed after U.N. police fired teargas from inside the U.N. compound, a fortified square on the site of a former Serb military headquarters. It was the first sign of a violent backlash since Western powers and Russia this month decided to delay a U.N. decision on the Albanian majority's demand for independence until next year.

Balkan expert Tim Judah stated: "There is a real potential for renewed violence in Kosovo. If there is a delay or if the resolution is unclear, (Kosovo) Albanian hard-liners will start to lose patience."

Since the United Nations and NATO began the international administration of Kosovo in 1999, similar Muslim Albanian violence has resulted in the displacement of hundreds of thousands of non-Albanians, the destruction and desecration of hundreds of Serbian Orthodox churches and the deaths of thousands of non-Albanians.

Columnist Christopher Deliso also reported on the rise of jihad terrorism in the Serbian province and the international community’s failure to prevent it.

As one disenchanted UNMIK official put it, "These high UN staffers don't want to endanger their next international posting by taking on the criminals and terrorists, and above all they can't admit that the mission has been a huge failure and created a new base for Islamic terrorists. The outside world is not told of what they are bringing on here."


Thousands of Muslim Albanian protesters demonstrating against the UN-led process to decide the future status of the Serbian province smashed windows and threw paint on the Kosovo parliament and government building during a march through the capital after the protest turned violent.

An increasing number of European nations have voiced reservation in imposing a solution on Serbia which would result in Kosovo independence.

Contact group nations, France, Germany and Italy are also wavering over an imposed settlement, say some diplomats. In addition, Greece, Romania, and Spain have clearly stated their opposition to Kosovo independence.

Spain is opposed to the UN suggested independence of the Serbian province of Kosovo, the Spanish information agency EFE reports.

Tanjug news agency also reported on Spain’s opposition to Kosovo independence on November 14, writing: The position of Spain is very interesting for Serbia, since Spanish State Secretary for the European Union Alberto Navarro stated clearly that Spain cannot support any form of Kosovo independence because in doing so it would violate international law, especially the Helsinki Final Act.

Tanjug also reported on Greece’s and Romania’s opposition to independence: This opinion was supported by Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis and Romanian Foreign Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu. There are also more EU countries that have a negative attitude on the possible independence of Kosovo.

According to a November 26 B92 news report: “Romania favors broad autonomy for Kosovo, agreed on through a direct dialogue of Priština and Belgrade. In case of an unprecedented decision to grant Kosovo independence, other separatist regions throughout Europe would see this as encouragement to continue with their demands“, ambassador Ion Macovei said today in Bor, where he attended a meeting of the Vlach Democratic Party of Serbia.

Sweden also has called for a compromise solution, according to a November 16 Associated Press report: Sweden's foreign minister said Thursday that a solution for Kosovo needs to be "stable and sustainable" and he urged Serbia's leadership to seek a compromise in international talks on the future of the separatist region… "A stable and sustainable solution must be found, otherwise a lack (of solution) can drag down both Serbia and Kosovo," Bildt said after the meetings.

Russia continues its principled stand opposing Kosovo independence, despite Kosovo so-called “prime minister” Agim Ceku’s desperate lobbying efforts in Moscow.

Russian Duma Deputy Sergei Shishkarev responded to a Washington Post op-ed, which warned of Muslim Albanian violence should further delays regarding Kosovo independence occur, writing: It is ironic that The Post accuses the Putin administration of a policy based on threats and violence, when it is in fact precisely threats and violence that underlie the demand for Kosovo independence.

(Or as it is euphemistically phrased in the editorial, "Putting off Kosovo's independence would only enrage the province's 2 million Albanians and trigger the Balkan meltdown that the West hopes to avoid.") It is just that kind of violent rage that has driven from Kosovo two-thirds of the province's pre-war Serbian population (and many people in other ethnic groups) and destroyed some 150 Orthodox Christian churches and monasteries.

Rewarding such behavior with an imposed solution would only encourage more of the same and lead to a meltdown all parties hope to avoid. The Russian government properly insists that the future of Kosovo can only be decided through negotiation and adopted in a manner consistent with the U.N. Charter and the Helsinki Final Act.

This is not a cynical ploy, as The Post supposes, but the principled position of a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council.

Following Agim Ceku’s November 30 lobbying campaign in Moscow, RIA Novosti reported: A senior Russian lawmaker on Thursday cautioned Serbia's predominantly Albanian province of Kosovo against unilaterally declaring its independence.

Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the international affairs committee in Russia's lower house of parliament, said, "The determination of Kosovo's status, as long as the province does not commit itself to human rights standards and is seeking sovereignty unilaterally rather than through negotiations, creates a highly dangerous precedent and runs counter to Europe's postwar order."

Speaking after a meeting with Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku in Moscow, the Russian MP said the underlying principle of the European order established after WWII is the inadmissibility of changing state borders unless all involved parties give their consent. Mosnews reported: Kosachyov said after the meeting that Russian MPs had told Ceku that the issue of Kosovo’s status should be solved through talks between Belgrade and Pristina…

“We are again calling on Pristina to talk with Belgrade. As far as we know, Serbia is ready to grant the broadest possible status to Kosovo, given Serbia’s territorial integrity is maintained,” the agency quoted the Russian official as saying.

Meanwhile, Muslim Albanian violence against non-Albanians continues undeterred. (Alan note: in keeping with the reachings of the Islamic "religion of peace"? Just as Islamic terrorists are doing elsewhere? Does what follows sound a bit like Iraq or Taleban methods - by definition if not actual number of deaths or injuries?)

Tanjug news agency reported on November 20: A group of ethnic Albanians on Monday stoned a schoolbus with Serb and Roma children in central Obilic that was on its way to Plemetina, Obilic coordinator Mirce Jakovljevic has told Tanjug…

"After today's developments, the schoolchildren decided not to attend classes anymore until the police provide an escort. This incident is proof more that the basic standards have not been realized in Kosovo and Metohija, despite attempts by the ethnic Albanians to convince the international community to the contrary," Jakovljevic set out.

Targeting Serbian children for violence has continued. A grenade attack on a Serbian school shook an elementary school in the breakaway province of Kosovo early Tuesday, minutes after the classroom was cleared of children, an official said.

No one was reported injured in the blast, which police believe was caused by a hand grenade being put in a stove.

The Kosovo Serb school, in the village of Ropotovo, in eastern Kosovo, was damaged, police said. On November 9, B92 reported: In the village of Letnica, near Kosovska Vitina (in Kosovo), at about 8 a.m. this morning, unknown attackers have wounded Milorad Sopic (a Serb) by shooting him in the head.

Sopic was wounded while preparing food for his cattle in his backyard, reports KIM radio. He was taken to the Vrbnica ambulance, and then to the hospital in Vranje (southern Serbia). He was conscious. One of the bullets is thought to be inside his head. He stated that he heard 3 shotgun shots, of which one hit him. He is one of 4 Serbs who live in Letnica.

In addition to continued violence against non-Albanians, Muslim Albanians continue targeting Serbian Orthodox churches with zeal, according to a November 14 Tanjug report: Unknown perpetrators have demolished the Church of St. Paraskeva in the village of Gojbulja, municipality Vucitrn in northern Kosovo, archpriest Bogomir Stevic told Tanjug on Tuesday… Regional UNMIK police spokesman Larry Miller said on Tueday that the Serbian Orthodox Church of St Paraskeva in the village of Gojbulja near Vucitrn had been desecrated.

(Alan note: imagine if Christians were to be even close enough to be implicated in similarly damaging activity, desecrating Moslem mosques or harming Islamists? The outcry, remonstrations, demostrations, condemnation by the UN and a spate of revenge killings and suicide bombers would follow and leave us all bewildered.

Yet if the Islamists do it to others - that's fine?!!! That's what they do? That's allowed for them but not for the rest of the world?

Again, remember this is in Europe.

In a future article I shall post the "no go zones" of Paris where Moslems have made it too dangerous for French police or firefighters to go - even if protecting the lives of the very Moslems that violently threaten them.

The war in Iraq has been incrasingly called a civil war - despite outside terrorist forces - no I do not mean the coalition troops - but Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Al Qaeda being deeply involved, thus negating the term of civil war, which indicates internal fighting among citizens of a country.

In reality, Iraq is just a battlefield of a global war of Islam striving to dominate and remove all other beliefs. Not by peace but in pieces of body parts of anyone who dares oppose them.

The mosaic of this struggle resembles a body rash that afflicts the globe and spreads as if over a person and as the patches of putrid disfigurement join and become more septic, they end up killing the body. Which is you and any any non-Moslem. Actually even some Moslems labelled as being insufficiently Moslem.