Beast System: Laying The Foundation Of The Beast

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US drones shot down outside Iran airspace: army

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TEHRAN — Iran shot down two US navy drones outside its airspace in the Gulf, ILNA news agency quoting a top military commander as saying on Sunday.

The head of Guards' air force, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said on January 2 that his forces had shot down two drones after they "violated" Iranian territory.

But on Sunday, General Gholam Ali Rashid, the deputy chief of staff of Iran's armed forces, said the unmanned aircraft were shot down outside the airspace of the Islamic republic.

"We have to say that these planes were shot down outside Iran's airspace, which means outside our FIR (Flight Information Region), in the Persian Gulf by the air force of the Sepah (Guards)," Rashid said.

He did not explain why the Guards struck at the drones outside Iran's airspace.

Soon after the initial report from Hajizadeh, Western media quoted US officials as rejecting the statement.

But on Saturday, the commander of the Guards' naval forces, Ali Fadavi, said the drones would be put on public display, saying the two unmanned vehicles were "among the most modern US navy drones" and had a long-range capability.

The US navy's Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain, just across Gulf waters from Iran.

The US military and Central Intelligence Agency regularly use drones to launch missile strikes in Afghanistan and in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt, but do not generally confirm attacks.

Iranian commanders have repeatedly threatened to block navigation through the strategic Strait of Hormuz, which links the Gulf to the Indian Ocean, if the Islamic republic comes under attack.

Forty percent of the world's oil supplies passes through the strait.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, target of a series of US sanctions, was set up as a force to defend the 1979 Islamic revolution from internal and external threats.

Washington has targeted the Guards with sanctions in a bid to hike pressure on Tehran over a controversial nuclear programme which Iran says is entirely peaceful but which world powers suspect is aimed at building an atomic bomb.
 

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Record $14 trillion-plus debt weighs on Congress


WASHINGTON – The United States just passed a dubious milestone: Government debt surged to an all-time high, topping $14 trillion — $45,300 for each and everyone in the country.

That means Congress soon will have to lift the legal debt limit to give the nearly maxed-out government an even higher credit limit or dramatically cut spending to stay within the current cap. Either way, a fight is ahead on Capitol Hill, inflamed by the passions of tea party activists and deficit hawks.

Already, both sides are blaming each other for an approaching economic train wreck as Washington wrestles over how to keep the government in business and avoid default on global financial obligations.

Bills increasing the debt limit are among the most unpopular to come before Congress, serving as pawns for decades in high-stakes bargaining games. Every time until now, the ending has been the same: We go to the brink before raising the ceiling.

All bets may be off, however, in this charged political environment, despite some signs the partisan rhetoric is softening after the Arizona shootings.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says failure to increase borrowing authority would be "a catastrophe," perhaps rivaling the financial meltdown of 2008-2009.

Congressional Republicans, flexing muscle after November's victories, say the election results show that people are weary of big government and deficit spending, and that it's time to draw the line against more borrowing.

Defeating a new debt limit increase has become a priority for the tea party movement and other small-government conservatives.

So far, the new GOP majority has proved accommodating. Republicans are moving to make good on their promise to cut $100 billion from domestic spending this year. They adopted a rules change by House Speaker John Boehner that should make it easier to block a debt-limit increase.

The national debt is the accumulation of years of deficit spending going back to the days of George Washington. The debt usually advances in times of war and retreats in peace.

Remarkably, nearly half of today's national debt was run up in just the past six years. It soared from $7.6 trillion in January 2005 as President George W. Bush began his second term to $10.6 trillion the day Obama was inaugurated and to $14.02 trillion now. The period has seen two major wars and the deepest economic downturn since the 1930s.

With a $1.7 trillion deficit in budget year 2010 alone, and the government on track to spend $1.3 trillion more this year than it takes in, annual budget deficits are adding roughly $4 billion a day to the national debt. Put another way, the government is borrowing 41 cents for every dollar it spends.

In a letter to Congress, Geithner said the current statutory debt ceiling of $14.3 trillion, set just last year, may be reached by the end of March — and hit no later than May 16. He warned that holding it hostage to skirmishes over spending could lead the country to default on its obligations, "an event that has no precedent in American history."

Debt-level brinkmanship doesn't wear a party label.

Here's what then-Sen. Barack Obama said on the Senate floor in 2006: "The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. government can't pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance the government's reckless fiscal policies."

It was a blast by the freshman lawmaker against a Bush request to raise the debt limit to $8.96 trillion.

Bush won on a 52-48 party-line vote. Not a single Senate Democrat voted to raise the limit, opposition that's now complicating White House efforts to rally bipartisan support for a higher ceiling.

Democrats have use doomsday rhetoric about a looming government shutdown and comparing the U.S. plight to financial crises in Greece and Portugal. It's all a bit of a stretch.

"We can't do as the Gingrich crowd did a few years ago, close the government," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., referring to government shutdowns in 1995 when Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich was House speaker.

But those shutdowns had nothing to do with the debt limit. They were caused by failure of Congress to appropriate funds to keep federal agencies running.

And there are many temporary ways around the debt limit.

Hitting it does not automatically mean a default on existing debt. It only stops the government from new borrowing, forcing it to rely on other ways to finance its activities.

In a 1995 debt-limit crisis, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin borrowed $60 billion from federal pension funds to keep the government going. It wasn't popular, but it helped get the job done. A decade earlier, James Baker, President Ronald Reagan's treasury secretary, delayed payments to the Civil Service and Social Security trust funds and used other bookkeeping tricks to keep money in the federal till.

Baker and Rubin "found money in pockets no one knew existed before," said former congressional budget analyst Stanley Collender.

Collender, author of "Guide to the Federal Budget," cites a slew of other things the government can do to delay a crisis. They include leasing out government-owned properties, "the federal equivalent of renting out a room in your home," or slowing down payments to government contractors.

Now partner-director of Qorvis Communications, a Washington consulting firm, Collender said such stopgap measures buy the White House time to resist GOP pressure for concessions.

"My guess is they can go months after the debt ceiling is not raised and still be able to come up with the cash they need. But at some point, it will catch up," and raising the debt limit will become an imperative, he suggested.

Republican leaders seem to acknowledge as much, but first want to force big concessions. "Do I want to see this nation default? No. But I want to make sure we get substantial spending cuts and controls in exchange for raising the debt ceiling," said the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Clearly, the tea party types in Congress will be given an up-and-down vote on raising the debt limit before any final deal is struck, even if the measure ultimately passes.

"At some point you run out of accounting gimmicks and resources. Eventually the government is going to have to start shutting down certain operations," said Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics.

"If we get into a heated, protracted debate over the debt ceiling, global investors are going to grow nervous, and start driving up interest rates. It will all become negatively self-re-enforcing," said Zandi. "No good will come of it."

The overall national debt rose above $14 trillion for the first time the last week in December. The part subject to the debt limit stood at $13.95 trillion on Friday and was expected to break above $14 trillion within days.
 

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Third of young Japanese men not interested in sex

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Japan's birth rate stands at 1.21 per family, far below the rate of 2.08 babies that is required for a stable population.

As of March 2009, Japan's total population stood at just over 127 million, but that figure is projected to decline to 95 million by 2050. And if more drastic measures fail to encourage people to have sex - and hence children - then there will be a mere 47.7 million Japanese at the turn of the next century.

According to the survey of 671 men and 869 women, issued by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 35.1 per cent of men aged 16 to 19 said they are not interested in or averse to sex, more than double the 17.5 per cent of men in the previous study in 2008.

"Obviously, the most important reason for Japan's declining birth rate is that people are not having sex," Dr. Kunio Kitamura, head of the Japan Family Planning Association, told The Daily Telegraph.

"Combined with the rising number of elderly people, this population imbalance is a major problem," he said.

Equally worrying, he said, is the increase in the number of married couples who are officially recognised as "sexless," meaning they have not had sex for more than one month.

The figure has risen to 40.8 percent of all married couples, up from 36.5 percent two years ago and 31.9 percent in 2004.

The government has attempted a series of campaigns to encourage couples to have more children - from making companies insist that their staff leave work at 6pm to increasing child allowances - but none of that is gong to have an impact if people are not going to have sex, Kitamura said.
 

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"Barack Obama Is NOT The Fulfillment Of Martin Luther King's Dream!"

Cornel West "Barack Obama Is NOT The Fulfillment Of Martin Luther King's Dream!"

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Oral-sex charges in Oakland second-grade class


OAKLAND -- A teacher at an East Oakland elementary school has been placed on leave as officials investigate accusations that two of his second-grade students engaged in oral sex in the classroom and that some ran around without their clothes on, a district spokesman said today.

Oakland Unified School District officials said the allegations involved students in a classroom at Markham Elementary School, and that the reported conduct happened sometime last week. A student came forward with details of the incidents Wednesday, district spokesman Troy Flint said.

"Acting on early findings, the investigation is leading us to believe that these details have merit," Flint said.

The district placed the teacher on paid administrative leave, Flint said. The teacher told officials that he was unaware of either incident. His name was not released.

Although details of the incidents remain sketchy, authorities said they are investigating reports that a girl and a boy engaged in oral sex in the classroom, Flint said.

In a separate case, two students disrobed "at least partially" in the same classroom and became disruptive, school officials said. It was not immediately clear whether the same two students were involved in both incidents.

The 430-student, K-5 school is located on Krause Avenue near the Eastmont Mall shopping center in East Oakland.

Principal Pam Booker sent a letter to parents Thursday saying the parents of the students reportedly involved in the incidents had been contacted and that the "teacher in the classroom where the acts allegedly occurred will not be reporting to the site" pending the results of the investigation.

"I apologize for this and assure you that we are collaborating with counselors and parents to provide support to those involved, address any concerns and take whatever actions are necessary to ensure that a similar act does not occur again," Booker wrote.

She said the school prides itself on providing a "safe learning environment for all of our children, and the events as reported represent an unacceptable lack of supervision."

Flint said young children "have a natural curiosity about the human body, and they're prone to exploration. But, of course, we have to work with children to make sure they understand that there's a proper time, place and manner to do so."

If the incidents are confirmed to have taken place, Flint said it will be important to tell the children that "they are not at fault" and that any blame lies with teachers and other adults and their "egregious lack of supervision."

Experts in child sexual abuse say it's become increasingly common for young people to act out sexual behaviors to which they are exposed in movies or on television. They say they've noticed a trend of middle-school students especially engaging in oral sex and other acts.

When children are only 7 or 8 years old, they're typically starting to explore their bodies and learn about what feels good to them. They may be curious about sex, but it's not normal for them to want to engage in sex acts, said Karen Duncan, a psychologist in Indiana who has written books about child sexual abuse.

"If they're imitating or actually having oral sex, that would not be within the normal child sexual development," Duncan said. "Usually, children at that age are more self-conscious. They don't want anyone looking at them or touching them. My first question when I hear about cases this young is, what have they seen and been exposed to?"
 
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