Kasich, Koch and Big-Industry Bucks: Why Ohio Is the Next Fracking Frontier
Mike Ludwig, Truthout: "Fracking opponents in southern Ohio won a
victory last week when the United States Forest Service (USFS) withdrew
more than 3,000 acres of public lands from a federal oil and gas lease
sale scheduled for December 7, 2012. The USFS announced that it needed
more time to review the potential effects of fracking after receiving
petitions and letters from local leaders who used the old-fashioned
method of collecting signatures to catch the attention of government
officials."
Read the Article
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Egypt: Beautiful Photos of Cairenes
By 
Issandr El Amrani November 28, 2011 at 2:38 PM
Issandr El Amrani November 28, 2011 at 2:38 PM 
My former neighbor, Miguel Angel Sanchez, is featured by the NYT's photography blog. I've been talking to Miguel about his project for years, and stupidly have not yet taken up his offer of a portrait. Check out the slideshow here.
On the right, Amm Rabia, a super-friendly bawaab on our street, now immortalized.
The Arabist
Egypt: Muslim Brotherhood Signs Own Death Warrant
Posted: 28 Nov 2011 01:45 AM PST
Today
Egyptians are voting for their new parliament, and the Muslim
Brotherhood is widely expected to garner more votes than any other
party.Reader Alice has found what appears to be a legitimate Muslim Brotherhood "Election Program" published on the web, in English.
Some highlights:
...We seek to play an active and influential part:This means all of Israel, and the wording hardly limits itself to "non-violent" resistance.
Affirming the right of the Palestinian people to liberate their land, and highlighting the duty of governments and peoples of Arab and Muslim countries, especially Egypt, to aid and support the Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance against the Zionist usurpers of their homeland.
Endeavouring to achieve full integration and cooperation in all fields with Sudan in order to ensure its safety and territorial integrity and achieve security, stability and development, including the activation of the Four Freedoms Agreement, so that we can attain true unity as a nucleus for achieving historically desired Arab unity.The MB does not like independence for South Sudan and wants to roll back that achievement - next door to Egypt.
We appreciate the importance of restoring the role of Egypt in the Islamic domain and the need to strengthen relations with Islamic countries, especially Turkey, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria, etc.No Sunni/Shi'a issues here. The MB loves Iran, and vice versa.
Securing Egypt's quota of Nile water and defeat Zionist plots in this regard.There is some background behind this one. For years, there has been talk in southern Sudan to create the Jonglei Canal, which would increase the amount of water available to the Nile by 10-15 billion cubic meters. It has never been completed. According to a report last year, Israel offered to complete this project - where everyone would gain more water - in exchange for the right to purchase a percentage of that water at a discount. I have no idea whether this report was true. But Egyptians were upset at the very idea of selling Israel any water - even if they would gain water as a result!
Encourage the film industry, both financially and morally.
Emphasis on the freedom of the press and freedom of publication of newspapers, magazines,and various other paper and electronic publications without any legal or administrative obstacles, as long as the publication abides by the Constitution and the law and takes account of public morality.Ah, the "Freedom" and Justice Party.
Apply a "code of honour" for the use of the internet that depends on a culture of self-immunisation rather than external censorship; to assist the protection of public morality and values in Egyptian society, with emphasis on the prevention of pornography downloads or uploads, and use of all technical and legal ways to achieve this
[I]t is of paramount importance to restore to Egypt its religious leadership position in Arab, Islamic and global domains.Yes, this is a political platform.
Finally:
The family is the oldest institution on earth. It‟s also the first incubator for breeding and upbringing of humans. To realise the importance of focusing on the construction of the family unit as a means for making and shaping the good Egyptian citizen, let's look at the outcome of the previous decades of exposure systematic corruption implemented by several parties, especially the National Council for women, the National Council for Motherhood and Childhood, and a whole list of civil society organisations that receive foreign funds from suspicious sources. Those were helped along down that slimy slope with a package of corrupt laws passed not due to public demand, but were the result of international dictates imposed on us by international conventions signed under the previous regime.Surprisingly, however, the platform does not call for Egypt to cut off natural gas shipments to Israel, but rather to increase the price of the gas to bring in some $18 billion of additional revenue annually.
Thirty years ago, Egypt joined an international convention for women called the "Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)" although this Convention controls the most private of the marital relationship details. Do any members of our great public know that Egypt is a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which allows a child to choose the family to live with? Do Egyptians realise that they are obliged to accept homosexuals and treat them in the best and kindest way possible, in compliance with those agreements?? Not to mention the legalisation of adoption in ways strictly forbidden in Islamic law?! Was it not our right as citizens in this country to have referenda on such conventions and agreements that control the finest details of our lives and our family relationships? Since this was not done at thetime these conventions were signed, it is our right – as a people proud of their identity and religion
– to insist on re-consideration of those agreements. Then they should be re-evaluated in terms of suitability to our culture, traditions and established values. We should have the first and last word on accession to those conventions.
Elder of Ziyon
Germany: 70th anniversary of Hitler's pact w Mufti
Posted: 28 Nov 2011 04:30 AM PST
Germany stands for an uncompromising struggle against the Jews. It is self-evident that the struggle against the Jewish national homeland in Palestine forms part of this struggle, since such a national homeland would be nothing other than a political base for the destructive influence of Jewish interests. Germany also knows that the claim that Jewry plays the role of an economic pioneer in Palestine is a lie. Only the Arabs work there, not the Jews. Germany is determined to call on the European nations one by one to solve the Jewish problem and, at the proper moment, to address the same appeal to non-European peoples....At some not yet precisely known, but in any case not very distant point in time, the German armies will reach the southern edge of the Caucasus. As soon as this is the case, the Führer will himself give the Arab world his assurance that the hour of liberation has arrived. At this point, the sole German aim will be the destruction of the Jews living in the Arab space under the protection of British power.
---Adolf Hitler to Haj Amin Al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem, November 28, 1941
The Mufti of Jerusalem was the undisputed leader of Palestinian Arab nationalism from the 1920s through the 1940s, and his hatred of Jews pervaded all he did.
It will be recalled that the Mufti was given his position by the British because he was regarded as a "moderate." This is what gave him the platform to start his career of inciting against and murdering Jews in earnest.
He was responsible for the anti-Jewish pogroms in Palestine in 1920, 1921 and 1929; he initiated the deadly riots from 1936-1939, and he initiated contact with the Nazis as soon as they came to power in order to come up with ways to work together with them to get rid of the Jews.
Not only that, but towards the end of the war, he pulled out all the stops to murder Jewish children rather than have them rescued - even when the desperate Nazis were considering swapping them for money or for German prisoners. Meaning that his desire to murder Jews exceeded even that of Hitler himself.
The Mufti was an unrepentant anti-semite and desired nothing less than the complete genocide of the entire Jewish people, every man, woman and child.
Today, November 28th, is the anniversary of the Mufti's seminal meeting with Hitler where the Fuehrer explained his genocidal plans in detail to his kindred anti-semite.
Today, the Mufti of Jerusalem is considered a hero among Palestinian Arab leadership.
One year ago, Mahmoud Abbas said in a speech,
We must also recall the outstanding [early] leader of the Palestinian people, the Grand Mufti of Palestine -- Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, who sponsored the struggle from the beginning, and sponsored the struggle and was displaced for the cause and died away from his home."
The Mufti isn't a Palestinian Arab hero despite his Jew-hatred.
He is a hero because of it.
Elder of ZiyonIran: Huge Explosion Rips Isfahan Home to Nuke Program
Posted: 28 Nov 2011 08:49 AM PST
FARS News is reporting on a huge explosion in Isfahan, Iran. No details yet.Isfahan hosts a Nuclear Technology Center, a Uranium Conversion Facility and a Zirconium Production Plant that helps make alloys for nuclear reactors.
According to the article, it happened at 2:40 AM.
For the occasion, a poster:
UPDATE: The FARS story has disappeared. Here's what the autotranslate looked like before it went down the memory hole:
Twitter updates/rumors:
A BBC reporter tweets his father in Isfahan heard the explosion.
Israel's Channel 10 reports that an explosion was at Shahab 4 ballistic missile site; unclear if it is the same one or where they got the information from.
Second Iranian news source confirms it, unclear if it was 2:40 AM or PM.
And another confirmation.
Iranian tweeters are all saying it was either an arms depot or an ammunition depot.
Isfahan's governor is now claiming that it was from a "military exercise."
Deputy governor says, "I dunno."
I've seen a few stories saying it happened near the gate to Shiraz University.
Mehr claims it was from a gas station explosion.
PressTV quotes officials denying the story altogether.
Elder of Ziyon
Syria:army shoots at family trying to flee to Jordan
Posted: 28 Nov 2011 11:20 AM PST
From Jordan Times:Shots rang out at the Jordanian-Syrian border late Sunday as Syrian forces attempted to prevent civilians from entering the Kingdom, hours after an Arab League decision to impose sanctions on Damascus.Jordan has been keeping a very low profile in regards to Syrian refugees; we hear about the ones who fled to Turkey and Lebanon but not much about Syrians who flee to Jordan. I'm surprised that there are 1,500 of them.
Syrian soldiers opened fire on a married couple and their young child as they attempted to enter the Kingdom late yesterday near the Jaber border crossing, some 90 kilometres north of the capital, according to Minister of State for Media Affairs and Communications and Government Spokesperson Rakan Majali.
The Syrian family arrived in the Kingdom and received emergency medical attention, Majali indicated.
Incidents like this one, which occurred hours after the Arab League endorsed a series of economic sanctions targeting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, have become “commonplace” over the past few months, he said.
“This has now become a very normal incident that happens nearly every day, but often without notice,” Majali told The Jordan Times.
According to Majali, the woman was rushed to Mafraq Military Hospital where medical sources indicated she was listed in serious condition as of late yesterday, adding that her husband and child were not injured in the incident.
The incident will not register a response from the Jordanian government, the spokesperson said, noting that the Kingdom will continue to extend efforts to “ensure the humanitarian protection” of Syrian civilians.
The humanitarian impact of the Syrian crisis has become an increasing concern for Jordan, which has hosted thousands of civilians fleeing violence since mid-February, with over 1,500 Syrians registered with the UN refugee agency.
Elder of Ziyon
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