John Kerry tentatively agrees to negotiations with Iran

TOKYO, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Thursday the United States would negotiate with Iran only if it proved it would not pursue a nuclear weapons program.

Following a meeting Thursday with Japanese defense and foreign ministers, and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in Tokyo, Kerry said his "hope is that there is a way forward" with Iran.

"Nothing we do is going to be based on trust. It's going to be based on steps," he said. "A country that generally wants to have a peaceful program does not have difficulty proving that it's peaceful."

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said he wants to engage with talks about Iran's nuclear program to improve relations with the West. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, speaking from the General Assembly at the United Nations this week, said Rouhani is "a wolf in sheep's clothing, a wolf who thinks he can pull the wool over the eyes of the international community" and would fool the United States about its nuclear ambitions.

"It would be diplomatic malpractice of the worst order," Kerry said, not to engage in a diplomatic solution to the longstanding conflict with Iran.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/10/03/John-Kerry-tentatively-agrees-to-negotiations-with-Iran/UPI-79731380798496/#ixzz2gf8nrO1s

Space troops not yet ready to fight aliens

Why do you need a space troop?

Unless you know something..... 

Despite being called Russia’s space troops, they are not ready to deal with invasions by aliens from outer space, according to a statement by a Russian defense official.

In a surprising move, an apparently serious journalist raised this question of extraterrestrial security during a media conference at the Titov Main Test and Space Systems Control Center near Moscow, Russia’s main satellite control center.

“So far we are not capable of that. We are unfortunately not ready to fight extraterrestrial civilizations,” the center’s deputy chief Sergey Berezhnoy explained.

“Our center was not tasked with it. There are too many problems on Earth and near it,” he added.

Titov space center, which is run by Russia’s Aerospace Defense Troops, controls around 80 percent of the country’s satellite fleet, both military and civilian. It is also engaged in launches of spacecraft and strategic ballistic missiles. The facility located about 40km southwest of Moscow is manned by some 1,000 officers and soldiers.

Russia’s space troops, in their current form, were created in 2011 through the integration of several military branches responsible for anti-missile defense, strategic anti-aircraft warfare and control of outer space.

Among its facilities are an early ballistic missile launch warning center with a corresponding network of radar stations, a center for space surveillance, the Plesetsk Military Cosmodrome and a strategic missile testing range in Kura.

While they may not as yet be able to deal with an alien attack, Russia’s space troops at least have extremely effective and high tech means for dealing with terrestrial issues and threats

Credit to RT

HOW LONG DO WE HAVE BEFORE SEEING HYPERINFLATION?

David Buckner, the founder and CEO of Bottom Line Training and Consulting, an adjunct professor at Columbia University, and the author of “Permission to Think,” explained on the Glenn Beck Program Wednesday why America hasn’t yet seen hyperinflation — but why it could be just around the corner.

Buckner said that in discussing hyperinflation, people often refer to the Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe, and Bolivia, but say “it could never happen here” because a “certain kind of layering has to occur” that America hasn’t seen.

(Photo: TheBlaze TV)

That layering, he said, or the “recipe” for hyperinflation, is:

1) Economic Implosion

2) Collapse in tax revenues

3) Raise taxes

4) Lenders unwilling

5) Austerity or print

Beck seemed shocked by the list, saying all five have occurred.

But Buckner said some still squabble about certain points in the list — and regardless of whether we satisfy the recipe, people still say three things in America are “different,” and set us apart from the standard formula.

First, it is said that “everyone wants to buy our debt,” and no one will ever stop wanting to do so.  But Buckner countered that China is already quickly shifting our debt quickly to gold, and analogized the situation to a restaurant where China, the chef, lends the United States money to eat at its establishment.  Pretty soon, he said, there will be other customers, like India, who can pay outright.

Second, some also claim that “we’re not printing money” because “we’re exchanging an asset – a bond – for cash.”

“What they’re not saying is where that bond’s coming from – treasuries.  As soon as the government puts it out there, the Fed comes and takes it,” Buckner said.  “It’s circular, it’s absolutely circular. So we are printing money.”

The third factor that many say differentiates America is that we are a “productive” country, but Buckner said he disagrees there, as well.

What exactly does America produce these days, he asked? We have Apple, but the products are primarily manufactured overseas.  We have a good financial sector, but can we depend on that in tough times?  Others cite the country’s many innovators as something we “produce,” but Buckner noted that innovators are “produced” elsewhere, also.

COMPLIMENTARY CLIP FROM THEBLAZE TV

“And everybody says, well you’re not seeing hyperinflation,” Buckner said, but that’s because, “the interest rates are so low, nobody’s putting that cash back into investments in the United States.  But they are putting it into desperate countries in Europe. They’re putting it into other investments. And the money’s going out there, so the second Bernanke raises the interest rates, all of the sudden the money sucks back into the United States and we have hyperinflation.”

Beck asked Buckner if we need an “event” of some sort to trigger such a meltdown.

“We’ve had an event, but…we’ve become comfortably numb,” Buckner said.  “So there’s been a lot of hidden stuff that’s going on.  The treasuries continue to go out, and Bernanke continues to buy debt. [But] anytime he starts to back off the markets freak out, because they know. The markets know. But we don’t, the people don’t. People who are retired, pensioners, elderly, people who are holding money are going to be devastated.”

When Beck asked for a timeline, Buckner said that by January of 2015, if not by October in 2014, we are likely to see “an increase in interest rates which will start the domino.”

“When Bernanke announced that there would be a tapering, the markets just dropped because they knew that even if the interest rates changed one infinitesimal amount, it was the beginning of the domino,” he said.

“How fast do the dominoes go down?” Beck asked.

“Three months,” Buckner replied without hesitation. “You listen to many of the economists — within three months. And it’s going to be perception more than real price. You’re going to see hoarding, you’re going to see fear. It’s not the actuality. So if they can put a glaze over everybody…it’s may slow it down. That”s the problem, is we’re dealing with an illusion.  It’s an illusion of what is real.  We don’t have the money. So the interest rates go up, you’re going to see a domino.”

Credt to the Blaze

Ron Paul: "The Country Is Bankrupt... The People Are Being Bamboozled"

"The American people are being bamboozled into believing that you have to keep spending for ever," Ron Paul exclaims, as "neither side is truly looking for spending cuts." As he explains they all know that increasing spending is all that can maintain the status quo. In this brief CNBC clip, Paul says playing the blame game is ignorant of the reality that both sides are "rigid with bad ideas," dismissing Obama's 'faction' comments. For a glimpse at the chaos underlying the status quo (that is being exposed this week), Paul blasts that "it is a philosophy of government that is to blame; Keynesianism, Militarism, and Interventionism, and the funny-money system that we use. All that has come together and the country is bankrupt and nobody wants to amid it."

"Why in the world can't the people have an option to opt-out?"is the middle ground possibility that Paul suggests...

"While more are waking up to it (especially in light of the non-essential services furloughs currently), there is still an appetite for big government - people are afraid to give up on it."

The Democrats are just as "rigid" as the Republicans.. "They are rigid with bad ideas too in that "deficits don't matter, the government has to spend, and the government has to take care of us, and you should print money when you need it."

Paul goes on to discuss Gold "all central banks work together - they collude"

... Moral convictions, "right or wrong", and "the only thing that really counts is what the American people believe the role of government should be... and if deficits don't matter, it will not be a shutdown of government but a breakdown of government that occurs"

Credit to Zero Hedge 

Welcome To NEVERTAPER LAND: The U.S. Dollar MELTDOWN.

20 Obama Quotes About Islam Contrasted With 20 Obama Quotes About Christianity

You are about to read some of the most shocking quotes that Barack Obama has ever uttered in public.  A few of these have been widely circulated, but most of them are very obscure.  

Even though he claims to be a Christian, throughout his political career Obama has repeatedly attacked traditional Biblical Christianity and he has a very long history of anti-Christian actions.  In public speeches he has repeatedly cast doubt on the Bible, he has repeatedly stated that he does not believe that Jesus is necessary for salvation, and he has consistently said that he believes that all “people of faith” believe in the same God.  

At the same time, Obama has always referred to Muhammed as “the Prophet”, he has always expressed great love and respect for Islam, and he has even removed all references to Islam from terror training materials used by federal government agencies.  So what in the world does “the leader of the free world” actually believe?  Read the quotes below and decide for yourself…

20 Quotes By Barack Obama About Islam

#1 “The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam”

#2 “The sweetest sound I know is the Muslim call to prayer”

#3 “We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world — including in my own country.”

#4 “As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam.”

#5 “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance.”

#6 “Islam has always been part of America”

#7 “we will encourage more Americans to study in Muslim communities”

#8 “These rituals remind us of the principles that we hold in common, and Islam’s role in advancing justice, progress, tolerance, and the dignity of all human beings.”

#9 “America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

#10 “I made clear that America is not – and never will be – at war with Islam.”

#11 “Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism – it is an important part of promoting peace.”

#12 “So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed”

#13 “In ancient times and in our times, Muslim communities have been at the forefront of innovation and education.”

#14 “throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.”

#15 “Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity and racial equality”

#16 “The Holy Koran tells us, ‘O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another.’”

#17 “I look forward to hosting an Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan here at the White House later this week, and wish you a blessed month.”

#18 “We’ve seen those results in generations of Muslim immigrants – farmers and factory workers, helping to lay the railroads and build our cities, the Muslim innovators who helped build some of our highest skyscrapers and who helped unlock the secrets of our universe.”

#19 “That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”

#20 “I also know that Islam has always been a part of America’s story.”

20 Quotes By Barack Obama About Christianity

#1 “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation”

#2 “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.”

#3 “Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy?  Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination?  Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith?”

#4 “Even those who claim the Bible’s inerrancy make distinctions between Scriptural edicts, sensing that some passages – the Ten Commandments, say, or a belief in Christ’s divinity – are central to Christian faith, while others are more culturally specific and may be modified to accommodate modern life.”

#5 “The American people intuitively understand this, which is why the majority of Catholics practice birth control and some of those opposed to gay marriage nevertheless are opposed to a Constitutional amendment to ban it. Religious leadership need not accept such wisdom in counseling their flocks, but they should recognize this wisdom in their politics.”

#6 From Obama’s book, The Audacity of Hope: “I am not willing to have the state deny American citizens a civil union that confers equivalent rights on such basic matters as hospital visitation or health insurance coverage simply because the people they love are of the same sex—nor am I willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount.”

#7 Obama’s response when asked what his definition of sin is: “Being out of alignment with my values.”

#8 “If all it took was someone proclaiming I believe Jesus Christ and that he died for my sins, and that was all there was to it, people wouldn’t have to keep coming to church, would they.”

#9 “This is something that I’m sure I’d have serious debates with my fellow Christians about. I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and prostelytize. There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that they’re going to hell.”

#10 “I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell.  I can’t imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity.  That’s just not part of my religious makeup.”

#11 “I don’t presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die. But I feel very strongly that whether the reward is in the here and now or in the hereafter, the aligning myself to my faith and my values is a good thing.”

#12 “I’ve said this before, and I know this raises questions in the minds of some evangelicals. I do not believe that my mother, who never formally embraced Christianity as far as I know … I do not believe she went to hell.”

#13 “Those opposed to abortion cannot simply invoke God’s will–they have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths.”

#14 On his support for civil unions for gay couples: “If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the Sermon on the Mount.”

#15 “You got into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

#16 “In our household, the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology”

#17 “On Easter or Christmas Day, my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites.”

#18 “we have Jews, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, and their own path to grace is one that we have to revere and respect as much as our own”

#19 “All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of the three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra — (applause) — as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed, peace be upon them, joined in prayer.  (Applause.)”

#20 “I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people.”

Credit to the Truth

Barack Obama warns of default danger

US President Barack Obama has warned that Wall Street should be concerned that a conservative faction of Republicans is willing to allow the country to default on its debt.

The US government has partially closed after Congress failed to agree a budget and will run out of cash on 17 October unless its debt ceiling is raised.

In a TV interview on Wednesday, Mr Obama said he was "exasperated".

He later held talks with Congressional leaders that ended without agreement.

The US government closed non-essential operations on Tuesday after Congress failed to strike a deal on a new budget.

Republicans and Democrats are blaming each other for the impasse.

All the signs are that neither side is preparing to blink, quite yet. But while the president is staring hard and straight ahead, the Republicans' eyes are beginning to water, and they are glancing at the ground. ”

The shutdown has left more than 700,000 employees on unpaid leave and closed national parks, tourist sites, government websites, office buildings, and more.

However, as one budget crisis raged in Washington DC, another one - potentially more dangerous - loomed in the coming weeks.

On 17 October, the US government will run out of cash to pay its bills unless the debt ceiling is raised.

On both issues, the Republicans who control the House of Representatives have demanded concessions from Mr Obama and his fellow Democrats in return for funding the government's continued operation and for raising the debt ceiling.

Chiefly, the Republicans demand the repeal, delay or defunding of a healthcare reform law - dubbed Obamacare - passed by the Democrats in 2010.

Major portions of that law, which was subsequently validated by the US Supreme Court and was a major issue in the 2012 presidential election, took effect on Tuesday.'Profound impact'

On Wednesday, Mr Obama met the heads of some of Wall Street's biggest banks - including JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America - to discuss the debt ceiling and other economic issues.


James Clapper: "This seriously damages our ability to protect the safety and security of this nation"

The bankers are members of the Financial Services Forum, a lobby group which has, along with 250 other businesses, sent a letter to Congress urging it to raise the debt limit.

Following the meeting, Mr Obama told CNBC "it's important for them to recognise that this is going to have a profound impact on our economy and their bottom lines".

Mr Obama also said he was unwilling to negotiate "with the extremist wing of one party" as the 17 October deadline neared.

"The message I have for the [Congressional] leaders is, as soon as we get a clean piece of legislation that reopens the government... until we get that done, until we make sure that Congress allows [the Department of the Treasury] to pay for things that Congress itself already authorised, we are not going to engage in a series of negotiations," he said.

On Wednesday evening Mr Obama met Republican House Speaker John Boehner, as well as Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi at the White House.

Mr Boehner later left the talks complaining that the Democrats would not negotiate.

"All we're asking for here is a discussion and fairness for the American people under Obamacare,'' he told reporters.

Nancy Pelosi, however, accused the Republicans of "moving the goalposts" on the budget deal.

Harry Reid said Democrats were "locked in tight on Obamacare'' and neither the president nor Democrats in Congress would accept changes to the law as the price for a deal on reopening the government.



The view on the shutdown from deserted landmarks and government buildings in Washington and New York

Analysts say Mr Boehner could end the current government showdown by allowing the House to vote on a "clean" budget bill that does not alter the health law, because that could pass with a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans.

But doing so would risk his standing with the most conservative elements of his caucus.

Earlier on Wednesday, senior US intelligence officials warned the shutdown of the government seriously damaged the ability of spy agencies to protect the US.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told a Senate panel that an estimated 70% of intelligence workers had been placed on unpaid leave.

He warned that the damage to US intelligence capabilities caused by a shutdown would be "insidious".

Also on Wednesday, the White House announced Mr Obama would cut short a planned four-nation tour of Asia next week.

He will attend regional summits in Indonesia and Brunei, but skip Malaysia and the Philippines due to the government shutdown.

The US government ceased operations deemed non-essential at midnight on Tuesday, when the previous budget expired.

National parks and Washington's Smithsonian museums are closed, pension and veterans' benefit cheques will be delayed, and visa and passport applications will go unprocessed.

However, members of the military will be paid.

Credit to BBC