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Testimony from victims of the Syrian conflict suggests rebels have used the nerve agent sarin, according to a leading United Nations investigator. Carla del Ponte told Swiss TV there were "strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof". However, she said her panel had not yet seen evidence of government forces using chemical weapons. Syria has recently come under growing Western pressure over the alleged use of such weapons. Ms del Ponte, who serves on the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, said in an interview with Swiss-Italian TV: "Our investigators have been in neighbouring countries interviewing victims,...

WASHINGTON -- President Obama is clearly playing a nasty political game with the air traffic controller furloughs that have forced severe airline delays across the country. It's not the first time he's exploited the budget-cutting sequestration law for political purposes. Earlier this year, he tried to stir up fears that our economy would be hit by fiscal Armageddon if the Republican House didn't submit to his tax-hiking, big-spending demands. But his hysterical claims that our food would be unsafe, America's defenses would crumble and the elderly would lose their benefits have proven to be groundless. A headline in Thursday's Washington...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Social Security's disability program is overwhelmed by so many claims that judges sometimes award benefits they might otherwise deny just to keep up with the flow of cases, according to a lawsuit filed by the judges themselves. The Social Security Administration says the agency's administrative law judges should decide 500 to 700 disability cases a year. The agency calls the standard a productivity goal, but the lawsuit claims it is an illegal quota that requires judges to decide an average of more than two cases per workday. "When the goals are too high, the easy way out...

... Griffin: I think you’re trying to tell us something… to this country. Bezmenov: Oh yes. I am trying to tell you that it has to be stopped, unless you want to end up in [a] gulag system, and enjoy all the advantages of socialist equality, working for free, catching fleas on your body, sleeping on planks of plywood, in Alaska this time, I guess. That’s where Americans will belong unless they will wake up, of course, and force their government to stop aiding Soviet fascism. ...

Enlightening and heart-warming video interview, that can be seen clicking on the link just below the post title, with prominent German journalist Dr Udo Ulfkotte, (not surprisingly) former editor of one of Germany's main dailies, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (thanks to Benedict Broere for the hat tip). In it he says that he does not think that Islam will prevail in Europe because Europeans will fight it back, but it will be bloody. Asked if there could be a socio-economic problem behind Muslim radicalism, he reiterates the ideologically intransigent nature of Islam and answers that we in Europe have thrown so much...

n March 2012, Joseph Polchinski began to contemplate suicide — at least in mathematical form. A string theorist at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, California, Polchinski was pondering what would happen to an astronaut who dived into a black hole. Obviously, he would die. But how? According to the then-accepted account, he wouldn’t feel anything special at first, even when his fall took him through the black hole’s event horizon: the invisible boundary beyond which nothing can escape. But eventually — after hours, days or even weeks if the black hole was big enough — he...

2013/04/03 11:25 KST N. Korea only allowing S. Korean workers to leave Kaesong, banning entry SEOUL, April 3 (Yonhap) -- North Korea said Wednesday it will ban South Korean workers from entering the inter-Korean industrial park in Kaesong, only allowing South Koreans now staying at the North Korean border town to return home. Seoul's Ministry of Unification said that it received an official notification to the effect from the North earlier in the day. "South Korea's government deeply regrets the entry ban and urges it be lifted immediately," ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-seok said in a press conference. He said every...

Video at link claims to have information about scandal which could halt American way of life. Anyone seen it? " A wealthy Maryland journalist (who's neither a Democrat or Republican) has exposed a scandal brewing within the current Administration. He says it could ruin Obama's entire Presidency... and would also result in some of the most dramatic changes to ordinary American life in more than 50 years.

Europe Has A Crisis — And It's Much Bigger Than Cyprus Joe WeisenthalMarch 23, 2013REUTERS/Christian Hartmann In a way, Europe should be thrilled by the week that was because financial markets barely batted an eye at the crisis in Cyprus. But Europe has a problem on its hands that's bigger than Cyprus: The economy stinks. This week we got fresh proof that things are bad or getting worse. In France, the Flash PMI report (which is a mid-month look at the combined services and manufacturing sectors of the economy) came in dismal, with the output index falling to a four...

USA vs. Cyprus: Gross Government Debt to GDP- By: Larry Walker, II -According to Speaker of the House John Boehner, “We do not have an immediate debt crisis.” No, then what would you call it? Seems to me it was immediate in 1995, and again in 2008, so what is it now? Are we just screwed? And according to Barack Obama, “We don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt. In fact, for the next 10 years, it’s gonna be in a sustainable place.” Yeah, what place is that, Wonderland? Have you people lost your minds? The chart...

The European debt crisis was rumored to be over. But the recent warning shot from Cyprus indicates otherwise. Europe braced for renewed turmoil as outrage in Cyprus over an unprecedented levy on bank deposits threatened to derail the nation’s bailout and spark a new round in the debt crisis. Cyprus will impose a levy of 6.75 percent on deposits of less than 100,000 euros and 9.9 percent above that. The decision to impose losses on Cypriot depositors is the latest erosion of bondholder protection at European banks and an “ominous” sign of how bailouts are being handled, Barclays Plc said....

As President Obama heads to Capitol Hill to push his deficit reduction plan, AARP is urging the New York congressional delegation to oppose the so-called 'chained CPI,' which would make significant cuts to Social Security and veterans benefits in New York according to a new analysis based on data from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Here we go again. And again. And again. ... For in Washington, every day is Groundhog Day. And now, once again, the country is speeding toward the dreaded ... Fiscal Cliff! Not to mention Catastrophe, Chaos and Collapse. Or maybe Stalemate, Train Wreck, Dysfunction or whatever your favorite clich may be. So quick, get the scare headlines back in type. The Great Tax vs. Spend Debate is on again, if it ever went away. With each side blaming the Coming and Constant Crisis on the other. . . But wait, haven't we seen this movie before? Like in 2011, 2012...

Even during this desultory economic recovery, one industry thrives — the manufacture of synthetic hysteria. It is, however, inaccurate to accuse the Hysteric in Chief of crying “Wolf!” about spending cuts under the sequester. He is actually crying “Hamster!” As in: Batten down the hatches — the sequester will cut $85 billion from this year’s $3.6 trillion budget! Or: Head for the storm cellar — spending will be cut 2.3 percent! Or: Washington chain-saw massacre — we must scrape by on 97.7 percent of current spending! Or: Chaos is coming because the sequester will cut a sum $25 billion larger than was just shoveled out...

After weeks without talks on the U.S. budget crisis, President Barack Obama called Republican leaders on Thursday to discuss the harsh “sequestration” cuts to government spending due to begin in just over a week. In what might be just the start of long negotiations to prevent the $85 billion in cuts, Obama spoke to House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The conversations were “good,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said, but he declined to provide details. A McConnell spokesman said it was the first outreach from Obama since the New Year’s Eve “fiscal cliff”...

Every leader in the Pentagon has been warning for more than a year that if sequestration comes to pass the impact to the military will be severe. But the armed services' most senior officers now are telling Congress those impacts are not a distant prospect — they could be looking at a "hollowed-out" force within a matter of months after the cuts are triggered. When the Defense Department directed the military services last month to start conserving funds, it was a good sign that the Pentagon now believes the long-threatened automatic budget cuts actually will take place. Ashton Carter, the...

  NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Violent, thieving mobs have been making headlines across the country for the past few years, and now they have hit New York City. And Maurice Dubois reported in this CBS 2 investigation, the teen mobs have left neighborhoods worried as businesses take matters into their own hands. Judson Bennett, 78, recently ran into a violent group of teens – often described with the once-benign term “flash mob” – as he made his daily trip to buy a newspaper at his favorite news team. “I’m approaching the newsstand, and then suddenly there is a tremendous force...

12 Charts That Will Make Gold Bulls Furious Joe WeisenthalFebruary 2, 2013, 10:48 AM The anti-gold bandwagon is getting more and more crowded. Analysts Tom Kendall and Ric Deverell of Credit Suisse is out with a bombshell report this morning titled: Gold: The Beginning Of The End Of An Era. The article argues that the 2011 peak of $1921 was the top, and that now the run of the cult metal is coming to an end. The argument essentially boils down to two arguments, which are related. The first is that we're seeing rate normalization. When real interest rates are...

Measurement 'literally beyond index' Despite glowing words of praise from admirers in the neo-commie Obama Administration, by any measure -social security, health care, unemployment benefits, whatever- the booming China of today hasn't got much to do with socialism. Indeed, government handouts are far more prevalent in the US, and modern Chinese 'communist' leadership -who run a tight ship and enjoy a budget surplus- have come right out and said that American entitlement culture (with Obama as it's primary cheerleader) is precisely what's destroying us. So tell me who's the capitalists now: the Chinese may live under an oppressive dictatorship, but they learned not to restrain...

As each month’s unemployment figures show only modest declines, some may mistakenly believe that the United States has a “jobs crisis.” But a closer analysis of the data reveals that our fundamental challenge is a lack of skills, not jobs. I made this observation at the recent STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Summit convened by the Daily News. But don’t take my word for it. Look at the January 2013 New York City Real Time Jobs Report, which lists local employers that posted the most new ads in the past 90 days and the number of opportunities available. The...