Some people will object to this conclusion, and will tell me the universe is only 6000 years old, based on a literal interpretation of the Bible. But if the universe and the stars are only 6000 years old, and light appears to have taken billions of years to make that journey, how did that light manage to reach the earth?

An Icelandic savings bank, Icesave, had attracted billions in deposits from hundreds of thousands of British and Dutch citizens, due to the phenomenally high interest rates it offered. Icesave collapsed in 2008, for much the same reason Lehman Brothers, WaMu, and hundreds of local savings banks did: its bankers used their cash to make complicated, bad, leveraged investments, mostly on real estate.

The level of debts written off because defaulting borrowers will never repay them shot up in 2009, Bank of England figures have shown.

In a letter to the CFTC's Chairman, Gary Gensler, GATA Chairman William Murphy shares the following bombshell:

"GATA has evidence that there are enormous physical short positions in the gold and silver markets that cannot be covered."

Even as the CFTC is meeting later this month to establish position limits in the gold, silver, and other precious metals' markets, it could be none other than the CFTC's core banks, and Mr. Gensler's former Goldman bosses, that form the very core of the biggest market manipulation collusion syndicate in the history of the commodity markets.

It's a terrifying image transfixing Washington: President Barack Obama's bruising enforcer Rahm Emanuel, naked, in a communal shower, berating a congressman over perceived political cowardice.

The legend of Emanuel, revered as a master of the US capital's dark arts by allies and foes alike, is being further embroidered by a tour-de-force of score settling by resigning Democratic lawmaker Eric Massa.

The European Parliament on Wednesday urged its 27-member states to monitor the Israeli and Palestinian probes into alleged war crimes committed during last year's late-winter conflict in Gaza.

The resolution backed the findings of a UN-appointed expert panel chaired by South African Judge Richard Goldstone, which concluded that both sides committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the war that began in December 2008 and ended in January 2009.

The parliamentary move, which would give the EU an unprecedented role in evaluating the progress of Israel's war crimes probe, was sharply criticized by Israel.

A handful of taxpayers in a small community north of Wickenburg, Arizona are being targeted by the local school district in a lawsuit that asks a judge to declare they have no right to request public records, sue the district, or complain to outside agencies.

"Now we see NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and the administration planning the future of recreational fishing access in America based on a similar agenda of these same groups and other Big Green anti-use organizations, through an Executive Order by the President. The current U.S. direction with fishing is a direct parallel to what happened in Canada with hunting: The negative economic impacts on hard working American families and small businesses are being ignored.

A recently released White House document could result in the closures of sport fishing in salt and freshwater areas.

But after years of winks and nods, there's no doubt that Fannie and Freddie now enjoy an explicit guarantee, according to most observers. The U.S. government placed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in conservatorship in September 2008: "This means that the U.S. Taxpayer now stands behind $5 trillion of GSE debt," according to the Congressional Research Service.

The problem is that $5 trillion of so-called agency paper is not treated as if it is a debt of Uncle Sam for accounting purposes, says Richard Suttmeier, chief market strategist at Niagara International Capital and ValueEngine.com.

'The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing,' said the former head of the domestic spy agency.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 22% of the nation's voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-three percent (43%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21. That matches the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President

Rachel Corrie Family Finally Puts Israel in Dock

“There is an attempt to silence and crack down on dissent,” B’Tselem spokeswoman Sarit Michaeli told the Tobias Buck of the Financial Times. “Since [the Gaza war], the political climate in Israel has become extremely polarized. And this polarization has reached a level where anyone who is critical is presented as a traitor.”

The Netanyanu government has endorsed a bill that, if passed, will apply onerous registration conditions on NGOs and subject violators to up to a year in prison.

“These are classic McCarthy techniques, portraying our organizations as enemies of the state and suggesting we are aiding Hamas and terror groups,” ACRI head Hagai Elad told the Nazareth-based journalist Jonathan Cook.

On March 1, the premier episode of a 90 part series, “Sleepless in Gaza…and Jerusalem” was launched on YouTube, and there are now eight episodes online. The video diary chronicles the lives of four young Palestinian women, Muslim and Christian, two living in Gaza and two in Arab Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Bank of America has apologized to a Pittsburgh-area woman after one of its contractors allegedly trashed her house and took her parrot while wrongly repossessing her home.

Forty-six-year-old Angela Iannelli sued the bank Monday. She claims her mortgage was up-to-date when one of the banking giant's contractors damaged furniture, took her pet parrot, Luke, and padlocked her Allison Park door in October.

Yet another story about a school installing surveillance cameras in bathrooms reminds us that, while parents are treated as pedophiles for taking photographs of their own children, any perversion whatsoever is acceptable as long as it is conducted by those deemed to be in a position of authority.

“Outraged parents have hit out at a school in Birmingham after pupils discovered CCTV cameras in the school’s toilets,” reports Sky News.

The city receives its checks from the state about two months after they’re collected at cash registers. For November sales, January's receipts were 3.53 percent below the year before. City staff hoped February's increase of 1.35 percent from the previous year was a sign that they'd turn the corner. However, March numbers came in 17.9 percent below March 2009.

Efforts to modify loans and delay foreclosures may have helped hold down the stock of foreclosures for sale in the second half of 2009, fostering home-price stabilization. But that cure could require different medicine: an elevated level of foreclosures for sale over the next three years.

Tax collections continued to drop last month, led by another decline in sales tax receipts, falling $47.1 million short of estimates.

Another big employer is hanging out the "Not Hiring" sign.

State and local governments are collectively the nation's biggest source of jobs, together employing almost 15 times as many Americans as Wal-Mart.

The state of California has a $20 billion problem. But if the League of California Cities has its way, the state will have to look elsewhere when it comes to rummage through local governments' pockets and sofa cushions looking for loose change.

This continues to be a stagnant U-shaped versus V-shaped recession which rebounds after reaching rock bottom.

City and municipal officials from around the state came here today to urge the Legislature to grant them new revenue-raising options to pay for municipal services, such as reimbursing them for tax-exempt property within their borders.

"We are not asking for a handout," said Reading Mayor Tom McMahon, whose city, like 18 others in the state, including Pittsburgh, is now under Act 47 protection from the state because of its financial problems.

Tennessee’s budget hole just keeps getting deeper.

A metre of snow fell in the Pyrenees leaving 6,000 travellers stranded and blocking up to 40 roads

Speaking at meeting in the House of Commons and later in a packed public meeting called by Reinvestigate 911, Cynthia McKinney endorsed the call for a genuinely independent investigation into the 9/11 attacks. The issue has become live again since President Obama cited
9/11 as the reason for escalating the war in Afghanistan and extending it into Pakistan, she said.

Tony Blair cited 9/11 as the event that made the subsequent wars possible when he supported calls for military action against Iran at his Chilcot appearance in February.

The United States Census Bureau turned over names and addresses of American citizens of Japanese descent to the Secret Service during World War II. Though the rest of this week’s identity loss stories pale in comparison, it illustrates vividly the most important point about protecting your privacy, and who is the biggest threat to your security.

Be careful who you frag. Having eliminated all terrorism in the real world, the U.S. intelligence community is working to develop software that will detect violent extremists infiltrating World of Warcraft and other massive multiplayer games, according to a data-mining report from the Director of National Intelligence.

Iran put 12 policemen on trial in an army court on Tuesday over last summer's deaths of at least three anti-government protesters at notorious Kahrizak jail, state media reported.

A Brooklyn rabbi faces decades behind bars - and sentencing on the eve of Passover - after a jury quickly convicted him of sexually assaulting a teenage boy.

At least 100 detainees died in U.S. custody, many as a result of interrogation practices and detention conditions. Gen. Barry McCaffrey put it this way: "We tortured people unmercifully. We probably murdered dozens of them during the course of that, both the armed forces and the C.I.A." Other than a handful of very low-level scapegoats, none has been punished, or even investigated, but rather immunized in multiple ways, both formal and informal. Army Gen. Antonio Taguba concluded that the abuse was the direct result of the orders of top-level Bush officials and said: "there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes.

"The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called Al Qaida. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the TV watcher to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US . . ." -- Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook

The US military cannot account for 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to the Iraqi security forces, an official US report says.