We'll just ignore this. Afterall, speculators and gamblers selling off
stock markets are a better indicator of the decoupling myth.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a01XuUvoaKTU&refer=home

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's export growth unexpectedly accelerated
in February as demand from emerging markets helped automakers ride out
the U.S. slump.

Exports, which contributed more than half of the economy's expansion
last quarter, climbed 8.7 percent from a year earlier after increasing
7.6 percent in January, the Finance Ministry said today in Tokyo. The
median estimate of 19 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for a
7.5 percent gain.

Consumers in China and Indonesia are helping Hino Motors Ltd. and
Honda Motor Co. make up for waning demand in the U.S., Japan's largest
market. Overseas sales are proving resilient even after a slump in the
U.S. dragged the dollar down 12 percent against the yen this year.

``This is an impressively strong number and we may need to reassess
the outlook for exports,'' said Richard Jerram, chief economist at
Macquarie Securities Ltd. in Tokyo. ``Exports are less sensitive to
the U.S. slowdown than expected.''

http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl/index.php/editorial/jesse-richards-commentary/19-jesses...-

Attention Activists: It’s Time to Grow Up
Written by Jesse Richard

This is a message to all the well meaning people out there who try their
best to make this world a better place, but in fact have no impact on
the world, whatsoever. It is time to take your activism seriously.

The time has come to stop your ineffective tantrums and get serious.
There are two ways to effect change when it comes to government: passive
resistance and revolution. Our republic is broken and we no longer have
representatives in government. Constantly asking our elected
representatives to legislate on our behalf is not only a waste of time,
but also totally unnecessary in a government that no longer represent us..

Actually it is a Catch-22. We live in a communication age. We have the
Internet, e-mail, cell phones, land phones, faxes, postal mail and
megaphones with which to contact anyone, anywhere, at any time of the
day or night. Still, we are told to get on buses and trains so we can
march in Washington DC to tell a handful of government officials who
don’t even know we are there to do what they were elected to do.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/mochila/Obama_increases_charitable_giving_03252008....

Obama increases charitable giving

Obama's Gives $240,000 to Charity in 2007, More Than 9 Previous Years
Combined

NEDRA PICKLER
AP News

Mar 25, 2008 20:53 EST

Democrat Barack Obama gave nearly a quarter of a million dollars to
charity last year as he entered the presidential race, significantly
more than during the nine previous years combined.

The Illinois senator has yet to release his 2007 tax return. His
campaign said Tuesday it will be made public by Tax Day, April 15,
while at the same time disclosing that Obama gave $240,000 to charity
last year.

From 1998 through 2006, Obama donated a total of $150,892 to charity.

Obama posted his 2000 to 2006 returns on his campaign Web site Tuesday
to pressure rival Hillary Rodham Clinton to do the same. His campaign
repeatedly has criticized Clinton for failing to release tax returns
for the years since she and her husband left the White House in 2001.

March 25, 2008, 5:00 a.m.

In his old age, Norman Lear is still walking the line between
righteous and self-righteous.

By Mark Hemingway

Washington, D.C. -- On the third and final day, things are winding down
at the Take Back America conference, sponsored by the Campaign for
America's Future. As host of one of the largest gatherings of liberal
and progressive activists in the country, featuring a wide swath of
issues and interests, the Omni-Shoreham has been buzzing. Future
progressive leaders dart in and out of plenary sessions, seminars, and
workshops, learning to live up the conference's eponymous mission.

Perhaps the largest crowd of the three-day event is assembled in the
Regency ballroom. A very attractive woman steps up to the podium,
flanked by 15-foot Orwellian screens of her welcome visage. She
proudly declares that at age twelve, full of burgeoning religious
conviction, she began a life of prayer, telling God "If you are real I
want to know you."

March 11, 2007

Jodi Kantor
The New York Times
9 West 43rd Street
New York,
New York 10036-3959

Dear Jodi:

Thank you for engaging in one of the biggest misrepresentations of the
truth I have ever seen in sixty-five years. You sat and shared with me
for two hours. You told me you were doing a “Spiritual Biography” of
Senator Barack Obama. For two hours, I shared with you how I thought
he
was the most principled individual in public service that I have ever
met.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/26/health/research/26lung.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogi...

Cigarette Company Paid for Lung Cancer Study

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By GARDINER HARRIS
Published: March 26, 2008

In October 2006, Dr. Claudia Henschke of Weill Cornell Medical College
jolted the cancer world with a study saying that 80 percent of lung
cancer deaths could be prevented through widespread use of CT scans.

Hillary Clinton + Lying about Bosnia = No Veracity.

Barack Obama + Racist Reverend = Dropping Poll Numbers.

John McCain.

-C-

As I've noted a few times before, one of the key dynamics of the coming
general election race is the unwillingness of most reporters to scrutinize
John McCain's claims and statements to determine whether they are either
accurate, contradicted by other public statements or even if they make any
sense. One example is the current tussle between McCain and Obama over a
pledge to opt in to the public financing system for the general election.
McCain is insisting Obama honor his 'pledge' to opt in to the public
financing system if his Republican opponent (McCain) agrees to do the same.
Now, Obama's going to have to deal with the pledge issue on his own. But
it's impossible to report on this gambit of McCain without at least one spit
take. And probably a few more.

Back in August McCain opted into the public financing system for the
primaries. Then in December he needed to come up with some cash quickly.
Well, no problem. He was already guaranteed over $5 million from the feds.
So all he needed to do was put that guarantee down as collateral for the
loan.

Only McCain didn't want to do that because once he formally made the
federally-guaranteed money collateral then he gave up his right to later opt
back out of the system.

But, he really, really needed the money. So McCain, along with his campaign
finance lawyer Trevor Potter (whom I've met and is a very sharp guy) came up
with a workaround. It went like this. McCain wouldn't...

http://www.afamreport.com/

Rev. Wright served six years in the U.S. military, in the Marines and
the Navy. As a cardiopulmonary technician in the Navy he attended then-
President Lyndon Johnson during a medical procedure

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/26/iraq.military

The battle for Basra: Iraqis fight Mahdi army as British troops remain
at base

Iraqi security forces battled with Shia militia in Basra yesterday in
an intense conflict widely seen as a critical test of the Baghdad
government's ability to control its own country.

The battle for Iraq's second city could have huge repercussions for
the continuing US occupation and the legacy left by five years of
British military involvement in the south.

Fifteen thousand soldiers from the Iraqi national army led the
crackdown under the supervision of the prime minister, Nouri
al-Maliki, against the Mahdi army, followers of the radical cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr. At least 31 people were killed and 88 injured, police
and hospital officials said.

The fighting also raised the spectre of a new bout of bloodletting
across the Shia-dominated south and the multi-ethnic centre of the
country, by unravelling a ceasefire declared by Sadr last August.
Armed members of Mahdi army appeared on the streets of Baghdad for the
first time in six months.