Suprnova torrent of Stewart on crossfire. Currently very fast...

John Stewart Crossfire Torrent

] STEWART: Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America.
]
] BEGALA: OK. Now
]
] (CROSSTALK)
]
] STEWART: And come work for us, because we, as the
] people...
]
] CARLSON: How do you pay?
]
] STEWART: The people -- not well.
]
] (LAUGHTER)
]
] BEGALA: Better than CNN, I'm sure.
]
] STEWART: But you can sleep at night.
]
] (LAUGHTER)
]
] STEWART: See, the thing is, we need your help. Right now,
] you're helping the politicians and the corporations. And
] we're left out there to mow our lawns.
]
] BEGALA: By beating up on them? You just said we're too
] rough on them when they make mistakes.
]
] STEWART: No, no, no, you're not too rough on them. You're
] part of their strategies. You are partisan, what do you
] call it, hacks.

Stewart for President

John Stewart fights for us on Crossfire CNN.com - Transcripts

] TOKYO, Japan (Reuters) -- A Japanese publisher will
] suspend a comic series in its popular weekly magazine
] after receiving angry protests over its characterization
] of the 1937 "Rape of Nanjing," in which Japanese soldiers
] brutally massacred Chinese civilians.

CNN.com - 'Rape of Nanjing' comic draws ire - Oct 14, 2004

] State Duma deputies on Monday began to sort through more
] than 30 anti-terrorism bills submitted by government
] agencies and individuals after President Vladimir Putin
] demanded that new laws be passed to arm the government in
] its fight against terror.
]
]
] The bills, which are at the top of the Duma's fall
] agenda, have not been made public but, judging from
] details leaked to the Russian press, they promise to
] increase the Federal Security Service's powers, limit
] media coverage of terror attacks and create new headaches
] for migrants.

Legalizing Fascism. KGB takeover, media control, caucasian scapegoats.

Duma Regroups With Eye on Terror

Putin's Iron grip tightens. Caucasians suffer.

] In two days of raids, Moscow police have rounded up more
] than 11,000 Russians and foreigners on suspicion of
] living in the city without registering with the
] authorities.
]
]
] Mayor Yury Luzhkov, meanwhile, is seeking a law that
] would require all visitors to register immediately upon
] their arrival, while a City Duma deputy wants a ban on
] all visitors from Chechnya and other areas where
] counterterrorism operations are under way.

11,000 Detained in Police Raids

] Among Putin's reforms announced Monday: the country's 89
] regional governors will no longer be elected by popular
] vote. Instead, he will appoint them and regional
] assemblies would approve the appointments.
]
] He also announced on Monday that seats in the Duma
] (Russia's national parliament) allocated to single-member
] constituencies will be replaced with a fully proportional
] system. The move "could see the few remaining independent
] voices forced out of the federal parliament"

This isn't as serious as it might seem, in a way. Most Russians figure that Putin will never leave office... and most still vote for him. And the legislative branch hasn't had any real power since Putin took office. Its more like that he is formalizing the way things work in practice. So... no real change here. Next he'll cancel the term limits. It is all very predictable. The Russian people have chosen dictatorship over corrupt democracy/oligarchy. Putin is a facist, but his strength is reassuring. After the debauchery of the Yeltsin years... you can hardly blame them.

Puntin uses school attacks to cripple democracy in Russia.

Yukos' main shareholders are ready to negotiate on ceding control of the oil company to the state if jailed founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky is freed, key Yukos shareholder Leonid Nevzlin said Monday.

Nevzlin said his offer comes amid mounting Kremlin pressure aimed at forcing the core group of shareholders out of Yukos.

"The Kremlin does not want to see the shareholders of Menatep as owners of a controlling stake in Yukos. This is what I hear via intermediaries almost every day. Such proposals are made, as are threats of a personal nature," Nevzlin said by telephone from Israel, where he lives in self-imposed exile.

He would not elaborate on what the threats were. He also refused to identify the intermediaries, but said he was waiting for the Kremlin to appoint an official mediator.

"I have opened the door for negotiations," he said.

Nevzlin, as well as other core Yukos shareholders, who have all been charged with fraud or tax evasion or both, hold a 44 percent stake in Yukos via the Group Menatep holding company. The stake is currently worth $14.6 billion.

Nevzlin, however, qualified his proposal, saying it was only a starting point for negotiations. He said talks on ways to hand over the stake could only take place if Khodorkovsky was freed on bail or under house arrest.

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Xodorkovsky goes against Putin, Xodorkovsky goes to jail. This is one of the last of the big Oligarchs from the Early 90s. He'll get out, lose his assets, and move to Israel, or London and have tea with Berezovsky. To charge someone with tax evasion in Russia is somewhat absurd. You might have heard about the flat tax there... but the reality is that the tax load, not including money that must be paid to the FSB for protection, is something like 50%. Tarifs on EVERYTHING. The tax code is so complicated... no one can pay up how much is owed, because its not certain how much is owed.

This is more of Putin the President becoming Putin the dictator. The Russian people escaping from "freedom" into bondage. Gangster capitalism has been traumatic. Where will Putin lead them once he has his iron grip?

Nevzlin Offers Shares for Freedom

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, head of oil giant Yukos, was seized by special forces at a Siberian airport Saturday. He was sent to Moscow and charged with a $1 billion (30 billion rubles) fraud and tax evasion.

Yukos -- as well as Russian businessmen and politicians -- said the arrest of Khodorkovsky, whose wealth was estimated by Forbes magazine at $8 billion and has funded two liberal opposition parties, was politically motivated.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Putin bags another Oligarch. He's really consolidating his power. He effectively ended freedom of the press when he toppled Berezovsky's media empire, and renationalized the last independant television station... and then following Nord Ost, he has threatened to revoke freedom of the press for "bad coverage" when he is criticized. Now out goes Xodorkovsky. There will be more to come. Putin will never step down as President. When Bush says he can see into his soul, I believe it. One motherfucker to another.

The Oligarchs are all evil, bad men. Thieves on probably the largest scale the twentieth century has seen. But where Putin conquers, he does not bring reform. He replaces the toppled gang with his own... the FSB. The domestic branch of the former KGB.

Russia markets rocked by arrest: Putin bags another Oligarch

] His research shows that not only are suicide terrorists
] significantly more educated than their peers, they are
] also significantly better off. According to Krueger,
] although one-third of Palestinians live in poverty, only
] 13 percent of Palestinian suicide bombers do; 57 percent
] of bombers have education beyond high school versus 15
] percent of the population of comparable age.
]
] The Defense Intelligence Agency also gave me profiles
] of all these people they were interrogating at Guantánamo
] Bay in Cuba. They divide them into Yemenis and Saudis.
] The Yemenis are sort of the foot soldiers. And they found
] that the Saudis, their leaders especially, are from
] high-status families. A surprising number have graduate
] degrees. And they are willing to give up everything. They
] give up well-paying jobs, they give up their families,
] whom they really adore, to sacrifice themselves because
] they really believe that it's the only way they're going
] to change the world.

These people are not stupid, nor poor, nor desperate. While there are reasons to focus on education and poverty in places like West Bank/Gaza, the idea that its going to prevent people from deciding to become suicide terrorists is apparently wrongheaded.

An interested oped on Religion in this article too...

Everything you know about terrorists is wrong.

] So the fact that she's been undercover for three decades
] and that has been divulged is outrageous because she was
] put undercover for certain reasons. One, she works in an
] area where people she meets with overseas could be
] compromised. When you start tracing back who she met
] with, even people who innocently met with her, who are
] not involved in CIA operations, could be compromised. For
] these journalists to argue that this is no big deal and
] if I hear another Republican operative suggesting that
] well, this was just an analyst fine, let them go
] undercover. Let's put them overseas and let's out them
] and then see how they like it. They won't be able to
] stand the heat [...]

Daily Kos: Plame's former classmate vents