Links and Minifeatures 12 01 Friday

Just got email notification that the Housing Enterprise Oversight office has decided to keep conforming loan amounts the same for 2007 (I did think last year's jump, from $359,650 to 417,000, was a little large). So the conforming loan limits for 2007 will remain:

units 1 2 3 4

48 state $417,000 $533,850 $645,300 $801,950

AK and HI $625,500 $800,775 $967,950 $1,202,925

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Iranian Weapons Arm Iraqi Militia. They mean terrorists, of course. But they actually reported it this time! This is at least the third such incident in the last year.

Evidence is mounting, too, that the most powerful militia in Iraq, Moktada al-Sadr's Mahdi army, is receiving training support from the Iranian-backed terrorists of Hezbollah.

You don't say. Well, having Democrats coming in to government power certainly makes a difference in the reporting. Already the economy has miraculously improved and now they are admitting that Iran is supporting the terrorists.



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Hezbollah-led rally demands Lebanon govt quit

Hezbollah has been at loggerheads with Siniora's government over what it says was its failure to back the group during the July-August war with Israel.

Gee, ya think? Of course, in any normal world view, the failure would be failing to hunt every last one of them down and put them in prison or expel them from the country, bringing down the wrath of Israel, a much stronger power, by firing rockets from Lebanese soil.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, the most prominent anti-Syrian leader, urged supporters to remain calm and avoid street confrontations. He said Hezbollah wanted to install Syrian and Iranian tutelage over the country.



"We will remain steadfast," he told a news conference on Friday. "We will confront (the opposition) calmly. We will remain in our houses and fly the Lebanese flags...We will wait for a month, for two months...and watch them."

Well, it's not tossing them in prison or out of the country. But it's something.



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Despite compromise, Iran sanctions measure elusive

The United States and the European drafters of the document -- Britain, France and Germany -- want the 15-member council to impose sanctions on Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs after it refused to suspend its enrichment activities, as demanded in an August 31 council resolution.



But Russia, backed by China, has chopped off close to half of the original European text.

Anyone who listens to what the Iranians tell their own people knows that the Iranians are attempting to create nuclear weapons. Russia and China are likely to obstruct themselves right into the fallout pattern of nuclear war, if not into becoming the targets of nuclear weaponry themselves.



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Dead spy's wife contaminated with radiation



Meanwhile, Ex-Spy Claims Litvinenko Was Targeted

A former Russian security service officer said he warned a former KGB agent who was fatally poisoned in London about a government-sponsored death squad that intended to kill him and other Kremlin opponents.



In a letter released Friday, the former officer for the Federal Security Service, or FSB, said he refused to cooperate with the team, whose task was to kill Alexander Litvinenko and others.

Anybody have any doubts about whether Russia is back in the Soviet Empire mindset?



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The headline is enough to make anyone cringe: Is this spray can the condom, or the mace? They're working on a spray-on condom.



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Venezuela's Chávez nears a victory fed by free stew

Yet these days, on her walk home up the steep slope of El Valle, one of the poorest neighborhoods in this capital city, she passes a free medical clinic staffed with Cuban doctors, a supermarket that sells discounted rice and tomato sauce, and a state-funded kitchen that prepares and gives out free meat stew and cookies - programs called "missions" that are the cornerstone of President Hugo Chávez's domestic policy.

However, Chávez's latest enemy: beer trucks

On his road to Sunday's presidential election, which pits the former military colonel turned president against Manuel Rosales, a conservative candidate backed mostly by Venezuela's middle and upper class, Mr. Chávez has ordered the National Guard to stop delivery trucks from selling beer in the streets of poor neighborhoods.



Only licensed establishments can sell alcohol legally here.



"It's the degeneration of society," Chávez said in a televised speech in October. "It's one of the causes of public drunkenness in the slums.... No more trucks."

Or is it?

Guy Taylor, an American journalist working in Caracas, says Chávez rallies he has seen were marked by colorful street theater, pro-Chávez rappers, scantily clad women and, of course, plenty of beer.



"It really resembles a carnival," he says. "People start drinking early at the rallies and by the time Chávez shows up, a beer-fueled hysteria has taken hold."

Maybe he just doesn't want the opposition to get any good will and votes from the schtick he uses?



By the way, does this tactic sound familiar to anyone?



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Towering Ancient Tsunami Devastated the Mediterranean

To create their computer simulation, researchers at the National Institute of Geology and Volcanology in Italy used sonar-equipped boats to survey seafloor sediment displaced by the Mt. Etna avalanche.



Their recreation suggests the tsunami's waves reached heights of up to 130 feet and maximum speeds of up to 450 mph, making it more powerful than the Indonesian tsunami that killed more than 180,000 people in 2004.

The world is a dangerous place.



Startling Discovery: The First Human Ritual



Older than bad-mouthing the opposition?



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Hard landing fears hit dollar



This has been a long time coming. We've been so certain that foreigners were going to keep propping up our currency.



Of course, this has some good side effects. Not only are foreign goods more expensive here, our goods will become cheaper overseas. The best news manufacturing has had in a long time.



Of course, 1% isn't the end of the world or the dawning of a shining new ear for US manufacturing, either.



Thank foreign investors

Look who owns U.S. debt now



Supposedly, these are opposing viewpoints. But they're painting the same basic picture.



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I've been pretty ill all week, but I'm starting to hope that the anti-biotics have finally started to get some traction.