The US military is likely to stay in Afghanistan far beyond the 2014 alleged deadline for withdrawal, James Dobbins — the State Department's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan — told the Senate earlier this week.

The statement came after an article published Monday in the New York Times suggested that Obama plans to move more quickly on troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. The US diplomat made it clear that, to the contrary, the US intends to extend its open-ended occupation. "The Afghans actually need us to stay," Dobbins alleged, according to Reuters. "Most Afghans want us to stay. And we have promised to stay."

Concerning the results of the poll, Gallup reported, “Americans are most dissatisfied with areas of government performance related to the economy and economic issues - some of which affect the average American's household budget in the form of jobs, healthcare, and education.

The still somewhat sluggish economy and ballooning federal debt are likely reasons Americans are mostly dissatisfied with the government's handling of the nation's finances and its efforts on job creation and economic growth, and labor and employment issues.”

Of course, this move was quickly followed by capital controls, which are still in place today. Yet based on this summer’s financial euphoria, it’s as if none of this ever happened. It’s the same thing in Greece, where I just spent a few days checking out distressed asset deals (ie the entire country).

It wasn’t even a few weeks ago that the terminally insolvent Greek government was about to go bust yet again, and begging for another bailout like some repugnant doggy treat. And it was only about six months ago that United States breached its debt ceiling in an extraordinarily humiliating public squabble.

Never mind that the US government is about to breach its debt ceiling once again in less than two months. Or that Greece will soon be out of cash again. Or that Cyprus is still broke and has never lifted its capital controls (as we learned trying to send a wire today).

These issues aren’t going away. They get shuffled under the rug for a few months, but the problems are only escalating despite all the market excitement. Financial minions who operate within the system never seem to miss an opportunity to demonstrate their total failure to learn important lessons from the recent past.

It sounds absolutely ridiculous, and it is. Unfortunately, we are witnessing something just as ridiculous in the real world right now. In the United States, the mainstream media is breathlessly proclaiming that the US economy is in great shape because job growth is “accelerating” (even though we actually lost 240,000 full-time jobs last month) and because the US stock market set new all-time highs this week.

The mainstream media seems to be absolutely oblivious to all of the financial storm clouds that are gathering on the horizon. The conditions for a “perfect storm” are rapidly developing, and by the time this is all over we may be wishing that flying sharks were all that we had to deal with.

The meeting was convened, as always, by the American Medical Association. Since 1992, the AMA has summoned this same committee three times a year. It’s called the Specialty Society Relative Value Scale Update Committee (or RUC, pronounced “ruck”), and it’s probably one of the most powerful committees in America that you’ve never heard of.

The purpose of each of these triannual RUC meetings is always the same: it’s the committee members’ job to decide what Medicare should pay them and their colleagues for the medical procedures they perform. How much should radiologists get for administering an MRI? How much should cardiologists be paid for inserting a heart stent?

While these doctors always discuss the “value” of each procedure in terms of the amount of time, work, and overhead required of them to perform it, the implication of that “value” is not lost on anyone in the room: they are, essentially, haggling over what their own salaries should be. “No one ever says the word ‘price’,” a doctor on the committee told me after the April meeting. “But yeah, everyone knows we’re talking about money.”

However, nowhere does the US Constitution give one-man rule powers to any president. But, what is the US Constitution anymore? Isn’t it an old junk piece of paper that’s to be treated as if it were some ‘pie-in-the-sky’ dream from centuries back? Haven’t you heard talk about revamping it; bringing it up to date; or even scuttling it? My, what will they think of next?

Coming up to speed on the current PEO obsession, Barack Hussein Obama has issued over 150 PEOs from January 22, 2009 until June 3, 2013. It looks like Number 44 is getting his way. We might as well do away with Congress and the Supreme Court. We could save a bundle on high priced salaries, wouldn’t you say?

No one — not the electorate, ie voters, Congress, or even the US Supreme Court — can challenge, ignore, or negate them. So theoretically, can any president declare him or herself a little tin hat dictator, if he or she wants to? You betcha! That fact alone should be the most sobering factor to consider whenever pushing a voting machine lever.

American geologists said that a domino effect of quakes could be caused by intense pressure on fault lines created by hydraulic fracturing, combined with seismic activity thousands of miles away. Columbia University scientists maintain that powerful earthquakes thousands of miles away can trigger swarms of minor quakes near waste water injection wells like those used in oil and gas recovery.

They say a recent surge in US oil and gas production using vast amounts of water to crack open rocks and release natural shale gas has been linked to an increase in small to moderate induced earthquakes in five states. Seismologists from the university have identified three quakes - in Oklahoma, Colorado and Texas that they believe were triggered at injection well sites by a major earthquake a long distance away. The discovery, published in the journal Science by one of the world's leading seismology labs, threatens to make fracking even more controversial, Reuters reported.

Microsoft said its collaboration with the NSA only took place because legal obligations required it to do so. The revelations come as some technologists start work on services they say will be impervious to spying.

Unfortunately, laws have not kept pace with these advancements, and in many countries there are very few limits on what scientists are allowed to do. As you will read about below, extremely creepy human-animal hybrids are now being created in laboratories all over the planet. And this is just the stuff that is publicly admitted. Can you imagine what kind of sick and twisted experiments are taking place in the dark corners of secret labs that nobody knows about? And what happens if these creatures get out into the wild and start mating?

At that point, it would be nearly impossible to “put the genie back into the bottle”. Scientists seem very eager to test the limits of what is possible, but what they are unleashing may have consequences that none of us ever dreamed possible.

According to LifeNews.com, researchers at the University of Wisconsin have successfully transferred cells from human embryos into the brains of mice. Those cells began to grow and develop, and they actually made the mice smarter… We are corrupting nature, and yet very few people seem alarmed. When the Daily Mail reported back in 2011 that scientists in the UK had created “more than 150" human-animal hybrid embryos, hardly anyone got upset about it…

Speaking in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Bernanke also warned that the full impact on the economy of steep government spending cuts initiated in March was yet to be seen, underscoring the need for more Fed support. “Both the employment side and the inflation side are saying that we need to be more accommodating,” he said, answering questions after a speech.

President Anibal Cavaco Silva proposed a cross-party agreement between the ruling coalition and opposition Socialists to guarantee wide support for the austerity measures needed for Portugal to exit its bailout next year, followed by elections. The decision was a warning shot to all the leading parties and it indicates that the president does not think any of them is capable of ruling effectively until the bailout is due to finish in June 2014.

Cavaco Silva’s move prompted sharp criticism in a country that has descended into its worst economic slump since the 1970s under the weight of austerity imposed by the bailout.

And unlike some disciplines, which acknowledge that there’s a huge gap between the scholarly knowledge and policy advice, economists have been anything but shy about asserting their authority. As we can see from the current dismal state of economic affairs, economies are incredibly complex systems, and policymakers who are forced to act in the face of this uncertainty and complexity want guidance.

And over the last half century, neoclassical economists have not only been more than happy to offer it, but largely been able to marginalize any other disciplines or approaches, giving them a virtual monopoly on economic policy advice. But there are two big problems with this. First, despite economists’ calming assurances, we still know little about how economies actually work and the effect of policies. If we did, then economists should have sounded the alarm bells to head off the financial collapse and Great Recession.

But even more problematic, even though most economists know better, they present to the public, the media and politicians a simplified, vulgar version of neoclassical economics — what can be called Econ 101 — that leads policymakers astray. Economists fear that if they really expose policymakers to all the contradictions, uncertainties and complications of “Advanced Econ,” the latter will go off track — embracing protectionism, heavy-handed “industrial policy” or even socialism. In fact, the myths of Econ 101 already lead policymakers dangerously off track, with tragic results for the economy and everyday Americans.

The legislation covers clergy and lay people who live and work in Vatican City and is different from the canon law which covers the universal Catholic Church. The bulk of the Vatican's penal code is based on the 1889 Italian code. Many of the new provisions were necessary to bring the city state's legal system up to date after the Holy See signed international treaties, such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Others were necessary to comply with international norms to fight money-laundering, part of the Vatican's push toward financial transparency.

Paolo Gabriele, the butler for then-Pope Benedict XVI, was tried and convicted by a Vatican court of stealing Benedict's personal papers and giving them to an Italian journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi. Using the documents, Nuzzi published a blockbuster book on the petty turf wars, bureaucratic dysfunction and allegations of corruption and homosexual liaisons that afflict the highest levels of Catholic Church governance.

Gabriele, who said he wanted to expose the "evil and corruption" that plagued the Holy See, was convicted of aggravated theft and sentenced to 18 months in the Vatican's police barracks. Benedict eventually pardoned him and he is now a free man. But his crime devastated the Vatican, shattering the confidentiality that typically governs correspondence with the pope.

In an indication of how serious the Vatican considers such confidentiality, the penalties for violations of the new law are stiff: Anyone who reveals or receives confidential information or documentation risks six months to two years in prison and a €2,000 euro ($2,500) fine; the penalty goes up to eight years in prison if the material concerns the "fundamental interests" of the Holy See or its diplomatic relations with other countries.

"Iran has ambitious ballistic missile and space launch development programs and continues to attempt to increase the range, lethality, and accuracy of its ballistic missile force," the report says. "Iran could develop and test an ICBM capable of reaching the United States by 2015."

A source at Russia's Federal Guard Service (FSO), which is in charge of safeguarding Kremlin communications and protecting President Vladimir Putin, claimed that the return to typewriters has been prompted by the publication of secret documents by WikiLeaks, the whistle-blowing website, as well as Edward Snowden, the fugitive US intelligence contractor.

The FSO is looking to spend 486,000 roubles – around £10,000 – on a number of electric typewriters, according to the site of state procurement agency, zakupki.gov.ru. The notice included ribbons for German-made Triumph Adlew TWEN 180 typewriters, although it was not clear if the typewriters themselves were this kind.

The service declined to comment on the notice, which was posted last week. However an FSO source told Izvestiya newspaper: “After scandals with the distribution of secret documents by WikiLeaks, the exposes by Edward Snowden, reports about Dmitry Medvedev being listened in on during his visit to the G20 summit in London, it has been decided to expand the practice of creating paper documents.”

Unlike printers, every typewriter has its own individual pattern of type so it is possible to link every document to a machine used to type it.