The gloves are off in the battle to shape our "new world order", observes Eric Walberg

19/2/9 -- The American Recovery and Reinvestment Bill passed this week will define Barack Obama's presidency. But it is really just the younger sibling to the Troubled Assets Relief Programme. To separate the now trillions being handed out to the banksters from the $800 billion being handed out to the lottery winners is to be ingenuous. The elder sister's patrons are already blackmailing mama Obama, wailing for more trillions or they will plunge the economy into even greater financial crisis. "You ain't seen nothing yet," they hissed to Treasury Secretary Geithner, who, according to economist Michael Hudson, quickly "pledged government financing for as much as $2 trillion... to spur new lending and address banks' toxic assets, seeking to end the credit crunch hobbling the economy."

As demonstrators march on the White House with a million signatures on a petition to impeach Bush and Cheney, doubts persist about the event that made them "wartime leaders", says Eric Walberg

6/9/7 -- Theories about what really happened on 11 September, 2001 continue to inspire books and documentaries and convince otherwise sane, respectable public figures, not to mention the teeming masses. Journalist Robert Fisk recently joined the fray, intrigued by the scientific improbably of the buildings collapsing in such a seemingly controlled way and charges by engineering professors who call the final report "fraudulent or deceptive". As a Middle East expert, he also finds the letter allegedly written by Mohamed Atta, the Egyptian hijacker- murderer "weird", surely a forgery.