Daily Headlines:

First, to the Middle East:

6 rockets hit Israel; IDF strikes Israel

Two Qassam rockets fired from the northern Gaza Strip Thursday evening exploded in open areas in southern Israel within minutes of each other.

Three Qassam rockets fired from Gaza Thursday afternoon also exploded in open areas in in the south, as the rate of attacks from the Strip again picked

Palestinian terrorists also fired a rocket at southern Israel Thursday morning. The projectile landed in an open area in Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council. No injuries or damage were reported

IAF hits total of six targets throughout Gaza

Israel Air Force aircraft carried out air strikes against a total of six targets throughout the Gaza Strip overnight Thursday, in direct response to the firing of high-trajectory projectiles by Palestinian terrorists at western Negev communities, the IDF Spokesperson announced.

The IDF views Hamas exclusively responsible for events occurring in Gaza and places the blame on the terror group for disrupting the peace.

Shortly before the confirmation by the IDF, Palestinian witnesses and Hamas officials reported IAF fighter jets had bombed four Hamas training camps.

6 in 10 Palestinians reject 2-state solution, survey finds

But there is a catch:

73% of 1,010 Palestinians in W. Bank, Gaza agree with 'hadith' quoted in Hamas Charter about the need to kill Jews hiding behind stones, trees.

Only one in three Palestinians (34 percent) accepts two states for two peoples as the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an intensive, face-to-face survey in Arabic of 1,010 Palestinian adults in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip completed this week by American pollster Stanley Greenberg.


Respondents were asked about US President Barack Obama’s statement that “there should be two states: Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people and Israel as the homeland for the Jewish people.”

Just 34% said they accepted that concept, while 61% rejected

Here is the truth that is fundamental to understanding the Middle East:

Sixty-six percent said the Palestinians’ real goal should be to start with a two-state solution but then move to it all being one Palestinian state.

Asked about the fate of Jerusalem, 92% said it should be the capital of Palestine, 1% said the capital of Israel, 3% the capital of both, and 4% a neutral international city.

Seventy-two percent backed denying the thousands of years of Jewish history in Jerusalem, 62% supported kidnapping IDF soldiers and holding them hostage, and 53% were in favor or teaching songs about hating Jews in Palestinian schools.

Protest: Stop Temple Mount Discrimination Desecration

Jewish activists held a demonstration Thursday to protest anti-Jewish discrimination on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. While Muslims are allowed to pray freely at the site, Jews are allowed to enter the area only in small groups, and may not pray while there.

The activists accused police of discriminating against Jews in an attempt to appease the Muslim Wakf religious authority. Police limit the number of Jewish worshipers allowed on the Temple Mount at one time in order to prevent conflict with Muslim worshipers and have often closed the Mount to Jews in response to Muslim riots – despite evidence that Muslim riots have been planned in advance for the specific purpose of forcing Jews out.

Protesters also spoke out about Muslim desecration of the holy site.

'Iran outdoes N. Korea's long-range missile development'

Iran has overtaken North Korea in the development of long-range sophisticated missiles, as demonstrated by the recent launch of a number of new missiles during military maneuvers in Iran, Uzi Rubin, the former head of Israel’s Homa Missile Defense Agency, said on Thursday.

According to Rubin, during the Great Prophet War Games held earlier this month, Iran displayed a new ballistic missile that has been converted to be used against ships. This is considered a significant breakthrough since most anti-ship missiles are cruise missiles that fly parallel to the water’s surface while this missile takes a ballistic course toward its target.

“This is a direct threat on the US Navy along Iran’s coast,” Rubin said. “The Iranians took a Fateh-110 rocket, which is also in Hezbollah hands, installed on it a guidance system and turned it into an anti-ship missile.”

Indonesians flee volcano eruption on Sulawesi

Thousands of people on an Indonesian island have been forced to flee a fierce volcanic eruption.

Mount Lokon, on Sulawesi, started erupting at around 2230 local time (1530 GMT) on Thursday, according to reports.

The last month has seen a significant rise in volcanic activity in the area, and the alert status was raised to the highest level just days ago.

The eruption saw ash, sand and rocks thrown 1,500m (4,800ft) into the air, government volcanologist Kristianto was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

Earthquake strikes in the English Channel

Tea cups rattled at breakfast-time this morning as an earthquake struck the English Channel - and almost went unnoticed.

But according to the British Geological Survey (BGS), it is the biggest to strike a 16 mile region in 300 years.

People living in parts of West Sussex said buildings shook for a few seconds at around 8am.

The quake's epicentre was around 53 miles (85km) south-east of Portsmouth, Hampshire, at a depth of 10km,the BGS said.

'This is the largest earthquake within 25 km (16 miles) since a magnitude 4.5 event in 1734,' David Kerridge, from the BGS, added.

If The U.S. Government Loses Its AAA Rating It Could Unleash Financial Hell Across The United States

For decades, the U.S. government has had a AAA rating. On the scales used by the big three credit rating agencies, that is the highest credit rating that a government can get.

The threat of a rating downgrade is going to continue to grow regardless of how the political theater that we are watching unfold in Washington D.C. plays out.

The truth is that the federal government has accumulated a debt that is so vast that it will never be paid back. In fact, we are rapidly approaching the point when this debt will no longer be serviceable. If the credit rating of the U.S. government is not slashed right now, it will be soon enough.

But whenever the United States does lose its AAA rating, we could potentially see financial hell unleashed because it will also mean that there will almost certainly be a wave of credit rating downgrades from coast to coast.

This isn't a matter of "if" but "when".

So whether or not it happens right now, the truth is that at some point the credit rating of the U.S. government is going to go down and interest rates are going to go up.

Unfortunately, it appears that this might happen sooner rather than later.

Earlier this week, Moody's Investors Service publicly announced that it would be reviewing our Aaa bond rating for a possible downgrade.

The ripple effects of a U.S. government credit downgrade would be endless.

If the U.S. collapses, Europe is not strong enough to save it. If Europe collapses, the U.S. is not strong enough to save it.

We really are entering an unprecedented time in world history. We are on the verge of the first truly global financial disaster.

It is going to be interesting to see which major currency crashes and burns first. Some think that it will be the euro. Others think that it will be the dollar.

In any event, the reality is that the current global financial system is not sustainable. The folks that are in charge can try to keep things together for as long as possible, but at some point the dominoes are going to start to fall and the house of cards is going to crash.

The world has become incredibly unstable and the entire globe is going to be shaken. Most people cannot even conceive of the kind of financial hell that is coming our way as a nation.

3 Examples Of How "Its Policy" Has Become An Excuse For Absolutely Unspeakable Acts

This is firmly in the category of "read it and weep":

Things have gotten completely and totally out of control. Hitler and Stalin and Chairman Mao were able to do the things that they did because their people blindly adhered to their "policies". In the United States today, is there anything that the American people would not do if they were told that it was "policy" to do it?

Decades of conditioning have trained us to do what we are told no matter what the consequences are.

Three stark examples are given, and are well worth reading. Then we see the sad conclusion:

We are becoming the kind of totalitarian "Big Brother" police state that we always accused communist countries like the Soviet Union of being. Every single day, somewhere in America there are control freak bureaucrats that are putting in more "policies" that are taking away more of our freedoms.

This is going to continue until there is a major cultural shift in this country.

Hopefully at some point there will be a major shift back in the direction of liberty and freedom.

Hopefully at some point the American people will wake up and demand change.

So what do you think? Do you think that there is a chance of that happening?

Also see:

The Democrats' own Reichstag Fire

And this:

The Soft Dictatorship

And even this:

Pravda Syndrome: MSM Can't Stop Lying About 'Gunwalker'

And turning to the EU we see these articles:

The fate of the euro is in the hands of Germany

Speculation that the European Central Bank stepped in to buy Italy’s debt has not been confirmed, but would be significant if true.
It would suggest that the ECB is finally trying to put together a strategy to contain the crisis. The piecemeal approach it has so far adopted is simply not good enough.

Indeed, further turbulence could well be triggered today when stress tests on European banks are published to reveal how exposed they are to sovereign debt.
As David Cameron said in the Commons on Wednesday: “Eurozone countries have to recognise that they have to do more together and faster; they have to get ahead of the market rather than just respond to the next crisis.”

Eurozone debt in focus as banks face health checks

The Italian senate has passed an austerity budget approving cuts of 48 billion euros aimed at balancing the country’s budget by 2014.

Italy has one of the largest debt mountains in the eurozone and the measures are designed to avoid the need for a bail-out.

The message from the government, Europe must remain united to escape financial doom.

“We move forward or we sink. The solution is either political or it isn’t, or it is the same in the whole of Europe or it isn’t. No-one should have any illusions of individual salvation.

Crisis-prone summer