President Obama is threatening with non-payment of pensions if the government fails to increase the national debt ceiling. The most powerful populist arguments are being used, but Obama has yet to succeed in breaking the resistance of the Republicans in Congress. Experts are speculating: the country is actually threatened by a default, but the U.S. is an unusual economy.

Obama said that he "cannot guarantee" the payment of retirement benefits in August to 27 million people. According to Obama, it all boils down to the legal size limit of public debt that currently is at $14.3 trillion. White House proposes to increase the upper limit by $2.4 trillion. There is a joke in the United States that Obama asked his finance minister: "What number comes after trillion?"

Over the past two years the U.S. budget deficit rose to $2.8 trillion. It is more than it was in the previous 10 years. In February of this year, Obama introduced to Congress a draft budget for 2012 fiscal year with a plan to reduce public spending by 1.1 trillion over ten years.

After failing a compaign to bring down the Ghaddafi government by force, NATO now attempts to bring it down by political negotiation. However, they fail to comprehend, or at least pretend they don't comprehend, that losers don't dictate terms for the end of a war, particularly if you were the aggressor.

What NATO did was supervise and assist the looting, ransacking and wanton acts of murder committed by their land based mercenaries, read terrorist occupation forces, trained and armed by them. NATO countries and lackeys also arrogantly committed grand larceny, stealing the wealth of the Libyan people.

They merrily and happily dropped bombs on civilians and civilian infrastructure while pretending their purpose was to "protect civilians." What they did was the exact opposite. They bombed indiscriminately like a petulant child that couldn't have their way having a temper tantrum because that shiny toy wasn't theirs to take.

They so flagrantly violated the resolutions they used as a pretext for the campaign, that they murdered the son and young grandchildren of Muammar Ghaddafi in the attempt to murder him personally. They were willing to do anything and everything, and to kill anyone, in order to kill him.

Rumours are flying around about NATO offering an under-the-table deal to Colonel Gaddafy to step down and receive a declaration of immunity in return. This brings two notions into play: first, NATO's word has as much credibility as a spiv in a shell-suit and secondly, have those behind this ill-conceived crusade finally seen the folly of their actions?

When you receive an offer from NATO, there are two things you should do: remember the guy in a scruffy raincoat who hangs out behind the local train station hissing at passers-by: "Hey man, you wanna buy a second-hand Romanian wristwatch?" and secondly, say No!
Why? Because NATO has lied time and time and time and time and time again. NATO lied to Russia, stating it would not move eastwards and encroach into former Warsaw Pact countries and look where it now stands - encircling Russia from the Baltic States to the north, down through Poland to Bulgaria to the west, Turkey to the south and as if that was not enough, is making overtures to Georgia, a thorn in Russia's side as was so admirably demonstrated by Tbilissi's act of slaughter not so long ago (Summer of 2008).

There's no denying the cultural impact of Facebook. It has united almost 700 million people, including most of you reading this, becoming the greatest social introduction platform the world has ever seen.

But there are also some recent signs of "Facebook fatigue." There is only so much you can do to socialize online, especially after you've exhausted your friend list. Some people also complain they're spending so much time on Facebook that they're short-changing the rest of their lives.

Evidence suggests a small but increasing number of users -- at least in North America, where Facebook use is especially saturated -- may be shunning the site. The site lost more than 7 million active users in the United States and Canada last month, according to data from the blog Inside Facebook, although Facebook disputes those figures.

Others are consciously reducing the time they spend on the site.

"I figured out that I wouldn't look back as an old man and wish I had spent more time on Facebook," says David Cole, an IT manager from Boston. Cole said he believes the popular social-networking site is a useful tool, but not a replacement for what he calls "realbook" experiences.

NATO attacks hotel while the Libyan government makes peace offer.
Representatives of the Libyan government and the opposition met on Thursday (16th) to discuss the crisis, said Mikhail Marguelov, diplomat sent to the country by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. Meanwhile, the rebels and U.S. officials said they will not accept the election campaign proposed by the Libyan leader's son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi.

Marguelov said the Tripoli authorities admitted they were in "direct contact" with the National Transitional Council (NTC), which represents the opposition against the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The Russian remained for several hours in the Libyan capital, in dialogue with Prime Minister Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, and the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, to articulate a mediation of the Kremlin to establish a ceasefire pact and further negotiations with the rebels.