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Canada Builds Pipelines To Export Oil To Asia (At Higher Prices) As US Stalls on Keystone XL

By Robert M. Cutler of Oilprice.com: As the US has yet again delayed a decision on the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline designed to take the hydrocarbon product of Alberta’s oil sands to the Gulf Coast, Canada pushes ahead with a strategic plan for a pipeline infrastructure to the Pacific Coast.

In Last 12 Months: Fed SOMA Up 27%, Housing Prices Up 13.5%, Stock Market Up 22%, Jobs Up 1.7%

By Lee Adler, of The Wall Street Examiner: By now it’s clear to everybody, even the Fed, that QE does absolutely nothing to stimulate economic growth while fomenting bubbles in housing and stock prices. The Fed will disingenuously use steady job growth as an excuse to begin cutting back on QE soon. But its real reason lies elsewhere.

Snowden Warns Americans: Fear The Military-Intelligence Complex

By Chriss Street: Unburdened by the constitutional requirement to get a search warrant, the NSA has teamed with Apple, Google, and Microsoft to capture your party pictures, intimate letters, and financial activities in order to build a “permanent file” to be used against you later. That’s Edward Snowden’s revelation as he accepted political asylum in Russia.

Market Celebrates Egypt’s Coup, But It’s Not Over Yet

Contributed by Jen Alic of Oilprice.com: The situation in Egypt has not been tenable since the Muslim Brotherhood and President Morsi took over, post-revolution, but now that the military has stepped in, ousted Morsi, and placed him in detention, foreign investors are celebrating – on the logic that things couldn’t get any worse, only better.

Nuclear Lobby’s Latest Spin: It’s All Just “Fear” Of Radiation

Contributed by Christina Macpherson: According to the nuclear industry, the real hurdle to developing nuclear power isn’t cancer, birth defects, genetic instability, risks of nuclear accidents…. It’s simply overcoming the fear of radiation.

The French Government’s Exquisite Bullying

The French government is saddled with enough problems; in theory, it no longer needs to create new ones. But now it wrote another excellent chapter in its tome on how to interfere with private-sector businesses, hamper entrepreneurs, and encourage them to start up their operations elsewhere instead of creating jobs in France.

Cyprus Crisis: A Triumph For Russian Isolationists

Contributed by Valentin Mândrăşescu, Editor of Reality Check @ The Voice of Russia. The mainstream media usually presents a very unbalanced view on the events in which Russian interests are involved. The “Cypriot bailout” is no exception. These messages are wrong, and they miss the most interesting part of the story. I can tell that in Moscow there are many people who are jubilating right now. Their wildest dreams have come true.

College Graduates Are The New Debt Slaves

Contributed by Chriss Street. With the average cost of attending college in America at $120,000, a family of four should expect their children’s college to cost more than a home. Yet, optimism about the value of education provided justification for students to borrow $42 billion from the US this year. And many of them will end up as student-loan debt slaves. 

Russian “Black Money” Threatens To Boot Cyprus Out Of The Eurozone

German Bailout Chancellor Merkel, who is trying to avoid any tumult ahead of the elections, has a new headache: Cyprus might default and exit the Eurozone. Using taxpayer money to bail out the corrupt Greek elite or stockholders, bondholders, and counterparties of banks, or even privileged speculators, is one thing, but bailing out Russian “black money” is, politically at least, quite another.

French Artists (Théâtre Royal de Luxe) Strike Out Against Evil American Empire (Coca-Cola)

Théâtre Royal de Luxe, a street-theater company in France, decided to sue an evil American multinational giant, or so it seems. But there are complications: Royal de Luxe is at the confluence of political connections, government subsidies, Coca-Cola commercialism, perhaps even world domination—and certainly, awesome art.