Big Medicine

"We" have moved..

2007-02-01T15:08:00.000-05:00

For newer information, click here.

The most current blog is here.

Thanks for visiting. I think you will find both of the above amusing, if not enlightening.

Eric out..

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2006-12-14T21:53:00.000-05:00

The Final Word

2006-12-13T12:09:00.000-05:00

I have decided to be a one blog man, meaning that this is the one that has to go. I apologize to any that would fret this but I really don't think it does myself or readers a service to compartmentalize what I know and what I research. In the past, I have had to deal with environmentalists that think I can't be trusted because of my insistence that 9/11 was an inside job. I have also had to deal with 9/11 researchers that just know that I am a cog in the New World Order because of my insistence that global warming is real. Now, I risk alienating the rest by my research into psychological operations and behavior modification, not to mention of my dabbling into elements of the UFO phenomenon.

If you are still reading, then know that what Eric Stewart and his research is all about will continue to be available, in one kaleidoscope of information, at my other blog. I warn you, however, that it is a place where the closed minded could experience symptoms of disorientation. It is a place that best suits those that have already crossed what Robert Anton Wilson calls the Chapel Perilous, what Aleister Crowley referred to as the Abyss, and what St. John the 'Divine' named the Dark Night of the Soul.

If that makes absolutely no sense to you, then you have been cautioned. Here is my other blog.

With this blog's dying breath, it asks that you view this video, and since Google has yet again denied me the ability to blog one of their items (see this link for more on that and click here for a story about how Google was started with CIA dollars - Google, by the way, owns Blogger), here is the link to it at Google. I am not happy about directing you to a site owned and operated by the national security state but this video may be that important. I am not sure how long I can last at Blogger, spilling the beans like I do all over the hand that feeds me; I am not sure how much longer I will want to.

This is the last episode of Big Medicine. No refills.

Philip K. Dick: "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

Juxtaposition: A Decompartmentalized Zone

A Heads Up for Purveyors of Reality Based Journalism

2006-12-10T08:30:00.000-05:00

Sam Smith, the point man behind the Progressive Review, runs a superb blog. Here, I have highlighted a few recent items:

Snip: "More businesses are treating their staff more as serfs than as free employees. True, they are not technically unfree laborers as they are able to leave their jobs (to find similar employment elsewhere) but increasingly employers are seeking the sort of control over the personal lives of their workers that characterized various forms of unfree labor including serfdom, indentured servitude and slavery." (click here for more)

Snip: "Marijuana is not a 'gateway' drug that predicts or eventually leads to substance abuse, suggests a 12-year University of Pittsburgh study. Moreover, the study's findings call into question the long-held belief that has shaped prevention efforts and governmental policy for six decades and caused many a parent to panic upon discovering a bag of pot in their child's bedroom. . ." (click here for more)

Snip: "Yesterday Florida's 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected a challenge to the 25-year mandatory minimum sentence received by pain patient Richard Paey for "drug trafficking" that did not involve any trafficking in drugs. As the majority explained, under Florida law 'a person need not sell anything to commit the 'trafficking' offense. . . A person may commit the offense by knowingly being in actual or constructive possession of an enumerated controlled substance in a quantity equal to or greater than a weight designated by statute' - in this case, 28 grams of the narcotic painkiller oxycodone. (click here for more)

Snip: "The Environmental Protection Agency has changed the way it sets standards to control dangerous air pollutants like lead, ozone and tiny particles of soot, enhancing the role of the agency's political appointees in scientific assessments and postponing the required review by independent scientific experts." (click here for more)

Also see:

Bush Agent Orders Demolition of 4,500 New Orleans Public Housing Units

U.N. Official: Darfur in Freefall

Recovered History

Affordable Housing Continues to Dwindle

Undernews is the online report of the Progressive Review, edited by Sam Smith, who has covered Washington under nine presidents and edited alternative journals since 1964. The Review is an online journal and archive of alternative news. It has been on the web since 1995.

Meese of Arabia and the Baker Group's Grab for Black Gold

2006-12-10T08:22:00.000-05:00

by Chris Floyd

The reaction from actual Iraqis on the just-released report by the "Iraq Study Group"? They don't like it; it won't work; it's largely a tissue of fantasies and shows no grasp of the true situation in Iraq; it has nothing to do with solving Iraq's problems but everything to do with the American Establishment's desperate attempt to save face, no matter how many people must be slaughtered in the process.

But why should we listen to these wretched malcontents in Iraq? How the hell could they know more about the reality of their lives than Jim "Bagman" Baker and Lee "Whitewash for Hire" Hamilton and Harriet "Here's the PB&J, George" Miers and Ed "Porn Man" Meese? I mean, come on: who on God's green earth knows more about the political, social, ethnic, historical, religious and military complexities of Iraq than Ed Meese? The Heritage Foundation's Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow in Public Policy? Man, he's the go-to guy for all things Iraqi! There's no freaking, frigging way that any Hakim or Abdul or Nouri or Motqada or Mahmoud is gonna have any greater insight on Iraq than Ed Meese. Are you kidding me?

Listen, if you start listening to actual Iraqis, you might as well hang it up right now. Because poll after poll shows that actual Iraqis overwhelmingly favor a single option for the U.S. military forces in their country: cut and run, the sooner the better. That's what they want; but of course, they're just like children, aren't they, the precious little primitive critters. And everybody knows you can't give children everything they want. It's not good for them. So we have to hold the Iraqis' hands until they can toddle on their own -- and we have to slap their hands if they don't do what we know is best for them.

Or as the Baker boys themselves put it: "If the Iraqi government does not make substantial progress toward the achievement of milestones on national reconciliation, security, and governance, the United States should reduce its political, military, or economic support for the Iraqi government." Nice little country you got there, Hassan; too bad if something, like, happens to it, eh? I think you'd better play ball. See these here milestones we've concocted on the padded chairs in our paneled boardroom? You better meet 'em, chop-chop -- or we can make your life...difficult. You savvy?

The Iraq Study Group's report simply confirms, yet again, the bedrock truth of the war: the American Establishment has no intention of leaving Iraq, ever, and no intention of having anything but a pliant, cowed, bullied puppet government in Baghdad to carry out whatever the Establishment decides is in its best interests on any given day. Iraq was invaded because large swathes of the American elite thought they could make hay of it one way or another (financially, politically, ideologically or even psychologically, for those pathetic souls who get their sense of manhood or personal validation from their identification with a big, swaggering, domineering empire). And U.S. troops will remain in Iraq, indefinitely, at some level, because the American elite think they can make hay of the situation one way or another. The war is all about -- is only about -- what the American elite feel is in their own best interest, how it aggrandizes their fortunes, flatters their prejudices, serves their needs. That's it. The rest is just bullshit and murder.

There is much more of this poignant and lovely rant at Chris Floyd's website here.

Also see ISG Report - Flowers And Sweets

Six Ways That Changing Your Life Can Prevent Global Warming

2006-12-10T08:06:00.000-05:00

by Peter Michaelson

All of the reasons for our failure to address global warming are known. But they are not known widely and deeply enough to send us rushing down the street on bicycles or even in four-cylinder cars.

Still, we want something to be done. Are we waiting for Al Gore? Is it possible it all depends on our own little selves?

A very simple axiom is at play: The better we understand our own contribution to the paralysis, the freer we become to act effectively.

Six reasons or conditions that facilitate global warming are presented here, and each is related to the others.

Reason number one is the indifference that so many of us have for our own health. When we don’t care about our health, we won’t care about the health of the planet.

We eat and drink food that has the life manufactured out of it. We become sedentary and avoid exercise. We trash our minds with trivia and commercial rubbish the way we trash the planet with garbage. We don’t know how to protect ourselves from negative influences such as cynicism, dissension, and dogmatic belief systems. If we don’t regulate our appetites, desires, and addictions, the planet’s suffering becomes secondary to our own.

Problem number two is our fear. Irrational fears abound in the psyche and are projected into the world. We have many kinds of fear, including fear of fear itself, along with fear of change, of loss, of helplessness, of abandonment, and of death. Courage is admired because it moves us through our fear.

We need passion and courage to address global warming. To generate this, we often have to move through a fear left over from childhood — the lingering impression that we’re powerless and helpless against the authorities who rule our world. This emotional association also generates a fear that if we go up against them we’re in danger of being rejected, unloved, or even annihilated.

The male values of power and domination constitute problem number three. Supreme gratification and egotistical aggrandizement reward man for his conquest of nature. Globalization is, in part, his quest to extend his “triumph” to all peoples and cultures.

The feminine mystique is the antidote. Symbolized by Rachel Carson in her book, Silent Spring, it awakened us in the 1960s to the male-engineered poisoning of the earth through the misuse of chemical pesticides. Women’s sensitivity and their alignment with nurturing gave birth to the environmental movement.

The male propensity for power and domination has moved from the infantile level to the adolescent. It needs to be unstuck once more. We need to understand that the possession of true strength and power depends on our having wisdom and compassion, which come to us through the balance of the feminine and the masculine values.

Reason number four finds us plagued with an overabundance of political leaders who won’t lead. These men and women tend to be followers. They follow the polls that guide their re-election priorities as well as the economic elite’s signals in favor of the status quo.

The skill of many of our politicians is also measured by their ability to circumvent the most vital issues and questions. Their aim is not to represent truth, justice, or constituents, but to perform on the political stage as professional insiders and self-promoters.

Their failure to fulfill their calling, like that of corporate journalists, is related to our passivity. We need to examine the secret invitation we extend, on behalf of our own inner fears, for the solace of mediocrity and the safety of invisibility.

Number five on this list brings us to a serious fault line in our economic system. An underground stress is cracking the bedrock of capitalism. A leakage of fascism at the core of capitalism lies exposed by this failure to take appropriate action against global warming.

Fascism is, in part, an ill-fated approach to national governance that has obliterated all authority within its boundaries capable of stopping its destructive expansionism. In the United States, a fascist position might soon be formalized when the Supreme Court determines a case involving the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA’s refusal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions is being challenged in the Supreme Court, and at least four conservative justices seem to believe, along with the Bush Administration, that the agency should not be regulating if it cannot show specific damages traceable to controllable emissions from cars and power plants.

If this narrow legal view prevails and the case is lost, one less impartial authority is left to make vital decisions regarding global warming. As a nation, then, we would be in a plight similar to that of a person who, because of a psychopathic or psychotic condition, can’t make decisions between right and wrong.

Reason number six finds us waiting in vain for economics to lead us out of the impasse presented by global warming. Economics has failed dismally to protect us from the excesses of capitalism.

Adam Smith’s old discipline, as now practiced at the highest levels, is no longer an exploratory system concerned with politics, sociology, and psychology. Computer-driven economics has lost (passively forfeited to its financial masters) the authority to speak to larger issues such as global warming and is left only to pontificate on profitability probabilities.

What now is the prognosis for action on global warming? Stubborn free-market ideologues are allowing conditions to deteriorate. As we bring our predicament into focus, we see an irrational and therefore illegitimate authority — like that of a raging, addictive, or bipolar parent — “taking care of us.”

Are we going to be children? Or will our moral and psychological ascendancy save the world?

SOURCE: RINF

Also see Professor Devises New Form of Solar Cell

Cowboy Mentality Dominates Bison Slaughter

2006-12-09T08:40:00.000-05:00

BFC writes: "This is a terrific article that was printed in the Fall 2006 issue of the Western Watersheds Project's newsletter, 'Watersheds Messenger.' WWP's mission is to protect and restore western watersheds and wildlife through education, public policy initiatives and litigation. Learn more at their site."

Cowboy Mentality Dominates Bison Slaughter
By George Wuerthner

The continuing bison slaughter by the Montana Department of Livestock outside of Yellowstone National Park is a demonstration of the "cowboy" mentality the industry uses to address any problem. Instead of using its brains, it resorts to brute force. If left unchallenged, I believe the industry's harsh tactics pose a threat to free roaming wildlife everywhere.

When you review the facts, it is difficult to believe that minimizing the threat of brucellosis is really the motivating force behind the livestock industry's actions.

Reasonable options that could address their concerns about disease transmission are ignored in favor of deadly force. This can only be explained if the brucellosis issue is a Trojan Horse hiding another motive. Whether admitted, many in the livestock industry fear the expansion of wild bison outside of parks. Such an expansion of wild free roaming bison can only come at the expense of the livestock industry. The industry, realizing this threat, is attempting to construct a Berlin Wall around our parks, destroying any animals that wander from these sanctuaries.

There are several points to keep in mind. The threat of brucellosis transmission from wild free-roaming bison is grossly exaggerated. Most bison don't even have the disease.

Secondly, even if infected with brucellosis, transmission to livestock can only occur by contact with body fluids. In other words, brucellosis can be harbored in many parts of a bison's body and still not pose a threat to livestock. Thus even if a bison tests positive for the disease, it may not pose a threat to livestock.

The only bison body fluids that pose a threat to livestock are those associated with birth or abortion. This alone means that even brucellosis infected bison wandering near cattle outside of the primary abortion or birth season don't pose a threat of infection at all. Yet this hasn't prevented agencies from killing them.

In addition, since only mature bison cows pose any threat of transmission, the killing of bison bulls makes no sense if your goal is mitigation of brucellosis transmission and only makes sense if control of bison is the ultimate goal.

Third, the brucella bacterium is extremely sensitive to things like heat, dehydration, and exposure to the environment. Even if a bison aborted a fetus it is unlikely the bacteria would remain viable (this is why the notion of wild free roaming bison not posing a threat is important). Under a laboratory situation you might be able to transmit brucellosis from bison to cattle, but that's like suggesting you could grow oranges in Montana under laboratory conditions. It's meaningless in the wild. No attempt to determine the real risks has been performed. The risk isn't zero, but it's darn close-essentially if other mitigation measures such as mandatory brucellosis vaccination for livestock and other measures were implemented.

Fourth, elk and other wildlife also carry the disease. And if brucellosis transmission were really as much a threat as the livestock agencies would have us believe, the target of control efforts should be elk, not bison. There are far more elk in the Ecosystem than bison. Even if a lower proportion of elk carried the disease, their greater numbers and distribution poses a far greater potential threat. Yet the livestock agency ignores elk. Why? I think because ranchers do not view elk as great a competitor for forage as bison.

Fifth, snowmobile use and roads in the park has facilitated movement of bison, yet livestock agencies make no effort to restrict snowmobile use. If they were truly concerned about minimizing bison movement, they should be among the staunchest supporters of restrictions on snowmobile travel in the park. But they are silent.

Sixth, mandatory vaccination of all livestock in the region is still not required. A serious attempt to limit brucellosis transmission from wildlife should include such mandatory vaccination as a prerequisite.

Seventh, part of the problem rests with federal and state laws and regulations. For example, APHIS continues to suggest that if brucellosis is discovered among domestic animals, it will have no choice but to yank a state's brucellosis free status. Yet it does have a choice. They have the authority to restrict any quarantine to a much smaller area from a county to even a single herd. State livestock industries need not suffer merely because a single herd or a few herds contract the disease. The agencies don't readily admit this to the public because they want to create a crisis situation to justify their extreme actions.

Eighth, for a fraction of the funds currently expended on the capture and killing of bison, compensation fund could be created to assist ranchers whose livestock may contract the disease from wildlife to pay for their extra expenses incurred by quarantine. Better yet, buying out of ranches in or near public lands where bison roam-such as the Church Universal Triumphant ranch near Gardiner, Montana and a few other strategically located ranches would go a long ways towards removing any threat of livestock-bison contact.

When you consider all of these facts together, the current slaughter of bison is unnecessary and unjustified. It's time to question the cowboy mentality of brute force as a solution to any problem or conflict. ###

George Wuerthner, co-editor of "Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West," is a Western Watersheds Project advisory board member who lives in Richmond, Vermont.

Also see:

The Cowboy and His Cow (Edward Abbey)

Earth's Last Wild Bison Being Slaughtered

Dispelling the Cowboy Myth: an Interview with George Wuerthner

Sacred Buffalo, Holy Cow: The Struggle for the Western Range

Fascism Defined

2006-12-09T07:25:00.000-05:00

Fascism, in this day and age, seems a rather nebulous concept. I can't count how many times I have asked someone to define fascism only to draw a blank stare or an amibiguous collection of rants against the Anglo-American power structure that, while often true, do little to define fascism.

A few minutes ago I decided to browse some search engines for an adequate definition of fascism and what I found was a piece that did much more. Leave it to Third World Traveller to carry an essay of this quality, I say. I hope you find this illuminating:

Defining Our Terms
by Richard Curtis
Toward Freedom magazine, February 1998

The word democracy is used a lot these days. We're told that the Cuban system isn't democratic, and that Fidel Castro is a dictator. We're also told that the Right-wing business interests in Miami and elsewhere bent on destroying the Cuban Revolution are democrats. Does this make any sense?

To find out, let's look at two other popular labels - Right and Left. During the French Revolution, the Right referred to those in the original revolutionary assembly who physically sat on the right side of the hall. The ones with money and historic influence, they were suspicious of including the masses in decision making.

Those on the Right felt that people with money and property should make the decisions. Like the "Founding Fathers" of the US, they were concerned that a government representing the unpropertied could challenge their freedom of action. On the other side of the hall were those who. thought the franchise should be extended to all, regardless of property holdings. Since then, we've come to use the terms Left and Right to define, positions on government and its relationship to property-more properly capital.

The Right claims to be concerned about the rights of individuals (they just don't mention that they only care about individuals with wealth). As representatives of capital, they have always been suspicious of democracy. In fact, they believe that democratic government represents a threat to freedom -that is, the freedom to pursue individual economic interests. Of course, when the wealthy get together and vote on policy, that is a kind of democracy-democracy of the few, or oligarchy.

Removing power from its traditional roots in the aristocracy meant granting some to small property holders, and over time to those with no property. But this extension of the franchise (and democracy) threatened the freedom of capital. And so, these days we hear that the problem is big government. As it's always done, the Right says that the government is a threat, that it ruins things and controls us.

In fact, government is the compromise the ruling class makes with the working class. The ruling class retains power, but gives up some freedom, like the freedom to pollute, use child labor, or make dangerous products. Mainly, however, the Right claims that the market will sort all this out, and that government just gets in the way. Some working people and small farmers have been persuaded to agree.

The Right, which in modern history is known as fascism, advocates a system in which those with wealth are free to do as they please and the functions of government are limited to policing and war. Some self-described conservatives reject the term fascism, claiming that the fascists were actually statists who believed in retaining the power of government. But that just suggests an ignorance of history.

Fascism has always been about ensuring the rights of capital. The police and army are necessary to protect corporations, human services aren't. Thus, the Right-in all its forms, regardless of what it calls itself - wants less government in areas that serve human beings, but just as much or more in areas that protect capital and the pursuit of private profit.

Ironically, the political philosophy of the Right, fascism, has been so discredited by history that contemporary so-called conservatives refuse to identify their politics with its roots in European history. Even 70 years ago, the leading German exponent of conservatism, Adolf Hitler, called his fascist party the National Socialist German Workers Party. It was national in the sense that the Nazis were ultimately protecting large German corporations from those of other nations. But the word socialist was used only because Hitler felt he could appeal to working people by appropriating the language of the Left.

Today, capitalists call themselves democrats. As a result, Right-wing groups in Miami can advocate the overthrow of a government in Cuba while lining up for money to pursue what they call ''democracy building." But capitalists claiming to be democrats rings as true as fascists claiming to be socialists. Big capitalists are and always have been fascists-Rightists who believe the rich should be free to do as they please. Socialists are and always have been democrats-Leftists who believe every citizen should have power.

As Jim Hightower puts it, there's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos!

SOURCE: Third World Traveler

None of Us Really Matter to Them

2006-12-07T09:07:00.000-05:00

Intellectual Property or Neurotic Greed?

2006-12-06T09:58:00.000-05:00

The following is copied from the website of the Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Stealing Fair Use, Selling It Back to You

"Apparently, Hollywood believes that you should have to re-purchase all your DVD movies a second time if you want to watch them on your iPod." That's what I said last week, commenting on the Paramount v. Load-N-Go lawsuit, in which Hollywood studios claimed that it is illegal to rip a DVD to put on a personal video player (PVP), even if you own the DVD.

Well, this week the other shoe dropped. According to an article in the New York Times:

Customers who buy the physical DVD of Warner Brothers’ “Superman Returns” in a Wal-Mart store will have the option of downloading a digital copy of the film to their portable devices for $1.97, personal computer for $2.97, or both for $3.97.

So you buy the DVD, and if you want a copy on your PVP or computer, you have to pay a second time. Despite the fact that you bought the DVD, and you have a DVD drive in your computer that is perfectly capable of making a personal-use copy. Imagine if the record labels offered you this "deal" for every CD you bought -- pay us a few dollars extra, and you can have a copy for your iPod. And a few more dollars, if you want a copy on your computer, too! As LA Times reporter Jon Healey puts it in his blog: "So from the perspective of the studios and federal officials, consumers have to pay for the privilege of doing the sorts of things with DVDs that they're accustomed to doing with CDs (and LPs and cassettes)."

This latest bitter fruit from Hollywood is brought to you by the DMCA, which treats "protected" content (like the encrypted video on DVDs), differently from "unprotected" content (like every audio and video media format introduced before 1996). Thanks to the DMCA, Hollywood believes fair use personal-use copies simply do not exist when it comes to DVDs.

Given that the Copyright Office has refused [PDF, see p. 71-72] to recognize any DMCA exemption for space-shifting, claiming that putting a DVD you own on your iPod "is either infringing, or, even if it were noninfringing, would be merely a convenience," (excuse me, Copyright Office, that's a decision for a court to make) the ball is now in Congress' court. Let's hope Congressman Rick Boucher is listening and will reintroduce his DMCA reform bill first thing next year.

SOURCE: Electronic Frontier Foundation

Blogger note: In a way, the very concept of intellectual property is absurd. It is one thing to ensure that your work is not misrepresented, though I consider that something that has happened since the dawn of thinking and something that will probably be around as long as there are thoughts and voices to spread them. It is quite another to say that you cannot repeat what I say to you.

Fair use is not a loophole. It is fair use.

Brad Will's Alleged Killers Released from Jail

2006-12-04T08:29:00.000-05:00

by Sarah Ferguson December 1, 2006

Protesting Friday in New York at the Mexican Mission to the U.N.

The two Oaxacan town officials accused of gunning down Indymedia journalist Brad Will were released from prison today after a state judge claimed there was a "fading of evidence" against them.

The Mexico City daily Milenio reports that local town councillor Abel Santiago ZÃ¡rate and his chief of patrol, Orlando Manuel Aguilar Coello were both set free after the judge concluded that the two "could not be guilty" because they were too far away to have delivered the fatal shots.

Will was killed on October 27 while filming a street skirmish between protesters and town officials in the Santa Lucia del Camino, on the outskirts of the state capital in Oaxaca.

The judge's ruling was based on new and conflicting evidence presented by state prosecutors, who recently tried to pin Will's murder on the demonstrators he was filming.

According to the judge, the state's autopsy and ballistic reports found that Will was shot by a 9 mm gun at a distance of "less than 10 meters away." (The state's estimate of the distance keeps changing: last week there were reports of 1 to 3 meters and 2 to 4 meters).

However, the judge said Zarate and Aguilar were firing .38 revolvers from a minumum distance of 35 meters away.

In court the two men tried to claim they had only fired in the air, despite the ample news footage and photographs showing the two officials firing directly into the crowd of demonstrators, who had been chasing the gunmen through the town after they opened fire on a protest barricade.

Several people were wounded in the shootings, including a teacher and a photographer for Milenio who got hit below the knee just as Will was shot. (Two others were killed later that day in separate attacks.)

It's unclear whether state officials are still trying to blame supporters of the protest coalition APPO (Oaxaca People's Popular Assembly) for Will's murder. One news account named six other men implicated in the crime, although there was no indication of who these men are or why prosecutors suspect them.

Indymedia activists in Oaxaca immediately accused state prosecutors of a coverup and said they had "no confidence" in the ability of state officials to investigate the shooters, who are all members of the state's governing party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Amnesty International and other human rights groups have accused Oaxaca's governor Ulises Ruiz of backing paramilitary-style assaults on APPO demonstrators by plain clothes gunmen tied to his party.

The news of the shooters' release came as about 30 people stood in the rain outside the Mexican Mission to the United Nations in midtown New York to demand a "credible" investigation into Will's murder as well as the deaths and "disappearances" of scores of other activists in Oaxaca.

Following the violent clashes this weekend, more than 200 people have been rounded up, many of them shipped off to a maxium secuirity prison in the central state of Nayarit, where there are reports of abuse and torture. At least 50 others are unaccounted for, rights activists say.

Meanwhile, new allegations are surfacing in the Mexican media suggesting that members of the PRI may have been involved in the fires that engulfed the State Supreme Court house on Saturday as well as other government offices.

The fires and destruction in the capital have been used by federal police to justify their aggressive crackdown on APPO, a coalition of unions, students, indigenous councils, and other grassroots groups that formed to seek the ouster of Governor Ruiz.

Yesterday, the state teachers union announced a strike to protest the actions by federal police, who have been raiding schools to arrest teachers who took part in the demonstrations.

"We want to call attention to these human rights violations," said Harry Bubbins, an activist from the Bronx who was a close friend of Will, as he passed out flyers outside 2 UN Plaza, the soaring green office building where the Mexican Mission is located." The next step is putting pressure on American Congress members to ensure there is a full State Department investigation into Will's death."

But given the chaos in Mexico, one wonders whether anyone is listening. Fist fights broke out in Mexico's Congress this morning as opposing lawmkers challenged the inauguration of incoming president Felipe Calderon.

When Bubbins and another New York demonstrator tried to phone up to the Mexican Mission from the front desk, they were told by a woman who answered the phone that no one was there "because of the protests" and because the office was expecting an "exterminator."

"What kind of exterminator?" Bubbins asked.

SOURCE: Village Voice

Brad's Killers

Kissinger to Serve As Papal Adviser?

2006-12-04T08:04:00.000-05:00

I provide this article as a source for the essential information contained therein. I would be suspicious of the analysis of a Catholic publication, however, so caveat lector.

Pope Benedict XVI has invited Henry Kissinger, former adviser to Richard Nixon, to be a political consultant and he accepted.

BY EDWARD PENTIN
National Catholic Register
November 26-December 2, 2006 Issue

VATICAN CITY — Over the course of his long and controversial career, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has had many titles. Now he reportedly has one more — adviser to the Pope.

According to the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Pope Benedict XVI has invited the 83-year-old former adviser to Richard Nixon to be a political consultant, and Kissinger has accepted.

Quoting an “authoritative” diplomatic source at the Holy See, the paper reported Nov. 4 that the Nobel laureate was asked at a recent private audience with the Holy Father to form part of a papal “advisory board” on foreign and political affairs.

As the Register went to press, Kissinger’s office was unable to confirm or deny the report. La Stampa stood by its story, although the Italian press is less rigorous in its authentication of stories as is the United States Press.

If true, there is speculation on which issues Kissinger would advise the Holy Father. Relations with Islam, Palestine and Israel, and Iraq — Kissinger has been critical of the conduct of the war but opposes a quick withdrawal — are likely to be high up on the agenda.

It has also been speculated that, in view of the Muslim hostility to Benedict’s recent Regensburg speech, Kissinger might provide advice on dealing with an increasingly fractious Islamic world.

Furthermore, like the Pope, Kissinger has analyzed the challenges of globalization and might provide advice in this area as well.

“The idea [of his appointment] sounds like a good one,” said veteran Vatican journalist Sandro Magister. “But so would it also be to consult other experts on geopolitics with different orientations.”

As possible expert advisers with different perspectives, Magister listed Catholic philosopher and former diplomat Michael Novak; Bernard Lewis, professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University; and foreign policy experts such as Charles Kupchan and G. John Ikenberry.

Expert Advice

The recruitment of Kissinger would not be unprecedented. Experts from a variety of disciplines, including the realm of economics, politics and philosophy, are regularly invited to advise popes and Vatican officials on current affairs.

Pope John Paul II was close friends with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Polish-born national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, partly because both had a common Polish heritage (though this caused the Soviets to suspect the Vatican of “fixing” the election of Karol Wojtyla, which occurred during the Carter presidency).

Similarly to John Paul and Brzezinski, Benedict and Kissinger are close in age and were both born in Bavaria (a Jew, Kissinger and his family fled Nazi Germany before World War II).

In recent years, other figures invited to share their expertise with the Holy See have included Paul Wolfowitz, a former President Bush adviser and now president of the World Bank; Michel Camdessus, the former director of the International Monetary Fund; American economist Jeffrey Sachs and Hans Tietmeyer, former governor of Germany’s central bank.

The pontifical academies also regularly call on academic luminaries as consultants, such as Nobel laureates Gary Becker, the successor to Milton Friedman at the Chicago School of Economics, and Italian medical researcher Rita Levi-Montalcini.

In comments to the Register, Novak said that “many, maybe most” of these experts are not Catholic, but that the Pope “can call in certain experts he wants to talk to, or hear a paper from, with discussion in a small group.”

Novak said this is true of both Benedict XVI and John Paul II, whom he described as having “very curious and searching minds.”

Any appointment of Kissinger is likely to cause some unease, however. One Iranian radio station is already reporting the news as a “papal-Jewish conspiracy,” while others object to the Pope consulting with someone who has been widely identified with the realpolitik school of political analysis, an approach that places practical considerations before morality.

‘Different Voices’

Yet like Pope John Paul II, Benedict XVI is winning recognition for his intellectual ability and his capacity to discuss international issues with a diverse spectrum of world figures, ranging from the Dalai Lama to the late atheist polemicist Oriana Fallaci and to Mustapha Cherif, an Algerian Muslim philosopher whom he met this month.

“Such an appointment would really show Benedict XVI to be contrary to his media image, as someone who’s willing to listen to other voices not in accordance with his views,” said one Holy See diplomat about the reported enlistment of Kissinger as a papal adviser. “It’s always helpful to hear different voices offering different views.”

SOURCE: National Catholic Register

On Global Warming: A Challenge to Skeptics

2006-12-04T07:31:00.000-05:00

To deny that humans are affecting the warming of the planet and exacerbating it is to deny that either A) the gases released by human industry trap heat or that B) human industry emits such gases. Either is easily proven. So, global warming deniers, which is it?

This is my standing challenge to all that would deny the human effect on climate and I seriously doubt that any scientist (or anyone for that matter) is up to the task of denying either. If it can be shown that human industry produces such substances and if it can be shown that such gases trap heat (none of these individual pillars of the global warming "theory" has ever, to my knowledge, been denied by anyone - even the most vehement critics), then the global warming "debate" is over. Period.

I fully expect to be waiting until the extinction of the species for this to be adequately addressed by those who would deny.

Carbon dioxide emissions growth accelerating, reduction efforts fail

Carbon emissions show sharp rise

World Scientists' Warning To Humanity

2006-12-03T08:24:00.000-05:00

Some 1,700 of the world's leading scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in the sciences, issued this appeal in November 1992. The Warning was written and spearheaded by UCS Chair Henry Kendall.

Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about.

The Environment

The environment is suffering critical stress:

The Atmosphere: Stratospheric ozone depletion threatens us with enhanced ultraviolet radiation at the earth's surface, which can be damaging or lethal to many life forms. Air pollution near ground level, and acid precipitation, are already causing widespread injury to humans, forests and crops.
Water Resources: Heedless exploitation of depletable ground water supplies endangers food production and other essential human systems. Heavy demands on the world's surface waters have resulted in serious shortages in some 80 countries, containing 40% of the world's population. Pollution of rivers, lakes and ground water further limits the supply.
Oceans: Destructive pressure on the oceans is severe, particularly in the coastal regions which produce most of the world's food fish. The total marine catch is now at or above the estimated maximum sustainable yield. Some fisheries have already shown signs of collapse. Rivers carrying heavy burdens of eroded soil into the seas also carry industrial, municipal, agricultural, and livestock waste -- some of it toxic.
Soil: Loss of soil productivity, which is causing extensive Land abandonment, is a widespread byproduct of current practices in agriculture and animal husbandry. Since 1945, 11% of the earth's vegetated surface has been degraded -- an area larger than India and China combined -- and per capita food production in many parts of the world is decreasing.
Forests: Tropical rain forests, as well as tropical and temperate dry forests, are being destroyed rapidly. At present rates, some critical forest types will be gone in a few years and most of the tropical rain forest will be gone before the end of the next century. With them will go large numbers of plant and animal species.
Living Species: The irreversible loss of species, which by 2100 may reach one third of all species now living, is especially serious. We are losing the potential they hold for providing medicinal and other benefits, and the contribution that genetic diversity of life forms gives to the robustness of the world's biological systems and to the astonishing beauty of the earth itself.

Much of this damage is irreversible on a scale of centuries or permanent. Other processes appear to pose additional threats. Increasing levels of gases in the atmosphere from human activities, including carbon dioxide released from fossil fuel burning and from deforestation, may alter climate on a global scale. Predictions of global warming are still uncertain -- with projected effects ranging from tolerable to very severe -- but the potential risks are very great.

Our massive tampering with the world's interdependent web of life -- coupled with the environmental damage inflicted by deforestation, species loss, and climate change -- could trigger widespread adverse effects, including unpredictable collapses of critical biological systems whose interactions and dynamics we only imperfectly understand.

Uncertainty over the extent of these effects cannot excuse complacency or delay in facing the threat.

Population

The earth is finite. Its ability to absorb wastes and destructive effluent is finite. Its ability to provide food and energy is finite. Its ability to provide for growing numbers of people is finite. And we are fast approaching many of the earth's limits. Current economic practices which damage the environment, in both developed and underdeveloped nations, cannot be continued without the risk that vital global systems will be damaged beyond repair.

Pressures resulting from unrestrained population growth put demands on the natural world that can overwhelm any efforts to achieve a sustainable future. If we are to halt the destruction of our environment, we must accept limits to that growth. A World Bank estimate indicates that world population will not stabilize at less than 12.4 billion, while the United Nations concludes that the eventual total could reach 14 billion, a near tripling of today's 5.4 billion. But, even at this moment, one person in five lives in absolute poverty without enough to eat, and one in ten suffers serious malnutrition.

No more than one or a few decades remain before the chance to avert the threats we now confront will be lost and the prospects for humanity immeasurably diminished.

Warning

We the undersigned, senior members of the world's scientific community, hereby warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship of the earth and the life on it, is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated.

What We Must Do

Five inextricably linked areas must be addressed simultaneously:

We must bring environmentally damaging activities under control to restore and protect the integrity of the earth's systems we depend on. We must, for example, move away from fossil fuels to more benign, inexhaustible energy sources to cut greenhouse gas emissions and the pollution of our air and water. Priority must be given to the development of energy sources matched to third world needs -- small scale and relatively easy to implement. We must halt deforestation, injury to and loss of agricultural land, and the loss of terrestrial and marine plant and animal species.
We must manage resources crucial to human welfare more effectively. We must give high priority to efficient use of energy, water, and other materials, including expansion of conservation and recycling.
We must stabilize population. This will be possible only if all nations recognize that it requires improved social and economic conditions, and the adoption of effective, voluntary family planning.
We must reduce and eventually eliminate poverty.
We must ensure sexual equality, and guarantee women control over their own reproductive decisions.

The developed nations are the largest polluters in the world today. They must greatly reduce their over-consumption, if we are to reduce pressures on resources and the global environment. The developed nations have the obligation to provide aid and support to developing nations, because only the developed nations have the financial resources and the technical skills for these tasks.

Acting on this recognition is not altruism, but enlightened self-interest: whether industrialized or not, we all have but one lifeboat. No nation can escape from injury when global biological systems are damaged. No nation can escape from conflicts over increasingly scarce resources. In addition, environmental and economic instabilities will cause mass migrations with incalculable consequences for developed and undeveloped nations alike.

Developing nations must realize that environmental damage is one of the gravest threats they face, and that attempts to blunt it will be overwhelmed if their populations go unchecked. The greatest peril is to become trapped in spirals of environmental decline, poverty, and unrest, leading to social, economic and environmental collapse.

Success in this global endeavor will require a great reduction in violence and war. Resources now devoted to the preparation and conduct of war -- amounting to over $1 trillion annually -- will be badly needed in the new tasks and should be diverted to the new challenges.

A new ethic is required -- a new attitude towards discharging our responsibility for caring for ourselves and for the earth. We must recognize the earth's limited capacity to provide for us. We must recognize its fragility. We must no longer allow it to be ravaged. This ethic must motivate a great movement, convince reluctant leaders and reluctant governments and reluctant peoples themselves to effect the needed changes.

The scientists issuing this warning hope that our message will reach and affect people everywhere. We need the help of many.

We require the help of the world community of scientists -- natural, social, economic, political;

We require the help of the world's business and industrial leaders;

We require the help of the worlds religious leaders; and

We require the help of the world's peoples.

We call on all to join us in this task.

PROMINENT INDIVIDUALS AMONG MORE THAN 1,500 SIGNATORIES
Anatole Abragam, Physicist; Fmr. Member, Pontifical Academy of Sciences; France
Carlos Aguirre President, Academy of Sciences, Bolivia
Walter Alvarez Geologist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Viqar Uddin Ammad, Chemist, Pakistani & Third World Academies, Pakistan
Claude Allegre, Geophysicist, Crafoord Prize, France
Michael Alpers Epidemiologist, Inst. of Med. Research, Papua New Guinea
Anne Anastasi, Psychologist, National Medal of Science, USA
Philip Anderson, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
Christian Anfinsen, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; USA
How Ghee Ang, Chemist, Third World Academy, Singapore
Werner Arber, Nobel laureate, Medicine; Switzerland
Mary Ellen Avery, Pediatrician, National Medal of Science, USA
Julius Axelrod, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Michael Atiyah, Mathematician; President, Royal Society; Great Britain
Howard Bachrach, Biochemist, National Medal of Science, USA
John Backus, Computer Scientist, National Medal of Science, USA
Achmad Baiquni, Physicist, Indonesian & Third World Academies, Indonesia
David Baltimore, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
H. A. Barker, Biochemist, National Medal of Science, USA
Francisco J. Barrantes, Biophysicist, Third World Academy, Argentina
David Bates, Physicist, Royal Irish Academy, Ireland
Alan Battersby, Chemist, Wolf Prize in Chemistry, Great Britain
Baruj Benacerraf, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Georg Bednorz, Nobel laureate, Physics; Switzerland
Germot Bergold, Inst. Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas, Venezuela
Sune Bergstrom, Nobel laureate, Medicine; Sweden
Daniel Bes, Physicist, Argentinean & Third World Academies, Argentina
Hans Bethe, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
Arthur Birch Chemist, Australian Academy of Science, Australia
Michael Bishop, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Konrad Bloch, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Nicholaas Bloembergen, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
David Mervyn Blow, Wolf Prize in Chemistry, Great Britain
Baruch Blumberg, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Bert Bolin, Meteorologist, Tyler Prize, Sweden
Norman Borlaug, Agricultural Scientist, Nobel laureate, Peace; USA & Mexico
Frederick Bormann, Forest Ecologist; Past President, Ecological Soc. of Amer.; USA
Raoul Bott, Mathematician, National Medal of Science, USA
Ronald Breslow, Chemist, National Medal of Science
Ricardo Bressani, Inst. of Nutrition, Guatemalan & Third World Academies, Guatemala
Hermann Bruck, Astronomer, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Great Britain
Gerardo Budowski, Natural Resources, Univ. Para La Paz, Costa Rica
E. Margaret Burbidge, Astronomer, National Medal of Science, USA
Robert Burris, Biochemist, Wolf Prize in Agriculture, USA
Glenn Burton, Geneticist, National Medal of Science, USA
Adolph Butenandt, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Fmr. President, Max Planck Inst.; Germany
Sergio Cabrera, Biologist, Univ. de Chile, Chile
Paulo C. Campos, Medical scientist, Philippine & Third World Academies, Philippines
Ennio Candotti, Physicist; President, Brazilian Soc. Adv. of Science; Brazil
Henri Cartan, Wolf Prize in Mathematics, France
Carlos Chagas, Biologist; Univ. de Rio de Janeiro; Fmr. President, Pontifical Academy of Sciences; Brazil
Sivaramakrishna Chandrasekhar, Center for Liquid Crystal Research, India
Georges Charpak, Nobel laureate, Physics; France
Joseph Chatt, Wolf Prize in Chemistry, Great Britain
Shiing-Shen Chern, Wolf Prize in Mathematics, China & USA
Christopher Chetsanga, Biochemist, Affican & Third World Academies, Zimbabwe
Morris Cohen, Engineering, National Medal of Science, USA
Stanley Cohen, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Stanley N. Cohen, Geneticist, Wolf Prize in Medicine, USA
Mildred Cohn, Biochemist, National Medal of Science, USA
E. J. Corey, Nobel laureate, Chemistry, USA
John Cornforth, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Great Britain
Hector Croxatto, Physiologist, Pontifical & Third World Academies, Chile
Paul Crutzen, Chemist, Tyler Prize, Germany
Partha Dasgupta, Economist, Royal Society, Great Britain
Jean Dausset, Nobel laureate, Medicine; France
Ogulande Robert Davidson, Univ. Res. & Dev. Serv., African Acad., Sierra Leone
Margaret Davis, Ecologist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Luis D'Croz, Limnologist, Univ. de Panama, Panama
Gerard Debreu, Nobel laureate, Economics; USA
Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, Nobel laureate, Physics; France
Johann Deisenhofer, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Germany & USA
Frederica de Laguna, Anthropologist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Paul-Yves Denis, Geographer, Academy of Sciences, Canada
Pierre Deligne, Mathematician, Crafoord Prize, France
Frank Dixon, Pathologist, Lasker Award, USA
Johanna Dobereiner, Biologist, First Sec., Brazilian Academy of Sci.; Pontifical & Third World Academies, Brazil
Joseph Doob, Mathematician, National Medal of Science, USA
Renato Dulbecco, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Heneri Dzinotyiweyi, Mathematician, African & Third World Academies, Zimbabwe
Manfred Eigen, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Germany
Samuel Eilenberg, Wolf Prize in Mathematics, USA
Mahdi Elmandjra, Economist; Vice President, African Academy of Sciences; Morocco
Paul Ehrlich, Biologist, Crafoord Prize, USA
Thomas Eisner, Biologist, Tyler Prize, USA
Mohammed T. El-Ashry, Environmental scientist, Third World Academy, Egypt & USA
Gertrude Elion, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Aina Elvius, Astronomer, Royal Academy of Sciences, Sweden
K. O. Emery, Oceanographer, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Paul Erdos, Wolf Prize in Mathematics, Hungary
Richard Ernst, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Switzerland
Vittorio Ersparmer, Pharmacologist, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Italy
Sandra Faber, Astronomer, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Nina Federoff, Embryologist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Herman Feshbach, Physicist, National Medal of Science, USA
Inga Fischer-Hjalmars, Biologist, Royal Academy of Sciences, Sweden
Michael Ellis Fisher, Physicist, Wolf Prize in Physics, Great Britain & USA
Val Fitch, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
Daflinn Follesdal, President, Norwegian Academy of Science; Norway
William Fowler, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
Otto Frankel, Geneticist, Australian Academy of Sciences, Australia
Herbert Friedman, Wolf Prize in Physics, USA
Jerome Friedman, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
Konstantin V. Frolov Engineer; Vice President, Russian Academy of Sciences; Russia
Kenichi Fukui, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Japan
Madhav Gadgil, Ecologist, National Science Academy, India
Mary Gaillard, Physicist, National Academy of Sciences. USA
Carleton Gajdusek, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Robert Gallo, Research Scientist, Lasker Award, USA
Rodrigo Gamez ,Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad, Costa Rica
Antonio Garcia-Bellido, Biologist, Univ. Auto. Madrid, Royal Society, Spain
Leopoldo Garcia-Collin, Physicist, Latin American & Third World Academies, Mexico
Percy Garnham, Royal Society & Pontifical Academy, Great Britain
Richard Garwin, Physicist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Murray Gell-Mann, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
Georgii Georgiev, Biologist, Lenin Prize, Russia
Humam Bishara Ghassib, Physicist, Third World Academy, Jordan
Ricardo Giacconi, Astronomer, Wolf Prize in Physics, USA
Eleanor J. Gibson, Psychologist, National Medal of Science, USA
Marvin Goldberger, Physicist; Fmr. President, Calif. Inst. of Tech., USA
Maurice Goldhaber, Wolf Prize in Physics, USA
Donald Glaser, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
Sheldon Glashow, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
James Gowans, Wolf Prize in Medicine, France
Roger Green, Anthropologist, Royal Society, New Zealand
Peter Greenwood, Ichthyologist, Royal Society, Great Britain
Edward Goldberg, Chemist, Tyler Prize, USA
Coluthur Gopolan, Nutrition Foundation of India, Indian & Third World Academies, India
Stephen Jay Gould, Paleontologist, Author, Harvard Univ., USA
Roger Guillemin, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Herbert Gutowsky, Wolf Prize in Chemistry, USA
Erwin Hahn, Wolf Prize in Physics, USA
Gonzalo Halffter, Ecologist, Inst. Pol. Nac. ,Mexico
Kerstin Hall, Endocrinologist, Royal Academy of Sciences, Sweden
Mohammed Ahmed Hamdan, Mathematician, Third World, Academy, Jordan
Adnan Hamoui, Mathematician, Third World, Academy, Kuwait
A. M. Harun-ar Rashid, Physicist; Sec., Bangladesh, Academy of Sci., Bangladesh
Mohammed H. A. Hassan, Physicist; Exec. Sec., Third World Academy of Sciences; Sudan & Italy
Ahmed Hassanli, Chemist, African Academy of Sciences, Tanzania & Kenya
Herbert Hauptman, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; USA
Stephen Hawking, Mathematician, Wolf Prize in Physics, Great Britain
Elizabeth Hay, Biologist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Dudley Herschbach, Nobel laureate, Chemistry, USA
Gerhard Herzberg, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Canada
Antony Hewish, Nobel laureate, Physics; Great Britain
George Hitchings, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Great Britain
Roald Hoffman, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; USA
Robert Holley, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Nick Holonyak, Electrical Engineer, National Medal of Science, USA
Lars Hormander, Wolf Prize in Mathematics, Sweden
Dorothy Horstmann, Epidemiologist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
John Houghton, Meteorologist; Chairman, Science Working Group, IPCC; Great Britain
Sarah Hrdy, Anthropologist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Kenneth Hsu, Geologist, Third World Academy, China & Switzerland
Kun Huang, Physicist, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China
Hiroshi Inose, Electrical Engineer; Vice President, Engineering Academy; Japan
Turner T. Isoun, Pathologist, African Academy of Sciences,
Nigeria Francois Jacob, Nobel laureate, Medicine; France
Carl-Olof Jacobson Zoologist; Sec-Gen., Royal Academy of Sciences; Sweden
Dorothea Jameson, Psychologist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Daniel Janzen, Biologist, Crafoord Prize, USA
Cecilia Jarlskog, Physicist, Royal Academy of Sciences, Sweden
Louise Johnson, Biophysicist, Royal Society, Great Britain
Harold Johnston, Chemist, Tyler Prize, USA
Victor A. Kabanov, Chemist, Lenin Prize in Science, Russia
Jerome Karle, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
Robert Kates, Geographer, National Medal of Science, USA
Frederick I. B. Kayanja, Vice-Chnclr., Mbarara Univ., Third World Academy, Uganda
Joseph Keller, Mathematician, National Medal of Science, USA
Henry Kendall, Nobel laureate, Physics; Chairman, Union of Concerned Scientists; USA
John Kendrew, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Great Britain
Elisabeth Kessler, Royal Academy of Sciences, Sweden
Maung-U Khin, Pediatrician, Third World Academy, Myamnar & USA
Gurdev Khush, Agronomist, International Rice Institute, Indian Natl. Sci. Academy, India & Philippines
Susan Kieffer, Geologist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Klaus von Klitzing, Nobel laureate, Physics; Germany
Aaron Klug, Nobel laureate, Chemistry, Great Britain
E. F. Knipling, Agricultural Researcher, National Medal of Science, USA
Walter Kohn, Physicist, National Medal of Science, USA
Janos Kornai, Economist, Hungarian Academy of Science, Hungary
Aderemi Kuku, Mathematician, African & Third World Acads., Nigeria
Ikuo Kushiro, Geologist, Japan Academy, Japan
Devendra Lal, Geophysicist, National Science Academy, India
Gerardo Lamas-Muller, Biologist, Museo de Historia Natural, Peru
Torvard Laurent, Physiological chemist; President, Royal Academy of Sciences; Sweden
Leon Lederman, Nobel laureate, Physics; Chr., Amer. Assn. Adv. Sci.; USA
Sang Soo Lee, Physicist, Korean & Third World Academies, Rep. of Korea
Yuan T. Lee, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; USA
Susan Leeman PharmacologistX National Academy of Sciences, USA
Jean Marie Lehn, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; France
Wassily Leontief, Nobel laureate, Economics; USA
Luna Leopold, Geologist, National Medal of Science, USA
Louis Leprince-Ringuet, Physicist, French & Pontifical Academies, France
Vladilen Letokhov, Physicist, Lenin Prize in Science, Russia
Rita Levi-Montalcini, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA & Italy
Li Chang-lin, Environmental Sciences, Fudan University, China
Shan Tao Liao, Mathematician, Chinese & Third World Academies, China
William Lipscomb, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
Jane Lubchenco, Zoologist; President-Elect, Ecological Soc. of Amer.; USA
Christopher Magazda, Limnologist, African Academy of Sciences, Zimbabwe
Lydia Phindile Makhubu, Chemist, Third World & African Academies, Swaziland
Khursheed Ahmad Malik, Microbiologist, Pakistan & Third World Academies, Pakistan & Germany
Lynn Margulis, Biologist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Paul Marks, Oncologist, National Medal of Science, USA
George Martine, Inst. for Study of Society, Population, &amp;amp; Nature; Brazil
Frederico Mayor, Biochemist; Dir. Gen., UNESCO, Spain & France Ernst Mayr, Zoologist, National Medal of Science, USA
Maclyn McCarty, Wolf Prize in Medicine, USA
James McConnell, Physicist, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Ireland
Digby McLaren, Past President, Royal Society of Canada; Canada
James Meade, Nobel laureate, Economics; Great Britain
Jerrold Meinwald, Chemistry, Tyler Prize, USA
M. G. K Menon, Physicist; President, International Council of Scientific Unions; India
Gennady Mesiatz, Physicist; Vice President, Russian Academy of Sciences; Russia
Jan Michalski, Biologist, Polish Academy of Science, Poland
Hartmut Michel, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Germany
Brenda Milner, Neurologist, Academy of Sciences, Canada
Cesar Milstein, Nobel laureate, Medicine; Argentina & Great Britain
Franco Modigliani, Nobel laureate, Economics; USA
Andrei Monin, Oceanologist, State Prize, Russia
Marcos Moshinsky, Physicist, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Mexico
Nevill Mott, Nobel laureate, Physics; Great Britain
Teruaki Mukaiyama, Chemist, Japan Academy, Japan
Walter Munk, Geophysicist, National Medal of Science, USA
Anne Murray, Ethnographer, Royal Academy of Sciences, Sweden
Joseph Murray, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Noreen Murray, Biologist, Royal Society, Great Britain
Lawrence Mysak, Meteorologist; Vice President, Academy of Science, Royal Society of Canada; Canada
Jayant Vishnu Narlikar, Astrophysicist, Indian & Third World Academies, India
Anwar Nasim, Biologist, Third World Academy, Saudi Arabia
Kim Nasmyth, Biologist, Royal Society, Great Britain & Austria
James Neel, Geneticist, National Medal of Science, USA
Louis Neel, Nobel laureate, Physics; France
Yuval Ne'eman, Physicist, Natl. Acad. of Sci. & Humanities, Israel
Oleg M. Nefedov, Chemist; Vice President, Russian Academy of Sciences; Russia
Erwin Neher, Nobel laureate, Medicine; Germany
Marshall Nirenberg, Biochemist; Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Yasutomi Nishizuka, Biochemist, Lasker Award, Japan
John S. Nkoma, Physicist, Third World Academy, Botswana
Paul Nchoji Nkvvi, Anthropologist, African Academy, Cameroon
Howard Odum, Ecologist, Crafoord Prize, USA
Bede Nwoye Okigbo, Agricultural Scientist; Dir., U.N. Unv. Pgm. Natrl. Res. in Afr.; Nigeria & Kenya
Ayub Khan Ommaya, Neurobiologist, Third World Academy, Pakistan & USA
Cyril Agodi Onwumechili, Physicist, Fmr. Pres., Nigerian Acad. of Sciences, Nigeria & Great Britain
Mary Jane Osborn, Microbiologist, National Academy of Scientists, USA
Yuri Ossipyan, Physicist; Vice President, Russian Academy of Sciences; Russia
Autzr Singh Paintal, Physiologist, Fmr. President, Indian National Science Academy, India
George Pake, Physicist, National Medal of Science, USA
George Palade, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
Mary Lou Pardue, Biologist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Linus Pauling, Nobel laureate, Chemistry & Pence, USA
Barbara Pearse, Molecular Biologist, Royal Society, Great Britain
Muhammed Abed Peerally, Biologist, Third World Academy, Mauritius
Manuel Peimbert, Astronomer, Univ. Nac. Aut. de Mexico, Mexico
Roger Penrose, Mathematician, Wolf Prize in Physics, Great Britain
John Philip, Agricultural Science, Australian Academy of Science, Australia
Lilian Pickford, Physiologist, Royal Society, Great Britain
John R. Pierce, Electrical Engineer, National Medal of Science, USA
John Polanyi, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Canada
George Porter, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Great Britain
Ilya Prigogine, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Belgium
Giampietro Puppi, Physicist, Pontifical Academy of Sciences, Italy
Edward Purcell, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
Atta ur-Rahman, Chemist, Pakistani & Third World Academies, Pakistan
G. N. Ramachandran, Mathematician, Inst. of Science, India
Tiruppattur Ramakrishnan, Physicist, Indian & Third World Academies, India
Chintamani Rao, Inst. of Science, Indian and Pontifical Academies, India
Eduardo Rapoport, Ecologist, Third World Academy, Argentina
Marianne Rasmuson, Geneticist, Royal Academy of Sciences, Sweden
Peter Raven, Director, Missouri Botanical Garden; National Academy of Sciences, USA
Martin Rees, Astronomer, Royal Society & Pontifical Academy, Great Britain
Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, Anthropologist, Columbian & Third World Academies, Columbia
Tadeus Reichstein, Nobel laureate, Medicine; Switzerland
Frederick Reines, Physicist, National Medal of Science, USA
Alexander Rich, Biologist, National & Pontifical Academies, USA
Burton Richter, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
Ralph Riley, Wolf Prize in Agriculture, Great Britain
Claude Rimington, Inst. for Cancer Research, Norwegian Academy of Science, Norway
Gustavo Rivas Mijares, Engineer; Fmr. President, Academy of Sciences, Venezuela
Frederick Robbins, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Wendell Roelofs, Entomologist, National Medal of Science, USA
Betty Roots, Zoologist, Academy of Sciences, Canada
Miriam Rothschild, Biologist, Royal Society, Great Britain
Sherwood Rowland, Chemist; President, American Association for the Advancement of Science; USA
Janet Rowley, Physician, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Carlo Rubbia, Nobel laureate, Physics, Italy & Switzerland
Vera Rubin, Physicist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Yuri Rudenko, Energy Research Inst., State Prize laureate, Russia
Elizabeth Russell, Jackson Laboratory, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Albert Sabin, Virologist, National Medal of Science, USA
Carl Sagan, Astrophysicist & Author, USA
Roald Sagdeev, Physicist, Russian & Pontifical Academies, Russia & USA
Ruth Sager, Geneticist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Farrokh Saidi, Surgeon, Third World Academy, Iran
Abdus Salam, Nobel laureate, Physics; President, Third World Academy of Sciences, Pakistan & Italy
Frederick Sanger, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Great Britain
Jose Sarukhan, Biologist, Third World Academy, Mexico
Berta Scharrer,Neuroscientist, National Medal of Science, USA
Richard Schultes, Botanist, Tyler Prize, USA
Melvin Schwartz, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
Julian Schwinger, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
Glenn Seaborg, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
Michael Sela, Weizmann Inst., Pontifical Academy of Science, Israel
Arne Semb-Johansson, Entomologist, Norwegian Academy of Science, Norway
Salimuzzaman Siddiqui, Chemist, Pontifical & Third World Academies, Pakistan
Kai Siegbahn, Nobel laureate, Physics; Sweden
Thomas Silou, Biochemist, African Academy of Sciences, Congo
Herbert Simon, Nobel laureate, Economics; USA
Alexej Sitenko, Physicist, Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, Ukraine
Jens Skou, Biophysicist, Royal Academy of Sciences, Denmark
Charles Slack, Agricultural Science, Royal Society, New Zealand
George Snell, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Roger Sperry, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Alexander Spirin, Biologistn Lenin Prize, Russia
Earl Stadtman, Biochemist, National Medal of Science, USA
Thressa Stadtman, Biochemist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Ledyard Stebbins, Geneticist, National Medal of Science, USA
Jack Steinberger, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA & Switzerland
Janos Szentgothai, Fmr. President, Hungarian Academy of Sciences; Hungary
Tan Jia-zhen, Geneticist, Shanghai Univ., China
Andrezej Tarkowski, Embryologist, Polish [text missing]
Valentine Telegdi, Wolf Prize in Physics, Switzerland
Kirthi Tennakone, Physicist, Third World Academy, Sri Lanka
Walter Thirring, Physicist, Austrian & Pontifical Academies, Austria
Donnall Thomas, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Jan Tinbergen, Nobel laureate, Economics; Netherlands
Samuel C. C. Ting, Nobel laureate, Physics; USA
James Tobin, Nobel laureate, Economics; USA
Alexander Todd, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Great Britain
Susumu Tonegawa, Nobel laureate, Medicine; Japan & USA
Cheng Kui Tseng, Oceanologist, Chinese & Third World Academies, China
Hans Tuppy, Biochemist, Austrian & Pontifical Academies, Austria
James Van Allen, Physicist, Crafoord Prize, USA
Simon van der Meer, Nobel laureate, Physics; Netherlands & Switzerland
John Vane, Nobel laureate, Medicine; Great Britain
Harold Varmus, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Martha Vaughan, Biochemist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
George Wald, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Henrik Wallgren, Zoologist, Society of Science & Letters, Finland
E. T. S. Walton, Nobel laureate, Physics, Ireland
Prawase Wasi, Hematologist, Third World Academy, Thailand
Gerald Wasserburg, Geophysicist, Crafoord Prize, USA
James Watson, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Victor Weisskopf, Wolf Prize in Physics, USA
Thomas Weller, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Diter von Wettstein, Physiologist, Royal Academy of Sciences, Denmark
Fred Whipple, Astronomer, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Gilbert White, Geographer, Tyler Prize, USA
Torsten Wiesel, Nobel laureate, Medicine; USA
Jerome Wiesner, Physicist, Fmr. President, Mass. Inst. of Tech., USA
Maurice Wilkins, Nobel laureate, Medicine; Great Britain
Geoffrey Wilkinson, Nobel laureate, Chemistry; Great Britain
Richard Willems, Geneticist, Estonian Biocentre, Estonia
Edward O. Wilson, Biologist, Crafoord Prize, USA
Lawrence A. Wilson, Agricultural Science, Third World Academy, Trinidad
Evelyn Witkin, Biologist, National Academy of Sciences, USA
Yang Fujia, Physicist, Chinese & Third World Academies, China
Alexander L. Yanshin, Geologist, Karpinsky Gold Medal, Russia
Yongyuth Yuthavong, Biochemist; Director, National Sci. & Tech. Devl. Agency, Thailand
Zhao Zhong-xian, Physicist, Chinese & Third World Academies, China
Zhou Guang-zhao, Physicist; President, Chinese Academy of Sciences; China
Solly ZuckerInan, Zoologist, Royal Society, Great Britain

Over 1,500 members of national, regional, and inter-national science academies have signed the Warning. Sixty-nine nations from all parts of Earth are represented, including each of the twelve most populous nations and the nineteen largest economic powers. The full list includes a majority of the Nobel laureates in the sciences. Awards and institutional affiliations are listed for the purpose of identification only. The Nobel Prize in medicine is for physiology or medicine.

A WORLD SCIENTISTS' WARNING BRIEFING BOOK is available from the Union of Concerned Scientists. It provides the citations to support their WARNING.

Union of Concerned Scientists
96 Church Street
Cambridge, Mass 02238-9105, USA
VOX: 617-547-5552
FAX: 617-864-9405
http://www.ucsusa.org/
ucs@igc.apc.org

Warning issued on November 18, 1992

SOURCE: The Deoxyribonucleic Hyperdimension

Judge Says Road Ban Applies to Oil and Gas Exploration in Forests

2006-12-03T08:11:00.000-05:00

by Terence Chea (Associated Press)

SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge ruled that a Clinton-era ban on road construction in national forests applies to hundreds of oil and gas leases sold by the Bush administration.

U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte's ruling Wednesday means that holders of more than 300 leases that permit oil and gas exploration in national forests cannot build roads to access those areas.

Laporte's order follows her September ruling that reinstated the 2001 "Roadless Rule" that prohibits logging, mining and other development on 58.5 million acres of pristine wilderness in 38 states and Puerto Rico.

In that earlier ruling, Laporte said the Bush administration had failed to conduct necessary environmental studies before it replaced the rule in May 2005 with a process that required governors to petition the federal government to protect national forests in their states.

She sided with 20 environmental groups and four states - California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington - that had sued the Forest Service over the changes.

On Wednesday, Laporte ruled in favor of the plaintiffs who argued that her ruling should apply to all actions taken since the Roadless Rule was issued in January 2001. The Bush administration had argued that it should only apply to actions taken after she reinstated the ruling in September.

The oil and gas leases cover more than 340,000 acres in seven Western states, including 179,000 in Utah, 87,000 in Colorado and 55,000 in North Dakota.

Hunting, fishing, hiking and conservation groups had opposed the sale of many of the leases, fearing they would open wilderness to road construction.

Laporte ruled that leaseholders cannot build roads in those areas, but did not rule out other ways to access the land.

Laporte also ruled that the Roadless Rule applies to the Coal Creek-Big Creek Road Project in Idaho, but left it up to the plaintiffs and defendants to decide whether the construction should go forward. The judge allowed logging to continue in two regions of Oregon - Mike's Gulch and Blackberry on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest - where timber sales were approved after the rule was changed.

Tim Preso, an attorney for the plaintiffs, called Wednesday's ruling "a victory for hunters, anglers, hikers, backpackers and anybody who wants to see their national forests wild instead of industrialized with roads for oil and gas development."

The Forest Service could not comment because administration lawyers were still reviewing the ruling, said spokesman Joe Walsh.

SOURCE: The Mercury News

By the Numbers: The Boreal Forest

2006-12-03T08:08:00.000-05:00

Lloyd Alter writes: "The North American boreal forest stretches from Newfoundland to Alaska. In it: 5 million square kilometres. One quarter of the earth’s original forest. 80% of the world’s unfrozen fresh water. 136 Billion tons of sequestered carbon. Three billion migrant landbirds every summer. But with the easy sources of energy disappearing and the insatiable demand for Kleenex, there are also scary numbers. Two hectares are clearcut every minute. In Ontario alone, 4400 mining claims have been staked. 1,000 square kilometres are staked for coal bed methane production. 62,000 kilometres of logging roads run through it. According to the Boreal Forest Conservation Framework, the portion that should be park and preserve: 50%. The portion that should be managed sustainably: 50%. Portion that actually is protected, notwithstanding the Government’s pledge to 'institute meaningful planning': 5%. Scary."

Click here for more.

Surveillance: It Affects Us All..

2006-12-03T07:23:00.000-05:00

..and I don't need to explain that to any activist.

FBI Activates Cell Phones Remotely for Wiretapping
by Purav Sanghani

They can see us, read our emails, watch our IM conversations, and now even hear us whether we want them to or not.

It seems as though George Orwell hit it the bullseye again when he wrote about Big Brother and the government's way of keeping track of the general public. It has been recently revealed that the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has a way of tapping a cell phone and using the microphone to listen in on nearby conversations.

The method used for listening in on conversations held by alleged members of Cosa Nostra is called a "roving bug" and was ruled to be a legal method of wiretapping by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. The bug was alledgedly used on two Nextel phones. It looks like all cellular phones are vulnerable to this sort of wiretapping according to CNet's findings:

The U.S. Commerce Department's security office warns that "a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone." An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call."

Kaplan further added that the functionality of the roving bug was in place even when the phone was powered off -- or at least when the phone looked to be powered off. One possible method that the FBI used to tap into the two Nextel phones is by getting the network to install a rogue firmware update which gave the agency access to such features.

Such capability has long been rumored to exist in Motorola phones after it was discovered how the 9/11 terrorists used cellular phones to coordinate most of their activities.

Still there are some skeptics who believe that this method does not exist and that the FBI had to have physically planted a bug into the cellular phone to monitor conversations. But with the recent boom of PDA phones and devices that support custom software it was only a matter of time before hackers, or the government found a way to exploit similar features.

SOURCE: Daily Tech

This blog is not dead!

2006-12-02T07:10:00.000-05:00

It's just going through a transition period, a period of intense introspection and adjustment. New information has been made available to its author and, as such, there will be a period of digestion. Expect a shift back to universal themes, universal concerns, universal issues.

Without a healthy ecosystem, including clean air, water, and a food chain with integrity, what befalls the constitutional rights of Americans or the lives of Iraqis or the problems of any one group of people on Earth will be but a distant 'ting' in a symphony of cymbals and drums that may be our downfall as a species. I wish to stop it but I will not put humans before Earth. Earth can exist without us but we cannot exist without her.

To put the Earth first is to give humanity its only chance. From now on, this blog will be a big picture information source, resisting the temptation to get mired down in minutia, in the details that can, in overload mode, give the author and any potential readers what I often call the deer in the headlights phenonenon. If you have truly keen insight, you see that this means this blog will take a decidedly spiritual bent, if decidedly anti-religious.

Please stay tuned. I still have much to share.

9/11: It's Time for America to Pick Up the Baton

2006-11-25T07:34:00.000-05:00

I am done researching 9/11.

Two years ago, several years of independent 9/11 investigation, research independent of any online umbrella group and independent of a Bush adminstration provided lead (that nineteen Arabs pulled off the events of September 11, 2001), was destroyed (since, I have resurrected much of it at this blog). It was destroyed from several angles. Its author was intimidated by multiple fires starting at residences inhabited by immediate family members (two different fires in one week) and by the poisoning of two of his dogs, in separate incidents a year or so apart. This author (yours truly) had been through an awful lot already, including many thousands of electronic attacks on his websites, mailing lists, and email accounts and by the most jarring kinds of death threats. After having my love life infiltrated by an operative, specifically by a woman that after a year and a half experienced some attack of conscience and informed me that she had been "assigned" to me, and in conjunction with what I had experienced in other aspects of my life, I decided to drop out of the online activist scene. At this time, in the fall of 2004, I had just witnessed another hijacking of the electoral process and after I saw that John Kerry was going to sit on millions of dollars of campaign money rather than spend any of it getting to the bottom of the fraud, I was at the brink of despondency.

The 9/11 research I speak of was also destroyed by having Indymedia, who at the time took an active stance against such research, delete each and every thing I had ever posted there. In a matter of a couple of days, everything ever posted there by Agent Smiley (an old online pseudonym of mine) or Eric Stewart was suddenly gone, this after one Michael C. Ruppert had specifically stated that he was going to contact Indymedia and request just such censorship. He said he'd do it and then it was all gone and still, to this day, I go through endless inane arguments that insist that I may be wrong in my conclusions.

Additionally, Memes.org, a now essentially defunct website, went under. Reportedly, everything ever archived there (three quarters, I am sure, of everything I had researched on 9/11) was now held hostage by some ISP that the site's owner has not payed the bill on to this day. At this point, I can see the question mark hovering over readers' heads and I will explain that for years I conducted all of my activism on computers at public libraries and university libraries and didn't own my own, hence the fact that none of this information was backed up.

Let me be clear: although I am not the first person to draw a connection between Warren Buffet and 9/11 and although I was not the first person to draw a connection between Global Hawk (remote piloting) and that fateful day, I was the first person that drew a connection between Buffet and such technologies and more specifically, Mitre Corporation. I state this for one reason and that is that I intend, here, to illustrate the importance of this vein of research that I stumbled upon a few years ago, this for the very last time. It was far more important than I had any idea of at the time and, further, I would only later discover that it was important enough to have some element, presumably the national security state (whom I had already angered a few years before by instigating Jam Echelon Day), devote many labor hours and lots of dollars to disrupting it.

Back in 2001, I had just come out of several years of psychological operations, ops aimed at my destabilization and, essentially, at punishing me for having the gall to make sure that Echelon (an NSA system whereby emails and phone calls were eavesdropped upon, globally, for decades) made it from being just another conspiracy theory to being on the set of Sixty Minutes. In just four months, this system went from being hardly heard of to being the subject of discussion all over the web, in magazines and newspapers, and on the floor of congress. Also, back in 2001, I was just beginning a mailing list that was designed to highlight psychological operations. I was determined to expose what had happened to me and to warn others of just how mass behavior was modified, covertly and without the knowledge of most. Yes, millions, I discovered, were being manipulated without their awareness. It can be a difficult task convincing people that their opinions are not their own but are, largely, in fact, manufactured and induced by the corporate-military media complex. This kind of claim attacks most peoples' sense of identity and sovereignty and it is a common reaction to attack the messenger and never consider the message, especially in a land where comfort is the prime directive.

On this mailing list, much transpired in the early days ensuing the events of September 11, 2001 that would give me a lens through which to view the intentions and methods of certain individuals. To be more clear, there were a few relatively famous internet personalities that, for one reason or another, were drawn to my list and whom I would get to know. Today, Dick Eastman and one Webfairy conduct an endless rabbit hole of arguments, carefully designed to feign opposition and to attempt to define the parameters of separate camps within the 9/11 movement. A short narrative is in order here.

Back in 2001, and partly into 2002, I was in search of my own answers regarding the destruction of the twin towers and I had no particular special insight. There were a handful of people that were on my list that I considered to have some keen minds but I took no particular stance, merely knowing that something was certainly fishy about that day. Between Eastman, Webfairy, and a few others, I had much to sort through and much of it was mutually contradictory. I plugged along, trying to take it all in. What I didn't know at the time was that I had already been given the magic key to 9/11 a few years earlier, by an intelligence operative. The key was Mitre.

I was researching masonic lore and conspiracy legend surrounding this nebulous group (freemasons) when I happened upon mention of the word Mitre in the context of a Babylonian god that allegedly had been assigned as being in charge of measurement, the word 'mitre' being comparable to 'meter', and hence 'measurement.' In my perusings, I came upon the existence of a non-profit defense outfit called Mitre Corporation and among the first things I discovered about them was that they were heavily into real time battle command (the real time flow of information regarding targets globally, managed by supercomputers) and remote piloting. I also discovered something that Mitre used to brag about but that now is not mentioned in any way whatsoever at their website, that one of their prime benefactors was Warren Buffet, the world's second richest man. Since I had already heard that Buffet was at Offut Air Force Base on September 11, 2001 with a handful of CEO's from the World Trade Center and since I had just recently become familiar with the theory that remote piloting had been used to crash two jets into the twin towers, I began to further research Mitre. What I would soon find out was that by plugging Mitre into the 9/11 equation, revelations would make themselves obvious with exponential rapidity, one after another.

I knew I was onto something. After all, the best and most well known 9/11 researchers among us were coming up with new leads every few months but this stuff was releasing a Pandora's box, one that was yielding new leads DAILY. This had to be significant. I mean, when the introduction of a single element to a body of research unleashes revelations at hundreds of times the rate as any other piece of information, it just made sense that this must be an overlooked, vitally important item in discovering the perpetrators of Reichstag II.

Initially, Dick Eastman supported my research, especially went some of it implied a potential Chinese involvement. To this day, I consider that day to have been an international effort, involving the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and China. However, soon after, for some reason unknown to me, Eastman dropped from my list sent me a vague nasty about my research, and began to tell others on other lists that I had no ear to that I was consciously involved in some effort at disinformation. I felt thoroughly betrayed, a feeling I would come to know intimately in the research that ensued over the next three or so years. As well, Webfairy dropped from my list, similarly offering vague, hostile sounding reasons and telling others that I was part of a global cabal of vampires (she called me a "drac" to be specific), my family name of 'Stewart' being part of her reasoning. Internet, Masonic conspiracy lore claims the Stewarts as being part of some ancient, evil group of bloodlines. Appealing to the lowest common denominator, she would inform the David Icke crowd that I was not to be trusted. Though all of this is, in a sense, highly laughable, I consider the attempt at affecting the least discriminating among us with deceit to be vile in that it can, unfortunately, be effective. In Webfairy's case, she would pick up my Buffet leads and forever discredit them by reaching a vast amount of people with them in accompaniment with other, ridiculous ideas such as the existence of flying saucers at the World Trade Center. Today, she helps people associate some of the most important 9/11 leads with the theory that no planes even hit the towers that day and that it was all special effects.

I took my leads to Mike Ruppert and his response was to have me booted from every forum that he and I shared. My attempts at resurecting the Ptech story (a Massachusettes software firm with Mitre connections and connections to the Carlyle Group via bin Laden and to Booz, Allen, & Hamilton) and at pointing out the flaw in trusting the very regime we accuse of being at the controls of said ops to provide us with a solid lead (it was the Bush administration that gave us the idea that nineteen Arabs had anything to do with it) drew completely fabricated accusations by Ruppert. If you don't already feel like you have vertigo from the incessant rabbit holes of the 9/11 investigations, let me help you: Ruppert accused me of accusing him of things that I never accused him of. I asked him to reproduce such accusations, certain that he couldn't (because they never occured), and his response was to threaten me with lawsuits if I didn't stop accusing him of things. Having been falsely accused of accusing a man of things that I never did, I could immediately see that all of this would serve two purposes. He would use his reputation to convince newcomers to our debate not to trust me (after all, who that is still reading this puts the words of an unknown like Eric Stewart into a category of higher credibility than the mighty, well know Michael C. Ruppert) and he would use endless inane arguments and a wilderness of mirrors to confuse any that would actually follow our debate.

By this time, I was seeing that Ruppert employed many of the same tactics that other psyop practitioners used. These kinds of tactics are rampant in the investigations into 9/11 and their sole purpose is to make the task of sorting through all of it seem far too daunting for most, discouraging most Americans from even looking into it and convincing many that insanity is rampant among such investigators. So, finally, after denying that I had ever accused Ruppert of anything, I began to feel that some accusations might be in order. When I began to question his integrity over this contrived bantering, he had his ammunition and taking accusations that I finally did make to Indymedia as evidence that I was a detractor of one of the most important investigators of our time (this is the stance that he would take), he had everything I had ever archived at Indymedia removed. Ironically, From the Wilderness now hosts research into Mitre Corporation and Ptech by Michael Kane, though he carefully avoids any of the Israeli connections. Nowhere in their research is there a single mention of Israel. Similarly, Christopher Bollyn has attacked the Mitre-Ptech connection, focusing rabidly on the Israeli connections while ignoring the Saudi ones, connections that are hyperfocused on by FTW. Can you say controlled opposition? After all, one of the things that became obvious in my own research into all of this (linking to Booz, Allen, & Hamilton, a firm neither Ruppert nor Bollyn seem to dare mention) was that there was close cooperation between Saudi royalty and the Israeli Space Agency. For those of you unaware at the extent to which various space programs around the world were involved in the events of 9/11, check out the links at the bottom of this post.

If you have read this far, I thank you and you should thank yourself for doing whatever it is that you have done to ensure that your mind has remained open during these trying times, times that certainly encourage people to close their minds entirely. I would like you, the reader that has stayed with me, to know that the reason I have gone into all of this is because of recent events, wherein psyops run amuck. Recently, the controlled demolition aspect of 9/11 investigations flowered to fruition. Various outfits produced video presentations in which we were made aware of the undeniability of this angle of the 9/11 truth movement. One eighteen second snippet of video, sampled from a BBC special that came out this last September was particularly devastating to the charade presented to the American people, as it made the sequence of charges that took down the twin towers not only particularly visible, but completely audible. Additionally, the very fact that this video was extremely short and devoid of long winded narratives made it all that much more powerful in its ability as a convincer. I consider it no accident that in the wake of this, at roughly the same moment in time, that certain fairly well known icons in the movement suddenly jumped onto the wagon that says that a scalar beam destroyed the towers. The element of the fantastic again took the forefront and I am sure that in the process we lost many people that were on the verge of accepting the legitimacy of the 9/11 truth movement. Believe it or not, the first person I ever heard make this claim was none other than Webfairy, years ago. As well, she and other 'no-planers' have kicked into high gear in digging rabbit holes everywhere possible.

I am done with 9/11 research. In the course of years of arguments with people all over the web and on countless mailing lists, I have come to realize that if ninety-nine percent of people on such lists are going to continue to remain silent, then I will no longer be among the one percent that actually voices his mind. I have no way of knowing what the average American truly thinks about all of this because on the internet, the average American is silent. If I am to go by the type of person that I most commonly find myself engaged with over issues such as these and if I am to consider such persons typical of the American mind, then the American mind is either deliberately closed or hopelessly stunted. Even if such people are not representative of how America thinks, then we are left with the fact that ninety-nine percent of the online public consider the internet, websites, and even so-called discussion groups to be spectator events wherein all gather around to hear a few speak. I, for one, will not contribute to the spectacle. I will not contribute to a dynamic that only serves to reinforce the spectator-performer duality. I am not special. I have no amazing gift for research; I have only the willingness to do it.

There is a whole lot more to what I had intended to go into regarding remote piloting, including the atmospheric physics that are key to understanding how over the horizon signalling is made possible and enhanced but I no longer feel that I serve the greater good by doing so. It is your turn, America. You, the reader, if you have even made it this far into this diatribe, are apparently equipped to do exactly as I have done. You need to trust yourself and that is all.

Don't be afraid of ridicule and don't be afraid of online spooks. There are too many of you to silence. Especially, don't be afraid to be wrong or to make mistakes. It is only in the process of making such mistakes that you will develop your critical faculties and research skills and before you know it, you will be good at it.

For myself, if I haven't convinced readers that our governmental, corporate, and military entites lied about 9/11, and if the movement in general hasn't done so already, then there is no hope. If I am wrong, and you are indeed convinced, then it is your turn to pick up the slack.

This is my challenge to you: can you do it? Prove it.

If you, the reader, are new to my research or this particular angle on 9/11, then you probably have an awful lot of questions that remain unanswered, some of which is only hinted at in what is above. I can assure you that most of them are answered in the following links.

9/11 and Echelon: Key Players Unearthed

Why follow a 9/11 lead provided by GW?

9/11: A Revolution in Military Affairs

9/11: August 9, 2002

On Mike Ruppert

911 "Wargames" Insider Now in Charge of CIA

This Blog's Entries on 9/11

Al Qaeda Is a Hoax

Damning Evidence of Buffet Role in 9/11

Falls Church, VA and 9/11

Howling Like a Wild Wolf

2006-11-23T16:10:00.000-05:00

Overcoming Fear and Undermining the Invader
by Rod Coronado

It's hard to judge the radical environmental movement by the last 25 years, but if I had to, I'd say that I'm very disappointed. Twenty years ago, when I discovered the Earth First! movement, I thought that the generation of Earth warriors I shared this country with had a fighting chance. People from all walks of life in the center of the First World were coming together and strengthening an already strong love and affinity for the natural world, shaking off their consumerist upbringing and realizing their wild dreams with creative direct action that marked an allegiance with the Earth instead of the society responsible for her destruction. Monkeywrenching was the ultimate demonstration of our love for Mother Earth, and none among us questioned its historical or practical necessity, let alone its legitimacy. We were warriors, and our connection as a tribe meant the shared commitment to abandon the system that constantly betrayed the people and places we loved.

Monkeywrenching was not just another tool in the box, it was what separated EF! from the toothless, First World environmental movement. A fellow Arizonan, Dave Foreman, was our firebrand spokesperson, bringing listeners to tears with his stories of seeing the dying green fire in a wolf's eyes, telling us how the chainsaws also tore his flesh when they tore through an ancient redwood, before hoisting the sacramental monkeywrench to the sky and howling like a wild wolf himself. What else were we supposed to do once that fire was lit inside our hearts, but defend the wildness we loved by any and all means?

Back in the early days of EF!, Dave and the gang erected a monument in New Mexico to Victorio, a Mimbres Apache who drove out or killed invading miners in the late 1800s. After years of watching his people die on the dreaded reservations, Victorio had enough of being pushed around by the system. He knew there was no other way to live than with the Earth, not against her like the Invaders were forcing his people to do. So rather than die a slow death on the malaria - infested reservation, Victorio and a small band broke free to live the only way they knew how.

By identifying with the Apache wars of the American Southwest, EF! held up as an example a people whose worldview centered, like most indigenous peoples, on living in harmony with their environment and who, when attacked, fought ferociously to defend their way of life. That is what the Earth needed from the US environmental movement, then and now. That's what I thought was beginning 20 years ago when I first heard Dave Foreman speak, and I knew there was no greater responsibility than the time-honored tradition of fighting against one's Invaders and oppressors.

Then in 1990, in Arizona, FBI agents kicked in Dave Foreman's door, while simultaneously ambushing a band of monkeywrenchers in action toppling powerlines. It was the first time that EF! experienced the legal consequences of its low-intensity campaign of what Foreman called "ecotage" - acts of economic sabotage against the forces destroying the Earth. Foreman - the editor/publisher of Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching - received a suspended sentence and probation. The FBI's case against Foreman and EF! effectively ended Foreman's advocacy of ecotage. Gone were the days of Foreman pedaling Ecodefense after his lectures and signing copies for wild, awakened "ecoteur" recruits (he refused to sign my copy in 2001). Most importantly to our growing struggle, the FBI had silenced our most outspoken representative while also demonstrating that "monkeywrencher" was just another name for "terrorist." But the ecological insurrection did not end as the Invader had hoped - like the living organism it represents, seeds took to the Earth and grew into something very familiar.

Like Victorio and his struggle against the Western worldview invasion, the actions of the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and Animal Liberation Front (ALF) are enough of a threat to have been deemed by the FBI as the most active domestic terrorism groups in the US. Burning SUVs would be the same as attacking the horse - drawn wagons and supply lines of the pioneer Invader; torching luxury trophy homes, the same as burning down their forts. Today, the insurrection comes from within the fort's walls, and those still fighting have been forced to realize that when they abandon the privileges of the Invader, they join the ranks of all who have challenged him before. Bloodthirsty savage, ecoterrorist - it's all the same.

The Invader continues to instill fear with outrageous prison sentences. The American Indian Movement suffered Leonard Peltier as an example, just as we have with Jeffrey "Free" Luers. What both have shown is that what fear does not kill, it makes stronger-and those conscious enough to defend the Earth do so knowing that there is no turning back on this ancestral path to freedom, no matter how dear the personal price.

That's what disappoints me today - not the constant assault or the scale of destruction against our life support system, but the lack of action to stop it. When I used to go to Game and Fish Department public hearings 20 years ago, EF!ers packed the house. If the meetings accomplished nothing else, they let us tell the bastards killing the last of the wild nations that they'd have to go through us first. It might have meant little to them, but to EF! it was another way to remind them, and ourselves, that our love and allegiance was to our Mother. Nowadays, I'm grateful to have more than myself representing our animal relations at the system's meetings. Wherever the desperately needed Earth warriors from this suicidal society have gone, they have thrown away a sacred responsibility in the hour of our planet's greatest need, and I think I know why.

The thing that prevents the multitudes of conscious and aware individuals in our culture from taking direct action to stop, or at the very least interfere with, what they know to be wrong, is fear. Fear makes us withdraw, and instead of fulfilling our social, ecological and political responsibilities, we feel depressed or guilty for remaining a part of the problem. Without an ability to deal with fear, one may feel great empathy, but not enough to risk one's own place of comfort and privilege. Some reinforce their fear by discrediting those who do try to make a difference. Fear is common in the broad, political left and its paralyzing effect on direct action in the First World is what separates our resistance to ecological destruction from that of generations past, and from those in what the Invader calls the "Third World."

We here in the First World feel fear when we think of Free's 22-year prison sentence or of a violent death. Yet for so many across the world, oppression, tragedy and violence have become all they know. How do we defeat the fear and intimidation that robs us of our wild nature, spirit and willingness to fight back? We confront it. We know how bad things are, and I'm not going to waste time rattling off the numbers and statistics. We know the unthinkable evil and cruelty that is being committed in places like Huntingdon Life Sciences and Guantanamo Bay in our own name and by our own citizens, yet we do so little to stop it-little that is truly effective.

Instead of accepting responsibility for our rogue government, the American left-including most environmentalists - has become less politically active, barely challenging the corruption that we know exists. We turn on our computers and become more aware of the suffering, oppression, war and destruction committed by US corporate armies. But rather than take to the streets, liberals worship messengers like Amy Goodman and Michael Moore.

When the Internet first became a primary form of communication for our resistance, many spoke of the information that would be shared - believing, as the American left still does, that if people are made aware of injustice, somehow it will stop. But the US is still torturing prisoners; the last wild buffalo are still being slaughtered; hundreds of thousands of young harp seals are still dying every Spring; the last wild wolves and indigenous people are under continued assault. Instead of the citizen action that one would expect from non-sympathizers and non-collaborators, we hide in our remaining privilege - hiking, river rafting, drinking, cashing our career environmentalist checks, paying the bills, growing ever more cynical, angry or depressed, but most of all ignoring the deep feeling in our hearts that still allows us to hear the Earth's cries.

Awareness without action is worthless. Most people who rise up to prevent the destruction of their lives and homes, like Victorio, didn't learn such responsibilities late in life, but were taught by families living in harmony with the life around them - something there's ever less of in our consumer-based society. That is what we must return to if any movement hoping to preserve life on this planet is to survive.

In the EF! campaign to defend Mt. Graham here in southern Arizona, an Apache elder told me that we must not forget why Mt. Graham was sacred, continue to practice that belief with prayer and teach our children to honor the mountain in the way our ancestors had. If we did that, he said, protecting Mt. Graham and all of Mother Earth would come naturally. Defending your home should be second nature, and helping others who are doing the same is still what the Earth and our movement needs most. What's needed is not just more monkeywrenching, but more of the human-to-human and animal-to-human living that keeps the Earth's spirit, and our own, alive.

In my own awakening from the fear that immobilized me while living underground as an FBI fugitive, the Earth Mother spoke to me, saying, "We are here, we have been here and always will be here, but there is nothing we can do to help you until you believe in us more than what you fear." Once freed from fear - and despite five federal grand juries investigating our ALF cell at the time - we were able to rise from hiding, organize and destroy the US government's Predator Research Facility in Utah.

We must always remember where our power comes from, and believe in it more than in the fear our enemies use. When we believe in the power of the Earth more than in our fear of prisons or death, we attain the level of warriorhood we need to survive the future. When we follow our hearts and instincts, and act to prevent the Earth's destruction and protect the innocent, we tell the Invader that the resistance is alive and strong. We say that the sisterhood and brotherhood with all life that has already survived so many generations of war will not be broken on our watch.

The price of such responsibility may result in us being hunted down like Victorio, the bison of Montana or the wolves of New Mexico and Arizona today. But if we allow fear to prevent us from doing what we know is fair and just, we disrespect our still-living and fighting wild sisters and brothers and those who are in prison, paying a higher price for freedom than most of us ever have. That is what hurts the most. Despite the number of people among us who are fully aware and able to describe the ecological turning point we have either already passed or are fast approaching - global warming, habitat destruction, species extinction, human wars and corporate pollution - so few are standing up to fight it.

Still, I'm a fool, because my strong belief in the power of the Earth gives me hope. And if grown-ups fail to answer the call now, we'd better start raising more of our own children and building the kind of community support structures that a real resistance needs to survive. And I'm not just talking about knowing how to build a fire; we must support, house, teach and feed the refugees that our enemies are always creating. The Earth will support us, that is not a question. But the society dependent on her exploitation will one day collapse, and when it does, the only ones left standing will be those who never were dependent on it in the first place. All others will once again be subject to the Invader for their daily rations.

I'm still under federal indictment for stopping a mountain lion hunt here in Arizona, and I'm facing another indictment for giving a lecture about monkeywrenching. But on November 1, I'll still be helping escort sandhill cranes safely past the hunters' guns, not far from where Victorio rode himself. And though we may only save a few birds, our hearts will remain free, and those killing our winged relations will know it. So to those still ready to ride and break free from the reservations of our minds and hearts, to build the kind of sustainable resistance our Earth needs, the tribe still awaits you. The family of all life on Earth awaits you, around the sacred fire with hero warriors of generations before. That's where you can still find me, hoisting a monkeywrench to the sky and howling like a wild wolf.

Rod Coronado is an organizer with Chuk'shon EF!, and he is looking for people to join him in the field this Fall and Winter in defense of the wild animal nations.

SOURCE: Earth First! Journal

Friday is Buy Nothing Day

2006-11-23T06:47:00.000-05:00

No purchase necessary.

THE ULTIMATE REFUND: On November 24th and 25th — the busiest days in the American retail calendar and the unofficial start of the international Christmas-shopping season — thousands of activists and concerned citizens in 65 countries will take a 24-hour consumer detox as part of the 14th annual Buy Nothing Day, a global phenomenon that originated in Vancouver, Canada.

From joining zombie marches through malls to organizing credit card cut-ups and shopoholic clinics, Buy Nothing Day activists aim to challenge themselves, their families and their friends to switch off from shopping and tune back into life for one day. Featured in recent years by the likes of CNN, Wired, the BBC and the CBC, the global event is celebrated as a relaxed family holiday, as a non-commercial street party or even as a politically charged public protest. Anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending.

Reasons for participating in Buy Nothing Day are as varied as the people who choose to participate. Some see it as an escape from the marketing mind games and frantic consumer binge that has come to characterize the holiday season, and our culture in general. Others use it to expose the environmental and ethical consequences of overconsumption.

Two recent, high-profile disaster warnings outline the sudden urgency of our dilemma. First, in October, a global warming report by economist Sir Nicholas Stern predicted that climate change will lead to the most massive and widest-ranging market failure the world has ever seen. Soon after, a major study published in the journal Science forecast the near-total collapse of global fisheries within 40 years.

Take a consumer detox and stay out of the stores.

Kalle Lasn, co-founder of the Adbusters Media Foundation, which was responsible for turning Buy Nothing Day into an international annual event, said, "Our headlong plunge into ecological collapse requires a profound shift in the way we see things. Driving hybrid cars and limiting industrial emissions is great, but they are band-aid solutions if we don't address the core problem: we have to consume less. This is the message of Buy Nothing Day."

As Lasn suggests, Buy Nothing Day isn't just about changing your habits for one day. It's about starting a lasting lifestyle commitment to consuming less and producing less waste. With six billion people on the planet, the onus is on the most affluent — the upper 20 percent that consumes 80 percent of the world's resources — to begin setting the example.

Buy Nothing Day facts:

The first BND was organized in Vancouver in September 1992, an idea by artist Ted Dave, as a day for society to examine the issue of over-consumption.
In 1997, it was moved to the Friday after American Thanksgiving, which is the busiest shopping pre-Christmas weekend in the US. Outside of North America, BND is usually celebrated on the following Saturday.
Despite controversies, Adbusters managed to advertise BND on CNN, but many other major TV networks declined to air their ads.
Soon, campaigns started appearing in US, UK, Israel, Germany, New Zealand, Japan, the Netherlands, and Norway. Participation now spans over 65 nations.

Shopping and consumption facts:

Per capita consumption in the US has risen 45 percent in the last 20 years.
Although people today are, on average, four-and-a-half times richer than our great-grandparents were at the turn of the century, Americans report feeling "significantly less well off" than in 1958.
A recent article in New Scientist featured research suggesting that the more consumer goods you have the more you think you need to make you happy. Happiness through consumption is always out of reach (New Scientist, 4th October 2003, Vol. 180, Issue 2415, p44. Available online after registering at www.newscientist.co.uk).

SOURCE: Straight Goods

Tapes Provide First Glimpse of Secret Gitmo Panels

2006-11-23T05:02:00.000-05:00

Snip: "They relied instead on secret evidence that was classified," Denbeaux says. "And the government's procedure was, anything in that secret evidence was presumed to be valuable and valid. And then the detainee was given the opportunity to rebut the secret evidence. But he was never told what the secret evidence was."

Tapes Provide First Glimpse of Secret Gitmo Panels
by Jackie Northam

Audio recordings obtained by NPR provide the outside world with its first window into the secret world of military tribunals at the U.S. prison camp for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The recordings, made by the U.S. military, are of tribunals held in the fall of 2004 to review the "enemy combatant" status of six detainees who were arrested in Bosnia in late 2001. Lawyers for the men obtained the tapes under the Freedom of Information Act and provided NPR with copies of the recordings.

The Combatant Status Review Tribunals are held in small, low-ceiling trailers at Guantanamo Bay. The Pentagon describes the proceedings as an administrative process, so the detainees are not allowed lawyers. There's a court reporter, a translator and a panel of three military officers to whom detainees tell their story, ask why they are being held, and appeal for release.

The audio recordings of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals are scratchy, of poor quality and don't pick up much of what's happening in the small room: You can't sense facial expressions or body language, or that the detainee's arms and legs are shackled.

However, you can hear the tribunal president inquire after the health and comfort of Mustafa Ait Idir, one of several men whose tribunal tapes were reviewed for this story.

"Are those on too tight?" the panel president asks, referring to the shackles on Ait Idir's hands and feet.

"He says, 'I've had them on for a very long time,'" a translator responds for the detainee.

No Set Pattern for Proceedings

Testimony at the tribunals doesn't appear to follow any set pattern. Some start with questioning from the military officers. At others, the detainee will launch into a speech about how they were arrested and sent to Guantanamo, and how they're being treated at the detention camp. Ait Idir speaks through a translator for almost an hour before the tribunal president interrupts him to inquire further about an incident of alleged abuse.

"Are you saying a soldier in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, broke your fingers?" the tribunal president asks.

"Soldiers took me and they placed me on the ground in the rocks outside. They bound my hands and my feet," Ait Idir responds through a translator. He goes on to describe brutal treatment allegedly at the hands of U.S. soldiers.

Ait Idir is one of six Algerians who lived in Bosnia for about a decade before being arrested shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, on suspicion of plotting to bomb the American and British embassies in Sarajevo.

The men were held for three months, until Bosnia's Supreme Court acquitted all of them. Ait Idir and the others tell the tribunal that when they walked out of the police station as free men, they were quickly arrested again by Bosnian and U.S. officials, put on a plane and sent to Guantanamo.

Learning of the Accusations Against Them

Hadj Boudella, one of the other detainees, tells the military panel at his tribunal that this is the first time he's heard some of the accusations against him.

"I've been here for three years, and these accusations were just told to me," Boudella says. "Nobody or any interrogator ever mentioned any of these accusations you are talking to me about now."

What's striking is that, despite not knowing fully why they're being held, enduring open-ended detentions and sometimes harsh interrogations, the detainees on these audio tapes express faith that truth will prevail. Boudella tells the panel that his lawyers -- at the Boston firm Wilmerhale -- sent him a letter telling him not to participate in the tribunal for fear of incriminating himself.

"I want to show you that I am really innocent, and I want you to see I can defend myself," Boudella says on the recording. "If you're innocent, no matter how people try to cover your innocence, it will come out."

Unclassified Evidence Is Slim

The detainees question the panel about the evidence against them and ask for proof, rather than just allegations. The audio recordings and transcripts show that the unclassified evidence is slim; for example, just a rundown of allegations, petitions for habeus corpus, which challenges the prisoners' detention, and affidavits attached to those petitions; one has a letter from Ait Idir's wife. At one point, Ait Idir expresses disbelief over the lack of proof and tells the panel he hoped it had more evidence it could give him.

"If I was in your place, but if a supervisor came to me and showed me accusations like these, I would take these accusations and I would hit him in the face with them," he tells the panel, apologizing for being so blunt.

Ait Idir, Boudella and the others on the recordings all ask that they be allowed to provide the tribunal with additional evidence, such as a copy of the decision by Bosnia's Supreme Court, showing their acquittal.

One detainee asked that his supervisor at the Red Crescent Society in Bosnia testify at the proceeding. He is told that a request was made twice to the U.S. State Department, which handles the matter; each time, the date of the tribunal was emphasized. The tribunal president says there was no response from the State Department to either request.

In some cases, the detainees' representatives don't know what efforts have or are being made to locate requested evidence. The only witnesses available to Ait Idir and Boudella are the other men they were arrested with. Boudella asks one witness the most pertinent question: "Do you know if I belong to any terrorist organization or if I am a terrorist?"

In a simple, almost naïve answer, the witness tells the tribunal that Boudella is not a terrorist. "All I know about this person is that he is a very nice and very good person. He takes good care of his family," the other detainee says.

Critics Call Process Deeply Flawed

The military panel asks the detainees many questions during each tribunal: Where they grew up, where they worked, if they'd ever been to Afghanistan, if they belonged to any terrorist organizations. Then, the panel wraps up the unclassified session of the tribunal.

"Mustafa, you shall be notified of the tribunal decision upon completion of the review of these proceedings by the convening authority in Washington, D.C.," the tribunal president tells Ait Idir.

That was two years ago. Ait Idir and Boudella were both found to be enemy combatants and remain at Guantanamo Bay. In January, they will have spent five years in the prison camp. They have yet to be charged with any crimes.

Critics have always said that the Guantanamo tribunals are deeply flawed. Among other things, they point to the fact that detainees are only allowed to sit in for the unclassified session of the tribunal. They are banned from seeing or hearing the classified information against them.

Lawyers at Seton Hall University recently evaluated the records and transcripts for nearly 400 similar military hearings at Guantanamo. In most cases, they found, the government did not produce any witnesses at the tribunals, and detainees were only allowed to use other detainees at witnesses.

"Ninety-six percent of the time, [the government] produced no evidence of any sort," Seton Hall law professor Mark Denbeaux told NPR's Robert Siegel. Denbeaux represents two detainees and co-authored the report.

"They relied instead on secret evidence that was classified," Denbeaux says. "And the government's procedure was, anything in that secret evidence was presumed to be valuable and valid. And then the detainee was given the opportunity to rebut the secret evidence. But he was never told what the secret evidence was."

The Pentagon dismisses such criticisms, arguing that the tribunals are fair, and that the detainees are allowed to state their case, and produce witnesses and evidence of their own.

SOURCE: NPR

Also see:

Guantanamo prisoner alleges botched medical procedures

U.S. judge denies Guantanamo prisoner request

Micromanaging Shock & Awe to create "Deep Psychological Injury"

Gitmo Captives Say Medics Approved, Participated in Abuses

This Blog's Items on the Gitmo Gulag

The Role of Religion in Promoting War and Conflict

2006-11-22T22:11:00.000-05:00

Judge won't halt AT&T wiretapping lawsuit..

2006-11-20T15:50:00.000-05:00

By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com

SAN FRANCISCO--A federal district judge on Friday rejected the Bush administration's request to halt a lawsuit that alleges AT&T unlawfully cooperated with a broad and unconstitutional government surveillance program.

U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker said the lawsuit could continue while a portion of it was being appealed, despite the U.S. Justice Department's arguments that further hearings and other proceedings would consequently endanger national security.

"I do think these are matters we can proceed on," Walker said toward the end of the status conference here, which began at 11 a.m. PST and was attended by around 50 attorneys from the government, nonprofit groups, class action law firms and major telecommunications companies.

Friday's ruling represents another preliminary victory for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which filed its lawsuit against AT&T in January. In its suit, the EFF charged that AT&T has opened its telecommunications facilities up to the National Security Agency and continues to "to assist the government in its secret surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans."

The ruling is also a win for attorneys in 47 other cases against numerous large telecommunications providers. The cases are in the process of being consolidated into one mammoth lawsuit in the northern district of California.

Last week, the Justice Department filed a 27-page request (click for PDF) saying at the least, the court should halt the AT&T case because any proceeding would "indirectly confirm or deny classified facts and cause harm to the national security."

In July, Walker rejected the Justice Department's attempt to have the suit against AT&T dismissed. That prompted federal prosecutors to appeal to the 9th Circuit a few days later. Along with AT&T, Verizon Communications, BellSouth and Comcast, they urged Walker to delay the case in front of him until the appeals courts reached a decision, which could take years, if it goes to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The "entire process is fraught with risk," a Justice Department attorney said Friday. Bruce Ericson, an attorney for AT&T at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, said that more proceedings would be useless because all his client could put in "a public answer" would be "a general denial."

After EFF's lawsuit was filed, reports of a secret room in an AT&T building in San Francisco surfaced and have become central to the nonprofit group's litigation.

A former AT&T employee, Mark Klein, has released documents alleging the company spliced its fiber optic cables and ran a duplicate set of cables to Room 641A at its 611 Folsom St. building. Improperly-redacted documents seen by CNET News.com show that AT&T has tried to offer benign reasons for the existence of such a room. (AT&T has publicly neither confirmed nor denied cooperating with the National Security Agency.)

A second wave of suits

Another twist at Friday's status conference was what might happen if a second wave of lawsuits is added to the ones already before Judge Walker.

A handful of state utility commissioners, including Vermont and Missouri, have tried to investigate whether the telecommunications companies they regulate have illegally cooperated with the NSA.

In September, for instance, Vermont's Public Service Board said Verizon could be ordered to disclose whether it has "provided local calling records to the NSA, whether Verizon provided information to the NSA before February 2006 and the conditions under which Verizon provides others with access to its customer records." (Click for PDF)

The Bush administration has taken legal action to halt those proceedings, once again invoking its "state secrets" authority and claiming that information harmful to national security could be disclosed.

That second wave of cases "raises the same issues," a Justice Department lawyer said Friday, arguing it provided an additional reason for delay so the court wouldn't have to hear the same issues twice.

But Walker let the cases proceed, setting a December 21 date to hear additional arguments, including one from media organizations for more openness, and a second one on January 11 to return to the question of whether to postpone proceedings during the appeal.

SOURCE: ZDNET

Signs of Warming Continue in the Arctic

2006-11-18T16:36:00.000-05:00

November 17, 2006 — By Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Signs of warming continue in the Arctic with a decline in sea ice, an increase in shrubs growing on the tundra and rising concerns about the Greenland ice sheet.

"There have been regional warming periods before. Now we're seeing Arctic-wide changes," James Overland, an oceanographer at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle, said Thursday.

For the past five years, it was at least 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit above average over the Arctic over the entire year, he said.

The new "State of the Arctic" analysis, released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also reports an increase in northward movement of warmer water through the Bering Strait in 2001-2004. This may have contributed to a continuing reduction of sea ice.

During that time, there were record lows in sea ice coverage in the region, Overland said. This year there was more normal coverage in the Bering area but a record low on the Atlantic side of the Arctic.

In the past when such a shift occurred, there would have been no net loss of ice overall, just a change in where there was a smaller amount. Now, however, there is both the shift and an overall net loss of ice, he said.

Indeed, the report said Arctic sea ice coverage this past March was the lowest in winter since measurements by satellite began in the early 1970s.

Jacqueline A. Richter-Menge of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in Hanover, N.H., said the sea ice decline is now being observed in both winter and summer.

The study was designed to assess the overall impact of climate change in the Arctic and will be updated annually. It was compiled by researchers from the United States, Canada France, Germany, Poland, Norway, Sweden and Russia, she said.

In addition, 2007 has been designated the International Year of the Arctic, with intense scientific study of the region planned.

There have been many changes over the Arctic land areas, too, said Vladimir E. Romanovsky, a professor at the geophysical institute of the University of Alaska. These include changes in vegetation, river discharge into the Arctic Ocean, glaciers and permafrost.

The tundra is becoming greener with the growth of more shrubs, he said. This development is causing problems in some areas as herds of reindeer migrate.

At the same time, there is some decrease in the greening of the northern forest areas, probably due to drought. The glaciers are continuing to shrink and river discharge into the Arctic Ocean is rising, Romanovsky said.

There has been a significant warming of the permafrost over the past 30 years, he added.

Much of the damage to the permafrost soil can be blamed on human construction activities and fires, he said. In many areas, this frozen ground is close to the melting point and soon could begin to thaw.

Overland said the changes are affecting wildlife in the Arctic. Those in the middle levels of the ocean, such as pollock, seem to do well; those on the surface ice or the sea floor, such as walrus or crabs, are not coping as well.

"We're seeing a lot of indicators of climate change in the Arctic and that may be an indicator for change in other parts of the world," Overland said.

Most of the heating from the sun comes to the equator and subequatorial regions, and a lot of heat leaves by radiation from Arctic, he said.

"The temperature difference between the Arctic and equator drives all of our weather," Overland said. If the Arctic warms up and that difference is reduced, weather could change, though people remain unsure about the effect.

SOURCE: Environmental News Network

This Is Why The Iraqis Hate Us

2006-11-18T16:02:00.000-05:00

Another beating snuff video shames coalition of the killing, You Tube censors it

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Friday, November 17, 2006

British troops punch, beat and kick pleading Iraqi children as a sadistic comrade films the brutal scenes of torture, laughing, screaming, growling and frothing like a serial killer filming a snuff movie. This is why the Iraqis hate us.

Iraqi children throw rocks as they flee from running British troops, are grabbed, brought inside a gate and beaten half to death. Watch the video below. The censorship spies at You Tube rejected it 2 minutes after upload so I re-named it "Fluffy Happy Poodles In Heaven," to try and bypass their keyword filters and it was still rejected. I even renamed the actual 'wmv' filename but it was still blocked for "terms of use violation." I finally managed to get it posted on Google Video. If it disappears again, here's the Windows Media link on our server.

"Oh yes! Oh Yes! You're gonna get it!" snarls the cameraman.

"Yes! Naughty little boys."

He laughs as they boys begin to scream out in pain, "Yes!"

He then takes on the tone of a demented serial killer, grunting and growling, "Yeeeeeesss, yeeeeeessss," as troops punch and kick the children.

He mocks the cries of the boys, "No please don't hurt me," laughs again and then proceeds to begin frothing in some kind of insane carnal bloodlust, "Motherfuckers, you little fuckers - die!"

Adult Iraqis are brought in and similarly assaulted - the video ends.

A probe of this video led to the arrest of the cameraman, Cpl Martin Webster, but after that the investgation seemingly went nowhere and was swept under the rug.

Originally leaked in February this year, this is just the latest in a long line of "trophy videos" that expose the true face of what the troops have been trained and ordered to do in Iraq, dominate, brutalize and enslave the population - and it's why nearly 3,000 have come home in flag-draped coffins.

This is why the Iraqis hate us.

- A CNN clip from the early days of the "liberation" shows U.S. troops finishing off an injured Iraqi. The tape cuts to an interview with one of the soldiers who states, "Like, man, you guys are dead now, you know. But it was a good feeling. I mean, afterwards you're like, hell, yeah, that was awesome. Let's do it again."

- In another clip the soldier exclaims, "Hell yeah bitches," as he audibly orgasms as the scene of carnage before him - a missile slamming into a nearby building. "I got all that shit on camera."

- U.S. troops in a convoy drive vehicles down an Iraqi highway and bemoan the fact that they are not allowed to gun down children who throw rocks at them.

- Bloodthirsty security guards and contractors hang out the back of trucks and randomly execute Iraqis driving in vehicles behind them.

- An Iraqi taxi driver who stole some firewood gets his vehicle crushed by an Abrams tank as U.S. troops cheer and holler.

These are just some of the videos that have been leaked onto the Internet. Now we know that the policy to abuse and torture innocent Iraqis just to show them who the bosses were was implicit, how many more of these kind of incidents have happened over the past three and a half years but not been videotaped by salivating zombies?

This is why the Iraqis hate us.

No one is suggesting that U.S. troops should roll over like a poodle if someone is shooting at them - they have every right to shoot back no matter what your view on the war is. The rubicon is crossed when petty thieves, children who throw rocks or completely innocent people are brutalized without recourse and the one thing that betrays the true nature of it all is the sadistic reaction of the protagonists who enjoy the torture, the beatings and the death.

Most of these individuals were brought up on a steady diet of first person shoot-em-ups, and they have overlaid the mental perception that the video games taught them on how to treat death. Distanced and emotionless, the troops see random slaughter and torture as a stress reliever, a means of letting off some steam - and it's all sanctioned from the very top.

This is why the Iraqis hate us.

The assumption that Iraq is now liberated and that its people have suffered for the glorious opportunity of seeing democracy and freedom flourish throughout their country is the last thread the Neo-Cons are hanging onto as claims of weapons of mass destruction and Al-Qaeda ties evaporated long ago. Yet to claim Iraq is liberated is the most absurd of any of the justifications for going to war or "staying the course."

Every cornerstone of what one would consider to be basic rights in a free society, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, right to fair judicial process, right to be secure from unlawful searches and seizures in one's home, have been abolished in Iraq. The occupation makes the regime of Saddam Hussein look like post-revolution America.

This is why the Iraqis hate us.

I guess the Iraqi children should feel lucky in that they got their retaliation in first by throwing rocks, many are simply arrested, hooded and taken to the torture camp for refusing to show ID at checkpoints. It's good to see that the authorities are not hypocrites and that the same kind of law enforcement techniques are practiced here at home, as Mostafa Tabatabainejad can attest to, the student was tortured for refusing to show his ID to UCLA police in a campus library.

The fun will continue when the same kind of barbarous fiends who get orgasmic pleasure from watching children being tortured come back home and become our police.

SOURCE: Prison Planet

The New Media Offensive Against Withdrawal

2006-11-18T15:55:00.000-05:00

by Norman Solomon

The American media establishment has launched a major offensive against the option of withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

In the latest media assault, right-wing outfits like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page are secondary. The heaviest firepower is now coming from the most valuable square inches of media real estate in the USA – the front page of the New York Times.

The present situation is grimly instructive for anyone who might wonder how the Vietnam War could continue for years while opinion polls showed that most Americans were against it. Now, in the wake of midterm elections widely seen as a rebuke to the Iraq war, powerful media institutions are feverishly spinning against a pullout of U.S. troops.

Under the headline "Get Out of Iraq Now? Not So Fast, Experts Say," the Nov. 15 front page of the New York Times prominently featured a "Military Analysis" by Michael Gordon. The piece reported that – while some congressional Democrats are saying withdrawal of U.S. troops "should begin within four to six months" – "this argument is being challenged by a number of military officers, experts, and former generals, including some who have been among the most vehement critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policies."

Reporter Gordon appeared hours later on Anderson Cooper's CNN show, fully morphing into an unabashed pundit as he declared that withdrawal is "simply not realistic." Sounding much like a Pentagon spokesman, Gordon went on to state in no uncertain terms that he opposes a pullout.

If a New York Times military-affairs reporter went on television to advocate for withdrawal of U.S. troops as unequivocally as Gordon advocated against any such withdrawal during his Nov. 15 appearance on CNN, he or she would be quickly reprimanded – and probably would be taken off the beat – by the Times hierarchy. But the paper's news department eagerly fosters reporting that internalizes and promotes the basic worldviews of the country's national security state.

That's how and why the Times front page was so hospitable to the work of Judith Miller during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. That's how and why the Times is now so hospitable to the work of Michael Gordon.

At this point, categories like "vehement critics of the Bush administration's Iraq policies" are virtually meaningless. The bulk of the media's favorite "vehement critics" are opposed to reduction of U.S. involvement in the Iraq carnage, and some of them are now openly urging an increase in U.S. troop levels for the occupation.

These days, media coverage of U.S. policy in Iraq often seems to be little more than a remake of how mainstream news outlets portrayed Washington's options during the war in Vietnam. Routine deference to inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom has turned many prominent journalists into co-producers of a Groundhog Day sequel that insists the U.S. war effort must go on.

During the years since the fall of Saddam, countless news stories and commentaries have compared the ongoing disaster in Iraq to the Vietnam War. But those comparisons have rarely illuminated the most troubling parallels between the U.S. media coverage of both wars.

Whether in 1968 or 2006, most of the Washington press corps has been at pains to portray withdrawal of U.S. troops as impractical and unrealistic.

Contrary to myths about media coverage of the Vietnam War, the American press lagged way behind grassroots antiwar sentiment in seriously contemplating a U.S. pullout from Vietnam. The lag time amounted to several years – and meant the additional deaths of tens of thousands of Americans and perhaps 1 million more Vietnamese people.

A survey by the Boston Globe, conducted in February 1968, found that out of 39 major daily newspapers in the United States, not one had editorialized for withdrawing American troops from Vietnam. Today – despite the antiwar tilt of national opinion polls and the recent election – advocacy of a U.S. pullout from Iraq seems almost as scarce among modern-day media elites.

The standard media evasions amount to kicking the bloody can down the road. Careful statements about benchmarks and getting tough with the Baghdad government (as with the Saigon government) are markers for a national media discourse that dodges instead of enlivens debate.

Many journalists are retreading the notion that the pullout option is not a real option at all. And the Democrats who'll soon be running Congress, we're told, wouldn't – and shouldn't – dare to go that far if they know what's good for them.

Implicit in such media coverage is the idea that the real legitimacy for U.S. war policymaking rests with the president, not the Congress. When I ponder that assumption, I think about 42-year-old footage of the CBS program Face the Nation.

The show's host on that 1964 telecast was the widely esteemed journalist Peter Lisagor, who told his guest: "Senator, the Constitution gives to the president of the United States the sole responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy."

"Couldn't be more wrong," Sen. Wayne Morse broke in with his sandpapery voice. "You couldn't make a more unsound legal statement than the one you have just made. This is the promulgation of an old fallacy that foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States. That's nonsense."

Lisagor was almost taunting as he asked, "To whom does it belong then, Senator?"

Morse did not miss a beat. "It belongs to the American people," he shot back – and "I am pleading that the American people be given the facts about foreign policy."

The journalist persisted: "You know, Senator, that the American people cannot formulate and execute foreign policy."

Morse's response was indignant: "Why do you say that? … I have complete faith in the ability of the American people to follow the facts if you'll give them. And my charge against my government is, we're not giving the American people the facts."

Morse, the senior senator from Oregon, was passionate about the U.S. Constitution as well as international law. And, while rejecting the widely held notion that foreign policy belongs to the president, he spoke in unflinching terms about the Vietnam War. At a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Feb. 27, 1968, Morse said that he did not "intend to put the blood of this war on my hands."

And, prophetically, Morse added: "We're going to become guilty, in my judgment, of being the greatest threat to the peace of the world. It's an ugly reality, and we Americans don't like to face up to it."

SOURCE: ANTIWAR.COM

Milton Friedman: Killing America Softly with his Song

2006-11-18T15:31:00.000-05:00

by Sam Smith

You'd never guess it from the sycophantic obituaries, but Milton Friedman did more damage to American democracy and culture than just about any figure in the 20th century.

The sycophancy isn't surprising. Friedman was blessed with it from the start. For example, the supposedly liberal PBS starred him in a ten part series, "Free to Choose" in 1980 just in time to help Reagan win the presidency. To this day, even NPR babbles about the "free market" when you all you have to do is count the number of lobbyists in Washington to understand that such an economy doesn't exist.

Further, one of the best kept secrets of economics is that there are lots of systems that work provided, that is, you don't care who they work for. Feudalism, for example, was great if you were a lord, not so efficient a marketplace is you were merely a serf. And each system works differently depending on the culture in which it operates, which is why communism in the Soviet Union, China and Italy meant such different things. In the end, the real test of an economy is not its math but its social, financial and moral effect on its culture and those who live there.

This is why the commentaries on Friedman were so consistently wrong. They treated economics as though it was a cold science when, in a mind as distorted as Friedman's, it was really just a sort of creationism myth applied to money.

If you read far enough down the stories, you would find, grudgingly, a single quote from a critic. The Washington Post cited Galbraith biographer Richard Parker who said that Friendman's "passionate calls for financial and securities market deregulation played no small role in ushering in the half-trillion dollar S&L fiasco of the 1980s and the deeply corrupt Wall Street stock market boom of the 1990s. His tax-reduction-at-all-costs policies helped lead to the nation's yawning budget deficits." And the Wall Street Journal admitted deep in its account, "Critics said he inspired policies that put millions of people out of work in pursuit of low inflation and demonized almost everything the government did, no matter how beneficial or democratically chosen. 'Milton Friedman didn't make a distinction between the big government of the People's Republic of China and the big government of the United States, said James Galbraith, professor of government at the University of Texas."

But for the most part both public figures and the media bought Friedman's mythology, never stopping to look critically at the effect it had on America. Here are a just few things that have happened since America's elite swallowed the Friedman myth:

- Real income down
- Real manufacturing wages down
- Top one percent's share of wealth up
- Income gap between rich and poor up
- Family indebtedness up
- Bottom forty percent's share of wealth down
- CEO pay as a percent of average workers' pay up
- Workers covered by pensions down
- Workers covered by health plans down
- Age at which one can receive Social Security down
- Personal bankruptcies up
- Housing foreclosures up
- Median rent up

But the worst damage of Friedman economics is not fiscal but what it has done to the social and moral principles that made America what it was before the greedsters of neo-capitalism began taking it apart. The underlying principle of laissez faire economics is that power is intrinsically good and decency intrinsically irrelevant.

No society can long function on such a lie. It is essentially that of the Mafia with the exception being that you don't have to always ignore the law to get what you want; often, with the help of your lobbyists and purchased politicians, you can just change it to fit your needs.

The moral vacuum was clear from the start. Ronald Reagan said things like "We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry every night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet." And: "Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders."

As for Margaret Thatcher, whose platform of public selfishness was used as a model for the Reagan campaign, she thought there wasn't even anything one could call a community: "There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families." Thatcher wrapped herself in economic slogans that justified greed not only to accomplish economic ends but also to deal with gays and abortions and everything else she didn't like. In her paradigm, the free market and Victorian tyranny formed a civil union. By the time Reagan, Bush, and Clinton were through with the concept, they had created a gaping corporate exemption from common morality and decency. The market not only offered adequate justification for any act, it had replaced God as the highest source of law.

We have paid a terrible price for this corruption of our culture by the new robber barons egged on by Friedman and his ilk. We so accept their foul standards that we don't even discuss or debate them. We have become prisoners of their lie.

SOURCE: Progressive Review

President Authorized Abu Ghraib Torture, FBI Email Says

2006-11-17T14:44:00.000-05:00

Among a new batch of documents rights groups have forced the gov't to release, a Bureau communication refers to a presidential Executive Order endorsing some forms of torture witnessed at Iraq prison.

President Authorized Abu Ghraib Torture, FBI Email Says
by NewStandard Staff

Dec. 21, 2004 – Repeated references in an internal FBI email suggest that the president issued a special order to permit some of the more objectionable torture techniques used at Abu Ghraib and other US-run prison facilities around Iraq. The email was among a new batch of FBI documents revealed by civil rights advocates on Monday. Other documents describe the initiation of investigations into alleged incidents of torture and rape at detention facilities in Iraq.

The email, which was obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, represents the first hard evidence directly connecting the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal and the White House. The author of the email, whose name is blanked out but whose title is described as "On Scene Commander -- Baghdad," contains ten explicit mentions of an "Executive Order" that the author said mandated US military personnel to engage in extraordinary interrogation tactics.

An Executive Order is a presidential edict -- sometimes public, sometimes secretive -- instituting special laws or instructions that override or complement existing legislation. The White House has officially neither admitted nor denied that the president has issued an Executive Order pertaining to interrogation techniques.

The specific methods mentioned in the email as having been approved by the unnamed Executive Order and witnessed by FBI agents include sleep deprivation, placing hoods over prisoners’ heads, the use of loud music for sensory overload, stripping detainees naked, forcing captives to stand in so-called "stress positions," and the employment of work dogs. One of the more horrifying tools of intimidation, Army canines were used at the prison to terrorize inmates, as depicted in photos taken inside Abu Ghraib.

The correspondence is dated May 22, 2004 -- a couple of weeks after images of torture and humiliation at the prison broke in the world media -- and was sent between FBI officials attempting to clarify the Bureau’s position on the terminology to use when categorizing and reporting such techniques. The author repeatedly states those techniques were, at least temporarily, permitted under the mysterious presidential directive. The author also wrote that Pentagon policy had since restricted most of the techniques to require specific authorization from the chain of command.

"As stated, there was a revision last week in the military’s standard operating procedures based on the Executive Order," the letter reads. "I have been told that all interrogation techniques previously authorized by the Executive Order are still on the table but that certain techniques can only be used if very high-level authority is granted." The author goes on to recount having seen a military email that said certain techniques -- including "stress positions," the use of dogs, "sleep management," hoods, "stripping (except for health inspection)," and blaring music -- cannot be used without special authorization.

The author wonders if techniques that fall within the scope of the Executive Order should be referred to as "abuse," since they are technically legal. Unless otherwise advised by the Bureau, the email continues, agents "will still not report the use of these techniques as ‘abuse’ since we will not be in a position to know whether or not the authorization for these tactics was received from the aforementioned officials."

The author does believe that interrogation methods that involve "physical beatings, sexual humiliation or touching" clearly constitute "abuse," suggesting they are not within the scope of the repeatedly referenced Executive Order.

The email says that FBI personnel operating at Abu Ghraib witnessed but did not participate in prisoner interrogations that involved actions approved by the Executive Order. That statement upholds separate documentation also obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests backed by a lawsuit on the part of the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups.

As reported by The NewStandard, documents revealed in October showed that FBI agents had witnessed abuses like those mentioned in the email, in addition to many more severe actions.

The email that was revealed on Monday is the first official document to state that the Oval Office was the source of directives permitting abuse and torture.

After the ACLU released the documents, White House, Pentagon and FBI officials told reporters that the author of the email was mistaken, and that the order was not an Executive Order, but a Defense Department directive. All sources refused to be identified in news reports.

The White House does not appear to have ever officially denied that President Bush issued an Executive Order specifying interrogation techniques, though none has been made public. The ACLU and other organizations involved in forcing the release of documents regarding prisoner treatment at Abu Ghraib as well as prison camps in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba have demanded the White House "confirm or deny the existence of such an order," according to an ACLU press release issued on Monday.

Last June the president insisted that the only authorization he has issued with regard to interrogation procedures was that American personnel "would conform to US law and would be consistent with international treaty obligations."

But as the unidentified FBI official noted in his email, techniques are made legal under US law if and when the president issues an Executive Order rendering them so.

Asked more directly less than two weeks later if President Bush had ever approved particular prisoner handling methods, White House spokesperson Scott McClellan responded, "In terms of interrogation techniques related to what the military may carry out in Guantánamo Bay or Iraq, those are determinations that are made by the military, and we expect that those techniques fit within the policies that this President has instituted."

The president and his legal advisors have repeatedly said that the US government neither condones nor commits torture. The Bush administration’s conservative definition of torture, as expressed at a June 22 press briefing by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, incorporates only acts bearing "a specific intent to inflict severe physical or mental harm or suffering."

If White House statements are to be taken at face value, then, they still leave considerable room for the possibility that President Bush has authorized specific acts that civil libertarians and international law consider torturous, including the methods listed in the FBI email.

The United Nations Convention Against Torture, which the United States Congress has ratified, defines "torture" far more broadly as including "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession."

Also included among the newly released documents were notices regarding the initiation of criminal investigations pertaining to abuse of Iraqi detainees.

One of the documents is a memo stating that the US Army’s Criminal Investigation Division had commenced an inquiry "regarding the alleged rape of [a] juvenile male detainee at Abu Ghraib Prison." The name of the investigating officer or unit has been blanked out, and no identifying information is offered pertaining to the case.

Another document notifies Valene Caproni of the FBI’s Office of the General Counsel, that two FBI agents who were stationed in Iraq were to be interviewed by Army investigators looking into the alleged torture of an Iraqi detainee. Gary Bald of the Bureau’s Counterterrorism Division wrote the email message, in which he notes suspicious military paperwork on a detainee whose name is redacted. He also writes that the two FBI special agents were with the military police unit that held the Iraqi and signed receipts claiming to have seen him before he was transferred to Abu Ghraib for further interrogation.

While the email states that the prisoner does not mention the FBI in his complaint, he described his treatment in troubling detail. "They tortured me and cuffed me in an act called the scorpion and pouring cold water on me," the email quotes the detainee’s complaint as saying. "They tortured me from morning until the morning of the next day, and when I fell down from the severe torture I fell on the barbed wires, and then they dragged me from my feet and I was wounded and, and they punched me on my stomach."

SOURCE: The New Standard

Also see:

Micromanaging Shock & Awe to create "Deep Psychological Injury"

Gitmo Captives Say Medics Approved, Participated in Abuses

Hey Counterpunch: Where Did You Get Those Pictures?

2006-11-17T14:35:00.000-05:00

by Paul V. Sheridan

Mr. Cockburn:

Thank you for your article of 9/10/2006, "How They Let the Guilty Parties of 9/11 Slip Off the Hook - The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts." It has and will serve many purposes well. I was especially enamoured by your opening sentence; the one that associates the name Bush with the word "mastermind."

However, I would like to solicit your assistance, and perhaps the assistance of your brother Andrew, with a minor issue (please see specific request below). This assistance involves your sentence :

"As regards the hole, my brother Andrew -- writing a book about Rumsfeld and the DoD during his tenure -- has seen photos taken within 30 minutes of Pentagon impact clearly showing outline of entire plane including wings. This was visible momentarily when the smoke blew away . . . "

Wow! That is clearly a piece of evidence that would demolish the entire "conspiracy nuts" issue revolving to-this-day about 9/11 and the Pentagon. Some preliminary questions:

Will these photos be available anytime soon?

Who is in possession of these photos ("taken within 30 minutes")?

Who TOOK the photos ("taken within 30 minutes")?

Given that only one, maybe two, video cameras were in-operation at the Pentagon that day (vis-i-vis the Judicial Watch FOIA "results"), what type of photographic technology was used for the photos your brother Andrew has seen ("taken within 30 minutes")? Were these video capture, standalone digital/SLR? Etc.?

Why weren't these photos ("taken within 30 minutes") made available to the good honest folks at The 9/11 Commission?

Why weren't these photos ("taken within 30 minutes") made available to The 9/11 Commission for inclusion in their "List of Illustrations and Tables" on page IX of their report?

Why weren't these photos ("taken within 30 minutes") made available to the good honest folks at the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) for discussion and inclusion in their 'The Pentagon Building Performance Report'?

Why have these photos ("taken within 30 minutes") never been released to the public, other than perhaps your brother Andrew?

Will these photos ("taken within 30 minutes") be included in the book that your brother Andrew is writing "about Rumsfeld and the DoD during his tenure"?

My SPECIFIC REQUEST involves a letter I wrote to Mr. Rumsfeld that has gone unanswered for over a year. It can be found here:

One

Two

Three

Please note the "Specific Request" that I make atop page 3 of that letter.

At this point I would ask your assistance, in both the context of your excellent article about "9/11 conspiracy nuts" and in the context of your brother Andrew's upcoming book, that we-together both work to get an official response to my "Specific Request" to Mr. Rumsfeld of 22 July 2005.

Please respond.

Paul V. Sheridan

P.S. If your brother Andrew would like to include a copy of my 22 July 2005 letter to Mr. Rumsfeld in his book, please telephone me to discuss (313-277-5095).

SOURCE: Rick Siegel

Blogger Note: The Counterpunch article in question is here.

Calling Rick Siegel

2006-11-17T13:31:00.000-05:00

Recently, I made contact with one Rick Siegel over this video, which was, for a time, being denied to me by Google. Rick hosted it himself and then reported a hack at his site. He managed to post one more item and now, for days, nothing. All emails from his account are bouncing and I even tried getting an automated account at his site to send him a message through his own page and even it gave me an error. I tried again and it said, "You are not authorized to carry out this operation." However, the previous page says, "All registered users can post private messages."

Here is the message I sent, the one that it appears he may never get:

All messages I send to you, from various accounts, are bouncing so I got this account to reach you. Programs have been implemented before to keep certain individuals from contacting each other and I have personally witnessed accounts taken over by someone other than the original owner and I wonder sometimes if online contacts of mine haven't simply been disappeared into some Gitmo gulag.

Please respond very soon so that I know none of this applies to you.

2006-11-16T17:28:00.000-05:00

Father of the A-bomb Speaks

Hell Is Rising in Oaxaca

2006-11-16T17:11:00.000-05:00

An Interview with an Oaxacan Rebel
by Ron Jacobs

When I lived in Washington state, some of my closest friends were from the Mexican state of Oaxaca. I have kept in touch with a few of them, and they have kept me in touch with the rebellion unfolding in the streets of Oaxaca over the past few months. After the escalation of the situation there on October 27, 2006, when paramilitary forces shot and killed four people (including Indymedia journalist Brad Will), I spoke with my friends David Abeles and Hilaria Cruz who helped me contact some of their people in Oaxaca city. Given the circumstances currently existing in the area and the uncertainty of the immediate future because of the military and police presence there, I felt that the best way to get firsthand information out to the wider world would be to conduct an email interview. The first interview is below. I hope to have another one ready in the next couple days.

Ron: Hey Tomas. Thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions. Would you be willing to introduce yourself?

Tomas: Hi, I would like to salute all the readers of this electronic journal. My name is Tomas Cruz, I am a native from a community in Oaxaca in the highlands. I was forced by the economic situation to migrate to the States. Fortunately I gained an education at the Evergreen State College. I also went to the University of Texas at Austin for a graduate degree in Latin American studies.

Ron: So, you've been in Oaxaca during the entire uprising? Can you tell us the sequence of events as you see them up to now?

Tomas: I have been involved in diverse NGOs working for the communities in Oaxaca up until the time of the Oaxacan uprising.

What we are seeing in Oaxaca is a breakdown of political system that is completely corrupt and deliberately abuses its citizens at will, using the legitimacy of the state to impose a government that only uses power to advance a personal agenda and that of a very small political oligarchy. Since the start of the present government, it was characterized by repression of political leaders, immediately killing them and imposing its repressive mode of government.

The result of the events which are occurring as we speak began with an annual demonstration by the teachers' syndicate. In the 14th of June, the state police attacked the teachers who were at the zocalo for the demonstration.

The response from the citizenry was immediate -- hundreds of people joined the teachers strike and saw an opportunity to stop the continued abuses from the government.

I can only describe what is occurring as catharsis of the population, especially of the immense poor population of the city.

After the attack by the state and the immense response from the population, the most remarkable event in the politics of the movement has been the formation of a popular assembly of the pueblos of Oaxaca, also known as APPO.

The APPO organizations have been capable of resisting all the attacks from the state government, from spots attacking the protesters as a bunch of radicals to the death squads sent to kill people who were protesting at night.

The response of the APPO was to develop barricades to stop the death squads. This resulted in a historic, animated political culture, with also a strong popular support.

Recently, the violence escalated when the international reporter died at the hands of the mercenaries paid by the governor.

Yesterday, there was an intervention by the federal police after the multiple deaths and probably also after the international pressure following the death of the international reporter. The federal police killed at least 4 people and raped one woman during the intervention. The response of the APPO is to maintain the protest until the governor resigns and the political system is reformed.

Ron: What groups were involved that you know of? Also, I imagine that many people were unaffiliated. What were their reasons for joining, in your estimate?

Tomas: This movement is composed of the poorest section of the population. Old housewives who think of this as a parallel to the revolution of 1910 and are ready to resist for years, beggars who are tired of the abuses by the police or simply sympathize with the movement because they see no hope and future in their lives. Mechanics, civil servants, citizens from the neighboring neighborhoods who have had their municipal presidents imposed on them. Citizens from the poorest sections of the city.

Ron: From my understanding, PRI and its allies were responsible for the shootings that killed several people on October 27th. Is PRI the only party responsible for the situation in Oaxaca or are other political parties also responsible?

Tomas: No, the PRI is seeing its last days, and it has resorted to the only thing that it knows, violence.

Ron: You're in Oaxaca right now. What the hell is going on?

Tomas: Hell is rising in Oaxaca, the force of the government against teachers, students, housewives, mechanics, peasants. The whole city and the whole state is filled with federal police, local police, military.

Ron: How are the spirits of those in the rebellion? Where do they get their food and water?

Tomas: There is ample popular support for this uprising which results in a steady flow of donations from communities and lay citizens who donate at different points. Mainly this has been coordinated by using radio stations. At this point, there is one station left, which is being broadcast through the internet at www.indymedia.org -- you (those of you who can speak Spanish) can listen to what is going on as we speak.

The radio broadcasters who have little experience but a huge heart respond to the needs of the people on the barricades. Yesterday, for example, they organized the installation of medical aid stations because the Red Cross got instructions from the governor and its director not to attend to the flurry of people who were shot at by the governor's police.

Ron: Do you think there is a potential for armed conflict (beyond that seen already -- which seems mostly to originate from the forces of the state)?

Tomas: Hmm, if the state continues on its support of a political figure who has lost completely popular support, especially from the poor, then we will see an escalation of violence. because the demands of the people after decades -- some argue centuries -- have been unattended. Honestly, I think that this would continue as peaceful opposition, and hopefully we would see a more democratic state. Only if the government continues its escalation of violence would we see a critical cyclical point in Mexico's history.

Ron: If the federal forces are able to quash the rebellion, what kind of repression do you think will follow? Indeed, based on past experiences, after the media leaves the region, what do you foresee happening to the movement, its participants and supporters, and the region in general?

Tomas: I think that the violence is going to be targeted at the organizers and the leaders of the movement.

Ron: In the greater scheme of things, how would you relate this to other struggles occurring in the Americas? What relationship, if any, do you see the demands of the protestors have to the anti-imperialist/anti-global capitalism movements in this hemisphere and around the world?

Tomas: This rebellion reminds me of Bolivia, because of it indigenous component. As in Bolivia, once the indigenous population decide that a government needs to be overturned, we see that they gain a determination that has caused it to fall. In the case of Oaxaca, the most likely scenario is that the governor is going to be overthrown. What we are seeing also is a political scenario that changes everyday. The news today is that the political parties at the national level are all calling for the governor to resign.

If the movement maintains the level and determination that we are seeing, then this movement has a chance of playing an important role in national politics and possibly a shift in the neoliberal government of Mexico.

Ron: Anything more to add?

Tomas: I was at the scene five minutes before the reporter from Indymedia was killed. I remember hearing the shots, people running all over the place, unarmed mechanics, housewives. There was a woman there, I do not know if she was a teacher, I only remember her words, "This is our moment, we cant go on living like this, it is enough. I went to school barefoot, and it makes me cry to see what happens here. Our only future is the border with the United States. It makes me sad to see our young finish a university degree only to work as taxi drivers. This is our moment, we can't let them continue to oppress us."

SOURCE: MR Zine

Climate change is as serious as WMD: Annan

2006-11-16T17:03:00.000-05:00

NAIROBI (AFP) - UN chief Kofi Annan demanded that world leaders give climate change the same priority as they did to wars and to curbing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

Annan made the appeal as he launched a three-day gathering of environment chiefs, tasked with stepping up action against global warming.

In his valedictory speech to the annual meeting, the UN secretary-general painted a sombre tableau about the effects of climate change, especially on impoverished countries that were least to blame for it.

And he lacerated the fast-shrinking minority of politicians or scientists who still denied there was any threat as "out of step, out of arguments and out of time."

Climate change imperils agriculture through drought and coastal cities through rising sea levels, poses a health threat by spreading mosquito-born disease and could lead to billion-dollar weather calamities, said Annan.

"Climate change is also a threat to peace and security," he warned. "Changing patterns of rainfall, for example, can heighten competition for resources, setting in motion potentially destabilising tensions and migrations, especially in fragile states or volatile regions.

"There is evidence that some of this already occurring; more could well be in the offing."

Annan declared: "The message is clear. Global climate change must take its place alongside those threats -- conflict, poverty, the proliferation of deadly weapons -- that have traditionally monopolised first-order political attention."

Ministers or their stand-ins at the 189-nation meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are under pressure to spell out by Friday their commitments for deepening cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions.

The spotlight is being placed on Brazil, China and India -- big-population developing countries whose carbon pollution has surged in line with their economic growth.

The European Union (EU) hopes these countries will signal they will join rich nations in making binding curbs in their emissions when negotiations start next year to reshape the UNFCCC's Kyoto Protocol after it expires in 2012.

The United States, meanwhile, which walked away from Kyoto in 2001, is being scrutinised for any gesture towards the pact in the light of last week's US elections, in which the Democrats wrested control of Congress away from President George W. Bush's Republicans.

The United States by itself accounts for a quarter of the world's greenhouse gas output, although its position as No. 1 polluter could soon be overtaken by China, a major burner of coal.

Greenhouse gases trap the Sun's heat instead of letting it radiate out into space.

As a result, Earth's atmospheric temperature is rising, and many scientists are convinced this is already starting to affect the climate system.

The evidence for this comes through thinner snow cover in the European alps, shrinkage of the Greenland icesheet and Arctic ice cover, and a retreat in Siberian permafrost.

Experts are demanding swingeing cuts in the pollution to avoid prolonged droughts and floods or melting of the Antarctic icesheet that could unleash an alarming rise in sea levels.

The Nairobi conference, which began on November 6, yielded its first significant progress on Tuesday with deals on technical aspects of Kyoto's complex machinery.

They reached agreement on how a fund to help poor countries adapt to global warming will be managed, and on a five-year work programme to identify areas in rich and poor countries alike that could be vulnerable to climate change.

In addition, they agreed rules for defining which projects should be eligible under Kyoto's "Joint Implementation" (JI) initiative. JI is a scheme by which rich countries that transfer clean technology to former Soviet eastern European countries can gain carbon credits that they can trade or offset against their own emissions goal.

Financial experts on Tuesday warned climate change could so amplify the effect of weather disasters that droughts, storm surges and other natural catastrophes could cost as much as a thousand billion dollars in a single year by 2040.

SOURCE: Agence France-Presse

Americans Have the Right to See Laws They Must Follow

2006-11-16T16:58:00.000-05:00

EFF Asks Supreme Court to Tackle Secret Law
Americans Have the Right to See Laws They Must Follow

Washington, D.C. - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of non-profit organizations asked the U.S. Supreme Court Monday to hear a case challenging a secret law governing travelers in American airports.

The case centers on the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) requirement that travelers show identification before boarding commercial aircraft. So far, the TSA has refused to disclose the terms of the identification requirement to the public, claiming that they are "sensitive security information." In the amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to hear Gilmore v. Gonzales, EFF demonstrates that Congress never intended agencies to have unfettered discretion to impose requirements upon the public without allowing the public to review them.

"The TSA is allowed to withhold some information from the public, but only in cases where transportation security is at risk," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "Simply showing Americans the rules they must follow can't possibly compromise security. The real danger here is meaningless secrecy, which can hide security flaws, frustrate the justice system, create confusion, and undermine government accountability."

The Constitution and laws like the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) prohibit the government from imposing secret laws on the public. But if the lower court decision permitting the secrecy is allowed to stand, it opens the door to other government agencies creating undisclosed rules and regulations without oversight.

"'Security' shouldn't be a magic password allowing the government to escape accountability," said Hofmann. "The Supreme Court should hear this case and review why the TSA insists on keeping this basic information secret."

The amicus brief was also signed by the American Association of Law Libraries, American Library Association, Association of Research Libraries, Center for Democracy and Technology, National Security Archive, Project on Government Secrecy of the Federation of American Scientists, and Special Libraries Association.

For the full amicus brief [PDF]

SOURCE: Electronic Frontier Foundation

Administration: Detainees Have No Rights

2006-11-16T16:50:00.000-05:00

By MATT APUZZO

WASHINGTON Nov 13, 2006 (AP)— The Bush administration said Monday that Guantanamo Bay prisoners have no right to challenge their detentions in civilian courts and that lawsuits by hundreds of detainees should be dismissed.

In court documents filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the Justice Department defended the military's authority to arrest people overseas and detain them indefinitely without access to courts.

It's the first time that argument has been spelled out since President Bush signed a law last month setting up military commissions for the thousands of foreigners being held in U.S. prisons abroad.

Bush hailed the law as a crucial tool in the war on terrorism and said it would allow prosecution of several high-level terror suspects.

Human rights groups and attorneys for the detainees say the law is unconstitutional. Prisoners normally have the right to challenge their imprisonment.

The Justice Department said Monday that the detainees have no constitutional rights because they are being held overseas. Giving military detainees access to civilian courts "would severely impair the military's ability to defend this country," government attorneys wrote.

"Congress could have simply withdrawn jurisdiction over these matters and left the decision of whether to detain enemy aliens held abroad to the military," the Justice Department wrote.

Instead, Congress set up a military commission structure establishing "unprecedented" levels of review for detainees, the attorneys wrote.

SOURCE: ABC News

Halliburton Whistleblower Demoted

2006-11-16T16:48:00.000-05:00

by William Fisher

NEW YORK, Aug 30 (IPS) - Whistleblowers -- those who go public with allegations of waste, fraud and abuse -- continue to have a tough time, despite a law protecting them and repeated assurances from the White House, many government agencies and Congress that they maintain a policy of zero tolerance for retaliation.

The latest victim of apparent retaliation is Bunnatine H. "Bunny" Greenhouse, the senior contracting officer for the Army Corps of Engineers, who objected -- first, internally, then publicly -- to a multi-billion dollar, no-bid contract with the Halliburton company for work in Iraq.

Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, commander of the Army Corps, told Greenhouse she was being removed from the senior executive service, the top rank of civilian government employees, because of poor performance reviews.

But Greenhouse's attorney, Michael D. Kohn, has appealed the decision in a letter to Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, saying the performance review cited by Strock to justify his action "was conducted by the very subjects" of Greenhouse's allegations.

Greenhouse went public with her concerns over the volume of Iraq-related work given to Halliburton by the Corps without competition. Previously, her complaints within the agency having been ignored, she started giving interviews to national news media, and testified before a Democrat-sponsored Capitol Hill event on contracting in Iraq.

"I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to (Halliburton subsidiary) KBR represents the most blatant and improper abuse I have witnessed" in 20 years working on government contracts, Greenhouse said at the Democratic forum.

Greenhouse, the Army Corps' top procurement official since 1997, has developed a reputation among those in both government and industry as being a stickler for the rules.

That has led her critics to characterise her as a rule-bound bureaucrat. But supporters see her as a defender of the public trust.

In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, KBR had been hired to design a program to extinguish the oil fires the Pentagon believed retreating Iraqi troops would set when the invasion took place.

The government's request for proposals to implement the KBR plan stipulated that contractors had to have knowledge of KBR's plan. Consequently, KBR was the only bidder deemed eligible. The company was then hired to implement the program in a five-year, no-bid contract.

Government contacting rules generally forbid contractors hired to prepare plans and budget estimates from bidding for the work that grows out of these plans.

Government contractors who spoke with IPS on condition of anonymity said "contracts officers who insist on dotting every 'i' and crossing every 't' can drive you crazy and delay your start-date".

But all agreed that contracting regulations "are there for a purpose -- to protect the taxpayers' money. In the end, you just accept delays as a cost of doing business."

Greenhouse is only the latest in a lengthening string of whistleblowers whose cases have been rejected by the government.

Most prominent is Sibel Edmonds, who is waiting for the Supreme Court to review her charges that the behaviour of some of her fellow employees at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) compromised national security.

Lower courts turned down her case when the FBI claimed the "state secrets" privilege, contending that disclosure of Edmonds' evidence would reveal classified information.

Edmonds, a contract linguist for the bureau, was the subject of an investigation by the Department of Justice inspector general, who found that her charges were the major reason for her dismissal.

She organised and now leads the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, which includes more than 50 former employees of national security agencies. The group has called on congress to permit whistleblowers to sue government retaliators in their personal and official capacities and to bring suit against agencies for failure to rectify misdeeds by employees or provide sufficient safeguards against whistleblower retaliation.

The government is increasingly using the "state secrets" privilege to block whistleblowers' suits. The State Secrets Privilege gives the federal government the ability to dismiss legal cases it claims would threaten foreign policy, military intelligence or national security.

It was used in 2002 in the case of Notra Trulock, who launched a defamation suit against Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese American computer scientist charged with stealing nuclear secrets for China from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Pres. George W. Bush said national security would be compromised if Trulock were allowed to seek damages from Lee.

Lee -- who had been imprisoned for 278 days in solitary confinement -- eventually pled guilty to improper handling of classified data and was cleared of all charges relating to espionage.

The government again invoked the privilege when Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, sought to sue then Attorney-General John Ashcroft for his role in taking Arar from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to Syria against his will.

He says he was first held incommunicado by U.S. immigration authorities, and eventually "rendered" to Syria, where he was imprisoned for close to a year and claims he was tortured. He was released without charges.

Former Deputy Attorney-General James B. Comey said in legal papers filed at the time that "Litigating [the] plaintiff's complaint would necessitate disclosure of classified information." The Arar case is currently being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Barbara Olshansky, the assistant legal director of the Centre for Constitutional Rights, which is representing Arar, told IPS, that government lawyers "think they can do anything they want in the name of the global war on terrorism."

Again, in August 2005, a federal appeals court affirmed the dismissal of a racial discrimination lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) based on the state secrets privilege.

Jeffrey Sterling, a CIA operations officer, claimed he was told he was "too big and black" to receive certain CIA assignments, and that CIA management placed expectations on him "far above those required of non-African-American Operations Officers." He also contended he was retaliated against for using the CIA's internal equal employment opportunity process.

The court ruled that Sterling cold not prove employment discrimination without exposing classified details of his covert employment.

Jeff Ruch, executive director of the civil service support group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, told IPS, "The stark absence of whistleblower rights in security, intelligence and military agencies is a growing vacuum that requires dedicated efforts to address."

SOURCE: Inter Press Service News Agency

The Corporate Looting of the Gulf Coast

2006-11-15T07:30:00.000-05:00

Robin Hood in Reverse
By Bill Quigley

Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor. On the Gulf Coast, the reverse is happening. Federal state and local governments are teaming up with corporations and developers to systematically steal hurricane relief funds from the poor to enrich themselves.

Billions of dollars were given to help the communities damaged by Katrina. The people gave this money to help the working, elderly and disabled people of the Gulf Coast rebuild and restart their lives after Katrina.

The need is still great. Over three hundred thousand people remain displaced from the City of New Orleans alone. Hundreds of thousands of others on the rest of the Gulf Coast are also not home. Over 80,000 families in Louisiana are living in FEMA trailers. Texas says they have 250,000 displaced people and Georgia reports another 100,000.

Tragically, money that was supposed to go to those in need is instead being diverted by federal, state and local politicians and corporations who have swooped down on these billions and are taking them for other purposes.

Example one. Congress allocated $10.4 billion through the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program to rebuild Louisiana. By law, over 50% of these funds are supposed to benefit low and moderate income people

As of November 1, 2006, only eighteen people have actually received any of this money to fix up their homes, out of over 77,000 homeowners who have applied for assistance. Yes, only 18!

Louisiana cannot get the money to those in need, but it has managed to start paying a corporate management company, ICF International, $756 million over the next three years. This is very big for ICF, whose total revenue in 2005 was $177 million.

While tens of thousands of homeowners wait for assistance, renters are not even on the list. Not a single dollar of CDBG money is allocated directly to any of the renters devastated by Katrina, despite the fact that over 50% of the people in New Orleans were renters.

Example two. Louisiana is giving $200 million in CDBG federal hurricane relief funds to bail out a private utility corporation, Entergy New Orleans. This corporation pleads poverty despite being a subsidiary of its parent Entergy Inc. which reported a net cash flow of $777 million dollars for the third quarter of 2006.

Worse, Louisiana is saying this $200 million in CDBG funds counts as a contribution to the low and moderate income people of New Orleans most of whom have not even made it back to the city.

Example three. U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which has taken over the local Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), is seeking millions in hurricane relief tax credits to demolish over 5000 apartments. Since Katrina, HUD and HANO have barred thousands of families from returning to their apartments. All the renters are African American, most are mothers and grandmothers. Some are elderly and disabled. Private apartments are out of the question as rent in the New Orleans area is up nearly 80% over last year.

These apartments are safe and could have already been repaired, but almost all the maintenance workers were fired. A professor from MIT recently inspected the apartments and declared they are structurally sound and are in better shape than most of the rest of the housing in New Orleans.

Residents still living in Texas and Georgia are pleading to return to their apartments and promise to clean up the apartments themselves if only the government will take the bars off the doors and windows.

Developers and the agencies want to tear these apartments down and build other mixed income housing. They say there is only a short window of opportunity available to get hurricane tax credits to demolish and redevelop so it does not make financial sense to repair the apartments.

After taking millions in hurricane relief money will the developers still provide affordable housing to 5000 families? Absolutely not. HUD flatly says that everyone who lived in these apartments before Katrina will not have a home after the developers are finished. Public housing residents remember a 1600 apartment development was demolished before Katrina and only 100 families have been allowed to live in the new place.

A hopeful sign is that Amnesty International USA has joined in on the side of local residents and affordable housing allies. AIUSA has mounted a campaign calling on people across the country to "stand with Katrina survivors and call for HUD to stop the destruction of housing for low-income residents."

Meanwhile, disaster profiteering continues. The Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 was established by Congress to rebuild the communities devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. So far, this has been used to subsidize all kinds of private projects including the building of a mall for Target and JC Penny in Lafayette, expanding an auto dealership in Baton Rouge, converting a plantation in Livingston into a hotel.

This corporate plundering follows the path taken in the immediate days after Katrina when politically connected corporations were given hundreds of millions of no-bid contracts. Ashbritt of Florida was awarded a contract over $500 million to clean up debris in Mississippi despite not owning a single dump truck. Ashbritt had paid a GOP lobbyist firm $40,000 right before the storm and another $50,000 directly to the GOP the year before.

Ceres Environmental of Brooklyn Park, MN was given a $500 million contract for debris removal in LA by the Corps of Engineers. In the previous 4 years, the company had received a total of $29 million in government contracts. The Minnesota Office of Environmental Assistance listed the company as a provider of "yard waste compost and horticultural potting soil."

Circle B Enterprises was awarded $287 million in contracts by FEMA to build trailers despite not even being licensed to build homes in its own state of Georgia and filing for bankruptcy in 2003. The company does not even have a website.

Other corporations profiting off the devastation include Bechtel, Blackwater, CH2M Hill, Fluor, Halliburton subsidiary KBR and many others.

There has been no real oversight of these misdeeds. The only criminal charges filed have been against individuals who ripped off programs for a couple of hundred or a few thousand dollars. Most recently, the Department of Justice triumphantly announced to the press that they had issued an indictment for abuse of Katrina funds of a man who illegally received Katrina unemployment benefits while still working! Meanwhile, hundreds of millions are being diverted without a peep from the government.

The people of New Orleans and the Gulf coast are fighting against the robbing of the poor and the looting of hurricane relief funds, but the clock is ticking.

Before long, there will be no money left. The generosity of those who contributed to help those harmed by Katrina will be snugly in the pockets of developers and corporations. Affordable housing will remain scarce. The working poor, the elderly and the disabled will remain displaced. The next disaster will occur and this will happen again.

Support the people and community organizations of the gulf coast in this fight. Raise righteous and holy hell! Join with Amnesty International USA in the human rights campaign to stop the demolition of affordable housing. Ask your federal elected officials for an immediate investigation into the looting of the Gulf Coast. We need your help, before all the money is gone.

SOURCE: Counterpunch

Government Still Trying To Dismiss NSA Spy Program Lawsuits

2006-11-13T15:22:00.000-05:00

A federal judge this week agreed to hear appeals from the federal government and AT&T on a ruling that the case could go forward despite claims that it would hurt national security

Government Still Trying To Dismiss NSA Spy Program Lawsuits
By K.C. Jones
InformationWeek

Nov 9, 2006 04:54 PM

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is fighting attempts to dismiss its lawsuit over the National Security Agency's spy program.

U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker agreed this week to hear appeals from the federal government and AT&T. The government filed a request for a stay and is trying to get the case dismissed by using state secret privilege. The privilege, which would prevent a federal judge from determining whether the spy program is legal, exists to protect national security.

After receiving an earlier request for dismissal, Walker ruled in July that the case could go forward. The government is seeking a stay of that ruling.

AT&T has declined to comment on the case, citing national security. E.F.F. argues that security can be maintained while a judge hears the case.

"It remains the province and the duty of the courts to determine whether the spying program broke the law, and the courts are quite capable of proceeding while respecting both liberty and security," Kurt Opsahl, staff attorney for E.F.F., said in a statement.

Walker will hold a case management conference Nov. 17, to consider how the E.F.F. case and dozens of similar lawsuits can proceed. A Detroit judge ruled in a similar case that the spy program was unconstitutional.

SOURCE: Information Week

Israel Detonated a Radioactive Bunker Buster Bomb in Lebanon

2006-11-13T07:48:00.000-05:00

What kind of weapon leaves traces of radiation & produces such lethal & circumscribed consequences?

KHIAM SOUTHERN LEBANON
A BOMB'S ANATOMY

By Flaviano Masella, Angelo Saso, Maurizio Torrealta

The special report was triggered by the radioactivity measurements reported on a crater probably created by an Israeli Bunker Buster bomb in the village of Khiam, in southern Lebanon. The measurements were carried out by two Lebanese professors of physics - Mohammad Ali Kubaissi and Ibrahim Rachidi. The data - 700 nanosieverts per hour - showed remarkably higher radiocativity then the average in the area (Beirut = 35 nSv/hr ). Successivamente, on September 17th, Ali Kubaissi took British researcher Dai Williams, from the environmentalist organization Green Audit, to the same site, to take samples that were then submitted to Chris Busby, technical adisor of the Supervisory Committee on Depleted Uranium, which reports to the British Ministry of Defense. The samples were tested by Harwell's nuclear laboratory, one of the most authoritative research centers in the world. On October 17th, Harwell disclosed the testing results - two samples in 10 did contain radioactivity.

On November 2nd, another British lab, The School of Oceanographic Sciences, confirmed Harwell's results - the Khiam crater contains slightly enriched uranium. Rainews24 also took a sample taken by Dai Williams for testing by the Department of Earth Sciences of the University of Ferrara. The testing - which is still ongoing - found an anomalous structure: the samples surface includes alluminium and iron silicates, normal elements in a soil fragment. Yet, looking inside, estremely small bubbles can be found with high concentration of iron. Further testing will clarify the origin of these structures: what seems to be certain at the moment is that they are not caused by a natural process.

What kind of weapon is this? What weapon leaves traces of radiation and produces such lethal and circumscribed consequences?

Researcher Dai Williams believes this is a new class of weapons using enriched uranium, not through fission processes but through new physical processes kept secret for at least 20 years.

Physicist Emilio del Giudice form the National Institute of Nuclear Phisics came to the same conlcusion: There are two ways to explain the origin of the enriched uranium found in Khiam:

About the origin of enriched Uranium there are two possibilities:

1) this material was present already in the structure of the bombs, but I am puzzled since one should explain the rationale of the use of a material which is both expensive and dangerous , because of its enhanced radioactivity, to people handling it , including military personnel of Israeli Army.
2) the enrichment has been the consequence of the use of the bomb; this possibility is hardly compatible with the known effects of conventional nuclear weapons and should imply that some newly discovered nuclear phenomenon could be at work.

The Israeli army denied the use of uranium-based weapons in Lebanon. So, how can people defend themselves from potential uranium-related harm? What precautions will the Unifil troops in the area take, and what kind of testing has been carried out to prevent the risks? The documentary directly covers those qestions.

SOURCE: Centre for Research on Globalization

Site Hacked to Keep BBC 911 Anniversary Video Off Web

2006-11-13T07:31:00.000-05:00

Regarding 9/11: Controlled Demo Proven in 19 Seconds, whose posting at this blog has brought a world of electronic "difficulties":

Site Hacked to Keep BBC 911 Anniversary Video Off Web
by Rick Siegel

I just never thought it was that important. How many millions of people already know that the destruction of the Trade Centers in NYC on September 11, 2001 were not caused by some jet or its subsequent fire.

This latest release of footage from BBC on the anniversary of the 911 events did not seem to me that important even though it clearly has audible and visual evidence of the demolition charges destroying the building. It was given to me from a person who told me that google, yahoo and his web provider closed his accounts for having it on. I did not believe this and put it up myself.

Well, here I am to tell you within 38 hours of posting the article and getting it on Shoutwire the site was hacked. Not a normal hack, but a root level attack to turn the whole thing off. There was no defacement just dismemberment.

I only noticed it at 3amCST and it was taken down at 8pmCST as far as the logs can show. We are working to identify the culprit but as this usually goes to a building there will be very little in getting to the culprit.

[...]

On September 7, 2006 the BBC showed a special anniversary program for the anniversary of 911 events. The show was called "911: The TwinTowers". The video is of great significance as you can see and hear the Tower being demolished and hear the sequence of charges.

[...]

The sound allegedly has not been enhanced in any way and is even distorted by the Google encoding yet sets itself in accord with the testimony of most eyewitness testimony. That includes testimony from the FDNY firefighters.

The building had 114 floors and took approximately 10 seconds to collapse. In this video fourteen explosions can be heard in a period of 5 seconds dispelling any belief in a "pancake theory".

While more and more evidence piles up and the floodgates are ready to burst one ponders what it will take for the people to finally get up and kick the people subverting the indictments into jail. Instead we note that they have now been promoted to higher positions of power/ they have passed more draconian laws stripping more freedoms and liberties in the belief that it will save us from the invisible enemy who cannot be killed.

If you or yours were murdered, would you not hope for a murder investigation? 3000 people died in NYC that day and there has not been one murder investigation, indictment or trial for any crime. Not one.

[...]

The article, in its entirety, is here.

The video in question, is here.

Raytheon Connection to 9-11

2006-11-13T06:25:00.000-05:00

From RINF

How long has the United States and Big Oil conspired to take over the Caspian Basin? It all started before 1988 and what was expected to be a breakup of the USSR.

They have been conspiring, working, maneuvering and lying since at least since 1989 during the George H W Bush Administration. While things were heating up around Iraq, Kuwait theft of Iraq oil, and leading up to Desert Shield, then Desert Storm, the GHWB Administration implemented another “shield” in the form of Operation Steppe Shield. It was targeted at Kazakhstan and was named for the vast oil and gas reserves in the Kazakh Steppe region of Kazakhstan. This was at the end of the Russia – Afghanistan war and the purported fear of civil war in the southern provinces of what was the USSR, exactly where all of that oil and gas is located.

That is where Dick Cheney got himself appointed to the Kazakhstan Oil Advisory Board and later a gentleman you may not have heard of, but will read about below, found himself in a bit of a pickle regarding an oil company bribery schemes. My bet is, he picked up where Cheney left off.

Then the book titled The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives by Zbigniew Brzezinski came out in 1997, which just happens to coincide with when Clinton – Gore came out with PDD #39 to initiate the Patriot Act-type policies, the 20 Year war Plan was conceived and targeted first at the Caspian Basin, and the CIA renditions started.

You can count on it – they were not interested at all in civil war or what could have been many dead Russians, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, and Turkmen, only the trillions of dollars in oil and natural gas in that region of the world. It was The Grand Chessboard, don’t you see!

You can also count on it that The Grand Chessboard, CIA renditions, Al Qaeda, the Patriot Act, the 20 Year war Plan are all interrelated and part of the Grand Scheme to play out The Grand Chessboard.

Most have heard about the Presidential Daily Briefing [the PDB] dated August 6, 2001 that was reviewed by Bush while on vacation at his Crawford, TX mini-ranch. (In Texas anything under 2500 acres is a hobby farm or mini-ranch. I know several that have 100,000 plus acre ranches in Texas.)

Less known is this, sent by one of the Email Update Members:

On August 2, 2001 the Federal Reserve Board of Governors issued a supervisory letter to the Reserve Banks emphasizing the importance of scrutinizing suspicious activity reports, which are filed by financial institutions under money laundering law and regulation. That letter did not mention Terrorism or its financing explicitly, but they were known if not emphasized as an important realm of ’suspicious activity.’ Four days later, the August 6 PDB cited ‘patterns of suspicious activity.’

If you recall the previous email and the Bridas / Afghanistan timeline, the Bush White House issued an ultimatum to the Taliban on August 2, 2001 while at the same time advising all Federal Reserve Banks to be on the lookout for money laundering and ties to Terrorism without officially using the word Terrorism. The ultimatum was in regards to the pipeline and U.S. control of it, even while we were already planning to attack them. In fact, the decision had already been made in early 2001 when the military was ordered to procure, train and be ready to deploy for an attack on Afghanistan well in advance of 9-11.

Most have heard about The Lie Factory [Office of Special Plans] being run by the Pentagon regarding Iraq intelligence and fabricating the reasons to justify invasion. Less known is that the Bush White House has been a Lie Factory since its being sworn into office.

For those of you who have kept up with the Sibel D. Edmonds story, the FBI translator who speaks English, Farsi, Azeri and Turkish, she uncovered money laundering activity within the FBI dating back to 1998 and ongoing drug investigations during the Clinton Administration. The Bush White House and Attorney General John Ashcroft did not want her to ever speak before Congress or a Court of Law so they put a gag order on her to keep her from disclosing the foreign names and American names she found involved in the financing of 9-11.

Some of you may have read the article I wrote and appeared on OnlineJournal.com as part of the Pop Goes the Bush Mythology Bubble series, the particular one being Part V. Or you may have heard me on one of the 159 radio shows I have done since August 27, 2004 and on some have addressed what you are about to read. Or, you may have seen one of the many articles done by a researcher affiliated with our group named Jon Carlson and has been posted on http://www.rense.com/.

You can see the Part V article of Pop Goes the Bush Mythology Bubble at this link on my website.

So, how did they pull it off and dupe so many Americans?

Most know by now that there are many of the alleged terrorists still alive.

Many know by now that some of them appear to have direct ties to our military and most of them have association with the CIA in their backgrounds.

I have been saying since 2003 that what we are watching is a very poorly made remake of a bastardized blend of The Pelican Brief and Three Days of the Condor, with bad actors and even worse directors.

What you are about to read is one of the ways that they might have used to pull it off. Before you move on, put your mind into the “Geostrategic Imperative” mode and remember the word greed.

The reason that part of our research has focused on Raytheon is due to their acquisition of Hughes and tell-tale evidence at the Pentagon that no 757 hit that building on 9-11-2001.

The first clue was the approximately 16 foot diameter hole blasted through three rings of the Pentagon and knowledge that no airplane could have made that neatly blasted tunnel through three rings of the Pentagon and the thick steel reinforced concrete walls of that building. The only type of device that could do that is a directional blast of one of our military weapons, sort of a horizontal JDAM bomb.

The wingspan and tail of the alleged 757 had to have hit the Pentagon and then folded up neatly and went through the neat 16 foot hole, including the two 9 foot diameter jet engines that are over 9 feet in diameter and more or less 16 fee long. Trust me, Houdini could not have pulled that off and not left visible signs of where the wings and tail hit the face of the Pentagon, or made both engines align straight into the hole and be melted down in a low temperature fire..

The 757 is operated by a two-person flight crew in a simplified glass cockpit. The 757 is powered by either a Pratt & Whitney PW2037 or a Rolls-Royce RB211-535. The engines are wing mounted on pylons.

Hughes makes several types of air-to-ground missiles that would blast such a hole through three rings of stuff even tougher than the Pentagon and they are called AGM, or Air-to-Ground Missiles. You might want to stop here and read the Part V, Pop Goes the Bush Mythology Bubble article so you can follow the details that follow.

Over the past several weeks I received an email where other people are beginning to see the light and the links between Raytheon and 9-11. I have been waiting for that before we disclosed what you are about to read.

First off, Raytheon and Hughes are both Big Defense contractors and have done very well due to Bush GWOT policies, as bogus as they are. They have done very well on several levels and have raked in huge war-driven profits.

I have asked the question before to audiences – “following Bush’s inauguration into office, what was his first major international crisis?” Most people respond “9-11” but that is not accurate. The first crisis was the forcing down of our Navy EP-3 by the People’s Republic of China on Hainan Island and the PRC stripping out the high tech equipment that was onboard that spy plane.

Remember that this was done by our good buddies over at the PRC, the close friends of George H W Bush, Prescott Bush, Jr and Maurice “Hank” Greenberg of AIG, the man known as “China’s Man in America”. When George H W Bush was president he handed down an edict barring all U.S. companies from selling communications satellite technology to the PRC, during the same period of time that his brother Prescott Bush, Jr. was over there selling all of it they wanted. Consider that.

Also consider that this is the same AIG and Maurice Greenberg that just settled with regulators and Eliot Spitzer’s office for $1.6 billion due to fraudulent conduct:

$1.6 billion estimate for AIG to settle

Bloomberg News
Published February 7, 2006

NEW YORK — American International Group Inc. will be the first insurer to settle an inquiry into bid-rigging when it pays about $1.6 billion to resolve probes of accounting and sales practices, a person familiar with the negotiations said Monday.

AIG, the world’s largest insurer, will compensate victims of price fixing as part of an agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission and New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer, said the source. The accord also will resolve allegations AIG manipulated earnings with improper reinsurance contracts.

Investigations of AIG led to last year’s ouster of Chief Executive Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, who ran the New York-based company for 38 years. An agreement, which the person said may be announced as early as this week, may be the largest in financial-services history. It will include payments to shareholders, policyholders and state worker compensation funds.

Additionally, some of you may be asking what this has to do with the price of tea in China or 9-11, but do not get impatient. There is more!

That “theft” by the good buddies over at the PRC included the Mode 3 IFF transponders (IFF = Identification Friend or Foe) and other Mode 3 and classified stealth and eaves dropping equipment that just happen to be made by Raytheon and a few other Big Defense elites and was suddenly in the hands of the PRC. Oh, my God, what an emergency! When this happened, all US, US ally and NATO planes had to be upgraded to Mode 4 with Mode 5 upgrade capabilities in many instances. That, in and of itself, was a massive contract but pales in comparison to the expenditures under the fallacious Bush GWOT policies.

This was during the same period of time that AIG, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and others were certified by the PRC and allowed to do business in that very much controlled nation, a goal they had sought for years.

As soon as 9-11 happened, Raytheon and Hughes made even more revenues in supplying the equipment and maintenance needed to attack Afghanistan and Iraq.

I think I have made my position on the relationships between 9-11, Bridas Corporation, and Afghanistan plenty clear so will not belabor that point here.

But, some of you are still asking, OK, Karl, what does this have to do with 9-11 and the price of tea in China?

OK, you email update members are such an impatient lot!

Imagine – on 9-11 two 737 airplanes and an A-3 Skywarrior, each having Mode 4 or Mode 5 capabilities and not a single air traffic controller, US based fighter plane, NORAD, or any of the National Guard planes having Mode 4 or Mode 5 because no one else had that and they did not need it here yet. So they thought.

These Mode 4 and Mode 5 IFF transponders would have been the perfect way to slip those planes into US airspace and no one would be any wiser until it was all over. These IFF transponders are a lot more sophisticated than what is installed on the average private or commercial airplane where combat air superiority is not an issue.

I trust you follow that and see the picture.

This is the type of technology we use for air superiority over enemy air space and we do not wind up shooting down our own planes. They cannot see us easily but we have to see each other to prevent wiping out our own fighter planes.

Could a Mode 3 enabled jet have penetrated our airspace and eluded detection? Not a chance.

Could a Mode 4 enabled plane have been at the disposal of Osama bin Laden, not one, but four of them? Not a chance.

Were United Airlines and American secretly operating Mode 4 or Mode 5 enabled commercial jets? Not a chance.

You can rely that the air traffic control centers at Logan, Boston Center, LaGuardia, Newark and Kennedy were not equipped then, and probably are not equipped even now to see a plane with Mode 4 or Mode 5 capabilities. It is likely that US based fighter planes are not all upgraded to Mode 4 or Mode 5 even to this day. Reagan National in DC also would not have been enabled by 9-11 to detect a Mode 4 transponder, but the Pentagon would have been and the Pentagon did detect the jets in and around D.C.

Are you getting the picture?

Since none of our “enemies” had Mode 4 or Mode 5 capabilities in 2001 there was no reason to upgrade any of the U.S. based air defense forces to be able to detect that, or fly in US airspace using that.

In fact, with a few minor adjustments two 737 airplanes and an A-3 Skywarrior could be made to look like: 1.) participants in the war games that morning; and 2.) friendly aircraft to even our fighters up to the point they would have thought they were other fighter planes, not commercial aircraft, if they could detect them at all. Mode 4 and Mode 5 are to make them detectable only to those planes that have comparable technology. They can also be made invisible to systems that cannot detect Mode 4 or Mode 5.

With the right technology, 9-11 was an easy target.

What I am suggesting here is simply this – at the very highest levels of our government and certain defense contractors they created a circumstance where upgrades were necessary to higher than Mode 3 and new technology installed that even the U.S. based air force fighters could not have detected on commercial aircraft and one very old USAF airframe that was in the hands of but very few. What were defending the United States on 9-11-2001 were jet fighters equipped with Mode 3 technology. Since the PRC had already stolen that technology in April 2001, moves were underway to upgrade to Mode 4 and Mode 5.

Secondly, some of the parts found at the Pentagon have been identified as being from an A-3 Skywarrior and there are only three places that that airplane could have come from: 1.) the USAF graveyard of airplanes in Arizona at Davis – Monthan AFB,; or 2.) the USAF inventory of about 5 or 6 operational A-3 jets that can still fly; or 3.) the fleet of about 12-15 A-3s maintained and operated by Raytheon – Hughes.

The most damning pieces are the wing they carried out under a blue tarp (the angles and width of which do not match any part of a 757 wing), the jet rotor hub shown in a FEMA photograph, also not a component of any part of a 757, and the jet engine that was found inside and one of the wheel hubs of a single wheel landing gear instead of the 2 wheels on the front of a 757 and the 4 wheels on a read landing gear assembly. There is a big difference in the newer high-bypass fan jets and turbojets, with the latter being found at the Pentagon. No 757 or 767 ever manufactured had turbojets on it, but the A-3 Skywarrior did.

Third, we have talked to some that were at the Pentagon on that day and they did not smell burning jet fuel. They did smell the tell-tale signs of exploded military ordinance such as found in the warheads of AGM missiles.

Fourth, many Americans (too many) do not know that Raytheon executives were killed on 9-11, or at least wound up permanently missing, which may be a more accurate way of saying it. It is who wound up missing that is most interesting.

This is an excerpt of the email we received and is information that we knew as of the issuance of the flight manifests for all four of the planes allegedly involved in 9-11:

Subject: Raytheon and 9/11

OK, I’m not gonna say anything here, except to let you read the evidence and then you can tell me what you think. (These are people who supposedly died on 9/11.) Mike

Raytheon and 9/11

2001-09-11 Stanley Hall Raytheon Director of Electronic warfare program management. Raytheon did the retrofit of the A-3 that hit the Pentagon, where Bush claimed Flight 77 hit it. Disappeared on American airlines Flight 77, the one that supposedly hit the Pentagon but did not.

2001-09-11 Peter Gay Raytheon VP of Electronic Systems on special assignment at the El Segundo, CA division office where the Global Hawk UAV remote control system is made. Raytheon did the retrofit of the A-3 that hit the Pentagon, where Bush claimed Flight 77 hit it. Disappeared on American airlines Flight 11, the one that supposedly hit the North World Trade Tower I.

2001-09-11 Kenneth Waldie Raytheon Senior Quality Control for Electronic Systems. Raytheon did the retrofit of the A-3 that hit the Pentagon, where Bush claimed Flight 77 hit it. Disappeared on American airlines Flight 11, the one that supposedly hit the North World Trade Tower I.

2001-09-11 David Kovalcin Raytheon Senior Mechanical Engineer for Electronic Systems. Raytheon did the retrofit of the A-3 that hit the Pentagon, where Bush claimed Flight 77 hit it. Disappeared on American airlines Flight 11, the one that supposedly hit the North World Trade Tower I.

2001-09-11 Herbert Homer Raytheon Corporate Executive working with the Department of Defense. Raytheon did the retrofit of the A-3 that hit the Pentagon, where Bush claimed Flight 77 hit it. Disappeared on United airlines Flight 175, the one that supposedly hit the South World Trade Tower II.

These are not only the type of people but they are the people that would be assigned to UAV type projects involving Mode 4 and Mode 5 upgrades. Why would they be in Boston and those planes coming from that direction and from north of Manhattan Island?

Hughes was purchased by Raytheon before 9-11 and that company has a fleet of A-3 Skywarriors that they use for testing air-to-air missiles [“AIM”] and air-to-ground missile [“AGM”] systems, guidance systems, electronic warfare systems, etc. They make them for the USAF, Navy and Marines as indicated in this excerpt from the Part V article cited above:

Type: AGM-65B (Air Force), AGM-65D (Air Force), AGM-65E (Marines), AGM-65F (Navy), AGM-65G (Air Force).

Contractors: Hughes Aircraft Co., Raytheon Co. Propulsion: Thiokol TX-481 solid-propellant rocket motor (hint – burns white and leaves a white smoke trail at all altitudes and jet engines do not do that) Service: Air Force, Marines, Navy First Flight: 1984 IOC: 1994

January 20, 1997, the same year that Clinton – Gore started the 20 Year war Plan, CIA renditions and the Patriot Act via PDD #39.

New defense giant born - Raytheon acquires Hughes Aircraft - Company Business and Marketing

“New York–The decade of the massive military mega-mergers ended last week with the announcement of Raytheon’s signing of definitive agreements for the acquisition of the Hughes Aircraft unit of General Motors’ Hughes Electronics subsidiary for $9.5 billion–$5.1 billion in newly-issued stock and $4.4 billion in debt.”

I am familiar with some of those names of Raytheon employees due to an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle [UAV] system we designed in 2003 and it required two types of Raytheon technology to be able to operate in a war zone such as Iraq. Since the Chinese had conveniently stolen the Mode 3 technology in April 2001, we could not rely on a Mode 3 system in 2003 and 2004 for that reason alone if they gave it to the Iranian military or had PRC military personnel stationed in Iran to monitor US activities in Iraq. Yes, we were that deeply involved and yes, we are one of the companies that was on the Iraq approved contractor list. Most people that read my book were shocked to see the email I received from Baghdad demanding to know who we had in Iraq. We accepted no business once we saw that the Iraq invasion was fabricated and illegal, but we were on the approved contractor list.

Imagine a UAV system being declined because it would “see too much” and was not designed by one of the major Big Defense contractors. It would have been operated by private sector contractors controlled by me, not DoD personnel because they did not have time to train on the systems before deployment. I met with people at CentCom at McDill AFB in Tampa and III Corps G2 Intelligence section at Fort Hood, Texas in November 2003 on this very matter. They needed the system, did not have the people to run it or time to train since they were being deployed from January to March 2004. The Pentagon blocked the project and procured about $200 million in junk hardware from their favorite defense contractors; and the maiming and killing of our soldiers continues unabated to this day.

A full year after we entered Iraq the US military only controlled about 50% of the munitions dumps, where those bombs come from to make IEDs to kill and maim our soldiers. Talk about an oversight.

A full year after we entered Iraq, over 200 roads into Iraq found U.S. or Iraqi troops guarding only 18 of the border crossings. Talk about an oversight.

A full year after we entered Iraq, the US Army was still blind on the ground, no aerial visual assets, and the death toll climbing. Talk about an oversight, but they did procure over $200 million in aerial devices from the Pet Project manufacturers, such as Lockheed – who provided a UAV that is a UAV when the wind does not blow. Since it blows about 95% of the time in Iraq, the UAV is usually tethered to a ground vehicle and trailer.

The UAV was nicknamed Project Medusa by one of the key vendors since it had so many simultaneously operating sensors and cameras while the Predator has only three sensors and only one can operate at a time. It had onboard processing capabilities that none of the current day US spy or surveillance platforms have. Our contacts at DARPA had never heard of the technology that combined special software and onboard processors. It would have provided a much need air cap surveillance capability that would have prevented many US soldiers from being killed or maimed.

We have spent years designing a high altitude communications platform and were asked by the Arkansas National Guard it if could be modified to combine communications and high-powered cameras and sensors, flown at lower altitudes and help to save lives in Iraq. We worked on it until the answer was yes, only to get the run around from the Bush Administration.

Many were surprised when they learned that Raytheon executives and experts perished (or were disappeared) on 9-11 but we were not for one reason. We received a tip that an A-3 Skywarrior had been outfitted to operate as an UAV by Raytheon and it may well have been the plane used to attack the Pentagon. That hole through the Pentagon is a unique signature and not one made by an airplane. That 16 foot tunnel through three rings of the Pentagon is only made by a directional blast weapon. Rumsfeld has even slipped up and mentioned the missile that hit the Pentagon.

Some have seen the Pentagon parking lot camera video and the white trail of smoke. Jets do now leave white trails of smoke at sea level, but Thiokol powered AGMs do, at all attitudes.

The Boeing 757 commercial airliner is not equipped for mounting or launching of an AGM, but the A-3 Skywarrior is and that is exactly one of the reasons the planes are still in use.

A Real 9-11 Commission should have certain Hughes and Raytheon parties summoned for questioning, as well as those that follow:

Condoleezza Rice and the entire Chevron Board of Directors and key management in the United States and Caspian Basin area; and

Dick Cheney, for his role on the Oil Advisory Board of Kazakhstan as well as Vice President of the United States; and

James H. Giffen, for the following reasons. [Blogger note: CLICK HERE]

“Beyond the health and human rights impacts, other scandals surround Karachaganak. On April 2, 2003, a federal grand jury in New York indicted U.S. businessmen James Geffen on charges that he made “more than $78 million in unlawful payments to two senior officials of the Republic of Kazakhstan in connection with six separate oil transitions, in which the American oil companies Mobil Oil [now ExxonMobil], Amoco [now BPAmoco], Texaco [now ChevronTexaco], and Phillips Petroleum acquired valuable oil and gas rights in Kazakhstan.” The indictment charged that Geffen bribed officials in the course of two Karachaganak transactions: “Mobil Oil’s 1995 agreement to finance the processing and sale of gas condensate from the Karachaganak oil and gas field” and “Texaco and other oil companies’ purchase of a share in the Karachaganak oil and gas field in 1998.” These indictments raise questions about what constitutes “due diligence” at the World Bank. The track record of such projects, as the OED asserts, proves that “the Bank should not have as its objective increasing extractive industries investment in countries whose governments lack the capacity to benefit from or manage such investment.” As the World Bank’s experience in Kazakhstan demonstrates, the infusion of such investments, in fact, exacerbates corruption. “Economists have long known that resource wealth can have perverse economic effects,” according to the OED. The department also noted that such wealth increases corruption, makes governments less accountable, and correlates with authoritarianism.44”

Certain parties from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, OPIC [Overseas Private Investment Corporation]; and

At least 8 of the 10 commissioners sitting on the 9-11 Commission (see yesterday’s email update); and

Thomas Kean and all of the Amerada Hess board members, including Nicholas Brady and Edith Holiday. See except below from another article I wrote; and.

Richard Armitage relating to his role and activities with the Pakistani ISI prior to 9-11 and since, and his Armitage & Associates which included the OPIC president Peter Watson; and

Numerous Big Oil executives and board members; and

Numerous Big Defense executives; and

FBI Translator Sibel D. Edmonds with the identity of all foreign and American names she found financing 9-11; and

Bridas Corporation executives and in the field operations people from the Caspian Basin region; and

Certain executives from US energy companies that operate natural gas fired electrical generators in Pakistan and need cheaper natural gas to improve their already bloated bottom lines; and

Certain former ENRON executives and operations people and certain current Prisma Energy International executives, the new name for Cayman Island based ENRON and run by former ENRON and Halliburton execs; and

Certain Federal whistleblowers from multiple agencies; and

Certain Federal Reserve Bank persons including some who detected the same money laundering that Sibel Edmonds found; and

Certain parties affiliated with the WTC and PANY&NJ; and

Certain parties affiliated with asbestos removal and other WTC problems since at least 1988: and

Certain parties of the Pentagon personnel records division, including the records for specific persons; and

Certain parties with certain demolition companies; and

Certain FBI officials, or purported FBI officials, that seized all of the known tapes in and around the Pentagon; and

Certain persons from the Clinton – Gore Administration, Bush Administration, and certain consulting firms; and

Literally thousands of other people since the puzzle literally has thousands of pieces.

You can see another Part I, Pop Goes the Bush Mythology Bubble article at this link.

“Kean was appointed instead and he sits on the board of directors of Amerada Hess Oil, and that company is directly involved in the Caspian Basin and is directly benefiting by the Taliban and Bridas Corporation being removed as the last remaining obstacle to the TAP [Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline].

Also on that board are Nicholas F. Brady and Edith E. Holiday. Nicholas Brady is of course the former Secretary of the United States Treasury and chief architect of the Brady Bonds program, which has exposed itself over the years of being just a huge scam and blunt instrument to take assets and natural resources from smaller nations and put them into the hands of—guess who—the proponents of the Brady Bonds: the U.S. wealthy elite robber barons.

“The President today announced his intention to nominate Edith E. Holiday to be General Counsel for the Department of the Treasury. She would succeed Mark Sullivan III. February 2, 1989″

“Since 1988 Ms. Holiday has been an Assistant Secretary (Public Affairs and Public Liaison) of the Department of the Treasury and Counselor to the Secretary. Prior to this she was chief counsel and national financial and operations director for the Bush-Quayle ‘88 Presidential campaign and served as director of operations for George Bush for President. She was also special counsel for the Fund for America’s Future and Executive Director for the Quadrennial Commission on Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Salaries, 1984 - 1985. Ms. Holiday practiced law with the firm of Dow, Lohnes & Albertson, 1983 - 1984 and with the firm of Reed, Smith, Shaw & McClay, 1977 - 1983. She also served as legislative director for then-U.S. Senator Nicholas F. Brady.”

Edith Holiday was later elevated to Secretary of the Cabinet in the George H. W. Bush administration. She also sits on the boards of White Mountains Insurance, and Heinz (which I found interesting). On the White Mountains board is another Amerada Hess board member, Frank A. Olson, and another from Citigroup, Arthur Zankel. It only took one “Google” to find a gaggle that included WTC Larry Silverstein and Mr. Zankel.

We might even have a Walker—Bush relative buried on that board too: F. Borden Walker, former Mobil Oil, Fairfax County, Va., board and now with Amerada Hess. That nasty matter of bribes in Kazakhstan involving Mr. James H. Giffen did involve Mobil, as well as Texaco, Amoco and Phillips Petroleum.

Yes, Mr. Kean, Nicholas Brady, Ms. Holiday and F. Borden Walker will all benefit by the removal of the Taliban and Bridas Corporation. Part II—Pop Goes the Bush Mythology Bubble in part addresses the pipeline all of these people conspired to take over. They could not make billions from oil investments in Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and not have a way to get the landlocked oil and gas out. They had to have that pipeline across Afghanistan and the Taliban / Bridas Corporation were blocking the way. Chevron and Condoleezza Rice had to have been sitting in that boardroom down there, too, trying to figure out ways to get control of that pipeline so the oil and gas could get out.”

Following the trail and the trial of James H. Giffen makes for interesting reading:

Big Oil, the United States, and Corruption in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan: United States vs. James H. Giffen

None of the right parties were being asked the right questions nor were any of the right issues addressed by the bogus 9-11 Commission that Bush appointed.

It would be a systematic, slow and painful process but in the end it would be beyond painful for certain parties. In the end, it would be a long overdue flushing of the toilet that is Washington, DC.

Bear in mind, these are the 9-11 Commission members that keep holding press conferences urging the President and Congress to implement their plan and findings, with all urgency.

Yes, they are urgent because the Truth is on their trail and no, they did not call the people I would call if on a Real 9-11 Commission. I hope they run out of Rolaids and Mylanta in DC, but that is just me.

Karl Schwarz
http://www.bushstole04.com/

SOURCE: RINF

For more information, click here for RINF's 9/11 page and here for this blog's items on the World Trade Center bombing.

Real-Time Operating Systems & Hardware Support [May 1, 2003]

90 Days After 9/11: "Largest Military Procurement in History"

9/11: A Revolution in Military Affairs

9/11 and Echelon: Key Players Unearthed

Stealth: Israel Gets F-22

2006-11-12T23:29:00.000-05:00

World's most advanced fighter jet currently only in US hands. After House of Representatives lifts ban on its sale, security establishment assesses jet may be offered to Israel

New immigrant: F22 stealth bomber?
by Aryeh Egozi

The United States may supply Israel with the most advanced stealth fighter jet in the world – the F22 Raptor – considering the war in Lebanon and the Iranian threat, the Israeli security establishment has assessed.

The US has not yet exported the F22 to any of its allies. Recently, however, the House of Representatives lifted its nine year ban on the sale of the advanced jet outside the United States. No real contacts have yet been made on the matter, but the lifting of the ban on its sale has paved the way for such a deal.

US officials have apparently hinted to Israel lately that as part of American efforts in the international war on the “axis of evil,” the US would offer Israel to buy the stealth fighter.

The F22 Raptor is manufactured by Lockheed Martin. Originally, the US Air Force planned to buy 750 of the jets, but the number dropped first to 350, then to a mere 183. The price of each F22 is roughly USD 150 million. Lockheed Martin wanted to export the plane to American allies, but up until now it was barred by the US government from offering them for sale.

The Israeli Air Force enthusiastically welcomed reports that the stealth jet could come to Israel. The F22 Raptor is the most advanced warplane in the world and is almost undetectable to radar systems. The plane’s stealth is achieved through the combination of its shape, color, composite materials, and various installed systems.

The single-seater plane is armed mainly with air-to-air missiles, but also with the smart missiles used by the Israeli Air Force.

Anti-missile systems project

In addition, security officials assessed Wednesday that the US administration would significantly boost funding of the joint American-Israeli program to develop anti-missile systems.

“The threat is on the whole world, and Washington understands that a solution must be found – and fast,” one of the sources said.

Even before the current war, the security establishment assessed that all types of rockets – starting at the simple Qassam all the way to accurate long-range missiles – would be the main weapon of terrorism used against Israel in the upcoming years.

For this purpose, the Defense Ministry decided to take up a joint offer by the Rafael Advanced Development Authority Ltd. and the American Raytheon Company to manufacture an unprecedented defense system, jointly funded by Israel and the US.

The initial investment amounted to USD 250 million. The project’s main aim was to develop a portable system that would quickly identify rocket launches and respond immediately by destroying the enemy rocket.

SOURCE: Israel News: Ynet News

Amnesty International on Yahoo, Google

2006-11-11T05:50:00.000-05:00

Amnesty calls for action on China
By John Oates

Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Nortel, Sun and Yahoo! named and shamed

Amnesty International is calling on internet users to join its campaign to reclaim the web as a place of freedom.

The lobby group names Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Nortel Networks, Sun and Yahoo! as companies who have co-operated to censor the internet or to help track down individuals.

Amnesty wants users of these services to complain directly - by email or on support forums - about these companies support of repression in China and elsewhere. The group also wants the companies to "come clean" on their policies - they want the companies named to make public all agreements with the Chinese government and publish a list of words excluded from web and blog searches. Amnesty also wants the companies to publicly call for the release of "cyber-dissidents" currently imprisoned.

Amnesty accuses the firms of hypocrisy

Kate Allen, Amnesty's UK director, said: "There is a huge gulf between the companies stated values and their actions. Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google need to stop denying their culpability, acknowledge where their responsibilities lie, and begin to focus on solutions in China."

Yahoo! handed over confidential information which led to the imprisonment of two journalists - Shi Tao and Li Zhi - who have both been adopted as Amnesty Prisoners of Conscience.

Microsoft shut down a blog run by a New York Times researcher Zhao Jing following a request from the Chinese government.

Google is offering a censored version of its search engine for China.

Microsoft gave Israeli authorities the Hotmail account of Mordechai Vanunu - the man who blew the whistle on Israel's nuclear weapon programme. He is out of prison but banned from contacting the foreign media.

The online pledge has already been signed by almost 25,000 people. Go here to sign up or go here to learn more about the irrepressible campaign.

SOURCE: The Register

Also see:

Journalists' union calls for boycott of Yahoo!

Yahoo! on NSA Surveillance: No Comment

Google Watch

Google Hand Manipulates Top Search Returns

2006-11-10T07:30:00.000-05:00

[From NYC TV]

Here are some snips:

Far from being rumors Google censors, hand manipulates results, edits the result, deletes results, and stops certain pages from rising in the search returns. Google alters the political landscape of those search returns. NYC TV has found that Google hand manipulates their search returns for more reasons than declared in their "tips to webmasters."

[...]

The pages at NYCTV.com are all WWWC3 compatible except for the pages that have google video in them (google is the only non-compliant thing in our pages). Our pages are designed to be search engine friendly and have the keywords especially in place for each page for easy index. We do not word stuff or break Google's own dictatorial and fascist rules. Yet adhering to their rules does not mean you still may rise to the top because they censor. The inverse of that is that they put their "friends" stories first. That being the secret club of Rome, the Bonesboys and the CIA first.

We are sure they put that page up at the top for that search by accident. We are sure they put it up there on purpose and by hand. Just as sure as they brought that page result off their engine on purpose. We are sure Google is not the search engine they claim but a web farm of affiliate sales sites selling Google advertising to each other while being owned and funded by the various Intelligence agencies, government and non-governmental industries to promote a central core of information to use for the DOD's recently named "warfighters" and expand consumerism.

SOURCE: NYC TV

Also see:

More on Google Censorship

Watching What You Say

Yahoo! on NSA Surveillance: No Comment

Google Watch

9/11: Controlled Demo Proven in 19 Seconds

2006-11-09T19:01:00.000-05:00

Nuclear Lab Breach Could Be 'Devastating'

2006-11-09T01:49:00.000-05:00

Earlier: Los Alamos: Secret Nuke Data Found During Meth Raid

Data Found In Drug Raid Contains Weapons-Design Secrets

(CBS) The recent security breach at Los Alamos National Laboratory was very serious, with sensitive materials being taken out of the facility — possibly including information on how to deactivate locks on nuclear weapons, officials tell CBS News.

Officials say there is no evidence the information taken from Los Alamos was sold or transferred to anybody else, but there is no way to be sure right now.

As CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson was the first to report, secret documents apparently taken from the lab were found during a drug raid at a Los Alamos-area home last month. The FBI was called in to investigate.

Multiple sources now tell CBS News that the material includes sensitive weapons-design data.

A federal official who has been briefed on the issue said at least three USB thumb-drives were involved. Those small storage drives contained 408 separate classified documents ranging in importance from Secret National Security Information (pertaining to intelligence) to Secret Restricted Data (pertaining to nuclear weapons).

All of the information came from the classified document video media vault inside the Lab. Federal officials also found 228 pages — printed front and back — of classified documents in the drug trailer during their investigation.

Los Alamos claims to have done a careful and comprehensive analysis of the materials that it believes have been compromised as part of this matter, and has determined that "the majority of the material was classified at the lowest levels and was twenty to thirty years old."

"None of the documents in question were classified Top Secret," read a statement released by the lab. "None of the materials included any of the most sensitive nuclear weapons information."

But one federal official recently briefed on the issue says "It's devastating." If a nuclear weapon were stolen, the information "would tell the terrorists everything they need to do to get a weapon to fire."

Sources say she also had something called Sigma-15 clearance allowing her to access to documents explaining how to deactivate locks on a nuclear weapon.

The woman believed to have taken the information — Jessica Quintana, 22, who owned the trailer — worked in three classified vault rooms across Los Alamos:

-Safeguards and Security (relating to strategic nuclear material control and accountability)
-X-Division (top secret)
-Physics P-Division.

She also had top secret "Q-clearance" with access to all the U.S. underground nuclear test data. Quintana has not been arrested or charged. Her attorney says she took the material home to work and then forgot about it.

For example, if a terrorist steals an American nuclear weapon, he could not detonate it due to the special access controls. This woman is authorized to read the reports that tell how to get around those safety controls.

Only the FBI will be able to tell for sure what's on the thumb drives, but British security officials are worried that design plans for Trident nuclear weapons are among the stolen documents. They are making inquiries of U.S. officials. Britain used to test its nuclear weapons in the United States, and data on those tests may have been held at Los Alamos.

Los Alamos has a history of high-profile security problems in the past decade, with the most notable the case of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee. After years of accusations, Lee pleaded guilty in a plea bargain to one count of mishandling nuclear secrets at the lab.

In 2004, the lab was essentially shut down after an inventory showed that two computer disks containing nuclear secrets were missing. A year later the lab concluded that it was just a mistake and the disks never existed.

But the incident highlighted sloppy inventory control and security failures at the nuclear weapons lab. The Energy Department then began moving toward a five-year program to create a so-called diskless environment at Los Alamos to prevent any classified material being carried outside the lab.

"We are currently taking decisive actions to further enhance our existing security measures that protect classified information employing both administrative and engineering controls," the lab said in a statement.

SOURCE: CBS News

Also see Financing the Far Right With Narcotics

Next U.S. Target - Venezuelan Election

2006-11-09T01:10:00.000-05:00

Maybe the attention generated in the past few years over electronic voting and rigging has made it difficult to actually pull it off anymore. I caution against complacency on this issue.

Perhaps all the attention generated by Oliver North's arrival in Nicaragua, here in the states and abroad, made it more difficult to affect the outcome of the voting there, where the old nemesis of the World Anti-Communist League returned to power recently.

After the 2002 attempt by Miami, Bush-associated outfits to oust President Hugo Chavez from power failed, just maybe they won't get away with trying to rig the upcoming Venezuelan election. They really do have some nerve. They no longer care who knows what they are up to and this may be their undoing. When the voters' opinions no longer matter and nearly everyone is on the outlook for electronic fraud, such conspirators inevitably lose.

I once heard insanity defined as the act of doing things the same way repeatedly while expecting different results. If this is true, then the seams are just starting to show, as the formula is just starting to not work. I have always known that politics is the art of playing on societal amnesia but one can overplay this hand indeed. It seems that some capacity for at least limited recall still exists.

Enjoy the article:

Bush neocon cabal trying to disrupt Venezuela presidential election
Agitprop Capital of the World (the USA) Exports Its Poison to Venezuela
Stephen Lendman

Agitprop, electoral fraud and dirty tricks may not have been invented in the US, but they certainly were perfected in “the land of the free and home of the brave” that no longer is except in the mind’s eye of a diminishing number of diehards, true-believers and others still unaware of the real state of things in America. The clearest evidence was the theft of the last two presidential elections through a process of massive voter disenfranchisement, black and Latino intimidation in the inner cities, assorted other dirty tricks and rigged electronic voting machines programmed and operated by major corporations to assure the final count gave their man, George Bush, a manipulated electoral victory both times, with a little help from five corrupted Supreme Court justices who decided their votes counted more than those of the public they annulled.

The same fraud was also rampant in recent congressional elections guaranteeing both houses of Congress stayed in Republican hands allowing the interests of capital their divine right to rule the world with their political partner of choice. On the eve of another US election on November 7, the manipulators of electoral mischief are at it again, and it hardly matters how things turn out. Systemic corruption is so entrenched in Washington, it’ll be business as usual on Capital Hill no matter how many end up on either side of the isle. Little will change when members of the 110th Congress are sworn in on January 3, 2007, assuring only disappointment for those believing otherwise.

It’s called democracy, American-style that’s now a staple at home but doesn’t stop at the border. For many years, whatever administration’s been in power, the US believes it has a prerogative to decide who holds office anywhere in the developing world where it routinely meddles in the electoral process through intimidation, bribery, black propaganda and direct funding of the candidates of its choice. Those activities are illegal in the US, and it’s unimaginable how loud the wails of protest and outrage would be if it was learned another country or foreign corporation funded political candidates at any level here or interfered in any way in this country’s electoral process.

Whatever the rules are for others, it doesn’t deter what Washington claims as its divine right anywhere in the world. It’s done it for decades as it’s now been interferring for months in the run-up to the December 3 election in Venezuela when the people of the country will decide who will lead them for another six years. There’s no suspense who that will be as the majority of Venezuelans will never allow anyone but Hugo Chavez to be their president as long as he wants the job.

So with US meddling now in high gear, the strategy becomes if you can’t beat ‘em, first discredit ‘em in the run-up to election day, then be ready to roll out whatever scheme is planned to prevent the people’s overwhelming choice from serving another six years in office. Observers need only watch and read the daily news reports to follow the scripted made in Washington dirty tricks campaign as it plays out. Here’s a sampling of the agitprop poison spewing from Washington.

With the US corporate media as lead agitator and following months of rumors, it was learned the Bush administration is investigating the privately owned Venezuelan Smartmatic Corporation’s takeover of a leading US electronic voting machine manufacturer, Sequoia Voting Systems, to learn if the parent company has links to Hugo Chavez and his government. The Venezuelan government contracted with Smartmatic to replace the country’s election machinery ahead of the August, 2004 recall referendum but has no ownership stake in it. That was confirmed by its CEO, Antonio Mugica, who called the rumors “baseless allegations and conspiracy (that) will be put to rest” once the investigation is complete, but while it continues and is in the news is part of the black propaganda campaign to attack Hugo Chavez as part of Washington’s strategy to delegitimize a Chavez victory in preparation for whatever scheme is planned post-December 3.

The London Independent reports another Bush administration accusation denouncing the Chavez government along with Myanmar (formerly Burma) for “failing demonstrably to make substantial efforts” to meet its international anti-narcotics agreements obligations to eliminate drugs trafficking. It’s another made-in-America phony anti-Chavez pre-election smear that holds no water when held to the light. A separate US State Department report shows that from 1998 to 2004, Venezuelan drug seizures rose from 8.6 to 19.1 tons, and Caracas claims in 2005 the number rose to 58.5 tons of cocaine, 18.3 tons of marijuana, 869 pounds of heroin and 1600 pounds of crack cocaine. A little egg on the hegemon’s face is noticeable, and it looks like its neocon right hand better check what its State Department left hand is doing and saying before it makes a bloody fool of itself which it did.

Venezuela’s Minister of Interior and Justice, Jesse Chacon, slapped down the false accusation and flatly stated his country is neither a major producer or consumer of drugs although it’s true Venezuela suspended cooperation with the US Drug Enforcement Agency (notorious for being corrupted as exposed by former agents who left for that reason) but not because the Chavez government isn’t committed in the “war on drugs.” Rather it’s because the DEA routinely breached Venezuelan law acting as a front for CIA covert mischief to destabilize the Chavez government - another stunt CIA operatives have been pulling for decades in their role as hired assassins and masters of strong-arm troublemaking.

It’s also an open secret the CIA, since its inception in 1947, has actively participated in drugs trafficking worldwide as an important source of its revenue and has now partnered with the Northern Alliance warlords in Afghanistan to turn the country into a narco-state. This year alone it brought to harvest a record 6,100 tons of opium, or 92% of the total world’s supply, in contrast to the Taliban who wiped out practically the entire poppy crop and in the process angered Washington for destroying this important revenue source not just for the CIA but also for the major US money center banks.

According to Washington-think, drugs trafficking is fine as long as their operatives control and profit from it, but electoral politics is bad when Hugo Chavez does it in ways like handing out $3 billion in Christmas bonuses to one million public workers 6 weeks in advance. That’s the charge, and Chavez opponents spoke of his “spending spree” that included free commuter train rides, a free rock concert and free T-shirts with pro-Chavez slogans. Heavens - send the man to the gallows.

What was left out of the Washington report is that these tactics and much more are routinely done in the US along with improper and illegal electoral activities hidden from public view. They include billions of corporate dollars to buy influence, slush funds for under-the-table handouts, lush jobs for political relatives who needn’t even show up for work and plenty more. But most important and unmentioned is that Venezuela doesn’t interfere in US or other countries’ elections while the US always does it with a heavy hand as it’s now doing in Venezuela. It’s poured millions of dollars into the country funding the opposition, chose the candidate it wanted to oppose Chavez, and has serious mischief planned ahead to destabilize the country and likely try again to oust Hugo Chavez after his reelection and assassinate him to assure he never runs again.

Imagine how Washington would react if another country meddled in the electoral process here in any way. It would be condemned as an act of Terrorism and likely dealt with harshly to include economic sanctions or worse - a little “shock and awe” maybe.

Now the latest Chavez smear is the phony accusation that the PDVSA state oil company president and Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Rafael Ramirez, improperly told company managers to back Hugo Chavez in the December election. A surreptitiously recorded and leaked video suddenly appeared and was presented by opposition candidate Manuel Rosales’ spokesperson Gerardo Blyde claiming what Mr. Ramirez said violates the constitutional provision prohibiting state employees from any involvement in political activities.

Mr. Blyde has good reason to spew anti-Chavez vitriol because, as VHeadline.com commentator Patrick O’Donoghue reported on November 4, he was involved in the 2002 US-staged coup d’etat ousting Hugo Chavez for two days and stood to become Venezuela’s Attorney General in the Pedro Carmona government had it prevailed. He was also involved in the 2002-03 crippling oil strike that devastated the country’s economy and by those actions committed acts of treason against a democratically elected government. Despite that, he’s a free man and now has resurfaced as a key player in the opposition’s campaign. Like Carmona, he’s a criminal and stooge for Washington and the Venezuelan oligarchs who’ll resort to any underhanded and illegal tactics to discredit Hugo Chavez and try to prevent his serving another term in office.

It didn’t work before and won’t this time either. Mr. Ramirez is a high-level state minister and head of the state-owned oil company. He broke no law and did what anyone loyal to his government and president should do - support them and ask his employees to do the same thing in a show of solidarity and loyalty to him and the “Bolivarian project” the Venezuelan people voted for and rightfully demand. That’s how things are supposed to work in a democracy. Hugo Chavez supports Mr. Ramirez and told him “to repeat the same message a hundred times in PDVSA” affirming Venezuela is living a revolution and the state-owned oil company is a revolutionary institution.

Thousands of PDVSA workers feel the same way and rallied to support Mr. Ramirez right after the video’s release. Venezuelan parliamentarians in the National Assembly agree and announced they would endorse a resolution supporting the minister, rejecting any Washington and oligarch-directed efforts to destabilize the country’s oil industry.

Mr. Blyde feels otherwise and said he’ll complain to the country’s National Electoral Council (CNE), the Organization of American States (OAS), the European Union (EU), and unmentioned, his paymaster in Washington who had to have put him up to this stunt that hasn’t worked. Still Mr. Ramirez, in a show of magnanimity, said he’ll respect and abide by any ruling of the CNE which is far more than US-oligarch-controlled Blyde and his candidate would do. The only rule of law for them is what they say it is. It’s the same way things now work in Washington - the HQ of the Venezuelan branch of the Bush cabal.

Much more is going on besides what’s covered above, most of which is sub rosa, unknown so far and very sinister and threatening to the “Bolivarian project.” One thing that is known came out in an accusation by the corporate-controlled Inter American Press Association (IAPA) that the Chavez government restricts press freedom. It’s a resurfaced echo of many similar past oligarch-directed complaints that are as much bunk now as in the past. Venezuelan Information and Communication Minister William Lara righteously denounced it and rightfully said his country is in the top rankings among the nations of the world with the most press freedom.

The minister got it right, but might have gone further to contrast how free the press is in Venezuela compared to the US where the dominant corporate-controlled media function as a de facto collective state-controlled ministry of information and propaganda suppressing all information vital to the people and reporting only what’s friendly to a Bush crime syndicate posing as a legitimate government.

Reports are also emerging of Chavez slipping in the polls - at least the easily fabricated ones run by the oligarch opposition in preparation for one of their likely transparent schemes to be hatched right after Chavez wins big again. An example is one released by Alfredo Keller’s AKSA Partners and reported by that most reliable of sources - Bloomberg.com run by the same man who’s also mayor of New York. Michael Bloomberg, serving in a dual role as corporate media tycoon and mayor, suppressed the information he had after succeeding former mayor Rudolph Giuliani in 2002 about how contaminated and dangerous many square blocks were around the World Trade Center site after the 9/11 attack and likely still are as he’s done little to remediate them.

The Keller poll shows Rosales’ support miraculously rising (like the mythical phoenix) to 48% (after hovering around half that level) against Hugo Chavez who overnight mysteriously plummeted to just 52%. Anyone believing this also likely thinks the US financial markets Mr. Bloomberg reports on with religious reverence are free from manipulation, there really are WMDs in Iraq not yet found, Saddam brought down the twin towers and the Bush administration supports democracy, human rights and the rest in the Middle East and everywhere else. Incredibly some independent polls in the US still show a substantial percent of the public believes all that which says a lot about how uninformed and misinformed people in the country are and how dangerous that is to their own welfare.

What’s really going on with the Keller poll is a set-up plot to cry foul on December 4 when the election results are tabulated showing Hugo Chavez won another convincing victory. He’ll probably do it with about the same 60% or so majority he got in 2000 which most independent consensus poll numbers now show him at, but wait for the protest wails to emerge as soon as the results are announced along with whatever scheme Washington has cooked up to prevent another Chavez term in office. This is when the rubber will meet the road and the fate of President Chavez will be decided in the next round of Hugo Chavez vs. the Bush neocon cabal determined to oust him by any means.

And then there’s Aleksander Boyd who’s built a career out of spewing hate and lies and never found an indisputable fact about the Chavez government and Bolivarianism he didn’t denounce and try to discredit. Boyd holds court on his VCrisis web site where any relationship to what he and his fellow-columnists report and the truth is merely in the eyes of his jaded beholders. Take a recent column denouncing an October Zogby poll showing Chavez’s approval just below the 60% level and agreeing with other independent poll results reporting about the same number.

VCrisis calls the poll “fatally flawed” and that Zogby’s client list includes…….are you seated and ready?……”Islamic fanatics and terrorists who are strategic partners of Chavez - Yassir Arafat (the writer must have forgotten he died in November, 2004), Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, etc. (the “etc.” is unidentified).” What is evident is how racist Boyd and his crew are along with spewers of hate, vitriol and lies. With that kind of reporting, we’ll breathlessly await VCrisis post-December 3 cries of fraud claiming those organizations interfered to put Hugo Chavez over the top, or something like that.

All of the above adds up to a clear bottom line. With the December election less than a month away, events are building toward a climax when Washington-orchestrated fireworks are sure to erupt. Expect them to be even uglier than the tactics used in the previous three failed attempts to oust Hugo Chavez. Chavez knows it’s coming and is likely well insulated and prepared. Proud supporters of his “Bolivarian project” stand with him in a powerful alliance of solidarity, are ready to help him take his revolution to the next level, and will resist any forces trying to undermine him. It won’t be long to see how things will play out.

SOURCE: RINF

Christian Zionism Raises Questions among Jewish Community

2006-11-09T00:44:00.000-05:00

by Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak

The leaders of major Jewish organizations have enthusiastically welcomed the Rev. John Hagee's Christians United for Israel, or CUFI, which is holding a "Night to Honor Israel" in San Antonio this weekend. But some aspects of Hagee's effort do not bode well for Israel or American Jews.

CUFI brings together powerful leaders of the Christian right (the Revs. Jerry Falwell and Benny Hinn and former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, to name a few) whose domestic agenda is opposed by the majority of American Jews.

And because CUFI's support for Israel is based on a particular interpretation of biblical prophesies, CUFI opposes compromises that might let Israel secure peace. This puts CUFI at odds with most Israelis and ultimately will put it out of synch with Jewish organizational leaders, whose positions have historically evolved in response to Israeli policies.

Gershom Gorenberg, a leading Israeli expert on Christian Zionism, recently explained how Christian Zionists' positions on Israel and the Middle East (Hagee advocates a U.S. attack on Iran) place them "at the far edge of the radical right within Israeli politics." Speaking on the public radio program "Fresh Air," Gorenberg said the Christian Zionists "tend to support military action over diplomacy. It's worth stressing that this puts them far from the mainstream of Israeli politics."

Christian Zionists base their opposition to ceding land on biblical interpretation. Hagee, speaking on the same program, gave a scriptural defense for his opposition to territorial compromise: "Joel 3:2 says do not do it. Those who divide up the land of Israel will come under the judgment of God. Therefore, don't do it. It's just that simple."

Christian Zionism focuses on "end times" scenarios that involve "ingathering" all the world's Jews in Israel against a backdrop of major international warfare. Jewish leaders correctly dismiss this as an irrelevant rationale for the political support of CUFI's leaders and the millions of Christians whom they represent.

Gorenberg, however, points out the contradiction in the use of the term Zionism by these Christian leaders, who, he says, are "seeing the Jews as actors in a Christian drama leading toward the end of days." By contrast, says Gorenberg, "real Zionism, as a Jewish movement, is a movement aimed at taking Jews out of the mythological realm and making them into normal actors in history, controlling their fate and acting for pragmatic reasons connected to the here and now. So what's called Christian Zionism is actually very distant from Zionism."

Hagee has promised Jewish leaders that CUFI will not use its support for Israel as a cover for evangelizing the Jews. But most of the members of CUFI's board and its regional leaders believe that Jews cannot be "raptured" in the "end times" unless they accept Jesus Christ as messiah.

Especially problematic is the domestic divide between CUFI's leaders and the vast majority of Jews, who vote Democratic, favor church-state separation, support gay rights and privacy in matters of reproductive health.

In an interview with the Express-News in July, Hagee brushed them aside: "I think if I could put a dividing line, the Orthodox and Conservatives who have a Torah appreciation give us wholehearted support. The rest who are not driven by the Word of God have a liberal agenda. And the liberal agenda is they are pro-abortion. They're pro-homosexual. They're pro-gay marriage — they want men to marry men and women to marry women — and their difference with me is not really what I'm doing with Israel. Their hostility to me is poisoned by their liberalism."

With Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, billed as a featured speaker at the Cornerstone Church event, the majority of Jews whom Hagee describes as "poisoned" should worry about how forcefully Jewish leaders will voice the community's views on crucial domestic issues — not about their toxicity.

SOURCE: My San Antonio

HATE-BASED, VIOLENT, EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN VIDEO GAME

2006-11-08T12:34:00.000-05:00

To be released in time for Christmas 2006, to celebrate the birthday of the Prince of Peace

Quotations:

	"The game adheres to the medium's brutal conventions." Los Angeles Times.
	"Gives a whole new sinister flavor to the old hymn 'Onward Christian Soldiers', that's for sure." "BlueStocking," post to the TruthDig blog.
	"Is this paramilitary mission simulator for children anything other than prejudice and bigotry using religion as an organizing tool to get people in a violent frame of mind? The dialogue includes people saying, "Praise the Lord," as they blow infidels away.....The Scriptures say, 'Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.' (Proverbs 22:6) The Scriptures do not say, 'Train up a child in the way he should blow away the people of God as well as infidels: and when he is old enough, he will go out and do some killing'." Jonathan Hutson. ₁

Overview:

A new video game called "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" was first shown at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles during 2006-MAY. The Los Angeles Times commented:

" 'Eternal Forces' is part of a new wave of religious games coming out at a time when the mainstream industry faces increasing criticism that its products celebrate misogynistic mayhem." ₂

From the descriptions of the game on the Internet, it seems that this game's creators have replaced the hatred of women found in secular games with hatred of religions other than Evangelical Christianity, while keeping the killing and extreme violence intact.

Reviews of the game:

"Eternal Forces" is based on the runaway best selling book series "Left Behind" by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Both the game and books follow dispensational beliefs -- a subset of pre-millennial theology. This is a belief system that is a relatively recent development in Christianity. It was declared a heresy by the early Christian movement, but was resurrected in the early 19th century and is now very popular among Evangelical Christians.

Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities, believes that the game may be a financial success. He said:

"The reason that I think this game has a chance is that it's not particularly preachy. I will say some of the dialogue is pretty lame - people saying, 'Praise the Lord' after they blow away the bad guys. I think they're overdoing it a bit. But the message is OK."

Jack Thompson, an attorney, author, and critic of video game violence is concerned about the level of carnage in the game. He said:

"We're going to push this game at Christian kids to let them know there's a cool shooter game out there. Because of the Christian context, somehow it's OK? It's not OK. The context is irrelevant. It's a mass-killing game."

He also commented:

"It's absurd. You can be the Christians blowing away the infidels, and if that doesn't hit your hot button, you can be the Antichrist blowing away all the Christians."

Thompson has severed his ties with Tyndale House in a dispute over this game.

A. Larry Ross, president of a Christian public relations firm that helped to market Gibson's "Passion of the Christ" and three "Left Behind" movies commented on the game, apparently without having seen it. He said:

"There's an audience here. In addition to the youth audience - that's the primary target - there are parents who are concerned about what their children are exposed to and are encouraged by products that are biblically based. I would assume, if there is violence, it's the cosmic struggle of good versus evil, not gratuitous violence." ₂

The game's plot:

The game is based on the assumption that God had separated babies and the saved -- individuals who have repented of their sin and trusted Jesus as Lord and Savior -- from the Earth. In a process called the Rapture, the saved miraculously rise through the air to meet Jesus Christ. They abandon trains, planes, automobiles, jobs, fields, sidewalks, homes, etc. That leaves only confused unbelievers "left behind" on earth. Some would be nominal Christians who were not saved before the rapture. Others would be Muslims, Hindus, most Mormons, most Roman Catholics, followers of all of the other religions in the world, secularists, Atheists, Agnostics, etc.

The "good side" is represented by the "Tribulation Force." These are often spouses, family members, and relatives of the saved Christians who had been raptured, have left the Earth, and are now with Jesus. According to the most common Evangelical Christian interpretation of key biblical passages, everyone left behind on earth must endure seven years of tribulation -- violent, horrendous evil which will cause the death of one third of the population of Earth in the greatest Holocaust the world has ever seen.

On the other side -- the bad guys -- are the infidels: the United Nations, the Antichrist, and his "Global Community Peacekeepers." They are the enemy to be destroyed.

The game involves a battle for New York City. It has a few interesting wrinkles not found in other violent computer games involving mass destruction and bloodbaths:

	Both the Tribulation Force and Global Community Peacekeepers attempt to recruit lost souls in addition to fighting each other.
	Whenever a "good guy" kills an unbeliever or an innocent person, he or she loses some of their spirituality which has to be restored through prayer. Otherwise they might weaken to the point where they are in danger of being recruited by the infidels.
	There are armies of angels and demons present who contribute to the carnage.
	While the Christians are exterminating the unbelievers with rifles, tanks, helicopters, etc., the players are provided with inspirational Christian music.

	"Conduct physical & spiritual warfare, using the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world."
	"Recover ancient scriptures and witness spectacular Angelic and Demonic activity as a direct consequence of your choices."
	"Command your forces through intense battles across a breathtaking, authentic depiction of New York City."
	"Control more than 30 units types - from Prayer Warrior and Hellraiser to Spies, Special Forces and Battle Tanks!" ₃

The game itself:

The creators of the game expect to receive either an "E" rating (appropriate for ages 6 and above) or a "T" rating (for ages 13 and above.) It can be played by a single person, or by a team of up to eight players. In the latter case, one has the opportunity to play as a member of either the Tribulation Force or the Global Community Peacekeepers.

According to the producers of the game, one can engage in the following activities:

The Left Behind Games web site contains two Quick Time trailers. ₃

Newsweek Magazine commented:

"Left Behind Games CEO Troy Lyndon, whose company went public in February, says the game's Christian themes will grab the audience that didn't mind gore in 'The Passion of the Christ.' 'We've thought through how the Christian right and the liberal left will slam us,' says Lyndon. 'But megachurches are very likely to embrace this game.' Though it will be marketed directly to congregations, Forces will also have a secular ad campaign in gaming magazines." ₄

Allegations of spyware imbedded in the game:

According to The Register:

"Watchers of right-wing Christian groups in the States say a new apocalyptic videogame released by cultish Revelations-based fiction series Left Behind is riddled with spyware."
"Developers have incorporated software from an Israeli firm called Double Fusion. It incorporates video advertising and product placement into the game, and reportedly records players' behavior, location, and other data to be uploaded to Left Behind's Bible-powered marketing machine."

We have no way to verify whether this is a valid criticism of the game.

SOURCE: Religious Tolerance

On 9/11 Pseudo Debunking

2006-11-05T23:07:00.000-05:00

The Logical Reconstruction of Reality: A Reply to Time
by Michael D. Morrissey, Sept. 7, 2006

Time magazine, the flagship corporate-government mouthpiece, has always been good primarily for one thing--to let us know what Big Brother is thinking, and by the same token, to tell us what we should think. (If you have to ask who Big Brother is, see below.)

Before I reached the age of reason, at the age of 42 when I realized that the mainstream media had been lying for at least a quarter of a century, since the murder of JFK, Time and Newsweek were my teddy bears. Read them and before you know it, you're fast asleep in a world that is in control, no matter how bad it seems. The right people are doing the right things.

That was true, of course, only not in the way I thought. I was the one who was under control. Instead of shouting bloody murder from the rooftops, I was dutifully reading myself to sleep, taking my soma every week.

This latest attempt (Time, Sept. 3, 2006 ) to pacify the herd, to anesthetize us with the idea that "conspiracy theories" are defense mechanisms to protect ourselves from the big, bad, complex world, "empowering" us "to make sense of grand events" is striking, even for Time, in its illogic.

Far from "empowering," the notion that the government itself perpetrated 9/11 has the opposite effect on most people. Who wants to believe that our elected leaders are ruthless, mass-murdering demonic pigs? Fear of having to believe this, and subsequent denial of whatever evidence and arguments would lead to this belief, are by far the most common reactions. Lev Grossman, Big Brother's hack in this instance, knows this as well as anyone else with common sense, and the ploy here is to skirt the fear by making the denial easier. It's not the idea that our leaders are monsters that we have to deal with, he is telling us, but the idea that some people (actually, as he says, 36% of the population) need an idea like this to feel as if they are "participating in the great American tradition of self-reliance and nonconformist, antiauthoritarian dissent." A mature thinker, like Grossman himself, knows that "conspiracy theories are part of the process by which Americans deal with traumatic public events like Sept. 11, "an American form of national mourning," and that--here is the overriding wisdom--"the past, even the immediate past, is ultimately unknowable."

So we know what Big Brother is about in this article, as always: Do not consider "outrageous conspiracy theories," as George II told us himself, shortly after promulgating the most outrageous conspiracy theory of all, namely that a cave dweller in Afghanistan and 19 Arabs with box cutters could defeat the multi-billion dollar U.S. Air Force and national defense establishment, not just once, but four times on a single day. Do not question this, or anything else I say, and do not look for facts, because the past is "unknowable."

Granted, some people will fall for this. Maybe the other 64% of the population. Still, it is very bad propaganda. Big Brother may be losing his touch. Subtlety has never been his strong point, and since selection 2000 it has all but disappeared. I suppose we should be glad of that. The Bush government, a "Nixon imperial presidency on steroids," as John Dean (who should know) called it recently on C-Span, has made it quite clear what we are dealing with: fascism. We are one step, one more terror attack, away from the jackboots, as Gen. Tommy Franks has told us in so many words, and the Patriot Acts have already gutted the Constitution and created the legal structure for a police state. (Don't believe me; read the recent speeches of former Vice-President Al Gore.)

If Big Brother were more concerned with subtlety, there are several different ploys he could have taken, and may yet, but again, that is what Time is good for--showing his hand.

Most conspicuously, he has given us only two alternatives, two views of reality: world No. 1 and world No. 2. No. 1 is the official line. No. 2 is actually described quite correctly and straightforwardly:

In world No. 2, al-Qaeda is not responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center. The U.S. government is. The Pentagon was not hit by a commercial jet; it was hit by a cruise missile. United Flight 93 did not crash after its occupants rushed the cockpit; it was deliberately taken down by a U.S. Air Force fighter. The entire catastrophe was planned and executed by federal officials in order to provide the U.S. with a pretext for going to war in the Middle East and, by extension, as a means of consolidating and extending the power of the Bush Administration.

This is in fact an accurate statement of what most of those 108 million Americans (and 95% of the rest of the world) actually think. It does not say, as all too many 9/11 "truthlings" say, that a "rogue faction" of the government did it, or that "factions of the government may have been involved" or "complicit." It does not differentiate between LIHOP ("Let It Happen on Purpose") and MIHOP ("Make It Happen on Purpose"), or say, as Kyle Hence, one of the most prominent "9/11 Truth" leaders did recently:

Any simplistic speculations or accusations such as "the government did it" are irresponsible and pre-mature in my view as all the evidence 'isn't in' and the reality is likely far more complex. What we know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that agencies across the board within the government covered-up, many officials lied, and some destroyed key evidence. We know that excessive secrecy, over-classification and delays in releasing CIA and FBI Inspector General and NIST reports have kept much vital information from the general public and official investigations about what happened or didn't happen and how it was covered-up. It is entirely conceivable that systemic or bureaucratic faults, incompetence, negligence (including criminal negligence) complicity and co-conspiracy ALL occurred within the gargantuan, byzantine government and global military-industrial-intelligence complex relative to the 9/11 attacks. Even a cursory examination of Operation Gladio, the 7/7 attacks in London, etc. suggests a far wider circle of co-conspirators. Any new investigation must consider all the evidence within the frame of the questions 1) who most benefited and 2) was 9/11 as Chris Floyd has suggested a 'secret army' Gladio-type operation designed to advance an extreme right wing agenda? SFC Donald Buswell, now under investigation in Texas, framed suspicion this way -- rejecting the official conspiracy theory and Commission findings and pointing in the direction of the military-industrial complex. In the end we may find the reality more complex still given the huge power of drug, banking, illicit weapons and other criminal cartels and the fact that US officials may have acted the part of guilty parties in some cases to cover-up their own incompetence or criminal negligence even as they were aware the official story didn't hold any water. (email to me and others, Aug. 28, 2006).

Now here is subtlety. Could any of Big Brother's hacks have put it more eloquently? My question to Hence, to which this was his reply, was:

Do you agree with David Griffin that "the Bush-Cheney administration orchestrated 9/11 in order to promote this [American] empire under the pretext of the so-called war on terror" (p. viii, Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11)?

Griffin was not subtle at all, having come to this conclusion after examining all the available evidence and presenting it in three books. Hence and many other 9/11 "truth-seekers" claim to support and agree with Griffin, but when it comes down to it, they hedge. They squirm and wriggle and hem and haw and inundate us with "complexities" and all the "research" that needs to be done before we can say what Big Brother himself has said quite openly--at least if world No. 2 is real: The government did it.

Similarly, Grossman gives a quite acceptable summary of the facts about the Pentagon strike:

…the crash site doesn't look right. There's not enough damage. The hole smashed in the Pentagon's outer wall was 75 ft. wide, but a Boeing 757 has a 124-ft. wingspan. Why wasn't the hole wider? Why does it look so neat?

Experts will tell you that the hole was punched by the plane's fuselage, not its wings, which sheared off on impact. But then what happened to the wings? And the tail and the engines? Images of the crash site show hardly any of the wreckage you would expect from a building that's been rammed by a commercial jet. The lawn, where the plane supposedly dragged a wing on approach, is practically pristine. The plane supposedly clipped five lampposts on its way in, but the lampposts in question show surprisingly little damage. And could Hani Hanjour, the man supposedly at the controls, have executed the maneuvers that the plane performed? He failed a flight test just weeks before the attack. And Pentagon employees reported smelling cordite after the hit, the kind of high explosive a cruise missile carries.

And the counterarguments are sparse indeed:

…if the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile, then what happened to American Airlines Flight 77? Where did all the real, documented people on it go? Assassinated? Relocated? What about eyewitnesses who saw a plane, not a missile? And what are the chances that an operation of such size--it would surely have involved hundreds of military and civilian personnel--could be carried out without a single leak? Without leaving behind a single piece of evidence hard enough to stand up to scrutiny in a court? People, the feds just aren't that slick. Nobody is.

That's it. That's all Big Brother has to counter the accusations summarized in David Ray Griffin's three books and literally hundreds of websites and other books. Anyone who does the least bit of reading will soon learn that the eyewitnesses contradict each other drastically, and that what happened to the passengers (not "documented" by an impartial authority but only by the government; autopsy results have not been released) is indeed an ongoing mystery but secondary to the examination of the physical evidence.

Then we have the old canard and patently absurd argument--which doesn't stop people like Noam Chomsky, to the distress of many of his left-oriented admirers (see "My Beef with Chomsky" for my own take), from repeating it--that such a high-level conspiracy could not have happened without a leak. Then how did Osama and his 19 helpers do it? Their "leak" was the 9/11 Commission Report, a "571-page lie," as Griffin calls it (and proves amply in The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions).

Time could have produced a far more effective propaganda piece not only by repeating the arguments of Kyle Hence, but also by mentioning all the other theories about what actually happened on 9/11, including first and foremost the "no planes" theorists, who argue that no planes hit the WTC, that it was all video fakery. This is very much a bone of contention among the researchers, and a beautiful opportunity to paint the whole "truth movement" as ridiculous. Instead, they have given us a straightforward summary of what most of us do believe, and virtually nothing to contradict it. It's as if George Bush were telling us again, "You're either with us or against us." That does seem to be the real message. It is a declaration of war, and in war there is no more need for subtlety.

Now I'm finished, and I haven't told you who Big Brother is, as promised. Let's make it easy. If you're in world No. 1, there is none. If you're in world No. 2, he is either what Kyle Hence says he is, or what Time and David Griffin says he is. My money's on the latter.

2006-11-05T21:39:00.000-05:00

Oklahoma City Bombing Revisited

Here is a great video to test your knowledge on the bombing of the Murrah building in 1995. Think you know the ins and outs? Think you have heard every angle? Most do but most haven't. Check it out.

I stand by it: Camp Falcon Explosion was Nuclear Fusion

2006-11-05T16:57:00.000-05:00

Thousands upon thousands of people have visited this blog's items on the Camp Falcon Mushroom (links below). So far, every moderately scientific argument that I have heard asserting that the explosion was non-nuclear in nature has been answered by video evidence at this blog as well. I have emailed an expert with my position, asking him to take apart my deductions in the interest of the truth and in the interest that I not misinform people. This was a person that had reportedly been debunking this information. I even explained to him that there were an awful lot of people visiting this blog and he would do the public a great service by simply sending me something scientific to post. It has been about three weeks and still no answer.

Always beware that a scientist that truly understands his or her work will likely be able to explain it in layman's terms. Albert Einstein, after all, explained relativity in terms that a teenager could understand. I should know.

I posted an item from Allen L. Roland, whose work Jeff Rense has jumped all over, though it is decidly less scientific in its deductions, Roland's Ph. D. notwithstanding (recently, it seems, Jeff Rense has stopped carrying Roland's work). His assertion that we were dealing with depleted uranium rounds was based on the existence of a video showing what such should look like and this video, as may or may not know, is simply not referencable except that it was once viewed by Allen and we all need to just take his word for it. Any internet journalist and any scientist should know that this is not how we arrive at solid conclusions.

It has been weeks and not one scientist has stepped up to truly debunk this. Were it possible, I am not sure it would happen anyway. Easily the most scientifically educated sounding opinions on this have argued in favor a micronuke and those comments are interspersed throughout this blog. I think that most scientists are simply afraid of what they see. I think that most people are also afraid, being willing to embrace an explanation that is simply more comfortable.

I feel as if I have been tricked into temporarily supporting Roland's work, though perhaps by my own latent biases. I posted it at my blog and sent it to Jeff Rense. I too, it seems, wanted to believe in something a little less dangerous. Rense, like everyone, jumped all over it because the alternative is truly scary. I managed to help a false theory, I fear, explode onto the scene and I take my share of the responsibility. To readers and people everywhere, I apologize, from the depths of my heart. There is evidence that amongst American internet users, journalists, and bloggers that the coverup is complete. It seems like a non-issue now in many corners of cyberspace (crossing fingers).

In Europe this issue has exploded all over independent media and there seems to be little doubt that the United States could allow for something like this to occur. As much as I have tried to rid myself of the poison of patriotism, it seems that the Europeans have managed to highlight that it still exists in my psyche. It's something for me to work on.

I am still waiting for a scientist that knows his stuff, one with integrity and who doesn't drop from the debate upon a demand for layman's terms (I know enough about physics to know that this stuff is not un-translatable from jargon and usually, I know just enough not to be duped), and debunk this: that nuclear devices, probably fusion oriented ones, were stored at Camp Falcon. Such a person must explain the generation of white light as well as the mushroom effect. I have already found out that a small nuke doesn't generate an effective EMP at much of a distance, less than a mile at any rate.

Well? I'm STILL waiting!

Mushroom Cloud Erupts at U.S. Base in Iraq

U.S. Marines Vid of Ammo Dump - Tactical Nukes?

More Research on What Went Off at Camp Falcon

Postscript: It has been suggested that the largest, non-nuclear bomb ever created, the MOAB, mushrooms. Well it does not. It does, over a period of time, manage to spew debris thousands of feet into the air but we do not get a sudden, vertical rush of an energy vortex strong enough to suck all debris straight upward hundreds of feet. We also do not get a brilliant white flash of generated electromagnetic energy nor the spherical display of light prior to the mushroom effect, as we do here and here.

We cannot substitute the fact that no one wants to talk about it or the fact that no agency or government or media outlet has commented on it as evidence when the real evidence that we have, the only evidence we have, is the visual evidence and the visual evidence does not contradict itself in any way. It tells one story, that of a fusion device.

2006-11-04T23:05:00.000-05:00

Culture, Art, and Fighting the System

Gandhi as Terrorist

2006-11-04T21:19:00.000-05:00

by Kurt Nimmo

In the not too distant past, when activists blocked driveways or staged sit-downs in federal offices, they were routinely arrested and charged with misdemeanors. Soon, however, as a result of H.R. 4239, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, they may be considered terrorists.

“Supporters say it is meant to stem illegal actions taken against controversial animal enterprises, or any company that does business with an animal enterprise. But the sweeping language in the bill goes much, much further,” notes Information Liberation. “AETA labels the tactics of Martin Luther King and Gandhi as ‘terrorism.’ It spells out penalties for ‘an offense involving exclusively a nonviolent physical obstruction of an animal enterprise or a business having a connection to, or relationship with, an animal enterprise, that may result in loss of profits but does not result in bodily injury…’ In other words, a terrorism law includes nonviolent civil disobedience.”

AETA is a perfect cover for characterizing non-violent civil disobedience as terrorism. “Lawful and peaceful protests that, for example, urge a consumer boycott of a company that does not use humane procedures, could be the target of this provision if the activity resulted in economic damage to the company,” explains K9 Magazine. “The bill would also make it illegal to expose cruel conditions at facilities such as puppy mills and research labs, if exposure of such conditions even if done lawfully would result in economic damage to the animal enterprise. There is no exemption in the bill to exclude economic damage that results from the disclosure of information about a company’s treatment of animals, which is disclosed through public information.”

But it is not only the First Amendment rights of animal liberationists at stake. “The AETA will not only affect the animal protection movement, but it will affect all social causes and, without question, the media. Many journalists pride themselves on investigative pieces, but if the AETA gets passed, these important exposés will be classified as ‘terrorist acts.’ If they can do this to us, they can do this to anyone,” explains Chris DeRose, president of Last Chance for Animals.

Arresting and throwing in the hoosegow violent animal liberationists who burn down “puppy mills” is one thing. Criminalizing as terrorist those who engage in “nonviolent physical obstruction of an animal enterprise or a business having a connection to, or relationship with, an animal enterprise” is quite another. Once passed, the AETA will become the legal standard for all non-violent civil disobedience. Moreover, once non-violent activism is categorized as “terrorism,” we can expect activists to be disappeared under the so-called Military Commissions bill, soon to be signed into law by the unitary decider.

Imagine Mahatma Gandhi arrested for engaging in satyagraha—the philosophy and action of nonviolent resistance—and disappeared to a torture dungeon. Under AETA, coupled with Bush’s detainee bill, all of this will not only be possible, it is more than likely a done deal, considering the long and sordid track record of the state.

In 1930, Gandhi initiated the Salt March to Dandi in opposition to the British salt tax. The British did not arrest Gandhi because he did not incite others to follow him. However, under the AETA, Gandhi would be considered a terrorist because his activity resulted in a “loss of profits” for the British Raj.

SOURCE: Kurt Nimmo

Like the Nazis, the Bush Cartel Seems Ready to Hightail to S. America

2006-11-04T21:09:00.000-05:00

From Wonkette:

Our paranoid friends over at Bring It On have put together a story that hasn't exactly made Washington Whispers. It's real short and real simple:

The Cuban news service reports that George W. Bush has purchased 98,840 acres in Paraguay, near the Bolivian/Brazilian border.

Jenna Bush paid a secret diplomatic visit to Paraguayan President Nicanor Duarte and U.S. Ambassador James Cason. There were no press conferences, no public sightings and no official confirmation of her 10-day trip which apparently ended this week.

The Paraguayan Senate voted last summer to "grant U.S. troops immunity from national and International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction."

Immediately afterwards, 500 heavily armed U.S. troops arrived with various planes, choppers and land vehicles at Mariscal Estigarribia air base, which happens to be at the northern tip of Paraguay near the Bolivian/Brazilian border. More have reportedly arrived since then.

What the hell, after the jump. Plus a BREAKING UPDATE involving, of course, The Moonies!

Now, Prensa Latina is a Cuban-government operation that is not exactly friendly toward Washington, what with Washington trying to kill Castro for 50 years and all.

But Prensa Latina didn't invent the story. It's all over the South American press - and not just Venezuela and Bolivia.

Here's a version from Brazil.

Here's one from Argentina.

And here's one from Paraguay itself.

As far as we can understand, all the paperwork and deeds and such are secret. But somehow the news leaked that a new "land trust" created for Bush had purchased nearly 100,000 acres near the town of Chaco.

And Jenna's down there having secret meetings with the president and America's ambassador to Paraguay, James Cason. Bush posted Cason in Havana in 2002, but last year moved him to Paraguay.

Cason apparently gets around. A former "political adviser" to the U.S. Atlantic Command and ATO's Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic, Cason has been stationed in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama - basically everywhere the U.S. has run secret and not-so-secret wars over the past 30 years.

Here's a fun question for Tony Snow: Why might the president and his family need a 98.840-acre ranch in Paraguay protected by a semi-secret U.S. military base manned by American troops who have been exempted from war-crimes prosecution by the Paraguyan government?

Here's a little background on the base itself, which Rumsfeld secretly visited in late 2005:

U.S. Special Forces began arriving this past summer at Paraguay's Mariscal Estigarribia air base, a sprawling complex built in 1982 during the reign of dictator Alfredo Stroessner. Argentinean journalists who got a peek at the place say the airfield can handle B-52 bombers and Galaxy C-5 cargo planes. It also has a huge radar system, vast hangers, and can house up to 16,000 troops. The air base is larger than the international airport at the capital city, Asuncion.

Some 500 special forces arrived July 1 for a three-month counterterrorism training exercise, code named Operation Commando Force 6.

Paraguayan denials that Mariscal Estigarribia is now a U.S. base have met with considerable skepticism by Brazil and Argentina. There is a disturbing resemblance between U.S. denials about Mariscal Estigarribia, and similar disclaimers made by the Pentagon about Eloy Alfaro airbase in Manta , Ecuador. The United States claimed the Manta base was a "dirt strip" used for weather surveillance. When local journalists revealed its size, however, the United States admitted the base harbored thousands of mercenaries and hundreds of U.S. troops, and Washington had signed a 10-year basing agreement with Ecuador.

BREAKING, UPDATE, LITTLE SIREN GRAPHIC:

We've been directed to yet another parapolitical theory here at Rigorous Intuition, where it is reported that Rev. Moon bought 600,000 hectares - that's 1,482,600 acres - in the same place: Chaco, Paraguay.

Another twist: The first story, from Paraguay, apparently refers to the senior George Bush as the owner of the 98.840 acres in Moon's neighborhood.

Bush 41 was the first bigshot politician to go prancing around with Rev. Moon in public. Especially in South America:

"In the early stages of the Reagan Revolution that embraced the Washington Times and Moon's anti-Communist movement, it was embarrassing to be caught at a Moon event," wrote The Gadflyer last year. "Until George H.W. Bush appeared with Moon in 1996, thanking him for a newspaper that 'brings sanity to Washington.'" That was while on an extended trip to South America in Moon's company. A Reuters story of Nov 25 of that year describes the former president as "full of praise" for Moon at a banquet in Buenos Aires, toasting him as "the man with the vision." (And Moon helped Bush out with his own vision thing, paying him $100,000 for the pleasure of his company.) Bush and Moon then traveled together to Uruguay, "to help him inaugurate a seminary in the capital, Montevideo, to train 4,200 young Japanese women to spread the word of his Church of Unification across Latin America."

Isn't that special?

Oh, and both the Moonie and Bush land is located at what Paraguay's drug czar called an "enormously strategic point in both the narcotics and arms trades." And it sits atop the one of the world's largest fresh-water aquifers.

Bush Family-98,842 acres and a Mule [Bring It On]

Bush Paraguay Land Grab Incites Unease [Prensa Latina]

Homeland Security Tightens Grip on International Travel

2006-11-04T20:23:00.000-05:00

A radical change in international travel rules has been lost in these tumultuous last few months that have seen the demise of habeas corpus, the legalization of torture and the expansion of the President's martial law powers.

The Department of Homeland Security proposed new rules back in July that would fundamentally undermine the right of American citizens to travel abroad. Public carriers--airlines, cruise lines, even fishing boats--will be required to submit the names of all passengers to Homeland Security prior to departure and to obtain permission from Homeland Security to board those passengers. These new rules will take effect January 14, 2007.

Current practices already represent a severe restriction on the right to travel. The "no-fly list" dates back to 1990, but Patriot Act I created a new agency, the Transportation Security Administration, that was charged with creating and maintaining a list of people who were not allowed to board airplanes. The list was reported to have contained around 1,000 names by the end of 2001 of people strictly forbidden to fly plus a second longer list of "selectees" who were to be called out of line and subjected to closer searches and intense questioning before they were allowed to board. Many American politcal activists reported that they were on the "selectee" list. These lists of names were provided to airlines who were charged with the task of separating out listed passengers and notifying authorities. In December, 2005, a Swedish airline leaked that the list had grown from 1,000 to over 80,000.

The new procedure will completely eliminate the opportunity for the public to find out how many people are on the list. No airline or cruise company will ever receive a "no-fly" or "selectee" list. Instead of providing a passenger manifest after departure as now required by the Customs and Border Patrol, airlines, cruise lines and other public carriers will have to provide a provisional pasenger list prior to departure. This list will be checked against a Homeland Security list of citizens approved for international travel, and the carrier will be ordered not to board those who are not approved. This is from the proposed rule itself:

Therefore, CBP [Customas and Border Patrol] has concluded that the prevention of a high-risk passenger from boarding an aircraft is the appropriate level of security in the commercial air travel environment. Manifest data received and vetted prior to passenger boarding will enable CBP to attain this level of security. Further, this vetting of passengers on international flights should eliminate the need for passenger carriers to conduct watch list screening of these passengers, upon publication and implementation of a final rule. Accordingly, with this proposed rule,CBP is proposing two transmission options for air carriers to select from at their discretion: (i) the submission of complete manifests no later than 60minutes prior to departure or (ii)transmitting passenger data asindividual, real-time transactions, i.e.,as each passenger checks in, up to but no later than 15 minutes prior todeparture. Under both options, the carrier will not permit the boarding of a passenger unless the passenger has been cleared by CBP.

Seagoing vessels are required to submit their list 60 minutes prior to departure under the rule.

Who will be on the list? That's a secret. What criteria will determine who is on and who is off the list? That's a secret. How many people will be approved and how many will not? That's a secret. If you're not on the approved list, how can you petition the government to change your status? You can't.

The non-profit Identity Project has filed comments with Homeland Security urging that the rule changes be dropped. They argue that they violate the U. S. Constitution and international law:

The [proposed rule change] would replace a requirement for ex post facto notice to the CBP of information about who is on each vessel (ship or plane) with anunconstitutional system of prior restraint of international travel, entirely unauthorized by statute and inconsistent with the U.S. obligations embodied in the International Covenant on Civil and PoliticalRights. Under the proposed rules, orders by the CBP [Customs adn Border Patrol] to common carriers not to transport specific persons would not be based on restraining orders (injunctions) issued by competent judicial authorities. Instead,they would be based on an undefined, secret, administrative permission-to-travel (“clearance”) procedure subject to none of the procedural or substantive due process required for orders prohibiting or restricting the exercise of protected First Amendment rights. From the authority of law enforcement officers andagencies to enforce certain types of orders, once lawfully issued by competent judicial authorities, the [proposed rule change] would usurp for the CBP the authority to issue those orders on its own.

I remember watching Sound of Music when I was a child and feeling my heart race as the Von Trapp family made its escape from Nazified Austria. I could never have imagined that a day would come when those wanting to leave the United States would be forced to "make a run" for the border to evade a myriad of obstacles placed by an American government in the path of those who wished to exercise their fundamental human right to emigrate.

That day has not yet arrived. But it will on January 14.

SOURCE: Shelter from the Storm

U.S. Seeks Silence on Secret CIA Prisons

2006-11-04T20:12:00.000-05:00

By Carol D. Leonnig and Eric Rich

Court is asked to bar detainees from talking about interrogations..

The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal details of the "alternative interrogation methods" that their captors used to get them to talk.

The government says in new court filings that those interrogation methods are now among the nation's most sensitive national security secrets and that their release -- even to the detainees' own attorneys -- "could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave damage." Terrorists could use the information to train in counter-interrogation techniques and foil government efforts to elicit information about their methods and plots, according to government documents submitted to U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on Oct. 26.

The battle over legal rights for terrorism suspects detained for years in CIA prisons centers on Majid Khan, a 26-year-old former Catonsville resident who was one of 14 high-value detainees transferred in September from the "black" sites to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many detainees at Guantanamo, is seeking emergency access to him.

SOURCE: MSNBC

Also see:

Guantanamo Prisoners Challenge New Terrorism Law

Over 300 may never leave Guantanamo

Gitmo Lawyer Who Took on Bush Forced to Retire from Navy

Gitmo Prisoners are Enemy Combatants because Northern Alliance Said So

Micromanaging Shock & Awe to create "Deep Psychological Injury"

Wildfire Suspect Charged With Arson, Murder

2006-11-04T19:42:00.000-05:00

I smell a patsy. What is undeniable to anyone with a hint of intelligence, integrity, and an awareness of the pattern of arsons in our national forests, a pattern that asserted itself with authority in the wake of the salvage rider (allowing timber companies to benefit hugely from burnt, sometimes healthy trees), is that there is a coordinated, albeit perhaps loosely, effort to maintain a salvage logging profit for these companies. What you can pretty much count on is that the investigation of Raymond Oyler will not lead to any such thing, which is why I call him a patsy. He looks good in a jumpsuit, tattoos and all, doesn't he?

Please see Rampant Arson in Nat'l Forests a Boon for Timber Industry

Wildfire Suspect Charged With Arson, Murder
By GILLIAN FLACCUS, AP

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (Nov. 3) - As families planned funerals for five firefighters killed by a wind-swept wildfire a week ago, authorities marched a suspect into a courtroom to charge him with murder and arson - crimes that carry a possible death sentence.

Friends and family of the fallen firefighters said news of the arrest brought some relief.

"This arrest really does help with some of the closure, the healing that we in the Forest Service community, and in the families, need," said Jeanne Wade Evans, the San Bernardino National Forest supervisor.

The first in a series of funerals was planned for Friday.

Raymond Lee Oyler was charged Thursday with five counts of murder, 11 counts of arson and 10 counts of use of an incendiary device. The charges include seven fires in June, one in July, one in September and two in October.

Last week's blaze was the deadliest for firefighters since July 1994, when 14 were killed near Glenwood Springs, Colo., according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

In a jailhouse interview, Oyler told The Press-Enterprise of Riverside he had "no idea why they came to me."

"All I know is I didn't do this and they're trying to pin this on me," Oyler said, adding that he was home with his baby girl when the fire broke out. "They need to find the real person."

District Attorney-elect Rod Pacheco said the evidence against Oyler was "overwhelming," but he did not disclose a motive and would not say what led investigators to Oyler.

The 36-year-old auto mechanic with tattoos on his neck and forearms appeared in court in handcuffs and a jail jumpsuit as his attorney entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

Oyler "adamantly denies involvement in this fire and in any of these fires," attorney Mark McDonald said outside court. "He's very distraught and scared ... The finger is pointing at him."

Oyler, who said nothing during the brief hearing, was held without bail.

Authorities were trying to determine whether Oyler has any links to at least 40 fires in the area since May, according to an official involved in the investigation who spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is continuing.

Investigators were also looking at a 1998 fire in which the pilot of a firefighting aircraft died in a crash. That blaze burned more than 24,000 acres in the San Jacinto Mountains and had a burn pattern similar to last week's fire, the official said.

The charges are punishable by life in prison without parole or the death penalty. Prosecutors will decide in the next 60 days which sentence to seek.

"The feelings of the surviving family members of the victims will be consulted and be given great weight by our office in what is always a difficult decision," Pacheco said.

A woman who answered the phone at the home of Oyler's mother said she had no comment.

Last week's fire was stoked by Santa Ana winds as it swept southwest through the San Jacinto Mountains about 90 miles east of Los Angeles. The flames overran the fire crew, destroyed 34 homes and charred more than 60 square miles before being contained Monday.

Three firefighters died at the scene, and a fourth died soon after at a hospital. A fifth was taken off life support and died this week.

A funeral service was planned Friday for Jason McKay, 27, of Apple Valley.

McKay, whose family moved to the Victorville area from Minnesota when he was a boy, worked for the U.S. Forest Service for five years and was the assistant engine operator on the Engine 57 crew.

"He loved being a firefighter," Staci Burger, McKay's fiance, told the Riverside Press Enterprise. "It was what he wanted to do since he was born."

Funeral services were also scheduled over the next several days for firefighters Jess McLean, 27, of Beaumont; Daniel Hoover-Najera, 20, of San Jacinto; Mark Loutzenhiser, 43, of Idyllwild; and Pablo Cerda, 23, of Fountain Valley.

A public memorial service was planned for Sunday.

SOURCE: AOL News

Propaganda in a Democratic Society

2006-11-04T09:42:00.000-05:00

by Aldous Huxley

"The doctrines of Europe," Jefferson wrote, "were that men in numerous associations cannot be restrained within the limits of order and justice, except by forces physical and moral wielded over them by authorities independent of their will. . . . We (the founders of the new American democracy) believe that man was a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights, and with an innate sense of justice, and that he could be restrained from wrong, and protected in right, by moderate powers, confided to persons of his own choice and held to their duties by dependence on his own will." To post-Freudian ears, this kind of language seems touchingly quaint and ingenuous. Human beings are a good deal less rational and innately just than the optimists of the eighteenth century supposed. On the other hand they are neither so morally blind nor so hopelessly unreasonable as the pessimists of the twentienth would have us believe. In spite of the Id and the Unconscious, in spite of endemic neurosis and the prevalence of low IQ's, most men and women are probably decent enough and sensible enough to be trusted with the direction of their own destinies.

Democratic institutions are devices for reconciling social order with individual freedom and initiative, and for making the immediate power of a country's rulers subject to the ultimate power of the ruled. The fact that, in Western Europe and America, these devices have worked, all things considered, not too badly is proof enough that the eighteenth century optimists were not entirely wrong. Given a fair chance, I repeat; for the fair chance is an indispensible prerequisite. No people that passes abruptly from a state of subservience under the rule of a despot to the completely unfamiliar state of political independence can be said to have a fair chance of being able to govern itself democratically. Liberalism flourishes in an atmosphere of prosperity and declines as declining prosperity makes it necessary for the government to intervene ever more frequently and drastically in the affairs of its subjects. Over-population and over-organization are two conditions which ... deprive a society of a fair chance of making democratic institutions work effectively. We see, then, that there are certain historical, economic, demographic and technological conditions which make it very hard for Jefferson's rational animals, endowed by nature with inalienable rights and an innate sense of justice, to exercise their reason, claim their rights and act justly within a democratically organized society. We in the West have been supremely fortunate in having been given a fair chance of making the great experiment in self-government. Unfortunately, it now looks as though , owing to recent changes in our circumstances, this infinitely precious fair chance were being, little by little, taken away from us. And this, of course, is not the whole story. These blind impersonal forces are not the only enemies of individual liberty and democratic institutions. There are also forces of another, less abstract character, forces that can be deliberately used by power-seeking individuals whose aim is to establish partial or complete control over their fellows. Fifty years ago, when I was a boy, it seemed completely self-evident that the bad old days were over, that torture and massacre, slavery, and the persecution of heretics, were things of the past. Among people who wore top hats, traveled in trains, and took a bath every morning such horrors were simply out of the question. After all, we were living in the twentieth century. A few years later these people who took daily baths and went to church in top hats were committing atrocities on a scale undreamed of by the benighted Africans and Asiatics. In the light of recent history it would be foolish to suppose that this sort of thing cannot happen again. It can and, no doubt, it will. But in the immediate future there is some reason to believe that the punitive measures of 1984 will give place to the reinforcements and manipulations of Brave New World.

There are two kinds of propaganda - rational propaganda in favor of action that is consonant with the enlightened self-interest of those who make it and those to whom it is addressed, and non-rational propaganda that is not consonant with anybody's enlightened self-interest, but is dictated by, and appeals to, passion. Were the actions of individuals are concerned there are motives more exhalted than enlightened self-interest, but where collective action has to be taken in the fields of politics and economics, enlightened self-interest is probably the highest of effective motives. If politicians and their constituents always acted to promote their own or their country's long-range self-interest, this world would be an earthly paradise. As it is, they often act against their own interests, merely to gratify their least credible passions; the world, in consequence, is a place of misery. Propaganda in favor of action that is consonant with enlightened self-interest appeals to reason by means of logical arguements based upon the best available evidence fully and honestly set forth. Propaganda in favor of action dictated by the impulses that are below self-interest offers false, garbled or incomplete evidence, avoids logical argument and seeks to influence its victims by the mere repetition of catchwords, by the furious denunciation of foreign or domestic scapegoats, and by cunningly associating the lowest passions with the highest ideals, so that atrocities come to be perpetrated in the name of God and the most cynical kind of Realpolitik is treated as a matter of religious principle and patriotic duty.

In John Dewey's words, "a renewal of faith in common human nature, in its potentialities in general, and in its power in particular to respond to reason and truth, is a surer bulwark against totalitarianism than a demonstration of material success or a devout worship of special legal and political forms." The power to respond to reason and truth exists in all of us. But so, unfortunately, does the tendency to respond to unreason and falsehood - particularly in those cases where falsehood evokes some enjoyable emotion, or where the appeal to unreason strikes some answering chord in the primitive, subhuman depths of our being. In certain feilds of activity men have learned to respond to reason and truth pretty consistently. The authors of learned articles do not appeal to the passions of their fellow scientists and technologists. They set forth what, to the best of their knowledge, is the truth about some particular aspect of reality, they use reason to explain the facts they have observed and they support their point of view with arguements that appeal to reason in other people. All this is fairly easy in the feilds of physical science and technology. It is much more difficult in the fields of politics and religion and ethics. Here the relevant facts often elude us. As for the meaning of the facts, that of course depends upon the particular system of ideas, in terms of which you choose to interpret them. And these are not the only difficulties that confront the rational truth-seeker. In public and in private life, it often happens that there is simply no time to collect the relevant facts or to weigh their significance. We are forced to act on insufficient evidence and by a light considerably less steady than that of logic. With the best will in the world, we cannot always be completely truthful or consistently rational. All that is in our power is to be as truthful and rational as circumstances permit us to be, and to respond as well as we can to the limited truth and imperfect reasoning offered for our consideration by others.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free," said Jefferson, "it expects what never was and never will be. . . . The people cannot be safe without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe." Across the Atlantic another passionate believer in reason was thinking about the same time, in almost precisely similar terms. Here is what John Stuart Mill wrote of his father, the utilitarian philosopher, James Mill: "So complete was his reliance upon the influence of reason over the minds of mankind, whenever it is allowed to reach them, that he felt as if all would be gained, if the whole population were able to read, and if all sorts of opinions were allowed to be addressed to them by word or in writing, and if by the sufferage they could nominate a legislature to give effect to the opinions they had adopted." All is safe, all would be gained! Once more we hear the note of eighteenth-century optimism. Jefferson , it is true, was a realist as well as an optimist. He knew by bitter experience that the freedom of the press can be shamefully abused. "Nothing," he declared, "can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper." And yet, he insisted (and we can only agree with him), "within the pale of truth, the press is a noble institution, equally the friend of science and civil liberty." Mass communication, in a word, is neither good nor bad; it is simply a force and, like any other force, it can be used either well or ill. Used in one way, the press, the radio and the cinema are indispensible to the survival of democracy. Used in another way, they are among the most powerful weapons in the dictator's armory. In the field of mass communications as in almost every other field of enterprise, technological progress has hurt the Little Man and helped the Big Man. As lately as fifty years ago, every democratic country could boast a great number of small journals and local newspapers. Thousands of country editors expressed thousands of independent opinions. Somewhere or other almost anybody could get almost anything printed,. Today the press is still legally free; but most of the little papers have disappeared. The cost of wood pulp, of modern printing machinery and of syndicated news is too high for the Little Man. In the totalitarian East there is political censorship, and the media of mass communication are controlled by the State. In the democratic West there is economic censorship and the media of mass communication are controlled by members of the Power Elite. Censorship by rising costs and the concentration of communication power in the hands of a few big concerns is less objectionable than State ownership and government propaganda; but certainly it is not something of which a Jeffersonian democrat could possibly approve.

In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might be true, or it might be false. They did not forsee what in fact has happened, above all in our Western capitalist democracies - the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant. In a word, they failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.

In the past most people never got a chance of fully satisfying this appetite. They might long for distractions, but the distractions were not provided. Christmas came but once a year, feasts were "solemn and rare," there were few readers and very little to read, and the nearest approach to a neighborhood movie theater was the parish church, where the performances, though infrequent, were somewhat monotonous. For conditions even remotely comparable to those now prevailing we must return to imperial Rome, where the populace was kept in good humor by frequent, gratuitous doses of many kinds of entertainment - from poetical dramas to gladitorial fights, from recitations of Virgil to all-out boxing, from concerts to military reviews and public executions. But even in Rome there was nothing like the non-stop distraction now provided by newspapers and magazines, by radio, television and the cinema. In Brave New World non-stop distractions of the most fascinating nature (the feelies, orgy-porgy, centrifugal bumblepuppy) are deliberately used as instruments of policy, for the purpose of preventing people from paying too much attention to the realities of the social and political situation. The other world of religion is different from the other world of entertainment; but they resemble one another in being most decidedly "not of this world." Both are distractions and, if lived in too continuously, both can become, in Marx's phrase, "the opium of the people" and so a threat to freedom. Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in the calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metephysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those who would manipulate and control it.

In their propaganda today's dictators rely for the most part on repetition, supression and rationalization - the repetition of catchwords which they wish to be accepted as true, the supression of facts which they wish to be ignored, the arousal and rationalization of passions which may be used in the interests of the Party or the State. As the art and science of manipulation come to be better understood, the dictators of the future will doubtless learn to combine these techniques with the non-stop distractions which, in the West, are now threatening to drown in a sea of irrelevance the rational propaganda essential to the maintenance of individual liberty and the survival of democratic institutions.

SOURCE: Political Corrections

Armed Police Terrorize School

2006-11-03T19:18:00.000-05:00

(AP) WYOMING, Mich. -- A school safety drill that included police officers in riot gear with weapons has caused concern among some parents who say it was too realistic and frightened some students.

Police in the western Michigan community of Wyoming entered two classrooms at Lee Middle and High School on Thursday and announced there was a threat to the school, The Grand Rapids Press reported.

Students, who were unaware police were conducting a drill, were taken from the classroom into the halls, patted down by officers and asked what they had in their pockets, the newspaper said.

"Some of these kids were so scared, they just about wet their pants," said Marge Bradshaw, a parent with four children in Godfrey-Lee Schools. "I think it's pure wrong that the students and parents were not informed of this."

Officers wore protective gear, including vests and helmets, and carried rifles that were unloaded and marked with colored tape to indicate they were not live weapons, the newspaper said.

Diana Silva, a parent of an eighth-grade student, said the drill went too far.

"My child was with his face to the wall in the hallway of the high school," Silva said. "I certainly don't want anything like this happening to my child."

Principal David Britten said students weren't told ahead of time to make the drill as realistic as possible. Teachers were informed moments before it took place, he said.

"I think this is the best way to do it," Britten said. "We're not looking to scare anyone, but we want a sense of urgency."

But Wyoming Police Chief James Carmody said his officers were not aware students and parents were not told. He said his department will mandate that parents be notified ahead of time in the future.

"The purpose was to show how we will evacuate the classroom, not to assault the classroom," Carmody said.

SOURCE: Seattle Post-Intelligencer

9/11: August 9, 2002

2006-11-03T17:59:00.000-05:00

Is this yet another mighty coincidence involving Warren Buffet and 9/11? Remember that Buffet owns NetJets.

Snip: "An official for NetJets, a company that sells shares in private business aircraft, confirmed that the plane tracking Flight 93 belonged to the company. The official, who asked not to be identified by name, said the company was asked not to comment on the Sept. 11 flight but would not say who made the request. Sept. 11 video, photos might be shown at Moussaoui trial."

In case you weren't aware of it, Buffet has his hands in remote piloting via defense research & development group Mitre Corporation. See above links for more.

The Associated Press

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- Jurors in the trial of accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui will be drawn back to the day of the attacks through videos of the burning and collapsing World Trade Center and family pictures of victims.

The pictures would be augmented by dramatic cockpit voice recordings from United Flight 93, as passengers apparently tried to wrest control of the aircraft from hijackers, prosecutors said Thursday. The plane crashed in Pennsylvania, killing 44, including the attackers.

Additional recordings would be played from the cockpit of an executive jet that tracked Flight 93 on Sept. 11, according to written proposals subject to approval by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema.

"The government intends to introduce relevant portions of the videotapes and photographs during both the guilt and penalty phases to describe the murders at the WTC," the government pleading said.

"This will be particularly important during the penalty phase," when prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty. The government said it would introduce photographs of the victims, numbering more than 2,800 from the World Trade Center alone, to show the jury "who was murdered instead of merely hearing statistics."

Moussaoui is representing himself and will have an opportunity to reply.

Edward MacMahon, part of a court-appointed defense team that remains in the case over Moussaoui's objections, questioned the fairness of the strategy.

"I'm hopeful there's some limitation on how much of this evidence they'll be allowed to be put on," he said in an interview. "The loss is very real and gut-wrenching. But it doesn't change the fact that Moussaoui was in prison Sept. 11 and had been there almost a month."

Moussaoui was taken into custody in August for immigration violations after employees at a Minnesota flight school became suspicious of his conduct.

Prosecutors asked the judge to allow a veteran police detective to introduce photographs and videotapes of the New York attacks, saving the need to call numerous witnesses.

Detective James Wheeler, of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, was at the twin towers when the hijacked planes crashed into them and worked to save himself and rescue others.

The New York images would be especially important in the penalty phase, since the government said it wanted to prove the crime was committed in "an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner in that it involved torture or serious physical abuse to the victims."

The nature of the crime would constitute an "aggravating" factor that could convince a jury to approve the federal death penalty.

The government said it would play the cockpit voice recordings from Flight 93 and the executive jet in open court, but asked Brinkema to keep both recordings and their transcripts from dissemination outside the courtroom.

An official for NetJets, a company that sells shares in private business aircraft, confirmed that the plane tracking Flight 93 belonged to the company.

The official, who asked not to be identified by name, said the company was asked not to comment on the Sept. 11 flight but would not say who made the request.

There were 2,823 people killed in New York on Sept. 11 and 189 at the Pentagon in addition to the 44 on Flight 93.

Meanwhile, Moussaoui's court-appointed lawyers asked Brinkema for a two-month postponement of the Sept. 30 trial date. They said the volume of material turned over by the government makes it impossible to be ready by the original date.

The "standby" lawyers were told by the judge to prepare Moussaoui's defense in case she decides to revoke his right to represent himself.

The latest handwritten motion by Moussaoui, released Thursday, requested access to the "standby" lawyers' secure Internet site, which contains their trial preparation work. The lawyers favor giving Moussaoui access, without allowing him to connect with any other Internet address.

"Grand nanny Leonie Brinkema must order Uncle Sam to leave Moussaoui surf the secure internet," Moussaoui said. "Cave in Afghanistan are not equipped with ... internet connection and laptop so the U.S. government should be able to manage the traffic."

Separately, the government opposed a Moussaoui request for access to classified evidence.

"Restrictions on the dissemination of classified information to an admitted al-Qaida member and avowed jihadist such as the defendant protect both valid national security and public safety interests," the prosecutors said.

Moussaoui has admitted he belongs to al-Qaida but has denied a role in the attacks.

SOURCE: Holland Sentinel