- Signs of the Times for Mon, 31 Jul 2006 -

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'They saw a Samaritan carrying a lamb and going to Judea. [Jesus] said to his disciples, "Why is he carrying the lamb around?" They said to him, "So that he may kill it and eat it." He said to them, "He will not eat it while it is alive, but only after it has been killed and has become a carcass." They said, "it cannot happen any other way." He said to them, "So also with you: seek a place of rest for yourselves, that you may not become a carcass and be eaten." Gospel of Thomas

Lately there's been a lot of "rah rah" activity among the "Reopen 911" folks; at the same time, there's been a whole lot of infighting and flaming. Gerard Holmgren and Rosalee Grable AKA Webfairy, are insisting that there were no planes at ALL involved in 911 - that it was all manufactured imagery via various technologies - and at the same time, they and a coterie of their fans (fan is short for fanatic) are going after Prof. Steven Jones because he is not given them full credit for coming up with the idea that the World Trade Center Towers (and Building 7) were brought down by Controlled Demolition. The reason I know about all this is because somehow, I got included on a list of 911 people a couple of weeks ago (it started with a debate being promoted by APFN, I believe and, like Topsy, just "grew and grew"), and at a certain point, I just could no longer keep silent at the nonsense that was flying back and forth, being passed off as logic and reason.

Trying to bring the light of measured discourse and calm reflection to this group was pretty much like waving a red flag at a bull. I was actually quite shocked. Individuals whose writings I had long considered to be quite good, if not superior, revealed themselves to be little more than ego driven wannabes. After a few days of exchanges, providing referenced material for discussion, and being flamed by such luminaries as Holmgren, Grable and (surprise!) Alex Constantine, I realized that it is really, really true: the 911 Movement is co-opted to the very core, and probably always has been.

In any event, most of the rancor seemed to be due to the fact the Professor Steven Jones of BYU - who isolated a patented thermite, Thermate, from samples of the WTC metals - is not acknowledging Homgren and Grable for being the first to think up the idea that the WTC and Building 7 were brought down by Controlled Demolition. And now, Prof. Jones is going on television, getting fan mail, and basically revelling in his 15 minutes of fame (according to Holmgren and Grable) while, horror of horrors, Jones and the rest of the 911 Scholars completely diss the idea that there were NO PLANES at all involved in 911. This is, as it happens, the new pet theory of Holmgren and Grable.

So, Professor Jones and the other 911 Scholars MUST be agents of the government, claim Holmgren and Grable. In fact, anybody who says there were any planes at all involved in 911 must be COINTELPRO. And definitely, anybody who suggests an Israeli involvement in 911 are COINTELPRO.

Meanwhile, Alex "Jarhead" Jones has moved up the media ladder and managed to get the whole show covered by C-Span after his big splash with the 911 Conference a month or so ago. This, of course, DOES raise a whole new set of questions. Why? Well, that's an interesting kettle of fish. As it happens, Jones is closely associated with Jeff Rense who has been revealed to be a pathological liar and associated with known COINTELPRO agents - and I mean known by personal experience.

So, go ahead and watch the Alex Jones "911 Scholars Symposium" and then come back and read the rest of my remarks (unless you have already seen it).

Back so soon?

Okay, let's continue. As you probably noticed, Alex is an irritating and bombastic guy... kind of like a cross between Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh with a heavy overlay of fundamentalist preacher. It's probably for those very reasons that he was able to pull together such a symposium and also why he has been graduated to a new network recently. And it may have something to do with the fact that C-Span has now decided to carry the show and even show it several times over a period of days.

Hmmm... what is UP with that?!

I'm not the only one wondering. Lisa Guliani of Wing TV wrote and asked me a pretty straightforward question

When do you ever see true enemies promote one another?

Alex Jones and others in the "alternative media", "patriot community and 9- 11 truth circles" supposedly consider the mainstream media such as C-Span, FOX News, NBC, ABC, CBS, etc.. as the ENEMY. Jones says this so often (at least in the past) that it is almost like a refrain.

American Free press newspaper even did a story awhile back using this as the headline: The Media is the Enemy.

Are these entities - Alex Jones and the Zionist controlled media - truly enemies? Or is this yet another trap that is being set?

Well, since she put it that way, yeah... it IS a puzzlement. My first thought was a particular part of the Protocols of the Pathocrats where it says:

PROTOCOL No. 12 Control of the Press

[...]

We shall deal with the press in the following way: what is the part played by the press to-day? It serves to excite and inflame those passions which are needed for our purpose or else it serves selfish ends of parties. It is often vapid, unjust, mendacious, and the majority of the public have not the slightest idea what ends the press really serves. We shall saddle and bridle it with a tight curb: we shall do the same also with all productions of the printing press, for where would be the sense of getting rid of the attacks of the press if we remain targets for pamphlets and books? [...]

No one shall with impunity lay a finger on the aureole of our government infallibility. The pretext for stopping any publication will be the alleged plea that it is agitating the public mind without occasion or justification.

I BEG YOU TO NOTE THAT AMONG THOSE MAKING ATTACKS UPON US WILL ALSO BE ORGANS ESTABLISHED BY US, BUT THEY WILL ATTACK EXCLUSIVELY POINTS THAT WE HAVE PRE-DETERMINED TO ALTER.

NOT A SINGLE ANNOUNCEMENT WILL REACH THE PUBLIC WITHOUT OUR CONTROL. Even now this is already being attained by us inasmuch as all news items are received by a few agencies, in whose offices they are focused from all parts of the world. These agencies will then be already entirely ours and will give publicity only to what we dictate to them.

If already now we have contrived to possess ourselves of the minds of the [normal human]communities to such an extent the they all come near looking upon the events of the world through the colored glasses of those spectacles we are setting astride their noses.[...]

Literature and journalism are two of the most important educative forces, and therefore our government will become proprietor of the majority of the journals. This will neutralize the injurious influence of the privately-owned press and will put us in possession of a tremendous influence upon the public mind .... If we give permits for ten journals, we shall ourselves found thirty, and so on in the same proportion. This, however, must in no wise be suspected by the public. For which reason all journals published by us will be of the most opposite, in appearance, tendencies and opinions, thereby creating confidence in us and bringing over to us quite unsuspicious opponents, who will thus fall into our trap and be rendered harmless.

In the front rank will stand organs of an official character. They will always stand guard over our interests, and therefore their influence will be comparatively insignificant.

In the second rank will be the semi-official organs, whose part it will be to attack the tepid and indifferent.

In the third rank we shall set up our own, to all appearance, opposition, which, in at least one of its organs, will present what looks like the very antipodes to us. Our real opponents at heart will accept this simulated opposition as their own and will show us their cards.

All our newspapers will be of all possible complexions -- aristocratic, republican, revolutionary, even anarchical - for so long, of course, as the constitution exists .... Like the Indian idol "Vishnu" they will have a hundred hands, and every one of them will have a finger on any one of the public opinions as required. When a pulse quickens these hands will lead opinion in the direction of our aims, for an excited patient loses all power of judgment and easily yields to suggestion. Those fools who will think they are repeating the opinion of a newspaper of their own camp will be repeating our opinion or any opinion that seems desirable for us. In the vain belief that they are following the organ of their party they will, in fact, follow the flag which we hang out for them.

In order to direct our newspaper militia in this sense we must take special and minute care in organizing this matter. Under the title of central department of the press we shall institute literary gatherings at which our agents will without attracting attention issue the orders and watchwords of the day. By discussing and controverting, but always superficially, without touching the essence of the matter, our organs will carry on a sham fight fusillade with the official newspapers solely for the purpose of giving occasion for us to express ourselves more fully than could well be done from the outset in official announcements, whenever, of course, that is to our advantage.

THESE ATTACKS UPON US WILL ALSO SERVE ANOTHER PURPOSE, NAMELY, THAT OUR SUBJECTS WILL BE CONVINCED TO THE EXISTENCE OF FULL FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND SO GIVE OUR AGENTS AN OCCASION TO AFFIRM THAT ALL ORGANS WHICH OPPOSE US ARE EMPTY BABBLERS, since they are incapable of finding any substantial objections to our orders.

Methods of organization like these, imperceptible to the public eye but absolutely sure, are the best calculated to succeed in bringing the attention and the confidence of the public to the side of our government. Thanks to such methods we shall be in a position as from time to time may be required, to excite or to tranquillize the public mind on political questions, to persuade or to confuse, printing now truth, now lies, facts or their contradictions, according as they may be well or ill received, always very cautiously feeling our ground before stepping upon it .... WE SHALL HAVE A SURE TRIUMPH OVER OUR OPPONENTS SINCE THEY WILL NOT HAVE AT THEIR DISPOSITION ORGANS OF THE PRESS IN WHICH THEY CAN GIVE FULL AND FINAL EXPRESSION TO THEIR VIEWS owing to the aforesaid methods of dealing with the press. We shall not even need to refute them except very superficially.

Trial shots like these, fired by us in the third rank of our press, in case of need, will be energetically refuted by us in our semi-official organs. [...]

As I have noted on several occasions, it was only AFTER the release of the QFG Pentagon Strike Flash Animation on August 23rd, 2004, that a veritable onslaught of news articles were published that sought to dismiss the "no plane at the Pentagon" theory. But never, EVER, in any of these debunking pieces was our website (quite popular by numerical standards, I should add) EVER mentioned.

As Joe wrote in his Flying Fish article:

We notice that very few items of so-called "conspiracy theory" have rattled the "Bushes" quite like our Pentagon Strike Flash did. The Pentagon Strike video came out on August 23rd 2004. Probably nobody really noticed it at that point, but it hit a chord of response in the hearts of millions of people around the world. They began to madly download and forward it to their friends and relatives. Latest stats on how many people have viewed it to date are 500 million!

Apparently it even landed in the email box of the Editor of the Washington Post, which is why Carol Morello sent us an email asking for an interview. Or so she said. My suspicion was that the Post was instructed to do "damage control", albeit oh, so gently!

Now, look at this mini-timeline:

August 23rd 2004: Pentagon Strike Video which propagates wildly for a month.

September 11, 2004: CatHerder post to Above Top Secret forum debunking the Pentagon Flash.

September 21st 2004: First contact by Carol Morello of the Washington Post

October 7th 2004: Washington Post article

It was an interesting feeling to know that if they hadn't seen the Pentagon Strike before, certainly George and Dick, Karl and the gang were watching it after the Washington Post wrote an article about it.

October 19th 2004: George Bush visits New Port Richey - a previously unscheduled "whistle-stop" on his campaign trail. NPR is very small, not likely to be a major target of any presidential candidate, but it just happens to be Laura Knight-Jadczyk's hometown. It was our initial reaction that Dubya's visit to Laura's little home town - certainly of no importance on the campaign trail - was deliberately done to send a message to her. Fact is, her daughter's ex-boyfriend wrote to tell her that he had been among those selected to shake the hand of George W. himself! Now, how's that for a coincidence?

As to exactly what Carol Morello of the Washington Post wrote to Laura, here is the pertinent passage which is actually quite revealing:

A couple of editors here saw the video/film, and I was asked to find out what I could about it. As you can imagine, we continue to have an intense interest on the attack on the Pentagon and the people who were affected.

I've just begun reporting, so it would be premature to tell you what "perspective" my story would have.

My initial impressions are that the questions and theories expressed in the video got a spurt of attention in early 2002, after the publication of a best selling book in France, then the furor died down for a while, and now they have re-emerged with the extraordinarily wide dissemination of this video on the Internet.

The 911 Commission report appears to have done little to dampen the controversy. I hoped to speak to you about how and why you posted it on your web site, what kind of response you've received and what you think about it. [?]

Notice that she attributes the resurgence of interest in the "Pentagate" problem to the Pentagon Strike video. Can we say "damage control"?

And if there is damage control, then that means there is damage.

Up to this point in time, the only acknowledgement the administration ever gave to such issues was to refer vaguely and dismissively to "conspiracy theories". Now, suddenly, it seems that dealing with the "conspiracy theories" in a direct manner was seen to be imperative. "9/11: Debunking the Myths" came out in Popular Mechanics Magazine in March of 2005, just five months after the Washington Post article. That's pretty fast work. [...]

So far, we have been generous to the people at Popular Mechanics. We have assumed that they are simply well-intentioned but misguided souls. However, it appears that there is a more sinister, and dare we say it, "conspiratorial" side to Popular Mechanics' "innocent" debunking of 9/11 conspiracy theories. You see, it turns out that one of the main contributors to the article is one Benjamin Chertoff, a cousin of the new Dept. of Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff.

American Free Press' Christopher Bollyn, who dug up the information, also claims that Ben Chertoff's mother was a Mossad agent. While there is, as of yet, no evidence of any working relationship between the two, it is certainly noteworthy that the cousin of the current Homeland Security Chief, (who, in his previous incarnation as head of the Justice Department's criminal division was instrumental in the release of obvious Israeli spies before and after 9/11), happens to be behind a high-profile attempt to debunk 9/11 conspiracy theories.

So if you happen to stop by the sorry article in question, don't be fooled or intimidated by the word "science" in big bold letters on the Popular Mechanics page. [...]

According to another 9/11 researcher:

"The editors of Scientific American followed in the footsteps of Popular Mechanics in exploiting a trusted brand in order to protect the perpetrators of the mass murder of 9/11/01. The column by Michael Shermer in the June, 2005 issue of Scientific American, titled Fahrenheit 2777, is an attempt to deceive the magazine's readers into dismissing the overwhelming evidence that 9/11 was an inside job without ever looking at that evidence. More specifically, Shermer attempts to inoculate readers against looking at the decidedly scientific refutation of the official story? [?]

Shermer's column exhibits many of the same propaganda techniques as the ambitious feature article in the March issue of Popular Mechanics by Benjamin Chertoff, for which Shermer professes admiration:

'The single best debunking of this conspiratorial codswallop is in the March issue of Popular Mechanics, which provides an exhaustive point-by-point analysis of the most prevalent claims.'

Comparing the two attack pieces is instructive. Both pieces mention a similar range of issues, with Shermer adding Jewish conspiracy rumors and UFOlogists to the mix...

This last is undoubtedly a direct reference to Signs of The Times, while avoiding giving a direct link to our website out of fear that the reader might be influenced.

Shermer uses an array of deceptive methods to persuade the reader that challenges to the official story of the 9/11 attack are worthy only of ridicule and should not be scrutinized. His primary technique is to use hoaxes and unscientific ideas to "bracket" the valid ideas that he seeks to shield the reader from.

That Shermer went to such great lengths to thoroughly misrepresent the painstaking, scientific, evidence-based work of many researchers is a testament to the success of the Pentagon Strike Video! It really stepped on a sore toe. And that tells us something important, the same thing Carol Morello of the Washington Post wrote:

"the questions and theories expressed in the video got a spurt of attention in early 2002, after the publication of a best selling book in France, then the furor died down for a while, and now they have re-emerged with the extraordinarily wide dissemination of this video on the Internet."

We notice that never, in any of the two major "debunking" articles that followed fast on the heels of the Pentagon Strike video, was the video ever even mentioned by name, nor was our website mentioned. Other books, other researchers, other web sites were mentioned, but the deliberate avoidance of Signs of The Times - the origin of the Pentagon Strike, was conspicuous. We notice the same trend in the Above Top Secret forum.

Again we point out: debunkers are sent in only when damage control is needed. And damage control is only needed when it is thought that there might be damage. That means that the Pentagon Strike is understood clearly, in the minds of the perpetrators, to be the weak link in their chain of lies.

Now, in a certain sense, I understand why many of the alternative news sites that carried the Pentagon Strike did not link back to its source of origin; after all, we do get into some - shall we say - unusual things. But it was surprising that the mainstream media debunkers did not ONCE mention SOTT... because they could so easily have utilized our more "esoteric research" to ridicule us.

But they didn't. And that is very revealing when you consider the Alex Jones Dog and Pony Show and what it propagates.

So, back to the 911 Scholars Symposium. I was watching and listening to the four guys... Steve Jones, Bowman, Tarpley, and Fetzer, and each of them were good in different ways.   Fetzer was impassioned from his depths, I think, and Tarpley had a lot of info at his "neuron tips," and Prof. Jones was just bemused and really kind of out of his natural environment and it showed.  He acted like a kid who has discovered a new toy and doesn't realize it is a loaded gun with the safety off. Bowman was politicking - maybe he's sincere, I don't know.

Anyway, combined, they did produce a strong impression that might sway a lot of people to their view which includes arresting Bush and the whole gang for treason.  Bowman even says that if he is elected to congress, he'll make it an issue "on the hill." 

So, the question is, of course, why are they being allowed to have even a toe in the door? 

That was my first question and as I was listening to all of them pat themselves on the back that they were NOW getting a lot of attention, that people were opening up and seeing the truth, and it was just a matter of time before the whole thing blows wide open, I could only think: You don't know what you are dealing with.  Facing down psychopaths isn't going to be that easy. 

For example, they are all talking big about arresting the Neocon gang en masse and "taking back the government."

Okay, try to imagine the steps by which this might be done.

Go ahead... think!

The first thing is: who is going to do it?

Alex Jones? Webster Tarpley? A group of 911 researchers?

Do you think that, if they had the remotest chance of doing such a thing that they would be allowed to leave their houses on the day they plan to execute said warrant in anything other than a bodybag?

I mean, get real!

Oh, they'll have "back-up" you say.

Who, pray tell, is going to back the fearless 911 gang with plans to arrest the President and most of Congress? A gang of NRA aficionados armed to the teeth? What do you think will happen?

Come on now, think! Think ARMY vs. rabble with hunting rifles and maybe an odd AK 47 here and there.

And even if you did manage to actually take the perps into custody, who is going to try the case and before what judge that hasn't been bought and paid for by the Neocons?

Picture the scenario: a group of U.S. citizens band together and start REALLY pushing to go after Bush and Cheney...

Can you give me a script here? I'm having a hard time getting beyond the idea that all of them would be immediately arrested as "enemy combatants".

So now it is time to have a peek at some of the reality - the context in which this Alex Jones Dog and Pony show is being set up.

First:

Shield sought for US personnel from 1996 war crimes act

Charges feared in detainee cases

By R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post | July 28, 2006

WASHINGTON -- An obscure law approved by a Republican-controlled Congress a decade ago has made the Bush administration nervous that officials and troops involved in handling detainee matters might be accused of committing war crimes and prosecuted in US courts.

Senior officials have responded by drafting legislation that would grant US personnel involved in the terrorism fight new protections against prosecution for past violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996. That law criminalizes violations of the Geneva Conventions governing conduct in war and threatens the death penalty if US-held detainees die in custody from abusive treatment.

In light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that said international conventions apply to the treatment of such detainees, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has spoken privately with Republican lawmakers about the need for such protections, according to someone who heard his remarks last week.

Gonzales told the lawmakers that a shield was needed for actions taken by US

personnel under a 2002 presidential order, which the Supreme Court declared illegal, and under Justice Department legal opinions that have been withdrawn under fire, the source said. A spokeswoman for Gonzales, Tasia Scolinos, declined to comment on Gonzales's remarks.

Language in the administration's draft, which was prepared by officials in the Justice and Defense departments, seeks to protect US personnel by ruling out detainee lawsuits to enforce Geneva protections and by making US enforcement of the War Crimes Act subject to US -- not foreign -- understandings of what the Conventions require.

The aim, Justice Department lawyers say, is also to take advantage of US legal precedents that limit sanctions to conduct that "shocks the conscience." This phrase allows the courts to consider the context in which abusive treatment occurs, such as an urgent need for information, the lawyers say -- even though the Geneva prohibitions are absolute.

Now, read this next one - this ought to shiver your timbers:

Bush Submits New Terror Detainee Bill

By Anne Plummer Flaherty
The Associated Press
 Friday 28 July 2006

Washington - U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill.

 A 32-page draft measure is intended to authorize the Pentagon's tribunal system, established shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks to detain and prosecute detainees captured in the war on terror. The tribunal system was thrown out last month by the Supreme Court.

 Administration officials, who declined to comment on the draft, said the proposal was still under discussion and no final decisions had been made.

 Senior officials are expected to discuss a final proposal before the Senate Armed Services Committee next Wednesday.

 According to the draft, the military would be allowed to detain all "enemy combatants" until hostilities cease. The bill defines enemy combatants as anyone "engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners who has committed an act that violates the law of war and this statute."

 Legal experts said Friday that such language is dangerously broad and could authorize the military to detain indefinitely U.S. citizens who had only tenuous ties to terror networks like al Qaeda.

"That's the big question ... the definition of who can be detained," said Martin Lederman, a law professor at Georgetown University who posted a copy of the bill to a Web blog.

 Scott L. Silliman, a retired Air Force Judge Advocate, said the broad definition of enemy combatants is alarming because a U.S. citizen loosely suspected of terror ties would lose access to a civilian court - and all the rights that come with it. Administration officials have said they want to establish a secret court to try enemy combatants that factor in realities of the battlefield and would protect classified information.

 The administration's proposal, as considered at one point during discussions, would toss out several legal rights common in civilian and military courts, including barring hearsay evidence, guaranteeing "speedy trials" and granting a defendant access to evidence. The proposal also would allow defendants to be barred from their own trial and likely allow the submission of coerced testimony.

 Senior Republican lawmakers have said they were briefed on the general discussions and have some concerns but are awaiting a final proposal before commenting on specifics.

 Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England are expected to discuss the proposal in an open hearing next Wednesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Military lawyers also are scheduled to testify Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

 The legislation is the administration's response to a June 29 Supreme Court decision, which concluded the Pentagon could not prosecute military detainees using secret tribunals established soon after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The court ruled the tribunals were not authorized by law and violated treaty obligations under the Geneva Conventions, which established many international laws for warfare.

 The landmark court decision countered long-held assertions by the Bush administration that the president did not need permission from Congress to prosecute "enemy combatants" captured in the war on terror and that al Qaeda members were not subject to Geneva Convention protections because of their unconventional status.

 "In a time of ongoing armed conflict, it is neither practicable nor appropriate for enemy combatants like al Qaeda terrorists to be tried like American citizens in federal courts or courts-martial," the proposal states.

 The draft proposal contends that an existing law - passed by the Senate last year after exhaustive negotiations between the White House and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. - that bans cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment should "fully satisfy" the nation's obligations under the Geneva Conventions.

 Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Friday he expects to take up the detainee legislation in September.

Now, we already know that the Neocon/Zionist consortium has control of Congress. No matter how many questions or doubts they say they have about this bill, they will roll over and pass this legislation. In fact, any discussion at all is just for show. We know that already because we have seen it happen again and again.

Now, consider what Paul Craig Roberts wrote about Bush's illegal spying...

Bush's acts of illegal domestic spying are gratuitous because there are no valid reasons for Bush to illegally spy. The Foreign Intelligence Services Act gives Bush all the power he needs to spy on terrorist suspects. All the administration is required to do is to apply to a secret FISA court for warrants. The Act permits the administration to spy first and then apply for a warrant, should time be of the essence. The problem is that Bush has totally ignored the law and the court.

Why would President Bush ignore the law and the FISA court? It is certainly not because the court in its three decades of existence was uncooperative. According to attorney Martin Garbus (New York Observer, 12-28-05), the secret court has issued more warrants than all federal district judges combined, only once denying a warrant.

Why, then, has the administration created another scandal for itself on top of the WMD, torture, hurricane, and illegal detention scandals?

There are two possible reasons.

One reason is that the Bush administration is being used to concentrate power in the executive. The old conservative movement, which honors the separation of powers, has been swept away. Its place has been taken by a neoconservative movement that worships executive power.

The other reason is that ** the Bush administration could not go to the FISA secret court for warrants because it was not spying for legitimate reasons and, therefore, had to keep the court in the dark about its activities. **

What might these illegitimate reasons be? Could it be that the Bush administration used the spy apparatus of the US government in order to influence the outcome of the presidential election?

Could we attribute the feebleness of the Democrats as an opposition party to information obtained through illegal spying that would subject them to blackmail?

When Roberts suggests

"What might these illegitimate reasons be? Could it be that the Bush administration used the spy apparatus of the US government in order to influence the outcome of the presidential election? "

... he doesn't really go the full distance.

What if the illegal spying is to gain complete control of government and judiciary? Everybody has dirty laundry, and if you have that information, you can control about anything. The only people you can't control are those who are "clean" and we can guess from the way things are going in the U.S. and UK, just about everybody is "dirty."

Americans turned out in record numbers to vote in the last election. They NEVER do that unless they are unhappy with the status quo. The exit polls and evidence of vote tampering suggests strongly that Bush did not win the election... (which is not to say that Kerry was any better choice!)

So, not only do they have control of congress and the judiciary, they also control the votes... As Stalin said, it's not who votes that counts, it's who counts the votes. And with control of congress and the judiciary AND the support of the Israeli owned media, there is NO possibility of them being made accountable for ANY of their crimes.

So, considering the cards that the Neocons are holding in terms of illegal spying, I think we need to be realistic and understand that even the next election is not going to change anything.

Oh, they may make a show of running Jeb Bush for president, or even some dark horse we don't know about. But with the controls this cabal has already, there is ZERO possibility of fundamental change in course.

And that means that all those folks getting up and speaking out about 911 may very well be the first to be rounded up as enemy combatants under Bush's new law once it is passed.

In the third rank we shall set up our own, to all appearance, opposition, which, in at least one of its organs, will present what looks like the very antipodes to us. Our real opponents at heart will accept this simulated opposition as their own and will show us their cards...

When a pulse quickens these hands will lead opinion in the direction of our aims, for an excited patient loses all power of judgment and easily yields to suggestion. Those fools who will think they are repeating the opinion of a newspaper of their own camp will be repeating our opinion or any opinion that seems desirable for us. In the vain belief that they are following the organ of their party they will, in fact, follow the flag which we hang out for them. ...

The first rule of warfare is: KNOW your enemy and the whole 911 crowd is so focused on their theories, blinded by their egos, and unaware of the larger context in which 911 must be placed that they are little more than sheep being led to the slaughter by the Pied Pipers of the "Third Rank Alternative Press" and 911 Truth organizations - people like Alex Jones, Jeff Rense, Gerard Holmgren, Rosalee Grable, Alex Constantine, and their associates and fans.

'They saw a Samaritan carrying a lamb and going to Judea. [Jesus] said to his disciples, "Why is he carrying the lamb around?" They said to him, "So that he may kill it and eat it." He said to them, "He will not eat it while it is alive, but only after it has been killed and has become a carcass." They said, "it cannot happen any other way." He said to them, "So also with you: seek a place of rest for yourselves, that you may not become a carcass and be eaten." Gospel of Thomas

Some days I feel like Cassandra...

"I think it would be a mistake to ascribe moral equivalence to civilians who die as the direct result of malicious terrorist acts, [and those who died because of] Israel's military action." John Bolton, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations

"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defense Forces of a U.N. Observer post in southern Lebanon," Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-general

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for the good people to do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797) British statesman

The list of war crimes and of crimes against humanity perpetrated by the government of Israel is very long and getting longer by the day.

The last series of crimes took place when Israel, a country of 6 million people, bombed the population of Lebanon, in mid-July 2006, using artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon, a more or less defenseless country of 3.8 million people. It is well known that cluster munitions cannot be used in populated areas without huge loss of civilian life. The organization Human Rights Watch believes that the use of cluster munitions in populated areas may violate the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks contained in international humanitarian law. Also, Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud has accused Israel of using phosphorous bombs and laser bombs against civilians and children, in its attacks against Lebanon.

In Lebanon, Israeli military forces have been bombing villages, homes, apartment buildings, bridges, highways, -firing at buses and ambulances and at Red Cross medics, and even deliberately murdering United Nations observers, in a demonstrable example of disproportionate and criminal use of military force.

No argument of self-defense could ever be evoked to justify such widespread killing and destruction. The right of self-defense does not allow a country to use the pretext of small border skirmishes to launch an all-out asymmetrical war of aggression against a weaker country. This was the argument used by Nazi Germany to attack other countries, such as Norway and Poland, in the late 1930's.

That argument was rejected by the Nuremberg Tribunal, which proclaimed anew the 1837 Caroline Clause of international law, that reserves the right of self-defense only to situations when the requirements of self-defense are "overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation," and the act of self-defense "must be limited by that necessity, and kept clearly within it." In order words, the exercise of the right of self-defense must meet the double test of urgent necessity, i.e. when there is an impossibility of negotiations and other methods to resolve a conflict, and of proportionality, i.e the military means deployed must be proportional to the pending threat.

Nevertheless, contrary to all evidence, the U. S. Congress, in an obvious move to circumvent the U.S. Arms Export Control Act which makes it an obligation for foreign countries receiving weapons from the U. S. to use them solely for defensive purposes or to maintain internal security, voted a resolution, on July 20, 2006, proclaiming that Israel was using weapons for "defensive purposes." In the Senate, the vote was unanimous; in the House, the vote was 410 to 8.

At Nuremberg, in 1946, the American government, through its chief prosecutor, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, took the following position: "Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions." In other words, a war of aggression is never permissible under international law. [By the way, such observations also apply to the Bush-Cheney administration and its war of aggression in Iraq. This is a question that I will cover in a special article next week.]

As recently as 1981, the United States government, under President Ronald Reagan, reaffirmed its commitment to international law and to the validity of the Caroline Clause as a firmly established element of international law. Indeed, on June 7, 1981, when Israel launched a strike against Iraq's Tamuz 1 reactor that was under construction, this was an example of an unlawful act of preventive war, forbidden by the Caroline Clause. On June 19, 1981, with American support, Resolution 487 of the U.N. Security Council was adopted unanimously. It condemned Israel because it considered that its unilateral move endangered peace and was contrary to international law, besides being a clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations. The fact that the Bush-Cheney administration does not follow in President Reagan's footsteps, and has condoned the Olmert's government decision to bomb and invade Lebanon indicates how extreme and lawless the current American administration is.

The United Nations Charter has also incorporated this jurisprudence about international self-defense, in its article 51, which affirms a country's "inherent right of individual or collective self-defense" against a major armed attack, but only until the Security Council has taken measures to restore peace and security. In other words, under traditional international law (Caroline Clause), under the standard of the Nuremberg Tribunal and under the U. N. Charter, the right of self-defense cannot be used as a pretext to launch an unlimited open war against another country. The argument used by the Olmert Israeli government to launch a war of destruction against the sovereign country of Lebanon, after a relatively minor border skirmish, is a red herring that would most likely be rejected by a court of law.

Because of all of this, allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity against the Israeli government are serious and cannot be dismissed out of hand. They are numerous, well-documented and very compelling. It is a fair assessment that Israeli leadership could be brought before an international tribunal and accused of violating international law and humanitarian law. Indeed, articles 48, 51 and 57 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions make it a crime to carry indiscriminate attacks against a civilian population. That is precisely what the Israeli government has done against the civilian population of Lebanon, resulting in as many as 600 civilian deaths, one third of them children.

In Gaza, the Israeli army has also destroyed power stations and has imposed a blockade on the civilian population, depriving them of the means of subsistence. In other words, Israel has turned Gaza into an open-sky prison for its inhabitants. In Lebanon, the Israeli army has pummeled the civilian airport of Beirut, and destroyed roads, bridges, power and water supply stations all over the country. Both instances represent deliberate destruction of civilian economic infrastructures and are in direct violation of article 54 of the 1977 additions to the Geneva Conventions and are considered war crimes.

Moreover, let us keep in mind that Israel is a repeat delinquent in its propensity to attack and kill civilians. -That worsens its case. For example, on April 18, 1996, the Israeli government of Shimon Peres launched rockets and bombs on a United Nations camp, in Cana, a village located southeast of the Lebanese city of Tyre, killing 106 people, and injuring 116, among them four United Nations soldiers seriously hurt. Incredibly, Cana is the same Lebanese village that the Israelis destroyed a second time, on Sunday, July 30, 2006, slaughtering 56 people, at least 34 of them children. -In 1996, this was no accident as it was no accident either in 2006. In both cases, the world was witnessing murderous crimes against humanity.

History repeats itself. -In 1996, after U.N. Secretary-General B. Boutros-Ghali said he was shocked and horrified at Israel's shelling of the United Nations post, the Bill Clinton administration rebuked him. Soon afterwards, the Clinton administration made it known that it opposed the reelection of Boutros-Ghali for a second term. -In 2006, the Bush-Cheney administration blocked a U. N. resolution of blame against Israel for its killing in Lebanon. In fact, both George W. Bush and Ehud Olmert laughed at U. N. Secretary General Kofi Annan when he called for a stop to the killing. Now that Mr. Annan has denounced the recent acts of Israeli rampage, it is to be expected that the Bush-Cheney administration will do its utmost to undermine his authority,.

Regarding these more recent Israeli killings of civilians in Lebanon, the U. N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and former Canadian Supreme Court Justice, Louise Arbour, has said: "... under international criminal law, [those responsible] may incur personal criminal responsibility for these actions." -But, as a law professor put it, "In my opinion, yes, there appear to have been war crimes committed [in Lebanon] related to civilians, but the reality is there won't be any prosecutions." Indeed, neither Israel nor Lebanon is a party to the new International Criminal Court and it is improbable that the U. N. Security Council would exercise its power to refer cases to it because of the expected opposition and veto of the United States. Indeed, the American government has been complicit to Israel's war crimes for a very long time, using its veto at the U. N. countless times.

That is the crux of the problem with international law: How to indict and punish the guilty parties of barbaric crimes against humanity, when they are in power?

On the one hand, it is obvious that those who plan and carry out acts of so-called stateless terrorism, that result in the killing of civilians are criminals who should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, once they are caught. The fact that such terrorists belong to illegal organizations and often hide in remote areas, should not place them out of reach of the law. On the other hand, it is also true that when established states engage in state terrorism and start murdering civilians, their leaders can be more easily identified and could ultimately be brought to justice.

It was easy to do so at the Nuremberg trials, for instance, because the Germans and the Japanese had been defeated and their leaders were in prison. But, what if the alleged war criminals are not in prison and are rather heavily armed, as it is clearly the case with Israeli politicians and generals? Moreover, what about a situation where they are protected and shielded from prosecution by powerful interests, such as the case with the Bush-Cheney administration when it protects Israeli politicians and military personnel from international prosecution?

Well, the world is not completely at the mercy of war criminals. The international community could begin by ostracizing the countries that have alleged war criminals as leaders, if such countries refuse to indict and judge them. Indeed, it has been proposed many times that countries or rogue states whose leaders do not respect any international standard of morality and who engage in crimes against humanity should be suspended or even excluded from the United Nations. At the very least, the General Assembly should pass a vote of blame against any country systematically violating the basic principles contained in the U. N. Charter, the principles contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or who engage in repeated violations of international and humanitarian law.

In the case of Israel, its very admission into the United Nations on May 11, 1949 (General Assembly resolution 273), was conditional to its respect of the obligations contained in the U. N. Charter and to its fulfillment of U. N. Resolution 194 of December 11, 1948, which calls for the Palestinian refugees to be able to return to their homes or be justly compensated.

In reality, the United Nations-and international law for that matter-have been paralyzed by article 27 of the U. N. Charter which creates a permanent right of veto for a few countries, a privilege that has been used and abused by some to prevent the U. N. from ensuring that the principles of its Charter be respected by its own members. -Article 27 of the U. N. Charter is an important source of instability and lawlessness in the world.

In its present form, the United Nations is in no position to exclude those countries that are guilty of not respecting its principles. Moreover, the absolute veto clause for some countries is responsible for the inability of the U. N. Security Council to take necessary and concrete measures "to maintain international peace and security," as called for in Article 51 of the U. N. Charter. -As human affairs go, however, the world would probably have to suffer a great cataclysm before proceeding with the needed reform of the world body and the establishment of a truly effective international criminal system.

Rodrigue Tremblay is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@ yahoo.com.

He is the author of the book 'The New American Empire'.

Visit his blog site at: www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.

Author's Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com

Gold closed at 646.40 dollars an ounce on Friday, up 4.1% from $621.20 at the end of the previous week. The dollar closed at 0.7837 euros Friday, down 0.5% from 0.7877 for the week. That puts the euro at 1.2760 dollars compared to 1.2695 at the previous week's close. Gold in euros would be 506.58 euros an ounce, up 3.5% from 489.33 for the week. Oil closed at 73.36 dollars a barrel, down 1.5% from $74.43 at the end of the previous week. Oil in euros would be 57.49 euros a barrel, down 2.0% from 58.63 for the week. The gold/oil ratio closed at 8.81 Friday, up 5.5% from 8.35 at the previous Friday's close. In U.S. stocks, the Dow closed at 11,219.70 Friday, up 3.2% from 10,876.71 for the week. The NASDAQ closed at 2,094.14 up 3.6% from 2,021.68 at the end of the week before. In U.S. interest rates, the yield on the ten-year U.S. Treasury note closed at 4.99%, down five basis points from 5.04 for the week.

Another week where a fading superpower with a decaying infrastructure, in thrall to a racist settler state, attempted to extricate itself from two losing wars by starting World War III. Again, we see that the markets have not really registered the significance of recent events but are reacting instead to short-term macroeconomic factors. So far the markets have ignored the massive war crimes ordered by criminal psychopaths in power in the United States, Israel and Great Britain. The dollar fell, but not by much, and did so out of the feeling that the Federal Reserve Board is less likely to raise interest rates. Gold rose, but it is still lower than it was two weeks ago.

My guess is that the players in the oil, gold, and currency markets do not yet know how this all is going to play out. Let's help them: Israel and the United States have already lost the war in Lebanon by the flagrant slaughter of innocent civilians, just as the United States lost the Afghan war when they bombed the first village. It may take time for events to play themselves out, but the war is lost. Israel and the United States no longer have any moral authority whatsoever (as hard as it may be to imagine now, at one point those countries did have some moral authority in the eyes of the world). And, the United States has run out of money. A currency collapse followed by a sharp drop in power cannot be far behind.

Indeed, if the professional investors won't read the writing on the wall, it seems that the average consumer can. Oddly, that just provided stock investors with an excuse to buy. That is rational behavior for short term traders, but the indications of stagflation do not bode well for longer term stock prices:

Wary consumers snuff 2Q economic growth

By Jeannine Aversa, AP Economics Writer
Fri Jul 28, 4:47 PM ET

The economy throttled back in the second quarter as consumers and companies turned cautious amid surging energy prices. Wall Street rallied on the hope that a break in two years of interest-rate pain may be in sight.

The nation's gross domestic product advanced at an annual rate of just 2.5 percent in the April-to-June period, less than half the pace of the previous three months, according to Friday's economic snapshot released by the Commerce Department.

The first quarter's lively 5.6 percent growth rate - the fastest in 2 1/2 years - reflected energetic spending and investment by people and businesses alike.

But in the second quarter, Americans felt the pinch of $3-a-gallon gasoline prices and higher interest rates.

"This expansion is getting a little frayed around the edges because of consumer exhaustion," said economist Ken Mayland of ClearView Economics. "Consumers are losing that extra mojo to spend" now that the slowing housing market is making people feel less wealthy, he said.

Still, stocks shot up. The Dow Jones industrials gained 119.27 points to close at 11,219.70. That helped the index post its best weekly point gain since May 2005.

Spending on home building nose-dived in the second quarter, contributing to the slowdown in GDP, which measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States.

The second-quarter's performance - weaker than the 3 percent growth rate analysts were forecasting - marked the slowest pace since the final quarter of 2005. That's when the economy, suffering fallout from the devastating Gulf Coast hurricanes, expanded at a feeble 1.8 percent pace.

Even though the economy cooled in the second quarter, inflation heated up.

An inflation gauge closely watched by the Federal Reserve showed that core prices - excluding food and energy - advanced at a 2.9 percent pace in the second quarter - far outside the Fed's comfort zone. That was up from a 2.1 percent growth rate in the first quarter and marked the highest inflation reading since the third quarter of 1994, when core inflation rose at a 3.2 percent pace.

The inflation reading was taken before the latest run-up in energy prices. Oil prices, which had hit a record high in late April, soared to a new closing high of $77.03 a barrel in the middle of July.

In a separate report mined for inflation clues, the Labor Department said employers' costs to hire and retain workers climbed 0.9 percent in the second quarter, up from a 0.6 percent advance in the prior quarter.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress last week that he is concerned about rising inflation, but he also said that the Fed believes moderating economic activity will eventually lessen inflation pressures.

Given that assessment, Wall Street investors and some economists believe the Fed might take a breather in its two-year-old rate-raising campaign at its next meeting, on Aug. 8.

Some economists, however, continue to predict that rates will be boosted again at the August meeting to ward off rising inflation; after that, they think the Fed may move to the sidelines.

"This whole situation creates even more of a dilemma for Bernanke, who has to weigh the clearly slowing economy against accelerating and now uncomfortably high inflation," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com.

On the one hand, the Fed doesn't want to hoist rates too much and cripple the economy; on the other hand, it doesn't want to take a respite too soon and let inflation get out of control.

The downshift in economic growth comes as President Bush is getting low marks from the public for his economic stewardship.

Consumers, a major force shaping overall economic activity, had a smaller appetite for spending in the second quarter. They boosted spending at just a 2.5 percent pace, down from a 4.8 percent growth rate in the first quarter. Much of that weakness reflected cutbacks on big-ticket goods such as cars.

Businesses also tightened the belt.

Spending on home building fell at a 6.3 percent pace in the second quarter, the deepest dip in nearly six years. Rising mortgage rates are clipping demand.

Businesses sliced spending on equipment and software at a 1 percent pace, the first cut in just over three years.

The government also issued annual revisions that showed the economy grew at an average annual rate of 3.2 percent from 2003 through 2005, or 0.3 percentage point less than previously estimated.

The news in the U.S. housing market was bad last week:

Foundations of US housing market start to look shaky

Claire Gallen, AFP
Sun Jul 30, 6:20 PM ET

Not so long ago in parts of the United States, new homes were often sold before their foundations could be laid.

But the home boom is now showing clear signs of waning -- and analysts say that has worrying implications for consumer spending in the world's largest economy.

Most economists agree that housing demand is likely to slow further in coming months, after recent interest rate hikes and soaring energy prices. But few are predicting the abrupt bursting of an overly inflated bubble.

In the past week, a government report highlighted that the number of unsold new homes on sale across the country swelled to a record high of 566,000 last month.

And on Friday, an International Monetary Fund report said that US property prices were "overvalued", just one of the headaches facing Federal Reserve policymakers.

Homeowners have benefited from double-digit annual rises in their property values to go on a credit-fuelled spending splurge. But now the picture is changing.

"Many individuals, who signed a (purchase) contract in what they had believed was a booming housing market, may now be backing out of those contracts," said Phillip Neuhart, an economic analyst at Wachovia Securities.

"Thus, the new home market is likely weaker than new home sales reflects," he said.

Home builders report that sellers are going as far as giving away cars, free kitchen upgrades and holidays to lure reluctant buyers.

The Commerce Department on Thursday said sales of new US homes declined three percent in June to a weaker-than-anticipated annualized rate of 1.131 million units.

News of the latest sales downturn, and the record number of new homes that are languishing unsold, followed an industry report Wednesday that showed existing home sales fell 1.3 percent in June.

On Friday, the government said that US economic growth slowed to just 2.5 percent in the three months to June as consumers turned nervous in the face of sky-high fuel prices and the cooling property market.

Economists are divided on whether the Fed will raise interest rates further at its August 8 policy meeting, but agree that 17 straight hikes of its key fed funds rate have squeezed the home market and buyers' enthusiasm.

The rate has now gone up to 5.25 percent, adding to the pain for more recent home buyers who took out interest-rate-only mortgages in their rush to get on the property ladder.

University of Maryland business professor Peter Morici said that "recession risks remain real and apparent".

"With the housing market cooling, consumers are no longer able to use the equity in their homes to finance ever-larger purchases of clothes, electronics and other goods and services," he said.

Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors observed that the number of homes on the market is up an "astounding" 39 percent since June 2005.

"From the huge jump in the housing inventory, it appears that anyone who has any hope of getting out has put their home on the market," he said.

Even housing market representatives say that sellers are no longer commanding the handsome premiums of recent years, as prospective buyers take longer to sign on the dotted line.

"Relative to the five-year housing boom, this year is a buyers' market in much of the country," observed David Lereah, the chief economist of the National Association of Realtors.

The government's latest figures support Lereah's outlook, but prices still remain stratospheric in some hot urban areas.

The median price for a new home fell 1.6 percent last month to 231,300 dollars from May. But buyers in New York, San Francisco and Washington would be lucky to find a family home for sale at double that price tag.

The increasing pessimism of the general public, fueled in part by high fuel prices and a shaky housing market, cannot be good for the economy. This pessimism is no doubt also fed by the frightening news out of the Middle East. It also may be fed by the unmistakable signs of global warming recently, including record high temperatures throughout the northern hemisphere and more severe storms with much higher rainfall. Fears of the consequences of climate change are exacerbated by the decaying social and material infrastructure in the United States.

Record heat, violent storms beleaguer US cities
150,000 in St. Louis still without power

By Cezar Komorovsky and Debra Watson
26 July 2006

Record-breaking heat continues in widespread areas of the contiguous United States, which, combined in many cases with official neglect and mismanagement, has produced considerable misery and social disruption. Power outages and lack of air-conditioning have led to deaths in several cities.

Unusually high temperatures in the US have forced thousands without air conditioning to flock to makeshift cooling centers to avoid the soaring temperatures. Twenty-nine deaths have been attributed to the heat wave in recent days. Seven deaths have occurred in Chicago, mostly among the chronically ill and elderly. One elderly man's death in northern California was attributed to an air conditioning failure in the nursing home where he lived.

Four people died in St. Louis, Missouri after heavy rainstorms last week multiplied the debilitating effects of a heat wave that has gripped the metropolis.
A fifth victim in the St. Louis area, utility worker Robert Tackett, was electrocuted July 25 in a city suburb when he walked into brush where a live wire was hidden. Tackett, 56, a 13-year veteran at AmerenUE, who was working on restoring power to the more than 100,000 people still without electricity in the area, was killed instantly. Also on Tuesday, a contract worker with Kansas City-based Par Electric came into contact with an energized line in north St. Louis County. Hospitalized, he was expected to recover.

Every major metropolitan area west of the Rocky Mountains experienced record heat over the weekend. Phoenix, Arizona hit 114 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius) and Los Angeles 101 degrees (38C), while temperatures in Woodland Hills, California - a Los Angeles suburb - reached 119 degrees (48C) on Saturday. Rolling blackouts are expected in California as demand for electricity spikes. The National Weather Service has issued a new excessive heat warning for California, with temperatures predicted to reach 111 degrees (44C).

Wildfires, fueled by the dry, hot conditions, continue to rage in a number of areas, particularly in rural parts of San Diego County in southern California and in the Tonto National Forest in Arizona, east of Phoenix. Fires have already devastated over 4.9 million acres in the US in 2006, considerably more than the 10-year annual average of 2.7 million acres. The National Interagency Fire Center reported July 24 that this fire season was on pace to be the worst of the decade.

Eastern cities have not escaped major power outages. Thousands of homes and businesses in the New York City borough of Queens have been without electricity for more than a week. (See "The Queens blackout: the brutal human costs of Con Ed's drive for profit").

St. Louis, in the country's mid-section, has been hardest hit by power outages. Nearly a week after summer storms punctuated a severe heat wave, some 150,000 residents were still without power Monday, out of a metropolitan area population of approximately two million people. The city has been declared a federal disaster area, and the governor has called out the National Guard.

The storms July 19 and July 21 did more than impact the electrical grid. Many homes, businesses, streets and roadways were damaged or covered in debris. Heavy rains, powerful winds of up to 80 miles per hour and lightning left behind neighborhoods with damaged buildings and houses due to fallen trees and branches, giving the appearance in certain areas of a war zone.

The first storm knocked out power to more than 500,000 Ameren customers; the second storm affected 200,000, including many whose power had barely been restored.

The storms compounded the effects of the already deadly heat on area residents. Temperatures in the St. Louis area have been hovering around or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Temperatures for the year are above normal and are expected to remain so for the rest of the week, reaching the 90s until at least Friday.

Hospitals and nursing homes were evacuated the day after the first storm. On July 20, St. Louis City firefighters evacuated about a hundred senior citizens from an assisted living complex. The residents had been without power throughout the previous night. But scores of other frail individuals were simply left to fend for themselves, unable to get to one of only two shelters or 14 cooling centers available in the city. One family that stayed in their home suffered carbon monoxide poisoning from running a generator inside their home in the blacked-out city.

By July 21 many streets and subdivisions in St. Louis County appeared abandoned, as residents took shelter in the South County Mall and other nearby shops. Many store parking lots were near capacity by noon, and long lines of cars and trucks congested gas stations.

St. Louis, the 17th largest metropolitan area in the US and the third largest in the Midwest, has a poverty rate of nearly 21 percent. The official (and underestimated) unemployment rate is 10 percent. Those with the worst health complications disproportionately fall into the ranks of the poor, without financial means to remedy their situation, or even to avoid a weather-related disaster. The social chasm renders precarious the lives of large numbers of people living in poverty.

On Monday Ameren officials were dismissive of residents' desperate pleas for help. The utility company spokesperson said customers should have expected to wait three to five days for power to be restored.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch's web site noted, "While many customers without power remain hopping mad, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt offered only mild, if any, criticism of Ameren at a news conference Monday."

"They're under a lot of pressure. They'll remain under pressure to restore power," Blunt told the media. "We'll worry about any sort of after-action after power's been restored to everybody that was impacted." He added, "No response is perfect." Republican Senator Jim Talent also praised Ameren's recovery efforts.

The mayor of Bethalto, Illinois, however, across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, called for an inquiry into Ameren's prioritizing of its efforts to restore power. Mayor Steve Bryant told the media that residents of his town weren't seeing Ameren trucks, and that on Monday morning, three-quarters of Bethalto residents were still without power.

In a nice touch, Ameren had applied to the Missouri Public Service Commission July 7 for an increase in basic rates for electric service. The filing included a proposed average increase in electric rates of 17.7 percent, with a limit on the increase to residential rates of 10 percent.

In St. Louis proper, with a population of 350,000, chaos was evident as last week's storms progressed. On the night of July 19, after the first storm hit, angry residents lined up at the few open gas stations. People scrambled for ice and drinks or anything else they might use to stay cool. Ice remains in short supply nearly a week after the blackout began. "Gas prices are going through the roof. Nobody's got electricity. There's not a single bag of ice in there. It's like the end of the world," resident James Burkett told the Post-Dispatch on Saturday.

While heat took the lives of two of the storm's victims, one death associated with the storms was attributed to a downed power line in a public housing complex in impoverished East St. Louis, Illinois on the morning of July 20. Chester Chapman, 50, was electrocuted while walking from his home in the complex to a nearby vocational school, according to St. Clair County Coroner Rick Stone.

The mayor of Cahokia, Illinois said at least 50 homes had trees on them. Without power in the city on Saturday, the sewage treatment plant was affected.

Many of the storm and heat-related problems in the Midwest, where tornadoes and thunderstorms are common, could be averted if efforts were made to replace antiquated above-ground power lines with an underground system, thus ensuring their safety in violent storms.

The United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is getting a good start in preparing for this year's hurricane season by instituting cuts in future emergency payments to disaster victims:

US: FEMA slashes emergency assistance for future disaster victims
Family payments to be cut from $2,000 to $500

By Kate Randall
28 July 2006

In addition, states are being asked to foot 25 percent of the bill for the emergency cash, which will only be provided after an affected state signs off on the program. Other changes include more stringent identification of recipients and direct payment of emergency hotel and rental fees to property owners.

Payments to evacuees will no longer be made via debit cards, which FEMA says created conditions for fraud, but will made either by check, direct deposit to recipients' bank accounts or in cash. The new guidelines take effect immediately.
The cuts are being justified by FEMA as an effort to curb abuse of aid by disaster victims. A Congressional audit of the emergency funds distributed last year following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita estimated that $600 million to $1.4 billion of the $5.4 billion in assistance may have been based on fraudulent, inaccurate or improper claims. FEMA's response to the alleged abuse is to punish future disaster victims, as well as further burden the budgets of states still reeling from the effects of last year's catastrophe.

FEMA director R. David Paulison, who took over after the resignation of former head Michael Brown, heavily criticized for his miserable performance following last year's storms, expressed the federal government's disregard for the effect the changes will have on future hurricane victims. "This is still going to be a compassionate organization," he stated. "We simply have to do a better job of protecting the tax dollar."

Paulison maintained that the cutbacks should not seriously affect evacuees, and that the money is only intended as a "stopgap" measure in any case. He further added - echoing the Bush administration's perpetual promotion of "personal responsibility" - "When they have a lot of money, the temptation out there is to spend it.... When they receive a small amount at first, they will spend it on what they really need."

While acknowledging that large households would receive the same amount as smaller ones, he dismissed suggestions that the funds would not be distributed equitably and said that provisions existed for dispersal of additional payments under extreme circumstances.

David Garrett, FEMA director of recovery, in response to criticisms of the cuts, commented that the funds are not intended to cover the cost of shelter, but are for emergency needs such as food, clothing and fuel. "Very few people need $2,000 to take care of those expenses for a week," he claimed arrogantly. Critics have pointed out that tens of thousands of Katrina evacuees were displaced for weeks on end and lost everything. For a family of any size under these conditions, $2,000 is a small amount to cover such necessities.

The proposal for states to pay 25 percent of these emergency financial payments was met with widespread opposition by state authorities, particularly in Louisiana, the state hardest hit by Katrina. In 2005, the federal government paid all of the $1.5 billion in expedited assistance for Louisiana evacuees. Under the new regulations, the state would have had to pay $375 million.

A month and a half into the 2006 hurricane season, the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has announced an overhaul in core disaster relief programs. The biggest change is a sharp cut in emergency cash assistance to families, which will be slashed under the new rules from the $2,000 previously allowed per household to $500.

The FEMA overhaul was also not discussed with state officials in advance, but presented as a fait accompli. Mark Smith of the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, commented, "Historically, FEMA doesn't make major changes until it's at least talked to the states and tried to assess the impact. That hasn't been done yet, and these changes need to be stopped in their tracks."

FEMA officials have shrugged off such criticism from the state governments. Director Paulison reiterated that if the states were unwilling to commit to contribute a quarter of the funds, they would not get anything. "It's their citizens," he said during a news conference at FEMA headquarters. "If they don't agree to it, we won't do it."

Mark Smith countered in a comment quoted in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, "If a catastrophic event like Katrina hits a poor state like Alabama, Mississippi or Louisiana, they most assuredly won't be able to pay and the people will suffer. They are citizens of their states, but they are also citizens of the United States. Is [Paulison] saying the federal government will turn its back on its citizens, its taxpayers?"

Under the new rules, states will also not be reimbursed for the entire cost of debris cleanup done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The new rate will be either 75 percent or 90 percent of the total cost.

Other aid-program changes involve more careful identification of aid recipients. FEMA will begin registering people for assistance before a storm makes landfall, entering their names into the agency's database to check their information. FEMA has contracted with ChoicePoint, a national data broker, to assist in recipient identification.

ChoicePoint does not come to the project with a distinguished record. Last year the company announced that it had mistakenly sold personal data on 145,000 people to identity thieves, and was fined $15 million by the Federal Trade Commission. Any mistakes in ChoicePoint's cross referencing could result in legitimate victims being denied aid.

All these reasons for consumer pessimism put the U.S. Federal Reserve Board in a terrible position. They need to raise interest rates in order to prevent a wholesale currency collapse in the world's reserve currency. But to continue to do so will destroy the engine of world economic growth: the borrow-and-spend habits of the U.S. population. Here's Gary Dorsch:

The Fed's Dilemma, Defend the US Dollar or US Home Prices

A slowdown in the US housing market is thought to have been a big reason why US retail sales fell 0.1% in June. Re-sales of single-family homes fell 1.5% in May to an annual rate of 5.82 million. Buyers are discouraged by 30-year mortgage rates that rose to 6.71% last week, the highest since May 2002. The supply of existing homes rose 5.5% to 3.6 million units or 6.5 months' worth at the end of May.

Up to 40% of US home loans were of non-traditional types such as adjustable rate and no-money-down mortgages in 2005. "Some people will soon be faced with adjustable rate loans re-pricing under less favorable conditions," said Chicago Fed chief Michael on May 18th. Another Fed rate hike to 5.50%, would put a greater crunch on Americans who are borrowing more and saving less to support their shopping habits. The US personal saving rate as a percentage of disposable income, slipped to a negative 1.7% in May.

Housing accounted for a third of total US growth and about half of private payroll jobs created since 2001. Fed data shows home price appreciation helped add $5.2 trillion to consumers' balance sheets during the current expansion, or 68% of all wealth creation. So further rate hikes by the Fed to fight inflation carries a big risk of tipping the US economy into an outright recession.

The last three Fed rate rates under Bernanke's watch, were initiated in defiance of an inverted yield curve, and did tremendous damage to US homebuilder shares. Fed officials have downplayed the predictive powers of the yield curve, and have pressed on with the rate hike campaign to defend the US dollar from speculative attack, and to contain surging gold and commodity prices. But after a 50% correction in the DJ Homebuilder index from record highs in August 2005, bargain hunters are sifting through the rubble of the once high-flying US housing sector.

As for the Fed's next move on August 8th, the odds favor a pause in the rate hike campaign at 5.25%. Politics is becoming a key consideration now. A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll on June 27th, showed by a 65% to 22% margin, that Americans oppose another rate increase by the Fed, worried about the value of their homes, and rising mortgage payments on variable loans. Therefore, the politically correct modus of operandi is to maintain a steady fed funds rate at 5.25% in August.

Interestingly, Dorsch claims that the recent stabilization of gold prices are evidence that traders believe that the Israeli invasion of Lebanon will not spread to Syria or Iran:

Gold has been on a wild rollercoaster ride this year, mostly tracking the direction of global stock markets for real-time clues about the health of the global economy and inflationary pressures. With the initial outbreak of war between Hezbollah and Israel, gold detached itself from the MSCI World index in mid-July, with the yellow metal moving higher, while global stock markets were tumbling lower.

After peaking at $675 on July 17th however, the fortunes of gold and the MSCI world index reversed, with gold sinking to as low as $600 /oz, and global stock markets rebounding higher. The reversal of fortunes was based on the perception that the Lebanon war won't spread to Iran and Syria. After all the see-sawing, both gold and the MSCI World stock index have moved back into alignment. At other times, gold has tracked crude oil prices, blurring the focus of gold traders.

According to Dorsch, oil prices are where to look for reaction to the new round of destabilization of the Middle East:

Crude Oil and the Middle East Powder-keg

Bernanke is playing a dangerous poker hand by gambling on steady oil prices. Crude oil has entered into un-chartered territory, with prices climbing above psychological barriers, such as $50, $60, and $70 per barrel, then establishing these levels as a base of support, before mounting rallies into higher ground. Markets don't trade in a straight line, they usually move up and down within a trend. Crude oil has been marching higher in an orderly fashion since the US conquest of Iraq, fueled by a razor thin difference between global supply and demand.

One wonders at the confidence of the traders that the war won't spread to Syria and Iran. The neocons in the United States and Israel have been telling everyone who will listen that they plan to overthrow the regimes in Syria and Iran, and so far they have been able to implement every step of their plans, even when the previous steps have seemingly failed.

The following video gives an insight into the extreme brutality and disregard for innocent human life shown by the Israeli government. A must see...

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.