Welcome to SOTT.net. Be sure to bookmark this page - and don't miss our RSS feeds!
Sat, 21 Nov 2009     SuperSearch Help

SOTT Focus


SOTT Focus: Kurt Sonnenfeld - FEMA's WhistleBlower?


Kurt Sonnenfeld
©Unknown
Kurt Sonnenfeld (right) at Ground Zero

As a contract employee for FEMA's Colorado regional branch, 35 year old Kurt Sonnenfeld was dispatched to videotape and photograph the rescue and recovery effort at ground zero in the weeks after the 9/11 attacks. There was no restriction on what Sonnenfeld could film and no documents were signed by him that passed ownership of the footage to FEMA. According to the TVtechnology website, Sonnenfeld was FEMA's Denver-based Region 8 Public Affairs Officer and he worked the site as one of only four FEMA photographers along with FEMA's Denver-based Region 8 Deputy Public Affairs officer Jim Chestnutt.
SOTT Focus: Associated Content Takes Down SOTT Server over "Feminist Perspectives on Natural Childbirth" - Caveat Lector!
Sorry We're Closed
As reported on the SOTT blog earlier today, SOTT.net was shut down due to a legal demand by a gang called "Associated Content". It was sent to the Hotmail account of one of the editors on June 20, which obviously we didn't get since SOTT email is received at sott(at)sott.net. Anyway, this morning we received the following from our server people:
Due to the below email, their is an abuse issue with your server. You have 24hrs to respond on how you will correct this issue before we null route the ip. Further complaints, without action may result in deactivation of your server.

Thanks for your cooperation.
An "abuse issue" in respect of a site that tracks socio-cultural energy and memes? A non-profit organization that disseminates information for research and discussion? Obviously, there is more here than meets the eye! So, let's have a look at the DMCA notice from Associated Content that followed:
Comment: Update! SOTT.net has received an email from Juniper as follows:
Subject: DMCA Nazis and Other Stuff
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:05:46 -0500
From: Juniper ****
To: sott(at)sott.net

Hi There,

I'm a SOTT reader and the author of the article "Feminist Perspectives on Natural Childbirth" that caused the recent brouhaha. I wanted to write to you guys and let you know that I was actually very happy when I saw that SOTT had published one of my articles. I was a little embarrassed since it wasn't one of my best (it was written at 2:00 am with a teething baby in my lap) but I actually had no problem whatsoever with SOTT reprinting the material.

I'm a freelance writer and I write for a number of "credible" sources, but I use AC for Op/Ed pieces, newsy bloggy stuff, and topics that are too political for other sources to publish. Writing for Associated Content is a labor of love-- I get paid all of about $3 per article on average. I really don't care if other sites want to republish my work, especially when they're sites that I support, like SOTT.

I have only had ONE article removed in over a year working as a freelance writer. SOTT links to Ning's removal notification, and to a forum where the members of the site defame me (without having the slightest clue who I am or how much money I don't make). Though SOTT cites that as evidence that I'm "militant" about copyright law, I'm actually not. I had the swine flu article removed from Ning only because it was a very hot topic and the reprint had surpassed my original copy on Google-- costing me about 10,000 pageviews. I get paid by pageviews, not by article, and I'm raising a family of three at well below the poverty line. I only bothered to have that ONE article removed because it was affecting my ability to earn a living.

SOTT's republication of my Natural Childbirth article didn't cost me a dime, because it was never a particularly popular article to begin with -- and because I never expected to make any "real" money on an op/ed piece like that. I really didn't care that it was republished, so please don't make me out to be a DCMA Nazi.

I'm really upset about the fact that SOTT- a website that I visit daily-- would be defaming me just because AC was bullying you guys with copyright law. For the record, I'm actually a fan and frequent reader of SOTT, and I was personally very happy to see that I was republished there.

This has been a lot of mess over an article that I was never even particularly fond of.

Before you defame or attack a writer, please make sure you ACTUALLY know who's looking at the other monitor. It hurts a lot to see a site that I respect call me "militant" about my financial rights, when I am neither militant nor financially well-off. I'm also cringing at the fact that anyone took the people at Ning seriously when they accused me of "profiting enormously" and being a money-grubber because I wasn't happy about losing pay to plagiarism. I've got rent to pay and a family to feed, but I'm by no means militant about DCMA.

You're welcome to republish this email, if you want. I don't want any other SOTT readers to think that I'm opposed to the SOTT's cause.

Cheers, Juniper Russo Tarascio
This information puts additional light on the situation and SOTT sincerely apologizes for any upset we may have caused Ms. Tarascio. What is important to note is the fact that Ms. Tarascio has informed us of the following curious fact:
SOTT's republication of my Natural Childbirth article didn't cost me a dime, because it was never a particularly popular article to begin with
In other words, it was Associated Content's sole decision to take this action in consideration of an article that was not even popular and had been receiving exposure on SOTT since January of 2009. How curious is that?
SOTT Focus: Above Top Secret! Clear Evidence that Flight 77 Hit The Pentagon on 9/11
With so much debate going on over what really happened at the Pentagon on 9/11, and the obvious dire lack of coherent commentators to put and end to it once and for all, I decided that it was high time that I added my own reality-based voice to the debate and, in doing so, allow common sense to finally prevail over the ranting of wild-eyed, missing link type conspiracy theorists and liberals alike.

Despite the countless reams of electronic paper that have been wasted on the inane back and forward over what did or did not happen, the task of showing just what hit the Pentagon could not be easier, which makes it difficult to understand why the debate has lasted so long. If I didn't know better, I might almost think that there was some kind of conspiracy going on. Of course, I DO know better. Conspiracies simply do not exist - except for the small ones, they exist, but the big, scary ones do not, and never have. Everyone knows that.

Anyway, to get to the point. I will present conclusive evidence that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon by way of 10 carefully selected photos that, while they speak for themselves, will be accompanied by some incisive commentary by yours truly.

Let's get started:
SOTT Focus: What are they hiding? Flight 447 and Tunguska Type Events
Air France Flight 447 en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared over the Mid-Atlantic (just north of the equator) at approximately 1.33UTC on June 1st 2009.

No mayday signal was received from the aircraft and almost two weeks later, aviation officials have yet to give a coherent explanation as to what could have caused the sudden demise of a high tech Airbus 330-200 passenger plane.

As usual, the media are missing (or concealing) some very obvious yet understandably disturbing data about the nature of the threats to life on planet earth, and as usual, it is left to Sott.net to spell out the details.
SOTT Focus: Meteorites, Asteroids, and Comets: Damages, Disasters, Injuries, Deaths, and Very Close Calls
Astronomy books and papers far too numerous to cite offer the assurance that "no one has ever been killed by a meteorite." (John S. Lewis, University of Arizona)


comet
©Julian Baum

Over the past few years, while sott.net has been tracking the increasing flux of fireballs and meteorites entering the earth's atmosphere, we have been, by turns, amused and horrified at the ignorant reactions and declarations that issue from academia and the media regarding these incursions. A few years ago, we read that "this is a 'once in a hundred years' event!" Not long after it was a "once in a lifetime" event. Still later, after a lot more incidents it became a "once in a decade" event. More recently, it has been admitted in some quarters that meteorites hit the ground (as opposed to safely burning up in the atmosphere) several times a year! And of course, we have discovered the fact that the governments of our planet are well aware that there are atmospheric explosions from such bodies numerous times a year. We have also learned in this series that the frequent reports of unusual booms and shaking of the ground is often due to such overhead explosions. Yet the media steadfastly refuses to honestly address this issue, though we have noted a plethora of recent articles presenting opposing academic arguments designed to put the populace back to sleep, to reassure them that there is nothing to worry about, that such things only happen every 100,000 years or so, and certainly, the Space Watch Program is going to find all the possible impactors and take care of things.
SOTT Focus: Connecting the Dots: Psychopaths Push Forward With Engineered Chaos, Conquest, War, Famine, and Death
Fire on earth
© Unknown
As an introduction to the current installment of Connecting the Dots, we would like to share something private with you.

It isn't easy to spend several hours in front of the computer every day researching, posting, writing and editing. While it may come as a surprise to some, all Sott editors have lives and other interests that we would gladly attend to if it were not for the time and effort that we choose to dedicate to Sott.net. Certainly it is an often thankless task but we are not looking for praise or adulation. The really heart breaking part of getting up close and personal on a daily basis with the reality of life on planet earth is the realization that, despite our efforts, in the end it will not be enough. At least, it will not be enough until more people choose to make an effort to see the truth of our current world situation (a web of pernicious lies) and make true conscience their guiding light. As one great man said: Humanity neither progresses nor evolves by Nature. One can evolve; humanity cannot, for evolution proceeds only consciously.

And today, as you will see as you read on, we are in desperate need of more people to stand up and make a conscious choice. Because our world is on fire literally and figuratively, and while the fire has burned for many centuries, it is very likely that we will soon reach, and surpass, 'boiling point'. To be brutally honest, there are precious few 'fire exits' left, and if radical action is not taken, and soon, there will be nothing left but ashes and perhaps a few bones for future archeologists to dig up.

We know that, as regular readers, you are aware of how dire the situation is. The problem is that the rest of the population is still sound asleep and largely oblivious of the threat that confronts them. Despite the angst and understanding that we may never reach a wider audience, we still choose to try, because the alternative - to watch the unfolding chaos and do nothing - is too horrifying to contemplate for any person with even half a conscience.

There is a saying that, in order to help others, one must first learn to help oneself. Working on SOTT has had and continues to have profound effects on us, the editors, on many levels. We can only hope that the fruits of our effort are helpful to you the reader also and may assist you to reach a deeper understanding of our reality and the problems we face, and perhaps make a conscious choice to do something to safeguard your own future and that of your children.

For our part, we promise that we will do everything in our power to continue to be the lighthouse.

And so, without further ado;
SOTT Focus: Dick Cheney - Tortured Evidence
Like most normal people, by the 100th day of the Obama administration I had hoped that Bush-era freaks like Dick Cheney would have respectfully withdrawn from public view and ultimately (and ideally) ended up parked in an old people's home where staff would joyfully beat them twice a day. But alas, like a recurring nightmare, Mr. Cheney at least seems unwilling to spare us his disturbing presence just yet.

Reading his recent rants on Obama's (now reversed) plans to release more prisoner abuse photos and roll back illegal wiretapping and close Gitmo etc, we get the impression that behind Cheney's anger lies fear (I'm generously presuming that there actually is something more to old snarly face than pure primal anger). But what could provoke fear in man whose idea of private conflict resolution is to try and blow your face off with his shotgun?

While Dick is undoubtedly frustrated at the thought of an end to the vicarious pleasure he surely derives from his personal (if indirect) involvement in the waterboarding, sodomising or plain ol' beating to death of innocent people, not to mention an end to his personal assassination squad, the many degrees of separation between an order from the office of the VP and the 'enhanced interrogation' room where the 'fun' takes place ensure that Cheney need not fear any jail time for his 'enhanced misdemeanors' (especially under the increasingly pusillanimous Obama aka 'Judas Goat').
SOTT Focus: Big Brother Digest: May 2017 - Technology Predictions Made in 2009 - Were They Right?
brain shock
© unknown
Eight years ago, in May 2009 MSNBC published a series of articles predicting what the world would look like in 2017. Their subheading was "Rapid pace of technology will mean wrenching changes in just a decade". 'Wrenching' changes have indeed occurred but the reality now is that the major changes our world has witnessed have been less due to technological change than to the Wars over diminishing food and water resources, the virus pandemic, cosmic bombardment and the global centralisation of economic conditions to solve the greater Depression.

In 2009 what seemed like relatively insignificant political and technological developments turned out to be the green shoots of today's Biological Environmental and Technological Convergence (BETC) Revolution. The development of Quantum nanotechnology storage systems enabled Governments to store massive amount of data on every type of communication between individuals. Every VMS (Voice Message System), call, video link, search, browse, in fact every single data transfer is stored, mined, assigned, matched and under the BETC Government control.

This author is one of many who managed to continue writing as the blogosphere removed the anonymity that citizens (now referred to as dissidents, militants, insurgents and terrorists) used to spread their warnings on the negative potential of the new revolution. Through biometric advances, having a unique CP (Citizen Protocol) address assigned to every individual regardless of the device they are interacting with, took time to get used to. I myself am one warning away from having my editing rights removed completely. Rather like the French 3 strikes law that saw the formation of initially a "new State agency [and later Global agency] that sent illegal file-sharers a warning e-mail, then a letter, and finally cut off their connection for a year if they were caught a third time."

How did we let it happen?
SOTT Focus: Book Review: The High Strangeness of Dimensions, Densities, and the Process of Alien Abduction
High Strangeness 2nd Ed Cover
Editor's note: This review is of the revised second edition of Laura Knight-Jadczyk's High Strangeness. It includes new material, a new foreword, and is now available from QFGPublishing.com, RedPillPress.com, and RedPillPress.co.uk!

It's sad but true that most people don't like inconvenient realities to upset their pleasant illusions and prejudices. I see this all the time in my own daily interactions with people. Once someone reaches a point in his or her life when they feel they "understand" the world well enough - often around the age of thirty - they spend the rest of their life filling in the blanks of what they think they already know. It's a tendency that usually becomes more extreme over time. Ideas and worldviews seem to harden in tandem with the arteries.

The friends people make, television shows they watch, the internet sites they visit - the very world they create for themselves - all of these usually support the circumscribed worldview they themselves have adopted.

Obviously, it's the same with books. It's a rare book that has the ability to truly change one's mind about the world. Rarest of all are those gems with the ability to change one's life.

Laura Knight-Jadczyk's The High Strangeness of Dimensions, Densities, and the Process of Alien Abduction is such a book.
SOTT Focus: Connecting the Dots: A Pandemic Distracts as the World Government Picks a Fight
Mexican soldiers
© Notimex
Soldiers on the street and panic in the air. Are you familiar with it yet?
Batten down the hatches, grab your flimsy face mask!

Just as Sott.net editors were putting the finishing touches to the April's edition of 'Connecting the Dots' (a fairly standard month as months go here on the BBM), within the last five days the world has been brought to the brink (of what we are not quite sure) by something called "Swine Flu". At least, that's the impression you get when reading recent headlines. But as Sott.net readers know, there is always more to these episodes of mass hysteria than meets the eye!

Look further back into the month and you will see enough clues to figure out the nature of what we may safely call a World Government. Pay attention to details in the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere, and you may distinguish manufactured social and political conflicts. Consider it all within the context of Mother Nature's mysteries. Indeed, there is much to comment about this month. But, in the spirit of traditional journalism, let's start with the major headlines...

   

49,731 people have viewed this page since Wed, 13 Dec 2006

A Course in Knowledge and Being
NEW! Available now!
Éiriú Eolas

Featured Book:

The Wave Book 7 - Almost Human

NEW! Available Now!

Pentagon Strike logo
Over 1 BILLION Served!


Disease logo

PICTURE OF THE DAY

QFG Bookstore: The Future is an Open Book

Donate to SOTT.net
Donate once - or every month!
Click here to learn how you can help!

Signs on You Tube

Boycott Israeli products

911 Ultimate Truth

Promote SOTT

Gulf Stream Watch

Gulf Stream Watch

Ark's Quantum Quirks

wife
Balance in all things is necessary