Today's conditions brought to you by the Bush Junta -
marionettes of their hyperdimensional puppet masters - Produced and
Directed by the CIA, based on an original script by Henry
Kissinger, with a cast of billions.... The "Greatest Shew on
Earth," no doubt, and if you don't have a good sense of humor,
don't read this page! It is designed to reveal the "unseen."
If you can't stand the heat of Objective Reality, get out of the
kitchen!
The
material presented in the linked articles does not necessarily reflect
the views or opinions of the editors. Research on your own and if you
can validate any of the articles, or if you discover deception and/or
an obvious agenda, we will appreciate if you drop us a line! We often
post such comments along with the article synopses for the benefit of
other readers. As always, Caveat Lector!
(Bookmark
whatsnew link! In
case site is down, info will be there!)
NOTE:
After a brief experiment with the blog format, we have decided to return
to our old way of producing the page. We had been interested in finding
a way to get others more easily involved, as a means of taking some of
the work off of our shoulders so that we could start doing other projects.
Well...after ten days,
we have seen that it was this way of working, a small group together in
a room for long hours pouring over the news, that gives the page its unique
character. There are no shortcuts.
The
final years of civilization as we know it promise to be exciting. In
the years since Bush and cronies stole the last US presidential election,
the road to chaos has been steamrollered and paved. Down that road at
full throttle have come, internally in the US, the Patriot Act, which
has abridged many rights that Americans had considered as fundamental
and a theocracy where the Constitution of the United States takes a
back seat to the Bible. In foreign policy, well, it amounts to do as
we say or we'll bomb the hell out of you or use trade sanctions.
Maneuvers
to impose full control over civilian populations are being implemented.
The clampdown on free expression has started. Of course, all of these
draconian measures are being imposed under the name of defending liberties.
And
clearly, if they are going to want to impose as close to total control
as possible, they are going to need to restrict the movement of money
and the means people have to earn a living outside of "accepted
channels."
We
use the service PayPal to collect payment on orders of our books, cups,
and t-shirts, as well as a means of accepting donations from people
who wish to support our work.
The
following arrived yesterday:
Date
sent: Tue, 04 May 2004 06:02:43 -0700
From: service@intl.paypal.com
To: ***@cassiopaea.com
Subject: Notification of Limited Account Access
Dear
Arkadiusz Jadczyk,
We regret
to inform you that your PayPal account has been limited for violating
the Offensive Material Acceptable Use Policy. PayPal, at its sole
discretion, prohibits the sale of items which graphically portray
violence or victims of violence, and lack substantial social, artistic
or political value.
The policy
related to this issue is listed at the following
URL.
In order
to reinstate your account, please either remove the graphic violence
or products, or remove PayPal as a payment option from your website.
Then, complete the on-line check list that appears on your PayPal
account. Please note that disagreement with the Acceptable Use Policy
is not an appeal.
Please
understand that enforcement of our policies is not reflective of seller
status or volume of sales. This action has been taken only after careful
consideration of the severity of the violation, or your accounts history
of previous offenses for this violation. We have reviewed each offense
to verify that the correct action was taken by PayPal at the time.
If you
have any questions, please email us at aup@paypal.com
We thank
you in advance for your cooperation.
Sincerely,
PayPal Compliance Department
---------
Please
do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered.
All of the information necessary to restore your account access is
available on the PayPal website. For assistance, log in to your PayPal
account and choose the "Help" link in the header of any
page.
---------
PayPal
Email ID PP519
---------
PayPal
(Europe) Limited is authorized and regulated by the Financial Services
Authority in the United Kingdom as an electronic money institution.
In
other words, PayPal has frozen our account.
Their
excuse: their policy "prohibits the sale of items which graphically
portray violence or victims of violence, and lack substantial social,
artistic or political value."
We
tried contacting PayPal to find out which of our products or pages was
the offensive item. They were unable to give us the answer. The woman
who answered the phone read out the same blurb as in the email. When
we asked for the specific items or pages, she informed us that she was
not privy to that information. She told us to send in the appropriate
form on their web site.
This
we did, but having now done some research on PayPal, we are not confident
that we shall we be hearing from them any time soon. Apparently, PayPal
freezes the accounts of 2000 of its customers every day, as this story
from a disgruntled former PayPal user discusses:
It
turns out that we did hear from PayPal after all. The following
e-mail arrived yesterday:
Date sent:
Tue, 18 May 2004 19:28:10 -0700
From: service@paypal.com
To: ***@cassiopaea.com
Subject: Notification of Limited Account Access
Dear Laura
Jadczyk,
The PayPal
User Agreement states that PayPal, at its sole discretion, reserves
the right to close an account for any violation of the User Agreement,
including the Acceptable Use Policy. Under the Acceptable Use Policy,
PayPal may not be used in the sale of items or support of organizations
that promote hate, violence, or racial intolerance. This includes pictures
showing victims of violence. The complete Acceptable Use Policy addressing
Offensive Material can be found at the following
URL.
Due to
the violation of PayPal's Acceptable Use Policy, your account will be
closed. If you have a remaining balance, we will be issuing this to
you by check. Please be sure that your account information is accurate,
as PayPal cannot be held responsible for incorrect information provided
by the account holder.
Please
note that accounts found in violation of PayPal's Offensive Material
Policy will not be reinstated. Enforcement of our policies is not reflective
of seller status or volume of sales. This action has been taken only
after careful consideration and have reviewed each offense to verify
that the correct action was taken by PayPal at the time.
You will
need to remove all references to PayPal from your website(s) and/or
auction(s). This includes not only removing PayPal as a payment option,
but also the PayPal shopping cart and logo. We thank you in advance
for your cooperation. If you have any questions, please contact the
PayPal Compliance Department at aup@paypal.com.
Sincerely,
PayPal Compliance Department
PayPal, an Ebay Company
---------
Please
do not reply to this e-mail. Mail sent to this address cannot be answered.
All of the information necessary to restore your account access is available
on the PayPal website. For assistance, log in to your PayPal account
and choose the "Help" link in the header of any page.
---------
PayPal
Email ID PP520
---------
We
also received a link to the The
Free Network Project web site from a QFS member. It seems that Paypal
has been very busy freezing the accounts of sites that it deems inappropriate:
17th
May, 2004 :Paypal suspends Freenet
donations account
Paypal
has frozen the account we use to accept donations over the web, they
refuse to give any reason other than "use of an anonymous proxy",
which suggests that someone at Paypal took a dislike to the goals of
our project, since I have never used an anonymous proxy to access Paypal
(this being the activity I assume they sought to prevent). It is fortunate
that Johann Gutenberg did not rely on Paypal to fund his work on the
printing press, which also allowed anonymous publication of information,
since his account would probably have been frozen too.
If you
are concerned about whether your account might be at risk due to your
political opinions you may wish to speak to their PR contact Hani Durzy
at (408) 376 7458. If you are an investor and you would like to see
what other political opinions Paypal doesn't like, you may want to speak
to their Investor contact Tracey Ford at (408) 376 7205.
They have
said that they will refund our outstanding balance ($550) by check,
but all of the projects subscriptions have been canceled which is a
significant setback. Other means of accepting donations, including E-Gold,
are still active. Anyone wishing to make a donation by check should
email me directly. Unfortunately neither of these methods are as convenient
as Paypal, but we will do our best to find an alternative ASAP.
What
is Freenet?
Freenet
is free software which lets you publish and obtain information on the
Internet without fear of censorship. To achieve this
freedom, the network is entirely decentralized and publishers and consumers
of information are anonymous. Without anonymity there can never be true
freedom of speech, and without decentralization the network will be
vulnerable to attack.
Communications
by Freenet nodes are encrypted and are "routed-through" other
nodes to make it extremely difficult to determine who is requesting
the information and what its content is.
Users contribute
to the network by giving bandwidth and a portion of their hard drive
(called the "data store") for storing files. Unlike other
peer-to-peer file sharing networks, Freenet does not let the user control
what is stored in the data store. Instead, files are kept or deleted
depending on how popular they are, with the least popular being discarded
to make way for newer or more popular content. Files in the data store
are encrypted to reduce the likelihood of prosecution by persons wishing
to censor Freenet content.
The network
can be used in a number of different ways and isn't restricted to just
sharing files like other peer-to-peer networks. It acts more like an
Internet within an Internet. [...]
It
appears that the lockdown of the internet is taking place under our very
noses. Web sites such as Cassiopaea.org
and Freenet
have no recourse against the censorship that is quietly occurring right
now. While many have been expecting a sort of "Internet 9/11"
event, the powers that be have already begun clamping down. As we wrote
above:
And
clearly, if they are going to want to impose as close to total control
as possible, they are going to need to restrict the movement of money
and the means people have to earn a living outside of "accepted
channels."
Perhaps
we should all consider the possibility that the movement of money will
not simply be restricted, but completely controlled to the extent that
it will not be possible at all for web sites such Cassiopaea
to accept any donations or payments from anyone. In
the short run, there are other payment options available. We are working
as fast as we can to set up an alternative payment system. But even if
other payment mechanisms are not jammed by the puppet masters, the actual
content of web sites devoted to the search for truth may itself become
illegal very soon. It is already dangerous to criticize Israel's actions
against the Palestinians. Even if one makes a distinction between Jews
and the Zionists that seem to control the Israel/US alliance, one is still
branded an anti-Semite.
Scholars
and journalists who for years have studied, written and talked about
the Israeli- Palestinian conflict suddenly are facing a potential brick
wall. This wall, not unlike the concrete
barrier now being built by Israel to keep out the Palestinians, is designed
to silence all discussion of Middle East issues that involves any form
of criticism of Israel on any American university campus.
The wall, if it were built, would be created in law by senators Rick
Santorum (Pa) and Sam Brownback (Kan.) through an amendment to Title
VI of the Higher Education Act. Deceptively to be called an amendment
to include "ideological diversity and "sexual equality as
prerequisites for federal funding, the real purpose of the measure is
to require denial of federal funds to any university whose faculty or
students, perhaps even guest lecturers, make statements that are in
any way critical of Israel. The argument is that any action or statement
critical of Israel is perforce anti-Semitic.
Among hardliner
supporters of Israel and the Zionists this type of move has been brewing
for some time. Critics of Israeli treatment of the Palestinian people
have been increasing in number and clarity. But in human relations there
are always several ways to deal with criticism. One obviously is to
ignore it. A second is to meet criticism head on with superior proofs
and arguments. A third is to kill the messenger. A fourth is to assert
that the critic is actually the problem. A fifth is to argue that the
critic or even everybody does the thing being criticized. A sixth is
to assert that the criticism falls within a broad class of statements
that are taboo, e.g., anti-Semitism. When all these essentially social
control options prove unworkable, as in the Israeli case they have,
the last ditch option is to suppress criticism by law.
Note that the optimum choice is and always
has been, of course, to modify the behavior being criticized.
However, anyone listening and watching closely what Israeli leadership
is doing under Sharon and the Likud party knows that there is no intent
whatsoever to modify behavior. That would require acquiescence in creation
of a Palestinian state as well as acceptance of the Palestinian State
as an equal in the family of nations. This, in turn, would require once
and for all determinations of the size and shape of Israel. The Zionist
dream of a Greater Israel would have to remain just that.
It may not be possible to persuade the Zionists and their supporters,
Israelis, fundamentalist Christians, or well-wishers in general that
the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies through recognition
of the rights of the Palestinian people. It may not be possible for
Israelis and their supporters to face the fact that denial of Palestinian
rights and repression of their freedom are the taproots of Palestinian
terrorism. Nor may it be possible to persuade the White House and the
Congress, as well as the Democratic candidate for President that unconditional
support for Israel is not and never has been a winning strategy for
the United States. But they all must understand that continued insistence
on this posture is courting a national disaster.
This
proposed amendment is an echo of Nazi, Communist and other totalitarian
forms of censorship. If enacted it would provide cover for increasing
Israeli excesses against the Palestinians. That will surely provoke
more Palestinian resistance, including more terrorism. Every member
of the Senate and House of Representatives who is worth the confidence
we placed in them and the salary we pay them should vote against this
amendment. Their best strategy would be to prevent it from coming to
the floor. To do otherwise would be to pervert our national laws, to
willfully corrupt our diplomatic relations with other countries, and
to undermine the intellectual freedom of our higher educational system.
George Washington saw the problem clearly, as outlined in his farewell
address more than 200 years ago: " . . . a passionate attachment
of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for
the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common
interest.. and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays
the former into a participation in the quarrels and the wars of the
latter without adequate inducements or justification.. It leads, also,
to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others,
which are apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions, by
unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by
exciting jealousy, ill will and a disposition to retaliate in the parties
from whom equal privileges are withheld."
The definition
of national interest as Washington saw it has not changed. Nor has the
stickiness of the flypaper wrapped around the proposed amendment. We
have conceded to no other nation such a license to interfere in our
internal affairs. The way for Israel to reduce or eliminate most of
the criticism that is abroad today is to clean up its own act.
The writer is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer of the US Department
of State. He will welcome comments at wecanstopit@cognigenmail.com
Signs
reported on this some days ago but in the past week, it has become personal
for us here due to actions
against us by PayPal which closed our internet accounts in a blatant
attempt to censor us. After all, if you have no income, you can't run
a website! It's hard to tell if the "offensive material" is
the website or the books: Ancient
Science and The
Occult Significance of 9-11. One thing that is obvious, however, is
that we must be stepping on some toes. But we aren't stupid. We see that
our days online are coming to a close. Right after 9-11, Laura
wrote:
However,
if nothing that is sensible prevails, the one thing we CAN expect is a
severe and sudden infringement of our freedoms.
Unless
the reality changes through awareness, I may not be able to say much
more very much longer. Phones and computers will be monitored, or severely
controlled. Restrictions may be legislated so as to create a basis for
prosecution. Individuals may be rounded up and taken to detention centers.
In a state of war, or under threat of terrorist attacks, all constitutional
rights (which are amendments, by the way) are suspended.
We
may be told what we can or cannot say and to whom we may say it. And
this may be within a matter of days.
I hope
all who are reading this realize that. I have known for some time that
the powers that be - and I don't necessarily mean the government, though
it will be effected through the government - will seek a way to curtail
the communication between people that has been growing apace for the
past few years via the internet. What better way to do it than war?
And yes,
I expect to be slammed with the charge of anti-semitism for even mentioning
the Jews, never mind that I am trying to point out that we are ALL manipulated
- mostly via our false religions...
The
restrictions certainly began within a matter of days, but it has taken
almost three years to fulfill the prediction in its entirety. Now might
be a good time for readers to review these articles on our site that deal
with 9-11.
We
will continue to publish Signs of the Times as long as we possibly can.
If information on the internet is controlled, one can bet that printed
material on certain topics will be banned. Total control means total
control.
Any
readers that have not read Laura Knight-Jadczyk's groundbreaking work
Ancient
Science may wish to purchase a copy sooner rather than later.
As
we have often stated, there is no need for the powers that be to physically
imprison the population. In fact, to overtly limit the physical freedom
of the citizenry, without some "reasonable" justification which
would make it acceptable to them, would actually be counter-productive
to the plans of the controllers of our planet. Most people live their
lives according to very basic and mechanical "if not this then that"
paradigms, thinking "outside the box" is not natural to the
human species it seems, and it is actively discouraged by the established
"social norms" which promote conformity. Most of the control
of the masses of humanity is easily effected by operating in subtle ways
that fall outside of their limited range of perception.
We
are told by psychologists and psychotherapists that human beings are motivated
by desires and needs that emanate from the realm of the subconscious.
Orthodox science has gone some way to proving this by showing that parts
of the brain associated with the subconscious register activity a few
seconds before activity is registered in the area of the brain associated
with conscious cognition and speech. The formulation of thoughts and ideas
then happens at a level that we are not consciously aware of. But just
where these preformed thoughts and perceptions emanate from? From where
does our subconscious retrieve these ideas?
One
obvious source is television and the printed media. As regards television,
to assimilate a message or view of reality from the images flashed on
the screen or the carefully scripted words of the newscaster, there is
no requirement for any conscious participation on the part of the viewer.
It has long been known that it is possible for a person to learn something
by listening to an audio tape while asleep. Have you ever had the experience
of reading a book when you suddenly "came to" and realised that
you had just read a paragraph or a page about which you could recall nothing?
In such a case, your thoughts had been entirely elsewhere yet some part
of your mind continued to register the words. While the conscious part
of your mind was pondering other things, the words of the book were still
being logged somewhere.
I
had an interesting experience last year with a friend. The setting was
a living room, watching the evening news. The subject was the Iraq war.
As the news reader read his scripted notes, it appeared that my friend
was watching and listening attentively. Later that evening a discussion
about the Iraq war and Saddam Hussein ensued. My friend took a pro war
stance while I (unsurprisingly) stood in opposition. As the various points
were debated I began to have a strange feeling of deja vu. It soon became
obvious to me that my friend's argument for the war contained the points,
almost verbatim, that had been made by various participants in the news
report earlier that day. Yet when I pointed this out, he rejected the
idea claiming that the opinions were the result of his own reasoning.
Most interestingly, he did not remember any specific stance being taken
in the news report, stating that the news was simply a recounting of what
actually happened without any opinion being presented. Clearly however,
he had been successfully told what to think while at the same time believing
that the ideas were his own.
Another
similar experience occurred when another friend and I were traveling in
car. We passed a billboard sign for Budweiser beer. The image was a bottle
with the metal cap turned upside down with the caption "Budweiser
- King of Beers". My friend commented, with some derision, that such
crass advertising would never work, and do the people at Budweiser really
think we are susceptible to such advertising. Later that evening, we entered
a local hostelry. At the bar I asked my friend what he would like to drink.
He paused, clearly unsure of what to choose, then it came to him in a
flash, "I'll have a Budweiser" he said.
Notice
the difference in the actual content of the advertisement and the net
effect on the person. The image of a Budweiser bottle with a crown and
the slogan "Budweiser King of beers", did not result in the
recall of the slogan or image, it resulted in the idea, "I want a
Budwesier". Clearly there is a very exact science at work here and
the results can be predicted with startling accuracy.
The
above experiences and tests of a similar nature that have been conducted,
make a strong case for the fact that the population is eminently programmable.
They are also clear evidence that, for some reason, people are very disinclined
to believe that they are in any way programmable, and indeed will fight
with you if you push the evidence in their faces. In doing so they are
simply fighting to remain in their state of programmability. Furthermore,
we see that the analogy of people as "asleep" is in fact less
of an analogy and closer to a statement of actual fact in terms of conscious
and unconscious awareness.
From
this perspective the recent Iraq prison abuse pictures and the beheading
of Nick Berg have much greater implications than we might at first think:
As US officials continue to insist that
the actions of abusive soldiers at Abu Ghraib do not represent the character
of the United States, human and civil rights groups are pointing to
widespread physical and mental assaults endured by prisoners within
the United States. Insisting the problem of prisoner abuse is well-documented
and is endemic to the US prison system at home and abroad, such groups
are challenging the American public and political figures to end human
rights violations in Iraqi and US prisons. [...]
Think
about the sequence of events here. First of all you have ordinary US military
reserve troops, just simple, small town guys and gals, committing brutal
acts of torture on innocent Iraqis - with photos to imprint the message.
Secondly you have "Arab terrorists" cutting of the head of an
"American citizen", completely with gory video footage and stills.
This was not just any American citizen however, this was a "humanitarian",
a do-gooder, whose father was a peacenik anti-war protestor. His name
given to the "Office of Homeland Security" by ordinary pro war
US citizens. Thirdly we have the link between the first two, the fact
that prison abuses like those in Iraq have been happening for years in
the US. From the point of view of the subconscious the message is: "the
torture, brutality and beheadings that happen in Iraq, happen all the
time in the good 'ole freedom loving US of A, and it is done to US citizens
by OTHER US citizens." Not only is the US no longer the bastion of
freedom and democracy, but there is a very real threat to ordinary Americans
from their own government. "Be afraid", is the message, "be
very afraid".
SPECIAL TO
WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thursday, May 20, 2004
A U.S. senator's
charge that Israel is behind the Bush administrations's decision to invade
Iraq has rattled American Jewish leaders.
Sen. Ernest
Hollings, a South Carolina Democrat, wrote a column that appeared in several
newspapers. The column asserted that the U.S. war against Iraq represented
a decision by President George Bush to protect Israel and ensure American
Jewish support for his reelection.
The column
reflects a growing sentiment in the corridors of power in Washington according
to congressional sources. The view attributes the U.S. war in Iraq to
the so-called neo-conservatives in the administration, particularly Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle,
Middle East Newsline reported. Both men are Jewish.
"There
is a strong fear among American Jewish leadership that the whispering
campaign that 'the Jews started it,' will become public,"
a senior congressional staffer said. "We could be seeing others get
on Hollings' bandwagon."
"Bush
felt tax cuts would hold his crowd together and spreading democracy in
the Mideast to secure Israel would take the Jewish vote from the Democrats,"
Hollings said in a column first published on May 6 in the Charleston Post
and Courier. "You don't come to town and announce your Israel policy
is to invade Iraq."
Congressional
sources said Hollings was expressing a view that has become increasingly
prevalent in Congress and parts of the administration.
[...]
By
Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank
Thursday 20 May 2004, 18:44 Makka Time, 15:44 GMT
In a classical
trial of the "occupied" by the "occupier", a Tel Aviv
court on Thursday convicted imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghuthi on
five accounts of murder.
He was also
found guilty of commanding a "terrorist organisation", a reference
to Palestinian resistance attacks against Israeli occupation.
[...] Barghuthi
has all along rejected Israel’s right to try him, arguing that Israel
is an occupying power and the Palestinians are victims of an immoral military
occupation that dehumanizes and denies them basic human rights, including
the right to life.
He reportedly told the judges "this trial is as illegal and immoral
as your occupation of my country is illegal and immoral. Instead of trying
me, you should try your soldiers and officers who slaughtered scores of
innocent children and women in Rafah yesterday".
On Wednesday, Israeli forces killed nearly two dozen Palestinians, many
of them women and children, in Rafah when an attack helicopter fired two
missiles at a peaceful demonstration protesting against Israel’s
week-long rampage in southern Gaza.
BEIJING,
May 20 (Xinhuanet) -- The US annual report on its endeavor to "improve
human rights", mentioning no word about the recent abuse scandal
by its own troops in Iraq, has infuriated Chinese people of various social
strata and incurred indignant denouncement.
Foreign
Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao warned Tuesday that the United States
should look more into its own problems and think more of how to improve
its own human rights situation, rather than meddling in the internal affairs
of other countries under the pretext of human rights.
Condemnation
from common people was more harsh.
"How
can Americans convince others if they themselves behave so badly? The
United States, like an ostrich that buries its head in the sand, is trying
to fool itself by releasing a gilded report," said a netizen nicknamed
"Fuzi".
By HAMZA
HENDAWI, Associated Press Writer
Thu May 20,11:13 AM ET
BAGHDAD,
Iraq - U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police raided the residence of longtime
American ally Ahmad Chalabi on Thursday, and aides accused the Americans
of trying to pressure him to stop complaining about U.S. plans for Iraq
after sovereignty is transferred in about six weeks.
American
officials here have complained privately that Chalabi is interfering with
a U.S. investigation into allegations that Saddam Hussein's regime skimmed
millions of dollars in oil revenues during the U.N.-run oil-for-food program.
But coalition
spokesman Dan Senor said that investigation has "nothing to do with
what transpired today" and that Chalabi and his organization, the
Iraqi National Congress, were not the targets.
A senior
coalition official said on condition of anonymity that an Iraqi judge
had issued several warrants and the details would be released later.
At a press
conference after the raid, Chalabi lashed out at the ruling Coalition
Provisional Authority, complaining it was coddling former members of Saddam's
Baath Party and treating Iraqis badly.
"I
am America's best friend in Iraq," Chalabi said. "If the CPA
finds it necessary to direct an armed attack against my home, you can
see the state of relations between the CPA and the Iraqi people."
He said he
was asleep when police stormed into his room carrying pistols.
"I
was asleep. I opened the door. The police went into my room carrying pistols,"
Chalabi said. "I told them to get out." [...]
Comment:
Either Chalabi is no longer chummy with the Bush administration, or they
are trying to legitimize him in the eyes of the battered Iraqi people.
Juan Cole made
the following comments on the subject:
Chalabi
came on television on Thursday and said his message to the US was "Let
my people go!" He is now playing
an Iraqi Martin Luther King! He says he wants an immediate
turn-over of all authority in Iraq to the Iraqis. I.e. he now has adopted
the Howard Dean position. Assuming that he manages to stay out of jail,
Chalabi will run for political office in January, 2005, and will probably
represent himself as an anti-Occupation
Iraqi nationalist. You know, the wily old chameleon
could still come out ahead. [...]
Chalabi's
Iraqi National Congress supplied to the US government and to Judith
Miller of the New York Times false and misleading "intelligence"
that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, a nuclear weapons program,
and was connected to al-Qaeda. Chalabi
later all but admitted that these allegations had been false, and said
they didn't matter because Saddam had been overthrown.
[...]
WASHINGTON,
May 20 (Xinhuanet) -- US President George W. Bush will lay out details
of the US plan for the Iraq transition at a major speech on Monday, the
Washington Post said in a report on Thursday.
Beginning
with Monday's address at the Army War College, Bush will give a major
speech on Iraq every week through June 30, when the US-led coalition is
due to turn over limited sovereignty to a new interim Iraqi government,
the report said.
"Some
speeches will have more details than others, and will be given at different
places and times. All have the important goal of explaining the essential
tasks at hand and the significance of June 30," the report quoted
an anonymous White House official as saying.
The move
is aimed at countering mounting public anxiety over the escalating violence
and uncertainty less than six weeks beforethe handover of political power
to Iraq, the report said.
Iraq's security
situation was further clouded when Iraqi Governing Council Chairman Izzadine
Salim was killed on Monday in a bomb attack just near the US-led coalition
headquarters.
Yesterday,
I talked about Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack," and said
that it left me sad and down, as I found the destiny of Iraq and the entire
Umma to be in the hands of a bunch of neo-conservative extremists supporting
Israel. As soon as I finished reading this book, I received from my publisher
a preview of a new book by Joseph Wilson, called "The Politics of
Truth." Wilson is a former American ambassador who was sent by the
Bush administration to investigate about the issue of Iraq's attempt to
buy Uranium from Niger. Wilson decided that the entire issue was a lie,
which disturbed the administration, which launched a campaign against
him headed by Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff, Assistant
to the Vice President for National Security Affairs, and one of the worse
neo-cons who leaked to the media that Anne Boleyn, Wilson's wife, is a
CIA member, a thing that put her in danger and ruined her secret work.
I will not
read Wilson's book, as I am tired of the tiring books which show the control
of Israel's followers on the rule and the media in America. The reader
must be tired as well, this is why I decided to talk about an amusing
book today: "What might have been: Imaginary history from twelve
leading historians."
OR proof
that all politics is local, look no further than Fundrace.org, which follows
the political money to your front door. While records of campaign contributions
have long been available online, Fundrace has a twist: plug in any address
and retrieve a list of all the donors in the neighborhood, the names of
their favored candidates and the amount bestowed.
For Melissa
Kramer, a Democrat in Oakwood, Ohio, it was a part of the political process
she had not anticipated. "I got an e-mail from a friend that said,
'Take a look at this site; it'll blow your mind,' " Ms. Kramer said.
"I took a look and I thought, 'Oh, my goodness.' "
The site
noted her $1,983 in contributions to Gen. Wesley K. Clark's presidential
campaign and her home address.
"It
really bothered me," said Ms. Kramer, 36. "I live in a community
that's overwhelmingly Republican; all the moms have Bush-Cheney bumper
stickers on their minivans. I'm literally one of two Democrats on my entire
street. So even if it's a very small possibility, I think there could
be repercussions in some neighborhoods - petty vandalism, a slashed tire
or graffiti."
Whatever
its perils, the idea has proved irresistible to many. The six-month-old
site says it is attracting up to 150,000 visitors a day. With its localized
search feature, national politics has rarely hit quite so close to home.
Fundrace
was created by a small team at Eyebeam, a New York-based nonprofit arts
organization that focuses on emerging technologies. The basic data at
the site - the names, addresses and occupations of contributors and the
amount of money they have given to a presidential candidate - is part
of the public record and supplied by the Federal Election Commission.
But Fundrace
takes the information further by subjecting the location data to geocoding,
a process that assigns a latitude-longitude coordinate to an address.
Once a donor's address is pinpointed, it can be searched according to
its proximity to any other point - say, your address.
"All
of a sudden, campaign finance is not some abstract thing," said Jonah
Peretti, 30, the director of research and development at Eyebeam. "You're
actually able to see that the guy on the third floor of your apartment
building gave money to Kerry and your boss gave money to Bush and one
of your co-workers gave to Edwards."
Many visitors
to Fundrace call the site a guilty pleasure.
"The
site is very addictive," says Julia Miranda, a 25-year-old resident
of Hollywood who is not listed as a donor. "When I typed in my address,
I was very surprised to see two people nearby who gave to George Bush.
This is an extremely liberal neighborhood, and people around here usually
won't admit to being a Republican. This is a sort of a way to smoke them
out."
DENVER - A radar malfunction grounded flights at Denver International
Airport Wednesday night, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
All incoming
and outgoing flights were suspended for about an hour. Planes started
taking off around 7 p.m., said DIA spokesman Chuck Cannon.
Several commercial
and commuter airplanes waited on the taxiway, while officials worked on
the problem, which was reported in the Terminal Radar Approach Control
Facility at the south end of the airport.
Three flights
were diverted to the Fort Collins/Loveland Airport. Passengers were allowed
to get off the plane, but they couldn't take their checked luggage with
them.
Twelve to
fifteen planes were diverted to the Colorado Springs Airport. Passengers
there were given the option to get off the planes as well. Some did and
were responsible for finding their own way home.
Cannon said
the backlog at DIA was cleared by 8 p.m.
The
cause of the failure wasn't immediately known.
Comment:
A radar malfunction, eh? Perhaps something is up. Remember this story?
PRINCE
ALBERT - The skies were alive over Prince Albert Saturday afternoon.
Gord Harding
isn't sure what he saw; he thinks it might have been five or six meteorites.
He believes they were travelling too fast to have been aircraft.
Harding
was at Birch Hills, about 40 kilometres southeast of Prince Albert,
when a loud noise overhead caught his attention.
"First
I thought it was a plane", says Harding. "And then I looked
and there were five, and they were all just roaring when they went over
top."
Harding
took photographs of the objects as they streaked northwestward, toward
Prince Albert. One of the photographs actually shows six trails of smoke
or vapour in the sky.
After taking
the photos, Harding called his wife in Prince Albert, and she looked
out and watched as they passed over the city.
Meanwhile,
police in Prince Albert say they did not received any calls from people
wondering what was in the skies overhead.
EGLIN AIR
FORCE BASE -- A new military two-way radio system is keeping garage
doors shut in communities near this Florida Panhandle base and residents
may have to change the frequencies on their remote-controlled opening
devices to
make them work.
Homeowners
in Niceville, Valparaiso and the Crestview area reported jammed garage
door openers during recent testing of the new $5.5 million system at
Eglin.
Air Force
officials Tuesday said the contractor, Motorola Inc., will try to minimize
the problem but they offered no guarantees.
"If
we discover that we have some options in that area we'll definitely
pursue them," said Col. Russell F. Miller, commander of the 96th
Communication Group. "I want my garage door opener to work, too."
Technicians
will run the system at slightly different frequencies from those used
by garage door openers to try to eliminate or reduce the interference
when another test is conducted Friday through Monday. [...]
Terra Stribling
was in the fast lane on the Snyder Freeway when her Mercury Mountaineer
suddenly began to lose power. "When I went to accelerate, nothing
happened," said Stribling, 24. "I looked at all my gauges
and everything looked great."
But the
gas gauge, showing about an eighth of a tank, lied. The sport utility
vehicle was running on fumes, and when Stribling slowed below 30 miles
per hour, the engine died, power steering disappeared and she was soon
stranded on the side of the road.
Like hundreds
of other Louisville motorists in recent days, Stribling ran out of gas.
As though paying almost $2 per gallon wasn't bad enough, fuel-tank sensors
have been failing throughout Louisville on different makes and years
of cars burning different brands of gasoline. Drivers have been learning
they're out of gas the hard way — sputtering to a halt.
No one
knows for sure what is causing the problem, but it appears to be something
in the gasoline, said Roger Boyd, spokesman for AAA Kentucky, which
began getting complaints last week. [...]
Garages
confirm that something is fouling the sensors, which can cost up to
$900 to replace, but typically total $400 to $500. [...]
The problem
hasn't been seen elsewhere in Kentucky, according to Boyd, but similar
gas-gauge failures were reported in northwestern Pennsylvania last week,
according to the Erie Times-News. One Erie car dealer's service manager
said he had seen at least 100 fouled gas sensors in the previous week.
The Pennsylvania attorney general's bureau of consumer protection is
looking into the matter, the newspaper reported.
In Louisville,
AAA received 174 out-of-gas calls from stranded drivers from May 7 through
May 13, Boyd said. It typically gets about 60 calls in a week.
Boyd said
more than 200 motorists have called the club to tell them about their
fuel-sensor problems. [...]
A VARIETY
of vehicle makes appear to be affected, dating back to 1996 models,
he said. Few 2003 or 2004 models have been struck. [...]
Samples
will be shipped today to a lab in Nashville, Tenn., where they will
be checked for octane content, ethanol levels and contaminants such
as water and sediment. "It'll probably be Thursday before we know
the results," Arnold said. [...]
Of
course, many vehicles use fuel level senders that employ materials such
as silver that will cause failures if there are contaminants such as water
in the fuel. So again, we have a very down-to-Earth explanation. But even
from a strictly symbolic point of view, we have a rather interesting collection
of stories. Strange objects slice through the sky over North America.
Radar at the Denver airport mysteriously fails. The military is allegedly
jamming garage door openers with their new toys. And Americans are "running
of out gas".
CHICAGO (Reuters)
- Rising fuel prices gave Americans a shock as more than a few drivers
spent $60 on Wednesday just filling their gasoline tank. [...]
The average
price for a gallon of regular gasoline hit the $2 mark for the first time
ever this week, the highest many Americans have ever seen. [...]
A 1000-year-old
burial site has been discovered among an archeological complex of Inca
and pre-Inca temples near the Peruvian capital.
Experts say
they have already unearthed the remains of 30 people, including 19 still
intact as mummies, which are likely to be some of the oldest ever found
in Peru.
The discovery is exceptional because some of the dead were religious sacrificial
offerings and the site had not been plundered by grave robbers.
[...] In
the latest discovery, four of the mummies probably died in ritual sacrifice
and were either buried alive, killed by blows to the head or strangled,
archeologists said.
Holding up the remains of a 2-year-old boy, British archeologist Lawrence
Owens said: "The position of the body and the remains of his feces
indicate he tried unsuccessfully to free himself from the burial bundle
and was buried alive."
Another of those sacrificed was a 12-year-old boy whose skull was cracked
at the front, probably by a heavy blow.
"We found a tumi knife close to the body and its size corresponds
with that of the skull fracture," Owens said.
"If you ask me if this was a ritual sacrifice, I would say yes,"
he added. A mummified 35-year-old man with a rope around his neck was
also among the four sacrificed.
Utah's Great
Salt Lake is teeming with a life form that may turn out to be inhabiting
other planets.
This inland
sea is home to dozens of species of salt-loving micro-organisms called
halophiles that thrive in one of the most inhospitable environments on
Earth.
[...] The
Salt Lake discovery may have extra-terreristrial consequences. Many scientists
have argued for some time that if bacteria can survive such conditions
there, then it is quite possible on other planets such as Mars.
Mars link?
As NASA's
Opportunity has proved bodies of open water did once exist, the Red Planet
may well be home to microbes a lot like the halophiles of the Great Salt
Lake.
The space
agency certainly thinks so. Suddenly, sample-return missions are back
on the agenda and Meridiani Planum is being spoken of as a prime destination
to go and fetch rocks for study back on Earth.
Summer temperatures
in the Arctic have risen at an incredible rate over the past three years,
leaving large patches of what should be ice as open water.
British polar
explorer Ben Saunders was even forced to a abandon an attempt to ski solo
from northern Russia across the North Pole to Canada on Monday, saying
he had been amazed at how much of the ice had disappeared.
"It's
obvious to me that things are changing a lot and changing very quickly,"
a sunburned Saunders said less than two days after being rescued from
the thinning ice sheet close to the North Pole.
By Jim Holt
Posted Wednesday, May 19, 2004, at 7:59 AM PT
Among the
many curious implications of Linde's theory, one stands out for our present
purposes: It doesn't take all that much to create a universe. Resources
on a cosmic scale are not required. It might even be possible for someone
in a not terribly advanced civilization to cook up a new universe in a
laboratory. Which leads to an arresting thought: Could that be how our
universe came into being?
"When
I invented chaotic inflation theory, I found that the only thing you needed
to get a universe like ours started is a hundred-thousandth of a gram
of matter," Linde told me in his Russian-accented English when I
reached him by phone at Stanford. "That's enough to create a small
chunk of vacuum that blows up into the billions and billions of galaxies
we see around us. It looks like cheating, but that's how the inflation
theory works—all the matter in the universe gets created from the
negative energy of the gravitational field. So, what's to stop us from
creating a universe in a lab? We would be like gods!"
[...] But
then Linde thought of another channel of communication between creator
and creation—the only one possible, as far as he could tell. The
creator, by manipulating the cosmic seed in the right way, has the power
to ordain certain physical parameters of the universe he ushers into being.
So says the theory. He can determine, for example, what the numerical
ratio of the electron's mass to the proton's will be. Such ratios, called
constants of nature, look like arbitrary numbers to us: There is no obvious
reason they should take one value rather than another. (Why, for instance,
is the strength of gravity in our universe determined by a number with
the digits 6673?) But the creator, by fixing certain values for these
dozens of constants, could write a subtle message into the very structure
of the universe. And, as Linde hastened to point out, such a message would
be legible only to physicists.
"You
might take this all as a joke," he said, "but perhaps it is
not entirely absurd. It may be the explanation for why the world we live
in is so weird. On the evidence, our universe was created not by a divine
being, but by a physicist hacker."
Linde's theory
gives scientific muscle to the notion of a universe created by an intelligent
being. It might be congenial to Gnostics, who believe that the material
world was fashioned not by a benevolent supreme being but by an evil demiurge.
More orthodox believers, on the other hand, will seek refuge in the question,
"But who created the physicist hacker?" Let's hope it's not
hackers all the way up.
TAIPEI, Taiwan
-- A strong earthquake rocked Taiwan on Wednesday, but there were no immediate
reports of damage or injuries.
The 6.5-magnitude
quake's epicenter was in the Pacific Ocean about 15 miles east of the
coastal city of Taitung, the Central Weather Bureau said. The quake was
strong enough to shake buildings in the capital, Taipei, about 190 miles
north of Taitung.
A MODERATE
earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.2 struck the southern Japanese
islands early today, but there were no reports of damage or injuries.
The quake
was centred about 50km underground in the Pacific Ocean off the southern
coast of Amami Oshima island, about 1300 km south-west of Tokyo, the Meteorological
Agency said.
Scientists
in the Northern Mariana Islands are warning that the Anatahan volcano,
which erupted two months ago, could become more explosive at any time
with little or no warning.
Gemma Casas
reports from Saipan the Emergency Management Office says scientists are
warning the Anatahan volcano, located 120 kilometres north of Saipan,
the capital of the Northern Marianas, is continuing to spew ashes and
lava, nearly two months after its second eruption.
The office
reports the volcano's seismic energy release has nearly doubled since
May 17. Geophysical seismic technician Juan Camacho says the volcano is
already throwing materials hundreds of meters out of the crater, and steam
and ash are likely still rising to several thousand feet.
WASHINGTON
- A previously unknown underwater volcano has been discovered off the
coast of Antarctica, the National Science Foundation said Thursday.
Europe and
Japan get all the hot new technology first. Here's a look at the pipeline
of future tech -- plus some gadgets that didn't travel well and a wishlist
of cool things.
The finding
helps explain mariners' historical reports of discolored water in the
area, the agency said. Material from underwater volcanoes is known to
cause discoloration in water over them.
The presence
of a volcano was first suggested in sonar studies during a research cruise
in January, but scientists were unable to return to the stormy waters
of the region until April.
By NATALIE
PONA, STAFF REPORTER
Thu, April 29, 2004
An Arborg
cattle farmer made a horrific discovery Monday when he found the partially
skinned carcass of one of his animals that was missing its tongue and
apparently drained of its blood. "The whole thing has turned out
to be more sinister than I thought," said Yvonne, a neighbour, who
examined the mutilated animal. She asked not to have her last name used
to protect her family.
"What
sort of weirdos have we got travelling in our neighbourhood?" Gordon,
who would only allow The Sun to print his first name, said he discovered
the carcass on his farm Monday afternoon.
"I don't
really want to speculate on what happened. I know what I saw," he
said, adding he is still shaken up by the find.
Arborg is
100 kilometres north of Winnipeg.
The mutilation
happened Saturday or Sunday night, Gordon said. No one heard anything.
He's heard of several cow mutilations in
the area over the past few years, Gordon said.
He
called the RCMP, reporting that the animal had been attacked by a predator.
He has since changed his mind about the cause.
"It
was definitely a sharp object used," he said.
Arborg RCMP
Cpl. Glenn Syme said he has never investigated an instance of cattle mutilation.
The RCMP did take a call this week about a cow being attacked by a predator,
likely from Gordon.
The animal
was found with an incision under its chin. The skin had been pulled from
the face, exposing the teeth.
"It's
not the gore, we've seen that before, it's the evil behind it," Yvonne
said.
The tip of
the animal's tongue, cut from its root, was placed in the mouth, she said.
"There's
not a drop of blood in that animal. The only way you can drain an animal
of blood is (to cut into it) with the heart still pumping," Yvonne
said.
The
cuts were very precise, as if made by a surgeon, she said.
"You
don't know who you're dealing with ... the average wild and woolly neighbourhood
brat wouldn't be capable of doing it," she said.
Gordon and
Yvonne called Fern Belzil, an Alberta-based investigator of unexplained
deaths who has been studying cow mutilations for eight years, for help.
Belzil has
studied 100 cases, two-thirds of which remain unexplained.
"I'm
not saying it's aliens ... a lot points towards aliens but there is no
proof," he said.
Belzil said
he has never encountered any evidence pointing to who or what is killing
cows.
Flashback:
