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!

Wednesday, May 20, 2004

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New Article: Jupiter, Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, and the Return of the Mongols - Laura Knight-Jadczyk

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13

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Picture of the Day

Oo Valley
©2004 Pierre-Paul Feyte

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.

So welcome to the new, old Signs of the Times...

On the May 5, 2004 Signs page, we wrote the following:

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.

Flashback! Against The Law To Criticize Israel?

By Terrell E. Arnold
5-12-4

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.

Other anti-PayPal sites:

PayPalSucks

PayPalWarning.com

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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:

Rights Groups Say Abu Ghraib Abuses Extension of US Prison System

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".

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Senator spoke for many on Hill when he blamed Israel for war

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. [...]

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Israeli court convicts resistance leader

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.

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China condemns US two-faced human rights report

www.chinaview.cn 2004-05-20 21:20:25

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".

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U.S. Troops Raid Chalabi's House in Iraq

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. [...]

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Bush to detail Iraq transition plan on Monday, report says

www.chinaview.cn 2004-05-20 21:42:55

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.

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Ayoon wa Azan (The Politics Of Truth)

Jihad Al Khazen Al-Hayat 2004/05/19

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."

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Street Maps in Political Hues

By TOM McNICHOL
Published: May 20, 2004
Ny Times

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."

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Radar malfunction temporarily grounds flights at DIA

Jeannie Piper
9news.com


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?

Flashback: Streaks in the sky over Prince Albert

CBC
May 16 2004 09:09 AM CDT

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.

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There also seems to be no shortage of malfunctioning electric and electronic gizmos lately:

Air Force radios jamming garage-door openers in Panhandle

Associated Press
May 19, 2004, 11:12 AM EDT

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. [...]

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Hundreds left stranded after fuel-gauge failures

By BILL WOLFE
The Courier-Journal
May 18, 2004

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. [...]

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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".

A Shocker for Americans: $2-A-Gallon Gasoline

By Brad Dorfman
Wed May 19, 5:09 PM ET

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. [...]

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Peruvian grave site pre-dates Inca

Thursday 20 May 2004, 4:40 Makka Time, 1:40 GMT

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.

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Salt-loving microbes and outer space

Wednesday 19 May 2004, 2:13 Makka Time, 23:13 GMT

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.

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High temperatures melt Arctic icecap

Tuesday 18 May 2004, 3:14 Makka Time, 0:14 GMT

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.

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The Big Lab Experiment: Was our universe created by design?

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.

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Strong Earthquake Shakes Taiwan

By Associated Press
May 19, 2004, 4:25 AM EDT

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.

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Quake jolts southern Japan

From correspondents in Tokyo
May 20, 2004

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.

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Volcano in Northern Marianas becoming dangerous

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.

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New Underwater Volcano Discovered

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, Associated Press Writer

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.

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Cow cut, drained in Arborg

Mutilation mystifies

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.

"It's a real mystery," he said.

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