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P
I C T U R E O F T H E D
A Y
©2005
Pierre-Paul
Feyte
The
World Health Organization has released a study that verifies
the United States is the undisputed champion in mental
illness*, dominating various pathologies ranging from
anxiety to depression to poor impulse control. We easily
vanquished underachieving Old Europe in post-traumatic
stress syndrome, bipolar disorder, and bulimia nervosa.
Additionally, our magnificent land trounced the supposedly
productive Asian countries in both senility and agoraphobia,
while coasting past Africa in pediatric hyperactivity.
In fact, there would have been a gold medal sweep for
America if Ukraine had not cheated by submitting doctored
urine to edge us out in substance abuse.
In retaliation for Ukrainian treachery, "Chicken
Kiev" will henceforth be known by every patriotic
American as "Chicken Freedom".
Distributing praise for America's smashing victory requires
giving the devil his due. Although liberals abhor complimenting
the right wing, it is undeniable that without conservatives
the United States would not even be one of the hundred
craziest countries. This is especially true as it relates
to the glamour categories of paranoia and psychosis.
Any nation that aspires to lead the world in mental illness
requires a leader who is unabashedly mentally ill, and
in this area America is truly blessed. Rather than educating
himself on major issues of life and death by studying,
George W. Bush faithfully listens to the voices in his
head that have been keenly honed during a lifetime of
not studying. Bush takes this approach based on his deeply
held belief that only by remaining abjectly ignorant of
all relevant facts can he possibly make a fully informed
decision. His commitment to prioritizing fantasy over
reality is strong and unyielding. The former Texas governor
is a one-man psycho ward, and absent his sterling contribution
the United States could never have achieved derangement
preeminence.
When entering international mental illness competitions,
having the Religious Right on your team is like being
able to send Babe Ruth up to the plate. The W.H.O. awarded
America numerous insanity bonus points for the insistence
by our Holy Rollers that the bible must be interpreted
literally. The English word "gay" doesn't mean
what it meant just a few decades ago, yet American zealots
insist that the meaning of words translated from six thousand
year old Hebrew can be defined with precision and should
be used to justify persecuting human beings. The continued
death struggle by our fundamentalists to stave off the
diabolical homosexual agenda of Tinky Winky and SpongeBob
SquarePants guarantees that America's glorious reign as
numero uno loco will not end anytime soon.
Projection is a component of mental illness that consists
of attributing one's own deficiencies to others. Rush
Limbaugh deserves acclaim for enabling America to ace
this category by making the observation that women who
become liberals choose their philosophy to compensate
for being sexually undesirable. The scoring committee
noted that this ultimate case of projection came from
a guy around whom the Pacific Ocean could not get wet.
The list of conservatives who deserve to be acknowledged
for their contributions to our winning effort is a lengthy
one indeed. There is Asian American right wingette Michelle
Malkin, who has written longingly of the good old days
during World War II when citizens with yellow skin enjoyed
free room and board at all the finest internment centers.
There are the forty-five percent of Oklahomans who voted
to keep cockfighting legal, although fairness dictates
inclusion of the footnote that most of them did not know
cockfighting involves poultry. And then there are those
Californians who approve of Arnold Schwarzennegger's pathetic
job performance, apparently because since he took office
no one in the state has been killed by a cyborg assassin.
Of course, none of this proves that all conservative
are bonkers. Many Republicans are just as sane as the
next guy, assuming the next guy happens to be Hannibal
Lector. Even so, it is important to avoid stereotyping:
as David Steinberg has observed, some blacks have no rhythm,
some Jews can't handle money, and some Chinese people
don't all look alike. Just because right wingers believe
the greeting "Happy Holidays" constitutes a
threat to their personal liberty does not necessarily
mean that every single one of them is cracked.
There might be a rational conservative somewhere. The
vaunted liberal sense of fairness dictates that we allow
for the possibility, however theoretical it may be.
It is helpful to understand why right wingers collectively
lack any semblance of mental health. Clinicians have isolated
the causality, one that is fraught with irony: impaired
blood flow to the brain resulting from inhaling smog emitted
by trees. Science has yet to determine why psychotropic
toxins produced by foliage target anti-environment Republicans
rather than higher primates, but it may be some sort of
cosmic quid pro quo.
The great thing about starboard brainsickness is its
constancy. From the inception of the United States when
right wingers passionately insisted that women were lesser
humans and blacks merely farm animals, our domestic goose
steppers have been dependably daft. Through the centuries,
conservatives have opposed all social advancement, and
have done so in the name of a supreme being whom they
otherwise disregard. Whether the issue has involved instituting
public education or fluoridating the drinking water, the
maniacs of the right have screamed that the Apocalypse
was being expedited. As is invariably true with people
whose porch lights flicker dimly, the more conservatives
are proven wrong, the more adamant they become.
But while Republicans are the grandmasters of dementia,
they do not possess a monopoly. Eight percent of self-identified
liberals in America voted for Bush, which is like eight
percent of self-identified pedestrians in Japan voting
for Godzilla. The reason generally given involves approval
of the Bush war on terrorism. Left unanswered is whether
the most praiseworthy dimension of his anti-terror approach
was allowing our nation to be attacked or subsequently
letting the attackers get away so that we could concentrate
on killing people who had nothing to do with it.
In either case, approximately one out of every twelve
liberals has partaken of the Kool Aid and now swears that
Bush is The Magnificent Zorro, a swashbuckling defender
of all peasants who bravely smites evildoers hither and
yon. It is troubling when a few of the good guys don aluminum
headwear while lip-synching to Fox News, but it just goes
to show that this wonderful country's commitment to mental
illness runs wide and deep.
The World Health Organization must be congratulated for
finally declaring what those of us who are flag wavers
have long contended – that in addition to being
the planet's only military superpower, the United States
sets the pace in the field of furthering madness. Without
meaning to gloat, when it comes to being non compos mentis,
we're number one with a bullet (and sixty-seven thousand
nuclear warheads).
America is going to remain the alpha crazy dog for quite
some time, so all of you lousy little sane nations had
better get used to it. Hopefully, you will not become
offended when we get in your faces to rave like lunatics
about our W.H.O.-documented supremacy, and you won't be
offended as long as you remember just one thing:
It's not bragging if it's true. |
ATLANTA -- The U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention has begun a series
of experiments to see how likely the bird flu virus
could result in a human pandemic.
The six-month series of experiments
seeks to simulate the mixing and matching of genes from
the H5N1 avian flu virus that has plagued Asia and a
common human flu virus that public-health experts
fear could turn avian flu into a pandemic, the Wall
Street Journal reported Thursday.
CDC scientists inside an ultra-secure
laboratory have started swapping the genes of the H5N1
avian virus with the genes of an H3N2 virus, the strain
behind most recent human flu outbreaks.
The goal is to substitute the eight genes of each virus,
one by one, with the eight genes from the other virus
to see which of more than 250 possible combinations
create flu viruses that could spread easily among humans.
The work responds to fears by global public health experts
that the bird flu virus could mutate to form one that
could spawn a global outbreak of the disease. |
And How To Prepare
For The Upcoming Influenza Pandemic
Who inserted a mutated version
of the human influenza virus in a pig in South Korea?
That's what a leading biologist wants to know. Health
authorities claim that animal viruses from pigs and
poultry are jumping to humans and infecting them, causing
some people to die. But it appears
somebody is helping the process along.
Nature Magazine, in its February 24 issue, reported
that biologist Henry Niman, who works for a biotechnology
company, was examining flu viruses' gene sequences that
were placed in GenBank, the public database for genetic
sequence information. Niman found a strain of human
flu virus that was created in 1940 in a London lab by
scientists who were experimenting with the virus that
caused the global flu pandemic of 1918. The flu sequence,
obtained from a pig virus, had been placed in GenBank
by researchers at Chungnam National University in Daejon,
South Korea. Neither the World Health Organization (WHO)
or the South Korean government have commented on Niman's
claim. Niman says "the incident
raises worrying questions about how the human flu genes
got into a virus in a pig." While laboratory
accidents may be responsible, Niman wonders if this
is evidence of "bioterrorism" at work?
Why is the subject of bioterrorism brought up with
the flu? Obviously researchers in communicable disease,
vaccines and biological warfare see this is an opportunity
to gain attention and funding if they sensationalize
this story. But is al Qaeda a real suspect in this emerging
flu outbreak in Asia? There appears to be more to this
than selfish aggrandizement of scientists' careers or
stuffing money into research projects. Are the bio labs
themselves the threat, or al Qaeda? Dr. Niman says:
"(WHO doesn't) want to think about the fact that
it escaped from some lab, which is most certainly what
happened."
News stories about germ warfare,
that a biological terrorist could unleash a virus of
some kind against the world, are now frequently mentioned
within reports about the threat of a flu outbreak. A
Reuters news report in February of 2005, quoting Interpol,
said "the threat of a biological terrorist strike
by al Qaeda is very real. If al Qaeda launches
a spectacular biological attack which could cause contagious
disease to be spread, no entity in the world is prepared
for it," said the Reuters report. [Reuters Feb.
22, 2005]
But a terrorist would have some
cause, some homeland, some family roots to protect.
A virus can encircle the globe and kill indiscriminately.
Only a psychotic would spread such a weapon. Terrorists
can plant dynamite sticks and blow up buses loaded with
passengers, even aircraft in the sky. But
they need a laboratory and sophisticated knowledge and
equipment to create mutated flu viruses. A
worldwide flu pandemic is more likely to escape from
an existing laboratory that conducts viral experiments
than any alleged terrorist group. That's what
caused the brief SARS virus outbreak, which was traced
back to a laboratory worker in China. "Patient
zero," a professor working on viral strains that
cause influenza, transported the SARS virus from Guangzhou
to Hong Kong on the way to a wedding. He later succumbed
to the virus.
Swine Flu Revisited?
Few reporters dare bring up the possibility that the
threat of an impending epidemic is being used for unrevealed
political agendas. Recall that the world sat
on edge as news reporters declared the SARS virus was
on its way to becoming a global pandemic. SARS fizzled
and killed only about 812 people worldwide. For comparison,
seasonal influenza in the US kills thousands, mostly
older adults. Also recall the Swine Flu "epidemic"
of 1976 which caused President Gerald Ford to call for
the mass inoculation of the American people. The Swine
Flu vaccination program caused many side effects including
Guillain-Barre syndrome which resulted in more deaths
than the virus. The Swine flu itself dissipated and
was not a major influenza outbreak. Why
is the news media drumming up such public anxiety in
such a concerted fashion? Is this a re-run of the Swine
flu episode?
A small number of people in Asia where there is close
contact with animals, died due to a dreaded flu virus
known as H5N1, believed to be the strain that caused
the flu pandemic of 1918 that killed millions worldwide.
The bigger concern is that a mutated flu virus may have
found a way to be transmitted from human to human. So
far, as of early 2005, less than 100 people in Asia
have tested positive for the influenza A H5N1 strain.
It's as if public health authorities are disappointed
the infection hasn't widened. [...]
Credibility of Public Health Agencies in Question
The credibility of governmental health gencies is waning.
Predicting an epidemic, the Centers for Disease Control
has been calling on the public to received flu shots
for the 2004-2005 flu season, but
when the supply of flu vaccine was interrupted by contamination
problems at a manufacturing plant, no overwhelming epidemic
resulted. It's obvious
the CDC is hyping the flu threat to get the vaccine
sold and get the manufacturers off the hook for losses
occurring from unused vaccine.
Furthermore, a study now shows
that flu shots for the elderly have not saved lives.
[Arch Intern Med 2005 165:265-72, 2005] The CDC also
called for toddlers under the age of two years to be
vaccinated against influenza for the first time this
year. But researchers now say there is "no good
science" to back such a vaccination program. [Lancet
365:773-80, 2005] How long will the public go on believing
public health agencies with these types of embarrassments?
CDC has had time to prepare
for a worldwide flu outbreak, but continues to say the
world is unprepared. Somebody ought to lose their
job over this lack of preparation. Laurie Garrett, author
of The Coming Plague (1994) says CDC Epidemiologic Intelligence
Office Karl Johnson MD, presided over an event in 1989
called viral "war games." Health authorities
have been practicing for more than 5 years but continue
to say they are unprepared.
A Hidden Population Control Agenda?
People are asking, what's the real agenda behind the
flu pandemic scare? There is worldwide
public discussion that the anticipated flu pandemic
is being hatched by plan in order to curb the size of
the world human population. According to the
United Nations, the world's population will increase
by 40 percent, from 6.0 to 9.1 billion by the year 2050.
Virtually all of the growth will come in the developing
world, especially the 50 poorest countries. [United
Nations Feb. 25, 2005]
Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) was wrong. He predicted
an ever multiplying human population that grew exponentially.
But in developed countries, population size is stagnant,
particularly in Japan, the US, and Western Europe. Furthermore,
Malthus couldn't have foreseen the tremendous increase
in agricultural productivity. Malthus' theory was that
the world would run out of resources as population multiplied.
The question is, could population
controllers intentionally introduce germs to selectively
cull the size of human populations? Even if released
by accident, the consequences could be so disastrous
that laboratory experiments like these should be outlawed.
Viruses strike harder in undeveloped lands. The developing
world has the poorest nutrition and is more vulnerable
to infection and mortality.
There is some public discussion that
the world has to return to the plagues of old to control
population size. Much of this thinking emanates from
Darwinism, a mentality of "survival of the fittest"
that permeates biology today. Those who aren't fit won't
survive. It's all part of evolution, so they say. But
being fit from an immune standpoint depends largely
upon the nutritional state of any population.
Moreover, there is suspicion that worldwide restrictions
on the dose of essential vitamins and minerals in dietary
supplements by CODEX, a United Nations food standards
and trade organization, is somehow timed to coincide
with the release of a virus that could eradicate millions
of people. Undernourished people are more vulnerable
to infection.
One of the telling facts that reveal health authorities
are manipulating the public and softening them up for
a flu pandemic is the absence of any real preventive
measures outside the control of public health authorities.
[...] |
Health officials fear
that the deadly Marburg Virus which broke out in the rural
Angolan province of Uige may now spread to the capital of
Luanda. Two patients, including an Italian doctor who had
been treating patients, returned to the capital with the
virus and later died. The death toll from the Ebola-like
virus has now reached 114.
Filomeno Fortes, the department head for disease control
at the health ministry told Reuters, 'Of the six cases
we've had in Luanda, we've had two deaths until now. All
six came from Uige. None of these represents a primary
case from Luanda,' Fortes said. 'Our fear is that if we
don't control cases coming from Uige, there is a risk
that they could infect people in Luanda,' he added.
Health officials in Angola say that the death toll in
Uige is 112 but the actual toll could be higher. Officials
fear that in rural areas, many may have died without even
making a trip to the hospital.
There is no known cure for the virus. Symptoms include
nausea, high fever, vomiting, diarrhea with blood and
headaches.
Carlos Alberto, a spokesman for the Angolan health ministry
asked for more help from outside sources. 'We need cleaning
materials, medicines, protective clothing, that kind of
thing,' Alberto said.
Most of the victims of the virus have been children.
The government of Angola has had difficulty dealing with
the crises in a nation that has been ravaged by decades
of civil war. |
Since 1933 you and
all other Americans have been pledged for the debt of
the UNITED STATES owed to international bankers, most
of whom are foreign to our country. Your credit, labor,
productivity and property have been used and is now
being used as collateral by the incorporated UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA without your knowledge or consent.
This is legal until you take back your implied consent
by a special, lawful process.
In fact, you are unknowingly volunteering to be chattel
for a mortgage held by financiers from the founding
of this nation. Perhaps you infer that the name on the
tax statement is yours and so you respond as though
it were. This is voluntary servitude. To make this servitude
legal it was necessary to "cut a hole in the fence."
No matter that the escape route is hidden, obscured
by legal brambles to make escape difficult. That it
is not used presumes consent. It is not impossible,
just seemingly difficult and even implausible.
Your status as a subject is based upon a presumption
that if you did not wish to be so encumbered you would
use the law to do something about it. As long as you
do not use the escape route provided by law it is presumed
that you are content to "remain in the pasture
and be milked and used as chattel." This word has
the same root as the word, "cattle." Do you
get the picture?
Can such a premise be true? It seems totally out of
step with everything you and I have ever known about
our world, our nation, our government and our relationship
to it! Our parents never behaved as though they we were
chattel. They dutifully paid their taxes, voted in elections,
waved an American flag on the 4th of July. Our teachers
taught us about our history, our Declaration of Independence
and Constitution, our Revolutionary War, how we fought
the greatest army and navy the world had ever seen at
the time. Nowhere in our history classes did we encounter
any such premise of subjection to a central government
that rules our lives. Our civics teacher never told
us anything about this. Nothing in our world even hinted
that we were subjects to a highly centralized government.
Surely this could be true of other peoples, but not
of us! For most people this cannot be. The truth cannot
be heard because it is too discordant with our entire
experience.
And yet we can document that:
George Washington did not chop down
a cherry tree,
Lincoln did not free the slaves (they
became subjects of the Federal District, the District
of Columbia)
The War with Mexico was begun by General
Zachary Taylor's provocations along the Nueces River
the battleship Maine blew up from
the inside
Woodrow Wilson knew that the Lusitania
was carrying US munitions to the war in Europe and would
be sunk
Franklin D. Roosevelt had maneuvered
the Japanese into an attack on Pearl Harbor and had
cut fuel shipments to the Pacific fleet to ensure the
presence of enough old ships to offer a tempting target
Truman knew that there were other
good alternatives to an invasion of Japan and did not
need to drop the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Roosevelt knew about the NAZI concentration
camps, LBJ knew that there was no attack on the Maddox
and Turner Joy in the Gulf of Tonkin when he asked for
a Congressional Resolution to attack North Vietnam
the US government had been warned
by numerous documented sources that there would be an
attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
All of this is from documented
historical sources. Yet we continue to believe
the myths that are in our histories, our movies, our
mainstream media and our mass consciousness. John F
Kennedy warned us that,
The great enemy of the Truth is very often not the
lie - deliberate, contrived, and dishonest - but the
myth - persistent, persuasive and realistic.
You will probably find it hard to accept that you have
been living in an illusion for your whole life. Much
of what you believe is an illusion and you will only
find your freedom when you can allow yourself to look
behind the veils of illusion to see Reality. WHO you
are is far greater than "what" you perceive
yourself to be. When you have the courage to stand face-to-face
with the illusion and call it what it is, you will have
stepped through the most difficult task set before you
on your Earth Journey. There IS a way out! But the only
way out is through—through understanding how we
came to this predicament and following a precise formula
to obtain your sovereignty. We have been warned repeatedly
throughout our history, but we weren't listening very
closely. Now we might have one more chance to take back
our power and our sovereignty.
The nature of the conspiracy to defraud can be best
understood in comments by one of the major conspirators
in the triumph of establishing the Federal Reserve,
"Colonel" Edward Mandell House, who is purported
to have said this in a private meeting with President
Woodrow Wilson:
"[Very] soon, every American
will be required to register their biological property
in a national system designed to keep track of the people
and that will operate under the ancient system of pledging.
By such methodology, we can compel people to submit
to our agenda, which will effect our security as a chargeback
for our fiat paper currency. Every American will be
forced to register or suffer being unable to work and
earn a living. They will be our chattel, and we will
hold the security interest over them forever, by operation
of the law merchant under the scheme of secured transactions.
"Americans, by unknowingly or unwittingly delivering
the bills of lading to us will be rendered bankrupt
and insolvent, forever to remain economic slaves through
taxation, secured by their pledges. They will be stripped
of their rights and given a commercial value designed
to make us a profit and they will be none the wiser,
for not one man in a million could ever figure our plans
and, if by accident one or two should figure it out,
we have in our arsenal plausible deniability. After
all, this is the only logical way to fund government,
by floating liens and debt to the registrants in the
form of benefits and privileges. This will inevitably
reap to us huge profits beyond our wildest expectations
and leave every American a contributor to this fraud
which we will call 'Social Insurance.' Without realizing
it, every American will insure us for any loss we may
incur and in this manner, every American will unknowingly
be our servant, however begrudgingly. The people will
become helpless and without any hope for their redemption
and, we will employ the high office of the President
of our dummy corporation to foment this plot against
America." [...] |
Two recent reports cast light on
the impact of growing social inequality in the US. The
first, the annual inventory of the very rich compiled
this month by the business magazine Forbes, tracks the
wealth of the world's billionaires, and their increasing
numbers in the US. The second is the "report card"
issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
on the state of the infrastructure in the United States.
Together these studies provide a devastating
exposure of the price being paid - in the form of basic
necessities of daily life - for the ongoing process
of diverting ever-greater sums of the national wealth
into the personal investments portfolios and bank accounts
of the super-rich in America.
Forbes reports that the world's billionaires counted
691 among their number in 2005, an increase of over
100 in just a year's time. The aggregate wealth of this
handful of men and women reached $2.2 trillion, an increase
of $300 billion in just one year. On average, the net
worth of each is nearly $3.2 billion.
More than half of these billionaires - 341 - are in
the US, a jump of 69 over last year. But
while the ranks, and personal fortunes, of these super-rich
has risen, there has been a corresponding deterioration
of the basic infrastructure relied upon by ordinary
Americans in their everyday life - roads, railroads,
public schools, and other basic necessities. In many
cases, these structures are literally crumbling.
[...]
The Forbes report provides a glimpse not only of the
obscene amounts of wealth accumulated by these individuals,
but of the property and personal possessions they have
amassed along the way as an essential component of their
extravagant lifestyles. [...]
In contrast to this glowing picture of prosperity provided
by Forbes, the American Society of Civil Engineers'
"report card" delivers a just-above-failing
grade on the state of the infrastructure in the United
States. Overall the ASCE assigns a grade of "D,"
a slight drop from the "D-plus" it awarded
when it last issued a report in 2001.
The report examines 12 categories of infrastructure,
including roadways, bridges, dams, drinking water, wastewater
treatment, railroads, navigable waterways, public school
facilities and the power grid. The
authors state that a total investment of $1.6 trillion
(not counting needs to upgrade for recent security concerns)
over the next five years will be required to bring the
US up to minimum standards.
In a statement introducing the report, ASCE President
William Henry explained, "Americans are spending
more time stuck in traffic and less time at home with
their families."
The advisory council of 24 civil engineers which prepared
the report found that the average American spent a full
week stuck in traffic on overcrowded roads and waiting
out long construction delays. Drivers
in Kansas City are estimated to spend $500 a year in
time and extra gasoline. In Los Angeles, the cost shoots
up to $1,660 year. Motorists also spend some $54 billion
a year - $275 apiece - in repair and operating costs
from driving on roads full of potholes.
The US rail network has not kept up with demand either.
Besides being more expensive, shipping by truck adds
to highway congestion and road maintenance costs. ASCE
estimates that up to $195 billion in investments will
be required over the next 20 years to maintain the current
share of freight shipped by rail and to allow for anticipated
increases in volume.
Passenger rail service fares
no better. The heavily used Amtrak Northeast Corridor
line will have to be shut down within two years if three
bridges are not repaired. In
New York City the heavily traveled East Side subway
line was shut down no less than three times in a single
day this month due to separate power failures. The next
day another line was closed while workers investigated
smoke in one of the system's old, narrow tunnels.
With the current state of disrepair, the condition
of infrastructure is also matter of life and death,
not just inconvenience and economics.
In July 2004, a slab falling off a
deteriorated bridge in New York City critically injured
a motorist on the parkway below. More than one in four
highway bridges are now considered structurally deficient
or functionally obsolete.
The number of dams rated unsafe
has risen to 3,500, and there were 29 dam failures in
the United States in the past two years. In March
2004, the Big Bay Lake Dam in Mississippi failed, destroying
100 homes.
The nation's wastewater systems are also sorely in
need of repair. Eight hundred
fifty billion gallons of raw sewage are released annually
into rivers, streams, lakes and oceans. In Pima
County, Arizona, a sewer line break in 2002 forced 90
homes to be evacuated and closed part of a busy street
for six weeks.
As for drinking water, each day 6 billion gallons of
treated water disappears due to leaky pipes and old
water mains. A break in a 40-year-old main in Northbrook,
Illinois, left the town without drinking water for 15
hours. Federal expenditures on
treatment plants for fiscal year 2006 will equal less
than 10 percent of the annual demand.
As the ASCE president summarized in his statement,
"We need to establish a comprehensive, long-term
infrastructure plan as opposed to our current ‘patch
and pray' method." But any such systematic approach
to tackling infrastructure or any other societal problem
is inconceivable under capitalism in decay, when the
only concern of those wielding the levers of industry
is how to exploit the vast majority while pampering
themselves endlessly.
The burgeoning ranks and fortunes of the US billionaires
come under conditions where the social infrastructure
of society is under relenting attack from corporate
America, the Bush administration and Congress, in the
form of job cuts, attacks on health care, pensions and
education. This is coupled with
growing rates of personal indebtedness and bankruptcies
for working families.
The degree of waste and squandering of vital resources
by the super-elite personified by the Forbes billionaires
- and the protection of their right to do so by the
political establishment, including both big business
parties - is an indictment of the profit system. |
WASHINGTON - None of the 15 U.S.
agencies that collected or assessed intelligence on
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is likely to be
commended for doing an exemplary job, according to officials
familiar with a report being prepared by a presidential
commission.
The nine-member panel led by Republican Laurence Silberman,
a retired federal appeals court judge, and Democrat
Charles Robb, a former Senator from Virginia, is expected
to issue its report on weapons of mass destruction next
week. It's unclear how much of
the report, which may run into the hundreds of pages,
will be available to the public.
"I think questions had
to be answered as to why we were so wrong," said
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a member of the commission.
"We needed to have recommendations as to how to
prevent something like this from ever happening again."
The commission also is highly critical
of the agencies' performance on Iran, North Korea and
Libya, individuals familiar with its findings said on
condition of anonymity.
The report comes at a critical time
for the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National
Security Agency and others charged with collecting,
protecting and analyzing secrets.
All face the prospect of sweeping
changes from the intelligence reform bill passed in
December, including the appointment of a national
intelligence director. President Bush's nominee, John
Negroponte, has a Senate confirmation hearing next month.
[...]
The commission, for instance, has reconsidered the
issue of aluminum tubes. A National Intelligence Estimate
on Iraq in October 2002 said that most intelligence
agencies believed that Iraq's "aggressive pursuit"
of high-strength aluminum tubes provided "compelling
evidence" that Saddam Hussein's regime was reconstituting
its uranium enrichment effort and nuclear program.
In its report last summer, the Senate
Intelligence Committee found that the Energy Department
was more accurate in its assessment that Iraq sought
the tubes for a conventional rocket program, not a nuclear
program.
The Silberman-Robb commission also closely examined
U.S. capability to understand the programs for weapons
of mass destruction, or WMD, of Libya, North Korea and
Iran. [...]
In contrast to the Sept. 11 commission, the WMD commission's
work has been done largely behind closed doors, with
only brief press releases about witnesses who appeared.
McCain said he's learned much about the intelligence
agencies and how they interact now and in the run-up
to the Iraq invasion. He said he's gotten an understanding
of the value of "human intelligence" - or
traditional spying - and that the
report was worth the $10 million Congress dedicated
to it.
Final drafts of the commission's report
are being circulated among the intelligence agencies
for declassification. Historically, they have tried
to use that process to keep secret some of the most
embarrassing or critical details of investigative findings.
Commission spokesman Larry McQuillan said commissioners
intend to release as much of the report as possible.
|
There is now no better, or more
accurate, way to say it: The Republican Party has gone
nuts – absolutely, certifiably, sycophantically
nuts.
It went officially bananas upon declaring, in the small
hours of Monday morning, a national emergency in the
sad yet exhaustively adjudicated case of Terri Schiavo.
That much was obvious when the
party chucked its last vestiges of states-rights principles
and respect for separation of powers into the anything-for-the-religious-right
pot of electoral gold.
Republicans' blatant whoring at the altar of slaughtered
ideals and political opportunism was so conspicuous
as to make its examination here only tiresomely redundant.
So let's not bother.
What we should bother ourselves with, however, is the
truly bothersome and, it seems, growing emotional instability
of these congressional Republicans, which any rational
onlooker might characterize as this: folks
on the verge – thus we are on the verge, given
that they are in charge – of a political nervous
breakdown; the result of too much heady success
from too much groveling to too many narrow interests.
The stress of so much power coupled
with insatiable ambition is showing.
One of their own, Representative Donald Manzullo of
Illinois, inched close to party self-diagnosis when
he opined, "I have been here
13 years and I have never seen anything like this before."
And that's coming from a man who's lived through the
manufactured government-shutdown hysteria, the manufactured
impeachment hysteria, the manufactured Iraq hysteria
and all the other manufactured hysterias to which we
as a nation have been subjected since the Grand Old
Party began its studied re-ascendancy.
And looking back, one can see
that its ascendancy was in no small part due to its
study of orchestrated hysteria. The skies have regularly
fallen and Democracy put at grave risk because Hillary
misplaced a file or Bill got his jollies or John tossed
a medal or the you-know-who elite banned Christmas or
... you take your pick. You
can set your watch by the GOP barraging us with some
newly revealed, outrageous liberal escapade –
each and every one manufactured to distract from the
less than publishable goal of unfettered political power.
We're not to notice as the ruling party deepens a grotesquely
mounting national debt in its pursuit of assassinating
social programs, or as it finances a class-warfaring
plutocracy to sustain a graft-driven political machine,
or promotes the fantasy of a democratically reforming
Middle East to justify a fraudulent invasion. To notice
is only to buy into the vast liberal media's propagandistic
ways.
We are, however, expected to salute when the ruling
party, positively dripping with selflessness, snaps
into action over an exceedingly personal, private and
local legal matter. (Naturally we should disregard its
own memorandum as to what "a great political issue"
it is. See above: liberal media.)
We are expected to salute because
the scam has worked for the charlatans so many times
before. But this time the great majority of Americans
– 70 percent according to an ABC News poll –
noticed what was not intended to be noticed: the naked
hypocrisy, the sheer opportunism, the downright shabby
spectacle of it all. [...]
Notwithstanding the satisfaction that comes from seeing
reprobates get what they deserve in the form of a disapproving
public, is there not something almost sad about watching
today's GOP, a party with a long and noble tradition,
make such a fool of itself?
Naw.
Not after what it's put us through. |
LONDON - The United States has
committed "grave violations of human rights"
against prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan and
Iraq, the Foreign Affairs Committee of Britain's parliament
said in a report on Friday.
The report also called on the British
government to make clear whether it uses intelligence
passed on by other countries that may have been gathered
by torturing suspects.
"We conclude that United States personnel appear
to have committed grave violations of human rights of
persons held in detention in various facilities in Iraq,
Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan," the committee
wrote in its influential annual report on human rights.
"We recommend that the government make it clear
to the United States administration, both in public
and private, that such treatment of detainees is unacceptable."
The committee said it was "surprising
and unsettling" that the government had twice failed
to answer whether London receives information extracted
under torture by a third country.
"The arguments for evaluating information which
purports to give details of, for example, an impending
terrorist attack, whatever its provenance, are compelling,"
the committee said.
"We further conclude, however,
that to operate a general policy of use of information
extracted under torture would be to condone and even
to encourage torture by repressive states."
[...] |
A September visit to Hebron
OFF the beaten path, you see the desert for miles from
Hebron Hills on this September day. If it weren't for
the military outposts, the barbed wire and the checkpoints,
it would actually be quite peaceful here - a National
Geographic spread waiting to happen. The goats are grazing
nearby. Amidst the chaos and the hell, there's beauty
here.
South of Jerusalem, past the checkpoints, this is
the area of the West Bank which Israel has basically
taken over. Our human rights delegation with Bustan,
Ta'ayush and others is making our way to Hebron in an
SUV. On the highway going south from Jerusalem you can
see the excesses of the settlement enterprise.
We head off the highway and on to a dirt road where
Mosa Abu Gibran, a member of the Fellahin minority working
the land today, invites us into his cave for tea with
his relatives. There is a rickety wooden fence and the
stones shaping the pathway. He
tells us that near here 40 houses have been demolished
and Apache helicopters fly overhead to protect the nearby
settlements. Two days before, a settler knocked down
tents in the village. The security forces have come
into villages in Hebron Hills and closed off the caves
and wells where the Fellahin minority has lived for
centuries. Many, deprived of shelter and water
and harassed by settlers and Occupation forces, have
been forced to move from the land they have called home
for centuries.
He tells us that he lives as
if he's second class and that he lives in fear of not
just security forces, but also settlers. He
says he is made to feel like an animal.
Near the settlement of Sausya, a Fellahin village
which once had over 125 people residing there now has
only about 30 people. The military forces, set up to
protect the settlement on the hillside considered to
be on Holy Land, look down on the handful of people
who are left. Italian human rights activists with "Operation
Dove" have been sleeping here for weeks. It
wasn't long ago that the Civil Administration destroyed
the village well by pushing a car into it and poisoning
it with zinc. The security forces are still closing
the many caves with stones along Hebron Hills where
the Fellahin have tradionally lived. They even destroyed
the donated solar panels that had been set up by Bustan
to provide some basic level of power to the village
for cooking and lighting.
The Nuwaja family, who live in what is left of their
village, are now only 26. As they cook in the fire nearby,
having only their tents, carpets and memories, they
see the security forces with their guns looking down
at them from the settlement above serving as a simple,
metaphoric portrait of the Occupation.
The entire Hebron region has been under fire for decades.
More recently, in 1999, security forces evicted several
hundred Palestinians from the region after declaring
it a live-fire area.
In January of 2003, Ta'ayush activists and members
of the Christian Peacemaker Teams who went to the South
Hebron Hills region to Palestinian farmers plow their
land were attacked by settlers. The
settlers, armed with guns and stones, beat the activists
and pushed a tractor down a valley and stole other equipment
that was on it.
In April of 2004, Israeli security
forces destroyed 11 structures in south Hebron including
shacks, tents and public facilities erected by the British
government's Department for International Development.
In September of 2004, the High Court of Justice decided
to uphold the injunction barring the IDF from demolishing
tents, caves and structures inhabited by the Palestinians
in the southern Hebron Hills near Sausiya. The legal
battle had been ongoing since since Yair Har Sinai,
had been murdered.
Later in September, Kim Lamberty and
Chris Brown, two members of the Christian Peacemakers
Team, were injured in Hebron Districts after being attacked
by settlers for escorting children from Tuba to al-Tuwani
elemenatary school. She received treatment for a broken
arm and he received broken arms and a punctured lung.
In October, eight settlers with wooden sticks and
sling shots attacked Christian Peacemakers team member
Diana Zimmerman, Diane Janzen, an Operation Dove member,
and two Amnesty International employees, Donatella Rovera
and Maartje Houbrechts. The masked
settlers stole a video camera in the beating attack
and the Operation Dove member was treated in Beer Sheva
for a broken arm.
Recently, 60 Palestinians from Hebron Hills petitioned
the High Court of Justice against the government's intention
to confiscate lands for construction of the Separation
Fence.
And so on it goes, nothing changes. To the outsider,
this is like embracing madness as a way of life. People
here are still fighting over the Promised Land in Hebron,
the city of hell. |
CRIMINAL TRINITY:
the US, ISRAEL AND HOLLAND
The Netherlands — 21 March 2005 - According to
information today from the Dutch embassy in Washington:
''the US government wants to discuss with The Hague
what rôle the Dutch military will play during
military conflicts and crisis situations over the next
four years.'' The Dutch embassy confirms this, but the
dutch foreign office wants to keep it out of the news
in Holland and is silent this far.
Most Dutch people regard it as an enormous shame that
The Netherlands: ''is among a select group of allies
that will be approached in the near future by Washington
for closer military co-operation.''
Like criminals chosen by criminals.
The Netherlands has always secretly
and overtly been supporting the illegal US and Israeli
wars and armed conflicts. As such the Quislings in the
Hague have put the whole country at the disposal of
the american neocons, with the Israelis and their Mossad
secret service running a contraband 'State within a
State' at the main Schiphol airport.
Most of the time the Dutch navy and Air force have
(secretly) assisted the illegal US operations, like
in the latest US coup in Venezuela. (Now assisting and
preparing the next move on the island of Aruba) And
by the supply of navy ships the dutch assist in the
gathering of intelligence wherever the americans want
them to do so.
More dutch commandos and marines will also be deployed
in Iraq for the fake reason ''to help US forces seek
out al-Qaeda operatives'': the 'kill and destroy' operations
which are war crimes.*
This is all paid for by the dutch taxpayers who in
general do not know a damn thing about what's really
going on behind their backs: how much permanently is
stolen and how many crimes they pay for.
On an international scale Holland takes the 6th place
among the rich nations, but the working people pay -
after Sweden as number one - the second highest taxes
in the world. All big multinationals use Holland as
some kind of tax free haven, where they sometimes even
get subsidized by their gangster friends in the government;
the populace in Holland is as maltreated as the unkowing
masses in the US.
Hundreds of Dutch 'commandos'- many times US trained
''Special forces'' with a 'license to kill' - are now
secretly leaving the Netherlands to assist the american
war criminals in their extermination, jailing and torturing
of still more people in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Six hundred more dutch uniformed and 'licensed killers'
are kept 'in reserve' by the Quislings in The Hague,
which now are serving the americans like their forefathers
probably served the Nazis. Labour MP Bert Koenders protested
- as one of the few in the spineless and cowardly dutch
parliament - against dutch troops again taking part
in - what he called - ''those american kill and destroy
operations''.
Contrary to the outspoken wishes
of 80% of the Dutch people, who are against the illegal
american warfare, the Dutch government secretly has
turned the country into one of the worst collaborators
of the present american administration and it's disgusting
war crimes. For their criminal behavior in former
Tjechoslavakia some guilty dutch politicians have already
been heard in Court.*
''They must be made to pay the price for their crimes'',
is a growing feeling.
The fact that also the Secretary General of the United
Nations, Kofi Annan, has declared the war in Iraq illegal,
has not had any human effect on the war criminals among
all american/israeli stooges in the dutch so called
government in The Hague and the collaborating dutch
military ignorants.
The shameless and incompetent Dutch gov't nitwits did
not even react when the US Senate concocted the so called
"The
Hague Invasion Act", threatening to rescue
the US war criminals if ever they are charged with war
crimes like at the International Court of Justice in
The Hague. Afraid as the 'Neocon Junta' in Washington
is, knowing that they must appear in court too.
Bolton: Bush's barbaric pitbull versus the UN lapdogs.
This unfriendly - to say the least - "Invasion
of the Netherlands Act" was attached to the House
version of a State Department authorization bill that
blocked US money for the UN. Blackmail with billions,
done as usual by the US' UN-representation which now
is in the hands of one of the worst US law rapers and
bullies ever: John Bolton, the Neanderthaler of diplomacy
as he's looked upon in international circles. 'Justice's
Terminator' as US shame.
The 'Hague Invasion Act' was designed to undermine
the 1998 treaty creating the International Criminal
Court now seated in The Hague. It is a World Court to
judge large-scale Human Rights abuses, and the treaty
was signed by President Clinton in his last days in
office.
Only terror states, afraid of having to answer to accusations
of large-scale human rights abuses, did not sign the
treaty. It was a unique and unheard
of act in American history when president Bush immediately
revoked the signature by the U.S. as signed earlier
by president Clinton.
This totalitarian US 'Hague Invasion Act' would also
prevent any US government agency from cooperating with
the court and would block military aid; to any non-Nato
state which ratifies the ICC treaty, which has been
signed by more than 150 governments in the United Nations.
The dutch people who dislike the war and belligerent
acts of the two main rogue states right now, the United
States and Israel, those people wait for justice to
return, so those war criminals in the Hague, Dutch industry,
the military top and all collaborating 'journalists'
can be taken to Court and charged with the 'crimes against
humanity' they are committing now.*
The present government of the Netherlands, which also
hypocritically calls itself 'christian' - is like the
'managing' criminals in the US, Israel, Britain, and
Italy - a burning shame for humanity.
They must be stopped. |
ROME — The
U.S. military command in Iraq has blocked two Italian
policemen from examining the car in which an Italian
intelligence agent was shot to death in Baghdad, a newspaper
said Wednesday.
Corriere della Sera said that the policemen were about
to leave when the Italian Embassy in Baghdad received
an order from the U.S. command on Monday to abort
the mission for security concerns.
The embassy in Baghdad reportedly alerted Rome authorities,
who called off the trip.
The car, a Toyota Corolla, is reportedly still in American
hands, at Baghdad airport where it was originally rented.[...]
Italian authorities say that
examining the vehicle is key to assessing what happened
on March 4, when U.S. troops opened fire on the car
carrying secret service agent Nicola Calipari,
another intelligence officer
and journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who had just
been released after a month of captivity in Iraq.[...]
The U.S. military said that the vehicle was speeding
and refused to stop, and that a U.S. patrol tried to
warn the driver with hand and arm signals, by flashing
white lights and firing shots in front of the car and
into the car's engine block.
Berlusconi said the car was traveling slowly at night
and stopped immediately when a light was flashed at
it, shortly before U.S. troops fired on the car. Foreign
Minister Gianfranco Fini said the fire appeared to have
hit the right side of the car.
Vowing to shed light on the incident, Washington has
ordered an investigation into the shooting, to be led
by a U.S. brigadier general with the participation of
Italian officials. The joint commission is expected
to release its findings by mid-April. |
Field commander Rizvan
Chitigov has been killed in Chechnya during a raid carried
out by pro-Moscow security forces and the republic's
Interior Ministry troops, the Itar-Tass news agency
cited the republic's first deputy prime minister Ramzan
Kadyrov.
"Chitigov was surrounded and eliminated after
he put up armed resistance," Kadyrov was quoted
by the news agency as saying.
Chitigov, aka American or Suraka, born 1965, was placed
on the federal wanted list on suspicion of being involved
in kidnappings. In the early
1990s Chitigov visited the United States and upon his
return he oversaw military intelligence in Aslan Maskhadov's
government.
The FSB, Russia's domestic security
service, suspected that Chitigov had been maintaining
ties with foreign intelligence services and was himself
a CIA agent, former FSB spokesman Aleksandr Zdanovich
said in April 2001.
According to some reports, Chitigov had a green card
— a permanent residence permit in the U.S.
In the summer of 2001 he told journalists that he intended
to poison Russian soldiers with virulent toxins.
Rizvan Chitigov was also a close ally of the infamous
warlord Khattab.
In 2002 Russian security services obtained a recording
of Chitigov's conversation with the Chechen envoy to
the United Arab Emirates Khizir Alkhazurov, where Chitigov
allegedly asked his interlocutor to write a manual for
preparing toxic substances and send it to Chechnya.
During a search at one of Chitigov's bases in the Chechen
highlands security forces discovered stocks of ricin
and other toxins and instructions on how to use them
in combination with conventional weapons. |
Police mistook a group of Iraqi
soldiers wearing civilian garb for insurgents and opened
fire, sparking a 10-minute gunbattle that left five
dead in the northern Iraqi town of Rabia.
In Baghdad, hundreds of electricity workers demanded
an end to terror attacks that have killed many of their
colleagues.
The soldiers in Rabia, 145 kilometres west of the
larger city of Mosul, were dressed in street clothes
and were armed, confusing police, according to the region's
police chief, Ahmed Mohammed Khalaf. Three soldiers
and two police were killed and another eight wounded
in the exchange of friendly fire.
In the former rebel stronghold of Fallujah, police
patrolled the streets and imposed a sudden, late-afternoon
curfew, shouting through loudspeakers: "Close your
stores and go home!" They also set up checkpoints
and searched cars in the city.
It was unclear why the sudden curfew was put in place.
Earlier, a battle broke out in the northern Jolan neighbourhood
between unidentified gunmen and Iraqi security forces,
witnesses said. [...] |
BISHKEK - Reports say the capital
of Kyrgyzstan is in chaos. Looters have ransacked shops
and set buildings on fire following days of political
opposition protests.
Emergency services personnel say there are no police
in the city.
The Kyrgyz parliament installed an opposition deputy
as acting president following the mysterious disappearance
of President Askar Akayev. The new interior minister
has vowed to clamp down on looting.
But the opposition appears to have seized control
of the Central Asian country after days of violent protest.
"It's not the opposition that has seized power,"
said one of the protesters, "it's the people."
Ukraine has offered to mediate in the crisis, which
has left the Soviet-era regime teetering on the brink
of collapse.
Akayev came to office with the fall of the Soviet
Union. He was not a Communist apparatchik as in neighbouring
states, but a physicist, who introduced democratic reforms.
But after 15 years in office, corruption and nepotism
were rampant. So too is poverty: the protests started
in the poor southern provinces.
The uprising began after Akayev, who is prohibited
from seeking another term, was accused of seeking to
amend the constitution so he could stay in office another
term.
The demonstrations culminated in thousands of rock-throwing,
club-wielding opposition supporters overrunning the
government's main seat of power in the capital.
Kyrgyzstan has been wracked by demonstrations since
a March 13 runoff vote saw the opposition nearly shut
out of the nation's 75 seat parliament.
But analysts warn this isn't yet a people power event.
"It's not a revolution. I would rather say it's
an implosion of the state, at least the state that was
maintained by Mr. Akayev," said Andrei Kortunov
of Moscow's New Eurasia Foundation. [...] |
March 23 -- The U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission has warned former
Pentagon adviser Richard Perle that it may sue him for
his role in the alleged looting of Hollinger International
Inc., the Chicago-based media company once controlled
by Conrad Black.
Perle, 63, a Hollinger director, said in a telephone
interview that he received and responded to a so-called
Wells notice, a formal warning that the agency's enforcement
staff has determined that evidence of wrongdoing is
sufficient to bring a civil lawsuit.
The SEC staff, which has reviewed Perle's response,
plans to urge the regulatory body's commissioners to
authorize a suit against him, according to people familiar
with the matter.
Hollinger International officials, shareholders and
the SEC allege that Black and former Hollinger President
David Radler wrongfully diverted proceeds from the sale
of some of the chain's newspapers for their personal
use. Perle was a member of Hollinger International's
three-member executive committee, with Black and Radler,
from 1996 to 2003. |
Mar 23 - In a letter
to Reuters, the Pentagon says it will not reopen an
investigation into the case of three unembedded Iraqi
journalists who say US soldiers tortured and sexually
abused them while they were working for the London-based
news service last year.
"I'm very disappointed that the Department of
Defense has chosen not to reopen a clearly flawed investigation
into a very troubling incident," Reuters Global
Managing Editor David Schlesinger said Tuesday in response
to the letter.
The Pentagon told Reuters it was satisfied with the
results of its initial investigation, which did not
include interviews with the three Iraqis. It concluded
its letter to Reuters by recommending that media organizations
embed their reporters with US military units.
Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division detained the
three Reuters employees in January 2004 while covering
the downing of an American helicopter by rebels near
Fallujah. The journalists say soldiers beat them and
subjected them to sexual humiliation similar to that
practiced by US jailers at Abu Ghraib prison around
the same time. They were released without charges three
days after being detained. |
A UA student was banned
from attending President Bush's Social Security forum
at the Tucson Convention Center yesterday.
UA Young Democrat Steven Gerner, a political science
and pre-pharmacy sophomore, said he and three other
Young Democrats had been waiting in line with their
tickets for about 40 minutes when a staff member approached
him and asked to read his T-shirt.
Gerner was the only one of the four wearing a UAYD
T-shirt, which read, "Don't be a smart (image of
a donkey, the Democratic Party symbol). UA Young Democrats."
Gerner said the staffer, who refused to provide his
name, asked for Gerner's ticket and crumpled it up.
The staffer walked away, returned in 20 minutes, and
told Gerner his name had been added to a list banning
him from entering the convention center for the speech.
"I was certainly shocked," Gerner said. "Everyone
should have access to this information."
Gerner said he obtained a free ticket to the speech
from the office of Congressman Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz.
The ticket had his name printed on it.
"I really wanted a chance to hear the Bush side
of the Social Security debate," Gerner said. "Unfortunately,
I won't hear all the facts now, first-person."
Kate Calhoun, TCC sales and marketing manager, said
the venue's staff did not control entrance to the event,
but said the Secret Service was taking tickets and exercising
"no discrimination whatsoever."
"The venue does not issue
or check or take tickets," Calhoun said.
"It's coming straight from the White House - we
rent them our space and don't get involved. It was a
smooth operation from start to finish, and I did not
see anyone denied entry."
Jonathan Cherry, Secret Service spokesman, said the
Secret Service was not taking tickets at the event.
"The host committee controls
who gets in and who gets out," Cherry said. "Secret
Service agents are not ticket takers."
Tony Cani, president of Young Democrats of Arizona,
said Gerner's dismissal was not at all surprising but
a disappointment.
"If this would have been paid for by the Bush-Cheney
campaign and they discriminated entrance, it would have
been unethical, undemocratic and wrong, but they would
have had the right," Cani said. "The distinction
is that this was paid for with taxpayers' dollars -
some of the money even comes out of Social Security."
Cani said the tax-payer-funded public forum was supposed
to be about sharing ideas and helping people learn,
not blocking specific people from attending.
"It's not very democratic,
and this is the type of action that dissuades young
people from being interested in politics," Cani
said.
A
13-year-old girl was arrested after she threw an egg
at the motorcade. Three police officers, after observing
the girl's aunt whisper something in her ear and then
seeing the girl launch the egg, rushed the two and dragged
them across the street, where they were both handcuffed.
It is unknown whether the egg hit the motorcade or
not, reports stated.
The girl's aunt was cited for disorderly conduct and
released.
More than 40 people were banned from the president's
Feb. 3 Social Security speech in North Dakota, according
to The Washington Post.
The Post reported that the names of a liberal radio
producer, several university professors and a deputy
democratic campaign manager were on a list supplied
to workers at two ticket distribution sites, which the
White House said might have come from volunteers but
did not come from the White House. |
JAKARKTA - The United States has
warned its citizens of an increased risk of terrorist
attack in Indonesia over the Easter holiday period.
The warning comes as police say they are searching for
several bomb-makers who, they believe, recently graduated
from an al-Qaeda-linked training camp in the Philippines.
The U.S. Embassy in Jakarta says the threat of attacks
by Jemaah Islamiyah, which has been blamed for a string
of deadly attacks across Asia, could be higher during
the Easter period.
It says the targets of the attacks could include restaurants,
shopping malls, schools, places of worship, or any other
locations where Westerners congregate.
Meanwhile, Australia has revised its travel alert
for the Philippines, warning that authorities in Manila
and key cities in Mindanao are on high alert for bomb
attacks.
The travel warning notes that an extra 15,000 police
have been deployed in Manila during the Easter holidays,
to patrol shopping malls, churches and public transport.
The alert reflects reports that terrorists in the
region may be in the final stages of planning an attack.
[...] |
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS
The Birth of Conversion/Brainwashing in Christian Revivalism
in 1735. The Pavlovian explanation of the three brain
phases. Born-again preachers:Step-by-Step, how they conduct
a revival and the expected physiological results. The
"voice roll" technique used by preachers, lawyers
and hypnotists.
New trance-inducing churches. The 6 steps to conversion.
The decognition process. Thought-stopping techniques.
The "sell it by zealot" technique. True believers
and mass movements. Persuasion techniques: "Yes set,"
"Imbedded Commands," "Shock and Confusion,"
and the "Interspersal Technique."Subliminals.
Vibrato and ELF waves. Inducing trance with vibrational
sound.Even professional observers will be "possessed"
at charismatic gatherings. The "only hope" technique
to attend and not be converted. Non-detectable Neurophone
programming through the skin. The medium for mass take-over.
I'm Dick Sutphen and this tape is a studio-recorded,
expanded version of a talk I delivered at the World Congress
of Professional Hypnotists Convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Although the tape carries a copyright to protect it from
unlawful duplication for sale by other companies, in this
case, I invite individuals to make copies and give them
to friends or anyone in a position to communicate this
information.
Although I've been interviewed about the subject on many
local and regional radio and TV talk shows, large-scale
mass communication appears to be blocked, since it could
result in suspicion or investigation of the very media
presenting it or the sponsors that support the media.
Some government agencies do not want this information
generally known. Nor do the Born-Again Christian movement,
cults, and many human-potential trainings.
Everything I will relate only exposes the surface of
the problem. I don't know how the misuse of these techniques
can be stopped. I don't think it is possible to legislate
against that which often cannot be detected; and if those
who legislate are using these techniques, there is little
hope of affecting laws to govern usage. I do know that
the first step to initiate change is to generate interest.
In this case, that will probably only result from an underground
effort.
In talking about this subject, I am talking about my
own business. I know it, and I know how effective it can
be. I produce hypnosis and subliminal tapes and, in some
of my seminars, I use conversion tactics to assist participants
to become independent and self-sufficient. But, anytime
I use these techniques, I point out that I am using them,
and those attending have a choice to participate or not.
They also know what the desired result of participation
will be.
I'm going to talk about conversion, which is a nice word
for brainwashing. Everything I will relate only exposes
the surface of the problem. I don't know how the misuse
of these techniques can be stopped. I don't think it is
possible to legislate against that which often cannot
be detected; and if those who legislate are using these
techniques, there is little hope of affecting laws to
govern usage.
In talking about mind manipulation, I am talking about
my own business. I know it, and I know how effective it
can be. I produce hypnosis and subliminal tapes and, in
some of my seminars, I use conversion tactics to assist
participants to become independent and self-sufficient.
But, anytime I use these techniques, I point out that
I am using them, and those attending have a choice to
participate or not. They also know what the desired result
of participation will be.
So, to begin, I want to sate the most basic of all facts
about brainwashing:
In the entire history of man, no one has ever
been brainwashed and REALIZED OR BELIEVED that he had
been brainwashed.
Those who have been brainwashed will usually passionately
defend their manipulators, claiming they have simply been
"shown the light" ... or have been transformed
in miraculous ways. |
A man accused of going on a rampage
inside a north Clayton County home surrendered Tuesday
night to authorities in Greensboro, N.C.
Clayton police said Terrance McDowell forced his way
into the house at 3 a.m. Tuesday,
raped his ex-girlfriend at gunpoint, shot the woman's
father eight times while he slept and abducted the woman's
two small children.
The children were found unhurt in North Carolina,
12 hours later and 350 miles away. Police said McDowell
apparently dropped Faith McDowell, 4, and Jaquan Wright,
5, at his sister's house in Greensboro. McDowell is
the 4-year-old's father.
About 6 p.m. Tuesday, McDowell reportedly surrendered
to the FBI in Greensboro. The arrest ended a manhunt
that covered the Southeast. [...] |
Massachusetts prison escapee
led secret life for 20 years
Published March 23, 2005 Poet Norman A. Porter Jr.'s
greatest work might be his creation of J.J. Jameson,
an anti-war, pro-labor Chicago poet who has been spinning
and spouting his verses in the city for nearly 20 years.
On Tuesday, Porter's life as J.J. Jameson of Maywood
came to a shocking end when authorities arrested him
for being a fugitive from the law. Porter,
they said, killed two people in his home state of Massachusetts.
The arrest came the same month he was honored as Poet
of the Month by the Web site ChicagoPoetry.com.
[...]
Porter was known for his comic poems and his slow,
pronounced tone, said C.J. Laity, a friend and the publisher
of ChicagoPoetry.com. In 1999, he also published a book
called "Lady Rutherford's Cauliflower," Laity
said.
Porter was a popular poet, said Laity, who has known
him for a decade.
"I don't know how well anyone could have known
him," he said. "He is the type of guy when
he walks in the room, everyone claps. People laughed
hysterically."
Fellow poets described him
as a dedicated anti-war activist.
During the day, Porter worked as a handyman for the
Third Unitarian Church, the church at which he was arrested
Tuesday, Laity said. When he was not working at the
church, he was practicing his carpentry on friend's
homes. [...] |
LONDON -- A concert by rapper
Nas was stopped after a gunman apparently opened fire
in the London venue where he was performing, British
police said yesterday. Several people were hurt in the
incident at the Brixton Academy in south London late
Monday as panicked fans rushed to leave the concert.
Officers believe a gunman fired two shots at the ceiling,
a police spokeswoman said, adding that Nas stopped performing
immediately and organizers evacuated the venue. |
UPDATE: Tylon Cole, of the 1400
block of East Dundee Road in Palatine, was charged today
with one count of aggravated battery with a firearm
after he allegedly shot his supervisor at an Arlington
Heights plumbing supply business. He was in custody
pending a bond hearing in the Rolling Meadows branch
of Cook County Circuit Court.
Hours after a man shot his supervisor at an Arlington
Heights plumbing supply business and kidnapped a company
manager Wednesday morning, Rockford police found and
arrested him, authorities said.
The supervisor, a 26-year-old man who lives in Round
Lake, was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital
in Park Ridge with two gunshot wounds in his left leg
that did not appear life-threatening, police said.
Prosecutors had not charged the suspect Wednesday
evening. [...] |
Ottawa — Canadian citizens
with suspected terrorist ties could also be subjected
to so-called "control measures" such as house
arrest that are currently being developed for immigrant
terror suspects, Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said
yesterday.
The new measures, inspired by Britain's recent move
to tone down its anti-terrorism laws, would expand the
range of options authorities have to deal with non-citizen
immigrants who are arrested as security threats to include
measures such as electronic ankle bracelets and house
arrest.
The changes are aimed at providing a less Draconian
option than jailing such suspects indefinitely.
But Mr. Cotler revealed yesterday
that he is considering expanding their use to Canadian
citizens, not just non-citizen immigrants. [...] |
TORONTO – A U.S. army deserter
who fled to Toronto to avoid serving in Iraq was denied
refugee status Thursday by the Canada's Immigration
and Refugee Board.
Jeremy Hinzman's application was heard at a three-day
immigration hearing in December.
A written decision rejecting his claim was released
in Toronto on Thursday afternoon.
Hinzman, 26, tried to argue at the hearing that he
left the United States because he was being forced to
participate in an illegal war.
When that line of defence was not allowed, Hinzman
argued that he feared he would become involved in committing
atrocities against Iraqis if he was forced to serve
there.
"My life isn't that significant, but it's also
not so worthless to be killed or go kill innocent people,"
he said.
Hinzman's lawyer said his client is "cautiously
hopeful" that he'll be allowed to stay in Canada,
but doesn't plan to take no for answer.
Lawyer Jeffrey House said Hinzman will appeal Thursday's
ruling to the Federal Court. |
HAVANA (AP) - In a move to further
strengthen Cuba's national currency, Cuban President
Fidel Castro announced one of two types of money accepted
on the island will no longer be automatically traded
1-1 to the U.S. dollar.
Beginning April 9, the exchange rate for the Cuban
convertible peso will no longer be on par with the U.S.
dollar and instead will be tied to several foreign currencies,
initially marking an eight-per-cent revaluation, Castro
said in a televised speech late Thursday.
The Cuban leader said the move is necessary to create
a Cuban economy no longer dependent on the U.S. dollar,
which is steadily losing value against other world currencies
such as the euro.
"We are defending our resources, our economy,"
he said. [...] |
ST. LOUIS - (KRT) -
The earthquakes coming from the New Madrid Seismic Zone
have a newly identified culprit: the Bootheel fault.
University of Arkansas geologist Margaret Guccione says
an ancient stream bed in southeast Missouri was ripped
in two where it crossed an 80-mile line of sandy soil:
evidence for faulting.
That line, commonly known as the Bootheel
lineament, now should be called the Bootheel fault, she
says. Lineaments are just unexplained lines in the Earth's
surface, while faults are created when miles-deep blocks
of rock slip past each other in the convulsive shudders
known as earthquakes.
The discovery won't change the ground-shaking hazard
for most Midwesterners, since earthquakes starting anywhere
in that seismic zone would have much the same effect.
St. Louisans can still expect to be rattled by a magnitude
7.5 or greater earthquake, which the U.S. Geological Survey
says has a 1 in 10 chance of occurring in the next 50
years.
But the newly identified fault
does allow earthquake scientists to foresee more scenarios
involving a huge, magnitude 8.0 event, said Arch
Johnston, director of the University of Memphis Earthquake
Center.
Guccione published the paper this month in the Geological
Society of America Bulletin.
Faults in the New Madrid zone, hidden by riverborne mud,
are more camouflaged than the obvious scars of faults
such as the San Andreas in California.
Western earthquakes also have a driving force - the Pacific
Ocean plate grinding against the continental plate of
North America - whereas the mechanics of New Madrid quakes
are mystifying. Geologists don't know if residual rock
pressure or the lost weight of ice age glaciers is causing
the infrequent creaks.
What's known is that they happen. At
the end of 1811, a series of three massive earthquakes,
centered near New Madrid, Mo., shook the ground so much
that church bells rang in Boston. Studying samples of
buried wood, geologists have dated similarly large earthquakes
in 900 and 1450.
But it has been harder to find the faults responsible
for the earthquakes. The New Madrid zone is defined only
by the thousands of little earthquakes that cluster there.
Deep in the Earth, some of the microquakes congregate
along certain faultlike features. But only at the Reelfoot
scarp - and now along the Bootheel - is there evidence
that a fault breaks the surface.
One of Guccione's co-authors, Ron Marple, noticed the
Bootheel lineament in 1989, when he was a master's student
at the University of Memphis. In aerial photographs, he
saw a streaky succession of tan-colored sand blows, stretching
from New Madrid south almost to Marked Tree, Ark. Earthquakes
make sand blows when sand, liquefied by shaking, bubbles
up through the ground like a volcano. Scientists dug trenches
across the lineament, hoping to find sides that slipped
past each other.
"They thought it was probably a fault, but they
couldn't prove it," said Guccione. "It was just
this long, linear feature which looked suspicious."
The Mississippi River, with its shifting course and heavy
silt load, tends to erase earthquake evidence, she said.
A decade later, Marple and Guccione found a clue in an
aerial photo: They saw what looked like an old stream
channel on the east side of the lineament, but no matching
channel on the west.
Over several hot, mosquito-filled summers, they drilled
more than 100 core samples up to 30 feet deep in the cotton
and soybean fields belonging to two farmers. They sieved
and sorted the cores to find similar sediment layers and
connected the dots to build a three-dimensional subterranean
model.
They found the matching stream channel on the west side,
but it had shifted north by 40 feet and was submerged
in 10 feet of mud. This was evidence that earthquakes
had separated the once-united stream.
Some seismologists are skeptical about the Bootheel because
below the surface, it's so quiet - earthquake-listening
equipment doesn't hear a thing.
"If you identify something at the surface, great.
But do you have the logic or evidence to carry that surface
observation 1 or 2 thousand feet down to the rock itself?"
said Robert Herrmann, a seismologist at St. Louis University.
Guccione speculated that the Bootheel fault was young
and therefore locked by friction. The other faultlike
features nearby - where lots of little quakes occur -
might be older, more slippery and therefore more likely
to rub past each other, she said.
Marple said he hoped geologists, who once wouldn't even
label his lineament on a map, would start calling it a
fault.
Johnston said he hadn't yet noticed scientists adopting
the new name.
"But I know I am," he said. |
New Delhi - An earthquake
measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale shook the Andaman and
Nicobar group of islands early on Friday, the Indian meteorological
department said.
The epicentre was off Great Nicobar island's southern
coast, the Press Trust of India quoted the department
as saying.
There were no immediate report of casualties on the island,
closer to Indonesia than the Indian mainland, where scores
of buildings were flattened by tsunami waves three months
ago.
The chain of more than 500 islands in the Indian Ocean
recorded more than 9 500 aftershocks since December 26
when an earthquake measuring 9.3 on the Richter scale
unleashed tsunamis that killed more than 273 000 from
Indonesia to East Africa.
The tsunamis killed more than 16 000 people in India.
A tremor measuring more than five on the Richter scale
can cause serious damage.
More than 20 000 people were killed in India's western
Gujarat state when an earthquake measuring 6.7 on the
Richter scale hit on January 26, 2001. - Sapa-AFP |
DHAKA : At least 22 people were
killed when tropical thunderstorms swept much of Bangladesh
this week, destroying homes, cutting off power supplies
and disrupting air and river travel, officials said
Thursday.
The thunderstorms hit 25 districts across the country
late Tuesday and Wednesday and were accompanied by winds
of up to 56 kilometres (34 miles) per hour that flattened
thousands of thatched and tin houses.
The storms follow a tornado which ripped through 15
villages in northern Bangladesh on Sunday, killing at
least 54 people.
Two boats caught in the storms sank and killed at
least four people in the central districts of Madaripur
and Chandpur, police said.
Four people were killed by lightning in the northeastern
district of Habiganj, district police officials said.
Fourteen people were killed when they were hit by falling
trees and other objects. [...] |
CALCUTTA - Three people were killed
and 30 were hurt in heavy rainstorms in India's West
Bengal state Thursday, as weather forecasters warned
a severe storm was approaching.
Thursday's strong winds and rain also damaged more
than 7,500 houses, state officials said.
People living in the state's coastal districts were
meanwhile moved to safer areas and fishermen were warned
not to venture into the sea as a severe storm was forecast
to be on the way, West Bengal Relief Minister Hafiz
Alem Sairani said.
Forecasters said a storm with winds of more than 80
kilometers (50 miles) an hour was likely to hit West
Bengal in the next 24 hours. |
PARIS, March 24 (AFP)
- The French government is to back a measure raising the
minimum age for girls to marry from 15 to 18 - the same
as for boys - in a bid to clamp down on forced weddings,
Justice Minister Dominique Perben said Thursday.
"There is absolutely no reason for a difference
between the two sexes. We must beware of the false freedom
that allows girls to marry young and then find themselves
with no freedom at all," he said.
"It is hard to know the number of forced marriages
because people hide behind family privacy. But that does
not mean we cannot take measures to discourage them,"
he said. |
In bone blasted from Montana
sandstone, fossil hunters for the first time have discovered
the microscopic meat of a Tyrannosaurus rex, preserved almost
unaltered since the dinosaur died 70 million years ago,
scientists announced Thursday.
Scientists at North Carolina State University and the
Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Mont., found brownish
oblong cells, elastic threads of veins and pliable dabs
of red bone marrow in the core of a stout hind leg, the
researchers reported in the journal Science. The translucent
vessels were so elastic that when one was stretched out
and then released, it snapped back like a rubber band.
"To my knowledge, preservation to this extent has
not been noted in dinosaurs before," said paleontologist
Mary H. Schweitzer at North Carolina State University
in Raleigh, who led the research team.
Graphic: Perhaps a step towards dinosaur DNA
"The tissues are still soft," she said. "The
microstructures that look like cells are preserved in
every way."
Under a scanning electron microscope, these dinosaur
tissues were "virtually identical" to those
of a modern ostrich. Many paleontologists think birds
are living descendants of some dinosaurs.
The scientists have not completed their laboratory tests,
so they would not say whether they had found any intact
genetic material or isolated individual proteins.
In the unlikely event that researchers could identify
the actual genes of a Tyrannosaurus rex, it might help
settle debates about the kinship of dinosaurs and birds,
or even prompt cloning experiments aimed at replicating
the creatures.
Far from a freakish accident of preservation, the researchers
said, fragile fresh tissue inside dinosaur bones may turn
out to be common. Indeed, a quick examination of three
other dinosaur specimens revealed similar microscopic
tissues inside the bones, they said.
"It may be that this isn't a unique specimen,"
said paleontologist Jack Horner at Montana State University's
Museum of the Rockies, a co-author of the study. Horner
has pioneered the use of molecular and cellular techniques
to probe the growth and behavior of dinosaurs.
If confirmed by other researchers, the find could force
scientists to reconsider how fossils are formed.
Until now, scientist believed that bones fossilized when
minerals gradually replaced all organic material. Current
theories about fossil preservation hold that organic molecules
should not preserve beyond 100,000 years.
"Our theories don't allow for this," Schweitzer
said.
Microscopic traces of soft tissues may have eluded detection
until now, the scientists said, because paleontologists
were too squeamish to break open their irreplaceable dinosaur
specimens to dissolve the mineral matrix inside the bones.
Horner called the discovery a combination of adept laboratory
analysis and an accident of field work.
The excavation site was so remote that the fossils could
be removed only by helicopter. But the dinosaur remains
encased in plaster were so heavy that field workers had
to break the massive thigh bone in two places to load
it safely aboard the aircraft. They did not treat it with
the customary chemical preservatives.
When the broken thigh bone was delivered to Schweitzer's
lab, she quickly noticed what appeared to be unusual tissue
fragments lining the narrow cavity at the core of the
bone.
|
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