Now that Bush and his administration are in deep trouble -- his approval ratings are way down, the war in Iraq is so far out of control that only the most rabid Bushistas are not seeing it, the White House is under investigation for leaking secrets, Hurricane Katrina brought to the screens of CNN and Fox the structural racism of American society and the Bush Administration's lack of concern for the plight of the poor and Blacks, gas prices are at historical highs, the US economy is on the verge of a major crash after being kept on life support via consumer debt, and stories that have long been found only on the Internet about Bush's drinking and drug problems, not to mention his abusive treatment of staff, are finally making it into the mainstream press, and so on --, we are going to see a lot of proposals for what should be done. What will be common to most of them is that they will completely miss the mark.

The current investigation of Patrick Fitzgerald, should it finish by handing down indictments to major figures of the Bush Reich, has been focused on a very small and relatively unimportant element of the litany of horror stories that have been such an integral part of this administration since it stole its way into office through a Supreme Court fiat. Outing a CIA spy is really a trivial matter. They should all be outed. There are reports, however, that Fitzgerald may be enlarging his investigation to look at the so-called faulty intelligence planted by the neo-cons in the press prior to launching their war on Iraq.

But still...

If Karl Rove or Scooter Libby, or even George W. himself, were to be named by Fitzgerald, prosecuted, and even convicted, do we actually think it would change anything? Do we think that any of these three men were actually involved in the organisation or carrying out of the events of 9/11?

We think not.

So if the public face of the new American fascism is removed, what about all of the others, the real power, the names we don't know? They'll still be in place. And this is why we think that all the hoopla will be much ado about nothing, sound and fury signifying yet another hoodwinking of the American public into believing the "system works", just like with Watergate and the resignation of Richard Nixon.

Well, yeah, it does. It works very well for those in control. It just doesn't work for what it claims: protecting and ensuring the freedom of the US people.

However, there is another degree of control that no one is talking about, a level of control that is so outlandish and preposterous for most of us that we laugh it off and consider the person making such a proposition as deranged. Yes, friends, we are speaking of the control that comes from hyperdimensional realities and our hyperdimensional overlords. You remember them; they consider us as livestock to be bred for their needs. If coming to the conclusion that the neocons and Israel were behind 9/11 is a bridge too far, how much further is it for the man on the street to consider that we are ruled by time-traveling beings who appear to us as gods and aliens in order to better manipulate us? Who have filled our heads with monotheism in order to divide us, to set us one against another, and if that doesn't work, then, whup, let's bring out the New Age and the occult, black magic and paganism, Planet Nibiru and the other fads of millennial thinking.

If you were holed up in the White House and saw that you were becoming encircled by enemy forces, what would you do? It is easy to suggest that Bush & Co could order another "terrorist" attack on the country, however, it is clear that Bush is but a puppet when it comes to such things. What if his puppet masters didn't want to help him out? What if he has become expendable?

That doesn't exclude the possibility that Bush and Rove could have their black ops experts pull off a little attack of their own, the way MI5 put terror back on the front pages in July in London, but it is risky because not everyone has the experience and know-how of Israeli intelligence when it comes to false flag operations. London was to a certain extent a bungled affair. Too many loose ends. It is only the complicity of the press, that watch dog that seems to forever feast on a piece of stray meat thrown its way when it should be doing its job, that the false flag nature of the bombings haven't come to light in the mainstream media.

We seem to have entered a period of turbulence, perhaps a phase transition. The new state into which we pass will depend upon the energy that is put into the system now, while it is beginning to boil. There are two choices, either the energy of creation or the energy of entropy. Creation is intimately linked to our ability to see the world as it is, free from any and all illusion. In our case, these illusions have to do with the social programming we receive in school, the emotional programming that comes from our relationships in our families, with our friends. If we continue to believe the lies we have been fed all of our lives, then we will remain embedded in a reality of lies, of chaos, of disorder, violence, hunger, and aggression. We will be swept down into the maelstrom of entropy.

Subjectivity is our enemy. It is what holds us prisoner to our personalities, unable to reach deeply inside to touch our real selves.

Only by staring the world in its face, working through the emotional chains that hold us, consciously revisiting our upbringing and identifying our programming, and then learning how to make a different choice when the programme starts to run will be be able to face the world in front of us calmly, steadfastly, and with the clear gaze that will enable us to respond creatively.

The White House is bracing itself for the possible indictment of senior officials as Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, prepares to wrap up his two-year inquiry into the leaking of a covert CIA agent's name.

Further details about the role of White House officials were underlined in a report in the New York Times on Sunday.

Judith Miller, the reporter released from jail after 85 days after she agreed to testify before a grand jury, gave an account of her conversations with Scooter Libby, chief of staff to Dick Cheney, vice-president. She also admitted that Mr Fitzgerald had asked whether Mr Cheney had personally authorised Mr Libby to speak.

In a more ominous sign, Ms Miller said Mr Fitzgerald's questions went beyond the leaking of the CIA name to probe the administration's selective leaking of intelligence information ahead of the Iraq war. During the hearing, she said he repeatedly asked how Mr Libby handled classified information and showed her some documents.

"[They] seemed familiar, and that they might be excerpts from the National Intelligence Estimate of Iraq's weapons. Mr Fitzgerald asked whether Mr Libby had shown any of the documents to me. I thought I remembered him at one point reading from a piece of paper he pulled from his pocket," she wrote.

It remains unclear whether Mr Fitzgerald will issue indictments. The grand jury is due to be dismissed on October 28 but the mood at the White House is one of foreboding. It could prove to be one of the most critical weeks of George W. Bush's presidency. It comes amid deteriorating poll numbers for Mr Bush, with only 28 per cent of Americans agreeing that the country is on the "right track" the lowest level for a decade.

Of most concern is the role of Karl Rove, Mr Bush's chief political strategist. On Friday, he testified for a fourth time before the grand jury. Ahead of his testimony he was warned that there was no guarantee that he would not be indicted.

Mr Rove has not received a letter saying he is a target of the investigation but he has been adopting a lower profile recently. He was due to speak at a fund raising event on Saturday but cancelled. He did not return to the White House on Friday after his testimony, according to the New York Times.

Last week, there were signs that the White House's usual clinical competence at staging events was coming unstuck. In one omission, broadcasters were able to watch live footage of military officials prepping soldiers in Iraq for a satellite question and answer session with Mr Bush.

In an awkward moment on Friday, Scott McClellan, White House spokesman, was asked whether the administration was distracted by the CIA investigation. He attempted a joke, pretending to ignore the question. No one laughed. He tried again, his eyes swivelling away from the podium. "I'm sorry, I'm a little distracted up here," he said. Again, no one laughed.

NEW YORK Since the posting of The New York Times lengthy article on Judith Miller's involvement in the Plame scandal Saturday night, much Web buzzing has ensued concerning the revelation that she had some sort of special classified status while embedded with troops in Iraq at one point.

The issue came to the fore because Miller, in recounting her grand jury testimony, wrote about how her former classified status figured in her discussions with I. Lewis Libby. She was pressed by the prosecutor on this matter.

E&P columnist William E. Jackson, Jr., had first raised this issue last year. Today, former CBS national security correspondent Bill Lynch posted his views in a long letter about it at the Romenesko site at poynter.org. Here is the letter:

***

There is one enormous journalism scandal hidden in Judith Miller's Oct. 16th first person article about the (perhaps lesser) CIA leak scandal. And that is Ms. Miller's revelation that she was granted a DoD security clearance while embedded with the WMD search team in Iraq in 2003.

This is as close as one can get to government licensing of journalists and the New York Times (if it knew) should never have allowed her to become so compromised. It is all the more puzzling that a reporter who as a matter of principle would sacrifice 85 days of her freedom to protect a source would so willingly agree to be officially muzzled and thereby deny potentially valuable information to the readers whose right to be informed she claims to value so highly.

One must assume that Ms. Miller was required to sign a standard and legally binding agreement that she would never divulge classified information to which she became privy, without risk of criminal prosecution. And she apparently plans to adhere to the letter of that self-censorship deal; witness her dilemma at being unable to share classified information with her editors.

In an era where the Bush Administration seeks to conceal mountains of government activity under various levels of security classification, why would any self-respecting news organization or individual journalist agree to become part of such a system? Readers would be right to question whether a reporter is operating under a security clearance and, by definition, withholding critical information. Does a newspaper not have the obligation to disclose to its readers when a reporter is not only embedded with a military unit but also officially proscribed in what she may report without running afoul of espionage laws? Was that ever done in Ms. Miller's articles from Iraq?

It is not hard to imagine a defense lawyer being granted a security clearance to defend, say, an "enemy combatant." When the lawyer gets access to classified information in the case, he discovers it is full of false or exculpatory information. But, because he's signed the secrecy oath, there's not a damn thing he can do except whine on the courthouse steps that his client is innocent but he can't say why. A journalist should never be put in an equivalent position, but this is precisely what Ms. Miller has opened herself to.

There are other questions. Does she still have a clearance? Did she have it when talking to Scooter Libby? Is that why she never wrote the Wilson/Plame story?

I am a former White House and national security correspondent and have had plenty of access to classified information. When I divulged it, it was always with a common sense appraisal of the balance between any potential harm done and the public's right to know. If I had doubts, I would run it by officers whose judgement I trusted. In my experience, defense and intelligence officials routinely share secrets with reporters in the full expectation they will be reported. But if any official had ever offered me a security clearance, my instincts would have sent me running. I am gravely disappointed Ms. Miller did not do likewise.

It strikes me that Ms. Miller's situation is the flip side of the NYT's Jayson Blair coin. He and the Times were rightly disgraced for fabricating. In my opinion, Miller also violated her duty to report the truth by accepting a binding obligation to withhold key facts the government deems secret, even when that information might contradict the reportable "facts."

If Ms. Miller agreed to operate under a security clearance without the knowledge or approval of Times managers, she should be disciplined or even dismissed. If she had their approval, all involved should be ashamed.

WASHINGTON - Investigators at the Education Department have contacted the U.S. attorney's office regarding the Bush administration's hiring of commentator Armstrong Williams to promote its agenda.

The action was disclosed by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., who has pressed for a criminal fraud investigation focused on questions about whether Williams actually performed the work cited in his monthly reports to the Education Department.

The Government Accountability Office has concluded that the Education Department engaged in illegal "covert propaganda" by hiring Williams to promote the No Child Left Behind Act without requiring him to disclose that he was being paid. The Education Department's inspector general has also reviewed the Williams deal, which was part of a broader contract that the education agency had with Ketchum, a public relations firm.

Now the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia is investigating whether Williams accepted public money without performing his required duties, said Dan Katz, chief counsel for Lautenberg. The attorney's office has a range of potential remedies, from suing to recover the money to possible criminal charges, Katz said.

"The inspector general wouldn't refer this to the U.S. attorney unless there was evidence of misconduct that requires further investigating," Katz said.

Williams' spokeswoman Shirley Dave said the commentator had not been informed about the latest development and had no comment. She had said previously that Williams was negotiating with the department to return part of the money he was paid.

The deal occurred during the tenure of former Education Secretary Rod Paige. Education Department spokeswoman Susan Aspey had no comment on the work of inspector general's office, which operates independently. Inspector General Counsel Mary Mitchelson also declined comment.

In an Oct. 6 letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Lautenberg and Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said questions of fraud remain. Lautenberg also asked the Education Department's Office of Inspector General to more fully investigate the contract.

The inspector general's office told Lautenberg in a letter released Friday that it was working with the U.S. attorney's office for the District of Columbia.

"It's bad enough the administration bribed a journalist to promote their policies, but now it looks like taxpayer dollars were handed over for work that was never done," said Lautenberg.

Williams, a conservative black commentator, was paid to produce ads promoting the No Child Left Behind law, and to provide media time to department officials and persuade other blacks in the media to discuss the law. GAO auditors could not find the work Williams listed or could not connect the work they found to his contract.

Gold closed at 472.20 dollars an ounce on Friday, down 1.3% from $478.30 a week earlier. Oil closed at $63.76 a barrel, up 3.1% from $61.84 a week earlier.  The euro closed at 1.2079 dollars on Friday, down 0.4% from $1.2124 at the previous Friday’s close. The dollar, then, would be worth 0.8279 euros, compared to 0.8248 the week before. Gold in Euros then, would be 390.93 euros an ounce, down 0.9% from 394.50 a week ago. Oil would be 52.79 euros a barrel, up 4.2% from 50.64 a week earlier. The gold/oil ratio ended at 7.41 down 4.3% from 7.73 the Friday before. In the U.S. stock market, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 10,287.34 down .05% from 10,292.31 at the previous Friday’s close.  The NASDAQ closed at 2,064.83, down 1.2% from 2,090.35 the Friday before. The yield on the ten-year U.S. Treasury note closed at 4.48%, up 13 basis points from 4.35 the week before.

If you haven’t listened to the Signs of the Times podcast this past weekend, where a eurozone banker is interviewed on the coming crash, click here. It really says all that needs to be said about the situation we find ourselves in. The banker points to the complete lack of any value in any of the usual kinds of assets.  The collapse, when it comes,  will be no mere "downturn." It will be the complete collapse of a world economic system centuries in the making, and one which will be impossible to for individual families to avoid or survive using any of the usual means of financial prudence.  What is worse, he argues, the people who do have enough knowledge and power to prevent such an event, are actually pushing the pedal to the floor of the economic bus so that, when it goes off the cliff, there is no hope of saving it. That is the reason why the economy keeps chugging along far past the point where any analysis of the fundamentals would indicate a crash. Like that bus, we may have already left the road at the cliff but we may still be traveling forward for that brief moment before the drop.

What we can do is keep our wits about us, hold our space and not be deceived. Since we are entering times for which there is little precedent, our normal instincts and reactions cannot be trusted; we need to stay open to different possibilities that may appear if we can maintain our discernment.

This past week, Gold lost the ground it gained the week before, due in part to the release of some dubious "good news" on Friday:

Budget gap narrows to $318.62 billion

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. budget deficit narrowed to $318.62 billion in the 2005 fiscal year on a big rise in revenues, the Treasury Department and the White House budget office said on Friday.

The budget deficit was 2.6 percent of gross domestic product, a Treasury Department official told reporters.

The deficit was the third-largest on record, smaller than the record $412.85 billion shortfall in fiscal 2004 and the $377.58 billion gap in fiscal 2003.

September's budget surplus rose roughly in line with expectations to $35.76 billion after a surplus of $24.61 billion in September 2004, Treasury said.

Revenues climbed to $2.154 trillion in the fiscal year on a surge in corporate tax collections, up from $1.880 trillion in fiscal 2004. The 14.6 percent gain in receipts was the biggest increase in 20 years, the Treasury and the White House budget office said in a joint statement.

Outlays rose to $2.473 trillion from $2.293 trillion.

Spending on reconstruction and aid after havoc-wreaking hurricanes on the Gulf Coast added an estimated $4 billion to spending in September, a Treasury official said.

"While the effects of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita will be felt in the short term, we remain on a path to meet the president's goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009," Treasury Secretary John Snow said in a statement.

Stronger-than-expected revenues improved the budget picture considerably. The administration had originally forecast a deficit of $427 billion, and in a mid-year report put the likely shortfall at $333 billion.

U.S. deficits have averaged 2.1 pct of GDP since fiscal year 1960, the Congressional Budget Office said on Thursday.

It’s hard to take such numbers seriously, but they did provide an excuse for a small drop in gold and rise in the dollar last week as people wait to see whether the Bush Cheney regime in the United States can survive the fierce behind-the-scenes struggle going on now within the kleptocracy, that is coming to the surface with the Plamegate investigation and the collapse in Bush’s popularity, with large percentages of United States citizens favoring impeachment.  There are even rumors of a split between Bush and Cheney as the political class speculates about which figure’s chief assistant will be indicted first. We seem to be in a poker game in which most of the cards are wild.

Here’s Steven Lagavulin:

My money says what we're watching are the symptoms of a developing civil war within the corporatocracy as the globalist-empire agenda begins to falter. On one side is the committed-and-cornered Neo-Con faction, which pridefully thrust itself to the forefront and now has to find a way to salvage a project that's coming apart at the seams. On the other side of this same coin are the corporatists who didn't expose themselves quite so blatantly. They see the desperation of the situation and are now trying to backpeddle, blamestorm, and cover their butts so they can continue with business as usual. But of course retreat is never that simple. So in the process they need to jettison the Neo-Cons as a scapegoat for the public sacrifice....and the Neo-Cons undoubtedly have no intention to playing that patsy.

Now how the insurgencies within the various intelligence agencies and military departments play into all this is anybody's guess. But one thing is for sure: the break-away move, one way or the other, will happen in the Middle East.

…And the pressures don't stop with the White House, either. Other imminent deadlines and tipping-points that are coming soon include:

Winter Fuel prices are already up over 50% and won't stop there. Gasoline prices have destroyed Bush's approval-ratings and consumer-confidence levels. Further disruptions from Katrina and Rita are working their way down the pipeline, notably in industrial producers like the chemical and plastics industries.

Much of world is already dumping U.S. dollar-denominated assets, and the next leg down for the dollar is widely expected to begin soon.

Iran is...well, Iran is Iran.... They're fundamentalist-ically opposed to the U.S., they won't stop their nuclear program, and they've got an oil-exchange waiting to be bombed before March.

The internet may begin to be split apart next month - the world doesn't think the U.S. can be trusted with it any longer. It turns out the ultimate symbol of distributed architecture and redundant processing was actually just a centralized monopoly all along. Hmm. Go figure.

All in all, many analysts including myself remarked late last year that 2005 was shaping up to be a fundamental turning point for human society. Well, those suspicions are certainly bearing out. And the many significant "shocks" we've experienced so far have really done nothing at all to halt the increasing pressures. So for instance, if we look at the major story for 2005--the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina--we see that the over-arching social "lesson learned" might have been "Together as Americans, we can overcome great tragedy". But it wasn't. The over-riding lesson was something more along the lines of "Oh my God, there's No One at the helm!". Thus the shock to our system didn't serve to lessen or resolve any of the societal anxieties or pressures. It actually increased them.

A bird flu pandemic will hit Britain - but not necessarily this winter, the chief medical officer has said.

Sir Liam Donaldson said a deadly outbreak would come when a strain of bird flu mutated with human flu.

He told the BBC's Sunday AM show it would probably kill about 50,000 people in the UK, but the epicentre of any new strain was likely to be in East Asia.

The UK has so far stockpiled 2.5m doses of anti-viral drugs - and may restrict travel if there is an outbreak.

New vaccine

On Saturday, UK tests confirmed a case in Romania of a strain of bird flu which is potentially deadly to humans, sparking fears avian flu could spread to the UK through migrating birds. A pandemic would occur if this strain of bird flu mutated with human flu - which spreads very easily - to create a new strain.

He said it was "less likely" that any new flu strain would come this year.

However he said that if the flu first emerged in another part of the world it would give UK scientists time to try to create an effective vaccine against the virus before it arrived in the UK.

"We can't make this pandemic go away, because it is a natural phenomenon, it will come," he said.

"But what we can do is to limit its impact."

He said a contingency plan was being released on Thursday, outlining the steps the government would take in the event of an outbreak.

750,000 deaths?

If a new strain did hit the UK before a vaccine was created, Sir Liam said an extra 50,000 would probably die - and a death toll of 750,000 was "not impossible".

"In a normal winter flu year... flu actually kills in excess of 12,000 people," Sir Liam said.

"But if we had a pandemic, the problem would be that our existing vaccines don't work against it, we would have to develop a new vaccine, and people don't have natural immunity because it hasn't be around before."

The total death toll depended on whether the mutated strain was a mild or serious one, he said.

However, Dr Martin Wiselka, consultant in infectious diseases at Leicester Royal Infirmary, said a death toll of 50,000 was a "complete guess".

"It could be worse, it could be better. I think initially it could be worse than that," he said.

"When a new strain arrives it tends to be more virulent but then it slows down. But the honest answer is we don't know." If a pandemic did materialise, the top priority other than vaccination would be anti-viral medicine which would "stop some people dying", Sir Liam said.

The UK has ordered 14.6m doses of anti-viral drug Tamiflu - enough for 25% of the population - which would alleviate symptoms among people affected.

Sir Liam admitted the UK only had 2.5m doses so far, with 800,000 new doses arriving every month.

The chief medical officer said key NHS workers would be the first to get treatment, but during any outbreak it would soon become apparent which age group was worst affected, and treatment would be targeted towards them.

Measures such as controlling movement of populations were not so important, because flu transmitted extremely quickly, he said.

However, the government might advise people to avoid non-essential travel in a bid to slow the spread of the virus, he acknowledged. It also might prove necessary to close schools and other public buildings.

But this would not affect air travel, he said.

'Different times'

Sir Liam said flu pandemics were things which came in "natural cycles" every 10 to 40 years, with the last taking place in 1968/69.

However he said that three decades ago there were no anti-viral drugs to combat the virus in its initial stages, as there are now.

He also said the situation was not comparable to the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 which killed millions around the world, as we now lived in "different times" with great advances in hospitals and medical science.

"We have to get the [new] virus from wherever it occurs... and get it into our labs and then make a vaccine," he added.

MOSCOW (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice failed Saturday to persuade Russia to offer new support for a hard line on Iran's disputed nuclear program, despite making a hastily arranged trip to the Russian capital.

Rice wanted Russian cooperation as the United States and its European allies try either to draw Iran back to diplomatic talks or invoke the threat of punishment from the powerful U.N. Security Council.

Despite lengthy meetings with Russian officials, including a long session alone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, it was clear Russia had not changed its opposition to using the Security Council.

The Iranian nuclear question can be handled through the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, which is already monitoring nuclear activities in Iran, Lavrov told reporters afterward.

"We think that the current situation permits us to develop this issue and do everything possible within the means of this organization, without referring this issue to other organizations now," Lavrov said.

Rice said the Security Council "remains an option" if Iran does not cooperate.

"We've said all along there remains time for negotiations if Iran is prepared to negotiate in good faith," Rice told reporters. [...]

Al-Hayat reports that 643,000 votes were cast in Ninevah Province (capital: Mosul). At the time it filed, 419,000 had been preliminarily counted, and the vote was running 75 percent in favor. Ninevah Province was the most likely place that Sunni Arabs opposing the constitution might be able to get a 2/3s "no" vote.

Several of my knowledgeable readers are convinced that the Ninevah voting results as reported so far look like fraud. One suspected that the Iraqi government so feared a defeat there that they over-did the ballot stuffing and ended up with an implausible result.

One of my Iraqi-American correspondents compared the turnout statistics from Ninevah and Diyala provinces last Jan. 30 to those coming out now, and found the current numbers completely unbelievable. He pointed out that the Iraqi Islamic Party had not garnered many votes in Ninevah last January, and its support of the constitution could not hope to explain the hundreds of thousands of "yes" votes the constitution appeared to receive on Saturday.

GENEVA - A United Nations human rights investigator on Friday accused U.S. and British forces in Iraq of breaching international law by depriving civilians of food and water in besieged cities as they try to flush out militants. But the U.S. military denied the charge and said that while supplies were sometimes disrupted by combat, food was never deliberately withheld.

Jean Ziegler, a former Swiss sociology professor who is U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, said the Geneva Conventions banned military forces from using "starvation of civilians as a method of warfare".

But he said that in Falluja, Tal Afar and Samarra, Iraqi and U.S.-led forces had cut off or restricted food and water to encourage residents to flee before assaults on entrenched Sunni insurgents over the past year.

"A drama is taking place in total silence in Iraq, where the coalition's occupying forces are using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population," Ziegler told a news briefing.

Two 1977 protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which lay down rules of conduct in armed conflicts, ban using deprivation of food or water as a weapon of war. They also prohibit destruction of food stocks or interruption of food supply lines.

Ziegler said he understood the military rationale of the coalition forces who were "facing such a horrible enemy -- these insurgents who do not respect any law of war and who use the civilian population of cities like Falluja or Tal Afar as human shields, who keep them as hostages".

But he said their actions were nevertheless a "flagrant violation of international humanitarian law".

Ziegler said he hoped the General Assembly would "condemn this strategy of the coalition forces" when he presents his report on the right to food in New York on October 27.

Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, said Ziegler's accusations were baseless.

"Any allegations of us withholding basic needs from the Iraqi people are false," he said.

"In conjunction with our combat operations, we take all precautions to ensure that the Iraqi people are taken care of, as does the Iraqi government," Boylan said.

"There have in the past ... been some supplies that have been delayed due to combat operations, but they were due to transit the area once it was deemed safe. It does not do relief supplies any good if you have them going into a firefight."

Ziegler said that he had been in touch with British authorities on the issue, and "a channel seems to be opening", but that attempts to start a dialogue with U.S. authorities had been fruitless.

WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence officials who released a letter purporting to be from an al Qaeda leader to Iraq insurgency leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi this week said on Friday they could not account for a passage that has raised doubts about the document's authenticity.

The July 9 dated letter, which U.S. officials say was written by al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri, appears near its close to urge the Iraq insurgent leader to send greetings to himself if visiting the Iraqi city of Falluja.

"My greetings to all the loved ones and please give me news of Karem and the rest of the folks I know," says an unedited English translation posted at www.dni.gov, the office Web site of U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte.

"And especially, by God, if by chance you're going to Falluja, send greetings to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," it states. [...]

Three Israelis have been shot dead and four wounded in a drive-by ambush outside a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli ambulance service has said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Sunday attack, the first of its kind in four months, at a hitchhiking post outside the Gush Etzion bloc of settlements about 15km south of Jerusalem.

"A Palestinian passed by in a car, let off a burst of fire, and struck down people standing at the hitchhiking post. There are wounded and apparently fatalities too," Shaul Goldstein, a settler leader in Gush Etzion, said on Israel Radio.

Palestinian factions entered into a tacit ceasefire early this year, greatly reducing, but not entirely halting violence in a revolt that erupted in 2000. [...]

Israel completed a withdrawal of settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip in September after 38 years of occupation; but continues to expand larger settlements in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinians want both territories for a future state.

Part I - Founded for this purpose

“I believe the main reason the United States was founded 250 years ago was so that our great country would be in a position to stand with the restored nation of Israel in these days.”

This astonishing point of view was expressed by a North Carolinian Conservative candidate for the US Congress in conversation with an American pastor friend early in 2004.

Apparently, David Huffman believed that when, in the early 17th century, God moved on the hearts of men to leave England and make their way west across the Atlantic, it was in His mind to plant a new nation to which He would bequeath a special honor and spectacular destiny.

When God brought about the independence of the United States in 1776, He was supervising the founding of a nation He purposed to have in place about two centuries later as the world’s mightiest superpower.

And His reason for elevating America to this position was so that she would ally herself with the surviving remnant of the Jewish people, help them take root again in their national homeland, and support them in their struggle against a hostile world.

So America exists for Israel’s sake? What an absurd thought!

By such reckoning, all the major events that shaped the United States – from the days of early settlement, through the colonial era, the War of Independence and Declaration of Independence, the launching of the Information Age, the American Industrial Revolution, the American Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, the attainment to flight, World War One, the Great Depression, World War Two, the advent of the Atomic Age, the Space Race, the Cold War and America’s victory over it – all these things took place ultimately so that the United States could be positioned to stand with the Jewish nation in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Surely a ridiculous idea!

Israel is one of the smallest nations on earth, just 26,990 square miles or 43,436 square kilometers in total surface area. It is home to 6.8 million Israelis, nearly 80 percent of them Jewish. The daily lives of its people revolve around the basic issues of survival against military onslaught, preserving Israel as a Jewish state and yet a democracy, absorbing hundreds of thousands of new immigrants, building a prosperous economy for its citizens, and battling for acceptance in a world that has never had much time for Jews. Events happening almost everywhere on the globe impact Israel in one way or the other.

By contrast, the United States could swallow this scrap of Jewish homeland 130 times. The 3.5 million square miles (5.6million sq. km) of that mammoth country are home to 300 million people, 98 percent of them Gentiles. It is the wealthiest, most powerful military and industrial nation in the world. Americans are proud – immensely proud – of their country. For the majority of its citizens, America is the center of the world. For some it is the world. There is so much going on somewhere in the US at any given moment of every day that events outside its borders often don’t penetrate the daily news bulletins and consequently simply do not happen as far as most Americans are concerned.

The United States lies half-a-world away from the State of Israel. Politically, it is largely consumed with issues affecting its relations with the other great nations on the globe – the European Union, China, Russia. It holds veto power in, and is a permanent member of, the United Nations Security Council. It hosts and attends as the most important member world summits like the G-7, and sponsors global energy and numerous other initiatives while maintaining an intensely high level of diplomatic activity with a finger in almost every political pie on the planet.

And this giant’s purpose, its primary raison d’etre, is to be allied with Israel against the rest of the international community?

How could any serious-minded person accept such a notion? Well, David Huffman and his pastor friend believe this to be true. So, for that matter, do I.

As a non-American, however, perhaps it is easier for me to see things this way.

For most American Christians, raised to be deeply patriotic and fiercely loyal to their country, and enjoying the sense of near-invulnerability offered by such a powerful motherland, reaching a conclusion like this would require a revolutionary paradigm shift.

To fathom this and ultimately embrace it means to recognize that little Israel and no other nation – no matter how large and mighty – is at the center of God’s plan for mankind.

While Israel has always held that place, Christendom has largely viewed itself as having replaced or superseded Israel in this plan. American Christians – whose nation was founded by Bible-believing Christians, built upon biblical principles, and which has therefore attained to the position of the most powerful “Christian nation” on earth today – naturally enough would see their country as being at, or near, the center of God’s “lens” as He sees the world.

For the past four millennia or so, from the calling out of Abraham until today, God has consistently viewed the earth as home to two main groups of people: Israel on the one hand, the Gentile nations on the other.

From around 2000 BC to the birth of Christ, He devoted Himself to one nation, raising Israel up, setting her apart and attaching His name to her for one reason: so that through this nation He could reveal Himself to the world He had made – to all humanity, which He loves.

Israel had 2000 years of almost exclusive God-time. While the Bible mentions other nations that were established, waxed powerful and then waned during that period, they are included in the narrative because of their interaction with Israel. They were used to bless, chastise or judge the Chosen People. Often they sought to eradicate the Jews. But one after the other they passed from the stage – great powers and empires dissolving into nothingness, while Israel endured, survived, remained.

Kingdoms and empires Israel outlived, or survived in spite of, during the 2000 year period from Abraham to Jesus include: The early Egyptian dynasties, the numerous Canaanite kings, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, Alexandrian Greece, Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria.

And then, nearly 2000 years ago, God turned His face to the Gentiles, and turned His back on Israel. Falling into the shadow of His anger and His disfavor, the Jewish people endured centuries of persecution and hatred as a scattered nation, while their land was left to them desolate.

But while He turned His back on Israel, He did not reject them. Still, it is perhaps unsurprising that the Christian world, once it had become predominantly Gentile, should have embraced the teaching that God had chosen a new people – the Church – for Himself instead.

But God had not abandoned Jacob “whom He foreknew.” Although humanity had now entered the Christian epoch Israel – the desolate land and the scattered people – outlived or survived in spite of every major kingdom and empire that existed from the time of Christ until today, including Rome, the Byzantium and Islamic states, the Crusaders, the British Empire, Nazi Germany, and the USSR.

Some of these kingdoms had even more territory than does the United States. Relative to the realities in their day, some were as powerful, as influential, as America is. Certainly many if not all these other great nations considered themselves unchallengeable and indestructible. Yet today they are either insignificant, or they are no more.

Insignificant or not, every single one of the nations of our 21st Century world are today aligned against Israel; every one, except the United States.

But America is rapidly gravitating towards the ranks of those who are anti-Israel. Will she join them, and so go the way of all those nations who preceded her? Or did God mean for her to charter a different course?

Unlike all other Gentile nations in history, America had the distinction of being built on biblical bedrock. Dig down to her foundations, and you’ll find the Scriptures there.

In 1620 it was devotion to the Bible, “to the letter and the spirit, to the Old Testament as well as the New” that drove the Separatist Puritans to board the Mayflower and hazard the journey to New England where they established one of the first settlements in the New World.

Belief in the Bible, the God of the Bible and His Son, set the course of the founding fathers, and led to the American Revolution that cut the New World free from the Old.

Said the “Firebrand of the Revolution” Patrick Henry, after the United States had declared its independence:

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religion, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Fifty-two of the 55 signatories to the Declaration of Independence were devout Christians.

Stated the first president of the United States and a self-confessed believer in Jesus, George Washington: “It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible.”

His successor, John Adams, expressed it this way: “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

The next president, Thomas Jefferson, wrote: “I am a Christian, that is to say a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator and, I hope, to the pure doctrine of Jesus also.”

According to John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, God had given America the opportunity to choose its leaders, “and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian Nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”

John Quincy Adams, 6th president of the United States, said: "The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."

As the years passed, belief in the vital importance to the United States of these Christian biblical roots was entrenched. After he came to office in 1923, President Calvin Coolidge wrote: "The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.”

From our vantage point those were fateful words.

Arguably, the faith upon which America was based is no longer universal in that country. Its erosion has been underway since the early 1900s, and is accelerating all the time. In 1947, the year the United Nations voted to partition Palestine and thereby allow for the creation of a Jewish state, the US Supreme Court banished a national prayer in which the United States acknowledged its dependence on God and begged His blessings on their country.

In America’s schools, reading the Bible in public, praying aloud over food, and placing copies of the 10 Commandments have been ruled unconstitutional during this time. Efforts to ban the Decalogue in all public places and to legalize practices the Bible classifies as abominable to God continue apace. About 45 million babies have been murdered in the womb since 1973.

But while these lengthening shadows of gross darkness are driving back the blaze of light and glory that went forward with the building of America, and while it may seem to many American Christians that the battle for the soul of their nation is already lost, there remain in that country many millions of God-fearing people “who have not yet bowed the knee to Baal.”

According to the respected Barna Group, there are at present (in 2005) 98 million Born Again Christians in the United States. Of these, 86 percent believe that “the Bible is totally accurate in all its teachings.”

It is this belief which holds the key to America’s victorious survival against the forces that want to see her go the way of all the powers before her. The Bible contains all the answers, and all the plans, that God has for individuals and for nations. And the nation central to its subject and present on all its pages is Israel.

I believe God has always had a special destiny laid out for America. And, tall order though it may be at this late hour in our era, I believe that America can yet rediscover and pursue that destiny.

It will require that God’s people in that land exchange their perspective – which has their great country at the center of the world – for God’s perspective, which has little Israel in that place, at the hub of His still unfolding redemption plan.

America’s God-ordained, glorious role and privilege, if she can find the humility to live it out, is to serve Israel by standing with her against the rest of the world, and enabling her to fulfill her mission.

In truth, the United States has already made much headway towards this. Since assuming her place at the head of the nations, she has sacrificed enormously to ensure the defeat of Nazism and the thwarting of Soviet Communism. She is now embroiled in bitter battle to prevent the Islamicization of the world in a war that has her pitted against Israel’s latest, most mortal foe. By sending American men and women deep into Afghanistan and Iraq to deal powerful blows to Islam’s frontline forces, the United States is not only confronting and working towards neutralizing the likes of those who carried out 9-11. America is de facto defending Israel at the same time.

According to all I have written here, this is what America was really founded for. She is on the way towards the realization of her calling. Will she then, as she is poised to do at the very height of this battle, sell Israel out to the very enemy that aims to consume both the United States and the bruised and bloodied little Jewish nation?

Coming next: Part II- Do you betray me with a kiss? Part III – Chastisement, then judgment – God loves America

It is not everyday that a professor hires a prestigious law firm to threaten the University of California Press, yet for months Alan Dershowitz, Harvard's Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, tried to stop UC Press from publishing Norman Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah. When the Press' director Lynne Withey replied that she believed in academic freedom and would therefore go ahead with the book, Dershowitz sent letters to the university's board of trustees and even to California's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, asking them to intervene on his behalf. Following both the trustees' and governor's decision not to get involved, one would have thought that the struggle had ended, but now that the book is on the shelves it seems that a new campaign is underway; this time an attempt to cancel the author's reading engagements for example at Harvard Bookstore and Barnes and Noble in Chicago. So what is the controversy about?

On the face of it, the conflict stems from an allegation which Finkelstein, a professor of political science at de Paul University, makes against Dershowitz's The Case for Israel, accusing him of "lifting" information and ideas from Joan Peters's From Time Immemorial: The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine. In addition to the fact that Peter's book has been, in Finkelstein's words, "dismissed as a fraud," Harvard University's own definition, ("passing off a source's information, ideas, or words as your own by omitting to cite them" would, argues Finkelstin, convict Dershowitz of plagiarism. After a careful examination of the documents Finkelstein presents in Beyond Chutzpah, it is difficult not to infer that the Harvard professor did indeed pass off someone else's information as his own.

In spite of the public furor about Dershowitz's alleged plagiarism, this plays a relatively small role in Beyond Chutzpah, thus it is no coincidence that the documentation of his use of Peter's work is relegated to three appendixes, and is not in the main body of the book. Indeed, it is worth noting that the thrust of Finkelstein's book is political, not personal. It provides a revealing analysis of the "new anti-Semitism" and a critical discussion of Israel's human rights record. Could it be that the attempt to stop the book's publication was in some way connected to what Finkelstein has to say about these two issues?

In Part One, "The Not-So-New New Anti-Semitism,'" Finkelstein makes a double move. He begins by providing a historical account of the literature discussing anti-Semitism, showing how the notion of a "new anti-Semitism" actually emerged in the mid-1970s with the publication of Arnold Forster and Benjamin R. Epstein's book The New Anti-Semitism; this was followed in the early 1980s by Nathan and Ruth Ann Perlmutter's The Real Anti-Semitism in America. Accordingly, Anti-Defamation League director Abraham Foxman was merely repeating an established refrain when he wrote Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism in 2003, becoming just one voice in a chorus of prominent writers like Phyllis Chesler in the US (The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do about It also from 2003) and philosopher Alain Finkielkraut in France.

The crucial point, though, is not that these writers are making false claims about the resurgence of anti-Semitism, even though it is clear that many of them exaggerate the intensity and prevalence of contemporary hate crimes against Jews. Foxman, for instance maintains that "we currently face as great a threat to the safety and security of the Jewish people as the one we faced in the 1930s." Rather, Finkelstein's central criticism of such writers concerns who they consider the major culprits responsible for spreading anti-Semitism and what the reemergence of the new anti-Semitism aims to achieve politically.

As to the instigators, he shows how from the 1970s onward there has been a growing tendency in the literature discussing anti-Semitism to blame the left, not the right, for spreading hatred around the world. The anti-globalization movement and human rights organizations are deemed to be the major purveyors of anti-Semitism, while arch-nationalist leaders like Jean Marie Le Pen and Joerg Haider as well as fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell and Pat Roberston are regarded as more or less benign.

Finkelstein's second move exposes how the rhetoric of the new anti-Semitism is used as a political tool to ward off and delegitimize all criticism of Israel. He writes:

The consequences of the calculated hysteria of a new anti-Semitism haven't been just to immunize Israel from legitimate criticism. Its overarching purpose, like that of the "war against terrorism," has been to deflect criticism of an unprecedented assault on international law.

While Finkelstein's basic claims are on the mark, he makes a couple of serious mistakes. First, the Israeli case in no way constitutes an unprecedented assault on international law. Not only has the Iraq war, which Finkelstein mentions, led to more egregious violations, particularly if one counts civilian deaths, but one could easily come up with a series of other recent assaults on international law that have produced much more horrific results. One only has to think of Chechnya, Rawanda, and Darfur.

My second concern involves a non-sequitur contained in Finkelstein's argument. Finkelstein convincingly maintains that a connection has been drawn between Israel's illegal actions in the Occupied Territories and the new Anti-Semitism. This link has a dual character. On the one hand, the literature discussing the new anti-Semitism is used to fend off all criticism of Israel, while, on the other hand, Israel's violation of the occupied Palestinians' basic rights has generated anti-Semitism. I follow Finkelstein thus far, but he then proceeds to an odd and troubling conclusion: the Jews, Finkelstein implies, are also to blame for the rise of anti-Semitism. Using Jean Paul Sartre's Anti-Semite and Jew as a reference point, Finkelstein criticizes the French philosopher in the following manner:

Sartre's point of departure is that Jewish peoplehood lacks any content except what anti-Semitism endows it with: "the anti-Semite," in his famous formulation, "makes the Jew" (his emphasis). But from this premise Sartre goes on to argue that stereotypical Jewish vices are either the invention or the fault of the anti-Semite -- which means (or can be understood to mean) that Jews possess no vices or don't bear any responsibility for them.

This, Finkelstein claims, is a mistake. But Sartre means that as an ethnic group per se Jews cannot be characterized or judged in moral terms and no Jew can be held responsible for anti-Semitism, even though individuals and their organizations should, of course, be held responsible for their actions. Neither world Jewry nor one's Jewishness can be responsible for anything, regardless of what Israel or any single Jew does. Moreover, while Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the state of Israel should be held responsible for oppressing the Palestinians, they are not responsible for anti-Semitism, and I take issue with Finkelstein who insinuates that they are to blame for fanning the flames of anti-Semitism. No one is to blame for anti-Semitism except the anti-Semites. Finkelstein in a number of places blurs this crucial point, and therefore unwittingly provides an excuse for anti-Semitism. The crux of the matter, as Sartre cogently observed, is that anti-Semitism "precedes the facts that call it forth," so that even if Israel were the most law abiding state on this planet, anti-Semitism would still exist. History has proven Sartre right.

Beyond Chutzpah's second part is its best. It is here that Finkelstein uses Dershowitz's polemic to explore crucial aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly Israel's human rights record. Dershowitz's central claim in The Case for Israel, is that "no nation in the history of the world that has faced comparable threats to its survival -- both external and internal -- has ever made greater efforts as, and has ever come closer to, achieving the high norms of the rule of law." Taking Dershowitz seriously, Finkelstein meticulously examines whether Israel's human rights record is, as Dershowitz maintains, "generally superb."

The way he goes about it is noteworthy. Finkelstein cites claim after claim made in The Case for Israel and examines their accuracy by comparing them with human rights reports published both by organizations who have a global mandate like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as well as local groups like B'tselem, Physicians for Human Rights and Al Haq. Dershowitz maintains, for instance that, "There is no evidence that Israeli soldiers deliberately killed even a single civilian." Finkelstein replies that according to HRW there were many civilian deaths which amounted to "unlawful and willful killings." When the Harvard professor asserts that "Israel tries to use rubber bullets and other weapons designed to reduce fatalities, and aims at the legs whenever possible," Finkelstein rejoins with a study published by PHR, which shows that nearly "half of the victims [in Gaza] were shot in the head. There were several victims shot in the back or from behind and in one instance, evidence indicates, the victim was probably on the ground when shot." And when Dershowitz contends that Israel's interrogation tactics were "nonlethal and did not involve the infliction of sustained pain," Finkelstein responds with scores of reports which document multiple deaths of Palestinians during interrogation.

Slowly, a clear picture of abuse emerges. The reader learns, for example, how many Palestinian houses were demolished and how many people were left homeless, the number of prisoners who were tortured and the methods their interrogators used, and how Palestinian medical facilities were attacked and the population's access to medical care constantly hindered. Moreover, Israel's Supreme Court, which in certain circles is highly respected, is shown in Beyond Chutzpah to be a key mechanism in the legitimization of abuse.

Two important implications can be drawn from Finkelstein's study, one political and the other academic. Politically, Beyond Chutzpah reveals how Israel has defied the rule of law in the Occupied Territories by providing a condensed and precise summation of literally thousands of pages of human rights reports. In this way, Finkelstein does a great service for those who long for a better Israel, since one is left with the conclusion that the only way of putting an end to the violations of Palestinian rights is by ending the occupation. There is no other option.

Academically, the section discussing Israel's human rights record raises serious questions about intellectual honesty and the ideological bias of our cultural institutions, since it reveals how a prominent professor holding an endowed chair at a leading university can publish a book whose major claims are false. The significant point is not simply that the claims cannot be corroborated by the facts on the ground -- anyone can make mistakes -- but that any first-year student who takes the time to read the human rights reports would quickly realize that though The Case for Israel has rhetorical style and structure, it is, for the most part, fiction passing as fact.

All of which leads me back to the question raised at the beginning: what is the controversy about? While it is in part about Dershowitz's political investments and his intellectual veracity, its intention goes much deeper than that to expose a grave cultural distortion. On the one hand, the controversy surrounding Beyond Chutzpah seems to be a reaction to Finkelstein's attempt to expose how elements in academia have played an active role in covering up Israel's abuse, and by extension, the abuse of other rogue regimes, not least the US itself. Obviously those intellectuals who do participate in this covering tactic prefer to operate in the dark. On the other hand, the heated response to his book is just another example of how the literature discussing the new anti-Semitism delegitimizes those who expose Israel's egregious violations of international law. The major irony informing this saga is that Finkelstein's book, not Dershowtiz's, constitutes the real case for Israel, that is, for a moral Israel.

Neve Gordon teaches human rights at Ben-Gurion University, Israel. He is the editor of From the Margins of Globalization: Critical Perspectives on Human Rights (2004) and can be reached at nevegordon@gmail.com

Those of us who expose corruption actually face two problems:

Convincing people that our government is corrupt beyond anything they dreamed possible

 

Convincing people that most of the "truth seekers" are trying to cover up the corruption, or they are rival criminals trying to take over while Bush appears vulnerable.

The 9-11 attack is not a game

Thousands of people were murdered, billions of dollars worth of property was destroyed, and thousands are still suffering health problems from breathing the demolition debris. And wars are still going on because of the attack.

The people who did 9-11 have a lot to lose if they are exposed, and they have a lot to gain if they remain in control. 

Furthermore, 9-11 was not their first crime. Many of them were involved in other crimes that they must cover up.

Do you really think these people are so foolish that they will sit idly by while people expose them? If so, take a look at some of the suspicious suicides and accidents during the past decade.

For example, Gary Webb committed suicide by shooting himself in the head, twice. Mike Ruppert insists this is possible. 

Other people suspect Ruppert is a wolf in sheep's clothing who is trying to deflect attention away from the Zionists and onto the CIA, vice-president Cheney, and Peak Oil. Some sites think Mossad killed Gary Webb.

Deception is the preferred weapon

Setting up suicides and airplane accidents is expensive and risky, so they kill us only as a last resort. They prefer to pay hundreds, maybe thousands, of people to pretend to be 9-11 "truth seekers".

The best way to get away with a crime is to be the investigator of the crime. Since people have trouble understanding this concept when I explain how it applies to 9-11, maybe it will be easier to understand if you imagine how it could happen to you. So let's look at how a gang of car thieves can get away with stealing your car.

Let's assume that you have a neighbor named Joe, who you assume is an ordinary, honest citizen. In reality, Joe is part of a gang that steals cars, and Joe wants to steal your car. What is the best way for Joe and his gang get away with car thefts?

Warn the victim ahead of time

Joe could tell you that he was browsing an Internet site where car thieves often send messages to each other, and he noticed a lot of chatter about stealing a car in your neighborhood.

A few days later, Joe steals your car. Your first reaction would be,

"Oh what a fool I am. I should have listened to my wonderful neighbor Joe, who tried to warn me."

Not many people would wonder, "Wait a minute... if you know where car thieves are talking to each other on the Internet, why not tell the police and let them identify the people?"

Offer to help solve the crime

When you tell Joe that your car was stolen, Joe fakes sadness. Joe then announces that he wants to rid the neighborhood of crime. 

Joe offers to start an organization of truth seekers who will assist the police in their search for evidence. He tells you that he will collect information about the crime and pass it on to you and the police. 

You would be grateful to Joe. It would never occur to you that Joe is sifting through all of the evidence that comes to him and discarding anything that implicates Joe or his friends in the crime. The only evidence he passes on to the police are the ones that send them in the wrong direction.

By fooling people into sending him the evidence, Joe also finds out which citizens he has to watch, and possibly blackmail or kill.

Give false evidence

Joe could pay some of his criminal friends to pretend to be witnesses to the theft of your car. The news reporters and police would never suspect that these witnesses are actually part of the gang that stole your car, and that they are sending the police in the wrong direction.

Joe could also pay his friends to call radio talk shows to spread the false evidence to the public. 

Joe could also pay his friends to request the radio talk shows and newspapers to interview Ralph. This creates the impression that Ralph is a popular person, but in reality he is a member of the gang that steals cars, and all he really wants to do is spread false information.

Find naive people to pay for the cover-up

After a few months Joe could ask for donations. He could complain that running the investigation is time-consuming and expensive, and he would appreciate donations of any type. 

The naive people who donate money would not realize that they are paying Joe to cover up his crime.

Few, if any, of the people who donate money will have the nerve to ask Joe how much money is being donated, or what happens to that donated money. The few who ask will be provided with deceptive answers.

Asking for money has an additional advantage; specifically, it fools people into assuming Joe is an ordinary, honest citizen, not a wealthy criminal with secret sources of money.

Bury the truth with nonsense

Some people in your neighborhood might take it upon themselves to investigate the theft of your car simply because they are concerned about crime. They might discuss evidence on message boards and web sites.

These independent, truly honest citizens are a threat to Joe's gang because they might discover that Joe is involved in organized crime. They might even put up a web site that exposes Joe.

To protect himself, Joe pays his criminal friends to join the honest message boards and pretend that they are honest citizens who want to uncover the truth about the crime. In reality they would post thousands of idiotic and deceptive messages. They would bury the few useful messages.

Give conspiracy theories a bad image

Joe could turn some people away from the few honest web sites by giving a bad image to the people who claim Joe is a criminal. Joe could pay his friends to post ridiculous theories in order to make the message boards look like they are dominated by people with mental disorders. 

For example, one of Joe's friends could post a photograph that shows a blurry, mysterious object in the sky above Joe's car. The object is a bird that is out of focus, but Joe's friend tries to encourage people to believe that it might be an alien spacecraft, and that perhaps the aliens stole Joe's car for their museum of human technology.

Another of Joe's criminal friends could announce that he heard from a reliable source that your car was picked up by the police along the Polish-Austrian border.

By flooding the message boards with stupid and deceptive messages, the honest messages are lost in the nonsense. Some of the honest citizens who look at the message board will be so overwhelmed by the nonsense that they ignore the issue.

It is difficult to lie. The best way to spread false information is to find a fool to do the work for you. Convince the fool that the lie is actually the truth, and then the fool will spread the lie for you. Since he believes the lie, he will be sincere when he talks about it.

Make Joe appear to be a victim

One of Joe's friends could post messages on a regular basis that make fun of the people who accuse Joe of crimes, such as 

"Oh, yeah, we all know Joe stole the car. I saw it on the Internet, so it must be true!"

"As we all know, the accident was Joe's fault. It's always Joe's fault. Let's blame Joe!" 

"I suppose Joe will be blamed for the thunderstorm! Everything is Joe's fault." 

These messages will fool a few naive people into assuming that Joe is always a victim, similar to the way Pollacks were the primary subject for jokes when I was a child.

Outnumber the honest sites

Joe could pay his criminal friends to create thousands of "truth seeker" web sites in order to bury the few honest web sites. When honest citizens look on the Internet for information about car thefts, they will almost certainly encounter one of the deceptive web sites from Joe's friends, not one of the honest web sites. The end result is that they get a distorted or unpleasant view of the subject.

Boast about honesty

To make his "truth seeker" web sites appear more honest, Joe could tell his friends to openly boast about their honesty. For examples of the possible remarks: 

"The World's Most Trusted Source For Truth". 

"Established Experts In Counter Propaganda" 

"The World's Only Established Experts In Counter Propaganda Science". 

"We Demand Honesty in Government".

If those silly statements fool a few people, then it was worth Joe's money and time.

Give the honest citizens a bad image

When an honest citizen exposes information that Joe does not want exposed, Joe could pay his friends to find something about the citizen to complain about. For example, if a citizen creates a video that exposes Joe's gang, the gang could try to give the video a bad image with such remarks as, 

"That video looks like some amateur made it in his garage. You will embarrass those of us in the Truth Seeking movement if you show people such crummy video!"

Or,  

"That guy's voice is terrible! You can't show that lousy video to people! It will turn people away! Come on, he needs a professional narrator!"

Even if only a few people are fooled into keeping the video a secret, Joe will benefit.

Joe's friends can also spread rumors about the citizen, such as he is anti-American, a Fascist, a Nazi, an anti-semite, or a communist. Lots of people are affected by those insults, which is why they are so frequently used.

Create a maze of links to all deceptive sites

Joe could tell his friends to link their web sites to each other. When each of the sites have a few links to a couple of the other sites, it creates the illusion that each site provides more information. 

The honest citizen assumes that every time he clicks on another of the links that he is getting a better understanding of issue, when in reality every site he clicks on is from the same criminal organization.

Link to honest sites only when pressured

Joe tells his friends to include a few links to one or two honest sites only when people start wondering why they ignore those honest sites. However, they will put the link in an obscure place.

This creates the illusion that they are aware of the honest sites, and that they support the honest sites, but in reality a couple links in an obscure location will not have any significant effect.

Make the honest sites appear controversial

One of the truth groups might write, 

"There is no consensus among the truth seekers as to whether Joe actually committed any crime. However, in order to be fair, we provide all sides of the issue, and so we provide you with an article from Jim, who believes Joe is a criminal. "

This technique creates the impression that they are fair and unbiased. Unknown to the common people, Jim is one of Joe's friends, and he deliberately writes it in a manner that most people will disregard on the grounds it is stupid.

Furthermore, by providing lots of compliments, they take advantage of the people who are suffering from low self-esteem. For example:

"Look over the evidence and decide for yourself. We don't want to tell you what to think. The American people are intelligent, educated people. We provide the information, you make the decision."

Accuse the honest citizens of being car thieves

When a citizen exposes Joe or his gang, Joe could accuse that citizen of being a member of a gang of car thieves who is trying to fool people into thinking Joe is the criminal in order to hide his own crimes.

Other members of Joe's gang can accuse other citizens of being car thieves.

If Joe's friends create hundreds of these accusations, the ordinary citizen can be so overwhelmed with the complexity that they are not sure who to trust.

Set blackmail traps for government officials

Joe and some of his friends could produce child pornography and arrange trips to Thailand to have sex with children. Imagine that your father purchases a trip to Thailand. One of Joe's friends can then use blackmail to control what your father says and does, but your father would not realize that Joe is involved in this blackmail. Your father would be working for Joe without realizing it.

If some of the news executives or police officials in your city purchase trips to Thailand, then Joe could influence the news and the police. Joe could also pressure these blackmailed officials into hiring Joe's criminal friends. Eventually Joe could acquire a lot of control over your city.

Another type of blackmail trap is to encourage people to profit from Joe's crimes, such as buying stock in one of Joe's companies that sells stolen car parts.

Even if only a few policemen, lawyers, and FBI agents can be lured into this, those few people add to the officials that Joe can control with blackmail.

Become a victim of mysterious hate crimes

To further keep himself in control of the city, Joe could pay a friend to spray a swastika on his house. Some naive people will feel sorry for Joe; they will defend him when he is accused of being a criminal.

Joe could also call the newspaper and television reporters to his house and announce that he is a victim of a hate crime, and that the city must pass hate crime laws to stop the attacks on innocent crime-fighters and truth seekers. He could use the hate crime legislation to demand the arrest of people who try to expose him.

Create organizations to arrest Joe

Joe could pay his friends to create organizations that want to arrest Joe. For example, one of the organizations might be called ACT, which stands for Arrest Car Thieves. 

The ACT web site is full of anger towards Joe. The organization demands that Joe be arrested. They also ask people to join their organization. However, in reality they want the names and addresses of their potential enemies. 

Furthermore, Joe might also be able to use some of the ACT members as useful idiots. For example, Joe's friends might be able to convince one of them to throw a rock through Joe's window. That person could later be arrested, reinforcing the belief that ACT is a group of idiots who commit senseless acts of violence, and that the city needs hate crime legislation.

Joe can also look through the members of ACT to see if any of them can be blackmailed, bribed, or threatened.

You must be careful when you join organizations, and you must be very critical of the leadership, but very few people are.

Deflect attention to the government

Joe could pay his friends to divert attention to the mayor of the city, who Joe helped to elect. The mayor is an idiot, so Joe hires people to create web sites and newspaper articles that ridicule the mayor and imply that he is responsible for the crime because he did not provide enough money for the police, or because the mayor is allowing corruption due to his stupidity.

One of Joe's friends might write an article that the mayor was warned that a car might be stolen, but the mayor ignored the warning. This implies that the stupid mayor is the reason cars are stolen.

Another of Joe's friends might write an article that implies that perhaps the mayor let your car get stolen so that he could use the theft of the car as justification for increasing the police budget.

By writing hundreds of slightly different, idiotic theories, the public will be confused, and many people will not notice the honest articles.

Let your friends expose you as a last resort

Because it is possible that Joe will eventually be exposed as a criminal, Joe prepares for that possibility by arranging for lots of his friends to be truth seekers who expose Joe as a criminal.

The way this deceptions works is if Joe decides that he can no longer cover up his crime because some citizens are about to expose some critical information, he can tell his friends to quickly expose him before the honest citizens do it. This allows Joe's friends to become the honest crime fighters who expose a terrible criminal. His friends will be the center of attention, and they can then try to minimize the damage and punishment, and prevent the rest of the gang from getting caught.  

My imaginary example of how Joe could steal your car is happening with the September 11 attack, and all of the other big crimes. However, the deception with 9-11 is much more intense and complex.

For example, take a look at 911truth.org, a group of "truth seekers" in New York City. In their description of themselves they write: 

911Truth.Org is a campaign to educate the public about the Sept. 11th coverup and inspire popular pressure to overturn the "incompetence theory" and expose the truth surrounding the events of 9/11; namely, that elements within the U.S. government must have been complicit, or worse, for the attacks to happen the way they did.

The Case for Demolitions

There is no consensus on this issue among 911Truth.org staff or within the 9/11 truth movement, but here is a collection of articles, many of them by Jim Hoffman, arguing that the WTC buildings must have been demolished using explosives. Plus a few past milestones on the evidence. Judge for yourselves...

Nicholas Levis has a role of some sort with this group. That fact alone should make you suspicious of them. Since at least 2002 several people have been complaining that Nicholas Levis cannot be trusted.

In 2004 Jimmy Walter allowed Levis to help set up a 9-11 meeting in New York City. During the meeting it became so obvious that he was a trouble-maker that security guards had to drag Levis out of the meeting. 

Here is WingTV's description of Levis. 
And: Levis is War Criminal

How many times do these 9-11 "truth seekers" have to behave in a suspicious manner before you ignore them? What if somebody commits suicide by chaining himself to a fence and then shooting himself with a firing squad, and what if Mike Ruppert announces that this is entirely possible? Would you continue to trust Ruppert, or would you ask yourself, 

"Wait a minute, how can Ruppert be so certain it was a suicide? Why doesn't Ruppert want an investigation?"

The inability to select quality leaders is one of the world's primary problems. Most people turn to whoever makes them feel good; whoever gives them praise, entertainment, and hope.

Deflect attention to Bush

A lot of people realize that George Bush is a puppet, but who is telling Bush what to do?

A "truth seeker" named Dr. Justin Frank has the answer. He tell us that George Bush is a puppet, but he is "A Puppet Who Chose His Puppeteers".

Dr. Frank is trying to convince us that there is no need to look at the people giving orders to George Bush because George Bush chose those people. Therefore, to understand the actions of George Bush, we only have to look at George Bush!

Dr. Frank wants us to believe that if we look at Bush's puppeteers, we will discover that they are following the orders of George Bush. Does this make sense to you?

Most of Bush's opponents are liars

There are a lot of critics of the Bush administration, but very few of them are honest about 9/11, the Kennedy assassination, the attack of the USS Liberty, or any other scam. 

They claim to be "truth seekers" who want to get rid of the evil Bush government and replace it with an honest government. However, none of these truth seekers are being honest.

Many of the truth seekers seem to be part of the group that gave us 9-11, and some of the truth seekers seem to be part of a rival group of criminals who are fighting with the Bush administration for control of America. You and I are just pawns in their game of world conquest.  

Example: MoveOn.org

The MoveOn organization encourages their members to get together and be exposed to videos and other information about corruption. This is a wonderful method to educate people. The organization has tremendous potential. However, the only information that their members are exposed to is propaganda that makes the Bush administration and the Fox news network look like evil organizations.

The MoveOn members are some of the most ignorant people when it comes to 9/11 and other crimes. The most likely explanation is that George Soros and other people behind the MoveOn organization are a rival gang fighting for control of the American people. They are not interested in exposing crime; rather, they are interested in getting control of the people. They are deceiving their members with their particular propaganda.

Some people suspect George Soros of being in the same criminal gang as George Bush, but for all we know, they are on different teams that work together sometimes, but fight with each other most of the time. As with Al Capone and other gangs, people such as Soros and Bush may be selfish beyond anything you have imagined, and both of them may fantasize about killing each other.  

Example: The Air America radio network

Air America claims to be providing people with the truth, but just like Tom Flocco, Mike Ruppert, 911truth.org, and most other "truth seekers" who condemn Bush, they appear to be either working with Bush, or working with some rival group of criminals.

They titillate their listeners with insults about Bush and corporations, but they suppress a lot of important books, people, and subjects. 

When Mike Malloy had a show about the 9/11 attack (on September 30, 2005), one of the people who helped Air America get started, Steve Sinton, decided to sit in the studio with him.

You can listen to the show at this site:
http://www.whiterosesociety.org/Malloy.html
Scroll down to the link:  Friday, September 30th, 2005.

I suppose Mike Malloy knows a lot about the 9/11 attack, and the management of Air America were concerned that he or his callers might let out too much information. So they sent Sinton to sit in the studio with Mike, and Sinton tried to promote the idea that conspiracy theories about 9/11 are ridiculous.

The people who listen to Air America are as deceived as the people who watch the television news. The naive citizens who provide Air America with money, advertising, or any other support are helping a group of criminals.

Most leaders of the groups we call "liberals" are wolves in sheep's clothing. They are not exposing corruption, nor are they educating people. Rather, they are taking advantage of the anger towards Bush, Republicans, and corporate greed.

The liberals condemn Bush for being stupid, and they criticize Republicans for having such incompetent leadership, but the leaders for the liberals are just as corrupt. If the liberals had even 20% of the intelligence they think they have, they would investigate Soros, Sinton, and all of the other top ranking liberals.

Example: the Green Party

I was complaining to a member of the Green Party that the Green Party is worthless, and one of the reasons I gave was that they will not tell their members about 9/11.

His response was that the leader of the Southern California branch, Mike Feinstein, was a psychopath, and that he is merely dishonest, not part of the 9-11 cover-up. He explained to me that Feinstein was accused by his fellow Green Party members of stealing money from the Green Party. 

Why would anybody remain a member of the Green Party when they think their leader is a psychopath? Well, for the same reason millions of people followed the Kings and Queens of Europe, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, and Bush. Namely, humans and animals have a strong tendency to follow, and most humans and animals are lousy at thinking.

If it is true that Feinstein is stealing money from the Green Party, he may be part of the criminal network that gave us 9-11. Or the criminal network may have noticed that Feinstein is dishonest, and they are using his criminal background to blackmail him. Perhaps the reason that nobody can remove him from the Green Party is because he has a lot of support from a lot of criminals. Or perhaps he is honest, and the criminals are trying to make him appear to be a criminal in order to get rid of him!

Regardless of whether Feinstein is an honest citizen, a psychopath, or a blackmailed criminal, the Green Party is not providing their members with any useful information, so what value does the Green Party have? Why are the members wasting their time and money with such a worthless organization?

The Green Party is not helping America. It is of more use to the Bush administration and other criminals because it suppresses information about corruption. The same is true of almost every other large organization.  

Example: The anti-war groups

Most of the organizations that claim to be struggling for peace refuse to provide information about 9-11 and other corruption. Worse yet, they stop attempts by their members to discuss these issues.

The leaders of these groups have a lot of excuses as to why they will not discuss 9/11 and other crimes. For example, I have heard some leaders of Veterans for Peace insist that they want to support veterans, so 9/11 is not an issue that concerns them. However, the war is based on the 9/11 attack, so if they really want to stop the wars and help the veterans, they should expose the 9/11 hoax. 

Are the leaders of the Veterans for Peace groups truly so stupid that they cannot see the value in exposing 9/11? Or are they afraid to expose it because they worry they will die in an airplane crash? Or are the leaders part of the criminal network that is trying to cover up these crimes? Or are they blackmailed or bribed into covering up these crimes?

I don't know what is wrong with Veterans for Peace or the anti-war groups, but I know better than to join or support a useless organization.

Which organization is of value?

There are thousands of organizations and web sites that claim to be trying to help us. However, we must judge an organization and their leaders by their accomplishments, not by what they promise.

If you belong to an organization, ask yourself, what has it done for you or the world? Be serious when answering that question. Be as critical of your organization as you are of President Bush. Don't be a hypocrite by supporting a crummy or corrupt leader while you condemn Bush for corruption and incompetence. The world does not improve from hypocrisy; it improves when people develop intelligent suggestions and do some real work.

Unless we raise standards for people in leadership position, nothing will improve. We don't need a rival group of criminals and hypocrites to replace Bush. We need to get higher quality leaders.

TOLEDO, Ohio - A crowd protesting a white supremacists' march Saturday turned violent, throwing baseball-sized rocks at police, vandalizing vehicles and stores, and setting fire to a neighborhood bar, authorities said.

When Mayor Jack Ford and a local minister tried to calm the rioting, they were cursed for allowing the march, and Ford said a masked gang member threatened to shoot him.

At least 65 people were arrested and several police officers were injured before calm was restored about four hours later.

Ford blamed the rioting on gangs taking advantage of a volatile situation. He declared a state of emergency, set an 8 p.m. curfew through the weekend, and asked the Highway Patrol for help.

"It's exactly what they wanted," Ford said of the group that planned the march, which was canceled because of the rioting.

At least two dozen members of the National Socialist Movement, which calls itself "America's Nazi Party," had gathered at a city park to march under police protection. Organizers said they were demonstrating against black gangs they said were harassing white residents.

The violence broke out about one-quarter of a mile away along the planned march route shortly before it was to begin. One group of men pounded on a convenience store, and others overturned vehicles. There was a report of a shooting but police hadn't found a victim, Police Chief Mike Navarre said.

About 150 police officers chased bands of young men through the area. Officers wearing gas masks fired tear gas canisters and flash-bang devices designed to stun suspects, but the groups continued throwing rocks and bottles. Several officers and firefighters suffered minor injuries, Navarre said. At one point, the crowd reached 600 people, officials said.

Finally, police marched shoulder-to-shoulder down the street shouting to people to stay inside, and the crowd of several hundred broke up.

At least 65 people were arrested on charges including assault, vandalism, failure to obey police and failure to disperse, Navarre said. He said the white supremacists had left hours earlier.

"We frankly could have made a couple hundred arrests easily," Navarre said. "We just didn't have the resources on hand to arrest all of them."

The mayor had appealed to residents the night before to ignore the march. He said the city wouldn't give the Nazi group a permit to march in the streets but couldn't stop them from walking on the sidewalks.

When the rioting began, Ford tried to negotiate with those involved, but "they weren't interested in that." He said people in the crowd swore at him and wanted to know why he was protecting the Nazis.

They were mostly "gang members who had real or imagined grievances and took it as an opportunity to speak in their own way," Ford said.

"I was chagrined that there were obvious mothers and children in the crowd with them," he said.

Thomas Frisch, 76, said a large group of men destroyed the exterior of a gas station next to his home of 30 years.

"A whole big gang started to come in here. Next thing you know, they're jumping on the car. Then they overturned it. Then they started on the building, breaking windows, ripping the bars off," he said.

Louis Ratajski, 86, and his nephew, Terry Rybczynski, left Jim & Lou's Bar as a crowd gathered in front pelting police with rocks and breaking the windows. They climbed down a fire escape from the apartment where Ratajski lived over the bar and only later saw the fire on television.

"I was shaking. I feared for my life." Rybczynski said.

Keith White, a black resident, criticized city officials for allowing the march in the first place.

"They let them come here and expect this not to happen?" said White, 29.

A spokesman for the National Socialist Movement blamed police for losing control of the situation.

Community leaders fear Washington will soon forget the poor millions

It is a little past noon on a sweltering day a short ride from downtown Detroit, one of the last gasps of summer before the brutal Michigan winter settles in. Already the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, run by friars from a nearby monastery, is winding down. People tend to get in line for food early. A couple of dozen people, largely but not exclusively African Americans, finish their lunches in a clean but spare dining hall. A large wooden cross is propped up in one corner and photographs on the wall show the facility during the depression.

This is a rough neighbourhood. Alison Costello, the former fine-dining chef who manages the kitchen, keeps her eyes fixed ahead of her on her way home to avoid looking too hard at the drug houses that line the street.

Many of the people at the tables have the worn appearance of the chronically poor and homeless, others are younger and wouldn't attract glares; many have low-paying jobs and simply struggle to make ends meet, part of a swelling class of the working poor. The soup kitchen serves around 800 people daily for lunch. The summer months are the busiest. In the winter, numbers thin. Some regulars find places at shelters and would rather go hungry than lose them. Others have no proper footwear and risk frostbitten feet if they do make the trip.

"I drove in here yesterday and I saw all these people streaming in to the soup kitchen, and I thought 'there is so much suffering in this city'," said Brother Jerry Smith, who runs the soup kitchen. "I see the abandoned buildings and factories on a massive scale. I have to keep looking for signs of hope. Sometimes it's pretty demoralising."

This is the America most don't see. It has taken a catastrophe to rekindle the national debate on poverty in the US. The wretched images of the poor left to struggle on the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, with no means of escape, provoked widespread shock. But the conditions exposed by the hurricane are not confined to the south. After barely registering as an issue for a decade, poverty is back on the political agenda. We had all seen the evidence of "deep, persistent poverty" on television, President Bush said in an address after the hurricane struck; poverty that "has roots in a history of racial discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America."

According to the US census bureau, poverty has been on the rise for the past four years, despite a robust economy. The number of people living in poverty increased last year to 12.7% of the population, some 37m people, the highest percentage in the developed world. Since Mr Bush took office an additional 5.4m have slipped below the poverty line. In 1970, the rate was 11.1%. Almost 8% of white people are classified as below the poverty line and almost 25% of African Americans. "Katrina merely blew the mask off the face of poverty," says Agostinho Fernandes, president of the Gleaners Food Bank, which supplies food to soup kitchens and emergency food services in the Detroit area. "Why did it take a disaster for our leaders to respond?"

In Detroit, 34% of the population live in poverty, including almost half the children under 17. In the neighbourhood of Highland Park, once the home of Chrysler and now all but abandoned, shops are boarded up and the bones of burnt out buildings haunt the streets. Local community workers are fighting contractors from other parts of the city using its streets to dump rubbish. [...]

Muzaffarabad, Pakistan -- They make unlikely aid workers, the bearded young men with serious faces and automatic rifles who move through the chaos of Kashmir's earthquake zone handing out food, tents and medical care.

Comment: !!! Does anyone remember back a few short weeks ago when armed men with serious faces and more than automatic rifles were called to the scene of another disaster...not to help the victims, but to protect the property of those who were rich enough to flee?

Maybe these pictures will help refresh the memories of those who can't quite place it:

(And, yes, we know that the "Police State" is Photoshopped)

So, while there were armed men in New Orleans, they weren't helping the victims.

But the foot soldiers of Jamaat ul-Dawa, one of Pakistan's most prominent Islamic extremist groups, have moved to the forefront of a growing relief operation for the survivors of South Asia's Oct. 8 disaster.

The challenge is immense: as the estimated death toll rose to 54,000 this weekend, a senior official with the U.N. World Food Program said only half of those in dire need of food aid had been reached.

But while international relief agencies are only beginning to arrive in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, Jamaat ul-Dawa has had boots -- or, more accurately, sandals -- on the ground for over a week.

Walkie-talkie in hand, spokesman Salman Shahid gave a tour Sunday of the group's bustling field hospital overlooking the Neelum River. First he stopped by the operating theater, where surgeons worked in a makeshift room fashioned from blue plastic sheets.

Then he showed the diesel generators that power X-ray equipment and a dental department, and turned to a line of ambulances parked in the muddy field. They transport the most seriously injured patients from outlying villages, Shahid said.

Finally, he pointed to a row of tents sheltering about 40 families whose homes had been flattened by the quake.

"Everything is funded by private donations," said Shahid. "We even have surplus supplies of food and medicine."

But Jamaat ul-Dawa is not just in the aid business. It is the parent organization of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, one of the largest militant groups fighting Indian troops in the disputed Himalayan province of Kashmir. The U.S. government has linked Lashkar to al Qaeda, and in 2002 Pakistan's government banned the group as a terrorist organization.

When Lashkar went underground, however, Jamaat ul-Dawa stayed open for business. It positions itself as a countrywide Islamic development group. Jamaat runs madrassas, provides free medical care to the poor and dispatches preachers to mosques across the country.

But diplomats and security experts believe that Jamaat is also being used to recruit young men willing to fight an anti-Indian jihad in Kashmir.

Shahid, the spokesman, insisted Jamaat has cut all its ties with violence.

"There is absolutely no relationship with Lashkar," he said. "We are purely a welfare and humanitarian organization.

Behind him a dozen armed young men wearing camouflage loitered near a truck. They were the "security detail," he said, which is necessary to protect the aid supplies.

"In the early days after the earthquake, some of our trucks were looted," he said. "We have to protect them."

Other Islamic groups have also joined the rush to help earthquake victims in Kashmir and the Pakistan's Northwest Frontier province. They include the Al-Rasheed Trust, a Karachi-based charity whose U.S. assets were frozen in 2003 on suspicion that the trust was channeling funds to al Qaeda; and the charitable wing of Jamiat-e-Islami Party, a conservative Islamic party with ideological links to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Analysts say the Islamic groups may be seeking to bolster their support among Kashmiris, one of the most politically sensitive groups in Pakistan, possibly at the expense of President Pervez Musharraf, whose armed forces were widely criticized for responding slowly to the disaster.

"Definitely they will gain," Ershad Mahmud, an analyst on Kashmir at the Institute for Policy Studies in Islamabad, told the Washington Post. Jamaat ul-Dawa, he said, "have diverted their whole network toward the relief operation."

On the streets of Muzaffarabad Sunday, there was evidence of a major aid operation by the government and international agencies swinging into gear. Men made orderly queues for food and tents, in contrast with the chaotic scenes of earlier days when hungry mobs surrounded aid trucks.

But Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao has acknowledged the vital role of the Islamic groups. They are "the lifeline of our rescue and relief work," he told the Post this weekend.

Sunday, the quake victims taking shelter at the Jamaat camp claimed to know little about the group's militant links. Most were simply grateful for the help.

"If Jamaat wasn't here, we would be dead by now," said Muhammad Mahboob, a 60-year-old man with an injured leg sitting outside his tent.

Others said Jamaat's good works put Musharraf's government to shame.

"There is only government in name," said quake victim Abdul Majid. "They hold press conferences in Islamabad but do nothing on the ground."

LAFAYETTE, Calif. - The wife of prominent defense attorney and TV legal analyst Daniel Horowitz was found slain in the couple's San Francisco area home, police said.

Horowitz called 911 Saturday evening to report that the body of his wife, 52-year-old Pamela Vitale, was in the entryway of their home in an upscale neighborhood, police said.

The woman's identity has not been confirmed by authorities, but "based on what we know, it's believed to be the wife of Daniel Horowitz," said Contra Costa Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee.

Authorities would not release details of how the victim died, but said it was a homicide. They had no suspects.

"We're talking to several individuals," Lee said. "Nobody's in custody right now."

A call to the Horowitz' home from The Associated Press went unanswered late Saturday.

"I can't talk," Horowitz told the San Francisco Chronicle when reached on his cell phone Saturday. "I can't. It's beyond words."

Horowitz is a regular television legal commentator who appears frequently on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News and was a frequent commentator during the Laci Peterson murder trial.

Horowitz is currently defending Susan Polk, accused of murder in the 2002 stabbing death of her husband in the poolhouse of their Orinda home. The trial had been scheduled to continue next week.

Vitale, a former high-tech marketing executive, worked at her husband's law practice, creating and managing databases.

No casualties or damage were reported in Taiwan as of yesterday morning after an earthquake measuring 7.0 on the Richter scale rattled Taiwan at 11:51pm the previous evening, according to the Central Weather Bureau (CWB).

Taiwan was spared from the major devastation that could have resulted from such a strong earthquake because it was centered far out to sea and deep -- with an epicenter located around 185km east of the city of Keelung and an undersea depth of 181.4km, said Kuo Kai-wen, director of the CWB Seismology Center.

The temblor was the strongest earthquake felt in Taiwan so far this year, equivalent to the energy released by the explosion of 16 atomic bombs at once, said Kuo.

Taiwan sits on the Circum-Pacific Belt, which encompasses fault lines stretching from the coast of Chile to California and around through Japan and Taiwan. The belt is, along with the large European Alpida Belt, responsible for 95 out of every 100 earthquakes that occur around the world.

ATHENS - An earthquake measuring magnitude 6 rocked Greece's eastern Aegean islands at around 0545 GMT on Monday, but no injuries or serious damage were reported, the Athens Geodynamic Institute said.

The earthquake's epicenter was located near the Turkish coastline, about 250 kilometres east of Athens and jolted the islands of Samos, Ikaria and Chios.

"So far no damage has been reported in Samos prefecture," the chief of the island's fire department told Greek TV.

LOS ANGELES (AFX) - An earthquake measuring 4.6 on the Richter scale occurred late Sunday afternoon off the coast of California, the US Geological Survey said.

The quake struck 52 miles south-southeast from San Clemente Island, CA, and 70 miles west-southwest from Coronado, CA at 2111 GMT, the USGS said in a preliminary report.

The USGS described the temblor as a 'light earthquake.'

A spate of quakes, including one of 7.0 magnitude in June, has raised concerns about the possibility of a strong earthquake hitting the region.

A new study shows that 20 percent of human genes have been patented in the United States, primarily by private firms and universities.

The study, which is reported this week in the journal Science, is the first time that a detailed map has been created to match patents to specific physical locations on the human genome.

Researchers can patent genes because they are potentially valuable research tools, useful in diagnostic tests or to discover and produce new drugs.

"It might come as a surprise to many people that in the U.S. patent system human DNA is treated like other natural chemical products," said Fiona Murray, a business and science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and a co-author of the study.

"An isolated DNA sequence can be patented in the same manner that a new medicine, purified from a plant, could be patented if an inventor identifies a [new] application."

Hot Spots

Gene patents were central to the biotech boom of the 1980s and 1990s. The earliest gene patents were obtained around 1978 on the gene for human growth hormone.

The human genome project and the introduction of rapid sequencing techniques brought a deluge of new genetic information and many new patents. Yet there has been little comprehensive research about the extent of gene patenting.

The new study reveals that more than 4,000 genes, or 20 percent of the almost 24,000 human genes, have been claimed in U.S. patents.

Of the patented genes, about 63 percent are assigned to private firms and 28 percent are assigned to universities.

The top patent assignee is Incyte, a Palo Alto, California-based drug company whose patents cover 2,000 human genes.

"Gene patents give their owners property rights over gene sequences-for example in a diagnostic test, as a test for the efficacy of a new drug, or in the production of therapeutic proteins," Murray said.

"While this does not quite boil down to [the patent holders] owning our genes . these rights exclude us from using our genes for those purposes that are covered in the patent," she said.

Specific regions of the human genome are "hot spots" of patent activity. Some genes have up to 20 patents asserting rights to how those genes can be used.

"Basically those genes that people think are relevant in disease, such as Alzheimer's or cancer, are more likely to be patented than genes which are something of a mystery," Murray said.

Patent Maze

The effect of gene patenting on research and investment has been the subject of great debate.

Advocates argue that gene patents, like all patents, promote the disclosure and dissemination of ideas by making important uses of gene sequences publicly known.

Patents also provide important incentives to investors who would otherwise be reluctant to invest in ideas that could be copied by competitors.

But critics caution that patents that are very broad can obstruct future innovations by preventing researchers from looking for alternative uses for a patented gene.

"You can find dozens of ways to heat a room besides the Franklin stove, but there's only one gene to make human growth hormone," said Robert Cook-Deegan, director of Duke University's Center for Genome Ethics, Law, and Policy.

"If one institution owns all the rights, it may work well to introduce a new product, but it may also block other uses, including research," he said.

In cases where there are a lot of patents surrounding one area of research, the scientific costs of gene patents - financial and otherwise - can be extremely high.

"Our data raise a number of concerns about gene patents, particularly for heavily patented genes," Murray said. "We worry about the costs to society if scientists-academic and industry-have to walk through a complex maze of patents in order to make more progress in their research."

CHALONS-EN-CHAMPAGNE, France, Oct 16 (AFP) - Europeans researching the phenomenon of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, are looking for more cooperation and information from others who also are scanning the skies for such unusual events.

The UFO-watchers, gathered at a meeting since Friday in Chalons-en-Champagne, east of Paris, adopted a resolution Sunday calling for more cooperation.

"It is indispensable to strengthen and enlarge in Europe the level of cooperation and exchange of information between the groups and people who study the phenomenon in a rational way," the resolution sent to AFP read.

To foster more exchanges about UFO sitings, the group said it will create a specific Internet website to distribute information about ongoing research and its results.

The first meeting of European UFO watchers of the skies included researchers from six countries, representing national UFO organizations which study the phenomenon in "a scientific manner", the organizers said. They were not alone. About 10,000 visitors also came to the UFO meetings over the past three days, according to the organizers.

How far penguins can poop and whether people can swim faster in syrup than water were among the sticky questions answered by winners of the 2005 Ig Nobel prizes.

The spoof awards, organised by the science humour journal, the Annals of Improbable Research, honour scientific achievements that "make people laugh – then think". They were presented at Harvard University's otherwise distinguished Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, on Thursday.

Edward Cussler and Brian Gettelfinger, at the University of Minnesota, US, received the Chemistry Ig Nobel for resolving whether people can swim faster in syrup than water. The question arose as Gettelfinger, a student, wondered how to increase his speed as he trained for Olympic swimming trials.

So the pair set up an experiment in two 25-yard swimming pools on campus – requiring 22 separate levels of approval. They were offered 20 train cars' worth of corn syrup to mix with water, but the city of Minneapolis ended that plan by demanding $20,000 since draining the syrup would overload the sewage system.

Instead, they stirred 310 kilograms of guar gum powder into one pool. "It wasn't pretty when we came in the next morning," Cussler told New Scientist. "It looked like diluted snot."

But that did not stop 16 volunteer swimmers. All swam two lengths in each pool, showering as they went from the syrupy pool to clean water. Timing the swimmers, Cussler found that the thicker liquid increased the power of their strokes as much as it increased the drag on their bodies, so it made no difference. "It was fun," he says, but in the end it was "totally useless".

Poopal velocity

An Ig Nobel for fluid dynamics was awarded for a theoretical analysis of penguin poop propulsion, conducted by Benno Meyer-Rochow of the International University of Bremen in Germany and Oulu University in Finland, and Jozsef Gal of Lorand Eötvös University in Hungary.

When nature calls, brooding chinstrap and Adélie penguins are reluctant to leave their nests and expose their eggs to the cold. Instead, they simply point their rear outward, lift their tail, and fire. The departing excreta typically reaches distances of about 40 centimetres.

Accounting for the bird's height, anal anatomy, and poopal velocity and viscosity, the researchers calculated that the internal pressures reach 10 to 60 kilopascals (0.1 to 0.6 atmospheres), well above the highest pressures humans can put to the task.

But is this not a rather trivial matter for serious scientists? "Actually, only a few people felt this," Meyer-Rochow told New Scientist. "And when we explained the responses from zookeepers, palaeontologists, engineers, human physiologists and so on, everybody understood that examining the physical properties of the release of fluids through small orifices was something of general importance."

Other prizes included:

• Literature – This celebrated the bold visions of the New Age story-tellers of Nigeria – purveyors of the so-called 419 email scam. Their vivid tales promise handsome rewards for assistance in recovering a great treasure that is rightfully theirs – or one that they stole fair and square.

• Economics – Gauri Nanda of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was lauded for her contribution to workplace productivity. She invented Clocky, a padded alarm clock that runs away on a pair of wheels and hides when its snooze alarm is pressed. By actually getting people out of bed, Clocky should add many productive hours to the workday – at least theoretically – the Ig Nobel committee says.

• Physics – This honours movement at a much slower pace – the “pitch drop” experiment which the late Thomas Parnell began at the University of Queensland in 1927, and which John Mainstone now continues. Pitch is a thick black tar which in theory is liquid, but seems to behave like a solid. To show it was a liquid, Parnell melted some into a funnel, where it cooled. Then he waited, and waited, and waited. The first drop took 8 years to fall, and the second took another nine. The eighth drop fell in 2000, and Mainstone is now waiting for the ninth.

On the fourth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Laura Knight-Jadczyk announces the availability of her latest book:

In the years since the 9/11 attacks, dozens of books have sought to explore the truth behind the official version of events that day - yet to date, none of these publications has provided a satisfactory answer as to WHY the attacks occurred and who was ultimately responsible for carrying them out.

Taking a broad, millennia-long perspective, Laura Knight-Jadczyk's 9/11: The Ultimate Truth uncovers the true nature of the ruling elite on our planet and presents new and ground-breaking insights into just how the 9/11 attacks played out.

9/11: The Ultimate Truth makes a strong case for the idea that September 11, 2001 marked the moment when our planet entered the final phase of a diabolical plan that has been many, many years in the making. It is a plan developed and nurtured by successive generations of ruthless individuals who relentlessly exploit the negative aspects of basic human nature to entrap humanity as a whole in endless wars and suffering in order to keep us confused and distracted to the reality of the man behind the curtain.

Drawing on historical and genealogical sources, Knight-Jadczyk eloquently links the 9/11 event to the modern-day Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She also cites the clear evidence that our planet undergoes periodic natural cataclysms, a cycle that has arguably brought humanity to the brink of destruction in the present day.

For its no nonsense style in cutting to the core of the issue and its sheer audacity in refusing to be swayed or distracted by the morass of disinformation that has been employed by the Powers that Be to cover their tracks, 9/11: The Ultimate Truth can rightly claim to be THE definitive book on 9/11 - and what that fateful day's true implications are for the future of mankind.

Published by Red Pill Press

Scheduled for release in October 2005, readers can pre-order the book today at our bookstore.