"Disasters involve cycles in the human experiential cycle [...] Human cycle mirrors cycle of catastrophe. Earth benefits in form of periodic cleansing. Time to start paying attention to the signs. They are escalating. They can even be 'felt' by you and others, if you pay attention."

Bush blames them dang furriners in Iraq again. Beirut's Daily Star points out that the US troops aren't exactly local boys and girls themselves. What is fascinating is the low level of Bush's discourse. Who could believe such nonsense, other than 50% of the US public? Then, conveniently, a "suicide bomber" is arrested who makes certain to scream out "I'm Syrian!" as he is arrested. An old Clapper has emerged to offer laughable "hunches" about just what happened to Iraq's supposed WMDs.

The Chief Minister of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province says Mossad organized 9/11, in a UPI interview. He makes a good point when he states that, "It is inconceivable that a power like the United States, which has enormous technological means at its disposal, would not know ahead of time what was being planned," Durrani said, adding, "There must have been some local people in America who were involved in the planning and execution" who "used zealots (who) did not act on their own." Thanks to the handy public relations campaign started against Islam, religious zealots will write him off as a religious zealot.

Revelations continue regarding Princess Diana's assassination. NSA had one of their satellites trained on her. An MI5 agent says he has been desperately trying to reveal information, and the world's spy agencies have been conspiring against him. It looks more and more like "Dianagate" has the potential to sound the death knell for the British Monarchy. In a manipulated political world such as ours, where nothing happens by accident, we have to wonder just who has the power to bring down the British monarchy and more importantly, why?

Israel remains unfazed by increasing global condemnation (some real, some false) of its apartheid wall and its treatment of the Palestinians. Recently announced is the plan that will require 12,000 Palestinians living near the wall to seek permits to live in their own homes.

In Russia, the dust is still settling after the arrest of that country's richest man. Putin's chief of staff has resigned in protest. Different views on what it means for the Russian president. Can Bush still see Putin's soul?

China holds talks with both the US and North Korea.

Back in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave: A citizen realizes she is neither free nor brave, a child is arrested at gunpoint for having a toy pistol, and officials acknowledge that 40 people supposedly killed in the 9/11 attacks may not even exist.

The California fires rage on, wildfires flare in Mexico, quakes hit Iran and Japan, lab results are in for the skunk age investigation, and more new telescopes are unveiled to search for NEOs and black holes.

Giving Consent

We were slightly taken aback when we found this item yesterday. We asked ourselves: Do they really believe this type of manipulation can work?

Then we remembered the WMD in Iraq, 9/11, the 2000 elections. Of course it will work.

FLASHBACK!!! No JFK conspiracy, new analysis shows

October 28, 2003

The United States' ABC television network said today it conducted an exhaustive investigation of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, complete with a computer-generated reconstruction, which irrefutably confirms that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.

A two-hour special on the event is scheduled to air on ABC News in the United States on November 20, two days before the 40th anniversary Kennedy's killing.

"It leaves no room for doubt," said Tom Yellin, executive producer of the special, narrated by Peter Jennings.

He called the results of ABC's study "enormously powerful. It's irrefutable". The conclusion that Oswald alone shot Kennedy during a motorcade in Dallas mirrors that of the Warren Commission, the official government inquiry into the assassination.

Even today, public opinion surveys find that less than half of Americans don't agree with that conclusion, said Gary Mack, curator of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas.

But that reservoir of doubt, largely fed by government secrecy and Oliver Stone's movie on the assassination, is important to address, Yellin said.

ABC News worked with an expert who created a computer-generated reconstruction of the shooting based on maps, blueprints, physical measurements, more than 500 photographs, films and autopsy reports, ABC said.

It enables a person to view the scene from any number of perspectives, including what Oswald saw from the sixth floor of the former Texas school book depository, Yellin said.

"When you do that, it's chillingly clear what happened," Yellin said.

He dismisses theories that there was another gunman.

Through interviews and other documentation, ABC News also concludes that Jack Ruby, who later killed Oswald, acted simply out of his love for Kennedy.

The computer-generated technology, only available for the past few years, is now frequently used in criminal investigations, Yellin said.

While Stone's movie raised doubt in many people's minds about the Warren Commission, it also led to the release of many government documents that had previously been kept hidden and fueled conspiracy theorists, Yellin said.

None of the documents offer significant evidence refuting the conclusion that Oswald acted alone, Yellin said.

Still, much of Americans' cynicism about their government can be traced to November 22, 1963, making further investigation important even 40 years later, he said.

"I think it's very hard for people to accept the fact that the most powerful man in the world can be murdered by a disaffected person whose life had been a series of failures up to that point," Yellin said.

Both Yellin and Mack admit that no matter what evidence ABC News lays out, it's not likely to quiet people who believe otherwise.

"The history of this subject is pretty clear," Mack said.

"No matter what information comes out, people are going to believe what they want."

Comment: So, based upon maps, blueprints, physical measurements, more than 500 photographs, films and autopsy reports, the good folks at ABC have made a computer-generated reconstruction of the shooting that leaves no doubt that Oswald acted alone. We have some excerpts from a book below that also used many of the same materials and arrived at the opposite conclusion: JFK was murdered by a powerful group of CIA operatives and politicians who were staunch "anti-communists." This work, The Taking Of America, 1-2-3 by Richard E. Sprague, also has a long chapter on how the main news producers in the US were involved in the cover-up by withholding these same documents from the public eye.

And that is the fundamental question: Will these documents be made public so that individuals can investigate them themselves and form their own opinions based upon the evidence? And if they are, will they be the real evidence, or will they be "computer reconstructions" of the original documents?

In his work, Sprague is looking at how assassinations were used to shape the outcome of elections from 1964 through 1976. He explains his outlook this way:

This book is not about assassinations, at least not solely about assassinations. It is not just another book about who murdered President Kennedy or how or why. It is a book about power, about who really controls the United States policies, especially foreign policies. It is a book about the process of control through the manipulation of the American presidency and the presidential election process. The objective of the book is to expose the clandestine, secret, tricky methods and weapons used for this manipulation, and to reveal the degree to which these have been hidden from the American public.

Assassinations are only one of many techniques used in this control process. They have been important only in the sense that they are the ultimate method used in the control of the election process. Viewed in this way, an understanding of what happened to John or Robert Kennedy becomes more important because it leads to a total understanding of what has happened to our country, and to us, since 1960. But the important thing to understand is the control and the power and all of the clandestine methods put together.

According to Sprague, Kennedy was killed, to be replaced by Johnson. Johnson was "convinced" not to run again in 1968 because he was too lenient with the Black population. Nixon was their man, and in order to ensure he got in, Robert Kennedy had to be eliminated.

Sprague had doubts about the Warren Report from the beginning. These doubts increased as he tried to verify the facts himself.

Now, the most important thing initially that happened in finding the photos was discovering a number of photographs- -films and still photos--that showed the sixth floor window empty with nobody in it. This is what originally convinced me that we had a different sort of conspiracy going than one involving Lee Harvey Oswald, because if he wasn't in the window--and nobody was in the window--then what happened?

Who fired the shots? And where from?

To do this, he constructed his own virtual model of the assassination scene, but without the help of a computer. Do you know that there are other films of the assassination? Wonder why we never hear about them? They have been bought up by the major news organizations and have been locked away from public scrutiny. But when Sprague was working, in the mid-sixties, much of this material was still available. It was only later, towards 1968-69, that the tide shifted and the material was sequestered.

Lest one doubt Sprague's capacities in computer analysis, he was a specialist and a pioneer in the field of electronic computers and a leading American authority on Electronic Funds Transfer Systems (EFTS). He co-founded the Computer Research Corporation of Hawthorne, California in 1950. In 1960, he became the Director of Computer Systems Consulting for Touche, Ross, Bailey, and Smart. He became a partner in that company in 1963, and started its Advanced Business Systems Department in 1964 where he stayed until 1968. In his book he discusses the way UPI used computer analysis to promote the lone gun theory.

Confirming that the films and photographs I was looking at were taken at the critical time the shots were fired, or immediately before or after that, involved a lot of work: work with plat maps, other photos, and other materials. I got hold of a map made by the surveyor for Dealey Plaza (I believe his name was Clarence West) which was drawn to scale, and Bob Cutler helped me draw onto it all of the various things that happened including all the vehicles that were moving through. And I managed to lay a set of films end-to-end starting with one rounding the turn onto Houston Street all the way through Dealey Plaza so I could track any vehicle that was in view eighteenth- of-a-second by eighteenth-of-a-second (Zapruder film speed) all the way through Dealey Plaza. This enabled me to determine where Kennedy was at all times and where anybody else was that showed up in any of the photos-- particularly moving pictures--at times Kennedy was at spot so-and-so or spot such-and-such.

By doing this, with some triangulation, I was able to pin down the exact timing of two particular sets of photos: a film--the Hughes film--the last frame of which shows the sixth floor window empty and ends 5.7 seconds ahead of the first shot--the first shot being fired/tied down at frame 189 of the Zapruder film; and two photos taken after the shots were fired by Dillard and, believe it or not, an intelligence man from Navy intelligence named Powell. Powell's and Dillard's photos were taken almost at the same time, 3.5 seconds after the fatal and last shot (Z-313).

Sprague wasn't using computer reproductions. He used his brain and the original photos and films.

So that total time span is less than 17 seconds--if you add up the 5.7 seconds after the end of the Hughes film, plus the 6-plus seconds while the shots were being fired, plus the 3.5 seconds before Dillard and Powell's photos were taken--of blank, non-coverage of that window and there's no way Oswald could have gotten into the window, aimed, fired three shots, and gotten out of the window so you that couldn't see him in 17 seconds.

But anyway there was another film taken by Beverly Oliver otherwise known as the Babushka lady that was confiscated by News Orleans FBI agent Regis Kennedy, and a still photograph taken by Norman Similas, confiscated by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police from "Liberty" magazine (which was going to publish the photo), who then turned the photo and its negative over to the FBI. I interviewed Similas and the "Liberty" magazine editor both of whom told me they had carefully examined the photograph and had seen no one in the photograph appearing in the eastern-most sixth floor window, which I calculated had been taken about half-way into the 17-second interval.

I made two attempts soon after the Freedom of Information Act "viewing room" in the FBI office in Washington, D.C. was created, to request to see the Similas photograph and Beverly Oliver film, but each time the FBI person assigned to me was not able to find these photographs. But the testimony of the people involved was good enough for me to conclude that there was nobody in that window ever. Once I got to that point I started looking for other evidence that would show where the shots did come from and I started finding all kinds of evidence of shots from the grassy knoll, and from the Dal Tex building, and from the roof or the seventh floor of the western end of the depository building--both photographs as well as witness testimony--and that lead me to decide that this was a powerful conspiracy which had involved at least four gunmen firing shots. This then lead me to decide that I should pursue the whole pattern of conspiracy including, eventually, the Martin Luther King assassination, the Bobby Kennedy assassination and the George Wallace attempt. And that led to the book.

Through all of this, I just know I never would have concluded that it was a powerful and well-planned conspiracy if I had not determined that Oswald wasn't in that window-- nobody was in that window. That was the first key.

Are we starting to get some sense of why this material was never made public?

There's one other thing I'd like to point out. The title of the book has more than just simple significance and it shows up in all the chapters that link all these assassinations and their cover-ups. Namely, our country has been taken from us. Us being the citizens of the United States as of 1963, and any time after that, by robbing us of our capability of electing a president we wanted for at least three, and more likely four, elections. One way of taking the country away, is to control the elections and that's really, at least part of the essence of the book. It's close to what Henry Gonzalez proposed in his original bill. He wanted the Congress to look into all four of the major assassinations--the fourth being the attempted assassination of George Wallace--and find the links between and among them, and the cover-ups, and particularly the links between the intelligence agencies and the cover-ups that he was sure were involved in all of them. And if we had had a committee which had done that, well then, we'd have been a lot further along than we are 13 years later. -- phone interview with the author, June 3, 1992

If you were not alive in the sixties, it is hard to understand the level of hatred that existed for the Kennedy's among right-wing groups such as the Minutemen. The myth that has come down is that he was beloved by everyone. Notice how ABC decides that Ruby killed Oswald because of his great love for Kennedy!

How could this manipulation of the public be carried out? Sprague gives five keys:

INGREDIENT 1. A PATRIOTIC ISSUE. A fundamental issue permeating nearly all conditions of life in the U.S. is needed, around which the rest of the fooling can be constructed. The perfect issue since 1947 has been "The Red Menace," or "Communism" or "The Radical Communist Left Conspiracy." No one is more adept at using this issue than Richard Nixon.

The people, to be fooled, have to really believe in the issue, from the heart, from the gut. In a democracy this is the most essential ingredient. In the U.S. many, many people believe it. Some believe it because they have never heard or read anything other than "The Communists are going to take over." Others believe it because they or their parents or relatives came from Europe and "know what it's like to live under Naziism or Communism." (They don't distinguish.)

Some believe because they are religious, and somehow religion is always linked to anti-communism. Others aren't sure, but they think "radical" groups might be Communist controlled. The flag waving, the national anthem, the American Legion, our prisoners of war, the draft of the past--all of these symbols are linked to the one big issue of "Communism." [...]

INGREDIENT 2. REACHING THE MINDS OF THE PEOPLE. To fool a majority of the people all of the time it is necessary to reach into their minds over a relatively long period of time.

[...] Go back in time to 1935, if you are over 50, or go back to 1945, if you are over 40, or back to 1955, if you are over 30. Examine your general overall attitudes, beliefs and prejudices as developed over that period of time between then and now. You will discover that your political beliefs about the U.S., the Presidency, foreign policy, wage and price controls, and your own economic conditions, etc., have been strongly influenced by the various news media.

INGREDIENT 3. CONTROLLING THE NEWS MEDIA. In Chapter 9, the author proves that it has been possible for a very small group of people in power to control or fool nearly all of the major news media in the U.S. about the assassination of John F. Kennedy and subsequent investigations conducted by groups other than the sources of power (Warren Commission, FBI, Secret Service, CIA, Justice Department, the President).

According to polls taken between 1963 and 1970, 50% to 80% of the public at one time or another during this period believed there was a conspiracy. Nevertheless, the major news media took the opposite position. A poll conducted today would, no doubt, show about one-half of the people believing there was no conspiracy. How did this happen? Is it conceivable that the power sources of two succeeding administrations (Johnson and Nixon) fooled or controlled the news media to that extent?

The problem is not so difficult as it seems. Only sixteen media organizations are involved. These sixteen provide each of us with nearly all of the news we either read, see or hear. It is only necessary to control the sixteen men at the very top and that is exactly what happened. The proof contained in Chapter 9 contains specific facts about what happened inside of eleven of the sixteen organizations.

INGREDIENT 4. CONTROLLING THE LEGAL SYSTEM. Perhaps the most important long-range ingredient in fooling the people of America is the control and influence over the legal system. The U.S. in the post-war era has reached the stage where, in case of doubt on a major issue, the people will wait to see how it is resolved by the courts. The American people in general have always had tremendous faith in their own legal system.

With the exception of the South taking issue with the Warren court over black rights, the American people tend to believe that the Supreme Court will eventually right any wrongs. The faith goes much further than adjudication of crimes or disputes. People have come to rely on the legal system to tell them where the truth lies on a major issue when two sides differ completely on the facts. They believe that the adversary procedure and the perjury penalty system will ferret out the truth.

Thus, to fool the people, and make them believe lies, it is essential to control the legal system. The Nixon and Johnson administrations and the Invisible Government lying underneath or off to one side of both administrations became very adept at controlling the legal system. It can be done, and has been done in several ways. Nixon, of course, loaded the Supreme Court. That is important. The complete control of the Justice Department and the FBI is also obvious. Not so obvious is the need to control Federal judges throughout the land. Truth might leak out in a trial at a local level, so U.S. courts in each area must be controlled.

The Federal grand jury scheme worked out by Nixon, Mitchell and Robert Mardian is a beautiful way to guide, direct and control the legal system. It more than proved its worth in fooling the people in cases involving classified documents, the Black Panthers and other situations where the truth had to be obscured. [...]

INGREDIENT 5. PAID COLUMNISTS OR LACKEYS. Control of the news media includes controlling or hiring selected columnists, newsmen, commentators, and lackeys. Sometimes these people are called "spokesmen for the administration." Many of them are supposedly independent. Their importance in the process of fooling the people has increased as the number of independent news media organizations has decreased and the number of organizations relying on syndicated, national columnists or commentators has increased.

In looking over this list, it is clear that these elements continue to function in the US today. Look at the successful cover-up of 9/11, the way the courts were used to ensure Bush Jr. got into the White House, the media shills who whipped up anti-Saddam hysteria to justify the occupation of Iraq, the entire sequence wrapped up in patriotism and the belief that "It can't happen here." The Communist threat has been replaced by the Terrorist threat, and the well of anger and negative energy of the Cold War is being redirected to the endless war on terror.

And anyone who challenges the official version is accused of being a "conspiracy nut." But as Sprague says:

One of the favorite tricks of the media throughout the years has been to couple the words "conspiracy" and "theory" together; never once did the major media mention any of the hard evidence pointing to conspiracy in any of the four major cases.

Instead they sequestered it. Put it under lock and key.

Did you know that Oswald was an informant for the FBI?

That the shells found near Officer Tippett were from Oswald's gun, but that the bullets that killed him were not?

Many of the same individuals, including Richard Nixon, were involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion, the assassination of Kennedy, the blackmailing of Ted Kennedy at Chappiquiddick, and Watergate.

Read Sprague's book and decide for yourself. This is the chronology of events he gives relating to the take over of the US.

The evidence for the Power Control Group's and Ford/Nixon's strategy is as follows:

1. Nixon was White House action officer on Cuban invasion plans in 1960.

2. Nixon was in contact with Hunt and others during the Bay of Pigs planning.

3. Nixon lied to the American people by his own admission about the Bay of Pigs during his TV debates with Kennedy in 1960.

4. Nixon was financially linked to the Mafia and to Cuban casino operations before Castro took over.

5. Nixon was acquainted with Hunt, Baker, Martinez, Sturgis, Carlos Prio Socarras, and other Watergate people and anti-Castro people in Florida, and he was financially linked to Baker, Martinez and Socarras.

6. Hunt, Baker, Sturgis and Socarras were connected with the assassination group in the murder of JFK.

7. Nixon was in Dallas for three days, including the morning of the JFK assassination. He was trying to stir up trouble for Kennedy.

8. Nixon went to Dallas under false pretenses. There was no board meeting of the Pepsi Cola Company as he announced his law firm had had to attend.

9. Nixon did not admit being in Dallas on the day Kennedy was shot and did not reveal the true reason for his trip. He held two press conferences on the two days before the assassination, attacking both Kennedy and Johnson and emphasizing the Democratic political problems in Texas.

10. Research indicates that Nixon either knew in advance about assassination plans, or learned about them soon after the assassination.

11. Nixon proposed to Lyndon Johnson that Gerald Ford serve on the Warren Commission.

12. Ford led the Commission cover-up by controlling the questioning of key witnesses and by several other means.

13. Ford helped firmly plant the idea that Oswald was the only assassin and that there was no conspiracy by publishing his own book, "Lee Harvey Oswald: Portrait of the Assassin."

14. Ford purposefully covered up the conspiracy of the PCG in the JFK assassination and also covered up the fact that Oswald was a paid informer for the FBI. He did this by dismissing the subject in his book as worthless rumor and by keeping the executive sessions of the Commission (where Oswald's FBI informer status was discussed) classified Top Secret.

15. Ford continued the cover-up when he was questioned before being confirmed by the Senate as Vice President. He lied under oath twice to the Senate Committee. He stated that he had written his book about Oswald with no access to classified documents. He lied about this because his book used classified documents about Oswald's FBI informer status. He lied when he said that the book was entitled, "Lee Harvey Oswald: Portrait of *an* Assassin." This was significant in 1973 because the public by then had become very skeptical about a lone assassin. By changing one word in the title, Ford made the book seem a little less like what it actually was--an effort to make Oswald the assassin.

16. Jaworski aided in the JFK cover-up by sitting on evidence of conspiracy accumulated by Waggoner Carr, Texas Attorney General, who he represented in liaison with the Warren Commission. He also stopped the critical testimony of Jack Ruby when he testified before the Warren Commission, and diverted attention away from Ruby's intent to reveal the conspiracy to kill both Kennedy and Oswald.

17. Nixon became president in 1968 only because Robert Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy. Nixon was well aware of the conspiracy whether or not he approved of it in advance.

18. John Mitchell and J. Edgar Hoover joined Nixon and the lower level members of the PCG in covering up the RFK murder conspiracy. They classified the evidence "Top Secret" and murdered several witnesses, controlled the judge in the Sirhan trial and the district attorney and the chief of police in Los Angeles during and after the trial. They still control these people and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Clarence Kelly also became involved.

19. The plumbers group ordered the assassination of George Wallace in 1972 to insure Nixon's election by picking up Wallace's vote (about 18%, according to polls).

20. J. Edgar Hoover and Richard Helms were aware of who killed John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. They helped cover-up both conspiracies.

21. John Mitchell controlled the trial of Clay Shaw and the Garrison investigation and discredited Garrison by framing him in a New Orleans gambling case.

22. Nixon and Haldeman discussed the assassination of John Kennedy, the conspiracy, Hunt's involvement, the possibility that Hunt might talk, the cover-up, the Bay of Pigs relationship between Nixon, Hunt and the other PCG members, and the briefing Nixon might have had to give anyone running against him in 1972, on matters of "national security".

23. Nixon and Mitchell discussed the assassinations and the attempt to assassinate George Wallace. Mitchell executed orders to suppress the truth about these events.

24. Gerald Ford had possession of the most critical tapes on which assassinations and cover-ups were discussed.

25. Jaworski could be counted on to keep the assassination material under wraps even after his resignation. He was aware of the conspiracy evidence and cover-up in all three cases (JFK, RFK, George Wallace).

26. Hunt was taken care of and will keep silent. He had been out of jail and living on a beautiful $100,000 estate in Florida with plenty of money, across the street from his Bay of Pigs friend, Manuel Artime.

27. Clay Shaw was murdered by the PCG, undoubtedly to keep him from talking once the truth about his CIA position was revealed by Victor Marchetti. He was embalmed before the coroner could determine the cause of death. Evidence indicates he was killed somewhere and then brought back to his apartment.

28. Hale Boggs, a Warren, Commission member, was possibly killed by the PCG. Bogg's airplane disappeared in Alaska. No trace of it was ever found and no explanation of how the plane could have crashed has ever been given. Mrs. Boggs has expressed doubts about it being an accident.

29. Four of the seven Warren Commission members are dead: Warren, Dulles, Russell and Boggs. Of the remaining members, Ford was President, John McCloy is retired and living in Connecticut, and John Sherman Cooper was made ambassador to East Germany.

30. Richard Russell, Hale Boggs and Cooper believed there was a conspiracy in the JFK assassination. Russell and Boggs both said so publicly.

31. Haldeman erased 18 1/2 minutes of a taped discussion with Nixon. This tape undoubtedly contained "national security" matters. The fact that Haldeman did the erasing can easily be determined by tracing the trail of possession of the tape from the day it was taken out of the vault to the day the gap was discovered. Haldeman had the tape with the recorder alone for nearly 48 hours. No one else had the tape alone long enough to do the erasing.

32. Ford and the PCG contemplated pardons for Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman and possibly others who know the number one secret.

33. Ford's statements to the sub-committee of the House Judiciary Committee concerning his pardon of Nixon dodged the real issue. Only Elizabeth Holtzman asked questions coming close to the number one secret. When she asked about a prior agreement, Ford said, "I have made no deal, there was no deal, *since I became Vice President*." Those last few words were not reported by the press, but a large number of Americans watched and heard him say them. Of course he spoke truthfully because the "deal" was made *before* he became Vice President.

There is also this from Gerald Ford in 1997:

Ford jottings offer something new for JFK conspiracy theorists

By MIKE FEINSILBER
The Associated Press
07-02-1997

WASHINGTON (July 2) - Thirty-three years ago, Gerald R. Ford took pen in hand and changed - ever so slightly - the Warren Commission's key sentence on the place where a bullet entered John F. Kennedy's body when he was killed in Dallas.

The effect of Ford's change was to strengthen the commission's conclusion that a single bullet passed through Kennedy and severely wounded Texas Gov. John Connally - a crucial element in its finding that Lee Harvey Oswald was the sole gunman.

A small change, said Ford on Wednesday when it came to light, one intended to clarify meaning, not alter history.

''My changes had nothing to do with a conspiracy theory,'' he said in a telephone interview from Beaver Creek, Colo. ''My changes were only an attempt to be more precise.''

But still, his editing was seized upon by members of the conspiracy community, which rejects the commission's conclusion that Oswald acted alone.

''This is the most significant lie in the whole Warren Commission report,'' said Robert D. Morningstar, a computer systems specialist in New York City who said he has studied the assassination since it occurred and written an Internet book about it.

The effect of Ford's editing, Morningstar said, was to suggest that a bullet struck Kennedy in the neck, ''raising the wound two or three inches. Without that alteration, they could never have hoodwinked the public as to the true number of assassins.''

If the bullet had hit Kennedy in the back, it could not have struck Connolly in the way the commission said it did, he said.

The Warren Commission concluded in 1964 that a single bullet - fired by a ''discontented'' Oswald - passed through Kennedy's body and wounded his fellow motorcade passenger, Connally, and that a second, fatal bullet, fired from the same place, tore through Kennedy's head.

The assassination of the president occurred Nov. 22, 1963, in Dallas; Oswald was arrested that day but was shot and killed two days later as he was being transferred from the city jail to the county jail.

Conspiracy theorists reject the idea that a single bullet could have hit both Kennedy and Connally and done such damage. Thus they argue that a second gunman must have been involved.

Ford's changes tend to support the single-bullet theory by making a specific point that the bullet entered Kennedy's body ''at the back of his neck'' rather than in his uppermost back, as the commission staff originally wrote.

Ford's handwritten notes were contained in 40,000 pages of records kept by J. Lee Rankin, chief counsel of the Warren Commission.

They were made public Wednesday by the Assassination Record Review Board, an agency created by Congress to amass all relevant evidence in the case. The documents will be available to the public in the National Archives.

The staff of the commission had written: ''A bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above the shoulder and to the right of the spine.''

Ford suggested changing that to read: ''A bullet had entered the back of his neck at a point slightly to the right of the spine.''

The final report said: ''A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine.''

Ford, then House Republican leader and later elevated to the presidency with the 1974 resignation of Richard Nixon, is the sole surviving member of the seven-member commission chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Sprague also recounts an interview between LBJ and Walter Cronkite in 1969 where the former president admitted the existence of a conspiracy.

CBS edited out one other important piece of TV film. In November 1969, Walter Cronkite conducted a three-part interview with Lyndon B. Johnson at his ranch in Texas. The series was broadcast in the spring of 1970 and on the first program an announcement was made that portions of the taped interview had been deleted at Lyndon Johnson's request, "for reasons of national security."

What actually happened and what Johnson had said six months earlier was made public due to a leak at CBS. The story appeared in newspapers all over the U.S. several days before the broadcast.

Johnson told Cronkite that there had been a conspiracy in the assassination of President Kennedy, that Oswald was not a lone madman assassin, and that he, Johnson, had known it all along. Johnson reviewed the tapes a week or so before the program was to go on the air and then called up the CBS management, asking that his remarks be deleted.

Someone at CBS who was very disturbed by this called a member of the Committee to Investigate Assassinations and told him what had been deleted. This led to the story being printed in the newspapers.

Rep. Albert Thomas of Houston winks at LBJ during his swearing in on Air Force One. What, one wonders, was there to wink about? Kennedy had spoken at a dinner to honor Thomas the night before...

During the final events on this list, George H.W. Bush was the director of the CIA. Sprague argues that Bush knew of this activity on the part of the "Power Control Group." How does he fit in here?

George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography

CHAPTER VIII-b - THE BAY OF PIGS AND THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION

by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin

[...] According to George Bush's official biography, he was during 1963 a well-to-do businessman residing in Houston, the busy president of Zapata Offshore and the chairman of the Harris County Republican Organization, supporting Barry Goldwater as the GOP's likely 1964 presidential candidate, while at the same time actively preparing his own 1964 bid for the US Senate. But during that same period of time, Bush may have shared some common acquaintances with Lee Harvey Oswald.

Between October, 1962 and April, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald and his Russian wife Marina were in frequent contact with a Russian emigré couple living in Dallas: these were George de Mohrenschildt and his wife Jeanne.

During the Warren Commission investigation of the Kennedy assassination, de Mohrenschildt was interviewed at length about his contacts with Oswald.

When, in the spring of 1977, the discrediting of the Warren Commission report as a blatant coverup had made public pressure for a new investigation of the Kennedy assassination irresistible, the House Assassinations Committee planned to interview de Mohrenschildt once again. But in March, 1977, just before de Mohrenschildt was scheduled to be interviewed by Gaeton Fonzi of the House committee's staff, he was found dead in Palm Beach, Florida.

His death was quickly ruled a suicide. One of the last people to see him alive was Edward Jay Epstein, who was also interviewing de Mohrenschildt about the Kennedy assassination for an upcoming book. Epstein is one of the writers on the Kennedy assassination who enjoyed excellent relations with the late James Angleton of the CIA. If de Mohrenschildt were alive today, he might be able to enlighten us about his relations with George Bush, and perhaps afford us some insight into Bush's activities during this epoch.

Jeanne de Mohrenschildt rejected the finding of suicide in her husband's death. "He was eliminated before he got to that committee," the widow told a journalist in 1978, "because someone did not want him to get to it." She also maintained that George de Mohrenschildt had been surreptitiously injected with mind-altering drugs.

After de Mohrenschildt's death, his personal address book was located, and it contained this entry: "Bush, George H.W. (Poppy) 1412 W. Ohio also Zapata Petroleum Midland." There is of course the problem of dating this reference. George Bush had moved his office and home from Midland to Houston in 1959, when Zapata Offshore was constituted, so perhaps this reference goes back to some time before 1959. There is also the number: "4-6355." There are, of course, numerous other entries, including one W.F. Buckley of the Buckley brothers of New York City, William S. Paley of CBS, plus many oil men, stock brokers, and the like. [...]

It is established that between October, 1962 and late April, 1963, de Mohrenschildt was a very important figure in the life of Oswald and his Russian wife. Despite Oswald's lack of social graces, de Mohrenschildt introduced him into Dallas society, took him to parties, assisted him in finding employment, and much more.

It was through de Mohrenschildt that Oswald met a certain Volkmar Schmidt, a young German geologist who had studied with Professor Wilhelm Kuetemeyer, an expert in psychosomatic medicine and religious philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, who compiled a detailed psychological profile of Oswald.

Jeanne and George helped Marina move her belongings during one of her many estrangements from Oswald. According to some accounts, de Mohrenschildt's influence on Oswald was so great during this period that he could virtually dictate important decisions to the young ex-marine simply by making suggestions. Oswald was in awe of de Mohrenschildt, according to some.

[...] According to Mark Lane, "there is evidence that de Mohrenschildt served as a CIA control officer who directed Oswald's actions."

Much of the extensive published literature on de Mohrenschildt converges on the idea that he was a baby sitter, handler, case officer, or control agent for Oswald on behalf of some intelligence agency.

De Mohrenschildt's pedigree evokes haunting parallels to the typical figures of the PERMINDEX networks of Georges Mandel, Ferenc Nagy, Max Hagerman, Max Seligman, Carlo d'Amelio, Lewis Mortimer Bloomfield, and Clay Shaw, to which public attention was called during the investigations of New Orleans district attorney James Garrison.

It is therefore highly interesting that George Bush's name turned up in the personal address book of George de Mohrenschildt.

The Warren Commission went to absurd lengths to cover up the fact that George de Mohrenschildt was a denizen of the world of the intelligence agencies. This included ignoring the well-developed paper trial on de Mohrenschildt as Nazi and communist sympathizer, and later as a US asset abroad. The Warren Commission concluded:

The Commission's investigation has developed no signs of subversive or disloyal conduct on the part of either of the de Mohrenschildts. Neither the FBI, CIA, nor any witnesses contacted by the Commission has provided any information linking the de Mohrenschildts to subversive or extremist organizations. Nor has there been any evidence linking them in any way with the assassination of President Kennedy.

On the day of the Kennedy assassination, FBI records show George Bush as reporting a right-wing member of the Houston Young Republicans for making threatening comments about President Kennedy. According to FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act,

On November 22, 1963 Mr. GEORGE H.W. BUSH, 5525 Briar, Houston, Texas, telephonically advised that he wanted to relate some hearsay that he had heard in recent weeks, date and source unknown. He advised that one JAMES PARROTT had been talking of killing the President when he comes to Houston.

PARROTT is possibly a student at the University of Houston and is active in politics in the Houston area.

According to related FBI documentation, "a check with Secret Service at Houston, Texas revealed that agency had a report that PARROTT stated in 1961 he would kill President Kennedy if he got near him."

Here Bush is described as "a reputable businessman." FBI agents were sent to interrogate Parrott's mother, and later James Milton Parrott himself.

Parrott had been discharged from the US Air Force for psychiatric reasons in 1959. Parrott had an alibi for the time of the Dallas shootings; he had been in the company of another Republican activist. According to press accounts, Parrott was a member of the right-wing faction of the Houston GOP which was oriented towards the John Birch Society and which opposed Bush's chairmanship.

According to the San Francisco Examiner, Bush's press office in August, 1988 first said that Bush had not made any such call, and challenged the authenticity of the FBI documents. Several days later Bush's spokesman said that the candidate "does not recall" placing the call.

One day later after he reported Parrott to the FBI, Bush received a highly sensitive, high-level briefing from the Bureau:

Date: November 29, 1963
To: Director
Bureau of Intelligence and Research
Department of State
From: John Edgar Hoover, Director
Subject: ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY NOVEMBER 22, 1963

Our Miami, Florida, Office on November 23, 1963 advised that the Office of Coordinator of Cuban Affairs in Miami advised that the Department of State feels some misguided anti-Castro group might capitalize on the present situation and undertake an unauthorized raid against Cuba, believing that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy might herald a change in US policy, which is not true.

Our sources and informants familiar with Cuban matters in the Miami area advise that the general feeling in the anti-Castro Cuban community is one of stunned disbelief and, even among those who did not entirely agree with the President's policy concerning Cuba, the feeling is that the President's death represents a great loss not only to the US but to all Latin America. These sources know of no plans for unauthorized action against Cuba.

An informant who has furnished reliable information in the past and who is close to a small pro-Castro group in Miami has advised that those individuals are afraid that the assassination of the President may result in strong repressive measures being taken against them and, although pro-Castro in their feelings, regret the assassination.

The substance of the foregoing information was orally furnished to Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency and Captain William Edwards of the Defense Intelligence Agency on November 23, 1963, by Mr. W.T. Forsyth of this Bureau.

William T. Forsyth, since deceased, was an official of the FBI's Washington headquarters; during the time he was attached to the Bureau's subversive control section, he ran the investigation of Rev. Martin Luther King. Was he also a part of the FBI's harassment of Dr. King? The efforts of journalists to locate Captain Edwards have not been successful.

This FBI document identifying George Bush as a CIA agent in November, 1963 was first published by Joseph McBride in The Nation in July, 1988, just before Bush received the Republican nomination for president. McBride's source observed: "I know [Bush] was involved in the Caribbean. I know he was involved in the suppression of things after the Kennedy assassination. There was a very definite worry that some Cuban groups were going to move against Castro and attempt to blame it on the CIA."

When pressed for confirmation or denial, Bush's spokesman Stephen Hart commented: "Must be another George Bush."

Within a short time the CIA itself would peddle the same damage control line. On July 19, 1988 in the wake of wide public attention to the report published in The Nation, CIA spokeswoman Sharron Basso departed from the normal CIA policy of refusing to confirm or deny reports that any person is or was a CIA employee. CIA spokeswoman Basso told the Associated press that the CIA believed that "the record should be clarified." She said that the FBI document "apparently" referred to a George William Bush who had worked in 1963 on the night shift at CIA headquarters, and that "would have been the appropriate place to have received such an FBI report." According to her account, the George William Bush in question had left the CIA to join the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1964.

For the CIA to volunteer the name of one of its former employees to the press was a shocking violation of traditional methods, which are supposedly designed to keep such names a closely guarded secret. This revelation may have constituted a violation of federal law. But no exertions were too great when it came to damage control for George Bush.

George William Bush had indeed worked for the CIA, the DIA, and the Alexandria, Virginia Department of Public Welfare before joining the Social Security Administration, in whose Arlington, Virginia office he was employed as a claims representative in 1988. George William Bush told The Nation that while at the CIA he was "just a lowly researcher and analyst" who worked with documents and photos and never received interagency briefings. He had never met Forsyth of the FBI or Captain Edwards of the DIA. "So it wasn't me," said George William Bush.

Later, George William Bush formalized his denial in a sworn statement to a federal court in Washington, DC. The affidavit acknowledges that while working at CIA headquarters between September 1963 and February 1964, George William Bush was the junior person on a three to four man watch shift which was on duty when Kennedy was shot. But, as George William Bush goes on to say,

I have carefully reviewed the FBI memorandum to the Director, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Department of State dated November 29, 1963 which mentions a Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency....I do not recognize the contents of the memorandum as information furnished to me orally or otherwise during the time I was at the CIA. In fact, during my time at the CIA. I did not receive any oral communications from any government agency of any nature whatsoever. I did not receive any information relating to the Kennedy assassination during my time at the CIA from the FBI.

Based on the above, it is my conclusion that I am not the Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency referred to in the memorandum.

So we are left with the strong suspicion that the "Mr. George Bush of the CIA" referred to by the FBI is our own George Herbert Walker Bush, who, in addition to his possible contact with Lee Harvey Oswald's controller, may thus also join the ranks of the Kennedy assassination cover-up.

It makes perfect sense for George Bush to be called in on a matter involving the Cuban community in Miami, since that is a place where George has traditionally had a constituency. George inherited it from his father, Prescott Bush of Jupiter Island, and later passed it on to his own son, Jeb.

Texas and Florida. Funny how these two states play such an important role in the imposition of the Bush Reich, from the sixties until today.

Let's get this straight: It seems that George Herbert Walker Bush was a CIA operative in 1963 at the time of the assassination of a sitting president of the United States. Not only that, but he was friends with the handler of the "patsy" assassin. There was a paper trail leading to his name as popping up ON THE DAY OF THE ASSASSINATION - reporting a "plot to assassinate the president. Bush said that he had heard of this plot "in recent weeks." It's clear from the evidence that the CIA not only knew about, but was complicit in the assassination of JFK, which suggests that G.H.W. Bush also knew. He was not merely part of the cover-up, he was part of the conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy. His call, just like the attack on the Pentagon on 9-11, was a "signature." I think I would call that hubris.

But this is all only the ravings of conspiracy nuts, right? Then what to make of the situation at the time Bush was appointed head of the CIA by Ford, the guy who altered the Warren Report?:

It will be seen that at the beginning of Bush's tenure at the CIA, the Congressional committees were on the offensive against the intelligence agencies. By the time that Bush departed Langley, the tables were turned, and it was the Congress which was the focus of scandals, including Koreagate. Soon thereafter, the Congress would undergo the assault of Abscam.

Preparation for what was to become the Halloween massacre began in the Ford White House during the summer of 1975. The Ford Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan preserves a memo from Donald Rumsfeld to Ford dated July 10, 1975, which deals with an array of possible choices for CIA Director. Rumsfeld had polled a number of White House and administration officials and asked them to express preferences among "outsiders to the CIA."

Among the officials polled by Cheney was Henry Kissinger, who suggested C. Douglas Dillon, Howard Baker, Galvin, and Robert Roosa. Dick Cheney of the White House staff proposed Robert Bork, followed by Bush and Lee Iacocca. Nelson Rockefeller was also for C. Douglas Dillon, followed by Howard Baker, Conner, and James R. Schlesinger. Rumsfeld himself listed Bork, Dillon, Iacoca, Stanley Resor, and Walter Wriston, but not Bush. The only officials putting Bush on their "possible" lists other than Cheney were Jack O. Marsh, a White House counselor to Ford, and David Packard. When it came time for Rumsfeld to sum up the aggregate number of times each person was mentioned, minus one point for each time a person had been recommended against, the list was as follows:

Robert Bork [rejected in 1987 for the Supreme Court] White McGee Foster [John S. Foster of PFIAB, formerly of the Department of Defense] Dillon Resor Roosa Hauge

It will be seen that Bush was not among the leading candidates, perhaps because his networks were convinced that he was going to make another attempt for the vice-presidency and that therefore the Commerce Department or some similar post would be more suitable. The summary profile of Bush sent to Ford by Rumsfeld found that Bush had "experience in government and diplomacy" and was "generally familiar with components of the intelligence community and their missions" while having management experience." Under "Cons" Rumsfeld noted: "RNC post lends undesirable political cast."

As we have seen, the CIA post was finally offered by Ford to Edward Bennett Williams, perhaps with an eye on building a bipartisan bridge towards a powerful faction of the intelligence community. But Williams did not want the job. Bush, originally slated for the Department of Commerce, was given the CIA appointment.

Familiar names, no? Cheney and Rumsfeld? Part of the decision-making team for installing Bush at the CIA. And what did Bush Sr. do while he was Director? From Sprague:

Postscript

On April 27, 1976 "The New York Times" published a story on the Senate Intelligence Committee revelation that the CIA would be keeping twenty-five journalist agents within the news media.

The Committee disclosed that George Bush planned to keep these people in the media positions that they had occupied for a long time.

The significant point about the story was a statement by a Committee staff member that many of the individuals were in executive positions at American news organizations. Bush had directed that the CIA stop hiring correspondents "accredited" by American publications and other news organizations. The "Times" recognized that the pivotal word in Bush's directive was "accredited." "Executives who do not work as correspondents are apparently not covered by Mr. Bush's directive, nor are freelance writers who are not affiliated with a specific employer." The article also said that in most cases the media organization was not aware of the individual's CIA connection.

This was yet the best confirmation that the CIA had its Secret Team members planted at the top of the media. Only one executive is required at the top of a media organization to control it when needed. Since the CIA had twenty-five executives planted, that figure is more than enough to control the fifteen media organizations mentioned in this chapter.

Control the minds and you control the people. Control the media and you can control the minds. Look at the current state of the US public: dumbed down by decades of television, blockbuster movies, and music videos.

There is no population on the face of the planet better controlled than the US. The ABC special on JFK will put another nail into their coffin, presenting irrefutable proof through a medium they have integrated into every aspect of their lives, the computer simulation. The illusion is now "truth." I think we can say with some certainty that we have had two presidents of this country - and speculate on the others - who were directly involved in a conspiracy to assassinate a Sitting President of the United States.

America is only an illusion and the people have bought into it lock, stock, and barrel. It is almost as if, to go to the next level, to move beyond the forty year cycle that started on the day of Kennedy's assassination, the Power Control Group needs this little symbolic act. Bring down the curtain on the set-up and proceed to the endgame.

For forty years, the US public has bought into the lie: the assassinations of JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King. Malcolm X is dead. John Lennon is dead. Anyone who could provide a rallying point for dissent or questioning is no longer here; picked off one by one.

We are left with the lies of Georgie Jr, more outrageous than any Hitler ever told.

The future created by the choices made today. Do you buy into the lie or do you speak up for the truth? Where do you draw the line? Truth or the comfort of the lie? Defense of the truth permits the infusion of creative energy into the situation, something new and unpredictable that can completely change what appears to be an unchangeable and hopeless situation. But only truth permits this influx of new energy. Only facing the lie in the face, confronting it, refusing to believe it, and working to expose it will open this door.

Turning one's back and retreating into love and light, "positive" thinking, or the wishful creation of new states of illusion will not.

Each of us makes the choice, every day.

Endgame

By William Stone, III

"When will it end? How can we return to a time when there are no terror alerts, no Department of Homeland Security?" One of the Republican talk-show whores uttered this question this week. As is increasingly the case, the host's conclusions were 100% wrong.

This question has troubled me far more than it has the Republican whores. The difference between our conclusions is the difference between being a friend of individual liberty and a whore for the right-wing socialists in the Republican Party.

The short answer to the question is, simply: NEVER.

The United States has been heading down the path of becoming a police state for more than half a century. The creation of the American KGB (the correct Russian translation of "Homeland Security Department") was simply a formality.

It will NEVER end -- at least, not in the sense that the right- and left-wing socialists hope i will. One might have asked the same question at the beginning of the Cold War: "When will America go back to being the country it was before the beginning of the Cold War?"

The answer, of course, was NEVER. The Cold War ended, the bombers were recalled, but the country never returned to what it was before the Cold War began. The country will similarly never return to what it was before the War on Terror began.

Unlike the Cold War, there will never be an end to the War on Terror. At least, not as as long as we continue to cede to our governments the power to immorally initiate force.

In the statists' rosy, half-witted views, the War on Terror will end when Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and all the American members of Al Qaida that exist in their paranoid fantasies have been rooted out and destroyed.

Were the goal of the War on Terror to root out such individuals, there might be some hope of it ending in such a manner. The problem is that this isn't the goal. Rather, it is to capitalize on September 11 and terrify Americans into giving up their freedom.

For the sake of argument, however, let's ignore objective reality and accept the statists' ridiculous notion that Dubyuh is a good and honorable man instead of the power-mad would-be dictator he's demonstrated himself to be. Let's assume for a moment that Dubyuh simply wants to root out and destroy terrorists the world over.

This is a job that will span decades, simply because there are so many potential enemies. There is Iraq, Al Qaida, Iran, and North Korea, for starters. There are all the remaining communist nations. There's China -- no small task that, considering we're outnumbered eight to one.

In addition, as the Middle East has so aptly demonstrated, when the United States undertakes decades of immoral, Unconstitutional interventionist foreign policy, it creates enemies. This in turn will create terrorists, since terrorism is the only means by which a small, poorly-funded group can combat the enormous military of the world's only superpower.

If the FedGov is truly intent on eradicating terrorism from planet Earth, it will be a job of decades, requiring the harshest of police states to be instituted on a global scale. It certainly won't be complete under Dubyuh's regime -- it will take a multitude of Presidents, as did the Cold War.

The problem is that even assuming that Dubyuh's intentions regarding the creation of the American KGB are honorable (and they're not, as is easily provable), there's no guarantee that future Presidents will remain uncorrupted by the additional power the KGB offers them.

There will be another "Slick Willy" Clinton. There will be another "Tricky Dick" Nixon. Both men were paranoid autocrats with the limited power at their disposal: Nixon with his enemies list and wiretapping, Clinton with his abuse of the FBI and the IRS.

Imagine what such individuals would do with the power of the American KGB at their fingertips. Indeed, the power of the American KGB will ATTRACT such individuals to government the way a moth is attracted to a light bulb.

Remember, too, that once power has been ceded to government, that power is never relinquished. There is no example of a cabinet-level post being disbanded. The idea is occasionally bandied about, but it never occurs. Similarly, funding for government programs is never meaningfully cut.

Never. Not ever. It simply doesn't happen. The American KGB is here to stay, for as long as the United States exists.

The endgame for the War on Terror can only occur in one of two ways. To explain the first, it's necessary to recap a short (and extremely superficial) history of the Middle East [...]

This Is Your Brain on Public Relations

By Kenny Ausubel
AlterNet
October 28, 2003

[...] George Lakoff, an author and professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley who calls himself a "cognitive activist," says this: "One of the fundamental findings of cognitive science is that people think in terms of frames and metaphors - conceptual structures. The frames are in the synapses of our brains - physically present in the form of neural circuitry. When the facts don't fit the frames, the frames are kept and the facts ignored."

In other words, forget winning on the facts or the science. It's all about the story. And once stories take hold, they're hard to dislodge. [...]

When Anti-War T-shirts Are Verboten...

The War on Civil Liberties Hits Home

By SHRIREEN PARSONS
Counterpunch.org
October 28, 2003

On October 26, the current erosion of civil liberties in the United States affected me most personally.

On that sunny Saturday, in Washington, DC, my daughter, 2-year-old granddaughter and I joined 50,000 Americans opposed to the Iraq War in the protest organized by International ANSWER and VoteNoWar.

Participants included thousands of veterans and soldiers' families, as well as members of 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group of family members who lost loved ones during the September 11 attacks and who are actively speaking out against the Bush administration's campaign of "endless war." It was a wonderful experience, shared in solidarity by simultaneous demonstrators in San Francisco and other US cities, as well as hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in other countries around the world.

In the late afternoon, filled with the exhilaration of the protest, my daughter, granddaughter and I decided to go to the food court at the Ronald Reagan Building for some refreshment before taking the Metro back to my daughter's home in suburban Virginia.

As we passed through the security checkpoint at the entrance to the building, one of the guards politely informed me that I'd have to put away my poster, which reads, "End the Occupation of Iraq." I had no problem with that, so I rolled up the poster and stashed it in my tote bag.

I also happened to be wearing a t-shirt, purchased at the protest, over a black turtleneck. The shirt is red, with "Unite to Fight Imperialist War" printed in black letters, arranged in a 7-inch circle around an image of two clasped hands -- one white, and one black. On the back, it says "No Imperialist War," repeated in 19 languages. It's a beautiful shirt.

It was when the guard politely informed me that I'd have to remove my t-shirt that the exhilaration of the day faded. As the guard was obviously from the Middle East, I explained that, in wearing the shirt, I was exercising my right to freedom of speech as guaranteed to American citizens under our Constitution. He politely said he understood that, but that I had to remove the shirt before he could allow me to enter the building. Not wanting to involve my daughter and granddaughter in a scene, feeling sickened, I removed the shirt. I believe the guard was as mortified as I was.

I instantly regretted my decision to comply with this violation of my civil rights, and I regret it still. The fact that I went to the nearest restroom and put the shirt on again didn't make me feel any better.

The Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center is a federal property -- it is owned by me and every other American citizen. That I acquiesced to a requirement to doff one of our most treasured constitutional rights along with my shirt in order to enter a federal building in the nation's capitol has left me with feelings of outrage and shame. Outrage that The Land of the Free is no such thing, and shame that I didn't have the presence of mind to protest this injustice loudly enough to get hauled off to jail.

Americans must not be required to shed our constitutional rights in order to enter federal property -- OUR property.

9-year-old arrested for waving toy gun

MICHAEL C. FITZPATRICK
The Morning Journal
10/28/2003

LORAIN -- A 9-year-old boy was arrested at gunpoint and handcuffed Saturday because he was waving a toy gun over his head while seated on a bench outside a store, according to a Lorain police report.

His mother, Tamyka Saunders of Sheffield Lake, said her son, Thomas Clark Jr., told Lorain police when they approached him outside a Broadway business that the gun was a toy. An officer aimed his weapon at the boy's head, ordered him to the ground, handcuffed him and arrested him for juvenile delinquency by reason of inducing panic, according to the police report. [...]

Bush Offers Campaign Theme of Leadership

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer
Wed Oct 29, 3:04 AM ET

WASHINGTON - President Bush offered a broad defense of his foreign policy and said his message that "the world is more peaceful and more free under my leadership" will be a prominent theme of his bid for a second White House term.

In a Rose Garden news conference Tuesday with reporters, the president asserted, however, that his re-election campaign had not yet begun, even though the Bush-Cheney team has raised more than $83 million, much of it through personal appearances by Bush at 27 fund-raisers across the country over more than five months.

"I will defend my record at the appropriate time, and look forward to it," Bush said. "I'll say that the world is more peaceful and more free under my leadership, and America is more secure." [...]

Comment: If by peace and freedom he means a giant cesspool of fascism, then yes, Bush has brought peace and freedom to the world. And if Bushy's reign had brought real peace and freedom to the globe, would he really need to defend himself?

Bush enters 'right-to-life' controversy

WASHINGTON—U.S. President George W. Bush yesterday waded into the politically charged "right-to-life" controversy by praising the decision of his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, to restore life support to a brain-damaged Florida woman, and by promising to ban so-called partial-birth abortions. [...]

WTC Death Toll List to Drop Some 40 Names

By SARA KUGLER, Associated Press Writer
Wed Oct 29, 1:11 AM ET

NEW YORK - The names of about 40 people listed on the World Trade Center death toll for more than two years are being removed because the city cannot confirm their deaths or even their existence, a city official said Tuesday.

The city was to announce the change in death toll from 2,792 to about 2,750 on Wednesday. The decision was made by several city agencies, including the medical examiner's office, the police department and the mayor's office, said the city official, who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. [...]

Putin's powerful chief of staff resigns: report

AFP
Wednesday October 29, 5:58 PM

Moscow press reported that Kremlin's powerful chief of staff had resigned in protest of the arrest of a top oil tycoon in a widening political scandal on the eve of Russian parliamentary elections. [...]

Yukos affair pushes Russia deeper into crisis

By Andrew Jack and Arkady Ostrovsky in Moscow and FT reporters
Published: October 29 2003 10:54 | Last Updated: October 29 2003 10:54

The Yukos affair threw Russia further into crisis on Wednesday as Alexander Voloshin, head of the presidential administration, was thought to be on the brink of resigning and Yukos shares fell again after new moves by public prosecutors to charge shareholders in the oil giant with tax evasion.
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According to three separate individuals with strong links to the Kremlin, Mr Voloshin, Russia's third most influential political figure after the president and the prime minister, on Tuesday gave a resignation letter to Vladimir Putin. Mr Voloshin is thought to be protesting against the weekend arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky (pictured), head of Yukos, who has been charged with tax evasion and fraud. But until Wednesday it was not clear whether the president had accepted his letter.

The Kremlin's official response was ambivalent with the press service saying that the question whether Mr Voloshin had offered his resignation was "a private matter".

Seperately, Russian prosecutors on Wednesday asked a court to lift the immunity of a member of the upper chamber of parliament who holds a 4.5 per cent stake in Yukos. Vasily Shakhnovsky could be charged with tax evasion should the court grant the prosecutor's request to declare his election unlawful.

[...] Mr Voloshin's resignation, which could also undermine his ally Mikhail Kasyanov, the prime minister, would represent a blow to a group of business leaders closely tied to Boris Yeltsin, the former president. Mr Voloshin served in the Yeltsin administration and has been seen as a continuity figure under Mr Putin.

[...] Mr Putin's statement was interpreted by many analysts as an indication of support for a rival group of "hardliners", including former and current members of the security services - the former KGB - whom he has appointed to top jobs since his election in 2000 to counterbalance the substantial political influence of big business groups.

Who's the Biggest Loser?

By Yulia Latynina

A coup d'état has taken place in Russia. The law enforcement agencies have seized power. Everyone knew the coup was coming. And President Vladimir Putin did nothing to stop it.

The coup came in the form of the detention of Russia's richest citizen, Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

You can't say that law enforcement was dead set on staging a coup. The Prosecutor General's Office made perfectly clear to Khodorkovsky that it was time for him to leave the country. The offices of Anton Drel, the lawyer who represents Platon Lebedev, were searched, and Drel himself was questioned. Lawyers' offices weren't searched even during the Soviet era. Chekists arrived at the school where Khodorkovsky's 12-year-old daughter is a student and demanded her file. Even in the criminal free-for-all of the early 1990s, children were considered off-limits.

A blind man could have seen this coming. But Khodorkovsky didn't get the message. He dug his heels in, preferring to become a political prisoner rather than go into political exile. By doing so, Khodorkovsky paradoxically won this round in his psychological bout with the authorities. Things went according to his plan, not the prosecutors'.

For this very reason, the prosecutors were hesitant to arrest Khodorkovsky. They knew very well that this was not a pretrial detention. This was a coup in the political system. Previously the system had stood equally on the old oligarchs and the new "St. Petersburgers"; henceforth it would stand on the St. Petersburgers alone. [...]

Back in the late 1980s, when the future oligarchs were just getting started in a frenzy of dirt and blood, each faced an impossible task: dealing with the thugs who walked into their offices, stuck guns to their heads and demanded money, without turning into thugs themselves. They solved this problem by amassing security forces and privatizing the state along with the cops and the prosecutors.

They took care of the thugs and the "red directors." They got their man elected president in 1996 by raping the country and denying it the necessary vaccination in the form of a weakened, moribund culture of communism. Then, instead of disarming and disbanding their privatized police forces, the oligarchs began to battle one another. They taught the prosecutors how to use criminal investigations to pry factories away from their owners.

They created Frankenstein, but Frankenstein did not obey his master for long. "Why work for them when I can work for myself?" Frankenstein thought to himself. And when the oligarchs decided to be squeaky clean, it was too late. The crud had hardened and it wouldn't wash off.

The victims of a coup are always those most responsible for bringing it about. But the reverse is also true. Those who stage a coup always become its hostages, like NKVD chiefs Yagoda and Yezhov, executed by the man sent to replace them.

Two things happened on Saturday, one obvious, the other less so. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was obviously deprived of his freedom, perhaps temporarily. Less obviously, Putin lost power.

Until now, Putin had played the old oligarchs off against the new St. Petersburgers, and as a result he had access to full information about what was happening in the country. No longer. Soon he will get his information from the same source as the rest of us -- the TV news. And the news anchors will assure him that the workers worship him and that his ministers hang on his every word.

The loss of information is itself a loss of power.[...]

Quartet preparing UN draft on ME roadmap

UNITED NATIONS: The United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia are preparing a UN resolution that would approve the “road map” plan for Middle East peace prepared by the so-called Quartet, a senior Russian diplomat told the Interfax news agency Tuesday.

“This is a very important initiative, and we are now in contact with our partners in the Quartet of Middle East intermediaries and with the UN Security Council, and are discussing the possibility of introducing such a resolution,” Deputy Russian Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov was quoted as saying.

The Lebanese army said on late Monday it had agreed with Syria on ways to confront “enemy” threats, hours after Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas traded fire in the latest sign of rising tensions with the Jewish state.

The Lebanese army said in a statement that it and Syria’s armed forces had looked into ways to confront challenges and enemy threats to which both Syria and Lebanon are “exposed.”

“A unified formula was reached on this issue,” it said, giving no details on exactly how Lebanon and Syria would respond to such “threats.”

Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz warned Tuesday that Hezbollah was planning “a significant terrorist attack” against Israel, while a top army general threatened to use “very, very strong force” against the group if it carries out more cross-border raids.

“We believe ... that Hezbollah is preparing a significant terrorist attack, more significant than the routine attacks in the north and the Tsahal (the Israeli army) has taken measures as a result,” Mofaz told military radio.

Maj Gen. Benny Ganz, chief of Israel’s northern command, said Hezbollah’s ability to operate freely in southern Lebanon was dangerous to everyone in the region, including Syria.

“It could lead ... to a situation in which we will have to use very, very strong force and in such an event I assess that it would be better to be an Israeli citizen rather than a Lebanese citizen,” Ganz said late Monday.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon defended Israel’s separation barrier Monday against criticism of the project from Europe, telling a group of European MPs that it was vital for security reasons.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday rebuked his Syrian counterpart Faruq al-Shara for raising “rhetorical tension” with Israel by threatening to attack Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights should the Jewish state launch another attack in Syria. ”We’re encouraging both sides to lower the tension and lower the rhetorical tension as well,” Powell told reporters.

Hezbollah said Tuesday its anti-Israeli attacks in a disputed border region, breaking a three-month truce, were in retaliation for Israel’s actions against the Palestinians and Syria.

“Hezbollah can not just stand aside when (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon is building a security barrier that will lead to more destruction, assassinations and displacement” of Palestinians, said the radical fundamentalist militia’s information chief, Hassan Ezzedin.

The Palestinian “old guard” is not showing enough commitment in the fight against terrorism, US President George W Bush said.

The United States does “not see the same commitment to fight terror from the (Palestinian) old guard,” Bush said.[...]

12,000 need permits to live in their own homes: Israel serves notice to Palestinians

By Chris McGreal -- Detail Story
Oct 29, 2003

AL QUDS: The Israeli military has ordered thousands of Palestinians living near the steel and concrete "security fence" throughout the West Bank to obtain special permits to live in their own homes.

Palestinian officials said the order breached a pledge by Israel to the UN security council a fortnight ago that the barrier would not change the legal status of those who live near it, and claimed it was another step toward the annexation of tens of thousands of hectares of Palestinian land.

The order, signed by the Israeli army's commander in the West Bank, Major General Moshe Kaplinski, said Palestinian land between the fence and the 1967 border, known as the green line, was to be a "closed military zone".

Any Palestinian who lived in the area would be defined by a new category of "long-term resident" and everyone over the age of 12 would be required to obtain a permit to live in their own homes and travel beyond their villages.

The order said that only Israelis and Jews could enter the designated areas without a pass. Michael Tarazi, a legal adviser to the Palestinian leadership said: "It is just the latest step in Zionism's long-standing strategy of taking Palestinian land while ridding that land of the Palestinian population."

The order would immediately affect about 12,000 Palestinians in 15 villages squeezed between the barrier and the green line. Another 40,000 or more would be in a similar position within months once construction of the fence was completed around the north of Jerusalem.

Many other Palestinians can only gain access to their agricultural land with the special permits. During a security council debate on a Syrian-sponsored resolution condemning the fence, Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the UN, said no Palestinians would have their legal rights affected by the barrier.

"It does not annex territories to the state of Israel, nor does it change the status of the land, its ownership, or the legal status of the residents of these areas," he said.

European diplomatic sources said the military order was so clearly a breach of Mr Gillerman's undertaking that several countries, including Germany, voted against Israel in a subsequent debate on the barrier at the UN general assembly.

An Israeli foreign ministry spokesman, Jonathan Peled, said the order was temporary and not a change in legal status. "What Gillerman promised the security council stands. Legally speaking there is no change in status because it is a temporary decree," he said.

Palestinian militants welcome peace talks offer

By Sharmila Devi in Jerusalem
Published: October 28 2003 13:28 | Last Updated: October 29 2003 10:02

Ahmed Qurei said on Wednesday militant groups had agreed to resume talks on ending violence against Israelis following his acceptance of an invitation to form a permanent Palestinian government next week.

Mr Qurei told the Reuters news agency: "I have made an offer to all Palestinian groups, those within the Palestine Liberation Organisation, as well as Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group, for talks over a ceasefire. They welcomed it."

[...] Likud, the party of Ariel Sharon, Israeli prime minister, slumped in local elections across Israel on Tuesday, with analysts citing economic troubles aggravated by the continuing violence of the Palestinian uprising.

The Israeli newspaper Maariv said Likud lost control of three of the five main cities it ruled before the elections, while the centre-left Labour party extended its gains to be the main party in eight out of 12 major municipalities.

Rumsfeld meets with Chinese defense minister on NKorea, military relations

AFP
Wednesday October 29, 4:39 PM

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met for the first time here with China's defense minister for talks on North Korea and US-Chinese military relations, US defense officials said.

The Pentagon said the session between Rumsfeld and General Cao Gangchuan was "productive and constructive."

"Both sides have agreed to arrange further visits of the military leaders in 2004," it said in a statement.

It was the first time the Pentagon had hosted a visit by the Chinese defense minister since December 1996. [...]

North Korea extends high-level, red-carpet welcome to top China envoy

AFP
Wednesday October 29, 3:28 PM

North Korea rolled out the red carpet and sent its second-most powerful man Wednesday to meet Chinese envoy Wu Bangguo who arrived for three days of talks amid efforts to solve the year-old nuclear crisis. [...]

Wu, the most senior Chinese leader to travel to North Korea since former president Jiang Zemin two years ago, had only nice things to say about the pariah state upon arrival. [...]

He said he would exchange views with the North Korean leadership on "the development of bilateral ties and issues of common interest," but was not quoted as giving any other details. [...]

US eyes limited talks with Iran

America has said it is prepared to open limited talks with Iran but is against restoring normal diplomatic relations at this stage.

[...] Iran announced on Sunday that it had given the names of extradited al-Qaeda suspects to the UN Security Council but gave no details of detainees still in its custody.

Washington dismissed the announcement, insisting that all al-Qaeda suspects should be extradited to either the US, their country of origin or third countries.

Iran, however, said that the suspects had committed offences in Iran and would be tried in its courts.

Iran to help Syria after US sanctions

Aljazeera.net
Tuesday 28 October 2003, 7:29 GMT

Iran has promised to come to the aid of its regional ally Syria in the likely event that it is hit by US sanctions.

Damascus faces economic and political penalties if the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Act, adopted by the US House of Representatives on October 15, passes into law.

"Iran is ready to extend assistance to Syria in all fields, especially the oil sector, if the Syria Accountability Act is implemented," the head of Iran's parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, Muhsin Mirdamadi, said in Damascus on Monday.

The economic impact of US sanctions is likely to be relatively low since the countries are not big trading partners. [...]

Mahathir dismisses US aid cut

Wednesday 29 October 2003, 10:57 Makka Time, 7:57 GMT

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Muhammad has brushed off a US Senate decision to curb aid to his country owing to remarks he made about Jews.

The Senate unanimously agreed on Monday to make $1.2 million in military training aid to Malaysia conditional on US Secretary of State Colin Powell being persuaded the southeast Asian country supports and promotes religious freedom, including for Jews.

"It doesn't make any difference to us. We don't really need that money," Mahathir said on Tuesday at his office in the administrative capital, three days before he steps down after 22 years in power.

Malaysia prides itself on being a peaceful multicultural nation, with a 60% Muslim majority and large non-Muslim Chinese and Indian minorities. The country has few Jews.

[...] "They want to dictate (to) the world. We are all being run by the US Senate, it's no good having our own elections.

"We'd better [vote] in the US elections and we can be sure we get the right representatives," he said, laughing.

[...] Some analysts believe Washington could hurt its own interests if it alienated Malaysia through this largely symbolic gesture.

"It is a model of moderate Islam," said Brad Glosserman of the Pacific Forum CSIS thinktank based in Hawaii, adding that Malaysia served as an example for Muslim participation in government beyond Southeast Asia.

And Carl Thayer, analyst at the Australian Defence College in Canberra, said undermining the military-to-military relationship, which was one of the strongest ties between the two countries, was an odd way to treat an ally in the so-called war on terror.

"The US could be shooting itself in the foot when it wants cooperation in the war on terror," he said.

Mossad Canard Warmed Over

By Arnaud de Borchgrave
UPI Editor in Chief
Published 10/28/2003 9:46 AM

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, organized the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in order "to start a war between Muslims and Christians," according to the Chief Minister of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province.

In an interview with United Press International, Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani, who heads his province's ruling coalition of six politico religious parties, said he agreed with a colleague in the government of Baluchistan who had blamed 9/11 on an Israeli conspiracy.

"It is inconceivable that a power like the United States, which has enormous technological means at its disposal, would not know ahead of time what was being planned," Durrani said, adding, "There must have been some local people in America who were involved in the planning and execution" who "used zealots (who) did not act on their own." [...]

Asked if he was suggesting that Taliban are for the most part foreigners, Durrani said, "in the literal sense (they) were no more than 1,000 at the outset. Later Taliban came to symbolize the entire Afghan nation. You might ask where did Osama Bin Laden come from? Who brought him back to Afghanistan after Sudan asked him to leave?

The United States didn't seem too concerned about him in 1996 when he decided to go to Afghanistan. Later America was not interested in a negotiated solution. Imagine what the United States could have done if it had devoted the money it spent on bombing Afghanistan -- about $8 billion according to published reports -- to the reconstruction of the country after two decades of warfare. That would have been statesmanship of the highest order. Instead, you have chosen war and occupation and now you are faced with an increasingly hostile population."

The Pakistani daily newspaper Nawa-e-Waqt carries a picture of Osama Bin Laden every day on page three. Last week, it carried an "exclusive" story datelined Baghdad that said 4,000 young Iraqi women had been raped by American soldiers. Asked if he believed such a story, Durrani said, "it's an excellent paper. The U.S. government knows how to cover up these things. Your eyes are shut to so many things.

Look at what is happening in Guantanamo, which has been publicized by human rights organizations. Afghan prisoners of war were caged like dangerous animals. This, too, was covered up for a long time. Your reason for attacking Iraq was weapons of mass destruction that did not exist. It is now obvious that the Bush government's objective was Iraq's oil resources that will now be under American control." [...]

Bush blames foreigners for Iraq woes

Wednesday 29 October 2003, 10:51 Makka Time, 7:51 GMT

George Bush has defended his Iraq policy by blaming resistance to the occupation on Saddam Hussein loyalists and "foreign terrorists" and warning Syria and Iran to stop infiltrators.

[...] "The foreign terrorists are trying to create conditions of fear because they fear a free and peaceful state in the midst of a part of the world where terror has found recruits. That freedom is exactly what terrorists fear the most," Bush said.

He said the US would not be intimidated by attacks on civilians in Iraq.

"Desperate attacks on innocent civilians will not intimidate us," said Bush, adding, “we're now working with many nations to make sure Afghanistan and Iraq are never again a source of terror and danger for the rest of the world."

On the Middle East “road map” peace process, Bush avoided blaming Israel for stalled negotiations and focused all his complaints on the Palestinian "old guard", which he said was not showing enough commitment in the fight against “terrorism”.

Comment: The psychopath accuses others of what he himself is doing. Bush wants US troops to be the foreigners in Syria and Iran, attacking innocent civilians, so he accuses those countries of doing exactly that.

Bush says Saddam supporters, foreign ''terrorists'' behind Iraq attacks

28-10-2003,19 :59

President Bush blamed both loyalists to Saddam Hussein and foreign "terrorists" for the recent bombing attacks in and around Baghdad.

"Basically what they're trying to do is cause people to run," he told a news conference Tuesday. "That's what terrorists do."

Bush conveyed the United States was working closely with Syria and Iran to prevent foreign fighters from entering Iraq.

Bush denied any surprise at the continuing level of violence. "It is dangerous in Iraq because there are some who believe that we are soft, that the will of the United States can be shaken by suiciders," he stated.

Still, Bush added, "The world is safer today because Saddam Hussein and the Taliban are gone...Reconstruction is difficult and freedom still has its enemies in both of those countries."

Bush was asked who was behind the recent wave of attacks in Baghdad. "We're trying to determine the nature of who these people were, but I would assume that they're either - or and probably both - Baathists and foreign terrorists," he said.

"The foreign terrorists are trying to create conditions of fear and retreat because they fear a free and peaceful state," the president said.

Yes, foreign fighters are the problem in Iraq

My vote for the Strange Statement of the Week Award goes to Brigadier General Mark Hertling, deputy commander of the 1st Armored Division of the US Army, stationed in Iraq, who told reporters Monday that the coordinated bombings in Baghdad that day were the work of “foreign fighters.” As if Brigadier General Hertling were a favorite son of Tikrit, raised on date palms and memories of Haroon al-Rasheed?

What kind of insulting nonsense is this? He gets the award for the sheer audacity and haughty self-indulgence of being a foreign fighter in Iraq blaming other foreign fighters for the violence there.

We must navigate this slippery ground if we wish to end the military, intellectual, moral, and political violence that defines many aspects of Iraq today. The Americans in Iraq, like the Israelis in Gaza, want the world to believe that evil people who hate goodness, democracy, and freedom are waging a campaign that must be stamped out by the force of Good Guy Guns.

The actions of the Americans and Israelis, respectively, are not factored into the equation of events on the ground or how the human mind works. This is a form of intellectual terror that is as dangerous as the terror of bombs on the street, and it must be fought just as hard.

The rest of the world takes a more complete and accurate view of the violence in Palestine-Israel and Iraq. It notes that occupation, resistance, and assorted degrees of terror (by sovereign states and non-state groups) occur in a linear manner: Occupation breeds resistance. This subsequently and predictably becomes a cycle of violence that engulfs occupier, occupied, innocent bystanders, and other interested third parties who join the fray.

The US wants the world to believe that evil emanates unilaterally from the twisted minds of those who hate freedom and America, and manifests itself in the form of terror attacks such as we witness in Iraq. But the world is not buying this line, because this is the sort of lying that our parents taught us to resist, and the sort of political and moral terror that the United Nations Charter was designed to negate. [...]

Media Has Blood on its Hands, Iraq GI Tells Rep. King

NewsMax

Rep. Peter King, R-NY, delivered a stark message on Tuesday from an unnamed U.S. military officer now stationed in Baghdad who believes negative press coverage of the U.S. war effort has cost American soldiers their lives. [...]

Comment: A deluded fantasy, probably from the mouth of a public relations official and not a military officer. How about a little blame where it belongs? Who beat the war drum and started an illegal invasion in the first place, and stole an election to do it?

Iraqi minister: Would-be bomber holds Syrian passport

29-10-2003,11 :03

The would-be bomber thwarted in Monday's suicide bombing wave in Baghdad was a Yemeni holding a Syrian passport, Iraqi interim Health Minister Khodair Abbas said on Wednesday.

"According to the initial investigation results, the detained bomber is a Yemeni holding a Syrian passport," Abbas said.

"The suspect did not want to give any information on the other two passengers in his car who managed to escape, nor the identity of the other bombers in the attacks," he said.

"There is a real possibility the bombers were fundamentalist, Wahhabists," he said.

A U.S. military spokesperson said the man was caught Monday when he attempted to drive an explosives-packed car towards a police station in Baghdad's Al-Jadida area.

He fled on foot when his car came under fire and then fell down and shouted "wait, I am Syrian," the spokesman said. A Syrian passport was later found on him, the spokesman said.

Comment: How convenient! See out remarks on JFK, and read how the perpetrators of the assassination set-up Oswald. And remember how the FBI had the stroke of luck of finding Mohamed Atta's passport, in perfect condition, on the top of a pile of debris after the destruction of the WTC?

Official suggests Iraq hid weapons in Syria

Douglas Jehl, NYT
Wednesday, October 29, 2003

WASHINGTON - The director of a top American spy agency said Tuesday that he believed that material from Iraq's illicit weapons program was transported into Syria and perhaps other countries as part of an effort by Iraqis to disperse and destroy evidence immediately before the recent war.

The official, James Clapper Jr., a retired air force lieutenant general, said satellite images showing a heavy flow of traffic from Iraq into Syria just before the American invasion in March had led him to believe "unquestionably" that illicit weapons material was moved outside Iraq.

"I think people below the Saddam- Hussein-and-his-sons level saw what was coming and decided the best thing to do was to destroy and disperse," Clapper, who heads the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, said at a breakfast with reporters.

Clapper said he was providing a personal assessment. [...]

Comment: Introducing the new Clapper Jr.! Clap once, and he comes out of retirement. Clap twice, and he'll offer his personal assessment of satellite images that probably show normal Iraqis in caravans trying to get the hell out of Iraq before the American invasion. We wonder if Mr.Clapper knows what loud, raucous, derisive laughter sounds like? This is what should have greeted his "educated hunch".

U.S. postwar Iraq combat deaths pass wartime toll

11:03, Oct 29 2003

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers were killed in an attack north of Baghdad late on Tuesday, the U.S. military says, taking the combat death toll among U.S. troops in Iraq since the war higher than the wartime total.

[...] The deaths brought to 116 the number of U.S. troops killed in hostile action since Washington declared major combat operations over on May 1, compared to 115 U.S. combat deaths during the U.S.-led war, according to official figures.

Young enlistees have highest death rate in Iraq

Justice Dept. Tightens Security in C.I.A. Leak Case

By DAVID JOHNSTON and ERIC LICHTBLAU
The New York Times
October 29, 2003

WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 — Justice Department and F.B.I. officials have imposed tighter secrecy restrictions over the inquiry into the leak of the identity of a C.I.A. operative, government officials said on Tuesday.

In an unusual step, they have removed the director of the F.B.I's Washington office from the list of officials with access to the case.

The official, Michael A. Mason, one of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's most senior managers, was taken off the list in an effort to restrict information about the case, the officials said.

Customarily, a senior official like Mr. Mason would have full access to details of the case, which is being investigated mainly by agents from his office, although it is being supervised by F.B.I. headquarters. One bureau official said Mr. Mason had asked to be removed, although others said the decision was based on whether the officials had "a need to know." [...]

Lady Diana's Secret Video Diary Reveals Her Grave Concerns About "Assassination by Motor Vehicle"

Sources say there was "intelligence presence"in run-up to car crash that claimed life of princess.

Exclusive To American Free Press
By Gordon Thomas

[...] One security service source said her video diaries clearly show her "obsession" of meeting a stage-managed death at the hands of one of the intelligence agencies she believed were shadowing her every move since her divorce from Prince Charles.

Evidence to support her fears has been reinforced by the admission of America’s "spy in the sky" agency, the National Security Agency, NSA, that it holds some 1,050 transcripts of conversations Diana made in the last weeks of her life.

But a former MI6 officer, Richard Tomlinson has also claimed that, while working for the service, he saw a document "that was a plan to murder the Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic—a plan that has unsettling parallels to the way Di and Dodi died. The MI6 document stated that the ‘accident’ should happen in a tunnel where the chance of injury is high."

The NSA tapes are stored in a climate-controlled vault at NSA headquarters at Fort George Meade outside Washington.
The agency controls a worldwide eavesdropping system normally only used against America’s enemies.

Some of the taped conversations are said to refer to Diana’s campaign for a global ban on landmines. [...]

Comment: You can read the Affidavit of Richard Tomlinson here. So, what was Princess Diana going to do that had to be stopped at all costs?

Ex-butler, Di's son to discuss book

LONDON—Prince William will meet former butler Paul Burrell to discuss the royal family's anger over revelations his new book makes about the late Diana, Princess of Wales, and her in-laws, William's office said yesterday.

Quebec man launches lawsuit against antidepressant maker

Last Updated Tue, 28 Oct 2003 17:57:09

TORONTO - A Quebec man who took an antidepressant that is being withdrawn from the Canadian market has filed a $200-million class-action lawsuit against the manufacturers.

Steve Ledyit filed a statement of claim in an Ontario court this week saying he was prescribed Serzone four years ago when he was living in Barrie, Ont.

Shortly after he began taking the drug, the document says, Ledyit developed symptoms that were eventually diagnosed as liver damage.

The statement of claim also says that scientific studies have linked the active ingredient in Serzone to serious and sometimes fatal cases of liver damage.

California faces "worst disaster" as fires kill 18, destroy 2,000 homes

AFP
Wednesday October 29, 3:04 PM

[...] Giant plumes of smoke stretched miles up into the sky and were visible from space, as up to 50,000 more residents of mountainous areas east of here fled their homes as flames exploded through fire cordons.

"This may well be the worst disaster the state has faced," outgoing California Governor Gray Davis said of the 14 fires, many of which are now thought to have been sparked by arsonists.

"I expect the cost in the next few days to near two billion dollars," he said, adding that the figure included loss of infrastructure, relief and firefighting efforts. [...]

Up to 100,000 face evacuation in California

By Christopher Parkes in Los Angeles
Published: October 28 2003 22:34 | Last Updated: October 28 2003 22:34

Residents and visitors were ordered to evacuate southern California's leading mountain resorts on Tuesday night following signs that a wildfire in the area was running out of control.

As many as 100,000 people could be affected by the order affecting a wide swath of the San Bernardino mountains, some 120 miles east of Los Angeles.

Arsonists hunted for four fires

By Oliver Poole in Los Angeles
The Telegraph

Arsonists are believed to be responsible for at least four of the 10 fires sweeping through southern California. [...]

People reported seeing two men setting fire to a bush near San Bernardino. Melted cigarette lighters and firelighters have been found near the source of three fires around San Diego, where ash has been falling like snow.

A lost hunter who accidentally started a fifth fire north of San Diego with a flare is expected to be charged within 48 hours. [...]

30 wildfires burning in northwest Mexico, all but 2 under control

06:21 AM EST Oct 29

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) - Firefighters have brought all but two of the 30 wildfires burning in Mexico under control, and hundreds of people evacuated near Ensenada have been allowed to return home, an emergency official said Tuesday.

Torrential rains ravage Guinea Bissau's ricefields

TERRA.WIRE
BISSAU (AFP) Oct 28, 2003

Torrential rainfall over the past several weeks has all but swept away the ricefields in eastern Guinea Bissau, a government minister in the west African nation told AFP Tuesday.

"The situation is very alarming...about 80 percent of families have been affected by the calamity," Agriculture Minister Mamadu Badji said after a visit to the affected regions last week. [...]

More than 2,000 mm (80 inches) of rain have been recorded since the end of August, a figure much higher than in the past 10 years, the weather service said.

Mild earthquake shakes central Japan

Agence France-Presse
Tokyo, October 28

An earthquake measuring 4.0 on the Richter scale occurred in waters off central Japan on Tuesday but there was no danger of tsunami tidal waves, the meteorological agency said.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

The quake took place at at 11:20 am local time, with its focus located 10 km below sea-level near Oshima island, roughly 100 km south of Tokyo.

Moderate earthquake rattles northern Iran

TEHRAN, Iran, Oct 28, SPA -- A moderate earthquake jolted the Sabzevar region in northeastern Iran Tuesday. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

People ran out of buildings when the 4.0-magnitude quake shook Sabzevar and surrounding areas. A local official reached by telephone told The Associated Press the quake shattered some windows and schools were closed.

Sabzevar is about 700 kilometers (440 miles) northeast of the capital, Tehran.

Iran is prone to earthquakes. Last June a 6.1-magnitude quake struck northwestern Iran, killing 245 people and leaving thousands homeless.

Row erupts over 'life-starter' vents

By Paul Rincon
BBC science

The earliest seafloor hydrothermal vents - supposedly more than three billion years old - may be nothing more than deposits from underground springs active in the last few thousand years.

That is the claim of two US geologists who carried out a new analysis of rocks from South Africa which were previously dated to the Archaean period - when life first began to diversify.

The findings could have important implications for our understanding of the early Earth and the microbial life forms that lived there.

But one authority on the geology of the Barberton greenstone belt - where the rocks are found - launched a vigorous defence of evidence that they contain ancient hydrothermal vents.

[...] The new study estimates this process took place at the Earth's surface within the last 100,000 years. Consequently, the pods "contain no record of Archaean life or environments".

The report claims the pods are mostly composed of the iron oxide goethite, which is unstable above temperatures of 80-100 Celsius.

"If the pods were part of Earth's original continental material, they would have been exposed to temperatures exceeding 300 [Celsius]," said Professor Gary Byerly of Louisiana State University, US, one of the report's authors.

[...] But Dr Cornel de Ronde of New Zealand's Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences said some rocks described by the US team were miles away from the pods he studied, and probably have a distinct geology.

He suggested "classic" ironstone pods were largely composed of haematite, with a weathered goethite layer.

"Haematite forms at 220-260 Celsius. This stuff can't form at low temperatures - it's impossible," he said.

New Stone Age human skeleton discovered in Beijing

www.chinaview.cn 2003-10-29 08:43:28

BEIJING, Oct. 29 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese archeologists have claimed discovery of a New Stone Age human body that lived about 10,000 years ago in Donghulin Village in Beijing's western outskirts.

The human skeleton discovered just over a week ago, dubbed Donghulin Man, was believed to be the missing link between Beijing's Upper Cave Man living approximately 30,000 years ago and the ensuing modern humans in Beijing areas.

Space crew takes refuge from solar storm

By MARK CARREAU
Houston Chronicle

The newest residents of the international space station took temporary refuge several times on Tuesday from the radiation unleashed by an intense solar storm. [...]

Radiation leak 'could kill 400,000'

Researcher bases grave study on Chernobyl disaster

A large-scale radiation leak at a major nuclear reactor in Japan could kill more than 400,000 people and cost up to 460 trillion yen over 50 years, according to a study by a Kyoto Sangyo University researcher released Monday. [...]

Papers Raise Uranium Worries at Nevada Mine

Study: Kids' TV, computer habits start early

(CNN) -- Pre-schoolers are likely to spend as much time in front of the television or computer as they are playing outside, three times longer than the time spent reading, according to a new study that looks at the media's pervasiveness even among the very young. [...]

Police Investigate Neighbor's Killing Of Teen Prankster

BOCA RATON, Florida -- Authorities are investigating the death of a 16-year-old who was shot to death by a neighbor while playing a late-night prank.

Mark Drewes and a friend were knocking on neighbors' doors and running away around midnight Friday when Jay Steven Levin said he mistook the 6-foot-2 teen for a burglar and "thought he saw something in Drewes' hand," according to sheriff's reports.

Levin answered the knock on his door armed with a handgun and shot the teen, said sheriff's spokeswoman Diane Carhart. [...]

Twenty Per Cent of World Oil Consumption to Come From Africa in 2010

Vanguard
10.29.03

NEARLY 20 percent of global oil consumption will be sourced from sub-Saharan Africa by 2010, a senior ChevronTexaco official disclosed last week at the Africa upstream conference taking place in South Africa. Jeff Shellebarger, ChevronTexaco's general manager for Southern Africa said Africa's deepwater areas contained some of the richest discoveries, and the highest success rates, anywhere in the world.

"By 2010 we forecast just under 20 percent of the global consumption of oil will be supplied by Western and Southern Africa," he said, speaking at the Africa Upstream conference in Cape Town.

Comment: As a result of political and social manipulations that form a part of carefully laid plans spanning centuries, certain individuals have ensured that when the time comes to rob Africa of what is left of its oil reserves, there will be nothing to stop them.

Global Businesses Profit from Congo War, Groups Charge

Jim Lobe
OneWorld US

WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct 28 (OneWorld) -- A dozen major international human rights and develoment groups are calling on the UN Security Council to press the United States and other western governments to launch immediate investigations into the involvement of multinational corporations based in their countries in profiteering from the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. [...]

Lowell And Discovery Partner To Build Innovative Telescope

Spacedaily.com
Oct 17, 2003

(Flagstaff, AZ) - Lowell Observatory and Discovery Communications, Inc., will collaborate in the building of a $30 million telescope that will significantly impact the exploration of our solar system and the universe beyond.

The Discovery Channel Telescope (DCT) - designed exclusively for Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz. - will be among the most sophisticated ground-based telescopes of its size. The four-meter telescope will have a significantly wider field of view than any currently existing telescope of its size, giving it the unprecedented ability to survey the sky at nearly eight times the capacity of the largest existing survey telescope. [...]

"Together, Discovery and Lowell Observatory will literally explore our world and bring the most exciting new discoveries found in our universe to millions of people around the globe."

Among the DCT's numerous scientific objectives, the search for near-Earth asteroids, Kuiper Belt Objects and planets orbiting other stars, will be substantially advanced.

Approximately 2,300 near-Earth asteroids have been discovered in the last decade. Once complete, the DCT will make it possible to identify the same number of potentially life-threatening near-Earth asteroids in just 30 days.

The DCT also will make it possible to identify smaller near-Earth asteroids capable of causing regional devastation. Currently, the federally mandated search for near-Earth asteroids focuses on objects that are larger than a kilometer in diameter and capable of creating global devastation. [...]

Prince Andrew Dedicates N.M. Telescope

By RICHARD BENKE
Associated Press

SOCORRO — Britain’s Prince Andrew flew to a New Mexico mountaintop Monday to dedicate a $45 million telescope complex that one of its British designers says will be at least 100 times more sensitive than the Hubble Space Telescope.

“This is going to be a really big telescope,” the Duke of York, as Prince Andrew is usually called, said at the dedication of the Magdalena Ridge Observatory.

Prince Andrew participated in the dedication because the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University in England helped design the observatory.

The observatory atop the 10,700-foot mountain range will be able to use optical infrared telescopes to produce detailed images of the far reaches of the universe, including features 100 to 300 times smaller than can be seen with the Hubble, said Malcolm Longair, head of the Cavendish Laboratory.

Among other things, the observatory is expected to help scientists get a closer look at black holes, the mysterious super-magnetic dying stars about which little is known. [...]

Asteroid Hunters Rangle Over Alert System

PARIS (AFP) -- Oh no... not Doomsday again. Don't they put anything else on the front pages of newspapers? Why can't they devote a bit of space to David Beckham for a change?

A curious phenomenon of the early years of the Third Millennium is this:

-- Day One, the media splash this news: an asteroid appears to be on a collision course with Earth;

-- Day Two, there is global terror and a pervasive sense of doom;

-- Day Three, fresh data show the rock will miss us by a comfortingly wide margin.

The phenomenon has happened so often and become so cringingly embarrassing that, for the guardians who scan the heavens for asteroid threats, the tale of the Little Boy Who Cried Wolf is now required reading. [...]

Not armed, your Honour

October 30, 2003

A disabled man was not allowed on a domestic flight in Chile because the pilot thought his artificial hand could be used as a dangerous weapon.

He offered to leave the hand behind but the pilot would still not allow him aboard.

El Mercurio newspaper reported that, on Sunday, the pilot of a Lan Chile airlines plane, set to fly from Iquique to Santiago, refused to allow Roberto Carcamo on board because his prosthesis was a sharp instrument and might endanger other passengers.

Mr Carcamo, 30, said he even offered to leave his artificial hand behind but the pilot was adamant.

The flight was delayed half an hour while Mr Carcamo retrieved his luggage.

Although he was permitted on the next flight, he said the incident spoiled his honeymoon. He was travelling with his pregnant wife after just getting married.

Lan Chile offered apologies but Mr Carcamo said he was considering suing the airline for discrimination.

Real estate heir describes cutting up neighbor's body

October 29, 2003

New York real estate heir Robert Durst has testified that, when he cut up his neighbour's body, it was like "a nightmare with blood everywhere".

Durst, accused of murdering 71-year-old Morris Black, had said previously that he did not recall details about the dismemberment. But when pressed by prosecutor Joel Bennett on Tuesday, he said he remembered the blood.

"It was like waking up from a dream or a nightmare with blood everywhere," Durst said during his fourth day of testimony.

"I remember like I was looking down on something and I was swimming in blood and I kept spitting up and spitting up and I don't know what is real and I don't know what is not real."

The millionaire, who sometimes posed as a mute woman while living on Galveston Island, claims that Black died accidentally during a struggle over a gun.

He maintains that he cut Black up with two saws and an axe and disposed of the body in Galveston Bay because he feared the authorities would not believe him.

Prosecutors contend Durst intentionally shot Black and that everything he did after that showed his guilt.

Durst, 60, whose family runs The Durst Organisation, a privately-held $US1 billion ($1.42 billion) New York company, faces from five to 99 years in prison if convicted.

Pregnant mother shot in face

A PREGNANT woman was shot in the face in front of ten members of her family after she disturbed a robbery, police said yesterday.

The woman, 35, who has not been named, is six months pregnant. She was recovering in hospital yesterday after a bullet lodged in her cheek during the incident in Leeds.

She was shot after she arrived at the house to find two masked men had forced members of her family, including four children, to lie on the floor at gunpoint.

CIA Used Dragonfly, Catfish as Spy Gadget Models

By Tabassum Zakaria
Tue Oct 28,12:35 PM ET

LANGLEY, Va. (Reuters) - The CIA once built a mechanical dragonfly to carry a listening device but found small gusts of wind knocked it off course so it was never used in a spy operation.

The agency also tested a 24-inch-long rubber robot catfish named "Charlie" capable of swimming inconspicuously among other fish and whose mission remains secret.

Charlie and the dragonfly were among spy gadgets displayed at CIA headquarters in an exhibit to mark the 40th anniversary of the Directorate of Science and Technology. It is not open to the public.

"Charlie's mission is still classified, we can't talk about it," Toni Hiley, curator of the CIA museum, told Reuters on a tour of the exhibit. "All we can say is he's our work on aquatic robotic technologies." [...]

Samples from Possible Skunk Ape Prove Inconclusive

By VINCE LENNON
6 News Reporter

CAMPBELL COUNTY (WATE) -- The search for the so-called Campbell County skunk ape continues Tuesday, after a lab reported inconclusive test results. [...]

Kelly green men documentary filmed this weekend in L.A.

A documentary film featuring the 1955 invasion of "little green men" in the Christian County community of Kelly began filming this weekend in the Angeles National Forest just north of Los Angeles.

Barcon Video Productions, based in Glendale, Calif., filmed the dramatization of the local legend to include as part of a documentary entitled "Monsters of the UFO." [...]

Zillions of Universes? Or Did Ours Get Lucky?

By DENNIS OVERBYE
The New York Times

[S]upporters of the anthropic principle argue that there could be zillions of possible universes, many different possible settings ruled by chance. [...]

Israeli processor computes at speed of light

An Israeli company claims to have developed a processor that computes at the speed of light because it uses optics instead of silicon.

The start-up company, Lenslet, says its processor will enable new capabilities in national security and military, multimedia and communications applications.

"Optical processing is a strategic competitive advantage for nations and companies," Lenslet's vice president for business development, Avner Halperin, said.

"Processing at the speed of light, you can have safer airports, autonomous military systems, high-definition multimedia broadcast systems and advanced next-generation communications systems."

Comment: Oh, boy. We feel safer already...

Tickets to fly to Ikea sell out in three minutes

Simpsons creator says show was threatened with legal action

Ananova.com
08:45 Wednesday 29th October 2003

The Simpsons creator Matt Groening says Fox News threatened legal action after an episode of the cartoon poked fun at the channel.

The episode, on Fox Entertainment, featured a "Fox News Crawl" at the bottom of the screen, which parodied items featured by the news channel.

The cartoon ticker read: "Pointless news crawls up 37 per cent ... Do Democrats cause cancer? Find out at foxnews.com ... Rupert Murdoch: Terrific dancer ... Dow down 5000 points ... Study: 92 per cent of Democrats are gay ... JFK posthumously joins Republican Party ... Oil slicks found to keep seals young, supple ..."

Mr Groening told National Public Radio that, after the cartoon was broadcast last year on Fox Entertainment Channel, he was threatened with legal action by the news channel, says The Independent.

He said: "We did the crawl along the bottom of the screen. Fox said they would sue the show. And we called their bluff because we didn't think Rupert Murdoch would pay for Fox to sue itself. We got away with it.

"But now Fox has a new rule that we can't do those little fake news crawls on the bottom of the screen in a cartoon because it might confuse the viewers into thinking it's real news."

Robert Zimmerman, a spokesman for Fox News Channel, denied the channel had ever threatened a lawsuit. "We are scratching our heads over here. We liked the cartoon. We thought it was great," he said.

Traffic chaos as corpse falls from hearse

October 29, 2003

A hearse overturned on a German motorway yesterday, smashing the coffin and dumping the corpse onto the roadway, along with a bag of coffin nails that brought traffic to a halt, authorities said.

"The driver had fallen asleep ... and yanked the steering wheel around when he woke up," said Jens O'Brien, spokesman for the regional government in Duesseldorf, western Germany.

"There were nails strewn over 50 metres, and the corpse fell out onto the ground."

The A40 motorway was closed for an hour, and traffic banked up for six kilometres, as police collected the nails and removed the corpse.

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