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

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

Picture of the Day

©2004 Pierre-Paul Feyte

It seems that the search for truth requires a reexamination of literally everything - ourselves, our world, and even the so-called "experts" on whom we rely for information on this or that topic. The easiest way to discredit someone in this reality is to declare that they are a conspiracy theorist. The truth seems to be that the entire reality in which find ourselves is, by its very nature, a conspiracy. Consider our governments, the so-called War on Terror, social and military structures, and so on - all these elements of our world involve some degree of hierarchy. But hierarchy implies control. Everyone has a boss; everyone has to answer to some other person or higher power.

Since it seems that there is no free lunch in the universe, we must work to obtain anything. At our level of being, it seems there is also a consequence for every action, a balance of opposites that requires a choice between creativity and chaos. From a higher perspective, we might observe that "all is one", but from our position here in the "soup", so to speak, there must be polarization and choice.

As we have observed before, it appears that in our mechanical state, we tend to make the default choice of chaos. It is only by working to purify our observational capabilities that we are able to even begin to see the creative and entropic forces at work around us. If we can observe objectively enough, we will be able to align more completely with the creative principle.

The entropic principle implies hierarchy, hierarchy implies control, and control implies secrecy. If everyone possessed all knowledge, it would be impossible for a government to lie to its citizens. Perhaps there would not even be a need for rulers. If we observe that conspiracy is defined as, "a secret agreement between two or more people to perform an unlawful act", then it becomes apparent that hierarchy, control, and secrecy necessarily involve conspiracy. One might argue that a government needs to keep secrets from the people to keep those people safe from the "bad guys". While this may sound good, it doesn't make much sense.

Consider that knowledge offers protection from all forms of harm. On a fundamental level, knowledge of what terrorists or other countries are up to would allow all people to take necessary steps to protect themselves. If one is standing on some train tracks, and there is a train hurtling down the track, one might be run over unless one could hear and/or see the train coming. By being aware of danger, we are able to choose to take steps to avoid that danger. There is also the possibility that knowledge protects in numerous other ways, at least from the perspective of a higher reality. However, as residents of this reality, it seems this is the one with which we are the most concerned.

Thus we observe that those groups that restrict the dispersal of knowledge to others must certainly have something to hide. It would be useless for the powers that be to expend copious amounts of energy to hide knowledge in general, as well as the reasons for their actions, unless the puppet masters themselves have a dark secret or two. Obviously, if the powers that run this world have something to hide, it is most likely not something that would make the average person too happy. It does not take a huge leap to suspect that our leaders are committing "unlawful acts" in our name. The suspicion is confirmed by the likes of Bush and his criminal administration.

On the other hand, we must also consider that the people themselves don't want to know the truth. How many times have we been at a dinner party, for example, and had a discussion about some controversial topic? Naturally, someone with lots of letters after their name will usually speak up as an "authority" or "expert" on the topic being discussed. Often times, the other participants in the discussion will be impressed by the numerous letters, and treat the words coming from the alleged expert as truth. The real truth about the expert's testimony may be that her words are what one might call "word salad" - a mixture of words and phrases that, while they may sound intelligent individually, combine to form a hideous pile of nonsense. The word salad may even include contradictory statements.

What seems to be missing from most of the residents of this world is a certain motivation for discovering the truth. In the US, Colin Powell admitted today that his presentation to the UN before the US invasion of Iraq was based on false information. It seems that everything to do with 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq is based on lies. Yet we don't observe any real outrage in America. Sure, some people are saying they'll vote for Kerry, but it is obvious that, when compared to Bush, Kerry will do little differently.

What seems to be so is that, until we wake up, we must believe that others are honest, truthful, and have our best interests at heart. In our slumber, we must assume that the experts are right - to do otherwise would require a reexamination of every aspect of our lives: ourselves, our job, our family and friends, our opinions, our beliefs, and so on. We each have such a vested interest in being an expert at living our own lives that we dare not question another. To question even one lie, to pull on the thread, could unravel the whole blanket that we have so carefully knit over the years to hide reality from ourselves.

It appears that the vast majority of those in this world want the lie. The more catastrophic attacks or disasters that occur, the faster our leaders will spin their yarns for the people to use in expanding their safety blankets. Asteroids could pummel the planet, and the people will be told it was just terrorists using suitcase nukes. Dramatic climate change could threaten the world's food supply, and the people will look to monotheistic religions for comfort. It seems that for most of the citizens of our reality, death is preferable to knowing the truth.

The deck is stacked against truthseekers. In the end, it all boils down to a personal choice that seems simple, yet contains an entire universe of possibilities within its words: Do you choose the lie, or do you choose the truth?

President Bush will announce prior to November 2004 the discovery of WMD

How Americans are Played by the Bush Team

You know that our prime contention is that without full disclosure regarding 9- 11 there can be no trust by the American people in the historical events emanating from a President that assumed office under questionable circumstances and did more to change the culture and heritage of this nation than any other president before him. Now, in view of this material breach of trust to the American people, which we contend is much more than that, we are willing to highlight something that may escape you: that WMD will be discovered and right on time for President Bush's election.

However, before reading through the material we provide you below to help preclude you from being psychologically played, let's emphasize that by keeping the President at the Booker Elementary School on 9-11, when it was a publicly known visit and site, is unequivocal proof that at minimum the government had knowledge of what was to transpire that day and the Secret Service thus could stand aside from the firm protocol and precedent to protect the President of the United States, which the Secret Service was obligated to do , and did not do, when Andrew Card declared that "America is under attack."

'It turns out we were all wrong' about Iraqi weapons, Kay testifies

By Seattle Times news services
Thursday, January 29, 2004

WASHINGTON — The former chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq issued a broad critique of U.S. intelligence gathering yesterday, saying the U.S. government was simply "wrong" to conclude before the war that Iraq was maintaining major stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.

SenderBerl predicted that Bush would plant WMD as the necessary dynamic to resolving his election woes and needed to move forward against Syria and Iran. [...]

Now, with Kay taking this surprise new attitude toward the Bush administration, it is evident to us that the groundwork for their discovery is being set. The psychological dynamic is to get everyone riled up that the President was dead wrong, and then voilà at the Karl Rove moment, WMD will be discovered and the profilers have concluded that those that argue they were planted will be given short shrift by an American public that has proven themselves more than willing to be misled since TWA Flight 800.

[...] While the Bush administration would tell you that we are detailing the inevitable, as the President has declared from the first (but has recently stepped back from that position as part and parcel of this political theater). SenderBerl said that if they weren't deployed when US troops were amassed as sitting ducks in North Kuwait, they would not be used, and the issue is what danger did Saddam pose if he would not use them in the defense of his country? However, stuck with this reality as fully discussed by us in Bush's Mission: Expecting the Second Platform of Moral Outrage, Jim Baker has been at it no doubt moving to make lemonade from the lemons at President Bush's door.

If WMD destruction are now found, this will be a setup and another act to attest that the American public continues wishing to stand stupid and silent. This is serious business allowing these type of tactics to be foisted upon you. The American people sat silent and stupid for TWA Flight 800, and this got them 9-11, and the British sat silent and stupid regarding Diana, and now they get an NWO incursion into the BBC as a first step before they move to take out the British Pound to replace it with the euro, which of course foreshadows the future for the US dollar. [...]

Blair sticks to Iraq WMD stance despite Kay

By Jeremy Lovell

LONDON, Jan 23, 2004 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Friday stuck by his stance weapons of mass destruction would eventually be found in Iraq, despite the top man hunting them saying they did not exist.

"It is important people are patient and we let the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) do its work," a spokesman for Blair said. "There is still more work to be done and we await the findings of that. But our position is unchanged."

Bush and Blair are pinning their political survival and success on finding WMD

Do you doubt they will be found?

[...] However, don't forget that the real signficance and need for its discovery is to give President Bush the hook to move forward against Syria and Iran, which he will defer until after the November elections IF WMD are discovered.

The very sad part is that so many Americans will stand as victims to this tactic of planted WMD and the profilers again have concluded, and we see it, that the American public will come down harshly on those that will suggest WMD were planted and thereby implicitly ratify the President's intent to effectuate regime change in what remains in the oil region outside his direct grasp and influence.

Comment: There are a couple of things about the above that bug us.

First, such a scenario would fit the fact that Clarke's book was vetted by the White House. Having done that, then they launch all kinds of attacks against Clarke? What's up with that? But then, Senderberl changes in mid-stream and says that the big boys have decided to get rid of Bush. So which is it? Will Bush "find" WMD and win the election and go on to wage war against Syria and Iran, or will Kerry win, and then what? Obviously there is more than one group attempting to direct the outcome of this current debacle.

It certainly appears that the "protection" that the liars in the current administration have been afforded up to now, is being removed. They are being "cut loose", it seems, and left to their own devices. Up until now, the vast amount of evidence that pointed to White House foreknowledge, if not complicity, in the 9/11 attacks has been suppressed. Today we see the growing Signs that this is about to end. We know that the US media is to a large extent controlled by Israeli interests, and it is the media, and those that own it, that has the power to sink any administration. Perhaps however, there is yet another group pulling strings here. The end result may well be the ousting of Bush and the outing of Israel as a co-conspirator.

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"Worse Than Watergate" insists Nixon Legal Counsel John Dean

"If you put this information [I saw] with other stuff they had from the Phoenix memo [about suspects taking flying lessons] and stuff coming in from field offices about flight schools, there is no way they can say they did not know. An idiot could work it out." - Former FBI Translator Edmonds

MER - Washington - 4/03/2004

There's already the scent of blood in the political waters here in Washington now. The President and the National Security Adviser are already wounded. The Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State are wearing political band-aids.

In rapid succession first came chief arms inspector David Kay, after his hugely expensive investigation sponsored by the CIA itself, to admit that Iraq had no 'weapons of mass destruction' after all and that a 'generational credibility gap' had now been created by the Bush Administration.
Then came the attacks from Hans Blox, former head of the U.N. weapons inspection program. That on top of the revelations that the US and Britain secretly and illegally taped the phones and spied on ambassadors at the Security Council and on the Secretary-General himself in his own office!

Then came Dick Clark, former head of counter-terrorism in both the Clinton and Bush Administrations, to hit them repeatedly; and they spent a furious week attempting to discredit him. But it seems considerable damage has already been done and his book is flying off the shelves, nearly 150,000 copies in less than two weeks.

And now there is the former FBI Adviser who says the government knew very well the hijackers were in fact in the country and that they were intending to use planes to attack cities. No specific date or target, but even so this is vastly different than what the Administration has tried to get the American people, and the world, to believe. And it's quite a bit more damning than simply that no one had read the Tom Clancey novel where a plane crashes into the Capitol during the State of the Union!

When it comes to political scandals, there's been nothing like this in Washington since Iran-Contra in the Reagan years which had the potential of bringing down that Administration as Watergate brought down the Nixon Administration (in which some of todays key players, including Cheney and Rumsfeld, held White House positions).

And to these fires the new one from good old John Dean, legal counsel to Richard Nixon in the White House, who's 'there is a cancer on the Presidency' Congressional testimony then lead to the impeachment threats followed by Nixon's resignation/pardon. Dean too is out with a new book loudly insisting that what the Bush White House is doing is 'worse than Watergate'...which not so indirectly seems to be a call for the impeachment/resignation of the current President. And of course Dean is one of those who really should know such things!
Thus the White House is scampering not only to help prepare and defend National Security Adviser Rice who will finally testify on Thursday 'in public' and 'under oath' -- but for its very life.

Comment: Put the above together with the fact that the US Airforce was obviously told to stand down on September 11th 2001, and you have damning evidence that will, at the very least, result in the removal of the Bush administration. But who is orchestrating this?

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The Mystery Deepens

April 3, 2004
NY Times

The Bush administration's handling of the bipartisan commission investigating the 9/11 tragedy grows worse — and more oddly self-destructive — with each passing day. Following its earlier attempts to withhold documents from the panel and then to deny its members vital testimony, we now learn that President Bush's staff has been withholding thousands of pages of Clinton administration papers as well.

Bill Clinton authorized the release of nearly 11,000 pages of files on his administration's antiterrorism efforts for use by the commission. But aides to Mr. Clinton said the White House, which now has control of the papers, vetoed the transfer of over three-quarters of them. The White House held the documents for more than six weeks, apparently without notifying the commission, and might have kept them indefinitely if Bruce Lindsey, the general counsel of Mr. Clinton's presidential foundation, had not publicly complained this week. Yesterday the commission said the White House had agreed to allow its lawyers to review the withheld documents, but without guaranteeing any would be released.

This latest distressing episode followed the White House's pattern of resisting the commission in private and then, once the dispute becomes public, reluctantly giving up the minimum amount of ground. Earlier in the week, Mr. Bush finally agreed to allow Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, to testify under oath — but only after extracting a commitment that the commission would not seek any further public testimony from any White House official. After months of foot-dragging, Mr. Bush also grudgingly agreed to let the panel question him and Vice President Dick Cheney privately. Last year the Pentagon, the Justice Department and other agencies stonewalled the commission's requests for documents until its chairman, Thomas Kean, the former Republican governor of New Jersey, complained publicly.

Explaining the latest act of obstruction, Scott McClellan, the president's spokesman, said on Thursday that some documents were duplicative, unrelated or "highly sensitive." The White House, he said, had given the commission "all the information they need." Mr. Bush's staff should not be making that judgment. The commission's 10 members can be trusted with sensitive material.

Moreover, given the repeated criticism of this administration's obsessive secrecy on other issues, it is astonishing that it would still withhold anything that did not pose an immediate and dire threat to national security. The American people would like to know that they have a government that freely gives information to legitimate investigations on matters of grave national interest, not one that fights each reasonable request until it is exposed and forced to submit. The White House is serving no public purpose by acting less interested than the rest of us in having this commission do its vital work. Its ham-handed behavior is also gravely damaging the entire concept of executive privilege.

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Powell: Key Iraq intelligence was flawed

US Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged on Friday that the "most dramatic" part of his presentation to the United Nations in making the case for war on Iraq was based on flawed intelligence [...]

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Convicted 9-11 plotter likely to go free

2 April 2004

HAMBURG - A court in Hamburg is likely to ask prosecutors to drop their re-trial case against convicted 11 September plotter Mounir al-Motassadeq and allow him to go free, his lawyers said Friday.

A spokesman for Hamburg State Superior Court declined to comment on the claim except to say the court is expected to hand down a decision early next week.

Motassadeq's attorney, Josef Graessle-Muenscher, said the court looked favourable during a brief session Friday at his client's release on bail in the wake of the 4 March ruling by the German Federal Supreme Court in Karlsruhe to order a new trial.

In addition, he said the court asked the prosecution to consider dropping its case in the absence of key evidence from the United States that the State Department has refused to make available for the public trial.

The Moroccan was found guilty by the Hamburg court in February 2003 of being an accessory to the murder of nearly 3,000 people by assisting in the 11 September 2001 suicide attacks in the United States. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

But that was overturned by the German supreme court which quashed the conviction on a technicality, saying essential evidence had not been properly addressed. The court judges said evidence from a witness that might have helped the defence had not been heard.

This was a reference to Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni who has reportedly confessed to a central role in the plot.

Al-Shibh has been in US custody since his capture in Karachi, Pakistan in September 2002, but the US refused to release interrogation transcripts for the Hamburg trial.

Comment: With a little critical thinking, the above constitutes proof enough that the entire "war on terror" is bogus. The problem in convincing the public of this is, of course, the fact that the phony "war on terror" is already in full swing. While at least some members of the public would be willing to admit that their politicians are capable of telling a lie, very few would be willing to admit that some of them would go to the lengths that the Israelis and Americans have in creating "facts on the ground". Think about it. To counter any claim that the war on terror is bogus, all the government has to do is provide the proof of the "reality" that "terrorists" are real, by staging a phony "terrorist" attack.

Put this argument to the average citizen and they may well admit the logic of such a maneuver, but few will credit the amoral, lying and corrupt politicians with the lack of morality to do such a thing. While such a stance is completely illogical, no one ever said the average human was logical. In fact, the evidence suggests that most have long since dispensed with their faculty of logical reasoning and deduction. It is just this aspect of human nature that politicians used to their advantage as they go about the task of enslaving the population, who seem only too willing to be enslaved. The fact that this has been understood for many years by those in power is very clear.

As Hermann Goering said at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials:

"Naturally, the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

While only a tiny percentage of the population would be willing to accept that the above is the current reality, even fewer would accept the idea that even the Israeli and US governments may be playing "second fiddle" to another shadowy group.

There is a strong possibility that there exists a "secret" government unknown to the public, which directs things from "behind the curtain", so to speak. In such a scenario, the overt government is merely a tool to be used and dispensed with as needed. Any shocking revelation of government wrongdoing then, is merely another layer of the onion, making us realise that we may never get to the bottom of the lies and finally figure out who is "on first." Nevertheless, we must continue to dig.

In attempting to discern the meaning of the events as they transpire on the world stage, we must strive always to avoid falling into complacency in our views and analysis. Our achilles heel is in believing that we really "get it". We must always be aware of the possibility that, regardless of how much we think we See, we too, like the mass of humanity, may be simply believing what "the powers that be" want us to believe. Our main, and perhaps only advantage is to fully realise that we are most definitely at a disadvantage as we pit our wits against the real puppet masters. While the people may be allowed to think that they have won a battle, in the final analysis, it seems that the function of the masses is to serve and do the bidding of their "masters" - seen and unseen. It is only when we come to accept the hopelessness of the situation, that we can perhaps find the correct "attitude" that will give us the chance of finding a realistic solution.

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US slaps sanctions on suppliers to Iranian weapons programs

WASHINGTON (AFP) Apr 02, 2004

The United States on imposed sanctions on 13 companies and individuals from seven countries for supplying Iran with equipment and expertise used in making nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

The State Department said the penalties, imposed under the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000, apply to five Chinese, two Macedonian and two Russian companies as well as one firm each from Belarus, North Korea, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates.

The sanctions were imposed because of "credible information" that the firms had transferred to Iran since 1999 equipment and technology that "have the potential of making a material contribution to WMD, or cruise or ballistic missile systems," deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said. [...]

Comment: Ah, hypocrisy. Where would the human race be without it?

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China Angered by US Proposal to Sell Anti-Missile Radar to Taiwan

Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - China has stepped up its attempts to isolate Taiwan, while accusing the U.S. of encouraging independence-minded Taiwanese and sending "the wrong message" by planning to sell advanced military radar to the island democracy [...]

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Russia defends 'paranoia' over NATO enlargement

BRUSSELS (AFP) Apr 02, 2004

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov lashed out Friday as NATO welcomed seven ex-communist states into its ranks in a historic enlargement that takes the military alliance up to Russia's borders.

"We didn't want this enlargement, and we will continue to maintain a negative attitude," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after talks with NATO counterparts including US Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"It's a mistake," he told reporters, on the day that NATO held a welcome ceremony for its new members -- Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

"The presence of American soldiers on our border has created a kind of paranoia in Russia."

For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin toned down Lavrov's ire by saying relations were "developing positively" between Moscow and NATO.

"But the encroachment of NATO military infrastructure to our borders is being carefully studied by our specialists," Putin said after talks with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

"And we will build our military position from these conclusions."

Moscow has shown particular anger at the inclusion in NATO of the Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which are all former Soviet republics.

Russia warned Monday that it may be forced to beef up its own defences along the Baltic border in a move reminiscent of the Soviet Union's standoff with the US-led alliance during the Cold War.

With NATO F-16s starting patrols of the Baltic trio's airspace this week, Russia went as far as to warn of a possible "military response".

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Slain US security agents once served with Navy Seals, Special Forces

CHICAGO (AFP) Apr 02, 2004

A former Navy Seal and sometime movie consultant, a decorated Army veteran, and a linguist who served with an elite Army unit, were among the US security agents who died this week in an ugly ambush in Iraq, US news reports said Friday.

Family members identified Scott Helvenston, Michael Teague, and Jerry Zovko, as three of the four Americans who were killed in an ambush in Fallujah, Iraq, their bodies incinerated and dragged through the streets.

Helvenston, who joined the crack Navy Seal unit at the age of 17, wanted a taste of combat and a chance to make some good money, a friend told Florida's Sun Sentinel newspaper.

The 38-year-old went to Iraq to earn 60,000 in three months and to get a taste of combat that he had never seen in his 12 years in the Navy, Mark Divine told the daily. [...]

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Need an Army? Just Pick Up the Phone

By BARRY YEOMAN
New York Times
04/02/04

The murderous attack on four American civilians in Falluja, Iraq, brought home gruesome images of charred bodies dangling from a bridge over the Euphrates River. It also introduced Americans to a company few had heard of: Blackwater USA, which was providing security for food delivery convoys when its employees were ambushed.

Blackwater, which operates from a 5,200-acre training ground in the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina, is a private military firm that provides an array of services once performed solely by military personnel. The company trains soldiers in counterterrorism and urban warfare. It also provides the American government with soldiers for hire: former Green Berets, Army Rangers and Navy Seals. In February it started training former Chilean commandos — some of whom served under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet — for future service in Iraq.

Business is booming at Blackwater, and the company is hardly alone. Private contractors are an invisible but growing part of how war is now fought. Some 10,000 of them are serving in Iraq — one private worker for every 10 soldiers — more than the number of soldiers from Britain, America's largest coalition partner. Some are supplied by well-known corporations like Halliburton. But for the most part, the private military industry is dominated by more obscure businesses with names that seem designed to tell as little as possible about what the company does.

Nor is their presence limited to Iraq. In recent years, soldiers-for-profit have served in Liberia, Pakistan, Rwanda and Bosnia. They have guarded Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, and built the military detention facilities holding Al Qaeda suspects in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They have been an essential part of the American war on drugs in Latin America. Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution, who wrote a book on the private military industry, says it brings in about $100 billion a year worldwide.

The industry rose to prominence under President George H.W. Bush — Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, received a $9 million contract to study supplementing military efforts after the Persian Gulf war. The Clinton administration sent more work to contractors, but it is under the current president, a strong believer in government privatization, that things started booming.

Gary Jackson, the president of Blackwater, envisions a day when any country faced with peacekeeping duties will simply call him and place an order. "I would like to have the largest, most professional private army in the world," he told me. [...]

Comment: Leave it to the Bush family to find a way to profit even more from "peacekeeping" - i.e. murder, mayhem, and destruction. It is entirely possible that there won't be a draft in America in the near future. What better way to create an army to protect the homeland after another terrorist attack than to offer civilians thousands of dollars a month to join a private, corporate military? An army of greedy psychopaths, coming to protect a town near you...

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"Are you really surprised?"

By Firas Al-Atraqchi YellowTimes.org Columnist (Canada)

(YellowTimes.org) - So, a mob of Iraqis torch, beat, mutilate and hang corpses belonging to four American defense contractors on the same day that five U.S. soldiers were killed in a roadside bombing.

U.S. media was shocked and awed. Despicable, horrible, horrifying.

While the killings are indeed gruesome and God help the families of those killed, I would like to ask what on Earth do you expect? These are people who suffered under 13 years of sanctions, constant and consistent bombing throughout the 1990s and persistent random trigger-happy killing of civilians by U.S. troops in the last year. Depleted uranium is destroying children and the future of Iraq. Joblessness, power outages, lack of communications -- no phones in 80 percent of the country -- and lawlessness. You want candy and flowers?

Grow up. Occupation begets every single form of violence to reject, deject, and eject the occupier. Take how the human body functions; enter a virus and white blood cells kick into action, surround the virus and eat it, adding to the body's catalogue of immunity victories.

Jim Clancy of CNN says pictures of the bodies dragged through the streets were shocking to everyone, including the Iraqi people. I beg to differ. The problem here is the westernized, ethnocentric, Judeo-Christian, and downright racist approach to Iraq. Missing are the pictures of U.S. soldiers with their boots on the necks of detainees who have yet to be questioned. It seems U.S. soldiers believe everyone in Iraq is guilty till proven dead. How about Nic Robertson's documentary which aired on CNN on Wednesday, March 31; did you catch the U.S. soldier who told an Iraqi, "Say yes, when I tell you to eat my ass...I want to shove my foot in his ass.

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NZ troops out of Iraq in September says PM

By FRAN O'SULLIVAN assistant editor
03.04.2004

Helen Clark will pull engineering troops out of Iraq in September - but they may return next year.

The Prime Minister yesterday conceded that New Zealand's defence forces were "pretty stretched", with commitments to the Solomon Islands, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Her confirmation that the engineering team would not be immediately rolled over for a second six-month term came after a private meeting with visiting Australian Labor leader Mark Latham. [...]

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Is America sending battle-weary, clinically stressed soldiers back into the heat of Iraq?

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
03 April 2004

Just ten days ago, Jason Gunn didn't think he was in any shape to be sent back to active duty in Iraq.

That's what the 24-year-old tank driver told his family, and what he told the commanders at his US military base in Germany. It is also what he told a team of psychiatrists at Heidelberg Hospital, who not only agreed with his assessment but issued a formal recommendation that he be kept with them for further treatment.

Back in November, Specialist Gunn had suffered devastating injuries up and down the left side of his body when a roadside bomb obliterated the Humvee he was driving on the north side of Baghdad. Over and above his physical wounds, he also had to deal with the trauma of the sergeant in the seat behind his being ripped to shreds in the explosion.

Soon he was displaying classic symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, (PTSD) - anxiety, insomnia interspersed with recurring nightmares, and extreme agitation. Army doctors put him on two different medications to lift his mood and suppress his bad dreams. But the gung-ho, happy-go-lucky, overtly fearless soldier who had existed before last November obstinately refused to resurface.

It used to be accepted practice in the US military not to return a soldier to active duty unless he was fully fit - not just out of consideration for his own needs, but also to protect other members of his unit. In Iraq, however, growing anecdotal evidence suggests that a new policy is emerging - to patch up the wounded as quickly as possible and ship them straight back, threatening them with disciplinary action or even court martial if they show the slightest reluctance.

That, according to the available evidence, is what happened to Jason Gunn. On 23 March, he telephoned his mother in Philadelphia and told her he would refuse to go back to Iraq even if they ordered him to. The very next day, however, he was on a plane to Kuwait, and from there was told to make his own way back to his unit with the 1st Armored Division in Baghdad.

Three days later, his family was shown a signed statement which seemed to contradict everything they knew about him. "It is my wish," the statement said, "to be redeployed with my unit to finish my tour of duty with my unit here in Iraq. I feel that I am able to complete my mission here as well as any other duties assigned to me while on current deployment."

The statement also said he had not been on prescribed medicines since early March - even though his mother believes he had been taking his two sets of pills right up to the time of his departure - and that he did not feel he was in need of "any type of counselling at this time".

It wasn't just his family who found that odd. It was also a flat contradiction of an earlier statement issued by his commanders in Landstuhl on the day of his departure, which acknowledged he was unwilling to return to Iraq and that he had been diagnosed with PTSD by the Heidelberg doctors.

So what happened? His mother, Pat Gunn, herself a military veteran, is in no doubt he was put under severe duress. "My fear," she said in an interview, "is that he was coerced or shamed into signing this statement, just as he was coerced or shamed into returning to Iraq ... .

"When I spoke to him the night before he left, he was adamant he was not going back. They did a lot to his psyche to get him on that plane."

Comment: For the sake of clarity, the answer to the question posed in the title of the above article is "yes". It is a testimony to the way in which people like Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle and Rove view the average plebiscite. We are little more than chattel, (or cattle, you choose) to be used for the furtherance of their goals. All of the Signs point to the fact that the truth of this will again be witnessed by US citizens in the not too distant future.

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'We'll expel illegal Arabs from Israel'

Ariel Sharon said yesterday that once the separation fence is completed, the government will act to expel Palestinians living illegally within Israeli Arab communities. In an interview with Haaretz to be published in full on Monday, Sharon said there are tens of thousands of such illegal Palestinians in the country. [...]

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The Victory of Brutality

Gideon Levy
Ha'aretz
March 14, 2004

A new species of officer is achieving greatness in the Israel Defense Forces. These people did most of their service as occupation officers, and their excellence is a function of the degree of violence and brutality they exercise against the Palestinians. The most striking example of this trend is Brigadier General Gadi Shamni, a graduate of Lebanon and Hebron, who last week concluded his tour of duty as commander of the Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip and was promoted to head of the Operations Division in the General Staff, a post which is a major step on the way to becoming a major general. The promotion of an officer of this type speaks volumes about the IDF's value system and its order of priorities, far more than what it says about Shamni himself.

Perhaps not since the days when Ariel Sharon was a serving major general has the Gaza Strip seen an officer as violent, as boastful and as brutal as General Shamni. If Shamni's predecessor, Brigadier General Yisrael Ziv, only mounted numerous useless operations against the lathes of Gaza, which also resulted in nothing more than unnecessary bloodshed but didn't prevent the firing of Qassam rockets at Israeli targets, along came Shamni and initiated a series of showcase operations - totally pointless and only generated even more killing.

In the last of these operations, the one that resulted in the killing of 15 Palestinians last week, Shamni even articulated a new IDF doctrine: "stimulus and response." The purpose of the operation, it was reported, was "to stimulate the armed individuals to come out and then kill them off." This method, which led to the killing of innocent people, including children, drew no critical reaction. No one asked why every armed Palestinian is marked for death and why it's necessary to "stimulate" armed people in Gaza altogether.

Shamni decided, executed and was promoted. Some in the IDF also explained that the latest operation was actually meant to be a "farewell party" on the eve of the ceremony of the handover of command. The widespread death and destruction that Shamni left behind from his 14 months of service in Gaza did not prevent his promotion, and may have even contributed to it.

The new species of officer, of which Shamni is the most prominent example, balks at no means of killing, never expresses sorrow or regret (not for the killing of innocent people and not for pointless operations), articulates clear political positions, and is rarely anything but arrogant in his speech. That's the recipe for promotion. "We are winning in this confrontation every day, a few times," Shamni boasted the day after the last operation in an interview to Haaretz.

Winning in Gaza? Winning what? Against whom? It's hard to believe that in this day and age there are still officers in the IDF who talk like this. We've been "winning" in Gaza for 37 years, Shamni even wins a few times a day, but no lesson has been learned. The results of the victory: 1.5 million people imprisoned and destitute, living in subhuman conditions, whose hatred for Israel is only increasing. [...]

The conscience of officers like Shamni is always clean and polished. The blood of the innocent people does not torment them. It's doubtful whether questions of morality even occur to them. They "do the work" and nothing will stop them. A few months ago, when the IDF demolished the homes of seven families who had done nothing wrong, in Bureij refugee camp, Shamni labeled the action "surgical" without batting an eyelash; and when, among the ruins, a pregnant woman, Noha Makadama, mother of ten children, was killed before the eyes of her husband and children, he coldly said, "The IDF has no proof that the woman was killed." Similarly, when his troops killed peace activists Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall and the photographer James Miller, in Rafah, Shamni did not find fault in their actions. [...]

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Powell sees good ties with new French FM but fond of de Villepin

BRUSSELS (AFP) Apr 02, 2004

US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Friday he looked forward to working with his new French counterpart, Michel Barnier, including over a possible role for France in Iraq.

Powell and the former European Union commissioner met Friday in Brussels on the sidelines of a NATO meeting, officials said.

After the fireworks of his relationship with Barnier's predecessor, Dominique de Villepin, Powell told reporters: "I'm pleased to work with Minister Barnier and I look forward to a good relationship with him."

Powell and de Villepin clashed most memorably last year in the run-up to the war in Iraq, when the French minister, speaking in a televised debate at the UN Security Council, passionately denounced the US case for invasion. [...]

Comment: In other words, de Villepin was standing up for the truth - as the rest of the world is beginning to see with recent revelations about the lies of the Bush Administration. De Villepin spoke eloquently against the use of force against Iraq at the UN security council last year. He finished his speech thusly:

"This message comes to you today from an old country, France, from a continent like mine, Europe, that has known wars, occupation and barbarity. A country that does not forget and knows everything it owes to the freedom-fighters who came from America and elsewhere. And yet has never ceased to stand upright in the face of history and before mankind. Faithful to its values, it wishes resolutely to act with all the members of the international community. It believes in our ability to build together a better world."

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NATO to protect Olympics and Euro 2004

Friday April 2, 05:00 PM

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO has agreed to provide security for the Athens Olympics and Euro 2004 soccer tournament in Portugal as part of a renewed offensive against terrorism following last month's train bombings in Madrid.

But foreign ministers of the alliance, meeting on Friday for the first time since the accession of seven eastern European states on Monday, made no other specific operational commitments in a wide-ranging "Declaration on Terrorism". [...]

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Italian police question 161 suspected of links to extremist groups

Fri Apr 2, 1:50 PM ET

ROME (AFP) - Italian police carried out nationwide raids in which 161 people were detained, most of them Moroccans, on suspicion of links with Islamic extremist groups, Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu said.

The raids came as a news report said Italian police have found a video tape, thought to be from Al-Qaeda, containing threats to destroy Rome. [...]

"We only wanted to isolate the extremists and the violent persons, who are our enemies, from all honest Muslims who want to work in our country with rights and duties equivalent to those of Italian citizens," the minister said. [...]

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Putin, Chirac to discuss econ, space cooperation

03.04.2004

MOSCOW, April 3 (Itar-Tass) - Economic cooperation between Russia and France and cooperation in space research will be in the focus of talks between the presidents of the two countries, which will take place in Krasnoznamensk near Moscow on Saturday.

French President Jacques Chirac will pay a one-day visit to Russia at the invitation of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Russian presidential press service said.

Russia and France place great hopes on the launched reforming of such an important mechanism of developing bilateral ties as the Russian-French council on economic, financial, industrial and trade issues.

The council reform will promote developing business ties between Russian and French entrepreneurs, a Kremlin source told Itar-Tass. [...]

Russia has prepared and handed over to France a draft joint programme of action for 2005-2006.

The document reflects the main priorities and tasks of Russian-French cooperation in the political, economic, military and cultural areas and is aimed at deepening comprehensive bilateral cooperation, the presidential administration source noted.

The French president will be one of the first Western leaders to visit Russia after Putin's victory in the presidential elections.

It is one more indication of the high quality of relations between the two countries and between the two leaders, the source noted.

The meeting is expected to consolidate the positive development, intensity and confidence of the Russian-French dialogue and confirm the closeness or coincidence of approaches to most international issues, Moscow believes.

Russia and France remain among the states advocating a multi-polar world system with international law observance and the central role of the United Nations and its Security Council.

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US fingerprints 'allied' visitors

A US requirement for visitors to be fingerprinted and photographed is being expanded to include citizens from America's closest allies.
The move will affect visitors from 27 countries - including the UK, Japan and Australia - whose nationals are able to visit the US without a visa.

The change in the US-Visit programme is due to take effect by 30 September.

The programme is designed to fight terrorism, but has been criticised by many - notably in Latin America.

Secure passports

The US-Visit (US Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology) security system is meant to identify travellers who have violated immigration controls, have criminal records or belong to groups listed as terrorist organisations by the US.

The US has been routinely fingerprinting and face-scanning foreign visitors since January.

But Washington decided to extend the programme after determining that visa waiver countries will not meet an October deadline to introduce sophisticated passports, which include biometric data and make counterfeiting virtually impossible. [...]

Comment: In a subtle, yet very effective way, the US is determined to clamp down on the freedom of movement. Who would not feel a little less inclined to travel with such draconian measures in place? This, along with further controls that are sure to follow, will very effectively "herd the population to a much finer order of control". The question we must ask ourselves is why? What is it for? Some might claim that it is an attempt to convince the worldwide public that the terror threat is real, yet those that are willing to be fooled already have been as a result of the staged "terror" attacks. These measures would be a waste of time if they were just for "show". The conclusion then is that more than one agenda is being served here. The drive to document and identify every single citizen, and the information obtained as a result, will surely be used, but again, for what?

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FBI, Homeland Security warn of summer bomb plots

Associated Press
April 2, 2004

Washington — Terrorists might try to bomb buses and rail lines in major U.S. cities this summer, a government bulletin issued to law enforcement officials says.

The FBI and Homeland Security Department sent a bulletin Thursday night saying terrorists could try to conceal explosives in luggage and carry-on bags, such as duffel bags and backpacks.

The bulletin cites uncorroborated intelligence as indicating that such bombs could be made of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and diesel fuel, similar to what was used to blow up the Oklahoma City federal building in April, 1995.

A senior federal law enforcement official, speaking Friday on condition of anonymity, said recent intelligence, coupled with the deadly March 11 commuter train bombings in Madrid, has increased the level of concern about a potential attack in the United States. [...]

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FBI issues terrorist alert: Al-Qaida operatives may resort to using arts, sports visas to enter United States

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials have received intelligence indicating terrorists might attempt to slip into the United States using cultural, arts or sports visas.

The FBI has issued a bulletin to 18,000 state and local law enforcement agencies nationwide warning about the potential misuse of P-visas, one of several types granted by the State Department for people visiting the United States for artistic, cultural or athletic purposes.

“Recent intelligence indicates that terrorist groups may be interested in exploiting cultural visa programs to infiltrate operatives and support network into the United States,” the bulletin says.

The bulletin does not identify the source of the intelligence and contains no specific, corroborated evidence that any terrorists have entered the country this way. [...]

Comment: We beg to differ, the Israeli art student spy ring members that we arrested after 9/11 and then released, are very likely the real terrorists that orchestrated the 9/11 attacks. Remember that there is much evidence that "Al-Qaeda" is in reality an Israeli Mossad front.

The above story is potentially significant in that, just a few days ago, we had the "revelation" (at least to the sleeping public) from Philip Zelikow, the key person in charge of the 9/11 investigation on Capitol Hill and an 'Israeli-connected Neocon', that the Iraq invasion was carried out at the behest of Israel. Such a comment, from such a person, does not happen by accident. At the time we mused on the idea that this might mark the beginning of the outing of Israel. Today it appears that someone, somewhere, may have decided to begin to put pressure on Israeli spy groups in the US. It is particularly interesting that the law enforcement agencies are being notified to watch for " visa violations". See " Mossad and moving companies, Masterminds of Global Terrorism?" for more.

"There has been since almost the earliest days of the Israeli state and the earliest days of the CIA a secret bond, basically by which Israeli intelligence did jobs for the CIA and for the rest of American intelligence. You can't understand what's been going on with American covert operations and the Israeli covert operations until you understand this secret arrangement." - Andrew Cockburn

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U.S. Gasoline Pump Price Hits New High - AAA

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2 Workers Shot at N.C. Government Office

Fri Apr 2, 5:48 PM ET

HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. - A man shot the office manager and another worker Friday at a state unemployment office after he and the manager got into an argument, authorities said.

The man, who had been seeking benefits, "was involved in a discussion with the local office manager that became very heated," said David Clegg, deputy Employment Security Commission chairman in Raleigh. [...]

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Night janitors say the downtown courthouse haunted

By MARK HEDGES/The Daily Journal

Sometimes modernization can uncover pieces of the past, as when construction projects uncover archaeological sites.

But in the case of the Mendocino County Courthouse in downtown Ukiah, a new security system is apparently revealing the presence of some long-time residents of the building who have a mind of their own despite their lack of an earthly body.

In other words, they're ghosts.

New, high-tech, motion-detecting cameras are revealing to security and janitorial staff that something is moving about the courthouse's gloomy halls in the still hours of the night.

Something best described as a "mist" has repeatedly appeared on the cameras moving back and forth across the courthouse's lower hallway where the jury selection department is located.

A janitor who saw the tape said this ghostly apparition can also be seen floating up in front of the light that hangs down in this hallway, causing the light to be partially obscured.

This janitor also said that a "little box lights up" when motion is detected, "and you can see the box light up and then it lights up somewhere else."

New metal-detecting machines at the courthouse entrances have also gone off without a soul -- or at least a soul combined with a body -- to be found, according to some of the security personnel.

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Satellite to put Einstein to the test

03/04/2004

A satellite designed to test two fundamental predictions made by Albert Einstein about the universe is ready for launch, 45 years after it was first proposed, Nasa and Stanford University officials said.

Since 1959, Gravity Probe B has overcome a half-dozen attempts at cancellation, countless technical hurdles and several delayed launches. The Nasa-funded, university-developed spacecraft is now scheduled to begin its mission following an April 17 lift-off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

The unmanned, Earth-orbiting satellite is designed to test two of Einstein’s predictions about the nature of space and time, and how the Earth and other bodies warp and twist the fabric that combines the two.

At the spacecraft’s heart are four Ping-Pong-sized balls of quartz, the most perfect spheres ever made.

To ensure accuracy, the balls must be kept chilled to near absolute zero, in the vacuum of the largest thermos ever flown in space, and isolated from any disturbances in the quietest environment ever produced, said Anne Kinney, director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s division of astronomy and physics.

Once in space and set spinning, the orientation of the balls should change - unless Einstein was wrong.

He proposed in 1916 that space and time form a structure that can be curved by the presence of a body, like the Earth, warping it like the dimple created by the heft of a bowling ball resting on a soft mattress. That distortion accounts for gravity.

Two years later, others suggested that the rotation of such a mass should drag space-time with it, twisting the structure of the fabric.

If theory holds, the mass and rotation of the Earth, 397 miles below the probe, should throw the alignment of the spinning balls off kilter in subtle but measurable ways.

The warping effect has been measured before. The twisting effect, called frame-dragging, has never been directly detected. Gravity Probe B aims to detect both.

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Metallic Sound Is Heard by Space Crew

By MARCIA DUNN
AP Aerospace Writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.

The two men aboard the international space station heard a strange metallic sound again Friday, four months after being startled by it the first time.

Cosmonaut Alexander Kaleri was talking to flight controllers in Moscow when he heard a loud drumlike noise coming from the instrument panel of the station's Russian-built living quarters.

Kaleri and astronaut Michael Foale first heard the mystery noise - described as a flapping sheet of metal - back in late November. Neither the crewmen nor flight controllers were ever able to identify the sound, although engineers suspected space junk may have damaged something on the exterior.

Kaleri said Friday morning's noise came from about the same place as before and sounded the same.

"I had the headset on, so I didn't hear it very clearly. But it sounded sort of like a drum. It sounds sort of like a sheet of something being bent," the cosmonaut reported.

Russian flight controllers told Kaleri that they would try to figure out where the noise was coming from, and speculated that perhaps one of the systems inside the station was the source of the problem, rather than something on the outside.

NASA officials, however, said all systems appeared to be operating properly.

"It's very strange," Russian Mission Control said. "I doubt that it would be a coincidence that you're hearing the same thing coming from the same place."

During a spacewalk in February, Kaleri and Foale were supposed to check the exterior of the space station where the noise originated last November. But Kaleri's spacesuit overheated and became damp, and the spacewalk had to be cut short, so the men did not have time to inspect the area.

Kaleri and Foale's six-month space station mission is almost over. Their replacements are due to arrive in another 2 1/2 weeks.

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Five earthquakes rattle NZ capital

Saturday, April 3, 2004

New Zealand's capital Wellington was rattled awake early on Saturday by five small earthquakes which struck in quick succession.

The quakes started just after 12:00am (local time) with a jolt that measured 3.9 on the Richter Scale and was followed by two stronger tremors, both measuring 4.6, that were only seconds apart, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research said.

The fourth measured 3.4 and came at 12:45am and the fifth, half an hour later, measured 3.8.

The epicentre of the cluster was within five kilometres of Upper Hutt, at the northern end of greater Wellington, and at a depth of 30 kilometres, the Institute said.

There were no reports of damage or injury.

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3 Intense Hurricanes Forecast This Year

Fri Apr 2

FORT COLLINS, Colo. - The Atlantic will probably see 14 named storms this year, eight of them hurricanes and three of them intense hurricanes, a storm researcher said Friday.

The revised forecast by William Gray and his team at Colorado State University includes one more named storm than the previous forecast.

The long-term average is about 10 named storms, including six hurricanes. Of those, two are "intense" hurricanes, defined as those with sustained wind of at least 111 mph.

The Colorado State team also warned the chances of at least one intense hurricane making landfall in the United States is 71 percent, much higher than the long-term average of 52 percent.

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More than 15,000 face floods in Namibia

April 3, 2004

WINDHOEK (AFP) - More than 15,000 people were facing floods in north-eastern Namibia as water levels rose due to heavy rains in the Zambezi river's catchment area, officials said.

"It is estimated that some 15,000 to 20,000 people are already affected by the floods, compared to last year when some 12,000 people were in need of assistance," said Razia Essack-Kauaria, secretary general of the Namibian Red Cross Society (NRS). [...]

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Raging river of ice puts Selkirk highway in deep freeze

By Trevor Wilhelm
Fri Apr 2 2004

SELKIRK -- Spring flooding threw truck-sized hunks of ice over a highway near Selkirk yesterday, while flooding in Winnipeg caused Sturgeon Creek to cascade over Ness Avenue.

The provincial government opened the Red River Floodway in Winnipeg at about 6:30 p.m. yesterday, to ensure homes in Winnipeg stay high and dry.

In Selkirk, kilometres of land and highway were submerged by ice and frigid water. Luckily, no homes are in the flooded areas. [...]

The Selkirk Bridge, which connects Highway 435 to Selkirk, was closed to traffic. The area was flooded after ice sheets on the Red broke Wednesday night, about a month earlier than normal.

In Winnipeg, ice that jammed in a culvert forced Sturgeon Creek to spill over a bridge on Ness Avenue. [...]

A long-armed excavator helped free the ice jammed at the Ness Avenue bridge yesterday. When the water had receded, it left huge blocks of ice on the sidewalk, torn-up asphalt and a crippled fence. [...]

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Massive B.C. farm bird cull could come in days

CBC
Fri, 02 Apr 2004 21:52:52

ABBOTSFORD - The government will decide within days on an industry proposal to cull up to 16 million farm birds in an attempt to halt the rapid spread of avian influenza in British Columbia's Fraser Valley.

The news came as federal Agriculture Minister Bob Speller said on Friday that the virus had been confirmed on 18 farms in the region, more than twice the number of sites previously known to have been infected.

"The disease is spreading and it's spreading quickly," Dr. Brian Evans of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said. [...]

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B.C. 'bush boys' really suburban kids from California

CBC
Apr 2 2004 07:27 PM PST

VERNON, B.C. - The mystery of the wild "bush boys" of Vernon has finally been solved, after a man and woman from California have come forward to say they're the parents of the pair.

The couple is not from a remote part of British Columbia, but instead from a suburb of Sacramento. Roger Horn says he is the father of "Tom and Will Green," the brothers who have been cared for by the Vernon community since they emerged from the bush in November. [...]

He says his son Rowan became dangerously thin after refusing to eat anything but fresh fruit. When Child Protection Services tried to place him in hospital, Horn says his younger son ran away. Horn says two days ago, a family friend spotted the boys in a story aired on a California TV newscast. "It's an amazing story, and there is a lot of twists and turns that a lot of people would like to know," says Horn. The parents are flying to the Okanagan to try to persuade their sons to return home.

A QFS Member Comments: This is a strange story. CBC Disclosure did a documentary of these two boys who mysteriously showed up out of the woods last summer, claiming to be raised in the wild back country of B.C. Believing their ' story', the community of Nelson provides them with shelter, clothes and MONEY for food.

Then, seeing the story on TV, the boy's parents come forward from Sacramento. Seems the kids are really American suburban teenagers who ran away from home. The kind-hearted folks of Nelson took them in, but ironically it was the community that was taken in by them.

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Apocalypse Now

How a hologram, a blimp, and a massively multiplayer game could bring peace to the Holy Land.

By Joshua Davis
Wired Magazine
April 2004

Yitzhaq Hayutman holds the key to peace on Earth - it's on a floppy disk in his pants pocket. With his full white beard, bald pate, and well-pressed khakis, the 61-year-old Israeli cybernetics expert and tech investor looks like Moses done over for a Banana Republic ad. Right now, he's showing me how he wants to position an airborne hologram over the Dome of the Rock, a gold-capped shrine that's one of the most holy sites in Islam. "The blimp will go there," Hayutman says pointing into the blue. "And eventually the Messiah will come."

Hayutman is excited by the prospect - perhaps too excited. Twenty yards away, two flak-jacketed Israeli police officers finger their machine guns while four plainclothes members of the Islamic Trust - the Muslim force that protects Islam's holy sites - move cautiously toward us. Violence has a habit of erupting here on the Temple Mount, the world's most explosive plot of land.

For 1,500 years, Jews, Christians, and Muslims have fought for control of this 35-acre plateau in the heart of Jerusalem. The dispute remains one of the main obstacles to peace in the Middle East. Jewish teachings say that a temple must be built here - many say on the exact spot where the Dome now stands - in order to induce the arrival of the Messiah and the coming of peace on Earth. Fundamentalist Christians interpret this to mean the Second Coming of Christ and actively encourage Jewish building efforts. Muslims categorically oppose any encroachment on their holy site, from which they believe Mohammed ascended to heaven to receive the Koran.

All sides acknowledge that tensions on the hill have the potential to start a war, but Hayutman believes he has found a way to resolve the intractable conflict. "What most people see is that if the Muslims are here, surely there is no temple," Hayutman says. "They do not understand that technology has given us the tools to realize the prophecy right now."

He has two big ideas, two ways to engineer the apocalypse. The first: a hovering holographic temple. Hayutman wants to set up an array of high-powered, water-cooled lasers and fire them into a transparent cube suspended beneath a blimp. The ephemeral, flickering image, he says, would fulfill an ancient, widely revered Jewish prophecy that the temple will descend from the heavens as a manifestation of light. Hayutman hopes to finance the project with some of the proceeds from a $20 million patent-infringement suit he and his partners have filed against Palm.

The rest of that money would be poured into Hayutman's second idea for jump-starting the end-times: a virtual temple within a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. The goal is for thousands of people to join in its construction on the Web. Hayutman even wants to display progress reports in the floating hologram as a kind of apocalyptic scoreboard.

Whether it's a hologram or a cyberstructure, Hayutman believes that a techno temple does away with the need for a physical building. Under his scheme, Jews and Christians would get a biblically accurate temple without razing the Dome of the Rock. A description of his plans is on the floppy disk in his pocket, which he says he will give to me when we leave the Mount. [...]

Hayutman's faith in himself is a little disconcerting, at times annoying, and even terrifying. He talks about flash floods and God for hours without pause while we drive and doesn't notice when I doze off. When I wake up, he's still talking. "God has given me a mission," Hayutman says, speaking in a thoughtful, accented English as rain pounds the windshield. "I am here to show that the temple can be rebuilt peacefully and in such a way that it will bring the beginning of a new age." [...]

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