http://www.sott.net/signs/list_bestofweb Signs of the Times: The World for People who Think. Featuring alternative news and commentary on world events. en-us Original content Copyright 2012 by Signs of the Times/Sott.net. For other content, see our Fair Use Policy at www.sott.net. Tue, 15 May 2012 19:50:15 -0500 http://www.sott.net/images/sottlogo_rss.jpg SOTT.net http://www.sott.net http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245506-Perverted-Justice-The-Rise-of-Secret-Trials-in-America One of the lasting challenges to America's federal judiciary will be addressing American complicity in the tortures and disappearances of the past ten years. Two recent appeals-court decisions show us how judicial panels are tackling these issues: by shielding federal officials and their contractors from liability, and even by glorifying the fruits of their dark arts. In the process, legal prohibitions on torture are being destroyed through secrecy and legal sleight of hand, and our justice system is being distorted and undermined. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245506-Perverted-Justice-The-Rise-of-Secret-Trials-in-America Tue, 15 May 2012 17:14:17 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245505-Vote-for-Endless-War-In-2012-whoever-gets-elected-its-the-Pentagon-that-wins Let's start with this: according to the Pentagon, the production and acquisition costs of Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jet, the military's most expensive weapons program, have risen yet again, this time by 4.3% since 2010 to $395.6 billion. If you're talking about the total cost of the system, including maintenance and support for the nearly 2,500 planes that will some (endlessly delayed) day be produced for the military, that has now reached an estimated $1.51 trillion, a 9% rise since 2010. All this for a plane that some experts doubt has any particular purpose in the future U.S. arsenal. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245505-Vote-for-Endless-War-In-2012-whoever-gets-elected-its-the-Pentagon-that-wins Tue, 15 May 2012 16:45:06 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245502-Meet-the-new-normal-Fordham-University-to-give-Honorary-Doctorate-in-Humane-Letters-to-Kidnap-Torture-and-Drone-Killings-Advocate-John-Brennan In this season of graduations - and the rush to bestow honorary degrees on the "great and powerful" - one ironic moment will play out at Fordham University, where Jesuits are giving top billing among its honorees to White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan, notes Fordham grad (and ex-CIA analyst) Ray McGovern. Since even readers of the New York Times are aware of deputy national security adviser John Brennan's open identification with torture, secret prisons and other abuses of national and international law, Fordham University's invitation to him to give the commencement address on May 19 brought, well, shock and awe to many Fordham students, faculty and alumni. It now turns out we didn't know the half of it. Piling outrage upon indignity, Fordham announced this week that Brennan will enjoy pride of place among the "eight notables" on whom it will confer honorary degrees at commencement. The others receiving a Doctorate in Humane Letters, honoris causa, include Timothy Cardinal Dolan (Archbishop of New York), and Brooklyn congressman Edolphus Towns. Unlike his co-recipients, Brennan is widely known for his advocacy of kidnapping-for-torture (aka "extraordinary rendition") and killing "militants" (including U.S. citizens) with "Hellfire" missiles fired by "Predator" and "Reaper" drone aircraft. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245502-Meet-the-new-normal-Fordham-University-to-give-Honorary-Doctorate-in-Humane-Letters-to-Kidnap-Torture-and-Drone-Killings-Advocate-John-Brennan Tue, 15 May 2012 15:54:27 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245437-Idiocy-as-WMD Borges writes, "dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy." As a preeminent mind, Borges rightly considers the mind to be a man's greatest asset, for without mind, a man is nothing. The more oppressive a political system, then, the greater its assault on its subjects' minds, for it's not enough for any dictator, king or totalitarian system to oppress and exploit, but it must, and I mean must, make its people idiotic as well. Every wrongful bullet is preceded and accompanied, then followed up by a series of idiotic lies, but we're so used to such a moronic diet by now, our trepanned intelligentsia don't even squirm in their tenured chairs. Sane men and women don't consent to kill, rob and rape, much less be killed, robbed and raped, least of all to enrich their masters, and that's why their minds must be molested as early and as much as possible. Hence our nonstop media brainwashing us from the cradle, literally, to the grave. Fixated by flickering boxes, even infants are now mind-conditioned to become scatterbrained idiots before they stagger into kindergarten, to begin a lifelong process of becoming docile and slogan-shouting Democrats and Republicans. Yes, savages killed, but, like apes and monkeys, our ancestors, they mostly tried to intimidate and trash talk their way out of conflicts. There wasn't a lot of murdering after the haka, frankly. They didn't wipe out entire cities by defecating exploding metal from the sky, nor sit in a brightly lit and spic-and-span office stroking a joy stick to ejaculate missiles half a planet away. Drone hell fire for y'all, with sides of bank-sponsored debt slavery and austerity, plus an unlimited refill of American pop bullshit. Would you like a public suicide with that? No, sir, these savages need to take webcast courses from us sophisticates when it comes to genocide, or ecocide, or any other kind of cides you can think of. When it comes to pure, unadulterated savagery, these quaint brutes ain't got shit on us plugged-in netizens chillaxin' in that shiny upside down condo on da capital-punishment-for the-entire-world, y'all, hill. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245437-Idiocy-as-WMD Mon, 14 May 2012 17:26:21 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245434-The-Case-of-the-Missing-Terrorists Who is Jose Rodriguez? He is the criminal who ran the CIA torture program. Most of his victims were not terrorists or even insurgents. Most were hapless individuals kidnapped by warlords and sold to the Americans as "terrorists" for the bounty paid. If Rodriguez's identity was previously a secret, it is no more. He has been on CBS 60 Minutes taking credit for torturing Muslims and using the information allegedly gained to kill leaders of al Qaeda. If terrorists were really the problem that Homeland Security, the FBI and CIA claim, Rodriguez's name would be a struck through item on the terrorists' hit list. He would be in his grave. So, also, would be John Yoo, who wrote the Justice (sic) Department memos giving the green light to torture, despite US and International laws prohibiting torture. Apparently, Yoo, a professor at the Boalt School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, was ignorant of US and international law. And so was the US Department of Justice (sic). Notice that Rodriguez, "The Torturer of the Muslims," doesn't have to hide. He can go on national television, reveal his identity, and revel in his success in torturing and murdering Muslims. Rodriguez has no Secret Service protection and would be an easy mark for assassination by terrorists so capable as to have, allegedly, pulled off 9/11. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245434-The-Case-of-the-Missing-Terrorists Mon, 14 May 2012 16:59:02 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245431-Psychopaths-in-Power-Colonized-by-Corporations In Robert E. Gamer's book The Developing Nations is a chapter called "Why Men Do Not Revolt". In it Gamer notes that although the oppressed often do revolt, the object of their hostility is misplaced. They vent their fury on a political puppet, someone who masks colonial power, a despised racial or ethnic group or an apostate within their own political class. The useless battles serve as an effective mask for what Gamer calls the "patron-client" networks that are responsible for the continuity of colonial oppression. The squabbles among the oppressed, the political campaigns between candidates who each are servants of colonial power, Gamer writes, absolve the actual centers of power from addressing the conditions that cause the frustrations of the people. Inequities, political disenfranchisement and injustices are never seriously addressed. "The government merely does the minimum necessary to prevent those few who are prone toward political action from organizing into politically effective groups," he writes. Gamer and many others who study the nature of colonial rule offer the best insights into the functioning of our corporate state. We have been, like nations on the periphery of empire, colonized. We are controlled by tiny corporate entities that have no loyalty to the nation and indeed in the language of traditional patriotism are traitors. They strip us of our resources, keep us politically passive and enrich themselves at our expense. The mechanisms of control are familiar to those whom the Martinique-born French psychiatrist and writer Frantz Fanon called "the wretched of the earth," including African-Americans. The colonized are denied job security. Incomes are reduced to subsistence level. The poor are plunged into desperation. Mass movements, such as labor unions, are dismantled. The school system is degraded so only the elites have access to a superior education. Laws are written to legalize corporate plunder and abuse, as well as criminalize dissent. And the ensuing fear and instability - keenly felt this past weekend by the more than 200,000 Americans who lost their unemployment benefits - ensure political passivity by diverting all personal energy toward survival. It is an old, old game. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245431-Psychopaths-in-Power-Colonized-by-Corporations Mon, 14 May 2012 16:10:22 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245396-Third-Intifada-imminent-as-multiple-Palestinian-hunger-strikers-on-verge-of-death Tony Blair urges action and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas fears potential 'disaster that no one could control' Demonstrations in the West Bank and Gaza in support of about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike are escalating amid efforts by Egyptian mediators to broker a deal to avoid protests spiralling out of control if a detainee dies. Two prisoners, who have refused food for 77 days, are thought to be close to death with another six in a critical condition, say Palestinian groups. The Israeli prison service (IPS) says no one's life is at risk. In an unusual intervention, Tony Blair, the representative of the Middle East quartet, urged Israel to "take all necessary measures to prevent a tragic outcome that could have serious implications for stability and security conditions on the ground". He said he was "increasingly concerned about the deteriorating health conditions" of hunger strikers. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245396-Third-Intifada-imminent-as-multiple-Palestinian-hunger-strikers-on-verge-of-death Sun, 13 May 2012 15:47:38 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245390-Bush-Cheney-and-Rumsfeld-Convicted-of-War-Crimes-in-Absentia Kuala Lumpur - It's official; George W Bush is a war criminal. In what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world, the former US President and seven key members of his administration were yesterday (Fri) found guilty of war crimes. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia. The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. They included testimony from British man Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee and Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi who was tortured in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245390-Bush-Cheney-and-Rumsfeld-Convicted-of-War-Crimes-in-Absentia Sun, 13 May 2012 11:39:36 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245362-Can-Psychopathy-in-Children-be-Cured- One day last summer, Anne and her husband, Miguel, took their 9-year-old son, Michael, to a Florida elementary school for the first day of what the family chose to call "summer camp." For years, Anne and Miguel have struggled to understand their eldest son, an elegant boy with high-planed cheeks, wide eyes and curly light brown hair, whose periodic rages alternate with moments of chilly detachment. Michael's eight-week program was, in reality, a highly structured psychological study - less summer camp than camp of last resort. Michael's problems started, according to his mother, around age 3, shortly after his brother Allan was born. At the time, she said, Michael was mostly just acting "like a brat," but his behavior soon escalated to throwing tantrums during which he would scream and shriek inconsolably. These weren't ordinary toddler's fits. "It wasn't, 'I'm tired' or 'I'm frustrated' - the normal things kids do," Anne remembered. "His behavior was really out there. And it would happen for hours and hours each day, no matter what we did." For several years, Michael screamed every time his parents told him to put on his shoes or perform other ordinary tasks, like retrieving one of his toys from the living room. "Going somewhere, staying somewhere - anything would set him off," Miguel said. These furies lasted well beyond toddlerhood. At 8, Michael would still fly into a rage when Anne or Miguel tried to get him ready for school, punching the wall and kicking holes in the door. Left unwatched, he would cut up his trousers with scissors or methodically pull his hair out. He would also vent his anger by slamming the toilet seat down again and again until it broke. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245362-Can-Psychopathy-in-Children-be-Cured- Sun, 13 May 2012 06:03:51 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245311-Farage-We-face-the-prospect-of-mass-civil-unrest-even-revolution European Parliament, Brussels, 9 May 2012 Speaker: Nigel Farage MEP, Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), Co-President of the 'Europe of Freedom and Democracy' (EFD) Group in the European Parliament Debate: Statement by the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz MEP, on the occasion of Europe Day http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245311-Farage-We-face-the-prospect-of-mass-civil-unrest-even-revolution Fri, 11 May 2012 18:14:24 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245286-Inside-The-Dream-State-Why-The-CIA-Loves-Mass-Hypnosis-And-Mind-Control-So-Much "Dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange." - Inception (2010). Director/Writer: Christopher Nolan. "We believe the hypnotist - the "official culture" - and we are able, with preternatural cunning, to deny what is often right in front of our faces." - Laura Knight-Jadczyk, "Mass Mind Control." "Movies are an authoritarian medium. They vulnerabilize you and then dominate you. Part of the magic of going to a movie is surrendering to it, letting it dominate you." - David Foster Wallace. "Hypnos is the God of Sleep, which he induces with purest opium smoked through a horn. He could also be the God of Dangerous Addictions, as he works for Hades with his brother Thanatos, the God of Death." - Godchecker. "Hypnos enters the sleep of mortals and, at the bidding of the Olympians, gives them dreams of foolishness or inspiration, depending on the individual and their divine protectors or enemies. Hypnos is husband to Aglia, one of the Graces, because he did a very dangerous favor for Hera. During the Trojan War, Hera wanted to distract Zeus from the battle so she could assist the Achaians, who seemed to be losing the war. She wanted Hypnos to cast a spell of sleep on Zeus but he refused. At first Hera offered Hypnos a golden throne crafted by her son Hephaestus but she was forced to raise the ante when Hypnos reminded her of the only time he had dared cast sleep on Zeus. Long before the Trojan War, Hera was angry at Heracles and she had persuaded Hypnos to make Zeus sleep while she tormented the hero. When Zeus awoke, he was in a rage. He searched for Hypnos and finally found him hiding in the arms of his mother, Nyx (Night). Zeus overcame his anger and simply warned Hypnos not to try such a trick again, and Hypnos went unpunished. In preparation for this new deception, Hypnos made Hera swear oaths of her sincerity. He agreed to help her deceive Zeus for the hand of one of the Graces, Aglia (or Pasithea). He turned himself into a bird and, before Zeus could see him, hid in the tops of the trees on Mount Ida. He stayed hidden until Hera had seduced Zeus. When the father of gods was dulled by pleasure and sleep, Hypnos flew to Poseidon and urged him to increase his efforts in helping the Akhaians because Zeus was asleep and unaware of the Earth Shaker's meddling. Poseidon strode through the ranks of soldiers and urged them on. Finally, his bellowing and screeching roused Zeus from his slumber but, in that short time, the Akhaians had turned the battle back on the Trojans. Hera's trick had worked. Zeus never found out that Hypnos had betrayed him (again)." - Stewart, Michael. "Hypnos", Greek Mythology: From the Iliad to the Fall of the Last Tyrant. "Oh Zeus Universal, if you hear our song, Show us again your immortal power In this darkest hour." - Sophocles: Oedipus the King. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245286-Inside-The-Dream-State-Why-The-CIA-Loves-Mass-Hypnosis-And-Mind-Control-So-Much Thu, 10 May 2012 20:33:58 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245285-Muslim-Baby-Ordered-Off-Plane-For-Being-On-No-Fly-List An 18-month-old girl and her parents were pulled off a JetBlue flight Tuesday because the child was on the no-fly list, reports WPBF 25 West Palm Beach. Riyanna and her parents had just boarded the flight at the Ft. Lauderdale airport, when they were approached by an airline employee telling them the TSA wanted to speak with them. Her parents, who asked to remain anonymous, think their little girl was singled out because the family is of Middle Eastern descent. Both parents were born and raised in New Jersey. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245285-Muslim-Baby-Ordered-Off-Plane-For-Being-On-No-Fly-List Thu, 10 May 2012 20:26:15 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245277-The-spectacle-of-terror-and-its-vested-interests The news stories, which quickly surface, long enough to cause scary headlines, then vanish before people can learn how often the cases are thrown out. These are stories about "bumbling fantasists", hapless druggies, the aimless, even the virtually homeless and mentally ill, and other marginal characters with not the strongest grip on reality, who have been lured into discourses about violence against America only after assiduous courting, and in some cases outright payment, by undercover FBI or police informants. They have become a litany in recent years. The terrifying 2003-2004 national news stories that a Detroit "sleeper cell" had sent Muslim terrorists to blow up Disneyland and other landmarks, including in Las Vegas, was later thrown out of court, with accusations of prosecutorial misconduct, to almost no press attention - the same cycle of hype and failed convictions that have characterized many such stories. The evidence had included a home video taken in Disneyland, "doodles", and a guy with a credit card fraud problem, who had been pressured to diminish his own sentence by accusing his buddies. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245277-The-spectacle-of-terror-and-its-vested-interests Thu, 10 May 2012 16:17:32 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245236-Did-Obama-Really-Kill-Osama- We just passed the one-year anniversary of the (alleged) execution of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. But, did he really live until 2011? Ten years earlier, in 2001, his kidneys were failing, and he was on dialysis. Do you know what the life expectancy is for dialysis patients in the United States? Unless you get a kidney transplant (and Osama did not) the average life expectancy is 5 years. And that presumes that top-notch medical care is provided, which may be hard to come by in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan. And being on the run and living in hiding can't possibly help the situation. However, Osama bin laden had a lot of other health problems besides kidney disease. They included insulin-dependent diabetes, hepatitis, osteoporosis, an enlarged heart, anemia, abnormally low blood pressure, and Marfan's syndrome. [See Nicholas Kollerstrom, "Osama bin Laden: 1957-2001" which can be found on jamesfetzer.blogspot.com, and David Ray Griffin, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? (2009).] The picture below is of Osama bin Laden from 2001, and below it is an image of him from 2011 which was released by the Pentagon immediately after the raid. I think you'll agree that in the first picture, he looks rather pale and ashen and quite sickly, and in the second picture he looks quite robust. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245236-Did-Obama-Really-Kill-Osama- Wed, 09 May 2012 10:55:04 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245216-The-Yemen-Underwear-Bomb-and-Other-Hobgoblins Today it was widely reported that the CIA thwarted a "plot by al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb." This bomb, which was to be concealed in a pair of underwear, was designed as an improvement over what Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to use to blow up an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day of 2009. This bomb was upgraded and designed to specifically avoid metal detectors. At first glance it would appear to be a job well done by the world's leading domestic affairs meddlers. But like all of these instances, it was routinely denied "there was ever any immediate threat to the public." It was also revealed that: The bomb plot had allegedly advanced to the point that a would-be suicide bomber was told to buy a ticket on the airliner of his choosing and decide the timing of the attack. It's not immediately clear what happened to the would-be bomber. It would seem that what the CIA recovered was essentially just a crudely made bomb. The supposed bomber was nowhere to be found. There is no evidence presented as to a real threat or plan to use it. The truth was finally revealed as the would-be bomber was, in fact, a double agent of the CIA. When considering the nature of the state, this new instance of government supported terrorism is unsurprisingly comparable to previous cases. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245216-The-Yemen-Underwear-Bomb-and-Other-Hobgoblins Wed, 09 May 2012 00:20:28 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/222330-Attorney-Haskell-Blows-Whistle-on-Underwear-Bomber-Government-Op I contend that this story is just the tip of the iceberg into the US government's black operations to further the Patriot Act, funding for Homeland Security and the TSA, and to keep intensity up for the so called War on Terror. Respected lawyer and community leader, Kurt Haskell, has nothing to gain from pointing his finger at the federal government. He witnessed the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, being whisked past security and led onto NorthWest Airlines flight 253, by a well-dressed man with an American accent- all without the passenger's proper visa and passport documentation. What the news piece doesn't mention is that the State Dept did indeed put Mutallab on the plane, at the behest of "an unnamed US intelligence agency." Undersecretary Patrick F. Kennedy (Detroit news article was removed from web!). http://www.sott.net/articles/show/222330-Attorney-Haskell-Blows-Whistle-on-Underwear-Bomber-Government-Op Tue, 08 May 2012 18:47:48 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245210-Fake-War-on-Terror-Underwear-Bomber-2-0-was-CIA-Double-Agent The would-be suicide bomber dispatched by the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month to blow up a United States-bound airliner was actually an intelligence agent for Saudi Arabia who infiltrated the terrorist group and volunteered for the suicide mission, American and foreign officials said Tuesday. In an extraordinary intelligence coup, the double agent left Yemen, traveling by way of the United Arab Emirates, and delivered both the innovative bomb designed for his air attack and critical information on the group's leaders to the C.I.A., Saudi and other foreign intelligence agencies. After spending weeks at the center of the terrorist network's most dangerous affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the agent provided critical information that permitted the C.I.A. to direct the drone strike on Sunday that killed Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso, the group's external operations director and a suspect in the bombing of the American destroyer Cole in Yemen in 2000. He also handed over the bomb, designed by the group's top explosives expert to be invisible to airport security, to the F.B.I., which is analyzing its properties. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245210-Fake-War-on-Terror-Underwear-Bomber-2-0-was-CIA-Double-Agent Tue, 08 May 2012 18:44:28 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245178-FBI-Informer-Entraps-Occupy-Protestors-Into-US-Government-Plot-to-Blow-Up-Cleveland-Bridge The latest plot involves five subjects allegedly planning to bomb a Cleveland area bridge. More on it below. Entrapment occurs when law enforcement officials or agents induce, influence, or provoke crimes that otherwise wouldn't be committed. It doesn't apply if subjects willingly act lawlessly. Government aiding, abetting, or facilitating them is considered lawful. Entrapment involves government operatives initiating the idea. If individuals go along under pressure despite no intent or desire to do so, they committed no crime. To convict, prosecutors must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that subjects weren't entrapped. Otherwise, judicial fairness requires exoneration. That's not how things turn out today. Innocence or guilt doesn't matter. Once charged, prosecutorial misconduct and right-wing courts convict. Juries are pressured and intimidated to go along even in cases with no plot, no crime, or intent to commit one. Attorney Eric Holder defends the practice. He calls stings a vital tool. He stops short of admitting entrapment. He must because it's illegal. It's nonetheless repeatedly used to convict innocent people. As a result, hundreds rot unjustly in America's gulag. Gerald Celente calls cops enforcers for crime bosses. So are FBI agents. They serve wealth and power. Corporate crooks are rewarded. Ordinary people are targeted. Familiar story lines repeat. They sound more like film plots than real ones. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245178-FBI-Informer-Entraps-Occupy-Protestors-Into-US-Government-Plot-to-Blow-Up-Cleveland-Bridge Tue, 08 May 2012 09:27:02 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245130-Up-to-half-of-all-Palestinian-prisoners-now-on-hunger-strike-10-transferred-to-Israeli-hospitals A senior Hamas official warned Israel on Friday of dire consequences if any Palestinian prisoners die as a result of an ongoing hunger strike. Two imprisoned Palestinians, Bilal Diab, 34, and Thaer Halahla, 27, have refused food for 66 days, and over 1,550 Palestinian security detainees have joined their strike since April 17. Diab made matters worse on Saturday by refusing medical treatment. Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian envoy to the UN, said that Diab and Halahla are suffering from "life-threatening conditions, including severe weight loss, nerve damage, dehydration, decreased muscle tone and low blood pressure." They were reportedly transferred to an Israeli hospital on Friday. In total, 10 Palestinian prisoners were transferred to Israeli hospitals as a result of the hunger strike, according to Mansour. The 10 men are among 1,500 to 2,500 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike to demand better conditions and an end to detention without trial. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245130-Up-to-half-of-all-Palestinian-prisoners-now-on-hunger-strike-10-transferred-to-Israeli-hospitals Mon, 07 May 2012 16:47:48 -0500 http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245122-The-People-s-Bishop Retired Episcopal Bishop George Packard was arrested in Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza in New York City last Tuesday night as he participated in the May 1 Occupy demonstrations. He and 15 other military veterans were taken into custody after they linked arms to hold the plaza against a police attempt to clear it. There were protesters behind them who, perhaps because of confusion, perhaps because of miscommunication or perhaps they were unwilling to risk arrest, melted into the urban landscape. But those in the thin line from Veterans for Peace, of which the bishop is a member, stood their ground. They were handcuffed, herded into a paddy wagon and taken to jail. It was Packard's second arrest as part of the Occupy protests. Last Dec. 17 he was arrested when he leapt over a fence in his flowing bishop's robe to spearhead an attempt to occupy a vacant lot owned by Trinity Church in lower Manhattan. The December action by the Occupy movement was a response to the New York City Police Department's storming and eradication of the encampment in Zuccotti Park. Packard will appear in court in June to face the trespassing charge that resulted. Now, because of this second arrest, he faces the possibility of three months in jail. http://www.sott.net/articles/show/245122-The-People-s-Bishop Mon, 07 May 2012 13:58:51 -0500