Guantanamo suicides a PR move, says US
A top US official has described the suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a "good PR move to draw attention".
Colleen Graffy told the BBC the deaths were part of a strategy and "a tactic to further the jihadi cause", but taking their own lives was unnecessary.
But lawyers say the men who hanged themselves had been driven by despair. There have been dozens of suicide attempts since the camp was set up four years ago - but none successful until now.
[Ken Roth, head of Human Rights Watch in New York, said the men had probably been driven by despair.
"These people are despairing because they are being held lawlessly. There's no end in sight. They're not being brought before any independent judges. They're not being charged and convicted for any crime." ]
Monday, June 12, 2006
Thursday, June 08, 2006
INVISIBLE MAN
Invisibility cloak leaves the realm of magic at last
HIDING objects inside a cloak that channels light around them to make it look as if they aren't there may soon be possible thanks to a breakthrough idea by materials scientists.
It raises the prospect of invisibility shields that could hide objects sitting right under your nose.
Objects are visible simply because light scatters off their surfaces and into your eyes. So in theory, a cloaking device could work by steering light around an object so that you see only the light from behind it, and not the object itself.
Now John Pendry, a theoretical physicist at Imperial College London, and his colleagues have worked out how this could be done with a spherical cloak that channels light around an object hidden at its centre.
FLASHBACK: Alienation News May, 2004: On the battlefield, an invisibility cloak could be just the ticket. Straight out of a Harry Potter adventure, the cloak is covered with tiny light-reflective beads. It appears to be transparent as it's fitted with cameras which project what is in front of the wearer onto the back of the cloak, and vice versa.
HIDING objects inside a cloak that channels light around them to make it look as if they aren't there may soon be possible thanks to a breakthrough idea by materials scientists.
It raises the prospect of invisibility shields that could hide objects sitting right under your nose.
Objects are visible simply because light scatters off their surfaces and into your eyes. So in theory, a cloaking device could work by steering light around an object so that you see only the light from behind it, and not the object itself.
Now John Pendry, a theoretical physicist at Imperial College London, and his colleagues have worked out how this could be done with a spherical cloak that channels light around an object hidden at its centre.
FLASHBACK: Alienation News May, 2004: On the battlefield, an invisibility cloak could be just the ticket. Straight out of a Harry Potter adventure, the cloak is covered with tiny light-reflective beads. It appears to be transparent as it's fitted with cameras which project what is in front of the wearer onto the back of the cloak, and vice versa.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
GET A MAC
NSA Builds Security Access Into Windows
A careless mistake by Microsoft programmers has shown that special access codes for use by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) have been secretly built into all versions of the Windows operating system.
Computer-security specialists have been aware for two years that unusual features are contained inside a standard Windows driver used for security and encryption functions. The driver, called ADVAPI.DLL, enables and controls a range of security functions including the Microsoft Cryptographic API (MS-CAPI). In particular, it authenticates modules signed by Microsoft, letting them run without user intervention.
At last year's Crypto 98 conference, British cryptography specialist Nicko van Someren said he had disassembled the driver and found it contained two different keys. One was used by Microsoft to control the cryptographic functions enabled in Windows, in compliance with U.S. export regulations. But the reason for building in a second key, or who owned it, remained a mystery.
[Now, a North Carolina security company has come up with conclusive evidence the second key belongs to the NSA. Like van Someren, Andrew Fernandes, chief scientist with Cryptonym of Morrisville, North Carolina, had been probing the presence and significance of the two keys. Then he checked the latest Service Pack release for Windows NT4, Service Pack 5.
He found Microsoft's developers had failed to remove or "strip" the debugging symbols used to test this software before they released it. Inside the code were the labels for the two keys. One was called "KEY." The other was called "NSAKEY."]
A careless mistake by Microsoft programmers has shown that special access codes for use by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) have been secretly built into all versions of the Windows operating system.
Computer-security specialists have been aware for two years that unusual features are contained inside a standard Windows driver used for security and encryption functions. The driver, called ADVAPI.DLL, enables and controls a range of security functions including the Microsoft Cryptographic API (MS-CAPI). In particular, it authenticates modules signed by Microsoft, letting them run without user intervention.
At last year's Crypto 98 conference, British cryptography specialist Nicko van Someren said he had disassembled the driver and found it contained two different keys. One was used by Microsoft to control the cryptographic functions enabled in Windows, in compliance with U.S. export regulations. But the reason for building in a second key, or who owned it, remained a mystery.
[Now, a North Carolina security company has come up with conclusive evidence the second key belongs to the NSA. Like van Someren, Andrew Fernandes, chief scientist with Cryptonym of Morrisville, North Carolina, had been probing the presence and significance of the two keys. Then he checked the latest Service Pack release for Windows NT4, Service Pack 5.
He found Microsoft's developers had failed to remove or "strip" the debugging symbols used to test this software before they released it. Inside the code were the labels for the two keys. One was called "KEY." The other was called "NSAKEY."]
SUFFER THE CHILDREN
The Purpose Driven Life-Takers
Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City.
You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice.
You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old.
[You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life.]
Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City.
You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice.
You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old.
[You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life.]
REEFER MADNESS
Study Shows Marijuana Smoke Does Not Raise Cancer Risk
A study presented at a meeting of the American Thoracic Society found that smoking marijuana, even heavily, does not increase the risk of cancer.
Dr. Donald Tashkin, of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, has studied the effects of marijuana on the lungs for years and had expected the study to reveal that heavy marijuana use results in elevated cancer risk.
Past studies have yielded varied results on this question, but most were conducted on a small scale and possibly affected by bias. The large-scale UCLA study focused on 2,200 people, about 1,200 of whom had lung, oral, laryngeal or esophageal cancer.
The findings of the study now have researchers considering the possibility that marijuana may have a protective effect against cancer, perhaps deterring tumor growth.
[Past studies have shown marijuana smoke to contain many of the same carcinogenic chemicals found in cigarette smoke.]
A study presented at a meeting of the American Thoracic Society found that smoking marijuana, even heavily, does not increase the risk of cancer.
Dr. Donald Tashkin, of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, has studied the effects of marijuana on the lungs for years and had expected the study to reveal that heavy marijuana use results in elevated cancer risk.
Past studies have yielded varied results on this question, but most were conducted on a small scale and possibly affected by bias. The large-scale UCLA study focused on 2,200 people, about 1,200 of whom had lung, oral, laryngeal or esophageal cancer.
The findings of the study now have researchers considering the possibility that marijuana may have a protective effect against cancer, perhaps deterring tumor growth.
[Past studies have shown marijuana smoke to contain many of the same carcinogenic chemicals found in cigarette smoke.]
MARK OF THE BEAST
Proposal to Implant Tracking Chips in Immigrants
Scott Silverman, Chairman of the Board of VeriChip Corporation, has proposed implanting the company's RFID tracking tags in immigrant and guest workers. He made the statement on national television on May 16.
Silverman was being interviewed on "Fox & Friends." Responding to the Bush administration's call to know "who is in our country and why they are here," he proposed using VeriChip RFID implants to register workers at the border, and then verify their identities in the workplace. He added, "We have talked to many people in Washington about using it...."
[The VeriChip is a very small Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag about the size of a large grain of rice. It can be injected directly into the body; a special coating on the casing helps the VeriChip bond with living tissue and stay in place. A special RFID reader broadcasts a signal, and the antenna in the VeriChip draws power from the signal and sends its data. The VeriChip is a passive RFID tag; since it does not require a battery, it has a virtually unlimited life span.]
Thursday, June 01, 2006
UP GO THE WALLS
The Botswana Zimbabwe border: much of it now fenced.
Botswana, Zimbabwe row over electric border fence
Relations between Botswana and Zimbabwe are reported to be deteriorating as the Batswana government continues to construct an electric fence along the two countries' border. Botswana is fencing out the increasing numbers of Zimbabweans fleeing their country's economic and political collapse.
The Zimbabwean government has claimed that "Botswana is trying to create another Gaza Strip" by constructing an electric fence, according to Zimbabwe's High Commissioner to Botswana, Phelekeza Mphoko. In Harare, the 2.4 metre high fence has caused protest and frustration, as it is seen as a symbol of the growing stigmatisation of Zimbabweans.
[Earlier this year the government of Botswana decided to erect a four metre-high electric fence along the 500km border shortly after an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in that area.]
US border fence plan 'shameful'
The 260-159 voice vote on an amendment to a bill on illegal immigration "mandates the construction of specific security fencing, including lights and cameras, along the Southwest border for the purposes of gaining operational control of the border.
Mexican President Vicente Fox has described a US proposal to build a fence along 1130km of their 3200km border as "shameful".
He said the proposal - which Mexican officials have compared to the Berlin Wall - was a "very bad signal" from a nation of immigrants.
The US House of Representatives passed an immigration bill last week, backing the building of such a fence.
The 'separation barrier".
Israel's 'security wall': the findings
According to Reuters, the leaked report from the international court of justice has condemned Israel's barrier.
"The Court ... finds that the construction of the wall, and its associated regime, are contrary to international law."
Israel's security 'fence' lines are still fluid. Click image for large version (2.5mb).
Despite the fact that Israel has the better arguments regarding both the jurisdiction and merits, the World Court will most likely accept jurisdiction and declare that the fence - at least in its current route - is a violation of international law. The arguments outlined above will likely have little impact on the court, especially since it has previously stated that the political context or implications of an opinion would not affect its decision-making.31 -- Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs
And what is happening in Giza?
Walls Encircle Pyramidal Complex at Giza
Since the beginning of 2002, Dr. J.J. Hurtak and a European team of investigators and explorers have been recording the construction of a massive system of walls being placed around the historic pyramidal sites and the larger unexcavated area of Giza, Egypt — an area covering 8 square km.
The walls have been built in stages. Images taken in February of 2002 reveal the walls extending far out into the desert where, for the most part, they have not been noticeable to the average visitor.
[Are these walls being built for a few experts who are to find an underground sphinx or obelisk, or a connection between Osiris and the constellation of Orion? Are the chambers of the deep being closed in the 21st century to students of world culture history?]
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
PARROT SKETCH
Is this parrot psychic? Try a pollygraph test.
Aimée Morgana noticed that her language-using African Grey parrot, N'kisi, often seemed to respond to her thoughts and intentions in a seemingly telepathic manner. We set up a series of trials to test whether this apparent telepathic ability would be expressed in formal testing.
He scored 23 hits: the mean number of hits expected by chance was 12, with a standard deviation of 3.
Listen to N'kisi here. It is difficult to discern which is the human and which is the smart one.
[Parrot's oratory stuns scientists (January 2004)]
COINCIDENCE?
Kazakh 'lighter' tower catches fire
[Kazakhstan's tallest building, affectionately known to locals as "the cigarette lighter" due to its shape, has lived up to its name by catching fire.]
[Kazakhstan's tallest building, affectionately known to locals as "the cigarette lighter" due to its shape, has lived up to its name by catching fire.]
DOOMED, DOOMED
Prof. James Lovelock talks about the fate of humanity.
This has nothing to do with global warming but ...
Carbon in the ocean is changing its chemistry; coral reefs are in danger and creatures with shells may be destroyed.
CO2 enters the ocean as a dissolved gas, it reacts with the sea water and it is making the ocean more acidic.
Since the pre-industrial 1800s to the present, the ocean's acidity has increased by about 0.1 pH units.
[This really is an effect independent of global warming. As we show in the Arctic, global warming can make the problem even worse. – Dr Richard Matear at CSIRO in Hobart has published his research in Nature, and there's more to come.]
Monday, May 29, 2006
HOWARD'S WAY
Political Amnesia and Howard's Ten Years
The mainstream press's analysis of "Ten Years of Howard" has involved a massive dose of political amnesia. A pattern of Government lies and racism is all but ignored. Instead Howard is lauded for his "mainstream" values and for keeping down interest rates.
So what about:
- The "$8 billion dollar black hole" the government discovered upon election to office that meant it had "no choice" but to slash public funding for health, welfare and education.
- the introduction of the regressive GST despite denials before coming to office of their intentions
- the curtailing of Native Title rights with the Wik legislation.
- the lies and secrets surrounding the training of scabs by the military in Dubai prior to the MUA dispute where the PM and senior Ministers lied about their involvement
- the Children Overboard scandal where the Prime Minister and his senior ministers again lied
- the racist treatment of the Tampa and the subsequent establishment of the "Pacific Solution"
- the lies and cruelty that has occurred in the past decade in the running of on-shore immigration detention facilities.
- Howard's implicit support for the ideas of Pauline Hanson through "dog whistle statements" and a refusal to condemn her ideas and then the subsequent adoption of much of her platform
- the wrongful imprisonment and deportation of Australian citizens in Australian immigration detention
- the lies surrounding the invasion of Iraq
- the failure to sign the Kyoto Agreement and massive subsidies to the coal industry. They have also promoted the expansion of Uranium mining and other parts of the nuclear cycle such as reactors and waste dumps.
- the AWB lies
- the introduction of regressive and unpopular IR laws
- ballooning spending on Defence as the Government increasing make the Australian military another division of the U.S. "Foreign Legion".
- the racist scapegoating of Muslims both at home and abroad
- the introduction of draconian and undemocratic security laws which have wiped out centuries of hard won legal rights such as the presumption of innocence and the right to not be detained without trail.
The mainstream press's analysis of "Ten Years of Howard" has involved a massive dose of political amnesia. A pattern of Government lies and racism is all but ignored. Instead Howard is lauded for his "mainstream" values and for keeping down interest rates.
So what about:
- The "$8 billion dollar black hole" the government discovered upon election to office that meant it had "no choice" but to slash public funding for health, welfare and education.
- the introduction of the regressive GST despite denials before coming to office of their intentions
- the curtailing of Native Title rights with the Wik legislation.
- the lies and secrets surrounding the training of scabs by the military in Dubai prior to the MUA dispute where the PM and senior Ministers lied about their involvement
- the Children Overboard scandal where the Prime Minister and his senior ministers again lied
- the racist treatment of the Tampa and the subsequent establishment of the "Pacific Solution"
- the lies and cruelty that has occurred in the past decade in the running of on-shore immigration detention facilities.
- Howard's implicit support for the ideas of Pauline Hanson through "dog whistle statements" and a refusal to condemn her ideas and then the subsequent adoption of much of her platform
- the wrongful imprisonment and deportation of Australian citizens in Australian immigration detention
- the lies surrounding the invasion of Iraq
- the failure to sign the Kyoto Agreement and massive subsidies to the coal industry. They have also promoted the expansion of Uranium mining and other parts of the nuclear cycle such as reactors and waste dumps.
- the AWB lies
- the introduction of regressive and unpopular IR laws
- ballooning spending on Defence as the Government increasing make the Australian military another division of the U.S. "Foreign Legion".
- the racist scapegoating of Muslims both at home and abroad
- the introduction of draconian and undemocratic security laws which have wiped out centuries of hard won legal rights such as the presumption of innocence and the right to not be detained without trail.
POWER OF ONE
David Hicks before his Guantanamo nightmare began.
Anti-war mum Cindy Sheehan slams Australian PM Howard
Australian Pime Minister John Howard was an illegal combatant waging a war of terror against the world, a prominent US anti-war activist told a peace rally in Melbourne today.
Cindy Sheehan, whose volunteer soldier son Casey, 24, was killed in Baghdad two years ago, called for an end to the Iraq war and for the closure of Guantanamo Bay prison, where Australian citizen David Hicks is incarcerated.
"Our governments are saying they (Guantanamo Bay inmates) don't deserve civil rights because they're illegal enemy combatants," Ms Sheehan told the rally.
"George Bush and John Howard and Tony Blair are illegal combatants, there's nothing about this war on terror that is legal.
"These people (world leaders) perpetuate the torture and the killing and they're still allowed to run free and live in society, except George Bush; he can't go outside unprotected he has to ride around in cars that are better armoured than the one my son was killed in."
Ms Sheehan was speaking at a protest rally outside the Australian Liberal Party offices in Exhibition street.
She told about 200 people the war on terror was immoral and eroded basic civil and human rights.
She said prisoners such as David Hicks – who has been incarcerated for four years after being captured training with the Taliban in Afghanistan – deserved to be treated with humanity and justice.
As for the soldiers, we must "get them the hell out of Iraq".
STALAG GITMO
Trouble at Guantanamo
Something happened at Guantanamo Bay this month. Was it an uprising? Or was it made to look that way?
Moazzam Begg, the Birmingham bookshop owner released from the camp last year, said the detention cells were too closely monitored and controlled for inmates to organise a revolt so well. Clive Stafford Smith and Brent Mickum, defence lawyers who regularly visit clients in the base, said they suspected the official accounts were "rubbish".
Begg, who was seized by the CIA in Pakistan in 2002, said he was sceptical that inmates would be able to avoid the round-the-clock surveillance by CCTV cameras, foot patrols and watchtowers to make and hide weapons.
Several guards suffered "cuts, scrapes and bruises, just like a good football game," according to Colonel Mike Burngarner, the base's chief of detention operations.
[Next month, the US Supreme Court is due to deliver a critical ruling on whether President Bush's administration can legally refuse to block legal hearings for the 460 inmates now there. ]
Something happened at Guantanamo Bay this month. Was it an uprising? Or was it made to look that way?
Moazzam Begg, the Birmingham bookshop owner released from the camp last year, said the detention cells were too closely monitored and controlled for inmates to organise a revolt so well. Clive Stafford Smith and Brent Mickum, defence lawyers who regularly visit clients in the base, said they suspected the official accounts were "rubbish".
Begg, who was seized by the CIA in Pakistan in 2002, said he was sceptical that inmates would be able to avoid the round-the-clock surveillance by CCTV cameras, foot patrols and watchtowers to make and hide weapons.
Several guards suffered "cuts, scrapes and bruises, just like a good football game," according to Colonel Mike Burngarner, the base's chief of detention operations.
[Next month, the US Supreme Court is due to deliver a critical ruling on whether President Bush's administration can legally refuse to block legal hearings for the 460 inmates now there. ]
Monday, May 22, 2006
MONSTER WITHIN
US dismisses Guantanamo 'torture' report
The United States has dismissed as "full of inaccuracies" a United Nations report that says the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay amounts to torture.
The UN Committee Against Torture has expressed particular concern at the use of dogs to frighten detainees and shackles.
The UN committee's Fernando Marino Menendez says the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay amounts to torture and this leaves only one solution.
"We told them that Guantanamo should be closed definitively," he said.
"We indicated that some interrogation techniques being used were prohibited by the Convention Against Torture and we gave concrete examples.
"We also indicated that the prohibition of cruel, degrading and human punishment applied to any activity on foreign territory and not only within the United States. We also indicated that secret prisons were banned by the convention."
The United States has dismissed as "full of inaccuracies" a United Nations report that says the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay amounts to torture.
The UN Committee Against Torture has expressed particular concern at the use of dogs to frighten detainees and shackles.
The UN committee's Fernando Marino Menendez says the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay amounts to torture and this leaves only one solution.
"We told them that Guantanamo should be closed definitively," he said.
"We indicated that some interrogation techniques being used were prohibited by the Convention Against Torture and we gave concrete examples.
"We also indicated that the prohibition of cruel, degrading and human punishment applied to any activity on foreign territory and not only within the United States. We also indicated that secret prisons were banned by the convention."
CLOAK AND DAGGER
Is it a bird, is it a plane
The US administration released video footage of 'a Boeing 757' hitting the Pentagon.
Looks like another case of the Emperor's new clothes.
FLASHBACK: Rumsfeld referrs to a 'missile' striking the Pentagon
Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filed with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center. The only way to deal with this problem is by taking the battle to the terrorists, wherever they are, and dealing with them.
Also, last week, the Pentagon staged a mock anthrax attack
The drill, Gallant Fox '06, was designed to test the response efforts for both federal and Arlington County responders. During the exercise, crews acted as though there was an anthrax attack inside the Pentagon.
The mock anthrax attack lasted less than one hour, with Red Cross members and other volunteers posing as victims. They acted out the signs and symptoms of anthrax exposure.
When exposed to anthrax, victims are forced to strip off their clothes and take showers to wash off the biological agent.
Last year there was a big false alarm.
Oh, and 'The DaVinci Code' was released too.
[Five years on, concurrent with the release of the Pentagon 'footage', this Flash video was shown at this year's Cannes film festival.]
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
OUR COSMOS
Cassiopeia A is not dying peacefully. Is it a rare magnetar?
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena reported this week that NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has made accidental and surprising infrared images of light echoes from a star that was supposed to have died 325 years ago in a supernova explosion. But the new infrared information indicates Cassiopeia has released "at least one burst of energy as recently as fifty years ago" from its cosmic grave 11,000 light-years from Earth.
[The echo of an energy burst is the first witnessed around a long-dead star and the largest ever seen. Another astronomer at UA, George Rieke, Ph.D., said, "We had no idea that Spitzer would ever see light echoes. Sometimes you just trip over the biggest discoveries."]
NUCLEAR DAYS
Example: Olympic Dam mine at Roxby Downs, Australia
Destructive long-term consequences of uranium mining
The radiation from the uranium tailings (mining waste) is many million times more dangerous to humans than the radiation from the ore in its original state, says German engineer Hans-Peter Schnelbögl,
These tailings are being produced in vast quantities in Australia – 14,000 tonnes each day.
They will cost human lives for millions of years.
By law, the tailings are required to be safely contained for 1000 years. Erosion may start within a 100 years. Even after 1000 years, the tailings retain 99% of their radioactivity – a scientific fact
[The uranium tailings issue presents an unprecedented challenge to our ethical framework paralleled only by the potential for a large scale nuclear war.]
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
BLACK FLAGS
200,000 assault rifles 'vanish' from US hands
A 99-tonne cache of 200,000 AK47 assault rifles was to have been secretly flown out of a US base in Bosnia. But the four planeloads of arms have vanished.
Orders for the deal were given by the US Department of Defense. But the work was contracted out via a complex web of private arms traders.
American defence chiefs hired a US firm to take the guns, from the 90s Bosnian war, to Iraq.
Aerocom, the Moldovan air firm at the centre of the 200,000 missing AK47s, was stripped of its licence by its national authorities a day before the first shipment.
The same airline was blasted by the UN in 2003 for smuggling arms to Liberia.
Air traffic controllers in Baghdad have no record of the flights, which supposedly took off between July 2004 and July 2005. A coalition forces spokesman confirmed they had not received "any weapons from Bosnia" and added they were "not aware of any purchases for Iraq from Bosnia".
Two other companies in the complicated sale claim to have papers proving the guns were delivered in Iraq but refuse to show them.
[The latest incident follows a separate probe claiming that thousands of guns meant for Iraq's police and army instead went to al-Qaeda. One arms broker's lawyer admitted nearly all of a shipment of AK-47s went missing. And a US official said £270million of equipment could not be traced. ]
Deeper and deeper: arming the perpetrators
Arms transportation services to Sudan are provided by air and sea generally through foreign companies, or joint arrangements with local companies.
For example, in 2004 a Moldavian registered cargo company, Aerocom, that carried shipments of arms from Serbia to Liberia in violation of the UN embargo in 2002, was carrying cargo to Sudan in 2004 and maintained a close business link to the Ukrainian national arms export company named on Sudanese arms import documents in August 2004.
In 2003 a Sudanese air cargo company leased a Kyrgyzstan-registered Antonov cargo plane from the latest in a long line of companies run by Victor Bout, a Russian arms broker named in several UN reports for violating UN arms embargoes.
The plane is reportedly based in Sharjah and run by British Gulf International Airlines of Kyrgyzstan formed in 2003 out of a Sao Tome-registered company of the same name, using the same office and staff.
A 99-tonne cache of 200,000 AK47 assault rifles was to have been secretly flown out of a US base in Bosnia. But the four planeloads of arms have vanished.
Orders for the deal were given by the US Department of Defense. But the work was contracted out via a complex web of private arms traders.
American defence chiefs hired a US firm to take the guns, from the 90s Bosnian war, to Iraq.
Aerocom, the Moldovan air firm at the centre of the 200,000 missing AK47s, was stripped of its licence by its national authorities a day before the first shipment.
The same airline was blasted by the UN in 2003 for smuggling arms to Liberia.
Air traffic controllers in Baghdad have no record of the flights, which supposedly took off between July 2004 and July 2005. A coalition forces spokesman confirmed they had not received "any weapons from Bosnia" and added they were "not aware of any purchases for Iraq from Bosnia".
Two other companies in the complicated sale claim to have papers proving the guns were delivered in Iraq but refuse to show them.
[The latest incident follows a separate probe claiming that thousands of guns meant for Iraq's police and army instead went to al-Qaeda. One arms broker's lawyer admitted nearly all of a shipment of AK-47s went missing. And a US official said £270million of equipment could not be traced. ]
Deeper and deeper: arming the perpetrators
Arms transportation services to Sudan are provided by air and sea generally through foreign companies, or joint arrangements with local companies.
For example, in 2004 a Moldavian registered cargo company, Aerocom, that carried shipments of arms from Serbia to Liberia in violation of the UN embargo in 2002, was carrying cargo to Sudan in 2004 and maintained a close business link to the Ukrainian national arms export company named on Sudanese arms import documents in August 2004.
In 2003 a Sudanese air cargo company leased a Kyrgyzstan-registered Antonov cargo plane from the latest in a long line of companies run by Victor Bout, a Russian arms broker named in several UN reports for violating UN arms embargoes.
The plane is reportedly based in Sharjah and run by British Gulf International Airlines of Kyrgyzstan formed in 2003 out of a Sao Tome-registered company of the same name, using the same office and staff.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
OUR NOBLE LEADERS
Bush: My Best Moment as President Was Catching Largemouth Bass
President George W. Bush says his best moment as president was the time he caught a 7 1/2-pound largemouth bass.
During his more than five years in office, Bush has traveled the world's most impressive cities, met with world leaders and entertained celebrities.
But when the German newspaper Bild asked him to name his best and worst moments as president, Bush gave an offbeat answer about the best moment, while giving a more predictable response about his worst.
"The most awful moment was September the 11th, 2001," Bush said, adding that it took time to understand the depth of the terrorist attacks on the United States. "I would say the toughest moment of all was after the whole reality sunk in and I was trying to help the nation understand what was going on, and at the same time, be empathetic for those who had lost lives."
[Psychopathy has a new sound.]
President George W. Bush says his best moment as president was the time he caught a 7 1/2-pound largemouth bass.
During his more than five years in office, Bush has traveled the world's most impressive cities, met with world leaders and entertained celebrities.
But when the German newspaper Bild asked him to name his best and worst moments as president, Bush gave an offbeat answer about the best moment, while giving a more predictable response about his worst.
"The most awful moment was September the 11th, 2001," Bush said, adding that it took time to understand the depth of the terrorist attacks on the United States. "I would say the toughest moment of all was after the whole reality sunk in and I was trying to help the nation understand what was going on, and at the same time, be empathetic for those who had lost lives."
[Psychopathy has a new sound.]
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
SUPERMAX MOUSSAOUI
It's life, Jim, but not as we know it
Many defense attorneys for inmates convicted on terrorism charges say their clients are often subject to special administrative measures, or SAMs, ordered by the attorney general.
Bernard V. Kleinman, a New York lawyer is the only person allowed to visit his client.
He said his client often spends days at a time without leaving his cell, declining an hour of solitary exercise time because of body-cavity searches performed before and after each session.
"Anybody who thinks the death penalty was more punishment than this doesn't know what it's like to live completely alone for the rest of your life."
[Bernard V. Kleinman, lawyer, regarding Zacharias Moussaoui's Supermax destination.]
Many defense attorneys for inmates convicted on terrorism charges say their clients are often subject to special administrative measures, or SAMs, ordered by the attorney general.
Bernard V. Kleinman, a New York lawyer is the only person allowed to visit his client.
He said his client often spends days at a time without leaving his cell, declining an hour of solitary exercise time because of body-cavity searches performed before and after each session.
"Anybody who thinks the death penalty was more punishment than this doesn't know what it's like to live completely alone for the rest of your life."
[Bernard V. Kleinman, lawyer, regarding Zacharias Moussaoui's Supermax destination.]
MARCHING ORDERS
Take it to the street
In 1965, Federal District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. weighed the right of mobility against the right to march and ruled in favor of those marching from Selma to Montgomery. Judge Johnson ruled:
"The law is clear that the right to petition one's government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups...and these rights may be exercised by marching, even along public highways."
In 1965, Federal District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr. weighed the right of mobility against the right to march and ruled in favor of those marching from Selma to Montgomery. Judge Johnson ruled:
"The law is clear that the right to petition one's government for the redress of grievances may be exercised in large groups...and these rights may be exercised by marching, even along public highways."
CANNON FODDER
An Army of one wrong recruit
Jared is autistic.
He didn't know there was a war raging in Iraq until his parents told him last fall -- shortly after a military recruiter stopped him outside a Southeast Portland strip mall and complimented him on his black Converse All Stars.
"When Jared first started talking about joining the Army, I thought, 'Well, that isn't going to happen,' " said Paul Guinther, Jared's father. "I told my wife not to worry about it. They're not going to take anybody in the service who's autistic."
But they did. Last month, Jared came home with papers showing that he not only had enlisted, but also had signed up for the Army's most dangerous job: cavalry scout. He is scheduled to leave for basic training Aug. 16.
[Jared's story illustrates a growing national problem as the military faces increasing pressure to hit recruiting targets during an unpopular war.]
Jared is autistic.
He didn't know there was a war raging in Iraq until his parents told him last fall -- shortly after a military recruiter stopped him outside a Southeast Portland strip mall and complimented him on his black Converse All Stars.
"When Jared first started talking about joining the Army, I thought, 'Well, that isn't going to happen,' " said Paul Guinther, Jared's father. "I told my wife not to worry about it. They're not going to take anybody in the service who's autistic."
But they did. Last month, Jared came home with papers showing that he not only had enlisted, but also had signed up for the Army's most dangerous job: cavalry scout. He is scheduled to leave for basic training Aug. 16.
[Jared's story illustrates a growing national problem as the military faces increasing pressure to hit recruiting targets during an unpopular war.]
THE GREAT UNWELL
Scottish autism cases soar
A MASSIVE surge in the number of autistic schoolchildren in Scotland has been exposed after figures showed an increase of more than 600 per cent in secondary pupils with the condition in the past six years.
Official statistics show 825 pupils were diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder in state secondaries in 2005, compared with 114 in 1999 - an increase of 623 per cent. Over the same period, the number of autistic youngsters in primary schools more than quadrupled, from 415 to 1,736.
A MASSIVE surge in the number of autistic schoolchildren in Scotland has been exposed after figures showed an increase of more than 600 per cent in secondary pupils with the condition in the past six years.
Official statistics show 825 pupils were diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder in state secondaries in 2005, compared with 114 in 1999 - an increase of 623 per cent. Over the same period, the number of autistic youngsters in primary schools more than quadrupled, from 415 to 1,736.
FIRST CASUALTY
CIA veteran probes Rumsfeld
To prepare for my presentations, I took along a briefcase full of notes and clippings, one of which was a New York Times article datelined Atlanta, Sept. 27, 2002, quoting Rumsfeld's assertion that there was "bulletproof" evidence of ties between al-Qaida and the government of Saddam Hussein.
This was the kind of unfounded allegation that, at the time, deceived 69 percent of Americans into believing that the Iraqi leader played a role in the tragedy of 9/11. Rumsfeld's "bulletproof" rhetoric also came in the wake of an intensive but quixotic search by my former colleagues at the CIA for any reliable evidence of such ties.
A fresh reminder of the Bush administration's Iraq deceptions surfaced Thursday morning, when the Spanish newspaper El Pais published an interview with Paul Pillar, the senior U.S. intelligence specialist on the Middle East and terrorism until he retired late last year. Pillar branded administration attempts to prove a link between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein "an organized campaign of manipulation... I suppose by some definitions that could be called a lie."
Excerpt of transcript of Rumsfeld answering McGovern's questions.
...
RUMSFELD: Zar..., Zarqawi was in Baghdad during the prewar period. That is a fact.
McGovern: Zarqawi? He was in the north of Iraq in a place where Saddam Hussein had no rule. That's where he was.
RUMSFELD: He was also… (crosstalk) He was also in Baghdad.
McGovern: Yes, when he needed to go to the hospital. Come on, these people aren’t idiots. They know the story.
...
Full transcript here. Note "non secretor" should be "non sequitur".
[Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour. A 27-year veteran of CIA's analyst ranks, he now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.]
To prepare for my presentations, I took along a briefcase full of notes and clippings, one of which was a New York Times article datelined Atlanta, Sept. 27, 2002, quoting Rumsfeld's assertion that there was "bulletproof" evidence of ties between al-Qaida and the government of Saddam Hussein.
This was the kind of unfounded allegation that, at the time, deceived 69 percent of Americans into believing that the Iraqi leader played a role in the tragedy of 9/11. Rumsfeld's "bulletproof" rhetoric also came in the wake of an intensive but quixotic search by my former colleagues at the CIA for any reliable evidence of such ties.
A fresh reminder of the Bush administration's Iraq deceptions surfaced Thursday morning, when the Spanish newspaper El Pais published an interview with Paul Pillar, the senior U.S. intelligence specialist on the Middle East and terrorism until he retired late last year. Pillar branded administration attempts to prove a link between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein "an organized campaign of manipulation... I suppose by some definitions that could be called a lie."
Excerpt of transcript of Rumsfeld answering McGovern's questions.
...
RUMSFELD: Zar..., Zarqawi was in Baghdad during the prewar period. That is a fact.
McGovern: Zarqawi? He was in the north of Iraq in a place where Saddam Hussein had no rule. That's where he was.
RUMSFELD: He was also… (crosstalk) He was also in Baghdad.
McGovern: Yes, when he needed to go to the hospital. Come on, these people aren’t idiots. They know the story.
...
Full transcript here. Note "non secretor" should be "non sequitur".
[Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour. A 27-year veteran of CIA's analyst ranks, he now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.]
WIRED WORLD
Electronic pollution is choking us
The curse of the mobile phone age: around your home there are countless gadgets whose electrical fields, scientists now warn, are linked to depression, miscarriage and cancer
Invisible "smog", created by the electricity that powers our civilisation, is giving children cancer, causing miscarriages and suicides and making some people allergic to modern life, new scientific evidence reveals.
The evidence - which is being taken seriously by national and international bodies and authorities - suggests that almost everyone is being exposed to a new form of pollution with countless sources in daily use in every home.
The curse of the mobile phone age: around your home there are countless gadgets whose electrical fields, scientists now warn, are linked to depression, miscarriage and cancer
Invisible "smog", created by the electricity that powers our civilisation, is giving children cancer, causing miscarriages and suicides and making some people allergic to modern life, new scientific evidence reveals.
The evidence - which is being taken seriously by national and international bodies and authorities - suggests that almost everyone is being exposed to a new form of pollution with countless sources in daily use in every home.
Friday, April 28, 2006
POWER AND PASSION
Russian grandpa makes it as porn star at 75
A 75-year-old grandad has become a porn star in Russia after wandering into a porn movie audition by mistake, Ananova said Wednesday.
Director Alexander Plahov said: “We were auditioning for a new film and had a number of couples simulating sex on stage when I saw this old guy standing at the back. I wandered over to ask him to leave, but then I saw this massive package straining against his trousers. I thought, “This could be an original idea”. And I was so right -- all the movies we’ve made with David have been huge successes.”
The pensioner’s biggest hits have been The Old Neighbor and The Handyman at Work. But Plahov added: “His female co-stars always complain because David believes in the beneficial power of garlic and insists on rubbing it on his erection before a scene, so it’s rather smelly.”
A 75-year-old grandad has become a porn star in Russia after wandering into a porn movie audition by mistake, Ananova said Wednesday.
Director Alexander Plahov said: “We were auditioning for a new film and had a number of couples simulating sex on stage when I saw this old guy standing at the back. I wandered over to ask him to leave, but then I saw this massive package straining against his trousers. I thought, “This could be an original idea”. And I was so right -- all the movies we’ve made with David have been huge successes.”
The pensioner’s biggest hits have been The Old Neighbor and The Handyman at Work. But Plahov added: “His female co-stars always complain because David believes in the beneficial power of garlic and insists on rubbing it on his erection before a scene, so it’s rather smelly.”
VAMPIRES LIVE
Chupacabra ('Goatsucker') seen in Central Russia
Reports of a beast that kills animals and sucks on their blood came from a village in Central Russia, when a farm had 32 turkeys killed overnight. The beast left the corpses bloodless, the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily said.
Then reports came from neighboring villages, where more than 30 sheep and goats fell victim to the vampire. Again, the blood had been drained from corpses but the flesh remained intact. All the slaughtered animals had similar puncture wounds on their necks, different from the marks that wolves, dogs or lynx leave on their victims.
Finally, eyewitness descriptions match the traditional description of the Chupacabra, said to resemble a kangaroo and a dog with huge teeth.
“I heard the sheep bleating loudly, and when I approached the barn I saw a black shadow, like a big dog standing on its hind legs. It leaped like a kangaroo — when it spotted me it ran away,” says Yerbulat Isbasov, 18, who guards sheep in the village of Gavrilovka.
Yerbulat saw the beast again in a few days’ time, and described it as a 1.2 metre high animal with a hump on its back.
[Another witness Alfia Makasheva reported seeing a whole pack in her yard: “One was a huge reddish thing, another was dark grey, and they were being followed by a pack of pups. In the middle of the yard the red one turned its head and got up on the hind legs, as if it was thinking.”]
LAUGH IT UP
President Bush Discusses Global War on Terror
Q Thank you, Mr. President. It's an honor to have you here. I'm a first-year student in South Asia studies. My question is in regards to private military contractors. Uniform Code of Military Justice does not apply to these contractors in Iraq. I asked your Secretary of Defense a couple months ago what law governs their actions.
THE PRESIDENT: I was going to ask him. Go ahead. (Laughter.) Help. (Laughter.)
Q I was hoping your answer might be a little more specific. (Laughter.) Mr. Rumsfeld answered that Iraq has its own domestic laws which he assumed applied to those private military contractors. However, Iraq is clearly not currently capable of enforcing its laws, much less against -- over our American military contractors. I would submit to you that in this case, this is one case that privatization is not a solution. And, Mr. President, how do you propose to bring private military contractors under a system of law?
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that very much. I wasn't kidding -- (laughter.) I was going to -- I pick up the phone and say, Mr. Secretary, I've got an interesting question. (Laughter.) This is what delegation -- I don't mean to be dodging the question, although it's kind of convenient in this case, but never -- (laughter.) I really will -- I'm going to call the Secretary and say you brought up a very valid question, and what are we doing about it? That's how I work. I'm -- thanks. (Laughter.)
Q Thank you, Mr. President. It's an honor to have you here. I'm a first-year student in South Asia studies. My question is in regards to private military contractors. Uniform Code of Military Justice does not apply to these contractors in Iraq. I asked your Secretary of Defense a couple months ago what law governs their actions.
THE PRESIDENT: I was going to ask him. Go ahead. (Laughter.) Help. (Laughter.)
Q I was hoping your answer might be a little more specific. (Laughter.) Mr. Rumsfeld answered that Iraq has its own domestic laws which he assumed applied to those private military contractors. However, Iraq is clearly not currently capable of enforcing its laws, much less against -- over our American military contractors. I would submit to you that in this case, this is one case that privatization is not a solution. And, Mr. President, how do you propose to bring private military contractors under a system of law?
THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate that very much. I wasn't kidding -- (laughter.) I was going to -- I pick up the phone and say, Mr. Secretary, I've got an interesting question. (Laughter.) This is what delegation -- I don't mean to be dodging the question, although it's kind of convenient in this case, but never -- (laughter.) I really will -- I'm going to call the Secretary and say you brought up a very valid question, and what are we doing about it? That's how I work. I'm -- thanks. (Laughter.)
FIRST CASUALTY
Truth is the first casualty of war
Australian prime minister John Howard has rejected claims by Private Jake Kovco's mother that the army and the government had covered up over the circumstances surrounding his death.
"I can give her an assurance that there will be no cover up," Mr Howard said.
The government initially said Pte Kovco died when his gun discharged as he was cleaning it.
It has since said the soldier was not cleaning the weapon when it accidentally discharged, but the details of exactly what happened remain unclear.
OUR NOBLE LEADERS
Donald Rumsfeld, left, and President George W. Bush
Bush's wisdom: 'God told me to say dumb stuff"
"I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary of Defense."
George W. Bush, Washington, D.C. April 18, 2006 (Watch video clip.) +more
The analogy between Iraq and Vietnam has proved to be most compelling to the generals who planned and conducted the invasion of Iraq. They kept to themselves their profound disquiet about the rapid rejection of the original plan for invasion that had taken 10 years to develop, the inadequate downsized force, the absence of preparation for the occupation, and the disastrous decision to disband the Iraqi military.
[Clinging to Rumsfeld as generals lead an unprecedented revolt, Bush reveals his weakness and his disdain for the lessons of history.]
Thursday, April 27, 2006
HE'S ALL STYLE
George W Bush was unwilling to let Hu bow out gracefully and insisted on more photos - dragging him unceremoniously back onto the dias by the sleeve of his jacket.Chinese President Hu Jintao visited the US this month and was treated to a new kind of hospitality.
The Chinese National Anthem was announced as that of "the Republic of China", another name for Taiwan, the island that rebelled and seceded from mainland China and has since sought US aid in keeping Hu Jintao from grabbing it back.
... but why does the Pope support Bush?
German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican theologian who was elected Pope Benedict XVI, intervened in the 2004 US election campaign ordering bishops to deny communion to abortion rights supporters including presidential candidate John Kerry.
SWINGING THE LEAD
Order from chaos
The “pendulums” in a scientific simulation were loosely connected to each other, as oscillators also are in many natural situations.
A textbook example of such “coupled” oscillators is pendulums with springs linking their ends together.
The scientists found that the pendulums, when pushed by forces according to a regular rhythm, behaved chaotically and swung out of sync.
Yet when the researchers introduced disorder -- applying forces at random intervals to each oscillator -- they began to swing in synch. The “forces” were applied along the rods of the “pendulums” to make them swing.
“When you introduce disorder … the chaos that was present before disappears and there is order,” said Sebastian F. Brandt, a physics graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis and lead author of the study. The findings appeared in the January issue of the research journal Physical Review Letters.
[Other common cases are violin strings, which are connected by their sounding boards, and electrical filters used in communications.]
The “pendulums” in a scientific simulation were loosely connected to each other, as oscillators also are in many natural situations.
A textbook example of such “coupled” oscillators is pendulums with springs linking their ends together.
The scientists found that the pendulums, when pushed by forces according to a regular rhythm, behaved chaotically and swung out of sync.
Yet when the researchers introduced disorder -- applying forces at random intervals to each oscillator -- they began to swing in synch. The “forces” were applied along the rods of the “pendulums” to make them swing.
“When you introduce disorder … the chaos that was present before disappears and there is order,” said Sebastian F. Brandt, a physics graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis and lead author of the study. The findings appeared in the January issue of the research journal Physical Review Letters.
[Other common cases are violin strings, which are connected by their sounding boards, and electrical filters used in communications.]
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
TINFOIL HAT
Babs ... nutterClothing for the paranoid
TINFOIL hats may protect the brain from dangerous radio frequencies and mind-control rays. Or they may not, according to a group of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who tested three standard designs with equipment costing $250,000.
They found the foil actually amplified some radio signals - especially those on frequencies used by the US government - by a factor of up to 100. In summing up, they say:
"It requires no stretch of the imagination to conclude that the current helmet craze is likely to have been propagated by the government, possibly with the involvement of the FCC [Federal Communications Commission].
"We hope this report will encourage the paranoid community to develop improved helmet designs to avoid falling prey to these shortcomings."
[Of course the real problem with the classic tinfoil hat is that wearing one makes you look like a nut.]
OUR COSMOS
Another fundamental constant accused of changing
Cosmologists claim to have found evidence that yet another fundamental constant of nature, called mu, may have changed over the last 12 billion years. If confirmed, the result could force some physicists to radically rethink their theories. It would also provide support for string theory, which predicts extra spatial dimensions.
This is not the first time fundamental constants have been accused of changing over the lifetime of the universe. Most famously, there was controversy over the fine structure constant, alpha (?), which governs how light and electrons interact. Some physicists claimed it is changing while others said it was not (see Speed of light may have changed recently).
Cosmologists claim to have found evidence that yet another fundamental constant of nature, called mu, may have changed over the last 12 billion years. If confirmed, the result could force some physicists to radically rethink their theories. It would also provide support for string theory, which predicts extra spatial dimensions.
This is not the first time fundamental constants have been accused of changing over the lifetime of the universe. Most famously, there was controversy over the fine structure constant, alpha (?), which governs how light and electrons interact. Some physicists claimed it is changing while others said it was not (see Speed of light may have changed recently).
Monday, April 24, 2006
OUR NOBLE LEADERS
Cheney Gets Booed, Sheen Gets Applauded:
But the media reports it the opposite way around
Cheney threw the first pitch at a Washington Nationals baseball game.
Cheney was clearly booed by at least 80% of the attending fans at the RFK Memorial Stadium, yet the media reported a mixed reaction and the Washington Post went as far as to outright lie and claim the boos were a result of the bad pitch that bounced before the Nationals' Brian Schneider caught it, when in reality the cat-calls began as soon as Cheney's name was announced. The boos raged even though Cheney was accompanied by three injured US servicemen who had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan.
[Watch the video]
SEX EN LAÏCITÉ
Separation of Church and State
Laïcité is a prevailing conception of the separation of church and state and the absence of religious interference into government affairs (and vice versa). It implies free exercise of religion, but no special status for religion: religious activities should submit to the same set of laws as other activities and are not considered above the law. The government refrains from taking positions on religious doctrine and only considers religious subjects from their practical consequences on the inhabitants' lives.
The Réseau Voltaire (Voltaire Network) is an international non-profit organisation, based in Paris with offices in London and Lima, which states it aims at promoting liberty and laïcité (separation of church and state).
[The Voltaire Network was founded in the context of a campaign in favour of freedom of speech, which the founders thought was put into jeopardy by new laws enshrined in the French penal code.
After the campaign the association lived on, specialising in the study of far-right movements and religions.
It was vocal notably in preventing the French government from funding the religious part of the Pope's visit to France, and in initiating an investigation of the French Parliament regarding the French far-right militia group DPS. Since 1999, the Réseau Voltaire has dealt with international issues, notably by publishing daily news about the bombings of Serbia by NATO.]
Laïcité is a prevailing conception of the separation of church and state and the absence of religious interference into government affairs (and vice versa). It implies free exercise of religion, but no special status for religion: religious activities should submit to the same set of laws as other activities and are not considered above the law. The government refrains from taking positions on religious doctrine and only considers religious subjects from their practical consequences on the inhabitants' lives.
The Réseau Voltaire (Voltaire Network) is an international non-profit organisation, based in Paris with offices in London and Lima, which states it aims at promoting liberty and laïcité (separation of church and state).
[The Voltaire Network was founded in the context of a campaign in favour of freedom of speech, which the founders thought was put into jeopardy by new laws enshrined in the French penal code.
After the campaign the association lived on, specialising in the study of far-right movements and religions.
It was vocal notably in preventing the French government from funding the religious part of the Pope's visit to France, and in initiating an investigation of the French Parliament regarding the French far-right militia group DPS. Since 1999, the Réseau Voltaire has dealt with international issues, notably by publishing daily news about the bombings of Serbia by NATO.]
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Friday, April 21, 2006
WAR MONGERELS
The really real "long war"
Savvy players in the military-industrial racket know that the "War on Terror" is just short-end money: fat and sweet, sure, but it doesn't really have legs.
"Islamofacism" is too empty a concept to sustain the kind of decades-long looting of the public treasury that the dear old Cold War used to provide – the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the world just aren't interested in dressing up in Nazi drag and playing their assigned roles in the Pentagon-Neocon-Theocon war game.
I mean, Jesus Herbert Walker Christ, you can even walk your army right into the heartland of Islam and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and they still won't take the bait. Not a single Muslim nation has gone jihad over Iraq; they haven't all turned into a nice, big monolithic evil empire set on the utter destruction of America.
It's like they're all just ordinary people or something, good, bad and indifferent, largely occupied with their own concerns – personal, economic, social, religious, national.
Savvy players in the military-industrial racket know that the "War on Terror" is just short-end money: fat and sweet, sure, but it doesn't really have legs.
"Islamofacism" is too empty a concept to sustain the kind of decades-long looting of the public treasury that the dear old Cold War used to provide – the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the world just aren't interested in dressing up in Nazi drag and playing their assigned roles in the Pentagon-Neocon-Theocon war game.
I mean, Jesus Herbert Walker Christ, you can even walk your army right into the heartland of Islam and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people, and they still won't take the bait. Not a single Muslim nation has gone jihad over Iraq; they haven't all turned into a nice, big monolithic evil empire set on the utter destruction of America.
It's like they're all just ordinary people or something, good, bad and indifferent, largely occupied with their own concerns – personal, economic, social, religious, national.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
BODY OF EVIDENCE
China selling prisoners' organs: report
A group of top British surgeons has accused China of unethically harvesting the bodies of executed convicts for transplant organs that are then sold to the highest bidder, according to a media report.
British Transplantation Society chairman Stephen Wigmore says there is growing evidence that convicts were being selected for execution to suit the needs of paying organ recipients, a report on the BBC website says.
Dr Wigmore is also reported as saying that thousands of organs are being collected without donors' prior consent.
[A huge lucrative black market for human organs has emerged in China as a result of a chronic shortage of donors.]
A group of top British surgeons has accused China of unethically harvesting the bodies of executed convicts for transplant organs that are then sold to the highest bidder, according to a media report.
British Transplantation Society chairman Stephen Wigmore says there is growing evidence that convicts were being selected for execution to suit the needs of paying organ recipients, a report on the BBC website says.
Dr Wigmore is also reported as saying that thousands of organs are being collected without donors' prior consent.
[A huge lucrative black market for human organs has emerged in China as a result of a chronic shortage of donors.]
Saturday, April 15, 2006
EASTER NEOCONS
Ancient text claims Judas was no traitor ...
An ancient manuscript dating from the third or fourth century, containing the only known surviving copy of the Gospel of Judas, has been conserved, authenticated and translated after being lost for nearly 1,700 years, scientists say.
In the Gospel of Judas, Jesus selects Judas from among the other disciples for a special task: “... you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.” Jesus would thus have been asking Judas to help him get rid of his physical flesh, to free the spiritual being within.
[Scholars said the 66-page manuscript contains not only the Gospel of Judas but also a text titled James, also known as First Apocalypse of James, a Letter of Peter to Philip, and a fragment of a fourth text provisionally called the Book of Allogenes.]
... and Satan isn't such a bad guy, either
According to Dr. Henry Ansgar Kelly's "Satan: A Biography", the Evil One feared by Christians is just an invention of the Roman church.
Satan is the same sort of celestial functionary we see in the Book of Job - appointed to govern the world, specifically to monitor and test human beings. A bit like an Attorney General.
And like some Attorneys General he is brutal and deceitful in his methods, and Jesus predicts that his rule will soon come to an end.
"Lucifer" -- Latin for "light bringer," or Venus the morning star -- is the result of a sloppy 4th Century Latin translation of a story about an Iraqi king. The whole tale of Lucifer being a beloved angel of God who does something bad and "falls" to Earth was entirely invented centuries later, supposedly from a verse in Isaiah about a plain old king being taunted by exiled Jews.
[IN OTHER NEWS: A new study suggests Jesus was strolling on a patch of floating ice, not walking on water.Yeah, right. That is even less believeable than the original story.]
Monday, March 27, 2006
EARTH CHANGES
Global warming yields “glacial earthquakes,” future sea level rise
In new studies, scientists report that global warming may be responsible for a newfound and growing phenomenon, “glacial earthquakes".
Three studies published in the March 24 issue of the research journal Science warn of the events.
Two studies found that the Earth may be warm enough by 2100 for widespread melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and partial collapse of the Antarctic Ice Sheet.
In a third study, seismologists reported an unexpected offshoot of global warming: “glacial earthquakes,” in which island-sized glaciers lurch unexpectedly. Glaciers are normally slow-moving masses of ice.
The lurches yield temblors up to magnitude 5.1 on the moment-magnitude scale, which is similar to the Richter scale, the researchers said.
[Glacial earthquakes in Greenland, they added, are most common in July and August, and have more than doubled in number since 2002.]
In new studies, scientists report that global warming may be responsible for a newfound and growing phenomenon, “glacial earthquakes".
Three studies published in the March 24 issue of the research journal Science warn of the events.
Two studies found that the Earth may be warm enough by 2100 for widespread melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and partial collapse of the Antarctic Ice Sheet.
In a third study, seismologists reported an unexpected offshoot of global warming: “glacial earthquakes,” in which island-sized glaciers lurch unexpectedly. Glaciers are normally slow-moving masses of ice.
The lurches yield temblors up to magnitude 5.1 on the moment-magnitude scale, which is similar to the Richter scale, the researchers said.
[Glacial earthquakes in Greenland, they added, are most common in July and August, and have more than doubled in number since 2002.]
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
SEPARATION OF POWERS
Former top judge says US risks edging near to dictatorship
Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the party's rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary.
In a strongly worded speech at Georgetown University, reported by National Public Radio and the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Ms O'Connor took aim at Republican leaders whose repeated denunciations of the courts for alleged liberal bias could, she said, be contributing to a climate of violence against judges.
[After the decision last March that ordered a brain-dead woman in Florida, Terri Schiavo, removed from life support, Texan Republican Bushite Tom DeLay said: "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behaviour."
Mr DeLay later called for the impeachment of judges involved in the Schiavo case, and called for more scrutiny of "an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president".]
Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the party's rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary.
In a strongly worded speech at Georgetown University, reported by National Public Radio and the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, Ms O'Connor took aim at Republican leaders whose repeated denunciations of the courts for alleged liberal bias could, she said, be contributing to a climate of violence against judges.
[After the decision last March that ordered a brain-dead woman in Florida, Terri Schiavo, removed from life support, Texan Republican Bushite Tom DeLay said: "The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behaviour."
Mr DeLay later called for the impeachment of judges involved in the Schiavo case, and called for more scrutiny of "an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president".]
CLOAK AND DAGGER
Witness coaching puts Moussaoui sentencing in doubt
Judge Brinkema said in all her years on the bench she had "never seen a more egregious violation of the rule about witnesses".
A government lawyer emailed the prosecution's opening statement, and a commentary on an FBI government witness, to officials scheduled to appear.
Judge Brinkema said the rule against witnesses hearing testimony in advance is "a very important protection of the truth-seeking process".
[FLASHBACK: May 13, 2004: Beheaded American had links to Moussaoui
When Nicholas Berg took an Oklahoma bus to a remote college campus a few years ago, the American recently beheaded by terrorists allowed a man with terrorist connections to use his laptop computer, according to his father.
Michael Berg said the FBI investigated the matter more than a year ago. He stressed that his son was in no way connected to the terrorists who captured and killed him.
Government sources told CNN that the encounter involved an acquaintance of Zacarias Moussaoui -- the only person publicly charged in the United States in connection with the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.]
Saturday, March 11, 2006
WHODUNNIT
Witness Ties Moussaoui To 'Dream' Terror Plot
VIDEO SHOWN TO JURORS: Zacarias Moussaoui stroked his beard. He scratched his chin. Finally, he asked the question that everyone in the federal courtroom yesterday had waited much of the day to hear.
"You said you met someone by the name of John, correct?" Moussaoui asked the witness.
Although Moussaoui never attended law school, he demonstrated in the videotape that he knew how to object, which he did repeatedly, often on the grounds that the question being asked lacked the proper foundation.
The witness Bafana said he was treasurer of a chapter of Jemaah Islamiya in Singapore. He said he helped raise money for terrorist attacks -- including one on a train station in Manila in December 2000 that killed 22 people -- and served as a host for visitors, such as John, when they stopped in Malaysia.
["That is not Zacary," said Moussaoui's mother Aicha el-Wafi, 59, speaking in French during a break in her son's sentencing trial on Tuesday. "He is too calm. He doesn't even budge."]
VIDEO SHOWN TO JURORS: Zacarias Moussaoui stroked his beard. He scratched his chin. Finally, he asked the question that everyone in the federal courtroom yesterday had waited much of the day to hear.
"You said you met someone by the name of John, correct?" Moussaoui asked the witness.
Although Moussaoui never attended law school, he demonstrated in the videotape that he knew how to object, which he did repeatedly, often on the grounds that the question being asked lacked the proper foundation.
The witness Bafana said he was treasurer of a chapter of Jemaah Islamiya in Singapore. He said he helped raise money for terrorist attacks -- including one on a train station in Manila in December 2000 that killed 22 people -- and served as a host for visitors, such as John, when they stopped in Malaysia.
["That is not Zacary," said Moussaoui's mother Aicha el-Wafi, 59, speaking in French during a break in her son's sentencing trial on Tuesday. "He is too calm. He doesn't even budge."]
TRUTH IN FICTION
Kurt Vonnegut tells it like it is
“We have people in this country who are richer than whole countries,” says Kurt Vonnegut Jr. “They run everything. We have no Democratic Party. It’s financed by the same millionaires and billionaires as the Republicans. So we have no representatives in Washington. Working people have no leverage whatsoever.
“I’m trying to write a novel about the end of the world. But the world is really ending! It’s becoming more and more uninhabitable because of our addiction to oil. “Bush used that line recently,” Vonnegut adds. “I should sue him for plagiarism.”
Things have gotten so bad, he says, “people are in revolt again life itself.”
Our economy has been making money, but “all the money that should have gone into research and development has gone into executive compensation. If people insist on living as if there’s no tomorrow, there really won’t be one. "
[“As the world is ending, I’m always glad to be entertained for a few moments. The best way to do that is with music. You should practice once a night."]
“We have people in this country who are richer than whole countries,” says Kurt Vonnegut Jr. “They run everything. We have no Democratic Party. It’s financed by the same millionaires and billionaires as the Republicans. So we have no representatives in Washington. Working people have no leverage whatsoever.
“I’m trying to write a novel about the end of the world. But the world is really ending! It’s becoming more and more uninhabitable because of our addiction to oil. “Bush used that line recently,” Vonnegut adds. “I should sue him for plagiarism.”
Things have gotten so bad, he says, “people are in revolt again life itself.”
Our economy has been making money, but “all the money that should have gone into research and development has gone into executive compensation. If people insist on living as if there’s no tomorrow, there really won’t be one. "
[“As the world is ending, I’m always glad to be entertained for a few moments. The best way to do that is with music. You should practice once a night."]
WAR ON EVERYONE
Walt Cronkite tells it like it is
Nicole Richardson was 18-years-old when her boyfriend, Jeff, sold nine grams of LSD to undercover federal agents. She had nothing to do with the sale. There was no reason to believe she was involved in drug dealing in any way.
But then an agent posing as another dealer called and asked to speak with Jeff. Nicole replied that he wasn't home, but gave the man a number where she thought Jeff could be reached.
An innocent gesture? It sounds that way to me. But to federal prosecutors, simply giving out a phone number made Nicole Richardson part of a drug dealing conspiracy. Under draconian mandatory minimum sentences, she was sent to federal prison for ten years without possibility of parole.
To pile irony on top of injustice, her boyfriend - who actually knew something about dealing drugs - was able to trade information for a reduced sentence of five years. Precisely because she knew nothing, Nicole had nothing with which to barter.
Nicole Richardson was 18-years-old when her boyfriend, Jeff, sold nine grams of LSD to undercover federal agents. She had nothing to do with the sale. There was no reason to believe she was involved in drug dealing in any way.
But then an agent posing as another dealer called and asked to speak with Jeff. Nicole replied that he wasn't home, but gave the man a number where she thought Jeff could be reached.
An innocent gesture? It sounds that way to me. But to federal prosecutors, simply giving out a phone number made Nicole Richardson part of a drug dealing conspiracy. Under draconian mandatory minimum sentences, she was sent to federal prison for ten years without possibility of parole.
To pile irony on top of injustice, her boyfriend - who actually knew something about dealing drugs - was able to trade information for a reduced sentence of five years. Precisely because she knew nothing, Nicole had nothing with which to barter.
Friday, March 10, 2006
FOR THE RECORD
This is what the original Jyllands-Posten page looked like. Notice that there were only 12 cartoons.
In the wake of the deaths: the Jyllands-Posten cartoons
Prohibitions on the depiction of Islam's prophet Mohammed (PBUH) have not always been observed. The Mohammed Image Archive is a compendium of images that depict the 7th-century founder of the faith spanning all historical periods, cultures and genres.
[NB This site contains many beautiful historic artworks but also images which may offend.]
The entire controversy started when Danish author Kåre Bluitgen complained that he could not find an artist brave enought to illustrate his upcoming book about Mohammed. The newspaper Jyllands-Posten issued a call for submissions from any artists willing to take up the challenge.
In the ensuing brouhaha, the original book was almost forgotten; it has now been released, and does feature page after page of Mohammed depictions. This site features scans of several of the pages. One image, taken from the book (titled Koranen og profeten Muhammeds liv, or The Koran and the life of the prophet Mohammed), apparently shows Mohammed with his child-bride Aisha.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
BIG BROTHER
Pay a credit card debt, expect Homeland Security to investigate
A retired couple paid the $6,522 balance on their credit card. An alarm went off. A red flag went up. Their behavior was found questionable.
They didn't call a suspected terrorist on their cell phone. They didn't try to sneak a machine gun through customs. But they did learn how frighteningly wide the net of suspicion has been cast.
They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified.
[Adding injury to insult, the money doesn't come off the balance until the threat alert is lifted.]
A retired couple paid the $6,522 balance on their credit card. An alarm went off. A red flag went up. Their behavior was found questionable.
They didn't call a suspected terrorist on their cell phone. They didn't try to sneak a machine gun through customs. But they did learn how frighteningly wide the net of suspicion has been cast.
They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified.
[Adding injury to insult, the money doesn't come off the balance until the threat alert is lifted.]
Sunday, March 05, 2006
HISTORY CHANNEL
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart is a comedian who provides more accurate and cutting edge journalism than most of the major news networks.
Surveys show that an astonishing number of young people claim they get most of their news from watching The Daily Show.
[In 2003, when news anchor Bill Moyers interviewed Stewart for the PBS program NOW, he introduced his guest this way: “When future historians come to write the political story of our times, they will first have to review hundreds of hours of a cable television program called The Daily Show. You simply can’t understand American politics in the new millennium without The Daily Show.”]
Jon Stewart is a comedian who provides more accurate and cutting edge journalism than most of the major news networks.
Surveys show that an astonishing number of young people claim they get most of their news from watching The Daily Show.
[In 2003, when news anchor Bill Moyers interviewed Stewart for the PBS program NOW, he introduced his guest this way: “When future historians come to write the political story of our times, they will first have to review hundreds of hours of a cable television program called The Daily Show. You simply can’t understand American politics in the new millennium without The Daily Show.”]
OUR GREAT LEADERS
Video shows Bush Katrina warning
Video showing President George W Bush being warned on the eve of Hurricane Katrina that New Orleans' flood defences could be overcome.
The footage, obtained by the Associated Press, also shows Mr Bush being told of the risk to evacuees in the Superdome.
TRY OR RELEASE
Many innocents, few released
"Two FBI agents began the questioning, convinced I was involved in some nefarious web of plots, from planning to assassinate the Pope to masterminding al-Qaeda's finance operation in Europe, or being an instructor in one of its Afghan training camps. They had their perceptions about me and were searching for ways to confirm them -- preferably from my own mouth. By now I'd been raised to the status of some rogue James Bond-type figure. They thought I was a graduate from some prestigious British university, that I was fluent in a dozen languages, that I was an expert in computers and several martial arts… Had it not been for this ludicrous situation I'm in, I would have been flattered. I once said to them, 'I should ask you to write my résumé -- I'd find a job anywhere.'"
[A British citizen of Pakistani heritage who was held and tortured at Abu Ghraib and Camp X-Ray for years in solitary confinement before being released when it became obvious he was 'the wrong guy'.]
"Two FBI agents began the questioning, convinced I was involved in some nefarious web of plots, from planning to assassinate the Pope to masterminding al-Qaeda's finance operation in Europe, or being an instructor in one of its Afghan training camps. They had their perceptions about me and were searching for ways to confirm them -- preferably from my own mouth. By now I'd been raised to the status of some rogue James Bond-type figure. They thought I was a graduate from some prestigious British university, that I was fluent in a dozen languages, that I was an expert in computers and several martial arts… Had it not been for this ludicrous situation I'm in, I would have been flattered. I once said to them, 'I should ask you to write my résumé -- I'd find a job anywhere.'"
[A British citizen of Pakistani heritage who was held and tortured at Abu Ghraib and Camp X-Ray for years in solitary confinement before being released when it became obvious he was 'the wrong guy'.]
Monday, February 27, 2006
BANKRUPT WORLD
Global crisis just around the corner
The end of the publication by the American Federal Reserve of the M3 monetary aggregate (and that of other components) will destroy transparency on the US dollars in circulation worldwide.
The decision has been vehemently criticized by economists and financial analysts,
[Monetary aggregates (M1, M2, M3, M4) are statistical economic indicators. M0 is the value of all currency - here the dollar - that exists in actual bank notes and coins. M1 is M0 + checking accounts of this currency. M2 is M1 + money market accounts and Certificates of Deposits (CD) under $100,000. M3 is M2 + all larger holdings in the dollar (Eurodollar reserves, larger instruments and most non-European nations' reserve holdings) of $100,000 and more. The key point here is that when the Fed stops reporting M3, the entire world will lose transparency on the value of reserve holdings in dollars by other nations and major financial institutions.
Speech at National Economists Club, Washington DC, November 21, 2002.]
The end of the publication by the American Federal Reserve of the M3 monetary aggregate (and that of other components) will destroy transparency on the US dollars in circulation worldwide.
The decision has been vehemently criticized by economists and financial analysts,
[Monetary aggregates (M1, M2, M3, M4) are statistical economic indicators. M0 is the value of all currency - here the dollar - that exists in actual bank notes and coins. M1 is M0 + checking accounts of this currency. M2 is M1 + money market accounts and Certificates of Deposits (CD) under $100,000. M3 is M2 + all larger holdings in the dollar (Eurodollar reserves, larger instruments and most non-European nations' reserve holdings) of $100,000 and more. The key point here is that when the Fed stops reporting M3, the entire world will lose transparency on the value of reserve holdings in dollars by other nations and major financial institutions.
Speech at National Economists Club, Washington DC, November 21, 2002.]
DEMOCRACY THREAT
No paper trail
Pencil and paper voting still the safest
Diebold AccuVote TS electronic voting machines have an infrared (IrDA) port installed. This is a remote communication port through which another remote device could communicate with the touch screen and change either its data or its software or both.
If your county uses Diebold touch screens, let your county officials and election judges know that it is crucial to cover the IR port with opaque tape.
[Dibold makes many of the ATM machines used in Australia. They all provide a paper receipt, why do their voting machines not produce a similar receipt of their vote.]
Sunday, February 26, 2006
SCHRODINGER'S PC
From a New York Times science writer, the first book on what will be the next big breakthrough in cyberworld: the development of a quantum computer. (Bookshop)Quantum computer works best switched off
Even for the crazy world of quantum mechanics, this one is twisted. A quantum computer program has produced an answer without actually running.
The idea behind the feat, first proposed in 1998, is to put a quantum computer into a “superposition”, a state in which it is both running and not running. It is as if you asked Schrödinger's cat to hit "Run".
[Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign send a photon into a system of mirrors and other optical devices, which included a set of components that run a simple database search by changing the properties of the photon. The system uses a quantum trick called the Zeno effect.]
BEAUTIFUL MIND
Victims of War Are Not To Be Seen Or Heard Or Mentioned
On March 18, 2003, two days before her son launched the invasion of Iraq, Barbara Bush appeared on Good Morning America. Our nation's "First Mother" asked Diane Sawyer, "Why should we hear about body bags and death and how many? . . . Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that."
[Joseph Bonham was an American soldier. He lost both of his arms and legs and all of his face to an artillery shell. He could not see or hear or speak. Other than that he was healthy and lucid. That was Joe's nightmare. He could be kept alive a long time...]
On March 18, 2003, two days before her son launched the invasion of Iraq, Barbara Bush appeared on Good Morning America. Our nation's "First Mother" asked Diane Sawyer, "Why should we hear about body bags and death and how many? . . . Oh, I mean, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that."
[Joseph Bonham was an American soldier. He lost both of his arms and legs and all of his face to an artillery shell. He could not see or hear or speak. Other than that he was healthy and lucid. That was Joe's nightmare. He could be kept alive a long time...]
SPIN CYCLE
Fox News talking head takes in new factor
Bill O'Reilly suggested that the United States "hand over everything to the Iraqis as fast as humanly possible" because "[t]here are so many nuts in the country -- so many crazies -- that we can't control them."
O'Reilly has previously called those advocating immediate withdrawal from Iraq "pinheads" and compared them to Hitler appeasers.
[Audio clip here.]
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
WHAT I SAY, NOT WHAT I DO
Hipocrisy rules in the US Government
Vice President Dick Cheney bitterly complains that national security leaks are endangering America. Unless, of course, he's doing the leaking, tapping Scooter Libby to reveal national security information to punish a political critic.
President Bush says he will not talk about specific security threats to America. Unless, of course, he needs to talk about a specific threat to Los Angeles to confuse the public and gain some cheap political advantage.
The White House says it has done everything possible to protect the homeland. Unless, of course, it hasn't. Then it can lie to hide the callous portrait of Incurious George in Crawford as New Orleans drowned.
The attorney general can claim that torture and warrantless wiretapping are legal, and can mislead Congress. Unless, of course, enough Republicans stand up and say, as Arlen Specter told The Washington Post, that if that lickspittle lawyer thinks all this is legal, "he's smoking Dutch Cleanser."
The president doesn't know the Indian Taker Jack Abramoff. Unless, of course, W. has met with him a dozen times, invited him to Crawford and joked with him about his kids.
The Bushies can continue to claim that the invasion of Iraq was justified because Saddam was a threat to our security. Unless, of course, he wasn't, and the Cheney cabal was simply abusing the trust of Americans to push a wild-eyed political scheme.
Vice President Dick Cheney bitterly complains that national security leaks are endangering America. Unless, of course, he's doing the leaking, tapping Scooter Libby to reveal national security information to punish a political critic.
President Bush says he will not talk about specific security threats to America. Unless, of course, he needs to talk about a specific threat to Los Angeles to confuse the public and gain some cheap political advantage.
The White House says it has done everything possible to protect the homeland. Unless, of course, it hasn't. Then it can lie to hide the callous portrait of Incurious George in Crawford as New Orleans drowned.
The attorney general can claim that torture and warrantless wiretapping are legal, and can mislead Congress. Unless, of course, enough Republicans stand up and say, as Arlen Specter told The Washington Post, that if that lickspittle lawyer thinks all this is legal, "he's smoking Dutch Cleanser."
The president doesn't know the Indian Taker Jack Abramoff. Unless, of course, W. has met with him a dozen times, invited him to Crawford and joked with him about his kids.
The Bushies can continue to claim that the invasion of Iraq was justified because Saddam was a threat to our security. Unless, of course, he wasn't, and the Cheney cabal was simply abusing the trust of Americans to push a wild-eyed political scheme.
Monday, February 13, 2006
WOBBLY SCIENCE?
The Earth’s Wobble Has Paused
For at least three and a half weeks there has been almost no movement of the spin axis in the normal spiral track of Chandler’s Wobble.
For the past 21 days there has been no discernable wobble motion in the Earth. Have we come to a profound change in the geophysics of the Earth? Why this sudden change in what usually has been for the past 100 years or more a fairly regular, fairly predictable wobble track.
As is well known, the wobble is generated by the differential pulling of the Moon and the Sun on the Earth's equatorial bulge (and any other concentrations of mass in or on the Earth). This differential pulling is caused by the oblique angles of the orbital planes which bring the Sun and the Moon alternatively above and below the equator, thus tending through orbital time to push one side of the Earth or the other to move faster or slower than the other side to the North or to the South.
The Earth's Wobble has a 7 year cycle which produces two extremes, a small spiraling wobble circle and a large spiraling wobble circle, about 3.5 years apart. The Earth was in October 2005 moving into the small spiraling circle (the MIN phase of the wobble), which should have slowly unfolded during 2006 and the first few months of 2007. (Each spiraling circle takes about 14 months).
But suddenly at the beginning of November 2005, the track of the location of the spin axis veered at a very sharp right angle to its circling motion. The track of the spin axis began to slow down and by about January 8, 2006, it ceased nearly all relative motion on the x and y coordinates which are used to define the daily changing location of the spin axis.
[Article found in discussion forum here.]
For at least three and a half weeks there has been almost no movement of the spin axis in the normal spiral track of Chandler’s Wobble.
For the past 21 days there has been no discernable wobble motion in the Earth. Have we come to a profound change in the geophysics of the Earth? Why this sudden change in what usually has been for the past 100 years or more a fairly regular, fairly predictable wobble track.
As is well known, the wobble is generated by the differential pulling of the Moon and the Sun on the Earth's equatorial bulge (and any other concentrations of mass in or on the Earth). This differential pulling is caused by the oblique angles of the orbital planes which bring the Sun and the Moon alternatively above and below the equator, thus tending through orbital time to push one side of the Earth or the other to move faster or slower than the other side to the North or to the South.
The Earth's Wobble has a 7 year cycle which produces two extremes, a small spiraling wobble circle and a large spiraling wobble circle, about 3.5 years apart. The Earth was in October 2005 moving into the small spiraling circle (the MIN phase of the wobble), which should have slowly unfolded during 2006 and the first few months of 2007. (Each spiraling circle takes about 14 months).
But suddenly at the beginning of November 2005, the track of the location of the spin axis veered at a very sharp right angle to its circling motion. The track of the spin axis began to slow down and by about January 8, 2006, it ceased nearly all relative motion on the x and y coordinates which are used to define the daily changing location of the spin axis.
[Article found in discussion forum here.]
THROWING MUD
DuPont rejects Teflon health risk claims
DuPont says: Teflon® is a brand name and a registered trademark of DuPont. Teflon® is not PFOA. The improper use of the Teflon® brand as a synonym for PFOA is not only inaccurate and misleading to consumers but also constitutes a trademark violation. More +
However: Independent Science Panel to EPA: Teflon Chemical is 'Likely' Human Carcinogen
A panel comprised mostly of independent scientists advising the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found today that DuPont's Teflon chemical, PFOA, is a "likely human carcinogen."
The company could face the maximum fine from EPA of $314 million for illegally suppressing birth defect and safety studies. Agency officials, however, have hinted that they are considering a much lower fine of $13 million.
DuPont is also the subject of a federal criminal probe into its suppression of the studies.
"Scientists independent of chemical industry money looked at the toxicity of this chemical, and the verdict is clear: This Teflon chemical should be considered a likely human carcinogen. If EPA officials needed a reason to level the maximum fine against this $24.6 billion company, they have it now," said EWG Senior Vice President Richard Wiles. "DuPont might be politically connected with an army of lobbyists, but it should still be held accountable."
[]
DuPont says: Teflon® is a brand name and a registered trademark of DuPont. Teflon® is not PFOA. The improper use of the Teflon® brand as a synonym for PFOA is not only inaccurate and misleading to consumers but also constitutes a trademark violation. More +
However: Independent Science Panel to EPA: Teflon Chemical is 'Likely' Human Carcinogen
A panel comprised mostly of independent scientists advising the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found today that DuPont's Teflon chemical, PFOA, is a "likely human carcinogen."
The company could face the maximum fine from EPA of $314 million for illegally suppressing birth defect and safety studies. Agency officials, however, have hinted that they are considering a much lower fine of $13 million.
DuPont is also the subject of a federal criminal probe into its suppression of the studies.
"Scientists independent of chemical industry money looked at the toxicity of this chemical, and the verdict is clear: This Teflon chemical should be considered a likely human carcinogen. If EPA officials needed a reason to level the maximum fine against this $24.6 billion company, they have it now," said EWG Senior Vice President Richard Wiles. "DuPont might be politically connected with an army of lobbyists, but it should still be held accountable."
[]
WORKING FOR THE MAN
Imported labour driving down Australian pay and conditions
'Imported' Indonesian workers have allegedly been paid as little as $40 a day to dig ditches in the South Australian desert.
Drilling company Halliburton Australia employed a team of Indonesians for labouring jobs at its gas extraction operations in the Cooper Basin late last year.
Australians who worked alongside the Indonesians said the imported staff worked 80 days straight, were housed in poor work camp accommodation and had some meals laced with pork so they were unfit for the Muslim employees to eat.
Halliburton last week confirmed the global company employs imported workers.
[Despite three days of requests to Halliburton in Australia and the U.S., they have not answered the claims.]
'Imported' Indonesian workers have allegedly been paid as little as $40 a day to dig ditches in the South Australian desert.
Drilling company Halliburton Australia employed a team of Indonesians for labouring jobs at its gas extraction operations in the Cooper Basin late last year.
Australians who worked alongside the Indonesians said the imported staff worked 80 days straight, were housed in poor work camp accommodation and had some meals laced with pork so they were unfit for the Muslim employees to eat.
Halliburton last week confirmed the global company employs imported workers.
[Despite three days of requests to Halliburton in Australia and the U.S., they have not answered the claims.]
Sunday, February 12, 2006
PLOUGHSHARES INTO SWORDS
Things change … Middleback Station owner Andrew Nicolson is resigned to the army's acquisition of the land his family has worked since 1919.
South Australian sheep stations swallowed up by Australian Army
Station owners have met the army's land acquisition proposal with mixed reactions.
Middleback Station owner Andrew Nicolson said the decision has been made, things change and life goes on.
"It's a decision you wouldn't have arrived at yourself," he said. "At the end of the day the decision is not ours.
"The army will make the decision and life goes on."
Although Andrew was unsure how much of Middleback Station the army wanted, he thought it was about 80 per cent.
"At this stage they would take the whole lot," Andrew said. "It would leave us with something unviable."
The Nicolson family has owned Middleback Station since 1919 and Andrew has run it since 1988.
"Of course it's sad to see it go," he said. "I have loved the farming and the family's loved it."
Andrew said the acquisition would provide another use for the land.
Because of its hardy ecology, the land was well suited to the army's heavy vehicle and troop training activities.
Having such a large area of land would allow areas to recover and regenerate between training sessions.
Cultana to triple in size
The Cultana defence training area could triple in size within the next five years, according to parliamentary secretary for defence Teresa Gambaro.
The Defence Minister has approved land acquisitions between the existing training area and Iron Knob.
This land, in addition to the current 48,000 hectares, would make Cultana one of Australia's largest military training areas.
Just how much land was acquired would depend on negotiations with leaseholders of nearby stations. However, the defence department proposed to acquire all of Tregalana Station and all or part of Roopena and Katunga stations.
The stations surrounding Whyalla have significant historical value for Whyalla and its residents and this would have to be safeguarded if the expansion went ahead.
Saturday, February 11, 2006
NOT FUNNY
New Evidence Suggests Cartoon Riots Are Staged Psyop
More evidence has come to light that confirms fake and misleading caricatures were bundled in with the more tame cartoons that were printed in Danish newspapers. Muslims were misled into believing that all the images were printed in newspapers when they were not.
More evidence has come to light that confirms fake and misleading caricatures were bundled in with the more tame cartoons that were printed in Danish newspapers. Muslims were misled into believing that all the images were printed in newspapers when they were not.
REDS UNDER THE BED
The Man Who Terrorized America For Five Years
The film Good Night and Good Luck contains many striking performances - by George Clooney, Frank Langella, Jeff Daniels, Robert Downey Jnr and especially the lean-faced, perma-smoking David Strathairn as crusading TV news anchor Ed Murrow.
But one performance doesn't quite fit with the others. It's simply a face, mouthing lazy threats from a TV screen, but what a face - a boxer's mug, hostile and pugnacious, the eyes deep-set and hooded, a witch's peak of hair arrowing across a pasty brow.
The performance failed to impress some of the preview "test" audiences. They thought the actor was, they said, overacting. What they didn't realise was, this was real. They'd been looking at a real-life broadcast, taken from archive footage, by Senator Joe McCarthy, the man who terrorised America for five years.
NEW WORLD ORDER
U.S. steps up force-feeding at Guantánamo Bay
United States military authorities have taken tougher measures to force-feed detainees engaged in hunger strikes at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, after concluding that some were determined to commit suicide to protest their indefinite confinement, military officials have said.
In recent weeks, the officials said, guards have begun strapping recalcitrant detainees into "restraint chairs," sometimes for hours a day, to feed them through tubes and prevent them from deliberately vomiting afterward. Detainees who refuse to eat have also been placed in isolation for extended periods in what the officials said was an effort to keep them from being encouraged by other hunger strikers.
[In short, this is nothing more or less than a particularly violent suppression of protest.]
United States military authorities have taken tougher measures to force-feed detainees engaged in hunger strikes at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, after concluding that some were determined to commit suicide to protest their indefinite confinement, military officials have said.
In recent weeks, the officials said, guards have begun strapping recalcitrant detainees into "restraint chairs," sometimes for hours a day, to feed them through tubes and prevent them from deliberately vomiting afterward. Detainees who refuse to eat have also been placed in isolation for extended periods in what the officials said was an effort to keep them from being encouraged by other hunger strikers.
[In short, this is nothing more or less than a particularly violent suppression of protest.]
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
FREE SPEECH
Burning crosses ... on Danish flags
The complained-of cartoons first appeared in October; they have provoked such fury only now. As reported in this newspaper yesterday, it turns out that a group of Danish imams circulated the images to brethren in Muslim countries. When they did so, they included in their package three other, much more offensive cartoons which had not appeared in Jyllands-Posten but were lumped together so that many thought they had.
The complained-of cartoons first appeared in October; they have provoked such fury only now. As reported in this newspaper yesterday, it turns out that a group of Danish imams circulated the images to brethren in Muslim countries. When they did so, they included in their package three other, much more offensive cartoons which had not appeared in Jyllands-Posten but were lumped together so that many thought they had.
POLICE STATE
Taser guns to be trialled in NSW
New South Wales' newly-formed riot squad will be allowed to trial an electrical stun gun to incapacitate offenders. The taser guns incapacitate people with a five second burst of an electrical current.
Police Minister Carl Scully dismissed concerns about potential misuse.
The circumstances of their use are yet to be determined and it is unclear how quickly they will be put into operation
[US police have a long history of abusing this weapon on the elderly, children, teens, and even people who don't obey commands immediately after being electrocuted (because they are paralysed).
One out of every four suspects shocked with Tasers was unarmed, nonviolent and not posing an apparent immediate threat.
While health risks from Taser shocks remain under debate, officers have fired them at the very young and the very old -- at least 35 people 16 and younger, including a 13-year-old girl, and seven people 61 or older, including an 86-year-old man, were shocked. At least three women claiming to be pregnant were shocked.]
Monday, February 06, 2006
NOT FUNNY
'Yes, there is the right to caricature God,' says French newspaper France Soir
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy condemned the violent protests: "I am totally shocked and find it unacceptable that because there have been caricatures in the West, extremists can burn flags or take fundamentalist or extremist positions which would prove the cartoonists right."
Cartoon row highlights deep divisions
A great deal of the Islamic literature about Muhammad is hagiographic - that is, unstinting in its praise.
It elevates the founder of Islam to a unique level of perfection and infallibility.
Despite the Koranic emphasis on the fundamentally human nature of Mohammed, the hagiographic tradition continues to dominate perceptions of the Prophet.
The row over the Danish cartoons would probably have remained a local dispute between some Muslims and a Danish newspaper had it not been for three factors:
* the rise of violent political Islam
* America's war on terror
* modern transnational media.
[America's war on terror is still largely perceived in the Arab world as a war on Islam - a perception reinforced by the fact that it is happening exclusively in Muslim countries, namely Iraq and Afghanistan.]
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
Pentagon propaganda to 'Go Army!' aimed at schools
All over the country, organized citizens are fighting to restrict the military’s presence in schools. But having recruiters troll high schools cafeterias is just one way the Pentagon inundates our youngsters with messages to “Go Army!”
Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has spent a half-million dollars a year creating a database it claims is “arguably the largest repository of 16-25 year-old youth data in the country, containing roughly 30 million records.” In Pentagonese the database is part of the Joint Advertising, Marketing Research and Studies (JAMRS) project. Its purpose, along with additional millions spent on polling and marketing research, is to give the Pentagon’s $4 billion annual recruiting budget maximum impact.
[Students who ‘opt out’ of having their information turned over to recruiters by their school are just shifted into another column in the JAMRS database, called the ‘suppression list.’]
All over the country, organized citizens are fighting to restrict the military’s presence in schools. But having recruiters troll high schools cafeterias is just one way the Pentagon inundates our youngsters with messages to “Go Army!”
Since 2002, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has spent a half-million dollars a year creating a database it claims is “arguably the largest repository of 16-25 year-old youth data in the country, containing roughly 30 million records.” In Pentagonese the database is part of the Joint Advertising, Marketing Research and Studies (JAMRS) project. Its purpose, along with additional millions spent on polling and marketing research, is to give the Pentagon’s $4 billion annual recruiting budget maximum impact.
[Students who ‘opt out’ of having their information turned over to recruiters by their school are just shifted into another column in the JAMRS database, called the ‘suppression list.’]
BRAVE NEW WORLD
Customs `camps' cause for concern
Maybe a lifetime in the news business makes one paranoid. Or maybe it was just a matter of timing.
The story showed up in Tuesday's Press-Telegram, as I was reading "Night," Elie Wiesel's horrifying autobiography of a teenager in Buchenwald and Auschwitz.
Appearing on page A5, the story said the federal government had awarded a $385 million contract for the construction of "temporary detention facilities." These would be used, the story said, in the event of an "immigration emergency."
[The new detention camps will be built by Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's defense-related corporate giant with fists full of contracts involving the war in Iraq.]
Maybe a lifetime in the news business makes one paranoid. Or maybe it was just a matter of timing.
The story showed up in Tuesday's Press-Telegram, as I was reading "Night," Elie Wiesel's horrifying autobiography of a teenager in Buchenwald and Auschwitz.
Appearing on page A5, the story said the federal government had awarded a $385 million contract for the construction of "temporary detention facilities." These would be used, the story said, in the event of an "immigration emergency."
[The new detention camps will be built by Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), a subsidiary of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's defense-related corporate giant with fists full of contracts involving the war in Iraq.]
CRYPTO ARCHAEOLOGY
Rock paintings book causes Kimberley controversy
A book on the controversial rock art paintings, the Bradshaws, is causing a stir in their homeland in the Kimberley before its release in the region's bookshops.
Ian Wilson's book Lost World of the Kimberley suggests that the paintings scattered across the Kimberley could have been the work of a race which flourished in Australia before the last ice age.
But his theories have disturbed native title holders like Donny Woolagoodja, who claims his ancestors created the art.
[According to legend, they were made by birds. It was said that these birds pecked the rocks until their beaks bled, and then created these fine paintings by using a tail feather and their own blood. This art is of such antiquity that no pigment remains on the rock surface, it is impossible to use carbon dating technology. The composition of the original paints cant be determined, and whatever pigments were used have been locked into the rock itself as shades of Mulberry red, and have become impervious to the elements.]
Friday, February 03, 2006
OVER REACTION
One of the cartoons said to incite death threats ... Quid pro quo.
Danish PM 'deeply distressed' over cartoons
Danish Prime Minister Andres Fogh Rasmussen has told Al Arabiya television that he was "deeply distressed" that Muslims were offended by cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.
Twelve cartoons of Mohammed first published in the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten last September, including a portrayal of the Islam's founder wearing a bomb-shaped turban, have provoked a firestorm of indignation in the Muslim world and a boycott of Danish products in most Arab countries.
Editors of French and German papers that republished them said press freedom was more important than the protests and boycotts the cartoons have sparked across the Muslim world.
The Danish embassy in Damascus was evacuated after a bomb threat that turned out to be a hoax and Syria recalled its ambassador from Denmark in protest against the cartoons, one of which shows the Prophet Mohammed wearing a turban shaped like a bomb.
Denmark's largest selling broadsheet finally admitted it had made a mistake, and published an apology (in Danish, English and Arabic)
Honourable Citizens of The Muslim World
Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten is a strong proponent of democracy and freedom of religion. The newspaper respects the right of any human being to practise his or her religion. Serious misunderstandings in respect of some drawings of the Prophet Mohammed have led to much anger and, lately, also boycott of Danish goods in Muslim countries.
Please allow me to correct these misunderstandings.
On 30 September last year, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten published 12 different cartoonists' idea of what the Prophet Mohammed might have looked like. The initiative was taken as part of an ongoing public debate on freedom of expression, a freedom much cherished in Denmark.
In our opinion, the 12 drawings were sober. They were not intended to be offensive, nor were they at variance with Danish law, but they have indisputably offended many Muslims for which we apologize.
Since then a number of offensive drawings have circulated in The Middle East which have never been published in Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten and which we would never have published, had they been offered to us. We would have refused to publish them on the grounds that they violated our ethical code.
Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten attaches importance to upholding the highest ethical standards based upon the respect of our fundamental values. It is so much more deplorable, therefore, that these drawings were presented as if they had anything to do with Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten.
Maybe because of culturally based misunderstandings, the initiative to publish the 12 drawings has been interpreted as a campaign against Muslims in Denmark and the rest of the world. I must categorically dismiss such an interpretation. Because of the very fact that we are strong proponents of the freedom of religion and because we respect the right of any human being to practise his or her religion, offending anybody on the grounds of their religious beliefs is unthinkable to us.
That this happened was, consequently, unintentional.
As a result of the debate that has been going on about the drawings, we have met with representatives of Danish Muslims, and these meetings were held in a positive and constructive spirit. We have also sought in other ways to initiate a fruitful dialogue with Danish Muslims.
It is the wish of Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten that various ethnic groups should live in peace and harmony with each other and that the debates and disagreements which will always exist in a dynamic society should do so in an atmosphere of mutual respect.
For that reason, Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten has published many articles describing the positive aspects of integration, for example in a special supplement entitled The Contributors. It portrayed a number of Muslims who have had success in Denmark. The supplement was rewarded by the EU Commission.
Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten takes exception to symbolic acts suited to demonise specific nationalities, religions and ethnic groups.
Sincerely yours, Carsten Juste, Editor-in-Chief
TENTH PLANET
Xena, or UB313, on the left is just smaller than our Moon (Image: Nature)
Xena bigger than Pluto
Xena, the possible 10th planet in our solar system, is even larger then Pluto, research shows.
Astronomers led by Professor Frank Bertoldi of Germany's University of Bonn say Xena, or 2003 UB313 to give it its official name, has a diameter of about 3000 kilometers, about 700 kilometres larger than Pluto's.
This would make UB313 the largest solar system object to be spotted since the discovery of Neptune in 1846.
Astronomers have been debating the status of UB313 ever since the announcement last year that it had been discovered 15 billion kilometres from Earth.
Pluto's defenders blasted it, saying it was not a planet ... but a vulgar rock.
The polite term for such abuse is a KBO, Kuiper Belt Object, for the estimated 100,000 pieces of icy, primeval debris that slowly encircle the Sun on the outskirts of the solar system, far beyond the orbit of Neptune.
[Since UB313 is decidedly larger than Pluto, it is now increasingly hard to justify calling Pluto a planet if UB313 is not also given this status]
Monday, January 30, 2006
EARTH CHANGES
Claims US gagging climate expert
NASA's top climate scientist, James Hansen, director of the US space agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has accused the Bush administration of trying to stop him from speaking out on emissions of greenhouse gases
[Dr Hansen says that "efforts to quiet him" had begun in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on December 6, 2005, at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. ]
NASA's top climate scientist, James Hansen, director of the US space agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has accused the Bush administration of trying to stop him from speaking out on emissions of greenhouse gases
[Dr Hansen says that "efforts to quiet him" had begun in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on December 6, 2005, at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. ]
CYBER CENSORSHIP
Big Internet ISPs snub appeals to join stand against Chinese censorship
Leading US-based Internet companies are showing little interest in attending a Congressional briefing on worries that the firms are bending to the wishes of China's censors.
Microsoft and Cisco Systems have refused to attend the event, while Google and Yahoo are non-committal, officials said.
[Google's Chinese site restricts locals from searching for information about Tibetan independence, the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, the banned spiritual sect "Falungong," and Taiwan. ]
Leading US-based Internet companies are showing little interest in attending a Congressional briefing on worries that the firms are bending to the wishes of China's censors.
Microsoft and Cisco Systems have refused to attend the event, while Google and Yahoo are non-committal, officials said.
[Google's Chinese site restricts locals from searching for information about Tibetan independence, the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, the banned spiritual sect "Falungong," and Taiwan. ]
Friday, January 27, 2006
EARTH CHANGES
Warming hits 'tipping point'
A vast expanse of western Sibera is undergoing an unprecedented thaw that could dramatically increase the rate of global warming, climate scientists warn today.
Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres - the size of France and Germany combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.
[The area, which covers the entire sub-Arctic region of western Siberia, is the world's largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere]
Melting of permafrost threatens homes and roads
Global warming could melt almost all of the top layer of Arctic permafrost by the end of the century. Scientists say the thaw would release vast stocks of carbon into the atmosphere, threaten ocean currents and wreck roads and buildings across Canada, Alaska and Russia.
A vast expanse of western Sibera is undergoing an unprecedented thaw that could dramatically increase the rate of global warming, climate scientists warn today.
Researchers who have recently returned from the region found that an area of permafrost spanning a million square kilometres - the size of France and Germany combined - has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.
[The area, which covers the entire sub-Arctic region of western Siberia, is the world's largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere]
Melting of permafrost threatens homes and roads
Global warming could melt almost all of the top layer of Arctic permafrost by the end of the century. Scientists say the thaw would release vast stocks of carbon into the atmosphere, threaten ocean currents and wreck roads and buildings across Canada, Alaska and Russia.
ENDLESS WAR
New book recaps the disintegrating history of the 21st century
The US government engineered 9/11 as a pretext for permanent war. This bold plan was successful because of the media/pharmaceutical anesthesitization of the American populace over a period of 40 years, from the Kennedy assassination to the imminent beginning of World War Three in Iran.
The real money has always been made in wars and financial collapses. Current indicators are that we are about to get both.
The responsibility for this chosen course lies with the corporate establishment, which has gentrified itself right out of the human species.
The US government engineered 9/11 as a pretext for permanent war. This bold plan was successful because of the media/pharmaceutical anesthesitization of the American populace over a period of 40 years, from the Kennedy assassination to the imminent beginning of World War Three in Iran.
The real money has always been made in wars and financial collapses. Current indicators are that we are about to get both.
The responsibility for this chosen course lies with the corporate establishment, which has gentrified itself right out of the human species.
Monday, January 23, 2006
SWEET NOTHINGS
Legislative Process To Ban Aspartame
Fifteen New Mexico state senators sponsored a bill to rid New Mexico of what some have called "Rumsfeld's Disease.
A senate bill to rid New Mexico of what has been called “Rumsfeld’s Disease” has been introduced supporting legislation to ban the deadly artificial sweetener, aspartame.
Linked to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his efforts in the 1970s for putting the sweetener on the market, New Mexico is the first state to consider banning the artificial additive linked to numerous ill-health affects, including cancer.
[A recent report from a highly respected international medical team has now linked the toxins in aspartame to lymphomas and leukemia. The report by Morando Soffritti "Aspartame induces lymphomas and leukemias in rats" is in the European Journal of Oncology for July, 2005. Dr. Sofritti is a member of the European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences Cancer Research Centre in Bologna, Italy.]
Fifteen New Mexico state senators sponsored a bill to rid New Mexico of what some have called "Rumsfeld's Disease.
A senate bill to rid New Mexico of what has been called “Rumsfeld’s Disease” has been introduced supporting legislation to ban the deadly artificial sweetener, aspartame.
Linked to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for his efforts in the 1970s for putting the sweetener on the market, New Mexico is the first state to consider banning the artificial additive linked to numerous ill-health affects, including cancer.
[A recent report from a highly respected international medical team has now linked the toxins in aspartame to lymphomas and leukemia. The report by Morando Soffritti "Aspartame induces lymphomas and leukemias in rats" is in the European Journal of Oncology for July, 2005. Dr. Sofritti is a member of the European Ramazzini Foundation of Oncology and Environmental Sciences Cancer Research Centre in Bologna, Italy.]
Monday, January 16, 2006
PAPAL BULL?
Mystery of Pope's night-time visits to his old haunts
Over the past few weeks, the German pontiff has been seen sneaking back to his old room outside the Vatican.
At about 9pm a plain, dark car carrying 78-year-old Pope Benedict and his private secretary, Don Georg Gaenswein, swirls out of a side door of Vatican city. It then doubles round in the back streets before arriving at his former hall of residence as a cardinal for almost 24 years.
The Pope gets out of the car disguised in the plain black priest's robes he wore when he was the Catholic Church's senior theologian. Wearing a black hat and with his head down, he opens the wooden door and tiptoes inside followed by Gaenswein.
"Its is not a question of just dashing in for a few minutes to grab a bag or a book," La Stampa said. "He spends at least a couple of hours there."
Friday, January 13, 2006
HISTORY REPEATS
Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1938-45 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955)
Like boiling a frog
What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap between the government and the people. And it became always wider.....the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think.... for people who did not want to think anyway gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about.....and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated..... by the machinations of the 'national enemies,' without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us...
Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted,' that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures'..... must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing..... Each act is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. "You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone ... you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes.
That's the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves, when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. "You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father .....could never have imagined."
TERROR TACTICS
New claims of Guantanamo torture
Amnesty International has highlighted the case of Jumah al-Dossari - a 32-year-old Bahraini who was taken to Guantanamo Bay in January 2002.
His lawyer said Mr Dossari had been urinated on, threatened with rape and had his head repeatedly smashed against the floor. The claims have been denied by the US government.
He had reportedly attempted to commit suicide 10 times, the rights group said.
Another detainee, Sami al-Hajj - a Sudanese cameraman for Arab satellite TV network al-Jazeera - had been subjected to severe physical, sexual and religious abuse over the last four years, his British lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith said.
Amnesty's UK Campaigns Director, Stephen Bowen, called the situation at Guantanamo Bay "shocking".
[BBC link]
Amnesty International has highlighted the case of Jumah al-Dossari - a 32-year-old Bahraini who was taken to Guantanamo Bay in January 2002.
His lawyer said Mr Dossari had been urinated on, threatened with rape and had his head repeatedly smashed against the floor. The claims have been denied by the US government.
He had reportedly attempted to commit suicide 10 times, the rights group said.
Another detainee, Sami al-Hajj - a Sudanese cameraman for Arab satellite TV network al-Jazeera - had been subjected to severe physical, sexual and religious abuse over the last four years, his British lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith said.
Amnesty's UK Campaigns Director, Stephen Bowen, called the situation at Guantanamo Bay "shocking".
[BBC link]
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