Friday, September 26, 2003
The 52 Most Dangerous American Dignitaries
A behind the scenes look of the Bush administration reveals a team of croonies, carrying out a "neo-conservative" revolution in total opposition with the History and Values of their country.
George W. Bush seized power with the complicity of the Supreme Court and despite electoral results that were against him ; a global citizensurveillance system was set up through the USA Patriot Act ; the Army was allowed to intervene in domestic policy ; a propaganda machine was set up ; the country abdicated its right to self-rule and has launched itself into a series of colonial campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. What we are witnessing is not simply a change in policies but the emergence of a new regime that threatens Liberty in America and Peace in the rest of the world.
more...
A behind the scenes look of the Bush administration reveals a team of croonies, carrying out a "neo-conservative" revolution in total opposition with the History and Values of their country.
George W. Bush seized power with the complicity of the Supreme Court and despite electoral results that were against him ; a global citizensurveillance system was set up through the USA Patriot Act ; the Army was allowed to intervene in domestic policy ; a propaganda machine was set up ; the country abdicated its right to self-rule and has launched itself into a series of colonial campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. What we are witnessing is not simply a change in policies but the emergence of a new regime that threatens Liberty in America and Peace in the rest of the world.
more...
It's Ignobel
Since 1991, Marc Abrahams has been giving out the Ig Nobel Prizes to the researchers who have conducted the most ridiculous scientific experiments during the year. The next awards will be given out on October 2nd at MIT. Recently, he awarded a prize to a study about why teenagers pick their noses.
One Ig Nobel winner was a scientific paper by three Scottish doctors about "The Collapse of Toilets in Glasgow." After three patients in six months showed up in their emergency room with injuries they got while sitting on the toilet, doctors decided to investigate. They wrote, "Excessive age of the toilets was implicated as a causative factor. As many toilets get older episodes of collapse may become more common, resulting in further injuries. We would therefore advise that the older porcelain familiar to so many of us should be treated with a certain degree of caution. An obvious way of using a toilet without fear of collapse is…not to sit down, but to adopt a hovering stance."
more...
Since 1991, Marc Abrahams has been giving out the Ig Nobel Prizes to the researchers who have conducted the most ridiculous scientific experiments during the year. The next awards will be given out on October 2nd at MIT. Recently, he awarded a prize to a study about why teenagers pick their noses.
One Ig Nobel winner was a scientific paper by three Scottish doctors about "The Collapse of Toilets in Glasgow." After three patients in six months showed up in their emergency room with injuries they got while sitting on the toilet, doctors decided to investigate. They wrote, "Excessive age of the toilets was implicated as a causative factor. As many toilets get older episodes of collapse may become more common, resulting in further injuries. We would therefore advise that the older porcelain familiar to so many of us should be treated with a certain degree of caution. An obvious way of using a toilet without fear of collapse is…not to sit down, but to adopt a hovering stance."
more...
The Center for Disease Control recently discovered the average American has two pounds of parasites (around 300 different species). Why not unload these passengers?
Orgone is the universal Life force, the basic building block of all organic and inorganic matter on the material planet. Coined by Dr. Wilhelm Reich, Orgone has been called by the Great mystics and philosophers; Chi, Prana or simply the Force. Dr. Reich, an Austrian scientist, philosopher and psychoanalyst; developed a technology to tap into the Cosmic Orgone Sea to provide a continuous stream of Life-force energy.
The possible uses for this device are only limited by your imagination. for less than the cost of a Doctor’s visit, you could have in your hands, a device that could lead to the end of all disease. Reported to heal Cancer, Aids, not to mention a few more mundane illnesses like Allergies, Asthma, Chronic fatigue and Candida. Why have I not heard Orgone? Money and power pure and simple, the AMA scared of losing it’s monopoly on medicine ($$$$), conducted a witchhunt which ultimately led to Dr. Reich's death in jail for this cutting edge technology.
More...
Orgone is the universal Life force, the basic building block of all organic and inorganic matter on the material planet. Coined by Dr. Wilhelm Reich, Orgone has been called by the Great mystics and philosophers; Chi, Prana or simply the Force. Dr. Reich, an Austrian scientist, philosopher and psychoanalyst; developed a technology to tap into the Cosmic Orgone Sea to provide a continuous stream of Life-force energy.
The possible uses for this device are only limited by your imagination. for less than the cost of a Doctor’s visit, you could have in your hands, a device that could lead to the end of all disease. Reported to heal Cancer, Aids, not to mention a few more mundane illnesses like Allergies, Asthma, Chronic fatigue and Candida. Why have I not heard Orgone? Money and power pure and simple, the AMA scared of losing it’s monopoly on medicine ($$$$), conducted a witchhunt which ultimately led to Dr. Reich's death in jail for this cutting edge technology.
More...
'US ignored its own agency's reports on ISI backing Al Qaeda'
America's Defence Intelligence Agency was aware that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was sponsoring the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but the Bush Administration chose to ignore its findings, a former top Indian intelligence officer has said.
B Raman, former additional secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat, analysed three recently de-classified DIA documents of 2001 relating to the Taliban and Al Qaeda and said, "From these documents, it is clear that the DIA knew of the ISI's role in sponsoring not only the Taliban, but also the Al Qaeda."
"Yet the Bush Administration has for over two years chosen to close its eyes to the complicity of Pakistan and to project President General Pervez Musharraf to its own public as well as to the international community as a frontline ally in the war against terrorism. Why? A question to which there has been no convincing answer," he said in an article in Hong Kong-based weekly Asia Times.
The three de-classified documents analysed by him were titled Defense Intelligence Assessment: Osama bin Laden/Al Qaeda Information Operations, Veteran Afghan Traveller's Analysis of Al Qaeda and Taliban's Exploitable Weaknesses and Veteran Afghanistan Traveller's analysis of Al Qaeda and Taliban: Military, political and cultural landscape and its weaknesses. The last two reports were dated September 24, 2001.
More...
America's Defence Intelligence Agency was aware that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was sponsoring the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but the Bush Administration chose to ignore its findings, a former top Indian intelligence officer has said.
B Raman, former additional secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat, analysed three recently de-classified DIA documents of 2001 relating to the Taliban and Al Qaeda and said, "From these documents, it is clear that the DIA knew of the ISI's role in sponsoring not only the Taliban, but also the Al Qaeda."
"Yet the Bush Administration has for over two years chosen to close its eyes to the complicity of Pakistan and to project President General Pervez Musharraf to its own public as well as to the international community as a frontline ally in the war against terrorism. Why? A question to which there has been no convincing answer," he said in an article in Hong Kong-based weekly Asia Times.
The three de-classified documents analysed by him were titled Defense Intelligence Assessment: Osama bin Laden/Al Qaeda Information Operations, Veteran Afghan Traveller's Analysis of Al Qaeda and Taliban's Exploitable Weaknesses and Veteran Afghanistan Traveller's analysis of Al Qaeda and Taliban: Military, political and cultural landscape and its weaknesses. The last two reports were dated September 24, 2001.
More...
Thursday, September 25, 2003
Doctor: Hypnosis could have fueled Hitler's rise
It was the devil and Presscott Bush.
Dr. David Post didn't set out to become a globe-trotting lecturer on Adolf Hitler's mental health.
It happened quite by accident with Post, who lives in Baton Rouge and works as a forensic psychiatrist.
In 1991, while he was doing a residency in psychiatry at LSU Medical Center in New Orleans, Post made a vacation visit to the home of his uncle, the late Robert C. Holtze, in rural Minnesota.
Holtze, an honorary consul to the Federal Republic of Germany, had a house on Lake Superior, some 20 miles from the Canadian border. Like many people who end up as house guests with a little time on their hands, Post began perusing his uncle's bookshelves. It was there that he found a copy of "Adolf Hitler," an acclaimed biography by John Toland.
In a small footnote, Toland raised the possibility that Hitler might have been hypnotized during treatment for battle-related trauma while serving as a German corporal during World War I. Toland suggested that as a result of this hypnosis, Hitler might have experienced hallucinations that he interpreted as a supernatural summons to lead the German people.
more...
It was the devil and Presscott Bush.
Dr. David Post didn't set out to become a globe-trotting lecturer on Adolf Hitler's mental health.
It happened quite by accident with Post, who lives in Baton Rouge and works as a forensic psychiatrist.
In 1991, while he was doing a residency in psychiatry at LSU Medical Center in New Orleans, Post made a vacation visit to the home of his uncle, the late Robert C. Holtze, in rural Minnesota.
Holtze, an honorary consul to the Federal Republic of Germany, had a house on Lake Superior, some 20 miles from the Canadian border. Like many people who end up as house guests with a little time on their hands, Post began perusing his uncle's bookshelves. It was there that he found a copy of "Adolf Hitler," an acclaimed biography by John Toland.
In a small footnote, Toland raised the possibility that Hitler might have been hypnotized during treatment for battle-related trauma while serving as a German corporal during World War I. Toland suggested that as a result of this hypnosis, Hitler might have experienced hallucinations that he interpreted as a supernatural summons to lead the German people.
more...
Insane!!!
On October 31, 1979, President Jimmy Carter fired 700 CIA operatives and agents. This is referred to as the Halloween Massacre.
Some of these operatives and agents, such as George Bush, did not take kindly to being fired. They began to conspire to defeat Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election.
There were other covert types who knew that Carter had to be removed, no matter what had to be done. These men were part of a small black operation run by an old OSS man named William Joseph Casey.
During WWII, Casey quickly realized that he did not come from the right side of the tracks, as far as the OSS was concerned. Even though he was a lawyer from a respected New York Law School, he did not have the right pedigree. In other wor ds, he was not from the East Coast Elite who were the children of the families who owned the Federal Reserve Banking System.
Casey saw less capable men given positions and assignments for which they were not qualified. He realized that the OSS was a private club, and no matter how good he was, he could not join it, because he was not born into the right family.< /p>
During World War II a conspiracy to murder Adolph Hitler was being planned. The men who were behind the conspiracy were mainly of royal blood. While they supported Hitler in the beginning, they quickly came to believe that he had come unde r the control of outside forces. Some even suspected that the occult masters who taught him in his early years, had somehow gained control of him, possibly through hypnosis or some form of mind control programming.
The conspirators could see that international corporations, mostly owned by the same families who owned the Federal Reserve banks, were the ones who were gaining the most by the war. The conspirators sought the help of England and the Unit ed States. Neither country wanted to help these men kill Hitler and end the war. The conspirators realized that if the war continued, Germany, Austria and all of the countries that made up the Old Austro-Hungarian Empire, would be bombed back into the sto ne age and destroyed almost beyond repair. Because of this, the conspirators knew they had to act, no matter how slim their chances were, and no matter what cost they would have to pay if they failed.
Much more...
On October 31, 1979, President Jimmy Carter fired 700 CIA operatives and agents. This is referred to as the Halloween Massacre.
Some of these operatives and agents, such as George Bush, did not take kindly to being fired. They began to conspire to defeat Jimmy Carter in the 1980 election.
There were other covert types who knew that Carter had to be removed, no matter what had to be done. These men were part of a small black operation run by an old OSS man named William Joseph Casey.
During WWII, Casey quickly realized that he did not come from the right side of the tracks, as far as the OSS was concerned. Even though he was a lawyer from a respected New York Law School, he did not have the right pedigree. In other wor ds, he was not from the East Coast Elite who were the children of the families who owned the Federal Reserve Banking System.
Casey saw less capable men given positions and assignments for which they were not qualified. He realized that the OSS was a private club, and no matter how good he was, he could not join it, because he was not born into the right family.< /p>
During World War II a conspiracy to murder Adolph Hitler was being planned. The men who were behind the conspiracy were mainly of royal blood. While they supported Hitler in the beginning, they quickly came to believe that he had come unde r the control of outside forces. Some even suspected that the occult masters who taught him in his early years, had somehow gained control of him, possibly through hypnosis or some form of mind control programming.
The conspirators could see that international corporations, mostly owned by the same families who owned the Federal Reserve banks, were the ones who were gaining the most by the war. The conspirators sought the help of England and the Unit ed States. Neither country wanted to help these men kill Hitler and end the war. The conspirators realized that if the war continued, Germany, Austria and all of the countries that made up the Old Austro-Hungarian Empire, would be bombed back into the sto ne age and destroyed almost beyond repair. Because of this, the conspirators knew they had to act, no matter how slim their chances were, and no matter what cost they would have to pay if they failed.
Much more...
GOP Lawmaker Refutes Ashcroft on Libraries
Attorney General John Ashcroft may be mistaken in his assurances that FBI agents haven't used their Patriot Act powers to ask for library records, a Republican lawmaker said Wednesday.
Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter, R-Idaho, one of the strongest opponents of the Patriot Act, offered no proof but said, "There may be agents out there who have asked for this information that, quite frankly, the head of the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., is unaware of."
Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said Ashcroft's information was correct.
"That is laughable, the idea that 11 federal judges that sit on the FISA court could not identify that they have not sworn out an order for library records and that the attorney general and the Justice Department had falsified reports," Corallo said.
In conjunction with the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the FISA court approves surveillance and wiretaps for espionage and terrorism cases. The FBI can also obtain library records by simply asking for them to be provided voluntarily or by seeking a grand jury subpoena.
more...
Attorney General John Ashcroft may be mistaken in his assurances that FBI agents haven't used their Patriot Act powers to ask for library records, a Republican lawmaker said Wednesday.
Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter, R-Idaho, one of the strongest opponents of the Patriot Act, offered no proof but said, "There may be agents out there who have asked for this information that, quite frankly, the head of the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., is unaware of."
Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo said Ashcroft's information was correct.
"That is laughable, the idea that 11 federal judges that sit on the FISA court could not identify that they have not sworn out an order for library records and that the attorney general and the Justice Department had falsified reports," Corallo said.
In conjunction with the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the FISA court approves surveillance and wiretaps for espionage and terrorism cases. The FBI can also obtain library records by simply asking for them to be provided voluntarily or by seeking a grand jury subpoena.
more...
Eye scanner introduced to test for drugs in the workplace
Can't get high at work anymore.
An eye scanner designed to discover if employees have taken drugs or drunk heavily has been launched in Britain amid growing concerns over testing in the workplace.
The test, which measures the reaction speed of the pupils, can even gauge if staff are affected by tiredness, the makers said. Only 4 per cent of companies in Britain test for drugs but a Mori survey earlier this year found that another 10 per cent expected to introduce checks within 12 months.
But workplace testing has increased concerns over the rights of workers, who could be sacked for what they do in their leisure hours.
The human rights group Liberty said drug screening for jobs requiring top performance such as airline pilots was acceptable but not where the safety factor was lower. Mark Littlewood, campaigns director for Liberty, said: "This is a short and sharp test. No doubt you could certainly do more testing with this equipment. If your performance is being impaired by snorting cocaine or drinking too much you could be subject to disciplinary procedures anyway."
The makers of the latest device claim it is the first to measure "impairment" rather than analyse urine or swabs for drugs that can remain in the system for days afterwards. As many as 2 million people are estimated to take ecstasy each weekend.
More...
Can't get high at work anymore.
An eye scanner designed to discover if employees have taken drugs or drunk heavily has been launched in Britain amid growing concerns over testing in the workplace.
The test, which measures the reaction speed of the pupils, can even gauge if staff are affected by tiredness, the makers said. Only 4 per cent of companies in Britain test for drugs but a Mori survey earlier this year found that another 10 per cent expected to introduce checks within 12 months.
But workplace testing has increased concerns over the rights of workers, who could be sacked for what they do in their leisure hours.
The human rights group Liberty said drug screening for jobs requiring top performance such as airline pilots was acceptable but not where the safety factor was lower. Mark Littlewood, campaigns director for Liberty, said: "This is a short and sharp test. No doubt you could certainly do more testing with this equipment. If your performance is being impaired by snorting cocaine or drinking too much you could be subject to disciplinary procedures anyway."
The makers of the latest device claim it is the first to measure "impairment" rather than analyse urine or swabs for drugs that can remain in the system for days afterwards. As many as 2 million people are estimated to take ecstasy each weekend.
More...
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
Largest Arctic Ice Shelf Breaks Up, Scientists Say
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The largest ice shelf in the Arctic, a solid feature for 3,000 years, has broken up, scientists in the United States and Canada said on Monday.
Missed Tech Tuesday?
Laptops keep getting better and better. Find your perfect portable PC, then accessorize.
They said the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, on the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's Nunavut territory, broke into two main parts, themselves cut through with fissures. A freshwater lake drained into the sea, the researchers reported.
Large ice islands also calved off from the shelf and some are large enough to be dangerous to shipping and to drilling platforms in the Beaufort Sea.
Local warming of the climate is to blame, they said -- adding that they did not have the evidence needed to link the melting ice to the steady, planet-wide climate change known as global warming (news - web sites).
Warwick Vincent and Derek Mueller of Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, and Martin Jeffries of the University of Alaska Fairbanks lived at the site, flew over it and used radar satellite imaging for their study.
More...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The largest ice shelf in the Arctic, a solid feature for 3,000 years, has broken up, scientists in the United States and Canada said on Monday.
Missed Tech Tuesday?
Laptops keep getting better and better. Find your perfect portable PC, then accessorize.
They said the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, on the north coast of Ellesmere Island in Canada's Nunavut territory, broke into two main parts, themselves cut through with fissures. A freshwater lake drained into the sea, the researchers reported.
Large ice islands also calved off from the shelf and some are large enough to be dangerous to shipping and to drilling platforms in the Beaufort Sea.
Local warming of the climate is to blame, they said -- adding that they did not have the evidence needed to link the melting ice to the steady, planet-wide climate change known as global warming (news - web sites).
Warwick Vincent and Derek Mueller of Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, and Martin Jeffries of the University of Alaska Fairbanks lived at the site, flew over it and used radar satellite imaging for their study.
More...
How Ravenous Soviet Viruses Will Save the World
As a child in the early '70s, alexander Sulakvelidze dreamed of rising to the top of the Soviet scientific establishment. Fascinated by life at the smallest scales, he earned his PhD in microbiology from Tbilisi State Medical University in his hometown, the capital of Soviet Georgia. By the time he was 27, he was deputy director of the Georgian equivalent of the Centers for Disease Control and was collaborating with the Eliava Institute, a local hotbed of research in infectious diseases. He stood at the threshold of a brilliant career.
But when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the Soviet Union's formidable scientific infrastructure toppled along with it. By the early '90s, Sulakvelidze found himself laboring in a backwater. Like a Georgian Ginsberg, he watched the best minds of his generation go to waste.
"There was nothing left to do," he recalls. "Good scientists would come to work and spend all day playing cards and chess."
Determined to avoid that fate, he turned to the US. He applied for a National Academy of Sciences research fellowship at the University of Maryland Medical Center under Glenn Morris, one of the world's foremost epidemiologists. He got the nod, and in 1993 Sulakvelidze left Tbilisi for Baltimore.
He arrived to find the hospital in the midst of its own crisis. Enterococcus, a common bacteria that infests the human stomach and intestinal tract, was showing signs of resistance to vancomycin, the antibiotic of last resort. Between mid-'92 and mid-'94, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus, or VRE, infected 75 patients, killing 6. A random sampling in fall '93 found that 20 percent of patients had VRE in their bloodstream. People were dying, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
The Georgian microbiologist was nonplussed. Where he came from, infections were treated not only with antibiotics, but with viruses that attack and destroy bacteria. One day, as Morris lamented his inability to fight the outbreak, Sulakvelidze interrupted to ask: "Why don't you try bacteriophages?"
With that question, Sulakvelidze initiated a new phase in the age-old struggle between humans and microbes - one in which scientists are enlisting the power of evolution rather than fighting it.
More...
As a child in the early '70s, alexander Sulakvelidze dreamed of rising to the top of the Soviet scientific establishment. Fascinated by life at the smallest scales, he earned his PhD in microbiology from Tbilisi State Medical University in his hometown, the capital of Soviet Georgia. By the time he was 27, he was deputy director of the Georgian equivalent of the Centers for Disease Control and was collaborating with the Eliava Institute, a local hotbed of research in infectious diseases. He stood at the threshold of a brilliant career.
But when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the Soviet Union's formidable scientific infrastructure toppled along with it. By the early '90s, Sulakvelidze found himself laboring in a backwater. Like a Georgian Ginsberg, he watched the best minds of his generation go to waste.
"There was nothing left to do," he recalls. "Good scientists would come to work and spend all day playing cards and chess."
Determined to avoid that fate, he turned to the US. He applied for a National Academy of Sciences research fellowship at the University of Maryland Medical Center under Glenn Morris, one of the world's foremost epidemiologists. He got the nod, and in 1993 Sulakvelidze left Tbilisi for Baltimore.
He arrived to find the hospital in the midst of its own crisis. Enterococcus, a common bacteria that infests the human stomach and intestinal tract, was showing signs of resistance to vancomycin, the antibiotic of last resort. Between mid-'92 and mid-'94, vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus, or VRE, infected 75 patients, killing 6. A random sampling in fall '93 found that 20 percent of patients had VRE in their bloodstream. People were dying, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
The Georgian microbiologist was nonplussed. Where he came from, infections were treated not only with antibiotics, but with viruses that attack and destroy bacteria. One day, as Morris lamented his inability to fight the outbreak, Sulakvelidze interrupted to ask: "Why don't you try bacteriophages?"
With that question, Sulakvelidze initiated a new phase in the age-old struggle between humans and microbes - one in which scientists are enlisting the power of evolution rather than fighting it.
More...
'Human-cow' created
A CONTROVERSIAL cloning scientist is to announce he has created "human-cow" embryos that lived for about a fortnight and theoretically could have been implanted into a woman's womb.
Panayiotis Zavos, who runs a fertility laboratory in the US, made the hybrid embryos by inserting human DNA into the eggs of a cow.
Professor Zavos said the human-cow embryos were "theoretically viable" but emphasised that he had no plans to allow such a hybrid to be born.
"We are not trying to create monsters," he said, claiming his aim was to perfect his cloning techniques without the ethical problems involved in the use of human egg cells.
Moo
A CONTROVERSIAL cloning scientist is to announce he has created "human-cow" embryos that lived for about a fortnight and theoretically could have been implanted into a woman's womb.
Panayiotis Zavos, who runs a fertility laboratory in the US, made the hybrid embryos by inserting human DNA into the eggs of a cow.
Professor Zavos said the human-cow embryos were "theoretically viable" but emphasised that he had no plans to allow such a hybrid to be born.
"We are not trying to create monsters," he said, claiming his aim was to perfect his cloning techniques without the ethical problems involved in the use of human egg cells.
Moo
Halliburton Creating Iraqi Secret Police At Your Expense
To explain to the American people why the U.S. is spending more on the “war on terrorism”—some $215 million a day—than it does on education, Congress should audit the profiteers that service the military, starting with the company Dick Cheney headed before he became vice president.
KAPOSVAR, Hungary—“Camp Freedom” is a converted Soviet-era base at Taszár near Kaposvar, where the U.S. military trained an exile militia known as the “Free Iraqi Forces” and where it reportedly plans to train another 28,000 Iraqi “policemen.” The Taszár base resembles a high-security prison, and local authorities say they don’t know anything about what actually goes on inside the base.
Bernard B. Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner who heads the Iraqi Interior Ministry in Baghdad, told The New York Times that he hoped to begin training Iraqis at Taszár within a few months. Kerik said the courses in Hungary would be short and intensive, lasting about eight weeks.
When U.S. officials said they were holding talks with Hungary about training up to 28,000 Iraqi police officers at Taszár, the local authorities only learned of the plan when the Hungarian press picked up the story.
Karoly Szita, the mayor of Kaposvar, told the Hungarian press that it was “the same game” the U.S. had played earlier in the year when “nobody knew anything.” The exiles then were said to be training as interpreters for U.S. forces, but “were armed, in uniform, and being put through combat training,” The Guardian (UK) reported recently.
More...
To explain to the American people why the U.S. is spending more on the “war on terrorism”—some $215 million a day—than it does on education, Congress should audit the profiteers that service the military, starting with the company Dick Cheney headed before he became vice president.
KAPOSVAR, Hungary—“Camp Freedom” is a converted Soviet-era base at Taszár near Kaposvar, where the U.S. military trained an exile militia known as the “Free Iraqi Forces” and where it reportedly plans to train another 28,000 Iraqi “policemen.” The Taszár base resembles a high-security prison, and local authorities say they don’t know anything about what actually goes on inside the base.
Bernard B. Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner who heads the Iraqi Interior Ministry in Baghdad, told The New York Times that he hoped to begin training Iraqis at Taszár within a few months. Kerik said the courses in Hungary would be short and intensive, lasting about eight weeks.
When U.S. officials said they were holding talks with Hungary about training up to 28,000 Iraqi police officers at Taszár, the local authorities only learned of the plan when the Hungarian press picked up the story.
Karoly Szita, the mayor of Kaposvar, told the Hungarian press that it was “the same game” the U.S. had played earlier in the year when “nobody knew anything.” The exiles then were said to be training as interpreters for U.S. forces, but “were armed, in uniform, and being put through combat training,” The Guardian (UK) reported recently.
More...
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
Is A Brain Really Necessary?
Do you really have to have a brain? The reason for my apparently absurd question is the remarkable research conducted at the University of Sheffield by neurology professor John Lorber.
When Sheffield's campus doctor was treating one of the mathematics students for a minor ailment, he noticed that the student's head was a little larger than normal. The doctor referred the student to professor Lorber for further examination.
The student in question was academically bright, had a reported IQ of 126 and was expected to graduate. When he was examined by CAT-scan, however, Lorber discovered that he had virtually no brain at all.
Instead of two hemispheres filling the cranial cavity, some 4.5 centimetres deep, the student had less than 1 millimetre of cerebral tissue covering the top of his spinal column. The student was suffering from hydrocephalus, the condition in which the cerebrospinal fluid, instead of circulating around the brain and entering the bloodstream, becomes dammed up inside the brain.
Normally, the condition is fatal in the first months of childhood. Even where an individual survives he or she is usually seriously handicapped. Somehow, though, the Sheffield student had lived a perfectly normal life and went on to gain an honours degree in mathematics.
More...
Do you really have to have a brain? The reason for my apparently absurd question is the remarkable research conducted at the University of Sheffield by neurology professor John Lorber.
When Sheffield's campus doctor was treating one of the mathematics students for a minor ailment, he noticed that the student's head was a little larger than normal. The doctor referred the student to professor Lorber for further examination.
The student in question was academically bright, had a reported IQ of 126 and was expected to graduate. When he was examined by CAT-scan, however, Lorber discovered that he had virtually no brain at all.
Instead of two hemispheres filling the cranial cavity, some 4.5 centimetres deep, the student had less than 1 millimetre of cerebral tissue covering the top of his spinal column. The student was suffering from hydrocephalus, the condition in which the cerebrospinal fluid, instead of circulating around the brain and entering the bloodstream, becomes dammed up inside the brain.
Normally, the condition is fatal in the first months of childhood. Even where an individual survives he or she is usually seriously handicapped. Somehow, though, the Sheffield student had lived a perfectly normal life and went on to gain an honours degree in mathematics.
More...
The Incredible Genius Of Eric Laithwaite
From Benjamin Kanarek
Few people visit the Royal Institution, in London's Albemarle Street, for amusement. There are not many laughs at Britain's second oldest scientific institution, founded in 1799, where Sir Humphry Davy demonstrated his discovery of the elements sodium and potassium and where Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction. It's true there have been some lighter moments in the famous circular lecture theatre, especially since Sir William Bragg introduced Christmas Lectures for Children in the 1920s. But, on the whole, this is stuffed shirt territory.
One night in 1973 the stuffed shirts got a shock from which they have still not recovered. It was an experience at which, like Queen Victoria, they were not amused. Indeed it was so unamusing for them that it is the only occasion in the Royal Institution's two hundred year history that it has failed to publish a proceedings of a major lecture, or 'evening discourse'. The cause of this unique case of scientific censorship was the maverick professor of electrical engineering of Imperial College, London, Eric Laithwaite.
Laithwaite was no stranger to controversy even before his shadow fell across so distinguished an institutional threshold. In the 1960s, Laithwaite invented the linear electric motor, a device that can power a passenger train. In the 1970s, he and his colleagues combined the linear motor with the latest hovercraft technology to create a British experimental high speed train. This was a highly novel, but perfectly orthodox technology.
More...
From Benjamin Kanarek
Few people visit the Royal Institution, in London's Albemarle Street, for amusement. There are not many laughs at Britain's second oldest scientific institution, founded in 1799, where Sir Humphry Davy demonstrated his discovery of the elements sodium and potassium and where Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction. It's true there have been some lighter moments in the famous circular lecture theatre, especially since Sir William Bragg introduced Christmas Lectures for Children in the 1920s. But, on the whole, this is stuffed shirt territory.
One night in 1973 the stuffed shirts got a shock from which they have still not recovered. It was an experience at which, like Queen Victoria, they were not amused. Indeed it was so unamusing for them that it is the only occasion in the Royal Institution's two hundred year history that it has failed to publish a proceedings of a major lecture, or 'evening discourse'. The cause of this unique case of scientific censorship was the maverick professor of electrical engineering of Imperial College, London, Eric Laithwaite.
Laithwaite was no stranger to controversy even before his shadow fell across so distinguished an institutional threshold. In the 1960s, Laithwaite invented the linear electric motor, a device that can power a passenger train. In the 1970s, he and his colleagues combined the linear motor with the latest hovercraft technology to create a British experimental high speed train. This was a highly novel, but perfectly orthodox technology.
More...
The trouble with Wes
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The important Democrats eager to run retired Gen. Wesley Clark for president might exercise due diligence about a military career that was nearly terminated before he got his fourth star and then came to a premature end. The trouble with the general is pointed out by a bizarre incident in Bosnia nearly a decade ago.
Clark was a three-star (lieutenant general) who directed strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington. On Aug. 26, 1994, in the northern Bosnian city of Banja Luka, he met and exchanged gifts with the notorious Bosnian Serb commander and indicted war criminal, Gen. Ratko Mladic. The meeting took place against the State Department's wishes and may have contributed to Clark's failure to be promoted until political pressure intervened. The shocking photo of Mladic and Clark wearing each other's military caps was distributed throughout Europe.
Last week on CNN's "Crossfire," I asked one of Clark's new supporters -- Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois -- about that indiscretion. "Well, I don't know about the photo," he replied. He and other Clark backers, led by Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, might want to dig more deeply into the general's turbulent military career before getting too deeply committed.
More...
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The important Democrats eager to run retired Gen. Wesley Clark for president might exercise due diligence about a military career that was nearly terminated before he got his fourth star and then came to a premature end. The trouble with the general is pointed out by a bizarre incident in Bosnia nearly a decade ago.
Clark was a three-star (lieutenant general) who directed strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington. On Aug. 26, 1994, in the northern Bosnian city of Banja Luka, he met and exchanged gifts with the notorious Bosnian Serb commander and indicted war criminal, Gen. Ratko Mladic. The meeting took place against the State Department's wishes and may have contributed to Clark's failure to be promoted until political pressure intervened. The shocking photo of Mladic and Clark wearing each other's military caps was distributed throughout Europe.
Last week on CNN's "Crossfire," I asked one of Clark's new supporters -- Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois -- about that indiscretion. "Well, I don't know about the photo," he replied. He and other Clark backers, led by Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, might want to dig more deeply into the general's turbulent military career before getting too deeply committed.
More...
When Preaching The Bible Is Outlawed, I'll Be An Outlaw
A much under-reported yet critically important news story occurred recently in Canada. On September 17, Canada's House of Commons passed a bill that adds sexual orientation as a protected category in Canada's genocide and hate-crimes legislation. According to many religious believers and free-speech advocates, the bill will criminalize public expression, including Sunday sermons, against homosexual behavior. Those convicted of violating the new law face up to five years in prison.
Now, if America were the independent country it was designed to be, laws passed in Canada, or any other foreign country, would not be cause for alarm in the United States. Unfortunately, however, the U.S. is more and more being led into a "global village" with even the Supreme Court using the laws of foreign nations as precedents for U.S. law. As a result, the laws of other nations are beginning to have a major impact upon the laws of the United States.
An example of this treacherous trend is the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the state of Texas' sodomy laws. For the first time, the high court's majority used the laws of foreign nations as justification for its ruling. Therefore, the law criminalizing anti-homosexual speech that recently passed in Canada is cause for deep concern.
More...
A much under-reported yet critically important news story occurred recently in Canada. On September 17, Canada's House of Commons passed a bill that adds sexual orientation as a protected category in Canada's genocide and hate-crimes legislation. According to many religious believers and free-speech advocates, the bill will criminalize public expression, including Sunday sermons, against homosexual behavior. Those convicted of violating the new law face up to five years in prison.
Now, if America were the independent country it was designed to be, laws passed in Canada, or any other foreign country, would not be cause for alarm in the United States. Unfortunately, however, the U.S. is more and more being led into a "global village" with even the Supreme Court using the laws of foreign nations as precedents for U.S. law. As a result, the laws of other nations are beginning to have a major impact upon the laws of the United States.
An example of this treacherous trend is the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the state of Texas' sodomy laws. For the first time, the high court's majority used the laws of foreign nations as justification for its ruling. Therefore, the law criminalizing anti-homosexual speech that recently passed in Canada is cause for deep concern.
More...
Monday, September 22, 2003
500 paedophiles to be tracked by satellite tags
Paedophiles are to be electronically tagged in the UK for the first time in a move that could prompt a revolution in the treatment and monitoring of sex offenders.
A British company is to hold talks with Ministers in the next few weeks with a view to launching a Home Office-backed trial involving between 100 and 500 child sex offenders. It is also talking to government officials in the United States, Italy and Ireland and is to tag a number of paedophiles who have volunteered to wear the device.
Sky Guardian will unveil the first electronic device made specifically to track paedophiles at this month's Labour party conference and is to test the technology on a volunteer MP this week.
Civil liberty groups expressed deep concerns last night. 'If they have been released, they should be free to live their life in liberty. This muddies the waters between guilt and innocence,' said Mark Littlewood, campaigns director of Liberty.
More...
Paedophiles are to be electronically tagged in the UK for the first time in a move that could prompt a revolution in the treatment and monitoring of sex offenders.
A British company is to hold talks with Ministers in the next few weeks with a view to launching a Home Office-backed trial involving between 100 and 500 child sex offenders. It is also talking to government officials in the United States, Italy and Ireland and is to tag a number of paedophiles who have volunteered to wear the device.
Sky Guardian will unveil the first electronic device made specifically to track paedophiles at this month's Labour party conference and is to test the technology on a volunteer MP this week.
Civil liberty groups expressed deep concerns last night. 'If they have been released, they should be free to live their life in liberty. This muddies the waters between guilt and innocence,' said Mark Littlewood, campaigns director of Liberty.
More...
Nevada's Area 51 Will Remain Top Secret
Invoking national security, President Bush has renewed an exemption allowing the Air Force to keep mum about its top-secret operations at Groom Lake, also known as Area 51, in southern Nevada.
Bush signed a memorandum on Tuesday declaring it of "paramount interest" to exempt the base from disclosing classified information.
President Clinton first issued the exemption in 1995 in response to two lawsuits filed by injured workers in Nevada seeking information about the military's environmental practices at the site. It has been renewed yearly.
In renewing the order, Bush also cited the Nevada suits brought by injured workers and Helen Frost and Stella Kasza, widows of two men who worked at the military base.
In their 1994 lawsuits, Frost and Kasza alleged that their husbands were exposed to hazardous and toxic materials while working at Groom Lake, which sits along a dry lake bed in Lincoln County, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The area is in a no-fly zone and closed to the public.
More...
Invoking national security, President Bush has renewed an exemption allowing the Air Force to keep mum about its top-secret operations at Groom Lake, also known as Area 51, in southern Nevada.
Bush signed a memorandum on Tuesday declaring it of "paramount interest" to exempt the base from disclosing classified information.
President Clinton first issued the exemption in 1995 in response to two lawsuits filed by injured workers in Nevada seeking information about the military's environmental practices at the site. It has been renewed yearly.
In renewing the order, Bush also cited the Nevada suits brought by injured workers and Helen Frost and Stella Kasza, widows of two men who worked at the military base.
In their 1994 lawsuits, Frost and Kasza alleged that their husbands were exposed to hazardous and toxic materials while working at Groom Lake, which sits along a dry lake bed in Lincoln County, about 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The area is in a no-fly zone and closed to the public.
More...
What Happened Last Time?
Scientists know the Earth's magnetic poles are getting ready to flip, so they plan to study an ice core shipped from Antarctica that can tell them what happened to the Earth the last time this occurred. They'll also be able to find out what the climate was like the last time Earth was in its current orbit—without the global warming caused by manmade pollution. This will tell them how much of the current warming is natural, and how much has been caused by us.
Magdeline Pokar writes in New Scientist that the ice core dates back at least 750,000 years, making it the oldest continuous ice core ever drilled. The gases and particles trapped in the layers of the ice reveal information about the Earth's climate and atmosphere, including periods of global warming.
More...
Scientists know the Earth's magnetic poles are getting ready to flip, so they plan to study an ice core shipped from Antarctica that can tell them what happened to the Earth the last time this occurred. They'll also be able to find out what the climate was like the last time Earth was in its current orbit—without the global warming caused by manmade pollution. This will tell them how much of the current warming is natural, and how much has been caused by us.
Magdeline Pokar writes in New Scientist that the ice core dates back at least 750,000 years, making it the oldest continuous ice core ever drilled. The gases and particles trapped in the layers of the ice reveal information about the Earth's climate and atmosphere, including periods of global warming.
More...
Galileo ends in blaze of glory
The US space agency probe was sent hurtling into the gas-giant at nearly 50 kilometres per second (108,000 mph) to avoid any chance of it contaminating local moons.
The impact was timed to occur at 1857 GMT, although because of the vast distances involved it was not until 1943 GMT that the break in the probe's final transmission was picked up on Earth.
"I'm just a little sad but Galileo has done a tremendous job for us, and it's a nice ending for it," Dr Claudia Alexander, the probe's project manager, said moments after the scheduled impact time.
More...
The US space agency probe was sent hurtling into the gas-giant at nearly 50 kilometres per second (108,000 mph) to avoid any chance of it contaminating local moons.
The impact was timed to occur at 1857 GMT, although because of the vast distances involved it was not until 1943 GMT that the break in the probe's final transmission was picked up on Earth.
"I'm just a little sad but Galileo has done a tremendous job for us, and it's a nice ending for it," Dr Claudia Alexander, the probe's project manager, said moments after the scheduled impact time.
More...
Russian intelligence service dismisses reports about attempt on Berezovsky's life
Spokesman for the Russian Foreign Intelligence service Boris Labusov has described as "rubbish" Western reports alleging that a Russian spy attempted to kill businessman Boris Berezovsky who lives in London.
"We consider it impossible to even comment on these insane allegations," Labusov told Interfax on Sunday
Kill
Spokesman for the Russian Foreign Intelligence service Boris Labusov has described as "rubbish" Western reports alleging that a Russian spy attempted to kill businessman Boris Berezovsky who lives in London.
"We consider it impossible to even comment on these insane allegations," Labusov told Interfax on Sunday
Kill
