Freakinback's Whole

2003-10-24T07:15:00.000-04:00

Al-Qaeda Videos Alert Sleeper Cells

Why does al-Qaeda regularly release video tapes showing images of Osama bin-Laden that contain nothing dated (like a newspaper page) to show he's still alive, with a voice-over that may—or may not—be his? Since these tapes don't provide proof that he's alive, what's the point? It may be this: no matter who's doing the talking, the words contain hidden messages to "sleeper cells," telling them it's time for a new attack.
When bin-Laden's message was broadcast over the al- Jazeera satellite channel last weekend, only one country was named: Kuwait. "Islamic countries that take part will not be excluded," the voice claiming to be bin-Laden said. "This applies particularly to the Gulf states, particularly Kuwait, a launching pad for the crusader forces."

On November 2nd, Kuwait will begin the trial of six people charged with being part of an Islamic terrorist network. "We believe this was directed at al-Qaeda's large sleeper network in Kuwait to move into action," says an intelligence source. "There's nothing more specific than this."

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2003-10-24T07:04:00.000-04:00

Chavez allies say video proves CIA plotted coup

Venezuelan legislators allied with President Hugo Chavez showed a videotape today they said is evidence the CIA was working with dissidents to overthrow the government of the oil-rich South American country.

The video, shown at a news conference at Venezuela's Congress, featured three men speaking in Spanish about espionage, making contacts with an unspecified embassy, and avoiding detection. The identities of those on the tape were unknown.

Governing party legislator Nicolas Maduro said the video showed U.S. secret agents training dissident military officers and municipal police in espionage and terrorist tactics. He said it was filmed in Venezuela in June.

In September, Chavez said his government had a videotape showing a CIA officer training Venezuelan police and civilians in spying.

"One day it will come out," Chavez said when asked about the videotape.

The U.S. Embassy said in a statement the video presented by pro-Chavez legislators showed an event held by a private security company, not CIA agents. It added the U.S. government did not participate in the event.

"Accusations that the Central Intelligence Agency is conspiring against the Venezuelan government don't have any foundation," read the statement.

"The policy of the United States is to support democracy."

Maduro said dissident soldiers trained by the CIA were responsible for the bombings of two diplomatic missions in the Venezuelan capital Caracas in February and another Caracas building in April.

Maduro alleged undercover U.S. agents were funding and helping opposition governors stockpile thousands of weapons in a plan to topple Chavez's government.

Elements of the video allowed legislators "to deduce" U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro was involved, Maduro said.

"This is proof the CIA is acting here," said Maduro.

CIA

2003-10-24T07:02:00.000-04:00

Secret MoD plan to create spy stations

Secret plans to turn mobile phone masts into "Big Brother" spy stations have been revealed.

The new system will allow mobile phone masts to become radar spy posts in the war against terrorist attacks.

The technology works by analysing radio waves sent out by all phone masts. When these waves hit an object they are reflected to the mast.

By analysing the reflections, a picture can be built of anything nearby. The Standard has learned that the the Ministry of Defence plans a test later this month. An MoD spokesman said he was unable to comment on the project.

The system, called Celldar, is seen as a way of spotting unauthorised planes and vehicles as the Government continuesto clamp down on terrorists. The City is already on high alert, and now Government officials hope the Celldar technology could also allow them to trace the movement of individuals almost anywhere in the country. It can utilise the existing 35,000 mobile phone masts in the UK.

Paul Stein, managing director of Roke Manor Research which developed Celldar, said: "We are currently doing a lot of testing of the range and accuracy, so we cannot release those figures just yet. We are also yet to carry out testing of tracking individuals but we know we can track cars and other vehicles."

Civil liberties groups claim the technology could go too far.

Simon Davies, head of Privacy International, said: "This has profound implications for our personal privacy. I would urge the developers to conduct a full privacy assessment of this."

nice...

2003-10-24T06:59:00.000-04:00

Cover-Up Alleged in Probe of USS Liberty

It was ``one of the classic all-American cover-ups,'' said Ret. Adm. Thomas Moorer, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who spent a year investigating the attack as part of an independent panel he formed with other former military officials. The panel also included a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Akins.

``Why in the world would our government put Israel's interest ahead of our own?'' Moorer asked from his wheelchair at the news conference. He was chief of naval operations at the time of the attack.

Moorer, who has long held that the attack was a deliberate act, wants Congress to investigate.

Israeli Embassy spokesman Mark Regev disputed any notion that Israel knowingly went after American sailors.

``I can say unequivocally that the Liberty tragedy was a terrible accident, that the Israeli pilots involved believed they were attacking an enemy ship,'' Regev said. ``This was in the middle of a war. This is something that we are not proud of.''

Calls to the Navy seeking comment were not immediately returned.

David Lewis of Lemington, Vt., was on the Liberty when it was attacked. In an interview, he said Israel had to know it was targeting an American ship. He said a U.S. flag was flying that day and Israel shot it full of holes. The sailors on the ship, he said, quickly hoisted another American flag, a much bigger one, to show Israel it was a U.S. vessel.

``No trained individual could be that inept,'' said Lewis of the Israeli forces.

In Capt. Boston's statement, he does not say why Johnson would have ordered a cover-up. Later in a phone interview from his home in Coronado, Calif., Boston said Johnson may have worried the inquiry would hurt him politically with Jewish voters.

Moorer's panel suggested several possible reasons Israel might have wanted to attack a U.S. ship. Among them: Israel intended to sink the ship and blame Egypt because it might have brought the United States into the 1967 war.

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2003-10-24T06:54:00.000-04:00

Love life of 'Condy' proves too hot for paper to handle

It prides itself on its journalistic integrity, but The Washington Post has been accused of censorship by its own ombudsman after dropping a cartoon that poked fun at the love life - or not - of President Bush's National Security Adviser.

Leonard Downie, the executive editor, dropped an entire week of "The Boondocks" by Aaron McGruder, saying the cartoon that featured Condoleezza Rice had overstepped the boundaries of taste.

"The 'Boondocks' strips in question commented on the private life of the National Security Adviser and its relationship to her official duties in ways that violated our standards for taste, fairness and invasion of privacy," he said. The decision has caused an outcry among Post readers, who complained to the paper's ombudsman, Michael Getler. "We are grown-ups out here, not children," one said.

Another asked: "Has the Post become so timid as to refuse to run a comic strip that pokes fun at a member of the Bush administration?"

The allegedly offensive cartoon features a young "Boondocks" characterwho suggests the world might be a safer place if he and his friends could help Ms Rice find a boyfriend.

"Maybe if there was a man in the world who Condoleezza truly loved, she wouldn't be so hellbent to destroy the planet," he says. The personal life of Ms Rice, 49, a close friend of the Bush family, is occasionally the focus of gossip in Washington. She is single and known for working long hours.

In a recent column Mr Getler said he felt the Post's decision had been wrong. "I don't know a thing about [Ms] Rice's personal life, nor do the characters in the strip, and I think readers understand that," he wrote.

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2003-10-23T08:04:00.000-04:00

Fun with fusion: Freshman's nuclear fusion reactor has USU physics faculty in awe

Craig Wallace and Philo T. Farnsworth are putting the lie to all that.
Wallace, a baby-faced tennis player fresh out of Spanish Fork High School, had almost the entire physics faculty of Utah State University hovering (and arguing) over an apparatus he had cobbled together from parts salvaged from junk yards and charity drops.
The apparatus is nothing less than the sine qua non of modern science: a nuclear fusion reactor, based on the plans of Utah's own Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television.
The reactor sat on a table with an attached vacuum pump wheezing away. A television monitor showed what was inside: a glowing ball of gas surrounded by a metal helix.
The ball is, literally, a small sun, where an electric field forces deuteron ions (a form of hydrogen) to gather, bang together and occasionally fuse, spitting out a neutron each time fusion occurs.
"Here I am with this thing here," Wallace mused, looking at his surroundings. "Who'da thought?"
Wallace and Farnsworth are much alike. Both are (or were — Farnsworth died in 1971) tinkerers. While Wallace was in grade school, his mother got a flat tire while he was riding with her. He fixed it. For his part, Farnsworth began improvising electric motors at a young age. Both went on to bigger and better things.
"He was never motivated to take science," said Wallace's father, Allen Wallace. "It was really the tinkering that motivated him."
When Craig was a sophomore in high school, browsing the Internet he discovered that Farnsworth had come up with a way to create deuteron ion plasma, a prerequisite to fusion.
While it was not good for production of energy (the source of much embarrassment to the University of Utah in the cold fusion debacle in the late 1980s), Farnsworth's design did emit neutrons, a useful tool for commercial applications and scientific experimentation.

USU freshman physics major Craig Wallace, center, demonstrates his experiment to USU professors John Raitt, left, and Farrell Edwards.

Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret Morning News
"He (Farnsworth) was after the Holy Grail of excess energy, but everyone agrees that it's mostly useful as a neutron generator," Allen Wallace said.

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2003-10-23T07:11:00.000-04:00

UFOs Seen in the Middle East

UFOs were seen in Baghdad and Bahrain last week. The Bahrain UFO displayed strange lights for about a minute. Mohammed Jaffer al-Hajer was with six of his friends when they all noticed it. Al-Hajer taped the strange object on his digital video camera twice—once as it gave off a bright yellow light and again when it split in two before disappearing.
"We first noticed the strange light appear to the left of the Batelco tower in the village," says al-Hajer. "We saw it again just above the tower when I reached for my camera and began to video tape it." People in a nearby town also reported seeing the UFO around the same time. However, flight controllers in the Bahrain International Airport tower say the radar there didn’t register any abnormal activity at the time.

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2003-10-23T07:09:00.000-04:00

EU elite are filthy pigs, says Bossi

The European Union's elite are determined to destroy Europe's Christian heritage, Italy's reform minister, Umberto Bossi said yesterday.

He described the elite as "filthy pigs" who wanted to "make paedophilia as easy as possible".

Umberto Bossi
Mr Bossi, leader of the Northern League, said Brussels was "transforming vices into virtues" and "advancing the cause of atheism every day". He denounced the European arrest warrant as a step towards "dictatorship, deportation, and terror, instilling fear in the people, a crime in itself". It would lead to a Stalinist regime "multiplied by 25".

One day Italian citizens would be locked up on the orders of Turkish judges, he told Il Giornale newspaper, which is owned by the family of the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. He added that the euro was a "total flop", its inflationary effects costing ordinary people "a fortune" in lost purchasing power.

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2003-10-23T07:07:00.000-04:00

Starving North Korea kills 'foreign' babies

Nuke them, nuke them. Nuke the poor.

Pregnant North Korean refugees repatriated after being rounded up in China have their babies forcibly aborted or killed after birth, according to a report that adds more horror to what is known of the Stalinist state's gulags.

Kim Jong-il
Evidence from a number of women who have escaped from the prison camps of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-il, reveals a pattern of infanticide, principally due to concern that babies conceived outside the country might not be "ethnically pure".

The report, by the United States Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, a cross-party monitoring group, cites evidence from eight former inmates.

One described how a guard took a baby away from a woman married to a Chinese and put him in a box nearby. A doctor then explained that since the country was short of food, it should not have to feed the children of foreign fathers. When the box was full of babies, it was taken away and buried, she said. It was not clear whether they were alive or dead at the time.

As many as 300,000 North Koreans have fled across the border with China. Many live secretly among the country's ethnic Korean population, while some seek asylum in embassies or by making the long trip to Thailand, via Burma, to the south-west.

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2003-10-22T07:11:00.000-04:00

Intense Solar Activity Increases

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Environment Center has issued an Official Space Weather Advisory stating that two very intense centers of activity have emerged on the sun.
Region 484, which began developing with unusual speed yesterday, is now one of the largest sunspot clusters to emerge during Solar Cycle 23. It is now ten times larger than earth. The region produced an X-Class solar flare on October 19, but earthly effects were minimal because the eruption was not pointing in our direction.

Any eruption occuring in the next week will be pointing directly or nearly directly toward earth.

In addition, the LASCO instrument aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) indicates another active region rotating toward us behind Region 484. This new region has already produced two violent eruptions.

According to the Space Environment Center, "these eruptions may herald the arrival of a volatile active center with the potential to impact various Earth systems."

Should strong eruptions impact earth in sequence, the consequent thinning of the planet's magnetosphere is likely to result in impacts on electrical systems on the surface, as well as weather effects.

This period of solar activity, while intense, is not the most intense period ever recorded, which peaked in 1959, however, this period has been marked by some exceptional solar flares, including the largest one ever recorded, which took place on April 2, 2001.

Link

2003-10-22T07:10:00.000-04:00

2003-10-21T07:37:00.000-04:00

Many people are worried about Devner International Airport. Strange art work show genocide and the death of the enviroment. They had problems with the Native Americans whom felt the Airport was built over a Indian Grave site. Masonic capstones and writting in a unknown words of DZIT DIT GAII. An eyewitness who has since "committed suicide" named Phil Schneider was a whistle blower re: Denver International Airport's underground facilities. The list goes on. Let's deep in a little.

The Queen of England has reportedly been buying up property in Colorado under a proxy.
There is a lot of "secret society" symbology at the airport, an AWFUL lot in fact
The symbolism apparent in the layout of the new Denver airport, some feel, says that it may be a control center for world control
Specifically, those involved in some very unusual government projects in the past, have remarked that the Denver area is where the establishment of the Western sector of the New World Order will be in the United States.
Denver is of very high altitude and ideal for safe underground building
The dedication or capstone of the new Denver Internation Airport is a masonic symbol.
If you visit the airport's south eastern side of the terminal you will find the Masonic Capstone in Granite.
This part of the terminal is called The Great Hall, which is known in Masonic lingo as their meeting hall.
On the Masonic Capstone is inscribed NEW WORLD AIRPORT COMMISION.
An eyewitness who has since "committed suicide" named Phil Schneider was a whistle blower re: Denver International Airport's underground facilities
He helped build the underground facilities and reportedly "killed" himself via a double tie catheter behind his own neck strangling himself. It goes without saying that it appears that he was MURDERED.
Phil also worked on other government underground facilities such as Area 51 and Dulce and more. See http://www.geocities.com/Area51/9357/ Which is a tribute to Phil, although I cannot vouch for the site myself
In the same general area as the Masonic capstone, there are Masonic designs inlaided in the floor, such as the expression DZIT DIT GAII, [anyone know EXACTLY what that means?]
Phil Schneider's father was a U-boat captain during the NAZI regime.
Apparently DZIT DIT GAII refers to the BLACK SUN some sort of NAZI symbology.
NAZI's apparently were into "BLACK SUN" worship, i.e. Saturn, i.e. Satanism, should not surprise us, I suppose
There are many murals at the airport of an EXTREMELY grotesque and apocalyptic nature.
After looking at the murals many come away saying that they may represent what the elites plan to do with us and world
One of the murals depicts 3 caskets containing dead people, each person representing people who the elites may want dead
Black woman, a Jewish woman, and an American Indian Woman
The casket ritual is common in the Skull & Bones Club whose members include George Bush
In the same mural is shown the destruction of city and forest, a little girl holding a Mayan Tablet that predicts destruction of Civilization
Another Mural depicts a green giant "Darth Vader" like figure wearing a gas mask destroying a city
In this mural women can be seen carrying DEAD BABIES
Another mural depicts a German boy collecting from all the other children of the world, all of the worlds weapons
the German boy has a HUGE IRON FIST and is pounding all the weapons into plowshares on an anvil
Operation Paperclip was a plan wherein NAZI's were brought into the US to be brought back into power after being financed and appearance altered
Many German nationals have been seen along Americans in more sensitive areas of the airport's underground facilities on a regular basis
The LUFTWAFFE has long had an EXTENSIVE base in New Mexico complete with towns where all signs are in GERMAN
The Artists who made the murals etc in DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT have been interviewed wherein they first claimed that guidelines WERE provided for their work
Upon further investigation, they appear to have forgotten that they previously said guidelines were given
Another mural depicts nothing but mind-altering or poisonous plants and animals all of which are recognized as Masonic symbols worldwide
Most people are shocked by this weird art and are bewildered that such strange stuff is in the airport at all [not unlike the bizarre propaganda/art at the new IRS HQ]
Phil Schneider claimed during the last year of constuction that the underground airport system was being connected to a deep underground base
At least 8 levels deep
4.5 square mile underground city
88.5 square mile base underneath the airport [HARD to BELIEVE, huh] Your tax money at work ?
Rodney Stitch, author of Defrauding of America, claims to have a copy of a tape of a CIA agent paying off the mayor of Denver to get the airport built [$1.5 million payoff]

More...

A letter to DIA.

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2003-10-21T07:10:00.000-04:00

US failure to count civilian deaths 'incredible'

The refusal by the US army to count the number of Iraqi civilians killed by US soldiers in Baghdad has been strongly condemned by Human Rights Watch.

Joe Stork, the acting executive director of the group's Middle East and North Africa division, said: "It is a tragedy that US soldiers have killed so many civilians in Baghdad. But it is really incredible that the US military does not even count these deaths."

Human Rights Watch collected evidence of 94 civilians being killed by the US army in the capital and confirmed 20 cases between 1 May and 30 September. The report said civilians were most likely to be killed during raids, at checkpoints, and after ambushes. "In all three circumstances soldiers often quickly resorted to lethal force," it said. Part of the problem was the use of combat troops for what are essentially policing duties.

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2003-10-21T07:09:00.000-04:00

Fayed demands probe into Diana death

The idea of a Arab born half brother to William and Harry.

Mohamed al Fayed has renewed his call for a public inquiry into the death of his son Dodi and Diana, Princess of Wales.

Mr al Fayed's move follows a new claim by Diana's former butler Paul Burrell that the troubled Princess wrote to him alleging a plot to tamper with the brakes of her car and cause a crash.

A copy of the hand-written letter was published in the Daily Mirror.

Other people concerned remained silent but the outspoken Mr al Fayed, millionaire owner of Harrods department store, issued a lengthy statement saying Mr Burrell's revelation confirmed his suspicions that Diana had been murdered.

He called on Prime Minister Tony Blair to hold a full and independent public inquiry, backed by Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, or stand accused of colluding in a cover-up.

Mr Burrell should give evidence to the inquiry and reveal all he knows, said Mr al Fayed.

His statement read: "The publication by Paul Burrell of a letter written to him by Diana, Princess of Wales, declaring that someone was 'planning an accident in my car, brake failure and serious head injury', confirms the suspicions I have so often voiced in public and which have thus far been ignored.

"I'm disappointed that it has taken Burrell six years to reveal this extraordinary correspondence and it raises questions as to what other important secrets he may be harbouring."

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2003-10-21T07:07:00.000-04:00

Handwriting expert says Diana murder prediction letter is NOT a forgery

DIANA, Princess of Wales, predicted her own death in a car crash ten months before it happened, newly published correspondence showed yesterday.

In a comment that is certain to fuel wild conspiracy theories, the Princess wrote that she was sure that an individual — thought to have been a serving police officer — was “planning” the accident.

Diana wrote that she suspected that someone was plotting to sabotage the brakes of her car in order to “make the path clear” for the Prince of Wales to remarry.

The letter is said to have been written to her butler, Paul Burrell, and was reproduced in yesterday’s Daily Mirror after the name of the individual suspected by the Princess had been blacked out.

The authenticity of the letter, said to have been written in October 1996, was not seriously questioned yesterday by a handwriting expert commissioned by The Times, who said that it was probably not a forgery.

It was unclear last night why Mr Burrell, 45, failed to make the letter available to the French judge who investigated the death of Diana and Dodi Fayed in a car crash in a Paris road tunnel in August 1997.

Mr Burrell was in the United States promoting a book which is to be published next week and which is being serialised in the Mirror. He was not available for comment.

In the letter, Diana expresses her “longing for someone to hug me and encourage me to keep strong and hold my head high”.

She goes on to claim that “this particular phase in my life is the most dangerous”, and adds that an individual “is planning ‘an accident’ in my car. Brake failure and serious head injury in order to make the path clear for Charles to marry”.

The letter was written at a time when the Princess was “signalling her return to the public eye”, as one tabloid newspaper reported, with a new hairstyle and a series of well-publicised engagements including a visit to Harrods with a sick child and a trip to Italy to collect a humanitarian award.

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2003-10-20T07:08:00.000-04:00

X-Class Solar Flare from Fast-Growing Sunspot

An X-Class solar flare erupted today from a sunspot that has grown remarkably fast from a small active region to a much larger one. Yesterday, the spot was barely visible. Now it is seven times the diameter of the earth. At present sunspot 484 is near the sun's northeastern limb and is not pointed directly toward earth. However, this active region is moving into position where it could direct solar flares and coronal mass ejections toward earth, assuming that it's activity level remains high.
Visit Spaceweather.com to view movies of the active region, and to get safe solar observing tips, and updates. NEVER look at the sun without observing solar observation safety procedures.

2003-10-20T07:06:00.000-04:00

FBI: Moussaoui not involved

Washington - The US Federal Bureau of Investigation has concluded that Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in America in connection with the September 11 attacks, was not involved in the strikes, Time magazine reported on Sunday.

The news weekly, in its edition appearing on Monday, quotes unidentified sources as saying the FBI has long believed that the Moroccan-born Frenchman "played no part in the 9/11 scheme and was only a minor player in al-Qaeda."

Moussaoui was detained by US authorities on an immigration violation less than a month before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.

Jailed in Virginia while awaiting trial, he has acknowledged membership in Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda group, but has repeatedly denied the government's charges that he was to have taken part in the September 11 attacks

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2003-10-20T07:04:00.000-04:00

Terri Schiavo denied Last Rites

Saying she was only following court and doctor's orders, an attorney for Michael Schiavo yesterday would not allow a revered Roman Catholic priest to administer Holy Communion to brain-disabled Terri Schindler-Schiavo, who is being slowly starved to death following the judge-ordered removal of her life-sustaining feeding tube on Wednesday.

Attorney Deborah Bushnell told Monsignor Thaddeus Malanowski, who has been Terri's spiritual provider for three years, that ''because of court order and doctor's orders, you can't put anything in her mouth,'' not even a morsel of moistened communion wafer.

Malanowski recounted the bizarre incident for WorldNetDaily. ''I felt that time was of the essence at this point and made a decision that because she is not going to live much longer, I might not have another opportunity to give her Holy Communion,'' he said.

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2003-10-17T07:30:00.000-04:00

http://investigate911.batcave.net/pentagon1.html

2003-10-17T07:23:00.000-04:00

Rumsfeld defends general who commented on war, Satan

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are defending a new deputy undersecretary of defense "who has reportedly cast the war on terror" in religious terms.

Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, whose promotion and appointment was confirmed by the Senate in June, has said publicly that he sees the war on terrorism as a clash between Judeo-Christian values and Satan, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.

Appearing in dress uniform before a religious group in Oregon in June, Boykin said Islamic extremists hate the United States "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christians. ... And the enemy is a guy named Satan."

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2003-10-17T07:18:00.000-04:00

Pentagon Hunt the Boeing! And test your perceptions!

As everyone knows, on 11 September, less than an hour after the attack on the World Trade Centre, an airplane collided with the Pentagon. The Associated Press first reported that a booby-trapped truck had caused the explosion. The Pentagon quickly denied this. The official US government version of events still holds. Here's a little game for you: Take a look at these photographs and try to find evidence to corroborate the official version. It's up to you to Hunt the Boeing!

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2003-10-17T07:13:00.000-04:00

Row erupts as US presses EU over defence plans

The US ambassador to NATO has sparked a diplomatic row by warning that the European Union is threatening the future of the military alliance by proposing its own defence initiatives, diplomats said Thursday.
And Washington is seeking clarification from its European partners at a special meeting next week, NATO sources said.

"What the US wants is to ask the EU what is happening," said a NATO source, confirming that the ambassadors from NATO's decision-making body will meet on Monday to prepare for a formal NATO-EU diplomatic gathering on Tuesday.

The Tuesday meeting will discuss the "state of play" of NATO-EU relations, said the source.

The row emerged as British Prime Minister Tony Blair held four-way talks on defence and other issues with his partners from France, Germany and Belgium -- who agreed controversial plans for a European military planning headquarters earlier this year.

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2003-10-16T07:14:00.000-04:00

Dogs Avoid Crop Circles

A man exploring a crop circle in Iowa discovered that a dog refused to go inside it. Unusual levels of electrical activity have often been reported inside crop circles, and dogs may be more sensitive to this than humans are. It's recently been discovered that dogs are sensitive to impending earthquakes.
Twelve years ago, Jim Hodges received a strange phone call. He says, "It was the sheriff calling to tell me there had been a report of a crop circle near Blue Grass. I drove out there and went up into a silo with the farmer and, boy, there it was—a beautiful circle in a mature corn field."

A woman driving home from a nearby tavern reported seeing red lights coming from the cornfield. "I'd sure like to know how many drinks that lady had," he says. "From the beginning, I thought it was strange that the dog from that farm wouldn't go into the crop circle with me—wouldn't go near it."

"I looked on my hands and knees for any sign of humans and found none," Hodges says. "To this day, I cannot tell you what created that crop circle. I was the first person, to my knowledge, to be in that thing. I spent the day photographing every inch of it."

He flew over it in a helicopter, taking pictures. When he got back several hours later, he found a group of people waiting for him on the edge of the field. "I don't know how they heard about it, but they waved a wand all over me and asked if I felt any odd electricity," he says. "I didn't. But apparently the dog did."

2003-10-16T07:12:00.000-04:00

Arnold & Carlyle

Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger was dogged by persistent protesters and hecklers Sunday, as he tried to seize the environmental mantle, proposing a $60 million "hydrogen highway" he said would provide a statewide chain of hydrogen fueling stations to help clean the air.
[...] The event handed environmental protesters a chance to assail the record of the actor-turned-candidate, who arrived in a large SUV, a GMC Yukon.

[...] But longtime GOP fund-raiser Bob Grady, a managing director of the Carlyle Group, said that as an environmental adviser to Schwarzenegger he is convinced of the actor's credentials.

[...] Asked how he could boast of being an environmental advocate when he owns five Hummers, Schwarzenegger instead took credit for the vehicle's popularity.

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2003-10-16T07:06:00.000-04:00

What Happened On 9-11: THE GREATEST ILLUSION OF ALL MANKIND

Now this is nuts... Even for me.

THE WORLD TRADE CENTER was built and designed to withstand the impact of a jumbo jet. That includes the Boeing models 747,757,767,777.

Therefore when a Jumbo Jet, consisting primarily of merely a hollow pressurized cabin, impacts the reinforced concrete and steel support beams of the World Trade Center that it crumples on impact on the outside of the building and falls to the ground because of little encroachment into the building.

The American Media has told people that a Jet wing can cut through steel reinforced concrete designed to withstand the impact of a high speed jet impact.

America was told that what they witnessed was what appeared to be a jet flying completely into the World Trade Center as if it were Jello. What the American media reported was something that is physically impossible. This is another Single Bullet Theory.

The answer is that a cruise missile with a military hologram aboard crashed into the building. A Cruise missile is small enough to fly into the building if it were to avoid any steel beams and merely properly aimed at open office glass panes.

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2003-10-16T06:51:00.000-04:00

US world leader in arms sales, Saudi Arabia no 1 buyer

no wonder we let Saudi off the hook.

The United States sells more arms than any other country, and Saudi Arabia leads the world for buying arms among developing countries, a report from the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) said Wednesday.
The United States holds a 40.3 percent market share in arms sales, raking in 10.241 billion dollars (8.8 billion euros) from sales in 2002, according to the IISS annual report "The Military Balance 2003-2004", on arms around the world.

Saudi Arabia spent an estimated 5.2 billion dollars in 2002 buying weapons, despite having reduced arms purchases from the 1995-1998 period, the report said.

Britain, the world's second-largest arms seller, sold 4.7 billion dollars worth of weapons in 2002 and has a 18.5 percent market share. It is followed by Russia (3.1 billion dollars and 12.2 percent market share) and Francebillion dollars and 7.1 percent market share).

China comes fifth down the list selling 800 million dollars worth of arms in 2002 (3.1 percent market share), followed by Ukraine at 600 million dollars (the report did not publish the country's market share), Germany at 500 million dollars (two percent market share) and Italy at 400 million dollars (1.6 percent market share).

more...

2003-10-16T06:49:00.000-04:00

Web Cameras Monitor Class Activity

Teaching kids to be sheep. They will be programmed to want safety over freedom.

A school district in Biloxi, Miss. is the first to install Web cameras in the classroom. The video is fed live to the Internet where the principal can monitor the activities of the students and teachers with the click of a mouse.

"It gives an added sense of security for the parents. You know that teachers are actually doing what we think they're doing," said parent Glenn Ryan.

Some teachers said the Web cams have helped with issues surrounding the behavior of the students.

"They're very helpful. To children to say, 'that camera is watching you' when they're walking down the hall, just to get them to straighten right up," said teacher Debbie Girouard.

While other schools have placed cameras in the hallways, North Bay Elementary in Biloxi is the first to try the Web cam approach. Students there are taped every second of every school day.

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2003-10-15T07:18:00.000-04:00

Only in Post, buried six days after incident: Marvin Bush's babysitter crushed by her own car

A babysitter for the family of Marvin Bush was found dead Monday night outside the family's Fairfax County home, and police said that she had been crushed when her car rolled into her, pinning her between the vehicle and an outbuilding on the property.
Fairfax County police said Bertha Champagne, 62, had worked for several years for Marvin Bush, President Bush's brother, and lived at the family home on Fort Hunt Road in the Alexandria section of Fairfax.

Officer Courtney Young, a police spokeswoman, said Champagne had gone outside the house about 9 p.m. Monday, reportedly to retrieve something from her car.

The vehicle had been in gear, police said, and appeared to have rolled in her direction when Champagne was in front of it.

After pinning Champagne, Young said, the car continued rolling toward Fort Hunt Road, near the intersection of Edgehill Drive.

Champagne was taken to an area hospital and declared dead that evening. Young said she did not know the cause of death.

underreported.

2003-10-15T07:13:00.000-04:00

Bush - Nazi Link Confirmed

WASHINGTON - After 60 years of inattention and even denial by the U.S. media, newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his "enemy national" partners.

The documents also show that Bush and his colleagues, according to reports from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and FBI, tried to conceal their financial alliance with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a steel and coal baron who, beginning in the mid-1920s, personally funded Adolf Hitler's rise to power by the subversion of democratic principle and German law.

Furthermore, the declassified records demonstrate that Bush and his associates, who included E. Roland Harriman, younger brother of American icon W. Averell Harriman, and George Herbert Walker, President Bush's maternal great-grandfather, continued their dealings with the German industrial baron for nearly eight months after the U.S. entered the war.

more...

2003-10-15T07:11:00.000-04:00

Sharon: Libya could be first Arab country with nukes

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reportedly told foreign ambassadors in a meeting on Monday that Muammar Qadaffi's Libya is trying to develop nuclear weapons with help from countries such as North Korea and Pakistan.

"One would not be surprised if Libya would be the first Arab country to have nuclear weapons," an aide to the Prime Minister quoted Sharon as saying.

"Libya is diligently attempting to acquire nuclear know-how with help and support from North Korea and Pakistan," the aide quoted Sharon as saying. "Not help as in buying a bomb but help in acquiring technology and know-how to build a bomb."

Boom

2003-10-15T07:09:00.000-04:00

Syria Mobilizes 50,000 Reservists

DEBKAfile

14 October 2003

2003-10-15T07:08:00.000-04:00

Pak fears joint Indo-Israel strikes

NEW DELHI: Pakistan continues to be concerned about the increased defence cooperation between India and Israel and its latest fear is an Indo-Israel joint strike against Islamabad's nuclear assets.

Pakistani intelligence sources, privy to the latest development in the Indo-Israel ties, apprehend that India and Israel might be planning a joint strike against Islamabad's nuclear assets.

WRITING ON THE WALL

- USA, Israel and India are moving fast toward strategic partnership against terrorism.

- By 2005, Indian ships in the Indian Ocean would be equipped with Israeli nuclear weapons.

- US, India, Israel and Russia are the only four countries that have declared intentions to exercise their "right of self defence" in the shape of preemptive strikes.

- Pakistan may be a convenient short-term ally for the US but India is the strategic partner of choice in the region

The decision taken during the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Arial Sharon to India to keep a mutual, watchful eye on "fanatic Islam" has stirred the current fear.

According to analysts, for India and Israel the common potential enemy has always been Pakistan – a Muslim nation committed to helping the Arab countries of the Middle East.

"Israel had been proposing a surgical strike against Pak nuclear assets since the time of Morarji Desai was the prime minister of India but the real breakthrough only came during Ariel Sharon's recent visit to India (in September)," sources were quoted as saying by Pakistan Observer.

More...

2003-10-14T07:11:00.000-04:00

Like to Eat Meat? Read On

molecule that makes the immune system think our body has been invaded is absorbed into our bodies when we eat red meat and milk products. Despite this, we’ve been eating meat and rejecting fish every chance we’ve gotten since prehistoric days.
The molecular sugar called N-glycolylneuraminic acid (Neu5Gc), which is found in non-human mammals, occurs naturally in lamb, pork and beef. Researchers have found that eating red meat causes this molecule to become absorbed into our tissues. This can set off an immune response, since our bodies may see the molecule as an invader. They’ve also found small amounts of Neu5Gc in human cancer tissues, leading to the theory that eating red meat may eventually cause cancer.

But the biggest problem is with organ transplants. Researcher Ajit Varki says, "Over the past decade, the number of patients waiting for organ transplantation has more than tripled, with little increase in the number of donor organs. This has led to an exploration of using animal organs for transplantation into humans, a process called xenotransplantation. However, the leading donor candidate is the pig, an animal in which Neu5Gc happens to be very common. The current study raises the possibility that human antibodies against Neu5Gc might recognize the Neu5Gc in the pig organ and facilitate its rejection."

More...

2003-10-14T07:09:00.000-04:00

Police start seizing 71-year-old disabled woman's "family heirlooms" from her yard; then tazer and pepper spray her

Eunice Crowder, who is legally blind and has trouble hearing and walking, is still recovering from the June scuffle with officers. She claims police went too far when they used handcuffs, tazers and pepper spray when they tried to restrain her outside her north Portland home.
“They pepper sprayed me in my prosthesis,” she said. “It ran through and down my nose so fast.”

[...] The trouble began when city crews with warrants were ordered to clean up her messy yard. She became irate after crews tried to take what she described as family heirlooms.

When police were called in, she tried to kick and bite, and officers attempted to restrain her, according to police reports.

Kill old people

2003-10-14T07:07:00.000-04:00

Teen arrested, charged with felony for saving girlfriend's life with his athsma inhaler

A 15-year-old faces expulsion after giving an inhaler to his girlfriend during an asthma attack that happened at school.
Boyfriend and girlfriend, 15-year-olds Brandon Kizi and Andra Ferguson are both asthma sufferers and both students at Caney Creek High School. At least, they were, until Andra began suffering an asthma attack at school.

[...] Brandon described the incident. "Her face was turning a little reddish-pink and she looked pale, as far as I could see. I loaned her my inhaler. I walked her to the nurse's office and loaned her my inhaler."

That's when the trouble started. The school nurse called the school police, who arrested Brandon. They charged him with a felony, namely distributing a dangerous drug for loaning out his prescription inhaler.

Busted

2003-10-13T11:40:00.000-04:00

Siberia find revives yeti legends

Siberian scientists say they have a discovery on their hands which raises the possibility that the local legend of the yeti - the abominable snowman - is more than mere fiction.
According to Russian TV, the well-preserved furry limb of a mystery creature was found some 3,500 metres up in the permafrost of the Altay mountains, in Russia's remote Siberia region.

"I turned the limb over and examined the sole of the foot, and I thought it looked unsual," Sergey Semenov, the mountain-climber who made the find, said.

"So I decided to bring it back with me."

Scientific tests and X-rays show that the bones are several thousand years old, but attempts to identify the creature they belonged to remain inconclusive.

It looks very human, there are many similarities

Yuriy Malofeyev, the Russian association of veterinary anatomists

Local opinion on the find, described as "surprisingly well-preserved", is divided.

There is a long tradition of alleged sightings in the area of what might - or might not - be the abominable snowman.

Size 36

2003-10-13T11:16:00.000-04:00

Armed UN troops in USA.

A terrorist group armed with chemical and biological weapons attacked the island nation of "Corona" on Wednesday, killing top governmental officials and threatening the entire population -- until a rapid-reaction force from NATO swept in, evacuated the capital city and eliminated the threat.

That, at least, is how the fictional terrorist crisis played out at Schreiver Air Force Base here as military and civilian leaders from all the NATO nations engaged in a "study seminar" to test the impact of a major transformation of the 54-year-old transatlantic defense alliance.

With nearly 3 million military personnel from 19 nations -- plus seven more countries to be admitted next year -- NATO leaders are worried that the huge organization is too sluggish and too poorly deployed to respond to the challenges posed by terrorists and other modern threats to peace.

"We have so many unusable soldiers," NATO Secretary General George Robertson said here Wednesday. "Taxpayers are being ripped off, paying for these soldiers who are configured for the wrong threat."

Over 20,000 UN troops in US.

2003-10-13T07:15:00.000-04:00

Controversy Swirling Over September 11 Pentagon Mystery: Industry Experts Can’t Explain Photo Evidence

Since AFP first published a photograph from the 9-11 Pentagon crash site, there has been a great outpouring of interest—and disinfo.

When American Free Press published a hard-to-find photo from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) archive showing a small turbine disc from the Pentagon crash site, it was hoped that readers could help identify the object (Sept. 15 & 22). Since the photo and article were published there has been an outpouring of interest—and disinformation—about the unidentified jet engine part.

The photograph reveals a crucial piece of evidence, which if positively identified could help prove what kind of aircraft hit the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

“Is this the 9-11 smoking gun?” Fintan Dunne, editor of WagKingdom.com asks on a web page dedicated to the FEMA photographs. These photos could be the keys to unlock the cover-up, Dunne wrote on Oct. 7.

“Among all the arguments about 9-11: tower fires, WTC 7 collapse, etc., none seems as straightforward as that posed by the jet engine part,” Dunne said. If the Pentagon photos are authentic, he said, then either the turbine is from a Boeing 757, or it is not. The web site appeals to “aero engineers” for help in identifying the disc seen in the FEMA photos.

The photograph is one of many taken by Jocelyn Augustino, a FEMA photographer, at the Pentagon crash site on Sept. 13, 2001. In the FEMA on-line photo library, the best photos of the unidentified disc are numbered 4414 and 4415, archived at: www.photolibrary.fema.gov/ photolibrary/advancedsearch.do.

Link

2003-10-13T07:12:00.000-04:00

Censored 2004: The Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2002-2003

#1: The Neoconservative Plan for Global Dominance
#2: Homeland Security Threatens Civil Liberty
#3: US Illegally Removes Pages from Iraq U.N. Report
#4: Rumsfeld's Plan to Provoke Terrorists
#5: The Effort to Make Unions Disappear
#6: Closing Access to Information Technology
#7: Treaty Busting by the United States
#8: US/British Forces Continue Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons Despite Massive Evidence of Negative Health Effects
#9: In Afghanistan: Poverty, Women's Rights, and Civil Disruption Worse than Ever
#10: Africa Faces Threat of New Colonialism
#11: U.S. Implicated in Taliban Massacre
#12: Bush Administration Behind Failed Military Coup in Venezuela
#13: Corporate Personhood Challenged
#14: Unwanted Refugees a Global Problem
#15: U.S. Military's War on the Earth
#16: Plan Puebla-Panama and the FTAA
#17: Clear Channel Monopoly Draws Criticism
#18: Charter Forest Proposal Threatens Access to Public Lands
#19: U.S. Dollar vs. the Euro: Another Reason for the Invasion of Iraq
#20: Pentagon Increases Private Military Contracts
#21: Third World Austerity Policies: Coming Soon to a City Near You
#22: Welfare Reform Up For Reauthorization, but Still No Safety Net
#23: Argentina Crisis Sparks Cooperative Growth
#24: Aid to Israel Fuels Repressive Occupation in Palestine
#25: Convicted Corporations Receive Perks Instead of Punishment

Link

2003-10-13T07:10:00.000-04:00

Israeli plans for Iran attack

Spy agency Mossad’s plans for a surprise attack on six sites in Iran have gripped the Islamic republic’s media, as have details of Israel’s nuclear capabilities.

Newspapers in Tehran jumped at revelations reported by both the German and American press on Sunday.

The Yediot Aharonot, Maariv and Haaretz dailies all splashed on a Los Angeles Times report that modified US-made cruise missiles are capable of carrying nuclear warheads on submarines.

This would allow Israel to launch atomic weapons from land, air or sea.

Strike plans prepared

The 3 newspapers also carried reports in Monday's edition of the Germany Der Spiegel magazine that a special Mossad unit received orders 2 months ago to prepare plans for strikes.

Around half a dozen targets in Iran are suspected of being used to prepare nuclear weapons by Tel Aviv.

US-built F-16 fighter bombers could completely destroy the sites, according to Israeli security officials quoted in the German magazine.

Maariv published a map of Iran complete with aerial shots of the suspected nuclear sites.

Yediot even ran a photograph of an Israeli Dauphin submarine, using a graphic to explain how it could sneak up on the enemy and fire its nuclear warheads.

Not the first time

In 1981, Israel bombed the Osirak nuclear power station near Baghdad, smashing former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's nuclear programme, the 3 Israeli papers reminded their readers.

More...

2003-10-13T07:08:00.000-04:00

Moscow prepared to stage pre-emptive strikes

While taking pains to play down possible new nuclear threats to NATO, the Kremlin has made it clear it is prepared to use pre-emptive strikes against perceived threats and will continue to mobilise Russia's vast nuclear arsenal to deter a new generation of low-level instability on its borders.

A wide-ranging new doctrine for Russian military preparedness, presented to NATO generals in Colorado Springs, Colorado, last week, states that large-scale war with the US or NATO has for the first time "been excluded from the spectrum of the most probable conflicts".

Yet it warns that Russia must be prepared for a growing number of conflicts - such as the US-led war in Iraq - waged outside the authority of the United Nations, and wars increasingly motivated as much by economics or the interests of what it termed "big transnational companies" as by national security.
Terrorism and instability in the former Soviet states along its borders are seen as Russia's greatest military peril, and Kremlin officials have emphasised that the kind of pre-emptive strikes upon which the US has relied in Iraq - the subject of substantial criticism from Moscow - are potential tools for the Russian armed forces as well.

The Defence Minister, Sergei Ivanov, told a recent meeting of the Russian military leadership in Moscow: "The specifics of contemporary external threats require that the Russian armed forces be able to perform various duties in various regions of the world. We cannot absolutely rule out pre-emptive use of force if this is dictated by Russia's interests or its commitments to allies."

more...

2003-10-10T07:22:00.000-04:00

Read this:

'The Black Quarterback Effect'

'The Black Quarterback Effect'
Here's an odd twist on the Rush Limbaugh football kerfuffle: It turns out that an academic paper published last October lends support to Limbaugh's comment, which critics denounced as racist, that "social concern" led people in the NFL and the media to hope Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb to do well. The study, by Duke University economists Peter Arcidiacono, Jacob Vigdor and Eric Aldrich, is titled "Race, Football and Television: Examining the Black Quarterback Effect."

The three economists analyzed ratings for ABC-TV's "Monday Night Football" between 1997 and 2001 and found that "Monday Night Football games featuring black quarterbacks have Nielsen ratings 11% higher than otherwise identical games with two white starting quarterbacks." What accounts for this? Here's Vigdor's explanation, in an article posted Tuesday on the Web site of The American Prospect, a left-wing magazine: "The racial tolerance of the American public has increased dramatically over the past 20 years, at least in the world of sports. With this tolerance has come a true preference for diversity."

Now, here's where things get weird. In his article, Vigdor attempts to use his study to discredit Limbaugh's views. "If Limbaugh had done any research on the subject, he would have learned that the media's desire to see black quarterbacks succeed is not rooted in 'a little social concern,' but rather in good old-fashioned attention to the bottom line." Network executives, that is, cater to viewers' "preference for diversity" in an effort to drive up ratings and therefore profits.

Vigdor is setting up a false dichotomy. What is a "preference for diversity" if not a "social concern"? What's more, Limbaugh referring not to executives and programming choices but to the opinions of sportswriters and commentators. Is there any reason to think they don't share the football-viewing public's preference for diversity?

More...

2003-10-10T07:09:00.000-04:00

Does the government know what you’ve been reading?

If you check out that biography of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg or that copy of the Quran at the Waukesha Public Library, the federal government could track it.

But library Executive Director Jane Ameel said Tuesday she wants to discuss the possibility of limiting such tracking.

The consideration comes as some Wisconsin libraries have already begun to purge circulation records to protect privacy as a result of the new federal Patriot Act.

more...

2003-10-10T07:06:00.000-04:00

U.N. rules Canada should ban spanking

A United Nations committee has ruled Canada should bar parents from spanking their children.

As a signatory of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Canada is obligated to make periodic appearances before the U.N.'s Committee on Rights of the Child, which said the country should "adopt legislation to remove the existing authorization of the use of 'reasonable force' in disciplining children," the National Post reported.

The U.N. body says Canada should "explicitly prohibit all forms of violence against children, however light, within the family, in schools and in other institutions where children might be placed."

The ruling cannot supersede national law, the Post said, but Ottawa wants to comply with the regulations to bolster the U.N.'s attempt to encourage international norms.

The United States and Somalia are the only countries that have not signed the convention, which routinely tells members appearing before its committee to pass laws banning spanking.

The UN is making us a world full of pussies.

2003-10-10T07:04:00.000-04:00

CPJ slams Pentagon silence on journalist deaths in Iraq

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Wednesday criticised US military and government officials for failing to address questions over the deaths of a handful of foreign reporters in Iraq.
"The failure of the US military to provide an honest and open accounting of what occurred keeps alive questions about whether US forces are taking the necessary steps to avoid endangering journalists," said CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper.

"These questions are urgent because hundreds of journalists continue to work in Iraq, and their reporting is vital for the world's understanding of events in this post-war period," Cooper said.

More...

2003-10-10T07:02:00.000-04:00

Arnold: The Rothschilds' Man in California

The Bush Cabal has lusted after California for a long time. And now with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor, they have finally realized their goal: to capture California, the world's 10th largest economy. Even "presidential advisor" Karl Rove signed off on it.

Most importantly, Arnold has been sanctioned by the Olympians. The European Families have authorized the deal and their American cousins at the Bohemian Grove seconded the motion to install Arnold as Governor. On Sept. 24, 2002, Reuters published a story called 'Buffett's Back, with the Terminator' about Arnold and billionaire Warren Buffett visiting the ancestral home of the Rothschilds in England, where they "stepped onto Waddesdon's freshly cut lawn to be greeted by Lord Jacob Rothschild... Among those invited to Waddesdon Manor were the likes of James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, Jorma Ollila, chief executive of Nokia and De Beers chairman Nicky Oppenheimer."

Next Sen. Orrin Hatch wants to end the prohibition against foreign-born citizens like Arnold Schwarzenegger from becoming president.

Link

2003-10-10T07:00:00.000-04:00

French newssite reports Arafat 'dead'

A French-language Israeli newssite is reporting Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Authority, may have died of a heart attack.

The report is based on the Guysen Israel News' sources and is ''unconfirmed.''

''We do not have any more information on the state of Arafat,'' the latest report said. ''The news of his death is still not confirmed.''

A report earlier in the day from Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said Arafat's condition was improving. Conflicting reports in recent days had him sick with everything from the flu to heart failure.

The 74-year-old leader looked pale and tired during the ceremony to swear in an emergency cabinet Tuesday, and some reports say he needed prompting from his aides.

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2003-10-09T07:15:00.000-04:00

FOIA Document Shows Navy Has Been Aware Of Problems Associated With DU Since 14 May 1984

This MSDS sheet (shown with 3 photos of documents) was released from the Department of the Navy, Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana, on 22 May 03 in response to a 2 April 03 Freedom of Information Act request by Glen Milner. The Material Safety Data Sheet, dated 14 May 1984, shows the Navy has been aware of many of the problems associated with depleted uranium since that time.

Glen Milner worked with other to expose that the US Navy has been firing 'depleted' uranium off the coast of Washington State. Sunny Miller interviewed Glen Milner on October 6, 2003. HEAR AUDIO (mp3) - 28 minutes.

http://www.traprockpeace.org/audio/milner_oct0503m28min.mp3

Glen's email is info@gzcenter.org and works with

Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action (http://gzcenter.org/).

more...

2003-10-09T07:10:00.000-04:00

How to Find Happiness

If you want to be happy, move to someplace where more people report feeling that way. However, the happiest countries may not be the ones you want to go to. And don't get breast implants, unless you want to become seriously depressed.
An analysis of happiness in more than 65 countries by the World Values Survey shows Nigeria has the highest percentage of happy people, followed by Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador and Puerto Rico, while Russia, Armenia and Romania have the fewest. They say, "New Zealand ranked 15 for overall satisfaction, the U.S. 16th, Australia 20th and Britain 24th—though Australia beats the other three for day- to-day happiness."

The things that make people happy vary. Personal success, self-expression, pride, and a high sense of self-esteem are important in the United States. "In Japan, on the other hand, it comes from fulfilling the expectations of your family, meeting your social responsibilities, self-discipline, cooperation and friendliness," the researchers say.

The study shows that happiness has remained the same in industrialized countries since World War II, even though incomes have risen, except for Denmark, where people have become more satisfied with life over the last three decades.

But one thing that doesn't make people happy is getting more things. The study says, "Survey after survey has shown that the desire for material goods, which has increased hand in hand with average income, is a happiness suppressant."

One example of this is the fact that women who can afford the luxury of breast implants are more than three times as likely to commit suicide. Ceci Connolly writes in The Washington Post that studies in Finland, Sweden and the U.S. all show the same reaction. This isn't true with women who’ve had mastectomies, only with those who enlarge their breasts for cosmetic reasons.

more...

2003-10-08T07:12:00.000-04:00

Cleverness may carry survival costs

Being smart is not always a good thing in the evolutionary race, suggests a new study by Swiss researchers

If intelligence were always a positive attribute, it would always be selected for by natural selection. But it is not - people and animals have their dolts as well as their Einsteins.

To evolutionary biologists, that diversity means that theoretically, there must be some cost to being smart. Now for the first time, researchers have shown that in fruit flies at least, it doesn't always pay to be clever.

When Frederic Mery and colleagues at the University of Fribourg, pitted fast-learning fruit fly larvae against their more dimwitted cousins in scarce food conditions - the slower fruit flies came out on top.

"This shows that just having a better ability to learn involves a cost, even when you aren't using it," Mery told New Scientist.

More...

2003-10-08T07:09:00.000-04:00

Steady rate of U.S. deaths in Iraq -- where is this graph in the media?

As whatreallyhappened.com is highlighting, a Bellingham, Washington university sociology professor, Ed Stephan, has created the graph below.

Graph

2003-10-08T07:07:00.000-04:00

U.S. FDA votes 6-2 to approve anti-sleep drug for sweatshops

The FDA panel was unanimous in recommending Provigil for treating excessive tiredness caused by sleep apnea and voted 6-2 for its use in treating people with shift workers with "shift work sleep disorder," defined as excessive tiredness, insomnia, headaches and difficulty concentrating. About 23 percent of night-shift workers may meet that definition, Cephalon said.

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2003-10-08T07:05:00.000-04:00

African touted as Pope's successor

THE man tipped to be the first black pope has set out his credentials as the Vatican continues to prepare the public for the death of Pope John Paul II.

Following comments from top Vatican official Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger that the Pope was in "very bad" health, the Pope's private secretary Georg Gaenswein said yesterday the 83-year-old pontiff could not walk or stand.
"He is a hero for the faithful," Mr Gaenswein said. "The fact he doesn't give up despite his illness makes him even more credible ... When he is no longer allowed to travel, then dear God will come for him."

Meanwhile, Cardinal Francis Arinze of Nigeria has become the first possible successor to be publicly promoted.

In a book of interviews published this week called God's Invisible Hand, Cardinal Arinze presents himself as a man who has risen from humble origins in a Nigerian village to a senior position in the Vatican, and as a conservative capable of reaching other constituencies.

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2003-10-07T07:10:00.000-04:00

Quantum Weirdness in Real Life

The physicist Erwin Schrödinger said that quantum theory would allow the existence of a cat that was both living and dead at the same time. Physicists can't do this with a cat yet, but they may be able to do it with a tiny mirror the size of a red blood cell. Previously, it was thought that nothing larger than an atom could retain quantum properties. A blood cell may be small, but it's millions of times larger than an atom, and in the world of quantum effects, this is huge.
Philip Ball writes in Nature.com that the mini-mirror, pasted on the end of a tiny arm, is attached to a single photon of light in a quantum superposition, meaning it's nowhere and everywhere—or two places at once. While the conditions necessary to create this effect are highly restrictive, involving a perfect vacuum and temperatures approaching absolute zero, but this may not remain the case forever.

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2003-10-07T07:09:00.000-04:00

World oil and gas 'running out'

LONDON, England -- Global warming will never bring a "doomsday scenario" a team of scientists says -- because oil and gas are running out much faster than thought.

The world's oil reserves are up to 80 percent less than predicted, a team from Sweden's University of Uppsala says. Production levels will peak in about 10 years' time, they say.

"Non-fossil fuels must come in much stronger than it had been hoped," Professor Kjell Alekett told CNN.

Oil production levels will hit their maximum soon after 2010 with gas supplies peaking not long afterwards, the Swedish geologists say.

At that point prices for petrol and other fuels will reach disastrous levels. Earlier studies have predicted oil supplies will not start falling until 2050.

Alekett said that his team had examined data on oil and gas reserves from all over the world and we were "facing a very critical situation globally."

"The thing we are surprised of is that people in general are not aware of the decline in supplies and the extent to which it will affect production.

"The decline of oil and gas will affect the world population more than climate change."

More...

2003-10-07T07:07:00.000-04:00

Missouri Mystery Mound

The beginning of my search for an ancient mound in the backwoods of Middle America began quite innocently several years ago while listening to the late night talk show with Art Bell. Since that time, I have been trying to ascertain if my quest was going to lead me to ancient caves and a trove of lost artifacts. Even today I’m not sure what it is I have found and what its significance is. What first piqued my interest was the interview with an Indian shaman and mystic who was on a life quest to find and explore ancient sites in North America. His goal was to map these ancient sites and use this knowledge to protect them and also to achieve a higher level of spiritual awareness.

He began the show speaking about an ancient site located in Middle America that he said was one of the ancient Halls of Records. This was a depository of artifacts from many ancient cultures around the world. He talked about going to this site and taking away artifacts for some special purpose. I was totally blown away by this revelation. Because I lived in Memphis, TN and was aware of many ancient archeological sites along the Mississippi River, I surmised that if there were such a place, it must be located somewhere in the same geographic area. The Indian mounds of lower Ohio and Illinois, the Serpent Mound in Ohio, the pyramid outside St. Louis, MO and many other sites too numerous to mention, all of these places are located near the Mississippi River or its tributaries.

But where does one go to get information to start such a search? Having no expertise in archaeology, little experience in hiking, tracking, or mapping, I knew I had to use another method. The first thing I tried to do was contact the Indian shaman and his partner. Neither one could be found. Of course I didn’t expect him to tell me where the Hall of Records was but, if he could see that I meant no harm to him and his friends and only wanted to join the quest and share the mystery, then I was sure if he would help me as much as he could.

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2003-10-06T07:13:00.000-04:00

Microchip Implants, Mind Control, and Cybernetics

The first brain implants were surgically inserted in 1974 in the state of Ohio, USA and also in Stockholm, Sweden. Brain electrodes were inserted into the skulls of babies in 1946 without the knowledge of their parents. In the 1950s and 60s, electrical implants were inserted into the brains of animals and humans, especially in the U.S., during research into behavior modification, and brain and body functioning. Mind control (MC) methods were used in attempts to change human behavior and attitudes. Influencing brain functions became an important goal of military and intelligence services.

Thirty years ago brain implants showed up in X-rays the size of one centimeter. Subsequent implants shrunk to the size of a grain of rice. They were made of silicon, later still of gallium arsenide. Today they are small enough to be inserted into the neck or back, and also intravenously in different parts of the body during surgical operations, with or without the consent of the subject. It is now almost impossible to detect or remove them.

It is technically possible for every newborn to be injected with a microchip, which could then function to identify the person for the rest of his or her life. Such plans are secretly being discussed in the U.S. without any public airing of the privacy issues involved. In Sweden, Prime Minister Olof Palme gave permission in 1973 to implant prisoners, and Data Inspection's ex-Director General Jan Freese revealed that nursing-home patients were implanted in the mid-1980s. The technology is revealed in the 1972:47 Swedish state report, Statens Officiella Utradninger (SOU).

Yeah... mind control.

2003-10-06T07:11:00.000-04:00

Frog eggs fall from the sky onto home in Berlin

BERLIN, Conn. -- In a scene that sounds more biblical than plausible, masses of amphibian eggs rained down on Primo D'Agata's porch last month as the remnants of Hurricane Isabel moved through the state.

At first, D'Agata thought the thumping noise he and his wife heard on the back deck Sept. 19 was hail. But when he went outside to take a look, D'Agata discovered tiny, gelatinous eggs with dark spots in the middle.

"I couldn't even pick them up with a spatula, they were so sticky," D'Agata said.

Biologists from nearby Central Connecticut State University say the eggs are likely from frogs. And because no frogs in Connecticut lay eggs this late in the year, scientists and naturalists speculate they may have come up from North Carolina or another warm location on the winds of Isabel.

D'Agata brought a bowl of his mysterious find to a nearby nature center, after the town's animal control officer couldn't identify what had arrived in his yard.

Nicolas Diaz, a naturalist and teacher at New Britain Youth Museum at Hungerford Park, took a look at D'Agata's bowl and told him it looked like amphibian eggs.

"It is quite possible the storm carried the eggs right up the coast and dropped them here in Connecticut," Diaz said. "If you had a strong wind and strong updraft, it could lift something right up," he said.

People often bring animals and plants to the center for identification, Diaz said. But D'Agata's eggs are among the stranger things he's seen.

"It was hard to get my mind around that these had traveled up from some subtropical area," he said.

Some of the eggs were brought to Central Connecticut State University for testing, but their origin could not be determined because whatever was inside them did not live long enough to hatch, said Ruth Rollin, chairwoman of the school's biology department.

Hatched eggs would allow scientists to identify the type of frog or other amphibian, and that identification would point to a region of the country where the animal lived, she said.

D'Agata is keeping two small, water-filled glass jars of the eggs to see if any of them will hatch. He said a few seem to have sprouted what looks like a tail.

"I'm going to let them sit and see what happens," D'Agata said.

More...

2003-10-06T07:08:00.000-04:00

18,000 PAGES OF CIA MIND CONTROL DOCUMENTS RELEASED

The CIA has declassified over 18,000 pages of documents on extensive mind
control programs carried out since the early 1950s. Through the Freedom of
Information Act, you can order these documents in the form of four CDs directly
from the government for only $30. Here is a sample of just two of these
documents taken from the excellent mind control summary on the informative
website www.wanttoknow.info. With this revealing information, we now have the
opportunity to powerfully work together for a brighter future.

A declassified CIA document dated 7 Jan 1953 describes the experimental
creation of multiple personality in two 19-year old girls. "These subjects have
clearly demonstrated that they can pass from a fully awake state to a deep H
[hypnotic] controlled state by telephone, by receiving written matter, or by
the use of code, signal, or words, and that control of those hypnotized can be
passed from one individual to another without great difficulty. It has also
been shown by experimentation with these girls that they can act as unwilling
couriers for information purposes." (CIA Mori ID 190684, 1/7/53)

Another declassified document dated 10 Feb 1954 describes an experiment of
relevance to the creation of unsuspecting assassins: "Miss [whited out] was
instructed (having previously expressed a fear of firearms) that she would use
every method at her disposal to awaken Miss [whited out] (now in a deep
hypnotic sleep). Failing this, she would pick up a pistol nearby and fire it at
Miss [whited out]. She was instructed that her rage would be so great that she
would not hesitate to "kill" [whited out] for failing to awaken. Miss [whited
out] carried out these suggestions to the letter including firing the
(unloaded) gun at [whited out] and then proceeded to fall into a deep sleep.
After proper suggestions were made, both were awakened. Miss [whited out]
expressed absolute denial that the foregoing sequence had happened." (CIA Mori
ID 190691, 2/10/54)

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2003-10-06T07:07:00.000-04:00

Are You Ready For A Militarized Police Force?

The Bush administration is calling for the repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, a law passed after the Civil War to prohibit the deployment of federal military forces onto American streets to control civil action - otherwise known as martial law

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2003-10-06T07:05:00.000-04:00

Propaganda watch: 'Threat Matrix'

Excerpted from TV Tome's episode guide for Threat Matrix, the new Homeland Security propaganda series on ABC:
1. Pilot (18-Sep-2003)

A prisoner who is requesting asylum in the United States tells the government that there is a shipping container in which a group of terrorists is hiding, and that it is on its way to the U.S.

Frankie is sent to Jarkarta to question the one man who might know if the government has been told the truth, and so, to find out exactly where the container is headed. Frankie gets the job done, but before she can get out of the country, she gets wounded and then caught.

With the "Threat Matrix" team, from their headquarters (the "Vault") at Fort Meade, John Kilmer (the head of the "Threat Matrix" team *and* Frankie's ex-husband) works to find the answers they need to be able to neutralize the terrorist threat, even though doing that means that he has to leave Frankie to whatever fate awaits her until his primary job is done

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2003-10-03T07:09:00.000-04:00

What does a Million, Billion or even more in pennys look like.

Click here

2003-10-03T07:06:00.000-04:00

Giant Guinea Pig Roamed the Earth

It would be an exterminator's worst nightmare: A 1,545-pound (700-kilogram) rodent with a voracious appetite and big teeth.

Resembling a guinea pig grown to the size of a buffalo, the animal lived millions of years ago in a South American swamp and is thought to be history's biggest rodent, researchers say this week in the journal Science.

"Imagine a weird guinea pig, but huge, with a long tail for balancing on its hind legs and continuously growing teeth," said Marcelo R. Sanchez-Villagra of the University of Tubingen in Germany. He is the first author of the study.

The formal name of the rodent is Phoberomys pattersoni. The last term is in honor of Brian Patterson, a Harvard professor who led a fossil-collection expedition to Venezuela in the 1970s. Informally, the skeleton is called Goya.

It was unearthed in a semi-desert area of Venezuela, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) west of Caracas.

Sanchez-Villagra said that when Goya lived, about six million to eight million years ago, the area was a lush paradise for the large plant eater.

"At the time it was forested and swampy with a big river and a lot of vegetation," he said.

The giant rodent grazed on grasses, which he must have eaten in large amounts to support his great size. Goya had fur, a smooth head with small ears and eyes, and that large tail that enabled it to balance on two hind legs to watch for predators, said Sanchez-Villagra.

Link...

2003-10-03T07:05:00.000-04:00

Gilgamesh tomb believed found

The Epic Of Gilgamesh - written by a Middle Eastern scholar 2,500 years before the birth of Christ - commemorated the life of the ruler of the city of Uruk, from which Iraq gets its name.

Now, a German-led expedition has discovered what is thought to be the entire city of Uruk - including, where the Euphrates once flowed, the last resting place of its famous King.

"I don't want to say definitely it was the grave of King Gilgamesh, but it looks very similar to that described in the epic," Jorg Fassbinder, of the Bavarian department of Historical Monuments in Munich, told the BBC World Service's Science in Action programme

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2003-10-03T07:03:00.000-04:00

GIANTS FROM TIMES PAST

Link

2003-10-02T07:24:00.000-04:00

Radioactive water flowed to thousands of homes

10,000 Pensacola, Gulf Breeze residents drank unsafe water for 54 months. Yet another underreported story by the U.S. Press. One would think this would get a headline or two, but Ben and J-Lo are so much more important to run stories about.

Thousands of people in Pensacola and Gulf Breeze drank water contaminated with high levels of radioactive material for more than four years.

A Superfund hazardous waste site in central Pensacola might be the source of the contamination. People were drinking the contaminated water as recently as September 2000.

A review of more than 50,000 pages of public documents reveals that for at least 54 months, between February 1996 and September 2000, more than 10,000 residents in Pensacola and Gulf Breeze were drinking water polluted with radium 226/228 at levels considered unsafe by the federal government.

All drinking water supplied by the Escambia County Utilities Authority today meets state and federal standards.

I don't feel so good.

2003-10-02T07:22:00.000-04:00

Diesel fire not enough to explain "evaporated steel" in WTC7

Another government quote proven wrong.

A combination of an uncontrolled fire and the structural damage might have been able to bring the building down, some engineers said. But that would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been partly evaporated in extraordinarily high temperatures, Dr. [Jonathan] Barnett[, professor of fire protection engineering at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute] said.

more at underreported.com

2003-10-02T07:19:00.000-04:00

N.C. Radio host infuriates cyclists

Clear channel prmotes running over cyclist.

G105 radio host Bob Dumas told listeners last week that he just hated to see bicycle riders on the road. He laughed at stories about running cyclists down, and he talked up the idea of throwing bottles at bikers.
It wasn't funny to cycling enthusiasts across the Triangle. This week they are lobbying government officials and local advertisers in a campaign to punish radio station WDCG and its corporate owner, Clear Channel of San Antonio, and to promote bicycle safety.

One caller said her dad had purposely hit a biker on the road on the way to church one Sunday and kept on going," said G105 listener Holly N. Proctor of Cary on Tuesday of the Sept. 21 and 22 broadcasts. "That got laughs. Bob thought that was funny.

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2003-10-02T07:16:00.000-04:00

Fury over call for selective breeding

A leading Danish psychologist has caused outrage by calling for the state to encourage the selective reproduction of children from intelligent parents and seek to stop less gifted groups having children.

"Intelligence is hereditary," said Prof Helmuth Nyborg, the dean of the Psychology Institute at Aarhus University. "The 15 to 20 per cent of those at the lower levels of society - those who are not able to manage even the simplest tasks and often not their children - should be dissuaded from having children.

"The fact is that they are having more children and the intelligent ones are having fewer."

He insisted that his proposals could not be likened to extermination policies under the Nazis.

"Hitler didn't believe in eugenics. He just wanted to exterminate individual groups, and in fact exterminated the most intelligent among them," he said.

Prof Nyborg said he was raising the issue because average intelligence was falling in Denmark and the problem needed to be addressed.

"The statistics show that more highly educated women use their time studying and at work before having children, while less educated women have more children," he said. "We could reduce the workload of intelligent women and simply pay the less intelligent not to have kids."

I fail to see the big deal.

2003-10-02T07:14:00.000-04:00

Patriot Act kicks in at banks today

By Jeff McKinney
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Beginning today, don't be surprised if you get asked more questions than usual where you bank if you try to open a new account.

That's because Oct. 1 is when commercial banks, savings banks, credit and brokerage firms and other financial providers must comply with rules of the Patriot Act.

The new federal law basically will allow financial institutions to ask more questions about you than previously if the entity thinks that's necessary for background purposes, industry consultants told Bankrate.com.

For example, new questions might involve other accounts that can be linked to the customer; the customer's business and job; tax status; and the customer's investment objectives. For more details, visit Bankrate.com

2003-10-02T07:10:00.000-04:00

'Free staters' pick New Hampshire to liberate for sex, guns and drugs

A libertarian movement promoting "minimalist government", the free market, drugs, prostitution and gun ownership plans to infiltrate New Hampshire to create a breakaway American regime, its leaders will announce today.
The Free State Project, which has supporters in the UK and worldwide, will reveal today at a meeting in New York that its members have voted for the small but highly-symbolic north-eastern state as its target to win power.

Project chiefs will now try to persuade 20,000 people to move to New Hampshire and sway the electorate towards blocking federal "nanny" laws and social restrictions.

Jason Sorens, a lecturer in political science at Yale University and president of the project, said he wants to create an "autonomous territory" and the Free State Project will follow the examples of the Mormons in Utah, the French separatists in Quebec, Canada, and the conservative Amish religious communities.

more...

2003-10-02T07:09:00.000-04:00

Tariq Aziz In Jordan: Paper

But Jordanian Information Minister Nabil al-Sherif case doubts on the authenticity of such press reports.

"Nothing official has been yet released by the Jordanian government in this respect and I myself have no information about the matter," he told IOL.

However, the minister’s statement came short of a denial which suggests that the report might be true.

"Jordan opened its borders to Iraqi brothers, including relatives and families of former Iraqi officials, such as the two daughters of (ousted president) Saddam Hussein and the wife of Tariq Aziz, who are not wanted by the Americans," he remarked.

IOL tried in vain to reach Mrs. Violette Aziz, who has been living in Jordan along with her two daughters for more than two months.

Last week, the Jordanian government rebuffed a request by Mrs. Aziz to inform her about her husband's accounts in Jordanian banks.

The government argued that it was not in a legal position to do so, noting that the Jordanian judiciary was the one and only authority to take such a decision.

However, Sherif dismissed such media reports as "groundless," pointing out that Mrs. Aziz also denied them.

more...

looks like another Iraqi in the deck of 52 that the U.S. claims to have arrested that is still on the loose.

More

2003-10-01T07:14:00.000-04:00

UFOs in South Carolina

UFOs are being seen in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. "We're all in our 50s, professional people—we're not into hallucinatory drugs or anything like that," says Pam Wingfield. "People look at you funny when you tell them you've seen a UFO. But what we saw was unidentified, it was flying and it was an object."
David Wren writes in the Myrtle Beach Sun News that Pam and two other vacationers from Virginia all saw the orange and yellow glowing spheres. There have been at least six other sightings of yellow, orange or red lights floating near the horizon in the past few weeks.

Lt. Chuck Dunn, of the Myrtle Beach police, says, "We have our beach patrol investigate them for the possibility of distress flares from a large boat. We also call the local military bases to see if they have anything going on. Usually, it's Shaw Air Force Base dropping flares and doing maneuvers."

On July 6, Linda Moore caught a UFO on video from her home in South Carolina. UFO researcher Brian Vike writes that her husband noticed a bright object high in the sky and called to her to come and see it. She took video of the object with her camcorder, which has a 500 digital zoom to film it. As she zoomed in on it, the object changed shape. She recorded it for about three minutes.

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2003-10-01T07:11:00.000-04:00

Terrorists in U.S. Buying Nukes from Russia

A radioactive package on its way to the U.S. was seized in the Kiev airport. An official with the Ukraine Ministry of Emergencies says the package was emitting radiation ''at a rate which is thousands of times higher than the acceptable norm in Kiev of 0.05 milliroentgens.'' It was found in the luggage depot, and Russian diplomatic sources say this isn't the first time this kind of package has been discovered there.
Joseph Farah writes in his newsletter that after the breakup of the Soviet Union, government officials lost track of much of the former Soviet nuclear arsenal. A black market has formed in nukes, which have been selling steadily to terrorist groups. This package is especially worrying because it was being sent to a terrorist group here in the U.S.

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2003-10-01T07:10:00.000-04:00

The Bank Mafia

The number of bankruptcies has risen 400% in the past 25 years, and soon experts think that 6 million families with children—that's one in every 7—will go bankrupt. Why is everyone going broke? One reason is that, due to deteriorating schools, families stretch their dollars too far to move into neighborhoods with good schools. Another is credit card interest rates, which are higher than the "vigorish" the Mob used to charge and puts most of America's money in the pockets of a few banks.
The Bush administration initially vowed to change the law to make it harder to declare bankruptcy, but backed down due to the economic recession. Marilyn Gardner writes in Christian Science Monitor that bankruptcy expert Elizabeth Warren, who teaches law at Harvard, rejects the theory that families are throwing their money away on big-ticket luxury items like wide-screen TVs. She blames the trend on the high costs of housing, education and healthcare.

No matter how much the economy tanks, housing prices seem to do just fine. How can folks who are broke afford a new house? One reason is that interest rates are at an all-time low. But another is that, because so many of our schools are in such bad shape, families increasingly feel the necessity to buy a more expensive house in a neighborhood with good schools. And a deregulated mortgage industry allows banks to offer homeowners much larger mortgages than they did in the past.

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2003-10-01T07:07:00.000-04:00

ID cards 'gaining support'

Plans to introduce ID cards in the UK have won backing from most of the people who have given government their views, according to a Home Office minister.
More than 1,500 people and groups have taken part in the consultation over the idea, which lasts until the end of January, Lord Falconer told peers.

But even if the proposals got the go-ahead, it could be 10 years before everyone has an ID card, the minister told the House of Lords.

Under the plans, it would not be compulsory to carry an ID or entitlement card - but Lord Falconer said to be useful, the scheme would have to be universal.

The proposals have been criticised by civil liberties groups but Lord Falconer countered some of their concerns.

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2003-10-01T07:04:00.000-04:00

Bush asks for more power to fight terrorism

The Bush Administration is preparing to ask Congress for broader powers to fight terrorism and is refuting critics, including civil liberties groups and some fellow republicans, who say the government has already gone too far.

For months now, Attorney General John Ashcroft has defended the USA Patriot Act before law enforcement groups nationwide. Passed overwhelmingly by Congress in the weeks after 9-11, it gives the government updated terror fighting powers. For example, it allows roving wiretaps to monitor calls of terror suspects who switch cell phones. With just one single search warrant, federal agents can look for suspects in several cities suspected of terrorist activities:

"If we knew then what we know now, we would have passed the Patriot Act six months before September 11th, rather than six weeks after the attacks," says Ashcroft.

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2003-09-30T07:21:00.000-04:00

Indian government blocks Yahoo discussion groups

It's easy to control information when you don't have a Bill of Rights.

Bangalore, India-AP -- Nearly all of India has been knocked off Yahoo's popular discussion forums.

The government was trying to ban an Internet forum run by an obscure separatist movement that wants a slice of the country's northeast to secede from the rest of India.

India's Computer Emergency Response Team -- a group that normally deals with hackers and virus attacks -- ordered the discussion group blocked for promoting material against the government. But for technical reasons, it had to shut down every Yahoo discussion group.

Other sections of the Web site were unaffected.

A businessman who uses other Yahoo groups says the ban "goes against the concept of freedom of speech." The press freedom advocacy group Reporters Without Borders has also criticized the ban.

Sites like Yahoo and Google allow users to create and subscribe to electronic discussion forums. The groups are used for everything from keeping in touch with friends to discussing politics.

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2003-09-30T07:20:00.000-04:00

Would you want your teenage daughter to read this? No way, says outraged Geldof

It would be unfair to say the editors of teenage girls' magazines have a one-track mind; after all, they also like J Lo, shift dresses from Top Shop, and perfect nails. But they do seem particularly keen on sex.

"Your guide to after-school snogs," screams the cover of this month's Sugar. "Sex survey results: the shocking truth you couldn't tell your parents," yells J-17. "You and guys and sex," shrieks Cosmo Girl!.

Yesterday, one parent, a father of three teenage children, hit back. And he is not just any parent. Bob Geldof, the rock star and charity hero, compared the publications to grown men who get sexual thrills from underage girls.

On a BBC2 programme, Grumpy Old Men, to be shown next week, Sir Bob asks: "Are they any less offensive than a 22-year-old man going to an 11- or 12-year-old girl and saying, 'I am going to talk to you about sex and how girls can give blow jobs to men?' If such a conversation happened, you would view it as odd, probably illegal and certainly predatory."

Sir Bob, father of Pixie, 13, Peaches, 15, and Fifi Trixibelle, 19, adds: "There is something predatory because they are made by adult men and women. Is it because of my age that makes me feel they are wrong? I don't think so. I would have objected to them when I was 20."

Sir Bob's anger centres on several magazines. Mizz, Bliss, J-17, Sugar and CosmoGirl! carry sex advice and sexually themed features for a readership with an average age of 15 or below. His criticisms are supported by Robert Whelan, director of the pressure group, Family and Youth Concern.

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2003-09-30T07:18:00.000-04:00

FBI bypasses First Amendment to nail a hacker

Citing a provision of the Patriot Act, the FBI is sending letters to journalists telling them to secretly prepare to turn over their notes, e-mails and sources to the bureau. Should we throw out the First Amendment to nail a hacker, writes SecurityFocus columnist Mark Rasch.

Frequent readers of this space know that I am no apologist for hackers like Adrian Lamo, who, in the guise of protection, access others' computer systems without authorization, and then publicize these vulnerabilities.

When Lamo did this to the New York Times, he violated two of my cardinal rules: Don't make enemies with people appointed for life by the President of the United States; and don't make enemies of people who buy their ink by the gallon.

boo

2003-09-29T07:25:00.000-04:00

34.6 Million U.S. People in Poverty in 2002 - Report

More than 1.7 million people in the United States slid into poverty in 2002 and incomes slipped for the second year in a row, the U.S. government said on Friday in a report sure to provide new ammunition for Democrats trying to unseat President Bush.

The Census Bureau's annual report showed the number of people living below the poverty line rose to 34.6 million last year, from 32.9 million in 2001, when the national economy first went into recession.

A family of four with two children was considered to be living in poverty in 2002 if its total income was $18,244 or less.

A sluggish recovery has failed to create new jobs for the 3.3 million private sector employees who have been thrown out of work since Bush took office in January 2001.

The report said the real median income fell 1.1 percent last year to $42,409. The percentage of the population living in poverty grew for the second year in a row to 12.1 percent, from 11.7 percent in 2001.

Bush, who faces re-election in 2004, blames the Sept. 11 attacks and a wave of corporate scandals for the economy's failure to pull more quickly and strongly out of the recession of early 2001.

He says tax cuts he has pushed through will fix the nation's economic malaise and says they are already starting to show results.

But Democrats blame the tax cuts themselves in large part for the soft economy, as well as bulging federal deficits that have abruptly taken the place of fat surpluses projected just a few years ago.

© 2003 Reuters

2003-09-29T07:11:00.000-04:00

Europe's first moon mission blasts off

The Ariane-5 rocket carrying the SMART-1 moon exploration probe and two commercial satellites blasted off at 8.14 p.m. (2314 GMT) from the European Space Agency (ESA) launch center at Kourou, in French Guiana on the northeast coast of South America.

Forty-one minutes after launch, the rocket released SMART-1 into space to begin a 15-month journey to reach lunar orbit. The 370 kg (815 lb) probe will scan the moon for up to 30 months.

SMART-1 will cover a distance of 100 million kilometers (62 million miles) to reach the moon with only 60 liters of fuel," Giuseppe RACCA, ESA Project Manager said before the launch.

"The main form of propulsion will be electric, charged by the satellite's solar panels," he said.

The probe will provide data on the still uncertain origin of the moon and has been described by ESA as an important instrument "to unraveling some of the secrets of our neighboring world."

"Thirty-five years after Apollo and the Russian missions, there remains much we don't know about the moon," David Southwood, ESA's Director of Scientific Programs, told a news conference in Kourou.

"With SMART-1 we can test propulsion in deep-space orbit. The next step, I hope, will be a Mars mission," he said.

ESA has hailed SMART-1 as an example of a 'faster, better, cheaper' mission costing only 110 million euros ($126 million) -- about one-fifth of a major ESA science mission. It is designed to operate in lunar orbit for up to 30 months.

The rocket also carries an INSAT 3-E satellite for the Indian Space Research Organization and e-bird for the Paris-based satellite operator Eutelsat.

Originally scheduled for launch earlier in the year, the mission was postponed due to technical problems aboard INSAT 3-E.

2003-09-29T07:10:00.000-04:00

CIA condemned for flawed intelligence on Iraqi weapons

The intelligence used by the CIA to conclude that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and had links to al-Qa'ida has been severely criticised by leaders of a high-ranking Congressional committee as being "outdated, circumstantial, piecemeal and fragmentary". They said the agency's ability to gather fresh information had "significant deficiencies".

In a scathing attack on the information cited by President George Bush and his senior officials as they made their case for war, the leaders of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said the CIA had relied on "past assessments" that dated from 1998 when UN weapons inspectors left Iraq.

"The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programmes had been destroyed was considered proof that they continued to exist," the committee leaders said in a letter to the CIA director, George Tenet.

More...

2003-09-29T07:07:00.000-04:00

Secret Spells Barbie

Description

Transform Barbie from an ordinary girl to one of the Charm Girls. Just put on Barbie's "enchanted" Charm Girl jacket and she's ready to mix up delicious potions that you can really drink. Barbie comes with costume, dragonfly, mixing pot, stand, spoon, stirrer, three bottles, book with a secret compartment, and two packets of "magic" powder (sugar-based mixes you mix with water). Barbie measures approximately 11.5 inches tall.

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2003-09-26T07:52:00.000-04:00

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.

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2003-09-26T07:10:00.000-04:00

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."

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2003-09-26T07:07:00.000-04:00

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.

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2003-09-26T06:48:00.000-04:00

'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.

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2003-09-25T07:25:00.000-04:00

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.

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2003-09-25T07:09:00.000-04:00

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.

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2003-09-25T07:05:00.000-04:00

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.

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2003-09-25T07:04:00.000-04:00

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.

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2003-09-24T07:27:00.000-04:00

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.

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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.

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2003-09-24T07:17:00.000-04:00

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.

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2003-09-24T07:12:00.000-04:00

'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

2003-09-24T07:07:00.000-04:00

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.
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2003-09-23T07:23:00.000-04:00

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.

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2003-09-23T07:20:00.000-04:00

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.

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2003-09-23T07:14:00.000-04:00

Venezuelan Military Intelligence says overwhelming evidence the CIA planned to bring down Chavez Frias' airplane en route to United Nations in New York

2003-09-23T07:12:00.000-04:00

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.

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