March 31, 2005
North Dakota Senate backs restoring Roger Maris' home run record...
Don't you guys have a state to run, or something like that?
- M. R.
WMD Commission Releases Scathing Report...
"We accept the responsibility, but none of the blame!"
- M. R.
A sacked CIA official is suing the agency for allegedly retaliating against him for refusing to falsify his reports on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to support the White House's pre-war position, The Washington Post said on Thursday.
Relinked in light of today's pathetic attempt to dump the blame for Bush's lies on the CIA.
- M. R.
Pressure was exerted in private, including visits by Cheney to cross-examine analysts at CIA headquarters. It took place in public, as well, as mouthpieces in the conservative press attacked the CIA as Saddam-loving apologists. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld even created a whole new intelligence office to reinterpret evidence "overlooked" by the fools at CIA.
Relinked in light of today's pathetic attempt to dump the blame for Bush's lies on the CIA.
- M. R.
FLASHBACK: No WMDs in Iraq, says CIA...
Re-linked in light of today's pathetic effort to dump the blame for Bush's lies on the CIA.
- M. R.
Pope given Last Rites...
Gun-control measures before the Illinois General Assembly...
Veterans Group Calls on Congress to Impeach George W. Bush and Richard Cheney...
Bush administration chastised as 'dead wrong' by panel on prewar intelligence on Iraq...
Did someone pass a law making it a crime to use the word "lie"?
- M. R.
A special committee found no evidence that professors at Columbia University made anti-Semitic statements to intimidate Jewish students in classes, according to a university report released Thursday.
Microsoft Corp. on Thursday said it was filing 117 lawsuits against unknown Internet site operators it charged were engaged in "phishing" schemes to obtain personal and financial information from unsuspecting consumers.
Oil hurtled back up to $56 a barrel on Thursday as Goldman Sachs bank, the biggest trader of energy derivatives, said prices could ultimately surge all the way above $100.
US Secretary of State presses India and Pakistan to abandon Iranian gas pipeline...
"That gas belongs to us, dammit! God told me so!"
- M. R.
Some words were exchanged, and the next thing you know Jay Saddington, of Warwick, Pa., was zapped with 50,000 volts from a police stun gun.
The apparently very threatening Saddington is 68 years old.
Justice Department may soon decide who to lay charges against in alleged espionage affair.
Translation: Some low-ranking flunky is gonna get fried while "Mega" and the boys smile and continue to sell out this nation.
Remember, the real scandal isn't what information flowed from the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans to AIPAC and thence to Israel. The real scandal is what DISinformation flowed from Israel through AIPAC, into the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, thence to the White House to be used to trick Americans into a war against a nation that had done us no wrong. - M. R.
SAILOR IN CHILD PORN PROBE FOUND GASSED...
I get the sense a lot of sickos are getting rounded up all at once.
- M. R.
Dollar Drops Versus Euro, Yen After U.S. Jobless Claims Rise...
Police in Malaysia are hunting for members of a violent gang who chopped off a car owner's finger to get round the vehicle's hi-tech security system.
The car, a Mercedes S-class, was protected by a fingerprint recognition system.
Now, wouldn't carrying a gun and shooting one of the car thieves have been a better solution than the high-tech security system?
- M. R.
The Jewish Defense League, founded in 1968 by late militant rabbi Meir Kahane, has been in a virtual tailspin since 2001, according to experts who monitor extremist groups...
Given that JDL leader Irv Rubin was arrested for plotting to bomb a US Congressman, I think the time has come to change "extremist" to "terrorist" when discussing the JDL.
- M. R.
There is bad news for Tony Blair who has been trying to make voters forget and forgive his Iraq war adventure. Seventeen Labour MPs have reportedly signed a declaration saying: "I was and remain totally opposed to the war on Iraq. If elected as your parliamentary representative in the forthcoming general election, I will do everything in my power to bring the occupation of Iraq to an end."
"Throughout the globe the United States is becoming associated with the unjustified use of force. The president's disregard for views in other nations, borne out by his neglect of public diplomacy, is giving birth to an anti-American century. "
Exit polls have been used to verify the integrity of elections in the Ukraine, in Latin America, in Germany, and elsewhere. Yet in November 2004, the U.S. exit poll discrepancy was much more than normal exit poll error (and similar to that of the invalid Ukraine election.
Terri Schiavo Dies at 41...
Electronic voting problems discovered in Miami-Dade...
"It's just an honest error. Sure, sure, that's it. Just an honest error. Nothing suspicious here. Sure, sure."
- M. R.
About 40 percent of the 700 Oregon National Guardsmen who just returned from Iraq and Afghanistan are unemployed, according to the U.S. Labor Department.
Report: Iraq intelligence 'dead wrong'...
If CNN had been reading THIS site for the last few years, they would have known there were no WMDs all along.
Of course, they are still totally clueless when it comes to afixing the blame.
- M. R.
Malnutrition among the youngest Iraqis has almost doubled since the US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein, a hunger specialist told the UN Human Rights Commission yesterday in a summary of previously-reported studies on the nation's health.
FLASHBACK: Some CIA analysts felt pressure from Cheney over Iraq...
Linked in light of today's report dumping the blame for the lies about Iraq's WMDs onto the CIA. - M. R.
FLASHBACK: Report Says Cheney Pressured CIA on Iraq Report Says Cheney Pressured CIA on Iraq...
Linked in light of today's report dumping the blame for the lies about Iraq's WMDs onto the CIA. - M. R.
FLASHBACK: Cheney's CIA visits pressured us: analysts...
Linked in light of today's report dumping the blame for the lies about Iraq's WMDs onto the CIA. - M. R.
FLASHBACK: Cheney Pressured CIA...
Linked in light of today's report dumping the blame for the lies about Iraq's WMDs onto the CIA.
- M. R.
Two years into an investigation of AIPAC’s possible role as a spy front for Israel, Larry Franklin, a mid-level Pentagon Analyst is observed by the FBI giving classified information to two officials of AIPAC suspected of being Israeli spies. AIPAC hires lawyer Nathan Lewin to handle their legal defense, the same lawyer who defended suspected Israeli spy Stephen Bryen in 1978.
Larry Franklin worked in the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, run by Richard Perle, at the time Perle (who was caught giving classified information to Israel back in 1970) was insisting that Iraq was crawling with weapons of mass destruction requiring the United States to invade and conquer Iraq. There were no WMDs, of course, and Perle has dumped the blame for the “bad intelligence” on George Tenet. But what is known is that the Pentagon Office of Special Plans was coordinating with a similar group in Israel, in Ariel Sharon’s office.
With two suspected Israeli spies (at least) inside the office from which the lies that launched the war in Iraq originated, it appears that the people of the United States are the victims of a deadly hoax, a hoax that started a war. Linked in light of today's report dumping the blame for the lies about Iraq's WMDs onto the CIA.
- M. R.
FLASHBACK: Iraq - The Trail of Disinformation...
Linked in light of today's report dumping the blame for the lies about Iraq's WMDs onto the CIA.
- M. R.
With Iraq tying up manpower, two analysts raise specter of draft...
"Gee, we're trying JUST AS HARD AS WE CAN to not have a draft, but, well, you know sometimes we just have to do things we really don't like!"
- M. R.
The mortgage funder blamed the steep drop in net income on losses related to derivatives. But Freddie said that while its derivatives can lead to big earnings swings, the instruments remain important in managing interest rate risk.
The European Commission has proposed sanctions on a range of US goods as punishment for the US failure to repeal the Byrd Amendment anti-dumping law.
As the Iraq War drags on and the economy languishes, Bush attempts to fix what is not broken and ignores what needs to be fixed.
Afghan jail term for US convicts cut...
Bartholomew County officials told the business near Interstate 65 that it must move cement copies of the classical statues — and about 10 others — out of public view because they are obscene under Indiana law.
"We may be a nation that lies about other countries to invade them, then tortures innocent people to find weapons of mass destruction that don't exist, but by golly we want the world to know that we have MORAL PRINCIPLES in this land!"
- M. R.
Iran War in June 2005...
Panel: Agencies 'Dead Wrong' on Iraq WMDs...
March 30, 2005
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has sent the state a bill for $30.4 million for grant money used over six years to buy out or renovate flood-prone properties.
What is it with FEMA suddenly sucking money back out of the disaster areas? - M. R.
The journalists, invited to accompany Khatami on a tour of the 450-hectare (1,110-acre) site, were taken inside a building where, two levels below ground, they were shown a vast empty hall designed to house 50,000 enrichment centrifuges.
NutraSweet to Boost Aspartame Capacity Amid Rising Demand...
Hundreds of volunteers, some of them armed, are expected to take up positions along the Mexican border Friday and begin patrolling for illegal immigrants - an exercise some fear could attract racist crackpots and lead to vigilante violence.
American International Group Inc., the world's largest insurer, said an array of accounting errors over 14 years may have inflated its net worth by as much as $1.7 billion.
For two years, the FBI has suspected AIPAC of spying for a foreign country, and for those two years (and for decades before) that group suspected of spying for Israel has been reshaping the US Congress for the benefit of a foreign government.
And THAT is the mother of all scandals.
Think about that as billions of your tax dollars flow to Israel while your roads and schools crumble and decay and services are cut.
Think about that as the coffins come home with your loved ones inside.
Think about that when you and a million of your fellow citizens march down the streets of America opposing wars built on lies and deceptions and wonder why the government just doesn’t want to listen to you any more.
The net effect of the vibrations coming out of both Tel Aviv and Washington is that there is no serious Israeli intent to find a peaceful solution in Palestine and no serious Washington support for peace. Rather, an obvious purpose of the Israeli announcements on new housing, partly designed, to be sure, to placate the settlers and their supporters, is to keep the Palestinians uneasy. Real skeptics of any serious Israeli intent to reach a settlement with the Palestinians would assert that the whole purpose of the new housing announcement is to provoke Palestinian violence and to elicit added US cover for Israeli expansion in the West Bank.
The U.S. military's Abrams tank, designed during the Cold War to withstand the fiercest blows from the best Soviet tanks, is getting knocked out at surprising rates by the low-tech bombs and rocket-propelled grenades of Iraqi insurgents.
In This article I observed that the US military had fallen into "Maginot Mindset", spending vast sums of money to wage a particular form of war, only to be defeated when the enemy found a war around, rather than tried to punch through, a particular defense. The $5 million Abrams was designed to fight a frontal war against a similarly armed enemy. But the Iraqis are killing the tanks with attacks from above, below, and behind. - M. R.
Israeli army uses ambulances to move troops and weapons in operations against Palestinians.
Israeli army uses ambulances to move troops and weapons in operations against Palestinians
"The use of ambulances is against the Geneva Convention which Israel has signed. Moreover, once ambulances are used for military objectives they become a legitimate target," said Doctor Rafi Waldman, a member of the organisation Doctors for Human Rights.
Fort Lauderdale officer in trouble for ticketing doctor on way to deliver baby...
[Israeli] Ambassador to Ethiopia found shot at home in Addis Ababa...
Ah yes, there are many in Israel not totally comfortable with the “right of return” of Ethiopia’s Jews.
- M. R.
Conspiracy theorists and civil libertarians, fear not. The U.S. government will not use radio-frequency identification tags in the passports it issues to millions of Americans in the coming years.
Instead, the government will use "contactless chips."
The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council countries are committed to issue the GCC common currency in the year 2010, Finance Minister Dr. Ibrahim Al-Assaf stated yesterday. According to a study, the new currency will be the world’s most important currency union after the euro.
Goodbye Dollar. - M. R.
Why would a state adopt such a controversial program? The basis is simple: vasectomy is a popular method of birth control (in 1983, figures showed that approximately 10 million men had been sterilized in the U.S. since 1969). By offering such a highly effective form of birth control freely to men who, by clinical diagnosis, have been deemed genetically inferior to the normalized median of homo sapien development, such a gene line would effectively be eliminated.
Anthony Greco, 18, was lured from New York to Los Angeles under the pretence of a business meeting. He was arrested upon arrival at Los Angeles International Airport last Wednesday.
Greco allegedly sent 1.5 million messages advertising pornography and mortgages. According to reports, the recipients of the messages were all members of the MySpace.com online networking service.
A visit today to the University of Toronto by a controversial U.S. scholar of the Middle East is causing an uproar among academics and students, who say that "hate, prejudice and fear-mongering" do not have a place on campus.
The ACLU today released a memo signed by Lieutenant General Ricardo A. Sanchez authorizing 29 interrogation techniques, including 12 which far exceeded limits established by the Army’s own Field Manual. More specifically, it points out that Gen. Sanchez committed purjury when testifying before Congress.
Schiavo parents file new court appeal...
The postulate to be presented here is that the Holocaust, the putative extermination of six million Jews during WWII, satisfies the criteria of the contagion, the heuristic and the commonplace. Details of these and the phantom and granfalloon phenomena were collected and summarized by A. R. Pratkanis, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of California (1995). It is argued that Holocaust imagery and its associated philosophy displays religious characteristics, and this thesis may illustrate how a religion can evolve. Readers who balk at this 20th century heresy are reminded that it is perilously easy to distort history and if this scenario cannot be reviewed impartially then something is clearly amiss.
"For decades American taxpayers have unwittingly provided the Jewish State with enough free 'expendable' munitions to crush the Palestinian people in their own country," wrote Joe Vialls, "and the Harpoon missile is classed as an expendable munition. What this means is that Harpoon falls into the same generic category as rifle bullets and hand grenades, so Washington went ahead and gifted the Jewish State with more than fifty nuclear-capable Harpoons."
Certainly the average American taxpayer has long been duped into donating to the despots who rule the Middle East, not for any peaceful purposes really, as well as being held hostage by the policy-makers in Washington, D.C. who readily handcuff his paycheck. But funding a nuclear war--never mind the huge armament giveaways--without input from you and me is the ultimate in taxation without representation.
The Palestinians argue that the Flachette shells are outlawed by the Geneva Convention, but the IDF says it is in possession of a legal interpretation that allows for the use of Flachette shells under certain circumstances.
"Because we SAID so, THAT'S why!"
- M. R.
Manhattan's Friends of the Israel Defense Forces...
Sooooo, let me see if I have this right. Here we have a group of "Americans" sending money to the soldiers of a forgin nation... while US soldiers are going without basic supplies?
Is that about it?
- M. R.
It involves a secret investor, a man gone into hiding, an embarrassed Patriarch and the future of Jerusalem.
Johnnie Cochran, who became a legal superstar after helping clear O J Simpson during a sensational murder trial in which he uttered the famous quote, "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit," died yesterday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 67 and had a brain tumour.
Why June 2005?, I asked. 'The Israelis are concerned that if the Iranians get their nuclear enrichment programme up
and running, then there will be no way to stop the Iranians from getting a nuclear weapon. June 2005 is seen as the decisive date.'
Note once again who it is that is sending your kids off to war. - M. R.
March 29, 2005
Six months after a hacker broke into a UC Berkeley research computer containing the names and Social Security numbers of more than 600,000 health care workers and patients, the university has suffered another embarrassing security breach: the theft of a laptop containing personal information on nearly 100,000 graduate students.
Boy Scout leader charged with child porn was defender of anti-gay policy, ‘Youth Protector’...
Oh, this just gets better and better! - M. R.
A Lake Wales woman is shocked by a change of heart by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
It sent her almost $12,000 for losses she suffered resulting from last year's hurricanes, but now it wants almost all of the money back.
Boy Scout director charged with having child porn...
Yes, even the Boy Scouts is having to deal with this crap.
IMHO, people who get sexually excited by children have some serious wiring problems upstairs.
- M. R.
Israel has no choice but to withdraw from the West Bank - not to indulge the Palestinians but to save itself.
Blockbuster Inc. , the top U.S. video rental chain, will pay $630,000 to settle 47 states' claims that its "No Late Fees" policy deceived customers, the company said on Tuesday.
The Blockbuster Executives who came up with this idea won't be fired. A bunch of kids trying to work their way through college will lose their jobs to make up the shortfall. - M. R.
Iraq's attempt to fill the first posts in a national-unity government erupted in shouting and factional strife Tuesday, as what politicians described as last-minute power plays overran a Shiite- and Kurd-led effort to form a coalition with Sunnis.
O - M. R.
Two skiers spent the night on a ski-lift in freezing temperatures after staff switched the machinery off and went home, police said on Sunday.
In Unusual "Signaling" Move, Secret Service Admits White House is Suppressing Free Speech at Bush Events Financed by Taxpayers. This Would be Impeachable if Republicans Cared About Our Constitution. And It Happens Again and Again.
American Jewish Congress Launches Campaign to Fight Divestment and Threats to Israel's Economy...
If there is one freedom one enjoys in a capitalist society, it is the freedom to choose where one invests their money and where one does not invest their money. Israel's supporters apparently do not feel American's should enjoy that freedom. Israel's supporters apparently favor the communist system, in which the government decides for you where your money should be spent. - M. R.
Witnesses said that at 10am Monday morning, the US forces threw out families from three houses near the factory and then settled into them, setting up observation posts on their roofs to watch and prevent local residents from leaving the street on which they have now settled in. The Americans thus are using the civilians living in the neighborhood as human shields hoping that the Resistance will not want to risk harming the families to attack the Americans settled in among them.
U.S. intelligence experts are preparing a list of 25 countries deemed unstable and, thus, candidates for intervention.
Every Muslim nation in the world is on that list! WHAT AN AMAZING COINCIDENCE!!!" - M. R.
RED LAKE SHOOTINGS: Arrest shocks region...
Fire and Explosion Injures at Least Six at Michigan Plant...
Photo History - Finding the chemistry...
The hike in oil prices is beginning to ripple through the economy, pinching consumers at places far beyond the gas pump.
Phila. Police Buy Back Unwanted Guns from Public...
Here is why these programs are a total waste of tax money.
1. Crooks don't turn in their guns.
2. The guns that ARE turned in are usually non-functioning or collector's items that would not be used in a crime anyway.
3. Gun buy programs actually ENCOURAGE crime by providing a motive for people to steal a gun just to turn it in.
- M. R.
From the Rodney King riots to unannounced "training" exercises over American cities, the US military is being trained to turn the United States into a dictatorship.
WITH OVER 1000 LEADERS AND ACTIVIST HAVING BEEN ARRESTED SINCE THE FEBRUARY-1 POWER GRAB BY THE KING OF THE HINDU-KINGDOM-OF-NEPAL.......THE DAILY DEMONSTRATIONS ACROSS THE COUNTRY SHOW NO SIGNS OF ABATING.
FBI And Retailers Collaborate To Prevent Theft...
Translation: Yes, they really ARE tracking what you buy at the store.
Everyone trade your "discount" card with a friend.
- M. R.
According to estimates presented by MK Zahava Gal-On to the parliamentary commission of inquiry on the subject of the sex industry in Israel, this industry turns over some $1 billion a year. Raids by the tax authorities on brothels revealed that traffickers in women are in possession of large sums of cash and a great deal of assets. Now, the authorities are sharing the traffickers' profits through the imposition of fines.
Some "Holy" land.
- M. R.
Challenging the White House, 59 former American diplomats are urging the Senate to reject John R. Bolton's nomination to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
After weeks of speculation, the education secretary Ruth Kelly admitted this week that she receives 'spiritual support' from the secretive Catholic sect Opus Dei. But even if reports of bizarre rituals are exaggerated, why would she be involved with the controversial group in the first place?
Money" href="http://money.independent.co.uk/personal_finance/invest_save/story.jsp?story=623963" target="_blank">UK banks bow to the Muslim pound...
WWII-era Jewish land in Poland now said to be worth $30 billion...
Let's put this in context. The Catholic Church's wealth is based in large part on wealth confiscated from condemned heretics, including all the condemned witches, the Cathars, and while the main portion of the Templar Treasure escaped the treachery of Philip le Bel and Pope Clement V, the vast land holdings and buildings were confiscated by Philip and Clement.
Therefore, under the same precident that Israel is setting in Poland, all descendants of witches, Cathars, & Templars now have valid grounds to sue the Vatican and the government of France to force them to evict the people now living on those lands, and return those lands.
- M. R.
We may feel the power of suffering in the context of religion but, outside this spiritual setting, I’m not sure how compassionate we really are.
Magazine > Slide Show > The Wounded" href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2005/03/24/magazine/20050327_WOUNDED_SLIDESHOW_1.html" target="_blank">The Wounded...
America can remain the world's superpower.
Or it can maintain its current all-volunteer military.
It can't do both.
Or, maybe Phillip Carter and Paul Glastris should rush right down and enlist themselves and their children, if they think staying a superpower is that important. In fact, why don't you all write them and tell them so!
- M. R.
As opposed to many other nations, Israel has never recognized the murder of the Armenian people, and in effect lent a hand to the deniers of that genocide. Our official reactions moved in the vague, illusory realm between denial to evasion, from "it's not clear there really was genocide" to "it's an issue for the historians," as Shimon Peres once put it so outrageously and stupidly.
"Nobody else is allowed to have a holocaust but US! We got it first. You can't have it. It's OURS OURS OURS!"
- M. R.
Vast volcanic blasts that cause global devastation occur on average every 50,000 years — and, as the last one struck 74,000 years ago, at Toba, Indonesia, another may be overdue.
This article actally came out a couple weeks back, but is worth a re-read in light of the 8.7 quakes near Toba yesterday.
- M. R.
UK trebles military exports to China...
According to Advertising Age magazine, the fast food chain will pay rappers up to £2.80 ($5) every time a song namechecking the burger is played.
"Big Mac"
"Big Mac"
"Big Mac"
"Big Mac"
"Big Mac"
"Big Mac"
"Big Mac"
"Big Mac"
"Big Mac"
Hello? Where's my check, already? - M. R.
The report, titled "One Big Prison," documents what the organization says are Israel's violations of human rights and international law in the Gaza Strip. The reported violations are primarily related to restrictions of movement Israel places on people and goods traveling to and from the Gaza Strip.
It is difficult to accept the revelation that the government plans to build another 3,500 housing units in the area known as E-1, between Jerusalem and Ma'aleh Adumim, and thus obstruct the territorial contiguity needed for a Palestinian state, something Sharon has already agreed on.
The Americans have admitted that their intelligence in Iran is terrible, as the Iranians manage to find and execute all their agents. The obvious reason for this is that the Iranians are getting information on who these agents are. Do you think it possible that AIPAC was caught assisting Israel in betraying American spy networks in Iran? The Iranians could offer in return to free captured Israeli spies.
This is not as outlandish as you might think. Israel took the nuclear secrets that Polllard stole and traded them to the USSR in exchange for higher emmigration quotas. - M. R.
March 28, 2005
Nazis Used Starvation to Kill...
Update on the Greta Beers story...
TRANSLATION FROM A READER:
Explosive Reversal in the Case of Greta Beer.
She was the principal witness against the Swiss Banks in the conflict over unclaimed funds. However, Greta Beers' s father's Swiss Bank account was never found. An account has now appeared: At the Bank Leumi in Israel.
It was her appearance that gave the Swiss bankers headaches. As Senator Alfonse D'Amato took to the podium on April 23, 1996 within the scope of the first hearings about the unclaimed assets, and made clear to the public with a few short sentences which was the right and which was the wrong side of righteousness in the case. The then 75 year old described in a voice choking with tears, the demeaning treatment she had to put up with on her search for her father's accounts at the Swiss banks, and how this hard heartedness destroyed her chances for a comfortable life.
From then on the "Swiss Case" had a face; in Greta Beer repeated her accusations against "the cold, arrogant and powerful" Swiss banks. She was never able to recover from this attack. Even Paul Volcker, the chairman of the commission which was named after him, later remarked that her accusations were "decisive".
Hans Bär, the representative of the banking industry, who was also present at these hearings, invited the crown witness on the same day to come to Switzerland and to help her with her search for the vanished accounts. She flew to Switzerland a few weeks later, but in spite of an intensive search, no results followed. And that is how it remained: In spite of all research by the Volcker Commission, there was no sign of the accounts of Siegfried Deligdisch - Greta Beer's Romanian father.
Israeli Research
In his memoirs, Hans Bär assumed that this account no longer existed; after the father's death of natural causes during the war, her brother took over their company and thereby also the power of attorney over the accounts - with which Bär subtly implies the fate of the accounts. As a result, Greta Beer was about to leave the Volcker Process empty handed. For this reason, NY Judge Edward Korman awarded her $100,000 "as remuneration for her help in making the settlement possible" from the settlement funds.
But the story was not over with that. A few days ago, Greta Beer received the news through the NZZ am Sonntag" (A Swiss newspaper) that she had been waiting for for years: An account had appeared, but instead of in the Swiss, in the Israeli Bank Leumi. There, after a 4 year search for "Holocaust Assets" in Israeli banks, a list of 3595 accounts was published at the end of January, among which one is under the the name Siegfried Deligdisch .
Greta Beer, who lives in Boston, and her brother Otto Deligdisch are convinced that there is no doubt that this was her father's account. He had built up one the largest textile companies in East Europe between the two wars. His business relations reached from Egypt to West Europe, including Switzerland, where he had purchased machinery for his factories, which had the name "Hercules". On his business trips, remember the siblings, he often traveled through Palestine, and even bought a house in Jerusalem in 1934. This account is probably related to that transaction.
Threatening Precedent
In spite of the surprising find, Greta Beer and her brother are still convinced, that a large portion of her father's funds are in Switzerland. Beer also contradicts Hans Bär's account by which their father gave him the power of attorney. Burt Neuborne, the representative of the prosecuting attorneys in the Korman proceedings, that the CRT (Claims Restitution Tribunal) is making another attempt to find Deligdisch accounts in Switzerland as well. The chances of success are not good.
The surprising turn of the Greta Beer case is the result of a clarification in Israel that has long been controversial. The Knesset member Colette Avital had, against a great deal of resistance, gotten through a bill saying that Israeli banks should also look for unclaimed Holocaust accounts. After the results were published in January 2005, a number of banks objected, saying that the accounts did not belong to Holocaust victims. It is about "the principle" said HaAretz. No Israeli bank wants to admit openly, and be seen in history books, as having hoarded funds belonging to Holocaust victims for so many years.
Greta Beer has meanwhile contacted Colette Avital and the Board of Inquiry about the next steps for receiving possession of the account. According to information from Yona Fogel, Vice President of the Bank Leumi, the restitution process has not yet been clarified. Among other things, the amount of interest on these accounts is under discussion. At the moment, a percentage rate of 3 or 4% is being considered. According to "HaAretz", it is possible that this rate will be reduced, since it is likely to be a precedent for the return of Palestinian funds. History does not necessarily favor Greta Beer.
- M. R.
IRS May Tax Your eBay Sales...
That DOES it!
REVOLUTION NOW!!!!
:)
- M. R.
Live Internet Seismic Server...
Only 8.5? - M. R.
In a flash of high explosives, it was gone.
Australians are as just as concerned about United States foreign policy as Islamic extremism and regard the US as more dangerous than a rising China, according to a new poll.
If George W. Bush were to hold up a carrot and call it a watermelon, the American news media would immediately begin calling carrots watermelons. That’s an undeniable fact. Equally undeniable is the fact that we have long passed the point when we can trust the American corporate media to report the news. But even more distressing is the fact that we now have reached the point when we cannot even trust them with the English language.
Stop the "Debt Slavery" Bankruptcy Bill in the House!...
From the late 1800s through to the start of WW1, there was a phenomenon in the US called the "Company town". As the name suggests, these were whole towns owned by corporations. Workers were lured to the towns by promises of high wages. The problem was that the company also owned the housing and the only store. Credit was extended to get the workers moved in and that was when the trap was spring, because the costs of living in the company towns exceeded what the workers were paid, and under the contracts, they could not quit their jobs and leave until the debt to the company store was paid off. Since the local law enforcement was also on the company payroll, the system amounted to a legalized form of slavery. The abuses of the company towns were immortalized in songs like "Sixteen Tons", who lamented that he could not go to heaven because he owed his soul to the company store.
The practice of company towns ended starting in 1917 when the Russian Peasants revolted against Tsar Nicholas 1. The idea of workers owning the means of production swept across America's company towns. Unions sprang up, and were ruthlessly put down. In the end, fear of a worker's revolution forced corporations to abandon the abusive practices of the company towns.
Well, that was then, and this is now, and Communist Russia is gone. Free from the fear of a worker's revolt, the practices of the company town are being revived, only on a national scale.
The game is played the same way; get everyone hooked on credit, then arrange matters so that they cannot make the payments, and institute legalized indentured servitude, aka slavery.
- M. R.
Sony Corp. said on Monday it was ordered by a U.S. court to halt sales of its blockbuster PlayStation consoles in the United States and pay $90 million in damages to a California tech company, Immersion Corp. , whose shares jumped more then 5 percent.
Tsunami Warnings Go Out!a...
An earthquake, measured at 8.2 on the Richter scale, struck northwestern Indonesia on Monday. There are no immediate reports of damage, but the quake has triggered tsunami alerts across Asia.
This is close to the remains of Toba, a Supervolcano that erupted 74,000 years ago. - M. R.
The report concluded that the government does not fully understand the risks that a terrorist attack could pose to the pools and ought to expedite the removal of the fuel to dry storage casks that are more resilient to attack. The Bush administration has long defended the safety of the pools, and the nuclear industry has warned that moving large amounts of fuel to dry storage would be unnecessary and very expensive.
"I have an idea! Let's make it all into 'weapons' (nudge nudge wink wink) and dump it on someone else's country! Cool, huh?"
- M. R.
Israeli forces raid Jenin...
"TERRI, TERRI, TERRI, ALL TERRI, ALL THE TIME, TERRI-VISION, SOON TO BE THE TERRI CHANNEL!" -- ABCNNBBCBS - M. R.
The astounding rise in home values is enticing many middle-class Californians to bet on dirt, gambling their retirements that they can do better with property than with any other investment.
In the same way that the stock market's apparently limitless ascent in the late 1990s seduced investors into buying shares in untested dot-coms, relentlessly rising house and land prices are spurring people to do things that used to be considered unusual — if not irresponsible.
They're cashing in retirement funds, selling stock and taking out second mortgages. They're pouring the money into real estate, often in distant states, often without seeing the property. Why does the word "Tulip" come to mind?
- M. R.
US Troop Defends Reason for Avoiding War...
In the last 25 years, Lloyd's has made major strides towards tearing down this reputation.
"Hello, my name is Mary Man-Hating-Is-Fun," one participant said. "I am 23 years old, and I am what a feminist looks like. Ever since I learned to embrace my feminist nature, I found great joy in threatening men's lives, flicking off frat brothers and plotting the patriarchy's death. I hate men because they are men, because I see them for what they are: misogynistic, sexist, oppressive and absurdly pathetic beings who only serve to pollute and contaminate this world with war, abuse, oppression and rape."
Oh yeah, let's get men and women screaming at each other so they ignore the lies of the government.
This is more "divide and conquer" by the US Government against its own people.
Mostly, this is about ending all female sympathy for men ahead of a draft. "Ship 'em off to war! Why not, they're just a bunch o' losers anyway, eh girls?"
- M. R.
Watchdogs are warning that corruption in Iraq is out of control....
Gee, we HAVE brought American-style government to those people! - M. R.
The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Irineos, offered 400,000 dollars in 2001 to convicted drug dealer Apostolos Vavylis, Greece's most wanted man, to secure the patriarch's election, a Greek newspaper reported Sunday, March 27, 2005.
War with Mexico?...
And all the National Guard are over in the Middle East protecting oil wells! - M. R.
BBCIraqOilReport.mov (video/quicktime Object)...
It WAS about the oil! - M. R.
At least 16 Iraqis, including a Shia political party official, have been killed in the country's latest incidents of violence.
Sharon: We can't expect an explicit U.S. okay to build freely in the illegal settlements...
"Hey, it's not like we need their permission, only their money, and they can't refuse to send THAT!"
- M. R.
Let us observe a youthful empire in freefall, a nation in decadent decline, collapsing under its own weight and its own self-induced ignorance and unenlightenment, drunk off its arrogance and self-proclaimed aggrandizements of magnificence and manifest destiny. Let us be witness to a land in disrepair, a population in mental anguish. Let us examine a country decrepit in true moral values, empathy and wisdom, a nation quick to rise and fast to fall, lacking the experience of history and the wisdom of time.
One of the favorite fantasies of right-wing talk radio and Fox "News" is that only Bush-hating liberals oppose the Iraq war and additional US military incursions into the Middle East or wherever.
When the collision of the SS America occurs, with a mountainous iceberg of foreign debt amid an ice pack of foolhardy foreign adventures, the ablest survivors will be those least clinging to the notion that the vessel is unsinkable. Indeed, many of the foremost survivors will resemble the 22 crewmen who abandoned the Titanic before she sailed, aware that those who command our beautiful vessel are woefully incompetent or criminally insane.
March 27, 2005
Sharon says Israel will keep settlements, no matter what US says...
"And hurry up with that check!"
- M. R.
The expedition traveled to the western slope in the fall of 2004 and brought back video tapes and artifact samples. After a number of tests, the scientists discovered that the samples were the result of volcanic activity, and not the remains of Noah’s ship.
After Wells Fargo started foreclosure proceedings in February, Mrs. Welter contacted the state attorney general's office and members of Congress. It was not until a local television station aired her story and Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican, intervened that the company finally backed off.
American moguls, snake-oil salesmen and politicians looking to score riches or power will stop at little if they feel it is in their interests to exploit God to achieve those ends.
In 1992, AIPAC Harry Katz phoned the President of AIPAC, David Steiner, to offer contributions. Steiner proceeded to make several claims, including negotiating with then-candidate Bill Clinton over who would be Secretary of State, and had already "cut a deal" with Baker for more aid to Israel.
PRO-ISRAEL PAC CONTRIBUTIONS TO FEDERAL CANDIDATES 2004 ELECTION CYCLE...
PDF file. Who owns the US Government?
- M. R.
Tony Blair. You are charged with leading Britain into an illegal war... How do you plead?...
"George Bush MADE me do it!"
- M. R.
It does not really matter to me if Zundel is right or wrong. His controversial investigations into the Holocaust are certainly interesting, but are ultimately unimportant. What really is important is the freedom to believe or say whatever one wants.
Some people believe Global Warming is a joke; other folks believe astrology is a science. They may be right, they may be wrong. Neither belief should be a crime. How can you legally hold someone responsible for an incorrect belief?
How To Avoid the Draft Or National Service...
This assumes that the government will obey the 13th amendment's prohibition on "involuntary servitude".
- M. R.
Widow's Bush Treason Suit Vanishes in Blink of Media Eye...
AIPAC Probe / AIPAC works to preserve clout in U.S....
Many of the men and women who have been holding vigils outside Terri Schiavo's hospice are exhibiting the worst of America's home-grown strain of religiously grounded ignorance and hypocrisy.
They clutch their Bibles and rosary beads and hold signs that proclaim it a moral duty to care about life for the vulnerable and disabled, but exhibit no such passion when Republican leaders declare the need to cut food subsidies and medical care for the needy while reducing taxes for the wealthy.
A military tribunal determined last fall that Murat Kurnaz, a German national seized in Pakistan in 2001, was a member of al Qaeda and an enemy combatant whom the government could detain indefinitely at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The three military officers on the panel, whose identities are kept secret, said in papers filed in federal court that they reached their conclusion based largely on classified evidence that was too sensitive to release to the public.
In fact, that evidence, recently declassified and obtained by The Washington Post, shows that U.S. military intelligence and German law enforcement authorities had largely concluded there was no information that linked Kurnaz to al Qaeda, any other terrorist organization or terrorist activities.
Paging Kafka. Paging Mr. Franz Kafka, red courtesy phone please. - M. R.
In 2004 the atrocity of US troops abusing Iraqi POWs exposed the dark side of human rights performance of the United States. The scandal shocked the humanity and was condemned by the international community. It is quite ironic that on Feb. 28 of this year, the State Department of the United States once again posed as the "the world human rights police" and released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2004. As in previous
years, the reports pointed fingers at human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions (including China) but kept silent on the US misdeeds in this field. Therefore, the world people have to probe the human rights record behind the Statue of Liberty in the United States.
As Recently As 1946, American Citizens Were
Forced To Take Up Arms As A Last Resort
Against Corrupt Government Officials.
Hmmm, somehow, this didn't make it into the history books at the schools I went to!
- M. R.
A bombing in a Christian suburb of east Beirut has overshadowed Easter celebrations and raised fresh fears of a slide back into Lebanon's violent past.
Now, who BENEFITS from that! - M. R.
Even as the president was supporting his brother, Florida governor Jeb Bush, and congressional Republicans in "defending the culture of life" in the Schiavo case, doctors in Houston were pulling the breathing tube from the throat of an ailing infant. The boy suffocated within seconds, legally killed -- against the wishes of his anguished mother -- in accordance with a draconian law signed as a "cost-saving" measure by the state's former governor: George W. Bush.
Washington > New Details on F.B.I. Aid for Saudis After 9/11" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/politics/27exodus.html?hp&ex=1111986000&en=7a785c415820f14d&ei=5094&partner=homepage" target="_blank">New Details on F.B.I. Aid for Saudis after 9/11...
"Hey guys, I gotta idea. You'll love this one! After Ariel's boys knock over the towers, we ship out a bunch of Saudis, tell 'em it's for their own good, see, and make them look guilty as hell, right? I mean, they got oil too, right? After we knock off Iraq and Iran, then we frame Saudi Arabia for 9-11 and invade. I mean we can pull the 'nookular weapons' con on Iraq and Iran, but let's not press our luck!"
- M. R.
The assistant director also said US troops raided Ramadi and Haditha general hospitals a few days ago, and questioned whether doctors had become military targets and if the raids were aimed at closing hospitals.
Voters of Britain, we are the jury in this election...
Expect Phony Tony to rig the jury, er, the election. - M. R.
The success of Central Asia's first post-Soviet revolution was starting to look distinctly shaky last night, as Kyrgyzstan's self-appointed coalition struggled to form an interim government and assert the power it had won so precipitately earlier in the week. Reports from the capital, Bishkek, said that bands of youths, some armed, roamed the streets and sporadic looting continued. Local observers spoke of a growing sense that no one was in charge.
Damning evidence of American soldiers abusing detainees at another prison in Iraq was made public yesterday. It details how prisoners were "systematically and intentionally mistreated" at a military base in Mosul, culminating in the death of one. Nobody was court-martialled over the abuse.
New York Region > For Army Recruiters, a Hard Toll From a Hard Sell" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/nyregion/27recruit.html?ex=1112504400&en=f323348dc1a02f8e&ei=5070" target="_blank">Awwwww, feel bad for the poooooooooooor recruiters......
High-level European intelligence sources report that the 51-year old slain Italian SISMI military intelligence agent, Dr. Nicola Calipari, killed by U.S. sharpshooters while accompanying the freed Italian hostage—Il Manifesto journalist Giuliana Sgrena—to Baghdad International Airport, was a prized target of opportunity for American assassins because of his knowledge about past Republican White House ties to Saddam Hussein's nuclear program.
March 26, 2005
The English instructor believes a medieval forger could have painted the image of a crucified man on a pane of glass, laid it on the linen, then left it outside in the sun to bleach the cloth for several days. As the linen lightened, the painted image of the man remained dark on the cloth, creating the equivalent of a photo negative.
This theory actually makes sense. - M. R.
The AIPAC Investigation -- Current State of Play...
The real scandal isn't what information flowed from Larry Franklin to AIPAC to Israel, but what lies flowed from Israel to AIPAC to Franklin, who was working inside the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, the very office from which all the since-discredited claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were flowing.
- M. R.
From Hero To Homeless...
But billions to Israel.
- M. R.
Monthly Minimum Payments Up On 2 Major Bank Credit Cards...
Picardi said he's even experimenting with a Big Brother bonus for unmarked police cars: a tiny microphone positioned near the windshield so powerful it can pick up conversations on the street.
Really loud whistles will become the new patriot fashion accessory.
- M. R.
Coffee with steam...
Hours after a judge ordered that Terri Schiavo wasn't to be removed from her hospice, a team of Florida law enforcement agents were en route to seize her and have her feeding tube reinserted - but they stopped short when local police told them they would enforce the judge's order, The Miami Herald has learned.
I think I hit it on the head. These people are (shamelessly) using Terri to prove to themselves that they are still moral and decent people concerned with the value of human life. They are desperate for reassurance after years of being too afraid to do anything while the US Government launched war after war based on lies and deception, engaged in torture, broke most of the commandments, etc.
Well, sorry, but you are NOT decent and moral people, even if you do forcibly kidnap Terri.
Saving one life does not absolve you of staying quiet while the US government started wars with lies, tortured and murdered thousands of people who had done no wrong, and showered the survivors with radioactive waste.
There is no absolution to be found in Terri's hospice room. No history book will excuse the war crimes of the US because one woman was kept alive a few days longer.
- M. R.
George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography...
Red Lake tribal officials have relaxed restrictions on media covering the tragedy, allowing a slighter greater freedom of movement on the tribe's land. The restrictions are one indication of a culture clash that often occurs when non-Indians suddenly come into contact with the Native American world. Some reporters and media organizations complained this week that limited access contributed to the slow stream of information in the first days following the shooting. But tribal members say they've been overwhelmed by the arrival of pushy and demanding outsiders.
Family Wonders If Prozac Spurred Rampage...
Fayettevile Rally audio and photos...
THERE was ruin and terror in Manhattan, but, over the Hudson River in New Jersey, a handful of men were dancing. As the World Trade Centre burned and crumpled, the five men celebrated and filmed the worst atrocity ever committed on American soil as it played out before their eyes.
Who do you think they were? Palestinians? Saudis? Iraqis, even? Al-Qaeda, surely? Wrong on all counts. They were Israelis – and at least two of them were Israeli intelligence agents, working for Mossad, the equivalent of MI6 or the CIA.
THIS IS REALLY COOL!...
"Dropout factories" is how a new Harvard study describes some California schools, finding that dropout rates for Latinos and black students are abysmal. Just 50.2 percent of black boys who entered ninth grade in the Golden State received a diploma four years later.
Congressional investigators will look into whether the Bush administration violated any laws when it paid syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher to help promote a marriage initiative, Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy and Frank Lautenberg said.
How about payments to "phlogs"? Is it legal for Bush to spend taxpayer money to set up phony blogs to promote US Government policies, or to feed out disinfo (the "Pod People") to make doubters of the official story look bad? - M. R.
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