Jones was energized in November when he and others received a response from the national lab charged by Congress to determine why and how the towers collapsed. The letter contained the following phrase:
"We are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse."
"That," Jones said, "really was progress. It made me believe we could talk with them."
It is striking. After producing a 10,000-page report, the National Institute of Standards and Technology can't explain the collapse. And on its Web site, NIST clearly states that nowhere in its report did it say that steel in the Twin Towers melted due to fires. In fact, the fires reached only 1,000 degrees Celsius. Steel melts at 1,500 degrees Celsius.
The concept of Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal tool not being a backdoor is flawed. For starters, no information is ever disclosed to someone installing the Windows Malicious Software removal tool: "Windows will now install a program which will report suspicious activity to Microsoft". As far as I can recall on any Windows update, there has never been any mention of it.
"But this is a wonderful tool, why are you being such a troll and knocking Microsoft for doing the right thing!". The question slash qualm I have about this tool is I'd like to know what, why, when and how things are being done on my machine. It's not a matter of condemning Microsoft, but what happens if at some point in time Microsoft along with government get an insane idea to branch away from obtaining other data for whatever intents and purposes?
We've seen how the NSA is allowed to gather any kind of information they'd like (http://www.eff.org/issues/nsa-spying), we now have to contend with Microsoft attempting to do the same. Any way you'd like to market this, it reeks of a backdoor: (again pointing to the definition) A backdoor in a computer system ... is a method of bypassing normal authentication, ... obtaining access to ... , and so on, while attempting to remain undetected. There's no beating around the bush here on what this tool is and does.
The mother of Pat Tillman is speaking out about her son's death in her first television interview, to be broadcast this Sunday on 60 Minutes.
Tillman, a pro football player, joined the military after 9/11 and was killed in action in Afghanistan in 2004. The Army initially lauded him as a hero who had died storming a hill in the face of enemy fire and even awarded him the Silver Star. They only revealed five weeks later that he had actually died by friendly fire.
New Photos Reveal Horror Of Hiroshima (Warning: graphic)...
A reminder that for all the talk about Iraq and Iran's 'nookular' bombs, one and only one nation has ever used nuclear weapons of mass destruction on the civilians of another country.
The nation that did so is the United States of America. - M. R.
The Army Corps of Engineers can be held liable for flood damage caused by a "hurricane highway," a navigation channel that is believed to have funneled Hurricane Katrina's storm surge into the city, a federal judge ruled Friday.
Let's hope this judge's opinion doesn't get overruled in a higher court of appeal.
It is high time that the people responsible for the bad planning and neglect which so greatly contributed to the tragedy of Katrina be held accountable. - M. R.
It is a strange feeling: after working as a productive professional in Gaza for five years, I have become a black market junkie. I make several phone calls a day hunting for fuel for my car, diesel for the electricity generator waiting on standby to power the house, even cigarettes and vitamins.
He was questioned under caution, suggesting that the investigation could end in an indictment and resignation, according to a report on Channel 2, an Israeli television station. (AP)
Whether these charges are true or not, the timing is very interesting, from a standpoint of a potential new election for Israel's prime minister.
This will have a profound effect on what will happen for Palestinians in their quest for legitimate and recognized statehood. - M. R.
Anyone who actually believed in democracy and the rule of law -- anyone who actually believed that the constitutional republic of the United States was worth preserving and strengthening -- anyone who had even a vestigial sense of morality or the most flickering commitment to the idea of justice -- would already be calling for the prosecution of Bush and his minions for these capital crimes. This goes double for anyone in public life, holding public office, with a national platform to speak from, and institutional tools at their disposal for investigating these crimes.
So where are these voices in the citadel of power calling for justice to be done? They are silent. In both houses of Congress, in both major parties, they are silent. On the campaign trail, preening before the public as wise and virtuous leaders worthy to lead a nation, they are silent.
Israel has tacitly aligned itself with Washington, raising the specter of a war on Iran even if it has to go 'alone with the problem'.
In a Friday interview with the Yediot Aharonot, senior Israeli minister Ehud Barak made his newest accusations against Iran, claiming that Tehran is attempting to develop a nuclear bomb in two years.
Even if there is an election for prime minister in Israel because of Olmert's corruption scandal problems (an election in which Barak may well run for the job), this will not slow down the timetable for a US/Israel-led attack against Iran very greatly.
And Barak certainly demonstrates a penchant for the melodramatic.
He understands very clearly, that if an attack against Iran goes forward (at least during the current US administration's watch), Bush has pledged to support Israel militarily - no matter who starts the shooting.
Therefore, it is imperative for Israel to get an attack against Iran moving forward just as quickly as possible. - M. R.
This divided country faces a constitutional crisis Sunday when its richest and second most-populous province votes whether to declare itself autonomous from President Evo Morales's national government, a referendum the president has called illegal.
On the streets of Santa Cruz Wednesday night, thousands of people attended a pro-autonomy demonstration, with several saying they were ready to defend the referendum with force if necessary.
Pakistan's fledgling civilian government appeared last night to have found a way out of the crisis threatening to pull it apart when it announced that the nation's ousted judges would be restored this month.
The former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whose Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) is the junior coalition party, said 12 May had been set as the date for the reinstatement of the 60 judges - including the ousted chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry - who were kicked out by President Pervez Musharraf last year.
Hungry Afghans looking for their next meal eye bread scraps piled up like heaps of trash at a Kabul market as a vendor weighs out fistfuls of the stale crusts on a scale. A Pashtun woman waits with an empty plastic sack.
She isn't scavenging -- she's paying for leftovers that in better times were sold for feeding to sheep and cows. The woman said her household of 14 people had to give up fresh bread a month ago as the price spiraled out of reach.
Amidst unemployment and impoverishment, Iraqis now face a cutting down of their monthly food ration - much of it already eaten away by official corruption.
"When the Americans came to occupy Iraq, they promised us a better life," Ina'm Majeed, a teacher at a girls school told IPS in Fallujah. "After killing our sons and husbands, they are killing us by hunger now. The food ration that was once enough for our survival is now close to nothing, and the market prices are incredibly high. It is impossible for 80 percent of Iraqis now to buy the same items they used to get from the previous regime's food rations."
The US and its allies are worried that the sanctions regime against Tehran is under threat from a possible new wave of European investment in Iran's strategically important gas sector.
While the US government blusters and refuses meaningful engagement, Ahmedinejad is scoring some great financial deals. - M. R.
Whether true or not, the reports regarding the latest investigation are very grave. Even if there is an iota of truth in them, it is hard to believe that Ehud Olmert would be able to continue serving as prime minister; the thought of bundles of cash reaching the hands of the most important man in our political hierarchy prompt deep revulsion.
An election in Israel will possibly slow down the drumbeat to a US-led attack against Iran, but probably not by very much.
In fact, most of the potential candidates for the seat of Prime Minister will be very familiar faces to both the Israeli and the US public. - M. R.
American films and TV dramas shot since the September 11 attacks have reinforced screen images of Arabs and Muslims as fanatics and villains, ingraining harmful stereotypes, argues an author on the subject.
Vilifying Arabs existed long before 9-11. And another racial stereotype Hollywood enforces is that all drug dealers are either blacks or hispanics. That is not real world.
Evidence is stacking up to suggest that the alleged "suicide" of DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey was in fact a calculated murder, as the manager of Palfrey's Florida Condo reveals that Palfrey was not suicidal when he spoke to her Monday and told him of her fears about a contact being out on her life.
The new testimony is backed up by at least four other recorded public statements on behalf of Palfrey attesting to the fact that she would never commit suicide and if she was found dead to immediately suspect murder.
Despite these on-the-record statements, the majority of the corporate media has ignored each one and instead given credence to the unverified claim of a professional conspiracy debunker who has been caught fabricating statements in the past.
Russia is escalating the challenge to Georgia and the West in Abkhazia, now with military action. This follows President Vladimir Putin's April 16 decree, authorizing direct official relations between Russian government bodies and the secessionist authorities in Georgia's Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions (see EDM, April 18). That unilateral move amounted to official "legal" recognition in terms of Russian law, formalizing Russia's de facto annexation policy in the two territories.
With an already chilled relationship with NATO and Georgia, this is Russia's "gotcha" to Georgia about its wanting to join NATO. - M. R.
"I can confirm that we conducted a strike in Sadr City this morning," a US military spokesman told AFP. "The targets were known criminal elements. Battle damage assessment is currently ongoing."
However, witnesses and an AFP reporter at the scene said the main Al-Sadr hospital had been badly damaged and a fleet of ambulances were destroyed.
"We meant well." -- Official White Horse Souse - M. R.
I Googled videos for " DC Madam Murdered" and got the following list. The only problem is that most of the videos with this title won't play. Censorship? Hope it's just me. Can you play them?
That's the news: Continued American bombing of residential areas with prohibited weapons; solidarity with nationalist tribes elsewhere in Iraq in the fight against oppression; "the accused person Maliki" lined up with the criminals of the prior regime on the path leading from major crimes to eventual execution. This is the current news for a very large part of the Iraqi population.
Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, "unprecedented in its scope."
All this costs money, which in turn must be authorized by Congress, or at least a by few witting members of the intelligence committees. That has not proved a problem. An initial outlay of $300 million to finance implementation of the finding has been swiftly approved with bipartisan support, apparently regardless of the unpopularity of the current war and the perilous condition of the U.S. economy.
In classical Greek drama, there is a concept of "hubris", which translates as overweening pride.
.The hubris of a potential overt attack against Iran by this administration is astonishing in the extreme.
But of course, getting things constantly, horrifically wrong, on both domestic and international policies, has been the hallmark of this administration.
Remember: attempted destabilization of another country's governmental structure is generally followed by some kind of overt attack.
What an overt attack will do, in all likelihood, will be to paralyze the Persian Gulf, preventing the flow of oil.
It will also unite the people of Iran around a very unpopular leader (the unpopularity being due to Ahmedinejad's inability to deliver on domestic economic promises.)
It will also put our troops in Iraq into even greater danger than they are facing now.
And last, but not least, Russia may feel it has no option but to enter this conflict on the side of Iran.
Russian diplomats have said, and are continuing to say, that any attack against Iran will be considered an attack on Russia.
It appears that this administration, in trying to deflect from its abysmal failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, are willing to throw this country off a cliff with a strike against Iran, which is apt to be the start to a greater regional - or world - war.
And apparently,. those in congress who signed off on the money necessary for this potential grand military misadventure have forgotten: those are our tax dollars they're ready to do this with; not theirs. - M. R.
At a town hall meeting today, Senator McCain made a stunning admission when he announced that his energy policy would aim to reduce our dependence on Middle East oil, which would in turn ensure that we never have to fight another war there again.
"They (the Americans) will say it was a weapons cache" that was hit, said the head of the Baghdad health department, Dr Ali Bistan, who arrived to assess the damage.
"But in fact they want to destroy the infrastructure of the country."
More "winning the hearts and minds" of the Iraqi people, I see. - M. R.
After a four-year legal battle, a US federal judge has dismissed all charges against an avant-garde artist who public officials condemned as a bio-terrorist in a case critics are calling "a persecution, not a prosecution."
"Dammit, isn't there a REAL terrorist anywhere we can put on the news?!? Can we dig up Osama one more time?" -- Official White Horse Souse - M. R.
I remember thinking that censorship was something done in the 40s by priests who had to approve the films that the Italian public was allowed to watch. When I was young and naïve, I thought it was something that only totalitarian or ultra-repressed societies would dare to use. I now know much better, and it's not only the Big Media that simply does not allow content in that they disapprove of, it is far more sinister. It seems as though the journalists are aware of what is expected of them and they produce it without needing to be steered.
Methinks Israel is in for a big surprise on it's 60th birthday..... no one is in 'celebration mode'... or mood. The war, the economic situation, the recent scandals among high government officials could be part of the reason. The ongoing crisis between Israel and Palestine is probably the main factor, people on both sides of the wall are sick and tired of the needless killing.
Enmeshed in two military occupations that have turned into well-publicized quagmires, the Army and Marines are understandably having trouble enlisting new recruits. Their answer: vastly increase the number of convicted felons and other societal miscreants accepted into their ranks.
A senior Iranian official said on Saturday Tehran saw no need for more talks with the United States about Iraqi security until what he described as U.S. attacks on Iraqis stopped, Iran's Fars News Agency reported.
Although unsourced, what Tehran has done has been to focus the spotlight of regional and world opinion on the American occupation of Iraq, and what the horrendous price has been paid by the Iraqi people, no matter what the American propagandists have declared. - M. R.
But the final straw came when the Iraqi authorities, facing mounting public anger at rising food prices brought about by the devaluation, arrested some 500 merchants on charges of speculation and profiteering and then executed 42 of them in an effort to force prices lower.
Right now as we starve here in America, that doesn't seem like such a bad thing! - M. R.
(Once this bill is enacted in states totalling 270 EV's, there will be no more Electoral College - or if there is, it will be completely irrelevant because the states passing this will allocate ALL of their electors based on the winner of the National popular vote - not by the winner of the popular vote in their particular state.)
He stated that a memo from Evan Bayh has surfaced in which Bayh blames the Clinton's for the closing of the Magnequench plant in Vapraiso, Indiana, and this memo is due to hit the presses tomorrow (and hopefully will change the fucking conversation). Howey also set the stage by stating that Hillary had been campaigning 2 weeks ago on this plant closing, blaming it on Bush, and that this had been effective tactic for her.
They claim to have discovered a naturally occurring element with an atomic number (number of protons) of 122 -- 30 notches on the periodic table ahead of uranium, long considered the heaviest naturally occurring element.
"Princeton Professor, Ed Felton, has posted a series of blog entries in which he shows the printed tapes he obtained from the NJ voting machines don't report the ballots correctly. In response to the first one, Sequoia admitted that the machines had a known software design error that did not correctly record which kind of ballots were cast (republican or democratic primary ballots) but insisted the vote totals were correct. Then, further tapes showed this explanation to be insufficient. In response, State officials insisted that the (poorly printed) tapes were misread by Felton. Again further tapes showed this not to be a sufficient explanation. However all those did not foreclose the optimistic assessment that the errors were benign -- that is, the possibility that vote totals might really be correct even though the ballot totals were wrong and the origin of the errors had not been explained. Now he has found (well-printed) tapes that show what appears to be hard proof that it's the vote totals that are wrong, since two different readout methods don't agree. Sequoia has made trade-secret legal threats against those wishing to mount an independent examination of the equipment.
Where is the activism of the 1960's as people poured into the streets to demand civil rights for all, the students who demanded the end of the Viet Nam war, the protestors who risked prison by burning their draft cards and refusing to serve in an unjust war? Today no one dare raise their voice against the government either out of fear of being labeled a terrorist, arrested, tasered, fired from their job, become audited by the IRS or otherwise targeted, or perhaps, perhaps they do not care.
Anyway, this rant is to try and wake up the great unwashed or as Henry Kissinger called us, "The useless eaters". It seems to me most Americans are asleep at the wheel, either drugged up on antidepressants and other prescribed anti-psychotics, or street drugs or just too damned tired to see the current mess they are in.
I think, the people should sing the American anthem, "I've become comfortably numb!"
Well, one insider says she was booked on Keith Olberman and Morning Joe to talk about her tome -- and then unbooked. "These are shows that call her regularly to come on. And then the word came from on high that she had to be cancelled."
On one trip down the stairs, she lugged a 2-foot-wide box she suggested carried materials related to her infamous court case. "This is my evidence," she told Strizack before carrying it out the door.
"War Room" is shot in the nonscripted, cinema-verite style by D. A. Pennebaker (whose follow-around films on President Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey and Bob Dylan are documentary classics) and Chris Hegedus. Whether Carville and company are play-acting somewhat for the cameras becomes less important as the film progresses. One can only keep up an act for so long -- especially in the throes of a campaign. Carville's tearful farewell speech to his staff as they close up just before the election, Stephanopoulos's frank talk with a potential blackmailer and a Mickey Kantor comment about the people of Indiana (when it looks as though Clinton's ahead in Dan Quayle's state) attest to this.
I can't vote for Hillary given Kantor's OUTRAGEOUS remarks.
I am being flooded with email from Hillary's supporters. Half are insisting that the tape is a total fake, the others saying that Kantor's comments are "misunderstood."
But after the way Hillary's people and the media pounded us endlessly with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright's speech, I think this video deserves equal play just to be fair.
Show this to the people of Indiana, and let them decide if this is an insult or not. - M. R.
The current 1.1 billion people worldwide without access to potable water only opens one of the smaller windows on the injustices and the multiple casualties being wrought by private water-related industries. In fact, many are clueless to the magnitude of the victims -- present and projected -- of the growing water crisis as well as to the inhumane implications of the role of the private sector in regards to treating water as a commodity that can be owned and sold for profit. As of now, 2.6 billion people are at high risk for not having access to potable and an additional 1.8 million children die each year from water-related diseases.
n the mix of chaos, despair, and confusion, which most affects the poorer elements of society, it is important to note the private corporations' role, which some critics have identified as being among the major culprits in causing the crisis. Within recent decades, water privatization firms such as Suez, Vivendi, and RWE have bought control of a number of communities' municipal water services, and then drastically increased the price of water; with some of them failing to effectively purify the water resources they had come to monopolize.
The Hillary Clinton campaign is dealing with a quickly exploding controversy. WSBT News has received dozens of emails about a YouTube video that shows a high level Clinton campaign advisor allegedly making degrading remarks about people from Indiana.
I HEREBY CHALLENGE THE VERY SAME MAINSTREAM MEDIA THAT ENDLESSLY PLAYED THE WORDS OF THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT TO GRANT EQUAL TIME TO AIRING THIS VIDEO.
Hillary's people are claiming that the video has been faked or altered, or simply shown out of context. But I would like to remind everyone that the video of Reverend Wright that we were all shown (over and over and over again) was also selectively edited to exclude the fact that Wright was quoting from another source when he made some of his comments.
Where the truth is on this is hard to figure out, but Hillary's people started playing dirty with the Reverend Wright and now they have to live with the consequences. - M. R.
WMR is now reporting specifically who at ABC News' 20/20 became fully aware of not only Cheney's use of the escort service, but dozens more "high profile" names - culled from the phone records only since 2002 (the escort services full records go back to 1994). ABC's crack team was reportedly gagged by their bosses after concerned calls from the White House.
Our call from last week is playing out exactly as we forecasted. The Fed cut interest rates, signaled a willingness to pause, and the Dollar has begun another dead cat bounce. Included below is a chart that shows other dead cat bounces that have occurred during the past year. Note the end result of each of the prior bounces: an ultimately lower Dollar. There is no reason to believe this time will be any different.
If you have questioned 9/11 for a couple of years, you'll know that the above-described history of goalpost-moving is accurate. If you haven't, google around and you'll probably see what I mean.
The American bodyguards of a Bush administration envoy who was dispatched to the region to monitor the implementation of the road map engaged in a violent confrontation with right-wing Israelis who sought to disturb a visit to Hebron on Friday, Israel Radio reported.
The US could, I am sure, find some other, really helpful uses to those billions of dollars we spend in aid and military support we give Israel every year. - M. R.
I would tend to think that the reason that the terms of the agreement are so confidential is that there will be at least one if not more "no-go" provisions which will make the offer untenable to Tehran.
And right after this is rejected, you'll hear the group say "we tried diplomacy, but it failed".
And then, we may well be off to a larger war in the Middle East.
Three islanders from Lesbos - home of the ancient poet Sappho, who praised love between women - have taken a gay rights group to court for using the word "lesbian" in its name.
The floor is now open for suggested new names for the ladies. - M. R.
Spurned in Washington, can President Abbas defer any longer the imperative of re-establishing Palestinian national unity, asks Khaled Amayreh in Ramallah
Carin Dillingham handed over her watch to the pawnbrokers at Society Hill Loan as if she were giving up one of her bones.
The 30-year-old bookkeeper stood pregnant, broke and sad under rows of pawned guitars hanging like curing hams from the ceiling of the ragged South Street shop. She got a $20 loan for her $200 Bulova, a gift from the Harley-Davidson Co., where she used to work.
The memory that sticks with me is seeing a Marine Officers Mamaluke dress sword hanging in a pawn shop window in Wahiawa. After all the guy did for this nation, and the government won't take care of him.
- M. R.
Another copy of the Michael Kantor video expressing his feelings about Hoosier voters. For those of you with good audio processing software, that last portion is easy to clean up and verify what he is saying for yourselves. For the rest, check out the body language. Kantor knows he is saying something very inappropriate.
- M. R.
Listen in on the Senate Congressional Hearing on aspartame recorded in the Congressional Record of May 7, 1985, where Senator Howard Metzenbaum, an outspoken critic of aspartame, said, "G.D. Searle Company has not demonstrated to a reasonable certainty that the use of aspartame in soft drinks will not adversely affect human health as a result of the changes such use is likely to cause in the brain chemistry. The extensive deficiencies in the stability studies conducted by Searle render those studies inadequate and unreliable."
Mohammed Omer, my dear Brother living in Gaza, was interviewed yesterday by Crossing The Line. He speaks about the latest incidents there including the brutal murder of his fellow photojournalist and friend Fadel Shana.
This picture was a press release from Israeli sources purported to show Palestinian terrorists. However one of the suspected terrorists forgot to take off his star of David before being photographed.
Mazin Qumsiyeh of the excellent Wheels of Justice peace initiative has drafted this list furnishing facts about why good people of conscience everywhere will not be celebrating Israel at its 60th anniversary this month, just as apartheid-era South Africa was not accepted or celebrated. There are many more reasons, and he invites people to add to it.
Under James Pavitt and Roland Carnaby, the firm has become the intelligence community's most successful private consulting business on counter-terrorism, security consulting and intelligence gathering where they pioneered a way for private officers to carry out day to day functions in the field, relay them back to CIA, DoD, DIA or other foreign agencies.
Gee, I wonder just WHICH foreign agency they might be talking about. - M. R.
On Thursday, Palfrey was found dead, hanging by a nylon rope from a metal beam in a backyard shed near her mother's home in Tarpon Springs, on the coast 100 miles west of Orlando. Police said it was an apparent suicide.
"It's hard to believe," said Joseph Strizack, a condominium-association manager at Park Lake Towers who got to know Palfrey during her decade as an owner there. "She did not seem the least bit distraught."
Okay, so let me get this straight, Palfrey went to visit her mother, then decided to commit suicide at Mom's place?!?!?!?
- M. R.
When she needed to win a primary in New Hampshire, the machines glitched up, and she emerged with an unexpected margin of victory. Whether it was due to electronic voting breakdowns is not clear. But there was never a a full recount or a thorough investigation of the serious problems that plagued the vote count in that state.
When she needed a victory in Ohio, Republican voters -- urged on by Rush Limbaugh -- crossed over in droves and helped give her one. Cross-over voting may also have been a factor in her critical victory in Pennsylvania. There were also numerous instances of computer tabulation glitches in the Pennsylvania secretary of state's office.
Now the Indiana primary looms ahead. Less than a week prior, the US Supreme Court has delivered a devastating decision on voter ID that could again make a big difference in Clinton's favor.
Remember a couple of years ago how the FDA warned Americans not to buy prescription drugs from Canada because they might be "contaminated by terrorists?" I'm not making that up: That was the official announcement of an FDA spokesperson, and it was part of their fear strategy for enforcing a monopoly on U.S. consumers so that Big Pharma could continue engaging in rampant price fixing.
The implication in that warning is that drugs purchased in the United States are therefore safer, correct? What the FDA didn't tell anyone, however, is that most pharmaceuticals purchased in the United States are manufactured outside the U.S.; many from China or Puerto Rico. So they're not even made in the U.S. anyway, and drug companies are simply importing them from other countries just like a consumer might do if she drove across the border and bought her medications in Canada or Mexico.
Sooooooooooooooooo lemme see if I have this. We are not allowed to drive up to Canada to buy cheap prescription medicines because they might not be as safe as the far
more expensive medicines sold in US pharmacies ... which turn out to be contaminated imports? - M. R.
Here's the bad news: Your little recession-deflecting tax rebate? No rebate at all. Not even close.
It's more like this: You've been continuously mugged and beaten and robbed blind for the past seven years straight, and as you lay there on the cold, hard economic ground, bleeding and gasping and wondering what the hell happened to your vacation time and your health care plan and your mortgage payment, your attackers scoff and leer and toss a couple of bloodstained nickels on your pulverized face and mutter, here sucker, have some bus fare, and then they cackle and stomp away with all your loot and dignity and hope, back to the White House from whence they came.
Here's the global angle to the junk buying binge:.
n conjunction with the increase in the size of the TAF, the Federal Open Market Committee has authorized further increases in its existing temporary reciprocal currency arrangements with the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Swiss National Bank (SNB). These arrangements will now provide dollars in amounts of up to $50 billion and $12 billion to the ECB and the SNB, respectively, representing increases of $20 billion and $6 billion. The FOMC extended the term of these reciprocal currency arrangements through January 30, 2009.
We are suffering from a disease. Offshore slavery, sweat shops, exploited labor, insider trading, profiteering, dept slavery, predatory lending, avoidable starvation, and a blind eye to the rape, theft, murder, and torture of the Third World are kept afloat by a steady combination of consumerism and sticking our heads in the sand. No one cares about people; not like they care about shiny things. Our nation judges its well being by the stock market or its billionaire companies and not on the welfare of the general public, our physical and psychological well being. Humanity is under the boot of the mighty dollar because of its association with self-worth.
Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj has hit out at the US treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison where he was held for nearly six and a half years.
Al-Hajj was held for 6 1/2 years with no trial, just accusations, and suddenly....he's released with not even an "I'm sorry; our bad" from this administration.
This is the kind of behavior we expect from dictators.
And again, a word of advice to those traveling abroad who feel an overwhelming sense to talk about the American love for - and exercise of - freedom, justice, and democracy; just please shut up until the urge passes.
People around the world understand very clearly that these values are despised by those in the highest governmental offices in this land. - M. R.
Sadly, I was not shocked to hear Thursday's news that former DC madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey -recently convicted on prostitution charges - was found dead, at the end of a nylon rope, in a shed on her mother's property down in Tarpon Springs, Florida. Florida. Man, what a state. From the Pensacola to the Keys - corruption to the "nth" degree. Need to fix elections? Go to Florida. Need to train CIA operatives to fly suicide missions? Go to Florida. Need to use an international airport as a drop-off point for your multi-million dollar drug shipments? Go to Florida. Need to conveniently murder a woman connected to a case involving high-profile government officials who like it kinky? Go to Florida. It's no surprise that a Bush was recently a governor of the Sunshine State.
"She wasn't going to jail, she told me that very clearly. She told me she would commit suicide," Dan Moldea told Time Magazine. "She had done time once before [for prostitution]," Moldea recalls. "And it damn near killed her. She said there was enormous stress -- it made her sick, she couldn't take it, and she wasn't going to let that happen to her again."
Of course, Moldea never got this alleged "quote" on tape, as a truly responsible journalist would have done.
And we are to believe him just because he is making this claim?
Rational people wouldn't, because they understand that he has utterly no basis in fact for these statements.
What we do have on tape is the absolute opposite of what he has claimed, period, end of discussion.
And unfortunately, this is what passes for "responsible journalism" in the so-called main stream media these days.
Media outlets simply hire people to bend, or distort the truth, (or outright lie) to place their favored "spin" on any topic or event, then feed that as the truth to their audience. - M. R.
The Pentagon is expanding "Information Operations" on the Internet with purposefully set up foreign news websites that are designed to look like independent media sources but in reality are nothing more than direct military propaganda.
Efforts to protect the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale from being killed by ships are being blocked by Vice President Dick Cheney according to leaked documents.
Gaps in the food safety system include out-of-date laws, poor use of resources, and inconsistencies among agencies protecting food safety, according to the reportFixing Food Safety: Protecting America's Food From Farm-to-Fork, released Wednesday by Trust for America's Health.
"One in four Americans are sickened by food-borne illness each year, that's 76 million people," Jeffrey Levi, executive director of Trust for America's Health said during a morning teleconference Wednesday. "That number is far too high, and major gaps in our nation's food safety system are to blame."
Government employs 22,387,000 Americans, 8,744,000 more than manufacturing. Even the category leisure and hospitality employs 13,682,000 Americans, slightly more than manufacturing. There are as many waitresses and bartenders as production workers.
Federal prosecutors in Detroit say letter carrier Darlene Cry illegally tipped off a postal customer that he was the subject of a "mail cover" -- a form of warrantless surveillance in which the envelope information on every card and letter received is secretly recorded by the Post Office, then passed to federal law enforcement or intelligence officials.
The report's authors blamed Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip for the Gazans' inability to treat the sewage.
"This sewage cannot be treated due to the lack of a steady electricity supply within the Gaza Strip, Israel's restrictions on fuel imports and prohibitions on the import of materials and necessary spare parts," according to the report.
But a security source familiar with the situation told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday that the vast majority of Gaza's electrical needs were being met by Israel and Egypt.
Note that the alleged "source" claiming that "the vast majority of Gaza's electrical needs were being met by Israel and Egypt." is never named.
This is how the Israeli media consistently turns the blame back on the Palestinians, this time by insinuating that the Palestinians have the resources to treat the sewage, but won't do it. - M. R.
Andrei Kozlov, Seth Tobias and Paul Gillmore and now Oleg Zhukovsky
When I read the news from whatreallyhappened.com about Oleg Zhukovsky being found dead in a pool it reminded me of the death of Seth Tobias's death in the same questionable manner, which reminded me of Paul Gilmore's mysterious death which happened the next day. Here is a flashback to that September news .
The logical odds are that she was assassinated by one of the powerful Washington DC politicians she "served" with high price call girls or men. A congressman, another senator, a vice-president or maybe a prominent evangelical. She took care of too many extremely wealthy and well-known people who can easily afford the right executioners.
I do not believe that this lady killed herself. The appeals process, however long, would have eventually gotten her out of prison. Look at Martha Stewart.
Sheetrit, who is also a deputy prime minister, said Israel's goal should be to break up Hamas, which European Union and the United States join with Israel in blacklisting as a terror group.
"We must break Hamas, not hold negotiations with them, because their demands are unacceptable," he said. "The armed forces must attack those terrorists night and day to break their arms and their legs."
There is no truce proposal on Gaza that Israel will accept from Hamas, period, end of discussion. What Israel wants is the entire West Bank and Gaza for itself, and will do anything necessary to achieve that goal (including the current siege of Gaza, and the denial of life-saving medical treatment of sick Gazan Palestinians).
Sheetrit also deliberately misses the point that Hamas is, from the last free and fair election in Palestine, the duly elected party representing the Palestinian people. - M. R.
This week saw some of the bloodiest clashes between U.S. and Iraqi forces against the Mahdi Army militia loyal to anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The urban street fights recalled the kind waged in the first years of the war in Iraq and contributed to the highest death toll for U.S. forces in seven months.
By using rockets and mortars, the militias can attack U.S. and Iraqi forces without coming face-to-face in close battle. The salvos into the Green Zone have had the added effect of embarrassing al-Maliki by demonstrating that even from across the city, the Shiite fighters can inflict damage on the seat of his government.
So, 5 years on, the US can't secure Baghdad or the Green Zone?? - M. R.
As the US faces a very real prospect of utter collapse where millions may be may be made jobless and homeless, the GOP drags out a tired old lie that goes like this: 'be happy! Recession is goooood for you!'
Remember Jonathan Pollard? The Jewish/Israeli spy from the 1980s who did so much damage to this country with his treachery that even the pro-Zionist United States government refuses to let him out of prison? Well, apparently the Pollard example didn't deter Israel from biting the hand that feeds it and continuing to spy on us.
A board set up to review construction of the spaceship to return astronauts to the moon is loaded with employees of the very contractors they are supposed to scrutinize, breaking federal law, a government watchdog says.
I was with the "Old" NASA when the "New" NASA took over, which amounted to kicking out the scientists who had called the shots going to the moon and replacing them with MBAs whose prior experience was usually with the contractors NASA was buying from. The result was a string of disasters including Challenger, the Mars Climate Observer, the Mars Polar Lander, the out-of-focus mirror on the Hubble Space Telescope, etc. etc. etc. NASA became business-like, which meant they couldn't get anything done. Decisions once based on hard facts became political and "business-driven" (which is why no effort was made to deal with the wing damage to Columbia even though it had been known at launch time something had hit the leading edge of the wing).
And frankly, until we go back to the model that worked during Apollo, we will continue to see other nations leap ahead of us in space technology (and the products derived from it). - M. R.
Sometimes it is hard to know what to talk about. You come to that point where you feel like you've talked about everything you could think of and you don't know where to go next. There's some kind of massive cleanup operation going on recently. A number of British policemen were found dead. A hooker and a madam wind up hung- the latter said she would never commit suicide. A CIA man gets shot to death by police. There's some kind of Danny Casolaro virus going around.
Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few, and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.
His sharp tongued conclusion: "Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty."
Not if Bush's duty was to the stock portfolios of the Vice President and those members of Congress invested in defense contractors. - M. R.
VIDEO - The average laptop has more germs than a toilet seat apparently....
"So you all better stop reading those %$#@% blogs and go back to getting your news from ABCNNBBCBS, or else you're ALL GONNA DIE HORRIBLY!" -- Official White Horse Souse
(Sigh)
We are turning into a bunch of germ-o-phobes. Yes, there are germs on the toilet seat. There are germs on the computer. There are germs on YOU! And 99% of them are totally harmless. There are even some germs you cannot live without! They help you digest your food. The Mitochondria in your cells that help turn food into energy used to be a separate life form, which is why they have their own DNA.
Yes, we want to avoid the bad germs, but living in a totally germ-free environment is an unrealistic goal (no matter what the TV advertisers claim) and in fact, it is exposure to germs that helps your immune system become stronger and more able to deal with the germs that do cause illness.
- M. R.
The 43rd annual Wisconsin fishing opener begins at 12:01 am Saturday.
Some area lakes are still covered with more than a foot of ice.
"Oh but you just don't UNDERSTAND! Human-cause-global-warming is HIDING! That's it, it's HIDING, and it's using the COLD WEATHER to LULL you all into a false sense of security and then when you don't pay your carbon tax and refuse to do what the Emperor Gore tells you to do, the human-cause-global-warming is gonna FRY YOUR SOUL IN HECK FOR THE REST OF ETERNITY!!!!" - M. R.
Former U.S. baseball star Jose Canseco said on Thursday he had lost his California mansion to foreclosure -- one of the first celebrities to publicly admit being a statistic in the U.S. housing crisis.
In an unusual display of righteous anger, God aimed at Washington DC with his high wind tornadoes, and missed by over 100 miles! It wasn't clear immediately why He was off-target by such a wide margin, but weather officials at Regent University's Baptist Weather Center were quick to point out that they have documented evidence that this is not His first-ever wide-margin miss with tornado strikes.
CNN correspondent Allan Dodds Frank reported by phone from Lower Manhattan. He described: "[J]ust two or three minutes ago there was yet another collapse or explosion. I'm now out of sight, a Good Samaritan has taken me in on Duane Street. But at a quarter to 11, there was another collapse or explosion following the 10:30 collapse of the second tower. And a firefighter who rushed by us estimated that 50 stories went down. The street filled with smoke. It was like a forest fire roaring down a canyon." [1]
WTC 7 was a 47-story tower, so would have fitted the description of the estimated "50 stories" described by Frank. And it did indeed collapse completely. One could in fact accurately describe its demise with Frank's words: "The street filled with smoke. It was like a forest fire roaring down a canyon." However, this collapse did not happen until 5:20 that afternoon.
The Bush administration forced its top environmental regulator in the Midwest to quit Thursday after months of internal bickering about dioxin contamination downstream from Dow Chemical's world headquarters in Michigan.
Apparently, according to the Bush administration, people are expendable, but corporate profits are not. - M. R.
Deborah Jeane Palfrey found dead of supposed suicide at her mother's home in Florida. Brandy Britton was also found dead of a suicide hanging. Strange that both women decided to hang themselves?...
Palfrey believed her life could be in danger, and stated that it would not be suicide if she were found dead; she said so on a radio program along with implicating that the VP himself, and other extremely powerful, high-profile men in Washington were clients.
Is it possible that facing of a 55-year sentence, Ms. Palfrey was going to do some talking, in hopes of a reduced sentence? Were some persons concerned that an angry or vindictive Palfrey might write tell-all?
We need to keep that money here in America. The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it at yard sales, since those are the only businesses still in the U.S.
'At the time of Jonathan Luna's vicious murder, known members of organized crime families in Pennsylvania and Maryland were attempting to get a piece of legalized slot machine gambling.'
IRS probe of alleged DC Madam began
one month after former MD state police head Ed Norris
copped lenient plea deal for sex and tax crimes
Jonathan P. Luna (1965?-December 4, 2003) was a Baltimore-based Assistant United States Attorney who was stabbed 36 times with his own penknife and found drowned in a creek in Pennsylvania.
In two states where US attorneys are already under fire for serious allegations of political prosecutions, seven people associated with three federal cases have experienced 10 suspicious incidents including break-ins and arson.
These crimes raise serious questions about possible use of deliberate intimidation tactics not only because of who the victims are and the already wide criticism of the prosecutions to begin with, but also because of the suspicious nature of each incident individually as well as the pattern collectively. Typically burglars do not break-into an office or private residence only to rummage through documents, for example, as is the case with most of the burglaries in these two federal cases.
A woman accused of running a Washington-area prostitution ring says former University of Maryland professor Brandy Britton worked for her.
Britton told The Examiner before her death that she previously worked for an escort service called East Coast Elites, but she never mentioned Deborah Jeane Palfrey or her firm, Pamela Martin & Associates, during a series of interviews with this newspaper.
Shaul Mofaz, a former defense minister and military chief, said in a speech Wednesday at Yale University in the United States that Iran could have the knowhow to build nuclear arms within months, his spokeswoman Talia Somech said Thursday. Despite international sanctions meant to persuade Iran to stop the program, Tehran is steadily progressing with its pursuit of nuclear technology, Somech cited Mofaz as saying.
A small memo to Former Defense Minister Mofaz and Ms. Somech: The Iranians, the Russians, and US intelligence resources have all stated, very clearly, that Iran is building a power station.
But I have to ask: even if Iran was developing nuclear weapons, who could blame them, after having had such a strong object lesson in what happens to countries without a nuclear deterrent, as with what has happened to Iraq?
And by the way: when will the IAEA have the chance to inspect your nuclear facility at Dimona?
ZIMBABWEANS are bracing for a bloody second round of elections after government sources said a recount of the presidential vote held a month ago showed that the President, Robert Mugabe, lost to Morgan Tsvangirai but that neither won an outright majority.
Hookergate involves fired US Attorney. US District Judge for the District of Columbia Gladys Kessler, a Clinton appointee, has re-issued an order prohibiting DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey from releasing any more phone lists of her Pamela Martin & Associates customers. Secrecy of the phone records has been a priority for DC Assistant US Attorney William Cowden.
Since Palfrey was headed to jail anyway, she had little to lose by releasing the rest of her client lists in her planned book. - M. R.
Hustler publisher Larry Flynt, already on a hunt for Washington sex scandals, has teamed up with a powerful new ally: "D.C. Madam" Deborah Jeane Palfrey.
There is no end of motive for another murder made to look like a suicide. - M. R.
As violence flares in Mexico's drug war, threatening security on the US border, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates made a historic trip to Mexico this week as part of the Pentagon's push for Latin American countries to deploy more military resources against drug trafficking. It's also part of a security effort to shore up potential threats that could emerge from militants crossing the border.
Sounds to me that at this point in its history, the US is completely incapable of defending its own Southern border.
Of course, if we weren't overstretched militarily in these endless wars of conquest, we just might be able to defend our borders adequately to solve the problem. - M. R.
Former US Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz has claimed that the occupation of Iraq by American forces 'ended in June 2004'.
"Those kids are on an extended vacation. Yeah yeah, sure sure, that's it. It's a vacation. Yeah yeah, sure sure." -- Official White Horse Souse - M. R.
While an initial search of Carnaby's Jeep revealed no weapons, after the SUV was taken into custody police claim they discovered two pistols and a shotgun. Now the HPD has several mysteries on its hands. Who was Ronald Vincent Carnaby? A secret CIA agent as he claimed to cohorts and friends? Why didn't the cops find the two pistols and the shotgun, one of which was purportedly "within reach" during their initial search of his vehicle and why did Carnaby run in the first place?
With 200-300 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, the Israelis enjoy a nuclear monopoly in the Middle East. They mean to keep that monopoly and are pressing for the U.S. to obliterate Iran's fledgling nuclear program.
"There will be no choice but to overthrow Hamas. They are essentially Iranian offshoots sitting within us. It's intolerable that Israel allows its cities to be fired upon; we must move from a war of attrition to a war of decisivness," said Opposition Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday in a meeting with local journalists in Netivot as he addressed Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza.
This sounds like the statement of a man with massacre on his mind.
And of course, the timing couldn't be more ironic, because a number of Palestinian groups have said that they are willing to respect an Egyptian-brokered cease-f
