MyOwn

Cockroache

2011-08-05T09:10:00.000-07:00

Cockroaches, like all insects, breathe through a system of tubes called tracheae. The tracheae of insects are attached to the spiracles, excluding the head. Thus cockroaches, like all insects, are not dependent on the mouth and windpipe to breathe. The valves open when the CO2 level in the insect rises to a high level; then the CO2 diffuses out of the tracheae to the outside and fresh O2 diffuses in. Unlike in vertebrates that depend on blood for transporting O2 and CO2, the tracheal system brings the air directly to cells, the tracheal tubes branching continually like a tree until their finest divisions, tracheoles, are associated with each cell, allowing gaseous oxygen to dissolve in the cytoplasm lying across the fine cuticle lining of the tracheole. CO2 diffuses out of the cell into the tracheole.

While cockroaches do not have lungs and thus do not actively breathe in the vertebrate lung manner, in some very large species the body musculature may contract rhythmically to forcibly move air out and in the spiracles; this may be considered a form of breathing.

The US-Al Qaeda Alliance: Bosnia, Kosovo and Now Libya. Washington’s On-Going Collusion with Terrorists

2011-08-05T03:54:00.000-07:00

........But there have been other interventions in which Americans have used al-Qaeda as a resource to increase their influence, for example Azerbaijan in 1993. There a pro-Moscow president was ousted after large numbers of Arab and other foreign mujahedin veterans were secretly imported from Afghanistan, on an airline hastily organized by three former veterans of the CIA’s airline Air America. (The three, all once detailed from the Pentagon to the CIA, were Richard Secord, Harry Aderholt, and Ed Dearborn.)2 This was an ad hoc marriage of convenience: the mujahedin got to defend Muslims against Russian influence in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, while the Americans got a new president who opened up the oilfields of Baku to western oil companies........

......Meanwhile in 1994 the French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy (BHL) traveled to Bosnia and fervently endorsed the case for intervention in Bosnia; in 2011 February BHL traveled to Benghazi and reprised his interventionist role for Libya.......

............Americans and Europeans are still less likely to learn from their media that among the groups in the Benghazi transitional coalition, certainly the most battle-seasoned, are veterans of the Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah bi-Libya (Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, or LIFG). The importance of the LIFG contingent in the TNC has been downplayed in a recent issue of the International Business Times:

The LIFG is a radical Islamic group which has been fighting small scale guerrilla warfare against Gaddafi for almost a decade. Much of the LIFG leadership came from soldiers who fought against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan, as part of the Mujahedeen. Since the beginning of the uprising reports said that some of the LIFG has joined the TNC rebel movement on the ground, and many accused the fighters of having links to Al-Qaeda, which the LIFG has since denied.

Previously however, the LIFG had stated that its ultimate goal is to install an Islamic state inside Libya, which given the fact that many of its fighters are now on the side of the TNC is quite worrying. However as the LIFG is reported to have a fighting force of no more than a few thousand men, it is believed it will not be able to cause much trouble within the opposition.17

It remains to be seen whether a victorious TNC would be able to contain the Islamist aspirations of the ruthless jihadist veterans in their ranks.

There are those who fear that, from their years of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, the battle-hardened LIFG, although probably not dominant in the Benghazi coalition today, will come to enjoy more influence if Benghazi ever gets to distribute the spoils of victory. In February 2004, then-Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that "one of the most immediate threats [to U.S. security in Iraq] is from smaller international Sunni extremist groups that have benefited from al-Qaida links. They include ... the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group."18 In 2007 a West Point study reported on “the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group's (LIFG) increasingly cooperative relationship with al-Qaeda, which culminated in the LIFG officially joining al-Qaeda on November 3, 2007."19....

......Although Britain and the US were well aware of the West Point assessment of the hard-core LIFG in the Benghazi TNC coalition, their special forces nevertheless secretly backed the Benghazi TNC, even before the launch of NATO air support:

The bombing of the country came as it was revealed that hundreds of British special forces troops have been deployed deep inside Libya targeting Colonel Gaddafi’s forces – and more are on standby....

In total it is understood that just under 250 UK special forces soldiers and their support have been in Libya since before the launch of air strikes to enforce the no-fly zone against Gaddafi’s forces.20

There are also reports that U.S. Special Forces were also sent into Libya on February 23 and 24, 2011, almost a month before the commencement of NATO bombing.21

UK support for the fundamentalist LIFG was in fact at least a decade old:

Fierce clashes between [Qadhafi's] security forces and Islamist guerrillas erupted in Benghazi in September 1995, leaving dozens killed on both sides. After weeks of intense fighting, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) formally declared its existence in a communiqué calling Qadhafi's government "an apostate regime that has blasphemed against the faith of God Almighty" and declaring its overthrow to be "the foremost duty after faith in God." This and future LIFG communiqués were issued by Libyan Afghans who had been granted political asylum in Britain.... The involvement of the British government in the LIFG campaign against Qadhafi remains the subject of immense controversy. LIFG's next big operation, a failed attempt to assassinate Qadhafi in February 1996 that killed several of his bodyguards, was later said to have been financed by British intelligence to the tune of $160,000, according to ex-MI5 officer David Shayler.22

David Shayler’s detailed account has been challenged, but many other sources reveal that UK support for Libyan jihadists long antedates the present conflict.23

Even more ominous for the future than the nationalistic LIFG may be the fighters from the more internationalist Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM) who have seized the opportunity presented by the war to enter the conflict, and equip themselves from Gaddafi’s looted armories.24 AQIM presents a special concern because of recent reports that, like other al Qaeda associates from Afghanistan to Kosovo, it is increasingly financed by payoffs from regional drug traffickers.25

In short, the NATO campaign in Libya is in support of a coalition in which the future status of present and former al-Qaeda allies is likely to be strengthened.26 And western forces have been secretly supporting them from the outset......

www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25829

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Nuclear Weapons US

2011-04-01T15:03:00.000-07:00

www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24049

The B61-11 earth-penetrating weapon with a nuclear warhead
The Department of Defense had developed a new generation of bunker buster tactical nuclear weapons for use in the Middle East and Central Asia:

"Military officials and leaders of America's nuclear weapon laboratories [had] urged the US to develop a new generation of precision low-yield nuclear weapons... which could be used in conventional conflicts with third-world nations." (Federation of American Scientists, 2001, emphasis added)

The B61-11 can penetrate and detonate below the earth's surface, creating a massive shock wave capable of destroying underground targets. In tests the bomb penetrates only 20 feet into dry earth, even when dropped from altitudes above 40,000 feet. But even this shallow penetration before detonation allows a much higher proportion of the explosion to transferred into ground shock relative to a surface burst. It is not able to counter targets deeply buried under granite rock. Moreover, it has a high yield, in the hundreds of kilotons. If used in North Korea, the radioactive fallout could drift over nearby countries such as Japan.

Five months after [Assistant Defense Secretary] Harold Smith called for an acceleration of the B61-11 production schedule, he went public with an assertion that the Air Force would use the B61-11 [nuclear weapon] against Libya's alleged underground chemical weapons plant at Tarhunah if the President decided that the plant had to be destroyed. "We could not take [Tarhunah] out of commission using strictly conventional weapons," Smith told the Associated Press. The B61-11 "would be the nuclear weapon of choice," he told Jane's Defence Weekly.

Smith gave the statement during a breakfast interview with reporters after Defense Secretary William Perry had earlier told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on chemical or biological weapons that the U.S. retained the option of using nuclear weapons against countries armed with chemical and biological weapons. (http://www.nukestrat.com/us/afn/B61-11.htm, emphasis added)

Nukes and Mini-Nukes: Iraq and Afghanistan

The US military contends that "mini-nukes" are "humanitarian bombs" which minimize "collateral damage". According to scientific opinion on contract to the Pentagon, they are "harmless to the surrounding civilian population because the explosion is underground",

The B61-11 is a bon fide thermonuclear bomb, a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) in the real sense of the word.

Military documents distinguish between the Nuclear Earth Penetrator (NEP) and the "mini-nuke", which are nuclear weapons with a yield of less than 10 kilotons (two-thirds of a Hiroshima bomb). The NEP can have a yield of up to a 1000 kilotons, or seventy times a Hiroshima bomb.

This distinction between mini-nukes and the NEP is in many regards misleading. In practice there is no dividing line. We are broadly dealing with the same type of weaponry: the B61-11 has several "available yields", ranging from "low yields" of less than one kiloton, to mid-range, and up to the 1000 kiloton bomb.

In all cases, the radioactive fallout is devastating. Moreover, the B61 series of thermonuclear weapons includes several models with distinct specifications: the B61-11, the B61-3, B61- 4, B61-7 and B61-10. Each of these bombs has several "available yields".

What is contemplated for theater use is the "low yield" 10 kt bomb, two-thirds of a Hiroshima bomb.

Tony Blair

2011-03-31T05:24:00.000-07:00

The moral authority of the West is rapidly collapsing. When Russia, Asia, and South America look at Europe, Australia and Canada, they see American puppet states that contribute troops to the aggressive wars of the Empire. The French president, the British prime minister, the “president” of Georgia, and the rest are merely functionaries of the American Empire. The puppet rulers routinely sell out the interests and welfare of their peoples in behalf of American hegemony. And they are well rewarded for their service. One year out of office former British prime minister Tony Blair had a net worth of $30 million.

From

Chernobyl disaster

2011-03-21T04:55:00.000-07:00

"It concludes that based on records now available, some 985,000 people died, mainly of cancer, as a result of the Chernobyl accident. That is between when the accident occurred in 1986 and 2004. More deaths, it projects, will follow."

Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment

Iraq Oil Deals

2011-03-17T03:54:00.000-07:00

The following are the signed deals, listed in order of the size of the reservoirs involved, and others still in the works:

* RUMAILA

Britain's BP Plc (BP.L) and China's CNPC signed the first major post-U.S. invasion oil deal in November for supergiant Rumaila field, with estimated reserves of 17 billion barrels. The two companies aim to boost production to 2.85 million bpd from around 1.066 million bpd currently, and have accepted a remuneration fee of $2 per barrel.

BP said it would invest around $15 billion. BP has a 38 percent stake and its partner CNPC has 37 percent while Iraq holds 25 percent.

* WEST QURNA PHASE TWO

Russian energy giant Lukoil (LKOH.MM) and Norway's Statoil (STL.OL) sealed a deal for the supergiant, 12.9-billion-barrel oilfield in Iraq's south on Jan. 31. The partners agreed a remuneration fee of $1.15 per barrel and pledged to take production to a plateau of 1.8 million bpd.

Iraq holds a 25 percent stake, Lukoil 56.25 percent and Statoil 18.75 percent. Statoil has said it would invest $1.4 billion over 4-5 years. Lukoil put total investment at more than $30 billion. The firms would start recovering costs when output reaches 120,000 bpd.

* MAJNOON

The massive 12.6-billion-barrel Majnoon oilfield was taken by Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), Europe's largest oil company, and Malaysia's Petronas [PETR.UL], which inked the final pact on Jan. 17. Shell officials have said the firms would invest "tens of billions" of dollars.

Shell has a 45 percent share, with partner Petronas holding 30 percent and Iraq 25 percent. The firms will receive a remuneration fee of $1.39 per barrel for boosting output to a plateau production target of 1.8 million bpd from current output of just under 50,000 bpd. Firms can start recovering costs once output hits 175,000 bpd.

* WEST QURNA PHASE ONE

West Qurna Phase One found no bidders in the first auction, but a subsequent competition behind closed doors led to a deal with Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) and Shell. The companies inked the final pact on Jan. 25.

The field has reserves of 8.7 billion barrels. The consortium aims to boost output to 2.325 million bpd after setting baseline production at 244,000 bpd. [ID:nRAS832007]

The group accepted a fee of $1.90 per barrel. Exxon has a 60 percent interest in the consortium, with Iraq holding 25 percent and Shell the remainder. An Exxon executive said on July 19 that the group aims to raise production by 10 percent by the end of the first quarter of 2011.

* HALFAYA

China National Petroleum Company (CNPC), France's Total (TOTF.PA) and Petronas clinched the final contract for Halfaya on Jan. 27, with a fee of $1.40 per barrel and a plateau production target of 535,000 bpd from a current 3,100 bpd.

Total holds an 18.75 percent interest in the consortium, and CNPC with 37.5 percent, Petronas 18.75 percent and Iraq 25 percent. Halfaya, situated in southern Iraq, has estimated reserves of 4.1 billion barrels of oil. The firms would start recovering costs when output hits 70,000 bpd.

On April 22, Total said it is considering a bigger stake in the Halfaya oilfield. [ID:nLDE63L107]

* ZUBAIR

Italy's Eni (ENI.MI) sealed the final contract with Iraq on Jan. 22 for the 4-billion-barrel Zubair oilfield. Eni and partners, U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum Corp (OXY.N) and KOGAS, set an output target of 1.2 million bpd. The group agreed with Iraq to set the baseline production level at 183,000 bpd. [ID:nRAS832007]

The consortium planned to invest over $20 billion and accepted a remuneration fee of $2 a barrel. Eni has a 32.81 percent stake, Oxy 23.44 percent, KOGAS 18.75 percent and Iraq's Missan Oil Company 25 percent.

* MAYSAN

Iraq signed a final deal on May 17 with China's CNOOC (0883.HK) and state-run Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) for a service contract for the 2.5- billion-barrel, three-oilfield Maysan complex.

The fields were offered in the first auction of oilfield contracts but not awarded. According to Iraqi officials, CNOOC accepted the proposed remuneration fee of $2.30 for every additional barrel of oil produced, compared with more than $20 per barrel it and its old partner China's Sinochem -- which pulled out of the deal -- had originally sought.

CNOOC and TPAO set a plateau target for the oilfields at 450,000 bpd after six years. CNOOC said it will hold a 63.75 percent stake in the venture while TPAO holds 11.25 percent. Maysan comprises three fields -- Bazargan, Abu Gharab and Fakka in southern Maysan province.

* AL-AHDAB

CNPC started work last March on the al-Ahdab oilfield in southeastern Wasit province after successfully renegotiating an old development deal that dated back to Saddam Hussein's government.

CNPC hopes to pump 110,000-130,000 bpd from the field, which has estimated reserves of 1 billion barrels.

* GHARAF

A smaller oilfield with 900 million in reserves, Gharaf was won by Petronas and the Japan Petroleum Exploration Co (Japex) (1662.T) in a fierce competition in the second bidding round, and the deal was signed on Jan. 18.

Petronas will hold 45 percent, Japex 40 percent and Iraq 25 percent, and will receive a fee of $1.49 per barrel. Gharaf has a production target of 230,000 bpd. The consortium expects to invest $7-$8 billion. The firms can start recovering costs once output reaches 35,000 bpd

Arabs

2011-01-31T14:24:00.001-08:00

Out of roughly 352 million Arabs, 190 million are under the age of 24, with nearly three-quarters of them unemployed.

GM Foods At the Moment

2010-09-01T08:06:00.000-07:00

How to Avoid GM Food

There are currently eight major GM food crops on the market, so memorizing this list will help you avoid any and all food products that might contain GMO’s:

1.Soy
2.Corn
3.Cottonseed (used in vegetable cooking oils)
4.Canola (canola oil)
5.Sugar from sugar beets
6.Hawaiian papaya
7.Some varieties of zucchini
8.Crookneck squash
You’ll also want to avoid any kind of derivative of these, such as high fructose corn syrup, for example.

From

Churchill

2010-08-31T02:41:00.000-07:00

As Churchill confessed: the ‘loss’ of India was one of “my greatest personal losses” And no doubt his lugubrious whine must be grasped in this context when he saidthat it was not only an irreparable‘loss’ for the British Empire but for humanity as a whole and “ a personal loss that will never cease to gnaw at my soul.”Abstracted from the bogus rhetorical outburst it simply meant that the lush pickings of empire flowed in his blood stream.And as you know he was a subaltern in the Indian imperial army. He was also a major shareholder in British tea plantations in Assam and the the South African gold mines of his friend Cecil Rhodes.

On his father’s side (his Mother was American industrial heiress) his family’s extensive pickings harked back to the East India Company to be vastly compounded in his own lifetime. These investments embraced large land holdings in the Punjab, commodity trading, mines, shipping and insuranceand a wide variety of other assets. Here was the assemblage of the personification of capital wedded to Big Politics. The two moved in easy consonance. Plunder is seldom faceless and in the case of India and the Empire Churchill, like members ofhis social caste, personified the scale of its parasitism.

Thatcher Among First to See Global Warming

2010-06-22T05:39:00.000-07:00

2. Thatcher Among First to See Global Warming

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was credited with being the first world leader to voice alarm over global warming — but she also became one of the earliest “climate skeptics.”

Thatcher expressed concern over climate change in 1988, calling for urgent international action and citing evidence presented to the U.S. Senate by James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Christopher Booker noted in Britain’s Telegraph.

She supported the establishment of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and in 1990 opened the Hadley Centre to study man-made global warming.

But in her 2003 book “Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World,” Thatcher issued “what amounts to an almost complete recantation of her earlier views,” Booker reported, and “voiced precisely the fundamental doubts about the warming scare that have since become familiar to us.”

She questioned whether carbon dioxide is the chief force influencing world climate, rather than natural factors such as solar activity, and said claims about rising sea levels were exaggerated.

“She mocked Al Gore and the futility of ‘costly and economically damaging’ schemes to reduce CO2 emissions,” Booker wrote. “She pointed out that the dangers of a world getting colder are far worse than those of a CO2-enriched world growing warmer.”

In fact, a prominent American geologist recently declared that global warming has ended and “even more harmful” global cooling has already begun.

As the Insider Report disclosed in May, Dr. Don Easterbrook, a university professor and associate editor of the Geological Society of America Bulletin, warned in a scientific paper that global cooling over the next two to three decades “will be far more damaging than global warming would have been.”

Thatcher, Booker also observed, “recognized how distortions of the science had been used to mask an anti-capitalist, left-wing political agenda which posed a serious threat to the progress and prosperity of mankind . . .

“What she set in train earlier continues to exercise its baleful influence to this day. But the fact that she became one of the first and most prominent of ‘climate skeptics’ has been almost entirely buried from view.”

Thatcher was back in the news recently when Britain’s Daily Mail reported that she had agreed to meet with Sarah Palin if the former Alaska governor visits Britain. Palin’s representatives had approached the “Iron Lady” to request the meeting.

“A meeting with Margaret Thatcher would be an enormous publicity coup for Sarah Palin,” a source in Britain told the newspaper.

“Palin’s big hero is Ronald Reagan. In U.S. Republican folklore, Thatcher and Reagan brought down the Soviet Union between them. That’s why Maggie is so important.”

Digital Books and Your Rights: A Checklist for Readers

2010-02-21T05:13:00.000-08:00

https://www.eff.org/wp/digital-books-and-your-rights#privacy
Saved in Gmail

III. EFF Digital Book Checklist: The Extended Version1.

Does it protect your privacy? ^
Why it matters:

The ability to read privately and anonymously is essential to freedom of expression, thought and inquiry. In the world of physical books, bookstores, libraries, and individuals have long fought against the chilling effect of someone, especially someone from the government, looking over your shoulder as you read. As Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon stated when he joined EFF's efforts to insist that Google Books provide adequate protections for reader privacy:

If there is no privacy of thought — which includes implicitly the right to read what one wants, without the approval, consent or knowledge of others — then there is no privacy, period.1

Unfortunately, reader privacy has often been attacked. At the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, people were questioned on whether they had read Marx and Lenin. They were asked whether their spouses or associates had books by or about Stalin and Lenin on their bookshelves.2 And these efforts did not end with the McCarthy era. Between 2001 and 2005, libraries were contacted by law enforcement seeking information on patrons at least 200 times.3

Physical books have many natural protections for reader anonymity. For example, you can:

•browse through the stacks of your local library or bookstore without anyone tracking what you are looking at, what you pull off of the shelves as you browse or what pages you review;
•walk into a store and buy a book with cash, thereby avoiding any record of your purchase;
•hide a book under your bed so no one knows you're reading it;
•throw a book away after reading it and no one will ever know you had it;
•give a book to someone else without anyone knowing it;
•read a key part of a book that you own or borrow from the library multiple times, or not at all, with no one knowing.
Digital book practices may threaten these traditional protections. Digital book providers have the potential to track, aggregate, analyze, and disclose reader activity to an extent far beyond anything possible with physical books. Both book download services (like the Kindle) and those like Google Book Search (where the user accesses a book stored on a server) can continue tracking during and after the initial transaction, as well as maintain records of every book purchased over the lifetime of the reader. That means digital book providers can collect data on what books you search for, what books you browse, what pages you view, and for how long — and they can keep that data for a very long time. Most of this tracking is something bookstores and libraries could never do short of hiring an agent to follow patrons around the stacks and then into their homes.

What to look for:

Readers considering whether book products, tools or services adequately protect privacy should ask:

a.Does it limit the tracking of you and your reading?
Just as readers may anonymously browse books in a library or bookstore, readers should be able to search, browse, and preview digital books without being forced to identify themselves. To see whether a digital book provider is limiting tracking, ask whether it:

•Ensures that searching and browsing of books do not require user registration or the affirmative disclosure of any personal information;
•Connects any information collected from an individual reader with any other information the digital provider may know about the same individual from other sources without specific, informed, opt-in consent. This is especially important for book providers like Google that have multiple services collecting other information about users;
•Purges all logging or other information related to individual uses as soon as practicable, which in most instances should be no less than every 30 days. This purge should ensure that this information cannot be used to connect particular books viewed to particular computers or users;4 and
•Where possible, allows you to use anonymity providers, such as Tor, proxy servers, and anonymous VPN providers, when interacting with the service.

b.Does it protect you against disclosure of your reading habits?
Readers should be able to read and purchase books without worrying that the government or a third party may be effectively reading over their shoulder. To ensure that any stored information linking readers to the books they view or purchase is not disclosed to the government or third parties without proper protections, ask whether the provider will:

•Commit that it will not disclose information about you to government entities or others absent a warrant or court order unless required to do so by law;
•Notify you prior to complying with any government or third party request for your information (unless forbidden to do so by law or court order), and provide you with sufficient time to seek court review of the request; and
•Guarantee that it will not tell any business partners, or affiliates which books you purchased.

c.Does it give you control over the information it collects about you?
Readers of paper books can control information collected about them by, for example, buying books with cash. That freedom should not disappear as books go digital. Readers who want to assert some control over their own information should consider whether the provider will:

•Allow you to delete your books and ensure that this deletion removes any record of the purchase;
•Allow you to control what other local or remote computer users can see about your reading, possibly through the use of separate password-protected "bookshelves" or other technical means; and
•Establish a method to allow private reading of purchased books and private giving of books, such as allowing you to anonymously transfer or "gift" purchases to someone else (including transfer to other accounts you control), with no record of the fact of the original purchase.

d.Does it tell you what it's doing with the information it collects and can you enforce its commitments to you?
A provider committed to ensuring both transparency and enforceability in the protection of reader privacy will do some or all of the following:

•Provide a robust, easy-to-read notice of privacy provisions and policies;
•Ensure that any commitments it makes to protect reader privacy are legally enforceable by readers;
•Store all reader information exclusively in countries that have strong privacy protecting laws, especially as against demands for disclosure by law enforcement and private third parties;
•Ensure that any watermarks or other marking technologies used do not contain identifying information about users in a format that third parties can read or decipher. Any watermarks with personally identifying information about users should be disclosed to users sufficiently to alert them to the existence of such marks and the type of information they include; and
•Annually publish online, in a conspicuous and easily accessible area of its website, the type and number of information requests it receives from government entities or third parties.

2. Transparency: Does it tell you what it's doing? ^
Why it matters:

In the physical world, it's relatively simple to know everything you need to about the consequences of searching, buying, selling, and reading. You buy a book — in cash if you like — take it home, read it at your leisure, put it on the shelf, pass it on, or throw it away. Although, if you buy the book with a credit card you don't always know what information booksellers are keeping, or for how long, for the most part it's a simple, transparent process.

Not so for digital books. Some electronic books come laden with DRM, as well as any number of other "features" that may or may not be disclosed. For example, in 2009 Kindle users were shocked to learn that their readers included a feature that let Amazon delete their books remotely.5

We've seen where loading unexpected features onto consumer products can lead. In 2005, music fans learned (as a result of the independent effort of computer researchers) that Sony BMG had included copy-protection software in millions of music CDs that could create serious security and privacy problems on personal computers. The software actually did much more than just preventing copying, including reporting customer listening habits. This all happened to customers without appropriate notice and consent.6

Readers of digital books have little reason to trust the private companies that sell them their books and devices, and they shouldn't have to. Readers need to know what they are getting, so that they can make good choices about what to buy and how to use their books.

What to look for:

a.How clear are the disclosures? Will they be updated, and if so, how?

Your vendor should tell you, in advance and in plain, prominent language, what the device or service will be doing and how it will be doing it, especially if it is interacting with your computer or other device or service. What's more, that disclosure should be an ongoing obligation; if practices change, your vendor must make sure you can find out about it (and opt for a different provider, if need be).

b.Does it let you or others investigate to confirm that the product, device or service is actually functioning as promised?
Many companies limit users' ability to tinker with the technology they buy, via contractual terms, technological measures, or legal threats against reverse engineering and security audits. Others have cracked down on customers who publish reports about bugs and security flaws. As with any other digital device, a provider should allow customers to test and tinker with their devices and services to ensure that the device is actually working in the way it was promised.

3. What happens to your additions to the book like annotations, highlights, and commentary? ^
Why it matters:

Readers are accustomed to annotating physical books in any number of ways. They make notes in the margin, "dog-ear" the pages, lard them up with sticky notes, cut out favorite images, and frame them, etc. When they are done, the original book may be significantly altered and possibly more valuable.7 At the same time, those notes — which can provide an important window into a reader's thoughts — need not be shared with others if the reader prefers to keep them private.

Unfortunately, annotations to books kept "in the cloud" may disappear. An e-book provider might decide it no longer wants to retain the information. Upgrades to the service may interfere with your ability to access old notes. And e-book providers may limit your ability to share your notes with others.

On the flip side, as long as a provider keeps information about you, that information could be subject to disclosure. That means you may not be able to control whether your notes are made available to law enforcement, your boss, or the general public.

What to look for:

a.Can you keep your additions?
•Are annotations and additions kept "in the cloud" or locally where you can always have access to them?
•Can you make a local backup of annotations in usable form (note that for some e-books readers like the Kindle that have unique pagination and similar differences from physical or other e-books, this would likely require a local backup of the book plus annotations)?
•What happens if the provider's servers go down?8
•What happens if the provider decides that it is simply too expensive to support the additional material?9
•What happens if the vendor decides not to provide the book any longer?

b.Can you control who has access to your additions?
•Can you share your notes with others?
•Can your provider use your notes for other purposes (such as behavioral advertising)?
•Are annotations and additions shared with third parties by the provider either through marketing agreements or other partner arrangements?
•If your notes are stored remotely with the service provider, will the provider require a warrant or court order before turning those notes over to third parties?

4. Do you own the book? ^
Why it matters:

Purchasers of physical books always have the book and can lend or sell the book whenever and however they would like. They don't risk losing their book if they fail to pay an ongoing fee, violate the terms of a license agreement, or if the vendor simply decides not to continue the service. Their reading and use of the book is not — and without undue difficulty cannot be — monitored in the name of ensuring they stay within the terms of a license or for any other reason.

Ownership of books provides many protections like these. It protects readers from censorship, fosters secondary markets (i.e., used bookstores) that help protect us from price gouging, and helps less popular authors find new fans. It also ensures that your books stay yours: once you've purchased a book no one from the bookstore can come to your house later and demand the book back or hit a remote kill switch and do the same.

Perhaps most importantly, thanks to copyright's first sale doctrine, once you have lawfully obtained your copy, you are entitled to resell the book or give it away. This is what makes libraries, used bookstores, and giving books as gifts legal, all of which help authors as well as readers. Readers are more willing to shell out more for new book if they know they fully control its use and can re-sell that book later. Further, the used book market helps support a continuing vibrant book culture by making books available to readers who cannot otherwise afford them. Finally, borrowing books from friends or receiving books as gifts are a crucial means by which readers discover unfamiliar authors — which leads them to buy those authors' next books.

Many readers expect that the same rules will apply to their e-book purchases. However, electronic books have often been treated as "licensed" content, subject to legal and technical restrictions (primarily, DRM) that block readers' ability to resell, lend, or gift an e-book. More ominously, last year Kindle readers realized that their provider (Amazon) could actually reach down into their devices and pull books from their virtual shelves.10

We expect to see many different models for accessing books develop. But given the crucial benefits that ownership provides to readers and to the larger interests in privacy and freedom of expression, readers should not accept a world where all we can ever do is "rent" a book, subject to the whims of a digital "landlord."

What to look for:

a.Can you lend or resell?
One of the basic rights of ownership is the ability to lend, give away, or re-sell your property. Does your provider allow you to do that with books you buy? If so, how easy is it? DRM or other technological incompatibilities may inhibit your ability to transfer your book, so investigate these issues before you buy.

b.Is it locked down or do you have the freedom to move it to other readers, services or uses?
Another basic right of ownership is control — over both the products you buy and the devices you use. Find out if you can read your book on your laptop if that's more convenient. And, ask whether upgrades or other normal hardware adjustments might mean loss of your books.

c.Can the vendor take it away or edit it after you've purchased it?
Does the device allow a provider or anyone else to delete, delete access to, or alter the books on your device? If so, you bought it, but you don't really own it. A remote "delete" or "edit" switch for purchased books should not be built into e-book readers or other devices.

5. Is it censorship-resistant? ^
Why it matters:

Censorship resistance is one of the key benefits of buying books (as opposed to merely renting them, for example). When you own a book, that means you have the power to access it, preserve it, share it, and, if need be, hide it. Those same abilities must be preserved for digital books, lest digital book services become automated censors beyond George Orwell and Ray Bradbury's wildest dreams. Indeed, as Farhad Manjoo has noted, if a provider can delete an entire book, it can doubtless delete portions of a book as well. What is worse, such deletions may not always be the provider's own choice:

If Apple or Amazon can decide to delete stuff you've bought, then surely a court — or, to channel Orwell, perhaps even a totalitarian regime — could force them to do the same. Like a lot of others, I've predicted the Kindle is the future of publishing. Now we know what the future of book banning looks like, too.11

What to look for:

a.How easy is it to remove or edit books once access or possession has been given to readers?
Every new technology for sharing information has been met with efforts by public and private entities to control and limit the information made available. Censorship-resistant devices and services can make that effort harder by eliminating features that allow information to be deleted.

b.Is there a single entity that stores all the books, as in Google Books or the Kindle, such that political or legal pressure on that place might result in a loss of the work for all readers?
By the same token, censorship-resistant devices and services will make sure information is dispersed, so there is no easy, central point of vulnerability.

c.Are the books stored in a location where censorship is historically a problem, such as China or Saudi Arabia, or in a place that is relatively free of censorship?
A provider that cares about protecting access to knowledge will make sure its servers are located in a country with speech-friendly laws.

d.Are the copyright or other laws applicable to the books balanced, giving readers the protection of doctrines like fair use or copyright exceptions and limitations?
Censorship can come in many forms — sometimes governments intervene to shut down speech, and sometimes copyright and trademark owners misuse their rights to do so (e.g., business tycoon Howard Hughes bought up newspaper and magazine copyrights in order to suppress access to interviews he gave).12 To limit such "private" censorship, try to get books from providers located in countries that recognize speech-protecting doctrines like fair use.

6. Is It Burdened With Digital Rights Management? ^
Why it matters:

Early entrants in the digital books marketplace are already locking down their books with DRM, i.e., technologies that limit what you can do with the content you buys, usually in the name of reducing copyright infringement. Readers, authors, and publishers should take a hard look at the experience of DRM on digital music and reconsider the wisdom of this approach for digital books.

For readers, the lessons of DRM in digital music tell us that content restricted with DRM is less useful than content without DRM, and can even be dangerous. As discussed above, DRM schemes applied to music have opened up security vulnerabilities on computers and spied on listening habits. And, until its recent demise, DRM reduced consumer choice in music and music players. Apple's DRM scheme, for example, meant that purchases from Apple's iTunes Store would only play on Apple's own iPods.13

For authors and publishers, the lessons are equally plain. First, DRM will be no more effective at preventing unauthorized copying of books than it was for music.14 In an era of inexpensive cameras and optical character recognition (OCR) technologies, scanning books will just get cheaper and easier over time. Anything that can be read by humans can be photographed, OCR'ed, and uploaded — DRM will not change that. Second, DRM inevitably alienates at least some potential customers. Third, DRM will put the power in the hands of the technology companies that control the DRM standards, rather than authors and publishers, by locking customers and businesses into a proprietary platform.15 Author Cory Doctorow sums up the problem:

Imagine if, in addition to having control over what inventory they carry, [the big box stores] also carried your books in such a way that they could only be shelved on Walmart shelves, they could only be read in Walmart lamps, running Walmart light bulbs. Imagine the lock-in to your customers and the lack of control over your destiny that you have signed up with if this is the path you pursue. Well this is in fact what you get when you sell DRM'd ebooks or DRM'd music — in order to play back that DRM format, in order carry, manipulate or convert that DRM format, you have to license the DRM. The company that controls licensing for the DRM controls your business to the extent that your business is reliant on this.16

Some have argued that DRM is necessary for lending or leasing schemes. In fact, there is already "digital loan" software in wide use by public libraries that does not bother to impose any DRM on e-books, opting instead to automatically delete the books after the load period has expired.17 While users could defeat this by digging up and copying the underlying file, most users don't bother, just like most Netflix subscribers don't bother to copy the DVDs they rent, despite the ready availability of free software that can accomplish that goal.

Booksellers and publishers are still experimenting with digital book business models, and we support that experimentation. But authors and publishers should heed the lessons that the music industry learned the hard way — DRM is bad for business.

What to look for:

a.Is there DRM? If so, how does it limit your use of the book? Can you still lend, gift or resell the book? What features are enabled and which have been disabled?
DRM can come in many forms, some more pernicious than others. It's likely that vendors will experiment with different forms, which at least gives you an opportunity to vote with your wallets — just as music fans have.

b.Are you locked into a single reader technology or group of reader technologies, or can you choose any device you wish to read and otherwise use your book?
As noted, readers (not to mention authors and publishers) should be especially wary of DRM that locks them into a particular proprietary technology. Why would you want to give one company the ability to determine whether you'll be able to access a book you love?

c.Has the DRM been studied by independent researchers to confirm that it causes no security or other problems?
Remember the rootkit.18

d.Does it report on your activities or otherwise violate your privacy?
As discussed above, some forms of DRM give the vendor (or sometimes even a third party) a window into the customer's device. Your reading habits are nobody's business but your own, and selling you a book shouldn't become an excuse to monitor your activities.

7. Does it promote access to knowledge? ^
Why it matters:

Digital books have the potential to transform access to knowledge, in the U.S. and abroad. With physical books, access to books can be impeded by three barriers: archiving (physical books are expensive to preserve); indexing/search (even where catalogues are available online, searching for relevant books on a given topic can be difficult, and many books are not yet indexed); and obtaining books (once you find a book you think you want, you may need to buy it, borrow it or, if you have access to a library with the right relationships, attempt to order it via interlibrary loan). These barriers have traditionally hampered access to paper books; in areas without resources or first-class libraries, access to books can be well-nigh impossible.

Digital books offer hope of reducing these traditional barriers to access. But digital books will only live up to that promise if readers demand it.

What to look for:

a.Can authors and publishers easily dedicate their books to the public domain or Creative Commons or other flexible licensing schemes?
Rights-holders should be able to dedicate their books to the public domain and/or have the option to license the books via a Creative Commons ("CC") license or similar flexible licensing model. For example, after pressure from academic authors and others, Google and the Authors Guild announced that authors and publishers of books included in Google Books would be able to dedicate their books to the public domain or have the option to use a CC-license. For many rights-holders, promoting access and re-use of a work via a free CC license may be more valuable than charging readers. But in order for authors and rights-holders to make this choice, technology companies have to design their systems to accommodate and support public domain and CC license options.

b.Can you trust your "digital librarian" to enable access to as many works as possible?
Traditional libraries frown on limiting access to books unnecessarily. The proposed Google Book Search service reserves to Google the right to exclude any book "for editorial reasons." If, as is possible, Google becomes the only viable source for digital orphan works, this means that Google will have extraordinary influence over public access to those works.

c.Is it available to people without money, as public libraries are?
Digital book providers should ensure that readers in resource-poor areas have options for engaging with new digital resources. For example, Google has, as part of its proposed Google Book Search settlement with authors and publishers, proposed offering a free public access terminal for the Google Books collection to every public library in America.

d.Is it cost-effective for people of limited means?
The vast majority of global readers will never be able to afford the $300 Kindle 2. The best way to bring down costs is to foster vibrant, free-market competition in these technologies. This is one reason we should fear DRM for books; to the extent it impedes reverse engineering and interoperability (either by code or by contract), it is also likely to impede innovation and competition. (See below for a more detailed discussion of this.)

e.Is it available to people with disabilities?
Booksellers, publishers, and authors must work together to enable accessibility features so that people with print disabilities can enjoy the vastly expanded world of books on the same terms as the rest of us.19 Already, several leading e-book purveyors have taken steps to foster accessibility for digital books.20 Other vendors, such as Amazon, have limited their accessibility features, bowing to pressure from misguided copyright owners.

8. Does it foster or inhibit competition and innovation? ^
Why it matters:

Physical book publishing has traditionally been a reasonably competitive industry, to the benefit of readers.21 The publishing industry has consolidated in recent years, but there are still numerous academic, small, and specialty presses that help make sure readers will have access to multiple genres of books, at multiple price points. New technologies have made publishing cheaper and easier and, of course, we have recently seen disruptive innovation in the form of online book sales. We have also seen the continuing vitality of the used book market (including online markets). In short, competition and innovation has helped make physical books more accessible to more people, and help ensure that readers will have access to a wide range of voices and subjects.

If digital book publishing, selling, and sharing is to reach its full potential, we need the same robust competition and support for innovation. Competition will help ensure that readers continue to have options, such as the option to own DRM-free books, and should also help lower the price of digital books over time. Innovation is also likely to lead to both lower prices and, perhaps more importantly, new technologies that will continue to transform how we read and access books.

One key issue will be DRM. DRM can be used to lock readers into a vendor's format. Creating a barrier to entry and competition in the e-book reader market. In essence, device makers can hold their customers' book collections hostage to prevent those customers from switching to better (cheaper, easier to use, with more features) alternatives. DRM can also be used to limit innovation. In the DVD space, for example, DRM systems like the Content Scramble System (CSS) have become the legal "hook" that forces technology companies to enter into license agreements before they build products that can play movies.22 Those license agreements, in turn, define what the devices can and can't do, thereby protecting Hollywood business models from disruptive innovation. It would be a shame to see the same occur for digital books.

But DRM isn't the only issue. One of the reasons so many are concerned about the proposed Google Book Search Settlement is that it gives two entities — Google and a not-for-profit licensing entity called the Book Rights Registry ("BRR") — enormous power to shape innovation with respect to orphan works (i.e., books whose copyright owners cannot be easily found). For example, as James Grimmelman explains, under the terms of the settlement, the BRR is authorized to negotiate on behalf of all authors and publishers with respect to the millions of books covered by the settlement. Thus "[i]t could agree with Google on a privacy-intrusive DRM system that fed back usage information into a database used to do industry-wide price-fixing in the guise of price discrimination."23

What to look for:

a.Can books from this source be read on a variety of readers or formats? Conversely, can you read or access books from a variety of sources?
A digital Library of Alexandria won't do most people much good if they cannot read the books they find on devices they already have and/or devices that can be inexpensively purchased. It will be still less valuable if they can't share their discoveries with friends who may have different kinds of devices, or transfer their books to the laptop they already have. And it will be downright harmful if the Library builders could use it as a tool to force readers to buy (and upgrade, ad infinitum) a particular proprietary technology. If we want the reader experience with digital books to be as good (or better) than with paper books, we'll need flexible, interoperable formats and devices.

For example, one fundamental problem in the fledgling digital books market is that a major e-book reader vendor, Amazon, uses DRM and other techniques to lock readers into their libraries. That means Kindle owners can only read Kindle files and PDFs, and they can't transfer those libraries to a non-Kindle reader.24 What if you could lose your entire music collection as a result of upgrading your sound system?

There are alternatives. EPUB, a free open standard supported by a range of reading devices, allows readers to move their digital books across platforms rather than being locked into one particular device.25 Many providers that use EPUB deploy DRM in other ways, but at least their customers have a broader array of options.26

b.Can features be easily added or modified by users or third parties or must features be pre-approved by the provider?
As noted above, the DRM and contracts that accompany leading e-book readers and licensed content inhibit follow-on innovation. For example, the Kindle Terms and Conditions require that customers not "encourage, assist or authorize any other person to, modify, reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the Device or the Software, whether in whole or in part, create any derivative works from or of the Software, or bypass, modify, defeat or tamper with or circumvent any of the functions or protections of the Device or Software or any mechanisms operatively linked to the Software . . . ." In other words, no tinkering with or improving your device! Innovators will be reluctant to experiment with these products if they could face lawsuits for their trouble.

c.Does the provider depend on and/or promote agreements that limit competition?
With respect to devices, consider whether your provider has made long-term exclusive deals with major publishers that hinder competition and innovation. After all, you can't vote with your wallet if you don't have a range of options to vote for.

IV. ConclusionThe future of digital books must not be shaped solely by authors, publishers, booksellers or even librarians. Readers can and should play an active role in realizing the extraordinary potential of digital books — but only if we stay informed, ask questions, and demand that providers respect the rights and expectations that have been developed and defended for physical books. We hope readers will use this checklist to do just that

How Religion Evelved

2010-02-17T03:52:00.000-08:00

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100208_religion

Religion evolved as a byproduct of pre-existing mental capacities, and not because it fulfilled a specific function of its own—though it can facilitate cooperation in society, a study concludes.

Why religion emerged among early humans remains a source of contention among scholars. Many scientists believe religion is ultimately based in the brain, but that still leaves unclear how and why these behaviors originated and how they may have been shaped during evolution. Some archaeologists think religion came about partly as a strategy by some people to grab power, simply by claiming some sort of secret knowledge.

The Drug Cocktail To Feel Youthful

2010-02-17T03:19:00.001-08:00

The 30 readily available vitamin and supplement ingredients used in the "cocktail" tested on mice. Ingredients are listed along with the nearly exact percentages in which they were included, highest first. Mice received about 70 mg per day of the cocktail. This particular cocktail is not available on the market, although researchers are investigating developing new supplements based on the research. Note that many of these substances are not government regulated and that quality and purity are not always guaranteed with commercially available preparations.

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100215_life

Undeclared Nuclear Weapons States

2010-02-14T01:44:00.000-08:00

http://mail.live.com/default.aspx?wa=wsignin1.0

Belgium, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy and Turkey: "Undeclared Nuclear Weapons States"

While Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities are unconfirmed, the nuclear weapons capabilities of these five countries including delivery procedures are formally acknowledged.

The US has supplied some 480 B61 thermonuclear bombs to five non-nuclear NATO countries including Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey. Casually disregarded by the Vienna based UN Nuclear Watchdog (IAEA), the US has actively contributed to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in Western Europe.

As part of this European stockpiling, Turkey, which is a partner of the US-led coalition against Iran along with Israel, possesses some 90 thermonuclear B61 bunker buster bombs at the Incirlik nuclear air base. (National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe , February 2005)

By the recognised definition, these five countries are "undeclared nuclear weapons states".

The stockpiling and deployment of tactical B61 in these five "non-nuclear states" are intended for targets in the Middle East. Moreover, in accordance with "NATO strike plans", these thermonuclear B61 bunker buster bombs (stockpiled by the "non-nuclear States") could be launched "against targets in Russia or countries in the Middle East such as Syria and Iran" ( quoted in National Resources Defense Council, Nuclear Weapons in Europe , February 2005)

Does this mean that Iran or Russia, which are potential targets of a nuclear attack originating from one or other of these five so-called non-nuclear states should contemplate defensive preemptive nuclear attacks against Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey? The answer is no, by any stretch of the imagination.

Binyam Mohamed

2010-02-12T06:06:00.000-08:00

http://www.irr.org.uk/2010/february/ha000025.html

Meanwhile, in November 2009, the US court obtained the relevant material, and having looked at it, accepted Mohamed's allegations as true. The US court said this: '[Mr Mohamed's] trauma lasted for 2 long years. During that time, he was physically and psychologically tortured. His genitals were mutilated. He was deprived of sleep and food. He was summarily transported from one foreign prison to another. Captors held him in stress positions for days at a time. He was forced to listen to piercingly loud music and the screams of other prisoners while locked in a pitch-black cell. All the while, he was forced to inculpate himself and others in various plots to imperil Americans. The Government does not dispute this evidence ... even though the identity of the individual interrogator changed (from nameless Pakistanis, to Moroccans, to Americans) ... there is no question that throughout his ordeal Binyam Mohamed was being held at the behest of the United States ...The court finds that [Mr Mohamed's] will was overborne by his lengthy prior torture, and therefore his confessions ... do not represent reliable evidence to detain petitioner'.

Mystery of the Missing Sunspots, Solved?

2010-02-12T05:40:00.000-08:00

June 17, 2009: The sun is in the pits of a century-class solar minimum, and sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for more than two years. Now, for the first time, solar physicists might understand why.

At an American Astronomical Society press conference today in Boulder, Colorado, researchers announced that a jet stream deep inside the sun is migrating slower than usual through the star's interior, giving rise to the current lack of sunspots.

Rachel Howe and Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona, used a technique called helioseismology to detect and track the jet stream down to depths of 7,000 km below the surface of the sun. The sun generates new jet streams near its poles every 11 years, they explained to a room full of reporters and fellow scientists. The streams migrate slowly from the poles to the equator and when a jet stream reaches the critical latitude of 22 degrees, new-cycle sunspots begin to appear................... read the rest here....

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/17jun_jetstream.htm
its in gmail if u cant get it

Moscow's Stray Dogs Evolving Greater Intelligence

2010-02-02T05:46:00.000-08:00

http://www.popsci.com/node/42894/?cmpid=enews012810

Moscow's Stray Dogs Evolving Greater Intelligence, Including a Mastery of the Subway By Stuart Fox
Posted 01.21.2010 at 12:15 pm 35 Comments

Waiting for the 8:10 To Tverskaya Maxim Marmur, via The Financial Times
For every 300 Muscovites, there's a stray dog wandering the streets of Russia's capital. And according to Andrei Poyarkov, a researcher at the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, the fierce pressure of urban living has driven the dogs to evolve wolf-like traits, increased intelligence, and even the ability to navigate the subway.

Poyarkov has studied the dogs, which number about 35,000, for the last 30 years. Over that time, he observed the stray dog population lose the spotted coats, wagging tails, and friendliness that separate dogs from wolves, while at the same time evolving social structures and behaviors optimized to four ecological niches occupied by what Poyarkov calls guard dogs, scavengers, wild dogs, and beggars.

The guard dogs follow around, and receive food from, the security personnel at Moscow's many fenced in sites. They think the guards are their masters, and serve as semi-feral assistants. The scavengers roam the city eating garbage. The wild dogs are the most wolf-like, hunting mice, rats, and cats under the cover of night.

But beggar dogs have evolved the most specialized behavior. Relying on scraps of food from commuters, the beggar dogs can not only recognize which humans are most likely to give them something to eat, but have evolved to ride the subway. Using scents, and the ability to recognize the train conductor's names for different stops, they incorporate many stations into their territories.

Additionally, Poyarkov says the pack structure of the beggars reflects a reliance on brain over brawn for survival. In the beggar packs, the smartest dog, not the most physically dominant, occupies the alpha male position.

The evolution of Moscow's stray dogs has been going on since at least the mid-1800s, when Russian writers first mentioned the stray dog problem in the city. And that evolution has been propelled by deadly selective pressure. Most of the strays arrive on the streets as rejected house pets. Of those dogs kicked out of their homes, Poyarkov estimates fewer than 3 percent live long enough to breed. To survive those odds, a dog really does have to be the fittest.

For The Book

2010-01-22T04:25:00.000-08:00

Neptune and Uranus May Have Oceans of Liquid Diamond

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-01/diamond-oceans-may-cover-neptune-and-uranus?cmpid=enews100121

Future humans won't have to wait to travel to Pandora for the chance to mine unobtanium, because Neptune and Uranus may have diamond icebergs floating atop liquid diamond seas closer to home. The surprise finding comes from the first detailed measurements of the melting point of diamond, Discovery News reports.

Scientists zapped diamond with a laser at pressures 40 million times greater than the Earth's atmosphere at sea level, and then slowly reduced both temperature and pressure. They eventually found that diamond behaves like water during freezing and melting, and that chunks of diamond will float in the liquid diamond.

Diamond oceans could explain why the magnetic fields of Uranus and Neptune appear tilted so far off their north-south axes, given that they could deflect or tilt the magnetic fields. Both planets may consist of up to 10 percent carbon, the elemental building block of diamond.

Scientists won't know for sure until they can launch missions to the planets, or try to simulate planetary conditions on Earth. But we'd wager it's worth a shot for NASA, if there's any chance that U.S. space missions could begin to pay for themselves in the distant future.

Heat Wave In 2007

2010-01-14T07:02:00.000-08:00

All these pics are from the website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6914490.stm#maps

In a 'normal' summer, the Atlantic jetstream directs areas of low pressure, which bring cloud and rain, to the north of the UK. High pressure systems over Europe and the Atlantic bring warm, settled conditions.
Pressure chart: 29/6/06. Source: Met Office

This summer, the jetstream is flowing further south allowing low pressure systems to sweep straight over the centre of Britain. It is also pulling in warmer air from the sub-tropics and Africa which is sweeping over south-eastern Europe.
Pressure chart: 24/07/07. Source: Met Office

Up to 500 people have died in the past week from a heatwave in Hungary, a top health official has said.

Jet Streams

2010-01-14T06:55:00.001-08:00

When they reach a latitude of 22°, the jet streams coincide with the generation of new sunspots, and a new solar cycle begins.

'Sluggish' jet streams linked to quiet Sun

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/39525

For The Book

2010-01-14T06:28:00.000-08:00

Earth's Upper Atmosphere Cooling Dramatically
By Andrea Thompson, Senior Writer

http://www.livescience.com/space/091217-agu-earth-atmosphere-cooling.html

posted: 17 December 2009 09:44 am ET
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New research shows that the outermost layer of the atmosphere will lose 3 percent of its density over the coming decade, a sign of the far-reaching impacts of greenhouse gas emissions. As the density declines, orbiting satellites experience less drag.

New research shows that the outermost layer of the atmosphere will lose 3 percent of its density over the coming decade, a sign of the far-reaching impacts of greenhouse gas emissions. As the density declines, orbiting satellites experience less drag.

When the sun is relatively inactive — as it has been in recent years — the outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere cools dramatically, new observations find.

The results could help scientists better understand the swelling and shrinking of our planet's atmosphere, a phenomenon that affects the orbits of satellites and space junk.

The data, from NASA's TIMED mission, show that Earth's thermosphere (the layer above 62 miles or 100 km above the Earth's surface) "responds quite dramatically to the effects of the 11-year solar cycle," Stan Solomon of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., said here this week at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

Knowing just how the energy flowing out from the sun naturally impacts the state of the thermosphere also will help scientists test predictions that man's emissions of carbon dioxide should cool this layer. (While that may seem to contradict the idea of global warming, it has long been known that carbon dioxide causes warming in the lowest part of the atmosphere and cooling in the upper layers of the atmosphere.)

Understanding the thermosphere

Earth's thermosphere is one of the least explored parts of the atmosphere, but it is important because "the thermosphere is where the sun first interacts with our atmosphere," said James Russell III of Hampton University in Hampton, Va.

NASA launched the Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesophere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) mission in 2001 to get a better picture of this outer layer. The energy that comes into it from the sun is absorbed by air molecules and reradiated to space during the normal ups and downs in solar energy that occur over a roughly 11-year time span.

The sun has been in a particularly prolonged and deep solar minimum for the last couple of years, with fewer sunspots and solar storms erupting on its surface. When the sun is in this state, it also sends less energy out in the soft X-ray and extreme ultraviolet parts of its spectrum. These wavelengths of light have a significant impact on the thermosphere, where air molecules absorb their energy and the reradiate it in the form of infrared energy.

The TIMED mission measured both the amount of incoming solar energy in the thermosphere and the amount of energy being sent back out into space from the layer and found a significant decrease in both.

"The sun is in a very unusual period," said Marty Mlynczak, a TIMED team member at NASA Langley in Virginia. "The Earth's thermosphere is responding remarkably – up to an order of magnitude decrease in infrared emission/radiative cooling by some molecules."

Less radiation in both directions means that this layer of the atmosphere also cools substantially. In fact, the thermosphere has cooled by a factor of 10 since the last solar maximum in early 2002.

"I certainly didn't expect to see this eight years ago," Mlynczak said.

The exact temperature of the thermosphere can vary substantially, but the average temperature above 180 miles (300 km) is about 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius) at solar minimum and 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (927 degrees Celsius) at solar maximum. (Though these temperatures sound hot, you would not actually feel warm in the thermosphere, because the molecules in that layer are too far apart.)

The temperature at this extreme solar minimum is likely a few degrees colder than in an average minimum, but that small change can cause a large change in the density of the layer.

What a drag

This same cooling effect is expected to happen (somewhat counterintuitively) as carbon dioxide concentrations increase from emissions at Earth's surface. So understanding the natural variability of this layer is important to detecting any changes from carbon dioxide increases.

The cooling effect also has an effect on the orbits of satellites, because it changes the density of the atmosphere layer. For example, if the layer heats up, it expands like a marshmallow in a microwave, as several scientists described it, and lower, denser parts of the atmosphere rise to higher altitudes. Essentially, as the upper atmosphere expands, the lower atmosphere also expands to fill the space. When the thermosphere cools, the opposite happens and the layers deflate and sink to lower altitudes.

The changing density means that satellites end up with either more or less drag on them, which can change the shape of their orbits. In the case of something like the Hubble Space Telescope, this can have implications on the orbiter's lifetime, Solomon told LiveScience. Less drag during a cooler period means the satellite might live longer, he said.

The cooling also could have implications for the buildup of so-called "space junk" – old satellites and pieces of satellites that have begun to litter the upper atmosphere and can pose a threat to other orbiting spacecraft, such as the International Space Station. Less drag means this junk gets speedier and could pose more of a threat.

More work is needed to fully understand the links between the sun's energy, rising greenhouse gas emissions and the Earth's outer atmosphere, the scientists said.

For The Book

2010-01-14T04:36:00.000-08:00

Sun May Soon Send Magnetic Storms Toward Earth
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/01/11/sun-may-soon-send-magnetic-storms-toward-earth.html

DAN ELLIOTT,
Associated Press Writer

BOULDER, Colo.—The sun may finally be awakening from its longest quiet period in about a century and powering up to solar maximum, when it could fling disruptive electromagnetic storms toward Earth.

But once the sun does ramp up, it could be a relatively quiet solar maximum, with a below-average number of eruptions, scientists say.

Some researchers argue the sun has begun to enter solar maximum; others say it's not there yet. They do agree the current quiet period, or solar minimum, is the longest since the early 1900s, but they don't know why.

"For the average person or for a technological society like ours, a hundred years is a pretty long time," said Dan Baker, director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado.

A solar cycle usually lasts about 11 years, measured from one low point to the next. The most recent started about 13 years ago, in 1996.

Scientists won't declare the quiet period over until after a sustained stretch of activity, generally about three months, said Frank Eparvier, a scientist at the space physics lab.

"We've increased a little bit and had some strong active regions," Eparvier said, but it hasn't been long enough to say solar maximum has begun.

The sun goes through fairly regular cycles of more and fewer eruptions, averaging as many as 180 per day during solar maximum and dipping as low as zero per day during solar minimum.

The magnetic fields that cause the eruptions are themselves influenced by a mix of internal solar motions, including rotation, shears, turbulence and global circulation similar to Earth's ocean currents.

Sarah Gibson, a scientist with the High Altitude Observatory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, calls it "a delicate mix of ordered and chaotic processes."

The consensus prediction for the next solar maximum is a small one, averaging about 90 or fewer sunspots a day in 2013, Eparvier said.

A panel of scientists convened by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the International Space Environment Service reviewed more than 100 published forecasts and eventually coalesced around the small-maximum prediction.

Solar eruptions can send billions of tons of magnetically charged particles into space at high speed. If those particle clouds, called plasma, collide with the Earth's magnetic field, they can create dramatic effects ranging from a beautiful aurora borealis to a devastating electrical blackout.

The sun's volatile magnetic fields can become so severely twisted that they snap and then reconnect, producing a flash called a solar flare and a plasma eruption, Gibson said. If the plasma's magnetic field collides with the Earth's own magnetic field, they connect with another powerful snap.

That can add electrical current on power lines, overtax transformers and set off a rapid collapse of parts of the power grid. It can disrupt radio signals, cause Global Positioning System devices to be off by the distance of a football field and cut off communication between ground controllers and jetliners flying over polar regions. That forces airlines to send planes on longer routes that take more time and burn more fuel.

United Airlines diverted 26 flights from their normal polar routes in January 2005 to avoid communications blackouts during solar storms.

In March 1989, a geomagnetic storm triggered the collapse of a power grid in Quebec, leaving an estimated 6 million people without electricity for nine hours. And in 2006, a burst of solar radiation disoriented virtually all GPS receivers on the lighted half of the Earth, the National Weather Service said.

Baker said radiation from solar flares could be harmful to space travelers and even airline crews who are repeatedly exposed to it on flights over the Earth's poles.

Solar plasma can also physically compress the Earth's magnetic field so much that it's smaller than the orbit of some satellites. Without that magnetic field to orient themselves, those satellites can have trouble communicating with ground stations. Baker estimated that $200 billion worth of satellites are in orbits that leave them vulnerable to such disruptions.

Some satellites are more vulnerable to radiation damage than previous models. During the Cold War, many satellites were "hardened" against enemy radiation attacks, but when that threat passed, designers took fewer protective measures.

___

On the Net:

Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics: http://lasp.colorado.edu/

High Altitude Observatory: http://www.hao.ucar.edu/

Golden Ratio

2010-01-13T02:35:00.000-08:00

The “pitch” of these notes, or their frequencies of vibration, are in a ratio of about 1.618, the same “the golden ratio famous from art and architecture,” he continued. If two numbers are related by the golden ratio, their sum is also related to the larger of them by the golden ratio. In other words, if A divided by B is that special number, then A+B divided by A is the same number.

US War Machine

2010-01-02T04:22:00.000-08:00

2010: U.S. To Wage War Throughout The World
By Rick Rozoff

The Pentagon has also deployed special forces and other troops to the Philippines and launched naval, helicopter and missile attacks inside Somalia as well as assisting the Ethiopian invasion of that nation in 2006. Washington also arms, trains and supports the armed forces of Djibouti in their border war with Eritrea. In fact Djibouti hosts the U.S.'s only permanent military installation in Africa to date [2], Camp Lemonier, a United States Naval Expeditionary Base and home to the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), placed under the new U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) when it was launched on October 1, 2008. The area of responsibility of the Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa takes in the nations of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Yemen and as "areas of interest" the Comoros, Mauritius and Madagascar.

On October 30 of 2009 the U.S. signed an agreement with the government of Colombia to acquire the essentially unlimited and unrestricted use of seven new military bases in the South American nation, including sites within immediate striking distance of both Venezuela and Ecuador. [9] American intelligence, special forces and other personnel will be complicit in ongoing counterinsurgency operations against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the nation's south as well as in rendering assistance to Washington's Colombian proxy for attacks inside Ecuador and Venezuela that will be portrayed as aimed at FARC forces in the two states.

Targeting two linchpins of and ultimately the entire Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), Washington is laying the groundwork for a potential military conflagration in South and Central America and the Caribbean. After the U.S.-supported coup in Honduras on June 28, that nation has announced it will be the first ALBA member state to ever withdraw from the Alliance and the Pentagon will retain, perhaps expand, its military presence at the Soto Cano Air Base there.

In October a U.S. armed forces publication revealed that the Pentagon will spend $110 million to modernize and expand seven new military bases in Bulgaria and Romania, across the Black Sea from Russia, where it will station initial contingents of over 4,000 troops. [12]

In early December the U.S. signed a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with Poland, which borders the Russian Kaliningrad territory, that "allows for the United States military to station American troops and military equipment on Polish territory." [13] The U.S. military forces will operate Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) and Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) batteries as part of the Pentagon's global interceptor missile system.

U.S. military websites recently announced that there have been 3.3 million deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001 with 2 million U.S. service members sent to the two war zones. [17]

In this still young millennium American soldiers have also deployed in the hundreds of thousands to new bases and conflict and post-conflict zones in Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Colombia, Djibouti, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Mali, the Philippines, Romania, Uganda and Uzbekistan.

US Food Waste

2009-12-02T09:00:00.000-08:00

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/091125_waste

For example, food waste is now estimated to account for more than one quarter of the total freshwater
consumption and more than 300 million barrels of oil per year representing about 4 percent of the total U.S. oil consumption.
The researchers found that per-capita food waste has progressively increased by about 50 percent since 1974, reaching more than 150 trillion Calories yearly. Previous calculations are likely to have underestimated the waste by as much as 25 percent, the group said.

Would Our Government Really Start a War to Try to Stimulate the Economy?

2009-11-20T05:20:00.000-08:00

http://www.globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=16082

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/11/confirmed-defense-spending-creates-less.html

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/11/military-spending-is-increasing.html

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9914

http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/205/02/20060809nb_cheap_wars.pdf

http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1297

http://mondediplo.com/2008/02/05military

Thermography for Breast Cancer

2009-11-03T07:41:00.000-08:00

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2000/10/29/thermography.aspx
&
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/03/Doctors-Shocked-by-Hospital-Radiation-Overexposure.aspx

Hey if this info is correct there is a conspiracy by our Gov to make some money for cetain people?

October 23, 2000 from AlternativeMedicine.com

In September, a large-sample, long-term Canadian study proved that an annual mammogram was no more effective in preventing deaths from breast cancer than periodic physical examinations for women in their 50s.

The study was co-authored by Cornelia Baines, a professor of public health sciences at the University of Toronto and appeared in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. In the study of almost 40,000 women ages 50 to 59, half received periodic breast examinations alone and half received breast examinations plus mammograms. All learned to examine their own breasts as well.

By 1993, 13 years after the study began, there were 610 cases of invasive breast cancer and 105 deaths in the women who received only breast examinations, compared with 622 invasive breast cancers and 107 deaths in those who received breast examinations and mammograms. "They found smaller cancers, but ultimately the mortality rate was the same,¹¹ said Suzanne Fletcher, a professor of preventive medicine at Harvard Medical School. She added that cancer screening programs are built on the assumption that "finding it earlier is finding it better. . . . This study questions that assumption."

In fact, truly early detection would be better, but by the time a tumor has grown to a sufficient size to be detectable by either a mammogram or a physical examination, it has been growing for several years, and achieved more than 25 doublings of the malignant cell colony.

As Alternative Medicine has maintained for years, mammograms do far more harm than good. Their ionizing radiation mutates cells, and the mechanical pressure can spread cells that are already malignant (as can biopsies). In 1995 the British medical journal The Lancet reported that, since mammographic screening was introduced in 1983, the incidence of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which represents 12% of all breast cancer cases, has increased by 328%, and 200% of this increase is due to the use of mammography. This increase is for all women: Since the inception of widespread mammographic screening, the increase for women under the age of 40 has gone up over 3000%.

Mammogram interpretation is often wrong. In 1996, the journal Archives of Internal Medicine published results of a test of 108 radiologists throughout the United States. The test used a set of 79 mammograms where the diagnosis had been verified by subsequent biopsies, surgeries or other follow-up. The radiologists missed cancer in 21% of the films, thought 10% of the women with no breast disease had cancer and thought 42% of benign lesions were cancerous.

Further, mammograms are not diagnostic and too frequently lead to unnecessary breast biopsies, which are an expensive, invasive surgical procedure that causes extreme anxiety, some pain and often physical harm to many women who do not have cancer.

According to the 1998 edition of the Merck Manual, for every case of breast cancer diagnosed each year, from 5 to 10 women will needlessly undergo a painful breast biopsy. Statistically, this means that any woman who has annual mammograms for 10 years has at least a 50% chance of having at least one biopsy -- even if she never develops breast cancer.

Why, then, does mainstream medicine keep recommending mammograms? Do the math: a $100 mammogram for all 62 million U.S. women over 40, and a $1,000+ biopsy for 1-to 2-million women, is an $8 billion per year industry. There is a superior alternative: advanced thermography, which does not use mechanical pressure or ionizing radiation, and which can detect signs of breast cancer years earlier than either mammography or a physical exam.

Mammography cannot detect a tumor until after it has been growing for years and reaches a certain size. Thermography is able to detect the possibility of breast cancer much earlier, because it can image the early stages of angiogenesis. Angiogenesis is the formation of a direct supply of blood to cancer cells, which is a necessary step before they can grow into tumors of size.

Thermographic breast screening is brilliantly simple. Thermography measures the radiation of infrared heat from our body and translates this information into anatomical images. Our normal blood circulation is under the control of our autonomic nervous system, which governs our body functions without our conscious will.

To screen for breast cancer, a thermographer blows cool air over a woman¹s breasts. In response, our autonomic nervous system reduces the amount of blood going to the breast, as a temperature-regulating measure. However, the pool of blood and primitive blood vessels that cancer cells create is not under autonomic control and is unaffected by the cool air. It will therefore stand out clearly on the thermographic image as a "hot spot."

Flu HINI

2009-11-03T06:55:00.000-08:00

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/03/What-We-Have-Learned-About-the-Great-Swine-Flu-Pandemic.aspx

ICU Hospitalizations

Out of a population of 25 million people, 722 were admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) with a confirmed diagnosis of H1N1 influenza. Overall, 856 people were admitted with a flu virus, but 11.3% were a type A flu that was not subtyped and 4.3% were seasonal flu.

They also analyzed the number of people admitted with viral pneumonia and found the following:

Number of People Admitted to the Hospital each Year with Viral Pneumonia5

57 people in 2005
33 people in 2006
69 people in 2007
69 people in 2008
37 people in 2009
So we see that in 2009 they had 32 fewer people admitted with actual viral pneumonia. The CDC and other public health agents of fear like to imply that mass numbers of people are dying from “flu”, that is, actual influenza viral pneumonia, when in fact, most are dying from other complications secondary to underlying health problems -- either diagnosed or undiagnosed.
They also found that the average person’s risk of ending up in the ICU was one in 35,714 or about three thousandths of one percent (0.00285%), an incredibly low risk. When they looked at actual admission to the ICU, they found that it was people aged 25 to 49 who made up the largest number admitted. Infants from birth to age 1 year had the higher admission per population, and had a high mortality rate.

Majority of Children Respond POORLY to Flu Vaccine

It is interesting to note that babies this age respond poorly to either the seasonal flu vaccine or the H1N1 vaccine. One of the largest studies ever done, found that children below the age of 2 years received no protection at all from the seasonal flu vaccine.7

The recently completed study on the effectiveness of the new H1N1 vaccine reported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease found that 75% of small children below age 35 months received no protection from the H1N1 vaccine and that 65% of children between the ages of 3 years and 9 years received no protection from the vaccine.8

Flu Vaccine DOUBLES Risk of Getting H1N1

It is also important to view this in the face of the new unpublished Canadian study of 12 million people that found getting the seasonal flu vaccine, as recommended by the CDC and NIH, doubles one’s risk of developing the H1N1 infection. It would also make the infection much more serious. So much for expert advice from the government.

H1N1 Vaccine is NOT Made the Same as Regular Flu Vaccine!!

I am really upset at the insistence by the CDC, medical doctors and the media that all pregnant women should be vaccinated by this experimental vaccine. The media repeats the manufacturers’ mantra that this vaccine is produced exactly like the seasonal flu, when in fact it is not. Yes, they use chicken eggs, but the rest has been fast tracked and many shortcuts on safety procedures have been allowed.

There are 250,000 pregnant women in Australia and New Zealand combined. Only 66 pregnant women were admitted to the ICU, an incidence of 1 pregnant woman per 3,800 pregnant women or a risk of .03%.6 Put another way, a pregnant woman in these two countries can feel comfortable to know that there is a 99.97% chance that she will not get sick enough to end up in the ICU.

Pregnant Women NOT at Increased Risk, Obese Women Are!!

So, why did even 66 pregnant women end up in the ICU? As we shall see in the American study5, a significant number of these pregnant women were either obese or morbidly obese and most had underlying medical problems. The Australian/New Zealand study6 found that one of the major risk factors for pregnant women was indeed being obese and that obesity was associated with a high risk of underlying medical disorders.

They also found that death from H1N1 infection correlated best with increasing age, contrary to what the media says. They concluded the study with the following statement:

“ The proportion of patients who died in the hospital in our study is no higher than that previously reported among patients with seasonal influenza A who were admitted to the ICU.” 6

In fact, they report that of those infected with the H1N1 variant virus who were sick enough to be admitted to the ICU, 84.5 % went home and 14.3% died and that of those admitted with seasonal flu 72.9% were discharged and 16.2% died. That is, more died from the seasonal flu.

Recent NEJM Study of the American Experience

In the same Oct, 8th issue of the New England Journal of Medicine they reported on the American experience with the H1N1 variant virus.5 The study looked at data from 24 states with widespread influenza infection from April through June 2009. Remember, unlike most flu epidemics in the United States, this epidemic began early and by the end of September it was beginning to peak, with late October being the date it may begin to decline.

The study examined 13,217 cases of infection involving 1082 people who were hospitalized. Here is what they found:

Underlying Medical Conditions

Of the total hospitalized patients:

60% of children had underlying medical conditions
83% of adults had underlying medical conditions
They also found that 32% of patients had at least 2 medical conditions that would put them at risk. We are constantly told that it is the young adult aged 25 to 49 who is at the greatest risk. Note that 83% of these people had underlying medical conditions. This means that in truth only 292 “healthy” people out of 1082 in 24 states were sick enough to enter the hospital -- that is 292 healthy people out of tens of millions of people, not much of a risk if you do not have an underlying chronic medical problem.

Underlying Medical Conditions Risk Factor for H1N1 Deaths

When they looked at people over age 65 years of age, that is, the folks who are most likely to die in the hospital, 100% had underlying medical conditions -- all of them. So, there was not one healthy person over age 65 who has died out of 24 states combined.

What about the children, a special target of the fear mongering media and government agencies? This study found that 60% had underlying medical conditions and that 30% were either obese or morbidly obese.

A previous CDC study states that 2/3 of children who died had neurological disorders or respiratory diseases such as asthma.3 If we take the 60% figure, that means out of the 84 children reported to have died by October 24th, 2009, only 34 children considered healthy in a nation of 301 million people really died, not 84. It is also instructive to note that according to CDC figures, the seasonal flu last year killed 116 children.9

Remember, that is, 34 so-called healthy children out of a nation of 40 million children. In 2003 it was reported by the CDC that 90 children died from seasonal flu complications. Ironically, as shown by Neil Z. Miller in his excellent book -- Vaccine Safety Manuel -- once the flu vaccine was given to small children the death rate from flu increased 7-fold.10 Not surprising, since the mercury in the vaccine suppresses immunity.

Pediatric Flu Deaths by Year Made WORSE by Flu Vaccine

1999 -- - 29 deaths
2000 -- - 19 deaths
2001 -- - 13 deaths
2002 -- - 12 deaths
2003 -- - 90 deaths (Year of mass vaccinations of children under age 5 years)
2006 -- 78 deaths
2007 -- - 88 deaths
2008 – 116 deaths (40.9% vaccinated at age 6 months to 23 months)11
Parents should also keep in mind that this study, as well as the Australian/New Zealand Study found that childhood obesity played a major role in a child’s risk of being admitted to the ICU or dying. This is another dramatic demonstration as to the danger of obesity in children and that all parents should avoid MSG (all food-based excitotoxin additives), excess sugar and excess high glycemic carbohydrates in their children’s diets. This goes for pregnant moms as well.

Every Parent Needs to Know Other Vaccines INCREASE Risk of H1N1

One major factor being left out of all discussion of these vaccines, especially those for small children and babies, is the effect of other vaccinations on presently circulating viral infections such as the H1N1 variant virus. It is known that several of the vaccines are powerfully immune suppressing. For example, the measles, mumps and rubella virus are all immune suppressing, as seen with the MMR vaccine, a live virus vaccine.12, 13

This means that when a child receives the MMR vaccine, for about two to five weeks afterwards their immune system is suppressed, making them highly susceptible to catching viruses and bacterial infections circulating through the population. Very few mothers are ever told this, even though it is well accepted in the medical literature.

In fact, it is known that the Hib vaccine for haemophilus influenzae is an immune suppressing vaccine and that vaccinated children are at a higher risk of developing haemophilus influenzae meningitis for at least one week after receiving the vaccine.10,14 These small children receive both of these vaccines.

According to the vaccine schedule recommended by the CDC and used by most states, a child will receive their MMR vaccine and Hib vaccine at one year of age and both are immune suppressing.

At age 2 to 4 months, they will receive a Hib vaccine. Therefore at age 2 to 4 months, and again at age one year, they are at an extreme risk of serious infectious complications caused by vaccine-induced immune suppression. The New Zealand/Australian study found that the highest death in the young was from birth to age 12 months, the very time they were getting these immune-suppressing vaccines.6

The so-called healthy children and babies that have ended up in the hospital and have died may in fact be the victims of immune suppression caused by their routine childhood vaccines. We may never know because the medical elite will never record such data or conduct the necessary studies. Recall also that the seasonal flu vaccine, which is recommended for all babies 6 months to 35 months, is also immune suppressing because of the mercury-containing thimerosal in the vaccine.15

If parents allow their children to be vaccinated according to the CDC recommendations, that is 2 seasonal flu vaccines and 2 swine flu vaccines as well as a pneumococcal vaccine, that will increase the number of vaccines a child will have by age 6 years to 41. This amounts to an enormous amount of aluminum and mercury as well as intense brain inflammation triggered by vaccine-induced microglial activation.16

Risk of Serious Illness from the H1N1 Mutant Virus

Their survey of 24 states found that a total of 67 patients out of tens of millions of people ended up in the ICU. That is, only 6% of the people admitted to the hospital were so sick as to need intensive treatments. Of these 67 patients, 19 died (25%) and of these 67% had obvious underlying long-term medical illnesses. This means that only 6 patients out of tens of millions of people in 24 states that were considered “healthy” before their infection, had died. Is this justification for a mass vaccination campaign?

Of the 1082 hospitalized patients, 93% were eventually discharged recovered and only 7% died, a very low death rate. Their analysis of these cases concluded that those who died fell in three categories:

They were older patients
Antiviral medications were started 48 hours after the onset of the illness
There was no correlation to having had seasonal vaccines
The last item is especially interesting because they assume that having had seasonal flu vaccine would have offered some protection -- it offered none.

What they did find was that none who died had been given antiviral medications (Tamiflu or Relenza) within 48 hours of getting sick. Those given the antiviral medications within the golden 48-hour period rarely died. Relenza is far safer than Tamiflu. This was the only factor found to correlate with survival of severely ill ICU patients.

Pregnant Women Given Vaccine Have Babies with More Health Problems

It has always been a principle of medicine that one should not vaccinate pregnant women, except in extreme cases, because the risk to the baby is too high. Recently, we have seen two examples of violation of this policy. When the HPV vaccine Gardasil was first released the CDC and the manufacturer (Merck Pharmaceutical Company) recommended that it be given to pregnant women.

Shortly after beginning this dangerous practice it was ordered halted because a number of women were losing their babies and babies were being born with major malformations.26

It is known that stimulating a woman’s immune system during midterm and later term pregnancy significantly increases the risk that her baby will develop autism during childhood and schizophrenia sometime during the teenage years and afterward.27

Compelling scientific evidence also shows an increased risk of seizures in the baby and later as an adult.28 In fact, a number of neurodevelopmental and behavioral problems can occur in babies born to women immunologically stimulated during pregnancy.29-32

It is true that serious flu infections or E. coli infections during pregnancy are a major risk for all these complications, but a woman’s risk of becoming infected, as we have seen, is a very small fraction of 1 %, yet they are calling for all pregnant women to be vaccinated with at least three vaccines, two of which contain mercury. There is also evidence to show that a large number of these women will gain no protection from the vaccine.

Dr. Bronze, quoted above, notes that animal studies have shown that vaccines harm unborn babies and that no safety studies have been done in humans. A recent study done by Dr. Laura Hewitson, a professor of obstetrics at the University of Pittsburg Medical Center, found that a single vaccine used in human babies, when used in newborn monkeys, caused significant abnormalities in brainstem development.33 This mass vaccination program for H1N1 variant virus will be the largest experiment on pregnant women in history and could end as a monumental disaster.

How Many Cases are Really Swine Flu?

CBS, to their credit, conducted a three-month long investigation that indicates that we have all been hoodwinked by the governmental “protection” agency called euphemistically, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.34

What they tried to learn from the CDC was just what percentage of the “flu cases” were in fact H1N1. The CDC did all they could to protect this information and only after filing a Freedom of Information request and waiting 2 months did they finally release the data. Now we know why they wanted it protected and why they stopped testing for the H1N1 virus in late July.

The data revealed that in fact very few cases reported as swine flu were in fact H1N1 variant virus. CBS examined the data in all 50 states. What they found, for example, was that in Georgia only 2% of reported cases were H1N1 (97% negative for H1N1); in Alaska only 1% of reported cases were H1N1 (93% negative for flu and 5% seasonal flu) and in California only 2% of reported cases were H1N1 with 12% being other flu viruses and 86% negative for flu.

A recent release from the CDC found that their survey reported that of 12,943 specimens tested from around the country, only 26.3% of cases tested positive for H1N1 variant virus, but that 99.8% of the specimens tested positive for some type of other flu virus, most of which were regular seasonal flu.

The CDC has now changed all data reporting on the flu effects. They did this by stopping viral typing and subtyping and rolled back all previous numbers based on prior data. The new system for collecting data now started on August 30th, 2009.

The only reason I can imagine they did this is that the prior data was clearly demonstrating that the H1N1 variant virus was causing a very mild illness in most people (99.99%) with fewer hospitalizations, fewer cases of pneumonia and fewer deaths for all ages and groups than the prior seasonal flu in past years. This was true for the United States and the Southern Hemisphere, which has gone though the worst of its flu season.

Now that they are no longer typing the virus, they can attribute all cases of pneumonia, hospitalizations and deaths to H1N1, even though the majority of cases appear to be from a long list of other causes. In fact, they can classify many cases of primary pneumonia as caused by H1N1.

Flu Vaccine Exposed

2009-09-26T03:47:00.001-07:00

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/09/26/Flu-Vaccine-Exposed.aspx

Ex Military Prison

2009-09-26T03:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article6848238.ece

About 12,000 veterans are on probation or parole, representing 6 per cent of the total, while 8,500 are in prison, representing 8.5 per cent of the jail population, according to the report by the National Association of Probation Officers (Napo).

In the United States 10 per cent of the population of both federal and state jails were veterans in 2004, according to US government figures.

The study found that chronic misuse of alcohol and drugs was a big factor in half of 90 cases where veterans had been given a community sentence. Almost half of the veterans were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or depression. The most common conviction was for violence in a domestic setting, which occurred in 39 cases, the Napo paper said. In ten other cases the main offence was against a child. No figures were available for Scotland.

A survey of sentenced prisoners conducted by the Government in 2003 suggested that 4 per cent of prisoners had served in the Armed Forces.

Battery Life

2009-09-25T04:05:00.000-07:00

History of Battery Development

1600 Gilbert (England) Establishment electrochemistry study
1791 Galvani (Italy) Discovery of ‘animal electricity’
1800 Volta (Italy) Invention of the voltaic cell
1802 Cruickshank (England) First electric battery capable of mass production
1820 Ampère (France) Electricity through magnetism
1833 Faraday (England) Announcement of Faraday’s Law
1836 Daniell (England) Invention of the Daniell cell
1859 Planté (France) Invention of the lead acid battery
1868 Leclanché (France) Invention of the Leclanché cell
1888 Gassner (USA) Completion of the dry cell
1899 Jungner (Sweden) Invention of the nickel-cadmium battery
1901 Edison (USA) Invention of the nickel-iron battery
1932 Shlecht & Ackermann (Germany) Invention of the sintered pole plate
1947 Neumann (France) Successfully sealing the nickel-cadmium battery
Mid 1960 Union Carbide (USA) Development of primary alkaline battery
Mid 1970 Development of valve regulated lead acid battery
1990 Commercialization nickel-metal hydride battery
1992 Kordesch (Canada) Commercialization reusable alkaline battery
1999 Commercialization lithium-ion polymer
2001 Anticipated volume production of proton exchange membrane fuel cell

Figure 1-5: History of battery development.
The battery may be much older. It is believed that the Parthians who ruled Baghdad (ca. 250 bc) used batteries to electroplate silver. The Egyptians are said to have electroplated antimony onto copper over 4300 years ago.

Bisphenol-A (BPA) UK

2009-09-15T08:14:00.000-07:00

Is it safe to use plastic baby bottles? I have heard they contain harmful chemicals.
Plastic baby bottles and other types of plastic food container are safe to use if they are used correctly.

You should always follow the manufacturer's instructions, but, generally, plastic bottles and containers are safe to use and reuse if they're not damaged and can be cleaned properly. Also, you can heat food in plastic containers in hot water or the microwave if the label says it is OK to do so.

Cans should not be reused. Once a can has been opened, any leftover food should be put in a sealable container in the fridge.

One chemical you may have heard of, in relation to baby bottles, is a substance called Bisphenol-A (BPA). It's used to make a range of plastic food containers, including baby bottles. It's also found in the resin used to coat the inside of food cans, to stop the metal contaminating the food.

Very small amounts of BPA can transfer from the packaging into food and drinks. It's possible that BPA might affect the hormone system in people's bodies. That said, there has been a lot of research carried out worldwide and there is still no conclusive evidence that these chemicals do have this effect in people.

Independent experts have calculated how much BPA can be eaten every day over a lifetime without it causing harm to our health. It has been estimated that the amounts we take in from food and drink are much lower than this level. There are also rules in place to protect the public. These rules set a maximum level of BPA that is allowed to transfer into food.

http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/asksam/keepingfoodsafe/asksamstoringpreparing/#A457998

Check
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/05/22/where-to-find-bpa-free-products.aspx
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/09/12/How-Moms-and-Minorities-are-Deceived-About-Dangers-of-Plastic.aspx

RABBI BARUCH KAPLAN

2009-08-12T04:24:00.000-07:00

http://www.nkusa.org/Historical_Documents/KaplanInterview.cfm

This is a free translation of a Yiddish transcript of a taped interview made some twenty years ago with the late Rabbi Baruch Kaplan, who was a principal of the Beis Yaakov Girls School in Brooklyn, and who was a student in the Hebron yeshiva (religious school) in 1929 at the time of the killing of a number of Jews by some Arabs. Rabbi Kaplan explains how events unfolded, and how it was the arrogant and cowardly Zionist maniacs who perpetrated the events by provoking the Palestinians

“When I was in Hebron in 1929, there occurred the tragic massacre of over twenty yeshiva students, great scholars, plus another forty members of the Jewish community. I would like to describe the error that has circulated in Jewish communities – a horrible error, that accuses the Arabs in Hebron of being murderers who attacked the Jews simply because the Arabs were “bad people.” In order to correct the record, this error must be corrected. The Arabs were very friendly people, and the Jewish People in Hebron lived together with them and had very friendly relations with them. They worked with Jews, and everybody got along just fine.

To take just one example, I used to have the habit of walking a mile or two out of town all by myself to visit a tree that was believed to be the tree where our patriarch Abraham met the three angels, as described in Genesis. I especially enjoyed visiting the tree in the summertime. Along the way I would talk to the Arabs, though it was mostly using our hands because I didn’t speak any Arabic. Interestingly enough, no one in the yeshiva ever told me it was dangerous to go by myself among the Arabs. We just lived with them, and got along very well.

I have also seen a letter from the Grand Rabbi of the Gerrer Hassidim of those days, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter of Poland, regarding his trip to the Holy Land during the days when people were talking about emigrating to Palestine. He wanted to find out what kind of people the Palestinians were, in order to be able to advise people whether to move there or not. He wrote in his letter that the Arabs were a very friendly and fine people.

Therefore it’s necessary to set the record straight about the accusations that the Palestinians were terrible killers who liked attacking Jews. This was never the situation at all!

Today’s wicked Zionists are just like their predecessors, who were responsible for causing terrible suffering in Palestine with their wars with the Arabs, may G-d have mercy. At that time in 1929, the Zionists had a slogan arguing that the Western Wall in Jerusalem was a Jewish “national symbol.” Of course, the Arabs disagreed with this idea, considering that they had control of the location for over 1,100 years. However, the Zionist mobs were yelling that “The Wall is ours!” It’s hard to understand why they felt that way considering they have no connection to the Jewish holy places whatsoever. An argument erupted in the Jewish newspapers about establishing a permanent prayer area for Jews at the Wall. This provoked the Arabs, and the rabbi of Jerusalem at the time, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld begged them to stop and to be appreciative to the Arabs for allowing Jews to pray at the Wall for so many centuries undisturbed. However, the Zionists wanted a permanent setup under their control.

The Zionists refused to heed the calls of Rabbi Zonnenfeld, and they called a large meeting of Jews in Jerusalem – supposedly some 10,000 people showed up. One of the speakers was their “chief Rabbi” (Avraham Isaac Kook), who proclaimed, “Hear O Israel, the Wall is our Wall, the Wall is One” (which is a ridiculous pun on the blessing, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our G-d, the Lord is One”). This began the conflict at the time between the Zionists and the Arabs.

Afterwards, we were studying at the yeshiva in Hebron, and saw a bunch of boys in short pants carrying weapons on bicycles and motorcycles, running around the streets of Hebron. We were very worried about this. What were they up to?

In brief, our rabbi, the supervisor of our religious academy, Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein, called them for a meeting, but they refused. He was forced to go over to them, and asked them what they were up to. He accused them of wanting to provoke the Arabs. They responded that they were coming to protect us!! We cried out, “Woe is us! G-d have mercy!” They didn’t want to leave town until it was too late!

These arrogant cowards only ran away when the local leaders of the Arabs called for a mass meeting of the people of the surrounding Arab villages. But it was too late; the Arabs got organized, and the Mufti called on his people to be ready Friday night when the yeshiva would be attending prayers. At this point, the yeshiva was alone against the Zionists, but the Arabs didn’t know to distinguish between us and the Zionists. Sadly they attacked and killed some of our people, including the great scholar, Rabbi Shmuel Rosenhaltz.

The next morning we heard about the excitement in town, and even worse, we heard the crying and shouting. I and a friend, Avraham Ushpener, lived in an apartment that was part of a three-story building leased by a Jew from an Arab. We could hear all the noise from our apartment on the third floor. We were terrified to let the Arabs in because we knew how angry they had become, but a while later things calmed down. In total, some 65 people were killed. On the other side of town, however, the Jews were spared.

Why am I telling this story? It is because I wanted to describe how the wicked Zionists, both today and in those days, were the cause of our suffering! They cooperated with the Nazis, and our religion teaches that a person who causes someone to sin is worse than someone who kills him.

It reminds me of an event recounted by Rabbi Moshe Schonfeld, who once visited Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz {Chazon Ish) when the Zionist state was established, and when there was fighting between the Zionists and the Arabs. Rabbi Schonfeld told Rabbi Karelitz about what was happening. Rabbi Karelitz told him that the crimes of the Zionists were much worse, because they were wicked heretics who were uprooting hundreds of thousands of Jews from their faith and that is much greater pain since our Sages stated that a person who causes another person to sin is much worse than if he kills him.

In our own days there is a Zionist leader (Begin), whose arrogance and selfishness is more important than anything else to him, and for which he is prepared to sacrifice hundreds and thousands of Jews. These heretics and evildoers, this Zionist leader of a state that killed the Judaism of the Yemenite and Moroccan Jews, and of many other Sephardic Jews! This is the work of these thugs and gangsters. And there are religious Jewish parties who dare to state that they love this man?! Everyone must know that the anger of the Arabs against us is only caused by the Zionists!

The Arabs were a friendly people to us, and I am a witness to it. We lived very well with them in Hebron. Rabbi Alter attested to this as well, and it is the accursed Zionists who caused them to hate us. The Zionists dare to use their power to expel the Arabs, and even today in Lebanon, they kill and butcher the Arabs; they wipe out whole villages with the airplanes they get from the United States.

Everyone should know who the murderers are – the Zionists are the biggest murderers in the world, who refuse to let the Jewish People live in peace either physically or spiritually!”

ADD/ADHD Ritalin®, Concerta®, Adderall®, and Strattera®

2009-08-11T05:54:00.000-07:00

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/07/09/ADHD-Childlike-Behavior-or-Serious-Condition.aspx

What Exactly is ADD/ADHD?

Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) involve a cluster of symptoms that include inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsive behaviors. Often, children with the conditions may struggle in school and with relationships, and suffer from low self-esteem.

The term ADD has largely been replaced with ADHD, as it describes two of the most common symptoms of the condition, inattention and hyperactive-impulsive behavior.

Most children display a combination of these two traits, and may show the following symptoms:[iii]

Frequent fidgeting or squirming
Feels restless or often runs and climbs excessively, or leaves his or her seat in the classroom when not appropriate
Has difficulty playing quietly
Talks excessively, interrupts often, and may blurt out answers to questions at inappropriate times
Always seems on the go
Has difficulty waiting his or her turn

As you can see, many of these “symptoms” could describe most all children at one time or another. As such, those who display these symptoms at school but not at home or with friends are not considered to have ADHD. Likewise, with children who display symptoms at home but not at school.

Only children who struggle with inattention and hyperactive or impulsive behaviors around the clock are deemed to have ADHD, and if not dealt with properly the symptoms can continue well into adulthood.

What Causes ADD/ADHD?

Many parents and spouses are at their wit’s ends trying to cope with the relentless and upsetting behaviors caused by their unhappy, troubled children, teens, or adults. Adding to their frustration is not knowing the cause of the symptoms, nor what to do to fix them. It is no surprise that those dealing with ADD/ADHD-affected individuals can become desperate for answers.

But most experts are just as perplexed as everyone else.

One theory behind ADD/ADHD is that it is caused, at least in part, by inherited genetic factors. Some scientists are now aiming their research at finding genes that may make a person more susceptible to this disorder.[iv]

Another plausible theory is exposure to environmental toxins.

A 2006 study found that a mother's use of cigarettes, alcohol, or other drugs during pregnancy could increase the risk for ADHD. [v]

That same research also suggested that exposure to lead may cause ADHD symptoms, and the industrial chemicals polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have also been named as a potential culprit.

But as usual, few are focusing on nutrition, which I believe is a key factor. We know food choices of most children -- and adults -- today are incredibly poor. How can you possibly expect a child to have normal behavior if he is fed refined grains, sugars, processed foods loaded with chemicals, and juices and sodas instead of pure water?

Add to that the substandard amount of vegetables in most people’s diets -- up to 90 percent fewer than what is required for health -- an overabundance of omega-6 fats and a deficiency of omega-3 fats, and you can see a real pattern emerging.

If you are a nutritionist or dietician, you will know this is a recipe for disaster. You simply cannot have a child or adult with a healthy functioning brain, when the proper ingredients to develop or maintain a healthy brain are not being given!

Renowned children's health expert Dr. Lendon Smith, who passed away several years ago, was really one of the pioneer physicians in this area, and he had been effectively using nutrition and dietary interventions to help relieve the symptoms of ADHD for decades.

He realized that drugs like Ritalin were not the answer for ADHD right from the start. As he said in an interview I did with him back in 2001:[vi]

“It is too bad psychiatrists have failed to recognize that if a stimulant acts as a calming agent, then they must shore up the flagging enzyme that is under-producing. This all fits with the damage that we have done to the top soil. It is washing and blowing away and with it, the magnesium. The psychiatrists have made ADD/ADHD a disease, like pneumonia.

It is actually a syndrome due to a defect in the screening device of the brain. I understand that since they had made it a disease they can be compensated for treating it. Another rule they have used: 'If the Ritalin works, they need it.' Sort of like a Ritalin deficiency.”

According to Dr. Smith, stimulant drugs like Ritalin have a calming effect in children with ADHD because there is not enough norepinephrine, a hormone and neurotransmitter, in their limbic system, the part of the brain that is supposed to filter out unimportant stimuli.

Because of this, one common denominator that Dr. Smith often used as a diagnostic criterion for ADHD was being extremely ticklish.

In other words, they were unable to disregard unimportant stimuli.

Some people may also have ADD/ADHD symptoms due to allergic reactions to chemicals in the environment or their food. Chemically-sensitive people who have their clothing washed with perfumed and chemical-laden soap that they not only breathe in, but that their skin comes into close contact with daily, could likely have ADHD symptoms.

In addition, a number of people may be allergic to the chemicals that are added to clothes in the manufacturing process, such as permanent press or stain-resistant products. These too may initiate ADHD or ADHD-like reactions in sensitive individuals

Would You Give Your Child Cocaine?

For years, drug companies have been churning out various medications to try to stem this growing epidemic.

Ritalin®, Concerta®, Adderall®, and Strattera® have been the main drugs of choice.

These products, with the exception of Strattera®, all contain different formulations of methylphenidate, a powerful psychostimulant drug that is in the same class as cocaine.

In fact, a 2009 study shows that methylphenidate behaves similarly to addictive drugs like cocaine.

Investigators, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, showed that methylphenidate can cause physical changes in neurons in the “reward” regions of mouse brains -- and in some instances, these effects overlapped with those of cocaine.

The researchers exposed mice to two weeks of daily injections of cocaine or methylphenidate, after which reward areas of the brain were examined for changes that have been implicated in the long-term actions of addictive drugs.

Both drugs showed evidence of addiction in the brain, although each drug’s pattern of expression was unique. Interestingly, in some cases, methylphenidate produced even greater effects than cocaine![vii]

Ritalin has the same pharmacological profile as cocaine, yet its effects are even more potent. Using brain imaging, scientists have found that, in pill form, Ritalin occupies more of the neural transporters responsible for the “high” experienced by addicts than smoked or injected cocaine!

Doctors Bribed Hook Kids Drugs

2009-08-11T05:32:00.000-07:00

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/08/11/Doctors-Bribed-to-Hook-Your-Kids-on-Drugs.aspx

Americans must start to question the legitimacy of the exploitative pharmaceutical-industrial complex, and the predatory people that run it.

The pharmaceutical-industrial complex has virtually annexed the mental health profession. Take, as one example, Harvard psychiatrist Joseph Biederman, the high-profile doctor most responsible for the explosion of kids on psychiatric drugs. Biederman took $1.6 million from drug makers from 2000 to 2007, and failed to report most of it to his university.

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Thimerosal Autism Neurotoxicity

2009-08-06T04:50:00.000-07:00

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/08/06/Proof-That-Thimerosal-Induces-AutismLike-Neurotoxicity.aspx

A new scientific study proves that the mercury-based compound used as vaccine preservative -- known as ‘thimerosal’ -- induces neural damage similar to that seen in autism patients.......

.....As you’ve likely heard by now, rates of autism in the U.S. have increased nearly 60-fold since the late 1970s, rising right along with the increasing number of vaccinations added to the childhood vaccination schedule.

This oftentimes debilitating neurological disorder now affects about one in 150 U.S. children, but an article in the Daily Mail two years ago reported the rate of autism in Great Britain could be as high as 1 in 58........
==============================================================
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/03/22/u-s-government-concedes-that-mercury-causes-autism.aspx

The U.S. government has concluded that childhood vaccines contributed to symptoms of autism in 9-year-old Hannah Poling. The unprecedented concession was in response to one of three test cases that allege the mercury-containing vaccine preservative thimerosal caused autism in children.

According to the case, the child was healthy and developing normally until her 18-month well-baby visit, where she received vaccinations for nine diseases, two of which contained thimerosal. Within 48 hours of the shots, Hannah become ill, refused to walk and could not sleep through the night. Within three months, she began showing signs of autism.......

Your Car and Home Could Soon Be Powered By Urine

2009-07-29T04:55:00.000-07:00

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/07/28/Your-Car-and-Home-Could-Soon-Be-Powered-By-Your-Urine.aspx

Urine-powered cars, homes and personal electronic devices could be available in six months.
Using a nickel-based electrode, scientists can create large amounts of cheap hydrogen from urine that could be burned or used in fuel cells. One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses.
One molecule of urea, a major component of urine, contains four atoms of hydrogen bonded to two atoms of nitrogen. If you place a special nickel electrode into a pool of urine and apply an electrical current, hydrogen gas is released.
A urine-powered vehicle could theoretically travel 90 miles per gallon.Sources:
MSNBC July 8, 2009

How To subdue Insurgency.

2009-07-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

First militarily oppress Insurgents and no matter your losses, attack, while saying we are doing it for a different reason, (get the International OK).

Then invite their moderates for a political solution, and waite until you find enough about the Insurgent heiracky. Put under cover people into the mix. You will not take any knowledge about your spies. They will die and thats what you got to pay.

Now you got the most of the leaders, now either kill them if they do not agree to your way, or pay them well to get themselves to be your medium level of law makers in the country.

US “rigged” elections Kyrgyzstan

2009-07-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/pers-j25.shtml

25 July 2009

The brazen rigging of an election, the repression of the opposition and the use of police violence and live ammunition against demonstrators has been met with silence and indifference on the part of the Obama administration and the US media.

These events were taking place Thursday not in Iran, but rather in the landlocked Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan.

In their habitual diplomatic language, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe election monitors declared that the Kyrgyz vote “fell short of key standards” and constituted a “disappointment.”

A closer reading of the OSCE report, however, discloses genuinely criminal methods used to deliver a nearly 90 percent majority to incumbent President Kurmanbek Bakiyev.

The OSCE cites “ballot stuffing” and “multiple voting” on election day, while physical force, including the use of tear gas, was employed to stop observers from the opposition party from entering a polling place. “The process further deteriorated during the vote count,” the organization said.

When thousands of people took to the streets of Kyrgyzstan’s capital to protest the vote fraud, police attacked them with percussion grenades and tear gas, while firing live ammunition over their heads.

In the run-up to the election, the OSCE said, “The distinction between the ruling party and the state was blurred.” Concretely, this meant that the offices of Bakiyev’s Ak-Zhol party were set up inside government buildings. Government workers and students were coerced into attending the party’s rallies under threat of being fired or thrown out of school.

Campaign events by the opposition were blocked by the police and its leaders and supporters were subjected to a reign of terror. One of the opposition leaders, Emilbek Kaptagaev, reported being kidnapped by a group of men, one wearing a police uniform, taken to the edge of the capital and brutally beaten. He received a call three weeks later warning him that if he didn’t stop campaigning for the leading opposition candidate—former prime minister Almazbek Atambaev of the Social Democratic Party—he would get more of the same and worse.

The opposition was virtually blacked out in the mass media. Three national television stations suspended all news coverage at the end of June as the vote approached. Over the past year, the government has carried out the systematic suppression of opposition newspapers, taking them to court on charges of libeling the president’s relatives, imposing massive fines and confiscating equipment.

Earlier this month, the journalist Almaz Tashiyev, who had published articles critical of the government, suffered a fatal beating at the hands of eight policemen. It was the sixth violent attack on journalists this year and the second fatal attack since October 2007, when independent journalist Alisher Saipov was gunned down execution style. No one has been arrested for that killing.

The electoral fraud hardly came as a surprise. During the run-up to local elections last year, the head of the Central election commission fled the country after saying that the president’s son had threatened her life.

Human rights groups say torture of detainees in Kyrgyzstan is common. Among the more infamous cases is that of the arrest of 32 people last year at a protest in the town of Nookat. While awaiting trial, police beat them on the soles of their feet, poured hot and cold water on them and brought them to the brink of suffocation by putting plastic bags over their heads. When one of the women prisoners told her tormentors that she was pregnant, they assaulted her, causing a miscarriage.

Last month, President Barack Obama sent a letter to President Bakiyev, praising his regime for its “efforts in stabilizing the situation in Afghanistan and the fight against international terrorism.”

This remains Washington’s position. Why haven’t Obama and Hillary Clinton declared

Afghanistan NATO Forces

2009-07-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/628.php?nid=&id=&pnt=628&lb=

new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of nations around the world finds that most publics polled believe that the Afghan people want NATO forces to leave Afghanistan now. On average 53 percent have this belief, while 30 percent assume that most Afghans want NATO forces to stay.

Among those who believe that the Afghan people want NATO forces to leave, 76 percent say that NATO forces should leave. Among those who believe that the Afghan people want NATO forces to stay, 83 percent say NATO forces should stay. Overall, on average, 37 percent think that NATO forces should remain in Afghanistan, while 50 percent think the mission should be ended now.

Swine Flu GlaxoSmithKline

2009-07-24T04:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,637748,00.html#ref=nlint

British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline has orders for its swine flu vaccine from 16 countries and is in talks with 50 more.

British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is set to reap billions as fear of the swine flu pandemic grows. The world's second-largest drug company has secured orders from 16 countries for 195 million doses of the vaccine it is developing against the H1N1 virus, which has killed more than 740 people worldwide.

The Brentford (England)-based drugmaker began production of its new flu vaccine in June and is on track to begin shipping the first doses in September.
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http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/07/28/What-are-the-Dangers-of-Mandatory-Swine-Flu-Vaccination.aspx

By Dr. Mercola

In early May, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted the swine flu virus was not quite the fearsome plague it was widely reported to be in April when the novel influenza A strain (official name H1N1) first emerged in the U.S.

On May 6, Sebelius said:

“We are cautiously optimistic that what we are seeing right now is presenting itself as a much milder virus than the initial cases ... in Mexico.”[1]

Ms. Sebelius’ remark was likely prompted by the fact the swine flu virus is showing itself to have mild symptoms, quick recovery time, and low incidence of death among the vast majority of H1N1 patients throughout the world (with the single exception of Mexico).

A little over a month later, on June 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised its swine flu pandemic alert from a 5 to a 6. [2] Phase 6 is the highest level alert, and reflects the speed with which a virus is spreading – not its severity.

WHO actually considers the severity of the H1N1 virus to be moderate, generally defined as an illness requiring neither hospitalization nor even medical care.[3]
...........................
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http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13433

............"According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the flu kills up to 2,500 Canadians and about 36,000 Americans annually. Worldwide, the number of deaths attributed to the flu each year is between 250,000 and 500,000" .................

................ The Mexican Minister of Health, José Ángel Córdova confirmed that there were "2498 serious cases of atypical pneumonia associated with a flu condition" ...[which] could be related to the A/H1N1 virus". Out of those 2498 cases of influenza, 159 died, of influenza or related ailments, but only seven of these deaths were related to the swine flu, according to the official statement of the Minister of Health.

The figures above are consistent with the overall pattern of influenza observed in Mexico in previous years. "In a normal year, between 6,500 and 7,500 Mexicans die from pneumonia-like diseases" (Ibid)

159 reported deaths "have been blamed on the outbreak" but the lab reports suggest that the swine flu was the cause of death only in seven out of 159 cases.

For instance, in the Veracruz town of La Gloria where there was an outbreak of acute respiratory infections, out of 450 cases, 35 were tested for the swine flu virus and only one came back positive. (That is a ratio of 1/450) .............

........... In the US there have been 109 reported cases of the virus (April 30, 2009), of which only five were hospitalized. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control confirmed that a 23 month child in Texas had died from the swine flu virus, following hospitalisation and clinical examination. ................

Mahmoud al-Sarsak, IDF, Sccer Player

2009-07-24T03:47:00.000-07:00

http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=56280&s2=24

Israel arrests soccer player of Palestinian national team
Xinhua

GAZA, July 23, 2009 (Xinhua) -- Israel arrested a Palestinian soccer player en route from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip to the West Bank, the Palestinian Football Association (PFA) said Thursday.

"This is an Israeli piracy targeting sport in Palestine," the PFA said in a statement, adding that "We call on the FIFA to press the Israeli authorities to release al-Sarsak immediately."

Mahmoud al-Sarsak, 22, a Gaza-based player and a member of the national team, was detained late Wednesday at Erez crossing point between Gaza and Israel, a source in the PFA told Xinhua.

Two of his colleagues have been turned back to Gaza, said the source on condition of anonymity.

The three were on their way to the West Bank to play for Balataclub in Nablus town. The PFA said it had contacted with Israel in advance to allow the players to cross.

The PFA said Israeli intelligence officers interrogated al-Sarsak and other players for eight hours at the crossing and then detained al-Sarsak.

Meanwhile, relatives of al-Sarsak confirmed the arrest, saying they have received a phone call from the Israeli army Thursday telling them that al-Sarsak was under detention in a prison at Ashkelon town.

Mohammad Srour IDF Kidnapping UN

2009-07-24T03:44:00.000-07:00

http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=56274&s2=24

Soldiers kidnap Ni’lin resident for testifying before a UN Committee probing Israeli violations
Saed Bannoura

- IMEMC - July 23, 2009

Israeli soldiers kidnapped on Wednesday a Palestinian resident of Ni’lin village, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah immediately after he returned from Geneva after testifying before a UN committee investigating the Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip, and other Israeli violations.

The resident was identified as Mohammad Srour. He was previously shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers who attacked a nonviolent protest against the Annexation Wall in the West Bank village, near Ramallah. Two Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire during the attack.

Israeli activist, Jonathan Pollack of the Anarchists Against the Wall also testified before the committee of Judge Richard Goldstone.

Srour returned to his village two days ago and was kidnapped by Israeli security officials at the Allenby Bridge between Jordan and the West Bank, and was moved to Ofer detention center.

His family told the Israeli Ynet News that the army kidnapped him because he testified before the international committee, and exposed the Israeli violations against the Palestinians and against nonviolent protests against the illegal Annexation Wall.

Israeli security officials claimed that Srour was not detained because he testified in Geneva, and added that he was detained due to alleged involvement of what Israel described as a 'terror activity’.

His brother said that the Israeli claim is bogus especially since Mohammad received a permission from Israel to leave the country, and crossed via the Israeli-controlled bridge between the West Bank and Jordan.

U.S. rabbis human kidneys

2009-07-24T03:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=56288&s2=24

U.S. rabbis suspected of brokering sale of human kidneys
Reuters

July 23, 2009

Three New Jersey mayors and several rabbis were arrested on Thursday in a sweeping federal investigation into political corruption that also uncovered human kidney sales and money laundering from Brooklyn to Israel, authorities said.

Among the 44 people arrested were Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano, who took office 23 days ago.

Cammarano, at 31 the city's youngest-ever mayor, was charged with taking $25,000 in bribes, including e10,000 last Thursday, said the U.S. Attorney's office in Newark, New Jersey.

The case exposed "a corrupt network of public officials who were all too willing to take cash in exchange for promised official action," Acting U.S. Attorney Ralph Marra said in a statement. "It seemed that everyone wanted a piece of the action. The corruption was widespread and pervasive."

Bird flu

2009-07-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/21/pandemic.warning

Up to 75,000 Britons will in die in an "inevitable" flu pandemic that could kill as many as 50 million people worldwide, a parliamentary committee warns today.

The outbreak, most likely to be caused by a strain of bird flu, will be on a scale not seen for 40 years and cause "massive" disruption in the UK.

The committee report (click for PDF) warns that surveillance of emerging disease threats around the world needs to be overhauled to provide early warning of potential pandemics.

A new and potentially deadly infectious disease emerges somewhere in the world every year, threatening "devastating consequences" across the globe, warns the Lords intergovernmental organisations committee. Its report, published today, criticises Britain's "poorly coordinated" disease control systems.

Reform of the World Health Organisation (WHO) is "essential", as the global health agency is "dysfunctional" and lacking the organisation and resources to curb a major outbreak, it says.........................
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Diseases Know No Frontiers: How effective are Intergovernmental Organisations in
controlling their pread?
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldintergov/143/143.pdf

whales, Intelligence

2009-07-21T07:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/magazine/12whales-t.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

A female humpback was spotted in December 2005 east of the Farallon Islands, just off the coast of San Francisco. She was entangled in a web of crab-trap lines, hundreds of yards of nylon rope that had become wrapped around her mouth, torso and tail, the weight of the traps causing her to struggle to stay afloat. A rescue team arrived within a few hours and decided that the only way to save her was to dive in and cut her loose.

For an hour they cut at the lines and rope with curved knives, all the while trying to steer clear of a tail they knew could kill them with one swipe. When the whale was finally freed, the divers said, she swam around them for a time in what appeared to be joyous circles. She then came back and visited with each one of them, nudging them all gently, as if in thanks. The divers said it was the most beautiful experience they ever had. As for the diver who cut free the rope that was entangled in the whale’s mouth, her huge eye was following him the entire time, and he said that he will never be the same.

TO DATE, NO neurological studies of the gray-whale brain have been done. In 2006, however, researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine analyzed the brains of two other baleen species — humpback and finback whales — as well as those of a number of toothed whales like dolphins and killer and sperm whales. The study revealed brain structures surprisingly similar to our own. Some, in fact, contained large concentrations of spindle cells — often referred to as the cells that make us human because of their link to higher cognitive functions like self-awareness, a sense of compassion and linguistic expression — with the added kick that whales evolved these same highly specialized neurons as many as 15 million years before we humans did, a stunning instance of a phenomenon biologists refer to as parallel evolution.

“In spite of the relative scarcity of information on many cetacean species,” the Mount Sinai scientists concluded in a report in the November 2006 edition of the journal The Anatomical Record, “it is important to note in this context that sperm whales, killer whales and certainly humpback whales exhibit complex social patterns that include intricate communication skills, coalition formation, cooperation, cultural transmission and tool usage.” They added that it is therefore “likely that some of these abilities” are related to the comparable complexity in the brain structures of whales and hominids.

The sperm whale, for example, which has the largest brain on earth, weighing as much as 19 pounds, has been found to live in large, elaborately structured societal groups, or clans, that typically number in the tens of thousands and wander over many thousands of miles of ocean. The whales of a clan are not all related, but within each clan there are smaller, close-knit, matriarchal family units. Young whales are raised within an extended, multitiered network of doting female caregivers, including the mother, aunts and grandmothers, who help in the nurturing of babies and, researchers suspect, in teaching them patterns of movement, hunting techniques and communication skills. “It’s like they’re living in these massive, multicultural, undersea societies,” says Hal Whitehead, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia and the world’s foremost expert on the sperm whale. “It’s sort of strange. Really the closest analogy we have for it would be ourselves.”

Whitehead has even discovered distinct clan dialects using different codas, what he describes as a “Morse code-like pattern of clicks” that the whales make with their long head cavities and use to communicate with one another over many miles, reinforcing social bonds and declaring clan affiliation. Whitehead, who has been tracking and recording sperm whales around the globe since the early 1980s, has positively identified five distinct clan dialects and studied two extensively. “The regular clan,” he told me in a phone conversation from his lab in Nova Scotia, “makes three to eight equally spaced clicks. And then there are the Plus-One clans. They have two to eight clicks and then a pause and an added click at the end, kind of like the Canadian ‘eh.’ We’ve also noticed that these clans ply the water differently. Regular groups move in wiggly tracks closer to shore, while the Plus-Ones swim further from shore in straight lines.”

Whales display an incredible degree of coordination and cooperation in their efforts. Aaron Thode, an associate research scientist from the Scripps Institution, who was in Baja doing acoustical studies of grays, told me of another project he is involved in, using the latest research tools to gain insights into how whales perceive the world. He showed me an extraordinary video of sperm whales pilfering catch from fishermen’s lines in Alaska, 50-foot-long, massive-jawed behemoths delicately snatching a single black cod from a longline’s dangling hook, like an hors d’oeuvre from a cocktail toothpick. Fishermen are currently losing 5 to 10 percent of their yearly haul and fear the problem could become worse because whales who have mastered the technique are busily teaching it to others. The news seems to be rapidly spreading, as reports of similar fish-snatching are coming in from fishermen all over the world.

Humpback whales, meanwhile, have devised a prime example of what Fred Sharpe, executive director of the Alaska Whale Foundation, has described as “communal tool use.” Based on 20 years of observing humpbacks at sea and simulating their behaviors in the laboratory, Sharpe has been able to piece together the humpback’s rather ingenious fishing strategy. A group of humpbacks will get together and begin herding prey — herring, for example — toward the sea surface through the use of coordinated hunting calls. A designated leader of the group, meanwhile, will dive beneath the herded fish and emit from its blowhole an intense stream of rising bubbles, essentially forming a tube-shaped net to hold the fish in place. Waiting for the precise moment when the net has fully formed and captured the optimum number of fish, the group then rises as one, mouths agape, toward the surface.

Somehow the more we learn about whales, the more we’re coming to appreciate the sublimely discomfiting reality that a kind of parallel “us” has long been out there roaming the oceans' depths, succumbing to our assaults. Indeed, when that baby gray calf bobbed up out of the sea and held there that first morning, staring at me with his huge, slow-blinking eye, it felt to me as if he were taking one impossibly long and quizzical look in the mirror.

I asked Frohoff at one point if, given both the dark past of human-whale interactions in those lagoons and what we’ve now come to know about whale intelligence, there could possibly be some element of knowing forgiveness behind their actions. She took a deep breath and widened her eyes, making it clear that she wanted to be very careful about how she answered such a question.

“Those are the kinds of things that for the longest time a scientist wouldn’t dare consider,” she said. “But thank goodness we’ve gone through a kind of cognitive revolution when it comes to studying the intelligence and emotion of other species. In fact, I’d say now that it is my obligation as a scientist not to discount that possibility. We do have compelling evidence of the experience of grief in cetaceans; and of joy, anger, frustration and distress and self-awareness and tool use; and of protecting not just their young but also their companions from humans and other predators. So these are reasons why something like forgiveness is a possibility. And even if it’s not that exactly, I believe it’s something. That there’s something very potent occurring here from a behavioral and a biological perspective. I mean, I’d put my career on the line and challenge anybody to say that these whales are not actively soliciting and engaging in a form of communication with humans, both through eye contact and tactile interaction and perhaps acoustically in ways that we have not yet determined. I find the reality of it far more enthralling than all our past whale mythology.”

US Terror Interrogation Unit

2009-07-20T05:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=56130&s2=19

July 18, 2009

WASHINGTON, AP – The Obama administration is considering creating a special unit of professional interrogators to handle key terror suspects, focusing on intelligence-gathering rather than building criminal cases for prosecution, a government official said Saturday.

The recommendation is expected from a presidential task force on interrogation methods that plans to send some findings to the White House on Tuesday.

The official said the panel, which has not completed its work, has concluded that the unit of intelligence and law enforcement agencies should be created. The task force is unsure which agencies should have a role, though the CIA and FBI are expected to be important players, according to the official. He was not authorized to publicly discuss the panel's work and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Harry Truman, Christian Zionist

2009-07-19T04:43:00.000-07:00

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23098.htm

Harry Truman, a Christian Zionist, remains one of the more notable recipients of funds. In 1948, he was trailing badly in the polls and in fundraising. His prospects brightened dramatically in May after he recognized as a legitimate state an enclave of Jewish extremists who originally planned to settle in Argentina before putting their sights on Palestine.

That recognition was opposed by Secretary of State George C. Marshall, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the bulk of the diplomatic corps, the fledgling Central Intelligence Agency and numerous distinguished Americans, including moderate and secular Jews concerned at the troubles that were certain to follow. Not until 1984 was it revealed that a network of Jewish Zionists had funded Truman’s campaign by financially refueling his whistle-stop campaign train with $400,000 in cash ($3 million in 2009 dollars).

AIPAC

2009-07-19T04:35:00.000-07:00

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article23098.htm

Jewish Achievement reports that 42% of the largest political donors to the 2000 election cycle were Jewish, including four of the top five. That compares to less than 2% of Americans who are Jewish. Of the Forbes 400 richest Americans, 25% are Jewish according to Michael Steinhardt, a key funder of the Democratic Leadership Council. The DLC was led by Jewish Zionist Senator Joe Lieberman when he resigned in 2000 to run as vice president with pro-Israeli presidential candidate Al Gore.

Money was never a constraint. Pro-Israeli donors were limited only by how much they could lawfully contribute to AIPAC-screened candidates. McCain-Feingold raised a key limit. The full impact of this foreign influence has yet to be tallied. What’s known, however, is sufficient to apply the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Of the top 50 neoconservatives who advocated war in Iraq, 26 were Jewish (52%).

Credit Rating

2009-07-18T02:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/credit-rating-credit-score

Universal credit ratings are a myth, they don't exist in the UK. Each lender scores you based on its ‘perfect customer’ wish list. Yet so many people are under this misapprehension, and look for info on it, we've had to deliberately mis-title this article.

This is a step-by-step guide to how banks and others assess you, and how to boost your ability to get mortgages, credit cards and more. It includes details on hidden fraud scoring, a trick to instantly get all your credit files for free, and the unique, quick Credit Checker tool that assesses your history and allows you to work out your credit weakness.

Get a loan, mortgage, overdraft, credit card, contract mobile phone or even monthly car insurance and lenders ‘score’ you to predict your likely behaviour. Scoring systems are never published and differ lender-to-lender, and product-to-product. So just because one company rejects you, it doesn't automatically mean another will.

Credit scoring doesn't just dictate what products you'll receive, but also how good the ones you actually get are. For example, most loan rates are ‘typical', meaning the APR depends on your credit score; with credit cards, if your score's too low for the sexy deal you wanted, you might get accepted but sent a different product.

There are two big myths to clear up though…

Universal credit ‘ratings’ and ‘blacklists’ DON’T exist.

It mightn't feel like that though, as while each lender scores differently, the information they use is similar. A bad risk for one lender is often a bad risk for others too. You'll be given a different credit rating by each of the three credit agencies (a snapshot on the day you get it). But lenders use that score as just one part of their decision to lend, and each lender will look for a different type of borrower.

Lenders aren't obliged to dole out credit.

Applications are aggregated into millions, and banks prefer to deny a few good quality applicants rather than overspend on personalised vetting procedures or accepting large numbers of unprofitable customers.

It’s all about how financially attractive you are...

Many people still find it deeply frustrating that they get rejected. Yet as the saying sometimes goes, “it's not you, it's them”. While it's crucial to check for errors and do all you can to be as attractive to a lender as possible, sometimes you just aren’t what they’re looking for. Think of it like this:

Jane Bank and Sarah Lender are out on the pull. Neither like guys who are overweight, and both are looking for dark hair, dark eyes and good looks. Yet while Jane leans towards guys with a stubble, Sarah likes a clean shaven man. While Jane likes intense men, Sarah values a sense of humour. So while there's lots of guys they both reject without question, and some they both lust after, they can still end up fancying different blokes.

Credit scoring works the same way. Different companies are looking for different things so a rejection by one doesn't necessarily mean a rejection by all. Yet some borrowers are unattractive to almost all lenders so if you're a bad risk most will turn you down. However, a few (very few in the credit crunch) may have a fetish for those with poor credit histories as they can charge more.

And sadly for those rejected, just as when the guys ask Sarah or Jane why they're not interested, they just say: "Cos I don't fancy you," and that's about it. We don't always get to know other than: "Your credit score wasn’t high enough."

The aim of this guide is to make sure that lenders see you in the best possible light, that when they’re looking at you, you’re always dressed up to the nines, looking as hot as you can, and your skirt/shirt isn't tucked into your pants without you knowing.

Credit scoring's about profit not risk...

This is so important, let's make it as clear as possible.

Even good risks can be rejected simply because they won't make the bank money!

Banks pick customers for their own good, NOT yours, so the scoring process is about profit not risk. Of course, risk plays a part, as those unlikely to repay are a threat to profits. Yet even the most solvent may be rejected if they're unlikely to act in a way that'll generate profit for lenders.

The credit crunch has only magnified this. The sooner we understand banks are there to make money, not help us, the better we can play the system

It’s about sophisticated customer weeding

At the high end, the whole process is about lenders picking their perfect customers, and their reasons for rejection can seem bizarre on the outside, but make perfect sense to them. For example…

Credit card companies may reject you for always repaying cards in full.

While you feel like the perfect punter, for credit card companies, you’re a nightmare. If they can spot this trend, you’re likely to be rejected. The most profitable credit card customers are those who are perpetually in debt, never defaulting, but always managing to meet the minimum repayment.

Pay off in full every month, don’t use cards enough, or always shift debt to 0% cards, and if they can spot you, they may reject you.

Banks score you based on products they'd like to sell you in future.

Imagine this scenario: a bank wants new mortgage customers, yet that’s a costly sell. Instead, it draws you in with a current account paying a high rate of interest on a small amount kept in it. Yet, when you apply, rather than scoring you as a bank account customer, it could actually be scoring to see if you’re likely to be a profitable mortgage borrower in the future.

What they know about you
Banks use a variety of information to make their decision whether to lend to you, including data held by three companies known as ‘credit reference agencies’: Experian, Equifax and Callcredit. Yet the info they have is by no means comprehensive.

What banks know about you…

There are three prime sources of information used for scores.

The application form.

Here, lenders obtain the crucial details of your postcode, salary, family size, reason for the loan and whether you're a home owner. Ensure you fill the forms in carefully. One slight slip, such as “£2,000” salary rather than “£20,000”, can immediately kibosh any application and possibly future ones too. See the fraud scoring section

Past dealings with the company.

Companies use any previous dealings with you to help assess your behaviour, though complicated data protection rules can limit which separate units of a company can communicate to each other. This could mean if you've behaved well with one company, but poorly with others, it's more likely to give you credit.

Credit reference agency files.

Experian, Equifax and Callcredit compile information, allowing them to send data on any UK individual to prospective lenders. All lenders use at least one agency when assessing your file. This data comes from five main sources:

Electoral roll information. This is publicly available and contains address and who lives with whom details.

Court records. County Court Judgements (CCJs) and Bankruptcies indicate if you have a history of debt problems.

Search, address and linked data. This includes records of other lenders who've searched your file when you've applied for credit, addresses you're linked to or other people you have a financial association with.

Fraud data. If you've committed a fraud (or someone has stolen your identity and committed fraud) this will be held on your file under the CIFAS section. More on that below.

Account data. Banks, building societies and other organisations compile details of all your payments and transactions on credit/store cards, loans, mortgages, bank accounts and mobile phone contracts. In theory, they could also hold your record of paying utility bills, though few, if any, utility firms submit the necessary data.

Around 350 million records a month are tracked including details 'default data', where you're officially in default, and 'full data' which incorporates how you generally operate the account, from being the model customer to defaulting.

‘Default data’ has always been shared by financial companies but now ‘full data’ is shared too. This means each lender now has access to all information about you from other organisations.

Now, the 'full data' that credit card companies share about you is increasing. From 1 December 2008, Barclaycard, Capital One, GE Money, HBOS and MBNA began sharing a lot more.

As well as your available credit, actual debts, and whether you've missed repayments, they'll include the amount you repay (ie, if it's the minimum, or repaying in full) and whether you've a promotional deal (plus, if you use credit card cash advances, which you NEVER EVER should).

While, overall, the aim is to stop irresponsible lending, we suspect lenders are salivating that they'll now have info to score out those customers who play the system, and constantly shift from 0% to 0% deals.

What banks don't know about you…

There are many myths about what information is held on credit files. Don't be fooled, though. They hold an enormous amount of financial data, but not everything.

The following things are NOT listed on your report that lenders can see:

Parking or Driving Fines. Any fines you have incurred, for example parking or driving fines. Even though they’re issued by the courts they aren’t ‘credit’ issues so they’re not listed.

Race, Religion, Colour. None of these personal details about you are held.

Whether you've checked your file. While this info is held, and does appear when you check your file, it isn't passed on to lenders and doesn't play any role in any assessment of you.

Salary. How much you earn isn't on your file either, though you will usually be asked on the application form.

Savings Accounts. As savings are not a credit product they don’t appear on credit files.

Medical History. Medical problems you may have had in the past aren't listed.

Criminal record. No criminal convictions are listed.

Child Support Agency. Information from the Child Support Agency is excluded.

Information on relatives. Provided you don’t have any joint financial products (see later) there is no information about members of your family who live, or have lived, with you or any other third parties.

Student Loans (for some). Until recently, no info about official Student Loans Company loans was passed to credit reference agencies, unless you had a County Court Judgement (CCJ) against you for lack of payment. That meant they don't know whether you have one or not.

However, in early 2009, the SLC has said it will start including defaults on old-style 'mortgage-loans' which students who started Uni pre-1998 have, as part of credit reference agency data. This doesn't apply to the modern loans which are paid through the tax system.

Declined applications. Lenders can only see whether you've applied for credit elsewhere, not whether you've been accepted or declined. However, they may be able to guess by examining the credit accounts you have open.

Some defaults or missed payments. Usually, these stay on your file for six years, so anything before that may be wiped off. However, if you close an account, then missed payments could remain on your file until the sixth anniversary of account closure. With bankruptcy, it is wiped six years from the date you're declared bankrupt, as long as you're been discharged from the bankruptcy.

Check your credit files for free
As every company uses a different credit scoring procedure, pinpointing how any given one will view you is impossible. Yet keeping an eye on your general credit healthiness is important.

You’ve a statutory right under the Consumer Credit Act to write and get your files, yet this is slow and costs £2 per agency (see the officially checking credit files note). Instead, there’s a trick to instantly get more detailed info online for free at the two main agencies (see the section below). After you’ve done this, have a play with the quick, anonymous credit checker below to see if you can improve your score too.

How many and how often?

If possible, check all three agencies, as there’s no harm. While doing a check is recorded on your file, it does NOT add a ‘credit search’ that a lender can see, so has no impact. It's worth checking because an error can cause you a problem. It’s a good idea to do a check-up roughly every year to 18 months, and always do one in good time before making any important applications.

If time is short and you can only use one, then choose Experian or Equifax.

Check your file for free online...

Credit ratings have become big business. In the old days, the agencies made their money flogging their data to lenders, but our desire for credit means they spotted a lucrative market to sell it back to us too. Luckily, this leaves open a nice loophole.

The top end service offered is ‘credit monitoring', which costs around £70 a year (find out more about other credit services ). To tempt you in, they offer free month-long trials, which require you to set up a Direct Debit or regular credit card payment.

Of course, the aim is you’ll not bother to cancel it when the month’s up so it still drips from your account, so much so, often it may look like you're just signing up for a freebie, until they ask for your card details, that is.

The Trick…

As part of the monitoring service you get to see your credit file online whenever you want, and laid out in a much easier to understand way than if you order the statutory file.

Therefore sign up, then view your file at no cost (you may be able to do this instantly, though may have to be posted a passcode), and then cancel the subscription. Even though they allow 30 days, it's best to cancel straight away, as leave it a month, and you may forget.

The different systems are as follows:

Experian’s Credit Expert.

Details: Credit Expert* offers a ‘free 30-day trial, then £6.99 per month' service which includes your credit report, so if you want your credit reference file just sign up and cancel this. Don’t confuse it with the Credit Score service which costs a one off £5.95.

How to cancel: It makes it very easy, just call the free-phone number 0800 656 9000.

Equifax’s Credit Watch Gold.

Details: Credit Watch Gold* has two options, one at £7.50 a month, but the one you need to choose is the ‘Free for 30 days and then £69.99 for the year'. When you sign up, a payment card will need to be authorised but the £1 fee is not actually charged to your card if you cancel in time.

How to cancel: To request cancellation call 0870 0100583 and quote your account reference.

If you're worried about hassle, then the best system is simply use the official credit checking system.

Get paid to check your file

And even better, you can sometimes get paid up to £7 to check your credit file if you go via a Cashback Websites. It’s worth checking.

What to check on your file
Once you’ve got your credit files, the key is to check the accuracy of the info that banks are judging you on. As we're talking billions of pieces of data, there are always mistakes. So, quite simply…

Check EVERYTHING! One mistake can be a hammer-blow to credit applications

First, the obvious stuff. Are all your debts correctly listed? Are there any inaccuracies on your repayment history?

Yet other details are important too. Check your present and past address details. Errors here can lead to you being judged on someone else's credit history. Also, your finances may be incorrectly linked with someone else's. Focus especially on any currently active accounts. If they're still open, even if you haven't used them for years, it can cause problems.

What to do if there's an error?

If you disagree with anything on your file, just write to the agency and request it's changed. If the agency agrees it should quickly change the file, though sometimes you'll need to talk to the company that originally filed the data.

Unfortunately, sometimes it may refuse to amend your file. If this happens you're entitled to add your own comments as a ‘notice of correction'. This will often mean your credit applications take longer, but it may help you to obtain better deals.

Don't go on too much when explaining the error, though, and don't overly berate. Be concise, explanatory and factual.

Fraud Scoring... the hidden credit killer.
When you apply for a product, it isn't just a case of assessing whether you're desirable, but also checking that the application is legitimate. Therefore, as well as the credit reference agencies, lenders also use completely separate anti-fraud agencies to try and weed out problems. The two big ones work in very different ways

National Hunter. Spots anomolies on application forms, so be consistent

How it operates. This system's much less factual and therefore is prone to greater errors. However, it's used by almost all major banks and building societies, receives 100,000 applications a day and has a real impact, yet is very rarely mentioned.

It works by looking for inconsistencies between your current application form and any past applications you've made, trying to spot factual errors. While it can't block your application itself, it triggers a red warning flag to lenders, and this happens roughly 1 in 20 times. Lenders can then check the info, and either ignore it, or do further checks. They are not allowed to reject you based on the National Hunter ref flag alone.

Things like a number of applications in a few days can also trigger warnings, though generally that's more acceptable with mortgages where it's more common than with credit cards.

What to watch for. It's crucial to be consistent, even over long periods, when you fill in application forms. If you have a number of job titles or phone numbers try and use the same one, on every application. Changes to guidance introduced in 2009 mean lenders are supposed to tell you if National Hunter has been a contributing reason for your rejection.

Check your file. To check the info it holds on you, it's necessary to write to it making a data protection request and enclosing £10. The National Hunter website explains this. This can also be a useful thing to do if you think you're a victim of ID fraud.

What you'll get is effectively a list of the information you've put on past applications. If there's an error on the file, which is possible, you can't correct it directly with National Hunter, you'll need to go back to the lender who submitted that application to have it corrected.

CIFAS: Lists confirmed past fraud

How it operates. It is simply a record of known fraud, so if you're on there, in general, you should know about it. It's also the organisation to speak to if you think you've been a victim of ID fraud. Worryingly, any fraud committed at your address could appear on your CIFAS file, even if you did not commit the fraud.

Though like with National Hunter, a lender cannot refuse your application based on the CIFAS data, but must investigate first. Hopefully, that should prove you were not the perpetrator.

Check your file. The info it holds on you should be contained on your credit report under the CIFAS section. For a £10 fee, you can also request a copy of any files CIFAS holds on you (which is hopefully nothing). Full details on the CIFAS website.

If you've a dispute with the info held, you need to contact the company that logged the information on your CIFAS file first. If you're not happy with the response, once you've recevied a final response letter, you can then contact CIFAS to investigate.

For more information on ID fraud protection see the free ID fraud help guide.

Manage and improve your credit score
Once you know what lenders see, you are in a better position to sway their opinion. You do this by thinking tactically and behaving appropriately. Unfortunately though, there's no magic. After all, every lender does it differently, but there are easy ways to improve the odds.

A quick note, though. You may've seen adverts for credit repair agencies promising to improve your ‘rating' for a fee, yet there's nothing they can legally do that you can't do yourself for nowt (find out more about credit repair agencies ).

The quick Credit Checker tool...

Answering ten quick questions gives you a rough indication of how good a risk you’re likely to be to lenders. Of course, risk isn’t everything, profitability is, but this is a good clue to general attitudes.

Don’t be afraid to play

The most used credit reference agency, Experian*, provided the calculations and data to build this tool, so the results are kosher. Try playing with different answers, and see the impact on your score. Once you’ve pondered the list below and thought what you can possibly improve, plug some different answers into the checker and see if it affects the results.

Improve your credit score...

While it's not an exact science, there are a number of specific things you can do as good practice to improve both your credit score and lenders' attitudes towards you.

Get on the electoral roll.

If you're not on the roll, it's unlikely you'll get any credit. Write to your local council to ensure you are. Do it immediately, don't wait for it to send round the annual forms.

For those who aren't eligible to vote (mainly foreign nationals), send all the credit reference agencies proof of residency and ask them to add a note to verify this.

Time applications correctly.

Lots of credit searches, the notes left on your file when you apply for things, in a short space of time hurt your score. Space out applications, not just for credit but for car insurance, mobile phones and others, as all can leave searches on your file.

Moving house also disrupts a score, so make important applications pre-moving. Plus, you'll score better when you're earning, so if you're about to take time off, go on maternity leave or suspect potential redundancy, apply beforehand - though never lie on applications, if asked.

Building a good credit history/repairing past problems.

Credit scoring tries to predict your behaviour. If you've no credit history it's more difficult for lenders to do this, so you're more likely to be rejected. Therefore, both for those with poor and no credit histories, you need to build a good one.

Use ‘expensive’ credit cards.

If you can't get credit, sadly, the solution is apply for hideous 30%-ish rate credit cards offered by the likes of Barclaycard Initial*, Capital One Classic*, Monument, Aquacard* and Vanquis*

You can also try the special Smartsearch from comparison site MoneySupermarket*, which effectively assesses your credit worthiness (a bit like our Credit Checker), then tries to match you up with the best card.

Importantly, it doesn’t do a credit search, as that itself would hit your credit score. Instead, it just asks a few basic credit history questions and works with credit reference agency Equifax to give a rough and ready assessment, followed by indicating ‘suitable cards’.

To help rebuild your credit rating, you can use these for six to twelve months, spending a little every month. It's even better if you can use two cards to build more data. But there is a vital golden rule....

Strictly repay EVERY month, in FULL, so there's no interest cost.

After that, you should've built a credit history allowing you to move into the mainstream. This tactic is also useful for those who've defaulted in the past.

As a last resort pay for a special prepaid card.

If you've been rejected for cards like this, there is a 'last resort' solution. The Cashplus Creditbuilder* is a prepaid card costing £9.95, meaning you have to load it with cash before spending, rather than having a credit facility.

Cunningly, it charges a £4.95 monthly fee, which technically counts as a £59.40/year loan. As long as you pay the fee every month for a year, this info will be passed on to credit reference agency Experian.

Crucially, though, no credit check is needed to get the card. Once you've made 12 payments, it should show on your credit history as a fully repaid loan agreement, making you a more attractive customer (to those companies that use Experian for credit scoring, which is the vast majority of them) and hopefully meaning you can apply for better credit card and loan deals. Though you are, of course, paying £70 for it!

For more details on this, including pros and cons, read Cashplus Creditbuilder discussion.

Keep up payments and never be late.

Always try to follow at least the minimum repayment plan for your financial products. Even if you're struggling, don't default or miss payments. Doing this once or twice could cause problems that can cost you for years (though you may be able to get past charges back – see Bank Charges Reclaiming article). Though those in the previous 12 months will hurt you the most.

If you are in difficulties, the cliché 'contact your lender' is a good one. Hopefully, it will try and help a little. Changing your repayment schedule is preferable to you defaulting - and though it will hit your credit score, it's better than a County Court Judgment (CCJ) against you.

For repaying credit cards, the simplest method is to set up a Direct Debit to repay it each month. Then, you'll always hit the key criteria. If you have to, just do it for the minimum repayment, but then always try and pay extra by web, phone or post to get rid of the debt quicker (see the minimum repayments guide)

Marriage doesn't hurt, joint finances do.

Simply marrying or living with someone with a bad credit score shouldn't impact your finances, as third-party data (ie, someone else's info) doesn't appear on your file.

Yet if you're 'financially linked' to someone on any product, it can have an impact. Even just a joint bills account for flat sharers can mean you are co-scored. If one partner has a poor history, keep your finances rigidly separate, and it should maintain access to good credit for the other.

In fact, there are only two common products that can infer financial linking: mortgages and joint bank accounts. As a note, there's no such thing as a ‘joint' credit card. Technically, it's one person's account and the other just has access to it. It is technically possible that joint utility bills could be reported on credit files, though current practice is not to do so.

If you split up with someone you've joint finances with, once the accounts are separated or no longer active, always write to the credit reference agencies and ask for a notice of 'disassociation', to stop their credit history affecting yours in future.

Get a 'quotation search' not a 'credit search'.

If you're just trying to get a specific quote for a loan, ask the lender to do a ‘quotation search' and not a ‘credit search'. This means the enquiry won't have a negative impact on your credit score. Sadly, many lenders haven't yet adopted this practice, but it is worth asking. If not, consider whether you really want to get a quote - if it's unlikely you'll get the product, don't bother.

In both the Personal Loan and Credit Card Balance Transfer articles, there are details on special comparisons available to find out who's likely to accept you, without actually applying. Plus the credit checker gives you an idea for free of the type of cards you’ll get.

Frankly, this situation is a disgrace, we should have a right to know the rate you’ll get before applications go on credit files. Apply for a product and it puts a search on your credit file which hits your credit score, yet many products are rate for risk, without applying you can’t know the rate. This vicious circle thats hurts comparing products should be stopped. Until it does, be careful.

Evidence of stability is good.

Home owners rather than renters, and those who are employed, rather than self-employed, tend to be accepted more. Putting a fixed (land) line rather than a mobile number on application forms can help with security checks and improve your chances. Being with the same employer, bank and current address for a while all help too.

Check the address on all active accounts.

You may not have used your old mobile contract or credit card for five years, but if the account is still listed as open and you had a different address this can stymie applications due to ID checks. Check your file and go through every active account's address to ensure it's up to date.

Avoid the ‘rejection spiral'.

There’s a nightmare scenario you need to avoid, called the rejection spiral. It works like this:

You apply.
You get rejected (sometimes falsely, due to an error).
You apply elsewhere.
You get rejected again.

This continues, until finally you check your files and get the error corrected.

You apply again
You’re rejected, not due to the error, but because of all the recent ‘searches’.

Thus, if you're rejected once, immediately check the files are correct, otherwise you may mess up your score for an age as more applications mean more searches, which compounds the problem. You'll be told by the lender which credit reference agency it used to assess your info, so focus on that.

It is possible after an error to get successive searches wiped, but it involves negotiation both with the agency and the lender, and isn't easy.

The rejection spiral also applies when you apply for credit normally reserved for those with an 'excellent' score when you, say, only have a good score (sadly, many lenders do not publish their criteria so it's difficult to know in advance). So you're a perfectly acceptable risk for most, yet once you get that first rejection, it can harm your chances of getting further credit because a search has been registered. So check your file and call lenders you plan to apply to in advance to check.

Dealing with defaults on your file.

One of the major problems people face are past debt defaults on your file, these can easily hamper most apppications to get new credit and if they're genuine and fair are tough to deal with. There are a few things you can try though especially if the default is unfair.

Complain to the Ombudsman. First write to the company and complain the default isn't fair and lay out your terms. Ask it to wipe the fault from your file, which it can do if it's disputed. If that fails, complain to the Financial Ombudsman the free independent arbiteur of disputes, it can rule both that the debt is unfair and that the default can be wiped.

Negotiate with the lender. If you are prepared to settle the debt, either in part or in full, then you can enter a negotiation with whomever you owe the money. As part of this you can make a condition of settlement that the default is wiped off your credit file. Companies are allowed to do this for disputed defaults.

Add a 'Notice of Correction'. If all else fails, and you believe the default's justifiably unfair, add a notice of correction to the file explaining the problem eg,saying: "It was a joint account and the debt was run up once I no longer had access by my errant ex-husband/wife." This will slow applications down, as most companies will look at it manually, but as a substantial default is likely to stop you getting credit anyway, that's usually not a problem, providing it helps.

Cancel unused credit cards, debts and accounts.

Access to too much credit, even if it isn't used, can be a problem. If you have a range of unused credit cards, cancel most of them; this lowers your available credit and should help (see the Cancel Old Cards article for full info on what to close when).

However long standing bank accounts with good credit histories can be a benefit to your credit score, so they're often best left open.

Use any savings to pay off debts.

The amount of outstanding debt you have is part of the info lenders have access to, so minimising this is a clever strategy. In general, you’ll be better off by using savings to pay off expensive debts anyway (read Pay off Debts with Savings).

With the credit crunch biting, this is particularly true if the product you’re applying for is a mortgage. People who haven’t paid much of their mortgage debt off are struggling to get decent new deals (see the Remortgage guide).

For those with an LTV (Loan to Value ratio) of over 90%, meaning your mortgage debt is at least 90% of the house’s value, getting a new mortgage has become very difficult. For those with an 80% to 90% LTV you should get a new deal, but it won’t be too cheap.

So if you have savings, and can use them to significantly lower your mortgage borrowing, enabling you to get a better deal, it's often worth doing. The extra amount your savings will earn isn’t likely to be as much as the benefit from a cheaper mortgage. Read Should I Pay Off My Mortgage?

And a final thought. Though it may be tempting, lying on your application form doesn't help. Firstly it's an offence, but also if lenders can't corroborate your information you may well get rejected anyway.

33 Secrets to a Good Night's Sleep

2009-07-18T02:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.mercola.com/article/sleep.htm

If you are having sleep problems, whether you are not able to fall asleep, wake up too often, don't feel well-rested when you wake up in the morning, or simply want to improve the quality and quantity of your sleep, try as many of the following techniques below as possible:

My current favorite for insomnia is Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). Most people can learn this gentle tapping technique in several minutes.

EFT can help balance your body's bioenergy system and resolve some of the emotional stresses that are contributing to the insomnia at a very deep level. The results are typically long lasting and the improvement is remarkably rapid.

Listen to white noise or relaxation CDs. Some people find the sound of white noise or nature sounds, such as the ocean or forest, to be soothing for sleep. An excellent relaxation/meditation option to listen to before bed is the Insight audio CD.

Avoid before-bed snacks, particularly grains and sugars. This will raise blood sugar and inhibit sleep. Later, when blood sugar drops too low (hypoglycemia), you might wake up and not be able to fall back asleep.

Sleep in complete darkness or as close as possible. If there is even the tiniest bit of light in the room it can disrupt your circadian rhythm and your pineal gland's production of melatonin and seratonin. There also should be as little light in the bathroom as possible if you get up in the middle of the night. Please whatever you do, keep the light off when you go to the bathroom at night. As soon as you turn on that light you will for that night immediately cease all production of the important sleep aid melatonin.

No TV right before bed. Even better, get the TV out of the bedroom or even out of the house, completely. It is too stimulating to the brain and it will take longer to fall asleep. Also disruptive of pineal gland function for the same reason as above.

Wear socks to bed. Due to the fact that they have the poorest circulation, the feet often feel cold before the rest of the body. A study has shown that this reduces night wakings (Click Here).

Read something spiritual or religious. This will help to relax. Don't read anything stimulating, such as a mystery or suspense novel, as this may have the opposite effect. In addition, if you are really enjoying a suspenseful book, you might wind up unintentionally reading for hours, instead of going to sleep.

Avoid using loud alarm clocks. It is very stressful on the body to be awoken suddenly. If you are regularly getting enough sleep, they should be unnecessary. I gave up my alarm clock years ago and now use a sun alarm clock. The Sun Alarm™ SA-2002 provides an ideal way to wake up each morning if you can't wake up with the REAL sun. Combining the features of a traditional alarm clock (digital display, AM/FM radio, beeper, snooze button, etc) with a special built-in light that gradually increases in intensity, this amazing clock simulates a natural sunrise. It also includes a sunset feature where the light fades to darkness over time - ideal for anyone who has trouble falling asleep.

Journaling. If you often lay in bed with your mind racing, it might be helpful keep a journal and write down your thoughts before bed. Personally, I have been doing this for 15 years, but prefer to do it in the morning when my brain is functioning at its peak and my coritsol levels are high (CLICK HERE)

Melatonin and its precursors. If behavioral changes do not work, it may be possible to improve sleep by supplementing with the hormone melatonin. Ideally it is best to increase levels naturally with exposure to bright sunlight in the daytime (along with full spectrum fluorescent bulbs in the winter) and absolute complete darkness at night. One should get blackout drapes so no light is coming in from the outside. One can also use one of melatonin's precursors, L-tryptophan or 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP). L-tryptophan is obtainable by prescription only. However, don't be afraid or intimidated by its prescription status. It is just a simple amino acid.

Get to bed as early as possible. Our systems, particularly the adrenals, do a majority of their recharging or recovering during the hours of 11 p.m. and 1 a.m. In addition, your gallbladder dumps toxins during this same period. If you are awake, the toxins back up into the liver which then secondarily back up into your entire system and cause further disruption of your health. Prior to the widespread use of electricity, people would go to bed shortly after sundown, as most animals do, and which nature intended for humans as well.

Check your bedroom for electro-magnetic fields (EMFs). These can disrupt the pineal gland and the production of melatonin and seratonin, and may have other negative effects as well. To purchase a gauss meter to measure EMFs try Cutcat at 800-497-9516. They have a model for around $40. One doctor even recommends that people pull their circuit breaker before bed to kill all power in the house (Dr. Herbert Ross, author of "Sleep Disorders").

Keep the temperature in the bedroom no higher than 70 degrees F. Many people keep their homes and particularly the upstairs bedrooms too hot.

Eat a high-protein snack several hours before bed. This can provide the L-tryptophan need to produce melatonin and serotonin.

Also eat a small piece of fruit. This can help the tryptophan cross the blood-brain barrier.

Reduce or avoid as many drugs as possible. Many medications, both prescription and over-the-counter may have effects on sleep. In most cases, the condition, which caused the drugs to be taken in the first place, can be addressed by following the guidelines elsewhere on this web site.

Avoid caffeine. A recent study showed that in some people, caffeine is not metabolized efficiently and therefore they can feel the effects long after consuming it. So an afternoon cup of coffee (or even tea) will keep some people from falling asleep. Also, some medications, particularly diet pills contain caffeine.

Alarm clocks and other electrical devices. If these devices must be used, keep them as far away from the bed as possible, preferably at least 3 feet.

Avoid alcohol. Although alcohol will make people drowsy, the effect is short lived and people will often wake up several hours later, unable to fall back asleep. Alcohol will also keep you from falling into the deeper stages of sleep, where the body does most of its healing.

Lose weight. Being overweight can increase the risk of sleep apnea, which will prevent a restful nights sleep. CLICK HERE for my diet recommendations.

Avoid foods that you may be sensitive to. This is particularly true for dairy and wheat products, as they may have effect on sleep, such as causing apnea, excess congestion, gastrointestinal upset, and gas, among others.

Don't drink any fluids within 2 hours of going to bed. This will reduce the likelihood of needing to get up and go to the bathroom or at least minimize the frequency.

Take a hot bath, shower or sauna before bed. When body temperature is raised in the late evening, it will fall at bedtime, facilitating sleep,

Remove the clock from view. It will only add to your worry when constantly staring at it... 2 a.m. ...3 a.m. ... 4:30 a.m. ...

Keep your bed for sleeping. If you are used to watching TV or doing work in bed, you may find it harder to relax and to think of the bed as a place to sleep.

Have your adrenals checked by a good natural medicine clinician. Scientists have found that insomnia may be caused by adrenal stress (Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, August 2001; 86:3787-3794).

If you are menopausal or perimenopausal, get checked out by a good natural medicine physician. The hormonal changes at this time may cause problems if not properly addressed.

Don't change your bedtime. You should go to bed, and wake up, at the same times each day, even on the weekends. This will help your body to get into a sleep rhythm and make it easier to fall asleep and get up in the morning.

Make certain you are exercising regularly. Exercising for at least 30 minutes everyday can help you fall asleep. However, don't exercise too close to bedtime or it may keep you awake. Studies show exercising in the morning is the best if you can do it.

Establish a bedtime routine. This could include meditation, deep breathing, using aromatherapy or essential oils or indulging in a massage from your partner. The key is to find something that makes you feel relaxed, then repeat it each night to help you release the day's tensions.

Go to the bathroom right before bed. This will reduce the chances that you'll wake up to go in the middle of the night.

Wear an eye mask to block out light. As said above, it is very important to sleep in as close to complete darkness as possible. That said, it's not always easy to block out every stream of light using curtains, blinds or drapes, particularly if you live in an urban area (or if your spouse has a different schedule than you do). In these cases, an eye mask can help to block out the remaining light.

Put your work away at least one hour (but preferably two or more) before bed. This will give your mind a chance to unwind so you can go to sleep feeling calm, not hyped up or anxious about tomorrow's deadlines.

Arafat, Abu Mazen, Sharon, Farouk Kaddoumi

2009-07-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/07/200971683533717728.html

Farouk Kaddoumi, a Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) official, has told Al Jazeera he stands by documents that he says show that Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, was involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Yasser Arafat, his predecessor.

Abbas's Fatah party has dismissed Kaddoumi's claim that Abbas had in a meeting with Ariel Sharon, the ex-Israeli prime minister, discussed Arafat's killing.

Kaddoumi, the head of the political department of the PLO and the second-most senior leader of Fatah, first levelled the allegations on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, he defended his charge and said: "I have not made accusations against anyone, but I have meeting transcripts which accuse people … Transcripts of meetings between Sharon, Abu Mazen [Abbas], and [former Palestinian security adviser Mohammed] Dahlan.

"I have not accused anyone. I just offered a document. If the document, as they claim, has no basis, they are welcome to prove their point.

"However, I strongly believe that the document is an original one and all information included in it is correct. And, since 2004 until today, the actions of some members of the Palestinian Authority have definitely proven to me that these issues are correct."

Arafat died in a Paris hospital in November 2004 after falling into a coma
================================================================================
http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=56059&s2=17

Comrade Mallouh calls for full and independent investigation into the death of Arafat
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -PFLP

July 16, 2009

Comrade Abdel-Rahim Mallouh, Deputy General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine called for a full and independent investigation into the death of former President Yasser Arafat in order to fully determine who is responsible for his death.

Comrade Mallouh called for this commission of inquiry on July 15, 2009 when asked about recent allegations and documents raised by Farouk al-Qaddumi, Fateh general secretary, accusing Mahmoud Abbas and Mohammed Dahlan of conspiring with Israel to eliminate Arafat and other key Palestinian political leaders. He noted that the PFLP has always called for such an investigation and that it is very much needed.

He stated further that no statement had been issued by the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, as the committee has not met for over 2 weeks, dismissing recent statements attributed to the Executive Committee denouncing Qaddumi. Comrade Mallouh called for an end to the misuse of the name of the Executive Committee of the PLO in making such statements.

For reference purposes, and because it has not been widely distributed in English, we present the alleged transcript released by Qaddumi below. This is alleged by Qaddumi to be a transcript of a meeting between former Israeli prime minister and war criminal Ariel Sharon, Mahmoud Abbas, Muhammad Dahlan, and a U.S. delegation, that took place in 2003 before the Aqaba summit. Discussion of these allegations is the excuse that was provided in order to shut down Al-Jazeera offices in the West Bank by the PA in Ramallah under Salam Fayyad. In the interests of presenting information to the people, the document is below:

Meeting Transcript

Sharon: I insisted on this meeting before the summit so we can finalize all security matters and put these final touches so as not to encounter any confusion or discrepancies in the future.

Dahlan: If you didn’t ask for this meeting, I would have.

Sharon: To begin with, work must begin on eliminating all the military and political leaders of Hamas, Jihad, Al-Aqsa Brigades and the Popular Front so as to create a state of chaos in their ranks that will allow you to pounce on them easily.

Abu Mazen: In this way, we will inevitably fail. We won’t be able to get rid of them or confront them.

Sharon: So then what’s your plan?

Dahlan: We told you our plan and informed you of it. And to the Americans, in writing. We need first to have a period of quiet so we can wrest control over all of the security services and all of the institutions.

Sharon: As long as Arafat is planted in al-Muqata'a watching you in Ramallah, you will certainly fail. This fox will surprise you as he did in the past. Because he knows what you intend to do. And he will work towards your failure and delay you. He’ll proclaim, as the street does, that you are being used for the "dirty era."

Dahlan: We’ll see who uses the other.

Sharon: The first step needs to be to kill Arafat through poisoning. I do not want him exiled, except if there are guarantees from the involved states that he will be under house arrest, otherwise Arafat will return to living on a plane.

Abu Mazen: If Arafat dies before we are able to have control on the ground and all the institutions, and over Fateh, and the Al Aqsa Brigades, then we will face great complications.

Sharon: To the contrary you will not control anything as long as Arafat is alive.

Abu Mazen: The plan needs to be where we pass everything through Arafat. This will be more successful for us and for you. During the period of clashing with Palestinian organizations and the assassination of its leadership and its membership - these matters will bring with them consequences for Arafat himself. And he can’t say to the people that this is the work of Abu Mazen. But it is the work of the head of the PA. I know Arafat well. He will not accept to be on the margins. He wants to be the leader even if he has lost all options, and when he has no option in front of him but civil war. Even then he prefers to be the leader.

Sharon: You used to say before Camp David that Arafat is the last to know and Barak, Clinton and Tenet were surprised that he is free in deciding who surrounds him. Perhaps you do not learn from the past.

Dahlan: We have now gone about creating an apparatus composed of the police and the Preventative Security, numbering over 1800. This combination is so that we are able to integrate those you nominated on the basis that each of the police and the PS, will believe that the members are from the other apparatus. We can increase where we want. We are now putting all the officers from all the agencies before difficult choices. We’ll squeeze them by all means so they follow us. And we will work to isolate all the officers who will be an obstacle for us. And we will not wait. We have started to work intensely. And we put the most dangerous figures from Hamas and Jihad and Al-Aqsa Brigades under surveillance. So that if you were to now ask me the most dangerous five people, I would be able to tell you their location with precision. This facilitates your quick response for any activity that takes place against you. We are now working on penetrating the Palestinian organizations forcefully, so in the coming period we will be able to dismember and eliminate them.

Sharon: You will find me supportive of you from the skies for the targets that are difficult for you. But I fear that Arafat has penetrated you, and has leaked your plans to Hamas, Jihad and others.

Dahlan: This structure has no relation to Arafat, not from near, nor from far, with the exception that the members of each entity receive their salaries from the Ministry of Finance [in which Salam Fayyad was then minister of finance, under the government of Abu Alaa, Ahmed Qureia]. We were able to deduct for the apparatus a specific budget to be able to cover all the expenses and Arafat is losing control. We will not leave him alone in this stage.

Sharon: We need to make it easier for you to liquidate the leaders of Hamas by way of creating a problem from the outset, so we can kill all the military and political leaders. In doing so we will pave the way for you to take control on the ground.

Abu Mazen: In this way we will fail entirely and we will not be able to accomplish anything from the plan. Rather the situation will explode without control.

The American delegation: We see Dahlan’s plan is good. And we need to give them a period of quiet so as to achieve full control and you need to withdraw for them from some of the areas to allow the Palestinian police to take over security. And if any operation takes place, you return and you reoccupy the area harshly, so the people feel that those fighters are a disaster upon them, and that they are the ones who force the Israeli army to return from the areas from which they has departed.

Sharon: Abu Mazen himself used to advise us that we should not withdraw before liquidating the infrastructure of terror not to reward it.

Abu Mazen: Yes I advised you of that but you did not succeed in that until now. I thought that you would succeed with this more quickly.

Dahlan: The levers of success are in our hands. Arafat has begun to lose control over matters bit by bit and we have begun to take control over institutions more than in the past in addition to the joint security force from the Preventive Security and the police. It is under Col. Hamdi Al-Riffi. You know him well. And we sent you all the documents concerning these matters in detail. What is important here is that this force does not submit to Arafat, and takes no orders from him. We will begin our work in the north of the Gaza strip as a beginning. As for the Al-Aqsa Brigades, soon it will be like an open book before us. We have put in place a plan so that they will have a single leader, and he will liquidate anyone who hinders us.

Sharon: I agree to this plan. And so that it quickly succeeds, and doesn’t take a long time, there is a need to kill all the most important political leaders, besides the military leaders. Like Rantisi [Hamas leader], Abdallah Shami [Islamic Jihad leader], Zahhar [Hamas leader], and Abu Shanab [Hamas leader] and Haniyeh [Hamas leader], Majdalawi [PFLP leader] Mohammed Al Hindi [Islamic Jihad leader], Nafez Azzam [Islamic Jihad leader].

Abu Mazen: This will explode the situation and will make us lose control on all affairs. We need to start to work for a hudna, so we can control the situation on the ground. This will be more successful for you and for us.

Dahlan: Without a doubt, there is need for your support of us in the field. I support the killing of Rantisi and Abdalla Shami because those, if killed, will create confusion and a large vacuum in the ranks of Hamas and Jihad. Because they are the effective leadership.

Sharon: Now you have begun to get it, Dahlan.

Dahlan: But not now. It’s necessary for you to withdraw for us from large parts of Gaza so we can have the stronger argument, before the people. And when Hamas and Islamic Jihad violates the hudna, you can kill them.

Sharon: And if they don’t violate the hudna? Are you going to leave them to organize and prepare operations against us so that we will be surprised that this hudna worked against us?

Dahlan: They will not be patient on the hudna while their organizations are being dismantled. Then they will break the ceasefire. After that will be the chance to go after them. Then it is your grace, Sharon.

The American delegation: This is a reasonable and logical solution.

Sharon: I will not forget when you used to say to the Labor Party and even to us that you have control of everything, and the reality proved the opposite. Allow me to guide the way my own special way.

Abu Mazen: The first condition in the Road Map stipulates that you undertake steps supporting in confronting terror. We see that the best support that you can give us is to give us a part of the Gaza Strip so that we will be able to exercise control over it. We told you that we will not allow any authority other than us to exist on the ground.

Sharon: We told you more than once that supportive steps means that we will support you in fighting terror, i.e. with planes and tanks.

Abu Mazen: This is not support for us.

Thomas Pickering

2009-07-16T08:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/pers-j15.shtml

Toward the end of his article, Dreyfuss quotes “Tom” Pickering, whom he indentifies as “a veteran US diplomat who’s been involved in unofficial talks with Iranian counterparts.”

Thomas Pickering is a long-time US State Department operative who served as US ambassador to El Salvador in the 1980s and was implicated in the Reagan administration’s Iran-Contra scheme to illegally fund the US proxy war against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. He later served as US ambassador to Israel, US ambassador to the United Nations and, under Clinton, as US ambassador to Russia.

Pickering sits on the board of directors for the American-Iranian Council. This organization was granted permission by the US government to open an office in Iran, making it, according to Wikipedia, “the only US-based peace and conflict resolution non-governmental organization operating in Iran.”

There can be little doubt about the character of Pickering’s “unofficial talks with Iranian counterparts.”

Richard Dreyfuss

2009-07-16T08:29:00.000-07:00

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/pers-j15.shtml

The World Socialist Web Site has pointed out Dreyfuss’s curious credentials as a supposed proponent of democracy in Iran. A former member of the fascistic organization led by Lyndon LaRouche, Dreyfuss was “Middle East intelligence director” of its magazine Executive Intelligence Review. In 1981, Dreyfuss published a book—Hostage to Khomeini—calling for the Reagan administration to organize the overthrow of the Islamic Republic and denouncing President Jimmy Carter for having betrayed the Shah.

The current issue of the Nation features a lengthy article by Dreyfuss entitled “Iran’s Green Wave.” What is remarkable about this article is its frank characterization of the forces that dominate the Iranian opposition and the reactionary and anti-working class policies upon which it is based.

Israel to hold missile test in US

2009-07-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=55997&s2=15

July 14, 2009

Israel is set to hold a missile test on a US missile range in the Pacific Ocean in an exercise that will also see the US test three missile defence systems, a senior US general has said.

The test site will allow Israel to measure its Arrow interceptor missile system against a target at a range of more than 1,000km, Army Lieutenant General Patrick O'Reilly, director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, said on Tuesday.

"They [Israel] are having a flight test soon this summer," he said.

"They are limited to the range of the missile they can test in the eastern Mediterranean. There's a safety issue.

"That's the primary purpose of them coming to the United States to use our test range."

The Arrow system, which was developed by Israel and the United States, is intended to defend Israel against possible ballistic missile attacks from Iran and Syria.

Michael Jackson

2009-07-16T07:22:00.000-07:00

.......Jackson, by the end, was heavily in debt and had weathered a $22 million out-of-court settlement payment to Jordy Chandler, as well as seven counts of child sexual abuse and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent in order to commit a felony......

Control by the few

2009-07-15T14:43:00.000-07:00

Good old days the people in the western world, didn't have controls on them. So they did things like going to the moon. Those days there were not many restrictions put on people by the adminstration. There are so many people pen pushing and do research into various ways we live. They sort of live in a different world where they get more money than the rest of the people. They have their own world. They do not mix with the others. They live in a closseted secretive world. But they determine whow we live.

There was a time when everyone applauded when dergulation came about. But derulation is just change in the existing laws, create a differnt work force and carry on as isual. The loop holes in the system is found out by a few people in the work force, who rip the sytem in various ways, and sometimes bring the whole system down.

Iranian Jews Israel Ahmadinejad

2009-07-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1246443737189&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

During the 1979 Islamic Revolution, many Mashadi Jews fled to the United States, primarily New York City - where some 6,000 Jews with ties to Mashad now live. There are almost no Jews in Mashad today, though an estimated 25,000 still live in Iran, concentrated in Teheran.

"They've found it very safe and pleasant, no problems," said Bahman Kamali, founder of the federation. "Actually, the regime during [the time of reformist president Mohammad] Khatami and the regime now have been very good with Jewish people. There has not been any problem."
Despite unrest and violence following last month's presidential elections in Iran, some Jewish Iranians living in Israel and abroad say life in the Islamic republic is better under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than it would be under challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi.

At a conference of Iranian Jews in Jerusalem on Monday, leaders of the Mashadi Jewish community said that despite Ahmadinejad's blustery rhetoric against Israel, Iran is a safe place for Jews to practice their religion.

"Ahmadinejad speaks badly about Jews, but he is preferable to Mousavi," said Shlomo Zabihi, a Mashadi rabbi. The current government is relatively stable and provides a safe environment for Jews, he said.

Monday's event marked the first meeting of the Global Mashadi Jewish Federation, an umbrella organization of community and religious groups preserving the historical and cultural identity of Jews from Mashad, Iran's second largest city, with a population of about 2.5 million.

Neal Lewington

2009-07-15T14:12:00.000-07:00

White Supremacist???????

Jose Couso and a Ukrainian cameraman, Taras Protsyuk

2009-07-15T13:31:00.000-07:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8150596.stm

A Spanish court has thrown out charges against three US soldiers over the death of a Spanish journalist in Iraq.

The National Court said that there was no new evidence to suggest that the troops had acted incorrectly in the 2003 incident.

Jose Couso and a Ukrainian cameraman, Taras Protsyuk, were killed when a tank shell was fired at the Palestine hotel in Baghdad, known to house journalists.

A US inquiry in 2004 concluded that the three soldiers had done nothing wrong.

Sgt Thomas Gibson, Capt Philip Wolford and Lt Col Philip de Camp said they thought they were being shot at when they opened fire.

The National Court dropped the murder charges against the soldiers last year, ruling there was "insufficient evidence" to continue with the trial.

But investigative magistrate Santiago Pedraz reinstated the case in May, citing new evidence.

In its ruling, the National Court's three-judge panel recommended that the case be closed. There can be no appeal against the ruling.

All-White Swimming Pool

2009-07-15T06:08:00.000-07:00

http://www.alternet.org/rights/141311/the_valley_club%27s_exclusive_all-white_swimming_pool_--_let%27s_protest_and_stage_a_pee-in/

And so it was just the other day, when a swim club on the outskirts of Philadelphia made the news after expelling from their pool a summer camp group of approximately sixty kids of color from the city. Not because they had done anything wrong--no bad behavior, no inappropriate conduct, nothing like that, as they had just arrived and most of the children hadn't even had a chance to enter the pool yet--and not because they had crashed the private environs uninvited (the camp had paid over $1900 for the right to swim there once a week), but because, as club president, John Duesler explained in a letter: the kids would "change the complexion and atmosphere" of the club. Got that? The complexion.

Of course, Duesler, about whom I'll have more to say in a minute, insists that the decision wasn't racial. Yet several of the youth denied access to the pool overheard a white club member openly complaining about the arrival of the "black kids," and all but a few of the white children swimming when they arrived were yanked from the pool by their parents, in a move reminiscent of the 1950s, suggesting that the club's racism is not some inanimate institutional force, but a lived reality for many of its white members as well. One woman at the club, for instance, fretted openly that the black kids might "do something" to her child. Of course, because that's what fifth graders from the 'hood do: they roll out to the 'burbs, pretending to be interested in swimming, when really, the plan is to find some white kids and cut 'em the hell up, in some kinda pee-wee gang initiation ritual. Of course.

That the expulsion was racial is beyond dispute, or at least should be. The club knew how many kids were going to be there when they accepted the membership fee, so they can't claim they were overwhelmed by the size of the group, although they seem to be offering that as their excuse now that the story has gone public. And this excuse is one they offer, despite the fact that a mere twelve days before they expelled the black kids, the same club, in the same pool, hosted nearly 80 children (78 of whom were white), from four 6th grade classes from a local school. Apparently white children, even when they are part of a group that is almost one-third larger, magically don't take up as much space.

7/7

2009-07-14T05:48:00.000-07:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1197419/Conspiracy-fever-As-rumours-swell-government-staged-7-7-victims-relatives-proper-inquiry.html

The country's worst-ever terrorist atrocity during London's morning rush hour on July 7, 2005, shattered for ever the heady euphoria in which the capital was basking the morning after winning the bid for the 2012 Olympics. That afternoon, Tony Blair - who was hosting the G8 summit on global poverty in Gleneagles, Scotland - returned to Downing Street to pronounce that the attack was an act in the 'name of Islam'. Later, at a meeting of the Government's national emergency committee COBRA, London's anti-terror police chief Andy Hayman told senior ministers that he suspected suicide bombers. And so the story of 7/7 that we have come to accept was pieced together: four British Muslims ... blew themselves up using home-made explosives, killing 56 and injuring 700 on three Tube trains and a double-decker bus. But families of the dead victims and an increasing number of 7/7 survivors claim there are inconsistencies and basic mistakes in the official accounts that need explanation. And they are demanding a full public inquiry to answer key questions about what the Intelligence Services and the police did and did not know before the bombings. Meanwhile, the Government's determined refusal to meet their demands is having a very dangerous side-effect - fuelling myriad conspiracy theories about 7/7. Books, blogs and several video documentaries point to oddities in the official accounts. [Some] of them suggest that the attacks were not the work of Muslim terrorists at all, but were carried out by the Government to boost support for the Iraq war. The survivors are so intent on an independent inquiry that they are now taking legal action in the High Court.

Feds, China etc

2009-07-13T05:14:00.000-07:00

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aKLGZEc7qoqA#

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Returning from China last month, U.S. Congressman Mark Kirk had a bearish take on a high-level visit by American officials.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner claimed the U.S.’s biggest creditor voiced great confidence in its debt. Kirk, an Illinois Republican, came back with the opposite impression.

“China is beginning to cancel Congress’s credit card,” he told Fox News on June 10. It “doesn’t want to lend much more money to the United States and especially is worried about the Fed’s policy of printing money to buy new debt.”

A month later, there’s no doubt about whose assessment was more accurate. Chinese leaders are clearly very concerned about the dollar. How they will react is a key question hanging over markets, and it’s time to take the discussion to the next level.

Everyone knows China wants to reduce its dollar holdings. Little is known about how that process may unfold and how much work and preparation needs to go into it. Lots, in fact.

Think of China and the U.S. in history’s most expensive divorce. The two economies total $17 trillion of output, and polls in China show little support for adding to almost $800 billion of U.S. Treasuries.

This argument can be broadened to the rest of Asia. The idea that China or Japan -- with $686 billion of Treasuries -- can just start selling massive blocks of dollars is ridiculous. It would devastate markets the world over and the fallout would boomerang back on Asia. If you think markets are shaky now, just wait until word of a central-bank fire sale gets around.

Copycat Selling

Sure, Singapore (with $40 billion of Treasuries), India ($39 billion) or South Korea ($35 billion) could try to dump dollars on the stealth. Good luck in this highly connected, around-the-clock world. News that a key economy seeks a first- mover advantage over peers would inspire copycat selling. Expect investors and traders to respond with massive sell orders.
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http://www.alternet.org/politics/141373/a_dark_hole_of_democracy:_how_the_fed_prints_money_out_of_thin_air/?cID=1264218#c1264218

.....During the past year, the Fed has flooded the streets with money -- distributing trillions of dollars to banks, financial markets and commercial interests -- in an attempt to revive the credit system and get the economy growing again. As a result, the awesome authority of this cloistered institution is visible to many ordinary Americans for the first time. People and politicians are shocked and confused, and also angered, by what they see. They are beginning to ask some hard questions for which Federal Reserve governors do not have satisfactory answers.

Where did the central bank get all the money it is handing out? Basically, the Fed printed it, out of thin air. That is what central banks do. Who told the Fed governors they could do this? Nobody, really -- not Congress or the president. The Federal Reserve Board, alone among government agencies, does not submit its budgets to Congress for authorization and appropriation. It raises its own money, sets its own priorities......

..... The antiquated quality of this institution is reflected in the map of the Fed's twelve regional banks. Five of them are located in the Midwest (better known today as the industrial Rust Belt). Missouri has two Federal Reserve banks (St. Louis and Kansas City), while the entire West Coast has only one (located in San Francisco, not Los Angeles or Seattle). Virginia has one; Florida does not. Among its functions, the Federal Reserve directly regulates the largest banks, but it also looks out for their well-being -- providing regular liquidity loans for those caught short and bailing out endangered banks it deems "too big to fail." Critics look askance at these peculiar arrangements and see "conspiracy." But it's not really secret. This duck was created by an act of Congress. The Fed's favoritism toward bankers is embedded in its DNA. ......

....... Six reasons why granting the Fed even more power is a really bad idea:

1. It would reward failure. Like the largest banks that have been bailed out, the Fed was a co-author of the destruction. During the past twenty-five years, it failed to protect the country against reckless banking and finance adventures. It also failed in its most basic function -- moderating the expansion of credit to keep it in balance with economic growth. The Fed instead allowed, even encouraged, the explosion of debt and inflation of financial assets that have now collapsed. The central bank was derelict in enforcing regulations and led cheers for dismantling them. Above all, the Fed did not see this disaster coming, or so it claims. It certainly did nothing to warn people.

2. Cumulatively, Fed policy was a central force in destabilizing the US economy. Its extreme swings in monetary policy, combined with utter disregard for timely regulatory enforcement, steadily shifted economic rewards away from the real economy of production, work and wages and toward the financial realm, where profits and incomes were wildly inflated by false valuations. Abandoning its role as neutral arbitrator, the Fed tilted in favor of capital over labor. The institution was remolded to conform with the right-wing market doctrine of chairman Alan Greenspan, and it was blinded to reality by his ideology (see my Nation article "The One-Eyed Chairman," September 19, 2005).

3. The Fed cannot possibly examine "systemic risk" objectively because it helped to create the very structural flaws that led to breakdown. The Fed served as midwife to Citigroup, the failed conglomerate now on government life support. Greenspan unilaterally authorized this new financial/banking combine in the 1990s -- even before Congress had repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which prohibited such mergers. Now the Fed keeps Citigroup alive with a $300 billion loan guarantee. The central bank, in other words, is deeply invested in protecting the banking behemoths that it promoted, if only to cover its own mistakes.

4. The Fed can't be trusted to defend the public in its private deal-making with bank executives. The numerous revelations of collusion have shocked the public, and more scandals are certain if Congress conducts a thorough investigation. When Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was president of the New York Fed, he supervised the demise of Bear Stearns with a sweet deal for JPMorgan Chase, which took over the failed brokerage -- $30 billion to cover any losses. Geithner was negotiating with Morgan Chase CEO and New York Fed board member Jamie Dimon. Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein got similar solicitude when the Fed bailed out insurance giant AIG, a Goldman counterparty: a side-door payout of $13 billion. The new president at the New York Fed, William Dudley, is another Goldman man.

5. Instead of disowning the notorious policy of "too big to fail," the Fed will be bound to embrace the doctrine more explicitly as "systemic risk" regulator. A new superclass of forty or fifty financial giants will emerge as the born-again "money trust" that citizens railed against 100 years ago. But this time, it will be armed with a permanent line of credit from Washington. The Fed, having restored and consolidated the battered Wall Street club, will doubtless also shield a few of the largest industrial-financial corporations, like General Electric (whose CEO also sits on the New York Fed board). Whatever officials may claim, financial-market investors will understand that these mammoth institutions are insured against failure. Everyone else gets to experience capitalism in the raw.

6. This road leads to the corporate state -- a fusion of private and public power, a privileged club that dominates everything else from the top down. This will likely foster even greater concentration of financial power, since any large company left out of the protected class will want to join by growing larger and acquiring the banking elements needed to qualify. Most enterprises in banking and commerce will compete with the big boys at greater disadvantage, vulnerable to predatory power plays the Fed has implicitly blessed. .......

Dr David Kelly's death

2009-07-13T05:08:00.000-07:00

The death of Government scientist David Kelly returned to haunt Labour today as a group of doctors announced that they were mounting a legal challenge to overturn the finding of suicide.
Dr Kelly's body was found six years ago this week in woods close to his Oxfordshire home, shortly after he was exposed as the source of a BBC news report questioning the grounds for war in Iraq.
Unusually, no coroner's inquest was held into his death.

The only official verdict has come from the Hutton Inquiry, commissioned by Tony Blair, which concluded that Dr Kelly, 59, died from loss of blood after cutting his wrist with a blunt gardening knife.
Critics regarded the report as a 'whitewash', and Mr Blair remains acutely sensitive to the accusation that he has 'blood on his hands' over the scientist's death.
But now a team of 13 specialist doctors has compiled a detailed medical dossier that rejects the Hutton conclusion on the grounds that a cut to the ulnar artery, which is small and difficult to access, could not have caused death.
It will be used by their lawyers to demand a formal inquest and the release of Dr Kelly's autopsy report, which has never been published. It will also be sent to Sir John Chilcot's forthcoming inquiry into the Iraq War.
The 12-page opinion, a copy of which has been seen by The Mail on Sunday, concludes: 'The bleeding from Dr Kelly's ulnar artery is highly unlikely to have been so voluminous and rapid that it was the cause of death

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1199109/13-doctors-demand-inquest-Dr-David-Kellys-death.html##ixzz0L8mYytSq&C
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http://www.uruknet.de:80/?s1=1&p=56092&s2=18

More pointedly, was the British bioweapons expert Dr. David Kelly, who leaked information to the press that the British and American governments had falsified the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, murdered for exposing the fraudulent evidence for war or worse, planning an exposé on the West's continued development of offensive biological weapons?

The Kelly File

Dr. David Kelly was an unlikely dissident. In fact Kelly wasn't a dissident at all, but a prominent figure in Britain's bioweapons defense establishment.

The former head of the microbiology department at Porton Down, the UK's secret biological and chemical warfare research facility, at the time of his 2003 death Kelly was a consummate insider, a trusted keeper of state secrets; dangerous and deadly secrets that could topple governments.

A civilian employee of Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD), Dr. Kelly was a biological weapons expert and former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. His off-the-record conversations with journalist Andrew Gilligan about the British government's fraudulent claim that Iraq possessed "weapons of mass destruction" set off a firestorm that continues to smolder.

While David Kelly wasn't a spy, he did enjoy unprecedented access to the world of secret intelligence. Indeed, according to author Gordon Thomas Kelly had helped orchestrate the defection of a top Russian microbiologist Vladimir Pasechnik (who turned up dead in 2001, allegedly from a stroke) and played a part in the FBI's investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States by trying to identify the origin of the Ames strain used in the fatal mailings.

In 2008, the multiyear, multimillion dollar "Amerithrax" investigation was closed when the Bureau claimed that Dr. Bruce Ivins was the killer. Ivins, a top anthrax expert at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Ft. Detrick in Maryland committed suicide. According to the FBI version, the scientist killed himself just as the Bureau was about to arrest him for the crime.

Many were unconvinced that Ivins was the anthrax "lone gunman." Indeed, Sen. Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a target of the 2001 attacks, charged FBI Director Robert Mueller with staging a cover-up.

During 2008 hearings, Leahy angrily chided Mueller: "If he is the one who sent the letter, I do not believe in any way, shape or manner that [Ivins] is the only person involved in this attack on Congress and the American people. I do not believe that at all. I believe there are others involved, either as accessories before or after the fact, I believe there are others who can be charged with murder."

Richard Spertzel, Ivins' former boss at Ft. Detrick told investigative journalists Bob Coen and Eric Nadler, "He's dead and they can close the case and he can't defend himself. Nice and convenient isn't it?"

Thomas claims that Kelly had worked with two American scientists, Benito Que and Don Wiley, who also turned up dead under highly suspicious circumstances.

It was originally claimed by authorities that Que was bludgeoned to death during an attempted carjacking in Miami. "Strangely enough," The Toronto Globe & Mail reported in 2002, "his body showed no signs of a beating. Doctors then began to suspect a stroke."

Wiley, according to the Canadian newspaper "was an expert on how the immune system responds to viral attacks such as the classic doomsday plagues of HIV, ebola and influenza." After planning a trip to Graceland with his son police "found his rental car on a bridge outside Memphis, Tenn. His body was later found in the Mississippi River. Forensic experts said he may have had a dizzy spell and have fallen off the bridge."

As it turned out, the pair were "engaged in DNA sequencing that could provide 'a genetic marker based on genetic profiling'." Thomas writes: "The research could play an important role in developing weaponized pathogens to hit selected groups of humans--identifying them by race. Two years ago, both men were found dead, in circumstances never fully explained."

Coincidence, or something more sinister?

By summer 2003, it was obvious that Saddam Hussein's regime did not possess WMDs and that the entire pretext for invading Iraq was based on a lie, concocted by the American regime, and in particular by Vice President Richard Cheney and the neoconservative mafia in control of America's defense and security apparatus.

Tasked to the Defence Intelligence Staff, Kelly read a draft of the Joint Intelligence Committee's (JIC) dossier on Iraq's reputed WMDs. He was unhappy with many of the report's conclusions, according to multiple press reports. He disputed the infamous claim that the Iraqi Army was capable of launching battlefield biological and chemical weapons within "45 minutes" of an order from Saddam. This dubious claim, one of many, was inserted into the report at the insistence of MI6 political masters acting through the JIC.

During a trip to Iraq in June 2003, Kelly inspected what were alleged by the Bush administration to be "mobile weapons laboratories," a claim infamously made by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell at the United Nations in February 2003. The Observer reported that a British scientist, who turned out to be David Kelly, told the newspaper: "They are not mobile germ warfare laboratories. You could not use them for making biological weapons. They do not even look like them. They are exactly what the Iraqis said they were--facilities for the production of hydrogen gas to fill balloons."

One of the key pieces of evidence to emerge was the JIC's, and Kelly's, involvement with Operation Rockingham, a secret program for weapons inspections in Iraq.

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter told the Sunday Herald that Operation Rockingham was a "dirty tricks" unit "designed specifically to produce misleading intelligence that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction to give the UK a justifiable excuse to wage war on Iraq."

Describing the unit as "dangerous," Ritter told investigative journalist Neil Mackay, "Rockingham was spinning reports and emphasizing reports that showed non-compliance (by Iraq with UN inspections) and quashing those which showed compliance. It was cherry-picking intelligence."

A political firestorm ensued, which threatened the viability of Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour government. Heads would have to roll; one of those heads as it turned out, would be David Kelly's.

After an appearance before Parliament's Foreign Affairs Select Committee on July 15, 2003, Kelly was visibly upset by his shoddy treatment by MPs. In an email to New York Times reporter Judith Miller, a serial-fabricator who had stitched-up evidence that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, Kelly said there "were many dark actors playing games."

During the whitewash known as The Hutton Inquiry, a British ambassador David Broucher reported a conversation he had with Kelly in Geneva. The ambassador asked Kelly what would happen if Iraq were invaded? The bioweapons expert replied, "I will probably be found dead in the woods."

Two days after giving testimony before Parliament he was.

"A Wet Operation, a Wet Disposal"

In The Strange Death of David Kelly, Liberal-Democratic MP Norman Baker builds a strong case that the scientist was murdered. Despite Lord Hutton's dubious findings that Kelly killed himself, several troubling facts intruded to upend the British government's apple cart. To summarize:

The lack of fingerprints found on the knife allegedly used by the scientist to slit his wrists; the lack of blood found at the scene, despite a verdict that he had sliced open an artery; unexplained contusions on Kelly's scalp; the position of the body discovered by searchers differed markedly from that alleged by detectives; bottled water, knife and wristwatch said to be found by detectives were not observed by the searchers who actually discovered the body; eight computers removed from Kelly's home and office by MI6 agents; missing dental records; the level of painkillers found in Kelly's stomach was "less than a third" of what is considered a fatal overdose by medical experts. On and on it goes...

One source told Baker that Dr. Kelly's death was "a wet operation, a wet disposal," a term used in intelligence circles to denote an assassination.

Six years after Kelly's murder, a group of British doctors have announced that "they were mounting a legal challenge to overturn the finding of suicide," The Mail on Sunday reports.

A 12-page opinion concludes: "The bleeding from Dr Kelly's ulnar artery is highly unlikely to have been so voluminous and rapid that it was the cause of death. We advise the instructing solicitors to obtain the autopsy reports so that the concerns of a group of properly interested medical specialists can be answered."

One motive which may have led to Kelly's murder was that the scientist was writing a book "exposing highly damaging government secrets before his mysterious death," The Sunday Express reported July 5.

According to published reports, Kelly intended to reveal that he had warned Prime Minister Tony Blair "there were no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq weeks before the British and American invasion." Despite warnings that the book would breach Britain's draconian Officials Secrets Act, Kelly sought advice on how he might bring his findings into a publishable form.

These reports also suggest that Kelly threatened to "lift the lid" on a larger scandal, "his own secret dealings in germ warfare with the apartheid regime in South Africa."

Investigative journalists Bob Coen and Eric Nadler in their book Dead Silence: Fear and Terror on the Anthrax Trail and a companion 90-minute documentary, Anthrax War, provide startling evidence that Kelly's death is linked to a secret world of germ warfare research.

Indeed, according to Coen and Nadler, David Kelly's secret dealings included a connection with Dr. Wouter Basson, the cardiologist who was the former head of the South African apartheid regime's clandestine biological and chemical warfare program, Project Coast.

During Basson's 1999 trial and subsequent acquittal, evidence presented by some 150 witnesses, including operatives linked to South African snatch-and-kill squads, tied Basson to chemical and biological research used in extrajudicial executions by the apartheid regime. It was further alleged that Project Coast had conducted active research into the fabrication of "ethnic weapons" that would specifically target South Africa's black population.

In Anthrax War, Basson states that his findings were shared with foreign scientists, including those affiliated with weapons research in Britain and the United States. According to a 2001 piece in The New Yorker,

Basson had already put the fear into American intelligence during his T.R.C. [Truth and Reconciliation Committee] appearance, where he handed over fourteen pages of notes from a visit to the United States in 1981. American Air Force officers had been eager to develop joint "medical projects" with South Africa, he wrote. ... Basson says that in 1995 his life was threatened on the street by a C.I.A. agent. The American Embassy in Pretoria admits privately that the United States government is "terribly concerned" that Basson may start talking about his sources of information and technology. The Embassy hopes that an impression of "unwitting coöperation" is all that emerges in the way of an American connection. (William Finnegan, "The Poison Keeper," The New Yorker, January 15, 2001)

Coen and Nadler uncovered evidence that Kelly had discovered a "Porton Down-South Africa connection" linked to a global bioweapons black market. The investigative journalists told the Express, "We have proved there is a black market in anthrax. David Kelly was of particular interest to us because he was a world expert on anthrax and he was involved in some degree with assisting the secret germ warfare programme in apartheid South Africa."

Andrew Mackinlay, a British MP blamed for humiliating Kelly "to the point of suicide" started "asking questions in the House of Lords" after the scientist's death "about Kelly's relationship with these bad actors in Pretoria, even making inquiries about South African links to Pasechnik's Regma firm."

Founded in 2000 by the deceased scientist, Regma Bio Technologies was headquartered on the Porton Down campus and had signed a contract with the U.S. Navy for anti-anthrax research.

What Mackinlay discovered about the entire operation was highly disturbing to say the least. His inquiry sparked "the convening of an extraordinary 'handling strategy meeting' involving thirteen officials from different government agencies. But any and all information about UK-South African germ work was withheld from the MP."

Mackinlay told Coen and Nadler, "This is one of the most closely guarded secrets of the British government."

The question is, did David Kelly threaten to reveal these "closely guarded secrets" in the book he was preparing, and was this a motive for certain "dark actors" to eliminate a person now considered "an enemy of the state"?

These programs are not Cold War relics. Biological weapons research continues today and remain one of America's most deadly secrets. As the 2001 anthrax attacks which employed a weaponized version of the bacteria to sow terror, and subsequent FBI cover-up illustrate, such programs remain fully operational.

The evidence suggests that Dr. David Kelly, as Norman Baker avers "may have signed his own death warrant" by threatening to reveal this secret underworld menacing all humanity with unimaginable horrors.

That an out-of-control agency like the CIA has the means, motives and opportunity to silence critics and that "no geographical limitations" were placed "on the agency's actions," should give pause to a society that considers itself a democracy.

Media revelations so far have suggested that the CIA and Special Operations Forces were assembling teams to "put bullets in [the al Qaeda leaders'] heads" as The Wall Street Journal reported.

But perhaps the Obama administration's trepidation in exploring this and other Bush-era programs through congressional hearings or the mechanism of a special prosecutor has much to do with fear of opening a proverbial can of worms.

One never knows where such an investigation might lead.
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Afghans, Taliban, Police

2009-07-13T04:57:00.000-07:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/12/AR2009071200868_pf.html

By Peter Graff
Reuters
Sunday, July 12, 2009 9:57 AM

PANKELA, Afghanistan (Reuters) - As British troops moved into the village newly freed from Taliban control, they heard one message from the anxious locals: for God's sake do not bring back the Afghan police.

U.S. and British troops have launched a campaign to seize control of Helmand province, about half of which was in Taliban hands, and restore Afghan government institutions.

But as they advance, they are learning uncomfortable facts about their local allies: villagers say the government's police force was so brutal and corrupt that they welcomed the Taliban as liberators.

"The police would stop people driving on motorcycles, beat them and take their money," said Mohammad Gul, an elder in the village of Pankela, which British troops have been securing for the past three days after flying in by helicopter.

He pointed to two compounds of neighbors where pre-teen children had been abducted by police to be used for the local practice of "bachabazi," or sex with pre-pubescent boys.

"If the boys were out in the fields, the police would come and rape them," he said. "You can go to any police base and you will see these boys. They hold them until they are finished with them and then let the child go."

The Interior Ministry in Kabul said it would contact police commanders in the area before responding in detail.

When the Taliban arrived in the village 10 months ago and drove the police out, local people rejoiced, said Mohammad Rasul, a toothless elderly farmer who keeps a few cows and chickens in a neatly tended orchard of pomegranate trees, figs and grape vines.

Although his own son was killed by a Taliban roadside bomb five years ago, Rasul said the fighters earned their welcome in the village by treating people with respect.

"We were happy (after the Taliban arrived). The Taliban never bothered us," he said.

Before the Taliban arrived, the police had come to his house with a powerful landlord he called a "tyrant," who put a rifle in his face, searched through his compound and demanded money.

"If (the British) bring these people back, we can't live here. If they come back, I am sure they will burn everything," Rasul said.

Afghani war, Who Said What?

2009-07-13T04:50:00.000-07:00

Britain's Afghan brigades

The 'pull out now' brigade

Robin Beste Stop the War Coalition

"There is no possibility of stability or security in Afghanistan while a single foreign soldier remains in the country."

Paul Flynn Labour MP

"We created the insurgency by our presence in 2006. Ministers sleepwalked into Helmand and changed what was a manageable situation into one that is now unwinnable."

Correlli Barnett Military historian

"Without such a brave decision [to pull out], British servicemen and women will go on pointlessly dying, while a more and more disillusioned nation simply wants our troops home."

Boris Gromov Ex-commander of the 40th army in Afghanistan

"The international forces must leave Afghanistan alone militarily, and switch to [solving its] economic problems. This would benefit all."

The 'we have to commit - or withdraw' brigade

Nick Clegg Liberal Democrat leader

"Gordon Brown must stop pretending that this is somehow someone else's conflict. The Government is willing the ends, but not willing the means."

David Cameron Conservative leader

"The Government must explain its strategy in Afghanistan, and how it will ensure success. Above all, it must urgently provide the key equipment, such as helicopters, our troops need."

Colonel Bob Stewart Ex-commander of British forces in Bosnia

"The armed forces were promised all the means necessary to achieve operational effectiveness – equipment, transport, and manpower. We should do the job properly."

Dr John Nagl President of the Center for a New American Security

"The British commitment is absolutely essential to holding southern Afghanistan, now that so many UK soldiers have given their lives to clear it."

The 'don't panic' brigade

Gordon Brown Prime Minister

"Our resolve to complete the work that we have started in Afghanistan is undiminished. We must help deliver a free and fair presidential election in Afghanistan."

David Miliband Foreign Secretary

"This is about the future of Britain, as we know the borderlands of Afghanistan and Pakistan have been used to launch terrible attacks, not just on the US but on Britain as well."

Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup Chief of the Defence Staff

"The Taliban ... are losing. But it's going to take time and alas it does involve casualties, but there will be the opportunity for considerably greater governance for the people of Helmand."

Dr David Kilcullen Counter-insurgency adviser to US

"I feel a greater degree of confidence in Afghanistan today than in the past six months. We are finally starting to take the fight to the enemy in the south and east."

The military brigade

General Stanley McChrystal Head, US and Nato forces in Afghanistan

"We must avoid the trap of winning tactical victories but suffering strategic defeats. The Taliban cannot militarily defeat us, but we can defeat ourselves."

Field Marshall Lord Bramall Former chief of defence staff

"Our best hope at the moment is the new US strategy and extra troops to give it our best shot for the next year or so and hope we can get some sort of stability there."

General Sir Hugh Beach Ex-deputy commander, British land forces

"They ought to be sending the extra 2,000 men the generals asked for, as it's obvious that if we're going to get anywhere, it's troops on the ground that are going to cut the mustard."

Pavel Grachev Soviet general

"I believed as sincerely as US officers do now that we were fighting there to help make our country safer. After the war, as a politician, I could see this war had been pointless."

A VERY BRIEF LIST OF ZIONIST TERRORISM

2009-07-13T04:36:00.000-07:00

June 30, 1924. According to Israeli journalists Shlomo Nakdimon and Shaul Mayzlish, Dutch Jew Jacob Israël de Haan was assassinated by Avraham Tehomi on the orders of Haganah leader Yitzhak Ben-Zvi[18][page needed] for his anti-Zionist political activities and contacts with Arab leaders.[19]

1937-1939 The Irgun conducted a campaign of violence against civilians resulting in the deaths of at least 250.

Nov 6, 1944 Lehi assassinated British minister Lord Moyne in Cairo. The action is condemned by the Yishuv, but the bodies of the assassins are brought home from Egypt in 1975 to a state funeral and burial on Mount Herzl.

1944-1945 The killings of several suspected collaborators with the Haganah and the British mandate government during the Hunting Season.

July 26, 1946 The bombing of British administrative headquarters at the King David Hotel, killing 91 people — 28 British, 41 Arab, 17 Jewish, and 5 others. Around 45 people were injured. 1946 Railways and British military airfields were attacked several times. Oct 31, 1946 The bombing by the Irgun of the British Embassy in Rome.

Jul 25, 1947 The Sergeants affair: When death sentences were passed on two Irgun members, the Irgun kidnapped two British sergeants and threatened to kill them in retaliation if the sentences were carried out. When the threat was ignored, the hostages were murdered. Afterwards, their bodies were taken to an orange grove and left hanging by the neck from trees. An Improvised Explosive Device was set. This went off when one of the bodies was cut down, seriously wounding a British officer.[20]

December 1947-March 1948 Numerous attacks on Arabs in the context of Civil War after the vote of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine April 1948 the Deir Yassin massacre carried out by the Irgun and Lehi, killed between 107 and 120 Palestinian villagers,[21] the estimate generally accepted by scholars.[22][23]

Sept 17, 1948, Lehi assassination of the United Nations mediator Count Bernadotte, negotiatior of the release of about 31,000 prisoners from German concentration camps during World War II,[24][25] whom Lehi accused of a pro-Arab stance during the cease-fire negotiations.

In 1940, Lehi proposed intervening in World War II on the side of Nazi Germany. Late in 1940, Lehi representative Naftali Lubenchik was sent to Beirut where he met the German official Werner Otto von Hentig. Lubenchik told von Hentig that Lehi had not yet revealed its full power and that they were capable of organizing a whole range of anti-British operations.the organization offered cooperation in the following terms: full cooperation in sabotage, espionage and intelligence and up to wide military operations in the Middle East and in eastern Europe anywhere where the Irgun had Jewish cells, active and trained and in some places with weapons. From the German side, the following declarations and actions were demanded: (1) Full recognition of an independent Jewish state in Palestine/Eretz Israel (2) That the ability to emigrate to Palestine be conceded to all Jews, with no restriction of numbers, who, in leaving their homes in Europe, by their own will or because of government injunctions.On January 11, 1941 a letter by Lehi, which would be later referred to as the Ankara document, was sent from Vice Admiral Ralf von der Marwitz, the German Naval attaché in Ankara, depicting an offer to "actively take part in the war on Germany's side" in return for German support for "the establishment of the historic Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, bound by a treaty with the German Reich."The letter was signed by Avraham Stern and the later Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Fil...llaboration.jpg

FYIMY Grandfather fought the Nazi's , ZIONISTS COLLABORATED WITH THE NAZI'S!!!Later Israeli's would pin medals on these SCUM and vote them Prime Ministers?!?!?You want me to feel guilty about terrorism and the Holocaust , Well you should not have tried to kill my Grandfather while he was fighting the Nazi's and patrolling the Mandate of Palestine!!!BTW the concentration camps where NOT full of Jews ,they where full of Nazi undesirables!! The Jews in the camps where probably there "because of government injunctions" agreed by the Zionist terrorists!!!The hyprocracy of the abomiNation of Israel knows no boundsIf you want to live somewhere because of primitive tribal beliefs , then you can immigrate like everyone else!The Celts have a much older and better claim to the un"Holy Land" but we would not be so barbaric as to claim someone else's land because of some primitive tribal belief!! Some might accuse us of race supremecy or Nazism!At least the Celtic claim stands up to scientific scrutiny!!You can look at our settlements from 10,000BC

http://news.nationalgeographic.c...n- missions.html

and the temples we built.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C...C3% B6bekli_Tepe

The modern Jewish claim does NOT stand up to scrutiny!!Viva Palestina keep up the great work!!Cuthulan Homepage 07.13.09 - 2:47 am #

Passport, Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID, Terrorist Target,

2009-07-12T04:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.physorg.com/news166552331.html

Climbing into his Volvo, outfitted with a Matrics antenna and a Motorola reader he'd bought on eBay for $190, Chris Paget cruised the streets of San Francisco with this objective: To read the identity cards of strangers, wirelessly, without ever leaving his car.

It took him 20 minutes to strike hacker's gold.

Zipping past Fisherman's Wharf, his scanner detected, then downloaded to his laptop, the unique serial numbers of two pedestrians' electronic U.S. passport cards embedded with radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags. Within an hour, he'd "skimmed" the identifiers of four more of the new, microchipped PASS cards from a distance of 20 feet.

Embedding identity documents - passports, drivers licenses, and the like - with RFID chips is a no-brainer to government officials. Increasingly, they are promoting it as a 21st century application of technology that will help speed border crossings, safeguard credentials against counterfeiters, and keep terrorists from sneaking into the country.

But Paget's February experiment demonstrated something privacy advocates had feared for years: That RFID, coupled with other technologies, could make people trackable without their knowledge or consent.

He filmed his drive-by heist, and soon his video went viral on the Web, intensifying a debate over a push by government, federal and state, to put tracking technologies in identity documents and over their potential to erode privacy.
========================================================================

http://www.physorg.com/news94292943.html

London's Royal Academy of Engineering suggests that someday a terrorist will be able to read personal details from a distance and set a bomb to go off when a particular person gets within range.

As if RFID chips in driver's licenses and passports weren't scary enough already, London's Royal Academy of Engineering is suggesting that someday a terrorist will be able to read personal details from a distance and, given the right antennas and amplification, set a bomb to go off when a particular person gets within range.

It's already widely acknowledged that unencrypted data stored on an RFID chip in a passport can be read covertly by anybody with a pass-by reader.

As the ACLU pointed out at Black Hat earlier in March, you can buy parts on the Internet to make a reader for as little as $20.

With a reader, you can pick up whatever the RFID chip is sending out: passport number; name; where an individual was at, at what time; name; address; Social Security number, etc.

The ability of RFID to be subverted in far more dangerous ways was only one example of how advancing technology can be exploited in the future, according to the Royal Academy.

The Academy on March 26 released a report titled "Dilemmas of Privacy and Surveillance: Challenges of Technological Change," by Nigel Gilbert, chairman of the Academy's group on Privacy and Surveillance.

Here are some other technology shocks that have already occurred or that may come to pass, according to Gilbert:

Unencrypted data can be forged. The United Kingdom, for one, introduced biometric passports in March 2006.

The e-Passport, as it's called, uses facial recognition to link an individual with a paper passport, with iris and fingerprint data used as backup, and other countries have expressed interest in using biometrics as well.

Because the data will be read at places such as passport control to verify the identity of the holder, the data have to be quickly and reliably transmitted - hence, use of RFID chips have been proposed.

A forged passport could include a passport carrier's biometric information but with forged personal details, including name, date of birth and citizenship.

Of course, passports could be checked against a central database to ensure that the data on a given passport matches the master set. But then, it's unnecessary to store the data on a passport, since it can be retrieved from the central database.

"Encrypting the data on the e-Passports can help to avoid these problems," Gilbert writes, "but even then there is potential for failure. Firstly, if the encryption codes can be broken, then the two vulnerabilities reappear. Secondly, a problem with current plans for e-Passports in the U.K. is that the key for the data on the chip is stored on the passport itself - so the encryption does not in fact lock out eavesdroppers."

The only way to keep RFID passport information truly safe, Gilbert says, is to encrypt with extremely tough algorithms and to disable the access to encrypted data on the passport by using a key stored on the passport itself.

"Otherwise, efforts should be focused on an altogether different way of designing e-Passports," he said.

Plans for more dangerous data leaks than ever are in the works.

It's a pedophile's dream come true: children's data stored in a national database.

The U.K. is reportedly planning to take fingerprints as well as names and addresses from children as young as 11 and store it all in a government database.

The children's data, as a subset of the U.K.'s biometric passport scheme, will be transferred to the country's new national identity database when the children turn 16.

The consequences of data breaches or leaks on such a database could be "extremely serious," Gilbert says. "This information could be used by pedophiles to target those children for abuse," he writes.

Other serious data leaks that have happened or could still happen, Gilbert points out: leaks of credit-card data used to embarrass public figures; leaks of the addresses of staff who work at sensitive sites, such as abortion clinics or research centers that practice animal experimentation; leaks of health records that could doom the employment prospects of patients or even expose them to risk of violence, including HIV status or a record showing that a woman had had a pregnancy terminated (if this was unknown to her partner or parent), or data (such as DNA or blood group) showing that the paternity of a child could not be the presumed father.

The report details other worst-case scenarios, including identity fraud assisted by the Semantic Web and its extensive publicly accessible personal details of individuals as well as the use of fingerprint images to fool a pay-by-touch system.

The future of technology misuse may look dire, but Gilbert offers ways to secure even the scariest technology.

For example, A biometric pay-by-touch system that requires two forms of identification - a PIN and a fingerprint - would be "much more successful" in preventing fraud than one that relies only on a fingerprint, he said.

Regarding RFID-enabled passports and the possibility that they could be linked to bombs or other, less dramatic abuses, one workaround is to forgo RFID chips for a technology such as that now being developed by Ingenia Technology called "Laser Surface Authentication."

LSA technology takes into account the unique surface qualities of a given document. Paper documents and credit card plastics have unique microscopic surface qualities attributable to how paper fibers are arranged or how the plastic has been set.

"These qualities cannot be controlled and cannot be copied, and they are unique in every case - rather like human fingerprints," Gilbert writes.

"Ingenia have devised a way of scanning documents to reveal these surface properties, which they refer to as the 'LSA fingerprint.' The system they have created is 'read-only', the document is passive, it is simply scanned and a record of its surface features is recorded."
=======================================================================

Scott Roeder, Dr. George Tiller, Rev. Donald Spitz, Fahad Hashmi, Junaid Babar, Andrew Stepanian, animal rights and environmental activists.

2009-07-10T09:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090708_two_standards_of_justice/

Scott Roeder, the anti-abortion zealot charged with killing Dr. George Tiller, has been busy. He called the Associated Press from the Sedgwick County Jail in Kansas, saying, “I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal.” Charged with first-degree murder and aggravated assault, he is expected to be arraigned July 28. AP recently reported that Roeder has been proclaiming from his jail cell that the killing of abortion providers is justified. According to the report, the Rev. Donald Spitz of the Virginia-based Army of God sent Roeder seven pamphlets defending “defensive action,” or killing of abortion clinic workers.......

....... Juxtapose Roeder’s advocacy from jail with the conditions of Fahad Hashmi.

Hashmi is a U.S. citizen who grew up in Queens, N.Y., and went to Brooklyn College. He went to graduate school in Britain and was arrested there in 2006 for allegedly allowing an acquaintance to stay with him for two weeks. That acquaintance, Junaid Babar, allegedly kept at Hashmi’s apartment a bag containing ponchos and socks, which Babar later delivered to an al-Qaida operative. Babar was arrested and agreed to cooperate with the authorities in exchange for leniency.

While the evidence against Hashmi is secret, it probably stems from the claims of the informant Babar.

Fahad Hashmi was extradited to New York, where he has been held in pretrial detention for more than two years. His brother Faisal described the conditions: “He is kept in solitary confinement for two straight years, 23- to 24-hours lockdown. ... Within his own cell, he’s restricted in the movements he’s allowed to do. He’s not allowed to talk out loud within his own cell. ... He is being videotaped and monitored at all times. He can be punished ... denied family visits, if they say his certain movements are martial arts ... that they deem as incorrect. He has Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) ... against him.”........

...... Similarly, animal rights and environmental activists, prosecuted as “eco-terrorists,” have been shipped to the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ new “communication management units” (CMUs). Andrew Stepanian was recently released and described for me the CMU as “a prison within the actual prison. ... The unit doesn’t have normal telephone communication to your family ... normal visits are denied ... you have to make an appointment to make one phone call a week, and that needs to be done with the oversight of ... a live monitor.”

Stepanian observed that up to 70 percent of CMU prisoners are Muslim—hence CMU’s nickname, “Little Guantanamo.” As with Hashmi, it seems that the U.S. government seeks to strip terrorism suspects of legal due process and access to the media—whether in Guantanamo or in the secretive new CMUs. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and the Bureau of Prisons over the CMUs. ......

“theory of everything”

2009-07-10T06:57:00.000-07:00

http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090707_string

A “theory of everything” is said to solve its first real-world problem

July 8, 2009
Courtesy University of Leiden
and World Science staff

For the first time, researchers say they have solved a real-world problem using a very abstract “theory of everything” that often has been criticized as untestable.

Now, the scientists claim, the critics may have to rethink their position.

The scientists attempted to use the controversial doctrine, known as string theory, to explain an aspect of super-conductivity—a phenomenon in which electric current zooms through an object without meeting any of the normal resistance.

‘AdS/CFT’ correspondence that relates a gravity-determined world in a higher dimension to 'quantum-critical' worlds formed, for example, by electrons in a lower-dimensional world on the 'outside' of the first world. (Courtesy Science)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

String theory is a bid to resolve almost all the mysteries of physics at a blow by bridging the gap between the two most successful theories of the 20th century, general relativity and quantum mechanics. Each has been successful at explaining how the universe behaves over vast distances and in tiny spaces, respectively. But they conflict in some ways; both can’t be right.

String theory claims all the particles of nature are actually different vibrations of unseen, tiny loops called “strings.” The theory mathematically fixes the major inconsistencies between the other two. In the process, if it’s correct, it would show the underlying unity of nature’s forces.

But it only works if the strings have several extra dimensions in which to vibrate beyond the dimensions we see. Different versions of string theory propose 10 or 26 dimensions, some of which are invisible because they are rolled up into tiny balls.

Scientists at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands used the mathematics of string theory to understand so-called high-temperature superconductivity. The effortless shooting of current through “superconducting” materials was once believed to occur only at temperatures so absurdly cold as to make practical applications of the phenomenon unlikely. But more and more examples are coming up where it also occurs at higher temperatures, according to the Leiden physicists.

Electrons, the subatomic particles that carry electric current, can form a special kind of state, a so-called quantum critical state, that plays a role in this high-temperature super-conductivity.

“It has always been assumed that once you understand this quantum-critical state, you can also understand high temperature super-conductivity. But, although the experiments produced a lot of information, we hadn’t the faintest idea of how to describe this phenomenon,” said Leiden physicist Jan Zaanen.

String theory now offers a solution, he added. “This is superb. I have never experienced such euphoria,” he remarked, explaining that the numbers fit so precisely that he was astonished. The finding is reported this week in the research journal Science.

Zaanen describes the quantum-critical state as a “quantum soup,” whereby the electrons form a collective independent of distances, and show the same behaviour at tiny scales or at the roughly human scale.

Because of Zaanen’s interest in string theory, he and string theoreticist Koenraad Schalm became acquainted after Schalm’s arrival at Leiden University. Zaanen had an unsolved problem and Schalm was an expert in the field of string theory. Their common interest brought them together, and they decided to work jointly.

The pair used the aspect of string theory known as AdS/CFT correspondence. This allows situations in a large, so-called relativistic, world to be translated into a description at minuscule, so-called quantum physics level. This correspondence bridges the gap between these two different worlds. By applying the correspondence to the theoretical situation where a black hole vibrates when an electron falls into it, they arrived at a description of electrons that move in and out of a quantum-critical state.

This is the first time a calculation based on string theory has been published in Science, even though the theory is widely known, Zaanen said.

“There have always been a lot of expectations surrounding string theory,” Zaanen explained, having himself studied the theory to satisfy his own curiosity. “String theory is often seen as a child of Einstein that aims to devise a revolutionary and comprehensive theory, a kind of ‘theory of everything.’ Ten years ago, researchers even said: ‘Give us two weeks and we’ll be able to tell you where the Big Bang came from.’ The problem of string theory was that, in spite of its excellent maths, it was never able to make a concrete link with the physical reality—the world around us.”

“AdS/CFT correspondence now explains things that colleagues who have been beavering away for ages were unable to resolve, in spite of their enormous efforts,” he went on. “There are a lot of things that can be done with it. We don’t fully understand it yet, but I see it as a gateway to much more.”

Yudhoyono, Indonesia, Zoellick, Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, Robert Mueller

2009-07-08T17:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/7/8/declassified_docs_implicate_indonesian_president_yudhoyono

In Indonesia, exit polls show incumbent president Yudhoyono, has a clear lead in the country’s second direct presidential election since the fall of the Suharto dictatorship over a decade ago. Newly declassified documents implicate Yudhoyono in the cover-up of the Indonesian military’s role in the 2002 murders of two Americans and an Indonesian in West Papua. We speak a Papuan human rights activist who worked with the Indonesian police and FBI to investigate the murders. She now lives in exile in Australia and in a Democracy Now! exclusive is speaking out on the investigations for the first time. We also speak with cultural anthropologist, Eben Kirksey, and with John Miller of the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network.

David Kelly

2009-07-08T14:27:00.000-07:00

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/06/uk-weapons-inspector-dead-expose/

British weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly was writing an expose about his work with anthrax and his warnings that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction at the time of his death in July 2003, according to a report published in a British newspaper.
Kelly’s death — said to have been a suicide — has stirred controversy, as it came on the heels of testimony to the House of Commons about a memo which purported that Britain had “sexed up” a dossier on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. A Parliamentary inquiry ruled that the death had been suicide, though it also included testimony from a former British ambassador who quotes Kelly as having said, “I will probably be found dead in the woods” if Iraq were invaded.
The new report says Kelly had spoken with an Oxford publisher several times about a book.
“He had several discussions with a publisher in Oxford and was seeking advice on how far he could go without breaking the law on secrets,” the UK Daily Express alleged.
Kelly’s computers were seized in the wake of his death. He was a signatory to Britain’s Official Secrets Act, which allows for the prosecution of those who talk to the press about state secrets and prescribes a more stringent framework for secrecy than in the United States.
According to the paper, “he was intending to reveal that he warned Prime Minister Tony Blair there were no weapons of mass destruction anywhere in Iraq weeks before the British and American invasion… and was also intending to lift the lid on a potentially bigger scandal, his own secret dealings in germ warfare with the apartheid regime in South Africa.”
The allegations of a potential Kelly expose come from a new film about biological weapons being debuted in London on the sixth anniversary of Kelly’s death titled “Anthrax War” (the documentary aired earlier this year on Canadian public television). Kelly was an expert in biological warfare agents, as well as a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq.
‘Anthrax War’
‘‘The deeper you look into the murky world of governments and germ warfare, the more worrying it becomes,” the film’s director, Bob Coen, is quoted as saying. “We have proved there is a black market in anthrax. David Kelly was of particular interest to us because he was a world expert on anthrax and he was involved in some degree with assisting the secret germ warfare program in apartheid South Africa.”
According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s summary of the film, Coen “was raised in Zimbabwe where the former white regime has been accused of unleashing anthrax against the black population… [who] embarks on a journey that raises troubling questions about the FBI’s investigation of the 21st century’s first act of biological terrorism.
“Coen’s investigation takes him from the U.S. to the U.K. and from the edge of Siberia to the tip of Africa. In a rare interview, Coen confronts ‘Doctor Death’ Wouter Basson, who headed Project Coast, the South African apartheid-era bio-warfare program,” the network’s website adds. “Project Coast used germ warfare against select targets within the country’s black population.
“Anthrax War also investigates the mysterious deaths of some of the world’s leading anthrax scientists, including Dr. David Kelly, the UK’s top military microbiologist, the Soviet defector Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, and Dr. Bruce Ivins,” the CBC continues. “The FBI claims - despite the doubts of highly ranked U.S. officials - that Ivins was the only person behind the U.S. anthrax murders.”
A Torrent download of Anthrax War is available at this link. Several shorter clips are also available on YouTube.
This video is from CBC’s Anthrax War.

Download video via RawReplay.com

MI5 bribe Rangzieb Ahmed torture

2009-07-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22999.htm

The security service MI5 is being accused of attempting to pervert the course of justice by offering a man inducements to drop his allegation that its officers colluded in his torture.......

..... In an interview with the Guardian last week, Ahmed, 33, from Rochdale, says he received a visit at Manchester prison last April from a man in his 40s who identified himself as an MI5 officer, accompanied by a man in his mid-30s who said he was a police officer. "They said they wanted my advice about tackling extremism and then said they could offer me protection if I helped them. Then they said, 'If you withdraw what you are saying about torture, we can make a deal with you to reduce your sentence, or if you want to take money we can give you money.' " ......

Fucks sake this is tax payers money this fucker is talking about. He is not paying the bugger. I feel like killing the cunt

===================================================================
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/08/mi5-torture-evidence-david-davis

11th Sept

2009-07-08T10:43:00.000-07:00

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22999.htm

How the FBI and 9/11 Commission Suppressed Key Evidence about Hani Hanjour, alleged hijack pilot of AAL 77
By Mark H. Gaffney

July 07, 2009 "ICH" --- The evidence was crucial because it undermined the official explanation that Hani Hanjour crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon at high speed after executing an extremely difficult top gun maneuver. But to understand how all of this played out, let us review the case in bite-size pieces...

In August 2004 when the 9/11 Commission completed its official investigation of the September 11, 2001 attack, the commission transfered custody of its voluminous records to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).[1] There, the records remained under lock and key for four and a half years, until last January when NARA released a fraction of the total for public viewing. Each day, more of the released files are scanned and posted on the Internet, making them readily accessible. Although most of the newly-released documents are of little interest, the files I will discuss in this article contain important new information.

As we know, the 9/11 Commission did not begin its work until 2003–––more than a year after the fact. By this time a number of journalists had already done independent research and published articles about various facets of 9/11. Some of this work was of excellent quality. The Washington Post, for example, interviewed aviation experts who stated that the plane allegedly piloted by Hani Hanjour [AA Flight 77] had been flown “with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was at the helm.”[2] Yet, strangely, when other journalists investigated Hani Hanjour they found a trail of clues indicating he was a novice pilot, wholly incapable of executing a top gun maneuver and a successful suicide attack in a Boeing 757. By early 2003 this independent research was a matter of public record, which created a serious problem for the 9/11 Commission...

By all accounts Hani Hanjour was a diminutive fellow. He stood barely five feet tall and was slight of build. As a young man in his hometown of Taif, Saudi Arabia, Hanjour cultivated no great dreams of flying airplanes. He was satisfied with a more modest ambition: he wanted to become a flight attendant. That is, until his older brother Abulrahman encouraged him to aim higher. Even so, Hani Hanjour’s aptitude for learning appears to have been rather limited. Although he resided in the US for about 38 months over a ten-year period that ended on 9/11, Hanjour never learned to speak or write English, a telling observation about his capacity for learning. As we will discover, he actually flunked a written test for a driver’s license just weeks before 9/11.

While it is true that Hanjour trained at various flight schools in the US, the evidence shows he was a perpetual novice. Hanjour dropped out of his first school, the Sierra Academy of Aeronautics, located in Oakland, after attending only a few classes. Next, he enrolled at Cockpit Resource Management (CRM), a flight school in Scottsdale, Arizona. But his performance as a student at CRM was less than adequate. Duncan K.M. Hastie, owner of the school, described Hanjour as “a weak student” who was “wasting our resources.”[3]

After several weeks, Hanjour withdrew from the program, then returned in 1997 for another short period of instruction. This on and off pattern of behavior was typical of the man. Hastie says that over the next three years Hanjour called him at least twice a year, and each time wanted to return for more training. By this time, however, it was obvious to Hastie that his erstwhile student had no business in a cockpit. Hastie refused to let Hanjour come back. “I would recognize his voice,” Hastie said. “He was always talking about wanting more training. Yes, he wanted to be an airline pilot. That was his stated goal. That’s why I didn’t allow him to come back. I thought ‘You’re never going to make it’.”[4]

Rejected by CRM, Hanjour enrolled at nearby Sawyer Aviation, also located in the Phoenix area. Wes Fults, a former instructor at Sawyer, later described it as the school of last resort. Said Fults: “it was a commonly held truth that, if you failed anywhere else, go to Sawyer.” Fults remembers training Hanjour, whom he describes as “a neophyte.” He says Hani “got overwhelmed with the instruments” in the school’s flight simulator. “He had only the barest understanding of what the instruments were there to do,” said Fults. “He [Hanjour] used the simulator three or four times, then disappeared like a fog.”[5] I must emphasize to the reader, I am not making this up. Other accounts by Newsday, the New York Times, as well as the FOX network, all confirm that Hani Hanjour was at best a novice pilot.

Evading the Language Requirement

In fact, because fluency in English is required to qualify for a US pilot’s license, Hanjour’s atrocious English should have barred him from ever obtaining a license. But it seems that Hanjour exploited a loophole in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) system, which for years has outsourced the pilot certification process. According to a June 2002 story in the Dallas Morning News, Hanjour was certified in April 1999 as an “Airplane Multi-Engine Land/Commercial Pilot” by Daryl Strong, one of the FAA’s 20,000 designated pilot examiners.[6] Although an FAA official later defended the agency’s policy of using private contractors, a critic, Heather Awsumb, took issue with it. Awsumb is a spokesperson for the Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS) Union, which represents more than 11,000 FAA and Defense Department employees. She pointed out that the FAA does not have anywhere near enough staff to oversee its 20,000 designated inspectors, all of whom have a financial interest in certifying as many pilots as possible. It seems that Hanjour evaded the language requirement by finding an examiner willing to ignore the rule. Said Awsumb: “They receive between $200 and $300 for each flight check. If they get a reputation for being too tough, they won’t get any business.” According to Awsumb, the present system allows “safety to be sold to the lowest bidder.”[7]

Later, Hanjour’s horrible English prompted one flight school, Jet Tech, to question the authenticity of his FAA-approved pilot’s license. Jet Tech was another school in the Phoenix area where Hanjour sought continuing instruction. Peggy Chevrette, operation manager at Jet Tech, later told FOX News: “I couldn’t believe that he had a license of any kind with the skills that he had.”[8] She explained that Hanjour’s English was so bad it took him five hours to complete an oral exam that normally should have taken about two.

But it wasn’t just his poor English that failed to impress. In his evaluation the Jet Tech flight instructor wrote that the “student [Hanjour] made numerous errors during his performance and displayed a lack of understanding of some basic concepts. The same was true during review of systems knowledge….I doubt his ability to pass an FAA [Boeing 737] oral at this time or in the near future.” The 737 instructor concluded his evaluation with a final entry: “He [Hanjour] will need much more experience flying smaller A/C [aircraft] before he is ready to master large jets.”[9] The 9/11 Commission Report fails to discuss or even mention this negative written evaluation, even while presenting Hanjour’s substandard performance in a Boeing 737 simulator as sufficient evidence that Hanjour could fly a Boeing 757, an even larger plane![10] The wording of the final report succeeds in giving this impression, however dubious, even while obscuring the facts: an amazing achievement of propaganda.

Early in 2001, Peggy Chevrette, the operation manager at Jet Tech, contacted the FAA repeatedly to convey her concerns about Hanjour. Eventually John Anthony, a federal inspector, showed up at the school and examined Hanjour’s credentials. But Anthony found them in order and took no further action. The inspector even suggested that Jet Tech provide Hanjour with an interpreter. This surprised Chevrette because it was a violation of FAA rules. “The thing that really concerned me,” she later told FOX News, “Was that John had a conversation in the hallway with Hani and realized what his skills were at that point and his ability to speak English.”[11] Evidently, the inspector also sat in on a class with Hanjour.

FOX News was unable to reach John Anthony for comment, but FAA spokesperson Laura Brown defended the FAA employee. “There was nothing about the pilot’s actions” she said, “to signal criminal intent or that would have caused us to alert law enforcement.”[12] This is true enough. The Jet Tech staff never suspected that Hani Hanjour was a terrorist. According to Marilyn Ladner, vice-president Pan Am International, the company that owned Jet Tech, “It was more of a very typical instructional concern that ‘you really shouldn’t be in the air’.”[13] Although Pan Am dissolved its Jet Tech operation shortly after 9/11, a former employee who knew Hanjour expressed amazement “that he [Hanjour] could have flown into the Pentagon. [because] He could not fly at all.”[14]

The “Scouting” Flights

We know that in the months before the September 11, 2001 attack Hani Hanjour rented planes at several small airports on the outskirts of New York City and Washington DC. The 9/11 Commission Report mentions these local flights and suggests that Hanjour was scouting the terrain: familiarizing himself with possible suicide targets.[15] But the record also shows the same pattern described above. For example, on May 29, 2001 Hanjour rented a plane at a small airport in Teterboro, New Jersey and flew “the Hudson Tour,” accompanied by a flight instructor. However, the next day, when Hanjour returned for a repeat flight the same instructor “would not allow it because of Hanjour’s poor piloting skills.”[16] The 9/11 Commission Report actually cites this incident, but in a context that diminishes its significance.[17]

The pattern played out again on August 16-17, 2001 when Hanjour attempted to rent a plane at Freeway Airport, in Bowie, Maryland, about twenty miles from Washington. Although Hanjour presented his FAA license, according to Newsday the Freeway airport manager insisted that instructors first accompany him on a test flight to evaluate his piloting skills. During three such flights over two days in a single-engine Cessna 172, instructors Sheri Baxter and Ben Conner observed what others had before them. Hanjour had trouble controlling and landing the aircraft. Afterward, Baxter interviewed Hanjour extensively about his flight training and experience, and also reviewed his flight log, which documented 600 hours of flight time. On this basis she and Conner declined to approve a current license rating until Hanjour returned for more training. On their recommendation, Freeway’s chief instructor Marcel Bernard refused to rent Hanjour a plane.[18] Notice, this was less than a month before 9/11. When I reached Bernard by phone he confirmed the details of the story by Newsday.[19] So did Ben Conner when I spoke with him.[20] Conner also emphasized that the issue was not simply Hanjour's poor English. It was everything, i.e., his general ineptitude.

Curiously, The 9/11 Commission Report acknowledges Hanjour’s poor English and sub-standard flying skills. The report even mentions that flight instructors had urged Hanjour to give up trying to become a pilot.[21] Strangely, however, another passage (in a footnote) describes Hanjour as “the [al Qaeda] operation’s most experienced pilot,” suggesting that the commission had a mixed opinion about Hanjour.[22] In the end the official investigation evidently interpreted Hanjour’s FAA license as sufficient proof that he had “persevered” in overcoming his issues.[23] The word “persevered” is straight out of the report.

But why did the commission ignore the multiple open-sourced accounts cited above, all mutually corroborative, indicating that Hanjour would have been lost in the cockpit of a Boeing 757 and was barely qualified to fly a single-engine Cessna? It is notable that The 9/11 Commission Report fails to mention the negative written evaluation by Hanjour’s Jet Tech flight instructor. The omission is serious because a glance at the timeline shows that Hanjour’s 5-6 weeks of training at Jet Tech occurred in February-March 2001, that is, after he had already earned his FAA license. Perseverance obviously was not enough. The instructor’s negative evaluation was based on Hanjour’s actual skill-set at the time, license or no license. Nor does the final report so much as mention Hanjour’s test flight at Freeway airport, or the fact that he failed it. These are telling omissions. Obviously, the commission screened out testimony that conflicted with the official narrative of what happened on that terrible day. However, this is not the full story. As we are about to learn, the recently released 9/11 files have raised disturbing new questions.

The Other Flight Instructor

It turns out that just three days after Hani Hanjour failed a flight evaluation in a Cessna 172 at Freeway airport he showed up at Congressional Air Charters, located down the road at Gaithersburg airport, also in the Washington suburbs. Once again Hanjour attempted to rent a plane, and again he was asked to go up with an instructor for a flight evaluation to confirm his flight skills. The plane was the same: a Cessna 172. Yet, on this occasion Hanjour passed with flying colors and, later, this other instructor gave testimony to the commission that turned out to be crucial. The final report mentions the instructor’s name only once in a brief endnote buried at the back of the report. The note states:

Hanjour successfully conducted a challenging certification flight supervised by an instructor at Congressional Air Charter of Gaithersburg, Maryland, landing at a small airport with a difficult approach. The instructor thought Hanjour may have had training from a military pilot because he used a terrain recognition system for navigation. Eddie Shalev interview. (Apr. 9, 2004)[24]

The note gives a name, Eddie Shalev, but no other information about him. Indeed, his identity remained a mystery until January 2009, when NARA released the 9/11 files.[25] Nonetheless, David Ray Griffin had already identified the key questions in his 2008 book The New Pearl Harbor Revisited. Wrote Griffin: “How could an instructor in Gaithersburg [i.e., Shalev] have had such a radically different view of Hanjour’s abilities from that of all of the other flight instructors who worked with him? Who was this instructor? How could this report be verified?”[26]

These are important questions because the two assessments of Hani Hanjour’s flight skills are so radically different that both cannot be correct. The evaluations, made just days apart, are contradictory, hence, mutually exclusive; which raises the disturbing possibility that someone could be lying.

The FBI File

Fortunately, another newly released document, the FBI file on Hani Hanjour, sheds additional light on the case.[27] The file includes a timeline and evidently was compiled to document the government’s case against Hanjour. I learned about it from a source on the commission, a staffer who insisted to me in an email that it authenticates Hani Hanjour’s flight training. At a glance it appears to do that. However, on closer examination the file is much less impressive and I have to wonder if the staffer actually studied it. As we will see, the document not only falls short of confirming Hanjour’s flight skills, it shows signs of having been “enhanced” to obscure the record.

Crucially, the FBI file includes not a scintilla of evidence that Hani Hanjour ever trained in a Boeing 757. Although Hanjour did some sessions a Boeing 737 simulator, as we have already seen, the press accounts, more importantly, his own instructor’s written evaluation, offer a clear and unambiguous assessment of his actual skills. It is also important to realize that even if Hanjour had mastered the controls of a Boeing 737, this would not have qualified him to execute a high-speed suicide crash in a Boeing 757, a significantly larger and less maneuverable aircraft. Such is the view of commercial pilots who fly these planes every day.[28]

One such pilot, Philip Marshall, who is licensed to fly Boeing 727s, 737s, 747s, as well as 757s and 767s, recently authored a book, False Flag 911, in which he states categorically that the alleged 9/11 hijacker pilots, including Hani Hanjour, could never have flown 767s and 757s into buildings at high speed without advanced training and practice flights in that same aircraft over a period of months. As Marshall put it: “Hitting a 90-foot target [i.e., the Pentagon] with a 757 at 500 mph is extremely difficult -- absolutely impossible for first-time fliers of a heavy airliner. It’s like seeing Tiger Woods hit a 300-yard one-iron and someone telling you he never practiced the shot.”[29] Marshall speculates that the hijackers may have received advanced flight lessons from Arabic-speaking instructors at a secret desert base somewhere in Arizona or Nevada, possibly arranged by complicit Saudi diplomats, or by members of the Saudi royal family.[30] This is why Hanjour’s inability to pass a test flight evaluation at Freeway airport just weeks before 9/11 is so significant: It tends to rule out Marshall’s theory of advanced instruction.

Close inspection of the FBI file also shows that someone padded the record to put the best face on Hanjour’s flight training. This was done in a curious way. Instead of simply informing us that Hanjour took courses “x,” “y” and “z” at such-and-such a flight school between certain dates, the FBI file gives an itemized record of every single day that Hanjour showed up for training at the various schools. The effect creates the appearance of more extensive instruction than actually occurred. Even so, the enhancement is transparently obvious. Imagine the reaction of a potential employer if you or I engaged in this dubious practice in a resume. On closer examination, another reason for padding the record is also obvious. Enhancement tends to obscure Hanjour’s tendency to jump around from school to school and his inability to finish anything he started.

The FBI file also conspicuously fails to mention the Jet Tech instructor’s written evaluation of Hani Hanjour’s flying skills. The omission easily qualifies as suppression of evidence because we know the FBI had the document in its possession. It was made public at the trial of Zacharias Moussaoui when the document was submitted as evidence. This means, of course that the 9/11 Commission also surely had it and similarly suppressed it. (See note #9.)

The FBI file also grossly mischaracterizes what happened at Freeway airport. The file mentions Hanjour’s visits but wrongly indicates that Hanjour received flight instruction. Not true. When I specifically asked Marcel Bernard about this he denied the fact and emphasized that Hanjour’s test flights included no lessons and were strictly for the purpose of evaluation.[31] The FBI should have known as much because after 9/11 Bernard and his two flight instructors notified the FBI about Hanjour’s visit and were subsequently interviewed by FBI agents. The file also conspicuously fails to mention that Hanjour flunked his test flight evaluation! Whether through incompetence or deception, the FBI failed on every point to state the facts correctly.

The FBI file does offer some fresh insights into Hani Hanjour the man. On August 2, 2001, according to the timeline, Hanjour showed up at the Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) in Arlington, where he flunked a standard written test for a Virginia driver’s license. The fact is astonishing and ought to make us wonder how Hanjour ever managed to acquire his previous Arizona driver’s license issued in 1991 and his Florida license issued in 1996, let alone master the controls of a Boeing 757.

There is another interesting item. The record indicates that on September 5, 2001, just six days before 9/11, Hanjour showed up at the First Union National Bank in Laurel, Maryland where he made four failed bank transactions. The file cites bank records showing that Hanjour was unable to make balance inquiries and withdraw funds from his account because he failed to enter the correct pin number, which he evidently had forgotten! Two days later, Hanjour returned to the bank, this time accompanied by an unidentified male, and made another unsuccessful attempt to withdraw $4900.

It is astonishing the FBI file was ever touted as authenticating Hanjour’s flight credentials. The document falls short on that score and actually raises new questions. How likely is it that a man who was unable to remember his own pin number, and who just weeks before 9/11 flunked a simple test for a driver’s license, could have executed a top gun maneuver in a commercial airliner? The odds, I would submit, are approximately zero.

The FBI file includes one other curious entry. On August 20, 2001 Hanjour shopped at Travelocity.com for information about September 5, 2001 flights from Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles. This suggests that as of August 20 Hanjour did not yet know the date of the planned attack, either because he had not been briefed or because the date had not yet been selected. By the end of the month, however, the die was cast. On August 31 Hanjour and another “middle-eastern male” purchased one-way tickets for AA Flight 77 from a New Jersey travel agent. The date of departure: September 11, 2001. Yet, given Hanjour’s level of skill, one has to wonder what the waif from Taif believed was supposed to happen on that fateful morning.

So, Who is Eddie Shalev?

The record compiled by the FBI for the purpose of to authenticating Hani Hanjour‘s flight skills fails to provide convincing substantiation. Notice, for this reason it also fails to support the testimony of the other flight instructor, Eddie Shalev, who certified Hanjour to rent a Cessna 172 from Congressional Air Charters just three days after Marcel Bernard, the chief instructor at Freeway, refused to rent Hanjour the very same plane. The 9/11 Commission Report makes no mention of the incident at Freeway airport, nor does it discuss Eddie Shalev, other than alluding to Hanjour’s certification flight in a brief endnote. This is curious, since it now appears that Shalev’s testimony was crucial. By telling the commission what it was predisposed to hear, Shalev gave the official investigation an excuse to ignore the preponderance of evidence, which pointed to the unthinkable.

So, who is Eddie Shalev? His identity remained unknown for more than seven years, but was finally revealed in one of the files released in January 2009 by the National Archives. The document, labelled a “Memorandum for the Record,” is a summary of the April 2004 interview with Eddie Shalev conducted by commission staffer Quinn John Tamm.[32] The document confirms that Shalev went on record: “Mr Shalev stated that based on his observations Hanjour was a ‘good’ pilot.” It is noteworthy that Tamm also spoke with Freeway instructors Sheri Baxter and Ben Conner, as revealed by yet another recently-released document.[33] Although I was unable to reach Tamm or Baxter for comment, I did talk with Conner, who confirmed the conversation.[34] Conner says he fully expected to testify before the commission. Perhaps not surprisingly, the call never came.

But the shocker is the revelation that Eddie Shalev is an Israeli and served in the Israeli army. The file states that “Mr. Shalev served in the Israeli Defense Forces in a paratroop regiment. He was a jumpmaster on a Boeing C-130. Mr. Shalev moved to the Gaithersburg area in April 2001 and was sponsored for employment by Congressional Air Charters...[which] has subsequently gone out of business.”

The memorandum raises disturbing questions. Consider the staffer’s strange choice of words in describing Shalev’s employment. What did Quinn John Tamm mean when he wrote that Shalev “was sponsored for employment”? Did the commission bother to investigate Congressional Air Charters? It is curious that the charter service subsequently went out of business. But the most important question is: just how thoroughly, if at all, did the commission vet Eddie Shalev?Does his military record include service in the Israeli intelligence community?

Real people have known addresses. But the whereabouts of Eddie Shalev has been unknown for years. As reported by David Griffin, a 2007 search of the national telephone directory, plus Google searches by research librarian Elizabeth Woodworth, turned up no trace of him. A LexisNexis search by Matthew Everett also came up dry.[35] Recent searches by Woodworth and myself indicate that an "Eddy Shalev" resided in Rockville, Maryland as recently as 2007. However, the associated phone number is no longer in service. The 9/11 memorandum raises the possibility that Shalev may have returned to Israel. Clearly, the man needs to be found, subpoenaed and made to testify under oath before a new investigation, even if this necessitates extradition. Quinn John Tamm and the two Freeway instructors, Sheri Baxter and Ben Conner, should also be subpoenaed. All are key witnesses and obvious starting points for a new 9/11 investigation.

Given his identity, the search for and possible extradition of Eddie Shalev could become controversial. But 9/11 investigators must not be turned aside. We must follow the trail of evidence, regardless. Should it lead into a dark wood, we must resolve to go there; and if it takes us to the gates of hell, so be it. When our search obtains a certain critical mass, momentum will shift decisively in our favor. Public support for a new 9/11 investigation will become irresistible. The light of truth will do the rest.
Mark Gaffney is the author of The 9/11 Mystery Plane (2008). For more details check out Mark's web site www.the911mysteryplane.com Mark can be reached for comment at markhgaffney@earthlink.net

Notes:

1 Many of the documents have been posted at History Commons: http://www.scribd.com/people/documents/7104168 Also see http://www.archives.gov/research/9-11-commission/
2 Marc Fisher and Don Phillips, “On Flight 77: ‘Our Plane is Being Hijacked’,” Washington Post, September 12, 2001.

3 Amy Goldstein, Lena H. Sun and George Lardner Jr., "Hanjour an Unlikely Terrorist," The Cape Cod Times, October 21, 2001.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 A copy of Hanjour’s FAA license is posted at http://www.scribd.com/doc/13120915/Airman-Records-for-Alleged-911-Hijacker-Hani-Hanjour
7 Kellie Lunney, “FAA contractors approved flight licenses for Sept. 11 suspect,” GovernmentExecutive.com, June 13, 2002.

8 “FAA Probed, Cleared Sept. 11 Hijacker in Early 2001,” FOX News, May 10, 2002.

9 Hani’s Jet Tech evaluation and other documentation were entered as evidence during the trial of Zacharias Moussaoui. Training Records, Hani Hanjour, B-737 Initial Ground Training, Class 01-3-021, Date: 2/8/01, Jet Tech International, posted at http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/exhibits/prosecution/PX00021.pdf

10 The 9/11 Commission Report, Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, 2004, pp. 226-227.
11 “FAA Probed, Cleared Sept. 11 Hijacker in Early 2001,” FOX News, May 10, 2002.

12 Ibid.

13 Jim Yardley, “A Trainee Noted for Incompetence,” New York Times, May 4, 2002.

14 “Report: 9/11 Hijacker Bypassed FAA,” AP story, June 13, 2002.

15 The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 242.
16 http://911myths.com/images/2/2a/PENTTBOM_About_Hanjour.pdf
17 The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 242.
18 Thomas Frank, “Tracing Trail of Hijackers,” Newsday, September 23, 2001. This story was confirmed by one of the newly-released 9/11 files. See http://www.scribd.com/doc/15103091/Contents-of-John-Tamm-Memos-Folder-Memos-Notes-and-Withdrawal-Notices

19 Phone conversation with Marcel Bernard, June 26, 2009.
20 Phone conversation with Ben Conner, June 28, 2009.
21 The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 226-227.

22 The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 530, note 147.
23 The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 227.
24 The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 531, note 170.
25 http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00551.pdf
26 David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, Olive Branch Press, Northhampton, 2008, p.80.
27 http://911myths.com/images/2/2a/PENTTBOM_About_Hanjour.pdf
28 Numerous testimonials by commercial pilots, all of whom question the official story, can be found here: http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/pilots.html
29 Philip Marshall, False Flag 911, pilotsof911@AOL.compilotsof911@AOL.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , 2008, pp. 6-7.
30 Ibid., pp. 34-37.
31 Phone conversation with Marcel Bernard, June 26, 2009.
32 http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00551.pdf
33 Memo from John Tamm to Dieter Snell, April 15, 2004. Posted at http://www.scribd.com/doc/15103091/Contents-of-John-Tamm-Memos-Folder-Memos-Notes-and-Withdrawal-Notices
34 Phone conversation with Ben Conner, June 28, 2009.
35 The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, p. 286, note 99.

Health,

2009-07-08T04:44:00.000-07:00

www.HealthFreedomUSA.org

DATA SET 1
1. An "informal" [e.g., illegal] clinical trial of the Avian Flu vaccine on about 200 Polish vagrants resulted in 11 immediate deaths and an additional set of 20 later deaths (approximately 15% of the test population). The doctors and nurses involved were charged with murder. (Fact. 2008)
2. Approximately 3500 Chinese children died in an Avian Flu vaccine experiment. (Rumor, 2008)
3. The Philippine High Court convicted WHO (The World Health Organization) of involuntarily sterilizing over 3 million Philippina women through the use of vaccines. (Fact)
4. The WHO in 1985 documented that one of its' primary goals for the use of a sterility vaccine disguised as a smallpox vaccine was to "eliminate 150 million excess Sub Saharan Africans". (Fact, 1985-ongoing)
5. The WHO 5-shot vaccine programs for tetanus in third world countries in South and Central America caused the involuntary sterilization of millions of women. (Fact, ongoing)
6. Monsanto's MON 810 corn causes sterility according to studies published by the Austrian Government. (Fact, 2009)
7. Monsanto's MON 810 corn contains the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus which, when ingested, lowers the bodies CD 4 cells to a point which, on immune tests, indicate that a person has HIV/AIDS. The lowered CD 4 cells results from eating GMO corn, the staple of the diet in many parts of Black Africa. MON 810 is grown in Europe for animal feed and in many places, including the US, around the world for human food. (Fact, ongoing)
8. Merck's Gardasil vaccine causes death, collapse and chronic illness in young woman and girls, including a new, never-before described "disease" called Juvenile ALS, a fatal condition in which the nervous system is slowly destroyed while consciousness remains unimpaired. This vaccine increases cervical cancer by 44.7% in women and girls who already have Human Papilloma Virus. Cervical Cancer is easily detected and cured in early stages and is not a major killer of women. Gardasil contains substances which may cause sterility in women receiving it and any protection lasts only a few years, so 9 year olds will probably not be sexually active by the time this protection has worn off. (Fact, ongoing)
9. Baxter International Inc. was in the process of applying for a contract to provide Avian Flu vaccines to European countries in the event of an Avian Flu epidemic. Its Austrian laboratory shipped Seasonal Flu vaccines to 18 countries in Europe. A laboratory technician tested the Baxter Seasonal Flu vaccines sent to the Czech Republic and discovered that they were contaminated with a highly pathogenic version of the Avian Flu, 72 Kilograms of it, although Level 3 precautions were in place and such contamination "could not have happened accidentally" according to experts in the field. No documentation of the destruction of this highly infective material has been provided although the Austrian Health Ministry insists that the deadly viral material was destroyed. (Fact, 2008, 2009)
10. A WHO investigation into the Baxter contaminated vaccine issue resulted in NO findings and in NO disciplinary actions. An Austrian investigation into the same events yielded the same results. (Fact, 2009)
11. Baxter has been rewarded with a lead role in developing, producing and disseminating the Swine Flu vaccine for the upcoming pandemic. (Fact, 2009)
12. Swine Flu was first identified to the public as a serious problem in April/May 2009 when 168 persons in Mexico were confirmed by CDC and WHO to have died from the Swine Flu. This number was later revised downward to only 16 deaths. (Fact, 2009)
13. It normally takes a minimum of 12 to 18 months to create a vaccine after a specific virus has been identified. (Fact)
14. The US Government has spent more than a billion dollars to develop and to make available the Swine flu vaccine for a disease which poses no significant health threat. (Fact, 2009)
15. The "Seed Culture" for the Swine Flu virus was provided to vaccine companies in May, 2009. Baxter International Inc. announced in June, 2009 that they would have their vaccine ready in July, 2009 . (Fact, 2009)
16. A WHO container of Swine Flu virus from Mexico City exploded on a passenger train in Luzon, Switzerland. All of the current Swiss cases of Swine Flu are from the area where the explosion took place. It is illegal to ship pathogenic viruses in this way. (Fact, 2009)
17. A significant number of virologists and other scientists are on record stating that the Swine Flu was created in a laboratory and could not evolve naturally. (Fact, 2009)

DATA SET 2
1. Canada, Sweden, Norway, France and other countries have announced intentions to vaccinate every man, woman and child. To do so, they are ordering 2 shots per person of untested, unsafe and unnecessary Swine Flu Vaccines from a variety of manufacturers. The US Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services both stated in early 2009 that they would do so "beginning with those who want it". (Fact, 2009)
2. President Obama announced to the public shortly after his inauguration that every man, woman and child should receive the Avian Flu vaccine this fall along with seasonal flu shots this coming Fall. President Obama is on record saying that he believes that vaccinations should be mandatory. (Fact, 2009)
3. The United States has spent $714 Million GPS mapping every front door of every house and apartment in the country and listing who lives in each house or apartment under the direction of the White House. (Fact, 2009)
4. Many people have reported that they have received calls at home or at work from agencies of the US Government inquiring about the "number of unvaccinated children in the household". (Fact, 2009)
5. The United States, Norway, Sweden, Austria and other countries have announced that in case of a Swine Flu pandemic all health and security authority shall revert to teams and command centers run by the WHO. (Fact, 2009)
6. Every recent major event like 9/11, the Madrid bombings or the London bombings has been accompanied by a materially identical "training exercise" simulating the actual event involving, confusing and distracting the legitimate responders. (Fact, 2001-ongoing)
7. A major set of FEMA training exercises is scheduled for 27 July, 2009. (Fact, 2009)

McNamara, Vietnam,

2009-07-08T02:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090707_robert_scheer_july_8_column/

Is holocaust too emotionally charged a word? How many millions of dead innocent civilians does it take to qualify labels like holocaust, genocide or terrorism? How many of the limbless victims of his fragmentation bombs and land mines whom I saw in Vietnam during and after the war? Or are America’s leaders always to be exempted from such questions? Perhaps if McNamara had been held legally accountable for his actions, the architects of the Iraq debacle might have paused.

Instead, McNamara was honored with the Medal of Freedom by President Lyndon Johnson, to whom he had written a private memo nine months earlier offering this assessment of their Vietnam carnage: “The picture of the world’s greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one.”

He knew it then, and, give him this, the dimensions of that horror never left him. When I interviewed him for the Los Angeles Times in 1995, after the publication of his confessional memoir, his assessment of the madness he had unleashed was all too clear:

“Look, we dropped three to four times the tonnage on that tiny little area as were dropped by the Allies in all of the theaters in World War II over a period of five years. It was unbelievable. We killed—there were killed—3,200,000 Vietnamese, excluding the South Vietnamese military. My God! The killing, the tonnage—it was fantastic. The problem was that we were trying to do something that was militarily impossible—we were trying to break the will; I don’t think we can break the will by bombing short of genocide.”

We—no, he—couldn’t break their will because their fight was for national independence. They had defeated the French and would defeat the Americans who took over when French colonialists gave up the ghost. The war was a lie from the first. It never had anything to do with the freedom of the Vietnamese (we installed one tyrant after another in power), but instead had to do with our irrational Cold War obsession with “international communism.” Irrational, as President Richard Nixon acknowledged when he embraced détente with the Soviet communists, toasted China’s fierce communist Mao Tse-tung and then escalated the war against “communist” Vietnam and neutral Cambodia.

CIA declassifies report on Israel’s nukes; Yukiya Amano

2009-07-07T16:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55266

June 18, 2009

"We do not believe that Israel will embark on the development of nuclear weapons with the aim of actually starting a nuclear war," reads the declassified 48-year-old CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate.

The estimate, publicly released June 5 by George Washington University’s National Security Archives, continues, "Possession of a nuclear weapon capability, or even the prospect of achieving it, would clearly give Israel a greater sense of security, self-confidence and assertiveness."

"In any public announcement concerning their nuclear reactor program, the Israelis would almost certainly stress the peaceful nature of their efforts, but they would also, as time goes on, make plain that henceforth Israel is a power to be accorded more respect than either its friends or its enemies have hitherto given it," reads the estimate.

The December 1960 intelligence analysis, which still has elements redacted, is interesting in today’s context as the Obama administration confronts the nuclear weapon ambitions of North Korea and Iran.

Does the understanding of why a friendly country seeks a nuclear weapon apply when the analysis involves two countries that are potential U.S. enemies? No, is the safe bet when public reaction is considered.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22980.htm

July 05, 2009 VIENNA (Reuters) July 03, 2009 - The incoming head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday he did not see any hard evidence Iran was trying to gain the ability to develop nuclear arms.

"I don't see any evidence in IAEA official documents about this," Yukiya Amano told Reuters in his first direct comment on Iran's atomic program since his election, when asked whether he believed Tehran was seeking nuclear weapons capability.

Current International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei said last month it was his "gut feeling" Iran was seeking the ability to produce nuclear arms, if it desired, as an "insurance policy" against perceived threats.

"I'm not going to be a "soft" Director-General or a "tough" Director-General," Amano told Reuters, when asked how he would approach Iran and Syria, both subject to stalled IAEA probes.

US Obama, superior power, international law, climate change

2009-07-07T12:19:00.000-07:00

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/views_on_countriesregions_bt/623.php?nid=&id=&pnt=623&lb=

The US is criticized for coercing other nations with its superior power (15 of 19 nations), failing to abide by international law (17 of 19 nations), and for how it is dealing with climate change (11 of 18 nations). Overall, views are mixed on whether the US is playing a mainly positive or mainly negative role in the world.

Asked whether they have confidence in Barack Obama to "do the right thing regarding world affairs," for all nations (excluding the US) an average of 61 percent say they have some or a lot of confidence.

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/jul09/WPO_USObama_Jul09_countries.pdf

CHINA, Xinjiang, Uighurs, Han Chinese

2009-07-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,634868,00.html#ref=nlint

07/07/2009 06:03 PMETHNIC RIOTS IN CHINA
Chants of 'Death to Uighurs' Echo Around Urumqi
By Andreas Lorenz in Urumqi

Women are crying, civilians have armed themselves with clubs and axes. Fear and chaos rule in Urumqi. The Han Chinese are bent on revenge on the Uighurs and the police are struggling to keep order.

All of a sudden, Urumqi is a city of wooden clubs. Everyone has one, men and women, police and civilians, Uigurs and Han Chinese. They all want to protect themselves -- the Han Chinese from the Uighurs, the Uighurs from the Han Chinese, the civilians fear the police and vice versa.

In the searing midday heat a leaden calm has descended on the capital of Xinjiang, the remote province in northwestern China.

On Friendship Street, a broad boulevard, shops are shuttered and groups of people have gathered in the entrances. Uniformed guards and civilians are wielding clubs, some even have axes.

All seem to be bracing for new demonstrations by the Uighurs but then it becomes clear who they're afraid of. Suddenly groups of Han Chinese march through the streets in increasing numbers.

They too are armed with clubs and iron bars. Most of them are young men but there are women in the crowd too. Some are chanting "Death to the Uighurs." They are bent on revenge for the violence of the past few days.

Some 200 of them are marching towards a mosque. Uighur women flee into a courtyard followed by the crowd. Windows shatter in a hail of stones. Military trucks and police cars arrive. Soldiers cordon off the mosque. Police with loudspeakers urge the crowd to disperse. "Please leave, thank you for your cooperation."

After another volley of stones, the demonstrators obey. The party chief of Urumqi, Li Zhi, climbs on the roof of a police car and urges people to stay calm. His words, it seems, have an effect, for now.

Earlier, even trained riot police using tear gas had failed to disperse Han Chinese protestors who were attacking businesses owned by Uighurs. The demonstrators had broken through a police line separating the two warring ethnic groups.

The provincial government of Xinjiang has imposed a curfew to restore order. All inhabitants in the province must remain in their homes between 9 p.m. local time (1 p.m. CET) and 8 a.m.

Police Powerless Against Crowds

But despite the orders of the city's party chief, despite the hastily imposed curfew, the clashes with security forces continue into the early evening. The police, demonstratively beating their shields with their truncheons, are met with shouts from the crowd. Military convoys race through the city with sirens blaring. In the press center on People's Square, imams condemn the violence.

The Urumqi city government has allowed foreign journalists to visit the city. That's in marked contrast to the handling of the Tibetan crisis last year when the city of Lhasa was sealed off. Authorities in Urumqi want to show the world how violently the "Uighur terrorists" are rampaging.

There are no international phone connections and it's impossible at times to make phone calls within the city. A total of 156 people have died in the riots, two senior officials say, more than 800 have been injured and some 1,000 people have been arrested. Authorities cancel a planned press tour to see some injured people in hospital.

"Everything happened so suddenly," says Mrs. Qian. She had sold Geely autombiles until Sunday afternoon when a mob burnt down her two car stores on 166 Dawan South Street. She doesn't know why the protestors attacked her business. She isn't a Uighur but she belongs to the Hui minority, which is another Muslim ethnic group. She's fingering a red sales banner, the only thing that remains of her business. Everything else is gone.

In the street, soldiers squat down between military trucks and armored vehicles. But then the journalist trip backfires for the authorities.

'Nobody Protects Us'

In a side street reporters come across crying and screaming Uighur women who are stretching clenched fists into the air. On Monday their husbands and sons were "arbitrarily" beaten up and taken away by police, the women say. "One old woman was beaten," they say. "They even took an eight-year-old boy."

Men complain that the Uighurs are discriminated against. There are two laws, says one man with a long black beard. "Nobody protects us."

The atmosphere grows increasingly tense. Finally some 150 women in headscarves march onto the main street. They are quickly encircled by green-uniformed officers from the armed People's Police and by the normal police in black uniforms. Water cannon and armored vehicles arrive, and some policemen have drawn their pistols. There's screaming and pushing and then the women disappear into the side alley. The reporters are pushed away by police.

A little later authorities confirm the arrest of "around a hundred people" in this area. All are under suspicion of arson, plunder, assault and destruction, officials say. But women and children are of course protected by the authorities, they add.

MERCURY, FLU VACCINE

2009-07-07T06:17:00.000-07:00

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/?page_id=483

MERCURY IS THE MAGIC INGREDIENT IN FLU VACCINE - THAT’S WHY IT IS THERE!

"The active ingredient in all flu vaccines manufactured by Merck is mercury. No other ingredient in any Merck flu vaccine has any effect on influenza in any way."

READ THE STEAMING EXPOSE, GET MAD AND THEN GET INVOLVED WITH THE NATURAL SOLUTIONS FOUNDATION’S LEGAL STRATEGY TO TAKE COMPULSORY VACCINATION DOWN!

In the fairy tale, the hero stands perplexed at the sheer face of the mountain with no way in and no way up. Suddenly, just when it appears hopeless, a door magically appears in the stone wall and his way openes before him.

I had pretty much the same feeling of a magical opening when a supporter sent me an email with a link that she thought I might be interested in. I read with shock and horror, but not disbelief, that mercury IS the ACTIVE INGREDIENT in flu vaccine and that "M", the maker of vaccine-laced flu shots, knows all of the terrible things it does to people who are vaccinated, including children, but uses it anyway.

We cannot confirm that this is really from an insider, nor are we certain that the mechanism of action of mercury as described is correct, but we need to pay attention to what "Steve" (not his real name) is saying:

"Without mercury, flu vaccines are less effective than one cup of herbal tea. With mercury, the vaccine is very effective at killing nerve cells and more effective than one cup of herbal tea in preventing the flu. In fact almost as many vaccinated people get the flu as the normal population…."

"Mercury kills nerve cells. When the nerve cells in the brain are die, the result is attention deficit, autism, behavioral disorders, bipolar, brain tumors and cancer, decreased intelligence, hyperactivity and memory problems. Flu doesn’t cause any of these things. Before mercury was added to flu vaccines all of these conditions were very rare…."

"Immediately after we started adding mercury to the vaccines, the number of reports claiming children were developing asthma post vaccine increased several hundred-fold. The current odds are 13 out of every 100 children vaccinated with anything containing mercury will report asthmatic symptoms within thirty days. Once reported, these symptoms rarely remit. One out of eight children being vaccinated for flu will develop asthma, asthma-like symptoms and cystic fibrosis that remains with them for life. That’s the current odds. This would make a very good court case except for one thing. "M" is immune to lawsuits for their flu vaccines thanks to the FDA. You can’t sue "M" for any side effect of their flu vaccine - no matter how gross their negligence. Here’s a sample of what happens because they add mercury to their flu vaccines and that’s grossly negligent and should be criminal. But it isn’t."

Israel Saudis IDF Iran, Biden

2009-07-07T05:22:00.000-07:00

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097882.html

Saudi Arabia has indicated to Israel that it would not protest use of its airspace by Israeli fighter jets in the event the government resolves to launch a military assault against Iran, according to a report which appeared in the British newspaper The Sunday Times.

The Prime Minister's office issued a statement in response Sunday morning, saying that "the Sunday Times report is fundamentally false and completely baseless."

According to The Sunday Times, Mossad chief Meir Dagan held secret meetings with Saudi officials, who gave their tacit approval to Israel's use of the kingdom's airspace.

"The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia," The Sunday Times quoted a diplomatic source as saying last week.

The report also quoted John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, as saying that it would be "entirely logical" for Israeli warplanes to fly over Saudi Arabia en route to bombing nuclear targets in Iran.

Though any Israeli attack would be roundly condemned by Mideast leaders at the UN, Bolton said Arab leaders have privately expressed trepidation at the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran.

"None of them would say anything about it publicly but they would certainly acquiesce in an overflight if the Israelis didn't trumpet it as a big success," Bolton told The Sunday Times.

=========================================================================
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/07/05/1006321/biden-israel-has-right-to-attack-iran

Biden: Israel can decide for itself on Iran
July 5, 2009

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Israel is "entitled" to decide for itself how to respond to Iran's nuclear program, Joe Biden said.

"Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," the U.S. vice president told host George Stephanopoulos Sunday morning on ABC's "This Week."

Biden said Israel could decide to attack Iran whether the United States agrees or not.

"They're entitled to do that. Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that. But there is no pressure from any nation that's going to alter our behavior as to how to proceed," Biden said, adding: "What we believe is in the national interest of the United States, which we, coincidentally, believe is also in the interest of Israel and the whole world."

Pressed by Stephanopoulos, Biden said he was "not going to speculate" on whether or not the United States would grant Israel over-flight rights in Iraq to get to Iran.

Honduras, Zelaya

2009-07-07T05:02:00.000-07:00

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22983.htm

Pres. Zelaya Calls for Non-Violent Demonstrations

Full text translation to English of the Statement of President Manuel Zelaya, issued July 4

July 04, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- Compañeros and compañeras, fellow Hondurans, your president, Manuel Zelaya Rosales, speaks to you. I want to tell you that my destiny is tied to the destiny of the Honduran people. On the morning of June 28, while I was preparing to exercise my vote in a nationwide survey, I was the victim of assaults, abuses, violations and kidnapping, I was taken captive and expelled from my country by Honduran military forces. By these military forces that today have put themselves in the service of and in complicity with the voracious elite that squeezes and asphyxiates our people, obeying their orders and not defending our nation or our democracy. This is a blow to the Honduran nation and has made clear to the world that in Honduras there is still a kind of barbarity, and people who are unaware of the harm they cause to our country and to future generations.

Through these means of communication, I call for you to continue the participation of the people. The people are the principle actors of our democracy and of the solutions that must be found to the grave problems of poverty and inequality in our country.

As Hondurans, we have faced major problems and we have always know how to come together to move forward, and this is a huge opportunity to show the world that Hondurans are capable of confronting these problems in spite of the attacks by a criminal sector that today seeks to appropriate the fate of our nation and of our children.

I speak to the coup leaders, traitors, Judases that kissed me on the cheek to then carry out this major strike against our country and democracy: You must rectify your actions as soon as possible. You are surrounded, the world has isolated you, all the nations of the world have condemned you, without exception. There is general repudiation of your actions, your actions will not be ignored because international tribunals will hold you accountable for the genocide you are carrying out in our country by repressing basic freedoms and by repressing our people.

I am organizing my return to Honduras and I ask all campesinos, housewives, city-dwellers, indigenous peoples, youth and all the groups of workers, businesspeople and politicians that I have throughout the nation--mayors, legislators--that you accompany me on my return to Honduras. This is the return of the elected president, elected by the sovereign will of the people, which is the only form of electing presidents in Honduras. Let us not lose our rights and not permit that certain individuals begin to make decisions that should be made by the Honduran people, through their legitimacy and their popular will.

I am willing to make any effort and sacrifice to obtain the freedom that our country needs. We will either be free or we will be permanent slaves unless we have the courage to defend ourselves. Do not take arms, practice what I have always taught-- non-violence. Let them be the ones who bring violence, arms and repression. Make the coup responsible for every life of every person, for the physical integrity and dignity of the Honduran people.

We are going to arrive in the International Airport of Honduras in Tegucigalpa with several presidents and members of the international community. On Sunday we will be in Tegucigalpa, we will be accompanying you and embracing you to defend what we have always defended, which is the will of God through the will of the people.

Greetings fellow countrymen and women, may God protect you and bless you all.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Stephen Hester,.HSBC Michael Geoghegan, Standard and Chartered Bank, Peter Flavel, Lloyds Banking Group, Eric Daniels;

2009-07-06T08:46:00.000-07:00

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul2009/rbs-j01.shtml

Hester’s pay packet is more than twice Goodwin’s compensation package and even higher than that of the CEOs at other banks. The highest paid is HSBC chief Michael Geoghegan, whose total package includes £7.5 million in long-term awards on top of a £1.1 million salary.

Standard and Chartered Bank’s Peter Flavel stands to get £2.9 million in perks, while Eric Daniels, chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group—which, like RBS, is part-nationalised—is paid a £1 million salary and has a long-term incentive plan of £2 million.

The RBS deal had the approval of the Treasury, UK Financial Investments (which controls the state's 70 percent stake in RBS), and the Financial Services Authority, the banks’ regulator.

Only last February, Hester told the House of Commons Treasury Committee, "I do think banking pay in some areas of the industry is way too high and needs to come down, and I intend us to lead that process."

Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, Robert Seldon Lady

2009-07-06T08:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE55T3H420090630?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0&sp=true

"I'm not guilty. I'm only responsible for carrying out orders that I received from my superiors," Lady, the CIA's Milan station chief at the time, was quoted as telling Il Giornale newspaper when asked whether he participated in the abduction.

He said he committed no crime because it was a "state matter." "I console myself by reminding myself that I was a soldier, that I was in a war against terrorism, that I couldn't discuss orders given to me."

Lady, now retired, spoke from an undisclosed location over the Internet to the paper, which is owned by the brother of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

He said an Italian police officer, who already confessed to police and was given a suspended sentence, was the only Italian at the scene of the Milan abduction.

"I wasn't at the scene and I didn't organize the thing, the rendition, the arrest, the kidnapping, however we want to call it," said Lady, who is being tried in absentia. "But my belief is that at that moment there weren't other Italians."

Berlusconi, who was also in power at the time of Nasr's disappearance, has denied any Italian state knowledge of any secret CIA transfer. But he also successfully waged a campaign to get classified testimony and documents related to Italy's collaboration with the CIA stripped from the trial proceedings.

Berlusconi says the trial risks isolating Italian spies from the international intelligence community.

Russia Obama WorldPublicOpinion

2009-07-06T02:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/breuropera/622.php?nid=&id=&pnt=622&lb=breu

When President Obama arrives in Russia for the Moscow summit he may face a cool reception. A new poll of Russians, conducted by the Levada Center as part of a larger WorldPublicOpinion.org poll finds that just 23 percent of Russians have confidence in Obama to do the right thing in international affairs, while 55 percent say they do not have confidence. This is one of the most negative ratings of Obama out of 20 nations polled around the world.

Russians views of US foreign policy are equally bad. Just 15 percent say that the United States is playing a positive role in the world, while 49 percent say it is having a negative influence.

Russians also say they feel bullied by the US. Only 12 percent say the US treats Russia fairly, while 75 percent of say that the US abuses its power to make Russia do what the US wants.

But the poll did find a few positive points. More Russians say that the United States is cooperative (47%) than say it is not (27%). And 41 percent say that the US respects human rights, while just 29 percent say it does not.

Americans' views of Russian Prime Minister Putin are about the same as Russians' views of Obama. Just 27 percent of Americans express confidence in Putin, while 69 percent do not.

However, Americans' views of Putin are more typical of world views than are Russians' views of Obama. On average across 19 nations 61 percent express confidence in Obama (31% do not), while just 34 percent express confidence in Putin (50% do not).

The poll of 800 Russians was conducted May 22-26, 2009 in face-to-face interviews, with a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percent.

The poll of 805 Americans (margin of error +/-3.5 percent) was conducted May 27 to June 4, 2009 by Knowledge Networks using its nationwide panel, which is randomly selected from the entire adult population and subsequently provided Internet access.

LTTE, Shanmugalingam Sivashankar (Pottu Amman).

2009-07-03T05:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.futurefastforward.com/geopolitical-analysis/1773-missing-tiger-spy-chief-spells-trouble-by-sudha-ramachandran-2609

2 June, 2009 Asiatimes

BANGALORE - A little over a week after the Sri Lankan government triumphantly announced the elimination of the entire top brass of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), there is some unease in Colombo over the fate of one of the most powerful Tigers, the LTTE's intelligence chief Shanmugalingam Sivashankar, better known as Pottu Amman.

The failure of the government to produce his body has triggered speculation that Pottu Amman might not be dead after all and could have escaped the final stages of the military offensive that left some of his comrades, including LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, dead.

Some reports claimed that Pottu Amman is alive but in army custody. But had that been true, said Indian intelligence officials, "He would have been paraded on state television."

After initially naming Pottu Amman among a list of LTTE leaders who were killed last week, the Sri Lankan army has gone silent on the issue of Pottu Amman's fate.

Female Circumscision

2009-07-03T04:04:00.000-07:00

http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/20090702_designer_vaginas_is_female_circumcision_coming_out_of_the_closet/
As a circumcised and sexually fulfilled African woman, when I consider the fuss that female circumcision has attracted to Africa over the years and the wind of labiaplasties and genital rejuvenations currently sweeping across Europe and America, I cannot help but ask in the words of Dr. Deborah Tolman, professor of social welfare at Hunter College School of Social Work, “What happened in the last three years to make [these] women’s labias so big that they can’t walk around with them?”
I was watching an episode of “Dr. 90210” on E! Entertainment Television recently. A young American woman was getting a labiaplasty and clitoral hood reduction. She said her labia “didn’t look nice” and her clitoral hood was “uncomfortable,” especially when she was having sex. I didn’t know what to think.

Pakistani, Taliban, US

2009-07-02T02:25:00.000-07:00

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brasiapacificra/619.php?nid=&id=&pnt=619&lb=

"A sea change has occurred in Pakistani public opinion. The tactics and undemocratic bent of militant groups--in tribal areas as well as Swat--have brought widespread revulsion and turned Pakistanis against them," comments Clay Ramsay, research director. However, he adds: "It's crucial to understand that the US is resented just as much as before, despite the US having a new president."

There has been a huge increase in those who think the "activities of Islamist militants and local Taliban" are a critical threat to Pakistan--a 47 point rise to 81 percent, up from 34 percent in late 2007. If the Pakistani Taliban were to gain control of the country, 75 percent say this would be bad (very bad, 67%)--though only 33 percent think this outcome is likely.

MyOwn

Cockroache

The US-Al Qaeda Alliance: Bosnia, Kosovo and Now Libya. Washington’s On-Going Collusion with Terrorists

Nuclear Weapons US

Tony Blair

Chernobyl disaster

Iraq Oil Deals

Arabs

GM Foods At the Moment

Churchill

Thatcher Among First to See Global Warming

Digital Books and Your Rights: A Checklist for Readers

How Religion Evelved

The Drug Cocktail To Feel Youthful

Undeclared Nuclear Weapons States

Binyam Mohamed

Mystery of the Missing Sunspots, Solved?

Moscow's Stray Dogs Evolving Greater Intelligence

For The Book

Heat Wave In 2007

Jet Streams

For The Book

For The Book

Gold­en Ra­tio

US War Machine

US Food Waste

Would Our Government Really Start a War to Try to Stimulate the Economy?

Thermography for Breast Cancer

Flu HINI

Flu Vaccine Exposed

Ex Military Prison

Battery Life

Bisphenol-A (BPA) UK

RABBI BARUCH KAPLAN

ADD/ADHD Ritalin®, Concerta®, Adderall®, and Strattera®

Doctors Bribed Hook Kids Drugs

Thimerosal Autism Neurotoxicity

Your Car and Home Could Soon Be Powered By Urine

How To subdue Insurgency.

US “rigged” elections Kyrgyzstan

Afghanistan NATO Forces

Swine Flu GlaxoSmithKline

Mahmoud al-Sarsak, IDF, Sccer Player

Mohammad Srour IDF Kidnapping UN

U.S. rabbis human kidneys

Bird flu

whales, Intelligence

US Terror Interrogation Unit

Harry Truman, Christian Zionist

AIPAC

Credit Rating

33 Secrets to a Good Night's Sleep

Arafat, Abu Mazen, Sharon, Farouk Kaddoumi

Thomas Pickering

Richard Dreyfuss

Israel to hold missile test in US

Michael Jackson

Control by the few

Iranian Jews Israel Ahmadinejad

Neal Lewington

Jose Couso and a Ukrainian cameraman, Taras Protsyuk

All-White Swimming Pool

7/7

Feds, China etc

Dr David Kelly's death

Afghans, Taliban, Police

Afghani war, Who Said What?

A VERY BRIEF LIST OF ZIONIST TERRORISM

Passport, Radio Frequency Identification, or RFID, Terrorist Target,

Scott Roeder, Dr. George Tiller, Rev. Donald Spitz, Fahad Hashmi, Junaid Babar, Andrew Stepanian, animal rights and environmental activists.

“theory of everything”

Yudhoyono, Indonesia, Zoellick, Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, Robert Mueller

David Kelly

MI5 bribe Rangzieb Ahmed torture

11th Sept

Health,

McNamara, Vietnam,

CIA declassifies report on Israel’s nukes; Yukiya Amano

US Obama, superior power, international law, climate change

CHINA, Xinjiang, Uighurs, Han Chinese

Golden Ratio