olbermann helps rumsfeld define fascism

show some love to olbermann by sending some emails: viewerservices@msnbc.com, letters@msnbc.com, countdown@msnbc.com, KOlbermann@msnbc.com, dabrams@msnbc.com

update: go to atrios for the transcript...

painful lessons of hurricane katrina

from propaganda matrix: One year after Hurricane Katrina and the lessons remain painfully clear - the event paved the way for the standard government response to a crisis - sabotage the rescue efforts, dominate and enslave the victims, then reap the windfall from the tragedy.

Katrina was a trial balloon for widespread gun confiscation under the pretext of a crisis. Following the police chief's announcement that nobody would be "allowed" to be armed - re-writing the 2nd amendment in one sentence - police, national guard and private security thugs began confiscating firearms from owners whose homes were completely undamaged and unaffected by the hurricane in the high and dry areas of the city of New Orleans.

The New York Times reported that the only people allowed to keep their guns were the security squads that had been hired by wealthier residents of New Orleans, which was totally misleading because 99% of these thugs were hired by the federal government. A few billionaires with mansions were able to afford the security but the middle class were not. This report gave the impression that the middle class were not being targeted for gun confiscation and so those readers were put back to sleep.

Katrina was another example of what FEMA does best - deliberately sabotages a crisis and leaves people for dead. Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard's memorable emotional plea on Meet the Press went right to the heart of what FEMA were doing.

"We had Wal-Mart deliver three trucks of water, trailer trucks of water. FEMA turned them back. They said we didn't need them. This was a week ago. FEMA--we had 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel on a Coast Guard vessel docked in my parish. The Coast Guard said, "Come get the fuel right away." When we got there with our trucks, they got a word. "FEMA says don't give you the fuel." Yesterday--yesterday--FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, "No one is getting near these lines."



Why would FEMA make an already terrible situation worse? Because after every purposefully botched rescue effort that is whitewashed as a lack of resources, FEMA get more funding and more power.

The agenda in New Orleans was about privatizing the police state. Although abuses regularly occur, law enforcement are at least supposed to operate within the realms of the constitution, a definition that can be shifted when private mercenaries are hired to dominate the population - as happened in New Orleans where we saw Blackwater security and even Israeli troops pointing guns at American citizens.

In addition to the Israelis, armed Mexican soldiers entered the US for the first time since 1846 to supposedly provide aid. Conditioning Americans to the perception that foreign troops on US soil policing US citizens in times of emergency is normal was one of the outcomes of this alarming precedent.

The Army Times reported that hurricane survivors who wouldn't leave New Orleans were to be treated as insurgents and that combat operations to eliminate them were undertaken. This is where the so-called 'relief' effort was directed towards - treating American citizens like terrorists and hunting them down simply for wanting to stay in their own homes. And once they were caught, FEMA treated evacuees as internees, registering them and giving them ID cards, preventing them from leaving the internment camps.

The deliberate misappropriation of funds for the emergency was evident from the start when the first three organizations on the government recommended donation list were the American Red Cross, Pat Robertson and Bnai Brith. What a choice! The American Red Cross seize on any disaster as a cash cow the first chance they get as we have previously documented.

Then came Halliburton Brown and Root no bid reconstruction contracts and outsourcing of body recoveries to scandal ridden companies connected to the Bush family who had been caught dumping bodies in the past.

The US government already has developed technology enabling control and reduction of hurricanes but rather than seeking to use it to help people they are only interested in using it as a weapon. Former Naval physicist Ben Livingston briefed President Lyndon B. Johnson on hurricane control technology 40 years ago.



As Bush fiddled with a guitar in a staged photo-op and his wife called the hurricane 'Corrina' in interviews, the rest of his Neo-Con cheerleading gaggle crawled out of the woodwork to attack the victims of the tragedy.

The statements sent spewing from the frothing mouths of the Neo-Cons again betrayed the fact that they were completely devoid of any rational human feelings or grip on reality.

Barbara Bush said the victims were better off after the hurricane than they were before it.

Tom Delay said being forcibly detained in prison camp facilities was kind of fun.

Glenn Beck, the talk show host, said that hurricane victims were scumbags and saying he hated the 9/11 families.

Immediately after 9/11 when we questioned the official version of events these were the same people who were called us crass, insensitive, and an insult to the family members. Now they were the ones calling the same family members scumbags.

Michael Chertoff called Louisiana a city.

Dick Cheney said the hurricane victims were thankful for what the federal government had done to them.

The bottom line on Katrina is that whether you believe it was all incompetence or part incompetence and part malevolence, the lasting pretext is the same. When a disaster takes place, you have no rights and the federal government can arrest you if you don’t follow their every order.

In creating a permanent state of emergency as the Bush administration has attempted to do, this mandates a pervasive and permanent state of martial law where constitutionally guaranteed rights are suspended and rule by force applies.

The horrific suffering of the residents of New Orleans which continues to this day underlines a basic truth - government can't protect you, won't protect you and has no intention of protecting you.

Katrina was the calling card of the New World Order - misery, suffering, death, authoritarianism, police state and finally the elitists cashing their chips in on the devastation.

who killed john o'neill?

from wkjo.com: One Actor, One Room, Seven Characters: 9/11.

Traumatized by the September 11th attacks, one man struggles to dismantle official history, all at the expense of his sanity and even his life. Grappling with multiple realities - and multiple personalities - he must retreat into his mind in pursuit of the truth. In a fictional film about non-fictional events, there is a place where belief and faith will blind you, where nothing is sacred, and to get there all you have to do is ask: "Who Killed John O'Neill?"

a dead art film by ty rauber and ryan thurston

air america fires mike malloy

from 9/11 blogger: This is from Malloy's home page. Malloy has been the only AAR jock to air full, uncensored interviews with David Ray Griffin and Webster Griffin Tarpley, among others. Show him some support...

from Mike Malloy.com:
Hey Truthseekers, Malloy here. My good friend Peter Werbe will be temporarily broadcasting on Air America Radio at night in my old time slot. He's a good guy, a true left-liberal, and now finds himself in an awkward position. He cannot comment about the circumstances of my termination on the air, which I completely understand and support. I have been in Peter's exact position in the past.

So I have a request: Please treat Peter with the respect he truly deserves. Please keep in mind he did not ask to be in this position. The righteous anger and frustration felt right now by so many supporters of our program should be expressed to Air America Radio directly.

Here's the phone number to call: 212-871-8290 or email to: comments@airamericaradio.com

Again, we will keep you updated as more details develop and thanks as always for your incredible support.

pipeline giant to go private

from baltimore sun: When Richard D. Kinder left Enron Corp. 10 years ago, he walked away with a pipeline business that didn't fit into the flashy company's vision for building the energy trader of the future.

Yesterday, the company that Kinder and his partners built from Enron's castoffs said it would go private in a buyout valued at $14.6 billion.

If approved by shareholders, the acquisition of Houston-based Kinder Morgan Inc. by an investment group led by Kinder and other senior executives would be the third-biggest leveraged buyout ever...

Other members of the investment group include insurer American International Group Inc., investment bank Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and investment firms Carlyle and Riverstone Holdings.

muse invites millions to see 'terrorstorm'

from propaganda matrix: Critically acclaimed rockers Muse cited Alex Jones' new film as one of their influences as frontman Matt Bellamy scrawled "Terror Storm" on the back of his shirt for the band's Saturday night headline gig at the Reading Festival in the UK...

Following the performance, Bellamy explained the meaning behind the t-shirt to NME, Britain's top selling music magazine. "Go to Google Video, type in Terror Storm and you'll find a nice little surprise. It will shed some light on world affairs, put it that way. I rather point you in the direction then preach about it myself," said Bellamy. A BBC news report also picked up on the story.

whistleblower uses YouTube to tell his story

from raw story: An article in [Tuesday August 29's] Washington Post reveals that for the first known time, a whistleblower working on a US Government contract has posted a video on YouTube making his case about a problem inside government...

The Washington Post story tells the case of Michael De Kort, an engineer for Lockheed Martin, who worked on a US Coast Guard contract to replace the patrol boats used by the service. The contract is worth billions of dollars...

The Washington Post notes that De Kort appears to be the only known whistleblower to use YouTube to date. Nonetheless, they add "The video also has caught the eye of people in high places. De Kort's video has been covered by defense trade magazines, and yesterday, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, wrote a letter to the Coast Guard asking for an answer to De Kort's "extremely distressing" allegations."

outside the box #65

here is the latest episode of "outside the box," hosted by alex ansary.
it was originally broadcast by portland community media on august 24, 2006.

from alex ansary: If human beings live in a world of infinite potential, then how many of us are tapping into infinite possibility? We begin this program with an overview into the facinating world of astral travel with our guest, David Warner. Later I discuss the concept of the collective reality molding and reenforcing the 'prison without bars.'

is this bush's secret bunker?

Mount Weather is a top-security underground installation an hour's drive from Washington DC. It has its own leaders, police, fire department - and laws. A cold war relic, it has been given a new lease of life since 9/11. And no one who's been inside has ever talked.

from guardian: "Actually, you may want to just put those down a minute," Tim Brown is telling me, as I peer through binoculars at a cluster of buildings and antennae on a distant ridge. "The locals might get a bit nervous." ...

The object of our attention is Mount Weather, officially the Emergency Operations Centre of the Federal Emergency Management Authority (FEMA); and, less officially, a massive underground complex originally built to house governmental officials in the event of a full-scale nuclear exchange. Today, as the Bush administration wages its war on terror, Mount Weather is believed to house a "shadow government" made up of senior Washington officials on temporary assignment.

william cohen demands never ending servitude

from kurt nimmo: According to William Cohen, former Secretary of Offense and Clinton administration war criminal, few of us have made the sort of “commitment to universal service” demanded by our rulers, or are we “really committed to this war against terrorism,” that is to say the forever war against Islam.

Appearing on Fox, Cohen said “something has to be done to put us on a war footing mentality,” as obviously the spate of fake color-coded terror alerts, revealed to be nothing more than crass political monkeywrenching, and the parade of duped patsies in Miami, Ontario, and London, to name but the most recent, have not frightened the populace to the degree required. In order to get the people in the appropriate mindset, Cohen believes we need “national service,” that is to say he is in favor of mandatory servitude, otherwise known as slavery, and he describes this national serfhood as “helping out at homes, health care, nurses, etc.,” when in fact the state—or, more specifically, the multinational corporations and banksters who run the state—could care less about such things. In essence, this is a foot in the door for a military draft, as millions of soldiers, or pawns, need to be thrown on toxic and depleted uranium battlegrounds for the next generation or two.

portland to host massive DHS drills in may '07

from government computer news: Portland, Ore., and Phoenix have been identified as sites for the nation's next disaster response drill.

The two cities are expected to host Topoff 4 in May 2007. The multimillion-dollar drill, whose name is short for Top Officials, is the third to be run by the Department of Homeland Security to test federal, state and local preparedness and response capabilities to a complex terrorist attack scenario...

Anna Richter Taylor, a spokeswoman for Oregon Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski, confirmed the selection of Portland as a site for the event. News reports in Oregon indicated Phoenix was also selected for Topoff 4, although Taylor said she could not immediately confirm that. DHS officials did not return a call for comment.

Taylor said the governor supports Portland’s hosting of the Topoff 4 drill and will consider providing some financial aid for it. “The governor made it clear that we wanted to collaborate and there would be grants involved,” Taylor said in the phone interview.

once again, thanks to false flag news... we just became aware of this upcoming drill, so expect more research & updates in the near future...

'terrorstorm' premiere a huge success!

from 9/11 blogger: Around 800 of Alex Jones and Jim Marrs' closest friends filled the Dallas Lakewood Theater to near capacity on the evening of August 26, 2006, for the Texas Premiere of "TerrorStorm" and to hear Jim Marrs speak.

The crowd was diverse; many races, many different policitical stripes, and people of all ages were in attendance. Jones opened up the evening with a stirring 30 minute speech, putting the "elite" on notice; people are educating themselves about the existence of state sponsored terror as a political tool, and they're not going to take it anymore.

Despite the serious nature of TerrorStorm, the crowd was positive, receptive to Jones' message, and the audience gave the film a rousing ovation at its conclusion.

Following the premiere of the final cut of TerrorStorm, Jim Marrs gave a nearly 1 hour speech, talking about his research into 9/11, and how aspects of the assassination of JFK parallel the events of 9/11. Chief among them, the destruction/disappearing of evidence from the crime scene which covered the trail of the villians, as well as competent authorities not being allowed to examine the evidence that did exist.

Marrs also signed copies of his new book "The Terror Conspiracy" newly released from Disinfo.

If nearly 1,000 people can gather in the very heart of "Bush Country" to learn and teach each other about False Flag Terror, you should be able to do this in any state in the country. Terrorstorm is a powerful and educational documentary... Check it out for yourself... Hell, buy a DVD, rent a theater and show it yourself.

Watch TerrorStorm on Google Video

and here is the trailer for TerrorStorm:

activist's remark starts fbi probe

from newsday: Jim Bensman thought his suggestion during a public hearing was harmless enough: Instead of building a channel so migratory fish could go around a dam on the Mississippi River, just get rid of the dam. Instead, the environmental activist found himself in hot water, drawing FBI scrutiny to see whether he had any terrorist intentions.

The case "shows just how easy it is to be labeled a suspected terrorist," he says...

During the 90-minute hearing that included on the agenda whether to build a fish channel, Bensman says, he reiterated he's no fan of dams, contending they're environmentally destructive and amount to billions of dollars in corporate welfare for boating interests.

He urged that the dam be torn out. He said he never mentioned blowing the dam up, though the corps' presentation of possible options included a picture of a dam being dynamited.

Chad orders foreign oil firms out

from bbc news: Chad has ordered two major foreign oil firms to leave the country on Sunday in a row over taxes. President Idriss Deby gave the order to US firm ChevronTexaco and Malaysia's Petronas after deciding on Saturday.

"Chad has decided that as of tomorrow ChevronTexaco and Petronas must leave Chad because they have refused to pay their taxes," Mr Deby said.

There was no immediate comment from the two firms, which are responsible for handling 60% of Chad's production. The decision leaves only Exxon Mobil remaining in the consortium which handles the country's oil production. President Deby said his government would take control of the remaining reserves... the surprise decision has sent shock waves around the oil industry.

a long list of terrible things

here is a long list of terrible things that i've been meaning to post...
so get ready, cause it's going to get ugly...

Intelligence Officials Doubt Iran Uranium Claims
from raw story: The Bush administration continues to bypass standard intelligence channels and use what some believe to be propaganda tactics to create a compelling case for war with Iran...

Crying Wolf: Terror Alerts Based On Fabricated Intelligence
from global research: This is certainly not the first time that brash and unsubstantiated statements have been made regarding an impending terror attack, which have proven to be based on "faulty intelligence."

Afghanistan Begins Polio Vaccinations
from seattle post-intelligencer: Tens of thousands of health workers fanned out across Afghanistan Sunday [Aug. 20] in a polio vaccination campaign to immunize more than 7 million children under age 5.

"APOCALYPTO": Gibson's Next Film & The Mayan Year 2012
from aztlan: Mel Gibson's title "Apocalypto", which in Greek means "an unveiling and a new beginning," certainly fits with the Mayan definition of the "Fin de los Tiempos"... which will occur on Friday, December 21, 2012.

Twin Towers Wreckage Turning Up All Over The Place
from online journal: And you thought all the 9/11 WTC wreckage was swept up in eight months and sent to be smelted in foreign countries or secret places in our own strange land, right?

Mysterious Wounds From Israeli Shells In Gaza
from middle east online: "As far as we are concerned, this is a new weapon for us. This could be phosphorus, chemicals or a mix..."

Refuse To Be Terrorized
from wired: Our job is to fight those politicians who use fear as an excuse to take away our liberties and promote security theater that wastes money and doesn't make us any safer.

UK Troops To Stay In Iraq 'To Protect Investment'
from london independent: A force of around 4,000 British troops will stay behind in Iraq for an indefinite period, even after all provinces controlled by the UK are handed over to the Baghdad government...

Israel Fingered For State Terrorism
from global research: Amnesty International has accused Israel of committing war crimes, and indirectly, of engaging in state terrorism.

Computers Write News Stories
from breit bart: A new service from Thomson Corp.'s Thomson Financial issues articles generated by computer software, using templates and "a rich thesaurus ... so no two stories are exactly the same..."

Congressional Hopeful Doubts 9/11 Story
from free market news: Mary Maxwell, a contender for the New Hampshire 2nd District Republican primary, says the U.S. government was complicit in the terrorist attacks...

Chinese AIDS Patient Beaten While Pleading For Gov't Help
from breit bart: A Chinese woman who contracted HIV during hospital surgery said she was attacked while she and other patients pleaded with the government for compensation.

Homeland Security Moving To Classrooms
from delaware online: Across the nation and around the world, colleges are increasingly creating degree programs and other courses to prepare students for work in "homeland security"...

Blackwater Shot Down In Federal Court
from the nation: In a major blow to one of the most infamous war profiteers operating in Iraq, Afghanistan and New Orleans, a federal appeals court has ruled that a wrongful death lawsuit filed against the mercenary firm Blackwater USA can proceed in North Carolina's state courts.
For more background on these mercenaries, check out the epic story of Blackwater: Inside America's Private Army

Buchanan Declares: Third World Conquest Of America
from drudge report: In STATE OF EMERGENCY, Pat Buchanan slams the president, La Reconquista & elites seeking to erase America's borders and merge the United States and Mexico into a North American Union.

ugh, now i just feel dirty...

EPA whistleblower says US hid 9/11 dust danger

from new york times: A senior scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency has accused the agency of relying on misleading data about the health hazards of World Trade Center dust.

The scientist, who has been sharply critical of the agency in the past, claimed in a letter to members of the New York Congressional delegation this week that test reports in 2002 and 2003 distorted the alkalinity, or pH level, of the dust released when the twin towers collapsed, downplaying its danger.

Some doctors suspect that the highly alkaline nature of the dust contributed to the variety of ailments that recovery workers and residents have complained of since the attack.

Tests of the gray-brown dust conducted by scientists at the United States Geological Survey a few months after the attack found that the dust was highly alkaline, in some instances as caustic or corrosive as drain cleaner, and capable of causing severe irritation and burns.

US built major Iranian nuclear facility

from sun-sentinel: In the heart of Tehran sits one of Iran's most important nuclear facilities, a dome-shaped building where scientists have conducted secret experiments that could help the country build atomic bombs. It was provided to the Iranians by the United States.

The Tehran Research Reactor represents a little-known aspect of the international uproar over the country's alleged weapons program. Not only did the U.S. provide the reactor in the 1960s as part of a Cold War strategy, America also supplied the weapons-grade uranium needed to power the facility—fuel that remains in Iran and could be used to help make nuclear arms.

As the U.S. and other countries wrestle with Iran's refusal this week to curb its nuclear capabilities, an examination of the Tehran facility sheds light on the degree to which the United States has been complicit in Iran developing those capabilities.

Though the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, has found no proof Iran is building a bomb, the agency says the country has repeatedly concealed its nuclear activities from inspectors. And some of these activities have taken place in the U.S.-supplied reactor, IAEA records show, including experiments with uranium, a key material in the production of nuclear weapons.

U.S. officials point to these activities as evidence Iran is trying to construct nuclear arms, but they do not publicly mention that the work has taken place in a U.S.-supplied facility.

white house dismisses third-term talk

from fox news: A third term for President Bush? No thanks, his staff says.

"Believe me, I think staff thinks that two are plenty,"White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said Wednesday, suggesting people are being worn out by the demands of the job.

Even Bush seemed taken aback when a supporter, Rockey Vaccarella, said he wished the president could have another term.

"Wait a minute,"the president interrupted.

Even if he wanted another term, Bush would be barred by the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution which says no person can be elected president more than twice.

nsa wiretapping whistleblowers found dead

from cannonfire: Is someone murdering people who know too much about NSA wiretapping?

Two whistleblowers -- one in Italy, one in Greece -- uncovered a secret bugging system installed in cell phones around the world. Both met with untimely ends. The resultant scandals have received little press in the United States, despite the profound implications for American critics of the Bush administration.

Last month, Italian telecommunications security expert Adamo Bove either lept or was pushed from a freeway overpass; he left no note and had no history of depression. Last year (March, 2005), Greek telecommunications expert Costas Tsalikidis met with a similarly enigmatic end. Both had uncovered American attempts to eavesdrop on government officials, anti-war activists, and private businessmen.

The Bove case relates to the long-standing controversy over the CIA's kidnapping of cleric Abu Omar, who was flown to Egypt and tortured. The post-Berlusconi government of Italy is attempting to arrest and try all of CIA personnel involved. Bove used mobile phone records to trace more than two dozen American agents.

Bove had also revealed that his employer, Telecom Italia, had allowed illegal "spyware" -- undetectable wiretaps -- to infest Italy's largest communications system. His testimony helped to uncover the unsettling relationship between SISMI chief Marco Mancini and Telecom Italia head Giuliano Tavaroli. (Mancini, recently arrested by Italian investigators, has also come under some suspicion for his possible role in the strange affair of Major General Nicola Calipari, killed by American troops in Iraq.) In the 1990's, Bove had received wide praise for helping to secure convictions of two bosses in the Camorra, Naples' answer to the Sicilian Mafia.

The case of Costas Tsalikidis -- an engineer for Vodaphone, Greece's top telecommunications firm -- offers a similar picture. Tsalikidis discovered an extraordinarily spohisticated piece of spyware within his company's network. The Prime Minister and other top officials were targeted, along with Greek military officers, anti-war activists, various business figures -- and a cell phone within the American embassy itself. This page gives a full list of the targets, very few of whom could be considered as having even a remote connection to terrorism.

"we're getting the crown jewel"

here we have the loss of some of the last real investigative newspapers left in the country... including the san jose mercury news, the paper that brought us gary webb's 'dark alliance' which exposed CIA drug running.

from mercury news: McClatchy announced today that the Mercury News and three other Knight Ridder papers will be acquired by Denver-based MediaNews in a complicated $1 billion deal involving several other newspaper companies, including Hearst, the owner of the San Francisco Chronicle...

The deal creates a powerful new media giant in Northern California by combining ownership of MediaNews' eight local daily newspapers with Knight Ridder's Mercury News, Contra Costa Times and Monterey County Herald. MediaNews also is acquiring Knight Ridder's smaller Bay Area publications, such as the Palo Alto Daily News group and the Silicon Valley Community Newspapers.

and where did they get the money to do this?

Gates Foundation among MediaNews lenders
from houston chronicle: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was among a few dozen banks, insurance companies, mutual funds and other entities that loaned $350 million to MediaNews Group Inc. for its purchase of four newspapers from publisher McClatchy Co.

The Seattle-based Gates Foundation, the world's largest philanthropy with an endowment of about $30 billion, contributed an unspecified amount of money toward the transaction, according to an Aug. 8 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission by MediaNews Group. Others listed as contributors include General Electric Capital Corp. and Blue Shield of California.

challenge to lone gunman theory

from contra costa times: More than four decades after his death, John F. Kennedy's assassination remains the hottest cold case in U.S. history, and the clues continue to trickle in. Now Lawrence Livermore Laboratory scientists say a key piece of evidence supporting the lone gunman theory should be thrown out.

A new look at clues gleaned from studies of crime-scene bullet fragments shows they may have been misinterpreted.

"It basically shatters what some people call the best physical evidence around," said chemist Pat Grant, director of the lab's Forensic Science Center.

Grant and Livermore Lab metallurgist Erik Randich found that the chemical "fingerprints" used to identify which bullets the fragments came from are actually more like run-of-the-mill tire tracks than one-of-a-kind fingerprints.

"I've spoken with people on both sides of the conspiracy divide and there's no question but that (Randich and Grant's) work is going to be very difficult, if not outright impossible, to refute," said Gary Aguilar, a San Francisco ophthalmologist and single-bullet skeptic who has studied the Kennedy assassination for more than a decade. "It looks impregnable."

The government's claim that Lee Harvey Oswald alone killed Kennedy spawned a vitriolic debate between conspiracy theorists and lone gunman supporters that rages to this day.

democrats stifle antiwar voices, again

from gnn: Ned Lamont’s victory over Senator Joe Lieberman in Connecticut’s Democratic primary two weeks ago has been hailed by many as a victory for the movement against the war in Iraq... But even if Lamont is attempting to rock the boat on Iraq, he is still in full defense of Israel and the country’s bloody three-week bombardment of Lebanon...

The Democratic Party doesn’t allow dissent, and like the Republican Party, they are even willing to stifle democracy in order to ensure their ascendancy on Election Day. Here in New York the Democratic Party has willfully ignored Jonathan Tasini’s popular antiwar campaign against Hillary Clinton. Tasini, unlike Lamont, is critical of the close relationship between the US and the state of Israel...

While the mainstream antiwar movement was celebrating Lamont’s conquest over Lieberman, Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney’s (who has been openly critical of Israel) campaign took a bullet in Georgia. Where were the MoveOn.org and the DailyKos mobs then? Certainly not demanding that their members donate money to her antiwar campaign. Was it because she doesn’t think that US taxpayers should be supporting American and Israeli military aggression in the Middle East? Is that why they are all ignoring Jonathan Tasini and others?

Absolutely.

bush's final gamble: giving iraq a dictator?

from times online: The news was buried in a New York Times story last week but it confirmed what others in the Washington chattering classes have been observing lately.

The context is that the White House has been inviting outsiders in to the Oval Office to discuss strategy in Iraq. The new chief of staff Josh Bolten has apparently been trying to pierce the intellectual cocoon in which the president comfortably resides. Bush family consigliere James Baker has already been asked to rescue the president’s failed Iraq policy.

But last week the new nugget: an anonymous "military affairs expert" attended a White House briefing and reported: "Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy. Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect, but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy."

intel analyst on 9/11: 'we've been had!'

army: doubting official story is 'disloyal to the US'

from lone star iconoclast: According to unnamed military sources contacted by The Iconoclast, Sergeant First Class Donald Buswell "used his Government issued email account to send messages disloyal to the United States..."

here is what he wrote:

The issue is 9/11 was filled with errors in the 'official report' and 'official story' of that day, and, what happened that day. We all know and saw 2 planes hitting the WTC buildings, we didn'’t see the 757 hit the Pentagon, nor did we see the plane crash in Shanksville, PA. Both the PA and Pentagon 'crashes' don't have clues and tell-tale signs of a jumbo-jet impacting those zones!

The Pentagon would have huge wing impacts in the side of the building; it didn'’t. Shanksville PA would have had debris, and a large debris field; it didn't.

I say Occum's razor is the best way to deduce this 'day of infamy'; if you weigh all options, do some simple studying you will see 9/11 was clearly not executed by some arabs in caves with cell phones and 3 day old newspapers! I mean how are Arabs benefiting from pulling off 9/11? They have more war, more death and dismal conditions, so, how did 9/11 benefit them? Answer: It didn'’t. So, who benefited from 9/11? The answer is sad, but simple; The Military Industrial Complex.

It'’s not a paranoid conspiracy to think there are conspiracies out there...and, it'’s not Liberal Lunacy either, nor is it Conservative Kookiness! People, fellow citizens we'’ve been had! We must demand a new independent investigation into 9/11 and look at all options of that day, and all plausabilities [sic], even the most incredulous theories must be examined.

read this amazing story in its entirety at the lone star iconoclast

iran ready for 'serious' nuclear talks

from houston chronicle: Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Tuesday that Tehran was ready to enter "serious negotiations" over its disputed nuclear program but did not say whether it was willing to suspend uranium enrichment - the West's key demand.

The negotiator, Ali Larijani, hand-delivered Iran's response to a six-nation package of nuclear incentives aimed at persuading it to suspend enrichment. He gave the reply to ambassadors from Britain, China, Russia, France, Germany and Switzerland, state-run television said, without disclosing details...

European Union officials declined to comment, saying they needed to study the Iranian offer.

Their response was likely to depend on how far Tehran was ready to go in suspending uranium enrichment _ the cornerstone demand of the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany, the six powers that agreed to the package of incentives if Iran compromises and punishments if it does not.

military recruiters cited for sexual misconduct

from ap/yahoo: More than 100 young women who expressed interest in joining the military in the past year were preyed upon sexually by their recruiters. Women were raped on recruiting office couches, assaulted in government cars and groped en route to entrance exams.

A six-month Associated Press investigation found that more than 80 military recruiters were disciplined last year for sexual misconduct with potential enlistees. The cases occurred across all branches of the military and in all regions of the country.

"This should never be allowed to happen," said one 18-year-old victim. "The recruiter had all the power. He had the uniform. He had my future. I trusted him."

At least 35 Army recruiters, 18 Marine Corps recruiters, 18 Navy recruiters and 12 Air Force recruiters were disciplined for sexual misconduct or other inappropriate behavior with potential enlistees in 2005, according to records obtained by the AP under dozens of Freedom of Information Act requests. That's significantly more than the handful of cases disclosed in the past decade.

from ap/yahoo: The ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee said Sunday he would push to increase penalties for sexual misconduct by military recruiters.

Rep. Ike Skelton was reacting to an investigation by The Associated Press that found more than 80 military recruiters were disciplined last year for sexual misconduct with potential recruits.

"These abuses by military recruiters are absolutely unacceptable," the Missouri Democrat said in a telephone interview from Washington. "The National Guard's recently adopted rule of 'No One Alone' makes a great deal of sense and should be followed by all services, whether active duty, National Guard or reserve."

The No One Alone policy prohibits male recruiters from being alone in offices or anywhere else with female enlistees. Violators risk immediate disciplinary action, and other recruiters who know of violations and don't report them also can be disciplined.

implanted chips in our troops?

from newsmax: A Florida company wants to get under the skin of 1.4 million U.S. servicemen and women.

VeriChip Corp, based in Delray Beach, Fla., and described by the D.C. Examiner as "one of the most aggressive marketers of radio frequency identification chips," is hoping to convince the Pentagon to allow them to insert the chips, known as RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips under the skin of the right arms of U.S. servicemen and servicewomen to enable them to scan an arm and obtain that person’s identity and medical history. The chips would replace the legendary metal dog tags that have been worn by U.S. military personnel since 1906.

but wait, there's more!

digital dog tag already cloned
from dc examiner: The company lobbying for a Pentagon contract to insert radio frequency identification chips under the skin of U.S. military personnel has already had its technology cloned by two experts.

VeriChip Corp. is "in discussions" with the Air Force, Navy and the Department of Veterans Affairs to sell its radio frequency identification chips, said Scott Silverman, CEO of VeriChip’s parent company.

VeriChip says that the devices are secure, but Annalee Newitz, a contributing editor at Wired magazine, and software engineer Jonathan Westhues, say that’s not true.

Newitz wears a VeriChip under her arm, and last month at a computer hackers’ conference in New York, she and Westhues made a copy of her VeriChip — and her private medical data — using a homemade device.

"VeriChip puts absolutely no security on this at all. There’s no encryption, no security features," Newitz told The Examiner during a phone interview Monday from her San Francisco home.

flashback: rfid-hacking underground

apocalypse tomorrow

neo-cons hype y2k-style fearmongering

from propagandamatrix: Following a month or more of hysterical fearmongering from Neo-Con cells and their evangelist sympathizers, tomorrow, August 22nd, is being hyped by some as the potential 'end of the world' doomsday in which a massive Iranian attack will result in mushroom clouds over Israeli and US cities.

Quite how Madman Mahmoud is going to engineer the apocalypse when the CIA's own investigation said he was ten years away from the bomb is never explained by the festering alarmists.

Apparently it's all based around the commemoration of the return of the 12th imam - or is it the 14th bigfoot? The 32nd Loch Ness Monster? Well, who cares - when Chicago goes boom just blame it all on the 'International Islamo-Fascist network' and the proles will be eating from the hands of their security masters once again.

If there is some kind of staged attack then as always we will look at who has the capability and the motive to pull it off - especially in light of the fact that Dick Cheney's USSTRATCOM contingency plan calls for attacking Iran in the immediate aftermath of a 'second 9/11' - no matter who is behind it - which of course is going to be the cabal Dick Cheney fronts for itself.



On the morning of August 23rd I'm going to have a fantastic time making all these imbeciles eat crow when nothing happens. On the other hand, according to the doomsday prophets of Fox News, the entire planet and everything on it - including the Internet - will have been obliterated and so no one will get the last word anyway!

When August 22nd passes and the earth is still rotating around the sun, the Neo-Cons will be sure to invent a new threat and a new date on which we're all going to hell in a hand basket - unless we fight the 'Islamo-Fascists'.

I'm more concerned about Neo-Fascists who occupy the thrones of governments, command armies and stockpile deadly weapons, than I am of so-called Islamo-Fascists in caves on the Afghan border and in the Iranian Parliament.

That concern will not have changed come August 23rd.

iran starts war games as august 22 nears

from newsmax: Just days before a date that Mideast observers are worried will trigger cataclysmic events, Iran has launched a series of large-scale military exercises.

State-run television said the exercises will be defensive in nature, would occur in 14 of the country's 30 provinces, and could last as long as five weeks, according to Israelinsider.com.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad singled out Tuesday, Aug. 22 -- originally the date when Iran was expected to respond to U.N. demands for accountability regarding its nuclear plans -- as the date when Iran would respond, hinting that the response would not necessarily be diplomatic.

Bernard Lewish speculated about the significance of the date in the Wall Street Journal: "What is the significance of Aug. 22? This year, Aug. 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427. This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to "the farthest mosque," usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1). This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind."

The military exercises, which began Saturday and involve 12 infantry regiments, is called "The Blow of Zolfaghar," in reference to a special double-edge sword that belonged to Imam Ali, one of the most revered figures of Islam for Shiite Muslims. A majority of Iran's 70 million people are Shiite.

Iran has routinely held war games over the past two decades to improve its combat readiness and test locally made equipment such as missiles, tanks and armored personnel carriers.

rex 84: FEMA's blueprint for martial law

from global research: The Cheney/Bush administration has a plan which would accommodate the detention of large numbers of American citizens during times of emergency.

The plan is called Rex 84, short for Readiness Exercise 1984. Through Rex 84 an undisclosed number of concentration camps were set in operation throughout the United States, for internment of dissidents and others potentially harmful to the state.

The Rex 84 Program was originally established on the reasoning that if a "mass exodus" of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA.

Existence of the Rex 84 plan was first revealed during the Iran-Contra Hearings in 1987, and subsequently reported by the Miami Herald on July 5, 1987:

"These camps are to be operated by FEMA should martial law need to be implemented in the United States and all it would take is a presidential signature on a proclamation and the attorney general's signature on a warrant to which a list of names is attached."

And there you have it ~ the real purpose of FEMA is to not only protect the government but to be its principal vehicle for martial law.

This is why FEMA could not respond immediately to the Hurricane Katrina disaster ~ humanitarian efforts were no longer part of its job discription under the Department of Homeland Security.

It appears Hurricane Katrina also provided FEMA with an excuse to “dry run” its unconstitutional powers in New Orleans, rounding up "refugees" (now called “evacuees”) and "relocating" them in various camps. "Some evacuees are being treated as ‘internees’ by FEMA," writes former NSC employee Wayne Madsen:

“Reports continue to come into Waybe Madsen Report that evacuees from New Orleans and Acadiana [the traditional twenty-two parish Cajun homeland] who have been scattered across the United States are being treated as ‘internees’ and not dislocated American citizens from a catastrophe"

We are dangerously close to a situation where ~ if the American people took to the streets in righteous indignation or if there were another 9/11 ~ a mechanism for martial law could be quickly implemented and carried out under Rex 84.

Be forewarned ~ the Cheney/Bush administration will stop at nothing to preserve their power and their ongoing neocon mis-adventure and they have currently proposed having executive control over all the states National Guard troops in a national emergency.

Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa, called the proposal "one step away from a complete takeover of the National Guard, the end of the Guard as a dual-function force that can respond to both state and national needs."

The provision was tucked into the House version of the defense bill without notice to the states, something Vilsack said he resented as much as the proposal itself.

Under the provision, the president would have authority to take control of the Guard in case of "a serious natural or manmade disaster, accident or catastrophe" in the United States.

Do remember, to the Cheney/Bush administration ~ the Mob at the Gates that they truly fear is not terrorists but, instead, the people demanding the truth.

pandemic drills in san diego, aug 21-26

from false flag news: Here we again, seeing a private company, ESS, setting up and managing the crisis drill. They are joined by other firms like Google, Microsoft and the infamous "charity" Save the Children. We must remember that while the military and government often take the bulk of the blame for terror drills, private firms like are usually providing logistical support or more...

from pr newswire: ESS today announced its participation in Strong Angel III, a collaborative demonstration of civil and military cooperation and communication capabilities put together by a partnership of private companies, government agencies, humanitarian and relief agencies and universities...

The Strong Angel III demonstration simulates the impact on information sharing in a real-world disaster. The demonstration will assume the context of a worldwide pandemic caused by a highly contagious virus, which is further complicated by a wave of cyber-attacks inflicted by terrorists that cripple critical local infrastructure and systems.

airport contraband sold on ebay

from wjac tv: Ever wonder what happens to items confiscated by airport security screeners?

In Pennsylvania, the items are stored in a warehouse outside of Harrisburg then sold on Ebay.

Officials said the list of seized items includes everything from dumbbells to chainsaws. Among the interested buyers are school districts, charities and even municipalities.

One Johnstown-area police chief said that's how his department got laptop computers.

Ferndale Police Chief Art Boring said, "It works out real well for the department because we have all this stuff and it's a better price than we'd pay brand-new. And it's really good stuff -- it still has some life in it."

All of the money raised through the sales goes into the state's general fund.

outside the box #64

here is the latest episode of "outside the box," hosted by alex ansary.
it was originally broadcast by portland community media on august 17, 2006.

from alex ansary: Tonight, Paul Craig Roberts expresses one of the prime reasons why he also suspects the official story of 9/11. Later, I elaborate on and discuss the latest terror plot. We looked at the connections between western intelligence agencies and terror cells.

no passports, no tickets, no bombs

sorry. this video is gone now, too... just go read kurt nimmo...

aaron russo: unplugged

Aaron Russo speaks candidly about his movie America: Freedom to Fascism. This 82 minute piece was shot on location at Landmark Cinema & Borders in Chicago on July 30, 2006.

Russo discusses 9/11, being asked to join the Council on Foreign Relations, the creation of women's liberation movement, personal stories and much more...

Brought to you by passport to freedom & the lone lantern society.

anti-terror wiretaps ruled illegal

from guardian: The White House's so-called war on terror was dealt a blow yesterday when a federal judge ruled that a controversial wiretapping programme, authorised by President George Bush, was unconstitutional.

"It was never the intent of the framers [of the US constitution] to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights," wrote Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in her decision.

The decision came in the first court challenge to the government's wiretapping programme. The ruling represented "another nail in the coffin in the Bush administration's legal strategy in the war on terror," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers.

the next pro-war democrat to fall

from op-ed news: Joe Lieberman's sorry hide has been nailed to the wall, and there is rejoicing in the land (except from the lobbyists, pundits and political hacks who make up the permanent occupation force of Washington).

And while I am pleased to see a discredited, humiliated Lieberman forced to cast his lot in with his friends in the Republican Party, I won't be completely convinced that the revolution is here until Hillary Clinton's hide is nailed to the wall beside Joe's.

The conventional wisdom is that Lieberman lost because he consistently supported the Bush administration on the Iraq war. But that isn't the sole reason why Lieberman lost to Ned Lamont in the Connecticut Democratic Primary.

The Democratic Party's big problem is that people like Clinton, who also supported the invasion of Iraq, are trying to change the subject now that things have gone horribly wrong.

Clinton, Joe Biden, John Edwards and John Kerry - to name four prominent Democratic Senators with presidential aspirations - all voted in October 2002 to authorize President Bush to invade Iraq.

cheney hires clinton impeachment lawyer

from tpm muckraker: Vice President Dick Cheney has hired a lawyer to defend him against the Valerie Plame/Joseph Wilson civil suit, court documents reveal.

The lawyer, Emmet T. Flood of Williams & Connolly, certainly has White House experience: he was a member of former president Bill Clinton's impeachment defense team. Despite that, he appears to be a reliable Republican: a check of campaign donor records shows he has given solely to GOP candidates.

Cheney is being sued for unspecified damages by former CIA officer Valerie Plame and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for revealing her identity and profession.

iraq war longer than WW II

from uruknet: We're counting from the day Germany declared war on the US (December 11, 1941) to VE day (May 8, 1945). This is 1244 days. The Invasion of Iraq began on March 20, 2003 at 21:34 EST when the US began their first air strike on Baghdad.

On August 15, 2006 21:30 EST the United States will have been at war in Iraq longer than it was at war with Germany in World War II.

rfid-equipped passports come to US

from betanews: Federal Officials said Monday that United States passports equipped with RFID tags would soon begin to make their way to consumers, with its Colorado Passport Agency being the first to produce the documents.

Although the federal government insists the passports are safe, security researchers say the data on the tags can be compromised.

Researchers at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas earlier this month showed how RFID tags could be read and copied to a smart card, which in turn could be used to make a fake passport. Such issues could pose massive security risks, especially as airport officials are again trying to clamp down on security at international airports.

However, the warnings are not stopping the federal government from going ahead with its plans. The rest of the country's passport distributing offices will convert to the new system by October of this year, the State Department said. Federal officials are already carrying the new devices under a test program conducted by the agency.

flashback: hackers crack new biometric passport

olbermann exposes nexus of politics & terror

from propaganda matrix: During a prime time segment on his MSNBC show last night, anchor Keith Olbermann presented ten clear examples where the Bush administration had issued terror alerts days after politically damaging revelations and questioned the credibility of each of the alleged plots' authenticity in light of astounding evidence to the contrary.

Olbermann overwhelmingly documents the staged timing of terror alerts spanning back four years and ends by scrutinizing the latest alleged liquid bomb plot - an operation infiltrated and surveilled for months by intelligence agencies, yet announced to the public on a carefully scripted pre-arranged schedule.

The alleged foiling of the terror plot was announced days after darling of the Neo-Fascists Joe Lieberman was defeated in the Connecticut Senatorial election by anti-war opponent Ned Lamont. Hours afterwards, drooling feverish Neo-Con cheerleaders tried to smear Lamont as "the Al-Qaeda candidate."

which travelers have 'hostile intent'?

from wall street journal: At airport security checkpoints in Knoxville, Tenn. this summer, scores of departing passengers were chosen to step behind a curtain, sit in a metallic oval booth and don headphones.

With one hand inserted into a sensor that monitors physical responses, the travelers used the other hand to answer questions on a touch screen about their plans. A machine measured biometric responses -- blood pressure, pulse and sweat levels -- that then were analyzed by software. The idea was to ferret out U.S. officials who were carrying out carefully constructed but make-believe terrorist missions.

The trial of the Israeli-developed system represents an effort by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration to determine whether technology can spot passengers who have "hostile intent." In effect, the screening system attempts to mechanize Israel's vaunted airport-security process by using algorithms, artificial-intelligence software and polygraph principles.

Neither the TSA nor Suspect Detection Systems Ltd., the Israeli company, will discuss the Knoxville trial, whose primary goal was to uncover the designated bad guys, not to identify threats among real travelers.

lou dobbs & 9/11 lies

update: for some reason, every cnn clip gets pulled whenever lou dobbs exposes something like the north american union or 9/11... but, as you can see for yourself, cnn has no problem leaving frivolous crap posted...

simulated nuclear explosion planned

Simulated nuclear explosion planned in Hawaii for Aug 14-16

from false flag news: This is more blatant martial law prep... Remember, on 9/11 the U.S. government ran 15 drills and war games, with many "simulated" hijackings. For more, please visit our section: Why monitor the drills and war games?

from honolulu advertiser: The state plans to hold an exercise in mid-August simulating the explosion of a half-kiloton nuclear device at the entrance of Honolulu Harbor, a mock blast that theoretically would result in 10,000 casualties...

The exercise will help the state develop a nuclear explosion evacuation plan. Officials said there is a terrorism response plan calling for a collective state and federal response using the powers of the president to declare a disaster...

A presidential disaster declaration would allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency and military to work with the state. If that couldn't be obtained right away, U.S. Pacific Command would be able to assist the state until a declaration was made.

9/11 nun's dying plea

from new york post: A nun who spent six months blessing human remains in the rubble at Ground Zero says she is dying of lung disease and wants her body autopsied to prove that she and her fellow 9/11 workers were sickened by the poisonous air at the site.

Sister Cindy Mahoney, 54, summoned David Worby, the lawyer representing thousands of sick Ground Zero workers, to her Aiken, S.C., hospice last week and requested that he act as her guardian and fulfill her dying wish by overseeing her autopsy after she's gone...

and just in case you need to jog your memory, the august 23, 2003 issue of newsday reported that the "white house ordered EPA to lie about 9/11 pollution danger."

sickened iraq vets cite DU

from newsday: "I'm just a zombie walking around," he says.

[Herbert Reed] believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon's arsenal of it -- thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead.

A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The U.S. has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective.

flashback: israel using DU on lebanese civilians

a letter to the oregonian

The following is a response to Ted Mahar's article in the August 12, 2006 issue of the Oregonian entitled "9/11 Documentaries Continue Unfinished Story":

It's true: 9/11 documentaries do continue the unfinished story. Unfortunately, they aren't any of the ones mentioned in your article. Independent researchers, journalists and filmmakers are doing the real documentary and investigative work.

As Kurt Nimmo pointed out yesterday in his article posted on PrisonPlanet.com: "Don't expect to see this stuff on the History Channel, owned by A&E Television Networks, that is to say the multinational behemoths Walt Disney, Hearst, and NBC Universal, propagandists and war profiteers all. Unvarnished truth is anathema to the corporate media..."

In a real "Countdown to Ground Zero," we would learn about the insider trading in the weeks and days leading up to 9/11. A real countdown would also include the warnings that prominent officials received before 9/11. A true investigation would undoubtedly have to include the drills happening on 9/11 and the false claim that the administration had no idea "that planes might be used as weapons."

But, of course, you are a journalist. So I'm sure that you've already looked into all of these facts, since they're available in the mainstream media.

As we look at the miracles and heroes of that day, one of the first people to thank would have to be William Rodriguez. You know him right? He was a janitor in the North Tower that miraculously rescued many people that day and was honored repeatedly by the White House. Rodriguez then helped file a lawsuit against the Bush Administration for "knowingly failing to act, prevent or warn" the American people. He now gives talks and lectures around the world on the subject of 9/11.

And, of course, who could forget the heroic firefighters who risked and lost their lives. The ones who said it seemed like detonators were placed in the buildings and the ones who criticized the investigations as being "a half-baked farce."

Other heroes are people like John O'Neill, Robert G. Wright, Coleen Rowley and many other anonymous whistleblowers who were told to "back off" or were otherwise prevented from doing their job before 9/11. Many of them were stymied by Presidential Directive W199I, the order that stopped FBI agents from pursuing the terrorists.

And last, but not least, no discussion of the miracles that happened on 9/11 would be complete without marveling at that unprecedented feat: Never before or since 9/11 have major steel-structured buildings fallen due to fire. Yes, planes slammed into those towers. But the towers were designed to survive the impact and resulting fires from a jetliner; or at least they were according to Hyman Brown, a civil engineering professor and a construction manager at the World Trade Center. Then there's also Dr. Steven E. Jones, physics professor at Brigham Young University, who has extensively researched the pools of molten metal that were still red-hot weeks after 9/11. Perhaps you saw him and numerous others scholars on C-SPAN a few weeks ago.

There are so many more unsolved elements of 9/11: Vice-President Cheney saying, "Of course the orders still stand;" the complete mystery surrounding WTC Building 7; the admission that the Bush Administration was taking Cipro on the day of 9/11 and weeks before the anthrax attacks; the alleged hijackers being trained at U.S. bases; the origins of Osama Bin Laden and why there is no mention of his "incredible triumph" of 9/11 on the FBI’s Most Wanted List; and on and on and on…

An exhaustively researched “Countdown to Ground Zero” can be found at the Complete 9/11 Timeline by Cooperative Research. Another excellent source for unanswered questions and unquestioned answers is located at 911Truth.org with their Top 40 Questions, their list of 115 Omissions in the 9/11 Commission Report and the 9/11 Truth Statement by an alliance of 100 prominent Americans and 40 family members of those killed on 9/11.

Now, I know you wouldn't dismiss all of these leads and links provided for you without following through. Because, even though many of them are hosted and archived by Prison Planet (you know, one of those "conspiracy theory" web pages), the links actually lead to mainstream news stories. But, since you work at a major newspaper, I'm sure you're well aware of the fact that stories often get moved around for subscription services or archived under different URL's.

I thank you for your time and interest. I know you realize how important it is all of us to investigate what really happened on 9/11. I don't claim to know exactly what happened. I doubt that any of these aforementioned scholars and researchers would claim to know exactly what happened that day either. The truth about 9/11 is that we don't know the truth. Only when we stop blindly believing the official conspiracy theory can we hope to uncover the truth of who "got away with it." Only when we truly investigate the motive and who stood to gain from the attacks can we hope to understand the "bigger, horrible truth."