watergate plotter may have a last tale

from la times: Howard St. John Hunt remembers the night of the Watergate break-in as a bonding experience with his father.

A sweating and disheveled E. Howard Hunt roused his 19-year-old son from a dead sleep to help him wipe fingerprints from the burglars' radios and pack the surveillance equipment into a suitcase. Then, father and son raced to a remote Maryland bridge, where they heaved the evidence into the Potomac River just before dawn on June 17, 1972.

"From that point on I felt relevant in his life, that I was the one he could count on," said Howard St. John Hunt, now 52, who is called St. John.

It also was a turning point for St. John's brother and two sisters. They learned that their father wasn't just a Washington advertising executive and former diplomat. He was an ex-CIA agent and veteran of the ill-fated Cuban Bay of Pigs operation who worked for the Nixon White House as part of a secret team of "plumbers" that fixed information leaks.



The unmasking of Hunt, who was convicted in 1973, sent his family into a tailspin: His first wife, Dorothy, was killed in a plane crash in 1972 while carrying $10,000 in hush money from the White House to the burglars' families; son David was sent to live with his militant Cuban godfather in Miami; St. John later became a drug addict and daughters Kevan and Lisa became estranged from their father.

But before his death at age 88 in January, E. Howard Hunt had reconciled with his children and left the sons one last tantalizing story, they say. The story, which he planned to detail in a memoir and could be worth big money — was that rogue CIA agents plotted to kill President Kennedy in 1963, and that they approached Hunt to join the plot but he declined.

Unfortunately, when the old spy's memoir appeared this month, there was something missing...

outside the box #92 & 93

here are the latest episodes of "outside the box," hosted by alex ansary.
they were originally broadcast by portland community media on march 8 & 15, 2007.


from outside the box #93: Alex speaks with Jacque Fresco of The Venus Project to discuss his scientific ideas about restructuring the way we live and our society.

*********************************************************


from outside the box #92: Alex speaks with 3 members of theillumination.tv about their 4,000 mile walk across the United States.

pelosi's capitulation

from antiwar: If George W. Bush launches a preemptive war on Iran, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will bear full moral responsibility for that war.

For it was Pelosi who quietly agreed to strip out of the $100 billion funding bill for Iraq a provision that would have required President Bush to seek congressional approval before launching any new war on Iran.

Pelosi's capitulation came in the Appropriations Committee.

What went down, and why?

"Conservative Democrats as well as lawmakers concerned about the possible impact on Israel had argued for the change in strategy," wrote The Associated Press' David Espo and Matthew Lee...

"The speaker has erred dangerously and dramatically," writes Nichols. Her "disastrous misstep could haunt her and the Congress for years to come."

Nichols does not exaggerate.

If Bush now launches war on Iran, he can credibly say Congress and the Democrats gave him a green light. For Pelosi, by removing a provision saying Bush does not have the authority, de facto concedes he does have the authority.

Bush and Cheney need now not worry about Congress.

They have been flashed the go sign for war on Iran.

news on the march

on war's anniversary, bush hosts jock-o-rama
from san jose mercury news: In a chilly South Lawn ceremony, Bush lauded the University of Florida's football team on Monday for its 2006 championship season... "Like you might remember, all the pre-game polls said you couldn't win... So much for polls."

'iraq withdrawal may spark 9/11 repeat'
from telegraph: President George W Bush used the fourth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war yesterday to warn that US withdrawal would unleash a "contagion of violence" that could spark a repeat of the September 11 attacks.

Although he conceded that there would be "bad days ahead", he insisted that there had been "good progress" in Iraq and there were "hopeful signs" that the influx of 30,000 additional troops would stabilise Baghdad.

scientist accuses white house of 'nazi' tactics
from raw story/la times: Facing questions about his outspoken views on global warming, a government scientist today told the House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee that the "Bush administration's information policies smacked of Nazi Germany," reports the LA Times...

nyc mayor kills 'sensitive' 9/11 probe
from new york post: Mayor Bloomberg killed a study on the city's response to the 9/11 attacks after his lawyers said they did not want a report that cited any missteps or dealt with "environmental" or "respirator issues," says a former city official... "The Bloomberg administration acted to sweep any potential problems under the rug" ...

rosie o'donnell joins 9/11 conspiracy crowd
from national ledger: Depending on one's point of view, Rosie O'Donnell is either a silly comedian... or a shrill pundit... But now it appears her toes are no longer just on the edge of the ledge of reason. Now O'Donnell has plunged into the dark world of 9/11 conspiracy theories and is set to blame the US Government for the attacks that took place on September 11.

kristof: US should stop biting tongue on israel
from raw story/new york times: Whether they have "learned to muzzle themselves" or they "just don't get it," US politicians should stop biting their tongues when it comes to Israel, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof argues...

"Democrats are railing at just about everything President Bush does, with one prominent exception: Bush's crushing embrace of Israel," Kristof writes.

the ringworm children

from google video/barry chamish: In 1951, the director general of the Israeli Health Ministry, Dr. Chaim Sheba flew to America and returned with 7 x-ray machines, supplied to him by the American army.

They were to be used in a mass atomic experiment with an entire generation of Sephardi youths to be used as guinea pigs. Every Sephardi child was to be given 35,000 times the maximum dose of x-rays through his head. For doing so, the American government paid the Israeli government 300 million Israeli liras a year. The entire Health budget was 60 million liras. The money paid by the Americans is equivalent to billions of dollars today.

To fool the parents of the victims, the children were taken away on "school trips" and their parents were later told the x-rays were a treatment for the scourge of scalpal ringworm. 6,000 of the children died shortly after their doses were given, while many of the rest developed cancers that killed them over time and are still killing them now. While living, the victims suffered from disorders such as epilepsy, amnesia, Alzheimer's disease, chronic headaches and psychosis.

what is aipac?

from google video/wikipedia: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a special interest group that lobbies the United States Government in favor of maintaining a close US-Israel relationship. Describing itself as "America's Pro-Israel Lobby," it is a mass-membership organization including both Jews and non-Jews. AIPAC was formed during the Eisenhower administration, and since then has helped secure American aid and support to Israel.

portland peace march attracts more than 10,000

from oregonian: The crowd at today's anti-war demonstration easily numbered in the thousands.

Organizers said there might have been as many as 15,000 people who participated in the march. Police did not give an estimate.

Two informal head counts by The Oregonian as protestors passed Southwest Broadway and Madison Street put the number between 10,000 and 13,000.

The march was mostly peaceful. But Portland police say they arrested three people during a confrontation with what they are calling "a small fringe group" after this afternoon's anti-war demonstration in downtown Portland. A police spokeswoman said they used pepper spray to help control the group, which she said was trying to block traffic near Southwest Park and Morrison.

Other sporadic protests and skirmishes persisted after the march in different parts of the city.

the oregonian has a surprising amount of photos & videos from the days events located here...

fbi file links rfk to monroe's death

from sydney morning herald: For four decades there have been rumours that Marilyn Monroe's death was not a simple suicide. Now a Los Angeles-based Australian writer and director, Philippe Mora, has uncovered an FBI document that throws up a chilling new scenario.

Bobby Kennedy's affair with the screen idol Marilyn Monroe has been documented, but a secret FBI file suggests the late US attorney-general was aware of - and perhaps even a participant in - a plan "to induce" her suicide.

The detailed three-page report implicates the Hollywood actor Peter Lawford, Monroe's psychiatrist, staff and her publicist in the plot.

The allegations suggest the 36-year-old actress, who had a history of staging attention-seeking suicide attempts, was deliberately given the means to fake another suicide on August 4, 1962. But this time, it is suggested, she was allowed to die as she sought help.

tens of thousands protest at the pentagon

from afp/raw story: Tens of thousands of protesters marched to the Pentagon's doorstep Saturday demanding "US out of Iraq Now," ahead of the fourth anniversary of the US invasion.

Demonstrators from across the United States gathered in a cold winter day to descend on the US Defense Department offices and decry the conflict that has killed more than 3,200 US soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

Former US attorney general Ramsey Clark called for Bush's impeachment, while Cindy Sheehan, who lost a son in Iraq, demanded a US withdrawal.

"I marched in 1967 here," Maureen Dooley, 59, said outside the Pentagon, site of Vietnam war protests, but results were not immediate: "It took seven years to end the war."

War opponents trickled into Washington for the rally organized by the peace group ANSWER as Vietnam war veterans wearing black leather jackets gathered nearby for a counter-demonstration.

Some war supporters confronted the peace activists, tearing up and spitting on anti-war signs while chanting: "USA! USA!"

Washington police do not give crowd estimates, but an AFP correspondent said tens of thousands of people could be seen at the march.

War opponents have organized a series of protests against the conflict that started March 20, 2003.

new mexico to legalize medical marijuana

from ap/msnbc: Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, poised to sign a bill making New Mexico the 12th state to legalize medical marijuana, said Thursday he realizes his action could become an issue in the presidential race.

"So what if it's risky? It's the right thing to do," said Richardson, one of the candidates in the crowded 2008 field. "What we're talking about is 160 people in deep pain. It only affects them."

The legislation would create a program under which some patients - with a doctor's recommendation - could use marijuana provided by the state health department. Lawmakers approved the bill Wednesday. The governor is expected to sign it in the next few weeks...

"I don't see it as being a big issue," he said. "This is for medicinal purpose, for ... people that are suffering. My God, let's be reasonable," he said.

media monarchy episode018

here is the latest podcast from
media monarchy...
episode018 - march 16, 2007

media monarchy is originally broadcast on the portland radio authority every friday at 10am pst/1pm est... music, media & all the news that's fit to suppress!

plus, you can get podcasts of previous episodes here...
thanks to radio4all.net

plame testifies in cia leak hearings

from ap/breit bart: Valerie Plame, the CIA operative whose outing led to the conviction of a top Bush administration official, told Congress on Friday she believes her identity was disclosed for "purely political reasons."

Plame, whose outing triggered a federal investigation, answered questions for the first time. She said that she always knew her identity could be discovered by foreign governments but said she was surprised to be identified by her own government.

"My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior official in White House and State Department," Plame testified before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "I could no longer perform the work for which I had been highly trained."

outside the 'city' box

here's a bonus video from alex ansary...

the future has caught up with us

from paul craig roberts: John Derbyshire is the sole remaining adult writing for National Review. In a recent issue he noted that Aldous Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, first published in 1932, now reads like contemporary news. Huxley’s fearsome predictions of a 26th century world have all come true six centuries early – in vitro fertilization, genetically modified crops, stem-cell research, promiscuous recreational sex, the demise of marriage and families, and the epidemic use of prescription and illegal drugs to escape from anxiety, frustration and disappointment.

Alas, Franz Kafka’s novel, The Trial, published in 1925 and George Orwell’s novel, 1984, published in 1949, also have been turned into period pieces by the practices of the Bush Regime.

In Kafka’s novel, Josef K. is arrested for reasons never given, tried for an unspecified crime, and executed.

The Trial is the model for the Bush Regime’s Military Tribunals, which permit execution on the basis of hearsay, secret evidence unknown to the defendant, or confession extracted by torture.

For the past five years, the Bush Regime has held people in secret prisons without warrants, charges, or access to an attorney. Most detainees have been tortured and abused. Bush’s real world victims suffer from more disorientation and hopelessness than Kafka’s character, Josef K.

In Orwell’s 1984, people are subjected to relentless spying. A state or alleged state of war is used to maintain total control over everyone. Lies have replaced truth, and the media serves as propagandist for the Ministry of Truth. The meaning of words, such as "freedom" has been perverted. The attitude of 1984’s all-powerful government is "you are with us or against us."

In the United States, each member elected to the House and Senate takes an oath to uphold the US Constitution, as does the president and vice president. Yet the Bush Regime drafted and Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, a constitutional monstrosity that denies the protection of law to everyone declared, without evidence, by the executive branch to be a suspected terrorist or enemy combatant.

The Military Commissions Act became law in "the land of the free" in 2006. The Act strips detainees of protections provided by the Geneva Conventions. The Act declares that no person "subject to trial by military commission under this chapter may invoke the Geneva Conventions as a source of rights."

The Act also denies detainees the protections of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights: "No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of" a detainee. Some language in the Act refers to detainees as "aliens," but, ominously, other language does not limit the Act’s applicability to "aliens."

In Orwell’s novel, Winston Smith commits a thought crime, is arrested by the Thought Police, and imprisoned in the Ministry of Love. Winston’s dearth of rights under Big Brother is comparable to the absence of rights of detainees under the Military Commissions Act.

This dangerous legislation is the product of the same regime that resurrected the medieval practice of torture of prisoners and that has consistently lied about the reasons for the wars it has initiated.

Scholars, such as Philip Cooper of Portland State University, warn that the Bush Regime is using presidential signing statements to replace constitutional checks and balances with elevated executive powers associated with the unitary executive theory.

The unitary executive theory is a way to turn the US president into Big Brother. Already Bush is replacing Congress as the arbiter of law and the judiciary as the arbiter of rights. The media enable his usurpation, and the people, distracted by war and "terrorism," have their various forms of soma.

Amazing but true – three novels of the early 20th century predicted present-day America.

here is an hour-long piece by alex jones on orwell's 1984...

things to come

from google video/wikipedia:
Things to Come is a 1936 British science fiction film, produced by Alexander Korda and directed by William Cameron Menzies. The screenplay was written by H. G. Wells and is a loose adaptation of his own 1933 novel The Shape of Things to Come...

from aftermath news: Things to Come... is a propaganda film made prior to WWII. This movie shows a uptopian vision, after an apocalyptic war, where the 'saviors of mankind' come dressed as nazi stormtroopers in stealth bombers, dropping 'peace gas' and taking over the world from 'sovereign nations' to bring a "Freemasonry of Science."

This is the sick vision which is promoted by many groups today hoping for their New Order, the Nazis tried this out, and many others have come to do the same. Ironically, the future seat of this sick New World Order in this movie is Basra, Iraq, where the white men of the New Order develop their technology to subdue "Rogue Nations."

here is short, pertinent clip from Things to Come...

mohammed confession leaves room for skepticism

update: ksm, the ultimate patsy 'confesses'... he made norad stand down, warned US officials not to fly, placed put options on airline stocks, & blocked fbi investigations before 9/11! he also killed jfk and nicole simpson...

from npr: Al-Qaida suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to United States officials that he was involved in the planning of, or support for, 31 terror plots. But observers question his claim to be the mastermind of almost every al-Qaida plot in the last 15 years.

The confession was contained in a transcript of a Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, hearing for Mohammed released Wednesday night by the U.S. military. Mohammed is being held with other terrorism suspects at the U.S. military base there.

The plots claimed by Mohammed included thwarted assassination attempts and never-implemented bombings against the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Empire State Building in New York, the New York Stock Exchange, the Panama Canal and, in London, Big Ben and Heathrow Airport.

He also took full credit for the attacks on New York's World Trade Center in 1993 and 2001.

The Sept. 11 Commission said he had an inflated view of himself, cultivating an image as a super terrorist. Some observers to believe that a sizable has led him to claim credit where credit isn't due.

Mohammed asserted he was telling the truth about his activities when he appeared before the Guantanamo military panel that heard his confession.

Mohammed was moved to Guantanamo in 2006 after several years in custody in secret CIA prisons.

In an oral statement, recorded in four single-spaced pages, he rambled and drifted. He did say he regrets that nearly 3,000 people died in the Sept. 11 attacks, and particularly regrets the children's deaths.

The panel asked him if his confession was made under duress. He said that he was tortured in the CIA prisons, but that this statement at Guantanamo was made freely.

The officers interviewing him said his allegations of torture would be investigated.

No journalists were present at the hearing. All of the information about Mohammed's confession comes from partially redacted transcripts released by the U.S. military.

big brother state

from you tube: An animated short about public surveillance by David Scharf

sex, bombs & permanent probes

israel, US storm out of UN nuclear forum
from haaretz: The Israel and U.S. delegations walked out of the United Nations' disarmament forum in Geneva, Switzerland yesterday after Iran said Israel was the "real source of nuclear danger in the Middle East" and had a "dark record of crimes."

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the Conference on Disarmament that Israel's nuclear weapons posed a "uniquely grave threat to regional and international peace and security" requiring action by the international community.

UN to open permanent probe on israel
from jerusalem post: The United Nation's Human Rights Council is expected to place Israel under permanent investigation for its "violations" of international law in the territories - until such time as it withdraws to the pre-1967 border - according to Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

naked, drunk, surrounded by sex toys -
it's the israeli ambassador!
from guardian: As an Israeli ambassador, Tsuriel Raphael was accomplished at putting a gloss on delicate subjects, be it Tel Aviv's nuclear programme, the treatment of Palestinians or the invasion of Lebanon.

When San Salvador police discovered him in his official embassy residence yard in the capital San Salvador, however, smooth talk was not really an option. For starters there was the gag and the rubber ball in his mouth. There was also the matter of being drunk. And naked. And bound. And surrounded by sex toys.

Once he was untied and the gag and ball were removed Mr Raphael identified himself as the ambassador but for perhaps the first time in his diplomatic career, this was a crisis he could not explain away.

white house may be turning on gonzales

from raw story: Embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says that he won't resign, but his fate is out of his hands, a New York Times article reveals.

Gonzales acknowledged that "mistakes were made" in his handling of the dismissal of several U.S. Attorneys, a case that has put the nation's chief law enforcement officer in the hot seat.

The Times article reveals that Republicans close to the Bush administration perceive "a growing rift between the White House and the attorney general," Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Jeff Zeleny write.

"Mr. Gonzales has long been a confidant of the president but has aroused the ire of lawmakers of both parties on several issues, including the administration's domestic eavesdropping program," Stolberg and Zeleny continue.

The anonymous Republicans referenced in the article "said top aides to Mr. Bush, including Fred F. Fielding, the new White House counsel, were concerned that the controversy had so damaged Mr. Gonzales's credibility that he would be unable to advance the White House agenda on national security matters," which includes the prosecution of terror suspects.

"I really think there's a serious estrangement between the White House and Alberto now," Stolberg and Zeleny quote one of the Republicans.

Gonzales himself seemed to acknowledge this himself, saying today that it's up to the President as to whether he retains his position.

"I work for the American people and serve at the pleasure of the president," Merrill Hartson quotes Gonzales for The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, former First Lady and likely 2008 presidential contender Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) today called for Gonzales to resign. Video [here].

after 9/11, US archivists pulled 1 million pages

from ap/msnbc: More than 1 million pages of historical government documents - a stack taller than the U.S. Capitol - have been removed from public view since the September 2001 terror attacks, according to records obtained by The Associated Press. Some of the papers are more than a century old.

In some cases, entire file boxes were removed without significant review because the government’s central record-keeping agency, the National Archives and Records Administration, did not have time for a more thorough audit.

“We just felt we couldn’t take the time and didn’t always have the expertise,” said Steve Tilley, who oversaw the program. Archives officials are still screening records, but the number of files pulled recently has declined dramatically, he said.

The records administration began removing materials under its “records of concern” program, launched in November 2001 after the Justice Department instructed agencies to be more guarded in releasing government papers. The agency has removed about 1.1 million pages, according to partially redacted monthly progress reports reviewed by the AP. The reports were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

what if the fbi hired someone honest to look into 9/11?

from 9/11 blogger/op-ed news: It did. Her name was Sibel Edmonds. This is her story, as she told it to me. Edmonds discusses what she knows, whom it implicates, and what she's been through and what hope there is in the new Congress to start an investigation.

Here's the audio .

Edmonds: The most important thing is there are individuals who are engaged in acts of treason, okay. People from the State Dept, people from the Pentagon... Because when you are looking at organizations like the American Turkish Council here, and you see the sister organization is AIPAC... You know, I don't understand how the case only ended up stopping with Larry Franklin - and I still can't believe that the evidence that they had from the parallel investigation didn't get its way into the court. You need to look at individuals like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Marc Grossman, Dennis Hastert, and others. And documented evidence they have collected on these people. What are they doing with this information?

[GW's comment: Please remember to call Congressman Waxman to urge him to "let Sibel speak". We all know that 9/11 truth is a hands-on project, not a spectator sport.]

[UPDATE: Apparently, a few Congress critters will try tomorrow to block whistleblower reforms, which will also effect Sibel Edmonds]

war, liquor & mental illness

for US troops at war, liquor is spur to crime
from raw story/new york times: "Alcohol, strictly forbidden by the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan, is involved in a growing number of crimes committed by troops deployed to those countries. Alcohol- and drug-related charges were involved in more than a third of all Army criminal prosecutions of soldiers in the two war zones -- 240 of the 665 cases resulting in convictions," according to records obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act request.

"Seventy-three of those 240 cases involve some of the most serious crimes committed there, including murder, rape, armed robbery and assault, records of military convictions show," the Times reports.

Troops face 'epidemic of mental illness'
from raw story/cnn: Nearly one in three soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan reports a mental problem, according to a newly released study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco and the San Francisco VA Medical Center.

The study examines data from 103,788 veterans treated by the Veterans Administration, which shows that 32,010 returning vets were diagnosed with mental health and/or psychosocial problems. More than one half of those diagnosed with mental problems suffered two or more disorders.

halliburton's suspicious dubai move

from abc news: Halliburton Co., currently the largest military contractor in Iraq with billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts, announced Sunday that it was planning to move its CEO and corporate headquarters from Houston to Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.

The move could eventually save the firm a fortune in U.S. taxes, but it is raising serious questions about its priorities and prompting at least one possible congressional hearing.

Dave Lesar, Halliburton's chairman, president and chief executive officer, made the announcement at an energy conference in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Lesar said the goal of the move was to focus on Eastern Hemisphere "oil exploration and production opportunities, and growing our business here will bring more balance to Halliburton's overall portfolio."

Run by Vice President Dick Cheney from 1995 to 2000, Halliburton has a five-year, $16 billion contract with the U.S. Army and total revenues of $22.6 billion in 2006.

Energy analyst Roger Read says if the company formally incorporates itself in the U.A.E., the banking mecca of the Middle East, company profits will soar.

"You'd probably be looking at a tax savings of several hundred million [dollars]. It's a win for the shareholders," Read said.



Move Makes Democrats Suspicious
Outrage over that possibility had Halliburton scrambling Sunday to explain it had no plans to incorporate abroad. Still, Democrats are suspicious.

"For one of the largest contractors with the United States government to move its headquarters overseas? [It] just doesn't look good, doesn't sound good, doesn't smell good," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

The move may raise serious national security questions too, as happened last year with the canceled port security contract with another U.A.E.-based company, Dubai Ports World. Congressional outrage scuttled that deal; Halliburton will now have some explaining to do to avoid similar scrutiny.

"Obviously a company that has its headquarters overseas should be given a little more scrutiny than an American company," Schumer said. "No question about it."

Halliburton is already being investigated by different government agencies for various allegations of improper business dealings, and it is in the cross hairs of Democrats in Congress for alleged overbilling.

At a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing last month, chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., noted that a government audit had indicated that Halliburton was responsible for "$2.7 billion in suspect billings."

'new world order' to fight global warming

from afp/yahoo: Gordon Brown, likely to be the next prime minister, will deliver a speech calling for a "new world order" to combat global warming on Monday.

According to excerpts released by the finance ministry, Chancellor of the Exchequer Brown will also say the United Nations should make the fight against global warming a core "pillar" of its international mission.

Brown will praise the European Union's progress in combatting climate change after EU leaders on Friday agreed to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 20 percent by 2020, compared to 1990 levels.

He is set to announce domestic policy proposals that are targetted at helping Britons save energy, thereby cutting their individual carbon emissions, ahead of the government's publication of its Climate Change Bill on Tuesday.

"People want to make the right choices and they want help to take the right decisions," Brown will say.

"Government must provide practical help with, wherever possible, incentives in preference to penalties."

Brown is the favourite to be Britain's next prime minister, as Tony Blair has pledged to step down by September.

feds tried to cut aid for dying weapons workers

from rocky mountain news: Federal officials secretly schemed to limit payouts for sick and dying nuclear weapons workers, including thousands from the Rocky Flats plant outside Denver, newly released documents show.

The officials responsible for helping those workers went behind their boss's back, called on White House officials for help and tried to hide their efforts, according to internal e-mails and memos obtained by a congressional committee and posted on its Web site.

They also wanted to get the White House to override scientific decisions granting compensation and pack the program's advisory board with members less sympathetic to workers.

Labor officials say the plans were never carried out, and they deny trying to hide them.

emmanuel goldstein's 50th birthday

from ap/my way: Followers of Osama bin Laden flooded Islamic Web sites with pledges of allegiance, videos and pictures Saturday to mark the al-Qaida leader's 50th birthday, reflecting his importance as a militant symbol even though he has not shown his face for years...

Like most things involving bin Laden, his exact birth date is unknown.

GlobalSecurity.org, a Virginia-based think tank, said bin Laden was either born March 10 or July 30 of 1957 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The FBI just lists that he was born in 1957.

giuliani slammed by fdny for 'lack of respect'

from raw story: A recently revealed letter drafted by a group of New York City firefighters slams Rudy Giuliani for "a disgraceful lack of respect." The letter, reported yesterday at Roll Call pointed to growing "enmity" between the presidential hopeful and former New York City mayor and the heroes of 9/11 who have played such an important part in his legacy.

Josh Kurtz today revealed a a letter drafted, but never sent, by four New York City firefighters and the President of the International Association of Fire Fighters, Harold Schaitberger. The group is hosting a presidential candidates' forum and almost declined to invite Giuliani, who appears to have decided not to attend.

According to Kurtz, the letter said the former mayor had a "disgraceful lack of respect" for the New York firefighters who died in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. They particularly assailed Giuliani for deciding to "scoop and dump" debris from the World Trade Center towers, moving it to a landfill.

"Mayor Giuliani’s actions meant that firefighters and citizens who perished would either remain buried at Ground Zero forever, with no closure for families, or be removed like garbage and deposited at the Fresh Kills Landfill," Kurtz quotes the letter as saying.

The full Roll Call article can be accessed by subscribers at the paper's website.

The full draft letter to Giuliani, obtained by Fox News, is provided here.

fbi misused patriot act powers

from ap/yahoo: The FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about people in the United States, a Justice Department audit concluded Friday.

And for three years the FBI underreported to Congress how often it forced businesses to turn over the customer data, the audit found.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who oversees the FBI, described the problems cited in the report as unacceptable and left open the possibility of criminal charges. He ordered further investigation.

"Once we get that information, we'll be in a better position to assess what kinds of steps should be taken," Gonzales told reporters following a speech to privacy officials.

"There is no excuse for the mistakes that have been made, and we are going to make things right as quickly as possible," the attorney general said.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said he was to blame for not putting more safeguards into place.

"I am to be held accountable," Mueller said. He told reporters he would correct the problems and did not plan to resign.

aborted babies could be defending our country

from raw story: Zell Miller, the former Democratic Senator from Georgia who backed President George W. Bush in 2004 and spoke at the Republican National Convention, recently told an anti-abortion gathering that the "killing" of unborn babies was the cause of many of America's woes, including its military, social security, and immigration problems.

"How could this great land of plenty produce too few people in the last 30 years?" Miller asked. "Here is the brutal truth that no one dares to mention: We’re too few because too many of our babies have been killed."

Miller claimed that 45 million babies have been 'killed' since the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade in 1973.

"If those 45 million children had lived, today they would be defending our country, they would be filling our jobs, they would be paying into Social Security," he asserted.

Miller was speaking at a fund raiser for Sav a Life Center of Macon, Georgia, an organization which tries to persuade women not to have abortions.

media monarchy episode017

here is the latest podcast from
media monarchy...
episode017 - march 9, 2007

media monarchy is originally broadcast on the portland radio authority every friday at 10am pst/1pm est... music, media & all the news that's fit to suppress!

plus, you can get podcasts of previous episodes here...
thanks to radio4all.net

news on the march

hearing begins for suspected 9/11 mastermind
from 9/11 blogger/telegraph: Hearings begin today at Guantanamo Bay for a group of 14 terrorist suspects including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged September 11 mastermind. No lawyers or reporters will be present at the hearings so the only account of the outcome will come from the US military... A Pentagon spokesman said the hearings were closed to prevent classified information from leaking.

the scandal at walter reed
from ron paul's statement on the iraq war resolution before the US house of representatives march 7, 2007: "The scandal at Walter Reed is not an isolated incident. It is directly related to our foreign policy of interventionism..."
Watch Ron Paul's speech on video.

bugging out on homeland security
from popsci: Annoying as they are, you may want to think twice before you crush a cockroach or swat a fly — you could be killing a future foot soldier in the war on terror. Increasingly, scientists are turning to insects and other creatures for better ways to identify biohazards.

eurovision unhappy with israel's nuclear message
from post chronicle: A Eurovision Song Contest official is attempting to block Israel's entry to this year's competition - because he feels the song is inappropriate.

Israeli pop band Teapacks has recorded Push The Button in Hebrew, English and French, and hope to wow Eurovision panellists in May.



priests to purify site after bush visit
from sfgate: Mayan priests will purify a sacred archaeological site to eliminate "bad spirits" after President Bush visits next week, an official with close ties to the group said Thursday.

"That a person like (Bush), with the persecution of our migrant brothers in the United States, with the wars he has provoked, is going to walk in our sacred lands, is an offense for the Mayan people and their culture," Juan Tiney, the director of a Mayan nongovernmental organization with close ties to Mayan religious and political leaders, said Thursday.

anti-bush protests in sao paulo

from german press agency/raw story: Some 10,000 demonstrators Thursday took over the financial centre of Sao Paulo to protest the visit of US President George W Bush.

Bush was expected to arrive at 2300 GMT in Sao Paulo, and is scheduled to meet Friday with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Carrying signs with slogans like "Out with Bush!" and "No to War!" demonstrators were led by feminist groups who combined their protest with demands to mark International Women's Day.

"The world in which Bush promotes war is the same world in which women live. They suffer the consequences of war, of imperialistic politics," said feminist militant Sonia Coelho, who also criticized Bush's position against abortion.

Protestors gave out leaflets with an image of Bush's face on the body of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and called the US president "humanity's number-one enemy."

Students, trade unionists, landless peasants and left-wing activists - including members of Lula's own Workers' Party (PT) - were also present at the march.

"We are taking advantage of International Women's Day to protest the arrival of Bush. We want to reveal the other side of the story and show that he wants to deconstruct the Latin American economy," said the lawyer Rogerio Batalha Rocha.

Bush's visit is accompanied by the largest security operation ever launched in Brazil to host a foreign dignitary. Around 4,000 troops from the Army, Air Force and the federal, militarized and civil police corps are involved in securing the Bush visit.

The US president is set to remain less than 24 hours in the Brazilian metropolis and is to leave Friday for Uruguay, on a Latin American tour that also includes planned stops in Colombia, Guatemala and Mexico.

homeland security revives supersnoop

from washington times: Homeland Security officials are testing a supersnoop computer system that sifts through personal information on U.S. citizens to detect possible terrorist attacks, prompting concerns from lawmakers who have called for investigations.

The system uses the same data-mining process that was developed by the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness (TIA) project that was banned by Congress in 2003 because of vast privacy violations.

A Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigation of the project called ADVISE -- Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement -- was requested by Rep. David R. Obey, Wisconsin Democrat and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

The investigation focuses on whether the program violates privacy laws, and the findings will be released after completion of the Iraq war supplemental spending bill, possibly as early as this week, a panel aide said.

The ADVISE and TIA data-mining projects rely on personal data to track individual behavior and consumer transactions to develop computer algorithms that create a pattern that some behavioral scientists say can predict terrorist behavior.

Data can include credit-card purchases, telephone or Internet details, medical records, travel and banking information.