canadians searching for '9/11 truth' from winnipeg sun: They're going across the country in hopes of tracking down what they say is the real story behind the 9/11 attacks. About 10 members of the so-called Vancouver 9/11 Truth Society rolled into Winnipeg yesterday on a small bus while en route from the West Coast to Ottawa to try to push Canadian authorities to launch a new, independent probe of the World Trade Center catastrophe.
"There's a need for another look at the whole attack," Michael Welch, a Winnipeg resident assisting the Vancouver group, said while pointing to a U.S. commission that investigated the fall of the Twin Towers.
"There are so many holes in the official story. And the official commission is so riddled with fraud, cover-up and conflict of interest that there is no way that responsible people should accept it."
He and his West Coast colleagues "suspect that 9/11 was facilitated, if not orchestrated, by elements within the U.S. government military - to put it succinctly, an inside job."
And that was because of a desire among U.S. powers "to go into places like Afghanistan and Iraq to control energy and to place strategic military bases proximate for allies," he said.
The group hopes to get a chance to make its case here to Liberal Leader Stephane Dion while he's holding a retreat for his party's caucus in the city.
Member Darren Pearson stressed there is no reason Canada can't investigate 9/11 on its own.
"There are things that happen all over the world that our government looks into for us," said Pearson. "Twenty-four Canadians died in the towers. That alone should be enough."
9/11 memorial construction begins in nyc
from whyn-am 560: Almost seven years after a terrorist attack felled the World Trade Center's twin towers in New York, work began Tuesday on a memorial to those who died.
Steel for the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum began arriving in Lower Manhattan last Thursday, The New York Times reported. It was shipped by truck from an Owen Steel Co. plant in South Carolina.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey hopes to complete construction by the 10th anniversary of the 2001 attacks.
The memorial is to be a plaza around two spaces filled with waterfalls and pools marking the towers' footprints.
The museum is to be mostly underground.
The project has been the subject of many disputes over the design, how the names of the victims would be displayed and the contents of the museum.
update: 9/11 claims another victim from ny daily news: After Kenny Johannemann shot himself, relatives found a letter on White House stationery in the one-room apartment he shared only with his cat.
October 31, 2001
Dear Kenny, We send you our heartfelt thanks and the thanks of a grateful Nation for your selfless efforts in responding to the tragic events of Sept. 11. Your actions in the midst of this national tragedy were truly heroic. Your saving a man who was on fire by dragging him out of an elevator and getting him to an ambulance reflected the best of the American spirit.
Sincerely,
George Bush
Laura Bush
Johannemann was a part-time janitor assigned to clean rest rooms in the north tower on 9/11 and was, indeed, credited with saving a man. His family says that day changed him, that he became withdrawn and began drinking heavily, falling in and out of work.
Twelve days before the seventh anniversary of the day he saved a life, Johannemann took his own. The police then vouchered another letter, the suicide note the 43-year-old wrote on Sunday afternoon, shortly before the 5 p.m. deadline his landlord had set for him to vacate for nonpayment of rent.
"The reason I killed myself was 'cause I was getting evicted and I can't handle being homeless. I also am very depressed since I was in 9/11. I've been drinking way too much and it's ruined my life. I've lost friends and family over drinking and I'm very lonely. There is nothing left for me to be happy about other than my cat. Sounds weird, but it's true. I just wanted to say sorry 2 any people I ever hurt in my life. I really was a good person when I wasn't drinking. I hope people remember that! Goodbye!!! Kenny Johannemann"
On a separate sheet was a plea: "Please find my cat a home. His name is Papa-Boy and he's a very special cat."
update: key 9/11 eye witness 'commits suicide' from brasscheck tv: The Daily News reported yesterday that Kenny Johannemann - a key witness in the WTC 9/11 bombings - recently committed suicide. I call him a key witness because in spite of aggressive prodding from reporters about "the planes," he clearly called what happened on the upper floors of the World Trade Center "explosions."
darth cheney visits georgia in show of solidarity from guardian: The US vice-president arrived in Tbilisi today, in a show of political backing for the nation and its pro-Western Georgian president. Dick Cheney's visit comes a day after the White House announced a $1bn (£500m) economic aid package for the country, which was ravaged by last month's war with Russia. The trip and his meetings with President Mikhail Saakashvili today have raised speculation that a US military aid package might be announced soon. Georgia has been a significant troop contributor to US operations in Iraq. Cheney arrived after a trip to neighbouring Azerbaijan, where he said the US had a "deep and abiding interest" in the region's stability.
russia closes georgia embassy from ap: Russia closed its embassy in Georgia and halted consular operations after Georgia severed diplomatic ties following last month's war, the Russian consul said Wednesday.
deluded saakashvili expected US & israel to act as knights in shining armor from kurt nimmo: According to UPI editor at large, Arnaud de Borchgrave, Georgia miscalculated in its attack on South Ossetia — and bad. “NATO guarantees that an attack against one member country is an attack against all are no longer what they used to be. Had Georgia been inside NATO, a number of European countries would no longer be willing to consider it an attack against their own soil,” writes de Borchgrave. In other words, a lot of people in Europe see the insanity of going up against Russia with its nukes only minutes away from Brussels, Paris, Berlin, etc. Georgia, with its tie-eating leader and deranged ethnic nationalism, simply was not worth it.
georgia mobilizes commando units near south ossetia from ria novosti: Georgia is mobilizing commando units near its border with South Ossetia, a senior Russian military official said on Tuesday. Russia officially recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states on August 26, saying the move was needed to protect the regions after Georgia's August 8 attack on South Ossetia.
georgia admits dropping cluster bombs from russia today: The Georgian government has admitted dropping cluster bombs in its military offensive to regain control of South Ossetia, reports Human Rights Watch. The international organisation says it has received an official letter form Georgia’s Defence Ministry that acknowledges the use of the M85 cluster munition near the Roki tunnel linking South Ossetia with Russia. The M85 is the same weapon that was used extensively by Israel in its 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Human Rights Watch has also said that Russia used the widely condemned weapons in several places during the conflict. Moscow has rejected the accusations.
russia: US delivered weapons to georgia under cover of aid from ap: Russia warned the West on Monday against supporting Georgia’s leadership, suggesting that the United States carried weapons as well as aid to the ex-Soviet republic and calling for an arms embargo until the Georgian government falls. The remarks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his spokesman came as European Union leaders delicately approached their relations with Russia, weighing how to punish Moscow for its invasion of Georgia without isolating the continent’s major energy supplier.
russia ‘could destroy nato ships in black sea within 20 minutes' from ria novosti: Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is capable of destroying NATO’s naval strike group currently deployed in the sea within 20 minutes, a former fleet commander said on Friday. Russia’s General Staff said on Tuesday there were 10 NATO ships in the Black Sea - three U.S. warships, the Polish frigate General Pulaski, the German frigate FGS Lubeck, and the Spanish guided missile frigate Admiral Juan de Borbon, as well as four Turkish vessels. Eight more warships are expected to join the group.
dissident russian websiter owner shot dead by police from winter patriot: The owner of a dissident Russian website has been shot dead after being detained by the police. Magomed Yevloyev was apparently shot in the temple while in police custody, in what the police are calling an accident. Yevloyev's website, ingushetiya.ru, was very critical of the Kremlin. The government had made repeated attempts to shut it down. If at first you don't succeed ... There's much more to this story; if you're interested in more details, here and here are good places to start.
israelis shoot palestinian w/ learning disability in the face w/ rubber bullets from press tv: A Palestinian has been critically wounded after Israeli troops shot him in the face in an overnight raid in the West Bank village of Ni'lin. The military forces attacked the village where there has been a weekly demonstration against Israel's controversial separation barrier. During the operation, 40-year-old Awad Srur was shot with four rubber-coated bullets, three of which struck him in the face, according to doctors treating him at a hospital in the nearby town of Ramallah.
imagine: lennon's response to mccartney's 'friendship first' concert in israel from people's voice: Four decades ago, Israel banned The Beatles fearing their revolutionary message of love and peace would corrupt their youth. On September 25, 2008, Sir Paul McCartney will perform his 'Friendship First' concert in Tel Aviv for $4.3 million and is being promoted as one of "music's most revered stars" and a holder of "the key principals of friendship – loyalty and respect." As I wondered what Lennon might have said to his old mate in regards to making money from an apartheid state, I reminisced to REVOLUTION.
poll: 55% of americans support israeli strike on iran from thinkprogress: A recent poll released by the Israel Project claims that 55 percent of Americans would approve of the “United States and its allies making targeted conventional military strikes against Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities.” That number rises to 63 percent if economic and diplomatic sanctions fail and Iran acquires nuclear capability. The Israel Project released the findings at a press conference this week with pollster Frank Luntz, who suggested that the reason for the high numbers was simply that “Iran scares people.” Still, there was a great deal of support for diplomacy, “with 62 percent saying an ‘opportunity for a diplomatic solution still exists.’”
israel: when we say attack, we mean it from press tv: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak says Israel is determined to use 'any option' to stop Iran's nuclear program should sanctions fail... "The time is still for diplomacy and sanctions, but much more effective sanctions. We keep saying that we do not remove any option from the table. I propose to others not to remove any option from the table as well. But when we say it, we mean it," Barak said.
update: US special ops attack pakistan from nytimes: Helicopter-borne American Special Operations forces attacked Qaeda militants in a Pakistani village near the border with Afghanistan early Wednesday in the first publicly acknowledged case of United States forces conducting a ground raid on Pakistani soil, American officials said.
dutch newspaper: US attack on iran imminent from infowars: Holland’s largest newspaper, Telegraaf, reports that a decision has been made by the United States to attack Iran in the next few weeks. Targets include both nuclear facilities and military installations, according to the newspaper. UAVs will be used in the attack. The Dutch secret service, the AIVD (Algemene Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdienst), has allegedly helped with target mapping. Telegraaf claims the AIVD has collaborated with the U.S. in sabotaging the Iranian weapons industry. Deemed “successful,” these operations were recently halted because of the U.S. plan for airstrikes. AIVD information over the last few years has been shared with the CIA.
thai protesters flout premier's state of emergency
slideshow: india's state of emergency from time: Over one million people are still stranded in the impoverished eastern state of Bihar in the area's worst floods in over 50 years.
japanese prime minister resigns from time: Japan's unpopular prime minister, Yasuo Fukuda, announced his resignation Monday after less than a year in office. Fukuda, in a hastily arranged news conference Monday evening, said he was stepping down to avoid a "political vacuum" at the head of the world's second-largest economy. "My decision is based on what I thought the future political situation ought to be," Fukuda said
6 mexican cops jailed in oregon man's death
from oregonian: Mexican prosecutors are taking the unusual step of jailing six policemen from the resort town of San Jose del Cabo for what they say could be 30 days or more while they investigate how and whether a vacationing Oregonian was beaten to death in officers' custody, according to U.S. officials. Steve Royster, spokesman for the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, said Tuesday that last week's death of 38-year-old Sam Botner of Yoncalla was "a grave concern." The State Department is monitoring Mexico's investigation, he said.
mexican drug wars threaten US from washington times: An escalating turf fight between warring drug cartels in Mexico is spreading into the United States with federal officials warning that deadly shootouts and ambushes along the southwestern border pose a serious threat to both U.S. law enforcement and American citizens, according to a confidential multi-agency government report. The Aug. 29 report predicts a rise in the use of "deadly force" against U.S. police officials, first responders and residents along the border, and further spillage of drug-gang violence deeper into the United States. Written by the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center (AcTIC) and the High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Investigative Support Center, the report also said the drug cartels are expected to hire members of deadly street gangs now in this country, including Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), to "carry out acts of violence against cartel members in the U.S." "U.S. law enforcement and first responders need to maintain a heightened awareness at all times," the report said.
almost 1,000 deaths this year in mexico border city from afp: Mexicans plan mass protests against insecurity on Saturday, but not in the city with the highest murder rate this year, where many are focused on more immediate safety concerns. Violence has escalated throughout Mexico since President Felipe Calderon, who took office at the end of 2006, launched a military crackdown on drug trafficking, but nowhere more than in Ciudad Juarez.
update: ecuador giving US air base the boot from washington post: When U.S. officers stationed in this humid coastal city give reasons they should continue their decade-old airborne surveillance mission, they talk not only about fighting drug runners on the open seas but about the $71 million they've spent to renovate and maintain the city's airport, and the $6.5 million they inject each year into the local economy. But the government of Ecuador has decided, and Washington has apparently agreed, that one of the most important foreign outposts in the United States' war on drugs will close. The 450 U.S. Air Force personnel and contractors stationed at a military base that shares the airport's runway will be leaving next year.
In one third of the cases, death occurred at the point of arrest, while in the remainder death was within 24 hours, Selles told the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology.
All but one of the casualties were male and their average age was just 33 years, with no previous history of cardiovascular disease.
Just why they died remains a mystery but he believes young men, in particular, may experience surges in blood levels of chemicals known ascatecholamines when under severe stress.
Adrenaline is one of the most abundant catecholamines.
Canada's government will also compensate former military personnel who assisted with emergency decontamination efforts at the Chalk River nuclear plant in Ontario following two major nuclear reactor accidents in 1952 and 1958, MacKay said.
"The participants have received no recognition for their dangerous assignments in the service of Canada," MacKay during a speech Tuesday in Calgary.
In total, 900 former soldiers or families of deceased veterans will receive payments of $22,000 each, Mackay said.
from ap: Israeli agents who kidnapped Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann from Argentina in 1960 found the notorious death camp doctor Josef Mengele but let him get away, one of the operatives said Tuesday.
Mengele was one of the most wanted Nazi war criminals, a doctor who conducted cruel experiments on twins and dwarves at the Auschwitz concentration camp and killed children with lethal injections. He selected prisoners who would be subjected to his experiments and sent others straight to their death in gas chambers.
Rafi Eitan, now an 81-year-old Israeli Cabinet minister, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he and other Mossad agents located Mengele living in a Buenos Aires apartment with his wife at the time of Eichmann's capture in 1960.
But they decided that trying to nab him would risk sabotaging the capture of Eichmann, who implemented Adolf Hitler's "final solution" to kill European Jewry and was deemed a more important target.
It was known that Mengele was living in Buenos Aires around the time of Eichmann's capture. But Eitan's comments indicated the Israelis were closer to him than had been previously thought — and shed light on why they decided to abandon an attempt to catch him.
"When you have one operation, you're taking a certain level of risk. If you're doing a second operation at the same time, you double the risk ... not only for the second operation but for the first one, as well," Eitan said.
from washington times: The Justice Department's internal watchdog said Tuesday that former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales had only been on the job a few hours the first time he mishandled highly classified documents.
The report is the latest in a series from Mr. Fine's office that have been highly critical of Mr. Gonzales and the Justice Department under his leadership. Mr. Gonzales resigned in 2007 after two tumultuous years at his post. But whereas previous reports found concerted efforts by staff to fill department ranks with conservatives or Republicans, the latest report suggests carelessness.
The report concluded that Mr. Gonzales brought home notes that included classified information from a meeting about the NSA surveillance program. It also found that he improperly kept 17 other classified documents in a safe outside his office at the Justice Department that at least five staff members without appropriate clearances could access.
"After conducting a thorough review of the matter and consulting with senior career officials inside and outside of the division," said Justice spokesman Dean Boyd, "the NSD ultimately determined that prosecution should be declined."
contradiction on spy satellite shootdown explanation from usnews: When the Pentagon ordered a Navy ship to shoot down a crippled U.S. spy satellite last February, it claimed the operation was necessary to prevent a harmful fuel from being dispersed in the atmosphere. At the time, critics charged that the Bush administration was using the toxic fuel as an excuse to demonstrate missile-defense and antisatellite capabilities.
Astrophysicist Yousaf Butt obtained U.S. government documents showing that NASA's own analysis concluded that the satellite's fuel tank was expected to burn up completely during re-entry—even though NASA probably overestimated the tank's chances of survival. "Despite its optimistic oversimplifications, the released study indicates that the tank would certainly have demised high up in the atmosphere," Butt, a staff scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, writes in an article for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
Up to now, U.S. officials had refused to release any of the prelaunch analyses regarding the fuel tank, claiming they contained sensitive information. But Butt says that the newly released documents clearly contradict the official explanation for the shoot-down, which was seen at the time as provocative and risky.
But just in time for a new administration (and the bundles of cash always at the ready for the expanding homeland security market), comes a complete "surveillance in a box" system called the Intelligence Platform!
According to New Scientist, German electronics giant Siemens has developed software allegedly capable of integrating "...tasks typically done by separate surveillance teams or machines, pooling data from sources such as telephone calls, email and internet activity, bank transactions and insurance records. It then sorts through this mountain of information using software that Siemens dubs 'intelligence modules'." New Scientist reports that the firm has sold the system to some 60 countries in Europe and Asia. Which countries? Well, Siemens won't say.
gore vidal: US never had democracy from press tv: American essayist Gore Vidal says that despite the US claim that it is making the world safer by perpetuating democracy, the country never had any democracy.
In an exclusive interview with Press Tv correspondent, Vidal said that the United States has never had democracy and the word never was used in the US constitution, Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence.
Vidal also said that America has fallen into the hands of a small group of people that only care about global dominance and making money from US tax payers by waging wars.
update: comcast appeals fcc throttling order from threat level: Comcast on Thursday appealed the Federal Communication Commission's order that it stop its controversial practice of throttling file sharing traffic. On Aug. 1, FCC commissioners concluded on a 3-2 vote that Comcast monitored the content of its customers' internet connections and selectively blocked peer-to-peer connections using the BitTorrent protocol. The commission found that Comcast violated so-called rules of net neutrality.
from threat level: If you think someone is watching you, you're probably right. But this doesn't mean you're not also crazy, according to psychiatrists who say that our surveillance and reality TV society is spawning a new kind of psychosis. They're calling it the Truman Show delusion. Psychiatrists in the U.S. and Britain say they're seeing a growing number of psychotic patients who are paranoid that cameras are watching their every move. Not sure why they might think this. Others fear the World Wide Web is monitoring their lives or being used to transmit photographs or personal information. The psychiatrists say such patients are often mirroring - albeit, to an extreme - what is occurring in the environment around them.
new zealand supermarkets chip cheese & meat w/ rfid from new zealand herald: Supermarkets are introducing electronic tags on items popular with shoplifters and other thieves. The Source Tagging Alliance, set up by leading retailers, is encouraging suppliers to use radio frequency identification (RFID) and source tagging on grocery product packaging at the point of manufacture. Retailer Association chief executive John Albertson told the Howick and Pakuranga Times that supermarket chains were introducing electronic source tagging for goods deemed “hot” for shoplifting.
from the sun: Scientists are trying to stop the most powerful experiment ever – saying the black holes it will create could destroy the world. Dubbed by some the Doomsday test, it will be carried out next week in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), located 300ft underground near the French-Swiss border.
The machine is 17 miles long and cost £4.4billion to create. When its switch is pulled on September 10, this atom-smasher will become a virtual time machine, revealing what happened when the universe came into existence 14 billion years ago.
New particles of matter are expected to be discovered, new dimensions found beyond the four known, as scientists re-create conditions in the first BILLIONTHS of a second after the Big Bang. Experts even predict that millions of tiny black holes will be produced — baby brothers of the monsters gobbling up dust and stars at the heart of the galaxies.
scientists sue to stop 'black hole' from sucking up earth from world net daily: A European court says the idea a new supercollider project could create a "celestial vacuum" and eventually consume the Earth is worth discussing, but the project can move forward on schedule anyway.
At dispute is what could happen should planned experiments at the supercollider built near Geneva by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, go awry when the massive atomic particle smasher is fired up about this time next week.
Several scientists led by spokesman Otto Rossler, a German chemist, have filed a case in the European Court of Human Rights seeking a delay in the project's opening while the potential problems are studied further.
from ap: Federal officials are investigating the cause of a plant explosion that rocked an area west of Charleston, hurling a fireball hundreds of feet into the air, killing one worker and injuring a second.
"They have a lot of chemicals at the plant and they do take great steps to protect them," said Joe Thornton, spokesman for the state Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety. "I think everything that can be done to protect those chemicals is being done, and I think the public at large is safe."
from ap: Ike Pappas, a longtime CBS newsman who reported the shooting death of presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on the radio as it was happening, has died at age 75. Pappas died Sunday in a hospital in Arlington, Virginia, of complications of heart disease, his family said.
Pappas was among the reporters at the Dallas police station waiting for Oswald to be moved two days after President Kennedy was assassinated. Pappas had just asked him, "You have anything to say in your defense?" when a shot rang out.
"Oswald has been shot!" Pappas said on the air, adding, "Mass confusion here, all the doors have been locked. Holy mackerel!"
Pappas was among more than 200 CBS News employees laid off by the company in 1987.
Speakers at the Paul rally include former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, tax activist Grover Norquist, former California Rep. Barry Goldwater Jr., political commentator Tucker Carlson, former two-term New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and the baby-delivering doctor supporters call Dr. Paul. A few entertainers also are joining in, such as country star Sara Evans; pop singer Aimee Allen, known for the song "Cooties" from Hairspray but whose favorite song among rally-goers is "Ron Paul Anthem"; and Texas blues guitarist Jimmie Vaughan.
ron paul: gustav, personal responsibility & the nanny state
c-span2 to cover the entire rally for the republic from campaign for liberty: Great news! We received confirmation today that C-SPAN 2 will cover the entire Rally for the Republic from start to finish. Yesterday, we announced “Take over the net Tuesday“, and your mission to once again spread the message online. Now, we have another channel to broadcast Ron Paul’s legendary speech.
ron paul nation: the other convention in town from christian science monitor: If some John McCain supporters suffer from what pollsters have called an “enthusiasm gap,” those of GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul might be accused of an enthusiasm surplus. More than 10,000 members of the Ron Paul Nation paid $17.76 (get it?) to attend a convention in Minnesota to celebrate the Texas congressman’s candidacy and advance his antiwar, anti-government, pro-Gold Standard agenda among Republicans at the official GOP convention in nearby St. Paul.
video: paul downplays reports of negotiations with mccain team from raw story: While Republican party officialdom has been largely dismissive of Ron Paul's performance in this year's presidential primaries, there are reports that some party members are courting Paul's support - or at least his silence - in exchange for access to this week's convention in St. Paul.
ventura speaks 9/11 truth to crowd of 10k at rally from 9/11 blogger: During an impassioned speech in which he called for a revolution to take back the country, former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura voiced 9/11 truth to the 10,000 in attendance and the millions watching on C-Span and You Tube at the Rally For The Republic yesterday. Ventura also strongly hinted that he is considering running for the presidency in 2012.
update: ventura endorses a 9/11 conspiracy theorist for congress from ap: Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura has endorsed a Sept. 11 conspiracy theorist for a congressional seat. Ventura came out Thursday in support of Kevin Barrett, a Libertarian running against incumbent Democrat Ron Kind for western Wisconsin's seat. Barrett is a former University of Wisconsin-Madison lecturer who believes the U.S. government was behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and has discussed his views in class.
video: ron paul on washington journal from c-span junkie: Ron Paul talked about his “Campaign for Liberty” rally set for today and his thoughts on the current campaign, and he responded to telephone calls and electronic mail.
video: ron paul says it's time to end the empire from the real news: Paul Jay interviews Ron Paul from the "Rally for the Republic"
ron paul's 'counter-convention' from al-jazeera: Call it the real Republican convention. At least that is how Ron Paul, a US congressman for Texas, and his supporters billed their campaign's Tuesday night "rally for the republic", in which they called on the party to "return to its roots". From the looks of it, Paul, who suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination in June, could almost be accepting the party's presidential nomination himself. Almost 15,000 people came from all over the country to hear him speak.
ron paul steals mccain’s thunder from russia today: Texas Congressman Ron Paul may not be the next US President. But the firebrand Republican, who failed to win the party’s nomination this year, is still hugely popular with grassroots supporters. He staged a rally in Minneapolis as an alternative to John McCain’s Republican Convention in nearby St Paul, stealing much of the limelight from the party’s official presidential candidate.
conspiracy theorists, unite! from msnbc: That's what the dozens of Ron Paul supporters shouting outside of the Xcel Energy Center yesterday afternoon were telling Americans to do. They said the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, were an inside job... So why are Ron Paul supporters, many of them Republicans themselves, protesting the Republican convention? "We want to bring the GOP back to its roots," insisted 24-year-old Adam Gross of Kansas City, Mo, who said he’s a registered Republican. He had slapped a bumper sticker onto his Ron Paul sign that read, "9/11 was in inside job."
'black hats' keep lookout for troublemakers from washington times: Fearing demonstrations from Ron Paul delegates here at the Republican National Convention, the party has created a "black-hat" squad to track the Paulites and other potential troublemakers to make sure they don't cause a scene on the convention floor.
Identified by their black baseball caps emblazoned with a white star, squad members keep an eye on delegates they fear might cause a scene. The squad is empowered by the convention managers to take delegates' credentials and kick them off the convention floor - a step one convention official said would be unprecedented.
Squad members have made "their presence known, to let all people know big brother's watching them," said a Republican official familiar with the squad who has been involved in the last 10 GOP conventions.
from consumerist: Credit card companies successfully nixed a Mythbusters segment exposing RFID's security flaws, according to Arbiter of Truth and Mythbusters co-host, Adam Savage.
Texas Instruments comes on along with chief legal counsel for American Express, Visa, Discover, and everybody else... They were way, way outgunned and they absolutely made it really clear to Discovery that they were not going to air this episode talking about how hackable this stuff was, and Discovery backed way down being a large corporation that depends upon the revenue of the advertisers. Now it's on Discovery's radar and they won't let us go near it.
update: mythbusters co-host backpedals on rfid kerfuffle from cnet: MythBusters co-host Adam Savage is stepping back from public comments suggesting that legal counsel from several credit card companies led the Discovery Channel to pull the plug on an episode dedicated to security holes in RFID.
from newsday: Racked by pain and the ravages of leukemia, first responder Gregory Quibell of North Babylon allowed film crews to record poignant moments of his life.
For weeks, his visits to doctors and his struggles to pay medical bills were captured for a documentary called "Save the Brave," which premiered last night at the Bellmore Theatre in Bellmore. The film's opening is dedicated to Quibell, 53, who died Wednesday night at his home, friends said. The film features three other first responders living with Sept. 11-related illnesses.
"The movie had no actors in it. They were real-life heroes," said John Feal, the film's producer, who is president of the nonprofit FealGood Foundation and advocates for sick Sept. 11 responders. "Greg is proof that heroes are dying, and it's unacceptable."
'the elephant in the room' released
from 9/11 blogger: The Elephant in the Room is a documentary following British filmmaker Dean Puckett through his journey into the 9/11 Truth Movement: a global movement of 'conspiracy theorists' who believe that the official explanation about what happened on 9/11 is totally or partially inaccurate.
The filmmakers travel from middle England, across Europe and to New York for the six year anniversary of the attacks, where the film takes one final twist as we are introduced to the 9/11 first responders who are suffering from various grave health difficulties due to the toxic dust that they breathed in trying to help their country during the weeks after this tragic event.
Told with a personal hands on approach that avoids advancing any one position, the film asks the question: are these crazy conspiracy theorists? Or is 9/11 Truth a credible political movement?
jason bermas' 'fabled enemies' is online
from paul joseph watson: Fabled Enemies is a departure from every other 9/11 truth film released so far. It comes off as more of a spy thriller than a mere conspiracy romp. With tight editing, slick presentation, and sublimely complimentary backing music, the documentary draws the viewer in for an eminently watchable experience.
The film begins by revealing, how in the very hours after 9/11, Osama bin Laden’s conviction of guilt in the court of public opinion was assured simply by constant repetition in the news media, and how the fairytale of 19 hijackers with box cutters began to unravel.
The film does not try to invent an alternative scenario behind what really happened on 9/11, it expertly demolishes the official version by concentrating on how Bin Laden’s network was protected every step of the way by higher-ups and the hijackers were issued visas while good FBI agents like Robert Wright attempted to penetrate the wider plot but were blocked from doing so.
incomes of americans plunge from ap: Personal incomes plunged in July while consumer spending slowed significantly as the impact of billions of dollars in government rebate checks began to wane. The Commerce Department reported Friday that personal incomes fell by 0.7 percent in July, the biggest drop in nearly three years and a far larger decline than the 0.1 percent decrease that analysts had expected.
report card: workers in bad shape from ap: This Labor Day finds workers in worse shape than they've been in years, according to a scorecard released Monday by Rutgers University. In its first national labor scorecard(108kb PDF), the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations said more than 10 percent of Americans are unemployed, discouraged from seeking work or underemployed. That is a nearly 25-percent increase from one year earlier. Professor Douglas Kruse, a labor economist who created the scorecard, said a sharp decline in the number of Americans able to find full-time jobs, along with growing consumer debt and health care costs, were causes for concern.
Soldiers at the site also prepared special "care packages" for American POWs that they sent overseas. They included maps, radios and other escape tools.
Many of the camp's records were destroyed right after the war, and those who worked there were sworn to secrecy. Many veterans never spoke about it, even to family and friends, although the operation has been gradually declassified over the past two decades.
The National Park Service, which now runs Fort Hunt Park, has been trying to piece together the story of the interrogation facility — code-named P.O. Box 1142 during the war.
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from winnipeg sun: They're going across the country in hopes of tracking down what they say is the real story behind the 9/11 attacks. About 10 members of the so-called Vancouver 9/11 Truth Society rolled into Winnipeg yesterday on a small bus while en route from the West Coast to Ottawa to try to push Canadian authorities to launch a new, independent probe of the World Trade Center catastrophe.
from ny daily news: After Kenny Johannemann shot himself, relatives found a letter on White House stationery in the one-room apartment he shared only with his cat.
