news on the march

3 guardsmen charged with human smuggling
from new york times: Three members of the Texas National Guard helping patrol the Mexican border have been charged with human smuggling after federal agents found one of them in uniform driving a van crammed with 24 illegal immigrants north of Laredo, the Justice Department said Monday. The guardsmen, including two sergeants, were assigned to Operation Jump Start assisting the Border Patrol and had run multiple smuggling trips at fees of $1,500 to $2,000 per passenger...

shin bet involved in 1976 hijacking
from information liberation/jerusalem post: The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) may have been involved in the hijacking of an Air France plane in 1976 by Palestinian terrorists, according to newly declassified British government documents released Friday. Some 100 passengers were held by hijackers at Entebbe airport in Uganda during an eight-day ordeal that concluded when General Staff Reconnaissance Unit (Sayeret Matkal) troops stormed the building where the captives were held.

military exercise to include oregon ‘hams’
from congressional quarterly: Amateur radio operators — known as hams — are keying up for the next major counterterrorism exercise to be held this fall. They have participated in previous TOPOFF exercises and have been invited to take part in the Oregon portion of the exercise in October. TOPOFF is the federal government’s largest counterterrorism exercise. This year it will be held in Arizona, Guam and Oregon and will include dirty bomb scenarios.

will cnn retract gop ron paul 'first-class seat’ story?
from free market news: CNN prides itself on the truthfulness of its stories. But a story that claimed that only Ron Paul flew "first class" returning from the latest GOP debate is false. Virginia governor Jim Gilmore also flew first class on the same plane. The story is ridiculous on first blush. But it is actually important for three reasons...

dc schools hold mock shooting rampage drills
from dcist: NBC4 reports that Alice Deal Jr. High School in Tenleytown was the first school to hold a mock shooting rampage drill yesterday. The drill, which simulated a shooter coming to the school with a gun intending to kill as many people as possible, will be repeated at other D.C. schools in the coming weeks.

uk troops on 'trigger happy' drug

from scotsman: British troops are being prescribed with a controversial drug which has been blamed for making US pilots "trigger-happy" and causing friendly fire deaths.

The Ministry of Defence has admitted that it prescribes the amphetamine dexedrine, which is capable of keeping users awake for as long as 60 hours.

While the MoD has refused to say what it uses the Class B drug for, leading narcotics experts say that the main purpose is to keep soldiers awake during special operations. However, they have warned that the substance can be highly addictive.

In addition, the MoD has admitted that it permits soldiers to take a drug called kava-kava, from the South Pacific, which is known to be linked to severe liver damage.

Documents obtained under Freedom of Information provisions show that although the amount the MoD spends on dexedrine is just £32 per year, this is estimated to be enough for several hundred 5mg doses. A typical course will see a user given the pills for about two or three days.

Outwith the armed forces, the amphetamine is used to treat narcolepsy, a condition where sufferers cannot stop falling asleep at random times.

In addition to dexedrine, the MoD dispenses a small number of tablets of ephedrine, which has a similar, though less potent, effect.

The ministry also spends about £3,000 a year on melatonin, a substance which aids sleep, in order to get the body clocks of troops into synch after flying long distances.

Amphetamines have been controversially used by the US Air Force to keep pilots awake on long missions, although the UK has always denied giving the 'go pills' to its pilots.

In 2002, the 'Tarnak Farm incident' saw US fighter-bombers attack a group of Canadian soldiers, killing four and wounding another eight near Kandahar in Afghanistan.

During official hearings into the incident, the US pilots testified that they had been ordered to take amphetamines to keep awake. The pilots blamed the pills for their actions.

vaccines go to court for links to autism

from new york times: Lawyers began arguments on Monday in the first of several test cases that may help decide whether the government should pay millions of dollars to parents of autistic children.

Nearly 5,000 parents claim that vaccinations caused their children to become autistic, and many of their claims have been pending for five years. The hearing was held at the “federal vaccine court,” set up by Congress 20 years ago when a series of vaccine scares nearly crippled the industry.

Every major study and scientific organization examining this issue has found no link between vaccination and autism, but the parents and their advocates have persisted. Their frustration was evident in the opening statement of the parents’ lawyer, Thomas Powers of Portland, Ore.

“Numerous obstacles have been placed in the path of the petitioners seeking that fair and generous compensation that they are entitled to,” Mr. Powers said.

joint us-israeli military exercises begin

from rogue government/afp: American and Israeli air forces on Sunday began week-long joint exercises in southern Israel, simulating dog-fights and bombing targets on the ground, the army said.

Dozens of aircraft are taking part in the exercises in the southern Negev desert, it said.

Army radio said the exercises were taking place in the context of recent discussions between Israel and its main ally on the controversial nuclear programme of the Jewish state's arch-foe Iran.

But an Israeli military source told AFP that the exercises were "planned two years ago and are not linked to the situation in any country."

Washington, Israel and many Western countries fear that Iran's nuclear programme is a guise for developping atomic weapons. Tehran says it is meant for civilian uses only.

Israel, widely believed to be the sole if undeclared nuclear power in the Middle East, considers the Islamic Republic its arch-foe after repeated statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Jewish state should be wiped off the map.

google ranked 'worst' on privacy

from bbc: Google has the worst privacy policy of popular net firms, says a report.

Rights group Privacy International rated the search giant as "hostile" to privacy in a report ranking web firms by how they handle personal data.

The group said Google was leading a "race to the bottom" among net firms many of whom had policies that did little to substantially protect users.

In response Google said the report was mistaken and that it worked hard to keep user data confidential.

The report by the veteran cyber rights group is the result of six months' research which scrutinised 20 popular net firms to find out how they handle the personal information users gave up when they started using such services.

None of the firms featured in the report got a "privacy friendly" rating...

posada: terrorism made in usa

from google video: This well-documented film provides damning evidence of the U.S. role in training and directing the terrorist actions of Luis Posada Carriles, and reviews his whole terrorist history.

It features testimony from Venezuelan, Cuban and other victims of Posada's torture and murderous past. "Posada: Terrorism Made in U.S.A." is a carefully documented and professionally produced film, and a key contribution to the international campaign to demand Posada's extradition.

g8 false flag terror attack averted?

from propaganda matrix: It looks highly likely that a false flag terror attack to be blamed on protesters of the G8 summit in Germany was averted after German surveillance stopped a team of "US security men" attempting to smuggle C4 plastic explosives past a checkpoint at Heiligendamm.

The alarming revelation was buried at the end of a Deutsche Press-Agentur news article about the ongoing battles between police and protesters at the global forum.

Sources told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that US security men tested German security by trying to smuggle C4 plastic explosive past a checkpoint at Heiligendamm.

German surveillance machinery detected the tiny stash in a suitcase in a car and the Americans in plainclothes then identified themselves. German police declined comment.

Was this simply a "test" as is claimed or more likely, an aborted false flag terror attack that was set to be blamed on protesters to legitimize the powerhouse G8 nations and the global elite while demonizing anti-globalization activists and justifying the use of lethal force against demonstrators?

If so, it wouldn't be without precedent.

During the Genoa G8 summit in 2001, police planted petrol bombs in schools and other residences of protest groups in order to justify brutal raids on the properties during which activists were severely beaten and jailed Police claimed the raids were justified because the protesters were planning violence.

After the trial against the police got underway, the bomb evidence conveniently "disappeared".

9/11 kin rip 'evil eyes' ad

from new york post: A series of subway ads from an insurance company that lost nearly 300 employees on 9/11 has some victims' relatives up in arms, because the models in the photos appear to have the Twin Towers reflected in their eyes.

"I was just livid," said Valerie Montgomery, 53, after seeing what she believes to be a reference to the towers in the ads by Marsh, the giant risk and insurance arm of Marsh & McLennan Cos. "I took a look at the picture, and I thought, 'What the hell is this?' What's wrong with them?" added Montgomery, whose brother-in-law, Marsh & McLennan Assistant Vice President Joseph Mangano, died on 9/11.

Marsh's ads, part of a multimillion-dollar campaign dubbed "Find the Upside," are on display in city subways and buses and also have appeared in national newspapers.

In them, the words "There's Another Side of Risk" appear underneath the eyes of six models. Bracketing the pupils of all of the eyes are twin beams of light evocative of the WTC's iconic, fallen towers, where 295 Marsh employees died.

"I thought, 'What else could they be trying to depict?'" said Evelyn Zelmanowitz, 68, a Brooklyn woman whose brother-in-law, Abe Zelmanowitz, died in a tower when he refused to leave behind a quadriplegic co-worker.

Asked whether the Twin Towers effect was intentional, Marsh & McLennan said, "At best, the suggestion is wrong and absurd, and at worst, it is irresponsible and despicable."

The Clare Agency, which represents photographer Martin Schoeller, who took the ads' photos, said, "The two beams of light themselves are created with a special lighting technique that Martin utilizes for most of his portrait work. Any other statement indicating otherwise would be false and inaccurate."

the gentlemen's club for the rich & famous

from daily mail: The Bohemian Grove Club holds an annual summer camp at which members, who include Henry Kissinger, former President George Bush Senior, Clint Eastwood and Bob Weir, founder member of Sixties rock band the Grateful Dead, debate world politics, perform weird mock Druid ceremonies...

Next month's dinner will be preceded by traditional club rituals, which include an arcane Druid rite, the Cremation of Care, in which torch-wielding men in crimson robes burn an effigy representing the cares of the world and high-living that they leave behind for 17 days...

The Bohemian Grove Club has been called the world's most exclusive old boys' club.

Tony Blair, John Major and Prince Philip have reputedly been guests at the California estate where its 2,300 luminaries meet twice a year for a long weekend in May and 17 days in July under a veil of secrecy...

With a combined worth estimated at £50billion, they say their goal is to "draw inspiration from nature" while they hammer out new solutions to world problems.

Visitors have reported, however, that their rituals include getting "howling drunk", dressing up as women and burning an effigy called "Care" under a giant statue of an owl. Peter Phillips, a sociology professor who has been a guest at the club, insists: "It's all very tongue-in-cheek." (ed: but in this article from four years ago, he called it 'patriarchy, racism and class privilege.' i guess ol' pete had a change of heart...) Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger delivers a breakfast lecture every July on topics that have included the Iraq War.

tom hanks tv series to debunk jfk conspiracy theories

from afp: Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks is reportedly to produce a television mini-series debunking the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of president John F. Kennedy.

According to Variety, Hanks and his partner in the Playtone production house, Gary Goetzman, will be the executive producers on the project which will adapt the book "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy."

"I think that we will finally be able to make a substantial dent in the 75 percent of people in this country who still believe the conspiracy theorists," author Vincent Bugliosi told the industry insider, Variety.

His 1,630-page tome backs the official version of events that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he shot and killed Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas.

"I totally believed there was a conspiracy, but after you read the book, you are almost embarrassed that you ever believed it," Goetzman told Variety.

"To think that guys who grew up in the '60s would make a mini-series supporting the idea that Oswald acted alone is something I certainly wouldn't have predicted. But time and evidence can change the way we view things."

Playtone is in negotiations with the TV channel HBO to diffuse the 10-part series.

Oliver Stone's movie "JFK" which came out in 1991, starring Kevin Costner, was heavily criticized for supporting the theory that there was a plot to kill Kennedy.

Stone even hinted that Kennedy's vice-president and successor, Lyndon Johnson, could have been involved...

outside the box #105

here is the latest episode of "outside the box," hosted by alex ansary.
it was originally broadcast by portland community media on june 7, 2007.

from alex ansary: Alex talks to Jeffery M. Smith about his book, Seeds of Deception. The book documents significant health dangers of genetically modified foods and the intense industry influence and political corruption that allow them on the market. Hailed as the best book on the topic, many believe that the revelations in this book can topple an industry. Later... the recent fabricated terror scare, among other news.

robobear rescues wounded troops

from cryptogon/bbc: The US military is developing a robot with a teddy bear-style head to help carry injured soldiers away from the battlefield.

The Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot (BEAR) can scoop up even the heaviest of casualties and transport them over long distances over rough terrain.

New Scientist magazine reports that the "friendly appearance" of the robot is designed to put the wounded at ease.

It is expected to be ready for testing within five years...

Daniel Theobald, the president of Vecna Technologies, which is developing the robot for the US Army, said: "We saw a need for a robot that can essentially go where a human can. The robot will be an integral part of a military team."

Gary Gilbert, from the US Army's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Centre in Frederick, Maryland, said that the teddy bear appearance was deliberate.

"A really important thing when you're dealing with casualties is trying to maintain that human touch."

Vecna is working on other potential applications for the robot technology - including helping move heavy patients in hospital.

the onassis dynasty

from google video: A look back at the wealth and scandals that marked the life of Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis. Onassis stirred controversy when he married Jackie Kennedy; his first wife, Tina Livanos, ended their marriage when she caught him making love to opera star Maria Callas; his sister-in-law died in mysterious circumstances and Tina committed suicide; his son, Alexander, was killed in a freak plane accident; his daughter, Christina, died at 37 after an unhappy life; and Onassis himself died broken-hearted in 1975.

media monarchy episode028

here is the latest podcast from media monarchy...
episode028 - june 8, 2007 download/stream/subscribe

media monarchy is originally broadcast on the portland radio authority every friday at 10am pacific/1pm eastern and can also be heard on the revere radio network every monday at 4pm pacific/7pm eastern... plus, you can get always get podcasts of previous episodes thanks to radio4all.net

senate committee passes habeas bill

from thinkprogress: “Today the Senate Judiciary Committee passed an important bill to restore habeas corpus, the sacrosanct Constitutional right to challenge government detention in court, by a vote of eleven to eight.” Watch this new ad by the Alliance for Justice on defending habeas:

UPDATE: Reuters article is HERE.

update: olbermann: habeas corpus to be restored?
from blacklisted news/you tube: Keith Olbermann describes the importance of the great writ of Habeas Corpus which has been systematically destroyed by the Bush Administration and which some are now seeking to restore much to the chagrin of some Presidential candidates.

theater festival under fire for 'rachel corrie'

for a few years, i was a sound designer at the contemporary american theater festival. i also worked for ed herendeen, off & on, for almost ten years. i can say first hand that ed has always staged controversial plays; from the death of danny casolaro in 'the octopus' to sleeping with terrorists in 'homeland security,' his provocative choices make theater more urgent & important. that's one of the main reasons why people want to work with him... but now, with catf putting on 'my name is rachel corrie,' herendeen & co may have bitten off more than shepherdstown can chew...

should anti-israel play be staged?
from jewish theatre: A controversial one-woman play about an American killed in Gaza will be staged this summer during the Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) in Shepherdstown, W.Va., and some longtime ticket holders are objecting.

My Name is Rachel Corrie will be performed 17 times during the month long July festival.

Bethesda's Richard Belle has been attending the festival for the past 10 years. This season, he plans to skip it in protest.

"The play was written by partisans who are strongly anti-Israel," said Belle, 55, who works in marketing for a nonprofit engineering corporation. "I don't see this play doing anything except stirring up hatred against Israel, and the fact that it's so beloved by the hard anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian movement is not coincidental," he continued.

"I'm particularly pained because I love CATF. I'm horrified in what they're doing," Belle said.

Such reactions don't surprise CATF director Ed Herendeen. "I think that's what is great about freedom of speech and the power of art is that you go and choose what you want to see," he said. "What I would like is people to keep an open mind."

One of CATF's board members resigned in protest, revoking a $100,000 pledge, Herendeen said. He would not reveal the name of that person, and other board members either could not confirm the identity or did not respond to inquiries.

He also said that he has been "receiving some real nice letters of positive support from patrons," and that as of press time ticket sales are roughly on pace with last year.

catf offering stirs debate
from shepherdstown observer: With the Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF)’s decision to stage “My Name Is Rachel Corrie” during its 2007 season in July, the shouting match that has led to the play’s cancellation in New York, Toronto, and Miami and upstaged a recent production in Seattle could follow the play to Shepherdstown...

“It’s a very human story. I connected with this play because of Rachel’s idealistic voice,” says CATF producing director Ed Herendeen. “It reconnected me with my youth and my idealism.”

According to most press accounts, many of the play’s admirers share Herendeen’s perspective. The setting could have been Darfur, Liberia, or any of the world’s most dangerous and contested places. For Herendeen, Corrie’s voice rings with youthful optimism that people can make a difference in the world...

The decision to stage the play has created a stir within CATF. Early on, a few trustees hinted they might resign over the play’s content. Others were concerned by the negative financial implications of staging the play. The trustees met for a Saturday session to discuss the decision to produce the play. To Herendeen, the discussion was an energizing example of how theater can inspire dialogue. Ultimately, though, one trustee, H. Alan Young, did resign over the trustees’ decision to back the production.

cia = covert imperialist activity

cia running black op's against iran
from raw story: The Central Intelligence Agency has received approval at least twice in the last several years to conduct an “information war” against several countries in the Middle East, including Iran, Lebanon and Syria, according to current and former intelligence officials.

In addition, the Bush Administration has been running operations out of the Defense Department that are not subject to Congressional oversight, intelligence sources say. These programs appear murkier, and have included support for an alleged terrorist group in Iran.

A recent ABC News report revealed that President George W. Bush had signed a presidential finding giving the CIA the authority to conduct “non-lethal” covert operations against Iran. Former and current intelligence sources tell RAW STORY, however, that there have been “at least two” presidential findings over the past few years which have empowered the agency to run an “open-secret” information war against Iranian interests, mainly leveraging resources and assets “within the United States and France.”

the cia's favorite form of torture
from salon: According to news reports, the White House is preparing to issue an executive order that will set new ground rules for the CIA's secret program for interrogating captured al-Qaida types. Constrained by the 2006 Military Commissions Act, which contains a strict ban on abuse, it is anticipated that the order will jettison waterboarding and other brutal interrogation techniques.

But President Bush has insisted publicly that "tough" techniques work, and has signaled that the CIA's secret program can somehow continue under the rubric of the Military Commissions Act. The executive order will reportedly hand the CIA greater latitude than the military to conduct coercive interrogations. If waterboarding goes the way of the Iron Maiden, what "tough" techniques will the CIA use on its high-value detainees?

candidates & elites have trouble confronting 'change'

the new york activist group known as 'we are change' have been very busy lately. from david rockefeller's home to an arrest after the new hampshire debate, 'we are change' have taken 9/11 activism to new level. and to those who complain & question their methods, i ask this: what have you done lately?
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reporter arrested after republican debate

from raw story: A reporter advancing 9/11 conspiracy theories in a heated exchange with advisers to Rudy Giuliani was arrested following Tuesday night's Republican debate.

Police in Goffstown, N.H., confirmed to RAW STORY that freelance reporter Matt Lepacek was arrested for trespassing following the debate at St. Anselm College in Goffstown. Lepacek was asking a Giuliani adviser about comments the former mayor made on ABC News on Sept. 11 that some say show he had foreknowledge that the World Trade Center would collapse.

Police refused to release more information about Lepacek's case prior to his first scheduled court appearance July 3.
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giuliani confronted at new york fundraiser

from wnbc: A radical group at a Bronx fundraiser confronted Rudolph Giuliani on Tuesday morning, accusing him of being one of the "criminals of 9/11." ...

Afterward, a young woman claiming to be the relative of a Sept. 11, 2001, firefighter who died when the towers collapsed, asked Giuliani why he allegedly told Peter Jennings the towers would fall that day, but did not stop the rescue efforts of firefighters and police officers.

The woman claims Giuliani knew the towers would fall, and allowed rescuers to go to their deaths. She asked him, "How do you sleep at night?"

Giuliani was extremely polite, telling the young woman she was wrong and that he never said what she claimed. At that point, another protester from her group, a young man, interrupted Giuliani with the same allegations.

Giuliani replied by saying, "I didn't realize the towers would collapse." He later added, "No one that I know of had any idea they would implode. That was a complete surprise."
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activists go face to face with david rockefeller

from paul joseph watson: As part of a blitz of recent activism in which Al Gore, Rudy Giuliani and the CFR were all confronted, Infowars reporter Luke Rudkowski and the rest of the We Are Change crew went face to face with evil when they paid a visit to arch-elitist David Rockefeller at his own home in New York.

"Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing me and my family as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty and I am proud of it." - David Rockefeller, MEMOIRS

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the 'we are change' crew have also confronted john edwards, joe biden, david gergen, bill richardson & more. those videos will be posted here when they are available...

ron paul in new hampshire presidential debate

from stop the lie: 8 minutes of sanity with Dr. Ron Paul.

vote on the new hampshire republican debate here.

from raw story: Reprising his role as the candidate most willing to buck Republican orthodoxy, Ron Paul accused the government of intervening in the Middle East to protect the interests of powerful oil companies during Tuesday night’s Republican debate.

“It had to do with oil,” Paul said of the US’s involvement in overthrowing the premier of Iran in 1953. He said US policy in the Middle East has continued to be pursued primarily in the interests of obtaining oil.

Paul also criticized US tax breaks and other subsidies given to oil companies, but he did not criticize large profits earned by oil companies on the open market.

The Texas Congressman pivoted to the critique of US intervention in the Middle East in response to a question about what the US should do to fight global warming. He joined other candidates in encouraging more use of alternative fuel sources and domestic reserves of oil...

update: ron paul on tucker carlson (06/06/07)

ron paul on the daily show

from you tube/stop the lie: Another excellent interview.
After watching, you can "digg" the story here...

from raw story: Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) appeared on Monday's Daily Show to talk about his underdog campaign for the presidency. He reiterated his positions that we should never have gone into Iraq and that we need to follow the Constitution, saying "I don't believe in spreading liberty with guns."

"You're a guy that would really get rid of a lot of our government," Steward said. "Yeah, I think that'd be true," Paul responded. "I happen to think that the market can deliver any service better than the government can."

scotus sides with companies on credit reporting

from ap: The Supreme Court scaled back a standard that would have made it easier for consumers to win lawsuits against companies for violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

The law requires insurance companies and other businesses to notify customers who are charged more because of their credit ratings.

In a unanimous decision, the justices modified a standard of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that the insurance industry said could have subjected it to billions of dollars in punitive damages for failing to notify customers.

Thirteen state insurance commissioners said that a lower threshhold for proving liability would motivate compliance with the law.

The two companies in the case are Safeco Insurance Company of America and Geico General Insurance Co.

ron paul is bill maher's new hero

from you tube/ron paul 2008: Ron Paul is winning the hearts and minds of America more every day. Dr. Paul talks about his recent reading assignment to Rudy Giuliani.

jfk airport plot has all the hallmarks of staged terror

from paul joseph watson: An alleged plot to blow up fuel tanks, terminal buildings and fuel lines running beneath Kennedy International Airport has all the hallmarks of being another staged terror alert, having never advanced beyond a rudimentary planning stage while being prodded and provocateured by a paid government informant.

In every single major terror sting we have researched in the west since 9/11, not one single plot has been absent the ingredient of a government provocateur, save the cases that were outright manufactured by imaginative government propagandists in alliance with the corporate media.

In this case, the provocateur was "An informant with a criminal history including drug trafficking and racketeering agreed to work with investigators on the case, in exchange for payments and a reduced sentence," according to the New York Times.

Officials have refused to say how they became aware of the plot in the first place, but in every previous case of this nature we have found that it is the government agent provocateur who radicalizes the group and formulates the plot. The cover story is that the group is infiltrated by the informant having already planned the attack but as more details emerge, inevitably the plot always reveals itself as an artificial creation on behalf of the intelligence services.

What's the motive? The war on terror is the most politically exploited concept since the cold war. The propaganda boon from hoodwinking Americans into thinking they are constantly under threat from terrorists is unsurpassed. On the very day that this alleged plot was announced, Rudy Giuliani was already using it to inflate his presidential campaign.

In addition, the new head of the Arkansas Republican Party, Dennis Milligan, told a reporter this past weekend that America needs to be attacked by terrorists so that people will appreciate the work that President Bush has done to protect the country.

Once again we learn that "the plot was only in a preliminary phase and the conspirators had yet to lay out detailed plans or obtain financing or explosives," and yet the event is reported by a jingoistic and frothing media as if an imminent attack on the scale of 9/11 has been averted.

But as always, the devil is in the details, because even if the group had managed to acquire the financing and explosives to enact the plot, it would have been unsuccessful, due to "safety shut-off valves would almost assuredly have prevented an exploding airport fuel tank from igniting all or even part of the network."

The sum of the group's planning for the alleged attack amounts to nothing more than visiting Google Maps and printing off photographs.



It appears that part of the agenda in hyping the alleged plot is to undermine Hugo Chavez, since the ringleader, Russell Defreitas, has links to Jamaat al-Muslimeen, a Muslim group headed up by Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, and in turn Bakr has been affiliated with Chavez.

As Kurt Nimmo writes, Neo-Con websites are already exploiting these tenuous links to demonize Hugo Chavez, who - whatever you think of his domestic policies - has been a constant thorn in the side of the Globalists and was subject to an attempted CIA coup in 2002.

Defreitas is described by one law enforcement official as “a sad sack” and “not a Grade A terrorist,” who would have been incapable of carrying out any attack. A friend described him as "not smart enough" to have carried out the attack.

In several other cases, we see a pattern where near-retarded individuals are used as patsies for terror plots orchestrated by intelligence agencies because they are easily manipulated and cannot defend themselves after the fact.

From out of nowhere, Defreitas goes from embracing American culture and enjoying jazz music to dressing in traditional Muslim garb and referring to himself as Mohammed while planning a devastating attack due to his supposed hatred of the west.

The basic tenet that the terror threat has been overhyped and magnified a thousand-fold for political propaganda is proven alone by documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act that show only 0.0015 percent of the total number of cases filed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security were terrorism related, despite the fact that the Bush administration has repeatedly asserted that it is the primary focus of the DHS.

As more details leak out, there seems little doubt that the JFK airport plot will dissipate into nothing more than another hyped terror alert - coddled, molded, and directed by the government, before being unleashed on an increasingly skeptical American public in another vain attempt to prop up the flagging legitimacy of the "war on terror".

the oracle of omaha pimps for hillary

from bloomberg: Billionaire investor Warren Buffett will host a fundraising event for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in New York this month, helping her attract donors who can write four-figure checks and court fresh faces in the investing community.

An invitation for the June 26 cocktail party, whose location is still to be announced, says a limited number of tickets will go to "young Wall Street" at $500 each. Other attendees are asked to give between $1,000 and $4,600, the legal maximum.

Buffett, who built Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. from a failing textile maker into a holding company with a market value of $168 billion, said last month that he would help either Clinton or Illinois Senator Barack Obama with their presidential campaigns if asked. He will also host a fundraiser for Obama, said Obama spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

Clinton and Obama both "would apply enormous energy toward the right goals," Buffett said in a May 9 interview. "Either one would make a great president." ...

Executives at Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. represent the two biggest groups of donors to Clinton, 59, during her two Senate campaigns. In the first quarter of the presidential race, Goldman employees gave more of their contributions to Obama than to Clinton, Federal Election Commission filings indicate.

outside the box #104

here is the latest episode of "outside the box," hosted by alex ansary.
it was originally broadcast by portland community media on may 31, 2007.

from alex ansary: I blow off some hot steam as I run down the week in review followed by some recent reports on Russia's new missile test, the growth of the Chinese military, North Korea's new missile test, and other new developments. At the end, I briefly go over some basic whole foods or 'superfoods' that most of us forget to put in our grocery cart.

alex ansary interviews jack blood

here is an exclusive video from alex ansary...

tb patient's relative to be investigated

from ap/yahoo: A federal microbiologist, the father-in-law of the man quarantined with a drug-resistant form of tuberculosis, will be investigated to see how he was involved in the case, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday.

Meanwhile, the CDC said it has withdrawn the federal isolation order for TB patient Andrew Speaker because a Denver health agency's order to detain him at a hospital there is sufficient to protect the public's health. The action ends the first federal quarantine order since 1963.

Speaker has said he, his doctors and the CDC all knew he had TB that was resistant to some drugs before he flew to Europe for his wedding and honeymoon last month.

Robert Cooksey, whose specialty at the CDC is TB and other bacteria, and who attended his daughter's wedding, has said he provided "fatherly advice" to Speaker about traveling with the illness.

Speaker said he was advised at the time by Fulton County, Ga., health authorities that he was not contagious or a danger to anyone. Officials told him they would prefer he didn't fly, but no one ordered him not to, he said.

Speaker was in Europe when he learned tests showed he had not just TB, but an extremely drug-resistant strain known as XDR.

Federal health officials said Friday that Cooksey had helped to find Speaker and diagnose his condition. They would not give any more information about the investigation.

'giuliani time'

update: the full-length version of 'giuliani time' has been pulled from google video. so i've posted the trailer for now & you can still download it if you're hip to torrents...

from google video: This documentary examines Giuliani’s rise to power, his policies and his so-called turnaround of New York City. Interviewing journalists, activists, legal experts, and many of the city’s poor, “Giuliani Time” reveals that while the Mayor touted his Broken Windows, Quality of Life and Zero Tolerance policies, the reality on the streets was police brutality, violations of the First Amendment and racist actions.

Then 9/11 happened and Giuliani’s actions endeared him forever to Americans. Should we allow that to overshadow the darker moments of his administration?

another phony terror bust

from raw story: Authorities have arrested three suspects and are in pursuit of a fourth in connection to a plot to blow up a fuel line running through New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

"The plot, which never got past the planning stages, did not involve airplanes or passenger terminals, according to the two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the arrests had not yet been announced," the Asssociated Press reports.

All four men have been charged with conspiracy to commit an act of terror at the airport.One of the alleged planners in custody, a Guyana man with connections to a radical group in Trinidad, is reported to be an employee of the airpot.

Investigators first happened upon the plot near the beginning of 2006, and have sinced used an informant to infiltrate the group. Despite what has been deemed a "credible intent to commit violence," many sources admitted that the groups plans were neither operational nor even feasible.

"The arrests mark the latest in a series of alleged homegrown terrorism plots targeting high-profile American landmarks," the AP adds.

"A year ago, seven men were arrested in what officials called the early stages of a plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago and destroy FBI offices and other buildings.

A month later, authorities broke up a plot to bomb underwater New York City train tunnels to flood lower Manhattan.

And six people were arrested a month ago in an alleged plot to unleash a bloody rampage on Fort Dix in New Jersey."

nyc searches sewer line for 9/11 remains

from washington post: The city has finished searching a service road and a skyscraper hovering over the World Trade Center site for remains of Sept. 11 victims, and it has turned its search to a sewer line running beneath ground zero.

City officials found a total of 646 human bone fragments in a service road after digging up the path and hand-sifting the debris, deputy mayor Ed Skyler wrote in a Friday memo. The road had carried construction trucks in and out of ground zero.

Across from the site, workers over the past two years found another 785 bone fragments at a 40-story vacant skyscraper that is being razed. Searching of the lower floors of the former Deutsche Bank building and of the service road ended this week, Skyler said.

The city still needs to search more than 1,000 cubic yards of debris recovered from former ramps that led to the trade center and is searching a sewer line beneath ground zero where eight bones have been found so far, Skyler said.

Digging is complete at the site of a destroyed Greek Orthodox church. Eight pieces of remains were found during that excavation, and more than half of the recovered debris will be hand-sifted.

Another part of the site still to be searched is a grass-covered area near construction of a transit hub and a subway line, Skyler said. Officials who oversaw the 2001-2002 cleanup had said that area was not completely searched before the site was turned over to its owner in May 2002.

The yearlong search will be over in November, Skyler said. It began in October 2006 when utility workers found bones in a manhole at the ground zero service road.

Many Sept. 11 family members have criticized the search, saying the city is rushing to finish it and hasn't provided enough information about the techniques it has used.

"How many times have they finished it? They finished Deutsche Bank three times... They're just going as fast as they can," said Diane Horning, a leading critic of the city's search. Her son, Matthew, was killed at the trade center on Sept. 11.

'severe visibility'

from 9/11 blogger: The morning of September 11, 2001, Paul Cross was at the White House for part of the post-production work of his film "Follow the Leader,"a documentary about the everyday life of the President of the United States. On September 12th Paul visited the Pentagon. He saw that the damage to the building, the debris and the scene were not consistent with the official claim that a Boeing 757 had crashed there. He finished producing "Follow the Leader," which won an award at the Atlantic City Film Festival for best documentary, and traveled with the film, speaking about it.

Paul has a deep reverence and love for this country and the ideals it proclaims. When the truth of 9/11 hit him, he cried for days. "Severe Visibility," his latest film, is his response. It tells the story of Major Stanley Kruter (played by Paul Cross) who was injured in the Pentagon attack. The other major character is a foreign journalist who begs Kruter to tell him about what he witnessed from his window during the attack. Paul said he created Major Kruter to represent the average American who believes in "America," but that he identified with the journalist, who doubts that a commercial 757 airliner actually hit the Pentagon.

I heard about Paul’s film from a mutual banjo-playing friend last July, in 2006. Thrilled that a Hollywood feature 9/11 Truth film was being made, I phoned Paul. We had a friendly conversation. I sent him a copy of my DVD, but though he promised to send me a review copy of his film, for months I heard nothing from him. In April he emailed me:

"I feel like I am in Nazi Germany the way some people in Hollywood are reacting to it. What is everyone so afraid of? Everyone seems to like the film but I have been told by most of the distribution companies that I have approached that they are corporate and therefore don't want to release a film with so strong a statement."

darpa to create brain-chipped cyborg moths

from cryptogon/register uk: Famed US military mad-scientist bureau DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is engaged in an effort to grow/build cyborg moths for use as spies. No, really.

The program is called Hybrid Insect Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, or HI-MEMS. In it, the arguably over-caffeined DARPA boffins aim to construct a tiny lepidopterine infiltration borg by growing a living moth around a "micro-mechanical system".

"Animal world has provided mankind with locomotion over millennia," says Dr Amit Lal, DARPA HI-MEMS program manager...

In a Times article today, Rod Brooks of MIT's computer science and artifical intelligence lab (CSAIL), was quoted on the insectoid cyber-infiltrator project.

"This is going to happen," said Mr Brooks. "It's not science like developing the nuclear bomb, which costs billions of dollars. It can be done relatively cheaply... There's going to be more and more technology in our bodies... there's going to be a lot of moral debates."

For now, DARPA only aims to manufacture chipped moths, which it reckons to send into suspected terrorist facilities (presumably including al-Qaeda linen cupboards - that'll show them)...

Meanwhile, in what can only be yet another chilling media coincidence, other cyborg-related news broke today. Reuters reports that Arnold Schwarzenegger - the man who gave such a convincing portrayal of a soulless killer machine wearing human flesh as a disguise - is spearheading a new biological research initiative as governor of California.

"We are as powerful as any one can ever be on stem cell research," Mr Terminator reportedly said.

Reuters also noted that: "Stem cells are a kind of master cell for the body, capable of growing into various types of cell or tissue and cell. Scientists hope to use the cells to repair tissue damaged by disease or injury."

Terrifyingly, this mirrors the language of DARPA's Lal as he describes his process for chipping-up innocent creatures and turning them into zombie slaves under computer control.

"The renewed tissue growth around the MEMS will tend to heal, and form a reliable and stable tissue-machine interface..."

That's it. We're down to the bunker with a whole lot of survival rations. And bug spray.

outside the box #103

here is the latest episode of "outside the box," hosted by alex ansary.
it was originally broadcast by portland community media on may 24, 2007.

from alex ansary: Tonight I spoke with a Nick Begich (earthpulse.com), a man considered by many around the world as one of the top experts on Haarp and Mind Control technologies. Later I showed a clip from my recent in person interview with David Ray Griffin. Our news coverage includes a report about an upcoming terror drill in Portland, Oregon. I also discussed the warships in Iran, violence in Lebanon, the gas crisis, Ron Paul, and many other eye opening reports. I conclude this transmission with a reflection on the oneness of energy and the importance of tuning in the frequency of reality that exists for each of us as we face the trials and tribulations in this world.

alex interviews david ray griffin (may 21, 2007)

here is an exclusive video from alex ansary: I was able to catch up with the busy David Ray Griffin during his current speaking tour. His latest book, 'Debunking 9/11 Debunking', is a response to the growing number of hit pieces that have targeted the 9/11 Truth Movement. This video has been created for viewing by those with an open mind who understand that things are not as they appear to be.

coffin delays clinton fundraiser

from kcra: A fundraising event for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was delayed three hours while the Sacramento County bomb squad investigated a coffin brought to the area by anti-war protesters.

Anti-war activists Virginia and Stephen Pearcy, who made headlines in February 2005 for hanging an effigy of a soldier on their Land Park area home, brought a flag-draped coffin as a protest against United States involvement in Iraq.

Shortly before 6 p.m. Thursday, the Secret Service began to conduct a sweep of the area and asked to look inside the coffin. Pearcy refused, stating that they had no probable cause to do so. This prompted the Secret Service to call in local law enforcement and a bomb squad.

Former state Treasurer Phil Angelides, along with about 120 other guests set to attend the fundraiser, had to wait several hours before being ushered through a neighbor's back yard to get to the event.

Around 9 p.m., the all-clear was given by the bomb squad, and the motorcade carrying Clinton arrived at the event.

The $500- to $4,600-per-person campaign fundraiser was being held at the home of real estate developer Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis and Markos Kounalakis.

Clinton also attended a campaign stop in Silicon Valley Thursday, in which she discussed plans to create more high-paying jobs and maintain U.S. dominance in the technology sector.