outside the box #149

here is the latest episode of "outside the box," hosted by alex ansary.
it was originally broadcast by portland community media on april 17, 2008.

from alex ansary: Alex questions the odd weather patterns being seen around the world as many are forecasting an volatile crop season. Later, he covers a wide range of news headlines from 'see through cameras being installing in public meeting places' to 'cereal boxes that promote the surveillance society.'

and here are the latest episodes of "outside the box"
on we the people radio network...
from april 16, 2008.
stream: m3u & ram or download: hour1 & hour2

from april 12, 2008.
stream: m3u & ram or download: hour1 & hour2

media monarchy episode072

episode072 of media monarchy features transit taser, oklahoma sex slaves, nanotech, norad, netanyahu & ahmadinejad on 9/11, gun grabbing, dc madam, food riots, plum island, robots & rex84, music by portishead and tons more...

download/digg/stream/subscribe
pra/revere/myspace/archive

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 sunday at 4pm pacific/7pm eastern...

plus, you can always get podcasts of previous episodes thanks to radio4all.net & archive.org

ides of april: waco, okc, columbine & virginia tech

april 19, 1993: waco siege, who shot first?
from what really happened: Contrary to the image of a dangerous gun nut put out in the media in an effort to justify the burning of the church, official BATF records prove that David Koresch was rather harmless, so much so that the BATF agents invited him to go shooting with them just 9 days before they raided the church. Koresch supplied the ammunition. The BATF agents allowed Koresch to try out their weapons.

april 19, 1995: how many bombs & bombers at okc?
from what really happened: There are many problems with the official story of the bombing. Let's start with McVeigh's whereabouts on April 17. McVeigh had been filmed by a security camera at a nearby McDonald's 24 minutes before the time stamped on the truck rental agreement, wearing clothes that did not match either of the men seen at Elliott's... There is also an unanswered question with regard to the truck, namely what was the Army doing with a Ryder Truck just before the Murrah blast?

april 20, 1999: columbine massacre & the killers
from judicial-inc: The SWAT team finally moved in at around 2:30 PM, 2 hours after the shooters committed suicide. Despite having seen signs in the windows that said victims were bleeding to death 2 hours earlier, this was the fastest they went into action. Parent's lawsuits contend that police may have shot innocent students. According to the sheriff's report, twelve officers fired a total of 141 times at Columbine that day. Three Denver SWAT veterans fired 105 of those rounds.

april 16, 2007: virginia tech shooting 'oddities'
from legitgov: The sister of the gunman responsible for the deadliest shooting rampage in modern US history works as a contractor for a State Department office that oversees billions of dollars in American aid for Iraq. Sun-kyung is employed by the Iraq Reconstruction Management Office, according to US officials and a State Department staff directory that says she works from an annex near the department's headquarters in Washington.

oklahoma sheriff ran sex-slave operation from jail

from koco: An Oklahoma sheriff resigned after an investigation reveals he was running a sex-slave operation from his jail, police said. Michael Burgess surrendered to Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation agents and posted bond Wednesday night, hours after he resigned as Custer County sheriff amid 35 felony charges, including accusations of forcible oral sodomy, kidnapping, rape and perjury. Investigators said at one point Burgess oversaw wet T-shirt contests at the Custer County Jail.

norad releases mother lode of 9/11 tapes

from danger room: The Web site Government Attic says NORAD and U.S. Northern Command "have released a copy of their audio files, telephone conversations and situation room discussions, from the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001." And governmentattic.org has posted them all to its site, in .zip files linked within a .pdf document .

it was a little labor intensive getting to the files & i think they're mislabeled. so i've sorted them out & saved you some headaches. here are the direct download links:

DRM1_DAT2_Channel_2_MCC_Op.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_3_MCC_TK.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_4_ID_Op.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_5_ID_TK.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_7_ID2_OP.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_8_ID2_TK.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_9_TT_Op.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_10_TT_TK.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_11_ACWO_OP.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_12_ACWO_TK.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_13_TT_Op.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_14_TT_TK.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_15_AST_Op.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_16_AST_TK.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_17_TT_Op.zip
DRM2_DAT1_Channel_20_SD2_TK.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_21_TT_Op.zip
DRM1_DAT2_Channel_24_AICC.zip
DRM3_DAT2_Channel_24_Emerg-AICC.zip

ahmadinejad's bumbling 9/11 comments please neo-cons

from paul joseph watson: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's bumbling comments about 9/11, in which he crudely questioned the official story by referring to the death toll, play right into the establishment media and the Neo-Cons' hands and give them an ample opportunity to debunk the entire truth movement - don't think for a minute they won't seize the chance.

"Four or five years ago a suspect event took place in New York," President Ahmadinejad said.

"A building collapsed and they said 3,000 people had been killed but never published their names," he said in a speech in the holy city of Qom.

People like BBC reporter Greg Palast have long suspected that Ahmadinejad is actually a stooge who is in bed with the Neo-Cons, and his latest buffoonery only lends credence to that summation.

First of all, Ahmadinejad sets the scene by displaying his ignorance of when 9/11 even happened, it was nearly seven years ago, not "four or five".

Since Ahmadinejad has also repeatedly questioned the scale of the Holocaust, this gives debunkers a perfect opportunity to link 9/11 truth with Holocaust denial, a pathetic smear that they have always longed to anchor to some actual evidence, since none whatsoever exists.

Naturally, when a French actress says something about 9/11 or the fool Ahmadinejad opens his mouth, the establishment media afford it lavish attention for days on end, but when hundreds of scholars, professors, architects and scientists go public, the silence is deafening.

That's because the media chooses its targets - they only give attention to someone who they can easily debunk.

netanyahu: 9/11 was/is good for israel

netanyahu on september 12, 2001
from nytimes: Asked tonight what the attack meant for relations between the United States and Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister, replied, "It's very good." Then he edited himself: "Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy." He predicted that the attack would "strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we've experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror."

netanyahu on april 16, 2008
from haaretz: The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv on Wednesday reported that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel. "We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq," Ma'ariv quoted the former prime minister as saying. He reportedly added that these events "swung American public opinion in our favor."

neo-con calls for shredding constitution & world govt

from paul joseph watson: A recent Austin-American Statesman review of Neo-Con Philip Bobbitt's new book Terror and Consent features an image of a shredded Constitution under the words "Everything must go," which acts as a suitable entrée to a disgusting diatribe which praises Bobbitt's call for the end of America and its replacement with a de facto world government in the name of fighting terror...

So what exactly is Bobbitt's solution?

The complete obliteration of sovereignty and the nation state and its replacement with a new "order that takes its structural cues from multinational corporations and nongovernmental organizations" that will have the power to pursue "more aggressive tactics of preclusionary warfare," meaning more pre-emptive invasions of broken-backed third world countries to expand the creaking pax-Americana empire.

weird science: nanotech, implanon, bisphenol & rofecoxib

scientists scared of nanotech in common products
from azonano: Valued for it's antibacterial and odor-fighting properties, nanoparticle silver is becoming the star attraction in a range of products from socks to bandages to washing machines. But as silver's benefits propel it to the forefront of consumer nanomaterials, scientists are recommending a closer examination of the unforeseen environmental and health consequences of nanosilver. “The general public needs to be aware that there are unknown risks associated with the products they buy containing nanomaterials,” researchers Paul Westerhoff and Troy M. Benn said in a report scheduled for the 235th national meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS).

girls aged 12 'temporarily sterilised'
from brisbane times: Aboriginal girls as young as 12 have received long-lasting contraceptive implants, according to the Queensland opposition, which claims "temporary sterilisation" tacitly approves of under-age sex, but fails to prevent sexually transmitted infections. Jann Stuckey, the opposition spokeswoman on child safety, said at least four - and possibly five - adolescent girls had received the implant Implanon over the past two years, in Woorabinda, central Queensland.

US cites fears on chemical in plastics
from washington post: A federal health agency acknowledged for the first time yesterday concerns that a chemical found in thousands of everyday products such as baby bottles and compact discs may cause cancer and other serious disorders. The draft report (542kb PDF) by the National Toxicology Program signaled a turning point in the government's position on bisphenol A, or BPA, a chemical so ubiquitous in the United States that it has been detected in the urine of 93 percent of the population over 6 years of age.
flashback: wal-mart & target still sell baby bottles with bpa chemical

merck minimized the true risks of vioxx
from afp: The risk of death linked to Merck's anti-inflammatory drug Vioxx was minimized in trial studies the company made public, according to a study out Tuesday. The report, appearing in the April 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), compares Merck's internal data from 2001 with the results of clinical tests made public in 2004 and 2005. Merck voluntarily withdrew Vioxx from sale in September 2004 after a 2001 company internal study showed the drug doubled the risks of heart attack in patients who took it for 18 months or longer.


feds not addressing drugs in water
from ap: A White House task force that was supposed to devise a federal plan to research the issue of pharmaceuticals in drinking water has missed its deadline and failed to produce mandated reports and recommendations for coordination among numerous federal agencies, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

canadian transit riders tasered for not paying fares

from cbc: Transit police on SkyTrain stations in Metro Vancouver have used Taser stun guns on passengers who didn't pay the fare and tried to run away, CBC News has learned.

Transit police have fired Tasers 10 times since January last year, and three cases involved non-violent suspects, according to internal police reports obtained by CBC News using access to information laws...

Stunning someone without a transit ticket doesn't qualify as an appropriate use of a Taser, said Murray Mollard, executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

bccla files complaints over skytrain police taser use
Incident reports show officers are using the Taser to gain compliance from nonviolent and nonthreatening individuals.
news release/letter to police commissioner/force policy

new security camera can 'see' through clothes

from cnn: New technology that can "see" through clothing and detect what's underneath can now be used to scan crowds, making it a potentially effective tool to prevent terrorist attacks in public places.

The ThruVision T5000 camera picks up Terahertz rays, or T-rays, which are naturally emitted by all objects and can pass through fabric or even walls.

The camera can then image metallic and non-metallic objects hidden under clothing on still or moving subjects without revealing any body detail, according to its British manufacturer, ThruVision Limited.

While similar technology is being unveiled at airports around the world, the T5000 is designed to be used in large, open areas. With a range of 25 meters, the T5000 can screen people in public places, thus avoiding bottlenecks at border crossings or security checkpoints.

It also means people can be screened without knowing it.

pentagon seeks authority over training foreign militaries

from afp: The Pentagon asked Congress Tuesday to give it permanent authority over training and equipping foreign militaries, in a shifting of roles from the State Department.

Both Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought Congressional approval for the change, as well as authorization for the Pentagon to spend 750 million dollars in 2009 in helping foreign militaries...

Rice also said the State Department is prepared to launch a "civilian response corps" this year if the Congress approves its request for a 248.6 million dollars to build it... A reserve force of 1,500 civilians would be formed, providing a pool of expertise that could be tapped for these nation-building missions, they said.

jury finds 'dc madam' guilty on four counts

from raw story: A Washington jury has convicted Deborah Jean Palfrey, who became known as the DC Madam, on four counts including money laundering and racketeering in connection with a running a prostitution ring, according to news reports.

armed robots still in iraq

from danger room: A recent news report that armed robots had been pulled out of Iraq is mistaken, according to the company that makes the robot and the Army program manager.

We linked last week to a Popular Mechanics article reporting that the armed SWORDS robots, made by Foster-Miller, has been pulled out of Iraq after several incidents when the robot's gun started swinging around without being given a command...

One problem: SWORDS wasn't yanked. "SWORD is still deployed," Kevin Fahey, the program manger quoted in the original article, tells DANGER ROOM in an e-mail. "We continue to learn from it and will continue to expand the use of armed robots."

"The whole thing is an urban legend," says Foster Miller spokesperson Cynthia Black, of the reports about SWORDS moving its gun without a command.

(i can't believe popular mechanics got something so wrong...)

uk's public spymobile

from beyond the beyond: I'm sure nobody blinks twice at this in modern London, but by the standards of the Cold War (when people used to worry a lot about "rights," "liberty," and "totalitarianism") that vehicle is incredibly sinister. Lookah that fat black knob of stalky ubiquity on top. It's fit to beat the Eye of Sauron.

rupert murdoch joins associated press board

from thinkprogress: Today, the Associated Press announced at its annual meeting that Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive officer of News Corp., is joining its board of directors. Three other media moguls are also joining the board, including Sam Zell, who recently “took control of Tribune Co. after leading a buyout that resulted in the publicly traded company becoming private.”

oakland cops: mind if we search your house for guns?

from inside bay area: A six-month pilot program where Oakland police officers would knock on doors and ask permission to search homes for guns got the green light from the City Council's public safety committee... The consent-to-search program, as it is called, is based closely on a similar effort launched in St. Louis in 1994 and on ongoing programs in Boston and Washington, D.C. The idea is simple: To ask parents for permission to search their homes for weapons their children may be hiding.

the government is trying to wrap its mind around yours

from washington post: Imagine a world of streets lined with video cameras that alert authorities to any suspicious activity. A world where police officers can read the minds of potential criminals and arrest them before they commit any crimes. A world in which a suspect who lies under questioning gets nabbed immediately because his brain has given him away...

Consider Cernium Corp.'s "Perceptrak" video surveillance and monitoring system, recently installed by Johns Hopkins University, among others. This technology grew out of a project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - the central research and development organization for the Department of Defense - to develop intelligent video analytics systems. Unlike simple video cameras monitored by security guards, Perceptrak (1.43mb PDF) integrates video cameras with an intelligent computer video. It uses algorithms to analyze streaming video and detect suspicious activities, such as people loitering in a secure area, a group converging or someone leaving a package unattended. Since installing Perceptrak, Johns Hopkins has reported a 25 percent reduction in crime.

But that's only the beginning.

haiti's government falls after food riots

from reuters: Haiti's government fell on Saturday when senators fired the prime minister after more than a week of riots over food prices, ignoring a plan presented by the president to slash the cost of rice... Stone-throwing crowds began battling U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian police in the south on April 2, enraged at the soaring cost of rice, beans, cooking oil and other staples.

dcctv, red teams, red lights & washed-up drones

surveillance quietly expands in district of criminals
from washington times: Smile, Washington - the cameras are rolling whether you know it or not. Police and homeland security officials say they will not post signs around the more than 5,200 cameras being consolidated into one network under an initiative announced by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty... The first phase of the camera consolidation is expected to begin May 1.


no winners in 'cyber storm II'
from zdnet: The only question that mattered during an RSA Con session on the government’s cyberwar game, CyberStorm II was asked by a typical sort of fellow at these things - a pony-tailed RSA attendee, presumably a security pro, as InformationWeek described: "Was there a red team and did they win?"... "We don’t have a firm answer about winning or losing," said panel moderator Jordana Siegel, acting deputy director at Department of Homeland Security.

6 US cities tamper with traffic cameras for profit
from left lane news: Six U.S. cities have been found guilty of shortening the amber cycles below what is allowed by law on intersections equipped with cameras meant to catch red-light runners. The local governments in question have ignored the safety benefit of increasing the yellow light time and decided to install red-light cameras, shorten the yellow light duration, and collect the profits instead.

military drones wash up on alabama beaches
from local6: Several unmanned military drones with U.S. Air Force markings washed ashore in Alabama and forced the closure of a portion of at least one beach... An official said the drone was a target that was apparently shot down in the Gulf of Mexico as part of a weapons system evaluation program, WKRG reported.

'accidents' at plum island disease lab acknowledged

from ap: The only U.S. facility allowed to research the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease experienced several accidents with the feared virus, the Bush administration acknowledged Friday.

A 1978 release of the virus into cattle holding pens on Plum Island, N.Y., triggered new safety procedures. While that incident was previously known, the Homeland Security Department told a House committee there were other accidents inside the government's laboratory...

A simulated outbreak of the disease in 2002 - part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called "Crimson Sky" - ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation's National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets. In the exercise, the government said it would have been forced to dig a ditch in Kansas 25 miles long to bury carcasses. In the simulation, protests broke out in some cities amid food shortages.

flashback: foot & mouth virus released from government lab

oregon civil air patrol drills & mystery earthquakes

oregon cap to conduct major exercise this weekend
from salem-news: The Oregon Wing of the Civil Air Patrol will be conducting a major area wide multi-scenario training exercise this weekend, with aircraft and ground teams operating out of the Aurora State Airport north of Salem. The exercise, which will focus on scenarios involving air search and rescue, will employ the use of at least six aircraft and over 50 personnel from around the state and will be operating from the CAP's Northern Command Center at the Aurora airport.

mysterious earthquakes off oregon coast
from ap: Scientists listening to underwater microphones have detected an unusual swarm of earthquakes off central Oregon, something that often happens before a volcanic eruption - except there are no volcanoes in the area. Scientists don't know exactly what the earthquakes mean, but they could be the result of molten rock rumbling away from the recognized earthquake faults off Oregon, said Robert Dziak, a geophysicist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Oregon State University. There have been more than 600 quakes over the past 10 days in a basin 150 miles southwest of Newport. The biggest was magnitude 5.4, and two others were more than magnitude 5.0, OSU reported.

news on the march

US says it will increase efforts against 'tax defiers'
from new york times: If you think paying taxes is unfair, illegal or unconstitutional, then watch out - the Justice Department is after you. Just as the Internal Revenue Service is getting into its perennial tax-season tough talk, Justice Department officials weighed in Tuesday with a vow to ramp up efforts against “tax defiers.”

texas woman threatens bank tellers with morgellons
from alice echo news: A woman claiming to have Morgellons, a skin disease, drove through the Wells Fargo motor bank downtown and threatened the tellers by rubbing the bank canister on her sores and sending it through the tube. "A customer went through the drive-thru and threatened the bank staff to give them a contagious disease," said investigator David Valadez with the police department.

venezuela axes 'the simpsons' as bad for kids
from reuters: Venezuela has forced U.S. cartoon "The Simpsons" off its airwaves, calling the show a potentially bad influence on children, and filled its morning slot with reruns of the beach-and-bikini show "Baywatch."

'ruthlessness gene' discovered
from nature news: Selfish dictators may owe their behaviour partly to their genes, according to a study that claims to have found a genetic link to ruthlessness. The study might help to explain the money-grabbing tendencies of those with a Machiavellian streak - from national dictators down to ‘little Hitlers’ found in workplaces the world over.

activists want screeners on camera
from washington times: Religious, minority and civil rights activists are asking Homeland Security officials to screen their own airport screeners using video cameras to check whether passengers are being subjected to bias or profiling. "We believe such controls are critical to ensuring that our nation's [screeners] are focused squarely on security threats and not distracted by any personal bias," the organizations said in a letter...

US irked by iran's joining of shanghai cooperation organization
from press tv: The US says it will use all means to prevent Iran's influence in the region including its membership in Shanghai Cooperation Organization... Washington would not remain silent if there were signs the grouping was evolving in the direction of forming a military cooperation.

army conduct waivers double
from stars & stripes: The percentage of recruits requiring a waiver to join the Army because of a criminal record or other misconduct has more than doubled since 2004 to one for every eight new soldiers, USA Today reported...

40 nasa workers on same floor have cancer
from newsnet5: There are 40 cases of cancer among people who work in the same building at NASA Glenn Research Center. Dozens of the employees fear that their cancer was triggered by years of working in the developmental engineering building, NewsChannel5 reported... "What we've seen in the way of cancer here has just been astronomical on this third floor alone and we're just a little scared," said Dennis Pehotsky, of the Lewis Engineers and Scientists Association.

washington licenses to get rfid
from jerome corsi: The state of Washington announced a pilot project to introduce a driver's license "enhanced" with a radio frequency identification, or RFID... the enhanced license is intended to be an alternative way of complying with the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative mandated by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004.

continuity of government & the 'endgame' scenario
from global research: Back in 1987 during joint congressional hearings into the Iran-Contra affair, Rep. Jack Brooks (D-TX) asked Lt. Col. Oliver North, Reagan's point-man on the National Security Council:

Since those 1987 hearings, the "arrangements" alluded to by Sen. Inouye about this prickly topic, Continuity of Government (COG), have yet to result in an open hearing before relevant congressional committees. Why?

dhs wants permanent checkpoint in vermont
from wcax: Homeland Security wants to build a permanent immigration checkpoint in central Vermont. An exact location has not been revealed, but officials say it would be similar to this one that used to be on Interstate 91 in Hartford. Agents use the check points to search for illegal immigrants, drugs smugglers and terrorists.

dhs ponders microwave raygun missile defences at airports
from the register: The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will consider fitting high-power microwave electropulse rayguns at US airports, in order to defend against the threat of terrorists firing portable anti-aircraft missiles at airliners. American defence heavyweight Raytheon would partner with Israel's Rafael and Kongsberg of Norway to provide the technology, according to a report in Flight International. The proposed kit is known as "Vigilant Eagle", and is competing for DHS securo-dollars with defensive systems that could be fitted to the airliners themselves - for instance BAE Systems' JetEye.

study shows high levels of toxic chemical in wv residents' blood
from ap: Thousands of West Virginia and Ohio residents have elevated levels of a chemical used to make the nonstick coating Teflon, according to preliminary data from a study... DuPont agreed to fund health screenings for up to 70,000 residents who claimed releases of the chemical C8 from the Washington Works plant near Parkersburg had contaminated public and private wells.

outside the box #148

here is the latest episode of "outside the box," hosted by alex ansary.
it was originally broadcast by portland community media on april 10, 2008.

from alex ansary: Alex questions the meaning behind the symbol of the torch used during the Olympics as he highlights the fact that Nazi Germany was the first country to run the torch around the world via the torchbearer. Later, he shares his frustration with contagious apathy and hopes for the ability to let go of what cannot be changed.

and here are the latest episodes of "outside the box"
on we the people radio network...
from april 9, 2008.
stream: m3u & ram or download: hour1 & hour2

from april 5, 2008.
stream: m3u & ram or download: hour1 & hour2

media monarchy episode071

episode071 of media monarchy features ssri school shooters, phone(y terror) alerts, 9/11 lawyers, lies, remains & appeals, absolut raza, flame protection unit, lie detectors & zombie computers, music by charles manson and tons more...

download/digg/stream/subscribe
pra/revere/myspace/archive

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 sunday at 4pm pacific/7pm eastern...

plus, you can always get podcasts of previous episodes thanks to radio4all.net & archive.org

randi rhodes quits dead air america for clear channel

rhodes joins up nova m after leaving air america
from raw story: Air America Radio host Randi Rhodes has left the network after it suspended her over comments she made at a station fundraiser last week... Nova M Radio Network announced that it has added The Randi Rhodes Show to its syndication lineup effective Monday, April 14. It is scheduled to air 3pm-6pm Eastern, Monday through Friday.

randi rhodes to reportedly move to clear channel
from thinkprogress: After a recent disagreement over her comments about Sen. Hillary Clinton, host Randi Rhodes resigned from Air America. According to an e-mail received by Hot Air, Rhodes is about to sign a deal to broadcast on Clear Channel.

un human rights official wants new 9/11 investigation

john bolton: "this is exactly why we voted against the new human rights council."
from steve watson: An official in the newly formed UN Human Rights Council has called for a fresh investigation into the events of 9/11 in order to examine the possible role that neoconservatives may have played in the attacks. The New York Sun picked up the story today, explaining that Richard Falk, a professor of international law emeritus at Princeton University, and an expert on human rights was assigned to a new position within the council on March 26. His role is to report on human rights in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

'pirates & emperors'

from eric henry: A political schoolhouse rock cartoon about terrorist, robbers, killers & US leaders.

cell phone(y terror) alerts coming soon

from ap: Federal regulators have approved a plan to create a nationwide emergency alert system using text messages delivered to cell phones... The wireless industry's trade association, CTIA, estimates more than 48 billion text messages are sent each month. The plan stems from the Warning Alert & Response Network Act, a 2006 federal law that requires upgrades to the nation's emergency alert system.