media monarchy on the portland radio authority

media monarchy is now a weekly radio show on the portland radio authority! you can listen live right here every friday at 10am & there will be podcasts available soon!

today's episode features an exclusive recording of wayne madsen speaking wednesday night in downtown portland... plus there's music, media & all the news that's fit to suppress

ron paul vs the NAFTA superhighway

from op-ed news: By now many Texans have heard about the proposed "NAFTA Superhighway," which is also referred to as the trans-Texas corridor. What you may not know is the extent to which plans for such a superhighway are moving forward without congressional oversight or media attention.

This superhighway would connect Mexico, the United States, and Canada, cutting a wide swath through the middle of Texas and up through Kansas City. Offshoots would connect the main artery to the west coast, Florida, and northeast. Proponents envision a ten-lane colossus the width of several football fields, with freight and rail lines, fiber-optic cable lines, and oil and natural gas pipelines running alongside.

This will require coordinated federal and state eminent domain actions on an unprecedented scale, as literally millions of people and businesses could be displaced. The loss of whole communities is almost certain, as planners cannot wind the highway around every quaint town, historic building, or senior citizen apartment for thousands of miles.

Governor Perry is a supporter of the superhighway project, and Congress has provided small amounts of money to study the proposal. Since this money was just one item in an enormous transportation appropriations bill, however, most members of Congress were not aware of it.

The proposed highway is part of a broader plan advanced by a quasi-government organization called the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America," or SPP.

The SPP was first launched in 2005 by the heads of state of Canada, Mexico, and the United States at a summit in Waco.

The SPP was not created by a treaty between the nations involved, nor was Congress involved in any way. Instead, the SPP is an unholy alliance of foreign consortiums and officials from several governments. One principal player is a Spanish construction company, which plans to build the highway and operate it as a toll road. But don't be fooled: the superhighway proposal is not the result of free market demand, but rather an extension of government-managed trade schemes like NAFTA that benefit politically-connected interests.

The real issue is national sovereignty. Once again, decisions that affect millions of Americans are not being made by those Americans themselves, or even by their elected representatives in Congress. Instead, a handful of elites use their government connections to bypass national legislatures and ignore our Constitution - which expressly grants Congress the sole authority to regulate international trade.

The ultimate goal is not simply a superhighway, but an integrated North American Union--complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the Union. Like the European Union, a North American Union would represent another step toward the abolition of national sovereignty altogether.

A new resolution, introduced by Representative Virgil Goode of Virginia, expresses the sense of Congress that the United States should not engage in the construction of a NAFTA superhighway, or enter into any agreement that advances the concept of a North American Union. I wholeheartedly support this legislation, and predict that the superhighway will become a sleeper issue in the 2008 election.

Any movement toward a North American Union diminishes the ability of average Americans to influence the laws under which they must live. The SPP agreement, including the plan for a major transnational superhighway through Texas, is moving forward without congressional oversight-- and that is an outrage. The administration needs a strong message from Congress that the American people will not tolerate backroom deals that threaten our sovereignty.

written by congressman ron paul

flashback: goodbye usa, hello north american union

nun dies from 9/11 dust

from wnbc: A nun who worked at the World Trade Center site in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks died Wednesday after a battle with lung disease that she said stemmed from inhaling toxic dust at ground zero...

Sister Cindy Mahoney had volunteered at ground zero to bless the remains of victims.

Attorney David Worby said Mahoney, who was suffering from interstitial lung disease, hoped her story would help prove the connection between exposure to dust at the World Trade Center site and fatal illness.

According to Worby, Mahoney requested that an autopsy be conducted after her death to prove that the toxic dust at ground zero made her sick.

Worby, whose lawsuit against New York City was given a green light last month by a federal judge, said Mahoney's initial autopsy was conducted in South Carolina Wednesday, but that additional tissue samples would be tested in the coming weeks.

World Trade Center nun dies
from wabc: The nun who spent six months blessing human remains in the rubble at Ground Zero lost her battle for life Wednesday, and her attorney believes her death is directly related to the air she inhaled at the site.

Officials say Sister Cindy Mahoney volunteered to work at the former World Trade Center site, only to develop lung disease years later.

The 54-year-old nun told attorney David Worby that she wanted her body autopsied to prove that she and her fellow Sept. 11th workers were sickened by the poisonous air at the site.

Worby's office, who was acting as her guardian, confirmed her death today.

He will oversee the autopsy, which he considers to be "God's work."

Mahoney, a former emergency-medical technician, took an ambulance to Ground Zero on Sept. 11th after the first plane hit the World Trade Center's north tower. She served as a chaplain there and at Pier 94, and years later developed the kinds of severe illnesses that have plagued World Trade Center workers.

Officials say only after spending weeks at Ground Zero was she was given a respiratory mask, but Worby said she was not told how to use it. And because her job was to pray and talk to people, he says she kept taking it off.

Worby, an outspoken advocate for the health of Sept. 11th workers, filed the first lawsuit for a leukemia-stricken NYPD detective who served at Ground Zero and the Fresh Kills landfill, a case that mushroomed into a massive class action with 8,000 World Trade Center workers.

Worby's autopsy is expected to be conducted by a medical examiner office in South Carolina.

flashback: 9/11 nun's dying plea

ex-bush backer says prez has 'lost his mind'

from editor & publisher: In a move that no doubt sent a shiver through several candidates in his own party, President Bush, in a special interview with wire service reporters in the White House, today guaranteed a job for his Pentagon chief for two more years, adding that both Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney "are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly support them."

But it wasn't only endangered Republicans who have been calling for Rumsfeld's ouster who may have blanched. Andrew Sullivan, the conservative writer who was once a key media supporter for the Iraq war, denounced the latest Bush statement on CNN on Wednesday night, stating that the president is so delusional, "This is not an election anymore, it's an intervention."

Sullivan said the president was "so in denial," comparing the Rumsfeld endorsement to applauding the job FEMA's Michael Brown did on Katrina: "It's unhinged. It suggests this man has lost his mind. No one objectively could look at the way this war has been conducted, whether you were for it, as I was, or against it, and say that it has been done well. It's a disaster.

"For him to say it's a fantastic job suggests the president has lost it, I'm sorry, there's no other way to say it... These people must be held accountable." He added that today, Richard Perle, a leading neocon and Iraq war backer, had today called the administration "dysfunctional."

Rep. John Boehner, the second-ranking Republican in the House, said, also on CNN: "Let’s not blame what’s happening in Iraq on Rumsfeld. But the fact is, the generals on the ground are in charge, and he works closely with them and the president."

the TSA follies

from homeland stupidity: The Transportation Security Administration . . . Vigilant, Effective, Efficient. Yes, and pigs can fly, too.

Here are three examples of how the TSA is keeping you less secure, and giving a good laugh to those of us with enough sense to stay away from airports as long as the government is in charge of security.

In Miami, a dozen TSA officers from the graveyard shift were arrested and charged with grand theft and conspiracy to defraud last week after being caught not going to work — and having their co-workers punch them in. “If you can hand [ID badges] to different people, they can be handed off to the wrong people,” Miami-Dade Detective Javier Prellazo told the Miami Herald. “The bottom line is we were looking at this as a security issue. We want this airport to be secure.”

Good luck with that.

In Hawaii last week, an air passenger flying from Kona to Honolulu was shocked to open his duffel bag after getting home and finding a notebook labeled “Explosive Trace Detection” full of TSA sensitive security information (SSI), namely logs from an explosive detection machine, in the bag he’d checked through. “It makes me think, ‘Hey, what kind of people do we have working at TSA?’ Where they just accidentally leave this in a bag?” Joe Langer told KITV. He returned the notebook to the airport — but not before showing it to the television station.

The kind of people who will do criminal background checks on the families of September 11 victims who are suing to gain access to SSI they believe will be useful in their lawsuit against the airports and airlines for lax security, but will work while half-asleep and stuff SSI into passengers’ luggage and, some days, just not come in to work. As if the 9/11 victims are going to turn around and become terrorists themselves. Ridiculous.

related: TSA screeners still fail to find guns, bombs

hersh slams war crimes

from mcgill daily: Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine, has been a thorn in the side of the U.S. government for nearly 40 years.

Since his 1969 exposé of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, which is widely believed to have helped turn American public opinion against the Vietnam War, he has broken news about the secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia, covert C.I.A. attempts to overthrow Chilean president Salvador Allende, and, more recently, the first details about American soldiers abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq... Hersh described video footage depicting U.S. atrocities in Iraq, which he had viewed, but not yet published a story about.

If Americans knew the full extent of U.S. criminal conduct, they would receive returning Iraqi veterans as they did Vietnam veterans, Hersh said.

“In Vietnam, our soldiers came back and they were reviled as baby killers, in shame and humiliation,” he said. “It isn’t happening now, but I will tell you – there has never been an [American] army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq.”
Hersh came out hard against President Bush for his involvement in the Middle East.

“In Washington, you can’t expect any rationality. I don’t know if he’s in Iraq because God told him to, because his father didn’t do it, or because it’s the next step in his 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program,” he said.

Hersh hinted that the responsibility for the invasion of Iraq lies with eight or nine members of the administration who have a "neo-conservative agenda" and dictate the U.S.’s post-September 11 foreign policy.

“You have a collapsed Congress, you have a collapsed press. The military is going to do what the President wants,” Hersh said. “How fragile is democracy in America, if a president can come in with an agenda controlled by a few cultists?”

Throughout his talk Hersh remained pessimistic, predicting that the U.S. will initiate an attack against Iran, and that the situation in Iraq will deteriorate further.

“There’s no reason to see a change in policy about Iraq. [Bush] thinks that, in twenty years, he’s going to be recognized for the leader he was – the analogy he uses is Churchill,” Hersh said. “If you read the public statements of the leadership, they’re so confident and so calm…. It’s pretty scary.”

can this machine be trusted?

from time: The U.S.'s new voting systems are only as good as the people who program and use them. Which is why next week could be interesting...

More than 80 million Americans will go to the polls, and a record number of them--90%--will either cast their vote on a computer or have it tabulated that way. When that many people collide with that many high-tech devices, there are going to be problems. Some will be machine malfunctions. Some could come from sabotage by poll workers or voters themselves. But in a venture this large, trouble is most likely to come from just plain human error, a fact often overlooked in an environment as charged and conspiratorial as America is in today.

Four years after Congress passed a law requiring every state to vote by a method more reliable than the punch-card system that paralyzed Florida and the nation in 2000, the 2006 election is shaping up into a contest not just between Democrats and Republicans but also between people who believe in technology and those who fear machines cannot be trusted to count votes in a closely divided democracy.

as always, please go to black box voting for the real deal on electronic voting... also, check out vote smart for information on every candidate, issue & initiative under the sun

no, thank you

i'd like to take a moment to throw out some thanks for some recent links to media monarchy...

freedom fight & furious nads both linked to the story about the psy-op drill that scared the piss out of kids in order to desensitize them to police state measures...

and here is a bad babelfish translation of la hora del pueblo's link... i believe it's basically saying that media monarchy is a good site that "focuses in giving alternative versions to the 9/11 and other subjects..."

and, finally, i really appreciate richard grove for thanking me in episode 12 of 9/11 synchronicity...

wayne madsen in portland

investigative journalist and syndicated columnist wayne madsen is on a tour of the pacific northwest to promote his latest book, jaded tasks: brass plates, black ops & big oil - the blood politics of george bush & co. madsen has written for wired, the village voice, the miami herald & counterpunch. he has also appeared on 20/20, nightline, 60 minutes, hannity & colmes and was featured in bush family fortunes.

Nov. 1 - First Unitarian, 1011 SW 12th St., Portland, OR 7 pm.

Nov. 3 - 23rd Avenue Books, 1015 NW 23rd Ave., Portland, OR 7 pm.

Nov. 4 - Orca Books, 509 E. 4th Ave., Olympia, WA 7 pm.

war games in persian gulf: a provocation?

from global research: There is a massive concentration of US naval power in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Two US naval strike groups are deployed: USS Enterprise, and USS Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group. The naval strike groups have been assigned to fighting the "global war on terrorism."

War Games
Concurrent with this concentration of US Naval power, the US is also involved in military exercises in the Persian Gulf, which consists in "interdicting ships in the Gulf carrying weapons of mass destruction and missiles." ...

Tehran considers the US sponsored war games in the Persian Gulf, off the Iranian coastline as a provocation, which is intended to trigger a potential crisis and a situation of direct confrontation between US and Iranian naval forces in the Persian Gulf...

USS Boxer ESG to arrive in Arabian Sea
The USS Boxer, which is the flagship for the Boxer Expeditionary Strike Group which left Singapore on October 16, is scheduled to join the two other naval strikes groups...

“We are about to enter a part of the world that can be very dangerous,” said Chief Aviation Ordnanceman Jacques Beaver, Boxer’s flight deck ordnance chief. “We must be flexible and prepared to defend ourselves from any threats.”

Canada is part of the Expeditonary Strike Group
Canada is formally participating in this military deployment under the disguise of the "war on terrorism". The Canadian Navy has dispatched Frigate HMCS Ottawa, which is now an integral part of ESG 5, under US Command. It is worth noting that particular emphasis has been given to medical evacuations and combat medical support suggesting that a combat scenario could be envisaged.

Dangerous Crossroads: Tonkin II?
"An incident" in the Persian Gulf could be used by the US as a pretext for war against Iran.

A war pretext incident, similar to "the Gulf of Tonkin Incident", which triggered the Vietnam war, could be used by US forces, with a view to justifying retaliatory military action against Iran.

In August 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson claimed that North Vietnamese forces had attacked US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Tonkin incident, which had been manipulated, contributed to unleashing a full-fledged war against Vietnam:

"A phantom attack on two U.S. destroyers cruising the Gulf of Tonkin was staged by the Pentagon and the C.I.A. The bogus attack occurred early in August, 1964. That evening President Lyndon Johnson went on television giving the grim details of the non-attack. Later, however, it was revealed that navy commander James Stockdale flew cover over the Gulf of Tonkin that night. Stockdale disclosed that U.S. ships were firing at phantom targets—targets that didn’t exist.

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident that drew the U.S. into the quagmire of Viet Nam simply didn’t happen. Johnson, as presidents so often do, lied to the American people. The result was the rapid passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which was the sole legal basis for the Viet Nam War. As a result of Johnson’s lie, three million Vietnamese people and fifty eight thousand U.S. soldiers died."

spooks at google… & myspace, paypal, youtube, ebay & yahoo

from kurt nimmo: It comes as no surprise that Google is in bed with the CIA, or rather it is no surprise the CIA ate Google and has turned it into yet another front company. “A former clandestine services officer for the CIA who also maintains close relationships with top Google representatives says that the company is ‘in bed with’ the intelligence agency and the U.S. government,” writes Paul Joseph Watson for Prison Planet...

“Even while Google presents a public image of vigorously protecting its users’ privacy, it has quietly provided assistance to several U.S. intelligence agencies, such as the Central Intelligence Agency and Defense Intelligence Agency, as the U.S. prosecutes its war on terrorism,” writes Michael Hampton for Homeland Stupidity. “In addition, Google may be providing assistance to the National Security Agency.” ...

But if this does not make you paranoid enough, consider a post at Internet Portal Community Watch. Ebay is run by Richard T. Schlosberg III, former graduate of the United States Air Force Academy. MySpace, of course, is now owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. According to blogger Josh Smith, the “social networking” site Facebook is a data-gathering operation that received initial funding from Peter Thiel, who is connected to James Breyer, who is the former chairman of In-Q-Tel. Thiel is the co-founder of PayPal. Yahoo, the IPVW post asserts, is a possible “U.S. Military or psyOP Pentagon front.” Yahoo director Ed Kozel worked at Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, and SRI International. Chad Hurley, a former PayPal employee, is CEO and Co-Founder of YouTube. As we know, Google bought up YouTube, and Google’s connection to the CIA is less than speculative.

Finally, if you’re thinking about using Yahoo over Google, think again. Earlier this year, Michael Callahan, Yahoo’s senior vice president and general counsel, under “cross-examination during a congressional hearing … refused … to say whether the company opens its records for government surveillance [that is, the NSA] without a court order,” according to ZDNet.

Although the NSA is supposedly restricted by its charter from “acquiring information concerning the domestic activities of United States persons,” it has done so habitually since its establishment on November 4, 1952. The NSA captures civilian telephone, fax, satellite, and data traffic through ECHELON. It runs “the largest database ever assembled in the world,” containing call detail records of all calls (domestic and international) placed through AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.

china harvesting organs from falun gong detainees

from thought criminal: Western countries are beginning to pay high-level attention to accusations that Chinese authorities are killing jailed members of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement in order to sell their body parts for organ transplants.

A subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives held a hearing on the accusations on September 29. The matter was also raised at foreign-minister level at the China-European Union summit meeting on September 9 in Helsinki.

outside the box #75

here is the latest episode of "outside the box," hosted by alex ansary.
it was originally broadcast by portland community media on october 26, 2006.

from alex ansary: Tonight it was open lines for the entire program. I covered some of the top stories of the world. Later I featured a brief segment from the documentary film, 'What the Bleep do we Know?' This film focuses on changing our reality and heightening our perception of what is possible.

italian court orders berlusconi to stand trial

from cbc: An Italian court on Monday ordered former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and a British lawyer to stand trial on charges of corruption.

Berlusconi, who was defeated in an April election, is accused of channelling at least $700,000 to lawyer David Mills nine years ago.

Italian prosecutors allege that in exchange for the money, Mills provided false testimony during trials in 1997 and 1998 related to Berlusconi's company Mediaset SPA.

Milan Judge Fabio Paparella ordered the men to separately stand trial on charges of false accounting, embezzlement and tax fraud in the purchase by Berlusconi's Mediaset SPA empire of TV rights for U.S. movies.

Paparella issued the ruling after refusing a defence motion to remove him from the case.

If convicted, each man could spend between three and eight years in prison.

Berlusconi, who is Italy's richest man, has faced previous corruption charges but has never been convicted.

In late 2004, he was acquitted on charges of trying to bribe judges while attempting to block a rival businessman's takeover of the state-owned SME food group in the 1980s.

The trial, which spanned about a decade, was temporarily halted after Berlusconi's Forza Italia party changed the law to grant Italy's top five political officeholders immunity from prosecution.

The constitutional court struck down the law in January of 2004, ruling that all Italians were equal before the law.

DU death toll hits 11,000

from global research: The death toll from the highly toxic weapons component known as depleted uranium (DU) has reached 11,000 soldiers and the growing scandal may be the reason behind Anthony Principi’s departure as secretary of the Veterans Affairs Department.

This view was expressed by Arthur Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in New York, writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter.

“The real reason for Mr. Principi’s departure was really never given,” Bernklau said. “However, a special report published by eminent scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive cause of ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ has fed a growing scandal about the continued use of uranium munitions by the U.S. military.”

The “malady [from DU] that thousands of our military have suffered and died from has finally been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the guessing. . . . The terrible truth is now being revealed,” Bernklau said.

Of the 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are now dead, he said. By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability. More than a decade later, more than half (56 percent) who served in Gulf War I have permanent medical problems. The disability rate for veterans of the world wars of the last century was 5 percent, rising to 10 percent in Vietnam.

“The VA secretary was aware of this fact as far back as 2000,” Bernklau said. “He and the Bush administration have been hiding these facts, but now, thanks to Moret’s report, it is far too big to hide or to cover up.”

Terry Johnson, public affairs specialist at the VA, recently reported that veterans of both Persian Gulf wars now on disability total 518,739, Bernklau said.

“The long-term effect of DU is a virtual death sentence,” Bernklau said. “Marion Fulk, a nuclear chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab, and was also involved in the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers [from the second war] as ‘spectacular’ - and a matter of concern.’ ”
While this important story appeared in a Washington newspaper and the wire services, it did not receive national exposure - a compelling sign that the American public is being kept in the dark about the terrible effects of this toxic weapon.

report: halliburton unit exploited rules

from ap/my way: The Halliburton subsidiary that provides food, shelter and other logistics to U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan exploited federal regulations to hide details on its contract performance, according to a report released Friday.

The special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction found that Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown & Root Services routinely marked all information it gave to the government as proprietary, whether it was or not. The government promises not to disclose proprietary data so a company's most valuable information is not divulged to its competitors.

By marking all information proprietary - including such normally releasable data as labor rates - the company abused federal regulations, the report says.

In effect, Kellogg, Brown & Root turned the regulations "into a mechanism to prevent the government from releasing normally transparent information, thus potentially hindering competition and oversight."

Halliburton spokeswoman Cathy Mann said that since the current contract is being reviewed and may be divided among several contractors, "It is clearly appropriate to mark data as proprietary that could potentially be used for competitive purposes" as would be the case in any new contract.

She said such proprietary markings have been used on a majority of the data for at least the last decade, and the company will work with the military on matters outlined in the interim report as the final audit is completed.

The Iraq reconstruction audits have routinely found significant problems with contracting and rebuilding in the country, ranging from high costs for security and overhead to alleged fraud and lack of oversight.

Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, said that in 13 oversight hearings on the war in Iraq the committee found more than $1 billion in waste, fraud, abuse and what it called "shoddy work" by contractors.

"I'm convinced that this is the most significant waste, fraud and abuse in the history of this country," Dorgan said.

If the Democrats take control of the Senate, he said, they will launch oversight hearings on war matters ranging from faulty intelligence leading up to the war to wrongdoing by contractors.

'fascism' on google video

Here is the "Director's Final Cut" authorized version of Aaron Russo's documentary, America: Freedom to Fascism. It is being uploaded to Google Video for the first time during the evening of October 19-20th, 2006. Aaron has listened to everyone's feedback - volunteers, students, lovers of freedom & liberty, young and old alike - and, true to his word, he is putting this up "for free" on Google Video knowing that the hour has come for Americans to either be awakened to restore the Republic or be swept aside by the dark global forces of fascism that seeks to enslave mankind.

AFTF's main focus comes in a statement with six very simple words:
SHUT DOWN THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM!!

After viewing the movie, please be sure to visit freedom to fascism where you will soon be able to view a much higher quality "pay per view" Internet version of AFTF, buy the DVD and sign up as an affiliate to sell/distribute DVDs to others.

We also urge everyone to be sure to sign up as volunteer, register for email alerts and tell your family, friends and neighbors about this groundbreaking movie.

school safety drill upsets some parents

from ap/my way: A school safety drill that included police officers in riot gear with weapons has caused concern among some parents who say it was too realistic and frightened some students.

Police in the western Michigan community of Wyoming entered two classrooms at Lee Middle and High School on Thursday and announced there was a threat to the school, The Grand Rapids Press reported.

Students, who were unaware police were conducting a drill, were taken from the classroom into the halls, patted down by officers and asked what they had in their pockets, the newspaper said.

"Some of these kids were so scared, they just about wet their pants," said Marge Bradshaw, a parent with four children in Godfrey-Lee Schools. "I think it's pure wrong that the students and parents were not informed of this."

Officers wore protective gear, including vests and helmets, and carried rifles that were unloaded and marked with colored tape to indicate they were not live weapons, the newspaper said.

Diana Silva, a parent of an eighth-grade student, said the drill went too far.

"My child was with his face to the wall in the hallway of the high school," Silva said. "I certainly don't want anything like this happening to my child."

Principal David Britten said students weren't told ahead of time to make the drill as realistic as possible. Teachers were informed moments before it took place, he said.

"I think this is the best way to do it," Britten said. "We're not looking to scare anyone, but we want a sense of urgency."

But Wyoming Police Chief James Carmody said his officers were not aware students and parents were not told. He said his department will mandate that parents be notified ahead of time in the future.

"The purpose was to show how we will evacuate the classroom, not to assault the classroom," Carmody said.

lab confirms classified material found

from santa fe new mexican: Los Alamos National Laboratory has confirmed that classified material was found during a drug search at the home of a former lab contract employee.

As a result, some work at the lab has been affected, and security measures have been increased.

No criminal charges have been filed in connection with the case, which is being handled by the FBI. A search warrant executed by the agency has been sealed by a judge.

The lab's director, Michael Anastasio, said a former worker is being investigated, but neither the lab nor the FBI would identify the employee.

"While I cannot discuss the details of what we know and don't know about what happened, I can confirm that classified material was found in her residence," Anastasio told lab employees Thursday.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that the former employee had a high-level security clearance.

"This is a very serious matter for all of us," Anastasio said. "We are taking and must continue to take immediate and appropriate action."

Anastasio did not elaborate on the case but said the FBI interviewed several employees at the lab Wednesday. A lab spokesman declined to comment...

bush reserves right to repeat katrina failures

from crooks & liars: In yet another egregious executive-power grab, President Bush asserted his right last week via signing statement to ignore a Congressional mandate that the next FEMA Director have at least five years of disaster response experience. You would think after the Brownie debacle during Katrina last year the President would be eager to appoint someone with qualifications exceeding Arabian horse show judge to lead the nations emergency response efforts. Sadly, no. Because, after all, his unchallenged powers as Decider-In-Chief are far more important than competence and keeping Americans safe.

from washington post: President Bush reserved the right to ignore key changes in Congress's overhaul of the Federal Emergency Management Agency — including a requirement to appoint someone with experience handling disasters as the agency's head - in setting aside dozens of provisions contained in a major homeland security spending bill this week.

The standards for the FEMA director were inspired by criticism of former FEMA chief Michael D. Brown's performance after Hurricane Katrina last year. Brown, a lawyer and judge of Arabian horses, had no experience in disaster response before joining FEMA.

Besides objecting to Congress's list of qualifications for FEMA's director, the White House also claimed the right to edit or withhold reports to Congress by a watchdog agency within the Department of Homeland Security that is responsible for protecting Americans' personal privacy.