There is no stronger advocate for free-market capitalism
There is no stronger advocate for free-market capitalism than myself. The free market spawns efficiency, and efficiency means the elimination of waste. Waste is pollution, so in a true free-market economy you would eliminate, as nearly as you can, pollution. In a true free-market economy you can't make yourself rich without making your neighbors rich and without enriching your community. Polluters make themselves rich by making everybody else poor. They raise standards of living for themselves by lowering the quality of life for everybody else, and they do that by escaping the discipline of the free market and forcing the public to pay their production cost. You show me a polluter, I'll show you a subsidy. Corporations are externalizing machines; they are constantly trying to figure out a way to avoid their own costs and foist it out on the public.
I'll give you an example. When the coal companies, the utilities, discharge mercury into the air they are avoiding one of the costs of bringing their products to market, which is the cost of properly disposing of a dangerous processed chemical. When they avoid the costs they can out-compete their competitors, they can out-compete gas and oil and wind power. But the costs don't disappear. They go into the fish, they make children sick, they permanently injure children's lungs, they put people out of work, they acidify the lakes in the Adirondacks and they've destroyed the forest cover of the Appalachian Mountains all the way from Georgia up into Quebec. Those impacts impose costs on the rest of us that should be reflected in the price of that product. All of the federal environmental laws are meant to restore free-market capitalism in America. I don't even consider myself an environmentalist anymore. I'm a free marketeer. I go out into the marketplace, I track down the polluters and I say to them, We are going to force you to internalize your costs the same way that you're internalizing your profits. Americans have to understand that there is a huge difference between free-market capitalism which democratizes our country, that brings us prosperity and efficiency, and the kind of corporate crony capitalism which is as antithetical to democracy in America as it is in Nigeria.
....
We found, in 2003, a memo from Frank Luntz, the president's pollster, to the president saying that if you go through with the evisceration of America's environmental law, you are going to alienate not just Democrats but the Republican rank and file. Eighty-one percent in both parties want clean air, they want stronger environmental laws and they want them strictly enforced. Luntz said that to the president, and he said, if we do this we have to do a stealth attack. He recommended using Orwellian rhetoric to mask this radical agenda:
...
Last week, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced that in 19 states it is unsafe to regularly eat any freshwater fish, and in 48 states at least some fish are unsafe to eat. The mercury is coming, largely, from those same 1,100 coal-burning power plants. We know a lot about mercury that we didn't know five or ten years ago.
...
[This is weird. I had already wrote my little diatribe about God and purposely screwing up the world long before I just read this, but I just posted it this morning, and now here is this which parallels what I was saying myself to some extent.]
We don't know Michelangelo by looking at his biography, we know him by looking at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. We know our Creator best by studying Creation, which all of the religious texts mandate us to do. If you look at all of the great, central epiphany in every religious tradition in mankind's history, the revelation always occurs in the wilderness. Buddha had to go into the wilderness to experience self-realization. Mohamed had to go to the wilderness of Mount Hira in 629 and wrestle an angel in the middle of the night to have the Koran squeezed out of him. Moses had to go onto the wilderness of Mount Sinai to get the Commandments. The Jews had to spend 40 years in the wilderness to purge themselves of the 400 years of slavery in Egypt. Christ had to spend 40 days in the wilderness to discover his divinity. His mentor was John the Baptist, a man of the wilderness who lived in a cave in the Jordan Valley and dressed in the skins of wild animals. All of Christ's parables are taken from nature: I am the vine; you are the branch; The Mustard Seed; the little swallows the scattering, the seeds on fallow ground. He called himself a fisherman, a farmer, a vineyard keeper, a shepherd.
http://www.rense.com/general63/ssi.htm
[The reason people dislike science these days is because scientists are always doing stupid things like this. People don’t want to have to live in a world where there is a possibility of a human fetus being trapped in a mouse. Why would they?
I read an article before I started this blog about how some pyschologists were trying to compile a kind of scientific scale from “Good” to “Evil”. Where will the scientists place themselves?]
Opponents of Prof Weissman's work accept that his mice are unlikely to show such obvious human traits, but voice concerns that the brain cells would begin to organise themselves in a way that was more human than mouse. There is growing unease over whether human stem cells could migrate to other parts of the animals, creating human sperm or eggs in their reproductive systems.
Should two such "chimera mice" mate, it could lead to the nightmarish scenario of a human embryo trapped in a mouse's womb. William Cheshire, a neurology professor from the Mayo Clinic in Florida and a Christian activist, has called for a ban on any research that destroys a human embryo to create a new organism.
http://www.rense.com/general63/scientiststomakemouse.htm
[Foolish Italians. I tell you what I tell everyone. This administration, and the people in DC generally, do not want friends, they don’t want allies. They want only slaves and servants. See how your friendship is repaid?
Someone else pointed out that if this Italian agent hadn’t thrown himself in front of this reporter woman she would have been the one to be killed by multiple gun shot wounds.]
In a first interview, Giuliana has said her kidnappers never mistreated her - said the WORST moment of her whole experience was the shooting and CALIPARI'S death ... ("in her arms" ...as he was lying on top of her, shielding her with his body during the shooting-massacre, died as she was clutching him...
http://www.rense.com/general63/giulianatoldUSwouldnt.htm
THOUSANDS of Italians filed past the coffin of an intelligence agent killed by American troops in a bungled hostage rescue as the White House expressed regret yesterday over the “horrific accident”.
As crowds paid homage to the body lying in state at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, President Ciampi called on Washington to clarify what happened.
Demonstrators hold signs reading 'Never again allies of the USA assassins', at left, and 'USA war criminals' during a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Rome, Saturday, March 5, 2005. With mingled relief and outrage, Italy on Saturday welcomed home Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena freed from captivity in Iraq and demanded answers about why U.S. soldiers fired on the car bringing her to safety, wounding her and killing Nicola Calipari, the intelligence officer who shielded her from the gunfire. (AP Photo/Dario Pignatelli)
The freed hostage, Giuliana Sgrena, 56, a left-wing journalist, claimed that US troops may have deliberately opened fire because of US opposition to the Italian policy of negotiating with hostage-takers in Iraq.
...
But Signora Sgrena said “there was no bright light, no signal, and no checkpoint — it was a patrol”. She said that the car had already passed the last US checkpoints and was traveling at “normal speed” within 700 metres of the airport. Italian officials said that American forces had been fully informed of the rescue.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0306-02.htm
Eyeballing
the
51 Most Dangerous US Chemical Facilities
Storing the largest amounts of extremely hazardous substances.*
*Extremely hazardous substances as defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act, Section 112(r).
http://cryptome.org/chem/51chem-eyeball.htm
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http://members.freespeech.org/irishpows/FAQs.htm
Health officials have seized boneless chicken feet at several Ohio stores, part of an expanding effort to prevent an outbreak of the bird flu.
Officials planned to visit about 200 Asian restaurants and markets around Cuyahoga County on Friday, explaining the health risks involved with a product that the U.S. Department of Agriculture says was illegally smuggled into the country.
The U.S. government banned imports of birds and poultry products from Asia last year.
Some chicken feet, an Asian delicacy, were seized at a Cleveland grocery store on Wednesday. Authorities also found them at three stores in Columbus and one in Whitehall, said Paul Panico, head of food safety for the agriculture department.
http://www.rense.com/general63/ssmug.htm
[This just caught my eye because the Lucis Trust people talk about the “solar angels” and Lucifer being one of the good guys.]
I'll give you one clue... A.L. is the abbreviation for the Latin which translates "Year of Light" referring to the year 6,000 A.L., (which occurs on or shortly after the year A.D. 2000) when the Illuminati believe Lucifer, Baal, Bel, Satan, the angel of light who was cast out of heaven, will triumph over God and mount the throne in the north. All who say they are "Light Workers" are engaged in the battle against God on Lucifer's behalf. You solve the rest of the puzzle.
http://www.hourofthetime.com/artbsbell.htm
[This sounds like something to keep an eye on. Also note “Washington insider”- flips out when challenged- mixed up in questionable shady schemes. Ever notice how all those traits seem to go together, almost like a syndrome?]
Stephen Herbits has suddenly gotten angry. For the past hour, as a picturesque evening snow fell lightly on Madison Avenue, he has talked expansively about his background as a Washington insider, his twenty years as a key Seagramís executive, and his current role as secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress.
Then I mention that several people from other Jewish organizations have said they were not at all surprised by the difficulties the World Jewish Congress has been facing, that its weak administration and sloppy record-keeping were an open secret. The WJC was, according to one insider, ìa volcano waiting to erupt.î
Herbits, a tall, lean 62-year-old with gray hair and a gray beard, nearly levitates out of his chair, instantly going ballistic.
ìAs you talk to the leaders of the other Jewish organizations, check their accomplishments against their governance,î he says in a voice thatís rising to fill the room. ìTheyíve got perfect governance and no fucking accomplishments.
...
Though the accusations he makes about other Jewish organizations are serious and sweepingófalse IRS filings, misuse of funds, ìoutlandishî benefits packages, and lying to the governmentóHerbits refuses to name names. ìYouíre not going to get me to do that,î he snaps. ìIím not going to play that game.î
But given the chance, he doesnít back down. Instead he ratchets up the rhetoric a notch. ìIím not going to sit by and let this organization take the rap for their behavior,î he says. ìIf we get into that kind of pissing match, this organization ainít going down by itself.îhttp://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/politics/international/features/11158/index.html
[Hmmm..... there’s something there, can’t quite put my finger on it.]
Church leaders say TV ads should not promote sex, alcohol or cigarettes. The government has fallen into line. Beer ads have been banned from radio and TV during the watershed, drinking is to be prohibited in a welter of public places and children under the age of 18 have finally been banned from buying beer, traditionally considered a soft drink in Russia.
Underlying the church's moral fervour is a deeper concern, which the government shares. Because of the media "sowing the seeds of licentiousness, selfishness, the cult of comfort and freedom from morality," says Patriarch Alexei II, "an increasing number of married couples do not have children at all."
Indeed the Kremlin is said to be worried that people are becoming too fond of the single, commitment-free, promiscuous lifestyle at the expense of Russia's birth rate. The current average birth rate is 1.25 children per woman. A rate of 2.13 needs to be attained if existing population levels are to be maintained - something that is regarded as vital for Russian national security.
...
http://www.rense.com/general63/kremlinactstostemtide.htm
The results that may most perturb animal welfare groups are those that suggest chickens can feel pain. Tests found that those known to be experiencing some form of discomfort or lameness chose food laced with morphine when given the choice. By contrast, chickens who were fully fit chose feed that was not spiked with an analgesic.
Another creature similarly viewed by modern society as little more than a benign food source - the cow - is also shown to be an astute animal capable of solving riddles with an intellect more traditionally associated with an ape. Studies at Oxford University found that Betty, a Caledonian heifer, instinctively bent a piece of wire, using a gap in her food tray to create a hook that allowed her to scrape food from the bottom of a jar.
...
The reputation of parrots as purveyors of a broad vocabulary is also reinforced with one study documenting how a grey parrot mastered 1,000 words and learnt to communicate in a manner that would shame some British adults. Parrots have an intellect comparable to a five-year-old human, and the conference will hear how potential parrot owners must weigh up buying one as if they were adopting a 'small child'
http://www.rense.com/general63/sent.htm
With high federal offices being given to the wives, sons and daughters of senior members of the Bush administration, the Hearst Corporation executives that publish Popular Mechanics magazine probably didn't worry about the ethical considerations of hiring a cousin of Michael Chertoff, a former Assistant Attorney General and the new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as senior researcher.
But the March 2005 issue of Popular Mechanics (PM) plumbs new depths of nepotism and Hearst-style "yellow journalism" with its cover story about 9/11. PM's senior researcher, 25-year-old Benjamin Chertoff, authored a propagandistic cover story entitled "Debunking 9/11 Lies" which seeks to discredit all independent 9/11 research that challenges the official version of events.
http://www.rense.com/general63/chertoffcousinwrote911.htm
Syria vowed a complete and swift two-phased withdrawal of its troops from Lebanon but President Bashar al-Assad said on Saturday Damascus would still play a role in the tiny neighbor it has dominated for 30 years. http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=D0HDAWFQC1RI0CRBAE0CFFA?type=topNews&storyID=7816806
The Bush administration's secret program to transfer suspected terrorists to foreign countries for interrogation has been carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency under broad authority that has allowed it to act without case-by-case approval from the White House or the State or Justice Departments, according to current and former government officials.
The unusually expansive authority for the C.I.A. to operate independently was provided by the White House under a still-classified directive signed by President Bush within days of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the officials said.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0306-01.htm
[By a strange coincidence the seas around England are now experiencing disturbing declines in virtually all areas of marine life.]
Highly radioactive waste has been dumped in Britain's seas and washed ashore, and nuclear research station workers covered up the pollution.
The Sunday Times reported that the owner of the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness, Scotland, faced a criminal prosecution over a series of leaks, which have sent more than 50 radioactive particles onto a nearby public beach.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0306-03.htm
n July 2003, the Washington Post published a harrowing account of the torture of an Assyrian Christian woman in Baghdad. The woman, Jumana Hanna, took Post reporter Peter Finn to the prison where she said she had been jailed, tortured and raped for nothing more than marrying a non-Iraqi. Ms Hanna told the reporter her husband had been killed in a nearby prison and his lifeless body was later passed to her.
After the Post story appeared, US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz mentioned it in testimony to the US Senate: "There is a positive aspect in the distressing story of Jumana Hanna. That is her courage in coming forward to offer U.S. officials what is very likely credible information, information that is helping us to root out Baathist policemen who routinely tortured and killed prisoners."
...
It did not take long for a professional journalist to find out that very few if any details of Jumana Hanna’s account were true. She was not married to a foreigner, but to an Iraqi Arab. Her husband was not killed and was probably never in prison. Ms Hanna may have been jailed for a few months, but most likely for prostitution. One of her key witnesses appears to be a boyfriend to whom she has been sending money from the United States. So what is the true story of Jumana Hanna?
“It’s just a story about a homeless prostitute who single-handedly fooled the Pentagon, the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Washington Post,” says Sara Solovitch. Jumana Hanna also fooled many ordinary Americans who, touched by her story, rushed to deposit charitable contributions into the Iraqi woman’s account.
http://www.politinfo.com/articles/article_2005_03_6_0828.html
The most recent have been in Dover, Pennsylvania, where a school board has ruled that children should be made ‘aware of gaps/problems’ in evolutionary theory; and Cobb County, Georgia, where a school board has decided to appeal a ruling by a judge that disclaimers stating that evolution is a ‘theory, not a fact’ must be removed from textbooks. These challenges have pushed the teaching of evolution into mainstream debate, with critics of evolution appearing everywhere from the conservative Fox News to the liberal New York Times op-ed page.
http://www.gnn.tv/headlines/1308/Creationism_pluralism_and_the_compromising_of_science
He began his political career as a student activist and street fighter and ended up as the darling of the Germans. But Joschka Fischer, Germany's Green Party foreign minister and the man regularly voted the country's most popular politician, is now fighting for his political life amid allegations that he let thousands of illegal immigrants into Europe.
Fischer is accused of presiding over an overgenerous visa regime that allowed applicants from Ukraine and other former Soviet Union countries to pour into Germany. The scandal has led Germany's opposition Conservatives to demand his resignation.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1431499,00.html
New video released by the Lucas County Sheriff's Department shows a suspect being shocked with a Taser during his booking. Jeffrey Turner died in January after he was shocked nine times over a 3-hour period.
...
For now, 4 Tasers at the jail will remain out of the hands of command officers who used to carry them. "I think in general our staff thought it was a valuable tool. Whether their safety is actually jeopardized because we're not using them, that would be debatable. As I say, prior to one year ago, we never used them at all," said Keller. He says he's looking at getting other safety equipment for officers like shields.
http://www.wtol.com/global/story.asp?s=3028530&ClientType=Printable
China's influence on the world is seen as positive by more people than is the case for the US or Russia, according to a new BBC World Service poll.
In total, 48% of people polled in 22 countries said China's role was mainly positive. Only 30% saw it as mainly negative.
The majority of respondents were also positive about the communist nation's growing economic power.
But far fewer people wanted to see an increase in its military might.
Even in neighbouring Asian countries, which have historically been suspicious of China's dominance, opinions were relatively benign.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4318551.stm
[I have come across in a couple of plaes a rumor that Jeff Gannon is Johnny Gosch. At first I completely discounted this as just random internet static. But I went and hunted up some photos of Gannon, which I really didn’t want to do, and I have to admit the ages are close between them and the face does bear a fair resemblance between one and the other. I should say one of Gannon/Guckert’s reported ages. Apparently he has claimed to be around 30 and around 40. He looks closer to 30 to me, which would put him in the same range as Gosch.
You can get one or two photos of Johhny Gosch at the website
www.johnnygosch.com
There are more in the book, which I happen to have. Particularly I am looking at the age progression photo on page 323.
I am comparing to the photos on this website.
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/02/man-called-jeff.html
Again I have no way to know if this is a true link, my immediate feeling is that it isn’t. But if it is real I think it is kind of a sad ending to the Johnny Gosch story. Or at least a sad new chapter.
In case you don’t know Johnny Gosch was kidnapped while on a paper route back in 1982 and apparently sold as a sex slave tot he rich and powerful. But according to the book by his mother, Johnny eventually escaped from the clutches of his politically powerful masters and was hiding out. If this is a real identity between Gosch and Guckert it would seem to indicate that they brought him back into the fold.
But like I said, my first feeling is still that this is a red herring. But I can see how someone might make the connection.
Here’s someone else’s comment on this same subject.
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=5409
This is interesting as well
http://www.total411.info/2005/02/franklin-cover-up-figure-arrested-on.html
In any event: Jeff Gannon/JG Duckert is our hero -- and he should be a hero to bloggers everywhere. If a loon hooker, working under a pseudonym for a made-up news organization, can spend his days being buddy-buddy with Scott McClellan and George Bush, why, anything can happen for the rest of us!
http://www.wonkette.com/politics/personalities/free-hot-naked-jeff-gannon-033038.php]
When the national media bothers to cover the James Guckert case at all, it generally ocuses on the reporter/escort’s access to White House briefings for two years, operating under an alias (Jeff Gannon) and on behalf of a clearly partisan organization (GOPUSA). But there are local spinoffs as well.
Today, the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal examined the Guckert/Gannon links to the 2004 U.S. Senate contest in that state, which sent the Democratic leader, Sen. Tom Daschle, packing. The newspaper’s probe followed reports in E&P and elsewhere about Gannon’s apparent links to political operatives and bloggers in the state who are credited with helping to elect John Thune to the post.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000827954
[America’s communist ally- Uzbezistan: drowning, suffocation, rape, boiling people alive.]
A secret CIA program to transfer suspected terrorists to foreign countries that use torture during interrogations was approved at the highest levels of the U.S. government, one of the agents who helped set it up tells 60 Minutes.
Mike Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit and one of the agents who helped set up the program, tells 60 Minutes it was authorized by Clinton's National Security Council and officials in Congress - and all understood what it meant to send suspects to those countries.
"They don't have the same legal system we have. But we know that going into it," says Scheuer. "And so the idea that we're gonna suddenly throw our hands up like Claude Raines in 'Casablanca' and say, 'I'm shocked that justice in Egypt isn't like it is in Milwaukee,' there's a certain disingenuousness to that."
...
Murray tells 60 Minutes, that Uzbek interrogators use unusually cruel methods. "Techniques of drowning and suffocation, rape was used ...and also the insertion of limbs in boiling liquid....It's quite common," says Murray.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/06/national/main678373.shtml
CHARLES CLARKE is preparing to defy Britain’s most senior judges by keeping 10 foreign terror suspects in jail without charge despite the law lords’ ruling that it would be illegal.
The move is being proposed as a fall-back to prevent the suspects, including Al-Qaeda’s “key” ambassador in Europe, from walking free this week. Home Office sources said the home secretary had introduced the order in case the government’s new terrorism bill is defeated in parliament next week.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1512896,00.html
At UVM, this email was met with anger and questions, and probably even a few inquiries. The anger is now being organized into a drive to keep military recruiters off the university campus and out of the students' private communications. There is a petition campaign underway that demands that no recruiters for the regular military or the Vermont National Guard be allowed recruit on campus. Despite this, recruiters do show up unannounced on campus. One assumes that their strategy is designed to prevent student organizers from organizing protests against the recruiters' presence. In addition, there is organizing underway to organize some kind of response to the military and Guard's presence at the University's Spring Career Day on March 8th. (This career day is also the host to recruiters from various corporations from the war industry-General Dynamics foremost among them) Here in Vermont, the Guard recruitment hits close to home, since the state ranks near the top in the number of deaths per capita in Iraq. The likelihood of the university denying these recruiters access is slim, especially in light of the mass email, yet the students involved continue on undaunted. If the petition campaign fails to produce the results they desire, there will likely be some kind of protest.
...
Meanwhile, in high schools across the US, more students and their parents seem to be opting out of taking the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), a test given to high school juniors as a method of targeting potential recruits. It is an admissions and placement test for the US military. All persons enlisting in the US military are required to take the ASVAB. Although the military does not usually start turning up the pressure to join the military until students reach their senior year, about 14,000 high schools nationwide give this test to juniors. A recent piece in the Boston Globe detailed the troubles one recruiting office in New Hampshire is facing this year. According to ASVAB testing coordinator at the Military Entrance Processing Station in Boston, which handles enlistment processing for Rhode Island, much of New Hampshire and parts of Massachusetts, many parents are writing notes excusing their kids from taking the test. At one high school in Nashua, NH, school administrators opted out of even administering the test this year. This is not an isolated case either; of the thirty schools in the Boston region that administered the test in 2004, only nineteen signed up to do so this year. One wonders how long it will be before the military makes the test mandatory for graduation
http://counterpunch.org/jacobs03052005.html
I'll give you an example. When the coal companies, the utilities, discharge mercury into the air they are avoiding one of the costs of bringing their products to market, which is the cost of properly disposing of a dangerous processed chemical. When they avoid the costs they can out-compete their competitors, they can out-compete gas and oil and wind power. But the costs don't disappear. They go into the fish, they make children sick, they permanently injure children's lungs, they put people out of work, they acidify the lakes in the Adirondacks and they've destroyed the forest cover of the Appalachian Mountains all the way from Georgia up into Quebec. Those impacts impose costs on the rest of us that should be reflected in the price of that product. All of the federal environmental laws are meant to restore free-market capitalism in America. I don't even consider myself an environmentalist anymore. I'm a free marketeer. I go out into the marketplace, I track down the polluters and I say to them, We are going to force you to internalize your costs the same way that you're internalizing your profits. Americans have to understand that there is a huge difference between free-market capitalism which democratizes our country, that brings us prosperity and efficiency, and the kind of corporate crony capitalism which is as antithetical to democracy in America as it is in Nigeria.
....
We found, in 2003, a memo from Frank Luntz, the president's pollster, to the president saying that if you go through with the evisceration of America's environmental law, you are going to alienate not just Democrats but the Republican rank and file. Eighty-one percent in both parties want clean air, they want stronger environmental laws and they want them strictly enforced. Luntz said that to the president, and he said, if we do this we have to do a stealth attack. He recommended using Orwellian rhetoric to mask this radical agenda:
...
Last week, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced that in 19 states it is unsafe to regularly eat any freshwater fish, and in 48 states at least some fish are unsafe to eat. The mercury is coming, largely, from those same 1,100 coal-burning power plants. We know a lot about mercury that we didn't know five or ten years ago.
...
[This is weird. I had already wrote my little diatribe about God and purposely screwing up the world long before I just read this, but I just posted it this morning, and now here is this which parallels what I was saying myself to some extent.]
We don't know Michelangelo by looking at his biography, we know him by looking at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. We know our Creator best by studying Creation, which all of the religious texts mandate us to do. If you look at all of the great, central epiphany in every religious tradition in mankind's history, the revelation always occurs in the wilderness. Buddha had to go into the wilderness to experience self-realization. Mohamed had to go to the wilderness of Mount Hira in 629 and wrestle an angel in the middle of the night to have the Koran squeezed out of him. Moses had to go onto the wilderness of Mount Sinai to get the Commandments. The Jews had to spend 40 years in the wilderness to purge themselves of the 400 years of slavery in Egypt. Christ had to spend 40 days in the wilderness to discover his divinity. His mentor was John the Baptist, a man of the wilderness who lived in a cave in the Jordan Valley and dressed in the skins of wild animals. All of Christ's parables are taken from nature: I am the vine; you are the branch; The Mustard Seed; the little swallows the scattering, the seeds on fallow ground. He called himself a fisherman, a farmer, a vineyard keeper, a shepherd.
http://www.rense.com/general63/ssi.htm
[The reason people dislike science these days is because scientists are always doing stupid things like this. People don’t want to have to live in a world where there is a possibility of a human fetus being trapped in a mouse. Why would they?
I read an article before I started this blog about how some pyschologists were trying to compile a kind of scientific scale from “Good” to “Evil”. Where will the scientists place themselves?]
Opponents of Prof Weissman's work accept that his mice are unlikely to show such obvious human traits, but voice concerns that the brain cells would begin to organise themselves in a way that was more human than mouse. There is growing unease over whether human stem cells could migrate to other parts of the animals, creating human sperm or eggs in their reproductive systems.
Should two such "chimera mice" mate, it could lead to the nightmarish scenario of a human embryo trapped in a mouse's womb. William Cheshire, a neurology professor from the Mayo Clinic in Florida and a Christian activist, has called for a ban on any research that destroys a human embryo to create a new organism.
http://www.rense.com/general63/scientiststomakemouse.htm
[Foolish Italians. I tell you what I tell everyone. This administration, and the people in DC generally, do not want friends, they don’t want allies. They want only slaves and servants. See how your friendship is repaid?
Someone else pointed out that if this Italian agent hadn’t thrown himself in front of this reporter woman she would have been the one to be killed by multiple gun shot wounds.]
In a first interview, Giuliana has said her kidnappers never mistreated her - said the WORST moment of her whole experience was the shooting and CALIPARI'S death ... ("in her arms" ...as he was lying on top of her, shielding her with his body during the shooting-massacre, died as she was clutching him...
http://www.rense.com/general63/giulianatoldUSwouldnt.htm
THOUSANDS of Italians filed past the coffin of an intelligence agent killed by American troops in a bungled hostage rescue as the White House expressed regret yesterday over the “horrific accident”.
As crowds paid homage to the body lying in state at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, President Ciampi called on Washington to clarify what happened.
Demonstrators hold signs reading 'Never again allies of the USA assassins', at left, and 'USA war criminals' during a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Rome, Saturday, March 5, 2005. With mingled relief and outrage, Italy on Saturday welcomed home Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena freed from captivity in Iraq and demanded answers about why U.S. soldiers fired on the car bringing her to safety, wounding her and killing Nicola Calipari, the intelligence officer who shielded her from the gunfire. (AP Photo/Dario Pignatelli)
The freed hostage, Giuliana Sgrena, 56, a left-wing journalist, claimed that US troops may have deliberately opened fire because of US opposition to the Italian policy of negotiating with hostage-takers in Iraq.
...
But Signora Sgrena said “there was no bright light, no signal, and no checkpoint — it was a patrol”. She said that the car had already passed the last US checkpoints and was traveling at “normal speed” within 700 metres of the airport. Italian officials said that American forces had been fully informed of the rescue.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0306-02.htm
Eyeballing
the
51 Most Dangerous US Chemical Facilities
Storing the largest amounts of extremely hazardous substances.*
*Extremely hazardous substances as defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act, Section 112(r).
http://cryptome.org/chem/51chem-eyeball.htm
The Irish Freedom Committee™ is a Nation-Wide, U.S.-Based, registered Not-For-Profit organization devoted to education on the root causes of the war with Britain, and the support of Irish political prisoners imprisoned as a result of British military occupation of Ireland. We do not endorse any political party in Ireland, but remain strong proponents for International scrutiny into ongoing British War Crimes in Occupied Ireland and against Irish nationals living in Britain and in the Free State. We are a thriving and growing community of hundreds of concerned activists across the United States who want to make a difference. Read our Mission Statement.
• What do we do?
The Irish Freedom Committee™ places Education at the forefront of all we do. It is our firm belief that only through a better understanding of the root causes of the war with Britain, and the exposure of ongoing and unresolved Human Rights abuses against Irish Nationals, that the TRUTH about British occupation of Ireland will emerge in the public eye. We are building an Irish History database, with links to a Bibliography and Recommended Reading for further study. We strive to bring you breaking news and commentary through our IFC NewsList; where we also alert you to the ongoing crisis for Irish Republican Political Prisoners. We additionally bring you daily news updates from Ireland on our Live News page. We host Community Events throughout the year in some of the areas where we are located. We also initiate National Campaigns to better address issues or situations needing Community support.
http://members.freespeech.org/irishpows/FAQs.htm
Health officials have seized boneless chicken feet at several Ohio stores, part of an expanding effort to prevent an outbreak of the bird flu.
Officials planned to visit about 200 Asian restaurants and markets around Cuyahoga County on Friday, explaining the health risks involved with a product that the U.S. Department of Agriculture says was illegally smuggled into the country.
The U.S. government banned imports of birds and poultry products from Asia last year.
Some chicken feet, an Asian delicacy, were seized at a Cleveland grocery store on Wednesday. Authorities also found them at three stores in Columbus and one in Whitehall, said Paul Panico, head of food safety for the agriculture department.
http://www.rense.com/general63/ssmug.htm
[This just caught my eye because the Lucis Trust people talk about the “solar angels” and Lucifer being one of the good guys.]
I'll give you one clue... A.L. is the abbreviation for the Latin which translates "Year of Light" referring to the year 6,000 A.L., (which occurs on or shortly after the year A.D. 2000) when the Illuminati believe Lucifer, Baal, Bel, Satan, the angel of light who was cast out of heaven, will triumph over God and mount the throne in the north. All who say they are "Light Workers" are engaged in the battle against God on Lucifer's behalf. You solve the rest of the puzzle.
http://www.hourofthetime.com/artbsbell.htm
[This sounds like something to keep an eye on. Also note “Washington insider”- flips out when challenged- mixed up in questionable shady schemes. Ever notice how all those traits seem to go together, almost like a syndrome?]
Stephen Herbits has suddenly gotten angry. For the past hour, as a picturesque evening snow fell lightly on Madison Avenue, he has talked expansively about his background as a Washington insider, his twenty years as a key Seagramís executive, and his current role as secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress.
Then I mention that several people from other Jewish organizations have said they were not at all surprised by the difficulties the World Jewish Congress has been facing, that its weak administration and sloppy record-keeping were an open secret. The WJC was, according to one insider, ìa volcano waiting to erupt.î
Herbits, a tall, lean 62-year-old with gray hair and a gray beard, nearly levitates out of his chair, instantly going ballistic.
ìAs you talk to the leaders of the other Jewish organizations, check their accomplishments against their governance,î he says in a voice thatís rising to fill the room. ìTheyíve got perfect governance and no fucking accomplishments.
...
Though the accusations he makes about other Jewish organizations are serious and sweepingófalse IRS filings, misuse of funds, ìoutlandishî benefits packages, and lying to the governmentóHerbits refuses to name names. ìYouíre not going to get me to do that,î he snaps. ìIím not going to play that game.î
But given the chance, he doesnít back down. Instead he ratchets up the rhetoric a notch. ìIím not going to sit by and let this organization take the rap for their behavior,î he says. ìIf we get into that kind of pissing match, this organization ainít going down by itself.îhttp://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/politics/international/features/11158/index.html
[Hmmm..... there’s something there, can’t quite put my finger on it.]
Church leaders say TV ads should not promote sex, alcohol or cigarettes. The government has fallen into line. Beer ads have been banned from radio and TV during the watershed, drinking is to be prohibited in a welter of public places and children under the age of 18 have finally been banned from buying beer, traditionally considered a soft drink in Russia.
Underlying the church's moral fervour is a deeper concern, which the government shares. Because of the media "sowing the seeds of licentiousness, selfishness, the cult of comfort and freedom from morality," says Patriarch Alexei II, "an increasing number of married couples do not have children at all."
Indeed the Kremlin is said to be worried that people are becoming too fond of the single, commitment-free, promiscuous lifestyle at the expense of Russia's birth rate. The current average birth rate is 1.25 children per woman. A rate of 2.13 needs to be attained if existing population levels are to be maintained - something that is regarded as vital for Russian national security.
...
http://www.rense.com/general63/kremlinactstostemtide.htm
The results that may most perturb animal welfare groups are those that suggest chickens can feel pain. Tests found that those known to be experiencing some form of discomfort or lameness chose food laced with morphine when given the choice. By contrast, chickens who were fully fit chose feed that was not spiked with an analgesic.
Another creature similarly viewed by modern society as little more than a benign food source - the cow - is also shown to be an astute animal capable of solving riddles with an intellect more traditionally associated with an ape. Studies at Oxford University found that Betty, a Caledonian heifer, instinctively bent a piece of wire, using a gap in her food tray to create a hook that allowed her to scrape food from the bottom of a jar.
...
The reputation of parrots as purveyors of a broad vocabulary is also reinforced with one study documenting how a grey parrot mastered 1,000 words and learnt to communicate in a manner that would shame some British adults. Parrots have an intellect comparable to a five-year-old human, and the conference will hear how potential parrot owners must weigh up buying one as if they were adopting a 'small child'
http://www.rense.com/general63/sent.htm
With high federal offices being given to the wives, sons and daughters of senior members of the Bush administration, the Hearst Corporation executives that publish Popular Mechanics magazine probably didn't worry about the ethical considerations of hiring a cousin of Michael Chertoff, a former Assistant Attorney General and the new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as senior researcher.
But the March 2005 issue of Popular Mechanics (PM) plumbs new depths of nepotism and Hearst-style "yellow journalism" with its cover story about 9/11. PM's senior researcher, 25-year-old Benjamin Chertoff, authored a propagandistic cover story entitled "Debunking 9/11 Lies" which seeks to discredit all independent 9/11 research that challenges the official version of events.
http://www.rense.com/general63/chertoffcousinwrote911.htm
Syria vowed a complete and swift two-phased withdrawal of its troops from Lebanon but President Bashar al-Assad said on Saturday Damascus would still play a role in the tiny neighbor it has dominated for 30 years. http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=D0HDAWFQC1RI0CRBAE0CFFA?type=topNews&storyID=7816806
The Bush administration's secret program to transfer suspected terrorists to foreign countries for interrogation has been carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency under broad authority that has allowed it to act without case-by-case approval from the White House or the State or Justice Departments, according to current and former government officials.
The unusually expansive authority for the C.I.A. to operate independently was provided by the White House under a still-classified directive signed by President Bush within days of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the officials said.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0306-01.htm
[By a strange coincidence the seas around England are now experiencing disturbing declines in virtually all areas of marine life.]
Highly radioactive waste has been dumped in Britain's seas and washed ashore, and nuclear research station workers covered up the pollution.
The Sunday Times reported that the owner of the Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness, Scotland, faced a criminal prosecution over a series of leaks, which have sent more than 50 radioactive particles onto a nearby public beach.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0306-03.htm
n July 2003, the Washington Post published a harrowing account of the torture of an Assyrian Christian woman in Baghdad. The woman, Jumana Hanna, took Post reporter Peter Finn to the prison where she said she had been jailed, tortured and raped for nothing more than marrying a non-Iraqi. Ms Hanna told the reporter her husband had been killed in a nearby prison and his lifeless body was later passed to her.
After the Post story appeared, US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz mentioned it in testimony to the US Senate: "There is a positive aspect in the distressing story of Jumana Hanna. That is her courage in coming forward to offer U.S. officials what is very likely credible information, information that is helping us to root out Baathist policemen who routinely tortured and killed prisoners."
...
It did not take long for a professional journalist to find out that very few if any details of Jumana Hanna’s account were true. She was not married to a foreigner, but to an Iraqi Arab. Her husband was not killed and was probably never in prison. Ms Hanna may have been jailed for a few months, but most likely for prostitution. One of her key witnesses appears to be a boyfriend to whom she has been sending money from the United States. So what is the true story of Jumana Hanna?
“It’s just a story about a homeless prostitute who single-handedly fooled the Pentagon, the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Washington Post,” says Sara Solovitch. Jumana Hanna also fooled many ordinary Americans who, touched by her story, rushed to deposit charitable contributions into the Iraqi woman’s account.
http://www.politinfo.com/articles/article_2005_03_6_0828.html
The most recent have been in Dover, Pennsylvania, where a school board has ruled that children should be made ‘aware of gaps/problems’ in evolutionary theory; and Cobb County, Georgia, where a school board has decided to appeal a ruling by a judge that disclaimers stating that evolution is a ‘theory, not a fact’ must be removed from textbooks. These challenges have pushed the teaching of evolution into mainstream debate, with critics of evolution appearing everywhere from the conservative Fox News to the liberal New York Times op-ed page.
http://www.gnn.tv/headlines/1308/Creationism_pluralism_and_the_compromising_of_science
He began his political career as a student activist and street fighter and ended up as the darling of the Germans. But Joschka Fischer, Germany's Green Party foreign minister and the man regularly voted the country's most popular politician, is now fighting for his political life amid allegations that he let thousands of illegal immigrants into Europe.
Fischer is accused of presiding over an overgenerous visa regime that allowed applicants from Ukraine and other former Soviet Union countries to pour into Germany. The scandal has led Germany's opposition Conservatives to demand his resignation.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1431499,00.html
New video released by the Lucas County Sheriff's Department shows a suspect being shocked with a Taser during his booking. Jeffrey Turner died in January after he was shocked nine times over a 3-hour period.
...
For now, 4 Tasers at the jail will remain out of the hands of command officers who used to carry them. "I think in general our staff thought it was a valuable tool. Whether their safety is actually jeopardized because we're not using them, that would be debatable. As I say, prior to one year ago, we never used them at all," said Keller. He says he's looking at getting other safety equipment for officers like shields.
http://www.wtol.com/global/story.asp?s=3028530&ClientType=Printable
China's influence on the world is seen as positive by more people than is the case for the US or Russia, according to a new BBC World Service poll.
In total, 48% of people polled in 22 countries said China's role was mainly positive. Only 30% saw it as mainly negative.
The majority of respondents were also positive about the communist nation's growing economic power.
But far fewer people wanted to see an increase in its military might.
Even in neighbouring Asian countries, which have historically been suspicious of China's dominance, opinions were relatively benign.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4318551.stm
[I have come across in a couple of plaes a rumor that Jeff Gannon is Johnny Gosch. At first I completely discounted this as just random internet static. But I went and hunted up some photos of Gannon, which I really didn’t want to do, and I have to admit the ages are close between them and the face does bear a fair resemblance between one and the other. I should say one of Gannon/Guckert’s reported ages. Apparently he has claimed to be around 30 and around 40. He looks closer to 30 to me, which would put him in the same range as Gosch.
You can get one or two photos of Johhny Gosch at the website
www.johnnygosch.com
There are more in the book, which I happen to have. Particularly I am looking at the age progression photo on page 323.
I am comparing to the photos on this website.
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/02/man-called-jeff.html
Again I have no way to know if this is a true link, my immediate feeling is that it isn’t. But if it is real I think it is kind of a sad ending to the Johnny Gosch story. Or at least a sad new chapter.
In case you don’t know Johnny Gosch was kidnapped while on a paper route back in 1982 and apparently sold as a sex slave tot he rich and powerful. But according to the book by his mother, Johnny eventually escaped from the clutches of his politically powerful masters and was hiding out. If this is a real identity between Gosch and Guckert it would seem to indicate that they brought him back into the fold.
But like I said, my first feeling is still that this is a red herring. But I can see how someone might make the connection.
Here’s someone else’s comment on this same subject.
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=5409
This is interesting as well
http://www.total411.info/2005/02/franklin-cover-up-figure-arrested-on.html
In any event: Jeff Gannon/JG Duckert is our hero -- and he should be a hero to bloggers everywhere. If a loon hooker, working under a pseudonym for a made-up news organization, can spend his days being buddy-buddy with Scott McClellan and George Bush, why, anything can happen for the rest of us!
http://www.wonkette.com/politics/personalities/free-hot-naked-jeff-gannon-033038.php]
When the national media bothers to cover the James Guckert case at all, it generally ocuses on the reporter/escort’s access to White House briefings for two years, operating under an alias (Jeff Gannon) and on behalf of a clearly partisan organization (GOPUSA). But there are local spinoffs as well.
Today, the Rapid City (S.D.) Journal examined the Guckert/Gannon links to the 2004 U.S. Senate contest in that state, which sent the Democratic leader, Sen. Tom Daschle, packing. The newspaper’s probe followed reports in E&P and elsewhere about Gannon’s apparent links to political operatives and bloggers in the state who are credited with helping to elect John Thune to the post.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000827954
[America’s communist ally- Uzbezistan: drowning, suffocation, rape, boiling people alive.]
A secret CIA program to transfer suspected terrorists to foreign countries that use torture during interrogations was approved at the highest levels of the U.S. government, one of the agents who helped set it up tells 60 Minutes.
Mike Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit and one of the agents who helped set up the program, tells 60 Minutes it was authorized by Clinton's National Security Council and officials in Congress - and all understood what it meant to send suspects to those countries.
"They don't have the same legal system we have. But we know that going into it," says Scheuer. "And so the idea that we're gonna suddenly throw our hands up like Claude Raines in 'Casablanca' and say, 'I'm shocked that justice in Egypt isn't like it is in Milwaukee,' there's a certain disingenuousness to that."
...
Murray tells 60 Minutes, that Uzbek interrogators use unusually cruel methods. "Techniques of drowning and suffocation, rape was used ...and also the insertion of limbs in boiling liquid....It's quite common," says Murray.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/06/national/main678373.shtml
CHARLES CLARKE is preparing to defy Britain’s most senior judges by keeping 10 foreign terror suspects in jail without charge despite the law lords’ ruling that it would be illegal.
The move is being proposed as a fall-back to prevent the suspects, including Al-Qaeda’s “key” ambassador in Europe, from walking free this week. Home Office sources said the home secretary had introduced the order in case the government’s new terrorism bill is defeated in parliament next week.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1512896,00.html
At UVM, this email was met with anger and questions, and probably even a few inquiries. The anger is now being organized into a drive to keep military recruiters off the university campus and out of the students' private communications. There is a petition campaign underway that demands that no recruiters for the regular military or the Vermont National Guard be allowed recruit on campus. Despite this, recruiters do show up unannounced on campus. One assumes that their strategy is designed to prevent student organizers from organizing protests against the recruiters' presence. In addition, there is organizing underway to organize some kind of response to the military and Guard's presence at the University's Spring Career Day on March 8th. (This career day is also the host to recruiters from various corporations from the war industry-General Dynamics foremost among them) Here in Vermont, the Guard recruitment hits close to home, since the state ranks near the top in the number of deaths per capita in Iraq. The likelihood of the university denying these recruiters access is slim, especially in light of the mass email, yet the students involved continue on undaunted. If the petition campaign fails to produce the results they desire, there will likely be some kind of protest.
...
Meanwhile, in high schools across the US, more students and their parents seem to be opting out of taking the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), a test given to high school juniors as a method of targeting potential recruits. It is an admissions and placement test for the US military. All persons enlisting in the US military are required to take the ASVAB. Although the military does not usually start turning up the pressure to join the military until students reach their senior year, about 14,000 high schools nationwide give this test to juniors. A recent piece in the Boston Globe detailed the troubles one recruiting office in New Hampshire is facing this year. According to ASVAB testing coordinator at the Military Entrance Processing Station in Boston, which handles enlistment processing for Rhode Island, much of New Hampshire and parts of Massachusetts, many parents are writing notes excusing their kids from taking the test. At one high school in Nashua, NH, school administrators opted out of even administering the test this year. This is not an isolated case either; of the thirty schools in the Boston region that administered the test in 2004, only nineteen signed up to do so this year. One wonders how long it will be before the military makes the test mandatory for graduation
http://counterpunch.org/jacobs03052005.html
posted by abu nakba at 3/06/2005 08:08:00 PM
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