Apa yang bisa diproduksi oleh kebencian? Kita bisa lihat sendiri disamping pengangguran yang berjumlah puluhan juta orang, juga secara amat meyakinkan kita sedang memproduksi masa depan yang amat menakutkan. Tidak hanya pernikahan yang beranak pinak, kebencian bahkan bisa menghasilkan anak, cucu, cicit dengan wajah-wajah yang lebih menakutkan. Lihatlah sejarah, di sana sudah tertulis banyak sekali catatan tentang kebencian yang beranak pinak, dan kemudian menghasilkan kehidupan yang mengerikan.

Mirip dengan sebuah cerita Zen tentang dua orang pendeta yang mau berenang menyeberangi sungai. Tiba-tiba ada wanita cantik yang berteriak di belakang meminta digendong. Dan pendeta lebih tuapun menyanggupinya. Dua jam setelah kejadian itu berlalu, pendeta yang lebih muda bertanya: 'kenapa abang sebagai pendeta mau menggendong wanita cantik tadi?' Dengan sedikit kesal pendeta tua berucap: 'saya sudah menurunkan tubuh wanita tadi dua jam yang lalu, namun kamu menggendongnya sampai dengan sekarang'.

Demikianlah cara kerja kebencian. Oleh karena sebuah atau beberapa kejadian yang sudah lewat di masa lalu - sebagian bahkan sudah lewat ratusan tahun yang lalu - sebagian orang menggendong kebencian bahkan sampai ketika dipanggil sang kematian. Sehingga praktis seumur hidup orang-orang seperti itu isi waktunya hanya kebencian, kebencian dan hanya kebencian. Anda pasti sudah tahu sendiri akibat yang ditimbulkan oleh semua itu. Jangankan doa dan perjalanan menuju Tuhan, tubuh dan jiwanya sendiri pasti dikunjungi berbagai macam penyakit.

Dalam keadaan begini, tidak ada pilihan lain terkecuali belajar dan mendidik diri untuk melupakan kebencian serta mulai memaafkan orang lain. Ya sekali lagi memaafkan orang lain. Inilah sebuah kegiatan yang amat sulit di zaman ini. Berat, sulit, tidak mungkin, tidak bisa itulah rangkaian stempel yang diberikan kepada seluruh upaya untuk memaafkan orang lain. Saya bahkan menemukan orang-orang dengan beban tidak bisa memaafkan dalam jumlah yang tidak terhitung.

Sehingga ini semua menyisakan pekerjaan rumah yang besar bagi saya (dan mungkin juga Anda), terutama bagaimana berjalan dalam hidup dengan sesedikit mungkin beban kebencian. Di titik ini, mungkin ada manfaatnya mengutip apa yang pernah ditulis Rabindranath Tagore dalam The Heart of God : 'when the far and the near will kiss each other, and life will be one in love'. Bila yang jauh berciuman dengan yang dekat, maka kehidupan menyatu dalam cinta. Mungkin kedengarannya puitis sekaligus mengundang alis berkerut.

Yang jauh, setidaknya menurut saya, adalah kejadian-kejadian di masa lalu sekaligus harapan-harapan kita akan masa depan. Yang dekat adalah kehidupan kita yang riil dan nyata di hari ini. Dan keduanya tidak mungkin disatukan oleh kebencian. Ia jauh lebih mungkin dijembatani oleh kesediaan untuk memaafkan. Dan dari sinilah lahir bibit-bibit unggul cinta buat sang kehidupan. Dan bibit-bibit unggul cinta ini, mungkin saja bisa menyembuhkan orang yang dimaafkan. Tetapi yang jelas, kegiatan memaafkan pasti menyembuhkan siapa saja yang mau dan rela memaafkan. Seperti baru saja meletakkan beban berat yang lama tergendong di bahu, demikianlah rasanya ketika kita rela memaafkan orang lain. Keyakinan ini bukannya tanpa bukti, Bernie Siegel dalam karya best seller-nya yang berjudul Love, Medicine and Miracles mengajukan sebuah bukti meyakinkan. Sebagaimana ia tulis secara amat percaya diri di halaman 202 bukunya, Siegel telah mengkoleksi 57 kasus keajaiban kanker. Di mana ke lima puluh tujuh orang ini sudah positif terkena kanker, dan begitu mereka menghentikan secara total dan radikal kebencian, depresinya menurun drastis, dan yang paling penting tumornya mulai menyusut. Sebagai kesimpulan, Siegel menulis : 'when you give love, you receive it at the same time. And letting go of the past and forgiving everyone and everything sure helps you not to be afraid'. Ketika Anda memberi maaf, Anda juga menerimanya pada saat yang sama. Dan kesediaan untuk melepas masa lalu dengan cara memaafkan, secara meyakinkan membantu Anda keluar dari kekhawatiran.

Dan mohon dicatat kalau kesimpulan ini datang dari Berni Siegel yang nota bene salah seorang ahli bedah di Amerika sana. Kembali ke cerita awal tentang lautan kebencian yang tidak bertepi, bila kita sepakat agar republik ini secepat mungkin mengalami penyembuhan, bisa jadi saran Siegel ini layak direnungkan kembali. Saya dan Anda mungkin bukan penentu di republik ini, tetapi kita bisa memulainya dengan kehidupan kita masing-masing. Entah itu memaafkan isteri, suami, musuh, diri sendiri, atau siapa saja. Seperti telah diingatkan Rabindranath Tagore, bukankah itu bisa membuat sang kehidupan menyatu dalam cinta?

Disunting dari tulisan : Gede Prama di Julhandiarso
(www.flickr.com/ photos/julhandia rso)

Erläuterung: Der Moment in dem sich der Schatten am Turm optisch mit dem Flieger trifft, ist der Moment in dem das Flugzeug ins Gebäude eindringt.

Vermutlich wusste man das ein Flugzeugeinschlag selbst das Gebäude nicht wirklich ernsthaft beschädigen konnte und wollte somit den Schaden maximieren.

1. "While it’s nothing new for L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa to travel, this time his trip was to launch agreements with the Israeli government on water conservation and security of Los Angeles’s port and international airport. This set a precedent for the nation’s second largest city to contemplate granting a foreign power control over its sensitive ports of entry.
...

As council members largely ignored the testimonies by talking on cell phones or drifting in and out of the chamber, Greta Berlin of Women In Black admonished the city officials:

“Please put down your phones and listen to what I have to say. I’ve witnessed what Israel does at its airport in the name of security. My 80-year-old Holocaust survivor friend was subjected to a cavity body search and I was detained and interrogated for eight hours because both of us advocate justice for the Palestinians."

http://www.washington-report.org/archives/Sept_Oct_2008/0809048.html

2. "University Students ‘Forced To Know Stuff’

Knowledge-Based Initiations ‘Cruel’, Say NUS

Several universities are under investigation after allegations were made by former students that they were to take part in bizarre and degrading initiation rites. Amongst the allegations are claims that before being allowed entry into some universities, students were made to “Display the ability to comprehend complex concepts” and “Show understanding of a particular topic through properly-structured essays and reports.”
...
The initiation rituals, known as ‘examining’, are believed to be spreading to universities across the country, according to Ebbsfleet. “Students just want to fit in and be part of a group. It used to be the case that an undergraduate could do that by simply drinking cider all day and making their hair look like a bungled gorilla abortion. But in many universities, students risk not completing GTA IV because they’re forced to read lots of books, do research and - in extreme cases – reach independent conclusions on subject matters based on logic and reasoning.”

http://pushjelly.blogspot.com/2008/10/university-students-forced-to-know.html

October1,2008

1. It turns out that Gen. Douglas MacArthur, of all people, in the early 50s warned us against what has happened:

""It is a part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear. While such an economy may produce a sense of seeming prosperity for the moment, it rests on an illusionary foundation of complete unreliability and renders among our political leaders almost a greater fear of peace than is their fear of war."
...
"The bald interpretation of General MacArthur's words is this. War becomes an instrument of domestic policy. Among the control mechanisms on the government's panel board now is a dial marked War. It may be set to increase or decrease the tempo of military expenditures, as the planners decide that what the economy needs is a little more inflation or a little less – but of course never any deflation. And whereas it was foreseen that when Executive Government is resolved to control the economy it will come to have a vested interest in the power of inflation, so now we may perceive that it will come also to have a kind of proprietary interest in the institution of perpetual war."

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13533

2. What a moron - it's hard to feel anything other than pity:

"Palin Cannot Name any Newspapers or Magazines She Reads
Remember how Sarah Palin said that she explored foreign countries through books and how implausible that was?

Now it turns out that she can't even name any newspapers or magazines that she reads reqularly. Pressed by Katie Couric, she said she reads 'all of 'em, any of 'em that have been in front of me all these years . . . a vast variety.'

http://www.juancole.com/

3. "The great insight of the Palin VP choice is that huge chunks of American voters no longer even demand that their candidates actually have policy positions; they simply consume them as media entertainment, rooting for or against them according to the reflexive prejudices of their demographic, as they would for reality-show contestants or sitcom characters. Hicks root for hicks, moms for moms, born-agains for born-agains. Sure, there was politics in the Palin speech, but it was all either silly lies or merely incidental fluffery buttressing the theatrical performance. A classic example of what was at work here came when Palin proudly introduced her Down syndrome baby, Trig, then stared into the camera and somberly promised parents of special-needs kids that they would "have a friend and advocate in the White House." This was about a half-hour before she raised her hands in triumph with McCain, a man who voted against increasing funding for special-needs education."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20914.htm

4. "The entire premise of the bailout plan - that it will unfreeze frozen credit markets - is false."

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/10/entire-premise-of-paulson-plan-is-false.html

September 30, 2008

1. " Still more lies and deceptions will surely hit us as the fear-selling two-party plutocracy works hard to convince us prior to the coming election that things have turned better. In reality, there is no reason whatsoever for thinking that the nation is back on the right track. Of all the many narcotic delusions filling people’s heads the most dangerous and self-defeating is that we can vote our way out of this mess. Everyone needs to understand that Democrats in Congress have played a major role in delivering the nation into the abyss we now find ourselves in.
...
Back to my point: Americans cannot vote their way out of this mess. Their only real opportunity this year is to vote AGAINST the two-party plutocracy by voting for any of the four third-party presidential candidates. We need the world to see tens of millions of votes protesting the failures of both major parties. This electoral rebellion would keep faith with Thomas Jefferson’s correct view that America would need a revolution every generation or so. To keep voting for Democrats and Republicans just makes gullible and delusional citizens co-conspirators in the vast criminal conspiracy that is our political system. "

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20903.htm

2. Why do so many people think she's a legitimate candidate?

"PALIN: That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, were ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy, helping the—it's got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we've got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that.

This is nonsense—a vapid emptying out of every catchphrase about economics that came into her head."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20907.htm

3. "Tesco “Now Richer Than Wall Street”

Tesco unveiled their 10% increase in profits for the first half of 2008 by carving their profit & loss balance sheet in letters 300-foot high into the side of Mount Kilimanjaro.
...
As the hundreds of thousands of Tesco staff massed in the Tanzanian plains, Leahy revealed his yearly bonus, which is set to include “As many pound coins as there are atoms in a rhino’s cock, 78% of the tea in China, and the delightfully picturesque Scandinavian paradise of Norway”. It is believed Leahy plans to convert Norway into an 18-million hole golf course.

Leahy plans to expand Tesco’s empire by buying out every struggling banking institution on Wall Street and forcing the wealthy financiers to gather trollies in Tesco’s Knutsford branch for minimum wage."

September 30, 2008

1. "October Surprise: Goverment Computers To Go Offline During Voter Registration Peak
...
If the shutdown goes as planned, it will seriously impair the ability of states to process new voter registrations before the November 4 election. Who would this impact? New voters, as well as people who re-register because they have moved, who do not have state-issued driver's licenses or non-driver's IDs. Those citizens are disproportionately older, African-American, and low-income, studies show."

http://www.911blogger.com/node/17990

2. "Stalin said that dictatorships only last so long as the dictators keep their people well-fed. Americans have been strongly motivated not to question the government because they have been led to believe that if they just follow the party line, they'll get nice jobs, make a bundle of dough, buy into "the American dream". A crash has the possibility to awaken Americans from their long nap. It has the potential to get Americans to open their eyes and start questioning the lies they have been told by our government and their media lapdogs about virtually everything. Indeed, polls show that the economic crisis has increased Americans' distrust in government."

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/09/economic-crash-is-window-of-opportunity.html

3. "The name fits: the positions of Professor Ze'ev Sternhell indeed stand out sharply against the darkness of the sky. He warns against Israeli fascism. This week, Israeli fascists laid a pipe bomb at the entrance of his apartment, and he was lightly injured.
...
Israeli fascism is alive and kicking. It is growing in the flower bed that produced the various religious-nationalist underground groups of the past: the group that tried to bomb the Muslim shrines on the Temple Mount, the underground that tried to assassinate the Palestinian mayors, the "Kach" gang, the perpetrator of the Hebron massacre Baruch Goldstein, the murderer of peace activist Emil Gruenzweig, the murderer of Yitzhak Rabin, and all the underground groups that were uncovered at an early stage before their deeds could bring them to public notice."

http://www.antiwar.com/avnery/?articleid=13525

4. “Most Americans would be shocked to learn that upon their return to the U.S. from traveling abroad, the government could demand the password to their laptop, hold it for as long as it wants, pore over their documents, emails, and photographs, and examine which websites they visited – all without any suggestion of wrong-doing,” Feingold said. "Focusing our limited law enforcement resources on law-abiding Americans who present no basis for suspicion does not make us any safer and is a gross violation of privacy. This bill will bring the government’s practices at the border back in line with the reasonable expectations of law-abiding Americans.”

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Lawmaker_seek_ban_of_suspicionless_laptop_0929.html

5. I thought we had a volunteer Army:

"Five Army recruiters from the same Houston-based battalion have committed suicide in recent years, leading veteran advocate groups to ask for more scrutiny of such stressful jobs during wartime.
...
Recruiting is considered a tough job in the military. Recruiters face pressure to sign at least two “prospects” a month, which is more difficult during war. If they don’t “make mission,” recruiters can be punished with longer duty hours and threatened with losing rank or receiving bad evaluations, veterans advocates said."

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/ap_recruitersuicides_092708/

6. As I said a couple of days ago, the recent Pakistan hotel bombing was an obvious false flag (that of course had nothing to do with Al Qaeda - which doesn't actually exist at all):

"And there you have it; it doesn’t matter who did it; it doesn’t matter who claimed responsibility; it doesn’t matter why Marines were acting mysteriously (and evading security) in the building shortly before it was attacked; it doesn’t matter what evidence is collected during the investigation; it doesn’t even matter whether there is an investigation.
What matters is that the media and the politicians have already decided who’s going to be blamed, and who’s going to pay the price. And once again — just like 9/11 — it won’t be the perpetrators."
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10384

7. ""There are about 30 scams the Republicans are deliberately using, particularly in the swing states to get Democratic voters off the rolls. These scams originate in the so-called Help America Vote Act which was passed after the Florida debacle in the year 2000. It was originally suggested by Democrats and Republicans but it was passed by a Republican congress with a Republican senate and a Republican president. And instead of reforming what happened in Florida it basically institutionalized all the problems that happened in Florida. And institutionalized a series of impediments that make it very difficult for Democrats to register, for Democrats to vote and then for Democrats to have their vote counted."

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10386

8. "Senator John McCain, whose rise to the highest levels in politics is literally built on his POW experience in Vietnam, has “worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn’t return home,"The Nation magazine disclosed.
...
Schanberg goes on to say “very few Americans are aware of McCain’s role not only in keeping the subject out of public view but in denying the existence of abandoned POWs.”

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10380

9. "President Obama, with Vice President Palin? President Biden? President Pelosi? Call them the "Doomsday" scenarios -- On Nov. 5, the presidential election winds up in a electoral-college tie, 269-269, the Democrat-controlled House picks Sen. Barack Obama as president, but the Senate, with former Democrat Joe Lieberman voting with Republicans, deadlocks at 50-50, so Vice President Dick Cheney steps in to break the tie to make Republican Sarah Palin his successor."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/23/an-electoral-college-doomsday/

September 29, 2008

1. So overseas the newscasters feel free to call WTC 7 a controlled demolition. Why not here?

"Keiser has been making his rounds on international broadcasts, including France 24 and Press TV where he compares the collapse of the US banking system to WTC 7 - "a controlled demolition."

http://www.opednews.com/articles/-The-US-Banking-Collapse-w-by-Amy-de-Miceli-080926-104.html

2. From a Texas A&M student newspaper:

"Find out about the pools of molten metal under the rubble of all three buildings. Office fires or jet fuel do not come close to melting steel, yet these pools of molten metal continued for many weeks despite days of rain and fire hoses."

http://media.www.theeasttexan.com/media/storage/paper1164/news/2008/09/25/Opinion/911-Truth.Movement.Continues.To.Grow-3456344.shtml

3. This is why the debates are meaningless, and not worth anyone's time:

"But there’s no place for a serious discussion of wholesale U.S. war crimes, such as Bush’s decision to launch an aggressive war under false pretenses, the sort of offense that the Nuremberg Tribunal after World War II called the “supreme” international crime.

In a healthy democracy, moderator Jim Lehrer might have been expected to ask Obama and McCain whether President Bush should be shipped off to The Hague for a trial as a war criminal or whether he should be put before American courts to face serious criminal charges, such as violation of anti-torture statutes.

...

Since then, questions about American misconduct had to be muted for fear that any criticism would be labeled unpatriotic or disloyal. Mainstream journalists and politicians learned to couch their concerns about U.S. foreign policy as questions about tactics or effectiveness.

Arguably, however, that timidity has contributed to the frequency, brutality and criminality of U.S. military actions. It is hard to explain the Iraq War, for instance, without observing that Bush and his neoconservative advisers were confident they could roll both Congress and the Washington press corps."

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/092708.html

4. Congresswoman Rep. Marcy Kaptur today:

"The normal legislative process that should accompany a monumental proposal to bail out Wall Street has been shelved. Yes, shelved! Only a few insiders are doing the dealing. These criminals have so much power they can shut down the normal legislative process of the highest lawmaking body in this land. All the committees that should be scanning every word that is being negotiated have been benched. And that means the American people have been benched. We are constitutionally sworn to protect this country against all enemies foreign and domestic, and yes, my friends, there are enemies....The people who are pushing this bill are the very same one's who are responsible for the implosion on Wall Street. They were fraudulent then; and they are fraudulent now.We should say No to this deal".

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20900.htm

5. "Ahmadinejad Accepts Israel's Right to Exist

The Iranian president has said he would accept a two-state solution if the Palestinians agree. So where are the headlines?"

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20898.htm

6. "Fat Man Sues Tesco Over Exercise DVD
“No Respect For My Life Of Gluttonous Sloth” Says Fired Behemoth
...
The 23-stone former employee was fired last month for ‘gross misconduct’ but Ebbsfleet insists Tesco victimised him due to his beliefs. “I’ve always maintained that a life of inertia and inactivity is, you know, good and that. I’ve never been to the gym in my life and I get taxis everywhere. I save my energy for higher thoughts and stuff, don’t I?"

http://pushjelly.blogspot.com/2008/09/news-round-up_29.html

September 26, 2008

1. These seem like very good rules of thumb to remember at all times, along with my favorite of all - "If you have to lie to make your case, you don't have a case to make":

"Reality can be detected, however, by applying the Orwell Rule and inverting public pronouncements and headlines, such as "Aggressor Russia facing pariah status, US warns," thereby identifying the correct pariah;
...
"When truth is replaced by silence," said the Soviet dissident Yevgeny Yevtushenko, "the silence is a lie."
...
As if celebrating life in another solar system, he wrote: "For the first time ever, most of the world's most powerful nations do not want to conquer territory." That reads, now as it ought to have read then, as dark parody in a world where more than 24,000 children die every day from the effects of poverty and at least a million people lie dead in just one territory conquered by the most powerful nations.
...
The product of these organized delusions is rarely acknowledged. The current economic crisis, with its threat to jobs and savings and public services, is the direct consequence of a rampant militarism comparable, in large part, with that of the first half of the last century, when Europe's most advanced and cultured nation [Germany] committed genocide.

http://www.antiwar.com/pilger/?articleid=13508

2. "many experts state that most of Britain will open their curtains on December 25th to “Scenes of unremitting bleakness, bereft of hope, charity or even a hint of rosy-cheeked yuletide jollity.”

Government predictor Tony Ebbsfleet stated “Now the Met Office has had time to collate all the data, it’s clear that this summer was the equivalent of listening to slowed-down Joy Division for a week in a damp bedsit in Clitheroe."

http://pushjelly.blogspot.com/2008/09/shite-christmas-predicted.html

September 25, 2008

1. I didn't know this, but Kurt Vonnegut, the author of the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, about the WWII Allied fire-bombing of Dresden, was actually in Dresden that horrible night. Here is his own story, never before printed (the entire article, not just these highlights, is a must-read):

"Tabulate the loss against the gain. Over 100,000 noncombatants and a magnificent city destroyed by bombs dropped wide of the stated objectives: the railroads were knocked out for roughly two days. The Germans counted it the greatest loss of life suffered in any single raid. The death of Dresden was a bitter tragedy, needlessly and wilfully executed. The killing of children – “Jerry” children or “Jap” children, or whatever enemies the future may hold for us – can never be justified.
...

The facile reply to great groans such as mine is the most hateful of all clichés, “fortunes of war”, and another: “They asked for it. All they understand is force.”

Who asked for it? The only thing who understands is force?

...

There can be no doubt that the allies fought on the side of right and the Germans and Japanese on the side of wrong. World war two was fought for near-holy motives. But I stand convinced that the brand of justice in which we dealt, wholesale bombings of civilian populations, was blasphemous. That the enemy did it first has nothing to do with the moral problem.
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/book_extracts/article4038905.ece

2. "When Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate, I had great hopes that the Delaware senator would indeed awaken the citizenry. Throughout his failed campaign for the presidency, Biden continually riffed on his 2007 bill—the National Security and Justice Act—that would "Prohibit CIA 'extraordinary renditions,' close 'black sites' . . . [and] prohibit torture and mistreatment of detainees in U.S. custody." Bush, Biden emphasized, "has undermined the basic civil liberties of American citizens. The terrorists win when we abandon our civil liberties."

But as of this writing, the putative vice president has become silent on all of this, fulfilling his assignment as an attack dog tracking McCain and Sarah Palin.

...

His answer: "There is almost no mention of, let alone focus on, the sheer radicalism and extremism of the last eight years. . . . Our government has systematically tortured people using sadistic techniques ordered by the White House; illegally and secretly spied on its own citizens . . . asserted the authority to arrest and detain even U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and hold them for years without charges. . . ."
...
If Barack Obama, the former professor of constitutional law, doesn't wake up in time before Election Day and show the citizenry how he will begin to restore the universal health of our liberties—so radically disabled by his predecessors—we may get lower gasoline prices, along with expanding individual secret dossiers in the bottomless files of the security state."

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-09-23/columns/when-is-obama-going-to-start-talking-about-bush-s-dark-side/1

3. What do you want to bet that this email named one or all of William Patrick, Jerome Hauer, and Stephen Hatfill?

"Newly released court documents show suspected anthrax attacker Bruce Ivins e-mailed himself last year saying he knew who the killer was. Ivins said he planned to turn over the information to his attorneys and congratulated himself for piecing together the information that had eluded the government for years."

http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=373834

4. What happened to our 4th Amendment protection against search and seizure?

" The Bush administration has overturned a 22-year-old policy and now allows customs agents to seize, read and copy documents from travelers at airports and borders without suspicion of wrongdoing, civil rights lawyers in San Francisco said Tuesday in releasing records obtained in a lawsuit.

The records also indicate that the government gives customs agents unlimited authority to question travelers about their religious beliefs and political opinions,
...
"For more than 20 years, the government implicitly recognized that reading and copying the letters, diaries, and personal papers of travelers without reason would chill Americans' right to free speech and free expression," Sinnar said. "But now customs officials can probe into the thoughts and lives of ordinary travelers without any suspicion at all."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/23/BA9P133LEA.DTL

5. "Mao Zedong announced the adage by which John McCain is clearly living now: "The enemy advances, we retreat. / The enemy camps, we harass. / The enemy tires, we attack." Mao was describing not a conventional but a guerrilla war, and McCain is now unexpectedly playing the Filipino insurgents of 1899 to Obama's America. Guerrilla wars are waged by the weak but wily. McCain has all but announced that his conventional campaign has crashed and burned. We do not know if the prepping for the debate was a disaster, or it turns out you really can't let Palin be interviewed freely by normal people, or whether terror set in that a second great depression will turn the country starkly to the left for the foreseeable future.

Far from challenging Obama in swing states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Colorado, McCain is suddenly behind substantially in all three (McCain 45% to Obama's 49% in Colorado; McCain 44% to Obama 51% in Michigan).

McCain thus threw off his stiff officer's uniform and donned the silky black pyjamas of the guerrilla, beating a hasty retreat before the Obama surge. The retreat was dressed up as a "suspension" of the campaign and a "postponement" of the debate (a debate that would have been McCain's Waterloo. Forced to debate a charismatic policy wonk on top of economic issues on the very week of the financial meltdown, the economically challenged McCain would have gone down flaming to decisive defeat."

http://www.juancole.com/

6. Take a minute and watch the videos on the page - the second video is even scarier than the first:

"But Sarah Palin's performance in the tiny vignettes of unscripted dialogue in which we've been allowed to see her has been nothing short of frightening -- really, as I said, pity-inducing.
...
One of two things is absolutely clear at this point: she is either (a) completely ignorant about the most basic political issues -- a vacant, ill-informed, incurious know-nothing, or (b) aggressively concealing her actual beliefs about these matters because she's petrified of deviating from the simple-minded campaign talking points she's been fed and/or because her actual beliefs are so politically unpalatable, even when taking into account the right-wing extremism that is permitted, even rewarded, in our mainstream. I'm not really sure which is worse, but it doesn't really matter, because with 40 days left before the election, both options are heinous.
...
she was incapable of answering questions from reporters or mastering political issues. That's where I was wrong -- and see here for still more evidence of just how shockingly incapable she is. That's more than just being inarticulate. It's exhibiting a complete inability to formulate a coherent thought about core issues."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

7. "Some commentators are concerned that the experiment could possibly create a “Kyle Hole”, a point in the universe of infinitesimal size and immeasurable idiocy from which no rational thought, reasoned debate, culture or intellect can escape.
...
At first, no effect will be noticed, but within a few days, the Swiss will show a noticeable upturn in the amount of novelty ringtones downloaded onto phones, says Cain. After just a couple of weeks, most of mainland Europe will barely be able to read without moving their lips. And by the end of September? “The whole planet will be engulfed by people unable to tie their own shoes, pounding their fists against the laces grunting ‘Make foot clothes go tight! Nnnggh!’. The end of thought as we know it.”

http://pushjelly.blogspot.com/2008/09/scientists-prove-to-existence-of.html

September 23, 2008

1. "There was one other thing I wanted to address, about the use of the term "detainee." We were told it had to be detainee. It had to be detainee. If it's a prisoner, then they are a prisoner of war, and subject to entirely different laws. If they're detainees, they're subject to no law whatsoever, because there aren't laws for detainees. Because they are called detainees, they don't get trials and there is no code for how they're treated. It's semantics, and we need to pay attention to those; they're important. It's the difference between calling something a detention facility and a concentration camp, even if they're the same thing. "

http://www.antiwar.com/glantz/?articleid=13493

2. This why antiwar.com is trustworthy:

"The American left is also claimed by the Israel lobby. It means that the burden of waging Israel's p.r. war falls so heavily even on liberal Democrats that you cannot broach the subject in good lefty circles without fear of ending the dinner party. It means that Jews are a tremendously important part of the Democratic base, left (Dailykos) or lib (Huffpo) it makes no difference.
...

Why is this so revealing? Because if anyone has balls, it's Dailykos. If anyone has independence, you'd think it's Dailykos. They're the leftwing base of the party. They are freethinkers and free-sayers. They're not the Steve Grossmans or the Hillarys. They were for Obama all the way, which is why I go there all the time. And my point is that the left is so claimed by this concern that they cannot talk about it.

...

It means that antiwar.com, maybe because it is on the west coast and feels the burden less than leftwing institutions in NY and DC, has done the brave important task of taking on the lobby, and thereby alienated some of its natural base. "
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2008/09/the-american-left-also-is-claimed-by-the-israel-lobby.html

3. Uh-oh. This is exactly what I didn't want to have happen. In my example, this is buying the mortgages at 80 cents, not 50 cents, which hurts us, and helps the banks:

"So Bernanke is arguing against the government purchasing Wall Street's toxic assets at their real price (which would benefit taxpayers) and for the Wall Street firms themselves to set whatever arbitrary price they like, since they "have a view of what they think it's worth" and "it's hard for outsiders to know"."

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/09/bernanke-admits-bailout-is-not-aimed-at.html

4. "

• The Republican ideology of deregulation and free markets has been discredited and thrown into the scrap heap of history. The total lack of regulation in the financial industry let the inmates run the asylum and almost collapsed our financial system.

• The Democratic ideology of believing that every American should own a home has proven to be one of the stupidest ideas in the history of our country. The housing implosion, which continues today, proves that many morons in this country should rent forever.

• The current crisis proves that a "village idiot" could have done less damage to our country if they had been CEO of any of our financial institutions, rather than the Harvard MBAs now in charge. Their total lack of foresight, vision, strategy, or risk management argues for the elimination of the immoral pay packages of all CEOs. The greed and short-term profit motives of these CEOs and top executives leads to awful decision-making with tragic consequences."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20845.htm

5. Naomi Klein (who wrote Shock Doctrine) herself weighs in on the current catastrophe:

"What Gingrich's wish list tells us is that the dumping of private debt into the public coffers is only stage one of the current shock. The second comes when the debt crisis currently being created by this bailout becomes the excuse to privatize social security, lower corporate taxes and cut spending on the poor. A President McCain would embrace these policies willingly. A President Obama would come under huge pressure from the think tanks and the corporate media to abandon his campaign promises and embrace austerity and "free-market stimulus."

We have seen this many times before, in this country and around the world. But here's the thing: these opportunistic tactics can only work if we let them. They work when we respond to crisis by regressing, wanting to believe in "strong leaders" -- even if they are the same strong leaders who used the September 11 attacks to push through the Patriot Act and launch the illegal war in Iraq.

So let's be absolutely clear: there are no saviors who are going to look out for us in this crisis.

Certainly not Henry Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, one of the companies that will benefit most from his proposed bailout (which is actually a stick up). The only hope of preventing another dose of shock politics is loud, organized grassroots pressure on all political parties: they have to know right now that after seven years of Bush, Americans are becoming shock resistant."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20848.htm

If any of you want to read up on Shock Doctrine, this is a good overview:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18430.htm

6. "A female juror has been shot and killed during a reconstruction of the last moments of Jean Charles de Menezes for the inquest into his death. While the juror’s identity has yet to be made public, police person Inspector Jack Ebbsfleet has described her as “In her mid-thirties, sort of an Arab-y, Asian-y colour and well dodgy-looking.”

Inspector Ebbsfleet stated “It is a tragedy that once again, our brave officers have been put through this kind of trauma. I can assure the public they will be on full paid sickness leave until they feel ready to bust caps into the asses of passers-by.”

http://pushjelly.blogspot.com/2008/09/juror-shot-in-menezes-trial.html

September 23, 2008

I assume you're asking if the bailout will "work", meaning our basic economy survives. (Obviously, the elite's plan to gain control over even more of our life will "work", since they generally get what they want. You are right that this is Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine being put into action against all of us.)

Here's the lowdown on the bailout. Assume a mortgage has a face value of one dollar. The banks and financial houses have already written down the mortgage to 80 cents, and taken a 20% loss. This forced them to raise extra capital over the last year, massively weakening them, and substantially hurting everyone from the CEO down. (Fuld, the Lehman CEO, saw the value of his stock drop from 500 million to less than 5 million.) Unfortunately, because no one knows how many foreclosures will occur over the next two years, the world is only valuing mortgages at 50 cents now, a big drop from 80 cents. If the banks formally acknowledge this further decline in value, they would have to raise more capital to survive - but no one anywhere in the world is willing to give them any more capital. This is why we are seeing all institutions begin to fail over the last two weeks, since everyone knows the mortgages aren't worth 80 cents any more.

If the government bailout buys these mortgages at 80 cents, the banks make out like a bandit, since the mortgages are only worth 50 cents. This hurts taxpayers, because "we" will be paying more for these mortgages than they are worth. Conversely, if the government buys the mortgages at their current value of 50 cents, taxpayers (you and I0 are protected, but the banks are hurt - because they are currently valuing mortgages at 80 cents, and would thus have to go out and raise more capital to survive.

So the question is whether the bailout protects banks (by buying mortgages at 80 cents), or protects taxpayers (by buying mortgages at 50 cents). I think the government will buy them at 65 cents, to split the difference, and the pain. They don't want the banks to make out like bandits, but they also don't want the banks to have to raise an impossibly high amount of new capital.

Over the long term, as these mortgages are paid off, I think it won't cost us nearly as much as we think it will, because the mortgages are still worth a lot more than 50 cents, and may even be worth a lot more than 65 cents. I don't think the foreclosure rate will reach 15%.

The problem is that, no matter how much of this bailout is repaid to the government over the next decade, it is still an enormously gigantic outlay of dollars right now, at a time of severe weakness in our economy, and limited available government revenue (in part because so much money continues to be wasted on unnecessary wars).

September 22, 2008

1. "This week we see again that punishment is less for murdering four Iraqis than for refusing to participate in a war that many citizens, and many in the military, see as a crime against the peace - a war crime."

http://www.truthout.org/article/when-refusing-kill-has-a-higher-sentence-than-murder

2. "The US military sees the next 30 to 40 years as involving a state of continuous war against ideologically-motivated terrorists and competing with Russia and China for natural resources and markets
...
It states explicitly that the US military is preparing to fight continuous resource wars "for the long haul"."

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/0922/1221998220381.html

4. "John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn't return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero who people would logically imagine as a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books.

Almost as striking is the manner in which the mainstream press has shied from reporting the POW story and McCain's role in it, even as the Republican Party has made McCain's military service the focus of his presidential campaign. Reporters who had covered the Vietnam War turned their heads and walked in other directions. McCain doesn't talk about the missing men, and the press never asks him about them.

The sum of the secrets McCain has sought to hide is not small. There exists a telling mass of official documents, radio intercepts, witness depositions, satellite photos of rescue symbols that pilots were trained to use, electronic messages from the ground containing the individual code numbers given to airmen, a rescue mission by a special forces unit that was aborted twice by Washington—and even sworn testimony by two Defense secretaries that "men were left behind." This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number—the documents indicate probably hundreds—of the US prisoners held by Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20835.htm

4. "George Michael Apologises For Wham
“I Clearly Need Help” Says Club Tropicana Singer

George Michael held a hastily-arranged press conference this morning to publicly apologise for his many years of music abuse. “I’ve screwed up, over and over and over and over again” said the tearful star. “From Wham Rap, through Careless Whisper to that one about George Bush that nobody bought, I’ve taken advantage of my fan’s trust to release inspid singles onto an undeserving public.”

Many music insiders feel that patience is wearing thin for the strangely-bearded singer and that his apology might be too little too late. Chips Ebbsfleet of music website Tune A Sandwich said “I think in the 80’s people were a lot more forgiving. Sure, Michael did a hell of a lot of gaudy, poorly-written pop but everyone was doing it at the time.”

The singer is expected to check into a songwriting clinic to “Rid myself of my many demons – limp funk, 5th-form poetry and pretensions to proper soul music.” At time of press, Andrew Ridgely was unavailable for comment. “His shift doesn’t start until 3pm, mate.” explained the manager of A1 Minicabs."

September 22, 2008

1. Lieberman, YouTube (and thus Google), all bastards:

"Internet attacks on 9/11 Truth intensify
...
That CNET admits these videos were removed as a direct result of Lieberman's staff's request is significant, as it was Lieberman who has been urging YouTube to take down "radicalizing" terrorist propaganda since May of this year to bring it into compliance with H.R. 1955, a bill that is currently awaiting approval by the Senate and which would criminalize all dissent of the government. That H.R. 1955 will specifically target the 9/11 Truth community is made obvious by a presentation made to the House Homeland Security Subcommittee in 2007 on "Terrorism and the Internet" which actually listed 9/11 Truth sites alongside terrorist jihad sites as examples of terrorist propaganda on the internet."

http://www.corbettreport.com/articles/20080921_youtube_crackdown.htm

2. "There are also a number of entries regarding the 9/11 Commission. Most importantly, as the commission was just beginning its work in early 2003, Executive Director Philip Zelikow had already completed an outline of its final report.
...
Meanwhile, Zelikow awarded the contract to distribute the commission's final report to his own publisher, which could keep the profits, and had passages about Saudi government support for the hijackers deleted from the final report. Passages critical of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice were also deleted, with the help of a top Democratic staffer.
...
They decided Zelikow and May's outline, "should be kept secret from the commission’s staff" because it "could be seen as evidence that they have pre-determined the outcome.""

http://www.911blogger.com/node/17867

3. On the bomb in Pakistan over the weekend, the second false flag of the last week, following the carbomb in Yemen:

"The end result of this attack is to give the U.S. Army and the American politicians all the reason in the world that they would need to continue attacking Pakistan’s population, and taking the international pressure off the Americans to stop bombing their country.

...

If you aren’t familiar with the CIA’s history of false-flag operations in the rest of the world, now might be a good time to Google it.

This has the markings of that type of operation written all over it.

You have a newly elected regime that isn’t as inclined to hand over control of their country to the U.S. when all of a sudden, out of now-where, the “leftist” terrorist start bombing the people of the country in order to create chaos and fear in the population. This is either blamed on the President or the regime that U.S. companies don’t like, or they start to foster the idea that the new anti-American leadership can’t provide the protection the people need. And thus, the CIA’s actions change the course of that country by covert, terrorist means.

It’s on record; it’s been done many times by the CIA. Not just in the Middle East, but also, Central America, South American, Italy, Cuba, and many others.

...

US Marines were seen transporting metal crates inside the Marriot Hotel the day before, security personnel was not allowed to know for what purpose
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=17401
...

I think we can easily conclude that both attacks last week were staged to put the fear of "al-Qaeda" (whatever that may be) back into people during the election cycle. The timing and the targets make it obvious.

We could also view this as being a ramp-up of false flags designed to create creditability for some "October surprise" attack in the US or allied countries. I mean, we know that 9/11 did not come out of nowhere, they spent years bombing US embassies and such to make the big lie appear credible. The same plan could be in effect here.

As the US economy is imploded, this sort of distraction will increasingly be necessary to keep the population under control."
http://www.911blogger.com/node/17866

4. "We have no hard evidence that there were even any hijackers actually on any planes. There is no video surveillance footage of the alleged hijackers. The still shots we were shown were from a different airport on a different day. The telephone calls from folks on the planes claiming hijackers were on board apparently can't be verified. So why don't we stick with the facts? We have no facts supporting the theory that hijackers took over planes that day,
...

GLARINGLY OBVIOUS QUESTION(S): Why did the (alleged) hijackers make the decision to fly their commandeered plane(s) for such a long way out, for such an extended period of time, when they must have known, before they got on board, that the normal scrambling protocol would have ensured that their mission would have ended in CERTAIN FAILURE within 10-15 minutes of taking over the plane? The only way they must have expected success, unless they knew otherwise, was to have hijacked their planes within minutes of take-off and flown straight to their targets in the most direct way possible, from as close as possible, and as fast as possible. Similarly, Flight 93 went all the way to Ohio, before turning back, as the official story presumes, bound for another high profile target in DC. Even Flights 11 and 175 were airborne for too long for the (alleged) hijackers *to have expected success*, i.e. hitting the WTC before being challenged.

The flight paths of all four planes makes no sense, and does not gel with the official story, unless (a) the (alleged) hijackers possessed highly specific and privileged information that they would be allowed to fly to their targets without being challenged by the military, for up to an hour and a half... (which looks really bad on all counts re. the military)... OR, (b) more speculatively, there were no hijackers and the planes were under the direct control of the same people who ensured that no jets took off to challenge them!"
http://www.911blogger.com/node/17859

September 22, 2008

"Credit default swaps did allow the banks to share risks. So much so, that banks raced each other in an effort to find more risks. They made it possible for the down payment on homes to become 3%, 1%, 0%. Skip the credit check, avoid the employment requirements, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! We've got a credit default swap, we can do anything.
...

As the banks piled up crappy mortgages, they heaped on ever more of the credit default swaps -- and they still had no idea how to value the things. Worse, they began to trade the swaps themselves as if they were an investment, treating them like something worth holding instead of a big bundle of cartoon bombs whose fuses were already lit. Since very few loans were falling into default at the time, owning a default swap seemed like a way to collect fees without ever paying out. Banks wanted more, and more, and more.

A secondary market for trading swaps exploded into existence, and swaps were traded with absolutely no consideration for the nature or quality of the underlying investment. Swaps changed hands a dozen or more times, growing in "value" as they went. Worse still, no one regulated who could buy a swap, so it was (and is) perfectly possible for a company to acquire swaps that theoretically cover billions of dollars in loans, even if that company doesn't have a red cent on hand to cover those swaps should the loans default.

...

The value of the entire U.S. Treasuries market: $4.5 trillion.

The value of the entire mortgage market: $7 trillion.

The size of the U.S. stock market: $22 trillion.

OK, you ready?

The size of the credit default swap market last year: $45 trillion.

...

As in three times the whole US gross domestic product, Bob. And the truth is that Moon probably underestimated. The unregulated and poorly reported credit default swaps may have actually passed $70 trillion last year, or about $5 trillion more than the GDP of the entire world.

...

With some regularity over the last eight years, fiscal whistle blowers have tried to raise their hands and register a protest. Um, sirs? Is it altogether a good idea to run up debts exceeding all the assets it's even possible to hold? But so long as no one actually had to pay off on the swaps, the party went on. Even usually conservative (in the fiscal sense) companies like AIG started to worry that they were being left behind and leapt headlong into the swap pool.
...
It turns out that an insurance policy -- even a secret, unregulated policy -- is occasionally expected to pay. Speculators started to look at the paper they were holding and for the first time realized it could all be worthless. Worse, it could (and did) represent a massive debt; one that no one had the funds to cover.

September 20, 2008

" We thus want to acknowledge the progress you have made in your evolution from economic superpower to economic basket case. Normally, such a process might take 100 years or more. With your oscillation between free-market extremism and nationalization of private companies, however, you have successfully achieved, in a few short years, many of the key hallmarks of Third World economies.

Your policies of irresponsible government deregulation in critical sectors allowed you to rapidly develop an energy crisis, a housing crisis, a credit crisis and a financial market crisis, all at once, and accompanied (and partly caused) by impressive levels of corruption and speculation. Meanwhile, those of your political leaders charged with oversight were either napping or in bed with corporate lobbyists.
...
Similarly, as unemployment rates continue to rise, you will initially struggle to find a use for the expanding pool of angry, jobless young men. But you will gradually realize that you can recruit them to fight in a ceaseless round of armed conflicts, a solution that has been utilized by many other Third World states before you. Indeed, with your wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you are off to an excellent start. "

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20808.htm

September 20, 2008

1. "Experts confirm that Iran's president did not call for Israel to be 'wiped off the map'. Reports that he did serve to strengthen western hawks.

My recent comment piece explaining how Iran's president was badly misquoted when he allegedly called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" has caused a welcome little storm. The phrase has been seized on by western and Israeli hawks to re-double suspicions of the Iranian government's intentions, so it is important to get the truth of what he really said.

I took my translation - "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" - from the indefatigable Professor Juan Cole's website where it has been for several weeks."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/jun/14/post155

2. Insanity:

"A bipartisan group says the US must strike Iran's nuclear sites many times 'over a period of years' to halt the program successfully."

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10277

3. "If Armey is right, Dick Cheney has not only behaved improperly, but also criminally: In addition, when lying to Armey, Cheney clearly committed a "high crime or misdemeanor" in his blocking the Constitution's checks and balances from stopping our march into Iraq. During the debates that took place during the Constitution's ratification conventions, it was specifically stated that lying to Congress about matters of war would be an impeachable offense. Congress has also made it a crime."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20814.htm

September 20, 2008

" All charges against the Democracy Now! Journalists arrested at the Republican convention have been dropped
...

An investigation is indeed necessary, but I am already pretty sure about what happened:

1. In August, protesters at the 2004 RNC successfully won police brutality lawsuits against the New York City police department.
2. So, a few days later, the Republican Party indemnified the St. Paul police for up to $10 million in the event that charges of police brutality would be brought against them.
3. Then, at the convention, the police went out and illegally beat up $10 million worth of progressives, including progressive media. It was a free beating for them.

In short, the Republican Party paid for $10 million of thuggery against progressives.
...

He is John McCain, and he approved this message.

Basically, with no cause, police ran over and beat up some members of the progressive media. They did it because the money they will lose from civil suits over the matter has already been paid. So, of course the charges were dropped. There were no real charges. It was beating, paid for by the Republican Party, pure and simple."

September 20, 2008

1. " If the CBS report by Dan Rather is accurate and Osama had indeed been admitted to the Pakistani military hospital on September 10, 2001, courtesy of America's ally, he was in all likelihood still in hospital in Rawalpindi on the 11th of September, when the attacks occurred. In all probability, his whereabouts were known to US officials on the morning of September 12, when Secretary of State Colin Powell initiated negotiations with Pakistan, with a view to arresting and extraditing bin Laden.
...
In the words of former CIA agent Milt Bearden in an interview with Dan Rather on September 12, 2001, “If they didn’t have an Osama bin Laden, they would invent one.”

Intelligence negotiations never take place on a hospital bed. The CIA knew Osama was at the American Hospital in Dubai. Rather than negotiate, they could have arrested him. He was on the FBI most wanted list.

According to the Reuters report: "At the time, bin Laden had a multi-million dollar price on his head for his suspected role in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa". So why did the hospital staff, who knew that Osama was at the American Hospital in Dubai, not claim the reward?

...

If the CIA had wanted to arrest Osama bin Laden prior to September 11, they could have done it then in Dubai. But they would not have had a the war on terrorism pretext for waging a major military operation in the Middle East and Central Asia.

...

Again, no attempt was made to arrest America's best known fugitive, but then maybe bin Laden was serving another "better purpose". Rumsfeld claimed at the time that he had no knowledge regarding Osama's health."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO311A.html

"al Qaeda is a instrument of US intelligence: a US sponsored intelligence asset.
...

The CBS report is a crucial piece of information in our understanding of 9/11.

It refutes the administration’s claim that the whereabouts of bin Laden are unknown. It points to a Pakistan connection, it suggests a cover-up at the highest levels of the Bush administration.

...

Just one note: Remember in September 2004 when Dan Rather was made to leave CBS news after reporting on President G.W. Bush’s military record? He was accused of using forged documents. No one has said anything was forged or false in Rather’s September 2001 reporting on Osama Ben Laden.

Another important thing to point out is the website of the FBI does not mention 9/11 on its Osama Ben Laden webpage.
...
When asked why there is no mention of 9/11 on Bin Laden’s Most Wanted web page, Tomb said, “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”

http://gettingtruth.wordpress.com/2007/09/29/where-was-osama-ben-laden-on-sept-11-2001/

2. "Summer 2001: ISI Chief Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmad transfers $100,000 to 9-11 Ringleader Mohamed Atta.

11 September: Terrorist Attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. At the time of the attacks, Lt General Ahmad was at a breakfast meeting at the Capitol with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees Sen Bob Graham and Rep Porter Goss. Also present at the meeting were Sen. John Kyl and the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., Maleeha Lodhi.

Lost in the barrage of media reports on ‘foreknowledge', this crucial piece of information on the ISI's role in 9-11, implicates key members of the Bush Administration including: CIA Director George Tenet, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, Under-Secretary of State Marc Grossman, as well Senator Joseph Biden (Democrat), Chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee (who met General Ahmad on the 13th of September)"

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO206A.html

"In response to a Freedom of Information Act Request submitted by Kevin Ryan, Mick Harrison and Paul Smith, the government has disclosed documents confirming that Pakistani ISI General Ahmed - the guy who wired $100,000 to lead hijacker Atta -- met with a "Senior Representative from the Joint Chiefs of Staff", Centcom Commander General Tommy Franks, the Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Wolfowitz, Feith, other PNAC members, and probably Intelligence Committee members Graham and Goss, and others in the week before 9/11."

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/07/confirmed-pakistani-general-who-wired.html

September 19, 2008

1. "It is illegal in the State of Alaska to fail to comply with legislative subpoenas. But Todd Palin has announced he will do exactly that which the law prohibits for one simple reason -- because nothing can be done about it until after the election, and even then, it's unlikely much will be done to punish him for breaking the law. Sarah Palin has similarly ordered all of her aides to refuse to comply with these subpoenas even though doing so is illegal, because she, too, doubts there will be consequences for this illegal behavior.
...
And it's that precise anti-democratic mentality -- "the people don't need any say in what our Government does; it's best if the President rules without any political accountability" -- that has enabled Bush officials and now their would-be GOP successors simply to decide that they're above the law and that they can exempt themselves from investigation and accountability."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

2. "[L] et me provide a partial list of entities responsible for the financial mess we find ourselves in:

• Fractional-reserve banking, which is inherently unstable and entirely a confidence game
• Congress for passing the Federal Reserve Act and creating the Federal Reserve, the third central bank in the history of the US
• Woodrow Wilson for using the Fed to finance World War 1
• Benjamin Strong, the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from 1914-1928, for inflating the money supply in the '20s to help out Great Britain which led to the Great Depression
• Herbert Hoover for his economic intervention from 1929-1932. He was not laissez-faire by any means.
• John Maynard Keynes for laying the foundation of a miseducated public
• FDR for banning private ownership of gold, enacting the New Deal, creating Social Security and Fannie Mae, and exacerbating the Great Depression
• The FDIC for lulling the American public into a false sense of security regarding their bank deposits and training the public to unquestionably trust the financial system
• LBJ for the guns and butter of the '60s
• Nixon for severing all ties between the US dollar and gold
• Reagan's intellectual duplicity, using free market, small government rhetoric while turning the US into a chronic debtor nation
• Alan Greenspan, one of the most duplicitous, arrogant, and incompetent individuals in the history of the United States. If I had to pin this crisis on any one man, it would be he.
• George W. Bush for cutting taxes while raising spending and his full embrace of Cheney's doctrine of "deficits don't matter"
• Ben Bernanke for following the Greenspan doctrine to its inevitable conclusion
• The heads of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for using artificially low borrowing costs to create systemically-dangerous housing institutions
• Christopher Dodd and Barney Frank for beating the socialist drum
• Christopher Cox for thinking a ban on short-selling will solve anything
• Hank Paulson for folding the hand he was dealt
• The ratings agencies for rubber stamping garbage assets as AAA
• The heads of the major banks and brokerages on Wall Street for turning a blind eye as their institutions were taking on massive leverage that threatens to take down the financial system
• The hedge funds that levered up structured finance to dangerous levels
• Generations of lawmakers for kicking the looming financial crisis can down the road
• Home buyers who lied about their income and creditworthiness
• Predatory lenders who put people into mortgages they could never afford"

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/09/let-me-provide-partial-list-of-entities.html

September 18, 2008

Warren Buffett's father, Howard, was a 4-term Congressman. He said about American military adventures:

"Even if it were desirable, America is not strong enough to police the world by military force. If that attempt is made, the blessings of liberty will be replaced by coercion and tyranny at home."

Too bad his son, Warren, with all that money, hasn't done more to expose the problems of the last 7 years. And let's not forget that, on 9/11, after Bush left Tampa, and then Louisiana, he didn't fly back to DC. Where did he fly next? To Omaha, where Buffett lives.

September 18, 2008

Schadenfreude (taking pleasure in others' misfortune). It's nice that sometimes karma seems to punish bad people:

"GOP delegate's hotel tryst goes bad when he wakes up with $120,000 missing'

He sounds like a real jerk:

"Schwartz was candid about how he envisioned change under a McCain presidency.

"Less taxes and more war," he said, smiling. He said the U.S. should "bomb the hell" out of Iran because the country threatens Israel.

Asked by the interviewer how America would pay for a military confrontation with Iran, he said the U.S. should take the country's resources.

"We should plant a flag. Take the oil, take the money," he said. "We deserve reimbursement."

...

He said an attack on Iran was needed to protect Israel, and he offered how it could be accomplished through "strategical airstrikes."

"Hopefully, just bomb the hell out of them from the sky. No troops," he said.

Schwartz was asked if he had a message to the protesters who filled the streets of downtown St. Paul.

"Get a job," he replied."
http://www.twincities.com/ci_10472581?source=most_viewed

September 17, 2008

1. As you all know, the US financial system is under the most severe strain ever. The ruling elite know that the sheeple will tend to blame the incumbent party for any big economic problems, and are scared this will help Obama win.

So what do they do to distract the sheeple from today's continuing catastrophe on Wall Street, so that the news tonight won't focus solely on finance? How about a false flag attack on the US embassy in Yemen this morning that killed 16, and was immediately blamed on Al Qaeda? As a result the news tonight will tell everyone that Al Qaeda is still a threat, and the sheeple will go back to thinking McCain is a strong leader who they need to vote for.

2. She's obviously insane:

"A top Hillary Rodham Clinton fundraiser threw her support behind Republican John McCain on Wednesday, saying he will lead the country in a centrist fashion and accusing the Democrats of becoming too extreme.

...

She praised McCain for working with Democrats to pass legislation and for standing up to President Bush on the Iraq war."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080917/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_clinton_backer

3. This is a truly revolting development. Barry Jennings is one of the most important witnesses of all:

"Barry Jennings, a key 9/11 eyewitness who was an emergency coordinator for the New York Housing Authority, has passed away at age 53 from circumstances not yet disclosed. A spokesperson for the Housing Authority has now confirmed his death, after weeks of rumors circulating online, but refused to give any further details.

...

It is very unusual that a prominent — and controversial– 9/11 witness would die only days before the release of NIST’s report on WTC7 and shortly after a firestorm erupted over his testimony that he heard explosions inside the building prior to collapse of either tower and that there were dead bodies in the building’s blown-out lobby."
http://www.infowars.com/?p=4602

4. "So we have Army and Navy Explosive recovery teams at the WTC on the morning of 9/11 at the request of the Secret Service just before the attacks, and before the trade center towers came down and "thermal expansion" took out a building for the first time ever."

http://www.911blogger.com/node/17798

5. ""Something else we were encouraged to do, almost with a wink and nudge, was to carry 'drop weapons,' or by my third tour, 'drop shovels.' We would carry these weapons or shovels with us because if we accidentally shot a civilian, we could just toss the weapon on the body, and make them look like an insurgent," Washburn said."

http://www.antiwar.com/jamail/?articleid=13471

6. "The issue of "conflict of interest" takes on a new and apocalyptic meaning when you consider the role of energy giant BP in all of this. Palin's husband has spent most of his adult life, eighteen years, working for BP. The company is even more important to his wife, as BP owns Alaska's (and America's) largest gas and oil fields. BP hates Russia at least as much as their tools Palin and McCain: the company has been locked in a nasty battle over its 50 percent stake in Russian energy giant TNK--BP's stake in that company is key to BP's stock price. If BP loses TNK to Putin's goons, then billions could be wiped off the stock price. That's something to go to war for.

Meantime, BP all but controls Georgia thanks to the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, in which BP is the largest stakeholder. As Manana Kochladze explained, the pipeline was supposed to bring in huge benefits to average Georgians, raising the country out of its dire economic straits. Instead, "very little if any of those revenues have gone to social programs or environmental protection. Instead, the military budget has massively increased to 25 percent of the state budget. The BP pipeline has militarized the country."
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080929/ames

7. "the announcement yesterday by Gov. Sarah Palin that she and her top-level employees will now simply ignore subpoenas and other requests for information as part of the bipartisan "Troopergate" investigation being conducted by the Alaska State Senate -- an investigation with which she previously vowed to cooperate fully -- is a prime example of, as Kagro put it, Palin's "doing the full Cheney": "government is no longer about law. It's about physics. Subpoena? Well, I'm not going unless you can actually drag me in there." Palin has exhibited as clearly as can be that she will follow in these lawless footsteps."

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/

Otros, no se darán cuenta del engaño por culpa de los políticos (¡qué novedad!) pero principalmente de los periodistas, que sabiendo la verdad la ocultan.

La mayoría sabe, pero se hacen los boludos (mienten) para pasarla bien. Políticos no idóneos para los cargos, cuando no corruptos, sólo preocupados en las próximas elecciones. Periodistas reducidos a meros lectores en voz alta de las noticias que escriben otros, pagados por la política o los anunciantes. ¿Y la verdad que nos hará libres? Bien gracias.

Pero vayamos a los hechos. Les haré una síntesis.

Hace 7 años (11-09-2001) se estrellaban cuatro aviones, dos en las Torres Gemelas de Nueva York, brindando la excusa perfecta para invadir a un país (Irak), bombardear otro (Afganistán), al parecer, por petróleo y gas respectivamente, y de paso reducir los derechos civiles a otro (EEUU). Digo "al parecer" porque sospecho que hay otras razones más importantes.

Esos dos obvios objetivos (apropiarse de los combustibles y limitar la libertad, sin mencionar el miedo que han generado) pueden ser discutidos en cierta forma. Pero la puesta en escena que se montó como excusa para alcanzarlos está muy clara.

La verdad es que a Las Torres y al edificio llamado WTC 7 los volaron. Sí, con explosivos. En el Pentágono no se estrelló ningún avión, sino un misil. Y el vuelo 93 tampoco se estrelló. De todo esto hay testigos, fotos, videos, audios y opiniones de expertos en diversas áreas. Y aunque el gran público todavía lo ignora porque no sale por los grandes medios de desinformación, se ha divulgado por Internet. Basta con usar un buscador.

Esa es la parte digamos... normal de lo que pasó. Pero hay otra parte paranormal, que se conoce aún menos. Tiene que ver con Ovnis, Apariciones y los Illuminati.

En Al Filo de la Realidad, la revista gratuita por email de la que soy Editor, junto a Gustavo Fernández (Director) y a Tomás Latino (ovnílogo, quien se dio cuenta de que algo raro estaba pasando y grabó todo lo que se transmitía desde CNN en Español, en vivo), hemos publicado la historia NO OFICIAL de lo sucedido ese fatídico día.

Pero... ¿realmente querés saber lo que en verdad ocurrió o vas a contentarte con el cuento de los terroristas suicidas?

Si preferís seguir repitiendo como un loro la mentira oficial... tu lugar no es este. Mejor prendé la tele. Si no querés que te manipulen, aquí debajo te pongo enlaces a todo lo que se oculta. Textos, fotos y videos. Argumentos. Razonamientos. Todo está a tu alcance. Y gratis. No tenés excusas para irte sin saber.

Yo te recomendaría que comenzaras a recorrer la Historia NO Oficial del 11-S por la parte normal. Una vez que hayas visto los video-documentales, que son por demás claros, entonces animate a la parte paranormal, en texto y fotos, que puede resultarte más extraña todavía, pero está igualmente fundamentada.

Parte "normal"

Nota: Te recomiendo descargar los videos y grabarlos en CD/DVD para verlos cómodamente en tu televisor. Y de paso, ya los tenés listos para pasárselos a tus amigos.

Sin usás GNU/Linux, al menos en Ubuntu, poné a reproducir el video y al finalizar la descarga revisá la carpeta temporal "tmp"; localizar el archivo es fácil por su tamaño; movelo a otro lado y le cambiás el nombre.

En inglés, subtitulado en español:

Petróleo, Humo y Espejitos

[googlevideo=http://video.google.es/videoplay?docid=6874865766680234839]

Prensa por la libertad

[googlevideo=http://video.google.es/videoplay?docid=-8722844027890597648]

Misterios del 11-S

[googlevideo=http://video.google.es/videoplay?docid=-5296803036286377485]

En italiano, subtitulado en español:

11-S: Engaño Global

[googlevideo=http://video.google.es/videoplay?docid=-5148850026193446005]

Exposición en el Parlamento japonés, subtitulado en español:

Parte "paranormal"

Todos los enlaces están en este boletín: Ovnis sobre las Torres Gemelas.

Conclusión

Ya sabés lo que pasó y también lo que NO pasó. ¿Vas a contarle a tus amigos para que ellos también sepan la verdad o te vas a quedar callado, siendo funcional a la conspiración y cómplice de más muertes?

The USS New York, a new warship, was just completed.  The great story about this ship is it was built from scrap metal from the WTC buildings.  Who says that good things can't come from bad?!?!?!?!

You can get the down low here, with all the pics and story behind it as well.

BY OREN YANIV
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Congress Sunday shelved a $10.9 billion bill to provide health care and compensation for Ground Zero workers, at least in part due to opposition from Mayor Bloomberg.

The House of Representatives failed to vote on the bill after City Hall objected to a provision that would have required the city to pay 10% of the cost of a long-term Sept. 11 health program.

The total cost would have been $5.1 billion for a 10-year program that would have provided health care to those sick from working amid toxic World Trade Center debris. The city's share was to be $500 million.

The bill also would have reopened the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund, adding an estimated $6 billion for those who became sick after working amid the debris.

John Feal, a 9/11 responder and founder of the FealGood Foundation, went to Washington in a failed push for the bill.

"The mayor pretty much squashed the bill on us," a disappointed Feal said last night. "We should do right by these people who are sick and dying."

Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan), Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan), Vito Fossella (R-S.I.) and Pete King (R-L.I.) said the New York delegation would reintroduce another bipartisan bill next year.

"We will work together to meet the sizable need to care for those who lived and worked in the immediate area around Ground Zero - not to mention those who helped in the immediate aftermath," the lawmakers said in a statement.

Supporters had hoped the House would vote on the package over the weekend, but time and support ran out amid intense congressional negotiations over the $700 billion financial bailout package.

The Senate would likely not have had time to pass the bill anyway, but backers said House passage would have helped move the measure forward.

Bloomberg spokesman Jason Post said the Sept. 11 health bill was "a step backward" and said "it put an undue burden on city taxpayers." He noted the bill would raise fivefold the city's annual tab for 9/11 programs.

Other city officials said the feds should pay the full cost as a matter of principle because Sept. 11 was an attack on America.

Denis Hughes, president of the New York State AFL-CIO, countered that the bill was doomed by "shortsighted" thinking at City Hall.

"What really sunk this was the mayor's opposition," Hughes said. "I think they miscalculated."

Ik eet, ik neem de krant, ik lees hem helemaal waardoor het 11u is als ik de tafel opruim.

Daarna zie ik een uurtje de tijd om de pc op te starten, mails te lezen, de feedreader te verwerken en een interessante blogpost te typen.

Om 12u besef ik dat ik nog niet in de douche ben geweest en dat het weldra tijd is voor het middageten. Om 12.15u stap ik uit de douche, kleed mij opnieuw aan en plof mij in de zetel. Mijn haar, dat er nog al Gobelijn-achtig uitziet, is voor straks. Eerst op het gemak kousen aantrekken, want dat is zoals jullie wel weten one hell of a job als je uit de douche komt.

Ik rust nog wat uit in die zetel en luister naar Stubru. Er is een promotiespotje voor een milieuvriendelijke renovatie van je "nestje". Het klinkt allemaal heel erg kinderlijk waardoor ik twijfel of het wel over een huis gaat en niet om één of ander scoutslokaal.

Ik denk aan milieuvriendelijke woningen en ik bekijk het glas rondom mij. Is dat glas wel isolerend? Het laat veel hitte binnen in de zomer en veel koelte in de winter. Wat dan met gebouwen die volledig uit glas en staal zijn opgetrokken? Hoe houden ze die warm of koud? Zou dat glas zó dik zijn?

Mijn gedachten gaan verder naar een documentaire die ik op 11 september gezien heb over 11 september. Een reconstructie. Het was op Canvas, misschien heb je het ook gezien. Daarin probeerden de mensen die vast zaten op de bovenste verdiepingen van het WTC de ramen kapot te slaan om frisse lucht binnen te laten. Een man bonkte ertegen met een stoel, en het glas begaf het maar met mondjesmaat. Dik glas blijkbaar. Maar toch moet het gelukt zijn om dat glas kapot te slaan, want hoe konden er anders mensen door het raam gesprongen zijn om te ontsnappen aan een veel pijnlijkere dood?

Ik denk aan wat ik zou doen. Vermoedelijk zou ik bij een kapot raam zitten en frisse lucht opzuigen. Ik zou het al heel warm moeten hebben om uiteindelijk te springen. Ik stel me die hitte voor, zo levendig dat ik me daadwerkelijk kan voorstellen dat ik zou springen. Ik stel me de sprong voor. Wat doe je als je door de lucht zweeft? Je ogen sluiten en je erbij neerleggen? Krijsen in paniek? Hoe lang duurt de val ongeveer? Wat gebeurt er met je lichaam als je de grond raakt? Waarschijnlijk is het niet echt smakelijk allemaal.

Ik schrik wakker. Het is 12u30 en ik heb net heel intens gedagdroomd. Van Stubru ging het naar springen uit het raam van het WTC. Ik voel aan mijn haar en ik besef dat het tijd is om te kammen. Ik ga naar boven en zie mijn laptop staan. Onwillekeurig ga ik er even achter zitten. Even maar. Ik lees nog wat hier en daar en ontdek plots dat er een post te weinig op deze blog staat. De post van gisteravond is nog steeds ongepubliceerd. Nadat ik hem volledig had afgewerkt, had ik even gecheckt hoe hij eruit zag op de pagina, maar daarna heb ik niet op publiceren geklikt. Al die moeite, en dan vergeten te publiceren. Typisch....

Ik voel opnieuw aan mijn haar. het is al bijna droog en als ik voor de spiegel kom ziet het eruit als een vogelnest. Ik open de kast die achter de spiegel zit en neem mijn tandenborstel en tandpasta. Ik doe tandpasta op de borstel en kijk er twee seconden naar. Tandpasta dient niet om je haar in orde te brengen. Ik spoel de borstel weer af, sluit de kast en neem de pot wax uit de schap naast de spiegel.

Mijn haar is in orde en ik ga naar beneden. Tijd om de tafel te zetten, hoewel ik helemaal nog geen honger heb. Middageten is altijd een verplicht nummer. Voormiddagen zijn nutteloos want altijd snel voorbij. En ik ben een ongelooflijk verstrooide mens.