seems relevant

Fox Strikes Again!

Is Obama a big enough person to retreat on this injustice and speak out against the edited video trick?

(Mr. President: They fooled you once (ACORN), shame on them. They fooled you twice, shame on YOU!)

The Ministry of Truth Obama's War on the Internet
new
Submitted by bridge on Tue, 07/20/2010 - 10:14pm.
The Ministry of Truth

Obama's War on the Internet

By Philip Giraldi

July 20, 2010 "Campaign for Liberty " -- The Ministry of Truth was how George Orwell described the mechanism used by government to control information in his seminal novel 1984. A recent trip to Europe has convinced me that the governments of the world have been rocked by the power of the internet and are seeking to gain control of it so that they will have a virtual monopoly on information that the public is able to access. In Italy, Germany, and Britain the anonymous internet that most Americans are still familiar with is slowly being modified. If one goes into an internet café it is now legally required in most countries in the European Union to present a government issued form of identification. When I used an internet connection at a Venice hotel, my passport was demanded as a precondition and the inner page, containing all my personal information, was scanned and a copy made for the Ministry of the Interior -- which controls the police force. The copy is retained and linked to the transaction. For home computers, the IP address of the service used is similarly recorded for identification purposes. All records of each and every internet usage, to include credit information and keystrokes that register everything that is written or sent, is accessible to the government authorities on demand, not through the action of a court or an independent authority. That means that there is de facto no right to privacy and a government bureaucrat decides what can and cannot be "reviewed" by the authorities. Currently, the records are maintained for a period of six months but there is a drive to make the retention period even longer.

The excuses being given for the increasing government intervention into the internet are essentially two: first, that the anonymity of the internet has permitted criminal behavior, fraud, pornography, and libel. Second is the security argument, that managing the internet is an integral part of the "global war on terror" in that it is used by terrorists to plan their attacks requiring governments to control those who use it. The United States government takes the latter argument one step farther, claiming that the internet itself is a vulnerable "natural asset" that could be seized or damaged by terrorists and must be protected, making the case for a massive $100 billion program of cyberwarfare. Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) argues that "violent Islamist extremists" rely on the internet to communicate and recruit and he has introduced a bill in the Senate that will empower the president to "kill" the internet in case of a national emergency.

read here

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25975.htm

» ============================

Chilling.

They had settled into the dependable methods of using the press and media via 1/ the Edward Bernays propaganda method of duping the people, 2/ the embedded reporters method of blocking critical reporting, and 3/ allowing "media consolidation" to put information gatekeeping in the hands of a few -- and all these were done without obviously challenging 'freedom of the press' in a full frontal assault. And now here is the Internet. The Powers That Be don't have an amoral/immoral manipulation genius like Bernays to give them a sneaky way to make it bend to their sick will. They are desperate, aren't they?

This one is way over my head...

http://www.welovecostarica.com/public/46_US_Warships_Plus_7000_US_Marine...

[excerpt]

46 US Warships Plus 7,000 US Marines On Route To Costa Rica?
Scott Oliver - July 2010

On the 2nd July 2010 the Costa Rica Congress authorized the entry of 46 U.S. warships capable of carrying 200 helicopters and warplanes, plus 7,000 U.S. Marines "who may circulate the country in uniform without any restrictions" , plus submarine killer ships to the Costa Rican coast for "anti-narcotics operations and humanitarian missions' between 1st July 2010 until 31st December 2010.

With this kind of nation destroying firepower, it gives real meaning to the expression "war on drugs", but if this a real six month "war on drugs" we should expect to see some fantastic results, right?

Politicians representing the Acción Ciudadana (PAC), the Unidad Social Cristiana (PUSC) and the Frente Amplio (FA) political parties opposed the measure saying that the destructive force of the ships, helicopters and 7,000 US Marines is "disproportionate for the fight against drug trafficking."

On Sunday, the President of Costa Rica Laura Chinchilla said that the government does not intend to militarize the fight against drugs and the Minister of Public Security Jose Maria Tijerino stressed that this huge, powerful military force would be under the command of the US Coast Guard and not the US Navy.

[end excerpt]

You said you got physically ill watching the 9/11 films, thank you for saying that because it is positive to hear about such sensitivity. It is so different from the cold-bloodedness that I see in the 9/11 event..

I have never been able to understand how ANYONE, particularly the City of New York, would allow people to remain in areas where something dire was obviously happening. It seems logical to me for authorities to have cleared the streets, given instructions to evacuate buildings, and restrict traffic to emergency vehicles and evacuation.

Afterall, debris was falling from the damaged building, and it seems even if this had been an office building fire alone that sort of situation would have grown worse, not better, over the duration of even just an office fire, let alone an impact from a plane.

That better emergency protocols do not exist seems so peculiar to me, since so much money and time are spent on "security".

And to tell people to go back into their offices seems utterly insane. (Is this how EXTREME the American work ethic is??? That continuing to work 9-5 is more important than anything, more important than fellow human beings being burned alive a few hundred feet away?) It is cold-blooded and weird even if this had not been "9/11" but rather an office fire alone.

Then when we take into consideration that this IS the 9/11 event, the facts/evidence of which do NOT fit the official explanation -- there is a new aspect to the cold-bloodedness that is never-ending creepy: Demolition of buildings at the World Trade Center indicates cold-blooded PREMEDITATION by our own countrymen more frightening than any hot-blooded revenge passion of suicide mission hijacking crazies.

Then the reality that office workers were told to return to their offices in the World Trade Center takes on the intent to kill them; that their deaths were necessary if the "event" were to be a 'useful success', more 'useful' if thousands of people died in the demolition crush instead of just tens or hundreds of people. Who told the office workers it was safe to go back to work? From where was that message given and on whose instructions?

Thanks for your sensitivity, Bridge. The world needs more of it.

Goodnight!

Bill Press ended his show with that this am.

Some may differ in opinion--
http://www.billpressshow.com/

On XM 167, the "liberal channel of the Obama nation," there are ads all day from some online college offering a degree in: "Homeland Security."

Is that like a degree in linguistics, mathematics, or architecture?
"Homeland Security 101," art or science?

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jakelabotz6

"A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted — in the air. A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward. A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards. A liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest-at the command — of his head."
FDR: Radio Address to the New York Herald Tribune Forum (26 October 1939)
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
FDR: Second Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1937

Read more: Franklin D. Roosevelt [Delano Roosevelt] [“F.D.R.” Franklin D. Roosevelt] Quotations, Biography - ( 1882 – 1945 ), [ Delano Roosevelt ] [ “F.D.R.” Franklin D Roosevelt ] http://www.jrank.org/quotations/pages/1396/Franklin-D-Roosevelt-Delano-R...

what i remember was that the only site that remained working was slash dot, a linux geek site.

always think about that when considering what would happen if the shit hits the fan again.

How to scam a moneystream, imo.

Now Visack needs to be told to apologize to the American people.

Short video--

http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl/index.php/members/video-gallery/viewvideo/107...

but I lie for sex all the time:

Israel jails Arab for 'deceit rape'

Many Israeli Jews have hostile views of mixed relationships with Arabs [EPA]

An Arab living in Israel has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for having consensual sex with an Israeli woman who apparently believed he was Jewish.

Sabbar Kashur was sentenced on Monday after being convicted of "rape by deception".

According to the court, Kashur met a Jewish woman in Jerusalem in 2008 and introduced himself as a single Jew looking for a serious relationship. The two had sex in a nearby building.

The woman filed a criminal complaint after learning Kashur was Arab, not Jewish.

Prosecutors acknowledged that the sex was consensual, but accused him of misrepresenting himself.

The court agreed, sentencing Kashur despite acknowledging that his case was not "a classical rape by force".

"If she hadn’t thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have co-operated," the judges said in their ruling.

"The court must protect the public interest against sophisticated criminals with a smooth tongue and sweet talking, who can lead astray innocent victims.........

.....the Kashur case appears to be the first time a person's race has been used as the determining factor.

"In this case, the ruling seems to say that if a 'reasonable' Jewish woman knew a man was an Arab, then she would not make love to him," Abeer Baker, an attorney with Adalah, an organisation that advocates for Arab rights in Israel, said.

Baker called it a "dangerous precedent," saying it would allow the Israeli government to interfere in the private lives of citizens.

"It's interfering in a very intimate, personal decision," she said. "That should be made between two people. The court should not interfere."

Open hostility

Similar laws have been controversial in other countries, as well. A man in the United States was convicted in 2007 of impersonating his brother in order to have sex with his girlfriend. That conviction was overturned on appeal, though, after an appellate court ruled that rape laws apply only to non-consensual sex.

Kashur's case also highlights the open hostility with which many Israeli Jews view mixed relationships with Arabs, who make up one-fifth of the population of Israel.

IN depth
Blog:

Is being Arab Israeli's criteria for rape?

A poll conducted in 2007 by Israel's Geocartography Institute found that more than 50 per cent of Israeli Jews thought marrying an Arab was "equal to national treason". Jews are legally forbidden to intermarry in Israel.

The Sunday Times reported in 2009 on a squad of "vigilantes" in the Jewish settlement of Pisgat Zeev. The group has patrolled the streets for more than a decade looking for mixed couples.

And in 2009, the town of Petah Tikva established a team of counsellors and psychologists to "rescue" Jewish women from relationships with Arab men.

The Israeli daily Maariv reported in February that Tel Aviv had launched a similar programme.

Gideon Levy, a liberal columnist with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, said the "rape by deception" law would have been applied differently if a Jewish man had sex with an Arab woman under false pretences.

"Would he have been convicted of rape?" Levy asked. "The answer is: of course not."
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/07/201072191017847251....

SHAMUS COOKE FOR BUZZFLASH

If the U.S. economy eventually recovers and current trends continue, U.S. workers won’t be celebrating in the streets. The corporate establishment has made it clear that a “strong recovery” depends on U.S. workers making “great sacrifices” in the areas of wages, health care, pensions, and more ominously, reductions in so-called “entitlement programs” — Social Security, Medicare, and other social services.

These plans have been discussed at length in corporate think tanks for years, and only recently has the mainstream media begun a coordinated attack to convince American workers of the “necessity” of adopting these policies. The New York Times speaks for the corporate establishment as a whole when it writes:

“American workers are overpaid, relative to equally productive employees elsewhere doing the same work [China for example]. If the global economy is to get into balance, that gap must close.”

SNIP SNIP SNIP

This October 2, 2010, SEIU Local 1199, the NAACP, and other progressive organizations are staging a march on Washington, D.C., calling on the government to create more jobs. The AFL-CIO has recently endorsed this demonstration and is actively building it. Other major endorsers include the California Labor Federation and the American Federation of Teachers. The SEIU president is predicting the march will be “massive – we believe historic.” It might prove to be the beginning of organized labor’s comeback.

Shamus Cooke is a social service worker, trade unionist, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at shamuscooke@gmail.com

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/11557

Its just a matter of time. We have to be ready when O's so called deficit commission comes after SS.

You know its coming
++++++++++++

In a remarkable interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, House Republican Leader John Boehner explicitly called for cutting Social Security in order to pay for the war in Afghanistan. The article reports:

"Ensuring there's enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country's entitlement system, Boehner said. He said he'd favor increasing the Social Security retirement age to 70 for people who have at least 20 years until retirement, tying cost-of-living increases to the consumer price index rather than wage inflation and limiting payments to those who need them."

In principle Boehner gave the Democrats as much ammunition as a serious political party could want. After all raising the retirement age and cutting Social Security benefits to pay for the war in Afghanistan is an idea that consistently polls in the high single decimals. We should expect every Democratic politician in the country to be jumping up and down demanding to know whether the Republican leader speaks for all Republicans.

That would be the case, unless of course the Democrats actually hold similar views. After all, several prominent Democrats have been saying in public recently that we will have to cut Social Security benefits (benefits workers have already paid for). These prominent Democrats also support the war in Afghanistan.

So, they may not use the same words as Mr. Boehner, but it seems that many Democrats may effectively agree that we have to cut Social Security to pay for the war in Afghanistan. It would be nice if they would insist that this is not true.

http://www.counterpunch.org/baker07022010.html

and right wing propagandists:

Media tycoon Conrad Black 'freed from jail'

Media tycoon Conrad Black was freed from jail in the US on $2 million bail today, according to reports.

His release came just two years and four months into a six-and-a-half-year sentence for defrauding investors out of millions of dollars.

US district court judge Amy St Eve said the former proprietor of the Daily Telegraph must appear in her Chicago courtroom before he is released from custody.....

The decision to grant bail came after a US Supreme Court ruling weakened the "honest services" law which was central to the case brought by prosecutors.

It will now be left to a lower court to decide whether his conviction should be overturned.........

Hollinger International once owned the Daily Telegraph, Chicago Sun-Times, Jerusalem Post and hundreds of community papers in the US and Canada.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/media-tycoon-conrad-bla...

For the computerized housebound or cash strapped?

What would that look like?

And an AtHomeMarch for those who cannot go?

October 2nd.

July 21st, 2009 Prosecutors in Cambridge, Mass. dropped a disorderly conduct charge against prominent black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., who was arrested by a white officer at his home near Harvard University after a report of a break-in.

So where are we now:

An embarrassed White House apologized on Wednesday to a black Agriculture Department employee who was ousted for her remarks about race, saying the administration did not know all the facts when she was fired.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs called the dismissal of Shirley Sherrod an injustice and a mistake and said he was apologizing for the "entire administration." He said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was trying to reach her to extend an apology.

"I accept the apology," Sherrod said on CNN after watching Gibbs talk to reporters at a televised briefing. But she said the apology took too long and she wasn't sure if she wanted her job back.

"I just don't know at this point, I don't know," she said, adding that she would be surprised if Vilsack offered her the job.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9184008

I liked the idea of mailing Vincent Bugliosi's book to our dickhead attorney general, Mike-- Cox. So I mailed two copies to his office, but my revolt wasn't televised.

(I doubt anyone in 1925 imagined that by 2010 it might become criminal to teach evolution. So much for Marxist determinism.)

On July 21, 1925, the ''monkey trial'' ended in Dayton, Tenn., with John T. Scopes convicted of violating state law for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution

Worker Control

By James Suggett

Mérida, July 19th 2010 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela’s principal union federation, the National Union of Workers (UNETE), recently circulated a document calling for broader nationalizations, a revolutionary labor law, and a radical shift toward a democratic, worker-led management model to stave off state bureaucracy.

The statement was released earlier this month and coincided with a series of worker assemblies and worker education programs initiated by unions in state-owned and private companies, indicating that the movement for worker control – and the clash between the bureaucracy and the rank-and-file in the Bolivarian Revolution – is alive and well.

The statement is directed at “the working people of Venezuela,” and aims to be “a draft in order to continue discussion” and “not a definitive document.” It includes a total of 21 policy proposals by UNETE and other worker, peasant, and indigenous organizations.

Chief among the proposals is the full nationalization of the banking and finance sectors and of all foreign commerce related to essential foods, the gradual reduction of the sales tax, and a national re-adjustment of wages and prices in accordance with real costs of living and production.

The statement also demands the passage of a “Revolutionary Labor Law” before the National Assembly elections in September, and says a Ministry for Worker Control and Social Production should be created and directed by worker councils.

The document also suggests that two national constituent assemblies be formed. One assembly would form a plan to re-ignite the cooperative economic sector which avoids the pitfalls of the cooperative boom of 2004-2006, in which private companies took advantage of state-financed cooperative businesses as sources of non-unionized labor and cheap credits. The other assembly would serve as a forum to share experiences of worker control in state-owned and private companies.

In addition, the document proposes an increase in worker control of public sector management, and demands that the national government strictly regulate the prices of private health care services as a step toward establishing a single national health system as well as a universal and obligatory national social security system.
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5504

Hugo Chávez tweets in celebration as coffin of hero Bolívar is opened

Venezuelan leader orders exhumation of Simon Bolívar's body on hunch that 19th-century independence leader was murdered

Most historians have accepted that Simón Bolívar, the 19th-century hero of Venezuelan independence, died from tuberculosis on 17 December 1830, aged 47, and that his body was moved to the national pantheon in Caracas in 1876.

But President Hugo Chávez has his own ideas, suspecting his idol was assassinated, possibly poisoned, and buried elsewhere, prompting a controversial exhumation that has divided the country.

State television showed scientists with surgical gloves and gas masks opening the coffin last weekend, displaying the skeleton of the rebel leader who inspired Chávez's "Bolívarian" revolution.

DNA tests will be carried out on the remains, which appeared to be well-preserved. They included hair, remnants of a shirt, boots and "perfect" teeth. The team of 50 includes forensic experts, anthropologists and the attorney general........

Earlier this year Paul Auwaerter, a doctor from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, suggested that arsenic prescribed as a medical treatment hastened Bolívar's end.

However, Auwaerter did not endorse the assassination theory.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/21/chavez-venezuela-twitter-bol...

The torture Attorney General now also free on the prosecutor firings.

The Obama DOJ rubberstamps BUSH crimes again.

The Corruption continues.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/07/21/1275186/ap-source-us-attorneys-...

I think the worst element is the further militarization of the government.

State Dept. planning to field a small army in Iraq

Can diplomats field their own army? The State Department is laying plans to do precisely that in Iraq, in an unprecedented experiment that U.S. officials and some nervous lawmakers say could be risky.

In little more than a year, State Department contractors in Iraq could be driving armored vehicles, flying aircraft, operating surveillance systems, even retrieving casualties if there are violent incidents and disposing of unexploded ordnance.

Under the terms of a 2008 status of forces agreement, all U.S. troops must be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, but they'll leave behind a sizable American civilian presence, including the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, the largest in the world, and five consulate-like "Enduring Presence Posts" in the Iraqi hinterlands.......

Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, flew to Washington this week for a conference with the State Department on how to transition Iraq from soldiers to diplomats.

He and Ambassador Christopher Hill "have built a joint plan to do this transition," Odierno said. "So we are now going to go through this (plan) and brief them on it and tell what they have to do to support this transition."

Odierno said that one of the chief responsibilities of the remaining U.S. troops in Iraq is to help facilitate that transfer.

The arrangement is "one more step in the blurring of the lines between military activities and State Department or diplomatic activities," said Richard Fontaine of the Center for a New American Security, a Washington research center. "This is no longer (just) the foreign service officer standing in the canape line, and the military out in the field."

"The State Department is trying to become increasingly expeditionary," he said....

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/21/97915/state-dept-planning-to-field...

"Watching this all at home were members of Journolist, a listserv comprised of several hundred liberal journalists, as well as like-minded professors and activists. The tough questioning from the ABC anchors left many of them outraged. “George [Stephanopoulos],” fumed Richard Kim of the Nation, is “being a disgusting little rat snake.”"
---------------------Tough questions??? LOL ---

July 22, 2010
Documents show media plotting to kill stories about Rev. Jeremiah Wright

By Jonathan Strong - The Daily Caller | Published: 1:15 AM 07/20/2010 | Updated: 1:56 AM 07/21/2010

Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ and former pastor of Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., addresses a breakfast gathering at the National Press Club in Washington, Monday, April 28, 2008. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

It was the moment of greatest peril for then-Sen. Barack Obama’s political career. In the heat of the presidential campaign, videos surfaced of Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, angrily denouncing whites, the U.S. government and America itself. Obama had once bragged of his closeness to Wright. Now the black nationalist preacher’s rhetoric was threatening to torpedo Obama’s campaign.

The crisis reached a howling pitch in mid-April, 2008, at an ABC News debate moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. Gibson asked Obama why it had taken him so long – nearly a year since Wright’s remarks became public – to dissociate himself from them. Stephanopoulos asked, “Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?”

Watching this all at home were members of Journolist, a listserv comprised of several hundred liberal journalists, as well as like-minded professors and activists. The tough questioning from the ABC anchors left many of them outraged. “George [Stephanopoulos],” fumed Richard Kim of the Nation, is “being a disgusting little rat snake.”

Others went further. According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/20/documents-show-media-plotting-to-kill-...

Why are penguins dying on the beaches of Brazil?
NITERÓI, Brazil — The discovery of hundreds of young penguins washing up along the Brazilian shoreline over the past month has...

By Jack Chang
McClatchy Newspapers

NITERÓI, Brazil — The discovery of hundreds of young penguins washing up along the Brazilian shoreline over the past month has sparked a scientific mystery over what may have led the birds thousands of miles astray.

The so-called Magellanic penguins began appearing in late June. Many of them dead or barely alive, they arrived on beaches all over southeastern Brazil, about 2,500 miles from their native southern Patagonia. Some of the penguins have since been spotted as far north as the warm-water beaches of the Brazilian state of Bahia, another 600 miles up the Atlantic coast.

Although the penguins regularly migrate up to southern Brazil in search of food, the sheer quantity of penguins washing up farther away than normal has prompted worries that human activity may be throwing off the animals' migratory cycle.

"The penguin population is intimately linked to their supplies of food, so this suggests something is happening to the population of fish they eat," said biologist Marcelo Bertellotti at the National Patagonic Center in Puerto Madryn, Argentina.

"It appears the penguins are not finding fish where they normally do, and one reason could be that warming waters and climate change have impacted the fish population."

No one has yet conducted a formal study of the phenomenon, but Brazilian scientists also blamed human activity for throwing off the penguins' migration.

Some said a recent oil spill off the coast of Uruguay might have wiped out fish populations there, forcing the penguins to search farther north for food. Others suggested that melting ice in Antarctica had strengthened the northbound Malvinas ocean current this year, trapping younger, more vulnerable penguins.

Whatever the reason, dozens of young penguins continued washing up along the Rio de Janeiro state coast this week, sending wildlife officials on a race to rescue the birds.

They found some covered in petroleum, which had exposed them to hypothermia because the contamination eats away the natural body oils that keep penguins waterproof and warm.

About half of the rescued penguins died by the time firefighters transported them to the state's main rehabilitation center, the zoo in the southeastern Brazilian city of Niterói, which has handled about 170 penguins over the past month.

"We find lots of penguins here with catfish bones in them, which they normally don't eat," said Niterói zoo's veterinarian Thiago Muniz. "That suggests they're not finding their normal fish."

Saltwater catfish have a lower fat content than the cold-water fish penguins normally consume, meaning the penguins were getting less thermal protection.

Scientists say human development and global warming have already dramatically altered the frozen Patagonian landscape. Nonetheless, hundreds of thousands of Magellanic penguins have survived and flourish in the region.

That's under threat, however, as oil production and other economic activity invade the penguins' habitat.

"The penguins are dealing with fishing nets and oil spills and all kinds of problems," said Lauro Barcellos, director of an oceanography museum in Porto Alegre, southern Brazil.

Bertellotti of the National Patagonic Center said, however, that the fishing industry in Patagonia has yet to seriously affect penguins because the birds normally eat anchovies, other small fish and squid near the ocean surface, as opposed to the deep-water fish sought by commercial fisheries.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008069769_penguins24....

...hardly.

plotters in order to protect their beloved candidate and fix his problems.

Anyone else remember the time when Keith Olbermann lost it completely and turned his Special Comment hate on to Hillary Clinton in order to protect the One? Not before thanking the Clinton family for all their support and help, of course. It almost brought tears to my eyes. Then he let her have it.
Next day he was the king of dailykos. The servant Obama Journolists were so obviously in love w. Obama, so biased and unprofessional, I can't think of the right words except ... Yuck!

=====

Others went further. According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/20/documents-show-media-plotting-to-kill-...

A hidden world, growing beyond control

Dana Priest and William Arkin

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

The investigation's other findings include:

* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

* In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings - about 17 million square feet of space.

read here
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/articles/a-hidden-...

====
* Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States.

* An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances.

--------unbelievable

Website of the Day (Counterpunch)

The Scariest Unemployment Graph Yet

see GRAPH

The median duration of unemployment is higher today than any time in the last 50 years. That's an understatement. It is more than twice as high today than any time in the last 50 years.

OK, you're saying, but what does this mean? Does it mean we must increase the duration of unemployment benefits to protect this new class of unemployed, or does it mean we need to stop subsidizing joblessness? Does it mean we need to expand federal retraining programs, or does it mean federal retraining programs aren't working? Does it mean we need more stimulus, more state aid, more infrastructure projects, more public works ... or does it mean it's time to stop everything, stand back and let business be business?

You're going to find smart people make a case for all six of the above public policy directions. (I tend to side with the first of each coupling.) It's hard to know for sure how to design public policy for historically unique crises precisely because they are historical orphans, without precedent to show us the right way from the wrong.

http://www.theatlantic.comhttp://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/20...
.

Human experimentation AND planetary experimentation...

==========

http://www.examiner.com/x-10438-Human-Rights-Examiner~y2010m7d20-Censore...

[excerpt]

Scientists and public demand ending human rights violations in Gulf of Mexico region.

Over 100 scientists and academic institution, research laboratory, conservation organization leaders plus human rights defenders from as far away as Norway and Greece signed the Scientists Consensus Statement on the Use of Chemical Dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico calling for the Obama Administration to immediately halt chemical aerial spraying in the Gulf region. A public petition to end dispersant use is also gaining momentum.

Non-consensual human experiementation

Scientists expressing grave concern about the unprecedented aerial spraying of chemical dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico region believe a large-scale, uncontrolled non-consensual human and environmental experiment is being conducted in the Gulf region according to reports sent to the writer including one from the "Ocean Doctor" David E. Guggenheim, Ph.D.

Guggenheim is president of 1planet1ocean, a project of The Ocean Foundation of which he is a Senior Fellow.

"Corexit aerial sprayed is one of the most toxic dispersants and one of the least effective on Louisiana crude oil," states Guggenheim.

"The mixture of Corexit and oil represents an even greater threat as the toxic effects are magnified according to independent scientists and researchers,"

Guggenheim is inviting more scientists to support the immediate halt of the chemical spraying.

"The dispersant-oil mixture is killing marine wildlife, including dolphins, whales and fish, while also causing a range of serious human health effects to those who have been exposed," reads part of the statement that 1plant1ocean is calling more scientists to sign. (Emphasis added)

The statement calls on the "Obama Administration, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, to immediately halt the use of chemical dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico."

Gathering more evidence with NBC

Sunday, Guggenheim and Dr. Susan Shaw, Director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute, Blue Hill, Maine, were out on a boat in the Gulf region taking water, oyster and fish samples for analysis.

"We are especially interested in analysis of the toxic effects of the mixture of dispersant and oil," stated Guggenheim.

An NBC camera crew was with the two scientists and Guggenheim says it will soon be airing its reports.

Guggenhem recently interviewed Shaw on his Ocean Doctor radio program archived at http://www.oceandoctor.org/the-deadly-truth-about-dispersants-in-the-gul...

Military-Corporate Aerial Spraying Agenda

The BP-military Gulf of Mexico catastrophe results from what is called ENMOD, "Environmental modification techniques". ENMOD refers to any technique for changing - through deliberate manipulation of natural processes - the dynamics, composition or structure of the Earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space. (Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques, United Nations, Geneva: 18 May 1977 cited in What are environmental modification techniques? Human Rights info 101, Dupre, Examiner, Dec. 6. 2009)

Chemical aerial spraying, also called "chemtrailing," is technically called Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering (SAG). Geoengineering, the artificial modification of the earth's climate systems, is an environment modification (ENMOD) science for "deliberate manipulation of natural processes - the dynamics, composition or structure of the Earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space that can be applied as a weapon of mass destruction." This is being applied in the Gulf of Mexico region by both drilling into the earth floor, pouring chemicals into the hole, and the ongoing chemical aerial spraying.

Geoengineer projects range from declassified experimentation, such as dumping particles into oceans to attract algae that sequesters carbon and theoretically slows global warming, to highly classified experimentation, such as aerosol spraying according to Professor Michel Chossudovsky.
...

[end excerpt]

Arrests/convictions increase, making photography a crime...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/TheLaw/videotaping-cops-arrest/story?id=1117907...

[excerpt]

Growing Number of Prosecutions for Videotaping the Police
Prosecutions Draw Attention to Influence of Witness Videos

By RAY SANCHEZ
July 19, 2010

Videos of alleged police misconduct have become hot items on the Internet. YouTube still features Graber's encounter along with numerous other witness videos. "The message is clearly, 'Don't criticize the police,'" said David Rocah, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland who is part of Graber's defense team. "With these charges, anyone who would even think to record the police is now justifiably in fear that they will also be criminally charged."

Carlos Miller, a Miami journalist who runs the blog "Photography Is Not a Crime," said he has documented about 10 arrests since he started keeping track in 2007. Miller himself has been arrested twice for photographing the police. He won one case on appeal, he said, while the other was thrown out after the officer twice failed to appear in court.

"They're just regular citizens with a cell-phone camera who happen to come upon a situation," Miller said. "If cops are doing their jobs, they shouldn't worry."

The ACLU of Florida filed a First Amendment lawsuit last month on behalf of a model who was arrested February 2009 in Boynton Beach. Fla. Her crime: videotaping an encounter between police officers and her teenage son at a movie theater. Prosecutors refused to file charges against Sharron Tasha Ford and her son.

...

[more at link]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/19/AR201007...

Using the beautiful turquoise Gulf of Mexico as a toxic waste disposal site. PROSECUTE these thugs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/20/AR201007...

...

The injection of the dense, gray fluid was meant to flush drilling mud from the hole, according to the testimony before a government panel investigating the April 20 accident. But the more than 400 barrels used were roughly double the usual quantity, said Leo Lindner, a drilling fluid specialist for contractor MI-Swaco.

BP had hundreds of barrels of the two chemicals on hand and needed to dispose of the material, Lindner testified. By first flushing it into the well, the company could take advantage of an exemption in an environmental law that otherwise would have prohibited it from discharging the hazardous waste into the Gulf of Mexico, Lindner said.

The procedure mixed two substances. "It's not something we've ever done before," Lindner said.

A BP specialist said using the two substances together would be okay. Nonetheless, the night before the rig exploded, Lindner was busy conducting an improvised chemistry experiment to double-check. He mixed a gallon of one of the substances with a gallon of the other and observed their reaction.

When the well became a gusher on April 20, a fluid that fit the general description of the mixture rained down on the rig.

Stephen Bertone, chief engineer on the rig, said in testimony earlier in the day that part of the rig was covered in an inch or more of material that he said resembled "snot."

[more at link]

for your post -Submitted by nora on Wed, 07/21/2010 - 2:48am.

I so appreciate your comments and agree with every line you wrote.

My plan today was to write a response tonight but it is getting a bit too late now and I am v. tired after watching the triller "Edge of Darkness, the v. interesting Mel Gibson film I mentioned earlier.

I'll write more tomorrow.

Good Night, Nora, and Be Strong :)

HuffPo Inches Closer to Goal of Becoming Internet Newspaper
By Dylan Stableford
Published: July 21, 2010

Last summer, when the Huffington Post was prepping the launches of its sports, tech and books sections, Arianna Huffington told me – and anyone who would listen – that her goal for HuffPo all along had been to create an Internet newspaper.

“We always knew that with our core values of news and opinion and community, we wanted to cover more than just politics,” Huffington said. “We needed to speak to more than that, to move like an Internet newspaper.”

On Wednesday, Huffington inched even closer, launching a travel section.

The section, HuffPost Travel, will be edited by Kate Auletta, the daughter of New Yorker writer and author Ken Auletta and former assistant features editor at “WSJ.” – the Wall Street Journal’s luxury magazine.

Today's front page has the typical page-view pandering mix of content ("The 8 Sexiest Subway Systems In The World (PHOTOS, POLL),"Charging Bison FLIPS Yellowstone Tourist") as well as timely links to news ("'Significant Turbulence' Injures 30 On Cross-Country Flight") and, of course, Arianna's own introductory post:

Some of my happiest moments -- as well as my most enriching and enlightening moments -- have come through travel: my first trip out of Athens when I was 11 (to Paris); my first trip to America when I was 16; traveling around India at 17, riding third class but getting a first-class education. It's why I'm delighted to announce the launch of HuffPost Travel, which will be both practical (hot deals, travel tips, hotel reviews) and inspiring -- a reminder that travel can be a great way to unplug and recharge, and also to learn and grow. As Steinbeck wrote: "People don't take trips; trips take people."

The Huffington Post now adds travel to its “politics, media, business, entertainment, living, style, ‘green’ living, world news, technology, nonprofits, college life, books, religion, food, arts and comedy” coverage. HuffPo also publishes local verticals for Chicago, New York, Denver and L.A.
http://www.thewrap.com/media/column-post/huffpo-inches-closer-goal-becom...

Gulf disaster a boon to Washington lobbying
Offshore drilling companies and environmental groups increased their spending on lobbying and PR markedly after the April 20 explosion, reports show.

By Tom Hamburger and Julia Love, Los Angeles Times
8:44 PM PDT, July 21, 2010

(Reporting from Washington) When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in April it created an environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and a gusher for the economy of Washington, where the business of lobbying, public relations and the law is the dominant industry.

Lobbying expenditure reports for the first reporting period after the April 20 blowout show that offshore drilling companies and environmental groups ramped up their spending to make their case to lawmakers and regulators on a range of energy-related issues.

Transocean Ltd., which owned and operated the rig and leased it to BP, had not spent a dime on lobbying before the explosion, according to federal records.

Less than three weeks after the spill, the company signed on with Capitol Hill Consulting Group, paying $110,000 to lobby lawmakers on offshore drilling, oil and gas exploration, mobile drilling units and energy legislation, according to a July 14 filing.

Since the disaster, Transocean has also spent in the seven figures hiring lawyers, media and other consultants who are not lobbyists, according to one person familiar with the company's Washington operations.

The American Petroleum Institute, the chief advocacy group for the oil industry, nearly doubled its lobbying budget in the three months after the explosion, spending more than $2.3 million since March, according to a report filed Monday. The organization reported that it focused on dozens of pieces of new legislation and regulatory rules.

The industry is particularly concerned about the Interior Department moratorium on deep-water drilling. The American Petroleum Institute reported on its lobbying forms that it is also monitoring legislation with titles like "End Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act of 2010" and the proposed "No New Drilling Act."

The institute response is typical for industries under scrutiny in Washington, said Dave Levinthal of the Center for Responsive Politics, which is still calculating the massive increase in lobbying and campaign contributions that followed the explosion. Many hire former members of Congress and former top executive branch officials to lobby. Others come to Washington and begin massive spending, even if they never did so before.

BP, which contracted with Transocean to drill the well, already had a stout lobbying presence in Washington before the explosion, relying on longstanding contracts with established Washington institutions such as the Duberstein Group, a lobbying firm led by Ken Duberstein, a former aide to President Reagan, and Michael Berman, a former aide to Vice President Walter Mondale. In addition, BP continues to use its contracts with Ogilvy PR Worldwide and Mindshare, a digital media firm.

But it has ramped up exponentially since, hiring lawyers, crisis communications consultants and other public relations firms.

BP has also hired Jamie Gorelick, a deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration, and her law firm, WilmerHale, to represent the company in congressional and other federal investigations.

BP is finalizing a contract with James Lee Witt, who directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the Clinton administration.

The explosion and its aftermath also inspired a flurry of lobbying from shallow-water oil drillers who formed a new coalition to convince lawmakers and Interior Department officials that the drilling they do is safer than deep-water operations, which face a moratorium.

The shallow-water drillers are represented by a group of Washington powerhouse firms including the Livingston Group, led by former Rep. Bob Livingston; Sabiston Consultants, led by a former top aide to Sen. Mary L. Landrieu; and the law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani, a bipartisan firm that includes former members of Congress and former Interior Department officials.

Environmental advocacy groups have also increased their lobbying expenditures now that lawmakers have turned their attention to long-awaited climate legislation.

The Environmental Defense Fund and its lobbying arm spent $670,000 during the second quarter, up from $522,000 during the first quarter of the year. The Wilderness Society spent $99,000 on lobbying during the second quarter, compared with $61,000 during the first quarter.

"The spending certainly reflects the all-hands-on-deck situation we have found ourselves in terms of working on oil spill response legislation as well as climate and energy," said Melinda Pierce, the lead lobbyist for the Sierra Club, which nearly doubled its spending on lobbying in the reporting period after the spill.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-oil-lobby-20100722,...

US 'offers help' to bin Ladens

The fourth son of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda's leader, says the United States has offered to assist members of his family being held in Iran.

Washington has "offered to help my brothers out of Iran" and has "no objections to receiving them in the United States," Omar bin Laden told Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language broadcaster, on Sunday.

Around 20 members of the extended bin Laden family are reportedly being held under de facto house arrest in Tehran.

They include four of Osama bin Laden's sons - Othman, 27, Saad, 30, Mohammed, 25, and Hamza, 19 - as well as a daughter, 24-year-old Fatima, and one of bin Laden's wives, Khairya Saber.

The family members were detained after fleeing from Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Stuck in Iran

Omar, 28, said his family members cannot leave their compound or make phone calls without permission, and Iran has refused to release them to their native Saudi Arabia.

"Othman called me by phone four days ago and asked me to find a country to mediate their release and accept to receive them," Omar said.

He said his sister Iman was released three months ago, after she took refuge at the Saudi embassy in Tehran, and is now in Syria.

The government of Qatar, where Omar currently lives, has also been working to help relocate the family, he said in a separate interview with the Reuters news agency.

"Iran has a problem with Saudi Arabia. They don't want [the family] to go back home. That's why I am asking for Qatar's help, for Syria's help," he said. "They want to come here, or to Syria, or to any country in the world that would accept them.........."
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/201071975313836752.html

Church seeks Chile military pardons

Official figures say 3,065 opponents of Pinochet's government were killed, 1,200 disappeared

Catholic church leaders have urged Chile's president to pardon military officers jailed for abuses committed during the bloody military rule of General Augusto Pinochet.

The proposal would grant a sweeping pardon to aged and long-serving inmates in the country's jails as an act of clemency to mark Chile's celebrations of 200 years of independence.....
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/07/201072232824647680.ht...

China launches oil spill clean-up

Chinese authorities have launched an ocean clean-up operation after an oil pipeline explosion and fire spilled 1,500 tonnes of crude into the Yellow Sea, state media reported.

Dozens of oil-skimming vessels and other ships were working to remove the oil from the sea off the northeastern port city of Dalian on Monday following Friday's accident, the Beijing News said.

"By Sunday evening, about 7,000 metres of floating booms had been set up and at least 20 oil skimmers were working to clean the spill," the official China Daily quoted local officials as saying.

Workers hope the oil slick will not spread past the concentrated area of at least 100km offshore.....

..."Authorities have not given any clues as to the cause of the accident, saying only that a formal investigation has been launched..."

The Xingang oil storage site, where the explosion happened, is home to one of the country's first government-held emergency crude stockpiles and a larger commercial crude reserve base built by PetroChina, the listed arm of state owned CNPC.

It is also a transfer spot for two nearby major refineries, Dalian Petrochemical Corp and WEPEC, both operated by PetroChina with a combined crude processing capacity of 600,000 bpd.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/07/20107191024381259...

A powerful group of ex-army leaders say their country is being overrun – and they blame King Abdullah

...This is the first serious opposition to emerge against King Abdullah since he succeeded his father, Hussein, who died in 1999....

....ere is frightening talk of ending the Arab peace treaty between Jordan and Israel; of creating a "Popular Army" of former servicemen who could create a territorial force to support regular soldiers in the event of an Israeli attack; of setting up a "new national army rather than a neo-colonial one".

General Habashneh is as explicit as any of the men. "There is corruption, a widening of the gap between rich and poor," he says. "Economic investment policies are destroying the country. This is what our national movement is all about. We are trying to get all our forces together to hold a national conference by the beginning of the new year, to decide on a strategic movement which will protect this country and remove the influence of the Israelis and Americans."

A young teacher sits at the table, anxious to show the non-military power of the New Jordanian National Movement, as it is already calling itself. "In March and the end of May, 110,000 teachers went on strike with demands for trade unions and better working conditions," he says. "Although this started as social demands, it became a larger movement of discontent. You'd be surprised how widely these views are felt – bus drivers, cigarette sellers, pharmacists, they're all part of a trans-Jordanian movement."

...the root cause of governmental weakness lies in the policies of privatisation and the liquidation of the public sector... that have led to the growing power of business interests and those who deal in corruption and shady financial deals... A narrow and unrepresentative coterie of political clans has monopolised the formation of cabinets and decision-making while preventing the Jordanian people from determining their fate and defending Jordan's national interests...."
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-why-j...