Larry Flynt argues that political sex scandals -- from tawdry affairs to closeted pols -- are as old as our nation
Tracy Clark-Flory
Tuesday, Apr 26, 2011
http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/04/26/flynt/index.html
If anyone could spice up the tale of our nation's birth, it would be Larry Flynt. When the infamous pornographer set out to do just that, he quickly discovered that our Founding Fathers were pretty smutty to begin with – it's just that the presidential orgies and brothel visits have been whitewashed from American history textbooks.
Flynt endeavored to set straight the record – which is, well, actually pretty gay, according to him – in his entertaining new book, "One Nation Under Sex: How the Private Lives of Presidents, First Ladies and Their Lovers Changed the Course of American History." With the help of coauthor David Eisenbach, a professor of American political history at Columbia University, he argues that Benjamin Franklin's womanizing ways helped win him favor with the French and gain the country's military support during the Revolutionary War. He claims that James Buchanan's intimate same-sex relationship with a slave owner might have influenced his secessionist support on the brink of the Civil War. These aren't just sex scandals; they're history-changing sex scandals. As Publishers Weekly puts it: "Those looking for salacious details will find them, but Flynt and Eisenbach favor analysis over sensationalism, providing a new perspective of the men and women who have shaped our nation." Flynt also offers fascinating and well-sourced explorations of Thomas Jefferson's relationship with a 14-year-old slave and Eleanor Roosevelt's intense relationship with journalist Lorena Hickok. Then there are the more salacious tidbits, the merits of which are questionable – like the allegation that Jackie O miscarried because of a venereal disease given to her by JFK.
The book is most gripping, and problematic, when it raises the question of sexuality (which can be a rather murky thing even without the distance of a couple of centuries). Flynt isn't the first to suggest that Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln and J. Edgar Hoover had gay relationships, but that isn't to say that the allegations are uncontested. For example, part of the evidence for Lincoln's homosexual leanings is his close friendship with Joshua Speed, with whom he shared a bed for many years. But historians have pointed out that in the 19th century it was not uncommon for men to sleep in the same bed. (Sleeping together doesn't necessarily mean sleeping together.) Such is the trouble with reexamining the sexual identities of historical figures from a 21st-century perspective. The available details of the close same-sex relationships enjoyed by these men certainly cast them as more complicated figures, but there is nothing conclusive here. All we have from this historical vantage point is enough evidence to believe whatever we want to believe – and it's no secret what Flynt hoped to find here.
In his new role as pornographer-cum-historian, the free-speech advocate's mission is the same as when he first entered the spotlight back in the 1970s as the publisher of Hustler: to challenge the puritanical and hypocritical elements of our culture. It's only natural that he would set out to prove that our Founding Fathers were pervs. This book either reveals how much our history books have lied to us, or shows just what a successful huckster Flynt is. (It might prove both at once, actually.) Salon recently spoke with him by phone about the biggest presidential playboys, the sex scandals that shocked even him, and the conservative senator he hopes to soon force out of the closet.
Why do the sex lives of presidents matter?
Well, we're often preoccupied with it even in our present society. Over the last 30 years there were a lot of corrupt politicians – usually involving sexual scandals. I just thought it would be interesting to go back and start with the Founding Fathers and see if still existed. I was amazed it was so prevalent.
What was most shocking to you?
So much was shocking. For too many years, we never would believe – and historians were a part of this – that Thomas Jefferson, this great man who wrote the Declaration of Independence, fathered six children by his slave girl Sally Hemings.
We often think that muckraking and tabloid journalism emerged in recent years. But in 1729, 40-some years before the revolution even started, Benjamin Franklin was publishing a tabloid newspaper that had the first-ever sex advice column. He was really a fascinating character with a reputation for seducing women, and that actually helped him in getting France's support for the war. He was the ambassador to France at the time. So even the Founding Fathers were a rowdy bunch of guys.
There were some women that were notorious in the early years too. Dolley Madison was without a doubt the most colorful first lady we ever had. She had a couple of her sisters live with her in the White House, and they were really pretty wild girls. They used to throw parties there, and they would invite members of the Continental Army. One of President James Madison's Cabinet members said to him, "I know you don't want to hear this, but your wife has single-handedly turned the White House into a brothel."
How did the first political sex scandals come about?
The first sex scandal investigated by congress involved Alexander Hamilton, who was the secretary of the treasury. He was having this affair with a woman and was giving her money because, I think, he felt sorry for her more than anything else. She was married. And all of a sudden this guy named James Reynolds, who was her husband, tried to start blackmailing Hamilton. He paid the blackmail for some time, and when the word finally got out and reached Congress, there was an investigation and the Congress found that he had not used state money to give to her and that he was pretty much entrapped in the situation. They didn't find him guilty of any wrongdoing or crime.
They even knew about Jefferson and the slaves in the beginning, and a lot came out in his campaign for the presidency, but it was just, like, so unbelievable that most people did not believe it. We actually did not know for sure until 1998 – over 200 years later, it was proved by DNA testing. [Ed. note: The test proved that Jefferson or a close relative fathered at least one of Hemings' children.]
Why are sex scandals so enmeshed in American politics?
Well most people like sex – they always talk about it, but they lie about it. They like to get it, they lie to keep it under wraps, and people's libidos have always been the same since the very beginning. But because of our puritanical values in this society, they always try to keep sexual behavior under wraps.
Everybody always accuses me of picking on Republicans, but it's not true – they just tend to be easier. They have so much baggage, and when they live a conservative life, everything stays so well hidden – but it's like a pressure cooker and eventually it comes out.
Which president would you say was the biggest playboy?
I would say it was a tie between Harding and Jack Kennedy. 'Course Wilson was in the mix too. It was often said about Wilson and Harding that Wilson preferred the brothels of Paris and Harding preferred the whorehouses of Columbus, Ohio. Those guys' entire presidencies were just tattered by affairs and relationships.
Then there's Kennedy. There was much more than what people even thought at the time. I think he just sort of felt he was infallible, and in his quest of women he was very reckless. Most of these encounters weren't really thought out very well.
Don't get me wrong, I'm one of the first guys to defend a philandering president. I think if you can fight two wars and balance a budget at the same time you can do whatever you want to – but you need a certain amount of discretion.
When did gay sex scandals pop up in American politics?
The first was when James Buchanan was elected president. He was the first gay president we ever had. From the time he was first elected, Senator William Rufus King said he was having an affair with him and moved into the White House with him. Everybody knew it – they would call them "Aunt Fancy" and "Miss Nancy" [common slang for gay men]. Everybody knew, and it was somewhat accepted. [Ed. note: Historians are not in agreement on this issue, though Flynt is correct there is corroborating evidence.]
You would have thought someone who was gay would identify with people who were oppressed, but he did not. He was a staunch segregationist, and he handed Lincoln a real mess.
What can we learn now looking back at the Monica Lewinsky scandal?
We really don't learn much; it's just that more people have knowledge of what's going on and that politicians have always behaved this way. I would like us to become less uptight about sex and more like the Europeans. Over there it's commonly accepted that if you're a politician, you have a mistress. It's gonna happen; it's just human nature. I'm not opposed to it. I'm opposed to the lack of discretion.
What kind of dirt do you have on the 2012 candidates?
We always have several investigations going. I've never printed a word about anybody that wasn't true, and we're very meticulous about what we do. We're presently investigating a senator who's gay and the reason why that's important is that he's so hypocritical. We were almost ready to break the story, and we found out his lover was married. Our attorney felt that even if he was gay or bisexual, that really complicated the issue, and we felt we didn't have enough information to go ahead.
Is it possible that will still come out?
It's very possible.
How do you expect sex to influence American politics in the next decade?
I don't think it'll be much different from the past – it's just you need to accept that sex influences everything we do. Other than the desire for survival, the strongest single desire we have is for sex. We use it to communicate more than any other medium, but we understand it less. That's what's confusing about it.
After all the research you did for this book, what would you say is your big takeaway in terms of the intermingling of sex and politics in America?
The biggest thing I took away from this book is the degree to which it's existed since the founding of our nation almost 250 years ago. When I started the book, I didn't even know that we had a gay president, and I didn't know that Lincoln's sexuality was called into question. Historians really get under my skin because I think they're the most anal-retentive group of professionals I've ever met. They can look at Mount Rushmore and get writer's cramps. Historians never wanted to believe that this magnificent man who drafted the Declaration of Independence had actually fathered children by a black slave.
The publishers of history books tend to be conservative and they only want to know about policy and politics. They don't want to know about sex. That's why it's left out of these books and has been for centuries.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
RIP Kate Couric as CBS News Anchor
After being a ratings and respectability bust, Couric is finally out. Don't let the door hit you in the ass while you're leaving...
Why the King James Bible Endures
CHARLES McGRATH
April 23, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/weekinreview/24mcgrath.html
The King James Bible, which was first published 400 years ago next month, may be the single best thing ever accomplished by a committee. The Bible was the work of 54 scholars and clergymen who met over seven years in six nine-man subcommittees, called “companies.” In a preface to the new Bible, Miles Smith, one of the translators and a man so impatient that he once walked out of a boring sermon and went to the pub, wrote that anything new inevitably “endured many a storm of gainsaying, or opposition.” So there must have been disputes — shouting; table pounding; high-ruffed, black-gowned clergymen folding their arms and stomping out of the room — but there is no record of them. And the finished text shows none of the PowerPoint insipidness we associate with committee-speak or with later group translations like the 1961 New English Bible, which T.S. Eliot said did not even rise to “dignified mediocrity.” Far from bland, the King James Bible is one of the great masterpieces of English prose.
The issue of how, or even whether, to translate sacred texts was a fraught one in those days, often with political as well as religious overtones, and it still is. The Roman Catholic Church, for instance, recently decided to retranslate the missal used at Mass to make it more formal and less conversational. Critics have complained that the new text is awkward and archaic, while its defenders (some of whom probably still prefer the Mass in Latin) insist that’s just the point — that language a little out of the ordinary is more devotional and inspiring. No one would ever say that the King James Bible is an easy read. And yet its very oddness is part of its power.
From the start, the King James Bible was intended to be not a literary creation but rather a political and theological compromise between the established church and the growing Puritan movement. What the king cared about was clarity, simplicity, doctrinal orthodoxy. The translators worked hard on that, going back to the original Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, and yet they also spent a lot of time tweaking the English text in the interest of euphony and musicality. Time and again the language seems to slip almost unconsciously into iambic pentameter — this was the age of Shakespeare, commentators are always reminding us — and right from the beginning the translators embraced the principles of repetition and the dramatic pause: “In the beginning God created the Heauen, and the Earth. And the earth was without forme, and voyd, and darkenesse was vpon the face of the deepe: and the Spirit of God mooued vpon the face of the waters.”
The influence of the King James Bible is so great that the list of idioms from it that have slipped into everyday speech, taking such deep root that we use them all the time without any awareness of their biblical origin, is practically endless: sour grapes; fatted calf; salt of the earth; drop in a bucket; skin of one’s teeth; apple of one’s eye; girded loins; feet of clay; whited sepulchers; filthy lucre; pearls before swine; fly in the ointment; fight the good fight; eat, drink and be merry.
But what we also love about this Bible is its strangeness — its weird punctuation, odd pronouns (as in “Our Father, which art in heaven”), all those verbs that end in “eth”: “In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth vp; in the euening it is cut downe, and withereth.” As Robert Alter has demonstrated in his startling and revealing translations of the Psalms and the Pentateuch, the Hebrew Bible is even stranger, and in ways that the King James translators may not have entirely comprehended, and yet their text performs the great trick of being at once recognizably English and also a little bit foreign. You can hear its distinctive cadences in the speeches of Lincoln, the poetry of Whitman, the novels of Cormac McCarthy.
Even in its time, the King James Bible was deliberately archaic in grammar and phraseology: an expression like “yea, verily,” for example, had gone out of fashion some 50 years before. The translators didn’t want their Bible to sound contemporary, because they knew that contemporaneity quickly goes out of fashion. In his very useful guide, “God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible,” Adam Nicolson points out that when the Victorians came to revise the King James Bible in 1885, they embraced this principle wholeheartedly, and like those people who whack and scratch old furniture to make it look even more ancient, they threw in a lot of extra Jacobeanisms, like “howbeit,” “peradventure, “holden” and “behooved.”
This is the opposite, of course, of the procedure followed by most new translations, starting with Good News for Modern Man, a paperback Bible published by the American Bible Society in 1966, whose goal was to reflect not the language of the Bible but its ideas, rendering them into current terms, so that Ezekiel 23:20, for example (“For she doted vpon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses”) becomes “She was filled with lust for oversexed men who had all the lustfulness of donkeys or stallions.”
There are countless new Bibles available now, many of them specialized: a Bible for couples, for gays and lesbians, for recovering addicts, for surfers, for skaters and skateboarders, not to mention a superheroes Bible for children. They are all “accessible,” but most are a little tone-deaf, lacking in grandeur and majesty, replacing “through a glasse, darkly,” for instance, with something along the lines of “like a dim image in a mirror.” But what this modernizing ignores is that the most powerful religious language is often a little elevated and incantatory, even ambiguous or just plain hard to understand. The new Catholic missal, for instance, does not seem to fear the forbidding phrase, replacing the statement that Jesus is “one in being with the Father” with the more complicated idea that he is “consubstantial with the Father.”
Not everyone prefers a God who talks like a pal or a guidance counselor. Even some of us who are nonbelievers want a God who speaketh like — well, God. The great achievement of the King James translators is to have arrived at a language that is both ordinary and heightened, that rings in the ear and lingers in the mind. And that all 54 of them were able to agree on every phrase, every comma, without sounding as gassy and evasive as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, is little short of amazing, in itself proof of something like divine inspiration.
A version of this article appeared in print on April 24, 2011, on page WK3 of the New York edition with the headline: Thou Shalt Not Be Colloquial.
April 23, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/weekinreview/24mcgrath.html
The King James Bible, which was first published 400 years ago next month, may be the single best thing ever accomplished by a committee. The Bible was the work of 54 scholars and clergymen who met over seven years in six nine-man subcommittees, called “companies.” In a preface to the new Bible, Miles Smith, one of the translators and a man so impatient that he once walked out of a boring sermon and went to the pub, wrote that anything new inevitably “endured many a storm of gainsaying, or opposition.” So there must have been disputes — shouting; table pounding; high-ruffed, black-gowned clergymen folding their arms and stomping out of the room — but there is no record of them. And the finished text shows none of the PowerPoint insipidness we associate with committee-speak or with later group translations like the 1961 New English Bible, which T.S. Eliot said did not even rise to “dignified mediocrity.” Far from bland, the King James Bible is one of the great masterpieces of English prose.
The issue of how, or even whether, to translate sacred texts was a fraught one in those days, often with political as well as religious overtones, and it still is. The Roman Catholic Church, for instance, recently decided to retranslate the missal used at Mass to make it more formal and less conversational. Critics have complained that the new text is awkward and archaic, while its defenders (some of whom probably still prefer the Mass in Latin) insist that’s just the point — that language a little out of the ordinary is more devotional and inspiring. No one would ever say that the King James Bible is an easy read. And yet its very oddness is part of its power.
From the start, the King James Bible was intended to be not a literary creation but rather a political and theological compromise between the established church and the growing Puritan movement. What the king cared about was clarity, simplicity, doctrinal orthodoxy. The translators worked hard on that, going back to the original Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, and yet they also spent a lot of time tweaking the English text in the interest of euphony and musicality. Time and again the language seems to slip almost unconsciously into iambic pentameter — this was the age of Shakespeare, commentators are always reminding us — and right from the beginning the translators embraced the principles of repetition and the dramatic pause: “In the beginning God created the Heauen, and the Earth. And the earth was without forme, and voyd, and darkenesse was vpon the face of the deepe: and the Spirit of God mooued vpon the face of the waters.”
The influence of the King James Bible is so great that the list of idioms from it that have slipped into everyday speech, taking such deep root that we use them all the time without any awareness of their biblical origin, is practically endless: sour grapes; fatted calf; salt of the earth; drop in a bucket; skin of one’s teeth; apple of one’s eye; girded loins; feet of clay; whited sepulchers; filthy lucre; pearls before swine; fly in the ointment; fight the good fight; eat, drink and be merry.
But what we also love about this Bible is its strangeness — its weird punctuation, odd pronouns (as in “Our Father, which art in heaven”), all those verbs that end in “eth”: “In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth vp; in the euening it is cut downe, and withereth.” As Robert Alter has demonstrated in his startling and revealing translations of the Psalms and the Pentateuch, the Hebrew Bible is even stranger, and in ways that the King James translators may not have entirely comprehended, and yet their text performs the great trick of being at once recognizably English and also a little bit foreign. You can hear its distinctive cadences in the speeches of Lincoln, the poetry of Whitman, the novels of Cormac McCarthy.
Even in its time, the King James Bible was deliberately archaic in grammar and phraseology: an expression like “yea, verily,” for example, had gone out of fashion some 50 years before. The translators didn’t want their Bible to sound contemporary, because they knew that contemporaneity quickly goes out of fashion. In his very useful guide, “God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible,” Adam Nicolson points out that when the Victorians came to revise the King James Bible in 1885, they embraced this principle wholeheartedly, and like those people who whack and scratch old furniture to make it look even more ancient, they threw in a lot of extra Jacobeanisms, like “howbeit,” “peradventure, “holden” and “behooved.”
This is the opposite, of course, of the procedure followed by most new translations, starting with Good News for Modern Man, a paperback Bible published by the American Bible Society in 1966, whose goal was to reflect not the language of the Bible but its ideas, rendering them into current terms, so that Ezekiel 23:20, for example (“For she doted vpon their paramours, whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is like the issue of horses”) becomes “She was filled with lust for oversexed men who had all the lustfulness of donkeys or stallions.”
There are countless new Bibles available now, many of them specialized: a Bible for couples, for gays and lesbians, for recovering addicts, for surfers, for skaters and skateboarders, not to mention a superheroes Bible for children. They are all “accessible,” but most are a little tone-deaf, lacking in grandeur and majesty, replacing “through a glasse, darkly,” for instance, with something along the lines of “like a dim image in a mirror.” But what this modernizing ignores is that the most powerful religious language is often a little elevated and incantatory, even ambiguous or just plain hard to understand. The new Catholic missal, for instance, does not seem to fear the forbidding phrase, replacing the statement that Jesus is “one in being with the Father” with the more complicated idea that he is “consubstantial with the Father.”
Not everyone prefers a God who talks like a pal or a guidance counselor. Even some of us who are nonbelievers want a God who speaketh like — well, God. The great achievement of the King James translators is to have arrived at a language that is both ordinary and heightened, that rings in the ear and lingers in the mind. And that all 54 of them were able to agree on every phrase, every comma, without sounding as gassy and evasive as the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, is little short of amazing, in itself proof of something like divine inspiration.
A version of this article appeared in print on April 24, 2011, on page WK3 of the New York edition with the headline: Thou Shalt Not Be Colloquial.
$4 Million Log Cabin In Texas
Property Porn Of The Week
Morgan Brennan
Apr. 12 2011
http://blogs.forbes.com/morganbrennan/2011/04/12/property-porn-of-the-week-east-texas-4-million-log-cabin/
Kirkland Kastle isn’t just another east Texas log cabin. It’s a huge, hard wood “work of art,” asserts Evan Matteson of the Matteson Group of Coldwell Banker Apex, Realtors. The Canton, Texas area mansion is constructed of a staggering 6,000 oak and cedar logs custom-milled by hand over the course of five years. It’s currently on the market for $4 million.
“You ever walk into a cedar closet and get that aroma? The home has a little bit of that even though the logs are sealed,” says Matteson, who is the property’s listing agent.
The three story wooden abode is comprised of 4,800 square feet of living space and another 9,800 square feet of covered porches. The master bedroom loft touts two master baths. The decadent kitchen boasts Viking commercial grade appliances, granite countertops and cabinets made of that sweet-smelling cedar wood. And there’s a sportsbar-inspired entertainment area with wet bar bedecked in retro neon beer signs.
Sitting on a private 12 acre lake, the 40 acre estate includes two bridges and a swimming pier with wooden diving board. The lake is so expansive, current owners Gerald and Kelly Kirkland have been known to take a jet ski or two out now and again. In true Texas shindig fashion, there’s a bandstand on the lake’s shore for live music concerts and the home itself is rigged with a state-of-the art sound system, ensuring everyone gets to hear the band. The grounds also tout a gazebo and a three bay barn.
Gerald Kirkland built his namesake “Kastle” himself, enlisting the seasonal help of four employees from the speaker box construction business that he owns as a day job. Where did Kirkland get all of these logs? He literally knocked on the doors of his neighbors within a 10 mile radius and asked if they had trees in need of disposal on their properties. He then chopped said trees down and hauled them back to 4377 Vz County Road 2602, where he handcut and treated them one at a time.
Then there’s the foundation. Kirkland spared no means in making sure this residential labor of love would be here to stay. The house has 50 belled piers. In other words 50 2×4 foot boxes were pushed down upwards of eight feet into bedrock and then filled with concrete. Between the concrete foundation and the 6,000 hard wood pieces, Kirkland Kastle will need no structural renovations for at least 200 years, explains Matteson. Thanks to the sheer size of the logs and the way they were treated, even a fire would struggle to catch ablaze let alone cause any real structural damage.
The luxe log cabin sits just outside of the town of Canton, about 50 minutes east of Dallas and 50 minutes southwest of Tyler. Matteson says the outrageous $4 million home, which has been on the market about a month, is already drumming up interest. He thinks it will ultimately sell to one of two types of buyers: either a buyer who see it as a business investment for hosting events or acting as a bed and breakfast, or the high-end home buyer who wants a remote getaway property that’s completely unique.
“I’ve seen many log homes before, they’re a dime a dozen out here, but this is more like your style of wood lodge in Alaska or Colorado that’s been there 100 years and will be another 100,” says Matteson. “There’s a permanence to this house that you don’t normally see with newer construction these days.
Robin in the Rye
From Andrew Makes Comics, Robin the Boy Wonder meets Catcher in the Rye...
http://andrewmakescomics.tumblr.com/post/4423845383/the-lunts-oh-marvelous
Konformist Book Club: The Other End
John Shirley
Kindle Price: $9.99 includes free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
Paperback: $16.95
Do you ever feel you'd like to reboot the world?
Do you ever think that the human world is hopelessly out of balance, blighted, off track, and the only hope is some kind of apocalypse, some sort of "Judgment Day with justice" that would allow the human race to start over--without, ah, certain people?
You know you don't want--and can't believe in--the usual Judgment Days that are predicted and ballyhooed by hysterical, superstitious people.
But when you look around at the world as it stands you see Darfur, you see Somalia and the Congo, you see the modern slavery of indentured servitude, you see children sold into prostitution, you see millions starving, you see mindless wars, you see people you care about dying of Alzheimer's and children dying of cancer and millions of others trapped in schizophrenia or living lives of media-hypnotized desperation...
And you know that it's only going to get worse. This can't go on; something has to change.
What if you could change it? What if you could design your own Judgment Day? Not a Judgment Day based on childish interpretations of religion, on bias and cultural narrowness...
What if you could design a Judgment Day, for the whole world--one that offers real Justice?
What would it be like?
In John Shirley's novel, THE OTHER END, a wave of light shatters the world's assumptions; human behavior takes a sudden unexpected turn. Swift, a newspaper reporter, has to find his missing daughter in a panicking world even as something from Every Where makes millions of people suddenly look inward. And looking inward, strangely, takes them outward again...
And then come the Adjustors. Who are they? Where exactly are they from? They say they're not angels, or aliens...Then who are they?
The usual End Timers offer one End of the World as We Know It...
John Shirley's courageous, genuinely risky new novel offers the other end. The other end of the ideological spectrum; the other end of the world.
Does it involve...aliens? No.
Does it involve God? Not really--but then, it depends on your definition.
John Shirley, the award-winning author of DEMONS, IN DARKNESS WAITING, CELLARS, A SPLENDID CHAOS, ECLIPSE, BLACK BUTTERFLIES, and so much more gives us a totally unexpected Judgment Day. Something is coming, to near-future Earth--to the whole world.
Something is coming that will finally give the human race the chance it never had before... to bring it to THE OTHER END.
From the Author
"As John's first teacher I've been waiting a long time for him to reach his full amazing potential. With this book he breaks the tape." -- Harlan Ellison
John Shirley, the award-winning author of Demons, In Darkness Waiting, Cellars, A Splendid Chaos, Eclipse, Black Butterflies, and so much more gives us a totally unexpected Judgment Day. Something is coming, to near-future Earth--to the whole world.
Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 380 KB
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: E-Reads (March 27, 2011)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Language: English
ASIN: B004U7LZDU
Kindle edition: http://www.amazon.com/The-Other-End-ebook/dp/B004U7LZDU/thekonformist
Paperback: http://www.amazon.com/Other-End-John-Shirley/dp/1617562262/thekonformist
Antichrist 2012: Will Prince William be King of the World?
By Tracy R. Twyman and Clyde Lewis http://quintessentialpublications.com/antichrist2012.html
Born on the Summer Solstice during a solar eclipse, Prince William is a living embodiment of the dying and reborn solar king of the ancient world. This is the primordial archetype of kingship, the “Lord of the Earth,” upon which all monarchs throughout history have modeled themselves. Through his descent from the Spencer family, William carries a more illustrious predigree than any other monarch to sit on the throne of England. His bloodline can be traced back to the biblical House of David, and possibly Jesus himself, as well to the historical figure remembered as Satan. His marriage to Kate Middleton has been patterned on the ancient pagan May Day rituals of king sacrifice and sex magic. His bride has been quite consciously chosen to be modeled as a new Diana, a living incarnation of that "virgin queen" goddess referred to in St. John's Revelation as the Whore of Babylon. Learn why Prince William could in fact be that final King of the World prophesied in the Bible. Read Antichrist 2012: Will Prince William be King of the World?, By Tracy R. Twyman and Clyde Lewis, available for preorder from Quintessential Publications as a .PDF ebook, to be auto-delivered on May 2, 2011.
Ebook version preorder
(.PDF Emailed to you on May 2, 2011):
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RIP Norio Ohga
The name may not be familiar, but his influence can't be denied.
From 1982-95, he was CEO of Sony, and during his tenure, he oversaw the $3.4 billion purchase of Hollywood giant Columbia pictures and the development of the Sony Playstation, both of which transformed the electronics firm into a multimedia giant. But perhaps his most important contribution was the development of the Compact Disc. It is Ohga who chose the 75 minute length to the medium, as it was the size to contain Beethoven's Ninth Symphony...
Norio Ohga, former Sony president, dies
23 April 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13178548
From 1982-95, he was CEO of Sony, and during his tenure, he oversaw the $3.4 billion purchase of Hollywood giant Columbia pictures and the development of the Sony Playstation, both of which transformed the electronics firm into a multimedia giant. But perhaps his most important contribution was the development of the Compact Disc. It is Ohga who chose the 75 minute length to the medium, as it was the size to contain Beethoven's Ninth Symphony...
Norio Ohga, former Sony president, dies
23 April 2011
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13178548
17 attorneys general urge halt in production of controversial drink
Is Blast alcohol drink targeting youth?
Julia Talanova, CNN
April 22, 2011
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/21/colt.45.blast.letter
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
17 state attorneys general send a letter to Pabst Brewing Co., maker of "Blast"
The malt beverage is a 'binge-in-a-can" that targets youth, letter says
The drink has an alcohol content of 12%, comes in colorful, 23.5-ounce cans
"Message of drinking responsibly" is focus of marketing, Pabst says
RELATED TOPICS
Pabst Brewing Company
Snoop Dogg
(CNN) -- Seventeen state attorneys general are urging Pabst Brewing Co. to stop marketing to young drinkers and halt production of a new malt beverage promoted by rapper Snoop Dogg.
In a letter sent to the Pabst Brewing Co., Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler says "Blast" by Colt 45 is a 'binge-in-a-can" that targets youth. Gansler was joined by attorneys general from Arizona, California, Connecticut, Guam, Idaho, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and Washington.
San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera also joined the petition, according to a written statement.
The makers of the new fruity blend came under fire after advocacy groups and politicians raised questions about its marketing campaign.
The drink, in a colorful 23.5-ounce can that resembles soda pop but has an alcohol content of 12%, more potent than a typical can of beer.
"They're marketing it as a single serving when in reality it's five servings in a can," said Raquel Guillory, spokeswoman for the Maryland attorney general. "We hope they would be a good corporate citizen."
Paul Porter of Industry Ears, a media watchdog group, says "Colt 45 makers are raising the alcohol level from the already high 6% to the even higher 12%, and enticing young people with hip hop themes and lollipop flavors."
He added the company is "expanding its market with our children."
Asked about the letter, Pabst Brewing Co. chief marketing officer Jon Sayer responded in a written statement: "Blast is only meant to be consumed by those above legal drinking age."
"As with all Pabst products, our marketing efforts for Blast are focused on conveying the message of drinking responsibly," the statement said. "To that end, the alcohol content of Blast is clearly marked on its packaging."
Rapper Snoop Dogg is considered a face of the product who "has the ability to take Colt 45 to a whole new level," according to a company marketing video.
As of Thursday night, Snoop Dogg had not responded to a request for comment from CNN.
In 2008, Gansler worked out a deal with MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch to halt the sale and production of select high-alcohol-content drinks.
"Both of those voluntarily pulled those off the market after we sent them a letter" that requested the drinks' removal, said Guillory.
Julia Talanova, CNN
April 22, 2011
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/04/21/colt.45.blast.letter
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
17 state attorneys general send a letter to Pabst Brewing Co., maker of "Blast"
The malt beverage is a 'binge-in-a-can" that targets youth, letter says
The drink has an alcohol content of 12%, comes in colorful, 23.5-ounce cans
"Message of drinking responsibly" is focus of marketing, Pabst says
RELATED TOPICS
Pabst Brewing Company
Snoop Dogg
(CNN) -- Seventeen state attorneys general are urging Pabst Brewing Co. to stop marketing to young drinkers and halt production of a new malt beverage promoted by rapper Snoop Dogg.
In a letter sent to the Pabst Brewing Co., Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler says "Blast" by Colt 45 is a 'binge-in-a-can" that targets youth. Gansler was joined by attorneys general from Arizona, California, Connecticut, Guam, Idaho, Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah, and Washington.
San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera also joined the petition, according to a written statement.
The makers of the new fruity blend came under fire after advocacy groups and politicians raised questions about its marketing campaign.
The drink, in a colorful 23.5-ounce can that resembles soda pop but has an alcohol content of 12%, more potent than a typical can of beer.
"They're marketing it as a single serving when in reality it's five servings in a can," said Raquel Guillory, spokeswoman for the Maryland attorney general. "We hope they would be a good corporate citizen."
Paul Porter of Industry Ears, a media watchdog group, says "Colt 45 makers are raising the alcohol level from the already high 6% to the even higher 12%, and enticing young people with hip hop themes and lollipop flavors."
He added the company is "expanding its market with our children."
Asked about the letter, Pabst Brewing Co. chief marketing officer Jon Sayer responded in a written statement: "Blast is only meant to be consumed by those above legal drinking age."
"As with all Pabst products, our marketing efforts for Blast are focused on conveying the message of drinking responsibly," the statement said. "To that end, the alcohol content of Blast is clearly marked on its packaging."
Rapper Snoop Dogg is considered a face of the product who "has the ability to take Colt 45 to a whole new level," according to a company marketing video.
As of Thursday night, Snoop Dogg had not responded to a request for comment from CNN.
In 2008, Gansler worked out a deal with MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch to halt the sale and production of select high-alcohol-content drinks.
"Both of those voluntarily pulled those off the market after we sent them a letter" that requested the drinks' removal, said Guillory.
Gumby & Sai Baba
Say what you will about Sai Baba, but anybody who could cure Gumby founder Art Clokey of a deep depression deserves some credit...
"The Gumby Story"
From Uncle John's Second Bathroom Reader
http://books.google.com/books?id=aWsP1Jw0POcC&pg=PA162
"The Gumby Story"
From Uncle John's Second Bathroom Reader
http://books.google.com/books?id=aWsP1Jw0POcC&pg=PA162
RIP Sai Baba
Hindu guru Sathya Sai Baba, revered by millions worldwide, died Sunday after nearly a month of hospital treatment near his southern Indian ashram. He was 84.
The news brought an outpouring of grief from his followers, including high Indian officials, who remembered him as a pious person who worked selflessly to help others with the billions of dollars donated to his charitable trust...
Sai Baba had a huge following, with missions in more than 130 countries, including Canada. His devotees include high-placed politicians, movie stars, world-class athletes and industrialists.
He was said to perform miracles, conjuring jewellery, Rolex watches and “vibhuti” — a sacred ash that his followers applied to their foreheads — from his halo of wild, frizzy hair.
But rationalist critics led campaigns against him, calling him a charlatan and his miracles fake. Several news reports alleged that he sexually abused devotees — accusations he denied as vilification campaigns...
Born Nov. 23, 1926, as Sathyanarayana Raju, he was said to display a tendency toward spirituality and unusual intelligence, which he expressed through music, dance and writing poetry and plays.
In 1940, at the age of 14, he declared himself an “avatar,” or reincarnation, of another Hindu holy man called the Sai Baba of Shirdi, a town in western Maharashtra state, who died in 1918.
As the young guru attracted followers, his home of Puttaparti grew from a sleepy village into a vibrant town with the sprawling “Prasanthi Nilayam” ashram built in 1950, as well as a large hospital, a university and schools run by his Sathya Sai Central Trust, set up in 1972 with donations from devotees.
The trust — estimated to be worth at least $8.9 billion and possibly much more — also established spiritual centres in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai. It built another hospital in Bangalore, where Sai Baba had a summer home, and funded water supply projects in several southern states.
Though no successor has been named to run the trust, “there is or will be no vacuum,” a statement released after the guru was hospitalized said.
Health woes over recent years had forced Sai Baba to cut down on public appearances. He survived a stroke and a series of heart attacks in 1963. In 2005, he began using a wheelchair, and a year later he fractured his hip when a student fell from a stool onto him.
Sai Baba was also mired in controversies, with several news reports about allegations of sexual abuse and fake miracles.
A 2004, a BBC television program called the Secret Swami featured interviews with at least two American male devotees who claimed the guru had fondled their genitals and exposed himself to them while claiming it was part of a healing ritual.
Though he denied the allegations and was never charged with any crime, the reports led some to break with the guru.
His trust also said Sai Baba had survived an attempt against his life, with six devotees including the guru's personal assistant killed in his bedroom in June, 1993, after allegedly trying to attack him. Facts of the case still remain a mystery.
Sai Baba was never married and had no children.
Revered Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba dies
AIJAZ RAHI
PUTTAPARTI, India
The Associated Press
Sunday, Apr. 24, 2011
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/revered-indian-guru-sathya-sai-baba-dies/article1996840
The news brought an outpouring of grief from his followers, including high Indian officials, who remembered him as a pious person who worked selflessly to help others with the billions of dollars donated to his charitable trust...
Sai Baba had a huge following, with missions in more than 130 countries, including Canada. His devotees include high-placed politicians, movie stars, world-class athletes and industrialists.
He was said to perform miracles, conjuring jewellery, Rolex watches and “vibhuti” — a sacred ash that his followers applied to their foreheads — from his halo of wild, frizzy hair.
But rationalist critics led campaigns against him, calling him a charlatan and his miracles fake. Several news reports alleged that he sexually abused devotees — accusations he denied as vilification campaigns...
Born Nov. 23, 1926, as Sathyanarayana Raju, he was said to display a tendency toward spirituality and unusual intelligence, which he expressed through music, dance and writing poetry and plays.
In 1940, at the age of 14, he declared himself an “avatar,” or reincarnation, of another Hindu holy man called the Sai Baba of Shirdi, a town in western Maharashtra state, who died in 1918.
As the young guru attracted followers, his home of Puttaparti grew from a sleepy village into a vibrant town with the sprawling “Prasanthi Nilayam” ashram built in 1950, as well as a large hospital, a university and schools run by his Sathya Sai Central Trust, set up in 1972 with donations from devotees.
The trust — estimated to be worth at least $8.9 billion and possibly much more — also established spiritual centres in Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai. It built another hospital in Bangalore, where Sai Baba had a summer home, and funded water supply projects in several southern states.
Though no successor has been named to run the trust, “there is or will be no vacuum,” a statement released after the guru was hospitalized said.
Health woes over recent years had forced Sai Baba to cut down on public appearances. He survived a stroke and a series of heart attacks in 1963. In 2005, he began using a wheelchair, and a year later he fractured his hip when a student fell from a stool onto him.
Sai Baba was also mired in controversies, with several news reports about allegations of sexual abuse and fake miracles.
A 2004, a BBC television program called the Secret Swami featured interviews with at least two American male devotees who claimed the guru had fondled their genitals and exposed himself to them while claiming it was part of a healing ritual.
Though he denied the allegations and was never charged with any crime, the reports led some to break with the guru.
His trust also said Sai Baba had survived an attempt against his life, with six devotees including the guru's personal assistant killed in his bedroom in June, 1993, after allegedly trying to attack him. Facts of the case still remain a mystery.
Sai Baba was never married and had no children.
Revered Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba dies
AIJAZ RAHI
PUTTAPARTI, India
The Associated Press
Sunday, Apr. 24, 2011
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/revered-indian-guru-sathya-sai-baba-dies/article1996840
China Number One in 2016
According to the IMF's latest projections, china will overtake the US as the world's largest economy in 2016. Mark Weisbrot of the London Guardian has some interesting observations on this:
China has been the world's fastest growing economy for more than three decades, growing 17-fold in real (inflation-adjusted) terms since 1980. It is worth emphasising that most of this record growth took place (1980-2000) while the rest of the developing world was doing quite badly by implementing neoliberal policy changes – indiscriminate opening to trade and capital flows, increasingly independent central banks, tighter (and often pro-cyclical) fiscal and monetary policies, and the abandonment of previously successful development strategies.
China clearly did not embrace these policy changes, which were promoted from Washington by institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, and later the WTO. (China did not even join the WTO until 2002.) It is true that China's growth acceleration included a rapid expansion of trade and foreign investment. But these were heavily managed by the state, to make sure that they fitted in with the government's development goals – quite the opposite of what happened in most other developing countries. China's goals included producing for export markets, promoting higher levels of technology (with the goal of transferring technology from foreign enterprises to the domestic economy), hiring local residents for managerial and technical jobs, and not allowing foreign investments to compete with certain domestic industries.
China's economy is still very much state-led, with the government controlling most of the financial system, the exchange rate, and about 44% of the assets of major industrial enterprises. That is why China was able to plow through the world recession with GDP growth of 9.8%, despite losing about 3.7 percentage points of GDP due to falling net exports...
2016: when China overtakes the USA
Mark Weisbrot
Wednesday 27 April 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/27/china-imf-economy-2016
China has been the world's fastest growing economy for more than three decades, growing 17-fold in real (inflation-adjusted) terms since 1980. It is worth emphasising that most of this record growth took place (1980-2000) while the rest of the developing world was doing quite badly by implementing neoliberal policy changes – indiscriminate opening to trade and capital flows, increasingly independent central banks, tighter (and often pro-cyclical) fiscal and monetary policies, and the abandonment of previously successful development strategies.
China clearly did not embrace these policy changes, which were promoted from Washington by institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, and later the WTO. (China did not even join the WTO until 2002.) It is true that China's growth acceleration included a rapid expansion of trade and foreign investment. But these were heavily managed by the state, to make sure that they fitted in with the government's development goals – quite the opposite of what happened in most other developing countries. China's goals included producing for export markets, promoting higher levels of technology (with the goal of transferring technology from foreign enterprises to the domestic economy), hiring local residents for managerial and technical jobs, and not allowing foreign investments to compete with certain domestic industries.
China's economy is still very much state-led, with the government controlling most of the financial system, the exchange rate, and about 44% of the assets of major industrial enterprises. That is why China was able to plow through the world recession with GDP growth of 9.8%, despite losing about 3.7 percentage points of GDP due to falling net exports...
2016: when China overtakes the USA
Mark Weisbrot
Wednesday 27 April 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/27/china-imf-economy-2016
Were you there when they crucified Rod Blagojevich?
http://www.shout.net/~bigred/cn.html
(Melchizedek Communique, MC042211) Were you there when they crucified Rod Blagojevich?
Potential jurors are being questioned for the second trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, also known as "Blago." With unlimited funds, federal hounds have barked ceaselessly on the trail of the increasingly impoverished Blagojevich. No longer can Blago afford the legal fire-power he had at his first trial. The federal hounds and their allies in the news media sniff blood and are salivating in anticipation.
In the early morning of Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2008, Blago had been arrested. It had been only the day before that Blago had defied the Bank of America and championed the cause of workers at Republic Windows. The then-Governor had ordered that Illinois government cease doing business with Bank of America. It is unclear why the feds chose to stage a dramatic pre-dawn raid and arrest of the Illinois Governor: Why not just wait until Blago was at work? Why did the feds instead upset the two young daughters of Rod Blagojevich when they burst into his home with needless theatrics?
Among the names which won increased publicity in connection with the Blago case is John Harris, the Governor's chief of staff. Pressure was put on Harris to testify against Blago. A Sword of Damocles hangs over the head of Harris -- Cooperate, or else! Did that same sort of pressure have anything to do with the tragic death of Chris Kelly, adviser and fundraiser for Rod Blagojevich? "Christopher Kelly died after taking an overdose of pain medications, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office." [1]
Another name, that of State Senator Jimmy DeLeo, a personal friend of Blago, is a "power-behind-the-power" in Illinois, according to Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass. [2]
What does Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. know? He had met with Blago the day before the Governor's dramatic pre-dawn arrest. [3]
Chicago, notices Blago in his book, The Governor, is strangely organized as if it is a Catholic Archdiocese. The Mayor's office and City Hall are like the Cardinal's residence in this perception. But now, with Rahm Emanuel shoehorned in as the next Mayor of Chicago, what does this mean for the Chicago "Archdiocese"? (Nothing is meant here, per se, against Rahm Emanuel, who is Jewish. But rather unease about Emanuel's being selected mayor privately in the smoke-filled rooms instead of by the rough-and-tumble of the democratic process is here expressed.)
In the Archdiocesal politics of Chicago, Rod Blagojevich is of Serbian nationality, and is thereby linked to the Greek Orthodox Church. In both World War I and World War II Serbia was a staunch ally of the United States. Siding with the Nazis was Catholic Croatia. And yet, during the 1990s Yugoslavian wars, the Greek Orthodox Serbs were the "bad guys" and the Catholic Croatians were relatively condoned!
Chicago politics and its political organizations "are very much like old feudal organizations from medieval Europe." Among the feudal chieftains is Richard Mell, the father of Patti Blagojevich, wife of Blago. Richard Mell holds great power in Chicago as a "ward boss." [3]
Another Illinois chieftain is Michael Madigan, Illinois State House Speaker. All the other state representatives have tiny operating budgets and must come crawling to Madigan for funds. Sighs Madigan with a twinkle in his eye, "They are always after me lucky charms." And, in fact, Michael Madigan resembles the Lucky Charms leprechaun.
Before he was Governor, Blago ran for Congress. Back then, he was introduced to Tony Rezko. One day Tony Rezko took Blago to a law office and introduced him to a young lawyer named Barack Obama. David Axelrod, later a senior adviser in the Obama White House, helped Blago find a chief of staff when Blago was elected to Congress. "David [Axelrod] was my media consultant in that race for Congress," confides Blago in his book, The Governor. While in Congress, Blago had a close working relationship with Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. When Blago left Congress, Rahm Emanuel came in to fill the vacated congressional seat. Emanuel managed to raise "a boatload of money" for his congressional campaign, notes Blago. One wonders, since Rahm Emanuel is a dual citizen of Israel and the United States, whether any of the "boatload" came in via the Mossad.
These and other jellyfish swim just beneath the surface of "Rod Blagojevich Part 2" now beginning. But Blago is about tapped out of lawyer money, unlike the feds who can just print all they need. And so the odds do not favor the former Governor at this point. The news media have already long-since placed a crown of thorns on Blago's head. The judge, James B. Zagel, like Pontius Pilate, has washed his hands.
By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back..." [4]
But "where today the martyr stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands." [4]
------- Notes -------
[1] "Chris Kelly suicide: Medical examiner says former Blagojevich adviser overdosed on pain medications",Chicago Tribune archives, Nov. 10, 2009
[2] "Stage is set for heads to roll, cash to roll in", by John Kass. Chicago Tribune, Jan. 15, 2009
[3] The Governor, by Rod Blagojevich. Beverly Hills, CA: Phoenix Books, 2009
[4] "The Present Crisis", by James Russell Lowell
(Melchizedek Communique, MC042211) Were you there when they crucified Rod Blagojevich?
Potential jurors are being questioned for the second trial of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, also known as "Blago." With unlimited funds, federal hounds have barked ceaselessly on the trail of the increasingly impoverished Blagojevich. No longer can Blago afford the legal fire-power he had at his first trial. The federal hounds and their allies in the news media sniff blood and are salivating in anticipation.
In the early morning of Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2008, Blago had been arrested. It had been only the day before that Blago had defied the Bank of America and championed the cause of workers at Republic Windows. The then-Governor had ordered that Illinois government cease doing business with Bank of America. It is unclear why the feds chose to stage a dramatic pre-dawn raid and arrest of the Illinois Governor: Why not just wait until Blago was at work? Why did the feds instead upset the two young daughters of Rod Blagojevich when they burst into his home with needless theatrics?
Among the names which won increased publicity in connection with the Blago case is John Harris, the Governor's chief of staff. Pressure was put on Harris to testify against Blago. A Sword of Damocles hangs over the head of Harris -- Cooperate, or else! Did that same sort of pressure have anything to do with the tragic death of Chris Kelly, adviser and fundraiser for Rod Blagojevich? "Christopher Kelly died after taking an overdose of pain medications, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office." [1]
Another name, that of State Senator Jimmy DeLeo, a personal friend of Blago, is a "power-behind-the-power" in Illinois, according to Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass. [2]
What does Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. know? He had met with Blago the day before the Governor's dramatic pre-dawn arrest. [3]
Chicago, notices Blago in his book, The Governor, is strangely organized as if it is a Catholic Archdiocese. The Mayor's office and City Hall are like the Cardinal's residence in this perception. But now, with Rahm Emanuel shoehorned in as the next Mayor of Chicago, what does this mean for the Chicago "Archdiocese"? (Nothing is meant here, per se, against Rahm Emanuel, who is Jewish. But rather unease about Emanuel's being selected mayor privately in the smoke-filled rooms instead of by the rough-and-tumble of the democratic process is here expressed.)
In the Archdiocesal politics of Chicago, Rod Blagojevich is of Serbian nationality, and is thereby linked to the Greek Orthodox Church. In both World War I and World War II Serbia was a staunch ally of the United States. Siding with the Nazis was Catholic Croatia. And yet, during the 1990s Yugoslavian wars, the Greek Orthodox Serbs were the "bad guys" and the Catholic Croatians were relatively condoned!
Chicago politics and its political organizations "are very much like old feudal organizations from medieval Europe." Among the feudal chieftains is Richard Mell, the father of Patti Blagojevich, wife of Blago. Richard Mell holds great power in Chicago as a "ward boss." [3]
Another Illinois chieftain is Michael Madigan, Illinois State House Speaker. All the other state representatives have tiny operating budgets and must come crawling to Madigan for funds. Sighs Madigan with a twinkle in his eye, "They are always after me lucky charms." And, in fact, Michael Madigan resembles the Lucky Charms leprechaun.
Before he was Governor, Blago ran for Congress. Back then, he was introduced to Tony Rezko. One day Tony Rezko took Blago to a law office and introduced him to a young lawyer named Barack Obama. David Axelrod, later a senior adviser in the Obama White House, helped Blago find a chief of staff when Blago was elected to Congress. "David [Axelrod] was my media consultant in that race for Congress," confides Blago in his book, The Governor. While in Congress, Blago had a close working relationship with Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. When Blago left Congress, Rahm Emanuel came in to fill the vacated congressional seat. Emanuel managed to raise "a boatload of money" for his congressional campaign, notes Blago. One wonders, since Rahm Emanuel is a dual citizen of Israel and the United States, whether any of the "boatload" came in via the Mossad.
These and other jellyfish swim just beneath the surface of "Rod Blagojevich Part 2" now beginning. But Blago is about tapped out of lawyer money, unlike the feds who can just print all they need. And so the odds do not favor the former Governor at this point. The news media have already long-since placed a crown of thorns on Blago's head. The judge, James B. Zagel, like Pontius Pilate, has washed his hands.
By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back..." [4]
But "where today the martyr stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands." [4]
------- Notes -------
[1] "Chris Kelly suicide: Medical examiner says former Blagojevich adviser overdosed on pain medications",Chicago Tribune archives, Nov. 10, 2009
[2] "Stage is set for heads to roll, cash to roll in", by John Kass. Chicago Tribune, Jan. 15, 2009
[3] The Governor, by Rod Blagojevich. Beverly Hills, CA: Phoenix Books, 2009
[4] "The Present Crisis", by James Russell Lowell
Short Life Expectancy for BP Whistleblowers?
Pat Shannan
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/whistleblowers_266.html
The investigation, if it can properly be so called, of the unsolved murder of the former high ranking Pentagon official and presidential advisor John P. Wheeler III, who was also an expert on chemical and biological weapons, may be taking a turn in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Wheeler, 67, a West Point grad, was beaten and thrown into a garbage dumpster. His body was discovered in a Wilmington, Del. landfill last New Year’s weekend. Both police detectives and news commentators described it as “an apparent hit,” but little else was ever learned, and no suspects have surfaced.
There was great speculation by many at the time that Wheeler had begun to blow the whistle on the mysterious bird and fish deaths in Arkansas and Texas, and was about to expose the facts tying this to the chemtrails seen in our skies over the past decade.
Now the speculation may be reverting to British Petroleum and the gulf spill because a number of other BP whistle blowing scientists, before and since the Wheeler murder, have also died mysteriously, been jailed on questionable charges or disappeared without a trace.
Matthew Simmons, 67, a former energy advisor to President George W. Bush and admired among survivalist groups for his dire warnings on the upcoming commodity and fuel shortages about to hit this nation, died in his hot tub in Maine last August. Simmons had been gaining popularity as a whistle blower for blaming BP for its covered-up responsibility in defacing and vandalizing the Gulf of Mexico while hiding the truth from the general public.
Only four days later, Ted Stevens, the 87-year-old defrocked senator from Alaska, said to have received communications regarding BP’s faulty blowout preventer, perished in a plane crash. British Petroleum had donated $1 million to the University of Alaska to catalog the papers from Stevens’s long political career.
Roger Grooters began a cross country bike ride in Oceanside, Calif. on Sept. 10 to draw attention to the Gulf Coast oil disaster. On Oct. 6, in front of the horrified eyes of his wife, who was trailing in a support vehicle, Grooters was struck by a truck and killed instantly in Panama City, Fla.
Only a month later, Dr. Geoffrey Gardner of Lakeland, Fla. disappeared. He was investigating the unexplained bird deaths near Sarasota that are suspected to have been caused by the BP oil disaster. No one has heard from or spoken with him since.
On Nov. 15, Chitra Chaunhan was found dead of cyanide poisoning in a Temple Terrace, Fla. hotel. It was officially ruled a suicide. She worked in the Center for Biological Defense and Global Health Infectious Disease Research and left behind a husband and five-year-old child.
The following week, James Patrick Black, director of operations for BP’s restoration organization for the oil spill, died near Destin, Fla. in a small plane crash.
Dr. Thomas B. Manton was one of the first to warn the public that far more oil than what BP had reported was gushing into the gulf every day and that the massive, toxic oil and chemical plumes would travel up the eastern seaboard, contaminating beaches and wildlife all the way.
“Once the winds change, it will come eastward and pollute the beaches of the west coast of Florida, and the ‘loop current’ could carry this oil spill right around Florida, through the Florida Keys and pollute the east coast of Florida as well,” Manton wrote on May 28, 2010.
Dr. Tom Termotto, national coordinator of the Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Conference, says Manton was murdered in prison. Manton had been sentenced to 15 years last August on a phony child pornography charge. Termotto and others say evidence was planted on his computer.
It is not known whether or not Anthony Nicholas Tremonte, 31, posed any threat to BP, but he too was arrested in January and charged with one count of possession of child pornography. Was this charge also faked? As an officer with the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources on the Gulf Coast, he may have known enough to qualify him for membership in this exclusive series of coincidences. He faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted.
Pat Shannan is a contributing editor of American Free Press. He is also the author of several videos and books including One in a Million: An IRS Travesty, I Rode With Tupper and Everything They Ever Told Me Was a Lie. All of Pat’s books are available from FIRST AMENDMENT BOOKS. Call 2025475585 for availability and pricing.
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(Issue # 17, April 25, 2011)
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute - as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/whistleblowers_266.html
The investigation, if it can properly be so called, of the unsolved murder of the former high ranking Pentagon official and presidential advisor John P. Wheeler III, who was also an expert on chemical and biological weapons, may be taking a turn in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Wheeler, 67, a West Point grad, was beaten and thrown into a garbage dumpster. His body was discovered in a Wilmington, Del. landfill last New Year’s weekend. Both police detectives and news commentators described it as “an apparent hit,” but little else was ever learned, and no suspects have surfaced.
There was great speculation by many at the time that Wheeler had begun to blow the whistle on the mysterious bird and fish deaths in Arkansas and Texas, and was about to expose the facts tying this to the chemtrails seen in our skies over the past decade.
Now the speculation may be reverting to British Petroleum and the gulf spill because a number of other BP whistle blowing scientists, before and since the Wheeler murder, have also died mysteriously, been jailed on questionable charges or disappeared without a trace.
Matthew Simmons, 67, a former energy advisor to President George W. Bush and admired among survivalist groups for his dire warnings on the upcoming commodity and fuel shortages about to hit this nation, died in his hot tub in Maine last August. Simmons had been gaining popularity as a whistle blower for blaming BP for its covered-up responsibility in defacing and vandalizing the Gulf of Mexico while hiding the truth from the general public.
Only four days later, Ted Stevens, the 87-year-old defrocked senator from Alaska, said to have received communications regarding BP’s faulty blowout preventer, perished in a plane crash. British Petroleum had donated $1 million to the University of Alaska to catalog the papers from Stevens’s long political career.
Roger Grooters began a cross country bike ride in Oceanside, Calif. on Sept. 10 to draw attention to the Gulf Coast oil disaster. On Oct. 6, in front of the horrified eyes of his wife, who was trailing in a support vehicle, Grooters was struck by a truck and killed instantly in Panama City, Fla.
Only a month later, Dr. Geoffrey Gardner of Lakeland, Fla. disappeared. He was investigating the unexplained bird deaths near Sarasota that are suspected to have been caused by the BP oil disaster. No one has heard from or spoken with him since.
On Nov. 15, Chitra Chaunhan was found dead of cyanide poisoning in a Temple Terrace, Fla. hotel. It was officially ruled a suicide. She worked in the Center for Biological Defense and Global Health Infectious Disease Research and left behind a husband and five-year-old child.
The following week, James Patrick Black, director of operations for BP’s restoration organization for the oil spill, died near Destin, Fla. in a small plane crash.
Dr. Thomas B. Manton was one of the first to warn the public that far more oil than what BP had reported was gushing into the gulf every day and that the massive, toxic oil and chemical plumes would travel up the eastern seaboard, contaminating beaches and wildlife all the way.
“Once the winds change, it will come eastward and pollute the beaches of the west coast of Florida, and the ‘loop current’ could carry this oil spill right around Florida, through the Florida Keys and pollute the east coast of Florida as well,” Manton wrote on May 28, 2010.
Dr. Tom Termotto, national coordinator of the Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Conference, says Manton was murdered in prison. Manton had been sentenced to 15 years last August on a phony child pornography charge. Termotto and others say evidence was planted on his computer.
It is not known whether or not Anthony Nicholas Tremonte, 31, posed any threat to BP, but he too was arrested in January and charged with one count of possession of child pornography. Was this charge also faked? As an officer with the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources on the Gulf Coast, he may have known enough to qualify him for membership in this exclusive series of coincidences. He faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted.
Pat Shannan is a contributing editor of American Free Press. He is also the author of several videos and books including One in a Million: An IRS Travesty, I Rode With Tupper and Everything They Ever Told Me Was a Lie. All of Pat’s books are available from FIRST AMENDMENT BOOKS. Call 2025475585 for availability and pricing.
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(Issue # 17, April 25, 2011)
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Beltway austerity values
Glenn Greenwald Thursday, Apr 21, 2011
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/21/post/index.html
The Washington Post Editorial Page for years has been the Beltway media leader in crusading for cuts to entitlements programs for ordinary Americans in the name of battling deficit spending and the debt. That this same Editorial Page has been the leading cheerleader for every debt-fueled American war over the last decade reveals how inauthentic are their purported fiscal concerns, but any doubt about that should be forever dispelled by its Editorial today, opposing meaningful cuts to America's bloated, debt-financed military budget:
Even with significant trims in those areas, however, reaching Mr. Obama’s goal would probably require cuts in the size of the Army and Marines beyond the reduction of more than 40,000 troops already proposed by Mr. Gates. Defense analyst Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution thinks it could require the elimination of more command structures and another round of base closures. What will then happen if the United States is forced into more conflicts like those of the past decade — if it must intervene to prevent Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon or respond to aggression by North Korea, for example?
Mr. Gates, who is expected to leave office this year, said that big defense cuts “would be disastrous in the world environment we see today.” While some reductions in defense are inevitable, that is a warning that the administration and Congress cannot afford to disregard.
In other words: it's vital that we continue to splurge for military spending that is almost equal to what the entire rest of the world spends combined, and that we continue to spend 6 times more than the second-largest military spender (China). Why is that? Because we may need to fight our fourth, fifth and sixth wars (not counting the covert ones) and must remain ready to start those wars at a moment's notice. There are many things one can say about someone plagued by that warmongering mentality; that they are serious opponents of borrowed spending and debt financing is most assuredly not one of them. There are undoubtedly many motives driving the Post Editors to demand that ordinary Americans -- already under severe economic stress -- "sacrifice" the remaining aspects of their safety net, but concern over the debt is manifestly not among them.
To see what the Post Editors are really all about -- and they are worth examining because they are the ultimate establishment mouthpiece -- consider which military cuts they are affirmatively advocating (beyond the elimination of weapons systems which the Pentagon says it does not want):
Defense savings beyond those already achieved by Mr. Gates are certainly possible and even needed -- though by and large they lie in areas that Congress has been unwilling to touch. As we pointed out in a recent editorial, military health care now costs as much as the war in Iraq, in part because military families — including working-age retirees — pay one-tenth as much for their health plans as do civilian federal workers.
Think about how rancid that is. The Post Editors and their corporate bosses are people who have used their influence as much as possible not only to start multiple wars but to vehemently argue against their end. Those wars have not, of course, been fought by Post Editors; that's why they've so blithely cheered them on and demanded their continuation: because it isn't their lives endangered by them. Their pro-war advocacy has instead imposed extreme burdens on a tiny portion of the population -- members of the military and their families -- and yet when it comes time to cut the military budget, they refuse to consider limiting the number of new wars they might want to start. Instead, they demand that the people they send off to fight their wars and their families be forced to pay more for their health care.
That's a perfect microcosm of the deficit and austerity debate taking place in Washington. It consists of privileged elites demanding that ordinary, financially strapped Americans sacrifice what little is left of their First World living standard, while the policies that benefit those elites and which they love (especially the ones that explode the deficit and debt in whose name the "sacrifice" is justified) continue indefinitely (though even the much maligned Simpson-Bowles report called for relatively significant reductions in military spending). Shielding the military budget from meaningful cuts on the ground that America must fight still more wars -- while calling for reductions in the health care benefits of those who fight them -- is about as warped a value system as one can find.
That's well into Marie Antoinette territory, but so is most of our economic policy. This is the rotted mindset -- abolition of all societal opportunity and mass prosperity accompanied by endless militarization and a gorging oligarchical class -- that lies at the heart of most instances of imperial collapse. The Post Editors are worth scrutinizing not because they're aberrations, but because they're so representative of our political and media class.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/04/21/post/index.html
The Washington Post Editorial Page for years has been the Beltway media leader in crusading for cuts to entitlements programs for ordinary Americans in the name of battling deficit spending and the debt. That this same Editorial Page has been the leading cheerleader for every debt-fueled American war over the last decade reveals how inauthentic are their purported fiscal concerns, but any doubt about that should be forever dispelled by its Editorial today, opposing meaningful cuts to America's bloated, debt-financed military budget:
Even with significant trims in those areas, however, reaching Mr. Obama’s goal would probably require cuts in the size of the Army and Marines beyond the reduction of more than 40,000 troops already proposed by Mr. Gates. Defense analyst Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution thinks it could require the elimination of more command structures and another round of base closures. What will then happen if the United States is forced into more conflicts like those of the past decade — if it must intervene to prevent Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon or respond to aggression by North Korea, for example?
Mr. Gates, who is expected to leave office this year, said that big defense cuts “would be disastrous in the world environment we see today.” While some reductions in defense are inevitable, that is a warning that the administration and Congress cannot afford to disregard.
In other words: it's vital that we continue to splurge for military spending that is almost equal to what the entire rest of the world spends combined, and that we continue to spend 6 times more than the second-largest military spender (China). Why is that? Because we may need to fight our fourth, fifth and sixth wars (not counting the covert ones) and must remain ready to start those wars at a moment's notice. There are many things one can say about someone plagued by that warmongering mentality; that they are serious opponents of borrowed spending and debt financing is most assuredly not one of them. There are undoubtedly many motives driving the Post Editors to demand that ordinary Americans -- already under severe economic stress -- "sacrifice" the remaining aspects of their safety net, but concern over the debt is manifestly not among them.
To see what the Post Editors are really all about -- and they are worth examining because they are the ultimate establishment mouthpiece -- consider which military cuts they are affirmatively advocating (beyond the elimination of weapons systems which the Pentagon says it does not want):
Defense savings beyond those already achieved by Mr. Gates are certainly possible and even needed -- though by and large they lie in areas that Congress has been unwilling to touch. As we pointed out in a recent editorial, military health care now costs as much as the war in Iraq, in part because military families — including working-age retirees — pay one-tenth as much for their health plans as do civilian federal workers.
Think about how rancid that is. The Post Editors and their corporate bosses are people who have used their influence as much as possible not only to start multiple wars but to vehemently argue against their end. Those wars have not, of course, been fought by Post Editors; that's why they've so blithely cheered them on and demanded their continuation: because it isn't their lives endangered by them. Their pro-war advocacy has instead imposed extreme burdens on a tiny portion of the population -- members of the military and their families -- and yet when it comes time to cut the military budget, they refuse to consider limiting the number of new wars they might want to start. Instead, they demand that the people they send off to fight their wars and their families be forced to pay more for their health care.
That's a perfect microcosm of the deficit and austerity debate taking place in Washington. It consists of privileged elites demanding that ordinary, financially strapped Americans sacrifice what little is left of their First World living standard, while the policies that benefit those elites and which they love (especially the ones that explode the deficit and debt in whose name the "sacrifice" is justified) continue indefinitely (though even the much maligned Simpson-Bowles report called for relatively significant reductions in military spending). Shielding the military budget from meaningful cuts on the ground that America must fight still more wars -- while calling for reductions in the health care benefits of those who fight them -- is about as warped a value system as one can find.
That's well into Marie Antoinette territory, but so is most of our economic policy. This is the rotted mindset -- abolition of all societal opportunity and mass prosperity accompanied by endless militarization and a gorging oligarchical class -- that lies at the heart of most instances of imperial collapse. The Post Editors are worth scrutinizing not because they're aberrations, but because they're so representative of our political and media class.
Awesome Quotes: Paul Krugman
"I think what people like Paul Ryan are trying to do is set us on a glide path to a much harsher society. A country in which, step by step, more and more people are cast out into a situation of not having health insurance and poverty, and so we slide back to a Victorian notion that life is full of evils and that’s too bad but that’s the way that God made the world. That large numbers of the poor, large numbers of the elderly just live in dire poverty and don’t have health care because life is tough."
Democracy for EU Prez?
Prez election in Europe are getting interesting too:
The European Parliament took a first step on Tuesday towards half a billion Europeans directly electing the EU president, with a vote to introduce a second ballot from which the leader would emerge.
The parliament's constitutional affairs committee wants voters to pick 25 super MEPs from an EU-wide list of candidates
Come its next elections in 2014, the parliament's constitutional affairs committee wants voters across the 27 European Union states to pick 751 constituency MEPs in essentially national contests, but now also 25 super MEPs from an EU-wide list of candidates.
The bill's sponsor, Liberal Democrat MEP Andrew Duff, told AFP on Tuesday that his plans are based in no small part on experience in Scotland, where a second, regional list effectively decides the identity of its head of government...
First step towards 'directly elected EU president'
19 Apr 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8461420/First-step-towards-directly-elected-EU-president.html
The European Parliament took a first step on Tuesday towards half a billion Europeans directly electing the EU president, with a vote to introduce a second ballot from which the leader would emerge.
The parliament's constitutional affairs committee wants voters to pick 25 super MEPs from an EU-wide list of candidates
Come its next elections in 2014, the parliament's constitutional affairs committee wants voters across the 27 European Union states to pick 751 constituency MEPs in essentially national contests, but now also 25 super MEPs from an EU-wide list of candidates.
The bill's sponsor, Liberal Democrat MEP Andrew Duff, told AFP on Tuesday that his plans are based in no small part on experience in Scotland, where a second, regional list effectively decides the identity of its head of government...
First step towards 'directly elected EU president'
19 Apr 2011
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/8461420/First-step-towards-directly-elected-EU-president.html
Prez Bowl 2012: Donald Trump, Charlie Sheen & Others
It will probably end up being a conventional campaign, but there are some signs of potential wackiness in 2012.
Leading the charge, of course, is Donald Trump, who is getting the lion's share of the news coverage. Oddly, the reality show host seems uninterested in running as a Republican, as he has quit the party and joined the Reform Party created by Ross Perot. Also officially joining the Reform Party is its former nominee Pat Buchanan...
Trump officially joins Reform Party
October 25, 1999
http://articles.cnn.com/1999-10-25/politics/trump.cnn_1_reform-party-donald-trump-independence-party
Another interesting entry in the field: former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, a Republican with an extreme Libertarian streak (and that is meant as a compliment.) Like Ron Paul, Johnson embraces real libertarianism (not the phony kind sold by the Astroturf Teabagger leaders) that would both be good for the GOP and have some strong Democratic and independent crossover. Unlike Paul, he has actually been a political executive before, and thus has shown how he could practically apply his philosophy in practice, and did so in a particularly effective fashion:
"Johnson, 58, said during two terms as New Mexico governor, he eliminated the state’s budget deficit and cut the rate of state government growth in half while reducing the state workforce by more than 10 percent without laying off a single qualified state worker."
Gary Johnson announces presidential bid, plans to ski Tuckerman Ravine
Thursday, Apr. 21, 2011
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?articleId=9f95c903-3cb9-4467-8b36-6b17283a3eed&headline=Gary+Johnson+announces+presidential+bid%2c+plans+to+ski+Tuckerman+Ravine
Besides these two, there are some other possibilities: Ron Paul again, either as a Republican or as independent, Jesse Ventura as an independent, either alone or on a ticket with Paul, Michael Bloomberg as an independent, and perhaps the most entertaining choice of all, Charlie Sheen, who has hinted at a run based on outlawing the IRS and the Fed. No word yet from Lindsay Lohan, but she has our vote...
Leading the charge, of course, is Donald Trump, who is getting the lion's share of the news coverage. Oddly, the reality show host seems uninterested in running as a Republican, as he has quit the party and joined the Reform Party created by Ross Perot. Also officially joining the Reform Party is its former nominee Pat Buchanan...
Trump officially joins Reform Party
October 25, 1999
http://articles.cnn.com/1999-10-25/politics/trump.cnn_1_reform-party-donald-trump-independence-party
Another interesting entry in the field: former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, a Republican with an extreme Libertarian streak (and that is meant as a compliment.) Like Ron Paul, Johnson embraces real libertarianism (not the phony kind sold by the Astroturf Teabagger leaders) that would both be good for the GOP and have some strong Democratic and independent crossover. Unlike Paul, he has actually been a political executive before, and thus has shown how he could practically apply his philosophy in practice, and did so in a particularly effective fashion:
"Johnson, 58, said during two terms as New Mexico governor, he eliminated the state’s budget deficit and cut the rate of state government growth in half while reducing the state workforce by more than 10 percent without laying off a single qualified state worker."
Gary Johnson announces presidential bid, plans to ski Tuckerman Ravine
Thursday, Apr. 21, 2011
http://www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?articleId=9f95c903-3cb9-4467-8b36-6b17283a3eed&headline=Gary+Johnson+announces+presidential+bid%2c+plans+to+ski+Tuckerman+Ravine
Besides these two, there are some other possibilities: Ron Paul again, either as a Republican or as independent, Jesse Ventura as an independent, either alone or on a ticket with Paul, Michael Bloomberg as an independent, and perhaps the most entertaining choice of all, Charlie Sheen, who has hinted at a run based on outlawing the IRS and the Fed. No word yet from Lindsay Lohan, but she has our vote...
Major League Baseball All-Star Ballot
The MLB All-Star Game ballot is out, sponsored by Sprint. (Old-timers like myself still link it to Gilette.) Here's the URL:
http://www.mlb.com/mlb/events/all_star/y2011/ballot.jsp
FYI, here are my first picks, based on stats as of 4-25-11:
First Base
AL: Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers - .338, 5 HR, 15 RBI
NL: Prince Fielder, Milwaukee Brewers - .345, 3 HR, 22 RBI
Second Base
AL: Robinson Cano, New York Yankees - .304, 4 HR, 14 RBI
NL: Brandon Phillips, Cincinnati Reds - .364, 2 HR, 10 RBI
Shortstop
AL: Asdrubal Cabrera, Cleveland Indians - .253, 4 HR, 14 RBI
NL: Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado Rockies - .317, 7 HR, 16 RBI
Third Base
AL: Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees - .346, 5 HR, 17 RBI
NL: Chipper Jones, Atlanta Braves - .284, 2 HR, 16 RBI
Catcher
AL: Russell Martin, New York Yankees - .311, 6 HR, 16 RBI
NL: Buster Posey, San Francisco Giants - .280, 4 HR, 16 RBI
Designated Hitter
AL: Travis Hafner, Cleveland Indians - .348, 4 HR, 10 RBI
Outfielders
AL: Jose Bautista, Toronto Blue Jays - .364, 8 HR, 11 RBI
AL: Coco Crisp, Oakland Athletics - .281, 1 HR, 8 RBI
AL: Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle Mariners - .309, 0 HR, 9 RBI
NL: Ryan Braun, Milwaukee Brewers - .378, 8 HR, 20 RBI
NL: Kosuke Fukudome, Chicago Cubs - .478, 0 HR, 2 RBI
NL: Matt Kemp, Los Angeles Dodgers - .396, 5 HR, 18 RBI
http://www.mlb.com/mlb/events/all_star/y2011/ballot.jsp
FYI, here are my first picks, based on stats as of 4-25-11:
First Base
AL: Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers - .338, 5 HR, 15 RBI
NL: Prince Fielder, Milwaukee Brewers - .345, 3 HR, 22 RBI
Second Base
AL: Robinson Cano, New York Yankees - .304, 4 HR, 14 RBI
NL: Brandon Phillips, Cincinnati Reds - .364, 2 HR, 10 RBI
Shortstop
AL: Asdrubal Cabrera, Cleveland Indians - .253, 4 HR, 14 RBI
NL: Troy Tulowitzki, Colorado Rockies - .317, 7 HR, 16 RBI
Third Base
AL: Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees - .346, 5 HR, 17 RBI
NL: Chipper Jones, Atlanta Braves - .284, 2 HR, 16 RBI
Catcher
AL: Russell Martin, New York Yankees - .311, 6 HR, 16 RBI
NL: Buster Posey, San Francisco Giants - .280, 4 HR, 16 RBI
Designated Hitter
AL: Travis Hafner, Cleveland Indians - .348, 4 HR, 10 RBI
Outfielders
AL: Jose Bautista, Toronto Blue Jays - .364, 8 HR, 11 RBI
AL: Coco Crisp, Oakland Athletics - .281, 1 HR, 8 RBI
AL: Ichiro Suzuki, Seattle Mariners - .309, 0 HR, 9 RBI
NL: Ryan Braun, Milwaukee Brewers - .378, 8 HR, 20 RBI
NL: Kosuke Fukudome, Chicago Cubs - .478, 0 HR, 2 RBI
NL: Matt Kemp, Los Angeles Dodgers - .396, 5 HR, 18 RBI
Investigator: Fukushima Blast Was Nuclear Explosion
Kurt Nimmo
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
http://www.prisonplanet.com/investigator-fukushima-blast-was-nuclear-explosion.html
British scientist Christopher Busby, a researcher on the negative health effects of ionizing radiation, told Russia Today that one of the explosions at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan was a nuclear explosion, not a hydrogen explosion as widely reported in the media.
Busby said the explosion at Chernobyl in 1986 was also a nuclear explosion. The Chernobyl nuclear accident dispersed large quantities of radioactive fuel and core materials into the atmosphere. Busby told RT the crisis at Fukushima is far worse than Chernobyl.
He said the explosion did not originate in the reactor core, but the tanks where spent plutonium MOX fuel rods are stored. MOX fuel contains plutonium blended with natural uranium, reprocessed uranium, or depleted uranium. The explosion vaporized the plutonium rods and ejected a large amount of radiation into the atmosphere.
Takeshi Tokuda, a member of the Lower House of the Japanese Diet, also believes the first explosion at Fukushima was nuclear. Tokuda talked with a doctor Oikawa of the Minami Soma City General Hospital. Oikawa told the government representative that materials ejected from the plant after the explosion registered high radiation levels.
“When the hospital checked the radiation level on the people who escaped from around the nuke plant after the explosion, there were more than 10 people whose radiation level exceeded 100,000 cpm [counts per minute], beyond what could be measured by the geiger counter the hospital had,” Tokuda wrote. “100,000 cpm is the new level that the Japanese government set that requires decontamination. Before the Fukushima accident, the level was 6,000 cpm.”
The EPA has attempted to downplay the fact that plutonium is now bombarding the United States and much of the Northern Hemisphere. According to Lucas Hixton Whitefield, an EPA RADNet report shows increased levels of plutonium in the atmosphere. Whitefield found information on the plutonium in a RADnet dataset.
Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
http://www.prisonplanet.com/investigator-fukushima-blast-was-nuclear-explosion.html
British scientist Christopher Busby, a researcher on the negative health effects of ionizing radiation, told Russia Today that one of the explosions at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan was a nuclear explosion, not a hydrogen explosion as widely reported in the media.
Busby said the explosion at Chernobyl in 1986 was also a nuclear explosion. The Chernobyl nuclear accident dispersed large quantities of radioactive fuel and core materials into the atmosphere. Busby told RT the crisis at Fukushima is far worse than Chernobyl.
He said the explosion did not originate in the reactor core, but the tanks where spent plutonium MOX fuel rods are stored. MOX fuel contains plutonium blended with natural uranium, reprocessed uranium, or depleted uranium. The explosion vaporized the plutonium rods and ejected a large amount of radiation into the atmosphere.
Takeshi Tokuda, a member of the Lower House of the Japanese Diet, also believes the first explosion at Fukushima was nuclear. Tokuda talked with a doctor Oikawa of the Minami Soma City General Hospital. Oikawa told the government representative that materials ejected from the plant after the explosion registered high radiation levels.
“When the hospital checked the radiation level on the people who escaped from around the nuke plant after the explosion, there were more than 10 people whose radiation level exceeded 100,000 cpm [counts per minute], beyond what could be measured by the geiger counter the hospital had,” Tokuda wrote. “100,000 cpm is the new level that the Japanese government set that requires decontamination. Before the Fukushima accident, the level was 6,000 cpm.”
The EPA has attempted to downplay the fact that plutonium is now bombarding the United States and much of the Northern Hemisphere. According to Lucas Hixton Whitefield, an EPA RADNet report shows increased levels of plutonium in the atmosphere. Whitefield found information on the plutonium in a RADnet dataset.
What is Bioaccumulation?
http://lucaswhitefieldhixson.com/bioaccumulation-why-fukushima-matters
Simply Stated -
All living organisms are connected to each other through a food chain. It takes more organisms in the beginning of a food chain to support a smaller number of organisms at the end of the chain. Where bioaccumulation refers to how pollutants enter a food chain; biomagnification refers to the tendency of pollutants to concentrate as they move from one trophic level to the next, up the “food chain.”
Bioaccumulation refers to how pollutants enter a food chain
Biomagnification refers to the tendency of pollutants to concentrate
Biomagnification is illustrated by a study of DDT which showed that where soil levels were 10 parts per million (ppm), DDT reached a concentration of 141 ppm in earthworms and 444 ppm in robins. DDT which has a half-life of 15 years, Strontium 90 which has been shown in EPA testing results in the United States has a half-life of 28.9 years, Cesium 137 has also been found which has a half life of 30 years. Through biomagnification, the concentration of a chemical in the animal at the top of the food chain may be high enough to cause death or adverse effects on behavior, reproduction, or disease resistance and thus endanger that species, even when levels in the water, air, or soil are low.
We must be concerned about these phenomena because together they mean that even small concentrations of toxic substances in the environment can find their way into organisms in high enough dosages to cause problems. If a chemical is short-lived, it generally will be broken down before it can become dangerous. However, even if short-lived chemicals are exposed to the environment for long periods of time in heavy doses, they too can become dangerous. Bioaccumulation is affected by the length of time between uptake and elimination of chemicals. If the environmental concentration of the chemical increases, the amount inside the organism will increase until it reaches a new equilibrium. Exposure to large amounts of a chemical for a long period of time, however, may overwhelm the equilibrium (ie, overflowing a bathtub) potentially causing harmful effects.
The easiest way to prevent biomagnification is to lower/remove the pollutants from the environment, or remove those effected from the polluted area.
How do you prevent Biomagnification if you cannot control the length of exposure, or the amount of radiation introduced into the environment?
Simply Stated -
All living organisms are connected to each other through a food chain. It takes more organisms in the beginning of a food chain to support a smaller number of organisms at the end of the chain. Where bioaccumulation refers to how pollutants enter a food chain; biomagnification refers to the tendency of pollutants to concentrate as they move from one trophic level to the next, up the “food chain.”
Bioaccumulation refers to how pollutants enter a food chain
Biomagnification refers to the tendency of pollutants to concentrate
Biomagnification is illustrated by a study of DDT which showed that where soil levels were 10 parts per million (ppm), DDT reached a concentration of 141 ppm in earthworms and 444 ppm in robins. DDT which has a half-life of 15 years, Strontium 90 which has been shown in EPA testing results in the United States has a half-life of 28.9 years, Cesium 137 has also been found which has a half life of 30 years. Through biomagnification, the concentration of a chemical in the animal at the top of the food chain may be high enough to cause death or adverse effects on behavior, reproduction, or disease resistance and thus endanger that species, even when levels in the water, air, or soil are low.
We must be concerned about these phenomena because together they mean that even small concentrations of toxic substances in the environment can find their way into organisms in high enough dosages to cause problems. If a chemical is short-lived, it generally will be broken down before it can become dangerous. However, even if short-lived chemicals are exposed to the environment for long periods of time in heavy doses, they too can become dangerous. Bioaccumulation is affected by the length of time between uptake and elimination of chemicals. If the environmental concentration of the chemical increases, the amount inside the organism will increase until it reaches a new equilibrium. Exposure to large amounts of a chemical for a long period of time, however, may overwhelm the equilibrium (ie, overflowing a bathtub) potentially causing harmful effects.
The easiest way to prevent biomagnification is to lower/remove the pollutants from the environment, or remove those effected from the polluted area.
How do you prevent Biomagnification if you cannot control the length of exposure, or the amount of radiation introduced into the environment?
Nuclear Power Can Never Be Made Safe
Karl Grossman
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/26-2
With the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear plant catastrophe having arrived, and with the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear complex still unfolding and radioactivity continuing to spew from those plants some people are asking: can nuclear power be made safe?
The answer is no. Nuclear power can never be made safe.
This was clearly explained by Admiral Hyman Rickover, the “father” of the U.S. nuclear navy and in charge of construction of the first nuclear power plant in the nation, Shippingport in Pennsylvania. Before a committee of Congress, as he retired from the navy in 1982, Rickover warned of the inherent lethality of nuclear power and urged that “we outlaw nuclear reactors.”
The basic problem: radioactivity.
“I’ll be philosophical,” testified Rickover. “Until about two billion years ago, it was impossible to have any life on Earth; that is, there was so much radiation on earth you couldn’t have any life fish or anything.” This was from naturally-occurring cosmic radiation when the Earth was in the process of formation. “Gradually,” said Rickover, “about two billion years ago, the amount of radiation on this planet…reduced and made it possible for some form of life to begin.”
“Now, when we go back to using nuclear power, we are creating something which nature tried to destroy to make life possible,” he said. “Every time you produce radiation” a “horrible force” is unleashed. By splitting the atom, people are recreating the poisons that precluded life from existing. “And I think there the human race is going to wreck itself,” Rickover stated.
This was Rickover, a key figure in nuclear power history, not Greenpeace.
The problem is radioactivity unleashed when the atom is split. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a General Electric boiling water reactor such as those that have erupted at Fukushima, or the Westinghouse pressurized water design, or Russian-designed plants like Chernobyl, or the “new, improved” nuclear plants being touted by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a nuclear scientist and zealous promoter of nuclear technology. All nuclear power plants produce radiation as well as radioactive poisons like the Cesium-137, Iodine-131 and Strontium-90 that have been and continue to be--spewed from the Fukushima plants.
Upon contact with life, these toxins destroy life. So from the time they’re produced in a nuclear plant to when they’re taken out as hotly radioactive “nuclear waste,” they must be isolated from life for thousands for some millions of years.
In the nuclear process, mildly radioactive uranium is taken from the ground and bombarded by neutrons and that part of the uranium which can split, is “fissile,” Uranium-235, is transformed into radioactive twins of safe and stable elements in nature: There are hundreds of these “fission products.” The human body doesn’t know the difference between these lethal twins and safe and stable elements. Also produced are alpha and beta particles and gamma rays, all radioactive.
In addition, much of the larger part of uranium, Uranium-238, which cannot split, grabs on to neutrons and turns into Plutonium-239, the most radioactive substance known.
In this atom-splitting, too, heat is produced which is used to boil water. Nuclear power plants are simply the most dangerous way to boil water ever conceived.
Why use this toxic process to boil water and generate electricity? It has far less to do with science than with politics and economics from the aftermath of the Manhattan Project to today During the World War II Manhattan Project, scientists working at laboratories secretly set up across the U.S. built atomic weapons. By 1945, it employed 600,000 people and billions of dollars were spent. Two bombs were dropped on Japan. And, with the war’s end, the Manhattan Project became the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and more nuclear weapons were built. But what else could be done with nuclear technology to perpetuate the nuclear undertaking?
Many of the scientists and government officials didn’t want to see their jobs end; corporations which were Manhattan Project contractors, notably General Electric and Westinghouse, didn’t want to see their contracts ended. As James Kunetka writes in his book City of Fire about Los Alamos National Laboratory, with the war over there were problems of “job placement, work continuity…more free time than work…hardly enough to keep everyone busy.”
Nuclear weapons don’t lend themselves to commercial spinoff. What else could be done with atomic technology to keep the nuclear establishment going? Schemes advanced included using nuclear devices as substitutes for dynamite to blast huge holes in the ground including stringing 125 atomic devices across the isthmus of Panama and setting them off to create the “Panatomic Canal,” utilizing radioactivity to zap food so it could seemingly be stored for years; building nuclear-powered airplanes (this didn’t go far because of the weight of the lead shielding needed to protect the pilots) and using the heat built up by the nuclear reaction to boil water to produce electricity.
All along, the nuclear scientists such as Chu now attempted to minimize, indeed deny, the lethal danger of radioactivity and, like Nuclear Pinocchios, they pushed their technology.
Nuclear power plants all 443 on the earth today should be closed and no new ones built. As Rickover declared, nuclear reactors must be outlawed.
During the Bill Clinton campaign years ago, the slogan was, “It’s the economy, stupid.” With nuclear power plants, “It’s the radioactivity” inherent in the process and deadly.
Instead we must fully implement the use of safe, clean, renewable energy technologies like solar, wind (now the fastest growing energy source and cheaper than nuclear) and geothermal and all the rest which, major studies have concluded, can provide all the energy the world needs energy without lethal radioactivity, energy we can live with.
Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, has long specialized in doing investigative reporting on nuclear technology. He is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power. He is the host of the nationally aired TV program, Enviro Close-Up (envirovideo.com).
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/26-2
With the 25th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear plant catastrophe having arrived, and with the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear complex still unfolding and radioactivity continuing to spew from those plants some people are asking: can nuclear power be made safe?
The answer is no. Nuclear power can never be made safe.
This was clearly explained by Admiral Hyman Rickover, the “father” of the U.S. nuclear navy and in charge of construction of the first nuclear power plant in the nation, Shippingport in Pennsylvania. Before a committee of Congress, as he retired from the navy in 1982, Rickover warned of the inherent lethality of nuclear power and urged that “we outlaw nuclear reactors.”
The basic problem: radioactivity.
“I’ll be philosophical,” testified Rickover. “Until about two billion years ago, it was impossible to have any life on Earth; that is, there was so much radiation on earth you couldn’t have any life fish or anything.” This was from naturally-occurring cosmic radiation when the Earth was in the process of formation. “Gradually,” said Rickover, “about two billion years ago, the amount of radiation on this planet…reduced and made it possible for some form of life to begin.”
“Now, when we go back to using nuclear power, we are creating something which nature tried to destroy to make life possible,” he said. “Every time you produce radiation” a “horrible force” is unleashed. By splitting the atom, people are recreating the poisons that precluded life from existing. “And I think there the human race is going to wreck itself,” Rickover stated.
This was Rickover, a key figure in nuclear power history, not Greenpeace.
The problem is radioactivity unleashed when the atom is split. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a General Electric boiling water reactor such as those that have erupted at Fukushima, or the Westinghouse pressurized water design, or Russian-designed plants like Chernobyl, or the “new, improved” nuclear plants being touted by U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a nuclear scientist and zealous promoter of nuclear technology. All nuclear power plants produce radiation as well as radioactive poisons like the Cesium-137, Iodine-131 and Strontium-90 that have been and continue to be--spewed from the Fukushima plants.
Upon contact with life, these toxins destroy life. So from the time they’re produced in a nuclear plant to when they’re taken out as hotly radioactive “nuclear waste,” they must be isolated from life for thousands for some millions of years.
In the nuclear process, mildly radioactive uranium is taken from the ground and bombarded by neutrons and that part of the uranium which can split, is “fissile,” Uranium-235, is transformed into radioactive twins of safe and stable elements in nature: There are hundreds of these “fission products.” The human body doesn’t know the difference between these lethal twins and safe and stable elements. Also produced are alpha and beta particles and gamma rays, all radioactive.
In addition, much of the larger part of uranium, Uranium-238, which cannot split, grabs on to neutrons and turns into Plutonium-239, the most radioactive substance known.
In this atom-splitting, too, heat is produced which is used to boil water. Nuclear power plants are simply the most dangerous way to boil water ever conceived.
Why use this toxic process to boil water and generate electricity? It has far less to do with science than with politics and economics from the aftermath of the Manhattan Project to today During the World War II Manhattan Project, scientists working at laboratories secretly set up across the U.S. built atomic weapons. By 1945, it employed 600,000 people and billions of dollars were spent. Two bombs were dropped on Japan. And, with the war’s end, the Manhattan Project became the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and more nuclear weapons were built. But what else could be done with nuclear technology to perpetuate the nuclear undertaking?
Many of the scientists and government officials didn’t want to see their jobs end; corporations which were Manhattan Project contractors, notably General Electric and Westinghouse, didn’t want to see their contracts ended. As James Kunetka writes in his book City of Fire about Los Alamos National Laboratory, with the war over there were problems of “job placement, work continuity…more free time than work…hardly enough to keep everyone busy.”
Nuclear weapons don’t lend themselves to commercial spinoff. What else could be done with atomic technology to keep the nuclear establishment going? Schemes advanced included using nuclear devices as substitutes for dynamite to blast huge holes in the ground including stringing 125 atomic devices across the isthmus of Panama and setting them off to create the “Panatomic Canal,” utilizing radioactivity to zap food so it could seemingly be stored for years; building nuclear-powered airplanes (this didn’t go far because of the weight of the lead shielding needed to protect the pilots) and using the heat built up by the nuclear reaction to boil water to produce electricity.
All along, the nuclear scientists such as Chu now attempted to minimize, indeed deny, the lethal danger of radioactivity and, like Nuclear Pinocchios, they pushed their technology.
Nuclear power plants all 443 on the earth today should be closed and no new ones built. As Rickover declared, nuclear reactors must be outlawed.
During the Bill Clinton campaign years ago, the slogan was, “It’s the economy, stupid.” With nuclear power plants, “It’s the radioactivity” inherent in the process and deadly.
Instead we must fully implement the use of safe, clean, renewable energy technologies like solar, wind (now the fastest growing energy source and cheaper than nuclear) and geothermal and all the rest which, major studies have concluded, can provide all the energy the world needs energy without lethal radioactivity, energy we can live with.
Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, has long specialized in doing investigative reporting on nuclear technology. He is the author of Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power. He is the host of the nationally aired TV program, Enviro Close-Up (envirovideo.com).
The first million is the hardest...
Ace Hoffman
April 26th, 2011
Today is the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl. Today, a quarter century ago, the ruthless murder of a million people began. And the cover-up.
How quickly we forget! How destined we are to repeat!
Today's commemorations around the world might have gone practically unnoticed by the mainstream media, save perhaps for a 60-second spot about a decaying sarcophagus, were it not for Fukushima.
Today we honor and remember the already-dead from Chernobyl:
1) The "liquidators" who helped clean it up (about 800,000 young men) who now die like flies of cancer, leukemia, and a thousand other stranger ailments.
2) The local citizens who were not told for a week or more that anything was wrong, even while the rest of the world knew because a nuclear reactor power company in Sweden had alerted the "free" public (that is, the Western media) several days after Chernobyl exploded, after the ill winds tripped their own monitors.
3) The people around the world who also MUST have died, in addition to the million who lived nearer the plant or were among the liquidators.
4) The descendents, for at least seven generations, of all these people -- that's how far the DNA is likely to show damage, perhaps even further down the line.
"The million" are only the ones that were reasonably easy to count. I use the term "easy" very relatively: WHO wouldn't count them -- for five years they didn't even start to take a half-hearted look. IAEA wouldn't count them (and probably prevented WHO from doing so). It would be bad for the promotion of nuclear power, their mandate and perceived mission. The nuclear industry didn't want them counted. The nuke-loving cash-strapped secretive militaristic Russian government certainly didn't want them counted. Nobody wanted them counted.
So they weren't counted. Not easily, unless the term is relative. People halfway around the world, not under Soviet censorship, propaganda, or oppression, were NEVER counted by anyone. Billions of Curies, tens of thousands of terabecquerels... didn't just disappear. Many of them were breathed in by someone. They killed people all over the world, and still do. So will Fukushima Daiichi.
Cover-ups and lies hide the million-dead from the ongoing Chernobyl horror. Some say it's only tens of thousands, some say "merely" thousands, and some -- the nuclear industry in America, for instance-- just three or four dozen.
Nobody says, "nobody died at Chernobyl" like they (lie) and say about Three Mile Island.
Until last month Chernobyl was the worst industrial accident in human history -- unless you believe the lies.
New pictures have reportedly been released of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 -- the MOX reactor -- indicating the reactor pressure vessel itself had exploded last month (see Jeff's article, below).
The nuclear industry represents a small fraction of 1% of the human work force, even in America or France. These people could all be building wind turbines, except for those people who will have to guard the waste -- a cost society must incur forevermore, and which keeps getting more and more costly, and will continue to do so, at least until we stop making more waste every day.
It's time to stop the assault on human and other life. It's time to turn off the nukes.
Forced down our throats, and paid well to work there, society gave it a try.
Nuclear power has failed miserably. It's not enough to prevent new reactors, or even to prevent relicensing -- one unit at Fukushima had just been relicensed for another ten years just weeks before the catastrophe began. It's not enough to wait months and months for the "lessons learned" from Fukushima. It's not enough to be promised improvements, changes, more and better backup systems. All those are nice. But we need to close the reactors down forever.
Sincerely,
Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA
The author. 54. has, like you, seen far too many nuclear disasters (one is too many). Visit his web site: www.acehoffman.org to read his book online or as a free download: "The Code Killers", about the many ways the nuclear industry destroys humanity.
April 26th, 2011
Today is the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl. Today, a quarter century ago, the ruthless murder of a million people began. And the cover-up.
How quickly we forget! How destined we are to repeat!
Today's commemorations around the world might have gone practically unnoticed by the mainstream media, save perhaps for a 60-second spot about a decaying sarcophagus, were it not for Fukushima.
Today we honor and remember the already-dead from Chernobyl:
1) The "liquidators" who helped clean it up (about 800,000 young men) who now die like flies of cancer, leukemia, and a thousand other stranger ailments.
2) The local citizens who were not told for a week or more that anything was wrong, even while the rest of the world knew because a nuclear reactor power company in Sweden had alerted the "free" public (that is, the Western media) several days after Chernobyl exploded, after the ill winds tripped their own monitors.
3) The people around the world who also MUST have died, in addition to the million who lived nearer the plant or were among the liquidators.
4) The descendents, for at least seven generations, of all these people -- that's how far the DNA is likely to show damage, perhaps even further down the line.
"The million" are only the ones that were reasonably easy to count. I use the term "easy" very relatively: WHO wouldn't count them -- for five years they didn't even start to take a half-hearted look. IAEA wouldn't count them (and probably prevented WHO from doing so). It would be bad for the promotion of nuclear power, their mandate and perceived mission. The nuclear industry didn't want them counted. The nuke-loving cash-strapped secretive militaristic Russian government certainly didn't want them counted. Nobody wanted them counted.
So they weren't counted. Not easily, unless the term is relative. People halfway around the world, not under Soviet censorship, propaganda, or oppression, were NEVER counted by anyone. Billions of Curies, tens of thousands of terabecquerels... didn't just disappear. Many of them were breathed in by someone. They killed people all over the world, and still do. So will Fukushima Daiichi.
Cover-ups and lies hide the million-dead from the ongoing Chernobyl horror. Some say it's only tens of thousands, some say "merely" thousands, and some -- the nuclear industry in America, for instance-- just three or four dozen.
Nobody says, "nobody died at Chernobyl" like they (lie) and say about Three Mile Island.
Until last month Chernobyl was the worst industrial accident in human history -- unless you believe the lies.
New pictures have reportedly been released of Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 -- the MOX reactor -- indicating the reactor pressure vessel itself had exploded last month (see Jeff's article, below).
The nuclear industry represents a small fraction of 1% of the human work force, even in America or France. These people could all be building wind turbines, except for those people who will have to guard the waste -- a cost society must incur forevermore, and which keeps getting more and more costly, and will continue to do so, at least until we stop making more waste every day.
It's time to stop the assault on human and other life. It's time to turn off the nukes.
Forced down our throats, and paid well to work there, society gave it a try.
Nuclear power has failed miserably. It's not enough to prevent new reactors, or even to prevent relicensing -- one unit at Fukushima had just been relicensed for another ten years just weeks before the catastrophe began. It's not enough to wait months and months for the "lessons learned" from Fukushima. It's not enough to be promised improvements, changes, more and better backup systems. All those are nice. But we need to close the reactors down forever.
Sincerely,
Ace Hoffman
Carlsbad, CA
The author. 54. has, like you, seen far too many nuclear disasters (one is too many). Visit his web site: www.acehoffman.org to read his book online or as a free download: "The Code Killers", about the many ways the nuclear industry destroys humanity.
Osama bin Laden dead – but no body
Now for an explosion of conspiracy theories
Damian Thompson
May 2nd, 2011
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100085976/osama-bin-laden-dead-now-for-an-explosion-of-conspiracy-theories
Conspiracy theorists will say bin Laden is alive.
No body. No photograph or DNA evidence – at least, not yet. Conspiracy theorists are an ingenious bunch, but at the moment the White House is making this ridiculously easy for them. Gideon Rachman says he gives it 24 hours before conspiracy theories about Osama bin Laden begin circulating, but they are already flowing vigorously. The Taliban says he’s still alive, for example.
The Islamic world is amazingly receptive to what I call “counterknowledge”. Let’s start by reminding ourselves that most people in Muslim countries have their doubts about 9/11, and millions them believe unquestioningly that it was plotted by the CIA. One of the most important features of what sociologists call the cultic milieu is that political and religious extremists happily exchange conspiracy theories, irrespective of their origin. We’ve seen this in the popularity of the far-Right Russian Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Arab world. We’ve also seen young, Left-wing disciples of Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore happily draw on 9/11 “truther” theories constructed in the American fascist underground.
Sir Christopher Meyer, our former Ambassador to the Washington, said this in response today’s news: “I can’t conceive the US president would go out to make a statement to the world that Bin Laden is dead without being able to produce evidence that he is dead. I think we will see some evidence – DNA or photographic – to prove there is not still some phantom Osama bin Laden riding the Tora Bora mountains.”
Spot on. It’s inconceivable that America would announce the death of its deadliest enemy without offering evidence that would convince any reasonable person; I’m surprised that it hasn’t been produced already. Moreover, why did it allow bin Laden’s body to be dropped into the sea? Is the US really so sensitive to Islamic burial practices that it is prepared to hand conspiracy theorists such a gift?
The death of bin Laden is something in which President Barack Obama can take pride, and I have no doubt that it will benefit him politically. But the American Right is in a strange mood at the moment, as its obsession with Obama’s birth certificate demonstrated. That particular controversy boiled on for years, thanks to the President’s odd reluctance to publish the relevant documents until last week. He can afford no such delay when it comes to proof of the death of Osama bin Laden.
Damian Thompson
May 2nd, 2011
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100085976/osama-bin-laden-dead-now-for-an-explosion-of-conspiracy-theories
Conspiracy theorists will say bin Laden is alive.
No body. No photograph or DNA evidence – at least, not yet. Conspiracy theorists are an ingenious bunch, but at the moment the White House is making this ridiculously easy for them. Gideon Rachman says he gives it 24 hours before conspiracy theories about Osama bin Laden begin circulating, but they are already flowing vigorously. The Taliban says he’s still alive, for example.
The Islamic world is amazingly receptive to what I call “counterknowledge”. Let’s start by reminding ourselves that most people in Muslim countries have their doubts about 9/11, and millions them believe unquestioningly that it was plotted by the CIA. One of the most important features of what sociologists call the cultic milieu is that political and religious extremists happily exchange conspiracy theories, irrespective of their origin. We’ve seen this in the popularity of the far-Right Russian Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Arab world. We’ve also seen young, Left-wing disciples of Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore happily draw on 9/11 “truther” theories constructed in the American fascist underground.
Sir Christopher Meyer, our former Ambassador to the Washington, said this in response today’s news: “I can’t conceive the US president would go out to make a statement to the world that Bin Laden is dead without being able to produce evidence that he is dead. I think we will see some evidence – DNA or photographic – to prove there is not still some phantom Osama bin Laden riding the Tora Bora mountains.”
Spot on. It’s inconceivable that America would announce the death of its deadliest enemy without offering evidence that would convince any reasonable person; I’m surprised that it hasn’t been produced already. Moreover, why did it allow bin Laden’s body to be dropped into the sea? Is the US really so sensitive to Islamic burial practices that it is prepared to hand conspiracy theorists such a gift?
The death of bin Laden is something in which President Barack Obama can take pride, and I have no doubt that it will benefit him politically. But the American Right is in a strange mood at the moment, as its obsession with Obama’s birth certificate demonstrated. That particular controversy boiled on for years, thanks to the President’s odd reluctance to publish the relevant documents until last week. He can afford no such delay when it comes to proof of the death of Osama bin Laden.
Not everyone believes bin Laden really is dead
ROBERT BURNS and CALVIN WOODWARD
May 2, 2011
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BIN_LADEN_DNA
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Knowing there would be disbelievers, the U.S. says it used convincing means to confirm Osama bin Laden's identity during and after the firefight that killed him. But the mystique that surrounded the terrorist chieftain in life is persisting in death.
Was it really him? How do we know? Where are the pictures?
Already, those questions are spreading in Pakistan and surely beyond. In the absence of photos and with his body given up to the sea, many people don't believe bin Laden - the Great Emir to some, the fabled escape artist of the Tora Bora mountains to foe and friend alike - is really dead.
U.S. officials are balancing that skepticism with the sensitivities that might be inflamed by showing images they say they have of the dead al-Qaida leader and video of his burial at sea. Still, it appeared likely that photographic evidence would be produced.
"We are going to do everything we can to make sure that nobody has any basis to try to deny that we got Osama bin Laden," John Brennan, President Barack Obama's counterterrorism adviser, said Monday. He said the U.S. will "share what we can because we want to make sure that not only the American people but the world understand exactly what happened."
In July 2003, the U.S. took heat but also quieted most conspiracy theorists by releasing graphic photos of the corpses of Saddam Hussein's two powerful sons to prove American forces had killed them.
So far, the U.S. has cited evidence that satisfied the Navy SEAL force, and at least most of the world, that they had the right man in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
The helicopter-borne raiding squad that swarmed the luxury compound identified bin Laden by appearance. A woman in the compound who was identified as his wife was said to have called out bin Laden's name in the melee.
Officials produced a quick DNA match from his remains that they said established bin Laden's identity, even absent the other techniques, with 99.9 percent certainty. U.S. officials also said bin Laden was identified through photo comparisons and other methods.
Tellingly, an al-Qaida spokesman, in vowing vengeance against America, called him a martyr, offering no challenge to the U.S. account of his death.
Even so, it's almost inevitable that the bin Laden mythology will not end with the bullet in his head. If it suits extremist ends to spin a fantastical tale of survival or trickery to gullible ears, expect to hear it.
In the immediate aftermath, people in Abbottabad expressed widespread disbelief that bin Laden had died - or ever lived - among them.
"I'm not ready to buy bin Laden was here," said Haris Rasheed, 22, who works in a fast food restaurant. "How come no one knew he was here and why did they bury him so quickly? This is all fake - a drama, and a crude one."
Kamal Khan, 25, who is unemployed, said the official story "looks fishy to me."
The burial from an aircraft carrier in the North Arabian Sea was videotaped aboard the ship, according to a senior defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because a decision on whether to release the video was not final. The official said it was highly likely that the video, along with photographs of bin Laden's body, would be made public in coming days.
The swiftness of the burial may have raised suspicions but was in accord with Islamic traditions. Islamic scholars, however, challenged U.S. assertions that a burial at sea was an appropriate fate for a Muslim who had died on land.
The act denied al-Qaida any sort of burial shrine for their slain leader. Once again, bin Laden had vanished, but this time at the hands of the United States and in a way that ensures he is gone forever.
If that satisfies U.S. goals and its sense of justice, Brad Sagarin, a psychologist at Northern Illinois University who studies persuasion, said the rapid disposition of the body "would certainly be a rich sort of kernel for somebody to grasp onto if they were motivated to disbelieve this."
Also expected to come out is a tape made by bin Laden, before U.S. forces bore down on him, that may provide fodder to those who insist he is alive.
Pakistan, for one, is a land of conspiracy theorists, and far-fetched rumors abound on the streets and in blogs throughout the Arab world. But that's not just a characteristic of the Islamic pipeline. Many ordinary Americans - and one billionaire - persistently questioned whether Obama was born in the U.S. despite lacking any evidence that he wasn't.
Sagarin said most people will probably be convinced bin Laden is dead because they cannot imagine the government maintaining such an extraordinary lie to the contrary in this day and age.
Yet, he said, "as with the birther conspiracy, there's going to be a set of people who are never going to be convinced. People filter the information they receive through their current attitudes, their current perspectives."
To be sure, even photos and video, subject to digital manipulation, may not provide the final word to everyone. But Seth Jones, a RAND Corp. political scientist who advised the commander of U.S. special operations forces in Afghanistan, said the administration should do all it can to minimize doubts.
"There are always conspiracy theories," he said. "There are individuals who believe that bin Laden wasn't involved in the 9/11 attacks."
--
Associated Press writers Zarar Khan in Abbottabad, Pakistan; Malcolm Ritter in New York; and Lolita C. Baldor, Ben Feller, Matt Apuzzo and Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.
May 2, 2011
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BIN_LADEN_DNA
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Knowing there would be disbelievers, the U.S. says it used convincing means to confirm Osama bin Laden's identity during and after the firefight that killed him. But the mystique that surrounded the terrorist chieftain in life is persisting in death.
Was it really him? How do we know? Where are the pictures?
Already, those questions are spreading in Pakistan and surely beyond. In the absence of photos and with his body given up to the sea, many people don't believe bin Laden - the Great Emir to some, the fabled escape artist of the Tora Bora mountains to foe and friend alike - is really dead.
U.S. officials are balancing that skepticism with the sensitivities that might be inflamed by showing images they say they have of the dead al-Qaida leader and video of his burial at sea. Still, it appeared likely that photographic evidence would be produced.
"We are going to do everything we can to make sure that nobody has any basis to try to deny that we got Osama bin Laden," John Brennan, President Barack Obama's counterterrorism adviser, said Monday. He said the U.S. will "share what we can because we want to make sure that not only the American people but the world understand exactly what happened."
In July 2003, the U.S. took heat but also quieted most conspiracy theorists by releasing graphic photos of the corpses of Saddam Hussein's two powerful sons to prove American forces had killed them.
So far, the U.S. has cited evidence that satisfied the Navy SEAL force, and at least most of the world, that they had the right man in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
The helicopter-borne raiding squad that swarmed the luxury compound identified bin Laden by appearance. A woman in the compound who was identified as his wife was said to have called out bin Laden's name in the melee.
Officials produced a quick DNA match from his remains that they said established bin Laden's identity, even absent the other techniques, with 99.9 percent certainty. U.S. officials also said bin Laden was identified through photo comparisons and other methods.
Tellingly, an al-Qaida spokesman, in vowing vengeance against America, called him a martyr, offering no challenge to the U.S. account of his death.
Even so, it's almost inevitable that the bin Laden mythology will not end with the bullet in his head. If it suits extremist ends to spin a fantastical tale of survival or trickery to gullible ears, expect to hear it.
In the immediate aftermath, people in Abbottabad expressed widespread disbelief that bin Laden had died - or ever lived - among them.
"I'm not ready to buy bin Laden was here," said Haris Rasheed, 22, who works in a fast food restaurant. "How come no one knew he was here and why did they bury him so quickly? This is all fake - a drama, and a crude one."
Kamal Khan, 25, who is unemployed, said the official story "looks fishy to me."
The burial from an aircraft carrier in the North Arabian Sea was videotaped aboard the ship, according to a senior defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity because a decision on whether to release the video was not final. The official said it was highly likely that the video, along with photographs of bin Laden's body, would be made public in coming days.
The swiftness of the burial may have raised suspicions but was in accord with Islamic traditions. Islamic scholars, however, challenged U.S. assertions that a burial at sea was an appropriate fate for a Muslim who had died on land.
The act denied al-Qaida any sort of burial shrine for their slain leader. Once again, bin Laden had vanished, but this time at the hands of the United States and in a way that ensures he is gone forever.
If that satisfies U.S. goals and its sense of justice, Brad Sagarin, a psychologist at Northern Illinois University who studies persuasion, said the rapid disposition of the body "would certainly be a rich sort of kernel for somebody to grasp onto if they were motivated to disbelieve this."
Also expected to come out is a tape made by bin Laden, before U.S. forces bore down on him, that may provide fodder to those who insist he is alive.
Pakistan, for one, is a land of conspiracy theorists, and far-fetched rumors abound on the streets and in blogs throughout the Arab world. But that's not just a characteristic of the Islamic pipeline. Many ordinary Americans - and one billionaire - persistently questioned whether Obama was born in the U.S. despite lacking any evidence that he wasn't.
Sagarin said most people will probably be convinced bin Laden is dead because they cannot imagine the government maintaining such an extraordinary lie to the contrary in this day and age.
Yet, he said, "as with the birther conspiracy, there's going to be a set of people who are never going to be convinced. People filter the information they receive through their current attitudes, their current perspectives."
To be sure, even photos and video, subject to digital manipulation, may not provide the final word to everyone. But Seth Jones, a RAND Corp. political scientist who advised the commander of U.S. special operations forces in Afghanistan, said the administration should do all it can to minimize doubts.
"There are always conspiracy theories," he said. "There are individuals who believe that bin Laden wasn't involved in the 9/11 attacks."
--
Associated Press writers Zarar Khan in Abbottabad, Pakistan; Malcolm Ritter in New York; and Lolita C. Baldor, Ben Feller, Matt Apuzzo and Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.
Can US Offer Final Proof Of Osama's Death?
5-2-11 http://uk.news.yahoo.com/5/20110502/twl-can-us-offer-final-proof-of-osama-s-3fd0ae9.html
US officials have said DNA testing has proved the al Qaeda leader was killed in a villa in Pakistan.
They have also identified him by facial recognition.
But photographs of Bin Laden after his reported death have not been released.
The fact his body was buried at sea has so far only added to the speculation, although as a Muslim, he had to be laid to rest as quickly as possible.
Under Islamic law, people can only be buried at sea if they died there, or if there is a risk their body will be exhumed or dug up if buried in the ground.
The release of a photograph purporting to show bin Laden's corpse - which was later confirmed to be a fake - added to the confusion.
Journalists have not yet had the opportunity to ask more than a few questions of the Obama administration about details of Bin Laden's death.
A former British ambassador to the US, Sir Christopher Meyer, told Sky News: "I imagine we will see proof.
"I can't concede the US president would go out to make a statement to the world that bin Laden is dead without being able to produce evidence that he is dead.
"I think we will see some evidence - DNA or photographic - to prove there is not still some phantom Osama bin Laden riding the Tora Bora mountains."
The announcement is not the first time the world has heard of Bin Laden's death. Claims that the US and Britain kept up a pretence he was alive in order to continue their war on terror have been dismissed as conspiracy theories.
It has been suggested that bin Laden died nearly 10 years ago during the battle for Tora Bora in Afghanistan, either from a US bomb or from kidney disease.
And as for his audio and video statements, their authenticity has continually been questioned.
One of his video statements, released just days before the October 2004 US presidential election, was said to have been crucial in helping George Bush secure a second term in office.
But his statement from December 2001, when he was seen to confess to the 9/11 attacks, has attracted the most attention.
Bin Laden had insisted numerous times, through the Arab press and in video statements, that he had no involvement with the atrocities. His sudden confession was picked up on by doubters.
Additionally, his appearance in the December 2001 video was markedly different. He sported a black beard, not his usual grey one, his pale skin had become darker and he had a different shaped nose.
He also looked in good health - a contrast to his earlier gaunt appearance - and critics have pointed to the fact he is seen writing a note with his right hand, although he was left-handed.
In total, Bin Laden is thought to have released around 40 statements since 9/11, many of them with clear references to events at that time.
When Uday and Qusay Hussein - the sons of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein - were killed in a firefight with US troops, authorities relied on photographs of their bodies to convince people they were dead.
And when Saddam himself was executed, video footage of his death and subsequent photographs seemed to give final proof of his death.
US officials have said DNA testing has proved the al Qaeda leader was killed in a villa in Pakistan.
They have also identified him by facial recognition.
But photographs of Bin Laden after his reported death have not been released.
The fact his body was buried at sea has so far only added to the speculation, although as a Muslim, he had to be laid to rest as quickly as possible.
Under Islamic law, people can only be buried at sea if they died there, or if there is a risk their body will be exhumed or dug up if buried in the ground.
The release of a photograph purporting to show bin Laden's corpse - which was later confirmed to be a fake - added to the confusion.
Journalists have not yet had the opportunity to ask more than a few questions of the Obama administration about details of Bin Laden's death.
A former British ambassador to the US, Sir Christopher Meyer, told Sky News: "I imagine we will see proof.
"I can't concede the US president would go out to make a statement to the world that bin Laden is dead without being able to produce evidence that he is dead.
"I think we will see some evidence - DNA or photographic - to prove there is not still some phantom Osama bin Laden riding the Tora Bora mountains."
The announcement is not the first time the world has heard of Bin Laden's death. Claims that the US and Britain kept up a pretence he was alive in order to continue their war on terror have been dismissed as conspiracy theories.
It has been suggested that bin Laden died nearly 10 years ago during the battle for Tora Bora in Afghanistan, either from a US bomb or from kidney disease.
And as for his audio and video statements, their authenticity has continually been questioned.
One of his video statements, released just days before the October 2004 US presidential election, was said to have been crucial in helping George Bush secure a second term in office.
But his statement from December 2001, when he was seen to confess to the 9/11 attacks, has attracted the most attention.
Bin Laden had insisted numerous times, through the Arab press and in video statements, that he had no involvement with the atrocities. His sudden confession was picked up on by doubters.
Additionally, his appearance in the December 2001 video was markedly different. He sported a black beard, not his usual grey one, his pale skin had become darker and he had a different shaped nose.
He also looked in good health - a contrast to his earlier gaunt appearance - and critics have pointed to the fact he is seen writing a note with his right hand, although he was left-handed.
In total, Bin Laden is thought to have released around 40 statements since 9/11, many of them with clear references to events at that time.
When Uday and Qusay Hussein - the sons of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein - were killed in a firefight with US troops, authorities relied on photographs of their bodies to convince people they were dead.
And when Saddam himself was executed, video footage of his death and subsequent photographs seemed to give final proof of his death.
Osama bin Laden’s Second Death
Paul Craig Roberts
May 3, 2011
If today were April 1 and not May 2, we could dismiss as an April fool’s joke this morning’s headline that Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight in Pakistan and quickly buried at sea. As it is, we must take it as more evidence that the US government has unlimited belief in the gullibility of Americans.
Making it official. The first post Osama press conference builds the foundation for the official fairy tale.
Think about it. What are the chances that a person allegedly suffering from kidney disease and requiring dialysis and, in addition, afflicted with diabetes and low blood pressure, survived in mountain hideaways for a decade? If bin Laden was able to acquire dialysis equipment and medical care that his condition required, would not the shipment of dialysis equipment point to his location? Why did it take ten years to find him?
Consider also the claims, repeated by a triumphalist US media celebrating bin Laden’s death, that “bin Laden used his millions to bankroll terrorist training camps in Sudan, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, sending ‘holy warriors’ to foment revolution and fight with fundamentalist Muslim forces across North Africa, in Chechnya, Tajikistan and Bosnia.” That’s a lot of activity for mere millions to bankroll (perhaps the US should have put him in charge of the Pentagon), but the main question is: how was bin Laden able to move his money about? What banking system was helping him? The US government succeeds in seizing the assets of people and of entire countries, Libya being the most recent. Why not bin Laden’s? Was he carrying around with him $100 million dollars in gold coins and sending emissaries to distribute payments to his far-flung operations?
This morning’s headline has the odor of a staged event. The smell reeks from the triumphalist news reports loaded with exaggerations, from celebrants waving flags and chanting “USA USA.” Could something else be going on?
No doubt President Obama is in desperate need of a victory. He committed the fool’s error of restarting the war in Afghanistan, and now after a decade of fighting the US faces stalemate, if not defeat. The wars of the Bush/Obama regimes have bankrupted the US, leaving huge deficits and a declining dollar in their wake. And re-election time is approaching.
The various lies and deceptions, such as “weapons of mass destruction,” of the last several administrations had terrible consequences for the US and the world. But not all deceptions are the same. Remember, the entire reason for invading Afghanistan in the first place was to get bin Laden. Now that President Obama has declared bin Laden to have been shot in the head by US special forces operating in an independent country and buried at sea, there is no reason for continuing the war.
Perhaps the precipitous decline in the US dollar in foreign exchange markets has forced some real budget reductions, which can only come from stopping the open-ended wars. Until the decline of the dollar reached the breaking point, Osama bin Laden, who many experts believe to have been dead for years, was a useful bogeyman to use to feed the profits of the US military/security complex.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is the father of Reaganomics and the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury. He is a columnist and was previously an editor for the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, “How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds,” details why America is disintegrating.
May 3, 2011
If today were April 1 and not May 2, we could dismiss as an April fool’s joke this morning’s headline that Osama bin Laden was killed in a firefight in Pakistan and quickly buried at sea. As it is, we must take it as more evidence that the US government has unlimited belief in the gullibility of Americans.
Making it official. The first post Osama press conference builds the foundation for the official fairy tale.
Think about it. What are the chances that a person allegedly suffering from kidney disease and requiring dialysis and, in addition, afflicted with diabetes and low blood pressure, survived in mountain hideaways for a decade? If bin Laden was able to acquire dialysis equipment and medical care that his condition required, would not the shipment of dialysis equipment point to his location? Why did it take ten years to find him?
Consider also the claims, repeated by a triumphalist US media celebrating bin Laden’s death, that “bin Laden used his millions to bankroll terrorist training camps in Sudan, the Philippines, and Afghanistan, sending ‘holy warriors’ to foment revolution and fight with fundamentalist Muslim forces across North Africa, in Chechnya, Tajikistan and Bosnia.” That’s a lot of activity for mere millions to bankroll (perhaps the US should have put him in charge of the Pentagon), but the main question is: how was bin Laden able to move his money about? What banking system was helping him? The US government succeeds in seizing the assets of people and of entire countries, Libya being the most recent. Why not bin Laden’s? Was he carrying around with him $100 million dollars in gold coins and sending emissaries to distribute payments to his far-flung operations?
This morning’s headline has the odor of a staged event. The smell reeks from the triumphalist news reports loaded with exaggerations, from celebrants waving flags and chanting “USA USA.” Could something else be going on?
No doubt President Obama is in desperate need of a victory. He committed the fool’s error of restarting the war in Afghanistan, and now after a decade of fighting the US faces stalemate, if not defeat. The wars of the Bush/Obama regimes have bankrupted the US, leaving huge deficits and a declining dollar in their wake. And re-election time is approaching.
The various lies and deceptions, such as “weapons of mass destruction,” of the last several administrations had terrible consequences for the US and the world. But not all deceptions are the same. Remember, the entire reason for invading Afghanistan in the first place was to get bin Laden. Now that President Obama has declared bin Laden to have been shot in the head by US special forces operating in an independent country and buried at sea, there is no reason for continuing the war.
Perhaps the precipitous decline in the US dollar in foreign exchange markets has forced some real budget reductions, which can only come from stopping the open-ended wars. Until the decline of the dollar reached the breaking point, Osama bin Laden, who many experts believe to have been dead for years, was a useful bogeyman to use to feed the profits of the US military/security complex.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is the father of Reaganomics and the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury. He is a columnist and was previously an editor for the Wall Street Journal. His latest book, “How the Economy Was Lost: The War of the Worlds,” details why America is disintegrating.
Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?
Greg Palast
Monday, May 2, 2011
GregPalast.com
From Armed Madhouse, just so we don't forget:
So, Osama walks into this bar, see? And Bush says, "Whad'l'ya have, pardner?" and Osama says...
But wait a minute. I'd better shut my mouth. The sign here in the airport says, "Security is no joking matter." But if security's no joking matter, why does this guy dressed in a high-school marching band outfit tell me to take off my shoes? All I can say is, Thank God the "shoe bomber" didn't carry Semtex in his underpants.
I'm a bit nervous. It's a "YELLOW ALERT" day. That's a "lowered threat" notice. According to the press office of the Department of Homeland Security, lowered threat Yellow means that there will be no special inspections of passengers or cargo today. Isn't it nice of Mr. Bush to alert Osama when half our security forces are given the day off?
Hmm. I asked an Israeli security expert why his nation doesn't use these pretty color codes.
He asked me if, when I woke up, I checked the day's terror color.
"I can't say I ever have. I mean, who would?" He smiled.
"The terrorists." America is the only nation on the planet that kindly informs bombers, hijackers and berserkers the days on which they won't be monitored. You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to get a jump on George Bush's team.
And who will get us next? Don't assume they'll be clutching Korans. Another Hurricane Katrina and America won't need to look abroad for insurgents. Until September 11, 2001, the deadliest terror attack in American history was carried out by an all-American Gulf War veteran.
Outside the war zones we create, organized terror's power is diminishing, and for George Bush and Tony Blair, that is a political problem. That's why the attack by the loony London teenagers in 2005 was such a boon to the Al-Qaeda addicts in the White House and Downing Street: They needed a new terror fix. Even if it wasn't the real Al- Qaeda, it was enough for Bush and Blair to mainline into the body politic a big, fat dose of fear.
Once they had the world media all jumped up on a new fear high, Bush and Blair could resume their sales pitch for their two-barrel cure: less liberty, more weaponry.
Our leaders are counting on cowardice in the hearts of the heart- land. In 2004, the Republicans' unstated reelection campaign slogan was, "They are coming to get us." Americans, scared for their lives, soiled their underpants and waddled to the polls crying, "Georgie, save us!"
From his bunker, Mr. Cheney has created a government that is little more than a Wal-Mart of Fear: midnight snatchings of citizens for uncharged crimes, wars to hunt for imaginary weapons aimed at Los Angeles, DNA data banks of kids and grandmas, even the Chicken Little sky-is-falling Social Security spook-show.
In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt calmed a nation when he said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."
Today, George Bush says, "We have nothing to sell but fear itself."
*
Fear is the sales pitch for many products: from war on the Euphrates to billion-dollar submarines. Better than toothpaste that makes your teeth whiter than white, this stuff will make us safer than safe. It's political junk food, the cheap filling in the flashy tube.
Real security for life's dangers—from a national health insurance program to protecting teachers' jobs, would take a slice of the profits of the owning classes, the Lockheeds, the Halliburtons, the JP Morgans. The War on Terror has become class war by other means.
*
Oh, hey, you never got the punch line. So Osama walks into this bar, see, and George Bush says, "Whad'l'ya have, pardner?" and Osama says, "Well, George, what are you serving today?" and Bush says, "Fear," and Osama says, "Fear for everybody!" and George pours it on for the crowd. Then the presidential bartender says, "Hey, who's buying?" Osama points a thumb at the crowd sucking down their brew. "They are," he says — and the two of them share a quiet laugh.
On us.
This is an excerpt from Greg Palast's New York Times bestseller, "Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf and other Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild." Penguin 2006.
Monday, May 2, 2011
GregPalast.com
From Armed Madhouse, just so we don't forget:
So, Osama walks into this bar, see? And Bush says, "Whad'l'ya have, pardner?" and Osama says...
But wait a minute. I'd better shut my mouth. The sign here in the airport says, "Security is no joking matter." But if security's no joking matter, why does this guy dressed in a high-school marching band outfit tell me to take off my shoes? All I can say is, Thank God the "shoe bomber" didn't carry Semtex in his underpants.
I'm a bit nervous. It's a "YELLOW ALERT" day. That's a "lowered threat" notice. According to the press office of the Department of Homeland Security, lowered threat Yellow means that there will be no special inspections of passengers or cargo today. Isn't it nice of Mr. Bush to alert Osama when half our security forces are given the day off?
Hmm. I asked an Israeli security expert why his nation doesn't use these pretty color codes.
He asked me if, when I woke up, I checked the day's terror color.
"I can't say I ever have. I mean, who would?" He smiled.
"The terrorists." America is the only nation on the planet that kindly informs bombers, hijackers and berserkers the days on which they won't be monitored. You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to get a jump on George Bush's team.
And who will get us next? Don't assume they'll be clutching Korans. Another Hurricane Katrina and America won't need to look abroad for insurgents. Until September 11, 2001, the deadliest terror attack in American history was carried out by an all-American Gulf War veteran.
Outside the war zones we create, organized terror's power is diminishing, and for George Bush and Tony Blair, that is a political problem. That's why the attack by the loony London teenagers in 2005 was such a boon to the Al-Qaeda addicts in the White House and Downing Street: They needed a new terror fix. Even if it wasn't the real Al- Qaeda, it was enough for Bush and Blair to mainline into the body politic a big, fat dose of fear.
Once they had the world media all jumped up on a new fear high, Bush and Blair could resume their sales pitch for their two-barrel cure: less liberty, more weaponry.
Our leaders are counting on cowardice in the hearts of the heart- land. In 2004, the Republicans' unstated reelection campaign slogan was, "They are coming to get us." Americans, scared for their lives, soiled their underpants and waddled to the polls crying, "Georgie, save us!"
From his bunker, Mr. Cheney has created a government that is little more than a Wal-Mart of Fear: midnight snatchings of citizens for uncharged crimes, wars to hunt for imaginary weapons aimed at Los Angeles, DNA data banks of kids and grandmas, even the Chicken Little sky-is-falling Social Security spook-show.
In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt calmed a nation when he said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."
Today, George Bush says, "We have nothing to sell but fear itself."
*
Fear is the sales pitch for many products: from war on the Euphrates to billion-dollar submarines. Better than toothpaste that makes your teeth whiter than white, this stuff will make us safer than safe. It's political junk food, the cheap filling in the flashy tube.
Real security for life's dangers—from a national health insurance program to protecting teachers' jobs, would take a slice of the profits of the owning classes, the Lockheeds, the Halliburtons, the JP Morgans. The War on Terror has become class war by other means.
*
Oh, hey, you never got the punch line. So Osama walks into this bar, see, and George Bush says, "Whad'l'ya have, pardner?" and Osama says, "Well, George, what are you serving today?" and Bush says, "Fear," and Osama says, "Fear for everybody!" and George pours it on for the crowd. Then the presidential bartender says, "Hey, who's buying?" Osama points a thumb at the crowd sucking down their brew. "They are," he says — and the two of them share a quiet laugh.
On us.
This is an excerpt from Greg Palast's New York Times bestseller, "Armed Madhouse: Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf and other Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild." Penguin 2006.
Red Alert: Government Had Osama bin Laden Frozen for Years
Kurt Nimmo and Alex Jones May 1, 2011
http://www.infowars.com/red-alert-government-had-osama-bin-laden-frozen-for-years
CNN and the corporate media report this evening that purported CIA asset Osama bin Laden has been killed by the U.S. military in a mansion outside the Pakistani capital of Islamabad along with other family members.
In an address to the nation, Obama said he ordered the strike that allegedly killed Osama. The remainder of his speech followed the standard war on terror propaganda script.
A small team of Americans killed bin Laden in a firefight at a compound in Pakistan, the president said in a dramatic late-night statement at the White House, the Associated Press reported following Obama’s address.
Obama said the military took custody of his remains. It remains to be seen if the government will attempt to provide evidence that the remains are indeed those of Osama bin Laden.
“The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done,” said former president Bush. In 2006, Bush admitted that capturing Osama was not a top priority.
In February, 2004, Iranian state radio claimed Osama bin Laden had been captured in Pakistan’s border region with Afghanistan “a long time ago.” Pentagon and Pakistani officials denied the report. “Osama bin Laden has been arrested a long time ago, but Bush is intending to use it for propaganda maneuvering in the presidential election,” the radio report said.
Osama bin Laden died of kidney failure soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks. In 2002, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said bin Laden had kidney disease, and that he had required a dialysis machine when he lived in Afghanistan. That same year, the FBI’s top counterterrorism official, Dale Watson, said, “I personally think he is probably not with us anymore.”
A Taliban leader told the Pakistan Observer on December 21, 2002, that Bin Laden was suffering from a serious lung complication and died in mid-December, in the vicinity of the Tora Bora mountains. The source claimed that bin Laden was laid to rest honorably in his last abode and his grave was made as per his Wahabi belief, according to Fox News.
Alex Jones was told live on the radio in 2002 by high-level Council on Foreign Relations members that Osama Bin Laden had died of kidney failure in early 2002.
“I have it from high level [sources] from inside the Bush administration…that bin Laden died of natural causes and that his family has given the body to the CIA, that they’re gonna roll him out right before the election, that he’s on ice right now. They will claim they killed him right before the election,” Alex said at the time.
“Jones gave a caution that the intelligence could be disinformation but claimed that his base in Austin was extremely close to the Bush administration and similar information received in the past had been credible,” Paul Joseph Watson wrote in August of 2002.
During the 2004 election, CNN reported that Democratic insiders had been told that George W. Bush was going to use the Bin Laden body as an ace-in-the-hole if he thought he was in danger of losing the 2004 election. This confirmed the evidence that Jones had been given by the CFR and others.
In 2003, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told Fox News Channel analyst Morton Kondracke she suspected Bush knew the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and was waiting for the most politically expedient moment to announce his capture.
Benazir Bhutto, who was killed in a suicide attack at the end of 2007, stated that Osama bin Laden had been killed by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a man convicted of kidnapping and killing journalist Daniel Pearl.
Obama’s announcement follows the release of a highly suspicious birth certificate last week. Both events represent psychological operations that possibly portend more significant events in the days ahead as the U.S. dollar continues to lose its reserve status, the economy fails to recover as promised, and wars expand in Libya, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
Obama’s propaganda stunt arrives as the Democrats kick off their leader’s presidential reelection bid against a number of Republicans contenders who have been highly critical of not only his perceived handling of the economy, but also his management of the manufactured war on terror.
http://www.infowars.com/red-alert-government-had-osama-bin-laden-frozen-for-years
CNN and the corporate media report this evening that purported CIA asset Osama bin Laden has been killed by the U.S. military in a mansion outside the Pakistani capital of Islamabad along with other family members.
In an address to the nation, Obama said he ordered the strike that allegedly killed Osama. The remainder of his speech followed the standard war on terror propaganda script.
A small team of Americans killed bin Laden in a firefight at a compound in Pakistan, the president said in a dramatic late-night statement at the White House, the Associated Press reported following Obama’s address.
Obama said the military took custody of his remains. It remains to be seen if the government will attempt to provide evidence that the remains are indeed those of Osama bin Laden.
“The fight against terror goes on, but tonight America has sent an unmistakable message: No matter how long it takes, justice will be done,” said former president Bush. In 2006, Bush admitted that capturing Osama was not a top priority.
In February, 2004, Iranian state radio claimed Osama bin Laden had been captured in Pakistan’s border region with Afghanistan “a long time ago.” Pentagon and Pakistani officials denied the report. “Osama bin Laden has been arrested a long time ago, but Bush is intending to use it for propaganda maneuvering in the presidential election,” the radio report said.
Osama bin Laden died of kidney failure soon after the September 11, 2001, attacks. In 2002, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said bin Laden had kidney disease, and that he had required a dialysis machine when he lived in Afghanistan. That same year, the FBI’s top counterterrorism official, Dale Watson, said, “I personally think he is probably not with us anymore.”
A Taliban leader told the Pakistan Observer on December 21, 2002, that Bin Laden was suffering from a serious lung complication and died in mid-December, in the vicinity of the Tora Bora mountains. The source claimed that bin Laden was laid to rest honorably in his last abode and his grave was made as per his Wahabi belief, according to Fox News.
Alex Jones was told live on the radio in 2002 by high-level Council on Foreign Relations members that Osama Bin Laden had died of kidney failure in early 2002.
“I have it from high level [sources] from inside the Bush administration…that bin Laden died of natural causes and that his family has given the body to the CIA, that they’re gonna roll him out right before the election, that he’s on ice right now. They will claim they killed him right before the election,” Alex said at the time.
“Jones gave a caution that the intelligence could be disinformation but claimed that his base in Austin was extremely close to the Bush administration and similar information received in the past had been credible,” Paul Joseph Watson wrote in August of 2002.
During the 2004 election, CNN reported that Democratic insiders had been told that George W. Bush was going to use the Bin Laden body as an ace-in-the-hole if he thought he was in danger of losing the 2004 election. This confirmed the evidence that Jones had been given by the CFR and others.
In 2003, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told Fox News Channel analyst Morton Kondracke she suspected Bush knew the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and was waiting for the most politically expedient moment to announce his capture.
Benazir Bhutto, who was killed in a suicide attack at the end of 2007, stated that Osama bin Laden had been killed by Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a man convicted of kidnapping and killing journalist Daniel Pearl.
Obama’s announcement follows the release of a highly suspicious birth certificate last week. Both events represent psychological operations that possibly portend more significant events in the days ahead as the U.S. dollar continues to lose its reserve status, the economy fails to recover as promised, and wars expand in Libya, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.
Obama’s propaganda stunt arrives as the Democrats kick off their leader’s presidential reelection bid against a number of Republicans contenders who have been highly critical of not only his perceived handling of the economy, but also his management of the manufactured war on terror.
Awesome Quotes: Michael Moore on Osama
"Osama bin Laden is a multi-millionaire – and if there's one thing I've learned about the rich it's that they don't live in caves for 9 years. Bin Laden is either dead or hiding out in a place where his money protects him."
Michael Moore, October 7, 2010
Michael Moore, October 7, 2010
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