Burma : Japan's 'Fury' At Murder Of Journalist During Military Protest Slaughter

Military Vs Military As Soldiers Refuse To Fire On Unarmed Civilians


Seconds after being shot at point blank range by Burmese military, a Japanese photographer appears to continue taking photos...


Moments later, he's dead.

The marches for democracy in Burma-Myanmar continue today. Day 11.

The Burmese military are killing unarmed civilians and monks. Possibly hundreds are now rumoured to have been slaughtered. Thousands more jailed. The military junta claims it is regaining control of the streets and the protests are smaller.

Why won't someone do something to stop this?

The outcry from Australia, the United States, the UK, the EU, is righteous but pathetically toothless. We can't do anything, the leaders claim, except put pressure on China, Burma's biggest trading partner.

Solidarity rallies across the planet grow in size and number.

A movement begins - boycott China's 2008 Olympics.

The Japanese people, if not the government, are furious at the senseless murder of one of their own in the streets of Rangoon.

And now comes some extraordinary news - a growing number of Burmese military and police are refusing to shoot civilians, and may be now turning their weapons on the murderers in their midsts, or so some reports claim.

Will China's refusal to use real pressure, and it's enormous influence, on the Burmese military regime be the spark that leads to war between the East and West?

If the marches continue, and the slaughter of innocent people grows larger, who will send in forces to protect the civilians?

Will the mutiny within the military lead to events that eventually see the overthrow of the current junta?

Will Burmese soldiers go to war on their fellow soldiers in the streets?

Just how big will this horrorshow become?


Pepe Escobar writes in the Asia Times :

Myanmar is above all a key strategic pawn for China. Not only as a captive market for civilian goods in addition to weapons, but as a pawn to keep India in check and assure China of key strategic access to the Indian Ocean. Just like Britain - which twice invaded Burma, as Myanmar was known until 1989 - China's utmost interest is natural resources. Oil and gas, of course, but also gems and timber: the once-pristine forests at the Myanmar-China border have been practically wiped out. According to the rights group Global Witness, Myanmar exported no less than $350 million in timber to China in 2005 alone, and the bulk of it was illegal.

According to EarthRights International, a crucial project of Chinese multinationals established in Myanmar has been the construction of a 2,380-kilometer oil-and-gas pipeline from the Arakan coast to Yunnan province in China. China needs this pipeline and a vital port in Myanmar for its growing energy imports from the Middle East, Africa and Venezuela.

Myanmar and China are also intimately linked by a $1.5 billion, high-tech electronic-warfare pet project of the junta's leader, psychological-warfare specialist General Than Shwe, 74, very much appreciated in Beijing. It deals with surveillance of ethnic-minority guerrillas in Myanmar - the Karen, the Chan, the Wa, among others. It deals with surveillance of strategic competitor India. And it deals with surveillance of all naval traffic in the Indian Ocean, US warships included, not to mention the crucial Strait of Malacca.

US sanctions are just for internal American consumption; they will have absolutely no impact. For starters, Myanmar is not under a military embargo. A really different story, for instance, would be the Bush administration telling the Chinese to drop the junta, otherwise no US athletes will be seen at the Beijing Summer Olympics next year.

The French for their part now say they fear a terrible crackdown - but in fact they fear what happens to substantial oil business by French energy giant Total.

Oil and gas interests, as usual, fly in the face of genuine movements for democracy in totalitarian regimes.

You can have all the democracy you want, as long as it doesn't get in the way of business.


Crowds Taunt Troops As Crackdown Begins

Bloggers Dodge Net Barriers To Get The Message Out

With Mobiles And Internet, Protesters Battle To Keep World Focused On Burma's Anti-Democracy Outrage

Don't Push For Sanctions, Says Australian Investor In Myanmar Oil - Has Ties To Howard Government

Mynamar Official Media : Peace, Stability Restored In Rangoon

Internet Cut, But Bloggers Press On

Scenes From A Revolution

International Narcotics Trade Agenda Behind Myanmar Instability

E-mails From Inside Burma Leak Out Despite Restrictions

Tom Cruise Builds Multi-Million Dollar Bunker To Protect His Family From 'Alien Attack'


Xenu - the only thing Tom Cruise fears more than well-tuned gaydar

Come on, of course this story is true. When the last time an American tabloid published a completely absurd and craptacular story about a major celebrity?

The Mission Impossible actor, who is a dedicated follower of Scientology, is reportedly fearful that deposed galactic ruler 'Xenu' is plotting an evil revenge attack on Earth.

Hence the need for an underground anti-alien invasion shelter.

Please, please, please sue the magazine that made this up, Tom. The court case would be so entertaining.

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A Stubby-Horned, Flexi-Necked Horror Show

Giraffe Fight Club

I'll probably regret telling all of you this, but for most of my life I've had a completely unnatural, near crippling fear of giraffes. Just seeing one of bizarre horned heads on a TV ad makes my blood run cold. On a funniest home video show one night, a clip was aired where a giraffe bolted onto a road somewhere in Africa and almost took out a passing car. I nearly shrieked.

My parter, naturally, thinks Fear Of Giraffes is hysterical, and loves to show me photos in newspapers or magazines where the freakishly long-necked creatures are looming out of the page. I can't remember a time when giraffes have featured so prominently in TV and magazine advertising. They're fucking everywhere I look.

So, in an effort to confront The Fear, I'm posting a truly horrific video of two giraffes fighting. I needed a double Wild Turkey just to look at this clip. I still can't watch it all the way through :





Yeah, I know. You probably think the video is funny. But look at the way their necks bend and those beak-like heads swoosh about. Brrr. Goddammit. I'm not too sure whether or not aliens have ever visited our planet, but if they have, they visited Africa millions of years ago and mated with the local wildlife. The result? Those bandy-legged, stubby-horned, flexi-necked beasts you call 'The Giraffe'.

You don't want to know what I call them.

(hat tip to BoingBoing)

Politicians Hide Themselves Away, They Only Started The War (on Terror)

British author Robert Harris nails exactly what is wrong with the leaders of The West today, as they bark orders at us about how we should fear the terrorists, but not let them change our way of life, while the war they started has changed everything :

"That's something I'm against, morally, the way that our leaders are swaddled in security, with bomb-proof cars and pampered and ferried around like dictators until the day they die, while the rest of us, on the tube or whatever, are liable to be blown up in their wretched war on terror. It seems to me to be morally wrong.

"There was a time when princes leading their people into battle were on the front line, not cosseted like this. They're the only people who are safe! There's something profoundly wrong about it, and leads to their isolation....I felt during the last years of Blair that it was like being led by someone from outer space."

Exactly. We'll hide away behind ten layers of ultra-security after we helped turn Iraq into the murder, kidnapping and terror capital of the world, and you plebians can take your chances on public transport.

The full story this quote comes from is an interesting profile of Robert Harris, the author of Fatherland, discussing his new novel, a not-so-well disguised 'fiction' about Tony Blair and the British relationship with the United States in the age of war and terror.

Note : The headline above, for those not familiar with those words, comes from the best anti-war song ever written - War Pigs by Black Sabbath. Excellent video of it right here. Remember, turn it up. Loud.

Government "Thought Police" Using Al Gore 'To Brainwash My Kids'

A British father, with children aged 11 and 14, has gone to court to stop a school program of propaganda and "brainwashing" on climate change.

This should prove to be a very interesting legal process to watch :

The "New Labour Thought Police" were accused of indoctrinating youngsters by handing out thousands of Climate Change Packs to schools.

The packs include the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, made by Bill Clinton's former vice president Al Gore.

Lorry driver and school governor Stewart Dimmock is seeking a court order quashing the Government's decision to distribute the documentary and four short films to 3,500 schools and also to declare that decision unlawful.

Mr Paul Downes, Mr Dimmock's counsel, replied: "Lots of parents have written to him supporting his application. They do not want our children brainwashed in this way by the New Labour Thought Police."

Before the hearing, Mr Dimmock, a lorry driver from Dover with children aged 11 and 14, said: "Climate change is important, but it should be taught to children in a neutral and measured manner."

More on this soon...

Lion Still Loves His Human Mates

An absolutely extraordinary piece of footage as a lion is reunited with his old friends. The two men in the video, linked below, raised the lion and then released it into the wilds of Africa. One year later they return to see how the lion is getting on. For a moment, the lion looks like he is thinking about eating the visitors, and then...

Lion Greets Old Friends In The Wilds Of Africa

Just like an affectionate cat running up to its owner to say hello after a long time apart. Wonderful stuff.

Preparing For Nuclear Annihilation : America Readies Nuclear Fallout Shelters


Three Caves Quarry, soon to become the United States biggest nuclear fallout shelter

For the first time in decades, the United States is refurbishing old nuclear fallout shelters, and building new ones. Well, sort of. In Alabama, officials are planning to pack 20,000 people into a massive abandoned mine in the event of nuclear armegeddon, but unlike the Cold War-era nuclear shelters, the new ones will not be stocked with food and water. It will be "bring your own everything."

From AP :

In an age of al-Qaida, sleeper cells and the threat of nuclear terrorism, Huntsville is dusting off its Cold War manual to create the nation's most ambitious fallout-shelter plan, featuring an abandoned mine big enough for 20,000 people to take cover underground.

Others would hunker down in college dorms, churches, libraries and research halls that planners hope will bring the community's shelter capacity to 300,000, or space for every man, woman and child in Huntsville and the surrounding county.

Emergency planners in Huntsville - an out-of-the-way city best known as the home of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center - say the idea makes sense because radioactive fallout could be scattered for hundreds of miles if terrorists detonated a nuclear bomb.

"If Huntsville is in the blast zone, there's not much we can do. But if it's just fallout ... shelters would absorb 90 percent of the radiation," said longtime emergency management planner Kirk Paradise, whose Cold War expertise with fallout shelters led local leaders to renew Huntsville's program.

Huntsville's project, developed using $70,000 from a Homeland Security grant, goes against the grain because the United States essentially scrapped its national plan for fallout shelters after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Congress cut off funding and the government published its last list of approved shelters at the end of 1992.

***********

Last mined in the early '50s, the limestone quarry is dug 300 yards into the side of the mountain, with ceilings as high as 60 feet and 10 acres of floor space covered with jagged rocks. Jet-black in places with a year-round temperature of about 60 degrees, it has a colony of bats living in its highest reaches and baby stalactites hanging from the ceiling.

"It would be a little trying, but it's better than the alternative," said Andy Prewett, a manager with The Land Trust of Huntsville and North Alabama, a nonprofit preservation group that owns the mine and is making it available for free.

Unlike the fallout shelters set up during the Cold War, the new ones will not be stocked with water, food or other supplies. For survivors of a nuclear attack, it would be strictly "BYOE" - bring your own everything. Just throw down a sleeping bag on the courthouse floor - or move some of the rocks on the mine floor - and make yourself at home.

"We do not guarantee them comfort, just protection," said Paradise, who is coordinating the shelter plans for the local emergency management agency.

If the "bring your own everything" fiasco of the Hurricane Katrina shelters are anything to go by, chaos in the mine will reign.

Bush Refused Saddam's Exile Offer

$1 Billion 'Exit Fee' Versus $1 Trillion War

Why Saddam wanted to go into exile...

For the more open-eyed, and open-minded, watchers of the Iraq War, the news that President Bush turned down Saddam Hussein's offer to go into exile, months before the Iraq War began, is hardly breaking news. Arch NeoCon, and key Iraq War cheerleader Richard Perle acknowledged before the war began that he was involved in negotiations regarding Saddam Hussein's offer to go into exile.

But BushCo. wanted the Iraq War, and they were going to go to war regardless of what Saddam Hussein did or did not do.

A story from the UK Daily Mail, claims Saddam Hussein wanted $1 billion to go into exile. But, back in early 2003, BushCo. refused. The War On Iraq was a go. How could it be stopped? The stock price for Boeing and Raytheon was climbing in anticipation of all the new 'defence' contracts to come.

$1 billion is a lot, but it's nothing compared to the $1.2 trillion bill the United States is already racking up in going to War On Iraq. And it's a small chunk of the more than $8 billion the United States "lost track of" in Iraq, when tons of cash was literally forklifted off the back of planes, before going missing.

War is first, and above all, a business. And business has never been so good for the American, Australian, British and Israeli war industries now supplying bullets, bombs, helicopter gun ships and other (some experimental) assorted human-slaying devices to the 'free fire' weapons range that is now Iraq.

Saddam going into exile in late February, 2003, would have made justifying the 'War On Iraq' all but impossible for President Bush, especially considering he failed to get a second resolution from the United Nations, and more than 10 million people around the world were marching in opposition.

The new revelations also render President Bush's demands that Saddam leave Iraq, only two days before the war began, to be nothing more than an utterly cynical, disgusting last ditch attempt to try and claim the moral high ground for an horrific, unprovoked war on an all but defenceless people. A large number of whom were children, many of whom are now dead. Or dying.

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French President Calls For "New World Order"

To Be Led By The United Nations

Nicolas Sarkozy is viewed as "one of us" by NeoCons in the US, the UK, Europe and Australia, mostly because of his Bomb Iran Before They Get The Bomb stance. But it would be interesting to know what anti-United Nations warpigs like John Bolton think of Sarkozy after his speech yesterday at the United Nations. Bolton, like most NeoCons, despises the United Nations so much he once said he wanted to see it destroyed. Decapitated. Blown up.

Not only is Sarkozy endorsing the United Nations as the key instrument for global democracy, he wants the institution to lead the world into a new 'golden age' of shared prosperity and freedom.

In this speech to the United Nations general assembly, Sarkozy started coming on all JFK. And we know what happened to him :

France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, in his first appearance before the assembly, called on the UN to avail itself as an instrument for a "new world order of the 21st century."

"In the name of France, I call upon all states to join ranks in order to found the new world order of the 21st century on the notion that the common goods that belong to all of humankind must be the common responsibility for us all," he told the General Assembly.

The UN should ensure access for all human beings to vital resources, such as water, energy, food, medication and knowledge, he said. He called for "more morality" in "financial capitalism" and a fairer distribution of profits, earnings in commodities, raw materials and new technologies.

"There must be a change of mindset and behaviour," Sarkozy said in a long list of demands to the international community.

Sarkozy is doing his best to show the world, and the French, that he hasn't forgot his nation's socialist revolution. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for NeoCons, like John Bolton, to slap the French president back into line.


Sarkozy Warns Letting Iran Go Nuclear Could Lead To War

Sarkozy's First Budget Unveiled in 'Bankrupt' France

New French President Readies To Battle The Workers Over Long Holidays, Generous Benefits

Don't Do Business In Iran, Sarkozy Warns French Businesses And Banks

Time Travel 'Realistic' But "Too Expensive"

Weird. An Australian physicist said scientists are trying to turn time travel into a reality, but thinks it would ultimately prove to be too expensive :

“Even if time travel turned out to be possible there would still be an economic problem,” said Craig Savage, relativity and quantum physics expert from the Australian National University.

“The expense of space travel runs into billions of dollars, but you would have to add many zeros to that before you were even close to the cost of time travel.”

“If time travel is possible, it is only like likely to happen in the realm of quantum physics,” he said.

“In fact some argue that some aspects of quantum physics almost demand time travel.”

Craig Savage is quoted as saying that a future society advanced enough to be able to harness the reality of time travel would be "virtually unrecognisable to those living now."

So future humans might already be walking amongst us, gathering for front row seats at historic events, but presumably they wouldn't look like us, or act like us nor dress like us. So we wouldn't know who or what they were.

If you see any weird looking humanoid creatures wandering around your city wearing a nameplate with the words 'Virgin Time Riders Club', you know now they're not of our age.

But if time travel does become real, say 300 or 400 years in the future, wouldn't the very act of being able to travel in time take care of expenses?

All you'd need to do is open a bank account in 2007, throw in a few thousand dollars and by the time 2307 rolls around, you'd have enough accumulated interest to pay for plenty of time travel ventures.

Unless, of course, today's financial system utterly collapses in a festering heap in the next decade or two. And right now, that is a more realistic scenario than the future development of time travel.

Burma Burns With The Fires Of Democracy As The Killing Begins

But The Business Of Arming The Military Junta Will Continue


Before the killing began...

Some of the most remarkable scenes witnessed in years in the fight of the people against military dictatorship are now unfolding in Burma-Myanmar.

For ten days, against the stark warnings of the Burmese junta, which has squeezed the freedoms of the people until blood flows for decades, the protests demanding democracy have fermented and grown. It started with a few hundred monks, then tens of thousands took to the streets, then more a hundred thousand people marched through the capital Rangoon.

The military promised to crack down. And now they are.

Crowds of monks and nuns have been beaten by military and riot police, and now the killing has begun. At least five are reported dead, but other reports coming in while this is being written say the death toll has already reached two dozen. Hundreds more have been jailed for publicly declaring that democracy's time has come. By tomorrow, thousands will likely be behind bars.



The whole world is watching, thanks to the junta-defying blogs and mobile phone cameras (with satellite reach), but will it stop the Burmese military killing until the people forget about democracy and true freedom for another decade?

Will all the countries, including Australia, the US, Israel, France, Germany, China and Russia, who arm the Burmese military cut off the flow of weapons and equipment? And cut off the flow to the middlemen who 'smuggle' all that military gear into the country? Will they announce an international ban on all defence materials to the Burmese junta? Today?

Well, let's not go too far.

The fight for freedom and democracy is fine and wonderful, but the arms business is still business. And the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of arms and military gear Burma buys each and every year on the world market - most recently at the massive killgear/arms show in London - means business has been very good indeed.

Democracy, and the fight for democracy, is a sideshow to the business of selling weapons. In Burma, and across the planet.


Myanmar Bloggers Outsmart Censors

Junta Soldiers Kill Protesting Monks

Technology Makes The Difference - Protest Movement Has Global Reach In Age Of YouTube

Myanmar Junta Has Few Choices Beyond The Use Of Force

In The Shadow Of The Olympics - Beijing Warns Burma's Military Against Violent Repression Of Protests

Australia Holds Off Burma Sanctions

Americans Being 'Psychologically Prepared' For War On Iran

Anti-war protesters outside the White House struck out at the anti-Iran propaganda spewing from New York tabloids and the thousands of demonstrators who converged on Columbia University, where the President of Iran gave a speech and engaged in debate with students :

"There's a hysteria in the media emanating from New York . . . against the president of Iran," (Troos Out Now) coalition spokesman Larry Holmes said. "We're here in response to what's been going on in New York: the Columbia debate, the front pages of the tabloids, the electronic media, demonizing the president. And we know what it's about.

"We know that the government is in very advanced stages of planning for a war in Iran. They've got a naval armada" in the Persian Gulf, he said. "The Pentagon's got its plans. And now we see the psychological preparation."

The Bush White House, the NeoCon think tanks, the mainstream media are all touting the claims that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

The question posed before the War On Iraq began, in regards to the false claims that Saddam Hussein was pursuing nuclear weapons and had extensive caches of weapons of mass destruction, must now be posed again when it comes to the War On Iran 'nuke weapons' scenario :

Where's the proof?

The Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly stated his country only wants nuclear energy, and is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

China, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Russia, Afghanistan, numerous EU countries, outside of France and Germany, have all stated they believe Iran poses no threat to the world, or to the Middle East and have asked for the proof to back up the claims that "Iran Wants Nukes" being made, primarily, by BushCo. and the Zionist regime of Israel.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has found no proof that Iran is doing what BushCo. and the NeoCons claim they are, and has repeatedly stated that Iran is following the rule of international law in regards to its nuclear energy program.

Van Gogh's Secret To Good Work : Smoke Your Pipe, Get Laid



Vicent Van Gogh detailed his secrets to a productive working life in a letter to a fellow artist in 1888 :

"you have to eat well, be well housed, have a scr*w from time to time, smoke your pipe and drink your coffee in peace."

"Art is long and life is short, and we must wait patiently while trying to sell our skin dearly," wrote van Gogh, whose paintings now sell for tens of millions of dollars.

Van Gogh's Last Great Painting, Completed Only Days Before His Suicide

Dear Mr President, Please Bomb Iran, America Needs To Feel Proud Again

The NeoCons and their 'Bomb Iran' media crowd allies are fermenting their war lust to a shrill peak in their calls for President Bush to do what they demand he must do, while he still can : take out Iran's nuclear energy facilities. Just in case they're thinking of building a bomb.

Personally, I think most of the push for the 'Bomb Iran' plan is coming from Dick Cheney's office, and there's a growing tide of evidence to support that belief.

I also believe that the American military would shoot down Cheney's jet before the US even gets close to launching air strikes on Iran. You don't need to be told what attacking Iran would mean for the 160,000 or so American troops in Iraq who are all but sitting targets for retaliatory strikes or human waves of terror bombers.

The American generals (retired and serving) who matter the most won't let the 'Bomb Iran' plan become a reality. Not without a much larger 'silent' mutiny than that which is already taking place in the United States defence forces right now. They were burned on Iraq. They're not going to let it happen all over again.

But that won't stop the NeoCons, and their fawning puppies, from fantasising in print about the glories to be found in bombing a country that hasn't invaded a neighbour in ten centuries, and is yet to be proven to be developing nuclear weapons.

The best example of the utter detachment from all reality I've come across recently would have to be this piece, in the American Thinker, by Dan Freidman. This is NeoCon war-porn at its most concrete-headed :

Now for the good news. All the damaging consequences of all the blunders the President has committed to date in Iraq are reversible in 48- to 72-hours - the time it will take to destroy Iran's fragile nuclear supply chain from the air. And since the job gets done using mostly stand-off weapons and stealth bombers, not one American soldier, sailor or airman need suffer as much as a bruised foot.

Let's look downstream the day after and observe how the world has changed.

First and foremost, there's this prospective fait accompli -- and it changes everything. The Iranians are no longer a nuclear threat, and won't be again for at least another decade, and even that assumes the strategic and diplomatic situation reverts to the status quo ante and they'll just be able to pick up and rebuild as they would after an earthquake. Not possible.

Next, the Iranians would do nothing -- bupkes. They don't attack Israel, they don't choke off the world's oil supply, they do not send hit squads to the United States, there is no "war" in the conventional sense of attack counterattack. Iran already has its hands full without inviting more trouble. Its leaders would be reeling from the initial US attack and they would know our forces are in position to strike again if Iran provokes us or our allies. They would stand before mankind with their pants around their ankles, dazed, bleeding, crying, reduced to bloviating from mosques in Teheran and pounding their fists on desks at the UN. The lifelines they throw to the Iraqi insurgents, Hezbollah and Syria would begin to dry up, as would the lifelines the double-dealing Europeans have been throwing to Iran. Maybe the Mullahs would lose control.

Miracles would be seen here at home. Democratic politicians are dumbstruck, silent for a week. With one swing of his mighty bat, the President has hit a dramatic walk-off homerun. He goes from goat to national hero overnight. The elections in November are a formality. Republicans keep the White House and recapture both houses of Congress. Hillary is elected president - of the Chappaqua PTA.

Going forward, with Iran's influence blunted and the insurgents cut off, we end the war in Iraq on our terms. In his first hundred days, the new president reads Iraq the riot act and tells its leaders if they don't pull themselves together by a date certain, America will decide they're not worth the candle and we're going to get out.

From that point on, with our arms free of the quicksand, we can fight the war on terror the way it should have been fought in the first place. Using our enormous edge in weapons, intelligence and technology, and building on it, we launch quick, lethal, ad hoc strikes wherever in the world we determine terrorists are working to harm us, shooting first and asking for permission later.

Am I dreaming? I don't think so. Being too sensible is probably more like it. In any event, I am not creating anything original here. Combine Bush's recent statements with those of the President of France and it's not hard to see where this is heading. Mr. Bush still has time to put America back on the offensive again. But with only a little more than a year left in his term he has no time to lose. Rarely does history provide a failed wartime leader with such a golden opportunity for salvation.

Conspiracy theorists will tell you that a key NeoCon grandplan is to totally destroy America's standing in the world and annihilate its military.

Dan Friedman's shows that is one conspiracy theory that may not be too far off the mark.

Bomb Iran, Republicans win the 2008 election.

Could it be any simpler than that?

Friedman forgot to mention the part where American troops in Iraq are slaughtered in their thousands and a million Americans march on the White House and start stringing up NeoCons from the telephone poles.

Iran : Now Homosexual Free, Apparently

'The New Hitler' Speaks In New York City

Depending on which news story you read, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim, during a controversial appearance in New York City today, that Iran "doesn't have homosexuals, like in in your country," was met with a chorus of boos, or howls of laughter. Perhaps it was both.

American NeoCons and its satellite 'Bomb Iran' crowd have done everything they can to portray the Iranian president as 'The New Hitler'. An absurd and insulting claim. Insulting to the millions who died and suffered under the rage regime of the German Chancellor.

But Adhadinejad's visit to Columbia University, where he was invited to give a speech and engage in a debate with the audience, mostly comprised of students, has turned into a study of weird and disturbing contrasts.

While key NeoCon media flacks are proudly boasting of a recent meeting with President Bush where they pushed him to 'Bomb Iran' while he still had the chance, the Iranian president was talking of peace and why Iran and the United States did not need to go to war.

Perhaps even more disturbing was the absolute hostility from so many in the American media and political spectrum to the Iranian president being granted a platform to speak publicly, outside of his normal lectern appearances in the United Nations headquarters. So much for free speech :

New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind... called on New Yorkers to "make his life miserable."

Admadinejad stated in an appearance on 60 Minutes this past weekend, "It's wrong to think that Iran and the U.S. are walking toward war. Who says so? Why should we go to war? There is no war in the offing."

John Coatsworth, dean of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs, told CNN that it is necessary to deal with Ahmadinejad because "Iran is going to hold the key to peace in the Middle East."

"We have to be able to deal with and negotiate with leaders like this, however much we may disagree with their views," Coatsworth stated.

As described by Newsday, "In remarks that veered between sermon and speech, Ahmadinejad quoted frequently from the Quran, warning of the corrupting influence of the material world and extolling the importance of spiritual guidance. He inveighed against governments that 'tap telephones' and decried 'their onslaught on the domestic cultures of nations.'"

Ahmadinejad stated repeatedly that the Palestinians were being made to pay for the Holocaust, an event which they had nothing to do with, and insisted there was nothing wrong with calling for further study of the facts. When he was asked during a question-and-answer session following his speech whether he or his government seek the destruction of the State of Israel, he responded that he would like to see a referendum among all those residing in Palestine -- Jewish, Muslim, and Christian -- to determine the future of the region.

When asked whether Iran supports terrorists in Iraq, Ahmadinejad referred to American support for MEK, a terrorist group which has killed many Iranians, and added, "We are a cultured nation. We don't need to resort to terrorism."

If Ahmadinejad's aim was to hit the headlines, he surely succeeded. His face and his words, and the vile anti-free speech hostility of so many Americans, have filled newspaper front pages and the opening minutes of hundreds of television news casts.

The new Saddam, the new Hitler, the reaction to the Iranian president's visit and speech further shows that what many Americans need most is something to fear, or to hate. Of course, most of that fear and hatred is concocted and serving up piping hot by the media.

The Necons and the Bush administration are also making the most of the presence of Ahmadinejad to ferment the culture of 'Blame Iran' for America's failings in the Iraq War.

But back in Iran, many wonder what this American obsession with Ahmadinjehad is all about :

Political analysts here say they are surprised at the degree to which the West focuses on their president, saying that it reflects a general misunderstanding of their system.

Unlike in the United States, in Iran the president is not the head of state nor the commander in chief. That status is held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, whose role combines civil and religious authority. At the moment, this president’s power comes from two sources, they say: the unqualified support of the supreme leader, and the international condemnation he manages to generate when he speaks up.

“The United States pays too much attention to Ahmadinejad,” said an Iranian political scientist who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “He is not that consequential.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad has not shown the same political acumen at home as he has in riling the West. Two of his ministers have quit, criticizing his stewardship of the state. The head of the central bank resigned. The chief judge criticized him for his management of the government. His promise to root out corruption and redistribute oil wealth has run up against entrenched interests.

Rather than focusing so much attention on the president, the West needs to learn that in Iran, what matters is ideology — Islamic revolutionary ideology, according to politicians and political analysts here. Nearly 30 years after the shah fell in a popular revolt, Iran’s supreme leader also holds title of guardian of the revolution.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s power stems not from his office per se, but from the refusal of his patron, Ayatollah Khamenei, and some hard-line leaders, to move beyond Iran’s revolutionary identity, which makes full relations with the West impossible.

“Iran has never been interested in reaching an accommodation with the United States,” the Iranian political scientist said. “It cannot reach an accommodation as long as it retains the current structure.”

In the long run, political analysts here say, a desire to preserve those vested interests will drive Iran’s agenda. That means that the allegiance of the political elite is to the system, not a particular president. If this president were ever perceived as outlasting his usefulness, he would probably take his place in history beside other presidents who failed to change the orientation of the system.

Ironically, President Bush himself has all but welcomed the Iranian president to speak to his fellow Americans :

"If the (Columbia) president thinks it's a good idea to have the leader from Iran come and talk to the students as an educational experience, I guess it's OK with me," Bush told Fox News.

Guiliani's Foreign Policy Adviser "Hopes" And "Prays For War On Iran

'Gay-Free Iran' Branded "A Sick Joke" - Homosexuality Published By The Death Penalty

Iranian President Questions 9/11, Holocaust

Compared To What Bush Has Done In Iraq, Iranian President Doesn't Look So Bad

Ahmadinejad Met With Protests, Insults At Columbia University Speech

Life After The Bird Flu Pandemic



ED Day is a serialized novel, published online, by author Darryl Mason that follows the lives of some 300 survivors of an apocalyptic bird flu pandemic in Sydney, Australia, which killed millions.

In a city awash with the bodies of the dead, the survivors raid supermarkets for food and water, fight feral dogs in the streets, struggle to keep alive some 12 babies who survived the pandemic and take the first steps in rebuilding their society.

Chapter Seven is now online, here's an excerpt :

We had a meeting of survivors at the Town Hall today. It was our 11th meeting and it feels like we're moving on now from people telling their life stories and wailing about how sad they are to have lost their entire families. People felt better for speaking publicly about their pain, but there's only so much of that stuff you can take. Everybody lost everybody they knew and loved.

Now we're getting down to the logistics of how we are going to survive in the city once all the canned and dried food and bottled water runs out. The gas canisters will run dry in a few months, and we still haven't seriously looked into why people who leave the city are getting shot, or shot at. Like I said, those who leave, never come back, not even with bullet wounds.

There was something about the meeting, the way people were speaking. I see it in a lot of the people I talk to. Like they're half-asleep, mildly stoned. Nobody gets really passionate about what they're thinking and saying. Sometimes it was like the people speaking today would rather have been curled up in bed, putting in another twelve hour stint under the sheets.

We all seem to be sleeping a lot. I probably sleep about ten hours a day, including naps. Bookman said some days he's out for 14 hours. You hear people chatting about their sleep, and most seem astonished at how long they spend in dreamland.

Maybe it's something in the air. Too much fresh oxygen? The skies have cleared over Sydney now all the pollution from the city traffic and the industry out west is gone. Smoke from the fires in the suburbs (they flare up two or three times a week) blows into the city sometimes, but most days the air is so clean it tastes almost sweet.

Go Here To Read The Rest Of Chapter Seven

Go Here To Read ED Day From The Beginning

Baghdad's 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'

Private Army Slaughters Dozens Of Innocent People



A substantial and shocking UK Independent story on the recent Blackwater Security murder spree in Baghdad, which includes detail from eyewitnesses to the attack. Imagine such an event taking place in the quiet, peaceful wealthy district of your own city. This was no accident, this was a purposeful massacre of dozens of innocent people, including women and children :

The eruption of gunfire was sudden and ferocious, round after round mowing down terrified men women and children, slamming into cars as they collided and overturned with drivers frantically trying to escape. Some vehicles were set alight by exploding petrol tanks. A mother and her infant child died in one of them, trapped in the flames.

The shooting (on Sunday, September 16), by the guards of the American private security company Blackwater, has sparked one of the most bitter and public disputes between the Iraqi government and its American patrons, and brings into sharp focus the often violent conduct of the Western private armies operating in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, immune from scrutiny or prosecution.

Hassan Jabar Salman, a lawyer, was shot four times in the back, his car riddled with eight more bullets, as he attempted to get away from their convoy. Yesterday, sitting swathed in bandages at Baghdad's Yarmukh Hospital, he recalled scenes of horror. "I saw women and children jump out of their cars and start to crawl on the road to escape being shot," said Mr Salman. "But still the firing kept coming and many of them were killed. I saw a boy of about 10 leaping in fear from a minibus, he was shot in the head. His mother was crying out for him, she jumped out after him, and she was killed. People were afraid."

At the end of the prolonged hail of bullets Nisoor Square was a scene of carnage with bodies strewn around smouldering wreckage. Ambulances trying to pick up the wounded found their path blocked by crowds fleeing the gunfire.

Yesterday, the death toll from the incident, according to Iraqi authorities, stood at 28. And it could rise higher, say doctors, as some of the injured, hit by high-velocity bullets at close quarter, are unlikely to survive.

With public anger among Iraqis showing no sign of abating, the US administration has suspended all land movement by officials outside the heavily fortified Green Zone.

Blackwater and the US State Department maintain that the guards opened fire in self-defence as they reacted to a bomb blast and then sniper fire. Amid continuing accusations and recriminations, The Independent has tried to piece together events on that day.

The reports we got from members of the public, Iraqi security personnel and government officials, as well as our own research, leads to a markedly different scenario than the American version. There was a bomb blast. But it was too far away to pose any danger to the Blackwater guards, and their State Department charges. We have found no Iraqi present at the scene who saw or heard sniper fire.

Witnesses say the first victims of the shootings were a couple with their child, the mother and infant meeting horrific deaths, their bodies fused together by heat after their car caught fire. The contractors, according to this account, also shot Iraqi soldiers and police and Blackwater then called in an attack helicopter from its private air force which inflicted further casualties.

Mr Salman said he had turned into Nisoor Square behind the Blackwater convoy when the shooting began. He recalled: "There were eight foreigners in four utility vehicles, I heard an explosion in the distance and then the foreigners started shouting and signalling for us to go back. I turned the car around and must have driven about a hundred feet when they started shooting. My car was hit with 12 bullets it turned over. Four bullets hit me in the back and another in the arm. Why they opened fire? I do not know. No one, I repeat no one, had fired at them. The foreigners had asked us to go back and I was going back in my car, so there was no reason for them to shoot."

Muhammed Hussein, whose brother was killed in the shooting, said: "My brother was driving and we saw a black convoy ahead of us. Then I saw my brother suddenly slump in the car. I dragged him out of the car and saw he had been shot in the chest. I tried to hide us both from the firing, but then I realised he was already dead."

Jawad Karim Ali was on his way to pick up his aunt from Yarmukh Hospital when shooting started and the windscreen exploded cutting his face. " Then I was hit on my left shoulder by bullets, two of them another one went past my face. Now my aunt is out of hospital and I am sitting here. There was a big bang further away but no shots before the security people fired, and they just kept firing."

Baghdad's "Bloody Sunday" has become a test of sovereignty between the powers of the Iraqi government and the US. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said: "We will not tolerate the killing of our citizens in cold blood." The shooting was, he said, the seventh of its kind involving Blackwater.

Sunday's shooting happened at Mansour, once one of the most fashionable districts of Baghdad, with roads flanked by shops selling expensive goods, restaurants and art galleries.

The US State Department took the side of Blackwater Security, citing the usual process of "transparent investigations" to "get to the truth".

The State Department's long delay in acknowledging the reality of what happened in Mansour has only fueled anger and dissent within the Iraqi government, and amongst Iraqis. The Iraq government tried to ban Blackwater Security outright, but the US made clear it cannot function in Iraq without thousands of private soldiers to secure transports and act as security guards.

Only days after the massacre, Blackwater Security were back in business on the streets of Baghdad.

The Maliki government of Iraq has promised to prosecute the Blackwater Security personnel involved, but this seems unlikely, as the private corporate armies in Iraq were granted immunity from prosecution by the provisional authority, back in 2003, then headed by Paul Bremer, and prime minister Maliki doesn't want the US to leave Iraq before security is restored.

The US State Department has told Maliki America's military cannot function successfully in Iraq without the additional support of private armies, like Blackwater, so Maliki treads a fine line between voicing his outrage, to tamper down fury amongst Iraqis, and placating the Americans, who he still relies on to prop up his government.

Private, corporate armies, are now a key part of the massive worldwide security industry, worth more than $US180 billion a year, and the market for "corporate commandos" is growing by the day :

In Nigeria, corporate commandos exchange fire with local rebels attacking an oil platform. In Afghanistan, private bodyguards help to foil yet another assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai. In Colombia, a contracted pilot comes under fire from guerrillas while spraying coca fields with pesticides. On the border between Iraq and Iran, privately owned Apache helicopters deliver US special forces to a covert operation.

This is a snapshot of a working day in the burgeoning world of private military companies, arguably the fastest-growing industry in the global economy. The sector is now worth up to $120bn annually with operations in at least 50 countries, according to Peter Singer, a security analyst with the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"The rate of growth in the security industry has been phenomenal," says Deborah Avant, a professor of political science at UCLA. The single largest spur to this boom is the conflict in Iraq.

Senior Iraqi Officials Repeatedly Warned US Officials "Do Something About Blackwater"

Blackwater Accused Of Smuggling Weapons Into Iraq, Running Blackmarket Guns Trade

Maliki Calls Blackwater Massacred Violation Of Iraq's Souvereignity

"Under Troubled Skies"



Within weeks, this could easily become the most expensive painting in the world.

It's called 'The Fields' and it is believed to be the last painting completed by Vincent Van Gogh, in July 1890, only days before he took his own life at 37, barely ten years, and 700 canvases, after he picked up a paint brush for the first time.

Van Gogh wrote to his brother of this, and other landscapes, completed in June and July, 1890 :

"They are vast fields of wheat under troubled skies, and I did not need to go out of my way to try to express sadness and extreme loneliness. I hope you see them soon – for I hope to bring them to see you in Paris as soon as possible, since I almost think that these canvases will tell you what I cannot say in words, the health and restorative forces that I see in the country."

17 days after writing that letter, Van Gogh walked into one of those wheat fields, painted at his easel for a while, and then shot himself.

American Cops Go Taser Crazy

Autistic Boy Blasted For Jaywalking, Woman In Wheelchair Tasered To Death


Coming soon : the wireless taser. Twenty seconds of pure shock.


You may, or may not, recall that before Tasers were first introduced into the weapons arsenal of American police officers, there was much softballing of the dangerous possibilities that giving cops an electric shock gun might produce.

Relax, we were told. Cops won't be use their tasers on just anyone. Tasers were the alternative to shooting an armed suspect. Tasers were good, and necessary, because it meant cops could bring down a dangerous, knife waving maniac without having to take the risk of drawing their guns and possibly killing someone.

But, of course, American cops are now tasering unarmed people, people in wheelchairs, old drunks who tell them to "get fucked" one too many times and pissed teenagers who shout "lick this, pig!"

The death toll of unarmed Americans who have been tasered to death is climbing. Some unofficial estimates put the figure at more than a few dozen.

In the past few days, four more horrific incidents involving the words "taser" and "police" have hit the news.

An autistic boy, threatening nobody, was repeatedly tasered by a police officer in Orange County, California. Not surprisingly, the 15 year old boy's mother is appalled by what police did to her child :

Doris Karras, mother of Taylor Karras, said deputies did not need to use the Taser gun, particularly since she had called various police agencies to alert them that her son was missing.

She said her son would have followed deputies' directions if he hadn't felt threatened. "This was a very aggressive response," she said. She said her son "didn't have any weapon on him. He didn't even have a pencil."

The kid got off easy.

A wheelchair bound woman, suffering from mental illness, was repeatedly tasered by police. A normal taser blast lasts from one second to four or five seconds. In this incident, the woman in the wheelchair was hit with 50,000 volts for more than TWO SOLID MINUTES :

According to a police report, one of the officers used her Taser gun nine times for a total of 160 seconds and the other officer discharged his Taser gun once for a total of no more than five seconds.

A medical examiner found Delafield died from hypertensive heart disease and cited the Taser gun shock as a contributing factor. On her death certificate, the medical examiner ruled Delafield's death a homicide.

Delafield was a black woman. So it didn't get much coverage in the American media.

If you go here, you can read about, and see the graphic video of, an incident where a woman was repeatedly tasered by an aggressive, screaming cop. The woman was tasered a final time, even though she was already in handcuffs.

Then there's the already legendary tasering of student, Andrew Meyer, who dared to ask American senator John Kerry about his involvement in the bizarre Skull & Bones Club.

You can now buy a 'Don't Tase Me, Bro!' t-shirt. Of course you can.

Welcome to the Taser Nation.

What is a taser?

Taser guns use compressed nitrogen to propel two darts that attach to the body. The darts are connected to the gun by a wire and deliver a 50,000-volt shock at five-second intervals to incapacitate a suspect.

For $120, you can now buy a taser disguised as a mobile phone.

If you think dangerous, on-edge cops are out of control with their tasers, what do you think is going to happen when they get their hands on a Heat Ray weapon?

He's From Texas, And He's Afraid Of Horses



Guess who?

New Anti-Dissent, Torture 'Ray Gun' Weapon Produces Intolerable Pain

Defence Contractor Unveils 'Agony Ray'


A variation of the Silent Guard 'heat ray' weapon as it appears on the streets of Baghdad


Raytheon, one of the world's biggest profiteers of war and human misery, has puts its latest anti-human money spinner on display at a British arms show.

It's a heat ray. Or to be more precise, it's a pain ray. And we're not talking "Ow, I stubbed my flipping toe" pain. We're talking "Oh Good Holy Christ! Fucking Kill Me Now!" levels of pain.

I had to read this story from the UK Daily Mail a couple of times, not because I didn't believe that an American corporation will soon be selling an horrific instant pain machine on the world market, but because I first read about 'silent sound' and 'invisible light' weapons in a book about the future, back in the late 1970s. It was terrifying to read of it then. To read today that a heat/pain ray is a reality, and is being packaged, marketed and sold is merely numbing.

Back then, I tried to imagine what kind of world we would be living in where weapons that made you feel like your entire body was burning, that your flesh was melting off your bones, were not only being used against 'the enemy' but against people in the streets of our cities and towns.

Now I know what kind of world : this world. Our world today.

Raytheon don't like people calling their heat ray a heat ray, even though it is a heat ray. They've come up with a far more hideous and anti-human name for this monstrosity.

Raytheon call it - Silent Guardian :

Silent Guardian is making waves in defence circles. Built by the U.S. firm Raytheon, it is part of its "Directed Energy Solutions" programme.

A square transmitter as big as a plasma TV screen is mounted on the back of a Jeep.

When turned on, it emits an invisible, focused beam of radiation - similar to the microwaves in a domestic cooker - that are tuned to a precise frequency to stimulate human nerve endings.

It can throw a wave of agony nearly half a mile.

Silent Guardian is supposed to be the 21st century equivalent of tear gas or water cannon - a way of getting crowds to disperse quickly and with minimum harm. Its potential is obvious.

In tests, even the most hardened Marines flee after a few seconds of exposure. It just isn't possible to tough it out.

This machine has the ability to inflict limitless, unbearable pain.

...it is easy to see the raygun being used not as an alternative to lethal force...but as an extra weapon in the battle against dissent.

Silent Guardian and the Taser are just the first in a new wave of "non-lethal" weaponry being developed, mostly in the U.S.

These include not only microwave ray-guns, but the terrifying Pulsed Energy Projectile weapon. This uses a powerful laser which, when it hits someone up to 11/2 miles away, produces a "plasma" - a bubble of superhot gas - on the skin.

A report in New Scientist claimed the focus of research was to heighten the pain caused by this semi-classified weapon.

And a document released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act talks of "optimal pulse parameters to evoke peak nociceptor activation" - i.e. cause the maximum agony possible, leaving no permanent damage.

Perhaps the most alarming prospect is that such machines would make efficient torture instruments.

They are quick, clean, cheap, easy to use and, most importantly, leave no marks. What would happen if they fell into the hands of unscrupulous nations where torture is not unknown?

The agony the Raytheon gun inflicts is probably equal to anything in a torture chamber - these waves are tuned to a frequency exactly designed to stimulate the pain nerves.

Dr John Wood, a biologist at UCL and an expert in the way the brain perceives pain, is horrified by the new pain weapons.

"They are so obviously useful as torture instruments," he says.

"It is ethically dubious to say they are useful for crowd control when they will obviously be used by unscrupulous people for torture."

We use the word "medieval" as shorthand for brutality. The truth is that new technology makes racks look benign.

Go Here To Read The Full Story


Curiously, Raytheon's own marketing department has now dropped the term 'non-lethal' when promoting Silent Guardian. They now use the more disturbing term 'less-than-lethal'.


The Daily Mail story claims that this weapon, that shoots invisible rays of extremely convincing pain in focused beams at humans dozens of metres away, might one day be used for torture. It already has. Guaranteed. If they're testing it on US Marines, you can rest assured that this horror has been unleashed on prisoners in 'black' CIA prisons around the world, and in Iraq's Abu Ghraib.

The other point is this : the weapon has not been solely developed for use in war zones. You will one day, soon enough, find the police in your country armed with more portable, and more powerful, versions of this heat ray. Such weapons, like tasers, are called non-lethal. Non-lethal means they're not supposed to kill. But they do, of course. And people will eventually die when this heat ray is used to disperse protesters, or to stop huge crowds of desperate people trying to withdraw their own money from crashing banks.

We have already lost the war on "extremists" and "terrorists" when our societies see the deployment of such weapons as this heat ray as both necessary and acceptable. A human being thought up the idea of this agony ray.

Someone worked out how to build it. Someone else thought it was such a great idea that it should go into production. Others then worked out ways to market it and sell it to legitimate governments and brutal dictatorships alike around the world.

Someone, many someones, will make a lot of money from the sales of this most perfect instrument of brutal torture. But nobody they know will ever be on the receiving end of this heat ray that burns the flesh so convincingly, your brain instantly panics and actives the flight response - you run screaming. Of course, if you happen to be strapped to a chair, or a table, when the heat ray is turned on you, you can't run. You can only scream.

Nobody else created the world where such weapons are now acceptable, or deemed to be necessary.

'They' didn't do this to us.

We did it to ourselves.

Peru : Meteorite, Or A Crashed US Spy Satellite?

600 Sick, Showing Symptoms Of Radiation Poisoning, National Emergency Could Be Declared



The aftermath of the meteorite strike in Peru just keeps getting weirder.

Reports from Peru now claim that more than 600 people have fallen ill after coming into contact with the "glowing rock" or having inhaled 'toxic gases' while visiting the massive 30 metre wide crater.

The Peruvian Regional Health Directorate has been forced to set up medical tents near a health centre in Carancas to deal with the casualties, which most reports now claim are well above 600 people.

More than 150 people have reportedly shown up with dermal injuries, which include heat burns. Most of the other casualties have reported feeling nauseous, suffering from respiratory problems, dizziness and had been vomiting :

According to Peru's La Republica newspaper, due to the high number of illnesses, district authorities are considering placing the town of Carancas, Puno, Peru in a state of emergency.

According to the townspeople, the illnesses began after the meteorite crashed and they began to touch the glowing rock believing it had some type of monetary value.

Scientists dispatched to the site by the Peruvian government claim to have examined the meteorite and are now stating it is a "chondrite" meteorite. But the same scientists, according to the Peruvian government's official news service, are claiming that chondrite meteorites are not radioactive, nor do they release substances or gases which might cause people to feel sick.

Police and locals who visited the crater soon after the crash claimed a "foul odour" was coming from the crater.

The government is putting the story out that the meteorite itself is not to blame for hundreds of people falling ill. But at the same time a declaration of an official state of emergency is being considered. While a health centre in the closest town to the Puno crash site has had to establish an auxiliary 'tent hospital' to cope with all the sick people flooding ill.

Read on to find out why a cover-up as to what actually crashed into the earth near the Bolivian border appears to be well and truly underway.

One of the more intriguing theories gathering momentum online is that the 'meteorite' might actually be a crashed US spy satellite. The KH-13 'brand' of thermal imaging reconnaissance satellites, purportedly weighing some 20 tons, is being discussed on some satellite watcher chat boards as the most likely candidate.

The United States has dozens of spy satellites in orbit that are not listed on any official registers of what's actually up there.

The KH-11 and KH-12 satellite programs, launched soon after the 9/11 attacks, to detect objects as small as 10cm in diameter, and to 'see' into tunnels beneath the earth, were used in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Both programs are supposedly top secret. KH-13 might not even exist. Well, officially, anyway. It's not unheard of for the US military to run space-based surveillance and weapons programs that are beyond the knowledge spectrum of even the president.

A crashed, ripped apart spy satellite powered by Pu238 (plutonium) fuel cells would also explain the bizarre accounts of Peruvians who visited the crater suffering from radiation sickness, reports that the 'meteorite' was seen glowing soon after it hit the ground, and the even stranger claims that boiling water was seen bubbling in the crater' :

A small heap of Pu238-O2 is warm to the touch and in more abundant quantities can boil water. In some configurations, the surface temperature of a Pu-238 fuel element can reach 1050 degrees C.

The possibility that locals are being exposed to radiation from Pu238 fuel cells used in satellites would also explain the concern expressed by local doctors near the crash site that the dust thrown up by the impact might be making the crater visitors ill.

Again, a crashed spy satellite is only a theory for now, and even if it's true, you're probably never going to hear a confirmation of it on the evening news.

Unless, of course, the US wants to blame Iran, or China, for shooting down one of its spy satellites, then you'll hear all about it.

It will be fascinating to see how this story unfolds, particularly how it is reported in the mainstream media.

If it was indeed a spy satellite, particularly one carrying an extremely radioactive nuclear fuel like Pu238, you can expect a flurry of rumours to begin any day now that what tore into the ground in Peru just might have been a crashed alien spacecraft. Anything to distract from the truth.

And there's nothing like a good UFO story to cover up a military secret.


UPDATE : BBC News, helped by a prominent link on the Drudge Report, suggests the 600 sick Peruvians could be suffering from mass hysteria :

Symptoms could well be caused in part by what is known as a Mass Sociogenic Illness (MSI).

There are countless examples of this through history and up to the present day.

The BBC then goes on to question whether or not the meteorite even exists :

...there is some debate as to whether this is a meteorite - or indeed an object from space - in the first place.

Some scientists are suggesting that people may have witnessed a fireball, set off to investigate, and found a lake of sedimentary deposit that was already there.

As detailed above, Peruvian scientists have already begun investigations and reached a preliminary conclusion that the meteorite is real. The illnesses experienced by at least 150 Peruvians, if not more, are real. Confirmation on whether the crash site is radioactive has not yet been made public.

Why this urgency to float the fake reality that the witnesses in Peru are somehow experiencing "mass hysteria"? And how downright insulting to the Peruvians who fell ill after being exposed to something at the crash site.

Expect more layers of rubbish like this BBC Q & A to pile up over the truth in the coming days.

The louder the chorus of claims and counter-claims about what actually happened in Peru gets in the Western media, the more likely it is that something other than a 'chondrite' meteorite made that huge hole in the ground, and sickened hundreds.


Pu238 And NASA : Safety Considerations In Space Nuclear Operations

Hundreds Ill After 'Toxic Meteor Crash'

Sign Of Intense Radiation? "Boiling Water" Seen Bubbling Out Of Meteorite Crater

Get Some Sun : The Cure For What Ails You



Is a good solid does of sunlight the miracle cure for just about everything?

It sure sounds like it.

We're not talking about baking yourself to a red crusty finish, like a British backpacker on Bondi Beach on a steaming summer's day, we're talking about bright sunlight on your face, arms and hands for 20 minutes at a time, two or three times a week. And if you live where the don't shine particularly brighter, very often, Vitamin D will fill the gap.

This feature from the UK Independent explains why controlled exposure to sunlight, or taking Vitamin D, will help you fight cancer, depression, diabetes, MS, the flu and plenty of other illnesses and ailments. Makes for fascinating reading, while you're sitting in the sun :

...the biggest review of the role of vitamin D in health found that people who took supplements of the vitamin for six years reduced their risk of dying from all causes.

It was the proof that researchers had been waiting for. Earlier studies had suggested that vitamin D played a key role in protecting against cancer, heart disease and diabetes – conditions that account for 60 to 70 per cent of all deaths in the West. The new study, by scientists from the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon and the European Institute of Oncology in Milan and published in Archives of Internal Medicine, shows that it does.

Edward Giovannucci, a professor of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, said that the research added "a new chapter in the accumulating evidence for the beneficial role of vitamin D on health". He called for a debate on the merits of "moderate sun exposure, food fortification with vitamin D and higher dose supplements for adults".

Vitamin D is important because we are often short of it. Most healthy individuals get all the vitamins and minerals they need from eating a balanced diet, but vitamin D is the exception. It is made by the action of sunlight on the skin, which accounts for 90 per cent of the body's supply. Very little comes from food.

But the increasing use of sunscreens and the decreasing amount of time spent outdoors, especially by children, has contributed to what many scientists believe is an increasing problem of vitamin D deficiency.

Go Here For The Full Story

American Senator Sues God Sued For 'Terrorism'



An American state senator, Ernie Chambers, is suing God for unleashing hell on Earth, and is seeking a restraining order to stop God from engaging in further acts of 'terrorism'.

The lawsuit, filed last Friday, in a Nebraska county court, seeks an immediate and permanent injunction that will order God to "cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats".

The lawsuit says God is responsible for causing "fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects and the like."

The lawsuit further claims God created "calamitous catastrophes resulting in the wide-spread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants including innocent babes, infants, children, the aged and infirm without mercy or distinction" and further accuses God of displaying "neither compassion nor remorse" when he unleashes Hell on the people of the Earth.

Chambers has filed this lawsuit as a protest against "frivolous" court actions. And to get himself some publicity, no doubt. Then again, is it worth it to make an enemy of God.

Senator Chambers might find himself the victim of a pre-emptive smiting before the case gets before the courts.

Ask A Skull And Bones-man About His Secret Society?

Get Tasered By Police

An American student used a Q & A forum with Senator John Kerry, at the University of Flordia, to ask him why he didn't challenge the dodgy 2004 presidential election results, and then dared to question Kerry about his membership of the Skull & Bones Club. Kerry was a member of the bizarre Yale University club for America's young male elite at the same time as President George W. Bush.

It has long been rumoured that Kerry was actually involved in the pseudo-Satanic initiation rituals for young George W. when he was first 'tapped' for Skull & Bones membership, and that the National Enquirer had photos of both men in the midst of the ritual in its archives, which were permanently closed when the 2001 anthrax attacks killed a National Enquirer photo editor.

When both Bush and Kerry were asked about their membership in Skull & Bones during 2004 presidential election debates, both laughed and 'joked' that they were sworn to secrecy. Neither spoke about the club in any great detail, despite repeated questioning by the media.




From news.com.au :

An American university student was held down and shot with a Taser stun gun by police in the middle of a question-and-answer session with former presidential candidate Democrat John Kerry.

(21 year old Andrew Meyer) asks Senator Kerry why he didn’t dispute the results of the 2004 election, while four uniformed officers stand behind him.

After he asked Senator Kerry if was a member of the same secret society as US President George W. Bush, who won the election, the officers tried to remove him.

He was then dragged towards the back of the lecture hall before being held to the ground and hit with the Taser.

Police state? What police state? You're just being paranoid.

More Videos And Details At Raw Story

21 Year Old Student Cries, Begs Police Not To Shock Him

Meteorite Crash Site In Peru Makes Villagers Sick

No Reports Of Cannibalistic Zombie Outbreaks...Yet



Any true zombie movie fan knows that meteorites cracking open and releasing alien viruses are most often to blame for entire populations of humans becoming cannibalistically brain-fixated.

Which makes the news from Peru today a little unnerving.

A large meteorite has slammed into the earth, leaving a massive crater, and villagers and police officers who went to investigate have fallen ill :

Peru's Andina News Agency reported today that Puno's Regional Health Directorate sent a group of specialists to the Carancas community in the province of Chucuito near Bolivia to take samples of a meteorite that supposedly landed in the area.

Jorge López Tejada, a representative for the institution, stated that an environmental cleaning crew was going to the area to take earth and water samples from the actual landing site and from surrounding areas.

...a health brigade, consisting of doctors and nurses would be sent to the landing site to aid people that had reported health problems after having gotten close to the supposed meteorite.

"Between 10 and 12 people have reported dizziness, migraines and in some cases vomiting. They assure that after having had close contact with the object the symptoms began," stated Tejada.

Furthermore, Tejada stated that check ups would be performed and that it had not been discarded that the symptoms could be related to the glowing object which fell from the sky.

"They are healthy people, it could be (due to) radiation, we don't know, we are assuming, it's worth investigating. Things will be clearer tomorrow," stated Tejada.

Radiation sickness would probably be the most likely explanation for the illness, though the symptoms appear to have come on very fast.

Other news reports claim villagers in the Desaguardero region, close to the Bolivian border, heard a huge explosion and many witnessed a fireball streaking across the sky. Some reports say villagers believed the fireball was a crashing plane.

A "strange odour" was reported to have been coming from the meteorite's crash site.

Seven policemen were dispatched to follow up reports from villagers. All seven police officers became ill, requiring oxygen. They were all taken to hospital. Rescue crews were dispatched to the site, and more people fell ill.

Locals reported seeing boiling water bubbling inside the huge crater - 6 metres deep, 30 metres wide. Weird.

Hopefully there'll be more detailed follow-ups in the next few days.

Unless of course it turns out to be crashed alien spacecraft and then you'll hear nothing about this story ever again.

And if it does turn out to be an extraterrestrial zombie virus that is making Peruvians sick, remember it could spread very fast and you can only kill your zombiefied brain-lusting friends and neighbours by major head wounds, or decapitation.

Iraq : History's Greatest Looting Of Ancient 'Treasures'



To destroy a people, you must first destroy their culture.

In Iraq today, it's not just the future of their oil industry and energy reserves that are in the process of being looted, broken up and sold off to foreign interests.

That which American tanks and air strips are not turning to powder, Iraqis and foreign antiquities dealers, traders and middlemen, along with vast teams of well-resourced smugglers are pulling from sands and selling to the extremely profitable world market for all that is rare, unique and ancient.

Robert Fisk looks at the wholesale dismantling and looting of Iraq's historical 'treasures' :

2,000-year-old Sumerian cities torn apart and plundered by robbers. The very walls of the mighty Ur of the Chaldees cracking under the strain of massive troop movements, the privatisation of looting as landlords buy up the remaining sites of ancient Mesopotamia to strip them of their artefacts and wealth. The near total destruction of Iraq's historic past – the very cradle of human civilisation – has emerged as one of the most shameful symbols of our disastrous occupation.

Evidence amassed by archaeologists shows that even those Iraqis who trained as archaeological workers in Saddam Hussein's regime are now using their knowledge to join the looters in digging through the ancient cities, destroying thousands of priceless jars, bottles and other artefacts in their search for gold and other treasures.

In a long and devastating appraisal to be published in December, Lebanese archaeologist Joanne Farchakh says that armies of looters have not spared "one metre of these Sumerian capitals that have been buried under the sand for thousands of years.

"They systematically destroyed the remains of this civilisation in their tireless search for sellable artefacts: ancient cities, covering an estimated surface area of 20 square kilometres, which – if properly excavated – could have provided extensive new information concerning the development of the human race.

"Humankind is losing its past for a cuneiform tablet or a sculpture or piece of jewellery that the dealer buys and pays for in cash in a country devastated by war. Humankind is losing its history for the pleasure of private collectors living safely in their luxurious houses and ordering specific objects for their collection."

"There are 10,000 archaeological sites in the country. In the Nassariyah area alone, there are about 840 Sumerian sites; they have all been systematically looted. Even when Alexander the Great destroyed a city, he would always build another. But now the robbers are destroying everything because they are going down to bedrock. What's new is that the looters are becoming more and more organised with, apparently, lots of money.

"Quite apart from this, military operations are damaging these sites forever. There's been a US base in Ur for five years and the walls are cracking because of the weight of military vehicles. It's like putting an archaeological site under a continuous earthquake."

Founded in about 4,000 BC, its Sumerian people established the principles of irrigation, developed agriculture and metal-working. Fifteen hundred years later – in what has become known as "the age of the deluge" – Ur produced some of the first examples of writing, seal inscriptions and construction. In neighbouring Larsa, baked clay bricks were used as money orders – the world's first cheques – the depth of finger indentations in the clay marking the amount of money to be transferred. The royal tombs of Ur contained jewellery, daggers, gold, azurite cylindrical seals and sometimes the remains of slaves.

The legions of antiquities looters work within a smooth mass-smuggling organisation. Trucks, cars, planes and boats take Iraq's historical plunder to Europe, the US, to the United Arab Emirates and to Japan. The archaeologists say an ever-growing number of internet websites offer Mesopotamian artefacts, objects anywhere up to 7,000 years old.

The farmers of southern Iraq are now professional looters, knowing how to outline the walls of buried buildings and able to break directly into rooms and tombs. The archaeologists' report says: "They have been trained in how to rob the world of its past and they have been making significant profit from it. They know the value of each object and it is difficult to see why they would stop looting."

Ms Farchakh adds: "The longer Iraq finds itself in a state of war, the more the cradle of civilisation is threatened. It may not even last for our grandchildren to learn from."

Archeologist Joanne Farchakh also provides valuable insights into how Iraqis view the ancient 'treasures' under their feet :

Iraq's rural societies are very different to our own. Their concept of ancient civilisations and heritage does not match the standards set by our own scholars. History is limited to the stories and glories of your direct ancestors and your tribe. So for them, the "cradle of civilisation" is nothing more than desert land with "fields" of pottery that they have the right to take advantage of because, after all, they are the lords of the land and, as a result, the owners of its possessions.

In the same way, if they had been able, these people would not have hesitated to take control of the oil fields, because this is "their land".

Because life in the desert is hard and because they have been "forgotten" by all the governments, their "revenge" for this reality is to monitor, and take, every single money-making opportunity.

A cylinder seal, a sculpture or a cuneiform tablet earns $50 (£25) and that's half the monthly salary of an average government employee in Iraq.

The looters have been told by the traders that if an object is worth anything at all, it must have an inscription on it. In Iraq, the farmers consider their "looting" activities to be part of a normal working day.

Savior Of Iraq's Antiquities Flees To Syria To Escape Violence

Professional Thieves Looted Many, Most Valuable, Iraqi Antiquities

15,000 Objects Taken From The Ground Daily

Hunt For Stolen Iraqi Antiquities Moves To Cyberspace

Legendary British Rocker : Taliban Were "Brilliant", Tony Blair "Should Be Applauded", Wants One Hour A Day Where Children Are Forced To Bored

Ian Brown, former Stone Roses lead singer, and musical genius, has plenty of ideas he wants to get "out there". What makes this interview with Brown so fascinating is that his beliefs and opinions defy all the standard categorisations and cliches that those who hate rock stars speaking their minds usually try to slot the more inspired ones into - hippie, drug freak, booze-crazed sex fiend, champagne socialist, loony Lefty.

Brown is a rock star that can't be brought off with reunion money (most recent offer was $8 million for three gigs), forgoes managers and agents, despises rock stars who leach credibility and turn millions off the poorest people in the world, hates alcohol, wants literal interpretations of the Bible to be ditched and dreams of a day when gambling goes the way of bear baiting.

A few examples of Brown letting his mind run free :

"Permacultures - where you use the immediate environment to grow food - should be mandatory. We should be growing carrots up the side of the Empire State Building or Big Ben. Round my house I pull the kids off Xbox and make them dig soil in the garden. We grow parsnips, carrots and potatoes. I like to see 'em grafting. They appreciate the taste."

"I get angry about how African kids have to live. I thought the G8 Summit at Gleneagles in 2005 was a real missed opportunity. I applaud how Brown and Blair tried to put it at the top of the agenda. I didn't like the way Bono and Geldof hijacked the G8 Summit demo with their pop concert. The only result was Pink Floyd sold a few more million albums. People have to realise you don't help African children singing along to 60-year-old men playing their tunes from 40 years ago. If there is another G8 meeting then there should be a court order banning Pink Floyd or Geldof or Bono from leaving their houses until it's over."

"We've got to stop kids thinking of Space exploration and astronauts as a fun and glamorous thing. Nasa is an arm of the US military. The International Space Station is a military undertaking. We need to melt down the rockets. We've got to divert the money to the poor."

"The Taliban are demented right? But they did have TWO good ideas. No booze. No gambling.I thought the news footage of them running over bottles of whisky and brandy with tanks was brilliant. In our society liquor companies run the world - they ruin lives and make high streets no-go areas on a Saturday night.

"It pisses me off when I see pictures off the Queen or that Duke husband at Balmoral or Sandringham or wherever. I don't look at them, I look at their surroundings. All those little salmon rivers, beautiful creeks and beaches that they've stolen from us a thousand years ago. Let's have them back. Gordon Brown says he wants to build three million new homes then that's where we should build them. How many homes could you build on Balmoral? Loads."

"My kids laugh at me when I tell them about life when I was 14. They say "Go on dad, tell us again". There was no Walkmans, videos, Nintendo or Xboxes, no internet, no mobiles. No computers. No DVDs. There were only three TV channels. They cry laughing. But it made us hungry and thoughtful. And we had great things like the Sex Pistols. We're breeding a generation who won't invent anything. They've got everything. They're stimulated all day and they're never bored. I think there should be an hour of total boredom every day for all kids."

Go Here To Read The Full Story

Brits : We Live In A Surveillance Society

They sure do. One surveillance camera for every 14 Britons. The highest rate of surveillance in the world, but kids are still killing kids, and old people, and crime figures haven't exactly plunged in the past few years. However, council coffers have grown fat off speeding fines.

From the Daily Mail :

Nearly six out of 10 people believe Britain has become a "surveillance society", according to a new survey.

...only 17 per cent of Britons trusted the authorities to keep their personal details completely confidential.

Liberty claimed people in the UK are losing their right to privacy in the wake of crackdowns connected with counter-terrorism.

Spokesman Gareth Crossman said: "In times of heightened insecurity we quite rightly compromise some of our privacy for public protection, but if we don't pause for thought right now our children will grow up without any sense of the value of privacy."

Liberty's report there was growing use of CCTV and databases, unprecedented phone tapping and massive expansion of the DNA database.

Simon Jenkins provides a snapshot of Britain's surveillance society reality :

Our parents would be amazed that, in peacetime Britain, every public space is monitored by police cameras; private movement is traceable by satellites that follow cars and phones; misbehaving citizens can be imprisoned on the say-so of neighbours; easily readable government ID cards will carry a mass of personal information; suspects are incarcerated indefinitely without trial; and torture has returned to the armoury of the state. T

hey might also find it incredible that 21st-century Britain has revived the 19th-century invasion of distant lands because it dislikes their regimes, or "to spread western values".

We are falling quickly in the age of 'Pre-Crime' - Philip K Dick's term once science fictional term for the police state paranoia where you are only suspected of being not guilty of criminal behaviour, and if you protest too much about how innocent you are, and how outrageous all the suspicion leveled at you by the authorities actually is, the suspicion that falls upon you only increases.

Brits will soon be introduced to surveillance cameras that actually bark orders at passers-by to obey the law.

The next step on from that, and one in which the technology is all but reality, is where surveillance cameras don't use speakers, but instead use focused silent sound waves to pump messages directly into your skull to behave and stay in line.

You will then literally hear voices in your head telling you what to do.

Surveillance cameras on every corner, DNA databases, tracking technology and the chipping of humans were all once the deluded, paranoid ramblings of conspiracy theorists. Now they are companies trading on the stock market.

Some people watch the movie V For Vendetta and think 'God, what a truly awful society.'

Others watch V For Vendetta and think 'You know, there's some really good ideas in that movie. Let's try some of them out.'

But the surveillance society, in theory at least, helps to keep the Brits safe(r) from the threat of terror.

Well, the threat of non-state terror, that is.

History's Weirdest Hurricane

Does Global Warming 'Tear Apart' Cyclones?




We didn't hear a lot about Hurricane Humberto on the news, primarily because, it didn't kill dozens or hundreds of people, or lay waste to vast expanses of populated coastline like Hurricane Katrina. But it still caused plenty of damage across East Texas and scared the hell out of hundreds of thousands of people who were sleeping when it smashed through their towns.

We mention it here because Hurricane Humberto was one extremely weird storm. Hours before it hit land and tore through East Texas, it wasn't even on the weather charts. And then suddenly there it was :

Humberto didn't exist until late Wednesday afternoon, and wasn't even a tropical storm until almost midday, strengthening from a tropical depression with 35-mph winds to a hurricane with 85-mph winds in just 18 hours, senior hurricane specialist James Franklin said at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The storm was tightly wound at landfall, with hurricane-force winds extending out less than 20 miles from the center, the weather service reported.

"To put this development in perspective, no tropical cyclone in the historical record has ever reached this intensity at a faster rate near landfall. It would be nice to know, someday, why this happened,'' Franklin said.

Does the bizarre behaviour Hurricane Humberto provide proof that global warming will, or already is, leading to unprecedented changes to storm cycles? The debate continues :

Climatologists are debating whether hotter oceans generated by man-made global warming are fueling more intense cyclones. Although only half over, this season is providing intriguing evidence. In addition to Humberto's spectacular intensification, Hurricane Felix likewise went into the record books by exploding from a tropical depression to the strongest Category 5 in the Caribbean in just over two days.

Likewise, Felix and another storm, Dean, are the only two Category 5 hurricanes on record to make landfall in the Atlantic basin the same year. Such unprecedented developments will doubtless bolster the theories of some scientists that the increasing heat of the water nurturing these storms is promoting faster growth and stronger winds.

But what if the effects of global warming actually led to fewer, not more, hurricanes? Welcome to the theory of 'hidden hurricanes' :

Recent research may shed new light on whether the increase in hurricane activity on the Gulf Coast is part of a cycle that could end in a couple of decades, or a long-term climate trend that could last for centuries.

Two studies published this summer contend that the number of hurricanes counted in the early 20th century is lower than the number that actually formed. The reason: Weather-recording technology has improved to the point that scientists can see tropical storms now that they never would have known about 100 years ago.

The findings are important because in recent years, several researchers have factored in historical data to show that hurricane seasons have become more active. They have theorized that the more active seasons are linked to global warming.

But those theories could come into question if there were more hurricanes in the past than previously believed.

"If what I've done is reasonable, then taking into account what was missed, there's nothing you can relate to global warming," said Chris Landsea, a National Hurricane Center researcher who published one of the papers.

Landsea said he believes that global warming causes fewer hurricanes because it increases vertical wind shear, which tears apart the storms. The cyclones that do form see a slight increase in intensity, he said, but the difference is so small that humans couldn't measure it.

Before the advent of weather satellites in 1966, the only way to know whether a tropical cyclone had formed was to feel the winds whipping from the shore or the bow of a ship.

If a hurricane never hit land or crossed paths with a boat, it went uncounted.

So, goes the theory, there are more tropical storms simply because modern weather recording technology is counting more of them, whereas before satellite technology, the storms that affected nobody at sea would not have been noticed, nor recorded.

If we had accurate records of every cyclone that formed, all the world, for the past hundred years, the averages of the last few years may well be less than, say, a three year period back in the 1930s.

This story makes for an interesting read.

It's probably the first story we've seen where the theory that global warming effects can actually tear apart tropical storms has been aired.

Good News : Donald Rumsfeld Is Sleeping Okay!

It comes as great news to know that while hundreds of thousands of military families are suffering through long, sleepless nights, worrying about whether or not their children will survive the war that will not end, and that while millions of Iraqi families are lying wide awake, waiting for the bullet that takes a mother, or the gang that steals a daughter, or the blast wave that decapitates a grandfather, good old Donald "We're Winning" Rumsfeld ain't missing one single hour of his deep, conscience-free snooze time :

Q : All your theories worked (in Iraq), in other words.

A : “It’s been a big success! The Iraqi government has not been successful as yet. And, uh, it’s gonna take some time and some effort.”

Q: “When do you see it resolved?”

A : “I’m not gonna get into that.”

Q : Right. But if you distill the general sense…the measured general sense…of what the American public feels about Iraq right now, it would be: a plan in but not a plan out. Do you agree with that?

A: “No! No, no! The military has to have plans for post-major-conflict stabilization, and they did. And, uh, the focus of the insurgents and the terrorists and the Al Qaeda have put on Iraq… It’s enormously important to them.”

Q: But you sleep okay?

A : “I do. Always have.”

Q: No nightmares?

A : “Nope.”

Former Head Of British Army During 2003 Iraq Invasion Says Rumsfeld Is "Intellectually Bankrupt", Blames Him For Most Of The Problems Now Seen In Iraq

Honouring The Dead Of 9/11 By 'Hailing Satan'

So what man thought it appropriate to give the 'Hail Satan' hand signal while standing at a ceremony honouring the victims of 9/11?



Well, who do you think?

Blood-freezing, bone-chilling creepy.

9/11 Families Slam BushCo. For Using Anniversary To Promote Iraq War

It is surely no accident that General Pertraeus' testimony to Congress about why the Iraq War must continue has been side by side all over the American news on the same day that imagery of the 9/11 attacks, and grieving families at 9/11 memorials, is also airing.

Victims of 9/11, discussions about the Iraq War - must be a connection, right? Well of course not. But the disgustingly nasty More War marketing branch of BushCo. still wants Americans to link the two tragedies together, even after the Pentagon totally dismissed any involvement by Saddam Hussein in the 9/11 attacks.

Seeing Petraeus, images of the Iraq War, the WTC falling all over again and families gathered in quiet tribute to those they lost just reminds you of how much contempt BushCo. has for the American people. It's appalling, utterly cynical and simply shameful.

But members of families shattered by the 9/11 attacks know what BushCo. has done, on purpose, and they're not happy. Here's a statement from September Eleventh Families For Better Tomorrows :

"The timing of this testimony is another attempt by government officials to force a non-existent connection between the events of 9-11 and this administration's disastrous policy of invasion and war in Iraq.

"The 9-11 Commission found there was no operational or cooperative relationship between Al Qaida and Iraq. It is widely understood today that this administration's actions in Iraq have in fact created a terrorist sanctuary where none previously existed, at a cost of more American lives than were lost on 9-11, tens of thousands maimed and wounded, and over 100,000 Iraqi dead.

"Six years after September 11, 2001, politicians, from the White House to the halls of Congress, continue to abuse the memory of our loved ones who died in that attack by attempting to invoke their and our suffering to further this administration's political goals.

"As we have stated on previous occasions, we ask any and all politicians and candidates for office to respect the memory of the innocent lives lost on 9-11 by refraining from using the 9-11 sites, memorials, and anniversaries for political ends, either explicitly or as political 'backdrop.'"

But you don't see much, if any, of those kind of statements from 9/11 victims' families during the anniversary telecasts and TV specials.

That sort of reaction from family members doesn't fit the script. They're supposed to rage against Al Qaeda, praise President Bush, weep for America or otherwise just shut the fuck up.

Nothing makes you more of a target for NeoCon media and psycho-right blogstream hit jobs than to be a victim of 9/11 and start raging against BushCo. It's not the done thing you see, and if you lost your son or your wife in the 9/11 attacks, they'll do you over like they did Cindy Sheehan if you dare to raise your voice against the Iraq War, or ask too many questions about what happened on 9/11, and what BushCo. did or did not know before it happened.

The Foreshadowing Of 9/11 In Imagery

Dark Roasted Blend has a selection of images published pre-9/11 that fall into the "remarkable coincidence" category.

Here's a bone-chilling ad for a Pakistan airline :



And an interesting stamp coincidence :



Plenty more to be found at Dark Roasted Blend.

(thanks to Fan'er Darkly for the heads up)

9/11 Anniversary Inspires Good Deeds Movement

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have pledged to do something to help their fellow man as a mark of respect towards the victims of the 9/11 attacks. This is the kind of movement you can only hope becomes something like a religion. At a minimum, there is a growing call for the day of good deeds to be turned into an official day of service to humanity :

On Sept. 11, Jacob Sundberg of San Antonio has pledged to make eye contact and smile at everyone he meets. Kaitlin Ulrich will bring goody baskets to the police and fire departments in and around Philadelphia. And 100 volunteers from New York – 9/11 firefighters and family members among them – are going to Groesbeck, Texas, to rebuild a house destroyed by a tornado last December.

This is a minute sampling of the hundreds of thousands of people who have pledged to memorialize those killed on 9/11 by doing something good for others.

The heroic acts of all those killed trying to save others that September morning has spawned a growing grass-roots movement. The goal is to ensure that future generations remember not just the horror of the attacks, but also the extraordinary outpouring of humanity during the days, weeks, and months that followed.

The idea of turning 9/11 into a day of service, charity, and good deeds came from the family and friends of one man: Glenn Winuk, a volunteer fireman and lawyer who worked a block and a half from the World Trade Center. After he helped evacuate his Broadway law offices, he grabbed a medic's bag and ran toward the smoke pouring from the South Tower. That's where his remains were found after the towers fell. Mr. Paine and Glenn's brother Jay had been friends for years. They decided that turning 9/11 into a day of service was best way to memorialize Glenn.

"It completely reflects the way my brother lived his life, and it also specifically reflects how he died," says Mr. Winuk, myGoodDeed.org cofounder. "He laid his life on the line for other people that day."

In 2002, Paine and Winuk sent e-mails to friends and family and suggested they do a good deed, such as donate a day's pay on 9/11. Then the idea evolved, and they founded myGoodDeed.org. In 2004, 100,000 visited their website and pledged to do a good deed on 9/11. This year, those pledging number more than 250,000.

"A lot of people don't know what to do on 9/11," says Paine. "This hits people in their heart and their soul. It connects with something that's fundamental."

A brilliant way to turn something terrible and negative into something extraordinary and positive. And what a way to show Al Qaeda they failed to break America's spirit.

Go To www.MyGoodDeed.org to find out more about this movement.

Anniversary Fluke





Above is a screenshot of the number of Google Adsense page impressions for this blog over the past few hours. Just a coincidence, but still jarring to see.

A World Without War...Mostly

State Of The World Today Is Not So Bleak, For Now

An interesting story on the state of the world today :

Despite daunting challenges posed by global warming, water, energy, unemployment and terrorism, the world faces a brighter future with fewer wars.

"Although great human tragedies like Iraq and Darfur dominate the news, the vast majority of the world is living in peace, conflicts actually decreased over the past decade," said the 2007 State of the Future report published by the American Council for the Tokyo-based United Nations University, a global think tank.

It said that the number of African conflicts fell from a peak of 16 in 2002 to five in 2005 and that the number of refugees around the world is falling.

HIV/AIDS in Africa has begun to level off and could begin to actually decrease over the next few years although it continues to spread rapidly in Eastern Europe and in Central and South Asia, it said.

Among other global bright spots, the report cited higher life expectancy, lower infant mortality, increased literacy and increases in gross domestic products per capita and in the number of Internet users.

On the negative side, it pointed to hikes in CO2 emissions, terrorism, corruption, global warming and unemployment and a decrease in percentage of voting populations.

However, the old slogan 'The Rich Get Richer' is more true today than at any other time in history.

Just two percent of people own a mind-boggling 50 percent of the world's wealth.

The poorest 50 percent of people claim only one measly percent of the world's wealth.

The combined wealth of the world's richest 225 people is equal to the combined wealth of 2.7 billion of the world's poorest people. So 40 percent of the world's population holds wealth equal to that of 225 of the mega-rich. 2.7 billion versus 225 is not a disparity, or a rich-poor gap, it's a fucking abyss.

The bad news from the State Of The Future report?

If organized crime, the fucking abyss between the rich and the poor and the re-emergence of deadly diseases is not dealt with, "the future could be bleak, marred by lack of water and arable land, mass migrations, turbulent climates, economic chaos and other disasters".

Solutions posed include "global energy development program led by the United States and China, breakthroughs in water desalination and the restructuring of educational systems to boost both individuals and collective intelligence".

Regardless of the claims made by some that the world is overpopulated, or racing towards a population crisis, the world's population is mostly likely to reach 9 billion and then taper off in the coming decade.

Thankfully, what we've read of The State Of The Future report contains none of the demented depopulation demands that have been made by some in the environmental and Green movements over the past three decades.

The planet can deal with 9 billion humans easily, but we need to take better care of ourselves, each other and the world in general, and come up with ways to preserve and maximise the resources available to us, through conservation, efficiency and education.

The melting of the Arctic and Greenland ice offers humanity the chance to move in and populate and develop absolutely pristine wilderness, but we have numerous ways of building new societies in these new territories without devastating the land, the air and nature in general, as we have done in the past. We now know it's actually cheaper to build energy efficient, self-sufficient towns and cities, and that there are more profits to be found in preserving than simply exploiting. If you don't make a mess, you don't have to spend money and time to clean it up.

A friend often enthusiastically tells me that the Iraq War will be the last big war we'll see, at least for the next century or two. Perhaps forever. His theory goes that the Iraq War proves that war simply does not work anymore - it's too hard, too costly, too damaging - and that the vast majority of the world's population is in agreement on this.

It's a strange thing indeed to think that the Iraq War may be the last big war that we'll see in our lifetimes. It wold be wonderful, of course, if this turned out to be true. We have been raised to believe that the big wars of the 20th century were necessary wars. We are now learning that simply isn't so. Despite the onslaught of horrific images and brutality we are fed through the mainstream media, there are less wars in our world today than there were even two decades ago.

It's thrilling to realise that we are now learning that we can live without war as a means of solving conflict and disputes. Nations don't really go to war with each other much anymore. The Iraq War was an unprovoked invasion and occupation. But even those kinds of wars are in decline.

A world without war may seem an impossibility, but it's much closer than most realise. And it's about time.

It would really be a shame if we went the way of the dinosaurs when we're so close to fixing so many of the problems that exist in the world today.

The internet provides the means for an exchange of information and knowledge across the world and amongst its people that even science fiction writers didn't imagine a few decades ago.

The more the peoples of so many different countries make contact with each other online, the more we find how many of us all seem to share the same desires and opinions on how our collective future should unfold. That is, the future of our world.

A better world for all, or at least, most, seems so close. Not centuries away, but only decades n0w.

But will we make it?

Police Tactics Of Violence And Intimidation "Worked Brilliantly"


Peaceful protesters were confronted by riot squad officers wearing backpack tanks full of pepper spray on the streets of Sydney. The officer on the left is holding a hose and nozzle that allows the pepper spray to 'coat' whole crowds from distances of more than 20 feet.


As far as prime minister John Howard is concerned, the police tactic of deploying more than 2000 police officers, police dogs, snipers in helicopters, the full riot squad and a water cannon circling anti-Iraq War protesters in Sydney in Saturday "worked brilliantly."

So happy was the NSW state premier, Morris Iemma, with the police violence against peaceful protesters that he directly echoed President Bush's infamous May, 2003, declaration on the Iraq War by stating, "Mission Accomplished."

Go Here For The Full Story


Peaceful Sydney Anti-Iraq War Protest Shattered By Police Violence : "That's The Way We Do Business Now"

The Sweetest Cure


Honey spirals photograph by William Connolley

Honey has been used as a painkiller, an antiseptic and a preservative for thousands of years. Millenia before antibiotics and penicillin were discovered, honey was used to disinfect wounds, fight viruses and heal burns. The ancient Egyptians even used it to preserve the corpses of cats in earthernware jars. One brave archeologist dipped his finger into a vat of 2500 year old honey in an Egyptian tomb and discovered it was still edible.

Every few years, another round of stories and research appears on the miraculous medicinal powers of honey. The fact that you won't find a pot of medicinal honey in the medicine cabinets of every single home shows just how much quality ancient knowledge we have lost over the centuries. Here's one of the more recent reports on the "miracle" of honey from an Australian newspaper :

It's not just great on toast. A dollop of honey can kill off germs that cause infections, and may even help to ward off pimples.

That's according to University of Sydney microbiologist Shona Blair, who has been investigating the medicinal use of the sticky sweetener for the past decade.

Her laboratory work has shown that honey — even at concentrations of just 5 per cent — is effective at killing off golden staph, including the so-called "superbug" varieties.

"With some strains that are floating around in hospitals, they are resistant to every single drug we've got," she said. "This is one of the big roles that honey can play … it's just as effective against superbugs as it is against ordinary germs."

Dr Blair and colleagues have also found honey kills off bacteria that cause tetanus, wound botulism and scar-forming acne.

"For acne or sunburn or nappy rash, you can't walk around covered in honey all day, but you can mix one-third honey in with two-thirds base cream, like moisturiser." For an open wound, she says, the best medicine is a daub of pure honey.

She says jelly bush and Manuka honeys are known for their germ-fighting qualities, but warns potential users against simply dipping their fingers into the honey jar.

"They should go to the chemist and buy some good honey … you have to use it in the right circumstances and in the right way."

Raw Honey As Medicine - Brief Summary Of Clinical Trials And Results

Choice Magazine Tests Medicinal Honey For AntiBacterial Positives

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Sydney : Peaceful Anti-Iraq War Rally Shattered By Police Violence


Police dogs were ready to take on violent protesters, but the vast majority of the violence came from the police


They came in their thousands, in defiance of a month long fear and intimidation campaign by the state and federal governments, the police and the Murdoch media.

Of the more than 6000-8000 who marched, all but a few dozen protested peacefully, without violence or aggression. More than half of all protesters were women, joined by hundreds of elderly people and hundreds of families, with young children.

But the 2500 police deployed, backed by a full riot squad, a water cannon, backpacks full of pepper spray, dogs and snipers in a helicopter hovering above the crowd, were pumped for the long promised "worst riots ever seen in Sydney." A promise made only by the police and state government ministers over the past few weeks.

Protesters were wrestled to the ground, put in headlocks, had their arms twisted up behind their backs, had knees rammed into their spines and, in a number of assaults by police, were punched in the back and neck with a flurry of hard blows while being held down. Few of those assaulted and beaten displayed any resistance at all.

Go Here For The Full Story

Sydney Comes Face To Face With Police State Reality

Anarchist Provocateurs' Plans To Ignite Massive Riots Foiled By A Handful Of Anti-War Protesters



It wasn't supposed to be like this...

The NSW and Federal Police rolled out all their new toys to deal with 10,000 anti-Bush, anti-Iraq War protesters in Sydney, Australia today.

But apart from a handful of arrests there was none of the violence and chaos and "anarchy in the streets" pumped and promoted for weeks on end by politicians, police spokesmen and some in the Murdoch media.

For all the fear-mongering and clear threats to stay away, one of the most powerful psychological operations unleashed on the Australian public failed to keep the crowds away. If you know Australians, you will probably understand that, if anything, such a sustained and obvious attempt to intimidate only encouraged more people to come and join the protest march in the heart of Sydney earlier today.

But all the same, Sydneysiders came face to face with a police state reality, as the cops rolled out their brand spanking new SUVs, a multi-weapon water cannon, surveillance vehicles, mobile prison buses and hundreds of freshly refitted riot squad officers, including a number wearing backpacks full of 'irritants' that can be sprayed across large crowds through a hose and nozzle.

More than two thousand police were deployed, with lines of cops stretching hundreds of metres along some Sydney streets.

The police were there to deal with hundreds, if not thousands, of violent protesters. That was the kinds of numbers their 'intelligence' told them they would have to deal with.

This was going to be another Battle For Seattle.

But nothing much happened, except a lot of peace protesters had a great time, and they made their point. We will not be intimidated by politicians, by the media, or by the police.

The full force 'national security state' rollout quickly became absurd in its fantastic levels of overkill, and thousands of people surrounded the new vehicles and equipment, worth tens of millions of dollars, to stare and discuss and then laugh. Many police also came to see the absurdity of it all as well, and joined in the laughter as 10,000 marched through the heart of Australia's biggest city.

But it could have been very, very different.

Tomorrow we will have a special report on how protesters confronted, surrounded and chased off a pack of NeoNazi-anarchists who were there to start the kind of trouble that would have led to police unleashing all their new gear on the people of Sydney.

The police refused to deal with the masked provocateurs. In fact, some police demanded the anti-violence protesters get out of the way and let the anarchists 'march'. But the "peace police" refused to submit, they policed their own protest and stopped a massive outbreak of violence and bloodshed.

Naturally, none of these remarkable events made the evening news.


Go Here For More From The Orstrahyun


MORE REPORTS AND PHOTO ESSAYS TO FOLLOW

Another piece of excellent politicart from David Dees.

Those Who Leave Don't Come Back



Chapter Four of the online novel ED Day is now up. Some 'light' fiction for your weekend reading.

This is a novel writing experiment, that's already proved to be both exciting, and terrifying.

ED Day is a serialised novel, where readers can comment and critique the story as it's being written. Most of the comments have been kind and encouraging, so far.

Three or four chapters will be published each week online, free to read, until the tale is told.

ED Day is the story of how a few hundred people survive and build a new society in Sydney, after an apocalyptic bird flu pandemic strikes and kills millions. Most of the people are gone, but much of the city remains undamaged. Supermarkets are full of food, but the streets are littered with corpses. The survivors are now learning that they can't leave the city. At least, not alive.

Here's an excerpt from the latest chapter :

I never really worked out whether the government was lying to us, or whether they didn’t know what was happening, or just how bad the pandemic really was.

The more people who got sick, the less people there were to keep the power stations and the rest of the infrastructure running. There were blackouts and dry taps every two or three days. You got used to it.

The prime minister and the health minister were on the news all the time, but never live on air. People reckoned they were already out of the country, and that most of what they said had been pre-recorded.

In the first week of March, a lot of senior government ministers pissed off to islands up north for “conferences”, taking their families with them.

Some of the survivors here reckon the government knew what was coming, but they didn’t want us to survive. Something to do with a worldwide depopulation program that Prince Philip and Henry Kissinger have been talking about for decades.

The government ministers, say some survivors, saved themselves and their families and friends, by hogging anti-virals and leaving the mainland, and left the rest of us here to die. Bookman seems pretty convinced that's what happened. The more he talks about that version of what happened to us, the more survivors believe it.

When we think back the chaos and confusion in February and early March, it’s easy enough to believe such things might have been true. This is the sort of stuff people end up talking about when there’s no nightly news or newspapers anymore, and no television or radio shows. It’s like we have to make up our own news.

Here’s one of the most popular theories on what happened before ED Day that some of the survivors talk about, a lot :

Those in the government that didn’t leave before March 21 (the day when nearly everyone who stayed in the city ended up dying) isolated themselves away, beneath the city.

Somewhere under the city, some of the survivors reckon, there are all these halls and bunkers and vaults, dating back from World War 2. They were expanded as nuclear bunkers during the 1950s and 1960s, and refurbished during the massive building projects that swamped Sydney in 2008.

Down there, goes the theories, there is a big network of rooms and kitchens and sleeping quarters, with air filters and warehouses full of food and water and medicine. Enough to last a year or more.

That’s where some of the state government ministers, senior public servants, and their families, are supposed to be hiding out right now.

If you go into the basements of the State Parliament on Macqaurie Street and put your ear to the wall, you can sometimes hear something that sounds like the whir of air-conditioning. Or it could just be wind blowing through ducting.

“They’re still down there,” this one guy yelled at a Town Hall meeting last week, “they’re down there right now, waiting for the all clear.”

Go Here To Read Chapter One

Murdoch Media Launch 'Coup' To Take Down Australian Prime Minister

By Darryl Mason

UPDATE : This story will continue to grow over the weekend. A number of staffers from the APEC summit, now being held in Sydney, are leaking that John Howard may hold a press conference on Sunday night, at the end of the summit, and announce his resignation.

Go Here For Latest Updates On This Story.

We will also summarize how the 'coup' unfolds in the Murdoch media over the weekend on this blog.


Australian conservatives and neocons are furious that prime minister John Howard, now facing annihilation in the coming elections, won't do the right thing and step aside before he destroys the political party that gave them so much power and influence.

So grim are the polls for the Howard government right now that if they went to an election tomorrow, the prime minister and most of his cabinet would be swept away, spelling the end of the control of the Australian government by conservatives and neocons for a decade or more.

Pundits are predicting there remains only 80 days until the next federal election. The 'coup' plotters in Murdoch's media empire in Australia still believe there is time to change leaders and salvage what they can from the wreckage of the looming election.

But Howard is fastidiously hanging onto his leadership. Bouyed by his hosting of the APEC summit of 20 world leaders, Howard has been signing huge energy deals with China, negotiating sales of nuclear fuel with Russia and hopes to announce a world-shaking 'Sydney Statement' on climate change, to replace the Kyoto agreement, and gaining a firm commitment from China to reduce emissions.

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Read Darryl Mason's Online Novel ED DAY - The Shocking Story Of Sydney Society Destroyed By An Apocalyptic Bird Flu Pandemic - Nature's Fury, Or Depopulation?

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Howard thinks all this will be enough to win back the favour of Australian voters. But the neocons view Howard as a loser, beyond hope.

Howard still believes he can win the coming election. But the neocons don't want to take that chance. If he loses, they lose everything. They view Howard as a dangerous liability, despite a record on economic management that they will praise ceaselessly. They see Howard as sheer political poison. He has to go.

So Rupert Murdoch's Australian media empire, which controls more than 70% of all Australian newspapers, is going to force Howard to step aside before it's too late :

Today, John Howard is facing an impossible to ignore chorus of wailing and whining from the once-faithful and worshipful - Quit, hand over, disappear. Do It Now.

The Australian conservatives and neocons are not just panicking. They're pissing their pants in fear. They're one more devastating poll away from looking for volunteers to load up a suicide vest and go give the prime minister an explosive hug goodbye.

They know this is End Game territory. They're terrified that come 2008 they will be the Australian equivalent of the American Republican Party - shattered by defeat, awash with scandal and infighting and coming apart at the seams in a grisly self-slaughter so appalling to watch that even die-hard enemies can no longer bare to look and have to turn away from the hideous spectacle.

Key Murdoch journalists and commentators have given him less than a week to announce his resignation. They're now clearly stating this in Murdoch newspapers.

Whatever they have planned for Howard if he doesn't resign is going to be gruesome indeed. For Howard, and for Australian politics.


Go To 'The Orstrahyun' Blog For More

Neocon Fury : Australian PM John Howard Faces Election Massacre

White House On The Chaser's Breaching Of Bush Security - 'We Are Not Amused'

While this story provides only the scantest of detail about the White House reaction to The Chaser's major breach of Australian police and American secret service security around President Bush's hotel, a Washington friend e-mailed to say that "the talk" over there in the corridors and coffee shops wasn't about whether or not the prank was funny, but was all about how in the hell Bush's SS team could have screwed up so monumentally.

When it comes to the president's security detail, "blaming the locals" just doesn't cut it.

The main and most obvious concern about the security breach being, "What if it wasn't a few cars full of comedians? What if it was three cars full of fertilizer, ammonia and a half a ton of nails and bolts?"

Here's the only comment so far from the White House :

Talk to the secret service.

Uh oh.

Here's White House spokesperson Dana Perino on the ultra-security caging Sydney :

“It’s unfortunate that security climates were as such, but, as soon as we get out of town, then Sydney will return to normal, hopefully,” Perino said.

Hopefully?


The Chaser have now joined the growing blacklist of media persons and organisations distributed by the Howard government to police and security personnel.

'Osama Bin Laden' Arrested Outside President Bush's Sydney Hotel

Comedy Team Show How Easy It Is To Breach An Ultra-Security Zone, By Posing As Canadians



The three vehicle Canadian motorcade swept through Sydney earlier today, with blacked out windows and little Maple Leaf flags all a flutter.

The vehicles were stopped by police at one of the entry points to the Great Sydney Cage, the ultra-security zone now surrounding the hotels where world leaders gathered for the APEC summit are staying.

The motorcade was allowed to pass, and drove right up to The InterContinental Hotel, where President Bush is staying.

Then Osama Bin Laden jumped out of one of the cars.

At first police were shocked, but then they moved in and started making arrests.

From The Orstrahyun :

The stars of the satirical sketch comedy show The Chaser promised they would deliver something "extreme" during the week long Sydney lockdown for the APEC summit of world leaders.

And they've pulled off a stunning breach of security, driving a three car, fake Canadian motorcade right up President Bush's hotel.

When the motorcade stopped, a cast member jumped out, dressed as Osama Bin Laden.

11 crew members and two stars of The Chaser are now being held by police.

If police are prepared to use the full force of the law against the comedy team for purposely breaching the ultra-security zone, inside the now notorious Sydney Cage, they could find themselves in some very deep, very serious shit.

Expect fuming outrage from the prime minister, the shock jocks and the eternally outraged columnists of the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun.

Most of the rest of Sydney will give a cheer for The Chaser for bringing some comedy relief and a good laugh to miserable atmosphere forced on us by the blocked roads, blocked footpaths and the endless violations of privacy thousands of workers in the city are being subjected to, with demands to see ID, physical searches in city streets and briefcases and handbags opened and emptied.

While the police are hassling people trying to get to work, or to lunch, or get back to the office, a motorcade cruises by carrying 'Osama Bin Laden'.

So much for all that ultra-security to keep world leaders safe from terrorists.

A television comedy team got through. So why haven't all these terrorists posing such dire terrorist threats that Sydney needs to become a mini-police state tried giving it a shot?

Because the dire threat is all but non-existent in Australia?

Or is because when you give security and police forces hundreds of millions of dollars to make up their own laws and to fence off a huge section of one of the world's most famous cities, chaos will always follow?

The Chaser comedy team from ABC TV are about to become world famous thanks to this brilliant stunt. And police will be in something of a fascinating qaundry.

How they can bust these guys using the full force of the law when they simply showed how easy it is to get by all those layers of ultra-security and drive right up to President Bush's hotel?

Incredibly embarrassing, and incredibly funny. Can't wait to see the footage.

If we ever see the footage.

Bush On Iraq : "We're Kicking Ass!"

Uses Massive Presidential Motorcade To Travel 230 Feet Through Sydney

President Bush's first 24 hours in Australia have been a mix of luxurious dining, a chow down with Australian troops, harbour cruises, press conferences and big deals signed with Australia on the sharing of military technology secrets.

Bush's hour long press conference with Australia's prime minister John Howard was a dreary, long-winded mess of standard Bush rhetoric on the Iraq War, climate change, the lapdog loyalty of Australian prime minister John Howard and the hassle of having to wage both an "ideological" struggle and a battle for "hearts and minds" in the 'War on Terror'.

But President Bush is clearly feeling confident regarding the Iraq War. How confident?

When Bush arrived in Australia last night, he was greeted at the airport by deputy prime minister Mark Vaile. Having just flown in from Iraq, Bush was asked how things were going over there.

Bush grinned, "We're kicking ass!"

Is that what he intends to tell all those Democrats and Republican senators next week back in Washington? Probably not.

Bush almost topped himself in the headline quote department earlier today during the press conference when he told prime minister John Howard that he was expecting him to "shout" lunch.

"I'm a meat guy," the president reminded his Australian host.

A meat guy who loves kicking ass.

It's remarkable he's so unpopular back home in the United States.


story continues after...
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Darryl Mason Has Launched His New Online Novel ED DAY - Telling The Story Of What Happens When An Apocalyptic Bird Flu Pandemic Kills Millions In Sydney - Read It Free Here

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story continues....


President Bush also made the most of his massive 30-plus vehicle long motorcade. The Sydney Harbour Bridge was shut down so the president could cross the harbour to go mountain biking in a patch of national park.

And earlier in the morning he broke his own record for the shortest presidential motorcade ride in history. A mere 230 feet from his hotel to the prime minister's office. The motorcade was longer than the distance it traveled.

No doubt realising the sheer absurdity of driving such a short distance, after the meeting was over, Bush left the motorcade behind to walk back to his hotel.

But the streets around the Intercontinental Hotel are 'caged' - lined with ten foot high steel fences embedded in huge concrete blocks. So the evening news was filled with bizarre images of the president walking down a city street, but cut off from the entire city by the massive security fence. The only people inside 'The Cage' were literally hundreds of police, riot squad officers and paramedics in chemical weapons suits and flak jackets.

Many Australians probably thought that was exactly where Bush belonged. Locked up behind steel mesh.


Bush Takes Condi Rice On A Dinner "Date"

Go To 'The Orstrahyun' For More On Bush's Visit To Sydney And The Weekend Riots That Police And The Prime Minister Have Promised Will Tear The City Apart

Go Here For More Stories And Photos On 'The Cage' Now Cutting Through The Heart Of Sydney

Sydney Goes Into Police State Lockdown For Bush Visit

Ultra-Security Infuriates Workers And Ruins Business


One of the busiest streets in Sydney has now become an ultra-security dead zone for traffic and pedestrians, as President Bush visits Sydney for the first time.


From 'The Orstrahyun' :

Yesterday afternoon, inside the five kilometre long steel 'Cage' now surrounding Sydney tourist sites and hotels, security guards and foreign secret service agents patrolled the streets, manned entry points along the 'steel wall' and videod every person who walked past the side and rear service entries to the Intercontinental Hotel, where President Bush is now staying.

The few pedestrians and tourists wandering around inside The Cage barely spoke. Heads down, shoulders slumped, people moved as fast as they could to get to where they were going. Entire cafes, normally crowded with tourists, sat empty, rows of chairs and tables bereft of customers. If you wanted coffee, or food, you waited until you were outside of The Cage to stop and get what you wanted.

Nobody wanted to linger in there. Inside The Cage was a Sydney I'd never seen before. Quiet, subdued, confused and nervous.

Inside The Cage, police can stop you, demand you show your ID, question you about your reasons for being inside the 'security zone' and ask to see photographs on your cell phone or digital camera.

The police 'can' do all these things, according to the media. We must get used to it.

Dozens of cafes and food courts and restaurants and bars had less than four or five ustomers, many others sat completely empty. Food outlets that struggle to break even at the best of times were selling off meals and containers of unsold food for a quarter of their normal prices. Literally forced to give away their products and produce by the presence of an economic summit that promoted free trade and free markets.

Nearly all the small business owners I spoke to inside The Cage, that rely on street traffic trade for their livelihoods, said their takings were down 60 to 80% because of the APEC summit, and the presence of the 'steel wall' security fence. They still have five more days of such economic ruin to endure before The Cage is taken down.

"We're like a bunch of fucking rats in a maze!", one business man cried out on a Bridge Street corner. "Look at this bullshit! We're rats in a goddamned cage!"

None of the dozens of people, all trying to squeeze through the one metre wide gap in the fence to get across the road, disagreed with him. Nobody laughed. Everybody just wanted to get out of the The Cage.

Today in the Supreme Court, NSW Police lawyers are frantically trying to get protests planned for Saturday in the city centre made illegal. Police are ramping up the hysteria about the "threat" posed by thousands of Sydneysiders exercising their democratic rights to free speech in a public space.

They now claim they are expecting a "full scale riot".

From who? People waving banners and performing street theatre and waving around giant puppet heads?

It's stomach-churning listening to all this bullshit filling every news break, while President Bush is widely praised for his "vision" and "resolve" on Iraq by Australia's prime minister John Howard.

Incredibly, while police are trying to make protests illegal in Sydney, Bush said during a press conference how disgusted he was by the suppression of pro-democracy activists in Burma, who are getting hammered for daring to march in the streets of their cities.

It's enough to melt your brain.

If the police succeed in getting anti-Bush protests banned in the streets of Sydney, it means that anybody who turns up to march or voice their dissent will be breaking the law, and as police have previously warned they "will be charged with the full force of the law".

This may also include provisions under the extremist Howard government's anti-terror laws that would make Hitler shake his head in disbelief.

But get this, a pro-Bush support group were granted permission to gather outside President Bush's Sydney hotel, inside the most extreme security zone ever forced onto the people of Sydney.

Not only were the pro-Bush supporters allowed to gather, they were also allowed to use long poles to hoist their banners. Sticks, poles and pieces of plastic tubing are banned in the security zone, as police claim "violent protesters" will use them as weapons.

Another news report just quoted police pumping the "full scale riots expected" propaganda. The anti-freedom psy-op on the people of Sydney is now running at full speed.

Yet, nobody involved with any of the protests have said they will be using violence, and are actively discouraging anyone who wants to use violence from turning up on Saturday.

The police seem very sure that there will be violence at the Saturday marches.

Why would that be?

The Stop Bush Coalition organising the main rally on Saturday will be heavily policing their own marchers, watching out for people trying to start trouble or encouraging violence. They are very well aware of the 'agent provocateurs' used by Canadian police recently.

We'll be covering the marches on The Orstrahyun blog later in the week, and will keep you updated with the latest stories about Sydney's week as a police state during President Bush's visit for the APEC summit.


Go Here For A Special Report From Inside The Sydney Lockdown Zone - Inside The Great Sydney Cage - Photos And Observations


Go Here For The Latest Stories On Sydney Under Ultra-Security

'White Gold' Is The New Oil

Only a few years ago, hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians were still making do with powdered milk. Now more and more of them want the real stuff, the moo juice, and they want it clean, blindingly white and smooth as silk.

In 2000, the average Chinese consumed 9 litres of milk a year. Now they consume 25 litres each. And China is only one of the world markets where a milk shortage meeting increasing consumer demands for the white stuff are going to ratchet up prices. And, in some areas of the world, profits.

Oil is so yesterday. The real gold in the storming world economy is milk. Fresh milk. As rural dairy farms are swallowed up by drought and expanding suburbs, as multiplying middle classes across China, Russia and India demand the best and the freshest of everything they consume and as dairy feed stocks are converted into extremely profitable biofuels, there are less diary farms producing less milk for a world market demand that has never been so huge.

The price of of milk has doubled in 24 months, and in some parts of the United States milk costs more than gas.

A New Zealand farmer in this story this story managed to pay off his farm in only four years, off the udders of 300 cows :

"There's a world shortage of milk," said Philip Goode, manager of international policy at Dairy Australia in Canberra.

But the biggest force driving up milk prices is the same one that has driven up prices for conventional commodities like iron ore and copper: a roaring global economy. Rising incomes, from China and India to Latin America and the Middle East, are lifting millions of people out of poverty and into the middle class.

It turns out that, along with zippy cars and flat-panel TVs, milk is the mark of new money, a significant source of protein that factors into much of any affluent person's diet. Milk goes into infant formulas, chocolates, ice cream and cheese. Most baked goods contain butter, and coffee chains like Starbucks sell more milk than coffee.

Just meeting that demand, according to Alex Duncan, an economist at Fonterra, the dominant dairy cooperative in New Zealand and the world's largest dairy-exporting company, will require the addition each year of the equivalent of New Zealand's entire annual milk output.

That is a lot of milk. New Zealand is one of the world's largest milk producers, according to IFCN Dairy Research Center in Germany, but the largest exporter of dairy products. Some dairy economists doubt the world's heifers are up to the task, and say there is a possibility that the shortage of milk now being seen in parts of the world will spread.

Others say there are plenty of places where more milk can be produced if the price is right. One thing they agree on is that milk prices are likely to stay high and rise even higher.

"No one forecast this rapid shortage of milk," said Torsten Hemme, head of the IFCN center.

...because of the local nature of the market, there is very little spare capacity. In the past, the world could always count on the United States and Europe to fill shortages by exporting some of their subsidized stockpiles of cheese, butter and milk powder. But the United States has drawn down its butter mountain and other stockpiles; the same is true of the European Union, which started cutting dairy subsidies in 1993 and will be finished this year. Rising dairy demand in the United States and among the EU's new members, moreover, is sucking up supplies. As a result, said Hemme, "This storage capacity is empty now."

Australia, a major exporter, is suffering a multi-year drought that has devastated its milk production by killing off the grass that milk cows eat. Many in Australia worry that, far from being a temporary problem, the drought is the result of global warming and that dairies will never be the same.

"Even when prices start easing back, we don't expect them to go back to where they were," said Hayley Moynihan, a dairy analyst at Rabobank in New Zealand. "The cost of production and ongoing demand is going to see prices eventually settle at higher levels than they did in the past."

There you have it. Real milkshakes will soon become a luxury item, even in the West.

Just Because You're Paranoid, Doesn't Mean They're Not Watching You

So George Orwell was right, after all.

The creator of the once fictitious Big Brother society, as portrayed in the novel 1984 - a population under total surveillance, thoughts and emotions and conversations monitored, history rewritten and reshaped, a brutal dictator ruling a totalitarian state - was, in the end, a man who was watched very closely indeed by British intelligence for most of his adult life.

Naturally, being a writer and being opposed to fascism and police state controls, British intelligence, and the Police Special Branch, thought he was a Communist and his activities needed to be recorded, often in great detail :

"This man has advanced communist views,'' Special Branch said in a file entry dated Jan. 20, 1942. "He dresses in a bohemian fashion, both at his office and in his leisure hours.''

Orwell first came to the attention of the U.K. authorities in 1929, according to his MI5 file. He was living in Paris, researching his book 'Down and Out in Paris and London,'' and had offered to work as foreign correspondent for Workers' Life, a British left-wing newspaper. That led to him being put under surveillance.

"He spends his time reading various French newspapers, among which is L'Humanite, but he has not so far been seen to mix with communists in Paris and until he does considers that the French will not interfere with him,'' the MI5 file, stamped 'secret' read.

His passport application, under his real name, was kept in the file along with photographs, a physical description, details about his parents, his birth in India and a biography. A note from 1936 described him as a "communist sympathizer.'' A copy was kept of an application by his wife, Eileen Blair, to work at the Ministry of Food during World War II.

The file recorded him teaching at two schools in England in the early 1930s and fighting in the Spanish Civil War in 1937, referring to him as a "bit of an anarchist'' and "in touch with extreme elements.''

He "eked out a living'' as a freelance journalist and was ``practically penniless'' when he found work at the British Broadcasting Corp. in 1941, according to the file. When he applied to work as an accredited journalist during the war the Army made inquiries with MI5, which decided to allow the application.

No doubt MI5 thought Orwell becoming a journalist might make it easier for them to keep him under surveillance.

Ultimately, MI5 decided Orwell wasn't a threat to national security...Orwell was able to spend his later years writing.

"Blair undoubtedly has strong left wing views but he is a long way from orthodox communism,'' the file concluded. "It is evident from his recent writings -- 'The Lion and The Unicorn'' and his contribution to 'Betrayal of The Left' -- that he does not hold with the Communist Party, nor they with him.''

However, MI5 never forgot about Orwell. The final, anonymous entry in his file recorded the 46-year-old's death from tuberculosis on Jan. 21, 1950, the year after 1984 was published.

Go Here To Read The Full Story

It's Official : Rock Stars Really Do Live Fast And Die Young

There is plenty of "Tell us something we don't know" about this story detailing the results of an extensive study of 1000 rock stars over five decades. But it's still interesting to see the mantra officially confirmed.

One fast and fascinating fact from the study : Rock stars are three times more likely to die within the first five years of cracking the big time than their less famous colleagues.

Surprisingly, only some 25% of the 100 rock star deaths examined are as a result of drug and/or alcohol abuse.

The study doesn't make clear how many deaths are as a result of rock stars smoking too much pot and porking out on pizza, chocolate and deep fried everything (We're looking at you, Elvis).

Reunion tours also ratchet up the likelihood of rock stars dying before they get too old :

Rock stars - notorious for their "crash and burn" lifestyles - really are more likely than other people to die before reaching old age.

A study of more than 1,000 mainly British and North American artists, spanning the era from Elvis Presley to rapper Eminem, found they were two to three times more likely to suffer a premature death than the general population.

Between 1956 and 2005 there were 100 deaths among the 1,064 musicians examined by researchers at the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University.

As well as Presley, the toll of those dying before their time included Doors singer Jim Morrison, guitar hero Jimi Hendrix, T Rex star Marc Bolan and Nirvana's Kurt Cobain.

More than a quarter of all the deaths were related to drugs or alcohol abuse, the study in the Journal of Epidemial Community Health said.

"The paper clearly describes a population of rock and pop stars who are at a disproportionate risk of alcohol and drug-related deaths," said Mark Bellis, lead author of the study.

He said the study raised questions about the suitability of using rock stars for public health messages, such as anti-drug campaigns, when their own lifestyle was so dangerous.

"In the music industry, factors such as stress, changes from popularity to obscurity and exposure to environments where alcohol and drugs are easily available can all contribute to substance use, as well as other self-destructive behaviours," the report said.

It found that musicians were most at risk in the first five years after achieving fame, with death rates more than three times higher than normal.

Hendrix, Bon Scott of AC/DC and punk rocker Sid Vicious all died within five years of hitting the big time.

Among British artists, the risk of dying remains high until around 25 years after their first success. Then they return to near normal life expectancy.

That bodes well for rock survivors like The Who's 63-year-old Roger Daltrey, who famously first sang "I hope I die before I get old" in the song "My Generation" back in 1965.

But this trend was not found in the US, where ageing rockers remain almost twice as likely to suffer a premature demise, particularly from heart attack or stroke.

American stars Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys and Johnny Ramone of the Ramones all died in their 50s.

The report's author suggests that the high death rate among older American musicians could be related to the continent's greater appetite for reunion tours, exposing the artists for more years to an unhealthy "rock n roll" lifestyle.

It could also be due to the poor medical outlook for impoverished American ex-pop stars who have no health insurance, he said.

The Horror Of 'Green Living'

Funny, and scary. Cristine Odin holidayed in the recycling capital of England, in Devon. She has seen the Green Future and warns - "You don't want to live there".

Delayed trains, mobile phone coverage only available through climbing, bruised vegetables and fruit, and garbage bags returned that don't meet the standards of the recycling police :

Many of the cottages have electricity by the pound metre, no broadband and no television. Ours didn't even have a telephone line.

For about 10 days, this Rousseau-like simplicity delights. The teenagers couldn't text constantly and had to play charades after supper. The grown-ups felt virtuous after yet another two-hour trek.

The lovely feeling began to wear off when contacting friends meant long waits for my turn while media execs barked about contracts and deadlines on the bench on the village green. I quickly wearied of the Manic Organic mentality that infects locals and visitors.

The weekly refuse collectors studied each transparent bag left by our gate with forensic care and turned down one because they'd spotted a small glass jar; back came the bulging bag into our crowded kitchen.

Green conventions are as inflexible as their countless regulations. Driving 20 minutes to the nearest supermarket was a sin, so we were reduced to a diet of local vegetables and fish; no criminal air miles but plenty of mildew and bruised fruit.

I admitted to missing my power shower and was told sharply that baths are more energy-efficient.

Anyone who hinted at deviation from the norm was browbeaten into submission: you are either in the tent (accepting communal showers and wrinkled veg) or you're out.

No one wants the polar caps to melt, but those who listen to their environmental conscience should know that their programme is fine in small bursts on short holidays. In terms of life-long rules and habits, though, it's as impractical as walking everywhere.

You May Now Begin To Taser The Children

The children of the UK are now so violent and out of control they need to be electrocuted?

Police have been given the go-ahead to use Taser stun guns against children.

The relaxing of restrictions on the use of the weapons comes despite warnings that they could trigger a heart attack in youngsters.

Tasers work by firing metal barbs into the skin which then discharge an electrical charge which is designed to disable someone long enough to allow police to detain them safely.

Amnesty International claims Tasers have been responsible for 220 deaths in America since 2001. Many cities and police forces there have banned their use against minors.

Two years ago in Chicago a 14-year-old boy went into cardiac arrest after being shot with one. Medics had to use a defibrillator four times to resuscitate him.

Taser International, the American firm that makes the device, said tests on pigs suggested the weapons were safe.

150 kilo pig, 40 kilo 10 year old kid, what's the difference?

Police in the UK are now looking into computer simulations to determine what effect a round of tasering would have on pregnant women.

One of the comment's to the Daily Mail story :

If it does cull a few of the young yobs then so much the better. Our cars, houses, VCR's and the gene pool will all benefit.

As long as the VCR is safe.

Dead Sydney - A Free Online Novel Of The Bird Flu Pandemic

This will either be one hell of an adventure, or an absolute disaster. But it's too late to back out now.

From today I will be publishing three or four short chapters a week from my new novel 'ED Day' on a dedicated blog. That is, the new novel I'm still writing.

The chapters are free for you to read, download and even comment on, if you're motivated or inspired to do so by what you read. And I hope that you are. If you've ever wanted to be a book critic, before the book is finished, here's your chance. Go for it.

The first chapter of this new novel is up on this site - ED Day : Dead Sydney, and I'll be posting chapter two over the weekend. Another two chapters will go up during the next week.

The novel, written in the form of a journal, tells the story of how 300 people survive a massive bird flu pandemic that wipes out millions of people in Sydney. Some of the survivors are convinced there was nothing natural, or accidental, about the pandemic that has killed everyone they knew and everyone they loved.

As the story unfolds, you will learn more about how the pandemic came about, how the survivors met, and how they go about rebuilding their lives and society. But there are a lot of corpses to clean up first.

I started writing this novel in December last year, and in January I posted the first three chapters on a MySpace blog, where about two dozen people dived in and tore it to shreds. Not all of them were harsh, and it was a fascinating experience to get such immediate feedback and get caught up in discussions about the characters and what was going to happen to them.

I've sent an invite over to those readers, and I hope they'll come and find out what happens to the story they began reading and then suddenly heard nothing more about, until now.

Why more writers don't give away their fiction online, or publish novels in chapter installments on the internet, is a mystery to me. The argument that giving away a novel online will stop people buying it when, or if, it's ever published simply doesn't make sense. What's the difference between reading a book for free online, and borrowing it from a library? Or sitting down in a bookshop and reading 30 or 40 pages for free during your lunch break?

I'm about two weeks ahead of what I'm publishing right now, seven chapters, and I'll try and keep at least four or five chapters ahead of what goes up on the ED Day blog. That way, if something happens, if work intervenes too much, or if I have a cataclysmic brain spasm, the regular readers won't be left hanging, waiting for another chapter. If I'm creamed by a bus, however, you'll have to work out the rest of the story for yourself.

Right now, I'm not sure how the story ends, but I think some of the situations I'm setting up might provide storylines for another novel, a sequel. Maybe. In case that does happen, I've given this novel the sub-title of 'Dead Sydney'. That way, if the story unfolds in a way that means there is another story to tell when this one finished, I can keep it going and move onto book two, but still keep it under the main title of 'ED Day'. You'll find out what ED Day stands for in Chapter Two.

I'm following Stephen King's rule about not outlining or working out a full plot for the novel. Half of the fun of this should be writing myself into corners and then trying to find a way back out.

And as the tale is set in the future, not too far in the future, I want to include details of what is happening here in Sydney now, and write about the spread of the bird flu virus in general.

Writing the novel this way may prove to be a good idea, or an extremely bad one. But, like I said, it should be fun, and if I end up with a few thousand regular readers yelling for the next chapter, I won't be able put off finishing the novel. I won't have a choice.

I'll write more about the other reasons why I'm doing this later, but for now you can jump over to ED Day and get stuck in.

Feel free to comment on what you read, and hopefully we'll get some interesting debates going.

And yes, I'm well aware of the Stephen King novel The Stand and the movie 28 Days Later. I love them both, but they aren't the only film or novels that tell their tales in a world where most of humanity has been wiped out by a plague or virus.

I can still remember seeing Charlton Heston in The Omega Man for the first time on television, very early one morning, on a school night, with the main guy wandering the empty streets of San Francisco, and retreating to his fortress at night before those absolutely freak-scary vampires came looking for him.

The 'Dead World' setting is definitely a genre unto itself now, and it's a weird and sometimes terrifying landscape to set a story in.

A quiet, still Sydney where humanity has all but disappeared is a scary place, but I like, and believe in, the idea that that survivors of such a near completely fatal pandemic as portrayed in ED Day really would help each other, and take care of each other, and get on with rebuilding their lives and society.

As Paul, the leader character of ED Day, says in Chapter Two (or maybe Chapter Three), you can only sit around in your commandeered penthouse getting hammered on free 40 year old whiskey for so long before you want to get back to work and get busy doing something worthwhile. Get busy helping people.

But the world of ED Day is not going to be full of kindness and caring and sharing.

Far from it.

The human population of Sydney has been reset back almost to zero and they will have to fight to stay alive. Plus, there's something going on outside of Sydney that none of them are even remotely aware of.

As you will discover in Chapter Three, sometime mid-week, those who leave the centre of Sydney, to try and get back home, or to see what's happening on the other side of the Harbour Bridge, never come back.

There are dark forces at work amongst the ruins of a once bustling Sydney society. And for many of those who survived the pandemic, the worst is a long way from over.

Enjoy.

ED Day - Chapter One : The Silence In The City