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#1
Welcome to 2012 and The Transition of the Ages / 2012: The Odyssey (NEW FILM)
November 29, 2006, 10:22:37
#2
Welcome to Spiritual Evolution! / Re: Mushroom drug produces mystical experience
August 19, 2006, 11:52:48
God Is In The Magic Mushrooms
This just in: Psychedelic drugs could be very good for your mind, heart, soul. Can you believe?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, August 4, 2006
Hide the children. Pour some absinthe, fluff the pillows, take off your pants. It is time.
Because now we know: Getting nicely and wholly high on illegal but completely natural hallucinogenic drugs might, just might open some sort of profound psychological doorway or serve as some sort of giddy terrifying rocket ride to a higher state of consciousness, happiness, a sense of inner peace and love and perspective and a big, fat lick from the divine.
It's true. There's even a swell new study from Johns Hopkins University that officially suggests what shamans and gurus and botany Ph.D.s and alt-spirituality types have known since the dawn of time and Jimi Hendrix's consciousness: that psilocybin, the all-natural chemical found in certain strains of wild mushrooms, induces a surprisingly large percentage of users to experience a profound -- and in some cases, largely permanent -- revolution in their spiritual attitudes and perspectives.
Not only that, but the stuff reportedly made a majority of testers feel so much more compassionate, open-hearted, connected to and awestruck by the world and the universe and God that it ranks right up there with the most profound and unfathomable experiences of their lives. I know. Stop the presses.
But let us sidestep the face-slapping obviousness. Let us look past the fact that you are meant to react to this study's findings like it's some sort of revelation, like it doesn't merely reinforce roughly 10 thousand years of evidence and modern research and opinioneering and responsible advocacy by everyone from Timothy Leary to Terence McKenna to Huston Smith to the Tibetan Book of the Dead with yet another study to add to the pile in the Science of the No Duh.
You know the type -- studies that merely reinforce ageless common sense, that simply reiterate something that's been said and understood for eons. There have been, for example, recent studies that prove that meditation actually reduces blood pressure (no!) and that MDMA (Ecstasy) is amazing at releasing inhibition and tapping the deeper psyche (shocking!) and that marijuana is roughly a thousand times less harmful than Marlboros and nine vodka tonics and smacking your family around in an alcoholic rage. You know, duh.
Because one thing painfully redundant studies like this do provide is a nicely clinical framework, a structured context from which to view a long-standing phenomenon. But here's the fascinating part: In the case of something like psilocybin, it's not so much the astounding findings that can make you swoon, it's also, well, the illuminating shortcomings of science itself.
Put another way, they are trying, once again, to measure enlightenment. They are attempting to put a frame around consciousness, cosmic awe, God. And of course, they cannot do it. Or rather, they can only go so far before they hit that point where the sidewalk ends and the world spins off its logical axis and the study's participants cannot help but deliver the death blow every scientist dreads to hear: "You cannot possibly understand."
Witness, won't you, these revelations:
The psilocybin joyriders claimed the experience included such feelings as "a sense of pure awareness and a merging with ultimate reality, a transcendence of time and space, a feeling of sacredness or awe, and deeply felt positive mood like joy, peace and love." What's more, for a majority of users, the experience was "impossible to put into words."
It doesn't stop there. Two months later, 24 of the participants (out of a total of 36) filled out a questionnaire. Two-thirds called their reaction to psilocybin "one of the five top most meaningful experiences of their lives. On another measure, one-third called it the most spiritually significant experience of their lives, with another 40 percent ranking it in the top five. About 80 percent said that because of the psilocybin experience, they still had a sense of well-being or life satisfaction that was raised either 'moderately' or 'very much.'"
You gotta read that again. And then again. Because those statements are just a little astonishing, unlike anything you will read in some FDA report on Prozac from Eli Lily. The most profound experience of their lives? One of the most spiritually significant? Can we get some of this stuff into willy Cheney's blood pudding? Into the Kool-Aid at the American Family Association? Into Israel and Lebanon?
But this is the amazing thing: Here, again, is hard science running smack into the hot cosmic goo of the mystical. Here, again, is science peering over the edge of understanding and jumping back and saying, "Holy crap." It is yet another reminder that our beautiful sciences have almost zero tools with which to quantify something like "transcendence of time and space" or "a feeling of sacredness and awe." And watching them try is either tremendously enjoyable or just depressing as hell. Or a little of both. It all depends, of course, on how you see it.
Here then, are your choices. Here are the three ways to look at the effects of magic mushrooms on the consciousness of humankind. Which angle you choose depends a great deal on how nimble you allow your mind, your heart, your spirit to be. Or maybe it's just how much wine you've had.
The first way is to simply presume that the lives of the study's participants had obviously been, up to their psilocybin joys, tremendously mediocre. So bland and so limp that something like hallucinogenic mushrooms could not help but be, in contrast, as profound as being licked by angels.
This is a clinical interpretation. The gorgeous experience itself means nothing except to say that normal life is terribly drab and crazy drugs temporarily scramble your brain in occasionally positive and interesting ways, but never the twain shall meet, so oh well let's go back to work.
But you can also take it one step further. You may conclude that the study underscores the harsh fact that we as a species are so divorced from deeper meaning, so detached from the mystical and the divine and the universal in our everyday instant-gratification lives, that it takes something like a powerful hallucinogen to show us just how meek and limited and far from merging with God we still very much are. This is the pessimistic view. And it is, by every estimate, a very primitive and sour place to be.
Ah, but then there's the third way. This is to suggest that it's exactly the other way around, that perhaps at least some of us are, as Leary and his cosmic cohorts have suggested for decades, just inches from the celestial doorway, already on the precipice of realizing that we are, in fact, the divine we so desperately seek. Problem is, we can't see the edge through the tremendous fog of consumerism and conservatism and quasi-religious muck.
But even so, every now and then we manage to take a tiny, unconscious, clumsy step ever closer to the edge, stumbling toward ecstasy without really knowing or understanding that we're doing so. And ultimately, sly entheogens like psilocybin are merely nature's way of clearing the fog for a moment, of letting us know just how close we are by smacking us upside the scientific head and tying our cosmic shoelaces together. And doesn't that sound like a fascinating way to spend the weekend?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2006/08/04/notes080406.DTL
This just in: Psychedelic drugs could be very good for your mind, heart, soul. Can you believe?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, August 4, 2006
Hide the children. Pour some absinthe, fluff the pillows, take off your pants. It is time.
Because now we know: Getting nicely and wholly high on illegal but completely natural hallucinogenic drugs might, just might open some sort of profound psychological doorway or serve as some sort of giddy terrifying rocket ride to a higher state of consciousness, happiness, a sense of inner peace and love and perspective and a big, fat lick from the divine.
It's true. There's even a swell new study from Johns Hopkins University that officially suggests what shamans and gurus and botany Ph.D.s and alt-spirituality types have known since the dawn of time and Jimi Hendrix's consciousness: that psilocybin, the all-natural chemical found in certain strains of wild mushrooms, induces a surprisingly large percentage of users to experience a profound -- and in some cases, largely permanent -- revolution in their spiritual attitudes and perspectives.
Not only that, but the stuff reportedly made a majority of testers feel so much more compassionate, open-hearted, connected to and awestruck by the world and the universe and God that it ranks right up there with the most profound and unfathomable experiences of their lives. I know. Stop the presses.
But let us sidestep the face-slapping obviousness. Let us look past the fact that you are meant to react to this study's findings like it's some sort of revelation, like it doesn't merely reinforce roughly 10 thousand years of evidence and modern research and opinioneering and responsible advocacy by everyone from Timothy Leary to Terence McKenna to Huston Smith to the Tibetan Book of the Dead with yet another study to add to the pile in the Science of the No Duh.
You know the type -- studies that merely reinforce ageless common sense, that simply reiterate something that's been said and understood for eons. There have been, for example, recent studies that prove that meditation actually reduces blood pressure (no!) and that MDMA (Ecstasy) is amazing at releasing inhibition and tapping the deeper psyche (shocking!) and that marijuana is roughly a thousand times less harmful than Marlboros and nine vodka tonics and smacking your family around in an alcoholic rage. You know, duh.
Because one thing painfully redundant studies like this do provide is a nicely clinical framework, a structured context from which to view a long-standing phenomenon. But here's the fascinating part: In the case of something like psilocybin, it's not so much the astounding findings that can make you swoon, it's also, well, the illuminating shortcomings of science itself.
Put another way, they are trying, once again, to measure enlightenment. They are attempting to put a frame around consciousness, cosmic awe, God. And of course, they cannot do it. Or rather, they can only go so far before they hit that point where the sidewalk ends and the world spins off its logical axis and the study's participants cannot help but deliver the death blow every scientist dreads to hear: "You cannot possibly understand."
Witness, won't you, these revelations:
The psilocybin joyriders claimed the experience included such feelings as "a sense of pure awareness and a merging with ultimate reality, a transcendence of time and space, a feeling of sacredness or awe, and deeply felt positive mood like joy, peace and love." What's more, for a majority of users, the experience was "impossible to put into words."
It doesn't stop there. Two months later, 24 of the participants (out of a total of 36) filled out a questionnaire. Two-thirds called their reaction to psilocybin "one of the five top most meaningful experiences of their lives. On another measure, one-third called it the most spiritually significant experience of their lives, with another 40 percent ranking it in the top five. About 80 percent said that because of the psilocybin experience, they still had a sense of well-being or life satisfaction that was raised either 'moderately' or 'very much.'"
You gotta read that again. And then again. Because those statements are just a little astonishing, unlike anything you will read in some FDA report on Prozac from Eli Lily. The most profound experience of their lives? One of the most spiritually significant? Can we get some of this stuff into willy Cheney's blood pudding? Into the Kool-Aid at the American Family Association? Into Israel and Lebanon?
But this is the amazing thing: Here, again, is hard science running smack into the hot cosmic goo of the mystical. Here, again, is science peering over the edge of understanding and jumping back and saying, "Holy crap." It is yet another reminder that our beautiful sciences have almost zero tools with which to quantify something like "transcendence of time and space" or "a feeling of sacredness and awe." And watching them try is either tremendously enjoyable or just depressing as hell. Or a little of both. It all depends, of course, on how you see it.
Here then, are your choices. Here are the three ways to look at the effects of magic mushrooms on the consciousness of humankind. Which angle you choose depends a great deal on how nimble you allow your mind, your heart, your spirit to be. Or maybe it's just how much wine you've had.
The first way is to simply presume that the lives of the study's participants had obviously been, up to their psilocybin joys, tremendously mediocre. So bland and so limp that something like hallucinogenic mushrooms could not help but be, in contrast, as profound as being licked by angels.
This is a clinical interpretation. The gorgeous experience itself means nothing except to say that normal life is terribly drab and crazy drugs temporarily scramble your brain in occasionally positive and interesting ways, but never the twain shall meet, so oh well let's go back to work.
But you can also take it one step further. You may conclude that the study underscores the harsh fact that we as a species are so divorced from deeper meaning, so detached from the mystical and the divine and the universal in our everyday instant-gratification lives, that it takes something like a powerful hallucinogen to show us just how meek and limited and far from merging with God we still very much are. This is the pessimistic view. And it is, by every estimate, a very primitive and sour place to be.
Ah, but then there's the third way. This is to suggest that it's exactly the other way around, that perhaps at least some of us are, as Leary and his cosmic cohorts have suggested for decades, just inches from the celestial doorway, already on the precipice of realizing that we are, in fact, the divine we so desperately seek. Problem is, we can't see the edge through the tremendous fog of consumerism and conservatism and quasi-religious muck.
But even so, every now and then we manage to take a tiny, unconscious, clumsy step ever closer to the edge, stumbling toward ecstasy without really knowing or understanding that we're doing so. And ultimately, sly entheogens like psilocybin are merely nature's way of clearing the fog for a moment, of letting us know just how close we are by smacking us upside the scientific head and tying our cosmic shoelaces together. And doesn't that sound like a fascinating way to spend the weekend?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2006/08/04/notes080406.DTL
#3
Welcome to News and Media! / 'It's Unconstitutional To Make Students Stand For Pledge'
June 03, 2006, 10:47:35
Judge: It's Unconstitutional To Make Students Stand For Pledge
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A federal judge ruled Thursday that it is unconstitutional to require a student to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
Judge Kenneth Ryskamp also ruled that a student does not have to get a parent's permission to be excused from reciting the pledge.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the state Board of Education and state Education Commissioner John Winn on behalf of a Boynton Beach High School student who said he was disciplined for not standing during the pledge last year.
Cameron Frazier, then a 17-year-old junior, was told by teacher Cynthia Alexandre that he was "so ungrateful and so un-American" after he twice refused to stand for the pledge in her classroom Nov. 8, the lawsuit said.
Requiring Frazier to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance is "in violation of his First and Fourth Amendment rights," the lawsuit said.
The Palm Beach County School Board voted in February that students do not have to recite the pledge or stand for it, but the lawsuit was challenging a state law that says the pledge needs to be recited at the beginning of the day at all elementary, middle and high schools.
"This is a decision about freedom and freedom in America means your right to not recite the Pledge of Allegiance or your right to recite the Pledge of Allegiance," said Howard Simon, executive director of the Florida ACLU. "The impact that we hope this decision will have is that school officials begin to respect the conscience and dignity of young people."
Kathy Schroeder, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Education said the agency is disappointed with the ruling.
"Our attorneys are reviewing the ruling to see if any further action can be taken," Schroeder said.
Attempts to reach Frazier through his attorney Randall Marshall were not immediately successful.
As part of a settlement with the Palm Beach County School District, Frazier will get $32,500 and Alexandre will be reprimanded in writing.
http://www.local6.com/news/9309410/detail.html
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- A federal judge ruled Thursday that it is unconstitutional to require a student to stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
Judge Kenneth Ryskamp also ruled that a student does not have to get a parent's permission to be excused from reciting the pledge.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the state Board of Education and state Education Commissioner John Winn on behalf of a Boynton Beach High School student who said he was disciplined for not standing during the pledge last year.
Cameron Frazier, then a 17-year-old junior, was told by teacher Cynthia Alexandre that he was "so ungrateful and so un-American" after he twice refused to stand for the pledge in her classroom Nov. 8, the lawsuit said.
Requiring Frazier to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance is "in violation of his First and Fourth Amendment rights," the lawsuit said.
The Palm Beach County School Board voted in February that students do not have to recite the pledge or stand for it, but the lawsuit was challenging a state law that says the pledge needs to be recited at the beginning of the day at all elementary, middle and high schools.
"This is a decision about freedom and freedom in America means your right to not recite the Pledge of Allegiance or your right to recite the Pledge of Allegiance," said Howard Simon, executive director of the Florida ACLU. "The impact that we hope this decision will have is that school officials begin to respect the conscience and dignity of young people."
Kathy Schroeder, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Education said the agency is disappointed with the ruling.
"Our attorneys are reviewing the ruling to see if any further action can be taken," Schroeder said.
Attempts to reach Frazier through his attorney Randall Marshall were not immediately successful.
As part of a settlement with the Palm Beach County School District, Frazier will get $32,500 and Alexandre will be reprimanded in writing.
http://www.local6.com/news/9309410/detail.html
#4
Welcome to News and Media! / Geronimo's family call on Bush to help return his skeleton
June 03, 2006, 10:45:23
Geronimo's family call on Bush to help return his skeleton
The great grandson of the Apache leader Geronimo has appealed to the big chief in the White House to help recover the remains of his famous relative - purportedly stolen more than 90 years ago by a group of students - including the President's grandfather.
The story that members of Yale University's secret Skull and Bones society took the remains - including a skull and femur - from the burial site in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, has long been part of the university's lore. But a university historian recently recovered a letter from 1918 that appears to support the story that members of the society did indeed take the remains while serving with a group of army volunteers from Yale, stationed at the fort during the First World War.
The students - among them, Mr Bush's grandfather Prescott - apparently returned with the remains and kept them in their society's headquarters at the university in New Haven, Connecticut. The society's initiation rite reportedly involves kissing a skull, referred to as "Geronimo", usually held in a glass case.
The letter from society member Winter Mead to fellow member F Trubee Davison, made public earlier this month, said: "The skull of the worthy Geronimo the Terrible, exhumed from its tomb at Fort Sill by your club... is now safe inside the [tomb] together with his well worn femurs, bit and saddle horn."
The famous Indian chief's great-grandson is appealing for President Bush's help in recovering the remains. Speaking from his home in Mescalero, New Mexico, Harlyn Geronimo said: "I am requesting his help in getting the remains - the skull and the femur - returned, if they were taken. According to our traditions the remains of this sort, especially in this state when the grave was desecrated ... need to be reburied with the proper rituals. To return the dignity and let his spirits rest in peace ... is important in our tradition." The letter was discovered by the Yale historian Marc Wortman and published in the Yale Alumni Magazine. Mr Wortman said there was still scepticism as to whether the remains were those of Geronimo - something that could probably only be proved by carrying out DNA tests.
"What I think we could probably say is they removed some skull and bones and other materials from a grave at Fort Sill," he said.
"Historically, it may be impossible to prove it's Geronimo's. They believe it's from Geronimo." Geronimo, a leader of the Chiricahua Apache, is remembered as one of the last Native American leaders to hold out against the forces of the US government. He eventually surrendered in Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, in 1886 and was moved first to Florida and then Oklahoma. He died of pneumonia at Fort Sill in 1909, and was buried at the fort's Apache Indian Prisoner of War cemetery.
The White House yesterday did not return calls seeking a comment. A Yale spokeswoman, Dorie Baker, said the university could not comment because the Skull and Bones was a separate entity and that because it was a secret society "we don't know anything". The society has not commented on the issue.
Life of a warrior
Geronimo's real name Goyathlay literally meant "one who yawns", but any further comparisons with lethargy stop there.
The Chiricahua Apache leader was head of one of the last American Indian fighting forces to formally capitulate to the United States, and gained a reputation for his bravery and ability to dodge bullets.
The feared Apache warrior took up arms against the Mexicans, and later the Americans, after Spanish troops massacred his wife and three children in 1858. His tribe was later forcibly moved by the US government to arid reservations.
Geronimo and his 35 warriors avoided the combined armies of Mexico and the US for a year before being captured in 1886 by General Nelson A Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona.
Geronimo became something of a national celebrity, despite being a prisoner. He evenrode in Roosevelt's 1905 inaugural parade, but still died a prisoner of war far from his homeland.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article622744.ece
The great grandson of the Apache leader Geronimo has appealed to the big chief in the White House to help recover the remains of his famous relative - purportedly stolen more than 90 years ago by a group of students - including the President's grandfather.
The story that members of Yale University's secret Skull and Bones society took the remains - including a skull and femur - from the burial site in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, has long been part of the university's lore. But a university historian recently recovered a letter from 1918 that appears to support the story that members of the society did indeed take the remains while serving with a group of army volunteers from Yale, stationed at the fort during the First World War.
The students - among them, Mr Bush's grandfather Prescott - apparently returned with the remains and kept them in their society's headquarters at the university in New Haven, Connecticut. The society's initiation rite reportedly involves kissing a skull, referred to as "Geronimo", usually held in a glass case.
The letter from society member Winter Mead to fellow member F Trubee Davison, made public earlier this month, said: "The skull of the worthy Geronimo the Terrible, exhumed from its tomb at Fort Sill by your club... is now safe inside the [tomb] together with his well worn femurs, bit and saddle horn."
The famous Indian chief's great-grandson is appealing for President Bush's help in recovering the remains. Speaking from his home in Mescalero, New Mexico, Harlyn Geronimo said: "I am requesting his help in getting the remains - the skull and the femur - returned, if they were taken. According to our traditions the remains of this sort, especially in this state when the grave was desecrated ... need to be reburied with the proper rituals. To return the dignity and let his spirits rest in peace ... is important in our tradition." The letter was discovered by the Yale historian Marc Wortman and published in the Yale Alumni Magazine. Mr Wortman said there was still scepticism as to whether the remains were those of Geronimo - something that could probably only be proved by carrying out DNA tests.
"What I think we could probably say is they removed some skull and bones and other materials from a grave at Fort Sill," he said.
"Historically, it may be impossible to prove it's Geronimo's. They believe it's from Geronimo." Geronimo, a leader of the Chiricahua Apache, is remembered as one of the last Native American leaders to hold out against the forces of the US government. He eventually surrendered in Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, in 1886 and was moved first to Florida and then Oklahoma. He died of pneumonia at Fort Sill in 1909, and was buried at the fort's Apache Indian Prisoner of War cemetery.
The White House yesterday did not return calls seeking a comment. A Yale spokeswoman, Dorie Baker, said the university could not comment because the Skull and Bones was a separate entity and that because it was a secret society "we don't know anything". The society has not commented on the issue.
Life of a warrior
Geronimo's real name Goyathlay literally meant "one who yawns", but any further comparisons with lethargy stop there.
The Chiricahua Apache leader was head of one of the last American Indian fighting forces to formally capitulate to the United States, and gained a reputation for his bravery and ability to dodge bullets.
The feared Apache warrior took up arms against the Mexicans, and later the Americans, after Spanish troops massacred his wife and three children in 1858. His tribe was later forcibly moved by the US government to arid reservations.
Geronimo and his 35 warriors avoided the combined armies of Mexico and the US for a year before being captured in 1886 by General Nelson A Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona.
Geronimo became something of a national celebrity, despite being a prisoner. He evenrode in Roosevelt's 1905 inaugural parade, but still died a prisoner of war far from his homeland.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article622744.ece
#5
Welcome to News and Media! / The Montana Sedition Project
June 03, 2006, 10:41:09 #6
Welcome to News and Media! / The Clownification of America
June 03, 2006, 10:37:53
The Clownification of America
By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real. Posted May 31, 2006.
Unless the loser on 'American Idol' pulls a gun and opens fire, that show belongs in the entertainment section and not on my front page.
We've turned into this nation of overfed clowns, riding around in clown cars, eating clown food, watching clown shows. We've become a nation of cringing, craven fuckups." --James Howard Kunstler, author of "The Long Emergency"
When I saw this Kunstler quote a couple of weeks ago, I thought it a bit harsh. Then I picked up my morning paper -- and, all at once, I got it.
There, in 120-point bold headline type, above the fold, the lead story of the day, was the "news" that: In less than 24 hours, singer Taylor Hicks would battle singer Katharine McPhee for the title of American Idol!
Clowns. We have indeed become a nation of frivolous, self-indulgent, overweight, undereducated, unserious, clowns. When an event of such monumental unimportance wins precious front-page status, what other conclusion can be reached?
Art has stopped imitating life and simply become a substitute for it. I flashed back to the 1967 cult TV series "The Prisoner," starring Patrick McGoohan -- a British spy kidnapped and imprisoned on an island with an Orwellian-like society. Each morning radios, newspapers and speakers announced it was "another wonderful day on the island." Every day was another wonderful day. There never was a bad day -- never mind that everyone on the island was a prisoner.
And so it has come to pass on our island, where the papers, radios and televisions no longer differentiate between news and entertainment. Where "American Idol" finals get page 1 treatment and genocide in Darfur is pushed deep inside the paper in the shadow of a 1/2-page Best Buy ad trumpeting a sale on iPod accessories.
Oh, lighten up Pizzo! People need entertainment as much as they need to know about all the bad news out there.
Yeah, fine. But let's keep the entertainment news in the entertainment section of the paper where it belongs. Can we do that? Oh, and keep the sports news on the sports page as well. The only time I want to see the name "Barry Bonds," in the news section of the paper is if major league baseball ever kicks his cheating butt out of the game. Or if he robs a bank. Or if George Bush appoints Barry head of the FDA. Otherwise, keep him and all other baseball-relating "news" where it belongs ... in the sports section.
And, unless the losing singer on "American Idol" pulls a gun and opens fire after hearing the verdict, everything else about that show belongs in the entertainment section and NOT on my front page. The same rules apply to everyone and anyone whose only claim to fame is that they sing, dance, submerge themselves in a Plexiglas globe, eat the most hot dogs in the shortest time or own a cute dog that fetches beer on command.
None of that is news. Not one word, factoid or photo-op of it is news.
It's not as if there was not real news the day "American Idol" found its way onto my front page. During that same news cycle almost anything that happened in Iraq was more important, as were the doings that day on Capitol Hill, at the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department or in Iran. On the day my paper put "American Idol" above the fold on the front page, the editors could have thrown a dart at that list of the above newsmakers and found a story more worthy of the front page.
Who wins or loses on "American Idol" may send a few thousand teenage girls squealing off in tears, but that's about the extent of the damage. On the other hand, we live in extraordinarily dangerous times. A convergence of economic, geopolitical and environmental challenges confront the human race ... any one of which could tomorrow trigger a series of events that would turn all our lives inside out.
So, news editors everywhere, let's get back to treating the front page as the sacred trust it is -- the place reserved for the most important news we need to know that day in order to exercise our responsibilities as citizens and members of the human race.
The mainstream media has become complicit in the "clownification" of the American public. As more and more newspapers and broadcast entities are gobbled up by a handful of giant media conglomerates, the news business has become a circulation/ratings game. News people now cover entertainers as though they are newsmakers. And, as if that's not bad enough, news people themselves now become entertainers -- appearing on Larry King Live and then interviewing one another. Newsmen become showmen -- the news biz, show biz.
Media companies feel they have to lure us in by blending news and entertainment into a single tasty, calorie-filled but nutrition-free product. Once hell-raisers, they are becomng clownmakers.
Aren't you embarrassed? Well damn it, you oughta be.
Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including "Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans," which was nominated for a Pulitzer.
http://www.alternet.org/story/36887/
By Stephen Pizzo, News for Real. Posted May 31, 2006.
Unless the loser on 'American Idol' pulls a gun and opens fire, that show belongs in the entertainment section and not on my front page.
We've turned into this nation of overfed clowns, riding around in clown cars, eating clown food, watching clown shows. We've become a nation of cringing, craven fuckups." --James Howard Kunstler, author of "The Long Emergency"
When I saw this Kunstler quote a couple of weeks ago, I thought it a bit harsh. Then I picked up my morning paper -- and, all at once, I got it.
There, in 120-point bold headline type, above the fold, the lead story of the day, was the "news" that: In less than 24 hours, singer Taylor Hicks would battle singer Katharine McPhee for the title of American Idol!
Clowns. We have indeed become a nation of frivolous, self-indulgent, overweight, undereducated, unserious, clowns. When an event of such monumental unimportance wins precious front-page status, what other conclusion can be reached?
Art has stopped imitating life and simply become a substitute for it. I flashed back to the 1967 cult TV series "The Prisoner," starring Patrick McGoohan -- a British spy kidnapped and imprisoned on an island with an Orwellian-like society. Each morning radios, newspapers and speakers announced it was "another wonderful day on the island." Every day was another wonderful day. There never was a bad day -- never mind that everyone on the island was a prisoner.
And so it has come to pass on our island, where the papers, radios and televisions no longer differentiate between news and entertainment. Where "American Idol" finals get page 1 treatment and genocide in Darfur is pushed deep inside the paper in the shadow of a 1/2-page Best Buy ad trumpeting a sale on iPod accessories.
Oh, lighten up Pizzo! People need entertainment as much as they need to know about all the bad news out there.
Yeah, fine. But let's keep the entertainment news in the entertainment section of the paper where it belongs. Can we do that? Oh, and keep the sports news on the sports page as well. The only time I want to see the name "Barry Bonds," in the news section of the paper is if major league baseball ever kicks his cheating butt out of the game. Or if he robs a bank. Or if George Bush appoints Barry head of the FDA. Otherwise, keep him and all other baseball-relating "news" where it belongs ... in the sports section.
And, unless the losing singer on "American Idol" pulls a gun and opens fire after hearing the verdict, everything else about that show belongs in the entertainment section and NOT on my front page. The same rules apply to everyone and anyone whose only claim to fame is that they sing, dance, submerge themselves in a Plexiglas globe, eat the most hot dogs in the shortest time or own a cute dog that fetches beer on command.
None of that is news. Not one word, factoid or photo-op of it is news.
It's not as if there was not real news the day "American Idol" found its way onto my front page. During that same news cycle almost anything that happened in Iraq was more important, as were the doings that day on Capitol Hill, at the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department or in Iran. On the day my paper put "American Idol" above the fold on the front page, the editors could have thrown a dart at that list of the above newsmakers and found a story more worthy of the front page.
Who wins or loses on "American Idol" may send a few thousand teenage girls squealing off in tears, but that's about the extent of the damage. On the other hand, we live in extraordinarily dangerous times. A convergence of economic, geopolitical and environmental challenges confront the human race ... any one of which could tomorrow trigger a series of events that would turn all our lives inside out.
So, news editors everywhere, let's get back to treating the front page as the sacred trust it is -- the place reserved for the most important news we need to know that day in order to exercise our responsibilities as citizens and members of the human race.
The mainstream media has become complicit in the "clownification" of the American public. As more and more newspapers and broadcast entities are gobbled up by a handful of giant media conglomerates, the news business has become a circulation/ratings game. News people now cover entertainers as though they are newsmakers. And, as if that's not bad enough, news people themselves now become entertainers -- appearing on Larry King Live and then interviewing one another. Newsmen become showmen -- the news biz, show biz.
Media companies feel they have to lure us in by blending news and entertainment into a single tasty, calorie-filled but nutrition-free product. Once hell-raisers, they are becomng clownmakers.
Aren't you embarrassed? Well damn it, you oughta be.
Stephen Pizzo is the author of numerous books, including "Inside Job: The Looting of America's Savings and Loans," which was nominated for a Pulitzer.
http://www.alternet.org/story/36887/
#7
Welcome to News and Media! / The BURNING Man
June 03, 2006, 10:24:35
would if i could!
come to australia burning man!
come to australia burning man!
#8
Welcome to News and Media! / All Hail the Surveillance State.....
May 17, 2006, 09:18:44
All Hail the Surveillance State: The attempt by Big Telco to control the internet makes the spy scandal a mere misdemeanor.
By Danny Schechter
Attention, chickens: You may soon be coming home to roost.
The word has gone out in the windowless buildings that house the switching equipment and state-of-the-art technology -- in what used to be called phone companies before they morphed into communication giants -- that a day of reckoning may be on the horizon for Verizon and its mates.
These chickens have been clucking at each other and gobbling each other up for years, silently reestablishing the old monopoly Bell System under the guise of new competitive guidelines. Private industries are once again putting together what the federal courts tore asunder. Oligopoly seems to be the highest expression of "free" market logic and its logical consequence.
At issue now are historically unprecedented and massive violations of privacy that we learned about from a rare occurrence: a newspaper actually doing its job. USA Today of all papers, blew the whistle on a massive government surveillance program run by the National Insecurity Agency tapping millions of phones, cell phones and every manner of communications devices.
It's called "data mining," and it's now the scandal du jour as National Security journalist William Arkin explains, "This NSA-dominated program of ingestion, digestion and distribution of intelligence raises profound questions about the privacy and civil liberties of all Americans."
He warns, "An all-seeing domestic surveillance is slowly being established, one that in just a few years time will be able track the activities and 'transactions' of any targeted individual in near real time."
Knee-jerk supporters of the Bush agenda were backhanded in their support. Here's Neil Cavuto on Fox News implying that all of this spying is needed to protect us: "Yes, it is not great to necessarily hear they're collecting our phone records, but it's a heck of a lot better than collecting our remains."
Since this news broke, the Telco companies went into full PR spin mode as theNew York Times reported Saturday: "Those companies insisted that they were vigilant about their customers' privacy, but did not directly address their cooperation with the government effort, which was reported on Thursday by USA Today. Verizon said that it provided customer information to a government agency 'only where authorized by law for appropriately defined and focused purposes,' but that it could not comment on any relationship with a national security program that was 'highly classified.'
"Legal experts said the companies faced the prospect of lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages over cooperation in the program, citing communications privacy legislation stretching back to the 1930s. A federal lawsuit was filed in Manhattan yesterday seeking as much as $50 billion in civil damages against Verizon on behalf of its subscribers."
Unfortunately, buried in all the reporting on the latest juicy scandal at a time of cascading horror stories is something even worse: These same companies, rip-off artists that they are, have their wallets set and lobbyists targeted in taking over the internet. This felonious attempt by the telcos to control the most powerful communications medium in the world makes the spy scandal a mere misdemeanor.
Note which story is getting most of the attention!
TV pundit Paul Begala made this point on CNN: "Big government is getting into bed with big business. We're talking about AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. AT&T, by the way, wants to take over the internet and start charging for access to the internet, which internet pioneers desperately oppose.
"So, now, if you are running AT&T, and the president of the United States comes to you and says, 'Hey, why don't I spy, why don't I snoop through your files there,' and you want him to give you permission to control the internet — that's a really lousy alliance politically for the Republicans, to be seen as big government in bed with big business."
This collusion between the corporate world and the Busheviks mirrors the pre-war complicity at the FCC between the news networks and the government. The covert quid pro quo then had the TV nets telling the regulators essentially, "You waive the rules, and we will wave the flag."
The blogger Billmon raises an even darker specter, writing, "What makes the program so scary, at least to me, isn't the possibility that it was built to serve some sinister purpose, like subverting what's left of American democracy (which is scary enough), but rather that it may be the end product of a national security bureaucracy running completely out of control -- even more so now than during the worst years of the Cold War.
"Rogue actors can still be voted out of office, even impeached. But a rogue Leviathan is another story. Certainly, the details that have come to light about the program so far smack of what can only be described as bureaucratic megalomania: 'It's the largest database ever assembled in the world,' said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added.
"It sounds suspiciously like Robert Klein's old standup routine about the late-night TV ad that promises to send you 'every record ever made.'
"I'm certainly no technical expert, but I find it really hard to believe that collecting such a staggering horde -- 2 trillion call records since 2001 -- will yield useful intelligence about a relatively small and increasingly amorphous network of clandestine operatives who by now have almost certainly learned not to use the phones. ..."
This surveillance scenario now has a space component as well with the little-known National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGIA) watching us from satellites in space.
AP reports: "With help, the agency can also zoom in. Its officials cooperate with private groups, such as hotel security, to get access to footage of a lobby or ballroom. That video can then be linked with mapping and graphical data to help secure events or take action, if a hostage situation or other catastrophe happens.
"Privacy advocates wonder how much the agency picks up and stores. ... Among the government's most closely guarded secrets, the quality of pictures NGA receives from classified satellites is believed to far exceed the one-meter resolution available commercially. That means they can take a satellite "snapshot'' from high above the atmosphere that is crisply detailed down to one-meter level, which is 3.3 feet."
To Billmon, this increasingly permanent scandal and insidious threat recalls the words of Thomas Hobbes in "The Leviathan," written in 1651.
"It appeareth plainly, to my understanding, both from reason and Scripture, that the sovereign power. ... is as great as possibly men can be imagined to make it. And though of so unlimited a power men may fancy many evil consequences, yet the consequences of the want of it, which is perpetual war of every man against his neighbor, are much worse."
The convergence between the telcos and the internet, the broadcasters and the broadbanders is birthing a new media world. But it's not just the old media that is at risk. Our democracy is imperiled, and not just by the unchecked power of big government. The corporate world lurks in the shadows here. They are the "men behind the curtain." It is our our job as concerned citizens to take crises like the ones now surfacing and deepen them and raise bloody hell before their new technologies take us backward into the future.
Hobbes' "Leviathan" begat Orwell's "1984" and Huxley's "Brave New World." His worries are still timely, and, as Billmon intimates, it offers a vision of chickens -- and chicken hawks -- playing "gobble, gobble" with our freedoms and our lives.
"Having entrusted their security and their liberties to the beast," he writes, "Leviathan's subjects will be lucky not to wind up like Jonah, lodged in its belly."
___
Danny Schechter writes a blog for MediaChannel.org. He is the author of "Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception: How the Media Failed to Cover the War on Iraq" (Prometheus).
http://www.alternet.org/story/36280/
By Danny Schechter
Attention, chickens: You may soon be coming home to roost.
The word has gone out in the windowless buildings that house the switching equipment and state-of-the-art technology -- in what used to be called phone companies before they morphed into communication giants -- that a day of reckoning may be on the horizon for Verizon and its mates.
These chickens have been clucking at each other and gobbling each other up for years, silently reestablishing the old monopoly Bell System under the guise of new competitive guidelines. Private industries are once again putting together what the federal courts tore asunder. Oligopoly seems to be the highest expression of "free" market logic and its logical consequence.
At issue now are historically unprecedented and massive violations of privacy that we learned about from a rare occurrence: a newspaper actually doing its job. USA Today of all papers, blew the whistle on a massive government surveillance program run by the National Insecurity Agency tapping millions of phones, cell phones and every manner of communications devices.
It's called "data mining," and it's now the scandal du jour as National Security journalist William Arkin explains, "This NSA-dominated program of ingestion, digestion and distribution of intelligence raises profound questions about the privacy and civil liberties of all Americans."
He warns, "An all-seeing domestic surveillance is slowly being established, one that in just a few years time will be able track the activities and 'transactions' of any targeted individual in near real time."
Knee-jerk supporters of the Bush agenda were backhanded in their support. Here's Neil Cavuto on Fox News implying that all of this spying is needed to protect us: "Yes, it is not great to necessarily hear they're collecting our phone records, but it's a heck of a lot better than collecting our remains."
Since this news broke, the Telco companies went into full PR spin mode as theNew York Times reported Saturday: "Those companies insisted that they were vigilant about their customers' privacy, but did not directly address their cooperation with the government effort, which was reported on Thursday by USA Today. Verizon said that it provided customer information to a government agency 'only where authorized by law for appropriately defined and focused purposes,' but that it could not comment on any relationship with a national security program that was 'highly classified.'
"Legal experts said the companies faced the prospect of lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages over cooperation in the program, citing communications privacy legislation stretching back to the 1930s. A federal lawsuit was filed in Manhattan yesterday seeking as much as $50 billion in civil damages against Verizon on behalf of its subscribers."
Unfortunately, buried in all the reporting on the latest juicy scandal at a time of cascading horror stories is something even worse: These same companies, rip-off artists that they are, have their wallets set and lobbyists targeted in taking over the internet. This felonious attempt by the telcos to control the most powerful communications medium in the world makes the spy scandal a mere misdemeanor.
Note which story is getting most of the attention!
TV pundit Paul Begala made this point on CNN: "Big government is getting into bed with big business. We're talking about AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. AT&T, by the way, wants to take over the internet and start charging for access to the internet, which internet pioneers desperately oppose.
"So, now, if you are running AT&T, and the president of the United States comes to you and says, 'Hey, why don't I spy, why don't I snoop through your files there,' and you want him to give you permission to control the internet — that's a really lousy alliance politically for the Republicans, to be seen as big government in bed with big business."
This collusion between the corporate world and the Busheviks mirrors the pre-war complicity at the FCC between the news networks and the government. The covert quid pro quo then had the TV nets telling the regulators essentially, "You waive the rules, and we will wave the flag."
The blogger Billmon raises an even darker specter, writing, "What makes the program so scary, at least to me, isn't the possibility that it was built to serve some sinister purpose, like subverting what's left of American democracy (which is scary enough), but rather that it may be the end product of a national security bureaucracy running completely out of control -- even more so now than during the worst years of the Cold War.
"Rogue actors can still be voted out of office, even impeached. But a rogue Leviathan is another story. Certainly, the details that have come to light about the program so far smack of what can only be described as bureaucratic megalomania: 'It's the largest database ever assembled in the world,' said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added.
"It sounds suspiciously like Robert Klein's old standup routine about the late-night TV ad that promises to send you 'every record ever made.'
"I'm certainly no technical expert, but I find it really hard to believe that collecting such a staggering horde -- 2 trillion call records since 2001 -- will yield useful intelligence about a relatively small and increasingly amorphous network of clandestine operatives who by now have almost certainly learned not to use the phones. ..."
This surveillance scenario now has a space component as well with the little-known National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGIA) watching us from satellites in space.
AP reports: "With help, the agency can also zoom in. Its officials cooperate with private groups, such as hotel security, to get access to footage of a lobby or ballroom. That video can then be linked with mapping and graphical data to help secure events or take action, if a hostage situation or other catastrophe happens.
"Privacy advocates wonder how much the agency picks up and stores. ... Among the government's most closely guarded secrets, the quality of pictures NGA receives from classified satellites is believed to far exceed the one-meter resolution available commercially. That means they can take a satellite "snapshot'' from high above the atmosphere that is crisply detailed down to one-meter level, which is 3.3 feet."
To Billmon, this increasingly permanent scandal and insidious threat recalls the words of Thomas Hobbes in "The Leviathan," written in 1651.
"It appeareth plainly, to my understanding, both from reason and Scripture, that the sovereign power. ... is as great as possibly men can be imagined to make it. And though of so unlimited a power men may fancy many evil consequences, yet the consequences of the want of it, which is perpetual war of every man against his neighbor, are much worse."
The convergence between the telcos and the internet, the broadcasters and the broadbanders is birthing a new media world. But it's not just the old media that is at risk. Our democracy is imperiled, and not just by the unchecked power of big government. The corporate world lurks in the shadows here. They are the "men behind the curtain." It is our our job as concerned citizens to take crises like the ones now surfacing and deepen them and raise bloody hell before their new technologies take us backward into the future.
Hobbes' "Leviathan" begat Orwell's "1984" and Huxley's "Brave New World." His worries are still timely, and, as Billmon intimates, it offers a vision of chickens -- and chicken hawks -- playing "gobble, gobble" with our freedoms and our lives.
"Having entrusted their security and their liberties to the beast," he writes, "Leviathan's subjects will be lucky not to wind up like Jonah, lodged in its belly."
___
Danny Schechter writes a blog for MediaChannel.org. He is the author of "Embedded: Weapons of Mass Deception: How the Media Failed to Cover the War on Iraq" (Prometheus).
http://www.alternet.org/story/36280/
#9
Welcome to News and Media! / CNN's Bush Moment
May 17, 2006, 09:13:46
CNN's Bush Moment
Video-WMP | Video-QT
CNN was a little over anxious in their coverage of Bush's speech tonight.
Wolf: Let me interrupt for a second. I think what happened Jeff, is that the President is rehearsing and the pool, the network pool inadvertently went to the President as he was rehearsing...
Just another CNN conspiracy moment to make our Commander in Chief look bad.
Update: CNN just sent me an email with a document saying that:"NBC stage manager has now admitted he cued the president early and CNN was the only network ready to go."
(h/t David Edwards)
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/05/15.html#a8302
Video-WMP | Video-QT
CNN was a little over anxious in their coverage of Bush's speech tonight.
Wolf: Let me interrupt for a second. I think what happened Jeff, is that the President is rehearsing and the pool, the network pool inadvertently went to the President as he was rehearsing...
Just another CNN conspiracy moment to make our Commander in Chief look bad.
Update: CNN just sent me an email with a document saying that:"NBC stage manager has now admitted he cued the president early and CNN was the only network ready to go."
(h/t David Edwards)
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/05/15.html#a8302
#10
Welcome to News and Media! / Genetically 'Enhanced' Humans
May 05, 2006, 05:58:54
Genetically 'Enhanced' Humans: The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity Denounces NIH Funding of Genetic Re-Engineering Project
Contact: Joe Carter, Director of Communications for The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, 847-525-4184, jpcarter@cbhd.org[/b]
CHICAGO, May 3 -- The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity strongly denounces the decision by the National Institute of Health (NIH) to fund a project to develop guidelines for the use of human subjects in genetic enhancement research. The grant, totaling almost three-quarters of a million dollars, is being given to Maxwell Mehlman and Case Law School to promote the genetic re-engineering of human beings for non-therapeutic purposes under the rubric of "enhancement."
"This is a violation of the spirit of the NIH-sponsored Human Genome Project," says CBHD Senior Fellow C. Ben Mitchell. "Providing this grant signals a fundamental and dangerous change in the policy of the NIH, resurrecting the mistaken goals of the eugenics programs in the United States and Europe in the early twentieth century."
The project has been charged with "determining the conditions under which it would be ethical to conduct genetic enhancement research using human subjects," implying that scientists, physicians, politicians, ethicists or the public at large, condones such research.
"The project presupposes that it is ethical to reengineer normal human beings," says CBHD President Dr. Andrew Fergusson. "But in a society which correctly decries the use of artificial means, such as steroids to 'enhance' athletic abilities, the presumption of the NIH to pursue the re-engineering of human beings is the height of scientific and social arrogance."
By choosing to pursue an agenda for re-engineering humankind, the NIH has clearly demonstrated an inadequate degree of oversight of its funding activities. The White House and Congress must investigate this blatant misuse of taxpayer funds. CBHD is a strong advocate of research for healing, and is deeply saddened that this incredibly important instrument of good is being used for a course of evil.
For interviews with Center personnel, contact Joe Carter, 847- 525-4184, jpcarter@cbhd.org
______________
About The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity
The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization. CBHD recognizes that developments in healthcare and biotechnology create amazing opportunities as well as serious threats to human dignity, and to human life itself. The Center brings biblical-Christian perspectives to bear on current and emerging bioethical challenges, by developing cutting-edge critiques and constructive alternatives to meet the real human needs involved.
http://www.raidersnewsupdate.com/lead-story235.htm
Contact: Joe Carter, Director of Communications for The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity, 847-525-4184, jpcarter@cbhd.org[/b]
CHICAGO, May 3 -- The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity strongly denounces the decision by the National Institute of Health (NIH) to fund a project to develop guidelines for the use of human subjects in genetic enhancement research. The grant, totaling almost three-quarters of a million dollars, is being given to Maxwell Mehlman and Case Law School to promote the genetic re-engineering of human beings for non-therapeutic purposes under the rubric of "enhancement."
"This is a violation of the spirit of the NIH-sponsored Human Genome Project," says CBHD Senior Fellow C. Ben Mitchell. "Providing this grant signals a fundamental and dangerous change in the policy of the NIH, resurrecting the mistaken goals of the eugenics programs in the United States and Europe in the early twentieth century."
The project has been charged with "determining the conditions under which it would be ethical to conduct genetic enhancement research using human subjects," implying that scientists, physicians, politicians, ethicists or the public at large, condones such research.
"The project presupposes that it is ethical to reengineer normal human beings," says CBHD President Dr. Andrew Fergusson. "But in a society which correctly decries the use of artificial means, such as steroids to 'enhance' athletic abilities, the presumption of the NIH to pursue the re-engineering of human beings is the height of scientific and social arrogance."
By choosing to pursue an agenda for re-engineering humankind, the NIH has clearly demonstrated an inadequate degree of oversight of its funding activities. The White House and Congress must investigate this blatant misuse of taxpayer funds. CBHD is a strong advocate of research for healing, and is deeply saddened that this incredibly important instrument of good is being used for a course of evil.
For interviews with Center personnel, contact Joe Carter, 847- 525-4184, jpcarter@cbhd.org
______________
About The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity
The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization. CBHD recognizes that developments in healthcare and biotechnology create amazing opportunities as well as serious threats to human dignity, and to human life itself. The Center brings biblical-Christian perspectives to bear on current and emerging bioethical challenges, by developing cutting-edge critiques and constructive alternatives to meet the real human needs involved.
http://www.raidersnewsupdate.com/lead-story235.htm
#11
Welcome to News and Media! / London blasts had no direct al Qaeda support
April 10, 2006, 07:37:37
London blasts had no direct al Qaeda support
The London bombings last July were planned on a shoestring budget from information on the Internet and with no direct support from al Qaeda, a British newspaper on Sunday quoted a government report as saying.
The attacks on the London transport network that killed 52 people were the product of a "simple and inexpensive" plot hatched by four British suicide bombers bent on martyrdom, the Observer newspaper reported.
The four men had scoured "terror (Web) sites" on the Internet and their knapsack bombs cost only a few hundred pounds (dollars), The Observer said, citing a draft of the government's definitive report on the blasts.
Some terrorism experts have in the past cast doubt on reports that bombers could learn how to make the devices from the Internet.
After the July 7 attacks, police found an unused explosive rucksack in the bombers' abandoned car, leading to a manhunt for a missing suspect, but the report concludes there was no fifth bomber, the newspaper said.
The official report, due to be published in the next few weeks, also found nothing to support the theory that an al Qaeda fixer, presumed to be from Pakistan, helped plan the attacks.
The report does conclude that the four suicide bombers were partly inspired by ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan's trips to Pakistan.
Three of the attackers who carried out western Europe's first suicide bombing were British-born men of Pakistani origin, and the fourth was born in Jamaica.
The British government has rejected calls for a full public inquiry into the London bombings, drawing criticism from victims, politicians and pressure groups.
It has argued that an independent probe could prejudice investigations into the attack.
Source
The London bombings last July were planned on a shoestring budget from information on the Internet and with no direct support from al Qaeda, a British newspaper on Sunday quoted a government report as saying.
The attacks on the London transport network that killed 52 people were the product of a "simple and inexpensive" plot hatched by four British suicide bombers bent on martyrdom, the Observer newspaper reported.
The four men had scoured "terror (Web) sites" on the Internet and their knapsack bombs cost only a few hundred pounds (dollars), The Observer said, citing a draft of the government's definitive report on the blasts.
Some terrorism experts have in the past cast doubt on reports that bombers could learn how to make the devices from the Internet.
After the July 7 attacks, police found an unused explosive rucksack in the bombers' abandoned car, leading to a manhunt for a missing suspect, but the report concludes there was no fifth bomber, the newspaper said.
The official report, due to be published in the next few weeks, also found nothing to support the theory that an al Qaeda fixer, presumed to be from Pakistan, helped plan the attacks.
The report does conclude that the four suicide bombers were partly inspired by ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan's trips to Pakistan.
Three of the attackers who carried out western Europe's first suicide bombing were British-born men of Pakistani origin, and the fourth was born in Jamaica.
The British government has rejected calls for a full public inquiry into the London bombings, drawing criticism from victims, politicians and pressure groups.
It has argued that an independent probe could prejudice investigations into the attack.
Source
#12
Welcome to News and Media! / Police 'too busy' to watch CCTV film of burglaries
April 10, 2006, 07:33:18
Police 'too busy' to watch CCTV film of burglaries
Comment: They don't prevent crime and they seemingly don't help solve crime, so what is the point in so many surveillance cameras?
Police are refusing to study CCTV tapes on which criminals are caught in the act because, they say, they are too busy.
As a result, crime victims complain that they are losing faith in officers' ability to protect them.
One trader, who reported a break-in, was told that police did not have time to review footage from a camera in front of his premises.
A woman whose handbag was stolen in a cafe was told by an officer: "It's not our job to check the CCTV cameras." Cafe staff kept a tape of the incident for two weeks in case police wanted it, but then recorded over it.
Both cases involved the Metropolitan Police. A spokesman said: "If there is no clear indication that there is a good picture of the subject or incident on the CCTV camera, we have to consider the amount of hours that would be taken up by officers, and if it is the best use of their time."
However, crime victims said detectives could not possibly know whether the tapes contained vital evidence unless they examined them.
Police forces across Britain admitted to the Sunday Telegraph that they would not always view footage from a camera positioned outside a shop that had been burgled overnight. Nine out of 52 constabularies said that in such a case they would not necessarily view the tape.
When Teddington Station Garden Centre in south-west London was broken into last month, the owner, Nigel Dawes, alerted police, but was told that no one would review the evidence from a nearby CCTV camera installed by Richmond council.
He asked the council whether he could watch the film, but was told that this was illegal. He called the police action "disgraceful". He said: "They're running an anti-burglary campaign around here, with signs saying, 'This area is under surveillance', but a few high-profile cases where they caught someone could be a good deterrent."
The council said it always responded to police requests for film. After Mr Dawes complained, council staff watched the footage and passed on their findings to police. No one has been arrested.
Forces that said they would not always view film of a burgled shop were Bedfordshire, Humberside, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, South Wales, Suffolk, West Midlands and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Lincolnshire Police said: "It would depend on the workload of the officer allocated to the case and other priorities, which may include a serious assault or robbery."
South Wales Police said: "There are considerations of manpower available and many other considerations."
Humberside operated a controversial "screening policy" last month in which commercial burglaries, theft, criminal damage and common assault were not routinely investigated unless they were carried out by prolific offenders, involved vulnerable or repeat victims, or were classed as racist or homophobic.
However, 31 forces said they would always be prepared to watch overnight film of a burgled shop. The Home Office said such decisions were an operational matter for forces. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: "The first priority of the police is to catch criminals."
The Federation of Small Businesses said the failure of some forces to review CCTV evidence summed up the low priority with which police treated crimes against commercial premises. A spokesman said: "Low-level crimes like vandalism, graffiti and burglary can wear down a business and damage the confidence of shoppers and investors in an area."
Source
Comment: They don't prevent crime and they seemingly don't help solve crime, so what is the point in so many surveillance cameras?
Police are refusing to study CCTV tapes on which criminals are caught in the act because, they say, they are too busy.
As a result, crime victims complain that they are losing faith in officers' ability to protect them.
One trader, who reported a break-in, was told that police did not have time to review footage from a camera in front of his premises.
A woman whose handbag was stolen in a cafe was told by an officer: "It's not our job to check the CCTV cameras." Cafe staff kept a tape of the incident for two weeks in case police wanted it, but then recorded over it.
Both cases involved the Metropolitan Police. A spokesman said: "If there is no clear indication that there is a good picture of the subject or incident on the CCTV camera, we have to consider the amount of hours that would be taken up by officers, and if it is the best use of their time."
However, crime victims said detectives could not possibly know whether the tapes contained vital evidence unless they examined them.
Police forces across Britain admitted to the Sunday Telegraph that they would not always view footage from a camera positioned outside a shop that had been burgled overnight. Nine out of 52 constabularies said that in such a case they would not necessarily view the tape.
When Teddington Station Garden Centre in south-west London was broken into last month, the owner, Nigel Dawes, alerted police, but was told that no one would review the evidence from a nearby CCTV camera installed by Richmond council.
He asked the council whether he could watch the film, but was told that this was illegal. He called the police action "disgraceful". He said: "They're running an anti-burglary campaign around here, with signs saying, 'This area is under surveillance', but a few high-profile cases where they caught someone could be a good deterrent."
The council said it always responded to police requests for film. After Mr Dawes complained, council staff watched the footage and passed on their findings to police. No one has been arrested.
Forces that said they would not always view film of a burgled shop were Bedfordshire, Humberside, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, South Wales, Suffolk, West Midlands and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Lincolnshire Police said: "It would depend on the workload of the officer allocated to the case and other priorities, which may include a serious assault or robbery."
South Wales Police said: "There are considerations of manpower available and many other considerations."
Humberside operated a controversial "screening policy" last month in which commercial burglaries, theft, criminal damage and common assault were not routinely investigated unless they were carried out by prolific offenders, involved vulnerable or repeat victims, or were classed as racist or homophobic.
However, 31 forces said they would always be prepared to watch overnight film of a burgled shop. The Home Office said such decisions were an operational matter for forces. David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: "The first priority of the police is to catch criminals."
The Federation of Small Businesses said the failure of some forces to review CCTV evidence summed up the low priority with which police treated crimes against commercial premises. A spokesman said: "Low-level crimes like vandalism, graffiti and burglary can wear down a business and damage the confidence of shoppers and investors in an area."
Source
#13
Welcome to News and Media! / Serb President Blames Tribunal for Death
March 14, 2006, 10:23:51
Serb President Blames Tribunal for Death
BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro -- Serbian President Boris Tadic said Monday the U.N. war crimes tribunal is responsible for Slobodan Milosevic's death, but he added that it would not hamper Serbia's future cooperation with the court.
"Undoubtedly, Milosevic had demanded a higher level of health care," Tadic said in an interview with The Associated Press. "That right should have been granted to all war crimes defendants."
He added, "I think they are responsible for what happened."
Milosevic died Saturday of a heart attack in his prison cell near the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. The former Serbian president had recently demanded to be temporarily released to go to Moscow for treatment after years of suffering from heart problems and high blood pressure.
But the judges refused, ruling that even with Russian guarantees to send him back to the court, they were afraid he would not return.
"Unfortunately, today we are getting messages from the tribunal that they are not responsible," Tadic said. "I think they are responsible for what happened."
A Dutch toxicologist said Monday that Milosevic was taking antibiotics that diluted prescriptions for his ailments while he was pleading with a U.N. tribunal for permission to get treatment in Russia.
Tadic, whose Democratic Party led a popular revolt that toppled Milosevic in 2000, said that despite "the lack of credibility" the tribunal has among Serbs, Serbia will try to hand over more war crimes suspects, including top fugitive Ratko Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb army commander wanted on genocide charges.
Milosevic's death "won't jeopardize our cooperation with the tribunal," Tadic said.
Tadic reiterated that he would not issue a pardon that would abolish an international arrest warrant for Milosevic's widow, Mirjana Markovic, if she planned to attend his funeral in Belgrade. He said that the ultimate decision on the warrant would be made by a Serbian court Tuesday.
"I won't lift the responsibility off the person who is suspected of some very serious crimes in the past," Tadic said. He also said that holding a state funeral for Milosevic "would be highly inappropriate."
A Belgrade district court said Monday it would reconsider a demand by Milosevic's family lawyers to waive an arrest warrant for Markovic to enable her to return from Russia and attend the ex-president's funeral.
It remains unclear where and how Milosevic will be buried.
Markovic, considered the power behind the scenes during Milosevic's warmongering 1990s rule, has been charged here with abuse of power during Milosevic's reign. Some other allegations link her directly to several murders of Milosevic's political opponents.
Tadic said he was certain that Milosevic's death would not help his ultranationalist allies regain power in Serbia, despite signs that they have rallied around the policies of their former leader.
"Today in Serbia we have a fight (for power) by those who ruled together with Milosevic," Tadic said, referring to Radical Party ultranationalists and Milosevic's Socialists.
"But I'm absolutely confident that there will be no turning back on the political scene in Serbia," Tadic said. "Not even Milosevic's death will change Serbia's path toward democracy."
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-milosevic-serbia,0,7959106.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines
BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro -- Serbian President Boris Tadic said Monday the U.N. war crimes tribunal is responsible for Slobodan Milosevic's death, but he added that it would not hamper Serbia's future cooperation with the court.
"Undoubtedly, Milosevic had demanded a higher level of health care," Tadic said in an interview with The Associated Press. "That right should have been granted to all war crimes defendants."
He added, "I think they are responsible for what happened."
Milosevic died Saturday of a heart attack in his prison cell near the tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands. The former Serbian president had recently demanded to be temporarily released to go to Moscow for treatment after years of suffering from heart problems and high blood pressure.
But the judges refused, ruling that even with Russian guarantees to send him back to the court, they were afraid he would not return.
"Unfortunately, today we are getting messages from the tribunal that they are not responsible," Tadic said. "I think they are responsible for what happened."
A Dutch toxicologist said Monday that Milosevic was taking antibiotics that diluted prescriptions for his ailments while he was pleading with a U.N. tribunal for permission to get treatment in Russia.
Tadic, whose Democratic Party led a popular revolt that toppled Milosevic in 2000, said that despite "the lack of credibility" the tribunal has among Serbs, Serbia will try to hand over more war crimes suspects, including top fugitive Ratko Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb army commander wanted on genocide charges.
Milosevic's death "won't jeopardize our cooperation with the tribunal," Tadic said.
Tadic reiterated that he would not issue a pardon that would abolish an international arrest warrant for Milosevic's widow, Mirjana Markovic, if she planned to attend his funeral in Belgrade. He said that the ultimate decision on the warrant would be made by a Serbian court Tuesday.
"I won't lift the responsibility off the person who is suspected of some very serious crimes in the past," Tadic said. He also said that holding a state funeral for Milosevic "would be highly inappropriate."
A Belgrade district court said Monday it would reconsider a demand by Milosevic's family lawyers to waive an arrest warrant for Markovic to enable her to return from Russia and attend the ex-president's funeral.
It remains unclear where and how Milosevic will be buried.
Markovic, considered the power behind the scenes during Milosevic's warmongering 1990s rule, has been charged here with abuse of power during Milosevic's reign. Some other allegations link her directly to several murders of Milosevic's political opponents.
Tadic said he was certain that Milosevic's death would not help his ultranationalist allies regain power in Serbia, despite signs that they have rallied around the policies of their former leader.
"Today in Serbia we have a fight (for power) by those who ruled together with Milosevic," Tadic said, referring to Radical Party ultranationalists and Milosevic's Socialists.
"But I'm absolutely confident that there will be no turning back on the political scene in Serbia," Tadic said. "Not even Milosevic's death will change Serbia's path toward democracy."
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-milosevic-serbia,0,7959106.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines
#14
Welcome to News and Media! / Wine 'can help treat gum disease'
March 14, 2006, 10:21:08
Wine 'can help treat gum disease'
Past studies suggest red wine could cut cancer and heart disease risk
Chemicals in red wine can help prevent and treat gum disease, a study says.
Canadian scientists believe the polyphenols can block production of free radical molecules, high levels of which can damage gum tissue.
The research, by Quebec's Universite Laval, was presented to the American Association for Dental Research.
However, dentists warn there are other risks associated with drinking wine, and people should not think it was good for their teeth.
The Canadian study suggests polyphenols stop free radical production by subtly changing the make-up of proteins within the cells that control their release.
Periodontitis destroys gum tissue and is a leading cause of teeth loss, affecting millions worldwide.
It is thought to be important to keep free radicals at low levels to maintain healthy gums, otherwise they can inflict damage on the tissue.
The bacteria that cause gum disease are thought to do so by stimulating immune cells to increase their free radical production.
Doubts
Previous studies have suggested that the polyphenols in red wine may help to cut inflammation, and possibly the risk of both cancer and heart disease.
UK experts said polyphenols might prevent the inflammation getting worse - but were doubtful about their ability to block inflammation completely.
Professor Liz Kay, scientific adviser to the British Dental Association, said: "This wouldn't appear to show that red wine actually prevents periodontal disease.
"The sure way of doing so is to keep your mouth perfectly clean. That's achieved by brushing twice a day with fluoride toothpaste."
Leigh Greenwood, of the British Dental Health Foundation, said people should not think that drinking red wine was good for their teeth.
"It is important to remember that the acidic content of red wine could cause other problems, such as dental erosion.
"The best way to guard against problems such as gum disease is to adopt a good oral healthcare routine including twice daily brushing with fluoride toothpaste, daily flossing and limiting sugary food and drink to mealtimes."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4782826.stm
Past studies suggest red wine could cut cancer and heart disease risk
Chemicals in red wine can help prevent and treat gum disease, a study says.
Canadian scientists believe the polyphenols can block production of free radical molecules, high levels of which can damage gum tissue.
The research, by Quebec's Universite Laval, was presented to the American Association for Dental Research.
However, dentists warn there are other risks associated with drinking wine, and people should not think it was good for their teeth.
The Canadian study suggests polyphenols stop free radical production by subtly changing the make-up of proteins within the cells that control their release.
Periodontitis destroys gum tissue and is a leading cause of teeth loss, affecting millions worldwide.
It is thought to be important to keep free radicals at low levels to maintain healthy gums, otherwise they can inflict damage on the tissue.
The bacteria that cause gum disease are thought to do so by stimulating immune cells to increase their free radical production.
Doubts
Previous studies have suggested that the polyphenols in red wine may help to cut inflammation, and possibly the risk of both cancer and heart disease.
UK experts said polyphenols might prevent the inflammation getting worse - but were doubtful about their ability to block inflammation completely.
Professor Liz Kay, scientific adviser to the British Dental Association, said: "This wouldn't appear to show that red wine actually prevents periodontal disease.
"The sure way of doing so is to keep your mouth perfectly clean. That's achieved by brushing twice a day with fluoride toothpaste."
Leigh Greenwood, of the British Dental Health Foundation, said people should not think that drinking red wine was good for their teeth.
"It is important to remember that the acidic content of red wine could cause other problems, such as dental erosion.
"The best way to guard against problems such as gum disease is to adopt a good oral healthcare routine including twice daily brushing with fluoride toothpaste, daily flossing and limiting sugary food and drink to mealtimes."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4782826.stm
#15
Welcome to News and Media! / China to issue 1.3 billion RFID identification cards
March 10, 2006, 11:36:24
China to issue 1.3 billion RFID identification cards
http://www.computerpartner.nl/article.php?news=int&id=2718
China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS), which oversees the country's police force, plans to issue more than 1.3 billion second-generation resident identification cards based on RFID (radio frequency identification) chips, according to an industry analyst at In-Stat China.
Based on the number of new cards to be issued, the rollout represents one of the largest RFID projects in the world, according to Anty Zheng, research director at In-Stat China.
RFID tags can send and receive data over short distances. As a result, the new ID cards can be read by a reader that is within 20 centimeters to 30 centimeters of the card, Zheng said, noting that the cards are used to store basic personal information, such as name and birth date.
"It's very cheap and easy to make," Zheng said.
MPS has so far issued 102 million new cards, and plans to issue more than 300 million new cards per year for the next several years, the ministry said this week. Only local companies are allowed to participate in the project, Zheng said.
In-Stat estimated that 100 million RFID tags were sold in China during 2005. The number of tags shipped annually in China is expected to rise quickly in coming years, hitting total sales of 2.9 billion tags by 2009, it said.
The second-generation ID card project is expected to soak up most of this demand through 2008, at which time demand for RFID tags used in retail stores is expected to dominate the market, In-Stat said.
http://www.computerpartner.nl/article.php?news=int&id=2718
China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS), which oversees the country's police force, plans to issue more than 1.3 billion second-generation resident identification cards based on RFID (radio frequency identification) chips, according to an industry analyst at In-Stat China.
Based on the number of new cards to be issued, the rollout represents one of the largest RFID projects in the world, according to Anty Zheng, research director at In-Stat China.
RFID tags can send and receive data over short distances. As a result, the new ID cards can be read by a reader that is within 20 centimeters to 30 centimeters of the card, Zheng said, noting that the cards are used to store basic personal information, such as name and birth date.
"It's very cheap and easy to make," Zheng said.
MPS has so far issued 102 million new cards, and plans to issue more than 300 million new cards per year for the next several years, the ministry said this week. Only local companies are allowed to participate in the project, Zheng said.
In-Stat estimated that 100 million RFID tags were sold in China during 2005. The number of tags shipped annually in China is expected to rise quickly in coming years, hitting total sales of 2.9 billion tags by 2009, it said.
The second-generation ID card project is expected to soak up most of this demand through 2008, at which time demand for RFID tags used in retail stores is expected to dominate the market, In-Stat said.
#16
Welcome to News and Media! / 'De-programming' same as torture
March 10, 2006, 11:34:33
'De-programming' same as torture
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18400280-29277,00.html
CIVIL libertarians have said a proposal by the Federal Police chief to "de-program" terrorists is tantamount to torture, but Muslim groups say it may have merit.
Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty has said Indonesia is using a former Jemaah Islamiah leader, Malaysian-born Nasir bin Abbas, to help in the deprogramming of convicted terrorists.
The cleric attempts to turn extremists to a more moderate faith and provides information on terrorist operations to Indonesian authorities.
The process is also understood to have been used in Singapore, the United Kingdom, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Mr Keelty said the idea, which he likened to drug rehabilitation, has been raised at a policy level in Australia during talks about anti-terrorist control orders.
But Australian Council for Civil Liberties spokesman Terry O'Gorman compared the practice to torture.
"These countries the police commissioner mentions are involved in torture," Mr O'Gorman said.
"This deprogramming is part of the same basket of procedures."
Mr O'Gorman said there was no evidence to suggest that the practice, which was better described as "brainwashing", was effective in deterring terrorism.
"Mr Keelty draws the analogy with drug traffickers becoming informers, the reality is that someone in prison who becomes an informer knows that they face the risk of severe bashings in prison and that risk continues when they re-enter the community," he said.
"And, further, the reality is there is no inducement for this to happen, they are not going to get a discount for their sentence for participating in the exercise."
Mr O'Gorman said the proposal also failed to address the root cause of terrorism, political or ideological discontent and victimisation.
Australian Muslim Civil Rights Advocacy Network spokesman Waleed Kadous said a voluntary scheme had merit.
"It's important to highlight that already many respected scholars in the Muslim community are informally deconstructing terrorism and condemning terrorism to their congregations already," he said.
"If it's voluntary we have no objection to it, but the problem once you make is compulsory is it just won't work because religious leaders who do so will be seen as instruments of the government and will lose credibility to those people."
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18400280-29277,00.html
CIVIL libertarians have said a proposal by the Federal Police chief to "de-program" terrorists is tantamount to torture, but Muslim groups say it may have merit.
Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty has said Indonesia is using a former Jemaah Islamiah leader, Malaysian-born Nasir bin Abbas, to help in the deprogramming of convicted terrorists.
The cleric attempts to turn extremists to a more moderate faith and provides information on terrorist operations to Indonesian authorities.
The process is also understood to have been used in Singapore, the United Kingdom, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Mr Keelty said the idea, which he likened to drug rehabilitation, has been raised at a policy level in Australia during talks about anti-terrorist control orders.
But Australian Council for Civil Liberties spokesman Terry O'Gorman compared the practice to torture.
"These countries the police commissioner mentions are involved in torture," Mr O'Gorman said.
"This deprogramming is part of the same basket of procedures."
Mr O'Gorman said there was no evidence to suggest that the practice, which was better described as "brainwashing", was effective in deterring terrorism.
"Mr Keelty draws the analogy with drug traffickers becoming informers, the reality is that someone in prison who becomes an informer knows that they face the risk of severe bashings in prison and that risk continues when they re-enter the community," he said.
"And, further, the reality is there is no inducement for this to happen, they are not going to get a discount for their sentence for participating in the exercise."
Mr O'Gorman said the proposal also failed to address the root cause of terrorism, political or ideological discontent and victimisation.
Australian Muslim Civil Rights Advocacy Network spokesman Waleed Kadous said a voluntary scheme had merit.
"It's important to highlight that already many respected scholars in the Muslim community are informally deconstructing terrorism and condemning terrorism to their congregations already," he said.
"If it's voluntary we have no objection to it, but the problem once you make is compulsory is it just won't work because religious leaders who do so will be seen as instruments of the government and will lose credibility to those people."
#17
Welcome to News and Media! / NeoCon allies desert Bush over Iraq
March 10, 2006, 11:32:32
NeoCon allies desert Bush over Iraq
These are the right-wing intellectuals who demanded George Bush invade Iraq. Now they admit they got it wrong. Are you listening, Mr President?
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article350092.ece
William Buckley Jnr
INFLUENTIAL CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST AND TV PUNDIT
'One can't doubt the objective in Iraq has failed ... Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an army of 130,000 Americans. Different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgement of defeat.'
Francis Fukuyama
AUTHOR AND LONG-TERM ADVOCATE OF TOPPLING SADDAM
'By invading Iraq, the Bush administration created a self-fulfilling prophecy: Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as a magnet, a training ground and an operational base for jihadists, with plenty of American targets to shoot at.'
Richard Perle
ARCH-WARMONGER AND PIVOTAL REPUBLICAN HAWK
'The military campaign and its political aftermath were both passionately debated within the Bush administration. It got the war right and the aftermath wrong We should have understood that we needed Iraqi partners.'
Andrew Sullivan
PROMINENT COMMENTATOR AND INFLUENTIAL BLOGGER
'The world has learnt a tough lesson, and it has been a lot tougher for those tens of thousands of dead, innocent Iraqis ... than for a few humiliated pundits. The correct response is not more spin but a sense of shame and sorrow.'
George Will
RIGHT-WING COLUMNIST ON 'THE WASHINGTON POST' AND TV PUNDIT
'Almost three years after the invasion, it is still not certain whether, or in what sense, Iraq is a nation. And after two elections and a referendum on the constitution, Iraq barely has a government.'
These are the right-wing intellectuals who demanded George Bush invade Iraq. Now they admit they got it wrong. Are you listening, Mr President?
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article350092.ece
William Buckley Jnr
INFLUENTIAL CONSERVATIVE COLUMNIST AND TV PUNDIT
'One can't doubt the objective in Iraq has failed ... Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an army of 130,000 Americans. Different plans have to be made. And the kernel here is the acknowledgement of defeat.'
Francis Fukuyama
AUTHOR AND LONG-TERM ADVOCATE OF TOPPLING SADDAM
'By invading Iraq, the Bush administration created a self-fulfilling prophecy: Iraq has now replaced Afghanistan as a magnet, a training ground and an operational base for jihadists, with plenty of American targets to shoot at.'
Richard Perle
ARCH-WARMONGER AND PIVOTAL REPUBLICAN HAWK
'The military campaign and its political aftermath were both passionately debated within the Bush administration. It got the war right and the aftermath wrong We should have understood that we needed Iraqi partners.'
Andrew Sullivan
PROMINENT COMMENTATOR AND INFLUENTIAL BLOGGER
'The world has learnt a tough lesson, and it has been a lot tougher for those tens of thousands of dead, innocent Iraqis ... than for a few humiliated pundits. The correct response is not more spin but a sense of shame and sorrow.'
George Will
RIGHT-WING COLUMNIST ON 'THE WASHINGTON POST' AND TV PUNDIT
'Almost three years after the invasion, it is still not certain whether, or in what sense, Iraq is a nation. And after two elections and a referendum on the constitution, Iraq barely has a government.'
#18
Welcome to News and Media! / Soldiers in Iraq know they are fighting and dying for a lie
March 02, 2006, 23:05:09
war sucks... don't be a soldier unless you understand world politics.
#19
Welcome to News and Media! / Soldiers in Iraq know they are fighting and dying for a lie
March 02, 2006, 10:29:13
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/blog/2006/03/soldiers_in_iraq_know_they_are.html
Nearly three-quarters of the American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should withdraw within the next year and 29 percent feel we should get the hell out of the war immediately, a poll of military personnel serving in country reveals.
This jives with emails I've been getting from soldiers over the past several months and it confirms that those serving on the ground in the war don't share the rosy optimism painted by the Bush administration about the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
"Man, this gig has FUBAR written all over it," says a Marine who has served in Iraq for seven months. "Morale is the pits and nobody in our unit thinks we should be here."
The poll, conducted by Zogby International, offers a rare look into the mindset of fighting men and women serving in a war zone. That mindset is, to say the least, reflective of growing American unrest over a war based on false information and outright lies.
Among the findings by Zogby:
Only 23 percent agree with the President's position that we should "stay in Iraq as long as needed."
85 percent of those surveyed felt they were fighting the war "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks," although the 9-11 commission in 2004 found "no credible evidence" that Iraq had cooperated with al-Qaida in the attacks.
68 percent said they believed that the real reason for the war was simply to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
40 percent say the Iraqi insurgency is mostly homegrown, with very little foreign involvement - a direct contradiction of claims by the Bush administration.
55 percent flatly oppose using torture and other harsh interrogation methods on prisoners.
"Ninety-three percent said that removing weapons of mass destruction is not a reason for U.S. troops being there," says John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International. "Instead, that initial rationale went by the wayside and, in the minds of 68% of the troops, the real mission became to remove Saddam Hussein."
In another direct contradiction of stated White House policy, just 24% said that "establishing a democracy that can be a model for the Arab World" was the main or a major reason for the war.
Zogby interviewed the 944 soldiers at various locations throughout Iraq. Three quarters of the troops had served multiple tours and had a longer exposure to the conflict: 26% were on their first tour of duty, 45% were on their second tour, and 29% were in Iraq for a third time or more.
The Pentagon did not cooperate with Zogby in the survey and is trying to downplay the significance of the soldiers' responses but offered conflicting responses. In one released statement, the military brass said the troop comments were not valid because "troops in a combat zone are likely to express negative views of their situation."
Then Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable tried a different spin.
"The poll's findings certainly aren't reflective of the attitudes we see displayed by the majority of troops, who are performing in a remarkable manner in a combat situation far from home," Venable said. I asked Venable's office for any polls the military had conducted on troop attitudes and morale and they admitted they had not done any surveys but added that they based their conclusions on reports from "commanders in the field."
Emails received almost daily from soldiers in the field confirm Zogby's findings and say Pentagon claims of success and high morale are, as one National Guardsman said: "Pure unmitigated bovine excrement."
Their emails, and now Zogby's findings, show these men and women who put their lives on the line day in and day out do so for a war they fully know was based on false pretenses and they are fighting and dying for a cause that doesn't exist.
Nearly three-quarters of the American troops serving in Iraq think the U.S. should withdraw within the next year and 29 percent feel we should get the hell out of the war immediately, a poll of military personnel serving in country reveals.
This jives with emails I've been getting from soldiers over the past several months and it confirms that those serving on the ground in the war don't share the rosy optimism painted by the Bush administration about the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
"Man, this gig has FUBAR written all over it," says a Marine who has served in Iraq for seven months. "Morale is the pits and nobody in our unit thinks we should be here."
The poll, conducted by Zogby International, offers a rare look into the mindset of fighting men and women serving in a war zone. That mindset is, to say the least, reflective of growing American unrest over a war based on false information and outright lies.
Among the findings by Zogby:
Only 23 percent agree with the President's position that we should "stay in Iraq as long as needed."
85 percent of those surveyed felt they were fighting the war "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks," although the 9-11 commission in 2004 found "no credible evidence" that Iraq had cooperated with al-Qaida in the attacks.
68 percent said they believed that the real reason for the war was simply to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
40 percent say the Iraqi insurgency is mostly homegrown, with very little foreign involvement - a direct contradiction of claims by the Bush administration.
55 percent flatly oppose using torture and other harsh interrogation methods on prisoners.
"Ninety-three percent said that removing weapons of mass destruction is not a reason for U.S. troops being there," says John Zogby, President and CEO of Zogby International. "Instead, that initial rationale went by the wayside and, in the minds of 68% of the troops, the real mission became to remove Saddam Hussein."
In another direct contradiction of stated White House policy, just 24% said that "establishing a democracy that can be a model for the Arab World" was the main or a major reason for the war.
Zogby interviewed the 944 soldiers at various locations throughout Iraq. Three quarters of the troops had served multiple tours and had a longer exposure to the conflict: 26% were on their first tour of duty, 45% were on their second tour, and 29% were in Iraq for a third time or more.
The Pentagon did not cooperate with Zogby in the survey and is trying to downplay the significance of the soldiers' responses but offered conflicting responses. In one released statement, the military brass said the troop comments were not valid because "troops in a combat zone are likely to express negative views of their situation."
Then Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable tried a different spin.
"The poll's findings certainly aren't reflective of the attitudes we see displayed by the majority of troops, who are performing in a remarkable manner in a combat situation far from home," Venable said. I asked Venable's office for any polls the military had conducted on troop attitudes and morale and they admitted they had not done any surveys but added that they based their conclusions on reports from "commanders in the field."
Emails received almost daily from soldiers in the field confirm Zogby's findings and say Pentagon claims of success and high morale are, as one National Guardsman said: "Pure unmitigated bovine excrement."
Their emails, and now Zogby's findings, show these men and women who put their lives on the line day in and day out do so for a war they fully know was based on false pretenses and they are fighting and dying for a cause that doesn't exist.
#20
Welcome to Book Reviews! / The Archaic Revival
January 26, 2006, 15:38:04
supurb book in my opinion. i highly recommend it. i also highly recommend food of the gods.
rest in peace terence.
rest in peace terence.
#21
Welcome to News and Media! / Blair defeated over terror laws
November 11, 2005, 00:09:56
Tony Blair says his authority is intact despite suffering his first House of Commons defeat as prime minister.
He said he hoped MPs "do not rue the day" they rejected his call to allow police to detain terror suspects for up to 90 days without charging them.
MPs voted against by 322 votes to 291, with 49 Labour MPs rebelling, but later backed a proposal to extend the detention time limit to 28 days.
Conservative leader Michael Howard said Mr Blair should resign.
Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy warned Mr Blair could become a "lame duck" leader.
Following the defeat MPs backed by 323 to 290 votes a Labour backbench MP's proposal to extend the detention time limit to 28 days, from the current 14 days.
Authority
Mr Blair, who is planning to quit as prime minister before the next election, has said he will serve a full third term.
But Mr Howard said the vote had "so diminished" Mr Blair's authority that he should quit now.
And Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy said Mr Blair would be seen as a "lame duck" leader unless he realised he could not behave in a "quasi-dictatorial way".
"If he doesn't, then increasingly his premiership is becoming a John Major premiership, at the mercy of events, at the mercy of opposition, not just from other political parties but from within his own," said Mr Kennedy.
But Mr Blair told the BBC he did not believe the vote would affect his position as prime minister.
'Wrong decision'
"I don't think it is a matter of my authority - of course I would have preferred to have won rather than lost," he said.
He said the police had told him the case for the 90-day detention proposal was "vital" and "compelling".
It had been his duty to put the plan before MPs and it had been their right to vote against it, he said.
But, he said: "I think it was a wrong decision - I just hope in a longer time we don't rue it."
He said people would think it was "very odd" that given the advice of the police and security services, MPs had "decided to ignore their recommendation".
'Angry Blair'
Instead they had voted for a 28-day detention limit which "they have thought of themselves" without any particular justification, he said.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke said he had not suspected until half an hour before the crucial vote that the government might lose.
But he said the prime minister had not been "foolhardy" in pressing for the 90-day plan - and the defeat would make him want to go on longer in the job rather than quit.
"He's feeling angry that this important proposal for the security of the nation was not carried by Parliament and cross at our failure, my failure, to actually get across to all of our parliamentarians the scale of the issues involved," he said.
And the idea that the defeat had weakened Mr Blair's position was "quite wrong" because the proposals were not "at the core" of the government's counter-terrorism plans, he added.
'No police state'
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said she was "heartened" that MPs had defeated the 90-day plan.
In his final plea for MPs to back the plans, Mr Blair urged MPs to take the advice of the police who had foiled two terrorist plots since the 7 July attacks in London.
In heated exchanges at prime minister's questions, Mr Blair said: "We are not living in a police state but we are living in a country that faces a real and serious threat of terrorism."
Ministers had tried to reassure wavering Labour MPs by promising that the new laws would expire unless the Commons renewed them in a year's time.
Other concessions included promising scrutiny of the detention process by a High Court judge.
In a sign of the importance given to the vote, Chancellor Gordon Brown was called back within minutes of arriving in Israel for a high profile visit.
And Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also flew back early from EU-Russia talks in Moscow.
Later, in a separate vote, the government's majority was reduced to 25 when MPs backed the inclusion of "glorification of terrorism" in the Terrorism Bill
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4422086.stm
He said he hoped MPs "do not rue the day" they rejected his call to allow police to detain terror suspects for up to 90 days without charging them.
MPs voted against by 322 votes to 291, with 49 Labour MPs rebelling, but later backed a proposal to extend the detention time limit to 28 days.
Conservative leader Michael Howard said Mr Blair should resign.
Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy warned Mr Blair could become a "lame duck" leader.
Following the defeat MPs backed by 323 to 290 votes a Labour backbench MP's proposal to extend the detention time limit to 28 days, from the current 14 days.
Authority
Mr Blair, who is planning to quit as prime minister before the next election, has said he will serve a full third term.
But Mr Howard said the vote had "so diminished" Mr Blair's authority that he should quit now.
And Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy said Mr Blair would be seen as a "lame duck" leader unless he realised he could not behave in a "quasi-dictatorial way".
"If he doesn't, then increasingly his premiership is becoming a John Major premiership, at the mercy of events, at the mercy of opposition, not just from other political parties but from within his own," said Mr Kennedy.
But Mr Blair told the BBC he did not believe the vote would affect his position as prime minister.
'Wrong decision'
"I don't think it is a matter of my authority - of course I would have preferred to have won rather than lost," he said.
He said the police had told him the case for the 90-day detention proposal was "vital" and "compelling".
It had been his duty to put the plan before MPs and it had been their right to vote against it, he said.
But, he said: "I think it was a wrong decision - I just hope in a longer time we don't rue it."
He said people would think it was "very odd" that given the advice of the police and security services, MPs had "decided to ignore their recommendation".
'Angry Blair'
Instead they had voted for a 28-day detention limit which "they have thought of themselves" without any particular justification, he said.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke said he had not suspected until half an hour before the crucial vote that the government might lose.
But he said the prime minister had not been "foolhardy" in pressing for the 90-day plan - and the defeat would make him want to go on longer in the job rather than quit.
"He's feeling angry that this important proposal for the security of the nation was not carried by Parliament and cross at our failure, my failure, to actually get across to all of our parliamentarians the scale of the issues involved," he said.
And the idea that the defeat had weakened Mr Blair's position was "quite wrong" because the proposals were not "at the core" of the government's counter-terrorism plans, he added.
'No police state'
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said she was "heartened" that MPs had defeated the 90-day plan.
In his final plea for MPs to back the plans, Mr Blair urged MPs to take the advice of the police who had foiled two terrorist plots since the 7 July attacks in London.
In heated exchanges at prime minister's questions, Mr Blair said: "We are not living in a police state but we are living in a country that faces a real and serious threat of terrorism."
Ministers had tried to reassure wavering Labour MPs by promising that the new laws would expire unless the Commons renewed them in a year's time.
Other concessions included promising scrutiny of the detention process by a High Court judge.
In a sign of the importance given to the vote, Chancellor Gordon Brown was called back within minutes of arriving in Israel for a high profile visit.
And Foreign Secretary Jack Straw also flew back early from EU-Russia talks in Moscow.
Later, in a separate vote, the government's majority was reduced to 25 when MPs backed the inclusion of "glorification of terrorism" in the Terrorism Bill
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4422086.stm
#22
Welcome to News and Media! / IBM calls for global identity management solution
November 11, 2005, 00:05:44
ZDNet Asia | November 10 2005
By Vivian Yeo
Comment:
IBM has been the Globalist ID Technological arm for many many years dating back to it's shameful involvement in branding jewish prisoners in the Nazi Death Camps.
International standards backed up by a UN body are needed to clear up the international identity-verification mess, according to a senior IBM Global Services executive
The growing need for fast, accurate verification of personal identities has prompted a call from an industry observer for a global agency to set international standards.
The realm of identity and access management (IAM) is heating up as nations like the UK and the US increase their use of biometrics and other identifying technology in ID cards, border controls and other areas.
Beyond different governments "trying to create a mosaic for what they want as good identity management", wider international cooperation is needed to establish a common language and standards, said Cal Slemp, vice-president and global leader for security and privacy services at IBM Global Services. The common language for exchanging user access information is also known as federated IAM.
"Governments have a huge part to play in this, because they have ultimate responsibility for their citizens, and depending on the country, they may have ultimate responsibility for the businesses and e-commerce as well," Slemp said.
But, current efforts are piecemeal and much more can be done to exploit the potential of the federated environment, added Slemp. During a medical emergency, for instance, the identities of a foreign doctor and a visiting patient need to be established quickly and accurately, in order for the right healthcare to be administered.
What's missing right now, he noted, is a trusted third party to authenticate trustworthiness. "So we've got inconsistent and incomplete implementation [in individual countries], and also no standard approach to the future nor a target to shoot at."
Slemp believes that now is the right time to establish a global body that will consider the interests of all countries and build up a foundation, which the individual countries can expand upon to fulfil their unique requirements.
"There are organisations that work together on this issue and issues like that across borders all the time, and it can be as grandiose as to say the UN has a process in place to share information like that and create working groups to try and to create standards or expectations and across multiple jurisdictions," said Slemp. "I just don't know what the name would be."
http://www.infowars.com/articles/bb/ibm_calls_for_global_id_management.htm
By Vivian Yeo
Comment:
IBM has been the Globalist ID Technological arm for many many years dating back to it's shameful involvement in branding jewish prisoners in the Nazi Death Camps.
International standards backed up by a UN body are needed to clear up the international identity-verification mess, according to a senior IBM Global Services executive
The growing need for fast, accurate verification of personal identities has prompted a call from an industry observer for a global agency to set international standards.
The realm of identity and access management (IAM) is heating up as nations like the UK and the US increase their use of biometrics and other identifying technology in ID cards, border controls and other areas.
Beyond different governments "trying to create a mosaic for what they want as good identity management", wider international cooperation is needed to establish a common language and standards, said Cal Slemp, vice-president and global leader for security and privacy services at IBM Global Services. The common language for exchanging user access information is also known as federated IAM.
"Governments have a huge part to play in this, because they have ultimate responsibility for their citizens, and depending on the country, they may have ultimate responsibility for the businesses and e-commerce as well," Slemp said.
But, current efforts are piecemeal and much more can be done to exploit the potential of the federated environment, added Slemp. During a medical emergency, for instance, the identities of a foreign doctor and a visiting patient need to be established quickly and accurately, in order for the right healthcare to be administered.
What's missing right now, he noted, is a trusted third party to authenticate trustworthiness. "So we've got inconsistent and incomplete implementation [in individual countries], and also no standard approach to the future nor a target to shoot at."
Slemp believes that now is the right time to establish a global body that will consider the interests of all countries and build up a foundation, which the individual countries can expand upon to fulfil their unique requirements.
"There are organisations that work together on this issue and issues like that across borders all the time, and it can be as grandiose as to say the UN has a process in place to share information like that and create working groups to try and to create standards or expectations and across multiple jurisdictions," said Slemp. "I just don't know what the name would be."
http://www.infowars.com/articles/bb/ibm_calls_for_global_id_management.htm
#23
Welcome to News and Media! / Former soldier wins landmark case over Gulf War Syndrome
November 04, 2005, 03:50:32
yes, it's the least they can do for them. and if there were no sheep in the world, the bible story wouldn't be good news or bad news. and you're right about catholics i think. 
pray, and then go and get shitfaced. pray, and then go screw a bunch of men. etc. :p
pray, and then go and get shitfaced. pray, and then go screw a bunch of men. etc. :p
#24
Welcome to News and Media! / Former soldier wins landmark case over Gulf War Syndrome
November 03, 2005, 07:20:42
haha! awesome news on both accounts. 
#25
Welcome to News and Media! / Former soldier wins landmark case over Gulf War Syndrome
November 02, 2005, 07:58:57
A former guardsman suffering from Gulf War Syndrome has won a landmark legal case against the Ministry of Defence.
Daniel Martin, 35, who has suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome, memory loss and impaired concentration since the 1991 conflict, will receive a disability award under the "umbrella term" of Gulf War Syndrome.
He is one of 1,500 soldiers who made a claim for a disablement pension because of the syndrome, which, for the past 14 years, the MoD has said does not exist.
A war pensions tribunal in London yesterday ruled "the term Gulf War Syndrome is the appropriate medical label to be attached" to Mr Martin's condition. The ruling will enable the other servicemen to claim their disablement pensions.
Charles Plumridge, Co-ordinator for the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association, said: "Hundreds of veterans have applied to have the diagnostic label of Gulf War Syndrome recognised. While the Ministry of Defence has said in the House of Commons that they do not recognise the syndrome, the Pensions Appeal Tribunal has ruled that there is enough evidence to warrant the term."
Mr Plumridge, an army reservist called up at the age of 50 to serve in the first Gulf War, has been waiting five years to be granted a disablement pension from the MoD. "A precedent has now been set," he said. "I would expect, at last, the Veterans Agency to accept what everyone else already knows, and grant pensions to the 1,500 veterans who have claimed them due to Gulf War Syndrome."
The veterans claim the syndrome was caused by the many vaccinations they received before combat, including the Anthrax vaccine, combined with exposure to depleted uranium and the pesticides used on the servicemen's tents while serving in the Gulf during the Allied action.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article323846.ece
Daniel Martin, 35, who has suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome, memory loss and impaired concentration since the 1991 conflict, will receive a disability award under the "umbrella term" of Gulf War Syndrome.
He is one of 1,500 soldiers who made a claim for a disablement pension because of the syndrome, which, for the past 14 years, the MoD has said does not exist.
A war pensions tribunal in London yesterday ruled "the term Gulf War Syndrome is the appropriate medical label to be attached" to Mr Martin's condition. The ruling will enable the other servicemen to claim their disablement pensions.
Charles Plumridge, Co-ordinator for the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association, said: "Hundreds of veterans have applied to have the diagnostic label of Gulf War Syndrome recognised. While the Ministry of Defence has said in the House of Commons that they do not recognise the syndrome, the Pensions Appeal Tribunal has ruled that there is enough evidence to warrant the term."
Mr Plumridge, an army reservist called up at the age of 50 to serve in the first Gulf War, has been waiting five years to be granted a disablement pension from the MoD. "A precedent has now been set," he said. "I would expect, at last, the Veterans Agency to accept what everyone else already knows, and grant pensions to the 1,500 veterans who have claimed them due to Gulf War Syndrome."
The veterans claim the syndrome was caused by the many vaccinations they received before combat, including the Anthrax vaccine, combined with exposure to depleted uranium and the pesticides used on the servicemen's tents while serving in the Gulf during the Allied action.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article323846.ece