Beyond Fear

April 30, 2005 by element115
listen to ---> In his lated book, Beyond Fear, security guru Bruce Schneier goes beyond cryptography and network security to challenge our post-9/11 national security practices.

# "We're seeing so much nonsense after 9/11, and so many people are saying things about security, about terrorism that just makes no sense."
# "Homeland security measures are an enormous waste of money."
# "If the goal of security is to protect against yesterday's attacks, we're really good at it."
# "The system didn't fail in the way the designers expected."
# "Attackers exploit the rarity of failures."
# "More people are killed every year by pigs than by sharks, which shows you how good we are at evaluating risk."
# "Did you ever wonder why tweezers were confiscated at security checkpoints, but matches and cigarette lighters--actual combustible materials--were not?...If the tweezers lobby had more power, I'm sure they would have been allowed on board as well."
# "When the U.S. Government says that security against terrorism is worth curtailing individual civil liberties, it's because the cost of that decision is not borne by those making it."
# "...people make bad security trade-offs when they're scared."
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Counterpane Internet Security

by element115
computers will eventually become as simple and reliable as telephones.

Education and containment. Some people still open attachments, but more people don't. That's education. Containment would be efforts to limit what attachments could do. Right now, when you open an attachment in Windows, it can do anything on your computer. That simply has to stop.

Net-based passport: it's a terrible idea. Not only would it make the Internet less useful as a global societal infrastructure, it wouldn't help security very much. A digital passport would be too easy to forge and too difficult to check. And if people blindly trust the passport, it would just make things even worse.

The problem isn't the Internet. The problem is the horribly insecure computers attached to the Internet. I would rather rewrite Windows than TCP/IP.
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U.S. contracting firm accused of bilking millions and running wild in Iraq

by element115
Earlier this year, four former employees, all military veterans, said they quit after witnessing Custer Battles security escorts shooting indiscriminately at civilians, including gunning down a teenager walking along a road. The men also said guards in a truck drove over a car containing children and adults while trying to make their way through a traffic jam.
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Mossad: US Must Invade Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran

by element115
Who hired Efraim Halevy as the new Israeli Minister of Propaganda? He claims to be the National Security advisor to Ariel Sharon.
In his highly disingenuous screed "The Coming Pax Americana," former Mossad chief and propaganda-meister Efraim Halevy makes the case for the US, as a proxy of Israel, of course, to invade not only Iran, but also Syria and Saudi Arabia, once again under the guise of "bringing democracy" to the Middle East.
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Planet 'seen' around distant sun

by element115
Scientists say they have photographed a planet outside the Solar System for the first time.

It is extremely difficult for current technology to detect exoplanets - let alone getting a clear shot of one.

All of the 130 or so exoplanets so far discovered have been found using indirect methods - looking for changes in the properties of stars (their brightness or way they move) that can be explained only by the presence of a planet.

Now we have a direct observation, the European and American team says.
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Flight 93 - Flight 93 = Y

by element115
Searching for the 9-11 victims names in the registry, Sammartino writes that on Mr. Todd Beamer's Flight 93, 'of the 45 people who are listed as dying in this flight, only six are listed in the Social Security Death Index (13%).'

The 9-11 Victims Compensation Fund was part of legislation 'passed by Congress and signed into law by the President to provide compensation for economic and non-economic loss to individuals who were killed or physically injured as a result of the terrorist-related aircraft crashes of September 11, 2001. The average payout for a death claim is about 2 million, ranging from $250,000 to over $7 million.' (website)

*The website Flaunts that the 'fund is designed to provide a No-Fault alterative to tort litigation' for victims. So if a person were to ask, 'Why didn't anyone ever sue the airlines?' one could then rightfully respond, 'You leftist fool! Because of the 9-11 Victims Compensation Fund!'

Yet, of the 45 victims who are listed as dying on Flight 93, Mr. Sammartino writes, 'none are on the 9-11 Compensation Fund list.'
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Prescription for Power

by element115
The deep-pocketed pharmaceutical and health products industry has lobbied on more than 1,400 congressional bills since 1998 and spent a whopping $759 million during that period, a Center for Public Integrity review of lobbying records revealed. Drug companies and manufacturers of health products have used more professional lobbyists in the last six and a half years-almost 3,000-than any other organized interest, the analysis also found. In comparison, the insurance industry, second-largest in terms of spending, spent $644 million in the same period and employed just over 2,000 lobbyists.
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How Far Will The Army Go?

by element115
He told a recruiter that he was a dropout and didn't have a high school diploma.
"No problem," the recruiter explained. He suggested that McSwane create a fake diploma from a non-existent school.
McSwane also pretended he had a drug problem when he spoke with the recruiter.
The Army does not accept enlistees with drug problems.
The recruiter said 'Not a problem,' just take this detox ... he said he would pay for half of it ... told me where to go."
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The Disengaged

by element115
Gaza and the Fragmentation of Palestinian Nationhood
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The End of the Vietnam War, 30 Years Later

by element115
Lesson from a Total Defeat for the US
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Two Explosions in Two Hours Rock Cairo

by element115
A bomb was thrown from a bridge to the street below not far from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, killing an Arab man and injuring four foreigners, police said. A second explosion hit the capital less than two hours later.
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Israel blacklisted by U.S.

by element115
Israel is among the world's worst offenders when it comes to violation of intellectual property rights, a U.S. International Trade Commission report says.
The Commission decided to blacklist Israel as one of 14 countries identified as serious infringers when it comes to the protection of intellectual property.
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Military recruiting center attacked

by element115
An Army and Marines recruitment center was shot at eight times yesterday morning, an incident police believe is related to the airing of a television news report Thursday night that raised questions about recruitment practices.
No one was injured in the shooting, which shattered some glass at the front of the building at 7355 W. 88th Ave.
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Wolfowitz Gets Formal Sendoff

by element115
Top Pentagon officials bade an official farewell Friday to Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense who is leaving to become president of the World Bank.

Wolfowitz, 61, often described as a leading architect of the Bush administration's plan for overthrowing the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, said he looks forward to ''working on behalf of the world's poor'' as head of the Washington-based international economic development agency.
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Internet posting stirs Osama mystery

by element115
A posting on an Islamist Web site stirred speculation over the fate of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and prompted a flurry of denials on Friday that the world?s most wanted man was dead.
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U.S. accused of pro-Israel bias at 2000 Camp David

by element115
Miller, who serves today as president of the Seeds of Peace organization, charged that the United States should not have accepted Barak's proposals as "generous," but should have questioned whether they were fair and could be worked with in order to achieve a peace deal.
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Saudi Arabian King Clinically Dead

by element115
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah's visit to the United States this week to discuss oil matters with President George W. Bush, took place amid growing speculation back home that the bed-ridden King Fahd's condition has worsened with the monarch slipping out of conciousness.
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Abu Ghraib Judge Covered Up Vietnam Atrocities

by element115
...the same Judge Advocate General officer who was charged with re-investigating Tiger Force also handled the Army's review of Abu Ghraib.
His report on the Tiger Force atrocities was due over a year ago. No one from the Army has offered an explanation for its delay and the story itself is in danger of receding back into history.
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Oh, What a Lovely War

by element115
The "legality" of the Bush-Blair invasion and occupation of Iraq hasn't presented - so far - much of a problem for President Bush. However, it seems to be presenting quite a problem for Prime Minister Tony Blair.
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News as Commodity + Pervasive Information Control = Loss of Democracy

by element115
As Bill Moyers and many others have noted, democracy can't survive unless the press -- the print and broadcast media -- do their job. Democracy can't survive unless citizens have access to honest information about the stories that really matter: stories about the real actions and policies of our government and corporations; about the validity of justifications offered for going to war; about what's really happening in our economy and the environment; about the fairness and honesty of our elections. The list goes on and on.

So why aren't the mainstream news media doing their job? There are at least seven broad and interrelated reasons --->
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400,000 Signatures Needed

by element115
In commemoration of the 400,000 dead in Darfur, Africa Action has launched a petition drive to raise 400,000 voices of conscience across the country demanding immediate action to protect the vulnerable people of Darfur. The Darfur genocide petition calls on the President to assert U.S. leadership by taking every step necessary through the United Nations to:

# establish a mandate for an international force to protect civilians
# deploy such a force in support of existing African Union efforts in Darfur
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Iraq Victim's Mother 'Will Take Blair to Court'

by element115
The mother of a British soldier killed in Iraq said today she will fight "tooth and nail" to take Tony Blair to court over the death of her son and what she described as "war crimes".
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Two Women Open Fire on Tour Bus in Cairo

by element115
Two veiled women opened fire on a tour bus in a historic part of the Egyptian capital Saturday and one of them was killed in a gunbattle with security guards, authorities said.
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Genetic Mingling Mixes Human, Animal Cells

by element115
On a farm about six miles outside Reno, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs.
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"Leash Girl" to Plead Guilty to Prisoner Abuse

by element115
Pfc. Lynndie England, the Army reservist shown in some of the most notorious photos in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, will plead guilty to abusing Iraqi detainees in a case that sparked global outrage against the United States and its military.

England, 22, faces a maximum sentence of 11 years in prison as part of the plea deal, which still must be accepted by a military judge, her attorney, Rick Hernandez, said Friday. She had been facing up to 16 years.
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A Story from Occupied Palestine

April 29, 2005 by element115
...after the Israeli prisons were filled with Palestinians, and after the Israeli policies of 'bone breaking' and long imprisonment failed to stop the uprising, the army decided on a new policy, a policy of 'assassinating' the youth, or at least severely injuring and disabling them.
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Net-powered computer

by element115
Soon you could be using one fewer cable to keep your computer running.

UK firm DSP Design has made a PC that gets electric power via a network cable rather than through a wall socket.
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Putin offers aid and arms to Palestine

by element115
Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged aid and military equipment to the Palestinians to reform, boost security and rebuild the shattered economy as he wound up a historic Middle East tour.
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Not Exactly Must-See TV

by element115
The White House had promised that Bush would unveil new specifics about how he proposes to resolve Social Security's future funding shortfalls. And he did that -- but only briefly, and using language that was disingenuous at best.
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Iraq Through the Eyes of Independent Journalist

by element115
Fallujah, which was the symbol of the resistance in Iraq to the U.S. occupation and throughout the Middle East at that point is now 70% estimated to be bombed to the ground, no water, no electricity. People who want to go back into that city have to get retina scans, all ten fingers fingerprinted, then they're issued an ID card. People inside the city are referring to it as a big jail.
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Cuban, Venezuelan Leaders Woo Latin American Nations to Trade Pact Minus U.S. Leadership

by element115
Hoping to create a model for developing nations across the Western Hemisphere, the leftist presidents of Cuba and Venezuela strengthened their economic ties and promoted an alternative trade pact not led by the United States.
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Interrogations Faked at Guantanamo, Witness Says

by element115
Authorities at Guantanamo Bay staged interrogations of detainees for visiting politicians and generals to give the impression that valuable intelligence was regularly being gathered, according to a former Army translator at the camp.

Former Army Sgt. Erik Saar told CBS television show 60 Minutes that he believes "only a few dozen" of the 600 detainees at the camp were terrorists and that little information was obtained from them.

"Interrogations were set up so the VIPs could come and witness an interrogation ... a mock interrogation, basically," Saar told the program, to air on Sunday.
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Democratic backlash

by element115
The Bush administration may be openly contemplating giving economic incentives to Iran's ruling clergy in exchange for denuclearization, yet the US Congress is singing a different tune, that of regime change, as seen by a house committee's recent approval of a bill that for all practical purposes shuns any chance of US-Iran dialogue.
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A spymaster's view of the world

by element115
His prime candidate for another American military intervention is Saudi Arabia, a kingdom where he envisages a number of "terrifying scenarios", such as the establishment of an "Al Qaida state" or the disintegration of the country into a number of "parallel regimes in different regions".

He quotes "several well-informed observers" in the United States as telling him that, in such an eventuality, the United States would have no choice but to deepen its presence in the Middle East.
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Marine hung 'death sign' by bodies, witnesses testify

by element115
Fellow Marines testified yesterday that an officer who is accused of murder shot two Iraqis in the back and put a sign near the bodies bearing a Marine slogan: "No better friend, no worse enemy."
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Quantum leap in secure web video

by element115
Voice and video files streamed over the net could be made untappable and ultra-secure in the next few years thanks to a breakthrough by Toshiba.

Scientists at its Cambridge UK labs successfully demonstrated its Quantum Key Server system, which refreshes keys without interruption, on video.

Simply put, quantum cryptography involves encoding bits of encryption data onto particles of light - photons.

It is an emerging technology which is set to revolutionise digital security.
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Buried Treasure

by element115
Chris Floyd ---> The network links a bewildering line-up of players -- the Bushes, the Vatican, bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and China's Communist overlords, among others -- in a staggering array of crime and turpitude: prostitution, pedophilia, mass death and war profiteering. Yet this is not some grand "conspiracy theory," a serpent's egg hatched in Bilderberg or Bohemian Grove. It's simply the way the Bush boys do business, trawling the globe for sweetheart deals and gushers of blood money from the war and terror they foment.
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Scientists Confirm Earth's Energy Is Out of Balance

by element115
Scientists have concluded more energy is being absorbed from the sun than is emitted back to space, throwing the Earth's energy "out of balance" and warming the globe.
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Sony Librie

by element115
...it's a remarkable display technology, that looks like a newspaper and uses most energy only when "printing" (changing pages). Therefore, the Librie requires only 4 AA batteries for power--and displays 10,000 pages of information between battery replacement. The Librie is incredibly light and small, and its screen must be seen to be understood. The Librie ships with a fold over cover that makes it easy to slip into your bag without worrying about scratching.
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There is no war on terrorism

April 28, 2005 by element115
The so-called global war on terrorism does not exist, a high-ranking army officer has declared in a speech that challenges the conventional political wisdom.
Brigadier Justin Kelly dismissed several of the central tenets of the Iraq war and the war on terrorism, saying the "war" part is all about politics and terrorism is merely a tactic.

Speaking at a conference on future warfighting, Brigadier Kelly, the director-general of future land warfare, also suggested that the "proposition you can bomb someone into thinking as we do has been found to be untrue"
The brigadier said populations were being cut off from their traditional roots, giving them "aspirations that cannot be immediately met", and fuelling a search for identity.
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Alabama Bill Targets Gay Authors

by element115
Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle.

Books by any gay author would have to go: Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. Alice Walker's novel "The Color Purple" has lesbian characters. The story of Matthew Sheppard, a student beaten to death because he was gay. Allen originally wanted to ban even some Shakespeare.
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Putin hardens line on Iranian nuclear programme

by element115
Russian President Vladimir Putin, hardening his line towards Iran's nuclear programme, said today Tehran needed to do more to assure the world it was not trying to build atomic weapons.
He said that in addition, the Iranians should ''abandon all technology to create a full nuclear cycle and also not obstruct their nuclear sites from international control''.

...at a news conference in Jerusalem.
...??????
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10,000 Demonstrate in NYC Against Israel

by element115


Over 10,000 Orthodox Jews protesting the existence of the state of Israel, and the recent beating of Orthodox Jews who protested in Israel against the uprooting of Jewish cemeteries of antiquity which was done in order to enable the construction of a highway #6, near Haifa, Israel - protest in front of the Israeli consulate New York City, Thursday
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Iranian newspaper warns against Israeli nuclear arsenal

by element115
...the "Zionist nuclear arsenal constitutes a threat to the whole world, because it is not subjected to the international supervision and the west in general and the US in particular ignore it despite the western public opinion that admits that the Zionist entity is the most dangerous threat to the international peace."

In an article published Wednesday, the paper called for the necessity of taking practical measures to "put an end to the Zionism's nuclear activities threatening the international peace and security."
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Benefits and Costs of the U.S. Government's War Making

by element115
The Independent Institute ---> The past sixty-five years of U.S. foreign and defense policy have confirmed James Madison's observation that war is the worst enemy of liberty "because it comprises and develops the germ of every other." Because national-security matters lie outside the immediate experience of the vast majority of the citizens, the government can be trusted to do the right thing and to do it well even less in foreign and defense policy than in domestic policy.
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Belgian Doctors Bill U.S. for Treating Iraqi Girl

by element115
Belgian doctors sent an Iraqi girl home on Thursday after treating her for leg wounds caused by a bomb during the U.S. invasion -- and sent the 51,570 euro ($66,650) bill to the U.S. embassy.
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Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

by element115
When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed.
The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party --->
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Secret Iraq war advice published

by element115
Publication of a secret 2003 memo from the government's top lawyer questioning the Iraq war's legality buffeted Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday, just a week before the May 5 election.
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Pentagon Report On Abuse Has To Be Joke

by element115
Helen Thomas ---> It turns out that only those rogue enlisted men and women, and one woman general, are to blame for the horrifying treatment of prisoners and detainees of the Iraqi war, according to Lt. Gen. Stanley Green, the Army Inspector General.
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He's now Mr. Oil

by element115
Controversial figure, Iraq's Ahmad Chalabi , with no industry experience, to run ministry
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All the News That's Fit to Blog

by element115
"The Media Report" on Australia's Radio National devoted an episode this week to the impact blogging is having on journalism worldwide.
Transcript --->
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Finger Scans at DisneyWorld

by element115


...they are a necessity if you purchase any current WDW admission media.
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How to fake fingerprints?

by element115
The new identity
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Bush to Hold Prime Time News Conference Today

by element115
Bush will hold a prime time press conference on Thursday night, his first in over a year, to offer more details about his plans to overhaul Social Security, the White House announced.

The 8:30 p.m. EDT East Room press conference comes at a time when Bush is facing some of the lowest job approval ratings of his presidency.
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European Libraries Fight Google-ization

by element115
Nineteen European national libraries have joined forces against a planned communications revolution by Internet search giant Google to create a global virtual library, organizers said Wednesday. The 19 libraries are backing instead a multi-million euro counter-offensive by European nations to put European literature online.
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Your Papers Please!

by element115
National ID Cards Coming
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Worldwide cancer rates 'double'

by element115
Breast and lung cancer rates have doubled around the world over the last 30 years, a report shows.
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Guardian pulls ricin terror debunk from website

by element115
A Guardian story on "The ricin ring that never was" has been pulled from the newspaper's website, for what are said to be 'legal reasons'. The story, by Duncan Campbell (the investigative writer, not the Guardian journalist of the same name), analysed the collapse of the UK's 'ricin conspiracy' trial, and reported Porton Down evidence that had made it clear that claims of mass poisoning attacks had no basis.
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I never lie, says Blair

by element115
Tony Blair's honesty was thrust back to the centre of the election campaign last night with the leaking of a confidential minute showing he was told less than two weeks before the Iraq war that it could be declared illegal.
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More Fearmongering

by element115
An increasing number of terrorist groups are seeking weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. State Department said yesterday in a report on global terrorism.
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US set to sell bunker-busters to Israel

by element115
The Pentagon has notified Congress of a proposed sale to Israel of 100 guided bunker-busting bombs, a move that analysts say could prompt concerns about a unilateral Israel strike against Iran.
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Annan warns against strike on Iran

by element115
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan on Thursday cautioned against military action to punish Iran and said the Islamic republic was "cooperating" with the West on talks about incentives to limit its nuclear program.
"It would be unwise, very unwise," the UN chief said at the end of a four-day visit to India.
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RFID for prisoners and travellers in Japan

by element115
One finds RFID being installed in prisons, where instead of iron griddles, prison windows will be made of tempered glass, and to keep tabs on prisoners they?ll wear a jacket with an RFID tag attached so that security guards can track their whereabouts on a screen.
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Attorney General, FBI and CIA directors asking for renewal of parts of Patriot Act

by element115
The terrorist threat against the United States remains real -- and it won't go away at the end of the year when some of the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act expire. That's what Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has told the Senate Intelligence Committee today. He's asking that the "sunset provisions" of the law be repealed.
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New York Times Minimizes Palestinian Deaths

by element115



Our statistical analysis of their coverage, however, showed that there was startling disparity in how deaths were reported, depending on the ethnicity of the victim.

For example, we found that in 2004, at a time when 8 Israeli children and 176 Palestinian children were killed - a ratio of 1 to 22 - Times headlines and lead paragraphs reported on Israeli children's deaths at a rate almost seven times greater than Palestinian children's deaths.

A one-month sub-study indicated that this disparity grew even larger when the entire article was analyzed, with Israeli children's deaths mentioned (through repetitions of deaths reported on previous days) at a rate ten times greater than Palestinian children's deaths.

Times coverage of deaths of all ages, while less dramatically skewed, showed similar distortion. In the first year of the current Palestinian uprising, which began in fall of 2000, we discovered that the Times reported prominently on 42 percent of Palestinian deaths, and on 119 percent of Israeli deaths (follow-up headline articles, we find, frequently push coverage of Israeli deaths over 100 percent). In other words, the Times reported Israeli deaths at a rate approximately three times greater than Palestinian deaths.

During this period over three times more Palestinians were being killed than Israelis.
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Blair's lawyer had doubts about Iraq war

by element115
British Prime Minister Tony Blair's lawyer expressed doubts about whether war in Iraq was legal just 10 days before he gave a green light for invasion, according to documents cited by British television yesterday.
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The first horse successfully cloned in North America

by element115
Texas A&M University has announced that a team of French and American researchers has successfully cloned a horse.

The first cloned cat was born at the school in 2001. Since then, Texas A&M has cloned several litters of pigs, a Boer goat, a disease-resistant Angus bull, the first Brahma bull and a deer.
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Space Elevators are suddenly close to becoming reality.

April 27, 2005 by element115
The Liftport Group of space elevator companies has announced that it will be building a carbon nanotubes manufacturing plant in Millville, New Jersey, to supply various glass, plastic and metal companies with these strong materials. Although Liftport hopes to eventually use carbon nanotubes in the construction of a 100,000 km (62,000 mile) space elevator, this move will allow it to make money in the short term and conduct research and development into new production methods.
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Putin Makes Historic Visit to Israel

by element115
Greeted by beaming Israeli officials, Vladimir Putin on Wednesday became the first Kremlin leader to visit the Jewish state, capping a historic rapprochement between two nations that once faced each other as bitter enemies across the Cold War divide.
Putin plans to meet with Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, on Thursday. On Friday, he goes to the West Bank city of Ramallah to meet with Abbas and lay a wreath at the grave of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
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Bush Taken to Bunker After Radar Blip

by element115
President Bush was hustled from the Oval Office and into an underground shelter on Wednesday after a blip on a radar screen was initially mistaken for an aircraft entering the restricted airspace around the White House, officials said.

The Secret Service determined minutes later that it was a false alarm. A flock of birds or a reflection could have caused the blip. Officials said the investigation was ongoing.

Vice President Dick Cheney also was moved to a secure location as Secret Service agents, some with shotguns drawn, cleared the area in front of the presidential mansion.
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Desktop fusion

by element115
Seth Putterman, a physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles, has turned a tiny crystal into a particle accelerator. When its electric field is focused by a tungsten needle, it fires deuterium ions into a target so fast that the colliding nuclei fuse to create a stream of neutrons.
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Bush's handholding with the Saudis

by element115
Why isn't Bush being more strongly criticized for inviting Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah to his ranch on Monday?

If ever there was an existing medieval theocracy that fits the definition, it's the Saudi monarchy. It is the most fundamentalist country in the world, period. The monarchy is unaccountable to its people. Women have an almost total absence of basic rights. Immigrant workers are grossly abused. Many basic rights are not protected under Saudi law, political parties are not allowed, and freedom of expression remains extremely limited.

Bush not only hosted the de facto head of this regime at his Crawford ranch, however, but literally held Abdullah's hand all the way to his office. This single gesture undermines all of Bush's rhetoric about freedom and democracy.
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Whose nation under God?

by element115
What's under siege here is nothing less than the Enlightenment. Please recall that what we benignly remember as the Renaissance coexisted with centuries of vicious religious persecution -- Christians persecuting heretics like Galileo, expelling and slaughtering Muslims and Jews, then doing bloody battle with each other following the Protestant Reformation.

The philosophers of the Enlightenment were men of science who understood that faith could not be disputed but that reason could be subjected to the test of logic and evidence. The American Revolution was a triple triumph -- for political democracy, religious tolerance, and for the free inquiry demanded by the scientific method.

Today's religious extremists are not only trying to use the state, with all its power, as religious proselytizer. They oppose science when it happens to conflict with their version of revealed truth. They twist history to claim that the Republic's freethinking Founders, like Jefferson, Adams, and Madison, were really theocrats like themselves. They long for the predemocratic world of absolutes circa 1500.
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Interrogators 'botched hunt for Iraq's WMD'

by element115
The report says that in many cases the wrong people were detained, and subjected to questioning by "inexperienced and uninformed" interrogators. It estimates that 105 scientists and officials suspected of involvement in WMD programmes are still in detention.
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Climate change poses threat to food supply, scientists say

by element115
Worldwide production of essential crops such as wheat, rice, maize and soya beans is likely to be hit much harder by global warming than previously predicted, an international conference in London has heard.
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Ozone layer most fragile on record

by element115
The protective ozone layer over the Arctic has thinned this winter to the lowest levels since records began.
Scientists yesterday reinforced the warning that people going out in the sun this summer should protect themselves with creams and hats.
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Israeli settlers poisoning our sheep, say West Bank farmers

by element115
Highly toxic chemicals have been spread on Palestinian sheep pastures in what villagers believe is an escalation of a campaign of harassment against them by Jewish West Bank settlers.
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Spain's top Qaeda suspect condemns 9/11

by element115
The suspected leader of al Qaeda in Spain condemned the September 11 attacks, the Madrid train bombings and all acts of terrorism at his trial on Tuesday, calling them a violation of Islam.
"I deny it (terrorism) and I vigorously reject it in front of the whole world. ... I am not saying it to defend myself or anything. I say it because I feel it," said Barakat Yarkas, accused of recruiting and indoctrinating international militants.
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Refugee or deserter?

by element115
More than 5,500 US military personnel have deserted since the invasion of Iraq, but Hinzman is the first US soldier to apply for refugee status in Canada.

As many as 100 US war deserters may be in hiding in Canada, says the Toronto-based War Resisters Support Campaign, an antiwar coalition petitioning the Canadian federal government to allow soldiers opposed to fighting in Iraq to stay in Canada.
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Florida Planning Son of Matrix

by element115
Florida law officials are contemplating a sequel to the controversial Matrix database that may be even more comprehensive than the original.
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Across Nation, Students Getting Paid To Be Informants

by element115
For a growing number of students, the easiest way to make a couple of hundred dollars has nothing to do with chores or after-school jobs, and everything to do with informing on classmates.
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HIV Positive Kids Used As Guinea Pigs?

by element115
The city's Administration for Children's Services has hired an outside research firm to investigate allegations that the city inappropriately put foster children into medical trials for AIDS drugs in the 1980's and 1990's and that foster parents who objected to the trials lost custody of the children.
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Russia to Get 2 Newly Equipped Nuclear Submarines in 2006

by element115
Commander-in-chief, Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, was quoted by Associated Press as saying the submarines should join the navy by the end of next year. The missiles have a range of 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) and are in the midst of a three-year testing program. Each submarine will be equipped with 12 missiles.
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Putin Calls for Middle East Peace Talks in Moscow

by element115
"I am suggesting that we should convene a conference for all these countries concerned [with the Mid-East peace process] and the Quartet, next autumn," Putin was quoted by AP as saying during a joint press conference with Mubarak. The so-called Quartet includes Russia, the United States, the European Union and the United Nations.
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This is our Guernica

by element115
Ruined, cordoned Falluja is emerging as the decade's monument to brutality.
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Were 5 Unarmed and Wounded Iraqi's Murdered By U.S. Marines?

by element115
Video ---> In his first international interview, the journalist responsible for capturing that awful shooting spoke with Dateline's Sophie McNeill, and a warning - this story contains strong language and confronting images. Let me say that we've left some particularly graphic scenes in this report because we believe they're critical to understanding exactly what happened that day in Fallujah.
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Canadian killed in Iraq by U.S. forces

by element115
...a source has told that Ali Alwan died after U.S. forces "tracked" a target using a helicopter gunship.
The investigation is being handled by Canadian officials in Amman, Jordan
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Official Says Vatican Priest Was Informer

by element115
The priest in charge of caring for Polish pilgrims at the Vatican collaborated with the communist secret police in the 1980s during the reign of Polish native Pope John Paul II, an official said Wednesday.

An investigation into communist-era persecution of the Roman Catholic church in Poland turned up documents showing that the Rev. Konrad Stanislaw Hejmo, a Dominican, "was a secret collaborator of the Polish secret services under the names of Hejnal and Dominik," said Leon Kieres, head of the state-run National Remembrance Institute that investigated Nazi and communist crimes in Poland.
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Woman MP shot dead in Baghdad

by element115
Armed men have shot and killed a member of Iraq's parliament outside her house in Baghdad.
Iraqi police identified the victim as Lamia Abid Khadawi, a member of caretaker Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's political party.
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Rights Group: Abu Ghraib Abuses 'Tip of Iceberg'

by element115
A rights watchdog said on Wednesday the abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison were just the "tip of the iceberg" of U.S. mistreatment of Muslim prisoners.

The abuses at Abu Ghraib are part of a larger pattern of U.S. rights violations of detainees in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, New York-based Human Rights Watch said.
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Bush Signs Bill to Let Parents Strip DVDs

by element115
The bill gives legal protections to the fledgling filtering technology that helps parents automatically skip or mute sections of commercial movie DVDs. Bush signed it privately and without comment, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.
The movies' creators had argued that changing the content ? even when it is considered offensive ? would violate their copyrights.
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Thousands of Israelis Pour Into Gaza Strip

by element115
Thousands of Israelis poured into the Gaza Strip's main Jewish settlement bloc Wednesday to protest this summer's planned withdrawal, show support for the settlers and bid farewell to the area Israel occupied for 38 years.
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Why Lebanon Matters

April 26, 2005 by element115
Lebanon is approximately 40 percent Christian and 60 percent Muslim.
They spent the last 15 years learning to tolerate one another without going on rampages. Now they are moving beyond mere tolerance and are learning to like each other. It's so easy to break a truce. Much harder to break a friendship.
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The end of analog TV

by element115
Will America's favorite technology really go dark next year?
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"Nuclear option" - the term

by element115
As several weblogs have noted, the term "nuclear option" -- referring to the Republican-proposed Senate rule change that would prohibit filibusters of judicial nominations -- was coined by one of its leading advocates, Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS). But since Republican strategists judged the term "nuclear option" to be a liability, they have urged Senate Republicans to adopt the term "constitutional option." Many in the media have complied with the Senate Republicans' shift in terminology and repeated their attribution of the term "nuclear option" to the Democrats.
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Libraries...a key target of the Patriot Act.

by element115
As Congress considers reauthorizing the Patriot Act, it explicitly should add libraries to the locations where federal investigators may hunt terrorists. Here are five reasons why: Marwan al Shehhi; Mohand, Wail, and Waleed Alshehri; and Mohamed Atta - September 11 hijackers visited the Delray Beach Public Library
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Rumsfeld and Abu Ghraib

by element115
If this is justice, in President Bush's view of things, it comes awfully close to scapegoating. For the evidence shows that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated and aberrant acts and that, in fact, the worst perpetrators may not have been those whose faces were captured on camera.

As Human Rights Watch described yesterday, in an important new report, the abuses at Abu Ghraib are part of a broader picture. They fit a pattern of brutality and mistreatment, evident at Guantanamo, in Afghanistan, and in dozens of U.S. detention facilities worldwide, that "did not result from the acts of individual soldiers who broke the rules. It resulted from decisions made by the Bush administration to bend, ignore, or cast rules aside."
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The Frauds of the Clergy

by element115
Why would a multi-multi-millionaire Senator, who consistently votes to harm the hungry and the poor who so concerned Jesus, join forces with religious fundamentalists to stack this nation's highest courts? Could it be because he and his wealthy Republican friends see huge financial benefits for themselves and their corporate patrons in a compliant court?
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Saudi Arabia detains 40 Christians

by element115
Saudi Arabia has detained 40 Pakistani Christians for holding prayers at a house in the Muslim kingdom, where practicising any religion other than Islam is illegal.
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U.S. considers sending money to help Chávez opponents

by element115
As President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela veers toward greater confrontation with Washington, the Bush administration is weighing a tougher approach, including funneling more money to foundations and business and political groups opposed to his leftist government, American officials say.
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Italian hostage blasts US report

by element115
Ms Sgrena described the conclusion of the leaked report as a "slap in the face".
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Blair is a war criminal

by element115
Like Chamberlain in the 30s, Blair is an appeaser of a dangerous global power. He should be in prison, not standing for election
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Weapons Inspector Ends WMD Search in Iraq

by element115
Wrapping up his investigation into Saddam Hussein's purported arsenal, the CIA's top weapons hunter in Iraq said his search for weapons of mass destruction "has been exhausted" without finding any.

Up to 100,000 Iraqis Killed Without Reason or Consequence
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Secret Service records raise new questions about discredited conservative reporter

by element115
Guckert made more than two dozen excursions to the White House when there were no scheduled briefings. On many of these days, the Press Office held press gaggles aboard Air Force One?which raises questions about what Guckert was doing at the White House. On other days, the president held photo opportunities.

On at least fourteen occasions, Secret Service records show either the entry or exit time missing. Generally, the existing entry or exit times correlate with press conferences; on most of these days, the records show that Guckert checked in but was never processed out.
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Open Media Network

by element115
Part TiVo, part BitTorrent file swapping, the network puts publishers' content into a peer-to-peer distribution network that could help lower bandwidth costs substantially. The service then creates a TV-like program directory that potential viewers can use to find and subscribe to automatic downloads of individual shows.
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Space Tourism: Next Steps Taking Shape

by element115
Ticket-to-ride commuter flights to the edge of space may not be too far off - with spaceliners departing several spaceports in the United States.

Whitehorn told Congress that his company?s current plan is to begin suborbital operations in Mojave, and then develop a second site in another location, possibly Florida, Texas or New Mexico.

In terms of first flight, the Virgin Galactic chief said that service could start in either 2008 or 2009.
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Gallup: 50% of Americans Now Say Bush Deliberately Misled Them on WMDs

by element115
Also, according to the latest poll, more than half of Americans, 54%, disapprove of the way President Bush is handling the situation in Iraq
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Film festival actress stands by her view that U.S. bears responsibility for 9/11

by element115
Even as a Web site devoted to her was overwhelmed with scathing criticism, actress Maggie Gyllenhaal refused yesterday to back down from her statement that the United States "is responsible in some way" for the attacks on the World Trade Center.
The actress appears in "The Great New Wonderful," which features five stories about people living in the aftermath of the Twin Towers attack.
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Last Syrian Troops Pull Out of Lebanon

by element115
Less than three hours after the last soldiers were seen leaving, Syria informed the United Nations that its troops had left Lebanon.
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Islamic Scholar Ali Al-Timimi Convicted

by element115
A prominent Islamic scholar was convicted Tuesday of 10 counts alleging he encouraged followers in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks to join the Taliban and fight U.S. troops.
The 41-year-old defendant showed no reaction to the verdict.
He faces a mandatory maximum sentence of life in prison.
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The six miles....

by element115
...to the airport in Baghdad.
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Neil Bush, Ratzinger co-founders

April 25, 2005 by element115
President's younger brother served with then-cardinal on board of relatively unknown ecumenical foundation.

Gary Vachicouras, a theologian and foundation official in Geneva, would not explain in a telephone interview yesterday why Bush, who has no clear public connection to religious causes, was on the first board.
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Bush's War on the Press

by element115
Make no mistake: The Bush Administration and its ideological allies are employing every means available to undermine journalists' ability to exercise their First Amendment function to hold power accountable. In fact, the Administration recognizes no such constitutional role for the press. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card has insisted that the media "don't represent the public any more than other people do.... I don't believe you have a check-and-balance function."
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Underreported news gives government chance to hide the truth

by element115
While overreporting is sometimes destructive and always annoying, it is underreporting that dangerously restricts the exercise of our right to free speech. It is the failure of major news sources to report stories critical of our government. It is a form of censorship that permits governments to act in secret.

We can learn a lot about underreporting by reading "Censored 2005" and its annual predecessors.
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The Oblivious Right

by element115
According to John Snow, the Treasury secretary, the global economy is in a "sweet spot." Conservative pundits close to the administration talk, without irony, about a "Bush boom."

What's going on?

Actually, it's quite simple: Mr. Bush and his party talk only to their base - corporate interests and the religious right - and are oblivious to everyone else's concerns.
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900,000-year-old ice may destroy US case on Kyoto

by element115
An Italian expedition to the Antarctic has taken a sample of ice which is more than 900,000 years old and could give scientists evidence of past climate changes which would discredit global warming doubters.
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FBI linguist won't deny 911 drug money tied to election coffers

by element115
Criminal evidence in Edmonds? explosive case is apparently getting too close to Washington officials, since the former contract linguist also told us she would not deny that "once this issue gets to be...investigated, you will be seeing certain [American] people that we know from this country standing trial; and they will be prosecuted criminally," revealing the content of the FBI intercepts she heard indicates that recognizable, very high-profile American citizens are linked to the 911 attacks.
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Evidence Destruction

by element115
A pattern of systematic destruction and disappearance of evidence runs throughout the official response to the 9/11 attack. All of the crime scenes were mopped up with systematic efficiency, while farce investigations provided cover.

None of the following evidence is available to the public:
# Airport lobby video showing alleged hijackers on the targeted flights.
# Credible evidence tying bin Laden to the crime.
# Recordings of air traffic controller communications with the flights.
# Remains of any of the targeted planes.
# Remains of the Twin Towers and Building 7.
# Blueprints of the Twin Towers and Building 7.
# The contents of the black boxes from any of the targeted planes.
# Photographs documenting the crime scenes before they were disturbed.

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Aircraft Parts as a Clue to their Identity

by element115
The precautionary principle is based on the fact it is impossible to prove a false claim. Failure to prove a claim does not automatically make it false, but caution is called for, especially in the case of a world-changing event like the alleged terror attacks of September 11, 2001. The Bush administration has provided no public evidence to support its claim that the terror attacks were the work of Muslim extremists or even that the aircraft that struck their respective targets on September 11 were as advertised.
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US prison rate soars even higher

by element115
The US prison population has risen further, with one in 138 people now in jail, new official figures reveal.

There are more than 2.1 million US citizens in jail - more than in any other country, the Bureau of Justice Statistics says.
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The Myth of U.S. Cultural, Religious, Political, and Social Superiority

by element115
The concept of Manifest Destiny describes the 19th century conviction that God intended the continent of North America to be under the control of Christian, European Americans. The ideology of Manifest Destiny was the backbone of U.S. government efforts to colonize land inhabited by indigenous people in North America and expand the United States into Mexican territory.
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Bush Urges Saudis to Boost Oil Production

by element115
"The crown prince understands that it is very important ... to make sure that the price is reasonable," Bush told reporters before the Saudi leader arrived at his Texas ranch for a few hours of talks that also took in new Middle East peace initiatives, the pace of democratic reform in the desert kingdom and counter-terror efforts.
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Iran plans to knock out U.S. with 1 nuclear bomb

by element115
Iran is not only covertly developing nuclear weapons, it is already testing ballistic missiles specifically designed to destroy America's technical infrastructure, effectively neutralizing the world's lone superpower, say U.S. intelligence sources, top scientists and western missile industry experts.

...we are so afraid Mr.President, let's bomb them first, please.
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Police on weapon company payrolls

by element115
Hundreds of police officers nationwide also are on payrolls of companies that supply weapons, riot gear and other equipment to the officers' departments, creating possible conflicts of interest.
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BBC reporter's award stuns Israel

by element115
Israeli officials have expressed dismay that BBC reporter Orla Guerin, who has come under sharp attack for what some perceive as an anti-Israeli bias in her coverage, will receive an MBE honor from the British government for "outstanding service to broadcasting."
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For Whom the Bells Toll

by element115
Uri Avnery ---> Vanunu rings the bells to call attention to a real danger. The question is not whether he is a pleasant person, whether his views are popular or what he thinks about the State of Israel, after 12 years of solitary confinement. The question is whether he is doing a good job.
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UN investigator who exposed US army abuse forced out of his job

by element115
The UN's top human rights investigator in Afghanistan has been forced out under American pressure just days after he presented a report criticising the US military for detaining suspects without trial and holding them in secret prisons.
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Group Says U.S. Sent Up to 150 to Possible Torture Sites

by element115
A civil liberties group investigating allegations of prisoner abuse will report today that since the Sept. 11 attacks, U.S. agents have secretly transported up to 150 detainees to countries that may practice torture.
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They Were Young Once, and Fit

by element115
This country's most expendable commodity is its children and, with few exceptions, Americans appear to be both senseless and blind.
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Putin deplores collapse of USSR

by element115
Russia's President Vladimir Putin has described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century.
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Scientists have begun putting genes from human beings into food crops

by element115
The move, which is causing disgust and revulsion among critics, is bound to strengthen accusations that GM technology is creating "Frankenstein foods" and drive the controversy surrounding it to new heights.

In the first modification of its kind, Japanese researchers have inserted a gene from the human liver into rice to enable it to digest pesticides and industrial chemicals.
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Beyond Greed and Scarcity

April 24, 2005 by element115
...an interview with Bernard Lietaer.
...about the possibilities for a new kind of currency better suited to building community and sustainability.
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Power pact meets quietly

by element115
The Trilateral Commission, a secretive association of the world's most powerful private citizens, met behind closed doors in Washington April 15-18.
As usual, the press was not allowed in any of the meetings, which included speeches by Vice President Dick Cheney, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, World Bank President-designate Paul Wolfowitz and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

Bilderberg and the Trilateral Commission have interlocking leadership and a common agenda. David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger are leaders of both groups. The Trilaterals? European chairman, Peter Sutherland, head of Goldman-Sachs International, is also a Bilderberg leader. Former House Speaker Tom Foley is the TC?s North American chairman.

Appearances by Cheney, Rumsfeld and other administration officials were viewed as top secret. The appearances were not listed on their public schedules, not even as involving a ?private group.? There were no transcripts available, which is routine in normal functions.
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Former GOP Insider Claims He Has 9/11 'Smoking Gun'

by element115
A former Republican Party insider turned Bush basher thinks he has stumbled across what may be the "smoking gun," proving the U.S. government's official story about the WTC attacks is an "unequivocal lie."
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Former Israel President Ezer Weizman Dies

by element115
Weizman, who was president from 1993 to 2000, had suffered from respiratory infections in recent months and was repeatedly hospitalized. He died shortly before 8 p.m. Sunday at his home in the northern Israeli resort town of Caesarea with his family by his bedside, according to a statement by Weizman's successor, President Moshe Katsav.
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A Bumper Crop of Government-Produced "News"

by element115
With its $2.8 million annual budget, BMTC is "one of the most effective public relations operations inside the federal government," the New York Times concluded in its March 2005 exposé on government VNRs.
BMTC's website resembles a cutting-edge communications firm, advertising full-service digital production facilities and offering services to other government agencies, including video and audio conferencing, field video production, CD-ROM and Internet content for distance learning, and radio and television "news" production.
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Bush, Congress fail to protect ecosystem

by element115
In fact, on some key issues, they are actually resisting or reversing progress made in the past 30 to 40 years. And without strong, sustained leadership from the president and Congress, the urgent challenge to protect the environment and create a sustainable society cannot succeed. Theodore Roosevelt made conservation a top priority for the Republican Party, and many members of his party carried that torch over the years. Recently, however, the GOP leadership has abandoned this cause.
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U.S. Message Hard Sell for Rice in Latin America

by element115
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice faces a hard sell this week on a tour of Latin America, a region skeptical of Washington's recipes for easing its political and economic turmoil.

Sensitive to widespread criticism that decades of democracy have done little for the 100 million Latin Americans living on $1 a day, Rice will adapt the pro-freedom message she has delivered around the world to include a vow to fight poverty.
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In terror war's name, public loses information

by element115
Federal agencies under the Bush administration are sweeping vast amounts of public information behind a curtain of secrecy in the name of fighting terrorism, using 50 to 60 loosely defined security designations that can be imposed by officials as low-ranking as government clerks.
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Bush's Most Radical Plan Yet

by element115
RollingStone ---> With a vote of hand-picked lobbyists, the president could terminate any federal agency he dislikes
Posted in | 0 Comments »

Israeli army 'lied' about Miller death

by element115
Israeli soldiers stand accused this weekend of 'lying' and tampering with evidence in an attempt to obstruct an inquiry by military prosecutors into the death of British film-maker James Miller, according to internal army documents
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Terrified US soldiers are still killing civilians with impunity, while the dead go uncounted

by element115
Every Iraqi has stories of friends or relatives killed by US troops for no adequate reason. Often they do not know if they were shot by regular soldiers or by members of western security companies whose burly employees, usually ex-soldiers, are everywhere in Iraq.
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Probing Abramoff's finances

by element115
...investigators probing supperlobbyist Jack Abramoff's finances have found some of the money meant for a charity he started for inner-city kids went instead to fight the Palestinian intifada.
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Giving Out U.S. Names

by element115
The National Security Agency is not supposed to target Americans; when a U.S. citizen's name comes up in an NSA "intercept," the agency routinely minimizes dissemination of the info by masking the name before it distributes the report to other U.S. agencies.

According to information obtained by NEWSWEEK, since January 2004 NSA received?and fulfilled?between 3,000 and 3, 500 requests from other agencies to supply the names of U.S. citizens and officials (and citizens of other countries that help NSA eavesdrop around the world, including Britain, Canada and Australia) that initially were deleted from raw intercept reports. Sources say the number of names disclosed by NSA to other agencies during this period is more than 10,000.
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Rumsfeld Appearance a Hit With Opry Fans

by element115
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld takes the stage with host Dolly Parton at the Grand Ole Opry as troops watch the show live via satillite in Baghdad, from Nashville, Tenn., Saturday, April 23, 2005. The Opry is celebrating its 80th year of entertaining.
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Unread and Unsubscribing

by element115
The circulation of daily U.S. newspapers is 55.2 million, down from 62.3 million in 1990. The percentages of adults who say they read a paper "yesterday" are ominous:

65 and older -- 60 percent.

50-64 -- 52 percent.

30-49 -- 39 percent.

18-29 -- 23 percent.
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Fetal Cell Therapy for Humans?

by element115
A University of Wisconsin-Madison researcher said he would ask federal regulators Friday to approve the first clinical trial injecting special stem cells into the spinal cords of people with the degenerative nerve ailment called Lou Gehrig's disease.
Posted in | 0 Comments »

Military channel reports for duty

by element115
When the government creates a cable channel that reminds viewers of a news network, down to the live Pentagon briefings and interviews with Washington big shots, is it a form of propaganda or just a savvy way to communicate with the troops?
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Rice changed terrorism report

April 23, 2005 by element115
A state department report which showed an increase in terrorism incidents around the world in 2004 was altered to strip it of its pessimistic statistics, it emerged yesterday.
This year's edition showed a big increase, from 172 significant terrorist attacks in 2003 to 655 in 2004.

Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, ordered the report to be withdrawn and a new one issued minus the statistics.
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Ratzinger 'obstructed' sex abuse inquiry

by element115
Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had 'obstructed justice' after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret.
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The coming Pax Americana

by element115
Haaretz ---> "There is a good possibility that Iraq will not be the last country in the region that will require a lengthy American military presence" Efraim Halevy is the former chief of the Mossad
Posted in | 0 Comments »

Two Years in Iraq

by element115
Flash ---> What Have I Become
Posted in | 0 Comments »

Hiroshima A-bomb movie premieres at U.S. festival

by element115
"The Face of Jizo" is based on a play of the same name written by Japanese playwright Hisashi Inoue, who says he hopes as many people as possible in the United States and other countries possessing nuclear weapons can see the film.
Posted in | 0 Comments »

Palestinians work on own currency

by element115
The official Palestinian news agency quoted the head of the monetary authority, George al-Abed, as saying the Palestinian Authority was hoping the finalization of establishing a central bank would coincide with declaring an independent Palestinian state with (east) Jerusalem as its capital.
Posted in | 0 Comments »

Fascism: Are We There Yet?

by element115
The Black Commentator ---> Our government is treating us the way exterminators treat vermin. We are ruled by people who mask evil ideology with the artful use of language, so an advertising slogan is in order.

Bush added that finger prints may be used "to serve as a so-called passport for daily traffic."
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It's terror when we say so

by element115
Pepe Escobar ---> The Bush administration's iron-clad spin is that it is winning the "war on terror". Then comes a problem: the recently created (by a George W Bush executive order) National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) states there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985. So what does the State Department do? Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice orders the "sanitation" of this year's version of "Patterns of Global Terrorism", a report regularly issued by the State Department.
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Israel Guns for Iran

by element115
Jude Wanniski ---> Meanwhile, the artful Sharon succeeded in changing the subject by spreading out aerial photographs purported to show secret Iranian installations, where he alleges nuclear weapons are being developed.
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Desktop manufacturing

by element115
A way to help inventors in poor countries realise their ideas
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The Neocon Revolution and American Militarism

by element115
For Krauthammer the incontrovertible fact of unipolarity demanded that the United States face up to its obligations, "unashamedly laying down the rules of world order and being prepared to enforce them."
Posted in | 0 Comments »

Tigris corpses still a mystery

by element115
Medical sources in the town of al-Madain have cast doubts that 60 bloated bodies recovered from a river in Iraq are those of civilians thought to have been taken hostage there last week.
Posted in | 0 Comments »

Antarctic glaciers show major melting

by element115
A comprehensive survey of Antarctic glaciers shows the continent is melting worse than thought.
Posted in | 0 Comments »

Texas Candidate Admits Using Twin as Stand-In

by element115
The leading candidate for mayor of San Antonio admitted on Thursday using his twin brother as a stand-in at a civic event without telling anyone it was not him.
Posted in | 0 Comments »

Indians, Protesting Amazon Reserve Region, Take Federal Police Hostage

by element115
Indians protesting the creation of an Indian reserve in the Amazon took four federal agents hostage in northern Brazil, authorities said Saturday.
The agents were captured Friday afternoon by a small group of Indians belonging to the Flechal tribe in the Amazon state of Roraima, police said. The agents were reportedly unharmed and were being well treated.
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Venezuela bans US military instructors

by element115
Venezuela has ordered US military instructors to stop working with its armed forces in an abrupt cessation of a 35-year-old bilateral military exchange programme.
Posted in | 0 Comments »

What's on mysterious ship?

by element115
The Sage, an offshore supply ship about 180 feet long, is carrying two large domes on its aft deck. The domes typically cover parabolic antennae that are used to track satellites.
...the ship's captain won't talk. He has ordered that nobody be allowed near the ship, which is tied up in a secure area at the end of Pier 1 at the Portland Ocean Terminal. The Sage has been tied up there for three weeks, at a cost of nearly $300 a day.

"It's a bizarre-looking boat," said Stephen Phillips, a dock worker at the Portland Fish Exchange. "It's crazy."
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Army Clears Top Abu Ghraib Case Officers

April 22, 2005 by element115
The Army has cleared four top officers - including the three-star general who commanded all U.S. forces in Iraq - of all allegations of wrongdoing in connection with prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and will not be punished, officials said Friday.
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Moussaoui enters 9/11 guilty plea

by element115
Zacarias Moussaoui has pleaded guilty to six charges of conspiracy in connection with the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States.

His lawyers had attempted to prevent him pleading guilty, saying he was mentally unfit to do so.
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Soundless Sound System

by element115
"There's no speaker, but when I point this pad at you, you will hear the sound," said the 63-year-old Californian.

And one by one, each person in the audience did, and smiled widely.

Norris' HyperSonic Sound system has won him an award coveted by inventors - the $500,000 annual Lemelson-MIT Prize.

It works by sending a focused beam of sound above the range of human hearing. When it lands on you, it seems like sound is coming from inside your head.
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PBS Scrutiny Raises Political Antennas

by element115
Public Broadcasting Service is being forced to toe a more conservative line in its programming by the Republican-dominated agency that provides about $30 million in federal funds to the Alexandria-based service.

Appointees of President Bush currently control the majority of seats on CPB's eight-member board. Each board member serves a six-year term.
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Weather info could go dark

by element115
Weather information is available for free from the National Weather Service.

But under a bill pending in the U.S. Senate, it might all disappear.
Posted in | 0 Comments »

Hussein invested one million dollars in Paul Martin-owned Cordex

by element115
The Canadian company that Saddam Hussein invested a million dollars in belonged to the Prime Minister of Canada, canadafreepress.com has discovered.
Posted in | 0 Comments »

New Pope condemns Spain gay bill

by element115
Pope Benedict XVI has responded firmly to the first challenge of his papacy by condemning a Spanish government bill allowing marriage between homosexuals.
Posted in | 0 Comments »

Mice put in 'suspended animation'

by element115
Mice have been placed in a state of near suspended animation, raising the possibility that hibernation could one day be induced in humans.

If so, it might be possible to put astronauts into hibernation-like states for long-haul space flights - as often depicted in science fiction films.

A US team from Seattle reports its findings in Science magazine.

In this case, suspended animation means the reversible cessation of all visible life processes in an organism.
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$3-trillion fake federal bank notes seized from 2 Britons

by element115
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) announced yesterday the arrest of two British nationals who were caught in possession of $3-trillion fake US federal bank notes in an entrapment operation.
In a report submitted by the NBI-AGD to Wycoco, international courier company DHL Philippines informed their unit last April 14 that suspects Flavell and Beany were about to ship a cargo of fake US federal reserves to Zurich, Switzerland. They paid P53,967.24 as shipment fee.
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Vive les Blogs!

by element115
Spurred by a culture of popular expression and debate that can be traced back to France's 17th-century salons, the French are embracing weblogs with a greater zeal than anyone on the European continent.

""We are the people who made the French Revolution, the national uprising of May '68...and just look at all our strikes!
We always want to debate. Perhaps blogs are the ultimate tool for us to express ourselves."
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Basic cornerstone of our freedom

by element115
Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., intensified his war of words with Focus on the Family on Thursday, accusing its evangelical Christian leaders of trying to turn the United States into a theocracy.
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Deconstructing stupidity

by element115
The stupidity in question is the way that governments typically make intellectual property law and policy -- that is, without evidence that it will produce the desired social or economic benefit.
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Academics back Israeli boycotts

by element115
Academics have voted to boycott two Israeli universities over their alleged involvement in "illegal activity" in the occupied territories.

They were complicit in a system of "apartheid" towards Palestinians, delegates at the AUT's council heard.
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Congress confuses file sharing with manslaughter

by element115
Since involuntary manslaughter brings, on average, anywhere from 0 to 36 months' incarceration, one might well question the morality of going harder on those who trade files than on those who negligently cut short the lives of fellow citizens. But the 109th Congress is about nothing if not morality, and it understands well the essential sacredness of the nation's ruling cartels.
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Gut Check

by element115
Chris Floyd ---> In 1986, George Bush I visited the Middle East with a secret message to be passed to Saddam via Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak: "Drop more bombs on Iran's cities." How do we know this? From the sworn testimony of Howard Teicher, the National Security Council official who accompanied Bush and wrote the official "talking points" for the trip. Ostensibly, Bush urged this mass killing of civilians as a strategy to halt Iran's gains at the front. But as The New Yorker reported -- 13 years ago -- there was another layer to this covert plot.
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FOXNews: Iran - The Nuclear Threat

by element115
...we have to get them first, people!
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Nation's Leaders Head Off Course as Troubles Pile Higher

by element115
The federal government is beginning to look alarmingly dysfunctional.
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Militarism threatens to bankrupt U.S. economically and morally

by element115
...the U.S. media has generally legitimized the system, as have many veterans groups, the dominant Republican Party, the right wing and many churches. A new breed of flag waving nationalists or superpatriots has been justifying if not propagandizing the war, often with lots of profitable contracts to clinch the deal.
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Whatever happened to machines that think?

by element115
Sometime this year it will be let loose onto the web, allowing millions of people to contribute to its fund of knowledge by submitting questions to Cyc through a web page and correcting it if it gets the answers wrong. "We're very close to a system that will allow the average person to enter knowledge," Lenat says. He envisages Cyc eventually being connected to webcams and other sensors monitoring environments around the globe, building its knowledge of the world more or less by itself.
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Bush nominates Pace for Joint Chiefs of Staff

by element115
Bush on Friday named Marine Gen. Peter Pace, who quietly helped shape the Pentagon's role in the global war on terrorism, to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
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Senate Overwhelmingly Approves Negroponte

by element115
John Negroponte won overwhelming approval by the Senate Thursday to become the nation's first national intelligence director, a job created last year to better coordinate the nation's spy agencies following the Sept. 11 attacks and other intelligence blunders.
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Sex Offenders May Be Tracked By Satellite

by element115
GPS tracking, which is being used or considered in several states, would mean a convict's whereabouts could be checked remotely at any time.
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35 Years of Earth Day

by element115
Celebrate
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Blair's forgotten victims

April 21, 2005 by element115
John Pilger ---> By voting for Blair, you will walk over the corpses of at least 100,000 people, most of them innocent, slaughtered in defiance of international law.
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Wiretaps are up sharply as Congress debates Patriot Act

by element115
Disclosure of a 75-percent increase in secret wiretaps and "sneak and peek" searches since 2000 is likely to provide ammunition for civil liberties groups determined to modify the Patriot Act, as Congress began two months of debate on the law April 5th.
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RFID comes to European hospitals

by element115
Following a trial in a New York hospital, RFID is coming to a hospital in Europe.
Patients will wear tagged wristbands, which will be scanned by hospital staff using PDAs or tablet PCs connecting to patients' data using a WLAN. The wristband will carry a unique patient code that will tally with the encrypted patient records, giving information on which drugs and what dosages the patients will require.
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Space tourism industry to run 'like fast-food franchises'

by element115
Space pioneer Burt Rutan foresees space tourism companies running like a fast-food franchises, with his company licensing spacecraft to tour operators.
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Senate moves toward approving $81 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan

by element115
The Senate on Thursday neared approval of $81 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in a spending bill that would push the total cost of combat and reconstruction past $300 billion.
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Retreat of Antarctic ice gathers pace

by element115
Glaciers in the Antarctic are retreating at an increasing rate, in what scientists said on Thursday was a clear sign of climate change.
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Rumsfeld Seals The Deal On Military Bases To Launch Attack On Iran

by element115
What was the purpose of Donald Rumsfeld's visits to Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan last week?

...the very next day, the commander of NATO forces in Europe, General Johns, issued a statement in the local press saying that the U.S. planned to deploy military bases in the Caspian region in order to ensure regional security.
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Opus Dei Hails Election of New Pope

by element115
Opus Dei's prelate, Bishop Javier Echevarria, issued a statement pledging support for the new pontiff.

"This is a time of great joy," Echevarria said.
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14 Thoughts For The New Pope

by element115
...before you venture forth on your ostensible path of increasingly bitter conservative dogma, Benedict, you need to be reminded. Right now. Before it's too late. Is it already too late?
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Greenspan Warns Again on Budget Deficits

by element115
The administration says it aims to cut the deficit in half by 2009.
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Washington Post glorifies US military "ruthlessness" in Iraq

by element115
A disturbing article by Washington Post journalist Steve Fainaru, published on April 13, serves to both justify and promote a colonial and homicidal mentality among American troops fighting in Iraq.
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2 Senior AIPAC Employees Ousted

by element115
FBI investigating if pair gave classified information to Israel
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FBI Protects Osama Bin Ladens "Right To Privacy"

by element115
Judicial Watch Investigation Uncovers FBI Documents Concerning Bin Laden Family and Post-9/11 Flights
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Gorbachev criticizes U.S. on nuclear arsenal, hypocrisy

by element115
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev warned the United States on Wednesday "to cure itself" of hypocrisy over nuclear arms and be prepared to cut its atomic arsenal and take it off "hair-trigger" alert.

Addressing a news conference with Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, Gorbachev said the United States should not suggest other nations disarm and make no move to do so itself.

"I think the United States is sick. It suffers from the sickness, the disease of being the victor and it needs to cure itself from this disease," Gorbachev said.
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Putin: Sale of missiles to Syria will block Israeli flyovers

by element115
The SA-18 missiles Russia is selling Syria "will of course make it difficult to fly over the residence of the Syrian president," Russian President Vladimir Putin bluntly stated yesterday. "It will make flying low difficult," implying what has long been believed to be the reason for the sale of the anti-aircraft missiles: Syrian embarrassment over Israeli air force planes "buzzing" presidential palaces in Syria to issue warnings to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
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The end of oil is closer than you think

by element115
The one thing that international bankers don't want to hear is that the second Great Depression may be round the corner.
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We are Pope

by element115





German bloggers' reaction in pictures
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Ratzinger handed Bush the presidency

by element115
...by tipping the Catholic vote.

During the closing weeks of the campaign, a pastoral letter was read from pulpits in Catholic churches repeating the ominous suggestion of excommunication. Voting for the Democrat was nothing less than consorting with the forces of Satan, collaboration with "evil."
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Allawi escapes assassination attempt

by element115
Iraq's outgoing prime minister, Iyad Allawi, has escaped a car bomb assassination attempt which targeted his convoy in Baghdad.
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Warning on spread of state surveillance

by element115
Governments are building a "global registration and surveillance infrastructure" in the US-led "war on terror", civil liberty groups warned yesterday.

The aim is to monitor the movements and activities of entire populations in what campaigners call "an unprecedented project of social control".
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Will the New Pope Face the ET Question?

April 20, 2005 by element115
...two landers touched down on the planet Mars in what was to become an international search for life. The British Beagle 2 reached the red planet on the day the Savior's birth was celebrated, December 25th, 2003 and immediately disappeared. European scientists examining images of the lander's separation from the mothership were startled to find an unidentified object nearby. Shortly after, NASA's Spirit Rover rolled onto the Gusev Crater, a lake-like depression south of the Martian equator, and began transmitting unexpected images and data from that anomalous terrain. Within days and without explanation, it abruptly stopped. Engineers from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory worked on the problem, and the rover was rebooted. But--and here is what you don't know yet--it then photographed something that defied explanation' something that wasn't supposed to be seen... something you'll know about soon enough.
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Thailand introduces national ID with biometric technology

by element115
Thai authorities have hired Precise Biometrics to license their Precise Match-on-Card(TM) technology in the initial phase of Thailand's new national ID card project. The order has been taken in collaboration with Smart Card Systems International Co. Ltd, the company's local integrator and service partner. An estimated 12 million ID cards will be delivered, each carrying Precise Match-on-Card(TM) technology, as well as 36,000 fingerprint scanners equipped with Precise BioCore(R) technology. During the coming three years, Thai authorities are planning to issue national ID cards with Precise Match-on-Card(TM) to each of Thailand's approximately 64 million citizens.
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Aid worker uncovered America's secret tally of Iraqi civilian deaths

by element115
A week before she was killed by a suicide bomber, humanitarian worker Marla Ruzicka forced military commanders to admit they did keep records of Iraqi civilians killed by US forces.

Tommy Franks, the former head of US Central Command, famously said the US army "don't do body counts", despite a requirement to do so by the Geneva Conventions.

But in an essay Ms Ruzicka wrote a week before her death on Saturday and published yesterday, the 28-year-old revealed that a Brigadier General told her it was "standard operating procedure" for US troops to file a report when they shoot a non-combatant.

She obtained figures for the number of civilians killed in Baghdad between 28 February and 5 April, and discovered that 29 had been killed in firefights involving US forces and insurgents. This was four times the number of Iraqi police killed.
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NYSE to Merge With Archipelago

by element115
The New York Stock Exchange will merge with Archipelago Holdings Inc., an electronic trading company, becoming a for profit enterprise, the exchange announced Wednesday.
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Pope Benedict XVI: Enemy of Jihad

by element115
FrontPageMag ---> In choosing Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger to succeed Pope John Paul II as Pope Benedict XVI, the Catholic Church has cast a vote for the survival of Europe and the West.
"Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century," historian Bernard Lewis predicted not long ago; however, judging from the writings of the new Pope, he is not likely to be sanguine about this transition. For one thing, the new Pope seems to be aware of the grave danger Europeans face: he has called upon Europe to recover its Christian roots "if it truly wants to survive."
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Israeli consul to The Hague arrested for selling passports

by element115
The arrest was the culmination of an extensive investigation into allegations that Yitzhaki, 56, accepted cash and perks in exchange for issuing Israeli passports to people who were not entitled to them.
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Class Action in Canada Accuses Banks of Illegal Creation of Money

by element115
John Ruiz Dempsey, criminologist and forensic litigation specialist filed a class action suit on behalf of the People of Canada alleging that financial institutions are engaged in illegal creation of money, reports Tom Kennedy, a Canadian activist for economic reform.


One of the best kept secrets is the mechanism of money creation in today's economic system. Although not really a secret at all, the fact that money is created not by and for the people who use it and not even by the government, but is issued by commercial banks when giving loans to private persons or government, is hidden by what could be described as thick clouds of smoke, put out by economists and government departments.


The complaint was filed Friday April 15, 2005 in the Supreme Court of British Columbia at New Westminster. It alleges that all financial institutions who are in the business of lending money have engaged in a deliberate scheme to defraud the borrowers by lending non-existent money which are illegally created by the financial institutions out of "thin air."
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Skype reaches out to mobile users

by element115
Skype is working on VoIP clients that will operate on platforms like Symbian, Windows Mobile and Embedded Linux, he said, adding dual-mode wireless handsets that work on both Wi-Fi networks - originally designed as local-area data networks using the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers? 802.11 protocol - and cellular networks.
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Italian PM tenders resignation

by element115
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi handed in his resignation Wednesday to President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.
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Venezuela flexes oil muscle

by element115
US sees oil and Chavez's ambitions as a troublesome mix.
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Bolton vote delay a blow to Bush

by element115
US President George W Bush has suffered an unexpected and embarrassing blow after a new delay in John Bolton's passage to becoming the US ambassador to the United Nations.
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Ecuadorian leader refuses to quit

by element115
Ecuadorian President Lucio Gutierrez has refused to step down, as anti-government demonstrations spread outside the capital.
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New papacy could blur religion, politics

by element115
The line between religion and politics isn't clear, but the papacy of Benedict XVI could erase it altogether. Remember the nasty arguments over whether Sen. John Kerry - a Catholic supporter of abortion rights - was entitled to receive Communion? Some American bishops threatened to deny it to him. Well, in retrospect, those were merely opening skirmishes in the bitter war over the role of faith in public life. And the Vatican of this pope will play an out-front, aggressive role.
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Many Venezuelans join guerrilla armies, plan to fight

by element115
"We don't want a Yankee country," said Julimar Garcia, a 29-year old government clerk who has been training with the Popular Defense Units since February. "If they put their feet down here, we'll be ready to fight them off."
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Abbas accuses Israel of incitement

by element115
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas has complained that the Israeli government is inciting against him and that it has violated agreements reached at a summit in February.
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The shadow Iraqi government

by element115
Pepe Escobar ---> The ideal White House/Pentagon script for Iraq calls for a pro-American government, total control of at least 12% of the world's known oil reserves and 14 military bases to make it happen. Reality has been churning up other ideas.
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Bush Signs Big Rewrite of Bankruptcy Law

by element115
Bush signed a bill Wednesday that will make it harder for debt-ridden people to wipe clean their financial slates by declaring bankruptcy.

The legislation was strongly opposed by consumer rights activists who said it would prevent vulnerable Americans from getting the fresh start they need. But Bush said the law was "restoring integrity to the bankruptcy process."
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Thousands of Missiles Fired by Russian and American Forces over Earths Arctic Regions

by element115
Report is reaching of a strange behavior by the American and Russian forces in the Earth?s Artic regions. Completely unannounced, both the super powers are launching thousands of missiles from both land based and aircraft launched these missiles that are being directed out of the earth?s atmosphere into the outer space regions of our planets atmosphere.

From various news services however there is being reported that Russia and the United States are conducting Missile Defense War games. The valid question is why was this separate military exercise not previously announced. Some UFO researchers believe that both the forces are jointly fighting something that they are not saying.
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House Insanity

by element115
HR 1528: 5 Years For Passing A Joint!
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Implanted Microchips Common As Cellphones Within A Decade

by element115
Over the next few years you will only see the marketing of techno-slavery increase. Football players will be implanted with the chip to track their movements around the field and their heart rate. The MTV 'Cribs' show will feature the coolest rap stars opening garage doors, car doors and fridges with a simple thought, now that they have the chip.

Everyone will want the chip. Your child will be made to feel socially inadequate if they don't take the chip.
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Cannabis spray gets go-ahead

by element115
Canada is the first country in the world to approve a cannabis spray that relieves pain in people with multiple sclerosis, Health Canada said.
Sativex, which is administered through a spray in the mouth is expected to hit the shelves by late spring.
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U.S. Military's Elite Hacker Crew

by element115
The U.S. military has assembled the world's most formidable hacker posse: a super-secret, multimillion-dollar weapons program that may be ready to launch bloodless cyberwar against enemy networks -- from electric grids to telephone nets.

The group's existence was revealed during a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last month. Military leaders from U.S. Strategic Command, or Stratcom, disclosed the existence of a unit called the Joint Functional Component Command for Network Warfare, or JFCCNW.
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9/11 - All the Proof You Need

by element115
What we have here is solid undisputed evidence that we were never told the truth.
Posted in | 0 Comments »

Bolton Often Blocked Information, Officials Say

by element115
John R. Bolton -- who is seeking confirmation as the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations -- often blocked then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and, on one occasion, his successor, Condoleezza Rice, from receiving information vital to U.S. strategies on Iran, according to current and former officials who have worked with Bolton.
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Reports reveal Zarqawi nuclear threat

by element115
Recurrent intelligence reports say al Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi has obtained a nuclear device or is preparing a radiological explosive -- or dirty bomb -- for an attack, according to U.S. officials, who also say analysts are unable to gauge the reliability of the information's sources.
The classified reports have been distributed to U.S. intelligence agencies for several consecutive months and say Zarqawi, al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, has stored the nuclear device or dirty bomb in Afghanistan, said officials familiar with the intelligence.

...don't worry, Dubya will take care of it.
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Israel Praises Pope Despite Past Nazi Ties

by element115
Israeli politicians and rabbis on Wednesday praised new Pope Benedict XVI for his strong condemnations of anti-Semitism despite the pontiff's ties to the Nazi Party as a youth.
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Flying Cars Ready To Take Off

April 19, 2005 by element115
...sooner than you think.

1.The folks at NASA have built something called "The Highway in the Sky." It's a computer system designed to let millions of people fly whenever they please, and take off and land from wherever they please, in their very own vehicles.

2.It's called the AirScooter, and self-taught inventor Woody Norris says it goes on sale later this year.
"Look how quickly it stops, hovers, sideways, again sideways, straight down," Norris tells Simon.
...you won't need a pilot's license if you fly it under 400 feet in non-restricted air space. And he's going to sell it for $50,000.
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Adobe to acquire Macromedia

by element115
...combining the passion and creativity.
Posted in | 0 Comments »

Ratzinger and Pedophilia in the Church

by element115
...as recently as 2001, he supported and encouraged the drawing of a curtain of secrecy over widespread sexual abuse by clergy.

The law itself is chilling, as it describes a mandatory condition of secrecy for both the perpetrators and victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests.
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Fla. Man Secured BenedictXVI.com Weeks Ago

by element115
By the time Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany assumed his new papal moniker on Tuesday, it was already too late for the Vatican to buy the corresponding dot-com Web address.

That's because a St. Augustine, Fla. man, Rogers Cadenhead, registered the address BenedictXVI.com on April 1, hoping that would be the name of John Paul II's successor. To cover his bases, Cadenhead, 38, also registered ClementXV.com, InnocentXIV.com, LeoXIV.com, PaulVII.com, and PiusXIII.com.
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He won't be named 'Pope Peter'

by element115
MetaFilter ---> Let the invective begin!
Posted in | 0 Comments »

New conservative pope divides Latin America

by element115
Ratzinger earned his tough reputation in part by disciplining Latin American priests who followed the Marxist-influenced "Liberation Theology, in which radical churchmen joined the poor and oppressed to fight against social injustice and military regimes in the 1970s and 1980s.

And like his predecessor, he is likely to find that church opposition to birth control does not fit easily with developing world realities, where widespread poverty is often exacerbated by big families and where some governments have promoted contraception.

Argentine theologian Ruben Dri, a University of Buenos Aires professor, criticized the choice as a setback to those who hoped to see a more progressive Catholic church.
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