Creepy Disclosures Weblog- Archive#2

  • Woman gives birth to 13 pound, 1 ounce baby

    The boy was delivered Friday by Caesarean section to Joanne Rogers at St. Luke's Medical Center.
    She had developed diabetes during her pregnancy and said she was looking forward to a Jan. 4 delivery, but doctors decided to deliver it earlier because of the baby's size and her medical condition.
    "Just to get the baby out, believe me, it was the best Christmas present I ever had," she said of her son, Jeffrey.
    Her husband, Jeff, said doctors had told the couple to expect the baby to weigh 91/2 to 10 pounds.
    "We were really amazed," he said of the baby's actual size.
    According to the Guinness World Records 2000, the heaviest birth was a 24-pound boy delivered in 1879 in Ohio.


  • Deborah Orr: I'm fed up being called an anti-Semite(UKIndepenedent Opinion)
    EXCERPT:So I am rather mortified to learn that, according to Ms Amiel, I too have been peddling anti-Semitism. Ever since I went to Israel on holiday, I've considered it to be a shitty little country too. And I was under the impression that even Israelis thought this. I mean, if they thought Israel was small but perfectly formed, surely they wouldn't be so hell-bent on making it bigger and better, come what may.

  • JACK DUGGAN: FROM TORA BORA TO BORA BORA (the Old Pravda)
    It seems that our government has allowed ex-CIA agent Osama Bin Laden and over 3,000 of his Al Queda terrorist regulars to fly out of Afghanistan under the guise of evacuating Pakistani wounded. They are now laughing at us as they sun themselves in Somalia and Abu Dhabi, while our grunts are chasing their tails inside the caves of Tora Bora.
    It is reported that the Tora Bora cubbyholes never held more than 300 Al Queda fighters, instead of the thousands and thousands touted by our ‘intelligence’ agencies. The paltry 300 were sent there as a diversion for the rubes watching on CNN.
    By agreement, the U.S. stopped bombing the airport at Kunduz to allow the humanitarian evacuation of mostly wounded native Pakistani Taliban troops, so that they could return to their country in exchange for the cooperation we had received from Pakistan. While they were being airlifted out, several charter planes of Russian design landed and left at the same times, taking as many as 4,000 armed Al Queda terrorists out of Afghanistan, including Osama Bin Laden.
    Apparently, the evacuation lasted almost a week, starting around the third week of November. Our geniuses kept bombing and strafing Tora Bora for weeks, even though the enemy was never there, to make sure that our media got plenty of photo ops of the War on Terrorism making an impressive amount of smoke and noise.
    I bet many of you have seen the fantastic weapons our aircraft carry. They have special bombs that crater entire airport runways so that they are not usable without months of repairs. So, I ask you, how can it be that we have been "bombing" the airport at Konduz, yet allowed planes to land on its runways? Doesn’t bombing an airport make it useless? Yet, thousands of Taliban fighters from Pakistan and thousands more battle-hardened Al Queda terrorists escaped over several days during the "pauses in bombing" by the USA. Something doesn’t smell right. Yet it smells familiar; it smells like the Clinton administration telling us one thing while it did another.
    Iraqi intelligence has warned our State Department that if the U.S. captures Bin Laden and effectively ends the power of the Al Queda to ‘Be all you can be,’ it will cause such a huge Islamic fundamentalist backlash that riots will occur in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt that won’t stop until their leaders are deposed and replaced with fundamentalist mullahs that would make the Taliban seem glamorous.
    So, Osama and company are secretly evacuated to safer grounds while our President vows to ‘get him.’ It smells like the Bush administration telling us one thing while doing another. They chose to allow Bin Laden and his merry men to escape in the name of Muslim fundamentalist ‘stability,’ a new oxymoron.
    Speaking of morons, many American are still reacting to the new War On Terrorism with patriotic fervor, setting U.S. flags rippling on their car antennas, front porches and even their kids’ tricycles.
    It doesn’t matter to patriots that if any cop says they’re a suspected terrorist for yelling at a meter maid, they can be arrested and jailed without hearing the charges against them, without an attorney, without a phone call and without bail. Next, they can be tried by a secret court, convicted with secret evidence, then even executed in secret. They can disappear off the face of the earth, grabbed up by the new Gestapo, the USA P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act Secret Police, while families wonder who is now supposed to raise and lower the nine-foot America flag every night in front of the family home. It simply doesn’t matter that all Civil Rights have been trashed, because it’s the other guy who’s a suspect, not a patriot.
    It doesn’t matter that George Duhhhbya has enacted a War-On-Terrorism economic stimulus package to save the free world. Thanks to his brilliant defense of freedom, the supranational corporations no longer have to pay any income taxes! In fact, they are being refunded for past years, to the tune of 140 billion dollars. Billions of tax refunds to IBM, GM, Ford – all FOG, "Friends Of George."
    Go ahead, America, try to fudge just a little on your tax deductions; times are tight and you’re running low on grocery money more and more every month. Then expect an audit and perhaps armed agents bursting into your home and business, confiscating and selling even the shoes off your feet.
    Lower your heads for the yoke of the New World Order to set gently on your necks, while IBM executives sail on their tax-free yachts. They are now laughing at us as they sun themselves off the coasts of Somalia and Abu Dhabi, echoed by the laughter of Osama Bin Laden, lilting in the warm, offshore breeze.
    Let’s all sing, America the Beautiful.

  • Osama has died a natural death(PAK Observer)
    PESHAWAR—Much dreaded Osama bin Ladin, the man on the top of the US list of most wanted men, had a peaceful natural death in mid-December in the vicinity of famous Tora Bora mountains, a Taliban leader who attended funeral of the Al-Qaeda leader confided to Pakistan Observer.
    “The Coalition troops are engaged in a mad search operation but they would never be able to fulfil their cherished goal of getting Osama alive or dead”, the source added while referring to intensive operation launched by US and British troops to “smoke Osama out”.
    Late Osama bin Ladin, according to the source, was suffering from some serious lungs complication and succumbed to the disease for lack of proper treatment. The source claimed that OBL was laid to rest honourably in his last abode and his grave was levelled even as per his Wahabi belief.
    About thirty close associates of OBL in Al-Qaeda including his most trusted and personal bodyguards, his family members and some “Taliban friends” attended the funeral rites. A volley of bullets were also fired to pay final tributes to the “great leader”. The Taliban source who claims to have seen Osama’s face before burial said “he looked pale and freak but calm, relaxed and confident”.
    Asked whether Osama had any feelings of remorse before death, the source vehemently said “No”. Instead, he said, Osama was proud that he succeeded in his mission of igniting awareness amongst Muslims about hegemonistic designs and conspiracies of “pagans” against Islam. Osama, he said, held the view that the sacrifice of a few hundred people in Afghanistan was nothing as those who laid their lives in creating an atmosphere of resistance will be adequately rewarded by Almighty Allah.
    When asked where are his last remains buried, the source said “I am sure that like other places in Tora Bora, that particular place too must have vanished”.
    He looked pale and freak? Confident?

  • U.S. sees bin Laden leaving by sea.
    Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization has access to scores of tramp freighters around the world, and the United States fears the terror mastermind could rendezvous with his "navy" on the Pakistani coast and sail to freedom.
    His face will be appearing on doughnuts next.

  • Biographer Says Osama Bin Laden Alive
    NEW DELHI, Dec 26, 2001 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- A Pakistani biographer of suspected terror mastermind Osama bin Laden says the Saudi dissident is alive.
    Journalist Hamid Mir told India's Star News TV channel that bin Laden had perhaps escaped toward the Iran border in southern Afghanistan.
    On Tuesday, an unnamed Taliban leader had told a Pakistani newspaper that bin Laden had died of a lung infection and was buried in the Tora Bora Mountains. Other news reports speculate that bin Laden could have crossed the border to escape into Pakistan along with hundreds of al Qaida activists.
    Mir, the only journalist to have interviewed bin Laden after Sept. 11, said conflicting reports on the suspected terrorist's whereabouts, especially about his death, were being spread to ease the U.S.-led hunt for the Saudi dissident blamed for masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
    Mir, however, did not substantiate his claim that bin Laden is alive.

  • U.S. removing al Qaeda fingers for DNA analysis
    Sunday, December 23, 2001 at 18:00 JST
    LONDON — U.S. special forces are cutting off the fingers of dead al-Qaida fighters in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan to clarify through DNA analysis whether accused terrorist Osama bin Laden died in the battle of Tora Bora, The Sunday Times reported.
    In a dispatch from Tora Bora, the newspaper reported that the fingers will be turned over to the FBI for DNA analysis to clarify whether bin Laden died in the battle. U.S. officials have reportedly already collected DNA samples from members of bin Laden's family to check for a match, it said. (Kyodo News)

  • India airlifts 1,000 artificial limbs to Afghanistan(Ananova)

  • Curry Spice May Help Heal Wounds
    NEW YORK, Dec 26 (Reuters Health) - Laboratory experiments conducted in Singapore suggest that curcumin--a compound found in the curry spice turmeric--may act as an antioxidant that could possibly promote wound healing.

  • India Troop Deployment Almost Complete(UKGuardian)
    Er, excuse me, World Leaders, possible scary war about to happen.

  • Discovering What It Takes to Live to 100(NYT regreq)
    "They're basically very happy, optimistic people. You look at a person like Mary Lavigne and you see she has people taking her to lunch, people looking after her, because she's so nice."
    He has met some who live to a ripe old age even while smoking cigarettes or eating high-fat foods, but, he said, "These are the ones who you would suppose really have some spectacular genetic stuff going on."
    Still, a great majority of his subjects never smoked. Few drink to excess.
    I'll drink to the few.

  • Fly Naked(NYTregreq)
    In the wake of the attempted bombing last week of the American Airlines flight from Paris by a terrorist nut with explosives in his shoe, I'm thinking of starting my own airline, which would be called: Naked Air. Its motto would be: "Everybody flies naked and nobody worries." Or "Naked Air — where the only thing you wear is a seat belt."
    Think about it. If everybody flew naked, not only would you never have to worry about the passenger next to you carrying box cutters or exploding shoes, but no religious fundamentalists of any stripe would ever be caught dead flying nude, or in the presence of nude women, and that alone would keep many potential hijackers out of the skies.

  • Scotland Yard confirms men removed from Sydney bound flight
    Scotland Yard has confirmed three men were removed from a United Airlines flight bound for Sydney via San Francisco on Monday afternoon.However, the police say the men were removed at the request of the airline.
    The trouble began when the pilot of flight UA 931 announced to passengers he was returning to the terminal at Heathrow Airport just before take off.
    Armed police escorted three men from the plane and then the remaining passengers and their baggage were given extra security searches before the plane was released to continue its journey.
    United Airlines will not say why the men were removed, but police have confirmed no charges have been laid against them.

  • From arabnews.com

  • John Walker, American prisoner of war
    By Fawaz Turki
    (Arabnews.com)
    To those staunch zealots who want to see this young man executed or, at best, imprisoned for life, one can only respond by asking what happened to their sense of compassion or, simply, their common sense.
    Here’s a boy who was searching for spiritual guidance which he found in Islam, eschewing, along the way, his peers’ notorious teenage excesses. Was that wrong?
    Does there lie, behind this nauseated disbelief at what Walker had done, an archetypal resentment of Islam, a sense of incredulity, born out of American hauteur, that a young, clean-cut, all-American kid from an affluent family, graduate of a school for gifted students, would, horror of horrors, convert to Islam? For does not Islam remain, in the American imagination, a faith whose spiritual cosmology American commentators (despite their public remonstrations to the contrary) refuse to see as a liberating life-force, but choose instead to see as "militant," "repressive" and, well, you know all the other serviceable words.

  • Monkey on your back: apes may use drugs recreationally(UKTelegraph)
    HUMAN beings were not the first to use recreational drugs. Some apes take stimulants and hallucinogens, sometimes munching roots that now show promise in treating human addicts, say scientists.
    Now it seems that apes may use drugs recreationally. African apes eat the seeds of Kola trees which contain caffeine and theobromine and are legendary for their effect in preventing fatigue. They found that two hallucinogenic plants are ingested by gorillas in Equatorial Guinea and chimpanzees in the Republic of Guinea: Alchornea floribunda and A. cordifolia
    A floribunda is used in Gabonese cults where the root has a reputation as an intoxicant and aphrodisiac. It is said to provide a state of intense excitement followed by a deep, sometimes fatal depression. Most intriguing, said Prof Huffman, is how local people claim to have discovered the intoxicating effects of the plant by watching animals, including gorillas, go into a frenzy of fear, as if being chased by invisible objects, after eating the roots.

  • Today we can read human and ape genetic legacies. In 50 years, we could resurrect the past, says Richard Dawkins.
    (UKGuardian)

  • Eating Raw Sprouts Linked to Foodborne Illness
    NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who eat raw clover, alfalfa and other sprouts may be at risk for foodborne illness, even if the sprout seeds were pretreated or soaked in a chlorine solution to reduce their risk of bacterial contamination, according to recent study findings.
    First they came for the sprouts, then the came for the broccoli.


  • Egyptian: Tape Shows bin Laden Guilt
    CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - In the first official Egyptian reaction, the police minister said a videotape in which Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) is shown rejoicing over the Sept. 11 attacks amounts to a ``complete confession.''

  • Cough lingering in California firefighters who helped in N.Y.
    "It's just kind of a recurring little dry cough. Nothing serious, but it comes and goes," he said. "I would imagine the guys back in New York are going through much worse than us."


  • Pak President extends Christmas greetings to Christian community(PAKNEWS)
    ISLAMABAD, Dec 25 (PNS): President Pervez Musharraf on the occasion of Christmas reiterated the firm commitment of the government to uphold and protect the rights and privileges of all minorities, as enshrined in the constitution. Extending his heartiest greetings and facilitations on the auspicious occasion of Christmas, the president in his message said, "Prophet Jesus brought the message of love, peace and harmony. He showed us the path of virtuous living. The best tribute to Prophet Jesus would be to inculcate and practice the spirit of peace, love and brotherhood, which are common to not only Christianity and Islam, but also all religions of the world."
    Felicitations?

  • Without bombs, United States may already be fighting anti-terrorism war in Somalia
    The ships offshore — some of them from the U.S. Navy — have been stopping and searching civilian vessels, and Washington has effectively shut down the country's largest company for alleged ties to bin Laden.
    Why don't they just tell us they think Osama's on a boat? It was reported below before they even went into Tora Bora

  • Food Safety Confronted by 'Bioterror' Threat
    ``The big-name companies, they already have the fences up, and in many cases you have to go through a guard in order to get into the plant,'' he said.(Reuters)



  • Explanation: Last week, an asteroid approached unusually close to the Earth. Passing well outside the orbit of our Moon, Asteroid 1998 WT24 posed no danger, but became bright enough to see with binoculars and to track with radar. Pictured above, the kilometer-sized asteroid was imaged crossing the sky on December 14, two days before closest approach. Every few years, an asteroid will actually pass inside the orbit of the Moon. Large impact features on the Earth are testaments to asteroids or comets that actually impacted the Earth in the distant past. Astronomers continue to discover, track, and study potentially hazardous asteroids with a goal of making planet Earth a safer place. (NASA)
    Looks like we could do with a "hyperspace" button.

  • Birds are being spotted in places hundreds and even thousands of miles from their traditional habitats. Scientists really don't know why.
    Could the magnetic poles be starting to switch?(BostonGlobe)

  • RSPCA baffled by stray pelican(Ananova)

  • GM Xmas tree will light up on its own
    Fed up of fiddling with the fairy lights? Help might be at hand. Scientists are predicting that genetic modification will enable them to grow Christmas trees that light themselves up.
    The scientists say that the new GM trees would put an end to the frustrating ritual of fishing the lights out of the loft and trying to make them work. They also believe that trees could be grown to power homes and appliances.(UKIndependent)

  • Neandertals are Human?
    The Out of Africa theory suggests that Neandertals were among a number of hominid species that were replaced by modern humans who migrated from Africa around 200,000 years ago. The opposing theory, Multiregionalism, proposes that distinct populations of humans have been living around much of the world since a migration from Africa began one to two million years ago; modern humans resulted from the intermingling of these groups, including Neandertals. (ArchaeologyToday)

  • This fall, French geologist and prehistorian Jacques Collina-Girard presented research suggesting that Atlantis was a real place -- a small mid-channel island sitting in what is now the Strait of Gibraltar.
    Its doom was sealed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, when rising seas swamped it along with six other nearby islands, Collina-Girard said. (WASHPOST)

  • "The Far-reaching Effects of Major Eruptions,"
    De Boer apologizes that his book's subtitle, "The Far-reaching Effects of Major Eruptions," is not as catchy as it might be, but he at least is satisfied with its accuracy. His thesis is that geologic events can have consequences - political, economic and cultural - that persist for centuries. He is already writing a sequel, "Earthquakes in Human History." It includes a chapter on the lost continent of Atlantis.
    De Boer devotes another chapter to the greatest eruption in recorded history, that of Tambora in April 1815 in what is now Indonesia. It killed as many as 70,000 people outright and spewed so much ash into the atmosphere that the Earth was shrouded for months. The following year as crops failed, there was famine and revolt in Europe. In Switzerland, in the abnormally dreary summer of 1816, Lord Byron composed his famous poem, "Darkness," (it begins: "I had a dream, which was not all a dream/The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars/Did wander darkling in the eternal space.") and Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein."
    In New England, 1816 would go down in legend as "the year without a summer," but in fact there were killing frosts into July, and snow in Connecticut. De Boer quotes the diary entry of a North Branford man, "Great frost - we must learn to be humble," and asserts the miserable harvests of 1816 and 1817 speeded emigration to Connecticut's Western Reserve, now Ohio.
    A lot of butterflies also flapped their wings.

  • Fox deletes Israeli-spy series, FreeRepublic offers backups(Source:Robotwisdom(anti-Israel/internet weblog) via Antiwar.com(US peaceniks))
    News on the NY radio? "Cover-up because it's cold outside."

  • PLO chief Yasser Arafat, who once gave the slip to enemy forces by dressing in drag, may try to smuggle himself into Bethlehem today inside an ambulance or diplomatic car, Israeli sources say.
    JERUSALEM - A peace plan secretly pitched to the Palestinians by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres was DOA last night after it was leaked to the press - and infuriated Peres' boss, who was caught off-guard.
    Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon blasted the document as "imaginary and dangerous," saying it "is causing a lot of damage to Israel, since it creates the impression that Israel is ready to make concessions to the Palestinians, even while [PLO chief Yasser] Arafat has not done anything to stop the violence."
    Peres, after a long day of silence, conceded, "There is no agreement. I wish you had one on the basis of what was published."
    There will be no peace till Sharon goes. The man has no intention of seeking it. Or letting it be sought. Peres should be getting the noble peace prize for his constant undermining of this warlord.
    ARAFAT TRYING TO SLINK INTO HOLY CITY
    JERUSALEM - PLO chief Yasser Arafat, who once gave the slip to enemy forces by dressing in drag, may try to smuggle himself into Bethlehem today inside an ambulance or diplomatic car, Israeli sources say.
    My God, he must have made Billy Dainty look attractive. I guess the santa outfit didn't work this time either. (NYPOST)


  • GENERAL / AUSTRALIA ON HIGHER ALERT AFTER POSSIBLE THREAT
    SYDNEY, DEC 24, SPA -- AUSTRALIA HAS ORDERED HEIGHTENED SECURITY OVER CHRISTMAS AFTER RECEIVING INFORMATION OF A THREAT, POSSIBLY AGAINST U.S. OR BRITISH INTERESTS IN AUSTRALIA, ATTORNEY GENERAL DARYL WILLIAMS SAID ON MONDAY.
    (SOURCE:NewsNowWires)

  • ANTI-TERROR COPS RAID SHIP
    Channel swoop after alert over plot to blitz London    (UK Mirror)
    They were acting on information from MI6 agents in the Middle East who think explosives were loaded at Yemen or Djibouti by supporters of Osama bin Laden.
    A Special Branch source in London said last night: "We believe British-based Islamic militants were planning to transfer the explosives to a lorry or a smaller boat for a devastating attack."
    Or Perhaps not.
    'Terror probe' ship gets all-clear(BBCNEWS)
    The Nisha remains moored off the Isle of Wight
    A search of the cargo ship suspected of carrying "terrorist material" has found no dangerous substances on board, Scotland Yard said.

  • An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus has spread from Gabon to the neighbouring Republic of Congo, raising fears of a regional epidemic. (UKGuardian)
    Scientists know relatively little about Ebola, which typically causes fever, vomiting, heavy bleeding, and then death from shock.

    Body From River Identified as Missing Harvard Ebola Biologist(ABCNEWS)
    How's the outbreak in Afghanistan doing? Is there now a media blackout?

  • Inside the War Room-Time on Bush(TW-AOL)
    Relying on instinct, and trusting his team, George W. Bush unleashed a new kind of war against a new kind of enemy — and faster than you might have guessed
    Dark, windowless and small, the White House Situation Room feels cramped even on quiet mornings. But as the President's top advisers filed in early on Sept. 12, their faces drawn and eyes puffy from lack of sleep, the room was jammed to capacity. Arrayed around the table was one of the most seasoned foreign policy teams ever assembled by a President, and every one of them had just been caught completely off guard. No one more so than George Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The day before, after hijacked planes obliterated the World Trade Center and smashed into the Pentagon, George W. Bush had turned to an aide aboard Air Force One and barked, "Get me Tenet!" But the President didn't want Tenet's head. He wanted his help.
    Tenet brought four strangers into the Situation Room from CIA headquarters that morning. They stood quietly in the back of the room, almost unseen. One was the head of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center; two others had been covert operatives during the guerrilla war against the Soviets in the 1980s. They had owned whole parts of Afghanistan then. And they had come to the White House to tell the President that they could own Afghanistan again.
    If others regarded Tenet as an unlikely choice to run the war on al-Qaeda, Bush didn't see it that way. He knew Tenet was obsessed with Osama bin Laden — "almost abnormally obsessed," says former Oklahoma Senator David Boren, Tenet's mentor. Most important, Bush knew Tenet had a plan. Over the summer — "when we were getting a lot of chatter in the system about potential threats," National Security Council chief Condoleezza Rice recalled — Bush had ordered the CIA and the NSC to draw up a comprehensive proposal for breaking al-Qaeda for good. "I feel like I'm swatting at flies," Bush had complained. "I want a way to take the network down." Tenet's team was working one up when al-Qaeda attacked.
    I'm glad they added that last sentence. Not a bad manager I must say. I was watching Nader and Chomsky-lites on a round table PBS discussion. All lofty ideals and the usual intellectual altruistic mantra who would frown on the use of phrase "couldn't organize a piss-up in a brewery". They could talk rings around Bush, but the simple fact is, as he says, "We are at War" and whether we like it or not this man is now our supreme commander. Oh hell.

  • Giuliani:"I anticipate another attack"

    Mr Giuliani told the BBC: "I anticipate another attack, and I try as much as I can to figure out what it would be, where it would be, are we prepared for it, are we doing all the things that we can to prepare for it?"
    Go Rudy! I wish you could stay.


  • Microchips Under the Skin Offer ID, Raise Questions(Reuters)
    Ahh, first they raise questions, like "when are you gonna get up, pete?" then they'll start barking orders.

  • Autism - and its milder cousin Asperger's syndrome - is surging among the children of Silicon Valley. Are math-and-tech genes to blame?(Wired)
    Nick is building a universe on his computer. He's already mapped out his first planet: an anvil-shaped world called Denthaim that is home to gnomes and gods, along with a three-gendered race known as kiman. As he tells me about his universe, Nick looks up at the ceiling, humming fragments of a melody over and over. "I'm thinking of making magic a form of quantum physics, but I haven't decided yet, actually," he explains. The music of his speech is pitched high, alternately poetic and pedantic - as if the soul of an Oxford don has been awkwardly reincarnated in the body of a chubby, rosy-cheeked boy from Silicon Valley. Nick is 11 years old.
    Nick's father is a software engineer, and his mother is a computer programmer. They've known that Nick was an unusual child for a long time. He's infatuated with fantasy novels, but he has a hard time reading people. Clearly bright and imaginative, he has no friends his own age. His inability to pick up on hidden agendas makes him easy prey to certain cruelties, as when some kids paid him a few dollars to wear a ridiculous outfit to school.

  • Sexual apartheid supported by American companies such as McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Starbucks, and other U.S. firms operating in Saudi Arabia.(WASHPost)
    Not to mention global colonisation.
     

  • Muslims are seething at CNN and MTV after the cable-TV giants teamed up to surprise sheltered Afghan kids with sexy, skin-baring photos of Jennifer Lopez and get their reactions on camera. (NYPOST)
    I guess it depends on your definition of sheltered.

  • McDonald's will replace Ronald McDonald with Asterix in France. Hoping to appease anti-American attacks and anti-junk food sentiments in France, they're giving Ronald the boot(BBCNEWS via Metafilter Blog)

    Asterix and the Goths has gone on sale for the first time in Russian, and five more adventures are due out in the autumn.
    It's a bit of a gamble as there's no tradition for strip cartoons in Russia, and Russian readers rather look down on them as an inferior form.

    Reading the first Asterix book published for five years is like seeing your favourite dinosaur rock band on their long-awaited comeback tour.
    Asterix and the Actress brings the wily Gaulish warrior and his menhir-delivery man friend Obelix back for their 31st adventure. (Mar '01 BBCNEWS)

  • As pundits mull whether America's next target in the war on terrorism should be Iraq or a smaller quarry first – such as the Sudan or Somalia – it's time to consider another petri dish of ferocious anti-American hatred and terrorist activity. The Bush doctrine is: We are at war not only with the terrorists, but also with those who harbor them.
    We've got to attack France.
    (US Right-wing commentator Ann Coulter)

  • The Real Story of Flight 93(NEWSWEEK)
    Truly harrowing.


  • Book: U.S. Military Drafted Plans to Terrorize U.S. Cities to Provoke War With Cuba

    (ABCNEWS)
    N E W Y O R K, May 1 2001— In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.
     Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.
    The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro.
    America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba," and, "casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation."
    Details of the plans are described in Body of Secrets (Doubleday), a new book by investigative reporter James Bamford about the history of America's largest spy agency, the National Security Agency. However, the plans were not connected to the agency, he notes.
    The plans had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, in March 1962. But they apparently were rejected by the civilian leadership and have gone undisclosed for nearly 40 years.
    "These were Joint Chiefs of Staff documents. The reason these were held secret for so long is the Joint Chiefs never wanted to give these up because they were so embarrassing," Bamford told ABCNEWS.com.
    "The whole point of a democracy is to have leaders responding to the public will, and here this is the complete reverse, the military trying to trick the American people into a war that they want but that nobody else wants."
    Gunning for War
    The documents show "the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government," writes Bamford.
    The Joint Chiefs even proposed using the potential death of astronaut John Glenn during the first attempt to put an American into orbit as a false pretext for war with Cuba, the documents show.
    Should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, they wrote, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof … that the fault lies with the Communists et all Cuba [sic]."
    The plans were motivated by an intense desire among senior military leaders to depose Castro, who seized power in 1959 to become the first communist leader in the Western Hemisphere — only 90 miles from U.S. shores.
    The earlier CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles had been a disastrous failure, in which the military was not allowed to provide firepower.The military leaders now wanted a shot at it.
    "The whole thing was so bizarre," says Bamford, noting public and international support would be needed for an invasion, but apparently neither the American public, nor the Cuban public, wanted to see U.S. troops deployed to drive out Castro.
    Reflecting this, the U.S. plan called for establishing prolonged military — not democratic — control over the island nation after the invasion.
    "That's what we're supposed to be freeing them from," Bamford says. "The only way we would have succeeded is by doing exactly what the Russians were doing all over the world, by imposing a government by tyranny, basically what we were accusing Castro himself of doing."
    'Over the Edge'
    The Joint Chiefs at the time were headed by Eisenhower appointee Army Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, who, with the signed plans in hand made a pitch to McNamara on March 13, 1962, recommending Operation Northwoods be run by the military.
    Whether the Joint Chiefs' plans were rejected by McNamara in the meeting is not clear. But three days later, President Kennedy told Lemnitzer directly there was virtually no possibility of ever using overt force to take Cuba, Bamford reports. Within months, Lemnitzer would be denied another term as chairman and transferred to another job.
    The secret plans came at a time when there was distrust in the military leadership about their civilian leadership, with leaders in the Kennedy administration viewed as too liberal, insufficiently experienced and soft on communism. At the same time, however, there real were concerns in American society about their military overstepping its bounds.
    There were reports U.S. military leaders had encouraged their subordinates to vote conservative during the election.
    And at least two popular books were published focusing on a right-wing military leadership pushing the limits against government policy of the day. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee published its own report on right-wing extremism in the military, warning a "considerable danger" in the "education and propaganda activities of military personnel" had been uncovered. The committee even called for an examination of any ties between Lemnitzer and right-wing groups. But Congress didn't get wind of Northwoods, says Bamford.
    "Although no one in Congress could have known at the time," he writes, "Lemnitzer and the Joint Chiefs had quietly slipped over the edge."
    Even after Lemnitzer was gone, he writes, the Joint Chiefs continued to plan "pretext" operations at least through 1963.
    One idea was to create a war between Cuba and another Latin American country so that the United States could intervene. Another was to pay someone in the Castro government to attack U.S. forces at the Guantanamo naval base — an act, which Bamford notes, would have amounted to treason. And another was to fly low level U-2 flights over Cuba, with the intention of having one shot down as a pretext for a war.
    "There really was a worry at the time about the military going off crazy and they did, but they never succeeded, but it wasn't for lack of trying," he says.
    After 40 Years
    Ironically, the documents came to light, says Bamford, in part because of the 1992 Oliver Stone film JFK, which examined the possibility of a conspiracy behind the assassination of President Kennedy.
    As public interest in the assassination swelled after JFK's release, Congress passed a law designed to increase the public's access to government records related to the assassination.
    The author says a friend on the board tipped him off to the documents.
    Afraid of a congressional investigation, Lemnitzer had ordered all Joint Chiefs documents related to the Bay of Pigs destroyed, says Bamford. But somehow, these remained.
    "The scary thing is none of this stuff comes out until 40 years after," says Bamford
    Thank god, the civilian leadership, i.e. the Kennedy bros' refused to go along. Mind you, after the recent presidential decree here there won't be any new documents like this for a while.
     

  • Mystery Ship Sinks in Japan Incident, 15 Crew Lost
    (YAHOOnews)

  • Hunt for 20 terror ships-The Armada of Terror(UKObserver)
    British and American intelligence services are hunting the world for at least 20 ships thought to make up a terrorist fleet linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda group, The Observer can reveal.
    Security and shipping sources said British, US and European intelligence services have been desperately searching for bin Laden's 'phantom fleet' amid fears the vessels could be carrying poisons, explosives or weapons.
    They seek him here, they seek him there. They seek him in his frilly underwear.

  • REPORT: CHINA SUPPLIED ARMS TO BIN LADEN'S TERRORISTS AFTER SEPT 11(Source:WashTimes)

  • Flight instructor warned FBI in August: terrorist taking lessons to fly jumbo jet(SOURCE:StarTribune)
    Moussaoui first raised eyebrows when, during a simple introductory exchange, he said he was from France, but then didn't seem to understand when the instructor spoke French to him.
    A french algerian that couldn't/wouldn't speak french? Qu'est que qui que ca?

  • Al-Qaida fighters airlifted to safety
    (Source:DEBKA (Israeli Intelligence} via WorldNetDaily {US Christian Conservatism})
    Daring 5-night operation rescued 3,000 terrorists from Afghanistan
    GIST:Planes from the AL-Quaida fleet(see below for more on that)-rescued fighters from Konduz and small runways near Kandahar. Flying them to Abu Dhabi and Somalia.
    According to intelligence sources, U.S. and Pakistani agents are investigating the source of the reports claiming that al-Qaida and bin Laden had concealed themselves in the Tora Bora cave complex and the White Mountains abutting on the Pakistani frontier – to fight to the last man. Those reports may have been part of a deliberate deception. It is now clear that no more than 200 to 300 al-Qaida fighters actually hid up in Tora Bora as bait to misdirect the Pashtun and U.S. Special Forces hunters. Small groups moved from cave to cave to keep the searchers and U.S. bombers occupied and unaware of the main body of the al-Qaida force, which meanwhile escaped into Pakistan.
    They, too, were flown on to Abu Dhabi and Somalia.
    I guess we're now living in the disinformation age. How surprised were the PAK ISS really?


  • FBI focusing on portable nuke threat (UPI)
    Perhaps the most startling testimony came from a defector from the Russian military intelligence service, the GRU, who testified in 1998 that the Russians secretly pre-positioned weapons, including small nuclear devices, in the U.S. and other countries around the world to be used for sabotage by its agents in time of war.
    This witness said it was his job while working undercover in Washington from 1988 to 1992 as a correspondent for the Russian news agency Tass to locate places where these weapons could be hidden both around Washington and in other parts of the country.
    Weldon has described the weapons in this testimony as "small nuclear weapons that can fit into a knapsack or a briefcase or suitcase and are designed to be delivered and detonated by one or two people."

  • US investigating whether nukes in country (UPI)
    The deepest concern centers on the chance that bin Laden has acquired and will use a finished nuclear weapon. Rep. Chris Shays, R-Conn., chairman of the House subcommittee on national security, told United Press International: "It's possible, and it's very scary."
    He added: "If you asked me if bin Laden really had these weapons, I would say, probably not, but, on the other hand, I wouldn't be the least surprised if there were a nuclear explosion in Israel or the United States."
    One report currently being investigated by U.S. intelligence officials came from Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence sources who had conducted an interrogation of a "terrorist suspect" in early November. Under "coercion," the suspect said that agents of bin Laden had smuggled two portable nuclear weapons into the United States, according to the report seen by a U.S. government expert.

  • Secret British Report Calls For Nuclear Power Phase Out(NewScientist)
    The most difficult method known to man to boil water to make steam to drive turbines to make electricity to boil water to make a cup of tea-Nuclear power is simply too dangerous and expensive.

  • The Five Worst Extinctions in Earth's History(SpaceDaily)

  • Cosmic Cannon: How an Exploding Star Could Fry Earth
    Shooting out jets of energy or blobs of stuff the size of Earth at nearly light-speed, exploding stars called supernovae may hold more potential peril than anyone had ever imagined, according to a growing suspicion among some researchers.
    While scientists have long tried to link supernovae to mass extinctions on Earth, there is no solid evidence. But recent observations of high-energy emissions in space have some scientists suggesting that our planet may in fact get fried every now and then.(SpaceDaily)
    Well, I'm sure it won't happen for ages.

  • Three Spacecraft Detect Huge Energy Burst in Distant Cosmos (SPACE.com 21 December 2001)
    Zoinks!

  • Genetic scientist Dr Joy Richman Creates chicks with two beaks(UKTelegraph)
    The weekly news for Fonzie this one

  • Scientists studying ball lightning say it may be linked to spontaneous human combustion.(Ananova)
    Are crop-circles are just Yeti's rolling in the hay?
     
  • Monster-hunters set to trap Nessie with the net (TheScotsman)

  • Bin Laden Video: Visitor, Saudi fighter Khaled al-Harbi, describes how he was smuggled into Afghanistan and attaches the words “jalad alhayaa” — a name for the Saudi religious police(MSNBC)
    In addition, a separate translation indicates that bin Laden’s visitor, Saudi fighter Khaled al-Harbi, describes how he was smuggled into Afghanistan and attaches the words “jalad alhayaa” — a name for the Saudi religious police — to the smuggler’s name.
    That additional translation, made for the AP by Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi who listened to the tape, echoes yet another translation by ABC News. If al-Harbi’s comments are true, it would mark a closer tie between the Saudi government and bin Laden’s allies than previously acknowledged.


  • Baboons Enjoy Poetry Readings
    At least that's what seven Chilean poets would argue, and they've just done an experiment they say proves their point.
    Insisting that baboons are more receptive to poetry than their own countrymen, the seven poets staged a poetry reading inside the baboon enclosure at Santiago's Metropolitan Zoo. Although some were afraid that the poets would be attacked in their cage, their furry hosts instead welcomed them quite warmly.
    One of the poets addressed his hosts directly, saying he had experienced a dream that one day, baboons and humans would someday live in harmony together once more. The baboons rewarded him with rapt attention, as if they were touched by his words and his sentiment.(Cosmiverse)
    It's like Cyrano De Bergerac all over again.

  • NASA Spacecraft to Hunt for Elusive Gravity Ripples(JPL)
    What the hell did happen at the end of Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes anyway? Was it an even more prophetic than the first? As we all know the monkey's and apes we're just a thickly-haired allegory of 'coloured folks'. Like the Osama Memorial may one day lie south of the thinking pools.

  • The Italian woman who claimed to be pregnant-twice-has given birth to a girl who was the result of the first pregnancy and is now awaiting the birth of the triplets who were conceived three months later. She apparently gave birth at a private clinic in Rome last Saturday. She has plans to return to the same place in March for the birth to another girl and two boys. Mrs. Tarquini is believed to be the first woman ever to be continuously pregnant for 12 months. The multiple pregnancies were the result of a condition known as "superfecundation", which makes it possible to conceive a second time while pregnant.
    (BBCNEWS)
    It must have been a "superfecundation" alright.

  • "How to attack America."-manual for holy war found in wrecked al-Qaeda base(USA TODAY)
    DURAI, Afghanistan -- In wrecked al-Qaeda base, manual for holy war. Handwritten in Arabic and underlined on Page 19 of a photocopied training manual, that heading opens a chapter chillingly titled: ''How to start a war.''
    I guess they had no luck with "How to Make Friends and Influence People" or "Who moved my cheese?"

  • THE INDIAN SCENARIO: FROM BAD TO WORSE(By Richard Reeves)
    WASHINGTON -- The harder part of the American war against terrorism began last week as Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in large numbers began to cross from Afghanistan (news - web sites) into Pakistan along ancient smugglers' trails through the mountains that divide the countries. And then, in a plan from hell, a Pakistani suicide squad attacked the Indian Parliament meeting in New Delhi.
    What will come of America's Global tampering? Dropping bombs when we should be eating poppadoms. Soon we'll be shitting ourselves. We should definately stop asking them to make it hot.

  • WILL THERE BE THE FOURTH WAR BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN? (PRAVDA)
    India announced it was withdrawing its ambassador from Pakistan.

    Bush adds Kashmir militants to terror list (UKGuardian)

    India deploys troops on Pakistan border(PAKNEWS)
    Chinese hacked Indian government websites(PAKNEWS)

    China occupies about 20% of the disputed territory of Kashmir and has long been an ally of Pakistan.(PAKNEWS)

    US using 'India card' to contain China: Chinese media(PAKNEWS from June'01)

    ID Cards for Cows in India (The Times UK)

    Muslim cleric warns against a theocratic IndiaNEW DELHI, August 04: The head priest of India's largest mosque Friday warned the government against turning the constitutionally secular country into a Hindu theocratic state. (PAKNEWS)

  • Sugar-Coated Asteroids May Have Seeded Life on Earth
    (Source:NASA)
    This is where God turns up with a big spoon.
     
  • Hundreds of firefighters who worked at the World Trade Center site in have developed respiratory problems, and some may have to retire, a fire union official said. Also Fire Department spokesman Robert Calise Says World Trade Center fire has been extinguished after 100 days
    (ABCNEWS)
    It's like a black hole.

  • Flight 587 Witnesses Saw Explosion Before Crash
    The accounts themselves by the Far Rockaway residents are amazingly similar in sequence and detail, and are completely united in insisting that the tail remained on the airplane until the second of the two explosions and therefore could not have possibly been the cause for the accident. (Newsmax)
    If a tree falls in the forest and the FBI investigates will we ever know what truly happened? After six seasons of the X-Files we're still no closer to the truth.

  • FBI Declines to Release Hijack Flight Cockpit Tape(Reuters)
    SAN FRANCISCO - The FBI (news - web sites) has turned down family requests that it release the cockpit voice recording from an airliner hijacked on Sept. 11 that crashed in a Pennsylvania field, saying the horror captured on the tape would do little to assuage their grief.
    Or placate the fears of a terrorised nation?

  • Bacteria Caught Mating with Mammalian Cells(Nature)
    Although sexual liaisons between different species is usually taboo, researchers in California are encouraging bugs to get down and get funky with hamster cells in work that is described as "rewriting sex manuals in the act." Bacteria mates similarly to humans, through a timely protruding phallus. It suckers a nearby bacterium, dragging it close enough to shoot in DNA through a process called conjugation.
    Scientists have been able to encourage bacteria to share DNA with plants and yeast, but this is the first time bacteria have been caught with their pants down with mammalian cells.
    God, what's going to end up in my armpits with all this tinkering.

  • Prominent DNA Scientist Murdered
    He was a respected member of the scientific community, one of the lead researchers on DNA sequencing and biometrics. He had been an integral part of the Center where he worked for 15 years and was currently serving as Executive Director of Research and Development. He was also the victim of a brutal and ritualistic murder by a sword that left him lying dead, face down with an "X" carved into the back of his neck. (The Daily Press)
     
  • Animals May Sniff for Mates with Most Varied Genes(Nature)
    No wonder the lingering odor of NY subway car is such a turn on.

  • Mouse Modified to Produce Vaccinated Milk
    Scientists in Washington are saying they've found a way to mass produce vaccines in manufacturing plants by inserting a gene into specially-bred transgenic mice that causes them to secrete the drug in their milk. The drug can then be extracted and given to humans.(Reuters)
    You can milk mice? That must take a delicate hand.


  • Feds Suggest Some Take Anthrax Vaccine But Make No Recommendation(ABCNEWS)
    Despite reservations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is telling about 3,000 congressional and postal workers they should consider taking an anthrax vaccine as a follow-up to 60 days of antibiotics.
    So far 48 Capitol Hill workers have gotten their first of three shots, administered by the Capitol attending physician. No system has been set up yet for the postal workers.
    The federal government decided to offer the vaccine after discovering that both the Hart Senate Office Building and the Brentwood mail facility in Washington, D.C., were contaminated with far more anthrax than previously thought. In addition, CDC officials reviewed a study that found anthrax spores can live in lungs for 100 days.
    The catch is the government will not tell the workers they should take it.
    A five-page consent form says the vaccine "has not been shown to prevent infection," and warns of side effects ranging from minor muscle aches and nausea, to chronic muscle weakness and infertility.
    The vaccine is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration for post-exposure use and the FDA has not even approved the vaccine-maker's license to produce it.
    Postal workers said today they did not know whom to believe.
    "You waive away your rights if anything happens if you take the vaccine," said Stanley Flournoy, a distribution clerk at Washington's V Street station. "That just throws up a flag to me saying, well, maybe it's something you don't want to take."
    I was thinking about all the flags currently covering every spare surface of the US, at least it's not huge pictures of George Bush. I remember in Britain when some people actually used to put pictures of Margaret Thatcher up in their window, at least, come to think of it , it wasn't the Union Jack.

  • Overdosing on news can be bad for one’s mental health(UniPress)
    In the midst of the ever-growing number of anthrax attacks, exposure to too much information can be doubly disturbing. Thinking that knowing more will help to protect yourself and your family could make one feel even more pressured to catch every tidbit and announcement. Because of the newness of the reality, it seems at times that the science may change from minute to minute as more is learned about the problem and how best to deal with it. This can cause anxiety about trusting the experts we rely on to help us remain safe and our trust in core values such as scientific knowledge, food and product safety, or health and illness information.
    Do they mean me? I'm meant to trust this quack knows what he's talking aboot?

  • Dad's Love Influences Child as Much as Mom's Love(Reuters Health)
    NEW YORK-A father's love--or the lack of it--contributes as much to the development of a child's personality and behavior as the love of a mother, according to researchers. In some respects, they add, a father's love is even more influential.
    I'm all for this report but I suspect it may be timed to coincide positively with some Bush Policy.

  • IQ Found to be Hereditary(BBC)
    I also read another report about how the average IQ is now 120 (in american kids), slightly higher in UK.(Source:Newsweek). It's great to know that not only do you get dumber as your brain ages but kids are growing up with an increasing-average higher intelligence around you as well. Which might explain that sentence.

  • No more bellyaching over seafood.(UKGuardian)
    While some of us find the likes of scallops, prawns and scampi too tempting, a Spanish research team wants to remove the chance of a diarrhoea epidemic. Having the trots is not usually a serious problem, but the elderly, infants and the sick are at more serious risk from illnesses caused by dodgy shellfish.
    They have devised a way to deactivate shellfish toxins. The method uses the same "supercritical" fluid used to clear out the caffeine from coffee beans. The method could mean the end of seafood diarrhoea.
    Something else for old sailors to wax nostalgic about.

  • Measles Nearly Eradicated in West(AP)
    Malteasers to be next

  • Defector says Saddam has death squad (Ananova)
    An Iraqi defector says Saddam Hussein has a squad of 30 terrorists scattered around the world ready to strike at any time.
    The unit was commissioned by Saddam's son Uday and presented to his father as "a birthday present".
    Couldn't he just have gotten him "Fart Slippers" like everyone else?

  • We Are Also in the World: A Bulls-Eye View of Baghdad by Ramzi Kysia
    (Commondreams.org)
    EXCERPT: As America's "new war" winds down into civil disorder and lawlessness in Afghanistan, the focus is shifting to Iraq. President Bush has put Iraq on notice: let weapons inspectors back into the country, or face the consequences. Media speculation that Iraq will be hit next is rampant. Rabid might be a better word. With this conflict, the media has all but erased the line between speculation, reporting, and enthusiastic encouragement.
    In this conflict, the Iraqi people are caught between a dictator and a democracy - neither of which seem to give a damn how many of them die.
    The suffering of the Iraqi people may not impress either the U.S. or Iraqi governments, but it has fragmented the international coalition against Saddam that once existed. And the vision of U.S. warplanes now routinely bombing Iraqi civilians, while U.S.-led sanctions impoverish them, has worked to rehabilitate Saddam's image throughout the Arab and Muslim world.
    If Americans can't understand how that's possible, then maybe they can understand this: according to UN agencies and relief organizations in Iraq - organizations such as UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross - sanctions have caused at least 500,000 excess deaths among children under the age of 5. That's a children's 9-11 every month for the last 11 years: 250 World Trade Towers, full of babies and toddlers, crashing to the ground.
    Mr. Bassel manages the Zahrat al-Kaleej Apartments in the heart of Baghdad. Like most of the older people here, he treated me with kindness and warm hospitality despite my nationality. He remembers a time when Iraq was a part of the world - and not demonized, demoralized and seemingly discarded.
    "Americans don't know anything about the world," Bassel told me. "They are on top. They first in technology. They first in military. Everything belong to them. But they should not think they are the only people in the world." Said Bassel, "we are also in the world."
    American's do have this expression, called "Live Free or Die", which kinds of gives them the right to kill anyone who doesn't live free.

  • Christmas star cover-up(EurekaAlert)
    AN AMERICAN astronomer claims he has found the first mention of the star of Bethlehem outside the Bible. The reference is in a 4th-century manuscript written by a Roman astrologer and Christian convert called Firmicus Maternus.
    Michael Molnar, formerly of Rutgers University in New Jersey, is the originator of the idea that the star of Bethlehem was not a spectacular astronomical event such as a supernova or a comet but an obscure astrological one. The event would nevertheless have been of great significance to ancient Roman astrologers. After studying the symbolism on Roman coins, he concluded that the "star" was in fact a double eclipse of Jupiter in a rare astrological conjunction that occurred in Aries on 20 March, 6 BC, and again on 17 April, 6 BC (New Scientist, 23/30 December 1995, p 34).
    Molnar believed that Roman astrologers would have interpreted such an event as signifying the birth of a divine king in Judea. But he lacked proof. Now he says he has found it, in the Mathesis, a book written by Maternus in AD 334. Maternus described an astrological event involving an eclipse of Jupiter by the Moon in Aries, and said that it signified the birth of a divine king.
    "Maternus did not mention Jesus's name," says Molnar. "But Roman astrology was a popular craze at the time and everyone reading the book would have known the reference was to Jesus and that the astrological event was the star of Bethlehem."
    So why did Maternus not mention Jesus by name? According to Molnar, early Christians hated pagan beliefs and did not want to justify the Biblical story with astrological mumbo-jumbo. The idea that the stars govern our fate flew in the face of belief in a Christian God as the controlling force in the Universe. "Being a pagan who had converted to Christianity during his lifetime, Firmicus was torn," says Molnar. "Hence his use of astrology to support the Christian story, but in a veiled way."
    According to Molnar, it was essential to early Christians that the true nature of the star be hidden, otherwise theologians would be mired in debate about celestial influences that were not part of Christianity. So they buried the knowledge of the star's astrological roots and in time it was forgotten.
    "I take Molnar's work quite seriously," says Owen Gingerich, a historian of astronomy at Harvard University. "Anything he comes up with along these lines has to be considered as being very likely correct."
    So I was actually born on christmas day? Man, that would suck.

  • Cultures in Collision: A Muslim History of Europe-
    Despite centuries of invasion and strife, the faith has left an enduring legacy of art and learning

    INCLUDING:
    1492 Muslim rule ends in Spain.
    Gosh, there's a "what if?"

  • The hate that will not die (UKGuardian 17th DEc)
    Millions believe 4,000 Jews stayed away from the World Trade Centre on September 11. Harmless conspiracy theory? Or sign of a virulent new anti-semitism? Linda Grant on how the Arab world is exporting an old hatred to the west

  • Man Found 5 Times Over Legal Drinking Limit
    49-Year-Old Lucky To Be Alive
    LORAIN, Ohio -- Police are wondering how a Lorain man found drunk behind the wheel survived, as he was more than five times above the legal limit."In my 22 years, the highest that I can remember is probably a .40," said Lt. Richard Resendez.
    Police records showed that Dull had a blood alcohol level of .532 percent. The legal driving limit is .10.
    Dr. Paul Matus, the Lorain County coroner, was stunned.
    "Well, I didn't know if they were talking about a living individual or a person who had expired," he said.
    Somehow for public health reasons I can't imagine Guinness features this kind of thing. Man in Peterborough comatose after trying to beat Blood Alcohol Level record.

  • A British tourist has been found dead after an alleged two-day drinking binge in Thailand.(Ananova)
    Too late.

  • Study: Alcohol in Moderation May Help Brain
    NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Enjoying some wine with a meal may help protect the brain against the mental decline associated with aging, a new study from Italy suggests.

  • Every Muslim duty bound to purify spirit: Musharraf(PAKNEWS)
    I guess he doesn't mean Moonshine.

  • Sex Pistols may play jubilee gig(BBCnews)
    Twenty-five years after they took to Thames to mark the Queen's silver jubilee, the Sex Pistols may be about to regroup to mark the golden version.
    How'd they get to be sadder than the royal family?

  • Sinister coincidence of BadTrans/MagicLantern keystroke-loggers(Register via RobotWisdom)
    Google,schmoogle.

  • Abu-Jamal Death Sentence Thrown Out(Reuters)
    Don't want to upset the Europeans before they extradite anyone.

  • Gunmen 'seize Comoros island'(BBCNews)
    One less port of call for Osama?

  • Bush Designates Sept. 11 as 'Patriot Day'
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush (news - web sites) on Tuesday signed legislation designating Sept. 11 as ``Patriot Day,'' a holiday to honor the victims of the attacks on that day.
    The resolution signed by Bush calls for government buildings to lower flags to half staff and for Americans to observe a moment of silence in remembrance for the nearly 3,300 people who died in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania in the Sept. 11 hijacking attacks.
    Let's hope we have no more of these days.

  • Suspect Claims Al Qaeda Hacked Microsoft(Newsbytes)
    REDMOND, WASHINGTON, U.S.A., 2001 DEC 17 (NB) -- A suspected member of the Al Qaeda terrorist network claimed that Islamic militants infiltrated Microsoft and sabotaged the company's Windows XP operating system, according to a source close to Indian police. Mohammad Afroze Abdul Razzak, arrested by Mumbai (Bombay) police Oct. 2, has admitted to helping plot terrorist attacks in India, Britain and Australia, India's Hindustan Times newspaper reported Saturday.
    During interrogation, Afroze, 25, also claimed that a member or members of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, posing as computer programmers, were able to gain employment at Microsoft and attempted to plant "trojans, trapdoors, and bugs in Windows XP," according to Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad, a New Delhi information systems and telecommunication consultant.
    Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said Afroze's claims about the company were "bizarre and unsubstantiated and should be treated skeptically."
    Afroze has told Indian authorities that he was part of a team of Al Qaeda terrorists that planned to hijack an aircraft in London on Sept. 11 and crash it into the British House of Commons or into London's Tower Bridge, according to the Hindustan Times, which obtained parts of Afroze's confession.
    British intelligence officials have dismissed the claims, according to a report last week in the Guardian, a British newspaper.
    Under interrogation, Afroze also warned Mumbai police that Al Qaeda was planning an attack on India's parliament complex in New Delhi, the Hindustan Times reported.
    On Thursday, terrorists stormed the Indian Parliament with grenades and guns, killing seven people and injuring at least 20. The five attackers were killed in the ensuing battle with security forces, according to The Washington Post.

  • Fifty-two things they do better in America:(UKGuardian)

  • UN Human Rights Investigator Deems U.S. Export of Banned Pesticides 'Immoral'

    The International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health noted that between 1996 and 2000, the United States exported nearly 1.1 billion pounds of pesticides that have been identified as known or suspected carcinogens, an average rate of almost 16 tons per hour. Most of these exports are sent to the developing world and used in agriculture. According to the International Labor Organization, 65 to 90 percent of the children estimated to be working in Africa (80 million), Asia (152 million) and Latin America (17 million) are working in agriculture. These children are often continuously exposed to pesticides in the fields, from their water, through their clothing, and at their homes.(Ascribe)

  • "The NRC What, me worry" -The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
    The Sunday Times of London reported in October that some intelligence assessments suggest that the intended target of the fourth plane, the one downed in Pennsylvania, was a nuclear power reactor. The plane had descended much too soon for Washington to be its intended destination, these assessments indicate, suggesting that the true target may have been one of several nuclear plants in its flight path, with the single still-operating unit at Three Mile Island seeming the most likely.
    1,000 times more
    A typical nuclear power plant contains within its core about 1,000 times the long-lived radioactivity released by the Hiroshima bomb. The spent fuel pools at nuclear power plants typically contain some multiple of that—several Chernobyls’ worth (see “What About the Spent Fuel?” page 45).
    Any analogy with the dropping of a bomb is imperfect, of course, because much of the destruction caused by an atomic bomb comes from blast effects, and the damage caused by a terrorist attack on a nuclear plant would stem almost exclusively from the release of radioactivity. However, the potential casualties from an atomic attack and those resulting from using conventional explosives to produce a radiological release from a nuclear facility would be surprisingly similar. For example, the NRC estimated years ago that a meltdown at one of the San Onofre reactors in Southern California could produce 130,000 “prompt” fatalities, 300,000 latent cancers, and 600,000 genetic defects. Analyses for other reactors performed by Sandia National Laboratories for the NRC estimated damages up to $314 billion in 1980 dollars (the equivalent of about $700 billion today).
    Flight 93 + 3mi Is=Osama's "Hiroshima". There I said it again. After my September blitz of message boards. Then again he didn't seem all that disapointed on the tape.

  • U.S. WARNS OF OSAMA ‘SLEEPERS'(NYPost)
    National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warned yesterday that security officials had reason to believe that al Qaeda operatives remain hiding in America.
    "There are people out there who came into this country for the purpose of trying to hurt us, and that is why the entire team is very focused on the disruption of these cells," Rice told CNN.
    "It is extremely important that everyone stay on high alert."
    Secretary of State Colin Powell raised the specter of Pakistani intelligence agents who remain loyal to bin Laden helping to shelter him. Powell said yesterday he was sure there were elements of Pakistan's intelligence service "from the old days who might still have a warm spot in their heart and head" for bin Laden.
     Documents uncovered in Taliban and al Qaeda safe houses in Afghanistan revealed that bin Laden began setting up a second wave of terror camps in August.
    The documents show that Hadhramautt, a remote valley in eastern Yemen, is one of four places where new terror camps are being established. Pentagon sources have pinpointed Hadhramautt, the home of one of bin Laden's wives, as the most likely refuge for the terror kingpin and have described Yemen as "his second most favorite country."
    Come to Osama Country. Experience a way of life untouched since the Crusades.

  • Did the Israelis have advance notice of 9/11? Probably. (Antiwar.com/ via Ummahnews.com)
    17 December 2001
    I couldn't help but laugh as I read the following entry in Andrew Sullivan's weblog:
    "People ask why Americans tend to sympathize more with Israelis than Palestinians. It's not racism. It's a recognition that, for all their failings, the Israelis live in the same moral universe as we do. The Palestinians palpably, brazenly do not."
    OUR MORAL UNIVERSE, AND THEIRS
    Sullivan is a bloated bag of wind begging to be punctured, and his delusions about Israeli benevolence certainly have been pricked by the news that the 60 or so Israelis being held by the US since 9/11 are what Fox News calls "part of a long-running effort to spy on American government officials." And that's not all: while "there is no indication the Israelis were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks," we are told, "investigators suspect that they may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance and not shared it." If the Israelis had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks, and failed to inform us, then just what moral universe are they living in? Surely one many light-years from our own.
    YOU READ IT HERE FIRST
    When the news first broke that not only Arabs are being held in the wake of 9/11, to my knowledge I was the only columnist to deal with the subject of the mysterious Israelis in custody: "Israel and 9/11 - Feds holding 60 Israelis in connection with 9/11 - Why?" While the Washington Post assured us that the Israeli detainees were only "observing a time-honored tradition in their country - touring the world after their mandatory service in the Israeli military," I was more than a little skeptical:
    "Something tells me these guys are no ordinary tourists, but since the US Government is keeping mum about everything connected with this investigation, we just don't know."
    THE PLOT SICKENS
    Ah, but now some government officials are talking, and we know a lot more. We know that some of the detainees have been identified as Israeli military or intelligence agents, and that some failed polygraph tests when asked whether they had engaged in covert operations "against and in the United States." We also know, courtesy of Fox News, that as many as 140 Israeli agents may have been rounded up in the US before 9/11: the extent of Israel's covert action operation is described as "sprawling."
    A GOOD GUESS
    What were they doing here? Besides infiltrating a whole laundry list of government agencies, including the DEA, the FBI, military bases, and even targeting the private homes of government officials, they were also conducting surveillance on a group of Arab immigrants in California that authorities believe have connections to the 9/11 plot. I'll admit that the following was sheer speculation on my part, but it looks like I was dead right. As I wrote in November:
    "In rounding up untold hundreds of mostly Arab Muslim men, and interviewing thousands more, the Ashcroft Sweep is clearly designed to gather information that might lead them to the remaining conspirators. It could be that the Israelis, or at least some of them, fall into this category: while not being directly involved, maybe they know something."
    RETALIATION PLUS
    What did they know, and when did they know it? That is the question that must now be answered, and pronto. For remember what the President said: "You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists." If the Israelis had advance notice of 9/11 - via their spy network in the US, which kept the hijackers and their associates under surveillance - then this is "harboring" terrorists, by any definition of the term. Look what happened to the Taliban when they harbored bin Laden. If Israel did indeed betray us, and let 3,500 people die at the World Trade Center, then they deserve what the Afghanis got - plus a little bit more.
    WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE.
    At least Mullah Omar and the Taliban never made any bones about the depth of their contempt for the US. Israel, on the other hand, pretends to be our staunchest ally, more royalist than the king when it comes to confronting the declared enemies of the West. Yet an undeclared enemy, posing as a friend, is in many ways a greater potential threat - as, perhaps, we are beginning to learn.
    CLASSIFIED AND CONFIRMED
    When asked for details about the detention of the Israelis, a highly placed investigator huffed that "Evidence linking these Israelis to 9-11 is classified, I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It is classified information." Aside from affirming that such evidence exists, this same source admitted to the Los Angeles Times that there were certain "tie-ins" with 9/11. Some patriotic law enforcement officials seem to have leaked just enough information to practically confirm our worst suspicions. As Brit Hume put it in his lead-in to the first of Carl Cameron's four-part investigative report, top US law enforcement officials now believe the Israelis "may have known things they didn't tell us before September 11."
    THE UNFORGIVEN
    After funneling over $90 billion into the Israeli settler state, making enemies of the entire Arab world, and sticking by Israel through thick and thin, is this our reward - a stab in the back? If true, this story is a devastating blow to the Israel First crowd in the US, one from which it may never recover. Americans quickly forgot the sinking of the USS Liberty, and those who remembered were for the most part willing to forgive. The average person has probably never heard of Jonathan Pollard, the CIA agent who spied for Israel. Pollard severely compromised US intelligence sources and methods, which eventually wound up in Soviet hands - and yet our alliance with Israel survived. But this - the withholding of information that could have prevented the 9/11 mass murder - is well nigh unforgivable.
    A McCAIN MOMENT
    This story is also a devastating blow to the War Party and its plans for an all-out attack on Iraq. To understand why, we have only to listen to Senator John McCain - the most belligerent and tireless of the warmongers - going up against a skeptical Chris Matthews, who wanted to know if the Senator thought we should conquer Iraq and set up a military occupation. McCain looked pained, and replied: "I don't pretend to prescribe the exact strategy." Scott McConnell captured this McCain Moment well in a column for Antiwar.com:
    "Then he fell back to what he believed to be his Maginot Line, the argument that trumps all arguments. My nightmare - I have several nightmares about Saddam Hussein, but one of them is the that SCUD missile which he has. . . that's in the view of most, aimed at Israel. Aimed at Israel."
    Well then, said Matthews, why doesn't Israel take them out?
    McCain, stunned, hemmed and hawed for a moment, and finally said:
    "Because I'm not sure we should ask the Israelis to do - to take care of a threat to the United States of America."
    Matthews: "But you just said it was a threat to Israel."
    McCain: "Well to world peace, I think."
    Matthews: "No you said it was a threat to Israel. Why should the United States deal with a threat to Israel? Why don't we let Israel - we've been giving them $3 billion a year to defend themselves. Why don't we say, 'Defend yourselves. You've got a clear fight. Go take Saddam out'?"
    McCain: "Because I think it's our job. I think we're the world's leader and I. . ."
    Matthews: "Our job is to defend Israel?"
    Equating our "national interest" with the defense of Israel, McCain's answer was, essentially, yes. But no one said this was a mutual defense pact. Israel wants us to defend them: yet who, pray tell, will defend us from the Israelis?
    BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
    It was Pat Buchanan, during the first Gulf war, who dared speak truth to power, and was smeared for it: the war on Iraq, he said, serves the interests of the Israeli Defense Ministry and its amen corner in the US, while the US has nothing to gain. We are glad to see that Chris Matthews has finally caught on.
    NOW I GET IT!
    Back in November I made note of a rather curious news report about the arrest of five Israelis who were caught videotaping the World Trade Center as it burned, all the while laughing and joking uproariously. This odd group was turned in by suspicious neighbors, and all five were jailed for two months, then deported back to Israel. This story, when first reported, was baffling: what, I wondered, were they laughing about? Today, the likely answer seems all too horrifically clear.
    TURNABOUT
    If and when it comes out that the Israelis stood by and watched as the terrorists took down the twin towers and the Pentagon, they are finished as our principal ally in the Middle East. As Americans begin to realize the enormity of the Israeli betrayal, and more details of the "sprawling" Israeli spy operation are revealed, the Israeli lobby will be in roughly the same position as the Arab-American community in the wake of 9/11. The backlash will be a tidal wave of anger, and it could get ugly. The same bullies who turned on their fellow Americans of Arab descent could just as easily turn on Jewish Americans, collectively condemning them as a "fifth column" in classic anti-Semitic style - and a grave injustice will be compounded.
    PASSIONATE ATTACHMENTS
    From all this, Americans will relearn an important lesson, one originally taught to us by George Washington in his "Farewell Address" and long since forgotten, especially where Israel is concerned:
    "A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld."
    DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU
    Since this is one of those "don't say I didn't warn you" columns, I want to note that on the same day [December 11] the report on the Israeli spy operation came out, we also heard the news of Irv Rubin's arrest in a plot to blow up a large Los Angeles mosque and the office of Congressman Darrel Issa. Rubin is the self-styled "international chairman" of the Jewish Defense League (JDL), a group of violent nutballs responsible for several bombings over the years. The JDL was founded by the infamous racist and fascist Meir Kahane, whose Kach movement is outlawed as a violent hate group in Israel.
    Kahane held that the Arabs are subhuman, and therefore it's okay to expel them from the territory of a Greater Israel: indeed, for Kahane and his followers, ethnic cleansing amounts to a religious duty. When Rubin, who has been arrested more than 40 times, was touted by the Libertarian Party as its latest recruit, and a big spread boasting of this glorious achievement was featured on the front page of the Libertarian Party News, I wrote a column partially devoted to warning of the possible consequences: "This guy is a walking time bomb," I opined, "just waiting to go off."
    Don't say I didn't warn you - and, remember, you read it here first..
    Is the FBI seeking to avert blame for it's own intelligence failures? Everybody, the germans, the russians, the somalis, seem to have known 911 was coming except Skinner & co. See Makethemaccountable.com.
    What's this guy trying to assert? Does he think Israeli organized crime profited from 911 financial transations? Surely if they'd known about it they would have warned their own people, but that rumor about the 4,000 Israeli's phoning in sick was just a sick anti-semitic slur according to all reports I've seen (See snopes.com) and of course many Jewish people perished that day. All these barely-hidden agendas, all these pieces of the new world pie. It makes you wanna puke.

  • MONICA:"He suspected that a foreign embassy was tapping his telephones"(Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com)
    EXCERPT:Dozens of officials confirmed the story, telling the authors of this fascinating piece how the Israelis had managed to penetrate not only State Department telephone lines, but also those in the White House, the Defense Department, and the Justice Department. That the President knew this at the time is beyond doubt; it came out, you'll remember, during l'affaire Lewinsky, when Monica testified that, on March 29, 1997, she and Clinton were desecrating the Oval Office and she specifically remembered it because, as the Starr Report put it:
    "He suspected that a foreign embassy was tapping his telephones, and he proposed cover stories. If ever questioned, she should say that the two of them were just friends. If anyone ever asked about their phone sex, she should say that they knew their calls were being monitored all along, and the phone sex was just a put on."
    Was Monica a latter-day Mata Hari? Nahhh.

  • FOX NEWS:Israeli Spies in the US: How They Were Discovered
    EXCERPT:Los Angeles, 1997, a major local, state and federal drug investigating sours. The suspects: Israeli organized crime with operations in New York, Miami, Las Vegas, Canada, Israel and Egypt. The allegations: cocaine and ecstasy trafficking, and sophisticated white-collar credit card and computer fraud.
    The problem: according to classified law enforcement documents obtained by Fox News, the bad guys had the cops’ beepers, cell phones, even home phones under surveillance. Some who did get caught admitted to having hundreds of numbers and using them to avoid arrest.
    We only really lost our illusions of freedom. As reported on many alternative internet news sites this FOX report was removed from its website shortly after broadcast.

  • FBI Probes Espionage at Clinton White House (Insight-Google Cache)
    The FBI is probing an explosive foreign-espionage operation that could dwarf the other spy scandals plaguing the U.S. government. Insight has learned that FBI counterintelligence is tracking a daring operation to spy on high-level U.S. officials by hacking into supposedly secure telephone networks. The espionage was facilitated, federal officials say, by lax telephone-security procedures at the White House, State Department and other high-level government offices and by a Justice Department unwillingness to seek an indictment against a suspect.
     The espionage operation may have serious ramifications because the FBI has identified Israel as the culprit. It risks undermining U.S. public support for the Jewish state at a time Israel is seeking billions of tax dollars for the return of land to Syria.
    "Would you care for a cigar Mr. Peres?". "Erm, I'd rather not. I'm not a big fan of second hand.., erm.. smoke if you wish"

  • Every person in the world would be fingerprinted and registered under a universal identification scheme to fight illegal immigration and people smuggling outlined at a United Nations meeting today.
    My very own number. Can I get it tattoed on my wrist in a nice Celtic Font?

  • Criminalizing the Mentally Ill (WASHPost)
    Topping the list of public policy busts is a deinstitutionalization movement that closed state mental institutions without producing the promised follow-up care through community-based treatment programs. That washout has led the mentally ill through a revolving door of homeless shelters, hospital emergency rooms and jails -- institutional surrogates for community mental health centers that never quite materialized.
    So that's where the NYC homeless went. They're in a camp up at Ryker's.

  • From 0ct 11th article below:American and British ground forces had better find and kill him because if he is able to escape to Mecca, our big problem would metastasize into something even more frightening. We could not touch him there. It would be unthinkable for America to bomb Mecca. And his presence in the capital of Islam might ignite a revolution that would engulf Saudi Arabia and the whole Gulf region.(WashTimes)
    Better get some troops into Kuwait quick. Oh, they're already there? Phase II proceeding as planned.

  • Take The AQ Test-a measure of the extent of autistic traits in adults.
    The Autism-Spectrum Quotient, or AQ, as a measure of the extent of autistic traits in adults. In the first major trial using the test, the average score in the control group was 16.4. Eighty percent of those diagnosed with autism or a related disorder scored 32 or higher. The test is not a means for making a diagnosis, however, and many who score above 32 and even meet the diagnostic criteria for mild autism or Asperger's report no difficulty functioning in their everyday lives.
    Do you have a fear of online personality tests?

  • Geneticists Study Jewish Genes for Disease Clues
    Modern Ashkenazi Jews are believed to descend from about 1,500 Jewish families dating back to the 14th century. But Darvasi said the forefathers of today's Ashkenazis came from an even smaller gene pool.
    Darvasi said ``maybe 500 families were really the source of the total (Ashkenazi) population today...probably in the order of 100 independent chromosomes,'' because they enjoyed better nutrition and had lower infant mortality rates than less affluent Jews.
    Well, it's theorised that a catastrophe 40,000 years ago reduced the human population to mere thousands. That is why the genetic homogenity amongst all living people is so close. Who knows what variety we lost. Did the best of Mankind survive?

  • "No medical explanation" for near death experiences. (NewScientist)
    Medical explanations cannot account for near death experiences (NDEs), according to the results of the biggest prospective study to date of patients who were resuscitated after clinical death. However, patients who reported an NDE were more likely to die soon afterwards.
    If researchers could prove that clinically dead patients, with no electrical activity in their cortex, can be aware of events around them and form memories, this would suggest that the brain does not generate consciousness, French and Van Lommel think.
    MRI scan proves existence of soul? All good schroedinger's cats go to heaven? The doorway between life and death is opened. Ameribright takes over Pearly Gates security.

  • Truth Test:Using brain scans as lie detectors. (ABCNEWS)
    "The question it raised for me is whether, in order to tell a lie, you need to inhibit something, and whether that something is the truth," he says. In other words, people may naturally be truth tellers. The brain works harder to lie."
    "What is nice is you are bypassing the person's response," says Greg Simpson, director of Dynamic Neuroimaging Laboratory at the University of California at San Francisco, "and you are simply looking at the person's mental processes. You look into their mind, if you will."
    Government approves obligatory MRI implantation. Politicians excempt.

  • UK Parliament approves tough new terror laws-similar to US
    (REUTERS)
    The bill gives police and authorities many more powers to tackle terrorist suspects and sweeps aside a centuries-old principle of the right to trial by allowing police to detain foreigners only on suspicion they are involved in terrorism.
    Innocent until proven suspicious. Nice to know we've come so far since the days of hanging monkeys as suspected french spies.


  • US wiretapping-capabilities entirely in Israeli hands (FOXNEWS)
    EXCERPT:Last time we reported on an Israeli-based company called Amdocs Ltd. that generates the computerized records and billing data for nearly every phone call made in America. As Carl Cameron reported, U.S. investigators digging into the 9/11 terrorist attacks fear that suspects may have been tipped off to what they were doing by information leaking out of Amdocs.
    In tonight's report, we learn that the concern about phone security extends to another company, founded in Israel, that provides the technology that the U.S. government uses for electronic eavesdropping. The company is Comverse Infosys, a subsidiary of an Israeli-run private telecommunications firm, with offices throughout the U.S. It provides wiretapping equipment for law enforcement. Here's how wiretapping works in the U.S.
    Every time you make a call, it passes through the nation's elaborate network of switchers and routers run by the phone companies. Custom computers and software, made by companies like Comverse, are tied into that network to intercept, record and store the wiretapped calls, and at the same time transmit them to investigators.
    The manufacturers have continuing access to the computers so they can service them and keep them free of glitches.
    And what troubles investigators most, particularly in New York, in the counter terrorism investigation of the World Trade Center attack, is that on a number of cases, suspects that they had sought to wiretap and survey immediately changed their telecommunications processes. They started acting much differently as soon as those supposedly secret wiretaps went into place.
    "Poppa can you here me?". Loud and clear.

  • MAG: USA DEBATES NEW WAR PLAN FOR IRAQ, TROOPS; POSSIBLE PARTICIPATION OF IRAN(DRUDGE/NEW YORKER)
    There is "a second significant addition to the plan: the participation of Iran," which has agreed to permit opposition forces and their military equip ment to cross the Iranian border into southern Iraq.
    Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress have "given the Bush Administration an updated war plan, which calls not only for bombing but for the deployment of thousands of American Special Forces troops," Hersh writes. The Iraqi National Congress has, with American approval, opened an office in Teheran.
    "America's success in routing the Taliban has improved Chalabi's standing with some elements of Washington's defense community," Hersh writes.
    One defense analyst tells Hersh, "They believe they have found the perfect model, and it works. The model is bombing, a modest insertion of Special Forces, plus an uprising."
    But many within the Administration are skeptical of Chalabi and his supporters. One senior Administration official tells Hersh that the Administration has no intention of allowing "a bunch of half-assed people to send foreigners into combat."
    Referring to Chalabi and his supporters in and out of government, the official asks, "Who among them has ever smelled cordite? These are pissants who can't get the President's ear and have to blame someone else. We're not going to let them lead others down the garden path."
    One former high-level intelligence official explains the pro-Chalabi group this way: "It's the revenge of the nerds....They won in Afghanistan when everybody said it wouldn't work, and it's got them in a euphoric mood of cockiness."

  • Pakistan has denied Indian allegations that the terrorist attacks on the parliament building in New Delhi on Thursday were carried out by groups in Pakistan.(PAKNEWS)
    ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has denied Indian allegations that the terrorist attacks on the parliament building in New Delhi on Thursday were carried out by groups in Pakistan. "Pakistan has never in the past allowed its soil to be used for terrorism and neither will it allow it in future," Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Khan said on Friday.

  • ISI devises new strategy after WTC attacks (TimesOfIndia)
    NEW DELHI: Pakistan's ISI has changed its strategy in carrying out operations in India especially after the September 11 attacks in the United States and has adopted a new modus operandi of giving "limited task" to a chain of militants and their sympathisers. Emphasising the need to foster Rabindranath Tagore’s ideals of peace and education, the PM said before the terrorists’ hands were trained to kill, their minds were trained to hate. Taking a dig at India’s neighbour, he said: ‘‘It is shocking that the promoters of terrorism in our neighbourhood have turned even some schools meant for religious education into factories of terror,’’ the PM said.

  • Calls on Arafat to crack down are "not realistic"- Mubarak
    (CAIRO, Dec 16 AFP)
    "President Yasser Arafat is the only leader who can make peace with Israel, and I've warned more than once about Israel's attempts to insinuate that President Arafat cannot or does not want to achieve peace," Mubarak said.Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has warned that the Middle East, including Israel, is heading toward destruction.
    Mubarak said the region is sliding into war that could involve weapons of mass destruction. The Egyptian president said he relayed the warning to the United States and American Jewish leaders.
    In an interview to the Beirut-based A-Safir daily, Mubarak said the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian war could lead to regional war. He portrayed a scenario in which Israel would assassinate Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, a move that would spark first anarchy and then revenge.
    "I have no doubt that the people's patience will run out and this will force governments to engage in arms race, with the goal to acquire weapons of mass destruction," Mubarak said. "Biological weapons -- even a test tube of germs can destroy an entire nation -- chemical weapons and nuclear weapons can be brought in suitcases from the former Soviet Union.""Then the entire region, including Israel, is liable to be annihilated," Mubarak added.

  • ARAFAT ORDERED US DIPLO SLAYINGS: EX-SPY (NY POST)
    By URI DAN
    December 15, 2001
    JERUSALEM - Yasser Arafat personally ordered the execution of two American diplomats in 1973, a former U.S. intelligence officer says. Sources said Arafat would have been served with subpoenas - related to his involvement with the killings - when he and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin were met at the White House's South Lawn in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, in what was considered the start of the Mideast peace process.
    But Clinton administration officials arranged for Arafat to avoid the subpenas, sources said.



  • Friday December 14, 11:09 AM
    Children in military uniform form up in units named after guerrillas killed fighting Israel as part of Hizbollah's Jerusalem day rally December 14, 2001 in Beirut. The head of Lebanon's Hizbollah group urged Palestinians to launch more suicide bomb attacks on Israelis and defy U.S.-led demands to crack down on 'terrorist' militant groups. Photo by Sharif Karim (Reuters)


  • Monday December 10, 5:46 PM
    President George W. Bush joins eight-year-old Talia Lefkowitz as they light a hundred year-old menorah on loan from the Jewish Museum in New York during a Hanukkah reception in the White House December 10, 2001. In the background is first lady Laura Bush. REUTERS


  • UK to send snow to Siberia(BBCNews)
    The UK may or may not be set for a white Christmas but it will be exporting more than 5,000 tonnes of snow before 25 December.
    Isn't this a bit like sending a pint of dog to Northumberland Street?

  • Bin Laden videotape was result of a sting (UKGuardian)
    The CIA may have set up the terrorist leader to incriminate himself. This weekend, as the debate the tape has provoked continued across the Islamic world, several intelligence sources have suggested to The Observer that the tape, although absolutely genuine, is the result of a sophisticated sting operation run by the CIA through a second intelligence service, possibly Saudi or Pakistani.

  • MI5 has warned Ministers that a determined terrorist attempt to fly a jet into the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria could not be prevented because it is only two minutes' flying time from transatlantic flight paths.
    The warning came after RAF fighters were scrambled over the plant in response to a reported hijack attempt last month. 'The position is unthinkable,' an intelligence source said. 'By the time you listened to a call reporting a hijack, it could be all over.' (UKObserver)

  • Terror blueprint for attack on London.(UKObserver)
    Chilling plans for a devastating bomb attack on the City of London have been discovered in a terrorist base in Afghanistan, revealing a sophisticated al-Qaeda training programme to spread its terror campaign to Britain. Disturbingly for British police and intelligence services, there is no indication whether the terrorist who drew up the plan stayed to fight and die with Osama bin Laden's group, or whether he had already left on his mission to Britain before the suicide hijackings of 11 September and the US bombing of Afghanistan.
    In step-by-step instructions it describes how to construct a huge remote-controlled van bomb - identical to those used by al-Qaeda against the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania with lethal effect in 1998.
    The notebook is the first hard evidence that London was also an intended target. It appears to confirm the fears of intelligence services and the Metropolitan Police that an al-Qaeda sleeper cell may already be in Britain preparing an attack.
    The target itself is identified by scribbled notes on how to find Moorgate, including reminders to use an A-Z and a Business Directory .

  • The Other Bin Laden VideoWhen will get to see this "other video"?
    In the footage, shot in the Afghan mountains at the end of October, a smiling bin Laden goes on to say that the World Trade Centre's twin towers were a "legitimate target" and the pilots who hijacked the planes were "blessed by Allah".
    In the video, bin Laden says: "The Twin Towers were legitimate targets, they were supporting US economic power. These events were great by all measurement. What was destroyed were not only the towers, but the towers of morale in that country."
    The hijackers were "blessed by Allah to destroy America's economic and military landmarks". He freely admits to being behind the attacks: "If avenging the killing of our people is terrorism then history should be a witness that we are terrorists. Yes, we kill their innocents and this is legal religiously and logically."
    In a contradictory section, however, bin Laden justifies killing the occupants of the Twin Towers because they were not civilians - Islam forbids the killing of innocent civilians even in a holy war.
    He says: "The towers were supposed to be filled with supporters of the economical powers of the United States who are abusing the world. Those who talk about civilians should change their stand and reconsider their position. We are treating them like they treated us."
    Bin Laden goes on to justify his entire terror campaign. "There are two types of terror, good and bad. What we are practising is good terror. We will not stop killing them and whoever supports them."
    He directly threatens the lives of President Bush and Mr Blair. "Bush and Blair don't understand anything but the power of force. Every time they kill us, we kill them, so the balance of terror can be achieved." He also calls on all Muslims to join him. "It is the duty of every Muslim to fight. Killing Jews is top priority."(Telegraph)

  • The following two articles are from US right-wing policy sources. Probably the most useful indicators of where we're headed since they are in control now.

  • Hijacker 'given anthrax flask by Iraqi agent'
    (NEWSMAX)
    Intelligence agents from Prague to Swansea are uncovering a trail of clues that point to President Saddam Hussein of Iraq having a hand in al-Qaeda’s terrorist missions.
    Intelligence officers in Washington have deliberately leaked the testimony of an Iraqi defector hiding in Turkey who said that Saddam set up a terrorist training school on the outskirts of Istanbul to practice hijacking a Boeing passenger aircraft. The CIA says that it is assessing the claims.
    Meanwhile, a special FBI team sent to Europe to uncover al-Qaeda cells say that they are studying a report from Prague that anthrax spores were given to Atta during his last meeting in Prague in April with Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, the Iraqi consul. “If it can be shown that Atta was given a flask of anthrax,” a Western intelligence official said, “then the link will have been made with Osama bin Laden and with Iraq.”
    US Intelligence says Saddam cultivated the relationship with al-Qaeda at the start of 1998 by inviting the man regarded as bin Laden’s deputy — Ayman Zawahiri — to dine with Taha Yasin Ramadan, the Iraqi Vice-President. That was such a success that a delegation from al-Qaeda attended Saddam’s birthday celebrations that April, and it was during this trip that arrangements were made for bin Laden recruits to receive the sort of advanced weapons training they could not get in their camps in Afghanistan.
    The most curious attempt to implicate Saddam was in South Wales last month when James Woolsey, the former CIA Director, is reported to have visited a Swansea college. The hope was that the testimony of college lecturers and recollections of former students could be used to convince sceptics in the US Administration and Downing Street that Saddam has helped to provide agents to carry out al-Qaeda attacks.
    Mr Woolsey, who refuses to give details of his British itinerary, has always believed that the Iraqi leader masterminded the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Centre.
    The trip to the Swansea Institute was to establish the true identity of one of bin Laden’s bombers, who claims to have studied computer-aided engineering in South Wales.(NEWSMAX)

  • Osama bin Laden fancies himself the next Saladin, an Islamic conqueror. He doesn't want to triumph in Saudi Arabia just to purify it of American soldiers, but also because he believes that with the oil weapon in hand he can strangle the West.

    Washington Times, by Mona Charen:For at least 25 years, it has been an article of faith in American policy circles that Persian Gulf oil was vital to American national security. This belief undergirds the so-called special relationship with Saudi Arabia and other repressive, corrupt states in the Middle East.
    To guarantee the supply of Persian Gulf oil, the United States has winked at corruption, refrained from promoting democracy and free markets, ignored escalating evidence of putrid anti-Americanism, and bullied its ally Israel, the only democracy in the region. Turkey was once called "the sick man of Europe." The Arab world is today the "sick man" of the globe, with lower growth rates than even sub-Saharan Africa.
    With terrifying suddenness, we now recognize that the regimes upon which we have gambled so much are extremely unstable, as well as treacherous (Saudi Arabia has been secretly funding bin Laden and the Islamo-fascists for years) — and that their likely replacements are our worst nightmares.
    Osama bin Laden has a huge following in his native Saudi Arabia and throughout the Arab world. American and British ground forces had better find and kill him because if he is able to escape to Mecca, our big problem would metastasize into something even more frightening. We could not touch him there. It would be unthinkable for America to bomb Mecca. And his presence in the capital of Islam might ignite a revolution that would engulf Saudi Arabia and the whole Gulf region.
    Osama bin Laden fancies himself the next Saladin, an Islamic conqueror. He doesn't want to triumph in Saudi Arabia just to purify it of American soldiers, but also because he believes that with the oil weapon in hand he can strangle the West.
    Paul Michael Wihbey, a scholar at the D.C.-based Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, argues that the oil weapon is no weapon at all. Not anymore. The world is awash in oil. It is estimated that Saudi Arabia has 270 billion barrels in oil reserves. Canada and Venezuela each have more than a trillion. (Much of that is heavy oil, but modern techniques can refine it.) Russia and the North Sea produce 7 million barrels a day each, compared with Saudi Arabia's 8 million. And the United States imports as much from the Guinea Gulf in Africa as from Saudi Arabia. There are massive oil deposits under the Grand Banks in Canada, in Mexico and in Indonesia, to say nothing of offshore supplies in Florida and California, as well as the North Slope of Alaska.
    The United States can very easily do without Middle East oil, which accounts for 25 percent of total oil imports (provided we are not castrated by our own environmentalists). Why then have we behaved as if they have us over an oil barrel? Only in the Arab world has America failed to urge the kind of political and economic reforms we have lustily encouraged in Central and South America, Africa and Asia.
    Bin Laden would conquer the Arab world for Islamo-fascism. America must have an alternative that it is dead serious about creating. "Someone," Mr. Wihbey warns, pointing to the arbitrary lines drawn by European powers in Arabian sand following the First World War, "is going to redraw that map."
    We know what an Islamo-fascist map would look like, and it chills the soul: degradation of women, aggressive ignorance, poverty, violence, xenophobia, genocide against Israel and nuclear weapons. This is not far-fetched.
    A Pax Americana would build on the two democracies of the region — Israel and Turkey, and extend to Tunisia, Jordan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. In some cases, a regime change will be necessary (as in Syria and Afghanistan). In other cases, we can build on the pro-Turkish segments and sentiments within Muslim countries. Turkey is the best argument we have that a Muslim nation can be free, reasonably prosperous and modern.
    But in any case, we cannot build a decent future for the region until we have utterly defeated the extremists — and confronted the mistakes that brought us to this terrible moment.

     

  • Israeli company has near-total knowledge of who phones whom in USA.
    EXCERPT:Last time we reported on the approximately 60 Israelis who had been detained in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorism investigation. Carl Cameron reported that U.S. investigators suspect that some of these Israelis were spying on Arabs in this country, and may have turned up information on the planned terrorist attacks back in September that was not passed on. Tonight, in the second of four reports on spying by Israelis in the U.S., we learn about an Israeli-based private communications company, for whom a half-dozen of those 60 detained suspects worked. American investigators fear information generated by this firm may have fallen into the wrong hands and had the effect of impeded the Sept. 11 terror inquiry.
    What about that cockahoop story that they were holding them because their NJ neighbours thought they sounded arab? 1-800-CALL-MOSSAD.

  • Mystery sheikh fuels Saudi jitters (UKGuardian)
    One remark, Saudi sources said, will especially alarm the jittery House of Saud. The sheikh appears to thank Bin Laden for providing "the brothers" with arms. "You have given us weapons, you have given us hope and we thank Allah."
    This is where things get awfully complicated. This was obviously where the Sept 11th bombers came from. This is the effectively as much of a 'host country' as Afganistan. However unless the US is prepared to effectively fully conquer and run Saudi Arabia a discreet withdrawal would probably be the most diffusive decision. Continuing paying to retain the status quo the most dangerous.


  • U.S. vetoes Mideast peace move
    The United States has vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that called for an immediate end to Mideast violence.
    The resolution would also have laid the groundwork for establishing international monitors in Palestinian areas, which Israel is opposed to. Washington said the U.N. was not the proper forum to resolve Mideast violence and, as a permanent member of the Security Council it had the power to veto the resolution introduced by Egypt and Tunisia.
    The United States does not feel the Security Council is the proper forum to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
    "It's not just about the U.S. protecting Israel," a U.S. official told CNN. "We think that as the violence gets worse, this only emphasizes the fact that we (the Security Council) shouldn't get involved.
    "Both sides need their own political will. We're tired of forcing them."
    But Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian observer to the United Nations, said the Security Council had a moral obligation to intervene.
    "While we are keen not to get into confrontation with any member, especially the United States, especially with its influence in the world, nevertheless we have to stick to some principled positions . . . including that the Security Council has the duty to deal with the situation in the occupied territories," al-Kidwa said.
    Al-Kidwa said the United States was "providing cover" for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whom he accused of circumventing and "burying" recommendations for a cease-fire and negotiations made by the Mitchell Report.
    He also said the United States applied a double standard when it came to civilian casualties in the West Bank and Gaza.
    The U.N. Security Council meets on the Mideast proposal
    "Today (Friday) alone, at least eight Palestinians were killed.
    "Yesterday, six Palestinians were killed. And we don't see hoopla, especially in the United States, about those who were killed as much as we saw hoopla about other Israelis," al-Kidwa said.
    Aaron Jacob, Israel's charge d'affaires, said the issue did not belong in the Security Council.
    "While responsible governments are trying to get the Palestinians to take necessary action against terrorism, adoption of a one-sided resolution by the Security Council might send the international community the wrong message," Jacob said.
    The resolution also called on both sides in the conflict to return to negotiations and on Israel "to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations and responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in a Time of War. . . "
    In a rebuff to Israel, which has rejected Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat as a negotiating partner, the resolution noted the "essential role of the Palestinian Authority which remains the indispensable and legitimate party for peace and needs to be preserved fully."
    However, the document did not specifically call for a halt to suicide attacks on Israelis which have left 35 dead this month.
    Blatant. Send in the UN. These two need to separated by an independent force or the entire conflict will continue to give sustenance to extremist organizations and threaten the security of the entire world.

  • New York Ties Charleston for Best-Mannered City(AP)
    Somehow i think we got we got the sympathy vote.

  • Google Catalog Search uses Google technology to search thousands of scanned mail-order catalogs
    This fills me with a warm glow.

  • Drag Queen Seeks to Rule Canada's Right-Wing Party(Reuters)

  • UPDATE: Chilean Dog-boy Escapes From Children's Home(ESPN-Outdoors)
    Found in June living with a pack of 15 wild dogs, 10-year old boy was responding to treatment.
    Childcare workers said they had been holding talks with potential foster families before the boy fled last week. "We were preparing him for a family atmosphere. His self control and attention were improving." Olate said.
    His toilet training was almost complete.

  • Wild deer can make dangerous pets(ESPN-Outdoors)
    After two attacks, people realize bucks in rut aren't Disney's Bambi.
    That sound's like a mistake at the video store

  • Relief finally soaks Klamath Basin. After long, dry, troubled summer, rain, snow bring needed moisture(AP)
    That'll be a great relief to my friend Soph's Mum, she lives off the algae at the bottom of this lake.

  • Bear kills 93-year-old New Mexico woman
    The 100-pound elderly woman 'didn't have a chance against a 275-pound bear' in the kitchen of her home, wildlife officials point to bears desperate for food as the continuing cause of people-bear incidents. Bear attacks also have been reported at campgrounds this summer, Todd Malmsbury, a Sate Official, said, but "We haven't had a person killed in their home by a bear in the last 100 years."
     
  • Cold Reading and Psychic Powers:A How-to Guide (via Fark.com)
    These essays detail how psychics, palm readers, and intuitives do their business of looking into your soul, your future, and your life. Through their seemingly miraculous readings, they hook you into believing they can tap into special founts of knowledge.
    Somehow I don't think they'll be finding these on the floor in Jalalabad.

  • U.S. Recently Produced Ames Strain Anthrax in a Highly Lethal Powder Form(ABCNEWS)
    For years, U.S. Army scientists in Utah have been developing a powdered form of anthrax that matches the strain used in the deadly letters that have killed five people since September, according to a published report.Until the latest anthrax threat, Dugway scientists sent anthrax samples by FedEx to the Army's biodefense center at Fort Detrick, Md., where the bacteria was rendered harmless through radiation before being returned to Dugway for experiments. Those samples were shipped in a wet paste form to minimize the danger of a spill or accident, the Dugway statement said.
    Army officials told the Post such mailings are in compliance with federal law. The Dugway statement said that all the anthrax its scientists have developed is accounted for and the researchers are cooperating with the FBI in its investigation.

  • The Bin Laden video: is this the clinching evidence? (UKGuardian)
    The New York mayor, Rudy Giuliani, said: "It leaves you wondering just how deep the evil of his heart and soul really is."
    The video, thought to have been made in early November, is also likely to focus attention on Bin Laden's fervent support among ultra-conservative Muslim clerics in Saudi Arabia. His unnamed visitor conveys congratulations from a string of Saudi sheikhs for the attacks, and relates details of their sermons justifying the operation.

  • As Arabs cry foul, American 'proof' highlights gulf between the two sides (UKGuardian)
    EXCERPT:Reaction to the Osama bin Laden tape highlighted the polarisation between the US and the Arab world. New Yorkers unquestioningly saw it as an admittance of guilt while in Cairo, Beirut and the sizeable Arab population of London the view was that the tape had been doctored. In contrast with the sense in New York that the final piece of evidence had been gathered, many Arabs expressed concern that the tape might have been tampered with by the US administration, pointing to the many pauses, coughs and indistinguishable parts of the discussion. Some Arabs claimed that the man in the video was an actor. Even Arabs hostile to Bin Laden questioned the interpretation being put on the tape by the US that it amounted to proof that he was responsible.
    Denial is not just a river in Egypt.


  • WHO IS OSAMA BIN LADEN’S OWNER? Osama bin Laden is only an instrument in arms of Al-Queda’s real leaders, whose names are unknown, internal minister of Saudi Arabia, prince Nayef said in his interview to New York Times.(PRAVDA)
    12/12/01
    Osama bin Laden is only an instrument in arms of Al-Queda’s real leaders, whose names are unknown, internal minister of Saudi Arabia, prince Nayef said in his interview to New York Times. His insistence, nearly three months after the Sept. 11 attacks, that the identity of the hijackers remains in doubt may prove a further irritant between the two countries, since American officials have said for more than six weeks that there was no doubt that a majority of hijackers were Saudis.
    "Until now, we have no evidence that assures us that they are related to Sept. 11," Prince Nayef said of the 15 Saudis who American officials have said were among the 19 hijackers. "We have not received anything in this regard from the United States." If Saudis were involved, Prince Nayef said, they could only have been acting as the instruments of non-Saudis who would have played a leading role in the operation.
    The Saudi Royal family really are out of touch with their own people.

  • Laura and I wish Muslims around the world a joyous Eid, and peace, health and prosperity in the year ahead.(GWB)
    Last year he thought Ramadan was a hotel chain.

  • President Bush invoked executive privilege for the first time Thursday banning release of 'sensitive' documents
    to keep Congress from seeing documents of prosecutors' decision-making in cases ranging from a decades-old Boston murder to the Clinton-era fund-raising probe.
    Republicans and Democrats alike excoriated the decision, suggesting Bush was creating a ``monarchy'' or ``imperial'' presidency to keep Congress for overseeing the executive branch and guarding against corruption.
    What, the Boston Strangler was a Freemason?

  • John Walker:FREAK
    "Here's once again a well-written opinion from Slate on that freak John
    Walker. I don't even understand HOW on earth Bush or ANYONE in the US
    government can consider any leniency whatsoever with him: what RACIST BS
    that is! What if he was a Muslim-American? What then? HUH? How in the
    world can they meaningfully justify treating him as any different from the
    rest of the taliban fighters without just plain admitting their racial
    (white, christian) bias? I can't stand it. No, uh-uh. If they coddle him
    they subvert every single tough word they have uttered, and every single
    defense of their anti-terrorism v. anti-Islam stance."-Bobbie

  • Cloned monkey embryos are a "gallery of horrors"(New Scientist)
    Looks like if human cloning goes ahead they may need a new wing at the Mutter Museum which I see has put it's latest exhibit online: EMERGING INFECTIOUS DISEASES: ANCIENT SCOURGE,MODERN MENACE

  • Israel Cuts Off Contact With Arafat(WashPost)

  • Silly Question: Support the Palestinian Authority or Hamas? (IntnlHeraldTrib)
    EXCERPT:Modern Islamic radicalism is dangerous to the Islamic people themselves because it is going nowhere. It is incapable of reforms that would allow Muslim people to cope with the political and economic pressures of modern international society. That was the Taliban's failure. It is dangerous to the West because it gives an apocalyptic religious interpretation to what fundamentally is political conflict.

  • BIN LADEN left Afghanistan by a vessel belonging to Al-Qaeda. (Pravda)
    12-07-2001
    Washington confirms information, that bin Laden has left Afghan territory. According to special spokesman for US Department of State, bin Laden most likely left Afghanistan by a vessel belonging to Al-Qaeda.
    According to ABC TV channel, at the moment US Armed Forces are searching for 23 trade vessels, supposedly belonging or controlled by Al-Qaeda. Information about Al-Qaeda possessing trade vessels was confirmed by Norwegian authorities.
    Now he's on a boat?!

  • U.S. B-1 bomber goes down at sea 4 crew members rescued, safe aboard ship

  • They look like something from a cartoon: tiny helicopters that can sit comfortably on a fingertip; flying insects that are not insects but machines; robots that can walk about comfortably on a coin.Could these unlikely creatures be the future of defence technology?(FT)

  • The real center and fulcrum of bin Laden's terrorist conspiracy – Bosnia.(Justin Raimondo, of AntiWar.com, in Pravda)
    12/12/2001 Part of :WARMONGERS ON THE LEFT CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS AND 'THE GOD THAT FAILED'
    EXCERPT: FOLLOW THE MONEY
    It was during bin Laden's residence in Sudan that the primarily Saudi Al Qaeda was internationalized, incorporating fundamentalist groups in Egypt, Algeria, Chechnya, and elsewhere. It was also during this time that the Bosnian struggle fused all these disparate elements together, and created the financial operations that make the bin Ladenite empire run. In the effort to trace and uproot Al Qaeda's financial tentacles, a recent New York Times article revealed the significance of the Bosnia-Al Qaeda connection:
    "To support Al Qaeda, some operatives work like organized crime crews. Government officials exploring Al Qaeda's operation in Bosnia found that operatives skimmed money from relief charities and linked up with Bosnian crime bosses. The success in Bosnia made it a model for Al Qaeda to use in embattled countries around the world."
    OFF THE SHELF
    In President Izetbegovic's Bosnia, said one intelligence officer, bin Laden and his lieutenants "found a very hospitable environment." The Times reports that "the bin Laden financial machine blossomed, according to officials who have been informed of intelligence information on the matter. Charities around the Arab world proclaimed that they were raising money for humanitarian purposes in Bosnia, but in fact portions benefited Islamic extremist groups in the area, including Al Qaeda."
    The Al Qaeda militants also linked up with what the Times calls "Bosnian organized crime figures" (i.e. Albanians) and found a ready market for Afghan heroin, which provides a good chunk of the terrorist budget. Their Bosnian operation proved so successful, according to US government officials, "that it became an 'off-the-shelf' model for fundraising and recruitment used by the terrorist organization again and again in Kosovo, Albania and Chechnya."
    THE 'EXPERT'
    Schwartz, rising out of a well-deserved obscurity as a fringe leftist, is now reinventing himself as an "expert" on Islam. When the Islamophobes want an article on this or that aspect of the evils of Wahabism, they turn to him; a recent interview with Schwartz on MSNBC consisted of the news anchor asking him leading questions about the alleged evil of Saudi Arabia, and Schwartz answering "Absolutely! Absolutely!" What a farce. The campaign against the Saudis is intended to draw attention away from the real culprits, the Bosnian Muslims, who protected, profited from, and allied themselves with bin Laden and his confederates. A secondary motive is to isolate America from the Arab world, and draw the US ever closer to Israel.
    PRELUDE TO OCCUPATION
    One solution, widely proposed by the prophets of neo-imperialism, such as Max Boot, Mark Steyn and the airheaded Jonah Goldberg, is to simply take over the Middle East – including the Saudi oil fields. A vilification campaign directed at the Saudi monarchy, and the demonization of the state-backed Wahabi sect: all of this is a necessary prelude to any military occupation. As the most prolific if not the chief ideologue of the Islamophobes, Schwartz never relents from his task: to point an accusing finger at the Saudis, while distracting us from the real jihadists ensconced in Bosnia, Kosovo, and now Macedonia.
    PHYSICS AND LIFE
    US foreign policy had nothing to do with the growth and development of Al Qaeda? Bullhockey! If it is treason, or "anti-Americanism" to say so, then so be it. US taxpayer dollars built the Bosnian Muslim state, from the ground up: our soldiers protect it, and the same is true of Kosovo, where a separatist state is taking shape under UN-US tutelage. It was Bill Clinton who took up the Bosnian Muslim cause, along with Bob Dole for the Republican side of the aisle: this culminated in the Kosovo war, which, we are learning, was the crucible that led to the spread of Al Qaeda beyond its previously limited sphere of influence. Actions have consequences, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction: it's a simple rule of physics, and of life.
    This is Pete Shelley starts singing.

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