Creepy Disclosures Weblog- Archive#3

Thursday, January 24, 2002  

  • Germany Deploys Chemical War Troops to MidEast (UKGuardian)
    Wednesday January 23, 2002 2:50 PM
    BERLIN (AP) - Germany began deploying troops specialized in combating chemical, biological and nuclear warfare to the Arabian peninsula Wednesday for a multinational exercise linked to the U.S. campaign against terrorism, the Defense Ministry said.

  • Thousands ordered to stay at home after chemical explosion (Ananova)
    3:40pm Thursday, 24th January 2002
    Thousands of people have been ordered to stay in their homes after a chemical lorry exploded in south Wales.
    The A465 dual carriageway between Resolven and Aberdulais, near Neath, remains closed in both directions several hours after the explosion of the lorry.
    The accident prompted fears that a cloud of toxic gas, which can cause respiratory problems, would engulf hundreds of homes.
    Contingency plans are in place to evacuate the nearby village of Resolven, population 10,000, and hundreds of neighbouring communities.
    "We have no idea what happened. It was not a road accident and there was no other vehicle involved.
    "The driver has been taken to hospital as a precaution but nobody was injured, which was a miracle in itself.
    "If this had happened a little later I could anticipate that we would have been dealing with a major incident in which people would have been injured."
    She said the lorry was carrying chemicals destined for the Bryngwyn water purification plant two miles from the accident scene.
    Chief Supt Murray added: "The chemical is corrosive and can cause respiratory problems and is toxic when mixed with water.

  • Al Qaida moving into Gaza, may join fight against Israel (WorldTribune)
    Saudi fugitive Osama Bin Laden is said to be considering the Palestinian Authority as the new base for his Al Qaida movement, said a senior official here. "The organization [Al Qaida] has not yet been completely defeated," the official told the Ankara-based Turkish Daily News on Wednesday. "It will continue to cause more headaches for the international community."
    The official, regarded as an expert on Afghanistan, said the Palestinian Authority could be the next address of Al Qaida, Middle East Newsline reported. The official said the movement would then join the Palestinian war against Israel.
    Such a war, the diplomatic sources said would escalate as Al Qaida insurgents introduce nonconventional weapons. The sources said Al Qaida agents might have already transferred weapons of mass destruction technology to such Islamic insurgency groups as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
    You don't say? We better start carpet bombing the Gaza Strip right now then. Who did you say you work for?

  • British security services knew of links between shoe bomber Richard Reid and one 11 September hijack suspect late last year, but failed to track Reid before he tried to blow up an airliner, according to US intelligence reports.
    The Observer can reveal that MI5 agents intercepted phone calls between Reid and the suspect, Zacarias Moussaoui, which directly linked Bromley-born Reid to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda net work, but did not realise their implication until it was too late. This was condemned last night as a serious breakdown in intelligence.
    The revelation that Reid acted with the backing of a sophisticated terrorist network linked to al-Qaeda comes as intelligence documents have also revealed that bin Laden has been given detailed advice on making a 'hybrid' nuclear device.
    The advice came from Dr Bashir-ud-Din Mahmood, formerly the nuclear director of the Pakistani Atomic Energy Commission, say Western intelligence services.
    They say he was bin Laden's 'nuclear secretary' who directly helped the terrorist leader in his pursuit of a nuclear capability. The documents say Mahmood has now admitted giving him designs for devices.
    Sources said that bin Laden was developing a hybrid nuclear 'gun and implosion device'. Although the documents say he has access to radioactive material, they conclude that it is unlikely he has enoughto explode a nuclear bomb.
    The US papers add that Mahmood met bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar in 2001 and provided information about the infrastructure needed for a nuclear weapons programme and the effects of these devices.
    Senior Government officials now admit that bin Laden is further ahead with a development programme than was initially thought.
    The advanced plans for a nuclear device and the failure to stop Reid compound growing fears of the power and sophistication of al-Qaeda and the seeming inability of the intelligence services to combat it. (UKObserver)

  • British device sniffs out bombs
    The good news from the UK authorities and air industry this weekend is that Britain's airports and airlines are among the safest in the world and improving.
    They are certainly deemed to be the most heavily protected in Europe and senior industry insiders this weekend boasted that both the security technology and personnel deployed in Britain are better than France.
    senior industry sources told The Observer last night that Britain's main airports have recently begun to be kitted out with extra security technology that they say would have picked up Richard Reid's shoe bomb.
    The bomb detection equipment, which is understood not to exist at Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport where Reid boarded, began to be installed at UK airports at a cost of tens of millions of pounds shortly before 11 September, as part of a general stepping up of security measures.
    I guess he knew this then. Chandler to play inspector clouseau?


  • "We have pictures of 3 similar looking UFO's" (RENSE)
    Strange, they kinda look like the ones from Mars Attacks, Earth V the Flying Saucers and that stupid thing from the Flintstones.

  • Iraqi Republican Guard, resettled after the Gulf War, near Oklahoma City by former Pres. Bush.
    (INFOWAR.com)
    (1) The FBI knows another terrorist attack is being planned, right now, for somewhere in Oklahoma City (site unknown)
    (2) The FBI has been, and still is, prohibiting their agents or local police from taking known terrorists into custody.
    (3) An Iraqi terrorist cell was involved in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and is still involved.
    Macviegh was just a poor Judd, you see?

  • Bohemian Club and its secret ceremonies, which some critics claim involve pagan rituals and human sacrifices, decides the fate of the world deep in the heart of Texas. Or not?
    (PressDemocrat c/o DailyGrail)
    "If my neighbor was worshipping a 40-foot stone owl and burned children on a fire, I wouldn't let that neighbor walk my dog or baby-sit my children. Instead these people are baby-sitting the big red button," Jones said. "This is some sick stuff."
    Jones, also a documentary filmmaker, managed to get inside the grove, which is divided into dozens of camps. He said he relied on his Texas accent to claim he was a member of Hillbillies Camp, whose members include President Bush and his father.
    Bohemian Club officials and Sonoma County residents familiar with the summer encampment, where men have gathered for more than a century for parties and discussions of weighty issues, dismissed claims of human sacrifices and other bizarre rituals.
    The annual encampment in a 2,700-acre grove has long been a target for protesters who say public policy is being formed in secret.
    Discussions at the grove often deal with government, military, economic, and science and technology topics. Other activities include plays and comedy -- some with men in drag -- drinking, dining and dominoes.
    Members and guests have included former presidents and Cabinet secretaries including Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, George Schultz and Caspar Weinberger.
    Others who have attended include the late CIA Director William Casey, Secretary of State Colin Powell, nuclear physicist Edward Teller, leaders of IBM, Dupont, Bank of America and the World Bank.
    Be Prepared!


  • The New Barbarians - Russia's extremist neo-pagan movements. (ForteanTimes)
    Naziesque?

  • Bucailleism holds that while the Bible makes lots of scientific errors, the Quran prophesied the Big Bang theory, space travel, and other contemporary scientific breakthroughs.
    (MSNBC c/o Dailygrail)
    “Bucailleism,” after the French surgeon Maurice Bucaille, who articulated it in an influential 1976 book, the doctrine is in some ways the Muslim counterpart to Christian creationism. But while creationism rejects much of modern science, Bucailleism embraces it. It holds that the Quran prophesied the Big Bang theory, space travel and other contemporary scientific breakthroughs. By the same token, it argues, the Bible makes lots of scientific errors, and so is less reliable as the word of God.
    To quote "The Skeptical Enquirer" has any scientific breakthrough ever being made by interpreting a religious text?

  • Scientists basically agree that an asteroid struck the Earth some 65 million years ago and its impact created the Chicxulub crater in Yucatan, Mexico. More controversial is the link between this impact and a major mass extinction of species that happened at the geological (K-T) boundary marked by the impact.
    But what mechanism did the impact trigger to cause mass extinction? The conventional theory is that impact dust obscured the sun, shutting down photosynthesis and snuffing out life. Kevin Pope from Geo Eco Arc Research shows in the February issue of GEOLOGY that the assumptions behind this theory are amiss, and therefore damage estimates from future asteroid impacts are also amiss.
    I've said it before, but why are there no ghosts of dinosaurs? And where did the mammoths go? Were they harvested?

  • Scientists breed pigs with spinach genes (REUTERS-JAN 24, 2002)
    TOKYO: Meat lovers may one day worry a little bit less about their fat intake thanks to Japanese scientists who say they have produced healthier pork by breeding pigs implanted with spinach genes.
    "This is the world's first success in breeding mammals with plant genes."
    Couldn't they make them strawberry flavored?

  • ABCNEWS.com Dog Mauling Trial Weighs Blame, Bestiality
    "They blurred the boundaries between dogs and humans, with fatal consequences," San Francisco prosecutor Jim Hammer testified during a hearing earlier this month.
    They certainly did. These people are animals.

  • Indonesian police have been questioning the man alleged to be South East Asia's own Osama Bin Laden. Abu Bakar Bashir is said to be the ringleader behind a series of militant Islamic cells with direct links to al-Qaeda.
    (UKChannel4news)
    A grainy home video shows a Singapore subway station, while a bland commentary explains the routes taken by visiting American military personnel.
    It then coolly describes the way a bike will be used to carry a bomb:
    "And you will notice that some of the boxes, they are placed on motorcycles. These are the type of boxes we intend to use."
    Do you get your bomb back if they fail to deliver within half an hour?

  • Scientists working on a discovering an elixir of life say it has already worked on fruit flies. (NEWSCIENTIST)
    The drug is said to increase longevity while maintaining youthful health.
    US researchers are confident enough to be planning a new set of experiments on mice.
    Its influence on lifespan was discovered by accident while the scientists were investigating its effect on fruit flies with neurodegenerative disease.
    Giving the drug to healthy flies extended their maximum lifespan by more than 50% and their average lifespan by a third.
    But the most significant outcome was the fact that there was no price to pay for the extra time.
    How long do fruit flies live anyway? Are we talking about a couple of extra hours here? Just think what Jeff Goldblum could have done with a couple of extra hours.
  • Liz Taylor amoureuse de Jeff Goldblum (Accustar))
    Mercredi 8 août 2001
    Malgré ses 69 ans, Liz Taylor n'a renoncé ni à l'amour, ni à se trouver un nouveau compagnon pour la vie.
    Selon une certaine rumeur, l'actrice serait tombée sous le charme de Jeff Goldblum. Le couple se serait rencontré à une fête de Beverly Hills et ils auraient rendu leur liaison officielle en dînant ensemble dans un restaurant de Los Angeles.
    Un témoin de la scène raconte : "Ils roucoulaient dans un coin et se faisaient du pied sous la table comme deux jeunes amants. Il a ensuite délicatement embrassé chacun de ses doigts et il la fixait du regard comme s'il n'y avait personne d'autre dans la salle du restaurant".
    Même si les deux acteurs se fréquentent depuis relativement peu de temps, Liz envisagerait sérieusement de faire de Jeff son huitième mari.
    Les proches du couple insistent pour dire que les 20 ans de différence d'âge qui les séparent ne les gênent nullement ni l'un ni l'autre.


    2:01:28 PM

    Wednesday, January 23, 2002  

  • Singer Peggy Lee Dies at Age 81 (AP)
    I am deeply saddened by this, more than I can say. I've known it was coming but somehow thought I might get to see her just once before she died. My obsessive crawling of event listings was inspired by missing her play at Sunderland Empire a few years back by a few days having had simliar missed chances in London before that. I attended Lena Horne's 80th birthday bash at Lincoln Plaza mostly to see Peggy but a first stroke prevented her from appearing at the last minute.


  • Evidence is mounting that some solar cycles are doubled-peaked. The ongoing solar maximum may itself be a double -- and the second peak has arrived.
    Fek, just as I was hoping things were starting to quieten down.

  • Winter Vomiting Bug Outbreak Continues To Spread (Ananova)
    Outbreaks of the winter vomiting bug are continuing to spread across Britain. Schools in the north west of England are being badly hit. The Public Health Laboratory Service says recorded levels of the gastric flu virus are higher than in the past. Doctors say they expect more admissions to hospitals in Greater Manchester, one of the worst affected areas, and Hertfordshire, Sussex, Dorset and Cornwall.
    The gastric flu is caused by a contagious virus which results in projectile vomiting and diarrhoea. The symptoms usually last for between 24 and 36 hours and there are rarely any long-lasting effects.

  • It has been a pipe dream of inventors since Leonardo da Vinci, but has the secret of free energy now been found in Ireland? (Reuters)
    A 58-year-old electrical engineer, who lives in the Irish republic and intends — for “security and publicity-avoidance reasons” — to keep his identity a secret, has spent 23 years perfecting the Jasker Power System.
    It is an electromechanical device he says is capable of replenishing its own energy source.
    “The Jasker produces emission-free energy at no cost apart from the installation. It is quite possibly the most significant invention since the wheel,”
    The Irishman is not alone in making such assertions. The Internet is awash with speculation about free or “zero point” energy, with many claiming to have cracked the problem using magnets, coils and even crystals.
    “These claims come along every 10 years or so, and nothing ever comes of them. They’re all cases of ’voodoo science,’” said Robert Park, professor of physics at the University of Maryland.
    “It’s a giant leap forward. The uses of this are almost beyond imagination.”
    I guess you could use it to charge up your SEGWAY.
    I'm not surprised he's decided to stay anonymous.
    1: if it's bollocks he/she can still live his life.
    2: If it's true he/she can remain alive.
    Also I trust there's more to this 'free energy' than running across a nylon carpet with your wellies on?



  • Ahh, life on the open road.


  • Whatever this guy's invented he looks very pleased with himself.

  • (NEWSWEEK)
    WTC II designs.
    Hmm, i like it, but it does look at bit like the orginal two towers having a bit of geriatric sex.

  • Hitler's relatives have been living in Long Island for the past 50 years (UKTelegraph)
    EXCERPT:When William Patrick grew up he moved to London but by this time his uncle had risen to power in Germany. For the first, but not last, time the curse of his surname struck and he was laid off from the job he had found.
    He decided, therefore, to travel to Germany and make full use of the Hitler family connections. His father and uncle helped him find work but the young William Patrick thought that he deserved something better than the book-keeping jobs he was given. He eventually fell foul of his uncle when he suggested that if he wasn't found something more befitting a member of the Fuhrer's family, he would go public with rumours that the Nazi leader's grandfather was an Austrian Jew.
    This prompted an ultimatum by Hitler: William Patrick was ordered to renounce his British citizenship and take a senior position in the Third Reich. The young man instead chose to flee from Germany. It was now 1939 and he received a cold welcome in London, so he left England with his mother for a lecture tour of America on the subject of "My Uncle Adolf".
    He arrived in New York at the end of March 1939 and "divested himself of a lot of uncomplimentary remarks about uncle Adolf", according to a report in the New York Daily News. His lectures attracted considerable attention at first but once America was forced into the war at the end of 1941 interest began to wane.
    In 1942 William Patrick wrote to President Roosevelt asking to be allowed to join the US army. "I have attempted to join the British forces," he wrote. "The British are an insular people and while they are kind and courteous, it is my impression, rightly or wrongly, that they could not in the long run feel overly cordial or sympathetic towards an individual bearing the name I do."
    He continued by saying that he and his mother owed a "great debt" to the United States and pleaded: "More than anything else I would like to see active combat as soon as possible and thereby be accepted by my friends and comrades as one of them in this great struggle for liberty."
    As a result of the letter William Patrick was investigated by the FBI, who found no evidence of any subversive activities, and he was given hope that he may be allowed to join up. But it wasn't until 1944 that he was finally enlisted into the US navy.
    There was one moment of comic coincidence when William Patrick arrived at the draft office and was asked his name by the recruiting officer. "Hitler," he replied.
    "Glad to see you Hitler," said the officer, "my name's Hess."
    The event was recorded by several newspapers - it was the last time that William Patrick Hitler was seen or heard of in public. Once in uniform he disappeared from public sight for ever.
    I discovered that William Patrick had first met his wife Phyllis in Germany in the 1930s through her brother. With war looming, the brother had asked William Patrick to look after Phyllis in New York and dispatched the girl - who was 12 years younger than Hitler - into his safekeeping. Romance blossomed and the couple married after the war in 1947.
    Their three surviving sons - Alexander Adolf, 52, Louis, 50, and Brian, 36 - fiercely guard their privacy and their family secret. Alex is a social worker and his brothers run a gardening business. Alexander Adolf Hitler understands the enduring fascination with his great-uncle but, like his mother, he doesn't want his life overturned, and possibly endangered, by revealing his true identity.
    None of the three sons has married, and there are no children. Alex initially denied that there had been a pact between the brothers to ensure that the Hitler line was not continued. Then he told me: "Maybe my other two brothers did [make a pact], but I never did." It was just one more contradiction to add to the many that already cloud his family history.

  • Terror exam tests found in al-Qaeda caves ()
    YOUNG students of terror are forced by Osama bin Laden's network to sit exams to test how to assassinate people, shoot down aircraft and build bombs.
    Copies of marked test papers have been seized by US intelligence forces, who are examining the multiple choice and short essay exams.
    The papers – belonging to three students identified only as Abu Hassan Qatari, Musaub al Freeb and one who went by the single name Osama – included the question: "If an aircraft was travelling at an altitude of 3000ft, which part of the plane should you target in order to inflict the most damage?"
    All three chose the correct answer – given only as "target area two".
    Suspected terrorists, often beating a hasty retreat from their homes, camps and caves, have left behind laptop computers, documents, address books and videotapes – all providing evidence of just how vast and well-organised the al-Qaeda network is.
    Information in some discovered documents has led to arrests around the world from Europe to Asia and thwarted attacks such as that planned on the Australian High Commission and other diplomatic offices in Singapore.
    The written tests sat by the three students focused on the use of the old Russian-made Dashka anti-aircraft weapon.
    Students had to know its inner workings, how to take it apart and put it back together. They had to know the ammunition it used, how many rounds it could fire per minute and per second.
    They also had to know the best way to shoot down an aircraft – at what height, the angle at which the weapon should be fired and how many people would be required to carry the weapon. The answer to the last question, in the case of the Dashka, was three.
    Each correct answer was marked with a red tick, each wrong answer with an "X".
    Al Freeb scored 24.5, Osama 22 and Qatari 19.5 out of a possible 30. Qatari was poor on dates and left some answers blank. Al Freeb gave detailed responses.
    Other material found in the caves outside Kandahar, the Taliban's former stronghold, included Arabic and English-language notebooks. The students drew careful designs of weapons, or of a human being, marking off target areas between the eyes and the heart.
    More proof these international terrorists are just the Columbine geeks of the world.

  • Crony Capitalism, U.S.A.-"a small group of business leaders exert enormous clout over Bush and his team in getting the rules changed to their benefit." (NYT)
    Four years ago, as Asia struggled with an economic crisis, many observers blamed "crony capitalism." Wealthy businessmen in Asia didn't bother to tell investors the truth about their assets, their liabilities or their profits; the aura of invincibility that came from their political connections was enough. Only when a financial crisis came along did people take a hard look at their businesses, which promptly collapsed. Does this sound familiar? On the face of it, the sudden political storm over Enron is puzzling. After all, the Bush administration didn't save the company from bankruptcy. But then why did the administration dissemble so long about its contacts with Enron? Why did George W. Bush make the absurd claim that Enron's C.E.O., Kenneth Lay, opposed him in his first run for governor, and that the two men got to know each other only after that race? And why does the press act as if there may be a major scandal brewing? Because the administration fears, and the press suspects, that the latest revelations in the Enron affair will raise the lid on crony capitalism, American style.
    Cronyism is hardly novel in America; the Clinton administration took us to the edge of a trade war on behalf of Chiquita bananas, a major campaign contributor. But the Bush administration, with its sense of entitlement, seems unconcerned by even the most blatant conflicts of interest - like the plan of Marc Racicot, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, to continue drawing a seven-figure salary as a lobbyist. (He now says he won't lobby - but he will still receive that salary.)
    The real questions about Enron's relationship with the administration involve what happened before the energy trader hit the skids. That's when Mr. Lay allegedly told the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that he should be more cooperative if he wanted to keep his job. (He wasn't, and he didn't.) And it's when Enron helped Dick Cheney devise an energy plan that certainly looks as if it was written by and for the companies that advised his task force. Mr. Cheney, in clear defiance of the law, has refused to release any information about his task force's deliberations; what is he hiding? And while Enron has imploded, other energy companies retain the administration's ear. Just days before the latest Enron revelations, the administration signaled its intention to weaken pollution rules on power plants; late last week it announced its decision to proceed with a controversial plan to store radioactive waste in Nevada. Each of these decisions was worth billions to companies with very strong connections to Mr. Bush.
    CBSMarketWatch.com declared, in its story about the nuclear waste decision, that "one group of major energy-business political donors just hit the jackpot."
    Notice the source of that quote.
    In recent months, while political reporters have been busy waving the flag, business reporters have taken the lead in telling us what's really going on. And they seem disgusted by what they see.
    It was CBSMarketWatch's executive editor, not some whining political commentator, who warned that "a small group of business leaders exert enormous clout over Bush and his team in getting the rules changed to their benefit." And the business magazine Red Herring has published the biggest exposé to date of the secretive Carlyle Group, an investment company whose story sounds like the plot of a bad TV series.
    Carlyle specializes in buying down-and-out defense contractors, then reselling them when their fortunes miraculously improve after they receive new government business. Among the company's employees is former President George H. W. Bush. Among the group's investors, until late October, was the bin Laden family of Saudi Arabia. Another administration would have regarded the elder Bush's role at Carlyle as unseemly; this administration apparently does not. And Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld recently gave his old college wrestling partner Frank Carlucci, head of Carlyle, a very nice gift: Mr. Rumsfeld decided to proceed with the much-criticized Crusader artillery system, which even the Pentagon wanted to cancel. The result was another turnaround for a Carlyle-owned company. Sad to say, none of this is clearly illegal - it just stinks to high heaven. That's why the Bush administration will try to keep the Enron story narrowly focused on one company during its death throes. Just remember that the real story is much bigger.

    7:16:57 AM

    Monday, January 21, 2002  

  • Hunt for Haggis online
    Check out the wee beasties on the haggiscams.

  • Owners baffled by globe-trotting 'pig' (ANANOVA)
    An 18in stone pig appears to be travelling the world after disappearing from a Suffolk woman's garden.
    Pinky usually sits outside the Kesgrave home of Moira Briggs with his companion Perky.
    he disappeared in December and since then Moira has received a photo of Pinky at Ipswich station and postcards supposedly from him of Aldershot, Farnborough and now New York.
    She told the Evening Star:
    "I realised one of the pigs had gone and just thought it was a joke and someone was hiding it.
    "I just do not have a clue who it is. Whoever it is has even gone to the trouble of taking a picture of the pig and scanning it in to photographs. My daughter's boyfriend does work in New York but we know it is not him now.
    "We did think it might be my son who is at university but he and all his friends were away when it started happening."
    The letters and postcards they are receiving are stamped with the postmarks of the town Pinky is supposed to have visited.
    "We are just waiting to see what happens next because it did say in the letter that he would come back once he had done a bit of travelling."
    Story filed: 16:13 Wednesday 16th January 2002
    Let's hope he doesn't become the next John Walker.

  • David Icke 'knew space was turquoise first' (Ananova)
    I always remember saying to the nurse 'they didn't lock up david icke for his views; then they did'

  • Recent UFO sightings (RENSE)
    INCLUDING:
    LONG ISLAND CITY -- On December 30, 2001, about midnight eight friends left a restaurant and stopped to look at the moon and stars. One witness reports, "What we were looking at started to dart and shoot all over the sky. There were so many! Some lined up in order and then just went off in their own direction; just to zip back and forth. Others looked like they were playing a game of cat and mouse. They were darting all over the sky for the longest time. They ran back into the restaurant and called the people to go out to see it. We were all in shock! Thanks to Peter Davenport Director NUFORC, www.ufocenter.com
    The Perseids? Lagging Leonids? Gunfight in Queens?

  • Virus-hit school may stay shut (BBCNEWS)
    Monday, 21 January, 2002, 06:45 GMT
    A Scottish primary school could be closed indefinitely after pupils were struck down with a viral infection.
    Public health officials will meet on Monday to discuss the outbreak, which saw 130 pupils at Forthill Primary in Dundee suffering bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea.
    Ninety youngsters signed in sick last Thursday, followed by a further 40 the following day.

  • Virus-hit hospital remains closed (BBCNEWS)
    Monday, 21 January, 2002, 08:44 GMT
    A Glasgow hospital remains closed to new admissions after more than 200 staff and patients were hit by a virus.
    No date has yet been given for the re-opening of the Victoria Infirmary.
    At the last count, 218 staff and patients had been hit by the "winter vomiting" bug, which causes sickness and diarrhoea.

  • Mystery illness empties school (BBCNEWS)
    Public health officials are awaiting the results of tests to find out what is behind a health scare at a school in Cornwall. Public health officials will meet on Monday to discuss the outbreak, which saw 130 pupils at Forthill Primary in Dundee suffering bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea.

  • Spanish Flu Defrosts (Nature)
    Frozen tissue from a victim of the worldwide influenza pandemic of 1918 who was buried in the Alaskan permafrost is helping to piece together the genome of a virus that caused one of the most devastating outbreaks of epidemic disease in modern times.
    Starting in late August of 1918, this lethal strain of influenza, commonly known as 'Spanish 'flu', swept the world, killing between 20 and 40 million people in the next 6 months. Few communities were untouched, from remote Inuit settlements in the far north to the crowded cities of America, Europe and Asia, where thousands of people died each week at the height of the epidemic.The strain of influenza virus that caused the 1918 pandemic was exceptional, even among pandemic strains, in its speed of attack, its virulence-its capacity to cause severe disease-and its propensity to kill fit young adults rather than the very young and the elderly, the more usual victims of influenza. Reports of the time tell of healthy young soldiers dropping on the parade ground and dying the next day.
    Influenza is the most changeable of the viruses that commonly infect humans. Influenza viruses infect other animals, most notably birds and pigs, and new pandemic strains are generally considered to be strains of influenza that have newly crossed over into humans from the animal population and to which humans have no immunity.
    I wonder if it came from outer space?

  • Cows could foster flu pandemics
    Cattle could act as a breeding ground for future flu outbreaks. So say researchers tracking emerging strains in animals in the hope of averting further human pandemics.
    Killing nearly half a million people worldwide, the last flu pandemic swept the globe in 1968.
    Random Snippet:
    But in one of the fields lie ashes and bones from hundreds of carcasses - the legacy of foot and mouth disease. Thomas is afraid the half-burnt remains have contaminated his land.
    Is it just me or are things going to pot?

  • Anthrax Missing From Army Lab
    Lab specimens of anthrax spores, Ebola virus and other pathogens disappeared from the Army's biological warfare research facility in the early 1990s, during a turbulent period of labor complaints and recriminations among rival scientists there, documents from an internal Army inquiry show.
    The 1992 inquiry also found evidence that someone was secretly entering a lab late at night to conduct unauthorized research, apparently involving anthrax. A numerical counter on a piece of lab equipment had been rolled back to hide work done by the mystery researcher, who left the misspelled label "antrax" in the machine's electronic memory, according to the documents obtained by The Courant.
    "They laughed at me in medical school. Called me a mad fool. I'll show them all. hahahahahahah."

  • Live Bacteria Found Buried At Fort Detrick
    Material Is Not Anthrax Or Other Known Biological Weapon
    FREDERICK, Md. -- Workers excavating a water-polluting dump at Fort Detrick found two sealed glass vials containing live bacteria that might have come from an infectious disease research laboratory, the Army said Friday
    The granular, whitish-brown material is not anthrax and is not among the agents recognized as biological weapons, Lt. Col. Donald Archibald, the post's environmental officer, said.
    It could have come from Detrick labs that develop vaccines and other defenses against infectious diseases troops might encounter in the field, or from other government agencies, including the National Cancer Institute, that are tenants on the post, officials said.
    Scientists at Detrick's U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases should be able to identify the organism by late next week, Detrick spokeswoman Eileen Mitchell said.
    Regardless of the vials' source, the Jan. 7 discovery and the Army's delay in disclosing its preliminary findings angered Gerald P. Toomey, the civilian co-chairman of a community advisory board created to help guide the cleanup of Detrick landfills blamed for leaking cancer-causing industrial solvents into the area's ground water.
    "On many occasions, we had brought up the subject, and they assured us there was no historical data that anything of that type had been disposed of in these pits," Toomey said.
    This 'US Army' outfit sounds like a right bunch of cowboys.

  • Soon you'll be able to post a message in the air wherever you go. (NewScientist via Fark)
    Pinning messages in mid-air, using the location's Global Positioning System (GPS) reference, could become the next craze in communications. The messages are not actually kept in the air: they're stored on an Internet page. But that page's Web address is linked to coordinates on the Earth's surface, rather than a person or organisation. As you move about, a GPS receiver in your mobile phone or PDA will check to see if a message has been posted on the website for that particular spot. If you're in luck a snippet of info-left as text or a voice recording by someone who passed there previously-will pop up on your screen or be whispered into your earpiece.
    This is all made possible thanks to the current proliferation of GPS receiver systems that can pinpoint your position on the Earth's surface-including your altitude-to within six metres.
    I see the bastard son of spam and graffiti poisoning the very ether. Spaghetti? What's the frequency kenneth?

  • People who've grown up with mobile phones tend to use their thumbs when others would use their fingers.
    Today's twenty-somethings have become so adept at tapping out text messages on their mobiles that they now use their thumbs instead of their fingers for tasks such as ringing doorbells, pushing buttons and pointing.
    Poking people in the eye?

  • How bin Laden network spread its tentacles
    Up to 1,000 al-Qaeda men are still active in the UK: The Observer uncovers al-Qaeda links from Brighton to Bolton to reveal that Muslim extremism is not limited to a few fiery mullahs.
    'Fiery Mullahs', oh how John Betlehgmen (sic) missed his chance at a great ryhme there.

  • Bomb goes off at American embassy-Helicopter crash and warnings of attack on a major installation add to the air of menace in Kabul (UKGuardian)
    'Men at Work' tried to warn us all those years ago.

  • Interactive Map of Terrestrial Asteroid Impact Craters
    A handy guide for Holidaying Meteors?
    Sunday, January 20, 2002  
  • What was an apparently European man doing in North America over 9,000 years ago? (BBCNEWS)

    However the Kennewick Man skeleton prompts a particularly awkward question - what was an apparently European man doing in North America over 9,000 years ago?
    Conventional wisdom has it that Vikings may have reached North America around 1,000 AD, but archaeologists hope the remains would tell them more about the spread of humans across the Americas.
    I often ask myself the same question. Patrick Stewart chosen to become first real 'Dr. Who'?

  • Did you know that PLANET X will pass through our solar system again in spring 2003 after approximately 3660 years of absence on its regular orbit?
    In the last visit the Planet X destroyed over 90% of human population. Like most people you probably do not know this. The knowledge has been kept away from the public for several reasons, one of which is to avoid causing panic among the world's population. PLANET X is a brown dwarf star that orbits around BOTH suns (our sun and its dark twin sun), and not just around the one in our sky like the other 9 planets.
    Planet X was easily covered up from the public for 18 years after it was first spotted. Only the largest controlled observatories could see it. Now Planet X is too close to cover up from small to mid level observatories. The powers that be have only one choice left to continue the cover up, misinformation. This tactic of mislabeling it is now in full swing. Hiding it with lies is all they can do now. As it increases in size during its approach, over the next few months, they are going to have to change their cover story to perhaps a far off nova instead of a close moon of Pluto's. X's mass, magnetism and density is such that it disrupts the surface of every planet it passes. In fact, history shows 7 years prior to its passage it begins to trigger volcanic and seismic activity, as well as changes in weather patterns, which are now falsely being blamed on global warming and solar flare activity. You have, no doubt, noticed how volcanic and seismic activity have increased worldwide since 1996. Traditional weather patterns have also been changing and breaking all time records regularly.


    Perhaps a better name for it would be 'Goofy'?

  • What Lurks in the Outer Solar System?
    It's just a matter of time, say researchers, before astronomers find something as big as Pluto in the chilly outer reaches of the solar system. (NASA)

  • Search for Planets Instead Yields Bevy of Stellar Triplets (SPACE.com)
    WASHINGTON D.C. 10 January 2002- An astronomer who was looking for signs of planet formation around young, double-star systems instead found a third star in about half the cases.
    The surprising discoveries spell trouble for planet development. The particles that need to coalesce to form seeds of planets would have a hard time sticking together in such a gravitationally complex place.

  • 'Planet X' - Nibiru Myth Rising On The Internet-A Call For Skepticism, By Bill Hamilton (RENSE)

  • Researchers suggest that
    huge unseen object orbits on fringe of solar system     (MSNBC)
    Oct. 7, 1999 — Two teams of researchers have proposed the existence of an unseen planet or a failed star circling the sun at a distance of more than 2 trillion miles, far beyond the orbits of the nine known planets.
    I've still never seen Dark Star, but obviously some guys have.

  • Goo Globs over Washington State
    (Zetatalk)
    Military Conducting Biological Warfare in Washington
    Air Force General Threatens Local Resident
    In August of 1994, a bizarre sequence of events began to occur in the small town of Oakville, Washington. Gelatinous blobs of biological material began to rain down over an area of over 20 square miles during a storm. It would happen six times in 1994, and continue periodically thereafter.
    A lab technician found the first startling clue. The substance contained human white blood cells, but exactly what it was could not be determined. The goo was promptly forwarded to the Washington State Department of Health for further analysis.”
    Mike McDowell (Microbiologist, WSDH): “It was very uniform. There was no structure that we could see visibly with a microscope. I set it up on various microbiological media and attempted to isolate bacteria.”
    Robert Stack: “Mike McDowell discovered that the sample was literally teaming with two species of bacteria, one of which make its home in the human digestive system.”
    Sunny: “The initial speculation was that it might have been human waste from an airliner, however that was out, because under FAA regulations aircraft waste matter is dyed blue. This material was not blue, but crystal clear in color"
    Robert Stack: “Translation? The goo was alive. How in the world did living matter make its way into the clouds? "
    Oh no, Planet X is trying to mate with us!

  • Robot stars 'will be the top earners by 2010' (UKTelegraph)
    IN an age when the manufactured celebrity has become commonplace, scientists made a grim prediction for the future of showbusiness yesterday.
    By 2010, the world's highest earning actor, pop star or model will be a synthetic "celeb-bot", whose looks, voice and personality are generated by computers.
    At the same time, a quarter of the faces seen on television will become completely synthetic as artificial celebrities become cheaper, and more watchable, than real-life presenters.
    The predictions appear in a new report from BT's research and technology laboratories, BT Exact Technologies, compiled by Ian Pearson, one of Britain's leading futurologists.
    Although attempting to second-guess the future is notoriously difficult, Mr Pearson's record is impressive. Around 85 per cent of short-range predictions made during a similar exercise in 1993 have been accurate to the year.
    The 500 new predictions aren't just bad news for actors, pop stars and readers of Hello! magazine, they also include disturbing news for humanity.
    According to Mr Pearson, machines will be smart enough to pass a GCSE exam by 2006, with A levels following the year after.
    -A computer will be able to take a degree by 2013 and a PhD by 2015. The first artificial intelligence Nobel Prize winner will be in 2018.
    -By 2015, machines will show human-like creativity, while machine knowledge will exceed human knowledge by 2017, he predicts.
    -In 2020, electronic life will be given basic rights. By 2030, robots will be physically and mentally superior to people.
    (What makes them think they could ever make a robot as real as Britney Spears?)
    -Toys will also begin to show frighteningly life-like qualities. Barbie dolls will be linked to the internet within a few years and will have virtual social lives outside their owners' homes.
    Some dolls may even demand allowances that let them buy the latest clothes and accessories online.

    -In the sphere of health, Mr Pearson predicts designer babies by 2005, the first wholly artificial heart by 2010, artificial lungs and kidneys by 2015 and electronic memory enhancement by 2020. Artificial brains will not arrive before 2035.
    Household gadgets will have voice control by 2005, while three-dimensional television without the need for special glasses will arrive by 2012.
    The "timelines" also include new leisure pursuits, including "zorbing" - the jumping out of aircraft in inflatables - by 2005 and internet attendance at most theatres the same year. Britain will introduce online voting in 2007 and electronic referenda by 2010.(Zorbing? Hmm, did someone watch Temple of Doom again this Xmas? )
    The orgasmatron - a sexual pleasure device first dreamed up for Woody Allen's 1973 film Sleeper - will be made a reality in 2012. Life expectancy will approach 100 by 2020.
    (I see some conflict here.)
    "What must be remembered by anyone preparing for the future is that technology change isn't very important in itself. What matters is what this change enables or destroys," said Mr Pearson.
    "The intention of the timeline is to illustrate the potential lying ahead for beneficial technologies.
    "Not all will be successful in the marketplace; some won't ever be implemented at all. But as the rest come on stream, our lives will improve in many ways.
    "Of course, the far future is much harder to imagine than the near future. One thing is certain in the distant future - the world will be a very different place."
    In 1993, Mr Pearson predicted that vehicle number plate recognition systems would be in use in 1996, the first wristwatch television would be available in 1997 and flat, high-resolution television screens one metre across would be in the shops in 1998.
    "They all turned out to be correct. However, I've probably made more errors with virtual reality than with anything else," he said.


  • Supertram test to ease traffic (BBCNEWS)
    A test track for a revolutionary new transport system is being launched in Cardiff Bay on Thursday.
    The ULTra (Urban Light Transport) scheme involves driverless cars taking passengers around the capital on a dedicated track.

    Wouldn't it be quicker just to get on the bike?


  • ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan's president says he thinks Osama bin Laden is most likely dead because the suspected terrorist has been unable to get treatment for his kidney disease.
    "I think now, frankly, he is dead for the reason he is a ... kidney patient," Gen. Pervez Musharraf said on Friday in an interview with CNN.
    Musharraf said Pakistan knew bin Laden took two dialysis machines into Afghanistan. "One was specifically for his own personal use," he said.
    The other was for his doubles?

  • FBI: Al Qaeda may have probed government nuclear facilty websites (CNN)
    Why make your own, when easier options already exist?

  • U.S. tentatively concludes al-Qaida lacked weapons of mass destruction (AP)
    WASHINGTON (January 16, 2002 5:55 p.m. EST) - American officials have tentatively concluded al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden's terrorist group, had not developed the means to produce chemical, biological or radiological weapons at the time the United States began bombing Afghanistan in October.
    Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday that weeks of searching more than 40 sites in Afghanistan yielded diagrams, materials and reports that indicated "an appetite for weapons of mass destruction."
    "In terms of having hard evidence of actual possession of weapons of mass destruction, I do not have that at this stage," he told a Pentagon news conference.
    Of 50 suspected al-Qaida sites identified so far, 45 have been thoroughly examined, officials said.
    Rumsfeld said there may yet be an exception to his statement that no terror weapons have been found. He said he had been shown photos of canisters found recently at a former al-Qaida site in Afghanistan that could contain chemical agents. Their contents have yet to be examined, he said.
    "Externally they appear to be weapons of mass destruction," he said. Asked to explain, he said, "They've got stuff on them that make reasonable people think there's something not good in there, and we're going to check them out."
    Other officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the canisters are no more than six inches high and bear Cyrillic markings indicating they might be of Russian origin. These officials said the canisters were probably innocuous; they stressed that al-Qaida is known to have made a number of transactions in the past for useless items dressed up as chemical or other terror weapons.
    Rumsfeld did not offer his own assessment of how far al-Qaida had progressed toward the apparent goal of acquiring the means to develop weapons of mass destruction. Other officials with access to intelligence information on the subject said the terrorists had great ambitions but were in the earliest stage of pursuing them. One official said the materials and equipment found in Afghanistan were so basic as to resemble items an ordinary American high school chemistry class would use.
    Rumsfeld has said that while the Sept. 11 airplane hijacking plot that killed thousands was a stunning tragedy, terrorist groups with access to chemical, biological or nuclear weapons could wreak far greater havoc on the United States and other countries unless global terrorism is extinguished.
    That is one reason the Pentagon has placed a high priority on searching former al-Qaida camps and hide-outs in Afghanistan and interrogating captured al-Qaida members for indications of other planned attacks and the group's links to countries that possess chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
    Knock on wood.
    8:19:06 AM

    Friday, January 18, 2002  
  • Was Richard Reid 'Shoe Bomber No. 2'? Some experts believe Flight 587 downed by Shoe Bomber No. 1
    DEBKA-Net-Weekly reports a spreading conviction among aviation and counter-terror experts that he was Shoe Bomber No. 2, and that American Airlines Flight 587 was brought down 40 days earlier over Queens, N.Y., by Shoe Bomber No. 1.
    Their argument springs from a simple question: Why did not Reid simply lock himself in the bathroom and ignite the fuse to the bomb without risk of interference?
    The answer is that he was instructed to position himself in window seat No. A 19, next to where the wing attaches to the body of the plane to follow the example of Shoe Bomber No. 1.
    A bomb exploding in this position would allow the plastic explosive to erupt through the wall of the cabin and rupture the wing where jet fuel is stored.
    This, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources, is precisely what happened on the AA flight 587 Airbus bound for Santo Domingo, 40 days previously, with tragic consequences. All 255 passengers and crew died, as well as five people on the ground.
    The official explanation is that the crash was caused by turbulence from another jet, mechanical defects in the composite materials in the tail of the plane -- causing the tail to fall off -- and pilot error. DEBKA's sources say that explanation does not cover the evidence.
    Several witnesses report that a small explosion occurred on the right-hand side of the fuselage, before the second big explosion on the right wing. “It was only then that the plane fell apart.”
    I wonder if these shoes come in a box labelled 'Acmed'?

  • Are aircraft 'chemtrails' evidence of covert USAF climate control?

    Do the USAF get Saturdays off? Perhaps that's why it always rains!

  • 7500 BC lost civilisation discovered off India's coast (TimesofIndia)
    Perhaps 'Atlantis' was just a name given to any old generic sunken lost civilisation rather than just one specific place?


  • Personal helicopter gets off the ground
    A personal flying machine has completed its first ever test flight, bringing a futuristic mode of transport a step closer to reality, according to its US inventor.
    Talkabout cars being a phallic symbol.

  • Mystery surrounds the discovery of giant bamboo rafts carrying human skeletons washed ashore on Pacific islands. (Ananova)
    Didn't the new season of 'Survivor' just start filming in Tahiti?

  • Goat Milk Carries Spider Silk in Canada Experiment
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Genetically engineered goats may soon be producing milk loaded with spider silk tough enough to make a new generation of body armor or the finest surgical thread, researchers said on Thursday.
    Thwwipp! That's a much better use for goat milk than drinking it.

  • Thousands flee as volcano erupts in eastern Congo (Ananova)
    Fires are burning out of control in Congo after a volcano erupted sending rivers of lava flowing through Goma.
    "The sky was totally scarlet, there were terrible earthquakes, and one was so bad that there is a crack in the ceiling of my house," said Ms Carr, who runs an orphanage.
    "We had no sleep, the children were so frightened, and the flames seemed to be about two meters from the orphanage," she said.
    For some reason I'm picturing Ms. Carr as looking like Ingrid Bergman
    4:22:08 AM

    Tuesday, January 15, 2002  
  • McDonalds issues national alert after powder found in mail (ABCNEWS-Oz)
    Let's hope it's not extra-thick anthrax

  • Israel bracing for Iraq attack-Sources report Saddam working with Arafat on imminent assault
    (Source:DEBKA-Israeli Intelligence)
    While pointing a sharply accusing finger at Iran, Israel suddenly finds itself on a high terror alert against an imminent terror threat from Iraq, timed for Jan. 15 or thereabouts.
    According to DEBKAfile's military sources, Israel obtained intelligence information of an Iraqi terrorist plan 10 days ago. That information included Baghdad's relay of its plan to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. In response, Arafat sent his liaison man with the Iraqi regime, Azzam al-Ahmad, to Baghdad to find out the details and work out how Iraq and the Palestinian Authority could work together.
    In the view of American and Israeli authorities, the Iraqi president felt driven to action on behalf of the Palestinians by the exposure of Iran's involvement in the Palestinian uprising as a result of the weapon-laden Karin-A's interception. He aims to correct the impression that Iraq is doing nothing for the Palestinians.
    Keeping up with the Jones', middle eastern style.

  • Who Fired Up the Missile Threat? Republicans in Congress Know (WASHPOST)
    This abrupt shift in thinking was prompted, in part, by a series of troubling events, including missile tests in North Korea and Iran, nuclear tests in India and Pakistan, and reports of Russian scientists selling their services. But there is also evidence that the new intelligence forecasts were a result of something else: a concerted campaign by the Republican-dominated Congress, supported by Israel, to focus attention on the leakage of missile technology from Russia to Iran. The government of then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu feared that Israel could soon become a target of Iranian missiles. Congressional Republicans wanted to build public support for a national missile defense system.
    "It was the largest turnaround ever in the history of the intelligence agency, and I was part of making it happen," said Representative Curt Weldon, Republican of Pennsylvania, who is a leading critic of what he often called the Clinton administration's "misguided" approach to Russia in the late 1990s. Mr. Weldon, a champion of missile defense, was openly scornful of pre-1999 CIA estimates of the missile threat from such nations as Iran and North Korea.
    Mr. Weldon and other conservatives said the intelligence shift was a necessary corrective to what they viewed as politically skewed intelligence forecasts during the Clinton years. They were particularly upset by a 1995 national intelligence estimate that flatly stated that "no country, other than the major declared nuclear powers, will develop or otherwise acquire a ballistic missile in the next 15 years that could threaten the contiguous 48 states and Canada." By contrast, Joseph Cirincione, director of the nonproliferation program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the 1995 intelligence estimate "holds up pretty well in hindsight." He accused Mr. Weldon and other Republicans of mounting a "conscious political strategy" to attack the intelligence assessment because "it stood in the way of a passionate belief in missile defense."
    The debate over the 1995 estimate coincided with an aggressive Israeli campaign to alert the Clinton administration to what Mr. Netanyahu's advisers saw as a growing missile threat from Iran, a radical Islamic state that has often threatened to destroy Israel. Israel had information that Iran was working on a scaled-up Soviet Scud missile, known as the Shahab-3, that would theoretically be able to hit Tel Aviv from launching pads in western Iran.
    According to a September 1999 intelligence forecast, Iran could test such a missile "in the next few years."
    Maybe we should just move the Capitol Building to Jerusalem?

  • Lieberman calls for targeting of Hussein
    January 15, 2002 Posted: 1:23 AM EST (0623 GMT)
    WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration must target Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in its war against terrorism, Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Monday. It was one of a series of steps he said are needed to undermine a "theological iron curtain" being put up in the Muslim world by fanatics.
    It's like Pay-per-view/Video-on-Demand.

  • U.S. Puppet on End of Zionist Strings (TehranTimes)
    TEHRAN: A U.S. official has admitted that his country was a puppet on the end of Zionist strings, said a report published in the *** Al-Hayat ** daily on Monday.
    The newspaper said John Anthony, the director of a U.S.-Arab friendship association, admitted that the U.S. Congress was completely under the influence of the Zionist lobby and that Arabs had a right to fight for their freedom.
    Anthony is by no means the first one to make this statement; other U.S. and world politicians have also come to the conclusion that the White House is the lapdog of the Zionist regime. However, the circumstances that followed the September 11 attacks and the United States' faithful support of the belligerent Zionist regime have created a new wave of concern among world leaders, regardless of their religions and nationalities.
    The reasons for the U.S. Administration's cooperation with, or more accurately its obedience to, a regime that has little more than half a century of history is a question asked around the world. Working under the universally accepted assumption that the state of diplomatic relations with a country is based primarily on economic motives, even U.S. analysts and intellectuals have questioned the price Washington has paid compared to what it has gained from supporting the Zionist regime. In other words, if national interests are important to the White House, to what extent are these interests intertwined with interests and strategies of the Zionist entity?
    It is clear to all that a small proportion of the Zionist community -- not the Jewish community -- has the greatest influence on Washington's strategic decision-making, which begs the question: What sort of role does the rest of the population, including Christians and Muslims, play in drawing up national policies?
    A recent remark made by the Pope indicates that the unconditional U.S. support and funding of the Zionist regime could lead to its global isolation. He suggested that it would not only distance Arabs and Muslims from the U.S., it might also lead to its detachment from moral advocates of religious freedom who oppose the Zionist regime and its supporters. Are civilized U.S. citizens willing to pay such a heavy price?
    What are the advantages of these policies for the U.S. Administration? Are the territories occupied by the Zionist regime the richest lands in the world? Are the rich natural resources of these territories supposed to help the ailing U.S. economy?
    It is quite clear that Washington would gain nothing but having its international and historical standing ruined. Nothing can convince an observer that the U.S. administration would risk such detriment by supporting an abusive regime.
    The only explanation for such support is a powerful Zionist presence in the U.S. Administration and Congress. Despite election slogans, it seems undeniable that whoever finds his way into the White House holds the interests of the Zionist regime above those of his own nation.
    Today, the U.S. Administration, by following the policies dictated by Ariel Sharon, is heading toward war fronts, while the civilized American people are dreaming of a peaceful world.
    I dunno, these anti-Zionists, what exactly do they propose we do with the Israelis?

  • Setting Sail on a Giant, Floating City (FOXNEWS)
    "It's the lifestyle of continuous travel, but with amenities such as a commercial center, a major hospital and major school system, and you get to take your home, your surroundings and your family with you," Freedom Ship International CEO Norman Nixon said in a telephone interview from his Florida home.
    Freedom Ship today exists only on paper. But some 3,000 families and businesses have already signed on to live and work on it. When it does launch, in 2006, this leviathan of comfortable living will travel a lazy circuit around the world every two years.

  • THE CASE OF THE EVIL WIND-Climate Study Corroborates Ancient Sumer's Nuclear Fate (Sitchin.com)
    At the end of the third millennium B.C. the great Sumerian civilization came to an abrupt end. Its sudden demise was bewailed in numerous lamentation texts that have been discovered by archeologists. The texts ascribed the calamity to an Evil Wind that came blowing from the west (from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea) -- a deathly cloud that caused excruciating death to all living beings, people and animals alike, that withered plants and poisoned the waters.
    In The Wars of Gods and Men (third book of The Earth Chronicles series), Zecharia Sitchin saw an explanation of the sudden death in a long text known to scholars as The Erra Epos, that described a chain of events that ultimately led to the use of “Weapons of Terror” in a conflict between opposing clans of the Anunnaki ("Those who from Heaven to Earth came").
    Based on the descriptions of the weapons in the Erra Epos­ and in the lamentation texts, Zecharia Sitchin concluded that the Weapons of Terror were nuclear weapons. Used to obliterate the spaceport that then existed in the Sinai Peninsula (and some “sinning cities” such as Sodom and Gomorrah), the nuclear cloud then was carried by the prevailing winds eastward, causing death and desolation in the Lands Between the Rivers (Mesopotamia) -- the empire of Sumer and Akkad.
    Besides claiming that nuclear weapons were first used on Earth not in the 1940’s in Hiroshima but thousands of years earlier in the Near East, Zecharia also pinpointed the date: 2024 B.C.!
    Damn them! Damn them all to hell!
    See also    At a relatively recent time as Evolution goes, modern humans acquired an extra 223 genes not through gradual evolution, not vertically on the Tree of Life, but horizontally, as a sideways insertion of genetic material from bacteria
    and
    The Role of the Anunnaki
    Readers of my books must be smiling by now, for they know the answer.
    They know that the biblical verses dealing with the fashioning of The Adam are condensed renderings of much much more detailed Sumerian and Akkadian texts, found inscribed on clay tablets, in which the role of the Elohim in Genesis is performed by the Anunnaki – “Those Who From Heaven to Earth Came.”
    As detailed in my books, beginning with The 12th Planet (1976) and even more so in Genesis Revisited and The Cosmic Code, the Anunnaki came to Earth some 450,000 years ago from the planet Nibiru – a member of our own solar system whose great orbit brings it to our part of the heavens once every 3,600 years. They came here in need of gold, with which to protect their dwindling atmosphere. Exhausted and in need of help in mining the gold, their chief scientist Enki suggested that they use their genetic knowledge to create the needed Primitive Workers. When the other leaders of the Anunnaki asked: How can you create a new being? He answered:
    "The being that we need already exists;
    all that we have to do is put our mark on it.”
    The time was some 300,000 years ago.
    What he had in mind was to upgrade genetically the existing hominids, who were already on Earth through Evolution, by adding some of the genes of the more advanced Anunnaki. That the Anunnaki, who could already travel in space 450,000 years ago, possessed the genomic science (whose threshold we have now reached) is clear not only from the actual texts but also from numerous depictions in which the double-helix of the DNA is rendered as Entwined Serpents (a symbol still used for medicine and healing) -- see illustration ‘A’ below.
    When the leaders of the Anunnaki approved the project (as echoed in the biblical ”Let us fashion the Adam”), Enki with the help of Ninharsag, the Chief Medical Officer of the Anunnaki, embarked on a process of genetic engineering, by adding and combining genes of the Anunnaki with those of the already-existing hominids.
    When, after much trial and error breathtakingly described and recorded in antiquity, a “perfect model” was attained, Ninharsag held him up and shouted: “My hands have made it!” An ancient artist depicted the scene on a cylinder seal (illustration ‘B’).
    And that, I suggest, is how we had come to possess the unique extra genes. It was in the image of the Anunnaki, not of bacteria, that Adam and Eve were fashioned.

  • Not so jumpy -The human genome wasn't invaded by genes from bacteria, after all, says Glaxo study. (NewScientist)
    Wot no Anunuki? (see below)

  • The Real Roots of Terror (Atlantic Journal)
    EXCERPT:Debate over the causes of the terrorist attacks on America has been inhibited by the fear that to inquire into them is somehow to extenuate evil. So let's substitute "sources" for the morally fraught "causes." Do that, and this becomes clear: All but three of the terrorists, like Bin Laden himself, were from Saudi Arabia; Mohamed Atta, their ringleader, was from Egypt, as is the number two man in al Qaeda, Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. Something about these countries helped to produce the terrorists. The terrorists are dead; bin Laden will soon join them. But that something endures. The domestic political arrangements of Egypt and Saudi Arabia should be regarded as among our real enemies in the war on terror. The regimes in these countries, we know, are repressive, but so are governments throughout the Third World. What is special about the repression in Egypt and Saudi Arabia is that both governments escape its consequences by redirecting popular anger toward the United States.

  • British birdwatchers flock to see American rarity
    LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - A snowy egret, native to America, that appeared in Scotland late last year is luring hundreds of birdwatchers, but baffling them as to how it got there.
    Another bird goes way astray. A portence of changing North Atlantic weather currents?

  • Yesterday at school, our spanish class watched a movie on the Maya civilization which lived in south america/central america thousands of years ago. They constructed a calender, which for the past 5,000 years has been extremely accurate, its only 33minutes off! They say that on December 23, 2012 the world will end.
    (Source:Newsgroup-Anon)

  • Fire destroys years of genetic research...(NYT) am I paranoid to think that this may not have been a simple accident, given the nature of the data? (posted by BitterOldPunk on Metafilter.com)

  • Asteroid may have slammed mineral wealth into Shark Bay (ABCNEWS-Oz)
    Geologists say there may be undiscovered mineral wealth in Western Australia, where an asteroid hit the ground near Shark Bay. The Woodleigh impact structure was created 360 million years ago when a five-kilometre diameter asteroid slammed into the ground. The resultant explosion probably caused life on earth to become extinct, but also changed the make-up of rock in the area.
    4:00:15 AM

    Monday, January 14, 2002  
  • MOST DANGEROUS PSYCHOTIC TERRORIST IN THE WORLD
    is Imad Mughniyeh - leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah - linked to al-Qaeda activities. (DEBKA via enemy WorldMessenger)

    Mughniyeh is hated by the Bush family, feared by Israel and supported by Iraq and Iran.
    No wonder the US Government believes the USA has 100% chance of being terrorised.
    No wonder he was implicated/set up by the U.S. and Israel. He is their WORST NIGHTMARE.
    He is a founder of the Hezbollah suicide squads in Lebanon and is suspected of masterminding countless previous
    hijackings (all involving knives as weapons), of kidnapping three Israeli soldiers and transporting them to bin Laden,
    is wanted by the Argentinan Government for two embassy bombings, was also behind the kidnapping of Terry Waite
    and other western hostages in Beirut, and, the personal torture and killing of William Buckley, head of the CIA.
    Buckley was a close friend of George Bush Sr who put a two million dollar reward out for the capture of Mughniyeh,
    "to be taken dead or alive." Mughniyeh now boasts of surviving several U.S.-backed assassination attempts that killed
    two of his brothers which only deepend his rage against all Americans, as well as the U.S. Government, and now Bush Jr.
    According to the British media, western and Israeli intelligence agencies highly suspect the involvement of Mughniyeh in
    New York and Washigton, but so far the US administration is keeping extremely silent. UK's Jack Straw went to
    Tehran Sept. 24th and asked Khameni the whereabouts of this man, who is one of the world's most feared terrorists.
    Sheltered by militant clerics, he is believed to have met some of bin Laden's key lieutenants in recent months, whilst he has been living in Qom, Iran, studying the Qu'aran. Iranian Spiritual ruler Ayatollah Khamenei's personal security service, is
    supposedly headed by Mughniyeh, which Khameni denys. In October 2000, Khameni allegedly asked Mughniyeh
    to coordinate terrorist attacks against "quality targets" inside Israel,
    Mughniyeh's link to al-Qa'ida is an Egyptian surgeon who is regarded as bin Laden's second in command Dr al-Zawahri,
    a master of disguise who uses bogus passports from Switzerland, France and The Netherlands to travel around the Middle East
    and Europe under a variety of assumed names. He is said to have lived in Britain for a time after fleeing Cairo and now resides
    with bin Laden in Afghanistan. His ability to switch appearances is matched by Mughniyeh who is reported to have
    undergone plastic surgery after Bush Sr said that he was the worldÕs most wanted man. Al-Zawahri is suspected of being
    the mastermind behind the US attacks and was seen sitting next to bin Laden in the Sunday 7th Al Jazeera satellite news report.
    Ali Mohammed, a bin Laden follower indicted for the U.S. Embassy bombings, said in a confession in October 2000 that
    he handled security arrangements for a meeting between Mughniyeh and bin Laden in the early 1990s to discuss
    ways to end U.S. involvement in Middle East affairs. Mughniyeh reportedly visited France and Germany in Nov.
    2000, to meet with his agents, who had been inactive and awaiting orders. He is said to have provided them with a plan
    to hit prime Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe, as well as with the financial resources to carry out such attacks.
    An Israeli officer said Dec. 2000 that "We've received all the indications that Mughniyeh is planning a devastating hit in Europe."
    Israeli sources claim that for the past two years Iraqi intelligence officers have been shuttling between Baghdad
    and Afghanistan, meeting with Ayman Al Zawahiri. The Iraqis are also reported to have established strong ties
    with Imad Mughniyeh. "We've only got scraps of information, not the full picture," admited one intelligence source
    September 19th, "but it was good enough for us to send a warning six weeks ago to our allies that an
    unprecedented massive terror attack was expected. One of our indications suggested that Imad Mughniyeh met
    with some of his dormant agents on secret trips to Germany. We believe that the operational brains behind the
    New-York attack were Mughniyeh and Zawahiri, who were probably financed and got some logistical support
    from the Iraqi Intelligence Service (SSO)." Qusai Hussein, Saddam Hussein's son, is head of the SSO.

    "Bin Laden is a schoolboy in comparison with Mughniyeh," says an Israeli who knows Mughniyeh .
    "The guy is a genius, someone who refined the art of terrorism to its utmost level. We studied him and
    reached the conclusion that he is a clinical psychopath motivated by uncontrollable psychological
    reasons, which we have given up trying to understand."

    Mohammad Atta on Flight 11, Marwan al Shehhi on Flight 175 and Ziad Jarah on Flight 93 have all
    been positively linked to Imad Mughniyh by the US administration, through their connection to Said Bahaji,
    a sleeper agent in Hamburg, Germany. Bahaji provided flats and visas and frequently met with Mughniyeh.
    ~ Information compiled week of September 11th, 2001 by THE MESSENGER, from numerous
    intelligent resources, international reports, press releases, US governmental documentation and Pravda.

    Update from London and TM:
    It appears FBI information, for whatever reasons, does not list all the above atrocities committed by Mughniyeh.
    The photo they have is old and Khameni on 10/17/01 - requested Mughniyeh, his senior terror advisor,
    leave Iran! - Khameni wants to be accepted by world powers and has critical interest in Afganistan.
    Imad Mughniyeh, is emerging as a prime suspect in the shoe bomb case.
    Investigators are examining whether Mughniyeh ­ currently active in Lebanon - used his agents or other emissaries to assign Reid with the
    suicide mission of bringing down the US airliner. They are also checking for operational links between Mughniyeh and Yasser Arafat, and
    the Palestinian leader's inner circle, since the type of explosives packed in Reid's shoes was identified as triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, the
    same substance used by the Jordanian suicide bomber, Said Khoteri, who carried out the Tel Aviv disco atrocity on June1, killing 21 people,
    mainly Russian speaking youngsters, and wounding more than 100.
    (DEBKA via enemy WorldMessenger)
    "A clinical psychopath motivated by uncontrollable psychological
    reasons, which we have given up trying to understand"?
    'What kind of spider has arachnophobia?'-robert wyatt.
    3:24:12 AM

     

  • President Faints at White House (NY NEWSDAY)
    WASHINGTON -- President Bush fainted briefly in the White House residence Sunday after choking on a pretzel while watching a National Football League playoff game on television, White House physician Dr. Richard Tubb said.
    The doctor, an Air Force colonel, said Bush quickly recovered and was doing well.
    "He fainted due to a temporary decrease in heart rate brought on by swallowing a pretzel," Tubb said. "I do not find any reason that this would happen again."
    Tubb said Bush suffered an abrasion on his left cheek the size of a half dollar and a bruise on his lower lip, apparently from falling onto the floor from a couch. Bush said he had been feeling under the weather Saturday and Sunday.
    "He had not been feeling well the last couple of days," said Tubb, although Bush had exercised rigorously Saturday and had a lighter workout Sunday. Tubb said Bush has felt "a little off his game," as if he was coming down with a head cold.
    Bush plans to travel to the Midwest on Monday as planned, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
    Bush fainted while alone in a room at the White House residence, watching the Baltimore-Miami football game while his wife, first lady Laura Bush, was in a nearby room on the telephone.
    "He said it (the pretzel) didn't seem to go down right," Tubb said in a telephone interview arranged by Fleischer. "The next thing he knew, he was on the floor."
    A nurse on duty at the White House was summoned at 5:40 p.m. EST. Tubb was paged eight minutes later. Bush, under his own power, used an elevator to go downstairs to the doctor's office for a complete exam.
    Tubb said Bush believes he was out only for a few seconds because when he awoke, his two dogs were sitting in the same position they were when he lost consciousness.
    "But the dogs were looking at him funny," Fleischer said.
    Tubb said Bush's exam included the use of a heart monitor, and nothing out of the normal was found. His blood pressure and pulse were normal for Bush, Tubb said.
    However, the doctor said Bush has a lower-than-normal pulse rate, which doctors attribute to his rigorous workout regime. The pretzel apparently stimulated a nerve, which further slowed his heart rate, Tubb said. That, combined with feeling under the weather, apparently caused the feinting spell, Tubb said.
    Bush is not taking any medicine as a result of the episode, the doctor said.
    Fleischer contacted reporters shortly after 8 p.m. EST with word of the episode. "At this point, he intends to travel" Monday, the spokesman said.
    Either that or he died laughing when he heard of this headline;
    Bush Wasn't Informed of Enron Calls

  • "Feed a cold, starve a fever" may be right
    The maxim "feed a cold, starve a fever" may be right after all, researchers have discovered.
    Until now, most doctors and nutritionists have rejected the idea as a myth. But Dutch scientists have found that eating a meal boosts the type of immune response that destroys the viruses responsible for colds, while fasting stimulates the response that tackles the bacterial infections responsible for most fevers.

  • THE GREAT PYRAMID AND THE FREEMASONS (via DailyGrail)
    Why did the Egyptians cancel the most dramatic ceremony of the Millennium?
    Amid accusations of bizarre 'Zionist' plots and strange 'Masonic' machinations, the Egyptian government cancelled the placing of a golden capstone on top of the Great Pyramid which was scheduled to take place at midnight on on the eve of the new millennium.

  • Kandahar comes out of the closet (LondonTimes)
    Our correspondent,TIM REID, sees the gay capital of South Asia throw off strictures of the Taleban
    NOW that Taleban rule is over in Mullah Omar’s former southern stronghold, it is not only televisions, kites and razors which have begun to emerge.
    Visible again, too, are men with their ashna, or beloveds: young boys they have groomed for sex.

  • Enrongate blog

  • Population anxiety (WashTimes)
    Try to imagine a world in which people of European ancestry are not only a minority of the world population, but are a beleaguered minority of Europe's and North America's population. Would that spell the end of Western civilization, or would a civilization born in the Judeo-Christian and Greek-Roman societies be carried forward by a predominantly African-Muslim-Hispanic recent immigrant population in Europe and North America?
    And, if Western civilization perishes, does that matter to you? What, if anything, can be done? These are the stark questions that face the readers of Pat Buchanan's astonishing new book, "The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization."
    Mr. Buchanan opens this book with a riveting series of national population statistics — provided by the authoritative U.N. Population Division. Because the average European woman's birth rate is 1.4 (not counting immigration, it takes 2.1 children per woman to maintain a population level) Europe's population — from Iceland to Russia — will drop from 728 million in 2000 to only 207 million in the year 2100 — a 70 percent drop.
    Of Europe's 47 countries, only Muslim Albania is maintaining its population level. In the next 50 years, Germany's population will drop from 82 million to 59 million. By 2100, Russia's population will drop from 147 million to only 80 million. Mr. Buchanan quotes Russian President Vladimir Putin saying recently, "If the present tendency continues, there will be a threat to the survival of the nation."
    Overall in Europe in 2050, if they want to keep their current ratio of working-age population to retirees (4.8 to 1), they will have to bring in 1.4 billion emigrants from Africa and the Middle East.
    The 600 million remaining Europeans then would be outnumbered more than 2-1 in their own countries. The only alternative would be to either kill off older people (Mr. Buchanan reports that involuntary elderly euthanasia is already permitted in Holland), or reduce their retirees to a bare subsistence level of living — if that. After all, without massive immigration there then would not be enough care-givers to even minimally take care of Europe's mostly elderly population.
    Mr. Buchanan points out that by 2050, ". . . the Third World [will add] 100 million people — one new Mexico — every 15 months. Forty new Mexicos by 2050, while Europe will have lost the equivalent of the entire population of Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway — and Germany."
    It seems incredible, but Mr. Buchanan's numbers look solid to me. Europe — for 2000 years both the hammer and anvil of our civilization — will be a spent force within 50 to 100 years. Or, as Mr. Buchanan puts it: "The cradle of Western Civilization will have become its grave."
    The United States is going down the same path — but more slowly. And here we get to the burden of Mr. Buchanan's ominous vision. As a result of current American birth and illegal immigration rates, we will be more than 50 percent non-European ancestry by 2050. Thus the critical question is whether we can assimilate the new arrivals into our language, culture, history and collective memory (as we have with new immigrants for 200 years).
    This will be the supreme test of our public schools — to immerse the new arrivals in the English language, a patriotic appreciation of our history and a life-long commitment to America's received common values of Western civilization.
    Not surprisingly, Mr. Buchanan is highly skeptical of that eventuality. He proposes a substantial halt to immigration and deportation of all illegal immigrants. He hopes for a revival of vital Christian faith.

  • What Happened to the Neanderthals??
    Latest studies show that Neanderthals were well-adapted, resilient and culturally very capable people, on a par with "modern" humans.
    So if the two groups had attained a similar level of cultural achievement, why then did modern humans prevail? Why was it that the immigrants absorbed the locals and not the other way around? Biogeographic and demographic explanations may provide the answers. In the Pleistocene period, most humans lived in Africa, and population densities in that continent must also have been higher than in the periglacial fringe of the Old World that Neanderthals inhabited. Once the success of their cultural adaptation led to the crossing of critical thresholds of population density and, consequently, pushed demographically-growing groups of African moderns to enter a process of expansion into new territories, the fate of the much smaller and scattered populations of Eurasia was sealed. This has nothing to do with anatomical features or biologically-based anatomical capabilities, it’s a simple matter of numbers. All the more so if these African groups also had a higher fertility, as is commonly the case with warm climate populations of the same species when compared with those from colder climates. Given enough time, even a very small difference in fertility would put the much smaller and more scattered populations of Neanderthals at a demographic disadvantage, especially if interbreeding was common.

  • Castrate 'em
    Castrate 'em, - this battle cry of Ku Klux Klan regained its currency in the Jewish supremacist state. A leading Russian Israeli newspaper, edited by an Orthodox Jew, published yesterday (8.01.02) a call to the Jewish vigilantes to castrate captured Arab prisoners. The state of Israel should embark on the programme of mass sterilisation of Arab population, writes a columnist of the Novosti Nedeli, Marian Belenky in the article named 'My Proposal', with a sub-title 'How can we force them to leave'. "While bearing in mind the Arab mentality, the Jewish vigilante groups could achieve great psychological results by castrating captive Arabs on the spot.
    It would cause panic among the Arab population and promote Arab emigration", writes Belenky. "We could sterilize Arab prisoners, and persons detained for their anti-Israeli and disruptive activities". Probably Der Sturmer, the Nazi newspaper, would be less outspoken, but this call is not unheard of in the Jewish Israeli ethos. The late unlamented 'Rabbi' Kahane regularly repeated his demand for mass sterilisation of Arabs, while a few months ago in Hertzliya, leading mainstream Jewish experts, professors and strategists, discussed 'methods of curbing the Arab demographic threat' in quite similar terms.

    It confirms the mirror-like relationship of German Nazis and Jewish supremacists, two competing dark forces of the last century.
    The German Nazis were defeated and obliterated, and Europe and the German people became free. The second enemy is still at large. When it will be defeated, not only Palestinians, but the descendents of Jews will be liberated as well.

    There is some distance between Novosti Nedeli and New York Times, in their output and influence. But both papers serve the same cause and present the same threat. Ahmed Amr, an [uncastrated] Arab American journalist and publisher of NileMedia, wrote the following angry and passionate article, a story of cover up of Ariel Sharon's crimes.
    Ahmed Amr refers to the grisly story of Qibya, a small Palestinian village whose inhabitants, men, women, children were slaughtered by Sharon's SonderCommando 101. With its typical hypocrisy, Israeli leadership condemned the massacre and promoted the mass killers to the highest positions. Flamboyant Ahmed Amr reminds that it could not be done without active corroboration of the Jewish supremacist media lords in the US and first of all, the Sulzberger of the NY Times.
    Somewhat symbolically of American democracy, Sulzberger own 21 per cent of the newspaper stock, but control 82 per cent of the vote, thanks to an Illegal elsewhere two-tier structure of shares. That is how they use their unfair advantage.
    Israel Shamir, Jaffa.
    Whereas the intentions of the Anti-Israeli extremists bears no resemblance to genocide?

  • Osama bin Laden Is No Longer in Afghanistan (Debka- Israeli intelligence)
    Iran and Mughniyeh Abetted His Escape Through Arms Smuggling Route from Bandar Abbas Before Tora Bora Cave Hunt Was Launched.
  • Al Qaeda’s Post-Afghanistan Plot - Top-Level Assassinations to Destabilize the West (Debka)
    The Israeli's continue their campaign to get the US to help them against Iran. I wonder what Osama makes of his transformation into a pawn of various national governments war policies. What's next? Russia claims Osama now in Chechnya? China claims Osama's in Tibet? Has this war in afghanistan, and the escape of most of Al Quaeda, made the world a safer place or is it to spark off troubles around the world?

  • US intelligence to analyse Al Qaeda tapes (Oz -ABCNEWS)
    Al Qaeda training videos obtained by the ABC are to be sent to the US Defence Intelligence Agency for analysis.
    While the scenarios appear to be fictitious, the intense detail of the operations suggest they could be rehearsals for future attacks.
    The drills, using live ammunition, appear to be aimed at western targets.
    In one hostage taking exercise, both the hostages and the attackers practice in English.
    The exercises include detailed planning to attack a motorcade on what appears to be a road system in Washington DC.
    In another exercise, the terrorists rehearse a mass assassination of national leaders at a golf tournament.

  • The body of John P. O'Neill a Deputy Director of the FBI who quit in disgust because he believed that the Bush administration had stymied the intelligence agency's investigations on terrorism, was found in the rubble of the World Trade Towers. (from the DailyBrew.com)
    Clearly, O'Neill was a man Osama bin Laden wanted dead. O'Neill had been a Deputy Director of the FBI, and Osama bin Laden's main pursuer in the US government. O'Neill had investigated the bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993, a US base in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar-Es-Salaam in 1998, and the USS Cole last year.
    But the moment of impact, O'Neill became the man who knew too much.
    Just two weeks, TWO WEEKS, prior to the attack, O'Neill had left his job with the FBI. O'Neill had quit because he believed that the Bush administration had stymied the intelligence agency's investigations on terrorism. O'Neill charged that it had done so even as it bargained with the Taliban on handing over of Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid. In the ultimate irony, O'Neill had gone public with these charges at the same time that he was leaving the FBI to become the head of security at the World Trade Center.
    "The main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests, and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it," O'Neill reportedly told the authors of an explosive new book, Hidden Truth, by intelligence analysts Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie. Brisard met O'Neill several times last summer and reports that O'Neill complained bitterly that the US State Department - and behind it the oil lobby who make up President Bush's entourage - blocked attempts to prove bin Laden's guilt.
    Released just last November, Brisard and Dasquie's book was mostly ignored by the US media. But it is beginning to cause a stir. Just two days ago, the story aired for the first time on US television when CNN's Paula Zahn interviewed former Iraqi chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Bulter. "The most explosive charge, Paula, is that the Bush administration -- the present one, just shortly after assuming office slowed down FBI investigations of al Qaeda and terrorism in Afghanistan in order to do a deal with the Taliban on oil -- an oil pipeline across Afghanistan" Butler said.
    Maybe part of the reason Paula left Faux news is because she knew her right wing bosses would never let her run a story like this one. But what Paula didn't explore, or even mention, was that O'Neill was not alive to confirm or refute those charges. What CNN didn't find interesting was the fact that John P. O'Neill was in his 34th-floor office in the World Trade Tower when the first of two hijacked planes hit the building, or that he phoned a son and a friend to reassure them he was fine.
    What the US media have apparently found less interesting than the death of Clinton's dog is that we have only the government's version of what happened next. O'Neill is reported to have called FBI headquarters, and then re-entered one of the towers to help others. The official story is that O'Neill was inside when the buildings collapsed.
    How convenient for the Bush administration that Mr. O'Neill would not only die in the attack, but also that he would make such a call. Not only was the Bush administration's most dangerous critic forever silenced, but he also provided the administration the perfect story to explain his death.
    Can you imagine how the events of the past four months would have differed had John P. O'Neill, former Deputy Director of the FBI and head of security at the World Trade Tower at the time of the attacks, had been alive to tell this story?
    Can you imagine the uproar ?

  • Cloning laws in Japan to allow human-animal mix (Ananova)
    Didn't they already have that in the original Godzilla?

  • Bin Laden‘s terror mastermind identified (Londontimes)
    INVESTIGATORS believe that they have identified the terrorist mastermind picked by Osama bin Laden to carry out future attacks on the West.
    Abu Zubeida, who was the group’s director of external affairs, trained most of al-Qaeda’s surviving terrorists and, now that several key figures have been killed in the US-led bombing raids, he has been entrusted with keeping the network going.

  • Video Captures Sept. 11 Horror in Raw Replay (NYT)
    A 90-minute videotape of the Sept. 11 attack circulating among firefighters captures the event in graphic detail.

  • Missiles Not Biggest Threat, Report Says
    Terrorism: 'Ships, trucks, airplanes and other means' are called likely methods of conveyance for chemical, biological or nuclear attack on U.S.
    In 1999, the assessment warned that China could have "tens" of missiles able to hit U.S. shores by 2015. The current report says China's expected nuclear strike force will be "around 75 to 100."
    China currently has about 20 such missiles, the same as before. Russia and the U.S. each have more than 4,000.
    North Korea again drew intense scrutiny. Pyongyang has extended a voluntary moratorium on flight-testing new missiles until 2003, but the Communist regime "may be ready" to test a multiple-stage Taepo Dong-2 missile capable of reaching U.S. shores with a nuclear weapon-size payload, the report says.
    The report also notes that U.S. intelligence concluded in the mid-1990s that North Korea had produced one or two nuclear weapons. A senior CIA official first disclosed that assessment last April, but his speech drew little notice at the time.
    North Korea also is of concern to the U.S. because it "has assumed the role as the missile and manufacturing technology source" for many countries, including Pakistan and Iran.
    (LAtimes)
    2:52:41 AM

    Saturday, January 12, 2002  
  • Scientists are puzzled after the 'virgin birth' of a baby shark at a US zoo that has no male sharks (Ananova)
    Jaws meets Omen?

  • El Nino May Be Returning (AP)

  • Baby with tail 'reincarnation of Hindu god'-with picture (Ananova)

  • Egyptian man charged with lying about pilot radio found in hotel overlooking WTC
    (WASHPOST)

  • Possible plot to kill Florida Gov. Jeb Bush under investigation
    (MiamiHerald)
    Acting on the information, federal and state agents several weeks ago began 24-hour surveillance of at least four South Florida men with Arab names who may be suspects in the case, an agent involved in the investigation said.
    The informant also was able to supply information about the owner of a van that might be involved in the alleged plot. Agents found the van -- but not the owner -- and searched it Thursday in Broward County. They found no explosives, but bomb-sniffing dogs alerted to the presence of something suspicious.
    ``The bomb dogs just hit on the van,'' said an agent. ``The dogs went crazy. The bomb dogs were all over it.''

  • JEWISH MUSEUM IN HOLOCAUST-‘ART' FLAP (NYPOST)
    January 11, 2002 -- A controversial art exhibit that makes daring and disturbing use of Nazi images is coming to the Jewish Museum of New York - and generating heated debate before it’s even opens.
    Part of the debate centers on whether the strong, sometimes offensive images in "Mirroring Evil: Nazi Imagery/Recent Art" are sensationalist or thought-provoking. But an even bigger debate is raging over whether the show belongs in a Jewish museum.
    Among the works to be exhibited are:
    * "LEGO Concentration Camp Set," by Zbiginiew Libera - featuring a LEGO toy box with a picture of a miniature death camp made with LEGO blocks.
    * "Giftgas Giftset," by Tom Sachs - a series of poison-gas canisters with designer labels.
    * "It’s The Real Thing - Self Portrait at Buchenwald" by Alan Schechner - the artist holding a Diet Coke inserted into the famous photo of emaciated Jews being liberated from the death camp.
    The show will run at the Jewish Museum, on Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street, from March 17 to June 30.
    "It’s a very different approach to the Nazi era and the Holocaust - focusing on the perpetrator and implicating you, as the viewer of the work," said museum curator Norman Kleeblatt.

  • Year 2001 Only Slightly Warmer Than Average:New Report ()

  • DEPRESSED NY MAN DIAGNOSED AS "BRITISH" (BrainsTrust)
    George Farthing, an ex-patriot British man living in America, was recently diagnosed as clinically depressed, tanked up on anti-depressants and scheduled for controversial Shock Therapy when doctors realised he wasn't depressed at all - only British.
    Not depressed, just British
    Mr Farthing, a British man whose characteristic pessimism and gloomy perspective were interpreted as serious clinical depression, was led on a nightmare journey through the American psychiatric system. Doctors described Farthing as suffering with Pervasive Negative Anticipation - a belief that everything will turn out for the worst, whether it's trains arriving late, England's chances at winning any international sports event or even his own prospects to get ahead in life and achieve his dreams. "The satisfaction Mr Farthing seemed to get from his pessimism seemed particularly pathological," reported the doctors.
    "suicidal"
    "They put me on everything - Lithium, Prozac, St John's Wort," said Mr Farthing. "They even told me to sit in front of a big light for an hour a day or I'd become suicidal. I kept telling them this was all pointless and they said that it was exactly that sort of attitude that got me here in the first place."
    Running out of ideas, his doctors finally resorted to a course of "weapons grade MDMA", the only noticable effect of which was six hours of speedy repetitions of the phrases "mustn't grumble" and "not too bad, really". It was then that Mr Farthing was referred to a psychotherapist.
    Dr Isaac Horney explored Mr Farthing's family history and couldn't believe his ears. "His story of a childhood growing up in a gray little town where it rained every day, treeless streets of identical houses and passionately backing a football team who never won seemed to be typical depressive ideation or false memory. Mr Farthing had six months of therapy but seemed to mainly want to talk about the weather - how miserable and cold it was in winter and later how difficult and hot it was in summer. I felt he wasn't responding to therapy at all and so I recommended drastic action - namely ECT or shock treatment".
    "hopeless cases"
    "I was all strapped down on the table and were about to put the rubber bit in my mouth when the psychiatric nurse picked up on my accent," said Mr Farthing. "I remember her saying 'Oh my God, I think we're making a terrible mistake'." Nurse Alice Sheen was a big fan of British comedy giving her an understanding of the English psyche. "Classic comedy characters like Tony Hancock, Albert Steptoe and Frank Spencer are all hopeless cases with no chance of ever doing well or escaping their circumstances," she explained to the baffled US medics. "That's funny in England and is not seen as pathological at all."
    Identifying Mr Farthing as English changed his diagnosis from 'clinical depression' to 'rather quaint and charming' and he was immediately discharged from hospital, with a selection of brightly coloured leaflets and an "I love New York" T-shirt.

  • Today's Orwells?
    Ron Rosenbaum writes interestingly in the NY Observer about how Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan, expatriate Brits both, have become the "most forceful, eloquent and influential voices in the American debate over the Sept. 11 attacks and their meaning."
    EXCERPT:After four months of discourse, debate and contention, it’s hard to deny that Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Hitchens have made the most difference: Mr. Hitchens by challenging the Left to recognize the terrorists not as somewhat misguided spokesmen for the wretched of the earth, but as “Islamo-fascists”—theocratic oppressors of the wretched of the earth. And Mr. Sullivan by challenging the Right to question the danger that may lurk in the heart of all fundamentalist versions of religion, not just Islam—perhaps in the heart of religion itself.
    (NYObserver via Metafilter)

  • Texas Boy, 13, Planned to Blow Up School, Cops Say
    (Thursday, January 10, 2002) (FOXNEWS)
    ROSENBERG, Texas — A 13-year-old boy was planning to blow up his junior high school, police said Thursday after seizing five small homemade bombs and bomb-making material from his home.

  • Documents Show Nazis Planned to Eliminate Christianity (FOXNEWS)
    The first installment of papers, which lay out a Nazi plan to eliminate Christianity and convert followers to an Aryan philosophy, were released on the Web site of the Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion.
    Thus spake Zoroaster? See also
  • Hitler's war on Christ (WorldNetDaily)
    One popular myth about the rise of Hitler and the Holocaust is that the persecution of the Jews was fundamentally a Christian enterprise, the anti-Semitism of Luther trading its pen and cross for a rifle and swastika.

  • Feds Monitoring Book Purchases; Store Owners 'Gagged' From Telling You
    'Seven' was right.

  • Missiles Not Biggest Threat, Report Says
    Terrorism: 'Ships, trucks, airplanes and other means' are called likely methods of conveyance for chemical, biological or nuclear attack on U.S.
    In 1999, the assessment warned that China could have "tens" of missiles able to hit U.S. shores by 2015. The current report says China's expected nuclear strike force will be "around 75 to 100."
    China currently has about 20 such missiles, the same as before. Russia and the U.S. each have more than 4,000.
    North Korea again drew intense scrutiny. Pyongyang has extended a voluntary moratorium on flight-testing new missiles until 2003, but the Communist regime "may be ready" to test a multiple-stage Taepo Dong-2 missile capable of reaching U.S. shores with a nuclear weapon-size payload, the report says.
    The report also notes that U.S. intelligence concluded in the mid-1990s that North Korea had produced one or two nuclear weapons. A senior CIA official first disclosed that assessment last April, but his speech drew little notice at the time.
    North Korea also is of concern to the U.S. because it "has assumed the role as the missile and manufacturing technology source" for many countries, including Pakistan and Iran.
    (LAtimes)


    4:39:20 AM

    Friday, January 11, 2002  

  • Would you like a conspiracy theory with your morning cup of tea?
    And The Return Of The Lost Tribes Of Israel (WorldMessenger)
    It has been stated throughout the Bible that when the lost 10 tribes of Israel return to their homeland to fight and win the battle
    of Armadeddon and Solomon's temple is rebuilt, the return of the Messiah and end of the world as we know it will be at hand.
    9 of the 10 tribes have been found. They have been found in areas of the world now involved in the Afghan war. One of the missing tribes is
    thought to be Pathan peoples of Afghanistan. Other tribes have been found in Uzbekistan, in India on the border of Burma as well as in Pakistan
    on the border of Afghanistan. A tribe that consists only of direct desendants of Biblical priests has been found on an island off the coast
    of Tunisia. There is but one tribe to be found, that is the tribe of Asher.
    I believe that we are going to see the prophecy of the return of lost tribes to Israel fulfilled this year. At that time, there will be
    a release of the genetic bioweapon created in the US under the direction of a cabal who take orders from the Antichrist.
    Before the year 2001 ends, there will be more leading scientists murdered as well as those who try to bring public attention to this plot.
    The year 2002 will usher in the year of "Asher." The last lost tribe will be found, and the progeny of the 10 lost tribes will return to Israel to fulfill biblical prophecy.
    Finally it makes perfect sense, kind of like life. This is where the last lost tribe turns out to be the one living on the Saudi-Yemeni border.
    See Also
    If you are not scared by now of what is happening in the world and all around you, you should be after you read this.

    Dead And Missing Microbiologists, Armageddon, Genetic Bioweapons...

    Over the past few weeks several world-acclaimed researchers, geniuses by many accounts, specializing in infectious
    diseases, and biological agents such as Anthrax, as well as DNA sequencing have been found dead or have gone missing.

    I believe these scientists were unaware of their participation in the developing of a genetic bioweapon that will wipe out
    as much as one third of the population on planet earth.

    On Novemeber 12th, Dr. Benito Que, cell biologist working on infectious diseases like HIV
    was found dead outside of his lab at the Miami Medical School.
    Police say his death was possibly the result of a mugging. The Miami Herald reported that:
    "The incident, whatever it may have been, occurred on Monday afternoon as the scientist left his job at University of Miami's School of
    Medicine. He headed for his car, a white Ford Explorer parked on Northwest 10th Avenue. The word among his friends is that four men
    armed with a baseball bat attacked him at his car."
    On November 16th, Dr. Don C Wiley, one of the U.S. foremost infectious disease researchers was declared missing.
    His rental car was found with a full tank of gas and the keys in the ignition. His disappearance made to look like a suicide.
    According to colleagues and Dr. Wiley's family, the Harvard Scientist associated with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute would NEVER
    commit suicide. Associates who attended the St. Jude's Children Research Advisory Dinner with Dr. Wiley, just hours before he disappeared,
    said that he was in good spirits and NOT depressed. He was last seen at a banquet at the Peabody Hotel in downtown Memphis the night
    he vanished. Those who saw him last say he showed no signs of a man contemplating his own death.

    CNN Report on missing scientist - 11/29/01

    Wiley left the hotel around midnight. The bridge where his car was found is only a five-minute drive away and in the wrong direction
    from where he was staying, leaving authorities with a four-hour, unexplained gap until his vehicle was found. Now Memphis police are
    exploring several theories involving suicide, robbery and murder.

    "We began this investigation as a missing person investigation," said Walter Crews of the Memphis Police Department.
    "From there it went to a more criminal bent."

    Dr. Wiley was an expert on how the human immune system fights off infections and
    had recently investigated such dangerous viruses as AIDS, Ebola, herpes and influenza.

    UPDATE 12/21/01
    MEMPHIS, Tenn. (Reuters) - The body of a Harvard scientist missing for more than a month since his rental car
    was left parked on a bridge over the Mississippi River has been found downstream, police said on Friday.
    Ê
    Workers at a hydroelectric plant in Louisiana found the body of Don Wiley on Thursday, about 300 miles south
    of where the molecular biologist was last seen on Nov. 18 at a medical meeting in Memphis, Tennessee.

    On November 23rd, Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, the foremost Soviet Biopreparat scientist who was responsible for aerosolizing
    plague and was the successful developer of binary weapons known as the 'Novichok group' of weapons was found dead.
    Biopreparat is a Soviet biological-weapons production facility.

    Dr. Pasechnik defected from the Soviet Union in 1989 while visiting the UK where he lived until his death in November. There were NO media
    reports of his death for one full week. At that time, an official from the UK intel community announced that Dr. Pasechnik had 'a stroke.'
    No autopsy or futher details were forthcoming.

    The New York Times Section: Foreign Desk, November 23, 2001, Friday
    V. Pasechnik, 64, Is Dead; Germ Expert Who Defected By WOLFGANG SAXON
    'Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, a senior Soviet biologist whose defection in 1989 alerted Western intelligence to the scope
    of Moscow'sclandestine efforts to adapt germs and viruses for military use, died on Wednesday in Wiltshire, England.'

    The Times was the only newspaper to provide an obituary for Dr. Pasechnik, and said:
    "The defection to Britain in 1989 of Vladimir Pasechnik revealed to the West for the first time the colossal scale of the Soviet Union's
    clandestine biological warfare programme. His revelations about the scale of the Soviet Union's production of such biological agents as anthrax,
    plague, tularaemia and smallpox provided an inside account of one of the best kept secrets of the Cold War. After his defection he worked for
    ten years at the U.K. Department of Health's Centre for Applied Microbiology Research before forming his own company, Regma Biotechnics,
    to work on therapies for cancer, neurological diseases, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. In the last few weeks of his life he had put his
    research on anthrax at the disposal of the Government, in the light of the threat from bioterrorism."

    On December 10th, Dr. Robert M. Schwartz was found murdered in his secluded farmhouse in Leesberg, Virginia. Dr. Schwartz
    was a well-known DNA sequencing researcher. He founded the Virginia Biotechnology Association where he worked on DNA sequencing
    in his lab for 15 years.

    On Wednesday, December 12th the Washington Post reported:
    "A well-known biophysicist, who was one of the leading researchers on DNA sequencing analysis, was found slain in his rural Loudoun
    County home after co-workers became concerned when he didn't arrive at work as expected. Robert M. Schwartz, 57, a founding member of
    the Virginia Biotechnology Association, was found dead in the secluded fieldstone farmhouse southwest of Leesburg where he lived alone.
    Loudoun sheriff's officials said it appeared that Schwartz had been stabbed."

    Halfway around the world on December 14th, a skilled microbiologist was killed at the Commonwealth Scientific
    and Industrial Research Organisation's (CSIRO) animal diseases facility in Geelong, Australia.

    This is the same facility that the journal Nature announced in January this year:
    "Australian scientists, Dr Ron Jackson and Dr Ian Ramshaw, accidentally created an astonishingly virulent strain of mousepox, a cousin
    of smallpox, among laboratory mice. They realised that if similar genetic manipulation was carried out on smallpox, an unstoppable
    killer could be unleashed."

    Herald Sun THU 13 DEC 2001 -Microbiologist dies in laboratory airlock
    'A MARRIED father of two has been identified as the scientist who suffocated in a puzzling accident at a laboratory in Geelong.
    Microbiologist Set Van Nguyen, 44, was found dead in an airlock chamber at the CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory ...'

    He had logged 15 years' experience with this unit. Victoria Police said "Set Van Nguyen, 44, appeared to have died after entering an
    airlock into a storage laboratory filled with nitrogen. His body was found when his wife became worried after he failed to return from work.
    He was killed after entering a low temperature storage area where biological samples were kept. He did not know the room was full of
    deadly gas which had leaked from a liquid nitrogen cooling system. Unable to breathe, Mr. Nguyen collapsed and died."

    Anthrax, deadly strains of smallpox and flu...It's only a question of time
    I believe there a cabal exists in the US and that this group is responsible for the anthrax hoax mailings of 1998 and the recent, deadly anthrax
    mailings of 2001. This cabal consists of some members from the highest levels of Government, the Military and the Biotech Industry. There
    appears to be a clandestine plan to develop a virulent infectious disease and quite possibly a 21st century version of the 1918 Spainish
    flu or other virus.

    This pathogen is going to be genetically-altered to only infect a certain group of people. I believe that Dr. Wiley's research of immunity factors
    of viruses, bacterias and mycoplasmas will be used to create a pathogen that will NOT infect (will leave untouched) a designated genetic type.

    This portion of the genetic target weapon was no doubt developed with research from Dr. Schwartz. In essence, a doomsday bioweapon
    can be released with a guarantee that the genetic code of certain individuals, and the virus itself, will protect these individuals from infection.

    If an unaltered pathogen were released, such as a virulent strain of Ebola or other level 4 bioweapon, those who release it would also fall
    victim to it. A type of MAD, mutually assured destruction, has thus far prevented the release of Level 4 pathogens. However, if there
    was a bioweapon that would NOT kill those who release it, then we would see a worldwide pandemic with a protected group left
    unaffected by the pandemic or "plague."

    Timeline Of Incriminating Evidence.
    and
    The Jerusalem Project took place February 2001 in Beirut and April 2001 in Tehran.
    This was a meeting of about 400 representatives from worldwide terrorist groups who gathered together to decide exactly
    what actions and missions they would create, to bring down Israel, and the American governments interference within
    Arabic/Muslim nations. Five months later on 9/11...America was attacked and 2,600 international people...
    who had nothing to do with American foreign policy...were killed.
    So whodunnit? See
    The four groups behind 9/11
    They seem to have forgotten to include Duran Duran. Scratch the surface of every good conspiracy theory and you will find two things; an element of truth and a certifiable nutter.

  • Animal Virus May Contribute to Mental Illness (Reuters)
    Prof. Norbert Nowotny, from the University of Veterinary Sciences, Vienna, told researchers at the meeting that Borna disease virus, which causes a fatal brain disease in animals, might be linked to schizophrenia, depression and chronic fatigue syndrome in humans.
    In horses and sheep, the virus infects nervous system tissue and triggers severe brain inflammation. The animals stop eating, become depressed and in almost all cases progress to paralysis and death within 3 weeks. There is no effective treatment.
    ``In humans, only subtle changes are suspected, which may interfere with neurotransmitter activities leading to psychiatric disorders,'' he said. There is a variety of evidence from several research groups to support the theory. For example, antibodies to the virus have been found with higher frequency in the blood of people with diseases such as panic disorder than in those without the psychiatric condition. Nowotny's own lab has isolated the virus's genetic material from a man with chronic fatigue syndrome.
    Sounds like a graduate of Hogwarts.

  • September 11 Victims' Families Will Travel to Afghanistan to Meet With Afghans Who Lost Loved Ones in US Bombing Campaign (Ascribe)
    SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 9 (AScribe Newswire) -- In what promises to be a powerfully cathartic journey for peace, US citizens who lost loved ones on September 11 will travel to Afghanistan to meet with people whose family members died during the US bombing campaign. The historic emotional exchange between victims' families represents a small but significant step toward building the bonds of friendship that are the true foundations of peace.
    Four people who lost loved ones on September 11 will leave for Afghanistan on Saturday, January 12. They will arrive in Islamabad, Pakistan on January 14 and then travel to Kabul, Afghanistan on January 15. The victims' families will spend up to eight days in Afghanistan meeting with those who are also suffering the grief of loss. While in Afghanistan, the US visitors will meet with street children who lost their parents during the recent bombing, visit a hospital in Kabul, and help an Afghan family rebuild their home.
    " For me, this trip is about respect and love for all human beings, regardless of where they come from," says Derrill Bodley, a music professor from Stockton, California whose daughter, Deora, died on United Airlines Flight 93. "I'm going on this journey to show my concern for those innocent Afghans who have died or are suffering now. By embracing our common humanity and sharing our sorrow perhaps we will be able to avoid other loss in the future."
    The victims-to-victims delegation is being organized by Global Exchange, an international human rights organization whose motto is 'building people-to-people ties.' Global Exchange hopes the meeting will have a profound impact in both countries by showing that individual Afghans and Americans suffer alike. Afghans will see that US citizens do care about their well being. The US visitors will gain a deeper understanding of Afghans as real people. And people around the world who learn of the exchange will get to witness the common humanity of all persons.
    The four US citizens who will travel to Afghanistan are:
    Derrill Bodley is a 56-year-old professor of music at Sacramento City College and the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California. Derrill lost his daughter, Deora, on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania. His first response to the tragedy was a musical composition that came to him as he sat at his piano on September 13. Called "Steps to Peace-For Deora," he played this music at a White House tribute and gave a copy of the CD to President Bush.
    Rita Lasar is a 70-year-old retired small businesswoman from New York. Rita lost her brother, Abe Zelmanowitz, at the World Trade Center. Abe was on the 27th floor of 1 World Trade Center when the first plane hit. Although he could have gotten out of the building, he chose instead to stay with his friend, a quadriplegic who could not get out. President Bush mentioned Abe's heroism during his speech honoring the victims at the National Cathedral.
    Kelly Campbell is a 29-year-old environmental campaign coordinator in Oakland, California. Her brother-in-law, 28 year-old Craig Amundson, was killed in the Pentagon attack, leaving behind a young wife and two small children. Kelly is travelling on behalf of Craig's widow, Amber Amundson, who has been an outspoken voice for reconciliation. In the weeks after the attack, Amber wrote in the Chicago Tribune: "My anguish is compounded exponentially by fear that (Craig's) death will be used to justify new violence against other innocent victims."
    Eva Rupp is a 28-year-old woman who works in Washington DC at the Department of Commerce's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Eva is the step sister of Deora Bodley, and the two of them grew up together from the time Deora was five.
    A full accounting of civilian casualties from the US bombing campaign has not yet occurred, but reports from human rights organizations and academics place the number of innocent Afghan victims at between 2,000 and 4,000 people. At the very least, it is clear from news reports that thousands of people were either maimed or killed by US air strikes.
    "The people of the United States, indeed the world, have shown tremendous compassion for the families of the victims of September 11. Shouldn't our hearts and helping hands also go out to those Afghans who are as every bit innocent as the victims of September 11?" says Medea Benjamin, founding director of Global Exchange. Ms. Benjamin will accompany the family members to Afghanistan. "Don't we, as citizens of a wealthy nation that unleashed deadly force against Afghanistan, have a moral responsibility to help Afghanistan's innocent victims?"
    For more information about the victims-to-victims exchange, contact Jason Mark in San Francisco at 415-255-7296 x 230 or [email protected].


  • Wednesday January 9, 03:25 PM
    A dog licks its nose as its begs for money in St. Petersburg, January 9, 2002. As living standards for many Russians are very low, they have to look for all possibilities to get raise cash. (REUTERS)

  • Prominent Arabs blame 9-11 on Jews (from the christian WorldNetDaily.com)
    Middle East media filled with talk of 'Zionist conspiracy'
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    High-ranking public officials and prominent columnists in the Middle East are promoting a claim that Jews perpetrated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, according to Arab media sources translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute.
    Many columnists in the Arab press maintain that no Arab was responsible for the attacks. Palestinian columnist Khalil Al-Sawahri insisted in the Palestinian Authority-sponsored daily Al-Ayyam that a letter left by a hijacker was forged.
    "Its disseminators are the circles of Orientalists who are making efforts to tarnish the image of the Arab Muslim," he wrote.
    While many in the Middle East speculate the culprit could be the U.S. itself, the most popular view among Arab media reviewed by MEMRI is that Israel, world Zionism, the Mossad, or, simply, the Jews carried out the attacks.
    Syrian foreign minister Mustafa Tlass has claimed that the Mossad planned the ramming of two hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center towers as part of a Jewish conspiracy.
    Rakan Al-Majali, a columnist for the Jordanian government daily Al-Dustour, wrote: "It is obvious that Israel is the one to gain greatly from this bloody, loathsome and terrible terror operation, and it seeks to gain further by accusing the Arabs and Muslims of carrying it out."
    In Iran, Parliament Chairman Mahdi Karrubi wondered whether "Zionists in Israel plotted the terror operation in order to blacken the faces of the Muslims."
    'Jews were warned to stay home'
    The claim that Jewish employees were warned not to come to work at the WTC on Sept. 11 was quickly accepted by the Arab media as incontrovertible fact, according to MEMRI.
    Syrian ambassador to Tehran Turky Muhammad Saqr said at a conference held at the Iranian Foreign Ministry: "Syria has documented proof of the Zionist regime's involvement in the September 11 terror attacks on the U.S." and that "4,000 Jews employed at the WTC did not show up for work before the attack clearly attests to Zionist involvement in these attacks."
    The Iranian daily Kayhan also referred to this "fact": "It is known that 4,000 Jews worked at the WTC in New York and that these people did not come to work that day."
    In an editorial, the Saudi Arabian government daily 'Ukkaz said "six Israelis suspected of involvement in New York and Washington were arrested in the U.S., to be later released. This confirms our strong suspicions about the involvement of Israel's Mossad in the ugly crime."
    The Egyptian opposition weekly Al-'Usbu' published that as a scoop, building it up somewhat and giving it the title, "True Perpetrators of the September 11 Attacks Arrested – Zionists with Maps of the WTC, the Pentagon, and the White House and Large Quantities of Anthrax."
    Ambassador Saqr viewed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unexpected postponement of his visit to the U.S. as "additional proof linking the Zionists with this tragedy."
    Syrian columnist Mu'taz Al-Khatib gave another example in Al-Hayat: "Barak's presence in the BBC's head office minutes after the explosion, at a meeting set in advance, to speak for 30 minutes of the danger of terrorism and chastise the 'rogue states,' particularly the Arab" was, he said, further proof of Israel's involvement.
    Some speculated on how Israel carried out the attack.
    Orkhan Muhammad Ali wrote in Saut Al-Haqq Wa-Al-Hurriyya, the mouthpiece for the Islamic Movement in Israel, that the planes had not been hijacked – rather, they had been directed by remote control using a system developed by a Jewish-owned company.
    'Zionists control media'
    Many claimed Jewish involvement in the events of September 11 was never reported because the Jews control the American media.
    Egypt's Sheikh Muhammad Gamei'a, formerly both Al-Azhar University's representative in the U.S. and imam of the Islamic Cultural Center and Mosque of New York City, claims that a group of people attacked his home in the U.S. because of their anger toward Muslims. "(But) during my conversations with this group, it became clear to me that they knew very well that the Jews were behind these ugly acts, while we, the Arabs, were innocent," he said. "None had the courage to say this in public," Gamei'a claimed. "They said: 'You know very well that the Zionists control everything … .'"
    A comprehensive article in Egypt's Al Ahram by Ahmad Abu Zayid, titled "The Jews Are Behind the Explosions in America," submitted 14 "pieces of evidence" that Israel and the Mossad were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.
    It asserted many claims published in other media, including a stock sell-off by Jews two days before the event and that "no Jew was hurt in the incident."
    Zayid wrote that federal investigators "arrested a group of Jews who set up video cameras on the roof of one of the Israeli companies across from the WTC a little while before the incident, in order to film the moment of the explosions. This proves that Zionist elements knew what was about to happen."
    "The Mossad is the only one that could have breached American security," Zayid wrote. "Only the Zionists get the trust of the Americans, enabling them to carry out such an operation without accusations being leveled at them."
    Egypt's Sheikh Gamei'a hinted at the punishment Jews should receive for their deeds: annihilation as attempted by Adolf Hitler.
    "I told the American officials that the American people cannot, at this critical stage, know the real enemy who struck at its heart if it does not awaken from its slumber and stop blaming the Arabs and the Muslims," Gamei'a said in an interview published on Al-Azhar University's unofficial website.
    "Immediately after the event," he continued, "some 30 percent of the American people awakened (and realized) that they were the victims of deception on the part of the Jews, who presented the Arabs and the Muslims to them as a nation of barbarians and blood-shedders. It became clear to the American people that hidden hands were at play in their land. I heard from many Americans who visited me at the Islamic Center that they had been misled by the Jews and thus had come to express their support for the Arabs and Muslims. They said openly, We were deceived. ...
    "If this (deceit) were to be known to the American people, they would do to the Jews what Hitler did to them."
    At some point in your life you have to accept you have enemies simply for being what you are, who you are. What is a Zionist? Someone who belives the Jewish people have a right to a nation state. The size and population of Wales.

  • British Islamist Issues Warning (AP)
    LONDON –– A British Muslim who claims to have sent volunteers to Afghanistan to aid the Taliban said Monday they may return to Britain to launch terrorist attacks against government and military targets.
    Hassan Butt, 22, leads the Pakistan wing of the British-based Al-Muhajiroun, a militant Islamic group.
    He said some of the Britons he recruited to fight with Afghanistan's ousted Taliban government were killed by U.S.-led forces.
    Those who survived could now launch a "new phase" of terrorism in their British homeland, Butt said.
    "If they do return, I do believe they will take military action within Britain," he said in an interview from Pakistan with the British Broadcasting Corp. He said their targets would be "British military and government institutes, as well as British military and government individuals."
    On Monday, Butt, who was raised in Manchester, said he secretly returned to Britain for three weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, undetected by security forces.
    "The mere fact that the British government had no idea I was here shows the incompetence and shows the vulnerability that Britain has when it comes to dealing with the mujahedin (holy warriors) and the Muslims," he said.
    You think someone stuck a note on his back at school saying "kick me"?

  • Universe computer ruined by intruders (Ananova)
    A computer which was working out the secrets of the universe had its calculations wrecked by a thief with a screwdriver.Britain's largest academic research computer had spent months calculating the universe's past and its future.
    The £1.5 million machine was wrecked when the thieves ripped out its circuit boards and dragged them across the floor.
    New Scientist reports the Cosmology Machine at Durham's Institute for Computational Cosmology was simulating how galaxies and solar systems form and evolve.
    It had been working on the problem since July 2001 and was designed to perform 456 billion calculations every second.
    The thieves broke on two separate days and ruined four of the computer's 12 circuit boards.
    Carlos Frenk, director of the ICC, said: "Having been dragged along the ground they'd be totally useless. The inanity of the whole thing is just beyond belief."
    The thieves had foreign accents and are believed to have been stealing the boards to order.
    A third attempt to enter the building failed, Frenk said: "We're still under attack by this small gang of determined but extremely inept fools."
    (Story filed: 19:22 Wednesday 9th January 2002)
    Sounds like something from Douglas Adams' recycle bin.

  • Man wants $10 million for 'metal piece from UFO' (Ananova)
    A Florida man wants $10 million for an object he claims is from a UFO which could hold the secret to defying gravity. He says if he sells the object, he'll use the money to help improve airport security.
    (17:44 Wednesday 9th January 2002)
    More likely to defy stupidity. Will we need airports if we can create anti-gravity?

  • Slowing and Storing Light in a Solid (PhysicsNewsUpdate)
    When light encounters a medium in which the index of refraction changes dramatically with wavelength, the group velocity of light, the speed at which the wave pulse propagates, can be considerably lowered, even to zero. The energy and information in the original light beam can be stored, without any heating, in the form of a wave of excitations in the spins of the atoms in the medium. Earlier this year two different experiments at Harvard stopped and stored light in a vapor sample .
    Now the feat has been carried out in a solid material in an experiment carried out at MIT and at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Hanscom, Massachusetts. This is a nice advance since in general information processing is carried out in solid-state integrated devices.
    Nothing moves slower than the speed of bottled sunshine.

  • Man stretchered out of 'disgusting' horror film.
    Three people collapsed and the rest of the audience walked out in protest at the Swiss premiere of a Japanese horror film.
    It is reported they found the scenes of sex and violence in the film Audition too disgusting.
    One man had to be carried out on a stretcher and was taken by ambulance to hospital. He was later released.
    Frank Braun, manager of the Riffraff cinema, said they were thinking of stopping the run but they had been flooded with requests about tickets.
    He said: "The man who went to hospital was only one among many that couldn't cope with the brutality and violence portrayed in the film."
    Is this blowback for Bruckheimer's Pearl Harbor?

  • Could terrorists strike
    from Caribbean?     (WorldNetDaily)
    Lax airport security and offshore dealings reportedly worry area's officials.
    3 little birds told them.

  • Ancient Supernova May Have Triggered Eco-Catastrophe (JohnHopkinsUni)
    An exploding star may have destroyed part of Earth's protective ozone layer 2 million years ago, devastating some forms of ancient marine life, according to a new theory presented at this week's meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
    Is the 'ascent of man' instrinsically linked to eco-catastrophe?

  • Government May Offer Experimental Anthrax Treatment
    WASHINGTON (AP) - If anthrax strikes another American, the government may offer patients an experimental treatment: a protective protein culled from the blood of soldiers who received the anthrax vaccine.
    This immune globulin is being added to the nation's bioterrorism treatment stockpile, a scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.
    Source of "Mad Squaddy Disease" believed discovered.

  • Shoe bomb suspect 'linked to radical Islamic leader'
    11:55pm Monday, 07th January 2002
    Alleged shoe-bomber Richard Reid was a follower of a radical Islamic spiritual leader who trained more than 100 Americans in terror techniques, it has been claimed.
    The Boston Globe newspaper says Reid had been linked to Sheik Mubarik Ali Gilani, a Pakistani radical spiritual leader.
    He has recruited mostly black Americans for terror attacks on the country.
    Perhaps we should encourage Muslims to remove their shoes more often.

  • "FAT GEORDIES" TELLY JOKE UPHELD (UK Megastar.com)
    BEEF stotties and bottles of broon all round - it's acceptable to portray Geordies as telly-bound, lardy heffer-lumps, according to a landmark ruling.
    There had been a whiff of complaint (ie: more than 100 viewers) over an apparently amusing WH Smith telly advert featuring actor Nicholas Lyndhurst, done up to appear as a family of big, fat Tyneside couch potatoes.
    A smattering of Tynesiders failed to take the gag in black and white and saw red, sounding off to the Independent Television Commission.
    However, the ITC regarded the mockery in the TV ad as gentle, and unlikely to cause much offence among the Geordie nation from Blyth to Byker, Hebburn to Heaton, or Tynemouth to Two-Ball Lonnen.
    Meanwhile, back in the Bigg Market, a svelte Paul Gascoigne was unavailable for comment due to a "large doner" in his gob.

  • Neanderthals were a lot more intelligent than they looked (UKIndependent)
    Neanderthals were not dumb, lumbering idiots after all. New evidence suggests that they had considerable technical and intellectual skills, as well as ingenuity, to put them on a par with modern humans.

  • White House defends Bush's use of 'Pakis'
    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House has said that U.S. President George W. Bush meant no disrespect to the Pakistani people by referring to them as "Pakis."
    Just another of his pally nick-names. Presumably he addresses the Pak president by hailing "Hey Mush!"


  • Wherify GPS locator for children.
    Come in Number 6 your time is up.

    10:54:30 AM

    • END OF ARCHIVE#3

    Backup Archive
    Archive#1
    Archive#2
    Archive#3
    Archive#4
    Archive#5
    Archive#6
    Archive#7
    Archive#8
    Archive#9
    Archive#10