| 19.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/erde/0,1518,druck-416982,00.html Die Autoren folgern aus ihren Ergebnissen, dass sich die Fähigkeit zur Vorausplanung vor mindestens 14 Millionen Jahren entwickelt hat, als der letzte gemeinsame Vorfahr von Bonobo, Orang-Utan und Mensch lebte.
19.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/erde/0,1518,druck-416982,00.html Orang-Utans und Bonobos haben in einem Experiment Erstaunliches geleistet: Die Affen haben sich mit Werkzeugen eingedeckt, um für spätere Aufgaben ausgerüstet zu sein. Offenbar besitzen nicht nur Menschen die Fähigkeit, Dinge im Voraus zu planen. Leipzig - Orang-Utans und Bonobos bewahren nützliche Werkzeuge für einen späteren Einsatz auf. Das haben Wissenschaftler am Max-Planck-Institut für evolutionäre Anthropologie in Leipzig beobachtet: Zuerst brachten die Forscher einigen Affen bei, mit einem Werkzeug Trauben aus einem Versuchsgerät zu angeln. Danach konnten die Tiere aus geeigneten und ungeeigneten Werkzeugen eines auswählen und mit in einen Warteraum nehmen. Nach einer Stunde durften sie wieder zurück und konnten sich, falls sie das passende Werkzeug mitgebracht hatten, ihre Belohnung holen. In mehr als der Hälfte der Versuche brachten die Tiere das richtige Werkzeug zurück. 19.May 2006 Forscher- Krimi: Columbus' Grab identifiziert 19.May 2006 Guantanamo: Wärter schlagen Gefangenen- Revolte nieder 19.May 2006 Feuerberg Merapi: Forscher finden mysteriöses Objekt unter Vulkan
19.May 2006 Zankapfel Internet: Private versus Öffentlich- Rechtliche
19.May 2006 Bundestags- Debatte: Regierung verteidigt Kongo- Einsatz 19.May 2006 Mediziner- Protest: Ärzte sagen Regierung den Kampf an
19.May 2006 Irak: US- Soldaten sollen unschuldige Zivilisten "kaltblütig getötet" haben
19.May 2006 Zurückgezogenes Medikament: Vioxx soll länger als gedacht Gesundheitsrisiko erhöhen 19.May 2006 Anna Amalia Bibliothek: Online- Asyl für Bücherschätze
19.May 2006 Italienischer Fußball- Skandal: Juventus- Schwarzgeld im Vatikan vermutet
19.May 2006 Italien: Prodi gewinnt Vertrauensabstimmung
19.May 2006 Koalition: Bundestag beschließt größte Steuererhöhung seit 1949
19.May 2006 Nahost: Hamas- Vertreter mit 639.000 Euro an Grenze erwischt 19.May 2006 BND- Affäre: Spitzel- Opfer wehrt sich gegen Spitzel- Vorwurf
19.May 2006 Bundeswehr: Warnung vor "blutigem Gemetzel" im Kongo
19.May 2006 Umfrage: SPD holt gegen Union auf 19.May 2006 Italien: Streik legt Großstädte lahm
19.May 2006 Stahl- Übernahmeschlacht: Mittal erhöht Angebot für Arcelor um fast sechs Milliarden Euro
19.May 2006 Base Jumping: Belgier filmt seinen Sprung vom Eiffelturm 19.May 2006 Foltervorwürfe: Uno- Komitee fordert Schließung von Guantanamo
19.May 2006 Bertelsmann: Familie Mohn will mit Milliardenrückkauf Börsengang verhindern
19.May 2006 USA: Illegaler Einwanderer an Grenze zu Mexiko erschossen 19.May 2006 Umsichtige Primaten: Affen planen 19.May 2006 Gefangenenverschleppung: US- Gericht lehnt Masris Klage gegen CIA ab 19.May 2006 CIA- Anhörung: Punktsieg für den General
19.May 2006 Atomstreit: Hoher Wissenschaftler soll aus Nordkorea geflohen sein
19.May 2006 Intelligence failures? The United States of Amnesia "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." Anatole France (00.000.1844-00.000.1924 ) Intelligence failures? By Sean Wheeler Watching Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden speak at his confirmation hearing today, as commentators talk about intelligence-gathering in a "post-9/11 world," I can't help but shake my head. People are under the impression that ... 19.May 2006 Martin Van Creveld: Israel the Mad Dog
Another Day in the Empire Just another WordPress weblog Martin Van Creveld: Israel the Mad Dog By Administrator on Uncategorized Let’s hand it to Martin Van Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, for speaking the mind of nearly half of all Israelis. “The Palestinians should all be deported,” declared Van Creveld in 2003.
19.May 2006 Missing Link Analysis Chart Discovered
Able Danger Blog Able Danger was a small, military intelligence unit under Special Operations Command. It was created as a result of a directive in September 1999 to develop a campaign against transnational terrorism, specifically al-Qaida. According to claims made by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer + confirmed by others, Able ...
19.May 2006 New Pentagon Video: Eminently Ignorable
Another Day in the Empire Just another WordPress weblog New Pentagon Video: Eminently IgnorableBy Administrator on Uncategorized Russell Pickering of Pentagon Research does a fine job of shooting holes in the newly released Pentagon video. “It strikes me that something flew into the Pentagon. I don’t know what to say though because it also appears nearly as certain from all of the comparisons that
19.May 2006 Requiem for American Democracy
Thomas Paine's Corner is a site dedicated to the affirmation, defense, and proliferation of social and economic justice, human rights, dignity + intellectual freedom for all human beings. Requiem for American Democracy By Jason Miller by Jack Random
19.May 2006 Senate moves to force Lippold to retire Able Danger Blog Able Danger was a small, military intelligence unit under Special Operations Command. It was created as a result of a directive 00.Sep.1999 to develop a campaign against transnational terrorism, specifically al-Qaida. According to claims made by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and confirmed by others, Able Danger had identified the 9/11 attack leader, Mohamed Atta, + ...
19.May 2006 Substitute Teacher Put on Leave for Voicing 9/11 Opinions 9/11 Blogger - Substitute Teacher Put on Leave for Voicing 9/11 Opinions By dz YouTube Video Stream9/11 Opinion Lands Teacher in Hot Water A substitute teacher ...
19.May 2006 Slade Gorton at it again Able Danger Blog Able Danger was a small, military intelligence unit under Special Operations Command. It was created as a result of a directive 00.Sep.1999 to develop a campaign against transnational terrorism, specifically al-Qaida. According to claims made by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and confirmed by others, Able ...
19.May 2006 Two strange 9/11 stories (Update: Make that THREE) CANNONFIRE Two strange 9/11 stories (Update: Make that THREE) By Joseph I must bring two strange 9/11 tales to your attention: 1. Judy knew! 00.Jul.2001 Judith Miller got advance word of a big Al Qaeda attack from a White House Source. S'funny -- why has ...
17.May 2006 Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] uruknet.info - information from occupied iraq - informazione dall'iraq occupato Iraq: Security Companies + Training Camps Sarah Meyer Private US and UK security firms are closely allied to Mr. Bremer's 'Facilities Protection Service programme in Iraq. Newsweek (24.04.06) suggested 146,000 belong to this 'security? Force.
19.May 2006 Ex-senator linked to oil-for-food claims
The US Senate is looking into allegations that a former US senator urged Baghdad to give a US company lucrative contracts under the much-criticised United Nations oil-for-food programme
19.May 2006 Iceland's central bank raises rates to 12.25%
Iceland's central bank raised its key interest rate by 75 basis points as it looked to damp inflation + engineer a soft landing for an economy many analysts see as overheating. 16.May 2006 9/11 Commission report is a lie From Seattle Post Intelligencer 9/11 Commission report is a lie RICHARD CURTISGUEST COLUMNIST Writing about a speech by one of the members of the 9/11 Commission, P-I columnist Joel Connelly claimed: "Each of us needs to understand why we are doing what we are doing." ("Sept. 11 show the flaws with protocol," May 8) Indeed! The problem is ...
19.May 2006 aangirfan: 7/7 fabricated evidence aangirfan: 7/7 fabricated evidence
19.May 2006 aangirfan: 9 11; Titan Corporation; Venice Florida aangirfan: 9 11; Titan Corporation; Venice Florida
19.May 2006 ABC News: New Tape Stirs Up 9/11 Conspiracy Theories ABC News: New Tape Stirs Up 9/11 Conspiracy Theories
19.May 2006 Twin gas tanks' demolition foreshadows Twin Towers' demolition Twin gas tanks' demolition foreshadows Twin Towers' demolition
19.May 2006 ‘The next six months in Iraq are critical.’ Judd Tom Friedman has been saying that for the last three and a half years. FAIR has it all documented. (Via Atrios)
19.May 2006 ‘We’ve had no leadership on the issue of energy.’ Nico – Actor Robert Redford on Larry King last night, promoting our new KicktheOilHabit.org web video/campaign. Watch Redford, or read the transcript.
19.May 2006 “Even Baby Jesus accepted gifts, Amanda and I don’t believe it corrupted him.” — North Carolina State Rep. Drew Saunders (D), arguing that a $200 gift-reporting requirement for legislators from non-family members was too low.
19.May 2006 Big Oil Launches Attack On Al Gore Faiz Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) will unveil two 60-second TV ads focusing on what it calls “global warming alarmism + the call by some environmental groups + politicians to reduce fossil fuel + carbon dioxide emissions.” The ad, which will be aired in more than a dozen cities across the country, is being released just a week before the May 24th opening (in LA and NYC) of Al Gore’s new movie on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. Who is CEI? The Washington Post explains: The Competitive Enterprise Institute, which widely publicizes its belief that the earth is not warming cataclysmically because of the burning of coal and oil, says Exxon Mobil Corp. is a “major donor” largely as a result of its effort to push that position. CEI also gets funding from other oil companies through the American Petroleum Institute. Exxon documents reveal the company gave $270,000 to CEI in 2004 alone. $180,000 of that was earmarked for “global climate change and global climate change outreach.” Exxon has contributed over $1.6 million to CEI since 1998. CEI’s general counsel Sam Kazman said, “I think what attracted [Exxon] to us was our position on global warming.” CEI’s position? The Institute believes the dangers of global warming are akin “to that of ‘an alien invasion.’” Exxon’s spokesperson Tom Cirigliano has explained why the company is so dedicated to funding CEI’s pushback on global warming: We want to support organizations that are trying to broaden the debate. … There is this whole issue that no one should question the science of global climate change that is ludicrous. That’s the kind of dark-ages thinking that gets you in a lot of trouble. The science is not questioned because the science behind global warming is indisputable. Science Magazine analyzed 928 peer-reviewed scientific papers on global warming published between 00.000.1993-00.000.2003. Not a single one challenged the scientific consensus that the earth’s temperature is rising due to human activity. The U.S. Climate Change Science Program concluded that humans are driving the warming trend through greenhouse gas emissions. And the EPA has said that the recent warming trend “is real and has been particularly strong within the past 20 years…due mostly to human activities.” For the oil industry, Al Gore’s film exposing the truth is perceived as a threat + they have no shortage of funds to try to distort it.
19.May 2006 Bill O’Reilly: Judd “According to the lefty zealots, the white Christians who hold power must be swept out by a new multicultural tide, a rainbow coalition, if you will.” Video at Media Matters.
19.May 2006 Bush Supporting Somali Warlords Responsible for Downing U.S. Black Hawk Payson
Today, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. has been “secretly supporting secular warlords who have been waging fierce battles against Islamic groups for control of the capital, Mogadishu.” The Bush administration is “backing the warlords as part of its global war against terrorism,” even though some of these warlords “reportedly fought against the United States in 1993 during street battles that culminated in an attack that downed two U.S. Black Hawk helicopters and left 18 Army Rangers dead.” At today’s press briefing, Tony Snow all but confirmed the report: [Y]ou’ve got instability in Somalia right now + there is concern about the presence of foreign terrorists, particularly Al Qaeda, within Somalia right now. In an environment of instability, as we’ve seen in the past, Al Qaeda may take root + we want to make sure that Al Qaeda does not in fact establish a beachhead in Somalia. […] The United States - we will continue to work with regional and international partners wherever we can to crack down on terrorism and also to try to prevent its rising. Somalia’s interim government has warned the U.S. that this policy is “shortsighted and dangerous,” and is causing more violence in an already anarchic country: “We would prefer that the U.S. work with the transitional government and not with criminals,” the prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, said in an interview. “ This is a dangerous game . Somalia is not a stable place and we want the U.S. in Somalia. But in a more constructive way. Clearly we have a common objective to stabilize Somalia, but the U.S. is using the wrong channels .” Shortsighted and dangerous: a good way to describe much of the administration’s foreign policy.
19.May 2006 CEI Founder on Global Warming: ‘It Looks Pretty Good…We’re Moving To A More Benign Planet.’ Judd
Josh Marshall linked to our earlier post on the Competitive Enterprise Institute – a front group funded by big oil – and their attack on Al Gore’s new movie. Josh mentioned he remembered that CEI’s founder, Fred Smith, was on Crossfire years ago talking about how “global warming was actually a good thing because of all the cool new crops we could grow.” Here’s the transcript from Crossfire, 3/27/92: Mr. SMITH: Look, the point- what we do know and don’t know, we know that carbon dioxide is increasing. We know carbon dioxide is a plant fertilizer which is a positive benefit to the peoples of the world. We know that there are these elaborate computer models that have never been right before, may be right this time, that suggest climate changes, possibly good, possibly bad. Most of the indications right now are it looks pretty good. Warmer winters, warmer nights, no effects during the day because of clouding, sounds to me like we’re moving to a more benign planet, more rain, richer, easier productivity to agriculture- KINSLEY: Wait a minute. Mr. SMITH: We’re basically to a world now that’s a lot closer to heaven than hell. Here’s a summary of the real consequences of global warming from climatecrisis.net: To learn more about the real impact of global warming, make sure to see An Inconvenient Truth.
19.May 2006 Feingold walks out of hearing Payson on anti-gay constitutional ban. During a contentious Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) “declared his opposition to the amendment” and walked out. “If you want to leave,” committee chairman Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) said, “good riddance.” “See ya,” Feingold replied. UPDATE: Feingold statement: “Today’s markup of the constitutional amendment concerning marriage, in a small room off the Senate floor with only a handful of people other than Senators + their staffs present, was an affront to the Constitution. I objected to its consideration in such an inappropriate setting and refused to help make a quorum.” 19.May 2006 Hastert: ‘If You Earn $40,000 a Year and Have a Family of Two Children, You Don’t Pay Any Taxes’ Payson
During a late session last night, Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) made a stunning claim on the House floor: Well, folks, if you earn $40,000 a year and have a family of two children, you don’t pay any taxes. So you probably, if you don’t pay any taxes, you are not going to get a very big tax cut. Watch it: While someone with a $40,000 salary and a family of four paid little or no federal income taxes last year, Hastert ignores various other taxes paid by all Americans — payroll taxes, gas taxes, sales taxes, etc. Consider payroll taxes, which go to paying for Social Security and Medicare. Assuming their entire $40,000 in salary came from wages, this family paid $3,060 (7.65 % of $40,000) in federal payroll taxes last year. (Note: The employer also contributes this amount, but most economists “believe that the portion of the payroll tax paid by the employer is borne by the worker.”) Hastert, who earns a hefty $212,010 a year salary, doesn’t seem to understand that families across America are facing higher health care costs, mortgage payments + gas prices. And yes, they also have to pay their taxes.
19.May 2006 Hayden: ‘I Wasn’t Comfortable’ With Administration’s Approach To Iraq Intelligence Faiz
This morning, Gen. Michael Hayden was asked at his nomination hearing about whether he was comfortable with the Bush administration’s pre-war attempts to link Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Watch his answer to Sen. Carl Levin’s question: Transcript: LEVIN: Secretary of Defense for Policy, Mr. Feith, established an intelligence analysis, so within his policy office at the Defense Department. While the intelligence community was consistently dubious about links between Iraq and al Qaeda, Mr. Feith produced an alternative analysis asserting that there was a strong connection. Were you comfortable with Mr. Feith’s office approach to intelligence analysis? HAYDEN: No, sir, I wasn’t. I wasn’t aware of a lot of the activity going on, you know, when it was contemporaneous with running up to the war. No, sir, I wasn’t comfortable. What Hayden makes clear is that, despite Bush’s assertion that the pre-war intelligence process “broke down,” the false intelligence about Iraq’s connection to al Qaeda was intentionally fabricated by political leaders, not intelligence analysts. Feith, Wolfowitz + others in the Pentagon set up a stovepipe “to get the information they wanted directly to the top leadership” to make the case for war. Hayden and other intelligence experts got steamrolled when it mattered most.
19.May 2006 It’s Time To KickTheOilHabit.org Think Progress
At this year’s State of the Union address, President Bush declared, “we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil.” But what Bush didn’t mention is that his policies have made the situation worse. Last summer, he signed energy legislation that included billions of dollars in subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, but only meager support for alternative energy and efficiency. Since then, gas prices have skyrocketed and our dependence on foreign oil has grown. Today, American Progress is launching KickTheOilHabit.org, a campaign to expose our dysfunctional energy policy and promote a new, progressive alternative. Watch the video: To learn more and take action, visit KickTheOilHabit.org. (Tune in to Larry King Live tonight at 9:00 pm EST to see Robert Redford talk about the campaign.)
19.May 2006 New Ads Funded by Big Oil Portray Global Warming Science as Smear Campaign Against Carbon Dioxide Judd
Yesterday, the Competitive Enterprise Institute – a front group funded by ExxonMobil and other big oil companies – launched two advertisements in response to Al Gore’s new movie, An Inconvenient Truth. The first ad portrays global warming science as a vicious smear campaign against carbon dioxide. The ad, which despite appearances is not an SNL parody, helpfully reminds us that carbon dioxide is “essential to life” because “we breath it out.” Watch it: It’s comforting to know that this is the best global warming rejectionists can come up with. There are plenty of things that are healthy and essential in reasonable quantities but harmful in extremely large quantities. (For example, drinking a few glasses of water is beneficial. Drinking 10 gallons of water can kill you.) We need some carbon dioxide, but too much causes global warming. The second ad repeats the “carbon dixoide is our friend” theme but adds a new wrinkle. It attempts to show that the scientific evidence for global warming is in dispute, claiming a study found “Greenland’s glaciers are growing.” (Watch the second ad HERE) Actually, the study (by Johanessen et al.) found that there was an increase in snow accumulation on Greenland’s interior . Meanwhile, other studies show that glaciers are thinning on Greenland’s coastal regions. This is exactly what you’d expect as the earth gets warmer. The climate scientists at realclimate.org explain: However, Johanessen et al. were not able to measure all of the coastal ranges. Indeed, the thinning of the margins and growth in the interior Greenland is an expected response to increased temperatures and more precipitation in a warmer climate. These results present no contradiction to the accelerated sliding near the coasts Expect more of this kind of deception from the right as An Inconvient Truth hits theaters on May 24.
19.May 2006 New Poll Finds Bush Approval Stuck In Mid-30s, CNN Calls It ‘A Bounce’ Amanda
CNN just reported that President Bush’s new job approval rating is at 36 % , suggesting it was “a bounce for President Bush.” But this isn’t a bounce. Bush’s early May approval rating was 34 % . Each poll has an error of +/-3 points, meaning Bush’s numbers haven’t changed at all. Is the media really this desperate for Bush’s approval rating to rebound?
19.May 2006 New Presidential Memorandum Permits Intelligence Director To Authorize Telcos To Lie Without Violating Securities Law Judd
In recent days, AT&T, Bell South and Verizon have all issued statements denying that they’ve handed over phone records to the NSA, as reported by USA today. There are three possibilities: 1) The USA Today story is inaccurate; 2) The telcos left enough wiggle room in the statements that both the USA Today story and their statements are accurate; or 3) The statements from the telcos are inaccurate. Ordinarily, a company that conceals their transactions and activities from the public would violate securities law. But an presidential memorandum signed by the President on May 5 allows the Director of National Intelligence, John Negroponte, to authorize a company to conceal activities related to national security. (See 15 U.S.C. 78m(b)(3)(A)) There is no evidence that this executive order has been used by John Negroponte with respect to the telcos. Of course, if it was used, we wouldn’t know about it. UPDATE: An earlier version of this post incorrectly referred to the May 5 document as an “executive order.” It is a presidential memorandum. UPDATE II: Greg Sargent unpacks the Verizon and Bell South denials.
19.May 2006 Orrin Hatch: Loose Lips On Surveillance Payson
When reporters ask the White House about the NSA program that secretly collects “phone call records of tens of millions of Americans,” administration officials insist that they “cannot confirm or deny the claims in the USA Today story.” Apparently, someone forgot to send the talking points to Senate Intelligence Committee member Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Here’s how Hatch responded to a question “about recent reports of the government compiling lists of Americans’ phone calls”: Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said that at least two of the chief judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court had been informed since 2001 of White House-approved National Security Agency monitoring operations. “None raised any objections, as far as I know,” said Hatch, a member of a special Intelligence Committee panel appointed to oversee the NSA’s work. By answering the reporter’s question directly, Hatch confirmed the program’s existence. This isn’t the first time Hatch has let classified information slip. From a September 2001 Chicago Tribune report: A senior senator’s disclosure of highly classified information about the U.S. terrorism investigation has infuriated Bush administration officials and led to a clampdown on how much the White House will share with lawmakers. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters hours after terrorists crashed hijacked jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that U.S. intelligence had intercepted a telephone call from a suspect reporting to his handler that the targets in New York City and near Washington had been hit. Leaking classified information seems to be a conservative strong suit.
19.May 2006 Protesters arrested at Halliburton shareholders’ meeting Judd for leaving designated protest area.
18.May 2006 ThinkFast: Think Progress
New Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi acknowledged the true impact of the Iraq war : “We consider the war and occupation in Iraq a grave error that hasn’t solved - but has complicated - the problem of security. … Terrorism has found a new base and new excuses for internal and external terrorist action.” James Tobin, a senior official in President Bush’s re-election campaign, was sentenced to 10 months in prison yesterday for his role in suppressing votes in a key U.S. Senate race . The scandal may involve the White House. U.S. District Judge Steven McAuliffe said, “It was a direct assault on a free and fair electoral system. We’ll never know if the wrong people are sitting in government because of this effort.”
19.May 2006 After 16 months of inaction, the House ethics committee will begin bribery investigations into Reps. Bob Ney (R-OH) and William Jefferson (D-LA). Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) will escape scrutiny from the committee because he will be leaving Congress next month, breaking Chairman Doc Hasting’s (R-WA) Apr. 2005 pledge to investigate the former House Majority Leader. The Senate yesterday passed immigration amendments that would “ build 370 miles of triple-layered fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border ” and would require all native-born and immigrants workers to “submit their names to two huge federal databases to verify their legal status before taking any new job.” President Bush is preparing to “turn to a familiar administration partner” to help secure the U.S. border with Mexico — giant military contractors . The winning contractor will secure an estimated $2 billion over the next three to six years to build a “virtual fence.” Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said, “[T]he risks to inflation are perhaps the most significant at the moment.” Consumer prices rose by 0.6 % in April , fueling concerns the Fed might keep pushing interest rates up to fend off inflation. Higher prices are cutting into consumers’ purchasing power and dampening the outlook for economic growth. Americans digging out from under more debt: “Soaring housing prices + aggressive mortgage lending have saddled home buyers with ever greater levels of debt + early signs are now emerging that more people are unable to keep up with their monthly mortgage payments.” The talk of a 30,000 troop drawdown really was a headfake. Yesterday, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld “said he cannot guarantee that there will be substantial withdrawals of U.S. troops from Iraq this year.” While Rumsfeld hopes for a drawdown, he “can’t promise it.” And finally: in Pennsylvania, the “nifty write-in feature on the new electronic voting machines attracted something different in Tuesday’s election: profanity.” Luzerne County Election Bureau Director Leonard Piazza was offended most by “a pair of ‘c’ words which appeared several times.” The Wilkes-Barre Times Leader reports that such profanity was “rare on the lever machines. Voters who wanted to be naughty generally stuck to storybook and cartoon characters.”
19.May 2006 Alberto Gonzales Says His Grandparents May Have Been Illegal Immigrants Amanda Yesterday on CNN, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales admitted that he doesn’t know if his grandparents came from Mexico to the United States legally or illegally, but that his family’s story is the “American dream.” Watch it:
19.May 2006 t r u t h o u t news feed For the past few days, we have endured non-stop attacks on our credibility + we have fought hard to defend our reputation. In addition, we have worked around the clock to provide additional information to our readership. People want to know more about this + our job is to keep them informed. ...
19.May 2006 The Blotter A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources. "It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person ...
19.May 2006 Doubts over Iran nuclear capacity Iran's nuclear programme may not be as advanced as it has claimed, Western diplomatic sources tell the BBC.
19.May 2006 Inmates get £4m in compensation Compensation payments made to prisoners have almost doubled in the past year to more than £4m.
19.May 2006 Brave New World for Public Media Broadcasters ought to take their cues from bloggers, say presenters at a media conference. But plenty are loath to embrace the new paradigm. By Mark Anderson.
19.May 2006 Titan: The Life of John D Rockefeller, Sr., Issue 34 Rockefeller was lucky on a whole number of scores, firstly, ... Once again he was helped by the fact that oil was first pumped in Titusville , Pennsylvania. ... www.socialismtoday.org/34/rockefeller34.html
19.May 2006 Klassenkampf 28 Zeitschrift der Internationalen Sozialisten, Der ... 00.000.1870 gründete der Hilfsbuchhalter Rockefeller die Standard Oil Esso in Cleveland. In der Region um Titusville kam es fast zu einem Aufstand + ... www.internationalesozialisten.de/Oelkrieg/gesch%20us.html
19.May 2006 Three Neptune-sized Planets Found Nearby CowboyNeal 32
"CNN reports the discovery of three Neptune-sized planets found in orbit around a sun 41 light years away. The star they orbit is similar to our Sun + the planetary distribution is probably similar to our Solar System. Recent observations by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope last year revealed that HD 69830 also hosts an asteroid belt, making it the only other sun-like star known to have one. No word on if they have habitable moons, or monoliths yet."
18.May 2006 CNN Secretly Seeks Guests To Attack Charlie Sheen On 9/11 CNN Secretly Seeks Guests To Attack Charlie Sheen On 9/11 Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com We have received word from numerous ...
17.May 2006 FBI Withholding 84 More Tapes of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI Withholding 84 More Tapes of Pentagon on 9/11 Magically Only 1 shows impact so why not release the rest? Steve Watson/Infowars The FBI is ...
17.May 2006 How Flight 77 Hitting The Pentagon Would Really Look? Prison Planet.com - Is this what Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon would really look like from ...
19.May 2006 Judicial Watch Says More Pentagon Tapes To Come Farrell admits entire issue potential intelligence honey pot operation Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison 19.May 2006 Updated: CNN Shopping For Guests To Attack Charlie Sheen Represents coordinated effort to debunk 9/11 truth movement Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison
19.May 2006 Polizei behindert Journalistin in Göttingen Die unabhängige 'Göttinger Wochenzeitung' hat erneut Behinderungen der Pressearbeit durch die Polizei beklagt. Göttinger Polizeibeamten haben am Dienstag die Berichterstattung über einen Polizeieinsatz vor dem Göttinger Amtsgericht zu unterbinden versucht, sagte Redaktionsleiter Stefan Matysiak am Dienstag.
19.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,druck-416930,00.html Die Tat sei außergewöhnlich ernst und stelle eine Bedrohung der politischen Tradition freier und fairer Wahlen in den USA dar, sagte Bezirksrichter Steven McAuliffe gestern bei der Verkündung des Strafmaßes. Die Staatsanwaltschaft hatte sogar zwei Jahre Haft für den Angeklagten gefordert. Das Gericht hatte Tobin bereits im Dezember schuldig gesprochen. Er ist der dritte, der in diesem Fall hinter Gitter muss. Mit den anderen beiden, ebenfalls Mitglieder eines republikanischen Wahlkampfteams, soll er versucht haben, durch hunderte Anrufe die Hotline der Demokraten zu blockieren. Vertreter der Republikaner New Hampshires sagten, sie hätten versucht, die Aktion sofort zu stoppen, nachdem sie ihnen bekannt geworden sei. Dennoch wandte die Republikanische Partei mehr als 2,5 Millionen Dollar für die Prozesskosten Tobins auf. Die Demokraten vermuten, dass auch das US-Präsidialamt in den Skandal verwickelt sein könnte. Deshalb fordern sie eine Untersuchung von 22 Telefongesprächen, die Tobin im fraglichen Zeitraum mit dem US-Präsidialamt geführt habe. Die Republikaner erklärten, bei einem knappen Rennen wie in New Hampshire seien solche Gespräche Routine und hätten nichts mit der Telefonaktion im dem Bundesstaat zu tun gehabt.
19.May 2006 Black Jack City Missouri is about to evict all unmarried couples with children SN City in Missouri is about to evict all unmarried couples with children
19.May 2006 Court Deals AT&T a Setback A federal judge refuses to give the company back its internal documents, which a whistle-blower says demonstrate AT&T's cooperation with the NSA's domestic spying. Ryan Singel reports from San Francisco.
19.May 2006 Karl Rove Indicted on Charges of Perjury, Lying to Investigators Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove. During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the ... 19.May 2006 NSA Sweep "Waste of Time," Analyst Says This kind of data collection from phone companies is not uncommon; it's been done before, though never on this large a scale, the official said. The data are used for 'social network analysis,' the official said, meaning to study how terrorist networks contact each other and how they are tied 19.May 2006 p2pnet.net - the original daily p2p and digital media news site
The debate over copyright is now a major news story - thanks to the appearance on Parliament Hill of representatives of some of Canada's most cutting edge bands. Up until now, the issue had been more or less defined by corporate lobbyists working the corridors of Parliament. Those on the other ...
19.May 2006 Re-Improved Colbert transcript (now with complete text of Colbert-Thomas video!)
UPDATE: Dan Froomkin, in his May 1, 2006 "White House Briefing" column in the Washington Post, writes, "Daily Kos blogger Frederick seems to have the most extensive transcript of Colbert?s talk." A nice recognition to receive from an outstanding journalist. I've taken the existing transcripts I' ...
19.May 2006 DNA study suggests history of interbreeding between humans and apes
BOSTON: A report in the journal Nature says its authors may have evidence that man and ape had been 'swapping genes' for a million years or more along the evolutionary path.
19.May 2006 'New lead' in Jimmy Hoffa hunt
The FBI is searching a farm after what it says is a lead on the 1975 disappearance of union boss Jimmy Hoffa.
19.May 2006 CIA nominee defends wiretapping President Bush's choice for CIA chief defends a controversial eavesdropping programme.
19.May 2006 Turks protest over judge shooting Tens of thousands of Turks turn the funeral of a judge into a mass show of support for their secularist state.
19.May 2006 Violence mars Cairo court hearing Egyptian police attack activists in Cairo as a top judge is reprimanded for criticising election fraud.
19.May 2006 Vote to curb Nepal king's powers Nepalese MPs approve a plan to drastically cut the king's powers, including stripping him of control of the army.
19.May 2006 Evolution's human and chimp twist The human-chimpanzee evolutionary split may have been more recent than first thought, a study suggests.
19.May 2006 Indian shares suffer record drop Shares on India's Bombay Stock Exchange suffer their biggest one day fall in value in its history.
19.May 2006 US stocks open ahead after losses Wall Street bounces back and European shares fluctuate sharply after Wednesday's big US and European falls.
19.May 2006 War vets feature in US army game The US Army is putting soldiers who fought in Iraq into its game in a bid to put a human face on its operations.
19.May 2006 Blair sparks new deportation row The vast bulk of foreign prisoners should be deported whatever the fears for their safety, says Tony Blair.
19.May 2006 Shares slump in Europe and US US and European shares fall sharply again as fears of higher interest rates continue to beset investors.
19.May 2006 Wiretap briefings for US Congress The US government agrees to brief congressional committees on a controversial surveillance programme.
19.May 2006 MPs back French immigration bill French MPs strongly support a controversial immigration bill making settlement harder for unskilled workers.
19.May 2006 River agency fined for pollution Rivers watchdog, the Environment Agency is fined £7,500 for polluting the River Exe in Somerset.
19.May 2006 Enron jury deliberates on verdict The jury in the Enron fraud trial starts deliberating verdicts for former bosses Jeffrey Skilling + Kenneth Lay.
19.May 2006 Call for debate on public health Experts are calling for a debate about whether tough new measures are needed to protect public health.
19.May 2006 Potent antibiotic to target MRSA A potent antibiotic which kills many bacteria, including MRSA, has been discovered by scientists.
19.May 2006 Cancer concern over shop snacks Chocolates and snacks are removed from sale after the discovery toxins in a batch of rice flour.
19.May 2006 'Big brother' informs baby talk A newborn baby is being filmed for the next three years to understand how he learns to talk.
19.May 2006 Worst cholera outbreak in Angola A cholera epidemic in Angola has killed more than 1,200 people in the past three months, many in the capital.
19.May 2006 The Eternal Value of Privacy Supporters of wholesale government surveillance are fond of saying that only the guilty should be worried about spying. Let's put that spurious argument out to pasture once + for all. Commentary by Bruce Schneier.
19.May 2006 Did Verizon Block U.S. E-Mail? New allegations could delay settlement of a lawsuit charging the communications company with systematically preventing delivery of messages from Europe + Asia.By John Gartner. 19.May 2006 Court Deals AT&T a Setback A federal judge refuses to give the company back its internal documents, which a whistle-blower says demonstrate AT&T's cooperation with the NSA's domestic spying. Ryan Singel reports from San Francisco.
19.May 2006 House Tackles Caller ID Spoofing Proposed legislation would make it illegal to mislead. Plus: Fun with Dear NSA.... The other phone records controversy. In 27B Stroke 6.
19.May 2006 Politicos propose new action on Net neutrality House bill aims to make the concept enforceable under antitrust law,while senators continue to ponder their own action.Musician Moby raises voice for Net neutrality 19.May 2006 Musician Moby raises voice for Net neutrality In rare Capitol Hill appearance, artist insists that politicians pass new regulations enforcing open Internet architecture.Photo: Moby on Capitol Hill
19.May 2006 BellSouth calls for retraction on USA Today report Blog: The fall-out continues over a USA Today story that claimed three of the nation's largest phone companies supplied customer phone...
19.May 2006 Defense agency to use Microsoft's Virtual Earth The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency will use the mapping tech for "humanitarian, peacekeeping and national security efforts."
19.May 2006 British legislation to enforce encryption key disclosure Part of act would give police power to force businesses, individuals to hand over the keys in criminal investigations.
19.May 2006 Simple movement tricks the eye Blog: Things are not, as they say, always what they seem--especially when movement is involved. That point was proven unequivocally...
19.May 2006 Network Management Outsourced to India Zonk 146
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "The latest wrinkle for outsourcing companies in India is long-distance monitoring of corporate computer networks in U.S. + Europe -- services that could be worth tens of billions of dollars, the Wall Street Journal reports. 'Growth is expected as factories become more computerized + remote services expand to include controlling plant temperatures from afar and even monitoring who enters + exits the premises. 'Theoretically,' says Azim Premji, chairman and founder of India outsourcing company Wipro Ltd., 'anything on a network can be managed remotely from India.'"
19.May 2006 8 MegaPixel Digital Sensor Unveiled Zonk 210 hdtv writes "Micron has unveiled an 8-megapixel digital sensor, that 'enables pocket-sized cameras and cell phones to capture bursts of 10 high-quality photos in a single second or even high-definition video.'" "'We're saying it can go in a point-and-shoot camera selling in the $200 to $300 range,' said Suresh Venkatrama, Micron's director of the digital camera segment. ' It brings high-quality digital video and photography down to the consumer space.' The new sensor is a type of chip known as a 'complementary metal-oxide semiconductor,' or CMOS. Analysts say the technology, which is also used in memory chips and microprocessors, will challenge the dominance of traditional light-sensing charge-coupled devices, or CCDs."
19.May 2006 The AT&T Whistleblower's Evidence Zonk 307 hdtv writes "Wired News has published the details of NSA wiretap and revealed former AT&T technician Mark Klein as the main whistleblower, specifically covering the evidence he presented when he came forward." "In this recently surfaced statement, Klein details his discovery of an alleged surveillance operation in an AT&T office in San Francisco + offers his interpretation of company documents that he believes support his case. For its part, AT&T is asking a federal judge to keep those documents out of court, and to order the EFF to return them to the company."
19.May 2006 UK Government Wants Private Encryption Keys Zonk 627 "Businesses and individuals in Britain may soon have to give their encryption keys to the police or face imprisonment. The UK government has said it will bring in the new powers to address a rise in the use of encryption by criminals and terrorists." "Some security experts are concerned that the plan could criminalise innocent people and drive businesses out of the UK. But the Home Office, which has just launched a consultation process, says the powers contained in Part 3 are needed to combat an increased use of encryption by criminals, paedophiles + terrorists. 'The use of encryption is... proliferating,' Liam Byrne, Home Office minister of state told Parliament last week. 'Encryption products are more widely available and are integrated as security features in standard operating systems, so the Government has concluded that it is now right to implement the provisions of Part 3 of RIPA... which is not presently in force.'"
19.May 2006 Well I'll Be A Monkey's Uncle Zonk 539
killproc writes "A new report suggests that interbreeding between humans and chimpanzees happened a lot more recently than was previously thought. The report, published in the most recent issue of the journal Nature, estimates that final break between the human and chimpanzee species did not come until 6.3 million years ago at the earliest + probably less than 5.4 million years ago."
19.May 2006 Samsung Working On Fuel-Cell Powered Cell Phones Zonk 76+
"BusinessWeek reports that Samsung plans to build prototype phones that will be powered by Direct Methanol Fuel Cells." "The deal also marks a huge vote of confidence in a little-known company. MTI Micro, which had sales of $8 million in 2005, is one of a handful of outfits seeking to bring hydrogen-based fuel-cell technology into more common use. Its Mobion fuel cells have already appeared in industrial handhelds from companies like Intermec, a unit of Unova + have drawn the attention of military contractors developing devices that soldiers will use in the field. Under the deal, which lasts through the end of the second quarter of 2007, the two companies will jointly research the use of methanol-based fuel-cell technologies for use in cell phones. Any patents that come as the result of the research will be assigned to MTI."
19.May 2006 NSA Chose Invasive Phone Analysis Option Zonk 189+
Encrypted Anonymous Coward writes "The Baltimore Sun reveals the existence of an interesting experimental NSA program codenamed ThinThread from the late 90`s. The program involved link analysis of traffic data, with a twist; The phone numbers from the U.S. would only be analyzed in an encrypted form. This way the analysis would potentially be possible under existing privacy laws, according to the people behind the program. The NSA could gather further unencrypted details if there was evidence of a threat. Political infighting seems to have dropped an interesting and respectful program from the books."
19.May 2006 Hardware Firms Go Against Crowd on Net Neutrality Zonk 183+
"Some of the largest hardware firms in the world, like Cisco and 3M, have sent a letter to U.S. policymakers asking them not to be too hasty on mandated net neutrality laws." From the News.com article: "'It is premature to attempt to enact some sort of network neutrality principles into law now,' says the letter, which was signed by 34 companies and sent to House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. 'Legislating in the absence of real understanding of the issue risks both solving the wrong problem and hobbling the rapidly developing new technologies and business models of the Internet with rigid, potentially stultifying rules.'"
19.May 2006 Spacecraft Crashes Into Satellite samzenpus 261+
Juha-Matti Laurio writes "A robotic NASA spacecraft designed to rendezvous with an orbiting satellite instead crashed into its target. Unbeknownst to engineers at the time, DART's main sensor mistakenly believed it was flying away from the satellite when it was actually moving 5 feet per second toward it, investigators found."
19.May 2006 Airport Video Surveillance Goes Hi-Tech samzenpus 67
conq writes "BusinessWeek has a piece on new tech used in the airport of Helsinki to monitor behavior and alert people when predefined situations arise. "The system can alert staff to events which may need further investigation without the need for every camera to be observed by staff. For example, suspect packages or vehicles left unattended will be flagged up and staff alerted. Similarly if the system detects queues growing beyond a pre-defined length in the security zone staff will be alerted of the need to open another lane""
19.May 2006 Human Genome Sequencing Completed samzenpus 274
Arthur Dent '99 writes "According to this article at Reuters, the last chromosome in the human genome has finally been sequenced, taking 150 British and American scientists 10 years to complete. The sequenced chromosome, Chromosome 1, is the largest chromosome, with nearly twice as many genes as the average chromosome, making up eight % of the human genetic code. The Human Genome Project has published the sequence online in the journal Nature, according to the article. It contains 3,141 genes (over 1,000 of them newly discovered) + 4,500 new SNPs -- single nucleotide polymorphisms -- which are the variations in human DNA that make people unique."
19.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,druck-416910,00.html
Das Forschungsinstitut berechnet das Wirtschaftsklima der Eurozone, indem es rund 300 Experten aus multinationalen Unternehmen und Instituten befragt. Die Geschäftsaussichten für die kommenden sechs Monate schätzten die Befragten zwar etwas weniger optimistisch als in den vorangegangenen Befragungen ein. Der Erwartungsindex ging von 110,1 auf 108,5 Punkte zurück. Jedoch verbesserte sich ihr Urteil über die aktuelle Lage deutlich. Die gegenwärtige wirtschaftliche Situation wurde erstmals seit 2001 wieder als "befriedigend" bezeichnet. Der Geschäftslage-Index stieg von 86,0 auf 97,2 Punkte. Verbessert hat sich die Stimmung vor allem in Deutschland, Belgien und den Niederlanden. Frankreich hat den positiven Bereich noch nicht ganz erreicht. Am besten ist die Stimmung nach wie vor in Irland und Finnland. Die Schlusslichter bilden weiterhin Italien und Portugal.
17.May 2006 This isn’t Policy; its barbarism By Mike Whitney
Politics is a murky business which rarely presents clear moral choices. That’s what makes the humanitarian crisis in Palestine so exceptional; there is no gray-area whatsoever. The withholding of food, medical supplies and resources is manifestly immoral + those who support that policy, even by their silence, are participating in a grave injustice. Continue 18.May 2006 Bowing To The Police State By Ray McGovern
Is Congress aiding and abetting the creation of a police state? Continue 18.May 2006 Support Our Troops, Anybody? By Dahr Jamail
Last week the Government Accountability Office announced that "less than one quarter of the US military's Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who show signs of post-traumatic stress are referred for additional mental health treatment or evaluation, according to a government study." Continue 18.May 2006 Exclusive Venzuela's Hugo Chavez asserts America is trying to kill himBy: Channel 4 - UK
He says he is protecting himself against US aggression - and says he may join forces with Tehran in their plan to undermine the US dollar by selling their oil in Euros. Click here to watch. Windows Media
19.May 2006 The Scariest Predators in the Corporate Jungle : The world's oil, gas and mining industries account for nearly two-thirds of all violations of human rights, environmental laws and international labor standards, according to a soon-to-be-released United Nations study. 18.May 2006 Update on the Rove Indictment Story: For the past few days, we have endured non-stop attacks on our credibility + we have fought hard to defend our reputation. In addition, we have worked around the clock to provide additional information to our readership. People want to know more about this + our job is to keep them informed. We take that responsibility seriously. 18.May 2006 Patriot Act e-mail spying approved: The Justice Department asks a judge to approve Patriot Act e-mail monitoring without any evidence of criminal behavior. 18.May 2006 In case you missed it: Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement: When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers. 18.May 2006 An American idea shatters : The reawakening of a virulent nationalism is tearing apart Bush's conservative coalition 18.May 2006 Bush turns to big military contractors to gain control of U.S. borders : The quick fix may involve sending in the National Guard. But to really patch up the broken border, President George W. Bush is preparing to turn to a familiar administration partner: giant military contractors. 18.May 2006 Chris Floyd : Border Lords: Immigration Plan is Crony Pork Bonanza : Isn't this a surprise! It turns out that George W. Bush's "Secure Border Initiative" to "control illegal immigration" is actually just a great big pork trough for his cronies and benefactors in the weapons biz to cash in big-time off the suffering and poverty of dusky foreigners 18.May 2006 House ethics panel to probe several lawmakers: The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct said it would investigate Ohio Republican Rep. Bob Ney and Louisiana Democratic Rep. William Jefferson, who are enmeshed in separate bribery scandals. 18.May 2006 Ex-Official Gets 10 Mos. in Phone-Jam Plot : A former Republican National Committee official was sentenced Wednesday to 10 months in prison for his role in the jamming of New Hampshire Democrats' telephones on Election Day 04.Nov.2002 . 18.May 2006 In case you missed it: The Madness Of George W. Bush: George W. Bush is ill. He has a psycho-spiritual dis-ease of the soul, a sickness that is endemic to our culture and symptomatic of the times we live in. It’s an illness that has been with us since time immemorial. Because it’s an illness that's in the soul of all of humanity, it pervades the field and is in all of us in potential at any moment, which makes it especially hard to diagnose 18.May 2006 Hope for the best, expect the worst: The fall in the dollar over the last few days and the knock-on consequences for the stock markets around the world make everybody feel queasy because those in the know are aware that we can't go on like this. 18.May 2006 BBC: Pentagon video ignites debate : The release of the video has ignited the debate over 11.Sep.2001 conspiracy theories. Newsnight's Mark Urban reports.
18.May 2006 Aipac Case Impacting Security Clearance : The Pentagon is invoking the prosecution of two pro-Israel lobbyists and a Defense Department analyst for illegal use of classified information as a basis for stripping security clearances from government contractor employees who have dual citizenship in America and Israel or family members living in the Jewish state. 18.May 2006 Appointment of monitor adds teeth: The U.S. State Department just added a set of teeth to its fledgling office monitoring anti-Semitism. 18.May 2006 Egypt: Police Assault Demonstrators, Journalists : Thousands of Egyptian security forces sealed off much of downtown Cairo on Thursday and violently attacked protestors attempting to demonstrate in support of reformist judges, Human Rights Watch said today. 18.May 2006 A welcome at the White House: Why is Bush cosying up to the Egyptian president while government thugs are beating up demonstrators in Cairo?
18.May 2006 Rumsfeld won't promise Iraq troop cut : Rumsfeld, testifying before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, faced questions from senators about when the Pentagon planned to reduce the U.S. military presence in Iraq more than 3 years into a war in which about 2,450 U.S. troops have died. 18.May 2006 'Why did my son die in vain?' : In Iraq, a soldier is killed; in Baltimore, his father is angry 18.May 2006 In case you missed it: Video: A Message From The "Iraq Resistance" : "We are simple people who chose principles over fear." 18.May 2006 Prodi says Iraq war 'grave mistake', pledges troop withdrawal : Italy's new Prime Minister Romano Prodi has told lawmakers in the Senate that the war in Iraq was a "grave mistake", pledging his centre-left government would withdraw Rome's troops from the country he described as under "occupation". 18.May 2006 Rumsfeld Seeks Extra Funds for War Bills : With war bills to pay, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is calling on Congress to pass President Bush's request for an extra $65 billion to cover costs in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. 18.May 2006 Video Report: Food Not Bombs : Food Not Bombs protests against war by feeding the homeless and the hungry + while the FBI may have managed to silence some anti-war campaigners, the co-founder of Food Not Bombs just won't shut up, even when he's accused of being part of a "domestic terror group". Dateline's Elizabeth Tadic caught up with him, almost predictably in poverty-stricken Nigeria. 18.May 2006 Canada has spent more than $4.1 billion on Afghan missions : Canada contributes only 59 military personnel to UN missions around the world, while about 2,200 troops are stationed under U.S. command in Afghanistan, the group said. 18.May 2006 Europe Shames U.S. Congress?: CIA war crimes in Europe are now under official investigation there, but not here 18.May 2006 The Pentagon's ghost investigation: Nearly two years ago, a top general urged a probe into illegal "ghost detainees" held at Abu Ghraib prison. But according to the Pentagon, it never happened -- and never will. 18.May 2006 Films on Guantánamo and Iraq face war of cuts : Two new films which expose unpleasant truths about Guantanamo and the battle for Iraq are coming under pressure from censors in the United States. 18.May 2006 Pentagon launches Guantanamo PR campaign: Officials from the Joint Chiefs of Staff Detainee Affairs Section have worked up a new briefing and made presentations in recent months to some 3,000 people, including media representatives and members of Congress, stressing the strategic value of detainees at the prison camp. 18.May 2006 No security guarantee for Iran: US : The United States will not give Iran security guarantees in exchange for forfeiting its nuclear programme, state department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Wednesday. 18.May 2006 A pretext for blocking technological advancement : The West is currently using the pretext of security concerns in an attempt to control the nuclear activities of the countries of the global South. 18.May 2006 US-Iran ties: is the pen mightier than the sword?: Secret talks may be in progress in an attempt to ward off a potential military confrontation 18.May 2006 David Halpin: Siege of 1.4 Million Souls in Gaza v International Law: The US has driven this policy of isolation with the clear intention of destabilising the elected government so that it is overturned. 18.May 2006 Remi Kanazi: The Existing Question: One cannot expect the Palestinian Authority to recognize Israel’s “right to exist.”
18.May 2006 The High Cost of Democratic Elections in Palestine By Dianne Monroe
"In my village, starvation and for real," says the woman in halting English. The overseas connection makes her voice sound faint and almost ethereal. In front of me is a glass of cold lemonade. Across the table is a tin of homemade pastries. Continue 18.May 2006 Bush Is Certifiable George W. Bush is suffering from a peculiar but not that uncommon form of madness. By Paul Levy
Bush literally feels himself above human morality, as he is under the self-generating delusion that he is the supreme moral arbiter, not realizing in the slightest that he has fallen into his unconscious, whose dark side he is acting out. Because of his pathological condition, he is the last person who should be the judge of morality, the very last person on earth choosing justices for the Supreme Court. Continue 18.May 2006 Oil Diplomacy By Robert Dreyfuss Nothing the Bush administration ever does is about oil. It didn’t invade Iraq because that country might have more oil than Saudi Arabia. It isn’t threatening Iran because Iran has a tenth of the world’s oil and one-sixth of its natural gas. And the United States isn’t cozying up to autocrats in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan because the Caspian Sea is a mini-Persian Gulf in the middle of Central Asia, either. Continue 18.May 2006 Congo's tragedy: the war the world forgot By Johann Hari
This is the story of the deadliest war since Adolf Hitler’s armies marched across Europe. It is a war that has not ended. But is also the story of a trail of blood that leads directly to you: to your remote control, to your mobile phone, to your laptop and to your diamond necklace. Continue
18.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,druck-416773,00.html
Mehr als 160 Wissenschaftler aus Großbritannien und den USA hatten die genaue Abfolge der Chromosomen-Bausteine ermittelt und stellen das Ergebnis nun in der aktuellen Ausgabe des Fachblatts "Nature" vor. Sie hoffen, mit Hilfe der Sequenzdaten auch die genetische Grundlage zahlreicher Krankheiten aufklären zu können. Das Chromosom 1 ist das größte menschliche Chromosom. Insgesamt sind in ihm rund acht % der gesamten genetischen Information gespeichert. Dort befinden sich 3141 der insgesamt etwa 25.000 menschlichen Gene. Es enthält etwa zwei Mal mehr Gene als ein durchschnittliches menschliches Chromosom. Mehr als 350 Krankheiten stehen mit Veränderungen des Chromosoms 1 in Verbindung, darunter verschiedene Krebsarten und neurologische Erkrankungen, wie Alzheimer und Parkinson, berichten die Wissenschaftler um Simon Gregory vom Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Großbritannien (Cambridgeshire), an dem ein Großteil des Chromosoms entziffert wurde. "Wir beginnen jetzt mit der nächsten Phase, bei der wir herausfinden, was die Gene tun und wie sie einander beeinflussen", sagte Simon Gregory vom Sanger-Institut.
18.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/Two strange 9/11 stories (Update: Make that THREE) I must bring two strange 9/11 tales to your attention:
1. Judy knew! In July of 2001, Judith Miller got advance word of a big Al Qaeda attack from a White House Source. S'funny -- why has she never mentioned this development before? It wasn't newsworthy? Or did those notorious "Aspen roots" twirl around her tongue?
Think about it. If, at the time of the 9/11 hearings (compromised as they were) the world knew that Judy knew because a White House source knew -- the public would have pressured those committees to get this "source" on the record. Why did Judy provide cover?
Update: An extremely full accounting of this episode can be found on Alternet. Many questions are answered...but not the one that I asked: Why did Judy keep mum for years?
2. Skyway, Titan and Makram Chams. Daniel Hopsicker has a very important tale up. Remember Titan corporation, the big defense contractor? They've been involved in some rather odd affairs...
18.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/Although the intrepid and courageous Hopsicker did the research into the strange Chams story, perhaps the most efficient summary of it is the one here,
18.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/Point being, there was a definite connection between Chams and Saudi interests. And, if eyewitness testimony is to be believed, there was also a connection between Chams + Atta. So. Why did Makram Chams, friend to wealthy Middle Easterners, own a small business in faraway Florida? Why did he simply abandon (not sell: abandon ) that business right after 9/11?
18.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/And why did he go to work for Titan in Saudi Arabia? We are told that Chams was a consultant to Titan. And then something strange happened: 14.Mar.2005 Makram Majid Chams, a former consultant of Titan filed a claim with the Preliminary Committee on Labor Disputes Settlement in Saudi Arabia. Mr. Chams alleges that Titan wrongfully terminated his consulting agreement and that he was defamed by Titan's publication in a local newspaper of a mandatory notice that he is no longer representing Titan. The plaintiff is seeking approximately $21.9 million in damages. Titan intends to defend its position vigorously.
18.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/Jacaranda Fuels did exist in Venice, Florida until 2002.
18.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/WTC survivor and truth activist William Rodriguez was contacted by the Anderson Cooper show and asked if he would go on record as saying the new Pentagon footage dispelled all 9/11 questions. They also requested that he attack Charlie Sheen's public stance on 9/11. How the hell can that video answer all questions...? Permalink
18.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/Net neutrality in the senate The attack on net neutraility must be defeated in the Senate. For the latest, see Art Brodsky's column here. I'm exceptionally disappointed with Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, who has backed this offense. But he seems to be wavering. So if you want to contact someone, start with him. We also have to sway Olympia Snowe of Maine, Barbara Boxer of California (yes, she hasn't taken a stand yet) and Maria Cantwell of Washington.
By the way: For obvious reasons, these guys pay more attention to constituents. If you do not live in their states + if you want them to think you do, here's a trick: Call their D.C. offices at night, when the staff is gone. Dial *67 before you dial the number. Leave a message telling 'em not to expect your vote if they do anything to change net neutrality. If they get hundreds of calls on this subject every single night... Permalink
18.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,druck-416712,00.html
Sodomie, Sex zwischen Mensch und Tier in der Vorzeit? Mit dieser These würzen US-Wissenschaftler ihre Forschungsergebnisse, einen Vergleich von Schlüsselsequenzen im Erbgut von Schimpansen und Homo sapiens. Immerhin, einer der Autoren ist Eric Lander, einer der Gründer des Broad Institute in Boston, einer gemeinsamen Einrichtung des Massachusetts Institute of Technology und der Harvard University. Es ist eines der weltweit bedeutendsten Genforschungszentren und hatte den größten Einzelanteil am internationalen Humangenomprojekt. Die anderen Mitglieder des Forschungsteams gehören allesamt ebenfalls zu Broad oder einer der beiden Elite-Unis. Vorab online veröffentlicht wurden die Ergebnisse - und Schlussfolgerungen - der Forscher von der Wissenschaftszeitschrift "Nature". "Die Analyse förderte große Überraschungen mit weitreichenden Folgen für die menschliche Evolution zutage", schwärmt Lander. Behält er Recht, dürfte das keine übertriebene Einschätzung sein. Trennung später als gedacht
18.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/erde/0,1518,druck-416843,00.html Noch stärkerer Konsens im nächsten Uno-Klimareport Im Jahr 2007 wird das IPCC seinen nächsten Bericht über den Stand der Forschung zu Mensch, Klima und Kohlendioxid veröffentlichen. Watson berichtete aus Gesprächen mit Mitgliedern einer Arbeitsgruppe, die diesen Bericht gerade vorbereitet: "Jeder, mit dem ich in der Arbeitsgruppe gesprochen habe, sagte, dass die Beweise stichhaltiger werden." Der Großteil der beobachtbaren Erwärmung sei auf menschliches Handeln zurückzuführen. Im dritten IPCC-Bericht waren globale Temperaturanstiege zwischen 1,4 und 5,8 Grad Celsius bis zum Jahr 2100 vorhergesagt worden. Neueste Forschungen deuteten darauf hin, dass sich die tatsächliche Entwicklung wohl im oberen Bereich dieser Schätzung abspielen werde, so Roberts.
18.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/erde/0,1518,druck-416843,00.html
Die Wissenschaftler und die Journalisten - Umweltaktivisten werden als "Alarmisten" bezeichnet - unterdrücken nach Meinung der Lobbyisten solche Forschungsergebnisse, die das Gegenteil belegten. Zwei kurz eingeblendete "Science"-Artikel sollen diese These stärken. "Warum macht man uns Angst?", lautet hier die Suggestivfrage vor der Entwarnung: "Kohlendioxid ist kein Smog oder Rauch. Es ist, was wir aus- und Pflanzen einatmen." So einfach ist das. Die Werbespots sind just eine Woche vor dem US-Start der Dokumentation "Eine unangenehme Warheit" ("An inconvenient truth") platziert. Auch von diesem Film steht ein Werbeclip im Internet. Der ehemalige US-Vizepräsident Al Gore will darin die Zuschauer für die Folgen des globalen Klimawandels sensibilisieren. In den USA bedeutet das erstmal zu erklären, dass es den Wandel und seine Folgen überhaupt gibt. Gegen Gore, gegen Gesetze, gegen den Stand der Dinge Gegen die Konsequenzen dieser Einsicht lobbyiert das CEI nach Kräften. Wie der euphemistische Name des Instituts erkennen lässt, vertritt die Bush- und industrienahe Organisation Marktlösungen anstelle von gesetzlichen Vorschriften in der Umweltpolitik. Die Werbefilmchen sollen bis Ende Mai im Fernsehprogramm von 15 Städten in den USA gesendet werden, darunter in Austin, Dallas, Denver, Sacramento, Santa Barbara und Washington.
18.May 2006 Gefangenen- Verschleppung: El- Masri- Klage gegen CIA vorläufig abgewiesen
18.May 2006 Kontensperre der EU: Sanktionen scheren Lukaschenko wenig
18.May 2006 Klage gegen Knöllchen: Anwalt muss Strafe zahlen, weil er vor Gericht zog
18.May 2006 CIA- Anhörung im Senat: Hayden will verschärft auf klassische Spionage setzen
18.May 2006 Großbritannien: Transplantation verweigert - herzkranke Nigerianerin stirbt 18.May 2006 Steigende Energiepreise: "Zur Not den Konzernen die Netze wegnehmen"
18.May 2006 Atomprogramm: Ahmadinedschad nennt Gegner Irans "geisteskrank"
18.May 2006 Elektroschocks und Schläge: Europarat kritisiert Folter in Serbien 18.May 2006 Kursrutsch: Nervenprobe für Investoren
18.May 2006 Weißrussland: EU friert Lukaschenkos Konten ein
18.May 2006 Urteil: Zehn Monate Haft für Bushs Wahlkampf- Mitarbeiter
18.May 2006 CO2- Propaganda: "Die nennen es Verschmutzung, wir nennen es Leben"
18.May 2006 Konjunktur: Europas Wirtschaft im Stimmungshoch
18.May 2006 Italien: Prodi will raschen Truppenabzug aus dem Irak
18.May 2006 Medizin: Neues Antibiotikum tötet Superkeime
18.May 2006 Genetik: Letztes menschliches Chromosom entschlüsselt
18.May 2006 Unruhen in São Paulo: Menschenrechtler kritisieren Polizei
18.May 2006 Tödlicher Taifun: "Chanchu" tobt über China 18.May 2006 Kartellverdacht: EU- Razzia bei E.on und RWE 18.May 2006 Möglicher Strategiewechsel: USA erwägen Friedensabkommen mit Nordkorea
18.May 2006 Illegale Einwanderung: US- Senat billigt Pläne für Grenzzaun zu Mexiko
18.May 2006 Evolution: Hatten Vorfahren von Mensch und Schimpanse Sex?
18.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/weltraum/0,1518,druck-416937,00.html
Der 41 Lichtjahre von der Erde entfernte - und damit recht nahe - Stern HD 69830 machte bereits im vergangenen Jahr von sich reden, als Astronomen entdeckten, dass er von einem ausgedehnten Asteroidengürtel umgeben ist. Fast qualifizierte sich das nahe System damit für die Top-Liste der Nasa. Die hatte jüngst ihre Kriterien für die Suche nach Leben im All definiert: Erdähnliche Planeten, die sonnenähnliche Sterne umkreisen, Wasservorkommen besitzen könnten und nicht allzu weit von der Erde entfernt sind.
18.May 2006 https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/16/AR2006051601537_pf.html I think these are safe and very beneficial products," said Bailey, who oversaw the FDA's cosmetics program for a decade. Asked why companies rarely release the results of their safety studies, Bailey said the information was generally proprietary -- as are the ingredients. "We really don't know much about what they're putting in, or the levels," he said. But companies have lots of incentive to make their products safe, he added. Two years ago, Britain's Royal Society recommended that nanoproducts not be sold until they have undergone independent safety assessments and the results are made public. It also said that products containing engineered nanoparticles should be labeled as such, a move the industry has opposed. The FDA does not comment on legal challenges and has six months to respond to yesterday's petition.
18.May 2006 https://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,70914-0.html Narus has little control over how its products are used after they're sold. For example, although its lawful-intercept application has a sophisticated system for making sure the surveillance complies with the terms of a warrant, it's up to the operator whether to type those terms into the system, says Bannerman. That legal eavesdropping application was launched in February 2005, well after whistle-blower Klein allegedly learned that AT&T was installing Narus boxes in secure, NSA-controlled rooms in switching centers around the country. But that doesn't mean the government couldn't write its own code to do the dirty work. Narus even offers software-development kits to customers. "Our product is designed to comply (with) all of the laws in all of the countries we ship to," says Bannerman. "Many of our customers have built their own applications. We have no idea what they do."
18.May 2006 https://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,70914-0.html
Courtroom Clash! A federal judge refuses to give AT&T back its internal documents, but orders the EFF not to give them out. Whistle-blower's Precognition Years before the NSA's warrantless surveillance program made national headlines, then-AT&T technician Mark Klein suspected his company was colluding with the government to spy on Americans. Exhibit A? Former AT&T technician Mark Klein offers a firsthand account of his alleged discovery of a secret room routing American internet traffic straight to the NSA -- and provides documents he says proves his case. The Ultimate Net Monitoring Tool A little-known company called Narus makes the packet-inspection technology said to be the basis of the NSA's internet surveillance. Here's how it works. Plus: Daily updates from 27B Stroke 6, the Wired News security and privacy blog
18.May 2006 The Ultimate Net Monitoring Tool
A little-known California firm called Narus makes the deep packet-inspection technology said to be the basis of the NSA's internet surveillance. Here's how it works. By Robert Poe.
18.May 2006 FDA Asked to Regulate Nanotechnology ScuttleMonkey 122
WillAffleckUW writes "According to the Washington Post, a coalition of environmental and consumer groups has asked the FDA to look at regulating nanotechnology. They point out that there are more than 100 nanotechnology products and that nanoparticles can penetrate cells and tissues, migrate through the body and brain and cause biochemical damage."
18.May 2006 The Ultimate Net Monitoring Tool? ScuttleMonkey 231
Wired News is reporting that the equipment found in the "secret" NSA room at AT&T wasn't some elaborate device designed by Big Brother. Rather, it is a commercially available network-analysis product that any company could acquire. "'Anything that comes through (an IP network), we can record,' says Steve Bannerman, marketing vice president of Narus, a Mountain View, California, company. 'We can reconstruct all of their e-mails along with attachments, see what web pages they clicked on, we can reconstruct their VOIP calls.'"
18.May 2006 https://finance.google.com/finance
Jury ends day one of deliberations at Enron trial
Reuters - 57 minutes ago
Jurors in the trial of former Enron CEOs Ken Lay + Jeffrey Skilling ended their first day of deliberations on Wednesday without reaching a verdict on charges ...
Enron jury begins deliberations Chicago Tribune
A Look at Those Involved in Enron Scandal Houston Chronicle
18.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,druck-416739,00.html Börsianern zufolge setzte eine Spirale nach unten ein: "Bei zunehmend abfallenden Kursen der großen Indizes nahmen die Umsätze immer mehr zu", sagte ein Händler. Fast alle Werte in den großen Indizes wurden von diesem Abwärtssog ins Minus gezogen. Die Aktien der Deutschen Börse verloren nach anfänglichen Kursgewinnen 2,93 % auf 109,47 Euro. Das Hin und Her über Fusionsalternativen der Euronext zur Deutschen Börse oder eine doch bevorstehende Einigung riss nicht ab. Die negative Entwicklungen spiegelte sich in ganz Europa wider: Der DJ Stoxx50-Index der 50 größten börsennotierten europäischen Unternehmen schloss 2,9 % tiefer bei 3356 Zählern. Der DJ Euro Stoxx50-Index der 50 größten börsennotierten Unternehmen der Euro-Zone fiel um 3,4 % auf 3605 Punkte. Die europäischen Börsen nahmen damit nach einer Unterbrechung gestern ihre Abwärtsbewegung wieder auf. In London sackte der FTSE 100 -Index um 2,9 % auf 5675,5 Punkte ab. In Zürich fiel der SMI um 2,9 % auf 7658,5 Punkte. In Paris rutschte der CAC 40 Index um 3,2 % auf 4920 Punkte. Der AEX.Index in Amsterdam verlor 3,2 % auf 436 Punkte. Und der MIB30-Index der Mailänder Börse gab 2,8 % auf 36.506 Zähler nach. kaz/dpa/Reuters
18.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,druck-416755,00.html
Paris - "Die Nationalversammlung hat eine Politik für gültig erklärt, die uns um 30 Jahre zurückwirft", teilte die Bewegung gegen Rassismus mit. Der sozialistische Abgeordnete Serge Blisko sagte, das Gesetz würde das Leben tausender Familien komplizierter machen. "Es ist ein Text, der fundamentale Rechte verweigert und Fremdenfeindlichkeit schürt." Gegen die geplanten Änderungen zur Einwanderung hatten mehrere tausend Franzosen protestiert.
17.May 2006 Aufstand in Sao Paolo: Immer mehr Tote bei Gangsterterror
17.May 2006 DaimlerChrysler: Arbeitslose sollen E- Klasse montieren
17.May 2006 Aktienkurse: Europas Börsen auf Talfahrt
17.May 2006 https://www.rawstory.com/admin/dbscripts/printstory.php?story=2141 "Prosecutors want to know who paid for the lavish trips to European castles + top end Hawaiian resorts, including this $7,000 a night Honolulu beachfront mansion, owned at one time by hair stylist super-star Paul Mitchell," ABC reports. "Wilkes, a close personal friend of Foggo is suspected of paying bribes to Congressman Duke Cunningham, who recently pled guilty in the corruption investigation."
17.May 2006 World opinion of U.S. sinking Thanks Chimpy!
Keeping the peace, winning the war on terrorism and other critical goals are achievable "only if people like you and trust you," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center.
Instead, Kohut and his associates find American credibility eroding, even among NATO allies.
17.May 2006 Mummy found in pyramid in Peru dates to A.D. 450 Archaeologists in Peru have discovered a 15-century-old mummy of a tattooed Moche woman entombed with a dazzling collection of weapons and jewelry.
17.May 2006 China likely to launch moon probe next April China's first lunar satellite may be launched during a fly-by mission in April in 2007, said Luan Enjie, director of the China National Space Administration on Tuesday, May 16.
17.May 2006 but this video does more to raise my suspicions than allay them. And despite media claims that the video shows "American Airlines Flight 77 crashing into the military headquarters building" it really does nothing of the sort. It shows something hitting the Pentagon, but I couldn't swear in court that it was a plane.
17.May 2006 Actually, what makes me more suspicious than anything else about the fate of Flight 77 is that Bush Cabal mouthpiece Ted Olson was the only person who supposedly received a phone call from the plane. How convenient. Here's an informative essay on Olson's supposed phone call and its subsequent impact on the media.
17.May 2006 ABC uncovers ex-CIA executive director's seven-bedroom, 12 guest Hawaiian hideaway Raw Story's got it. With paradisical pics!
17.May 2006 Sploid: Illegal Alien! Attorney General Alberto Gonzales shocked the nation Tuesday when he told CNN there's no proof his family immigrated legally to the United States.
17.May 2006 Save Nazanin Petition 03.Jan.2006 18-year-old Nazanin was sentenced to death for murder by court in Iran after she reportedly admitted fatally stabbing one of three men who attempted to rape her and her 16-year-old niece in a park in Karaj (a suburb of Tehran) in March 2005. She was seventeen at the time. Her sentence is subject to review by the Court of Appeal + if upheld, to confirmation by the Supreme Court.
According to reports in the Iranian newspaper E'temaad, Nazanin told the court that three men had approached her and her niece, forced them to the ground and attempted to rape them. Seeking to defend her niece and herself, Nazanin stabbed one man in the hand with a knife that she possessed. As the men continued their attack, she stabbed another of the men in the chest, which eventually caused his death. She reportedly told the court "I wanted to defend myself and my niece. I did not want to kill that boy. At the heat of the moment I did not know what to do because no one came to our help". She was nevertheless sentenced to the maximum punishment possible under the law, death by hanging. Please sign.
17.May 2006 U.S. opens assault on wiretap suit : AT&T is accused of aiding surveillance : The Bush administration has launched a multipronged attack on a lawsuit that accuses AT&T of collaborating with the U.S. government in illegal electronic surveillance, arguing that customers can't prove their phones were tapped or that the company or the government broke the law -- and that, in any event, the entire case endangers national security. 17.May 2006 Dow Plunges More Than 145 Pts. on CPI Data : Stocks plunged Wednesday after a stronger-than-expected rise in consumer inflation fueled Wall Street's fear that interest rates will keep climbing. The Dow Jones industrial average lost more than 145 points. 17.May 2006 Even China cannot feed a permanent bull: Beware: all of this has bubble written all over it. It is a time of extreme danger for the unwary, with all the sadly familiar tell-tale signs of trouble ahead. There is the sense of supreme optimism that this time the permanent bull market is for real. There is always a reason why it's different this time + this time that reason is China. 17.May 2006 Dollar Falls on Speculation Central Banks Are Reducing Holdings : A U.S. report yesterday showed foreign central banks were net sellers of Treasury notes for the first time in six months. 17.May 2006 U.S. Housing Starts Fell 7.4% in April : Builders in the U.S. broke ground on the fewest homes since November 2004 as higher borrowing costs eroded demand, a government report showed. 17.May 2006 Pension Deficit, Now $500 Billion,: The $500 billion deficit in U.S. company retirement plans is about to bite corporate bond investors.
17.May 2006 Is U.S. backing warlords against Somali Islamists? :: Officials of Somalia's interim government and some U.S. analysts of Africa policy say the United States has returned to the African country, secretly supporting secular warlords who have been waging fierce battles against Islamic groups for control of the capital, Mogadishu.
17.May 2006 Dr. Bulent Gokay: Iraq, Iran and the end of petrodollar : The waning influence of the USA in the Asian century 17.May 2006 Venezuela 'may swap oil currency' : Venezuela has hinted it could price its oil exports in euros rather than US dollars, further weakening its links to the US. War pimp alert : Chavez accused of ties to terrorists : Venezuela has allowed its intelligence service to become a clone of Cuba's while it shelters groups with ties to Middle East terrorists and allows weapons from its official stockpiles to reach Colombian guerrillas, a senior U.S. official said yesterday. 17.May 2006 Chavez in London: Transcript of press conference: Mr. President, is the government of Venezuela disposed to cut the flow of oil to the United States in the case that the United States attacks Iran? 17.May 2006 Venezuela, China Sign $1.3 Billion Tanker Deal : Venezuela has signed a $1.3 billion agreement with China to purchase 18 oil tankers to facilitate the south American country's expanding Asian market. 17.May 2006 Venezuela’s Chavez meets with Gadhafi in Libya: Gadhafi, his face partly covered by a large brown scarf draped over his Arab tribal robe, welcomed Hugo Chavez at his house, scarred with bullet holes and showing damage to some of the crenelated concrete at the top of the building from a 1986 U.S. bombing raid. 17.May 2006 The Real Libya Model : Here is the real story on Libya, corroborated by multiple sources. Kaddafi cut his deal in 2003 only after the British and Americans assured him that Bush would settle for "policy change"—that is, giving up his nukes—rather than regime change. 17.May 2006 Bolivia unveils plan to distribute land to poor: Bolivia outlined on Tuesday its plan to redistribute idle land to the country's poor peasants, ruling out mass expropriations and proposing instead the swift distribution of state-owned property. 17.May 2006 George Monbiot: When two poor countries reclaimed oilfields, why did just one spark uproar? : The outcry over Bolivia's renationalisation and the silence over Chad's betrays the hypocrisy of the critics 17.May 2006 Mexico Voters Fear Nation on Edge of Chaos: Police enraged by the kidnapping of six officers club unarmed detainees. A bloody battle between steelworkers and police leaves two miners dead. Drug lords post the heads of decapitated police on a fence to show who's in charge.
17.May 2006 Fmr. US Pres. Carter Called Convergence Plan "Illegal" : Former US President Jimmy Carter has called Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's unilateral Convergence Plan "illegal" + a violation of the Camp David Accords he brokered between Prime Minister Menachem Begin + Egyptian President Anwar Sadat 00.000.1978 . Carter further characterized the plan to retain large Jewish communities under Israeli sovereignty as a "confiscation of land". 17.May 2006 US to Israel: Don't request funds for convergence: Olmert did not plan on asking the US administration for any economic support for the future West Bank pullout plan on this trip. 17.May 2006 The convergence bluff : The new Israeli prime minister's "convergence plan" is a Trojan horse, Ehud Olmert's record in office shows that he is not preparing for peace.
17.May 2006 Murtha Renews Call for U.S. Troop Withdrawal from Iraq: Congressman John Murtha says President Bush has no plan for victory in Iraq + U.S. troops should leave.
17.May 2006 ''Iraq's Impending Fracture to Produce Political Earthquake in Turkey'': The birth of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq will end Turkey's E.U. accession hopes. The collapse of the accession process will strongly undermine the legitimacy of the ruling Justice and Development Party (A.K.P.), making it increasingly vulnerable to political attacks from Turkey's secular establishment. These attacks could prompt the disintegration of the Erdogan government as soon as the end of 2006.
17.May 2006 UK: Browne signals Iraq withdrawal: Speaking on his first visit to the embattled country since becoming defence secretary, Mr Browne dismissed claims that Basra and the rest of the UK's military command in the south of Iraq were unstable as "ridiculous".
17.May 2006 Support Our Troops, Anybody? By Dahr Jamail
Last week the Government Accountability Office announced that "less than one quarter of the US military's Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who show signs of post-traumatic stress are referred for additional mental health treatment or evaluation, according to a government study." Continue 17.May 2006 This isn’t Policy; its barbarism By Mike Whitney
Politics is a murky business which rarely presents clear moral choices. That’s what makes the humanitarian crisis in Palestine so exceptional; there is no gray-area whatsoever. The withholding of food, medical supplies and resources is manifestly immoral + those who support that policy, even by their silence, are participating in a grave injustice. Continue 17.May 2006 Bowing To The Police StateBy Ray McGovern
Is Congress aiding and abetting the creation of a police state? Recently, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., helped to give the CIA and NSA unprecedented police powers. By inserting a provision in the FY07 Intelligence Authorization Act, Hoekstra has undermined the existing statutory limits on involvement in domestic law enforcement. This comes after revelations in January of direct NSA involvement with the Baltimore police in order to "protect" the NSA Headquarters from Quaker protesters. Continue 17.May 2006 Exclusive Venzuela's Hugo Chavez asserts America is trying to kill himBy: Channel 4 - UK
He says he is protecting himself against US aggression - and says he may join forces with Tehran in their plan to undermine the US dollar by selling their oil in Euros. Click here to watch. Windows Media
17.May 2006 Greg Palast for BuzzFlash.com: Big Brother Inc. Tries to Fool Randi Rhodes -- And That's Not Nice
Boston Globe: Keep Net Untrammled. Don't Let Phony Telecom Ads on Progressive Blogs Fool You.
If You Don't Want to Return to a Cave of Bushevik Propaganda, Help Save the Internet Now! -- A BuzzFlash Editorial
Doris Colmes: Saving the Internet Is Saving Freedom - A BuzzFlash Reader Contribution 17.May 2006 Confidence In GOP Is At New Low in Poll 5/17
As Usual, Jon Stewart Nails the Bush Administration Lying Again and Again on NSA Domestic Spying, From Bush on Down
Neil Young: This Week's BuzzFlash "Wings of Justice Award" Winner. It is a joyous occasion when the voice of protest and authenticity emerges during a drought of mediocrity and mendacity. When least expected, Neil Young emerged with the inspirational invigorating album "Living with War."
The BuzzFlash Mailbag -- Uncensored and Unvarnished Truth from BuzzFlash Readers. 17.May 2006 False Framing of NSA Story - A BuzzFlash Reader Contribution
Frameshop: Let's Change the Story! U.S. Political Debate Stuck in 'Mob At The Gates' Story, Real Story Is 'Rot At The Top' 5/18
17.May 2006 Raubtier: Braunbär könnte nach Bayern wandern
17.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,druck-416685,00.html Historisch bedeutsam sei der Fund der Schiffsreste vor Newport, um die Belagerung der Stadt durch die Briten nachzuzeichnen. Die Franzosen hatten damals den ersten Versuch unternommen, die britischen Kolonien in ihrem Kampf um Unabhängigkeit zu unterstützen. Trotz eines Misserfolgs in Newport haben sich George Washington und der Comte de Rochambeau 1780 in der Stadt getroffen, um sich formell auf eine Allianz in den kommenden Schlachten zu einigen. Am Ende halfen die Franzosen den Amerikanern, die britischen Truppen auf einer Halbinsel bei Yorktown einzuschließen und damit 1781 den Krieg für sich zu entscheiden.
17.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,druck-416566,00.html Die Demoskopen warnen die demokratische Partei allerdings vor verfrühten Hoffnungen auf einen Machtwechsel. Die Opposition, die bislang noch keinen überzeugenden Gegenkandidaten zu Bush aufweisen kann, profitiert vor allem von Bushs wachsender Unbeliebtheit. Auch mit der Arbeit der demokratischen Kongressabgeordneten sind nur 40 % der Wähler zufrieden. Mehr als die Hälfte kann sich vorstellen einen neuen Abgeordneten zu wählen - eine Tendenz, die auch demokratische Amtsinhaber treffen würde. Für den Präsidenten persönlich dürfte es in jedem Fall schwer werden, das Vertrauen seiner Landsleute noch einmal zurückzugewinnen. Knapp 70 % der sonst so optimistischen Amerikaner glauben, dass die USA derzeit "nicht auf dem richtigen Weg" sind.
17.May 2006 Terrorismus: Al- Qaida- Bosse organisieren Anschläge nicht mehr selbst
17.May 2006 Schiffswracks: Captain Cooks "Endeavour" möglicherweise gefunden
17.May 2006 Taifunalarm: 500.000 Chinesen auf der Flucht 17.May 2006 Umfragewerte: Republikaner leiden unter Bush
17.May 2006 Journalisten und Geheimdienste: Gefährliche Tauschgeschäfte
17.May 2006 Odd things about the UK government narrative of the 7/7 London Bombs aangirfan: Odd things about the UK government narrative of the 7/7 London Bombs
17.May 2006 Charlie Sheen's Pentagon Questions Remain Unanswered Charlie Sheen's Pentagon Questions Remain Unanswered News anchors claimed new footage would 'shut him up' then looked disappointed as a few grainy images were
17.May 2006 Alter schützt vor Courage nicht Waterflake Wenn junge Menschen, oder sagen wir jede noch vor der Pension stehende Person, für ihre und die Rechte anderer auf die Barrikaden geht dann ist das eine ehrenwerte Sache jedoch sollte es uns so selbstverständlich sein wie das Atmen, doch das ist es leider nicht.
Um so außergewöhnliches und anmerkenswerter ist daher das Beispiel der Amerikanischen „Großmütter für den Frieden" Organisation. Und wer nun denkt da kämen ein paar schwache, zahnlose Mütterchen zusammen der irrt gewaltig, diese Bewegung ROCKED!
17.May 2006 Blair sticks by nuclear options Nuclear energy is not the "sole answer" to meeting UK energy needs but must be considered, Tony Blair says.
17.May 2006 Save more water, minister urges Everybody must play their part to save water as south-east England suffers drought, says the environment minister.
17.May 2006 Satellite radio in recordings row US satellite broadcaster XM is being sued over a gadget that lets people record what they are listening to.
17.May 2006 Stumbling Into a Spy Scandal Years before the NSA's warrantless surveillance made headlines, an AT&T technician suspected his company was colluding with the government to spy on Americans. But the whistle-blower got some of the details wrong. By Ryan Singel.
17.May 2006 AT&T Whistle-Blower's Evidence Former technician Mark Klein gives a firsthand account of finding a secret room routing U.S. internet traffic straight to the NSA - along with documents that he says prove his case.
17.May 2006 A day after BellSouth denied it helped the NSA compile a phone records database, Verizon Communications Inc. claimed it also did not give the government records of millions of phone calls . Meanwhile, BellSouth and AT&T were added to a class-action lawsuit against Verizon that alleges the companies illegally participated in an NSA domestic surveillance program. And finally, flashcards designed to help applicants for U.S. citizenship learn basic civics fails to mention a basic First Amendment freedom — the freedom of the press. Alfonso Aguilar, director of the office of citizenship at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, said, “The person who developed the test was not necessarily a civics or constitutional scholar.”
17.May 2006 The White House reversed its position yesterday + “agreed to brief all members of the House and Senate intelligence committees ” on their warrantless domestic spying program, “just as the architect of the program is facing a contentious confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill.” The administration is backing away from its claim that the “decision to restrict these briefings to a select group of members of Congress is in keeping with longstanding tradition when dealing with matters of extreme sensitivity…and it’s perfectly legal.” The National Climatic Data Center found that last month “was the hottest ever in the United States , according to records going back to 00.000.1895 .” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) accused Bush’s choice for deputy CIA directo r, Stephen Kappes, of “gross insubordination.” Hoekstra claimed former Director Porter Goss had “real concerns” about Kappes, whom he once fired, because he asked him to “do certain things or to stop from doing certain types of things + the guy refused.” “Seven members of the Congressional Black Caucus were arrested at the Embassy of Sudan on Tuesday while protesting conditions in the nation’s Darfur region .” “Enough is enough,” said Rep. John Lewis, (D-GA). “We must do all we can to stop the violence.” Click here to see video of the protest. Despite the anti-lobbyist rhetoric coming from Capitol Hill, lawmakers continue to ask lobbyists for money . “The Speaker [Dennis Hastert (R-IL)]…said we need to minimize our contact with lobbyists, implying something is not right,” said one lobbyist. But just this week, he received a fundraiser invitation from Hastert where the “suggested minimum contribution” was $2,500. “How dare he ask us for money.” 33: Bush approval rating according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll, another record low. 66 % disapprove of his handling of Iraq, a record high. 69 % believe the nation is on the wrong track. President Bush plans to sign a bill today extending $70 billion in tax cuts . “It is the latest — and perhaps finest — example of the perpetual motion machine that passes for tax policy in Congress + the Bush administration: making the tax code ever more complex and easier for those with squadrons of tax lawyers to exploit.”
17.May 2006 Google- Maps- Erweiterung: Sintflut auf dem Bildschirm
17.May 2006 Asbest- Schiff: Odyssee der "Clemenceau" endet in Brest
17.May 2006 Zeugenaussage: Angeklagter im Atomprozess schwer belastet 17.May 2006 Mysteriöse Mumie: Mädchenopfer zu Ehren einer Kriegerin
17.May 2006 Streit um 9/11- Gedenkstätte: Der Fluch von Ground Zero
17.May 2006 Gesundheitssorgen: Kalifornien verklagt Coca- Cola 17.May 2006 Bundesregierung: Kabinett beschließt Kongo- Einsatz der Bundeswehr
17.May 2006 Bad Arolsen: NS- Archiv bald für Wissenschaftler offen
17.May 2006 Spyware: Spionage im Büro (
17.May 2006 Pazifikraum: Erdbeben während Tsunami- Übung
17.May 2006 Antikapitalist: Morales will ungenutztes Land verteilen
17.May 2006 $200 billion. Judd New amount sought in a class action lawsuit against Verizon, AT&T and Bell South for handing over millions of customer records to the NSA.
17.May 2006 Miss Run Amok returns. Judd Judy Miller is no longer at the New York Times, but she’s back on the WMD beat.
16.May 2006 Memorandum To Tony Snow On The Use Of The Term ‘Tar Baby’ Think Progress
Date: May 16, 2006
To: White House Press Secretary Tony Snow
From: ThinkProgress.org Re: The use of the term “tar baby”
————————— Today in your first press briefing you referred to the term “tar baby” on two occasions: SNOW: Having said that, I don’t want to hug the tar baby of trying to comment on the program, the alleged program, the existence of which I can neither confirm nor deny. QUESTION: What are your personal goals? What do you hope to achieve here? Will you continue to televise these briefings? And would you put into English the phrase (OFF-MIKE) the tarbaby? SNOW: Well, I believe hug the tarbaby, we could trace that back to American lore . Based on the context of the term, we believe you meant tar baby to mean: “a situation almost impossible to get out of; a problem virtually unsolvable.” But in “American lore,” the expression tar baby is also a racial slur “used occasionally as a derogatory term for black people.” Use of the term has resulted in people being fired. As Random House notes, “some people suggest avoiding the use of the term in any context.” Now that you are no longer at Fox News, you may want to take them up on their advice. UPDATE: Check out Crooks and Liars to watch the video of Snow’s comments.
17.May 2006 Answering His First Question, Tony Snow Misleads White House Press Corps Faiz
New White House Press Secretary Tony Snow is already covering up President Bush’s mistakes. President Bush was asked earlier today about an NSA database reported by USA Today that tracks the phone records of “tens of millions” of Americans. Bush implicitly confirmed the existance of the program, claiming that Congress had been fully briefed on it: QUESTION: Mr. President, you’ve said that the government is not trolling through the lives of innocent Americans, but why shouldn’t ordinary people feel that their privacy is invaded by the NSA compiling a list of their telephone calls? BUSH: … The program he’s asking about is one that has been fully briefed to members of the United States Congress in both political parties. They’re very aware of what is taking place. The American people expect their government to protect them within the laws of this country + I’m going to continue to do just that. Holding his first White House press conference, the first question posed to Tony Snow was about Bush’s comments. Snow misled the press corps, claiming President Bush wasn’t talking about the collection of phone records by the NSA: QUESTION: In his news conference with John Howard, was the president giving kind of a backhanded confirmation of the stories that the NSA is compiling telephone lists? SNOW: No, he wasn’t. If you go back and listen to the answer he gave you, he was talking about foreign-to-domestic calls. The allegations in the USA Today piece, which we will neither confirm or deny, are of a different nature. So, no, he was not giving a backhanded confirmation. Same deception, new face.
17.May 2006 FCC Commissioner Michael Copps Judd said the agency should investigate “whether phone companies are violating federal communications law by providing calling records to the National Security Agency.”
17.May 2006 House Administration Chairman Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), who took over his chairman position from Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) (a.k.a. Representative #1 in the Abramoff court pleadings), said yesterday that “number of Members are very concerned about the way the Justice Department is investigating .” BellSouth claims it has no evidence it was contacted by the NSA and did not give the government access to any of its customers’ phone call records. “Based on our review to date, we have confirmed no such contract exists and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA.”
17.May 2006 7 July London bombs, Gladio and freemasons aangirfan: 7 July London bombs, Gladio and freemasons
15.May 2006 [UrukNet] - [Daily Information from Occupied Iraq] uruknet.info - information from occupied iraq - informazione dall'iraq occupato Pentagon PSYOP: "Terror Mastermind" Abu Musab Al Zarqawi is "Incompetent" Michel Chossudovsky, GlobalResearch.ca The Pentagon has released yet another mysterious video allegedly discovered in April by US forces in a hideout in the Al-Yusufiyah
17.May 2006 New witness verifies Able Danger claims
Able Danger Blog Able Danger was a small, military intelligence unit under Special Operations Command. It was created as a result of a directive in 00.Sep.1999 to develop a campaign against transnational terrorism, specifically al-Qaida. According to claims made by Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and confirmed by others, Able Danger had identified the 9/11 attack leader, Mohamed Atta, and
16.May 2006 CNN.com - 9/11 Pentagon video goes public for first time - May 16, 2006 CNN.com - 9/11 Pentagon video goes public for first time .
17.May 2006 Video of 9/11 plane at Pentagon released - U.S. Security - MSNBC.com Video of 9/11 plane at Pentagon released - U.S. Security - MSNBC.com
17.May 2006 US releases 9/11 Pentagon video The US releases the first video of a hijacked plane crashing into the Pentagon on 11.Sep.2001 .
17.May 2006 US Releasing 9/11 Flight 77 Pentagon Crash Tape ScuttleMonkey 679 Robotron23 writes "The BBC is reporting that the US government has decided to release the videotape depicting the crash of Flight 77 into the Pentagon building, nearly five years after the 9/11 attacks. The government had previously withheld the tape due to 'ongoing investigations' into al-Qaeda's Zacarias Moussaoui. A government representative commented that they 'hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories.'"
17.May 2006 Pentagon Video Is Giant Psy-Op Intended to create circus of interest around 'no plane' theories, later debunk them Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison
17.May 2006 Release Of Pentagon Images Direct Assault On 9/11 Truth Movement Politically timed release also coincides with Bush record low approval and surveillance furore
17.May 2006 The Blotter The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly seeking reporters' phone records in leak investigations. "It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration," said a senior federal official.
17.May 2006 Bush gifts: iPod from Bono, poker chips and bike Bush, an avid mountain biker, received two pairs of cycling shoes valued at $515 from Trek Nike Cycling Division in addition to the bicycle from John Burke, president of Trek Bicycle Corp., according to financial disclosure reports released by the White House on Monday. But the $17,316 ... 17.May 2006 Verizon Also Denies NSA Spying Role
Following a denial by BellSouth, Verizon on Tuesday said it had no involvement in providing call records of millions of Americans to the National Security Agency. The denials came a week after a USA Today report claimed both companies, along with AT&T, were working with the NSA.
17.May 2006 Current volcanic activity and climate? Gavin There has been a lot in the news recently about current volcanic activity - Merapi in Indonesia + Bezymianny in the Kamchatka peninsula in Russia, but while most reports have focussed on the very real dangers to the local populace and air traffic, volcanoes can have important impacts on climate .. 17.May 2006 Pacific states hold tsunami test More than 30 countries around the Pacific rim test their tsunami warning system by holding mock alerts.
17.May 2006 Blair backs nuclear power plans Tony Blair says building new nuclear power stations in the UK is "back on the agenda with a vengeance".
17.May 2006 Reid 'has no idea' on immigrants Home Secretary John Reid admits he does not know how many illegal immigrants there are in the UK.
17.May 2006 Glaxo 'won't be driven out of UK' Drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline will not be driven overseas by animal rights "extremists", its chief says.
17.May 2006 French 'toxic' ship returns home An asbestos-lined French warship goes home after years of trying to find a scrapyard ready to take it.
17.May 2006 Da Vinci film protests stepped up Christian groups across the world step up protests against The Da Vinci Code film ahead of its global release this week.
17.May 2006 Hewlett Packard posts profit jump Computer and printer maker Hewlett Packard posts a 51% rise in profits, buoyed by rising computer sales.
17.May 2006 Drugs minister 'smoked marijuana' Vernon Coaker, the new minister for drugs policy, admits smoking marijuana while at university.
17.May 2006 Fight crime, street cleaners told Street cleaners and window fitters should observe signs of illegal activity in neighbourhoods a report says.
17.May 2006 Australia and US restate alliance US President George W Bush and visiting Australian PM John Howard reaffirm their strong alliance.
17.May 2006 Illegal immigrants 'not hunted' Little effort is made to track down illegal immigrants who lose touch with the authorities, MPs are told.
17.May 2006 French PM survives censure motion The embattled French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin survives a no-confidence vote in parliament.
17.May 2006 Tight controls on food labelling The European Parliament passes new laws to clamp down on misleading claims on food product labels.
17.May 2006 Measles hits rare Andaman tribe Nearly 50 members of an isolated tribe in India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands have contracted measles, officials say.
17.May 2006 More men dying from skin cancer The number of men who have died from skin cancer in the UK has topped a thousand a year.
17.May 2006 Council passes home smoke ban People in Denbighshire will be asked not to smoke in their homes if council workers are present in a sweeping ban.
17.May 2006 Heroin warning after deaths rise A rise in drug deaths in the Strathclyde Police force area is blamed on double strength heroin.
17.May 2006 Lawmakers Clash on Phone Records Everyone agrees data brokers should be prohibited from selling your phone records to private eyes and others. But Congress is hung up over who gets to enforce new legislation. 17.May 2006 Virtual Wall Rises in U.S. Desert Technology meets foot patrols in a bid to block illegal immigration on the Mexico border.
17.May 2006 Brave New World for Public Media Broadcasters ought to take their cues from bloggers, say presenters at a media conference. But plenty are loath to embrace the new paradigm. By Mark Anderson.
17.May 2006 BellSouth: No Call Data to NSA Disputing a USA Today report that it gave the government access to customer phone records after 9/11, BellSouth claims its own thorough review of records came up clean.
17.May 2006 Microsoft sets sights on site-tracking firm Blog: Microsoft has made a bid to buy WebHancer, a Canadian Internet intelligence company, for as much as $10 million, according to...
17.May 2006 Bio-Engineered Rice Uses Human Genes ScuttleMonkey 26 gliph writes "Yahoo news has a piece about a small biogenetics firm that is using genetically engineered rice containing human genes to help fight diarrhea. 'Ventria's rice produces two human proteins found in mother's milk, saliva + tears, which help people hydrate and lessen the severity and duration of diarrhea attacks, a top killer of children in developing countries.'"
17.May 2006 Can Peer-To-Peer Finance Work? ScuttleMonkey 167 Dotnaught writes "Two companies, Prosper and Zopa, appear to be convinced that social networking can be combined with borrowing and lending. They're intent on using eBay as a model for listing + bidding on loans without the involvement of a bank. Call it peer-to-peer finance. There are already some 800 groups on Prosper ready to loan money to specific causes, such as the Apple User Group, 'a lending group for those wishing to purchase either a Macintosh or Apple iPod.'"
17.May 2006 Atomstreit: Ahmadinedschad lehnt EU-Vorschlag empört ab 17.May 2006 Verteidigungs-Strategie des Opus Dei: "Eine kleine Bußgeißel gehört zum Normalinventar" 17.May 2006 Rapide Schmelze: In 20 Jahren sind Afrikas tropische Gletscher weg
17.May 2006 Währungspoker: Auch Venezuela für Ölhandel in Euro 17.May 2006 11. September 2001: Videos dokumentieren Anschlag auf das Pentagon
17.May 2006 https://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/05/karl-and-me-and-wc.html
Bush Has a Barely Positive Approval Rating Only in Three States 17.May 2006 "House of War is a masterful achievement...[Carroll's] prose is elegant, his viewpoint bold." -- Howard Zinn, author of The People's History of the United States
Bush Puddle Jumps from PR Stunt to PR Stunt While the Nation Crumbles -- A BuzzFlash Editorial 17.May 2006 Discussed on the Randi Rhodes Show the Last Two Nights and Published Exclusively First on BuzzFlash.com Greg Palast for BuzzFlash.com: The Spies Who Shagged Us! A Must Read.
Georgia judge strikes down same-gender marriage ban. 5/17
Oh, so now we're "informing" judges rather than getting their approval for illegal searches. Funny, but I thought judges had the last word on what is and isn't legal and constitutional? I know, the rule of law is such a pre-September-11 mentality. 5/17 17.May 2006 Bush's Immigration Plan Draws GOP Fire. Thieves Fall Out, Chapter 32.
After five days of deafening silence, Verizon says it didn't give customer data to the NSA - or did it? 5/17
Get BuzzFlash Headlines Delivered Via E-Mail. Free Subscription to BuzzFlash Alerts! Don't Miss A Thing! Sign Up Now!
Former conservative Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough is none too pleased with Bush spying on Americans. 5/17
17.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/An excellent review of the entire situation is on Salon from Tim Grieve.
17.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/Will your ISP spy on you? Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recently said that internet service providers should keep records of user activities. Now, in a coordinated move... Wisconsin Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is proposing that ISPs be required to record information about Americans' online activities so that police can more easily "conduct criminal investigations." Executives at companies that fail to comply would be fined and imprisoned for up to one year.
In addition, Sensenbrenner's legislation--expected to be announced as early as this week--also would create a federal felony targeted at bloggers, search engines, e-mail service providers + many other Web sites. It's aimed at any site that might have "reason to believe" it facilitates access to child pornography--through hyperlinks or a discussion forum, for instance. This is so broadly worded that it could apply to anyone . Obviously, kiddie porn is a false issue; the government already has all the tools it needs to track down the people who trade in that ghastly commodity.
What Gonzales and Sensenbrenner want is control. They know that the current antipathy toward Bush largely derives from independent internet writers. The government wants blackmail information on anyone who dares to criticize Fearless Leader. In a sense, this newly proposed legislation is of a piece with the assaults on net neutrality.
We could probably prevent a number of crimes and acts of terror if we allowed the government to install recording devices in every home and car. Does that mean we should ? Tyranny ascends as privacy ends. Permalink
17.May 2006 https://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635207815,00.html Even then, rulers were actors + this was the Maya version of a staged photo opportunity.
17.May 2006 https://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635207815,00.html An Izapa throne is framed in a quatrefoil.
17.May 2006 https://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635207815,00.html New attention, Guernsey said, is centered on the common monumental motif in the Classic period that has now been increasingly recognized as early as the middle Preclassic era, 900 to 300 B.C. It is known as the quatrefoil. The design is something like a four-leaf clover and is found in the arrangement of stones or carved in stone or crated with packed earth and painted clay at a ceremonial site, as at La Blanca on the Pacific coastal plain in Guatemala. La Blanca, occupied from 900 B.C. to 600 B.C., is being excavated by Michael W. Love of California State University-Northridge, with Guernsey as the project iconographer.
17.May 2006 https://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635207815,00.html
Coming away from a visit to San Bartolo, Dr. Michael D. Coe, a retired Yale Mayanist who was not involved in the work, called the murals "one of the greatest Maya discoveries of all time."
Dr. Stephen Houston, of Brown, said, "We are entering a golden age of Preclassic study," adding that the discipline of Maya research "will be marked by a time before the discovery of these paintings in the jungle of Guatemala + a time thereafter." Other experts have already focused new research on Preclassic ruins, some dating at least to 900 B.C. + are reinterpreting finds in light of the San Bartolo evidence.
"San Bartolo has created excitement and momentum for investigations deeper into the Preclassic period," said Dr. Julia Guernsey, a specialist in art history and Maya iconography at the University of Texas. "More attention is being paid to the antecedents of the Classic Maya."
In her book "Ritual and Power in Stone," to be published in December, Guernsey reviews many examples of stucco facades, painted murals + carved monuments that illustrate Preclassic development of the imagery of enduring Maya concepts of creation, the spirit world and the metaphorical expression of power and authority of rulers.
17.May 2006 New finds rewriting the history of Mayans Experts try to decipher brightly painted murals. Prof. Hex at 8:33 AM Tuscany's Etruscan claim knocked The Tuscans' proud claim to be the descendants of the ancient Etruscans has taken a knock. Prof. Hex at 8:31 AM Mystery Americans on the trail of bin Laden? This quiet mountain resort, better known for its polo games and mountain treks, has become the latest site of interest in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, much to the outrage and bemusement of its inhabitants.
17.May 2006 Bush Country What's left of it anyway. Prof. Hex at 9:17 AM
17.May 2006 Pentagon Discloses List of Gitmo Detainees After years of secrecy, the Pentagon has disclosed the names, ages and home countries of everyone held at the isolated Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in southeastern Cuba as a suspect in the U.S.-led war on terror.
None of the most notorious terrorist suspects was included in the list, raising questions about their whereabouts. Biggest surprise? John Tesh. Prof. Hex at 9:19 AM
17.May 2006 Cool products This Venom extractor looks handy for when you're exploring the unexplained and get bitten by pesky critters. And this Wego Kite Tube looks both exhilarating and terrifying.
17.May 2006 Senator sinks $97m into Civil War sub Unsuspecting taxpayers in South Carolina have spent nearly $100 million trying to preserve a Confederate submarine. This boondoggle has been the pet project of the president pro tem of the state Senate, who also happens to be a Civil War reenactor.
17.May 2006 Exorcism: Ancient Art or Hocus Pocus? I suppose it could be both. Prof. Hex at 9:50 AM
17.May 2006 Gertrude Bell: settler of Iraq's borders Gertrude Bell, a British traveler, writer and linguist, was one of the most powerful women of the 1920s, an adviser to empire builders and confidante to kings.
An "oriental secretary" to British governments, she is credited with drawing the boundaries of modern Iraq out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War One.
17.May 2006 Glaciers in Africa Expected to Disappear Mountain glaciers in equatorial Africa are on their way to disappearing within two decades, a team of British researchers reports.
17.May 2006 US 'releases 9/11 Pentagon tape' The US defence department is to release a video of the plane crashing into the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, legal rights group Judicial Watch has said. And Sploid has a few comments.
17.May 2006 Marxism message, Heroin's Ugly Role In Afghanistan > From The New York Daily News ... archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2002/msg02578.htm
17.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,druck-415299,00.html
Diese Vormacht des Sehsinns drückt sich bis heute darin aus, dass die Hälfte des menschlichen Hirns für die Verarbeitung visueller Reize zuständig ist. Und sie drückt sich im nahezu blinden Vertrauen aus, das der Homo sapiens seiner Sehfähigkeit entgegenbringt.
17.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,druck-415299,00.html "Es ist ein Grundproblem der Menschen: Wir glauben, was wir sehen", sagt der Psychologe Frank Keil von der amerikanischen Yale University. "Leider. Denn wir sehen längst nicht so gut, wie wir glauben." Die Sicherheit, durch Bilder informiert zu sein, sei ein trügerisches Gefühl, wie Keil in Experimenten belegt hat und wie auch der Kommunikationswissenschaftler Thomas Knieper von der Universität München weiß: "Wenn Leute zum Beispiel einen Fernsehbericht betrachten, bei dem die Aussagen von Bild und Text einander widersprechen, denken sie, die Bilder seien wahr und die Texte falsch." Der Grund dafür lautet: Das Auge ist der wichtigste Sinn des Menschen. Ihm vertraut er mehr als sämtlichen anderen Wahrnehmungen.
17.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,druck-415299,00.html Neben einem CT-Scan von einem gesunden Gehirn, den Wolpe zugleich präsentierte, sah Schiavos Denkorgan furchtbar aus. Allenfalls ein Drittel ihrer grauen Masse schien noch zu leben. "Als die Leute das sahen, sagten sie: ,Vielleicht ist Terri wirklich nicht mehr da'", erinnert sich Wolpe, der an der University of Pennsylvania lehrt.
17.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,druck-416203,00.html
glaubt Zieger, sollte man auch am Bett von Komapatienten seine Worte mit Bedacht wählen. "Herabsetzende Äußerungen und negative Prognosen am Krankenbett von Komapatienten", so der Neurochirurg, "können den Genesungsverlauf belasten und unbewusst verhaltenswirksam bleiben."
17.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,druck-416203,00.html
in der Antike mahnte der griechische Arzt Hippokrates von Kós (460-375 vor Christus) dazu, Komapatienten starken Reizen auszusetzen, um sie nicht zu verlieren.
17.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,druck-416203,00.html Mehr als früher vermutet, ergab ein Forschungsprojekt an der Universität Oldenburg. "Menschen im Koma und Wachkoma verfügen über die Fähigkeit, innerlich auf Reize zu reagieren, noch bevor es zu äußerlich wahrnehmbaren Verhaltensänderungen kommt", sagt Neurochirurg Andreas Zieger vom Evangelischen Krankenhaus Oldenburg. Rund 40.000 Menschen pro Jahr fallen in Deutschland für unterschiedlich lange Zeit ins Koma. Zwischen 3000 und 5000 von ihnen werden Wachkoma-Patienten. "Solange ein Mensch lebt, nimmt er etwas wahr und ist über Empfindungen und Bewegungen mit der Umwelt verbunden", sagt Zieger zu SPIEGEL ONLINE. "Und er ist auch zu winzigen Zeichen fähig." Diese für Außenstehende kaum beobachtbaren Reaktionen zeigen sich beim Messen der Hirnströme. "Derartige Reaktionen lassen sich am besten bei Reizangeboten von vertrauten Angehörigen, aber auch im Rahmen einer gezielten Koma-Stimulation nachweisen", ergänzt der Neurochirurg. Zeigen sich solche Reaktionen, erhöht sich die Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass der Patient wieder aus der tiefen Bewusstlosigkeit aufwacht.
17.May 2006 Iran not interested in EU carrots : Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also expressed "surprise" that the European Union was still working on putting such a proposal together given that Iran has consistently stated its refusal to agree to a suspension of nuclear work. 17.May 2006 Russia, China rule out use of force against Iran: Russia and China will "definitely not" approve the use of force against Iran over its nuclear programme, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said here yesterday after meeting with China's leaders. 17.May 2006 US asks Pak to abandon gas project with Iran: The US has asked Pakistan to abandon the seven billion dollar gas pipeline planned to Pakistan + India ahead of next week's visit by a high-level Iranian delegation, a newspaper reported on Monday. 17.May 2006 Iran to require oil payments in euros: Iran has also proposed establishing a euro-based Iranian oil bourse to compete with NYMEX and the IPE. The proposal was first put forward in the beginning of the Third Development Plan (2000-2005) + began to receive serious attention in 2005. 17.May 2006 Putin proposes creation of ruble-denominated oil, gas exchange : President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that a ruble-denominated oil and natural gas stock exchange should be set up in Russia. 17.May 2006 The Reemergence Of The Cold War: The reality of the matter is that the U.S. has never abandoned its plans to fight and win a nuclear war, first with the Soviet Union, beginning with the Reagan administration + with every president up to the present Bush regime. 17.May 2006 Cheney is no Churchill and Putin is no Stalin: It would be logical to expect Russia after some time to have strategic interests near U.S. borders. After all, doesn't Ms. Rice talk today about U.S. strategic interests at the Russian borders? The U.S. is certainly right about globalization. 17.May 2006 Walter C. Uhler : Russian Identity and the Prospects for Democracy in Putin's Russia : Ignorance falls easy prey to political deception. Witness the ease with which the Bush administration was able to persuade 51 % of Americans, in March 2003, that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Vice President Cheney never tired of falsely linking Saddam and al Qaeda. Yet he remains in office. Where's the accountability? 17.May 2006 US is creating climate to attack Venezuela: The Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Ministry Monday issued a communiqué expressing that "the government of the USA climbs to new heights of cynicism and shamelessness, when it tries to tie Venezuela to its particular vision of international terrorism." 17.May 2006 Jilted Venezuela may sell its U.S. jets to Iran : Even before the United States announced the ban on arms sales Monday, Washington had stopped selling Venezuela sensitive upgrades for the F-16s. 17.May 2006 Ken Livingstone: Not a difficult choice at all : Chávez and Venezuela deserve the support of all who believe in social justice and democracy 17.May 2006 U.S. history lesson: stop meddling: In the last 100 years, the U.S. has ousted the governments of at least 14 countries and forcibly intervened in dozens of others -- to what end? 17.May 2006 Abbas warns of Palestinian anger "explosion" on aid 17.May 2006 Israeli sources: U.S. working behind scenes to bolster Abbas ; The United States administration is working behind the scenes to bolster the security forces under the control of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, according to Israeli sources. 17.May 2006 Fatah official: Israel poisoned Arafat who sought peace : The Secretary of Fatah's Intifada movement in Lebanon Abu Fadi Hamad today said that the prospect for solving the Palestinian issue is not bright due to the policies and plans of the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. 17.May 2006 Norway grants entry permits to 2 Hamas delegates: In early May Israel warned Norway that if it grants entry to the Hamas members, the move will be considered a “political gesture” to the Hamas government 17.May 2006 Army Rules Put on Hold: The revised field manual seeks to permit harsher interrogations of terror suspects, which some lawmakers say violates the ban on torture. 17.May 2006 Mike Whitney : Send us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses; just no Mexicans, please : Whatever happened to “Mission Accomplished Bush”, the strutting barnyard rooster, glowing and confident; or flight-deck George blowing kisses to the troops while he strode to the presidential podium in a snugly-fitted jumpsuit? 17.May 2006 Aids and a lost generation: Children raising children : Ruth Nakabonge crouches on the ground clutching a handful of earth to fling over her father's coffin. She is too distressed to cry, her tiny body contorted by grief as a relative gently strokes her forehead. 17.May 2006 Pentagon plans cyber-insect army : The Pentagon's defence scientists want to create an army of cyber-insects that can be remotely controlled to check out explosives and send transmissions. 17.May 2006 In case you missd it: US 'plans stealth shark spies' : They want to remotely control the sharks by implanting electrodes in their brains, The New Scientist says. 17.May 2006 Freedom of the Press Under Attack: Government Begins Tracking Phone Calls of Journalists 17.May 2006 Pentagon PSYOP: "Terror Mastermind" Abu Musab Al Zarqawi is "Incompetent": The Pentagon has released yet another mysterious video allegedly discovered in April by US forces in a hideout in the Al-Yusufiyah neighborhood of southern Baghdad. The video portrays "Terror Mastermind" Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi acting in a "foolish" and "incompetent" fashion. 17.May 2006 Danny Schechter: Hail The Surveillance State The corporate world lurks in the shadows here. They are the “men behind the curtain.” It is our job as concerned citizens to take crises like the ones now surfacing and raise bloody hell before their new technologies take us backwards into the future. 17.May 2006 Charles Sullivan : Remembering the Haymarket Martyrs : Every now and then events transpire that cut through the rhetoric, the carefully contrived images purveyed in the press and historical texts + reveal a nation’s dark soul in ghastly detail. Such an event occurred in the streets of Chicago on May 4, 1886 + continued through November 11 of 1887. They were set in motion years before. 17.May 2006 Darpa's Far-Out Dreams on Display: Darpa, the Pentagon's far-out research arm, may have publicly abandoned its creepiest programs, like Total Information Awareness. But the agency, as shown at its DarpaTech conference, still has a project to make you run full-speed into your bunker 17.May 2006 US: selling to the worried well : US pharmaceutical companies have long known that the potential market for their products is limited by the finite number of sick people; so they have turned to the healthy for further expansion of their markets, using exploitative, fear-inducing advertising techniques. 17.May 2006 Pigs at the trough: IRA Swaps Could Cost U.S. Billions in Tax Revenue : President Bush is scheduled to sign into law on Wednesday an extraordinary deal for high-income people with retirement savings accounts. 17.May 2006 Hate: The Clear Channel Game: Hate IS Clear Channel's game.
17.May 2006 US government releases new 9/11 video footage BBC NEWS REPORT The US government has released a video of the plane crashing into the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, for the first time. The flight crashed into the US military headquarters after it was hijacked as part of an al-Qaeda plot. Adam Brookes reports. Click here to view. 17.May 2006 A Silver Lining in Bush's New CIA Pick? By Scott Ritter
If the Republican Party won't seek to heal itself by reigning in the abuses of power conducted by the Bush administration, then it clearly demonstrates that it, as an institution, places partisan politics above constitutionally mandated checks and balances between the executive and legislative branches of government. And if the Democrats who are in power aren't willing to step into the void, then perhaps it's time a new generation of Democrats was elected in their stead. Continue 17.May 2006 Solidarity Street Demonstrations To Demand US Keep Hands Off Venezuela and Cuba By Stephen Lendman
Maybe it's just a coincidence that just days before an international expression of solidarity demanding the US keep its hands off Venezuela and Cuba, Rep. Dan Burton (a right wing Republican in good standing) introduced an anti-Venezuelan resolution in the US House of Representatives. Continue
17.May 2006 US spells out plan to bomb Iran By IAN BRUCE, Defence Correspondent
The main plan calls for a rolling, five-day bombing campaign against 400 key targets in Iran, including 24 nuclear-related sites, 14 military airfields and radar installations + Revolutionary Guard headquarters. Continue 17.May 2006 The Real Assault on AmericaBy Paul Craig Roberts
It has become commonplace to hear Americans dismiss the Bush regime's illegal and unconstitutional exercise of power on the grounds that only those implicated in terrorism have anything to fear. These Americans need to ask themselves why, if only evil doers have anything to fear from government, the Founding Fathers bothered to write the Constitution? Continue 17.May 2006 America the Fearful By Bob Herbert
In the dark days of the Depression, Franklin Roosevelt counseled Americans to avoid fear. George W. Bush is his polar opposite. The public's fear is this president's most potent political asset. Perhaps his only asset. Continue 17.May 2006 Orwell Rolls in His Grave A must watch This chilling documentary film "Orwell Rolls in His Grave" examines the relationship between the media, corporate America, and government. In a country where the "top 1% control 90% of the wealth", the film argues that the media system is nothing but a "subsidiary of corporate America."
17.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,druck-416366,00.html Mit einer Größe von knapp einem Millionstel Millimeter bietet dieser Käfig gerade genügend Platz, um ein einzelnes fremdes Atom zu beherbergen. Aber genau dieser Platz macht den aus Dreiecken zusammengesetzten Nano-Körper für Werkstoffforscher so interessant.
17.May 2006 Bush Has a Barely Positive Approval Rating Only in Three States
"House of War is a masterful achievement...[Carroll's] prose is elegant, his viewpoint bold." -- Howard Zinn, author of The People's History of the United States
Bush Puddle Jumps from PR Stunt to PR Stunt While the Nation Crumbles -- A BuzzFlash Editorial 17.May 2006 ABC/Washington Post poll: People hate Bush. They're not loving the Republicans in Congress too much either. But Dems need to be careful - the mood is still far more anti-Republican than pro-Democrat. 5/17
Bush's Immigration Plan Draws GOP Fire. Thieves Fall Out, Chapter 32. 17.May 2006 Dumbest mailing ever from AT&T, one of the companies that voluntarily handed Bush the private phone records of its customers. 5/17
Chertoff: National Guard on the Border Would Be "Horribly Over-Expensive and Very Difficult". DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff said this six months ago on O'Reilly's show. Does anyone talk to anyone else at the WH? 5/17 Rove is worried. 5/17
Military recruiters telling new recruits they can work as musicians and "Hollywood liaisons" if they just enlist. Uh huh. 5/17 17.May 2006 The Republicans are running out of folks to blame for their screw ups. 5/17
17.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/CIA fronts + "renditions" in Dubai This story in the Khaleej Times, the leading English-language newspaper in Dubai, identifies front companies involved in CIA-sponsored "rendition" flights.
According to records of approximately 3,000 flights obtained by Amnesty International and the research group TransArms, planes owned or chartered by the CIA + linked to the renditions programme, made stop offs in the UAE. The first plane, a Boeing 737, made a total of 5 stops in the UAE: four in Dubai and one in Abu Dhabi. The plane was first registered by a company called Stevens Express Leasing (SEL), then by Premier Executive Transport Services (PETS) and finally in 2004 by Keeler & Tate Management (KTM).
Amnesty says all three firms are front companies set up by the CIA. Permalink
17.May 2006 Brickfilme: Haie, Schurken, eckige Schädel 17.May 2006 Frankreich: Villepin übersteht Misstrauensvotum 17.May 2006 Verbrecheraufstand in Brasilien: Gespannte Ruhe
17.May 2006 Ägäis: Türkische Fregatten überwachen deutsches Forschungsschiff
17.May 2006 Hongkong: Behörden warnen vor gewaltigen Sturmfluten 17.May 2006 Bandenterror in Brasilien: Mafia hält Sao Paulo in ihren Fängen
17.May 2006 China: Taifun bedroht Hongkong 17.May 2006 Wahrnehmung: Wie Bilder den Verstand täuschen
17.May 2006 Atomkonflikt: Iran lehnt EU-Paket ab
17.May 2006 Irak-Kriegsheimkehrer: Als Dank ein Soldaten-Spielzeugset
17.May 2006 Korruptionsbericht: Transparency prangert Pharma-Firmen an
17.May 2006 Verschmutzungsrechte: "In blutigen Scherben"
17.May 2006 Nano-Käfig: Gefängnis aus nur 16 Goldatomen 17.May 2006 Guantanamo: Pentagon legt seine Gefangenenliste offen
17.May 2006 Imageprobleme der USA: Freiheit oder Sicherheit?
17.May 2006 Kongo: Berserker von Bukavu torpediert die Wahlen 17.May 2006 Koma-Medizin: Lebenszeichen aus der Finsternis
17.May 2006 ZEW-Indikator: Starker Euro drückt auf die Stimmung 17.May 2006 Schmiergeld-Skandal: Anklage gegen Hyundai-Chef erhoben 17.May 2006 Geheimdienst-Affäre: BND will keine Journalisten abgehört haben
17.May 2006 Berufstätige Mütter: Kinder, Job und Partner halten Frauen gesund
17.May 2006 Druck aus Peking: Ernst & Young muss China-Bericht zurückziehen
16.May 2006 The Blotter A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross + Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources. "It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person ...
16.May 2006 Verizon stock takes hit on $50 billion lawsuit NEW YORK (CNN) - A lawsuit is asking a federal court to order President Bush, the National Security Agency + Verizon to end a secret snooping program + Verizon's stock took a hit on the news Monday. Verizon (down $0.36 to $31.43, Research) stock fell more than 1 % on the New York Stock ...
16.May 2006 Investors To Ballmer: It's Time to Buy Back Stock Mfoley After five years of declining share prices, Microsoft investors are fed up. Some of the more prominent ones are demanding publicly that Microsoft use its $35 billion in cash (and maybe more) to buy back shares.
16.May 2006 Bubble fear sees global sell-off The US dollar, oil and precious metals all continue to fall with many investors expecting yet more declines.
16.May 2006 Hospital trust 'spending to save' An NHS trust which is axing hundreds of jobs spends £100,000 a month on advisers telling it how to save the cash, it emerges.
16.May 2006 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-goldberg/what-is-christian-nationa_b_20989.html
Even more troubling, PEER charges that Grand Canyon National Park no longer offers an official estimate of the age of the canyon, and that the NPS has blocked publication of guidance intended for park rangers that reminds them there is no scientific basis for creationism. The group has been increasingly concerned about what it calls the Park Service's "Faith-Based Parks" and the agency's seeming indifference to the separation of church and state Among other moves, for example, NPS has allowed the placing of bronze plaques bearing Psalm verses at Grand Canyon overlooks. PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch is indignant, "If the Bush Administration is using public resources for pandering to Christian fundamentalists, it should at least have the decency to tell the truth about it."
16.May 2006 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-goldberg/what-is-christian-nationa_b_20989.html
The presidents of The American Geological Institute and six of its member societies also weighed in, expressing their dismay to the Park Service. Noting that the Grand Canyon "provides a remarkable and unique opportunity to educate the public about Earth science," the scientists urged that, "in fairness to the millions of park visitors, we must clearly distinguish religious from scientific knowledge."
But when Grand Canyon National Park superintendent Joe Alston attempted to block the sale of Vail's book at canyon bookstores, he was overruled by NPS headquarters, which announced that a high-level policy review of the matter would be launched and a decision made by February, 2004. So far, no official decision has been announced.
Even worse, according to the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), an organization that includes many Park employees, papers obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that no review has ever taken place. Indeed, PEER claims that the Bush Administration has already decided it will stand by its approval for the book and that hundreds more have been ordered. "Now that the book has become quite popular," explained an NPS flack to a Baptist news agency, "we don't want to remove it."
16.May 2006 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-goldberg/what-is-christian-nationa_b_20989.html
The Dominionist Pledge of Alegiance.
""I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag + to the Savior for whose kingdom it stands. One Savior, crucified, risen and coming again, with life and liberty for all who believe."
Think about that last part. LIFE AND LIBERTY FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE. You can imagine where the camps would be set up can't you? For those who don't believe?
16.May 2006 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-goldberg/what-is-christian-nationa_b_20989.html
The debates leading to the bill of rights are available to anyone with access to a library. Why doesn't anyone read them. They are quite specific on religious "rights" and show that the Founders didn't care what any religion wants. They get what is written and no more.
16.May 2006 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-goldberg/what-is-christian-nationa_b_20989.html
Hitler used a combination Christian racist nationalist doctrine to justify invading other countries, taking their land, stealing their resources + killing their people. He wanted to bring Germanic Christian Aryan people and civilization to the uncivilized regions of the world.
George Bush uses a Christian nationalist doctrine to justify invading other countries, taking their land, stealing their resources, and killing their people. He says it is necessary to bring Christianity, U.S. "values," and Democracy to all other countries in the world. I don't see a difference.
16.May 2006 https://www.signonsandiego.com/news/state/20060514-0905-ca-ferraricrash.html
“By American standards, they were no mafia,” said Lars Nylen, a former chief of police in Uppsala, Sweden. “They were a group of guys who liked cars and boats + who got the money for it through debt collections.”
16.May 2006 https://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2002992914&zsection_id=2002107549&slug=nukewaste14&date=20060514 "I have to assume that the divine creator is going to take care of most of this stuff," said Steve Casey, the WIPP engineer charged with overseeing construction of the warning system. "No matter what confounded thing we come up with, all it takes is one catastrophic event and it's gone." Past as prologue? That so much time and effort are spent even thinking about how to warn future generations reflects a significant shift in nuclear attitudes. The past still can be glimpsed a short drive from WIPP at a site where an atomic warhead was detonated 1,151 feet underground in 1961. Two corroded plaques glued to a 4-foot concrete slab commemorate the test, dubbed Project Gnome. The monument has been nudged several yards over the decades by cattle that use it as a rubbing post. Spent rifle shells crunch underfoot; the pockmarked shrine is favored by locals for target practice. A third plaque was pried off, perhaps as a souvenir. According to earlier visitors, it read, in plain English, "This site will remain dangerous for 24,000 years."
16.May 2006 https://www.rawstory.com/admin/dbscripts/printstory.php?story=2121 One former official was asked to sign a document stating he was not a confidential source for New York Times reporter James Risen. Our reports on the CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Poland were known to have upset CIA officials. People questioned by the FBI about leaks of intelligence information say the CIA was also disturbed by ABC News reports that revealed the use of CIA predator missiles inside Pakistan. Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers. The official who warned ABC News said there was no indication our phones were being tapped so the content of the conversation could be recorded. A pattern of phone calls from a reporter, however, could provide valuable clues for leak investigators. DEVELOPING...
15.May 2006 https://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/fbi_acknowledge.html Officials say the FBI makes extensive use of a new provision of the Patriot Act which allows agents to seek information with what are called National Security Letters (NSL). The NSLs are a version of an administrative subpoena and are not signed by a judge. Under the law, a phone company receiving a NSL for phone records must provide them and may not divulge to the customer that the records have been given to the government. Permalink
16.May 2006 https://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/05/fbi_acknowledge.html
FBI Acknowledges: Journalists Phone Records are Fair Game Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling Taliban Justice Returns to Afghanistan Some Parents Eager for Drug Tests on Tots NSA Whistleblower To Allege Unlawful Acts, Name Hayden Criminal Charges Possible Against Former No. 3 at CIA? Why Qwest Said No to NSA Foggo: First Public Corruption Case in CIA History Tots Used as Human Guinea Pigs? 16.May 2006 Report: Electronic Voting Machines Still Very Vulnerable to Hack
16.May 2006 FBI Acknowledges: Journalists Phone Records are Fair Game The FBI acknowledged late Monday that it is increasingly seeking reporters' phone records in leak investigations.
"It used to be very hard and complicated to do this, but it no longer is in the Bush administration," said a senior federal official.
Yep, nothing's hard under the Bush administration. Except, you know, running the country.
16.May 2006 The weird thing is, Bush offered him a job... Chris T. Coppinger of Davenport was fired in March from Mohassan Grotto 22, where he worked as co-manager of the organization's charitable bingo operation.
He was fired after his supervisors allegedly found $1,000 in cash and checks in his office, along with a condom and a jar of urine that appeared to have been hidden. Coppinger was subsequently accused of smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol in the building; having pornography on his work computer; having sex with another person on his desk; and ordering a 15-year-old co-worker to urinate in a jar. He also was fired for failing to deposit cash and checks the organization had collected. Via Fark.
16.May 2006 ABC News: Federal official says US tracking calls made by ABC News, New York Times, Washington Post A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.
"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation. Of course, they could also be gathering information for blackmail operations.
16.May 2006 Amazon Stonehenge suggests advanced ancient rainforest culture The discovery of an ancient astrological observatory in Brazil lends support to the theory that the Amazon rainforest was once home to advanced cultures and large sedentary populations of people. Good long article.
16.May 2006 What Is Christian Nationalism? What they really want. Scary as hell.
16.May 2006 White House Blocks Investigations Into Spying With news reports exposing the National Security Agency's previously secret spying on the phone conversations of tens of millions of Americans, what is the status of the U.S. Department of Justice probe of the Bush administration's authorization of a warrantless domestic wiretapping program?
The investigation has been closed.
16.May 2006 Abramoff cohort spent millions on Sussex homes Anthony Wiles became suspicious four years ago when a lifeguard named Michael Scanlon offered to pay cash for Wiles' $4.8 million home in Dewey Beach.
16.May 2006 A warning sign for the ages "No culture has ever tried, self-consciously and scientifically, to design a symbol that would last 10,000 years and still be intelligible," said David B. Givens, an anthropologist who helped plan the nuclear-site warnings. "And even if we succeed, would the message be believed?"
16.May 2006 Tutankhamun's mysteries to be put online It was the most famous archaeological find of all time, but still it holds secrets that have yet to be unravelled. Now Oxford scholars are preparing to post the notes, diaries, drawings and photographs from the 1922 excavation of the tomb of King Tutankhamun on the internet in an attempt to study it completely.
16.May 2006 St. Louis museum refuses to return Egyptian mask The St. Louis Art Museum will keep a 3,200-year-old mummy mask unless it gets more proof that it belongs to Egypt.
16.May 2006 Innocent Texas Citizen Targeted With Deadly Electronic Weapons Leslie Oliver is being "cooked alive" and Jesus Mendoza is dying a slow "electronic death," as two more stories surface about torture and abuse at the hands of a totalitarian U.S. government using high-grade military weaponry against its own people.
16.May 2006 Roll Call reports, “Federal prosecutors are seeking to interview at least nine current or former staffers on the House Intelligence, Appropriations and Armed Services committees as they widen their probe into the bribery scheme involving former Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.).” A lawyer who sued Verizon last week on claims it violated privacy laws by turning over calling records to the National Security Agency said that customers of AT&T and BellSouth want to join the lawsuit. If other telecommunications companies are named, “it may be the largest class-action ever filed,” said New Jersey public-interest lawyer Bruce Afran.
16.May 2006 New Orleans remains “full of patients, devoid of doctors.” “More than half of the city’s hospitals remain closed,” only “a quarter of the city’s doctors have returned since the disaster,” and assistance from the federal government has been scarce.
16.May 2006 Karl Rove was not indicted on Friday . The New York Sun has the story.
16.May 2006 The FBI acknowledged Judd
it is obtaining reporters’ phone records as part of an effort to root out confidential sources. ABC News reports “the FBI makes extensive use of a new provision of the Patriot Act which allows agents to seek information with what are called National Security Letters (NSL). The NSLs are a version of an administrative subpoena and are not signed by a judge.”
16.May 2006 FIVE ALARMER: Soviet America. According to ABC News, CIA is Monitoring Calls of Reporters. This is Treason. America Does Not Belong to the Bushevik Dynasty. It Belongs to Americans.
Rove Basically Says Americans Don't Care if Bush is a Failed Dunce and Gets Into Cul-de-Sac Wars, Because They Like Him. They REALLY Like Him. Everybody Likes the Village Idiot, But They Don't Elect Him the Mayor of the Town.
Pro-Internet Democracy Blogs Run Ads for Corporate Takeover of Net: Another Example of Why BuzzFlash Won't Accept Advertising --
A BuzzFlash Editorial
Gore's Awesome SNL Appearance Should Erase Any Doubt That He's Running For President in '08 5/16
Prediction: Bush's National Guard plan will bomb politically -- The Last Chance Democracy Cafe by Steven C. Day
Save the Internet as a Pro-Democracy Force. It's About to Become Just Another Corporate Media Advertising/Propaganda Vehicle if You Don't Take Action.
This is the REAL Save the Internet Site, Not the Telecom Industry Phony Handsoff.org PR scam to crush the Internet. Unfortunately, as BuzzFlash Editorialized, Many of the Top Blogs are Allowing the Deceptive Handsoff.org Disinformation Ad to Appear on Their Sites, Even Though Its Real Aim is to Crush the Open "Net Neutrality" Web. Some Blog Editors Must Just be Suicidal as Far as Their Work Product, Because They are Enabling the Enemies of the Pro-Democracy Internet. One of the Biggest Blogs Shrugged It All Off This Morning as a "So What's the Big Deal, I'm Not Going to Take It Off" Sort of Thing. And He's a Smart Guy, Just Hooked to Advertising Juice, Even If It Means His Own Demise. It's One Ad That Could Help Bring Down the Internet and Many of the Upper Tier Progressive Bloggers Don't Give a Damn. Inexcusable.
BellSouth denies the USA Today's report that it was one of the telecoms that passed over phone call data. 5/16
Washington Poll Was Fixed with Terror/Fear Mongering Questions. This Proves It: "A majority of Americans disapprove of a massive Pentagon database containing the records of billions of phone calls made by ordinary citizens, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. About two-thirds are concerned that the program may signal other, not-yet-disclosed efforts to gather information on the general public." 5/16
One Blog That Doesn't Shrug Off Enabling Legislation that Would Shut Down Democracy on the Internet: "This issue is of profound importance--hence all the money being thrown at deceptive ads. Indeed, the deceptive ads--once you understand them--doubly-prove the importance of maintaining net neutrality. Please inform yourself on this issue and write your congress-person in favor of "net neutrality." For our times, this issue is as important as the Bill of Rights was in its day." 5/16
The things 29% presidents do: playing Minuteman with the National Guard 5/16
16.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/Net neutrality is what we have now . Net neutrality means that small sites load on your screen as rapidly as do the big sites. Net Neutrality means that small businesses and do-it-yourself web site owners (such as yours truly) won't have to pay a huge "tax" to the big carriers in order to avoid slow downloads.
If congress overturns net neutrality, say goodbye to the net as we now know it. Say goodbye to the last refuge of dissent.
16.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/href="https://www.savetheinternet.com
16.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/The real group protecting the internet is SAVE THE INTERNET. I created an ad which leads to this site.
16.May 2006 Nasa-Mission: Pannenserie führt zu Satelliten-Crash im All
16.May 2006 Reicher Kommunist: Castro wütet gegen "Forbes"-Millionenschätzung 16.May 2006 Diktatoren: Bush verhängt Einreiseverbot gegen Lukaschenko 16.May 2006 Druck aus Peking: Ernst & Young muss China-Bericht zurückziehen
16.May 2006 Bandenterror in Brasilien: Mafia hält Sao Paulo in ihren Fängen
16.May 2006 Kampf gegen illegale Einwanderer: Bush kündigt Abschottung der Grenze zu Mexiko an 16.May 2006 Rekorddürre in China: Millionen ohne Wasser
16.May 2006 World financial markets hit by flight from risk
Global financial markets were buffeted by another day of instability as traders fled from higher-risk investments, bailing out of commodities and emerging markets. Click here to view the original Webpage. Sent using Rmail.
16.May 2006 The Delusional World of Neocon Make-Believe The Delusional World of Neocon Make-Believe If Laura Bush doesn't believe something does that make it untrue? Steve Watson
16.May 2006 What's Wrong With Pointing Guns At Insurgents ("Protesters")? What's Wrong With Pointing Guns At Insurgents ("Protesters")? They do it in Iraq and Iraq is free, why not at home? Real Texas Cowboy/Prison Planet.com
16.May 2006 Venezuela faces US sanctions The US imposes a ban on arms sales to Venezuela, citing its lack of support for anti-terror efforts.
16.May 2006 Bush unveils border guard boost US President Bush announces plans to boost security patrols along the Mexico border in a TV address.
16.May 2006 Firm imposes drought order The first drought order in England and Wales for 11 years is granted, banning all non-essential water use.
16.May 2006 Enron bosses 'stole to pump egos' Former Enron bosses Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling stole from investors both for gain and egotism, their trial hears.
16.May 2006 Drugs baron jailed for 22 years A man thought to be responsible for much of Britain's heroin trade is jailed for 22 years.
16.May 2006 Warming set to 'devastate' coral Rising ocean temperatures look set to cause lasting damage to coral reef systems, a study suggests.
16.May 2006 TA soldiers' 'Iraq illness risk' A quarter of part-time soldiers who served in the 2003 Iraq conflict experienced a mental health disorder, a study finds.
16.May 2006 NSA News Roundup The government tries to dismiss the EFF suit against AT&T; an intelligence historian predicts corporations will star in the next round of NSA revelations; and a NYT journalist says VP Cheney is behind domestic eavesdropping. In 27B Stroke 6.
16.May 2006 Gold atoms form cages, scientists discover Blog: Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Labs have discovered that gold atoms will form hollow cages that, conceivably, could...
16.May 2006 Reporter Phone Records Being Used to Find Leaks ScuttleMonkey 596
jackbird writes "Brian Ross, Chief Investigative Correspondent for ABC news says a confidential source informed him that reporter's phone records are being used by the administration to track down leaks. Apparently reporters for the New York Times, ABC News + the Washington Post are being scrutinized. The fact that ABC News journalists are even seriously wondering about whether the warning is connected to the NSA's domestic surveillance activities indicates just how anxious many people in Washington have become."
16.May 2006 ABC News: The Government Is Monitoring Our Phone Records ‘To Root Out Confidential Sources’ Judd
Brain Ross and Richard Esposito of ABC News’ investigative unit report that, according to a senior federal law enforcement official, the government is monitoring their phone calls to discover the identity of confidential sources: A senior federal law enforcement official tells us the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources. “It’s time for you to get some new cell phones, quick,” the source told us in an in-person conversation. This, of course, is the real problem with the extra-legal collection of phone records by the government, revealed by USA Today last Thursday. No one really has objections to doing whatever is necessary to defeat al-Qaeda. But when you do so outside the law and without meaningful Congressional oversight, it leaves the door wide open to abuse.
16.May 2006 CORN: David Corn from “The Nation Magazine” on a different subject. Scott McClellan told the White House press corps, many who are here today, that he had spoken to you and you were not involved in the CIA leak. Can you explain why the American public, almost two and a half years later, hasn’t been given an explanation and don’t you think it deserves one for that misinformation because it does seem you were to some degree, though maybe disputed, involved in that leak? ROVE: My attorney Mr. Luskin made a statement on April 26th. I refer to you that statement. I have nothing more to add to it. Nice try, though.
16.May 2006 ABC Reports NSA Is Monitoring Reporters’ Phone Records, Reopens Questions About CNN’s Amanpour Faiz
In January, NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell asked James Risen, the New York Times author who disclosed the NSA wiretapping program, whether CNN’s Christiane Amanpour had been eavesdropped upon. MITCHELL: Do you have any information about reporters being swept up in this net?
RISEN: No, I don’t. It’s not clear to me. That’s one of the questions we’ll have to look into [in] the future. Were there abuses of this program or not? I don’t know the answer to that.
MITCHELL: You don’t have any information, for instance, that a very prominent journalist, Christiane Amanpour, might have been eavesdropped upon?
RISEN: No, no I hadn’t heard that. The question-and-answers were soon deleted from NBC’s website, but NBC did confirm that it was conducting an inquiry into whether reporters had been targeted. CNN’s David Ensor received an official response from the NSA: I’m told considerable manhours today went into making sure the answer to CNN would be accurate. A senior US intelligence official tells use that our colleague Christiane Amanpour has never been targeted by the National Security Agency + nor has any other CNN journalist. Now, the NSA as you know is the eavesdropping intelligence agency, the US government’s big ear + from time to time, the official says, wiretaps overseas or other intercepts turn out to include Americans, or what they call ‘US persons’, which includes people who works for US companies, it does so inadvertently. The response Ensor received from the NSA related specifically to eavesdropping — i.e., the monitoring of the contents of a phone call. According to a report today from ABC’s Brian Ross the NSA is tracking reporters’ phone records — but not the contents of their phone calls — in an effort to root out confidential sources. If the ABC story is true, it raises the question of whether Amanpour’s — or any other journalist’s — phone records were monitored by the NSA.
16.May 2006 Rove On Bush: ‘People Like Him, They Respect Him, He’s Somebody They Feel A Connection With’ Amanda
Today in his speech at the American Enterprise Institute, Karl Rove claimed that the most credible polls on President Bush are run by the RNC + they are saying the American public likes him:
16.May 2006 Did You Consent to Be Wiretapped? Guest
“Consent” appears to be the right wing’s favorite defense for the apparent decision by major phone companies to hand over millions of customers’ calling records to the National Security Agency. As reported in the Washington Post, “the Bush administration has argued that a company can turn over its entire database of customer records — and even the stored content of calls and e-mails — because customers ‘have consented to that’ when they establish accounts.” ThinkProgress has been compiling legal answers to all the questions about telco liability, here and here. Here’s why the consent argument won’t work: 1. The telco language terms of service provide no basis for “consent.” The terms of service of AT&T, BellSouth, and Verizon highlight that they will turn over records in response to court orders or subpoenas, which did not exist, according to USA Today. Verizon also mentions “exigent circumstances” – a very slim reed on which to conclude that customers gave actual consent to having all their phone calls disclosed to the government. 2. Consent is for a specific action, not a blanket permission. As explained by former prosecutor and law professor Orin Kerr, cases under the wiretap laws require that “the user actually agreed to the action, either explicitly or implicitly based on the user’s decision to proceed in light of actual notice.” You give consent for a call when you have actual notice. That’s why we always hear that “this call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes.” 3. You can’t consent to a secret program. Under this “consent” defense, a federal court would have to hold that even the people outraged by the NSA program have given their individual consent to it. That’s a legal fiction we don’t think courts will accept. It’s doubtful we can give our consent to any secret program. 4. It would mean you consented to have the contents your calls handed over to the government. USA Today reported that the phone companies turned over call detail information – which phone numbers called which other phone numbers. The consent provision for call detail information [18 USC § 2702 + 2703] is essentially the same as the consent provision for wiretaps of the full contents of calls and e-mails [Sec. 2511(c)]. When you signed up for phone service, did you and all your friends consent to have the government listen to all your calls? That would make a mockery of decades of wiretap law. – Peter Swire
16.May 2006 Verizon stock dips Judd after company is hit with a $50 billion lawsuit for turning over customer records to the NSA.
16.May 2006 Die Glia des Nervensystems - Funktion und Leistungen Nervensysteme und ihre Zentralisationen in Gehirnen bestehen aus zwei Typen von ... Drei verschiedene Arten von Gliazellen kann man in allen Gehirnen der ..
www.vdbiol.de/content/e3/e132/e1527/index_ger.html
16.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,druck-416168,00.html
Der Euro in Dollar hat dagegen seinen Höhenflug gegenüber dem Dollar auch am Freitag fortgesetzt. Mit 1,2955 markierte die europäische Gemeinschaftswährung im Handelsverlauf einen neuen Höchststand seit gut einem Jahr. Zuletzt wurde der Euro bei 1,2905 gehandelt und damit 0,55 % höher als am Vortag. Trotz des überraschend zurückgegangenen Handelsdefizits habe es für den Greenback nicht zu mehr als einer kurzen und schwachen Zwischenerholung gereicht, hieß es am Markt. Jeder Anstieg werde momentan zu Verkäufen genutzt.
16.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,druck-416168,00.html
RWE gaben nach Quartalszahlen um 0,93 % auf 63,90 Euro nach. Der Versorger hat im ersten Quartal vom langen Winter profitiert und sein Ergebnis kräftig gesteigert.
16.May 2006 Weak US dollar weighs on markets : Weakness in the US dollar has continued to overshadow global stock markets as investors offloaded exporters on fears that corporate earnings will decline. 16.May 2006 Why China's money matters to you: At stake, should the repercussions of China's policy be negative, is the possibility of a global recession, warns Ben Carliner, research director of the Economic Strategy Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C. 16.May 2006 IMF acts to avoid markets meltdown : The International Monetary Fund is in behind-the-scenes talks with the US, China and other major powers to arrange a series of top-level meetings about tackling imbalances in the global economy, as the dollar sell-off reverberates through financial markets. 16.May 2006 Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling: A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential source 16.May 2006 Rove Said Unfazed by Chance of Charges : Rove's fate for now is in the hands of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who must decide whether he thinks Rove lied or just forgot to tell a grand jury about a conversation with a reporter. 16.May 2006 Is Bush Ready to Fire Cheney? : Handwritten notes may link vice president to Valerie Plame leak 16.May 2006 Climate change a 'deadly threat' : The Christian Aid charity has warned that 184 million people in Africa alone could die as a result of climate change before the end of the century. 16.May 2006 Controversial Experimental Weather Modification Bill in US Congress: Weather Modification may adversely impact agricultural crops and water supplies. If the weather is changed in one state, region or county it may have severe consequences in another region, state or county. And who is going to decide the type of weather modification experimentation and who it will benefit or adversely impact? 16.May 2006 Report: Pakistan supplied nukes to Syria : - U.S. intelligence agencies suspect Syria was offered and received nuclear weapons technology from the covert Pakistani supplier group headed by A.Q. Khan, according to an intelligence report. 16.May 2006 War pimp alert: Ex-Military Intelligence chief Ze'evi warns of impending world jihad 'tsunami' : Ze'evi, speaking at a Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies conference in Tel Aviv University, said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad has been overheard promising the "end of history in two or three years." 16.May 2006 US 'must beware' rise in al-Qaeda oil strikes: The US and its Arab allies must expect an increase in attacks on their oil infrastructure in the next phase of the war by al-Qaeda targeting the US economy, the former Central Intelligence Agency official who was responsible for hunting down Osama bin Laden warns on Monday. 16.May 2006 Conditional EU nuclear offer to Iran : Europe to help Iran develop a ''proliferation-proof'' nuclear power programme if it quits enriching uranium on its own soil. 16.May 2006 Iran Rejects EU Bid to Halt Enrichment: Iran's president said Sunday it was pointless for Europe to devise an incentive package if it required Tehran to stop enriching uranium — effectively thwarting the latest international diplomatic effort before it even began. 16.May 2006 Chavez warns US over Iran policy : Mr Chavez, on a two-day trip to the UK, called for a socialist new world order and said nations were cowards for not standing up to the "American empire". 16.May 2006 Chávez warns on oil production cuts: Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s radical president, said on Sunday he expected Iran would cut oil production if attacked by the US in the dispute over nuclear technology, adding: “We would do the same if we were attacked. We would cut off our oil.” 16.May 2006 U.S. Imposes Arms Ban on Venezuela : The United States is imposing a ban on arms sales to Venezuela because of what it claims is a lack of support by President Hugo Chavez's leftist government for counterterrorism efforts, a State Department official said Monday.
16.May 2006 Israel at 58: A Failing Experiment : One of Israel's founding Ministers of Education and Culture, Professor Ben-Zion Dinur (1954), said it most sharply. "In our country there is room only for the Jews. We shall say to the Arabs: Get out! If they don't agree, if they resist, we shall drive them out by force." (History of the Haganah.) 16.May 2006 Palestinian Refugees : The Palestinian refugee problem arose not from a conflict in which, as claimed, the Zionist forces overcame overwhelming odds against the Arab armies and the Palestinian population voluntarily left. But from a systematic policy of ethnic cleansing.
16.May 2006 Chris Floyd: Smoke Alarm: Yet More Evidence for War Crimes : Here's yet another smoking gun revealing the fireless smoke of lies that the Bush Regime spread across the land to justify its outright war of aggression in Iraq. How many more times do we have to be shown glaring evidence that the war was a con job from the word go 16.May 2006 Italian Pay-off From Niger Forgery? : What did the Italian government, under then-Prime Minister Berlusconi, get in return for providing Bush with a smoking gun to attack Iraq? 16.May 2006 Inspector: Politics stunted 'biotrailer' findings: A year after Bush administration claims about Iraqi ''bioweapons trailers'' were discredited by American experts, U.S. officials were still suppressing the findings, according to a senior member of the CIA-led inspection team. 16.May 2006 A Must Listen: Greg Palast “Armed Madhouse : Is the war in Iraq for oil? Yes, it's about the oil, but not for the oil. In my investigations for Armed Madhouse, I ended up with a story far more fascinating and difficult than I imagined. We didn't go in to grab the oil. Just the opposite. We went in to control the oil and make sure we didn't get it. It goes back to 1920, when the oil companies sat in a room in Brussels in a hotel room, drew a red line 16.May 2006 West Point Graduates Against The War: We members of West Point Graduates Against The War stand appalled at the deceitful behavior of the government of the United States and, in particular, its widely known malefactors. 16.May 2006 Soldiers Rights: This site is for those who are lost in the military system of destruction, deceit + corruption. 16.May 2006 3 Minute Video Us and Them: "Forward" he cried, from the rear..... and the front rank died! 16.May 2006 They did it their way - so they have no one to blame but themselves : If democracy is supposed to represent the will of the people, then there is either something wrong with the democracies or something wrong with the people on both sides of the Atlantic. 16.May 2006 Spies ‘hid’ bomber tape from MPs: MI5 is being accused of a cover-up for failing to disclose to a parliamentary watchdog that it bugged the leader of the July 7 suicide bombers discussing the building of a bomb months before the London attacks.
16.May 2006 Violence robs Iraq of Christian heritage : The flight of religious minorities escaping violence in post-war Iraq is threatening to rob the country of its once diverse Christian heritage.
16.May 2006 Appealing to the United States is not very appealing By William Blum
With his recent letter to President Bush, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has become part of a long tradition of Third-World leaders who, under imminent military or political threat from the United States, communicated with Washington officials in the hope of removing that threat. Let us hope that Ahmadinejad's effort doesn't result in the equally traditional outright US rejection. Continue 16.May 2006 Will the Real Traitors Please Stand Up? By Frank Rich
If Democrats - and, for that matter, Republicans - let a president with a Nixonesque approval rating install yet another second-rate sycophant at yet another security agency, even one as diminished as the C.I.A., someone should charge those senators with treason, too. Continue 16.May 2006 Starting over when Bush is gone By Mike Whitney
The American dream has ripened into a menacing delirium, teeming with torture, violence + murder. We have become everything we profess to hate. Continue
16.May 2006 FIVE ALARMER: Soviet America. According to ABC News, CIA is Monitoring Calls of Reporters. This is Treason. America Does Not Belong to the Bushevik Dynasty. It Belongs to Americans.
One Blog That Doesn't Shrug Off Enabling Legislation that Would Shut Down Democracy on the Internet: "This issue is of profound importance--hence all the money being thrown at deceptive ads. Indeed, the deceptive ads--once you understand them--doubly-prove the importance of maintaining net neutrality. Please inform yourself on this issue and write your congress-person in favor of "net neutrality." For our times, this issue is as important as the Bill of Rights was in its day."
Pro-Internet Democracy Blogs Run Ads for Corporate Takeover of Net: Another Example of Why BuzzFlash Won't Accept Advertising --
A BuzzFlash Editorial
Moka Harrar Ethiopian Coffee (Two 10 oz. whole bean bags: "If you drink coffee or tea, you can make a difference by buying Fair Trade products. In doing that, you are casting a vote for an international economy that is built on justice and equitable wages. In addition, most Fair Trade organizations encourage sustainability and diversification of products, as well as education and social well-being." 5/15
The things 29% presidents do: playing Minuteman with the National Guard 16.May 2006 Divide Is Sharpening Among House (Leader Jihad) Republicans and Senate (Follower Jihad) Republicans. Ain't That a Shame. The Republican Mob Having an Ideological Purity Turf War. 5/15
World Net Daily Posts Commentary Saying U.S. Should Look to Nazis for Creating Efficient Deportations 5/16 16.May 2006 Slate's Fred Kaplan: "The executive branch of the government cannot be trusted with sole access to such massive and intrusive information. This has nothing to do with who the president is...to dispute this is to dispute the premise of U.S. government." 5/15
''Et tu, Brute?'' - America's Press Betrayed, Spied Upon by Their Friends in Bush Administration 5/16
U.S. Orders Ban of Arms Sales to Venezuela 5/16
16.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/Have you met a single Democrat who wants Hillary to run the country? I haven't. Her candidacy seems to be a Republican thang. Permalink
16.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/Tice eventually will have his say. How will the NSA and the administration respond? This paragraph from In These Times gives us a clue: In 2001, he suspected a co-worker at the Defense Intelligence Agency of being a double agent. He discreetly notified a DIA counter-intelligence officer, who told him that the FBI had investigated and there was nothing to his concerns. He still had his doubts, but when he brought up the matter again in 2003, the NSA’s security office called him in for an emergency psychological evaluation. Despite having cleared him for duty after a routine examination nine months earlier, they declared him to be suffering from paranoia + downgraded his clearance to "red badge" status. (An independent psychological evaluation has refuted this diagnosis.) He was reassigned to do odd jobs at the NSA motor pool, where he began to talk to other demoted red badge employees + his supervisor accused him of trying to form a union.
16.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/What will Tice say? Rusell Tice, the former officer of the NSA, has been trying to disclose still more questionable NSA practices. "It's angle you haven’t heard about yet," he told one reporter. Elsewhere, we learn that
"What [the American people] know about is Hiroshima," he says. "What I’m going to tell you about is Nagasaki. I'm going to tell you about three Nagasakis" He is gagged, however, by the non-disclosure agreement he signed before becoming privy to top-secret government activities.
16.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/My own suspicion is that the Tice revelations may touch on the growing concern over the claimed use of the NSA to spy on Bush's political opponents.
16.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/Is Jason Leopold on the money? Will Fitz indict Rove? Or was Karl Rove's spokesman Mark Corallo correct when he called the report false? Talk Left has the latest.
16.May 2006 https://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/I smell a sting. After all, this is Karl Rove we're talking about. Permalink
16.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/spiegelspecial/0,1518,druck-416264,00.html
Eine richtige Investorenfalle ist die britische Fregatte "Lutine": 1799 schickte die Admiralität das Schiff nach Hamburg, an Bord 1000 Goldbarren, 500 Silberbarren und 140.000 Pfund in Münzen. Die deutschen Banken standen durch die Französische Revolution und den Krieg zwischen Paris und London vor dem Zusammenbruch, die Engländer wollten ihre Verbündeten stützen.
Am 9. Oktober fuhr das Kriegsschiff in Yarmouth los, wenig später lief es auf eine Sandbank vor der niederländischen Insel Terschelling - die "Lutine" kenterte und verschwand.
16.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/spiegelspecial/0,1518,druck-416264,00.html
29.Apr.1942 stach das britische Schlachtschiff HMS "Edinburgh" vom russischen Murmansk aus in See. An Bord 4,5 Tonnen Gold, mit denen Stalin seinen Waffennachschub bezahlen wollte.
Tags darauf lief die "Edinburgh" in der eisigen Barentssee dem deutschen U-Boot "U 456" vor die Torpedorohre. Sie sank auf 245 Meter Tiefe - "weiter weg als der Mond", sagt Jessop. "Kaum jemand glaubte, dass ich es schaffen könnte. Alle waren fasziniert von diesen Geschichten über Tonnen von Gold - aber dann gingen sie weg und murmelten, was für ein mondsüchtiger Irrer ich doch sei."
16.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/spiegelspecial/0,1518,druck-416264,00.html
1511 stach der Gouverneur des indischen Goa in See, um den fabelhaft reichen Seehafen Malakka zu überfallen. Danach belud er die "Meeresblume" mit der Beute: Mit Blattgold überzogene Sänften sollen an Bord gewesen sein, dazu Löwen aus Gold - sowie der Thron der Königin von Malakka, angeblich mit Edelsteinen übersät.
Doch dann geriet Albuquerques Flotte in einen Sturm + die "Flor de la Mar" sank. Schatzfreaks streiten seit Jahren, was ihre Ladung heute wert wäre. Phantastische Summen von bis zu 7,5 Milliarden Euro werden gehandelt.
15.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/spiegelspecial/0,1518,druck-416264,00.html
Einen regelrechten "Goldrausch im Ozean" prognostizierte schon der kalifornische Forscher Graham Hawkes: "Alles, was auf den Meeren verloren ging, wird in den nächsten 25 bis 50 Jahren gefunden werden."
15.May 2006 https://www.spiegel.de/spiegelspecial/0,1518,druck-416264,00.html
Die Wissenschaftler sehen mit Grausen, wie manche Schatztaucher unwiederbringliche Denkmäler der Tiefe auf der Suche nach Gold, Silber und Edelsteinen hemmungslos sprengen, auseinanderreißen, unterpflügen: "Es ist wie im Wilden Westen: Eine wilde Schießerei um zwölf Uhr mittags + nachher fragen alle: 'Wo war eigentlich der Sheriff?'", sagt Entdecker Ballard. "Jeder, der will, kann heute die Tiefen der Ozeane ausbeuten", so der amerikanische Schatztaucher John Lawrence: "Wenn da unten ein Basketball liegt + du hast genug Geld, dann kannst du ihn finden."
Es gibt zwar inzwischen eine Unesco-Konvention, die verhindern soll, dass die Zeugnisse vergangener Epochen bei der schnöden Suche nach Gold und Juwelen vernichtet werden - aber noch längst haben nicht alle Küstennationen das Papier ratifiziert. Und gute Archäologie sei nun einmal sehr, sehr teuer, sagt Jim Delgado, Chef des Maritime-Museums im kanadischen Vancouver: "Und wenn man als privater Investor an das Gold will - warum soll man dann Geld ausgeben, um dies oder das zu konservieren? Sobald Profit das Motiv ist, geht die Archäologie unter" - manchmal sogar dann, wenn Parlamente und Minister mitmischen.
15.May 2006 Kritik an Bush: USA stoppen Waffenlieferungen an Venezuela
15.May 2006 Geheimdienste: BND soll Journalisten abgehört haben
15.May 2006 Atomstreit: EU bietet Iran einen Pakt an
15.May 2006 Kirchen-Thriller: Muslime protestieren gegen "Da Vinci Code"
15.May 2006 Entspannung: USA streichen Libyen von Terror-Liste 15.May 2006 Außerirdische: Britische Regierung veröffentlicht Ufo-Bericht
15.May 2006 Börsenturbulenzen: Dax schließt im Minus 15.May 2006 Aus für Promi-Spritschleuder: GM stellt Produktion des Hummer 1 ein
15.May 2006 Faszination Schatzsuche: Pyramiden der Tiefsee
15.May 2006 Bizarre Missbildung: Kalb mit Doppelkopf geboren 15.May 2006 Krumme Gesetzvorlage: Kopieren ja, aber bitte nicht gucken! 15.May 2006 Bundesagentur für Arbeit: Milliardengewinn könnte Lohnnebenkosten senken
15.May 2006 Windkraftanlagen: Neuer Dreh verspricht mehr Strom
15.May 2006 Irak: Aufständische schießen US-Hubschrauber ab
15.May 2006 Geheimdienste: Kanzleramt verbietet BND Führung von Journalisten
15.May 2006 Amazonas: Forscher finden "Stonehenge Brasiliens"
15.May 2006 Verkaufswelle: Dax bricht massiv ein
15.May 2006 Illegale Einwanderung: Mexiko über Grenzeinsatz der US-Nationalgarde besorgt
15.May 2006 https://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,70842-0.html The images do raise privacy concerns. "There are a lot of people who would not be comfortable with the idea that everything they do in public is potentially surveillable by companies they don't know flying airplanes with this technology," said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco. But the company said that from the onset, it set a zoom-in or "pixelation" limit to prevent faces or license plates from being distinguishable
15.May 2006 https://www.wired.com/news/technology/1,70842-0.html So far, Pictometry's aerial images are mostly used by law enforcement and other government agencies. In Arlington County, Virginia, the first county mapped in 00.000.2001 , firefighters quickly sized up the damage when terrorists slammed a jetliner into the Pentagon. Police in Atlanta were able to scrutinize the layout of an apartment complex where suspected gunman Brian Nichols retreated after a courthouse rampage in March 2005. Images of New Orleans taken 00.Jan.2004 gave searchers a better idea of what they were supposed to be looking at after Katrina howled ashore last year + helped evacuated residents decide whether or not to return home. And without leaving the office, property appraisers all across Massachusetts — the only entire state mapped so far — can now pick out every swimming pool + rooftop deck that was built without a permit. | 