Tell-A-Vision
YOU ARE A PAGAN IF:
YOU BUY A CHRISTMAS TREE AND DECORATE IT
The evergreen tree is a symbol of the green to come at the re-birth of Mother Earth. In ancient Egypt they laid gifts under Palm Trees during the winter celebration. In ancient Rome they used the fir tree (called the Baal Berith) as a testimony to the Pagan messiah, Baal Tamar.
YOU EXCHANGE PRESENTS DURING DECEMBER
The Babylonians celebrated the birth of the God Tammuz on the Winter Solstice and God Nimrod would visit the evergreen trees of the people and leave gifts upon them.
The early Christian Church frowned upon the exchange of gifts because of its Pagan origins. People refused to give up the customs of their old Pagan religions, though. Ultimately, around 700 years ago, the Christian Church decided to attribute the gift exchange to symbolize the gifts given to Jesus by the three Wise Men. It took the Church over 1,300 years to finally "borrow" the Pagan ritual of gift exchanging and call it their own.
YOU KISS SOMEONE UNDER MISTLETOE
The Romans and Saturnalia celebrations are even credited with the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe. Mistletoe was used as a means to get a pretty girl to kiss you during the celebration and ultimately instigate an orgy. The Druids in Scotland and Ireland also believed that mistletoe was a symbol of fertility; a husband and wife desiring a child would hang the mistletoe around their bed during intercourse.
YOU BURN A YULE LOG
The Yule log and Yule Day have Babylonian origins. Yule is the Chaldee name for an infant or little child. December 25th was called Yule Day by Pagan Anglo-Saxon ancestors. The night preceding Yule Day was known as Mother's Night.
Saturnalia or Brumalia - A Winter Solstice Ritual
by Apollonius Sophistes
YOU CELEBRATE DECEMBER 25th
The Bible does not tell Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus. The Bible doesn't even tell us when Jesus was born. Of course we can look for "clues" within the gospels to when Jesus might have been born, and people have done that. The assumption of course is that these "clues" are authentic and not stolen from other Pagan mythology.
When the angels appear to the shepherds of Bethlehem to advise them of the birth of Jesus, the shepherds are feeding their flocks at night in the open fields. From late October to early March in Palestine one will encounter bitterly cold weather, icy rain, and sometimes even snow. Tending the flocks, much less tending them at night, is not what one finds Shepherds doing in Palestine (Bethlehem) in the middle of winter. The climate of Palestine dictates that flocks are in the field at night no later than late-October or mid-November and no sooner than early to mid-March. If we base the birth of Jesus on that clue alone, then Jesus would have been born sometime between March and late October.
It is also interesting to note that the Qur'an in Surah 19 talks about the birth of the prophet Jesus. The mother Maryam shakes the trunk of a palm tree (Qur'an 19:25) so that ripe dates fall upon her. Dates ripen in Palestine in the summer.
The Watchtower in December of 1991 stated, "The date of December 25 does not correspond to Christ's birth but to the feast of the Natalis Solis Invicti, the Roman sun festival at the solstice."
The celebration of Jesus' birth on December 25th did not start until 354 CE when Pope Gregory proclaimed the date as that of The Nativity.. Prior to 354 the Church had even guessed Jesus' birth to be in April. After the Church changed the date to December, there were Christians that refused to worship Jesus' birth in December and continued celebrating it in April. They became known as "April's fools."
Why did the Christian Church change the date to December 25th? They changed it because they were having a difficult time converting Pagans that did not want to give up their celebrations of Saturnalia, Natalis Solis Invicti, and Mithraism (among other winter solstice celebrations). Basically the change was made so Christians could say, "Hey look! We have a party, too!"
Another reason for the change to December 25th was not just to coincide with the five-day Pagan festival but also with Hanukkah. Hanukkah occurs on the 25th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev, which occurs usually in December. So by creating a Christian holiday around the same times as Hanukkah and the winter solstice, the early Christian Church was able to convert Pagans and Jews with the lure of a "grand party" to replace the one that the Pagans and Jews already celebrated.
Did you know Puritans banned Christmas in England during 1552? You did read the disclaimer didn't you (-;
Merry Saturnalia
AFSC & Veterans for Peace Candlelight Vigil
Outside Speaker Pelosi's Office
Wednesday, December 2nd 2009 5:00
San Francisco, CA USA
Not one more death, not one more dollar!
Photo of boots by Ward Reilly, member VVAW, VFP, Advisor to IVAW.
If President Obama calls for more troops to Afghanistan please join us for a Candlelight Vigil Outside Speaker Pelosi's Office Building 90 7th Street, San Francisco (New Federal Office Building) Around the flagpole.
Contact: Stephen McNeil, smcneil@afsc.org - 4153509305
Sponsored By: American Friends Service Committee Veterans for Peace, Chapter 69
http://www.afsc.org/pacificmtn/ht/d/Events/pid/82363
The War Must Be Ended Now
President Barack Obama
The White House Washington, D.C.
November 30, 2009
Dear President Obama,
With millions of U.S. people feeling the fear and desperation of no longer having a home; with millions feeling the terror and loss of dignity that comes with unemployment; with millions of our children slipping further into poverty and hunger, your decision to deploy thousands more troops and throw hundreds of billions more dollars into prolonging the profoundly tragic war in Afghanistan strikes us as utter folly. We believe this decision represents a war against ordinary people, both here in the United States and in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan, if continued, will result in the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of U.S. troops, and untold thousands of Afghans.
Polls indicate that a majority of those who labored with so much hope to elect you as president now fear that you will make a wrong decision --a tragic decision that will destroy their dreams for America. More tragic is the price of your decision. It will be paid with the blood, suffering and broken hearts of our young troops, their loved ones and an even greater number of Afghan men, women and children.
The U.S. military claims that this war must be fought to protect U.S. national security, but we believe it is being waged to expand U.S. empire in the interests of oil and pipeline companies.
Your decision to escalate U.S. troops and continue the occupation will cause other people in other lands to despise the U.S. as a menacing military power that violates international law. Keep in mind that to most of the peoples of the world, widening the war in Afghanistan will look exactly like what it is: the world's richest nation making war on one of the world's very poorest.
The war must be ended now. Humanitarian aid programs should address the deep poverty that has always been a part of the life of Afghan people.
We will keep opposing this war in every nonviolent way possible. We will urge elected representatives to cut all funding for war. Some of us will be led to withhold our taxes, practice civil resistance, and promote slowdowns and strikes at schools and workplaces.
In short, President Obama, we will do everything in our power, as nonviolent peace activists, to build the kind of massive movement --which today represents the sentiments of a majority of the American people--that will play a key role in ending U.S. war in Afghanistan. Such would be the folly of a decision to escalate troop deployment and such is the depth of our opposition to the death and suffering it would cause.
Sincerely,
(Signers names listed in alphabetical order)
Jack Amoureux, Executive Committee Military Families Speak Out
Michael Baxter, Catholic Peace Fellowship
Medea Benjamin, Co-founder, Global Exchange
Frida Berrigan, Witness Against Torture
Imam Mahdi Bray, Executive Director, Muslim American Society Freedom
Elaine Brower, World Can't Wait
Leslie Cagan, Co-Founder, United for Peace and Justice
Tom Cornell, Catholic Peace Fellowship
Matt Daloisio, War Resisters League
Marie Dennis, Director, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
Robby Diesu, Our Spring Break
Pat Elder, Co-coordinator National Network Opposing Militarization of Youth
Mike Ferner, President Veterans For Peace
Joy First, Convener National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance
Sara Flounders, Co-Director International Action Center
Sunil Freeman, ANSWER Coalition, Washington, D.C.
Diana Gibson, Coordinator Multifaith Voices for Peace and Justice
Jerry Gordon, Co-Coordinator, National Assembly To End Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupation
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Shomer Shalom Network for Jewish Nonviolence
David Hartsough, Peaceworkers, San Francisco
Mike Hearington, Steering Committee, Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition, Atlanta
Larry Holmes, Coordinator Troops Out Now Coalition
Mark C. Johnson, Ph.D., Executive Director, Fellowship of Reconciliation
Hany Khalil, War Times
Kathy Kelly, Co-Coordinator, Voices for Creative Nonviolence
Leslie Kielson , Co-Chair United for Peace and Justice
Malachy Kilbride, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance
Adele Kubein, Executive Committee Military Families Speak Out
Jeff Mackler, Co-Coordinator, National Assembly to End Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations
Imam Abdul Malik Mujahid Chair –Elect World Parliament of Religion
Kevin Martin, Executive Director Peace Action
Michael T. McPhearson, Executive Director Veterans For Peace
Gael Murphy, Co-founder Code Pink
Michael Nagler, Founder Metta Center for Nonviolence
Max Obuszewski, Director Baltimore Nonviolence Center
Pete Perry, Peace of the Action
Dave Robinson, Executive Director Pax Christi USA
Terry Rockefeller September 11th Families For Peaceful Tomorrows
Samina Sundas, Founding Executive Director American Muslim Voice
David Swanson, AfterDowningStreet.org
Carmen Trotta, Catholic Worker
Nancy Tsou, Coordinator Rockland Coalition for Peace and Justice
Jose Vasquez Executive Director Iraq Veterans Against the War
Kevin Zeese, Voters for Peace
"Who gave you the right to take the constitution and shove it down the toilet? Who gave you the right to take impeachment off the table? Nobody told them to do this," Thottam shouted at Pelosi moments before Secret Service agents removed him from the packed auditorium and turned him over to officers with the Los Angeles Police Department. "One million Iraqis are dead. Five thousand Americans are dead. You have destroyed the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth and Eighth Amendments." - THOTTAM THRASHES PELOSI!!! - North Jersey Impeach Group - The Power to Impeach is Ours:
http://www.impeachthem.com/?q=node/2050
Arrest War Criminals coming to a town near you
Saturday, June 5th 2010, Nationwide - Rather than court trials, the architects of the Afghanistan and Iraq occupations and countless illegal acts of torture are out on national speaking tours-and we're keeping track of where they're going so we can hold them accountable for their war crimes! For a detailed list of the crimes of some of these people, see this page. We are pressuring the current government to prosecute not only the war criminals including: Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Bush, Jay Bybee, John Yoo, Paul Wolfowitz, Paul Bremer, Alberto Gonzalez, Ehud Olmert, and more! Keep note of when the Obamas are in town as well-we need to keep encouraging them to promote peace and healthcare, not warfare!
http://www.codepinkalert.org/calendar.php?id=3307
Yahoo, Verizon:
Our Spy Capabilities Would 'Shock', 'Confuse' Consumers
by Kim Zetter, December 1, 2009, 3:30 pm,
Categories: Cover-Ups, Surveillance, privacy
Tags: confusion, FOIA, privacy, shock, Surveillance, verizon, wiretaps, Yahoo
Want to know how much phone companies and internet service providers charge to funnel your private communications or records to U.S. law enforcement and spy agencies?
That's the question muckraker and Indiana University graduate student Christopher Soghoian asked all agencies within the Department of Justice, under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed a few months ago. But before the agencies could provide the data, Verizon and Yahoo intervened and filed an objection on grounds that, among other things, they would be ridiculed and publicly shamed were their surveillance price sheets made public.
Yahoo writes in its 12-page objection letter (.pdf), that if its pricing information were disclosed to Soghoian, he would use it "to 'shame' Yahoo! and other companies -- and to 'shock' their customers."
"Therefore, release of Yahoo!'s information is reasonably likely to lead to impairment of its reputation for protection of user privacy and security, which is a competitive disadvantage for technology companies," the company writes.
Verizon took a different stance. It objected to the release (.pdf) of its Law Enforcement Legal Compliance Guide because it might "confuse" customers and lead them to think that records and surveillance capabilities available only to law enforcement would be available to them as well -- resulting in a flood of customer calls to the company asking for trap and trace orders.
"Customers may see a listing of records, information or assistance that is available only to law enforcement," Verizon writes in its letter, "but call in to Verizon and seek those same services. Such calls would stretch limited resources, especially those that are reserved only for law enforcement emergencies."
Other customers, upon seeing the types of surveillance law enforcement can do, might "become unnecessarily afraid that their lines have been tapped or call Verizon to ask if their lines are tapped (a question we cannot answer)."
Verizon does disclose a little tidbit in its letter, saying that the company receives "tens of thousands" of requests annually for customer records and information from law enforcement agencies.
Soghoian filed his records request to discover how much law enforcement agencies -- and thus U.S. taxpayers -- are paying for spy documents and surveillance services with the aim of trying to deduce from this how often such requests are being made. Soghoian explained his theory on his blog, Slight Paranoia:
In the summer of 2009, I decided to try and follow the money trail in order to determine how often Internet firms were disclosing their customers' private information to the government. I theorized that if I could obtain the price lists of each ISP, detailing the price for each kind of service, and invoices paid by the various parts of the Federal government, then I might be able to reverse engineer some approximate statistics. In order to obtain these documents, I filed Freedom of Information Act requests with every part of the Department of Justice that I could think of.
The first DoJ agency to respond to his request was the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS), which indicated that it had price lists available for Cox Communications, Comcast, Yahoo and Verizon. But because the companies voluntarily provided the price lists to the government, the FOIA allows the companies an opportunity to object to the disclosure of their data under various exemptions. Comcast and Cox were fine with the disclosure, Soghoian reported.
He found that Cox Communications charges $2,500 to fulfill a pen register/trap-and-trace order for 60 days, and $2,000 for each additional 60-day-interval. It charges $3,500 for the first 30 days of a wiretap, and $2,500 for each additional 30 days. Thirty days worth of a customer's call detail records costs $40.
Comcast's pricing list, which was already leaked to the internet in 2007, indicated that it charges at least $1,000 for the first month of a wiretap, and $750 per month thereafter.
But Verizon and Yahoo took offense at the request.
Yahoo objected on grounds that its pricing constituted "confidential commercial information" and cited Exemption 4 of the Freedom of Information Act and the Trade Secrets Act.
Exemption 4 of the FOIA refers to the disclosure of commercial or financial information that could result in a competitive disadvantage to the company if it were publicly disclosed. The company claims its pricing is derived from labor rates for employees and overhead and, therefore, disclosing the information would provide clues to its operating costs -- regardless of whether these same clues are already available in public records, such as those the company files with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company also claims that since Soghoian is trying to determine the actual amounts the Marshals Service paid Yahoo for responding to requests, the price lists are irrelevant, since "there are no standard prices for these transactions."
But equally important to Yahoo's objections was the potential for "criticism" and ridicule. Yahoo quoted Soghoian on his blog writing that his aim was to "use this blog to shame the corporations that continue to do harm to user online privacy."
Yahoo also objected to the disclosure of its letter objecting to the disclosure of pricing information saying that "release of this letter would likely cause substantial competitive harm" to the company. The company added, in a veiled threat, that if the Marshals Service were to show anyone its letter objecting to the disclosure of pricing information, it could "impair the government's ability to obtain information necessary for making appropriate decisions with regard to future FOIA requests."
If anyone out there has a copy of Verizon or Yahoo's law enforcement pricing list and wants to share it, feel free to use our anonymous tip address.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/wiretap-prices/
Telecom Crimes
Violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution
Violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution
Unlawful electronic surveillance or disclosure or use of information obtained by electronic surveillance in violation of 50 U.S.C. §1809.
Unlawful interception, use or disclosure of Class communications in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2511
Unlawful solicitation and obtained disclosure of the contents of communications in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2702(a)(1) or (a)(2)
Unlawful solicitation and obtained disclosure of non-content records or other information in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2702(a)(3)
Violation of the Administrative Procedures Act
Violation of the constitutional principle of separation of powers
Telecom Punishment
Congress votes to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, legalize ...
Jul 9, 2008 ... It plainly violates the Fourth Amendment." EFF, the other non-profit organization behind the telecom lawsuits, announced the same, ...
The Democratic-led Congress this afternoon voted to put an end to the NSA spying scandal, as the Senate approved a bill -- approved last week by the House -- to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, terminate all pending lawsuits against them, and vest whole new warrantless eavesdropping powers in the President. The vote in favor of the new FISA bill was 69-28. Barack Obama joined every Senate Republican (and every House Republican other than one) by voting in favor of it, while his now-vanquished primary rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, voted against it. John McCain wasn't present for any of the votes, but shared Obama's support for the bill. The bill will now be sent to an extremely happy George Bush, who already announced that he enthusiastically supports it, and he will sign it into law very shortly. [Continue Reading]
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/09/fisa_vote/
Senate Approves Telco Amnesty, Legalizes Bush's Secret Spy Program ...
That amendment got 57 votes, but due to an agreement by Senate Majority ..... It's also not in violation of the constitution, as it only applies to non-citizens. ..... 4th. Every law that alters the legal rules of evidence, and receives ... [Continue Reading]
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/02/senate-approves.html
Wiretapping, Telecom Companies, and You | The Legality
Feb 20, 2008 ... Discussion of warantless wiretapping, telecom immunity, ... Warrantless wiretaps violate the Fourth Amendment guarantee of freedom from ...
The telecom companies have a powerful ally in the U.S. federal government: officers of the federal government who approved wiretaps without a warrant may face widespread civil or criminal liability if any wrongdoing comes out in court. The law takes abuse of power very seriously, and under 50 U.S.C. § 1809, an agent of the government who monitors an illegal wiretap or uses information obtained from unlawful surveillance can be punished with a fine of $10,000, five years in jail, or both. [Continue Reading]
http://www.thelegality.com/archives/26
Big Cable's Internet Rip-Off
By Megan Tady
via Keith Lampe
You'll have to excuse me--I'm a little tired, having stayed up all night watching episodes of Lost online. I've never really cared what's in that hatch, but thought I should stream the videos before they cost me the equivalent of two weeks worth of groceries.
The good news is, that kind of online price-gouging has been delayed--for now, anyway. Thanks to a firestorm of public pressure and congressional opposition, last week Time Warner Cable shelved its pay-per-byte plan, which would link price to the volume of content consumers want.
The media giant's proposed pricing plan would force customers to purchase different tiers of Internet access. Customers who exceeded their bandwidth limit--say, by viewing online videos--would face steep penalties on top of their subscription rate. Think of it like a cell-phone plan that routinely gouges customers for using more than a monthly allotment of minutes.
It's a huge rip-off: In Rochester, N.Y., the company currently charges consumers $44.90 per month for unlimited access to the Internet. But under their new plan, consumers would have to pay $150 per month--over $100 more--for the same access. And this outlandish increase comes after the company has said it now costs less to connect consumers to the Internet. Time Warner had planned to test their pricing scheme in four markets; it has already imposed "overage" fines in Beaumont, Texas.
But the company hasn't abandoned its plan: It's only backing away until the fire dies down. In the meantime, other Internet service providers are waiting in the wings, watching the company's every move as they consider launching similar schemes. AT&T already has.
Stifling online innovation
There's a host of reasons why we should be worried about Internet service providers' march toward penalizing the use of the Internet. Exhibit A is last week's mainstream news cycle: tea bag protests, and the UK's sudden singing sensation, Susan Boyle. If you want substance in your news, you'll have to look elsewhere--beyond corporate media's steady stream of sensationalism, celebrity gossip, product placements and CSI-Everywhere.
These days, "elsewhere" often means the Internet, where innovative journalism outfits are bringing investigative news, hard-hitting reporting and minority voices to audiences via online video. The Internet allows anyone with a creative idea, camera and computer to upload their content to the world, effectively bypassing media executives by allowing the public to choose what gets aired, and when.
Already, a digital divide prohibits millions of people from getting alternative news and videos online, let alone a missed episode of "The Office." (Nearly 40 percent of the country does not have high-speed Internet, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and high-speed Internet access here is already far more costly than in many other countries.) Yet cable companies' pricing plans would put the unfettered Internet further out of reach for tens of millions of Americans.
And fewer people connecting means fewer people creating, thereby stifling online innovation.
Anti-competitive behavior
Time Warner and other Internet providers say they need to penalize users to slow down an impending "Internet brownout"--a day when we run out of bandwidth. That bandwidth doomsday, however, isn't even close.
Even one of Time Warner Cable's own executives offers evidence that bandwidth scarcity is a ruse: "Cable is like the Federal Reserve of bandwidth…we can practically print the stuff!" said Mike LaJoie, the company's chief technology officer. LaJoie has also said that supplying consumers with more bandwidth is "basically free."
Not only does Time Warner's pricing increase bear no relationship to the cost of connecting consumers, its bandwidth scarcity argument falls flat. So what's really behind the company's ploy?
Cable companies aren't happy the public is increasingly putting down remotes and turning on computers to watch online video. Used to their strangleholds on the American consumer, cable giants don't want their market challenged. What better way to crush online video viewing than by making it too expensive to watch?
Free Press is calling on Congress to investigate all cable companies threatening to introduce Internet usage caps. Already, activists have signed 16,000 letters urging Congress to look into Time Warner's plans to impose penalties against Internet users. (Congress is already getting the message that something's gone awry: Rep. Eric Massa and Sen. Charles Schumer (), both from New York, now oppose the Time Warner plan, and Massa has promised legislation to curb the price-gouging.)
The fight continues
Time Warner Cable has halted the billing plan as it continues its "customer education process" but probably only long enough to come up with better talking points to convince Americans that blocking Internet usage is in their best interest.
Or as Phillip Dampier, who runs the website StoptheCap.com, put it: "[The cable companies] still think they're right: the problem isn't draconian usage caps, it is that people weren't properly conditioned to accept them first…the OPEC of the Internet will be back by the fall, probably with almost the identical plan they 'shelved' yesterday."
We can and should celebrate last week's victory: public pressure dampened Time Warner's spirits. But cable companies will soon be back to challenge the current system. We must be ready to stop them from swindling us by curtailing access to the Internet.
Megan Tady is a campaign coordinator and writer for Free Press, the national, nonprofit media reform organization, and a former National Political Reporter for InTheseTimes.com.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4385/big_cables_internet_rip-off/
Mike Wilhelm, Neon Knepalm, Mark Phillips, drums & Patrick Walker, bass. Photo by Mark Smith
Mike & Neon play at 2 Goombas [Friday, Dec. 4th] by Alexandria Johns
Saturday, December 5th, 2009
Progress Report On Furry Freak Brothers Feature
via Andy Leighton & Karl Cohen
Grass Roots the movie/Freak Money Bomb
Dear All,
First of all many thanks to all of you have donated and bought frames, you fantastic furry freak fans.
Secondly we'd like to tell you about the Freak Money Bomb for this Saturday December 5th, a triple action crowd funding event, only at online at
http://www.freakmoneybomb.com - spread the word please - Thirdly here is a blurb
The Freak Brothers movie, 'Grass Roots' is being made by bolexbrothers, an award winning independent animation film company from Bristol, UK. The film is based on the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic book adventure 'Grass Roots'. They have been collaborating closely with Gilbert Shelton from the beginning on the script and model and set designs to keep things as authentic as possible. The film will be ! an 80 minute stop-frame model animated movie. Four years ago over £ 550,000/$900,000 was raised from private individuals to start development of the film. The script was completed and a start was made on the production design and a full budget and schedule were drawn up and a 3 minute pilot/teaser was made to test the model making, set building and animation techniques. A further fund-raise for full production funds unfortunately failed and so the film has floundered for a few years. Earlier this year, with a little more funding, the development process was completed with the storyboard and the accompanying animatic, which means we have a completed movie .. on paper! It also means that the film is now ready to go into full production and so it's time for another fundraising round.
This is not the first time that the film rights for the Freak Brothers has been optioned, in fact they've been optioned 7 or 8 times since the 1970's but no film ever got off the ground, who kno! ws why? This time we've come further than ever in bringing the Freak B rothers to the big screen. Remaining an independent production is important in preserving the integrity of the project and we have always planned to raise funds privately to preserve our independence.
The budget is £ 8 million/$13 million. There is no way in getting round it but any form of animation is expensive, time is money and we can only shoot about 15 seconds a day. However compared with major studio animation production this is cheap, not because we cut corners but because we know how to work a small multitasking crew to maximum efficiency.
About half the budget will be provided through pre-sales, tax credits and co-production funds and we are now seeking the other half from private individuals.
This time round we are widening the fund raise and getting rather radical in the process. Apart from simply donating, we're selling frames in the film, not only will you get a hard copy but your name will appear on screen (in the lower left hand corner). And as usual we! 'll be looking for wealthier individuals or syndicates to make repayable loans. Something for everybody we hope. _A freak moneybomb._
for more on the movie: http://www.grassrootsthemovie.com
UGLY REALITIES: ALTERNATE REALITY TV (Nightmare Kitchen) by Xeth - http://xeth.com/
EXIT STRATEGY - by Steve Bell
Barack Obama's war: the final push in Afghanistan
US 'did not believe Britain would refuse to send forces to Iraq'
Former defence chief tells Iraq inquiry that US generals believed Britain would commit troops even if there were no attempts to solve the crisis through the UN
by Peter Walker and Andrew Sparrow
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 December 2009 12.55 GMT
The US believed that Britain would take an active part in the Iraq war even if there were no attempts to solve the crisis through the UN, the inquiry into the conflict heard today.
During the first evidence so far from senior military and defence ministry figures, Admiral Lord Boyce, the chief of the defence staff from 2001 to 2003, told the inquiry panel that US generals and America's then-defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, seemingly refused to countenance the possibility that Britain would not commit troops.
"No matter how many times you said to senior American officers, and indeed Mr Rumsfeld, that we were not committing our forces until we had been through the proper UN process, and had been through parliament as well, there was a complete reluctance to believe that," Boyce told the panel, chaired by former senior civil servant Sir John Chilcot.
"It was a case of: 'Yeah, I know you've got to say that, but come the day you'll be there.' [That] was the attitude."
Boyce also said that he and other top British military officers found it "very frustrating" that they could not carry out logistical plans for an apparently imminent war because the government feared such preparations would make the public assume a conflict was inevitable.
Boyce said he had not been permitted to make purchases or carry out other practical planning for deployment to Iraq before November 2002, just four months before British troops joined the invasion.
The then-defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, had made this decision as he did not wish news of such concrete planning to leak out while the government was still officially committed to solving the dispute via the United Nations.
Boyce said: "It was very frustrating. I was not allowed to do that. In other words, having refined our theoretical strategic planning, I could not take the next step, which was to implement it and to start doing the necessary purchasing and bringing things forward, getting people in the right sort of place."
In the meantime, Boyce added, all he could carry out was "high-level planning".
The delays meant that one key army brigade was not fully ready for deployment until a day before the invasion started, Boyce confirmed.
Sir Roderic Lyne, one of the five members of the inquiry team, asked him: "I understand that 7 Brigade did not reach full operating capability until 19 March?"
Boyce replied: "So far as the division is concerned, the army division, you're right, they didn't reach full operational capability until March."
Separately, Boyce condemned both Rumsfeld and the UK's then-international development secretary, Clare Short, for what he said were failures in properly planning for the aftermath of the invasion.
Boyce said he was "always extremely concerned about the anorexic nature of the American contribution".
He explained: "The Americans at that particular stage were very much: 'We're going to do the war-fighting, not the peacekeeping.'"
Combined with Rumsfeld's desire to minimise the number of ground troops, this meant "we were desperately under-resourced so far as those forces going towards Baghdad were concerned", he added.
Asked about cooperation between various arms of government, Boyce said: "I thought Dfid [the Department for International Development] were particularly uncooperative, particularly as led by Clare Short. We had people on the ground who were excellent operators from Dfid who were told to sit in a tent and not do anything."
Also giving evidence this morning was Sir Kevin Tebbit, who as permanent secretary at the Ministry of Defence from 1998 to 2005 was the ministry's top civil servant at the time of the invasion.
Asked about funding for the military operation, Tebbit said that while there was not enough money for the MoD as a whole, Gordon Brown, then still the chancellor, did provide sufficient funds for the war.
"At no stage did the chancellor of the exchequer withhold the funds [needed to carry out the operation]," he said. "The problem was a more basic one about the defence budget as a whole. It was just that the defence budget was too small."
Tebbit – who labelled the accusation that the war was waged for oil "completely untrue" – said Britain's generals had never actively sought a role in Iraq, telling the panel: "At no stage, frankly, did I feel that there was an effort by the military establishment to drive the agenda. Whether that was the case in the United States, I cannot say."
But he noted that it was recognised that, in taking part in the invasion, the UK would have far more of a say over what happened in Iraq, a lesson learned from the first Iraq conflict in 1991.
"Unless and until one had boots on the ground, one did not have serious influence on America," he said.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/03/iraq-inquiry-us-britain
Dettagli evento: La vera faccia del giornalismo online.
A cura di due grandi giornalisti online @ Libreria ShaKe
9 dicembre 2009 ore 21 Libreria ShaKe-Interno 4 – viale Bligny 42, Milano
Incontro con Massimo Russo e Vittorio Zambardino, autori di Eretici digitali (novità Apogeo). 9 dicembre 2009 ore 21 Libreria ShaKe-Interno 4 – viale Bligny 42, Milano. Un importantissimo evento. La rete è in pericolo, il giornalismo pure. Come salvarsi con un tradimento e 10 tesi. Nato da un blog e da un manifesto a tesi, il libro di Russo e Zambardino affronta il problema dei media in crisi, non solo per pigrizia nella ricerca delle informazioni, ma anche per incapacità nel raccontare gli intrecci del potere economico, in definitiva nel ricostruire il senso di quanto accade. Parla del pericolo che corre la libertà della rete, di una politica ignorante e ossessionata, di diritti ancora da affermare, di nuove rendite di potere e dei limiti della retorica dell’innovazione.
Nato da un blog e da un manifesto a tesi, il libro di Russo e Zambardino affronta il problema dei media in crisi, non solo per pigrizia nella ricerca delle informazioni, ma anche per incapacità nel raccontare gli intrecci del potere economico, in definitiva nel ricostruire il senso di quanto accade. Parla del pericolo che corre la libertà della rete, di una politica ignorante e ossessionata, di diritti ancora da affermare, di nuove rendite di potere e dei limiti della retorica dell’innovazione. Propone di dare vita a un nuovo racconto dei media, adeguato al passaggio decisivo che rete, giornalismo e politica stanno vivendo.
La rete ha prodotto una società divisa, con una parte che la vive e l’altra che la detesta. Non ha senso. Serve una lingua comune per parlarsi. Ma tranquilli: questa non è l’ennesima puntata della soap “giornali & internet”. Semmai la questione è: con il digitale abbiamo tutti – vecchi e giovani, colti e meno colti, alti e bassi, destri e sinistri – un destino comune. E non riusciamo a parlarne insieme.
Questo è il nostro obiettivo: parlare con una sola lingua. L’abbiamo lanciato la scorsa primavera in dieci tesi [...] che sono riassumibili in un concetto: il digitale è un “nuovo universo” che, appena arrivato, rischia di scomparire. Ingoiato dagli establishment, normato da una politica letteralmente “ignorante”, condizionato e riconquistato da vecchi e soprattutto nuovi padroni e doganieri. Potrebbe salvarsi alleandosi con una vecchia tigre: il giornalismo, inteso non come industria ma come pratica e cultura del Racconto.
L’incontro sarà trasmesso in diretta sull’isola Decoder in Second Life. Anche il pubblico collegato online potrà quindi intervenire e fare domande ai due giornalisti.
Gli autori:
Massimo Russo è condirettore di Kataweb.it, testata del Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso. Giornalista da vent’anni, ha trascorso i primi dieci nei quotidiani, i secondi nel digitale. Insegna all’Istituto di formazione al giornalismo e all’Università Carlo Bo di Urbino. Da cinque anni gestisce un blog, Cablogrammi, dove si conversa di tecnologia e di digitale:
http://www.cablogrammi.it
Vittorio Zambardino è editorialista di Repubblica.it per la cultura digitale. Nel 1995 ha pubblicato uno dei primi saggi sulla rete, Avviso ai naviganti (Donzelli). Gestisce il blog Scene digitali. Del sito Repubblica.it è stato, ideatore, curatore e in seguito publisher. Nel 1999 ha fondato con altri la società internet Kataweb e ne ha diretto il portale. Per sei anni è stato direttore strategie internet del Gruppo Editoriale l’Espresso:
http://zambardino.blogautore.repubblica.it
http://www.shake.it/ --- Google Translate
Traffic Jam by David Normal - http://www.normal-design.com/
Pacific Packet Radio Society gateway | history | photos | papers | links | packet audio | video
Pacific Packet Radio Society
December 10, 1980
29th Anniversary of Historic KA6M Digital Packet Radio Repeater
First United States Wireless Data Communications
August 11th, 1981
Dear Packet Radio Enthusiast,
Thanks very much for the letter of inquiry which you sent me. The response I've received to the initial publicity about the packet repeater has been very enthusiastic, and I have been deluged with requests from hams, both locally and from various points around the country, for more information about the repeater, for schematics, for listings, specifications, modems, proms, SDLC chips, Vancouver boards, and for talks at clubs. Needless to say, all this activity, plus continuing development on the packet hardware and software has kept me very busy, and I apologize for the long delay in responding to your letter. Let me bring you up to date on what has happened, or is happening, since the initial announcement of the repeater, which went on the air in December of 1980.
In the early months of this year, the packet repeater was operating out of my residence, and was still an experimental machine. Since then, we have installed a couple of upgrades to the control software, we have used a better CPU card, increased the power level, moved the repeater to 700 feet elevation, and integrated its operation to be 100% compatible with the protocol used by the Vancouver Digital Communications Group (VADCG). The repeater has changed from being a laboratory curiosity to a major Bay Area repeater heard from Berkeley to south San Jose, and the user community has grown from a couple of stations to a network of some 30 users. The packet system here now has a mailbox on-line 24 hours a day, several on-line personal computers, and network links (courtesy of a commercial packet network) to the other active packet radio centers in Vancouver and Ottawa. We have also just installed an HF port on 20 Meters, and are beginning some experiments aimed at establishing connection with AMRAD in Washington and with equipment located at W1AW.
Most of the original packet radio experiments were done in Canada (in part due to the Canadians' pioneering communications spirit, and in part due to less restrictive regulations up there), and three main centers were at work: Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver. The technology employed by each of these groups differed, and each approach has its own merits. My thinking and ideas very closely paralleled the work started by Doug Lockhart, VE7APU, and I can best report on what is happening with groups which have adopted HDLC (High-level Data Link Control) framing as the basis of their protocol. The HDLC/ SDLC frame is a new, universally accepted standard in the data communications industry, and Doug and I feel it offers a good starting point on which to build a packet radio network. As it turns out, groups in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, El Paso, Denver, Sacramento, and Hamilton have also taken up this technology, and it is likely that we already have a sufficient number of people using this technique that it will become the defacto standard in the amateur radio community.
It would be impossible for me to completely describe the protocol and equipment being used in this letter, so I will briefly cover some of the topics and give you some pointers on where to find additional information. As you might guess, this is a new area for amateur radio, and tutorial material and handbooks simply do not yet exist. Many issues and problems remain to be discussed, and there is opportunity to make substantial contributions to the state of the art. [Snip] [Continue Reading]
Thanks again for your interest. See you on the net.
Best regards,
Hank Magnuski, KA6M
More Papers and History: http://www.pprs.org/pprspapers.html
Iraq's Weapon of Mass Destruction --C'est Moi! - Cartoon by Steve Bell - Britain went into Iraq unprepared for aftermath, Chilcot inquiry told The Blair government was reluctant to sign up to the US body responsible for postwar planning for fear of being 'liable under international law' - Click above cartoon for source article
So... it really was: Blood for Oil
brought to you by Republican Chickenhawk War Criminals
and Supported by Limp War Criminal Democrats
According to GOP Republicans during 2000, John McCain is a Coward who committed Treason as a POW, worked for the Soviets, and more. - Thousands of references from Google
The Headless McCain Smear
by Glenn Greenwald, Monday, Jan 21, 2008 05:38 EST, Salon
Howard Kurtz, The Washington Post, today: After the slimy, rumor-filled campaign run against him in that state in 2000, media outlets yesterday embraced the notion that his triumph was "poetic justice" (Chicago Tribune), "exorcising the ghosts" of South Carolina (New York Times) and a "spiritual victory" (Slate).
Perry Bacon, The Washington Post, January 15: In 2000, McCain lost the presidential primary race in South Carolina thanks in part to a smear campaign alleging he'd fathered a black child out of wedlock.
Elizabeth Bumiller, The New York Times, January 17, 2008: In the 2000 South Carolina primary, one of the most notorious smear campaigns in recent American politics peddled distortions and lies about him, among them that Mr. McCain's current wife, Cindy, was a drug addict and that the couple's daughter Bridget, adopted from Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh, was a black child Mr. McCain had fathered out of wedlock.
Juliet Eilperin and Jonathan Weisman, The Washington Post, January 20, 2008: The senator assembled a formidable list of South Carolina backers, including Attorney General Henry McMaster and House Speaker Bobby Harrell, who not only crisscrossed the state for McCain but also launched a "Truth Squad" that prevented any repeat of the attacks on his military record and rumors about his family that helped defeat him in 2000.
Michael Cooper, The New York Times, January 15, 2008: The polls had not even closed in Michigan yet when the McCain campaign worked Tuesday evening to repel an attack here in South Carolina, where a brutally negative campaign derailed Senator John McCain's candidacy in 2000.
Peter Hamby, CNN, January 17, 2008: In 2000, McCain was the target of a whisper campaign alleging that he fathered a black child while married to his wife, Cindy. The truth was McCain and his wife had adopted their daughter, Bridget, from Bangladesh.
Foon Rhee, The Boston Globe, January 18, 2008: John McCain, who was slimed before losing the South Carolina primary in 2000, is sitting back this time around. . . . Eight years ago, McCain was also coming off a win in the New Hampshire primary. But in the final days before the South Carolina, he was derailed in part by false rumors that he had fathered an illegitimate black child. Click to Continue Reading at Salon
John McCain: The Manchurian Candidate
By Ted Sampley,
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
December 1992 Issue - http://www.usvetdsp.com/manchuan.htm
Anti-McCain vets ready salvo against Senator's presidential campaign
by Michael Roston
Published: Friday March 9, 2007 - the raw story
RAW STORY spoke last week with Kiley, as well as Ted Sampley, a North Carolina-based publisher who has been harshly criticizing McCain for more than 10 years. Sampley teamed up with Kiley in 2004 to found a similar group that targeted Senator John Kerry as he ran for president. They see McCain as an apologist for Vietnam's Communist government who sold out fellow POWs and servicemen missing in action from America's lengthy war in Southeast Asia.
"We know him best because we've dealt with him over the years, and we know how he's acted," Kiley said. "We're taking no salaries, we do this voluntarily, and every penny will go into defeating him." - Click to continue reading
What Bush did to McCain in the 2000 S. C. primary
FACT SHEET:
Bush Waged Nasty Smear Campaign Against McCain in 2000
Bush Supporters Called McCain "The Fag Candidate." In South Carolina, Bush supporters circulated church fliers that labeled McCain "the fag candidate." Columnist Frank Rich noted that the fliers were distributed "even as Bush subtly reinforced that message by indicating he wouldn't hire openly gay people for his administration."
McCain Slurs Included Illegitimate Children, Homosexuality And A Drug-Addict Wife.
Among the rumors circulated against McCain in 2000 in South Carolina was that his adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually black, that McCain was both gay and cheated on his wife, and that his wife Cindy was a drug addict."
Bush Campaign Used Code Words to Question McCain's Temper.
"A smear campaign of the ugliest sort is now coursing through the contest for the presidency in 2000. Using the code word "temper," a group of Senate Republicans, and at least some outriders of the George W. Bush campaign, are spreading the word that John McCain is unstable. The subtext, also suggested in this whispering campaign, is that he returned from 5 1/2 years as a POW in North Vietnam with a loose screw. And it is bruited about that he shouldn't be entrusted with nuclear weapons."
Bush Supporters Questioned McCain's Sanity.
"Some of George W. Bush's supporters have questioned Republican presidential candidate John McCain's fitness for the White House, suggesting that his five years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam drove him insane at the time."
Bush Supporters Spread Racist Rumors About McCain's Daughter.
Bush supporters in South Carolina made race-baiting phone calls saying that McCain had a "black child." The McCains' daughter, Bridget, was adopted from Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh. In August 2000, columnist Maureen Dowd wrote that the McCains "are still seething about Bush supporters in South Carolina spreading word of their dark-skinned adopted daughter."
Rove Suggests Former POW McCain Committed Treason and Fathered Child With Black Prostitute.
In 2000, McCain operatives in SC accused Rove of spreading rumors against McCain, such as "suggestions that McCain had committed treason while a prisoner of war, and had fathered a child by a black prostitute," according to the New Yorker.
After Rove Denied Role In McCain Whisper Campaign, Reporters Concluded He Was Behind It.
A December 1999 Dallas Morning News linked Rove to a series of campaign dirty tricks, including his College Republican efforts, allegedly starting a whisper campaign about Ann Richard being too gay-friendly, spreading stories about Jim Hightower's involvement in a kickback scheme and leaking the educational history of Lena Guerrero. The article also outlined current dirty tricks and whisper campaigns against McCain in South Carolina, including that "McCain may be unstable as a result of being tortured while a prisoner of war in North Vietnam." (DMN, 12/2/99) After the article was published, Rove blasted Slater in the Manchester, NH airport, "nose to nose" according to one witness, with Rove claiming Slater had "harmed his reputation," Slater later noted. But according to one witness, "What was interesting then is that everyone on the campaign charter concluded that Rove was responsible for rumors about McCain."
Rove Was In Close Touch With McConnell, McCain-Feingold's Chief Opponent.
Senior White House adviser Karl Rove was in close contact with Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) during McConnell's effort to fight the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Bill in the U.S. Senate. According to Newsweek, though Rove and Bush have publicly kept their distance from McConnell on the issue, "sources tell Newsweek that Rove is, in fact, in close touch with McConnell as GOP experts study the bill for hidden land mines."
Bush Campaign Accused of Using Push Polls Against McCain.
College of Charleston student Suzette Latsko said she received a telephone call from a woman who identified herself as an employee of Voter/Consumer Research, and that the caller misrepresented McCain's positions and asked if Latsko knew McCain had been reprimanded for interfering with federal regulators in the savings and loan scandal. Voter/Consumer Research is listed as a polling contractor on Bush's Federal Election Commission filings; the Bush campaign has paid Voter/Consumer Research $93,000 through December 31, 1999. Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer denied the call was a push poll, but said it was important that the Republican Party remember McCain's role in the S&L crisis.
Bush Campaign Acknowledged Making Phone Calls.
Tucker Eskew, Bush's South Carolina spokesman, acknowledged the Bush campaign made such calls, but claimed they were not "push polls." Eskew added, "Show me a baseless comment in those questions."
Bush Used Fringe Veterans Group to Attack McCain as "Manchurian Candidate."
"In the case of Ted Sampley, the same guy who did Bush's dirty work in going after Sen. John McCain in the 2000 Republican primaries is doing the job against Kerry this year. Sampley dared compare McCain, who spent five years as a Vietnam POW, with 'the Manchurian Candidate.'"
Sampley Called McCain a "Coward" and a Traitor.
"Sampley… accused McCain of being a weak-minded coward who had escaped death by collaborating with the enemy. Sampley claimed that McCain had first been compromised by the Vietnamese, then recruited by the Soviets."
http://www.bartcopnation.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=8&topic_id=522
War Criminals Say: Manipulation Accomplished
Sitting In Limbo
by Jimmy Cliff
Sitting here in Limbo, Waiting for the tide turn. Yeah, now, sitting here in Limbo, So many things I've got to learn. Meanwhile, they're putting up a resistance, But I know that my faith will lead me on.
Sitting here in Limbo, Waiting for the dice to roll. Yeah, now, sitting here in Limbo, Still got some time to search my soul. Meanwhile, they're putting up a resistance, But I know that my faith will lead me on.
I don't know where life will take me, But I know where I have been. I don't know what life will show me, But I know what I have seen. Tried my hand at love and friendship, That is past and gone. And now it's time to move along.
Sitting here in Limbo, Like a bird ain't got a song. Yeah, I'm sitting here in Limbo And I know it won't be long 'Til I make my getaway, now. Meanwhile, they're putting up a resistance, But I know that my faith will lead me on.
I don't know where life will take me, But I know where I have been. I don't know what life will show me, But I know what I have seen. Tried my hand at love and friendship, That is past and gone. And now it's time to move along.
Gonna lead me on now. Meanwhile, they're putting up resistance, But I know that my faith will lead me on. Sitting in Limbo, Limbo, Limbo. Sitting in Limbo, Limbo, Limbo. Sitting in Limbo, Limbo, Limbo. Meanwhile, they're putting up a resistance, But I know that my faith will lead me on.
I Lied In Good Faith - Steve Bell
Tony Blair sold Iraq on WMD, but only regime change adds up
Hans Blix: The PM seems to have deployed arguments as they suited him. Our weapons inspections were telling another story
Read My Lips - The Bush/Blair Movie
READ MY LIPS originally appeared at: http://www.atmo.se/readmylips (currently non-working link).
Read My Lips .MOV --- Read My Lips .3GP --- Read My Lips .M4V
Another Bush Administration Lie Uncovered
22 million missing Bush White House e-mails found
by PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer – Mon Dec 14, 6:44 pm ET
WASHINGTON – Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House e-mails from the administration of President George W. Bush and the Obama administration is searching for dozens more days' worth of potentially lost e-mail from the Bush years, according to two groups that filed suit over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record keeping system.
The two private groups — Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive — said Monday they were settling the lawsuits they filed against the Executive Office of the President in 2007.
It will be years before the public sees any of the recovered e-mails because they will now go through the National Archives' process for releasing presidential and agency records. Presidential records of the Bush administration won't be available until 2014 at the earliest.
Former Bush White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said the 22 million e-mails already had been recovered while Bush was still in office and that misleading statements about the former administration's work demonstrate "a continued anti-Bush agenda, nearly a year after a new president was sworn in."
"The liberal groups CREW and National Security Archive litigate for sport, distort the facts and have consistently tried to create a spooky conspiracy out of standard IT issues," Stanzel said in a statement.
The 22 million e-mails "would never have been found but for our lawsuits and pressure from Capitol Hill," said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for CREW. "It was only then that they did this reanalysis and found as a result that there were 22 million e-mails that they were unable to account for before."
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said the Bush administration had been dismissive of congressional requests that the administration recover the e-mails. Leahy said it was "another example of the Bush administration's reflexive resistance to congressional oversight and the public's right to know."
The tally of missing e-mails, the additional searches and the settlement are the latest development in a political controversy that stemmed from the Bush White House's failure to install a properly working electronic record keeping system. Two federal laws require the White House to preserve its records.
The two private organizations say there is not yet a final count on the extent of missing White House e-mail and there may never be a complete tally.
Meredith Fuchs, general counsel to the National Security Archive, said "many poor choices were made during the Bush administration and there was little concern about the availability of e-mail records despite the fact that they were contending with regular subpoenas for records and had a legal obligation to preserve their records."
"We may never discover the full story of what happened here," said Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director. "It seems like they just didn't want the e-mails preserved."
Sloan said the latest count of misplaced e-mails "gives us confirmation that the Bush administration lied when they said no e-mails were missing."
The two groups say the 22 million White House e-mails were previously mislabeled and effectively lost.
The government now can find and search 22 million more e-mails than it could in late 2005 and the settlement means that the Obama administration will restore 94 calendar days of e-mail from backup tape, said Kristen Lejnieks, an attorney representing the National Security Archive.
Stanzel, the former White House spokesman, said that the 94 days of e-mails to be recovered from back-up tapes consist of 61 calendar days already planned in the Bush era and an additional 33 days of recovery that the Obama White House have agreed to recover as part of the settlement of the court case.
Sheila Shadmand, another lawyer representing the National Security Archive, said the Obama administration is making a strong effort to clean up "the electronic data mess left behind by the prior administration."
Records released as a result of the lawsuits reveal that the Bush White House was aware during the president's first term in office that the e-mail system had serious archiving problems, which didn't become publicly known until 2006, when federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald disclosed them during his criminal investigation of the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
A Microsoft Corp. document on the Bush White House's e-mail problems states that Microsoft was called in to help find electronic messages in October 2003, more than two years before the problem surfaced publicly. October 2003 was the month that the Justice Department began gearing up its criminal investigation into who in the Bush administration leaked the identity of Plame, the wife of Bush administration war critic Joseph Wilson.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091214/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_white_house_e_mail
I’m sorry but we blew up your laptop
(welcome to Israel)
Lilysussman’s Blog
I was sitting on the deck overlooking the Red Sea. Israeli security officers (most who looked around 18 years old) had completed around two hours of questioning and searching me. They had pressed every sock and scarf with a security device, ripped open soap and had me strip extra layers. They asked me tons of questions–where are you going? Who do you know? Do you have a boyfriend? Is he Arab, Egyptian, Palestinian? Why do you live in Egypt? Why not Israel? What do you know about the ‘conflict’ here? What do you think? They quized me on Judaism,which I know nothing about.
Then they asked me to wait. Since they had asked for friends and families phone numbers I assumed they might be calling to verify my answers to questions or confirm I really had extended family in Tel Aviv. An announcement played over the sound system, interrupting my break in the sunshine. First in Hebrew, then Arabic, then in English. It was something along the lines of, ” do not to be alarmed by gunshots because the Israeli security needs to blow up suspicious passanger luggage.”
I went inside to check on my bag. I had left it unattended, where they instructed. It was still there so I went back outside.
Moments later a man came outside and introduced himself as the manager on duty. And then, “I’m sorry but we had to blow up your laptop.“
What….all my client case notes and testimony, writing, pictures, music and applications. Years of work. NO!!!! What?? Are you insane?? What were you thinking? THAT’S ALL MY WORK!?
After much yelling, crying and frantic phone dialing (don’t be alarmed if I called you repeatedly this morning), he took me outside to see the wreckage. It turned out it hadn’t been quite blown up, but rather shot through with three bullets. We were able to extract the hard drive, seemingly unscaved. Thank goodness…
Security had never asked for my password. Was it my peeling Arabic stickers on the keyboard? Or something else during the questioning which set them off?
Toward the beginning of the search an officer began clicking through the photos on my camera. She froze on a picture of graffiti, which read “Fuck” scrawled next to the Jewish star of David. “Why do you have this picture?” She asked me rather aggressively. “Because I was disturbed by it too,” I answered. She didn’t press the subject but continued clicking…presumably looking at pictures from a photo exhibit about Israel’s January attack of Gaza.
Though I usually delete all my pictures when uploading, unluckily I had clicked save rather than delete when uploading this set and never got around to manually deleting on my camera. Whoops…
Among other suspicious item; an Arabic phrasebook, a journal entry that mentioned a Palestinian(yes, they even flipped through my journal), stamps from Syria, Qatar and the UAE, Palestinians in Palestine guidebook, and a map a friend had drawn with a main street in Jerusalem, the central bus station and my intended hostel. “Who are you meeting there?” They asked me.
Anyway I am in Jerusalem. Years of my life and my RLAP work is not destroyed. *sigh*. Insha’allah I will like Israel better tomorrow….
Photographs and source:
http://lilysussman.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/im-sorry-but-we-blew-up-your-laptop-welcome-to-israel/
The Above Is Nothing New:
How the Boyz in the Back Room Got Rid of Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation sues Intel Corporation for violating microprocessor architecture patents
May 13, 1997 ... Lawsuit maintains Intel infringed Digital patented technology to enhance performance of Pentium, Pentium Pro and Pentium II microprocessors ... [Continue Reading At]:
http://www.flyingsnail.com/Scrapbook/page013.html
ERIK MOLL - WAYWARD WAYS
ERIK MOLL - WAYWARD WAYS was recorded in Texas and released on cassette in 1988.
I had just moved to Austin and met Erik Hokkanen, violinist and guitarist extra-ordinaire. He and bass player Dale Dennis and drummer Wes Starr backed me at Lone Star Studio with Joe Gracey engineering. The result was this very spunky first solo-album that has waited a long time to finally be remastered and digitally released.
Just before Chistmas it is now available for legal download with the rest of my solo albums on iTunes and musiconline amongst other digital outlets.
Merry Christmas!
http://www.musiconline.no/shop/displayArtist.asp?id=19942
http://itunes.apple.com/no/artist/erik-moll/id77733440
Erik Moll
www.erikmoll.com
www.myspace.com/erikmoll
www.myspace.com/holeinthewallnorway
Some of Erik's music is located on the local Podcast Page
The people who ruined the decade, 2000-2009
[Ed. Note: War Criminal Bush Administration, Patriot Act Republicans, & Limp Democrats Not Included]
Named and shamed: the famous folk who make us glad to be leaving the noughties
by Pete Cashmore, Will Dean, Grace Dent, Priya Elan, Andrew Emery, Rob Fitzpatrick, Stuart Heritage, Malik Meer, Rebecca Nicholson, Alex Rayner, Steve Rose, Sam Richards, Richard Vine - The Guardian, Thursday 10 December 2009 - Article history
Forget Bush, Brand and Bin Laden, this decade's pop culture produced its own range of baddies from all corners. So who spent the decade buying ugly houses? Who was responsible for a pig being pleasured on TV, and who encouraged us to seek 'thinspiration' from Lindsay Lohan? Here we zero in on The People Who Ruined The Decade (TPWRTD), the folk who caused 10 years of toxic levels of disappointment ...
Part 1: From Will.I.am to Mondeo Man
Part 2: From Al Gore to Harry Potter
Part 3: From Ben Elton to L Ron Hubbard
Part 4: From Michael Cera to Frank Black
Part 5: From Sir Tim Berners-Lee to Phil Mitchell
Part 6: From 50 Cent to Piers Morgan
Part 7: From Dan Brown to Kanye West
Anthrax alert as heroin addict dies in Glasgow
• Injectors warned to be 'extremely alert' over deadly infection
• Police and health officials check whether drug contaminated
by Denis Campbell, health correspondent, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 December 2009 19.47 GMT
Contaminated heroin is being investigated as the possible source of an outbreak of anthrax which has killed one drug user and left another seriously ill in hospital.
Police and public health officials in Glasgow are checking to see if the rare but deadly infection has emerged either from a batch of the drug or a cutting agent mixed with it.
Blood tests have shown that male heroin user who died at the city's Victoria Infirmary on Wednesday had anthrax in his system, while a second man has also tested positive. A third, a woman being treated at Glasgow's Royal Infirmary, is also undergoing tests. Their names and ages have not been released.
"It's highly conceivable that it could have been contaminated either from the source in the [heroin's] origin country or it could have been contaminated as a consequence of subsequent cutting when it arrived in this country," said Dr Colin Ramsay, of Health Protection Scotland.
Another line of inquiry was that the anthrax could come from heroin being cut with bonemeal, but that was just speculation, he said. "We have no way of knowing how it might have got contaminated," he said.
"All three potentially linked cases presented at hospital with serious soft tissue infections of areas of the body injected with heroin," said NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, whose public health protection unit is investigating the outbreak. [Continue Reading At]:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/17/anthrax-death-heroin-glasgow
More people could have 'mad cow disease' than previously thought
Unusual case of 30-year-old man prompts scientists to reassess prevalence of vCJD
by Sarah Boseley, health editor, guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 December 2009 11.38 GMT
More people may be incubating variant CJD, the human version of so-called "mad cow disease", than was previously thought, according to scientists who today report an unusual case of the disease. All those tested worldwide since 1994 when the first cases were identified have been MM homozygous.
However, a 30-year-old man who died of vCJD in January this year was found to have a different genetic makeup from the rest of the 200 or so people diagnosed around the world, and identified as MV heterozygous. [Continue Reading At]:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/dec/18/mad-cow-disease-vcjd-cases
Twitter 'hijacked by Iranian hackers' ???
by Bobbie Johnson, San Francisco, guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 December 2009 09.38 GMT
[Continue Reading At]: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/dec/18/twitter-hijacked
Dick Cheney did not say Go Twitter Yourself
In Memory of James Gurley
James Gurley died of a heart attack today, 20 December 2009, in a hospital in Palm Springs, California.
I wrote about him just this last week that at The Maritime Hall in San Francisco, sixteen years ago, he played such great solos at our benefit for Chet Helms. He was on fire that night, and we have that on video tape so... there will be no doubt about it. When conditions were right, the man could really play.
James was the most unusual person I ever met, a pioneer, a real original, a very funny man and truly alive with an energy that not many people have. When James was around, life seemed to be magnified. Everything was more interesting, had more meaning, was more vital. He kept that energy right up to now, really. He and I did a set of interviews together in San Diego at the beginning of last summer and he was as wry and spry as ever.... See More
When Big Brother lived at our Lagunitas house a few miles from where I am sitting, we all had our first Christmas together, was it 1967? We both had birthdays right around this time and James handed me a small present and growled, “Let’s put the X back in X-mas.” It was a bah, humbug moment that I know he would truly appreciate now. James has gone to the great X two days shy of his birthday, and two days after mine.
For me and for many people, James was the real 1960s, the real exemplar of that counterculture, the forerunner. Peter Albin, Chet Helms, and I founded Big Brother and the Holding Company, but James was the spirit and the essence of the band in its early days. He showed us the way as a Zen master would show the way, without sermons, without lectures, with as little talk but with as much humor as possible.
When I met James in 1965, he was going to die in two weeks. Of pleurisy. It was always something. James was such a hypochondriac that I was sure he was going to outlive all of us. Now he is gone.
Goodbye, old friend. Ave Atque Vale.
Sam Andrew -- Big Brother and the Holding Company
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc4qtoRDM5w -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy_JXPixTRA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LALqJzmjnaA ---- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAnS_3PwxEI
Sept. 24, 1947: MJ-12 — We Are Not Alone ... Or Are We?
by Tony Long, 09.24.07
1947: If the secret committee known as the Majestic 12 ever really existed, this is the day that the group was allegedly created by a memorandum from President Harry Truman.
If real, this shadowy coven of scientists, military brass and government officials came together in response to the Army's recovery of an alien spacecraft that crashed on a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947. Their purpose: to investigate the circumstances surrounding the Roswell incident and to maintain vigilance against further alien incursions.
Among the names who appear as original members of MJ-12: Rear Adm. Roscoe Hillenkoetter, first director of the CIA; Dr. Vannevar Bush, who headed the wartime Office of Scientific Research and Development; and James Forrestal, secretary of defense.
Confirming the existence of MJ-12 is central to the argument by UFO conspiracy theorists that the U.S. government has deliberately hidden UFO information from the public ever since Roswell. The government, whether irritated by the crazies who won't leave it alone or genuinely interested in keeping the presence of aliens under wraps, has consistently denied MJ-12's existence and dismissed UFO reports as mistaken identity or hoaxes (.pdf).
The military continues to maintain that the wreckage retrieved at the Roswell ranch came from a top-secret research balloon.
That explanation has never flown with UFO watchers, who have produced a mountain of evidence purporting to prove that not only does MJ-12 exist, but there's a really big cover-up going on. (Forrestal's untimely death in 1949, officially ruled a suicide, has helped fuel the fire.)
Sixty years on, and the argument still rages.
If nothing else, the furor has helped fuel some entertaining "Alien Autopsy" headlines in such august periodicals as the National Enquirer.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/09/dayintech_0924#
It's the end of the world as we know it...again by Matt Wuerker
A Brief History of Socialist Plots to End the American Way of Life
Mayon treats sightseers to lava fountain show
By RIO ROSE RIBAYA, December 25, 2009, 4:26pm
The world-famous Mount Mayon in Legazpi City glowed beautifully once again when lava fountained at its crater four times late Wednesday night, seemingly putting up a good show as a gift to tourists and residents of Albay this Christmas Day.
In its latest bulletin, the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) reported that Mayon had a dramatic series of lava fountaining that reached a maximum height of 500 meters from the crater at exactly 11:12, 11:14, 11:20 and 11:32 p.m. on Wednesday.
Jimmy Sincioco, officer-in-charge of Phivolcs’ Volcano Monitoring and Eruption Prediction Division, explained that the throwing of incandescent lava up in the air, which looked like a sparkling red inverted broom over the midnight sky, indicated volatile pressure of gas inside the perfect-coned volcano.
"There are no pyroclastic materials that can flow from these fountains of lava. We can all be assured that this is not dangerous," Sincioco told the Manila Bulletin.
This is the second time that Mayon had a fountaining of lava after the same volcanic activity first drew tourists to Albay province to see the beauty of the world-renowned volcano last week.
But the volcanologist noted that a lava fountaining also indicates imminent explosive eruption just like what happened in 2000 and 2001.
Nine years ago, Mayon also had fountains of lava that lasted for hours which intensified before finally exploding, producing tall eruption columns and pyroclastic flow, Sincioco said.
He added that the fountains of lava are usually followed by taller eruption columns during minor explosions accompanied by perceptible earthquakes, harmonic tremors and booming sounds.
He said that seismic activity remained elevated in number and size as the seismic network detected 815 volcanic earthquakes and recorded tremors at maximum deflection until around 4:14pm on Wednesday.
He added that 21 ash explosions were recorded during times of good visibility, with the ash columns reaching heights of up to 1.2 kilometers above the summit.
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/235693/mayon-treats-sightseers-lava-fountain-show
Happy New Year
Republicans and Democrats are Lying Hypocrites
Who Support Selective Terrorism Against U.S. Military
Remember the U.S.S. Liberty - 34 U.S. Military Dead, 171 Wounded
The Assault on the USS Liberty Still Covered Up After 42 Years
By James M. Ennes Jr., Washington Report On Middle East Affairs, June 1993, Page 19
Twenty-six years have passed since that clear day on June 8, 1967 when Israel attacked the USS Liberty with aircraft and torpedo boats, killing 34 young men and wounding 171. The attack in international waters followed over nine hours of close surveillance. Israeli pilots circled the ship at low level 13 times on eight different occasions before attacking. Radio operators in Spain, Lebanon, Germany and aboard the ship itself all heard the pilots reporting to their headquarters that this was an American ship. They attacked anyway. And when the ship failed to sink, the Israeli government concocted an elaborate story to cover the crime. [Click to Continue Reading]
"Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport them, to expel and burn them, to have everyone hate us, to pull the rug from underneath the feet of the Diaspora Jews, so that they will be forced to run to us crying. Even if it means blowing up one or two synagogues here and there [? 9/11 ?], I don’t care. And I don’t mind if after the job is done you put me in front of a Nuremberg Trial and then jail me for life. Hang me if you want, as a war criminal… What you lot don’t understand is that the dirty work of Zionism is not finished yet, far from it." - Ariel Sharon, Israel, 1982 - [This statement indicates Ariel Sharon and people like him were and are capable of doing anything; evil as it may be, to advance Zionism. The question, "Is it possible this included 9/11?" is worth asking... especially when one considers the Lavon Affair** and the USS Liberty, which were attacks on the United States carrried out by Israeli Terrorists who are supported by a misguided U.S. Congress.]
** Lavon Affair: In 1954, Israeli agents working in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including a United States diplomatic facility, and left evidence behind implicating Arabs as the culprits. The ruse would have worked, had not one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to capture and identify one of the bombers, which in turn led to the round up of an Israeli spy ring.
Some of the spies were from Israel, while others were recruited from the local Jewish population. Israel responded to the scandal with claims in the media that there was no spy ring, that it was all a hoax perpetrated by "anti-Semites". But as the public trial progressed, it was evident that Israel had indeed been behind the bombing. Eventually, Israeli's Defense Minister Pinhas Lavon was brought down by the scandal, although it appears that he was himself the victim of a frame-up by the real authors of the bombing project, code named "Operation Susannah."
It is therefore a fact that Israel has a prior history of setting off bombs with the intent to blame Arabs.
"Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that. . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it." - Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, 3 October 2001 - Less than a month after the 9/11 Mass Murders in New York City. - שבת-שלום
Secret mobile phone codes cracked
By Jonathan Fildes, Technology reporter, BBC News
A German computer scientist has published details of the secret code used to protect the conversations of more than 4bn mobile phone users.
Karsten Nohl, working with other experts, has spent the past five months cracking the algorithm used to encrypt calls using GSM technology.
GSM is the most popular standard for mobile networks around the world.
The work could allow anyone - including criminals - to eavesdrop on private phone conversations.
Mr Nohl told the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin that the work showed that GSM security was "inadequate".
"We are trying to inform people about this widespread vulnerability," he told BBC News. [Continue Reading]:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8429233.stm --- Review Telecom Crimes & Telecom Punishment
One year on, we need progress in Gaza
Editorial, The Observer, Sunday 27 December 2009, Article history
IN THE 12 months since Israel's devastating assault on Gaza in Operation Cast Lead, conditions in the Strip "remain wretched", to use Amnesty International's phrase. The Israeli economic siege has remained in place since Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian elections and enforced its rule within Gaza. Almost no work has been done to repair an estimated $1bn worth of damage because of restrictions on the import of building materials.
Indeed, since the end of the conflict in January, only 41 truckloads of building materials have entered Gaza when thousands are needed. The economy is dependent on the Hamas-regulated warren of tunnels on the southern border with Egypt.
For Israel itself, the consequences of its war on Gaza have been more difficult to assess. Rocket fire by the Palestinian factions has finally been halted, but the cost to Israel of a war that claimed almost 1,400 Gazan lives has been serious. The use of white phosphorous against civilian targets, as well as other suspected breaches of humanitarian law, have corroded the country's moral standing even among its most robust supporters. Israeli politicians and officials have been forced to confront the fact that they risk arrest in a number of countries including, for now at least, the United Kingdom. The impact on Israel has been pernicious in another way. The principle of deterrence has been crucial for its defence. So its failure to dislodge Hamas from Gaza, coming so close after the disaster of its adventure in Lebanon in 2006, has seen its military diminished.
But the assault on Gaza had other consequences that it is, perhaps, easy to forget. The conflict was conducted in the febrile conditions of an Israeli general election which saw all main parties aggressively endorsing the war. It returned Binyamin Netanyahu as prime minister in a coalition that has included Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister, a man notable for demanding Israeli Arabs swear an oath of loyalty or face expulsion. Unsurprisingly a peace process, already moribund, has faltered further.
Netanyahu has carefully managed a new style designed to derail US demands for a freeze to further settlement in the West Bank by offering the most partial of freezes, in the knowledge it cannot possibly be acceptable to the Palestinian leadership. If Netanyahu has succeeded in this policy thus far it is because he has been allowed to by an American president who promised so much in his Cairo speech and yet has delivered so little. While it is fair to say Barack Obama has been preoccupied with other issues, it is a truism in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that no movement has ever been achieved without the full, vigorous engagement of the US president.
So what we have is an increasingly dangerous stasis in which all issues, save for the stop-start negotiations for prisoner exchange, are on hold. Palestinian national reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah, the West Bank and Gaza, has made little headway; Israeli-Palestinian talks are on hold; the economic stranglehold of Gaza goes on. All largely ignored by the international community.
The peril of this lack of movement has been starkly visible in the last week, as Israel yesterday shot dead six Palestinians in two separate incidents in the West Bank. What is required, if there is to be any movement, is an urgent new sense of commitment that must begin in Washington. But equally, there needs to be moves to relieve the plight of Gaza's 1.5 million residents.
They must be allowed access to markets so that they can rebuild, and at least makes some attempt towards lives of dignity. Moreover, stasis suits Hamas, its enemy a sense of opportunity and purpose among those it governs. It is not good enough for the world to ignore this problem while a new generation grows up frustrated and alienated in what is effectively an enormous prison. That is no solution, merely tragedy deferred. Violence will follow.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/27/gaza-progress-israel-palestine
Drums test positive for anthrax
Infected woman in critical condition
By Maddie Hanna, Monitor staff, Durham, December 29, 2009 - 12:00 am
Anthrax has been found in two African drums used during community drum circles at the University of New Hampshire that were attended this month by a young woman who has since been diagnosed with the gastrointestinal strain of the disease - the first such case reported in the United States.
But how exactly the Strafford County woman ingested anthrax is unclear.
State Public Health Director Jose Montero said further testing is needed to see whether the strain of anthrax found in the drums matches the strain found in the woman, who was still in critical condition yesterday.
"This is incredibly unusual, the situation we are managing here," Montero said yesterday during a conference call with reporters. "We don't have a clear and full explanation of how this happened." [Continue Reading]:
Local Page on Anthrax: http://www.flyingsnail.com/Dahbud/anthrax.html
Jail War Criminal Perverts... else,
Those Serving In Senate and Congress from 2000 to 2004
Should Be Charged With Child Pornography and Murder
[Ed. Note: The above statement does not apply to Barbara Lee]
Some of the worst things that happened that you don’t know about. OK? Videos. There are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at [Abu Ghraib], which is about 30 miles from Baghdad — 30 kilometers, maybe, just 20 miles, I'm not sure whether it's — anyway. The women were passing messages out saying please come and kill me because of what’s happened. And basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children, in cases that have been [video] recorded, the boys were sodomized, with the cameras rolling, and the worst above all of them is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking. That your government has, and they’re in total terror it’s going to come out. It’s impossible to say to yourself, how did we get there, who are we, who are these people that sent us there.
Seymour Hersh, July 8, 2004 - http://www.pastpeak.com/archives/2004/07/post_1.htm
Warnings of abuse in Iraq's prisons that were ignored
Photographs of American and British troops humiliating prisoners could change the public mood across the world. But the coalition has brushed aside similar complaints for six months
Peter Beaumont and Kahal Ahmed in London, Edward Helmore in New York and Jason Burke in Baghdad, The Observer, Sunday 2 May 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/02/iraq.military
Congress Supports Terrorism Against U.S. Military
http://www.takebackthemedia.com/chickenhawks.html
Families cannot sue firm for Israel deaths
· Caterpillar machines used in demolition of homes
· Parents of activist Rachel Corrie part of legal suit
by Ed Pilkington in New York, The Guardian, Wednesday 19 September 2007
The parents of Rachel Corrie, the US peace activist who was crushed to death four years ago in the then Israeli-occupied Gaza as she was protesting against the demolition of Palestinian homes, have been refused permission to sue the company which made the bulldozer that killed her.
On Monday a federal appeals court ruled that Caterpillar Inc, the Illinois-based company that has supplied several bulldozers used by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) in house demolitions in the occupied territories, could not be sued as to do so would bring the judiciary into conflict with the executive branch of the US government.
A panel of three judges argued that the legal action could not have gone to trial "without implicitly questioning, and even condemning, United States foreign policy towards Israel".
Corrie was killed on March 16 2003 by a 60-tonne Caterpillar D9 bulldozer in Rafah, Gaza, as she was attempting to prevent the home of a Palestinian pharmacist being razed. She was wearing a fluorescent orange vest and according to witnesses in full view of the bulldozer operator.
Her parents, along with four Palestinian families left bereaved in actions involving similar bulldozers, began legal proceedings in 2005. Lawyers acting for the families alleged that Caterpillar had sold the machines to the Israeli government on a commercial basis. The firm knew, or should have known, that the equipment was going to be used to demolish homes in violation of international law in incidents that at times led to the deaths of innocent people, they said.
Caterpillar, with supporting evidence from the US government, argued that the machines had been paid for by the Pentagon as part of the government's military aid to Israel.
Cindy Corrie, Rachel's mother, told the Guardian that she was extremely disappointed by the court's decision. "Clearly there were war crimes committed here and we will continue to challenge Caterpillar and the US government."
Mariah LaHood, a lawyer with the Centre for Constitutional Rights who acted on the case, questioned the role the US government played in giving evidence favourable to Caterpillar. "Isn't there a responsibility to permit justice to be sought on behalf of a US citizen killed in a foreign country?"
Caterpillar said in a statement that it was pleased with the ruling. "We are hopeful it will bring to an end what has been a lengthy but fair judicial process."
Corrie's story received widespread attention at the time of her death. Her emails home describing her experiences as a peace activist in the run-up to her death were turned into a stage play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, coedited by Alan Rickman and the Guardian journalist Katharine Viner.
Among the other families included in the legal suit were that of Mahmoud Omar al-Shu'bi from Nablus in the West Bank. In April 2002 a D9 bulldozer destroyed his home in the middle of the night in an action by the IDF, allegedly without warning. His father Umar, sisters Fatima and Abir, brother Samir and sister-in-law Nabila who was pregnant, as well as their three children aged four , seven and nine, were all killed.
The sale of Caterpillar equipment to Israel caused controversy within the Church of England after the synod voted last year to disinvest from firms profiting from Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. However, it later decided to keep its shares in the company.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/sep/19/usa.israel
Israelis 'firing Live Rounds' at West Bank Protesters
Israelis used war against Hamas to reintroduce banned bullets and use a new tear-gas canister
by Guardian News & Media 2008, Published: 3/14/2009
Israeli armed forces and border police used the cover of the war against Hamas in Gaza to reintroduce the firing of .22 rifle bullets - as well as the extensive use of a new model of tear-gas canister - against unarmed demonstrators in the Occupied West Bank protesting at the building of Israel's "separation wall".
The tactics were highlighted on Friday, when a US protester, Tristan Anderson, 38, was hit in the head by one of the new extended-range gas canisters in the village of Ni'ilin, suffering an open wound in his skull and substantial brain damage. Anderson's friend, Gabrielle Silverman, claims he was struck by a canister fired from a high-velocity rifle. The Israeli military says stone-throwing "poses a threat to troops", and several officers have been injured by rocks.
It said troops used the permitted means of riot dispersal in Friday's incident, including tear gas, rubber-coated steel pellets and stun grenades.
The extended-range canisters have been brought into service at the same time that the Israeli defense Force (IDF) and border police have again been using live rounds fired from Ruger sniper rifles, banned in 2001 by Israel's then military advocate general, Menahem Finkelstein.
The new gas canister that injured Anderson - the fourth member of the International Solidarity Movement to be killed or seriously injured by Israeli troops since the beginning of the Second Intifada - is fired at a much higher speed than the gas canisters and grenades deployed before.
According to witnesses, soldiers have been firing the canisters directly at protesters, sometimes from a few dozen meters, using the hard plastic-coated metal tubes as a weapon.
"They have introduced new weapons," said Sasha Solana, a colleague of Anderson from the International Solidarity Movement. "They are shooting directly into people."
B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, complained to the Israeli judge advocate general two weeks ago about the new tactics.
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/256383.html
The man whispered, "God, speak to me" and a meadowlark sang. But the man did not hear. So the man yelled "God, speak to me" and the thunder rolled across the sky. But the man did not listen. The man looked around and said, "God let me see you" and a star shined brightly. But the man did not notice. And the man shouted, "God show me a miracle" and a life was born. But the man did not know. So the man cried out in despair, "Touch me God, and let me know you are there" Whereupon God reached down and touched the man. But the man brushed the butterfly away and walked on.
Don't miss out on a blessing because it isn't packaged the way you expect.
Without love in the dream, it will never come true. - Garcia/Hunter
Denialists Click HERE To Continue