Thursday, July 28, 2005

Mark Crispin Miller's "None Dare Call It Stolen"

"None Dare Call It Stolen: Ohio, the Election, and America's Servile Press" (Harper's magazine, August 2005) is an ass kicking piece of journalism. MCM has always been one of my favorites -- I'm very happy a mainstream mag is tackling this story.

One excerpt:

In the summer of 2003, Representative Peter King (Rl, N.Y.) was interviewed by Alexandra Pelosi at a barbecue on the White House lawn for her HBO documentary "Diary of a Political Tourist." "It's all over. The election's over. We won." King exulted more than a year before the election. When asked by Pelosi -- the daughter of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi -- how he knew that Bush would win, he answered: "It's all over but the counting. And we'll take care of the counting."

Is Judge Roberts Opus Dei?

From Mark Crispin Miller's "News From Underground" blog:

Posted on Salon:

Is Roberts Opus Dei?
All indicators point to "yes" --

Roberts & wife left their DC parish to follow their pastor when he was re-assigned:

[snip]

Msgr. Peter Vaghi, who has been pastor of St. Patrick Church downtown for nine years, has been appointed pastor of Church of the Little Flower, Bethesda. He will replace Msgr. William Kane, who is retiring.

Born in 1948, Msgr. Vaghi attended Gonzaga College High School here; Holy Cross College in Worcester, Mass.; the University of Salzburg, Austria, where he studied as a Fulbright Scholar; the University of Virginia School of Law, Charlottesville; and the Gregorian University, Rome. Ordained in 1985, he was later appointed assistant pastor of St. Patrick's and became pastor there in 1995, the same year he was named a monsignor.

He has been active in numerous Catholic organizations such as the John Carroll Society of which he is chaplain and the Downtown Washington Serra Club. While a practicing attorney before ordination, he was an associate in the Washington firm of Sidley & Austin and legal consultant to Sen. Pete Domenici (R.-N.M.).

Read more.

7/22/03
Judge Bork, baptized at 76 It may be a little late to start for most, but Robert Bork, the former Supreme Court nominee who has written books decrying the decline of Western culture, has just been baptized. Rev. C. John McCloskey, who represents the conservative and activist Opus Dei arm of the Roman Catholic Church and oversaw the baptism, said, "I can confirm that he was received in the Catholic Church."

Bork, a scholar with the conservative American Enterprise Institute, was raised a Protestant and had called himself a "generic Protestant." He was known more for his conservative legal views, which some Democrats used to shoot down his court nomination during the Reagan administration.

In a brief interview, he said that years of "conversations and reading" led him to baptism at McCloskey's small Catholic Information Center chapel on K Street near the White House. "There's more to talk about than you can put in a brief story." He called himself a regular Catholic who attends Sunday mass, not an Opus Dei member.

He said talks with and recommendations from the priest, as well as attending church with his wife, Mary Ellen Bork, a former nun, helped pave the way to the ceremony.

Bork's sponsors were Kate O'Beirne, a conservative media star, and John O'Sullivan, head of UPI.

Lots of other prominent Catholics were there, such as columnist and speechwriter Peggy Noonan, herself a convert.

McCloskey has made several other high-level conversions of conservatives, bringing into the Catholic Church conservative columnist Robert Novak and Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas.

The best part of getting baptized at 76, said Bork: "If you get baptized at my age, all of your sins are forgiven. And that's very helpful."

According to Archdiocese of Washington Communications Director Susan Gibbs, Msgr. William Awalt, the longtime pastor of the Borks, baptized the judge, confirmed him and gave him First Communion. Father McCloskey celebrated the Mass, along with Msgr. Peter Vaghi, pastor of St. Patrick's.

Fr. McCloskey is the priest who has converted so many Washingtonians, including Justice Scalia, to Opus Dei-style Catholicism. The Federalist Society is crawling with them.

I am getting seriously creeped out by this. Where are all the people who were so afraid to vote for Kennedy because the Pope might tell him what to do?

A dose of despair

From the Energy Bulletin:

A few days ago Roger Pielke Jr. pointed to a paper (PDF) by Tim Dyson of the London School of Economics called "On development, demography and climate change: The end of the world as we know it?" Pielke called it "refreshingly clear thinking on climate change." That's true, if by "refreshingly clear" he means "weep-silently-aplogize-to-your-children-and-throw- yourself-out-a-window depressing." Abandon hope, all ye who download PDF here.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Another Incident at Exeter

The present...

And the past...

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Epigrams of the White Lodge

From Professor Pan's Handbook of White Magick (or "How to Fight the Legion of Darkness for Dummies"):

Epigrams of the White Lodge

1. Laughter is a sword to the heart of those who would have you fear them. Mockery is a silver bullet.

2. Do not get lost in the dark corners of your library when it's sunny outside. Sit in the sunshine and watch the birds.

3. Make love religiously.

4. Those who live by taking die empty. Those who live by giving die with everything.

5. Destruction is lesser than creation.

6. The harder they come, the harder they fall.

7. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.

Details of US microwave-weapon tests revealed

Next up from the mad scientists that Dr. Seuss, in his brilliant "Butter Battle Book," called the "Back Room Boys:" Nuking humans with a 95-gigahertz microwave cannon. From the New Scientist article:

The ADS weapon's beam causes pain within 2 to 3 seconds and it becomes intolerable after less than 5 seconds. People's reflex responses to the pain is expected to force them to move out of the beam before their skin can be burnt.

But Neil Davison, co-ordinator of the non-lethal weapons research project at the University of Bradford in the UK, says controlling the amount of radiation received may not be that simple. "How do you ensure that the dose doesn't cross the threshold for permanent damage?" he asks. "What happens if someone in a crowd is unable, for whatever reason, to move away from the beam? Does the weapon cut out to prevent overexposure?"


Hmmm... like someone knocked down or otherwise disabled? Nah, that kind of thing never happens in crowds.

And where will this device be put to use? Iraq, of course. But expect to see it when the war protests start to get bigger and uglier:

A vehicle-mounted version of ADS called Sheriff could be in service in Iraq in 2006 according to the Department of Defense, and it is also being evaluated by the US Department of Energy for use in defending nuclear facilities. The US marines and police are both working on portable versions, and the US air force is building a system for controlling riots from the air.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

"Unidentied Iraqis" sticking to U.S. Military script

Two "unidentified Iraqis" must have been rehearsing their lines together, it seems.

The U.S. military on Sunday said it was looking into how virtually identical quotations ended up in two of its news releases about different insurgent attacks.

snip

Following are the two quotes as provided by the U.S. military in news releases:

Sunday's news release said: "'The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the ISF and all of Iraq. They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists,' said one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified."

The July 13 news release said: "'The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the children and all of Iraq,' said one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified. 'They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists.'"

Friday, July 22, 2005

Hosanna Coverup Part 4 (update)




I have received assurances from someone within the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Department that the detectives and police officers are sticking to their stories -- that some of the alleged perpetrators did confess to ritualized abuse and that the evidence backing up those allegations was handed over to the DA's office.

According to the District Attorney, however, the Sheriff's department is made up of liars and fabricators. Multiple confessions, witness corroboration, and abundant physical evidence -- none of it is true. Or, if any of it is true, it "isn't relevant" (Scott Perrilloux, District Attorney, The Daily Star, 6/30/2005).

I have one question for you fair-minded, skeptical readers to consider:

Which is harder to believe -- that an organized pedophile ring participated in ritualized occult behavior, or that an entire police department is full of liars and hoaxers?

Hosanna Coverup Part 1
Hosanna Coverup Part 2
Hosanna Coverup Part 3

Related:
"Brother" Mike DePhillips
District Attorney Scott Perrilloux and the Sadie Henderson Murder

Al Qaeda, U.S. Oil Companies, and Central Asia

Peter Dale Scott has posted a draft chapter from his forthcoming book, "The Road to 9/11."

His conclusion:

"...Since World War Two... the United States power state has consistently used the resources of the global drug traffic to further its own ends, particularly with respect to oil, at the expense of the public order and well-being of the American public state. For at least two decades, from Brzezinski’s backing of Hekmatyar in 1979 to Bush’s backing of the Afghan Northern Alliance in 2001, the United States has continued to draw on the resources of drug-trafficking Islamic jihadists who are or were associated at some point with Al Qaeda."

Yep, I can't sum things up any better than that.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Pulling off the WHIG

Thanks to slimmouse at the Rigorous Intuition board for this:

http://www.crisispapers.org/essays-w/horrors.htm

The Fitzgerald investigation into Plamegate has the potential to bring all sorts of nastiness to the surface. The White House Iraq Group was the architect of the WMD ruse, and all of the strings lead to that particular group of puppeteers.

This is a very important analysis. An excerpt:

But someone, or some entity, within the Administration had to coordinate these concerted propaganda campaigns. That was the bailiwick and job-assignment of the WHIG, chaired by Bush's Chief of Staff Andrew Card, the regular members of which were Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser; communications strategists Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio; and policy advisers led by Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, along with "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's Chief of Staff. In other words, WHIG included the key decision makers (Rove, Rice, Card, Cheney-via Libby), and the key propaganda specialists (Hughes, Matalin, et al.).

They waited a month to launch their first public-relations bombardment. Why September? Andy Card let slip the reason in an interview with the New York Times: "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August," he said.

They soon determined that the public was most frightened of a possible nuclear attack by al-Qaida, and so, the day after publication of Card's marketing quote, the Bush Administration heavies began dropping their Iraq-as-nuclear-menace grenades into the public airwaves. They attempted to back up their claims by quoting from reports by international nuclear energy agencies supposedly saying that Iraq was about to become a nuclear power -- but no such reports existed.

But the lack of believable evidence about WMD didn't stop them, and the fright campaign continued. Some of that history may well have been in Fitzgerald's classified showing before the court.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

The Paranormal Complex, or Don't Feed the Archons

I posted a version of this at Rigorous Intuition's board, but thought it deserved repeating. My comments were in reference to the experiences chronicled by Palyne here. Her account of her smorgasbord of strange experiences is riveting reading.

My thoughts:

Although Palyne's smorgasbord of experiences may sound outlandish, it fits what I've termed the paranormal complex. There's not a DSM-IV listing for it yet, though ;-)

The age-old caution about opening one's self up to paranormal experiences is a wise one. Yogic teachings warn against become fascinated by siddhis (paranormal phenomena such as precognition, clairvoyance, spirit communication, and so forth). And Palyne's experiences -- all of them -- are readily recognizable to someone who is familiar with Kundalini activation/arousal, which is known to cause the eruption siddhis (along with other physical effects noted by Palyne). The Kundalini arousal model is just one template with which to analyze her story.

My working theory (always subject to revision) is that the barriers between consensus reality and the liminal realm (Vallee's Magonia) can become thin for a variety of reasons -- a deep inhalation of DMT, a UFO sighting on a dark road, a psychotic episode, exhaustion, trauma, or the mindset of someone attempting an occult working.

Once the veils part, and paranormal phenomena manifests, further energy feeds into the complex. Once someone becomes "open," and lets down his or her guard, the energies behind the paranormal experiences find a willing host. Jim DeKorne's Gnostic or "Archon" hypothesis makes perfect sense to me (see his excellent book Psychedelic Shamanism). Keel's thinking is also similar.

So someone like Palyne begins to have paranormal experiences. She is frightened (a highly energetic state) by those experiences, but also intrigued and drawn to the mystery. That interest -- that excitable state of openness -- facilitates more paranormal activity. The door opens wider the more you try to see what's on the other side.

And an open door, especially if there is light streaming through, attracts all sorts of cold, hungry wanderers.

Palyne's story should serve as a cautionary tale, particularly for those of us who are inclined to delve into the borderlands. It pays to be cautious when feeding the Archons -- even if you believe that's just a fancy word for a psychological complex.

Dion Fortune's Psychic Self Defense should be on everyone's bookshelf. At the very least, if you find things are weird and getting weirder, take a break. Socialize as much as possible. Work hard at immersing yourself in mundane tasks, especially physical activity. When it comes to this subject, balance is not only important -- it can save your life.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Bush friends host al-Qaida website that posted 7/7 claim of responsibility

Excerpts:

The claim of responsibility for the London attacks was first posted on one of the dozens of Islamic websites that are routinely monitored by western intelligence services.

The statement, under the name of the Secret Organisation of the al-Qaida Jihad in Europe, said: "The heroic mujahideen have carried out a blessed raid in London. Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern and western quarters."

It was posted on an Arabic website, al-qal3ah.com, which is registered by Qalaah Qalaah in Abu Dhabi and hosted by a server in Houston, Texas.

(snip)

The server in Houston has intriguing connections. Everyone's Internet was founded by brothers Robert and Roy Marsh in 1998 and by 2002 had an income of more than $30m (now about £17m).

Renowned for his charitable work, Roy Marsh counts among his friends President George Bush's former sister-in-law, Sharon Bush, and the president's navy secretary.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Hosanna Coverup, the DA, and Sadie Henderson

The District Attorney in the Hosanna Church case (which has now been scrubbed of any occult residue), Scott Perrilloux, has an interesting history.

The Florida Daily Star has details about another case Perrilloux handled -- the murder trial of Jerry Hills.

Perrilloux presented evidence -- a hair that didn't belong to the accused -- that allowed Hills, an insane convicted murderer and serial rapist, to get off the hook for the murder of 5-year-old Sadie Henderson. The police who worked the case, and who fished the girl's body out of the water, were "disgusted" at the outcome.

More on Sadie's case here.

Monday, July 11, 2005

Is "Brother" Mike DePhillips "Detective" Mike DePhillips?




http://www.instantpublisher.com/ip/display.asp?display=detail&num=IP10666-03&cover=IP10666-03.gif

Is Detective Mike DePhillips, who was in charge of the investigation of the Hosanna cult, the "Brother" and "Pastor" who wrote "Living Under the Shadow!"? If not, it's an amazing coincidence.

While thinking about that, ponder what "Altar Call" might mean, if a homonym for the word altar is substituted?

And is anyone inclined to order this book?



About this Book:
Destiny isn't determined by your enemy but through your intimacy with God. Israel spent 40 years in the wilderness making what the Bible tells us is an 11 day journey because the attitude of their heart wasn't in fellowship with God. They traded an intimate relationship with God for having Moses do all their praying, repenting and hearing from God making them lack a faith that overcomes circumstances. Many modern Christians have made the same mistake and live their Christian life in the "wilderness" never having all that God has promised but their is hope! By finding the secret place of the Most High as Psalm 91:1 says, we can live under the shadow of God.

About the Author:
Brother Mike DePhillips is the Senior Pastor of Pleasant Hill Baptist Church of Quitman Mississippi and President of Altar Call Ministries. Since entering the ministry, he has graduated from Andersonville Baptist Seminary with a Bachelor of Ministry as well as currently attending New Orleans Baptsit Theological Seminary. Brother Mike is a former Police Officer and Karate Instructor that has used his secular experience to make inroads for relational evangelism as well as foreign mission work on the island of Trinidad.

He is married to the former Carol Bergeron and the father of four sons: Michael, Matthew, Marcus and Daniel who support him in his decision for Christ.

Order/Contact Info:
midedephillips@hotmail.com or you may write

Altar Call Ministries
191 County Road 132
Quitman MS 39355

Hosanna Coverup Part 3

Part 1
Part 2

The case was progressing, people were confessing, evidence was being gathered... and then?

From the Tangihopa Parish Sheriff's Office website:

http://www.tpso.org/system/press (contents of the page have been removed)

TANGIPAHOA PARISH SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT HANDS CHURCH CASE OVER TO DISTRICT ATTORNEY
Thursday, June 23, 2005
Laura Covington
Executive Assistant/PIO
Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Department
covingtonl@tpso.org
(please note change in e-mail)
985.345.6150

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 23, 2005

TANGIPAHOA PARISH SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT HANDS CHURCH CASE OVER TO DISTRICT ATTORNEY

HAMMOND, LA—The Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Department will hand over the Hosanna Church case to the 21st Judicial District Attorney’s office today.

Detectives with the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Department, agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Assistant District Attorney Don Wall will meet today and turn over all the information that has been collected to date in the case.

The Grand Jury will hear the case tomorrow, June 24 at 9 a.m. at the Tangipahoa Parish Courthouse in Amite.

The investigation into other possible suspects and victims in abuse of children from toddlers to teenagers continues by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Tangipahoa Parish sheriff’s office, Livingston Parish sheriff’s office and Ponchatoula Police dept.

Sheriff Daniel Edwards will be available after the Grand Jury finishes to meet with the media.

And we all know what happened a week after that...

Hosanna Coverup Part 2



An updated index of Hosanna Church articles can be found here.

Some further details, with my comments in parentheses. I had missed this article from June 30th when I wrote my first installment, so it's essentially more backstory. But in this case, in particular, backtory is very important because the details are being very efficiently erased.

Link to 2theadvocate.com.

Detective says evidence short

Cult sex inquiry focuses on 3 children
By DEBRA LEMOINE

Florida parishes bureau

AMITE -- Three children are the victims at the center of a child-sex ring operating out of a Ponchatoula church for five years, a sheriff's detective testified in court Wednesday.

What is missing from the court case as it stands are the allegations of occult activity as the motive for the sexual abuse of children and animals, he said. No physical evidence of the occult, such as pentagrams drawn on the floor and spell books were ever found, Tangipahoa Parish sheriff's Detective Mike DePhillips told the court.

"You heard today that they couldn't find any evidence of the occult, so that is a dead issue," said Assistant Public Defender Reginald McIntyre, who represents defendants Paul Fontenot and Patricia Pierson.

(PP: If the word of Detective DePhillips and the Assistant Public Defender are true, then the alleged perpetrators have been collaborating on a elaborate, detailed hoax and feeding it to the sheriff's office. But why would they do this? Why would they confess to details that make an already horrific crime -- the serial rape of children -- into something much more sinister? Certainly not to gain sympathy. Adding a layer of occultism to their story can only further inflame public -- and prosecutorial -- opinion against them. It simply doesn't make sense. There is no reason to craft a hoax of such magnitude, especially when facing a potential death sentence.

The sheriff's office has passed details of evidence on to the media, and only recently -- possibly with the involvement of the FBI in the case -- has the evidence been dismissed. These details have been very specific, including a pentagram visible on the church floor and a reference to a search warrant which resulted in bags of costumes and boxes of pictures and videotapes. Not a search warrant for those items, but the contents found after the execution of a search warrant. Either the sheriff's office is full of bungling liars, and the press reports are wildly distorted for maximum shock value, or the evidence is being quickly, and efficiently, erased. If it's being erased, the question becomes: By whom? And for what purpose? Questions I will return to later.)

Prosecutor Don Wall confirmed after the hearing that the occult element won't be a part of the state's case.

Instead, the case is based mostly on statements made by the three children -- one girl and two boys -- who repeatedly were raped by, or forced to engage in various sex acts with, most of the defendants at least twice a week from 2000 to 2001 at Hosanna Church and a home of three of its members, DePhillips said. There is at least one other victim who wasn't mentioned in court.

"He cannot even remember a time when he was not molested," DePhillips said about the younger boy.

DePhillips was the only witness called during a preliminary examination hearing Wednesday held in 21st Judicial District Court for six of the nine alleged members of the church.

(PP: Interesting that Detective DePhillips is the only witness at the preliminary examination of six of the church members. Relevant? That remains to be seen.)

Defendants in the Tangipahoa Parish Courthouse for the hearing Wednesday were Robbin Lamonica, 45, Holden; Christopher Labat, 24, Hammond; Austin "Trey" Bernard III, 36, Hammond; Paul Fontenot, 21, Hammond; Patricia Pierson, 54, Hammond and Allen R. Pierson, 46, Hammond. All six were indicted by a grand jury last week on various counts of aggravated rape of a juvenile under age 12.

Three remaining defendants -- former Hosanna Pastor Louis David Lamonica, 45, Tickfaw; Lois Ann Mowbray, 54, Ponchatoula; and Nicole Bernard, 36, Columbus, Ohio, were not in court.

All of the church members except Nicole Bernard and Mowbray were indicted by a grand jury last week of aggravated rape of a juvenile under age 12, which carries a potential death sentence.

While being questioned for two hours Wednesday by six attorneys, DePhillips revealed essential elements of the Sheriff's Office's two-month investigation into the alleged sexual activity centering on the Hosanna Church on Southwest Railroad Avenue in Hammond and the Bernard residence on Amelia Lane in Hammond.

The three children repeatedly sexually assaulted were raped by various members at different times. The abuse of the girl started before her first birthday and ended at age 2 or 3. The younger of the two boys was raped by seven of those indicted from age 8 to 12. His elder brother allegedly was raped as a teenager by Louis David Lamonica and Austin Bernard, according to testimony.

The abuse took place from 1999 to 2003, but the court case focuses on abuse from 2000 to 2001.

(PP: Five years of abuse, and only one year is the focus?)

Much of the case is based on statements made by the three victims and confessions by Louis David Lamonica and Austin Bernard that implicated each of the suspects, the detective said.

Statements by Louis David Lamonica and Bernard implicating the others can't be used in a trial because a defendant does not have to testify against himself, Wall said. Instead, prosecutors will use victims' statements, DePhillips said after the hearing.

(Confessions are not legitimate? I'm not a lawyer, but I'd love to hear more about this from someone more familiar with the law. And still it doesn't make sense -- Lamonica and Bernard would not be testifying against themselves if they were discussinjg the crimes of others, so their statements about others should still be admissible. Are any lawyers reading this who could weigh in?)

But detectives found no physical evidence of the abuse, except for some bodily fluids on bedding being analyzed by the State Police Crime Laboratory. Although church members talked about taking photographs and videotapes of the alleged sex acts, none were found, DePhillips said.

(PP: Except those photos and tapes discussed in the search warrant's findings, that is. And, again (and not for the last time), why would the alleged perpetrators lie about this?)

The boys were examined at Children's Hospital in New Orleans, a hospital known for its medical exams of abused children. The detective could not recall on the stand if there is any medical evidence corroborating the abuse.

(PP:Excuse me? If there's one jaw-dropping moment in this entire saga, it must be this. The fucking detective in charge of the case can't recall if the hospital exam revealed evidence of abuse? Does this not seem utterly ridiculous?)

After the hearing, defense attorneys decried the lack of evidence as proof of their clients' innocence.

Wall said he would have liked to have physical evidence to prosecute, but the victims' information is strong enough without it.

However, detectives have written statements by some of the accused given to them by Mowbray, who also kept a 586-page journal. The content of Mowbray's journal and those statements were not revealed in court.

(PP: A 586-page journal. Of possibly five years of ritual abuse of children. And the contents of that journal were not revealed in court?!)

Mowbray also was described as a pastor of the church whom defense attorneys claim is at the center of the controversy.

"She would be what they considered a pastor," DePhillips said. "She had visions she shared with the people."

(PP: Visions of pedophilia? Killing cats? Dressing in costumes? Performing rituals inside of pentagrams in a church with whited-out windows?)

When asked by Labat's attorney, Gary Jordan, if he was aware of any infighting among Louis David Lamonica, Mowbray and Austin Bernard, the detective answered "Yes."

Although Mowbray is described as the leader, it was unclear what her relationship was in connection with the alleged abuse of the children.

"This entire matter is a hoax on the part of Ms. Mowbray," said Allen Pierson's attorney, Wayne Stewart, after the hearing.

(PP: One helluva hoax, no pun intended. A hoax that Mowbray talked all of the others into confessing to?)

Labat is accused of being a photographer of the group, taking pictures and videotaping the acts, DePhillips said. No pictures of the alleged sex acts were found, but other child pornography was located on Labat's home computer and his laptop computer, the detective said.

(PP: Someone really needs to look at the contents of what was found in that storage shed. Who wants to bet that list is going to also, conveniently, disappear?)

"Patricia Pierson helped clean up" the children and keep the infant girl calm during the acts, the detective said.

"The statement that was given to me is that she would clean them up and make them presentable," DePhillips said.

(PP: "Presentable" is an odd word choice. To whom were they "presented?" The word connotes preparation, which certainly ties into the idea of a ritual, rather than a free-for-all pedophile orgy.)

Austin Bernard, whose home with Nicole Bernard was a main site of the alleged sex acts, is said to have had overwhelming urges to have sex with the infant girl since her birth.

"He had uncontrollable urges when he changed her diaper," DePhillips said.

Bernard also admitted to raping both boys, the detective said.

"Bernard also claimed at first to have no memories of the sex acts," DePhillips said. "Throughout investigators' interviews with him, he told detectives that he had images form in his brain.

(PP: More suggestive words here. Many alleged victims of mind control/ritual abuse dissociate when forced to perform horrific acts as a coping mechanism. And the phrase "images form in his brain" further suggests dissociation and fragments of memory breaking through at a later time. Of course, Bernard could also be attempting to weasel his way out of the charges by painting himself as mentally ill.)

"As for the role of Nicole Bernard, she claims she knew nothing of the abuse until she was told about it by Mowbray and the girl," the detective said.

Nicole Bernard divorced Austin Bernard and fled to at least two other states before moving in with a relative of Mowbray's in Ohio. It was there that Nicole Bernard contacted authorities.

Nicole Bernard even made a videotape of the girl, the contents of which were not disclosed in court, on the advice of an attorney, DePhillips said.

(PP: Again, more evidence swept under the rug.)

DePhillips said he could not find evidence that Nicole Bernard contacted law enforcement authorities in Florida and New Jersey as she has claimed, nor could he find evidence that she received advice from an attorney.

However, Nicole Bernard's attorney is meeting with prosecutors attempting to reach a deal, prosecutor Don Wall said after the hearing.

Wall said his office has made no guarantees, but will meet with Nicole Bernard's attorneys later this week. In the meantime, evidence against Nicole Bernard was presented to a Tangipahoa Parish grand jury, but the panel was asked not to hand down indictments, Wall said. Nicole Bernard remains in jail, he said.

"We may not be able to do anything," Wall said about the meeting with Nicole Bernard's attorney.

The roles of other members of the Hosanna Church group were not clear in Wednesday's court testimony.

Members of Austin Bernard's family sat in the courtroom during all the testimony, sometimes uttering whispers of disbelief when details of the abuse were given.

During a break in testimony, Austin's stepmother, Leslie Bernard, talked to reporters.

"It's real tough. We can't comment on a lot of things," Leslie Bernard said.

(PP: Hmmm...)

She said family members tried to persuade Austin Bernard to leave the church because it made him a different person. She said Austin Bernard had disowned his father, even though the father underwent brain surgery.

(PP: "It made him a different person." Again, very suggestive of psychological manipulation of the "cultish" flavor.)

"To be honest, we begged him to get out of the church," Leslie Bernard said. "We begged him big time."

The six defendants at Wednesday's hearing, along with Hosanna Pastor Louis David Lamonica, will be arraigned July 7.

PP: My final comments. It seems highly improbable that the ritualistic/occult elements of this case are part of a hoax. It also seems very improbable that the multiple references to specific pieces of evidence -- tapes, photos, costumes, a pentagram, and the non-public evidence such as the victim's taped allegations and the 586-page journal -- are all either fabrications, mistakes, or irrelevant.

This case deserves serious, immediate scrutiny. But the crucial details are disappearing in front of our very eyes.

It doesn't matter if you believe in Satan, demons, or devils. It doesn't matter if you think occultists are pathetic egotists or servants of dark forces. All that matters is that a pastor and his congregation believed -- and they used that as an overlay in their terrible crimes. And it matters very much for the thousands of people who have seen their own allegations of similar abuse mocked, ridiculed, and ignored for "lack of evidence."

Because if one rural cult gets off on ritualistically raping children, you can bet they're not the only ones.

But before you dismiss this all as kooky conspiracy theorizing or "Satanic panic," I ask you to consider one crucial bit of the story that has been largely overlooked. Christopher Labat, the alleged photographer and videographer for the cult (and who the police admit had child pornography on his computer), is a Deputy in the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Department... one of the two sheriff's departments involved in the investigation...

Friday, July 08, 2005

The Provocateur State

Terrifying. If you only read one thing, please read the actual text of the declassified Joint Chiefs of Staff "Operation Northwoods" memo from 1962. The memo contained plans and ideas designed to make it appear that Cuba was attacking the U.S., in order to get public approval for U.S. military actions against Cuba.

http://cryptome.quintessenz.org/mirror/jcs-corrupt.htm

One very important excerpt:

4. We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans en route to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized. Exploding a few plastic bombs in carefully chosen spots, the arrest of Cuban agents and the release of prepared documents substantiating Cuban involvement, also would be helpful in projecting the idea of an irresponsible government.

Of course, some people will say that that was 1962, at the height of the Cold War, and things were different then. The U.S. government might have been willing to kill U.S. citizens to further its interests back then, but things are different now. Right?

My question: If they were willing to do it then, during the Cold War, why wouldn't they be willing to do it now, during the very hot Global War on Terror (tm)?

First cracks in the official London bombing story?

From MSNBC:

“Rejoice, Islamic nation. Rejoice, Arab world. The time has come for vengeance against the Zionist crusader government of Britain in response to the massacres Britain committed in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said the statement, translated by The Associated Press in Cairo. The AP was unable to access the Web site where it was posted, which was closed quickly after the reports.

But MSNBC TV translator Jacob Keryakes, who said that a copy of the message was later posted on a secular Web site, noted that the claim of responsibility contained an error in one of the Quranic verses it cited. That suggests that the claim may be phony, he said.

"This is not something al-Qaida would do," he said.

Hosanna Coverup



In April, 2005, Louis Lamonica, Pastor of the Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, walked into the sheriff's office and made a bizarre confession.

From Newsweek, May 3, 2005:

Louis Lamonica walked into the sheriff's department in tiny Livingston, La., a few weeks ago and asked to speak with a detective. According to police, for almost the next two hours the middle-aged preacher, dressed casually in a green polo shirt and green slacks, proceeded to tell a story so sickening they could scarcely believe what they were hearing. He explained that he was the former pastor of Hosanna Church, a now defunct house of worship in nearby Ponchatoula. Matter-of-factly and without remorse, Lamonica said that he and other church members had molested children, and taught them to have sex with each other, as well as with a dog. He told the detectives that he drank cat blood, and poured it on the bodies of his young victims, according to Ponchatoula Police Chief David Vitter.

When he had finished talking, Lamonica was arrested by the stunned detectives, who charged him with two counts of aggravated rape of a child under 13 and a charge of crime against nature. According to police, Lamonica was confused by the cops' reaction. "He was somewhat shocked when he found out we were going to arrest him," Detective Stan Carpenter told NEWSWEEK.


From the May 22 article in the The Advocate:

Edwards said members of a Ponchatoula church carried out the practices for years as part of a devil-worshipping ritual involving cat blood.

"This is hard to talk about and harder to believe, but some of the suspects have told us their intention in all of this was devil worshipping," Edwards said.

Edwards said earlier in the week that the people involved in the cult reportedly had sex with children and animals from 1999 until the church disbanded in 2003.

The investigation by the Livingston and Tangipahoa Parish sheriff's offices, the FBI and the Ponchatoula Police Department is continuing, he said.


The Advocate then reported on May 26th:

Deputies also went to Ohio to bring back items seized by FBI agents from a storage unit rented by Nicole Bernard. The Associated Press reported that the search warrant for the storage unit in Ohio indicated agents seized a mattress, videos and nine garbage bags of costumes.

Detectives on Monday searched a Hammond storage unit rented by Patricia Pierson, 54, and found shotguns and a sword, Edwards said. Pierson was arrested Monday night when she arrived at the Baton Rouge Metro Airport.

Edwards said he did not know if any costumes were found in Pierson's storage unit.

Victims and suspects have told deputies that costumes and puppets were used in the rituals, sometimes to persuade the children to participate. Detectives also believe that members dressed in black to perform rituals that included cat blood on a pentagram.


Nicole Bernard, one of the church members, also spoke of the storage unit:

According to a search warrant, Bernard told police she had evidence to prove that members of the alleged church cult had assaulted her 5-year-old daughter and other children. She also said evidence was in a storage unit on Morse Road.

Bernard said she had tapes and videos that belonged to the church, Burton reported. The FBI and police recovered bedding, photos and videos that may show some of the alleged sex acts with the children and could help law enforcement identify other children, Burton reported.


Even the Public Defender for some of the accused seemed to agree that something cultish, involving sex/blood magick had taken place:

Tangipahoa Public Defender Reggie McIntyre represents 4 suspects in the case.

"There is no physical evidence," said McIntyre. "Everything is either innuendo, hear-say or statements from a third party."

The public defender says from what he knows and what he's heard, if crimes did occur at the Hosanna Church, they don't come close to rising to the level of aggravated rape of a juvenile which carries the death penalty in Louisiana.

"The devil cult you have there, you play with blood and all that kind of stuff and it could be endangerment to the children," said McIntyre. "It could be to the point where there is some sexual gratification or some molestation involved here, but not the sexual aggravated rape."


An AP article on June 11 states:

Edwards stopped short of saying the cult consisted of devil-worshipers, but said some of the defendants told investigators that ''devil worship was the reason for their participation." Edwards added that defendants and witnesses also gave statements saying a dog was sexually abused and at least two cats were sacrificed.

And most damning of all is the NYT article from May 25:

Nine people have been arrested in the past week. A dozen computers have been seized, at least some of which the police believe contain child pornography, as well as dozens of videotapes, hundreds of computer disks and eight large boxes of documents and photographs. Inside the shuttered church compound, in a "youth hall" behind the sanctuary, the police found the faint imprint of pentagrams on the floor that someone had apparently tried to scrub away. Some of those arrested, the police said, described rituals within those pentagrams involving cats' blood and people dressed in black robes.

So we have the initial confession from Lamonica, and many other confessions directly admitting cult activity, a storage shed with costumes, hundreds of computers disks, boxes of photographs, and a fucking imprint of a pentagram on the floor.

So, with all that evidence, what do we read in today's Advocate?

The occult has been suggested as a motive for the crimes, but no evidence of occult-type activities has been found, sheriff's Detective Mike DePhillips has testified. The detective was called to the witness stand during hearings for the defendants on Wednesday and last week.

The alleged occult connection also is not part of the court case as it stands, Wall has said.


Wow, I'm really glad that's cleared up! Nothing to see here, folks. Keep moving.

And people who claim to have been ritually abused are accused of being out-of-touch with reality.

Rick Ross has done a good job compiling the news reports here:

http://www.rickross.com/groups/hosanna.html

And Rigorous Intuition has some insightful commentary, as always.

Beware of... birdwatchers?

US imposes controls on a new security threat - birdwatchers

Gary Younge in New York
Thursday July 7, 2005
The Guardian

US security agents have come up with a new target for increased
scrutiny in their battle against terrorism: birdwatchers. Birdwatchers
in certain areas are being forced to provide photographic
identification, submit themselves to background checks, and even pay
for a police escort.

Law enforcement officials say that because the birdwatchers have
equipment such as binoculars, telescopes and cameras, they have the
potential to commit acts of espionage. The areas they use are
sometimes close to military bases, dams and sewage plants.

Because they have "sophisticated gear and [are] looking at things not
normally photographed by the common citizen in this area, they may be
stopped and asked a few questions," Lieutenant Jamie Rickerson, of the
US coastguard service, told the Los Angeles Times.

Enthusiasts wanting to go birdwatching at the Chesapeake Bay
Bridge-Tunnel in Virginia used to need an annual permit obtained over
the phone, by post or in a fax. There are four islands, one of which
was open to the public. To visit any of the other three, to the north,
they needed a birdwatching permit, photo ID and car registration number.

But earlier this year the three northern islands were closed by
Virginia's department of transportation.

Two weeks ago, after protests from birdwatchers, they reopened with
greater restrictions. Now, groups of no more than 15 people can visit
and they must notify the authorities in advance, pay $50 an hour to be
escorted by an off-duty police officer, and submit to random searches.

"We discovered that we had areas of concerns," said Clement Pruitt,
the area's chief of police. "If you can get into the ventilation
buildings, you have direct access to the tunnel and can inflict
serious damage to the tunnel."

The ornithologists are not convinced. "These sorts of national
security issues seem to be intruding in ways one would never have
expected," said Perry Plumart, director of conservation advocacy for
the American Bird Conservancy. "You expected airline security; you
don't expect it when you go birding. Who knew you'd have a police escort?"

Donald Dann, the president of the Bird Conservation Network, which
represents a number of ornithological groups in the Chicago area, was
more blunt. "Someone can lob a grenade from the street if they wanted
to. I'm not sure they're achieving any great national security objective."

Thanks to anonymous

Props to all the material certain anonymous sources have been sending... Look for some commentary this evening.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Historical precedent for Gitmo psychological abuse

From declassified MKULTRA documents, which can be found here:

http://www.michael-robinett.com/declass/c021.htm

"The final phase of testing MKULTRA materials involves their application to unwitting subjects in normal life settings. It was noted earlier that the capabilities of MKULTRA substances to produce disabling or discrediting effects or to increase the effectiveness of interrogation of hostile subjects cannot be established solely through testing on volunteer populations."

In other words, captives or the unwitting are the prime guinea pigs.

As the French say, Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Footprints of 'first Americans'

More interesting evidence about the hidden ancient history of the Americas. This is coincidental to me for 2 reasons: I just finished reading Peter Levenda's "Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft," which touches on the Mound Builder cultures (Adena and Hopewell). And I just visited Indian Mound Cemetery in Romney, West Virginia, on July 5th, which I happened upon while traveling.

The true history of the Americas is much deeper and older than we are taught. This is yet another gut punch to the conventional wisdom.

Sex, Drugs, Mind Control, and Gitmo



It just gets darker every day.

According to an article in the New Yorker (one of the only major publications still gutsy enough to print critical, investigative journalism), the ghosts of Gottlieb, Cameron, and the other architects of MKULTRA and BLUEBIRD are alive and well and continuing their devastating psychological abuse and experimentation. A new generation of psychologists and physicians are turning the Hippocratic Oath on its head in their attempts to shape and modify behavior -- much of it under the guise of "extracting information" from "terrorists" (some of whom are innocents caught up in the post-9/11 dragnet). It doesn't take much reading between-the-lines to see what is actually happening behind the scenes at Guantanamo -- and what is taking place is ugly and deeply disturbing, and all too familiar to students of the more sinister threads of history.

Many of the revelations in the New Yorker article ("The Experiment," by Jane Mayer, July 11 & 18, 2005 -- not yet available online, but here's an interview with the author) are familiar, but there are hints of techniques that mirror the most horrific (and mostly ignored) abuses at Abu Ghraib and the historical accounts of government-sponsored mind control. Baher Azmy, a professor at Seton Hall Law School who is representing one detainee, states in the article, "The whole place appears to be one giant human experiment." (p. 62)

The people behind these psychological abuses and experiments are known as Behavioral Science Consultation Teams, or BSCTs (commonly called "biscuits"). Originally, BSCTs served as therapists and dispensed psychotropic drugs to soldiers, and evaluated their combat readiness. Post 9/11, however, their mission was altered -- instead of helping soldiers, their talents were turned to interrogation and psychological torture under the umbrella of military intelligence.

Mayer also unearths the role of the military's highly classified "Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape" (SERE) program, originally developed by the Air Force at the end of the Korean War (not coincidentally at the same time as the birth of U.S. mind control programs in response to the return of "brainwashed" POWs). The SERE program subjects soldiers to high-stress simulations of stressful detention and torture, in order to prepare them for the possibility of capture. In a familiar post-9/11, rabbit hole inversion, however, SERE was "reverse-engineered" to facilitate the psychological torture of GITMO prisoners. All of the data designed to aid U.S. soldiers was turned on its head and put to use -- by scientists and medical professionals -- to break open the minds of U.S. detainees. One classic example is the mistreatment of holy books. Indeed, according to Mayer, the Koran desecration incidents are a classic SERE tactic. Christian U.S. troops undergoing SERE training were forced to witness the shredding of a Bible -- a tactic long before the Rovian disinfo blitz that sent Newsweek cowering like a beaten dog for daring to comment on the practice.

Yet that tactic pales when compared to some of the other, more suggestive, techniques alleged in the article, such as:

A prisoner is shown a picture of a telephone. A psychologist asks him what it is. When he answers that it's a telephone, the psychiatrist angrily responds: "It's not a telephone -- it's a bomb!" What kind of exercise is this, and what is the purpose of it? The prisoner's lawyer claims it has only one goal: to make the prisoner believe he is insane. (p. 63) Induction of cognitive dissonance is a trademark technique of mind control.

Detainees are subjected to "noise stress," including tape loops of babies crying, loud music, cats meowing, and even a Yoko Ono album. (p. 65) One detainee was allegedly wrapped in an Israeli flag while subjected to loud music and a strobe light. Add some psychotropic drugs into the mix (courtesy of the BSCTs pharmaceutical arsenal) and you've created a masterful trip into hell.

Clearly the purpose of these treatments is not to gain information. Most of the detainees are low-level members or conscripts of Al Qaeda, and many are innocents. The military has admitted that only a quarter of the detainees had any valuable information. Is Guantanamo the 21st Century version of Allan Memorial Hospital -- an experimental torture chamber for testing new mind-altering and controlling technologies?

I commented in November, 2004 on some of the less-publicized, but deeply disturbing revelations about Abu Ghraib as reported in The Guardian. Please read this if you haven't, as it adds chilling insight into the Mayer article. Some particular elements stand out:

"Yeah, the beast in man really came out at Abu Ghraib," he said.

"You mean in the photographs?" I asked.

"Everywhere," he said. "The senior leadership were screwing around with the lower ranks ... "

I told Joseph I didn't understand what he meant.

He said, "The senior leaders were having sex with the lower ranks. The detainees were raping each other."


And this:

An aide to Condoleezza Rice, the White House national security adviser, visited the prison, to inform the interrogators sternly that they weren't getting useful enough information from the detainees. "Then," Joseph said, "a whole platoon of Guantánamo people arrived. The word got around. 'Oh God, the Gitmo guys are here.' Bam! There they were. They took the place over." Perhaps Guantánamo Bay was Experimental Lab Mark 1, and whatever esoteric techniques worked there were exported to Abu Ghraib.

Esoteric, indeed. And then there was this in the NY Post (no longer available on their site):

Iraq's feared Abu Ghraib jail was one big sex romp - sometimes by candlelight with an audience watching, U.S. troops said yesterday....

"There were lots of affairs. There was all kinds of adultery and alcoholism and all kinds of crap going on," said Dave Bischel, a National Guardsman with the 870th Military Police unit, who returned home from Abu Ghraib last month.

"There was a bed found in one of the abandoned buildings. There was a mattress on the ground. They had chairs all circled around it and candles all over the place," said Bischel, adding the chairs were "obviously for an audience."


An audience of who, and for what purpose?

Mayer's New Yorker article contains another link to sexual practices:

...He was taken into an interrogation room whose door was open to an adjacent room filled with computers. Military police shackled him to the floor, he said. In the computer room, a naked man and woman were having sex on a table. Afterward, he said, the man put on his clothes and started to question him, telling him that if he cooperated, he, too, could have sex with his "girlfriend." (p. 71)

Just another humdrum day at Guantanamo Bay?

There is a well-documented, historical convergence of psychological torture and sexual tactics by the CIA and other clandestine organizations -- classic tactics of mind control, from the lowliest cult to the high-level, government sanctioned creation of "Manchurian Candidates." But what is the aim at Guantanamo? To extract information, as the Pentagon would have us believe? Or is it to further refine methods for breaking down minds and creating dissociation in order to craft more effective assassins? When these prisoners are released -- as many of them ultimately will be -- will they be cutting edge tools of their Spook masters, unleashed to create more programmed chaos and manufactured "terrorism?" Will their names turn up as future hijackers, suicide bombers, and political assassins?

A "giant human experiment" indeed.

One last note:

Again and again we see hints of ritual sexual practices in the most secretive corners of Military Intelligence (as superbly chronicled by Jeff Wells on his Rigorous Intuition blog). I think this is the most important, and regularly overlooked, clue about what really goes on behind the locked doors in the heart of Black Ops. Mayer is giving us a vital clue when she places the sexual incident described above at the close of her article. Pay close attention.