Foetuses found at Bogota airport

This definitely gets the "most disturbing headline" award for the day.

Call me crazy...

But I'm beginning to think there's a war going on beneath the surface of conventional politics.

Bush is falling to pieces right in front of the television. Whether or not he's drinking again, there's no denying his continued mental and physical deterioration. I suspect that his puppetmasters have realized that he is no longer the man for the job.

Today someone sent me this:



Arrests made for murder with ties to Abramoff

This is looking very bad for the Bushies. Throw in Plamegate, Frist's "blind" trust malfeasance, and the increasing focus on DeLay, and add it to the growing antiwar sentiment, and you have what looks like a serious storm blowing in.

Though the mainstream media lapdogs are still reticent to bite the teat that feeds them, they are starting to find the milk bitter.

In the deepest, darkest political circles, Bush is finished. The opposition has been told to take off the gloves.

Things are going to get very interesting.

Bush's Wiggly Jaw

Anyone who has watched Bush's public appearances in the last few months has likely noticed his odd, wiggling jaw movements. One possibility is that Bush has tardive dyskinesia, which can be caused by some psychiatric medications.

I found this link on Dailykos.

From the commentary:

One doctor I know told me he saw 40 examples of these movements in one five-minute speech by Bush (I think it was the speech announcing Roberts for the Supreme Court, but I never saw that one myself so can't confirm). Bush's jaw-thrusting is outward and to one side, and sometimes it completely sends his jaw out, usually at the end of a sentence. The jaw movements are CNS (Central Nervous System) mediated, and probably dopominergically related. The movements are seen in individuals using or abusing drugs affecting the dopominergic system (neuroleptics, anti-psychotics, etc; neuroleptics are a kind of anti-psychotic)...

In short, no one knows what Bush is on, but he's on something, and something has changed in recent months. The docs may be tweaking his meds, trying to find the most effective cocktail. "I can't believe people aren't talking about it in the news," one doctor told me. (This guy is a well-regarded physician of referral with many years' experience in this area, so I trust him.)

His father, remember, was on Halcyon and exhibited strange behavior.

Katrina Takes a Toll on Truth, News Accuracy

From the article:

The New Orleans Times-Picayune on Monday described inflated body counts, unverified "rapes," and unconfirmed sniper attacks as among examples of "scores of myths about the dome and Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the media and even some of New Orleans' top officials."

Typical of strategies used to marginalize blacks and the poor -- creating an image of them as animalistic predators.

Sickening, yet all too common. And that's what most people will remember, regardless of the truth, because the redactions and corrections come far too late.

New inquiry may expose events that led to Pat Tillman's death

You won't read catch this on ESPN anytime soon, I am quite sure.

From the San Francisco Chronicle article:

Tillman was openly critical of the Iraq war, and urged his comrades to vote for John Kerry.

One of his fellow soldiers said:

“I can see it like a movie screen,” Baer said. “We were outside of (a city in southern Iraq) watching as bombs were dropping on the town. We were at an old air base, me, Kevin and Pat, we weren’t in the fight right then. We were talking. And Pat said, ‘You know, this war is so f— illegal.’ And we all said, ‘Yeah.’ That’s who he was. He totally was against Bush.”

And even more interesting:

He started keeping a journal at 16 and continued the practice on the battlefield, writing in it regularly. (His journal was lost immediately after his death.) Mary Tillman said a friend of Pat’s even arranged a private meeting with Chomsky, the antiwar author, to take place after his return from Afghanistan — a meeting prevented by his death. She said that although he supported the Afghan war, believing it justified by the Sept. 11 attacks, “Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war.”

These facts about Tillman make his death much more heartbreaking. He was a conscientious, intelligent man who saw through the lies of Bush's war, and lost his life because of those lies.

One can only wonder what would have happened if he had lived, and returned to tell his truth.

U.S. Army wants to buy anthrax

This cannot bode well. . .

--

US army plans to bulk-buy anthrax

24 September 2005
David Hambling
Magazine issue 2518

The controversial move is likely to raise questions over US commitment to treaties designed to limit the spread of biological weapons.

The US military wants to buy large quantities of anthrax, in a controversial move that is likely to raise questions over its commitment to treaties designed to limit the spread of biological weapons.

A series of contracts have been uncovered that relate to the US army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. They ask companies to tender for the production of bulk quantities of a non-virulent strain of anthrax, and for equipment to produce significant volumes of other biological agents. Issued earlier this year, the contracts were discovered by Edward Hammond, director of the Sunshine Project, a US-German organisation that campaigns against the use of biological and chemical weapons.

One "biological services" contract specifies: "The company must have the ability and be willing to grow Bacillus anthracis Sterne strain at 1500-litre quantities." Other contracts are for fermentation equipment for producing 3000-litre batches of an unspecified biological agent, and sheep carcasses to test the efficiency of an incinerator for the disposal of infected livestock.

Although the Sterne strain is not thought to be harmful to humans and is used for vaccination, the contracts have caused major concern. "It raises a serious question over how the US is going to demonstrate its compliance with obligations under the Biological Weapons Convention if it brings these tanks online," says Alan Pearson, programme director for biological and chemical weapons at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington DC. "If one can grow the Sterne strain in these units, one could also grow the Ames strain, which is quite lethal." The US renounced biological weapons in 1969, but small quantities of lethal anthrax were still being produced at Dugway as recently as 1998.

It is not known what use the biological agents will be put to. They could be used to test procedures to decontaminate vehicles or buildings, or to test an "agent defeat" warhead designed to destroy stores of chemical and biological weapons. There are even fears that they could be used to determine how effectively anthrax is dispersed when released from bombs or crop-spraying aircraft. "I can definitely see them testing biological weapons delivery systems for threat assessment," says Hammond.

Whatever use it is put to, however, the move could be seen as highly provocative by other nations, he says. "What would happen to the Biological Weapons Convention if other countries followed suit and built large biological production facilities at secretive military bases known for weapons testing?"

A spokesperson for Dugway said the anthrax contract is still at the pre-solicitation stage, and the base has not yet acquired the agent. They refused to say what it will be used for.

Related Articles

US ‘war on terror’ has public health cost
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7976
09 September 2005

Milk supplies at risk from terrorist toxin
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7601
29 June 2005

Analyzing the Anthrax Attacks by Ed Lake
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18624972.300
30 April 2005

Weblinks

Dugway Proving Ground, US Army
https://www.dugway.army.mil/

Sunshine Project
http://www.sunshine-project.org/

Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation
http://www.armscontrolcenter.org/

Smells like fascism

The 14 defining characteristics of fascism.

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

(Source: The Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism, Dr. Lawrence Britt, Spring 2003, Free Inquiry)

Let Them Die or Let Them Go

From the article:

I have a word of advice I would like to offer Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon chieftains who currently preside over the 200 or more hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay, 20 of whom are near death.

For God’s sake, let them die.

What more could you possibly want from them?

They’ve already provided you with the subjects you needed for your newly perfected sense-deprivation techniques and your sadistic methods of torture. They supplied you with the lab rats for your new drugs, your improved methods of psychological torment, and your sexually deviant abuses. Now, let them die. The experiment is over. Show that there is some speck of humanity left in your withered heart by allowing these men to pass away with dignity, the dignity you deprived them of in life.

Word.

How 'bout some sewer water, soldier?

Halliburton "supporting the troops" by providing them with rotten food and contaminated drinking water. . .

Despicable. I hope the military holds these war-profiteering corporations accountable.

Hosanna Church Update - Charges Put on Hold

New charges in church case on hold

Florida parishes bureau

AMITE -- Plans to seek new indictments for some of the members of a Ponchatoula church accused of having sex with children were put on hold Friday because of a lack of a quorum for the grand jury, prosecutors said.

The 21st Judicial District Attorney's Office will seek the indictments on Monday at the Tangipahoa Parish Courthouse in Amite, Assistant District Attorney Don Wall said. At least nine of the 12 jurors must be present to have a quorum, he said.

The new indictments the grand jury will be asked to hand down don't reflect new evidence or suspects, but are sought to correct the dates during which the alleged crimes occurred.

Seven members of the now-closed Hosanna Church were indicted in June on numerous counts of aggravated rape. The crimes allegedly were committed in 2000 and 2001, investigators said.

The two-month investigation by the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office covered the accusation of rape of three children by church members from 1999 to 2003.

More on the history of this case:

Link

FEMA's City of Anxiety in Florida

Excerpt:

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. -- "Someone killed my dog," sputtered Royaltee Forman, still livid two weeks later.

"They just threw him out the window and hung him with his own leash," he said, convinced that someone broke into his home while he was out. "I mean, what kind of place has this become?"

Forman's place is FEMA City, a dusty, baking, treeless collection of almost 500 trailers that was set up by the federal emergency agency last fall to house more than 1,500 people made homeless by Hurricane Charley, one of the most destructive storms in recent Florida history. The free shelter was welcomed by thankful survivors back then; almost a year later, most are still there -- angry, frustrated, depressed and increasingly desperate.

"FEMA City is now a socioeconomic time bomb just waiting to blow up," said Bob Hebert, director of recovery for Charlotte County, where most FEMA City residents used to live. "You throw together all these very different people under already tremendous stress, and bad things will happen. And this is the really difficult part: In our county, there's no other place for many of them to go."

As government efforts move forward to relocate and house some of the 1 million people displaced by Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast -- including plans to collect as many as 300,000 trailers and mobile homes for them -- officials here say their experience offers some harsh and sobering lessons about the difficulties ahead.

Most troubling, they said, is that while the badly damaged town of Punta Gorda is beginning to rebuild and even substantially upgrade one year after the storm, many of the area's most vulnerable people are being left badly behind.

Emperor Bush

The single most important (and overlooked) paragraph from Bush's post-Katrina speech last night:

It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces, the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice.

All hail the Emperor.

Study: Human Hands Emit Light

This is quite interesting to me. As a student of qigong (a Chinese system of energy healing), I have often looked for empirical validation of the qi energy.

Also, in the early days of my attempts to open the doors of perception, I clearly saw light emitted from several persons' hands.

Now we have clear evidence that our bodies emit light -- and from the hands and feet (as qigong suggests) and the forehead (the third eye chakra, associated with the pineal gland).

Science seems to be continually catching up to mysticism.

"Ethically Deficient"

Sometimes the brazenness of the Government/Corporate mad scientists is simply mind-boggling. From the article:

The Environmental Protection Agency's new rules on human testing, which the agency said last week would categorically protect children and pregnant women from pesticide testing, include numerous exemptions, such as one that specifically allows testing of children who have been "abused and neglected."

Another exception: The EPA allows ""ethically deficient" human research if it is considered crucial to "protect public health."

The public health of industry plutocrats and wealthy oil executives, perhaps?

And further:

The EPA provided little clarification this week in response to questions about the exemptions. In a written response, officials said that abused and neglected children were specifically singled out to create "additional protection" for them, although they did not elaborate.

The evil bastards don't even try to hide anymore.

DA to seek new indictments in Hosanna Church sex case

DA to seek new indictments in Hosanna Church sex case

By DEBRA LEMOINE

Florida parishes bureau

AMITE -- The 21st Judicial District Attorney's Office will seek from a grand jury on Friday new indictments of at least one of the seven members of a Ponchatoula church charged with raping children, Assistant District Attorney Don Wall said Wednesday.
The new indictments don't represent additional evidence or crimes but reflect a change in the aggravated rape statute that went into effect on Aug. 15, 2001.

Wall said he made an error in the dates for the indictments issued in June and will be able to correct it Friday.

Oral sex on a child under age 12 was included in the aggravated rape statute in 2001, Wall said. Previously, the crime fell under the aggravated oral battery statute, which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison if victims are under age 12, Wall said.

The new indictments are being sought after a state judge on Wednesday tossed out one of the two aggravated rape charges against Robbin Lamonica, 46, of Holden, who is accused of performing oral sex on an infant girl in 2000 and 2001.

During Wednesday's hearing, Lamonica's attorney, Duncan Kemp, asked that the second count to be thrown out because the District Attorney's Office could not pinpoint the exact dates of the alleged crimes in 2001, Wall said.

District Judge Zoey Waguespack denied that motion and the second count remains.

Wall has said the three victims of the alleged sex ring can't pinpoint exact dates but have told investigators that the sex acts occurred non-stop during a five-year period.

Wall said he also filed four counts of aggravated oral sexual battery against Lamonica on Wednesday. Those counts accuse Lamonica of having sex with a boy from 1992 to 1994 and a girl from 2000 to 2001.

Kemp said he will also ask the judge at a hearing in October to quash those counts and to reduce Lamonica's bond.

Wall said he will seek new indictments based on alleged crimes occurring after the law's date change for Robbin Lamonica and any of the other six who might be affected when a grand jury convenes in Amite on Friday.

Reached late Wednesday, Wall said he had not had time to review indictments of the other six to determine if he needs to include them.

Lamonica, along with her estranged husband and five other church members, were investigated by the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office in connection with the alleged rapes of three children from 1999 to 2003. The accused are members of the now-shuttered Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula, and investigators have said they believe some of the alleged crimes occurred there.

Lamonica's estranged husband Louis David Lamonica, 45, of Tickfaw was scheduled to appear in court as well on Wednesday, but his hearing was postponed.

In addition to the seven church members who were indicted, two others were arrested in connection with the investigation.

One of them, Nicole Bernard, 36, of Columbus, Ohio, got out of jail last month by posting $300,000 bail, Wall said. Bernard, who is accused of aggravated rape, is considered a whistleblower in the case by being the first to alert authorities to the alleged crimes.

Wall said he has not determined whether to indict her as well.

Lois Mowbray, 54, of Ponchatoula was arrested as an accessory to aggravated rape and was released on bond in May.

Allen Pierson, 46, of Hammond is the only indicted church member who is free on bond. He is accused of four counts of aggravated rape.

Click here to return to story:
http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/091505/sub_hosannacase001.shtml

F.A.A. Alerted on Qaeda in '98, 9/11 Panel Said - New York Times

Excerpt:

American aviation officials were warned as early as 1998 that Al Qaeda could "seek to hijack a commercial jet and slam it into a U.S. landmark," according to previously secret portions of a report prepared last year by the Sept. 11 commission. The officials also realized months before the Sept. 11 attacks that two of the three airports used in the hijackings had suffered repeated security lapses.

snip

The White House and many members of the commission, which has completed its official work, have been battling for more than a year over the release of the commission's report on aviation failures, which was completed in August 2004.

A heavily redacted version was released by the Bush administration in January, but commission members complained that the deleted material contained information critical to the public's understanding of what went wrong on Sept. 11. In response, the administration prepared a new public version of the report, which was posted Tuesday on the National Archives Web site.

Toxic Gumbo

Government Coverup of Dangerous Toxins in New Orleans from Buzzflash.

The Reconstruction of New Oraq

Excerpt:

In fact, with Congress already making a $62 billion initial down payment on post-Katrina reconstruction work, the Bush administration has just given out its first 6 reconstruction contracts, five of them -- could anyone be surprised -- to Iraqi reconstructors, including Fluor. Small world indeed. The Bush version of crony capitalism should perhaps be termed predatory capitalism, following as it does so closely in the wake of war and natural disaster much as camp followers used to trail armies, ready, in case of victory, to loot the baggage train of the enemy.

Peak Oil and Katrina

An excerpt:

Already, European editorial writers and columnists are starting to grumble. They raise the specter of Americans in Hummers, gobbling up Europe 's heating oil for next winter. The head of the IEA warned that there will be a worldwide energy crisis if the US tries to replace its missing oil production and gasoline refining by outbidding everyone else on the world market. As usual, it is the poor African nations that will suffer the most. Furthermore, it is becoming evident that $3-4 gasoline does not significantly reduce American consumption and that we will continue driving at our normal pace until stopped by still higher prices or general shortages.

William Rivers Pitt | Let the Dead Teach the Living

An excerpt from the article:

"A first-hand account from a professional psychologist named Anne Gervasi is making the rounds. Gervasi traveled to New Orleans to volunteer her time in rescue and rehabilitation efforts in Reunion Arena and the Civic Center. 'I am no infection guru,' reported Gervasi, 'but as soon as I heard on day one that people with no water were forced to drink water with bloated bodies, feces, and rats in it, the thought of cholera, typhoid, and delayed disease immediately occurred to me. What if the fears of disease are correct? People are fanning out throughout America. Where is the CDC?'"

A very good question.

Don't fence me in...

From the Denver Post:

If I didn't know better, I'd have thought I was peering through the fence at a concentration camp.

The signs on the buildings say "Community College of Aurora," though for now they're serving as an impromptu Camp Katrina. About 160 hurricane survivors are being housed in the dorms, surrounded by fences, roadblocks, security guards and enough armed police officers to invade Grenada.

There's a credentials unit to process every visitor, an intake unit to provide identification tags and a bag of clothes to every evacuee, several Salvation Army food stations, portable toilets, shuttle buses, a green army-tent chapel with church services three times a day and a communications team to keep reporters as far away from actual news as possible.

It probably was easier for a reporter to get inside Gitmo on Tuesday than to penetrate the force field around Lowry.

I couldn't help but think of Bob Dylan (as I'm doing quite often these terrible days):



'Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood
When blackness was a virtue and the road was full of mud
I come in from the wilderness, a creature void of form.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

And if I pass this way again, you can rest assured
I'll always do my best for her, on that I give my word
In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."



Well, the deputy walks on hard nails and the preacher rides a mount
But nothing really matters much, it's doom alone that counts
And the one-eyed undertaker, he blows a futile horn.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."



I've heard newborn babies cryin' like a moanin' dove
And old men with broken teeth stranded without love.
Do I understand your question, man, is it hopeless and forlorn?
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."



And now there’s a wall between us, something else been lost
I took too much for granted, I got my signals crossed.
And just to think it all began on an uneventful morn,
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

In a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes
I bargained for salvation an' she give me a lethal dose.
I offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn.
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

Well, I'm livin' in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line
Beauty walks on a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine.
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born,
"Come in," she said,
"I'll give you shelter from the storm."

The Deadly Bigotry of Low Expectations?: Did the rumor mill help kill Katrina victims?

From the article:

All along Hurricane Katrina's Evacuation Belt, in cities from Houston to Baton Rouge to Leesville, Louisiana, the exact same rumors are spreading faster than red ants at a picnic. The refugees from the United States' worst-ever natural disaster, it is repeatedly said, are bringing with them the worst of New Orleans' now-notorious lawlessness: looting, armed carjacking, and even the rape of children.

"By Thursday," the Chicago Tribune's Howard Witt reported, "local TV and radio stations in Baton Rouge...were breezily passing along reports of cars being hijacked at gunpoint by New Orleans refugees, riots breaking out in the shelters set up in Baton Rouge to house the displaced, and guns and knives being seized."

The only problem—none of the reports were true. "The police, for example, confiscated a single knife from a refugee in one Baton Rouge shelter," Witt reported. "There were no riots in Baton Rouge. There were no armed hordes." Yet the panic was enough for Baton Rouge Mayor-President Kip Holden to impose a curfew on the city's largest shelter, and to warn darkly about "New Orleans thugs."

"What if..."

I seldom suggest viral campaigns, but I think this one might have legs. Please spread it around if you find it worthy.

It's a simple, yet very potent, idea.

Just ask yourself, and others, this question:

"What if Dick Cheney had been stuck in the New Orleans Superdome?"

Without a shower, food, or water, for days?

Do you think the National Guard would have let Cheney walk over the bridge to comfort and safety? Would a military convoy have carried water and food to Dick, or rescued him from the chaos and despair?

If so, why is Dick fucking Cheney any more valuable as a human being than any one of those suffering people who were deprived of basic, human necessities?

Please think about this -- and spread it around.

Vacation and disaster

The last time I went on vacation, the tsunami hit.

I just got back from Europe (Berlin and Paris) last night.

The Bush cabal has shown its true colors -- pearly, caucasian white.

I will have much more to say in the coming days and weeks. But for now, I just want to say how appreciative I am of European media, particularly the British papers, which kept me informed as Bush fiddled while New Orleans drowned.

More soon, after jet lag wears off and I get some sleep.