Jeff Rense is a Nazi Scumbag, pt. 5

http://www.rense.com/general74/conssp.htm

"While the other two Middle Eastern faiths ...elevate the virtues of humility, charity and righteousness, Judaism legislates haughtiness, supremacism and callous disregard for other human beings...Gentiles exist to serve the Jews. Rape of gentile children, murder, lying, theft, usury, things condemned in every other religion are given full sanction in Judaism when it benefits the tribe"

"Does anyone in the room remember the Crucifixion of Jesus? Judaism's involvement in WWI and WWII? Bolshevism? The destruction of the moral, political and economic fiber of every country in the West? Hundreds of millions of dead children through abortion? The destruction of families and the elevation of sexual deviancy as a virtue?"

"And of course, last but certainly not least, the war to end all wars that is taking place in the Middle East and which bears the fingerprints of the Pharisees all over it."

"... If indeed Christianity sprang forth from Judaism, why then does Judaism maintain that Jesus was a sorcerer and a sexual deviant who suffers in hell by being boiled in a cauldron of semen and feces for daring to oppose the Rabbis and that His holy mother Miriam was a 'harlot who mated with carpenters' ?"

"...It is all another ruse to get Christians to fight Judaism's wars on the pretext that somehow [Jews and Christians] share something in common when in truth they do not..."

"Judaism is nobody's friend, and the sooner that the rest of us Jew and non-Jew alike come to realize this, the better off we will be. Get rid of it. It is a cancer. Cut it out and throw it away, as Jesus instructed that we do. It has never and will never be of any benefit to mankind. We cannot live in any kind of 'peaceful co-existence' with it. It is a declaration of war, and as long as it exists out there, mankind will never have peace."

Jeff Rense is a Nazi Scumbag, pt. 4

Excerpts from:

The Strange, Mysterious Eternal Allure Of Adolf Hitler

http://www.rense.com/general51/strange.htm

Hitler created visual images of National Socialism and the Third Reich that are so outstanding, that to this day no person or country, has ever surpassed its artistic and spiritual influence. These powerful images of the Third Reich have been so effective that even today Hollywood film studios have made billions of dollars since the end of World War, and still continue to fill theatre seats just on the power of Hitler's name.

Not a day goes by without television stations around the world broadcasting programmes on Hitler and his policies. The Holocaust is the most discussed subject now in the world of politics. The modern day liberal intellectuals, who to one man, have been forced to accept the new multicultural experiment on mankind, (promoted by a race, who themselves do not practise what they preach), mostly condemn his ideas.

At the Holocaust Museum in Washington, where concentration camps facilities are on display alongside a film-hall which shows the famous NSDAP Party Convention in Nuremberg (Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph of The Will). This hall is continuously packed with spellbound visitors whilst the sections, showing "Jewish sufferings", are almost always empty.

Other Jews are so impressed with his single mindedness, his abilities and strength, that they have even suggested, that he was in fact Jewish by birth, (subtly implying that no matter how evil he has been portrayed, by their own media propaganda agencies), only a person of Jewish blood could ever be such a genius.

Hitler's hostile attitude to Jews was neither irrational nor aberrant. He simply saw the Jews as Jesus Christ did before him. Jesus said to the Jews: "You belong to your father, the devil and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him." (John 8:44)

Especially amongst the Jewish people, to keep up the anti-Semitic pressure on their "own race" (dubbing of swastikas on Jewish Cemeteries) to prevent the vast majority of the Jewish people from race mixing and abandoning their historic mission.

His philosophy is like a siren song, calling out to his admirers and to the millions of confused people who sense that his views of "natural laws" are correct, and are the only laws that can be understood and trusted in our multi-cultural, in harmonious and devious New World Order. The allure of Hitlerism is contagious for young and old alike.

Jeff Rense is a Nazi Scumbag, pt. 3

Another heartwarming explanation of why Jews bring persecution on themselves, courtesy of Jeff Rense.

http://www.rense.com/general59/sdom.htm

--

Look around. The USA of today very closely mirrors the Germany of 1929.

Is there anything 'wrong' with this? Not in principle, no. All people are deserving of the rewards of the energy they invest in achievement. The problem is one of monopoly and the exclusion of non-Jews via the self-promotion which predominates in most of today's Jewish-controlled America. If a Jew is up for a job against a non-Jew, and the one doing thehiring is Jewish, gets who gets the job.

Since Jews stick together as a group, they pull and shove each other up the ranks of corporations and pull strings ensuring members of their race are given first shot at student openings in the major universities and top jobs throughout the areas of their dominance in every type of business imaginable.

Bryant also wrote that in 1929 Germany, in law and medicine, Jews were vastly over represented. In Berlin in 1931, 42% of the city's doctors and 48% of its lawyers were Jews.

The Jews in Weimar Germany used their propaganda levers to ridicule German ideals and culture. They even slandered the memory of the fallen German soldiers of that terrible war, World War One.

During the horror days of the great inflation, Jews by and large remained wealthy people and prospered at the losses of the masses. They took expensive vacations while ordinary Germans starved.

Today, Jews control vast areas of wealth in America. Estimates range all the way up to 70%.Whatever the figure, it is huge and immensely out of proportion to their 2% of the population in American society.

Today, in 1999, the U.S.A. is totally dominated by Jews. Virtually every newspaper or magazine is owned by Jews. Their self-serving propaganda constantly fills the TV screen. The Federal government is totally under Jewish control. US military forces are the pawn of Israel. The banks, the markets are theirs. They systematically denigrate our Founding Fathers and our heritage and our Constitution.

Certainly, many non-Zionist Jews of America are waking up to the political and other manipulations they and most Jews are being controlled and influenced by. There are many, many wonderful Jews in American society but the facts are the facts...and monopolies of any sort aren't healthy in any society. Such monopolies led to the terrible years just before and during during WWII. Let's pray that never, ever happens again. Let's also pray that non-Jews learn from their fellow citizens about how to achieve and to prosper in our waning American culture. Alas, most gentiles are content with their lower rungs on the ladder and that 'content' will forever doom them to second class status in today's Jewish America.

Jeff Rense is a Nazi Scumbag, pt. 2

How about this little chestnut explaining why the Nazis had to load those wicked Jews up and exterminate them.

--

Why Are Jews Persecuted?
Commentary
By Jayne Gardener
2-19-8

I always used to wonder what it was about Jews that made people throughout history despise them. If they were indeed "God's chosen" I thought, they had to be the unluckiest people in the history of the world.

Why were they persecuted throughout history?

Why had the Nazis herded them into cattle cars and taken them to "extermination camps" to dispose once and for all of the "Jewish problem?"

I suddenly recognized that if Hitler had developed a "Final Solution" to the Jewish question, that there had to have been a "Jewish Problem." Could the Jews have in any way behaved in such a manner that would make the countries in which they resided turn against them, or were they just unfortunate, innocent victims?

I set out to find answers for my questions, mainly turning to the Internet, but also reading various books on the subject. What I found became increasingly disturbing to me.

I had not known that throughout history, the Jews had been expelled from 79 countries, some countries more than once.

I had not known that many of the claims they made about the Holocaust that I had believed unquestioningly for so long were in fact fraudulent.

The books I had read and the movies I had seen about the "Holocaust" and wept over were nothing but thinly veiled attempts to garner unwavering sympathy for the state of Israel and an excuse to extort billions of dollars from Germany and 1.25 billion dollars from the Swiss banks.

I discovered that a book I had read many times as a teenager and cried about, Anne Frank's Diary, had been at least partially written by someone other than Anne Frank.

I learned that the confessions at the Nuremburg Trials and the executions of so many German "war criminals" were were extracted under torture and the defendants were being tried, judged and condemned by their very accusers.

I learned about the "false flag" operations, especially the Lavon affair and the tragedy of the USS Liberty, an American ship that was attacked by the Israelis during the 1967 war. 34 young American men were killed and many more wounded.

To add insult to injury, the Israelis claimed that it was simply an unfortunate case of mistaken identity, something the survivors of the Liberty have always vehemently denied. They, however, were threatened with court martial if they were ever to tell their stories.

I learned about the Jonathan Pollard spy case and other incidents of Israeli Jews spying against their supposed "closest ally."

I became shocked and horrified as I learned about the treatment of the Palestinian people in the occupied territories at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces and the Jewish settlers. Israel purports to be the only democracy in the middle east, but it's only a democracy for Jews. Non-Jews are not considered equal.

I was saddened to see pictures of innocent Palestinian children burned beyond recognition or suffering from serious gunshot wounds after being targeted by the IDF for no other reason than that they are Palestinian.

I found out about the Jewish history of avariciousness, larceny, lying, manipulation and their questionable and usurious business practices.

I learned about their roles in the radical homosexual movement, the radical feminist movement, the pornography industry as well as their over-representation in the abortion industry.

I discovered their role in organized crime, in the slave trade, in the civil rights movement and in Communism, an ideology that is responsible for the deaths of untold millions and the repression of many millions more.

I learned that it was Jewish supremacists behind the war against Christianity and Christmas. It is they who want God out of the Pledge of Allegiance and all symbols of Christianity removed from public life.

They have driven Christianity from the public schools despite Christianity being the majority religion.

They have taken Christmas out of the public school calendar despite the fact that it is a statutory holiday and it is named Christmas.

I read about the anti-Gentilism and hatefulness of the Babylonian Talmud and their utter disrespect for, and hostility towards Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary and Christianity and Christians in general.

I learned about their "chutzpah" in claiming that Gentile lives were worth no more than the lives of barnyard animals but that they considered Jewish lives to be akin to God Himself. It's okay to steal from a Gentile or to kill a Gentile, but Jewish lives are sacred.

I learned of their control of the majority of wealth, the media and academia despite them making up less than 2% of the population (even lower in Canada).

They are behind the ridiculous political correctness movement and hate crime legislation that was drafted so as to silence anyone who might figure out their agenda and attempt to shed light on it.

Men like German Rudolf, David Irving and many more, previously recognized as great historians, were arrested, charged with hate crimes and incarcerated simply for having made academic inquiry into a specific period of history.

Other so called "revisionists" or "holocaust deniers" have been intimidated, harassed, assaulted and smeared simply for trying to get at the truth.

I found out that the Jews are responsible for our wide open immigration policies that have created the nightmare we call "multiculturalism," "diversity," inclusiveness" and "pluralism."

It is mostly they who push for race mixing and miscegenation, knowing full well that it would eventually lead to those of white European descent being minorities in their own countries and the eventual extermination of white European DNA.

It is patently clear that the war in Iraq is due solely to Israel wanting to hobble her enemies by destabilizing their governments in order to achieve hegemony in the middle east.

It would be unthinkable for Israeli Jews to die for this cause, so they manipulated the US into the war with the help of the Jewish Zionist "Israel firsters" in the Bush administration in order that the blood of way too many young American men and women is shed instead.

It is they who control the middle eastern foreign policy of the most powerful country in the world, the USA. It is they who control congress, the senate and the puppet president, George W. Bush.

They have such control in movies and television that we are now subjected to endless programs and Hollywood movies that mock Christianity, Christian values and degrade the traditional family.

After sober reflection on what I had discovered about Jewish supremacy and Zionism, I had to abandon all my previously held notions as to the history of Jewish persecution.

What I have trouble understanding is why they continue this behavior in whichever society they live, knowing that eventually they will overplay their hand and their perfidy will be exposed yet again.Has history taught them nothing?

As more and more people become aware of what is going on and who is responsible for it, anger is going to rise as it already has in the former Soviet Union and eastern European countries.

They may control television, movies and the print media, but they don't control the internet. At least not yet. Blogs and websites devoted to "outing" the Jewish supremacists will ultimately be their downfall.

If everyone who sees this information passes it on to at least one other person, the crimes and misdeeds of the Jewish supremacists and Zionists will be exposed. Please, do your part. Pass it on. Our world as we know it is counting on you.

Posted by Jayne Gardener

Jeff Rense is a Nazi Scumbag

I'm not going to editorialize -- I'm just doing a straight comparison between actual Nazi propaganda, The Decent Jew, and the Patrick Grimm article, "How Jewish Supremacism is Destroying America," published on Rense.com. The words make the linkage abundantly clear.

I begin with the moral qualities of the Jews that they love to bring up. Never was the level of public morality lower than during the time in which your racial comrades had nearly complete control over film, the stage and the arts. I remember with disgust the so-called educational films and similar such depravity for which there was sensational propaganda. Other Jews praised such things to the heavens, and still other Jews kept the police from stopping these general attacks on public morality. The damage done to our youth by Magnus Hirschfeld [a prominent Jewish sexual researcher] alone, and the fact that the rest of Jewry tolerated him, is by itself sufficient to justify the harshest measures against the Jews. But Magnus Hirschfeld was no unfortunate single case, but rather one of a legion of Jewish corrupters of the youth, sexual criminals, pseudo-scientists, playwrights and novelists, painters and sculptors, theater and cabaret director, publishers and distributors of pornographic literature. They competed with each other to produce their filth, surpassing each other in obscenity, making easier the work of their racial comrades seeking to dominate an unnerved and powerless people rendered susceptible by such "art." The absence of moral rules was called freedom, and unrestrained drives were proclaimed to be the right of the young.

—The Decent Jew by Hanns Oberlindober, 1940

"They have created, pushed and profited from pornography and perverse entertainment. The "Chosen" make up 90% of all American pornographers. The Hollywood they run has mainstreamed wife-swapping, common law marriages, pedophilia, scatology, licentious sex, drug and alcohol abuse and self-indulgence. Bestiality will be next on the list. In fact, they are already releasing a documentary portraying men who have sex with horses. 7. They have brought homosexuality out of the closet and into our faces. Sodomy is shown in their media and movies as normal, healthy, enjoyable and something to celebrate openly in as brazen a fashion as possible. They have founded, funded and fronted every homosexual advocacy group in America. To oppose the flaunting of buggery is now considered "old-fashioned" and "reactionary."

—How Jewish Supremacism is Destroying America by Patrick Grimm, 2008

They have made abortion into a sacrament. Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) and every other leftist pro-abortion promoter and provider in America is run from top to bottom by "the Chosen". Unlimited and unregulated abortion on demand is lauded and touted in the controlled media as a positive social good for the United States. Thirty-four years after Roe v. Wade and with over 40 million abortions under their belts, these same groups still cheer and applaud for more. And with most abortion rights organizations top-heavy with Jews and a large percentage of abortion doctors also being Jewish, they have definitely made a killing out of killing.

—How Jewish Supremacism is Destroying America by Patrick Grimm, 2008

More than that, your racial comrades intentionally and cold-heartedly preached and encouraged the murder of the unborn children of our people through abortion. The racial hatred Jews had for their Aryan host people extended to the growing life in a mother's womb. Jewish scoundrels made this part of the programs of political parties. How many millions of unborn children and how many hundreds of thousands of mothers fell prey to the greed and racial hatred of Jewish doctors? The Jews kept the number secret by controlling and influencing the official statistics of the German Reich. To my knowledge, no "decent Jew" raised his voice against such organized murder.

—The Decent Jew by Hanns Oberlindober, 1940

They have controlled our currency with the counterfeiting scheme that is the Federal Reserve, its umbilical cord of sustenance interfaced with the Jewish Rothschild banking cartel run from the financial nerve center of world Jewry located in London, England. Since 1913, and intermittently on and off again throughout US history, tribalist Jews have sunk their vampire fangs into the currency of our nation. This nexus of dominance, more than any other, must be broken, smashed, its reins handed back to the people and the government of our country, rather than a private corporation operated top to bottom by power-hungry greed-head Jewish extremist money-men and international bankers who are in all truth, globalists and internationalists, intent on robbing the American people of their livelihood and their birthright, just as our Founding Fathers warned us they would. Until we get this banking power off of our backs, we will never be free of Talmudic tyranny. We will instead be bankrupt and subservient to their evil power agenda.

—How Jewish Supremacism is Destroying America by Patrick Grimm, 2008

So far, I have intentionally avoided the corrupting and destructive effects of your racial comrades in economic life, of the attempt to destroy the National Socialist economy, of the central banking system and the brutal efforts of the Jewish world economy to monopolize raw materials. I have not wanted to speak of three hundred years of history that everyone knows, of the Rothschilds, the Warburgs, the Speyers, the Löbs, the Kuhns, and the Pereiras, nor of the court Jews and their noble friends, nor of Jewish swindlers and their lackeys. These are side effects that have for the moment been overcome. They show the spiritual and moral power of Jewry, which has been broken.

—The Decent Jew by Hanns Oberlindober, 1940

Got the picture?



If not, here's a photo of our boy Hanns Oberlindober:

Two Enormously Important 9/11 Reports

Some of the darker secrets of 9/11 are coming to light. It seems the Saudis -- including George W's pal Prince Bandar "Bush" -- had their fingers deeper in the pie than the 9/11 Commission wanted to admit.

Read them both. Think about them. And tell others to do the same.

Raw Story: FBI documents contradict 9/11 Commission report (be sure to read page 2)

Daniel Hopsicker: John McCain's Sweet Ride: Lobbyist's Plane Flew Saudi Royals After 9/11

Connect the dots.

More on the Texas UFO

Texas UFO chased by fighter jet

Possible UFO sighting

Thursday, January 10, 2008 11:16 AM CST





Four area residents witness mysterious object, lights in Selden sky

By ANGELIA JOINER Staff Writer

Steve Allen, Mike Odom and Lance Jones were out admiring a beautiful Texas sunset Tuesday evening when they saw something none of them can explain.

Allen called it an unidentified flying object. And, because he's been a private pilot for more than 30 years, he has a little more experience judging air speeds and distances than most.

“We all flipped out,” Allen said. “I didn't sleep a wink last night.”

Allen was at the home of Mike Odom in Selden about 6:15 p.m. when they suddenly noticed flashing lights about “3,500 feet above ground level,” he said.

“The ship wasn't really visible and was totally silent, but the lights spanned about a mile long and a half mile wide,” Allen said. “The lights went from corner to corner. It was directly above Highway 67 traveling towards Stephenville at a high rate of speed - about 3,000 miles per hour is what I would estimate.”

Allen said the lights were not those of a normal aircraft. He said they were more like strobe lights, and while they were all watching, the lights reconfigured themselves from a single horizontal line into two sets of vertical lights.

“The two sets were approximately one-quarter of a mile apart,” Allen said. “Then they turned into dirty burning flames. The flames were not blue. They were white in color. About two seconds later it disappeared completely.”

Allen said they were all scratching their heads and talking about what it could have been, when approximately 10 minutes later, the object flew overhead again.

“This time it came from the west traveling east towards Glen Rose,” Allen said. “And it was about two or three miles south of 67, and two military jets, possibly F16s, were in pursuit.”

“I was asking, “Are you guys seeing that?” Allen said.

Mike Odom said he didn't have trouble sleeping but it was a “wild experience.”

“It's unexplainable,” Odom said. “It was something not natural; it was moving way too fast.”

Odom said he saw one other unexplainable object in the sky in 1978 when he was in Arizona.

“Back then something flew over with lights all around,” Odom said. “I think this thing bothered all of us, but it probably bothered Steve more because he's a pilot and he flies a lot.”

“It was neat,” Lance Jones said. “It was something. I've never seen anything like it before but it didn't scare me. I just figured it was military.”

Odom's wife, Claudette, said she was previously employed as a flight attendant.

“Lights were going up and down the side,” she said. “There was no sound, just the lights. It was moving so fast. It wasn't a plane. I know how planes move. Honestly, I think it was a UFO. It was so fast you couldn't have put your finger on it and move it fast enough to follow it.”

Allen said he has never seen a UFO until now, but he did suspect there was something to UFO stories all along.

“I was very surprised to finally get my eyes on one,” Allen said. “If anybody else saw this and got pictures I hope they will contact me.”

Allen said he has already reported the sighting to Washington, and is in the process of writing a report on the event.

Allen is the owner of L & S Enterprises and Texas Freight in Glen Rose. He can be contacted at 254-898-1117.

The group plans to return to Odom's house and keep an eye on the sky in the near future, hoping to see it again.

ANGELIA JOINER is a staff writer for the Empire-Tribune. She can be reached at angelia.joiner@empiretribune.com or 254-965-3124,ext. 238.

UFO footage near San Diego

More interesting footage, this time from San Diego.

Odd UFO video

This one is really unusual.

The standard caveat applies -- there's no way to judge the authenticity of any video footage anymore, especially a YouTube clip. But this one doesn't set off my bullshit alarm like most UFO footage does.

Hosanna Church - Agents Graphically Describe Abuse

By Don Ellzey

Friday, November 30, 2007 11:31 AM CST

AMITE - An FBI agent testified Thursday that Trey Bernard said in an interview that when he first began changing his infant daughter's diapers, his hands would start shaking.

Bernard said he knew he would likely lose control, and he did, special agent Joseph Edwards testified.

Edwards was a witness for the prosecution in the trial of Austin “Trey” Bernard III, 39, of Hammond. Bernard is charged with the aggravated rape of a 2-year-old girl, his daughter, in the Hosanna Church child sex case. The now-defunct church was located off U.S. 51 between Hammond and Ponchatoula and was the site of alleged occult activities and child sex.

Edwards was the fifth witness called by the prosecution since testimony in the trial began Tuesday.

In an interview with Bernard at the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office Substation on June 10, 2005, Edwards said he was told by Bernard that during the diaper changes he began touching his infant daughter. The touching became oral sex and eventually penetration.
Edwards said Bernard claimed to have been molested as a child, which led him to molest children.

Federal prosecutor Lisa Marie Freitas, now with the Child Exploitation Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, was a special agent assigned to the FBI's New Orleans office in 2005.

Freitas testified that she, too, interviewed Bernard, who told her that he had done with his daughter everything a human could do to the body of another human. Much of the abuse occurred while his wife, Nicole Bernard, was working.

She said Bernard told her that he was the first to penetrate his daughter and Louis Lamonica was the second.

She said Bernard described the rituals at the church, although the rituals were not the point of the FBI investigation. Freitas said he volunteered the information.

According to Bernard, the rituals took place in what was called “the room,” which was the church's youth room. He described how six adults would line up shoulder to shoulder and perform sex acts on his daughter or other children, who were passed down the line. The rule was that there would be no penetration or injury.

The rituals had a Satanic theme, including a Pentagram, the use of animals and animal parts such as chicken feet and the use of animal blood.

Freitas said that according to Bernard, Patricia Pierson and Robin Lamonica, two defendants in the case, put animal blood on his daughter during one of the rites. She said Bernard claimed Pierson and Lamonica also sexually abused his daughter.

He said animal blood was also put on other children, Freitas said.

She said she and other FBI agents got a search warrant for the church. Bernard served as a guide, pointing out what the different rooms and areas were used for. Freitas said nothing was in the sanctuary - no pews, no chairs, just a large, empty room.

The youth room was pitch black when the lights were out, she said, but the room was equipped with a black light. When Bernard turned it on, the light revealed writings on the walls from ceiling to floor.

“Every inch, from top to bottom, was writing,” Freitas said.

The writing consisted of songs, lyrics and Biblical verses. Some of the words were inverted or changed, she said.

Using a special chemical, a search team found signs of body fluids all over the carpet, she said. Pieces of the carpet with fluid spots were cut out for evidence.

Freitas testified that federal search warrants were issued for the residence of Chris Labat, one of the seven defendants. Agents met with sheriff's deputies to execute the warrant because Labat was a deputy. The search provided several pieces of evidence, including a computer but nothing that related directly to Bernard.

An interview with Louis Lamonica, another defendant in the case, along with his comments to the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office, pointed to a church group, Freitas said. Law enforcement agents then began making arrests.

Lamonica, the former pastor of Hosanna Church, turned himself in to the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office before Bernard's arrest.

Tangipahoa Parish Detective Mike DePhillip said authorities learned on May 19, 2005, that Bernard was allegedly involved with the Hosanna group, Freitas said. But according to DePhillips, Bernard wanted to speak with FBI agents because some have a background in psychology.

The interview took place June 10, 2005, at the sheriff's substation in Hammond, she said. Freitas and Edwards said Bernard was fully informed of his rights and was advised that he had the right to an attorney. He declined the offer of an attorney and signed the federal form showing he had been advised of his rights.

The interview was not taped because agents did not have permission from the regional FBI office to use a tape recorder or video device, she said.

“The first thing he wanted to know was why things happen the way they do,” Freitas told the court.

She said the agents told him they only wanted to know what he had witnessed.

Bernard said, “Things just happen that way,” she said.

She said he claimed to have been sexually abused as child by his mother. He said he and his wife, Nicole, had a Christian background and he had felt she could “keep him straight.” But he said he had been in a homosexual relationship with Louis Lamonica.

Freitas said that according to Bernard, the group started under the leadership of Lamonica. Lamonica had full control at the church, and it was not long before most members left, including the youth pastor. Bernard replaced him. She said it was Bernard's job to bring the young people to a certain level of sexual behavior and to gauge how they reacted to sexual contact by an adult. About 10 children were in the youth group.

Bernard told the interviewers that the Lamonicas' two sons had been sexually abused by their father from a very young age. Their parents had trained them to lie and they were very good at it, Freitas said, quoting Bernard.

She said she does not feel Bernard sought counseling from anyone outside the church.

Freitas said that according to Bernard, Lois Mowbray was a church member of the church who learned of the sexual abuse but did not report it. Bernard claimed the group used no alcohol or drugs. She said Bernard said he last abused his daughter about two years before his arrest.

Al Bensabat, Bernard's attorney, noted that the federal search warrant was for Labat's residence, not Bernard's. Bensabat said Bernard's wife was present for some of the rituals and that law enforcement agents could not verify the events that Freitas had described.

Responding to a question from Bensabat, Freitas said FBI agents found no pentagram and no animal blood at the church.

According to Edwards, Bernard said he was not sure of some of the events and they may have been a fantasy, but he was very clear about the molestation of his daughter.

Edwards said Bernard thinks Mowbray told him to make a written account of all that had happened. That account, Bernard's diary, was given to the jury for review late Thursday. It is graphic and detailed as to some of the incidents.

The jury also heard the taped interview conducted with Bernard by sheriff's detectives DePhillips and Stuart Murphy shortly after his arrest.

Judge Doug Hughes announced after Thursday's court session that jurors should prepare for a half day of court on Saturday.

Developers to New Orleans poor: Go fuck yourselves

The economic cleansing of New Orleans continues, as developers piss on the impoverished and lobby to demolish public housing.

Ritual aspects of Hosanna Church case detailed

This is the first article I've found that describes the actual ritual aspects of the Hosanna Church defendants (and the now convicted Austin "Trey" Bernard). Some excerpts below:

Federal prosecutor Lisa Marie Freitas, now with the Child Exploitation Division of the U.S. Department of Justice, was a special agent assigned to the FBI's New Orleans office in 2005.

Freitas testified that she, too, interviewed Bernard, who told her that he had done with his daughter everything a human could do to the body of another human. Much of the abuse occurred while his wife, Nicole Bernard, was working.

She said Bernard told her that he was the first to penetrate his daughter and Louis Lamonica was the second.

She said Bernard described the rituals at the church, although the rituals were not the point of the FBI investigation. Freitas said he volunteered the information.

According to Bernard, the rituals took place in what was called “the room,” which was the church's youth room. He described how six adults would line up shoulder to shoulder and perform sex acts on his daughter or other children, who were passed down the line. The rule was that there would be no penetration or injury.

The rituals had a Satanic theme, including a Pentagram, the use of animals and animal parts such as chicken feet and the use of animal blood.

Freitas said that according to Bernard, Patricia Pierson and Robin Lamonica, two defendants in the case, put animal blood on his daughter during one of the rites. She said Bernard claimed Pierson and Lamonica also sexually abused his daughter.

He said animal blood was also put on other children, Freitas said.

She said she and other FBI agents got a search warrant for the church. Bernard served as a guide, pointing out what the different rooms and areas were used for. Freitas said nothing was in the sanctuary - no pews, no chairs, just a large, empty room.

The youth room was pitch black when the lights were out, she said, but the room was equipped with a black light. When Bernard turned it on, the light revealed writings on the walls from ceiling to floor.

“Every inch, from top to bottom, was writing,” Freitas said.

The writing consisted of songs, lyrics and Biblical verses. Some of the words were inverted or changed, she said.

Using a special chemical, a search team found signs of body fluids all over the carpet, she said. Pieces of the carpet with fluid spots were cut out for evidence.

Freitas testified that federal search warrants were issued for the residence of Chris Labat, one of the seven defendants. Agents met with sheriff's deputies to execute the warrant because Labat was a deputy. The search provided several pieces of evidence, including a computer but nothing that related directly to Bernard.

An interview with Louis Lamonica, another defendant in the case, along with his comments to the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office, pointed to a church group, Freitas said. Law enforcement agents then began making arrests.

Lamonica, the former pastor of Hosanna Church, turned himself in to the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office before Bernard's arrest.

Tangipahoa Parish Detective Mike DePhillip said authorities learned on May 19, 2005, that Bernard was allegedly involved with the Hosanna group, Freitas said. But according to DePhillips, Bernard wanted to speak with FBI agents because some have a background in psychology.

The interview took place June 10, 2005, at the sheriff's substation in Hammond, she said. Freitas and Edwards said Bernard was fully informed of his rights and was advised that he had the right to an attorney. He declined the offer of an attorney and signed the federal form showing he had been advised of his rights.

The interview was not taped because agents did not have permission from the regional FBI office to use a tape recorder or video device, she said.

“The first thing he wanted to know was why things happen the way they do,” Freitas told the court.

She said the agents told him they only wanted to know what he had witnessed.

Bernard said, “Things just happen that way,” she said.

She said he claimed to have been sexually abused as child by his mother. He said he and his wife, Nicole, had a Christian background and he had felt she could “keep him straight.” But he said he had been in a homosexual relationship with Louis Lamonica.

Freitas said that according to Bernard, the group started under the leadership of Lamonica. Lamonica had full control at the church, and it was not long before most members left, including the youth pastor. Bernard replaced him. She said it was Bernard's job to bring the young people to a certain level of sexual behavior and to gauge how they reacted to sexual contact by an adult. About 10 children were in the youth group.

Bernard told the interviewers that the Lamonicas' two sons had been sexually abused by their father from a very young age. Their parents had trained them to lie and they were very good at it, Freitas said, quoting Bernard.

Hosanna Church Member Guilty

The verdict is in—Trey Bernard is guilty, and will spend life in prison without the chance of parole.

NOTE: All material about the Hosanna Church case is archived on the index page. Please post comments on that page only.

WWL TV (video clip)

WDSU

Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

Debra Lemoine's article is the most detailed, so I'm mirroring it in its entirety here:

By DEBRA LEMOINE
Advocate Florida parishes bureau
Published: Dec 4, 2007 - Page: 1A

AMITE — A Tangipahoa Parish jury on Monday evening convicted Austin “Trey” Bernard III of three counts of aggravated rape for his role in the Hosanna Church sex abuse case.

The jurors voted unanimously to convict Bernard in the rape of his 2-year-old daughter. All but one found him guilty in the rape of a 12-year-old boy, 21st Judicial District Attorney Scott Perrilloux said.

The jury of eight women and four men deliberated two hours before reaching a decision.

Bernard faces a mandatory penalty of life in prison when he is sentenced on Jan. 12. The District Attorney’s Office declined to seek the death penalty, which is a potential penalty, because of the age of the victims.

Bernard’s attorney, Al Bensabat, said after court that he had to overcome a mountain of evidence against Bernard.

Bernard, 39, of Hammond, is the first of the seven members of the now-defunct Ponchatoula church to go to trial after being indicted in 2005 in the rapes of children.

No trial date has been set for the remaining six suspects. Perrilloux said he anticipates bringing Louis Lamonica to trial in early 2008.

The verdict was greeted by two sobs, one from Bernard’s stepmother, Leslie Bernard, and the other from his ex-wife, Nicole Bernard.

Nicole Bernard, who was arrested but not charged in the case, said the verdict was just.

“I would like to thank the Lord Jesus Christ for justice for my daughter,” she said to reporters outside the courthouse. “I will never quit until the last six are brought to justice.”

Leslie Bernard, Bernard’s stepmother, said through tears on her way to her car that the verdict surprised her because three of Bernard’s alleged victims said they were never abused. One of the victims who recanted was Lamonica’s son, whom Bernard was convicted of raping when the boy was 12.

Trey Bernard said nothing in court after state District Judge Doug Hughes read the verdict. Deputies handcuffed him immediately and led him out a side door in the courtroom before the jury left the room.

In his closing arguments earlier Monday, prosecutor Don Wall described Trey Bernard as a situational abuser, a man who has the desire to molest children and will do so if given the opportunity.

Bernard had a sexual relationship with Lamonica, the 49-year-old Hosanna pastor, Wall said. Through that relationship, the men raped each other’s children, he said.

The rapes stopped in 2003, after Lamonica’s and Bernard’s wives threw them out of their houses and the men moved into the church, Wall told jurors. It wasn’t until the Bernards attempted to reconcile in late 2004 that their daughter began to speak of the abuse, Wall said.

In the meantime, Trey Bernard and others began writing how they abused the children in spiral notebooks. Two of Bernard’s victims also began writing about the abuse at the request of their mother.

“It’s like rats jumping off the sinking ship,” Wall told the jury. “Once it became known that this stuff was going on outside of the group, all of this became serious.”

Throughout the five days of testimony, Wall showed the jury Bernard’s writings, the two victims’ writings, videotaped statements from three children and statements from investigators outlining the three times Bernard confessed the abuse to authorities.

Two young men, one of whom Bernard was charged with raping, testified that Bernard never touched them. However, Wall got them to admit on the stand that their recantations began after both their parents were arrested.

The boys also admitted that they had to say that Bernard never touched them in order to be consistent when they testify at their parents’ trials.

In his closing argument, Wall read excerpts of a 211-page journal Bernard kept in which he outlined how he went from touching his daughter in the bathtub to raping her.

The jury had been allowed to read the journal during the trial.

A couple of jurors cried Monday while Wall read some of the more graphic details of the abuse.

When Bernard testified Monday, he maintained that his ex-wife concocted the rape stories in order to get sole custody of their daughter.

After voluntarily leaving the house, Bernard testified, he moved into the church, but never had sex with Lamonica.

However, over time, women at the church, including his wife, forced him to write that he raped his own daughter and Lamonica’s two sons, Bernard testified.

If he didn’t, his wife threatened to call police and make sure he would never see his daughter again, he said.

Bernard said that if he left the church, he felt he would lose everything, including his only child.

“If they had told me to write I was the Easter Bunny, I would to get out of that insane asylum,” Bernard testified.

Once, at the Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s Office in May 2005, Bernard said he felt he had to confess to the detectives questioning him because of what he had already written.

“Once you start down that path, there is no way out of it,” Bernard testified.

Wall and Perrilloux said that they were pleased with the verdict.

“I never tried anything like it,” Wall said to reporters. “I don’t know anyone who has.”

Witnesses Deny Abuse at Hosanna Church

By DEBRA LEMOINE
Advocate Florida parishes bureau
Published: Dec 2, 2007

AMITE — Two of the three children Austin “Trey” Bernard III is accused of raping maintained on the witness stand Saturday that they never were abused.

The young men, now ages 17 and 21, and Trey Bernard’s now 7-year-old daughter are the three children who, in 2005, accused seven members of the now-defunct Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula of sexually abusing them.

The young girl is not expected to take the stand, but her mother previously has said the child maintains she was abused.

Trey Bernard, 39, of Hammond, is the first church member to go to trial in the 21st Judicial District Court in Amite on charges of aggravated rape of a 2-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy.

On the stand as a prosecution witness, the elder man said that at the time of the alleged sexual abuse, he was told by his mother, Robbin Lamonica, and Trey Bernard’s now ex-wife, Nicole Bernard, to write down the incidents of anal and oral sex forced on him by Trey Bernard and others as well as the abuse he witnessed of the girl and younger boy.

Robbin Lamonica awaits trial on charges of oral sexual battery. The young men’s father, Louis Lamonica, also awaits trial on charges of aggravated rape.

The elder brother testified that Nicole Bernard began to ask him about the abuse after her daughter became old enough to begin talking in early 2005.

“Nicole would say if this happened and you say it didn’t happen, you will go to jail,” the older man said. “If I even thought there was even a remote chance it happened, I said it did.”

The younger man said on the stand that he thinks Lois Mowbray, who was arrested in 2005 but never charged, directed his mother to make him write down the abuse incidents. He even said the women would suggest writing topics to the boys and let the boys fill in the details.

“My mom’s main focus was Dad,” the younger man said. “Then, it’s like, ‘let’s put Trey in there.’”

The older boy did not mention the presence of Mowbray.

While each of the men was on the stand, Assistant District Attorney Don Wall spent more than hour asking them to verify statements they made to numerous people complaining that they were victims of sexual abuse.

The older man verified all the past statements he made to his psychologist, a forensic pediatrician, a social worker with the state Office of Community Services in Livingston, an interviewer with the Child Advocacy Center in Livingston and various law enforcement personnel.

The younger man said he remembered talking about the rape but did not recall some details related to the abuse or some of the people he had told.

In a series of direct questions from Wall, the older man related that he began to recant the abuse allegations after both of his parents were jailed in connection with the Hosanna Church investigation and he had to live with his grandfather.

“I’m saying now it didn’t happen,” the older boy testified of the alleged sexual molestation.

Wall also asked the older man to explain how much it costs his parents to be out of jail.

The older man said each of his parents pays a $300 monthly fee for the electronic monitoring that allows them to live at home.

“If they didn’t have to do that, they could buy you a car,” Wall quipped.

Wall didn’t press the younger man, who testified he has been living in a mental institution since September, as hard as he did the older one.

However, the teenager also admitted he began to recant his accusations of sexual abuse after both of his parents were arrested and he moved in with a grandmother he hadn’t seen in seven years.

Wall also had the men admit that in order to say on the witness stands at the upcoming trials of their parents that their parents never abused them, they must first say Trey Bernard never abused them.

“And the six or eight times you told all these other people, that is just a lie?” Wall asked.

“Basically,” the younger man responded.

After each man’s testimony, Wall had their journals, detailing their alleged abuse, made available for examination by the jury.

The jurors read each journal for about a half-hour each in court.

Copies of those journals were provided to The Advocate upon request.

The young men’s journals contained nearly identical information. They wrote that Trey Bernard and others forced them to have anal and oral sex. They also wrote they witnessed acts of anal, oral and vaginal rape of Trey Bernard’s daughter.

In an interview outside of the courtroom, Bernard’s attorney said he thought the men’s testimony went well for his client.

“I am pleased with the testimony,” defense attorney Al Bensabat said. “Obviously it bolsters our theory of the case which you will find out Monday.”

The state is expected to rest Monday morning. Bensabat said he will call at least three witnesses, including Trey Bernard on Monday.

State District Judge Doug Hughes told members of the jury Saturday that he thinks the case will be given to them for a verdict on Monday as well.

First Witness in Hosanna Case to Take the Stand

By DEBRA LEMOINE
Florida parishes bureau
Published: Nov 28, 2007 - UPDATED: 1:25 p.m.

AMITE — Nicole Bernard testified this morning that she discovered her young daughter had been raped by her then-estranged husband when the girl told her about her nightmares.

Bernard, 38, of Ohio, related the scene as the state’s first witness in its aggravated rape case against Austin “Trey” Bernard III, 39, of Hammond, the first of the Hosanna Church sex abuse suspects to go to trial.

He is accused of having oral sex with his then 2-year-old daughter and anal sex with a 12-year-old boy, Assistant District Attorney Don Wall told the jury in his opening statement.

Trey Bernard is one of seven members of the now defunct Ponchatoula church indicted in 2005 for abusing children.

Wall, in his opening statement, told the jury how Bernard’s now ex-wife discovered he was abusing their daughter and two other boys not related to the couple.

Wall said Trey Bernard confessed to raping these children to Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff’s detectives and FBI agents.

Bernard was indicted with crimes against only his daughter and the 12-year-old boy, not the other boy, who was 16 at the time.

Public Defender Al Bensabat told the jury in his opening statement that the children were coached by Bernard’s ex-wife to ensure she had total custody of their daughter. In fact, Trey Bernard was served with his divorce papers the same day he was arrested by the Sheriff’s Office in May 2005, Bensabat said.

He also told the jury his client is the victim of a witch hunt by authorities who think they have to take him to trial because of the publicity surrounding the case.

Bensabat also told the jury that Trey Bernard will take the stand later in the trial to testify in his own defense.

After an hour and a half of testimony for the prosecution, the court broke for lunch.

The defense is expected to cross-examine Nicole Bernard when court reconvenes after 1:30 p.m.

Jury Selection in Hosanna Church Trial

Jury selection starts for church member accused of child rape

AMITE, La. -- Tales of devil worship will not play a major role in the trial of a man accused of having sex with children as part of occult rituals alleged to have occurred among members of a now-defunct south Louisiana church, a prosecutor said.

Jury selection began Tuesday morning in the case of Austin "Trey" Bernard III, 39, of Hammond, who faces three counts of aggravated rape involving children, including a 2-year-old girl.

Bernard is the first of seven members of Hosanna Church in Ponchatoula who are charged in the case. He is the first to go on trial since the allegations broke in 2005. The others are free on bail, awaiting trial.

The crimes allegeldy occurred in 2001 and 2002 and there were reports that satanic rituals and the killing of dogs and cats were involved. But Don Wall, an assistant district attorney in Tangipahoa Parish, told potential jurors that there would be little mention of that at trial because devil worship is not against the law.

"It is against the law to have sex with a child under 12," he said.

Wall also noted that there would be little or no physical evidence because so much time passed between the alleged crimes and the reporting of them.

"This is not CSI. There is no DNA, not a lot of physical evidence. Sometimes it is just people telling you what happened," Wall said.

Three jurors had been seated as of early afternoon from among close to 80 potential jurors who showed up at the courthouse Tuesday for the trial.

Bernard faced three counts of aggravated rape, including two counts involving a 2-year-old girl and one involving a juvenile boy. Conviction would mean life in prison for Bernard. Prosecutors decided against seeking the death penalty.

State District Judge Doug Hughes told potential jurors he expects the trial to last four or five days. However, public defender Al Bensabat, who represents Bernard, said it will be difficult to get a jury in Tangipahoa Parish, where the case has drawn extensive publicity. "It's been tried in the press for two years," Bensabat said.

Last week, the 1st Circuit Court of Appeal in Baton Rouge rejected defense appeals concerning the testimony of possible state witnesses.

Hughes ruled on Oct. 9 that two young men, now ages 21 and 17, can take the witness stand, even though the prosecution and defense attorneys told the judge that they anticipate they will testify that they were not abused when they were minors. If so, their testimony would conflict with previous statements the men gave to psychiatrists and law enforcement authorities, attorneys have said in court hearings.

The men also are considered witnesses to the abuse of the girl, Wall has said. The girl is not expected to testify.

Another Tillman?

This does not sit well with me:

The Quincy soldier mysteriously slain by a bullet to the head on a secure Afghanistan airbase feared something might happen to her after discovering “something she didn’t like,” her devastated family revealed.

Massachusetts National Guard Spc. Ciara Durkin, 30, was found with a single gunshot wound to her head behind a building at Bagram Airbase on Sept. 27.

“The last time she was home she said she had seen things that she didn’t like and she had raised concerns that had annoyed some people,” said Durkin’s sister Fiona Canavan, 44, of Quincy.

More at the link.

Hosanna Church debate continues

If you have any interest in the Hosanna Church case, you might want to check out the recent comments on the Hosanna Church index page.

New details on Tillman's death

There has been speculation that Pat Tillman was murdered -- either because of his high-profile and his dissatisfaction with the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and Iraq, or because his fellow soldiers disliked him enough to commit fratricide. The Pentagon hasn't done much to put down those rumors, and in fact its stonewalling and coverup have only fed suspicions.

For those not entirely familiar with the saga, wikipedia has a balanced summary.

Recall, too, that Tillman had scheduled a meeting with Noam Chomsky after he was to return from Afghanistan, and that he was urging soldiers in his platoon to vote for John Kerry. Hmmm. Not quite the team player the Bush cultists hoped for, eh?

This latest story adds more fuel to the fire:

The documents show that a doctor who autopsied Tillman's body was suspicious of the three gunshot wounds to the forehead. The doctor said he took the unusual step of calling the Army's Human Resources Command and was rebuffed. He then asked an official at the Army's Criminal Investigation Division if the CID would consider opening a criminal case.

"He said he talked to his higher headquarters and they had said no," the doctor testified.

Also according to the documents, investigators pressed officers and soldiers on a question Mrs. Tillman has been asking all along.

"Have you, at any time since this incident occurred back on April 22, 2004, have you ever received any information even rumor that Cpl. Tillman was killed by anybody within his own unit intentionally?" an investigator asked then-Capt. Richard Scott.

Scott, and others who were asked, said they were certain the shooting was accidental.

Put yourself in the shoes of the hawks in the Pentagon. What would you do if one of your poster-boys for the war turned against the mission, became openly and vocally critical of the war and its architects, and started arranging for a meeting with one of the most visible and respected critics of the war and American imperialism?

Would setting up a "friendly fire" incident really be unthinkable?

Norwegian UFO-mystery solved?

I can't quite say this comment explains anything:

According to the scientists, it is now clear that the phenomen is not UFO-related, but are luminous balls containing some form of energy.

But it's a fascinating story nonetheless. Thanks to Jeff Wells for catching it.

Norwegian scientists now believe they are nearing a solution to the Hessdalen UFO-mystery which has puzzled experts for more than 25 years.

The so-called Hessdalen lights have been seen ever since the 1940's and have since 1984 been monitored by volunteers.

Hessdalen is a small valley in the central part of Norway. At the end of 1981 through 1984, residents of the Valley became concerned and alarmed about strange, unexplained lights that appeared at many locations throughout the Valley. Hundreds of lights were observed. At the peak of activity there were about 20 reports a week.

Project Hessdalen was established in the summer of 1983. A field investigation was carried out between 21st of January and 26th of February 1984. Fifty-three light observations were made during the field investigation.

An automatic measurement station was put up in Hessdalen in August 1998.

According to the scientists, it is now clear that the phenomen is not UFO-related, but are luminous balls containing some form of energy.

- We have pictures which show the optical spectre, and can therefore determine which elements they are made of, says researcher Erling Strand of the Oestfold College.

However, he says much work remains before he is ready to give the final answer.

Chertoff Press Conference -- Subliminal Nazi Fear-Mongering?

Check out this clip from my local news station, in which Michal Chertoff ludicrously trumpets his "gut feeling" about an impending Al-Qaida strike:


Chertoff Has "Gut Feeling" Al-Qaida Will Strike

A perceptive friend of mine pointed out the spine of one of the books on the shelf behind Chertoff. He paused the video and I took some shots with my phone.



And a closeup:



Some subliminal Nazi fear-mongering, or just a coincidence?

Suppression of Dissent: The White House Manual

I've been stuffed into several "designated protest zones" in the past few years.

Now you, too, can read the effin manual for stifling dissent at presiduncial appearances. Go ahead. Download the heavily-redacted PDF.

Here are some interesting tidbits:

The formation of "rally squads" is a common way to prepare for demonstrators by countering their message. . . .

The squads should be instructed always to look for demonstrators. The rally squad's task is to use their signs and banners as shields between the demonstrators and the main press platform. If the demonstrators are yelling, rally squads can begin and lead supportive chants to drown out teh protestors (USA!, USA!, USA!). As a last resort security should remove the demonstrators from the event site. The rally squads can include, but are not limited to, college/young republican organizations, local athletic teams, and fraternities/sororities.

Hmmm... roaming bands of jocks looking for sly, undercover protesters? How do they recognize them? Unruly hair? Wrinkled clothing? Hairy legs? Gaydar? A mad twinkle in the eye? Maybe an obvious disgust at the sight of people cheering for the criminal leader of an atavistic, blood-drenched death cult?

Iraq's mercenaries - with a licence to kill

A horrifying article from The Independent.

Excerpt:

The distinguished reporter Jeremy Scahill claims in his new book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, that mercenary troops in Iraq are even using "experimental ammunition" that US forces are forbidden from firing. These bullets, made of "blended metal", are designed to shatter on impact, creating "untreatable wounds". One mercenary recently bragged about the ammo's impact when he shot an Iraqi with it: "It entered his butt and completely destroyed everything in the lower-left section of his stomach... everything was torn apart."

Facebook = CIA

Who needs an intrusive, prying Big Brother nowadays, when people are willing to share the most minute, private details of their lives to marketers and the CIA?

Well, duh!

From NPR:

The White House and Pentagon are under increasing pressure from Congress and the public to end U.S. military involvement in Iraq. But the Pentagon is considering maintaining a core group of forces in Iraq, possibly for decades.

And with gas prices approaching an all-time record, champagne corks are popping in petro/military/industrial complex boardrooms everywhere.

For the Bush Cultists, it doesn't get any better than this.

America's Fortress Embassy

America's embassy in Baghdad. $529 million. 104 acres—the size of the Vatican. The biggest and most expensive U.S. embassy on Earth.

From The Progress Report:

The new U.S. embassy to Iraq being built inside the Green Zone in Baghdad is "destined, at $592 [million], to become the biggest and most expensive US embassy on earth when it opens in September," the Guardian reports. The compound at 104 acres, an area roughly the size of the Vatican, will "include 27 separate buildings and house about 615 people behind bomb-proof walls." In addition, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, will enjoy a 16,000 square foot "high-security home" complete with a pool and gym. Critics fear, however, "that the compound will not be large enough to house hundreds of diplomats and military personnel likely to remain in Iraq for some time" and that the embassy will "become an enormous, heavily targeted white elephant." Such fears were compounded twice in recent days as a mortar attack interrupted British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Saturday meeting with Iraqi leaders and again this morning as a mortar struck the Iraqi parliament. One former diplomat in Iraq asked, "What kind of embassy is it when everybody lives inside and it's blast-proof, and people are running around with helmets and crouching behind sandbags?"

Terence McKenna -- Shamanic Approaches to the UFO

Terence discusses the shamanic approach to UFOs.

Damn, I miss that guy.

Then again, he promised to revisit us, right?

"I'll try to be around and about. But if I'm not, then you know that I'm behind your eyelids, and I'll meet you there."

--Kona, September 1999

Attorney gets copy of Hosanna suspect’s confession

Attorney gets copy of suspect’s confession

By DEBRA LEMOINE
Advocate Florida parishes bureau
Published: May 10, 2007 - Page: 4b

AMITE — Prosecutors have turned over a videotaped confession by Austin “Trey” Bernard III — one of seven people accused in the Hosanna Church of Ponchatoula child-rape case — to Bernard’s defense attorney, according to court officials and court documents.

Defense Attorney Al Benzabet told 21st Judicial District Court Judge Doug Hughes in a pre-trial hearing Wednesday he received the videotaped statement made by Bernard, 38, who is accused of one count of aggravated rape.

After the hearing, Assistant District Attorney Don Wall said that for more than a year he sifted through a voluminous amount of evidence before he could complete this phase of the prosecution.

Bernard’s trial is scheduled Aug. 27.

Trial dates for the other six defendants, indicted for aggravated rape and other sexual crimes, have not been set.

Bernard’s pending trial comes more than two years after fellow church member and pastor Louis D. Lamonica, 47, allegedly walked into the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office and confessed to raping three children as part of an occult ritual.

Following Lamonica’s arrest, eight other members of the now-defunct church were arrested; two of whom have not been charged by the District Attorney’s Office.

Bernard confessed to the crime in that taped statement, according to written reports from the Sheriff’s Office filed in the court record.

Benzabet told the judge he plans to file motions to suppress evidence at the next hearing, set for Aug. 14.

Bernard, who was released from the Tangipahoa Parish Jail on Nov. 22, 2006, in lieu of a $50,000 bond, is being monitored by an electronic-tracking device, court records show.

He had been given permission by the court to go to Florida, the minutes of a Feb. 12 court hearing indicate.

Bernard was present in court Wednesday, dressed in khaki slacks, tie and a blue sports coat.

D.C. Madam Scandal -- Fizzle or Coverup?

From the Center for American Progress:

"There are thousands of names, tens of thousands of phone numbers, and there are people there at the Pentagon, lobbyists, others at the White House, prominent lawyers -- a long, long list."
—ABC correspondent Brian Ross, 4/28/07, reporting on the D.C. Madam list

VERSUS

"As usually is the case in Washington, much of it is dull. There are no members of Congress we can find in these phone numbers, no White House officials. Quite frankly, but for the few exceptions, most of the men on this list just aren't newsworthy."
—Ross, 5/4/07

Sasha Shulgin Smacks Down George Ricaurte

Above: the Professor with visionary scientist Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin.

I attended a delightful lecture by Sasha yesterday at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore -- home of the recent Psilocybin as a catalyst for mystical experience study.

At the end of Sasha's talk, after he had explained his very cautious methodology for evaluating new compounds and introducing them to his research group, a well-dressed, carefully groomed guy in the front asked a rather loaded question. I'll paraphrase:

Guy in front row: "Surely, you know about the people in California who ingested MPTP thinking it was heroin. This must have concerned you. It must have shaken up your group."

Shulgin: "No, it didn't."

Guy in front row: "I have a hard time believing this didn't worry you. You're testing compounds that you know nothing about. Those people got Parkinson's. And that doesn't worry you? You're not at all concerned about the safety of yourself and your group?"

Shulgin: "No."

Guy in front row: "I find that very hard to believe...." yadda yadda yadda.

Shulgin: "Let me turn this question around. How do you propose evaluating novel psychoactive effects in animals?" (Sasha's reply was much more nuanced, but that was the gist of it.*)

Guy in front row: (Uncomfortable silence)

My suspicions were correct -- the guy in the front row was none other than George "Oops, I fed my monkeys methamphetamine instead of MDMA!" Ricaurte. Had I known for sure it was him, I would have followed up with "Well, at least Sasha and his group KNOW the substances they're evaluating are the real things.... unlike a well-known, well-funded (pdf) scientist and his unfortunate monkeys ....**"

Damn, what a missed opportunity.

* Shulgin once said, "There are real problems involved in testing a rat for empathy or changes in self-image."

** MAPS has collected a trove of documents chronicling Ricaurte's research and the ensuing controversy. To be fair to Ricaurte, he has gone on record as admitting that MDMA may eventually be a legitimate medicine.

VA Tech shooter's 4th grade picture

Via someone who knew him in the 4th grade.

Water, water everywhere

Excerpt:

Astronomers have detected water in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system for the first time.

The finding, to be detailed in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal, confirms previous theories that say water vapor should be present in the atmospheres of nearly all the known extrasolar planets. Even hot Jupiters, gaseous planets that orbit closer to their stars than Mercury to our Sun, are thought to have water.

The discovery, announced today, means one of the most crucial elements for life as we know it can exist around planets orbiting other stars.

“We know that water vapor exists in the atmospheres of one extrasolar planet and there is good reason to believe that other extrasolar planets contain water vapor,” said Travis Barman, an astronomer at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona who made the discovery.

Prescription Ecstasy and Other Pipe Dreams: An Update on Psychedelic Research

RU Sirius interviews Jag Davies of MAPS about developments in psychedelic research:

RU: So a while back, MAPS got approval for a study in MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. Where are we at with that?

JAG: It’s almost over. They’ve treated 15 out of 20 patients. It’s very slow. There are lots of pre-conditions for the study because it’s such a controversial substance. But the results are ridiculous. Their CAPS score—(CAPS is the Clinician Administered PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] Scale) is about five times higher than in treating chronic treatment-resistant patients with Zoloft. It’s very likely that we’re going to be able to go on to do our next set up studies—Phase III studies. And there are a whole other slew of studies that are sort of copying this one that we’re doing in a bunch of other places like Switzerland, and Israel, just to be sure.

More at link.

Padilla Injected with a "Truth Serum"

Further confirmation that MKULTRA never died:

Whenever Padilla left the cell, he was shackled and suited in heavy goggles and headphones. He was kept under these conditions for 1,307 days. He was forbidden contact with anyone but his interrogators, who punctured this extreme sensory deprivation with sensory overload, blasting him with harsh lights and pounding sounds.

Padilla also says he was injected with a "truth serum," a substance his lawyers believe was LSD or PCP.

According to his lawyers and two mental health specialists who examined him, Padilla has been so shattered that he lacks the ability to assist in his own defence. He is convinced that his lawyers are "part of a continuing interrogation program" and sees his captors as protectors.

And Klein has clearly done her homework:

Now that his mental state is the central issue in the case, the government prosecutors have a problem. The CIA and the military have known since the early 1960s that extreme sensory deprivation and sensory overload cause personality disintegration that's the whole point.

Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation, a declassified 1963 CIA manual for interrogating "resistant sources" was based on the findings of the agency's notorious MK-Ultra program. In the 1950s, it funnelled about $25 million to scientists to research "unusual techniques of interrogation." One of the psychiatrists who received CIA funding was the infamous Ewen Cameron of Montreal's McGill University.

Cameron subjected hundreds of psychiatric patients to large doses of electroshock and total sensory isolation and drugged them with LSD and PCP. In 1960, Cameron gave a lecture at the Brooks Air Force Base in Texas in which he stated that sensory deprivation "produces the primary symptoms of schizophrenia."

There is no need to go so far back to prove that the U.S. military knew full well that it was driving Padilla mad. The Army's field manual, reissued just last year, states, "Sensory deprivation may result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, depression, and anti-social behavior," as well as "significant psychological distress."

If these techniques drove Padilla insane, that means the U.S. government has been deliberately driving hundreds, possibly thousands, of prisoners insane around the world. What is on trial in Florida is not one man's mental state. It is the whole system of U.S. psychological torture.

Reagans on Drugs

Feeding 10k People in a Day

A break in the madness--and couldn't we all use one right now?--for a story about how amazing and wonderful human beings can be.

From boingboing:

Sarah Rich of Worldchanging is in Delhi at the Doors of Perception conference, checking out local food systems. She's posted a write-up of a Sikh institution, the Langar, which feeds 10,000 people a day on donated food and volunteer labor. She writes:

As Debra Solomon told us when introducing the excursion the previous evening: "They do the most exquisite dishwashing ritual you'll ever see." But actually, the Sikh guide who escorted us through the temple grounds told us in no uncertain terms that the kitchen activities are absolutely without ritual. "Cooking food is cooking food," he said, "No ritual. Just cooking." But if it can't be called a ritual, it can surely be called a dance -- a rhythmic, continuous choreography with mounds of dough, cauldrons of lentils, dozens of hands, and an endless stream of hungry visitors.

Every Sikh temple throughout the world has a Langar (Punjabi for "free kitchen"). This is not a soup kitchen. It's not exclusively for the poor, nor exclusively for the Sikh community. Volunteering in the cooking, serving and cleaning process is a form of active spiritual practice for devotees, but the service they provide asks no religious affiliation of its recipients. Our guide's chorus was, "Man, woman, color, caste, community," meaning you will be fed here regardless of how you fit into any of those classifications.

This spirit of inclusion and equality is reinforced by the kitchen's adherence to vegetarianism, not because Sikhs are vegetarian, but because others who visit may be, and by serving no meat, they exclude nobody.