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10/11/2002
George Bush: Heir to the Holocaust :. ( Local Mirror) The Bush family had close connections to the Third Reich. Of that, there is no doubt. This is the best summary of the vast amount of documentation on the Bush/Nazi connections that I have come across. I encourage everyone to pass this around. While President Bush publicly embraced the community of holocaust survivors in Washington last spring, he and his family have been keeping a secret from them for over 50 years about Prescott Bush, the president's grandfather. According to classified documents from Dutch intelligence and US government archives, President George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush made considerable profits off Auschwitz slave labor. In fact, President Bush himself is an heir to these profits from the holocaust which were placed in a blind trust in 1980 by his father, former president George Herbert Walker Bush.
posted by Kevin at 3:43 PM
10/10/2002
Harvest: Women Take Bids on Their Eggs :.I used to think Blade Runner provided the best model for the future. Well, it looks like that may have been too optimistic: The going rate for a woman's eggs has now reached $7,500 - triple what it was just four years ago. It's the latest move by clinics in a fiercely competitive market to supply eggs to patients lining up at their doors.
Every day for up to three weeks, donors have to inject themselves with hormones once or twice daily. Every other day, they must go to the clinic for blood tests and internal ultrasounds to monitor the growing egg sacs. The donor is then sedated intravenously and a doctor passes a needle through her vaginal walls to collect a dozen or so mature eggs.
The side effects vary, but often include headaches, cramping, bloating, and moodiness. Occasionally, ovaries respond too heartily to the hormones, quadrupling in size and threatening the woman's health: cardiovascular problems and kidney, lung, or liver troubles. Sometimes, a patient is left infertile.
posted by Kevin at 4:29 PM
Stunning Psychiatric Quackery :.Beware of pill pushing shrinks! Most establishment medicine is a fraud, in my opinion, and psychiatrists are nothing more than swindlers who purport to treat socially caused mental illnesses with dangerous, toxic and expensive drugs. Please don't write to me saying that shrinks have good intentions, and they're doing the best they can. The only reason shrinks aren't thrown in prison is because transnational pharmaceutical corporations view them as useful idiots who are willing and able to push their little pills to a bewildered and increasingly sick public. This society makes people mentally ill. No amount of slick marketing and colorful little capsules can fix that: But the data show the suicide rate is elevated 68 percent when comparing SSRI participants to those given placebo and to the general population. So the question isn't whether being in a clinical trial puts a person at risk, but whether a particular drug puts a participant in a clinical trial at risk. Besides, what good does it do to be declared officially less depressed if it means you are 68 percent more likely to kill yourself?
And Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, tells Insight that, "Clinical trials are skewed against the placebo." Basically, explains Whitaker, "What happens in these drug trials is that people who respond well are put into an extension of the trial. The point is that the longer people are kept on whatever arm they're in � either placebo or drug � you expect suicide rates to drop over time. It's only the good responders through the six-week trials that are put into the extension trials, and so it's biased against the placebo because after six weeks no one is kept on to do extensions on placebo."
Whitaker says, "You shouldn't be seeing four to five times the suicide rate in drug-treatment groups, especially when these drugs are supposed to prevent this. It's terrible that the FDA approved drugs with these high suicide rates.
posted by Kevin at 7:05 AM
10/9/2002
Peace Activists on Terrorist Watch List :.Jeez, things are getting grim. I wonder what would happen if I tried to fly somewhere!? A federal "No Fly" list, intended to keep terrorists from boarding planes, is snaring peace activists at San Francisco International and other U. S. airports, triggering complaints that civil liberties are being trampled.
And while several federal agencies acknowledge that they contribute names to the congressionally mandated list, none of them, when contacted by The Chronicle, could or would say which agency is responsible for managing the list.
posted by Kevin at 12:26 AM
Is the Global Financial System on the Brink?German Banking CrisisStockbrokers around the world are braced for a potentially calamitous week as alarm mounts over a looming, Thirties-style global financial crisis. A leaked email about the credit-worthiness of Commerzbank, Germany's third largest bank, yesterday increased fears of the international stock market malaise exploding into a fully-fledged banking crisis.
Commerzbank lost a quarter of its value last week, raising the spectre of Credit-anstalt, the Austrian bank that collapsed in 1931, sparking global depression.
US stock markets have fallen for six consecutive weeks, to their lowest levels in five years. European markets have collapsed even further, wiping out nearly half of the value of European corpora tions in this year alone. Japan is struggling to put together a plan to save its banking system, riddled with bad debt after a decade of recession and falling prices. Now the German economy threatens to follow.Japanese Banking CrisisPressure mounted on the Japanese government to take drastic action to restructure the country's ailing banking system yesterday after share prices fell to a 19-year low.
With analysts still confused about the details of a Bank of Japan plan to buy shares in debt-ridden banks, the Nikkei closed below 9,000 for the first time since 1983.
Ratings agency Fitch compounded doubts about the world's second largest economy by threatening to downgrade Japan's sovereign debt as soon as next month unless it takes firmer action on troubled financial institutions.
posted by Kevin at 12:23 AM
10/8/2002
Owning Books, Computers and Guns Makes You a Suspect :.A few hours ago, I wrote this. Now, we're seeing that owning books, computers and guns makes you a suspect: A tip from the community led police to the home, said Police Chief Gerald Wilson. It is about two miles away from Benjamin Tasker Middle School, where a 13-year-old boy was shot Monday.
He said the information that led to the search warrant came in between 8 p.m. and when the search was conducted early Tuesday.
"If we get leads, we will response to that information," Wilson said. "If we have information that someone may be committing a crime, we are going to respond to it."
Police searched the home for about two hours starting at 12:30 a.m. Tuesday. Police removed seven weapons from the house, a book and a computer. Sources say they did not, however, find a 223-caliber weapon, like the one allegedly being used by the sniper.
Police have not charged the Bowie man with any crime. The investigation continues.
Wilson said his office is not targeting people who own guns.
"We had probable cause that a crime could be occurring," he said.Research Credit: BW
posted by Kevin at 2:04 PM
My Analysis = CIA's Analysis!? :.My analysis from 10/02/02: Yes, Hussein is bad. Yes, he deserves to cook in a pot of boiling oil in Hell, etc. Yes, Hussein is psychotic. BUT: I don't think he's suicidal. If the U.S. pushes him into a corner, and he knows there is no way out, what will he have to lose by lobbing every egg he has? Consider this quote from Hussein: "It is me they want. I am the defiant spirit. But I tell them, 'before you feed on me, I will feed on you.'" He will have exactly nothing to lose, and he will use every weapon at his disposal.CIA Director today: Tenet, in a letter read before a joint hearing of the House and Senate intelligence committees Tuesday, said that "Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or chemical or biological weapons."
But Tenet went on to say that should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack against his country could not be deterred, "he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist action."
posted by Kevin at 1:49 PM
Maryland Area Killings: Speculation on What Is Happening :.I have no idea what's behind this situation, but here's my worst nightmare vision of how I think it will come down: My guess, and this is only a guess, is that this will turn out to be a "terrorist." The firearm or firearms will have been purchased legally. Because the terrorists are now loose inside the U.S., and have access to firearms, well, "If we want to save the children..." You can probably see where this is going. If it does come down this way, and I hope it doesn't, please try to think rationally. They will show you pictures of the victims and their sobbing families. They will make a point of the victims' innocence and the senselessness of the acts. Then they will make arguments for gun control or maybe even confiscation. Perhaps even relatives of the slain people will beg for gun control, etc. You need to realize that the people running the show are engineering political outcomes by exploiting the same primitive psychological processes that lead millions of people to affix American flags to their vehicles after September 11. Most people have no idea that they are being manipulated via their emotions. Since most people are ignorant of even the most basic realities of politics, they will simply follow their emotions all the way to oblivion. Keep the Problem-Reaction-Solution model in mind. The government is not going to come out and say, "Turn in your guns." Nobody would go for that. They need a way to get the general public emotionally involved. What would be an effective way of getting the general public behind a gun ban? Imagine, if you will, what the reaction would be if house wives, elderly men and children got cut down by gun fire, at random. Imagine, if you will, that the killings go on for days and people get to the point where they're afraid of leaving their homes. Such a nightmarish scenario might even get gun advocates to shut up about the 2nd Amendment. Well, folks, here we are. Gun ownership is going to be a thing of the past in the United States. There is no doubt about it. The question is: How is the government going to do it? Is this scene unfolding in and around Maryland part of the process? I'm not saying the above is a factual representation of what has happened because I have absolutely no way of knowing. But just watch where the discussion winds up. The hysterics and shock will be funneled into policies that ban or call for the confiscation of firearms. Of course, this is all by design. BOWIE, Maryland (CNN) -- Monday's shooting of a 13-year-old boy outside a middle school in Prince George's County is linked to Washington-area sniper attacks last week that left six people dead and another wounded, authorities say.
"The projectile is identical to those that have been recovered from other scenes," said Joe Riehl, a special agent for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
posted by Kevin at 5:32 AM
Surveillance Countermeasures: Blind the Cameras :. (NY Times Reg. Req.) I think that raising the awareness level of the "camera" issue is more important than a discussion of the half ass techniques described. But I can't wait until laser pointers are classified as terrorist devices: Confronted with the unblinking eyes of surveillance cameras, Michael Naimark believes he can hide in plain sight with the aid of a $1 laser pointer.
Mr. Naimark, a Silicon Valley artist and technologist, decided to try turning the tables on what he saw as the potential for Big Brother surveillance after the Sept. 11 attacks.
His is a Little Brother response: using inexpensive laser pointers to temporarily blind those omnipresent electronic eyes. He plans to post his 13-page, single-spaced treatise on the subject this week on his Web site, www.naimark.net.
posted by Kevin at 5:19 AM
10/7/2002
U.S. Military and Police to Use Valium for Domestic Riot Control :.The Department of Defense has petitioned the UN for a ruling on the use of its new compressed high potency Valium gas for the purposes of domestic riot control. The United States is a signatory in an agreement that allows domestic law enforcement to use tear gas and pepper gas, but since the UN Commission makes no specific mention of it, the Department of Defense wants a specific ruling as to whether it can dispense to the Office of Homeland Security and other domestic law enforcement agencies (including US troops based on US soil) its new high potency Valium gas for use against US citizens for the purposes of riot control.Research Credit: JM
posted by Kevin at 1:18 PM
10/6/2002
Potential Disaster Off California Coast :.I wasn't planning on mentioning this, but now that this oil tanker has been hit in the Persial Gulf, what follows won't be much of a revelation to any of you semi-conscious observers out there. People in the Southern California area should take a drive on the coast around Long Beach and take a look out at the ocean. There are something like 200 cargo ships out there. Not moving. Anchored. Sitting ducks. I really hope there aren't any oil tankers out there. Enough said. SANA'A, Yemen (CNN) -- Yemeni authorities probed an explosion and fire aboard a French tanker Sunday as they tried to prevent the massive vessel from running aground and spilling more of the 397,000 barrels of crude oil it carried.
Firefighters managed to put out the fire burning outside the 332-meter (1,090-foot) tanker Limburg and were trying to extinguish the flames in the interior late Sunday.
One member of the 25-person crew was missing, but the other 24 were rescued, authorities said.
French officials initially said the blast was a suicide attack similar to the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen's Port of Aden. They later said they would wait for the results of the Yemeni investigation.
posted by Kevin at 5:23 PM
Divide and Conquer: U.S. Plans to Fillet Iraq :.In true imperial fashion, the U.S. is apparently planning to recast the borders of the Middle East in order to serve its selfish strategic whims. Three sources are now claiming that "Vice President" Dick Cheney is working on the "final solution" to the Iraq problem, and it involves either giving the whole country to Jordan or dividing it up among Jordan, Kuwait and the Kurds, following the war George W. Bush is determined to wage against Saddam Hussein.
The first report appeared in Pakistan's News International last Saturday, under the headline US Plans to Merge Iraq, Jordan After War.
"The idea to unite Jordan and Iraq in a pro-US Hashemite kingdom after an American war is aimed at "ensuring a stable post-war Iraq," according to STRATFOR, a strategic forecasting think tank based in the US," wrote News International reporter Aslam Khan.
posted by Kevin at 12:50 AM
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:. Reading
 Fatal
Harvest: The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture by Andrew Kimbrell
Readers will come to see
that industrial food production is indeed a "fatal harvest"
- fatal to consumers, as pesticide residues and new disease vectors
such as E. coli and "mad cow disease" find their way
into our food supply; fatal to our landscapes, as chemical runoff
from factory farms poison our rivers and groundwater; fatal to
genetic diversity, as farmers rely increasingly on high-yield
monocultures and genetically engineered crops; and fatal to our
farm communities, which are wiped out by huge corporate
farms.
 Friendly
Fascism: The New Face of Power in America by Bertram Myron Gross
This is a relatively
short but extremely cogent and well-argued treatise on the rise
of a form of fascistic thought and social politics in late 20th
century America. Author Bertram Gross' thesis is quite straightforward;
the power elite that comprises the corporate, governmental and
military superstructure of the country is increasingly inclined
to employ every element in their formidable arsenal of 'friendly
persuasion' to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Americans
through what Gross refers to as friendly fascism.
 The
Good Life
by Scott and Helen Nearing Helen
and Scott Nearing are the great-grandparents of the back-to-the-land
movement, having abandoned the city in 1932 for a rural life based
on self-reliance, good health, and a minimum of cash...Fascinating,
timely, and wholly useful, a mix of the Nearings' challenging
philosophy and expert counsel on practical skills.
 Silent
Theft: The Private Plunder of Our Common Wealth by David Bollierd
In Silent Theft, David Bollier
argues that a great untold story of our time is the staggering
privatization and abuse of our common wealth. Corporations are
engaged in a relentless plunder of dozens of resources that we
collectively own—publicly funded medical breakthroughs,
software innovation, the airwaves, the public domain of creative
works, and even the DNA of plants, animals and humans. Too often,
however, our government turns a blind eye—or sometimes helps
give away our assets. Amazingly,
the silent theft of our shared wealth has gone largely unnoticed
because we have lost our ability to see the commons.
 The
Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics
Guide by John Seymour The
Self Sufficient Life and How to Live It is the only book that
teaches all the skills needed to live independently in harmony
with the land harnessing natural forms of energy, raising crops
and keeping livestock, preserving foodstuffs, making beer and
wine, basketry, carpentry, weaving, and much more.
 When
Corporations Rule the World by David C. Korten
When Corporations
Rule the World explains how economic globalization has concentrated
the power to govern in global corporations and financial markets
and detached them from accountability to the human interest. It
documents the devastating human and environmental consequences
of the successful efforts of these corporations to reconstruct
values and institutions everywhere on the planet to serve their
own narrow ends.
 The
New Organic Grower: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques
for the Home and Market Gardener
This expansion
of a now-classic guide originally published in 1989 is intended
for the serious gardener or small-scale market farmer. It describes
practical and sustainable ways of growing superb organic vegetables,
with detailed coverage of scale and capital, marketing, livestock,
the winter garden, soil fertility, weeds, and many other
topics.
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