World-News

Greg Mitchell questions, "When it comes to really putting Bush and Rumsfeld on the spot, why did a comedian, a former general, a rock star, an ex-CIA analyst and an average citizen in North Carolina go where reporters often fear to tread?"

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050606I.shtml

The FBI has been keeping tabs on SOA Watch, the human rights group that monitors the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050606C.shtml

After a little more than a year in his newly created job, John D. Negroponte, the US National Intelligence Director, has won an initial battle to establish authority over the vast US intelligence community - Porter J. Goss, who resisted Negroponte's moves to limit the autonomy of the CIA, is gone.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050606B.shtml

General Michael V. Hayden, who senior administration officials said Friday was the likely choice of President Bush to head the Central Intelligence Agency, has a stellar resume for leading NSA warrantless spying and has long been admired at the White House.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050606A.shtml

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Meet the new boss Sploid

by staff

05/06/06

The new CIA director will be a secretive henchman of Dick Cheney who's behind the illegal spying on millions of Americans. Late Friday night, word leaked out that Gen. Michael Hayden is the White House choice to take over CIA duties from suddenly-fired spook insider Porter Goss. Hayden, a 61-year-old Air Force general, was the 'human face' of the National Security Agency's criminal spying on Americans that actually began before the convenient 9/11 attacks....

http://www.sploid.com/news/2006/05/meet_the_new_bo.php


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/29/world/asia/29indo.html

By JANE PERLEZ
Published: April 29, 2006

LONG ALONGO, Indonesia — For as long as anyone can remember, Anyie Apoui and his people have lived among the majestic trees and churning rivers in an untouched corner of Borneo, catching fish and wild game, cultivating rice and making do without roads. But all that is about to change.

The Indonesian government has signed a deal with China that will level much of the remaining tropical forests in an area so vital it is sometimes called the lungs of Southeast Asia.

For China, the deal is a double bounty: the wood from the forest will provide flooring and furniture for its ever-expanding middle class, and in its place will grow vast plantations for palm oil, an increasingly popular ingredient in detergents, soaps and lipstick.

The forest-to-palm-oil deal, one of an array of projects that China said it would develop in Indonesia as part of a $7 billion investment spree last year, illustrates the increasingly symbiotic relationship between China's need for a wide variety of raw materials, and its Asian neighbors' readiness to provide them, often at enormous environmental cost.

For Mr. Anyie and his clan, the deal will bring jobs and the opportunity for a modern life. "We love our forest, but I want to build the road for my people — I owe it to them," said Mr. Anyie, 63, an astute elder of the Dayak people. "We've had enough of this kind of living."

From Indonesia to Malaysia to Myanmar, many of the once plentiful forests of Southeast Asia are already gone, stripped legally or illegally, including in the low-lying lands here in Kalimantan, on the Indonesian side of Borneo. Only about half of Borneo's original forests remain.

Those forests that do remain, like the magnificent stands here in Mr. Anyie's part of the highlands, are ever pressed, ever prized and ever more valuable, particularly as China's economy continues its surge.

Over all, Indonesia says it expects China to invest $30 billion in the next decade, a big infusion of capital that contrasts with the declining investment by American companies here and in the region.

Much of that Chinese investment is aimed at the extractive industries and infrastructure like refineries, railroads and toll roads to help speed the flow of Indonesia's plentiful coal, oil, gas, timber and palm oil to China's ports.

In one of the latest deals, on April 19, Indonesia announced that China had placed a $1 billion rush order for a million cubic yards of a prized reddish-brown hardwood, called merbau, to be used in construction of its sports facilities for the 2008 Olympic Games.

Merbau wood, mostly prevalent in Papua's virgin forests, has been illegally logged and shipped to China since the late 1990's, stripping large swathes of forest in the Indonesian province on the western side of the island of New Guinea.

The decision to award a $1 billion concession to China will "increase the deforestation of Papua," a place of extraordinary biodiversity, said Elfian Effendy, executive director of Greenomics, an Indonesian environmental watchdog. "It's not sustainable."

The plan for palm oil plantations on Borneo was signed during a visit by the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to Beijing last July.

Under pressure from environmental groups, the Indonesian environment and forestry ministries have come out against the plan. The coordinating minister for economic affairs, who goes by the single name Boediono, said in April that he was still weighing the pros and cons of executing the entire plan.

The commander of the Indonesian military, Gen. Djoko Suyanto, whose forces are heavily involved in Indonesia's illegal forestry businesses, strongly backed the plan during a visit to the border region in March.

Certainly, there are profits to be made. Major consumer companies like Procter & Gamble say they are using more palm oil in their products instead of crude oil; palm oil is favored for cooking by the swelling Chinese middle class, and it is being explored as an alternative fuel.

Indonesia's environmentalists, and some economists, say chopping down as much as 4.4 million acres of the last straight-stemmed, slow-growing towering dipterocarp trees on Borneo would gravely threaten this region's rare ecosystem for plants, animals and people.

Maps for the project have aroused fears that it would encroach into the forest in Kayan Mentarang National Park, where the intoxicating mix of high altitude and equatorial humidity breeds an exceptional diversity of species, second only to Papua's, biologists say.

The area is the source of 14 of the 20 major rivers on Borneo, and the destruction of the forests would threaten water supplies to coastal towns, said Stuart Chapman, a director at the World Wildlife Fund in Indonesia.

For years, Mr. Anyie, the Dayak elder, said he had resisted offers from commercial contractors to cut down the forest around his village, next to the park.

He worked hard, too, to keep the old ways of life, which until 40 years ago included forays into headhunting, he said, showing visitors the skull of a Malaysian soldier stowed in his attic, a souvenir from the 1965 border war with Malaysia.

But now it is time for change, he said. "People have told me, 'Wood is gold, you're still too honest,' " said Mr. Anyie, a diminutive man with brush-cut black hair.

His own grown children have deserted the village for big towns, and the villagers left behind are tired of traveling everywhere by foot (three days to neighboring Malaysia where jobs in palm oil plantations are plentiful) or by traditional long boats powered by anemic 10-horsepower engines.

For those seeking to visit, the journey is just as arduous. The area can be reached only by light plane, a pummeling voyage over rapids in a wooden canoe and then a trek through tangles of trees and creepers.

A three-day stay at a research station deep inside the forest told what is at stake for the ecosystem, first documented by Charles Darwin's colleague, Alfred Russel Wallace, in an account in the late 1850's called "The Malay Archipelago."

Wild mango trees, tropical oaks, pale-trunked myrtles, sago palms, rattan trees and pandanas with shiny leaves like long prongs crowded the hills that rise almost vertically above the river.

Exceedingly tall and elegant dipterocarps towered over all, their green canopies filtering shards of occasional sunlight. Underfoot, tiny dew-encrusted green mosses, still damp in the afternoon, clung to rocks, and miniature versions of African violets poked their mauve flowers just above the ground.

Wildlife abounds, said Stephan Wulffraat, 39, a Dutch conservation biologist and the director of the research station run by the World Wildlife Fund. The forest is home to seven species of leaf monkeys, he said, and at high noon, a crashing sound high in the trees announced a group's arrival. A red-coated deer made a fleeting appearance and dashed off.

On the gloomy forest floor, Mr. Wulffraat, who fends off leeches by tucking his pant legs into knee-length football socks, has set more than a dozen camera traps to photograph wild creatures too shy to appear.

Three years ago, an animal the size of a large cat with a bushy tail with a reddish fur sauntered by the camera. Mr. Wulffraat, a seven-year veteran of the forest, said that the animal resembled a civet, but he added that he and other experts believed that it was an entirely new species.

The discovery of a species of mammal like a civet is unusual, but dozens of new species of trees, mosses and herbs, butterflies, frogs, fresh water prawns and snakes have all been found since the station opened in 1991, he said. "This field station has more frogs and snake species around than in all of Europe," Mr. Wulffraat said.

Until now, the forests at these higher elevations have been protected by their sheer inaccessibility. To get back to the coast from the research station, for instance, takes a 15-hour journey along a 350-mile stretch of the Bahau and Kayan Rivers in a wooden longboat powered by three outboard motors.

In contrast, the forests in lowland Kalimantan, where roads have been hacked into the land already, are so ravaged by logging that they will have disappeared by 2010, the World Bank says.

As the roads start penetrating the area of Mr. Anyie's clan, the upland forests will begin to disappear here, too. The solution is to adopt sustainable management plans, Mr. Wulffraat said.

Such plans allow logging only in specially certified areas, he said. But so far, he said, they have proved a losing proposition.

"In about 30 years," Mr. Anyie said, "the forest will be gone."


Informant: walker

Unterernährt oder fettleibig

Entwicklungsländern hungern und sterben Millionen Kinder trotz hehrer UN-Milleniums-Ziele. Währenddessen wird der Überfluss für die reichen Industrienationen zum Problemfall.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/22/22604/1.html In den

Wie ein Forschungsprojekt des Pentagon zeigt, wird die Entwicklung von Waffensystemen für den Weltraum weiter verfolgt -- sicher nicht nur von den USA.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/22/22606/1.html

Einbürgerung erschwert
http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/22/22617/1.html

--------

Ausländer- und Asylrecht > Einbürgerungstests

Einbürgerung erschwert. Innenministerkonferenz verschleppt Probleme und betreibt lieber Stimmungsmache

„Man sollte es nicht für möglich halten: Exportweltmeister Deutschland schottet sich weiter ab. Das Land der reisefreudigen Deutschen, das Auswanderungsland, das jährlich von rund 100.000 Bundesbürgern verlassen wird, die sich anderswo niederlassen wollen, will die Hürden für Einwanderer noch höher hängen. Die Innenminister haben es beschlossen, der Stammtisch wird's zufrieden sein. Wie war das noch? "Die Welt zu Gast bei Freunden"? Fragt sich, wer hier eigentlich nicht integriert ist…“ Artikel von Wolfgang Pomrehn in telepolis vom 06.05.2006 http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/22/22617/1.html


Noch mehr Hürden. SPD gibt nach: Einbürgerungswillige müssen künftig eine Prüfung zur Staatsbürgerkunde ablegen

„Wer Deutscher werden will, muss künftig einen Einbürgerungskurs belegen. Die erfolgreiche Teilnahme daran wird überprüft. Für Kurse und Prüfungen soll das Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF), das beim Bundesinnenministerium angesiedelt ist, bundesweit einheitliche Standards festlegen. Die konkrete Ausgestaltung aber bleibt Sache der einzelnen Länder. Dafür soll es jedoch in Zukunft bundesweit einheitliche Sprachtests geben. Das ist das zentrale Ergebnis der Frühjahrskonferenz der deutschen Innenminister, die gestern in Garmisch-Partenkirchen zu Ende ging. "So weit waren wir noch nie", jubelte Hessens Innenminister Volker Bouffier (CDU) stellvertretend für die Unions-geführten Länder. Kein Wunder: Im Vorfeld der Innenministerkonferenz (IMK) hatten zahlreiche Vertreter der SPD Einbürgerungstests noch strikt abgelehnt…“ Artikel von Max Hägler und Samine am Orde in der Taz vom 6.5.2006 http://www.taz.de/pt/2006/05/06/a0185.1/text


Aus: LabourNet, 8. Mai 2006

The lawyer for former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby said on Friday he would argue that his client revealed intelligence on Iraq after Vice President Dick Cheney authorized it and President George W. Bush declassified the information.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050606Y.shtml

The Bush administration has chosen to confront Russia during the upcoming summit of the Group of Eight (G8) nations in St. Petersburg, calling on Russia to demonstrate specific actions towards a commitment to democracy.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050606Z.shtml

Congressman David M. Walker
Tuesday, May 2, 2006

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/or01_wu/pr05022006GAO.html

WASHINGTON, DC - As ranking member of the Science Subcommittee on Environment, Technology and Standards, Congressman David Wu has questioned federal officials in congressional hearings about reports of scientific manipulation and censorship by the Bush administration. Today Congressman Wu took the duty of congressional oversight another step by requesting the Government Accountability Office to investigate the allegations.

"Despite assurances from Bush administration officials that such allegations have no validity, incidents of scientific manipulation and censorship continue to surface. The continued allegations clearly indicate this administration's hostility towards science," said Congressman Wu. "I am requesting the Government Accountability Office to investigate these allegations because science should never take a back seat to ideology. Such behavior prevents our research agencies from carrying out sound public policy."

Below is the text of Congressman Wu's official request:


David M. Walker Comptroller General Government Accountability Office
441 G Street, NW Washington, D.C. 20548

Dear Comptroller General Walker:

As ranking member of the Subcommittee on Environment, Technology and Standards of the Committee on Science in the United States House of Representatives, I hereby request that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigate allegations of political litmus tests for science appointees, manipulation of scientific findings and reports by political appointees, and politically driven censorship of scientists. These allegations are not confined to a single office or agency. Despite administration assurances that these assertions have no merit and that the appropriate authorities were looking into these matters, the allegations have continued.

The recent incidents involving Dr. James E. Hansen at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the mysterious transformation of the Technology Administration's report on offshoring from a 200 page document into a 12 page summary, and the suspension of a forest research grant at Oregon State University because it reflected adversely on commercial forestry interests suggest this problem has not been resolved. Despite assurances to the contrary, it appears that the roles of science and political policy continue to be confused. Information inconsistent with favored political outcomes seems to be suppressed.

I would like the GAO specifically to investigate the incident involving the publication in "Science" of a forest regeneration study by Daniel Donato, a graduate student at Oregon State University. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) suspended the federal research grant that funded this work on unsubstantiated charges that the authors had violated the grant agreement. BLM has since reversed itself, and the grant suspension has been lifted, but the fact that BLM would suspend the grant first and ask questions later sends a chilling message to the scientific community.

Mr. Jeff Ruch from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility spoke of parallel incidents at a hearing held by the House Committee on Science on March 16, 2006. He spoke of reports languishing for many years at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other agencies. The administration witnesses argue that the long times that reports have been held in "draft" status is due to vetting and verifying research. This argument is ludicrous when some reports have been "vetted" for up to 10 years, an excessive time period for any report to remain relevant and up to date.

Employees and contractors working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and a U.S. Geological Survey scientist working at a NOAA laboratory have said that administration officials have chastised them for speaking out about their work; removed references to global warming from their reports, news releases and conference Web sites; investigated news leaks; and sometimes ordered them to stop speaking with the media altogether. Their accounts indicate that the ideological battle over climate-change research, which first came to light at NASA, is being fought in other federal science agencies.

I hereby request that the GAO investigate reports of incidences and likely effects of imposing political litmus tests (unrelated to their work) for science appointees, the withholding, delay, or politically motivated editing of scientific reports, and the effects on freedom of inquiry for both federal and non-federal scientists. In particular, I ask that you investigate and identify:

1. the specific number of scientific study reports currently left in draft form across all Federal agencies with scientific research components;

2. the maximum, minimum, average, mean and median amount of time the scientific study reports mentioned in item number 1 above have been left in draft form;

3. the number of complaints of suppression, tampering, delaying, changing without express consent of the author, political pressuring, or unfair treatment due to the nature of their research submitted by researchers and scientists working with or under Federal agencies from January 1, 1996 until the present time, broken down by calendar month and year;

4. the specific instances where Federal grant money has been withheld or suspended, with the stated official reason, with your considered opinion as to whether such official reason was politically motivated;

5. the specific instances mentioned in item number 4 above where Federal grant money has been withheld or suspended, and of or when the funding was then reinstated;

6. the specific inquiries or investigations by government agencies made into the allegations made by scientists and researchers in item number 3 above, and the instances of failures to inquire or investigate.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. I request that a final report, not draft, be issued on or before the first business day after February 14, 2008. If you have any questions, please contact Jean Fruci at 202-225-6375 or Stella Ma at 202-225-0855.

Very truly yours,

David Wu
Member of Congress


Informant: NHNE

Voting Systems in Question Were Used Last Week in Ohio Primary, Soon in Pennsylvania, So 'Serious' Few Details Are Being Released

All Diebold Touch-Screen Machines, In All States, Said to be Affected by 'Horrifying' Vulnerability, Systems 'Sequestered' in PA

By Brad Friedman John Gideon of VotersUnite.org and VoteTrustUSA.org contributed to this story The Brad Blog May 5, 2006

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002787.htm

We've now been able to gather a great deal of additional information concerning details about the story we first posted yesterday http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002780.htm on the official Pennsylvania state warning issued about the new "security vulnerability" discovered in all Diebold touch-screen electronic voting machines.

That warning, which has now brought a lock-down on all Diebold systems in PA, where early absentee (non-machine) voting is about to begin prior to their upcoming May 16th primary election, was reported by the Morning Call yesterday http://tinyurl.com/lcpuz. The warning says the serious security vulnerability could allow ''unauthorized software to be loaded on to the system."

Public details about the warning are still sketchy as those in the know have acknowledged that the problem is so serious, they are hoping to keep the info under wraps until mitigation steps can be taken to safeguard systems.

The BRAD BLOG has been told on the record, however, by one person involved in the matter, that the vulnerability is a "major national security risk."

We've been speaking to many sources today, and we've been able to get several first hand comments on the problem from top officials and analysts directly involved in both state and federal certification of the Diebold systems, as well as from those involved in the initial discovery of the problem.

What's clear is that Morning Call's reporting that it was Diebold who found the "glitch" are flat wrong. The discovery of the "glitch" (which is anything but) emanated from the examination of Diebold AccuVote TSx
(touch-screen) machines recently in Emery County, UT.

A source has told The BRAD BLOG that Diebold was "cornered" into admitting to the problem, a far cry from them having "found" it, as the Morning Call characterized it.

What's also clear is that neither Diebold themselves, nor federal officials at the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) have been notifying states about the serious problem which apparently affects all Diebold AccuVote touch-screen systems, including both their newer TSx models, and the older TS and TS6 models.

The Diebold TSx models, with the security vulnerability still intact, were apparently used in the primary election last Tuesday in Ohio.

A document at Diebold's website describes http://www.diebold.com/dieboldes/pdf/industrysecurity.pdf [PDF] the TSx models as featuring "Industry Leading Security."

In Utah's Emery County, state officials are attempting to force Bruce Funk, the 23-year elected County Clerk out of his job in the wake of his having allowed a security evaluation of the county's new Diebold touch-screen systems by both computer security firm Security Innovation and Finnish computer security expert Harri Hursti. According to several sources, that analysis revealed many new vulnerabilities and problems in the Diebold touch-screen systems, including the one that seems to be at the heart of the problem now being warned about by Pennsylvania officials.

Funk -- who has since been "vilified," as one source told us, by both Diebold and Utah state officials as high as the Lt. Governor -- was forced to implement the new Diebold touch-screen systems for the first time this year against his own objections. His prudent subsequent security evaluation of the systems was arranged by electronic voting watchdog organization, BlackBoxVoting.org. (We recently interviewed Funk on the radio concerning that evaluation, and his subsequent removal from office in its wake. Listen to that interview here http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002670.htm [MP3].)

Here's some of what we've so far been able to learn from a number of officials, both on the record and off, in Pennsylvania, elsewhere around the country and at the federal level, as well as those involved in the initial Emery County discoveries...

The BRAD BLOG has confirmed with a top official in Pennsylvania, close to those responsible for giving state certification of voting systems in the Keystone state, that the problem comes from a "feature" that is purposely built into all Diebold touch-screen systems.

"As far as I know, it's present on all TS and TSx machines," he told us. "It relates to potential misuse of the procedure by which Diebold does field updates to the machines. It's not a bug -- it's a deliberate but unwise 'feature'. Every jurisdiction that uses the machines should be notified. Now that the story is out, I suspect they will be. The fix can be applied at any time prior to the next election, however, so there is no particular rush except in states like Pennsylvania, which has a primary in less than two weeks. The fix is administrative and requires no new or modified software."

Bev Harris, of BlackBoxVoting.org (BBV), who described the situation as "horrifying" said in a comment posted on BRAD BLOG earlier today that, "The problem is very serious and because primary elections are being held, releasing even a small part of what makes this security hole so dangerous presents an immediate threat to U.S. elections."

She told us in a phone conversation this afternoon that BBV will be publicly publishing summaries of the full reports both from Security Innovation and Hursti on Emery County "in redacted format" soon.

"Because the vulnerability is so serious," she wrote, "and until ALL states have been able to implement the FULL recovery path, we can release a redacted version only, but will send an unredacted version to the states," she wrote in another comment earlier today.

She explained when we discussed the matter that even that "FULL recovery path" may not be possible due to the severity of the problem which she describes as "a major national security issue."

Harris wrote about a discussion last night with Dr. Michael Shamos who is responsible for testing voting systems in Pennsylvania concerning the full breadth of the security issue and the necessary means for mitigating it.

"When Dr. Shamos called me and described the mitigations being used in Pennsylvania, I have to say that they did not appear to be the full mitigation needed according to the videotaped examination we have by Security Innovation and Hursti," Harris wrote.

But whether other states and counties who use Diebold's TS and TSx machines will be properly notified by official federal authorities, or even Diebold themselves, is another question. Apparently the state of California has known about the problem for some time, as well as Diebold obviously, but the matter in PA seems only to have come to public attention when state officials were questioned by Election Integrity Activists in a public meeting.

A member of the team involved in evaluating the Diebold systems recently in California on behalf of Sec. of State Bruce McPherson has told us that they've known about the problem for some time and confirmed the seriousness of the issue:

"Yes, California has definitely been aware of the issue for several weeks and will address it before the June 6 primary," the computer scientist in California explained. "Other Diebold TS and TSx jurisdictions are equally affected, and in my opinion must take ameliorating action."

Earlier this year, when McPherson was considering whether or not to re-certify Diebold in California after the Diebold optical-scan systems were revealed, in no uncertain terms, to be hackable in a Leon County, Florida mock-election test, he commissioned an independent analysis http://www.votetrustusa.org/pdfs/California_Folder/DieboldReport.pdf [PDF] of the flaws in the Diebold memory cards which allowed for the hack to be carried out without a trace being left behind.

That report confirmed the Leon County hack, and found 16 other bugs described as "a more dangerous family of vulnerabilities" which "go well beyond" what was discovered in Leon County. Remarkably, after the report was issued, McPherson certified Diebold's systems in the state despite those dire warnings from his own security team.

Harris, however, confirms to us that the problems now being discussed in PA are an "entirely different class of problems" than were even revealed by the California report.

The Washington state Sec. of State's voting systems director, Paul Miller, has told us that when he asked a Diebold representative about the problem yesterday, the rep told him that he had no knowledge of the issue and promised to get back to him if he was able to find out anything.

When we inquired with Jeannie Layson, a spokesperson for the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) as to whether the EAC would be notifying states about the vulnerability, she told us that their commission had nothing to do with system certification.

We reminded her that this was not an issue about certification, but rather of product security and vulnerability which needed to be passed on to every state that uses Diebold TS and TSx systems. The EAC's role in serving as a central clearinghouse for notifying states about such issues was defined by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) which created the commission in the first place. As well, a recent 107-page report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on the problems and vulnerabilities of electronic voting http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001940.htm (which went virtually unreported by the mainstream corporate media) discussed the EAC's role in this matter as well.

Layson told us that she would discuss the matter with the EAC's Voting System Secretariat, Brian Hancock. We look forward to action by the EAC.


Informant: NHNE

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/03/335793.shtml



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=impeach

Global warming - with an accompanying rise in floods and droughts - is fueling the spread of epidemics in areas unprepared for the diseases, say many health experts worldwide.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/050506HB.shtml

With less than two weeks remaining for seniors to sign up for the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, an independent review has found that Medicare's telephone operators frequently give callers false or incomplete information, reviving calls by Democrats to extend the May 15 deadline.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/050506HA.shtml

"George Bush won't ask Congress for permission for torture or domestic spying. But when it comes to energy policy - he is very, very concerned about the limits of his presidential powers," writes Katrina vanden Heuvel.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/050506EB.shtml

Military action is not a "magic wand" that can be used to resolve the international community's standoff with Iran over its nuclear program, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said on Thursday.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050506S.shtml

While removing enough debris to cover Britain, contractors working on hurricane recovery have overbilled the government in a $63 billion operation that only will get more expensive, according to a House report Thursday.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050506R.shtml

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/4440/


Informant: jensenmk
From ufpj-news

--------

Why Did Goss Resign?

Yesterday's surprise announcement by Porter Goss comes on the heels of press stories that members of Congress received sexual favors from prostitutes allegedly procured by Brent Wilkes, an entrepreneur implicated in the bribery of Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham, according to Larry Johnson.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050606X.shtml

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CIA's Goss at Cunningham's Hooker Parties?

Who would have thought any member of Congress would be so stupid as to accept hookers from a lobbyist?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/27/212534/995


From Information Clearing House

--------

Behind the Goss Toss

A little-known White House advisory board convinced a reluctant President Bush to launch yet another high-profile shakeup of the nation's intelligence community and fire CIA Director Porter Goss, sources said yesterday.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050706A.shtml

--------

Goss in the cold: a scandal skedaddle?
The Nation
by David Corn

05/05/06

A bolt out of the blue? Or a bolt? Porter Goss's sudden announcement of his departure from the CIA is puzzling. The former Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee and ex-CIA case officer offered no reason for vacating the CIA directorship, and there was no successor ready to go. News of his resignation came during a brief joint appearance at the White House by George W. Bush and Goss on Friday afternoon (the traditional time slot for putting out bad news). And -- whaddayaknow -- no pesky questions from journalists. This has led to the obvious speculation: was it the hookers? I'll get to the (potential) hot stuff in a moment. But consider this: The CIA has been a mess for years -- especially after 9/11. Former CIA officials routinely say that morale is lousy and that employees have been fleeing the agency, many of them alienated by the heavy-handed Goss regime, regarded as too close to the White House...

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=82113


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20060505/2006-05-05T102918Z_01_L05500235_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-RUSSIA-USA-DC.html


Informant: ranger116

ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/stacey/pnum287.php

The last time Congress held any hearings on gas prices they didn't even put the oil company executives under oath. Those executives didn't even have perjury hanging over their heads. You can insist on a simple thing like this and bring real truth to light on a topic that is hurting every American.

Join in our quest to insist that your elected Representatives in Congress, both House and Senate, call for bi-partisan hearings immediately, place the executives of these companies under oath and find out how they can be reporting record profits and we can be expected to accept $3.00+ gallon gasoline. We can let the politicians know they are going to hold the Oil Industry accountable, or we’re going to hold the politicians accountable.

Imagine, in even some parts of Alabama, gasoline is now running $3.00 a gallon or more. In California, it can be found nearly $3.75 a gallon. Enough is enough.

Why is it that the petroleum companies peg the price of gasoline based on the worldwide spot market, when they are producing it via their own offshore platforms. Hmm -- no OPEC price controls there?

Why don't the petroleum companies put some of their moth-balled refineries into production? Hmm -- can't say there is a shortage of production facilities.

Where are the tangible benefits of tax-break incentives offered to investors in homeland related oil production that could be offered to the American taxpayer? Hmm -- is anyone awake at the helm?

ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/stacey/pnum287.php

This alert is brought to you by the activism of Stacey Tallitsch, candidate for U.S House from the 1st Congressional District of Louisiana. Fighting for the rights of all Americans is why Stacey is running for Congress, and he's not waiting until the election to start fighting for Louisiana and the rest of America.

When we talk about taking back Congress, that is what we will have to do, TAKE IT. Nobody is going give us anything we won't give to ourselves. And when we donate to a candidate like Stacey Tallitsch who is showing just the kind of leadership we need, we can make an example of him, and show other candidates that if they show real backbone they will get the support of the people too.

PAYPAL DONATIONS: http://www.usalone.com/stacey/pp.html

ACTBLUE DONATIONS: https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/entity/8614?refcode=tpen

We NEED candidates like Stacey Tallitsch to champion the issues that are important to us. Stacey needs your help to get his message out, to get YOUR message out, by putting on radio spots calling yet more people to action Please make a contribution today to send Stacey to Congress and fight for you on the issues you care about.

How many times have you felt helpless and wished you could influence the votes of representatives in other districts to prevail on a critical vote in Congress, but thought you could not do so effectively because you were not one of their own constituents? How much more would you support Stacey if you do live in his district?

Here we have a courageous candidate who will fight for all the issues you care about, if only he is given the chance to make the run. Please donate whatever you can to help Stacey get on the radio to recruit and mobilize even more people to speak out so we can have a real impact on these policy decisions now and for the future. What would you give to have a whole legislature of people like Stacey Tallitsch? Won't you give him your support now to make that a reality?

We have been valiantly speaking out with action alerts based on one fundamental premise --- either our representatives in Congress would listen to and heed the voices of their people --- or else we would work to replace them in the next election.

The time for the replacement action is NOW.

PAYPAL DONATIONS: http://www.usalone.com/stacey/pp.html

ACTBLUE DONATIONS: https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/entity/8614?refcode=tpen

If each of us will just contribute what we can, to the most worthy candidates we can find, it will make a real difference in the kind of Congress we will all have to deal with in 2007. Most importantly, strong showings NOW by candidates who DO have a backbone, and WILL stand up and fight, can send a powerful message to the rest that they better start shaping up or we will ship them out too. Make your donation today and it will have cascading positive effects in many other races for months to come.

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this message to everyone else you know.

Powered by The People's Email Network Copyright 2006, Patent pending, All rights reserved

http://rozius.blogspot.com/2006/05/paul-krugman-our-sick-society.html


Informant: DitziSis

http://www.wahl.de/index.php/helmutgobsch
http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/elektrosmog_umfrage.jpeg
http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/elektrosmog_gefaehrlich.jpeg

"Hallo Leipzig" - Mobilfunk-Zwangsbestrahlung der Bürger !
Von helmutgobsch @
05.05.2006 - 22:01:30

„Hallo Leipzig“, das Leipziger Anzeigenblatt, bemühte sich um das wichtige Thema Mobilfunk-Zwangsbestrahlung der Bürger.

92 % der Leipziger haben Angst, aber die Behörden stecken den Kopf in den Sand. Tausende Unterschriften interessieren sie nicht.

Eine Bemerkung:

In welchem Krankenhaus der in Hallo zitierte Betroffene in die Psychiatrie gesteckt und wie beschrieben behandelt wurde, ist mir nicht bekannt.

Bekannt geworden ist jetzt, man glaubt es kaum, dass im „St.Georg“, einem der wichtigsten Krankenhäuser in Leipzig, in der Psychiatrie, in die auch hier die Elektrosmoggeschädigten gesteckt werden, jeder Patient ein DECT-Telefon bekommt. Das ist eine Affenschande. Was sagen die Kassen dazu ? Elektrosmoggeschädigte werden hier gesundheitlich restlos fertig gemacht. Ich kenne einen Fall, wo die dringende Bitte um Verlegung in ein DECT-freies Zimmer abgelehnt wurde – mit der Folge der starken gesundheitlichen Verschlechterung. Solche Taten vollbringen überhebliche „Götter in Weiss“ , und sie bringen damit die gesamte Ärzte-Zunft in Verruf, ohne dass sie ein Ehrengericht anklagt.

So etwas ist ein Skandal und eine krasse Verletzung der Menschenwürde, kann man das anders als Körperverletzung bezeichnen ? Das sind keine Kunstfehler, sondern grenzenlose Ahnungslosigkeit und Besserwisserei auf dem Rücken von Patienten.

Bisher war ich der Meinung, dass Ärzte ihren Eid ernst nehmen und sich informieren, was in der Welt geschieht. Wenn gewisse Ärzte nicht in der Lage sind, biologische und physikalische Gegebenheiten der Reaktion des Körpers auf Mikrowellen, die seit dem zweiten Weltkrieg bekannt sind, zur Kenntnis zu nehmen, sollten sie lieber den Beruf wechseln und sich für die Desinformationsveranstaltungen des Informationszentrums für Mobilfunk verdingen.

Fazit: Der innere Frieden unseres Landes ist durch die ausufernde zwangsweise Bestrahlung mit Mikrowellen und die absichtliche Desinformation darüber nachhaltig gestört, die Gesellschaft polarisiert sich. Es ist zu befürchten, dass die Situation eskaliert. Ist sich die Regierung dessen bewusst ? Ja, sie ist es, aber sie ist handlungsunfähig und handlungsunwillig. Der Krug geht so lange zu Wasser, bis er bricht.

Jeder, der sich nicht informiert und sich einreden lässt, er brauche unbedingt ein Mikrowellen-DECT-Telefon oder ein UMTS-Handy, macht sich mitschuldig an der Verschärfung der Situation. Uneinsichtige sollten aus der gesetzlichen Krankenkasse ausgeschlossen werden, sonst kollabiert diese eines nicht allzu fernen Tages. Es gibt keine Produkthaftung für Handy, W-LAN und DECT, keine Haftpflichtversicherung gegen Strahlenschäden durch Handymasten ! Der Wertverlust von Immobilien durch Mobilfunkmasten musste vom BGH bereits konstatiert werden. Was folgt daraus für Wohnungen wegen Mikrowellen-Dauer-Strahlern im Umfeld ? Hier bahnt sich eine Lawine an.

Am 5. Juni begehen wir den „Tag der Gesundheit“, am 24.Juni den „Aktionstag Mobilfunk“. Fasse sich jeder an seine eigene Nase, hört auf zu schweigen und zu resignieren !

Das weltweite Wettrüsten der Großmächte um die atomaren Sprengköpfe wurde gerade noch vor dem Gau beendet, und wie ist das mit dem weltweiten Wettrüsten um die meisten Mikrowellen-Mobilfunk-Sender ? Mobilfunk ja – Gesundheitsgefährdung nein !

Stefan Spaarmann
Für umweltverträglichen Funk
Kreisgruppe Delitzsch/Eilenburg und AKI Immissionsschutz des BUND
Landesbeauftragter Sachsen der Ökologisch Demokratischen Partei
Hese-Projekt AG Technik/Physik
Siedlerbund Sachsen
Netzwerk Risiko Mobilfunk

Friday, May 05, 2006

RESIDENTS of Ballygunner and parents of children attending local schools are being urged to attend a public meeting on Tuesday next (May 9) amid continued concerns over a mobile phone mast in the area.

The meeting will take place in the Scout Hall in Ballygunner at 8pm and there’ll be a number of guest speak-ers providing information and answering questions in relation to radiation risks.

A new parents group called the ‘Concerned Parents In Relation to Masts’ has been formed in the locality and they’ve undertaken to fight the location of a mast on Ballygunner GAA Club’s grounds to the bitter end.

A planning application for retention of the Meteor mast on the sports grounds is still before Waterford City Council who’ve asked the club and the phone company for further information.

The mast has been opera-tional since late last year but only came to the attention of many residents, now hugely concerned about possible health risks, two months ago. The GAA club, who signed a deal with Meteor, applied to the Council for retention permission at the end of January.

However, 23 objections were lodged by disgruntled members of the community, including the Parents Association at St. Mary’s School (which is right beside the GAA grounds) and also the principle Michael White.

A decision had been due in March but it’s understood that just before this a delegation of residents met with Council planning officials - and as a consequence further information was requested.

It’s understood senior planning officials developed concerns having examined close-up photos of the mast they hadn’t seen previously.

The new parents’ group in Ballygunner involves some 12 people who have issued invitations to both the GAA club and Meteor representatives to attend the upcoming meeting.

They’re taking inspiration from a recent meeting in Limerick organised by a group called BEST (Better Environmenal Safety Telecommunications) in conjunction with the ‘Irish Doctors Environmental Agency’ and the ‘Victims of Radiation Network’.

Members of the Water-ford group attended the event and invited representatives from all three groups to speak as guests in Water-ford next Tuesday.

A spokesperson for the ‘Concerned Parents’ said “We will fight this mast all the way to An Bord Plean·la if necessary.

“There’s growing evidence to suggest that these masts prevent a serious risk and in fact, a Joint Oireachtas committee is currently examining this...and has recommended that the provision of masts beside places like schools and hospitals be halted until they’ve completed their work.”

© Waterford News & Star, 2006.

http://www.waterford-news.ie/news/story.asp?j=21709

Constitutional Cafeteria

It seems that Bush has asserted the right to ignore, as the Boston Globe puts it, "vast swaths of the law" simply because he thinks that these laws are unconstitutional. Michael Kinsley writes, "Legitimate outrage comes when the president acts in flagrant violation of the Constitution, defending his actions unconvincingly, disingenuously or not at all."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050506F.shtml

David Cole writes, "At a secret CIA 'black site' prison, the United States is holding the alleged mastermind of Sept. 11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed. And at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, it has Mohamed al-Qahtani, who the government now claims is the real would-be 20th hijacker. But the administration can't try either of these men, because any such proceeding would turn into a trial of the United States' own tactics in the war on terrorism."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050506E.shtml

About the following interview with Antonia Juhasz, Joshua Holland writes, "Juhasz shows that the invasion of Iraq - an invasion that was as much economic as military - was the centerpiece of a larger project: the creation of a New American Century in which the end-goal of American foreign policy is to enrich the corporate elites, and dissent at home will not be tolerated."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050506D.shtml

The UN was grilling the United States on its compliance with the global ban on torture today for the first time since Washington declared war on terrorists, focusing on allegations of secret CIA prisons and flights transferring suspects to other countries for possible torture.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050506C.shtml

The rise and fall of the Republican $100 rebate offers a window on how Washington sometimes works in a slapdash way, featuring in this case Congressional aides who misread the political climate and lawmakers desperate to hang onto their jobs. It is a story, as well, of how concepts and plans can be reduced to sound bytes that make them seem absurd.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050506B.shtml

Allegations that CIA flights through Europe carried people bound for ill-treatment are damaging transatlantic intelligence cooperation, a lawyer acting for the State Department said on Thursday.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050506O.shtml

Veto? Who Needs a Veto?

"President Bush doesn't bother with vetoes; he simply declares his intention not to enforce anything he dislikes," write the editors of the New York Times. "Charlie Savage at The Globe reported recently that Mr. Bush had issued more than 750 'presidential signing statements' declaring he wouldn't do what the laws required. Perhaps the most infamous was the one in which he stated that he did not really feel bound by the Congressional ban on the torture of prisoners."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050506M.shtml

Ray, You da Man!

"Today, Ray McGovern, the man who used to give George Bush senior his daily intel update, spoke truth to power," writes Larry C. Johnson. "Rumsfeld, to his credit, permitted Ray to speak rather than having him carried out of the auditorium. In retrospect, Rummy probably regrets that decision."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050506L.shtml

05.05.06

Die Innenminister von Bund und Ländern haben sich auf ihrer Konferenz in Garmisch-Partenkirchen auf Einbürgerungsstandards verständigt. Als Voraussetzungen für die Einbürgerung werden ein "rechtmäßiger Daueraufenthalt" von generell acht Jahren (in Ausnahmen sechs Jahre) und das Beherrschen der deutschen Sprache genannt, ferner der Besuch eines Einbürgerungskurses, das Bekenntnis zur freiheitlich-demokratischen Grundordnung mit Einbürgerungsgesprächen in Zweifelsfällen sowie ein Ausschluss verfassungsfeindlicher Bestrebungen.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet: http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=13537

05.05.06

Das Bundesamt für Verbraucherschutz und Lebensmittelsicherheit (BVL) hat einen für dieses Frühjahr geplanten Freisetzungsversuch der Technischen Universität (TU) München mit gentechnisch manipulierten Kartoffeln gestoppt. Nach Darstellung des Umweltinstituts München "musste" das Bundesamt "die Notbremse ziehen" und das Verfahren neu aufrollen, nachdem das Umweltinstitut "zahlreiche falsche Angaben in der amtlichen Bekanntmachung beanstandet hatte". Damit werde es zumindest in diesem Jahr nicht mehr zu einer Aussaat der genmanipulierten Pflanzen in Olching im Landkreis Fürstenfeldbruck kommen.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet: http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=13545

Analyse: Bundesregierung diskutiert weitere Kostensteigerungen für die Bevölkerung (05.05.06)

Permanent wird die Bevölkerung mit neuen Überlegungen für die Erhöhung von Gebühren, Steuern und Abgaben sowie mit Dementis, Beschwichtigungen, Drohungen und Relativierungen durch hypothetische noch weitergehende Schritte konfrontiert. Ein Spiel mit verteilten Rollen. Der Fantasie von Wirtschaft und Politik für die immer weitere Erhöhung der "Lebenshaltungskosten" der breiten Bevölkerung sind offenbar keine Grenzen gesetzt. Umgekehrt läuft das gleiche Spiel, wenn es darum geht, "die Wirtschaft zu entlasten" oder Besserverdienenden ein Elterngeld von 1800 Euro zu bezahlen. Aktuell erregt ein Bericht der Zeitung "Die Welt" die Gemüter. Demnach sollen Patienten nicht mehr nur einmal im Quartal zehn Euro zahlen, sondern künftig bei jedem Arztbesuch fünf Euro. Das Bundesgesundheitsministerium wies den Bericht am Freitag "kategorisch" als "Unsinn" zurück. Der CDU-Gesundheitsexperte Jens Spahn sagte dagegen lediglich: "Wir diskutieren offen über alles, entschieden ist nichts".

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet: http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=13533

A message from Lyn

Original Message:

Hi,

Do you buy books online, use Google, or download to an iPod? Everything we do online will be hurt if Congress passes a radical law next week that gives giant corporations more control over what we do and see on the Internet.

Internet providers like AT&T are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality--the Internet's First Amendment and the key to Internet freedom. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. BarnesandNoble.com doesn't have to outbid Amazon for the right to work properly on your computer.

If Net Neutrality is gutted, many sites--including Google, eBay, and iTunes--must either pay protection money to companies like AT&T or risk having their websites process slowly. That why these high-tech pioneers, plus diverse groups ranging from MoveOn to Gun Owners of America, are opposing Congress' effort to gut Internet freedom.

You can do your part today--can you sign this petition telling your member of Congress to preserve Internet freedom? Click here:
http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet?track_referer=706%7C6706829-j0bz0VvGE7_Dl2urPt8ZWQ

I signed this petition, along with 250,000 others so far. This petition will be delivered to Congress before the House of Representatives votes next week. When you sign, you'll be kept informed of the next steps we can take to keep the heat on Congress.

Snopes.com, which monitors various causes that circulate on the Internet, explained:

Simply put, network neutrality means that no web site's traffic has precedence over any other's...Whether a user searches for recipes using Google, reads an article on snopes.com, or looks at a friend's MySpace profile, all of that data is treated equally and delivered from the originating web site to the user's web browser with the same priority. In recent months, however, some of the telephone and cable companies that control the telecommunications networks over which Internet data flows have floated the idea of creating the electronic equivalent of a paid carpool lane.

If companies like AT&T have their way, Web sites ranging from Google to eBay to iTunes either pay protection money to get into the "fast lane" or risk opening slowly on your computer. We can't let the Internet--this incredible medium which has been such a revolutionary force for democratic participation, economic innovation, and free speech--become captive to large corporations.

Politicians don't think we are paying attention to this issue. Together, we do care about preserving the free and open Internet.

Please sign this petition letting your member of Congress know you support preserving Internet freedom. Click here:
http://www.civic.moveon.org/save_the_internet?track_referer=706%7C6706829-j0bz0VvGE7_Dl2urPt8ZWQ

Thanks.

Mit der verpflichtenden Vorratsdatenspeicherung könnte ein neues Zeitalter in Europa anbrechen.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/22/22608/1.html

--------

Kommunikationsfreiheit und Datenschutz > Vorratsdatenspeicherung

Die Spitzelrichtlinie. Mit der verpflichtenden Vorratsdatenspeicherung könnte ein neues Zeitalter in Europa anbrechen

„Die am 15. März 2006 vom Europäischen Parlament beschlossene Richtlinie über die Vorratsspeicherung von Daten wurde am 13. April im Amtsblatt der EU unter L 105/54 veröffentlicht. Am 3. Mai 2006 ist sie in Kraft getreten (Richtlinie 2006/24/EG). Was der europäische Gesetzgeber da von den EU-Staaten verlangt, ist das glatte Gegenteil dessen, was Rechtsstaaten europäischen Standards bisher gewohnt waren. Es ist auch das Gegenteil dessen, was er selbst noch vor wenigen Jahren verordnet hat (RL 2002/58/EG). Weg vom Schutz der Grund- und Freiheitsrechte, hin zur Überwachung total. Aber wohlgemerkt nicht zur Überwachung aufgrund eines konkreten Anlasses nach reiflicher Abwägung der Güter. Nein, Überwachung von allem und jedem, ohne Anlass, nur vorbeugend für den Fall des Falles…“ Artikel von Franz Schmidbauer in telepolis vom 05.05.2006 http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/22/22608/1.html


Aus: LabourNet, 8. Mai 2006

by Craig Holman, TomPaine.com

The so-called lobbying reform bill that just passed only adds fuel to the fight for real change on Capitol Hill.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/05/05/cleaning_up_congress.php

A message from Ruth

Hi Everyone,

I hope you'll join me and others in one of the most exciting grassroots movements on the Internet today: MomsRising.

http://www.momsrising.org/keepmeposted

MomsRising gives people a voice in the motherhood and family issues that are shaping our lives. This is particularly important because frankly American mothers and families are in trouble. A full quarter of families with children under six live in poverty, at least 9 million children don't have any health care, and far too many parents can't afford to stay home with sick children.

MomsRising is working to promote common sense family-friendly policies. You can sign online petitions and pledges that will be shared with political, community, and business leaders, as well as receive email alerts on timely issues, and read The Motherhood Manifesto book all for free.

MomsRising is building a vibrant online community and has great personal stories posted, as well as hot issues and timely actions for change. There are also current event discussion topics to spark group or personal conversations--and information about how start small groups, as well as how to get more involved working toward solutions.

By working together we can ignite a major movement that brings common sense, necessary change to the lives of mothers and families.

I hope you'll join us today at:
http://www.momsrising.org/keepmeposted

Have a great weekend,

ruthc

A message from Stephanie

Original Message:

Dear friends,

It seems I can't sign as a Swedish citizen, but I'm glad to pass this on - I rely on the independent group of scholars that there are some really incomprehensible issues in the handling of the catastrophy on 9/11. If you are busy, please check out only the second petition below - and you'll see why a new more thorough investigation is needed, if you weren't of the opinion before - I couldn't believe my eyes, that so much important information has been handled so sloppily, to say the least! Supporting you to demand the truth, because 9/11 has affected the whole world's history, wishing you justice and peace, and feeling great compassion for all who have suffered because of the tragedies on and after 9/11, sending them and all of you greetings!

Warmly,

Doris


Original Message:

Review the following petitions regarding 9/11. Sign those you agree with and forward to your friends please. If you are not interested in political involvement, not to worry, no pressure, just disregard and go on with what you were doing. 9/11 affected all of us and is about all of us. I believe Knowledge is power. What we don't know can hurt us. I don't know what I believe about a conspiracy, however, I'm open to reading public records, educating myself and making an informed decision - I think that's being patriotic and a true American. Thanks for listening.

Peace & light,

Jennie B.


Original Message:

Please sign and pass on these four petitions:

1. CITIZENS' COMPLAINT AND PETITION TO A.G. OF NEW YORK FOR AN INDEPENDENT GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION (justicefor911.org) sponsored by 911truth.org, et al.
http://justicefor911.org/

2. Scholars Call for Release of 9/11 Information to Congress, sponsored by Scholars for 9/11 Truth
http://www.st911.org/petition

3. The SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 TREASON INDEPENDENT PROSECUTOR ACT sponsored by Campaign for Cooperation in Space.
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/736718529?ltl=1142266342

4. Petition to the Senate to Investigate Oddities Involving 9/11 Terrorist Attacks sponsored by Citizens for Legitimate Government
http://www.petitiononline.com/11601TFS/petition.html

New to 9-11 Research?

No. 2 is a Care2 PetitionSite Petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/929981172

No. 3 is also a Care2 PetitionSite Petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/736718529.

Please at least take a look at all the petitions! and sign them if you agree there should be an investigation. Help the victims of the attacks, their families, firefighters and their families, NYPD and their families. They are fighting to get at the TRUTH!

"The Most Comprehensive Minute By Minute Timeline On 911"
http://911timeline.net/


VENEZUELA TO LAUNCH INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATION INTO 9-11 Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones/Prison Planet.com | March 31 2006

Billionaire philanthropist Jimmy Walter and WTC survivor William Rodriguez this week embarked on a groundbreaking trip to Caracas Venezuela in which they met with with the President of the Assembly and will soon meet with Venezuelan President himself Hugo Chavez in anticipation of an official Venezuelan government investigation into 9/11.

Rodriguez was the last survivor pulled from the rubble of the north tower of the WTC, and was responsible for all stairwells within the tower. Rodriguez represented family members of 9/11 victims and testified to the 9/11 Commission that bombs were in the north tower but his statements were completely omitted from the official record.

Jimmy Walter has been at the forefront of a world tour to raise awareness about 9/11 and has still yet to receive any response to his million dollar challenge in which he offers a $1 million reward for proof that the trade towers' steel structure was broken apart without explosives.
http://reopen911.org/Contest.htm


Don't be scared to actually PRESS THE BUTTON ["Navigation for 9/11 Newbies"] and start doing your OWN research! We want everybody to do their OWN research and come to their OWN conclusions and not take ANYBODY'S word for ANYTHING, not even OUR word!!!! By lots and lots of people doing this research, the TRUTH WILL FINALLY BE KNOWN!!!!

If you have time to read only ONE petition, read the Scholar's Petition IN FULL.

Cheers,

BT

Fox News
by Susan Estrich

05/04/06

While most of the country has been discussing immigration, Republicans in Congress have been making fools of themselves debating which earmarks they're willing to own up to. This is the issue that reportedly brought Speaker Dennis Hastert to his knees in the Republican Conference, begging his colleagues for support. Yes, would they admit to each other who was sponsoring special hurricane relief of $500 million for Northrup Grumman, or spending $700 million to move a railroad that had already been rebuilt, or spending $15 million to encourage people to eat seafood? Earmarks are the special interest goodies added to bills to benefit a particular person (no, not one of us) or company, one that usually has a relationship with the lawmaker who makes this wonderful gesture for him or her. This is how Washington works, and if you have a good lawyer and a good lobbyist, it's all legal...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,194163,00.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

International Society for Individual Liberty
by Jarret Wollstein

05/04/06

Increasingly economic doomsayers are warning that 'the world is running out of oil,' and in fact we have already passed peak annual oil production. Their forecast: Ever-higher oil prices and food prices, electricity brownouts and blackouts, the end of the automobile and the suburbs, and even the collapse of western civilization. Some pundits are even calling for the U.S. to launch a global 'oil war' to seize remaining, dwindling supplies. Absolute nonsense says Princetown Geologist Ken Dreffeys ...

http://www.isil.org/towards-liberty/peak-oil-myth.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The Weekly Standard
by Mark D. Tooley

05/05/06

On the Religious Left, the great hope these days is that the Religious Right is melting down over Global Warming. Liberal evangelical activist Jim Wallis rejoiced about the crack-up in a recent column, claiming that 'the Religious Right is losing control' thanks to environmentalist evangelicals. Wallis, head of 'Sojourners' and author of God's Politics: Why the American Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Just Does Not Get It, is predicting a 'sea change' among evangelicals since the Religious Right has 'now lost control of the environmental issue'...

http://tinyurl.com/fjrxd


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Salon
by Rebecca Clarren

05/05/06

In the Rockies, a gas-extraction process called 'fracking' may be releasing a carcinogenic stew of chemicals. Dozens of people say it has made them seriously ill, but the EPA refuses to investigate -- a failure one of its own engineers calls 'irrational and corrupt'... [subscription or ad view required]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/05/05/fracking/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Detroit Free Press

05/04/06

Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday accused Russia of cracking down on religious and political rights and using its energy reserves as 'tools of intimidation or blackmail.' It was a hard slap at Vladimir Putin as the United States seeks Russia's cooperation in punishing Iran. Cheney's criticism -- some of the administration's toughest language about Russia -- came just two months before President Bush joins Putin in St. Petersburg for a summit of major industrial powers...

http://tinyurl.com/94eco



Comrade Cheney vs. President Putin

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

05/05/06

So what is this 'blackmail' Cheney is talking about? It is the Russians abandoning the doctrine of socialist internationalism and putting good old capitalist theory into practice. Instead of continuing to offer oil and natural gas to Ukraine at below-market prices, they insist on charging the price set by the international market. To Cheney, this is 'blackmail:' an economist would call it capitalism. I don't know if this signifies Cheney's formal conversion to Marxism, but surely it ought to dispel the myth that our Vice President believes in anything approaching the free market. Or, perhaps, he believes that capitalism is a system reserved for the U.S. Whatever is going on here, the brazen hypocrisy of Cheney's remarks are hard to take: here, after all, is the vice president of a nation that imposes draconian economic sanctions on countries that fail to kowtow to its every edict, making accusations of 'blackmail!' Here is a nation whose president refuses to take the nuking of Iran off the table as a distinct possibility -- and it's the Russians who are the blackmailers. Go figure! Cheney, however, was just getting started...

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8942


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Hostile War Critics Confront Rumsfeld

Las Vegas Review-Journal

05/04/06)

Already under fire from some retired military brass who want him to resign, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld was greeted at a speech in Atlanta by unusually hostile anti-war protesters. 'This man needs to be in prison for war crimes,' shouted Gloria Tatum, 63, of nearby Decatur, Ga., before being hauled away by security officials. Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst and noted critic of the war in Iraq, waited patiently in line to question Rumsfeld, then let loose. 'Why did you lie to get us into a war that caused these kind of casualties and was not necessary?' McGovern said. 'I did not lie,' shot back a feisty Rumsfeld, who waved off security guards ready to remove McGovern .... Rumsfeld said: 'People need to trust each other and their government. The idea that people in government are lying is fundamentally destructive of that trust.'" [editor's note: Then stop lying, Mr. Rumsfeld! - TLK]

http://tinyurl.com/5mtlk


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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In case you missed it on the news

VIDEO: Rumsfeld Called Out On Lies About WMD
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/04/rumsfeld-called-out/


Informant: Jack Topel

05.05.2006 - Technik

Meteorologen messen Niederschläge anhand der Dämpfung von Mobilfunksignalen

Die Mobilfunknetze sind ideale Instrumente zur Messung von Niederschlägen, sagen Forscher aus Israel. Der Regen dämpft die von den einzelnen Sendemasten ausgesandten Funksignale, so dass sich aus dieser Abschwächung die Stärke und der Ort des Regens ablesen lassen. Da besonders in den Städten die Dichte von Sendern sehr hoch ist, ergibt sich ein engmaschiges Messnetz, das sehr präzise Messungen ermöglicht. Diese können durchaus mit der Niederschlagsmessung mit Regenmessern oder mit einem Wetterradar mithalten, erklären die Wissenschaftler.

Die Wissenschaftler um Hagit Messer erprobten ihre Idee am Beispiel eines Regentages in Israel im Januar 2005. Sie verglichen die Werte, die Wetterkundler auf einem insgesamt etwa 21 Quadratmeter großen Gebiet mit gewöhnlichen Regenmessern gesammelt hatten mit ihren Messergebnissen, die sie aus den Sendedaten eines israelischen Mobilfunkanbieters ermittelt hatten. Dabei stellten sie eine sehr gute Übereinstimmung fest. Die Genauigkeit der Daten war sogar noch deutlich höher als die von Vergleichsmessungen mit einem Wetterradar. Ein solches auch Niederschlagsradar genanntes Gerät sendet Mikrowellen aus und kann aus der von den Regentropfen zurückgeworfenen Strahlung die Dichte des Niederschlags bestimmen.

Damit sei die Niederschlagsmessung mithilfe des Mobilfunknetzes eine gute Ergänzung oder sogar Alternative zu herkömmlichen Verfahren, schreiben die Forscher. Die erforderlichen Daten sind von den Netzbetreibern leicht zu ermitteln und die Senderdichte ist vielerorts sehr hoch. So seien nicht nur billige, sondern auch sehr genaue Regenmessungen mit einer räumlichen Auflösung von durchschnittlich ein bis drei Kilometer und in Echtzeit möglich, erklären Messer und ihre Kollegen. Das Verfahren eigne sich nicht nur zur Messung von Regenfällen, sondern auch für die Bestimmung der Konzentration von Schnee, Hagel, Nebel, Graupel und sogar Staub in der Luft.

Hagit Messer (Universität in Tel Aviv) et al.: Science, Bd. 312, S. 713

ddp/wissenschaft.de – Ulrich Dewald

© wissenschaft.de, Konradin Relations GmbH 2006

http://www.wissenschaft.de/wissen/news/264909.html

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Das Handynetz als Wetterstation
http://futurezone.orf.at/hardcore/stories/107410/

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Bei schlechter Verbindung regnet es

Dass das Wetter die Qualität von Mobilfunk-Signalen beeinflusst, wollen Wissenschaftler zur preiswerten Umwelt-Beobachtung nutzen.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/22/22603/1.html

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Ursache der globalen Klimaerwärmung: Elektromagnetische Welle erzeugen Schwingungen und erwärmen die Luftmolekühle
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/155035/

Schäden an Bäumen durch Mikrowellen
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/522990/

The giant Freeport mine is polluting West Papua's rivers and estuaries and a world heritage-protected national park. Documents leaked to an environmental group show that the world's largest gold and copper mine has dumped a billion tons of mine waste into surrounding rivers, polluting forests and river systems with heavy metals such as copper and arsenic.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/050406EB.shtml

A Shell oil pipeline being built in Russia crosses 1,100 rivers and water courses and threatens spawning fish and the critically endangered Western Grey Whale.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/050406EA.shtml

Approximately 45 million Americans have no health insurance, even though most of them are working. Will a new bill solve the problem, or make it worse? On May 5 on PBS, NOW looks at families who coped with both catastrophic illness as well as shockingly inadequate insurance.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050406U.shtml

Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now! interview John Dean and Daniel Ellsberg, two figures who played central roles in the fall of President Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal of a generation ago.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050406T.shtml

William Fisher discusses Cheney's recent declaration that Russia is breaching civil rights. "But what was President Bush thinking when he chose Vice President Dick Cheney to go to Lithuania as the messenger? Could there be anyone less credible on subjects like democratic reform and open government?" wrote Fisher.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050406R.shtml

This Mother's Day, during our 24-hour vigil in front of the White House, we will honor all the mothers -- US and Iraqi -- who have lost sons and daughters in the conflict in Iraq. We will call for our troops to come home so that no more mothers will suffer the unbearable grief of losing a child to Bush's war. And with your help, we'll also send a message of sorrow, friendship and peace directly to the women of Iraq and their families.

How? For the first time ever, a group of Americans will challenge the free press in Iraq to print an advertisement calling on the people of both nations to work together to end the occupation. Below is an English version of the ad we'll be taking out in newspapers all over Iraq on Mother's Day. We'll also set up a special website in Arabic that so that Iraqis with access to computers (and electricity!) can communicate with us directly.

Let's make this Mother's Day a special one. Come to Washington to join us during part or all of our 24-hour vigil at the White House. You'll be in the best of company, including Susan Sarandon, Dolores Huerta, Randi Rhodes, Jill Sobule and Patch Adams, and grieving parents Cindy Sheehan, Fernando Suarez del Solar and Elaine Johnson. Click here for more info, to sign up, and to send a notice about the vigil to your friends.
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=119405443&url_num=5&url=http://www.codepinkalert.org//article.php?list=type&type=123
And join us in this first-ever effort, through ads in Iraqi newspapers, to reach across oceans, across borders, across cultures to show our love and compassion for the Iraqi people.

With hope for peace,

Allison, Dana, Farida, Gael, Jodie, Medea, Nancy, Rae and Tiffany


P.S. Any extra funds will be used to bring Iraqi and Iranian women to Washington DC for Mother's Day and to send them around the United States on a speaking tour, following the tremendous success of the tour we organized in March. One of our new speakers is Dahlia Wasfi, a powerful Iraqi-American doctor who gave a searing testimony at a Congressional hearing on April 27, 2006. Click here to hear her testimony. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=119405443&url_num=6&url=http://politicstv.com/dspan.php
Contact june@globalexchange.org if you'd like Dahlia or another Iraqi woman to visit your community.


English version of the ad:

From American Women to Iraqi Families on Mother's Day: Let's Unite to Bring the US Troops Home and Put an End to the Bloodshed

In the United States, today is Mother's Day. But many mothers -- in the US and Iraq -- have little to celebrate. We've buried too many of our loved ones in this conflict. We've seen too many lives crippled forever by physical and mental wounds. We've watched in horror as our precious resources are poured into war while our families' basic needs of food, shelter, education and healthcare go unmet. We've seen the growing plague of fear, hatred and intolerance seep into our homes and communities.

This is not the world we want for ourselves or our children. That's why we are marking this Mother's Day by holding a 24-hour protest outside the White House in Washington DC to call for an end to the occupation of Iraq, an occupation that has fueled an endless cycle of violence.

We have seen in poll after poll that the majority of Americans and Iraqis want the US troops to return home. Even the majority of US troops (72%) think they should return by the end of this year. It is time for the politicians in both countries to listen to us, the people.

We want you to know that we will continue to organize protests and pressure our government to end this illegal occupation of your country so that you, with the help of the international community, can begin to heal your wounded nation.

We have also been circulating a petition demanding an end to the occupation and an end to US permanent bases in Iraq; the petition also calls for money for rebuilding to go directly into the hands of Iraqis -- not US companies ( http://www.womensaynotowar.org ). We will be delivering these to George Bush, Iraqi officials, and the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. You can read our petition here and join the call. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?key=119405443&url_num=8&url=http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/codepink/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=185&t=WSNTW2.dwt You can also contact us at info@womensaynotowar.org with your ideas of how we can work together, family to family, to promote peace.

This Mother's Day, we extend our hand in friendship to Iraqi mothers and their families. We look forward to the day when we can work together in peace.

By Colleen McDonnell

Plans to put up a mobile phone mast outside a school in Hampton has caused uproar among councillors and residents who say they are "outrageous".

The mobile phone company O2 sent a letter to Hampton Community College last week to announce that it plans to submit an application to erect a base station outside the school.

The letter from O2 said the mast would be proposed to go up at the junction of Dean Road and Rectory Grove.

Hampton North councillor, Geoffrey Samuel, said: "This is an outrageous proposal.

"The intended site is just opposite the present entrance to the nursery, which will be the main entrance for students when the now-agreed new building opens next year.

"It is all the more deplorable as alternative sites are available."

Cllr Samuel found out about the mast by accident and vowed he would do his best to get the proposal rejected.

He said the owners of flats beside the site have not been notified nor have the residents of Dean Road.

A petition will be organised to ensure the application is rejected.

Hampton resident Catriona Nason co-established Schools and Hospitals Against Mast Emissions (SHAME) to fight the Ashley Road, Hampton, phone mast. SHAME is now a national campaign.

Mrs Nason said: "It is wholly unacceptable to place a mast near children and certainly there are better sites.

"People need to make sure that their local authority knows they do not want this mast.

"Richmond council's planning department are aware of the issues from previous cases, and I cannot believe that they would not block this mast, but they may have their hands tied. It is up to parent power to stop these plans now."

James Stevenson, community relations manager for O2 , said: "We want to improve the network facilities that we have in that area. The area is growing, there are more and more people and more and more people want to have better services. We are putting the mast there to give them a better network service."

Mr Stevenson said O2 would listen to anyone who wishes to contact him with their feelings about the siting of the mast.

9:50am today

© Copyright 2001-2006 Newsquest Media Group

http://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk/news/localnews/display.var.751315.0.mast_proposal_to_face_fight.php

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been conducting widespread deportation raids and immigration roundups. We speak with two young immigrant women who tried to follow the path to citizenship and were subsequently jailed. One of them was deported and has been separated from her three year-old son.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/04/146251


From Information Clearing House

The administration plans to grant $3 million to private contractors to develop inmate rehabilitation programs centered on a single faith.

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/3119


From Information Clearing House

Panel Finds

Faulty evidence masquerading as science sent two men to death row for arson in Texas and led to the execution of one of them, a panel of private fire investigators concluded in a report released Tuesday in Austin.

http://tinyurl.com/p8s3a


From Information Clearing House

HAS GEORGE W. Bush come to believe he's king?
http://tinyurl.com/fadco


From Information Clearing House

Amnesty International today made public a report detailing its concerns about torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners and detainees both in the US and in US detention sites around the world.

http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR510702006


From Information Clearing House

Each day brings more information about the appalling abuses inflicted upon men and women held by the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere around the world.

http://hrw.org/campaigns/torture.htm


From Information Clearing House

A global war of ideas is set to begin and Anglo-American dominance of international TV news about to end. Arab and Muslim perspectives will get wider play after Al-Jazeera introduces a global television channel that will telecast news in English.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HE04Ak01.html


From Information Clearing House

An American released Sunday after serving time in Afghanistan on charges of torturing people in an illegal jail appeared in federal court Thursday to press a lawsuit that accuses the State Department and FBI of instigating his arrest and conviction.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060504/ap_on_go_ot/afghan_us_prisoners


From Information Clearing House

The latest US National Security Strategy document, published this year, labeled Iran as the most serious challenge to the United States posed by any country.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HE04Ak04.html


From Information Clearing House

“On the one hand the Americans say the issue with Iran is our nuclear programme, and on the other they allocate $70m for overthrowing the Islamic Republic,” he said, referring to president George Bush’s decision to fund groups wanting regime change in Tehran.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/167fbcf2-da9f-11da-aa09-0000779e2340.html


From Information Clearing House

Before the international community is lead to another “crisis of choice”, it is imperative that the public knows all the facts and is empowered to make an informed and sober decision about an impending catastrophe.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12942.htm

Bolton said targeted sanctions would also likely include "restricting trade in dual use and other sensitive items." He didn't rule out tougher sanctions at some future date.

http://tinyurl.com/z2lv2


From Information Clearing House



UN resolution on Iran: full text of draft:

Full text of a draft UN Security Council resolution put forward by Britain, France, the United States and Germany as the council’s proposed response to Iran’s nuclear programme.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12946.htm

It said these Iranian-produced rods were already in use in a 5-megawatt reactor built by the United States — before Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution — at the nuclear research center in Tehran.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060504/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_nuclear


From Information Clearing House

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani accused Syria of exporting terrorism to Iraq and Iran of posing a great danger to his country.

http://tinyurl.com/fzu92


From Information Clearing House

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For God's Sake, Tell Me Where To Begin?

By Layla Anwar

Junior member of parliament in the Green Zone brothel makes 30'000 dollars a month plus fringe benefits. Now do you want to know how much the matron makes? No joke here. Jalal Talabani makes 1 million dollars A MONTH plus fringe benefits. This heavy hooker has pocketed in 2 years, 24 million dollars! Whilst the majority of the Iraqis don't have a piece of bread..

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17921.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Talabani
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Layla+Anwar

Muhannad al-Fahadawi, a doctor at the main hospital, said two girls and a boy aged 8 were among at least 11 people he believed had been killed in the violence.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12943.htm

By David Clark

The argument of last resort for those who supported regime change has always been that at least Saddam has gone and the torture chambers have been closed. Even that has turned out to be an illusion, with the news that the director of the Baghdad morgue has had to flee Iraq under threat of death for revealing that thousands of Iraqis are being killed by death squads, many of them linked to the interior ministry.

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12947.htm

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12945.htm


Informant: V

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‘The Salvador Option’
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6802629/site/newsweek


From Information Clearing House

Let's Get Ready for a Real Battle!

Health advocates gained a huge advantage this week at the Codex Committee on Food Labeling (CCFL) when the mandated implementation pro-health, pro-nutrition World Health Organization (WHO) Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health (GS) was put in place. This pro-health, pro-nutrition stance is unprecedented within Codex.

Next, CCFL's recommendations will be presented to the Codex Commission (Geneva, Switzerland, July 3-7, 2006). Since WHO mandated Codex implement the GS, the principles laid down this week are immensely important because they set the stage for health forces to have an impact they have not been able to exert before. Click here to read how it happened http://prweb.com/releases/2006/5/prweb381188.htm .

Because of the courageous South African delegate, Ms. Antoinette Booyzen, a group of pro-health principles will become part of Codex. Of course, this powerful advance was opposed by the US which declared its opposition to optimal health and its endorsement of advertising junk food to children! It was not a proud moment.

Ready or Not, Here They Come

Will the other side just lie down and go away? Of course not. There's too much at stake. But now is the time for us to marshal our forces, lay our strategy and get our ducks in a row. Click here http://blog.healthfreedomusa.org/ for important steps you can take now to help get us ready for the next phase of this battle. This wonderful sea change could be the beginning of a new era in health freedom if we play our cards right. Thank you, South Africa!

Yours in health and freedom,

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director

PS: If you would like to read the WHO Global Strategy, click here http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/en/ .

http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fuj/salon7.htm


Informant: Lew Rockwell

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You got to listen to Stephen Colbert
http://tinyurl.com/zca9p

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Bush in distress: reaction shots at the WH Correspondents Dinner
http://tinyurl.com/l4g9o

The camera is fixed on Bush at around 17:00 minutes
Video here: http://tinyurl.com/hdqjv
Thread here: http://tinyurl.com/k8adn


Informant: sasha

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GOOD for Stephen Colbert.... we need more courageous Patriotic Americans like him !!!

Gomez


Transcript of Stephen Colbert's WHCA Speech: You Be the Judge http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002461887

By E&P Staff

Published: May 04, 2006 10:25 AM ET NEW YORK Four days after the event, the controversy over Stephen Colbert's routine at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday night -- and the media's reaction to it -- continues to build, with followup stories in The New York Times, Los Angeles, and dozens of other places, including MTV.com.

E&P published the first account of the affair on Saturday night, and has presented numerous stories -- and dozens of letters to the editor -- since. But you be the judge. Here is a transcript of his speech, delivered in his usual faux-Bill O'Reilly voice. It closed with a video segment, not transcribed here.

***

COLBERT: Wow, what an honor. The White House Correspondents' Dinner. To actually sit here, at the same table with my hero, George W. Bush, to be this close to the man. I feel like I'm dreaming. Somebody pinch me. You know what? I'm a pretty sound sleeper -- that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face.

Is he really not here tonight? Dammit. The one guy who could have helped.

By the way, before I get started, if anybody needs anything else at their tables, just speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers. Somebody from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail.

Mark Smith, ladies and gentlemen of the press corps, Madame First Lady, Mr. President, my name is Stephen Colbert and tonight it's my privilege to celebrate this president. We're not so different, he and I. We get it. We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up.

I know some of you are going to say "I did look it up, and that's not true." That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works. Every night on my show, the Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, OK? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the "No Fact Zone." Fox News, I hold a copyright on that term.

I'm a simple man with a simple mind. I hold a simple set of beliefs that I live by. Number one, I believe in America. I believe it exists. My gut tells me I live there. I feel that it extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and I strongly believe it has 50 states. And I cannot wait to see how the Washington Post spins that one tomorrow.

Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong, welcome. Your great country makes our Happy Meals possible. I said it's a celebration. I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible -- I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical. And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe it's yogurt. But I refuse to believe it's not butter. Most of all, I believe in this president.

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

So, Mr. President, please, pay no attention to the people that say the glass is half full. Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.

Okay, look, folks, my point is that I don't believe this is a low point in this presidency. I believe it is just a lull before a comeback. I mean, it's like the movie "Rocky." All right. The president in this case is Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed is -- everything else in the world. It's the tenth round. He's bloodied. His corner man, Mick, who in this case I guess would be the vice president, he's yelling, "Cut me, Dick, cut me!," and every time he falls everyone says, "Stay down! Stay down!" Does he stay down? No. Like Rocky, he gets back up, and in the end he -- actually, he loses in the first movie.

OK. Doesn't matter. The point is it is the heart-warming story of a man who was repeatedly punched in the face. So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't.

I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.

Now, there may be an energy crisis. This president has a very forward-thinking energy policy. Why do you think he's down on the ranch cutting that brush all the time? He's trying to create an alternative energy source. By 2008 we will have a mesquite-powered car!

And I just like the guy. He's a good Joe. Obviously loves his wife, calls her his better half. And polls show America agrees. She's a true lady and a wonderful woman. But I just have one beef, ma'am. I'm sorry, but this reading initiative. I'm sorry, I've never been a fan of books. I don't trust them. They're all fact, no heart. I mean, they're elitist, telling us what is or isn't true, or what did or didn't happen. Who's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was built in 1914? If I want to say it was built in 1941, that's my right as an American! I'm with the president, let history decide what did or did not happen.

The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will.

As excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president's side, and the vice president's side.

But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished.

Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!

Because really, what incentive do these people have to answer your questions, after all? I mean, nothing satisfies you. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, "Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!

Now, it's not all bad guys out there. Some are heroes: Christopher Buckley, Jeff Sacks, Ken Burns, Bob Schieffer. They've all been on my show. By the way, Mr. President, thank you for agreeing to be on my show. I was just as shocked as everyone here is, I promise you. How's Tuesday for you? I've got Frank Rich, but we can bump him. And I mean bump him. I know a guy. Say the word.

See who we've got here tonight. General Moseley, Air Force Chief of Staff. General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They still support Rumsfeld. Right, you guys aren't retired yet, right? Right, they still support Rumsfeld.

Look, by the way, I've got a theory about how to handle these retired generals causing all this trouble: don't let them retire! Come on, we've got a stop-loss program; let's use it on these guys. I've seen Zinni and that crowd on Wolf Blitzer. If you're strong enough to go on one of those pundit shows, you can stand on a bank of computers and order men into battle. Come on.

Jesse Jackson is here, the Reverend. Haven't heard from the Reverend in a little while. I had him on the show. Very interesting and challenging interview. You can ask him anything, but he's going to say what he wants, at the pace that he wants. It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.

John McCain is here. John McCain, John McCain, what a maverick! Somebody find out what fork he used on his salad, because I guarantee you it wasn't a salad fork. This guy could have used a spoon! There's no predicting him. By the way, Senator McCain, it's so wonderful to see you coming back into the Republican fold. I have a summer house in South Carolina; look me up when you go to speak at Bob Jones University. So glad you've seen the light, sir.

Mayor Nagin! Mayor Nagin is here from New Orleans, the chocolate city! Yeah, give it up. Mayor Nagin, I'd like to welcome you to Washington, D.C., the chocolate city with a marshmallow center. And a graham cracker crust of corruption. It's a Mallomar, I guess is what I'm describing.

Joe Wilson is here, Joe Wilson right down here in front, the most famous husband since Desi Arnaz. And of course he brought along his lovely wife Valerie Plame. Oh, my god! Oh, what have I said? [looks horrified] I am sorry, Mr. President, I meant to say he brought along "Joe Wilson's wife. "Patrick Fitzgerald is not here tonight? OK. Dodged a bullet.

And, of course, we can't forget the man of the hour, new press secretary, Tony Snow. Secret Service name, "Snow Job." Toughest job. What a hero! Took the second toughest job in government, next to, of course, the ambassador to Iraq.

Got some big shoes to fill, Tony. Big shoes to fill. Scott McClellan could say nothing like nobody else.

[VIDEO FOLLOWS] E&P Staff (letters@editorandpublisher.com)

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge - even to ourselves - that we've been so credulous." - Carl Sagan

"In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us."-Thich Nhat Hahn - Vietnamese monk, activist and writer.

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Beating Up On Colbert

We need more journalists, faux or otherwise, willing to offend the president in polite company.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/05/05/beating_up_on_colbert.php

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Did you hear the one about the satirist and the President?

Common Dreams
by Heather Mallick

05/09/06

History was made last week at the White House Press Correspondents' Dinner. But it took a non-journalist -- a comedian in fact -- to do the job the well-fed journalists failed to do: take on George W. Bush. The thing is, you likely won't have heard about it. The mainstream media ignored the keynote speech by Stephen Colbert, which made Bush look like a smashed toadstool and the American press look like the compost a mushroom grows in. Hot spit, it was great. I was weeping with laughter while the portly millionaires of the American media sat there going whiter with shock (even as their younger female companions smirked) and the president looked as if he were about to have Colbert whacked...

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0509-27.htm



White House press corps plays it safe

San Francisco Chronicle

01/17/07

The performance of Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents Association electrified liberals a year ago, as Bush- and media-bashers cheered the courage of the comedian who satirized the president sitting just a few feet away while skewering the media elite in the audience for their lack of aggressiveness. The performance — and the traditional media’s initial lack of reporting on his remarks — made Colbert a hero with the truth-to-power crowd; a video of his remarks was one of the year’s most downloaded. Of course, the scowl on the president’s face and the snippy comments of some of the scorned media types afterward offered a less giddy review. And it was another example of how a story ignored by the mainstream media could achieve a major buzz in the blogosphere and on video-sharing sites....

http://tinyurl.com/yqm4sv


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Stephen+Colbert

http://www.counterpunch.org/swindell05042006.html


Informant: Lew Rockwell

http://www.lewrockwell.com/pilger/pilger41.html

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Death Squads
Exposed: The reality of U.S. occupation Of Iraq

Channel 4 Video Investigation

This shocking film investigates the links between the death squads and high-ranking Shia politicians. It reveals how the Shia militia that these politicians control have systematically infiltrated and taken over police units and even entire government ministeries. It investigates how these units are closely linked to the death squads, indeed they often are the death squads. And the killers act with impunity -- there's little investigation into their activities.

Click to view
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15615.htm

dpa-Meldung, 28.04.2006 (13:02)

Ravensburg - Mit Handy am Steuer ist ein 20 Jahre alter Autofahrer am Freitagmorgen in Ravensburg tödlich verunglückt. Er kam in einer Kurve mit seinem Wagen von der Straße ab und prallte gegen einen Baum, teilte die Polizei mit. Dabei erlitt er so schwere Verletzungen, dass er noch am Unfallort starb. Der Mann hatte sich nach Polizeiangaben während der Fahrt mit seinem Handy beschäftigt.

© 2006 - Verivox

http://www.verivox.de/News/ArticleDetails.asp?version=print&cat=Mobile&aid=14479

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

im Anhang finden Sie die aktuelle Pressereaktion auf den Besuch von Frau Dr. Waldmann-Selsam in Icking.

http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/4_5_20_1.JPG


Viele Grüße

Ingrid v. Brandt



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Selsam
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Selsam

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/4438/


Informant: jensenmk
From ufpj-news

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0503-28.htm


Informant: dmetke

From ufpj-news