GMO : Independent Scientists Demand A Ban on GM Food & Feed while All GM Crops Are Tested

Immune Reactions to Transgenic Protein Serious: Independent Scientists Demand A Ban on GM Food & Feed while All GM Crops Are Tested

Summary of the report

1. GM crops failed to deliver promised benefits
2. GM crops posing escalating problems on the farm
3. Extensive transgenic contamination unavoidable
4. GM crops not safe
5. GM food raises serious safety concerns
6. Dangerous gene products are incorporated into crops
7. Terminator crops spread male sterility
8. Broad-spectrum herbicides highly toxic to humans and other species
9. Genetic engineering creates super-viruses
10. Transgenic DNA in food taken up by bacteria in human gut
11. Transgenic DNA and cancer
12. CaMV 35S promoter increases horizontal gene transfer
13. A history of misrepresentation and suppression of scientific evidence

Link to the full report A GM-Free Sustainable World

An election correction

From the Nov 15th 2001, edition of The Economist:

In the issues of December 16th 2000 to November 10th 2001, we may have given the impression that George Bush had been legally and duly elected president of the United States. We now understand that this may have been incorrect, and that the election result is still too close to call. The Economist apologises for any inconvenience.

Supreme Court Officially Emasculates Taxpayers

In a unanimous decision Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a lower court ruling that would have invalidated massive taxpayer giveaways to Corporate America. The Supreme Court has long been the victim of a hostile takeover by Big Money interests. It is a court now headed by a corporate lawyer that has repeatedly gone out of its way to protect Corporate America's ability to bleed the middle class dry. Today's ruling, though, is particularly egregious. Not only did the court strike down an important ruling, but it essentially emasculated taxpayers' ability to bring any such lawsuits against their own government in the future.

The details are as shocking as they are disgusting. As the Associated Press reports, "two years ago, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Ohio's tax credit on new equipment, saying the practice hinders interstate commerce because the incentives are available only to businesses that invest in Ohio." In other words, plaintiffs correctly noted the credits are creating a race to the bottom that violate interstate commerce laws by forcing states and cities to compete with each other to give away more and more taxpayer cash to Big Business. In the Ohio case, the tax credit was used to give DaimlerChrysler roughly $300 million in taxpayer cash - cash that Toledo's county auditor says was siphoned away from local schools, forcing the city to close up to nine schools or fire 380 school workers.

In striking down the lower court ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court not only ruled against Ohio taxpayers, but against all taxpayers. Chief Justice John Roberts, formerly a corporate lawyer, said in the official opinion that "State taxpayers have no standing ... to challenge state tax or spending decisions simply by virtue of their status as taxpayers." In other words, not only will the Ohio law remain, but state taxpayers throughout the country now have no legal right to challenge the decisions of their bought-and-paid-for elected officials who are selling off our government to the highest bidder.

Time to stop being a taxpayer?

Link to the Court's Opinion

Link to the Oral Arguments in the case

Oil Diplomacy

Although the Bush administration claims to be engaged in a global war on terrorism and a campaign to extend U.S.-style democracy, it is more than apparent that Washington is in fact pursuing a worldwide strategy driven by the geopolitics of oil—and not just in regard to Libya and Venezuela. Iran and Iraq, of course, come to mind. More broadly, in recent weeks President Bush played obsequious host to President Ilham Aliev of oil-rich Azerbaijan. Bush warmly embraced Aliev, a less-than-democratic leader whose energy resources and strategic position make him an important player both in pipeline politics and in regard to U.S. plans for regime change in Iran. One-fourth of Iran’s population is comprised of Azeris. Then Vice President Cheney trundled into oil-rich and autocratic Kazakhstan last week, on a jaunt during which he warned Russia against using "oil and gas [as] tools of intimidation and blackmail."

N.Korea may be preparing missile launch

North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range ballistic missile that could reach parts of the United States, Japanese media reports said on Friday, but Japan's government said it did not believe a launch was imminent.

Quoting unidentified South Korean government officials, public broadcaster NHK said satellite pictures showed there have been signs since early this month around a site in northeastern North Korea that pointed to a possible firing in the near future.

North Korea has said in numerous official media reports that it is building a nuclear deterrent to counter U.S. hostility. The United States believes that North Korea has one or two nuclear bombs and the ability to build more.

NHK said the missile appeared to be a Taepodong-2, which previous reports have said has a range of more than 6,700 km (4,200 miles), making it capable of hitting Alaska with a light payload.
_______________________

...and Iran is the threat?! Below is the reason that the Bush administration is willing to sit down and talk with the North Koreans (who actually HAVE nukes) while attempting to weasel their way into a reason to occupy Iran (who cannot even enrich uranium to weapons grade).

Natural Resourses
IRAN: petroleum, natural gas, coal, chromium, copper, iron ore, lead, manganese, zinc, sulfur
NORTH KOREA: coal, lead, tungsten, zinc, graphite, magnesite, iron ore, copper, gold, pyrites, salt, fluorspar, hydropower

Navy to beef up presence in Asian waters

The Pacific fleet of the U.S. Navy aims to step up the number of submarines and aircraft carriers in Asian waters to patrol the region and ensure security, its commander said on Friday.

"It is clear to us the prosperity of (the) economy in the region depends on security," official news agency Bernama quoted Admiral Gary Roughead, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, as telling local reporters during a visit to Malaysia.

The narrow, strategic waterway of the Malacca Strait is an 805-km (500-mile) channel linking Asia with the Middle East and Europe and carries some 50,000 vessels a year.

It also carries some 40 percent of the world's trade, including 80 percent of Japan's and South Korea's oil and gas and 80 percent of China's oil, according to a U.S.-Indonesia Society 2005 study on the impact of a terrorism attack in the strait.
_________________________

From an economic and strategic perspective the Strait of Malacca is one of the most important shipping lanes in the world, an equivalent of the Suez Canal, or the Panama Canal. The Strait forms the main ship passageway between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, linking three of the world's most populous nations: India, Indonesia and China.
_________________________

US treasury secretary, John Snow, renewed his attack on the Chinese authorities for not letting the yuan float freely against the dollar.

"It is a matter of extreme urgency that China act immediately to increase the flexibility of its exchange rate regime before real harm is done to its own economy, to its Asian neighbours and to the global system," Mr Snow said in Washington.
_________________________

In an attempt to force China and its robust economy to help ease economic woes at home, the US seems to be making veiled threats as the above linked items imply. Foreign policy at its best!

US fumes as Iraq backs Israel boycott

The US-backed Iraqi government sent an official representative to this week's meeting of the Arab League Boycott Office in Damascus, The Jerusalem Post has learned, prompting criticism from members of Congress and the Bush administration.

Liaison officers from 14 countries met for four days this week to discuss ways of intensifying the Arab embargo against Israel. Among those taking part were delegates from several ostensible US allies, such as Iraq, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait.

Tom Casey, a spokesman for the US State Department, told the Post that Washington was unhappy with Baghdad's action.
________________________________

I'm sure that the State Department and Mr Bush are a bit more than "unhappy" with this Iraqi move. Another heckuva job, brought to you by BushCo who are apparently as dumb as they look.
____________________________

The Gulf Arab state of Bahrain, which will shortly begin to enjoy special trade benefits under a deal signed with Washington, appears to have pulled one over on the Bush Administration.

The US-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which is set to go into effect on July 1, was conditioned on a Bahraini promise to shut down its Israel Boycott Office and remove all restrictions on trade with the Jewish state. Bahrain pledged to comply with the US demand, and the agreement was then ratified by Congress and by US President George W. Bush.

But, there is ample evidence to demonstrate that Bahrain plans to continue with its anti-Israel embargo, despite its pledge to Washington.

According to an article in the May 10 Bahrain Tribune, the country’s Foreign Minister said the boycott will remain in force. Speaking before Bahrain’s Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said, “the relations would be normal with Israel when the Arab League orders the Arab countries to end the boycott, and until then the Kingdom was sticking to the boycott.”

Britain’s largest union for college teachers is reportedly set to vote later this month on an Israel boycott.

"Yes, of course the boycott is still in place and is still enforced," Muhammad Rashid a-Din, a staff member of the Dubai Customs Department's Office for the Boycott of Israel, confirmed in a telephone interview. "If a product contained even some components that were made in Israel, and you wanted to import it to Dubai (United Arab Emirates), it would be a problem," he said.

Why the United States invaded Iraq, and now is thinking about invading Iran

All these recent events are reminiscent of the negotiations and threats preceding the invasion of Iraq. The unfolding events are so similar that makes one wonder if the Iraq scenario is not being used as a template for Iran. And with what has come to light since the Iraq invasion, we have to assume that like Iraq, the decision to invade Iran has already been taken, and that the E.U. Three negotiations and IAEA are being used to prepare the public for that event. There are already reports of increased U.S. provocations along Iranian borders such as flying unmanned surveillance flight over Iran, and insertion of commandos into Iran for intelligence gathering and other activities. The talk of invasion is also accompanied with war games. For example on April 14th, ‘USA Today’ reported that “Amid rising tensions between the United States and Iran over the future of Iran's nuclear program, the Pentagon is planning a war game in July so officials can explore options for a crisis involving Iran.”

But this war game is not the first of its kind. According to William M. Arkin of Washington Post, “In early 2003, even as U.S. forces were on the brink of war with Iraq, the Army had already begun conducting an analysis for a full-scale war with Iran. The analysis, called TIRANNT, for "theatre Iran near term," was coupled with a mock scenario for a Marine Corps invasion and a simulation of the Iranian missile force. U.S. and British planners conducted a Caspian Sea war game around the same time. And Bush directed the U.S. Strategic Command to draw up a global strike war plan for an attack against Iranian weapons of mass destruction. All of this will ultimately feed into a new war plan for "major combat operations" against Iran that military sources confirm now exists in draft form.”

Europe Shames U.S. Congress

After 9-11, within the frame-work of the fight against terrorism, the violation of human and fundamental rights was not isolated, or an excessive measure confined to a short period of time, but rather a widespread regular practice by the CIA in which the majority of European countries are involved.

Giovanni Claudio Fava, chief investigator for a European Parliament report on the CIA's "extraordinary renditions" in Europe—following three months of hearings, April 26.

This is not a story about the CIA's secret prisons around the world, but rather a probe by the European Parliament that Congress's Republican leadership has refused to authorize here—into CIA "rendition" kidnappings throughout Europe of suspects sent to countries known for torturing prisoners. (A number of the victims testified at the European Parliament hearings.)

One of the crimes committed by the CIA in these renditions is a violation of U.S. Code 2441, the War Crimes Act of 1996 condemning torture—and the international Covenant Against Torture.

George W. Bush reaffirms his position on Iraq: It was about the oil

In today's Federal Register (FR) the President released the following:

Notice of May 18, 2006—Continuation of the National Emergency Protecting the Development Fund for Iraq and Certain Other Property in Which Iraq has an Interest

In typical federal fashion the Notice is written in "lawyerspeak" and sounds as though it has been written in circles, but with careful parsing we can see what has been done. It is a confirmation that Bush's main concern about Iraq is the control and direction of oil money.

The Development Fund for Iraq [website] [wikipedia entry] came out of United Nations resolution 1483 which transferred the authority to authorize expenditures from Iraq's oil revenue from the United Nations to the Coalition Provisional Authority. The Coalition Provisional Authority was to administer this fund, on behalf of the Iraqi people. Since the transfer of sovereignty in June 2004, the Development Fund for Iraq has been managed by the Iraqi Transitional Government.

Audits of the Fund have found major abuses, fraud and that BILLIONS have gone missing.

Today's FR Notice extends for one year the "national emergency protecting the Development Fund for Iraq and certain other property in which Iraq has an interest," because of "the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the obstacles to the orderly reconstruction of Iraq, the restoration and maintenance of peace and security in the country, and the development of political, administrative, and economic institutions in Iraq constituted by the threat of attachment or other judicial process against the Development Fund for Iraq, Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein, and proceeds, obligations, or any financial instruments of any nature whatsoever arising from or related to the sale or marketing thereof."

Bush knows that the Development Fund has been used to feed his greedy pals and there is a real threat, should the Iraqi people realize it, that Iraq could sue the bejeezus out of the US for swindling them out of billions.

Bush mentions seven (7) prior Executive Orders (EO) in this Notice. I will focus on three of them. Two of the three are blatant theft, and the last one voids any possible recourse against such theft.

March 20, 2003, EO 13290: Confiscating and Vesting Certain Iraqi Property

"All blocked funds held in the United States in accounts in the name of the Government of Iraq, the Central Bank of Iraq, Rafidain Bank, Rasheed Bank, or the State Organization for Marketing Oil are hereby confiscated and vested in the Department of the Treasury"

August 29, 2003, EO 13315: Blocking Property of the Former Iraqi Regime, Its Senior Officials and their Family Members, and Taking Certain Other Actions

"all property and interests in property of the former Iraqi regime or its state bodies, corporations, or agencies, or of the following persons, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in"

"The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, is authorized to confiscate property that is blocked pursuant to section 1 of this order and that he determines, in consultation with the Secretary of State, to belong to a person, organization, or country that has planned, authorized, aided, or engaged in armed hostilities against the United States. All right, title, and interest in any property so confiscated shall vest in the Department of the Treasury. Such vested property shall promptly be transferred to the Development Fund for Iraq."

November 29, 2004, EO 13364: Modifying the Protection Granted to the Development Fund for Iraq and Certain Property in Which Iraq Has An Interest and Protecting the Central Bank of Iraq

"Section 1. (a) Except as provided in section 1(b) of this order, and unless licensed or otherwise authorized pursuant to this order, any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process is prohibited and shall be deemed null and void with respect to the following:
(i) the Development Fund for Iraq;
(ii) all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein, but only until title passes to the initial purchaser, and proceeds, obligations, or any financial instruments of any nature whatsoever arising from or related to the sale or marketing thereof, and interests therein, in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons; and
(iii) any accounts, assets, investments, or any other property of any kind owned by, belonging to, or held by the Central Bank of Iraq, or held, maintained, or otherwise controlled by any
financial institution of any kind in the name of, on behalf of, or otherwise for the Central Bank of Iraq.
(b) The prohibition in section 1(a) of this order shall not apply
with respect to any final judgment arising out of a contractual
obligation entered into by the Government of Iraq, including any
agency or instrumentality thereof, after June 30, 2004."

Amazing, isn't it????? The US will steal your money and oil, award no-bid contracts to political cronies, skim a little, remove any recourse you may have, generally screw you, then give you some of it back, but not before perpetuating the national emergency they started affording extra control over your money and oil...welcome to the new dawn where the lawmakers and those governing threaten you if you disagree, but then blatantly violate law and moral decency with bravado. Home, hope you like it. Vote in November!!!

Just what we need: U.S. Proposes New Nuclear Weapons Treaty

GENEVA (AP) -- The United States proposed a treaty Thursday it said would curb proliferation of nuclear weapons and improve the world's leverage against "hard cases" like Iran and North Korea by banning production of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium.

Stephen G. Rademaker, acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for arms control, told the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament that it should aim to approve a treaty by September.

He said current measures to prevent terrorists and governments from developing weapons of mass destruction may be insufficient "in the case of governments that are absolutely determined to acquire such weapons."

Rademaker said Iran was "an obvious case in point," and that the Islamic republic and North Korea were "the hard cases."

The proposal contains no verification measures and stockpiles of fissile material would not be affected, allowing existing nuclear powers to build weapons with their reserves.

And with Iran and North Korea accused by Washington of flouting current international accords on nuclear weapons development, Rademaker did not specify how the United States thought the new agreement would help.

In Washington, Wade Boese, research director at the private Arms Control Association, said the United States, Russia, France and Britain already have officially declared they have stopped production for nuclear weapons and China is understood to have done so as well.
______________________________________

Please read the last paragraph again....I'll wait..........ok, now read this and this.

Pentagon report said to find killing of Iraqi civilians deliberate

WASHINGTON - A Pentagon report on an incident in Haditha, Iraq, where U.S. Marines shot and killed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians last November will show that those killings were deliberate and worse than initially reported, a Pennsylvania congressman said Wednesday.

"There was no firefight. There was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed those innocent people," Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said during a news conference on Iraq. "Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them. And they killed innocent civilians in cold blood. That is what the report is going to tell."

"One man was killed with an IED," Murtha said, referring to a Marine killed by the roadside bomb. "And after that, they actually went into the houses and killed women and children."

An AT&T attorney indicated in federal court on Wednesday that the Bush administration may have provided legal authorization for the telecommunications company to open its network to the National Security Agency.

Federal law may "authorize and in some cases require telecommunications companies to furnish information" to the executive branch, said Bradford Berenson, who was associate White House counsel when President Bush authorized the NSA surveillance program in late 2001 and is now a partner at the Sidley Austin law firm in Washington, D.C.

AT&T may be referring to an obscure section of federal law, 18 U.S.C. 2511, which permits a telecommunications company to provide "information" and "facilities" to the federal government as long as the attorney general authorizes it. The authorization must come in the form of "certification in writing by...the Attorney General of the United States that no warrant or court order is required by law."

"If the certification exists, AT&T is in pretty good shape," said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center and co-author of a book on information privacy law.

May 17th, CRS Report: Government Access to Phone Calling Activity and Related Records: Legal Authorities (no mention of 18 U.S.C. 2511)

Monkeys can form sentences / The soul of a machine

Pyow pyow pyow . . . hack hack hack hack! Let's get out of here (in monkey talk)

MONKEYS are able to string together a simple “sentence”, according to research that offers the first evidence that animals might be capable of a key feature of language.

British scientists have discovered that the putty-nosed monkey in Nigeria pictured above sometimes communicates by combining sounds into a sequence that has a different meaning from any of its component calls, an ability that was thought to be uniquely human.

Although many animals communicate with one another using calls that have a particular meaning — usually a warning signifying the presence of a certain predator — none has been known to combine these alarm calls into sequences similar to those of human language.

The findings suggest that the rudiments of syntax, a basic component of human language, may be more widespread among primates than is generally thought, and could ultimately shed light on the evolution of this most distinctly human of traits.
__________________________________



Searching for the soul in the machine

If computers could create a society, what kind of world would they make? Thanks to the work of an ambitious project that adds a whole new meaning to the phrase, ‘computer society’, in which millions of software agents will potentially evolve their own culture, we could be about to find out.

With funding from the European Commission’s Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) initiative of the IST programme, five European research institutes are collaborating on the NEW TIES project to create a thoroughly 21st-century brave new world – one populated by randomly generated software beings, capable of developing their own language and culture.

State Department Proposed Rule on the Reporting of International Agreements

Bushy is at it again...trying to hide things from us.

Basically, this proposed rule will allow the State Department, who is required by law to publish an annual list of international treaties and agreements (with certain limitations), to exclude a wide array of documents from publication and/or conveyance to the Congress.

It is further proposing not to publish certain categories of international agreements in the compilation entitled ‘‘United States Treaties and Other International Agreements’’ or in the Treaties and Other International Acts series. These categories of agreements are of a highly
technical or specialized nature and are of limited interest to the public. Further, the regulations are proposed to be amended to reflect adjustments to certain internal procedures within the State Department on the reporting of international agreements to Congress.

The qualifing phrase "of a highlytechnical or specialized nature and are of limited interest to the public" will allow the exclusion. Also, the governing statutes (1 USC 112(a)(b)) allow the exclusion from reporting international agreements/treaties based only upon Presidential determination using the following: "the public disclosure of the text of the agreement would, in the opinion of the President, be prejudicial to the national security of the United States." The law also requires that if the President does invoke this option, the fact that he did so must be published in the Federal Register.

The proposed rule would also allow, in reporting to the Congress, the ommission of information explaining "the negotiations and the effect of the agreement."

As the statute currently read, the following International Agreements are exempt from publication (22 CFR 181.8):

(1) Bilateral agreements for the rescheduling of
intergovernmental debt payments;
(2) Bilateral textile agreements concerning the
importation of products containing specified
textile fibers done under the Agricultural Act
of 1956, as amended;
(3) Bilateral agreements between postal administrations
governing technical arrangements;
(4) Bilateral agreements that apply to specified
military exercises;
(5) Bilateral military personnel exchange agreements;
(6) Bilateral judicial assistance agreements that
apply only to specified civil or criminal
investigations or prosecutions;
(7) Bilateral mapping agreements;
(8) Tariff and other schedules under the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade and under the Agreement of the
World Trade Organization;
(9) Agreements that have been given a national security
classification pursuant to Executive Order No. 12958
or its successors; and
(b) Agreements on the subjects listed in paragraphs (a) (1)
through (9) of this section that had not been published
as of February 26, 1996.
(c) Any international agreements in the possession of
the Department of State, other than those in paragraph
(a)(9) of this section, but not published will be made
available upon request by the Department of State.

The proposed rule would include the following after the above list:

(10) Bilateral agreements with other
governments that apply to specific
activities and programs financed with
foreign assistance funds administered
by the United States Agency for
International Development pursuant to
the Foreign Assistance Act, as amended,
and the Agricultural Trade Development
and Assistance Act of 1954, as
amended;
(11) Letters of agreements and
memoranda of understanding with other
governments that apply to bilateral
assistance for counter-narcotics and
other anti-crime purposes furnished
pursuant to the Foreign Assistance Act,
as amended;
(12) Bilateral agreements that apply to
specified education and leadership
development programs designed to
acquaint U.S. and foreign armed forces,
law enforcement, homeland security, or
related personnel with limited,
specialized aspects of each other’s
practices or operations; and
(13) Bilateral agreements between
aviation agencies governing specified
aviation technical assistance projects for
the provision of managerial, operational,
and technical assistance in developing
and modernizing the civil aviation
infrastructure


What are you trying to hide while sticking your nose further up our collective ass?

Venezuela added to State Department list of countries "are not cooperating fully with United States antiterrorism efforts"

Who else is on the list? Cuba, Iran, North Korea & Syria

Venezuela is the 5th largest exporter of oil to the US. Go get 'em Condi...

The brilliant minds of Washington in "How to make our Foreign Policy work": Bush urged to give Putin the cold shoulder ("Bad Pootie-Poot")

President George W. Bush may give Vladimir Putin the cold shoulder when the Russian president hosts the Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg if hardliners in the US win a policy battle over how to respond to what they see as Moscow's increasingly wayward behaviour.

While there is no doubt the US president will attend the July summit, despite calls by Republican senator John McCain, and others, for a boycott, Mr Putin could be on the receiving end of what is called the "minimalist approach".

"There is a push for the president to do the bare minimum in St Petersburg," said Nikolas Gvosdev, editor of the National Interest, a publication of the Nixon Center think-tank that promotes a "realistic" US approach to Russia.

This would mean no "chumminess" with Mr Putin, such as private dinners, and could involve a side-trip to a former Soviet satellite as a platform for a speech on democracy. Viktor Yushchenko has invited Mr Bush to Kiev, but that visit might come in June, provided the president of Ukraine has formed a coalition government.

Former Bush campaign official sentenced to prison

CONCORD, New Hampshire (Reuters) - A senior official in U.S. President George W. Bush's re-election campaign was sentenced to 10 months in prison on Wednesday for his role in suppressing votes in a key U.S. Senate race, a scandal that Democrats charge may involve the White House.

James Tobin, 45, one of three Republican campaign operatives convicted in a phone-jamming scheme designed to keep New Hampshire Democrats from voting in a 2002 election, was convicted in December of two telephone harassment charges.
_____________________________

This is the fourth conviction in this case. More names should come out of this investigation... James Tobin, then Northeast field director for the National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee (NRSC) and George W. Bush's New England campaign chairman, is the man who put the New Hampshire GOP in touch with the telemarketing company that conducted the phone jamming.

Who did James Tobin report to: The NRSC was chaired in 2002 by none other than Bill Frist. [Tobin is also a former employee of Frist's]

Excellent summary on the scandal at Wikipedia

Congress may make ISPs snoop on you

A prominent Republican on Capitol Hill has prepared legislation that would rewrite Internet privacy rules by requiring that logs of Americans' online activities be stored, CNET News.com has learned.

The proposal comes just weeks after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Internet service providers should retain records of user activities for a "reasonable amount of time," a move that represented a dramatic shift in the Bush administration's views on privacy.

Wisconsin Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is proposing that ISPs be required to record information about Americans' online activities so that police can more easily "conduct criminal investigations." Executives at companies that fail to comply would be fined and imprisoned for up to one year.

Until Gonzales' speech, the Bush administration had explicitly opposed laws requiring data retention, saying it had "serious reservations" (click here for PDF) about them. But after the European Parliament last December approved such a requirement for Internet, telephone and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers, top administration officials began talking about it more favorably.

Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, called Sensenbrenner's measure an "open-ended obligation to collect information about all customers for all purposes. It opens the door to government fishing expeditions and unbounded data mining."

One unusual aspect of Sensenbrenner's legislation--called the Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act--or Internet Safety Act--is that it's relatively vague.

Instead of describing exactly what information Internet providers would be required to retain about their users, the Internet Safety Act gives the attorney general broad discretion in drafting regulations. At minimum, the proposal says, user names, physical addresses, Internet Protocol addresses and subscribers' phone numbers must be retained.

That generous wording could permit Gonzales to order Internet providers to retain records of e-mail correspondents, Web pages visited, and even the contents of communications.

[The NSA must be drooling over this one]

Democracy Now! interview with the author of the article Declan McCullagh

Bush Caught in a Lie About the 9/11 WTC Attacks

For the full explanation click here

President Bush has stated on two occasions that he saw a plane hit WTC 1:
Occasion 1: President Bush Holds Town Hall Meeting
CNN, Aired December 4, 2001
RealMedia video download of comment

"And I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on, and I use to fly myself..."

Occasion 2: President Holds Town Hall Forum on Economy in California
whitehouse.gov, January 5, 2002
WMA download of comment

"I was sitting there, and my Chief of Staff -- well, first of all, when we walked into the classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building. There was a TV set on..."

There is a problem with the above statements. There was no live video coverage of the first plane hitting the tower. There couldn't be. Video of the first plane hitting the tower did not surface until AFTER the second plane had hit.

This is confirmed by Booker Elementary School Principal Gwen Rigell in this Propaganda Matrix posting:

I had the opportunity to talk with Principal Gwen Rigell of Booker Elementary school for about twenty minutes. ... I asked her if in fact the President had been watching the events of 9-11 unfold on TV before he went into that classroom and she told me "Absolutely not". There was no TV in the corridor or anywhere near that classroom.

US Army Electronic Proving Ground @ Fort Huachuca, AZ

Link to a Google Maps image of who knows what in AZ that is part of the EPG

Who We Are:

We are the Army's Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) Developmental Tester.

What We Do:

Our mission is to plan, conduct, and analyze the results of Technical Tests for C4I systems; Signal Intelligence, and Electronic Combat (EC)/Electronic Warfare (EW) equipment. In addition to conducting developmental tests, we support the Army operational test community in the conduct of operational tests, user tests, and experiments. Our C4I expertise allows us to support customers in the joint and training communities as well. We are experts in distributed systems of systems testing.

Website of the Electronic Proving Ground

20-Year-Old High-Temperature Superconductivity Theory Verified

A French-German team of experimental scientists, led by Philippe Bourges of the Commissariat а l'Energie Atomique, France, reports that it has verified the central prediction of a theory on high-temperature superconductivity developed by Chandra Varma, distinguished professor of physics at UC Riverside. The verification ultimately could assist in the fabrication of materials that are superconducting at room temperature and help settle a contentious, international debate on the fundamental physics of superconductivity and emergent states of matter.

Varma's initial theory, which he proposed in 1989 when he was at Bell Laboratories, stated the radical idea that high temperature superconductivity and related phenomena occur in certain materials because quantum-mechanical fluctuations in these materials increase as temperature decreases. Usually such fluctuations, which determine the properties of all matter in the universe, decrease as temperature decreases.

Varma's theory did not explain the nature of the fluctuations; he accomplished this in a theory he proposed in 1996, while still at Bell Labs, in which he noted that in copper oxide materials, also known as cuprates, superconductivity is associated with the formation of a new state of matter in which electric current loops form spontaneously, going from copper to oxygen atoms and back to copper. His theory concluded that the quantum-mechanical fluctuations are the fluctuations of these current loops. Physicists consider these fluctuations in the current loops to be fluctuations of time.

5.5 Ton Cocain Bust Reveals New Details of 9/11 Attack

A MadCowMorningNews investigation into the ownership of the DC9 airliner caught carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine in Mexico last month has uncovered explosive new details about some of the many lingering mysteries still surrounding the 9.11 attack.

Link to the article

Background on the cocaine bust

Wikipedia entry on the plane

From the waynemadsenreport:

May 10, 2006 -- WMR reported on April 21 on a major cocaine shipment, using a CIA proprietary aircraft, that landed in Mexico en route from Caracas, Venezuela with 5.5 tons of cocaine on board. The pilot was reported to have "escaped" from Mexican police. U.S. and foreign neo-con propaganda organs immediately tried to link the aircraft, a DC-9 that was sold to unknown persons in Venezuela by a Clearwater, Florida-based firm called Royal Sons, LLC, to Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez and Colombia's FARC guerrillas. The plane was painted in the colors and bore an insignia similar to those used by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The insignia identified the aircraft as "Sky Way Aircraft."

It has now been revealed by knowledgeable sources that Sky Way is affiliated with an off-shore company called DuPont Fund 57289, Inc., headed by a "Richard DuPont, Jr.," who likely does not exist. DuPont Fund is not affiliated with the DuPont business group or any subsidiaries of the multinational chemical firm. DuPont Fund is headquartered at Apartado 10455-1000 in San Jose, Costa Rica. This is the same address used by Red Sea Management, Ltd., an off-shore company and trust facilitator that is linked to another address -- 76 Dean Street in Belize City, Belize, which is apparently a post office box drop. Red Sea has a Cyprus-based subsidiary called Dark Sea Consultants that specializes in on-line gambling operations in the Middle East and East Asia. WMR sources report that this operation, involving cocaine smuggling and on-line gambling, is linked to the illegal operations of convicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, members of Russian-Israeli-Ukrainian crime syndicates, and top Republican elected officials, including Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Texas Rep. Tom DeLay, and others who benefited from the infusion of drug and gambling proceeds into their political war chests, as well as the financing of pay-offs and bribes to election officials in Florida, Ohio

Senate OKs bill cutting $70 billion in taxes

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, noted that Republicans decided to drop a provision allowing Americans to deduct up to $4,000 in college-tuition costs worth $4.5 billion.

Instead, Schumer pointed out, Republicans included a tax break for oil companies worth $4.3 billion despite the industry's record profits.

"The choice is stark and clear -- Big Oil or middle-class families," Schumer said. "The Republican Congress chose Big Oil, and that's why voters want change."

Iraq War Images Uncensored

WARNING: Extremely Graphic Depictions of War

This collection of photos is the most complete we are aware of. Many of them are being made public here for the first time. Many of them are extremely gruesome. These must not be censored, because this is what a war really looks like, and that is something citizens need to see in order to cast informed ballots and lobby our representatives for or against war.

New Presidential Memorandum Permits Intelligence Director To Authorize Telcos To Lie Without Violating Securities Law

thinkprogress has another take on the May 5th Presidential Memorandum discussed on this blog on May 14th.

May 14th post: Bush gives the Director of National Intelligence Financial Directive Authority

Why did phone-records bill 'disappear'?

Might there be a connection between the apparent "disappearance" of legislation that would protect private telephone records and news that two ABC television reporters have been told that their cell-phone calling patterns are being monitored by the government.

It's only two dots, but …

On Friday, U.S. Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., was asking pointed questions in a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert regarding the "mysterious disappearance" earlier this month of legislation that would stop the sale of private telephone records over the Internet. The bill, which had cleared the Energy and Commerce Committee with unanimous bipartisan support, had been slated for an airing before the full House May 2.

Us Troops Prepared To Attack Iran Bush Said To Be Seeking “Persian Gulf Incident”

In January 2006, a major military base located in the western United States received voice instructions from National Command Authority (NCA) to get their logistics train underway and train up their troops for desert warfare.

The current National Command Authority is comprised of a Commander-In-Chief who deserted his post during the Vietnam War, and a Secretary of Defense who, despite never having donned a uniform in defense of his country, did succeed in cashiering and countermanding enough combat-experienced generals to engineer the current debacle in Iraq.

“Which desert?” the commander wanted to know.

“You don’t need to know,” he was told by the NCA.

Tonkin Gulf Lie Launched Vietnam War

Total of our unfunded liabilities is staggering

A major supply of bedtime reading became available on May 1 — the annual trustees' reports on Social Security and Medicare.

Clocking in at 226 and 219 pages, respectively, the reports guarantee deep sleep. They also may cause nightmares among those who dare to think about what they read.

The figures in the reports are so beyond everyday experience that few will grasp their meaning. The trustees tell a nation that lives month to month on just-in-time financing that program costs will exceed revenue in 2017, more than 132 payments from now. They also tell us the fabled Social Security trust fund will be exhausted in 2040. That may be a year earlier than last year's report, but face it: It's 34 television seasons from now. The numbers, page after page, are nearly inconceivable.

IMF acts to avoid markets meltdown

The International Monetary Fund is in behind-the-scenes talks with the US, China and other major powers to arrange a series of top-level meetings about tackling imbalances in the global economy, as the dollar sell-off reverberates through financial markets.

Amid tumultuous trading, which sent the dollar to its lowest level in a year against the euro in late trading on Friday and gave the FTSE its worst day for three years, the IMF was working privately to exercise its new powers to bring decision-makers together.

At the IMF's Spring Meetings last month, its managing director, Rodrigo de Rato, was handed new responsibilities to carry out 'multilateral surveillance', assembling groups of relevant countries to discuss critical issues in the global economy. With the long-predicted dollar bear market sending ripples throughout the world, the IMF is keen to use its powers as soon as possible.

Analysts believe the weakening of the dollar is the beginning of a long-awaited readjustment in the global economy. After the Federal Reserve appeared to hint last week that it could pause in its series of interest rate rises, attention in the markets switched to the weaknesses of the US economy.

David Bloom, currency strategist at HSBC, described the switch of focus as a 'regime change'. 'I'm saying don't use the philosophical methodology you used last year: chuck it away. The market has wholesale changed the way it looks at the world,' he said, predicting that the euro could rise to $1.40 over the next 12 months, from its current level close to $1.29.

The Bush Economy

MASS MURDER WAITING TO HAPPEN? Where is Janet Reno when you need her?

AS police and prosecutors arrived to investigate Warren Jeffs' 10,000-strong enclave in Colorado City in Arizona this week, some residents were seen hurriedly moving out.

When state Attorney General Terry Goddard tried to serve subpoenas at the city's town hall, he found it deserted.

'People weren't exactly waiting for us with open arms in the front yard,' Mr Goddard told the Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City.

'There's an awful lot of fences that have been built.'

Law enforcement officers described the atmosphere in the isolated town, a stronghold of Jeffs' Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), as tense.

Background on Jeffs

Did Echelon Overlook Terrorist Threat?

9/13/2001

The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) engaged the so-called Echelon communications monitoring network, following on warnings of possible terrorist attacks, as long as three months ago, a German publication has reported.

Western and Middle East intelligence services received warnings more than six months ago that terrorists were planning attacks using hijacked airplanes against "prominent symbols of American and Israeli culture" in the United States and elsewhere, Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) says in its Wednesday edition, citing "information available to this newspaper."

Warnings had circulated among U.S., Israeli, and apparently also U.K. secret services, the report says. It cites sources in German security agencies. Israeli authorities also were following indications that Arab extremists planned to hijack Western planes within Europe and divert them toward Tel Aviv and other coastal cities, the reports say.

Vast resource on Echelon

Q — If everyone else is doing it then why isn’t Australia using its SigInt facilities to spy on her neighbours to obtain useful commercial intelligence for Australian companies?

Australia’s intelligence gathering is still committed to servicing the needs of government, not business.

Instituted in 1947 under the Truman administration, Echelon was part of a Cold War strategy to keep track of various aspects of international skullduggery. Echelon is described as a global surveillance network that intercepts and processes the world's communications and distributes it to the US primary partners, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

For more info leave a comment with your email address.

IBM to shatter Moore’s law with 300GHz Crystal Computer

IBM is about to unveil a revolutionary form of computing that could tranform the World of information. It is known as the Crystal Computer and it is a way to use pulses of light to transfer and store digital information as quantum bits. A processor so fast it is capable of running the eqivilatent of 300GHz, or about 400 Gflop/sec, that’s about 100 times faster than today’s fastest consumer microprocessors.

Light's Most Exotic Trick Yet: So Fast it Goes ... Backwards?

In the past few years, scientists have found ways to make light go both faster and slower than its usual speed limit, but now researchers at the University of Rochester have published a paper today in Science on how they've gone one step further: pushing light into reverse. As if to defy common sense, the backward-moving pulse of light travels faster than light. Confused? You're not alone.

"It's weird stuff," says Robert Boyd, the M. Parker Givens Professor of Optics at the University of Rochester. "We sent a pulse through an optical fiber, and before its peak even entered the fiber, it was exiting the other end. Through experiments we were able to see that the pulse inside the fiber was actually moving backward, linking the input and output pulses."

"Backward light" animation

Heightened activity at North Korean nuclear plant

New satellite photographs show intensified activity at a North Korean nuclear plant suspected of producing weapons-grade plutonium, Yonhap news agency said Sunday.

The Yongbyon site is at the center of a standoff over the Stalinist state's nuclear ambitions because its five-megawatt reactor is suspected of producing plutonium for nuclear weapons.
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But Iran is the problem....

Controversial Experimental Weather Modification Bill in US Congress

U.S. Senate Bill 517 and U.S. House Bill 2995, a bill that would allow experimental weather modification by artificial methods and implement a national weather modification policy, does not include agriculture or public oversight, is on the “fast track” to be passed in 2006.

This bill is designed to implement experimental weather modification. The appointed Board of Directors established by this bill does not include any agricultural, water, EPA, or public representatives, and has no provisions for Congressional, State, County, or public oversight of their actions or expenditures.

Link to the Senate Bill 517

Link to the House Bill 2995

Big fight over tiny owl

Conservation groups have gone to court to try to stop the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from removing a tiny owl from the endangered species list.

The cactus ferruginous pygmy owl -- which is only about 6 inches long and weighs less than 3 ounces -- has been at the center of a battle between environmentalists and developers for years.

It is scheduled to officially be taken off the list Monday.

There are only 13 known pygmy owls left in Arizona, said Jenny Neeley of the Defenders of Wildlife. Neeley said the owl, which has been listed as endangered since 1997, will face imminent extinction if the protection is removed.

Developers and landowners have opposed endangered status for the bird because of its economic impact. Its presence delayed numerous developments and road projects, and also blocked construction of a high school northwest of Tucson.

Note that Bush has nomintated William Wehrum to head the EPA...I promise you he dosen't give a f#@% about the pygmy owl.

Clearwater Man Puts Technology To Work: The solution to our problem?

HyTech (nickname for Hydrogen Technology Applications Inc) claims a process of converting H20 to HHO, producing a gas that combines the atomic power of hydrogen with the chemical stability of water. Tightly related to Brown's Gas technology.

2005 Tampa Tribune article

Aquygen Gas from the company website

Video on the technology use in vehicles

NASA tracks cataclysmic asteroid

Mark your calendar for Sunday, April 13, 2036. That's when a 1,000-foot-wide asteroid named Apophis could hit the Earth with enough force to obliterate a small state.

The odds of a collision are 1-in-6,250. But while that's a long shot at the racetrack, the stakes are too high for astronomers to ignore.

For now, Apophis represents the most imminent threat from the worst type of natural disaster known, one reason NASA is spending millions to detect the threat from this and other asteroids.

A direct hit on an urban area could unleash more destruction than Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 Asian tsunami and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake combined. The blast would equal 880 million tons of TNT or 65,000 times the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Objects this size are thought to hit Earth about once every 1,000 years, and, according to recent estimates, the risk of dying from a renegade space rock is comparable to the hazards posed by tornadoes and snakebites. Those kind of statistics have moved the once-far-fetched topic of killer asteroids from Hollywood movie sets to the halls of Congress.

???? The New World Order's Letter To Every Citizen Of The World Warning Resistance Is Futile ????

By Greg Szymanski

The New World Order agenda is well-known among alternative news junkies.

But to most Americans the name tag put on the sinister and diabolical group of thugs trying to take over the world means nothing.

It means absolutely nothing because most people remain in the dark, having fallen victim to the powerful propaganda machine sweeping through the world like an out of control freight train.

For those who remain uninformed, the following is a letter to get you up to speed from an Illuminati propagandist about the coming One World Order:

Budget Cut Would Shutter EPA Libraries

Proposed budget cuts could cripple a nationwide system of Environmental Protection Agency libraries that government researchers and others depend on for hard-to-find technical information, library advocates say.

The $2 million cut sought by the White House would reduce the 35-year-old EPA Library Network's budget by 80 percent and force many of its 10 regional libraries to close, according to the advocates and internal agency documents.

That, in turn, would dramatically reduce access to certain EPA reports, guidance and technical documents that are used by the agency's scientific and enforcement staff as well as private businesses and citizens, they say.

"They are moving ahead very quickly on very substantive cuts to their library program," said Patrice McDermott, deputy director of the American Library Association's Office of Government Relations. "They really don't have a good plan for continuing to provide access for the public, and even their own researchers and scientists, to the information."

March 26 post on EPA library closings

Italian Pay-off From Niger Forgery?

What did the Italian government, under then-Prime Minister Berlusconi, get in return for providing Bush with a smoking gun to attack Iraq?

Italian journalists and parliamentary investigators are hot on the trail of how pre-Iraq War Italian forged documents were delivered to the White House alleging that Saddam Hussein had obtained yellowcake uranium ore from Niger.

New links implicating Italian companies and individuals with then-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi now raise the question of whether Berlusconi received a payback as part of the deal -- namely, a Pentagon contract to build the U.S. president's special fleet of helicopters.

Federal Source to ABC News: We Know Who You're Calling

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," tAhe source told us in an in-person conversation.

Video :Gen. Michael Hayden refused to answer question about spying on political enemies at National Press Club.

At a public appearance, Bush's pointman in the Office of National Intelligence was asked if the NSA was wiretapping Bush's political enemies. When Hayden dodged the question, the questioner repeated, "No, I asked, are you targeting us and people who politically oppose the Bush government, the Bush administration? Not a fishing net, but are you targeting specifically political opponents of the Bush administration?" Hayden looked at the questioner, and after a silence called on a different questioner.

NSA Whistleblower To Expose More Unlawful Activity: ‘People…Are Going To Be Shocked’

Thanks to thinkprogress:

CongressDaily reports that former NSA staffer Russell Tice will testify to the Senate Armed Services Committee next week that not only do employees at the agency believe the activities they are being asked to perform are unlawful, but that what has been disclosed so far is only the tip of the iceberg. Tice will tell Congress that former NSA head Gen. Michael Hayden, Bush’s nominee to be the next CIA director, oversaw more illegal activity that has yet to be disclosed:

A former intelligence officer for the National Security Agency said Thursday he plans to tell Senate staffers next week that unlawful activity occurred at the agency under the supervision of Gen. Michael Hayden beyond what has been publicly reported, while hinting that it might have involved the illegal use of space-based satellites and systems to spy on U.S. citizens. …

[Tice] said he plans to tell the committee staffers the NSA conducted illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of U.S. citizens while he was there with the knowledge of Hayden. … “I think the people I talk to next week are going to be shocked when I tell them what I have to tell them. It’s pretty hard to believe,” Tice said. “I hope that they’ll clean up the abuses and have some oversight into these programs, which doesn’t exist right now.” …

Tice said his information is different from the Terrorist Surveillance Program that Bush acknowledged in December and from news accounts this week that the NSA has been secretly collecting phone call records of millions of Americans. “It’s an angle that you haven’t heard about yet,” he said. … He would not discuss with a reporter the details of his allegations, saying doing so would compromise classified information and put him at risk of going to jail. He said he “will not confirm or deny” if his allegations involve the illegal use of space systems and satellites.

Tice has a history for blowing the whistle on serious misconduct. He was one of the sources that revealed the administration’s warrantless domestic spying program to the New York Times.
_________________________________

William Arkin's Early Warning blog (a must read) has an excellent review of the situation

Although there is no evidence that the harvesting programs have been involved in illegal activity or have been abused to reach into the lives of innocent Americans, their sheer scope, the number of "transactions" being tracked, raises questions as to whether an all-seeing domestic surveillance system isn't slowly being established, one that in just a few years time will be able to reveal the interactions of any targeted individual in near real time.
_________________________________

If you wonder whether Tice can be trusted, consider this: He has worked as an intelligence analyst for the U.S. Air Force, Office of Naval Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency. He has been trusted with some of America's closely held secrets, but once he questioned and made some noise his security clearance was revoked and ended up cleaning furniture at the NSA. Read his Wikipedia entry here.

Turd Blossom to be indicted!!! Bush will have no idea what to do...

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald spent more than half a day Friday at the offices of Patton Boggs, the law firm representing Karl Rove.

During the course of that meeting, Fitzgerald served attorneys for former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove with an indictment charging the embattled White House official with perjury and lying to investigators related to his role in the CIA leak case, and instructed one of the attorneys to tell Rove that he has 24 business hours to get his affairs in order, high level sources with direct knowledge of the meeting said Saturday morning.

As TruthOut reported Friday evening, Rove told President Bush and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten, as well as a few other high level administration officials, that he will be indicted in the CIA leak case and will immediately resign his White House job when the special counsel publicly announces the charges against him, according to sources.

A New Gesture From Iran?

The White House has brushed aside a new letter from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to President Bush that was designed, according to a senior Iranian official, to offer "new ways for getting out of the current, fragile international situation," a reference to the impasse between the two countries over Iran's alleged drive to develop nuclear weapons.

The letter, a 17-page discourse on everything from religion to history and politics, was dismissed by Administration officials as a last-minute attempt by Iran to divide members of the U.N. Security Council, who are considering whether to impose sanctions on Iran. "This letter is not the place that one would find an opening to engage on the nuclear issue or anything of the sort," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

But a second document, written by a top Iranian official and given to TIME just before Ahmadinejad's letter was made public, offers a more concrete foundation for negotiations to resolve the nuclear impasse. In the two-page memorandum, intended for publication in the West, Hassan Rohani,representative of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, on the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and Iran's former top nuclear negotiator, defends Iran's nuclear posture, decries American bullying, and puts forward a plan to remove the nuclear issue from the U.N. Security Council and return it to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, a long-standing Iranian goal.

The letter also offers some specific Iranian starting points for negotiation. Rohani said Iran would "consider ratifying the Additional Protocol, which provides for intrusive and snap inspections," and that it would also "address the question of preventing 'break-out'" — or abandonement of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

________________________________________

US Ignores Call for direct US-Iranian talks:

While the United States has no desire or intent to punish the Iranian people, they "should be aware that it is their regime that has put them in this place right now, where they are increasingly isolated from the rest of the world," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

"It is incumbent upon the Iranian regime to take steps to demonstrate that they are interested and committed to resolving this issue through diplomatic means," he added.

...

Well, what the hell are those letters? And the calls for direct talks?

Media hide truth: 9/11 was inside job

Last Saturday, former Bush administration official Morgan Reynolds drew an enthusiastic capacity crowd to the Wisconsin Historical Society auditorium. It is probably the first time in Historical Society history that a political talk has drawn a full house on a Saturday afternoon at the beginning of final exams.

Reynolds, the former director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis, and the ex-top economist for George W. Bush's Labor Department, charged the Bush administration with gross malfeasance, and proposed the prosecution of top administration officials.

Normally, if a prestigious UW alumnus and ex-Bush administration official were to come to the Wisconsin Historical Society to spill the beans about a Bush administration scandal, it would make the news. The local TV stations would cover it, and it would merit front page headlines in The Capital Times and Wisconsin State Journal.

Reynolds' indictment of the administration he worked for was a stunning, life-changing event for many of those who witnessed it. As the event's organizer, I have received dozens of e-mails about it from people who were deeply affected.

Despite the prestigious speaker and venue, and the gravity of the charges aired, for most Americans indeed most Madisonians the event never happened. Why? Because it was censored, subjected to a total media blackout. Not a word in the State Journal. Not a word in The Capital Times. Not a word on the local TV news. Not a word on local radio news. And, of course, not a word in the national media.

Why the blackout? Because Reynolds violated the ultimate U.S. media taboo. He charges the Bush administration with orchestrating the 9/11 attacks as a pretext for launching a preplanned "long war" in the Middle East, rolling back our civil liberties, and massively increasing military spending.

When a former Bush administration insider makes such charges, how can the media ignore them? Is Reynolds a lone crank? Hardly. A long list of prominent Americans have spoken out for 9/11 truth: Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Sen. Barbara Boxer, former head of the Star Wars program Col. Robert Bowman, ex-Reagan administration economics guru Paul Craig Roberts, progressive Jewish author-activist Rabbi Michael Lerner, former CIA official Ray McGovern, author-essayist Gore Vidal, and many other respected names from across the political spectrum have gone on the record for 9/11 truth.

Why Did the Trade Center Skyscrapers Collapse? by Morgan Reynolds

Wikipedia entry on Reynolds