US Envoy Writes of Israeli Threats
33 minutes ago
Monday, 28 September 2009
Sunday, 27 September 2009
Dash For Trash
FTSE RISE 'BASED ON FRAUD'
One of Scotland’s leading investors trashes rally as ‘fraud’ and warns it will harm investors wealth
Sunday Times
27th September 2009
The stock market rally is a “dash for trash” based on a “fraud” likely to harm investors’ wealth, according to one of Scotland’s leading investors.
Robin Angus, a director of the £200m Edinburgh-based Personal Assets Trust, said investors had been lulled into a false sense of security by £175 billion of “dishonest” money that has been pumped into the UK economy through the Bank of England’s quantitative easing programme.
Angus said: “Quantitative easing is a phrase which bears the same relationship to ‘printing money’ as ‘terminological inexactitude’ does to ‘lie’.
“It is a dishonest name for a dishonest activity. Some have even called it state-sponsored theft.
“It has temporarily made the financial markets drunk on hopes of an economic recovery, but I can’t see how such a recovery can possibly be anything other than faltering, fragile [and] fraudulent.
“Sometimes, [Ben] Bernanke, [Mervyn] King and their ilk seem like pushers of a miracle drug that can defer hangovers forever. The trouble is that we get hangovers for a good reason. If we didn’t get them, we might keep on drinking and drinking until we poisoned ourselves.”
Writing in the Personal Assets’ quarterly, Angus described the market rally, which has seen the FTSE 100 surge from a low point of 3,512 on March 3 to close at 5,082 on Friday, as “a dash for trash which is likely to go into sharp reverse at the first hint of bad news or expectations unfulfilled”.
Explaining the trust’s decision not to fully participate in the rally, Angus said: “To us, ‘danger’ means actually losing money, not failing to grab the last halfpenny in an overvalued equity market which might turn and tumble at any time.”
One of Scotland’s leading investors trashes rally as ‘fraud’ and warns it will harm investors wealth
Sunday Times
27th September 2009
The stock market rally is a “dash for trash” based on a “fraud” likely to harm investors’ wealth, according to one of Scotland’s leading investors.
Robin Angus, a director of the £200m Edinburgh-based Personal Assets Trust, said investors had been lulled into a false sense of security by £175 billion of “dishonest” money that has been pumped into the UK economy through the Bank of England’s quantitative easing programme.
Angus said: “Quantitative easing is a phrase which bears the same relationship to ‘printing money’ as ‘terminological inexactitude’ does to ‘lie’.
“It is a dishonest name for a dishonest activity. Some have even called it state-sponsored theft.
“It has temporarily made the financial markets drunk on hopes of an economic recovery, but I can’t see how such a recovery can possibly be anything other than faltering, fragile [and] fraudulent.
“Sometimes, [Ben] Bernanke, [Mervyn] King and their ilk seem like pushers of a miracle drug that can defer hangovers forever. The trouble is that we get hangovers for a good reason. If we didn’t get them, we might keep on drinking and drinking until we poisoned ourselves.”
Writing in the Personal Assets’ quarterly, Angus described the market rally, which has seen the FTSE 100 surge from a low point of 3,512 on March 3 to close at 5,082 on Friday, as “a dash for trash which is likely to go into sharp reverse at the first hint of bad news or expectations unfulfilled”.
Explaining the trust’s decision not to fully participate in the rally, Angus said: “To us, ‘danger’ means actually losing money, not failing to grab the last halfpenny in an overvalued equity market which might turn and tumble at any time.”
Forecast: A Cooling Trend On Climate Change
Forecast: A cooling trend on climate change
By Dr. Stephen Murgatroyd
24th September 2009
Columnist
Troy Media Corporation
The United Nations is pulling out the “big guns” in an attempt to create a climate of urgency about climate change so that the meeting of over one hundred world leaders in Copenhagen some 75 days from now can produce an agreement to replace to failed Kyoto accord.
Nature, however, is not co-operating. Average global temperature is rising at 1.40C per century, not the 3.90C indicated by the IPPC models. We are in the seventh year of global cooling. Sea levels, despite messages to the contrary, are rising at normal rates – eight inches per century – much less than the IPPC models suggested. There has been no significant rise in sea levels over the last four years. Arctic sea ice, currently in its summer state, is more extensive in 2009 than it was in 2007 and 2008. Antarctic sea ice is at record high. Global sea ice shows relative stability over the last thirty years. While CO2 levels are rising, the rate of growth has slowed considerably – the IPPC suggested that CO2 levels would grow at around 468 parts per million (ppm) per century, when in fact the observed growth in CO2 is 204 ppm per century – less than half of the IPPC model suggestion.
Hurricane activity, which does not appear to be connected to CO2 emissions, is at the lowest level since satellite monitoring and observation began in 1979. In the Northern Hemisphere, hurricane activity is currently one of the quietest in a decade. Reefs off the Keppel Islands on Australia's Great Barrier Reef have shown rapid recovery of coral dominance, despite repeated coral bleaching events that many ascribe to CO2-induced global warming. All in all, nature does not seem to be co-operating with Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon and the climate change negotiators.
Neither is China. Despite high expectations that they would enter into a global agreement which involves a commitment to curb green house gas emission by an agreed targeted amount, China indicated that they see this issue as a national one, requiring balance between China’s need to continue rapid development and manage its environmental conditions. It will not be told what to do by the international community. Neither will India.
The United States is ambivalent. While President Barack Obama clearly sees climate change as a clear and present danger, legislatures are deeply divided about the appropriate response. The House of Representatives has approved a bill that provides for a cap and trade for carbon credits, the free allocation of a large number of carbon credits to polluting companies and regulation of vehicle emissions. The Senate, however, is delaying consideration of the issue and is not likely to pass any legislation before Copenhagen.
The current US proposals will not have any substantial impact on either carbon emissions in the US or on global temperature. They will, however, have an impact on the economy – higher energy prices, changes in transportation systems and in consumer behaviour. They may also help to stimulate the creation of green jobs, but at the expense of jobs in other sectors. What will certainly happen is that the emerging financial services (carbon trading, carbon offsets) and climate research will expand and grow. The carbon trading industry is currently worth $100 billion worldwide and research on climate change is a $7 billion industry worldwide.
Most committed are the member states of the European Union. Collectively, they have determined emissions targeted, new transportation standards and have been operating a cap and trade system for a number of years. They are also now considering the scale of technology transfer and financial aid to developing countries. They have also enacted, through EU regulation, constraints on consumer behaviour – making it illegal to sell certain kinds of light bulbs, creating incentives for smart energy purchases and smart grid technologies.
It will be a long meeting in Copenhagen and it looks unlikely that it will be able to conclude the kind of comprehensive agreement Ban Ki Moon is seeking – the fractures between the parties and the challenges of securing agreed targets are likely to be significant.
The G8 summit showed that this was the case with just eight nations – there will be over one hundred in Copenhagen.
Some climate change scientists are becoming concerned that the momentum for Copenhagen is already fading and that the possibility of agreement is looking more unlikely than it was at the beginning of the year. They are beginning to use science to argue the polemics of the case rather than just draw attention to the science – the lines between scientific inquiry and political action are becoming blurred.
It will be an interesting time between now and December, with the voices of concern already becoming shrill. What is needed are some calm, reflective and realistic minds focused on what is possible and the consequences of the possible actions for both the environment and the economy. They may well be in short supply and will almost certainly find themselves castigated for not being committed to environmentally-sound change or as “deniers” – but we need such objective analysts to provide support for the general public in their attempts to assess the work of their governments.
By Dr. Stephen Murgatroyd
24th September 2009
Columnist
Troy Media Corporation
The United Nations is pulling out the “big guns” in an attempt to create a climate of urgency about climate change so that the meeting of over one hundred world leaders in Copenhagen some 75 days from now can produce an agreement to replace to failed Kyoto accord.
Nature, however, is not co-operating. Average global temperature is rising at 1.40C per century, not the 3.90C indicated by the IPPC models. We are in the seventh year of global cooling. Sea levels, despite messages to the contrary, are rising at normal rates – eight inches per century – much less than the IPPC models suggested. There has been no significant rise in sea levels over the last four years. Arctic sea ice, currently in its summer state, is more extensive in 2009 than it was in 2007 and 2008. Antarctic sea ice is at record high. Global sea ice shows relative stability over the last thirty years. While CO2 levels are rising, the rate of growth has slowed considerably – the IPPC suggested that CO2 levels would grow at around 468 parts per million (ppm) per century, when in fact the observed growth in CO2 is 204 ppm per century – less than half of the IPPC model suggestion.
Hurricane activity, which does not appear to be connected to CO2 emissions, is at the lowest level since satellite monitoring and observation began in 1979. In the Northern Hemisphere, hurricane activity is currently one of the quietest in a decade. Reefs off the Keppel Islands on Australia's Great Barrier Reef have shown rapid recovery of coral dominance, despite repeated coral bleaching events that many ascribe to CO2-induced global warming. All in all, nature does not seem to be co-operating with Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon and the climate change negotiators.
Neither is China. Despite high expectations that they would enter into a global agreement which involves a commitment to curb green house gas emission by an agreed targeted amount, China indicated that they see this issue as a national one, requiring balance between China’s need to continue rapid development and manage its environmental conditions. It will not be told what to do by the international community. Neither will India.
The United States is ambivalent. While President Barack Obama clearly sees climate change as a clear and present danger, legislatures are deeply divided about the appropriate response. The House of Representatives has approved a bill that provides for a cap and trade for carbon credits, the free allocation of a large number of carbon credits to polluting companies and regulation of vehicle emissions. The Senate, however, is delaying consideration of the issue and is not likely to pass any legislation before Copenhagen.
The current US proposals will not have any substantial impact on either carbon emissions in the US or on global temperature. They will, however, have an impact on the economy – higher energy prices, changes in transportation systems and in consumer behaviour. They may also help to stimulate the creation of green jobs, but at the expense of jobs in other sectors. What will certainly happen is that the emerging financial services (carbon trading, carbon offsets) and climate research will expand and grow. The carbon trading industry is currently worth $100 billion worldwide and research on climate change is a $7 billion industry worldwide.
Most committed are the member states of the European Union. Collectively, they have determined emissions targeted, new transportation standards and have been operating a cap and trade system for a number of years. They are also now considering the scale of technology transfer and financial aid to developing countries. They have also enacted, through EU regulation, constraints on consumer behaviour – making it illegal to sell certain kinds of light bulbs, creating incentives for smart energy purchases and smart grid technologies.
It will be a long meeting in Copenhagen and it looks unlikely that it will be able to conclude the kind of comprehensive agreement Ban Ki Moon is seeking – the fractures between the parties and the challenges of securing agreed targets are likely to be significant.
The G8 summit showed that this was the case with just eight nations – there will be over one hundred in Copenhagen.
Some climate change scientists are becoming concerned that the momentum for Copenhagen is already fading and that the possibility of agreement is looking more unlikely than it was at the beginning of the year. They are beginning to use science to argue the polemics of the case rather than just draw attention to the science – the lines between scientific inquiry and political action are becoming blurred.
It will be an interesting time between now and December, with the voices of concern already becoming shrill. What is needed are some calm, reflective and realistic minds focused on what is possible and the consequences of the possible actions for both the environment and the economy. They may well be in short supply and will almost certainly find themselves castigated for not being committed to environmentally-sound change or as “deniers” – but we need such objective analysts to provide support for the general public in their attempts to assess the work of their governments.
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
Zbig Brzezinski: Obama Administration Should Tell Israel U.S. Will Attack Israeli Jets if They Try to Attack Iran
Zbig Brzezinski: Obama Administration Should Tell Israel U.S. Will Attack Israeli Jets if They Try to Attack Iran
September 20, 2009 11:10 AM
The national security adviser for former President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, gave an interview to The Daily Beast in which he suggested President Obama should make it clear to Israel that if they attempt to attack Iran's nuclear weapons sites the U.S. Air Force will stop them.
"We are not exactly impotent little babies," Brzezinski said. "They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? ... We have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a 'Liberty' in reverse."
The USS Liberty was a U.S. Navy technical research ship that the Israeli Air Force mistakenly attacked during the Six Day War in 1967.
Brzezinski endorsed then-Sen. Obama's presidential campaign in August 2007, which at the time was portrayed in the media as a boost to Obama's foreign policy cred. The Washington Post reported: "Barack Obama, combating the perception that he is too young and inexperienced to handle a dangerous world, got a boost yesterday from a paragon of foreign policy eminence, Zbigniew Brzezinski."
Brzezinski was never an official campaign adviser, but Republicans jumped on the endorsement to push the meme that Obama wouldn't be a friend to Israel, as Brzezinski's views of Israel attracted criticism from some quarters in the American Jewish community.
“Brzezinski is not an adviser to the campaign,” former Ambassador Dennis Ross, then a senior adviser on Middle East affairs to the Obama campaign, said at the time. “There is a lot of disinformation that is being pushed, but he is not an adviser to the campaign. Brzezinski came out and supported Obama early because of the war in Iraq. A year or so ago they talked a couple of times. That’s the extent of it, and Sen. Obama has made it clear that on other Middle Eastern issues, Brzezinski is not who he looks to. They don’t have the same views.”
Brzezinski plays no role in the Obama administration; the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Brzezinski's comments come within the same week that the White House distanced itself from comments made by former President Carter, who said he thinks "an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man."
-jpt
UPDATE: Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev told CNN that Israeli President Shimon Peres assured him that Israel would not attack Iran.
"This is the worst thing that one can imagine," Medvedev said. "What would happen afterwards? A humanitarian catastrophe, a huge number of refugees. And Iran would want revenge, and not only over Israel, but over other countries as well. The events in the region would become completely unpredictable. I think the scope of such a disaster would not be comparable to anything. Therefore, before taking the decision to launch any attacks, you need to think the situation through. It would be the most irrational way to deal with the situation. But my Israeli colleagues told me they do not plan to do that. And I trust them.`
ABC News
September 20, 2009 11:10 AM
The national security adviser for former President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, gave an interview to The Daily Beast in which he suggested President Obama should make it clear to Israel that if they attempt to attack Iran's nuclear weapons sites the U.S. Air Force will stop them.
"We are not exactly impotent little babies," Brzezinski said. "They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? ... We have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a 'Liberty' in reverse."
The USS Liberty was a U.S. Navy technical research ship that the Israeli Air Force mistakenly attacked during the Six Day War in 1967.
Brzezinski endorsed then-Sen. Obama's presidential campaign in August 2007, which at the time was portrayed in the media as a boost to Obama's foreign policy cred. The Washington Post reported: "Barack Obama, combating the perception that he is too young and inexperienced to handle a dangerous world, got a boost yesterday from a paragon of foreign policy eminence, Zbigniew Brzezinski."
Brzezinski was never an official campaign adviser, but Republicans jumped on the endorsement to push the meme that Obama wouldn't be a friend to Israel, as Brzezinski's views of Israel attracted criticism from some quarters in the American Jewish community.
“Brzezinski is not an adviser to the campaign,” former Ambassador Dennis Ross, then a senior adviser on Middle East affairs to the Obama campaign, said at the time. “There is a lot of disinformation that is being pushed, but he is not an adviser to the campaign. Brzezinski came out and supported Obama early because of the war in Iraq. A year or so ago they talked a couple of times. That’s the extent of it, and Sen. Obama has made it clear that on other Middle Eastern issues, Brzezinski is not who he looks to. They don’t have the same views.”
Brzezinski plays no role in the Obama administration; the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Brzezinski's comments come within the same week that the White House distanced itself from comments made by former President Carter, who said he thinks "an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man."
-jpt
UPDATE: Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev told CNN that Israeli President Shimon Peres assured him that Israel would not attack Iran.
"This is the worst thing that one can imagine," Medvedev said. "What would happen afterwards? A humanitarian catastrophe, a huge number of refugees. And Iran would want revenge, and not only over Israel, but over other countries as well. The events in the region would become completely unpredictable. I think the scope of such a disaster would not be comparable to anything. Therefore, before taking the decision to launch any attacks, you need to think the situation through. It would be the most irrational way to deal with the situation. But my Israeli colleagues told me they do not plan to do that. And I trust them.`
ABC News
Sunday, 20 September 2009
The Twilight Of The Warlords
Cailean Bochanan
Glasgow, 19th September, 2009
He wonder’d to hear me talk of such chargeable and extensive Wars; that certainly we must be a quarrelsome People, or live among very bad Neighbours, and that our Generals must needs be richer than our Kings. He asked what Business we had out of our own Islands, unless upon the Score of Trade or Treaty, or to defend the Coasts with our Fleet.
Gulliver’s Travels- Jonathan Swift
The Western intelligentsia are striving to come to terms with the Afghan War. What is it about? What are we doing there?
You might think that the reasons for such a venture would be established before undertaking it. But no; we start wars then we try to establish the reasons for them. This can lead to amusing absurdities such as the Tories supporting the Iraq war but opposing the reasons given for starting it. Perhaps in years to come ‘What were the the causes of Afghan war?” could become a standard question for advanced certificate high school exams. When I was at school it was most typically “Discuss the causes of the Franco-Prussian war.” I had no idea what the causes were, but the point was I came up with something and got an “A” pass for my efforts if my memory serves me correctly. Perhaps I can now go on to crack this one; to do what “Boy” Milliband and the rest of the warmongers have failed to do; come up with a single credible explanation for this continued barbarity. But that sharpest of analysts M.K.Bhadrakumar has beaten me to it. He spotted this dead giveaway from new NATO chief Rasmussen:
“But NATO’s new secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen gave away the mood in Washington. He said, “The public discourse has started to go in the wrong direction … We must stay in Afghanistan as long as necessary, and we will stay as long as necessary. Let no one think that a run for the exits is an option. It is not.”
If Rasmussen is to be believed – and he spoke while actually on a visit to Washington on Wednesday – the NATO’s continuance in Afghanistan is an objective in itself.”
So, this is a war for NATO, for NATO as an instrument of war: it is a war for war itself.
Yet there are those who would demean this war seeing it as merely an attempt to control a gas pipeline, or a chance to do a bit more drug-running or gun-running. Or as part of a “War on Terror” with the chance to zap the caves where fanatics mix the deadly nano-thermite explosive they place in our buildings. But this is something more principled. If NATO was formed to defend the West against Communism, it has now become the clenched fist of the West, the Wild West, in defence of the principle of perpetual hegemony, of our right to dictate in perpetuity to the East and the South. This right is being challenged on a daily basis from all quarters to such an extent that it seems madness on our part to reassert our ascendancy. But Afghanistan is our answer, our way of saying that we’re not going quietly. Madness it is to be.
But can the West even keep its own act together or to put it in the language of the gutter press: Can the Hun be trusted to throw their lot in with us in this our moment of need? There are some encouraging signs the he can’t. Rasmussen’s revelatory comments above were a response to a Franco, German, British proposal to
“formulate a joint framework for our transition phase in Afghanistan … to set out expectations of ownership and the clear view to hand over responsibility step-by-step to the Afghans”.
A proposal which has obviously given rise to near total panic: someone’s trying to bring the war to an end.
Incidently, what, you may ask, are Britain doing there? On the one hand, we may just be us playing our usual perfidious role, staying close to our enemies and making sure this initiative comes to nothing. On the other hand, a split is clearly emerging at the highest level, highlighted by the resignation of Eric Joyce, a warmonger it is true but one with his ears close to the ground and who has the ear of the military. This is a more dramatic event than it has been made out to be. At the same time public opinion itself is straining to do its “duty” in supporting a war which is seemingly just for the hell of it and Brown would do well to be seen to be trying to wind it down.
There can be no doubting opposition to the war in Germany. The Left Party under Oscar Lafontaine are set to win a substantial vote on the basis of a call to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.
This brings us to the question of the anti-war movement in Britain and the USA. Much has been made of the fact that it has virtually disappeared with the coming (the first coming) of Obama. This is all true, but, certainly in Britain, it never amounted to much anyway. More disturbing than the absence of sustained opposition to this war ( something that should be happening on a daily basis and that everyone comes across, in order for it to merit the term “movement”) is the emergence of what looks like a traditional bout of sectarian infighting. Apparently we are to relive the struggles of the thirties with right and left fighting it out for control of the streets. Fighting ‘the Nazis’ is good for the credibility of our lacklustre leftists and good for New Labour too, judging by the intervention of John Denham. But New Labour are the driving force behind the New Imperialism and its barbarous wars; they are unabashed criminals: can a few nutters or bogus fascist outfits really make them look good? Britain thinks it can rerun WW2 forever and always come out as the good guys. So we’re all meant to join in this pageant of history and fight “the nazis”. Fight the nazis by all means: the nazis in the war cabinet, in the Pentagon, the mad-men who came up with the new nuclear doctrine, the torturers, the wedding bombers, the carpet bombers, the blitzkriegers, the destroyers of Fallujah, the hospital storm troopers, the ideologues of war without end, the proliferators of depleted uranium, the murderers of men, women and children, the framers of the innocent as terrorists in outrageous travesties of justice, the real terrorists themselves. These are the ones we must deal with if we are to have any future at all worth having.
L’Empire, c’est la Guerre
In the writings that he undertook in his struggle against the Whig takeover of Britian, Jonathan Swift was able to pinpoint the key elements of the emerging British imperial system. The first was perpetual war. The second a moneyed interest which benefitted from the corresponding indebtedness of the state of which they were the creditors. Following close behind was the class of militarists, gun runners and suppliers of mercenaries, a military-industrial complex which also enriched itself on the back of these wars. He also observed the illegal siphoning off of public monies to fund secret service activity or what we might now call shadow state or covert activities as admitted to by John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, before a House of Commons enquiry which in some ways prefigures the Iran-Contras affair( See ‘The Four Last Years of the Queen”). Later on, notably in “Gullivers Travels” he memorably satirises colonial exploitation.
These were the basic elements, but the greatest of these was war. All the others either facilitated war or grew from it.
All these elements are once again remarkably to the fore and once again war is at the heart of all. Would the dollar or the stock market be in question if the empires soldiers and mercenaries had prevailed? Would Chavez and Ahmadinejad be cocking-a-snoot at London and Washington were their forces not hopelessly bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan? And would Obama be withdrawing the provocative missile defence system if he didn’t need Russia to help him to go down in Afghanistan?
The system that Swift could see through in its “glorious” formative years is once more laid bare. In this inglorious twilight struggle the warlords are making their last doomed stand against a new world of peace and cooperation which strikes at the very heart of their being, a peace which is in our power to achieve if we want it badly enough.
http://inthesenewtimes.com/2009/09/19/the-twilight-of-the-warlords/#comment-6154
Glasgow, 19th September, 2009
He wonder’d to hear me talk of such chargeable and extensive Wars; that certainly we must be a quarrelsome People, or live among very bad Neighbours, and that our Generals must needs be richer than our Kings. He asked what Business we had out of our own Islands, unless upon the Score of Trade or Treaty, or to defend the Coasts with our Fleet.
Gulliver’s Travels- Jonathan Swift
The Western intelligentsia are striving to come to terms with the Afghan War. What is it about? What are we doing there?
You might think that the reasons for such a venture would be established before undertaking it. But no; we start wars then we try to establish the reasons for them. This can lead to amusing absurdities such as the Tories supporting the Iraq war but opposing the reasons given for starting it. Perhaps in years to come ‘What were the the causes of Afghan war?” could become a standard question for advanced certificate high school exams. When I was at school it was most typically “Discuss the causes of the Franco-Prussian war.” I had no idea what the causes were, but the point was I came up with something and got an “A” pass for my efforts if my memory serves me correctly. Perhaps I can now go on to crack this one; to do what “Boy” Milliband and the rest of the warmongers have failed to do; come up with a single credible explanation for this continued barbarity. But that sharpest of analysts M.K.Bhadrakumar has beaten me to it. He spotted this dead giveaway from new NATO chief Rasmussen:
“But NATO’s new secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen gave away the mood in Washington. He said, “The public discourse has started to go in the wrong direction … We must stay in Afghanistan as long as necessary, and we will stay as long as necessary. Let no one think that a run for the exits is an option. It is not.”
If Rasmussen is to be believed – and he spoke while actually on a visit to Washington on Wednesday – the NATO’s continuance in Afghanistan is an objective in itself.”
So, this is a war for NATO, for NATO as an instrument of war: it is a war for war itself.
Yet there are those who would demean this war seeing it as merely an attempt to control a gas pipeline, or a chance to do a bit more drug-running or gun-running. Or as part of a “War on Terror” with the chance to zap the caves where fanatics mix the deadly nano-thermite explosive they place in our buildings. But this is something more principled. If NATO was formed to defend the West against Communism, it has now become the clenched fist of the West, the Wild West, in defence of the principle of perpetual hegemony, of our right to dictate in perpetuity to the East and the South. This right is being challenged on a daily basis from all quarters to such an extent that it seems madness on our part to reassert our ascendancy. But Afghanistan is our answer, our way of saying that we’re not going quietly. Madness it is to be.
But can the West even keep its own act together or to put it in the language of the gutter press: Can the Hun be trusted to throw their lot in with us in this our moment of need? There are some encouraging signs the he can’t. Rasmussen’s revelatory comments above were a response to a Franco, German, British proposal to
“formulate a joint framework for our transition phase in Afghanistan … to set out expectations of ownership and the clear view to hand over responsibility step-by-step to the Afghans”.
A proposal which has obviously given rise to near total panic: someone’s trying to bring the war to an end.
Incidently, what, you may ask, are Britain doing there? On the one hand, we may just be us playing our usual perfidious role, staying close to our enemies and making sure this initiative comes to nothing. On the other hand, a split is clearly emerging at the highest level, highlighted by the resignation of Eric Joyce, a warmonger it is true but one with his ears close to the ground and who has the ear of the military. This is a more dramatic event than it has been made out to be. At the same time public opinion itself is straining to do its “duty” in supporting a war which is seemingly just for the hell of it and Brown would do well to be seen to be trying to wind it down.
There can be no doubting opposition to the war in Germany. The Left Party under Oscar Lafontaine are set to win a substantial vote on the basis of a call to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.
This brings us to the question of the anti-war movement in Britain and the USA. Much has been made of the fact that it has virtually disappeared with the coming (the first coming) of Obama. This is all true, but, certainly in Britain, it never amounted to much anyway. More disturbing than the absence of sustained opposition to this war ( something that should be happening on a daily basis and that everyone comes across, in order for it to merit the term “movement”) is the emergence of what looks like a traditional bout of sectarian infighting. Apparently we are to relive the struggles of the thirties with right and left fighting it out for control of the streets. Fighting ‘the Nazis’ is good for the credibility of our lacklustre leftists and good for New Labour too, judging by the intervention of John Denham. But New Labour are the driving force behind the New Imperialism and its barbarous wars; they are unabashed criminals: can a few nutters or bogus fascist outfits really make them look good? Britain thinks it can rerun WW2 forever and always come out as the good guys. So we’re all meant to join in this pageant of history and fight “the nazis”. Fight the nazis by all means: the nazis in the war cabinet, in the Pentagon, the mad-men who came up with the new nuclear doctrine, the torturers, the wedding bombers, the carpet bombers, the blitzkriegers, the destroyers of Fallujah, the hospital storm troopers, the ideologues of war without end, the proliferators of depleted uranium, the murderers of men, women and children, the framers of the innocent as terrorists in outrageous travesties of justice, the real terrorists themselves. These are the ones we must deal with if we are to have any future at all worth having.
L’Empire, c’est la Guerre
In the writings that he undertook in his struggle against the Whig takeover of Britian, Jonathan Swift was able to pinpoint the key elements of the emerging British imperial system. The first was perpetual war. The second a moneyed interest which benefitted from the corresponding indebtedness of the state of which they were the creditors. Following close behind was the class of militarists, gun runners and suppliers of mercenaries, a military-industrial complex which also enriched itself on the back of these wars. He also observed the illegal siphoning off of public monies to fund secret service activity or what we might now call shadow state or covert activities as admitted to by John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, before a House of Commons enquiry which in some ways prefigures the Iran-Contras affair( See ‘The Four Last Years of the Queen”). Later on, notably in “Gullivers Travels” he memorably satirises colonial exploitation.
These were the basic elements, but the greatest of these was war. All the others either facilitated war or grew from it.
All these elements are once again remarkably to the fore and once again war is at the heart of all. Would the dollar or the stock market be in question if the empires soldiers and mercenaries had prevailed? Would Chavez and Ahmadinejad be cocking-a-snoot at London and Washington were their forces not hopelessly bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan? And would Obama be withdrawing the provocative missile defence system if he didn’t need Russia to help him to go down in Afghanistan?
The system that Swift could see through in its “glorious” formative years is once more laid bare. In this inglorious twilight struggle the warlords are making their last doomed stand against a new world of peace and cooperation which strikes at the very heart of their being, a peace which is in our power to achieve if we want it badly enough.
http://inthesenewtimes.com/2009/09/19/the-twilight-of-the-warlords/#comment-6154
The War On Christianity Continues
Christian Nurse Ordered to Remove Confirmation Cross from her Neck after nearly 30 Years of Service
A Christian nurse from Exeter, with nearly 30 years of service, and just eight months to go to her retirement, is being threatened with disciplinary action after refusing to remove a necklace bearing a Cross—a symbol of her deeply felt Christian faith. NHS bosses insist that the Cross must be removed from sight.
Shirley Chaplin, aged 54, has worked in the NHS all her life. Ever since studying to be a nurse she has worn this necklace and Cross with her uniform. But now NHS bosses have ordered her to remove the personal item, deeming it a breach of uniform policy and a health risk to her and to patients.
Mrs. Chaplin, informed managers at The Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Trust Hospital that she had never had an accident injuring herself, or another patient, in three decades of nursing, and would happily sign a disclaimer absolving the Trust from any liability if she were injured by the one inch silver object. The Trust refused her ‘Risk Assessment’ evidence, despite the fact that there is not one recorded accident of injury to a nurse or patient via the wearing of a necklace/cross anywhere in the NHS. The Trust insists that the Cross should not be visible.
Mrs. Chaplin claims the demand to removes her Cross has nothing to do with Health and Safety, but is an infringement of her Human Rights, and that of being able to express her faith, which has been her foundation and strength for nearly 30 years of serving members of the public through nursing. Mrs. Chaplin said
“I asked if I could wear the Cross pinned to my lapel, but they would only allow the cross to be pinned inside my pocket. However they said Security ID badges were permitted as the security benefit was greater than the risk. Necklaces are worn by other members of Staff and the Trust has promoted the hospital with photographs of staff wearing necklaces. They said that other staff wearing chains including those wearing medialert chains and scarves had complied with their health and safety policy. The Trust also failed to explain why members of staff that were photographed wearing chains in the hospital newsletters were exempted from the health and risk policy. This smacks of double standards and appears to discriminate against Christians. This blatant piece of political correctness amounts to the marginalising of employees’ personal human rights, a blanket ‘secularising and neutralising’ of the NHS intended to stop Christians from expressing their faith in the public services of the NHS”
Mrs.Chaplin, is supported in her ordeal by her minister, the Revd John Eustice, of Christ Church, Exeter who has accompanied Mrs. Chaplin when she has met with Personnel and Line managers.
Mrs. Chaplin, a mother of two children, and a grandmother, said: “Everyone I have ever worked with has clearly known I am a Christian: it is what motivates me to care for others. For about 30 years I have worked in the NHS and nursed patients day and night and on no occasion has my Cross caused me or anyone else, any injury – and to my knowledge, no patient has ever complained about me wearing it. The Trust even refused to test the ‘breaking strain’ on the necklace.
Mrs. Chaplin has sought advice from the Christian Legal Centre, who have instructed leading Human Right’s Barrister Paul Diamond, who advised Caroline Petrie, the nurse who was suspended for offering to pray for a patient and then reinstated.
Andrea Minichiello Williams, barrister and founder of CLC said: “I think members of the public, including Shirley’s thousands of former patients over the years will be astonished at the request from her employer to remove a personal item which clearly expresses something of the love and care she has for people which first led her into the nursing profession.
You cannot separate a person’s faith and motivation from other areas of their life, including what they do with the majority of their time: work. Unfortunately an aggressive, secularist, politically correct agenda is being driven in the NHS and other public sectors at present. Those wanting to promote the agenda say that it is ‘neutral’ but manifestly it is not. This agenda is leading to case after case of discrimination against Christians and real suffering. We will be assisting Shirley to hold out for her Human Rights – and expect the public en masse to do so as well.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6209892/Nurse-faces-the-sack-for-refusing-to-take-off-her-cross.html
A Christian nurse from Exeter, with nearly 30 years of service, and just eight months to go to her retirement, is being threatened with disciplinary action after refusing to remove a necklace bearing a Cross—a symbol of her deeply felt Christian faith. NHS bosses insist that the Cross must be removed from sight.
Shirley Chaplin, aged 54, has worked in the NHS all her life. Ever since studying to be a nurse she has worn this necklace and Cross with her uniform. But now NHS bosses have ordered her to remove the personal item, deeming it a breach of uniform policy and a health risk to her and to patients.
Mrs. Chaplin, informed managers at The Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Trust Hospital that she had never had an accident injuring herself, or another patient, in three decades of nursing, and would happily sign a disclaimer absolving the Trust from any liability if she were injured by the one inch silver object. The Trust refused her ‘Risk Assessment’ evidence, despite the fact that there is not one recorded accident of injury to a nurse or patient via the wearing of a necklace/cross anywhere in the NHS. The Trust insists that the Cross should not be visible.
Mrs. Chaplin claims the demand to removes her Cross has nothing to do with Health and Safety, but is an infringement of her Human Rights, and that of being able to express her faith, which has been her foundation and strength for nearly 30 years of serving members of the public through nursing. Mrs. Chaplin said
“I asked if I could wear the Cross pinned to my lapel, but they would only allow the cross to be pinned inside my pocket. However they said Security ID badges were permitted as the security benefit was greater than the risk. Necklaces are worn by other members of Staff and the Trust has promoted the hospital with photographs of staff wearing necklaces. They said that other staff wearing chains including those wearing medialert chains and scarves had complied with their health and safety policy. The Trust also failed to explain why members of staff that were photographed wearing chains in the hospital newsletters were exempted from the health and risk policy. This smacks of double standards and appears to discriminate against Christians. This blatant piece of political correctness amounts to the marginalising of employees’ personal human rights, a blanket ‘secularising and neutralising’ of the NHS intended to stop Christians from expressing their faith in the public services of the NHS”
Mrs.Chaplin, is supported in her ordeal by her minister, the Revd John Eustice, of Christ Church, Exeter who has accompanied Mrs. Chaplin when she has met with Personnel and Line managers.
Mrs. Chaplin, a mother of two children, and a grandmother, said: “Everyone I have ever worked with has clearly known I am a Christian: it is what motivates me to care for others. For about 30 years I have worked in the NHS and nursed patients day and night and on no occasion has my Cross caused me or anyone else, any injury – and to my knowledge, no patient has ever complained about me wearing it. The Trust even refused to test the ‘breaking strain’ on the necklace.
Mrs. Chaplin has sought advice from the Christian Legal Centre, who have instructed leading Human Right’s Barrister Paul Diamond, who advised Caroline Petrie, the nurse who was suspended for offering to pray for a patient and then reinstated.
Andrea Minichiello Williams, barrister and founder of CLC said: “I think members of the public, including Shirley’s thousands of former patients over the years will be astonished at the request from her employer to remove a personal item which clearly expresses something of the love and care she has for people which first led her into the nursing profession.
You cannot separate a person’s faith and motivation from other areas of their life, including what they do with the majority of their time: work. Unfortunately an aggressive, secularist, politically correct agenda is being driven in the NHS and other public sectors at present. Those wanting to promote the agenda say that it is ‘neutral’ but manifestly it is not. This agenda is leading to case after case of discrimination against Christians and real suffering. We will be assisting Shirley to hold out for her Human Rights – and expect the public en masse to do so as well.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6209892/Nurse-faces-the-sack-for-refusing-to-take-off-her-cross.html
Thursday, 17 September 2009
Twin Towers, Twin Myths (9/11 breakthrough)
Serious and thorough treatment of 9/11 anomalies and science........and, more importantly, times must be changing because this was published in a mainstream newspaper not some 'nutty' fringe magazine.
TWIN TOWER, TWIN MYTHS
The Great Science Debate: What Really Happened on 9/11 at the World Trade Center?
Thursday, September 17, 2009
by JAY LEVIN AND TOM MCKENZIE
Santa Babara independent
One of the crucial technical disputes in American history, perhaps second only to global warming, is underway. It pits hundreds of government technicians who say the World Trade Center buildings were brought down by airplane impact against hundreds of professional architects and building engineers who insist that the Twin Towers could never have collapsed solely due to the planes and are calling for a new independent investigation. It is a fight that is not going away and is likely to get louder as more building trade professionals sign on to one side or the other.
Better than anyone, David Ray Griffin understands the “enormous importance” of Richard Gage, the Bay Area architect and staunch Republican who founded Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911 Truth).
Griffin, the controversial retired Santa Barbara philosophy professor/theologian (Claremont School of Theology), is regarded as the leading investigative force within what is called the 9/11 Truth movement, with seven 9/11 books to his credit, including his bestseller The New Pearl Harbor. Although sometimes challenged (about accuracy), until Gage appeared, Griffin found his greatest stumbling block in public appearances to be this question: If his analysis was true — that two planes could not have brought down three World Trade Center (WTC) buildings without the aid of pre-planted explosives — why didn’t a single U.S. architect or building engineer publicly support him? Now, in three years, Gage has signed up 804 architects and structural engineers, some from top firms, who challenge the official version of the buildings’ collapses.
Notably, the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division has acknowledged that AE911’s core evidence deserves — and will get — FBI scrutiny. In a December 2008 letter, Assistant Director Michael J. Heimbach assessed AE911’s presentation as “backed by thorough research and analysis.”
Bolstering AE911’s case, three scientists working at respected technical laboratories in the U.S. and Europe reported in April that their independent analysis of reputed WTC dust found clear evidence of the highly potent incendiary/explosive “super-thermite,” used by the military.
AE911 Truth has grown rapidly, igniting a struggling grassroots movement of hundreds of other “9/11 Truth” organizations, and spearheading a growing assault on the official story. In recent years, other single-profession 9/11 Truth groups have launched or gained momentum, including those comprised of airline pilots, firefighters, veterans, medical professionals, scholars, lawyers, religious leaders, and former government employees.
Also individually calling for a new inquiry are two dozen retired U.S. military officers and eight former U.S. State Department officials, along with a number of Republicans who have served in high federal positions since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, including former assistant secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts and former deputy assistant secretary of Defense (and retired Marine Corps colonel) Ronald D. Ray.
That Van Jones, Obama’s green jobs “czar,” resigned September 5 in part because he had signed a 2004 petition seeking a new inquiry into 9/11 is testimony to the fact that the reinvestigation movement has brought in skeptics from both political parties even as it remains a hot potato in American public life.
Activists around the country attribute AE911’s professional credibility and its unwavering focus on the WTC as the fuel that has galvanized the movement. The group’s case has been enhanced by its refusal to advance conspiracy theories that are widespread within the movement, including the proposition that key Bush administration figures likely were complicit in the event.
“AE911 represents the biggest boost yet to the credibility of the 9/11 Truth movement,” Griffin said. “So many people identify 9/11 with the towers, and now it’s clear there are far more architects and engineers who have spoken out against the official story than have publicly supported it.”
The Basic Case
Specifically, AE911 Truth makes these arguments:
• Crucial elements of the key government study on the step-by-step events that occurred in the collapse of the WTC buildings don’t stand up to analytical scrutiny. The study was undertaken by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. Department of Commerce agency responsible for building and other safety codes and standards.
• Airplane crash and subsequent fire aren’t sufficient cause to bring down the towers, not even when combined with the presumed dislodgment of fireproofing that protected the core steel beams in the areas where the planes struck. This dislodgment, NIST firmly asserts, made the steel vulnerable to softening by fire and induced the collapse — the first ever of a steel-framed building hit by fire.
• NIST never tested for explosive residues despite indications, including many eyewitness accounts from first-responders and people who escaped the buildings, that explosives and incendiaries were present. Strikingly, eight years after the event, NIST still argues “there is no hard evidence to warrant such testing” and refuses to order fairly inexpensive tests, doing so even in the face of the 2008 independent study that claimed to find traces in reputed WTC debris of the military incendiary thermite, which cuts through steel. This controversial study has been reinforced by the results published in April in the Open Chemical Physics Journal. Many technical professionals call the failure to test a science research “travesty.”
• The collapse of the three buildings resembles two different types of controlled demolitions and not the bending or toppling of a heated building section that might result from a fire.
In support of these arguments, NIST’s critics cite a large number of highly technical papers, most posted on the Web, that specifically challenge or recalculate scores of elements of the NIST case. (See chart online.) Meanwhile, NIST supporters have posted technical papers on various Web sites seeking to “debunk” NIST challengers, including accusations of “false statements” and manipulation of evidence by AE911 and Gage (see wtc7lies.googlepages.com and AE911truth.org/info). For laypersons, the takeaway is that a profound technical argument is underway, with the technical papers sitting alongside often vituperative blogging on both sides of the WTC dispute.
Following the collapses, NIST assembled a panel of more than 300 staff and external experts and spent three years and $20 million on what it calls the most exhaustive technical study ever of a building collapse. Released in 2005, the initial NIST report concluded that the towers, which NIST agrees could not be brought down by fire alone, collapsed because of a combination of factors. Crucially, this included the presumed fireproofing dislodgment. This allowed certain beams and trusses to soften sufficiently to force an inward bending of perimeter-supporting steel beams, putting so much pressure on the fire-weakened and severed center steel columns (three severed in one tower and five in another, out of 47 in each) that the buildings collapsed in the areas where the planes had struck.
NIST also stated that there was more than enough mass plus acceleration of the upper Twin Towers’ floors as they fell to force a collapse of the lower structure straight down at nearly freefall speed, with each floor adding weight and force to the pressures on the floors below — a theory NIST says is supported by elaborate computer models.
NIST’s report on the third collapsed building, WTC7, released in August 2008, argues that computer modeling of existing evidence also doesn’t support an explosives theory. The report concludes that WTC7 was brought down by seven hours of fires combined with falling debris from the towers that weakened an entire building section, forcing the collapse of a key support column such that the building then caved in.
Aside from an article in a 2006 issue of Popular Mechanics, which debunked critiques of NIST and the explosives theory, there has been no in-depth examination in the press of both sides of this argument even after AE911 Truth began to organize and present evidence challenging the official narrative and Popular Mechanics’ defense of it.
courtesy ae 911 truth
Richard Gage
Enter Richard Gage
Within his 20-year career, Richard Gage, 53, has designed numerous fireproofed steel-framed buildings. In recent years, his work has focused on being the onsite managing architect during actual building construction.
Gage, a Reagan supporter, had a moment of clarity when he first heard alternative theories of 9/11 presented in March 2006 by Griffin. As he tells it, he was driving to a construction meeting and crossed the talk-radio political divide that day to listen to progressive Pacifica Radio’s KPFA interviewing Griffin.
“What Griffin was saying is that the ends of these beams that were ejected out of the World Trade Center at 55-70 miles per hour were dripping with molten steel and they landed more than 500 feet away,” Gage recounted. The station also played eyewitness interviews recorded after 9/11, including with first-responders, who described hearing explosions and seeing flashes of light that would support an explosives/incendiaries theory.
“So I began looking at the research and official report myself. The more I read, the more disturbed I got, and I realized fairly quickly what I needed to do, and that was to start Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.”
Before this, Gage noted, he hadn’t paid heed to the technical details of the collapse. Particularly striking to him was that the eyewitness interviews had been released to the N.Y. Times by court order in August 2005 — nearly four years after 9/11.
“This was information that has been hidden by New York City, and it became obvious why they hid it,” Gage said. “So I began looking at the research and official report myself. The more I read, the more disturbed I got, and I realized fairly quickly what I needed to do, and that was to start Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.”
As its founder and executive director, the soft-spoken, gentlemanly Gage has since become something like a subversive Al Gore, delivering his disturbingly inconvenient PowerPoint presentation that challenges most of the key elements of the NIST report. (See AE911truth.org.) Somewhat obsessed with recruiting as many building professionals as possible, Gage left his job and now, supported by contributions to AE911, spends much of his time traveling from city to city presenting the core forensic case to bodies of fellow experts.
“Most all of the architects and engineers I present to are completely overwhelmed, as I was, with the forensic-based scientific facts surrounding this case,” Gage said. “And all of them, virtually, sign up on our Web site to demand a new investigation by Congress.” Gage said he gets similar buy-in from nonprofessional groups, including conservatives.
Gage maintains that even allowing for the chunks of fireproofing NIST argues were stripped away by airplane impact, steel framing serves as a heat conductor, actually cooling fire and equalizing the burden on any one steel section. “The steel doesn’t get to the temperature that would cause it to weaken,” he said. “No steel-framed high-rise has ever collapsed due to fire, and we have almost 100 examples.”
As for NIST’s theory that once the towers’ impact-area beams gave way, the mass above them would rapidly crush the lower stories, Gage argues that this premise ignores the laws of physics inherent in the resistance provided by the powerful steel structure of the lower floors — a statement that earns him major buy-in from building professionals. “No force can crush that kind of a structure at ⅔ freefall acceleration. It’s ludicrous,” he said. “Not only that, the videos show that 95 percent of the South Tower is being blown outside, indicating explosions. And the top of the North Tower is being reduced in volume from 15 stories to seven stories before it even starts to drop. Half of its mass is destroyed and displaced laterally in the first two seconds. Later, the rest of the mass has completely disappeared and then blown outward such that there’s nothing left to drive this building down to the ground. This remaining mass cannot fall at near freefall speed and crush 80,000 tons of steel and pulverize to powder 90,000 tons of concrete and create tons of molten metal by some unknowable process.”
NIST’s Defense
Defending NIST’s research, NIST spokesperson Michael Newman responded that the amount of fireproofing dislodged by airplane impact is a factor crucially not present in fires in other high-rise fires cited by Gage. NIST, supported by a number of independent building and explosives professionals who are critical of AE911, also stands behind its theory of the upper floors’ impact. “Basically, gravity and the utter force of the upper floors forced the towers down. If you have 20 floors of mass suddenly released, as it goes downward it picks up more mass and more force — and, yes, you can have a building collapse in 10 seconds and, yes, it is physically possible. We believe that three years of hard scientific technical investigation based around a tremendous amount of evidence and confirmed by many physicists will give you the same conclusions.”
Newman argued that while the upper stories’ collapse created powerful pneumatic air pressure that blew outward substantial debris, mimicking explosions, NIST’s calculations confirmed there was sufficient remaining mass to hammer down the lower floors, each failed floor adding to the descending mass.
Gage and many other “not-so-fast” scientific and professional colleagues argue that they easily found major flaws in the NIST study as well as omission of significant evidence.
Most prominently, the 47-story steel structure Building 7, never struck by a plane, collapsed anyway — from hours of fires and damage from falling debris, NIST said. Dismissing this as “nonsense for a modern steel building designed to withstand such fires and specifically designed such that no one column’s failure would bring down the building,” Gage and others note that a major clue that something was producing far more heat than a jet-fuel or office fire could are alleged sightings by some first-responders and later by some of the debris-removal crews of molten metal, like hot lava, some found glowing in the basements of WTC buildings up to three weeks after 9/11 — far longer than jet-fuel fires could produce. (Interviews of many cleanup crewmembers by a demolition company found no evidence of molten steel sightings. Gage cites evidence to the contrary.)
NIST’s answer: Any molten metal sightings, including metal seen pouring from the South Tower, were likely airplane aluminum. Newman added that NIST wasn’t presented with evidence of molten steel and if some melted, this occurred after the event, in fires underground. Gage dismissed this as “impossible without a source of oxygen such as from thermate,” adding that molten metal seen in NIST-cited videos isn’t the color of molten aluminum.
Gage and other professionals point to other indications of explosives. Besides vast mushroom clouds of dust and debris exploding outward at the top of both towers, videos show squibs — puffs of smoke or air — shooting out of the towers above and below the crash areas. Moreover, some on-air reporters described the explosions, joining first-responders and escapees as eyewitnesses.
According to Newman, NIST determined that the squibs and mushroom clouds were caused by compressed air from the force of the collapse finding openings and blowing debris, dust, and air puffs outward in an explosive manner. (NIST critics claim this is refuted by independent technical calculations.) Eyewitness accounts of explosions, Newman added, weren’t evident in 10,000 interviews NIST conducted, and a few such reports can be explained by other phenomena.
Critics of AE911 agree. Typically, the Journal of Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories argues that explosive sounds likely derived from electrical and air conditioning transformers exploding, the sound of floors collapsing onto each other, or rivets popping all at once as the pressure got to them. “The way I see it, it had to be the rivets,” the Journal quotes one firefighter saying.
Enter Dr. Jones and Thermite
Supporting AE911’s theory is Dr. Steven E. Jones, a nuclear physicist known for his work in cold fusion. Jones said that in 2006 he was forced into early retirement from his position as a professor at Brigham Young University because of his attempts to show that powerful explosives were present in the WTC towers.
After Jones’s initial analysis was criticized harshly for flaws by BYU’s own building engineering department, Jones and other scientists co-authored a new critique accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Open Civil Engineering Journal that mentioned thermite as a potential culprit in the buildings’ collapses.
This was followed by another peer-reviewed research paper published last April in a scientific journal. Co-authored by Jones and Associate Professor Niels Harrit of Copenhagen University’s famed Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark, and by Dr. Jeffrey Farrer, lab manager for BYU’s Transmission Electron Microscopy Lab, as well as four other researchers, the paper provided vivid microscopic photo evidence of highly flammable red-gray chips that the authors say appear to be super-thermite found in reputed WTC dust samples sent to Jones by four New Yorkers who had separately collected them shortly after 9/11.
“So, the body of evidence all ties together to support the hypotheses of a controlled demolition.”
Thermite, a mixture of aluminum powder and iron oxide, will burn through steel. Adding silicon, magnesium, or titanium makes it thermate, also known as nano-thermite or “super-thermite,” a substance with an accelerated capacity to cut through steel. It is used primarily in incendiary grenades. “Dr. Jones found the chemical signature of thermite,” Gage said. “So, the body of evidence all ties together to support the hypotheses of a controlled demolition.”
In an interview, Jones said microanalysis of the four samples of dust collected from various sites in Lower Manhattan revealed not only extensive presence of red-gray chips of unignited nano-thermite, but it also found significant traces of microspheres of previously molten iron that normally are the product of incendiary explosions far hotter than jet-fuel fires.
“These red chips are very unusual and very prevalent, and they test out as being consistent with a form of thermite,” Jones said. “We can ignite them and they react very violently when touched off. So how do you explain their presence in the towers’ dust?”
Jones noted that the U.S. Geological Survey, which did some testing on WTC dust for NIST and found the microspheres, never tested for explosives or incendiaries because NIST never ordered them. “I have been encouraging them to test early dust samples, but they haven’t responded,” Jones said.
Jones said he sent a letter in April 2008 to NIST about his original findings, inviting NIST to test its own dust for such chips. In public comments since, NIST has said that Jones’s research is not “scientifically valid” because Jones can’t prove the “chain of custody” of the dust he tested.
Other groups that support NIST’s findings (debunking911.com, 911myths.com) argue that neither the samples nor Jones’s tests are reliable. Jones replied simply: “They don’t need my dust to test. They have plenty of dust of their own where they know the chain of custody. They just won’t test it.”
NIST Counters
When asked the key question about testing WTC dust for thermite, Newman replied: “So why didn’t we look for explosive residues in the towers? Because there was no evidence saying to go that way. There was a lot of evidence saying look at the impact of the plane, the loss of fireproofing, the bowing of the perimeter beams, which was the final straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Even so, why not test debris and dust — a relatively simple operation — to silence the question of explosives or incendiaries?
Newman explained, “We did calculate the quantity of thermite that would be needed … and found there would be a tremendous amount needed in each column to get it to melt. … You would need thousands of pounds, which would make it unlikely it would be used for a controlled explosion.”
“We don’t try to debate or argue with these folks because they have their opinions and what they believe is evidence but to us it is counterproductive to engage in debate.”
Newman acknowledged that NIST’s response that it sees “no need” to test dust for any form of thermite may not satisfy critics. And he added: “We don’t try to debate or argue with these folks because they have their opinions and what they believe is evidence but to us it is counterproductive to engage in debate. We’d rather let the body of evidence we presented stand on its own merits. We feel this is a very good piece of work — in many ways pushing investigations way beyond what’s gone before. Our work is to help strengthen buildings, and proof of the validity of our research is that most all our recommendations for changing building codes have been accepted by the international organization that models building codes. That wouldn’t have happened if they doubted our findings.”
To Gage and his allies, NIST’s refusal to test and its questionable conclusions derive from government-dependent employees and defense contractors fearful that evidence of explosives would be too traumatic for the public — and too risky to NIST captains answerable to political superiors. Hence, NIST’s refusal to address fully scientific papers challenging nearly every element of its case, including its theory that pneumatic air pressure mimicked explosives and that tons of nano-thermite (not less-powerful thermite) would be needed.
Inevitably, of course, the gorilla in the room is what if AE911 and the Jones team are correct in their analysis? The dark notion that the hijackers wouldn’t need airplanes if they could plant explosives would raise questions of who did have access and what was their motive? And how would America deal with such an investigation against the backdrop of suppositions that some officials in government were complicit? This idea is virtually unthinkable to most of the public, much less something the American political system can handle. A Democratic Congress wouldn’t cut off funds for a war it opposed nor impeach a president who broke laws; how would it cope with the cataclysmic implications of new 9/11 evidence that disproved the official story? How would any president, much less “let’s only look ahead” Barack Obama, confront such a nightmare?
All of which suggests that a great breakthrough from AE911’s efforts isn’t likely. The forces of denial, in the system and in most of our minds, are innately powerful and probably sufficient to mitigate against a reopened investigation. Despite this, Gage sees his role as provoking a better investigation.
“We and millions of other Americans are part of a grassroots movement,” he said.
TWIN TOWER, TWIN MYTHS
The Great Science Debate: What Really Happened on 9/11 at the World Trade Center?
Thursday, September 17, 2009
by JAY LEVIN AND TOM MCKENZIE
Santa Babara independent
One of the crucial technical disputes in American history, perhaps second only to global warming, is underway. It pits hundreds of government technicians who say the World Trade Center buildings were brought down by airplane impact against hundreds of professional architects and building engineers who insist that the Twin Towers could never have collapsed solely due to the planes and are calling for a new independent investigation. It is a fight that is not going away and is likely to get louder as more building trade professionals sign on to one side or the other.
Better than anyone, David Ray Griffin understands the “enormous importance” of Richard Gage, the Bay Area architect and staunch Republican who founded Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911 Truth).
Griffin, the controversial retired Santa Barbara philosophy professor/theologian (Claremont School of Theology), is regarded as the leading investigative force within what is called the 9/11 Truth movement, with seven 9/11 books to his credit, including his bestseller The New Pearl Harbor. Although sometimes challenged (about accuracy), until Gage appeared, Griffin found his greatest stumbling block in public appearances to be this question: If his analysis was true — that two planes could not have brought down three World Trade Center (WTC) buildings without the aid of pre-planted explosives — why didn’t a single U.S. architect or building engineer publicly support him? Now, in three years, Gage has signed up 804 architects and structural engineers, some from top firms, who challenge the official version of the buildings’ collapses.
Notably, the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division has acknowledged that AE911’s core evidence deserves — and will get — FBI scrutiny. In a December 2008 letter, Assistant Director Michael J. Heimbach assessed AE911’s presentation as “backed by thorough research and analysis.”
Bolstering AE911’s case, three scientists working at respected technical laboratories in the U.S. and Europe reported in April that their independent analysis of reputed WTC dust found clear evidence of the highly potent incendiary/explosive “super-thermite,” used by the military.
AE911 Truth has grown rapidly, igniting a struggling grassroots movement of hundreds of other “9/11 Truth” organizations, and spearheading a growing assault on the official story. In recent years, other single-profession 9/11 Truth groups have launched or gained momentum, including those comprised of airline pilots, firefighters, veterans, medical professionals, scholars, lawyers, religious leaders, and former government employees.
Also individually calling for a new inquiry are two dozen retired U.S. military officers and eight former U.S. State Department officials, along with a number of Republicans who have served in high federal positions since Ronald Reagan’s presidency, including former assistant secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts and former deputy assistant secretary of Defense (and retired Marine Corps colonel) Ronald D. Ray.
That Van Jones, Obama’s green jobs “czar,” resigned September 5 in part because he had signed a 2004 petition seeking a new inquiry into 9/11 is testimony to the fact that the reinvestigation movement has brought in skeptics from both political parties even as it remains a hot potato in American public life.
Activists around the country attribute AE911’s professional credibility and its unwavering focus on the WTC as the fuel that has galvanized the movement. The group’s case has been enhanced by its refusal to advance conspiracy theories that are widespread within the movement, including the proposition that key Bush administration figures likely were complicit in the event.
“AE911 represents the biggest boost yet to the credibility of the 9/11 Truth movement,” Griffin said. “So many people identify 9/11 with the towers, and now it’s clear there are far more architects and engineers who have spoken out against the official story than have publicly supported it.”
The Basic Case
Specifically, AE911 Truth makes these arguments:
• Crucial elements of the key government study on the step-by-step events that occurred in the collapse of the WTC buildings don’t stand up to analytical scrutiny. The study was undertaken by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. Department of Commerce agency responsible for building and other safety codes and standards.
• Airplane crash and subsequent fire aren’t sufficient cause to bring down the towers, not even when combined with the presumed dislodgment of fireproofing that protected the core steel beams in the areas where the planes struck. This dislodgment, NIST firmly asserts, made the steel vulnerable to softening by fire and induced the collapse — the first ever of a steel-framed building hit by fire.
• NIST never tested for explosive residues despite indications, including many eyewitness accounts from first-responders and people who escaped the buildings, that explosives and incendiaries were present. Strikingly, eight years after the event, NIST still argues “there is no hard evidence to warrant such testing” and refuses to order fairly inexpensive tests, doing so even in the face of the 2008 independent study that claimed to find traces in reputed WTC debris of the military incendiary thermite, which cuts through steel. This controversial study has been reinforced by the results published in April in the Open Chemical Physics Journal. Many technical professionals call the failure to test a science research “travesty.”
• The collapse of the three buildings resembles two different types of controlled demolitions and not the bending or toppling of a heated building section that might result from a fire.
In support of these arguments, NIST’s critics cite a large number of highly technical papers, most posted on the Web, that specifically challenge or recalculate scores of elements of the NIST case. (See chart online.) Meanwhile, NIST supporters have posted technical papers on various Web sites seeking to “debunk” NIST challengers, including accusations of “false statements” and manipulation of evidence by AE911 and Gage (see wtc7lies.googlepages.com and AE911truth.org/info). For laypersons, the takeaway is that a profound technical argument is underway, with the technical papers sitting alongside often vituperative blogging on both sides of the WTC dispute.
Following the collapses, NIST assembled a panel of more than 300 staff and external experts and spent three years and $20 million on what it calls the most exhaustive technical study ever of a building collapse. Released in 2005, the initial NIST report concluded that the towers, which NIST agrees could not be brought down by fire alone, collapsed because of a combination of factors. Crucially, this included the presumed fireproofing dislodgment. This allowed certain beams and trusses to soften sufficiently to force an inward bending of perimeter-supporting steel beams, putting so much pressure on the fire-weakened and severed center steel columns (three severed in one tower and five in another, out of 47 in each) that the buildings collapsed in the areas where the planes had struck.
NIST also stated that there was more than enough mass plus acceleration of the upper Twin Towers’ floors as they fell to force a collapse of the lower structure straight down at nearly freefall speed, with each floor adding weight and force to the pressures on the floors below — a theory NIST says is supported by elaborate computer models.
NIST’s report on the third collapsed building, WTC7, released in August 2008, argues that computer modeling of existing evidence also doesn’t support an explosives theory. The report concludes that WTC7 was brought down by seven hours of fires combined with falling debris from the towers that weakened an entire building section, forcing the collapse of a key support column such that the building then caved in.
Aside from an article in a 2006 issue of Popular Mechanics, which debunked critiques of NIST and the explosives theory, there has been no in-depth examination in the press of both sides of this argument even after AE911 Truth began to organize and present evidence challenging the official narrative and Popular Mechanics’ defense of it.
courtesy ae 911 truth
Richard Gage
Enter Richard Gage
Within his 20-year career, Richard Gage, 53, has designed numerous fireproofed steel-framed buildings. In recent years, his work has focused on being the onsite managing architect during actual building construction.
Gage, a Reagan supporter, had a moment of clarity when he first heard alternative theories of 9/11 presented in March 2006 by Griffin. As he tells it, he was driving to a construction meeting and crossed the talk-radio political divide that day to listen to progressive Pacifica Radio’s KPFA interviewing Griffin.
“What Griffin was saying is that the ends of these beams that were ejected out of the World Trade Center at 55-70 miles per hour were dripping with molten steel and they landed more than 500 feet away,” Gage recounted. The station also played eyewitness interviews recorded after 9/11, including with first-responders, who described hearing explosions and seeing flashes of light that would support an explosives/incendiaries theory.
“So I began looking at the research and official report myself. The more I read, the more disturbed I got, and I realized fairly quickly what I needed to do, and that was to start Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.”
Before this, Gage noted, he hadn’t paid heed to the technical details of the collapse. Particularly striking to him was that the eyewitness interviews had been released to the N.Y. Times by court order in August 2005 — nearly four years after 9/11.
“This was information that has been hidden by New York City, and it became obvious why they hid it,” Gage said. “So I began looking at the research and official report myself. The more I read, the more disturbed I got, and I realized fairly quickly what I needed to do, and that was to start Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.”
As its founder and executive director, the soft-spoken, gentlemanly Gage has since become something like a subversive Al Gore, delivering his disturbingly inconvenient PowerPoint presentation that challenges most of the key elements of the NIST report. (See AE911truth.org.) Somewhat obsessed with recruiting as many building professionals as possible, Gage left his job and now, supported by contributions to AE911, spends much of his time traveling from city to city presenting the core forensic case to bodies of fellow experts.
“Most all of the architects and engineers I present to are completely overwhelmed, as I was, with the forensic-based scientific facts surrounding this case,” Gage said. “And all of them, virtually, sign up on our Web site to demand a new investigation by Congress.” Gage said he gets similar buy-in from nonprofessional groups, including conservatives.
Gage maintains that even allowing for the chunks of fireproofing NIST argues were stripped away by airplane impact, steel framing serves as a heat conductor, actually cooling fire and equalizing the burden on any one steel section. “The steel doesn’t get to the temperature that would cause it to weaken,” he said. “No steel-framed high-rise has ever collapsed due to fire, and we have almost 100 examples.”
As for NIST’s theory that once the towers’ impact-area beams gave way, the mass above them would rapidly crush the lower stories, Gage argues that this premise ignores the laws of physics inherent in the resistance provided by the powerful steel structure of the lower floors — a statement that earns him major buy-in from building professionals. “No force can crush that kind of a structure at ⅔ freefall acceleration. It’s ludicrous,” he said. “Not only that, the videos show that 95 percent of the South Tower is being blown outside, indicating explosions. And the top of the North Tower is being reduced in volume from 15 stories to seven stories before it even starts to drop. Half of its mass is destroyed and displaced laterally in the first two seconds. Later, the rest of the mass has completely disappeared and then blown outward such that there’s nothing left to drive this building down to the ground. This remaining mass cannot fall at near freefall speed and crush 80,000 tons of steel and pulverize to powder 90,000 tons of concrete and create tons of molten metal by some unknowable process.”
NIST’s Defense
Defending NIST’s research, NIST spokesperson Michael Newman responded that the amount of fireproofing dislodged by airplane impact is a factor crucially not present in fires in other high-rise fires cited by Gage. NIST, supported by a number of independent building and explosives professionals who are critical of AE911, also stands behind its theory of the upper floors’ impact. “Basically, gravity and the utter force of the upper floors forced the towers down. If you have 20 floors of mass suddenly released, as it goes downward it picks up more mass and more force — and, yes, you can have a building collapse in 10 seconds and, yes, it is physically possible. We believe that three years of hard scientific technical investigation based around a tremendous amount of evidence and confirmed by many physicists will give you the same conclusions.”
Newman argued that while the upper stories’ collapse created powerful pneumatic air pressure that blew outward substantial debris, mimicking explosions, NIST’s calculations confirmed there was sufficient remaining mass to hammer down the lower floors, each failed floor adding to the descending mass.
Gage and many other “not-so-fast” scientific and professional colleagues argue that they easily found major flaws in the NIST study as well as omission of significant evidence.
Most prominently, the 47-story steel structure Building 7, never struck by a plane, collapsed anyway — from hours of fires and damage from falling debris, NIST said. Dismissing this as “nonsense for a modern steel building designed to withstand such fires and specifically designed such that no one column’s failure would bring down the building,” Gage and others note that a major clue that something was producing far more heat than a jet-fuel or office fire could are alleged sightings by some first-responders and later by some of the debris-removal crews of molten metal, like hot lava, some found glowing in the basements of WTC buildings up to three weeks after 9/11 — far longer than jet-fuel fires could produce. (Interviews of many cleanup crewmembers by a demolition company found no evidence of molten steel sightings. Gage cites evidence to the contrary.)
NIST’s answer: Any molten metal sightings, including metal seen pouring from the South Tower, were likely airplane aluminum. Newman added that NIST wasn’t presented with evidence of molten steel and if some melted, this occurred after the event, in fires underground. Gage dismissed this as “impossible without a source of oxygen such as from thermate,” adding that molten metal seen in NIST-cited videos isn’t the color of molten aluminum.
Gage and other professionals point to other indications of explosives. Besides vast mushroom clouds of dust and debris exploding outward at the top of both towers, videos show squibs — puffs of smoke or air — shooting out of the towers above and below the crash areas. Moreover, some on-air reporters described the explosions, joining first-responders and escapees as eyewitnesses.
According to Newman, NIST determined that the squibs and mushroom clouds were caused by compressed air from the force of the collapse finding openings and blowing debris, dust, and air puffs outward in an explosive manner. (NIST critics claim this is refuted by independent technical calculations.) Eyewitness accounts of explosions, Newman added, weren’t evident in 10,000 interviews NIST conducted, and a few such reports can be explained by other phenomena.
Critics of AE911 agree. Typically, the Journal of Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories argues that explosive sounds likely derived from electrical and air conditioning transformers exploding, the sound of floors collapsing onto each other, or rivets popping all at once as the pressure got to them. “The way I see it, it had to be the rivets,” the Journal quotes one firefighter saying.
Enter Dr. Jones and Thermite
Supporting AE911’s theory is Dr. Steven E. Jones, a nuclear physicist known for his work in cold fusion. Jones said that in 2006 he was forced into early retirement from his position as a professor at Brigham Young University because of his attempts to show that powerful explosives were present in the WTC towers.
After Jones’s initial analysis was criticized harshly for flaws by BYU’s own building engineering department, Jones and other scientists co-authored a new critique accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Open Civil Engineering Journal that mentioned thermite as a potential culprit in the buildings’ collapses.
This was followed by another peer-reviewed research paper published last April in a scientific journal. Co-authored by Jones and Associate Professor Niels Harrit of Copenhagen University’s famed Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark, and by Dr. Jeffrey Farrer, lab manager for BYU’s Transmission Electron Microscopy Lab, as well as four other researchers, the paper provided vivid microscopic photo evidence of highly flammable red-gray chips that the authors say appear to be super-thermite found in reputed WTC dust samples sent to Jones by four New Yorkers who had separately collected them shortly after 9/11.
“So, the body of evidence all ties together to support the hypotheses of a controlled demolition.”
Thermite, a mixture of aluminum powder and iron oxide, will burn through steel. Adding silicon, magnesium, or titanium makes it thermate, also known as nano-thermite or “super-thermite,” a substance with an accelerated capacity to cut through steel. It is used primarily in incendiary grenades. “Dr. Jones found the chemical signature of thermite,” Gage said. “So, the body of evidence all ties together to support the hypotheses of a controlled demolition.”
In an interview, Jones said microanalysis of the four samples of dust collected from various sites in Lower Manhattan revealed not only extensive presence of red-gray chips of unignited nano-thermite, but it also found significant traces of microspheres of previously molten iron that normally are the product of incendiary explosions far hotter than jet-fuel fires.
“These red chips are very unusual and very prevalent, and they test out as being consistent with a form of thermite,” Jones said. “We can ignite them and they react very violently when touched off. So how do you explain their presence in the towers’ dust?”
Jones noted that the U.S. Geological Survey, which did some testing on WTC dust for NIST and found the microspheres, never tested for explosives or incendiaries because NIST never ordered them. “I have been encouraging them to test early dust samples, but they haven’t responded,” Jones said.
Jones said he sent a letter in April 2008 to NIST about his original findings, inviting NIST to test its own dust for such chips. In public comments since, NIST has said that Jones’s research is not “scientifically valid” because Jones can’t prove the “chain of custody” of the dust he tested.
Other groups that support NIST’s findings (debunking911.com, 911myths.com) argue that neither the samples nor Jones’s tests are reliable. Jones replied simply: “They don’t need my dust to test. They have plenty of dust of their own where they know the chain of custody. They just won’t test it.”
NIST Counters
When asked the key question about testing WTC dust for thermite, Newman replied: “So why didn’t we look for explosive residues in the towers? Because there was no evidence saying to go that way. There was a lot of evidence saying look at the impact of the plane, the loss of fireproofing, the bowing of the perimeter beams, which was the final straw that broke the camel’s back.”
Even so, why not test debris and dust — a relatively simple operation — to silence the question of explosives or incendiaries?
Newman explained, “We did calculate the quantity of thermite that would be needed … and found there would be a tremendous amount needed in each column to get it to melt. … You would need thousands of pounds, which would make it unlikely it would be used for a controlled explosion.”
“We don’t try to debate or argue with these folks because they have their opinions and what they believe is evidence but to us it is counterproductive to engage in debate.”
Newman acknowledged that NIST’s response that it sees “no need” to test dust for any form of thermite may not satisfy critics. And he added: “We don’t try to debate or argue with these folks because they have their opinions and what they believe is evidence but to us it is counterproductive to engage in debate. We’d rather let the body of evidence we presented stand on its own merits. We feel this is a very good piece of work — in many ways pushing investigations way beyond what’s gone before. Our work is to help strengthen buildings, and proof of the validity of our research is that most all our recommendations for changing building codes have been accepted by the international organization that models building codes. That wouldn’t have happened if they doubted our findings.”
To Gage and his allies, NIST’s refusal to test and its questionable conclusions derive from government-dependent employees and defense contractors fearful that evidence of explosives would be too traumatic for the public — and too risky to NIST captains answerable to political superiors. Hence, NIST’s refusal to address fully scientific papers challenging nearly every element of its case, including its theory that pneumatic air pressure mimicked explosives and that tons of nano-thermite (not less-powerful thermite) would be needed.
Inevitably, of course, the gorilla in the room is what if AE911 and the Jones team are correct in their analysis? The dark notion that the hijackers wouldn’t need airplanes if they could plant explosives would raise questions of who did have access and what was their motive? And how would America deal with such an investigation against the backdrop of suppositions that some officials in government were complicit? This idea is virtually unthinkable to most of the public, much less something the American political system can handle. A Democratic Congress wouldn’t cut off funds for a war it opposed nor impeach a president who broke laws; how would it cope with the cataclysmic implications of new 9/11 evidence that disproved the official story? How would any president, much less “let’s only look ahead” Barack Obama, confront such a nightmare?
All of which suggests that a great breakthrough from AE911’s efforts isn’t likely. The forces of denial, in the system and in most of our minds, are innately powerful and probably sufficient to mitigate against a reopened investigation. Despite this, Gage sees his role as provoking a better investigation.
“We and millions of other Americans are part of a grassroots movement,” he said.
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
The Brotherhood Of Darkness
Dr. Stanley Monteith:
"An understanding of the forces which have shaped the 20th century is predicated not on facts to be learned but on secrets to be discovered."
What was the origin of the Council on Foreign Relations, and what is its relationship to Freemasonry, Theosophy, Socialism and Communism? This video is felt by many researchers to be the best single source of information on the movements working to create a New World Order.
"An understanding of the forces which have shaped the 20th century is predicated not on facts to be learned but on secrets to be discovered."
What was the origin of the Council on Foreign Relations, and what is its relationship to Freemasonry, Theosophy, Socialism and Communism? This video is felt by many researchers to be the best single source of information on the movements working to create a New World Order.
Sunday, 13 September 2009
Henry Makow/Norman Dodd
The New World Order Is Communism.
Strong(and accurate, I believe)polemic here from Henry Makow:
http://www.savethemales.ca/
In 1953 Norman Dodd carried led an investigation on behalf of the Congressional 'Rees Committee' into the 'Financial Foundations'(Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford etc). Below he is interviewed, shortly before he died in 1982, by Edward Griffin.
He discovered that these Foundations planned, from their outset, to take over the education system, create a self-serving version of history, and even control government itself.
It is easy to see that these financial interests have succeeded admirably in their aims. In America, corporations effectively write the legislation while Wall Street bankers like Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers spend over 90% of taxpayers money and dictate policy to Congress. They ARE the government....
....oh, and financiers are the only people getting rich.
Fortunately millions of Americans are on to these criminals and their days, please God, as 'kings of this world' are numbered.
What is the likelihood that when the inevitable money-printing collapse (or some other catastrophe)arrives, the bankers will have a communist, peace-guaranteeing, one-world banking, globally policed system ready and waiting to foist on us as the answer to all our prayers?
At the very end of the following startling interview Griffin asks Dodd, "Why do the Foundations generously support Communist causes in the United States?"
"Because, to them, Communism represents a means of developing what we call a monopoly", Dodd replies.
No fool he.
Strong(and accurate, I believe)polemic here from Henry Makow:
http://www.savethemales.ca/
In 1953 Norman Dodd carried led an investigation on behalf of the Congressional 'Rees Committee' into the 'Financial Foundations'(Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford etc). Below he is interviewed, shortly before he died in 1982, by Edward Griffin.
He discovered that these Foundations planned, from their outset, to take over the education system, create a self-serving version of history, and even control government itself.
It is easy to see that these financial interests have succeeded admirably in their aims. In America, corporations effectively write the legislation while Wall Street bankers like Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers spend over 90% of taxpayers money and dictate policy to Congress. They ARE the government....
....oh, and financiers are the only people getting rich.
Fortunately millions of Americans are on to these criminals and their days, please God, as 'kings of this world' are numbered.
What is the likelihood that when the inevitable money-printing collapse (or some other catastrophe)arrives, the bankers will have a communist, peace-guaranteeing, one-world banking, globally policed system ready and waiting to foist on us as the answer to all our prayers?
At the very end of the following startling interview Griffin asks Dodd, "Why do the Foundations generously support Communist causes in the United States?"
"Because, to them, Communism represents a means of developing what we call a monopoly", Dodd replies.
No fool he.
Saturday, 12 September 2009
mediafor911truth.org Also Down
new 9/11 Truth site http://mediafor911truth.org/ is now down.
We have 'Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth':
http://www.ae911truth.org/
Pilots for 9/11 Truth:
http://pilotsfor911truth.org/
Scholars for 9/11 Truth And Justice:
http://stj911.com/
The long-standing '9/11 Blogger' site:
http://www.911blogger.com/
.......but media for 9/11 Truth is a protest group too far. Architects, Engineers, Pilots, Scholars and bloggers can howl all they like but as long as they can't get published in the mainstream media the criminals feel safe.
MEDIA for 9/11 truth??!!! This is just NOT ON!
We have 'Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth':
http://www.ae911truth.org/
Pilots for 9/11 Truth:
http://pilotsfor911truth.org/
Scholars for 9/11 Truth And Justice:
http://stj911.com/
The long-standing '9/11 Blogger' site:
http://www.911blogger.com/
.......but media for 9/11 Truth is a protest group too far. Architects, Engineers, Pilots, Scholars and bloggers can howl all they like but as long as they can't get published in the mainstream media the criminals feel safe.
MEDIA for 9/11 truth??!!! This is just NOT ON!
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk and Craig Murray's Blog Down
Craig Murray’s Blog is down which means, I think, that his articles about the 'airlines bomb plot' are upsetting somebody with the power to intervene in the activities of Internet Service Providers.
'thetruthseeker.co.uk' (with something like one million hits per week)is also down. The mind-controllers are worried. Maybe you don't have to read mainstream media critics and debunkers on the internet to realise there is something alarming and disreputable going on regarding the 'liquid bomb plotters'.
For those who are educated about the ways of 'false flag terror' this plot has MI6 written all over it. The main AlCIAda suspect, Rashid Rauf miraculously escaped prosecution just like 7/7 'organiser' Haroon Aswat. While he was detained in Pakistan the British government made little effort to extradite him. Now he is reported to be dead. Very convenient.
It is reported this morning that three of the 'bomb plot' suspects are to face a THIRD prosecution charging them with plotting to blow up planes. I don't know the law on this kind of thing or when it changed but was there not once a principle of 'double jeapardy' whereby a person could not be prosecuted twice for the same offence.
What will young Muslims make of this development? .......it is impossible to be too cynical re the 'War On Terror'. Perhaps the purpose of this third prosecution is to generate a few more dumb-ass potential terrorists. Maybe the other Rashid Raufs and Haroon Aswats out there are having trouble recruiting angry young Muslims to go out and buy hydrogen peroxide and peppercorns for them.
Here is Craig murray's original post on the liquid bomb plot in 2006.
Craig Murray’s Blog
18th September, 2006
In the UK, at least, the more serious wing of the mainstream media is beginning to catch up with the idea that all is not well here.
Still, after eight days of detention, nobody has been charged with any crime. For there to be no clear evidence yet on something that was “imminent” and “Mass murder on an unbelievable scale” is, to say the least, rather peculiar. The 24th person, who was arrested amid much fanfare yesterday, has been quietly released without charge today. Breaking news, another “suspect” has just been released too.
The drip, drip of information to the media from the security services has rather dried-up. The last item of any significance was that they had found a handgun and a rifle – neither of which could have been in any use in the alleged plot. If you were smuggling undetectable liquid explosive onto a plane, you would be unlikely to give the game away by tucking a rifle into your hand baggage.
As with the murder some years ago of the uncle of the suspect held in Pakistan, it remains a possibility that there could be some criminal activity here involving a few of the suspects, which is not terrorist linked.
As the Police immediately told the press about the guns, it is a reasonable deduction that it remains true that they still have found no bombs or detonators, or they would have told us, particularly as they haven’t charged anyone yet. They must be getting pretty desperate to announce some actual evidence by now.
This brings us to one particuarly sinister aspect of the allegations – that the bombs were to be made on the plane.
The idea that high explosive can be made quickly in a plane toilet by mixing at room temperature some nail polish remover, bleach, and Red Bull and giving it a quick stir, is nonsense. Yes, liquid explosives exist and are highly dangerous and yes, airports are ill equipped to detect them at present. Yes, it is true they have been used on planes before by terrorists. But can they be quickly manufactured on the plane? No.
The sinister aspect is not that this is a real new threat. It is that the allegation may have been concocted in order to prepare us for arresting people without any actual bombs.
Let me fess up here. I have just checked, and our flat contains nail polish remover, sports drinks, and a variety of household cleaning products. Also MP3 players and mobile phones. So the authorities could announce – as they have whispered to the media in this case – that potential ingredients of a liquid bomb, and potential timing devices, have been discovered. It rather lowers the bar, doesn’t it?
This has a peculiar resonance for me. I spoke at the annual Stop the War conference a couple of months ago. I referred to the famous ricin plot. For those outside the UK, this generated the same degree of hype here two years ago. It was alleged that a flat in North London inhabited by Muslims was a “Ricin” factory, manufacturing the deadly toxin which could kill “hundreds of thousands of people”. Police tipped off the authorities that traces of ricin had been discovered. In the end, all those accused were found not guilty by the court. The “traces of ricin” were revealed to be the atmospheric norm.
The “intelligence” on that plot had been extracted under torture in Algeria – another echo here, as the “intelligence” in this current case has almost certainly been extracted under torture in Pakistan. Another police tip-off to the media was that the intelligence said that the ricin had been stored in plastic jars, and they had indeed found plastic jars containing a suspicious substance. It turned out the containers in question were two Brylcreem tubs. What was in them? In the first, paper clips. In the second, Brylcreem.
I told the story in my speech, and concluded with a ringing “So we must congratulate the government for saving us from a dastardly Islamic plot to take over the World using hair styling products.”
I fear the government may have taken me seriously!
I do not discount the possibility that there is a germ of something behind the current alleged plot. Will it be anything like the hype? No.
The hype scarcely lowers. On the flagship ten o’clock news last night, the BBC reported breathlessly on the United flight diverted from Washington to Boston last night, and its fighter escort. We had very earnest besuited security experts terrifying us about the dangers.
The extraordinary thing was that, by this stage, we knew definitely that this was a 60 year old woman with claustrophobia, who had a few loose matches and some Vaseline intensive care hand lotion in the bottom of her handbag. The facts reported were totally at odds with the whole manner of the “be terrified” report and the analysis being built on it. But that didn’t stop them.
It has, of course, worked. When did you last see Iraq on the news? Where is Liebermann’s defeat now on the news agenda?
A blog like this is much too small a player to affect the public mood. What it can do is tap into it. The extraordinary response to these posts shows that there is a very significant section of the public not prepared to buy more Bush/Blair propaganda.
'thetruthseeker.co.uk' (with something like one million hits per week)is also down. The mind-controllers are worried. Maybe you don't have to read mainstream media critics and debunkers on the internet to realise there is something alarming and disreputable going on regarding the 'liquid bomb plotters'.
For those who are educated about the ways of 'false flag terror' this plot has MI6 written all over it. The main AlCIAda suspect, Rashid Rauf miraculously escaped prosecution just like 7/7 'organiser' Haroon Aswat. While he was detained in Pakistan the British government made little effort to extradite him. Now he is reported to be dead. Very convenient.
It is reported this morning that three of the 'bomb plot' suspects are to face a THIRD prosecution charging them with plotting to blow up planes. I don't know the law on this kind of thing or when it changed but was there not once a principle of 'double jeapardy' whereby a person could not be prosecuted twice for the same offence.
What will young Muslims make of this development? .......it is impossible to be too cynical re the 'War On Terror'. Perhaps the purpose of this third prosecution is to generate a few more dumb-ass potential terrorists. Maybe the other Rashid Raufs and Haroon Aswats out there are having trouble recruiting angry young Muslims to go out and buy hydrogen peroxide and peppercorns for them.
Here is Craig murray's original post on the liquid bomb plot in 2006.
Craig Murray’s Blog
18th September, 2006
In the UK, at least, the more serious wing of the mainstream media is beginning to catch up with the idea that all is not well here.
Still, after eight days of detention, nobody has been charged with any crime. For there to be no clear evidence yet on something that was “imminent” and “Mass murder on an unbelievable scale” is, to say the least, rather peculiar. The 24th person, who was arrested amid much fanfare yesterday, has been quietly released without charge today. Breaking news, another “suspect” has just been released too.
The drip, drip of information to the media from the security services has rather dried-up. The last item of any significance was that they had found a handgun and a rifle – neither of which could have been in any use in the alleged plot. If you were smuggling undetectable liquid explosive onto a plane, you would be unlikely to give the game away by tucking a rifle into your hand baggage.
As with the murder some years ago of the uncle of the suspect held in Pakistan, it remains a possibility that there could be some criminal activity here involving a few of the suspects, which is not terrorist linked.
As the Police immediately told the press about the guns, it is a reasonable deduction that it remains true that they still have found no bombs or detonators, or they would have told us, particularly as they haven’t charged anyone yet. They must be getting pretty desperate to announce some actual evidence by now.
This brings us to one particuarly sinister aspect of the allegations – that the bombs were to be made on the plane.
The idea that high explosive can be made quickly in a plane toilet by mixing at room temperature some nail polish remover, bleach, and Red Bull and giving it a quick stir, is nonsense. Yes, liquid explosives exist and are highly dangerous and yes, airports are ill equipped to detect them at present. Yes, it is true they have been used on planes before by terrorists. But can they be quickly manufactured on the plane? No.
The sinister aspect is not that this is a real new threat. It is that the allegation may have been concocted in order to prepare us for arresting people without any actual bombs.
Let me fess up here. I have just checked, and our flat contains nail polish remover, sports drinks, and a variety of household cleaning products. Also MP3 players and mobile phones. So the authorities could announce – as they have whispered to the media in this case – that potential ingredients of a liquid bomb, and potential timing devices, have been discovered. It rather lowers the bar, doesn’t it?
This has a peculiar resonance for me. I spoke at the annual Stop the War conference a couple of months ago. I referred to the famous ricin plot. For those outside the UK, this generated the same degree of hype here two years ago. It was alleged that a flat in North London inhabited by Muslims was a “Ricin” factory, manufacturing the deadly toxin which could kill “hundreds of thousands of people”. Police tipped off the authorities that traces of ricin had been discovered. In the end, all those accused were found not guilty by the court. The “traces of ricin” were revealed to be the atmospheric norm.
The “intelligence” on that plot had been extracted under torture in Algeria – another echo here, as the “intelligence” in this current case has almost certainly been extracted under torture in Pakistan. Another police tip-off to the media was that the intelligence said that the ricin had been stored in plastic jars, and they had indeed found plastic jars containing a suspicious substance. It turned out the containers in question were two Brylcreem tubs. What was in them? In the first, paper clips. In the second, Brylcreem.
I told the story in my speech, and concluded with a ringing “So we must congratulate the government for saving us from a dastardly Islamic plot to take over the World using hair styling products.”
I fear the government may have taken me seriously!
I do not discount the possibility that there is a germ of something behind the current alleged plot. Will it be anything like the hype? No.
The hype scarcely lowers. On the flagship ten o’clock news last night, the BBC reported breathlessly on the United flight diverted from Washington to Boston last night, and its fighter escort. We had very earnest besuited security experts terrifying us about the dangers.
The extraordinary thing was that, by this stage, we knew definitely that this was a 60 year old woman with claustrophobia, who had a few loose matches and some Vaseline intensive care hand lotion in the bottom of her handbag. The facts reported were totally at odds with the whole manner of the “be terrified” report and the analysis being built on it. But that didn’t stop them.
It has, of course, worked. When did you last see Iraq on the news? Where is Liebermann’s defeat now on the news agenda?
A blog like this is much too small a player to affect the public mood. What it can do is tap into it. The extraordinary response to these posts shows that there is a very significant section of the public not prepared to buy more Bush/Blair propaganda.
Friday, 11 September 2009
Thursday, 10 September 2009
Friday, 4 September 2009
At The Racket
Great Irish Band with old London pal John Carty on fiddle and banjo. Seamus O'Donnell on flute and saxaphone, Jim Murray guitar and Brian McGrath on piano.
The Edenderry Reel/ unknown reel
unknown barn dance(...I think)/The Sally Gardens/The Sligo Maid
The Edenderry Reel/ unknown reel
unknown barn dance(...I think)/The Sally Gardens/The Sligo Maid
Tuesday, 1 September 2009
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