[CTRL] Leaked Pentagon report warns climate change may bring famine, war
-Caveat Lector- -Caveat Lector- Interesting Leaked Pentagon report warns climate change may bring famine, war. http://www.atsnn.com/story/34472.html The reasons for Washington's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change and President George W. Bush's skepticism about global warning become clear. According to a Pentagon report, sudden climate change may lead to global catastrophe costing millions of lives and is a far greater threat than terrorism. The report was ordered by an influential US Pentagon advisor but was covered up by US defense chiefs for four months, until it was obtained by the British weekly The Observer. The Pentagon report, commissioned by Andrew Marshall, predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies, The Observer reported. The report, quoted in the paper, concluded: Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life Once again, warfare would define human life. Its authors -- Peter Schwartz, a CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of Global Business Network based in California -- said climate change should be considered immediately as a top political and military issue. It should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern, they were quoted as saying. Some examples given of probable scenarios in the dramatic report include: -- Britain will have winters similar to those in current-day Siberia as European temperatures drop off radically by 2020. -- by 2007 violent storms will make large parts of the Netherlands uninhabitable and lead to a breach in the acqueduct system in California that supplies all water to densely populated southern California -- Europe and the United States become virtual fortresses trying to keep out millions of migrants whose homelands have been wiped out by rising sea levels or made unfarmable by drought. -- catastrophic shortages of potable water and energy will lead to widespread war by 2020. Randall, one of the authors, called his findings depressing stuff and warned that it might even be too late to prevent future disasters. We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years, he told the paper. Experts familiar with the report told the newspaper that the threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism. Taking environmental pollution and climate change into account in political and military strategy is a new, complicated and necessary challenge for leaders, Randall said. It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat, he said. Coming from the Pentagon, normally a bastion of conservative politics, the report is expected to bring environmental issues to the fore in the US presidential race. Last week the Union of Concerned Scientists, an influential and non-partisan group that includes 20 Nobel laureates, accused the Bush administration of having deliberately distorted scientific fact to serve its policy agenda and having misled the public. Its 38-page report, which it said took over a year to prepare and was not time to coincide with the campaign season, details how Washington systematically skewed government scientific studies, suppressed others, stacked panels with political and unqualified appointees and often refused to seek independent expertise on issues. Critics of the report quoted by the New York Times denied there was deliberate misrepresentation and called it politically motivated. The person behind the leaked Pentagon report, Andrew Marsall, cannot be accused of the same partisan politicking. Marsall, 82, has been an advisor for the defense department for decades, and was described by The Observer as the author of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plans for a major transformation of the US military. ALSO SEE: Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1153513,00.html peat http://www.diversionz.net --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.576 / Virus Database: 365 - Release Date: 1/30/2004 www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives
Re: [CTRL] [DiVERSiONZ] Recommendation: BIN LADEN CAUGHT?
Title: Message -Caveat Lector- [EMAIL PROTECTED] has sent you a link!Title: BIN LADEN CAUGHT?Link: http://www.diversionz.net/archives/000843.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.459 / Virus Database: 258 - Release Date: 2/25/2003 A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=""Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=""ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] [DiVERSiONZ] Recommendation: STALIN'S MYSTERY PASSING
-Caveat Lector- [EMAIL PROTECTED] has sent you a link! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2793501.stm BBC | The Mystery of Stalin's Death Fifty years ago, on 5 March 1953, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin died. His political life as a dictator who dominated millions has been minutely dissected over the decades. But his last days continue to provoke speculation and argument. Did he die of natural causes following a brain haemorrhage or was Stalin killed because he was about to plunge the Soviet Union into a war its people were in no position to fight? Title: STALIN'S MYSTERY PASSING Link: http://www.diversionz.net/archives/000714.html -- Powered by Movable Type Version 2.51 http://www.movabletype.org/ A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Pretty Colors
Title: Message -Caveat Lector- Here is what I think the color system really means:DiVERSiONZPermalink | Put The Lotion In The Basket (0) | Track It (0) | File: EDITORIAL ATTEMPTS --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.449 / Virus Database: 251 - Release Date: 1/27/2003 A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=""Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=""ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] [DiVERSiONZ] Recommendation: WAR OF THE WHIRLS?
-Caveat Lector- [EMAIL PROTECTED] has sent you a link! Title: WAR OF THE WHIRLS? Link: http://www.diversionz.net/archives/000476.html -- Powered by Movable Type Version 2.51 http://www.movabletype.org/ A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] [DiVERSiONZ] Recommendation: A POLITICALLY CORRECT U.N.
-Caveat Lector- [EMAIL PROTECTED] has sent you a link! The way things have gone with George Bush's administration, regarding our rights (or what is left of them) it would not surprise me at all to learn that he somehow had something to do with the following: From Boing Boing: UN officials have covered up a reproduction of Pablo Picasso's Guernica that was donated by Nelson A. Rockefeller, and has hung outside the UN headquarters for nearly 20 years. Created in 1937, this painting is probably the most famous anti-war expression in the history of modern art -- and has been temporarily covered with a baby-blue banner that bears the U.N. logo. Title: A POLITICALLY CORRECT U.N. Link: http://www.diversionz.net/archives/000460.html -- Powered by Movable Type Version 2.51 http://www.movabletype.org/ A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Feds Want To See Enron Videotape
Title: Message -Caveat Lector- http://66.246.23.2/~peatluke/archives/83.html A funny thing happened on the way to bankruptcy at Enron and even Dubya and his Pa were in on the act. I'm sure the video would make for a great stocking stuffer for those that lost their jobs and life savings because of the companies now infamous financial debacle. Oh and I am quite sure that those people that lost their jobs are also so enjoying that clever "Let It Snow" Heineken commercial too! Maybe Heineken just wants to help those people out of their misery by recommending drinking more, I don't know. Click2Houston: Feds Want To See Enron Videotape HOUSTON -- Skits and jokes by a few former Enron Corp. executives at a party six years ago were funny then, but now border on bad taste in light of the events of the past year. A videotape of a January 1997 going-away party for former Enron President Rich Kinder features nearly half an hour of absurd skits, songs and testimonials by company executives and prominent Houstonians, the Houston Chronicle reported in its Monday editions. The collection is all meant in good fun, but some of the comments are ironic in the current climate of corporate scandal. In one skit, former Administrative Executive Peggy Menchaca played the part of Kinder as he received a budget report from then-President Jeff Skilling, who played himself, and Financial Planning Executive Tod Lindholm. When the pretend Kinder expressed doubt that Skilling could pull off 600 percent revenue growth for the coming year, Skilling revealed how it could be done. "We're going to move from mark-to-market accounting to something I call HFV, or hypothetical future value accounting," Skilling joked as he read from a script. "If we do that, we can add a kazillion dollars to the bottom line." Richard Causey, the former chief accounting officer who was embroiled in many of the business deals named in the indictments of other Enron executives, made an unfortunate joke later on the tape. "I've been on the job for a week managing earnings, and it's easier than I thought it would be," Causey said, referring to a practice that is frowned upon by securities regulators. "I can't even count fast enough with the earnings rolling in." Joe Sutton and Rebecca Mark, the two executives credited with leading Enron on an international buying spree, did a painfully awkward rap for Kinder, while former Enron Broadband Services President Ken Rice recounted a basketball game where employees from Enron Capital Trade beat Kinder's Enron Corp. team, 98-50. "I know you never forget a number, Rich," Rice said. President George W. Bush, who then was governor of Texas, also took part in the skit, as did his father. At the party, the younger Bush pleaded with Kinder: "Don't leave Texas. You're too good a man." The governor's father also offered a send-off to Kinder, thanking him for helping his son reach the governor's mansion. "You have been fantastic to the Bush family," the elder Bush said. "I don't think anybody did more than you did to support George." [more] ~ Need a Diversion? ~ .::DiVERSiONZ ::.A Weapon of Mass Distraction http://www.diversionz.net Mail Diversionz: http://groups.Yahoo.Com/group/diversionz --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.427 / Virus Database: 240 - Release Date: 12/6/2002 A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=""Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=""ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Bomb On Flight 11?
Title: Message -Caveat Lector- Interesting thing today From the Xymphora Blog that I thought some of you might not have seen (link they report is from ABC NEWS) http://abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/DailyNews/primetime_flightattendants_020718.html From:http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2002_07_21_xymphora_archive.html#79292814 We are now getting a more detailed report of communication between Amy Sweeney, a flight attendant on Flight 11 (which crashed into the WTC on September 11), and American Airlines ground manager Michael Woodward (here is an early account of the conversation which notably misses a key element, and here is a longer recent article). Here's the interesting paragraph: "Sweeney told Woodward the hijackers seemed to be of Middle Eastern descent and said they had gone into the cockpit with a bomb with yellow wires attached." A bomb with yellow wires attached. The Mark Bingham phone call to his mother from Flight 93 said that the three men said that they had a bomb (and Tom Burnett in his call said: "They say there's a bomb."), but this revelation from Amy Sweeney is the first evidence released that there actually was a bomb on one of the planes (a story that there was a gun on Flight 11 has been denied). Edward Jay Epstein has already written to demolish the fiction that there was any evidence that the hijackers used only boxcutters and plastic knives in their operation. As he writes, in referring to this lie which he calls a 'fictoid': "Not only does it serve to shield the airlines, airports and airport screeners from massive liability from the victims at the World Trade Center, it protects the Bush Administration by diverting attention away from concern that airport security at three Federally-supervised airports was dangerously lax." It is amazing how successfully this lie has become accepted as part of the Official Story of September 11. It has appeared to me from the outset that these hijackers must have been well armed for their operation. It was simply too risky to rely on boxcutters alone. On top of the liability problem which the boxcutter lie helped to solve, it also neatly dealt with three other problems: If the hijackers had been heavily armed with guns and explosives, the heroic story of how the passengers managed to fight the hijackers on Flight 93 (the one that crashed into Pennsylvania) would not have made much sense, and the attack by the passengers was needed to explain why the plane crashed without having been shot down by the U. S. military. I think the deep reason the U. S. government doesn't want to admit that it shot down Flight 93 is that it would raise questions in people's minds about why the other planes weren't intercepted. While there may have been more time to shoot down Flight 93 than the other planes, there should have been sufficient time to intercept all of them, and especially Flight 77 (the one that is supposed to have hit the Pentagon, a story I still don't buy). If the hijackers managed to have weapons on the planes it raises the issue of corruption in the airport security systems. In particular, it raises the issue of whether the hijackers had managed to infiltrate the security systems (there is even an odd report that John Doe No. 2 of Oklahoma City bombing fame went to work at Logan Airport!), or whether they had as accomplices the organized crime elements that regularly corrupt airport security for the purposes of drug smuggling and stealing from baggage. The issue of accomplices raises all kinds of issues that the U. S. government would rather not face (and there are even darker views of the Logan Airport security, although I don't know what to make of this as it hints at some sort of conspiracy without any proof). The boxcutter story greatly simplifies the official solution to the problems raised by September 11, which is to obviously increase security measures at airports (and ban boxcutters and small knives). By imposing heavy-handed security measures (with the accompanying tales of searching people who obviously are not potential hijackers), the government manages to convey an illusion of security and keeps the airline industry afloat. Of course, if the hijackers didn't need to bring any weapons through security as the weapons were already planted on the planes, it becomes immediately obvious that the new security measures are a sham. The sad thing is that all this inconvenience may just be a method of hiding the real danger from the flying public. posted 3:10 AM | link ==== Thoughts? PeatMcBlogald's--Drive Thru Open 24 Hourshttp://www.upsaid.com/peatluke/~ --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.
[CTRL] Colorado Fire Conspiracy/Slate Link
-Caveat Lector- Hmmm...here's a little conspriacy theory for you to gnaw on...maybe that Colorado Fire is all about making insiders rich. They say it is costing $x-million per day, but then they are also saying that not much can be done about it, right, that no one has been able to fight it. So where is the money going? http://slate.msn.com/?id=2066948 Peat Blogging Never Felt So Good http://blogasm.blogspot.com/ --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.363 / Virus Database: 201 - Release Date: 5/21/2002 A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] dubya concerned about american catholic church
Title: Message interesting quote from this mornings yahoo story on dubya being concerned about the american catholic church"http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storyncid=578e=5cid=578u=/nm/20020528/ts_nm/bush_pope_dc_1"anyone want to speculate on why the catholic church is such an important institution in our country, as dubya has stated in this quote when asked what he will discuss with the pope?: "...i will tell him that I am concerned about the catholic church in america. i am concerned about its standing. i say that because the catholic church is an incredibly important institution in our country," bush told reporters. z2 ~~~ mindgasmlinks that will make you think other expeditions in random stimuliweb presence:http://mindgasm.blogspot.com/discussion newsletter mailing list:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mindgasm/settings --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.363 / Virus Database: 201 - Release Date: 5/21/2002
[CTRL] Arafat Chips
-Caveat Lector- arafat has a new chip. maybe someone in cairo can tell us how they taste. proceeds to palestinians. Peat - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,53847,00.html Arafat Potato Chips Take Egyptian Market by Storm A boy eats an Arafat chip in Cairo. Tuesday, May 28, 2002 CAIRO, Egypt Cheese-flavored Yasser Arafat potato chips five cents a bag. Vendors report brisk sales of the new product. The maker of the chips says it donates five cents 25 pisaters to the Palestinian cause for every 50 packages sold. The chips are bagged in Palestinian colors green, red, black and white and carry the likeness of a rotund and wide-eyed Arafat, saluting with one hand and holding a Palestinian flag in the other. He's dressed in his trademark military fatigues and black-and-white checked headgear. Shopkeepers say the Arafat chips, named Abu Ammar the Palestinian leader's nom de guerre, are considerably outselling another new brand, The Hero, which hit store shelves earlier this month. The packaging for that brand pictures a schoolboy holding a stone in his right hand and books in the other as he confronts an Israeli tank. There's no one who doesn't love Abu Ammar, said Iman Mohammed Darwish, a 12-year-old girl. I like the taste, and I want to help the Palestinians. I sell at least three boxes (150 bags) of Abu Ammar daily, said Fatma Abdel-Ghani, a shopkeeper in the Cairo suburb of Thakanat Al-Maadi as she carefully placed boxes of Abu Ammar above those containing The Hero and other brands of chips. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict that erupted 20 months ago has captivated Egyptians of all social classes and has spawned movies and songs by pop stars in support of Arafat's cause. Most trade and professional unions have collected money, food and medicine for Palestinians. As newspapers and television broadcasts have been dominated by the conflict, university students staged anti-Israeli demonstrations nearly every day and called on President Hosni Mubarak's government to break diplomatic relations with Israel. The Arafat brand chips are produced by Al-Jawhara Co. for International Industries. The back of each bag reads: The more you buy, the more you build. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.363 / Virus Database: 201 - Release Date: 5/21/2002 A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Are Green Eggs Really Red?
Title: Message Are Green Eggs Really Red?Hidden messages of Communism in the stories of Dr. Seuss http://www.thecharlie.com/words/greeneggs.html Throughout history there have been examples of writers of childrens' stories inserting more adult themes into their works. Many childrens' stories and Disney movies contain sex and drugs, but most of the adult themes have more to do with politics. Authors as a whole are an opinionated bunch, and every once in a while they secrete their beliefs and propaganda in seemingly innocent works. Frank Baum filled The Wizard of Oz with references to the gold or silver standard debate of the time. Mao Zedong's Little Red Book reeks of Communist beliefs, as does the Communist Manifesto. But after extensive research, I have discovered what might be the most frightening example of all. Hidden in the words and pictures of "Green Eggs and Ham" by the beloved Dr. Seuss is a veritable allegory of Communist ideology. From every innocent tongue twister springs a hidden meaning or anagram, and every plot twist shows the "struggle" against Capitalism. DiVERSiONZNews, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.324 / Virus Database: 181 - Release Date: 2/14/2002
[CTRL] Mystery man
Title: Message Mystery man http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2002/03/02/shakespeare/print.html A new documentary revives an old controversy: Was actor and landowner William Shakespeare merely a front man for Christopher Marlowe, the flamboyant gay genius and shadowy Elizabethan spy?By Gavin McNett Salon March 2, 2002 | If you look hard enough, it's possible to find a group of ardent souls, somewhere, who still believe almost any weird idea that might ever have held currency. The Flat Earth Society, for instance, is still very much in business, with headquarters both in America and what they'd hesitate to call the Southern Hemisphere, in Australia. There are groups of people, after all this time, who still think Japanese anime is edgy and avant-garde, and others still devoted to proving that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare. Perhaps you know some of these people, or are one of them. For my part, I believe the Shakespeare-authorship thing. I think Christopher Marlowe might've written all the Bard's works instead, and it was Michael Rubbo's new video documentary, "Much Ado About Something," which just completed a two-week run at Film Forum in New York and should appear somewhere near you soon, that smashed my paradigm. DiVERSiONZNews, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.324 / Virus Database: 181 - Release Date: 2/14/2002
[CTRL] Airline allegedly hindered marshals
Title: Message Airline allegedly hindered marshals http://www.usatoday.com/news/attack/2002/03/06/usat-airmarshals.htm By Blake Morrison, USA TODAY Two Federal Air Marshals say an American Airlines employee told them that the airline "was growing tired of air marshals taking high-revenue seats" and refused to allow them to sit near the cockpit during a flight late last month, according to documents obtained by USA TODAY. In addition, another airline employee identified the marshals, who are supposed to travel anonymously, by saying in front of passengers, "These air marshals have been a nuisance all week," the marshals say in a report written after Flight 1718 of Feb. 20 DiVERSiONZNews, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.324 / Virus Database: 181 - Release Date: 2/14/2002
[CTRL] Find out how bad your senator lied to you by looking at their actual voting record
Title: Message Find out how bad your senator lied to you by looking at their actual voting re http://www.conservative.org/rating2001/senate.htm DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 1/11/2002
[CTRL] Flynt's hustle
Flynt's hustle By Alex BrownOf The SF Examiner Staff http://www.examiner.com/news/default.jsp?story=n.barelylegal.0211w Sassy legal teens or child porn? That's the controversy created by porn czar Larry Flynt after his organization placed advertisements last week in the S.F. Weekly and the Bay Guardian for Hustler's new North Beach club. The photo, depicting two Canadian models described by an employee of their Los Angeles agency as "very young, but legal," has caused a stir in the community, with many questioning the intent of the image. In the full-length version of the advertisement, the adolescent-looking models appear naked. Only a slogan stating, "grand opening Feb. 20 and 21" covers their breasts, and the picture is cropped at the hips. "It's horrifying," said Jen Arens, a youth worker with the Salvation Army. "It's crossing a line and makes my job harder, and the lives of the kids I work with worse. "Even if those girls are of legal age, it doesn't matter. They're made to look 12 intentionally. A couple of times a week, I tell scared little girls who have been sexually abused that it's their body and no one other than them has the right to touch it. They might not see this picture, but any father, uncle or neighbor might. And that's how the abuse starts." Not everyone, however, shared Arens view. "It's in the eye of the beholder," said San Francisco resident Meg Dixit, 24. "It's not violent." And an employee of Allure Models Inc. -- the agency that manages the models, known as Judy Star and Diamond Forever -- said that the Nov. 2000 photo shoot for the advertisement and an early cover for Hustler magazine was tastefully done. "It was cute," said the employee, who requested his name be withheld. "They're not actively with us anymore. In this business girls fall off by the wayside pretty quickly. "So few in this business are good. Most are operating out of fear and desperation and will f--- everybody and their mother -- including us -- to get ahead. "I find it hard to mix whores with tasteful, but that shoot was nice. They're just young, but we screen them very carefully to ensure they're legal." The ad occupied a full page in the Weekly and a three-quarter page in the Guardian. Judy, the taller model on the right, is listed on Web site Onemodelplace.com as 18, while Diamond is said to be 23 (the site was last updated Feb. 25, 2001). Both have appeared on the cover of Hustler as well as porn videos including "Barely Legal #8" and "Buttman and Rocco Go To Montreal." Even if those are their true ages, it has done little to appease Dr. Diana Russell -- a professor at Mills College, Oakland, who has penned several books on pornography and the sexual abuse of women. "It endorses children being sexualized, which leads to children being sexually abused," Russell said. "The girls may be 18, which gets around the law, but by the way they appear makes them look younger. It appeals to pedophiles, which shows Flynt's attitude." The majority of people interviewed in a vox-pop in Union Square on Sunday tended to side with Russell. ""I'm a teacher and they look way too young," said San Jose resident Stacey Smith, 35. "That pushes things too far." Bill Secrease, meanwhile, said the picture exploited youth. "It tells other little girls 'Hey, I can do that, too,' " Secrease, 45, said. Aaron Satchwell, 28, labeled the advertisement "outrageous," while Karl Thomson, 29, described it as, "just plain terrible." "They look like babies -- that's too young," added Iris Butler, 32. Attempts to reach Judy and Diamond, as well as Hustler's art director were unsuccessful Friday, although a public relations spokeswoman said she understood both models were legal age. But that doesn't satisfy Arens. Appearing visibly upset when presented with the advertisement, she told of the time when her own 5-year-old son was convinced by an older boy to take his clothes off for a photo. "(The older boy) had seen these kind of pornographic images on a Web site and became addicted to it," she said, pushing away the S.F. Weekly copy. "These girls look literally 12 or 14. They appear as budding young virgins, and it scares the life out of me." Deliberate? E-mail Alex Brown at [EMAIL PROTECTED] DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Enron II: Here We Go Again?
Terry Hungle resigned his chief financial officer position at Nortel on Monday. Additionally, the company contacted Canadian regulators over Hungle's personal transactions. Nortel CFO steps down msnbc http://www.msnbc.com/news/704826.asp?0cm=c20cp1=1 Canadian regulators contacted over executives personal transactions ASSOCIATED PRESS TORONTO, Feb. 11 Nortel Networks new chief financial officer resigned abruptly Monday amid questions about personal investments he made in a 401(k) retirement plan just ahead of corporate announcements that caused significant swings in the companys stock price. nt Nortel Networks Corporation (NT) price change 6.84 +0.55 Add this stock to your MSNBC homepage Data: CNBC on MSN Money and SP Comstock 20 min.delay.Click here for Quotes TERRY HUNGLE, WHO was named CFO late last year, allegedly transferred about $78,500 from a stock fund invested primarily in Nortel shares to a fixed income fund last March prior to the companys announcement that it would cut 5,000 jobs and would not meet reduced profit forecasts, Nortel said in a statement released after the close of markets Monday. He then transferred $86,300 from the fixed income fund to the stock fund in December, when Nortel said it would lose less than expected during the fourth quarter, the company said. Nortel said the transfers were made outside the trading windows the company imposed on certain employees, including Hungle, and were made prior new releases on potential market-moving information. Nortel said it has voluntarily notified the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Ontario Securities Commission about the personal investment transactions. The company said it would have no further comment. The news is another blow for Nortel as the fiber optics giant tries to recover from a disastrous 18 months in which its shares lost more than 90 percent of value and it has been cutting its work force in half. Chief executive officer Frank Dunn, who took over last year after being the chief financial officer, will assume Hungles duties until a successor can be found, the company said. With international attention on questionable dealings by Enron in the biggest corporate collapse in U.S. history, Nortel emphasized that the resignation of Hungle involved personal investments. This matter is unfortunate but the actions we have taken are in the best interests of Nortel Advertisement Networks, Dunn said. Let me emphasize that this matter solely relates to the personal investment transactions made by Terry Hungle and does not relate to the business, operations or financials of Nortel Networks. Nortel shares were halted for trading after falling 3 cents to $6.81 in the extended session. In regular trading, the shares ended 55 cents higher at $6.84 on the New York Stock Exchange.DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html CLEAR.GIF Description: GIF image email_this.gif Description: GIF image complete_story.gif Description: GIF image dotblack.gif Description:
[CTRL] MASONIC-LED CONGRESS ACQUITS DEMOLAY CLINTON
Old news...but worth a look for the conspiracy junkie... pl http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1264.cfm Title: MASONIC-LED CONGRESS ACQUITS DEMOLAY CLINTON Subtitle: In complete accordance with Masonic doctrine, former Demolay member, Bill Clinton, is acquitted from all charges. We could expect nothing less from one Mason to another. Masonic obligations demand such action. The New World Order is coming! Are you ready? Once you understand what this New World Order really is, and how it is being gradually implemented, you will be able to see it progressing in your daily news!! Learn how to protect yourself, your loved ones! Stand by for insights so startling you will never look at the news the same way again. YOU ARE NOW ON THE CUTTING EDGE NEWS BRIEF: "Clinton Acquitted By An Angry Senate: Neither Impeachment Article Gains Majority Vote", The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, Saturday, February 13, 1999, p. 1, 6. WASHINGTON -- The Senate yesterday acquitted William Jefferson Clinton of high crimes and misdemeanors, preserving a presidency indelibly tarnished by scandal, but unshakably sustained by public approval. Clinton, condemned even by senators who had voted to keep him in office, survived only the second presidential impeachment trial in history as the Senate rejected two articles charging him with perjury and obstruction of justice in attempting to conceal his sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky." " 'It is, therefore, ordered and adjudged that the said William Jefferson Clinton be, and he is hereby, acquitted of the charges in said articles', Chief Justice William Rehnquist declared following the second and final vote. With those words came the end of the historic impeachment drama that paralyzed the political system, tried the patience of a scandal-weary public, and brought the Clinton presidency to the brink of constitutional demise." We predicted this turn of events about 8 months ago, in NEWS1233, "Are You Ready For Clinton's Exoneration?". We had considered the New World Order Plan, considered Clinton's role in it, and considered the part of the Plan to deliberately create scandals in the previous form of government. After considering all these factors, we concluded that the Plan would have Clinton getting off scot-free for felonies that he had publicly admitted to doing. Thus, the conservatives in America, who feel most deeply about our government, about Absolute Right and Wrong, and about Justice, would become discouraged about our Constitutional form of Government. When the planned crises hit, these conservatives would find themselves doubting our present form of government, and might be open to a strong declaration from the god-man Antichrist to abolish the Constitution, replacing it with himself. The Liberal voter out there has no deep moorings to our Constitution, and would not be hard to convince that we need to abolish our current system of government. MASON CLINTON ABSOLVED BY MASONIC-LED CONGRESS President Clinton has just been acquitted of all impeachment charges against him, by a 50-49 vote no less. Because even a simple majority of Senators had not been reached, the President will be considered Not Guilty. This scenario is a far cry from the one envisioned by many just a few weeks ago, when most people thought the Senate would vote against him with 60 votes, short of the 67 votes needed to remove him from office, but a clear sign that the Senate viewed his actions as guilty, or at least reprehensible. However, this scenario did not occur, as several Republican Senators "defected" within just a couple of days before the final vote. In past articles, we have stated that this entire Impeachment process was a charade, an act. We quote Peter Lemesurer, in his book, The Armageddon Script, where he speaks exactly in these terms. Let us reexamine his quote here, for it has great relevance. "Their script is now written, subject only to last-minute editing and stage-directions; The stage itself, albeit as yet in darkness, is almost ready; Down in the pit, the subterranean orchestra is already tuning up; The last-minute, walk-on parts are even now being filled; Most of the main actors, one suspects, have already taken up their roles. Soon it will be time for them to come on stage, ready for the curtain to rise. The time for action will have come." [Page 253, published in 1981]. Anyone who thinks the events in Washington, D.C., were spontaneous, or that Senators truly voted their "convictions" are sadly wrong, and they will never understand the dramatic play that is being played out in their Daily News. President Clinton was exonerated because the Plan for the coming New World Order called for him to be exonerated, as we have said in many previous articles. However, we have discovered an interesting link we had not previously noted before. We have learned that Bill
[CTRL] Politically Correct Fairy Tales
Politically Correct Fairy Tales By Archfiend http://www.brassknuckles.net/humor/john/fairytales.php Are you sick and tired of those "conservative" fairy tales? Are you an American liberal or someone from Europe who thinks those fairy tales teach values that no longer need to be promoted in today's world? Well, BKW is coming to your rescue with our "Politically Correct Fairy Tales!" = Hansel and Gretel Hansel and Gretel were lost in the woods when they came upon a house made of candy and cake. An old witch invited them in and then captured both of them intending to eat them. Gretel had a chance save both of them by pushing the old woman in an oven but she decided that it would be wrong not to respect the witch's cultural traditions. So Gretel and her brother allowed themselves to be cooked and eaten. The witch was so happy with the children's actions that she invited all of her witch friends to the area. Soon thereafter, they ate every child in a hundred mile radius. Soon the whole area was filled with nothing but child eating witches and all the witches were very happy! The Moral of the Story: You must respect the culture of others, even at your own expense! = Fisherman and the Fish An old man finds a fish. The fish says "Let me go, old man. I will reward you for my freedom by giving you anything you desire". The old man at the behest of his wife makes wish after wish. Finally, the fish decides the old man and his wife are being too greedy and takes everything he gave them away. Then the man and his wife hire Johnny Cochran and sue the federal government for not having federal regulations in place to prevent wishing fish from unfairly taking away previously given magical spoils. The judge ruled in their favor and they were both given 500 million dollars worth of taxpayer funds with which they lived happily ever after. The Moral of the Story: It's the federal government's responsibility to fix every bad thing that happens in the world. = The Three Billy-Goats Gruff The first and second billy goat gruffs were stopped from going across a bridge to get food by a troll. Then the biggest and baddest billy goat gruff showed up. He told the troll he was going to kick his (hiney). That greatly upset the first and second of the billy goats gruff who accused the third billy goat gruff of "hegemony" and "imperialism" and said that negotiation was the way to go. So the third billy goat gruff went away. Unfortunately, the troll refused to negotiate and first two billy goats gruff starved to death. The Moral of the Story: It's better to starve to death than to fight! = The Three Little Pigs There were once three little pigs. The first little pig built his house out of straw. But the big bad wolf easily knocked it down. Then he ran to the 2nd pig's house which was made out of sticks. But the wolf came there and knocked it down too. Then both pigs ran to the American pig's house which was made out brick. When the wolf came there, the American pig pulled out a gun and blew his stinking head off. Afterwards, both little pigs who lost their houses started building their houses out of straw again. When the American pig asked them why they accused the American of being an "arrogant jerk" and of "acting unilaterally". But they secretly knew the American would always save them, just like he did in WW1 and WW2 so they could afford not to be prepared. The Moral of the Story: Even though Americans are helpful, they're real creeps! = The Ants and the Grasshopper All summer long the ants worked and prepared for the winter while the grasshopper went to Rage Against the Machine concerts and played Everquest. The grasshopper laughed and laughed at the ants for working so hard. Then winter came. The ants had plenty of food and shelter while the grasshopper had none. So the government took the ants tax money and built the grasshopper a house, gave him welfare cheese to eat, and paid for courses at the local university that the grasshopper didn't bother to go to. When the ants complained everyone agreed that they were greedy rich jerks for having more than the grasshopper. The Moral of the Story: Taking money from people who work hard and giving it to the lazy is compassionate! = DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Beam Me Up--Honey
Teleportation gets closer to reality http://www.vnunet.com/News/1129067 By James Middleton [08-02-2002] Teleportation may have been beamed one step closer to reality after Indian physicists suggested a theory that could be used to make two particles behave as one, no matter how far apart they are. Reported this week in New Scientist, Sougato Bose and Dipankar Home, of the Bose Institute in Calcutta, announced a breakthrough in a method that could be used to 'entangle' particles, or what Einstein once described as "spooky action at a distance". Quantum entanglement allows two atoms to behave as one, and could theoretically be used to teleport objects by transferring the properties of one atom to another. A beam splitter is used to send two identical electrons down either of two paths, with an equal probability that the electrons will go down both paths or the same path. Bose and Home have shown that if one electron is detected on each path, they become entangled. "One of the advances we have made is that these two particles could be from completely independent sources," Bose was quoted as saying. Bose and Home reckon the technique could be applied to any object, atoms, molecules, and maybe something bigger. Last year Danish boffins at the University of Aarhus made a breakthrough on a similar level, when Eugene Polzik and his colleagues made two samples of several trillion atoms interact at a distance. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html atommoversx.gif Description: GIF image
[CTRL] World's Largest Slinky
World's Largest Slinky http://www.firstpr.com.au/slinky/ DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] And Now...Dinosaur Puke
Oldest fossilised vomit pile uncovered http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns1910 17:5511February02 Fred Pearce The world's oldest fossilised vomit has been uncovered near the English town of Peterborough. But far from turning up their noses, palaeontologists are excited by the discovery of "copious quantities" of Jurassic puke, says Peter Doyle of the University of Greenwich. The regurgitations came from the mouths of ichthyosaurs swimming in the waters that covered England 160 million years ago and were found by Doyle in a clay quarry. Photo: Patrick Barth/University of Greenwich "We believe this is the first time the existence of fossil vomit on a grand scale has been proven beyond reasonable doubt," Doyle told New Scientist. "It shows ichthyosaurs behaved much as sperm whales do today," he says. The marine reptiles ate their fill of belemnites, a squid-like shellfish, before vomiting the indigestible bullet-shaped shells. Modern sperm whales regurgitate the gristly beaks of squid. "I have been confused for a while that we found the arm hooks of belemnites in ichthyosaur stomachs, but not their shells. But vomiting explains it," he adds. Acid etching The evidence that the belemnite pile had once been eaten by the ichthyosaurs is that, when examined under a microscope, the calcium carbonate shells show distinctive signs of being etched by the dinosaur's acid digestive juices. Doyle says that they are unlikely to have been excreted in the usual way because the sharp shells would have inflicted terrible damage to the animal's intestines. In the Jurassic, the Peterborough clays were a shallow-water coastal feeding ground where belemnites thrived and ichthyosaurs came for a slap-up feed, before in turn being eaten by pliosaurs, says Dave Martill, a palaeontologist of the University of Portsmouth. "Doyle's finding is very interesting, and I think his conclusions will be proved right," says Martill. "We know that ichthyosaurs ate belemnites. And if they ate them whole, they would have got horrendous indigestion." DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html attachment: 1910F1.JPG
[CTRL] Bomb Resistant Aircraft Baggage Container--MUST SEE VIDEO
Now this is progress: FAA-Certified Bomb Resistant Aircraft Baggage Container. Since before Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbee in 1988, this technology has been in development. It has finally passed the FAA test. Check out the cool video of the tests. I, for one, will feel safer in the air. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Father of 13 Arrested in Baby's Death
Warning: Depressing News Story http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storyu=/ap/20020211/ap_on_re_us/big_family_neglect_3cid=514 Father of 13 Arrested in Baby's Death Mon Feb 11, 5:49 PM ET By RON HARRIS, Associated Press Writer SAN RAFAEL, Calif. (AP) - A man and four women who shared a home with their 13 children were charged with murder and child neglect Monday in the death of one toddler and the malnourishment of the other youngsters. Photos AP Photo The 19-month-old toddler whose bones were extremely brittle was pronounced dead of severe malnutrition and neglect at a hospital in November after the women brought him in. The other children ranging in age from 8 months to 16 years were quickly put into emergency foster care. All were severely malnourished and most suffered from rickets, a bone-softening disease almost unheard of in suburban America. It is caused by a lack of vitamin D or calcium. None of the children were enrolled in public school, said Marin County sheriff's Detective Fred Marziano. Neighbors rarely saw them emerge from the upscale rental home, where heavy white drapes prevent any view of the inside. "When they told us how many children were there, I nearly fell out of my shoes," neighbor Connie Williams told the Marin Independent Journal. "We hardly ever saw them." Because the adults refused to cooperate, it took three months for police to unravel what went on inside the modest beige house. Winnfred Wright, 45, and the women, Carol Bremner, 44, Mary Campbell, 37, Deirdre Wilson, 37, and Kali Polk-Matthews, 20, were arrested Friday and held without bail for an arraignment Monday afternoon. Because none of the defendants cooperated with police, it took DNA tests to determine that Wright fathered all the children. It was not clear who gave birth to the child who died. "We don't know exactly what their affiliation is together other than they are cohabiting and producing children," Marziano said. Wright, Bremner, Campbell and Wilson each face charges of second-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. Polk-Matthews faces one count of involuntary manslaughter. All face child endangerment charges. Jail officials said the defendants were declining all requests for interviews. Neighbors along the tree-lined street in the upper-middle-class Marinwood neighborhood declined to speak with reporters Monday, and no one answered the door at the house. White T-shirts hung from a clothesline, and children's toys and a plastic tricycle sat on the grass. Malcolm Sullivan, who lives next door, told the Independent-Journal that their rent must have been expensive. "Spending that kind of money and not feeding kids is perverted," he said. Rickets is extremely rare in the United States since the advent of vitamin D-fortified milk. Also, as little as 15 minutes of sun a day helps the body generate enough vitamin D to utilize calcium for bone growth. "The profile of the child who would be at risk to rickets would be a child who's not being fed dairy products and doesn't have adequate exposure to sun," said Gerald Combs, director of the Agriculture Department's Human Nutrition Research Center in Grand Forks, N.D. Children can begin to show signs of rickets within six months to a year after being denied adequate sunlight and food. It was several years ago that the family moved into the home, and neighbors got only fleeting glimpses of the people inside. Whenever they went out, they would back a black Suburban with dark windows up to the garage, and neighbors could not see who got in. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html attachment: thumb.1013457121.big_family_neglect_cabm101.jpg
[CTRL] Battling Over Records of Bush's Governorship
The Battle Over Bush's Gov. Papers. What are they hiding? Executive order blocking Presidential papers, refusing to turn over Energy Taskforce member list, and now this! There must be something to hide. But what?!?!? ~~~ Battling Over Records of Bush's Governorship http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/11/politics/11LIBR.html?todaysheadlines By ALISON LEIGH COWAN Phillippe Diederich for The New York TimesPresident George Bush's library at Texas AM in College Station, top, houses boxes documenting the tenure of his son George W. Bush as Texas governor, above. USTIN, Tex. The stacks of the Texas State Library and Archives groan with boxes of carefully preserved papers dating back to James Pinckney Henderson, the first governor, who served from 1846 to 1847. But anyone trawling for insights into the most recent former governor, George W. Bush, or say, his ties to Enron in the years he ran Texas, would have to travel 118 miles east to College Station. Even then, it might be months, maybe even years, before many of the records are available. The papers, sitting in 1,800 boxes, are at the center of a tug of war between Mr. Bush and the director of the Texas state archives. By placing them at his father's presidential library at Texas AM University, Mr. Bush is putting them in the hands of a federal institution that is not ordinarily bound by the state's tough Public Information Act. That law, among other things, assures anyone who requests state records a reply within 10 days. Officials at the Bush library say the best they can do, given staffing and other priorities, is 90 days, and some requests have taken longer. "We'll do our best," said Warren Finch, the Bush library archivist. But Peggy D. Rudd, the Texas state archivist, said doing their best was not quite enough. "Our opinion is that the records belong to the State of Texas, and that the State Public Information Act pertains," she said. "So, no, 90 days is not good enough." The struggle over Mr. Bush's records is just one of many battles over access to public records as politicians test new ways to keep tight control over their archives. "Who needs a shredder when you have Daddy's presidential library?" said James Newcomb, an official with the Better Government Association in Chicago, which relies heavily on freedom-of-information requests. In New York, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani has also been criticized over an 11th-hour deal that his administration made to send his papers to a private center that people close to him will control. Critics have expressed most concern over a line in the agreement that seems to give Mr. Giuliani the right to block the release of a document in which he has a "personal interest." In the cases of Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Bush, people involved in the decisions have said they had the public's interests at heart. "The whole purpose here was to make them more accessible, not less," Mr. Giuliani said on Tuesday. In a similar vein, background materials in the Texas bill that gave Governor Bush the authority to name an alternate repository for his papers refer to the desire to modernize records and ease the state's load. Archivists say there have always been politicians who treated their papers as chattel dating to George Washington, who packed his papers into two trunks and returned to Mount Vernon, Va. By 1978, tired of tussling with Richard M. Nixon over documents, Congress passed the Presidential Records Act to assure that all official papers, with some exceptions, become public 12 years after a president leaves office. But last Nov. 1, President Bush issued an executive order that blocked the long-awaited release of documents from Ronald Reagan's presidential library. The order, which is being challenged in court by several organizations, permits a sitting president to veto the release of a former president's records. The Bush administration has also been criticized over a memorandum that Attorney General John Ashcroft issued in October, telling federal officials that they could "be assured" of Justice Department backing if they resisted freedom-of-information requests. Vice President Dick Cheney is also battling the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, over a request to produce records about his energy task force. Mr. Cheney says that doing so would hinder his ability to get unvarnished advice from industry. "What seems to be coming out of the administration is the idea that public information is a dangerous thing," said Tom Connors, a council member of the Society of American Archivists who also took part in a recent rally to protest Mr. Giuliani's records transfer. The transfer of Mr. Bush's records was authorized by the State Legislature in 1997. The law says the governor, "in consultation with" the state archives, may designate an alternate repository for his records.
[CTRL] Global Crossing: Yet Another Enronesque Tale of Greed
There's another Enron out there: Global Crossing. Same tale on a slightly smaller scale, but one big difference - the politicians who benefited were mostly Democrats. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
Re: [CTRL] Which side of the road do they drive on? (MANIFESTO)
Title: Re: [CTRL] Which side of the road do they drive on? (MANIFESTO) Apologies...meant to attach not send. As for the conspiracy thing...not sure, but the research was so impressive I thought it was sure to be of interest on this, my favorite, lists. By the way, another mail that I sent recently (Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places) inspired such a tremendous round of flame wars and revelation about the beauty of my favorite poster (william) and the gender of Saba. Everyone should be so lucky to initiate such a revealing thread! pl - Original Message - From: thew To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2002 9:08 AM Subject: Re: [CTRL] Which side of the road do they drive on? (MANIFESTO) while fascinating - I'm not sure what conspiracy this is about. also a file this size is a bit huge for a mailing list-- Wandering in a vast forest at night, I have only a faint light to guide me. A stranger appears and says to me: ' My fried, you should blow out your candle in order to find your way more clearly.' This stranger is a theologian.Diderot c. 1762 NEURONAUTIC INSTITUTE on-line: http://home.earthlink.net/~thew
[CTRL] Hare Krishnas to declare bankruptcy
Hare Krishnas to declare bankruptcy; say fighting abuse lawsuit could cost them millionsSTEPHEN MANNING, Associated Press Writer http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2002/02/06/national1937EST0856.DTL (02-06) 16:37 PST LANHAM, Md. (AP) -- Hare Krishna congregations named in a $400 million lawsuit alleging sexual and emotional abuse of boarding school students plan to file for bankruptcy, a spokesman for the Hindu sect said Wednesday. Anuttama Dasa, a Maryland-based spokesman for the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, or ISKCON, said the lawsuit would cost congregations millions to fight and potentially bankrupt many even if they won. "We don't believe that innocent members and congregations should be held accountable for the deviant behavior of individual acts committed 20 or 30 years ago," he said. The group hopes to settle the lawsuit filed in a Texas state court by former boarding school students. ISKCON plans to set up a fund to compensate children who may have been victimized in Hare Krishna schools during the 1970s and 1980s, Dasa said. ISKCON formed a "Child Protection Office" in 1998 to investigate allegations of abuse and some members have been removed from the Krishna community as a result of the probes, Dasa said. The Texas lawsuit alleges young children at Krishna schools in India and the United States were terrorized by their instructors. There are 94 plaintiffs in the lawsuit, according to the office of Windle Turley, the Dallas attorney who filed the lawsuit. They allege that young girls were given as brides to older men who donated to the religious community. Children also allegedly were deprived of medical care, scrubbed with steel wool until their skin bled, and prevented from leaving the schools. Turley has said the abuse started in 1972 at ISKCON's first school in Dallas, and continued in six other U.S. schools and two in India. He said ISKCON knew that sex offenders were working in their schools. Turley was not available for comment Wednesday and his legal assistant, Michael Fitzgerald, said the firm wouldn't comment until it had more information on the planned bankruptcy filings. A devout branch of Hinduism, the Hare Krishna spiritual community grew quickly in the United States during the 1960s. The faith's spiritual leader believed children as young as 5 should be sent to boarding schools so they can learn to be pure devotees. Roughly a dozen schools operated in North America by the late 1970s, but all have since closed. There are currently 75,000 Hare Krishnas in North America. About a dozen congregations will start filing for Chapter 11 reorganization next week in California, Texas, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Washington, said ISKCON attorney David Liberman. On the Net: Attorney Windle Turley: www.wturley.com International Society of Krishna Consciousness: www.iskcon.com DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] The Force was (sort of) with Enron
Backfence: The Force was (sort of) with Enron James Lileks Star Tribune http://www.startribune.com/stories/804/1402822.html Published Feb 3 2002 Perhaps the oddest detail to emerge from the Enron collapse -- Hey! Come back! Please? Thank you. This isn't going to be an impenetrable recitation of byzantine accounting practices; I leave that to the experts who can pretend they understand it far more convincingly than I can. But at lunch today I was reading a Wall Street Journal story about Enron's demise and came across a rather bizarre detail. According to the story, Enron's troubles began when a clique of execs formed a company called "Chewco." I laughed, because it was such a stupid name -- it sounded like a cartoon corporation that made bubble gum. I could imagine the CEO: fat and bald, of course, with black glasses and a cigar the size of a rolled newspaper, staring out over belching smokestacks, with the giant sign CHEWCO dominating the landscape. Upon reading more, however, I learned a detail that would forever taint my view of the Enron matter: Chewco was named for Chewbacca, the beloved "Star Wars" character best known for waving a gun unconvincingly and shouting "Nnnneeuuaugggh" or "gnughgighirawrrr," if he was angry. He was always naked, albeit covered with long orangey-brown hair, and he no doubt stunk; the smell aboard the Millennium Falcon probably could knock a yak flat. I read on: The Enron lads proposed letting Chewco buy, for $383 million, another Enron limited partnership named . . . Joint Energy Development Investments. JEDI. As in Knights, as in "Return of," as in Obi-Wan, as in "Star Wars" again. I did some research on the Net and found that Enron not only underwrote the "Star Wars" museum show in Houston, it had some other curiously named financial satellites, such as Kenobe, and OBI-1 Holdings. Get it? Obi-ONE? How did these guys keep a straight face when the accountants came in with some questions? Gentlemen, it seems as if Energy Work Operations Council -- what? What's so funny? If I might continue, EWOC is shifting some assets to Skywalker Ltd., with insurance matters handled by the firm of Jabba Thehutt and Associates -- look, I fail to see what's so amusing here. I wish I were kidding, but the implications are grim. Either these guys were just "Star Wars" geeks, or, more likely, Enron was building a Death Star and lost all its money when a cocky kid from a sandy planet blew the thing up. So, as a public service, here are some signs that your 401(k) should be diversified outside of company stock: 1. In staff meetings, black-helmeted branch managers choke employees to death by pointing at them. 2. Top female employee of a recently acquired firm is chained in boss' office wearing a metal bikini. (Well, every guy under 50 got that one.) No, I'd better stop here, because this will only make sense to "Star Wars" fans, and my Chewbacca comments have already guaranteed 10 gigabytes of hate mail from the Dweeb Brigade. Good thing I'm not that geeky; good thing I've grown up. Incidentally, when I reported my theories to a female friend, she said, "Well, when the Enron guys got in trouble why didn't they just beam themselves out?" HelLO? "Star Wars" doesn't HAVE transporters! That's Star Trek! Girls are so stupid. Kids' songs More songs we would love to forget but cannot. From Laura: Your column about annoying songs brought to mind the unwelcome memory of the Song That Never Ends: "This is the song that never ends/ It just goes on and on, my friend/ Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was/ And they'll continue singing it forever, just because." Return to beginning. Over and over. World without end, ad nauseum, amen. Our daughters used to sing it until we begged them to stop. Once, on a long road trip with their grandmother, they sang it until she fell asleep at the wheel and drove off the road. We never heard it again. This song has more nominations than any other. Most parents described it in terms usually reserved for tenacious diseases. There are whispered tales of vigilante dads who tracked down the composer and administered some impromptu justice. Oh, the song ends, my friend. Right here. Right now. From Karla in Monterrey, Calif., another approach: I did not play kids' music in my home. Unfortunately, when my son Max was a tot, I was rediscovering the joys of '70s disco and soul. I knew it had gone too far when Jimi Hendrix sang "Hey Joe" and my 3-year-old responded with, "You wanna give it a go?" That's why I'll raise my Gnat on a diet of only classical music and big-band swing. Nothing with lyrics. Although I guarantee she'll drive us nuts singing the theme from the third movement of Mahler's First Symphony over and over and over again. \ DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The
[CTRL] LOOKIN' FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES
LOOKIN' FOR LOVE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES Fri Feb 1, 7:01 PM ET By Ann Coulter Breaking with other Cabinet officials this week, Secretary of State Colin Powell urged President Bush to ensure that, in the event of a surprise attack by North Korea, the Office of Homeland Security have full resources and authority to respond to any anti-Korean hate crimes. Mr. Powell was expressing the concerns of our allies and human-rights advocates. Actually, his real beef concerns the technical procedure by which the United States concludes that the terrorists held at Guantanamo are not "prisoners of war." (Also, Korean-Americans are the greatest Americans, narrowly edging out Cuban-Americans who are the second greatest. They would not be complaining about ethnic profiling and military tribunals.) Powell says we should apply the Geneva Convention to the Guantanamo detainees. As he admits, under the convention, the detainees are still not prisoners of war, inasmuch as they masquerade as civilians, stage sneak attacks, slaughter innocent civilians, pretend they are surrendering and then come out shooting, take hostages, hide arms in mosques, and generally do not abide by the laws or customs of war. Other administration officials have concluded that the Geneva Convention doesn't apply in the first place since the detainees masquerade as civilians, stage sneak attacks, slaughter innocent civilians, pretend they are surrendering and then come out shooting, take hostages, hide arms in mosques, and generally do not abide by the laws or customs of war. The subtle distinction is this: If I showed up at the Super Bowl this Sunday demanding to play for the Patriots, I would be turned away (sadly) on the grounds that I am not a member of the Patriots. Not only would my name not appear on the team roster, but people would notice that I am a scrawny 99-pound weakling. Powell's argument is that we should appease our completely useless "allies" by playing a make-believe game that I am a Patriot. Then the Patriots would make a lengthy, painstaking finding of fact that I am scrawny 99-pound weakling and, for that reason alone, conclude that I cannot play in the Super Bowl. So the main problem with Powell's position is that it lacks what we used to call "a point." To be sure, some decades ago a different government of Afghanistan played for the Patriots -- that is, was a signatory to the Geneva Convention. But we are not at war with Afghanistan. To the contrary! We are the current Afghanistan government's biggest best buddy in the whole world, though they seem to think the name of our country is "the Pentagon." We are at war with al-Qaida. The 158 Guantanamo detainees come from at least 25 different countries. To pretend that the Taliban is bound by a convention signed by an earlier Afghan government because the al-Qaida fighters happened to be captured in Afghanistan would be like trying to collect a bill from a corporation that bought your debtor's house, razed it, and happened to occupy the same property 20 years later. The most popular argument for the Powell view is that we have to be nice to the detainees, because otherwise people won't be nice to captured American soldiers. Which people are we trying to impress by this largesse exactly? Any Americans captured by al-Qaida will be tortured, disemboweled and beheaded. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of the United States actually going to war against any country that would honor the Geneva Convention. Despite an enormous groundswell of support for an attack on France, we probably won't. The only people we go to war with are utter savages. In World War II, the Japanese tortured and killed American prisoners of war. In the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese tortured American prisoners of war. In the Gulf War, Iraq tortured U.S. prisoners of war -- including a female officer who was sexually assaulted by her captors. So this Geneva Convention thing isn't really working out for us. The argument boils down to the claim that we have to treat the detainees the way humanrightsniks say we should in order to secure the approval of humanrightsniks. Even the late Justice William J. Brennan had more imaginative arguments than that. In any event, the humanrightsniks already denounce us as racists who engage in barbaric practices like capital punishment. Thus far in the war on terrorism, human rights organizations, our "allies," criminal defense lawyers and other members of the Democratic coalition have complained about the detention of terrorism suspects, complained about military tribunals for terrorists, complained about a trial for John Walker, and complained about (nonexistent) ethnic profiling at airports. No one in America cared. It must be galling to the U.N. human rights commissioner. But then, for some reason, the human rights organizations imagined that we would be impressed by their whining
[CTRL] 11-year-old shoots, kills assailant threatening his grandmother
11-year-old shoots, kills assailant threatening his grandmother By GWEN OBRIENTribune Staff WriterSOUTH BEND When Tony D. Murry held a box cutter to Sue Gays neck Monday night, Gays 11-year-old adopted son ran upstairs at the home at 1348 N. Huey St. and grabbed a gun. He hit the bottom of the stairs with the .45 and stood ready stance with the gun, said Gay with feet spread apart and her hands outstretched as if holding a handgun. The boy shot one round and hit Murry, 27, in the chest, even though the man was shielding himself with Gay. I dont know how he did that. One shot and he got him. Hes my little hero, Gay said of the grandson she adopted. The fifth-grader may not have been just a lucky shot. This is a family that knows guns. Before his dad died, theyd go target shooting. He knows theyre not toys and not something to mess with, Gay said. Ironically, it was guns that Murry may have come for in the first place. Murry demanded all the weapons in the house. Gays late husband was a weapons collector and Murry knew of the collection, said St. Joseph County Prosecutor Chris Toth, who said this was a case of justifiable homicide. Gay said her daughter, who is the boys biological mother and currently in prison, was acquainted with Murry. Murry, or Casper as Gay knew him, would come by every couple of months to ask about Gays daughter. The two never dated, according to Gay. Im not sure where they met. Probably in South Bend when she was off on one of her drug binges, Gay said. In an arrest in November, Murry listed drug dealer as his occupation, according to booking records at the St. Joseph County Jail. Im upset because she put us in this position. She didnt send him (Murry) over here, but he was one of her acquaintances. Im more mad at him though, Gay said. Murry had been inside Gays house before Monday night and she trusted him. But this visit was different. I know he was drunk. At first he wanted me to buy him booze. Then he wanted me to drive him home. I dont leave my house after dark, Gay said. Gay said Murry had been at the house for about a half an hour. She said she asked him to leave at 8 p.m. because she needed to go to bed. She normally leaves for work at 3 a.m. He got irritated and asked for a drink of water. When I was in the kitchen he held the razor knife (box cutter) to my sons throat and said This is not anything personal, Gay said. Then Murry rushed up behind Gay and held the box cutter to her throat, she said. He told me, Take me to where the guns are. He pushed me through the kitchen and into the front room, Gay said. Gay stopped at the love seat, put her left foot on it and pushed back on Murry, she said. I pushed up so he couldnt push me forward any more, and I tried to push his hands down off my neck but he had a tight grip. I called for my son to say call 911, Gay said. Thats when the boy appeared with the gun. Murry ducked his head behind Gays small frame. Some of his torso was left unshielded. Im looking down the barrel of a gun thats in an 11-year-olds hands. I knew that if he pulled that trigger I was going to die, Gay said. But Gay was not hit. She said they didnt immediately know Murry had been shot. Casper went for the front door, turned the handle and went out of the house. My son ran to me and set the gun down. I hurried up and locked the door and called 911, Gay said. South Bend police found Murry, of 2009 W. Linden Ave., outside the home. He died in the emergency room at Memorial Hospital. The young man reasonably believed his mother and himself to be in danger of dying. It was clear to us this was a justifiable homicide, Toth said. He did what he had to do. Thats an unfortunate burden for an 11-year-old to have on him, he said. Murry had a criminal history. Between 1993 and 2001 he had several misdemeanor arrests. Murry had a theft conviction from 1994 and a conviction for attempted theft in 1993, which was treated as a misdemeanor. Murry had been convicted of unarmed robbery for which he received a four-year prison sentence in 1997. At the time of his death, Murry was charged in two Class D felony auto theft cases pending in St. Joseph Superior Court. He was scheduled to appear in court Feb. 26 for a possible guilty plea. Meantime, Gay said after 23 years at 1348 N. Huey St., she is putting the house up for sale and moving with her son out into the county, where her fiance lives. Gay said the boy is doing well since the shooting. Hes proud of himself. He feels bad he took a human life. But he didnt want to lose me. He lost his dad three years ago to a heart attack, Gay said. Tribune Staff Writer Marti Goodlad Heline contributed to this article. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent
[CTRL] The Lost Children (Part I)
The Lost Children 10,000 English Kids Sent To Australia Sunday At 7 PM Feb. 3, 2002 CBS John Hennessy was 11 when he was sent to Australia in 1947. (CBS) It's a mind-boggling story, one that sounds more like a bad movie than reality. But it happened. In the two decades after World War II, 10,000 English children were sent to Australia, reports 60 Minutes II Correspondent Bob Simon. Many were mistreated and abused. All were lied to. The story begins in Britain after World War II - a nation victorious but battered, broke, and burdened by overflowing children's homes. Many of the kids were put there by families too poor to raise them. What happened next is almost unfathomable in civilized countries or in modern times. Update Find out what has happened since the segment was originally broadcast.. The British government, in collaboration with churches and charities, developed a secret plan to clear out these children's homes; a plan which has only recently been uncovered. The kids were told that they would be adopted by loving families in Australia. And they were shipped off by the thousands. It was as simple as that. The first ship to sail in 1947 was the SS Asturias. Cargo: 147 boys and girls. John Hennessy, 11 years old at the time, was one of those children. Only a few weeks before it sailed, some priests and bureaucrats showed up at his children's institution in England. They were rounding up kids to go to Australia. "We thought Australia was down the street or it was around the corner," says Hennessy. "How did we know it was on the other side of the world? Well, anyway, they, they came with the stories, you know, that there's fruits there, plenty of fruits." Like many children, Mary Molloy didn't quite grasp what was being proposed: "I just thought, you know, we're going away for a while." All across Britain, at children's homes and institutions, kids were being told the same thing: you're going to a new land, a new life, a new family. Many were illegitimate children. Many were dropped off by single mothers who'd fallen on hard times. But that's not what the kids were told. Tony Jones, who at the time was in a boys' home in Malvern, England, was told that his parents had died: "They said, 'You're an orphan now.' And I was an orphan." That's what they told all the kids, that they were orphans. That there was nobody for them in Britain. Over the next 20 years, 10,000 children, some as young as 3, none older than 15, would depart unaccompanied for their new homes in Australia. Six weeks and 12,000 miles later, the children arrived at the Fremantle docks in Western Australia. They looked around for the fruit trees, the kangaroos, the adoptive families they were told would be waiting for them. But there was none of that here. There was something quite different. Not long after they disembarked, they received a lecture from a man in black, the archbishop of Perth. Hennessy remembers the man's speech: "He said, 'We welcome you to Australia. We need you for white stock.' Because at this stage, the 'white Australia' policy was on. And we didn't know that we were part of the scheme to - to populate Australia with the - the white people. And the archbishop says, 'The reason why we do [is] because we are terrified of the Asian hordes!' Course, we didn't understand that." These children were a commodity to a continent that was terrified of being overwhelmed by Asia. They had, in essence, been exported by a nation that had a surplus of white people. Afterwards, the children's fingerprints were taken and they were herded into lines. Says Hennessy: "They grabbed the girls from their brothers. Brothers from their sisters, screaming. And I can still hear the screams today." These children, who'd been plucked from institutions in Britain, were now trucked to all over Australia. Where? To institutions. No parents were waiting for them - just picks and shovels. John Hennessy was sent to a place called Bindoon, an institution run by the Christian Brothers, an order of Catholic monks 60 miles from civilization in the sweltering bushland of Western Australia. Bindoon was a home and school for boys. But this was no Boys Town, and education was not the priority. The priority was construction. Brother Francis Keaney, an imposing, white-haired Irishman who ran the place, was obsessed with building the largest Catholic institution in Western Australia. He used his charges as labor. From sunrise to sunset, the boys built Brother Keaney's shrine,
[CTRL] The Lost Children (Part II)
The Lost Children After Many Years, Painful, Emotional Reunions Feb. 3, 2002 CBS Margaret Humphreys: has aided many of the "lost children" in finding their parents (CBS) Not only had these lost children been shipped 12,000 miles from Britain to the bottom of the world. Not only had they been exploited and abused. They had been deceived. They weren't orphans. They had families back in Britain, families which had dropped them off at institutions with every intention of getting them back. When Tony Jones discovered that his mother was still alive in England, he was shocked: "All them years, and they didn't even tell me I had a family?" he says. Too poor to care for him, Maud Jones had placed Tony in a children's home in England after she divorced his father. She never gave consent for Tony to be shipped to Australia. She was never even asked. It took Jones months to save enough money to return home to see his mom. Their reunion was set for the middle of January 1993. But she died just two weeks before that. Jones went back for the funeral. "I saw my mother in the coffin," he says. "It's the most heartbreaking time of my life. And they knew she was alive. They knew. Bastards." When he was a boy, the Church of England told him his parents were dead. That was a lie. When he grew up, the British and Australian governments told him his records didn't exist. That was another lie. And Tony Jones was far from alone. That was the conclusion reached by Margaret Humphreys, an English social worker who began lifting the lid on this sordid chapter in Britain's history. Humphreys stumbled upon the story accidentally when one of her clients insisted that her younger brother had been put on a boat to Australia as a child. Humphreys set up an organization called the Child Migrants Trust to help the children find their birth certificates, their parents and their past. The trust bought copies of every birth, marriage and death certificate in England dating back to 1890, a total of more than 100 million documents on microfilm. It was the database for a desperate search. Of the 10,000 child migrants, Humphreys and her staff could find only one who was actually an orphan. Month after month, year after year, they found more and more parents alive in Britain. "The astonishing thing was that they had no idea that their children had been sent to Australia," says Humphreys. "They had not signed any papers for adoption or migration. And for most of them, they had gone back to collect, to reclaim, their children - to bring them home." "They went to bring them back home to their families - to be told, and given explanations like, your son or daughter's been placed with a very loving family in England. They're very happy. We're not going to disturb them now. You did your best for them. Goodbye," she says. As a child, Mary Molloy had also been told her mother was dead. But Humphreys and her team couldn't find a death certificate for her mother, May Fitzgerald. They continued searching, and last December, Humphreys flew to Sydney to give Molloy some startling news. Her mother was alive. Molloy was ecstatic. "It's incredible. I mean, everything's based on a lie, right from the beginning. It's just one lousy lie," says Molloy, breaking down as she says it. Her mother had been lied to by the priests. As a single mother, . Fitzgerald had placed her daughter in a Catholic children's home. A year later, she told the home she wanted Mary back, but was informed that her daughter was being adopted. Fitzgerald fired off a telegram telling the priests to stop the adoption, but was told it was too late. A few weeks ago, Mary Molloy packed for an improbable journey back in time. For nearly a half century, ever since she had been put on a boat to Australia, she had thought of herself as a war orphan. Now it was time for Molloy to be a child again, and for 80-year-old May Fitzgerald to be a mother again. Accompanied by her daughter Beverly and family friends, Molloy left Sydney for a 22-hour trip to Dublin to meet her mom. Can you call it lucky to meet your mother when you're 55 years old? In terms of these child migrants, the answer is yes. In terms of the 10,000, Molloy was one of the lucky few. Humphreys says that many thousands of these "orphans" have not yet found their parents. And as both parents and children age, time is running out. Help from the Australian government hasn't been forthcoming. The nation that so desperately wanted white stock has never offered the mildest mea culpa for its treatment of the children. When Philip Ruddock, the Australian minister of immigration, isasked why the Australian government hasn't apologized, "I don't know
[CTRL] CIA Missile Said to Kill Suspected Al Qaeda Leader
``The central figure had a close encounter of the worst kind with a Hellfire missile" CIA Missile Said to Kill Suspected Al Qaeda Leader Photos Reuters Photo WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A missile fired by remote control from a pilotless CIA (news - web sites) aircraft has hit what was believed to be a group of senior al Qaeda members in southeastern Afghanistan (news - web sites), killing at least one of them, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. ``It was a CIA Predator missile that was fired upon what was thought to be a senior al Qaeda official,'' said the official, who asked not to be identified. He said the attack took place on Monday night. ``At least one was killed and possibly others. It's not clear who the individual was,'' the official said, adding that bad weather in the region had prevented a mission to identify bodies. The al Qaeda leader who was killed in the attack was taller than the handful of others surrounding him, leading to some speculation about whether the United States may have hit its most wanted man in the war on terrorism -- Osama bin Laden (news - web sites). Bin Laden, whose height is estimated on the FBI (news - web sites)'s most wanted terrorist list to be 6 feet 4 inches to 6 feet 6 inches, is blamed by the United States for the Sept. 11 attacks on America that killed about 3,000 people. But another U.S. official said several al Qaeda leaders were tall, including Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden's top lieutenant. U.S. officials believe it was an al Qaeda leader because of the manner in which the others around him were paying homage. ''You can tell from overhead that one guy's the center of attention,'' the official said. ``The central figure had a close encounter of the worst kind with a Hellfire missile,'' he said. But the official stressed that the identity of the dead man was not yet known and there were no other indicators in the aftermath of the missile attack to suggest bin Laden had been killed. CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday that he did not know whether bin Laden was dead or alive. Citing a high Pentagon (news - web sites) source, CBS News reported that several senior leaders of bin Laden's al Qaeda network died when the missile hit the group near the Zawar Khili cave complex in the mountains of southeastern Afghanistan. The network said it was believed that senior al Qaeda members, including bin Laden, have been holed up at Zawar Khili since escaping from the Tora Bora cave complex, which was bombed two months ago. The war in Afghanistan marks the first time the United States has deployed Predator drones armed with Hellfire anti-tank missiles that can be fired by a remote operator watching a live video feed from the drone. attachment: amdf126127.jpg
[CTRL] Buck naked: A E, PBS look for profits the old-fashioned way: Selling sex
Buck naked: A E, PBS look for profits the old-fashioned way: Selling sex http://www2.bostonherald.com/entertainment/television/tvco02052002.htmby Monica Collins Tuesday, February 5, 2002 Sex sells during sweeps. Hard-core, soft-core, any core. And two of TV's most prestigious brokers of programming stoop to pander during this important February ratings period. PBS' ``Frontline,'' the investigative documentary series produced at WGBH (Ch. 2), presents ``American Porn'' on Thursday at 9 p.m. The film concludes that pornography, a multibillion-dollar business, has become a mainstream moneymaker as big corporations such as Marriott, AT T and Yahoo! reap profits from selling smut. To prove the point, there is ``Inside the Playboy Mansion,'' a two-hour romp presented by cable's venerable A E, airing Sunday at 8 p.m. The voluptuous, celebratory special, in which Playboy's affable founder Hugh Hefner exposes his overexposed lifestyle, includes much skin. For A E, the raunchy program is a departure from the channel's usual starchy fare of ``Biography,'' BBC dramas and sober news documentaries. There is a reason sex sells - because we watch. ``Inside the Playboy Mansion'' is mind-numbing froth, deliciously diverting. And ``American Porn,'' a journey to the dark, exploitative side of the so-called Playboy ``philosophy,'' is gritty and compelling, even if it serves as a grim excuse to throw out some flesh to the masses. ``Frontline'' goes behind the scenes of a seamy industry, so far behind that even the documentary crew gets squeamish while recording the making of a porn film about rape. Pornographer Lizzie Borden and her husband, Rob Black, are making the graphic film, which is about a woman who gets raped and slaughtered by thugs after her car breaks down, on a $20,000 budget. Borden and Black expect to make millions through sales on their Web site. They have no shame about what they're doing. When asked if the woman, a friend of Lizzie's named Veronica, will really get hit, Borden says, ``Yeah. She's really going to get hit. She likes it. It's good. Sometimes, it makes you horny when you're getting hit.'' Lizzie claims she will take Veronica out for dinner and shopping when filming is done. As ``Frontline'' cameras capture the gruesome action, the reality of the scene is overwhelming. ``We're here because this is one of the places where porn is now regularly pushing the limits,'' says the narrator. ``But this was more than we bargained for. And while it appeared that what was happening was legally consensual, we left. The incident, though, caused us to wonder not just about the content but about the human cost.'' That cost appears incalculable as young women are subjected to various indignities and horrors, with prices escalating for particular sex acts. Bruce Taylor, a former Justice Department attorney who prosecuted hundreds of obscenity cases, says the government's pursuit of pornographers slackened during the Clinton years. He senses, however, there may be a turnaround with the Bush administration: ``I think they (pornographers) sort of know that this President Bush, George W. Bush, and Attorney General Ashcroft, I mean, they're about as serious as a heart attack.'' Taylor says Ashcroft already has met with former obscenity prosecutors to find out what kinds of cases have been pursued in the past. ``Frontline'' suggests pornography is so entrenched in our culture that the smut might be hard to root out. The documentary reports AT T makes a mint from X-rated movies peddled through its cable systems. In Marriott hotels, where guests can choose the night's movie in the privacy of their room, the porno choices sell out. On the Internet - even respectable sites such as Yahoo! - the sky's the limit, reportedly. Or on A E's ``Inside the Playboy Mansion,'' during which Hugh Hefner introduces us to his six blond girlfriends who cavort on his bed and vie for his attention. They all have names like Krystle or Bambi. And Hef tries to seduce us into believing that, for a 75-year-old separated guy, having a litter of girlfriends is all quite normal. He insists he's living the luckiest life on earth, after trying the marriage and kids route. Now, he's really happiest giving giant parties. TV stars Bill Maher and Drew Carey, two of the Playboy Mansion's most frequent partygoers, say how glad they are that Hef is back to the wild life. On the surface, it all looks like such fun until you consider the eventual toll on humanity. Everyone has to look beyond the bodies to the souls - even during sweeps. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] State of the Union Rough Draft
-Caveat Lector- State of the Union Rough Draft David Turnley, AlterNet January 30, 2002 State of the Union Rough Draft David Turnley, AlterNet January 30, 2002 http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12315 An audiotape of President Bush practicing Tuesday night's State of the Union speech was anonymously messengered to me just hours ago. While it is an obvious early draft, it appears to have been written -- or even improvised -- by the president himself. Here is a transcript of the tape: Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President (wherever you may be), members of the 107th Congress, distinguished guests, Fluffy, Kenny Boy, my fallow Americans: I'm real sleepy, so I'll keep this short. My mother always told me to chew my pretzel before I swallow. (Bush imitates raucous group laughter, complete with echo-chamber effect) Okay, okay, calm down. It wasn't that funny! I stand here before you as a proud American, a proud president, a proud father, a proud uncle. In the past few months we have seen what makes this great country so great. We have stood up to fear and said, buy more stuff! We have stood up to evildoers and said, If you don't stop trying to kill us we are going to stop sending you weapons! We have stood up to corporate criminals and said, Next time, don't get caught! (President imitates a standing ovation) Shut up, you powerless little weasels. I'm kidding. No I'm not. Yes I am! As America returns to its routine and the wake of horror ebbs, we all carry painful memories with us. But some have endured more pain than others. Although the great tragedy has touched us all, people like Linda Lay -- who is here with us tonight -- have been made to suffer the most. Don't cry, Linda. America will wipe your tears. Linda's husband Ken embodies what it means to be an American. Ken was one of the heroic figures that led the charge out just as everything around him was collapsing. Although he could not save everyone -- in fact, he was only able to help his closest friends and associates -- he nonetheless personifies my own definition of patriotism. (18 minutes of snoring ensue.) On a closing note, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my administration. Donald Rumsfeld, thanks for being such a charming **. Condi Rice, thanks for being a black woman. Colin Powell, thanks for being a black man and for finally learning to keep your opinions to yourself when they don't coincide with what everyone else thinks. And a special thanks to Vice President Cheney. I miss you, Mr. Vice President. I implore you to come out of hiding. I saw you on TV last weekend. I worry that those extra pounds you have put on in the dark caves of Virginia will weigh heavy on your heart. Please take care. You are making this great country nervous. You are making me nervous. I'm feeling woozy, Mr. Vice President. (Sound of presidential head hitting presidential floor.) (End of tape.) David Turnley ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) writes satires for AlterNet.org. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 1/11/2002 _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Mint may have been al-Qaeda target
Title: Message Mint may have been al-Qaeda target Among the information uncovered in a former safehouse in Kabul was plans for an attack in Philadelphia, NBC News said.By John J. Lumpkin ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON - U.S. officials uncovered rudimentary diagrams of nuclear weapons in a suspected al-Qaeda safehouse in Kabul, a U.S. intelligence report says. Also found were plans to attack the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, NBC News reported yesterday, citing U.S. officials. The discovery of the nuclear weapons diagrams provides further evidence of al-Qaeda's efforts to acquire such weapons to use in terrorist attacks. The unclassified report, submitted by CIA Director George Tenet to Congress and released yesterday, says that the "diagrams, while crude, describe essential components - uranium and high explosives - common to nuclear weapons." The report says terrorists aren't believed to have a functional weapon, however. Other evidence obtained in Afghanistan shows that al-Qaeda operatives have fallen for a number of scams in their attempts to acquire nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, a senior government analyst said. "That's good news for us," said Gary Richter, a terrorism expert with the Energy Department's Sandia National Laboratories. "It shows they really don't know what they are doing. If they knew to turn away these scam artists, it would be frightening." Richter said he has examined several items recovered from al-Qaeda caches in Afghanistan, all of which were believed to be tied to the terrorist group's attempts to develop or buy weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear devices. From them, Richter concluded that al-Qaeda operatives tried to buy such weapons several times, paying cash for items that turned out to be worthless. "They'll buy junk," he said, adding that they appear to be very naive regarding nuclear weapons. Richter declined to describe the items he has examined, but he said they showed an encouraging lack of technical sophistication in the group. He did not know how much money al-Qaeda had spent on trying to buy these weapons. "We're not talking about dullards. But their forte, their whole M.O., tends to be more brute force than high-tech," he said. "Al-Qaeda is not a techie kind of organization, and they've fallen flat on their faces in some areas." He also declined to say from whom al-Qaeda tried to purchase the weapons. U.S. troops and intelligence officers searching through abandoned caves, safe houses and camps belonging to the group have discovered some canisters and chemistry apparatus, some of which had Russian markings. Richter echoed statements from U.S. defense and intelligence officials that al-Qaeda has developed a crude ability to use industrial chemicals as weapons - like those used on the battlefields in the early part of World War I. But he said the terrorist group lacks the sophistication to deliver these weapons in a way that would kill mass numbers of people. Other officials have said al-Qaeda could probably deploy chlorine, phosgene and some biological toxins as weapons. Much of the terrorists' interest centers on chemical weapons, such as cyanide salts, that could be used to contaminate food and water supplies and assassinate individuals, says the Tenet report. Other evidence uncovered in Afghanistan includes diagrams of American nuclear power plants, showing al-Qaeda's interest in striking these targets, but it's unclear how far along those plans were, a defense official said. Officials were unaware of finds noting specific times or operatives who would conduct a particular attack. Instead, the documents seem to be part of al-Qaeda's research, and they provide insight to the terrorist group's thought process in selecting and planning attacks, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. A photograph of the Space Needle in Seattle was among documents discovered in a computer system in Afghanistan, Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday. Also found were plans to attack the Los Angeles International Airport and Mint in Philadelphia, NBC News reported yesterday. Sylvester Johnson, acting Philadelphia police commissioner, said he was unaware of any specific threat against the mint. Johnson said that the city had received intelligence reports in the past that suggested a threat, but that they had turned out to be false. A spokesperson for the mint could not immediately be reached for comment. An earlier plot to bomb the airport was foiled two years ago when the alleged terrorist was arrested crossing the border from Canada into the United States. FBI spokesman Matthew McLaughlin in Los Angeles said he had not seen the NBC report and could not immediately comment. NBC also reported that information was found in Afghanistan about the Grand Coulee Dam in central Washington state. The Bureau of Reclamation's Craig
[CTRL] CHILLING NUKE-PLANT TERROR PLOT BARED
Title: Message Another fine mess we seem to have avoided (so far)... -- CHILLING NUKE-PLANT TERROR PLOT BARED By BRIAN BLOMQUIST NY POST February 1, 2002 -- WASHINGTON - An al Qaeda terror leader told U.S. interrogators of a horrifying plot to fly a commercial jetliner into an American nuclear reactor, a government memo reveals. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission memo says that an "al Qaeda senior operative" told FBI interrogators that "there would be a second airline attack" that would have possibly more devastating results than the catastrophic attacks of Sept. 11. If U.S. military jets try to interfere with the kamikaze nuclear strike, the terror pilots are trained to immediately fly the plane into the closest tall building, the memo said. The al Qaeda operative told the FBI the attack was "already planned" and that "three individuals" were already in the United States and working with "non-Arabs to take part," the memo said. It didn't indicate a date, time or location for the planned attack. But it did say that terror operatives on the ground would choose the target. The chilling disclosure came as Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld warned that the United States could be hit with an attack "vastly more deadly" than those of Sept. 11. And it followed President Bush's revelation that U.S. officials in Afghanistan found blueprints of nuke facilities, water-treatment plants, city maps and information on landmarks. An FBI official confirmed last night that the bureau provided the information to the NRC, but said the terror tip was first received "several months ago" - but after Sept. 11 - and determined to be "not a high threat." "We put it to the test. It was not deemed to be a credible, hard threat," an FBI official said. But a U.S. source said a foreign government provided the same terror tip a few weeks ago. That prompted the FBI to double-check the threat and, again, conclude there was nothing to verify it. The NRC sent the memo to all 103 nuclear-power plants in the United States on Jan. 23, but didn't require the facilities to take any extra precautions. The plants have been on high alert and under armed guard since Sept. 11. The NRC said 20 warnings have gone to nuclear facilities since Sept. 11. Intelligence agents have been aware for months of terror threats against nuke facilities, and don't believe the memo refers to new information, a U.S. official said. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues Amusements (98% Fat Free) ~~~ Group Info To Join the Mailing List/Recommend a Friend to Subscribe http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/ Web Presence Some Recent Highlights and A Recommended Link or Two... http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 1/11/2002
[CTRL] Man's sex with goat
Title: Message Ah the joys of a train ride through the English country side... This guy is either seriously demented or undre some heavy-duty mind control. pl ~~~ Man's sex with goat By ALASTAIR TAYLOR http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2002050329,00.html A CHEF had sex with a goat and was seen by a trainload of passengers, a court heard yesterday. Stephen Hall, 23, lassoed the animal with his belt at the Paradise allotments near his home. As the packed Hull to Bridlington train stopped at signals, dozens of passengers stared out in amazement. In seconds, police switchboards were jammed as horrified commuters used their mobiles to report what they had seen. The female goat was one of a number left to graze near the allotments, Hull Crown Court was told. A man out walking his dog also made a 999 call to Humberside Police Control Room. Two members of the public pinned down Hall while a stream of officers raced to the scene. Jobless Hall, from Hull, was initially arrested by the Humberside Police Dog Section. A vet who examined the goat said it was "subdued" by the assault but was not suffering long-term injury. British Transport Police Detective Inspector Dave Crinnion, who investigated, said: "I saw the goat the next day it did not seem too upset but it is difficult to tell." Yesterday, Hall admitted a sex charge involving an animal. Judge Jacqueline Davies, who adjourned the case for reports, said: "I do not know what sentence the court will impose on you." He is due to be sentenced on March 13. Hall, who says he is gay, said after the hearing: "My friends have been giving me a lot of stick. They are all joking with me about it. "I have never done anything like this before." DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues Amusements (98% Fat Free) ~~~ Group Info To Join the Mailing List/Recommend a Friend to Subscribe http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/ Web Presence Some Recent Highlights and A Recommended Link or Two... http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 1/11/2002
[CTRL] No Founding Fathers? That's our new history
Title: Message http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020128-81903832.htm Published 1/28/2002 No Founding Fathers? That's our new history Ellen Sorokin George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin are not included in the revised version of the New Jersey Department of Education history standards a move some critics view as political correctness at its worst. The Pilgrims and the Mayflower also are excluded, as well as the word "war," which has been replaced with "conflict" in lessons about the early settlers, colonization and expansion. Also gone are most references to the inhumane treatment many American soldiers endured in wars overseas during the 20th century. However, the standards specifically note that students should identify slavery, the Holocaust and modern Iraq as examples "in which people have behaved in cruel and inhumane ways." The latest revisions to the state standards have disappointed educators across the country, who said the board's exclusion of the Founding Fathers' names is "political correctness at the end of the nth degree." "This is what you call a historical irresponsibility," said David Saxe, a Penn State University education professor who reviews state history standards nationwide for the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in Washington. The foundation gave the New Jersey history standards a failing grade the last time it reviewed them. New Jersey's current history standards, which also exclude most historical figures, were approved in 1996. Those standards were revised earlier this month and have not yet been approved by the state. State school officials argue they do not need to list all the well-known historical figures like other states' history or social studies standards do because teachers will know they have to talk about the country's first president and the other Founding Fathers when the lesson on American history comes up. "It's pretty obvious what needs to be taught," said Jay Doolan, the acting assistant commissioner of the state's Division of Academic and Career Standards. State educators said the standards do include a requirement that students "recognize the names of some major figures in American history" a generalization that Mr. Saxe said is a "cop out." "It's unimaginable to us why teachers wouldn't teach students about George Washington when they talk about the new nation," Mr. Doolan said. "It's also hard to imagine that when our students learn about Thanksgiving, that they won't learn about the Pilgrims, who they were and why they came here. ... We don't intentionally exclude certain names. But how long should the list of names be? Who do we include or not include?" Some states like Virginia and Indiana also don't include the Pilgrims in their standards. In some cases, the Pilgrims are referred to as early settlers, early Europeans, European colonizers or newcomers, although most textbooks still call them Pilgrims. "[The word] Pilgrim implies religion," said Brian Jones, vice president for Communications and Policy at the Education Leaders Council in Washington. "It's getting more difficult to talk about the Bible and the Puritans." But if the state leaves out specific names and events in its standards, then teachers must defer to history textbooks that are written by national and state committees, Mr. Saxe argued. "We're still at the mercy of the textbook, and that defeats the purpose of standards," Mr. Saxe said. "This pretty much lets classroom teachers do what they want. I have no trouble with that if it's a competent teacher. But what about those who are not?" Mr. Doolan said the state board does not set a state curriculum but rather a general guideline, which local school districts then use to come up with their own lesson plans. The state also writes a curriculum framework, which includes a "Suggested Topics" section recommending what teachers should teach. The current framework, adopted in 1999, suggests that teachers teach about the administrations of Washington, John Adams and Jefferson. The 1999 framework will most likely be revised when the new history standards are adopted. "Our standards have always been fairly general because it's up to the districts to follow up on them," Mr. Doolan said. "The districts will take the standards and flesh out what contents should be taught." Although state board officials did not include any Founding Fathers or other well-known American figures, they did add, in their first draft, the names of slavery opponents Theodore Dwight Weld and Angelina and Sarah Grimke in the section about the Civil War and Reconstruction period. Why include them and not Washington or Jefferson? "We wanted to make sure to include those three names because they're not readily known to most and we don't know whether the teachers will know to teach them," Mr. Doolan said. John Fonte, a
[CTRL] Both saviour and victim--Black Hawk Down Comments
Title: Message http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,641145,00.html Tuesday January 29, 2002 Both saviour and victim Black Hawk Down creates a new and dangerous myth of American nationhood George Monbiot The more powerful a nation becomes, the more it asserts its victimhood. In contemporary British eyes, the greatest atrocities of the 18th and 19th centuries were those perpetrated on compatriots in the Black Hole of Calcutta or during the Indian mutiny and the siege of Khartoum. The extreme manifestations of the white man's burden, these events came to symbolise the barbarism and ingratitude of the savage races the British had sought to rescue from their darkness. Today the attack on New York is discussed as if it were the worst thing to have happened to any nation in recent times. Few would deny that it was a major atrocity, but we are required to offer the American people a unique and exclusive sympathy. Now that demand is being extended to earlier American losses. Black Hawk Down looks set to become one of the bestselling movies of all time. Like all the films the British-born director Ridley Scott has made, it is gripping, intense and beautifully shot. It is also a stunning misrepresentation of what happened in Somalia. In 1992 the United States walked into Somalia with good intentions. George Bush senior announced that America had come to do "God's work" in a nation devastated by clan warfare and famine. But, as Scott Peterson's firsthand account Me Against My Brother shows, the mission was doomed by intelligence failures, partisan deployments and, ultimately, the belief that you can bomb a nation into peace and prosperity. Before the US government handed over the administration of Somalia to the United Nations in 1993, it had already made several fundamental mistakes. It had backed the clan chiefs Mohamed Farah Aideed and Ali Mahdi against another warlord, shoring up their power just as it had started to collapse. It had failed to recognise that the competing clan chiefs were ready to accept large-scale disarmament, if it were carried out impartially. Far from resolving the conflict between the clans, the US accidentally enhanced it. After the handover, the UN's Pakistani peacekeepers tried to seize Aideed's radio station, which was broadcasting anti-UN propaganda. The raid was bungled, and 25 of the soldiers were killed by Aideed's supporters. A few days later, Pakistani troops fired on an unarmed crowd, killing women and children. The United Nations force, commanded by a US admiral, was drawn into a blood feud with Aideed's militia. As the feud escalated, US special forces were brought in to deal with the man now described by American intelligence as "the Hitler of Somalia". Aideed, who was certainly a ruthless and dangerous man but also just one of several clan leaders competing for power in the country, was blamed for all Somalia's troubles. The UN's peacekeeping mission had been transformed into a partisan war. The special forces, over-confident and hopelessly ill-informed, raided, in quick succession, the headquarters of the UN development programme, the charity World Concern and the offices of Médecins sans Frontieres. They managed to capture, among scores of innocent civilians and aid workers, the chief of the UN's police force. But farce was soon repeated as tragedy. When some of the most senior members of Aideed's clan gathered in a building in Mogadishu to discuss a peace agreement with the United Nations, the US forces, misinformed as ever, blew them up, killing 54 people. Thus they succeeded in making enemies of all the Somalis. The special forces were harried by gunmen from all sides. In return, US troops in the UN compound began firing missiles at residential areas. So the raid on one of Aideed's buildings on October 3 1993, which led to the destruction of two Black Hawk helicopters and the deaths of 18 American soldiers, was just another round of America's grudge match with the warlord. The troops who captured Aideed's officials were attacked by everyone: gunmen came even from the rival militias to avenge the deaths of the civilians the Americans had killed. The US special forces, with an understandable but ruthless regard for their own safety, locked Somali women and children into the house in which they were besieged. Ridley Scott says that he came to the project without politics, which is what people often say when they subscribe to the dominant point of view. The story he relates (with the help of the US department of defence and the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff) is the story the American people need to tell themselves. The purpose of the raid on October 3, Black Hawk Down suggests, was to prevent Aideed's murderous forces from starving Somalia to death. No hint is given of the feuding between him and the UN, other than the initial attack on the Pakistani peacekeepers. There is no
[CTRL] Marijuana's Effects: More Than Munchies
Title: Message http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/29/health/anatomy/29MARI.html January 29, 2002 Marijuana's Effects: More Than Munchies By LINDA CARROLL Dawn was 12 when she started smoking marijuana with her friends. It was just something the cool kids did to relax and forget their problems, she says. But, after a while, the cigar-shaped "blunts" she smoked also seemed to make learning difficult. "I would just forget school stuff," said Dawn, now 17. "I'd learn something one day and the next day I'd have no idea what the teacher was talking about." At first Dawn, a Long Islander, limited her marijuana smoking to the weekends, but soon it became an everyday habit that ultimately landed her in a residential treatment program run by Phoenix House. The debate over whether marijuana is harmful and habit-forming, as Dawn found, or a fairly benign intoxicant, is an old one. And until recently little research had been done to settle the controversy. For several decades, research on marijuana lagged that for other illicit substances as scientists focused on the drugs like cocaine and heroin with more obvious addictive qualities and more drastic and dire effects on users. But in the past decade, and in particular over the last year or so, interest in cannabis has surged, driven in part by the debate over medical marijuana use for pain relief, nausea and loss of appetite by people with AIDS, cancer and other debilitating diseases. In addition, experts are intrigued by the discovery of molecules that naturally occur in the body, known as endogenous cannabinoids, or endocannabinoids, which are remarkably similar to the active ingredient in marijuana. Researchers have discovered that receptors for the endocannabinoids are sprinkled liberally throughout the body and the brain, suggesting that they play important roles in regulating a variety of processes. Recent research into the ways that cannabinoids regulate appetite, pain and memory may not only shed light on the abundance of sensations experienced by marijuana users the mellow, the munchies and the fuzzy memory but may help scientists develop new, more directed medications to help control appetite, ease pain and improve memory. Scientists have also learned that the drug, which an estimated 70 million Americans have at least tried, may be highly addictive to a small percentage of those who use it. Marijuana smokers report a diverse collection of sensations, and researchers now suspect that is because the drug's main active ingredient delta-9-trans-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC is so similar in shape to the endocannabinoids, which are involved in many body and brain functions. Dr. Rachel Wilson, a researcher at Caltech, discovered when she was at the University of California at San Francisco that endocannabinoids played an important role in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in learning and memory, according to a report published this spring in Nature. No one has figured out exactly how endocannabinoids are used in the hippocampus, but based on the abundance of cannabinoid receptors in this part of the brain and on the experiences of marijuana users, Dr. Wilson suspects that these molecules help lay down new memories by strengthening the connections between nerve cells. But when the brain is flooded with cannabinoids through marijuana use, forgetfulness results, Dr. Wilson said. It is probably a case of too much of a good thing, she added. When cannabinoids are abundant, every experience becomes strongly linked in our minds, she believes. But when everything is marked for memory, the system is overwhelmed and nothing is remembered. Dr. Wilson and others also reported last year on another important role played by cannabinoids. They appear to tone down the production of certain neurotransmitters, acting like the brakes of a car when the system is racing too fast. Another study published this last year in Nature may explain why marijuana users get a case of the munchies. An international group of researchers found that mice that were genetically engineered to be deficient in cannabinoid receptors ate 40 percent less than normal mice. And in a separate experiment, the researchers showed that an interplay existed between the cannabinoids and leptin, a hormone that produces satiety. In the study, obese rats that were genetically modified to have low levels of leptin produced higher amounts of endocannabinoids. When the rats were given leptin, the endocannabinoid levels dropped. Yet another study on cannabinoids published last year may explain why marijuana makes people feel good. According to the study published in Science, cannabinoids, through a complex chain of events, rev up the dopamine system. Like other addictive substances, marijuana appears to hijack brain circuitry that evolved to help people find their way back to a food source or sexual partner. Normally the neurotransmitters and receptors
[CTRL] Police play swami, issue bogus ticket
Title: Message http://www.washingtontimes.com/metro/20020128-86302802.htm Published 1/28/2002 Police play swami, issue bogus ticket Brian DeBose D.C. police are playing a guessing game when reviewing images from their photo-radar camera program and sending tickets to drivers whose license plates are not clearly identifiable. One Southwest resident received a $50 ticket in September issued to a vehicle that, according to the ticket, had her plate number. But the photograph included with the citation shows a white truck instead of her blue sedan. "The first thing is, I don't own a pickup truck," said Angela Brock-Smith, 36. "The second is, my car has been broken down since July 11 of last year." The license plate number on Miss Smith's 1996 Chevrolet Lumina is AR8049. The photograph of the truck shown on the ticket has a similar tag, with "AR" and "049" visible. The first digit is partially obscured by a rigger ball on the truck's bumper. With the photo-radar technology, a vehicle enters a pinpoint radar beam, and if it is going above the speed limit, it sets off a camera that snaps a photo of the rear of the vehicle. Affiliated Computer Services, which operates the radar cameras and processes the tickets for the District, then reviews the photo with D.C. police officers present and obtains information about the vehicle from the Department of Motor Vehicles. The citation is sent to the owner of the vehicle. The ticket issued to Miss Smith said she was going 45 mph in a 30-mph zone in the 2900 block of Southern Avenue on Sept. 5. After receiving the ticket, Miss Smith was told by an employee at the Automated Traffic Enforcement Office on Sept. 26 that she should request a hearing by mail with the Bureau of Traffic Adjudication (BTA). "I sent them a letter explaining the error and waited to receive a hearing date or a notice," Miss Smith said. Kevin P. Morison, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department, said the automated traffic office received Miss Smith's letter Oct. 3 and sent it to traffic adjudication; the ticket was suspended for 90 days while the bureau evaluated her case. "Our records do not indicate that BTA took any action within the 90 days," Mr. Morison said in an e-mail last week, responding to questions about Miss Smith's case. Miss Smith received a late notice on Jan. 3. She went to the Bureau of Traffic Adjudication in Northeast on Jan. 11 and was told to call the Automated Traffic Office. Before she called that office, Miss Smith received another late notice on Jan. 19 which said that a hold had been placed on her registration and the ticket had doubled to $100. "I called automated traffic on January 22, and they told me at that time to disregard the notice," Miss Smith said. "I thought they took care of it." Traffic adjudication has suspended the ticket another 30 days because automated traffic sent another mail adjudication request, Mr. Morison said. Mr. Morison acknowledged that the ticket should have been thrown out during the review process. "It is clear from looking at the photo that this ticket should not have been issued in the first place, and certainly not to Miss Brock-Smith," Mr. Morison said. The rules on identifying license plates, he said, are very clear: "If the tag number on the vehicle is not crystal clear ... no ticket is supposed to be issued." D.C. police have reiterated to their data and entry technicians and ticket reviewers to follow those rules, Mr. Morison said. He said the problem with Miss Smith's case stems from a change in procedures between D.C. police and Traffic Adjudication. Initially, tickets issued incorrectly could be voided when there were obvious errors by the Automated Traffic office with approval from the D.C. police. The procedure changed about two months ago, and now the only way a ticket can be voided is if the office of police Chief Charles H. Ramsey sends a letter requesting it. Mr. Morison said a letter will be sent to BTA from Chief Ramsey's office on Miss Smith's behalf. But traffic adjudication said it still has the last word. The bureau can deny the chief's request if it is not satisfied with the evidence he presents. "Bureau of Traffic Adjudication now insists that only it can rule on all photo-radar and red-light camera tickets," Mr. Morison said. Copyright 2001 News World Communications, Inc. ___ DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues Amusements (98% Fat Free) ~~~ Group Info To Join the Mailing List/Recommend a Friend to Subscribe http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/ Web Presence Some Recent Highlights and A Recommended Link or Two... http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail
[CTRL] Turns Out It's Not the Black Cats You Have to Watch Our For
Title: Message http://www.andrewtobias.com/newcolumns/011120.html Published on November 20, 2001 Turns Out It's Not the Black Cats You Have to Watch Our For Andrew Tobias Shortly after becoming Attorney General, John Ashcroft was headed abroad. An advance team showed up at the American embassy in the Hague to check out the digs, saw cats in residence, and got nervous. They were worried there might be a calico cat. No, they were told, no calicos. Visible relief. Their boss, they explained, believes calico cats are signs of the devil. (The advance team also spied a statue of a naked woman in the courtyard and discussed the possibility of its being covered for the visit, though that request was not ultimately made.) I reveal this tidbit not to belittle John Ashcrofts faith or his prudishness, which are his own business, but because he has begun to meddle with my business. In the middle of the war on terrorism, he has somehow found time to move to overturn Oregon's twice-passed referendum on assisted suicide, to assure that an Oregonian in his final days should be forced to agonize as God intended. Likewise, for those nauseous with chemotherapy or in chronic pain, he works to overturn Californias referendum on medical marijuana, because when you think of it what right have the people of California to decide a matter of such importance for themselves? Where in the constitution does it permit people the right to grow or smoke whatever they want, even if it will ease their chronic pain? Forgive the sarcasm, but really how dare he? Hasnt he more important things to do? How dare he say to those in pain not op-ed-page pain or hypothetical pain, but you-almost-want-his-children-to-feel-it-to-be-sure-he-understands-the-import -of-what-hes-doing pain "Tough. Youll just have to suffer." And if his judgment on these matters, and on calico cats, is so far from humane or rational, how reassured should we be as to the rest of his program? "Under [Oregons] Death with Dignity Act," reports the New York Times, "a terminally ill patient may take the lethal drugs if two doctors agree the person has less than six months to live and is mentally competent to make the decision to end his or her life. Since the law took effect in 1997, at east 70 people have killed themselves in this way . . . Many more have obtained lethal prescriptions but have died of natural causes before taking the drugs." Note that many of those people who died of natural causes obtained from this law a great benefit as well. No, they didnt wind up using the drugs. But by knowing they could get them, and by having them, they retained the option. They retained control of the decision, and of their lives. If it got too bad, they knew they had a way out. Dr. Jerome Groopman, the eminent Harvard Medical School professor, was quick to express the alarm of what must be a large segment of the medical community over Ashcrofts action. "Not long ago," his Times op-ed began, "a cancer specialist I know faced a situation that chilled those of us who care for people with terminal illness. A young woman close to death lay suffering in a hospital bed, her husband at her side. Her leukemia had defied bone marrow transplant and experimental drugs. She had begun to bleed into her lungs and was gasping for air. Months earlier, following common practice, the oncologist had had a frank discussion about dying with the woman and her husband. The greatest terror for her, as for most other patients, was that the final days of her life might be spent in unrelenting pain." So the patient and her family and her doctor agreed that, if the time ever came, no heroic measures would be taken to prolong her agony, and enough morphine would be used to minimize her pain, even if it speeded her death. (As, Dr. Groopman went on to explain, this it would have to do, because morphine suppresses breathing.) The time came, the morphine was prescribed but a respiratory therapist at her bedside "vehemently objected." Both husband and doctor were shocked; the doctor went on to fulfill his promise to ease the patients pain. Within a day, Dr. Groopman recounts, the patient had peacefully died. But the therapist a man after John Ashcrofts heart accused the doctor of having committed a crime and the husband of being an accomplice. Neither charge was sustained, but now John Ashcroft has rushed in to do battle with the devil, to try to right such wrongs in the future and prolong the patient s suffering. He has authorized the Drug Enforcement Administration to suspend medical licenses of doctors who prescribe lethal drugs for terminally ill patients. "This action," writes Dr. Groopman, "represents a striking lack of understanding of how physicians help patients to die, and it risks making the last days of the terminally ill a time of panic and pain rather than calm and comfort . . . Mr. Ashcroft endangers what has become a
[CTRL] Psst...Wanna Be An FBI Agent?
Title: Message http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/fakebadges020131.html Jan. 31, 2002 Bad Badges FBI Finds Hundreds of Law Enforcement IDs for Sale By Amber McDowell The Associated Press N A S H V I L LE, Tenn. - Undercover investigators went onto the Internet and bought more than 900 black-market law enforcement badges, including FBI and Secret Service shields, federal authorities said today. FBI spokesman Jon Stephens said a Florida man with no known ties to terrorists is a suspect in the case but has not been arrested. "The individual trafficking these badges was selling them for profit, including selling them to foreign nationals," FBI Agent Doug Riggin said. "He had no idea what they were going to be used for." The badges - both real and counterfeit - were bought by undercover investigators in Tennessee and Florida, and represented more than 40 federal, state and local agencies. From Air Force One to the Olympic Games They included shields from the Border Patrol, the Postal Police, the Drug Enforcement Administration, military police, security police from Air Force One and police departments in at least 20 states. One of the shields was an official Utah Highway Patrol badge for the 2002 Winter Olympics, which begin next week in Salt Lake City. "These badges haven't even been put on the street yet" to Utah troopers, Riggin said. "I don't know if you could get into a venue with just the badge, but you could certainly get closer. It would certainly give you more credibility." Authorities believe the real badges were either lost or stolen before they wound up for sale on the Internet. The FBI is investigating whether the counterfeit ones came from badge manufacturers or distributors. Stephens said the suspect sold the badges on a Web site that has since been taken down. After several purchases by undercover agents, the FBI searched the suspect's home, where more badges were found. The Tennessee Highway Patrol was tipped to the black market trade last summer by someone who said it was easy to buy badges on the Internet. Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. ___ ~ DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues Amusements (98% Fat Free) Group Info To Join the Mailing List/Recommend a Friend to Subscribe http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/ Web Presence Some Recent Highlights and A Recommended Link or Two... http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 1/11/2002
[CTRL] Jewish nazi art museum
att9C00.doc Description: MS-Word document
[CTRL] The 100 Mile-Per-Gallon Carburetor
Title: Message http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20020124.html JANUARY 24, 2002 The 100 Mile-Per-Gallon Carburetor How Ultra Wide Band May (or May Not) Change the World By Robert X. Cringely A few weeks ago, I wrote about my desire for Wendy, my personal supercomputer (since completed and works fine, thanks), and mentioned that one of the projects I planned for her was an experiment in Ultra Wide Band (UWB) communications. This single reference brought from the web world many reader responses, most of them from engineers alarmed at the whole idea of UWB. They are convinced that UWB will be bad for us all, making useless the GPS satellite system, and maybe even your mobile phone. I am not at all convinced of that, but I am sure that UWB will shortly create a thorny business problem. What it reminds me of most is the proverbial 100 mile-per-gallon carburetor. The 100 mile-per-gallon carburetor is supposed to be a gizmo that does exactly as its name suggests, only of course, we can't buy one. That's because the oil companies and the car companies and who knows what other companies are supposed to have bought-up the patents on the 100 mile-per-gallon carb specifically to make sure it never hits the market. Entire industries would be destroyed, we're told, if this beast ever hit store shelves. Certainly, Exxon-Mobil would have to sell a few corporate jets to get profits back in line once gasoline consumption dropped in half. There is actually some precedent to this particular conspiracy theory. America had a well-developed light rail system at the end of the Second World War that was systematically bought up and destroyed primarily by General Motors, which promptly replaced rail cars with buses. If GM would buy one industry just to destroy it, why not buy another? But what is it that makes UWB so scary? Ultra Wide Band will either be the beginning of a new age of communication or the end of an old one, and probably both. UWB is true digital radio communication, a series of very short electrical pulses (billionths of a second) that exist not on any particular frequency, but on ALL frequencies simultaneously. It is just a blast of electrical noise. The key to turning that noise into communication lies in the timing of the pulses that beat out a code. But in order to hear the information in that code, a UWB receiver has to know the exact pulse sequence used by the transmitter. In other words, with UWB you have to know exactly WHEN to listen in order to hear. This makes UWB very secure, which is why the military likes it so much (UWB technology was originally developed for the military and various U.S. and Soviet spy agencies as early as 1960). UWB is pretty much immune to eavesdropping, is equally immune to interference or jamming, and because its broad frequency range includes the ultra-low frequencies used to communicate with submerged submarines, UWB can be used easily in buildings and even underground. And because of the random nature of UWB timing schemes, there appears to be virtually no limit to the number of UWB signals that can share the same airwaves. In many ways, UWB is the successor to spread spectrum radio, a World War II technology for splitting a broadcast among many radio frequencies to avoid jamming. Spread spectrum, which was patented in 1942 by actress Hedy Lamar and composer George Antheil (I am not making this up), operates today in every mobile phone. But where spread spectrum used just a few dozen frequencies and used them one at a time, UWB uses every frequency there is, and uses them all at the same time, which means the data-carrying capacity of UWB is enormous. UWB requires ultra-low power, often one ten thousandth as much as a cellphone, and because of that low power it is undetectable by conventional radios, looking to them just like very quiet noise. This is one reason why the FCC is considering allowing UWB as an unlicensed service; it is hard to regulate a signal that can't be detected and doesn't interfere. Besides, UWB has important friends -- companies like Intel, IBM, Motorola and Texas Instruments -- that are committed to making UWB chipsets or have invested in UWB startups. A UWB phone uses so little power it can remain on for weeks without recharging. And UWB will ultimately be cheaper to make than conventional radios since it is built entirely of commercial grade computer chips and requires no tuning. There is an irony here that UWB was impossibly expensive to build until computer chips came along, and now, it is going to be impossibly cheap. The U.S. Navy, for example, plans to put a UWB location marker on almost everything it ships overseas, just to keep track of all the stuff and keep it from being stolen. UWB products will probably begin to hit the market in the next 18 to 24 months. In addition to radios, these products will include radar and electronic positioning devices. For soldiers entering a
[CTRL] One bullet, 15 years
Title: Message Editorial: One bullet, 15 yearsThe nation's conscience should be shocked by this outrageously harsh sentence.By Des Moines Register Editorial Board http://desmoinesregister.com/news/stories/c5917686/16969333.html 01/21/2002What sort of country would put a man in a federal prison for 15 years for possessing a single .22-caliber bullet? Ours would. And it did, in one of the most bizarre applications of federal sentencing guidelines that substitute a formula for common sense. Dane Allen Yirkovsky, 38, of Lisbon is no candidate for sainthood. He served time for burglaries, and authorities believed he was involved in other crimes. Yet, the only offense for which he is now imprisoned was possessing a single bullet. Because of that, he will be a guest of the American taxpayers for up to 15 years. Yirkovsky's saga began when he happened to come across a loaded .22-caliber round while pulling up carpets in the home of a friend who was putting him up in exchange for some remodeling work. He stuck the bullet in a box in his room. The bullet was discovered by police who were searching Yirkovksy's room after his ex-girlfriend asserted he had some of her belongings. While Yirkovsky possessed no weapon - just the single bullet - prosecutors in the U.S. District Attorney's office in Cedar Rapids hoped to squeeze information out of Yirkovsky about other crimes. He was charged with being a felon in possession of ammunition. Even though Yirkovsky pleaded guilty and cooperated, the feds refused to reduce the severity of the charge. Thus, Yirkovsky appeared before U.S. District Judge Michael Melloy, who had no alternative but to impose the sentence prescribed by the sentencing guidelines. Yirkovsky was classified an "armed career criminal" because of the prior convictions - despite the fact that he never used a weapon in any of those burglaries - and the formula spit out his sentence: 180 months. Because the federal system has no opportunity for parole, Yirkovsky will serve at least 85 percent of that time, perhaps all of it, depending on his behavior. The 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals conceded that Yirkovsky's sentence was "extreme," but it nonetheless rejected his appeal, saying, "[O]ur hands are tied in this matter by the mandatory minimum sentence which Congress established." Three other 8th Circuit judges later said the full court should have reconsidered that decision. "I suggest that on its face the sentence is grossly disproportionate," Circuit Judge Morris Sheppard Arnold wrote on behalf of the three dissenting judges. Arnold went on to say that the severity of sentences under the sentencing guidelines "is, or ought to be, a matter of great public concern to every citizen. The number of people incarcerated in this country is unparalleled and growing exponentially, and the costs of criminal penalties in terms of dislocated lives and public treasure is probably incalculable." This is but one example of the abuses that occur under the federal guidelines. Because prosecutors have the power to threaten suspects with sentences that can stretch for decades, defendants are forced to plead guilty in hope of getting a better deal. Yet, because prosecutors hold all the cards, as Yirkovsky discovered, many offenders will spend the better part of their productive lives behind bars. While Yirkovsky's radically disproportionate sentence defies rational explanation, it is the product of a system that Congress appears unwilling to change and the federal judiciary pretends is beyond its control. This case should shock the conscience of every judge sworn to uphold the Constitution. That they did not strike down the law that made it possible is an abdication of their duty. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues Amusements (98% Fat Free) ~~~ Group Info To Join the Mailing List/Recommend a Friend to Subscribe http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/ Web Presence Some Recent Highlights and A Recommended Link or Two... http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 1/11/2002
[CTRL] Method for requesting a date with a driver of a vehicle spotted, via the license plate number of the vehicle
Title: Message Here's a patent request that someone spent way too much time dreaming up. pl United States Patent 6,269,372 Wertheim July 31, 2001 Method for requesting a date with a driver of a vehicle spotted, via the license plate number of the vehicle Abstract A method for requesting a date with a driver of a vehicle spotted having a license plate number, via the license plate number of the vehicle. The method includes the steps of registering for a "PLATEDATE".TM. database, creating a profile on the "PLATEDATE".TM. database including license plate number, state vehicle is registered in, and E-mail address, spotting the vehicle whose driver you wish to date, accessing the "PLATEDATE".TM. database, inputting required information including the license plate number of the vehicle spotted, state the vehicle spotted is registered in, license plate number of vehicle of inquirer, and state of the vehicle of the inquirer is registered in, comparing the required information inputted to the "PLATEDATE".TM. database, sending the message to E-mail address of the driver of the vehicle spotted, if comparing step indicates a match, and creating an E-mail account, if comparing step indicates no match. Inventors: Wertheim; Gary D. (314 Oakwood Rd., Port Jefferson, NY 11777) Assignee: Wertheim; Gary D. (Port Jefferson, NY) Appl. No.: 192144 Filed: November 14, 1998 Current U.S. Class: 707/10; 705/1 Intern'l Class: G06F 015/00 Field of Search: 705/1 707/1,5,101,3,102,104,513 References Cited [Referenced By] U.S. Patent Documents 5659730 Aug., 1997 Kelley et al. 395/603. 5778367 Jul., 1998 Wesinger, Jr. et al. 707/10. 5920845 Jul., 1999 Risemberg 705/1. 5950200 Sep., 1999 Sudai et al. 707/9. 5963951 Oct., 1999 Collins 707/102. 6061681 May., 2000 Collins 707/5. 6092053 Jul., 2000 Boesch et al. 705/26. Primary Examiner: Breene; John Assistant Examiner: Pham; Khanh Claims The invention claimed is: 1. A method for requesting a date with a driver of a vehicle spotted having a license plate number, via the license plate number of the vehicle, comprising the steps of: a) registering for a database; b) creating a profile on said database including license plate number, state vehicle is registered in, E-mail address, state of origination, first name, middle initial, last name, date of birth, sex, marital status, sexual preference, area code, telephone number, zip code, credit card type, credit card number, and credit card expiration date; c) spotting the vehicle whose driver you wish to date; d) accessing said database; e) inputting required information including the license plate number of the vehicle spotted, state the vehicle spotted is registered in, license plate number of vehicle of inquirer, state of the vehicle of the inquirer is registered in, E-mail address of inquirer, sex of the driver of the vehicle spotted, approximate time and date the vehicle was spotted, town where the vehicle was spotted, telephone number of the inquirer, and a message; f) comparing said required information inputted to said database; and g) sending said message to E-mail address of the driver of the vehicle spotted, if step f) indicates a match. 2. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein said step of registering for a database includes registering for a database by an internet web site. 3. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein said step of registering for a database includes registering for a database by an automated voice mail system. 4. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein said step of registering for a database includes registering for a database by an alpha-numeric paging system. 5. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein said step of accessing said database includes accessing said database by wireless-cellular. 6. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein said step of accessing said database includes accessing said database by two way paging. 7. The method as defined in claim 1, wherein said step of accessing said database includes accessing said database by land line service. 8. The method as defined in claim 1; further comprising the step of creating a credit/debit card transaction. 9. The method as defined in claim 1; further comprising the step of confirming said message has been sent. Description BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for requesting a date. More particularly, the present invention relates to a method for requesting a date with a driver of a vehicle spotted, via the license plate number of the vehicle. 2. Description of the Prior Art Numerous innovations for communication systems have been
[CTRL] Honesty Always Pays?
Title: Message http://www.phillyburbs.com/intelligencerrecord/article1.asp?F_num=1436621 Monday, January 28, 2002 Boy won't get $600 By Christine Moran Staff Writer NEW BRITAIN - Joe Csira isn't $600 richer. After promising to give the 16-year-old Central Bucks West sophomore the $600 he found at New Britain Town Center just days before Christmas, police changed their minds Tuesday. The borough solicitor learned of the department's intentions and contacted New Britain Borough Police Chief David Sempowski. Sempowski said the solicitor informed him of a state statute that mandates that any unclaimed property be turned over to the state. When Sempowski promised to give Joe the money if no one claimed it, Sempowski said he wasn't aware of that statute. "This doesn't diminish what he did," the chief said on Tuesday. "I'm very proud of this boy. Everyone should be very proud of this boy." Joe isn't feeling very proud, though. The events left him scarred, his mother said, and questioning Pennsylvania's laws. "It's just ridiculous," Susan Csira said. "You mean to tell me if I find a quarter, I should turn it over to the state? It just doesn't make sense." To complicate matters, after watching Joe's story on a television news show then reading an article in this newspaper, several people called police and said they lost $600 at New Britain Town Center on Dec. 21. Only one report checked out. Sempowski said the caller knew details not released on TV or in the newspaper. "It's a shame for Joe," Sempowski said, "but that's why he turned it in, because he thought it might be someone's money." The chief hasn't decided to give the caller the cash just yet, though. He said he'd continue to look into the claim. If it turns out it isn't credible, Sempowski, as much as he'd like to give Joe the $600, said he'd do the "appropriate thing" - turn the money over to the state. Joe won't go away empty-handed, though. The chief said he plans to do something for him, but he wouldn't discuss what that might be. Joe said he found the stash on Dec. 21 while shopping with his mother at the center on Butler Avenue. Though Joe admitted it was tempting to keep the cash, he decided to turn it in. "It was just the right to do," he said last week. ___ DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues Amusements (98% Fat Free) ~~~ Group Info To Join the Mailing List/Recommend a Friend to Subscribe http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/ Web Presence Some Recent Highlights and A Recommended Link or Two... http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 1/11/2002
[CTRL] More United We Stand Stuff
Title: Message SF GATE WROTE: Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle accuses the Bush administration of "Enronizing" the economy -- raiding retirement and health funds to enrich the affluent. Senate Minority Leader and noted sexless lump of hair dye and pig gristle Trent Lott, fired back with his own new verb: "Daschle-ize," meaning to raise taxes and coin unclever terms that pretty much any 5-year-old would agree is childish and lame especially since he didn't think of it first which makes him a copycat loser dinkweed. Daschle fired back with the term "Lott-a-palooza," which presumably means to dream about being a real human and also to regularly gyrate your creaky hips in front of Congress' large reflective windows when you think no one's watching and thereby nauseate small children and force-sterilize any female in a 500-meter radius for a month. Lott then came up with "Daschle-whacker," which was quickly followed by Daschle's "Lott-itis," then "Daschlectomy" and "Trentuberculosis." Then they rolled around on the ground punching and kicking and squealing and all the other dirty little snot-nosed boys gathered 'round and cheered and picked their noses and voted to prolong the war and quadruple the sinister homeland security budget Daschle charges Bush is 'Enronizing' economy; Lott counters by coining 'Daschle-ize'SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer Sunday, January 27, 2002 Breaking News Sections (01-27) 13:15 PST (AP) -- With BC-Enron-Cheney, Bjt WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's a war of non-words. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle accuses the Bush administration of "Enronizing" the economy -- raiding retirement and health funds to enrich the affluent. Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott fired back with his own new verb: "Daschle-ize." Daschle, the South Dakota Democrat who uttered "Enronize" last week, faced questions Sunday about whether he had gone too far in comparing Enron's possibly criminal activity to the administration's stewardship of the economy and budget. He didn't back down. "I don't want to see happen to all of the country, to our retirees, what happened to employees of the Enron Corporation," he said on CBS's "Face the Nation." The Enron collapse wiped out the retirement savings of thousands of company employees, as well as investors nationwide. Lott, R-Miss., called Daschle's new word "very inappropriate." "When Senator Daschle uses a term like that, I don't think that's a good way to start off the year," Lott said on CBS. "And we don't want to Daschle-ize the budget, which to me means raise taxes, increase spending and obstruct." Republicans blame Daschle for blocking a vote last month on an economic stimulus package. "We need to be coming together and not using adjectives or verbs to describe each other's motives," Lott said. President Bush stayed well clear of the scrap Sunday. He went to church with his wife and parents, then ventured out on an unseasonably warm winter day at Fort McNair with the first lady and his father. Later Sunday, they were going out to dinner. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues Amusements (98% Fat Free) ~~~ Group Info To Join the Mailing List/Recommend a Friend to Subscribe http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/ Web Presence Some Recent Highlights and A Recommended Link or Two... http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 1/11/2002
[CTRL] New Gender-Neutral Bible Planned
Title: Message New Gender-Neutral Bible Planned http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48340-2002Jan28.html E-Mail This Article Printer-Friendly Version Subscribe to The Post By Richard N. OstlingAP Religion WriterMonday, January 28, 2002; 8:07 AM The International Bible Society said Monday that America's best-selling modern Bible is about to get an update using gender-neutral wording, despite past criticism of that idea from conservatives. The revision will be called "Today's New International Version," or TNIV. The original "New International Version," which has sold more than 150 million copies worldwide since 1978, will remain on the market. The New Testament of the latest version goes on sale in April with the full Bible including Old Testament books expected by 2005. Zondervan of Grand Rapids, Mich., owned by HarperCollins, holds North American rights for both versions. To date, the Bible society and Zondervan have spent $2 million to develop the new translation but they did not disclose other financial terms. Both versions, the work of evangelical translators, are especially popular in the conservative, Protestant heart of America's competitive Bible market. The older version's gender usage became hotly disputed in 1997 when World magazine, a conservative weekly, reported that the Bible society was working on an inclusive-language revision. The society had already published such an edition with a British publisher. Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest U.S. Protestant denomination, criticized the language change, as did James Dobson of the influential "Focus on the Family" radio broadcast. After meeting with critics, the Bible society said it would halt publication of Britain's inclusive edition and had "abandoned all plans for gender-related changes in future editions of the New International Version." The Bible society, based in Colorado Springs, Colo., isn't quite abandoning its pledge because the latest version won't replace the "New International Version" it will just be sold alongside the older translation. Examples of some changes from 1978 to 2002: "sons of God" to "children of God" in Matthew 5:9, and "a man is justified by faith" to "a person is justified by faith" in Romans 3:28. A publicity release says "the TNIV is not merely a gender-accurate edition of the NIV," because 70 percent of the changes do not relate to gender. Also, terms referring to God and Jesus Christ have not been altered. Like the 1978 Bible, the new version is aimed at Protestants, and will not appear in an edition with the extra biblical books recognized by Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. The major U.S. sales competitor for the NIV has been the venerable King James Version. But the international versions will now also have to compete with two evangelical translations that appeared last year: "English Standard Version" from Crossway, a slight update of the 1952 Revised Standard Version that makes modest use of gender-free terminology. "Holman Christian Standard Bible" from Broadman Holman, the Southern Baptist book house, which rejects gender-neutral wording. It is currently available only in the New Testament, with the full Bible due in 2004. All or part of the Bible is currently available in some 70 English translations. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues Amusements (98% Fat Free) ~~~ Group Info To Join the Mailing List/Recommend a Friend to Subscribe http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/ Web Presence Some Recent Highlights and A Recommended Link or Two... http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 1/11/2002 icon_mail.gif Description: GIF image icon_print.gif Description: GIF image newspaper.gif Description: GIF image
[CTRL] Militants kidnap US journalist
Title: Message What next...are they going to start kidnapping Lawyers? Used-car salesmen? Carpet Installers? I don't mean to make light of this but very few people in America (especially in power) will care about a kidnapped journalist. pl Militants kidnap US journalist The hostage takers sent the pictures of Pearl by e-mail A Pakistani group seeking better conditions for prisoners being held by the US in Cuba says it has kidnapped an American journalist who went missing last week. Daniel Pearl does not now, nor has he ever, worked for the CIA CIA spokeswoman Anya Guilsher A group calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty released a photograph of the journalist, Daniel Pearl, with a gun being held menacingly to his head. An accompanying message sent to US news organisations said Mr Pearl was being held in inhuman conditions - similar, it said, to those experienced by al-Qaeda suspects being held at the US base at Guantanamo Bay. The journalist has been missing nearly a weekTheir captive would receive better treatment only if conditions at Camp X-Ray improved and Pakistani detainees were sent home, the group said in an e-mail. Mr Pearl, 38, the Wall Street Journal's South Asia Bureau chief, went missing last Wednesday when he was in Karachi to interview leaders of radical Islamic groups Both the newspaper and the US authorities have denied his captors' claims that he works for the CIA. Investigation Pakistan police sources told The Associated Press they believed Mr Pearl was kidnapped by Harkat ul-Mujahedeen, which is closely linked to Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. If the Americans keep our countrymen in better conditions, than we will better the conditions of Mr Pearl Emailed warning Harkat is on the US Government's list of terrorist organisations, and a number of its fighters were known to have been killed in the US-led Afghan campaign. Police have questioned and released five men in connection with Mr Pearl's disappearance, but say they are no nearer to tracing his whereabouts. The Wall Street Journal said the photos it had received of Mr Pearl appeared legitimate, but it had had no direct contact with the alleged kidnappers. The hostage has been WSJ South Asia bureau chief since 2000"In the interest of humanity, the terrorists should release Mr. Pearl immediately," Steven Goldstein, a vice president of Dow Jones Co, the Journal's owner, said. The e-mail was sent sent using Microsoft's free e-mail service, Hotmail, with the user name "kidnapperguy," according to the New York Times - which was among the US media recipients. WSJ quoted it as saying that Mr Pearl was being held "in very inhuman circumstances - quite similar in fact to the way Pakistanis and nationals of other sovereign countries are being kept in Cuba by the American army". The e-mail reportedly went on to say: "If the Americans keep our countrymen in better conditions, than we will better the conditions of Mr Pearl and all other Americans that we capture." It also called for the release of Afghanistan's former ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, who is one of the highest-ranking Taleban officials in US custody. WATCH/LISTEN ON THIS STORY The BBC's Nick Bryant"His captors claim he is a CIA officer" Full coverage Guantanamo Bay 'Below US standards' QA: 'US Taleban' case Student to suspect Grim life at the camp The ICRC's role Points of view UK connection Britain and al-Qaeda Student or warrior? Families baffled Around the world Clickable map Asian campaign QA: What next?
[CTRL] B U S H B O D Y C O U N T
Title: Message If you like investigating wild conspiracy theories...here's a few to add to your list. Even a JFK angle...maybe even longer than that Clinton Body Count list that was floating around awhile back. pl ~~~ http://www.bk2k.com/bushbodycount/home.html B U S H B O D Y C O U N T Paul Wilcher His partially decomposed body was found in his home, still seated on the toilet. According to the Washington Times, "...he was investigating the theory of an 'October Surprise' conspiracy during the 1980 federal election campaign. He had been interviewing an inmate who claimed to have piloted George Bush to Paris so he could secretly seek to delay the release of 52 American hostages in Iran." Sid Adger Mr. Adger, a Houston oil supply company executive and Bush family friend, died in 1996 of unknown causes. Adger was the mysterious businessman who approached General James Rose and asked him to help George W. Bush avoid Vietnam by recommending him for a pilot position with the National Guard. General James Rose General Rose recommended George W. Bush for a pilot position with the Texas National Guard. He died of unknown causes in 1993. He was immediately buried and no autopsy was performed. Orlando Letelier He was torn to bits by a car bomb on the streets of Washington DC just before he was to testify against the Chilean dictator Pinochet. After the bombing, CIA Director George H. W. Bush told the FBI that there had been no Chilean involvement whatsoever. In 1991 the post-Pinochet Chilean Supreme Court asked George H. W. Bush if he would submit to questioning. BUSH REFUSED. Ronni Moffit She was Letelier's assistant. She and her husband were riding in the car with Letelier when the bomb exploded. Mr. Moffit survived. Ronni didn't. Amiram Nir He was a former Israeli agent who was in Jerusalem with George Bush during Iran Contra. He went under the assumed name of Pat Weber. Nir was scheduled to testify to the Senate subcommittee and it was feared he would reveal the truth. He perished when his aircraft was shot down with missiles from the helicopter of a man called Gene Tatum, 25-year CIA deep cover agent. Senator John Tower He was appointed by the Reagan/Bush Administration to chair the bipartisan committee to investigate the Iran/Contra scandals. He directed the Tower Report and had all the Iran Contra documents that told the real story. He was killed in an airplane crash later in Georgia in 1991. Also killed was his daughter, Marian. Mario Ruiz Massieu An apparent suicide, Massieu was facing charges that he laundered money for the cocaine cartels. A Houston, Texas jury had found that $8 million in his bank accounts was paid to him by cocaine cartels. Steve Kangas His web site, Liberalism Resurgent, was meticulously researched and presented such a problem to the "real boss" of George Bush, Richard Scaife, that he hired a private detective to look into Kangas' past. Steve Kangas was found in a 39th-floor bathroom outside of Scaife's offices at One Oxford Centre, in Pittsburgh, an apparent suicide. Mr. Kangas, a very prolific writer, left no note. He had brought a fully-packed suitcase of clothes with him to Pittsburgh. He bought a burglar alarm shortly before he left for Pittsburgh. Why did he need a burglar alarm if he was going to commit suicide? An avowed advocate of gun control, he nevertheless bought a gun. What was he afraid of? Why did he go to Pittsburgh? After his death, his computer was sold for $150 and its hard drive wiped clean. Everything in his apartment was thrown away. Mohammed Zia al-huk Dictator of Pakistan, and knew all about Iran/Contra, the training, funding, and arming of narco-terrorists like Osama bin Laden. In August 1988, the same day George Bush got the Republican nomination, his plane crashed into the ground with all engines running. The Pakistanis kept the bodies around (in violation of Islamic custom) for weeks, awaiting US experts. They showed up three weeks later and never checked the bodies. Why? Malcolm Baldridge Commerce Secretary May 1987. Baldridge was familiar with the Bush family ties to the Communist Chinese. He died in a mysterious horseback riding accident. Karla Faye Tucker She was executed in spite of enormous protest from the public, even those religious groups that advocate the death penalty. Even Pat Robertson thought that Karla was truly repentant and asked George W. Bush to spare her life. He refused. Afterward, in a Talk Magazine interview, this stalwart of the Republican Party made fun of the woman whose death warrant he had sanctioned. How compassionate! John Fitzgerald Kennedy An internal FBI memo reported that on November 22 a reputed businessman named George H. W. Bush reported hearsay that a certain Young Republican had been talking of killing the President when he came to Houston. The Young Republican was nowhere near Dallas
[CTRL] The Chicken Theory
Title: Message Douglas Adams lives on! http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A129430 The Chicken Theory There exists a most amazing phenomenon, known throughout the scientific community as The Chicken Theory. It is this very inquiry into the metaphysics of reality which seeks to answer such long pondered mysteries as: Is there a speed which is FASTER than light (c)? Will living beings ever (feasibly) be able to travel at FTL (faster than light) speeds? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Is time REALLY another dimension? Just how many dimensions are there anyway? What IS the Colonel's secret recipe? And why did Simon and Garfunkel REALLY break up? But now we get ahead of ourselves. Let us start at the beginning, as any decent scientists should, and present the most basic query that we may. Chickens are our primary concern, specifically the composition, and behavior of your typical rural or fast-food variety. When we consider the composition of chickens, we find that they are, like most earth poultry, composed primarily of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon compounds. Not at all unusual. But when we consider the more highly evolved fast-food chickens, we discover that due to an exothermic reaction and the application of external mixtures (marinations) the chicken's composition becomes highly unpredictable and we must therefore resort to chaos theory to determine it's true composition. As we shall discover later, the true composition of a chicken cannot be acurately observed at the same time as it's location and velocity (due to the Sanders uncertainty principle), and so we can never be 100% sure that the chicken whose composition we have sampled is the one we intended to sample or some other chicken somewhere else. When we consider the behavior of the chicken, we find that the chicken is seemingly an animal domesticated to the unique environment of food aquisition. The chicken, from it's fetal egg state until the state of it's demise is held within the confines of a farm-like atmosphere, it's sole purpose in life, to lay eggs, which humans eat, and then to be butchered and devoured (by humans). In customized situations, the more desirable chickens are allowed to mate with the chicken's male counterpart, the rooster. Under these conditions the chicken will produce fertilized eggs which will, at a later point in time, become chickens. In this way the chicken population may be maintained, expanded, or contracted. The chicken is, for the most part, native to all areas of the earth, even that chaotic pool of mutated genes we call Australia. So the question that arieses is: How can the chicken, which is a wild animal native to areas all over the world, only be found in the domesticated rural environment? When is the last time you saw a chicken flying wildly over the mid-western frontier skies of America? Does the Wild chicken soar gracefully over the burning sands and oil fields of the Middle East? Of course not! The chicken, an animal found abundantly in the rural environment does not appear in the wilds. For that matter, when is the last time you saw a chicken fly? (More than a few feet anyway.) We know that the chicken is biologically classified, as other poultry, as a flying bird. We may see the duck, the goose, the swan, or turkey, flying in a wild environment, but the chicken is never seen flying or in the wild, even though we know that it must exist there. The only scientific answer must be that the chicken does fly, and furthermore, it must fly in the wild, but we, the normal human observers, never see it. Why? The Chicken Theory's primary goal is to answer that question. But in answering that question we find that we must search elsewhere for new questions which may arise. As responsible scientists we must go about these duties according to scientific theory. The next step, after establishing the problem, is to form a hypothesis. The hypothesis of the chicken theory is this: The chicken can not be seen flying by the common observer because the chicken moves at a speed which exceeds that of light. If we accept that hypothesis, we understand why the chicken cannot be seen flying in the wild, or even in a rural environment for more than a few feet. The chicken, as it approaches the speed of light, accelerates to a velocity which can not be observed because it transcends the movement of light, itself. This hypothesis fits perfectly the facts that are presented to us. The chicken, when in the wild flys only at FTL speeds, and lands only in rural farm areas, where it is treated with the kind of respect that it has been bred to appreciate. Why chickens do not flee from certain death when holiday seasons come around is unknown at this point, but it is commonly believed that chickens are either willing to die for religious reasons, or they do in fact flee, but their extreme speed creates a time paradox and thus the timeline is split into two
[CTRL] Ex-Enron vice chair commits suicide
Title: Message The plot thickens...suicide is the apparent cause. Conspiracy or Theory?pl Ex-Enron vice chair commits suicide J. Clifford Baxter found dead of gunshot wound to the head MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS Jan. 25 Former Enron Vice Chairman J. Clifford Baxter was found dead in his car in a Houston suburb Friday. Texas police said the cause of death was suicide. BAXTER, 43, WAS vice chairman of Enron when he resigned in May 2001, several months before the energy companys collapse. Police in the Houston suburb, Sugar Land, said he was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head early Friday. We are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our friend and colleague, Cliff Baxter. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends, the company said in a statement. Enron spokesman Mark Palmer had no additional comment. Advertisement Baxters body was found at 2:23 a.m. local time Friday in between two medians in a residential area in Sugar Land. He was in the drivers seat of the vehicle and a police officer stopped to check on him after noticing the parked car. The officer discovered what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Baxters head. Jim Richard, a Fort Bend County justice of the peace, ruled Baxters death a suicide mid-morning Friday. We dont have any other indication other than it being suicide, said Sugar Land police Capt. David Marcaurele. Baxter had joined Enron in 1991 and was chairman and CEO of Enron North America prior to being named chief strategy officer for Enron Corp. in June 2000 and vice chairman in October 2000, the company said. More details to follow... Thanks for Subscribing to... DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues Amusements Supplied Daily (Fat Free) ~~~ Group Info To Join the Mailing List/Recommend a Friend to Subscribe http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/ Web Presence Some Recent Highlights and A Recommended Link or Two... http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 1/11/2002
[CTRL] Orlando Airport Body Scanner Will See Through Clothes--USA TODAY
Title: Message SEE THROUGH YOUR CLOTHES??? They could save a lot of money in technology by just requiring people to fly naked. pl - Orlando airport to get high-tech security test Story lifted from... USA TODAYhttp://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2002/01/25/airport-security.htm ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) Passengers and their bags will be scanned, sniffed and otherwise scrutinized at Orlando International Airport, in a test of emerging security devices meant to stop airplane attacks. The National Safe Skies Alliance will install five new machines at a security checkpoint in February to see if they can be implemented at other U.S. airports. The new devices scan passengers' bodies, clothing and carryon bags. One seeks explosives residue. Another can spot other hazardous materials. Another pinpoints metal items. There is an X-ray body scanner that can see through clothes, and a three-dimensional X-ray bag scanner. "We're trying to see how best to deploy these devices nationwide," said John Whittenburg, executive vice president of the Alliance, a nonprofit testing group funded by the federal government. Airlines whose passengers will be asked to volunteer for scanning include Delta, Virgin Atlantic, Swissair and British Airways. Orlando International was chosen because of the large numbers of domestic and international visitors it handles and because it has participated in past tests, said airport security director Brigitte Craig. The new devices have not yet been used for aviation security purposes. Some have been tested only in laboratories, Whittenburg said. The explosives detector for carryon bags sends out low-level radio waves to analyze a bag for molecules of explosive compounds. The walkthrough hazardous materials detector uses a vacuum to suck up the air and analyze it for traces of explosives and other hazardous materials. The body scanner, expected to be the most controversial of the five, subjects a passenger to low-level X-rays that penetrate clothing. The advanced metal detector uses a camera to create a computer image of metal objects in their exact locations on a passenger's body. The advanced X-ray device shoots radiation from two sources, giving security personnel a three-dimensional image of a bag's contents. Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues Amusements Supplied Daily (Fat Free) ~~~ Group Info To Join the Mailing List/Recommend a Friend to Subscribe http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/ Web Presence Some Recent Highlights and A Recommended Link or Two... http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 1/11/2002
[CTRL] Design for a Faith-Based Missile
Title: Message Don't agree. I believe what the Bible says that death does not have to be an end. I think the author makes a good point that religion can be dangerous when used as the alleged WTC terrorists were taught to sacrifice ones self for the cause...believing that rewards would follow in the afterlife. I think you have to still take each denomination one by one instead of making this type of collective charge that all religions are dangerous and of the time-bomb nature...anyway, an interesting read. He is certainly correct to say that some religions are teaching young people to sacrifice themselves for the cause, and that is indeed, frightning and not something a country that treasures freedom of speach and religion can do much about legally. pl Design for a Faith-Based Missile http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/dawkins_22_1.html by Richard Dawkins The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 22, Number 1. A guided missile corrects its trajectory as it flies, homing in, say, on the heat of a jet plane's exhaust. A great improvement on a simple ballistic shell, it still cannot discriminate particular targets. It could not zero in on a designated New York skyscraper if launched from as far away as Boston. That is precisely what a modern "smart missile" can do. Computer miniaturisation has advanced to the point where one of today's smart missiles could be programmed with an image of the Manhattan skyline together with instructions to home in on the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Smart missiles of this sophistication are possessed by the United States, as we learned in the Gulf War, but they are economically beyond ordinary terrorists and scientifically beyond theocratic governments. Might there be a cheaper and easier alternative? In the Second World War, before electronics became cheap and miniature, the psychologist B. F. Skinner did some research on pigeon-guided missiles. The pigeon was to sit in a tiny cockpit, having previously been trained to peck keys in such a way as to keep a designated target in the centre of a screen. In the missile, the target would be for real. The principle worked, although it was never put into practice by the US authorities. Even factoring in the costs of training them, pigeons are cheaper and lighter than computers of comparable effectiveness. Their feats in Skinner boxes suggest that a pigeon, after a regimen of training with color slides, really could guide a missile to a distinctive landmark at the southern end of Manhattan Island. Pigeons may be cheap and disposable as on-board guidance systems, but there's no escaping the cost of the missile itself. And no such missile large enough to do much damage could penetrate United States airspace without being intercepted. What is needed is a missile that is not recognized for what it is until too late. Something like a large civilian airliner, carrying the innocuous markings of a well-known carrier and a great deal of fuel. That's the easy part. But how do we smuggle on board the necessary guidance system? You can hardly expect the pilots to surrender the left hand seat to a pigeon or a computer. How about using humans as on-board guidance systems, instead of pigeons? Humans are at least as numerous as pigeons, their brains are not significantly costlier than pigeon brains, and for many tasks they are actually superior. Humans have a proven track record in taking over planes by the use of threats, which work because the legitimate pilots value their own lives and those of their passengers. The natural assumption that the hijacker ultimately values his own life too, and will act rationally to preserve it, leads air crews and ground staff to make calculated decisions that would not work with guidance modules lacking a sense of self-preservation. If your plane is being hijacked by an armed man who, though prepared to take risks, presumably wants to go on living, there is room for bargaining. A rational pilot complies with the hijacker's wishes, gets the plane down on the ground, has hot food sent in for the passengers, and leaves the negotiations to people trained to negotiate. The problem with the human guidance system is precisely this. Unlike the pigeon version, it knows that a successful mission culminates in its own destruction. Could we develop a biological guidance system with the compliance and dispensability of a pigeon but with a man's resourcefulness and ability to infiltrate plausibly? What we need, in a nutshell, is a human who doesn't mind being blown up. He'd make the perfect on-board guidance system. But suicide-enthusiasts are hard to find. Even terminal cancer patients might lose their nerve when the crash was actually looming. Could we get some otherwise normal humans and somehow persuade them that they are not going to die as a consequence of flying a
[CTRL] And now some useless statistics from the 2000 census
Title: Message For all you numbers freaks...very humorous, I think. This is exactly the kind of thing I am glad our tax dollars is being spent on. pl ~~ Americans, by the numbersStatistics show nations quirks, from red meat to fan clubs By Jon BonnéMSNBC http://www.msnbc.com/news/693242.asp OF SPECIAL NOTE: The town of Edgar Springs, Mo., (is seen at upper left at website URL listed above) -- the closest place to the mean population center of the United States, which is at the center of the image. If the entire nation were weighted equally by population, this would be the balance point. This alone is an interesting but useless factoid. Jan. 24 Nearly 40 percent of Americans some 110 million people used a mobile phone in 2000, a jump of nearly 2,200 percent from just a decade earlier. That little factoid and countless others are part of the Census Bureaus latest Statistical Abstract of the United States being released Thursday, a data-filled godsend to researchers and trivia buffs alike. AT NEARLY 1,000 PAGES the 121st edition a new one comes each year is thick enough to serve as a doorstop. (Dont tell the statisticians that.) Its also the first to make significant use of 2000 Census data. Its not as riveting as, say, a new Tom Clancy page-turner and just slightly thicker than one but it doesnt leave much out. Between its covers, almost every aspect of American life is calculated, tabulated, evaluated and encapsulated. By the numbers, then: BULLS-EYE: 37 degrees 41 minutes 49 seconds north latitude, 91 degrees, 48 minutes, 34 seconds west longitude: Thats the mean population center of the United States for the 2000 census. Before you break out the atlas, its three miles east of Edgar Springs in Phelps County, Mo. a bit southwest of the 1990 mean. The 190 residents of Edgar Springs can feel very much in the midst of things. GET ME TO THE CHAPEL: Nevada has the highest marriage rate in the nation, with nearly 80 people getting hitched for every 1,000 residents. (It doesnt mention how many were state residents or how many ceremonies involved Elvis paraphernalia.) It also has the highest divorce rate, with 6.8 per 1,000 residents barely edging out Wyomings 6.7. With a divorce rate of just over two per 1,000 residents, folks in Massachusetts seem to be sticking together, while folks in the nations capital seem to be staying far from the altar, with only 4.6 of every 1,000 Washingtonians getting married. GET ME TO THE CHAPEL, PT. II: If you were a Roman Catholic, you were in good company with your 62.4 million fellow parishioners in 1999. On the other hand, if you belonged to the Serbian Orthodox Church, you were part of an élite 67,000 American members. In any case, you were part of an ever more ecumenical nation, including its 1.96 million Hindus, 990,000 Jehovahs Witnesses and 862,000 Seventh-day Adventists. Advertisement LIVIN IN THE CITY: New York was by far the most expensive large city to live in, more than twice the national average in 2000. Los Angeles, San Francisco and Boston were no bargains, either. Chicago and Washington, D.C., however, were both just slightly above the national average. If you were living in a city, you were paying more in 2000 for airline tickets, housekeeping supplies, doctor visits, tobacco and local phone service; on the other hand, you were paying less for full phone service and toys. (Want to save money? Keep the kids busy and call your mother; dont smoke and dont make a mess.) Incidentally, you were paying nearly three times as much for garbage collection and cable TV as you were in the early 1980s. ILL HAVE THE FRUIT PLATE: If you were out buying food, beef (at a national average of $2.33/lb. for lean ground beef), chicken ($1.08/lb.) and pork ($3.03/lb. for bacon) got more expensive in 2000; apples ($0.82/lb.), oranges ($0.62) and lemons ($1.11) got cheaper. Even so, Americans consumed 76 billion pounds of red meat and poultry in 2000, 21 percent more than a decade before. BUSTED: Wiretapping laws in 45 jurisdictions yielded 1,921 intercepted messages in 1999, up slightly from 1990. Most were for drug offenses. On the other hand, federal prosecutions of corrupt public officials dropped slightly at the same time. Those who got busted might have had the most pleasant stay in Minnesota prisons, which spend over $103 per day per inmate, the highest expenditure in the nation. HITTING THE ROAD: Prices for hotel and motel rooms kept rising, with an average of $81.33 per room at any of the nations 52,000 lodging establishments. Most business travelers stayed three nights or more; most vacationers and Americans took 336.2 million vacations in 2000 stayed one night. If you wanted a bite to eat, there were slightly fewer choices perhaps because the total U.S. payroll for bars and restaurants jumped by over $5 billion though some 480,000 options were still around. No
[CTRL] DRUG TESTING HITS WORLD OF BRIDGE
Title: Message DRUG TESTING HITS WORLD OF BRIDGE http://www.greatbridgelinks.com/gblPRESS/Citizen4-00.html 'We have to do it to get into the Olympics' Trent EdwardsThe Ottawa Citizen Random drug testing has hit the world of competitive bridge, and elite players are worried they may be disqualified from international tournaments for downing too many espressos, or using the wrong cold medication. "I can't imagine how any drug could enhance your play in bridge, but we have to do it in order to get into the Olympics," said Dave Willis of Orleans, who has competed in international tournaments. Competitive players face the spectre of having their international tournament victories taken away after testing positive for one of the many over-the-counter drugs banned by the International Olympic Committee, such as caffeine and pseudoephedrine, which is found in many cold medications. "A lot of the people that compete are older, so I think a lot of the medications they might use are on the list right now," said Doug Heron of Ottawa, an international-calibre player and president of the Canadian Bridge Federation. Canadian rower Silken Laumann lost her team's women's quadruple sculls gold medal after testing positive for pseudoephedrine at the 1995 Pan American Games. She had taken Benadryl-D for her cold, because she knew Benadryl was not banned by the IOC. Unfortunately, Benadryl-D, the decongestant version of Benadryl, contained the banned pseudoephedrine substance. The idea of caffeine providing an unfair advantage in bridge seems ridiculous to those who think drug testing is meant to discourage athletes from gobbling down steroids to give them an athletic edge. "Believe me, most bridge players want a clear mind, and I don't know any drug that could help you with that," said Mr. Willis. But Mr. Heron said players might get a mental edge from caffeine during marathon card games. "In bridge you may be playing 14 hours a day, and the tournaments sometimes go on for weeks, so it becomes a stamina thing," said Mr. Heron. "Most players use caffeine to stay alert, so I don't know how much that would change the sport if they had to stop drinking coffee." A 70-80-kilogram man would have to drink about three cups of espresso in an hour to risk having too much caffeine in his blood. "You'd really have to drink a lot of coffee to run the risk of running afoul of the established threshold," said Mr. Lachance. The World Bridge Federation, which governs international bridge competitions, accepted random drug testing this year as one of the IOC requirements it must fulfill in its bid to have bridge considered for inclusion in the Winter Olympics. WBF organizers hope bridge will make an appearance in Salt Lake City at the 2002 Winter Olympics as a "special attraction sport," on its way to being recognized by the IOC as a full-fledged Olympic sport. "This testing is normal in any sport," said Jose Damiani, president of the Paris-based WBF. "It's normal to protect the health of the players and I think it's absolutely normal that we proceed in this way." The first bridge player drug tests were held this January, when urine samples were taken from all semifinalists in the 1999 bridge world championships in Bermuda and sent to a lab in Montreal. Twenty bridge players, including four teams of two from the men's world championship Bermuda Bowl and a similar number from its women's counterpart, the Venice Cup, passed the drug tests. David Silber, chief executive officer of the American Contract Bridge League, which governs American members of the WBF, isn't certain the IOC's drug list is a good match for a game like bridge, but he accepts the testing as part of the process if bridge is to gain Olympic status. "I'm not certain how much sense it really makes for bridge, but if that's what it takes to get into the Olympics, we're certainly willing to do that." Mr. Heron said the IOC's drug list is geared toward physical sports, and is inappropriate for bridge, which he calls a "mind sport." "The list of drugs doesn't seem as though it's been given much thought as to the kinds of drugs that would be taken by people in mind sports versus those that would help you in muscle sports." DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues Amusements Supplied Daily (Fat Free) ~~~ Group Info To Join the Mailing List/Recommend a Friend to Subscribe http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/ Web Presence Some Recent Highlights and A Recommended Link or Two... http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 1/11/2002
[CTRL] Captures from a video of an attack on a Taliban BMP.
Title: Message Captures from a video of an attack on a Taliban BMP. http://home.hvc.rr.com/amorken/taliban_boom.jpg DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues Amusements Supplied Daily (Fat Free) ~~~ Group Info To Join the Mailing List/Recommend a Friend to Subscribe http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/ Web Presence Some Recent Highlights and A Recommended Link or Two... http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.314 / Virus Database: 175 - Release Date: 1/11/2002
[CTRL] WA Lawmakers try to remove repugnant Theory of Evolution from schools
Title: Message
WA
Lawmakers try to remove "repugnant" Theory of Evolution from
schools . Yes, this is the 21st century, and yes - we in Washington
State now have two bills, (Senate
and House)
before our congress that propose "All textbooks and curriculum that teach the
theory of evolution shall be removed from the public schools forthwith and
replaced with textbooks and curriculum that teach the self-evident truth of
creation".
http://www.leg.wa.gov/pub/billinfo/2001-02/Senate/6500-6524/6500_01182002.txt
S-3206.2 ___
SENATE BILL 6500
___
State of Washington 57th Legislature 2002 Regular Session
By Senator Hochstatter
Read first time 01/18/2002. Referred to Committee on Education.
AN ACT Relating to the teaching of the theory of evolution in the
common schools of the state of Washington; and adding a new section to
chapter 28A.230 RCW.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:
{+ NEW SECTION. +} Sec. 1. A new section is added to chapter
28A.230 RCW to read as follows:
(1) The legislature finds that the Enabling Act for the state of
Washington requires that the state Constitution not be repugnant to the
principles of the Declaration of Independence.
(2) The Declaration of Independence declares the self-evident truth
that all men are created. The Declaration of Independence also
declares that our rights are endowed by the Creator, and that
governments are instituted among men to secure these God-given rights.
(3) The Preamble to the Washington state Constitution also
acknowledges the Supreme Ruler of the Universe as the grantor of our
liberties.
(4) Article I, section 1 of the Washington state Constitution also
declares that governments are established to protect and maintain
individual rights, which rights are already acknowledged in the
preamble as being granted by the Creator.
(5) RCW 28A.405.030 requires all teachers to teach the principles
of truth and to instruct their pupils in the principles of free
government in the common schools of the state of Washington. The self-
evident truth that all men were created and endowed by their Creator
with unalienable rights and that governments are accountable both to
the Creator and the people to secure those rights is the foundation of
all political, civil, and religious liberty in America.
(6) Both the United States Constitution and the Washington state
Constitution were instituted to protect rights endowed by the Creator.
(7) All state legislators in the state of Washington swear an oath
to uphold the Constitutions of the United States and the state of
Washington.
(8) The legislature finds that the teaching of the theory of
evolution in the common schools of the state of Washington is repugnant
to the principles of the Declaration of Independence and thereby
unconstitutional and unlawful.
(9) All textbooks and curriculum that teach the theory of evolution
shall be removed from the public schools forthwith and replaced with
textbooks and curriculum that teach the self-evident truth of creation.
--- END ---
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[CTRL] UNITED WE STAND
UNITED WE STAND Flag-Raising Statue Draws CriticismBy STEPHANIE GASKELL, Associated Press WriterNEW YORK (AP) - A statue based on the famous photograph of the flag-raising at the World Trade Center site is being criticized because the three white firefighters in the picture have been transformed into one white, one black and one Hispanic.http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20020111/us/attacks_statue_2.html DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Why Guantanamo?
LockdownThe first set of prisoners arrived atGuantanomo Bay on Friday.http://www.msnbc.com/news/682285.asp Why Guantanamo?http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Afghan-Guantanamo-QA.html DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] High school Dropouts Rejoice!
High school Dropouts Rejoice! You have officially been recognized and protected by the politically correct. National Post DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] public salad bar's terrorism
I really don't think are the next terrorist target but you can read and decide for yourself. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Fabio Gets His Walking Papers
Fabio Gets His Walking PapersCan Harlequin rekindle romance in a post-feminist world?By Katherine MarshTHE WASHINGTON MONTHLYIn a Tuesday morning in late August, staffers from the New York office of Harlequin Enterprises meet in a conference room lined with romance-book jackets to discuss newly acquired or promising manuscripts. The roundtable of editors, who range in age from early thirties to mid-fifties, glance at a Xeroxed list of romances that will eventually hit bookstores, supermarkets, and pharmacies, including Midnight Choices, The Weekend Wife, and A Showgirl for Santa. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] The Mosque to Commerce
The Mosque to CommerceBin Laden's special complaint with the World Trade Center.By Laurie KerrSLATEPosted Friday, December 28, 2001, at 8:58 AM PTWe all know the basic reasons why Osama Bin Laden chose to attack the World Trade Center, out of all the buildings in New York. Its towers were the two tallest in the city, synonymous with its skyline. They were richly stocked with potential victims. And as the complex's name declared, it was designed to be a center of American and global commerce. But Bin Laden may have had another, more personal motivation. The World Trade Center's architect, Minoru Yamasaki, was a favorite designer of the Binladin family's patronsthe Saudi royal familyand a leading practitioner of an architectural style that merged modernism with Islamic influences. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Killer shoes worked for Romans, but were no match for Bond
Killer shoes worked for Romans, but were no match for Bondhttp://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?f=/stories/20011227/968822.htmlJoseph BreanNATIONAL POSTMilitary-grade explosive packed into high-top sneakers nearly brought down a passenger jet last Saturday, marking the latest episode in the bizarre history of shoes designed to kill. Far from a novel technique, deadly footwear was presaged in a Federal Aviation Administration warning early this month, when airports were told that terrorists might hide weapons in their shoes. In October, a man smuggled a knife past security at Washington's Dulles airport in precisely this manner. Killer shoes date back at least 2,000 years, when Roman soldiers affixed spikes to their shoes to skewer their enemies with one kick. The unwieldy spike, often eight centimetres long, also helped to balance the heavily armoured soldiers, and the design persisted for centuries. In modern times, though, the ingenuity of weaponized footwear has been largely cancelled out by its impracticality. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] There Goes the Meighborhood
NBC, With Conditions, to Accept Ads for Liquor By STUART ELLIOTT NYTIMES http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/14/business/media/14ADCO.html?ex=1009347991ei=1en=20fe7addff50c348 Free Subscription Required (BLAH BLAH BLAH) ~Five years after some liquor companies began producing television commercials for alcoholic beverages like vodka, cordials, rum, liqueurs and Scotch whiskey, a large national broadcast network has agreed to begin accepting those spots. NBC, part of the General Electric Company (news/quote), said yesterday that it would become the first of the four biggest broadcast networks to accept commercials for distilled spirits, so-called hard liquor, since liquor marketers lifted a voluntary ban against such spots in 1996. But the commercials must adhere to a long list of stipulations. They will appear only after 9 p.m., for instance; the actors in them must all be at least 30 years of age; and the liquor makers must first run for four months a series of social-responsibility messages on subjects like designated drivers and drinking moderately before they can run commercials for their distilled-spirits brands. People who oppose the move say they are concerned that the commercials could be easily watched by youngsters. "This is more than the camel's nose under the tent," said George Hacker, director of the Alcohol Policies Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer group in Washington. "It's the first foot forward that will result down the line to opening the door for hard-liquor ads looking like beer ads." The decision by NBC, which takes effect with a commercial from the Guinness UDV division of Diageo (news/quote) that is scheduled to run tomorrow on "Saturday Night Live," comes as TV networks seek to reverse a steep revenue decline that began in the spring and accelerated after Sept. 11. The spending for the four-month series of commercials that Guinness UDV will run before the product spots is being called a multimillion- dollar campaign; neither the company nor NBC would be more specific. Plans call for the commercial to be shown tomorrow night to promote designating a driver before drinking and end with the words "From your friends at Smirnoff," the best-selling Guinness UDV brand of vodka. The NBC decision represents a major victory for liquor marketers seeking to gain access to the powerful advertising medium of television along with their traditional outlets like print ads and promotions. "We're very pleased we have the opportunity to gain the efficiencies in our advertising and marketing programs," said Gary Galanis, a spokesman for Guinness UDV in Stamford, Conn. Already, several national cable TV networks and an estimated 200 to 300 local TV stations - some owned by the broadcast networks like NBC - accept commercials for vodka, Scotch whiskey and rum as well as for lower-alcohol products like liqueurs and blended specialty drinks. The newsletter Television Digest reported, for instance, that the TV station owned by NBC in Providence, R.I., WJAR, runs commercials for Baileys Original Irish Cream liqueur, sold by Guinness UDV. Hard- liquor brands sold by Guinness UDV that have run TV commercials so far include José Cuervo tequila, Malibu rum, Tanqueray gin and Johnnie Walker Black Scotch whiskey. "There's a momentum gathering here," said Randy Falco, president for the NBC Television Network division of NBC in New York. "We thought we'd get in front of it" with "a pretty strict set of guidelines." "This is obviously a sensitive subject," he added, but as for any concerns for potential abuse, "the standards speak for themselves, particularly as they relate to young people." Beer and wine advertising has been on television since the medium carried commercials. There were no such spots for liquor from 1948, when the distilled spirits industry introduced its voluntary ban, until that ban was lifted in November 1996. When the ban was lifted, some members of Congress and federal regulators sought to have it reinstated or made into law. Those efforts faded as the end of the ban brought no flood of liquor commercials onto the broadcast networks; in addition, the Federal Trade Commission reminded critics that any spots for hard liquor would be subject to the same standards and scrutiny as all other ads. According to CMR, a division of Taylor Nelson Sofres that tracks advertising spending, in the first nine months of 2001, beer makers spent $606.7 million on local and national broadcast and cable television commercials, while makers of wine and wine coolers spent $25.4 million and liquor makers spent $17.1 million. By comparison, the liquor companies spent $194.9 million to advertise in magazines in the first nine months of 2001, according to the Publishers Information Bureau in New York, an affiliate of the Magazine Publishers of America. The
[CTRL] Memo From Osama
MEMO From: Bin Laden, Osama Sent: Monday, November 19, 2001 8:17 AM To: Cavemates Subject: The Cave Hi guys. We've all been putting in long hours but we've really come together as a group and I love that. Big thanks to Omar for putting up the poster that says "There is no I in Team" as well as the one that says "Hang In There, Baby." That cat is hilarious. However, while we are fighting a jihad, we can't forget to take care of the cave. And frankly I have a few concerns. First of all, while it's good to be concerned about cruise missiles, we should be even more concerned about the scorpions in our cave. Hey, you don't want to be stung and neither do I, so we need to sweep the cave daily. I've posted a sign-up sheet near the main cave opening. If it catches fire try to remember when your week is. Second, it's not often I make a video address but when I do, I'm trying to scare the most powerful country on earth, okay? That means that while we're taping, please refrain from trolling around on your razor scooter in the background. Just while we're taping. Thanks. This would be helpful. Third point, and this is a touchy one. As you know, by edict, we're not supposed to shave our beards. But I need everyone to just think hygiene, especially after mealtime. We're all in this together. Fourth: Food. I bought a box ofCheez-Itzrecently, clearly wrote "Osama" on the front, and put it on the top shelf. Today, myCheez-Its were gone. Consideration. That's all I'm saying. Finally, we've heard that there may be American soldiers in disguise trying to infiltrate our ranks. I want to set up patrols to look for them. First patrol will be Omar, Muhammed, Abdul, Akbar, and Bob. Love you lots. Osama DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Shopping Isn't Enough...
"There is a deep hunger in America post-Sept. 11 in many people who feel this is their war in their backyard and they would like to be summoned by the president to do something more than go shopping. If you just look at the amount of money spontaneously donated to victims' families, it's clear that there is a deep reservoir of energy out there that could be channeled to become a real force for American renewal and transformation and it's not being done." Excellent editorial in today's NY Times (free registration required) by Tom Friedman exhorting Bush to use his currently formidable political capital by calling on Americans to step up and "be the best country, and the best global citizens, we can be." DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Terror 'Mules': Bombs in Bodies
Terror 'Mules': Bombs in BodiesWiredEven if every airport in the United States scanned every bag loaded onto every airplane for explosives, and every passenger went under the metal-detector, a bomb could still get onto a passenger jet, experts say. The Federal Aviation Authority's next generation of holographic body imaging scanners can be trumped too. Welcome to the world of the "terror mule." Criminal groups running drugs and diamonds into the United States have for years smuggled contraband by stuffing it into condoms and having a "mule" swallow the load, or by having it implanted surgically or rectally. The same technique can be used to smuggle plastic explosives like Semtex past security at an airport.Welcome to the world of the "terror mule." Criminal groups running drugs and diamonds into the United States have for years smuggled contraband by s DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.htmltuffing it into condoms and having a "mule" swallow the load, or by having it implanted surgically or rectally. The same technique can be used to smuggle plastic explosives like Semtex past security at an airport.
[CTRL] Ashcroft defends use of military tribunals to try terrorists
Ashcroft defends use of military tribunals to try terroristsWASHINGTON (CNN) -- Attorney General John Ashcroft Tuesday strongly defended President Bush's decision to allow secret military tribunals to try any suspected non-U.S. terrorist who might be captured during the war on terrorism. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Free Prozac!
Free Prozac!Talk about depressing promotions. Struggling online medical site WebMD (along with Eli Lilly) is offering consumers a month of free Prozac.http://www.backwire.com/go.asp?cid=69372nhid=3622uid=7575439bx=n2 DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Only Dem's Get Anthraxed?
Only Dem's Get Anthraxed?More anthrax traces found in SenateBy Pete YostA sample taken from a plastic evidence bag containing a still-unopened letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy contains at least 23,000 anthrax spores, enough for more than two lethal doses, a federal law enforcement official said Tuesday.http://www.salon.com/news/wire/2001/11/20/anthrax/index.html DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Guess What? the Bombing Worked Like a Charm!
Guess What? the Bombing Worked Like a Charm!The antiwar hand-wringers kept warning us of its perils. But as the Taliban despots flee Afghan cities, and their citizens cheer, the air war's stunning efficacy is clear for all to seehttp://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/11/14/hitchens/index.html DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] AMERICA THE SENSIBLE
AMERICA THE SENSIBLE The country is more rock-ribbed than outsiders thinkTO JUDGE by some accounts, especially in the foreign press, America isshivering on the edge of hysteria. The GRANDES DAMES of Georgetown'sdinner-party circuit are holed up in safe rooms, their children and servantsdecked out in nice new gas masks. The Pooh-Bahs of the New York media are dosedup on Cipro and psychotherapy. And the masses are too terrified to do anythingother than pop pills and watch television. Quite unlike the Brits, whocheerfully endured the Blitz while singing choruses of "Knees up Mother Brown",America is suffering a collective nervous breakdown.The truth is much more interesting. It is that America's response to the firstsustained terrorist attack on its soil is balanced, level-headed and sensible.A country that specialises in junk television and risible lawsuits is provingthat, when it comes to serious matters, it is quite capable of being grown up.This is not to say that everybody is behaving with icy calm. A leadingbodyguard school is doubling its enrolment and is opening another branch tocope with the surge in demand. The media are so overheated that big-name newsanchors have taken to interviewing each other. But in a country as big and richas America there are always going to be plenty of people with more money thansense. And for once the media have some excuse for over-reacting: mediacelebrities are among those in the eye of the storm. (Tom Brokaw, the NBC newsanchor, "actually saw" the anthrax-laden letter that was sent to him, accordingto his assistant.) In general, Americans are taking the present unprecedented risks in theirstride. There is a certain amount of adjustment, to be sure. Why not avoidunnecessary flights when terrorists are threatening to unleash a "storm" ofaircraft on the country and airline security remains woeful? But people arecontinuing with their essential business.It is still almost impossible to get a reservation at the best restaurants.Anyone wanting to fly home for Thanksgiving had better book now. Sunninessspreads to the polls: one published on October 23rd by CNN/USA TODAY/Gallupshows that the percentage of Americans describing their mood as "good" hasfallen by only five percentage points since last January. Two-thirds sayanthrax does not worry them. Although 72% disagree with the idea that it istheir patriotic duty not to be afraid (they will be afraid if they damn wellwant to be), 65% think there is no good reason to be afraid of terroristthreats. Most people have a fairly reasonable appreciation of the risks they face. Onlyabout 1% of the population, for example, reports that somebody in their familyhas purchased Cipro, the anti-anthrax drug. The amount of anxiety in the airrises and falls with the news. When it looked as if the only form of anthraxpeople were likely to get was the easily treatable skin variety, there werejokes about "anthrax envy"; now that two more people have died from the lungform of the disease, a more sombre mood has descended. Anxiety diminishes thefarther away you go from New York and Washington, the two cities hardest hit byterrorism. There are probably people in the mid-west who still think thatAnthrax is just a rock band. This level-headedness is evident in almost every aspect of America's thinkingabout the war. Americans are not normally famous for their patience. But theywere happy to give George Bush all the time he needed to prepare for militaryaction in Afghanistan, and they also look quite a bit readier to cope with thefrustrations of a long war than some of America's allies. Americans are evenless famous for their tolerance of government, especially when it fails towork. But the government's clumsy handling of the anthrax threat has donenothing to sour the present wave of public support for the Feds. People realisethat, after September 11th, there is no alternative to government action todeal with the problems being unleashed by terrorism. FOR ARABS, UNDERSTANDINGRather than railing against the Islamic world, most Americans are desperate tounderstand it. The best-seller lists are full of books on Islam, the Talibanand the Middle East. University students are crowding into courses that touchon the current crisis. Washington's Middle East Institute reports thatapplications for Arabic courses have doubled. Most surprising of all, Muslimclerics say that the number of conversions to their faith has quadrupled sinceSeptember 11th. Almost half the population tells pollsters that it has a"generally favourable" opinion of Islam, and almost 90% say that the terroristsare part of a radical fringe that has nothing to do with mainstream Islam. And, praise be to tolerance, there has been no serious backlash againstArab-Americans. To be sure, there have been a few horrific murders and acertain amount of harassment. But most people, from George Bush down, have goneout of their way to
[CTRL] Kabul Falls
Kabul FallsFront Page Magazine As the run rose over the Hindu Kush mountains, Kabul residents could be heard shouting out congratulations, honking car horns and ringing bicycle bells. "We have taken Kabul!" cried a jubilant Northern Alliance fighter. Taliban forces fled Afghanistans capital city of Kabul last night. Having severely underestimated U.S. firepower and the determination of the Northern Alliance, Taliban forces suffered an appalling rout, with fleeing Taliban troops being cut down without mercy. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Spray-Painted Man Dies; Ruled Homicide
Spray-Painted Man Dies; Ruled HomicideTerry Pease, 45, was apparently disrobed and then spray-painted with orange, 'Halloween-type' washable hair coloring before collapsing dead.KnoxNews.com DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Artist smashes pea record
Artist smashes pea recordThe peas must be eaten using a cocktail stickA Nottingham performance artist has broken the world record for eating peas in three minutes with a cocktail stick.http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/england/newsid_1644000/1644410.stm DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] MIlking and bilking the people over 9-11
MIlking and bilking the people over 9-11 by Cal Thomas (11/13) Many are properly outraged that families of the victims of Sept. 11 are not getting the bulk of the money collected for them by the American Red Cross. DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] 'Tourist Guy': Is He or Isn't He?
'Tourist Guy': Is He or Isn't He?By Jeffrey BennerWiredEver since the fake picture of a jetliner bearing down on a doomed tourist atop the World Trade Center spread around the world, one burning question has tormented bored geeks everywhere. Who is that tourist guy? The wait may be over: José Roberto Penteado, a 41-year-old businessman from Campinas, Brazil, claims he is the man -- and he has the photos to prove it.http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,48225,00.html DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] The meaty issue: What should be on a frozen pizza?
The meaty issue: What should be on a frozen pizza?BY LUCIO GUERRERO STAFF REPORTERIf you love lots of beef on your pizza, the frozen-foods section of the supermarket might not be the place to go for much longer. The federal government, which has rules about these things, is thinking of easing its requirements on how much meat has to be on a frozen pizza. Pretty soon, it seems, a pepperoni pizza won't need to have all that much pepperoni.http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-pizza08.html DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Hidden Messages: Any There There?
Hidden Messages: Any There There?By Farhad ManjooSTANFORD, California -- Niels Provos, a computer science graduate student at the University of Michigan, took the dais at a Stanford University lecture hall Wednesday evening with what seemed a comforting message: After analyzing a couple million graphics files posted on the Internet, he has found no evidence that any of the pictures contained hidden communications sent by anyone, let alone agents of Osama bin Laden.http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,48235,00.html DiVERSiONZ News, View, Issues AmusementsTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Anthrax This--NY POST
Anthrax This! A message from the anthrax infected employee of the New York Post. http://www.nypost.com/images/front102001.gif DiVERSiONZDiverting You Back to RealityTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html
[CTRL] Find the Terrorist in Your Neighborhood
Find the Terrorist in Your Neighborhoodhttp://www.sfgate.com/columnists/fiore/ DiVERSiONZDiverting You Back to RealityTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://diversionz.blogspot.com/
[CTRL] Boston Airport Security Still Iffy
Granted it is just one person that made it through unchecked but one is probably enough at this point. http://us.f142.mail.yahoo.com/ym/www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/274/metro/_Amazing_lapse_in_security_cited_at_LoganP.shtml DiVERSiONZDiverting You Back to RealityTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://diversionz.blogspot.com/
[CTRL] Starbucks Saga Ends with Apology
Still my boycott on Starbucks continues...I hear they let their coffee beans pass through small animals before grinding...could be a baseless rumor, but feel free to pass it along anyway. Let them deal with the power of the internet as punishment for this story below even though they said they were sorry. p Starbucks Apologizes for Water Flap http://biz.yahoo.com/apf/010925/attacks_starbucks_2.html Starbucks Apologizes for Charging NYC Rescue Workers for WaterBy ALLISON LINN AP Business Writer SEATTLE (AP) -- The head of a Brooklyn ambulance company said Tuesday that the president of Starbucks has personally apologized after rescue workers in New York were forced to pay a Starbucks shop $130 for water to treat victims of the terrorist attack. Midwood Ambulance Service President Al Rapisarda said he received a hand-delivered reimbursement check -- and a personal call from Starbucks president Orin Smith -- after reports of the incident became public. ``It was a misunderstanding with Starbucks,'' Rapisarda said after talking to Smith. Midwood Ambulance Service alerted Starbucks to the incident in an e-mail, which was obtained by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Smith said Tuesday he did not know why the coffee shop near the World Trade Center towers charged the rescue workers. ``It's totally inconsistent with the kind of behavior we would have expected from our people, so it has been very upsetting to learn of this,'' Smith said in an interview with The Associated Press. Shortly after the Sept. 11 attack, rescue workers rushed into a nearby Starbucks store to get water to treat shock victims, Rapisarda said. Ambulance company workers said employees in the shop demanded they pay $130 for three cases of bottled water. The workers paid cash, out of their own pockets. Reached by telephone, the manager of the shop, the Battery Park Plaza Starbucks, declined to comment. Rapisarda said he was happy with Starbucks' conciliatory gestures, which Smith said included free coffee and other gifts. ``It's not a big deal anymore,'' Rapisarda said. Starbucks closed stores nationwide for a day after the attacks, although the company said several stores near the World Trade Center and New York City hospitals served coffee -- and water -- to rescue workers for free. DiVERSiONZDiverting You Back to RealityTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://diversionz.blogspot.com/
[CTRL] Laser Pointer Owners effort to Paint the Moon
Laser Pointer Owners effort to Paint the Moon http://www.paintthemoon.org/ Those of you who own laser pointers...I have to get a new battery for mine...would be interested in this article which informs us of the next scheduled plant to put a red dot on the dark side of the moon. It could happen. peter DiVERSiONZDoing Links StuffTo Sign Up for Daily Updates or to Learn Morehttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presencehttp://diversionz.blogspot.com/
Re: [CTRL] Saddam Hussein Sounds Off
-Caveat Lector- Well..his workers might get the chance soon if the US bombs them some more...so I am glad he is confident in their abilities, hopefully they will have to dig him out of somewhere p - Original Message - From: Damaeus [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 5:51 PM Subject: [CTRL] Saddam Hussein Sounds Off -Caveat Lector- Have you heard the latest comments from Saddam Hussein? He says he's disappointed in the rescue workers at the World Trade Center. He says that Iraqi workers would have been able to find more survivors in the rubble. Now ain't that somethin'? Has somebody on this group been jerkin' his chain? Damaeus -- .. | AIM:Damaeus |Damaeus [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | ICQ:18405845 |New Age, Conspiracy, UFO, Alien TV Listings | |---'. http://www.web-recon.com/continuum/tv | | YahooMessenger:Damaeus | http://www.web-recon.com | ''---' A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance-not soap-boxing-please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'-with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds-is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om _ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Bush Submits His Laws for War
Bush Submits His Laws for War By Declan McCullagh Wired News WASHINGTON http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,47006,00.html -- President Bush sent his anti-terrorism bill to Congress late Wednesday, launching an emotional debate that will force U.S. politicians to choose between continued freedom for Americans or greater security. Created in response to last week's bloody attacks, the draft "Mobilization Against Terrorism Act" (MATA) rewrites laws dealing with wiretapping, eavesdropping and immigration. The draft, intended to increase prosecutors' courtroom authority, also unleashes the government's Echelon and Carnivore spy systems. "We will call upon the Congress of the United States to enact these important anti-terrorism measures," Attorney General John Ashcroft said this week. "We need these tools to fight the terrorism threat which exists in the United States, and we must meet that growing threat." DiVERSiONZDiverting You Back to RealityTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.htmlArchives Available http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/messages
[CTRL] Them Against Fire
An oldie but a goodie Them Against Fire SUCK.COM http://www.suck.com/daily/2000/10/30/ War is a social activity, and there are bad times to be reminded of this. In Normandy, for example, junior officers had the unfortunate experience of trying to assemble groups of paratroopers who had lost their own lieutenants and captains to enemy fire. An army analyst, conducting after-action interviews, detailed the result: "The men invariably stalled... If the leader got them to follow until they came in contact with the enemy, at that point they were more likely to fall away from him than to support him. They would assemble readily enough under a stranger and they would usually march under him, but they would not fight for him. There were very few exceptions to this rule." DiVERSiONZDiverting You Back to RealityTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.htmlArchives Available http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/messages
[CTRL] Authorities can't do anything about 7-foot phallic carving AP/Seattle PI
This guy is in to waving his flag too! There are a lot of flags in my neighborhood suddenly, but we must have missed the memo about the carved phallic objects--Authorities can't do anything about 7-foot phallic carving AP/Seattle Post Intelligencer LACEY, WA A 7-foot phallic carving made from a tree stump is drawing plenty of complaints, but authorities say there's nothing they can do about it. Two American flags fly from the top of the carving in the driveway at the home rented by Jean Paul "J.P." Parshall on Union Mills road about five miles east of the state Capitol in Olympia and 45 miles south of Seattle. "It's not like there's a law against what he's got," Thurston County sheriff's Capt. Dan Kimball said. "People have the right to have poor taste."To Alexia Sandifer, who takes her 6-year-old daughter to school along the road, the flags add insult to injury. "To me, that's just not something a 6-year-old needs to view." Sandifer said. "Go put it in a carving show, not where children can see it." DiVERSiONZDiverting You Back to RealityTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.htmlArchives Available http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/messages
[CTRL] AN AIRLINE PILOT'S COMMON SENSE From the Washington Times: Aboard Flight 564 Peter Hannaford
While hindsight is 20/20, I must admit I thought, what kind of cattlewere these people to be herded and bossed around like that (on the planes) then I felt guilty because I heard they thought one of the terrorists had a bomb on each plane. How do you know if the bomb is real or not? Who cares? The pilot has a good point...the rules have changed...there is every reason to now believe that you will not live if you don't act anyway so why not go for it. It seems prettyrelevent to me that so far civilians have done more to defend our country than the government has by the way. My opinion but the acts of bravery on the plane that crashed in PA seem to have saved the White House. The ball is America's court and what we do next seems to be a topic of great debate...but I doubt the public will be fooled into being bossed around on planes anytime soon or even ever again, that is if any of us actually get on one. p ~~~ AN AIRLINE PILOT'S COMMON SENSE From the Washington Times: Aboard Flight 564 Peter Hannaford Published 9/19/01As it was at most U.S. airports, last Saturday was the first near-normal day at Denver International since the terrorist attacks. On United's Flight 564 the door had just been locked and the plane was about to pull out of the gate when the captain came on the public address system."I want to thank you brave folks for coming out today. We don't have any new instructions from the federal government, so from now on we're on our own."The passengers listened in total silence. He explained that airport security measures had pretty much solved the problem of firearms being carried aboard, but not weapons of the type the terrorists apparently used, plastic knives or those fashioned from wood or ceramics."Sometimes a potential hijacker will announce that he has a bomb. There are no bombs on this aircraft and if someone were to get up and make that claim, don't believe him. "If someone were to stand up, brandish something such as a plastic knife and say 'This is a hijacking' or words to that effect here is what you should do: Every one of you should stand up and immediately throw things at that person - pillows, books, magazines, eyeglasses, shoes -anything that will throw him off balance and distract his attention. If he has a confederate or two, do the same with them. Most important: get a blanket over him, then wrestle him to floor and keep him there. We'll land the plane at the nearest airport and the authorities will take it from there." "Remember, there will be one of him and maybe a few confederates, but there are 200 of you. You can overwhelm them. The Declaration of Independence says 'We, the people' and that's just what it is when we're up in the air: we, the people, vs. would-be terrorists. I don't think we are going to have any such problem today or tomorrow or for a while, but some time down the road, it is going to happen again and I want you to know what to do. Now, since we're a family for the new few hours, I'll ask you to turn to the person next to you, introduce yourself, tell them a little about yourself and ask them to do the same.The end of this remarkable speech brought sustained clapping from the passengers. He had put the matter in perspective. If only the passengers on those ill-fated flights last Tuesday had been given the same talk, I thought, they might be alive today.One group on United Flight 93, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field, apparently rushed the hijackers in an attempt to wrest control from them. While they perished, they succeeded in preventing the terrorist from attacking his intended goal, possibly the White House or the Capitol.Procedures for dealing with hijackers were conceived in a time when the hijackers were usually seeking the release of jailed comrades or a large amount of money. Mass murder was not their goal. That short talk last Saturday by the pilot of Flight 564 should set a new standard of realism. Every passenger should learn the simple - but potentially life-saving - procedure he outlined. He showed his passengers that a hijacking does not have to result in hopelessness and terror, but victory over the perpetrators.The Airline Pilots Association, the pilots' union, last week dropped its opposition to stronger cockpit doors and is now calling for retrofits. (It's opposition was based on pilot concerns about getting out easily in emergency situations.) The scandal of easily penetrated airport security will result in congressional calls for a federal takeover of the security system. Previous efforts to reform security procedures and raise standards have been talked to death. This time, however, no lobbying efforts must be allowed to prevent airport security from getting the reforms that are needed: federal operation, rigorous training, decent pay and no foreign nationals eligible for employment.Peter Hannaford is a public affairs consultant
[CTRL] Internet Domain Names May Have Warned of Attacks CNS News
The plot thickens.. Internet Domain Names May Have Warned of Attacks CNS News http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200109/NAT20010919d.html The terrorists who planned and executed the September 11 attack on America may have registered as many as 20 Internet domain names, or web addresses, that experts believe should have warned authorities of a possible assault on the World Trade Center in New York City. Internet domain names like 'attackontwintowers.com' and 'worldtradetowerattack.com' were registered more than a year ago. It's not known at this time who registered the suspicious names or what their purpose was. DiVERSiONZWe Do Links StuffTo Sign Up for Daily Updates or to Learn Morehttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presencehttp://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.htmlArchives Available http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/messages
Re: [CTRL] WDC and a Bad Choice of Album Cover
-Caveat Lector- What is this about? Fill me in. Peter --- Amelia [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: -Caveat Lector- Any way to find out who produced that album cover? It is just TOO accurate. ~Amelia~ A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om = ~~~ Mere Diversionz? Or the Real News, Views, Issues Amusements? You Decide. Diversionz Mailing List http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz Diversionz Web Presence http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.html __ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.yahoo.com A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Utah Paying a High Price for Polygamy
Utah Paying a High Price for Polygamy LA TIMES A declaration of war it was not. But in Utah, where polygamy has been a persistent but submerged issue for generations, no governor had so much as whispered a public opinion on the topic before. So when Gov. Mike Leavitt asserted last May that "polygamy is against the law" and polygamist Tom Green was sentenced last month to five years in prison, it appeared to signal an unprecedented crackdown on multiple marriages. With the Winter Olympics only a few months off, image-conscious public officials are starting to talk tough about a crime that law enforcement officials have routinely ignored. But it remains to be seen if the tough talk will translate into action any time soon DiVERSiONZDiverting You Back to RealityTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.htmlArchives Available http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/messages
[CTRL] Attack of the Shark Lobby
Attack of the Shark Lobby SLATE If you think it's been an embarrassing summer for Gary Condit or Little League baseball, think of the poor shark. One shark ripped an arm off a boy in Florida. A second destroyed a swimmer's leg in the Bahamas. A third inflicted a fatal 17-inch gash on a boy in Virginia. A fourth killed a man in North Carolina and tore off his girlfriend's foot. There have been dozens of lesser attacks, but you get the picture. Sharks have a PR problem. DiVERSiONZWe Do Links StuffTo Sign Up for Daily Updates or to Learn Morehttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presencehttp://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.htmlArchives Available http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/messages
[CTRL] The German Trauma: Experiences and Reflections 1938-2001
The German Trauma: Experiences and Reflections 1938-2001 THE TIMES The girl is 11 years old. One day in 1934, she is travelling from her boarding school in Kent back to her home in Vienna when her train breaks down in Nuremberg. The German Red Cross, perhaps thinking to entertain her, finds her a seat at the Nazi Party Congress, and she is swept away by its fearsome pageantry: when she returns to school she writes an essay, The happiest day of my holiday, describing it. Four years later, one night in a Viennese park in March, 1938, she hears her best friend Elfie reveal that her father is a member of the Nazi Party which had been illegal that he says Austria will be disinfected of Jews, while all around them in the dark she hears shouts: Germany awake! Jewry perish! Later, she stands beneath the balcony of the Imperial Hotel and hears Hitler speak. Later still, she sees the paediatrician who saved her life made to scrub the pavements with a toothbrush. Yet it would be some time before that girl, Gitta Sereny, rejected what she had seen. DiVERSiONZDiverting You Back to RealityTo Hop On The Bushttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/DiversionzWeb Presence (Recent Highlights)http://www.geocities.com/peatluke/Diversionz.htmlArchives Available http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Diversionz/messages
