"One degree and we're done for"

New Scientist:* 27 September 2006

"Further global warming of 1 °C defines a critical threshold. Beyond that we will likely see changes that make Earth a different planet than the one we know."

So says Jim Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Hansen and colleagues have analysed global temperature records and found that surface temperatures have been increasing by an average of 0.2 °C every decade for the past 30 years. Warming is greatest in the high latitudes of the northern hemisphere, particularly in the sub-Arctic boreal forests of Siberia and North America. Here the melting of ice and snow is exposing darker surfaces that absorb more sunlight and increase warming, creating a positive feedback.

Earth is already as warm as at any time in the last 10,000 years, and is within 1 °C of being its hottest for a million years, says Hansen's team. Another decade of business-as-usual carbon emissions will probably make it too late to prevent the ecosystems of the north from triggering runaway climate change, the study concludes (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol 103, p 14288).

The analysis reinforces a series of recent findings on accelerating environmental disruption in Siberia, northern Canada and Alaska, underlining a growing scientific consensus that these regions are pivotal to climate change. Earlier this month, NASA scientists reported that climate change was speeding up the melting of Arctic sea ice. Permanent sea ice has contracted by 14 per cent in the past two years (Geophysical Research Letters, vol 33, L17501). However, warming and melting have been just as dramatic on land in the far north.

A meeting on Siberian climate change held in Leicester, UK, last week confirmed that Siberia has become a hotspot of global climate change. Geographer Heiko Balzter, of the University of Leicester, said central Siberia has warmed by almost 2 °C since 1970 - that's three times the global average.

Meanwhile, Stuart Chapin of the University of Alaska Fairbanks this week reported that air temperatures in the Alaskan interior have risen by 2 °C since 1950, and permafrost temperatures have risen by 2.5 °C (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0606955103).

In Siberia the warming is especially pronounced in winter. "It has caused the onset of spring to advance by as much as one day a year since satellite observations began in 1982," says Balzter. Similarly, Alaskan springs now arrive two weeks earlier than in 1950, according to Chapin.

The Leicester meeting heard that the rising temperatures are causing ecological changes in the forests that ratchet up the warming still further. Vladimir Petko from the Russian Academy of Sciences Forest Research Institute in Krasnoyarsk says warm springs are triggering plagues of moths. "They can eat the needles of entire forest regions in one summer," he says. The trees die and then usually succumb to forest fires that in turn destroy soil vegetation and accelerate the melting of permafrost, Petko says.

In 2003 Siberia saw a record number of forest fires, losing 40,000 square kilometres according to Balzter, who has analysed remote sensing images of the region. Similar changes are occurring in Alaska. According to Chapin, warming there has shortened the life cycle of the bark beetle from two years to one, causing huge infestations and subsequent fires, which destroyed huge areas of forest in 2004. "The current boreal forest zone could be so dried out by 2090 that the trees will die off and be replaced by steppe," says Nadezhda Tchebakova, also at the institute in Krasnoyarsk.

Melting permafrost in the boreal forests and further north in the Arctic tundra is also triggering the release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, from thick layers of thawing peat. First reports published exclusively in New Scientist last year (13 August 2005, p 12) were recently confirmed by US scientists (Nature, vol 443, p 71).

"Large amounts of greenhouse gases are currently locked in the permafrost and if released could accelerate the greenhouse effect," says Balzter. Hansen's paper concludes that the effects of this positive feedback could be huge. "In past eras, the release of methane from melting permafrost and destabilised sediments on continental shelves has probably been responsible for some of the largest warmings in the Earth's history," he says.
“The release of methane from melting permafrost has been responsible for some of the largest warmings in history”

We could be close to unleashing similar events in the 21st century, Hansen argues. Although the feedbacks should remain modest as long as global temperatures remain within the range of recent interglacial periods of the past million years, outside that range - beyond a further warming of about 1 °C - the feedbacks could accelerate. Such changes may become inevitable if the world does not begin to curb greenhouse gas emissions within the next decade, Hansen says.

Meanwhile, another new study underlines that the boreal peat bogs, permafrost and pine forests are not just vital to the planet as a whole, they are major economic assets for the countries that host them. A detailed study of the northern boreal forests by environmental consultant Mark Anielski of Edmonton, Canada, puts the value of their "ecosystem services" at $250 billion a year, or $160 per hectare.
“The value of the services this ecosystem performs is more than twice that of the resources taken from the region each year.”

These benefits include flood control, water purification and pest control provided by forest birds, plus income from wilderness tourism and meat from wildlife such as caribou. Anielski presented his findings to Canada's National Forest Congress in Gatineau-Ottawa earlier this week.

The value of these ecosystem services is more than twice that of conventional resources taken from the region each year, such as timber, minerals, oil and hydroelectricity, Anielski says. "If they were counted in Canadian inventories of assets, they would amount to roughly 9 per cent of our gross domestic product - similar in value to our health and social services."

You can add to that figure the value of having such a huge volume of carbon locked away. "The boreal region is like a giant carbon bank account," he says. "At current prices in the European carbon emissions trading system, Canada's stored carbon alone would be worth $3.7 trillion."

And if Hansen is right that the carbon and methane stored in the boreal regions has the potential to transform the world into "another planet", then the boreal region may be worth a great deal more than that.

From issue 2571 of New Scientist magazine, 27 September 2006, page 8-9

Mystery Artist

Who, oh who, is the mystery artist? Hint: You know who the eerie lady at the left is.

Vermont Congress candidate calls on Pentagon to arrest Bush, Cheney

theBridgeNews.org:

Saturday, Septmber 23— Former Army Lieutenant and candidate for Congress in Vermont, Dennis Morrisseau, today called for the arrest of President Bush and Vice President Cheney by the American military "if necessary" to prevent an unauthorized attack upon the nation of Iran.

The antiwar Vietnam vet is a Republican, but he has won approval from the State of Vermont to run on the ballot line “Impeach Bush Now,” rather than Democrat or Republican.

"American forces are apparently already active inside Iran, and Naval forces have received orders to deploy to that country," Morrisseau said. "The President has NO AUTHORITY to attack the nation of Iran whatsoever, in the absence of a full, formal Declaration of War on Iran by the sitting Congress."

Morrisseau said any order for an attack upon Iran or to deploy naval forces to its coastal waters is illegal, and called upon officers of the American military to "First, refuse to obey such an order. If the president persists and insists on ordering our forces into combat in or over Iran without a formal Declaration of War, then I call upon you, General Pace, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and upon such other military officers as clearly see their duty in these circumstances to detain both the President and Vice President, until such time as the Congress shall act."

Letter to General Pace of the Joint Chiefs

Morrisseau, who was court-martialled for opposition to the Vietnam War in 1968, said he has written to General Pace to ask for the intervention of the military. "In spite of my opposition to the Vietnam War and the court-martial which we ultimately defeated, I was a good soldier who had the respect of my superior officers throughout the ordeal. And they had mine!" Morrisseau said. "There are many many, very, very decent people in the active duty military. I know this," he said " people who love their country and democracy too, and hate war."

Morrisseau wrote that "Iran is no present threat to us or anyone. Their right to enrich uranium under treaties signed by us for the production of nuclear power is clear: and that is all they have so far done. An attack upon that nation now by us, acting alone will constitute an illegal war of aggression under international law. It is illegal under our law as well. I urge you to so advise the President," Morrisseau wrote to Pace, "and urge that he take no such actions. In particular, he must not act in the absense of a full, formal, responsible War Declaration by Congress. That is the Constitutional requirement."

If he and Cheney persist, Morrisseau wrote, "than the country must rely upon you, Sir, and our armed forces generally, to resist all illegal orders by Bush or Cheney, and take the gentlemen into custody if necessary."

October Surprise

Morrissaeu's website notes that the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have issued orders for a major "strike group" of ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast.

This information follows a report in the current issue of Time, that a group of ships capable of mining harbors has received orders to be ready to sail for the Persian Gulf by October 1st.

As Time writes in its cover story "What Would War Look Like?" evidence of the forward deployment of minesweepers and word that the chief of naval operations had asked for a reworking of old plans for mining Iranian harbors "suggest that a much discussed—but until now largely theoretical—prospect has become real: that the U.S. may be preparing for war with Iran."

According to Lieut. Mike Kafka, a spokesman at the headquarters of the Second Fleet, based in Norfolk, Virginia, the Eisenhower Strike Group, bristling with Tomahawk cruise missiles, has received recent orders to depart the United States in a little over a week. Other official sources in the public affairs office of the Navy Department at the Pentagon confirm that this powerful armada is scheduled to arrive off the coast of Iran on or around October 21st.

Anti Vietnam War Veteran

Second Lieutenant Dennis Morrisseau was arrested and court-martialled as an Army 2nd lieutenant for repeatedly speaking out in uniform against the Vietnam War, then refusing shipment to South East Asia. His legal team defeated the court-martial and he was allowed to resign his commission in early 1968. The court-martial charges called for 5 years in prison at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.

Statement by Morrisseau

I'm an old war horse and a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Vermont who believes we must impeach Bush and Cheney, and we must remove the neoconservative cabal from power.

Our great nation has suffered a coup.

And there is an immediate need for action and for the piercing of illusions. We need to step across old political boundaries and ideas. Who cares about "Democrats" vs. "Republicans"? The leadership of both parties is thoroughly corrupt. And that "leadership" exercises its power through control of Congress, not the presidency.

Presidents are figureheads and presidential elections are "bread and circuses." In our American system, Congress rules because Congress makes the laws and Congress writes the checks that fund all government activity.

Our leaders are very happy to have us believe otherwise.

But no president can govern at all without the full cooperation of Congress.

The 109th Congress and its leaders of both parties are fully complicit in all actions taken so far by the Bush administration, no matter what they say for public consumption. Their true loyalty is to their fellow senators and representatives and their corporate backers and not to us.

Morrisseau campaign website—

http://www.2LTMorrisseau.com

US Housing Bubble - Economy in Denial

I'd never heard this spelled out so clearly. Why do lenders lend money to folk who can barely pay anything back, and, in fact, don't even manage to pay all the interest each month? Why, it's because each month the borrower doesn't pay all the interest, the lender can count all the interest, unpaid as well as paid, as INCOME...right up until the loan goes bad.

Asia Times Online:

Needless to say, the holders of such mortgages typically make little or no deposit. Why do lenders get engaged in this sort of activity? Partially because the promised yield is attractive and these hot potatoes can be passed on. But, and here is the scandal, the bank can also record the full interest income each month, even if the homeowner only pays a fraction; because it is part of the terms of the mortgage that the homeowner only pays a fraction of the full interest, the mortgage is considered to be in good standing and the full interest is recorded as income. Of course, the balance sheet of the bank deteriorates, but as long as Wall Street is more focused on earnings than balance sheets, this is a very attractive business.

Joseph Stalin is Alive and Well and Living on Pennsylvania Avenue

By Danny Schechter, MediaChannel

New York, New York, September 21, 2006.

Think of it this way.

You are a former cold warrior who spent your youth studying every aspect of the old Soviet Union. Even though you hated their policies publicly, you began privately, first grudgingly and then, with time, enthusiastically, to admire the way they operated.

They were so organized and adept at imposing their agenda with top –down control. They were, in words used at the time, ‘masters of deception” and pursued secretive strategies of infiltrating ideologues and mole-like operatives ---known as apparatchiks—into government agencies and military organs.

Their KGB danced circles around our CIA and when their often-innocent “suspects” were interrogated, they were tortured with no restraints. The KGB made sure of that. Now the CIA does our dirty work and the President is crusading to lift any and all restraints from their extreme electrode units.

They killed their anti-communist “enemies” outright after convicting them in kangaroo courts. We just detain ours indefinitely while demonizing them as terrorists beyond the protection of the law.

Their Party imposed “message control” and ran media with carrots and sticks. Our Republican Guard uses perception management techniques to achieve the same results.

They marveled at how controlled everything was. And so they built a machine just like the one they “hated” even as the old order of the CCCP went down the tubes of history.

They invaded Afghanistan. We invaded Afghanistan. They wiretapped. We wiretapped. They had secret police. We have secret police in the form of contractors and companies like Blackwater.

They used propaganda. We made ours better. They had a party line. We have a party line. Theirs was blatant; ours is less visible.

They were said to want to conquer the world. Now, most of the world says that about us. In the old days, today’s neo-cons denounced Communist plans for world domination. Now they have their own.

In the same way that cops often make the best criminals with many believing that those who joined the police would have just as comfortably have signed up with the mafia (and some did both) ---many of the professional anti-communists were just as authoritarian and dogmatic in their instincts.

Back, there were studies of “authoritarian personalities.” Among their alleged traits:

1. They travel in tight circles of like-minded people.

2.Their thinking is more likely based on what authorities have told them rather than on their own critical judgment, which results in their beliefs being filled with inconsistencies.

3. They harbor numerous double standards and hypocrisies.

4. They see the world as a dangerous place, with society teetering on the brink of self-destruction from evil and violence, and when their fear conflates with their self-righteousness, they appoint themselves guardians of public morality, or God's Designated Hitters.

5. They think of themselves as far more moral and upstanding than others…”

A Description of Stalinists? Perhaps. But Former Nixon lawyer John W. Dean uses these very categorizations to describe today’s “conservatives” in his book, “Conservatives Without Conscience’

Which brings us to our modern day Busheviks, today’s Bolshevik wannabes with a more sophisticated rap and deadly impact. Some are former leftists turned rightists who are now as comfortable in defending torture and abuse as the agencies they used to denounce. What went around is back again under a different name.

Just as the Neo-Nazis are back as newly elected respectable members of governments in Eastern Germany, abandoning the skinhead look for suits and ties and softer rhetoric, our Neo Cons have moved from left to hard right wrapped in burkas made of the American flag.

They have borrowed the techniques of their old enemies as Cheryl Seal wrote back in 2001:

“Joseph Stalin was successful in seizing and retaining power primarily because he was able to stack the Politburo with politicians as extreme as himself and to dictate their actions and their votes on every issue. Party dissenters were harassed mercilessly by the Politburo members who remained blindly loyal to Stalin. With a block of supporters who did not think for themselves, Stalin was able to completely reverse Russia's policy on a number of key issues, right across the board. For example, in 1936, he completely reversed the liberal communist doctrines pertaining to family, divorce, and abortion. He made divorce difficult, made abortion illegal, and stressed "family values" [do we see a 'dictator pattern' here?].

Stalin's propagandists used a three-point strategy to convince the Russian people that things in Stalin's policy that were in fact extremely bad for the country (including the systematic round up and extermination of all "enemies of the state") were in fact "good."

Point One: Create arguments that how the negative thing is actually NOT bad, but is actually good. [Present day ex: convincing people that greenhouse gases will give us lush green plants, not fry the planet].

Point Two: Show how the negative thing is actually not true. [Present-day ex: Global warming does not exist].

Point Three: Show that the negative thing is actually being caused by "enemies of the state" - most likely liberals. [Present-day example: We can't sign Kyoto because it is really a plot to ruin our economy].”

And so the parallels continue to surface –never exact but certainly suggestive--as recently as today when we learned that unelected professional “cadre” of the hard right—not merely members of the GOP-- enjoyed unique access to the White House as AP reports:

“Republican activists Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed landed more than 100 meetings inside the Bush White House, according to documents released Wednesday that provide the first official accounting of the access and influence the two presidential allies have enjoyed.’

Finally, ponder the words of Nikita Khrushchev who first exposed the crimes of Stalin back in l956:

"Everyone can err, but Stalin considered that he never erred, that he was always right. He never acknowledged to anyone that he made any mistake, large or small, despite the fact that he made not a few mistakes in the matter of theory and in his practical activity."

Who today will take off their shoes to bang on a table at the UN about the crimes of our Busheviks?

“News Dissector” Danny Schechter blogs at Mediachannel.org. Info on his latest film at Indebtwetrust.com. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

Senators Propose Funds for Paper Ballots to Back Up Electronic Ones

An Analogy:

Imagine there is a terrible disease floating around. Imagine there are two different ways to combat it—a clunky vaccine and a pill you can take.

Now further imagine that those who take the pill only have the word of the pill's manufaturer that it would work—and in the last couple of epidimics there was considerable evidence that people who took it got worse!—while it was an established fact that, generally speaking the vaccine worked—it was just a little slower.

Imagine your family was at risked. Which would you choose?

New York Times:

By IAN URBINA
Published: September 26, 2006

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — Three Senate Democrats proposed emergency legislation today to reimburse states for printing paper ballots that can be ready at polling places in case of problems with electronic voting machines on Nov. 7.

The proposal is a response to grass-roots pressure and growing concern by local and state officials about touch-screen machines. An estimated 40 percent of voters will use those machines in the election.

“If someone asks for a paper ballot they ought to be able to have it,” said Senator Barbara Boxer of California, a co-sponsor of the measure with Senator Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconson.

Republican leadership aides were skeptical about the prospects for the measure. It would have to advance without opposition from any senator and then make it through the House in the short time available before Election Day.

Dozens of states are using optical-scan and touch-screen machines to comply with federal laws intended to phase out lever and punch-card machines after the hanging-chads confusion of the 2000 presidential election. Widespread problems were reported with the new technology and among poll workers using the machines this year in primaries in Arkansas, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio and elsewhere.

Local and state officials have expressed concern that the new systems might not be ready to handle increased turnouts. Election experts fear that the lack of a paper trail with most touch-screen machines will leave no way to verify votes in case of fraud or computer failure.

Last week, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. of Maryland, a Republican, joined the skeptics, saying he lacked confidence in his state’s new $106 million electronic system and suggesting that state officials offer all voters paper ballots as an alternative.

The proposed federal bill would provide 75 cents for each backup paper ballot that local officials print. If ballots are printed for half the 27 million voters expected to use touch-screen machines, Ms. Boxer said, her bill would cost Washington no more than $10.1 million.

Barbara Burt, vice president and director of election reform programs at Common Cause, a good-governance advocacy group, said that the bill would have been stronger if it had required precincts to provide paper ballots in federal elections, but that it was a step in the right direction.

“Lack of funding has been the main excuse that local election officials have used to avoid implementing paper precautions,” Ms. Burt said. “This takes that excuse away from them entirely.”

Ms. Boxer said ordering paper ballots in all elections would have been impractical.

“I think Big Brother dictating something to local jurisdictions is a big mistake, because they will balk at it,” she said. “What we’re saying here is that you run your own elections, and we are going to help you run it properly. If local officials don’t take advantage of the option to take precautions, then they’re the ones on the line.”

Brad Friedman, a liberal blogger and longtime critic of electronic voting, said that incentives to print paper ballots would help, but that without a federal mandate some voters would still have no choice but to use touch-screens.

“In the case of many states, such as Florida, there is simply nothing in the state code that allows election directors to provide emergency ballot in the event of machine failure,” he said.

On Thursday, the Committee on House Administration, which has a role in overseeing election procedures, will hold a hearing on whether to require that all voting equipment produce a paper record that lets voters verify how they voted."

A Word from Ralph Shoenman

Do official stories sound a little bogus to you? Do you wonder if you're the only one who thinks something's fishy?

Well, cheer up! Ralph Shoenman is here in a couple of short Kurt Nimmo videos to put your mind at ease!

"The Underlying Politics of 9/11" Part one and Part two.

Relativity drive: The end of wings and wheels?

08 September 2006 - New Scientist Tech:

"Roger Shawyer has developed an engine with no moving parts that he believes can replace rockets and make trains, planes and automobiles obsolete. 'The end of wings and wheels' is how he puts it. It's a bold claim"

PS. —the folks at the Physics Forum are pretty unanimous that this is a scam. They say it's the total radiation pressure per angular unit of area that counts, which is constant, and not the pressure per linear unit of area, which of course decreases as the volume of the chamber increases.

I think. Or something like that.

War Signals?

the Nation:

"The Eisenhower had been in port at the Naval Station Norfolk for several years for refurbishing and refueling of its nuclear reactor; it had not been scheduled to depart for a new duty station until at least a month later, and possibly not till next spring. Family members, before the orders, had moved into the area and had until then expected to be with their sailor-spouses and parents in Virginia for some time yet. First word of the early dispatch of the 'Ike Strike' group to the Persian Gulf region came from several angry officers on the ships involved, who contacted antiwar critics like retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner and complained that they were being sent to attack Iran without any order from the Congress.

'This is very serious,' said Ray McGovern, a former CIA threat-assessment analyst who got early word of the Navy officers' complaints about the sudden deployment orders. (McGovern, a twenty-seven-year veteran of the CIA, resigned in 2002 in protest over what he said were Bush Administration pressures to exaggerate the threat posed by Iraq. He and other intelligence agency critics have formed a group called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.)

Colonel Gardiner, who has taught military strategy at the National War College, says that the carrier deployment and a scheduled Persian Gulf arrival date of October 21 is 'very important evidence' of war planning. He says, 'I know that some naval forces have already received 'prepare to deploy orders' [PTDOs], which have set the date for being ready to go as October 1. Given that it would take about from October 2 to October 21 to get those forces to the Gulf region, that looks about like the date' of any possible military action against Iran. (A PTDO means that all crews should be at their stations, and ships and planes should be ready to go, by a certain date--in this case, reportedly, October 1.) Gardiner notes, 'You cannot issue a PTDO and then stay ready for very long. It's a very significant order, and it's not done as a training exercise.' This point was also made in the Time article."
[ . . . ]
Of course, Gardiner agrees, recent ship movements and other signs of military preparedness could be simply a bluff designed to show toughness in the bargaining with Iran over its nuclear program. But with the Iranian coast reportedly armed to the teeth with Chinese Silkworm antiship missiles, and possibly even more sophisticated Russian antiship weapons, against which the Navy has little reliable defenses, it seems unlikely the Navy would risk high-value assets like aircraft carriers or cruisers with such a tactic. Nor has bluffing been a Bush MO to date.

It seems likely that an attack on Iran could result in a dramatic decrease in oil with an immediate price hike, another major stirring of the hornet's nest of terrorism, and perhaps the sinking of a nuclear aircraft carrier or two. In other words, another win-win situation for BushCo!

While US Mires Itself in Iraq, Russia Deals for Gas

Asia Times Online:

Russia on the move
The following extracts from the transcript of a meeting on September 14 between President Vladimir Putin and Alexei Miller, the chairman of Gazprom, Russia's leviathan energy conglomerate, vividly bring out the intellectual depth and breathtaking sweep of Russia's energy diplomacy. Miller reported to Putin:

As regards the energy-transportation routes to other markets, we have begun studying the possibility of building new gas-transportation capacity to deliver gas to the southern markets - Turkey, Greece and Italy in particular. This would also concern European countries such as Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria. We are looking at the possibility of building a new pipeline, Blue Stream 2, which would increase the gas-transportation capacity via the Black Sea.

Turkey is not a transit country at present for Russian gas. We deliver gas to Turkey, but we see that demand is rising in countries such as Greece and Italy. So we are working on projects to increase gas supplies to these three markets. We are currently engaged in talks with our Italian and Greek partners. We are also looking at the possibility of increasing gas supplies to Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria and we have established a project company to work on this option. This company will carry out the feasibility studies for this route during the course of this year. We are also examining the possibility of building a gas pipeline to deliver gas to Israel. This would be an undersea pipeline taking gas from Turkish territory to Israel. We expect the Israelis to make a final decision very soon on their possibilities of buying Russian gas.

Another big project Gazprom is currently working on is the Altai Project. We are currently carrying out the investment feasibility study and are holding commercial talks with our Chinese partners. We expect these talks to be completed by the end of the year, and then we will agree on the basic terms for gas supplies to China.

Central to these grandiose Russian plans are two solid achievements of Russian energy diplomacy during September.

On September 4, Putin visited Athens and signed a joint declaration on energy cooperation with Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov, assigning priority to the creation of a new gas-transportation system and to finalize an intergovernmental agreement to support the pipeline project within the current year.

The proposed 280-kilometer pipeline stretches from the Bulgarian port of Burgas, on the Black Sea, to the Aegean port of Alexandroupolis in Greece. The US$1 billion project with an initial throughput capacity of 35 million tonnes annually and estimated to be commissioned by 2009 will allow Russia to export oil through the Black Sea, bypassing the Bosporus strait in Turkey.

Russian companies will hold the controlling stakes in the project, which has been the subject of protracted negotiations over several years involving disputes over transit tariffs, ownerships and construction contracts. In an interview with the Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia, Russian Energy Minister Viktor Khristenko said oil prices above $70 per barrel boosted "the financial attractiveness of the Burgas-Alexandroupolis project".

But that is only a part, a very small part in fact, of the story. At the epicenter of the project lies, from Moscow's perspective, the imperative to control the evacuation routes for the export of Kazakh oil. Kazakhstan plans to triple its oil exports during the coming decade. Kazakh oil mostly travels through Russia via the Caspian pipeline (CPC) to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Astana is pressing Moscow to double the capacity of the CPC to 67 million tonnes per year.

The multibillion-dollar expansion of Kazakhstan's giant Tengiz oilfields by Chevron is proceeding at great speed, and production is expected to double by 2007. The oil from Tengiz is committed to the CPC, which means CPC should handle at least 45 million tonnes of oil. Besides, Kashagan, yet another giant field in Kazakhstan, is also expected to come on line shortly thereafter, which means the CPC should provide for an additional 12 million tonnes of Kazakh oil for export.

But the problem for Moscow is that Turkey has been clamping restrictions on the volume of oil that Russia could export from Novorossiysk through the Bosporus. Turkey has banned nighttime tanker traffic through the Bosporus. According to new restrictions, only one tanker can cross the strait at a time and tanker displacement has been severely restricted.

Large tankers lose up to $25,000 per day on demurrage alone. (A total of 9,500 oil tankers sailed through the straits in 2004; Black Sea ports exported 27.1 million tonnes of oil aboard 1,000 tankers in the first five months of the current year alone.)

Turkey, encouraged by the US, would rather have Kazakhstan export its growing oil surpluses through the US-backed BTC pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan, a Turkish Mediterranean port, which began operating this summer. Washington has also been putting pressure on Astana to use the BTC pipeline in preference to the CPC, which is under Russian control.

US Vice President Dick Cheney visited Astana in this connection in May. Cheney heavily argued for the BTC as a way to bypass Russian territory and to strengthen US influence in Central Asia. Washington also wanted Kazakhstan to collaborate on a new pipeline project from Kazakhstan's Kashagan field across the Caspian linking with Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz field and then heading west to Europe via Georgia - rather than north through Russia.

With rivalry building up over the Caspian pipeline, Russia has been under pressure to find an alternative evacuation route for Kazakh oil. For Greece and Bulgaria, too, picking the Russian proposal meant ignoring US entreaties for an alternative US-backed non-Russian pipeline system that was already on the drawing board - an Albania-Macedonia-Bulgaria route for southwestern Europe.

In April, while visiting Ankara and Athens, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice publicly warned Turkey and Greece about any collaboration with Russia that would facilitate Russia's tight grip on European energy supply. "It is quite clear that one of the [US] concerns is that there could be a monopoly of supply from one source only, from Russia," Rice said.

In short, the Burgas-Alexandroupolis project allows Russia to kill two birds with one shot. Apart from seeking to increase its delivery of oil supplies to the world market, it provides a viable alternative to the optional route of the BTC pipeline.

Masterstroke in Turkmenistan
But the battle over Burgas-Alexandroupolis is in its first round, though Russia is winning. In comparison, it is in the war over Central Asian gas that the US has just raised the white flag without even waiting for Gazprom's attack. On September 5, in a sudden move that caught most Western observers of the energy scene by surprise, Gazprom settled a price dispute with Turkmenistan by acceding to terms set by Ashgabat. The dispute was quite acrimonious and at one point the Turkmen side had characterized the Russian negotiators as "dogs and agitated monkeys".

Briefly, Gazprom, after resisting for a period of some three months, abruptly took a U-turn and accepted the Turkmen demand to raise the gas sold to Russia from the prevailing tariff of $65 per trillion cubic meters (tcm) to $100/tcm with immediate effect. Prima facie, it appeared that Moscow was hard pressed to meet its own energy exports to Western Europe without the Turkmen supplies, and was caving in to "the pricing demands of Turkmenistan's fickle dictator Saparmurat Niyazov", as a Western commentary put it.

The commentator judged that "failure to reach an agreement with Turkmenistan could have led to a geopolitical disaster for Russia, as Moscow's energy strategy in Central Asia is in large measure dependent on its continued control of Turkmen gas supplies".

But it didn't take much time for the brilliance of the Russian move to sink in. The point is, by agreeing to the increased price, Moscow has at a single stroke gained control of Turkmenistan's entire exportable surplus for the period up to 2009. Niyazov indicated that Russia would also enjoy preferential access to the untapped Yolotan gas fields and wanted Russia to quadruple the capacity of the existing gas pipeline running along the Caspian coast - important signals of Ashgabat's commitment to a partnership with Russia even beyond 2009.

Without doubt, the $16 billion deal with Turkmenistan is still eminently profitable for Gazprom. The Wall Street Journal meticulously calculated for its readers that the terms of the deal with Turkmenistan translates into a natural-gas price of about $2.75 per million British thermal units (BTUs), whereas, "on New York futures markets, the price of natural gas stands at about $6 per million BTUs".

The unkindest cut of all, from the US point of view, was that Niyazov also assured Moscow that Turkmenistan would not participate in any trans-Caspian gas-pipeline project. "Most importantly," he said, "we will want to supply gas to Russia. We are not interested in going to anyone else with Turkmen gas."

Your Tax Dollars at Work, Definding (make that Defending! or is it Funding?) Liberty, Spreading Democracy, latest episode

No One Dares to Help - Los Angeles Times:

"BAGHDAD — On a recent Sunday, I was buying groceries in my beloved Amariya neighborhood in western Baghdad when I heard the sound of an AK-47 for about three seconds. It was close but not very close, so I continued shopping.

As I took a right turn on Munadhama Street, I saw a man lying on the ground in a small pool of blood. He wasn't dead.

The idea of stopping to help or to take him to a hospital crossed my mind, but I didn't dare. Cars passed without stopping. Pedestrians and shop owners kept doing what they were doing, pretending nothing had happened.

I was still looking at the wounded man and blaming myself for not stopping to help. Other shoppers peered at him from a distance, sorrowful and compassionate, but did nothing.

I went on to another grocery store, staying for about five minutes while shopping for tomatoes, onions and other vegetables. During that time, the man managed to sit up and wave to passing cars. No one stopped. Then, a white Volkswagen pulled up. A passenger stepped out with a gun, walked steadily to the wounded man and shot him three times. The car took off down a side road and vanished.

No one did anything. No one lifted a finger. The only reaction came from a woman in the grocery store. In a low voice, she said, 'My God, bless his soul.' "

A Word from the Other Side

Here are links to the full texts of the addresses at the UN by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Here's how they start their speeches:

Chavez:

Representatives of the governments of the world, good morning to all of you. First of all, I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it.

Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books, 'Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States.'" [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.] "It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet.

Ahmadinejad:

What afflicts humanity today is certainly not compatible with human dignity; the Almighty has not created human beings so that they could transgress against others and oppress them.

By causing war and conflict, some are fast expanding their domination, accumulating greater wealth and usurping all the resources, while others endure the resulting poverty, suffering and misery.

Some seek to rule the world relying on weapons and threats, while others live in perpetual insecurity and danger.

Some occupy the homeland of others, thousands of kilometers away from their borders, interfere in their affairs and control their oil and other resources and strategic routes, while others are bombarded daily in their own homes; their children murdered in the streets and alleys of their own country and their homes reduced to rubble.

Such behavior is not worthy of human beings and runs counter to the Truth, to justice and to human dignity. The fundamental question is that under such conditions, where should the oppressed seek justice? Who or what organization defends the rights of the oppressed, and suppresses acts of aggression and oppression? Where is the seat of global justice?

Chris Floyd's Pithy Take on the Big Pope/Moslem Thing

Empire Burlesque - High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium - Home:

"German guy: 'My rather absurd cult based on a highly selective, historically conditioned and ruthlessly hidebound understanding of the Bronze Age Middle Eastern desert god is better than yours!'

An infinitesimal percentage of Muslims: 'No, it's not. Our rather absurd cult based on a highly selective, historically conditioned and ruthlessly hidebound understanding of the Bronze Age Middle Eastern desert god is better !' "

There's so much more. Chris Floyd is always worth checking out.

Cosmic Iguana Percieves Diebold Plan

HOTEL MINI-BAR KEYS OPEN DIEBOLD VOTING MACHINES

FTT:

... The access panel door on a Diebold AccuVote-TS voting machine — the door that protects the memory card that stores the votes, and is the main barrier to the injection of a virus — can be opened with a standard key that is widely available on the Internet....

... A little research revealed that the exact same key is used widely in office furniture, electronic equipment, jukeboxes, and hotel minibars. It’s a standard part, and like most standard parts it’s easily purchased on the Internet.... [*]

It has been widely observed that Diebold is the largest maker of ATMs as well as voting machines. The fact the Diebold makes paperless voting machines, can only be seen as a deliberate feature, not a bug. Likewise, I'm sure if people could use minibar keys to open ATMs, Diebold would be out of business. Therefore, I think we can conclude that we now see the whole of Diebold's deliberate plan. Easily openable hardware, easily hackable software, and no paper trail to be responsible to.

Don't be surprised if the Republicans win this election, too. It could just be what is in the cards (memory cards, that is).

9/11 Toxic Dust Whistleblower Raided By SWAT Team

Ground zero hero Major Mike McCormack says he was deliberately targeted for helping release documents on EPA government cover-up, says 75% of police, firemen believe 9/11 cover-up

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | September 15 2006

A 9/11 toxic dust whistleblower, a ground zero hero and one of the individuals influential in the release of documents proving a government cover-up that deliberately put police, firemen and rescue personel at risk, has been raided by a New York SWAT team - who ransacked his home for three hours after he was arrested.

Major Mike McCormack is a hospital technician and civil air patrol pilot who worked the ground zero site for eight days after the collapse of the twin towers. He is one of the real heroes of 9/11 and was the man who found the American flag that was later displayed as a token of unity atop the rubble.

Within hours McCormack was coughing up black mucus and within days he was coughing up blood as the toxic dust that was deliberately covered up by the EPA poisoned his lungs along with all the other rescue workers, police and firemen who were being used in photo ops by Bush and his cronies while their very livelihoods were being endangered by a government cover-up.

McCormack now suffers from an extreme respiratory sensitivity, has a 5-millimeter metal nodule in one lung and has been forced to give up his passion of scuba diving.

McCormack is part of an organization lobbying Congress to demand a response from the federal government to the toxic dust cover-up and just compensation for the heroes of 9/11 who were deserted by their own government while the Bush administration had the audacity to use the attacks to fulfil a pre-determined political agenda by exploiting the unity created by the events of that day.

McCormack now describes himself as "permanently ill" as a result of the "death sentence" that was imposed on him via the toxic dust cover-up and sees it as only a matter of time before he "takes the dirt nap," just as some of his friends who worked with him at ground zero have already done.

McCormack currently occupies a high position of employment in security with the federal government which at the moment he prefers not to divulge. He has many friends who were affected by the ground zero toxic dust, including New York City police and state troopers.

McCormack was part of the anniversary ceremonies on September 11 2006 and provided many hand-shaking photo-ops for numerous politicians, before returning to his family home in Pennsylvania that night. McCormack returned to his New York home the next morning in preparation to visit ground zero once again.

On the morning of September 12, McCormack's tenant opened the door to see half a dozen detectives outside who began asking questions and demanding to search the building. The detectives didn't have a warrant and needed McCormack's signature to conduct the search.

Having nothing to hide and wanting to assist the police, McCormack signed the paper and the detectives entered the house.

"Three minutes later as I'm walking out of my office with one of the detectives, I have a federal SWAT team that comes in....men in black and all of a sudden they have 9 millimeter handguns and MP5 machine guns aimed at my head," McCormack told the Alex Jones Show.

McCormack was ordered to leave the building as the 15-strong Darth Vader like SWAT team members verbally abused him and commenced ransacking his house for up to three hours "like a cyclone."

The reason for the raid was said to be as a result of a complaint that the odor of chemicals was smelled coming from the house. McCormack was essentially being treated as a potential terrorist.

McCormack had mistakenly left a legally owned unloaded gun in the trunk of his car before traveling back from Pennsylvania. Thinking that the 48 hour out of state law applied he planned to return the gun to Pennsylvania the next day. Not wanting to take the gun down to ground zero he felt the safest place to put it would be the house. The gun was subsequently discovered by the SWAT team. Through a selectively enforced loophole McCormack is now being charged with illegal possession of a weapon because he took the gun out of state.

"The detective who arrested me told me that he had actually seen my photo in New York Newsday that past Thursday - he knew that I was a ground zero hero and the bottom line is finding that weapon unloaded - running the numbers - knowing the gun was legal if he was a decent human being he would have said 'give me 24 hours I will mail it to your house in Pennsylvania where it's legal - you have your permit'," said McCormack.

During the course of the raid, the SWAT team members and detectives interrogated McCormack on his possession of gas masks and biochemical protection suits, despite the fact that these are standard inventory for an individual in McCormack's line of work and despite diplomas hanging on his wall describing government training in biochemical casualty programs.

The SWAT team also accused McCormack of making chemicals in his barbeque grill.

McCormack's tenant, who questioned the officials' behavior during the raid, was "taken to federal jail and nobody has heard from him since," according to McCormack.

McCormack believes the set-up and the raid are a direct reaction to his activism in helping get the EPA documents that proved the toxic dust cover-up released.

"I said shame on all of them....yesterday I was recognized as a national hero....they chose to humiliate me....they basically flushed my life down the toilet for no reason whatsoever," said McCormack - who is now shunned by his neighbors and treated as a dangerous criminal, with the local authorities going to the lengths of moving the location of an elementary school bus stop which was outside of his house.

Another reason for the raid may have been McCormack's increasing awareness of aspects of the 9/11 official story that don't add up. McCormack described the comments of individuals who were at ground zero when President Bush visited in the days after the attack.

"Numerous firemen were telling me that they heard numerous secondary explosions all over the building - these guys are seasoned firefighting professionals - a lot of them have military backgrounds and they're not stupid."

"Everybody on the planet knew that not only was the World Trade Center hit - it was totally wiped out," said McCormack.

McCormack said that around 75% of police, firemen and rescue personnel that he had personally spoke with now believe there is a cover-up pertaining to 9/11 and that many had been threatened that "if they ever open their mouth their pensions are at risk."

McCormack said that friends of his had also personally been involved in the construction of FEMA internment camps in Washington DC and New York. BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast was recently charged with "threatening infrastructure" after videotaping a Katrina victims camp in Louisiana and Exxon Mobil's Baton Rouge refinery - the charge has now thankfully been dropped.

McCormack said the government had "abandoned" the heroes of 9/11 and that "when Alex tells you this is Nazi Germany, you best believe it," describing the events as "part of the new world order."

Mike McCormack appreciates any help and legal support as he fights the charge against him. His home number is 631-886-1622.

Click here to listen to Mike McCormack's interview on The Alex Jones Show.

Bob Ney, Brewster Jennings and Associates, Iran Backchannels, Arms Smuggling,

...Patrick Fitzgerald, Azerbaijan, Victor Bout, Condolezza Rice, Gonzalez and Cheney and every other little dirty thing you've ever imagined, all wrapped up into one bizarre little ball by Mr. Madsen.... could it be???

This comes after an old post of Madsens detailing Ney's CIA past.

Pay close attention. There may be a test.

The Department of Justice, in its charges against Ney, failed to mention the name of the Syrian-born arms trader from whom Ney pleaded guilty to accepting casino chip bribes in return for getting him a U.S. visa and a sanctions waiver on the sale of U.S. aircraft parts from his front company in Larnaca, Cyprus for later sale to Iran. The reasons for the mystery surrounding Ney's Middle East interlocutors are that they point to high-level corruption within the Bush Justice Department -- corruption that is tied to covering up the role of U.S. and Russian Mafia state and non-state players in assisting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction throughout the Middle East and South Asia. The Syrian, Fouad al Zayat, whose Larnaca-based company, FN Aviation (later changed to FAZ Aviation), is based in Russian-Israeli mobbed-up Cyprus and has an office in London, is known as a high-rolling gambler called "The Fat Man" in London gambling parlors. The London gambling dens are known to act as major money laundering enterprises for arms smugglers and other mob activities. FN Aviation's British director, Nigel Winfield, a thrice-convicted felon, paid for Ney to take a three-day trip to London in February 2003, a month before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. According to well-placed congressional sources, Ney was using the dodgy London arms network to determine whether neocon-supplied intelligence reports that Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs had any merit. However, Ney had also stumbled across incriminating evidence tying top Bush administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, to the WMD proliferation network -- the same intelligence discovered by covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson and her Brewster Jennings & Associates (BJ&A) network in their investigation of arms smuggling routes through Cyprus, South Africa, Turkey, and former Soviet Central Asian states. Zayat's money laundering reportedly coincided with BJ&A's investigation of WMD money laundering and sanctions-busting activities in Switzerland, Cyprus, and the Isle of Man. Ney's links to the Middle East arms bazaar also provided the CIA with an important backchannel into Tehran, Damascus, and Baghdad -- a backchannel not wanted by the neocons who were anxious to bomb all three capital cities.

Ney is said to have agreed to cooperate with Justice prosecutors in return for a sentence of 27 months in prison and a $500,00 fine. In reality, Gonzales' prosecutors are more interested in how much Ney discovered about links between top GOP and White House officials and the arms smuggling business involving Iran, Iraq, and the Zayat, Abdul Qadeer (AQ) Khan, and other shady networks connected to neocon and Russian-Israeli Mafia activities. By finding out what Ney knows, Cheney and his neocon provocateurs will be able to neutralize any embarrassing information on their proliferation activities prior to the November 7 election. In fact, during the DOJ investigation of Ney, the congressman, aware that wireless communications in the House was in the hands of Israeli-owned MobileAccess Communications (formerly Foxcom Wireless), studiously avoided communicating with sensitive sources through any member of his staff.

FN Aviation's chief lobbyists in the United States, people whose activities were of interest to Ney (and Brewster Jennings and the CIA) were Roy Coffee and David DiStefano, both of whom work for failed Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' old law firm, Locke Liddell & Sapp. According to the Jan. 24, 2006, Dallas Morning News Coffee, who was a one time deputy campaign manager for then-Texas Governor George W. Bush, and DiStefano, pressured Ney to lobby the State Department to grant an export license for the sale of U.S. spare aircraft parts by FN Aviation to Iran. Coffee has been called Bush's "eyes and ears on K Street," a reference to the lobbyist district of Washington, DC. WMR has been told that Ney was passing the information he was getting on FN Aviation's activities, as well as other intelligence, to BJ&A. After BJ&A's cover was blown by Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Richard Armitage (who was worried that the CIA would discover his own involvement in shady deals in Azerbaijan), Ney's intermediary activities also became known to the White House and the Special Prosecutor named to investigate the leak of the classified CIA information to the media -- Patrick Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald's decision not to prosecute Karl Rove and to seek the lesser charges of perjury and obstruction of justice against Cheney's former Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby stems from Fitzgerald's own conflicts-of-interest in the CIA case. Ney and BJ&A were uncovering past and embarrassing links between the Russian-Israeli mob and key players in the Bush administration. Zayat's myriad aircraft firms in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan are based in the same locations as those of Russian Mafia arms smuggler (and favored Pentagon contractor) Viktor Bout. Bout's Kyrgyzstan companies -- Phoenix Aviation and Inter Transavia, both connected to U.S. private military contractors operating in Iraq and Africa -- and Zayat's Kyrgyz-based aviation company, Aqua Transit, share the same airfield in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek. Zayat's Samaya Investments Ltd. comfortably resides in Tashkent, Uzbekistan along with firms controlled by the Uzbek-speaking Bout. Bout and Zayat share more than central Asian airports and capitals in common -- they both have high level contacts in the Bush administration, contacts that reach right into the Oval Office.

When she was National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice interceded with Sharjah authorities not to arrest Bout. She informed U.S. intelligence to "look but don't touch" with regard to Bout. And Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department, while convicting Ney, has yet to go after Zayat's lobbyist, Coffee, George W. Bush's former deputy campaign manager and "eyes and ears" on K Street. And there is continued Department of Homeland Security disinterest in the activities of Bout's Syrian associate Monzer al Qasser, who has been involved with his brother Ghassem in arms and drug smuggling and counterfeiting of $100 U.S. notes. Interpol has long been interested in the al Qassers' weapons smuggling and counterfeiting activities but the official U.S. Secret Service replies have echoed Rice's "look but don't touch" orders. Monzer Al Qasser's weapons smuggling activities, selling former East Bloc arms and using secret bank accounts in Luxembourg and Switzerland, cross the path of Viktor Bout's supply of weapons to the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and pro-Al Qaeda Islamist elements in the Balkans. The supply of arms from Mafia smugglers to Muslim guerrillas in Bosnia and Kosovo also involve the financial networks employed by the Bosnia Defense Fund, a 1990s weapons-purchasing slush fund set up at Riggs Bank in Washington, DC and the Central Bank of Bosnia in Sarajevo by Richard Perle and Douglas Feith. WMR has learned of a significant Washington, DC-based lobbying and smuggling operation involving Al Qasser and Bout. This operation appears to be sanctioned by high-level Bush administration officials.

Key bad actors in the real "Path to 911 [and Iraq]" -- Bush, Cheney, Bin Laden, Rice, Libby, Rove, Fitzgerald, Gonzales and Bout.

And their targets.

And there is even more to this story. Bout was a supplier of logistics and arms to both the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan. As WMR has reported, a classified French intelligence report obtained by WMR shows that Bin Laden remained under the operational control of the CIA and Britain's MI-6 until 1995. According to U.S. intelligence sources, Fitzgerald, working for then-US Attorney for Southern New York James Comey, failed to translate from Arabic and Farsi and present to the grand jury and jury in the trials of 1993 World Trade Center bombers several important telecommunications intercepts. The intercepts proved that Bin Laden, who was based in Sudan at the time and living on the largesse of the Saudi-backed Sudanese government, was directly involved in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Suspiciously, the attack took place only a few weeks after Bill Clinton was sworn in an President. Sudanese and Bin Laden involvement in the bombing was proven by NSA-decrypted messages sent between the Sudanese Mission to the UN and the Sudanese Foreign Ministry in Khartoum. According to a former Sudanese government officials, the NSA possessed a backdoor into the encryption equipment Sudan's Foreign Ministry purchased from a Hamburg, Germany firm named PK Electronics. Fitzgerald also covered up key evidence that a US Army Special Forces non-commissioned officer, Ali Mohammed, was in direct contact with Bin Laden in Afghanistan while still on active duty and reporting to the U.S. Special Forces command in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

It is believed by many legal and intelligence observers that the Washington, DC U.S. District Court grand jury's decision to indict Karl Rove last May was derailed after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales confronted Fitzgerald with his past prosecutorial misconduct in the 1993 World Trade Center trials. Therefore, an unusual "SEALED vs. SEALED" indictment of the grand jury against Rove remains sealed to this day and Rove attorney Robert Luskin maintains a veil of secrecy around a 10-page letter, dated June 12, 2006, that stated that Fitzgerald did not intend to charge Rove in the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's name and identity to a number of journalists. Nor did Fitzgerald charge either Rove or Libby with the underlying crime of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act -- an act cited by federal appellate Judge David Tatel in a February 2005 as having "serious" national security implications. In fact, Tatel wrote that Valerie Plame Wilson "worked for the CIA in some unusual capacity relating to counterproliferation." In fact, Mrs. Wilson and her CIA network were targeting the very same smuggling and money laundering networks that were aided and abetted by Cheney and his neocon influence network.

It is now clear that Fitzgerald has been playing what the French call a "double jeu" -- a "double game." Eager to protect his and then-New Jersey federal prosecutor Michael Chertoff's own cover-up of the U.S. intelligence links to the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, Fitzgerald folded when confronted with the threat of exposure from Gonzales, who was acting on behalf of Cheney, Rove, and Bush. Cheney's and Libby's ties to Russian-Israeli mobsters like Marc Rich, a major global smuggler in his own right, and their involvement in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to form the conditions to promote a casus belli for neocon war goals were the real reasons behind the Cheney's operation to expose Mrs. Wilson and her BJ&A network and Abramoff's and Gonzales' entrapment of CIA asset Ney in a double cross sting operation.

Mysterious Flaming Object Falls from the Sky

No, it's not a meteor. It turns::

SEATTLE – Around 7:30 p.m. Monday, KING 5 News' phones started to ring as viewers reported seeing a ball of flames shooting across the skies of Western Washington.
Michael Wittig and his wife were out barbecuing when they saw something streaking through the sky. They kept rolling as the fiery tail grew behind the mystery object.
"It was pretty bright, and it was pretty big, and at one point it looked like it was getting more intense. It was a faded orange, then it got quite a bit brighter as it turned the corner," he said.

Here's the Windows Media Player Video from TV Station KING.

A Wedding Present

I'm ashamed to say it's the first painting I've made in almost a year...

Bonnie's eldest son, Ben, was in Thailand with his girlfriend, Christine, some years back, and took a photo of a market there. A large chunk of that photo is below on the right.




Ben and Christine got married last weekend, so a couple of weeks back I went looking for something to paint to give them for a present. I found the market photo, and it seemed like a good subject. Lots of color, sort of unusual, and something that meant something uniquely to them. Two weeks ago I sketched it out, right on the canvas. I tried not to be too exact—-I didn't use a grid or anything. It was more like doing a Grad Nite portrait. Took about two hours to sketch out. I did it in pencil first, then inked in the lines. I found a pigment pen lying around the house, and figured maybe I could draw with it and paint right over it. Sure enough, it worked. Unlike ink, the pigment didn't bleed through the paint.

Over the next week I found a couple of evenings to paint, which fortunately seemed to be enough. I pulled the photo image into Photoshop and painted from it. Very cool! I could zoom in on just the right section, enlarged to just the right size.

I presented it to the newlyweds at their reception last Saturday. They said it was particularly appropriate, because that market was where Ben proposed to Christine.

Before I let it out of my hands, I scanned the painting in a quarter at a time, right on the old flatbed scanner, and then put the quarters together in Photoshop. Comparing the painting and the photo side by side on the same monitor, it was startling how close some of the painting was to the photo, while other parts were quite different. But you can see for yourself.

Honest, You Won't Believe How Bankrupt the US is. You Won't. Really.

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, July/August 2006, 88(4), pp. 235-49. (a PDF)

Laurence J. Kotlikoff:
a professor of economics at Boston University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

[after an algebraic description of ways to express debt and value and such)

To summarize, countries can go bankrupt, but whether or not they are bankrupt or are going bankrupt can’t be discerned from their “debt” policies. “Debt” in economics, like distance and time in physics, is in the eyes (or mouth) of the beholder.
[ . . . ]
The Gokhale and Smetters measure of the fiscal gap is a stunning $65.9 trillion! This figure is more than five times U.S. GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth.
[ . . . ]
How are the Bush administration and Congress planning to deal with the fiscal gap? The answer, apparently, is to make it worse by expanding discretionary spending while taking no direct steps to raise receipts. The costs of hurricanes Katrina and Rita could easily total $200 billion over the next few years. And the main goal of the President’s tax reform initiative will likely be to eliminate the alternative minimum tax. This administration’s concern with long-term fiscal policy is typified by the way it treated the Treasury’s original fiscal gap study. The study was completed in the late fall of 2002 and was slated to appear in the president’s 2003 budget to be released in early February 2003. But when Secretary O’Neill was ignominiously fired on December 6, 2002, the study was immediately censored. Indeed, Gokhale and Smetters were told within a few days of O’Neill’s firing that the study would not appear in the president’s budget. The timing of these events suggests the study itself may explain O’Neill’s ouster or at least the timing of his ouster. Publication of the study would, no doubt, have seriously jeopardized the passage of the administration’s Medicare drug benefit as well as its third tax cut."

Unfortunately, since Mr. Kotlikoff falls for the" Social Security must be fixed"straw man before lamblasting the Democrats for also making things worse, I don't know how reliable the rest of his testimony is.

But this graph (from http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/faq.html) tells all you really need to know:

From One of the 2007 Project Censored Stories

I keep hearing that any news we get from Africa—particularly items which seem like the "truth" getting out at long last—should be accepted cautiously if at all. One layer of disinformation can be hidden beneath others.

Here's what an investigator has to say about the Congo:

Project Censored Media Democracy in Action:

"Columbo-tantalite, i.e. coltan, is found in three-billion-year-old soils like those in the Rift Valley region of Africa. The tantalum extracted from the coltan ore is used to make tantalum capacitors, tiny components that are essential in managing the flow of current in electronic devices. Eighty percent of the world’s coltan reserves are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Niobium is another high-tech mineral with a similar story.

Sprocket reports that the high-tech boom of the 1990s caused the price of coltan to skyrocket to nearly $300 per pound. In 1996 U.S.-sponsored Rwandan and Ugandan forces entered eastern DRC. By 1998 they seized control and moved into strategic mining areas. The Rwandan Army was soon making $20 million or more a month from coltan mining. Though the price of coltan has fallen, Rwanda maintains its monopoly on coltan and the coltan trade in DRC. Reports of rampant human rights abuses pour out of this mining region.

Coltan makes its way out of the mines to trading posts where foreign traders buy the mineral and ship it abroad, mostly through Rwanda. Firms with the capability turn coltan into the coveted tantalum powder, and then sell the magic powder to Nokia, Motorola, Compaq, Sony, and other manufacturers for use in cell phones and other products.

Keith Harmon Snow emphasizes that any analysis of the geopolitics in the Congo, and the reasons for why the Congolese people have suffered a virtually unending war since 1996, requires an understanding of the organized crime perpetrated through multinational businesses. The tragedy of the Congo conflict has been instituted by invested corporations, their proxy armies, and the supra-governmental bodies that support them.
[ . . . ]

UPDATE BY KEITH HARMON SNOW:

War for the control of the Democratic Republic of Congo—what should be the richest country in the world—began in Uganda in the 1980s, when now Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni shot his way to power with the backing of Buckingham Palace, the White House, and Tel Aviv behind him.

Paul Kagame, now president of Rwanda, served as Museveni’s Director of Military Intelligence. Kagame later trained at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, before the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)—backed by Roger Winter, the U.S. Committee on Refugees, and the others above—invaded Rwanda. The RPF destabilized and then secured Rwanda. This coup d’etat is today misunderstood as the “Rwanda Genocide.” What played out in Rwanda in 1994 is now playing out in Darfur, Sudan; regime change is the goal, “genocide” is the tool of propaganda used to manipulate and disinform.

In 1996, Paul Kagame and Yoweri Museveni, with the Pentagon behind them, launched their covert war against Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko and his western backers. A decade later, there are 6 or 7 million dead, at the very least, and the war in Congo (Zaire) continues.

If you are reading the mainstream newspapers or listening to National Public Radio, you are contributing to your own mental illness, no matter how astute you believe yourself to be at “balancing” or “deciphering” the code.
News reports in Time Magazine (“The Deadliest War In The World,” June 6, 2006) and on CNN (“Rape, Brutality Ignored to Aid Congo Peace,” May 26, 2006) that appeared at the time of this writing are being interpreted by conscious people to be truth-telling at last. However, these are perfect examples filled with hidden deceptions and manipulations.
For accuracy and truth on Central Africa, look to people like Robin Philpot (Imperialism Dies Hard), Wayne Madsen (Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa, 1993–1999), Amos Wilson (The Falsification of Consciousness), Charles Onana (The Secrets of the Rwanda Genocide—Investigation on the Mysteries of a President), Antoine Lokongo (www.congopanorama.info), Phil Taylor (www.taylor-report.com), Christopher Black (“Racism, Murder and Lies in Rwanda”). World War 4 Report has published my reports, but they are inconsistent in their attention to accuracy, and would as quickly adopt the propaganda, and have done so at times.

It is possible to collect little fragments of truth here and there—never counting on the mainstream system for this—but one must beware the deceptions and bias. In this vein, the elite business journal Africa Confidential is often very revealing. Some facts can be gleaned from www.DigitalCongo.net and Africa Research Bulletin.

Professor David Gibb’s book The Political Economy of Third World Intervention: Case of the Congo Crises is an excellent backgrounder that identifies players still active today (especially Maurice Tempelsman and his diamonds interests connected to the Democratic Party). Ditto King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hocshchild, but—exemplifying the expedience of “interests”—remember that Hocshchild never tells you, the reader, that his father ran a mining company in Congo. Almost ALL reportage is expedient; one needs take care their propensity to be deceived.

Professor Ruth Mayer’s book Artificial Africas: Colonial Images in the Times of Globalization is a particularly poignant articulation of the means by which the “media” system distorts and manipulates all things African. And, never forget www.AllThingsPass.com.

Also hoping to correct the record and reveal the truth, the International Forum for Truth and Justice in the Great Lakes of Africa (www.veritasrwandaforum.org), based in Spain, and co-founded by Nobel Prize nominee Juan Carrero Seraleegui, is involved in a groundbreaking lawsuit charging massive crimes against humanity and acts of genocide were committed by the now government of Rwanda."

Loose lips and Hezbollah's secret weapon

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News:

How hi-tech Hezbollah called the shots
By Iason Athanasiadis

BEIRUT - Hezbollah's ability to repel the Israel Defense Forces during the recent conflict was largely due to its use of intelligence techniques gleaned from allies Iran and Syria that allowed it to monitor encoded Israeli communications relating to battlefield actions, according to Israeli officials, whose claims have been independently corroborated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

'Israeli EW [electronic warfare] systems were unable to jam the systems at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut, they proved unable to jam Hezbollah's command and control links from Lebanon to Iranian facilities in Syria, they (Hezbollah) blocked the Barak ship anti-missile systems, and they hacked into Israeli operations communications in the field,' Richard Sale, the longtime intelligence editor for United Press International, who was alerted to this intelligence failure by current and former CIA officials, told Asia Times Online."

America's Economic Meltdown

Counterpunch: Mike Whitney:

Americans have dumped trillions of their hard-earned savings into risky hedge funds which have only been in existence for a short period of time. No one knows what the future holds for these “flash-in-the-pan” investments. As Kolko says, “The credit derivative market was almost nonexistent in 2001, grew fairly slowly until 2004 and went into the stratosphere, reaching $17.3 trillion by the end of 2005.”

That’s right; a whopping $17.3 trillion, enough to sink the entire economy if the market takes a nosedive.

This whole idea of re-selling debt is a relatively new phenomenon and fraught with peril. Hedge funds can bundle together a slew of Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) and make a handsome profit, but when the housing market starts listing, the investor is trapped on a sinking ship with little hope of recouping his losses.

Deregulation is characterized in the business-friendly media as a way of lifting the burdensome restrictions on the free flow of capital. This is nonsense. Deregulation is, in fact, the removal of the laws which traditionally protect the public from the hucksters and scam-artists who create lofty-sounding investments which are nothing more than Ponzi-schemes. (The purchase of “credit derivative futures” definitely falls within this category of dicey investments) Deregulation has gravely undermined the long-term prospects for western capitalism to succeed. By removing the safeguards to investment, the business and banking communities have created what many call “casino capitalism,” an anarchic structure with few protections that is hurling the markets toward a system-wide meltdown.

Similar problems plague the sagging real estate market. In recent years a buyer could pick up a house with no down payment, an “interest-only” loan, a low ARM, and be reasonably certain that the next year it would increase 20 to 30% in value. This allows the buyer to refinance his home, use his “presto-equity” as discretionary income, and begin the cycle all over again next year. With wages stagnating since the 1970s, the increase in home equity has been the preferred method for most Americans to “get ahead”. Housing prices have steadily increased since the 1980s and skyrocketed in the last 5 years. This has created a feeding-frenzy for low interest loans and attracted millions of speculators and (traditionally) unqualified applicants to the real estate gold rush.

It’s been a great deal for the banks, too. Mortgages make up the bulk of the banks loans in America, more than $400 billion last year alone. If it wasn’t for the steady steam of mortgages many banks would have seen negative growth in the last decade. Now that housing prices are flattening out and expected to fall (precipitously) the easy money has dried up and many over-leveraged homeowners are facing the dismal prospect of having to pay off an asset that is quickly losing its value. Economist Michael Hudson calls this phenomenon “negative equity”, that is, when the current value of the house falls beneath the amount that one has to pay on his mortgage. It is a predicament which now faces an estimated 30 million Americans who are drowning in red ink and skittering towards a life of indentured servitude.

The magnitude of the housing bubble is shocking and unprecedented. According to the Federal Reserves own figures, “The total amount of residential housing wealth in the US just about doubled between 1999 and 2006 up from $10.4 trillion to $20.4 trillion.”(Times Online) This tells us that the Fed had a clear idea of the size of the equity balloon their low interest policies were creating, but decided not to take corrective action. It also tells us that there will be no “soft landing”. When the market begins to fall, no one knows when it will hit bottom. $10 trillion is more than a “little froth”, as Greenspan opined; it is an earth-shaking, economy-busting catastrophe that will put millions at risk of foreclosure, bankruptcy and ruin.

Greenspan and the privately-owned fed played a major role in putting us in this mess by rubber-stamping the new system of precarious loans (no down payments, interest-only loans, ARMs) and perpetuating their “cheap money” policies. Greenspan admitted this a few months ago when he said that current housing increases were “unsustainable” and would have corrected long ago if not for the “the dramatic increase in the prevalence of interest-only loans…and more exotic forms of adjustable rate mortgages that enable marginally-qualified, highly leveraged borrowers to purchase homes at inflated prices.”

"Greenspan’s circuitous comments are tantamount to an admission of guilt. The fallout from the fed’s policies are bound to be widespread and devastating. The country has been buoyed along on $10 trillion of borrowed money which has created the unfortunate sense of prosperity which is not reflected in the general economy. The increase in housing prices has not come from wages (which have actually decreased under Bush) or from demand (inventory is now at a 10 year high) It has merely been the availability of low interest loans and the promise of getting rich quick. As the market cools, millions of Americans will either face foreclosure or be shackled to a mortgage that is higher than the dwindling value of their home. It is a grim picture of 21st century debt-slavery."