Thursday, May 25, 2006

aangirfan: The American lived in a small house, watching over his crops, until the terrorism got too much.

aangirfan: The American lived in a small house, watching over his crops, until the terrorism got too much.

Michael Collins Piper - Eric Jon Phelps debate,

Wing TV - Connect The Dots

[political-research] Bloglines - AI and the future of search


Geeking with Greg
Exploring the future of personalized information

AI and the future of search

By Greg Linden

Saeed Shah at The Independent (UK) reports that:
Google's ultimate aim is to create a search engine with artificial intelligence to exactly answer any question a user puts to it.

Larry Page, the co-founder and president ... said: "People always make the assumption that we're done with search. That's very far from the case. We're probably only 5 per cent of the way there. We want to create the ultimate search engine that can understand anything ... some people could call that artificial intelligence."

Mr Page ... said it was not possible to predict when Google would achieve this goal, although he pointed out that "a lot of our systems already use learning techniques".
See also my previous posts, "Google and The Happy Searcher", "Search without searching" and "Google and question answering".

[Found on Findory]

Update: An excerpt from a similar article by Richard Wray in the UK Guardian:
"The ultimate search engine would understand everything in the world. It would understand everything that you asked it and give you back the exact right thing instantly," Mr Page [said] ... "You could ask 'what should I ask Larry?' and it would tell you."

Mr Page said one thing that he had learned since Google launched eight years ago was that technology can change faster than expected, and that AI could be a reality within a few years.
One thing you have to say about the Google founders, they certainly are ambitious.

See also more of my earlier posts, "The perfect search", "Perfect search and the clickstream", and "Different visions of the future of search".

[UK Guardian article via Threadwatch]





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Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Mouse Finding Violates Laws of Heredity

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Mouse Finding Violates Laws of Heredity

FBI Probes Jewish Leaders for Lobbyist Ties

FBI Probes Jewish Leaders for Lobbyist Ties

Former U.S. Navy Senior Council Says Bush Administration Open To War Crime Charges

Sampler

The Legal Reader: The "State Secret" Privilege

The Legal Reader: The "State Secret" Privilege

Daily Kos: Negroponte Can Waive SEC Rules for "National Security"

Daily Kos: Negroponte Can Waive SEC Rules for "National Security"

[political-research] Re: Sic Semper Tyrannis 2006: The VA Data Theft (et al)

(Now if this doesn't make your feelers go up, nothing will.) After
doing a search on the Net for the Bank of America laptop theft I
referenced earlier, I found an article about the same laptop
scenario involving a completely different incident. (Yes, that's
right folks: same stolen laptop scenario, SAME bank, DIFFERENT
incidents!)

The story below references a theft which happened on August 29,
2005. I dug through my files today and found my "stolen laptop"
letter and it's dated June 20, 2005—a full two months before the
August theft.

Here's some (laughable) excerpts from my letter:

"Dear [Name]:

"...we regret to inform you that we recently learned some of your
customer information was on a Bank of America laptop computer that
was stolen.

[...]

"...we have no evidence to indicate that your customer information
has been accessed or reviewed by an unauthorized third-party.

[...]

"We have been working with law enforcement and have conducted our
own internal investigations to help protect and minimize the impact
to you. We have also thoroughly reviewed your accounts at Bank of
America and have not detected any unauthorized transactions on your
accounts to date. To ensure peace of mind, we are offering you one
year of complimentary credit-monitoring to help detect fraudulent
activity affecting your credit."

Okay, so here's just a few of MANY "stupid" questions I have now:

1. How did the bank assess that there were no unauthorized
transactions on my account without consulting me first?

2. Why do banks (and other institutions entrusted with our most
valuable information) allow personal identifying information to walk
out the door on (unsecured!) employee laptops?

3. Is this standard practice?

4. Why, after the initial incident happened, would the bank still
allow an (ADMITTEDLY unencrypted!) laptop to walk out the door (only
to be stolen AGAIN)?!

5. This is the 21st century. Shouldn't a bank have better security
when protecting its customer databases?

6. (Here's where my computer illiteracy shows.) In reference to
the VA theft, how could one laptop contain such a large database—
26.5 million names, addresses, SSNs, dates of service, etc., etc.?
(To all you computer nerds out there: is this likely, unlikely?
How much memory would that require?)

I'm with the blogger who speculated "the 'burglar' knew exactly what
he was looking for." (Remember, these institutions have been playing
this off as though the thieves were only after the laptop [although
most stories have the laptop being recovered].)

Could this admission in my banks letter be the key to what's REALLY
going on here?

"We have been working with law enforcement and have conducted our
own internal investigations to help protect and minimize the impact
to you."

Are they just covering their asses so when the truth comes out about
them giving our private information to the government, like with the
major phone companies with the NSA, they can say they had the
premise in which to do so? (Hm.)

Sounds like a massive data mining of American citizens is
underway... or... something. I'm perplexed.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Bank of America notifying customers after laptop theft

Robert McMillan

http://ad.doubleclick.net/click;h=v5|33ef|0|0|%2a|u;33581388;0-
0;0;12718548;4252-336|280;16510405|16528300|1;;~sscs=%
3fhttp://www.facetime.com/ad1a

October 07, 2005 (IDG News Service) Users of the Bank of America
Corp.'s Visa Buxx prepaid debit cards are being warned that they may
have had sensitive information compromised after the theft of an
unencrypted laptop computer.

In a letters sent to Buxx users and dated Sept. 23, the Charlotte,
N.C.-based bank warned that customers may have had their bank
account numbers, routing transit numbers, names and credit card
numbers compromised by the theft. Visa Buxx was a prepaid credit
card for teenagers that the Bank of America stopped selling in
January.

The laptop, which belonged to an unnamed Bank of America service
provider, was stolen Aug. 29, said Diane Wagner, a company
spokeswoman. The bank was notified of the theft Sept. 9 and began
sending out the letters after a two-week investigation, she said.
Though the information on the laptop would not have been easily
accessible to thieves, it wasn't encrypted, Wagner said. The bank
has been monitoring the affected accounts and hasn't observed any
signs of fraud. "We have no evidence that an unauthorized person has
accessed or even reviewed that customer information," she said.

Wagner refused to offer many details on the theft, which was
reported today in the San Francisco Chronicle. She declined to name
the service provider, say how many Bank of America customers had
been affected or even confirm that the theft had occurred within the
U.S.

This isn't the first time Bank of America has had to notify account
holders of identity theft. In March, it confirmed that information
on about 60,000 of its customers had been stolen by an identity-
theft ring.

The March disclosure came just a month after the company revealed
that it had lost digital tapes containing the credit card account
records of 1.2 million U.S. federal employees (see "Data snafus spur
IT action: Bank mishap prompts call for network backup").

--- In political-research@yahoogroups.com, Sean McBride
<smcbride2@...> wrote:
>
>
>
<http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2006/05/the_va_da
ta_the.html>
>
>
_____________________________________________________________________
___
> Save and share anything you find online - Furl @
http://www.furl.net
>

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Prosecutor: Bush official aided lobbyist - Politics - MSNBC.com

Prosecutor: Bush official aided lobbyist - Politics - MSNBC.com: "David Safavian provided substantial amounts of information about government-controlled properties that the lobbyist wanted for himself or his clients"

DOMESTIC NEWSLINE - Turkish Daily News May 24, 2006

DOMESTIC NEWSLINE - Turkish Daily News May 24, 2006: "'Traffic accidents God's will':
ANK - Turkish Daily News
Traffic guides distributed to students by Istanbul's Beyoglu Municipality describe traffic accidents as God's will, reports said on Wednesday.
The booklets were produced by the municipality to provide information to students about traffic rules.
The introduction was written by Beyoglu Mayor Ahmet Misbah Demircan and the book was compiled by Halis Ece.
Page 59 of the book says, �Due to centrifugal forces, when one turns the wheel, the vehicle is pushed towards the outside. If the centrifugal force overcomes the resistance provided by the tires, vehicles overturn. Without doubt, traffic accidents, just like all other small or large incidents, are God's will. That's why claims made by some that traffic accidents have nothing to do with fate are a violation of our beliefs.� "

Building near WTC entombs toxins, remains - Yahoo! News

Building near WTC entombs toxins, remains - Yahoo! News

John McCain...

NYO - News Story 1

[911TruthAction] Digest Number 1304

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There are 14 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1. Zogby 9/11 Poll and Chicago June 2 Conference
From: "erik larson" 91erik@gmail.com
2. GREAT NEWS FOLKS!
From: "Caomhain {Kevin} Lee Hammond" sir_oglaigh@yahoo.com
3. San Diego 9/11 Truth Group
From: "Andy White" andy_white9@yahoo.com
4. Re: 9/11 Truth in Japan - Jimmy Walter coming to Tokyo in June
From: "Kevin Hammond" sir_oglaigh@yahoo.com
5. Fwd: [WETHEPEOPLE_UNITED] Central Banks Give Countries' Financial So
From: "Kevin Hammond" sir_oglaigh@yahoo.com
6. Re: Grand Opening Bldg 7 with Silverstien today, I was only protesto
From: "Kevin Hammond" sir_oglaigh@yahoo.com
7. Fwd: SF911Truth: FILM, Wed, 7:30pm, Humanist Hall, Oakland + Loose C
From: "Kevin Hammond" sir_oglaigh@yahoo.com
8. 9/11 conference in la june 24-25
From: "Jamie Welsh" jamie@xenic.com
9. New official 9/11 video: The Pentagon Magic Plane
From: "rayantoky@aol.com" rayantoky@aol.com
10. Moscow angered by US 'star wars' bases! tvnl news
From: "reggie501" reggie501@optonline.net
11. Pentagon Worried China Becoming Harder to Invade + Iraq Death List +
From: "ranger116@webtv.net" ranger116@webtv.net
12. A Day in the Life: 5/24/6
From: "President, USA Exile Govt." prez@usa-exile.org
13. Neo-con Zionist op -- inside-job mass murder at the Pentagon
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
14. Fw: Using the Nation's military against it's people -- It has begu
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 1
From: "erik larson" 91erik@gmail.com
Date: Tue May 23, 2006 10:29pm(PDT)
Subject: Zogby 9/11 Poll and Chicago June 2 Conference

Hi friends,

New 9/11 poll and just a week and a half til the Chicago Conference-
please spread the word- we are the media. Thanks for all you're doing
for the truth, the victims, our country and the world.

Erik

Zogby Poll Finds Over 70 Million Voting Age Americans Support New 9/11
Investigation
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20060522022041421

Zogby Poll: Over 70 Million American Adults Support New 9/11 Investigation
http://prweb.com/releases/2006/5/prweb388743.htm

Less than half of Americans satisfied with 9/11 investigations
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Less_than_half_of_Americans_satisfied_0523.html

9/11Truth.org & MUJCA.com sponsored
International Education & Strategy Conference
9/11- Revealing the Truth, Reclaiming Our Future
Chicago-O'Hare Rosemont, Illinois
June 2-4, 2006, Embassy Suites Hotel
http://www.911revealingthetruth.org/

Featured speakers; William Pepper, Prof. Steven E. Jones, David
Shayler & Annie Machon, Alex Jones, Meria Heller, Webster Tarpley,
Peter Phillips, Ralph Schoenman, Ian Woods, Kevin Ryan, Dr. Faiz Khan,
Jim Marrs, Barrie Zwicker, Jim Fetzer, David Kubiak, Pat Shannan,
Carol Brouillet, Chris Emery, and many others

--
Citizens Counter-Coup, The Formula For Change Now
http://3c.911truth.org

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 2
From: "Caomhain {Kevin} Lee Hammond" sir_oglaigh@yahoo.com
Date: Tue May 23, 2006 10:37pm(PDT)
Subject: GREAT NEWS FOLKS!

After missing a weekly meetup last week I returned this week to find
FIVE BRAND NEW FACES! THIS IS RADICAL AWESOME!

Kevin

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 3
From: "Andy White" andy_white9@yahoo.com
Date: Tue May 23, 2006 10:50pm(PDT)
Subject: San Diego 9/11 Truth Group

<a
href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SanDiego9-11Truth/">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SanDiego9-11Truth/
</a>

Please join if you live in San Diego

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 4
From: "Kevin Hammond" sir_oglaigh@yahoo.com
Date: Tue May 23, 2006 10:53pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: 9/11 Truth in Japan - Jimmy Walter coming to Tokyo in June

James. Check out my website. You and your people over there may find it somewhat useful.

Kevin
www.fightthenwo.org

James Patton <james_patton@yahoo.com> wrote:
Hi All,

Here is some info about happenings in the 9/11 Truth movement in Japan.

I think Yumi is one of the translators of the book Addicted to War
http://www.addictedtowar.com/

9/11 Truth - let's take it global!

best regards,
James.
====

- Yumi Kikuchi wrote:

Hi, James,

Jimmy Walter of ReOpen 911 is coming to Japan on Jun 15-18 and we
will have small meetings and press conference. This is to promote
our main event in Oct., perhaps on Oct 7 in Tokyo

Yumi

きくちゆみのブãƒ&shy;ã‚° http://kikuchiyumi.blogspot.com
911ボーイングã‚’探せ http://www.wa3w.com/911
テãƒ&shy;ãƒÂªÃ£‚¹Ã£ƒˆÃ£¯Ã¨Âª°? http://www.wa3w.com
グãƒ&shy;ーバル・ピース・ã‚&shy;ャンペーン http://globalpeace.jp
Harmonics Lifeセンター http://harmonicslife.net
Global Peace Campaign (English) http://english.globalpeace.jp
Yumi's English Blog http://yumikikuchi.blogspot.com

On May 23, 2006, at 2:10 AM, James Patton wrote:

> > > PS - Are you involved with the 9/11 Truth Movement?
> >Yes.
> >We are organizing first International 911 truth symposium on Oct 7.
>
> Wow! That's exciting :-)
>
> >Would you like to get involved, help spread the news, etc?
>
> I'm on the 911TruthAction@yahoogroups.com mailing list, and I
> sometimes post articles
> designed to reveal the many lies and cover-ups surrounding 9/11 to
> various mailing lists,
> to try and wake people up from their slumber.
>
> However I am very new in Japan (I arrived in January) and I still
> hardly speak or read Nihongo,
> although I am slowly learning a little bit. But if there is some
> small way I can
> get involved in alerting people to the Neo-con machinations and the
> inside job of 9/11
> I would be interested to help.
>
> best regards,
>
> James.
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Yumi Kikuchi <yumik@fine.ocn.ne.jp>
> To: James Patton <james_patton@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Ordering Addicted to War books in Japan
>
> Great to hear from you.
> On May 20, 2006, at 3:47 AM, James Patton wrote:
>

> >
> > PS - Are you involved with the 9/11 Truth Movement?
> Yes.
> We are organizing first International 911 truth symposium on Oct 7.
> Would you like to get involved, help spread the news, etc?
>
> Yumi
> >
> >

きくちゆみのブãƒ&shy;ã‚° http://kikuchiyumi.blogspot.com
911ボーイングã‚’探せ http://www.wa3w.com/911
テãƒ&shy;ãƒÂªÃ£‚¹Ã£ƒˆÃ£¯Ã¨Âª°? http://www.wa3w.com
グãƒ&shy;ーバル・ピース・ã‚&shy;ャンペーン http://globalpeace.jp
Harmonics Lifeセンター http://harmonicslife.net
Global Peace Campaign (English) http://english.globalpeace.jp
Yumi's English Blog http://yumikikuchi.blogspot.com

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________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 5
From: "Kevin Hammond" sir_oglaigh@yahoo.com
Date: Tue May 23, 2006 11:05pm(PDT)
Subject: Fwd: [WETHEPEOPLE_UNITED] Central Banks Give Countries' Financial So

I did not get to read ALL of this ut it looks good.

Note: forwarded message attached.

Saoirse go deo! www.fightthenwo.org

---------------------------------
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________________________________________________________________________

Message 6
From: "Kevin Hammond" sir_oglaigh@yahoo.com
Date: Tue May 23, 2006 11:17pm(PDT)
Subject: Re: Grand Opening Bldg 7 with Silverstien today, I was only protesto

YER AWESOME! JUDY! That is VERY inspirational! makes me want to work HARDER!
GOD LESS YOU!

Kevin
www.fightthenwo.org

mann david <dmann51@yahoo.com> wrote:
More important than the last 500 posts here.
Thank you!!!

--- Judy Cunningham <drjudyforjustice@yahoo.com>
wrote:

> Hi, I was surprised that I was the only protestor to
> show up at the grand opening of Bldg 7, with Larry
> Sliverstien as the main speaker. I passed out 175
> of my 9/11 flyer, and my Hitler/Bush flyer. I made
> speech announcements the whole time for 2 hours
> straight, even while Silverstein was speeking. No
> security asked me to stop, at all. I announced,
> "9/11 was an inside job, -pretense to enter war for
> defense contracts, --the patriot act to take rights
> away, --increase the fascist regime!! I received
> the most attention about the "fascist regime"
> remark. Whe people heard me say that people would
> clamor around, and ask for my flyers. I got into a
> few heated debates, with some of the men dressed in
> suits, wearing name tags-special guest tags. None
> of them could argue me down, tho, and I spoke of
> scientific evidence, until they either gave in, or
> went, "ArrHHHH," and walked off. At least 4 people
> said they would come to the church, and one guy
> helped me pass out
> flyers. I made it all the way to the 2nd row,
> while Silverstein was speaking. I thought of doing
> civil disobedience, and yelling some choice words,
> like, "How can you live with your conscience,
> knowing you pulled an inside job of controlled
> demolition!" but I thought I could do better
> passing out my flyers, and not risking going to
> jail, and having my car towed, and missing work, and
> having my patients get sicker without me. Judy
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> How low will we go? Check out Yahoo! Messenger’s low
> PC-to-Phone call rates.

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Message 7
From: "Kevin Hammond" sir_oglaigh@yahoo.com
Date: Tue May 23, 2006 11:19pm(PDT)
Subject: Fwd: SF911Truth: FILM, Wed, 7:30pm, Humanist Hall, Oakland + Loose C

Note: forwarded message attached.

Saoirse go deo! www.fightthenwo.org

---------------------------------
Ring'em or ping'em. Make PC-to-phone calls as low as 1¢/min with Yahoo! Messenger with Voice.
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Message 8
From: "Jamie Welsh" jamie@xenic.com
Date: Wed May 24, 2006 1:11am(PDT)
Subject: 9/11 conference in la june 24-25

anyone else in the san francisco area is thinking of going?
let's buy tickets together and get the better price...
http://www.americanscholarssymposium.org/
jamie

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 9
From: "rayantoky@aol.com" rayantoky@aol.com
Date: Wed May 24, 2006 8:21am(PDT)
Subject: New official 9/11 video: The Pentagon Magic Plane

Interesting analysis of Pentagon explosion from France by Pierre-Henri
Bunel.
_http://tinyurl.com/kz8ss_ (http://tinyurl.com/kz8ss)
aka
_http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BUN20060519&a
rticleId=2473_
(http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BUN20060519&articleId=2473)

Interestingly enough in PART II
_http://www.voltairenet.org/article139203.html#article139203_
(http://www.voltairenet.org/article139203.html#article139203)
he compares the explosion to the ones at the WTC which he says were caused
by a plane whereas the Pentagon he says were caused by a missile. Is he half
right?
Ray


(http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BUN20060519&articleId=2473)

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 10
From: "reggie501" reggie501@optonline.net
Date: Wed May 24, 2006 8:40am(PDT)
Subject: Moscow angered by US 'star wars' bases! tvnl news

HEADLINES and NEWS LINKS Courtesy of TvNewsLies.org
http://tvnewslies.org/news
________________________________________________________________
May 24,2006
INTERNATIONAL : http://www.tvnewslies.org/news/#international

**Moscow angered by US plan for 'star wars' bases in Europe
to counter threat of Iran - The new shield would bring a direct
US military presence deeper into Europe. And for Russia, the
project reeks of American encroachment into what used to be its
own sphere of influence.

WAR : http://www.tvnewslies.org/news/#war

· Washington's New Watchword: Containment
· U.S. says Taliban gain strength; 29 dead in clash
· Armed Groups Propel Iraq Toward Chaos
· Iraq: 2500 dead in 2 months

POLITICS : http://www.tvnewslies.org/news#politics

· 2 in CIA to testify Libby lied on leak

ECONOMY : http://www.tvnewslies.org/news#economy

· Consumer Confidence Sinks to a 2006 Low

9/11 News : http://www.tvnewslies.org/news/#911

· OSAMA: A 757 Hit the Pentagon! - Swallow that you stupid
Americans! You know…if Karl Rove dressed up like bin Laden
and made a public appearance there would be a large number
of Americans who would fall for it!
· Captured Al-Qaeda kingpin is case of `mistaken identity'

DOMESTIC : http://www.tvnewslies.org/news/#domestic

· Wis. Governor Signs Abstinence Bill - Sex education teachers
must present abstinence as the preferred behavior for unmarried
people under a bill signed Tuesday by Gov. Jim Doyle.
· A bid to sidestep Electoral College
· City Council votes to seize Wal-Mart land

ENVIRONMENT : http://www.tvnewslies.org/news/#environment

· Climate change is the major challenge facing the world

MILITARY & VETERANS : http://www.tvnewslies.org/news/#military

· U.S. Is Faulted for Using Private Military Workers - The
reliance on security firms to interrogate and transport
suspected terrorists has created 'rule-free zones,'
· Theft of vets' data kept secret for 19 days

EDITORIAL : http://www.tvnewslies.org/news/#editorial

· The Politics of Evil versus Boston Legal - Truth is what
your country needs most

JOURNALISM & MEDIA : http://www.tvnewslies.org/news/#media

· Galloway, Nearing Retirement, Hits Rumsfeld in E-mails -
· U.S. Urged to Stop Paying Iraqi Reporters
· Philadelphia Investors Buy Two Newspapers -critics question
whether editorial independence will be possible.
· Charles Gibson Named Sole Anchor of 'World News Tonight'
· Journalists boycott Harper news conference as media battle
heats up - OTTAWA (CP)
· E-Mails Suggest Bush Administration Pressured ICANN to Nix
'.Xxx' Domain

HEALTH & SCIENCE : http://www.tvnewslies.org/news/#health

· No Link Between Marijuana Use and Lung Cancer - Marijuana
smoking also did not appear to increase the risk of head and
neck cancers, such as cancer of the tongue, mouth, throat, or
esophagus, the study found.

OF INTEREST : http://www.tvnewslies.org/news/#interest

· Mystery: Pilot Crashes While Pursuing UFO - In 1956, a
government film addressed this case, a case that'll never be
solved because Captain Thomas Mantell from Simpson County,
Kentucky, an experienced pilot and World WarII Ace, took the
answer to his grave.
__________________________________________________________________
Email the Oprah Winfrey today for a program to reopen 9/11!!
http://tvnewslies.org/html/9_11_truth_calling_oprah.html

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 11
From: "ranger116@webtv.net" ranger116@webtv.net
Date: Wed May 24, 2006 9:18am(PDT)
Subject: Pentagon Worried China Becoming Harder to Invade + Iraq Death List +

Pentagon Worried China Becoming Harder to Invade + Iraq Death List + +

``````````````````````````````````````````````
Only Al Gore can Stop Hillary !

Address:http://view.e.newsmax.com/?ffcb10-fe8c117377650c7472-fdf917717560027b72147670-ff2c1d70746d

``````````````````````````````````````````````
China military upgrades a potential threat to US: Says Pentagon

Pentagon says China has Modernized land and sea based access denial
capabilities !

    George and Rummy - Increased Access Denial Capabilities are
Not a threat to the U.S. Unless You Plan on INVADING THEM ?? !

Address:http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/05/23/060523172030.sh3ef6zc.html

``````````````````````````````````````````````
If you know of any U.S. Soldier that has died in Iraq check the
alphabetized list here and if their name is Not on it notify your
Representative and newspaper.

Address:http://www.freedomunderground.org/iraq_cas_ver.php
Pass it on !

``````````````````````````````````````````````
Zogby Poll: Over 70 Million American    Adults Support New 9/11
Investigation

Address:http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20060522/bs_prweb/prweb388743_4

``````````````````````````````````````````````
Army Ranger given order to kill innocent women and children in Iraq

Address:http://www.arcticbeacon.com/23-May-2006.html

``````````````````````````````````````````````
  Report Clears Air Marshals In MIA Shooting
  (what else would you expect the govt. to do with their govt. men
?)  
  Hasn't it gotten just about to the point that any govt. employee
can kill any civilian ?

Address:http://cbs4.com/topstories/local_story_143165009.html

``````````````````````````````````````````````
9-11 WTC Bush-Cheney Treason
Address:http://www.stewwebb.com/9-11WTCBushCheneyTreason.html

  2006Audio:http://www.stewwebb.com/National Anthem - French-Ma.mp3

``````````````````````````````````````````````
Oppose General Hayden For CIA Director
Address:http://www.usalone.com/impeachteam/pnum295.php

``````````````````````````````````````````````````
BREITBART.COM - ACLU Launching Don't Spy on Me Campaign

Address:http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/05/24/D8HQ4BTG0.html

 Join the American Civil Liberties Union
Don't spy on Me ! Campaign below

Address:http://www.aclu.org/

``````````````````````````````````````````````````
Help Us Pass H Res 635 to Create an Investigation into Grounds for
Impeachment | AfterDowningStreet.org

Address:http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/635

``````````````````````````````````````````````
Wal-Mart Watch | A Handshake With Sam
Address:http://walmartwatch.com/handshake

``````````````````````````````````````````````
  Car Traveling 175 MPH Crashes On I-75
Speeders don't mess around in Miami !

Address:http://www.nbc6.net/traffic/9261892/detail.html

``````````````````````````````````````````````

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 12
From: "President, USA Exile Govt." prez@usa-exile.org
Date: Wed May 24, 2006 9:49am(PDT)
Subject: A Day in the Life: 5/24/6

GOVERNMENT OF THE USA IN
EXILE
Free Americans
Reaching Out to Amerika's Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free
        
Via <prez@usa-exile.org>

May 24, 2006

Dear Friends and Colleagues,
We are lucky that James Casbolt is willing to risk his life to
bring us this important info.
Since the Fourth Reich's disinfo ops are compartmentalized,
Casbolt can quickly be forgiven for believing that Timothy Leary was a
CIA agent. There are indications that the dreaded US secret police got
control--one way or another--of Timothy's mind while they had him in
jail. So perhaps Timothy's behavior after his release is what has
misled Casbolt.
Also it's conceivable that the CIA provided early funding for one
or more of Timothy's LSD initiatives--but my recollection is that the
CIA financed its LSD research elsewhere. (McGill U in Canada?) By '98
all the secret organizations knew that LSD was not on their side, thus
the stuff sent to Casbolt would have been "laced" so the effects on
balance would be debilitating rather than liberating. (Cf., Casbolt's
description below of the MI6/CIA role in the creation of crack
cocaine.)
But it's much more likely that Casbolt has been misled by disinfo
emanating from another compartment than his--viz., the evil Tavistock
Institute, which circulated in the form of a leak from itself that it
had "scripted" not only Leary but also the Beatles and women's lib as
ways to suppress dissent.
This was a brilliant divide-and-conquer ploy. It gave the US Left
an excuse to remain complicitly silent while the Fourth Reich wiped out
the hippies' influence--sometimes viciously, sometimes quietly, subtly,
slyly. The US Left was grateful to have such a "good" excuse. After
all, hippies were twenty or thirty times more popular among young
people than they were.
The Fourth Reich felt much more threatened by hippies than by the
Left. For one thing, hippies had much more self-confidence than did
the Left--and such confidence of course is always dangerous to
oppressors. Also hippies wanted much more change than just the Left's
loyal-opposition "revolution". They wanted transformation (cf. Gary
Snyder's "transfer of prime human attention from objects to state of
mind"), which included almost all of what the Left wanted plus much
much more. Nothing could be more disdainful to the Fourth Reich than a
transfer of prime human attention from objects to states of mind! Thus
Snyder has maintained quite a low profile.
So the Leftists were allowed to continue their obedient little
academic and publishing careers but there was no analogous niche for
hippies within the hapless US economy--except outside the ludicrous
legal system in the form of distributing for profit certain
psychedelics and outlawed medicinal herbs.
Hippies--not Leftists as one might gather from reading Howard
Zinn's notions of history--were the cutting edge of the anti-war
movement from '67 till sometime in the early '70s (cf., David Lewis
Stein's LIVING THE REVOLUTION, Bobbs-Merrill, '69) and founded both the
back-to-the-land movement in '65 and the environmental movement in '69.
If Timothy had been a CIA asset, Harvard in its role as a Fourth
Reich front group (e.g., check out the background of its current
president) would NEVER have fired him!
Yours for all
species,
Keith Lampe,
Ro-Non-So-Te,
Ponderosa Pine
Transition Prez

PS: We should be especially grateful that Casbolt nails notorious
Clinton so convincingly, for it's tremendously important now that we
discredit the entire US fake two-party system--not just this or that
party within it.

------------------------------------------

(4) James Casbolt (former MI6 agent) -- drug trade is run by MI6,
Mossad, CIA
Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 15:20:56 -0700 From: "Dick Eastman"
<olfriend@nwinfo.net>

James Casbolt has risked his life to bring you this information.

MI6 Are The Lords Of The Global Drug Trade

By James Casbolt Former MI6 Agent

c. 2006 James Casbolt

http://z13.invisionfree.com/THE_UNHIVED_MIND/index.php?s=96b2c8027d16-
4e9d25b4bbd6b6a52973&showtopic=9854&view=getnewpost

5-20-6

It may be a revelation to many people that the global drug trade is
controlled and run by the intelligence agencies. In this global drug
trade British intelligence reigns supreme.

As intelligence insiders know MI5 and MI6 control many of the other
intelligence agencies in the world (CIA, MOSSAD etc) in a vast web of
intrigue and corruption that has its global power base in the city of
London, the square mile.

My name is James Casbolt and I worked for MI6 in 'black ops' cocaine
trafficking with the IRA and MOSSAD in London and Brighton between 1995
and 1999. My father Peter Casbolt was also MI6 and worked with the CIA
and mafia in Rome, trafficking cocaine into Britain.

My experience was that the distinctions of all these groups became
blurred until in the end we were all one international group working
together for the same goals. We were puppets who had our strings pulled
by global puppet masters based in the city of London..

Most levels of the intelligence agencies are not loyal to the people of
the country they are based in and see themselves as 'super national'.
It had been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the CIA has been
bringing in most of the drugs into America for the last fifty years
(see ex LAPD officer Michael Ruppert's 'From the Wilderness' website for
proof).

The CIA operates under orders from British intelligence and was created
by British intelligence in 1947. The CIA today is still loyal to the
international bankers based in the city of London and the global elite
aristocratic families like the Rothchilds and the Windsor's.

Since it was first started, MI6 has always brought drugs into Britain.
They do not bring 'some' of the drugs into Britain but I would estimate
MI6 bring in around ninety percent of the drugs in. They do this by
pulling the strings of many organised crime and terrorist groups and
these groups like the IRA are full of MI6 agents.

MI6 bring in heroin from the middle east, cocaine from south America
and cannabis from morocco as well as other places. British intelligence
also designed and created the drug LSD in the 1950's through places
like the Tavistock Institute in London. By the 1960's MI5, MI6 and the
CIA were using LSD as a weapon against the angry protestors of the
sixties and turned them into 'flower children' who were too tripped out
to organise a revolution.

Dr Timothy Leary the LSD guru of the sixties was a CIA puppet. Funds
and drugs for Leary's research came from the CIA and Leary says that
Cord Meyer, the CIA agent in charge of funding the sixties LSD counter
culture has "helped me to understand my political cultural role more
clearly".

In 1998, I was sent 3000 LSD doses on blotting paper by MI5 with
pictures of the European union flag on them. The MI5 man who sent them
told my father this was a government 'signature' and this LSD was
called 'Europa'.

This global drugs trade controlled by British intelligence is worth at
least £500 billion a year. This is more than the global oil trade and
the economy in Britain and America is totally dependent on this drug
money.

Mafia crime boss John Gotti exposed the situation when asked in court
if he was involved in drug trafficking. He replied"No we can't compete
with the government". I believe this was only a half truth because the
mafia and the CIA are the same group at the upper levels.

In Britain, the MI6 drug money is laundered through the Bank of
England, Barclays Bank and other household name companies. The drug
money is passed from account to account until its origins are lost in a
huge web of transactions. The drug money comes out 'cleaner' but not
totally clean.

Diamonds are then bought with this money from the corrupt diamond
business families like the Oppenheimers. These diamonds are then sold
and the drug money is clean. MI6 and the CIA are also responsible for
the crack cocaine epidemic in Britain and America.

In 1978, MI6 and the CIA were in South America researching the effects
of the natives smoking 'basuco' cocaine paste. This has the same effect
as crack cocaine. They saw that the strength and addiction potential
was far greater than ordinary cocaine and created crack cocaine from
the basuco formula. MI6 and the CIA then flooded Britain and America
with crack. Two years later, in 1980, Britain and America were starting
to see the first signs of the crack cocaine epidemic on the streets.

On august 23, 1987, in a rural community south of Little Rock in
America, two teenage boys named Kevin Ives and Don Henry were murdered
and dismembered after witnessing a CIA cocaine drop that was part of a
CIA drug trafficking operation based at a small airport in Mena,
Arkansas. Bill Clinton was the governor of Arkansas at the time.

Bill Clinton was involved with the CIA at this time and $100 million
worth of cocaine was coming through the Mena, Arkansas airport each
month. For proof see the books 'Compromise' and 'Dope Inc'.

On my father's international MI6 drug runs, whatever fell off the back
of the lorry so to speak he would keep and we would sell it in Britain.
As long as my father was meeting the speedboats from Morocco in the
Costa del Sol and then moving the lorry loads of cannabis through their
MI6, IRA lorry business into Britain every month, British intelligence
were happy. As long as my father was moving shipments of cocaine out of
Rome every month, MI5 and MI6 were happy. If my father kept a bit to
sell himself no one cared because there was enough drugs and money to
go round in this £500 billion a year global drugs trade.

The ones who were really paying were the people addicted. Who were
paying with suffering. But karma always catches up and both myself and
my father became addicted to heroin in later years and my father died
addicted, and poor in prison under very strange circumstances. Today, I
am clean and drug-free and wish to help stop the untold suffering this
global drugs trade causes.

The intelligence agencies have always used addictive drugs as a weapon
against the masses to bring in their long term plan for a one world
government, a one world police force designed to be NATO and a micro
chipped population known as the New World Order. As the population is
in a drug or alcohol-induced trance watching 'Coronation Street', the
new world order is being crept in behind them.

To properly expose this global intelligence run drugs trade we need to
expose the key players in this area

1- Tibor Rosenbaum, a MOSSAD agent and head of the Geneva based Banque
du Credit international. This bank was the forerunner to the notorious
Bank of Credit and Commerce international (BCCI) which is a major
intelligence drug money laundering bank.

'Life' magazine exposed Rosenbaum's bank as a money launderer for the
Meyer Lanksky American organised crime family and Tibor Rosenbaum
funded and supported 'Permindex' the MI6 assassination unit which was
at the heart of the John F. Kennedy assassination.

2- Robert Vesco, sponsored by the Swiss branch of the Rothchilds and
part of the American connection to the Medellin drug cartel in
Columbia.

3- Sir Francis de Guingand, former head of British intelligence, now
living in south Africa (and every head of MI5 and MI6 has been involved
in the drug world before and after him).

4- Henry Keswick, chairman of Jardine Matheson which is one of the
biggest drug trafficking operations in the world. His brother John
Keswick is chairman of the bank of England.

5- Sir Martin Wakefield Jacomb, Bank of England director from 1987 to
1995, Barclays Bank Deputy Chairman in 1985, Telegraph newspapers
director in 1986 ( This is the reason why this can of worms doesn't get
out in the mainstream media. The people who are perpetrating these
crimes control most of the mainstream media. In America former director
of the CIA William Casey is head of the council of the media network
ABC. Many insiders refer to ABC as 'The CIA network.)

6- George Bush, Snr, former President and former head of the CIA and
America's leading drug baron who has fronted more wars on drugs than
any other president. Which in reality is just a method to eliminate
competition. A whole book could be written on George Bush's involvement
in the global drug trade but it is well-covered in the book 'Dark
Alliance' by investigative journalist Gary Webb. Gary Webb was found
dead with two gunshot wounds to the back of his head with a revolver.
The case was declared a 'suicide'. You figure that out.

Gary Webb as well as myself and other investigators, found that much of
this 'black ops' drug money is being used to fund projects classified
above top secret. These projects include the building and maintaining
of deep level underground bases in Dulce in New Mexico, Pine gap in
Australia, Snowy mountains in Australia, The Nyala range in Africa,
west of Kindu in Africa, next to the Libyan border in Egypt, Mount
Blanc in Switzerland, Narvik in Scandinavia, Gottland island in Sweden
and many other places around the world (more about these underground
bases in my next issue).

The information on this global drugs trade run by the intelligence
agencies desperately needs to get out on a large scale. Any
information, comments or feedback to help me with my work would be
greatly welcomed.

James Casbolt- St Ives, Cornwall-19/5/06

E-mail-jamescasbolt@hotmail.co.uk

(5) Vietnamese Agent Orange victims sue Dow and Monsanto in US court

Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 07:10:30 +0800 From: "Max" <max@mailstar.net>

Vietnamese Agent Orange Victims Sue Dow and Monsanto in US Court

By Ngoc Nguyen and Aaron Glantz

From: Mark Selden [mailto:ms44@cornell.edu] Sent: Monday, May 22, 2006
16:58

http://japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=601

[The American war in Southeast Asia featured the most widespread use of
chemical warfare since World War I. Earlier, the British had resorted
to chemicals in their colonies, Italy did so in Ethiopia, and Japan in
China in the 1930s and 1940s. These were lethal chemicals where the
Americans thought theirs were not. Iraq in the 1980s made the
largest-scale known use of lethal chemical weapons in its Iran war and
against its Kurdish minority. But two elements distinguished the U.S.
effort in Vietnam. First, massive quantities of these chemicals were
used, as the below article makes clear. The amounts cited are
equivalent to roughly 60,000 tons of chemical agent. By comparison, in
the 1972 Christmas Bombing of North Vietnam, which some hold to be the
decisive air campaign of the war, and including both B-52 bombers and
tactical aircraft, the Nixon administration loosed some 36,000 tons of
munitions over Hanoi and its environs.

The Christmas Bombing of Hanoi

Second, the Americans resorted to chemicals with poorly understood
effects. The main defoliants utilized by the U.S. in the Vietnam War,
Agents Purple, Blue—and, best known—Agent Orange, contained ingredients
found to be carcinogenic in studies by the U.S. National Cancer
Institute in 1969 and subsequently banned from use in the United
States.

There were two main propagating methods for the defoliant chemicals
used in the Vietnam War. Operation Ranch Hand, which has garnered the
most attention, was an aerial spraying initiative begun on an
experimental basis in January 1962 and continued until January 7, 1971,
though in its last years on a greatly reduced basis. In 1967, its peak
year, Ranch Hand defoliated 1.2 million acres of land and dispensed 4.8
million gallons of chemicals. The other technique used vehicles and
manual dispensers to defoliate land surrounding military bases,
villages, and roads.

Aerial defoliation with Agent Orange

Manufacturers of these chemicals in the U.S. acknowledge no
responsibility, but reached an out-of-court settlement with American
veterans' groups as long ago as 1984, and the Veterans Administration
in the United States awards disability status for validated claims of
Agent Orange exposure. No doubt it is due to the huge liabilities that
might flow from a successful claim that the chemical companies have so
long resisted Vietnamese efforts to obtain similar redress. In the
article here, Ngoc Nguyen and Aaron Glantz show some of the personal
and societal consequences of the chemical war in Vietnam. ~John Prados]

ROK troops rally on behalf of claims for compensation for Agent Orange
exposure HANOI - Vietnam, which is bidding for World Trade Organization
membership and is already signatory to a trade deal with its former
nemesis in Washington, is still grappling with the huge social and
economic consequences of its military conflict with the United States
in the 1960s and 1970s.

The legacy of the United States' use of Agent Orange tops that list.
> From 1962 to 1971, the US military dumped an estimated 83 million
liters of highly toxic herbicides, including Agent Orange, mostly over
Vietnam but also Laos and Cambodia, in an attempt to flush out
jungle-covered guerrilla fighters. Agent Orange contained trace amounts
of dioxin, a toxic substance known to cause cancer in humans at high
doses.

A group of alleged Vietnamese victims are the first to seek legal
redress and compensation from the US companies, namely Dow Chemical and
Monsanto Corp, that then manufactured the chemical. In their complaint
filed in New York, they claimed the defoliant had caused widespread
birth defects, miscarriages, diabetes and cancer, and should be
considered a war crime against millions of Vietnamese. The chemical
companies, for their part, have maintained that no such scientific link
has ever been proved, and that the US government, not the companies,
should be held responsible for how the chemical was deployed.

A US judge this month threw out the case against the companies, ruling
that there was no legal basis for the alleged victims' claims. The
court had come under heavy lobbying from the US Justice Department to
rule against the plaintiffs, because of Washington's fears of the legal
precedent it would set in other countries ravaged by US military
interventions.

The Vietnamese veterans' association has appealed the ruling, and
hearings in that appeal are to commence next month.

The case is widely viewed as an important expression for Vietnam's
still small but increasingly assertive grassroots movements. In Hanoi,
an international conference this month examined the social impacts of
the wartime herbicide - a meeting that probably wouldn't have been
possible without government support just a few years ago. Until now,
research on the effects of the chemical has focused primarily on
science that proves a link between dioxin exposure and numerous
diseases.

The veterans' group points to thousands of documented cases of birth
defects. Consider the case of Nguyen Thi Thuy, who left her village
when she was 22 to help build roads for the North Vietnamese Army
during the war. She remembers crawling into tunnels during the day and
covering her mouth with a wet rag when the US military sprayed the
landscape with defoliant.

Sculpture by Vietnamese students of disabled child victims of Agent
Orange

''I didn't know what it was then, but it was white,'' she recalled.
''The sky and earth were scorched. The earth had lost all its greenery.
We didn't know it was Agent Orange at that time.''

Thuy returned home in 1975 and started a family. ''When my daughter was
born, everyone could see through her stomach,'' said Thuy. ''It was
like looking through translucent paper. You could see her intestines
and liver. She died several hours later.''

Thuy had two more children - one was normal and the other
developmentally disabled - but she would keep her guilt, shame and pain
to herself until 2002. At a gathering of female veterans of the Vietnam
War, she met others who had suffered miscarriages and had given birth
to malformed babies.

Thuy is one of the lucky ones. Most Vietnamese people exposed to Agent
Orange receive little or no specialized health care from the
government. Thuy is one of only a hundred victims receiving treatment
at Friendship Village, a clinic 20 kilometers outside Hanoi funded by
American and other foreign veterans of the war.

The Vietnamese government, which for decades publicly documented the
impact of Agent Orange on civilian populations at its War Crimes Museum
in Hanoi, recently toned down the exhibition in line with a warming
trend in relations with Washington.

War Crimes Museum, Hanoi

However, where the Vietnamese government has gone quiet, grassroots
movements are taking up the cause with renewed vigor. In 2004, the
Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange sued 36 US companies that
manufactured and supplied the defoliant during the war.

Thuy's story resembles many of the personal stories documented by
researchers at the Center for Gender, Family and Environment in
Development. The grassroots group is working to bring more and more
people's stories out of the war's shadow. ''Nowadays, people talk more
about Agent Orange, because we have the lawsuit,'' said Pham Kim Ngoc,
deputy director of the non-governmental group, which organized last
month's two-day conference.

Environmental scientist Vo Quy, a consultant on the lawsuit who
traveled to central and south Vietnam in 1970 and 1974 to study the
impacts of Agent Orange, said he found victims suffering silently. ''In
Vietnam, people with deformed children [fear] that neighbors [would]
believe the family did something immoral in order to have deformed
children - to have compassion for children, they didn't tell anyone,''
said Quy.

Quy continued: ''If they say their children were exposed to Agent
Orange, then the stigma will transfer to children and they would not be
able to get married, so they hid it. The government did not want to
publicize it, because the victims had suffered enough. If people knew
about Agent Orange-related illnesses, later the victims would suffer
more stigma and shame.''

Tran Thi Hoa served from 1973 to 1976 and spent one year in Laos. After
her service, she returned home, but never married. The 51-year-old
seamstress said she always thought about work and never thought about
finding a husband. Now, she's afraid she'll have no one to care for her
when her parents die.

''After I was discharged, I was healthy,'' recalled Hoa tearfully. ''It
wasn't until 27 years later that I started to get sick and my hands and
feet started to curl outward and shrivel up. Before, my hands and feet
were not like this. I was able to work, but now I can't. I can't even
take care of myself.''

As more Vietnamese become aware of the consequences of Agent Orange,
they are voicing their experiences and expressing their expectations
and needs through global channels.

Hoa said she'd like to receive compensation so she can hire an
attendant to take care of her for the rest of her life. Thuy,
meanwhile, wants to know who will take care of her disabled children
when she's gone. And there are tens of thousands of other questions
Vietnamese are just now finding the voice to ask their former US
adversaries.

This article appeared in Asia Times on March 20, 2006 and at Japan
Focus on May 16, 2006. Aaron Glantz is a reporter for Pacific Radio and
author of How America Lost Iraq.

John Prados is a senior analyst with the National Security Archive. His
recent books are Hoodwinked: The Documents that Show How Bush Sold Us a
War and Inside the Pentagon Papers.

(6) Stephen Roach: The win-win theory of globalization isn't working

Date: Tue, 23 May 2006 18:36:16 -0400 From: "David Chiang"
<sino.economics@verizon.net>

Global: A Tale of Two Asias

Stephen S. Roach (New York)

May 22, 2006
http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20060522-mon.html#anchor0

The China-India comparison is central to the Asia debate. It is also of
great importance to the rest of the world. In the end, it may not be
either/or. While the Chinese economy has outperformed India by a wide
margin over the past 15 years, there are no guarantees that past
performance is indicative of what lies ahead. Each of these dynamic
economies is now at a critical juncture in its development challenge —
facing the choice of whether to stay the course or alter the strategy.
The outcome of these choices has profound implications — not just for
the 40% of the world's population residing in China and India, but also
for future of Asia and the broader global economy.

As recently as 1991, China and India stood at similar levels of
economic development. Today, the Chinese standard of living is over
twice that of India's, with China's GDP per capita hitting US$1,700 in
2005 versus a little over $700 in India. The two nations have
approached the development challenge in very different ways. For China,
it's been a manufacturing-led growth strategy, whereas for India, it
has been much more of a services-based development model. While each
approach has its advantages and disadvantages, China's outstanding
performance in the development sweepstakes over the last 15 years makes
it a very tempting model for the rest of Asia to emulate.

The contrast between the two approaches is dramatic. The industry share
of Chinese GDP has gone from 42% to 47% over the past 15 years —
maintaining a huge gap over India's generally stagnant 28%
manufacturing portion over the same period. By contrast, the services
share of Indian GDP has risen from 41% in 1990 to 54% in 2005 — well in
excess of the lagging performance in Chinese services, which has gone
from 31% of GDP in 1990 to 40% in 2005. China's macro character fits
its manufacturing-led growth dynamic to a tee. Benefiting from a high
domestic saving rate, huge inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI),
and major efforts on the infrastructure front, Chinese economic growth
has been increasingly fuelled by exports and fixed investment.
Collectively, these two sectors now account for over 75% of China's GDP
— and are still growing at close to a 30% rate today.

India's macro story is the mirror image of China's in many key
respects. Constrained by a lower saving rate, limited inflows of FDI,
and a sorely neglected infrastructure, India has turned to a fragmented
services sector as the sustenance of economic growth. The
labour-intensive character of services has provided support to India's
newly emerging middle class — a key building block for India's
consumption-led recovery. As a result, private consumption currently
accounts for 61% of Indian GDP — far outstripping the 40% share in
China. The growth contribution of India's export and investment sectors
pales in comparison to that in China.

Interestingly enough, as both of developing Asia's largest economies
look to the future, they do so with an eye toward emulating the other.
China is now very focused on a rebalancing of its growth dynamic —
moving away from exports and investment more toward an Indian-style
consumer-led model. This is more by necessity than choice. A
continuation of the export surge is a recipe for protectionism, while
pushing an already excessive investment binge risks capacity overhangs
and deflation. At the same time, China also aspires to match India's
progress on reforms. India currently has over 25 world-class companies,
well-developed capital markets, a modern banking system, and a deeply
entrenched rule of law. China is lacking in all of those key respects,
and very much wants to move in those directions. China is also seeking
to implement an Indian-style expansion of labour-intensive services in
an effort to provide job and income support to its nascent consumer
sector. However, given the high degree of precautionary saving sparked
by massive layoffs arising from state-owned enterprise reforms, China
may well encounter considerable difficulty in establishing a
broad-based consumer culture.

At the same time, India very much aspires to match China's progress on
the manufacturing front. India's political leadership is convinced that
manufacturing is the answer to high unemployment in impoverished rural
areas. Whenever I go to India, I always have the same debate with its
politicians and policy makers. I take the side that the inherent
labour-saving bias of capital-intensive global manufacturing platforms
promises little hope for Indian employment. I have seen this first-hand
on my visits to Indian manufacturing companies — factory floors more
heavily populated by robots than by human workers.

India's leaders have a very different vision of manufacturing. They
have seen what China can do and genuinely hope to achieve a similar
outcome. Earlier this year, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, I
pressed senior Indian officials on the specifics of this strategy —
asking them to identify the potential sources of manufacturing-led job
creation. Their answer — food, textiles, and leather — potentially
high-volume industries that could well offer gainful employment
opportunities to relatively poor, under-educated, young rural workers.
By contrast, unlike the Chinese, the Indian leadership is not all that
enamoured of the job-creating potential of labour-intensive services.
In particular, they point out that IT-enabled services — the crown
jewel of India's "new economy" — mainly offers employment to the elite
graduates of India's prestigious institutions of higher education.

What comes out of this debate is that both China and India are at
important inflection points in their development experiences. They both
are very focused on broadening out their bases of economic support.
China wants to push more into services and establish a
consumption-based growth dynamic. India wants to enlarge its
manufacturing footprint by putting greater emphasis on infrastructure
and FDI. In both cases, the growth objectives are focused on solving a
very difficult rural unemployment and poverty problem. Moreover, in
China's case, there is the added complication of its daunting ownership
transition from a state- to a privately-owned economy.

All this is not without rising political tensions. Reflecting
understandable concerns over social stability that have arisen in both
China and India, the interplay between politics and economics is
clearly having an important influence on the execution of their
respective "broadening out" strategies. There are equally profound
questions for the rest of the world: If India is to services as China
is to manufacturing, what role does that leave for the high-cost
developed world? Down the road, if India also succeeds in pushing into
manufacturing while China makes successful forays into services, the
same question becomes all the more challenging to the world's major
industrial economies. Protectionism is the biggest risk in all this.
IT-enabled globalization is pushing economic development into both
manufacturing and services at a breakneck pace. Moreover, IT-enabled
connectivity has increasingly transformed once non-tradable services
into tradables — and has moved rapidly up the value chain and
occupational hierarchy in doing so. The result is a mounting sense of
economic insecurity in the developed world that has become a lightning
rod for political action that, unfortunately, has been manifested in
the form of an increasingly worrisome protectionist backlash.

This is not the experience that orthodox economics understands. The
win-win theory of globalization — workers in poor countries getting
rich through trade but then turning around and buying things made by
rich countries — just isn't working. That's because both the speed and
scope of an IT-enabled globalization has broken the mould of the
classic theory of comparative advantage. In days of yore, it was fine —
albeit painful — for rich countries to give up market share in tradable
manufactured products. That's because highly-educated knowledge workers
could seek refuge and shelter in nontradeable services. However, with
nontradables becoming tradable and with educational attainment and
skillsets rising rapidly in the developing world, the security of the
old way no longer exists. Sadly, that provides both the justification
and the opening for protectionists.

China and India represent the future of Asia — and quite possibly the
future for the global economy. Yet both economies now need to fine-tune
their development strategies by expanding their economic power bases.
If these mid-course corrections are well executed — and there is good
reason to believe that will be the case — China and India should play
an increasingly powerful role in driving the global growth dynamic for
years to come. With that role, however, comes equally important
consequences. IT-enabled globalization has introduced an unexpected
complication into the process — a time compression of economic
development that has caught the rich industrial world by surprise. Out
of that surprise comes a heightened sense of economic security that has
stoked an increasingly dangerous protectionist backlash. This could
well pose yet another major challenge to China and India — learning how
to live with the consequences of their successes.

-- Peter Myers, 381 Goodwood Rd, Childers 4660, Australia ph +61 7
41262296 http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers Mirror:
http://mailstar.net/index.html I use the old Mac OS; being
incompatible, it cannot run Windows viruses or transmit them to you. If
my mail does not arrive, or yours bounces, please ring me: this helps
beat sabotage. To unsubscribe, reply with "unsubscribe" in the subject
line; allow 1 day.

========================================================================
===============

From: Ecological Options Network <eon3@earthlink.net>
Date: May 23, 2006 10:17:33 PM EST
Subject: Bilderberg Elite to Meet in Canada

NOTE: Let's hope that these Bilderberg Backroom Boys/Girls choose not
to invade Venezuela or Bolivia this year. I suppose the best we can
hope for is that they merely keep funding their sleazy regional
autonomy movements in places laden with gas or oil. It's interesting
to notice how they've so perversely co-opted bioregionalism into
necroregionalism.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/bilderberg_to_meet_in_canada.html


Bilderberg to Meet in Canada

By James P. Tucker Jr.

The secretive group known as Bilderberg will hold its annual secret
meeting at the posh Brook Street Resort a few miles from Ottawa,
Canada, June 8-11.

The location and part of the agenda was disclosed to American Free
Press by a source inside Bilderberg’s inner circle.

High on the Bilderberg’s secret agenda this year are oil prices and the
political upheaval in Latin America. When meeting last year in
Rottach-Egern, Germany, Bilderberg called for dramatic increases in the
price of oil. Oil prices started climbing immediately from $40 a barrel
to $70.

Whether Bilderberg will call for still higher prices is unclear, but
Henry Kissinger and others had gleefully anticipated ultimate prices at
$150 a barrel a year ago. Bilderberg is certainly concerned about
supply, which is related to the “Latin American problem,” as one
insider said.

Approximately 120 international leaders in politics and finance will
also discuss the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has caused a rare
breach between American Bilderbergers and their European counterparts
since the United States Iraq invasion in 2003. Whether the United
States should invade Iran is also high on the agenda.

Bilderberg is especially concerned about Venezuela, where as part of a
plan to increase revenues from its petroleum industry President Hugo
Chavez said May 7 he would impose a new tax on companies that extract
oil from his country. Big Oil is represented at Bilderberg by Jeroen
van der Veer of The Netherlands, chairman of the Royal Dutch/Shell
Group and Franco Bernabe of Italy, vice chairman of Rothschild Europe,
among others. “We are going to create a new oil tax, called the tax on
extraction,” Chavez said. “The companies that are pumping oil in
Venezuela are making a lot of money.”

Chavez accused foreign oil companies of exploiting his country’s vast
petroleum reserves without paying sufficient taxes. Venezuela is the
world’s fifth-largest oil exporter but has troubled oil barons by
sending cheap petroleum to needy American families and subsidizing
domestic use so local citizens pay 12 cents a gallon.

Venezuela has voided oil-pumping contracts with private companies at 32
fields and replaced them with a mixed-company model that gave
Venezuela’s state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA a minimum 60 percent
stake. Chavez has also sharply raised royalties and taxes, and reduced
potential drilling acreage by almost two-thirds. He is also resisting
expansion of NAFTA throughout the hemisphere, a prime Bilderberg goal.

Chavez’s outspoken criticisms of the United States make it unlikely
that American Bilderbergers can help smooth over the supply problem.
However, banker David Rockefeller’s family has always had a heavy
interest in oil and other investments in South America.

President Bush will have a top White House aide representing him at
Bilderberg, and high officials of the state, defense and treasury
departments will attend. Heads of state and other high officials in
government and banking will attend from Europe and Canada.

Bilderberg’s agenda also includes the turmoil in the Middle East,
nuclear proliferation, with an emphasis on Iran, North Korea and
Pakistan, and global warming.

The Bilderberg group takes it name from the hotel in Holland where the
group met in 1954, during the earliest period of its inception.
Bilderbergers meet regularly, presumably on a once-a-year basis, at
various locations around the world, always in extreme secrecy, often at
resorts controlled by either the Rockefeller or Rothschild families.
The Rothschild family is the leading European force within the
Bilderberg Group, sharing its power with the American-based Rockefeller
empire.

Bilderberg maintains an extremely low profile and seldom, if ever,
publishes reports or studies for the public, at least, under its own
official aegis. Participants denied the groups very existence for
decades until it was forced into the open by the glare of media
publicity, generated largely by the now defunct Spotlight newspaper.

----------------------------------------------------------------
EON
the Ecological Options Network
"What's Working Where, Worldwide"
 www.eon3.net

========================================================================
===============

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/05/23/gore-movie-g/

Exxon-Backed Pundit Compares Gore to Nazi
Propagandist

Sterling Burnett is a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy
Analysis, an organization that has received over $390,000 from
ExxonMobil since 1998. This afternoon on Fox, Burnett compared watching
Al Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, to watching a movie by Nazi
propagandist Joseph Goebbels to learn about Nazi Germany. Watch it:

ExxonMobil doesn’t have a substantive answer to Gore’s movie, so it
bankrolls people like Burnett to smear Gore personally.

Dutifully, Burnett recently wrote an editorial defending former Exxon
CEO Lee Raymond’s lavish compensation (which amounted to $190,000 a day
in 2005). He failed to mention his financial connection to the company.

Transcript:

That’s the problem. If I thought Al Gore’s movie was as you like to
say, fair and balanced, I’d say, everyone should go see it. But why go
see propaganda? You don’t go see Joseph Goebbels’ films to see the
truth about Nazi Germany. You don’t go see Al Gore’s films to see the
truth about global warming.

Posted by Judd May 23, 2006 3:04 pm

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=================================================================

From: "Jacob G. Stansbury, Jr." <damor1@cox.net>
Date: May 23, 2006 3:02:47 PM EST
To: sallie441@fuse.net
Cc: "People's Attorney / Volks-Anwalt Wolfram "Gr�tz"
<Wolfram1@AaaHawk.com> Cc":
Subject: Web inventor warns of 'dark' net

Web inventor warns of 'dark' net
By Jonathan Fildes
BBC News science and technology reporter in Edinburgh

The web should remain neutral and resist attempts to fragment it into
different services, web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee has said.

Recent attempts in the US to try to charge for different levels of
online access web were not "part of the internet model," he said in
Edinburgh.

He warned that if the US decided to go ahead with a two-tier internet,
the network would enter "a dark period".

Sir Tim was speaking at the start of a conference on the future of the
web.

"What's very important from my point of view is that there is one web,"
he said.

"Anyone that tries to chop it into two will find that their piece looks
very boring."

An equal net

The British scientist developed the web in 1989 as an academic tool to
allow scientists to share data. Since then it has exploded into every
area of life.

However, as it has grown, there have been increasingly diverse opinions
on how it should evolve.

The World Wide Web Consortium, of which Sir Tim is the director,
believes in an open model.

This is based on the concept of network neutrality, where everyone has
the same level of access to the web and that all data moving around the
web is treated equally.

This view is backed by companies like Microsoft and Google, who have
called for legislation to be introduced to guarantee net neutrality.

The first steps towards this were taken last week when members of the
US House of Representatives introduced a net neutrality bill.

Pay model

But telecoms companies in the US do not agree. They would like to
implement a two-tier system, where data from companies or institutions
that can pay are given priority over those that cannot.

This has particularly become an issue with the transmission of TV shows
over the internet, with some broadband providers wanting to charge
content providers to carry the data.

The internet community believes this threatens the open model of the
internet as broadband providers will become gatekeepers to the web's
content.

Providers that can pay will be able to get a commercial advantage over
those that cannot.

There is a fear that institutions like universities and charities would
also suffer.

The web community is also worried that any charges would be passed on
to the consumer.

Optimism

Sir Tim said this was "not the internet model". The "right" model, as
exists at the moment, was that any content provider could pay for a
connection to the internet and could then put any content on to the web
with no discrimination.

Speaking to reporters in Edinburgh at the WWW2006 conference, he argued
this was where the great benefit of the internet lay.

"You get this tremendous serendipity where I can search the internet
and come across a site that I did not set out to look for," he said.

A two-tier system would mean that people would only have full access to
those portions of the internet that they paid for and that some
companies would be given priority over others.

But Sir Tim was optimistic that the internet would resist attempts to
fragment.

"I think it is one and will remain as one," he said.

The WWW2006 conference will run until Friday at the International
Conference Centre in Edinburgh.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/5009250.stm
Published: 2006/05/23 14:12:40 GMT

========================================================================
================================================
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 13
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Wed May 24, 2006 10:39am(PDT)
Subject: Neo-con Zionist op -- inside-job mass murder at the Pentagon

Here are a few added points by Ted Twietmeyer answering National Geographic (a CIA front)

http://www.rense.com/general71/hihg.htm

The above hits only a few lines of evidence. Here are more established facts of the false-flag attack:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

And there is more,

Dick Eastman
223 S. 64th Ave.
Yakima, Washington
Every man is responsible to every other man.

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 14
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Wed May 24, 2006 11:02am(PDT)
Subject: Fw: Using the Nation's military against it's people -- It has begu

From: "J. Austin" <dogbonz@shoreline-wireless.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 9:28 AM
Subject: Using the Nation's military against it's people

It has begun in earnest.

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/36593/

Inside Donnie Rumsfeld's Orwellian Pentagon

By Jim Hightower

(excerpt)

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al. ... are deliberately and determinedly striving to impose the AntiAmerica on our own land -- an unrecognizable America of supreme executive authority, constant surveillance of the citizenry, secret government and suppression of dissent. Their chief weapon is fear. They feverishly wave the bloody flag of 9/11, shouting that the citizenry must surrender liberties or be attacked again by The Madmen, that we mustn't question authority for this only encourages The Madmen, that all government operations must be cloaked in a dark veil of secrecy to keep The Madmen off balance, and that executive and police power must drastically expand to protect us from The Madmen.

While claiming that they must "secure" America for a post-9/11 world, the BushCheney zealots are taking us back to a pre-1776 world. They have been astonishingly successful in a remarkably short time, insidiously taking autocratic step after step, which a compliant Congress and the establishment media have mostly missed, ignored, minimalized or applauded. These two "institutions of vigilance" have failed us. So it is up to "We The People" to assert ourselves against this dangerous rise of authoritarianism in Bush's America.

The spook society

"You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you have to concentrate on," George W said with a laugh at Washington's Gridiron dinner in 2001.

If only we'd known then that behind George's snickers, the Bushites were serious. Employing a combination of deceit, defiance, arrogance, flag-waving and secrecy, they have fooled a majority of Congress and the media into accepting the overlay of a "spook society" on our "Land of the Free." The far-reaching extent of their efforts are only now becoming clear.

Last month's installment covered Bush's secret and blatantly illegal directive for the National Security Agency to spy on citizens here at home. This clandestine four-year program of executive eavesdropping -- scooping up billions of phone calls and emails sent or received by innocent Americans -- has now been getting wide media coverage. But to focus only on this one piece is to miss the more startling reality: the quiet installation inside our country of a massive snoopervision complex, much of it initiated, funded and controlled by Donnie Rumsfeld's Orwellian Pentagon.

Since the founding of America, a central tenet of our liberty has been that the military is not to be turned on our own people. Violations of this guiding rule have occurred in the past, but rarely and only temporarily, and when it's been violated, public outcry has forced the reinstatement of the rule.

Bush & Co., however, has not only turned loose the military to spy extensively on the American people, but has also asserted the right to do so in perpetuity. Its claim is that 9/11 turned the homeland into a foreign battlefield, so the nation's historic prohibition against military surveillance of Americans is null and void. And since this war on terrorists has no end ("the long war," Rumsfeld calls it), the Bushites maintain that the Pentagon can engage in domestic spying ad infinitum.

This military intrusion into our privacy has come with a heavy dose of linguistic perversions by top officials. For example, a secret Pentagon memo from Nov. 5, 2001, has now surfaced. In it, the Army's chief intelligence officer insists that while the Pentagon cannot "collect" information on citizens who have no connection to foreign terrorists, it can "receive" such information. "Remember," he wrote with Machiavellian delight, "merely receiving information does not constitute 'collection' . [Military intelligence] may receive information from anyone, anytime."

Meanwhile, the ever-sneaky Bushites have quietly been pushing legislation that would compel the FBI and other police agencies to give information that they collect on you and me to the Pentagon, as long as the info is somehow "related" to a foreign intelligence investigation. This does not mean that, to spy on you, the snoops must have cause to think that you are in any way tied to terrorism, but only that they claim their investigation to be vaguely related to some foreign matter -- a catchall that sweeps up war protestors, for example.

The legislation has yet to pass, but intelligence watchdogs say that Bush has already implemented it by fiat -- Executive Order 13388 appears to authorize the Pentagon to access domestic intelligence files. Also, the military has already created a robust collection system of its own. A new Northern Command, established in Colorado in 2001 to monitor Americans, now employs more intelligence analysts than does the Homeland Security Department. Also, the Marines launched an operation under a 2004 executive order for the "collection, retention and dissemination of information concerning U.S. persons," noting that the corps will be "increasingly required to perform domestic missions." And, during the past five years, each of the service branches has created its own domestic snooping enterprises. As Sen. Ron Wyden complained last year, "We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [public] hearing."

TOTAL INFORMATION AWARENESS. A nightmare right out of 1984, complete with the ominous, all-seeing name it was given, TIA was the ugly spawn of John Poindexter, the convicted master schemer behind the Iran-Contra scandal in Reagan's White House. George W and

Rummy had snuck him back into the government in 2001, ensconcing him deep inside the Pentagon, where he ran a team to develop TIA's unprecedented and voracious ability to grab every speck of private data on Americans from every public and corporate data bank. The plan was to put it all in a Pentagon supercomputer and mine it to build files on anyone the authorities might deem suspicious.

Luckily, a couple of years ago, this massive invasive madness came to light. The public howled so loudly that Congress rose up and demanded that the program be terminated, and Poindexter was forced to slink away.

But wait -- who's that guy in the shadows, and what's he doing? He's Brian Sharkey, Poindexter's close pal who was a key player in the creation of TIA. He now heads a firm that's been getting government contracts to keep pursuing TIA's shadowy projects. In an internal email to TIA's subcontractors, Sharkey gleefully announced: "Fortunately, a new sponsor has come forward that will enable us to continue much of our previous work." He added that the TIA effort would henceforth go by the cryptic code name of "Basketball."

The new "sponsor" of this hoops game is a highly classified outfit called Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA) that is housed inside NSA (yes, the very agency that's been running George W's illegal domestic spying program). In a February public hearing, Sen. Wyden asked Bush's director of national security and the head of the FBI a direct question: "We want to know if Mr. Poindexter's programs are going on somewhere else." We don't know, replied our nation's top two snoops. When a reporter asked an NSA spokesman whether TIA had been moved to ARDA, he clammed shut: "We can neither confirm nor deny actual or alleged projects." ARDA itself is now being moved to the national intelligence agency and given a new name: "Disruptive Technology Office." It's hard to follow all of the trick passes of "Basketball," but the bottom line is that TIA was halted in name only, having been stealthily slipped into another agency that has been moved and had its own name changed.

SALUTE YOUR BIG BROTHER. Three years ago, the Pentagon set up a new, ultrasecret agency called CIFA, for Counterintelligence Field Activity. Its initial task was to detect terrorist plots against military installations in the United States, but two years ago, a directive from the Pentagon's top ranks ordered CIFA to broaden its scope by creating and maintaining "a domestic law enforcement database." The agency's motto became "Counterintelligence to the Edge."

In May 2003, Rumsfeld's top deputy, "Howling Paul" Wolfowitz, authorized a new snooping operation code-named TALON (Threat And Local Observation Notice). It directed military officers throughout the country to collect raw information about suspicious activities by local people and to feed reports on them into

CIFA's humming computers. In its first year alone, TALON's far-flung network of military snoops fed more than 5,000 "local activity" reports into the electronic maw of CIFA.

Nearly everything about CIFA, including its budget, is kept secret, but it is known that the agency has generously spread its budgetary wealth to Pentagon contractors. Northrop Grumman, for example, received funds to develop a CIFA database dubbed "PersonSearch," and Computer Sciences Corp. got a grant for an electronic system to detect and monitor people's "abnormal activities and behaviors." You might say, OK, Hightower, but surely these fine public servants and civic-minded corporations are merely protecting us homelanders by watching known terrorist types with Arab-sounding names and Muslim affiliations. Right?

Uh-uh. Forget about merely needing to defend the rights of Arab-Americans -- the Pentagon is invading everyone's liberties. You could ask these folks:

In October 2004, the Broward County Anti-War Coalition was discovered by the ever-alert snoops to be planning a demonstration outside a military recruitment office. The group ended up in the CIFA database, even though the only crime of the 15-20 members who protested was to wave a giant sign proclaiming, "Bush Lied."

In 2004, George Main, head of the Sacramento chapter of Vietnam Veterans for Peace, had organized a small Veterans Day protest in front of a military office. Not only did he and his VVP buddies end up with their names in a TALON report, but he also got a call from his government the night before the protest, pointedly suggesting that he was a threat to national security. "It was very intimidating to have a special agent call out of the ether," George says.

About 10 peace activists who showed up outside Halliburton's Houston headquarters in June 2004 also were reported to CIFA by a TALON team. Why would Halliburton warrant coverage under a program supposedly designed to stave off attacks on military installations? Pentagon officials say that its "force protection" mission now includes its private contractors.

These intrusions into perfectly legitimate First Amendment activities are not isolated mess-ups by a few overzealous military officers. Even the Pentagon concedes that thousands of TALON reports have been filed on totally innocent, nonthreatening civilians and are retained in CIFA's computer banks.

DATA MINING. The Pentagon is hardly alone in rummaging through America's vast array of computerized records -- collecting, crosschecking, storing, analyzing and monitoring trillions of bits of our personal data, from our credit card transactions and our phone calls to every single internet search we've ever made. The Government Accountability Office reports that 52 federal agencies now operate nearly 200 of these data-mining

programs, building files on anyone that the computers and bureaucrats deem the least bit suspicious. As one privacy expert puts it, "We have lists that are having baby lists at this point. They're spawning faster than rabbits."

The irony is that this mass invasion of our privacy does nothing to make Americans safer. Internet security expert Bruce Schneier points out that these data-mining systems are "so flooded with false alarms" that they're "useless," forcing agents to waste money and time chasing after thousands of innocent people.

POLITICAL ENEMIES. Dick Nixon must be grinning in his grave, for the FBI is now reprising the abusive role it played in tracking down Tricky Dick's infamous enemies list. The FBI's own "terrorist" files show that the agency has again been spying on such nonthreats as peaceful demonstrators at the 2004 political conventions, while also maintaining a "Terrorist Watch" list that includes such groups as "Food Not Bombs," a volunteer group that serves vegetarian meals to homeless people.

Also, in 2002, the FBI's Pittsburgh office spied on a group of "terrorists" operating in a "cell" called the Thomas Merton Center for Peace and Justice. An agency memo warned that the center "holds daily leaflet distribution activities in downtown Pittsburgh." The memo notes that the Merton Center "is a left-wing organization advocating, among many political causes, pacifism."

Pacifism! Holy J. Edgar Hoover! Forget about terrorists attacks -- there are pacifists passing out leaflets in Pittsburgh!

SECRET SERVICE. Speaking of disruptive, the newly extended Patriot Act creates a new class of federal felon: the disruptor.

This chilling provision, tucked into the bill in January without a hearing or debate, authorizes the Secret Service "to charge suspects with breaching security or disruptive behavior at National Special Security Events." What is NSSE? An event where the president or other protected official "will be temporarily visiting," such as a public speech, a political rally, an inauguration ball, the Olympics, the Super Bowl or any other event designated by the Secret Service as being of "national significance."

We've seen that simply wearing an anti-Bush T-shirt or having a pro-Democrat bumper sticker is enough to get you branded a disruptor, bounced from a Bush event and thrown in jail. But this provision broadens the reach of Bush's exclusion zones, sanctions the lockdown on free speech and assembly rights, and turns what was a trespassing misdemeanor into a felony. Also, you can be considered a disruptor even if the VIP has not arrived at the NSSE or has already left. Under this provision, not only is the public official protected from "disruptors," but also the NSSE itself becomes the protectee, criminalizing free speech at public events.

UnAmerican

There are a thousand other cuts that the Bushites are making to America's Bill of Rights, the rule of law and separation of powers. Theirs has become, for example, the most secret government in our history, spending billions of tax dollars a year to classify millions of even mundane documents, issuing executive fiats to deny "We The People" access to crucial public information under right-to-know laws, and trying to make it a federal crime not only to leak internal executive information (unless, of course, the White House does the leaking), but also to receive any leaked info.

The Bushites have made unprecedented efforts to silence scientists and dissenters within government. This administration has also launched a sweeping array of "citizen watch" programs with names like Coastal Beacon, CAT Eyes and Eagle Eyes, enlisting individuals and groups to spy on neighbors and report even the most unsubstantiated gossip to authorities. The eerie slogan of these watch programs is "Be our eyes and ears so we can calm your fears."

Using its never-ending war as a bugaboo, the BushCheney regime is asserting that it is entitled to operate as a military presidency. The Madmen hate our freedoms, the Bushites screech, so in order to defeat The Madmen, our freedoms must be suspended . for as long as it takes. Not only is that grotesquely absurd, it is entirely un-American.

From The Hightower Lowdown, edited by Jim Hightower and Phillip Frazer, May 2006.

Jim Hightower is the author of "Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush" (Viking Press). He publishes the monthly Hightower Lowdown; for more information about Jim, visit jimhightower.com.

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