Scientists: "Large Hadron Collider probably won't swallow the Earth, says new analysis"

The collider "probably" won't destroy the planet.

How very reassuring!

For more critical information on the LHC, please see also these articles:

The Real Meaning of the Term "Stargate" and its Tie-In With CERN (Creating a Black Hole?) & E=mc2: Ultimate Truths, Part III

and

Ultimate Truths, Part XI: Did "OTHERS" Disengage CERN’s Copious Production of Black Holes & (Temporarily) Stop The Stargate?

John Yoo-- Loathsome Fuckwad and Evil Fucktard

He's a potent combination of idiocy, psychopathy and immorality:

...in a Thursday editorial published by the Wall Street Journal, John Yoo, the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, explained that the Bush administration's torture programs, for which he co-authored the legal justifications, were initially designed to outwit crafty defense attorneys.
(snip)

His opinion seems to be that suspected terrorists should be given no rights, and the government should not be burdened with needing to provide legitimate evidence against the accused.

"Zacarias Moussaoui, the only member of the 9/11 cell arrested before the attack, turned his trial into a circus by making such demands," his screed against the American justice system concludes. "He was convicted after four years of pretrial wrangling only because he chose to plead guilty. Expect more of this, but with far more valuable intelligence at stake."

This, coming from the man who once refused to say whether, under his definition of executive power, the president could order a man buried alive.

Speaking with a reporter, Yoo also agreed with an analysis of executive power which posited the hypothetical situation in which Bush might order a boy's testicles "crushed" in order to affect a response from his parents.

On the legality of such an order, Yoo said, "I think it depends on why the president thinks he needs to do that."

Underground Explosion (?) and Related Thoughts

Watch at 20 seconds in-- the way smoke juts up next to the bridge:

The New Video of Falling Molten Material: Second Thoughts

by The Anonymous Physicist

The above video and the close-up of the molten debris shown here require careful analysis. Now its original poster may be correct, via its title, about molten material hitting the ground and then causing a great upward explosion of steam-like substance, after it hits the ground. Note I am not saying the material isn't molten as nukes would have definitely sent some molten material flying out.

But there appears to be another possibility. I say this because the video does not allow for the previous scenario to be definitive. The timing seems to be off. That is, the massive upward steam-like explosion seems to commence BEFORE the alleged molten material hits the ground. Thus another possibility is that we are seeing a massive upward steam-like explosion from a massive underground explosion, and not from the falling molten material which may not have hit the ground before the steam-like explosion seen. The great over-pressure from a nuclear explosion would try to find a way out, and the timing (recall all the helicopters and planes over-flying) for setting off the underground nuke by the perps may have been just a bit off.

Now my articles on the nuking of the WTC hypothesized that a final “cleaner” (ground, or below) nuke was employed to vaporize any remaining structure—else the gravitational collapse “theory” would look bad. See here: http://wtcdemolition.blogspot.com/2007/05/wtc-nuke-thesis-from-anonymous.html The vaporization of much of the inside of the towers via nukes could well leave some structure because most of the innards were vaporized and some remaining steel structure doesn’t matter. I wrote that it matters more for those trying to claim the OCT of TOTAL gravitational pancaking. So I hypothesized that a final cleaner nuke was mandated to remove just such remaining structure. I also indicated that the so-called nuclear glow, which had the MSM panning AWAY FROM that which they were supposedly trying to show, could have been the glow from this "cleaner" nuke, as the tower was no longer extant.

Could this new video be revealing the release of the massive pressure from such an underground nuke? Further, trying to claim this video for evidence of molten dropping material could be part of the thermite hangout.

See more at http://wtcdemolition.blogspot.com

1000 Pounds of Thermite Can Barely Melt the Sheet Metal Roof of an SUV

Granted, this isn't super-nano-thermite or whatever Jones claims was used, but still-- this is a lot of thermite to give a minor effect on thin sheet metal.

White Hot Debris During South Tower Demolition-- On the Other Side

Note, there was some molten stuff coming out of the tower on the northeast corner right before it went down-- this is on the west side. This is more evidence of extreme heat inside during the demolition and thus nukes:

Screen shot of the falling molten debris:

Ooooh! Another Ginned Up Video Fakery Controversy!

Some dude has found a new version of the Chopper 5 footage, which now shows a moving, blurry blob that is supposed to be the plane.

My sense is the blob is the wrong shape and/or too big-- but there is something in the right place, that can be seen moving. It's circled here:


(click to enlarge, from here.)

This blob was not clearly in the earlier version of the video (as explained by Ace Baker in the link above)-- so possibly this "plane" was added in by troublemakers.

Fakery or not with this Chopper 5 video, this new finding does nothing to alter the fact that videos showing the plane gliding seamlessly into the tower have multiple anomalies that can only be explained by digital fakery.

See here and here, for instance. If anyone still cares, that is.

Deep Thought of the Day

I still can't believe Eric Salter thinks that UA175 broke effortlessly through the heavy steel outer columns of the South tower, only to break apart on the gypsum board in the core of the tower.

Gypsum is another name for plaster drywall.

What a no-planes-denying buffoon.

UN crime chief: Was the bailout the largest drug money laundering operation in history?

Some interesting and reasonably convincing conspiracy theorizing. Needless to say, I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case.

New Fairbanks Footage

He sure looks different now-- aged a lot? Anyway, this new footage gives more context to his weird shot perspective.


Related:

NSA Carefully Tracked the 9/11 Patsies

Yet another very limited hangout in a long string of very limited 9/11 hangouts.

Proof That AA77 Crashed Into the Pentagon!

via.

Related question-- why exactly is it that so much fuselage debris was found around the Pentagon (ostensibly blown out from the "entry hole"), yet none was found around the WTC?

And I'm still waiting to hear what happened to those massive tail structures at both the WTC and Pentagon sites.

Question of the Day

Does anyone out there still need proof that no Boeing 767 hit WTC2 and that the videos are fake?

9/11 Plane Witnesses Evan Fairbanks and Sean Murtaugh-- Next Door Neighbors!

Fancy that. Sean Murtaugh was a CNN VP in 2001 and gave an eyewitness account of the first plane. Fairbanks of course took credit for some infamous fake footage of the 2nd hit.

Word of the Day

INFLAMMASOME

The First Step in Fixing the US Is Getting Out of Iraq and Especially Afghanistan

Unfortunately, we're probably fucked, given all signs from the Obama Admin:

What Has the 9/11 Truth Movement Accomplished?

Bush Jr. is gone and many of the lies have gone with him. Along with his cronies certain things also need to change or be gone. The main one that I can think of over the last 7 years is the supposed "truth movement". What has the truth movement done since 911? What has it accomplished? What has the truth done at all?

Yeah-- it's pretty easy to mock the 9/11 truth movement. They are quite the dysfunctional group.

BUT-- I think they HAVE DONE A LOT MORE than people give them credit for.

First of all, it was never a realistic goal to have the 9/11 conspiracy unmasked by the mainstream media due to the work of amateur researchers. It was never a realistic goal to expect the pols in DC to embrace 9/11 truth.

What the movement has done however, is made an amazingly strong case that 9/11 was an inside job, and they have spread this message in every possible way.

The truth movement-- the HONEST people in the truth movement, can't help that most people are in denial, in apathetic and are ignorant. The honest people in the truth movement can't help that the media and government is massively corrupt, and that intel agents have infiltrated them.

I say the truth has done the best they could do, and honest people will continue to spread the truth-- and that more and more people over time will realize what a cruel hoax 9/11 was.

And fuck-- FUCK- the fucking shills. Motherfuckers.

Stone's "JFK"

I just finished watching this movie, after only seeing once before in the theater, back when it came out in late 1991.

It's classic, iconic material, based on the obsession of New Orleans DA Jim Garrison to bring the JFK assassination conspirators to justice.

What's most noteworthy is how so many themes, and lines in JFK echo with the themes of 9/11 conspiracies-- the overlap is quite stunning. An example is the growing obsession of Garrison, having seen the truth, while others don't see it. He has trouble even trying to convince even his wife of the importance of this, and once he goes public with the trial, is of course mocked by the media.

This film is highly recommended. Even if Stone doesn't quite get to the Ultimate Truth of what happened to Kennedy* (basically going heavy after the grassy knoll theory), it's really worth a watch. It's long (206 minutes for the director's cut), but quite captivating.

*Interestingly, the bits of the Zapruder film that were shown must have been carefully cropped or even altered, as there is no hint of the driver turning around at the time of the fatal shot.

The New World Order

The problem I always had with the New World Order was-- what was the freaking point? Why go through so much trouble to create a one-world government? It couldn't just be about killing people-- as humanity has always been good at killing people, without a New World Order.

But still, there is no denying that there is some conspiratorial truth to the New World Order.

So, why would we need a New World Order?

I think the best explanation is the one put forth by the Anonymous Physicist: the "New World Order" is ultimately about our evil alien creators, trying to escape the quarantine put on this planet by other alien races.

Sounds crazy, I know, but it's the best explanation that I know of for the evil history of humanity.

Silly Brits

Very amusing piece on odd English place names.

Though my all time favorite funny placename is Dildo, Newfoundland, in Canada.

And So It Goes

First Pakistan drone strike under Obama kills (at least) 10.

Add Wall Street Bankers to My List of Criminal Entities in This Country

Fuckin' a:

I knew that Merrill had given out a lot of big bonuses after the TARP money started flowing. But I'd thought of it as more of an optics issue rather than somewhere where a significant amount of government money had been spent. But now it turns out that in December Merrill (which was then in the process of being taken over by B of A) apparently gave out between $3 and $4 billion in bonuses. Billion.

Even more amazing, last fall CEO John Thain and the folks at Merrill got the bright idea that the distress mortgage market had "bottomed out", and that it was time to buy, which they then apparently proceeded to do.

Not sure, ultimately who has done more damage to the country-- the criminal media, the criminal bankers, the criminal defense department, the criminal intel agencies or the criminal politicians. They all work together so well.

Note the media's role in ignoring the growing economic crisis, much like they ignored Bushco's lies in the run-up to the Iraq war. Another sign of the media's criminality, is how they love to rationalize torture.

In Case You Were Thinking the Right-Wing Couldn't Get Any More Idiotic...

you were wrong:

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Fox News Fear Imbalance

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

UPDATE: What's kind of funny is that after the 2004 election I analogized Bush being in power to submitting to homosexual rape, a la Limbaugh talking about bending over for Obama. But in contrast to Limbaugh, I still hoped Bush would do what was best for the country and that he would succeed. Ultimately, Bush clearly failed the country.

Propaganda You Can Take to the Bank

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

The militant, Said Ali al-Shihri, is suspected of involvement in a deadly bombing of the United States Embassy in Yemen’s capital, Sana, in September. He was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and passed through a Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists before resurfacing with Al Qaeda in Yemen.

His status was announced in an Internet statement by the militant group and was confirmed by an American counterterrorism official.

“They’re one and the same guy,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity because he was discussing an intelligence analysis. “He returned to Saudi Arabia in 2007, but his movements to Yemen remain unclear.”

Yeah-- because if there's anyone you can trust, it's an anonymous intelligence official putting out a line on al-CIA-duh!

Meanwhile, prepare for a right-wing freakout:

The documents state that Mr. Shihri met with a group of “extremists” in Iran and helped them get into Afghanistan. They also say he was accused of trying to arrange the assassination of a writer, in accordance with a fatwa, or religious order, issued by an extremist cleric.

But if we assume that this guy is a real extremist, it's most likely that his imprisonment in "GITMO" made him more of an extremist than he otherwise would have been-- he may well have even gotten special "training" to be a terrorist there.

UPDATE: More evidence that released GITMO prisoners becoming terrorists is propaganda.

David Shayler, Timothy Leary, and Intel Agencies

Interesting piece from "Spark of Life".

Unfortunately, Spark of Life also subscribes to a nonsensical, evidence-free exotic energy weapon theory for destruction of the WTC on 9/11.

Time for a New Push on 9/11 Evidence?

Washington, D.C., January 21, 2009 - On his first full day in office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order and two presidential memoranda heralding what he called a "new era of openness." Announcing a Presidential Memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act to reestablish a presumption of disclosure for information requested under FOIA, President Obama said that "every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known."

We're still waiting for that high-quality footage of the WTC 2nd hit and for convincing evidence that real planes crashed anywhere on 9/11-- like significant plane debris. There should be a lot more photos and video of plane debris if the planes were real. High-quality footage of the demise of the three WTC towers would be nice too.

Get those FOIA requests in, people!

Other encouraging developments (relatively)-- Obama Issues Directive to Shut Down Guantánamo; Blair Pledges New Approach to Counterterrorism

Nazi Doctor Mengele Had Advanced Medical Techniques

Produced an extremely high rate of twins in a Brazilian town. How did he do it? It's not even clear to me that doctors today could produce twins like this. Was there artificial insemination or some other technique used? Even artificial insemination (with semen) wouldn't produce identical twins-- it would have to be in vitro fertilization where the embryo was specially treated before implantation. There's also evidence that Mengele had special animal knowledge too. How could he have possibly done this alone? Who helped him?

NSA Spies on Everyone and Everything

Not really surprising, but still good to have a whistleblower say this:

Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA's warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists.

"The National Security Agency had access to all Americans' communications -- faxes, phone calls, and their computer communications," Tice claimed. "It didn't matter whether you were in Kansas, in the middle of the country, and you never made foreign communications at all. They monitored all communications."

Bush Administration War Criminals

I started the Bush Administration War Criminals blog three years ago. At the time, I thought it was risque, even verboten. Now the topic is surprisingly mainstream!

Thousands of Lives Ruined-- Where Is the Shame and Outrage from Those Who Did This?

Bodies continued to be pulled from the rubble that used to be the cities of the Gaza Strip today, and the death toll in Israel’s 22-day way has now passed 1,400. 5,500 others were also wounded. In addition, two children in Gaza City were killed when they found an unexploded shell from the conflict.

Sadly, the US has been doing similar things to Iraq for over five years as Israel has done to Gaza, and there is only the dimmest sense in this country of the horror and pain we've caused.

Possibly the Most Intimate Piano Piece Ever Written

Brahms Opus 10, number 4 (played by Glenn Gould):


Playing this piece this morning gave me the most intensely sensual feeling...... wow.

Last of the Great White Males

I wonder if Bush will be the last white male President of the US? You what they say-- once you go black, you never go back!

The Problem with Bush Was That

...he was too much of an asshole to realize what an asshole he was
...he was too much of a psychopath to realize what a psycopath he was
...he was too dumb to realize how dumb he was

...but even more than that-- we had a media and a political system that let him get away with it.

I suspect this is now changed somewhat, though I bet now our criminal media will suddenly hold Obama more responsible for everything than they ever did for Bush.

More Important Than the Change in Presidents

are the plans of the secret government, and the plans of the ultimate Powers That Be.

Peter Dale Scott has written a good essay on the secret government. Anonymous Physicist has of course told of the plans of the ultimate Powers That Be.

Of course, I'd be thrilled if Obama showed some real independence from these nasty entities, but I'm not optimistic so far.

Buh Bye, Bush

Good riddance....Don't let the door hit you on the way out.... I would prefer to see you in jail, but I suppose I could settle for never having to listen to you again-- you lying war-criminal PUNK.

WORST PRESIDENT EVER!!! ... and may Republicans be forever tainted for propping up this disgrace of a human being.

Common Sense on Bailing Out the Banks

The story from ... the Bush Administration — that SOME banks can’t be allowed to go bankrupt — does NOT stand up to scrutiny. The government should be using taxpayers money to create an Alternative bank to loan to US businesses in order to REPLACE – not preserve — the institutions whose stupidity/corruption/irresponsibility caused this mess. Any GS13 could run a bank far better than our Titans of Wall Street. Plus there are a number of banks which still have good credit ratings.

3) The economy is going to crash because the politicians are wasting $Trillions of our dollars on paying off gambling debts — instead of using limited capital to fund real businessmen who make real products that we need to live.

Related-- "Wall Street Voodoo", Paul Krugman.

Totally Awesome Success for Israel

Awesome job of one-sided destruction:

More than 1,300 Palestinians killed
Thirteen Israeli deaths
More than 4,000 buildings destroyed in Gaza, more than 20,000 severely damaged
Tens of thousands of Gazans homeless
Half a million people had been without water since the conflict began
Huge numbers of people were without power.

More awesomeness:

Israel hopes to pull all its troops out of the Gaza Strip by the time Barack Obama is inaugurated as president of the United States on Tuesday, Israeli officials said.

In Gaza's biggest city, streets brimmed with people and cars on Monday as residents began picking up the pieces of the lives they led before Israel's three-week air and ground onslaught.

Israeli tanks had been stationed on the rim of Gaza City, and destruction there was heavy. Tank shells turned some buildings into heaps of concrete while the tanks themselves rammed into the sides of others, peeling off pieces. Orange and olive groves were flattened.

Further inside the city, the parliament building and other targets of Israeli warplanes and helicopter gunships were reduced to piles of debris. Destruction in some areas left streets that resembled a moonscape. Elsewhere, damage appeared pinpointed, with isolated homes flattened or demolished.

More success here.

Question of the Day

When exactly in its history did Israel use up its supply of goodwill and start generating bad karma?

MLK Day

Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak, movements cease
When their heads are flown
'Cause all these punks
Got bullets in their heads
Departments of police, the judges, the feds
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
You know they went after King
When he spoke out on Vietnam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

"Wake Up", Rage Against the Machine

More here.

NIST Pretends Outer Steel Wall of WTC Was Made of Very Strong Rubber

From the NIST report, a extended paean to the official collapse story:

The NIST model is that a floor collapsed from the heat of the fires, and this downwards pulling action from the floor collapse pulled the outer wall significantly inward-- as depicted above. Along with the downward pulling action of the floor collapse, this led to an instability in the structure, with uneven support of the upper weight of the tower such that the upper block of the tower eventually tipped over on the weakened side, leading to "global collapse".

There are several reasons this model is completely ludicrous:
1) it's unlikely a single floor collapse would pull in the outer wall this far
2) it's unlikely a floor collapse would have enough strength to pull in the outer columns and that the floor wouldn't detach from the wall
3) it's unlikely that even if the above occurred, that the upper columns of the bowed-in section would stay attached to promote the tipping action. Rather there would be a broken away gash in the side of the wall from the floor collapse. This breaking away would be less likely to promote the upper tipping action that NIST propose started the global collapse.
4) it's ludicrous to imagine that one small (compared to the cross-section of the tower) section of floor collapsing has sufficient energy to pull over the whole building.

Sure, it's ludicrous-- but I guess NIST has to come up with something. They certainly can't talk about the WTC being nuked, after all.

Bush Broke the Law

The case is really quite simple.

Bush admitted he authorized waterboarding.

Waterboarding is torture.

Torture is against the law.

Ergo, Bush broke the law.

Bush likes to think he didn't really break the law because he thinks warterboarding isn't torture.

But he's wrong, and he's an evil son of a bitch who broke the law.

Israel in Gaza: Shooting Fish in a Barrel

What a pathetic one-sided slaughter. Did Hamas put up ANY kind of real resistance?

It doesn't seem like they did-- which really seems to belie Israeli claims about how nasty Hamas is.

Deep Thought of the Day

I love the way the media is talking non-stop about the April Gallop 9/11 lawsuit. It's a regular media circus!

Deep Thought of the Day

The reason the US funds the Israeli military is because it is a sustainable way for the evil PTB to keep humans in continual conflict and to keep killing each other. It is sustainable because the killing done by US taxpayers is at a distance, and is less likely to provoke severe outrage-- particularly when the media does such a great job of putting out propaganda.

Krugman: Bush Crimes Need to Be Investigated

The column is sort of obvious, but Krugman states it very well-- the startling thing is that this article even needs to be written. It just goes to show how out of whack this country is that this EVEN NEEDS TO BE ARGUED IN THE FIRST PLACE!

You Now Know The Facts on the Demise of the Columbia Shuttle, What About the Challenger Disaster?

by The Anonymous Physicist


Recall that I have written about the probable, deliberate explosion (caused by the Quarantiners) of the Space Shuttle Columbia, http://anonymous-physicist.blogspot.com/2008/11/ultimate-truths-part-xii.html for either attempting to break through the Quarantine, and/or for having something nuclear on board. For completeness, now I write about the demise of the Challenger Shuttle. The mission STS-51-L logo is here:


There are some interesting things contained, including the Shuttle going beyond Earth orbit, and a gray blob-- depicting Halley’s Comet. So there appears to be nothing here related to Ultimate Truths, unlike the Columbia’s last mission logo, which clearly indicated going through the Grid to a star.

The book by the Nobel-Laureate, Physicist Richard Feynman (creator of Quantum Electrodynamics), details his remarkable demonstration of what likely caused the demise of the Challenger, and killed its 7 Astronauts. Feynman’s life saga including his role in investigating the Challenger Disaster are included in his book, “What Do You Care What Other People Think: Further Adventures of a Curious Character”. All his books are great reads.

Feynman was appointed to the “Presidential Rogers Commission” in 1986. Richard Nixon’s Secretary of State William Rogers headed it. The panel also included, among others, the “world’s first person NOT to walk on the Moon,” Neil Armstrong. One of the main areas of investigation included its launch after many hours in rare, sub-freezing weather; and that engineers for the company involved in making the O-rings, asked for the launch to be called off. Near the end of the Commission’s dancing around the fence, Feynman could take it no longer. When he correctly saw that there was going to be a whitewash, with the “unknowable” hangout about to be proclaimed, he did the following in front of the cameras. He took out a small O-ring made of the same material, as was the Shuttle’s large O-ring. He declared that he had a glass of ice water, in which the ice had been placed for some time. Therefore the water was in equilibrium with the ice and was at 32 degrees F. (or 0 Celsius.) He then placed an O-ring in the ice-water, and described to the world that the O-ring had lost its resilience after only a short while at the 32 degree F. temperature.

The Commission could not hide this after that, but watered it down, in their final report. Feynman details in his book that he tried to do his own private investigation as there were indications, he wrote, that led all the way to President Reagan (or whoever controlled him) ordering the launch, despite the objections of the engineers. IMO, given what Feynman found out, and the knowledge of Ultimate Truths, there is even the possibility, that it was known conclusively that the Disaster would definitely result. Or there was the possibility of simple, corrupt politics whereby Reagan was going to speak the next day-- State of the Union Speech-- and wanted the launch to go the day before. A real investigation would possibly have led to charges of negligent homicide, but that’s not what the Rogers Commission “found.”

Shortly after his Rogers Commission activities, Feynman got a very rapid acting cancer and he died in 1988-- within about a year and a half of the Commission’s published report coming out. Wiki’s entry on him says, “Feynman developed two rare forms of cancer, namely Liposarcoma and Waldenström macroglobulinemia, dying shortly after a final attempt at surgery for the former.” So we must ask, did Feynman receive, what I would call, the “Jack Ruby treatment”?

So we have seen that the two great Space Shuttle disasters appear to have different causes. The second, the Columbia, appears to have been blasted out of space deliberately, as I depicted, including revealing the possible shoot-down photo. The first, the Challenger, with a civilian, woman teacher on board-- Christa McAuliffe-- appears to have been ordered to launch against the call of the engineering experts who designed its weakest link. Orders to launch against expert advice appears to go all the way to the President-- or whoever controlled him in 1986. Many have noted, that after the assassination attempt on Reagan early in his first year, that he was totally controlled by none other than his Vice-President, George Herbert Walker Bush.

Our Criminal Media, Exhibit 124A-- Joe Scarborough Defends Torture

Highly related: Susan J. Crawford, convening authority of the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay calls what the Bush administration did at Guantanamo torture; Eric Holder states waterboarding is torture at his confirmation hearing.

Also, Ray McGovern claims CIA Director Hayden is blackmailing Obama over pursuing torture investigations.

The Recent Russian Past Is Our Near Future

Excellent essay from Billmon on the establishment's whitewashing Bush-era crimes:

You can see this in just about all of the transition coverage. Reporters (like the ones responsible for the journalistic abomination above) and columnists and pundits are busy cranking out the usual lame duck legacy stories, as if this were the "normal" end of a "normal" presidency, instead of the concluding chapter of a national tragedy.

There is just a yawning disconnect between the nature of the crimes allegedly committed (and, in many cases, essentially admitted): waging aggressive war, torture, secret prisons, illegal wiretapping on a massive scale, obstruction of justice, perjury, conspiracy -- to the point where it would probably take an army of Patrick Fitzgeralds and a full-time war crimes tribunal a year just to catalogue them all -- and how the story is being treated in the corporate media.

It's not quite Pravda -- at least some of the hard questions are being asked, if only half-heartedly -- but it still has some of the same barely concealed, everybody-knows-even-though-we-are-not-allowed-to-say quality of Soviet discourse in the USSR's terminal Potemkin Village phase. It's as if keeping up the pretense -- observing the customary rituals as handed down by the priests of High Broderism -- is all most of the press corpses know how to do any more, or care to do.

And, as in late Soviet times, the absurdity of the official story line is only reinforced by the other systemic failures that surround it: in our case, financial collapse, plunging asset prices, massive fraud and a corrupt, sclerotic political system that may be incapable of doing even the most simple, obvious things (like printing and spending sufficient quantities of fiat money) to stave off an deeper downward spiral.

This being the case, I have a strong hunch the political-media complex (i.e. the Village) is going to want to move fairly quickly to the post-Soviet solution I described earlier -- skipping right over the perestroika and glasnost to get directly to the willful amnesia and live-in-the-moment materialism of mid-1990s Russia.

This sounds about right in terms of the political reality. And this of course completely ignores the even deeper uglier truths of 9/11 etc that the establishment will NEVER touch. Which again is why we need to build our own media, and sink the criminal mainstream media.

UPS, UPS, the 81st Floor of WTC2 and Dripping Molten Metal

The 81st floor of WTC2 was where orange sparks/molten metal were dripping from, very shortly before the tower was blown up, as shown above. There's been a lot of controversy over what was dripping down-- molten steel, molten aluminum, molten lead or some other metal mixture. It is very unlikely that ordinary fiery debris was dripping down due to the fact that the intensity of the color did not change on the way down, which is inconsistent with embers of burning wood or plastic, as these would have cooled rapidly as they fell. Thermite supporters have said this is evidence of thermite cutting through steel before the tower is demolished by more thermite.

One important point is that the actual molten metal that was dripping is a bit of a moot point, as the temperature of the metal was very very hot (>1750 F, >950 C) simply judged by the bright orange color. So it is very silly to say, oh, that was molten lead or molten aluminum dripping, because they have lower melting temperatures than steel and it wasn't hot enough to melt steel in there. The fact is, the color tells the temperature-- and it was hot enough to be molten steel.

I do think the dripping stuff was real and not video fakery. But I don't know whether the dripping molten metal was due to a thermite reaction, to give evidence for that obvious limited hangout for WTC destruction, or whether the dripping molten metal was due to a nuke that fizzled and started generating intense heat and melting steel in that corner of the tower.

So what's this about UPS?

Oddly, "officially" there were two different types of UPS inhabitants of the 81st floor, at different times, that involved renovation of that corner of the floor. First, NIST claims there was United Parcel Service, then later Fuji Bank put in a large bank of batteries to form an Uninterrupted Power Supply. Some supporters of the official story have claimed that lead from the Uninterrupted Power Supply batteries was what was seen dripping from that corner. As I explained above this is a moot point, as the extreme heat means the metal could be anything-- the bigger question is what the source of the extreme heat is. The battery story is that the plane crash caused the UPS to short-circuit and over-heat, thus causing lead in the batteries to melt. That is fairly ridiculous, I think.

In any case, this story of the two UPS's sounds like some sort of fabrication to me.

The bigger issue is WHAT CAUSED THE >950 C MOLTEN METAL TO DRIP DOWN FROM THAT CORNER?

Simon Shack Tries to Make a Case for Digital Fakery with WTC7

Typical of his stuff, he makes some good points but has many other weak points.

Overall, I think the idea that video fakery was used to cover-up the WTC demolitions is pretty strong.

Deep Thought of the Day

Torturing Gitmo prisoners was part of the 9/11 cover-up.


General Thoughts of the Day:

I do have to say I'm impressed how brazen Bush and Cheney are about admitting the approved the torture now (although they weasel a bit by saying it wasn't really torture, we all know it was torture).

It's as if they are daring any US official to go ahead and make their day by prosecuting them for war crimes.

It's also clear they are showing their true evil, and as I've said before-- torture wasn't a result of 9/11, torture shows the mentality of psychopaths who could carry out something like 9/11.

Psychopathic President

What a sick fuck. Notice how Bush keeps smirking when he talks about the legality of him ordering torture:

Also notice how unhealthy both men look. They look terrible. Bush sounds brain-damaged, too.

Some background here.

UPDATE: Bush admin official confirms there was torture to at least one Guantanamo detainee.

Nuclear Insanity-- US Spends Over $52 Billion a Year on Nukes

The United States spends more than $52 billion a year maintaining, upgrading and operating its nuclear weapons arsenal each year, a little-heralded study revealed Monday.

So the US budget for nukes -- the most deadly weapon known to man-- alone is $10 billion more than, for instance, the US budget for biomedical research. This nuke spending, along with the US Defense budget, is an insane amount. And spending this much on nukes makes no sense at all given the geopolitical situation!

It really makes no sense at all-- until you realize how much the PTB loves their nukes, and most importantly WHY.

Bush Admits He's a War-Criminal

In an interview on Fox News, Bush told Brit Hume that he approved enhanced interrogation tactics for suspected terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

"Enhanced interrogation" is, of course, a euphemism for TORTURE.

Of course, cravenly, disgustingly, Obama and the rest of the Dems have little to no interest in pursuing prosecutions.

There are some movements towards upholding the law and basic decency, and every right-thinking person should support these movements (here and here), but I will be amazed if they result in any real justice. This is mostly because the hateful, sick, criminal media has also embraced torture and has propagandized it as important for security to the US-- thus keeping the proper, rightful outrage of citizens at bay.

Stop Taking from the Poor and Giving to the Rich

David Cay Johnston has some excellent prescriptions for fixing the economic mess we're facing. These certainly aren't the answer to everything, but they would be an excellent start to end the madness.

Paul Craig Roberts argues why the US is a failed state (also here).

The Problem with the 9/11 "Truth" Movement

The problem the 9/11 truth movement has had in getting justice has never been about not having evidence. There is plenty of evidence.

The problem the 9/11 truth movement has had in getting justice has never been about not having smoking guns. There are plenty of smoking guns.

The problem the 9/11 truth movement has had in getting justice has never been about not having proof. There is abundant proof that the official story is wrong.

True-- we've never had a direct admission of guilt from a perpetrator-- but it is completely unrealistic that would ever happen.

There are actually six problems the 9/11 truth movement has had in getting justice:

1) denial -- a huge number of people just don't want to think it is possible that the govt was involved in the attacks.

2) apathy-- many people recognize some funny business with 9/11, but feel like they have no power to change anything.

3) ignorance-- many Americans, either because they are too busy with work/family, they are lazy or they are uneducated, have no clue what goes on in the mainstream news-- much less have any idea about covert operations and deep politics!

4) corruption of government leaders, and the complicity of both political parties in crimes of state.

5) infiltration of the 9/11 activists by disinfo agents and trouble-makers sowing division within the movement.

6) heavy infiltration of intel agents throughout the media, leading to an elitist mindset that hides things from the masses.

Ultimately, the most critical problem is #6-- control of the major media-- because that strongly affects problems 1-4. Problems 1-4 are also a societal problems that undoubtedly have been engineered to some extent by the "powers that be"-- specifically to help keep people in the dark. But much of the overall problem of the "9/11 movement" and so much else that plagues us springs from a deeply corrupt mainstream media (what I prefer to call the "criminal media").

Thus-- perhaps our biggest goal shouldn't be 9/11 truth per se, but rather we should focus on the establishment of a new media coupled with minimizing and of the mainstream media. The internet is a large part of this, but we need to get rid of, or drastically reform, all the mainstream news groups, one way or another.

They are killing us.

Consider the mainstream media ENEMY #1.

Nuclear Demolition... Any Questions?

The "No One Could Have Anticipated" Administration

Cheney: No one could have anticipated that bankers would try to rip people off with bad loans and that the housing bubble would collapse and that our economic policies would result in major problems.

Bush: No one could have anticipated that a major hurricane would topple the levies in New Orleans and result in catastrophic flooding.

Cheney: No one could have anticipated that there would be violence in Iraq.

Bush: No one could have anticipated that Saddam wouldn't have WMD.

Rice: No one could have anticipated that terrorists would use an airplane as a missile.


What a bunch of lying, evil fucks.

Ace Baker Says His Fake Suicide Was "Performance Art"

His explanation is worth a read.

No matter what Ace's deal is, whether he's being completely honest or not, I have agree with much of what he's saying. That doesn't excuse his obnoxious "suicide" performance, but his recent essay at least puts things in context pretty well. And there's obviously a lot of planned obsolescence in the 9/11 "movement"-- rottenness and irrationality that can't simply be explained by saying all those people are just crazy. In other words, evidence of intel agents scewing up the movement.

The thing is, we never needed the facts of fake videos and no planes hitting the towers to know that 9/11 was fucked up. This is why it always mystified me that so many 9/11 researchers got so completely hung up on the plane videos, and that it caused so much in-fighting. Anonymous Physicist has said that no-planes is true but a distraction from the nuking of the WTC. He says that the no-planes issue is perfect for intel agents to fight over, to make the movement look crazy and to diffuse anger over 9/11. There's no doubt the perps of 9/11 planted agents to diffuse and sabotage the outrage that would arise from people's realizations about 9/11. How many of the prominent 9/11 researchers are intel agents is a huge and important question. Everyone has their own guesses about who is an agent in the movement. All I can really say for 100% sure is that I am not an agent.

Anyone really paying attention knew that things were fucked up long before 9/11. But for many of us, 9/11 woke us up for the first time to the evil.

The biggest question still remains-- how best to fight this massively entrenched evil power? Fight it we must. But we also need to fight it and survive.

Tangling with the CIA

Both President Kennedy and Senator Frank Church tried to take them on, and both got nowhere. While Church tried for reforms, Kennedy actually wanted to break up the CIA. Kennedy of course paid the ultimate price for his efforts at wresting the country from the PTB.

Listening to the Diane Rehm Show Today

made me want to RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE!!!!!!

Looking Back at the Bush White House

Assessing President George W. Bush's aims and accomplishments after eight years, and what some top advisers now say about the Bush White House.

Guests

Carl Cannon, Washington bureau chief, "Reader's Digest;" co-author with his father and Reagan biographer Lou Cannon of "Reagan's Disciple: George W. Bush's Troubled Quest for a Presidential Legacy"

Todd Purdum, national editor, "Vanity Fair"

Byron York, White House correspondent for "National Review" and author of "The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy"

(Hint: I didn't hear much about the incredible damage Bush has wraught in his 8-year reign of destruction.)

More reasons to RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE:

"As Charles [Krauthammer] said, the country was kept safe ever since 9/11. There has not been an attack. These people did what they did under orders and with patriotism. And Obama should make it clear that none of them is going to be held to account for what they did."

"Asserting FDR "waged ... a jihad against private enterprise," Hume falsely claimed "everybody agrees ... that the New Deal failed""

Government Reform and the Sad Story of the Church Committee

Depressing though not at all surprising in light of what we have seen in the past few years (and also in light of what we know about the PTB):

When Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974, the United States concluded one of the most traumatic chapters in its history. During the Watergate scandal, Americans had been shocked by the crimes of the Nixon presidency. Investigations by the press and Congress had exposed previously unimaginable levels of corruption and conspiracy in the executive branch. The public's faith in government had been shaken; indeed, the entire "system" had been tested. Now, with Nixon's resignation, two years of agonizing revelations finally seemed to be over. The system had worked.

Yet only four months later, New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh disclosed that the government's crimes went beyond Watergate. After months of persistent digging, Hersh had unearthed a new case of the imperial presidency's abuse of secrecy and power: a "massive" domestic spying program by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). According to Hersh, the CIA had violated its charter and broken the law by launching a spying program of Orwellian dimensions against American dissidents during the Vietnam War. The Times called it "son of Watergate."

These revelations produced a dramatic response from the newly energized post-Watergate Congress and press. Both houses of Congress mounted extensive, year-long investigations of the intelligence community. These highly publicized inquiries, headed by experienced investigators Senator Frank Church and Congressman Otis Pike, produced shocking accusations of murder plots and poison caches, of FBI corruption and CIA incompetence. In addition to the congressional inquiries, the press, seemingly at the height of its power after Watergate, launched investigations of its own. The New York Times continued to crusade against CIA abuses; the Washington Post exposed abuses and illegalities committed by the FBI; and CBS's Daniel Schorr shocked the nation by revealing that there might be "literal" skeletons in the CIA closet as a result of its assassination plots.

In this charged atmosphere, editorial writers, columnists, political scientists, historians, and even former officials of the CIA weighed in with various suggestions for reforming an agency that many agreed had become a ''monster.'' Several policymakers, including presidential candidates Fred Harris and Morris Udall, called for massive restructuring or abolition of the CIA. Media and political pundits suggested banning CIA covert operations; transferring most CIA functions to the Pentagon or the State Department; or, at the very least, devising a new, strict charter for all members of the intelligence community.

Few barriers seemed to stand in the way of such reforms. The liberal, post-Watergate Congress faced an appointed president who did not appear to have the strength to resist this "tidal shift in attitude," as Senator Church called it. Change seemed so likely in early 1975 that a writer for The Nation declared "the heyday of the National Security State', to be over, at least temporarily.

But a year and a half later, when the Pike and Church committees finally finished their work, the passion for reform had cooled. The House overwhelmingly rejected the work of the Pike committee and voted to suppress its final report. It even refused to set up a standing intelligence committee. The Senate dealt more favorably with the Church committee, but it too came close to rejecting all of the committee's recommendations. Only last-minute parliamentary maneuvering enabled Church to salvage one reform, the creation of a new standing committee on intelligence. The proposed charter for the intelligence community, though its various components continued to be hotly debated for several years, never came to pass.

The investigations failed to promote the careers of those who had inspired and led them. Daniel Schorr, the CBS reporter who had advanced the CIA story at several important points and eventually had become part of the story himself, was investigated by Congress, threatened with jail, and fired by CBS for his role in leaking the suppressed Pike report. Seymour Hersh's exposes were dismissed by his peers as "overwritten, over-played, under-researched and underproven." Otis Pike, despite the many accomplishments of his committee, found his name linked with congressional sensationalism, leaks, and poor administration. Frank Church's role in the investigation failed to boost his presidential campaign, forced him to delay his entry into the race, and, he thought, might have cost him the vice presidency.

The targets of the investigation had the last laugh on the investigators. "When all is said and done, what did it achieve?" asked Richard Helms, the former director of the CIA who was at the heart of many of the scandals unearthed by Congress and the media. "Where is the legislation, the great piece of legislation, that was going to come out of the Church committee hearings ? I haven't seen it."

The Real Reason for the Gaza Attacks-- Israel Wants to Spark More Islamic Terrorism

An important post from Juan Cole (important enough to overlook his embrace of the official 9/11 story of Mohamed Atta piloting AA11 into WTC1).

UPDATE: More on Israeli bad intentions-- "Israelis, sipping Pepsi, watch bombardment of Gaza town", and "The international Red Cross accuses Israeli forces today of failing to assist wounded Palestinians and of "unacceptable" delays in letting rescue workers reach a Gaza home where four small children were found alive next to their mothers' bodies."

Kissinger Suggests Obama Should Create a New World Order

The scheming by the PTB goes on...

The Beat Goes On-- Making 9/11 Researchers Look Like Psychos

The fake Ace Baker suicide:


This might be excusable if Baker came out right away and said it was all a joke. But as we've heard nothing from Ace -- he hasn't updated his blog for three weeks, with his last post referring to the Fetzer show-- this is just ridiculous.

If this isn't the work of agents sabotaging the "movement", I don't know what is. And clearly Fetzer was in on this whole game.

It is kind of interesting that this whole charade occurred, including Baker being increasingly ostracized by other 9/11 researchers, after he renounced Judy Wood and DEW, and started going towards nukes at the WTC. Also interesting was how Judy Wood initially started talking about nukes at the WTC, then the student she knew, Michael Zebuhr, was killed under fishy circumstances. After this Wood started the whole DEW psyop. At this same time, Wood and Fetzer were working together at the Scholars for 9/11 Truth group which eventually split up.

UPDATE: Baker posts a one-word post at his blog --"Why?" Why, indeed!

Israelis Reportedly Euphoric Over Gaza Offensive

This according to a reporter on BBC radio this morning.

Anyone who is euphoric over the Gaza slaughter is an evil shit.

Doctor in Gaza says Israel is targeting civilians.

I know the Israelis are justifying the killing of civilians by saying Hamas is using civilians as a shield.

The problems are that:
1) the Israeli response is totally out of line, totally disproportionate, with the threat-- it's analogous to a kid throwing a rock at a car, so the people in the car stop and kill everyone in the house that the kid ran into. The Israeli response is insanity given the minimal threat from the Hamas rockets.
2) Militarily, it's not clear Hamas has any option but to hide out in the urban areas-- it would be suicide for them to be in the open desert.
3) Last but most importantly-- it's not like the people living in Gaza are allowed to leave! They are stuck there in a state of siege, held there by Israel.

Ultimately-- what is the fucking endgame here? Israel is not going to destroy Hamas unless they kill so many Gazans that Israel becomes a complete pariah even to the US. But short of that extreme killing spree, this is only going to harden the Arab world against Israel.

UPDATE: Al-CIA-duh weighs in.

"Intense Orange Glow" in the Remnants of the Towers

This doesn't much sound like the aftermath of a collapse:

Late in the afternoon, hundreds of rescue workers remained outside where the trade towers once loomed, watching the stubs of the buildings continue to burn into infinity. Several stories still stood, but it was hard to judge how many. Above the second story was nothing but an intense orange glow.

Clearly, this is more evidence against "cold" DEW, and almost certainly shows the aftermath of the WTC nuclear demolition.

Some Decent Appointments from Obama

Dawn Johnsen for OLC and Panetta for CIA.

More on Panetta here and here.

War Criminal Cheney Invents New Legal Theory

Cheney: Bush's actions were legal since he was not impeached.

In other words, breaking the law is not really breaking the law if you are never prosecuted.

Of course, in no way does this sliminess mitigate the simply dreadful, essentially treasonous actions of the Democrats in Congress for failing to impeach Bush and Cheney.

More on the loathsome Cheney and his "Meet the Press" performance here.

More Cheney lunacy here:

"Flight 93" and the Plane That Crashed at Camp David

Excellent research from Woody Box on: Norman Mineta, the alleged Cheney shootdown order, the flight 93 that allegedly crashed in Shanksville, the flight 93 that was headed to DC and the flight 93 that crashed near Camp David.

UPDATE: Interesting tidbit about Camp David in this old NYTimes article (via StevenWarran):

Controllers also say they were told to watch for planes heading for Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland. Unlike the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Camp David would be hard to spot from the air, but it is clearly marked on charts, because the airspace below 5,000 feet is off limits to civilian planes. But because Camp David is close to Washington and a hijacked plane's target is unknown, it would be hard to say whether a plane headed toward that location actually intended to go there, controllers noted.

WHY THE CONCERN OVER CAMP DAVID ON 9/11?

Tales of the American Gestapo

Oy:

The Maryland State Police surveillance of advocacy groups was far more extensive than previously acknowledged, with records showing that troopers monitored -- and labeled as terrorists -- activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes.

Intelligence officers created a voluminous file on Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, calling the group a "security threat" because of concerns that members would disrupt the circus. Angry consumers fighting a 72 percent electricity rate increase in 2006 were targeted. The DC Anti-War Network, which opposes the Iraq war, was designated a white supremacist group, without explanation.

One of the possible "crimes" in the file police opened on Amnesty International, a world-renowned human rights group: "civil rights."

According to hundreds of pages of newly obtained police documents, the groups were swept into a broad surveillance operation that started in 2005 with routine preparations for the scheduled executions of two men on death row.

The operation has been called a "waste of resources" by the current police superintendent and "undemocratic" by the governor.

Police have acknowledged that the monitoring, which took place during the administration of then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R), spiraled out of control, with an undercover trooper spending 14 months infiltrating peaceful protest groups. Troopers have said they inappropriately labeled 53 individuals as terrorists in their database, information that was shared with federal authorities. But the new documents reveal a far more expansive set of police targets and indicate that police did not close some files until late 2007.

The surveillance ended with no arrests and no evidence of violent sedition. Instead, troopers are preparing to purge files and say they are expecting lawsuits.

The effort, made public in July, confirmed the fears of civil liberties groups that have warned about domestic spying since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Interviews, e-mails, public records and an independent state review reveal that police in Maryland were motivated by something far narrower: a query about death penalty activism directed to a police antiterrorism unit that was searching for a mission.

But some observers say Sept. 11 opened the door. "No one was thinking this was al-Qaeda," said Stephen H. Sachs, a former U.S. attorney and state attorney general appointed by Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) to review the case. "But 9/11 created an atmosphere where cutting corners was easier."

Maryland has not been alone. The FBI and police departments in several cities, including Denver in 2002 and New York before the 2004 Republican National Convention, also responded to the threat of terrorism by spying on activists.

Deep Thought of the Day

Israel could solve all their problems by killing all the Palestinians.

UPDATE: And I thought I was exaggerating.

Obama Admin Wants to Merge NASA and the Military for Future Moon Mission

Some heavy propaganda here.

Cover Story for Ancient Nuke War: "Rare Swarm of Comets"

Tiny diamonds found in the soil are "strong evidence" a comet exploded on or above North America nearly 13,000 years ago, leading to the extinction of dozens of mammal species, according to a study.

Diamonds found in North American soil suggest a comet led to the extinction of dozens of mammal species.

The scientific report also suggests the cataclysm also reduced the population of the earliest people to inhabit the region and triggered a 1,300-year-long cold spell that stretched around the world.

(snip)

"A rare swarm" of comets rained over North America about 12,900 years ago, sparking fires that produced choking, leading "to the extinction of a large range of animals, including mammoths, across North America," the report said.

(snip)

The scientists studied layers of sediment dated to 12,900 years ago at six North American locations, including one directly on top of a Clovis site in Murray Springs, Arizona. Each layer was rich in nanodiamonds, which are produced under high-temperature, high-pressure conditions created by cosmic impacts, the report said.

Swarm of comets? Gimme a break. The most likely explanation is an ancient Quarantine breakout attempt by the CCC's.

Gaza: the Actions of a Criminal Israeli Regime Are Being Aided and Abetted by Criminal US Politicians and Criminal US Media

Terrorism:

Israel continued to bomb Gaza on day 7 of blitz. The airstrikes continued Friday morning.

Israel has killed 37 children and 17 women since it began its bombardment last Saturday. About a fourth of the over 400 persons killed are estimated to be obviously civilians because they were children or women; the proportion of the civilians killed is likely actually higher because a lot of the men are probably noncombatants, too. Likewise, large numbers of the over 2000 Gazans wounded have been innocent civilians.

Gazans are facing starvation and death, according to UN humanitarian chief John Holmes. The power plant has been knocked out, making it impossible for the hospitals properly to treat the over 2000 wounded in the airstrikes, or indeed, for patients needing oxygen & etc. to get it. Hospitals have resorted to generators, but they run on fuel, which is in short supply and many Gazans are without electricity. Some 20,000 a day are not getting the UN wheat rations and other foodstuffs on which they rely, given that Israel long ago destroyed their economy. That is, there is real and increasing hunger in Gaza, 50% of the population of which is children.

Apart from the killing itself, the tragedy is the powerlessness of ordinary Americans and the rest of the world to do much about this. There is also the sad fact that Israel was of course founded because of earlier crimes against humanity, and yet here they are-- committing their own war crimes.

Of course, it's important to know the origin of all this evil.

UPDATE: FUCK-- they are invading.

John McCain Calls JFK's Assassination an "Intervention"

This is a repost, but it is still such an incredibly enlightening moment:


"Intervention" is how the intel community-- who of course were in on the crime- refers to the killing of JFK.

Gaza

Good review of the situation here, and a call to action.

Summary:

• The Israeli airstrikes represent serious violations of international law – including the Geneva Conventions and a range of international humanitarian law.

• The U.S. is complicit in the Israeli violations – directly and indirectly.

• The timing of the air strikes has far more to do with U.S. and Israeli politics than with protecting Israeli civilians.

• This serious escalation will push back any chance of serious negotiations between the parties that might have been part of the Obama administration’s plans.

• There is much work to be done.

US Troops Now Under Iraqi Authority

A very strange deal, from the perspective of the mighty US military.

A couple of thoughts:
1) why aren't conservatives screaming bloody murder about this? If a Democratic president had done this, there's no doubt they would accuse them of treason-- and the funny thing is that they would have a case.
2) this seems like a time-bomb set for the Obama administration. I can well see some catastrophe taking place with US forces, and the Obama administration getting the blame.
3) the only good thing is that hopefully this will hasten the US departure-- since why would they want to stay under these circumstances?