The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear: An Urgent Cry for the Status Quo

The rally was certainly a big success, in terms of attendance and coverage.


Sure, there was criticism of the media-- certainly a easy target. The closing speech was good in some ways-- a call for working together despite differences.

But it's clear that Jon Stewart and the Daily Show aren't interested in the hard, ugly truth about our country or in seriously changing anything.

In fact, one might even argue they have a deeper agenda to protect the "evil PTB". (Interesting thought-- is 9/11 truth antagonist Daily Show producer Rory Albanese related to 9/11 limited hangout artist John Albanese?)

This piece goes over why Stewart is antithetical to change and the labor movement.

Also-- weird, I KNOW I saw Stewart use the word illuminate in a recent quote (code Illuminati)-- and it even comes up in google-- but it's not in the link! "the craziness, where ever it is to be found, is illuminated..."

I Call Bullshit

Obama: Packages From Yemen Contained Explosive Material--

Obama said that the packages, which were found last night on U.S.-bound flights in Dubai and near London, were addressed to "two places of Jewish worship in Chicago." He confirmed that the packages had originated in Yemen, and suggested that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula might be responsible.

Funny how this major incident happens on the eve of a major election in which the Obama administration's power could be severely curtailed.

Good video on fake (domestic) terror here:


It's pretty easy to see how this could be done on the international level as well.

Whether or Not a Giant Methane Bubble Under the Gulf Floor Is Going to Explode and Kill Us All

... it's pretty clear the Gulf is STILL horribly fucked up.... and that neither political party wants anything to do with it.... so it is being covered up.

Extinction Level Event

It seems as though we are very possibly very fucked. Note-- this is an update on the similar scenario I posted last June. For various reasons, this seems more plausible than before, with the most frightening part being the three terrible indications from data in the Gulf that suggest an imminent disaster-- "...the appearance of large fissures or rifts splitting open the ocean floor, a rise in the elevation of the seabed, and the massive venting of methane and other gases into the surrounding water."

The bottom line: BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling operation may have triggered an irreversible, cascading geological Apocalypse that will culminate with the first mass extinction of life on Earth in many millions of years.

The oil giant drilled down miles into a geologically unstable region and may have set the stage for the eventual premature release of a methane mega-bubble.

Ryskin’s methane extinction theory

Northwestern University's Gregory Ryskin, a bio-chemical engineer, has a theory: The oceans periodically produce massive eruptions of explosive methane gas. He has documented the scientific evidence that such an event was directly responsible for the mass extinctions that occurred 55 million years ago. [4]

Many geologists concur: "The consequences of a methane-driven oceanic eruption for marine and terrestrial life are likely to be catastrophic. Figuratively speaking, the erupting region "boils over," ejecting a large amount of methane and other gases (e.g., CO2, H2S) into the atmosphere, and flooding large areas of land. Whereas pure methane is lighter than air, methane loaded with water droplets is much heavier, and thus spreads over the land, mixing with air in the process (and losing water as rain). The air-methane mixture is explosive at methane concentrations between 5% and 15%; as such mixtures form in different locations near the ground and are ignited by lightning, explosions and conflagrations destroy most of the terrestrial life, and also produce great amounts of smoke and of carbon dioxide..." [5]

The warning signs of an impending planetary catastrophe—of such great magnitude that the human mind has difficulty grasping it-would be the appearance of large fissures or rifts splitting open the ocean floor, a rise in the elevation of the seabed, and the massive venting of methane and other gases into the surrounding water.

Such occurrences can lead to the rupture of the methane bubble containment—it can then permit the methane to breach the subterranean depths and undergo an explosive decompression as it catapults into the Gulf waters. [6]

All three warning signs are documented to be occurring in the Gulf.

Vive Le Tea Party!

Christine O'Donnell, Sharon Angle, Sarah Palin-- flakey, dimwitted, lying Christian fundies

Joe Miller and Eric Cantor-- fascists

Ilario Pantano-- civilian murdering war criminal

UPDATE:
Much more on Pantano here, including his connection to 9/11 and certain employment by a US intelligence agency.

Also, Keith Olbermann gives an epic rant on the madness of the Tea Partiers:

Numbers

As readers of this site know, I have become interested in numerology, and particularly the use of 33, as code for the PTB.

Today, apparently the NYTimes and others in the media think it is important to tell us this about odd number of fuel rods:

TEHRAN — Iran said on Tuesday that it had begun loading the first of 163 fuel rods into the core of its first nuclear reactor, set to go into operation early next year, and vowed to pursue nuclear activities “in other areas.”

163??? Why such an odd number? Does this number mean anything?

Only the Good Die ... in Small Plane Crashes

Certainly true for Paul Wellstone and others of a liberal bent.

Wellstone really was one of the last great Senators. So they killed him.

Here's a six-year old post with my review of Fetzer's book on the assassination. The link to Amazon still works,, and the book is summarized there fairly well.

Here are recent stories about the the release of Wellstone's FBI file.

The True Horror of What the US Did in Iraq Must Never Be Forgotten

Wikileaks:

Most shockingly, the documents allegedly show that US troops abused prisoners for years even after the Abu Ghraib scandal and that the US ignored systemic abuse, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers, according to several news reports.

In one of the most devastating reports, a US Apache helicopter engaged insurgents involved in a mortar attack upon coalition forces near Baghdad. After firing a series of 30mm rounds, the helicopter's crew (with the callsign "Crazyhorse") radioed to their command, explaining that the insurgents "wanted to surrender." The response was stark: "CRAZYHORSE cleared to engage ... Lawyer stated they cannot surrender to aircraft."

The Apache crew killed the men...

On top of the hundreds of thousands of civilians who died after the invasion, we tortured extensively, even after it became public, allowed the Iraqis to do more torture, and to top it off killed enemy troops who had surrendered. USA, FUCK YEAH!

These are WAR CRIMES -- that the UN wants to prosecute if the US doesn't.

Glenn Greenwald has much more, including why the fucking NYTimes and WashPost are complicit in the WAR CRIMES.


Finally, as usual, right-wing propagandists are totally fucked up about the war-- they are sick dicks.

All this being said, the "controversial" Lancet survey of at least 600,000 Iraq deaths does give me pause for the high number of 33's as shown on the wiki page describing the survey. In particular, there are two salient 33's that suggest something funny in the study. First, the author of the study divided Iraq into 33 regions for the study. That is way fishy. Then the key result of the survey is 13.3 (contains a form of 33) mortality rate per 1,000 population per year after the invasion. Overall, I'm not questioning the results of the survey-- it seems quite believable given the horror of post-invasion Iraq-- but it's not clear what the 33 means. It may mean the PTB are taking pride in their handiwork, I suppose.

And no matter what the actual death toll was, it is clear that shocking numbers of innocent people died, needlessly, in the war-- because of the US. The shame is very real here.

New 2nd Hit Video-- #55 or so

A pretty good view from the west-- better than other known shots from the west (it gets better after the first 10 seconds and is quite clear for the plane hit):

There's certainly some funny business here-- the odd blue tint, the strange filter, lighting, digitaization and focus problems at the beginning, the precise, mechanical camera movements, the positioning of the frame with an extended view south of the towers as if expecting the plane. There's also the almost complete lack of sound, not even a reaction from the operator after the plane hit. There's also a helicopter that appears early on that disappears in the clouds, and that never appears again. There is also some apparent editing after the helicopter disappears before the plane appears. There's also no sign of the helicopter that flies out from the west of the north tower shortly after the 2nd hit in this video. Finally, the video is labeled "September 11th 2001 Second Plane Crash WNBC Dub9_01", but does not look like a TV station video! The "dub" designation is interesting too, given the association of dubbing with editing.

This video is part of a HUGE cache of 9/11 videos recently released in fragments by WPIX and uploaded by "911Crasting". I've only looked at a small fraction of the videos, not sure if there is much really interesting here, and some numbers seem to be missing as if there was selective release. This "collapse" video, found by AP is quite striking (see comments), also bears the WNBC Dub label.

Also, interesting how 911CRasting has 33 subscribers, including someone named Brownacid33. The person says they are from Tokelau, probably a joke.

Finally, a note to Steve Warran, who finds the things falling from the tower noteworthy. I think the first thing he sees is some cladding, not a person. The second unusual falling thing, he says seems to be pole-vaulting away from the tower is most likely a bird flying in front of the tower.

Al-CIA-Duh Watch

So what exactly did they serve at this "lunch"?

A US citizen linked to Al Qaeda who is being targeted for extra-judicial killing by the CIA lunched at the Pentagon several months after the 9/11 attacks, news sources confirmed Wednesday.

Anwar al-Awlaki, a Muslim cleric born in New Mexico who is now believed to be in Yemen, was invited to have lunch at the Pentagon shortly after 9/11 as part of the military's outreach effort to Muslims, officials confirmed to NBC News.

"It's clear at the time (when the Pentagon was reaching out to Muslims) that no one here knew of any terrorist ties Awlaki may have had," an unnamed "senior Pentagon official" told NBC.

But the FBI evidently did know. NBC News reports that al-Awlaki was actually interviewed three times by the FBI shortly after the 9/11 attacks, as he had been in contact with three of the alleged hijackers. Fox News reports that three were Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Hani Hanjour, all of whom were aboard Flight 77.

But at the time the Pentagon saw al-Awlaki as "an 'up and coming' member of the [moderate] Islamic community. After ... vetting, [Awlaki] was invited to and attended a luncheon at the Pentagon in the secretary of the Army's Office of [General] Counsel," according to documents obtained by Fox.

Al-Awlaki has been linked to no less than three recent terrorist plots or attacks on US soil. His name first rose to prominence in the US last year, when it was alleged that accused Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan emailed the cleric.

This guy screams "al-CIA-duh".

Iraqi Deaths Higher Than US Official Counts

Filed under "No Shit Sherlock".

But worth noting that the Illuminati number 77 is repeated twice in the piece as 77,000, used in two different ways. No 33, but 66,000 is used (civilian deaths by one count)-- 66 being a form of double 33.

More Than 33, Lately Seeing a Lot of 11

Like here:

TEHRAN, Iran – The leaders of Iran and Venezuela hailed what they called their strong strategic relationship on Wednesday, saying they are united in efforts to establish a "new world order" that will eliminate Western dominance over global affairs.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and visiting Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, watched as officials from both countries signed 11 agreements promoting cooperation in areas including oil, natural gas, textiles, trade and public housing.

Lots of 11s in this type of story. The most important 11 being 9/11, of course.

Today's 33

Likely intel agent Michael Tomasky*:

Billo (Bill O'Reilly) was launching into his 133,819th explication of the "cold truth" that Muslim jihad is the biggest threat to the world, after which:

Mr Williams said he concurred with Mr O'Reilly.

He continued: "I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

The whole thing is just so dumb, on so many levels, obviously. But it is still amusing to see the ol' 33 thrown in here.

*poses as a left-leaning pundit. But like most of these types, is clearly a gatekeeper for 9/11.

Glenn Greenwald makes a really important point about why the right is going batshit about this-- because they REALLY want us to be afraid of the MUSLIM: so the PTB can push their bullshit 9/11 myth and their horrendous wars.

NEVER FORGET

Hunt the Boeing-- WTC2 Edition.

Coming to a Theater Near You: "Inside Job"

Unfortunately, it's not THAT "inside job", it's about the financial crisis.

Wanker of the Day: Mrs. Clarence Thomas

Someone still has ISSUES:

In a voice mail message left at 7:31 a.m. on Oct. 9, a Saturday, Virginia Thomas asked her husband’s former aide-turned-adversary to make amends. Ms. Hill played the recording, from her voice mail at Brandeis University, for The New York Times.

“Good morning Anita Hill, it’s Ginni Thomas,” it said. “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband.”

Ms. Thomas went on: “So give it some thought. And certainly pray about this and hope that one day you will help us understand why you did what you did. O.K., have a good day.”

UPDATE: and, yeah, Thomas committed perjury before he was confirmed.

The Stupid, It Burns-- Hoo Boy Does It Burn

Coons continued his explanation, and O'Donnell interrupted again. "So you're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?"

Coons went on to cite cases the Supreme Court had decided that backed up the position of a wall between church and state.

"Let me just clarify," O'Donnell pressed. "You're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?"

"The government shall make no establishment of religion," Coons said, summarizing the gist of the specific words in the First Amendment's establishment clause.

"That's in the First Amendment?" O'Donnell asked again, eliciting further laughter from the room.

Mortgages: Multiple Scams, Obvious Fraud by Wall Street

First there is this:

Mortgage Electronic Registration System: the private corporation built by the mortgage lending industry, whose tool for electronically trading mortgages has thrown the entire housing market into turmoil. In the name of saving a buck, the mega-banks used this tiny company with almost no employees and entrusted it with 60 million of the nation’s mortgages on its system – 60% of all mortgages in the United States – to predictable results.

Starting in the early 1990s, the mortgage lending industry, seeking speed and the evasion of land title costs, decided to bypass the state and county registrars which would normally track and assign the title ownership of properties. Instead they created and used MERS, which operates a database to track that ownership. And they list MERS as the “mortgagee of record” with the county recorder – so that all the sales and resales and securitization of the mortgages will not result in the fees that follow the recording of mortgage assignments. Peterson explains that this saves the servicers a measly $22 a loan, which of course adds up when you consider the number of loans and trades per year.

Once again, MERS does not actually advance any loan principal to the homeowner, does not have the right to receive any payments from the borrower, and is not the actual party in interest in any foreclosure proceeding. Nevertheless, the actual mortgagee pays a fee to MERS to induce MERS to record the mortgage in MERS’s name. By eliminating the reference to an actual mortgagee or the actual assignee, MERS estimated it would save the originator an average of $22.00 per loan.

This saves the industry money in recording, but basically shields the county recorders from actually divining the owner of the loans. When a loan falls into delinquency and then foreclosure, MERS carries out the foreclosure process in their own name – despite the fact that they don’t own legal title to the mortgages on its database, and therefore lack standing to foreclose. MERS also doesn’t have the personnel (they have almost no employees) to engage in millions of these foreclosure operations or perform any of the other legal duties required of a mortgage owner. So they outsource this capacity in just about the most fraudulent manner possible, relying on the lack of public records and their role as a masked agent for the servicers.

This sure sounds like some sort of CIA shell company scam... and whether it is or not, it is outrageous. Unfortunately, the mortgage mess gets worse, in terms of the foreclosure crisis.

In the crazed frenzy to get as many mortgages securitized during the Oughts, banks took shortcuts with the paperwork necessary for the Mortgage Backed Securities. The reason was because everyone in the chain of this securitization mania got a little piece of the action—a little slice of the MBS pie in the shape of commissions.

So in the name of “improved efficiencies” (and how many horror stories are we finding out, carried out in the name of “improved efficiencies”), banks digitized the mortgage notes—they didn’t physically endorse them, like they were supposed to by the various state and Federal laws.

Plus—once the wave of foreclosures broke, and the holes in this bureaucratic paperwork became evident and relevant—some of the big law firms handling the foreclosures for the banks started doing some document fabrication and signature forgery, in order to cover up the mistakes—which is definitely illegal.

Long story short (since this is the short version): A lot of the foreclosed properties might not have been foreclosed legally. The people evicted might still have a right to their old houses. The new buyers might not actually own the REO’s they bought off the banks. The banks could be on the hook for trillions of dollars, and in the sights of literally millions of lawsuits.

And then there is this older but still relevant story about how Wall Street ignored clear signs of mortgage problems:

As the mortgage market grew frothy in 2006 — leading to a housing bubble that nearly brought down the banking system two years later — ratings agencies charged with assessing risk in mortgage pools dismissed conclusive evidence that many of the loans were dubious, according to testimony given last week to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

The commission, a bipartisan Congressional panel, has been holding hearings on the origins of the financial crisis. D. Keith Johnson, a former president of Clayton Holdings, a company that analyzed mortgage pools for the Wall Street firms that sold them, told the commission on Thursday that almost half the mortgages Clayton sampled from the beginning of 2006 through June 2007 failed to meet crucial quality benchmarks that banks had promised to investors.

Yet, Clayton found, Wall Street was placing many of the troubled loans into bundles known as mortgage securities.

Mr. Johnson said he took this data to officials at Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings and to the executive team at Moody’s Investors Service.

“We went to the ratings agencies and said, ‘Wouldn’t this information be great for you to have as you assign tranche levels of risk?’ ” Mr. Johnson testified last week. But none of the agencies took him up on his offer, he said, indicating that it was against their business interests to be too critical of Wall Street.

Yes, wouldn't want to be too critical of Wall Street. Jesus. Wasn't that their fucking job?

Fascist Thug of the Day

Alaskan Senate candidate Joe Miller.

Jesse Ventura on Conspiracy and Religion

I suppose it is easy to sound reasonable when the moderator is such an idiot.

Quote of the Day

Sites actively being watched by federal agents include Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Wikipedia, Craigslist, Twitter, Flickr, Daily Kos, NPR, CNN's iReport and others.

...and in other news, the latest research by scientists has determined that water is in fact wet.

Plotter for 2008 Mumbai Attacks Was Active DEA Informant

and the FBI was warned three years back about this guy:

Federal officials acknowledged Saturday that David Coleman Headley, the U.S. businessman who confessed to being a terrorist scout in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, was working as a DEA informant while he was training with terrorists in Pakistan.

Federal officials, who spoke only only on background because of the sensitivity of the Headley case, also said they suspect a link between Headley and the al Qaeda figures whose activities have sparked recent terror threats against Europe.

The revelations came after a report Friday by ProPublica and the Washington Post that the FBI had been warned about Headley’s terrorist ties three years before the Mumbai attacks. Headley wasn’t arrested until 11 months after the attack.

After Headley was arrested in a 2005 domestic dispute in New York City, his wife told federal investigators about his long involvement with the terrorist group Lashkar-i-Taiba and his extensive training in its Pakistani camps. She also told them he had bragged about being a paid U.S. informant while undergoing terrorist training.

Reminiscent of pre-9/11 warnings on the plotters... and there's that 11 again...

UPDATE here (interestingly, this piece was initially put out by MSNBC but was then withdrawn-- my initial link died so I found this reprint): "White House Orders Intelligence Review of Mumbai Attack"--

The White House has ordered a review of U.S. intelligence about an American conspirator involved in the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack to determine if there was a breakdown in information sharing among U.S. agencies that might have helped identify the suspect before the attack, two administration officials tell NBC.The review, which is being overseen by White House counterterrrorism adviser John Brennan, was triggered by reports over the weekend that two ex-wives of the Mumbai plotter, Pakistani-American David Coleman Headley, had separately reported concerns to U.S. officials that he may have been involved in militant activity in Pakistan, the officials said.

There is a dispute among U.S. agencies about whether all the information provided by the two wives were shared among U.S. law enforcement - and whether it rose to the level that should have prompted a more aggressive inquiry into Headley’s activities. There also could be questions about whether information about Headley should have been passed along to the Indian government prior to the attack.

Love this quote:

The New York Times over the weekend quoted the ex-wife, identified as a Moroccan woman, Faiza Outalha, as telling the U.S. agents: “I told him, he’s either a terrorist, or he’s working for you” and that “I wanted him in Guantanamo.” The U.S. officials failed to express much interest, she added. “Indirectly, they told me to get lost.”

"He's either a terrorist or he's working for you".

HOW ABOUT BOTH!

Jesus.

The "Able Danger" Story May Be a Massive Limited Hangout

but still it seems the Pentagon was worried about it:

...the Pentagon bought and destroyed 10,000 copies of a book, "Operation Dark Heart," written by Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, a Bronze Star recipient and career Army intelligence officer, that contained a chapter on a pre-9/11 intelligence operation, Able Danger.

In a statement, the Pentagon said it "decided to purchase copies of the first printing because they contained information which could cause damage to national security." The books were destroyed on Sept. 20.

FREEDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wanker of the Day: Madeline Albright

Pushing for a "precipitous event" that would provoke war with Iraq-- back in the 90's.

Today's 33

Average teen sends 3,339 texts every month.

Missing Choppers, Fake Collapse Footage, and How They Hid the Nuking

This makes some decent points:


I've long been interested in the choppers that appear in some footage and not in others. I've long wanted to do a thorough study of this, but never had the time.

Like this video shows a chopper coming around the west side of WTC1 right after the 2nd hit, but good luck finding a) other footage showing this chopper, or b) footage FROM this chopper!


I think the itinerant choppers are damn good evidence that the video footage from 9/11 showing plane hits and building collapses just can't be trusted.

Is Global Warming Bogus?

I've always been suspicious of the people who promote global warming (GW) skepticism-- and the 33 here along with citing Rush Limbaugh does not change my mind. These people go on triumphantly about a decrease in cyclones going against warming. But as this link shows, the GW argument has been that GW would make tropical storms worse-- more intense-- not necessarily more frequent. A point made in the comments also makes sense to me-- that overall warmer oceans would lessen the temperature differential between the hemisphere, that drives large storms. Obviously weather is hard to predict completely, and I am willing to believe the man-made GW argument is flawed in some ways. However, I also think the argument for man-made GW is strong enough to warrant some reasonable action on the part of people to curb emissions.

Dick Cheney An Even Bigger Dick Than We Thought

The Washington Post's Paul Farhi today has an excellent profile of Harry Whittington, the elderly Texas lawyer who was shot by Dick Cheney in a quail hunting accident back in 2006.

The headline news here is that Cheney apparently never apologized to Whittington, even privately. But Farhi also reveals that the contemporaneous media coverage of the event got lots of stuff flat wrong. For one thing, Whittington's injuries were quite serious. For another, he was not friends with Cheney, as was widely reported.

The question remains though-- was Cheney actually "hunting humans"?

Reading, Writing and UFOs

UK schools doing UFO crash drills.

Weird-- must mean something. Imminent contact, or more likely imminent hoax contact?

(Thanks to j for the link.)

Fort Hood Shooting Update

So, supposedly 300 soldiers were there, but of the two witnesses in the hearing, one only saw Hasan's feet, and the other was shot in the face and is now mostly blind* and probably can't be used to identify him in court.

Oh yeah, and it was local cops who eventually shot Hasan, none of the on-base officers.

It's hard to know exactly what happened, but the official story sure stinks.

*piece has been changed since I first read it-- initially said he was mostly blind, now just says he has lost sight in his left eye.

33 Brought Out from Deep Underground

As nice of a human interest/survival story the 33 Chilean miners being rescued is, I have to wonder if there is some deeper meaning here, and not necessarily good, given the generally ominous meaning of 33 and the Powers That Be. Is this is an omen for quarantine escape, in particular?

Unnatural Smoke

It's not just the spiraling trails that's unnatural, it's more at the end, with the smoke traveling perfectly horizontally as it exits the towers.

That's just not right.

Actually, Anonymous Physicist has written about this issue before here. As he writes, smoke from a hot fire should be traveling upwards, not straight to the side. This makes me wonder if the smoke was manufactured somehow, and not smoke from a true fire. And every window on the north and west faces shows the same behavior. Granted, strong wind could blow the wind sideways, but the wind isn't that strong, as evidenced by the spiral smoke trails in this video and other smoke puffs emanating.

Clearly, there seems to be fire on the south side of the tower, and note that smoke seems to be going up. But the smoke on the north and west faces is very strange indeed.

Today's 33

Glenn Greenwald's "Collapsing empire watch":

Out of 33 nations measured by the OECD, the U.S. ranks 27th for student math literacy and 22nd for student science literacy. In 2009, the World Economic Forum ranked 133 nations in terms of "soundness" of their banks, and the U.S. was ranked in 108th place, just behind Tanzania and just ahead of Venezuela.

To be fair, it's the OECD and the World Economic Forum that pull the 33s here -- certainly interesting that their rankings are based on lists with 33.

10/10/10

Interesting date! Though nothing seems to have happened of note. I guess 10 isn't "Illuminate/Masonic" enough... maybe they're waiting for 11/11/11.

Waaay Too Much Crap to Keep Track of

Worries about GM foods.

Grossed out over mechanically separated chicken.

Worries about depleted uranium.

Worries about the horrors we've done in Fallujah.

Worries about the Large Hadron Collider.

Worries about vaccines.

Worries about extra-judicial executive assassinations.

Worries about the police state and the clampdown on peace activists, for craps sake.

Worries about what 9/11 truth could mean.

Worries about Blackwater still getting USG contracts.

Worries about never-ending Al Qaida bull-shit.

Worries about what is happening in Pakistan, and the terrible waste of war.

Worries about the mess we created in Iraq.

Worries about how bad the gulf is fucked up.

To name a few things...

(thanks to JH and AP for several of the links)

"Social Network"

Saw the Facebook-Zuckerberg movie last night. Definitely a fascinating story that was very well acted and directed. Had a surprising amount of debauchery-- constant beer drinking and womanizing. Overall, it rang very true, and in that way, was somewhat depressing in various ways. What's incredible is the total massive phenomenon that Facebook has become, and the amount of wealth it has generated-- and the undoubted intel connections it has. The movie centers around a lawsuit that was over who originated the idea of Facebook, with the main plaintiffs accusing Zuckerberg of stealing the idea from them.

Not surprisingly, I noted at least two 33's-- one a mention of a 335 year old doorknob (kind of a contextually odd reference), and the other was mentioning of stock shares going to Eduardo Saverin of 1 million something and 33.

USA, Fuck Yeah!

We can go to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and threaten to blow Iran off the face of the planet. We can conduct a nonstop campaign of drone and helicopter attacks in Pakistan and run a network of secret prisons around the world. We are the mightiest nation mankind has ever seen.

But we can’t seem to build a railroad tunnel to carry commuters between New Jersey and New York.

The United States is not just losing its capacity to do great things. It’s losing its soul. It’s speeding down an increasingly rubble-strewn path to a region where being second rate is good enough.

"Bad Colds" Are From Too Active of an Immune System

Really interesting:

But, as medical science has realized over the past few decades, the most prevalent cold viruses in fact do little direct harm to our cells. In one experiment in 1984, researchers at the University of Copenhagen performed biopsies on nasal tissue taken from people suffering severe colds, then did the same after the subjects had recovered. To the scientists’ surprise, none of the samples showed any sign of damage to the nasal tissue. Further vindicating the viruses themselves was another study around the same time showing that rhinoviruses infect only a small number of cells lining the nasal passages.

Here was a new insight in cold science: the symptoms are caused not by the virus but by its host — by the body’s inflammatory response. Chemical agents manufactured by our immune system inflame our cells and tissues, causing our nose to run and our throat to swell. The enemy is us.

Indeed, it’s possible to create the full storm of cold symptoms with no cold virus at all, but only a potent cocktail of the so-called inflammatory mediators that the body makes itself — among them, cytokines, kinins, prostaglandins and interleukins, powerful little chemical messengers that cause the blood vessels in the nose to dilate and leak, stimulate the secretion of mucus, activate sneeze and cough reflexes and set off pain in our nerve fibers.

So susceptibility to cold symptoms is not a sign of a weakened immune system, but quite the opposite. And if you’re looking to quell those symptoms, strengthening your immune system may be counterproductive. It could aggravate the symptoms by amplifying the very inflammatory agents that cause them.

(snip)

There’s another intriguing paradox here. Studies suggest that about one in four people who get infected with a cold virus don’t get sick. The virus gets into their bodies, and eventually they produce antibodies to it, but they don’t experience symptoms. It may be that people like this are not making the normal amounts of inflammatory agents.

Makes sense to me, and certainly suggest that supplements/foods that boost the immune system may do more harm than good.

Hammerklavier Fugue Movement

A simple amazing performance:

The piece is horrifically difficult to play.

Great Speech from Cindy Sheehan

Though wish the audio was better:

(thanks for A.P. for video)

Killer Eyes

This is weird. The eyes between these two dudes seem to be exactly the same (though not the eyebrows). (link via j)

Wikipedia Wars

This chart of Wikipedia edit battles seems to be a microcosm of what people really care about. Sadly, 9/11 is not there, and a lot of really dumb stuff is.

13 Evil Science Projects Carried Out by the US

Interesting list from here.

1. Mind Control, Child Abuse - Project MKULTRA, Subproject 68
2. Mustard Gas Tested on Soldiers via Involuntary Gas Chambers
3. U.S. Grants Immunity to Involuntary-Surgery Monster
4. Deadly Pathogenic Sprays on American Cities
5. US Infects Guatemalans With STDs
6. Secret Human Experiments to Test the Effects of The Atomic Bomb and Exposure to Radioisotopes
7. Injected Prisoners with Agent Orange (nasty links at the link)
8. Operation Paperclip-- secret importation of Nazi scientists
9. Infecting Puerto Ricans With Cancer
10. Pentagon Treats Black Cancer Patients with Extreme Radiation
11. Operation Midnight Climax (drug test on unknowing subjects)
12. Fallout Radiation on Unsuspecting Pacific Territories
13. Tuskegee Syphilis experiments

These evil acts would be separate from the evil acts of war such as Hiroshima, Nagasaki, My Lai, 9/11, Fallujah, drone attacks, etc, as these were done in the name of science.

(via j)

Max Keiser!

Gotta love this dude:

Today's 33

WASHINGTON — US officials Wednesday unveiled the FBI's largest ever police corruption sweep saying 133 police, prison guards and army officers have been charged in a huge anti-graft crackdown in Puerto Rico.

The suspects face charges relating to possessing and distributing cocaine, and using firearms during a drug trafficking offense, the US Department of Justice said in a statement.

The arrests "are the result of Operation Guard Shack, the largest police corruption investigation in the history of the FBI," the statement read.

Yay for 33!

266 Synchronicity

-- the number of people officially killed in planes on 9/11

-- the number of times 9/11 masterminds Abu Zubyadah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were officially waterboarded

Since waterboarding someone over a hundred times is insane and absurd, I've always wondered if those numbers were made up. It seems possible that the 266 was meant to signify the 266 official plane victims of 9/11.

Also, note what you get when you divide 66 by 2.

More Americans Die of Poverty than Terrorism

We have insane priorities:

For fiscal year 2011, $1,398 billion (48 percent) of our nation's budget is allotted for military spending (pdf). Of that, $399 billion is for paying off the interest on loans from previous military expenditures. In contrast, this year we'll only be spending $1.79 billion on homeless assistance grants like help with back rent for at-risk families.

$1,398 billion is 1.4 trillion fucking dollars.

Related-- Michael Moore on the military-industrial complex.

The ELT Oddity at DU

Here.

What is funny, weird is how the usual shills don't even seem to comprehend the issue-- their responses are even more incoherent than usual.

The Nuking of the WTC by the US Regime Trumps All

Weird-- Andrew Sullivan, usually pretty good on civil liberties issues and human rights, defends Obama's extra-judicial assassination of US citizens program by starting with a picture of the nuked WTC.

Now, I'm sure Sullivan is intel, at some level, particularly being a Brit reporter/pundit. Sullivan is pretty obnoxious about 9/11, early on defaming the American left for potential treason after 9/11-- but he at least has been very strong against torture and other Bush admin war crimes. Greenwald (who Sullivan) is responding to) is great on torture, anthrax, and speaking out against the war on terror and pointing out hypocrisy of the Democrats, but has been completely silent on 9/11. Conceivably, Greenwald is duly skeptical on 9/11, and keeps quiet on it to maintain more credibility and influence among the reporter/blogger class. Or not. It's hard to know for sure. Despite 9/11 itself being so cnetral to everything he writes about, he never actually really talks about THAT DAY. But to his credit, Greenwald at least doesn't actively disparage 9/11 conspiracies.

Still, the bottom line here is that Sullivan's 9/11 ploy is rather reprehensible.

The ELT Oddity

Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELTs) went off early for both flight 11 and flight 175. Seems highly improbable that they went off by accident.

Possible explanations:
1) the flights crashed or were blown up somewhere else than the WTC.

2) the ELT signals were fake, part of the fake electronic hijack signals put out as part of the 9/11 wargames, and went off to signal the fake crashes, but were mistimed.

3) the ELT signals were fake, mistimed as part of the extensive 9/11 disinfo setup.

I favor the second possibility.

Note the extensive number of 33's in this NYTimes article on the flight 11 ELT, and note DAL2433 was one of the flights that noted the ELT. 33s are found throughout 9/11.

AIG Repayment

Some funny business in the reporting of this by the NYTimes, apparently with an attempt to hide the real price of the bailout.

33 of the Day

"In its Sept. 24 article about the speech The New York Times headline read: "Iran Leader Says U.S. Planned 9/11 Attacks." The first paragraph declared: "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran made a series of incendiary remarks in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, notably the claim that the United States orchestrated the Sept. 11 attacks to rescue its declining economy, to reassert its weakening grip on the Middle East and to save Israel."

On the basis of his remarks the U.S. led 33 nations in theatrical walk out from the General Assembly while he was talking."

Note, the idiot-asshole-intel writer, while decrying the media's description of Ahmedinejad's speech, says he has never believed that 9/11 was an inside job.

US Apologizes for Deliberate STD Infections in Guatemala 60 Years Ago

The United States government has apologised for deliberately infecting hundreds of people in Guatemala with gonorrhoea and syphilis as part of medical tests more than 60 years ago.

None of those infected - mentally ill patients and prisoners - consented.

Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom accused the US of "crimes against humanity".

US President Barack Obama has called Mr Colom to apologise and has said the acts ran contrary to American values.

We deeply regret that it happened, and we apologise to all the individuals who were affected by such abhorrent research practices”

Syphilis can cause heart problems, blindness, mental illness and even death, and although the patients were treated it is not known how many recovered.

Evidence of the programme was unearthed by Prof Susan Reverby at Wellesley College. She says the Guatemalan government gave permission for the tests.

Yeah... this happened a long time ago, and I'm sure they have NEVER done anything like that since then.... like with (cough) HIV (cough)...

(and fucking hell, you take a week off blogging and the shit just piles higher than you can imagine... I have a dozen more things to post just waiting for time and don't want to crowd everything at once)

Uh, Weird Message Here

Ads for cutting carbon emissions by 10%, where people are blown up who don't comply:

"Bin Laden" Comes Out for Clean Water, Improved Infrastructure

Given how whatever bin Laden says is typically "bad", I have to wonder if this is some lame attempt to justify increasing pollution and crumbling infrastructure in the US.

Fun Activity

How to Report a Human Rights Violator

The Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section actively seeks out information that may assist the U.S. Government in identifying human rights violators who may have entered the United States.

If you know of anyone in the United States or of any U.S. citizen anywhere in the world who may have been involved in perpetrating human rights violations abroad, please contact HRSP either by email at hrsptips@usdoj.gov or by postal mail at:

Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (Tips), Criminal Division United States Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20530-0001

You do not have to identify yourself when providing information. Please provide as much detail as possible, such as:

* the suspect's name, place and date of birth,

* physical description, and current location;

* the suspect's alleged human rights violations including the locations and dates of those activities;

* how you learned of the suspect’s alleged activities and when and where you saw the suspect.

Hmmm, I wonder where you could find some people who have violated human rights..... I wonder....

(via)

The Power Fugue

Oh I love what Beethoven does to the fugue here, and of course the whole opus 110 is amazing-- but here is the ending fugue (Fuga. Allegro ma non troppo - L'istesso tempo dell'arioso - L'istesso tempo della Fuga, poi di nuovo vivente):