Mid-flight sexual play lands US couple afoul of anti-terrorism law

 

AFP

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

 

A couple's ill-concealed sexual play aboard a Southwest Airlines flight from Los Angeles got them charged with violating the Patriot Act, intended for terrorist acts, and could land them in jail for 20 years.

According to their indictment, Carl Persing and Dawn Sewell were allegedly snuggling and kissing inappropriately, "making other passengers uncomfortable," when a flight attendant asked them to stop.

 

"Persing was observed nuzzling or kissing Sewell on the neck, and ... with his face pressed against Sewell's vaginal area. During these actions, Sewell was observed smiling," reads the indictment filed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

 

On a second warning from the flight attendant, Persing snapped back threatening the flight attendant with "serious consequences" if he did not leave them alone.

 

The comment was enough to have the couple, both in their early 40s, arrested when the plane reached its destination in Raleigh, North Carolina, and charged with obstructing a flight attendant and with criminal association.

 

They have been placed under legal surveillance until their trial on February 5. If found guilty, they both could be sent to jail for up to 20 years.

 

Persing's lawyer William Peregoy said his client was not feeling well when he placed his head on his companion's lap, and that he only threatened the flight attendant with reporting him to his superiors on landing.

NO way someone broke a law and they have to pay for it! fascism! next someone will steal explosive material and get in trouble.....

 

They're not going to get much jail time at all, in fact you can kill someone and get less time in jail...they are reaping what they sow. Just like if someone threatens to kill the president or blow up something, they get what they deserve for their mouth's. If you dont want to follow the rules dont play the game.

NO way someone broke a law and they have to pay for it! fascism! next someone will steal explosive material and get in trouble.....

 

They're not going to get much jail time at all, in fact you can kill someone and get less time in jail...they are reaping what they sow. Just like if someone threatens to kill the president or blow up something, they get what they deserve for their mouth's. If you dont want to follow the rules dont play the game.

 

Again you make up things that weren't even there.

 

By saying "next someone will steal explosive material and get (not) in trouble"...you are implying that this is along the lines of my thinking.

 

[i assume you meant 'not' in the section I quoted you on]

 

And saying "If you dont want to follow the rules dont play the game" shows you up, for having very a limited ability to address the issue....

 

What you do is create a more serious situation out of thin air, comment on that and then just hope people related to what I was talking about. And you've done that perfectly above.

 

God, you're so transparent.

 

Shameful.

White House denies Cheney is in Iraq

 

BAGDHAD, Iraq - The White House denied Iraqi television reports that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney made an unannounced visit to Baghdad on Thursday.

 

David Almacy, a White House spokesman in Washington, said Cheney was not in Iraq and that his only currently planned travel to the region is the previously announced trip he will make to Saudi Arabia on Friday to meeting the next day with King Abdullah to discuss developments in the Middle East, including Iraq.

 

State-run Iraqiya TV and the private Al-Arabiya TV station reported that Cheney had arrived in the Iraqi capital on Thursday morning, apparently to visit American troops for the Thanksgiving holiday.

 

But U.S. Embassy and U.S. military officials in Baghdad couldn't confirm that, and it became clear later that the reports were erroneous.

 

For security reasons, previous visits to Iraq by U.S. President George W. Bush , Cheney and other high administration officials have not been made public in advance, but have been disclosed immediately upon their arrival — regardless of whether they were accompanied by reporters or traveling without a press contingent.

 

For example, U.S. Attorney General Albert Gonzales traveled unannounced and without reporters to Iraq in August, but his visit was disclosed to the media in Baghdad and Washington immediately upon his arrival.

U.S. involved in Iraq longer than WWII

 

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The war in Iraq has now lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in the war that President Bush 's father fought in, World War II. As of Sunday, the conflict in Iraq has raged for three years and just over eight months.

Only the Vietnam War (eight years, five months), the Revolutionary War (six years, nine months), and the Civil War (four years), have engaged America longer.

 

Fighting in Afghanistan , which may or may not be a full-fledged war depending on who is keeping track, has gone on for five years, one month. It continues as the ousted Taliban resurges and the central government is challenged.

 

Bush says he still is undecided whether to start bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq or add to the 140,000 there now.

 

He is awaiting the conclusions of several top-to-bottom studies, including a military review by Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Expected soon, too, are recommendations from an outside blue-ribbon commission headed by former Secretary of State James Baker, a Republican close to the Bush family, and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, an Indiana Democrat who was one of the leaders of the Sept. 11 commission.

 

The Iraq war began on March 19, 2003, with the U.S. bombing of Baghdad. On May 1, 2003, Bush famously declared major combat operations over, the pronouncement coming in a speech aboard an aircraft carrier emblazoned with a "Mission Accomplished" banner.

 

Yet the fighting has dragged on, and most of the 2,800-plus U.S. military deaths have occurred after Bush suggested an end to what he called the Iraq front in the global fight against terrorism.

 

Politicians in both parties blame the increasingly unpopular war for GOP losses on Capitol Hill in the November elections that handed control of the House and Senate to Democrats.

 

Twice before in the last half-century have presidents — Harry S. Truman in Korea and Lyndon B. Johnson in Vietnam — been crippled politically by prolonged and unpopular wars.

 

Bush last week visited Vietnam for the first time, attending a summit of Asian and Pacific Rim nations. Asked if the Vietnam war held any messages for U.S. policy in Iraq, Bush said it showed that "we'll succeed unless we quit."

 

John Mueller, an Ohio State University political scientist who wrote the book "War, Presidents and Public Opinion," said Americans soured on Iraq after "doing a rough cost-benefit analysis. They say, `What's it worth to us and how much is it costing us?'"

 

By that standard, Americans were willing to abandon the Iraq war long before they turned against the war in Vietnam, Mueller suggested. "So that, for example, when more than 2,000 Americans had died in Iraq, support lowered. It took 20,000 deaths in Vietnam to lower support for that war to the same level," he said.

 

In the casualty count, the Civil War was the most lethal, with military deaths of the North and South combined totaling at least 620,000. By comparison, the total for World War II was roughly 406,000; Vietnam, 58,000; Korea, 37,000; World War I, 116,000.

 

The outgoing Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee , Sen. John Warner of Virginia, a veteran of World War II and a former Navy secretary, noted solemnly at a recent hearing of his committee that Sunday would mark the day when U.S. was involved longer in the Iraq war than it had been in World War II.

 

Yet the October 2002 congressional resolution that authorized the Iraq war "addressed the Iraq of Saddam Hussein , which is now gone, and no more a threat to us," Warner said.

 

While the United States is helping the Iraq's current government to assume the full reins of sovereignty, "we need to revise (our) strategy to achieve that goal," Warner said.

 

U.S. involvement in the Iraq war has outlasted that of the Korean War (three years, one month); the War of 1812 (two years, six months); the U.S.-Mexican War (one year, 10 months); World War I (one year, seven months); the Spanish American War (eight months); and the first Persian Gulf War (one and a half months).

 

 

Democrats and Republicans are divided about what to do next in Iraq.

Many Democrats and some Republicans have called for a phased withdrawal.

 

Some lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain

 

R-Ariz., a 2008 presidential hopeful, are urging that more U.S. troops be sent to help stabilize Iraq.

 

Sen. Carl Levin the Michigan Democrat who will be the next chairman of the

Senate Armed Services Committee, argues for beginning to bring troops home soon. "We should put the responsibility for Iraq's future squarely where it belongs, on the Iraqis," Levin said. "We cannot save the Iraqis from themselves."

 

Experts of various political stripes have suggested that the options are few. "No mix of options for U.S. action can provide a convincing plan for 'victory' in Iraq," said Anthony Cordesman, an Iraq analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "The initiative has passed into Iraqi hands."

 

CIA: No Evidence of Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program

 

Counterpunch | November 30, 2006

GARY LEUPP

 

According to Seymour Hersh's latest New Yorker shocker, the CIA has found no evidence of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program. The White House, given a draft assessment in the fall, has been "hostile" to the agency's report.

 

Now why would that be? Why no sighs of relief? Why no, "Thank you guys," and pats on the back for all their careful intelligence work?

 

I think the answer's obvious to anyone who's been paying attention. Dick Cheney and his neocon acolytes who still dominate Middle East policy (David Wurmser, Elliott Abrams, Stephen Hadley, Stephen Cambone, Eric Edelman, Elizabeth Cheney, with Abram Shulsky, David Addington and John Bolton in supporting roles) have a certain view of what constitutes good intelligence. It's at variance with the view more widely held among those of us in what they dismiss as the "reality-based community." That includes many intelligence professionals.

 

My university hosts the Fletcher School of International Law and Diplomacy, a prime CIA recruiting ground. I know from personal exposure that some choosing that career (never at my urging) can be decent, self-respecting, conscientious scholars and researchers. If asked to investigate whether or not a country has a nuclear weapons program, they're likely to interpret the assignment literally and give it their best shot.

 

But this is not the neocon understanding of what intelligence entails. When Dick Cheney says, "Find me evidence," he means, "Validate my project with evidence" He wants talking points to disseminate to the American public via Fox News and the Wall Street Journal editorial page to justify regime change in Iran. He wants an Iranian client-state, bridging "liberated" Afghanistan and Iraq, helping to encircle rising China, decorated with permanent U.S. bases keeping a watchful eye on the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea, and friendly with nuclear Israel.

 

Before the Iraq War, Cheney, his deputy "Scooter" Libby and Rumsfeld deputy Paul Wolfowitz all strongly opposed the CIA reports concluding that Saddam Hussein had no important al-Qaeda ties and that Iraq didn't have enough WMDs to threaten anybody. Cheney and Libby repeatedly visited CIA headquarters in person to demand revisions of reports and inclusion of "intelligence" later proven to have come from persons known by the CIA to be unreliable. But dissatisfied with the level of cooperation from the CIA, Cheney with Rumsfeld created the "Office for Special Plans" (headed by Douglas Feith) within the Defense Department to scatter disinformation through the "free" press and then through administration officials appearing on weekend news programs--including the myths of the Niger uranium deal, aluminum tubes as nuclear centrifuges, al-Qaeda training camps in Iraq, etc.

 

So of course the White House---at least if (as I suspect) Cheney retains the upper hand in an apparent power struggle---is going to be hostile to the CIA report, whose existence has likely been leaked by some self-respecting intelligence officers. The administration knows that war critics in Congress might brandish this report to discourage the well-planned attack, calling for negotiations and dialogue with Tehran. Their voice will be all the more convincing if as expected the report of the Iraq Study Group headed by James Baker urges that all Iraq's neighbors be involved in finding a solution to the war in that country. The idea that the CIA would abet such wimps must give the surviving, struggling neocons shitfits. Will the current serve, or will they lose their fortunes?

 

(Hersh writes that the CIA paper has made "planning for an attack on Iranfar more complicated." On the other hand the neocons know that AIPAC is strong, and will passionately argue that opposition to a preemptive attack is appeasement, and Ahmadinejad is Hitler, that Iran wants to "wipe Israel of the map," that Israel's security and U.S. security are the same, and that whatever the cost the U.S. MUST prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. They know that even many now favoring a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq won't stand in the way of an Iran attack because they're intimidated by such reasoning. Few politicians may care to argue back, but they could say, "The historical analogy is ridiculous. Do you even know what Ahmadinejad's constitutional powers are, in relation to military affairs, foreign policy, and the Iranian nuclear program? Don't you think the administration's exaggerating the Iranian threat, like it did the threat from Iraq? Why did State Department Sean McCormack jump last May to validate a totally false and almost immediately discredited report that the Iranian parliament was planning to badge Jews? Are you aware that the IAEA headed by one of the UN's most respected officials, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, has repeatedly reported there is no evidence the Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program? Just as our own CIA has done, for godssakes? Did you know that Iran has never once in modern history attacked another country? By the way, what is Israel doing to encourage friendly relations with Iran, and with its Arab neighbors? Would complete withdrawal from the West Bank and Syria's Golan Heights in accordance with numerous UN resolutions help?" )

 

I wonder if Dubya's actually "hostile" to the CIA report. Could be that he hasn't read it, or has had it summarized for him by a hostile Cheney, who'll be telling him that the CIA is dominated by liberals who just don't want to see the evidence and interpret it so cautiously that they're risking our security. But his dad's telling him (through James Baker and Brent Snowcroft) to back off a bit on Iran, having screwed up so bad in Iraq, and to actually sit down and talk to the Iranians about settling down that Mesopotamian mess. He's perhaps been urging his boy not to snap at the CIA because those guys are there to HELP him, after all, as they along with the generals gently suggest that he cool his jets. And meanwhile the neocons, his rock of support, whose words must genuinely hurt, declare him a failure.

 

Key neocons (including Bill Kristol) turned on Rumsfeld long ago, damning his inclination to use too little force and firepower. But now some neocons out of power (including Perle, "axis of evil" speechwriter Frum, and "Cakewalk" Adelman) are on the president's own case; having once delighted in his receptivity to their plans (born out his natural callousness and desire to one-up his war criminal pop), they now blame him for not wisely executing the colonization-of-Iraq project.

 

But notice that the neocons out of power and inclined to comment aren't turning on Cheney, from his undisclosed location long serving as the real power behind the throne. Hersh reports that the White House (Cheney) insisted before the midterm elections that even if the Democrats took both houses U.S. policy towards Iran wouldn't change. But, a former senior intelligence officer told Hersh, "[t]hey're afraid that Congress is going to vote a binding resolution to stop a hit on Iran, à la Nicaragua in the Contra war." Cheney and his neocons are surely working closely with Lantos and Lieberman and other warmonger Democrats to achieve the overthrow of the Iranian government before Bush leaves office. The "Office of Special Plans" has been revived in the same Pentagon offices as the "Office of Iranian Affairs," headed by the Leo Strauss scholar Abram Shulsky and reporting to the vice-president's daughter Elizabeth Cheney. It will take more than a classified CIA report to stop the train, but the train does appear to be slowing down.

 

Despite war preparations, the contradictions within the Bush regime and in the power elite in general suggest that rather than expanding the criminal war, those bearing top command responsibility might just have to back off. Their credibility with the people has hit rock-bottom; the mainstream press is no longer so cooperative; traditional power centers have become alarmed at the influence acquired by the neocon cabal, the Israel lobby and Christian fundamentalist PACs. The regimes targeted for change in Damascus and Tehran are working with a somewhat independent-minded (if still U.S.-dependent) Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The announcement of a summit between Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian leaders in Tehran may have taken Bush by surprise; the meeting in Amman with al-Maliki right afterwards, requiring Bush to fly down from the NATO conference in Riga, looks as though it was hastily called. Meanwhile, according to reports, Baker's Iraq Study Group will suggest that U.S. diplomats sit down and talk with Iraq's neighbors about ending the violence in the invaded country.

 

Will not even the most mule-headed Democrat in the Democrat-led legislature now have to pause before recommending or approving further aggression against those nations bordering Iraq? Perhaps Bush and Cheney have already given them their cue. "If we don't attack Iran," they say, "the Israelis might, and we'd understand that." And the Democrats can, after expressing any personal opinions they may have on Iran-Israel issues, add, "Anyway it's not the U.S.'s business to go attacking a country that even the CIA says poses no threat to us."

Iran has enough natural gas to have alot of very cheap energy....they have no use for nuclear energy.

There is an abundance of natural gas in North America and also here in the UK (if we really want to get it)........so why do we have nuclear energy?

 

The U.S has the 11th highest oil reserves in the world and with Canada having the 2nd highest stash North America is loaded with the stuff......so why go over and rape the middle-east?

.......and why do oil prices have to change so much in the U.S when they can have access to the 2nd largest amount on the planet?

There is an abundance of natural gas in North America and also here in the UK (if we really want to get it)........so why do we have nuclear energy?

 

The U.S has the 11th highest oil reserves in the world and with Canada having the 2nd highest stash North America is loaded with the stuff......so why go over and rape the middle-east?

.......and why do oil prices have to change so much in the U.S when they can have access to the 2nd largest amount on the planet?

 

We dont have nearly as much natural gas and a much bigger population....;)

That is completely true....but you guys still have decent level.....and yes, the UK really can't get to most of the gas, and the expensive nature of deeper exploration means a impossible business there.

 

Russia has an unthinkable amount of natural gas yet they are a nuclear nation.

 

...see with Nuclear Engery comes status and it energizes the population of which ever country achieves the task. It's an economic boost - and the west couldn't have that now could they?

 

And with there being no evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons program, why should we have people on our news all day saying "they got nukes! they are making nukes!" without any background to their pathetic yelps?

That is completely true....but you guys still have decent level.....and yes, the UK really can't get to most of the gas, and the expensive nature of deeper exploration means a impossible business there.

 

Russia has an unthinkable amount of natural gas yet they are a nuclear nation.

 

...see with Nuclear Engery comes status and it energizes the population of which ever country achieves the task. It's an economic boost - and the west couldn't have that now could they?

 

And with there being no evidence of Iranian nuclear weapons program, why should we have people on our news all day saying "they got nukes! they are making nukes!" without any background to their pathetic yelps?

 

Do you believe that America want these all energy due to the population?

 

If they really want the energy for the population, they can get it friendly instead of occupyig the others lands. There are a hidden purpose, and everyone one know that.

Americans Surprised, Concerned that 90% of Flu Shots Contain Mercury

- Health Officials' Aggressive Flu Shot Campaign May Disregard Safety, According to Survey of 9,000 Americans

-74 % of Respondents Unaware Flu Shots Contain Mercury, 78 % Disagree with CDC About Vaccinating Pregnant Women and Children

 

PR Newswire

 

PORTLAND, Ore. -- As health officials step up their effort to vaccinate Americans against the flu, a new survey suggests serious concerns over the toxin mercury, an ingredient in over 90 percent of this season's flu shot supply. PutChildrenFirst.org, a parent-led organization advocating vaccine safety, commissioned a survey of over 9,000 Americans to learn their plans for getting flu shots, their knowledge of its ingredients, and who they hold responsible for making sure vaccines are safe.

 

The survey revealed that the overwhelming majority of Americans were unaware that most flu shots contain mercury and that they would refuse a shot with mercury.

 

"More than 75 percent of Americans feel a mercury-containing flu shot should not be given to a pregnant woman or a child, despite recommendations from medical authorities to do just that," said Lisa Handley, a founding parent of PutChildrenFirst.org. Her own son, Jamison, had an adverse reaction to a flu shot containing mercury in 2003. "I know firsthand how life-changing a flu shot with mercury can be, since our son began his regression into autism after his flu shot."

 

In 1999, government agencies called for the removal of Thimerosal, the mercury-based preservative in most vaccines. Then, in 2001, the American Academy of Pediatrics stated that, "mercury in all of its forms is toxic to the fetus and children, and efforts should be made to reduce exposure to the extent possible to pregnant women and children as well as the general population." Despite these actions, 90 percent of this season's flu vaccines still contain Thimerosal, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are recommending the vaccine for pregnant women and children six months and older.

 

These recommendations come on the heels of recent studies that reveal new findings about the neurological effects of mercury and question the effectiveness of flu shots. Mercury, the second most toxic element after plutonium, is estimated to be 500 to 1,000 times more toxic than lead.

 

"A common myth is that Thimerosal is added to vaccines in 'trace' amounts," said Mike Wagnitz, who has over 20 years experience evaluating materials for mercury and is employed as a senior chemist with the University of Wisconsin. "The concentration of mercury in a multi-dose flu vaccine vial is 50,000 parts per billion. To put this in perspective, drinking water cannot exceed 2 parts per billion of mercury, and waste is considered hazardous if it has only 200 parts per billion. Is it really safe then to inject pregnant women, newborns, and infants with levels of mercury 250 times higher than what is legally classified as hazardous waste?"

 

Agreeing that mercury has no place in vaccines, seven states have passed Thimerosal bans in recent years: California, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, New York, and Washington. California is the first to have implemented the ban for the current flu season, but Governor Schwarzenegger temporarily overturned the ban on November 2 after a shortage of mercury-free flu shots led to pressure from state medical groups.

 

"Parents need to be informed about all aspects of their children's healthcare, including vaccines," said Deirdre Imus, President and founder of The Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology at Hackensack University Medical Center and co-founder and co-director, with husband Don Imus, of The Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer. "It doesn't make common sense to inject Thimerosal, a known neurotoxin, into the bloodstream of our babies."

 

This fall, two studies were published in leading medical journals admitting that limited data exists to support the effectiveness of flu shots. One study, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, noted that, "there is scant data on the efficacy and effectiveness of influenza vaccine in young children."

 

"So, not only is the flu shot's effectiveness in doubt, there is plenty of evidence revealing the devastating effects of mercury," said J.B. Handley, Lisa's husband and a founder of PutChildrenFirst.org. "Our health authorities are not being forthcoming about mercury's presence in shots and its toxicity to the nervous system. Our children deserve better."

 

"With everything we know about the dangers of mercury and the havoc it can wreak on young, developing brains, there is no excuse for any vaccine to contain mercury," said Lyn Redwood, RN, MSN, President of SafeMinds, a nonprofit committed to ending mercury-induced neurological disorders. "The survey reveals that Americans are overwhelmingly in the dark about what is in most flu shots. They do not want a known neurotoxin injected into their children, and they believe Congress and medical professionals must be more vigilant about keeping vaccines safe and mercury-free."

 

Key findings from the poll, conducted October 27-30 by Zogby International, include:

 

* 74 percent of respondents are unaware that most flu shots contain mercury.

 

* After learning that mercury is an ingredient, 74 percent are less likely to get a flu shot and 86 percent of parents say they are less likely to get their child a flu shot.

 

* 78 percent of respondents believe mercury should not be an ingredient in flu shots given to pregnant women and children.

 

* 73 percent believe the government should warn pregnant women not to get a flu shot if it contains mercury.

 

* More than 70 percent agree that Congress, doctors and medical groups (e.g., the American Academy of Pediatrics) should take responsibility for ensuring that vaccines do not contain mercury.

 

* 80 percent of respondents and 82 percent of parents are willing to pay the $2.50 additional cost for a mercury-free flu shot.

Most people getting flu shots if im correct are old geezers...at my work we used to have them every thursday and hundreds of old people would line up for them. I dont think many young people get them.

Nah, kids get them too + Mercury is in most shots.

 

Remember - "Mercury is good for you brain"........:(

Nah, kids get them too + Mercury is in most shots.

 

Remember - "Mercury is good for you brain"........:(

 

 

And i think there is mercury in tuna that or some other metal thats why i stopped eating tuna. I didnt know kids could get them too. Thats really disconcerting

Check this shit....

 

Say Hello to the Goodbye Weapon

 

David Hambling

Wired

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

 

The crowd is getting ugly. Soldiers roll up in a Hummer. Suddenly, the whole right half of your body is screaming in agony. You feel like you've been dipped in molten lava. You almost faint from shock and pain, but instead you stumble backwards -- and then start running. To your surprise, everyone else is running too. In a few seconds, the street is completely empty.

 

You've just been hit with a new nonlethal weapon that has been certified for use in Iraq -- even though critics argue there may be unforeseen effects.

 

According to documents obtained for Wired News under federal sunshine laws, the Air Force's Active Denial System, or ADS, has been certified safe after lengthy tests by military scientists in the lab and in war games.

 

The ADS shoots a beam of millimeters waves, which are longer in wavelength than x-rays but shorter than microwaves -- 94 GHz (= 3 mm wavelength) compared to 2.45 GHz (= 12 cm wavelength) in a standard microwave oven.

 

The longer waves are thought to limit the effects of the radiation. If used properly, ADS will produce no lasting adverse affects, the military argues.

 

Documents acquired for Wired News using the Freedom of Information Act claim that most of the radiation (83 percent) is instantly absorbed by the top layer of the skin, heating it rapidly.

 

The beam produces what experimenters call the "Goodbye effect," or "prompt and highly motivated escape behavior." In human tests, most subjects reached their pain threshold within 3 seconds, and none of the subjects could endure more than 5 seconds.

 

"It will repel you," one test subject said. "If hit by the beam, you will move out of it -- reflexively and quickly. You for sure will not be eager to experience it again."

 

But while subjects may feel like they have sustained serious burns, the documents claim effects are not long-lasting. At most, "some volunteers who tolerate the heat may experience prolonged redness or even small blisters," the Air Force experiments concluded.

 

The reports describe an elaborate series of investigations involving human subjects.

 

The volunteers were military personnel: active, reserve or retired, who volunteered for the tests. They were unpaid, but the subjects would "benefit from direct knowledge that an effective nonlethal weapon system could soon be in the inventory," said one report. The tests ranged from simple exposure in the laboratory to elaborate war games involving hundreds of participants.

 

The military simulated crowd control situations, rescuing helicopter crews in a Black Hawk Down setting and urban assaults. More unusual tests involved alcohol, attack dogs and maze-like obstacle courses.

 

In more than 10,000 exposures, there were six cases of blistering and one instance of second-degree burns in a laboratory accident, the documents claim.

 

The ADS was developed in complete secrecy for 10 years at a cost of $40 million. Its existence was revealed in 2001 by news reports, but most details of ADS human testing remain classified. There has been no independent checking of the military's claims.

 

The ADS technology is ready to deploy, and the Army requested ADS-armed Strykers for Iraq last year. But the military is well aware that any adverse publicity could finish the program, and it does not want to risk distressed victims wailing about evil new weapons on CNN.

 

This may mean yet more rounds of testing for the ADS.

 

New bombs can be rushed into service in a matter of weeks, but the process is more complex for nonlethal weapons. It may be years before the debates are resolved and the first directed-energy nonlethal weapon is used in action.

 

The development of a truly safe and highly effective nonlethal crowd-control system could raise enormous ethical questions about the state's use of coercive force. If a method such as ADS leads to no lasting injury or harm, authorities may find easier justifications for employing them.

 

Historically, one of the big problems with nonlethal weapons is that they can be misused. Rubber bullets are generally safe when fired at the torso, but head impacts can be dangerous, particularly at close range. Tasers can become dangerous if they are used on subjects who have previously been doused with flammable pepper spray. In the heat of the moment, soldiers or police can forget their safety training.

 

Steve Wright of Praxis, the Center for the Study of Information and Technology in Peace, Conflict Resolution and Human Rights, notes that there are occasions when this has happened in the past. He cites British soldiers, who increased the weight of baton rounds in Northern Ireland.

 

"Soldiers flouted the rules of engagement, doctoring the bullets by inserting batteries (to increase the weight) and firing at closer ranges than allowed," says Wright.

 

There may also be technical issues. Wright cites a recent report on CS gas sprays which turned out to be more dangerous in the field than expected.

 

"No one had bothered to check how the sprays actually performed in practice, and they yielded much more irritant than was calculated in the weapon specification. This underlines the need for independent checking of any manufacturers' specifications. Here secrecy is the enemy of safety."

 

Eye damage is identified as the biggest concern, but the military claims this has been thoroughly studied. Lab testing found subjects reflexively blink or turn away within a quarter of a second of exposure, long before the sensitive cornea can be damaged. Tests on monkeys showed that corneal damage heals within 24 hours, the reports claim.

 

"A speculum was needed to hold the eyes open to produce this type of injury because even under anesthesia, the monkeys blinked, protecting the cornea," the report says.

 

The risk of cancer is also often mentioned in connection with the ADS system, despite the shallow penetration of radiation into the skin.

 

But the Air Force is adamant that after years of study, exposure to MMW has not been demonstrated to promote cancer. During some tests, subjects were exposed to 20 times the permitted dose under the relevant Air Force radiation standard. The Air Force claims the exposure was justified by demonstrating the safety of the ADS system.

 

The beam penetrates clothing, but not stone or metal. Blocking it is harder than you might think. Wearing a tinfoil shirt is not enough -- you would have to be wrapped like a turkey to be completely protected. The experimenters found that even a small exposed area was enough to produce the Goodbye effect, so any gaps would negate protection. Holding up a sheet of metal won't work either, unless it covers your whole body and you can keep the tips of your fingers out of sight.

 

Wet clothing might sound like a good defense, but tests showed that contact with damp cloth actually intensified the effects of the beam.

 

System 1, the operational prototype, is mounted on a Hummer and produces a beam with a 2-meter diameter. Effective range is at least 500 meters, which is further than rubber bullets, tear gas or water cannons. The ammunition supply is effectively unlimited.

 

The military's tests went beyond safety, exploring how well the ADS works in practice. In one war game, an assault team staged a mock raid on a building. The ADS was used to remove civilians from the battlefield, separating what the military calls "tourists from terrorists."

 

It was also used in a Black Hawk Down scenario, and maritime tests, which saw the ADS deployed against small boats.

 

It might also be used on the battlefield. One war game deployed the ADS in support of an assault, suppressing incoming fire and obstructing a counterattack.

 

"ADS has the same compelling nonlethal effect on all targets, regardless of size, age and gender," says Capt. Jay Delarosa, spokesman for the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, which decides where and how the ADS might be deployed.

 

"It can be used to deny an area to individuals or groups, to control access, to prevent an individual or individuals from carrying out an undesirable activity, and to delay or disrupt adversary activity."

 

The precise results of the military's war games are classified, but Capt. Delarosa insists that the ADS has proven "both safe and effective in all these roles."

 

The ADS comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. As well as System 1, a smaller version has been fitted to a Stryker armored vehicle -- along with other lethal and nonlethal weapons -- for urban security operations. Sandia National Labs is looking at a small tripod-mounted version for defending nuclear installations, and there is even a portable ADS. And there are bigger versions too.

 

"Key technologies to enable this capability from an airborne platform -- such as a C-130 -- are being developed at several Air Force Research Laboratory technology directorates," says Diana Loree, program manager for the Airborne ADS.

 

The airborne ADS would supplement the formidable firepower of Special Forces AC-130 gunships, which currently includes a 105-mm howitzer and 25-mm Gatling guns. The flying gunboats typically engage targets at a range of two miles or more, which implies an ADS far more powerful than System 1 has been developed. But details of the exact power levels, range and diameter of the beam are classified.

An little older article but I was just reading more about it and thought I'd psot it here too

 

Radiation Hot Spots In NYC

 

'One alleged radiation hot spot on Manhattan's east side has the potential for becoming a political hot spot: A strong radiation spike from the area of the Israeli Embassy. Officials would not comment on why they thought that particular area allegedly showed such a stunning peak in radiation.'

 

http://www.halturnershow.com/RadiationHotSpotsInNYC.html

Bush Cuts and Runs from Reason

 

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Counterpunch

Thursday, January 4, 2007

 

On January 2 the BBC reported a leak from a "senior administration source" that President George W. Bush is going to give a speech, whose "central theme will be sacrifice," announcing an increase in US troops in Iraq for security purposes. Speculation abounds whether the leak is designed to block Bush's insane policy with protests or to soften its controversial edge when announced. The BBC reports that "already one senior Republican senator has called it Alice in Wonderland."

 

Bush's proposal, if he makes it, is the work of retired army general Jack Keane and Frederic W. Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute. AEI is the second most important Israeli lobby in Washington after AIPAC.

 

Keane and Kagan profess to believe that 30,000 more US troops can bring security to Iraq. Keane and Kagan argue that more US troops would permit the US military to retain control of an area after they had cleared it of insurgents. They ignore that Iraq has progressed from insurgency into civil war. There can be no Iraqi army independent of the sectarian conflict. The military problem for the Americans is no longer a small insurgency drawn from a minority of the population, but sectarian strife involving all of Iraq. Today the only choice for US forces is to ally with one side or the other in the civil war or to depart Iraq.

 

Knowledgeable people regard the Keane/Kagan plan as a proposal designed to continue for a while longer the blood profits of the US military-industrial complex and to advance Israel's interests by spreading Sunni-Shi'ite conflict throughout the Middle East.

 

The neoconservatives' original plan was to give Israel hegemony in the Middle East by using the US military to overthrow Iraq, Iran, and Syria. The failure of US forces to subdue Iraq has led to a new neoconservative plan to give Israel supremacy by spreading sectarian conflict among Muslims throughout the region. No Arab state would be stable, and Israel could proceed with its seizure of Palestine.

 

If Bush adopts the Keane/Kagan "plan," he should be impeached for putting two special interests--the military-industrial complex and Israeli Zionist settlers--ahead of America's interests and the interests of peace in the Middle East. The crimes of the Bush regime already stand at a horrendous level. There is no support for the Keane/Kagan "plan" in the American political establishment, among Middle East experts and the American public, or within the Bush administration itself.

 

The American electorate, or stolen elections, have put in the presidency an ignorant and moronic person who is guided not by sense and reason but by an enormous ego that can admit no mistake. In the name of a concocted "war on terror," the American public has permitted Bush an endless stream of mistakes. These mistakes are destroying any prospect for peace in the Middle East, committing America to endless and pointless conflict, destroying America's soft power while demonstrating the limits of its military power, creating a domestic police state, and endangering the US dollar. There is no imaginable gain from the Middle Eastern conflict that Bush has initiated that could possibly offset these costs to Americans.

 

The US electorate attempted to rein in Bush in the November election by giving Democrats control of Congress. But Bush refuses to listen to the electorate as he prepares, instead, to mire America deeper in illegitimate conflict that does not serve America's interests.

 

President George W. Bush is destroying America. Will Congress stop him?

Say what you see.........I've said I think big, bad things are going to happen sooner rarther than later.....damn, I mean they are happening every day in the middle-east - but anyone with half a brain can see how our countries in the west have seriously took it too far - and the only way criminals who run our countries can deal with this? MAKE IT WORSE!....and they will, that's without "God" talking to me. (coz he can't - come on, people need to get serious and not stay Delirious)

 

Pat Robertson: God told me of 'mass killing' in 2007 (Sure he did mate, sure)

 

Associated Press | January 4, 2006

 

VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia (AP) -- Evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday that God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would cause a "mass killing" late in 2007.

 

"I'm not necessarily saying it's going to be nuclear," he said during his news-and-talk television show "The 700 Club" on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

 

"The Lord didn't say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that."

 

Robertson said God told him about the impending tragedy during a recent prayer retreat.

 

God also said, he claims, that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.

 

Robertson suggested in January 2006 that God punished then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with a stroke for ceding Israeli-controlled land to the Palestinians.

 

The broadcaster predicted in January 2004 that President Bush would easily win re-election.

 

Bush won 51 percent of the vote that fall, beating Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

 

In 2005 Robertson predicted that Bush would have victory after victory in his second term. He said Social Security reform proposals would be approved and Bush would nominate conservative judges to federal courts.

 

Lawmakers confirmed Bush's 2005 nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. But the president's Social Security initiative was stalled.

 

"I have a relatively good track record," he said. "Sometimes I miss."

 

In May, Robertson said God told him that storms and possibly a tsunami were to crash into America's coastline in 2006.

 

Even though the U.S. was not hit with a tsunami, Robertson on Tuesday cited last spring's heavy rains and flooding in New England as partly fulfilling the prediction.

Pelosi vows big results from Democrats

By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Newly minted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged Friday that voters would see big results from the Democratic majority in Congress. "It's going to be wonderful for the American people," she said.

 

 

"It's such an exciting thing — we've come a long way," an elated Pelosi said at an open house breakfast on Capitol Hill where hundreds of supporters cheered her election as the first woman ever to serve as House speaker, two steps from the presidency. Pelosi, sworn-in on Thursday, presides over the first Democratic majority since 1994.

 

Several women in the crowd said they viewed the elevation of the 66-year-old San Francisco Democrat, a mother of five and grandmother of six, as just the beginning.

 

"It prepares the nation to receive a woman president, a female president — that's the ice that's been broken," said Ethel Byndom, 53, of St. Louis, Mo.

"I think it's just really allowing us to have some additional influence. We're way behind Europe," said Lilly Stanets, director of the San Francisco Maritime Museum.

 

Pelosi took leave of the crowd, saying she had to go back to work on the House floor, where Democrats were getting to work on her legislative agenda for the House's first 100 hours with a planned vote on a "pay as you go" budgeting measure.

 

Later Friday, the final of three days of festivities Pelosi orchestrated to introduce herself to the nation, she was to head to her native Baltimore to visit statues of her father, Thomas D'Alesandro, the city's former mayor.

 

A ceremony was scheduled to rename a part of her childhood street in the city's Little Italy after her, as Via Nancy D'Alesandro Pelosi.

 

The week's events also included Catholic Masses and dinner at the Italian Embassy as Pelosi highlighted her ethnic, family and religious background more than her California liberal politics.

 

Crooner Tony Bennett provided the week's soundtrack at a $1,000-a-head fundraiser Thursday night for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: "I Left My Heart in San Francisco."

 

As she had earlier Thursday after accepting the speaker's gavel from House Republican leader John Boehner, Pelosi thanked her husband, investor Paul Pelosi, and the rest of her family for helping her move "from the kitchen to the Congress."

 

"I guess it hasn't really fully landed that I am the person who carries a great deal of responsibility," she acknowledged, "because we have always been a team effort."

 

Pelosi kept her family close throughout the day Thursday, bringing her grandchildren onto the House floor where they took turns sitting in her lap as the roll was called sealing her election by a vote of 233-202, the chamber's Democratic-Republican breakdown.

 

Pelosi's daughter Alexandra told the Thursday night gala that her hard-charging mother, who ran for Congress only in 1987 after moving to San Francisco and raising her children, was never ordinary.

 

She multitasked, made elaborate Halloween costumes by hand and hosted birthday parties where children built life-size gingerbread houses.

 

"Everybody's coming up to me and saying, 'Can you believe your mother is speaker of the House?'" said Alexandra Pelosi. "And to anyone who's been to my house, the answer is: 'Of course!'"

US sub collides with Japan ship

 

A US nuclear-powered submarine has collided with a Japanese tanker near the Straits of Hormuz, Japanese and US government officials have said.

A model of the tanker was shown to reporters in Tokyo

 

 

 

The USS Newport News did not suffer substantial damage, and there were no injuries to crew, a US Navy spokeswoman told the AFP news agency.

 

There were no oil spills from Japanese tanker, the Mogamigawa, and no injuries, a company official said.

 

The tanker will dock in the United Arab Emirates to check the damage.

 

The bow of the submarine collided with the stern of the oil tanker at 1915GMT just outside the busy shipping lanes of the Straits of Hormuz.

The Mogamigawa is operated by Kawasaki Kisen Ltd, the Kyodo news agency reported

 

 

Japanese oil company Showa Shell Sekiyu K.K. told the agency the ship was en route from the Gulf to Singapore with a crew of eight Japanese and 16 Filipinos.

 

 

A US Navy spokesman in Bahrain said that there had been a collision.

 

"I can confirm that an incident took place between one of our submarines and a merchant ship," said Commander Kevin Aandahl of the US Fifth Fleet.

 

The 110-metre (360-foot) USS Newport News carries a crew of 127.

 

The BBC's Chris Hogg, in Tokyo, says there will be embarrassment for the US navy over the incident but also relief that the collision was not more serious.

In February 2001, the US nuclear submarine Greenville sank a Japanese fisheries training vessel, the Ehime Maru, off Hawaii, killing nine sailors on the fishing boat.

 

Credit: BBC News

Good that is nothing happened:dozey:

61% of Americans are against the new resolution of the goverment of sending more troops (21000 effectives) to Iraq...

Exactly and the MSNBC poll here is even worse...

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16552198/

 

It's 71% against more troops at this post.

Keeping all eyes focused on Iraq while Bush and Israel plot attack on Iran

 

Mike Whitney

Online Journal

Friday, January 12, 2007

 

Even a cursory review of Bush’s speech shows that the president is less concerned with "security" in Baghdad than he is with plans to attack Iran. Paul Craig Roberts was correct in his article Wednesday when he questioned whether all the hoopla over a surge was just "an orchestrated distraction" to draw attention away from the real war plan. ("Distracting Congress from the Real War Plan")

 

Apparently, it is.

 

As Roberts noted, "The US Congress and the media are focused on President Bush’s proposal for an increase of 20,000 US troops in Iraq, while Israel and its American neoconservative allies prepare an assault on Iran."

 

Roberts’ analysis is further supported by yesterday’s news that American troops stormed the "Iranian consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil and arrested 5 employees." (Reuters)

 

Iran had set up the embassy at the request of the Kurdish governor-general who was not informed of US intentions to raid the facility and kidnap its employees. The American soldiers confiscated computers and documents just five hours after Bush had threatened Iran in his address to the nation.

 

Clearly, Bush is looking for a way to provoke a military confrontation with Iran. Now he has five Iranian hostages at his disposal to help him achieve that goal.

 

Will the mullahs overreact or will they show restraint and try to prevent a larger conflict?

 

Bush’s hostility towards Iran was evident in comments he made in Wednesday night’s speech:

 

"Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."

 

"Seek and destroy"? Is that the plan?

 

A region-wide conflagration with results as uncertain as they are in Iraq?

 

So far, there’s no solid evidence that Iran is "providing material support for attacks on American troops." All the same, the administration has consistently used "material support" as the basis for preemptive war. In fact, the so-called Bush Doctrine is predicated on the assumption that the US is free to attack whomever it chooses if it perceives a threat to its national security. The normal rules of self-defense or "imminent danger" no longer apply.

 

Bush knows that if Iran were seriously involved in arming the Iraqi resistance, we’d be seeing the Russian-made, armor-piercing rocket launchers that were used so effectively by Hezbollah during their 34 day war with Israel. That hasn’t been the case. Iran is undoubtedly active in Iraq, but in ways that are much subtler than Bush claims. In fact, Bush’s great ally, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, who runs the feared Badr Brigade out of the Iraqi Interior Ministry, has strong ties to Iran (having lived there for 20 years.) He is probably using the US military to remove his enemies (the Sunni-backed resistance and al Sadr’s Mehdi Army) before he turns his attention to his US benefactors.

 

Iran clearly has interests in Iraq, but it is the Bush administration’s reckless war that has assured that Iran will be the "default" superpower in the entire region. Bush has shattered the fragile balance of power between Sunnis and Shiites while eliminating Iran’s main adversaries in Afghanistan (Sunni-Taliban) and Iraq (Saddam-Ba’athist Party). Bush now seems to think that the only way he can challenge Tehran’s ascendancy is by launching a Lebanon-type assault on military and civilian infrastructure in Iran.

 

If Iran is set back 20 years, Bush assumes, then our trusted-friend Israel will be the prevailing power in the Middle East. That, of course, was the plan from the get-go.

 

To that end, Bush averred: "We’re taking steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region. We will expand intelligence sharing and deploy Patriot Air Defense Systems to reassure our friends and allies . . . And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region."

 

All the pieces are being put in place for a much larger and more destructive conflict.

 

It’s an ambitious plan, but it has no chance of succeeding. The United States is hopelessly bogged down in Iraq and its actions in Somalia, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine have only ensured that the US's days in the Middle East are quickly drawing to a close.

 

As for Iraq, Bush’s speech provided few details of how the miniscule and incremental increase in troop-strength (only 17,000 to Baghdad over a four-month period) was expected to quell the raging violence that has gripped the capital since the last major operation in August. Operation "Forward Together" turned out to be a complete disaster, precipitating a sharp boost in attacks on US troops as well as an increase in sectarian violence.

 

Bush has enlisted some support for his "escalation" plan by committing to the "clear-hold-build" strategy promoted by the Council on Foreign Relations. The CFR has been pushing their "model for counterinsurgency" for three years, but have been largely ignored by the Bush administration.

 

Despite Bush’s feeble defense of the policy, he has no intention of putting it into practice. He is merely pacifying other members of the political establishment who are demanding that their voices be heard.

 

The reality of the present strategy is manifest in military operations currently underway in Baghdad. These operations are being conducted in a way that is reminiscent of Rumsfeld’s activities in Falluja two years ago. The attacks on alleged "insurgent strongholds" on Haifa Street, (which is just a few hundred yards from the Green Zone) show that the military has returned to the policy of using overwhelming force to subdue the resistance. In this case, the US pounded the area with helicopter gun-ships and F-16s, while ground troops went rampaging door to door. The civilian casualties in these scattershot operations invariably skyrocket and further alienate the local population. In one day alone, US forces killed an estimated 50 Iraqis in the predominantly Sunni "residential" area.

 

Another catastrophic "hearts and minds" operation.

 

Sunni leaders are now accusing the US military of carrying out ethnic cleansing operations at the request of the Shiite militias.

 

Is that the plan, purging Baghdad of the Sunnis?

 

It appears so.

 

Certainly, the lynching of Saddam was intended to send a message to the Ba’athist-led resistance that there would be no more efforts at negotiations or compromise. The US is now pursuing Cheney’s "80-20" plan -- a strategy to throw their support behind the Shiites while eradicating the Sunnis (20 percent of the population).

 

Bush hinted at this new approach in his speech when he said, "Our efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principle reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure the neighborhoods that have been cleared of terrorists and insurgents AND THERE WERE TOO MANY RESTRICTIONS ON THE TROOPS WE DID HAVE."

 

"Too many restrictions"? (The respected British medical journal Lancet reported 650,000 casualties in the conflict so far with over 2 million Iraqi refugees. Is that "Too many restrictions"? )

 

Bush’s comments suggest that the "gloves are coming off" and we can expect a return to the scorched earth policy that was so savagely applied in Falluja and other parts of the Sunni Triangle.

 

Bush also intimated that he would strike out at other "armed militias" in Iraq; an indication that US forces are planning an offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army. The Shiite cleric, al Sadr, is despised by the Washington Warlords and is described by the Pentagon as "the biggest threat to Iraq’s security." Even so, al-Sadr has operatives placed strategically throughout the al-Maliki government (and within the Green Zone) and attacking him now would only make the occupation more perilous. In fact, an attack on the Mehdi Army could create a situation where Shiite militias cut off vital supply lines from the south making occupation virtually untenable.

 

Bush has decided to abandon all sense of caution and blunder ahead taking on all adversaries without concern for the consequences. It is a prescription for disaster.

 

Bush’s "Victory Strategy": more force, but no political solution

 

Bush's speech invoked none of the flashy slogans that he typically uses and which normally appear in headlines the next day. Nor did he make any attempt to elicit support for his planned "escalation" of troops. That idea has already been thoroughly rejected by the Iraq Study Group, the Congress, and the American people. Instead, he reiterated the same worn bromides (of "ideological" warfare, 9-11, and terrorism) that have long since lost their power to move public opinion.

 

The Bush administration has run out of gas. They have no plan for "pacification," security, reconstruction, or regional stability. Their "one-size-fits-all" solution requires ever-increasing levels of violence for an intractable Iraqi Resistance and which is now fated to spread mayhem throughout the entire Middle East.

 

Carl von Clausewitz said, "War is not a mere act of policy, but a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means."

 

Bush and his fellow-neocons are incapable of thinking politically, so America’s decline in Iraq is likely to be precipitous. The crackdown in Baghdad and the anticipated bombing of Iran will have no significant affect on the war’s outcome. America has lost its ability to influence events positively or to arbitrarily assert its will. We’re now facing "death by a thousand cuts" and the steady erosion of US power.

 

Brute force alone will not produce a political solution in Iraq. Those who think it will are bound to fail.