ILLUMINIST STRATEGIES

The Superclass

2008-05-13T09:20:19Z

The Superclass

We all bow to the Superclass
Globalization has fostered an international group of about 6,000 individuals who call the shots. Should they?
By DAVID ROTHKOPF

We didn't elect them. We can't throw them out. And they're getting more powerful every day.

Call them the superclass.

At the moment, Americans are fixated on the political campaign. In the meantime, many are missing a reality of the global era that may matter much more than their presidential choice: On an ever-growing list of issues, the big decisions are being made or profoundly influenced by a little-understood international network of business, financial, government, cultural and military leaders who are beyond the reach of American voters.In addition to top officials, these people include corporate executives, leading investors, top bankers, media moguls, heads of state, generals, religious leaders, heads of terrorist and criminal organizations and a handful of important cultural and scientific figures. Each of these roughly 6,000 individuals is set apart by their power and ability to regularly influence millions of lives across international borders. The group is not monolithic, but none is more globalized or has more influence over the direction in which the global era is heading.

Doubt it? Just look at the current financial crisis. As government regulators have sought to head off further market losses, they've found that perhaps the most effective tool at their disposal is what the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank described to me as their "convening power" — their ability to get the big boys of Wall Street and world financial capitals into a room or on a conference call to collaborate on solving a problem. This has, in fact, become a central part of crisis management, both because national governments have limited regulatory authority over global markets and because financial flows have become so large that the real power lies with the biggest players — such as the top 50 financial institutions that control almost $50 trillion in assets, by one measure nearly a third of all assets worldwide.

Most major companies are both bigger and more global today, which effectively makes them able to pick and choose among various governments' regulatory regimes or investment incentive programs. They play officials in country X against those in country Y, gaining leverage that makes the old rules of trade obsolete. The world's biggest corporations, such as Exxon or Wal-Mart, have annual sales (and thus financial resources) that rival the gross domestic product of all but the 20 or so wealthiest nations. The top 250 companies in the world have sales equal to about a third of global GDP (these are very different measures, but they give a rough sense of relative size).

Major media organizations such as Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., which is effectively controlled by a single individual, touch far more people each day than any national government can. Just a few weeks ago, Italian media billionaire Silvio Berlusconi once again used his extraordinary resources to win election as prime minister, which will give him a seat at G-8 summits and other global conclaves. Even global terrorist organizations such as al-Qaida or Hezbollah have both the ability, through their international networks, and the will to project force more effectively on an international level than all but a handful of governments.

The people who run these big international organizations can have much more power over key aspects of your daily life and over global trends than most officials in Washington are likely to have, except in the most extreme circumstances. They can affect investments and job creation, shape culture and influence lawmakers. The Federal Reserve Bank has played a critical role in the financial crisis, but it couldn't have intervened successfully without a financial leader like Jamie Dimon, chief executive of J.P. Morgan Chase, which stepped in to purchase the failing investment bank Bear Stearns.

The rise of the global superclass signals the latest evolution in the age-old tale of the few who corner the market on power. There have always been elites. But this contemporary group is very different from those that preceded it. Study these 6,000 or so individuals, and you'll find that unlike past aristocrats who inherited their wealth, many — Bill Gates, for instance, or Warren Buffett — have built their fortunes over their lifetimes. Many more come from the worlds of business, finance and media than in the past.

In a world with only two kinds of international institutions — weak and dysfunctional — the members of this superclass are filling a power vacuum when it comes to influencing decisions about transnational issues such as financial-market regulation or climate change. (Many countries voted for the Kyoto accords on global warming, but it took just Exxon and a handful of other oil companies to successfully lobby the White House to opt out and undercut the entire initiative.) In so doing, they raise real questions about the future of global governance. Will the global era be more democratic or less so? Will inequality continue to grow, as it has for the past three decades of this group's rise, or recede? Will the few dominate because the government mechanisms that traditionally represent the views of the many are so underdeveloped on a global scale?

Once again, the meltdown in global financial markets brings this aspect of the story into focus. For years, financial elites have argued that markets should self-regulate even as instruments grew more complex and risks more opaque. Then, when a crisis came, they used their influence to get top government officials to come in and help cauterize their self-inflicted wounds, warning of a "systemic failure." But critics are already correctly charging that new regulations to rein in global markets are largely protecting the interests of the richest.

One distinguishing characteristic of the superclass is the concentration of extreme wealth in the hands of so few. Inequality has always existed in the world, but the international trend toward leave-it-to-the-market policies of the past 25 years has resulted both in great growth worldwide and in growing inequality. Today, the world's more than 1,100 billionaires have a net worth that's roughly double that of the bottom 2.5 billion people on the planet. The richest 10 percent of adults worldwide own 85 percent of global wealth, while the poorest half only barely 1 percent. The world's almost 10 million millionaires have seen their wealth double to nearly $37 trillion over the past 10 years.

Growth is taking place, but it is disproportionately benefiting the few. And there's a sense that the issue of class conflict, confined not too long ago to the ash heap by our (premature) celebration of the "end of history" after communism's fall, remains with us.

A backlash is inevitable. Are these elites especially talented? Hard-working? Lucky? Some are all of these things. But conspiracy theories don't hold water in a group whose members are so diverse and self-interested. Still, when their self-interests align to cause them to act together, they can be hard to resist. They often get their way — and thus often get much more than the rest of us. And that leads to angry reaction. "When a CEO is making more in 10 minutes than an ordinary worker's making in an entire year ... something is wrong, something has to change," Sen. Barack Obama declares on the stump. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton chimes in that "it is wrong that somebody who makes $50 million a year on Wall Street pays a lower tax rate than somebody who makes $50,000 a year."

The next U.S. president will still be the most powerful person in the world because of his or her control of the nation's unparalleled military might and influence over our economic and political resources. But that influence is on the wane, for a number of reasons: the relative decline in the power of national governments; the relative rise in the power of others in the world's fastest-growing places; U.S. trade and fiscal deficits; and a third, geopolitical deficit arising from both damaged national prestige and what might be characterized either as Iraq fatigue or as having learned from the mistakes of the past several years.

None of this makes the decision that U.S. voters will make in November less important. Government still offers the average citizen the best means of counterbalancing the superclass or redressing growing inequality. And governments will have to play a key role in shaping the new regulatory frameworks and governance mechanisms that will be essential to a more balanced distribution of power in the global era.

But what it does mean is that "change" isn't just a slogan in this year's campaign. It's a reality that will redefine the landscape of power worldwide for U.S. presidents of the future.

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http://imindi.com/

Texas Chile Cook-off

2008-05-12T12:05:32Z

This is one to save for when you need a good laugh. If you are
reading this in your office, I believe your co-workers will be
looking at you strangely before you are half-way done. I still laugh
every time I THINK about this story ....

Enjoy.

DV3

Chili Cook-off

If you can read this whole story without laughing then there's no
hope for you. I was crying by the end. Note: Please take time to read
this slowly. If you pay attention to the first two judges, the
reaction of the third judge is even better. For those of you who have
lived in Texas, you know how true this is. They actually have a
Chili Cook-off about the time Halloween comes around.

Judge #3 was an inexperienced Chili taster named Frank, who was
visiting from Springfield, IL. - "Recently, I was honored to be
selected as a judge at a chili cook-off. The original person called
in sick at the last moment and I happened to be standing there at the
judge's table asking for directions to the Coors Light truck, when
the call came in. I was assured by the other two judges (Native
Texans) that the chili wouldn't be all that spicy and, besides, they
told me I could have free beer during the tasting, so I accepted and
became Judge 3."

Here are the scorecard notes from the event:

CHILI # 1 - MIKE'S MANIAC MONSTER CHILI...
Judge # 1 -- A little too heavy on the tomato. Amusing kick.
Judge # 2 -- Nice, smooth tomato flavor. Very mild.
Judge # 3 (Frank) -- Holy +*^$, what the hell is this stuff? You
could remove dried paint from your driveway. Took me two beers to put
the flames out. I hope that's the worst one. These Texans are crazy.

CHILI # 2 - AUSTIN'S AFTERBURNER CHILI...
Judge # 1 -- Smoky, with a hint of pork. Slight jalapeno tang.
Judge # 2 -- Exciting BBQ flavor, needs more peppers to be taken seriously.
Judge # 3 -- Keep this out of the reach of children. I'm not sure
what I'm supposed to taste besides pain. I had to wave off two people
who wanted to give me the Heimlich maneuver. They had to rush in more
beer when they saw the look on my face.

CHILI # 3 - FRED'S FAMOUS BURN DOWN THE BARN CHILI...
Judge # 1 -- Excellent firehouse chili. Great kick.
Judge # 2 -- A bit salty, good use of peppers.
Judge # 3 -- Call the EPA. I've located a uranium spill. My nose
feels like I have been snorting Drano. Everyone knows the routine by
now. Get me more beer before I ignite. Barmaid pounded me on the
back, now my backbone is in the front part of my chest. I'm getting
##&+-faced from all of the beer.

CHILI # 4 - BUBBA'S BLACK MAGIC...
Judge # 1 -- Black bean chili with almost no spice.
Disappointing.
Judge # 2 -- Hint of lime in the black beans. Good side dish for fish
or other mild foods, not much of a chili.
Judge # 3 -- I felt something scraping across my tongue, but was
unable to taste it. Is it possible to burn out taste buds? Sally, the
beer maid, was standing behind me with fresh refills. This 300 lb.
woman is starting to look HOT...just like this nuclear waste I'm
eating! Is chili an aphrodisiac?

CHILI # 5 LINDA'S LEGAL LIP REMOVER...
Judge # 1 -- Meaty, strong chili. Cayenne peppers freshly ground,
adding considerable kick. Very impressive.
Judge # 2 -- Chili using shredded beef, could use more tomato. Must
admit the cayenne peppers make a strong statement.
Judge # 3 -- My ears are ringing, sweat is pouring off my forehead
and I can no longer focus my eyes. I farted and four people behind me
needed paramedics. The contestant seemed offended when I told her
that her chili had given me brain damage. Sally saved my tongue from
bleeding by pouring beer directly on it from the pitcher. I wonder if
I'm burning my lips off. It really pisses me off that the other
judges asked me to stop screaming. Screw them.

CHILI # 6 - VERA'S VERY VEGETARIAN VARIETY...
Judge # 1 -- Thin yet bold vegetarian variety chili. Good balance of
spices and peppers.
Judge # 2 -- The best yet. Aggressive use of peppers, onions, and
garlic. Superb.
Judge # 3 -- M y intestines are now a straight pipe filled with
gaseous, sulfuric flames. I @#^! on myself when I farted and I'm
worried it will eat through the chair. No one seems inclined to stand
behind me except that Sally. Can't feel my lips anymore. I need to
wipe my ass with a snow cone.

CHILI # 7 - SUSAN'S SCREAMING SENSATION CHILI...
Judge # 1 -- A mediocre chili with too much reliance on canned peppers.
Judge # 2 -- Ho hum, tastes as if the chef literally threw in a can
of chili peppers at the last moment.
**I should take note that I am worried about Judge # 3. He appears to
be a bit distressed as he is cursing uncontrollably.
Judge # 3 -- You could put a grenade in my mouth, pull the pin, and I
wouldn't feel a thing. I've lost sight in one eye, and the world
sounds like it is made of rushing water. My shirt is covered with
chili, which slid unnoticed out of my mouth. My pants are full of
lava to match my shirt. At least during the autopsy, they'll know
what killed me. I've decided to stop breathing it's too painful.
Screw it; I'm not getting any oxygen anyway. If I need air, I'll just
suck it in through the 4-inch hole in my stomach.

CHILI # 8 - BIG TOM'S TOENAIL CURLING CHILI......
Judge # 1 -- The perfect ending, this is a nice blend chili. Not too
bold but spicy enough to declare its existence.
Judge # 2 -- This final entry is a good, balanced chili. Neither mild
nor hot. Sorry to see that most of it was lost when Judge #3 farted,
passed out, fell over and pulled the chili pot down on top of
himself. Not sure if he's going to make it. Poor feller, wonder how
he'd have reacted to really hot chili?
Judge # 3 - No Report

http://twitter.com/vaxen_var

Space Shooter Game

2008-05-07T10:37:09Z

Here we go with another attempt at mindlessness. Since that is the desired state that we Zenistas/Chanistas are assumed to be striving for then let us get on with the Zen/Chan, shall we?

A little shibumi never hurt the soul and, in fact, can go a long way towards creating that state of deliciousness one feels in Japanese gardens...

Hope you enjoy this little respite from the everyday and...

To fire use your space bar. The cursor controls move your ship up and down, back and forth. Beam me up! Good luck...Space Shooter Game

Mindless, to be sure, but isn't that the state you want? Satori?

Game design play, Starwar space battle game, ArtDigitalDesign.com

ArtDigitalDesign.com: Starwar space battle game, Game design play, Multimedia

IlluministStrategyReview

2008-05-02T10:22:36Z

The Forces of Order Just Create More Chaos

- a review of strategies, issues with the gold standard, the importance of cheap credit to game the world economic system, oil lubricates world economic system, and the overall impact on the rest of us -For the benefit of our subscribers, we thought at this juncture that it would be a good idea to review some long-term elitist strategies that have been implemented by the Illuminati as part of their evil plan to destroy our economy and our sovereignty for purposes of moving us toward globalism, free trade and a one-world government. Many things are starting to come together as we review what has occurred since Nixon took us totally off the gold standard in 1971. This was the end of our golden era of growth that started shortly after WWII and ended that dreadful day in 1971 when we were sold down the river by the same man who soiled our reputation worldwide with the Watergate scandal. During this golden era, everyone was prospering and making good money, including our vastly growing middle class, but the transnational corporations of the military-industrial complex were especially prosperous. The owners of these huge corporations used their gargantuan profits to power their plans for world government by setting up subversive trusts and foundations, by donating to major universities to gain influence over our youth, by funding their pet projects at these universities to control the path of technology and innovation and most notoriously by purchasing and funding the best politicians and the best enemies that money could buy. This enabled these arrogant sociopaths to run our country from the shadows while our Illuminist-created enemies made their benefactors rich by waging cold wars and hot wars alike to put us in a perpetual struggle for perpetual peace and democracy so that these evil elitists could make perpetual and rapacious profits.

Also during this era of growth and prosperity, inflation was kept very mild, in the 2% to 3% range, in order to support our growth (and yes, those were both official and actual inflation figures from the good old days when we at least got some truth out of our government instead of the non-stop, pathological lying we have been forced to suffer from our reprobate government officials for the past three decades). This mild inflation was the result of our adherence to a watered down version of our original gold standard that kept our money supply in check until Nixon nixed the redemption of dollars held by foreign nations in exchange for our gold, thus completely removing us from the gold standard.

But if you want to create a world economy to pave the way for world government, you need lots and lots of money and credit, and the partial gold standard was making it impossible to sufficiently increase the money supply for this purpose. That is because a lot of those new dollars would have made their way into the dollar Forex reserves of foreigners who, for various reasons such as hedging against the inflation resulting from the increased supply of money, would have attempted to redeem a goodly portion thereof for the only real money, gold, and that would have quickly drained us of our gold reserves over a very short period of time as the elitists discovered from their London Gold Poole debacle in the late 1960's. Their attempt by use of this London Gold Poole to suppress the price of gold to cover up their mishandling of the US and UK economies by flooding the market with bullion (some of which may have come from Fort Knox) resulted in a bank holiday for London banks that had been drained of their gold by voracious demand, thus creating the real potential for a run on the banks.

Based on the foregoing, the elitists reasoned correctly that the removal of the remnants of our gold standard had the potential to create a shortage of gold and the price of gold would then have quickly risen in value as a result, which in turn would have set the inflationary alarm bells off, thus warning of the coming devaluation of the dollar and its potential fall from reserve status. In this manner, without gold backing it, the dollar might have collapsed under the weight of its vast increase in supply to power a world economy, so the elitists had to come up with a reason, other than gold-backing, for people around the world both to want, and to keep up a high demand for, the dollar.

The Illuminati had to make sure that the dollar remained the reserve currency of the world, thus preserving their power, wealth and influence until they were ready to make their big moves toward world government. So, under orders from their Illuminist masters, Kissinger and Nixon took us totally off the gold standard, and instead backed the dollar with oil, which was much more plentiful and which had a far greater overall pool of value that could not be exhausted as quickly as might have occurred with the comparatively tiny gold market. This was done by getting Saudi Arabia to agree to accept only dollars in exchange for their oil. In return, the US agreed to back and provide security for the unpopular and autocratic regimes of the Saudis, and this oil-for-dollars regimen was later adopted by OPEC nations as well, many of whom have pegged their currencies to the dollar.

Immediately after we made this stupid move from gold-backing to oil-backing, the money supply via the Fed and the Treasury exploded in the early 1970's to the very levels of insanity that we are experiencing today, remaining between 8% and 16% until 1985 before being tapered off to zero growth around 1993 after which the money supply exploded again to cover over the real estate debacle and recession of that time and to fund new initiatives for globalization and free trade, such as the WTO, NAFTA and CAFTA. Despite the size of the oil market, the new explosion of dollars being pumped out prodigiously by the Fed to fund the kickoff of free trade, globalization, off-shoring and outsourcing in earnest in the 1970's led to rampant inflation that peaked out around 14% in 1980-1981 (note that we are currently over 12% by 1980 inflation standards and rising) until Paul Volcker put an end to it with double digit interest rates that sent us reeling into an ensuing recession. This rampant increase in money supply meant a devaluation of the dollar and the cheap oil was being paid for with ever-more-debauched dollars. So in 1973, OPEC started an embargo, using the support of western powers for Israel during the Yom Kippur War as an excuse or justification to force prices up, as much to make up for the loss in value of the dollar as for revenge, just as they are doing today, but with a little more diplomacy in lieu of an outright embargo. The whole reason for the Yom Kippur War may have had as much to do with low oil prices as it did with revenge for the 1967 Six Day War. This increase in oil prices actually backfired and was very problematic for OPEC and the elitists because the higher oil prices attracted local oil producers, often referred to as wildcatters, due to the fact that the price of oil had risen above the cost of production for companies working on a smaller scale. These smaller companies could now profitably compete with the foreign oil, and they went after our extraordinarily abundant domestic oil reserves to supply the markets. We have enough oil in Alaska, North Dakota, Montana, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming and the Gulf of Mexico to keep our country flush with oil for many decades without importing a single drop of foreign oil, much of it recoverable for only $16 per barrel.

The reason these local producers were problematic to the elitists was because prior to this development, the Illuminati were able to keep inflation under wraps at home by exporting much of the rampaging supply of debauched dollars overseas in return for foreign oil, as well as for foreign exports of goods, most notably from Japan, which helped create the bubble that destroyed the Japanese economy almost two decades ago. Thus, we quite literally were exporting our inflation to other countries by burgeoning their domestic supply of dollars, and we began doing this all over again since the start of the Clinton Administration via globalization, free trade, off-shoring, outsourcing, trade for foreign oil and illegal immigration. Just ask China and Japan with roughly a trillion each of dollar forex, OPEC countries with hundreds of billions of dollar forex each, and Mexico whose residents receive many billions of dollars every year from illegal Mexican aliens working here in the US. These local oil producers in the 1970's and 1980's were redirecting many of those oil dollars away from the OPEC countries and back into our domestic economy, thus powering inflation at home to rampant levels which also lead indirectly to the S&L crisis of the late 1970's and throughout the 1980's by destroying the value of mortgages held by banks as interest rates started to rise to combat the growing rate of inflation.

So what did the Illuminati do to stop all this domestic oil production from powering inflation? First, Volcker pushed interest rates up into double digits, increasing the cost of loans, which are so necessary in the oil business, thus increasing the cost of production to levels that ruined many smaller concerns. After that, the elitists had their big oil companies and commodities traders drive the price of oil down to below the cost of local production for smaller operators, and even for some of the larger ones for that matter. This ruined the smaller producers who lacked the staying power of the big oil companies. To this day, these smaller producers are afraid to tap our domestic reserves without some kind of guaranty from our government of a floor for oil prices to be set at about $25 per barrel. After peaking at $37 per barrel in 1980, oil dropped to as low as $15 dollars per barrel in 1986 and 1988 and all the way down to $12 per barrel in 1998. This is why, to this day, among various other reasons, much of our domestic oil remains untapped. This is also why many of the drilling and extraction techniques that are finally giving domestic producers access to otherwise tough-to-get oil reserves in recent years were not researched and developed decades ago.

So as you can see, the whole bio-fuel scheme is a total scam to enrich subsidized, elitist bio-fuel producers and to drive up food prices so that large elitist food-related corporations like Monsanto can make filthy rich profits on account of food shortages, subsidies and improper allocations of farmland and food crops while around the world people starve, have food riots and cry out in hunger. Many in our Congress still will not acknowledge their error in approving bio-fuel legislation because they have big political and economic stakes in ethanol and other bio-fuels. These miscreants are an absolute disgrace. Bio-fuels are inefficient, are damaging to engines and are totally unnecessary. Give the small guys a floor of $25 per barrel and we'll have all the oil we need for decades without importing a single drop of foreign oil. The fact that this did not happen decades ago tells you all you need to know about where your current and past Congresses and Presidential Administrations stand or have stood. They are traitors and cretins of the highest order with precious few exceptions. They are nothing but a pathetic bunch of conniving, elitist bootlickers. The incumbents must all be voted out of office, except for Ron Paul, in order to put a stop to this madness. Otherwise, you will be forced, like our Founding Fathers, to do it the hard way. Prices for food and fuel will not come down unless you, the US citizen, demand in no uncertain terms that your government make them come down.

The elitists had yet another problem with their scheme to institute world government. They had to cover up the extensive damage being done to our economy by globalization, free trade, off-shoring, outsourcing and illegal immigration, all of which they used to break the backs of the unions so they could lower their labor and production costs and increase their profits by moving offshore and utilizing slave labor. They had to cover up our negative GDP which has been that way on average since 1990 despite what official statistics say, as well as problems with rampant inflation and unemployment, all direct outgrowths of their globalization and free trade efforts. The solution was a many pronged approach and has backfired in their faces.
First, they started making up outright lies about official economic statistics, which we refer to as "hedonics." This system of outright lying, which has always been a problem to some extent, has accelerated since the end of the Reagan Administration. As an example, official inflation is currently one third of actual inflation. Not a single shred of truth escapes from Washington, D.C. Next, using the 1987 Market Crash that they caused as their excuse, the Illuminati had President Reagan issue an Executive Order creating the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, the purpose for which is restore order to markets in times of emergency. Instead, they use this cabal to rig markets around the world on a 24/7 basis, which is totally and completely illegal. That is why Bernanke always claims that this group meets only informally on occasion for discussions or brain-storming on problems as they arise. He knows darn well that their nefarious activities are totally illegal and criminal in nature. But what does he care, as substantial evidence indicates that he may have conspired with JP Morgan, the SEC, the Treasury and other Federal Reserve officers to defraud Bear Stearns stockholders and employees as well as American taxpayers out of billions of dollars, not to mention profits made on insider trading on puts and shorts placed on Bear Stearns stock under circumstances that could not possibly have been more obvious. The PWG, also referred to as the Plunge Protection Team, or PPT, covers up market damage, or causes market damage, as the case may be, to cover up the impact of Illuminist schemes on the overall economy and on financial markets. Items go up that should be going down, and items go down that should be going up. When you see that, and it is obvious for anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of markets, that is the PPT in action ripping off the public with insider trading and market manipulation to cover up the extensive damage done by the Illuminati to our economy and financial system as described above.

Another cover-up method is the use of the money supply, controlled by the Fed, to create asset bubbles to make everyone feel wealthy when in fact they are being pauperized. The dot.com scam of worthless stocks, the false, speculative real estate bubble powered by fraud and the subprime scam of worthless, falsely-rated derivatives are perfect examples. So is hyperinflation from an out-of-control money supply as the middle class is bled dry by the elitists courtesy of the nongovernmental, privately owned Fed. And to cover up the negative GDP, they repealed Glass-Steagall with the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999 to power up the financial industry with a profligate money supply from the Fed so banks could screw dupe clients with incestuous financial subsidiary arrangements and make false profits in fees, commissions and spreads creating financial instruments such as toxic waste that is worthless because there are no markets for securitizations of fraud-laden assets and credit default swaps and interest rate swaps with hundreds of trillions in notional principal that are worthless because collateral to secure counterparty liability under these derivatives is almost nonexistent. But boy, those fees and commissions sure drove the financial sector from 4% of GDP to 8% of GDP, thereby covering over the negative GDP with fees and commissions for producing worthless assets that now threaten the worldwide financial system and that have added nothing of any real or lasting value to our economy. This is where they really blew it. Most large banks are now insolvent as a direct result of these many fraudulent schemes that have bled all transparency, trust and confidence from the markets, resulting in a credit-crunch that will not go away but which worsens instead with each passing day. And with the Fed now considering a pause, they are about to get even more insolvent as their spreads decrease and their bonds get creamed from the loss of anticipation of further rate cuts, not to mention accelerating loan defaults in all categories as interest rates work their way back up.

The elitists are now faced with wars they are losing badly and that will bankrupt our country. They are faced with food riots around the globe, which will not endear them to anyone. They have created a ludicrous national debt via profligate government spending with an equally ludicrous trade deficit to match as our country has been transformed in a matter of a few decades from the world's greatest creditor nation to the world's greatest debtor nation. They have created tens of trillions in entitlements that cannot possibly be paid without reducing benefits or raising taxes. They have driven oil to levels that will decimate the entire world economy, including their own companies, despite abundant domestic reserves of oil. They have caused bubble after bubble that have each popped and now they are out of assets to falsely inflate, so people are starting to realize that they have been had and want to do something about it, which may well lead to revolution. They have created hundreds of trillions in derivatives that no one understands and that have virtually no collateralization, threatening the entire world financial system. They have ruined all confidence and trust in the financial system with scheme after fraudulent scheme, to the point where banks no longer want to, or are able to, be banks, creating a credit-crunch that worsens and threatens to annihilate bank capital at an ever-increasing pace. They have inflated the people of our country out of their wealth, and these hapless, beggared citizens have nothing left to spend to drive the US economy which is now doomed to a catastrophic failure that will lead to a hyperinflationary recession followed by a deflationary depression the likes of which has never been seen before in the annals of US history. They have destroyed the real estate industry and have put millions of people, both US citizens and illegal aliens alike, out of work, further exacerbating the faltering economy. They have plans to nationalize all the financial losses from the fraud and profligacy of Wall Street which will turn us into the next Weimar Republic. After all that, they have the nerve, the unmitigated gall, to suggest putting the Fed in charge of the entire US financial system when the Fed is the root cause of virtually every problem we have with our financial system. While all this transpires, the President and our Congress stand by picking their noses. The older elitists got overly anxious and tried to do too much too fast because they wanted to see their plans succeed during their lifetimes. Their own pride and impatience has been their downfall, and now they are about to see their plans ruined for decades instead by some of the most bumbling, clueless and arrogant henchmen we could imagine, if they are not sooner torn to shreds by the angry, fuming, broke, hungry masses. We hope they enjoy the monstrosity they have created. It will eat them alive. They wanted to create order out of chaos, but all they will get is the latter.

(http://www.theinternationalforecaster.com/item.php?articleid=245)

Jazzolog bashing?

2008-04-28T09:16:03Z

An interesting article that I got from 'The International Forecaster.'

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Manipulations in time of War and Hunger

Posted: April 23 2008

The Fed pumps out reserve notes, elitist politics position to control, no new petro refineries since the 70s wtf? GM food and bio fuel scams, food price rise is an orchestrated scam based on currency manipulation, news from the Plunge Protection Team, disinformation in WSJ, no victory in Iraq, so blame Iran

Uncle Ben Bernanke is currently pumping out federal reserve notes, or electrons with binary encoding as the case may be, like they were going out of style in order to save the miscreants on Wall Street and in order to postpone economic catastrophe for the benefit of our incumbent sociopaths in Congress, who are the best politicians that money can buy. Based on the elitist Malthusian Agenda, may we suggest that you start converting some of those notes and electrons into storable food, such as rice and freeze-dried food. We suppose this would be the latest incarnation of Uncle Ben's Converted Rice, and without it, you will be at the mercy of the elitists. The Illuminati want to kill off most of the "useless eaters" on this planet. Their cohorts express shock and dismay over all the food shortages and riots that are breaking out globally when they are in front of the cameras, but when the reporters leave you can hear their maniacal laughter as these cretins contemplate how much easier it will be to control a population of 1 billion or so instead of the current 6 billion which occupy this planet, a number that is rapidly growing at a pace that far outstrips the growth in our fuel and food supplies which have been malevolently curtailed over decades to bring about the current results you see before you.

There have been no new petrochemical refineries constructed since the 1970's. Oil exploration has been stymied by the oil companies themselves who, with the help of the Illuminati and their operatives in industry, in government and in private trusts and foundations, have funded environmentalist movements, sabotaged and disparaged nuclear plants, shelved patents for greener energy by buying out or killing off inventors and pushed oil prices to ludicrously low levels to stop independent oil wildcatters from extracting oil out of the ground because they could not do so profitably. Big Illuminist automakers contributed to the problem by producing gas-guzzling SUV's and trucks which most people own more for show than for practical use. Rest assured that there is plenty of oil within our own borders, with enough to supply the needs of the entire US economy for many decades in Alaska, North Dakota and Montana alone, much of it extractable at $16 per barrel using newly developed directional drilling systems, and never mind the hundreds of billions of barrels extractable from oil sands and oil shale in various states and the offshore oil in the Gulf of Mexico. But in order to induce smaller producers to go after this oil (the larger producers will leave it in the ground for obvious reasons), there has to be a floor of about $25 per barrel in order to protect profit margins for smaller operators. Otherwise, as has been done in the past, the larger companies will temporarily drive prices below the cost of production for the smaller companies, thereby driving them out of business.

A floor of $25 per barrel is a very reasonable floor considering we are now at $119 per barrel, but our Congress is bought-and-paid-for by the Illuminati and their big oil interests, so you hear nothing about this from them or our useless fane-stream media which are also controlled by the Illuminati. The elitists do not want plentiful oil --- they want to control you!

The same has happened in agriculture. At the beginning of the 20th century, most Americans were still farmers. Virtually everyone had a farm or at least knew how to farm if they had to. No longer. The smaller farmers were squeezed out by subsidies given to big Illuminist-sponsored farming concerns in order to keep crop lands vacant, supposedly to keep food supplies down to support higher prices, but this just served to kill off smaller farmers who could not compete with the much larger farmers who got something for nothing. The smaller farmers were forced in this manner to take jobs in our growing industrial society, culling out the small fry just as was done with oil companies, banks and corporate America generally.The latest methods of controlling agricultural development are genetically modified food, the bio-fuel scam and radio frequency ID tags for livestock. The hook for genetically modified food is greater output and greater efficiency, but you have to buy seed from the big agricultural companies who are now genetically designing their seeds to self-destruct after one harvest. That way, they control the price and availability of the seeds. Farmers who do not use GM seeds cannot compete with those who do, so fewer and fewer are going with natural seeds that cannot be patented and controlled. And if you are unlucky enough to have your natural crops contaminated by nearby GM crops, you get sued for using patented GM seed by the big agricultural company that owns the patent.

The bio-fuel scam is one of the stupidest, biggest and most dangerous scams ever, as it diverts vital food crops to use in producing bio-fuel, which we in America do not even need as described above due to our huge oil reserves that are located within our own borders. Ethanol is 30% less efficient than gasoline and is very damaging to internal combustion engines, yet we seek this out to shore up oil production shortages. This is pure madness. And when you couple these malevolently manufactured shortages and mega-foolish reallocations of resources with the Fed's destruction of the dollar, you get food riots globally that are going to spread rapidly and get much worse if something is not done immediately to put an end to this evil scam.

Remember, many currencies in the developing world are pegged to the dollar to support exports, so when the dollar gets destroyed, such pegged currencies get destroyed along with it. This leads to higher food prices in such devalued currencies, and is making food unaffordable for the poor in such countries even when it is available for sale. This situation has been described recently as a "silent tsunami," but that silence is now turning into the screams and cries of the hungry. This is what the Illuminati want, to kill off the useless eaters, but they have broken their own rules and are bringing these problems to bear far too quickly, a mega-stupid move which they will pay for dearly. Five billion people will not go out quietly.

And then, apparently because Henrietta the hen might wander off out of the barnyard, all farmers are now required to affix RFID tags to their livestock. What other reason could there be for old Henrietta to need a tag. They claim they want to track animals in case of disease, but come on, we got along fine without this Mark-of-the-Beast-technology-for-animals for thousands of years. And yes, you're next on the tag agenda. These tags are being used first to bump out the smaller livestock producers due to the extra costs and labor associated with the RFID tags. But these tags will also enable the government to locate and control food sources when Caligula declares martial law, or when the next Emperor/Empress who is shoved down our throats in November decides to declare martial law. We can assure you that this is where we are headed in the not too distant future so that the Constitution can be completely suspended and all the dissidents can be herded off to Halliburton-built detention camps. If you have weapons and ammunition but no storable food, you are screwed. Hunger and starvation are the ultimate in gun control.

All these fuel and food scams take place as our general populace worries about their carbon footprints. Their total disconnect from reality is nothing less than surreal. But look at the bright side, it will be like the good old days when all the Administration, Congressional and Military rats go into their bunkers and safe-houses, as set forth in a secret written plan presented to Congress, while the rest of us are starved, diseased, shot, poisoned and/or nuked to death. You'll get to play "hide and go seek" with your former government officials, as well as "war games" and "cops and robbers." And think about how much fun it will be when we get to use the drill rigs we formerly used to tap oil reserves to drill down to bunker level so we can place a multi- megaton thermonuclear device down the hole. It will be like when you used to put a cherry bomb or M-80 under a coffee can, and then listen for the loud bang and watch the "cool" explosion. As they say, the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys! And if the moles try to come out of their bunkers, then we get to play "whack-a-mole." Heck, we're starting to warm up to all this potential fun already!

The "Big Cull" is now underway as all the speculation, fraud, excess and profligacy of Wall Street and millions of unscrupulous borrowers get shoved up our derrieres in the form of hyperinflation and higher taxes. When the various GSE's, where all the old (and now new) toxic waste is being buried, finally go under, it will be like the China Syndrome, a meltdown to hell. The Fed's general collateral will be used up by then, which will lead to direct monetization of treasuries and rampant inflation. As well, the defaulted debts that are absorbed by the FHA, FHLB, Fannie and Freddie will result in much higher IRS bills as the hapless taxpayers are forced to bail out the cataclysmically decimated system. When, we ask, are the citizens of this country going to have their fill of this bailout tripe? Make sure that every single incumbent other than Ron Paul is voted out of office or we will all be pauperized.

We characterized this situation as the "Big Cull" because that is exactly what is in store for the smaller companies in America, Canada, Mexico, Western Europe and Japan. They will be culled out. Note how only the large insider-banks are being bailed by the Fed, a private central bank which is owned by some of the very companies they are bailing out. Talk about a conflict of interest! Note also how mostly the various transnational conglomerates have any real earnings to speak of due to free trade, globalization, off-shoring, outsourcing, slave labor and a weaker dollar, and even some of these gargantuan concerns are in trouble. The Fed is only giving money to big elitist insider companies, who are hoarding the cash out of fear, yes, but also they will be selectively withholding their largess from any who do not belong to the "Big Game."

When hyperinflation from an out-of-control money supply finally hits home fully, consumer spending drops off a cliff and corporate earnings go negative, the Fed will be forced to turn to higher rates to save what is left of the dollar or face being run out of the country which by then will start to resemble Zimbabwe, and the whole system will crash and be purged in the upcoming "Very Large Depression" or, if you prefer, the "Much Greater Depression." Select insiders will be bailed out at taxpayer expense, while those insiders and non-insiders that fail will be merged with, or auctioned off at pennies on the dollar to, the surviving insiders. The elitists have already made plans on which companies will survive and which will fail so they can place their bets accordingly. The final number of businesses and financial corporations which fail in the upcoming economic devastation could well number in the tens of thousands worldwide. Few companies will be able to survive the coming catastrophe without help from their governments and/or from the Fed or the other main central banks like the BOE, ECB and BOJ. Even the Fed itself may be discarded and replaced with a far more malevolent cartel vehicle which is put in charge of everything financial as has been suggested by our "beloved" Treasury Secretary, Hanky Panky Paulson, on loan from Goldman Sachs. It is all about driving out the competition so the Illuminati can reign supreme.

The President's Working Group on Financial Markets was created by Executive Order 12631, signed on March 18, 1988 by President Ronald Reagan in the aftermath of the Stock Market Crash of 1987. Eleven years later, in 1999, the Glass-Steagall Act (GSA), which for many decades had prohibited a bank holding company from owning any non-banking financial companies, such as investment banks and brokerage houses, was repealed by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) that was signed into law by President Slick Willie Clinton. The GSA had been in effect since 1933 and was passed due to abuses, which were found to be a substantial contributing factor to the Great Depression. This wise piece of legislation had kept us out of trouble for over six decades. Both Executive Order 12631 and the GLBA will go down in history as the most ill-advised and most abused financial orders, laws and regulations ever devised, perhaps in the history of our country. The Executive Order currently gives the PPT the right to enter any markets to create stability in the face of a crisis, but instead they use this power on a 24/7 basis to hide from the public all the damage that has been intentionally or unintentionally done to our economy by various Illuminist schemes, including the abuse of the GLBA which allowed banks to pawn off fraudulently rated toxic waste, which quite often the banks themselves or their subsidiaries had created, on their clients and to hold it for those clients in offshore accounts called SIV's. There are many other versions of toxic waste out there that are waiting to implode, all of which were enabled by the unwise authorization of these incestuous relationships in the GLBA. Asset-backed securities are going to be the next shoe to drop as the cash flows from car loans, credit card accounts, mortgages and such esoteric things as aircraft lease payments, which secure these derivative instruments, are interrupted by rampaging, ever-accelerating defaults on the underlying debt as the economy drops off into a hyperinflationary recession. The PPT hides while the GLBA destroys. That's how it works.

These moronic acts by former Presidents and Congresses are what allowed the psychopathic creation of hundreds of trillions in derivatives by way of "financial engineering" in order to absorb the rampant money being supplied by the Fed to fuel financial sector profits in order to cover up the damage being done to the economy by free trade, globalization, off-shoring, outsourcing and illegal immigration. The money was pumped in through the primary dealers via the repo pool and was loaned out to other foreign and domestic banks and to client dupes like hedge funds, insurance companies, pension funds and other institutional investors in order to purchase the toxic waste, often with maniacal degrees of leverage. The sales proceeds were then re-loaned to the mortgage companies so they could fund more fraudulent mortgages which could then be securitized into more toxic waste for resale, thus rolling the money over and over, with the Fed's periodic money injections allowing them to expand the amount of loan money available overall to keep the bubble going. All caution was thrown to the wind to bring in even the unqualified so that the fees and commissions would keep rolling in.

Note that as of 2006, the financial sector contributed about 8% to our GDP, when in 1947, it was 2.5%. That is because the financial sector no longer greases the skids for a healthy economy that produces real goods and services, but has become an industry unto itself, peddling toxic waste instead of funding the production of real goods and services. It has become a self-perpetuating, gargantuan producer of poppycock and phony bologna, and has become the portal through which the Fed pumps in titanic amounts of money and credit to produce profits in the financial sector that help to offset the damage to US GDP which has been done by the latest incarnation of the British mercantilist system that has beggared our middle class. This continual pumping of money and credit to cover the damage to our GDP has inexorably moved us toward a weaker dollar and hyperinflation. The profits generated by this "puff the fluff" smoke and mirrors operation accounts for much of our so-called GDP growth, and also explains the wild growth in derivatives worldwide from about 80 trillion in notional principal in 1999 to today's 600 trillion plus, with the credit default swaps portion of that total, now about 62 trillion, doubling every three years or so over the past decade. We feel that Real GDP has been negative on average for almost two decades if you make adjustments for actual, as opposed to official, inflation and especially when you factor in the bogus contribution to GDP that has been made by our quickly deteriorating financial system, some 8% instead of what used to be about 4% before we started down this path toward insanity. A good portion of the fees and commissions that comprise the financial sector's contribution to GDP over the past decade have been generated by the fraudulent sale of worthless dot.com stocks and toxic waste OTC derivatives. We ask what value has been added to our economy and what production has occurred when you sell worthless stocks or repackage existing loans that have been made to unqualified buyers, that are supported by inflated appraisals and that have been given fraudulent ratings? Where is the value added to the economy when substantial portions of what is produced is either worthless or worth far less than what is paid for it from the very outset. It's almost akin to the sale of new automobiles where a car's value loses multiple thousands of dollars as they are driven off the dealer's lot by their new owners. At least with a new car the price is determined by the actual cost of the inputs and an established market value, instead of being valued by reference to artificially low rates of interest along with fraudulent, dreamed-up qualifications and appraisals and arbitrary, often imaginary, market values set by theoretical mathematical models. We feel that much of the filthy lucre that has been produced by the financial sector over the past decade is nothing more than profits earned on Ponzi-scheme money that is rolled over repeatedly. How can such profits possibly be attributed to our GDP with any intellectual honesty?

Note how gold and silver are being held down by sales and leasing as they consolidate for the next move up, while oil is allowed to fly. As soon as gold and silver start to rally, watch how quickly oil drops. Large specs should be ready for this move which means nothing because it will be totally contrived. The fundamentals will be just as strong as ever no matter what they do to oil because inflation and balance sheet destruction are both baked into the cake as our real estate markets and economy drop into the tank. All those high oil prices are going to take their toll down the line in lower profits or higher inflation, just wait and see. Also note that any new war adventures will most likely occur after both gold and oil have finished their spring rallies and are at much lower levels for purposes of consolidating what will be their most recent gains. A hard but pointless pounding from the cartel can be expected for precious metals and commodities ahead of any new war adventure that is planned. Kosovo, Iran, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip are all possibilities, and these possibilities will keep oil, precious metals and their related shares well bid while the various general stock markets get hammered by the imploding recessionary economy. If a war does start, get ready for some wild action!

Note that Ron Paul took 16% of the vote in Pennsylvania's Republican Primary, beating Huckabee's 11%. Yet we hear nothing about this in the media. In fact, we don't even hear it mentioned that Ron Paul is still a candidate. Our media and our entire elective process are a disgrace. We are governed by a two party dictatorship. If any of the miscreants offered by the Illuminati are elected, we're leaving the country. Oh, that's right, we already left! And you might want to consider doing so also.

Another piece of disinformation appeared in the WSJ this past week. Harvard Professor and former Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, Martin Feldstein tells us the Fed shouldn’t lower interest rates any further because the likely benefit is small compared to the potential damage due to inflation. This is true and it is part of the theme chanted at the G-7 meeting. Lower interest rates mean higher energy and food inflation. That means riots in the third world and millions starving. We wish they were concerned but they are not. This is just a variation on a theme-propaganda. In Mr. Feldstein’s dissertation nowhere does it refer to the massive increase in money and credit that goes on relentlessly. If interest rates were raised the US economy would collapse even though they should be raising them not lowering them. It is more important to save the economy, Wall Street and the banks. Inflation and hyperinflation can always be liked about. The other result is the collapsing dollar. Yes, lower interest rates stimulate economic activity, but they also force wages and prices higher as well. As we move forward this year and into next year unemployment and a receding economy will not impede monetary inflation. Lower interest rates will exacerbate the situation, but the inflation is already in the pipeline. What else can one expect with an 18% increase in money and credit and lower interest rates that is in the pipeline for the next 18 months and there is no changing that. The elitists know the solution to the food problem because they created it. Just stop using food for ethanol.

Mr. Feldstein’s comments are generally true but he refuses to cover the whole subject when he certainly knows the answers we know. Lower interest rates do tend to induce investors to add commodities to their portfolios, but that in part is offset by higher margin requirements, which exchanges put in place to protect their commercial dealers. Investors are in commodities and precious metals because they want real assets not paper assets. Feldstein cites lower interest rates as a cause for higher oil prices and food prices because farmers devote more production toward growing corn for ethanol. He fails to mention the government’s $0.51 per gallon subsidy, which along with higher sales prices is an inducement.

In his dissertation nowhere does the word dollar appear. The main reason for higher commodity and precious metals prices is a plunging dollar. It’s a flight to quality and something real. He also leaves out totally our current account deficits. What we have is a totally one-sided story. Not an informational commentary, but a clever piece of propaganda. He is a mouthpiece for the elitists who planned this whole capper in the first place. Yes, it is a crime to deliberately starve poor people to death.

Commodities are rising due to American debt, massive monetary increases and now lower interest rates. It is now not only the US due to the credit crisis, the Fed, Wall Street and the money central banks created, but it is also other nations for the past four years that have also increased monetary aggregates by 14%. Again, it is just not interest rates. Isn’t it an inevitable consequence of massive monetary aggregate expansion worldwide that we’d get inflation and speculation? And, lower interest rates are a part of it. Global reserves have increased $2.5 trillion, or 85%, in just the past two years. The dollar is now dysfunctional and the entire world monetary and financial system is out of balance. Again inflation and speculation have to be an obvious conclusion to profligacy. We can expect nothing less in a world of fiat currencies. Once the gold backing was removed from the dollar on 8/15/71 it was all-downhill from there and until we return to gold backed currencies the results will be the same – ultimately disastrous. There is no gold reserve system to restrain monetary expansions. There is no control and no discipline. The result has been an historic inflation in dollar financial claims, which has destroyed the global monetary system and now it’s dismantling financial and economic stability. The destabilizing price movements and myriad inflationary effects are poised to worsen. Once the foreign buyers of dollar denominated assets have had enough the huge dollar reserves will hit our shores and inundate the system.

The Fed and all central banks are on the run and the credit crisis worsens. Trillions of dollars and euros, etc. are being fed into the system in order to just keep it afloat. The world financial system is being nationalized country by country.

There is certainly no end in sight of this monetary expansion. The mortgage market is being nationalized via Freddie Mae, Fannie Mac and the FHA. The same has been happening in banking as major investment banking firms too big to fail have been expanding assets by 14% to 27% over the past 38 weeks, almost all of that increase coming from the Fed as bank credit expanded 12.6%. During that period there was a $184 billion, 29%, increase in foreign custody holdings for foreign central banks at the Fed. All of these capital injections have for the moment stymied the systemic de-leveraging, but that is for now. The inflationary implications are enormous and the solution to the problem is not at hand and we do not think there is one.

The outlook for our economy and financial situation looks dreadful. There has been no solution in nine months and it looks worse than it did in August. The Fed and ECB have stopped the bleeding for now but there is no solution in sight. There is nothing ordinary regarding the credit breakdown. Usually such corrections track economic developments, but not this time. This time it is different. The US government has assumed all the risk, which is a precedent in cost and scope for the American taxpayer. The tide has been stemmed for now but not for long. As Feldstein says you cannot cut interest rates forever nor can government guarantees continue. Market manipulation by our government cannot continue forever. It will eventually lose its effectiveness. Besides there is nothing government or the Fed can do. This collapse has to run its course. The unbalance and maladjustment is simply too great. Risk is being moved from one place to another. From the markets to government, which is no solution, unless they want the dollar at 20 on the USDX. While all this proceeds so will inflation in an over- liquefied global system that is no longer able to handle such a flood of aggregates. We are in uncharted waters especially if you throw in derivatives. All we can say is the world has lots of problems.

As we have said for so many years, the motto for the Illuminati should be “perpetual war for perpetual peace.” The recent testimony by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker was devious at best. That is understandable in as much as they are front men for the Illuminists. All we got was ring around the rosy. Our troops conveniently fail in their objectives, which is an excuse to continue the occupation. Congress, which is paid by these Illuminists to keep their heads in the sand, delivered the usual softball questions. Talk about abdication of responsibility to the citizens who elected them. They surely dance to a different fiddler. This is the group that pays the enemy not to appear for battle so they can if only temporarily gain victory. When they cannot gain victory they blame Iran, al Qaeda or the Baghdad government.

They always have a scapegoat. What the US administration is playing for is perpetual war and occupation to keep control of the oil for the internationalist oil giants. This is accomplished by continued occupation, a never ending state of war and a weak disorganized Iraqi government. The upshot of the Senate hearing was that our Senate is a disgrace.

(http://www.theinternationalforecaster.com/item.php?topicId=2&articleid=243)

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"Possum dicere sed deinde compulero interficere."

Consumer Brainwashing--Neuromarketing

2008-04-15T05:20:16Z

Well, I've been very busy of late doing research on a multiple of fronts. CIFA SOFJFCOM and a variety of outsourced intelligence markets which remain untapped. Been working a few nights over at Wordpress http://www.bluelibrary.org/ to get my techniques up to par and getting Shivas' pearls otherwise lined up and satisfactory. Preparing for the next ten years of illuminated tech consciousness and the onslaught of propositions already knocking at the door.

Ran across an interesting bit of twitter posting in the following article on Neuro Marketing. Hope you enjoy steam rolling through it. I'll try to get a game up tomorrow or so...so you can wile the hours away having fun. With no further adieu, then, here is the article. Food for neurodigestion or neuroindigestion as the case may be. Happy Hallows.

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Commercial Alert Asks Emory University to Halt Neuromarketing Experiments

http://www.commondreams.org/news2003/1201-01.htm

At the most basic physical level, neurological marketing research relies on the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging on human subjects. Strong magnets can harm human subjects if they have metal in their bodies (e.g. cardiac pacemaker, aneurism clips, intrauterine devices, some dental work, body
piercings) or are carrying metal, such as coins or jewelry. Such harm is not likely but the possibility does exist. Research subjects occasionally report dizziness or nausea when their heads are moved within the bore of the magnet.

That¹s on top of any unknown adverse effects of placing a human subject in the intense magnetic field required for an MRI. It is hard to believe that this procedure is helpful when not medically required.

But such potential physical harms are secondary. The real risk of neuromarketing research is to the people including children who are the real targets of this research. Already, marketing is deeply implicated in a host of pathologies. The nation is in the midst of an epidemic of marketing-related diseases. Our children are suffering from extraordinary levels of obesity, type 2 diabetes, anorexia, bulimia, and pathological gambling, while millions will eventually die from the marketing of tobacco. Such illnesses affect also the population at large, as does chronic debt that people incur to support the consumption that the marketing industry encourages.
WASHINGTON - December 1 - Commercial Alert and prominent psychology experts sent a letter today to Emory University President James Wagner, requesting that Emory stop conducting neuromarketing experiments. These medical experiments on human subjects are unethical because they will likely be used to promote disease and human suffering.

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If Emory University is found to have violated federal ethics rules regarding experiments on human subjects, it may lose its federal research funding.

Neuromarketing is a controversial new field of marketing which uses functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) a medical technology -- not to heal, but to sell products. A BrightHouse Institute for Thought Sciences news release issued June 22, 2002 explains that it uses fMRI ³to identify patterns of brain activity that reveal how a consumer is actually evaluating a product, object or advertisement. Thought Sciences marketing analysts use this information to more accurately measure consumer preference, and then apply this knowledge to help marketers better create products and services and to design more effective marketing campaigns.²

The BrightHouse Institute¹s neuromarketing experiments are conducted in the neuroscience wing of the Emory University Hospital.

The letter to Emory University President James Wagner follows.

Dear Mr. Wagner:

The realm of marketing and market research has never been a model of ethical scruple. But recent developments there are truly macabre in their implications. The hucksters have enlisted research labs to map the brain¹s activation responses in order prod desires for particular products.

This new field is called ³neuromarketing.² It seeks, in the words of Forbes magazine, to ³find a buy button inside the skull.² It sounds like something that could have happened in the former Soviet Union, for the purposes of behavior control. Yet it is happening right here in America, at a major university your university. "The neuroscience wing at Emory University,² the New York Times reports, ³is the epicenter of the neuromarketing world."

That is a dubious honor. Universities exist to free the mind, and enlighten it. They do not exist to find new ways to subjugate the mind and manipulate it for commercial gain. Emory¹s quest for a ³buy button² in the human skull is an egregious violation of the very reason that a university exists. It also likely violates the principles of the Belmont Report, which sets out guidelines for research on human subjects in the United States.

Emory¹s descent into neuromarketing is a project of something called the BrightHouse Institute for Thought Sciences, which is the leading neuromarketing research firm. (The name itself is Orwellian: the whole point of neuromarketing is to bypass thought, not encourage it.) The Institute in turn is part of BrightHouse, an advertising agency whose clients have included Coca-Cola, Pepperidge Farm, K-Mart and Home Depot. Brighthouse uses the Emory University Hospital¹s Magnetic Resonance Imaging machine to conduct its neuromarketing experiments.

The BrightHouse website boasts of having the ³most-advanced neuroscientific research capabilities and understanding of how the brain thinks, feels and motivates behavior.² This knowledge of the brain enables corporations to ³establish the foundation for loyal, long-lasting consumer relationships,² the website says. Loyalty through brain mapping, in other words.

The founder and chief executive officer is Joseph Alden Reiman, an adjunct professor at Emory University¹s Goizueta Business School. According to the BrightHouse website, Reiman is also Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Emory University School of Medicine. The ³chief scientist² at the Institute is Clinton D. Kilts, professor and vice-chair for research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

Dr. Kilts is an expert in addiction. He has published such articles as ³Neural activity related to drug craving in cocaine addiction,² and ³Imaging the roles of the amygdala in drug addiction.²

Dr. Kilts¹s research interests include ³drug craving induced by mental imagery of drug use-related scenes,² according to his Emory University School of Medicine web page. Is Dr. Kilts now using his knowledge of addiction to sell products such as Coke? Is he working on mental mapping to induce product cravings through the use of product-related scenes? Dr. Kilts has declined to respond to repeated calls regarding his neuromarketing research.

The Belmont Report requires a systematic assessment of risks and benefits in research on human subjects, and that the benefits outweigh the risks. The risks of this research are obvious, as is the moral repulsiveness. The benefits are more questionable, except to corporations such as Coca-Cola.

At the most basic physical level, neurological marketing research relies on the use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging on human subjects. Strong magnets can harm human subjects if they have metal in their bodies (e.g. cardiac pacemaker, aneurism clips, intrauterine devices, some dental work, body
piercings) or are carrying metal, such as coins or jewelry. Such harm is not likely but the possibility does exist. Research subjects occasionally report dizziness or nausea when their heads are moved within the bore of the magnet.

That¹s on top of any unknown adverse effects of placing a human subject in the intense magnetic field required for an MRI. It is hard to believe that this procedure is helpful when not medically required.

But such potential physical harms are secondary. The real risk of neuromarketing research is to the people including children who are the real targets of this research. Already, marketing is deeply implicated in a host of pathologies. The nation is in the midst of an epidemic of marketing-related diseases. Our children are suffering from extraordinary levels of obesity, type 2 diabetes, anorexia, bulimia, and pathological gambling, while millions will eventually die from the marketing of tobacco. Such illnesses affect also the population at large, as does chronic debt that people incur to support the consumption that the marketing industry encourages.

Neurological marketing is a tool to amplify these trends. It is hard to think of a single benefit that could result from teaching corporate marketers how to press a ³buy button² in the minds of individual Americans. Is there really a person in America who is insufficiently impelled to eat more Pepperidge Farm cookies or drink more Coke? Where would you rank the task of increasing this impulsion on the list of the nation¹s pressing needs?

Some might protest that neuromarketing research could be used to shut a buy button off as well as on. Conceivably. But it is not clear why corporations would support research that will cause people to buy less of their products. If the university and the researchers involved were to sign written statements promising that this research would be used only for such purposes, on pain of stiff financial penalties, the argument might become remotely credible. But even then, the prospect of behavior control at that level has totalitarian implications that require much more discussion than has occurred to date.

Given the prospect of dubious social benefit and almost certain social harm, it is hard to see how Emory¹s neuromarketing research meets the ethical standards of the Belmont Report for experimentation on human subjects.

As you know, if Emory University has run afoul of the Belmont Report, it may lose all federal research funding. If necessary, we may ask the federal Office for Human Research Protections to investigate whether Emory University¹s neurological marketing research violates the principles of the Belmont Report.

But more importantly, it is hard to see how neuromarketing research meets the ethical standards for university research, especially a university such as Emory.

Emory was founded by the Methodist Church in 1836 upon a core of ethical and religious values. Its mission is to ³create, preserve, teach, and apply knowledge in the service of humanity.² Last year, Emory¹s Board of Trustees affirmed that this includes a ³commitment to use knowledge to improve human well-being.²

The Emory School of Medicine has a particular responsibility under that declaration. Its own mission statement commits it to ³advance the detection, treatment and prevention of disease processes.² Emory Medical School exists to eliminate disease, not encourage it. It certainly does not exist to produce research that can and predictably will be used to for marketing that tends to increase disease and human suffering.

If Emory University takes its own mission seriously, it should challenge this abuse of medical knowledge and technology to manipulate people for commercial purposes.

At this time, we ask that you immediately:

1) Forbid the BrightHouse Institute, or any other entity, from using any Emory University property, equipment, office space or facilities, including its MRI, for the purposes of conducting neuromarketing research; and,

2) Publicly release Emory University¹s Institutional Review Board reviews of the neuromarketing research.

Sincerely,

Rev. Tom Grey, Executive Director, National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling

Jane M. Healy, PhD, author, Failure to Connect and Endangered Minds

Susan Linn, EdD, Instructor in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Co-founder, Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children

Jonathan Rowe, Director, Tomales Bay Institute

Gary Ruskin, Executive Director, Commercial Alert

V. Susan Villani, MD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins Medical School

http://www.commondreams.org/news2003/1201-01.htm

V.V.

words-in-3d-space

2008-04-13T23:36:33Z

Doing some experiments here, now, maybe forever...

words-in-3d-space

Interactive computer wallpapers, Words in 3d space, ArtDigitalDesign.com

ArtDigitalDesign.com: Words in 3d space, Interactive computer wallpapers, Multimedia

Touch your cursor to a word and see what happens.
Blow infinite swoop storm space whirl
Multi dimensional thrash clash
Infinite reload atmospheric caress
Finite environmental recursive dimented
Loup time matrices space roar flow
And so IT goes round and round claiming
All that is and never was moment to moment

Winter Snowscene Calendar

Desktop calendars, themes, Winter forest snowfall, ArtDigitalDesign.com

ArtDigitalDesign.com: Winter forest snowfall, Desktop calendars, themes, Multimedia

OSS RA

Oblivions Dreamer

2008-04-13T10:06:06Z

Lost on a Storm Tossed Sea
Of Cyber Windowed Blessedness
Oblivons Sanctioned Dreamer

Animated desktop wallpapers, aladin, ArtDigitalDesign.com

OSS RA

The Pursuit of Happiness

2008-04-08T00:27:51Z

The following article, by Blackwaters' chaplain, has a lot of living points that one doesn't 'get' 'till after one has lived through the varied hells associated with them - such as sleeping with your wife/husband. I did say 'sleeping' with and not *******!

So, that's a really good point that he makes herein. Sleeping with someone else. I, as an example, hate to sleep with someone who is crawling all over me and prefer to meditate myself into sleeps wonderlands via the dead mans posture, a yoga asana, which actually resembles more a vampire sleeping than anything else...

And I have freaked several ladies out by refusing to change my evil ways thus I thought this article to be more than just a little appropos for a lot of people who are probably faced, at least early on in relationshipping, with some of the dilemma our good chaplain so amply brings forth in words.

Please read and enjoy and thank him by sending up, or down, a little prayer to the avataric manifestations of whatever mythos happenes to inspire thee. Enjoy...

RA

===

When I was a child I was left to entertain myself. I read, listened to the radio, went fishing, went hunting, went exploring, went to visit neighbor kids to play, went swimming, built my own small world with my trains and accessories and set up problems to solve using them... Comic books were an occasional treat... A movie in town six miles away was an occasional treat... A drive-in movie with all the local kids in the back of a truck was an even more rare treat... Going to the skating rink was a rare treat...The Pursuit of Happiness

hap·pi·ness [hap-ee-nis]
–noun
1. the quality or state of being happy.
2. good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy.

—Synonyms 1, 2. pleasure, joy, exhilaration, bliss, contentedness, delight, enjoyment, satisfaction. Happiness, bliss, contentment, felicity imply an active or passive state of pleasure or pleasurable satisfaction. Happiness results from the possession or attainment of what one considers good: the happiness of visiting one's family. Bliss is unalloyed happiness or supreme delight: the bliss of perfect companionship. Contentment is a peaceful kind of happiness in which one rests without desires, even though every wish may not have been gratified: contentment in one's surroundings. Felicity is a formal word for happiness of an especially fortunate or intense kind: to wish a young couple felicity in life.
—Antonyms 1. misery.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

We spend much time thinking that we have to have certain things... Or do certain things in order to be happy. Many people depend upon other people and the actions of those other people to make them happy. The pursuit of happiness is a favorite pastime in these United States.

Check out our movies... Check out the TV programs... Check out where people go for entertainment... Check out how much time and money is spent on entertainment. Entertainment is a method of gaining contentment... Contentment is one of our keys to happiness.

en·ter·tain·ment [en-ter-teyn-muhnt]
–noun
1. the act of entertaining; agreeable occupation for the mind; diversion; amusement: Solving the daily crossword puzzle is an entertainment for many.
2. something affording pleasure, diversion, or amusement, esp. a performance of some kind: The highlight of the ball was an elaborate entertainment.
3. hospitable provision for the needs and wants of guests.
4. a divertingly adventurous, comic, or novel.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

When I was a child I was left to entertain myself. I read, listened to the radio, went fishing, went hunting, went exploring, went to visit neighbor kids to play, went swimming, built my own small world with my trains and accessories and set up problems to solve using them... Comic books were an occasional treat... A movie in town six miles away was an occasional treat... A drive-in movie with all the local kids in the back of a truck was an even more rare treat... Going to the skating rink was a rare treat...

Then a couple neighbors got TV's and we had more convenient entertainment as long as we got along well with those kids...

All of this kept me entertained until I was old enough to discover girls... Then I would hitch-hike to town for dates... And then hitch-hike back home, sometimes hiking all the way, the full six miles in the deepest darkness of night. Next came use of parents car... Then a job... Then a motorcycle... Then my own car... All of this in the pursuit of entertainment which is supposed to contribute to our happiness.

Then I moved to the city school where I could gain a better education... After a lot of dating many girls and pursuing happiness, I met the love of my life, whom I married as soon as I graduated high school, and immediately went to work in engineering and started studying and learning Civil Engineering. This was supposed to be ecstasy... And it was... except now I had obligations rather than being able to pursue happiness I had committed myself to trying to provide for someone else and make her happy.

I was never taught nor shown what marriage was supposed to be so I went into it with the popular romantic notions of the day... Sleeping all inter-twined with each other is supposed to be happiness, but I found I could not sleep well that way and neither could she. Sometimes touching one another would bring peaceful sleep... Sometimes cuddling one another would bring peaceful sleep... But most of the time she was on one side of the bed in a comfortable, for her, position and I was on the other side in a comfortable, for me, position. Romance might precede sleep and bring it on but romance was one thing... Sleeping was another. We may have slept in the same bed but the sleeping was not romance.

The interaction of daily living for two people in love was supposed to be romantic according to the movies and love stories of the day... But we found out that engaging in intimacy was not the major pastime of daily life... Work and selfless concern for the needs of the other person in the marriage was supposed to be the major pastime of daily life... But sometimes work took so much out of you that you could do little more than work, eat and sleep.

When not working, eating or sleeping, my wife and I found that we had different interests that entertained us.... So we each pursued the interest that contented us. We also learned to be tolerant of our differences and we learned to ask for what we needed from the other if we were not receiving what we needed that the other could furnish. That is called communication and it is the most important factor in any marriage. Marriage and intimacy cannot work without good communication. Communication means at least two people giving and receiving messages to one another and employing feed back to clarify that each is receiving the message the other person is sending.

I now know that it is the responsibility of parents to teach boys how to be husbands and fathers... And to teach girls how to be wives and mothers.... But no one had taught us and we learned by much trial and much error, but we survived and learned to love each other more and more each day, no matter how trying the day was. Premarital training was severely lacking in my society as I was growing up... And I find that it is just as lacking today as it was then. I also found, as a clergyman, that even when I give premarital counseling to young people... When they get into trouble in the relationship... That they seldom remember our classes and discussions. Then they must come back for more help or they fail in the relationship.

We grow up watching movies and programs where everyone drinks alcoholic beverages to be sociable and find entertainment and happiness... Especially the heroes and stars drink, often to excess, and make it look enticing... And often we see them tearing their clothes off as they try to get to each other, supposedly having the unbridled passion sparked by the alcohol. I found out that alcohol hindered my ability to be sociable or sexual and that contentment and happiness eluded me if I engaged in drinking alcohol so I very quickly gave up on that popular practice even though most everyone around me engaged in it except my wife and I.

When I became a law enforcement officer as a Trooper I found that our private parties were always populated with alcohol and most everyone drank, some drank far too much, and still drove their cars to get home.

I saw alcohol destroy the marriage of my father and mother... And then it finally destroyed my father's life by being the cause of his losing everything that it took to live... Then he took his own life with a shotgun to the chest. I had to enter that boarding house room and clean out his things while bits and pieces of him were still clinging to the walls around me and his peculiar odor permeated that room. Alcohol was one way he choose to pursue happiness and I watched it insidiously steal life from him until he could no longer live. A little would make him fun seeking and jovial... More would make him sick and mean. He could never stop with a little. It was always too much.

For over 45 years I have counseled people with problems and enforced the laws or assisted in enforcing the laws governing public drunkenness and driving under the influence. For most of that time I have been involved in the tragic aftermath of the incidents that happen to people pursuing happiness while drinking alcohol or consuming mind altering drugs and helping to handle the grief created by the mishaps that cause injury and death while they are so busy pursuing happiness and contentment.

For the past 18 years it has been my summertime duty to work the busiest block on our resort strip where there are about a dozen nightclubs on the three sides of the block... And assist in keeping the peace among those who mix alcohol with the pursuit of happiness... Some wind up in fights; getting arrested; spending the night in the gray bar hotel; in the emergency room; or their bodies wind up in the morgue and I have to deliver the bad news to surviving family and loved ones.

All of this is a message conveyed to our world about contentment and happiness but it is all deceptive and falsehood.

Alcohol, illicit mind altering drugs, sex, free love with multiple partners... Just some of the pastimes of our society today... These are not routes to happiness and contentment. They are just places on a very bumpy road that cause the users to need more and more of whatever it is that the are using just to get close to the last high they experienced... But never quite getting there. They get trapped into seeking that perfect high... That perfect experience... That unending good time... NONE OF THESE EXIST... But the message of our time is that it does exist and that the seeker can achieve it most any time. I have watched this parade for over 45 years and I have found no one who was able to achieve the high and maintain it over any reasonable period of time by using these methods.

Happiness can be attained but not as the world says it can be done. There is a way to happiness but it must be inside the person and it is not gained by all of the worldly, external methods most people are using. Happiness and contentment are a by-product... A by-product of learning the simple way that life was designed for us to live and by learning how to give the proper attention to each facet of our lives that we may be fruitful, have peace, have contentment and enjoy the life we have wherever we are at any moment. Happiness is also the by-product of learning what does not give us the happiness and contentment that we seek and leave those destructive things alone.

For me, the best and lasting happiness was meeting Jesus Christ after seeking a connection with God for twenty years. From the moment I met Him until this moment I have never been unhappy... Since I learned His way of life for me I have never been without contentment. I have been in some very hard and difficult experiences in those 45 years but I have never lost the happiness and contentment that started when I met Him... It has just become stronger and more durable. In my 45 years of serving the people in need in this world I have seen the worst of the worst... In my personal life I have plumbed the depths of personal loss... I have experienced the deepest pain of loneliness because of the personal losses and the deaths of loved ones... But never, at any of those times and experiences, did I ever lose my happiness and contentment... Not even during the deaths of my wife and youngest son... That my Compadres is a testimony to the Grace and keeping Power of our Creator and the Way of life He wants to teach to us.

Make no mistake here Compadres, I am not talking about religion, I am talking about life
learned and lived according to His directions for our time. I took the challenge... I learned the Way... I applied what I learned... It has worked for me and He put me here in this life as a Peace Keeper to help you when you need help and when you recognize that you need it. There are five areas of your lives that need regular attention and most do not give that attention because they do not know that they can or should.

In peace keeping we stress training, training, training... Practice, practice, practice... But when it comes to personal life most of us leave it to feelings and chance... Most of us are like pin balls in a game machine... We are shot into situations... We bounce off things... We fall into holes... We are slapped around by circumstances... Sometimes we win... Sometimes we lose... Sometimes it is a draw... And we become so empty inside that contentment is far from us... We become empty and hurting... We become hard to live with... We become hard to work with and work for...

Happiness is contentment and the best picture I can give you of that is an infant that is well fed, warm, clean, dry and cooing and playing with the toys we give him to amuse himself... or simply playing with his own feet that he has just discovered. Somewhere in our growing we lose that and only God can bring us back to it. If I had not proven that for myself over all of these long years, I would not be fool enough to write it into this message.

Warriors have always needed contentment. We gain it sporadically in many ways but it never seems to last for very long... Mine has lasted for over 45 years and still is mine in this moment in spite of all that life has thrown at me and the circumstances of that with which I deal today. Life has not been made easier for me as far as life experience is concerned. What has been made easier and better for me is that I know that I am not in this life alone and that all of my success does not depend upon me alone. I know that I can and do make mistakes but I also know that the ONE whom I serve and work with, my Commander-In-Chief, does not ever leave me without the support that I need in order to accomplish the tasks that are assigned to me. The adventure has been great and marvelous... I have stared Death in the face many times, yet I am still here today. In over 45 years I have received only two scratches... I have never had to strike nor injure any person... I have held a few... I have taken a few to the ground under my knee and flashlight... I have worked some terrible places and terrible circumstances alone.... I have made many multiple arrests alone... I gave a lot of people choices about how they wanted to respond to me... By Grace and Mercy I am still here to serve... Because by Grace and Mercy all those to whom I gave the choice responded to me meekly and properly or they were quickly, physically brought into submission and under control.

Even as I think on some of these incidents I see the Hand of my Creator giving me guidance and assistance... I learned and I responded to what I learned with application... And application brought me experiences and Wisdom... Wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge and experience at the right time for the right results.

Now, I am well aware that He considers all of you His Ministers of Rightness in this world... But I am just as well aware that many of you do not have the knowledge He wants you to have in order for you to be continuously happy and content within yourselves. I pray daily for all of you to receive that knowledge and learn how to apply it to your lives.
My prayers for each of you always cover, relationship, strength, health, peace, power, prosperity... and now contentment... plus the greatest of blessing... Those prayers cover your families and loved ones as well. He and I want all of you and yours to receive what you need, learn how to cooperate with it... Learn how to apply it... and how to attain the results He has designed for you to have as His Minister of Rightness in this world.

We thank you... Eternally, we thank you... Without you there would be no world as we know it. This whole world needs you all and needs each of you. Thank you for who you are... For what you have done and are doing... And for what you are yet going to do.

"BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!" ALWAYS be alert, watchful, suspicious and wary. Take the very best care of you as you care for and about others. See to the strength and well being of your spirit as well as all the rest of you. Your spirit must be strong for you to be successful.

Call or write if I may be of any service... Or if you just want to encourage me... Feedback encourages all who write... It helps to know we are reaching someone who reads the message.

As it has always been... So it still is!!!

"VICTORIOUS WARRIORS WIN FIRST...
AND THEN GO TO WAR,
WHILE DEFEATED WARRIORS GO TO WAR FIRST...
AND THEN SEEK TO WIN." Sun tzu

Training and practice are everything!
Without it, the best results are not obtained!

ONLY LIVE PEACE KEEPERS SEE THE VICTORY!!!
THEY SEE IT ONLY BECAUSE OTHERS HAVE MADE THEIR ETERNAL
PAYMENTS OF SWEAT, BLOOD, TEARS AND LIFE FOR THAT VICTORY!

WITH THE DEEPEST OF APPRECIATION AND RESPECT...
BE BLESSED (A CONDITION TO BE ENVIED)...
BE SUCCESSFUL... BE SAFE...
[My injunction to be safe means doing all you know to do as you do your job... it means
doing the best you can with what you have where you are using all your faculties to get
the job done well and with good results conquering evil and keeping or restoring peace...
it does not mean to avoid duty and honor... it does not mean to cower or allow anything
to hinder you in the process of duty according to rules, law and ethics... it means that if
the demand takes your earthly life you destroy as much evil as possible in the process.
That is my definition of being safe... doing the best you can and leaving the rest to God
or whomever else is responsible... being best employed for the sake and protection of all
the things and people that we hold dear.]

I represent, write for... and give the credit to:
God the Father (my Commander-in-Chief),
Jesus Christ the Son (the Eternal Captain of my life) and
the Holy Spirit of God (my Eternal Teacher, Keeper and Guide).
In Christ I live... with Him and for you I serve...
And I rejoice that you are there whether you are Christian or not...
D. R. (Don) Staton, Chaplain to Peace Keepers,
Surviving Peace Keeper,
Virginia State Police Alumni,
RETIRED Police Officer Virginia Beach Police Dept.,
DCJS Certified Police Instructor,
Community Service Officer (Traffic Safety)
757-431-2190, chpln1@verizon.net
3709 Beacon Lane, Virginia Beach, VA 23452
===============================================================
All rights reserved. May not be duplicated without permission, except to be
forwarded with all source information for any quotation intact.

To subscribe to this free e-mail message for Peace Keepers,
write to Chaplain D. R. Staton at chpln1@verizon.net or at
3709 Beacon Lane, Virginia Beach, VA 23452.

If you are a Peace Keeper you may subscribe to
the BLACKWATER TACTICAL NEWSLETTER by going to the
website at BLACKWATER USA.

Mukaseys' 911 Lie

2008-04-04T17:29:34Z

With the current insane debacle going on over the three stooges, John McCain, B. Hussein Obama, and H. Rottenham Clinton going on it is little wonder that the MSM gets away with covering up this very important tale of deceit at the highest levels (High Crimes and Misdemeanors).

The Shrub of horrors can also be seen to be spreading his dis-ease around some of the worlds capitols with his evil twin by his side...the late, great, Condoleeza 'wife by proxy' Rice.

Though I'm sure you'd rather be elsewhere reading trivia please forego that marvellous quest for just a moment and read this piece. The articles' url is at the end so you might want to go there as there are links, that I haven't included here, in the original article which are contextually important.

The fascisto socialist American state isn't going to get any better till we rise up in open rebellion against these clowns who took over so long ago. Can't blame just one little shrub for all the havoc America has wreaked upon this globe in the name of a false and illuso-delusory 'democracy.'

You did know that America was founded as a Republic, didn't you? And you do know the difference, don't you, even though your 'teachers' probably didn't?

Glenn Greenwald
Thursday April 3, 2008 07:04 EDT
Why doesn't the 9/11 Commission know about Mukasey's 9/11 story?

Last week, during a question-and-answer session following a speech he delivered in San Francisco, Attorney General Michael Mukasey revealed a startling and extremely newsworthy fact. As I wrote last Saturday, Mukasey claimed that, prior to 9/11, the Bush administration was aware of a telephone call being made by an Al Qaeda Terrorist from what he called a "safe house in Afghanistan" into the U.S., but failed to eavesdrop on that call. Some help is needed from readers here to generate the attention for this story that it requires.

In that speech, Mukasey blamed FISA's warrant requirement for the failure to eavesdrop on that call -- an assertion which is, for multiple reasons that I detailed in that post, completely false. He then tearfully claimed that FISA therefore caused the deaths of "three thousand people who went to work that day." For obvious reasons, the Attorney General's FISA falsehoods themselves are extremely newsworthy, but it is the story he told about the pre-9/11-planning call from Afghanistan itself that is truly new, and truly extraordinary.

Critically, the 9/11 Commission Report -- intended to be a comprehensive account of all relevant pre-9/11 activities -- makes no mention whatsoever of the episode Mukasey described. What has been long publicly reported in great detail are multiple calls that were made between a global communications hub in Yemen and the U.S. -- calls which the NSA did intercept without warrants (because, contrary to Mukasey's lie, FISA does not and never did require a warrant for eavesdropping on foreign targets) but which, for some unknown reason, the NSA failed to share with the FBI and other agencies. But the critical pre-9/11 episode Mukasey described last week is nowhere to be found in the 9/11 Report or anywhere else. It just does not exist. Yesterday, I contacted Lee Hamilton, the 9/11 Commission Vice Chairman, to ask him whether the Commission was ever told about Mukasey's alleged Afghan Terrorist 9/11-planning telephone calls and/or the Bush administration's failure/inability to eavesdrop on such calls. Hamilton refused to comment, first claiming that he was in meetings all day yesterday and had no time to talk to me. When asked if he would comment today or whenever he had time, he said he was not going to comment on this ever, since he had not read Mukasey's speech. Calls to 9/11 Executive Director Philip Zelikow seeking comment were not returned and 9/11 Commission Chairman Tom Kean could not yet be reached.

It's unacceptable for Hamilton to refuse to comment on Mukasey's claims. The whole purpose of the 9/11 Commission was to ensure that there was full-scale investigation and disclosure of all facts relevant to the 9/11 attacks, including the Government's actions and inactions in preventing that attack from occurring.

If the Attorney General of the United States, out of the blue, makes an extraordinary and new assertion in a public speech about an easy opportunity the Bush administration had to detect those attacks -- an opportunity he claims was lost because of eavesdropping laws -- Hamilton ought to say whether the Commission was ever told about this incident and/or whether Mukasey is telling the truth. Preventing high government officials from lying about the 9/11 attacks or exposing concealment of key 9/11 facts is his obligation as Vice Chairman of the Commission. Some type of comment from 9/11 Commission officials on Mukasey's claims is vital for generating further attention to this story and for compelling Mukasey to account for what he said.

Hamilton is currently the President and Director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and director of The Center on Congress at Indiana University. Please email him at the address below, politely set forth the extraordinary claims the Attorney General just made about the 9/11 attacks (with citations to media sources about the speech -- including here, here, and here), and urge him to fulfill his obligation as 9/11 Commission Vice Chair by confirming whether Mukasey's revelations are true and/or were disclosed to the Commission during its investigation: Lee.hamilton@wilsoncenter.org.

This isn't just a matter of academic and historical interest about the 9/11 attacks, although it is that. One of two things almost certainly happened here, each of which is of great importance. Either Mukasey is lying about the 9/11 attacks in order to manipulate Americans into believing that FISA's warrant requirements are what prevented discovery of the 9/11 attacks and caused 3,000 American deaths -- a completely disgusting act by the Attorney General which obviously cannot be ignored. Or, Mukasey has just revealed the most damning fact yet about the Bush's administration's ability and failure to have prevented the attacks -- facts that, until now, were apparently concealed from the 9/11 Commission and the public.

Since I wrote about this on Saturday, there has been some slowly evolving media attention paid to it. On Monday, I discussed the story on the radio with Rachel Maddow who, as always, grasped completely its importance. The following night, she was on Countdown with Keith Olbermman, which had a lengthy and detailed segment, highlighting all of the right questions (video below). Raw Story compiled a very thorough article with the key facts, and the top Daily Kos post this morning does the same.

The great significance of this story -- that Mukasey either completely fabricated a key 9/11 event or just revealed a heretofore unknown 9/11 bombshell -- is self-evident and made clear by these growing accounts. Having Hamilton, Kean and/or Zelikow comment on the veracity of Mukasey's claims about the 9/11 attacks -- as they ought to do -- is vital for advancing the story.

UPDATE: Philip Zelikow, the 9/11 Commission Executive Director (and former Counselor to Condolleeza Rice), obviously has no idea what Mukasey is talking about, as he replies by email (ellipses in original):
Not sure of course what the AG had in mind, although the most important signals intelligence leads related to our report -- that related to the Hazmi-Mihdhar issues of January 2000 or to al Qaeda activities or transits connected to Iran -- was not of this character. If, as he says, the USG didn't know where the call went in the US, neither did we. So unless we had some reason to link this information to the 9/11 story ....

In general, as with several covert action issues for instance, the Commission sought (and succeeded) in publishing details about sensitive intelligence matters where the details were material to the investigative mandate in our law.
That's polite Beltway talk for saying that nothing like what Mukasey described actually happened. Does anyone on TV other than Keith Olbermann care that the Attorney General of the United States just invented a critical episode about 9/11 that never actually happened -- tearing up as he did it -- in order to scare Americans into supporting the administration's desired elimination of spying restrictions and blame FISA supporters for the 9/11 attacks? We still ought to hear from Hamilton and/or Kean.

UPDATE II: I'll be on Rachel Maddow's show at 7:30 p.m. EST today to discuss these developments. Local listings and live audio feed are here.

At Daily Kos, McJoan -- who wrote about this matter today here -- has written about it again, and included contact information for key members of Congress to demand that Mukasey be compelled to account for his 9/11 claims, preferably under oath.

The reason this story has the potential to be significant is because it's easy to understand -- Mukasey's story is either true or false -- and, more importantly, nothing like it happened. He can't claim that he just misspoke or was confused because not only was there no such call from Afghanistan (at least according to everything that is known, including by the 9/11 Commission's version), but FISA could never possibly have prevented interception of any calls remotely like the one Mukasey described.

He just made this up out of whole cloth in order to mislead Americans into supporting the administration's efforts to eliminate spying safeguards and basic constitutional liberties and to stifle the pending surveillance lawsuits against telecoms. That isn't hard for anyone -- even including those who play the role of journalists on TV -- to understand and convey.

Finally, numerous people have sent me their emails to Lee Hamilton, who still hasn't commented or responded. If he doesn't soon, I think mass (though civil) calling of his office will be in order. I don't think he has the option of simply remaining quiet when the Attorney General makes a statement of this sort about the 9/11 attacks.

UPDATE III: With the help of readers, I was able to find and get in contact with Tom Kean's office, who asked that an email be sent to him requesting comment. The email I sent is here, along with the email I sent to the DOJ (at their request) asking for comment from Mukasey.

Dan Gilmor of the Center for Citizen Media -- affiliated with the University of California, Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University Law School -- has posted a superb piece on this matter, focusing on what it reflects about establishment press behavior. The whole thing is worth reading (Correction: Center for Citizen Media is now affiliated with Arizona State University and Harvard's Berkman Center, and no longer with Berkeley).

UPDATE IV: House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, along with two Subcommittee Chairs, just sent a letter to Michael Mukasey demanding answers to all the right questions about his 9/11 claims as well as the bizarre (though unsurprising) reference in the Yoo Memorandum to the suspension of the Fourth Amendment inside the U.S. That letter will need to be followed up with action, but it's a good start.

UPDATE V: The DOJ replies to my email referenced above, here.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/03/mukasey/index.html