Inside the FBI's secret files on Coretta Scott King

Comprised of nearly 500 pages, with some of those documents partially or totally censored, the intelligence file paints a disturbing picture.

For example: The FBI very closely spied and did surveillance on Scott King for years, keeping close track of her public appearances, speeches and especially anytime she traveled.

In fact, the file shows the FBI was copying various military intelligence organizations on her activities including the 115 th M.I. of the U.S. Army, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and a number of military bases.

Other reports also show the White House being in the loop on this surveillance. One Agent reported on then New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller’s phone call to Scott King after her husband’s death, offering his condolences and ongoing help. Another reported to the Nixon White House and then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger about what they had learned about Scott King.

Read More

Washington Post: Lawmakers Describe 'Being Slimed in the Green Zone'

Brief, choreographed and carefully controlled, the codels (short for congressional delegations) often have showed only what the Pentagon and the Bush administration have wanted the lawmakers to see. At one point, as Moran, Tauscher and Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.) were heading to lunch in the fortified Green Zone, an American urgently tried to get their attention, apparently to voice concerns about the war effort, the participants said. Security whisked the man away before he could make his point.

Read More

"A lot of people are calling Senator Craig a hypocrite because he was a very vocal opponent of same-sex marriages. ... But to be fair, he has never come out publicly against anonymous gay bathroom sex." --Jay Leno

Read More

Frightening Knowledge

There are times that I realize I know things that are a bit scary. I didn't go looking for some of this knowledge that I have and I don't know where I got it, and that is also a very scary thing. That being said, I know what this is:
Yes, that is a picture of a sex swing. (Can't WAIT to see how many hits I'll get with this one!) Now, I don't own a sex swing, have never used one, and until yesterday, never seen one. That is where the story comes in.

Yesterday I went to get my hair 'done.' (I feel like one of those little old ladies when I say that. :)) Anyway, my stylist told me that she would walk me out of the salon because there was something I needed to see. When we got outside, she pointed to the house across the street. There, big as life, in a big old maple tree, in the front yard, was a sex swing. And it has been there for about a month. And the street is one of the busiest in our town. Now the question is: Has it been used since it was put there? And just what time of night do they use it? And... I can't go on--my mind just won't let me continue.

Read More

Marketing Campaign for Iran War to Begin in September?

Today I received a message from a friend who has excellent connections in Washington and whose information has often been prescient. According to this report, as in 2002, the rollout will start after Labor Day, with a big kickoff on September 11. My friend had spoken to someone in one of the leading neo-conservative institutions. He summarized what he was told this way:

They [the source's institution] have "instructions" (yes, that was the word used) from the Office of the Vice-President to roll out a campaign for war with Iran in the week after Labor Day; it will be coordinated with the American Enterprise Institute, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects. It will be heavy sustained assault on the airwaves, designed to knock public sentiment into a position from which a war can be maintained. Evidently they don't think they'll ever get majority support for this--they want something like 35-40 percent support, which in their book is "plenty."

Read More

Greg Palast, one of the last of the real journalists, goes to New Orleans and makes "a weird, puzzling and horrific discovery."

Among the miles and miles of devastated houses, rubble still there today in New Orleans, we found dry, beautiful homes. But their residents were told by guys dressed like Ninjas wearing "Blackwater" badges: "Try to go into your home and we'll arrest you."

Read More

Remember This! … Fibroblast-Neprilysin

UNTREATED Alzheimer's Brain Cells


TREATED Alzheimer's Brain Cells

Plaques comprised of amyloid-beta are the hallmark pathology of Alzheimer's disease. In this study, the scientists used an amyloid-degrading enzyme to clear these amyloid cobwebs from the brain - as illustrated in these untreated (top) versus treated (bottom) brain images. Image Credit: Harvard Photographic Services

Remember This! … Fibroblast-Neprilysin

In a report that first appeared August 27 on the Web site of the Public Library of Science, experiments centered on new methods to relieve the damaging effect of Alzheimer’s disease are showing great promise.

Simply stated, it is believed that when some humans grow older, the ability to control the build up of protein based plaques in the brain becomes reduced. These proteins create toxic clumps and tangled fibers that ultimately kill cells and interfere with the brains’ ability to recall memories and think (a situation similar to the build up of cholesterol in arteries that reduce the flow of blood).

An enzyme named Neprilysin has shown great promise in breaking down the toxic clumps of fibrous protein in the brains of mice. What has been found through these tests, and may be unique, is the method of the delivery of this enzyme to the effected portions of the brain under the toxic grip of Alzheimer’s protein-fiber goo.

Skin from the patient may actually provide the best method to first create the Neprilysin enzyme and further, through a process termed Fibroblast create a combo that can be implanted back into the patient for the desired result – a freer thinking brain.

This Fibroblast-Neprilsin combo type of tratment process has shown and may prove to have a positive benefit to the treatment of cancers, blood, muscle, and eye diseases, spinal cord injuries, stroke, Parkinson’s and Huntington diseases, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease).

This from Harvard University Gazette Online -

Brain implants relieve Alzheimer’s damage
Toxic plaques cleared away
William J. Cromie - Harvard News Office - August 28, 2007

Genetically engineered cells implanted in mice have cleared away toxic plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

The animals were sickened with a human gene that caused them to develop, at an accelerated rate, the disease that robs millions of elderly people of their memories. After receiving the doctored cells, the brain-muddling plaques melted away. If this works in humans, old age could be a much happier time of life.

Alzheimer’s involves a protein called amyloid-beta.
----
“Delivery of genes that led to production of an enzyme that breaks up amyloid showed robust clearance of plaques in the brains of the mice,” notes Dennis Selkoe, Vincent and Stella Coates Professor of Neurologic Diseases at Harvard Medical School. “These results support and encourage further investigation of gene therapy for treatment of this common and devastating disease in humans.”
----
The first published report of the experiments, done by Selkoe and other researchers from Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s and McLean hospitals, appeared Aug. 27 on the Web site of the Public Library of Science.

The gene delivery technique employed by the research team has been used in several other trials with animals that model human diseases, including cancers. The procedure involves removing cells from patients, making genetic changes, and then putting back the modified cells, which should treat a disease or disability.
----
“Several of these potential treatments have advanced to human trials, with encouraging outcomes for patients,” says Matthew Hemming, lead author of the report and a graduate student in Selkoe’s lab.
----
The Harvard team used skin cells from the animal’s own body to introduce a gene for an amyloid-busting enzyme known as neprilysin. The skin cells, also known as fibroblasts, “do not form tumors or move from the implantation site,” Hemming notes. “They cause no detectable adverse side effects and can easily be taken from a patient’s skin.” In addition, other genes can be added to the fibroblast-neprilysin combo, which will eliminate the implants if something starts to go wrong.
----
The experiments proved that the technique works, but will it work in humans?

One major obstacle, Selkoe says, is the larger size of a human brain compared to that of a mouse. That difference will require an increase of amyloid-busting activity throughout a much larger space.

One solution might involve implanting the genes and fibroblasts where they have the best access to amyloid-beta, in the spinal fluid for example, instead of trying to inject them into a small target. The amyloid-killing combo might be put into capsules that would secrete neprilysin into the blood circulating in the brain, eliminating the need to hit an exact spot.

This or some other clever maneuver that does not require surgery might eliminate the gooey plaques, but will that improve a person’s memory? And will the change be long-lasting? “Further work is needed to determine if reducing the plaque burden has cognitive benefits over a long period,” notes Hemming, “but there’s a wealth of evidence arguing that it will.”
Reference Here>>

(re-posted at MAXINE)

Read More

And Now I Buy JEWISH Appliances!

Today I took delivery of this:


(Full disclosure: this is NOT a picture of my kitchen. :))

Yes, after almost 30 years, we bought a new kitchen range. And I am THRILLED! So, here is the story:

The oldest daughter has online Pampered Chef parties and I usually buy something from her. About a month ago, she had her last one and I decided to try one of their baking stones. Both of the girls love theirs, so I figured I would give it a go. A couple of weeks ago, my order came in--I couldn't wait to use the stone. I placed the refrigerator biscuits on the stone--this was to help 'season' it--and put it in the oven. And I couldn't close the oven door because the stone was too big. Now, the smallness of the oven on the old range has been a source of extreme irritation for me since we bought it. I don't have ANY idea why the stove had such a small oven--most people have never even heard of the problem. I could never place a 9X13 pan in the oven lengthwise--it always had to be sideways. Of course, this meant I could not put as much stuff in the oven as the average person could put in theirs, so everything took me longer to cook because of having to cook in shifts. A general pain in the ass--to put it mildly. Anyway, we decided to buy a new range as it was the last of our original appliances to replace. I decided on the GE and we ordered it last week--and today it was delivered.

This range is really over the top in terms of features. First--and what REALLY sold me on it--it has two ovens. I KNOW that the smaller of the two will be the one I use 90% of the time. A great energy saver as the space is so much smaller to keep heated--it takes half the amount of time to pre-heat as the big oven does. The bad part about the two ovens: there is NO storage drawer, so I have to find places for some items. Oh, well, it could be worse.

The range top is ceramic and has five burners. The middle back burner is just for warming, but still... Both front burners are dual--you can change the 'size' according to the size pot you want to place on them. This thing has more settings on it than you can imagine--for crying out loud, the upper oven has a PIZZA setting!

But the part that REALLY blew me away about this range: it is Jewish! There are settings for the thing that will enable it to NOT go against orthodox Jewish Sabbath requirements. Something to do with not being allowed to turn on or off appliances during Sabbath, or something like that--I'm sorry I am not very knowledgeable about this. Anyway, the stove can be set to turn on at sundown and stay on for the entire Sabbath OR be disabled for the same period of time if you program to do so. As I said, it has to do with requirements regarding working on the Sabbath. It just is a cool--but for ME unnecessary--feature. And totally strange. :)

As of right now, we haven't used any part of the stove. Today was spent trying to 'burn off' the new smell from the oven. Many hours of using the self-cleaning feature helped with this task. I'm hoping to give the whole thing a good workout tomorrow. I may even start cooking again! Yeah, right. :)

Read More

Iraq Weapons Are a Focus of Criminal Investigations

Several federal agencies are investigating a widening network of criminal cases involving the purchase and delivery of billions of dollars of weapons, supplies and other matériel to Iraqi and American forces, according to American officials. The officials said it amounted to the largest ring of fraud and kickbacks uncovered in the conflict here.

Read More

BUSH WARNS OF 'HOLOCAUST' IF IRAN GETS NUKES

"Iran is sending arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan to be used to attack American and NATO troops," Bush said. "Iran has arrested visiting American scholars who have committed no crimes and impose no threat to their regime. And Iran's active pursuit of technology that could lead to nuclear weapons threatens to put a region already known for instability and violence under the shadow of a nuclear holocaust. Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere."

Read More

Blackwater Acquiring Its Own Air Force

Security company Blackwater U.S.A. is buying Super Tucano light combat aircraft from the Brazilian manufacturer Embraer. These five ton, single engine, single seat aircraft are built for pilot training, but also perform quite well for counter-insurgency work.

Read More

Peace Activist's Open Letter to America

To the American people, and to peace loving individuals everywhere:

Massive evidence has come to our attention which shows that the backers, controllers, and allies of Vice President Dick Cheney are determined to orchestrate and manufacture a new 9/11 terror incident, and/or a new Gulf of Tonkin war provocation over the coming weeks and months. Such events would be used by the Bush administration as a pretext for launching an aggressive war against Iran, quite possibly with nuclear weapons, and for imposing a regime of martial law here in the United States.

Read More

The Assassination Attempt on President George W. Bush

I have posted often at this blog on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. It occurs to me that I have never posted on the unsuccessful assassination attempt on George W. Bush on the morning of September 11, 2001. I first read about this in Daniel Hopsicker's Welcome to Terrorland. If you haven't read this book, click on the previous link and order it now.

Cooperative Research summarizes the story:

At about the same time Bush was getting ready for his jog, a van carrying several Middle Eastern men pulled up to the Colony’s guard station. The men said they were a television news crew with a scheduled “poolside” interview with the president. They asked for a certain Secret Service agent by name. The message was relayed to a Secret Service agent inside the resort, who hadn’t heard of the agent mentioned or of plans for an interview. He told the men to contact the president’s public relations office in Washington, DC, and had the van turned away. [Longboat Observer, 9/26/01]

General Ahmed Shah Massoud

The Secret Service may have foiled an assassination attempt. Two days earlier, Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, had been murdered by a similar ruse. Two North African men, posing as journalists from “Arabic News International,” had been requesting an interview with Massoud since late August. Ahmad Jamsheed, Massoud’s secretary, said that by the night of September 8, “they were so worried and excitable, they were begging us.” An interview was arranged for the following day. As it began, a bomb hidden in the video camera exploded, killing the two journalists. Massoud was rushed by helicopter to a hospital in Tajikistan, but was pronounced dead on arrival (although his death was not acknowledged until September 15). [International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, 10/30/01, Newsday, 10/26/01]

Threat to Air Force One

Also from Cooperative Research:

Shortly after takeoff, Cheney apparently informed Bush of “a credible threat” to Air Force One. [AP, 9/13/01 (D)] US Representative Adam Putnam “had barely settled into his seat on Air Force One… when he got the news that terrorists apparently had set their sights on the plane.” [Orlando Sentinel, 9/14/01] The Secret Service had received an anonymous call: “Air Force One is next.” The caller allegedly knew the agency’s code words relating to Air Force One procedures.

Cooperative Research concludes that this threat was just White House spin:

It turned out the entire story was made up. [Washington Post, 9/27/01] The press expressed considerable skepticism about the story. For instance, one Florida newspaper thought Fleischer’s disclosure was “an apparent effort to explain why the president was flown to Air Force bases” before returning to Washington. [St. Petersburg Times, 9/13/01]

But was it? Was the threat to Air Force One just spin or something much more sinister?

"Angel is next!"

Webster Griffin Tarpley sees it differently:

Look, this is a forgotten clue of 9/11, which seems to me is the most important, because this is when the invisible government speaks. You may remember that at one point during the morning, 10:00 probably on 9/11, a death threat against Bush came into the Secret Service, saying, Angel is next. It essentially means, Air Force One will be shot down as the next step in these developments. There’s no doubt that this telephone call took place, it was confirmed by Cheney indirectly, Condoleeza Rice very directly, many other Republicans directly, then later on it was denied. ‘Oh it was a confused or garbled message that came in.’

At the beginning it seemed to serve Bush, because it seemed to explain why he had gone from Florida to Louisiana to Nebraska. Why he had been running across the country, scurrying away, instead of taking up his position in Washington, but as time went on, that became less important, and what became more important was that with this little message, you are opening up the world of the secret government which otherwise hardly appears to the superficial observer.

‘Angel is next.’ Implies the top-secret codename or codeword for the Presidential aircraft, Air Force One. I go into intelligence agency reports, now let me just make a parenthesis, (9/11 didn’t occur in a vacuum, it occurs in a world in which there are others watching. Who’s watching? Well, Russia’s watching, Israel’s watching very much, the French are watching, there’s Germans, Japan…), what I found is 3 separate reports, one is the Réseau Voltaire which is obviously benefiting from leaks from French intelligence. The Réseau Voltaire version, which came out September 20th (or) 25th, says that the ‘Angel is next.’ phone call came complete with top secret codeword, across a variety of agencies, suggesting that the people that were behind the attacks were a powerful faction inside the US intelligence community and government in general.

Of course, if George W. Bush had been killed on 9/11 Dick Cheney would be President.

Read More

Skilluminati recently reviewed this blog in these words: "formatting is hideous but the content is gold." Why didn't you people tell me? Is this better? Or worse? I'm open to suggestions. What would be a good color scheme for Covert History?

Read More

How would he know?

Read More

An Interview with Saint John Hunt on His Father & The JFK Assassination

I think that one of the key elements that my father left out was the (this is only my theory) involvement of Dick Helms in the plot. Helms was my father’s boss, was the logical link between Cord Myer and LBJ. It is dubious that LBJ went to Cord. It is quite plausible that LBJ was referred to Cord through Helms. My father’s undying loyalty to Helms is well known, and of course we all know that Helms was a master at getting the dirty work done while keeping his own involvement above suspicion. As far as my father’s real involvement, there has been testimony given under oath that he was in Dallas the day before the murder and handed an envelope of cash to Sturgis in the presence of Marita Lorenz. Of course her “credibility” was attacked as has mine but her testimony could not be shaken by my father’s attorney. This man is a snake and quite possibly a “handler” for the agency. His name is Snyder and was recommended to “babysit” my father by William F. Buckley Jr. Snyder played a crucial role in suppressing the truth about the plot and forcing my father to withdraw from the project. He has continued to be a thorn in my side and continues to act as the “Hunt estate” attorney. If anyone has manipulated my father it was Snyder.

Read More

The Devil worshippers of Iraq

Eventually a dark, thickset man turns to me. He points to one of the peacocks on the wall: "That is Melek Taus, the peacock angel. We worship him." He sips his tea, and adds: "Ours is the oldest religion in the world. Older than Islam; older than Christianity."

And who is Melek Taus? Halil looks slightly uncomfortable: "We believe he is a proud angel, who rebelled and was thrown into Hell by God. He stayed there 40,000 years, until his tears quenched the fires of the underworld. Now he is reconciled to God."

Read More

KABUL (Reuters) -

Opium production has soared to "frightening record levels" in Afghanistan, which now has more land producing drugs than Columbia, Bolivia and Peru combined, the United Nations said on Monday.

Read More

Iraq corruption whistleblowers face penalties

For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.

He had thought he was doing a good and noble thing when he started telling the FBI about the guns and the land mines and the rocket-launchers — all of them being sold for cash, no receipts necessary, he said. He told a federal agent the buyers were Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers, and Iraqi embassy and ministry employees.

The seller, he claimed, was the Iraqi-owned company he worked for, Shield Group Security Co.

“It was a Wal-Mart for guns,” he says. “It was all illegal and everyone knew it.”

Read More

Toothy Find In Ethiopia Changes Evolutionary Assumption

Digital Renderings Of Gorilla Right Upper Molors - This undated file photo shows Chororapithecus abyssinicus teeth and a female gorilla tooth row. Ten-million year old fossils discovered in Ethiopia, the earliest direct ancestors of modern gorillas ever found, shows that humans and apes probably split six or seven millions years earlier than widely thought, according to landmark study released Wednesday. Image Credit: AFP via PHYSORG

Toothy Find In Ethiopia Changes Evolutionary Assumption

The scientific community, through unearthed fossil evidence, has always assumed that humans evolved from apes. A new fossil may push back the approximate beginning of this split by millions of years.

What actually becomes the most significant piece of information gleaned from this uncovered evidence is that the handful of teeth from the earliest direct ancestors of modern gorillas leave virtually no doubt that both humans and modern apes did indeed originate from Africa. This is the conclusion found in the study that accompanied the find published in “NATURE”.

The scientists leading the team that found the fossils -- Gen Suwa of the University of Tokyo, and Ethiopian paleontologists Berhane Asfaw and Yonas Beyene -- calculated that the human-orangutan split "could easily have been as old as 20 million years." The teeth fragments, found in barren scrubland some 170 kilometres (100 miles) east of Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, almost went unnoticed. Asfaw recalled the chance discovery. "It was our last day of field survey in February 2006, and our sharp-eyed field assistant, Kampiro, found the first ape tooth, a canine," he said. "He picked it up and showed it to me, and I knew that this was something new -- Ethiopia's first fossil great ape." Image Credit: AFP

This from AFP via PHYSORG.com -

Fossil find pushes human-ape split back millions of years
AFP - Aug 24 08:17 AM US/Eastern

Ten million-year-old fossils discovered in Ethiopia show that humans and apes probably split six or seven million years earlier than widely thought, according to landmark study released Wednesday.
----
The near total absence to date of traces on the continent of apes from this period had led many scientists to conclude that the shared line from which humans and living great apes emerged had taken a long evolutionary detour through Eurasia.

But the study, published in the British journal Nature, "conclusively demonstrates that the Last Common Ancestor (of both man and ape) was strictly an African phenomenon," commented paleoanthropologist Owen Lovejoy of Kent State University in Ohio.

Lovejoy described the fossils as "a critically important discovery," a view echoed by several other scientists who had read the paper or seen the artifacts.

"This is a major breakthrough in our understanding of the origin of humanity," Yohannes Haile-Selassie, a physical anthropologist at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, told AFP.

The most startling implication of the find, the scientists agree, is that our human progenitors diverged from today's great apes -- including gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees -- several million years earlier than widely accepted research based on molecular genetics had previously asserted.
----
"We know nothing about how the human line actually emerged from apes," the authors of the paper noted.

But the new fossils, dubbed "Chororapithecus abyssinicus" by the team of Japanese and Ethiopian paleoanthropologists who found them, place the early ancestors of the modern day gorilla 10 to 10.5 million years in the past, suggesting that the human-ape split occurred before that.

There is broad agreement that chimpanzees were the last of the great apes to split from the evolutionary line leading to man, after gorillas and, even earlier, orangutans.

Conventional scientific wisdom, based on genetic "distances" measured by molecular geneticists, had placed the divergence between chimps and humans some five to six million years ago. Orangutans are thought to have parted company with our ancestors 13 to 14 million years ago.

"If the new discovery is in the gorilla lineage, then this will definitely substantially push back the split time between apes and humans," Halie-Selassie at Kent State told AFP.
----
They determined that the teeth belonged to gorilla ancestors based on unique shared characteristics of the molars, which had evolved for a diet of fibrous foods such as stems and leaves.

The match is not exact, however, and could prompt some scientists to challenge the findings.
Reference Here>>

Read More

And They're Back!

I have been playing the part of a hermit as much as possible the last several days and that is for one reason only: the students have invaded our town once again. Enrollment at the university is somewhere in the 9000 range, so that is a substantial boost in population for a town that has 20-25,000 people in it normally. Add to that the parents who must bring little Susie or Billy to school themselves, and you have boosted the total number of people that much more. And NONE of these people should be allowed to have driver's licenses!!! Driving around this town the first several weeks after school starts is very good for teaching one how to drive defensively. (Frankly, I think the mommies and daddies drive worse than their kids.)

Of course, my playing hermit is also a good thing--I have kept myself busy getting ready for our 'house guest.' I had to get the room ready as well as clean out closets, drawers, and other spaces so that the nephew will have room for his things. The trouble is, I'm not sure WHEN he will show up at the house! When he stopped by last weekend, we never did get it straight as to if he will be here today or tomorrow. Either way, the house is ready, there is food in the pantry and frig, and I have clothes on, so he can come any time.

The street that we live on is slowly becoming the place for students to live who don't want to live in the dorm. Typically, what seems to happen is this: Mommy and Daddy decide it would be so much cheaper to buy Susie or Billy their own house and rent rooms, than to pay the cost of room and board in a dorm. So, we have several homes now that have three bedrooms and house anywhere from three to six (or more?) students in them. While we haven't had TOO much trouble with students, there are a couple of big-time problems. First, this street is very narrow and it is a dead-end. The dead-end isn't that much of a problem with the extra people, but combined with the narrowness, it is--we only have one way to get off of this street and that is going past the student houses. Sometimes there will be cars parked on BOTH sides of the street and it makes it very difficult to drive between them--especially when you drive an SUV like I do. Also, the students don't always respect their neighbors--sometimes they will park way too close to the mouth of a driveway, or park in front of mailboxes. Some of the mailmen will refuse to get out of their trucks to place mail in a mailbox, so it is not nice to block access to them. Then we come to the winter and our street parking ban. Starting November 1, there is no street parking allowed during the night so that the plows can remove snow. We found out that the ban is in effect whether there is snow or not--K got a ticket the other year in the spring when there was NO snow on the ground and the ban was to be lifted in two days. So, all vehicles have to be parked in garages or driveways. This is a problem when there are only spaces for two vehicles and 4-6 vehicles need space! It gets a little interesting the longer the winter goes on, to be sure.

While I don't like to make generalizations (yeah, right!) I don't have much faith in the brightness of some of the new students that will be living here. The other day I noticed a vehicle coming down the street, followed by another one. The first one stopped and the second one drove past it into our neighbor's driveway and parked. A guy jumped out of the first vehicle and started waving his arms to get the attention of the second vehicle, to no avail. Two guys jumped out of the second one, gathered their backpacks and were about to go to the door of the house when they finally realized they were being hailed. So, they walked out to the middle of the street to find out what the other guy wanted and were promptly told that they had gone to the wrong house. The house they wanted was further up the street on the opposite side of where they parked. Back to the vehicle the driver went and tried to get back in--and couldn't. The driver's side door wouldn't open so he had to go in through the passenger side and push the door open so that he could move the vehicle. Finally, he found the house he was supposed to be at. And this only took fifteen minutes to complete! Unbelievable. It just might be a very interesting--if not frustrating--year.

Read More

Cute Kittens

This just proves that some people spend WAY too much money on toys for their cats. It is NOT necessary!

Kittens-Coca Cola Box - For more funny videos, click here

Read More

U.S. forces have rebranded one of the main insurgent groups in Iraq and now use the term "concerned local nationals" to refer to a group that once claimed responsibility for killing scores of Americans.

Read More

Modern mass communications enabled politicians and ideologues to whip up war sentiment and castigate those who criticized the move to war as traitors.

So says historian John W. Dover, who was quoted by Bush recently in a speech justifying the unjustifiable war in Iraq. See we brought Democracy to Japan so we can bring it to Iraq. One wishes that Bush had read Professor Dover's article A WARNING FROM HISTORY:
Don’t expect democracy in Iraq, first published in the Feb/March 2003 issue of Boston Review, from which the above quote was taken. By the way, he was describing developments in Japan leading up to the launch of their disastrous war of aggression.

Read More

Robert Fisk in The Independent:

I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11.

Read More

Graphic Searches Expand From The Earth To Include Heavens

Google Earth, Andromeda Galaxy - This tool isn't limited to stars. There are images of galaxies, clusters, stellar winds and more. Image Credit: Businesswire

Graphic Searches Expand From The Earth To Include Heavens

A couple of years ago, the ability to search the surface of the Earth with a graphic window was introduced and became all the rage. One could ask the search tool to take them to a particular location and up would pop a satellite photographic view of that specific place here on the Oblate Spheroid. If the location was a home address or business, the photo even detailed the cars that might have been parked around the area when the photo was taken. Amazing.

This last week, one of the more popular of these search tools, Google Earth, introduced a version that allows one to escape the confines of this little orb and explore the heavens around us. For additional graphic information on a particular object (planet, star, galaxy) this tool utilizes images captured by the Hubble telescope. This, along with search tools offered through other web portals, is a great way to introduce oneself and explore the worlds outside of this world!

Item from Webware Weekley -

A brief guide to the heavens on your PC: Google Earth and more
By Rafe Needleman – August 22, 2007, 2:32 PM PDT

Google just launched a new version of Google Earth (news, download) from which you gaze up from the surface of the planet, not just down on it. It's a good way to see which stars and planets are over your home, right now. You can also check out a rich database of Hubble Space Telescope images that is overlaid on the celestial map.

The new Google Earth has a lot of additional education and reference material linked to it, pulled in from the Net as needed. The program is a great way to learn about the night sky. It has two big limitations, though: your point of view is limited to Earth (you can't see the stars from other locations) and you have an extremely limited control of time. If you want to see where the planets were on your birthday, for example, you can't.

Getting to Google Sky was a little confusing, but it's actually an icon right in the middle of the page (circled). The first screen shows constellations to make it easier to find what you're looking for. With your mouse you can rotate 360 degrees around the sky and can also zoom in and out with your scroll wheel. Image Credit: Google Earth via CNET

When you find a highlighted star, nebula or galaxy, you can zoom in. The diamond shape indicates more information is available. The Orion Nebula is located in the Orion galaxy--it's the hunter's weapon. Image Credit: Google Earth via CNET

Many stars, galaxies or interstellar phenomenon contain pictures and information--some directly from the Hubble site. Image Credit: Google Earth via CNET

If your curiosity about the universe bumps into Google Earth's edges, I'd recommend also checking out these two applications:

Celestia (download) is a 3D simulation of the galaxy. Its special power is not its imagery (Google's is better, although Celestia does a good job with planets and asteroids in our solar system), but rather that you can zoom in on any object in the program's database and see the galaxy from that perspective. You can also see the position of stars at any point in time and can control the rate of time's passage to see how objects move over the millennia.

Stellarium (download) is a gorgeous planetarium for your computer. Its sky and star visuals are a lot more compelling then either Google's or Celestia's, although Stellarium does not have detailed Hubble overlays. Like Google, it's Earth-bound (you can't move your point of reference), but like Celestia, it gives you good control over time so you can see the heavens wheel about. My favorite feature is that it will also overlay constellation lines from other cultures (Chinese, Inuit, and so on); Google only shows the Western constellations.

There are also Web-based online planetaria. They have good data, but they don't give you the smooth visual controls that the downloadable applications do. See Sky-map.org, WikiSky (review), and YourSky. You can control a powerful stargazing telescope yourself via the Web at the pay site Slooh (review). There are also astronomy gadgets covered over on our gadget blog, Crave.

Finally, if the real galaxy doesn't appeal to you, check out the collaborative work of fiction called Galaxiki. Be advised that it was named one of the "Five stupidest start-ups of the summer" by Valleywag.
Reference Here>>

Read More

“If you were to report that a US surgical strike against key targets in Iran were to happen sooner rather than later, you would not be wrong."

--a former CIA case officer with experience in the Middle East

Experts and officials in the US military and intelligence communities read the administration's move to declare the Guard a terrorist organization as an indication that something ominous is looming over the horizon.

One of the former CIA case officers interviewed for this article explained that the Office of the Vice President is making this drastic move in order to lay the groundwork for a possible incident.

“They still need a trigger and I would not be surprised if we will see some event in Iraq which implicates the Iranians,” said this source. “They need a pretext.”

Read More

Congratulations! It's A...

C had her (hopefully) once-only, out-of-town ultrasound appointment yesterday. Considering they have to travel 5 hours or more, this proved to be an all-day affair. Her appointment was late in the afternoon, so they took the kids with them and were able to spend a nice amount of time at the zoo. A good time was had by all.

The ultrasound took over two hours for them to complete. I guess the baby was VERY uncooperative, so they just had to keep searching. The purpose of the ultrasound was to determine if there was anything showing that could indicate a problem with the baby--and that would indicate a failure to thrive. (Failure to thrive seems to be what happens to her babies.) Everything looked good, so she isn't scheduled to go back to see the specialist. Thank goodness. She doesn't need the added stress--physical AND mental--during a pregnancy.

She went into the ultrasound with the knowledge that she was having a boy. Everything pointed in that direction--heart rate, etc. They were SO happy because they already have four girls, so another boy would help up the testosterone level in their household. So, the ultrasound revealed--and you HAVE to know what is coming next--that they are having ANOTHER girl! Good Lord, I hope this doesn't mean that she will have ANOTHER pregnancy after this one!

Read More

George Wallace's Shooter to Be Released

BALTIMORE -- Arthur Bremer, who shot and paralyzed Alabama Gov. George Wallace in 1972, will be released from prison this year, an official said Thursday.

Bremer, who turned 57 this week, is scheduled for release Dec. 16 but likely will be out earlier as he continues to accumulate credits for good behavior and for working as a prison clerk, said Rae Sheeley, a case management specialist at the Maryland Correctional Institute-Hagerstown, where Bremer is being held.

Bremer was sentenced to 53 years in prison for shooting Wallace and three bystanders at a presidential campaign stop in Laurel, Md., on May 15, 1972. He has served 35 years of that sentence.

Read More

Talon News - August 13:

Karl Rove, long-time advisor to President Bush, announced his resignation today amidst rumors that a new book by a male homosexual prostitute would finger Rove as secretly gay.

Read More

The soil on Mars may contain microbial life!

Joop Houtkooper of the University of Giessen, Germany, will declare on Friday the Viking spacecraft may have found signs of a weird life form based on hydrogen peroxide on the subfreezing, arid Martian surface.

Read More

Why undermine the historical arguments about Iraq with the specter of the Vietnam quagmire, especially after the president had gone out of his way several months ago to reject critics' charges that Iraq was turning into just that?

So asks Time magazine and it is a really good question. Bush now seems to be selling Iraq as another Vietnam. Now I understand that Bush probably doesn't know much about Vietnam, except that he didn't want to go there, but even today, decades later, it is not a war that most Americans look back on fondly.

Of course, the Conservatives have been saying for some time that we cannot lose in Iraq unless we leave. So Iraq is just like Vietnam except that we're never leaving? Bush clearly sees the Iraq war as just a marketing problem but repackaging it as Vietnam just will not help him.

Read More

Conservative Columnist says: Liberals are Traitors

Liberals are traitors – at least the self-conscious ones are. And it is not because they hate Bush or disagree with the Iraq war. Their treason stems from their behavior – from the way they go around telling everyone that they hate Bush and disagree with the war – even to the extent that they sympathize with and give material aid to the enemy.

So says Tristan Emmanual, conservative columnist and alleged Christian. Apparently it is still OK to criticise Bush or disagree with the Iraq war as long as you keep it to yourself. Sorry Mr. Emmanual, but you are a fascist and that means that you're the traitor.

Read More

Racism in the Conservative Movement-Part 2

In October of 2005, I posted Racism in the Conservative Movement, asking why mainstream Conservatives, such as Patrick Buchanan, Phyllis Schlafly, and Larry Pratt, allow their columns to be printed in the blatantly racist Citizens's Informer, the newsletter of the Council of Conservative Citizens. I cited several example of such racism in that publication, one of which was a quote from Jared Taylor:

I will tell you, for aesthetic reasons alone, I think we have every justifiable reason to want our society, our country, our communities, to be white--I like the way my people look!

Jared Taylor is the editor of American Renaissance, a racist publication and website, which sells a publication titled The Color of Crime put out by the New Century Foundation. They also sell such racist classics as Race and Reason. Jared Taylor highly recommends Race and Reason, which was authored by Carlton Putnam:

“No one did more to combat the racial folly of the 1960s than Carlton Putnam. Although he has been written out of the history books, history has nevertheless proven him right on all counts.”

Now, as it happens, I read Race and Reason a few years back. The author argues in favor of the segregation of the races on the grounds that black people are intellectually inferior. This is the author who is "right on all counts."

Now why am I going into all this? Because the title of Patrick Buchanan's latest column is "The Color of Crime", and in it he quotes approvingly from The Color of Crime. He admits that the group behind it is "right-leaning," but does not address its racism.

There is no excuse for this. Patrick Buchanan should repudiate Jared Taylor, American Renaissance and The New Century Foundation or be found guilty of racism by association--associations of which he must be presumed to be aware. I think that I have been more than fair to Patrick Buchanan, a writer of often shrewd insight whom I have quoted approvingly in the past.

Read More

Former CIA Analyst Foresees Attack on Iran

The National Intelligence Estimate on if and when Iran is likely to have the bomb has been ready since February. It has been sent back four times—no doubt because its conclusions do not support what folks like Cheney and Woolsey are telling the president.

The conclusions of the most recent NIE on the issue (early 2005) was that Iran could probably not have a nuclear weapon until “early to mid-next decade,” a formula memorized and restated by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell at his confirmation hearing in February.

Despite the administration's war-like record, many Americans may still cling to the belief that attacking Iran won’t happen because it would be crazy; that Bush is a lame-duck president who wouldn’t dare undertake a new reckless adventure when the last one went so badly.

But – with this administration – rationality has not exactly been a strong suit.

Read More

Matt Cooper Calls Karl Rove a Liar

Cooper: Yeah, I, I think he was dissembling, to put it charitably. Look, Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame's identity on July 11th, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson was in the news that week. I didn't know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove and he said that she worked at the agency and she worked on WMD. I mean, to imply that he didn't know about it or that this was all the leak...

Gregory: Or that he had heard it from somebody else...

Cooper: ...by someone else, or he heard it as some rumor out in the hallway is, is nonsense.

Read More

5,000 Year Old Chewing Gum Unearthed

Stone Age "Chewing Gum", Neolithic period, c. 4000-5000 BC – Image Credit: Kierikki Stone Age Centre

5,000 Year Old Chewing Gum Unearthed

Yes, that’s right, 5K year old chewing gum and not a chair or counter underside in sight.

It turns out that Neolithic people (c. 4000-5000 BC) found that by chewing this stuff, cob of Birch tree bark, when they had gum infections … it helped to treat the condition. This find is particularly significant because of well-defined tooth imprints found on the gum. Time for a little very, very cold case CSI, I’d say.

We have only one question here at Oblate Spheroid; Did these people have packs of cigarettes rolled up in the sleeves of their Tee Shirts?

On Friday 13th Sarah also found a beautiful c. four centimetre long worked slate arrow which is from the so-called "Typical Comb Ceramic period" 3500-4000 BC. Image Credit: Kierikki Stone Age Centre

This from the Kierikki Stone Age Centre, Finland

Friday 13th of July was the lucky day at Kierikki Excavation
Notes from the Kierikki Stone Age Centre

Beside the main building of Kierikki Centre on a site called "Kierikkikangas" there has been an excavation from June 25th to 3rd August . There have been five British students working who came via Leonardo da Vinci -exchange program of European Union. Besides them also the general public can take part in this exciting centred on the Neolithic period, c. 4000-5000 BC. The results of the dig have been excellent throughout this year.

Miss Sarah Pickin (pictured) from Derby has been the favourite of fortune. She has found a piece of "Neolithic chewing gum", chewed cob of birch-bark, part of an amber ring and found on Thursday July 12th with help of two diggers from Oulu, Ms. Rumana Hossein and Ms. Maisoun Alsanat.

Image Credit: Kierikki Stone Age Centre

Originally the diameter of it was four centimetres but probably was already broken in the Stone Age. After that someone made a hole in the ring so that it could still be used as jewellery. It was transported from the Baltic coast c. 5500-6000 years ago as payment for seal skins that were produced in the Kierikki area in the Neolithic Period.
Reference Here>>
(ht: SlashDot)

Further investigation reveals that the current population in Finland have the the best dental hygiene in the world. Finland leads the world in overall dental health as they use xylitol as a healthy alternative to sugar.

Xylitol is a natural sugar that comes mainly from corn cobs, corn stalks, … and birch trees!

File this under – “Old Habits Die Hard”

YouTube of a commercial for Lotte chewing gum. Its major property is that it uses xylitol. Notice that the commercial is set in a birch tree forest. The little cartoon character at the end tag of the commercial is supposed to represent a sage and traditional Finnish cultural icon.

----

By the 1950s, Scandinavian children were found to have fewer cavities than the children in countries still using sugar. Clinical studies show that regularly using oral hygiene products with xylitol can reduce tooth decay by up to 80%. The Spry Dental Defense System is a family of high-quality oral care products manufactured using xylitol.

Read More

Trivia

Here we go with another dose of trivia from mental_floss:

--Cleveland last won a major league sports championship in 1964. Since then, neither the NFL's Browns, NBA's Cavaliers, AL's Indians, nor the short-lived NHL's Barons have won the world championship. Tough town to be a sports fan!

--Then again, you have the Detroit Lions. They haven't won a single play-off game in 50 years. They won the NFL Championship three times between 1953-57, but none since. Thank goodness for the Tigers, Pistons, and Red Wings! (And this year HAS to be the year of the Red Wings!)

--Zippy Chippy is the losingest thoroughbred in America's history. In 100 lifetime races he placed in 8 and showed in 12, but never came in first.

--More Americans watched the King's "Elvis--Aloha From Hawaii, Via Satellite" concert on TV in 1973 than tuned in for the first moon landing in 1969.

--Elvis is ranked #2 on Forbes' Richest Deceased Celebrity list in 2006. (He was #1 from 2000-2005, then knocked down by Kurt Cobain.)

--Victor Willis, a member of The Village People (and the only one who was NOT gay), was married to Phylicia Rashad (aka Claire Huxtable.)

--Elvis only played five concerts in a foreign country--all in Canada in 1957.

--Casu Marzu, or 'rotten cheese,' a delicacy found in Sardinia, Italy features the larvae (read that as MAGGOTS) of the Piophila casei (a fly.) Italian health authorities and the European Union advise against eating the stuff. DUH!

--A quintillion is a "1" followed by 18 zeroes.

--Carlos Santana was the first Hispanic to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

--Johnny Carson joked about an imminent shortage of toilet paper during his monologue--this while talking about the gas shortage in 1973--and caused panicked viewers to go on a hoarding spree, emptying shelves. Carson was forced to publicly apologize the following night.

--The northernmost point in the 48 contiguous states lies in Minnesota. The Northwest Angle is an isolated piece of land that juts up into Canada.

--The average female opossum has 13 nipples. They are arranged in a circular pattern with one in the middle.

Read More

Artificial life likely in 3 to 10 years

Part of me thinks this is really cool, the same part of me that thinks that ape-human hybrids would be really cool. I used to always root for the mad scientist in all those "Chillers from Science Fiction" monster movies. They always died in the end, though, after realizing that there were some areas where man was not meant to go.

Read More

A British soldier patrols in poppy fields in Sangin, a district Helmand province, Afghanistan. Photograph: Rafiq Maqbool/AP

Piglipstick asks What's Wrong With This Picture?

"Helmand province in southern Afghanistan, where some 7,000 British troops are based, is on the verge of becoming the world's biggest drugs supplier, cultivating more opium than entire countries such as Burma, Morocco, or even Colombia, the UN warned yesterday."

Read More

An Administration official told me...IRGC IED's are a casus belli for this administration. There will be an attack on Iran."

--Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer assigned to the Middle East

Read More

Lights! Camera! Action!

On August 5, I celebrated my 8-year anniversary of quitting smoking. Sometime at the beginning of the month, I ordered my anniversary gift--as I have done every year since 'the day.' My gift to myself is always something that I WANT and don't really NEED. This year was no different. The gift I selected this year was a hockey jersey with 'my boy's' name and number on it: 51-Filppula. I am happy.

So, my girls had to listen to me go on and on about this jersey from the time I began thinking about getting it to deciding to order it and through the ordering process and the wait for it to be delivered. The day it was delivered, I decided to spare them having to listen to me again, so I was going to take a picture and send it to them. This would keep me from having to mention the jersey to them and them having to try to pretend any interest in what I was saying. :)

I pulled out the digital camera to take the pic and, wouldn't you know it, the LCD monitor was showing a distorted image. It looked very Dali-esque (The Persistence of Memory)--'melting' colors--except it was more geometric and not as rounded as colors in the Dali painting. I thought maybe the problem was with the batteries, so I changed those. No help. Then I thought maybe the PICTURE would be fine and it was just the monitor that was screwed up, but that wasn't the case, either--the pic came out looking like the image on the monitor.

Of course, my first thought is pessimistic: the camera is four years old, so it must be garbage. This led me to researching new cameras--one of which I found that would be a good replacement for the Canon. But, before I ordered the new camera, I decided to see if there was any way to fix the old one. Wouldn't you know it, there WAS a known problem with the CCD image sensor in some of the Canon cameras and that is what this seemed to be. (As an aside: this is the SECOND camera of mine to have a faulty CCD sensor. The camcorder (NOT a Canon) needed to be fixed for the same problem--that is why I couldn't use it for A's wedding last year!) This little bit of info led me to call Canon to find out how I could have the camera fixed.

I decided to use the toll-free number and contact support by phone. It usually is a quicker way to do things. Surprise of all surprises, my call was answered immediately by a real, live person! I explained the problem I was having and he agreed that it sounded like the CCD sensor. He took some info from me and said I would get the rest of the instructions for sending in the camera by email. This call took place late in the day on Friday. On Monday, I got an email with the instructions AND I got a printable address label to be put on the package. I was to send the camera in POSTAGE PAID and it would be fixed for free. All this for a camera that is four years old, that has been out of warranty forever, and that I paid less than $300 for. I think I like this company!

The camera reached Canon on Friday, so I am waiting to hear from them this week. I am very impressed with the service I received. Oh, and yes, I ordered the new camera. It will be here on Tuesday. And it ISN'T a Canon! (Ooops!)

Read More

"In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal."

from an op-ed piece by seven American infantrymen serving in Iraq, in today's New York Times

Read More

According to news reports, as in this story in theDetroit Free Press, one the McClatchy Newspapers, the Bush administration is considering labeling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization.

News of the decision was leaked in what a senior State Department official and Washington-based diplomats called a sign of an intensifying struggle within the U.S. government between proponents of military action and opponents, led by Rice.

State Department officials and foreign diplomats see Rice's push for the declaration against the Revolutionary Guard as an effort to blunt arguments by Vice President Dick Cheney and his allies for air strikes on Iran.

This action may be considered as an alternative to war, but it would seem also that is moves us at least one step closer to war with Iran, afact not lost on military commanders, who are not eager to expand the war to Iran.

On Iran's role in Iraq, U.S. ground commanders in Iraq oppose proposals from Cheney and his allies to counter-attack inside Iran itself. Commanders say they can contain Iran's growing influence without acting outside Iraq.

Some are hostile to suggestions that the military strike another country, saying they are mired in Iraq.

"Let them put on the uniform and go there then," said one military official in Baghdad who asked not to be identified.

Emphasis added. This is good time to take another look at the February testimony of Zbigniew Brzezinski before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

If the United States continues to be bogged down in protracted, bloody involvement in Iraq -- and I emphasize what I am about to say -- the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran, and with much of the world of Islam at large.

A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure, then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the United States blamed on Iran, culminating in a quote-unquote "defensive" U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire, eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

We cannot say that we have not been warned. He stated the same point even more strongly in answer to a question by Senator Biden:

My horror scenario is that if we simply stay put this will continue, and then the dynamic of the conflict will produce an escalating situation in which Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks will be blamed on the Iranians. There'll be, then, some clashes, collisions, and the war expands.

The neoconservatives, and their Fundamentalist Christian allies, see the Iran war, and the possibly imminent Iran war, as fronts in a larger World War against "islamo-fascists". Brzezinski deconstructs that war in these words:

Indeed, a mythical historical narrative to justify the case for such a protracted and potential expanding war is already being articulated. Initially justified by false claims about WMDs in Iraq, the war is now being redefined as the decisive ideological struggle of our time, reminiscent of the earlier collisions with Nazism and Stalinism. In that context, Islamist extremism and al Qaeda are presented as the equivalents of the threat posed by Nazi Germany and then Soviet Russia, and 9/11 as the equivalent of the Pearl Harbor attack which precipitated America's involvement in World War II.

This simplistic and demagogic narrative overlooks the fact that Nazism was based on the military power of the industrially most advanced European state, and that Stalinism was able to mobilize not only the resources of the victorious and militarily powerful Soviet Union but also had worldwide appeal through its Marxist doctrine.

In contrast, most Muslims are not embracing Islamic fundamentalism. Al Qaeda is an isolated fundamentalist, Islamist aberration, most Iraqis are engaged in strife because of the American occupation, which destroyed the Iraqi state, while Iran, though gaining in regional influence, is itself politically divided, economically and militarily weak. To argue that America is already at war in a region with a wider Islamic threat of which Iran is the epicenter is to promote a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Read More

Robert Parry:

The disclosure that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigned on Nov. 6, 2006 – the day before the election, not the day after as previously thought – means that he was pushed out of his job the same day he suggested a de-escalation of the Iraq War.

Read More

Teachers--Bah, Humbug!

Before you start ranting and raving at me, I want to say that I admire a lot of teachers and the work they are doing. I REALLY don't think I would have the stamina to do what they do over and over again for year after year. That being said, I will get on with this post.

Most of us, on at least one occasion, have been asked--whether on a college application, through a meme, etc--to name one teacher who was influential in our lives or who we admired most. Whenever I have confronted that question, I have never been able to come up with a good answer. There were very few--if any--teachers that I ever REALLY admired or who I thought did a good job.

Throughout my school years, I had quite an array of teachers. During elementary school, the majority of my teachers--all female--retired at the end of the year they had me as a student. I always wondered if they retired BECAUSE of me--and not because each and every one of them had Methuselah as a student! (Actually, the sixth grade teacher had taught The Mother when SHE was in grade school--and she continued to teach after I went up to the high school!)

Then there was the English teacher I had the beginning of high school. It was her first year of teaching, so she was young, hip, and encouraged each of her students to be her friend. She gossiped to us about the other teachers and listened to all of our secrets--and ignored our 'confessions' of wrong-doings. This continued till close to the end of the school year when, suddenly, she ratted us out to the principal and got us into trouble. Now, we weren't in trouble over drugs or booze or anything major--it just was minor infractions, but still. I guess she needed SOMETHING to ensure her employment for the following year.

Anyway, our school district had some terrible teachers, but here are some stories that most people will find hard to believe. They ARE true--trust me.

In our high school, we had one math teacher for the higher math classes. Those who took four years of math got to see him every damn school day for all of those years. I was one of those who got to be in his class every single year. While I didn't always agree with his teaching methods, we got along fine and I did manage to learn quite a lot from him.

As is the case with all student/teacher relationships, the students, at least, get together and bitch about the teachers. There always is something to complain about with one teacher or another and when you are in the exact same classes with virtually the same people year after year, you have the tendency to hang out with each other and get to know each other well. At one point during senior year, I realized one of the girls wasn't going along with the bitching about the math teacher with the rest of us. I dismissed it as nothing and forgot about it--until about a year after we graduated.

'Math girl' babysat for the math teacher and his wife for years while we were in school. This wasn't that unheard of--especially because her family was a little more of the 'better' class of people in our town. Then, about a year after we graduated they got married. Obviously, they were getting 'together' while we were seniors--hence, her refusal to chime-in with the teacher bashing we did. To this day, the whole thing creeps me out. And they still are married and had a kid together. He continued working at the school until his retirement. It was very strange to go to our class reunion and have him there as the husband of one of our classmates. Ick!

While the story of 'math teacher' is creepy, it doesn't come close to the story of 'basketball coach' and 'English teacher.' These two were youngish--probably around 30 or so--and were close friends. They loved to go to the neighboring town and 'drink' their lunch on many occasions. How did we find this out? Because of the great 'drinking age of 18' experiment. Several of the kids in my senior class turned 18 before we graduated--my hubby among them--and they would go to the same watering hole for a beer whenever they decided to leave school. Sometimes they left just to leave, other times they would be going somewhere else for a class, but if time permitted, they would stop for a beer. And this was when it was discovered that these two teachers spent many of their lunch hours in a bar.

'Basketball coach' was the poorest excuse for a teacher I have ever seen. He taught a required class that I had in 7th or 8th grade and, even then, I thought he stunk. Thankfully, I never had to sit in his class ever again, but I have heard enough from others about his classes. The majority of the time he showed movies or (anyone remember these?) film strips. He gave enormous amounts of multiple-choice quizzes and basically left the class to itself whenever possible. One story I CAN relate, because I saw it for myself. As a senior, I was in charge of the finances for the yearbook. During our yearbook ordering period, I was required to count the money and bring it to the superintendent's office to be placed in the safe where it would, eventually, be put in the bank. This worked out fine for me, as I didn't have a class right after lunch, so time wasn't a problem. So, this one day, I walked into the office and saw 'basketball coach' chasing the superintendent's secretary around her desk--LITERALLY!!! She was giggling like a school girl and he was red-faced and out of breath! Now, WHO do you think was more embarrassed, them or me? And the beauty part of this: he had a class that he was supposed to be teaching in the room across the hall. But, they were watching a film strip, so it was all okay. Un-freaking-believable!

'English teacher' was married and had kids. ('Basketball coach' was, too, but divorced sometime while I was in school.) It was common knowledge that he had an affair going on with a former student of his--one which began while she was still his student. She was a few years older than me and was in college. Word was, she would send any correspondence for him to the school so that his wife wouldn't find about it. This went on for years. The student graduated and went to work at the same school as a teacher. They eventually married each other and are still together today. They each attained the position of principal before their retirements. They were highly respected. A GREAT place I graduated from, huh?

While most of the teachers I had weren't as bad as the ones I have mentioned, most were quite unmemorable. However, I DO have to tell about two teachers I actually liked.

I adored my physics teacher. He was a kind, gentle man and NEVER should have been a high school teacher--he was too brilliant! The man was not able to 'dumb down' enough to explain things to us so that we could understand what he was talking about. I truly don't believe I learned much of anything in his class--just wasn't able. He was very tall and lanky--he reminded me of Lurch from The Adam's Family TV show--only he was better looking. He was a bright spot during my high school years. He DID leave the school the year after I was in his class--another teacher I ruined forever!

The other teacher that I can't complain about was my biology/chemistry teacher. I admired him and for one reason: he was there to teach and that is what he did. He didn't engage in the foolishness or politics that the other teachers were part of. He was a teacher and we were his students and that is how it was. No one ever knew anything about his private life--only that he wasn't married. The only time he set foot in the teacher's lounge was to get his mail from his box--you NEVER had to knock on the lounge door to find him because he was always in the lab if he wasn't teaching a class. He did his job and he did it well.

So, there is my tale of the teachers. I often wonder how bad things are there NOW if they were that bad back then! Interesting.

Read More

George W. Bush: President for Life?

Last week I posted a book review of William Smatt's book The Messiah in which he argues that George W. Bush is the Messiah. But William Smatt has nothing on Phillip Atkinson--he recently published a piece on the website of Family Security Matters in which he argues that Bush should name himself President-for-Life and then use whatever means necessary, including genocide, to defend Western Civilization. The Family Security Matters website quickly deleted the piece but the google cache is still available.

Mr. Atkinson is described as a philosopher and the author of A Study of Our Decline. Family Security Matters, according to Cliff Schecter, has on its board "Barbara Comstock, Laura Ingraham, Frank Gaffney, James Woolsey, and...drum roll...Dick Cheney."

But let Atkinson speak in his own words:

If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (therefore turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestiege while terrifying American enemies.

He could then follow Caesar's example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court.

President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming “ex-president” Bush or he can become “President-for-Life” Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.

Atkinson has a website of his own at http://www.ourcivilisation.com/ in which he ventures his opinions on a variety of subjects.

Mexico is now (circa 2000) colonising America and imposing its language and culture. Though the Americans still have the strength of understanding to recognise that the Hispanic invasion should be stopped, they are unable to take the measures required to achieve this end. The very least that must be done to halt the Hispanic invasion is the mass enslavement, or execution, of the invaders, which must be followed by an American invasion of Mexico to enforce American language and values upon the Mexicans.

Read More

In 2003, Room 641A of a large telecommunications building in downtown San Francisco was filled with powerful data-mining equipment for a "special job" by the National Security Agency, according to a former AT&T technician. It was fed by fiber-optic cables that siphoned copies of e-mails and other online traffic from one of the largest Internet hubs in the United States, the former employee says in court filings.

Read More

Feds Train Clergy To "Quell Dissent" During Martial Law

A shocking KSLA news report has confirmed the story we first broke last year, that Clergy Response Teams are being trained by the federal government to "quell dissent" and pacify citizens to obey the government in the event of a declaration of martial law.

Read More

New airport agents check for danger in fliers' facial expressions

Specially trained security personnel are watching body language and facial cues of passengers for signs of bad intentions. The watcher could be the attendant who hands you the tray for your laptop or the one standing behind the ticket-checker. Or the one next to the curbside baggage attendant.

They're called Behavior Detection Officers, and they're part of several recent security upgrades, Transportation Security Administrator Kip Hawley told an aviation industry group in Washington last month.

The strategy is based on a time-tested and successful Israeli model, but in the United States, the scrutiny is much less invasive, Ekman said. American officers receive 16 hours of training — far less than their Israeli counterparts— because U.S. officials want to be less intrusive.

So these Behavior Detection Officers are receiving far less training than their Israeli conterparts because U.S. officials want them to be less intrusive? Saves money too, no doubt. I would think that less training would result in more "false positives" and more intrusion. If you think this sounds insane, there is more:

The Department of Homeland Security hopes to dramatically enhance such security practices.

Jay M. Cohen, undersecretary of Homeland Security for Science and Technology, said in May that he wants to automate passenger screening by using videocams and computers to measure and analyze heart rate, respiration, body temperature and verbal responses as well as facial micro-expressions.

Meanwhile: U.S. to Expand Domestic Use Of Spy Satellites

The U.S.'s top intelligence official has greatly expanded the range of federal and local authorities who can get access to information from the nation's vast network of spy satellites in the U.S.

The decision, made three months ago by Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, places for the first time some of the U.S.'s most powerful intelligence-gathering tools at the disposal of domestic security officials. The move was authorized in a May 25 memo sent to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff asking his department to facilitate access to the spy network on behalf of civilian agencies and law enforcement.

Read More