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8/2/2003



David Kelly: Electrodes Attached to Chest :.

I'm basically speechless on this one:

Heart experts today said it was "unusual" for someone to wear electrode pads while walking following revelations that government scientist David Kelly had four of the special monitors on his chest when his body was found in an Oxfordshire wood.

Dr Kelly - the BBC's source for a report claiming the government altered the contents of a dossier about Iraq - had probably been wearing a 24-hour electro-cardiogram recorder, also known as a Holter monitor, medical experts said.

But it was odd that the pads that are connected to the device had not been removed by doctors and were left attached to his chest, they said.

"If I was in a morgue and his body was presented to me I would have thought it had come out of a coronary care unit or an operating theatre," said Professor Konrad Jamrozik, of Imperial College Hospital London.

"It would be unusual for someone to be walking around wearing these pads," he told the press association.

Another heart specialist, who declined to be named, also said it was "very unusual" for someone to be found wearing the pads.





The Nearly Forgotten Execution of Barry Seal Still Echoes :.

Every once in a while, I like to have a few drinks and read about Barry Seal. Tonight turned out to be one of those nights.

Barry Seal was a CIA contractor. He also happened to be one of the most notorious narcotics traffickers in history. But with two quick bursts from a silenced MAC-10 sub machine gun, Barry Seal passed into legend... Not a surprising end for a man in a position to turn the screws on the Clintons and Bushes.

Now, to the current story. Did Fabio Ochoa have anything to do with the murder of Barry Seal? Probably not. My guess is that the guy who blew Barry Seal away that night in February, 1986 is pushing up daisies himself somewhere:

Prosecutors have decided to drop the 1986 murder of shadowy drug pilot and informant Barry Seal as a sentencing issue for former Colombian drug cartel leader Fabio Ochoa.

Ochoa was accused in an indictment of ordering Seal's murder, carried out in Louisiana by a Colombian hit team. Prosecutors in a separate drug case decided last month to use it against Ochoa to try to get a harsher sentence.

But the defense repeated old allegations that retired Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North had Seal killed in an Iran-Contra cover-up, and defense lawyers subpoenaed key figures in the Reagan administration scandal.


Related: Namebase Proximity Chart for Barry Seal

Related: Why Does George W. Bush Fly in Drug Smuggler Barry Seal's Airplane?

Related: Barry and the Boys by Daniel Hopsicker

Related: Compromised by Terry Reed


7/31/2003



Israeli Reich: Racist Marriage Laws :.

The Israeli parliament passed a law preventing Palestinians married to Israelis from gaining Israeli citizenship.

Human rights groups have condemned the law as racist but supporters say it is necessary for security reasons and to maintain the Jewish character of the state of Israel.

The law will prevent Palestinians from the occupied territories in the West Bank and Gaza from marrying Arab-Israelis, who make up about 20% of the population of Israel.





Poindexter Quits :.

John Poindexter, the Iran-Contra scandal figure who headed two criticized Pentagon projects, including one that would have enabled investors to profit by predicting terrorist attacks, will quit his post within weeks, U.S. defense officials said Thursday.





Mars :.

I have no idea whether or not this is significant, but it certainly might be:

This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the Last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again. The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky.

Research Credit: NF





Global Financial System On the Brink

Combine these stories with the ongoing unemployment catastrophe and it's difficult to imagine the overall situation getting worse.... Well, just wait until the next event. We are near to the end game of all of this nonsense:

European Central Bank Selling All Debt Issued by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae :.

The European Central Bank is eliminating its holdings of debt issued by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the two biggest U.S. providers of mortgage financing, and recommended that its national central banks do the same, according to a person who has seen the ECB's recommendation.

The Frankfurt-based central bank, which sets interest rates for the 12 countries sharing the euro, gave its opinion at the last meeting of the 18-member governing council on July 10, said the person who declined to be named. ECB spokeswoman Regina Schueller declined to comment. Officials of the 12 central banks declined to comment.


Asian Central Banks Selling Debt Issued by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae :.

Securities backed by Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE) widened three to 6.5 basis points across the yield curve in Tuesday's session. Add that to Monday's four-to-five basis point cheapening - and you have the worst two sessions in recent history, excluding the week of Freddie Mac's management shakeup in early June.

Richard Russell :.

During the 1990s our government ran up $2.87 trillion of new debt. This was more than all the debt the US government had built up since the United States were first formed.

But that's just part of the story. Coming up is roughly $44 trillion of unfunded liabilities, which includes Social Security, Medicare, normal government expenses and interest on the national debt.

We have a $10 trillion economy. How on earth is a $10 trillion economy going to service what's coming up in the way of $38 trillion in debt?

There are two choices. Repudiate a good chunk of this debt or at least cut it back drastically. Or finance the debt via the printing presses. Which one do you think the US government is going to choose? Look, if we're running the printing presses full speed now, and the BIG expenses haven't even hit yet, what do you think our leaders are going to do when the "debt hits the fan?" You guessed it, they're going to inflate at a level that has never been seen before.


Growing Cracks in Housing Market :.

Right now, it is undeniable that the most critical sector determining the fate of the economy is housing. Throughout the last three years, while techs wrecked and manufacturing tumbled, housing has been the last bastion of support for consumer spending, retail sales, and the ENTIRE economy.

Problem: The housing bubble was driven by the mortgage refinancing boom -- and the refi boom, in turn, was driven by ridiculously low Treasury bond rates.

Now, take away the low mortgage rates and what do you get? You get a chain reaction of events that could lead to the greatest housing bust in decades: A sharp slowdown in refinancing, a sudden disappearance of cash in the market, falling prices and fire sales -- a bursting bubble that could make the tech wreck seem small by comparison.


Muslim Call to Thwart Capitalism :.

Mr Vadillo, a Spanish Muslim, called on all followers of Islam to stop using western currencies such as the dollar, the pound and the euro and instead to return to the use of the gold dinar.

He said the introduction of the gold dinar to the world's economies would be the single most unifying event for Muslims in the modern era.

Shortly afterwards, he said, the capitalist structure would quickly fall and it would make the Wall Street crash of 1929 seem minor by comparison.


Malaysia�s First Gold Dinar Available to Public Next Week :.

The Royal Mint of Malaysia has launched Malaysia�s first Gold Dinar, which will be available to the public next month in the � and 1 Dinar types, priced at RM51 and RM181.

It has a gold purity composition of 91.7%, widely known as 22-carat.


Research Credit: NF


7/30/2003



Supersize It: Fast Food 'As Addictive as Heroin' :.

Hamburgers and French fries could be as addictive as heroin, scientists have claimed.

Researchers in the United States have found evidence to suggest people can become overly dependent on the sugar and fat in fast food.

The controversial findings add weight to claims that over-eating is simply down to a lack of self-control.





RFIDs in Japanese Currency by Next Year! :.

After the next big one, most of the cash in the world will be chipped:

As Europe mulls the idea of implanting radio chips into euro notes, Japan has gone a step further with plans to incorporate the controversial technology in currency that will enter circulation next year.

New 10,000 Yen bills (worth about �51) currently entering production are to be implanted with IC chips from Hitachi in a bid to combat counterfeiters and money launderers, according to Japanese reports relayed to us by Osaka-based Reg Reader D. Michael Ramirez.





Another 10% of Computer Jobs Gone by the End of 2004 :.

One out of 10 jobs in the U.S. computer services and software industry could shift to lower-cost emerging markets such as India or Russia by the end of 2004, a top computer consultancy said on Tuesday.

Gartner Inc., the world's biggest high-tech forecasting firm, said in a report entitled "U.S. Offshore Outsourcing: Structural Changes, Big Impact" that 500,000 of the 10.3 million U.S. technology jobs could move just in 2003 and 2004.


Don't ask me why, but I watched the ABC Nightly News last night. They ran a piece about how the professional ranks in U.S. corporations are being exported to India, Russia, etc. The guy in the interview, who was asked to train the foreign workers who would take over his work after he was eliminated, said, "If you sit at a desk, beware." That's right, folks. Americans are not economically viable anymore. Unless it's for working crap jobs involving nametags, hair nets and/or the operation of a cash register. You see, the only thing that matters is producing some good or service at the lowest possible price. Well, what difference does it make if fewer and fewer people have the money to buy the stuff?

Michael Emmons thought he knew how to keep a job as a software programmer.

"You have to continue to keep yourself up to speed," he said. "If you don't, you'll get washed out."

Up to speed or not, Emmons wound up being "washed out" anyway. Last summer, he moved his family from California to Florida for the Siemens Co., makers of electronics and equipment for industries. Not long after, Emmons and 19 other programmers were replaced by cheaper foreign workers.

Adding insult to injury, Emmons and the others had to train their replacements.

"It was the most demoralizing thing I've ever been through," he told ABCNEWS. "After spending all this time in this industry and working to keep my skills up-to-date, I had to now teach foreign workers how to do my job so they could lay me off."





Microsoft Flushing 800 More :.

Microshaft:

Employees estimate that Microsoft is planning to eliminate at least 800 jobs in the next fiscal year at the company's Las Colinas facility outside of Dallas, Texas and shift the work offshore.

If this outsourcing goes as expected, it will be the largest one-time firing of full-time Microsoft employees - in the company�s history.





Why You Shouldn't Believe the New Jobless Stats :.

You really do need to read 1984 again, if you haven't lately. It's all there folks, all of it. On government stats, let's see how our friend, Winston Smith, arrives at his numbers:

But actually, he thought as he re-adjusted the Ministry of Plenty's figures, it was not even forgery. It was merely the substitution of one piece of nonsense for another. Most of the material that you were dealing with had no connexion with anything in the real world, not even the kind of connexion that is contained in a direct lie. Statistics were just as much a fantasy in their original version as in their rectified version. A great deal of the time you were expected to make them up out of your head. For example, the Ministry of Plenty's forecast had estimated the output of boots for the quarter at one-hundred-and-forty-five million pairs. The actual output was given as sixty-two millions. Winston, however, in rewriting the forecast, marked the figure down to fifty-seven millions, so as to allow for the usual claim that the quota had been overfulfilled. In any case, sixty-two millions was no nearer the truth than fifty-seven millions, or than one-hundred-and-forty-five millions. Very likely no boots had been produced at all. Likelier still, nobody knew how many had been produced, much less cared. All one knew was that every quarter astronomical numbers of boots were produced on paper, while perhaps half the population of Oceania went barefoot. And so it was with every class of recorded fact, great or small. Everything faded away into a shadow-world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain.

And now, to the unemployment numbers. Hint: Take the government generated number and multiply it by three or four. Now you're approaching the realm of the real:

Friday the government will report the latest employment figures for the nation. And while I won't - because I can't - predict whether the numbers will continue to show a miserable job market, you can count on one thing: The data will be misleading.

Here are some reasons why, good or bad, the U.S. Labor Department's 8:30 a.m. announcement will be as credible as the fortune you get in those Chinese cookies.

The government missed a whopping 440,000 jobs that were lost last year. Why should this year's figures be any more accurate?

Last January the unemployment rate was "adjusted" downward by 0.2 percent for changes in surveying methods. Right now the closely watched rate should actually be 6.6 percent, not 6.4 percent. If the rate does drop - as some on Wall Street are hoping/predicting - so what?

The government recently started seasonally adjusting its employment figures each and every month. Washington may as well let the numbers be picked by a Lotto machine.





The Sum of All Fears: No Takers for U.S. Bonds :.

Well, folks, writers on the "fringe" have been warning about this for easily 15 years. When I suggested that this would happen in an advanced international political economy class, the smug professor (and member of the Council of Foreign Relations) said, "Won't happen. There will always be plenty of buyers for U.S. paper." In this case, "always" turned out to be eight years.

Hold on, this isn't going to be pretty:

The stage was set yesterday for a make-or-break showdown over the White House's handling of the economy.

The U.S. Treasury said it would try to pull off its biggest ever borrowing deal in weeks ahead to manage the government's record $455 billion budget deficit.

The agency plans to borrow a record $230 billion in the second half through the sale of its three-year, five-year and 10-year notes.

But analysts doubt that any buyers will step up to buy Uncle Sam's IOUs and bail out the White House's huge deficit.

"The bond market is revolting because they've already lost trillions on bonds," said portfolio manager Bill King. "A lot of the very rich are hurting badly, and they're leveraged to the hilt."

News of the giant bond sale sent the already battered bond prices tumbling again yesterday on fears the new paper will flood the market with unwanted securities.

If investors turn their backs on the new debt and it's withdrawn, the embarrassment "will totally repudiate everything [Fed Chairman Alan] Greenspan has been doing all these years," said King. "All the usual buyers of Treasury bonds are now sellers, and there's no reason for them to buy."

The sinking bond prices caused yields, which move in the opposite direction, to soar to eight-month highs yesterday. The higher yields are also sending up mortgage rates, which some investors fear could nip the housing boom that has propped up the economy for two years.





The Sum of All Fears: Idiots Realize They Are Almost Tapped Out :.

Consumers, nervous about rising unemployment, lost confidence in their economic prospects in July, resulting in a sharp, unexpected drop in sentiment, according to the latest Conference Board survey.





Ghost of Joseph Mengele at Porton Down :.

Many years ago I worked alongside other women campaigning against both animal and human experimentation at the Porton Down research facility in the UK. At the time rumour was rife that not only were animals bred and tortured in horrific conditions, but humans too, including servicemen, the elderly and the mentally handicapped were being subjected to terrifying and dangerous experiments, evidence of which is just now coming to light.


7/29/2003



U.S. Warned it Faces 'Third Gulf War' in Iraq :.

Maybe Iraq will be used to get the classic New World Order model back on track. As the situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate (almost by design), one has to wonder if the UN will be called upon to save the day. Ordo ab chao:

A study on guerrilla warfare in Iraq by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think-tank, blames bad planning by the US administration and the low priority given to "conflict termination" and nation-building strategies by the Pentagon.

CSIS military specialist Anthony Cordesman says the US has not learned the lessons of past conflicts, that "even the best military victories cannot win the peace".

He writes: "Unless this situation changes soon, and radically, the United States may end up fighting a third Gulf war against the Iraqi people . . . It is far from clear that the United States can win this kind of asymmetric war."

The study is likely to be a further blow to the US administration, already facing mounting criticism for chaotic reconstruction efforts in the country.

Mr Cordesman offers a grim assessment of the future of the Iraqi conflict: "The most likely case still seems to be a mixed and poorly co-ordinated US nation-building effort that does just enough to put Iraq on a better political and economic path, but does so in a climate of constant low-level security threats and serious Iraqi ethnic and sectarian tensions."





Terror Futures Contracts: Go Long the Suicide Bus Bombers :.

It's getting too weird, even for me:

The war on terror has come to this: The Pentagon is setting up a commodity-style market to use real investors -- putting down real money -- to help its generals predict terrorist attacks, coups d'etat, and other turmoil around the globe.

Under the program, disclosed yesterday by two of its critics in the Senate, investors with knowledge of the Middle East and other hot spots would be lured, by the prospect of making money of course, into using their expertise to buy and sell futures contracts on world events.


Register coverage of the same story.

Update: Cancelled :.

The Pentagon will abandon a plan to establish a futures market to help predict terrorist strikes, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday.

Sen. John Warner said he spoke by phone with the program's director, "and we mutually agreed that this thing should be stopped."


Nice dartboard. Does that also work for picking stocks and predicting the weather?

What will billions of tax dollars buy next? I, personally, would like to see a circus macaque with a crayon and a large drawing surface? Rumsfeld and the rest of the crew would be standing around, taking copious notes. Disputes resulting from different interpretations of the analysis would be resolved by a contest to see who could fling their feces the farthest.





Israel's Ongoing Crimes Against Humanity :.

'I can't imagine anyone who considers himself a human being can do this'

On Friday a four-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead by a soldier - the most recent child victim of the Israeli army. Chris McGreal investigates a shocking series of deaths.


Research Credit: DG


7/27/2003



Classified Section of Sept. 11 Report Faults Saudi Rulers :.

Yep. And since when did the Saudi royal family do anything without first checking with Bush Sr. et. al.? On the other hand, 9/11 could have been a setup to facilitate the theft of the biggest jewel of them all: Saudi Arabia. See my entry entitled, Qatar: The Gateway to Empire (pay special attention to the map). I wrote:

On 8/30/02, I wrote, "I think Saudi Arabia, not Iraq, is the actual crown jewel in the eyes of U.S. geostrategists."

We all know what is going to happen to Iraq. That is a done deal.

What is less clear is what is going to happen to Saudi Arabia. Take a look at a map of the region... Is there anyone out there who thinks that the establishment of U.S. Central Command less than three hundred miles from Riyadh is a coincidence?


Also consider the fact that the U.S. now controls a suberbase on the outskirts of Baghdad. This facility could be used to launch air strikes against Saudi or Iranian targets with the heaviest U.S. bombers.

From the NY Times piece:

Senior officials of Saudi Arabia have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable groups and other organizations that may have helped finance the September 2001 attacks, a still-classified section of a Congressional report on the hijackings says, according to people who have read it.

The 28-page section of the report was deleted from the nearly 900-page declassified version released on Thursday by a joint committee of the House and Senate intelligence committees. The chapter focuses on the role foreign governments played in the hijackings, but centers almost entirely on Saudi Arabia, the people who saw the section said.


It's just a matter of time before They unleash the justification to take over Saudi Arabia. A mushroom cloud would do nicely, but it might not even have to be that big of a display.




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