This is bizarre

you can buy one here

Why do I slog back into this debate?

Bush Administration Hampered FBI Investigation into Bin Laden Family Before 9/11

In 1996, high-placed intelligence sources in Washington told the Guardian, “There were always constraints on investigating the Saudis.” The authors allege that under the influence of US oil companies, George W. Bush and his administration initially halted investigations into terrorism, while bargaining with the Taliban to deliver Osama bin Laden in exchange for economic aid and political recognition. The book goes on to reveal that former FBI deputy director John O’Neill resigned in July of 2001 in protest over the obstruction of terrorist investigations. According to O’Neill, “The main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it.” The restrictions were said to have worsened after the Bush administration took over. Intelligence agencies were told to “back off” from investigations involving other members of the bin Laden family, the Saudi royals, and possible Saudi links to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan. John O’Neil died on 9/11 in the World Trade Center.

Hey Jerry! Is this the source of your concerns?

As always, you be the judge:

NAFTA Destroys Farming Communities in U.S. and Abroad

NAFTA policies have caused an exodus from rural areas forcing people to live in urban slums and accept low paid sweatshop labor. Farmers in Mexico, unable to compete with the large-scale importation and chemical-intensive mass production of U.S. agricultural corporations, are swimming in a corn surplus that has swelled approximately 450% since NAFTA’s implementation.

Here is Nikki's summary of the last show

Have fun with her clips

An invitation for those who are interested

I will be a part of the Easter play at my church. Believe it or not, I will play Jesus. If you'd like to attend, please do join us at The Kansas City Church of Christ. It is located at 10250 Quivira Road Lenexa, KS. 10:00 AM Sunday morning. The church is just north of 435 on Quivira (between the highway and the Oak Park mall) on the NW corner of 130rd St.

State Department talks open borders, EU links

Inside the hush-hush North American Union confab
This from Jerome Corsi who has been watching the unfolding North American Union.
I'd like to remind everyone that (though I don't have PROOF) I remember the EU being denied to exist until suddenly it did. Here's excerpts from the article:

A largely unreported meeting held at the State Department discussed integration of the U.S., Mexico and Canada in concert with a move toward a transatlantic union, linking a North American community with the European Union...
The meeting was held under "Chatham House" rules that prohibit reporters from attributing specific comments to individual participants...
No members of Congress attended the meeting.

The agenda for the ACIEP meeting was not published, and State Department officials in attendance could not give WND permission under Chatham House rules to publish the agenda...
The meeting agenda included topics reviewing the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, or SPP, and the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Economic Council, or TEC.

Others noted the premise of the TEC is to create a convergence of administrative rules and regulations between Europe and North America, anticipating the creation of a "Transatlantic Economic Union" between the European Union and North America...

Other participants argued regional alliances were still important, if only to put in place the institutional bases that ultimately would lead to global governance on uniform global administrative regulations favorable to multi-national corporations.

Before the meeting began, concerns were raised informally by participants worried that the Ohio Democratic Party primary had prompted both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to talk of renegotiating NAFTA.

Participants at the State Department meeting pointed out U.S. political candidates could be expected to argue "protectionist themes opposed to global economic integration" as a tactic, without necessarily being committed to taking aggressive steps once in office.

India sets up waste-to-energy power plants

It seems that India is checking out the technology that Mike from OP was talking about.

India said it set up 31 waste-to-energy power projects in eight state and 36 wind power plants in nine states.

http://www.upi.com/International_Security/Energy/Briefing/2008/03/12/india_sets_up_waste-to-energy_power_plants/5449/print_view/

more Big brother stuff...did that say whistleblowers

The Air Force is developing a data-mining technology meant to root out disaffected insiders based on their e-mail activity--or lack thereof, according to an article in this month's International Journal of Security and Networks.

And don't think that just because you're the boss you're off the hook. The team tested Enron's e-mail archive and uncovered several individuals who represented potential insider threats. Granted, none of them were the bosses who had done all the damage, but the researchers were confident that with full access and by turning a "domain on its ear" the software would ferret out potential malefactors and whistleblowers alike.

very interesting Hillary video

Of course I don't know if I'd pay more than 25$ for Cher at a party for me:

More civil liberties nonsense

This from the Daily Kos. I'm sure that disqualifies it for consideration for some.

In the last few weeks we've had Bush's executive order which gutted the Intelligence Oversight Board, bring all "oversight" functions under the executive. We've had the the revelations from whistle-blower Babak Pasdar, Wikileaks published a purported letter from Cablevision Systems Corp. to the FBI showing that "the FBI using the Patriot Act to obtain information not related to terrorism. In this case customer data from Cablevision is obtained which is used for non-terror related investigations." And today was the WSJ's explosive story on the massive scope of the NSA's reach.

If that wasn't damning enough, this information ends up in the utterly incompetent hands of Michael Chertoff at DHS. How bad is it? Check out this extremely well-timed interview by Jeff Stein, national security editor at CQ, with DHS director Michael Chertoff, who claims Sgt. Schultz style, "I know nuthink!"

I found this in today's daily read

This was just a part of the reading for today's Read through the Bible in a year
Leviticus 19:33-37

33 "'When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. 34 The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. 35 "'Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity. 36 Use honest scales and honest weights, an honest ephah and an honest hin. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt. 37 "'Keep all my decrees and all my laws and follow them. I am the Lord.'"

I thought Jerry might want to chew on it for a bit. I heard you talking this morning also. Give me your thoughts on this also:

As it relates to distribution of wealth and the like you were saying something along the lines of the person who comes up with an idea rightly gets the benefits of the creation of that idea. Sorry if I am improperly paraphrasing it but consider this. If my son suggests that we have Chicken for dinner should he get the largest portions because it was his idea or do I get the larger portion because I have to buy it and cook it (labor). Or do I distribute each according to his need?

And finally, as it relates to Danni's question about the family of Man, you might want to re-look at the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10: 25-37.

Sorry to get all biblical but I think we all need a little (actually a lot) more of it.

National Dragnet Is a Click Away-Authorities to Gain Fast and Expansive Access to Records

Several thousand law enforcement agencies are creating the foundation of a domestic intelligence system through computer networks that analyze vast amounts of police information to fight crime and root out terror plots...

On one recent day, Tucson detective Cynthia Butierez demonstrated that power in an office littered with paper and boxes of equipment. Using a regular desktop computer and Web browser, she logged onto Coplink to search for clues about a fraud suspect. She entered a name the suspect used on a bogus check. A second later, a list of real names came up, along with five incident reports.

She told the system to also search data warehouses built by Coplink in San Diego and Orange County, Calif. -- which have agreements to share with Tucson -- and came up with the name of a particular suspect, his age and a possible address. She asked the software to find the suspect's links to other people and incidents, and then to create a visual chart displaying the findings. Up popped a display with the suspect at the center and cartoon-like images of houses, buildings and people arrayed around him. A final click on one of the houses brought up the address of an apartment and several new names, leads she could follow.

"The power behind what we have discovered, what we can do with Coplink, is immense," Tucson police Chief Richard Miranda said. "The kinds of things you saw in the movies then, we're actually doing now."...

Three decades ago, Congress imposed limits on domestic intelligence activity after revelations that the FBI, Army, local police and others had misused their authority for years to build troves of personal dossiers and monitor political activists and other law-abiding Americans.

Miranda, the Tucson police chief, said there's no overstating the utility of Coplink for his force. But he too acknowledges that such power raises new questions about how to keep it in check and ensure that the trust people place in law enforcement is not misplaced.

"I don't want the people in my community to feel we're behind every little tree and surveilling them," he said. "If there's any kind of inkling that we're misusing our power and our technology, that trust will be destroyed."

Is this the future

Scientists have developed a computerised mind-reading technique which lets them accurately predict the images that people are looking at by using scanners to study brain activity.

another quiz

These are not trick questions. They are straight questions with straight
answers

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know
the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several
growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are
the only two perennial vegetables?

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

5. In many liquor stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the
bottle. The pear is whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been
cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters 'dw' and they
are all common words. Name two of them.
7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least
half of them?

8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned,
processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

9. Name six or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the
letter 'S..'

The FBI acknowledged Wednesday it improperly accessed Americans' telephone records, credit reports and Internet traffic in 2006, the fourth straight year of privacy abuses resulting from investigations aimed at tracking terrorists and spies.

Testifying at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Mueller raised the issue of the FBI's controversial use of so-called national security letters in reference to an upcoming report on the topic by the Justice Department's inspector general.

An audit by the inspector general last year found the FBI demanded personal records without official authorization or otherwise collected more data than allowed in dozens of cases between 2003 and 2005. Additionally, last year's audit found that the FBI had underreported to Congress how many national security letters were requested by more than 4,600.

In contrast to the strong concerns expressed by Congress and civil liberties groups after last year's inspector general's report was issued, Mueller's disclosure drew no criticism from senators during just over two hours of testimony Wednesday.
Following last year's audit, the Justice Department enacted guidelines that sternly reminded FBI agents to carefully follow the rules governing national security letters.

"The credibility factor shows there needs to be outside oversight," said former FBI agent Michael German, now a national security adviser for the American Civil Liberties Union. "There were guidelines before, and there were laws before, and the FBI violated those laws," German said. "And the idea that new guidelines would make a difference, I think cuts against rationality."

The Weather Channel founder advocates suing Al Gore to expose 'the fraud of global warming.'

The Weather Channel has lost its way, according to John Coleman, who founded the channel in 1982.

The Weather Channel has been an outlet for global warming alarmism. In December 2006, The Weather Channel’s Heidi Cullen argued on her blog that weathercasters who had doubts about human influence on global warming should be punished with decertification by the American Meteorological Society.

“[I] have a feeling this is the opening,” Coleman said. “If the lawyers will take the case – sue the people who sell carbon credits. That includes Al Gore. That lawsuit would get so much publicity, so much media attention. And as the experts went to the witness stand and testified, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming.

”

I got this in an email a few weeks ago and hadn't read it. Very interesting reading.

The Sibel Edmonds case has been fascinating in the silence that surrounds it.

Letter Describes Senior State Dept. Official Marc Grossman as Tipping off Turkish Embassy to Valerie Plame Wilson's 'Brewster Jennings' Counter-Proliferation Operation...

more from the nut jobs

A Quiz for all you super duper comment posters: What is Posse Comitatus?

North American Army created without OK by Congress
In a ceremony that received virtually no attention in the American media, the United States and Canada signed a military agreement Feb. 14 allowing the armed forces from one nation to support the armed forces of the other nation during a domestic civil emergency, even one that does not involve a cross-border crisis.
Gen. Renuart affirmed USNORTHCOM would deploy U.S. troops on U.S. soil should the president declare a domestic emergency in which the Department of Defense ordered USNORTHCOM involvement.

Study casts doubt on anti-depressants

Almost 50 clinical trials were reviewed by psychologists from the
University of Hull who found that new-generation anti-depressants worked no
better than a placebo – a dummy pill – for mildly depressed patients.
Even
the trials that suggested some clinical benefit for the most severely depressed
patients did not produce convincing evidence. Professor Irving Kirsch from the
university’s pyschology department said: “The difference in improvement between
patients taking placebos and patients taking anti-depressants is not very
great.
“This means that depressed people can improve without chemical
treatments. Given these results, there seems little reason to prescribe
anti-depressant medication to any but the most severely depressed patients.”