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Our new security system prevents email messages coming through the AOL server from being delivered to our address. This is because of the probability of unwelcome and problematical attachments to messages from this source.  Correspondents wishing to contact TBR News are suggested to use another server. Ed.

Announcing TBR Ebooks!

Starting with a new publication concerning the background behind the 9/11 attacks, TBR News will be presenting a series of interesting, informative and definitive works for our readers. Future titles will include the complete Voice of the White House with much more added material that was considered too controversial to post, the heavily-censored Armenian Holocaust of 1916, the Bush-Lay private correspondence, the Assassination of JFK,Pearl Harbor intrigues and rare documents, Malaparte’s inside study of the making of revolution, sensational selected articles from the German Rudolf historical revision files, unpublished before Rudolf’s arrest and forced deportation to Germany, World War II studies of holocaust history, taken from secret German files and much more. Please see the title page for more information.

The Editors

Descending Into Darkness: The Harring Report

A well-researched study into the background of the 9/11 attack: Who knew what and when did they know it. Russian and German intelligence material, not published before show that the U.S. had ample warning...and did nothing about it.

THE VOICE OF THE WHITE HOUSE

The full collection of the twice-weekly commentary of what is really going on inside the corrupt Bush White House. The spectrum includes the Gannon scandal, the planned invasion of Iran, many stories of stupidity and corruption coupled with biting sarcasm. Interesting to note that many, if not most, of the predictions have come true.

REGICIDE The Official Assassination of John F. Kennedy

A landmark book that sold very well in hardback, this work contains actual intelligence documents concerning the inside U.S. plans to kill Kennedy; the reasons, the methods and the results.

The Final Reckoning: An Analysis of Demographics in Holocaust Literature

By Harold Kreig, Lt.Col, AUS ret.

This is the first rational, heavily documented work on the subject of the Holocaust. Colonel Krieg has taken thousands of documents, including the official SS concentration camp records from 1935 through 1945 and official U.S. government postwar analysis of the system and the casualties and causes of death and produced a book that is highly informative and readable.  Heavily footnoted and annotated, ‘The Final Reckoning’ is logical and compelling and is an historical work that should be read through by any student of the period and subject.

Coup D’Etat: The Technique Of Revolution

By Curzio Malaparte

First published in Italy by Curzio Malaparte in 1928, this is a seminal work on historical seizures of power from Napoleon through Hitler.

Gestapo-Chief: The CIA & Heinrich Müller by Gregory Douglas

                In 1948, the former head of Hitelr’s Gestapo was interviewed by senior officials of the CIA in Switzerland where Müller had been in hiding since the end of the Second World War. His interview, for Colonel James Critchfield of the CIA’s Gehlen Organization, runs to nearly a thousand pages and for years was hidden in the CIA’s files.

                This is a translation of a part of the interview, which was initially conducted in German and then translated into English for CIA use.

                It is a fascinating series of historical episodes covering both the Axis and Allied sides with comments on Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt, Henry Wallace, Winston Churchill, the 20^th of July bomb plot against Hitler, Bishop von Galen’s heroic, and successful, attacks on the Nazis and their euthanasia program, the concentration camps, the Duke of Windsor, the Roger Casement diaries and many more fascinating and insightful views of a man who ran the most effective counter-intelligence agency in modern times. 

                There is also extensive information on the attempts on the part of the CIA to silence or discredit the fact that the Gestapo Chief worked for the United States and eventually came to live in Washington, D.C. as part of the notorious “Operation Paperclip.”

                Fascinating inside views of many top Nazis and CIA officials. 

The CIA COvenant: Nazis in Washington

by Gregory Douglas

* From the end of World War II, the American CIA imported thousands of Nazis into the United States to work for them, many on the list of wanted war criminals

*One of the most important of these was Heinrich Mueller, once head of Hitler's Gestapo. Mueller was recruited by Colonel James Critchfield who ran the CIA's "Gehnel Organization' in Munich.

* Mueller kept journals and this book is a translation of three years (1948-1951) of notes and observations made of top CIA officials, President Truman, top U.S. government officials, plans for murder, thefts, kidnappings, wholesale thefts of public money and a terrifying pattern of uncontrolled ambition, unchecked by any person or agency.

* Also included are CIA and other agency's activities that have never been revealed.

*Mueller's deals in stolen Nazi art for the CIA are covered in detail.

*Also to be found are the steps the frightened CIA have taken to prevent the publication, sales or distribution of this work.

An Essay on the Principle of Population

by Thomas Malthus

The 1798 classic study of how supplies of food do not keep up with an expanding population

Malthus' theory is that population growth is geometric while the food supply increase is arithmetic.

A very literate and current study that clearly highlights present and current population problems

With the world's population higher than ever before, this is a work of great and current interest

CONSPIRACIES for Fun and Profit

Contents
The Evil Catholics Murdered Abraham Lincoln
TWA Flight 800: The Gathering of the Nuts
The Real Truth About the Kennedy Assassination!
The Great 9-11 Plot
Who is Sorcha Faal?
The Bush Indictments
Faked Conspiracy photos
The Sinking of the MV Estonia
The German Guy and the Destruction of Houston
The Great Contrail Conspiracy
Planet X
Remote Viewing unveiled

Notice!

Our new security system prevents email messages coming through the AOL server from being delivered to our address. This is because of the probability of unwelcome and problematical attachments to messages from this source, coupled with the fact that AOL’s voluntary cooperation with various American, and foreign, law enforcement groups makes contact with them in any form a risky business.  Correspondents wishing to contact TBR News are suggested to use another server. Ed.

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people, On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
- H.L. Mencken

“That we are to stand by the president, right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
-Theodore Roosevelt

“Mass movements do not usually rise until the prevailing order has been discredited. The discrediting is not an automatic result of the blunders and abuses of those in power, but the deliberate work of men of words with a grievance.”
-Eric Hoffer The True Believer

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

America’s Enemies!

There are four entities who represent the most dangerous enemies to American liberties since George III.

They are:

1.                    The Neocons or Likudists who owe their personal allegiance to another country and now completely control our foreign policy. They lied and deceived us into the Iraq war and are demanding that more and more American soldiers die to preserve their own country and ideals.

2.                    The Christian Evangelical right who is trying to force the United States into becoming a theocracy under their rule. They know in their hearts that they alone can restructure a secular humanist America into their idea of Heaven on Earth.

3.                    An element of American society that call themselves Patriots and are obsessively militaristic and great admirers of the corporate or fascistic state. Many of these have been very minor members of the American military and as a counterbalance to their reserve or rear area tours of duty, are rabidly in favor of draconian military action, the bloodier the better. Usually these drumbeaters are too old, or too fat, to fight and have no sons of draft age.

4.                    George W. Bush, who is the worst president in the history of the United States and directly responsible for the huge death tolls in Iraq, is determined to rule the United States until God puts a stop to him and is even more determined to force the American people into becoming obedient, Christian and self-sacrificing lemmings who worship at his shrine and march in step.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C., August 10, 2007: “How do they watch you? Let me count the ways. With the new surveillance law being voted in by a weak-kneed Congress, the useless AG, Gonzales can now listen to any conversation or read any email without a court order. I have several additional comments to be made on this subject. Let’ s consider a means by which you can be spied on without a warrant. The first is by using your very own television set to listen to you. Sounds fantastic? Another nutty blog idea? Think again. Here I am quoting from an in-house memorandum: ‘The methodology of using a commercial television set connected to a cable network system being used as a transmitter as well as a receive, allowing other parties to hear conversations conducted in the vicinity of the set utilizes the medium of a digital oscillator installed in television sets. This use is only for a set itself connected to a cable system. The additional use of a cable box connected to the television set is the only means by which the set can be used to listen to nearby conversations because these boxes are designed to feed back information through the cable system. This feedback makes it possible for a subscriber to cable to use his telephone to call the cable company for the inclusion of a special program to the subscriber’s system. The cable company is automatically able to ascertain the telephone number from the call and using that information, send the desired program to the television set via their network and the box. The subscriber code of the subscriber matches the data on the subscriber’s box. This makes the use of the box as an instrument of clandestine surveillance possible.. It is then possible for such information to be fed into other channels, including investigative ones. The use by private parties of the cable system to obtain clandestine information in this manner would be difficult if not impossible but the NSA and FBI techniques in other electronic surveillance matters are more than sufficient to ensure electronic eavesdropping. The solution to this problem? Simply unplug your set from the cable system before saying anything in the vicinity of your television set. Another helpful suggestion to concerned readers is to have absolutely nothing to do with the Internet II system. It is thoroughly, and officially, compromised. If you know anyone communicating with you using this system, put them on the block. Also, if you read a story in a large paper such as the New York Times, about a “scientist” who has “invented an absolutely secure telephone scrambling” system that has the government spy agencies “very concerned” because it is completely unbreakable, don’t even think about using it. Stories like this are deliberate plants, done with the eager cooperation of the paper, and designed to sucker people into thinking that the “wonderful new system” is secure. In actuality, it has a trapdoor big enough to permit a Mac truck to drive through it and the seller always notifies competent authority who his privacy-seeking customers are. In my next posting, I will discuss a completely fool proof method for conducting conversations on the telephone that doesn’t require any equipment and is completely safe and simple.”

Minority Report technology to analyze behaviour and physiology and determine Whether you are a terrorist or not

August 9, 2007

by Steve Watson

Inifowars.net

The United States Department of Homeland Security is to install a host of new technology to covertly scan the behaviour and emotions of American citizens in an effort to prevent terrorism according to an upcoming article in the New Scientist.

Scientists and engineers have been asked to devise ways of analysing people's behaviour and physiology from afar, in the hope they may reveal clues about their mental state and even their future intentions, reports the London Guardian.

A program named Project Hostile Intent (PHI) is aiming by 2010 to develop technology that can scan the bodily functions of citizens without them knowing and uncover any possible hostile intent or deception.

Testimony by the American Psychological Association states that "Project Hostile Intent aims to detect and model the behavioral cues that indicate an individual’s intent to carry out acts of terrorism." The testimony continues:

The cues examined in PHI are those that can be assessed remotely and in real time, and the procedures and technologies required to collect these cues are non-invasive and amenable to integration into busy operational contexts.

In other words the technology will be covertly placed in public and will operate just like CCTV, with DHS officials able to remotely access it and apply its use to anyone in the area.

The DHS offers a further brief explanation of Project Hostile Intent

The Guardian reports that the DHS has revealed to New Scientist that technology to be used for PHI includes lasers, cameras, eye trackers, microphones and heart rate and breathing sensors. The DHS has also stated that it wishes to develop a lie detector-type test that can be used remotely which is described as "an advantage because it would not interfere with the flow of a crowd and it could be used without the target's knowledge."

The report also states that the Project represents an enhancement of technology already in use to scan faces in crowds, details of which we have previously covered.

Infowars has posted hundreds of articles over the years detailing the involvement of DARPA and the Defense Department in mandating that the States adopt uniform biometrics on state licenses and ID cards, RFID tracker chips to replace the bar-code, and cameras that recognize individuals by their faces, walk, vehicle type or license plate number. Now the DHS is taking America all the way down the line towards the big brother state.

Peter McOwan, a computer scientist who is developing sensors to detect people's moods at Queen Mary, University of London, told the Guardian: "It's just like something from Minority Report. They have been watching too many Tom Cruise movies."

Indeed, the use of this technology for crime prevention and social control is beyond anything Orwell predicted, and is directly lifted from Phillip K Dick's Minority Report, which was recently made into a feature film.

Is this the kind of society we want to live in? Clearly not. Is there even a debate about that?

Once again however, those detached from any kind of moral reality will say "If you've got nothing to hide then what is the problem with being scanned for pre-crime? If it keeps us all safe from terrorists I'm all for it". How far towards a literal technological police state can America slip before its people wake up to the fact?

We have also previously covered reports out of Britain that detail how teams of neuroscientists have developed technology that allowing them to look deep inside a person's brain and read their intentions before they act.

The technology is no longer science fiction. The London Guardian report on the developments earlier this year debated whether a 'Minority Report' era, where judgments are handed down before the law is broken on the strength of an incriminating brain scan, is ethical or not.

And what will be the punishment for pre-crime? With moves to "chemically castrate" sex offenders by eliminating their sexual desires, seriously being considered now, how far fetched is it to imagine a future thought criminal's brain being "corrected" by eliminating the relevant desires or emotions picked up by a brain scan?

It is not beyond reason to expect this technology to be implemented without debate. Can anyone remember a real meaningful debate occurring concerning surveillance cameras before four million of them went up in London?

We have also previously reported on documents leaked from the Home Office in London revealing that the British government is looking into using X-ray technology cameras by concealing them in lamp posts to "trap terror suspects".

With the Bush administration's new ability to implement any surveillance programs it now wishes without oversight, and rabid neocon lapdogs calling for the heads of anyone who questions them, a pandora's box has been opened that threatens to turn America into a big brother panopticon state.

by Andrew E. Kramer

New York Times

MOSCOW, Aug. 6 — The ruble got no respect.

During the cold war, it symbolized the backward Soviet economy. After the U.S.S.R. collapsed, it was an avatar of instability. Even plumbers in Moscow often preferred to be paid in bottles of vodka rather than rubles — the bottles did not lose their value.

No more. Lifted by high oil prices and a wave of foreign investment, the once humble ruble is showing its muscle, and fueling a consumer boom.

After gaining 20 percent in value against the dollar in the last few years, the ruble is even starting to displace the greenback as Russians’ currency of choice for both saving and spending.

As the ruble increases in value — not just against the dollar, but against brawnier currencies, too, like the euro — imported goods are becoming cheaper for Russian consumers. Now ruble notes, once handed over by the fistful for a loaf of bread, are being used to purchase Mercedeses, flat-screen televisions and European beach vacations.

Of course, the party could be short-lived. Russia takes in roughly $530 million a day from oil, its most lucrative export. If the price of oil declines, so will the ruble. And even if the price of oil does not fall, an oil-fueled boom brings dangers of its own. In many countries, an over-reliance on petrodollars has led to underinvestment in businesses outside oil and gas, and a subsequent withering of other domestic industries.

To deal with such downsides of the ruble’s rise, Russia is salting away oil money in a rainy day fund, called the Stabilization Fund, which holds more than $120 billion. In January, Moscow will split it into two funds: the Reserve Fund and the Fund of National Prosperity, the latter intended for state investments.

Together with the Central Bank of Russia’s foreign reserves, Russian authorities have a currency reserve of $413 billion, the largest per capita foreign currency reserve of any major economy, including China’s. In an oil downturn, authorities could spend that reserve to protect the ruble.

In the meantime, the reserve adds an aura of stability to the economy for investors.

“Excluding a couple of oil countries where the money belongs to the local ruling family, which is something different, Russia has surpassed all the newly industrializing Asian countries,” in foreign currency reserves, Kenneth S. Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard, said in a telephone interview.

Analysts say Russia’s underlying fundamentals are good, too.

First, oil exports are not the sole source of the ruble’s rise. That was the case before 2007, but now foreign investment has become a significant factor. Private capital flows into Russia increased roughly 360 percent in the first six months of this year, compared with the same period last year. Only about 30 percent is attributable to oil and other extractive industries, according to the State Statistics Committee.

Analysts also point to what they call Russia’s sound macroeconomics. President Vladimir V. Putin’s government has managed inflation, though certainly not eliminated it. And through its tight control over politics and society, the regime has kept demands for social spending in check — a leadership approach reminiscent of the authoritarian “Asian model” of economic development.

But economists also say a long-term cycle of economic depression and recovery is bolstering the ruble, at least for now. Starting in 1990, the year the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia’s economy contracted by as much as 40 percent. This year, for the first time since, Russia’s gross domestic product returned to 1990 levels: factories, oil pipelines, roads, ports and other facilities that once were idled are operating near full capacity.

In the decade from January 1993 to Dec. 31, 2002, the ruble’s lowest point, the dollar appreciated 7,664 percent against the ruble, rising to 31.96 rubles to the dollar. On Tuesday, one dollar bought 25.47 rubles, a 20 percent appreciation for the ruble.

Even more important, as measured by purchasing power parity, a gauge of a currency’s value based on the goods it can buy, a dollar should buy roughly 15 rubles today, according to a report Merrill Lynch issued in July. By that measure, the ruble remains the world’s second-most undervalued major currency, behind only the Chinese yuan, whose value has given policy makers in Washington headaches.

Indeed, the ruble would be even more valuable today if not for the Russian central bank intervening to keep it from rising more.

Through much of the 1990s, Russia suffered the opposite problem. Then the ruble, shunned by locals and tourists alike, was propped up by Western lending. It collapsed in 1998, on the heels of the Asian economic crisis. Russians’ life savings evaporated and poverty became widespread.

In just one example, the theft of manhole covers became a major problem. Russians were stealing them to sell for scrap metal.

All that is different now. The current consumer boom has sparked renewed interest in Russia from companies like Wal-Mart and Starbucks. Indeed, shares in grocery stores, electronic retailers and other consumer-sector companies are outperforming Russian oil companies on the Moscow stock exchange.

Russian banks offer accounts in rubles, dollars or euros. Of the three, ruble accounts are attracting the most funds. Ruble-denominated personal savings accounts rose 6.8 percent in the first quarter of 2007, while foreign currency accounts were level, according to a report by Goldman Sachs.

That has led to some, perhaps predictable, gloating. Recently, a pro-Kremlin youth group staged a mock panhandling to benefit the United States currency. They held out hats for passers-by to make donations — “raising money for the dollar’s ticket back home,” their signs read.

But there are limits as to how far a currency can carry a country. Real economic growth, economists say, will depend on continuing foreign investment. Without it, Russian consumption of imported goods will outpace earnings from oil by 2010, according to Russia’s finance minister, Aleksei L. Kudrin.

If that happens, Russia’s economy will depend on foreign investment to maintain the strong ruble and the rising living standards associated with it — much as the United States does, but without the same record of stability.

Last summer, authorities eliminated all restrictions on ruble trading, making the currency fully convertible and easing the way for the capital inflow needed to meet the demand. In the first six months of this year, net private capital inflow into Russia was $67.1 billion — more than during the entire first decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the same period last year, capital inflow was $14.5 billion.

While threats of nationalization persist in the oil sector, investors have largely decided that they are acceptable considering the money to be made.

In another recent sign of the ruble’s strength, a particularly Russian enterprise has just become more expensive.

Russia has raised the price for a tourist flight to the International Space Station aboard a Russian rocket. What cost Dennis A. Tito, the first space tourist, $20 million in 2001, this year cost the former Microsoft executive Charles Simonyi $25 million. Citing the strong ruble, Russian space agency officials say they will increase that fee to $30 million.

Stocks Fall Following Renewed Subprime Mortgage Concerns; Dow Falls 300

August 9, 2007

by Tim Paradis,

AP

NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street fell sharply again Thursday after a French bank said it was freezing three funds that invested in U.S. subprime mortgages because it was unable to properly value their assets. The Dow Jones industrials fell more than 270 points.

The announcement by BNP Paribas raised the specter of a widening impact of U.S. credit market problems. The idea that anyone -- institutions, investors, companies, individuals -- can't get money when they need it unnerved a stock market that has suffered through weeks of volatility triggered by concerns about tight credit and bad subprime mortgages.

A move by the European Central Bank to provide more cash to money markets intensified Wall Street's angst. Although the bank's loan of more than $130 billion in overnight funds to banks at a low rate of 4 percent was intended to calm investors, Wall Street saw it as confirmation of the credit markets' problems. It was the ECB's biggest injection ever.

The Federal Reserve added a larger-than-normal $24 billion in temporary reserves to the U.S. banking system.

The ECB's injection of money into the system is an unprecedented move, said Joseph V. Battipaglia, chief investment officer at Ryan Beck & Co., adding that it shows that problems in subprime lending are, in fact, spilling into the general economy.

"This is a mini-panic," he said. "All the things that had been denied up until this point are unraveling. On top of this, retail sales were mediocre, which shows that indeed, the housing collapse is affecting the consumer."

Retailers released July sales figures Thursday that were overall disappointing.

Bonds rose sharply as investors again sought the relative safety of Treasurys, pushing down the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 4.79 percent from 4.89 percent late Wednesday.

The Fed didn't soften its stance on inflation after leaving short-term interest rates unchanged Tuesday. However, the renewed credit market concerns spurred bond traders who bet on its next move to predict early in the session that the Fed will cut rates at its meeting next month. Before Thursday, traders had bet on a 1 in 4 chance of such a cut.

In late trading, the Dow fell 278.66, or 2.04 percent, to 13,379.20 after being down more than 300.

Thursday's pullback continued an erratic pattern of triple-digit moves in the Dow since the index closed at a record 14,001.41 on July 19. Ten of the 14 ensuing sessions have ended in a triple-digit gain or loss. Gains have been evaporating at the first mention of trouble in housing, subprime lending or the credit markets.

The Dow is more than 4 percent below its record close. Some experts have been calling for a textbook correction -- a pullback of at least 10 percent. At its lowest close since the market's high, Friday's finish of 13,181.91, the Dow was 5.85 percent below the record.

Also Thursday, the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 31.52, or 2.10 percent, to 1,465.97. The Nasdaq composite index fell 44.86, or 1.72 percent, to 2,568.12.

The pullback came after BNP Paribas Investment Partners said it was suspending three funds together worth about $3.79 billion and wouldn't make investor redemptions until it could determine net asset values.

The funds invest in part in subprime mortgages through a process known as securitization. Investment banks bundle together mortgages -- including those from subprime borrowers -- and sell them off to investors such as hedge funds, mutual funds and other institutional investors. Buyers of such securities are seeking the steady flow of income from homeowners making their mortgage payments.

Shares of financial companies, which investors have fled recently amid lending concerns, took another beating Thursday. Citigroup Inc. fell 4 percent, as did fellow Dow component JPMorgan Chase & Co.

In another sign of credit market trouble, Home Depot Inc. warned that the sale of its wholesale business might bring in less than expected. The world's largest home improvement retailer, which also cut how much it intends to pay to repurchase stock, said volatility in the stock, debt and housing markets has led to the possible repricing. Home Depot fell $1.66, or 4.4 percent, to $36.14, and was the worst performer of the 30 Dow components.

But American International Group Inc., one of the world's largest insurers, on Thursday reassured investors that it remains comfortable with its exposure to the subprime lending market as an investor, lender and mortgage insurer. AIG, which reported a 34 percent jump in second-quarter profit late Wednesday, said it has enough cash and liquidity and "does not need to liquidate any investment securities in a chaotic market."

The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices fell. Light, sweet crude fell 56 cents to $71.59 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 4 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 2.18 billion shares.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 10.47, or 1.32 percent, to 785.19.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange's volatility index, often called the "fear index," rose early Thursday to its highest level since April 2003.

European stocks plunged. Britain's FTSE 100 lost 1.92 percent, Germany's DAX index fell 2.00 percent, and France's CAC-40 fell 2.17 percent after being down more than 3 percent.

Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 0.83 percent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 0.43 percent.

Comment: The market is continuing to slump and now foreign exchanges are also moving sharply downwards. Despite frenzied attempts on the part of the government to pour more money into the market, it appears that the public has lost faith in the stability of the economy and is cutting its losses. In stable economic times, the market is played by experts who know when to buy and when to sell but when the general public gets its wind up, the bottom will fall out. Recently, Bush, who won’t tell the truth if a lie would suffice, said the economy was booming. The next day, the market went down 300 points. If Bush keeps this up, we will all be selling apples. Way to go, George!  BH

U.S. Backs Free Elections, Only to See Allies Lose

August 10, 2007

by Hassan M. Fattah

New York Times

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates Aug. 9 — Lebanon’s political spin masters have been trying in recent days to explain the results of last Sunday’s pivotal by-election, which saw a relatively unknown candidate from the opposition narrowly beat a former president, Amin Gemayel.

There has been talk of the Christian vote and the Armenian vote, of history and betrayal, as each side sought to claim victory. There is one explanation, however, that has become common wisdom in the region: Mr. Gemayel’s doom seems to have been sealed by his support from the Bush administration and the implied agendas behind its backing.

“It’s the kiss of death,” said Turki al-Rasheed, a Saudi reformer who watched last Sunday’s elections closely. “The minute you are counted on or backed by the Americans, kiss it goodbye, you will never win.”

The paradox of American policy in the Middle East — promoting democracy on the assumption it will bring countries closer to the West — is that almost everywhere there are free elections, the American-backed side tends to lose.

Lebanon’s voters in the Metn district, in other words, appeared to have joined the Palestinians, who voted for Hamas; the Iraqis, who voted for a government sympathetic to Iran; and the Egyptians, who have voted in growing numbers in recent elections for the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. “No politician can afford to identify with the West because poll after poll shows people don’t believe in the U.S. agenda,” said Mustafa Hamarneh, until recently the director of the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan. Mr. Hamarneh is running for a seat in Jordan’s Parliament in November, but he says he has made a point of keeping his campaign focused locally, and on bread-and-butter issues. “If somebody goes after you as pro-American he can hurt you,” he said.

In part, regional analysts say, candidates are tainted by the baggage of American foreign policy — from its backing of Israel to the violence in Iraq. But more important, they say, American support is often applied to one faction instead of to institutions, causing further division rather than bringing stability.

“The Americans think that supporting democracy should create positive reactions,” said Nicola Nassif, a columnist with the left-leaning Lebanese daily Al Akhbar. “No one can be against democracy, sovereignty, independence and freedom. But not if it upsets the internal power balance, not if it empowers one party against the other, especially in a country where supporting one group can lead to violence and even civil wars.”

Arab liberals who have embraced America continue to see their influence fade in the region, as more conservative and Islamist forces continue to rise, Mr. Rasheed said. Voters invariably frown on strength coming from abroad, he said; the only legitimate sources of strength any Arab politician can turn to is based on either tribal power or religious ties.

“Last Sunday we saw that even if you are a former president running for a seat in Parliament, in a small area where everybody knows you, you can’t make it either with American support,” Mr. Rasheed said.

For much of the past year, Lebanon has been caught in a major confrontation between the American-backed March 14th movement, which helped force Syria out of Lebanon in 2005 and won a parliamentary majority that year, and the Iranian- and Syrian-backed opposition movement led by Hezbollah and Gen. Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement.

Sunday’s vote was widely seen as a bellwether for the country’s political leanings in that confrontation.

Lebanon’s Christians are generally more sympathetic to the United States than are other Arabs. But the tension between Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s American-backed faction against an Iranian-backed one was palpable in last Sunday’s election.

And despite an expected sympathy vote — Mr. Gemayel was running to fill the seat vacated by the assassination of his son Pierre — and the former president’s name recognition, Lebanese Christians in the mountainous Metn region, along with a smattering of Shiites and others who live there, voted for the more unlikely team: one allied to Hezbollah, seemingly sympathetic to Iran and Syria, and most of all, in opposition to America.

“Our problem with March 14th is not that they are aligned with the U.S., but it is their policies,” says Alain Aoun, a nephew of General Aoun, who says American support has magnified tensions while emboldening the ruling majority to resist compromises. “We call on the U.S. to learn from this experience; they should not take part in any internal conflict or take sides. They should support all Lebanese.”

The problem is not necessarily the support itself, Mr. Nassif said, but that it invariably skews conflicts, worsening rather than easing sectarian and ethnic tensions.

“When the U.S. interferes in favor of one party, their interference leads to an explosion,” he said. “The U.S. openly says it supports the Siniora government, but it should say we support the Lebanese government.”

There was, however, one American intervention that did work in Lebanon, Mr. Nassif notes.

“In 1958 when the U.S. interfered militarily in Lebanon, it said it was to help Lebanon regain stability,” he said, speaking of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s decision to deploy 14,000 men to shore up the government of President Camille Chamoun and open the way for his successor, Gen. Fuad Chehab. The intervention is credited with preventing the Syrian and Egyptian governments from destabilizing the country.

“Chehab was soon after elected, and no one protested their presence here; a few months later they withdrew,” Mr. Nassif said of the American forces. “In 1982, they interfered militarily again and it ended in a disaster. They supported Israel and Gemayel against the Palestinians, who were supported by Lebanese parties.”

Mr. Nassif added, “Since then, every time the Americans interfere, it ends in a war or in their expulsion.”

Nada Bakri contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.

Wild Weather a Taste of Things to Come

August 8, 2007

by Marc Kaufman

Sydney Morning Herald

A monsoon dropped 35 centimetres of rain in one day across many parts of South Asia this month. Germany had its wettest May on record, and April was the driest there in a century. Temperatures reached 45 degrees in Bulgaria last month and 32 degrees in Moscow in late May, shattering long-time records.

The year still has almost five months to go, but it has already experienced a range of weather extremes that the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation says is well outside the historical norm and is a precursor to much greater weather variability as global warming transforms the planet

The warming trend confirmed in February by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - based on the finding that 11 of the past 12 years had higher average ground temperatures than any others since formal temperature recording began - appears to have continued with a vengeance into 2007. The meteorological organisation reported that January and April were the warmest worldwide ever recorded.

“Climate change projections indicate it to be very likely that hot extremes, heatwaves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent,” the organisation said.

The heavy rains in South Asia have resulted in more than 500 deaths and displaced 10 million people, while 13.5 million Chinese have been affected by floods, the report said. In England and Wales, the period from May to July was the wettest since record-keeping began in 1766, resulting in floods that killed nine and caused more than $US6billion ($7billion) in damage.

The World Meteorological Organisation, which is co-sponsoring a series of meetings and reports on global climate change, is putting together an early-warning system for climate extremes and establishing long-term monitoring systems, and plans to help countries most vulnerable to climate change.

“The average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely the highest during any 50-year period in the last 500 years, and likely the highest in the past 1300 years,” the report said.

Global warming is expected to result in more extreme weather because of changes in atmospheric wind patterns and the ability of warmer air to hold more moisture, said Martin Manning, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s working group on the physical science of climate change. He said that one year of heavier than normal rains and warmer than usual temperatures said nothing definitive about climate change, but they were consistent with the panel’s long-term predictions.

“What we have projected is an increase in extreme events as the global temperatures rise,” Dr Manning said. “Floods, droughts and heatwaves are certainly consistent with that.”

The World Meteorological Organisation reported the extreme weather occurred in many parts of the world. In May, a series of large waves (estimated at up to 3.6 metres) swamped almost 70 islands in 16 atolls in the Maldive Islands off south India, causing serious flooding and extensive damage. Halfway around the globe, Uruguay was hit during the same month by the worst flooding since 1959 - floods that affected more than 110,000 people and severely damaged crops and buildings. Two months later, an unusual winter brought high winds, blizzards and rare snowfall to parts of South America.

Meanwhile, two extreme heatwaves affected south-eastern Europe in June and July. Dozens of people died, and firefighters worked nonstop battling blazes that destroyed thousands of hectares. On July 23, temperatures hit the record 45 degrees in Bulgaria.

EU threatens tit-for-tat visa limits on Americans after US tightens law

· Homeland security law raises fears for privacy

· Passengers must detail travel plans and meetings

August 8, 2007

by David Gow in Brussels

The Guardian

The European Union is threatening to impose tit-for-tat entry restrictions on all US citizens travelling to Europe in response to new American laws designed to strengthen security at airports and prevent would-be terrorists entering the country. US tourists can now travel to Europe without a visa.

Franco Frattini, justice and home affairs commissioner, is drawing up plans for an EU-wide system of "electronic travel authorisation" (ETA) similar to that written into US law by President George Bush late last week as part of new homeland security rules proposed by the 9/11 commission and endorsed by Congress.

The ETA requires tourists from 14 mostly west European states, including Britain, benefiting from the US visa waiver programme to register online and give details of their passport, travel plans and planned social and business meetings at least two days before departure. A similar scheme operates in Australia.

The new system has heightened fears about privacy protection as the EU and US already exchange information about transatlantic passengers and airline manifests, with several would-be travellers refused entry to planes at US insistence. It is also seen as a deterrent to business travel to the US and to tourism in general, which is down 10% in the US since 2000 while it is up 13% in Britain and 20% in France.

Mr Frattini, whose director general for justice and home affairs, Jonathan Faul, discussed a reciprocal ETA system with Paul Rosenzweig, US homeland security deputy assistant secretary, in Brussels on Monday, is to present initial plans to the EU's 27 interior ministers next month, his spokesman said yesterday. "A basic decision has not been taken yet," he said.

East European members of the EU are angry that their countries are not in the US visa waiver scheme and Mr Frattini wrote to Michael Chertoff, homeland security secretary, in June demanding that all 27 member states take part "to ensure full reciprocal visa-free travel".

Mr Frattini added: "It is important to have established objective and clear criteria which, on the one hand, will give the US sufficient means to protect its national security and to combat illegal immigration and, on the other hand, enable all EU member states to join the visa waiver programme."

The commissioner's spokesman said: "We have a political reality to live with and we share the concerns of the US about terrorism and security. We face very serious terrorist threats ourselves."

Mr Frattini considered a European ETA scheme after the thwarted plot to blow up 10 transatlantic planes by UK-based terrorists a year ago. EU officials say they are open-minded about the benefits and disadvantages of a reciprocal ETA, which could also apply to non-US tourists. The Australian system is said to work well, using new technologies that could allow fast-track entry and exit procedures for frequent, trusted travellers such as business executives. "The question is whether it unnecessarily hinders legitimate travel or aids it or enables us to enhance security," said an official.

Mr Frattini has expressed concerns that other aspects of the homeland security bill signed by Mr Bush go too far. These include the enforced screening of all cargo on passenger aircraft within three years and the scanning for nuclear devices of all foreign container ships heading to the US.

Blessed Prozac Moments: A Short Trot With an Empty Mind

From: "Leonard Moecklin" <milfexcuba@earthlink.net>

To: JPw4@att.net, "patricia levasseur" <jpena16@comcast.net>

Cc: MAJzoom@aol.com, ROSusacuba@yahoo.com, "fordbayoubandit977" <fordbayoubandit977@yahoo.com>

Subject: Fw: MASSIVE LOW FREQUENCY BLAST BRINGS DOWN US BRIDGE?

Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2007 19:40:34 +0000

Subject: Fw: MASSIVE LOW FREQUENCY BLAST BRINGS DOWN US BRIDGE?

Massive ULF 'Blast' Detected In US Bridge Collapse Catastrophe

by Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

Visit Author's Website !!!

August 02, 2007

Reports from Russia's Institute of Solar-Terrestrial  Physics located in Irkutsk are reporting today that their Siberian Solar Radio Telescope (SSRT) detected a  'massive' ultra low frequency (ULF) 'blast' emanating  from Latitude: 45° 00' North Longitude: 93° 15' West  at the 'exact' moment, and location, of a catastrophic  collapse of a nearly 2,000 foot long bridge in  Minneapolis, Minnesota.

To the horrific destruction of the Interstate 35W  Bridge which spanned the Mississippi River we can read as reported by the Star Tribune News Service:

"The 1,907-foot bridge fell into the Mississippi River  and onto roadways below. The span was packed with rush  hour traffic, and dozens of vehicles fell with the  bridge leaving scores of dazed commuters scrambling  for their lives.

Nine people were confirmed dead as of 4 a.m. today.  Sixty were taken to hospitals and 20 people were still missing this morning. Authorities said they expected the death toll to rise."

Russian Military reports state that the total collapse  of such a massive bridge, and in the absence of evidence linking its destruction to terrorist activity, could only have been accomplished by an acoustic weapon, of which the United States Military is known to possess.

These reports further state that one of the United States primary research organizations into acoustic weapons research is Augsburg College, and which is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and most importantly less than 1 mile from the Interstate 35W Bridge collapse.

To the exact reason of why, and what exactly happened in this catastrophe we can only speculate, but, with what is known about the United States past history of using sophisticated weapons on their own citizens for 'research' purposes it certainly lies in the realm of possibility that this horrific tragedy is rooted in the use of ULF weapons.

To the past usage of these new types of weapons we can read even back into the 1980's of the United States research into their use as reported by the CNN News Service:

"Imagine the implications of a weapon with no visible trace -- a weapon that could knock out tanks, ships, and planes as fast as the speed of light. The same technology, with modifications, could disorient and even tranquilize military personnel, rendering them virtually helpless in the battle zone. These are the new weapons of war we will examine in this series.

For the past 40 years, the world has been riveted by the threat of nuclear war, and more recently by the prospect of space defenses using lasers and other modern technologies.

Lightning is the most dramatic form of energy to be found in nature. Scientists have succeeded in creating limited types of artificial lightning. And some think that these could be the forerunners of a new type of directed-energy weapon, part of a family of weapons that operate within the radio frequency segment of the electromagnetic spectrum, and are thus referred to as radio frequency weapons."

To the dangers of ULF weapons being used against civilians we can read the warnings of Dr. Rauni Leena Kilde, MD, the former Chief Medical Officer for Lapland (northern Finland), who warned in 1999:

"When the use of electromagnetic fields, extra-low (ELF) and ultra-low (ULF) frequencies and microwaves aimed deliberately at certain individuals, groups, and even the general population to cause diseases, disorientation, chaos and physical and emotional pain breaks into the awareness of the general population, a public outcry is inevitable."

To the exact reason of why the United States would be targeting Minneapolis with such a massive ULF 'blast' we can find in the exact neighborhoods that surround the Interstate 35W Bridge, and which are home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the United States, including over 30,000 Somalis who are outraged by the US sponsored invasion of their home Nation by Ethiopian forces.

For the American people as a whole, this catastrophe provides yet another example of the consequences of their allowing their Military Forces to gain total control over their economy and lives, and which history has long shown leads always towards total destruction.

[Ed. Note: The United States government actively seeks to find, and silence, any and all opinions about the United States except those coming from authorized government and/or affiliated sources, of which we are not one. No interviews are granted and very little personal information is given about our contributors, or their sources, to protect their safety.]

Comment: "Sorcha Faal" claims to be a female Russian scientist and a distinguished member of the "St. Petersburg" scientific community. In reality, "Sorcha Faal" is a chubby male American computer programmer, one David Booth of New Hampshire, who can't speak a word of Russian and is certainly not a "prominent Russian scientist."

"Sorcha Faal" is a great believer in, and promoter of, the "Planet X" story  which is utter manic nonsense and has absolutely no basis whatsoever in fact. Unfortunately, the Internet is clogged by a number of these unhappy people, displaying their psychological problems and mental deficiencies for all to see.

Napoleon once said that it was better to wash one's dirty linen in private but the advent of the Internet has given the weird eccentrics of the world a new life. This sort of idiocy also reminds us that the truly ugly who live in glass houses should dress in the basement.

In addition to legitimate news (and the Bush administration's chronic lies), we also have to put up with  Tom Flocco, Wayne Madsen, Chris Bolleyn  and a legion of other pathetic souls who babble and chatter endlessly in a sort of an Internet group therapy session

These unfortunate creatures have about as much value and probity as the Easter Bunny or the Creative Design types.

In order to tap the immense and often very valuable resources of the internet, one also has to put up with the Weather Control people, believers in the imminent Second Coming, the 9/11 plotters, the dread Illuminati fans, the CFR, Bilderburgers and the HAARP people, not to mention the strange nocturnal creatures who firmly believe the Rapture is going to happen tomorrow and that the Grand Canyon was caused by the fictional Great Flood of Noah.

The temptation is to tell such acolytes of lunacy to get a life but on reflection, if they got one, they wouldn't know what to do with it. Brian Harring

Green Zone Follies

Baghdad, 9 Aug 07 : “When our DoD hires bloggers to push their fictional views forward, they at least ought to pick one with some common sense. So far, most of the hilarious pro-Army crap littering the Stateside blogs sounds as if were written in a pub in Alexandria.

Recently, a series of horror stories about conditions here surfaced in a magazine and was promptly attacked by the obnoxious right wing maven, Rupert Murdoch. He has a little rag with three subscribers called ‘The Weekly Standard’ that began trashing the story, claiming it was all lies. Of course, given the huge mounds of trash you can see on Fox News, Rupert knows all about lies.  Anyway, the original publisher stated they had interviewed other soldiers in their writer’s same unit and had confirmation. The Army then forced , Pvt. Scott Thomas Beauchamp, of the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry, the author, to recant everything he wrote.

I am a former journalist and am right in the middle of the mess on a daily basis and what Beauchamp wrote was the truth.  And now we see government “friends” claiming that unless an informant gives his full name, rank and serial number, any statements of a nature considered by the Pentagon to be negative, must be a complete fake.

My advice to these paid stoolies is to cash your Treasury check, buy more kiddie porn and put a sock in your mouth. If you think about it, anyone under the physical control of the DoD who dares to make his name, rank and serial number public is asking for serious problems here. And anyone who believes to the contrary is either a paid snitch or a full-blown moron. Or considering the types working for the DoD’s PR sections, both.

I have said before that Stalin-style censorship is really in place here. All outgoing and incoming emails are inspected closely for any information that might upset Bush and his crazy Fascists. No soldier would dare to send his mother a story about gang raping a ten-year old Iraqi boy (as happened last week) or setting fire to an old Iraqi in a wheel chair (as happened in May) Also, the media ‘embedded’ here either follow the party line or out they go on the next plane.

Foreign reporters are told quietly that unless they want to get one in the head from “Arab snipers” they will watch what they put in their dispatches. In spite of the feel-good pro Bush crap the domestic American media is gushing out, the death and injury tolls are not going down but rising. The DoD cuts its reportage to the public by about half. Critical injuries are never mentioned nor are the huge number of kids with legs, arms and faces blown off. Suicides are up but desertions are rare here.

After all, where would they run to? Any GI seen running into Iran would be shot in the back before he got ten yards.

And forget the bleats from Bush that the new bombs are ‘made in Iran.’ We all know the crazy Cheney wants to invade Iran but these bombs are made up locally from parts supplied by fellow Sunnis in Saudi Arabia. And the military knows that but no one would dare tell this to Bush who would probably attack them with an ashtray.

A full-blown civil war is going on here with hundreds killed every day, whole residential blocks blown up,  rival mosques destroyed, and car bombs going off like Fourth of  July fireworks daily. Every so often, the warring factions take time off to blow up another truck full of GIs or shoot down (now with heat-seeking rockets, also from Saudi Arabia) another troop-carrying helicopter. Thirty two dead last week but guess what? None of this ever made the Stateside press.

And they won’t let anyone transfer out of this shit hole, ever. I should have left here a year ago but I’m still here, hoping a stray mortar shell doesn’t land on my quarters some night. And when I read squeals of outrage from “reputable journalists” demanding that people like me publish our names, I wonder if he has to go back to the nut house on the weekends for more electric shock therapy?

Well, a nice Treasury check buys a lot of whoring.

And one more ray of bright sunshine: The Brits are pulling out right away and from my superiors, I learn that Bush has been screaming ‘treachery’ at Brown, the new PM but the latter thinks Bush is a ‘sick fuck’ as my CO puts it, and the less he has to do with him, the better.”