TBR News June 30, 2011

Jun 29 2011

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C. June 28, 2011: With the siren song of the Presidential Elections booming across the land, the public is treated to the answering calls of the Loon Club. Ah, the yowling and screeching from the Prozac People echoing on the walls of the back wards where they live. As a case in point, we have Michele Bachmann making up more stories than Pat Robertson before Alzheimers captured him. She and Sister Sara are a pair to tie to. Both are mindless Jesus Freakos with the combined intellects of a chicken. Or the redoubtable Ron Paul who thinks that the U.S. Treasury at Ft. Knox is full of lead bars painted gold. There must be some insidious disease in this country that makes people very fat and shrinks their brains to the size of walnuts. This is evident every time a Congressman opens their mouth or we read the official party line in the major media. A dose of militant salts would be a wonderful cure for these ailments, aliments that are costing the taxpayers everything they have.

FACT CHECK: Bachmann bomblets raising eyebrows

June 28 2011

by Jim Drinkard

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) Michele Bachmann’s claim that she has “never gotten a penny” from a family farm that’s been subsidized by the government is at odds with her financial disclosure statements. They show tens of thousands in personal income from the operation.

And, on a less-substantive note, she flubbed her hometown history when declaring “John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa,” and “that’s the kind of spirit that I have, too,” in running for president.

The actor was born nearly 150 miles away. It was the serial killer John Wayne Gacy Jr. who lived, for a time, in Waterloo.

Those were among the latest examples of how the Minnesota congresswoman has become one to watch for inaccuracies as well as rising support in the Republican presidential race.

Bachmann’s wildly off-base assertion last month that a NATO airstrike might have killed as many as 30,000 Libyan civilians, her misrepresentations of the health care law, misfires on other aspects of President Barack Obama’s record and historical inaccuracies have saddled her with a reputation for uttering populist jibes that don’t hold up.

She announced her candidacy Monday in Iowa with a speech typical for someone joining the campaign. It laid out the broad themes of her candidacy and mostly avoided the Bachmann bomblets that have grabbed attention and often fizzled under scrutiny in the long lead-up.

The more the political season heats up, the more that exaggerations and sound-bite oversimplifications emanate from the Republicans going after Obama and from the Democrats playing defense. Still, Bachmann’s record on this score is distinct.

Examining 24 of her statements, Politifact.com, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking service of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, found just one to be fully true and 17 to be false (seven of them “pants on fire” false). No other Republican candidate whose statements have been vigorously vetted matched that record of inaccuracy.

A look at some of her recent statements and how they compare with the facts:

BACHMANN: “The farm is my father-in-law’s farm. It’s not my husband and my farm. It’s my father-in-law’s farm. And my husband and I have never gotten a penny of money from the farm.” On “Fox News Sunday.”

THE FACTS: In personal financial disclosure reports required annually from members of Congress, Bachmann reported that she holds an interest in a family farm in Independence, Wis., with her share worth between $100,000 and $250,000.

The farm, which was owned by her father-in-law, produced income for Bachmann of at least $32,500 and as much as $105,000 from 2006 through 2009, according to the reports she filed for that period. The farm also received federal crop and disaster subsidies, according to a database maintained by the Environmental Working Group. From 1995 through 2010, the farm got $259,332 in federal payments.

When asked about the subsidies and her income from the farm late last year, a spokesman for Bachmann said only that she wasn’t involved in decisions about the running of the farm.

Bachmann told The Associated Press on Monday that her husband became a trustee of the farm because his father had dementia before he died two years ago, and “oversees the legal entity.”

“Everything we do with those forms is in an abundance of caution,” she said, insisting she and her husband receive no farm income despite the forms reporting it.

BACHMANN: “Well what I want them to know is, just like John Wayne was from Waterloo, Iowa, that’s the kind of spirit that I have, too.” Speaking to Fox News on Sunday.

Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa, nearly three hours away, and moved to California in his childhood. John Wayne Gacy, convicted of killing 33 men and boys, was born in Chicago, moved to Waterloo to work in his father-in-law’s chicken restaurants and first ran afoul of the law there, sentenced to 10 years for sodomy. He began his killing spree after his release, and his return to Illinois.

BACHMANN: “Overnight we are hearing that potentially 10 to 30,000 people could have been killed in the strike.” Criticizing Obama in May for the “foolish” U.S. intervention in Libya, and citing what she said were reports of a civilian death toll from a NATO strike as high as 30,000.

THE FACTS: The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Gene Cretz, said in late April that U.S. officials have seen reports that 10,000 to 30,000 people may have died in Moammar Gadhafi’s crackdown on protesters and the fighting between rebels and pro-government forces, but it is hard to know if that is true. He was speaking about all casualties of the conflict; no one has attributed such a death toll to NATO bombing alone, much less to a single strike.

BACHMANN: “It’s ironic and sad that the president released all of the oil from the strategic oil reserve. … There’s only a limited amount of oil that we have in the strategic oil reserve. It’s there for emergencies.” On CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday.

THE FACTS: Obama did not empty all the oil from the strategic reserve, as Bachmann said. He approved the release of 30 million barrels, about 4 percent of the 727 million barrels stored in salt caverns along the Texas and Louisiana coasts. It’s true that the U.S. normally taps the reserve for more dire emergencies than exist today, and that exposes Obama to criticism that he acted for political gain. But the reserve has never been fuller; it held 707 million barrels when last tapped, after 2008 hurricanes.

BACHMANN: “One. That’s the number of new drilling permits under the Obama administration since they came into office.” Comment to a conservative conference in Iowa in March.

THE FACTS: The Obama administration issued more than 200 new drilling permits before the Gulf oil spill alone. Over the past year, since new safety standards were imposed, the administration has issued more than 60 shallow-water drilling permits. Since the deep water moratorium was lifted in October, nine new wells have been approved.

Associated Press writers Brian Bakst in Waterloo, Iowa, and Dina Cappiello in Washington contributed to this report. EDITOR’S NOTE – An occasional look at claims by public officials and how well they adhere to the facts.

Fighting the Culture Wars With Hate, Violence and Even Bullets: Meet the Most Extreme of the Radical Christians

From the Army of God to the Hutaree Militia to Gary North and his Christian reconstructionists, radical Christianity is alive and well in the United States.

If there is one name some residents of Amarillo, Texas wish they could forget, its Repent Amarillo. Based in that North Texas city, Repent Amarillo is a militant Christian fundamentalist group whose antics have ranged from staging a mock execution of Santa Claus by firing squad to posting a spiritual warfare map on its Web site that cited a Buddhist temple, an Islamiccenter, gay bars, strip clubs and sex shops as places of demonic activity.

Repent Amarillo is also infamous for mercilessly harassing a local swingers club called Route 66. Throughout 2009, members of Repent Amarillo made a point of showing up at Route 66s events, where they would typically wear military fatigues, shout at Route 66 members through bullhorns and write down the license plate numbers of people attending the events. After finding out who the swingers were, Repent Amarillos members would find out where they worked and try to get them fired from their jobs (according to Route 66 coordinator Mac Mead, at least two members of the club lost their jobs because of Repent Amarillo).

None of that has kept Repent Amarillo founder David H. Grisham from dabbling in local politics; earlier this year, he ran for mayor of Amarillo and lost to former city commissioner Paul Harpole.

But Repent Amarillo is hardly alone when it comes to promoting a decidedly radical and militant brand of Christianity. From the Army of God to the Hutaree Militia to Gary North and his Christian reconstructionists, radical Christianity is alive and well in the United Statesand Christianists arent shy about turning up the heat when it comes to fighting the “culture war.” Some radical Christianists have employed bully tactics and hate-mongering rhetoric without resorting to actual violence (Repent Amarillo, the Rev. Fred Phelps Westboro Baptist Church), while others have committed acts of terrorism and said the culture war will have to be won with bombs and bullets.

When religion is discussed, it is important to make a distinction between radical and non-radical practitioners. Radical Christianity is not representative of Christianity any more than al-Qaeda is representative of Islam. The average Lutheran or Episcopalian minister is no more a threat to public safety than the average member of Islams Sufi sect, who are arguably the Hare Krishnas of Islam. Not all Christians are Christianists; not all Muslims are Islamists. But an abundance of disturbing events bear out the fact that radical Christianity, like radical Islam, is quite capable of violenceand contrary to what Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter would have us believe, the examples are numerous.

Active since the early 1980s, the Army of God is a loose network of radical anti-abortionists with a long history of promoting terrorism and premeditated murder in the name of Christianity. The Army of God has published an anti-abortion training manual that offers instructions on bomb-making, arson and other ways to attack clinics.

The groups Web site praises a long list of Christian terrorists who have been convicted of violent crimes, including Paul Jennings Hill (who was executed by lethal injection in 2003 for the murders of abortion provider John Britton and his bodyguard James Barrett), Scott Roeder (who was convicted of first-degree murder for the 2009 shooting of George Tiller, a Kansas doctor who performed late-term abortions), Michael Frederick Griffin (who was sentenced to life in prison for the 1993 murder of Dr. David Gunn, an ob/gyn based in Pensacola, Florida), James Charles Kopp (who shot and killed Barnett Slepian, a physician who performed abortions, in 1998), Matthew Lee Derosia (who, in 2009, rammed his SUV into the front entrance of a Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Paul and told police that Jesus ordered him to carry out that attack) and John C. Salvi (who attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Brookline, Massachusetts in 1994, shooting and killing receptionists Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols and wounding several others).

The Web site describes Tillers murder as justifiable homicide and describes Lowney and Nichols not as victims of domestic terrorism, but as women who got exactly what they deserved; Salvi, who died in prison in 1996 and may have committed suicide, is hailed as a hero for killing them. The Army of God exaltsHill, Rudolph, Roeder, Griffin, Derosia and Salvi as martyrs for Christianity in much the same way al-Qaeda consider Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 hijackers martyrs for Islam.

The Army of God has also been a vocal supporter of Eric Rudolph, who is serving life without parole for a long list of terrorist attacks committed in the name of Christianity. Rudolphs crimes include bombing an abortion clinic in Sandy Springs, a suburb of Atlanta, in 1997; bombing the Otherwise Lounge (a lesbian bar in Atlanta) in 1997; and bombing an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama in 1998. The Birmingham bombing caused the death of Robert Sanderson, a Birmingham police officer and part-time security guard, and resulted in serious injuries for nurse Emily Lyons, who lost an eye. Rudolph is best known, however, for carrying out the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta during the 1996 Summer Olympics; that blast killed spectator Alice Hawthorne and wounded 111 others.

Another Christian terrorist who has been associated with the Army of God is Shelley Shannon, who shot Tiller in 1993 but didnt kill him; in addition to being convicted of attempted murder for her attack on Tiller, Shannon was involved in a series of arson attacks on abortion clinics in different states. One person who considered Shannon a good friend was fellow Army of God terrorist Scott Roeder, who visited her frequently in prison and finished what she started when he murdered Tiller in 2009. The Army of God Web site calls Shannon a warrior soldier in the Army of God.

In 2010, a North Carolina-based Christianist named Justin Carl Moose was arrested by the FBI for plotting to help blow up an abortion clinic; Moose, the FBI said, considers himself an Army of God member and an organizer of a terrorist cell for that group. According to the FBI, Moose described himself as a Christian equivalent of Osama bin Laden on his Facebook page but openly advocated violence against Muslims; he also praised Timothy McVeigh (mastermind of the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing of 1995, which killed 168 people and injured 450 others).

The FBI said that Moose wrote on his Facebook page: If a mosque is built on Ground Zero, it will be removed Oklahoma City style. Tims not the only man out there that knows how to do it….I have learned a lot from the Muslim terrorists and have no problem using their tactics. Moose, according to the FBI, met with an FBI informant and offered advice on how to make TATP, the explosive used in the London subway bombings of 2005. Earlier this year, Moose was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

The Army of Gods Web site has, in the past, been managed by the Rev. Donald Spitz, who is so extreme that even the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue disowned him for promoting violence. The Virginia-based Spitz has publicly argued that killing abortion doctors is justifiable homicide, and Spitz has published the writings of Paul Jennings Hill, Eric Rudolph, Shelley Shannon and other Christian terrorists on the Army of Gods Web site. Spitz, who considered himself Hills spiritual adviser during the final months of Hills life, heads his own Christianist group, Pro-Life Virginia, and has said that Muslims should not be allowed to live in the United States.

In the U.S., the far-right militia movement has often been secular in nature; Timothy McVeigh, for example, was raised Catholic but described himself as an agnostic. But occasionally, the militia movement and radical Christianity have overlapped. A perfect example is the Hutaree Militia, a Michigan-based group with extreme Christianist views. In 2010, nine members of Hutaree were arrested for an alleged plot to assassinate police officers using firearms and explosives; allegedly, Hutaree saw that plot as part of a battle with forces of the “Antichrist.”

Christian reconstructionism is one of the most disturbing schools of radical Christianist ideology. Founded by the late Calvinist theologian Rousas John Rushdoony (who died in 2001), the Christian reconstructionist movement believes in abolishing any separation of church and state and establishing agovernment that adheres to a rigid approach to Mosaic Old Testament law; adultery, homosexuality and blasphemy would be punishable by death under a Christian reconstructionist government.

Even on the Christian Right, Rushdoony (who was a defender of slavery and considered democracy incompatible with Christianity) is controversial. The type of government Christian reconstructionists long for would, in many respects, mirror the Taliban of radical Islam. Rushdoonys teachings have a following that includes his son, the Rev. Mark Rushdoony (who now heads the Chalcedon Foundation, the organization his father founded) and Gary North (who was R.J. Rushdoonys son-in-law and now heads his own Christian reconstructionist organization, the Institute for Christian Economics). According to David Holthouse (formerly of the Southern Poverty Law Center and now with Media Matters), Mark Rushdoony now leads a small army of true believers whose fundamentalism is so hardcore they make garden-variety right-wing evangelicals seem like Unitarians at a Peter, Paul and Mary sing-along.

North has written that under a Christian reconstructionist government, stoning should be the method of execution for gay men, adulterers and women who have had abortions. North has said that stoning (which is still practiced by radical Islamists in Saudi Arabia, the Sudan and other countries) is preferable to other methods of execution because it is more economical; he has also said that a stoning can be a community event for Christian families.

Of course, not everyone on the Christian Right is guilty of committing or promoting violence. But even without actual violence, Christianists often resort to bully tactics and violent rhetoric. After the January 8, 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona that killed six people and left Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords seriously wounded, Fred Phelps praised the shooter and said that he was doing Gods work. Phelps, who ran for political office several times as a Democrat in the 1990s, said, Congresswoman Giffords, an avid supporter of sin and baby killing, was shot for that mischiefWestboro Baptist Church prays for more shooters…and more dead.

Journalist Chris Hedges has often said that actual violence is preceded by the “language of violence, and the language of violence is quite common among Christianists. In 2007, when Hindu minister Rajan Zed was asked to deliver an opening prayer for the Senate, Christianist groups like the American Family Association, Operation Rescue/Operation Save America and Faith2Action angrily protested and made it clear that they had no use for Hinduism. And Repent Amarillo isn’t shy about trying to bully its victims into accepting the group’s extremist view of Christianity. Certainly, the language and rhetoric of violence is a part of Left Behind: Eternal Forces, a video game that deals with holy war in the name of Christianity and is part of the Rev. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins apocalypse-obsessed Left Behind series. Author Frank Schaeffer, who used to be part of the Christian Right but has since renounced it, has said that the Left Behind novels and games represents everything that is most deranged about religion.

But despite all the extremist views, hate-mongering and terrorist violence associated with Christianists, radical Christianity typically gets a pass from Republican politicians and the Republican talk radio hosts who support them. When, in 2009, Janet Napolitano warned of the threat of violence coming from the far right (including anti-abortion extremists), she was called anti-Christian by many people on the Christian Right. But when Rep. Peter King of New York called for Congressional hearings on radical Islamic activity in the U.S., he was applauded by neocons and many of his fellow Republicans.

Far-right talk show hosts have spent a considerable amount of time talking about radical Islam, but they seldom, if ever, have anything to say about radical Christianity. They have no problem with a group like Repent Amarillo, which hasn’t actually resorted to physical violence even though it has employed anabundance of violent, militaristic imagery. Its safe to say that if an Islamist group held a mock execution of Santa Claus and harassed people at work, it wouldnt be taken lightly in GOP circles. And if an Islamist group released a video game as twisted as Left Behind: Eternal Forces, it wouldnt get a pass from Republican talk radio.

One person who has been outspoken about the Republican/far-right double standard when it comes to radical Christianity vs. radical Islam is Rob Boston, senior policy analyst for Americans United for Separation of Church and State and author of three books on the Christian Right. From where Im sitting, the main organizations that are trying to impose religion on other people in this country are fundamentalist Christian in nature, Boston said:

I cant remember the last time, for example, that a Muslim group tried to get Islamic doctrine posted in a courthouse or attempted to ban same-sex marriage by pointing to passages in the Koran, or tried to force Islamic prayers in the public schools. But fundamentalist Christian groups do these things all the time. So if anybody is trying to impose religion on Americans, its not Muslims; its extreme fundamentalist Christian groups.

Boston added that just as it is wrong for atheists to make broad generalizations about people of faith, it is equally wrong to automatically associate terrorism and extremism with Islam:

Christian groups will complain if they are painted with too broad a brushand rightly so. Christianity in America is diverse. There are Christian groups that are theologically very moderate, and there are Christian groups that are very, very conservative. Not everyone who is a Christian in America is a fundamentalist or an evangelical. We always have to remember that there is a lot of diversity out there. Yet, the same conservative Christian groups that complain about being caricatured will do the same thing to Islam; they portray the one billion Muslims in the world as if they are exactly the same. But anybody who has spent any time talking to Muslims quickly learns that there is just as much diversity in that community as there is in the Christian community about how holy books are to be interpreted and how society is to be ordered.

Boston continued:

I just find the whole thing ironic because if you look at the agenda of the Islamic extremists, their agenda is anti-womens rights and anti-gay rights, and its about religion controlling the government. Well, what other movement do you know of that believes in those things? The Christian Right. Culturally, those movements are very similar. And theres a reason for that. Its not religion thats the problem; its fundamentalism thats the problem. I always remind people of that when Im giving speeches. Sometimes, I run across people who think that religion in general is bad and that religion is why we have all these problems. And I tell them, well, religion can persuade people to do a lot of good things in the world. Its not religion thats the problemits fundamentalism.”

Some people have described Timothy McVeigh as the ultimate Christian terrorist. This is inaccurate, because while McVeigh was raised Catholic, he appeared to be motivated by extreme anti-government/militia beliefs rather than religious motives. But there is no doubt that McVeigh was responsible for the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil prior to 9/11.

American Muslim activist Haroon Moghul, who serves as executive director of the Maydan Institute and frequently lectures on Islam, said he sees a major disparity between the way radical Christianity and radical Islam are covered by the right-wing media. I think the biggest difference in the way Islam andChristianity are covered by the right is that when it comes to Islam, the assumption has been that Islam is inherently violent or inherently political and that Islam has to prove otherwise, the New York City-based Moghul said.

When it comes to radical forms of Christianity or more extreme forms of Christianity, its always seen as an aberration by the right. But any sort of Muslim behavior that is violent or extreme or intolerant is assumed to be inherent to Islam. So the burden of proof is on a Muslim community or a Muslim individual to prove otherwise. If Osama bin Laden said something, it was assumed that it was inherent to Islam. If its Hutaree or something like that, its assumed that it is just a lone wolf or a fringe groupand its disconnected from the rest of whats happening in America. Hutaree isnt assumed to be the product of something bigger than themselves.

Moghul views the Christianity good/Islam bad narrative of the far right as symptomatic of the soundbite culture that exists in America. There really isnt room for a lot of different opinions in our political discourse in the United States, Moghul said. Whether the two-party system makes that better or worse, I dont really know. But you generally see that nuance disappears in our political discourse.

Another voice of sanity on the subject of Islam and Christianity is journalist Leonard Pitts, Jr., author of Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood and a syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald. In his columns, Pitts has had a lot to say about the way some people on the far right will try to paint Islam in general as a violent religion (as opposed to making a distinction between radical and non-radical Islam). And they get away with that double standard, according to Pitts, because it is easier to attack what is a minority religion in the U.S.

Christianity is a known element in the United States, whereas Islam is a foreign faith, Pitts explained. He continued:

Most people of faith in the United States are Christian. Most Americans know a lot of Christians but dont know any Muslims. So its easy to look at the craziest, most dangerous Muslims and assume that they are representative of Islam as a whole. Christians in the United States will look at the Army of God and say, That has no relation to any Christianity I have ever known. That has absolutely nothing to do with any Christianity I have ever known, but moderate Muslims will say the same thing about Muslims who commit acts of violence.

In one of his columns, Pitts pointed to four scriptural quotes that could be construed as violentone from the Quran, three from the Bible. His point was that cherry-picking parts of the Quran in order to prove that Islam is an inherently violent or dangerous religion is as intellectually dishonest as cherry-picking parts of the Bible in order to depict Christianity as inherently violent.

The far right, according to Pitts, often neglects to mention the fact that Muslims themselves have been the victims of Muslim extremists, including the Muslims killed on 9/11. People forget that a lot of Muslims died that day, Pitts said. Youre not going to attack Lower Manhattan that way and not kill Muslim people. He added: I don’t fear Muslims, I dont fear Christians. But I fear Muslim and Christian extremists. I fear extremists period.

If stoning proponent Gary North is mentioned at all in the Republican media, he is painted as a harmless eccentric and not part of a radical Christianist movement. But if someone in a mosque in Detroit or Oakland promoted stoning, talk-radio Republicans would be screaming about it for daysThe bottom line is that extremism in the name of religion is cause for concern regardless of whether the extremists identify themselves as Christian or Muslim. Those who claim that Christian extremism is any less dangerous than Islamic extremism are being disingenuous.

When people embrace any kind of extreme ideology, whether its religious or secular, and can tolerate no dissent, Boston said, were in for trouble.”

Alex Henderson’s work has appeared in the L.A. Weekly, Billboard, Spin, and other publications.

The Essenes and Jesus

by Thomas Kinkaid Kimmel, Jr.

The history and dogma of the Essenes

The Essenes, a Judean cult, were an agricultural community that had a communistic approach to their life style. There was a common purse and shared wealth and much, if not most, of the first expressed Christian dogma came directly from the Essenes. Unfortunately, like the Spartans and Zulus who were essentially a military community cult, the agricultural Essenes were male-oriented and homosexual in nature and performance. The Essenes were outlawed by the Romans, and many members were subsequently crucified in a general crackdown under Titus, not because of their sexual practices but because of their political opposition to Roman rule The small remnants of the Essenes retreated to the Dead Sea area and eventually died out.

The Essenes are discussed in detail by Josephus and Philo . Scholars believe that the community at Qumran that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls were Essenes, that Jesus was an Essene, and Christianity as we know it today evolved from this sect of Judaism, with which it shared many ideas and symbols The Essenes are best known today as the inhabitants from Qumran, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were located by Bedouins first in 1947.  It is now known that they were closely affiliated with the Hasidim, a sectarian group that included the disciples of Hillel and Menahem the Essene who left for Damascus in 20 BCE.

ADD Here

The Gospel of John makes references to the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 13:23, 19:26, 21:7, 20), In the text, this beloved disciple is present at the crucifixion of Jesus , with Jesus’ mother, Mary .

It has traditionally been assumed that the disciple whom Jesus loved is a self-reference by the author of the Gospel, traditionally regarded as John the Apostle .

Aelred of Rievaulx , in his work Spiritual Friendship, referred to the relationship of Jesus and John as a “marriage” and held it out as an example sanctioning friendships between clerics.[6] It has been claimed that it was held by Francesco Calcagno, who was investigated on that account by the Venetian Inquisition in 1550 .

James I of England may have been relying on a pre-existing tradition when he defended his relationship with the young Duke of Buckingham : “I wish to speak in my own behalf and not to have it thought to be a defect, for Jesus Christ did the same, and therefore I cannot be blamed. Christ had his son John, and I have my George

In the Gospel of John, the disciple John frequently refers to himself in the third person as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’.” One might argue that Jesus loved all of his followers in a non-sexual way. Thus to identify Jesus’ love for John in a special way might indicate a sexual relationship. The disciple was “the” beloved. He was in a class by himself. During the Last Supper before Jesus’ execution, the author(s) of the Gospel of John describes how the “beloved” disciple laid himself on Jesus’ inner tunic — his undergarment. See John 13:25 and 21:20. Robert Goss, assistant professor of comparative religion at Webster University in St. Louis, LA, noted that Jesus and the beloved disciple: “… eat together, side by side. What’s being portrayed here is a pederastic relationship between an older man and a younger man. A Greek reader would understand.” On the other hand: Some commentators have suggested that it was a common practice in Judea at that time for heterosexual man to lay his head on another’s undergarment. Such behavior was common between two heterosexuals in an emotionally close but non-erotic relationship during the first century CE.

Morton Smith, of Columbia University reported in 1958 that he had found a fragment of a manuscript which at the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem. It contained the full text of Mark, chapter 10. Apparently the version that is in the Christian Scriptures is an edited version of the original. Additional verses allegedly formed part of the full version of Mark, and were inserted after verse 34. It discusses how a young man, naked but for a linen covering, expressed his love for Jesus and stayed with him at his place all night.

Mark 7:14-16 shows that Jesus approves of homosexual acts. The critical phrase reads: “There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him…” Jesus gave great emphasis to this teaching, directing it to everyone.

Mark 14:51-52 describes the incident when Jesus was arrested by the religious police. It describes how one of Jesus’ followers was scantily dressed. The King James Version says he had a linen cloth cast on his naked body; the size and location of the cloth is not defined. The New International Version says that he was “wearing nothing but a linen garment.” When the police tried to seize him, they were able to grab only his cloth; the man ran away naked. Reverend Peter Murphy wrote: “We don’t know from the sources what really was going on, but we do know that something was very peculiar between Jesus and young men.” 11 (Emphasis in the original.)

Michael Kelly wrote of Jesus’ attitude towards a same-sex couple as described in Matthew 8:5-13: and Luke 7:2: “One day a Roman Centurion asked him to heal his dying servant. Scholars of both Scripture and Ancient History tell us that Roman Centurions, who were not permitted to marry while in service, regularly chose a favorite male slave to be their personal assistant and sexual servant. Such liaisons were common in the Greco-Roman world and it was not unusual for them to deepen into loving partnerships….Jesus offered to go to the servant, but the centurion asked him simply to speak a word of healing, since he was not worthy to welcome this itinerant Jewish teacher under his roof. Jesus responded by healing the servant and proclaiming that even in Israel he had never found faith like this! So, in the one Gospel story where Jesus encountered people sharing what we would call a ‘gay relationship,’ we see him simply concerned about — and deeply moved by — their faith and love.” Kelly implies that Jesus’ sensitivity towards the gay couple might have arisen from his own bisexual or homosexual orientation.

Some commentators argue from silence. They note that there is no passage in the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) that directly describes anything about Jesus’ sexuality. There are many direct and indirect references to Jesus’ sensuality. He was accused of being a “drunkard and a glutton” and of partying with “prostitutes and sinners.” He apparently enjoyed a tender foot massage from a woman. Yet, neither Jesus’ sexuality nor his celibacy is mentioned. Yet, sex is referred to, elsewhere in the Bible, quite often. One might argue that the books in the Christian Scriptures might have once described Jesus’ sexual relationships, but that these passages have been vigorously censored by the later church because they were unconventional.

Other commentators have noted that Jesus is silent towards homosexuality in the Gospels. Yet, Paul’s opinions and those of many other authors in the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) are clearly stated. They conclude that Jesus could reasonably have been gay.

In the Renaissance period (14th—16th centuries), a man was accused and tried in Venice (c.1550) for heresies, one of which was his claim that John was Christ’s catamite (cinedo di Cristo), an idea that apparently had a certain following in Italy at the time. In England, Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) authored the famous homoerotic play Edward II (1591). Then after his death, Richard Baines in a libel case claimed that Marlowe had professed that “St. John the Evangelist was bedfellow to Christ and leaned alwaies in his bosome, that he used him as the sinners of Sodome.” Another playwright Thomas Kyd said that “He [Marlowe] would report St. John to be our Saviour Christ’s Alexis,” referring to the love which the Greek shepherd Corydon felt for the fair youth Alexis as described in Virgil’s Eclogues 2 and about which Marlowe had written in his poem “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love.”71 James I, king of England and Ireland (1603-1625), shrewdly neutralized charges brought against him in Parliament over his homosexual relationship with George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, by noting that “Christ had his John and I have my Steenie.” Later, the philosopher and jurist Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) devoted himself to trying to decriminalize homosexual relations in Britain, where hangings for this had increased. In an only-partially published manuscript titled Not Paul but Jesus, Bentham mentions the special fondness which Jesus had for John, and asked, “Could John have meant to imply that he and Jesus were lovers?” Then he added, “[G]ood taste and . . . prudence would require us to turn aside” from such a “topic of extreme delicacy,” although at the same time a regard for human happiness, truth and justice still “compel” this author “to go over it.” In the modern period, the Austrian psychoanalyst

Modern scholars who believe that Jesus and his Beloved Disciple shared a homosexual relationship. Modern interpreters who hold that there was a homoerotic relationship here include: Hugh Montefiore (1969), Robert Williams (1992), Sjef van Tilborg (1993), John McNeill (1995), Rollan McCleary (2003), Robert E. Goss (2006), and James Neill (2009). The United Reformed Church of Christ of Great Britain in its document Toward a Christian Understanding of Sexuality (1984) wrote that Jesus “may have . . . been homosexually inclined.” Psychoanalyst Richard C. Friedman (1988) viewed Jesus and his ‘ beloved disciple’ as having a homosexual marriage. Rosemary Ruether (1978) and Nancy Wilson (1995) held that Jesus was bisexual. Going further in the other direction, Morton Smith (1973) suggested that as part of a secret baptismal ritual Jesus may have had physical union with more than one of his disciples.―although this view is based on a later ‘heretical’ text. Theodore Jennings (2003) believes definitely that Jesus and John “were lovers,” although he notes that the Bible tells us nothing more about how Jesus and his Beloved shared their love beyond the physical intimacy described at the Last Supper.

Thomas K. Kimmel is a former FBI agent, and the eldest grandson of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel,

A 1966 graduate of the US Naval Academy, and a Lt. Commander in the U. S. Naval Reserve, Tom went on to serve his country as an agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation for more than 25 years.

Thomas Kimmel served on the USS Taussig (DD 746), the USS Bordelon (DD 881), and the USS Manitowoc (LST 1180) from 1966-1971 during the Vietnam War and he attended John Marshall Law School in Chicago prior to joining the FBI in 1973. While in the FBI, Mr. Kimmel worked against organized crime, La Cosa Nostra, in Cleveland, served on the House Appropriations Committee Surveys and Investigations Staff at CIA Headquarters, headed the FBI in East Texas, headed the Organized Crime/LCN and Labor Racketeering Unit at FBI Headquarters and the National Drug Intelligence Center in Johnstown, PA, and served on the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency. Tom was also the Assistant Agent in Charge of the Philadelphia FBI Division where he headed the Foreign Counterintelligence and Terrorism Programs in the Philadelphia Division during the 1st attack on the World Trade Center in 1993

Upon retiring from the FBI, Tom served as a consultant to the Bureau addressing major spy scandals in the FBI and CIA and has testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Department of Justice Inspector General, the Blue Ribbon Commission of William Webster, and many other investigating entities.

thomaskkimmeljr@gmail.com, TKimmel@cfl.rr.com

Intl court orders arrest of Gadhafi, son, key aide

June 27, 2011

Mike Corder

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — International judges ordered the arrest Monday of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi for murdering civilians, as NATO warplanes pounded his Tripoli compound and world leaders stepped up calls for him to end his four-decade rule.

The International Criminal Court said Gadhafi, his son Seif al-Islam and his intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanoussi are wanted for orchestrating the killing, injuring, arrest and imprisonment of hundreds of civilians during the first 12 days of an uprising to topple Gadhafi from power, and for trying to cover up the alleged crimes.

The warrants turn the three men into internationally wanted suspects, potentially complicating efforts to mediate an end to more than four months of intense fighting in the North African nation.

The warrants will be sent to Libya, where Gadhafi remained defiantly entrenched. But when the U.N. Security Council ordered the court to investigate the bloodshed in Libya, it also urged all nations and regional organizations to cooperate with the court.

Presiding judge Sanji Monageng of Botswana called Gadhafi the “undisputed leader of Libya” who had “absolute, ultimate and unquestioned control” over his country’s military and security forces. She said there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that Gadhafi and his son are both responsible for the murder and persecution of civilians.

Libyan officials rejected the court’s authority even before the decision was read in The Hague, accusing the court of unfairly targeting Africans while ignoring what they called crimes committed by NATO in Afghanistan, Iraq “and in Libya now.”

“The ICC has no legitimacy whatsoever. We will deal with it. … All of its activities are directed at African leaders,” government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim told reporters Sunday.

In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the court’s decision highlighted the increasing isolation of the regime.

“It reinforces the reason for NATO’s mission to protect the Libyan people from Gadhafi’s forces,” he said Monday, adding that the Libyan leader and his supporters need to realize that “time is rapidly running out for them.”

NATO air forces have been conducting daily air strikes against military targets in Libya for the past 100 days. The bombing campaign, which doesn’t appear to have significantly weakened Gadhafi’s grip on power, has drawn increasing international criticism.

In Tripoli, two loud explosions shook the area near Gadhafi’s compound Monday, setting off a chorus of emergency sirens.

Libyan officials said a NATO airstrike fired two missiles targeting Gadhafi’s personal bus inside his Bab al-Aziziya compound. The bus was burned but no one was killed or injured, they said. Gadhafi is not believed to be staying at the compound.

A coalition including France, Britain and the United States began striking Gadhafi’s forces under a United Nations resolution to protect civilians on March 19. NATO assumed control of the air campaign over Libya on March 31 and is joined by a number of Arab allies.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the warrants “demonstrate why Gadhafi has lost all legitimacy and why he should go immediately. His forces continue to attack Libyans without mercy and this must stop.”

In Paris, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said “after 41 years of dictatorship, it is perhaps time to stop, for him to leave power.”

The Foreign Ministry of Italy, Libya’s former colonial ruler, said the arrest warrants confirmed that Gadhafi had “lost all legitimacy, political and moral” in both his own country and the international scene. “As such, he can have no role to play in Libya’s future,” it said.

Monageng said evidence presented by prosecutors showed that following popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, Gadhafi and his inner circle plotted a “state policy … aimed at deterring and quelling by any means – including by the use of lethal force – the demonstrations by civilians against the regime.”

Hundreds of civilians were killed, injured or arrested, she said.

Prosecutors at the court said the three suspects should be arrested quickly “to prevent them covering up ongoing crimes and committing new crimes.”

“This is the only way to protect civilians in Libya,” said the statement from the office of Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.

In London on Monday, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao warned that military action alone won’t resolve the crisis in Libya, and said his nation backed attempts to reach a political solution in the North African nation.

“Foreign troops may be able to win war in a place, but they can hardly win peace. Hard lessons have been learned from what has happened in the Middle East and Afghanistan,” Wen told reporters at a press conference.

It’s unclear how the warrant could restrict Gadhafi’s travels within Africa, since many African states are not ICC signatories and others have declined to act on an ICC arrest warrant for another African leader, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. The Sudanese leader was on his way to China at Beijing’s invitation when the warrant was announced for Gadhafi.

The African Union has said al-Bashir’s arrest would dangerously imperil the fragile peace process in Sudan and had asked the U.N. to defer the warrant for one year. The AU’s host country of Ethiopia is not an ICC member.

Gadhafi regularly attends AU summits. The AU will hold a summit later this week in Equatorial Guinea, which is not an ICC member.

Adam Schreck in Tripoli, Libya contributed to this report

Greek debt crisis prompts fears of EU disintegration

As a Brussels correspondent in the 1990s, Toby Helm reported on the EU at its zenith. Now, as Observer political editor, he returns to a city of uncertainty – over the Greek debt crisis, the future of the euro and the whole political project

June 25, 2011

by Toby Helm

guardian.co.uk

Norbert Schwaiger is a true veteran of EU summits. Now in his early 70s, the amiable German recalls with relish the triumphs and disasters from 34 years of service in Brussels as if they all happened yesterday. He chats about Delors, Kohl, Mitterrand, Chirac, Thatcher and the great rows with the British over money. The epic moments of European construction, from the Single European Act in 1986 to the Maastricht treaty in 1992 and the birth of the euro in 1999, are all fresh in his mind.

To catch up with Europe ‘s progress, Schwaiger, a former press officer who retired in 2003, returned to a Brussels summit last week to take the temperature. Much had changed. “The historical idea has faded,” he said wistfully. “When we started it was about Germany and France and the Benelux countries building a new Europe to stop the endless wars. Germany, and that generation of Germans, was ashamed of Hitler. It was about creating security, a secure Europe and a secure economy. Then they wanted to have Europe as their new home country.”

As EU officials from 27 countries milled around the giant Justus Lipsius building, the venue of a summit dominated by the dire economic plight of Greece and the resulting existential threat to the euro and the EU itself, the contrast in mood could not have been starker from the heyday of integration that Schwaiger had known.

The talk was no longer of high ideals and “more Europe”, but of mere survival for the European project. Where they used to talk of “ever closer union” in the commission press conferences, the phrase i s now rarely, if ever, heard except when referring to history. José Manuel Barroso, the pragmatic European commission president, set his sights at this summit on “stability” for the foreseeable future, meaning the EU will do well to steady the ship in the face of Greece’s financial implosion and possible exit from the single currency. Never mind any new European dreams.

From Schwaiger’s perspective, one of the reasons why Europe has run out of idealism is the passage of time. He argues that Germany’s postwar guilt, which did so much to power the European project, no longer drives young Germans to think about the EU as their parents and grandparents did. “In Germany the new generation, just out of school, has no memory of this,” he says. Instead the young see a Germany united from its former east and west, communism fallen and a continent no longer haunted by its past or racked by the fear that it could plunge back into war. Much of Europe’s original raison d’être has disappeared and Germany is now less willing to be its unquestioning, selfless paymaster.

Greece’s plight has greatly sharpened the sense, evident for several years now, that Europe has lost its drive and, in some quarters, is losing its self-belief.

But some things in the European Union , particularly in Brussels, never change, and therein, perhaps, lie the roots of its problem. Outside the unreal echo chamber that is the Justus Lipsius, the building work for the EU empire of which the founding fathers dreamed continues apace. Vast new glass edifices are being erected in the perpetual chaos of dust and noise that is part of life in the EU’s capital.

The physical construction of a united Europe seems to carry on in ignorance of the crises unfolding in the wider world. Up the road from the Justus Lipsius they are preparing the home for a new European diplomatic service, where many hundreds of mandarins will be based. Herman Van Rompuy, the first permanent president of the European council, briefed heads of government last Thursday night over dinner about the spanking new £280m base in which he will entertain EU leaders from 2014. David Cameron was apparently incensed and briefed the British press the next morning that European leaders did not “get it” as they showed off their “gilded cages” while Europe’s citizens endured austerity and Greece was on the rocks.

Van Rompuy’s talk of his new “palace” offered a perfect excuse for Cameron to court popularity at home by attacking a Europe with its head still stuck in the clouds. But whether or not it was political opportunism, the prime minister had a point. Barroso may show refreshing realism, but too many of those at the centre of the EU project still remain in semi-denial. The new pragmatists seem at odds with an old order that refuses to give up. “We do have to respond differently and too often we fail to do so. We all have to rid ourselves of this idea that we are just programmed to march ever onwards,” said one EU official.

Early in 1999, shortly after the launch of the euro, Romano Prodi, then president-elect of the commission, was not content with realising Europe’s most ambitious venture thus far, the merging of 11 national currencies into one. Instead he put his foot harder down on the integration pedal. “The single market was the theme of the 80s,” he declared. “The 90s was the decade of the single European currency. We must now face the difficult task of moving towards a single economy, a single political unity.”

Europe worked in those days on the assumption that if it ever stood still it would fail. As a result, it went at breakneck speed and bent its own rules along the way. In the planning of the euro the desire to create a massively ambitious currency union across much of the EU was achieved only by ignoring its own economic rulebook.

In the run-up to the euro’s launch, painful battles were fought between France and Germany to establish a stability pact to ensure members of the currency zone observed fiscal discipline. Euro countries, it was agreed, would have to have debt-to-GDP ratios of no more than 60% and deficit-to-GDP ratios of no more than 3%. “It was about Germany getting a stable euro, a euro like the deutschmark,” observed a German official. But when the original 11 countries were admitted in 1999, no fewer than six were allowed in with debt levels well over the required level. The rules were waived as long as their debts and deficits were moving in the right direction.

In the case of Belgium and Italy, their debt was nearer 100% of GDP than 60% – but in they went. The same leniency was shown when Greece joined in 2001, with a debt ratio heading towards double the level required. “We might have been a little too relaxed with Greece,” said Richard Corbett, a former Labour MEP who now works as an adviser for Van Rompuy. Within a few years, France and Germany were also busting the stability pact rules.

Twelve years on from the birth of the euro, as the EU prepares to lend more billions to Greece after an initial €110bn failed to do the trick, serious figures in the European debate now believe the euro’s crisis could cause the entire EU project to implode. Sir Stephen Wall, Britain’s ambassador to Brussels under John Major and Tony Blair – and no kneejerk Eurosceptic – declared recently that the EU was “on the way out”. He added: “After all, very few institutions last for ever.” A decade ago he could never have predicted he would say such a thing.

On Wednesday, the Greek parliament will vote on a new package of austerity cuts and sweeping economic reforms. If the vote is in favour, the EU will press ahead with its next bailout. No one is sure, however, whether pumping in more EU money will be enough to prevent Athens from defaulting on its massive debts. The fear is that it will not be, and that a Greek default will cause Portugal, Ireland and even Spain to do the same. The effects of that would be appalling, destroying the credit of banks across Europe and further afield that are exposed to Greek debt, wrecking their ability to lend, and landing the default insurance market across the globe with untold costs. The nightmare scenario is another economic crisis on the scale of 2008.

But still the idea – increasingly entertained by economists – that it could all end with Greece being forced out of the euro is not one anyone in Brussels will readily accept. “Greece leaving would just make matters worse, as the Greek currency would devalue, while its debt would remain in euros,” said Corbett. “And people would take fright and move their money out of the country.”

Kostas Karkagiannis, the Brussels correspondent of the Greek newspaper Kathimerini, says the Greeks will fight to stay in the euro and the EU because it is their best hope. Greeks, he says, see the EU as a haven. “All these European laws are so much better than ours. At least with the EU laws you have a chance of them being implemented. What will happen if we leave the euro with all our debt in euros? Think about the devaluation, think about the inflation. We will go back 25 or 30 years.”

That may be the view in Greece, but the prospect of throwing so much money to the stricken country is not one that appeals to other states in an EU of supposedly equal partners. Tensions are deepening between the union’s wealthier northern nations and poorer south.

The immediate challenge for Brussels is to ease the Greek crisis and hope that its economy can be revived. The aim is to get private banks that are exposed to Greek debt to exchange them for new loans. Then pray the rescue measures work. In the meantime, plans are being pushed through the European parliament to toughen up the kind of rules that were supposed to apply under the stability pact. There will be new surveillance “early warning” measures aimed at ensuring eurozone countries are not heading into economic trouble, such as unsustainable property booms.

Optimists in the EU try to convince themselves that something good could come from the crisis – meaning more economic integration and harmonisation of taxes – steps towards the single EU economy of which Prodi dreamed. One of the arguments the commission deploys to calm anxiety is to make out that Europe is no stranger to crises – indeed, it says, it has always thrived on them.

Mark Gray, a spokesman for Barroso, said: “The temptation is to look back at the past through rose-tinted spectacles. But there were always peaks and troughs.” He points to the queue of countries wanting to join the EU and the euro as evidence that they are more relevant than ever in a globalised world. Corbett believes that Europe could even emerge stronger. “That is what we hope will happen,” he says. “But you don’t hear much about that in the British press.”

THE EURO: FROM IDEALISTIC BIRTH TO CRISIS

February 1992

The Maastricht treaty, negotiated in the last months of 1991, is signed, setting out a path to the single currency. Britain secures an opt-out from its final stage.

January 1999

The euro is born and begins trading at $1.17. The European Central Bank takes over responsibility for monetary policy in the 11 member states. Currencies such as the franc, peseta and lira continue to circulate for the time being, but as “sub-units” of the euro.

2001

Greece, originally omitted because of its weak economy, joins the euro.

January 2002

Euro notes and coins become legal tender in eurozone countries, becoming the sole currency in all 12 by the end of February.

2007-2009

Following the enlargement of the European Union, several new member states join the euro: Slovenia in January 2007, Cyprus and Malta in January 2008, Slovakia in 2009 and Estonia at the beginning of this year, bringing the total number of eurozone countries to 17.

May 2010

The euro falls to a 14-month low of $1.25 as the growing Greek debt crisis rocks global markets.

June 2011

The International Monetary Fund warns European leaders they must act to resolve the problems in Greece, or risk another financial crisis.

Warming Oceans Cause Largest Movement of Marine Species in Two Million Years

June 26, 2011

by Richard Gray

The Telegraph/UK

Warming ocean waters are causing the largest movement of marine species seen on Earth in more than two million years, according to scientists.

Warming ocean waters are causing the largest movement of marine species seen on Earth in more than two million years, according to scientists. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias, file) In the Arctic, melting sea ice during recent summers has allowed a passage to open up from the Pacific ocean into the North Atlantic, allowing plankton, fish and even whales to into the Atlantic Ocean from the Pacific.

The discovery has sparked fears delicate marine food webs could be unbalanced and lead to some species becoming extinct as competition for food between the native species and the invaders stretches resources.

Rising ocean temperatures are also allowing species normally found in warmer sub-tropical regions to into the northeast Atlantic.

A venomous warm-water species Pelagia noctiluca has forced the closure of beaches and is now becoming increasingly common in the waters around Britain.

The highly venomous Portuguese Man-of-War, which is normally found in subtropical waters, is also regularly been found in the northern Atlantic waters.

A form of algae known as dinoflagellates has also been found to be moving eastwards across the Atlantic towards Scandinavia and the North Sea.

Huge blooms of these marine plants use up the oxygen in the water and can produce toxic compounds that make shellfish poisonous.

Plankton sampling in the north Atlantic over the past 70 years have also shown that other species of plankton, normally only found in the Pacific ocean, have now become common in Atlantic waters.

The scientists, who have been collaborating on the Climate Change and European Marine Ecosystems Research project, found the plankton species, called Neodenticula seminae, traveled into the Atlantic through a passage through the Arctic sea ice around that has opened up a number of times in the last decade from the Pacific Ocean.

Larger species including a grey whale have also been found to have made the journey through the passage, which winds it’s way from the Pacific coast of Alaska through the islands of northern Canada and down past Greenland into the Atlantic Ocean, when it opened first in 1998, and then again in 2007 and 2010.

Professor Chris Reid, from the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory, said: “It seems for the first time in probably thousands of years a huge area of sea water opened up between Alaska and the west of Greenland, allowing a huge transfer of water and species between the two oceans.

“The opening of this passage allowed the wind to drive a current through this passage and the water warmed up making it favourable for species to get through.

“In 1999 we discovered a species in the north west Atlantic that we hadn’t seen before, but we know from surveys in the north Pacific that it is very abundant there.

“This species died out in the Atlantic around 800,000 years ago due to glaciation that changed the conditions it needed to survive.

“The implications are huge. The last time there was an incursion of species from the Pacific into the Atlantic was around two to three million years ago.

“Large numbers of species were introduced from the Pacific and made large numbers of local Atlantic species extinct.

“The impact on salmon and other fish resources could be very dramatic. The indications are that as the ice is continuing to melt in the summer months, climate change could lead to complete melting within 20 to 30 years, which would see huge numbers of species migrating.

“It could have impacts all the way down to the British Isles and down the east coast of the United States.”

He added: “With the jellyfish we are seeing them move further north from tropical and subtropical regions as a result of warming sea temperatures.”

Researchers say the invading plankton species is likely to cause widespread changes to the food web in the Atlantic ocean as the invading species are less nutritious than native species, which are eaten by many fish and large whales.

Changes in populations of tiny animals called copepods, which are an essential food source for fish such as cod, herring and mackerel, are already being blamed for helping to drive the collapse of fish stocks as the native species of copepods have been replaced with smaller less nutritious varieties.

This has resulted in declines in North Sea birds, the researchers claim, while Harbour porpoises have also migrated northwards North Sea after sand eels followed the poleward movement of the copepods they ate.

Scientists taking part in the project from the Institute for Marine Resources & Ecosystem Studies, in the Netherlands, found that warmer water would also lead more species in the North and Irish sea as species move from more southerly areas.

But they found that the Atlantic ocean west of Scotland would have fewer species.

Dr Carlo Heip, director general of the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, which led the project that is a collaboration of more than 17 institutes in 10 different countries, said: “We need to learn much more about what’s happening in Europe’s seas, but the signs already point to far more trouble than benefit from climate change.

“Despite the many unknowns, it’s obvious that we can expect damaging upheaval as we overturn the workings of a system that’s so complex and important.

“The migrations are an example of how changing climate conditions cause species to move or change their behaviour, leading to shifts in ecosystems that are clearly visible.”

The researchers conclude that these changes will have serious implications for commercial fisheries and on the marine environment.

Among the other species to have migrated from the Pacific Ocean into the Atlantic was a grey whale that was spotted as far south as the Mediterrean off the coast of Spain and Israel.

Grey whales have been extinct in the Atlantic Ocean for more than a hundred years due to hunting and scientists found the animal had crossed through openings in the Arctic sea ice.

Dr Katja Philippart, from the Royal Netherland’s Institute for Sea Research, added: “We have seen very small plankton and large whales migrating from the Pacific into the North Atlantic, so there will certainly be many other species, including fish, that we haven’t detected yet.

“To see a whale in this part of the world was quite remarkable and when we looked at it we concluded it can only have come from one place.”

Scientists Say California Mega-Quake Imminent

June 27, 2011

by Becky Kellogg

weather.com

Like a steaming kettle with the top on,pressure is building beneath the surface of California that could unleash a monster earthquake at any time. That’s according to a new study from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

Geologists say Southern California is long overdue for a huge earthquake that could unleash widespread damage.

It all comes down to the Salton Sea, which lies to the east of San Diego. The Salton Sea lies directly on the San Andreas Fault and covers more than 350 square miles.

A big earthquake has hit the lake bed about every 180 years. But when officials started damming the Colorado River to reduce floods downstream (including in the Salton Sea), the moderate earthquakes stopped for the Salton.

Sounds like a good thing, right? Not necessarily. Seismologists think the damming stopped moderate stress-relieving earthquakes on the Salton. Now, they fear the pressure is building and the area could be as many as 100 years overdue for a mega-quake quake, measuring 8.5 or larger.

This sobering news comes just as a new poll is released that details Californians fears about earthquakes and other natural disasters.

Natural Disaster Californians Fear Most


Earthquake
57%
Wildfire 23%
Tsunami/Tidal Wave 9%
Flood/Mudslide 5%
Other/No Opinion 6%

The findings were published in the scientific journal “Nature Geoscience.”

How anything you’ve EVER said on the internet could be seen by employers as Feds approve firm that dishes dirt on applicants

  • Company keeps information on its records for SEVEN YEARS
  • Uses special software to track down applicants’ online pseudonyms
  • Means social media postings will become regular part of job application process
  • Government rules company doesn’t breach regulations

June 27, 2011

by Fiona Roberts

Daily Mail/UK

The Federal Trade Commission has approved a controversial firm which scours social media sites to check on job applicants.

It means anything you’ve ever said in public on sites including Facebook, Twitter and even Craigslist could be seen by your would-be employer.

The Washington-based commission has ruled the firm, Social Intelligence Corporation, complies with the Fair Credit Reporting Act – even though it keeps the results of its searches on file for seven years. It raises the frightening prospect of any social media posting, even it’s years old or was meant as a joke, being used in background checks.

Applicants who use online pseudonyms aren’t safe, either – the firm uses special software to link those nicknames with real, offline names known to employers.

One applicant found himself out of the running for a job after being branded racist because he once joined a Facebook group called ‘I shouldn’t have to press one for English. We are in the United States. Learn the language.’

Social Intelligence Corp scours everything from social networking sites, such as Facebook, to video and picture sharing websites as well as blogs and wikis.

The company has defended its policy of keeping the searches on file, saying it’s for compliance reasons only.

BIG BROTHER FEARS: SO WHERE DO THEY LOOK?

1. The firm searches any information which is publicly available online. It includes:

2. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter;

3. Professional networking sites such as LinkedIn;

4. Video and photo-sharing sites like Flickr and YouTube;

5. Commercial sites such as eBay and Craigslist;

6. Blogs and ‘wikis’.

It says the negative findings are not re-used if a new employer runs a check on an applicant.

Its chief operating officer, Geoffrey Andrews, said: ‘We are not… building a database on individuals that will be evaluated each time they apply for a job and potentially could be used adversely even if they have cleaned up their profiles.’

One of the reports, released to Forbes magazine, flagged an applicant for ‘demonstrating potentially violent behaviour’ because he’d posted a photograph of him holding a gun on his Facebook account.

Another was flagged for ‘illegal activity’ after putting an advert on Craigslist searching for the drug Oxycontin.

So far the company says it has found ‘negative’ online postings in up to 20 per cent of applicants it’s been asked to investigate.

Social Intelligence Corp. was founded a year ago, and soon afterwards the Federal Trade Commission began investigating over fears it could be in breach of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

DISHING THE DIRT: SO WHAT DO THEY FIND?

According to Social Intelligence Corporation’s chief operating officer:

20 per cent of candidates don’t appear on the internet at all;

60 per cent have a neutral or positive online ‘footprint’;

Up to 20 per cent of candidates have something ‘negative’ about them on the internet, especially when the pool is younger;

That figure falls to around five per cent for younger candidates.

But the government has now dropped its inquiry, ruling the company is within the rules as long as it lets applicants know whether they failed to get a job as a result of the report.

It also changed the wording on it permission form – which all applicants must sign before the checks are carried out – to make sure they know exactly what will be checked during the review.

Social Intelligence Corp says its reports are fairer than if employers simply Google candidates.

The reports only take into account ‘job-threatening’ characteristics – such as criminal activity – and does not include personal information, such as sexuality or religion, which an employee legally cannot see.

Applicants can also dispute the report’s findings, and the offending record will be deleted if it is found to be incorrect.

Mr Andrews told Forbes: ‘I like to think we are providing a service not just by screening for employers, but in helping to protect job applicants by creating a standard process for online background checks and a service that presents them with reports on negative material.’



5 of the Worst ‘Religious’ Organizations

Uncovering the lies, hypocrisy and exploitation of some of the most egregious pseudo-religious groups.

February 2, 2011

by Josh Bunting

Alternet

A common response to criticisms of religion is that its adherents can sometimes do good things, even if its for irrational reasons. Thats fair enough, but at the same time its useful to remember that while some good can be mixed in with the bad, sometimes religions create institutions of pure evil. Here are a few of them:

Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

You thought Mormons were sheltered human barnacles desperately clinging to a nostalgic vision of the past which never actually happened? Well, they are, but thats nothing compared to their even-more-inbred fundamentalist counterparts in the FLDS.

If youve ever asked a Mormon about polygamy, youve probably heard that the mainstream church discontinued the practice in the early 20th century, following a manifesto by then-Church President and prophet Wilford Woodruff. The manifesto is now considered to be prophecy — the word of God translated by the Dear Leader of the Church himself.

Warren Jeffs was the President / Prophet of the FLDS Church, but since 2007 hes been busy tending to the matter of his 10 years to life sentence for being an accomplice to rape. Church leaders currently wont tell who is the President, probably because that would be a pretty strong indication of whos been filling the role of dungeon master / marriage arranger since Warren Jeffs has been in prison.

And most recently, this past week a former FLDS member testified in court that waterboarding infants to get them to stop crying is quite common amongst the community. They call it breaking in, which I thought was a term usually applied to boots and horses. Look, I hate babies as much as the next guy, but you cant torture them. You just cant. No. STOP IT. But thats their family values, you know.

Sri Ram Sene

Sri Ram Sene translates to Army of the Lord Ram. Theyre a right-wing Hindu nationalist group in India which was founded by a politician named Bal Thackeray. In the late 1960s, Thackeray started a Maharashtra is for Maharashtrians campaign against non-Hindus migrating to Mumbai. And in 2002, he infamously called for Hindu suicide squads to fight those darned Muslims. See, Americas not the only place where right-wing whackjobs get off on hating Muslims. Heres a nice quote from him in the Asia Times:

Trouble-making Muslims should be wiped out from the country kick out the four crore [40 million] Bangladeshi Muslims and then the country will be secure, the Shiv Sena leader said. Urging Hindus to start calling India Hindu rashtra (Hindu nation), he maintained that only our religion [Hinduism] is to be honored here and then we will look after other religions.

Sound familiar? Unfortunately, so far Thackeray has failed to take his own advice and start up his own suicide squad.

In August of 2008, Sri Ram Sene sent some vandals to smash up an art exhibit by controversial artist Maqbool Fida Husain. They didnt like his artwork because it depicted Bharathmata nekkid and depicted other Hindu gods in a way they considered derogatory. So apparently the only thing they could think to do in response was to smash up his art, leaving notes explaining why they did it on the off chance that somebody missed the point. Even Bill Donahue has the decency to limit his anti-art fuckwittery to press releases.

In October of 2008, Sri Ram Sens activists attacked the offices of the democratic socialist Samajwadi Party. Someone at the SP had insulted a police chief the Sena liked, so they ransacked their central offices, damaging cars, furniture, and hoardings, according to the Senas own national general secretary Binay Kumar Singh.

This last tidbit about the Sena has a happy ending, but it starts out pretty ugly. Like the Saudi religious police (Ill get to them later), they have a real problem with Valentines Day. Pramod Muthalik, the groups leader, sent out a memo in January 2009 claiming that they would send their goons on patrol on February14 to forcibly marry any couple who expresses their love in public:

Our activists will go around with a priest, a turmeric stub and a mangal sutra on February 14. If we come across couples being together in public and expressing their love, we will take them to the nearest temple and conduct their marriage, he said. If the couples resisted the move, the girl would be forced to tie a rakhi to the boy.

But instead of that, what actually happened was that outrage over his comments was so widespread that Muthalik and about 140 of his Sena buddies had to be taken into preventative custody on Valentines Day, 2009. And the very best part was the international success of a Facebook campaign to send Sena members pink underwear which Indians call Chaddi. Here in the US we call them granny panties.

Lords Resistance Army

For the past few years, journalist Jeff Sharlett has been covering the notorious C Street Family whose shady dealings have, among other things, included ties to Ugandas proposed legislation which would punish homosexuality, including capital punishment in some instances.

The Lords Resistance Army wasnt behind that. The kill the gays bill is too mild for them. They just want straight-up theocracy in Uganda, with laws based on a mix apocalyptic Christianity focusing on the Ten Commandments and traditional Acholi spiritualism, and theyre doing pretty much everything they can do in order to make that happen.

The LRA is led by Joseph Kony, a self-proclaimed spokesperson of God and spirit medium. That means he hears voices in his head and thinks that its a deity talking to him. Under his leadership, the LRA has abducted some 30,000 children to use as soldiers, kept women as sex slaves, attacked and raped civilian populations, all of which has caught the attention of INTERPOL and the International Criminal Court. In the meantime, children find a new place to sleep every night in order to avoid getting mutilated, forced into sexual slavery or into Konys Christian militia.

Army of God

Its so typical of the American anti-abortion terrorists on the list to be the ones with the least creative name. The Army of God is a group which even the worst doctor murderers will not normally associate with. Usually what happens is that one of them will flip out and shoot or blow up a bunch of people, and the AoG will step in and claim the perpetrator as one of their own.

When Eric Rudolph blew up an abobo clinic and a gay nightclub in 1997, it was the AoG who sent handwritten letters voluntarily claiming responsibility. When Paul Hill murdered the abortion provider John Britton and 2 of his co-workers, the AoG wrote up a statement calling that mass killing morally justified.

And some of the anti-abortion terrorists reach out to the AoG on their own. Shelley Shannon who had tried to murder George Tiller in 1993 is one example. She is now serving a sentence for attempted murder and is projected to be released in November 2018. And in 2001, Clayton Waagner sent abortion providers over 500 letters containing white powder in the wake of the Anthrax scare that year. He had previously escaped from jail and robbed a bunch of banks, so he wont be getting out until around 2046.

Michael Bray is unfortunately not currently in prison, but he also associates himself with the AoG. If you havent seen this interview of him, it will sum up what hes all about.

Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice

The CFPVPV is also known as the Mutaween, also known as هيئة الأمر بالمعروف والنهي عن المنكر, also known as the Saudi Religious Police. According to author Lawrence Wright, an imam named Turki bin Faisal Al Saud began secretly monitoring CFPVPV members after one of them insulted his sister. He found that most were criminals who were given light sentences because they had memorized the Quran.

The CFPVPV is tasked with the duties of enforcing Sharia law in Saudi Arabia. That means making sure everyone prays at the proper time, keeping men and women separate so Allah doesnt get cooties, arresting the gays, preventing the corrupt Western practice of selling cats and dogs, and that sort of totally normal thing. And thats just theyre supposed to be doing. So you might imagine how bad they can get when they go above and beyond the call of duty. If you did, knock it off because Im going to get to that next.

In May of 2007, a 28 year old man in Riyadh named Ali Al-Huraisi had a run-in with the CFPVPV. Because they believed that he possessed alcohol, they broke into his house, arrested his entire family, handcuffed him, and then beat him to death. Ta-da!

In August of 2008, a member killed his own daughter for converting to Christianity. He burned her to death. Apostasy does have a death penalty associated with it in Saudi Arabia, but as in the case of Ali Al-Huraisi the role of the organization according to Saudi law is to apprehend suspects of religious crimes and hand them over to the courts. Besides confiscating things which are banned and detaining people, they arent supposed to have the power to actually carry out much punishment on their own.

And the worst of the worst of this organizations crimes has to be how they responded to a 2002 fire at a girls school in Mecca. Im going to have to quote news sources here because every time I try to start to write about it in my own words I worry that Ill just end up bashing my head through the keyboard and into my desk in a futile effort to dull the rage and disgust that builds up in the form of a terrible headache and violent twitches. So heres the BBC:

Saudi Arabias religious police stopped schoolgirls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress, according to Saudi newspapers

One witness said he saw three policemen beating young girls to prevent them from leaving the school because they were not wearing the abaya“…

The school was locked at the time of the fire — a usual practice to ensure full segregation of the sexes.

I have a question: Whats more evil than that? Seriously, even in all of fiction its difficult to find a close contender. I was against the US wars in the Middle East before they even began, but even a pinko peacenik like me would have no problem with sending some Special Ops guys over there just to specifically target these people. When youre an adult ex-con fighting girls and forcing them into a burning building because youre offended by what theyre wearing, you have to lose any possibility of sympathy from anyone with an ounce of sense in them.

Alien encounters ‘within twenty years’

A top Russian astronomer say he expects humans to encounter extraterrestrial civilisations within the next two decades

June 27, 2011

Reuters

Russian scientists expect humanity to encounter alien civilisations within the next two decades, a top Russian astronomer said on Monday.

“The genesis of life is as inevitable as the formation of atoms … Life exists on other planets and we will find it within 20 years,” said Andrei Finkelstein, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Applied Astronomy Institute, according to the Interfax news agency.

Speaking at an international forum dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life, Finkelstein said 10% of the known planets circling suns in the galaxy resemble Earth.

If water can be found there, then so can life, he said, adding that aliens would most likely resemble humans with two arms, two legs and a head.

“They may have different colour skin, but even we have that,” he said.

Finkelstein’s institute runs a programme launched in the 1960s at the height of the cold war space race to watch for and beam out radio signals to outer space.

“The whole time we have been searching for extraterrestrial civilisations, we have mainly been waiting for messages from space and not the other way,” he said.

In March a Nasa scientist caused controversy after claiming to have found tiny fossils of alien bugs inside meteorites that landed on Earth.

Richard Hoover, an astrobiologist at the US space agency’s Marshall space flight centre in Alabama, said filaments and other structures in rare meteorites appear to be microscopic fossils of extraterrestrial beings that resemble algae known as cyanobacteria.

Writing in the Journal of Cosmology, Hoover claimed that the lack of nitrogen in the samples, which is essential for life on Earth, indicated they are “the remains of extraterrestrial life forms that grew on the parent bodies of the meteorites when liquid water was present, long before the meteorites entered the Earth’s atmosphere.”

Conversations with the Crow

When the CIA discovered that their former Deputy Director of Clandestine Affairs, Robert  T. Crowley, had been talking with author Gregory Douglas, they became fearful (because of what Crowley knew) and outraged (because they knew Douglas would publish eventually) and made many efforts to silence Crowley, mostly by having dozens of FBI agents call or visit him at his Washington home and try to convince him to stop talking to Douglas, whom they considered to be an evil, loose cannon.

Crowley did not listen to them (no one else ever does, either) and Douglas made through shorthand notes of each and every one of their many conversation. TBR News published most of these (some of the really vile ones were left out of the book but will be included on this site as a later addendum ) and the entire collection was later produced as an Ebook.

Now, we reliably learn, various Washington alphabet agencies are trying to find a way to block the circulation of this highly negative, entertaining and dangerous work, so to show our solidarity with our beloved leaders and protectors, and our sincere appreciation for their corrupt and coercive actions, we are going to reprint the entire work, chapter by chapter. (The complete book can be obtained by going to:

http://www.shop.conversationswiththecrow.com/Conversations-with-the-Crow-CWC-GD01.htm

Here is the eighty-fourth chapter

Conversation No. 84

Date: Tuesday, May 27, 1997

Commenced: 10:07 AM CST

Concluded: 10:32 AM CST

GD: Good morning to you, Robert. How goes it with you today?
RTC: Quite well, thank you. And yourself?
GD: I can always complain but then there is the alternative. I’ve been going over this Kennedy business and I was very curious to know why it is that the role of certain people never became public. Or why such silly stories about Oswald’s non-visit to Mexico and his certainly non-visits to the Russian or Cuban embassies were never challenged.

RTC: Well, we have such a lock on the media here that no paper would ever publish anything about this if we asked them not to. And, of course, we did. And when the Warren Commission report came out, terribly flawed as it was, the New York Times raved about it and turned it into a best seller.

GD: They put it in the fiction section, naturally.

RTC: No, they treated it like what it was: A precious revelation of the truth, cutting through a jungle of lies. Actually, we also created the jungle of lies.

GD: Ah yes, one hand washing the other.

RTC: Precisely. I mean, Gregory, one could not cover up such an action unless one had complete control over the media and the major publishing houses. And some of the really nut books were done for us just to create literary smoke screens. And besides, the further away we get from the actual happening, and this was way back in ’63, don’t forget, the safer we all are. The circles of fanatics and nuts will always remain but the chance of their uncovering anything of importance is growing more impossible. The public has other things to think about, Gregory. More silly stories about whether this bimbo actress is in love with some pretty boy actor who actually is a cocksucker. No, that business is buried in a jungle of vines and palm trees and no explorer wants to go there. Hell, they can talk about Clinton’s latest muncher instead. And don’t forget the most important fact of all Gregory. Kennedy is still dead. And so is his pest of a brother although Hoover did him, not us.

GD: I have a friend who was a cook at the Ambassador Hotel on the night Bobby was offed and he saw the whole thing. Down in the kitchen . Sudden eruption of people, loud voices,, television lights, jostling, pushing and so on. And this man jumps out and shoots at Kennedy. Screaming, stampeding masses of idiots. He said the main chef, some Swiss, jumped over the steam tables and tackled Sirhan. The autopsy said the fatal shot was fired from about two inches away from the back of Bobby’s head but my friend said Sirhan was shooting at Kennedy with, as he called it, some little popgun and was never closer to Bobby than four to five feet. He was right there and saw the whole thing. Knew nothing about the autopsy and when I told him, he said flat out that the shooter was never, ever, that close to Bobby.

RTC: I told you Hoover had it done. One of the bodyguards did it. Latrine rumor but then they did Sullivan in because he was threatening to talk. Mistaken for a deer, poor Sullivan was. Some kid shot him right through the head using a telescope rifle. I suppose the telescope didn’t show the red jacket very well. That’s the way it goes. No, your friend was right but that’s another story that will never see the light of day. Good riddance to both of them. And God took care of old Joe the bootlegger. Sat around in a wheelchair in his dignity pants until God decided he needed another janitor up in Heaven and off Joe went. I hope he suffered, the vicious old fuck.

GD: Such violence Robert.

RTC: Gregory, you have no idea what a bad person Joe was. I put some of his background into that box I sent you. You read it?

GD: Read everything. None of that surprised me. I mean none of it. Very Renaissance Italy in nature. Machiavelli said that it was fine for the leader to be hated only so long as he was feared.

RTC: I’m told you are feared.

GD: Me? Why I’m a mixture of the Easter Bunny and some of the holier saints in the calendar. Never hurt a man in my life.

RTC: I said nothing about hurting people. Injured people can identify you.

GD: Yes, Robert, they can. But I’ve never had that problem.

RTC: No, I would think not. But you understand why Kennedy had to die, don’t you?
GD: I can see why you and your friends thought so.

RTC: Treasonable swine. And Kennedy, I mean Jack, disgraced the office.

GD: What about Clinton?
RTC: Seedy, very seedy. Back seat of an old Chevvy type.

GD: He should have kept sheep. Then the Christian right nut fringe wouldn’t get so hysterical over a blowjob or two. There idea of sex is face to face in bed with your wife, once a year, fully clothed and followed by a good bath and long prayers. God, I would hate to have such freaks as parents. I would either spike their elderberry wine with rat poison or run off and become a shill in a carnival. Which I did, by the way, when I was fourteen.

RTC: Did your family in, Gregory?
GD: No, ran off and worked in a carnival. Much fun and very instructive.

RTC: You are always a source of entertainment and surprise. The Kimmel people would have us believe you were suckled by a werewolf but I always defended you. I said it was a vampire.

GD: Oh the horror of it all. What we have now is a situation wherein the lunatics are running the asylum. And Monica saved her stained dress.

(Concluded at 10:32 AM CST)

Dramatis personae:

James Jesus Angleton: Once head of the CIA’s Counterintelligence division, later fired because of his obsessive and illegal behavior, tapping the phones of many important government officials in search of elusive Soviet spies. A good friend of Robert Crowley and a co-conspirator with him in the assassination of President Kennedy

James P. Atwood: (April 16, 1930-April 20, 1997) A CIA employee, located in Berlin, Atwood had a most interesting career. He worked for any other intelligence agency, domestic or foreign, that would pay him, was involved in selling surplus Russian atomic artillery shells to the Pakistan government and was also most successful in the manufacturing of counterfeit German dress daggers. Too talkative, Atwood eventually had a sudden, and fatal, “seizure” while lunching with CIA associates.

William Corson: A Marine Corps Colonel and President Carter’s representative to the CIA. A friend of Crowley and Kimmel, Corson was an intelligent man whose main failing was a frantic desire to be seen as an important person. This led to his making fictional or highly exaggerated claims.

John Costello: A British historian who was popular with revisionist circles. Died of AIDS on a trans-Atlantic flight to the United States.

James Critchfield: Former U.S. Army Colonel who worked for the CIA and organized the Gehlen Org. at Pullach, Germany. This organization was filled to the Plimsoll line with former Gestapo and SD personnel, many of whom were wanted for various purported crimes. He hired Heinrich Müller in 1948 and went on to represent the CIA in the Persian Gulf.

Robert T. Crowley: Once the deputy director of Clandestine Operations and head of the group that interacted with corporate America. A former West Point football player who was one of the founders of the original CIA. Crowley was involved at a very high level with many of the machinations of the CIA.

Gregory Douglas: A retired newspaperman, onetime friend of Heinrich Müller and latterly, of Robert Crowley. Inherited stacks of files from the former (along with many interesting works of art acquired during the war and even more papers from Robert Crowley.) Lives comfortably in a nice house overlooking the Mediterranean.

Reinhard Gehlen: A retired German general who had once been in charge of the intelligence for the German high command on Russian military activities. Fired by Hitler for incompetence, he was therefore naturally hired by first, the U.S. Army and then, as his level of incompetence rose, with the CIA. His Nazi-stuffed organization eventually became the current German Bundes Nachrichten Dienst.

Thomas K. Kimmel, Jr: A grandson of Admiral Husband Kimmel, Naval commander at Pearl Harbor who was scapegoated after the Japanese attack. Kimmel was a senior FBI official who knew both Gregory Douglas and Robert Crowley and made a number of attempts to discourage Crowley from talking with Douglas. He was singularly unsuccessful. Kimmel subsequently retired, lives in Florida, and works for the CIA as an “advisor.”

Willi Krichbaum: A Senior Colonel (Oberführer) in the SS, head of the wartime Secret Field Police of the German Army and Heinrich Müller’s standing deputy in the Gestapo. After the war, Krichbaum went to work for the Critchfield organization and was their chief recruiter and hired many of his former SS friends. Krichbaum put Critchfield in touch with Müller in 1948.

Heinrich Müller: A former military pilot in the Bavarian Army in WWI, Müller  became a political police officer in Munich and was later made the head of the Secret State Police or Gestapo. After the war, Müller escaped to Switzerland where he worked for Swiss intelligence as a specialist on Communist espionage and was hired by James Critchfield, head of the Gehlen Organization, in 1948. Müller subsequently was moved to Washington where he worked for the CIA until he retired.

Joseph Trento: A writer on intelligence subjects, Trento and his wife “assisted” both Crowley and Corson in writing a book on the Russian KGB. Trento believed that he would inherit all of Crowley’s extensive files but after Crowley’s death, he discovered that the files had been gutted and the most important, and sensitive, ones given to Gregory Douglas. Trento was not happy about this. Neither were his employers.

Frank Wisner: A Founding Father of the CIA who promised much to the Hungarians and then failed them. First, a raging lunatic who was removed from Langley, screaming, in a strait jacket and later, blowing off the top of his head with a shotgun.

Robert Wolfe: A retired librarian from the National Archives who worked closely with the CIA on covering up embarrassing historical material in the files of the Archives. A strong supporter of holocaust writers specializing in creative writing

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