Headlines / updates

[Nursey]

Laboratory director fired for questioning official federal Sept. 11 scenario (http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/key_researcher.html)



SOUTH BEND, Ind.—A former laboratory director of a division of Underwriters Laboratories (UL) in South Bend generated considerable heat in professional circles on Nov. 11 when he fired off a letter via email to a prominent metallurgist, questioning the theory that jet fuel fires set by the 9-11 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center were hot enough to soften or melt structural steel.

Sending that email led to Kevin R. Ryan being fired from his job as site manager at the UL-affiliated Environmental Health Laboratories Inc., in South Bend.

Ryan wrote his professional opinion to metallurgist Frank Gayle at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) because NIST, with Gayle at the helm, is conducting a $16 million, two-year investigation of the twin towers’ collapse, with a draft report expected in January.

UL has played “a limited role in the investigation,” noted The South Bend Tribune on Nov. 22. The investigation reportedly involves testing the type of steel used to construct the World Trade Center—mainly its ability to withstand fires.

The federal probe postulates that burning jet fuel was a primary factor in the structural collapse that led to the “pancaking”-style, vertical demolition of the 110-story WTC towers on Sept. 11, 2001. However, any clear information that throws water on that theory is bound to furl some brows among those who accept the government’s story of how the WTC towers were destroyed.

Ryan, whose firing may be in response to his decision to share his letter beyond the confines of his company and its affiliates, did not return phone messages left for him by AFP on Nov. 29 and Nov. 30.

According to the 911Truth.org News Service, he copied his letter, via email, to David Ray Griffin, author of the book about 9-11 called The New Pearl Harbor. Ryan also copied it to Catherine Austin Fitts, a member of the 911Truth.org board.

Griffin reportedly received permission to distribute Ryan’s letter to other parties.

On Nov. 12, the letter was published at septembereleventh.org, the web site of the 9-11 Visibility Project.

AFP obtained a copy of Ryan’s letter, in which Ryan said he was speaking for himself only, not on behalf of UL or his laboratory. The recipient, Gayle, is deputy chief of the Metallurgy Division of the NIST.

“The buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning jet fuel,” Ryan noted in his rather lengthy letter, referring to the results of performance tests on models of the floor assemblies used in the Twin Towers, as he described it. In the letter, Ryan refutes Dr. Hyman Brown from the WTC construction crew, who claims that the WTC buildings collapsed “due to fires at 2,000 [degrees] F melting the steel.”

Ryan also noted that a newspaper, which he did not name, commented on Brown by saying, “Just-released preliminary findings from a National Institute of Standards and Technology study of the World Trade Center Collapse support Brown’s theory.”

Ryan pointed out in his letter that the steel components would have had to have been exposed to temperatures around 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit for several hours.

“And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3,000 F. Why Brown would imply that 2,000 F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all.”

Referring to the summer 2003 results of Gayle’s own published metallurgical tests, Ryan noted that “weak steel” was virtually ruled out at that time as a “contributing factor in the collapse.”

Ryan wrote to Gayle: “Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500 degrees (250 C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.”

However, Gayle later released additional findings that, according to Ryan, “seem to ignore” the 2003 results.

Ryan pointed out that the summary of the new findings “states that the perimeter columns softened, yet your findings make clear that ‘most perimeter panels (157 of 160) saw no temperature above 250 C.’ To soften steel for the purposes of forging, normally temperatures need to be above 1,100 C. However, this new summary report suggests that much lower temperatures were able to not only soften the steel in a matter of minutes, but lead to rapid structural collapse.”

In the letter to Gayle, Ryan added: “This story just does not add up. If steel from those buildings did soften or melt, I’m sure we can all agree that this was certainly not due to jet fuel fires of any kind, let alone briefly burning fires in those towers. That fact should be of great concern to all Americans. Alternatively, the contention that this steel did fail at temperatures around 250 C suggests that the majority of deaths on 9-11 were due to a safety-related failure. That suggestion should be a great concern to my company.”

Noting that the events of 9-11 “are the emotional driving force behind the War on Terror,” and that the WTC collapse “is at the crux of the story of 9-11,” Ryan told Gayle: “My feeling is that your metallurgical tests are at the crux of the crux of the crux.”

Ryan summarized, “Either you can make sense of what really happened to those buildings, and communicate this quickly, or we all face the same destruction and despair that come from global decisions based on disinformation and ‘chatter.’ . . . Please do what you can to quickly eliminate the confusion regarding the ability of jet fuel fires to soften or melt structural steel.”
The 911Truth.org News Service, quoting a Nov. 12 New York Times report, noted that “the NIST team under Gayle is planning to hold some of its deliberations in secret” and that some 9-11 victims were considering filing a lawsuit “to force the agency to open the meetings to the public.”

The NIST investigation was started in 2002 after lobbying by the Skyscraper Safety Campaign, created by Monica Gabrielle and Sally Regenhard, both of whom lost family members on Sept. 11, 2001.

UL media spokesman Paul Baker had not returned two phone messages as this story went to press.

An unattributed UL-linked comment in the above-mentioned Nov. 22 South Bend Tribune story denied that UL ever certified the materials for building the WTC.

However, Ryan stated in his letter: “. . . [T]he company I work for certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings.”

[Nursey]

2 say they found 9/11 'black boxes' (http://infowars.com/print/Sept11/blackboxes_found.htm)

Two men who worked extensively in the wreckage of the World Trade Center claim they helped federal agents find three of the four "black boxes" from the jetliners that struck the towers on 9/11 - contradicting the official account.

Both the independent 9/11 Commission and federal authorities insist that none of the four devices - a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) from the two planes - was ever found.

But New York City Firefighter Nicholas DeMasi has written in a book self-published by Ground Zero workers that he took federal agents on an all-terrain vehicle in October 2001 and located three of the four. His account is backed by a well-known Ground Zero volunteer.

Their story raises the question of a cover-up at Ground Zero - although's it's not clear why the government would want to keep the discovery under wraps.

A footnote to this summer's 9/11 Commission Report states: "The CVRs and FDRs from American 11 and United 175" - the two planes that hit the Trade Center - "were not found."

FBI spokesman Jim Margolin and Frank Gribbon of the FDNY said this week they are certain the devices weren't recovered.

The "black boxes" - actually orange - could have provided valuable information about how the 9/11 attacks were pulled off.

The cockpit voice recorder, which captures the last 30 minutes of a doomed flight on a tape loop, would have captured the hijackers' voices and any radio transmissions. The flight data recorder records key data such as airspeed, heading and altitude.

They are built to survive an impact of 3,400 Gs and a fire of 1,100 degrees Celsius for one hour, somewhat higher than estimates of the World Trade Center blaze.

"I can't recall another domestic case in which we did not recover the recorders," Ted Lopatkiewicz, spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, told CBS News in 2002. However, officials said little of the jets was recovered.

DeMasi, with now-defunct Engine Company 261, told his story in a 2003 book published by a group that calls itself Trauma Recovery Assistance for Children. He said he donated 4 ATVs to the cleanup and became known as "the ATV Guy."

"At one point, I was asked to take federal agents around the site to search for the black boxes from the planes...," he wrote. "We loaded up about a million dollars worth of equipment and strapped it into the ATV...

"There were a total of four black boxes. We found three."

Efforts to locate and interview DeMasi, now said to be with the FDNY's Marine Unit, were not successful.

But his account was verified by another member of the TRAC Team, recovery site volunteer Mike Bellone. He said he didn't go out with FBI agents on the ATV but observed their search.

At one point, Bellone said he observed them with a red-orange, charred device with two white stripes. Pictures on the NTSB Web site show the devices are orange with two white stripes.

"There was the one that I saw, and two others were recovered in different locations - but I wasn't there for the other two," Bellone said. He said the FBI agents left with the boxes.

Bellone has been criticized for his handling of TRAC finances and for wearing an official uniform when he's only an honorary fireman - but those allegations came after DeMasi's account.

Of the eight (apparently there were only 4, as the next report quoted states) black boxes aboard the four crashed airplanes on September 11th, not one survived. The term "black box" refers to a sensitive instrument, also known as a flight data recorder, that can be found on all commercial aircraft. Housed in a fireproof, shock-resistant container that can withstand forces of up to 340 g's, the black box has long been thought to be one of the toughest pieces of scientific equipment ever devised. Never in the history of modern avionics has a black box gone unrecovered from a crash scene until September 11th.

--However, Moammad Atta's passport survived the crash into the World Trade Center, a crash that melted steel. It was recovered only hours after the crash. Moammed Atta is said to have been the leader of the hijackers.

--After the Bali Bombing that left a sixty-foot radioactive crater in the middle of the street and was responsible for melting automobiles two blocks away, the passports of the Saudi terrorists who were supposedly in the vehicle that housed the bomb were recovered within minutes. No truck parts were ever found.

--The recent suicide bombing in Haifa, Israel, was so devastating that along with killing fifteen and wounding an additional forty, it showered the street with body parts and removed the entire roof from the bus. And yet the blast was unable to destroy a single sheet of lined, three-ring notebook paper carried by the bomber. According to the Israeli Foreign Minister, the note "praised the September 11th WTC bombing in NYC."
Source (http://www.vnnforum.com/showthread.php?t=2235)

[Nursey]

Kelly 'could not have died' from knife wound, paramedics claim (http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1422152004)


Key points
• Paramedics believe wounds unlikely as cause of death due to lack of blood
• Medical situation complicated by opiate drugs and blood condition in victim
• Thames Valley Police have no intention of re-opening the case

Key quote
I just think it is incredibly unlikely that he died from the wrist wound we saw. There just wasn’t a lot of blood. When someone cuts an artery, whether accidentally or intentionally, the blood pumps everywhere." - VANESSA HUNT, PARAMEDIC

Story in full POLICE have rejected calls to re-open the inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, the government weapons expert, after two paramedics who found him at the scene of his death said he could not have died from self-inflicted knife wounds.

Dave Bartlett and Vanessa Hunt, both ambulance workers, yesterday spoke out for the first time since the Hutton Inquiry, which concluded that Dr Kelly had committed suicide and died of wounds to the ulnar artery in his left wrist.

The paramedics disputed the findings of the investigation, claiming there was not enough blood at the scene to merit the official conclusions.

They had raised the same concerns while giving evidence to the inquiry last year.

Dr Kelly was found dead in July 2003 shortly after being named as the source of a BBC story which claimed that the government had "sexed-up" a dossier on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.

His body was discovered at Harrowdown Hill woods, Oxfordshire, prompting the government to appoint Lord Hutton to conduct an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the scientist’s death.

In his report, published in January this year, Lord Hutton concluded that Dr Kelly, 59, had killed himself by cutting his left wrist after taking co-proxamol painkillers, adding that there was no evidence whatsoever that any third party had been involved.

But Ms Hunt, a paramedic with more than ten years’ experience, said yesterday that shortly after arriving at the scene of Dr Kelly’s death she concluded he had not died by slashing his wrists.

She said: "I just think it is incredibly unlikely that he died from the wrist wound we saw. There just wasn’t a lot of blood. When someone cuts an artery, whether accidentally or intentionally, the blood pumps everywhere."

She added: "When we arrived on the scene there was no gaping wound, there wasn’t a puddle of blood around. There was a little bit of blood on the nettles to the left of his left arm. But there was no real blood on the body of the shirt.

"If you manage to cut a wrist and catch an artery you would get a spraying of blood, regardless of whether it’s an accident. Because of the nature of an arterial cut, you get a pumping action. I would certainly expect a lot more blood on his clothing, on his shirt.

"If you choose to cut your wrists, you don’t worry about getting blood on your clothes. I didn’t see any blood on his right hand. If he used his right hand to cut his wrist, you would expect some spray," the paramedic said.

Ms Hunt’s claims were backed yesterday by a number of prominent experts, including Dr Bill McQuillan, a former consultant at Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary, who for 20 years has dealt with hundreds of wrist accidents.

"I have never seen one death resulting from cutting an ulnar artery," Dr McQuillan said. "I can’t see how he would lose more than a pint of blood by cutting the ulnar."

But despite growing doubts about the case, other forensic experts remain "satisfied" with Lord Hutton’s verdict.

According to Dr Bob Van Hegan, a consultant pathologist, the paramedics’ assessment of the manner in which Dr Kelly died was purely speculative.

He said: "I don’t see the discrepancies. People will sometimes set out to kill themselves and die of another cause."

Dr Hagen said there were "three factors operating" which could have contributed to the scientist’s death, in addition to the wrist wound.

He pointed out that Dr Kelly’s coronary arteries were in a poor condition and that he suffered from a vascular disease and had taken an opiate drug.

In March this year the Oxfordshire coroner, Nicholas Gardiner, decided not to reconvene the inquest into Dr Kelly’s death after it was adjourned while Lord Hutton held his inquiry.

But in the wake of Lord Hutton’s verdict, Mr Gardiner, who himself examined Dr Kelly’s body, said he had received "substantial correspondence from people believing they had relevant evidence" regarding the scientist’s death.

Among the points they made was that Lord Hutton was a judge, not an expert coroner, and that he did not have the power to compel witnesses to attend.

A spokesman for Thames Valley Police said yesterday that they had no intention of re-opening the case.

He said: "We are fully satisfied with the outcome of the investigation into David Kelly’s death. The inquiry and the coroner agreed with our findings."

[Coma White]

The second report is from Inforwars.com, which I'm sorry to day is not a reliable source of information so I will not take any part of it seriously.

The first however is thought provoking, cause a friend of mine who is also a metalurgist says that there was something fishy about the steel inside the WTC melting.

[Nursey]

The second report is from Inforwars.com, which I'm sorry to day is not a reliable source of information so I will not take any part of it seriously.
Well do a quick search (http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=black+boxes+found+at+world+trade+centre+g round+zero&hl=en) and you will see that the story is not exclusive to infowars.com.
...I bet Nursey is insulted that you think she would not read something entirely before she posts it.
Well, in the same way that i would be 'insulted' if a blind person told me i looked ugly.

[Dubya 2.0]

Well, in the same way that i would be 'insulted' if a blind person told me i looked ugly.

Lovely. Will remember that one.

[whocares?]

One reason that I believe that the Government might really have withheld black box tapes is because they didn't want the country hearing the terrorist screaming "ALLAH AKABAR" as they slammed the planes into the buildings.

The American Government genuinely feared a backlash against Muslims that would have rivaled the abuses of Japanese/Americans after Pearl Harbor.

Either that, or they didn't want us hear that the suicide pilots sounded like they were from Boston. :lol:

Probably the "Allah" thing.

Barry

[Nursey]

Rampant Insider Selling Raises Red Flags - AP Reports Major Corporate Execs, Including Some From the Homebuilding Industry Are Dumping Stocks - Serious Predictor of a Coming Crash (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/121504_insider_selling.shtml)

[whocares?]

Now that Nursey, is actually something that I can believe.

Barry

[GAS]

I'd link the story about the CIA agent being forced to quit for not forging documents about WMD's in Iraq but I be lazy yo.

[Nursey]

Speaking of blind men and ugliness...good to see the back of David Blunkett...

Liberty is on the line (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,11026,1376405,00.html)

Saturday December 18, 2004
The Guardian

It is of first importance for the rule of law in a democracy that the decisions of the highest court are accepted by both the executive and the legislature ([Judges' verdict on terror laws provokes constitutional crisis, December 16).
The law lords' judgment, which will become a milestone in the long struggle for human rights, can be adhered to in a number of ways that respect the presumption of innocence and the right of every person to a fair trial. In Northern Ireland, for instance, there were the single-judge Diplock courts, and trials held in camera. Release under close surveillance is another option.

To permit indefinite detention, coupled with the isolation of the detained person from friends and family over years, is to destroy the very structure of human rights and justice we claim to defend.
Shirley Williams
House of Lords

If David Blunkett hadn't resigned on Wednesday, would he have had to resign on Thursday when the law lords savaged his anti-terrorism legislation?

Their judgment is his true legacy - this story is no longer about visas and affairs, but about a Labour home secretary who attacks perhaps the most basic tenet of British law and of democracy itself, habeas corpus - the right of the individual not to be detained without charge or trial.

Lord Bingham, in his judgment, reminds us that "the appellants were able to draw on the long libertarian tradition of English law dating back to Chapter 39 of Magna Carta 1215, giving effect in the ancient remedy of habeas corpus". This is a fundamental keystone of democracy and the British legal tradition. The significance of this ruling is that the government is still subject to the law of the land - that this is still, for the moment, a state based on the rule of law and not the arbitrary rule of government.
Jane Mayes
Geoffrey Clapp solicitors

I am deeply disturbed by the apparent determination of the Home Office not to bow to the ruling of the highest court and to take no immediate action to remedy the illegal detention by either releasing the detainees or charging and bringing them to trial.

The concept of indefinite detention without trial is abhorrent, inhumane and contrary to a fundamental principle underlying the rule of law which has been established since the great landmark cases of the 18th century. If it is ever justified, it can only be when there is a genuine national emergency where the threat is to the very life of the nation.

I do not underestimate the power of terrorists to kill and destroy, but the judges were plainly correct to say that there was then no national emergency which could, in law, justify opting out of article 5 of the European convention on human rights. The act was part of a politics of fear which is damaging the US and must not be allowed to damage us here in the UK.

As the judges said, our responses to the terrorist threats we face must be proportionate. Our civil liberties, which David Blunkett took so lightly, took centuries to establish and we must be utterly vigilant against current attempts to diminish them.

If the Home Office does not either charge or release the detainees, a most serious constitutional crisis must result from the precedent of defiance thus created.
(Prof) John Rear
University of Northumbria

The British government's refusal to accept the law lords' strong and unequivocal ruling on indefinite detention without trial speaks volumes about Tony Blair and Jack Straw. In their eagerness to emulate the aggressive and authoritarian practices of George Bush, Blair and Straw reject the very traditions that have long defined and sustained the common law, and not just in Britain. What sort of message will this send to the Ukrainians, Iraqis, Uzbeks and Burmese?
Michael Byers
University of British Columbia



U.K. Criminal Justice weblog (http://www.ukcjweblog.org.uk/2004/12/17.html)

[Nursey]

Pentagon: Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash (http://edition.cnn.com/2004/US/12/27/rumsfeld.flt93/index.html)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A comment Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made during a Christmas Eve address to U.S. troops in Baghdad has sparked new conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

In the speech, Rumsfeld made a passing reference to United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to stop al Qaeda hijackers.

But in his remarks, Rumsfeld referred to the "the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania."

A Pentagon spokesman insisted that Rumsfeld simply misspoke, but Internet conspiracy theorists seized on the reference to the plane having been shot down.

[ucicare]

from the Underwriters Lab official reply -
"Ryan was fired, Baker said, because he "expressed his own opinions as though they were institutional opinions and beliefs of UL."



The lying ____. You know it was a cover up. Right?

Barry

[Nursey]

from the Underwriters Lab official reply -
"Ryan was fired, Baker said, because he "expressed his own opinions as though they were institutional opinions and beliefs of UL."



The lying ____. You know it was a cover up. Right?

Barry
Area man stirs debate on WTC collapse
South Bend firm's lab director fired after questioning federal probe (http://www.wanttoknow.info/911kevinrryanfired)


Ryan's statements have generated interest on many Web sites, including some advocating sharp scrutiny of the federal government's WTC probe.

Ryan copied his e-mail to David Ray Griffin, author of "The New Pearl Harbor," and to Catherine Austin Fitts, a board member of 911Truth.org -- a Web site organized by citizens who believe the government is covering up the true cause of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

One day later, Griffin requested and received permission to distribute Ryan's letter to other parties.

An official from 911Truth.org called Ryan to confirm his authorship. They said Ryan made it clear he is speaking for himself only, not on behalf of his laboratory or the company, but that others at UL were aware of his action.

The letter was published Nov. 11 on the Web site

septembereleventh.org, site of the 9/11 Visibility Project. On Tuesday, organizers of the 911Truth.org Web site noted Ryan had been fired.

In his letter, Ryan appeared confident in his statements about the WTC's fire protection levels.

"You may know that there are a number of current and former government employees that have risked a great deal to help us to know the truth," he told the institute's Gayle. "Please do what you can to quickly eliminate the confusion regarding the ability of jet fuel fires to soften or melt structural steel."

UL moved immediately to discredit Ryan.

The company said Ryan "was not involved in that work and was not associated in any way with UL's Fire Protection Division, which conducted testing at NIST's request."

The company said it "fully supports NIST's ongoing efforts to investigate the WTC tragedy. We regret any confusion that Mr. Ryan's letter has caused 9/11 survivors, victims' families and their friends."

"We prefer to base our conclusions, and NIST would say the same, on science rather than speculation," Baker said. "We anxiously await the outcome of the NIST investigation."

Organizers of 911Truth.org came to Ryan's defense Thursday, although they couldn't persuade him to speak publicly.

"He just saw too many contradictions, and it set off his sense of what was the right thing to do," said David Kubiak, 911Truth.org's executive director. "It's unfortunate for the country, and it's particularly tragic for him, but inspiring as hell."

"The way things are working in the country right now," Kubiak added, "it's only going to be citizens like this who take their professional knowledge and sense of personal integrity, and put it ahead of the strange status quo, that we will see truth and justice out of the system."

[Nursey]

Former US attorney general joins Saddam defence team (http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1380765,00.html)
Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday December 30, 2004
The Guardian

Ramsey Clark, a former US attorney general, has joined Saddam Hussein's legal team to contest before a special tribunal charges of committing wholesale atrocities, it was announced yesterday.
Mr Clark, who led the justice department under President Lyndon Johnson, flew on Tuesday to Amman, Jordan, where the 20-strong international defence team is based. A spokesman for the team, Ziad Khassawneh, said his arrival "honours and inspires us".

The defence team already includes one American lawyer, Curtis Doebbler, and a former French foreign minister, Roland Dumas.

Mr Clark has been an outspoken voice on the American left since leaving government in 1969 and joining the movement against the Vietnam war. He has also been involved in the defence of Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader.

In Amman this week, Mr Clark said: "In international law, anyone accused of crime has the right to be tried by a competent, independent and impartial court, and there can be no fair trial without those qualities.

"The special court in Iraq was created by the Iraqi governing council, which is nothing more than a creation of the US military occupation."

[ucicare]

Quote from article in reference -
"A Pentagon spokesman insisted that Rumsfeld simply misspoke, but Internet conspiracy theorists seized on the reference to the plane having been shot down."

1, If the US orchestrated the hijacking and attacks, why shoot the plane down before it hit anything?

2. If the plane was shot down, doesn't that tend to prove that it was hijacked as stated and was a threat to the US, and the US defended itself?

DUH?


Barry

[Nursey]

Quote from article in reference -
"A Pentagon spokesman insisted that Rumsfeld simply misspoke, but Internet conspiracy theorists seized on the reference to the plane having been shot down."

1, If the US orchestrated the hijacking and attacks, why shoot the plane down before it hit anything?

2. If the plane was shot down, doesn't that tend to prove that it was hijacked as stated and was a threat to the US, and the US defended itself?

DUH?


Barry
Well, i agree with you, in some part anyway. I don't think the article proves anything one way or the other....but should still be taken into consideration in light of the overwhelming deluge of highly anomalous or conflicting data where everything that government does is concerned, whether it be from their highly unconventional means of election to their rather convenient (to be frank) 'war on terror'...
And who knows why they would do that, there are more than the two possible scenarios that could be construed from the information, you know...

[pimpchichi]

one thing comes to mind.. if the plane was shot down then the whole "let's roll" hero story is called into doubt.. another inconsistency to add to the tally

[ucicare]

one thing comes to mind.. if the plane was shot down then the whole "let's roll" hero story is called into doubt.. another inconsistency to add to the tally

Lets all remember that the "lets roll" hero story was started by a distraught wife, and then grew legs on the internet. The "Government" had nothing to do with this "hero story." It is probably a great exaggeration, and I think most Americans know that. What are we supposed to do? Call the poor widow and tell her to get it right?

I'll let you and Nursey do that.

Barry

[pimpchichi]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0842373195/102-6731102-0288921?v=glance
http://www.strategic-air-command.com/gallery/enduring_freedom/lets-roll1.htm
http://www.letsroll911.org/

1st 3 oudda google

[ucicare]

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0842373195/102-6731102-0288921?v=glance
http://www.strategic-air-command.com/gallery/enduring_freedom/lets-roll1.htm
http://www.letsroll911.org/

1st 3 oudda google

Which validates exactly what I said. This is just people, not some official government backed hoax. Come on, surely you of all people understand the power of misrepresentations being repeated over and over until it is believed.

Barry

[Nursey]

Villagers furious with Christian Missionaries (http://in.news.yahoo.com/050116/139/2j1rp.html)


Samanthapettai, Jan 16 (ANI): Rage and fury has gripped this tsunami-hit tiny Hindu village in India's southern Tamil Nadu after a group of Christian missionaries allegedly refused them aid for not agreeing to follow their religion.

Samanthapettai, near the temple town of Madurai, faced near devastation on the December 26 when massive tidal waves wiped it clean of homes and lives.

Most of the 200 people here are homeless or displaced , battling to rebuild lives and locating lost family members besides facing risks of epidemic,disease and trauma.

Jubilant at seeing the relief trucks loaded with food, clothes and the much-needed medicines the villagers, many of who have not had a square meal in days, were shocked when the nuns asked them to convert before distributing biscuits and water.

Heated arguments broke out as the locals forcibly tried to stop the relief trucks from leaving. The missionaries, who rushed into their cars on seeing television reporters and the cameras refusing to comment on the incident and managed to leave the village.

Disappointed and shocked into disbelief the hapless villagers still await aid.

"Many NGOs (volunteer groups) are extending help to us but there in our village the NGO, which was till now helping us is now asking us to follow the Christian religion. We are staunch followers of Hindu religion and refused their request. And after that these people with their aid materials are leaving the village without distributing that to us," Rajni Kumar, a villager said.

The incident is an exception to concerted charity in a catastrophe that has left no one untouched.(ANI)

[Nursey]

Religious aid groups try to convert victims (http://www.guardian.co.uk/tsunami/story/0%2C15671%2C1391491%2C00.html)

Muslim clerics object as Western Christian groups hand out food and Bibles, reports Jason Burke in Banda Aceh

Sunday January 16, 2005
The Observer

Dozens of religious groups have moved in to Aceh, looking to help tsunami victims - and convert them and others, creating tensions in the disaster area.
The arrival of Western Christian groups with records of aggressive preaching risks confrontation with local Muslim leaders which could jeopardise the provision of aid to the 600,000 local people made homeless by the disaster. The death toll in Aceh stands at around 110,000 and is expected to rise.

Reacting to the attempts of one American group to fly hundreds of local children to a Christian orphanage, Din Syamsuddin, head of the Indonesian Council of Clerics, said any attempt to spread religion under the cover of aid was wrong.

'The Muslim community will not remain quiet. This a clear statement, and it is serious,' he said.

Many survivors of the disaster are deeply traumatised by their experience and thus, experts say, vulnerable to religious groups. The disaster has led to a huge increase in religious sentiment. Many Acehnese speak of the wave as a punishment from God for immorality and lax Islamic practice, pointing out that in many villages only the mosque was left standing.

'I had faith but never did what I should have done,' said Shinta Ekhsani, a 29 year-old English teacher. 'I did not pray five times a day. I did not teach my children about Islam. I was too materialistic. Now I have changed.'

Most Indonesians follow a moderate strand of Islam, very different from more hardline varieties increasingly prevalent in the Middle East. Local Muslim groups were among the first to bring help to victims. Aceh is Indonesia's most religiously conservative province.

However, more radical Muslim groups started arriving in the province within days. These include the Islamic Defenders' Front, which has attacked bars and shops selling alcohol in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, and Lashkar Mujahideen, which endorses a militant ideology and has alleged links to the killing of Christians.

Last week, speaking outside a tent at Banda Aceh's busy military airport under a banner reading 'Islamic Law Enforcement', Salman al-Farizi said his group were in Aceh to give medical and food assistance, remove corpses, evacuate refugees and to preach. 'The survivors will be helped to spread the true word of Allah,' al-Farizi said.

Elsewhere, groups are handing out Korans and even veils alongside aid. Volunteers from the al-Azhar Foundation in Jakarta said they had distributed 1,993 Korans to refugees from Lokh Nga, one of the worst-hit villages. 'Many want to read the Koran to help them with their trauma,' said Anwar Sani, director of the foundation.

Some Christian groups, however, are instructing workers not to display church names or wear crosses.

'We prefer to address the physical needs first,' said William Suhanda, an Indonesian whose Christian group, 'Light of Love for Aceh', is helping distribute food in Banda Aceh and hopes to bring 50 children to a Christian orphanage in Jakarta. 'We also want to expose them to Christian values... so they can see the other side, that we're about the love of Christ,' he said.

Mark Kosinski, an American evangelist who arrived in Aceh from Malaysia last week, said: 'These people need food but they also need Jesus. God is trying to awaken people and help them realise salvation is in Christ.'

One US Christian group was revealed last week to have tried to airlift 300 'tsunami orphans' to a Christian children's home. WorldHelp started raising funds for the operation until it learned that the Indonesian government had banned non-Muslims from adopting Acehnese orphans.

'What we were attempting to do in finding a home for these orphans is no different from what Mother Teresa did in placing Hindu orphans in a Christian children's home,' said Vernon Brewer, president of WorldHelp.

The Church of Scientology has also established a presence in Banda Aceh, setting up a base opposite the governor's mansion. 'We are not here to proselytise. That would be distasteful,' said Greg Churilov. 'We hope we are just seen as another relief group.'

However, there are also opportunities for co-operation. The US navy's high-profile effort to assist Indonesia deliver aid has helped counter anger over the Iraq war. The Islamic Defenders' Front spent much of this week removing corpses from collapsed homes alongside an Indonesian Christian group. Mormons have teamed up with Islamic relief operations to send aid to the region.

Last week, the UN even asked Lashkar Mujahideen to unload a plane of relief supplies because it was short of personnel.

[Nursey]

Woman's torture in Iraq prison questioned (http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0120iraq-woman20.html)

Peter Finn
Washington Post
Jan. 20, 2005 12:00 AM

An Iraqi woman who was granted refugee status in the United States after telling the Washington Post and U.S. officials that she had been imprisoned, tortured and sexually assaulted in Iraq during the 1990s appears to have made false claims about her past, according to a fresh examination of her statements.

Jumana Michael Hanna also claimed her husband, Haitam Jamil Anwar, had been executed during the rule of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Her testimony led to the arrest of several Iraqi security officials. Based on her testimony, U.S. officials took her into protective custody in Baghdad, and then to the United States.

She was the subject of a lengthy article in the Post in July 2003. Later, a writer who was interested in collaborating on a book about Hanna concluded that she was not telling the truth. The writer's article appears in this month's issue of Esquire magazine.

In recent interviews in Baghdad, Hanna's in-laws - including her husband's brother, uncle and cousin - all said the husband, Haitam Jamil Anwar, was alive and had left Iraq several months ago.

They also said that while Hanna was imprisoned in Baghdad in the 1990s, it was not for the reason she told the Post.

"I don't believe this," Hanna said in a telephone interview Wednesday about the Post's finding. "You write what you like. I have nothing else to say." Hanna is currently living in Chicago. Her mother and two children were also granted refugee status.

This Post reporter met Hanna in July 2003 at the Human Rights Society of Iraq in Baghdad, where she was seeking assistance. Over the next week, she was interviewed three times in the company of an Iraqi interpreter and a Post correspondent who spoke fluent Arabic.

Hanna said at the time that she was imprisoned after she had eloped with her husband, whom she said was of Indian origin. The marriage, she said, was not valid under Iraqi law because she had not received the proper permission to marry a foreign national. She said she went to the Iraqi Olympic Committee building in Baghdad, hoping that Saddam Hussein's son Uday would help her rectify the situation.

Instead, she said, she was arrested, and between November 1993 and early 1996, was held in cells at the adjoining police academy where she said she and other female prisoners were beaten and raped.

[ucicare]

So if some Iraqi woman tells everyone she was raped and tortured, and then later is found to be a liar, it means that everyone that claims to be raped and tortured is lying?

And if one Iraqi tells the world that they have witnessed Americans committing atrocities, then that must surely be true, because people always tell the truth, right? Especially when it is of benefit to them.

"Looking for tidbits of evidence to support a incredulous fantasy sucketh."


Barry

[Nursey]

So if some Iraqi woman tells everyone she was raped and tortured, and then later is found to be a liar, it means that everyone that claims to be raped and tortured is lying?


Barry
Did i say that? No. All i did was offer something to counteract all the anti-Iraqi pro-American propaganda that dominates the mainstream news. That's fair enough, isn't it? I mean, you have all the major western media outlets pushing your views, are people not entitled to see the other side of the coin if they so wish?

[ucicare]

All I did was offer something to counteract all the anti-Iraqi pro-American propaganda that dominates the mainstream news..... That's fair enough, isn't it? I mean, you have all the major western media outlets pushing your views, are people not entitled to see the other side of the coin if they so wish?


So is the Washington Post not a major Western media outlet? Isn't that were the article originated? And is Esquire magazine not a major Western magazine? Isn't that where the incident was exposed? Isn't the "other side of the coin" pretty evident in America after all?

Nursey - contrary to the blabber that you and I do, I do not really think you are evil or even always wrong. What I do think is that you have a tendency to believe that the acts of a few people are "official policy" of the Government as a whole. America is made up of millions of people, and our freedom means that thousands of ideas and agendas are floating around. Averaged out, America is more good than evil. I just wish you would not vilify everything about this country.

Barry

[Nursey]

I haven't vilified everything about America. I've vilified everything about the corrupt, dual-loyalists who have seized power of America and are currently in the process of dismantling the American Constitution.

And of course some stories inevitabley make their way into mainstream news, or in a minority of cases even surface there, but on the whole there is a clear bias in favour of the pro-war government line. This has been the most strictly managed media coverage of any war that America has ever seen.

What needs to be taken into consideration is how stories like that are used for propaganda purposes (as in the case of the Jessica Lynch 'rescue')...
Jessica Lynch condemns Pentagon (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3251731.stm)

A US woman soldier who shot to fame after being taken prisoner during the Iraq war has accused the military of using her for propaganda purposes.
A video of US commandos carrying a badly injured Private Jessica Lynch from a Nasiriya hospital was released at the height of the conflict.
But the 20-year-old criticised the release of false information about her capture by Iraqi forces.
She also said there was no reason for her rescue to be filmed.
...............
Initial reports also suggested that Miss Lynch had been abused after she came round in the hospital. She says that again was untrue - there was no mistreatment, and one nurse used to sing to her.
She said she was grateful to the American special forces team which rescued her but, asked whether the Pentagon's subsequent portrayal of her rescue bothered her, she said: "Yes, it does. They used me as a way to symbolise all this stuff. It's wrong."
...and at times are manufactured specifically for such use (as in the case of the 'babies thrown out of incubators' story which helped swing the American public's decision on whether to go to war with Iraq in 1990).
Lies, Damn Lies and the PR Industry (http://www.monitor.net/monitor/9905a/jbpr.html)
A few months after the Bari bombing, Hill & Knowlton was hired by the Kuwaiti government to generate support for U.S. entry into the Gulf War against Iraq. One of their most successful deceptions was the incubator story. "I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns. They took the babies out of the incubators ... and left the children to die on the cold floor." This was the story told by "Nayirah, " a 15-year old Kuwaiti girl who shocked a public hearing of Congress' Human Rights Caucus on October 10, 1990. It was widely reported in the media, and helped demonize Iraqis in American public opinion. The young woman was later unmasked as the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador, and Kuwaiti hospital officials interviewed after the Gulf War had ended said no infants had been dumped from incubators, but only a small fraction of those who were exposed to the original propaganda ever learned that.
Hill & Knowlton had helped "Nayirah" prepare her written testimony to Congress which mentioned 15 babies being dumped. H&K had sent its own film crew to the hearing, then sent the tearful testimony on video to a service that provided it to 700 TV stations nationwide. Portions were used on NBC Nightly News. The fraudulent story reached an estimated 35 million people.
By a January 8, 1991, House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on these and other phony atrocity stories engineered by H&K the story had mushroomed to 312 alleged incubator murders, a figure vouched for by Amnesty International. Four days after that hearing, Congress approved military action, and the bombing began.
url=http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/LIE/HK/HK2.html]Hill & Knowlton and the CIA.[/url]

Also, it would appear that this woman's testimony is the pivotal source of the Iraqi prison rape claims...
"For two months I've been here and heard the rumors about what happened to women, but no one came forward," said Bernard B. Kerik, the senior policy adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and former police commissioner in New York City. "This is the first case where someone has given us information that appears to be credible and that we can corroborate and act on. A lot of Iraqi women will see that we are serious. This is an event that will lead to closure for a lot of people -- and justice."

I don't doubt that it doesn't ever happen, i'm sure it happens everywhere..(i'm sure you will be well aware that there is widespread sexual abuse of male and female prisoners by staff in American jails..)
Sexual abuse against women by correctional officers remained widespread despite new laws prohibiting it and greater public awareness of the problem. A U.S. government study in December 1999 found pervasive allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct by corrections officers. Criminal prosecutions of abusive staff appeared to increase. Cases since December 1999 included, for example, eleven former guards and a prison official who were indicted on charges of sexually assaulting or harassing sixteen female prisoners at a county jail operated by a private corrections company; the conviction of a New Mexico jail guard on federal civil rights charges stemming from the sexual assault of jail prisoners; the sentencing of a New York jail guard to three years of probation after pleading guilty to sodomizing two female prisoners; and the sentencing of an Ohio jail officer to a four year prison term for sexually assaulting three female prisoners. In Michigan, however, legislators passed a law that took effect in March that exempted prisoners from the protection of the state civil rights act, which prohibits discrimination based on race and gender. Through this legislation, Michigan suppressed prisoners' efforts to seek redress for sexual abuse through lawsuits against the Corrections Department. In California, although a law went into effect in January that increased the criminal penalties for sexual misconduct, the state failed to ensure that women could safely report abuse. Women prisoners in one California prison, for example, claimed that their cells were ransacked and personal items damaged or taken after they reported abuse. Others reported being held in "protective" custody pending investigation of their "allegation."
http://www.hrw.org/prisons/united_states.html

But the sensationalistic, heartstring tugging lies that were widely promulgated by the pro-war media were nothing but further attempts to blacken and demonise Iraqis in the eyes of the American public in order to drum up further support for the war in the light rising casualty figures and the failure to find any 'WMD's.
Here's excerpts from the woman's original story. It was even used by 'genocide watch' (http://www.genocidewatch.org/IraqJuly21LoneWoman.htm) on it's site. It makes comical reading in the light of the recent revelations as to its fraudulent nature.

A Lone Woman Testifies To Iraq's Order of Terror (http://www.genocidewatch.org/IraqJuly21LoneWoman.htm)
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, July 21, 2003
BAGHDAD -- She was walking hurriedly, as if in a trance, oblivious to the weakness in her legs, not seeing the bewildered looks of the American troops trailing her, not hearing her own cries of anguish. Jumana Michael Hanna, tears streaming down her face, had slipped into the darkest recesses of memory.
Hanna, a 41-year-old Assyrian Christian from a formerly rich and prominent Iraqi family, returned last week to the well of her nightmares: the police academy in Baghdad, a sprawling complex of offices, classrooms, soccer, polo and parade grounds -- and prison cells, some of them converted dog kennels, according to American officials who now control the campus.
This is the place where in the 1990s Hanna was hung from a rod and beaten with a special stick when she called out for Jesus or the Virgin Mary. This is where she and other female prisoners were dragged outside and tied to a dead tree trunk, nicknamed "Walid" by the guards, and raped in the shadow of palm trees. This is the place where electric shock was applied to Hanna's vagina. And this is where in February 2001 someone put a bullet in her husband's head and handed his corpse through the steel gate like a piece of butcher's meat.
Hanna has come back here to help the new occupation authorities in Iraq find the men who tormented her. After she identified some of the men through a series of photos of officers in the new Iraqi police force and provided other corroborating information to American and Iraqi officials, on Saturday morning an Iraqi police anti-corruption squad detained three men, including a brigadier general. U.S. and Iraqi officials are talking to a fourth man and seeking his cooperation. As of yesterday, none had been formally charged, but the investigation is continuing.
"For two months I've been here and heard the rumors about what happened to women, but no one came forward," said Bernard B. Kerik, the senior policy adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and former police commissioner in New York City. "This is the first case where someone has given us information that appears to be credible and that we can corroborate and act on. A lot of Iraqi women will see that we are serious. This is an event that will lead to closure for a lot of people -- and justice."
Hanna, who agreed to the use of her full name, is just one of hundreds and possibly thousands of women who were tortured and sexually assaulted by the agents of the last government, human rights officials said. For those who survived, their ordeal was often left unspoken, swept behind a cloak of family and societal shame. That will make prosecutions extremely difficult, American officials said, and makes Hanna's determination to expose her jailors all the more dramatic for an occupying authority eager to build a clean, new police force.
A month ago, homeless and seeking assistance from Americans for her mother, her two children and herself, Hanna went to the Baghdad Convention Center. A leadership conference was underway for about 60 officers in the reconstituted Iraqi police force. There, in the crowd, she said she saw the man she and the other female prisoners knew as the Major. She recalled he was the man who had laughed at their pain as he inflicted more and more of it, the man who extinguished his cigarette on Hanna's leg on the day she was ordered released. "Pain that no one can imagine," said Hanna. "Terrible, terrible pain. Pain that steals your honor."
Hanna fled the convention center in a blind panic, wandering aimlessly through the streets. Nearly two weeks later, she made her way to the Human Rights Society of Iraq, housed in a two-story building near the Ministry of Justice. Activists there told her that the U.S. occupying authorities in Iraq would want to know about her jailors, especially if they had returned to the police force.
And so, trembling, Hanna stood last week at the arched entryway of the police academy, seeking justice but fearing what lay beyond. Between tears and bouts of breathlessness, her story tumbled out in fragments as she guided her hosts, U.S. officials working to rebuild the Iraqi police force, from one scene of torture to another.
She pointed to a wall in a cell and said it hid a stairwell; the academy's Iraqi commissioner later confirmed its existence, U.S. officials said. At one moment, she walked through an open yard trying to find a second tree trunk, just like the first one, "Walid," but used only to tie prisoners for beatings with sticks or cable wire. She was convinced it was there, but no one could see a second trunk. And, finally, there it was, hidden behind some wild reeds and heaped brush. The guards called that one "Haneen," she said.
"We'll nail the bastards," said Dennis Henley, the American director of reconstruction at the police academy.
Among those detained Saturday morning was the one-star brigadier general, who Hanna identified as taking part in her initial detention in November 1993. U.S. officials have not been able to identify the Major, who was Hanna's principal tormentor, and whose family name Hanna does not know. U.S. officials hope the detentions will provide further leads, Kerik said.
An Iraqi judge and an Iraqi female prosecutor were assigned to the case by the Ministry of Interior. U.S. officials said they planned to offer security to Hanna, who has been sleeping in an abandoned school on some nights in recent weeks because her friends were not able to house her entire family. She remains afraid that her future testimony could endanger her and her children.

Hanna arrived at the building at 10 a.m. on Nov. 15, 1993. It was the beginning of a prison sentence of two years, three months and seven days without the approval of any court of law. Through much of that first day, she waited in one room after another on the promise that a meeting about her problem was imminent.
In the last room, where she was held for several hours, the door was locked. At sunset two men entered. She recalled they said they had to take routine security precautions in advance of a meeting with Uday Hussein. They slipped a black hood over her head and tied her hands behind her back. The anxiety, which had mounted through the day, flared into terror.
'They Took My Honor'
She was taken down to a lower level in an elevator and then along a passageway that seemed narrow because of the way the two men bumped against her. She was pushed into a room and tied, spread-eagle, to a bed.
"All of this period, I didn't resist," she said. "But on the bed, I knew. I said, 'I am like your sister; please don't do this.' I started to beg. They said if our sister married an Indian and started a network against the government, we would kill her. I kept praying, calling for Jesus and the Virgin Mary. I prayed to Muhammad. They damned them all."
"They raped me twice that first day," she continued. "I don't know the persons. Two of them. I couldn't see them. They kept raping for four days as well as I can remember. They took my honor."
A guard, who was not one of the rapists, took her periodically to a bathroom and washed her himself because he said he couldn't untie her. He lifted the hood to allow her to smoke a cigarette before taking her back to the room in which she was held. "I thank him for this small favor," Hanna said.
On what she believes was the fifth day, another man entered the room. She recalled he railed at her about a British spy network. He told her she had wanted her papers stamped so he would stamp them. He applied electric shock to her vagina; she lost consciousness.
Hanna awoke in what she thought was a veterinary clinic for dogs because of the sound of barking. She was, in fact, in a room adjacent to the police academy kennels. A woman applied alcohol to her vagina in a crude attempt to clean it. Hanna was given a painkiller and put in a cell with 17 other women where she was kept for 10 days before she was questioned again.
"We were one body and soul," she said of the women in the cell. "We helped each other." All of the women, she said, had been detained or kidnapped and then raped, some for as long as six months before they were discarded by their captors and brought to the police academy. She remembers, in particular, a Christian girl, a 16-year-old from Baghdad who said she was kidnapped outside her school. She was beautiful, "like Barbie the doll," said Hanna, who speaks some English and French.

[Nursey]

Just a bit more on that story:
Jumana Michael Hanna, in a Page 1 story in the July 21, 2003 editions of The Washington Post, said she was beaten and raped during more than two years of imprisonment for marrying a foreign national without proper permission. She also said her husband had been executed under Saddam's reign.

But an article in this month's Esquire magazine, by a writer who pursued writing a book with Hanna, concludes she was not truthful.

The Post reported Thursday that it has since interviewed three of Hanna's in-laws who said she was imprisoned for another reason - cheating people out of money - and that her husband was alive and living outside Iraq.

Ten days after The Post featured Hanna on its front page, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told her story at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing to illustrate routine torture and abuse of prisoners by Baathist policemen.

The Post said it located a brother, uncle and cousin of Hanna's husband, Haitam Jamil Anwar, who said they believed Hanna was imprisoned for cheating people with false promises that she could get them immigration visas.
Source (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Post%20Iraqi's%20Story)

[Nursey]

Rumsfeld cancels trip after accusations (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8EBCFED0-6677-4F9F-B0D0-6995460FCEFA.htm)

Friday 21 January 2005


US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cancelled a planned visit to Germany after a US human rights organisation asked German authorities to prosecute him for war crimes, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) has learned.


Rumsfeld has informed the German government via the US embassy that he will not take part in the Munich Security Conference in February, conference head Horst Teltschik told dpa on Thursday.

The New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights filed a
complaint in December with the Federal German Prosecutor's Office against Rumsfeld accusing him of war crimes and torture in connection with detainee abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

Rumsfeld made it known immediately after the complaint was filed that he would not attend the Munich conference unless Germany quashed the legal action.

German legislation violations

The organisation alleges violations of German legislation, which
outlaws war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide independent of the place of crime or origin of the accused.

The prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe reportedly is examining the
roughly 170-page complaint to see whether an investigation is warranted.

The Centre for Constitutional Rights said it and four Iraqis allegedly tortured in US custody filed a complaint with German authorities against Rumsfeld, former CIA director George Tenet and eight other senior military and civilian officials over abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq.

The organisation said it had turned to German prosecutors "as a court of last resort" because the US government "is unwilling to open an independent investigation" and had "refused to join the International Criminal Court".

[Nursey]

[quote="Nursey"]
Nursey - contrary to the blabber that you and I do, I do not really think you are evil or even always wrong.
By the way, i'd like to commend you on your wise decision to stage a 'climb down' of sorts after having your position lampooned in this thread here (http://fugly.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6255). It will do your personal standing and credibility here a great service, though it leaves the question of whether, then, you were just trolling with such over-the-top statements?

[ucicare]

If it makes you feel better to declare "victory" because I just got tired of responding to your repetitive mumbo-jumbo, so be it.

As far as being a troll -

Ask Schmed if I am a troll. I didn't even know what a troll was until a few days ago. Do trolls use their real name and location in their profile? I guess I learned my lesson about that too.

Anyone wants my home phone number, send me a PM. I will be glad to talk.

Barry

[Nursey]

If it makes you feel better to declare "victory" because I just got tired of responding to your repetitive mumbo-jumbo, so be it.

No, i don't think there's any need to do that. I just found it odd that you, who normally seems so self assured and prolific when it comes to stating your position on things, failed to even acknowledge that post. Oh wait a minute...

"Notice too how every time i prove Barry wrong on anything, he refuses to even acknowledge it... never mind eat humble pie, and smoothly moves on to attempt to discredit some other part of my arguement."

And repetitive? Yes. That's what the 'weekend' disclaimer at the beginning was in reference to. 'Mumbo-jumbo'? Hardly. The beauty of my posts is that even idiots like whipone can understand them.
As far as being a troll -

Ask Schmed if I am a troll.
Are you and Schmed....intimate these days or something? I think we should be told.

I didn't even know what a troll was until a few days ago. Do trolls use their real name and location in their profile? I guess I learned my lesson about that too.
I didn't ask if you were a troll, i asked if you were trolling. You don't have to be a dancer to dance.

Anyone wants my home phone number, send me a PM. I will be glad to talk.

Barry
Is this how Schmed got touchy-feelyed into councillor Swope's grotto of gropes!? http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/nursey/uhoh.gif

[ucicare]

I just found it odd that you, who normally seems so self assured and prolific when it comes to stating your position on things, failed to even acknowledge that post.

I am self assured. That is why I do not have to respond to everything you write.


"Notice too how every time I prove Barry wrong on anything, he refuses to even acknowledge it... never mind eat humble pie, and smoothly moves on to attempt to discredit some other part of my arguement."

The only place that I have been "proven wrong" is in your mind. Such a shame that a smart girl like you wastes your abilities on alarmist fringe gossip.



And repetitive? Yes. That's what the 'weekend' disclaimer at the beginning was in reference to. 'Mumbo-jumbo'? Hardly. The beauty of my posts is that even idiots like whipone can understand them.

I doubt that anyone other than me even bothers to read the long ones.


Are you and Schmed....intimate these days or something? I think we should be told.

Don't confuse mutual respect with intimacy. Schmed and I can at least can agree to disagree and still be friends.


Barry

[Schmed]

You two crazy kids just leave me the heck out of it.

[ucicare]

You two crazy kids just leave me the heck out of it.


Darn.

Triangulation requires a mutual third party.

Guess our little drama is over.

http://www.goddirect.org/glossary/t.htm#Triangulation

http://www.goddirect.org/mindemtn/writings/january/psytrang.htm

Barry

[Nursey]

The only place that I have been "proven wrong" is in your mind.
Once again, the ANTINURSE argues "black = white" despite clear evidence (http://fugly.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=6255) to the contrary.


Such a shame that a smart girl like you wastes your abilities on alarmist fringe gossip.
More of a shame that anyone of any savvy whatsoever can be fooled by the intelligence insulting propaganda being spewed by the Whitehouse.
I doubt that anyone other than me even bothers to read the long ones.
That's obviously what you're banking on when you say "The only place that I have been "proven wrong" is in your mind"...
You two crazy kids just leave me the heck out of it.
I wish i could Schmed, but whenever i am faced with the sight of that shiney, bald head bobbing in and out of your arse crack i have an irrepressible, instinctive urge to kick it. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/nursey/uhoh.gif

Back to the headlines.....

[Nursey]

Israel seizes thousands of acres of Palestinian-owned land in Jerusalem
Associated Press (http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5200774.html)
January 23, 2005




JERUSALEM - Israel has quietly seized large tracts of Jerusalem land owned by Palestinian residents of the West Bank after they were cut off from their property by Israel's separation barrier, lawyers of the landowners said.

The land was taken after Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government decided several months ago to enforce a long-dormant law that allows Israel to seize lands of Palestinians who fled or were driven out during the 1948-49 Mideast war that followed Israel's creation.

The new policy, first reported in the Israeli daily Haaretz, could affect hundreds of Palestinians who own property in Jerusalem and is sure to raise the stakes in the stormy battle over the city, which Israel and the Palestinians both claim as their capital.

The landowners affected so far live in the West Bank towns of Bethlehem and Beit Jalla, just south of Jerusalem. Their land was taken in August, after Israel's West Bank separation barrier cut them off from their land in the city.

According to documents from Israel's Finance and Justice ministries, the land was transferred to the Custodian of Absentee Property, a body formed by a 1950 law that allowed the seizure of property of Palestinians who had left Israel during the 1948 war.

Bethlehem resident Johnny Atik said Sunday that he lost eight acres of olive groves within Jerusalem's municipal boundaries as a result of the new policy. The land is just 100 yards away from his home, on the other side of an electronic fence and patrol road that are part of the separation barrier.

``The olives fall on the ground,'' he said. ``We see them, but we can't get to them.''

Atik said 40 families in his neighborhood alone have had land taken.

Hundreds of other Palestinians are now at risk of having land seized, said lawyers Daniel Seidemann and Mohammed Dahla, who represent several of the landowners.

Atik plans to appeal to the Supreme Court.

However, Israeli legal analyst Moshe Negbi, who is often critical of Israeli moves in the West Bank, said an appeal to the high court would probably fail.

``I think it would stand up to a Supreme Court appeal, because unfortunately the law allows for this,'' he said. ``It isn't logical, because east Jerusalem was also part of the West Bank, but from the point of view of Israeli law, that's the situation.''

The Israeli Finance Ministry declined to discuss the new policy with a reporter, with a spokesman insisting he would only respond to written questions. However, the ministry's written response failed to address key issues, including how much land has been taken so far and whether landowners would be compensated.

Israel's absentee land law was initially used in the 1950s to seize the properties of Arabs who had fled in 1948. At least 20,000 Arab homes in what is today the largely Jewish area of west Jerusalem were taken under this law, said Moshe Amirav, a former member of the Jerusalem city council.

In the 1967 Mideast war, Israel captured the eastern half of Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan. After the war, Israel expanded Jerusalem's municipal boundaries and annexed the entire area to its capital, a move not recognized internationally.

However, successive Israeli governments decided not to apply the absentee law to the Palestinian properties that fell within the city's new boundaries, even though many of the owners lived in the West Bank.

``It was very clear from the outset ... that if this law were applied, much of the property rights throughout east Jerusalem would be forfeited,'' said Seidemann, Atik's attorney. ``Successive Israeli governments refrained from doing this because of its far-reaching consequences.''

Only once, in the late 1980s, did then-Cabinet minister Sharon try to use the law in order to transfer property in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City to Jewish settlers, Seidemann said. A Justice Ministry committee halted the activities, citing legal problems.

Sharon's office declined comment, except to confirm the government's decision that the Custodian of Absentee Property has the authority to ``transfer, sell or lease'' east Jerusalem lands belonging to absentee owners.

The Finance Ministry said the properties of the Bethlehem-area landowners were already transferred to state custody after the 1967 war. Asked what the state would do with the land, the ministry said the question was ``not relevant.''

Amirav said that once the land seizures in Jerusalem are scrutinized in court, the expropriations of Israel's early years could also be challenged. ``This opens a Pandora's box,'' he said. ``The minute you open it, you open all the legal and moral questions of 1948.''

Dahla, an attorney who represents the Bethlehem municipality and some of the Bethlehem landowners, said he believes the land seizures are part of a plan to expand Jewish neighborhoods in eastern Jerusalem.

``We're talking about land that those Palestinians in Beit Jalla have owned for hundreds of years,'' Dahla said. ``They are not absentees ... in fact they continued to cultivate the land up until now.''

[Nursey]

This is quite ironic considering that the Mesopotamians invented agriculture!

The Ultimate War Crime: Breaking the Agricultural Cycle

“U.S. declares Iraqis can not save their own seeds” (http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KHA501A.html)

"As part of sweeping "economic restructuring" implemented by the Bush Administration in Iraq, Iraqi farmers will no longer be permitted to save their seeds, which include seeds the Iraqis themselves have developed over hundreds of years. Instead, they will be forced to buy seeds from US corporations. That is because in recent years, transnational corporations have patented and now own many seed varieties originated or developed by indigenous peoples. In a short time, Iraq will be living under the new American credo:
Pay Monsanto, or starve (http://www.vegsource.com/articles2/iraq_seeds.htm) ."

"The American Administrator of the Iraqi CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) government, Paul Bremer, updated Iraq's intellectual property law (http://www.iraqcoalition.org/regulations/20040426_CPAORD_81_Patents_Law.pdf) to 'meet current internationally-recognized standards of protection'. The updated law makes saving seeds for next year's harvest, practiced by 97% of Iraqi farmers in 2002, and is the standard farming practice for thousands of years across human civilizations, to be now illegal.. Instead, farmers will have to obtain a yearly license (http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=6) for genetically modified (GM) seeds from American corporations. These GM seeds have typically been modified from seeds developed over thousands of generations by indigenous farmers like the Iraqis, and shared freely like agricultural 'open source.'"

Iraq law Requires Seed Licenses (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/13/2023220) November 13, 2004

"According to Order 81, paragraph 66 - [B], issued by L. Paul Bremer [CFR], the people in Iraq are now prohibited from saving seeds and may only plant seeds for their food from licensed, authorized U.S. distributors.

The paragraph states, "Farmers shall be prohibited from re-using seeds of protected varieties or any variety mentioned in items 1 and 2 of paragraph [C] of Article 14 of this chapter."


Written in massively intricate legalese, Order 81 directs the reader at Article 14, paragraph 2 [C] to paragraph [B] of Article 4, which states any variety that is different from any other known variety may be registered in any country and become a protected variety of seed - thus defaulting it into the "protected class" of seeds and prohibiting the Iraqis from reusing them the following season. Every year, the Iraqis must destroy any seed they have, and repurchase seeds from an authorized supplier, or face fines, penalties and/or jail time."

Iraqis Can't Save Seed (http://magic-city-news.com/article_2812.shtml) January 19, 2005

The original article on this topic: Iraqi farmers aren't celebrating (http://www.grain.org/nfg/?id=253) October 15, 2004

As per an Iraqi proverb, the day will come, sooner rather than later, when the Iraqis will shred Bremer’s Laws, soak them in water and offer the glass to Bremer to drink.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v20/nursey/bushnote.jpg

[Nursey]

CIA Chiefs Quash Revealing Report Pointing Fingers For September 11 (http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/cia_chiefs_quash.html)


Detailed CIA report is ordered to be kept secret for fear that ‘prying eyes’ may uncover truth



By Greg Szymanski



An internal CIA report, naming individuals who may have been responsible for intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks, has been kept secret despite public outcries and congressional demands to release the incriminating evidence. The delays began last July on orders from CIA’s acting director, John McLaughlin, and have continued since Porter Goss took charge last September. Critics claim President George W. Bush has personally directed Goss, a Republican partisan, to keep the names from “prying eyes” in order to hide the truth exposing either government incompetence or outright complicity.

Ever since 9-11, the public has called for government accountability, but the Bush administration has been trying to block truth-seeking efforts at every corner. The lack of government cooperation began with obstructing justice at ground zero by FEMA’s quick removal of hard evidence and continues now by keeping the CIA report secret.

In between, critics have compiled a laundry list of government cover-ups concerning 9-11, but answers have been slow in coming due to a complacent media and lack of government cooperation. The public clamor still remains hidden on cyberspace conspiracy web sites and in alternative publications, but recently two federal lawsuits surfaced, one concerning FBI whistleblower, Sybil Edmonds, and the other a RICO conspiracy action filed against Bush and 56 other defendants.

The Edmonds lawsuit has been dismissed by a partisan federal judge appointed by Bush, and the RICO action is still in the pretrial discovery stage.

“We are in the process of serving all the defendants, including President Bush, his father and many others. It’s not going to be easy; expect a long hard fight,” said Phillip Berg, the attorney who filed the federal action on behalf of William Rodriguez, a World Trade Center maintenance worker who claims to have evidence showing government complicity.

Besides the two lawsuits, a citizens petition has also been handed over to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer last November, demanding criminal action be taken against Bush and his cronies for complicity in 9-11.

An official spokesman for the attorney general’s office said no action on the petition has been taken.

And regarding the recent CIA internal report kept secret from congressional leaders and the public, this week a CIA spokesman would not comment about the status of the report or when it would be released.

To date the names in the report remain unknown. They were compiled by the CIA’s inspector general, who began an independent investigation in December 2002 after a joint 9-11 congressional task force sought answers for obvious intelligence irregularities surrounding the attacks.

The purpose of the report was to get the bottom of the intelligence breakdowns and to determine who should be held accountable for mistakes made. To date no one has been publicly held accountable or even reprimanded openly for obvious intelligence breakdowns.

Further, the CIA has not provided a reason for its reluctance to turn over the report, even after a letter was directly sent by top House leaders on the Intelligence Committee to former director McLaughlin, demanding accountability.

The letter, sent last September, has not been made public and has essentially been ignored by CIA officials.

Last October, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, John D. Rockefeller IV (W.Va), personally asked Goss to turn over names in the report, but his demand has also been ignored by the CIA.

Members of Congress expressed concern over the CIA’s failure to cooperate, saying it was a “definite departure from normal procedure.” House and Senate members are expected to further prod the CIA in turning over the sensitive report when the 109th Congress convenes.

This time help is expected to come from an outspoken critic, Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), who returns to the House after being ousted two years ago.

McKinney is one of the few elected officials who publicly claimed the Bush administration had prior knowledge of the events leading up to 9-11, saying the administration allowed the events to occur in order to reap huge profits from the invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Political insiders claim McKinney, who was the first black woman ever elected to Congress from Georgia in 1992, was then targeted by the GOP for defeat in 2002 due to her anti-administration public expressions.

McKinney recently won re-election and is expected to fight hard for those involved in the 9-11 truth movement despite its unpopularity on Capitol Hill.

[Nursey]

Interesting sequence of events...

Israel Warns Militants May Sabotage Summit (http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4100336)
Monday 7 Feb, 2005 9:09am

Israel’s defence minister said today that he has received intelligence warnings that some militants, including the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, may try to disrupt this week’s Mideast summit.

Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz told Israel Army Radio said the information was not concrete, but that he couldn’t rule out militants would try to assassinate Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

“We are talking about many bits of information that they (militants) ... will do everything to harm this summit and its success,” Mofaz said.

Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the leaders of Egypt and Jordan are meeting tomorrow in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheik.

Lebanon Militants Fire Rockets Into Israel (http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4783694,00.html)

Monday February 7, 2005 3:46 PM
JERUSALEM (AP) - Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon fired Katyusha rockets into northern Israel on Monday, police said Monday, a day before the Israeli and Palestinian leaders are to meet at a Mideast summit in Egypt.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz warned earlier in the day that some militants, including Hezbollah, may try to disrupt the summit. Israeli defense officials accuse the Lebanese guerrilla group of assisting Palestinian militants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Israel's Channel Two television reported damage to structures in two communities near the northern town of Nahariya, but said there were no injuries.

Shells hit north as test by weapons manufacturer goes awry (http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/537273.html)
Israel Time: 23:40 (GMT+2)

Four mortar shells fell in and around the town of Nahariya in northern Israel late Monday afternoon, during a failed test by a weapons manufacturer in the area.
There were no injuries in the incident, although the shells did cause minor damage.

The test by the civilian weapons manufacturer was taking place in an Israel Defense Forces firing range north of Nahariya when it went wrong for reasons as yet unknown. The IDF itself had no involvement in the incident.

The company said in response that three shells had been fired at residential territory due to human error. "The experiment only included small practice shells without explosive materials. The company stopped the tests and is investigating the circumstances that led to the incident," said a spokesperson for the company.

Three of the shells hit Nahariya and the fourth the village of Al Mazra in the Western Galilee. Two homes in Nahariya were hit - one sustained damage to the living room and the second to a bedroom.

Large numbers of security forces were deployed to the sites where the mortars struck.

"I was at home and suddenly I heard an explosion and my house began to fill up with dust," Hannah Itzkovich, whose third-floor Nahariya apartment was damaged by a mortar, told Haaretz. "I saw there was a hole in the ceiling. It was terrifying. My husband and I were very scared."

Defense officials initially thought that the shelling originated from Hezbollah guerillas in southern Lebanon.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz warned earlier Monday that some militants, including the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, may try to disrupt Tuesday's summit between Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Egypt.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah of Jordan will also attend the meeting in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

[Nursey]

Here's an opinion on the above story...
Tuesday, February 08, 2005

Typical Israeli timeline:


Peace summit arranged in Egypt between Sharon and Abbas.

On the morning of February 7, a day before the summit is to start, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told Israel Army Radio that he had received intelligence warnings that some militants, including Hezbollah, may try to disrupt the summit.

Due to the intelligence warnings, Israel Police moved to a level III heightened alert status, one level below a state-of-emergency.

Like clockwork, on the afternoon of February 7, rockets rained down on the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, and were immediately described by Israeli police as Katyusha rockets fired by Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.

Later in the same day, the attack was described as the result of 'human error' involving a failed test by an Israeli weapons manufacturer in the area. It was made clear - some might say too clear - that although the failed test took place on an IDF firing range and was by a weapons company closely associated with the IDF, the IDF had nothing to do with it.


Obviously, the IDF attempted to disrupt the summit, or even provide a reason to call it off, by faking a rocket attack by Hezbollah. It wasn't a coincidence that the Israeli Defense Minister announced the possibility of an attack in the morning, and a faked attack occurred in the afternoon. This is the usual Israeli terrorist bullshit. On times too numerous to mention, whenever Sharon needs political cover to hide some outrage he is committing a convenient 'Palestinian' attack pops up to distract the press and make the poor, poor Israelis look like victims again. This time they were caught red handed, and had to come up with the laughable excuse of 'human error' in rocket testing (you've got to be kidding!). But here's the good part, and the aspect of this whole sordid matter that inspires some optimism. They were busted, and they were busted by IDF insiders. People in the IDF was so disgusted by the trickery that they spilled the beans, resulting in the necessity of the ridiculous cover story to explain the inconvenient fact that rockets coming from an IDF firing range were landing on an Israeli town. It wouldn't do for people to find out that crazies in the IDF were willing to murder Israelis in order to stop the peace process. The good news is that there are Israelis, including Israelis in the IDF, who wouldn't let them get away with it. If Israel is ever to have peace, we need to see more of this whistleblowing.

Source (http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2005/02/fake-rocket-attack.html)

[Nursey]

See also:
Israel to 'pray for failure' (http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1658266,00.html)
06/02/2005 12:47 - (SA)


Jerusalem - Israeli rabbis were planning on Sunday to hold special sessions in 100 synagogues to pray for the failure of this week's summit between prime minister Ariel Sharon and new Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.

The prayer sessions on Monday will also call for divine intervention against Sharon's plan to pull settlers out of the Gaza Strip and small parts of the northern West Bank later this year.

We Israeli Military Reservists REFUSE To Abuse, Starve, Maim And Kill Palestininians (http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/01/278573.shtml)

author: 583 Israeli Military Reservists

We hereby declare that we shall not continue to fight this War of the Settlements.
We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.
We hereby declare that we shall continue serving in the Israel Defense Forces in any mission that serves Israel's defense.
The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve this purpose - and we shall take no part in them ...
(See title link for full declaration)
http://portland.indymedia.org/icon/2004/01/278574.jpg

[Nursey]

Those praying Rabbis sure do know their shit!

10/02/2005 - 10:17:17 AM

Israel scraps peace talks after mortar attack (http://www.irishexaminer.com/breaking/story.asp?j=131340072&p=y3y34x768&n=131340867&x=)

Israel cancelled a meeting with Palestinian negotiators today following a mortar attack on a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip.

A Palestinian official said Israel called off the meeting in response to the flare-up in violence. It was not immediately clear when the meeting would be rescheduled.

The talks were meant to follow up on Tuesday’s summit, where the Israeli and Palestinian leaders shook hands called for an end to four years of fighting.

Today’s meeting was expected to discuss the work of new joint committees that are to coordinate the planned release of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and an Israeli military pullout from West Bank population centres.


Palestinian militants fired a barrage of mortar shells at a Jewish settlement in the southern Gaza Strip early today in the first serious breach of the ceasefire declared at the Red Sea summit.

Army Radio reported that 25 mortar shells were aimed at the settlement, and 13 exploded inside the perimeter, causing damage but no casualties.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas planned to go to Gaza later for talks with militant groups to try to cement the ceasefire he declared with Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon.

[whipone]

[quote="Nursey"]“U.S. declares Iraqis can not save their own seeds”

That makes me sad.

I saved the seeds from my tomatoes last year and I incubated them last week.

They started growing today.

It was cool to see the whole cycle of something I made happen on my own.

Poopers.

[Schmed]

HBarry no more fuciking country bumbpkin wholsome analogys..CAPEESH??!!

[Dwaine Scum]

man I didnt have to read that much when I was in college... the propaghnda is really starting to errk me... I guess Im just hated becuase I am an american *feels shameful*

[ucicare]

HBarry no more fuciking country bumbpkin wholsome analogys..CAPEESH??!!


The surgery was successful. Whip and I are no longer congenital twins. He is responsible for his own tomato seed stories.

Barry

[MEDICVET]

one thing comes to mind.. if the plane was shot down then the whole "let's roll" hero story is called into doubt.. another inconsistency to add to the tally

Lets all remember that the "lets roll" hero story was started by a distraught wife, and then grew legs on the internet. The "Government" had nothing to do with this "hero story." It is probably a great exaggeration, and I think most Americans know that. What are we supposed to do? Call the poor widow and tell her to get it right?

I'll let you and Nursey do that.

Barry

well put. Some illusions even if they are that should be left alone.

As far as other conspiracy theories go..if the towers fell because of shoddy workmanship and inadequate building practices and it's trying to be covered up, then that would be about the only damn conspiracy theory I would come remotely close to believing.

The guy who was fired was fired not because of his opinion but because he made the opinion public and a company name was attached to it. Whether it was right or not is another matter, but that is why it happened.

Lost a good friend on flight 175..the second plane to hit the towers..:(

[sickem]

HBarry no more fuciking country bumbpkin wholsome analogys..CAPEESH??!!
Schmed must have scored with Dwaine's dealer. :P

[smiles]

Lost a good friend on flight 175..the second plane to hit the towers..:(


I lost a good first cousin to a bullet that came from an American enforced "demilitarized" zone that wasn't very DE-militarized, wanna go shot for shot? 10 bucks says I wiiiinnnnnn

[MEDICVET]

smiles..I would bet the ten bucks..but who's to say either you or I wouldn't be just making shit up, you know? And to provide all the documentation just to win ten bucks and lose what vaguely tiny amount of privacy I have on the net wouldn't be a good idea.

So let's just say that as far as having those we care for die, we've both BTDT and leave it like that, ok?

[ucicare]

HBarry no more fuciking country bumbpkin wholsome analogys..CAPEESH??!!
Schmed must have scored with Dwaine's dealer. :P

Schmed is Dwaines dealer.

Barry

[smiles]

smiles..I would bet the ten bucks..but who's to say either you or I wouldn't be just making shit up, you know? And to provide all the documentation just to win ten bucks and lose what vaguely tiny amount of privacy I have on the net wouldn't be a good idea.

So let's just say that as far as having those we care for die, we've both BTDT and leave it like that, ok?


how true indeed *he says as he eats caviar off a supermodels left tit .... in his maybach... in miami.... with a 12 inch penis... which is mine... and a crazy big ass talking parrot*

[MEDICVET]

LOL! now THAT'S what I call an 'online persona'! :lol:

[Nursey]

I'm sick of all the never ending doom and gloom that has plagued the planet since GWB was installed in the Whitehouse to culminate the plans of a shady, cultesque group of fascistic elitists. So whilst perusing the latest headlines, i came across this nice story. For once, a news item that inspires comfort, order and security in a world which sometimes feels on the verge of descending into all out chaos, destruction and misery.

Coroner Wants to Shrink-Wrap Bodies (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050219/ap_on_fe_st/shrink_wrapped_bodies&e=1)

Fri Feb 18,10:34 PM ET



OLYMPIA, Wash. - In the case of a natural disaster or terrorist attack, some emergency officials in Western Washington plan to be prepared — with a large, shrink wrap machine.



The Thurston County Coroner's Office recently won approval to purchase a machine able to shrink-wrap human remains. The process would make it easier to transport a large number of bodies.


After the bodies have been autopsied and identified, they would be zipped into body bags, placed on a plywood trays and covered with cardboard lids.


The trays would then be pushed through the machine and come out in shrink-wrapped packages. The wrapped bodies would be easier to carry than body bags and less disturbing for workers, county Coroner Judy Arnold recently told The Olympian newspaper.


"It's hard to think of people in those terms," she said. "But it's a matter of logistics, and we want to do it in the best and the most respectable way for both the deceased and the family."


The coroner's office has already started a bidding process to find a company to build the machine. A Homeland Security grant will pay for the machine, which will cost an estimated $50,000.


Rob Harper, spokesman for the state Department of Emergency Management, said it's the first plan of its kind in the state. The department administers the federal Homeland Security funds.


Emergency officials around the region began discussing the idea after the terrorist takeover of a Russian school in September and December's tsunamis, which killed more than 120,000 in Southeast Asia.


Photos of both events revealed the dead lying on the ground or being tossed into pickups.


The emergency officials want to avoid dealing with numerous limp and hard-to-carry body bags, especially in a situation where volunteer workers may not be used to handling human remains, Arnold said.


The shrink-wrapped bodies could be moved with forklifts, and the extra plastic covering would seal in biohazards such as anthrax in the case of bioterrorism.


The entire machine could be wheeled on a trailer to other parts of the state or taken by helicopter, Arnold said.


Bette Shultz, Thurston County's emergency management coordinator, said the machine is something that could have been used in the tsunami aftermath.


"You know, it's neat, but it's kind of creepy," she said. "It's one of those things you spend a lot of money for and hope you never have to use it."

[MEDICVET]

"The trays would then be pushed through the machine and come out in shrink-wrapped packages. The wrapped bodies would be easier to carry than body bags and less disturbing for workers, county Coroner Judy Arnold recently told The Olympian newspaper. "

okay I can see the preservation and easy to carry thing..but less disturbing exactly HOW?

[Nursey]

Well i'm quite excited because i think this next piece of hi-tech gadgetry will be i-deal when coupled with the cadavar shrink-wrap machine! :o
US developing 'pain from a distance' weapon (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/03/wpep03.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/03/03/ixworld.html)
By Nic Fleming, Science Correspondent
(Filed: 03/03/2005)

The US military is developing a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from afar to use against protesters and rioters.


The weapon produced 'pain and temporary paralysis' in animals
Documents released under the US Freedom of Information Act show that scientists have received funding to investigate how much pain can be induced in individuals hit by electromagnetic pulses created by lasers without killing them.

Due to be ready for use in 2007, the Pulsed Energy Projectile weapon is designed to trigger extreme pain from a distance of one-and-a-quarter miles.

It fires a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma - electrically charged gas - when it hits something solid. Tests on animals showed it produced "pain and temporary paralysis".

Pain researchers told today's New Scientist magazine that the technology could end up being used for torture and that it was unethical.

Andrew Rice, a consultant in pain medicine in London, said: "I am deeply concerned about the ethical aspects of this research."

:idea: Zap 'n pack!... far more hygienic (and less distressing) than machine gunning down large swathes of hysterical / rioting/ starving / radiation poisoned sections of the population before having to scoop up the resulting mess by hand.

[MEDICVET]

why can't they ever try to invent something that will stop somene in their tracks and is PAINLESS?

man sometimes I wonder about the human race..

especially when I remember I'm part of it..

to the best of my knowledge 8)