posted 12-27-2002 11:51 AM            

Truant's pregnant mother spends Christmas in jail.

Ananova 12/27/02

Original Link: http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_733202.html?menu=news.latestheadlines

A pregnant mother is spending Christmas in prison after failing to send her 11-year-old daughter to school.

The 41-year-old from Ipswich, Suffolk, was jailed for 28 days by magistrates earlier this week.

Her appeal against the sentence, heard at Ipswich Crown Court on Christmas Eve, was unsuccessful.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is six months' pregnant.

At a hearing two years ago, she was fined for an identical offence.

At that time she was warned by a court her daughter should attend school for at least 80% of the time.

The court heard the child's attendance record had been poor at both primary and secondary school.

A spokeswoman for Suffolk County Council said: "Of course it is unfortunate that the mother in this case has received a 28-day prison sentence.

"But it underlines the seriousness of regular school attendance and a parent's legal responsibility to ensure this happens.

"It's importance that we remain focused on the child's need to receive a proper education and we will continue to work with the family concerned."

YOUR DAILY LIFE IS NOW BECOMING A CRIME

posted 12-27-2002 12:04 PM            

INDYSTAR.COM

Frist's new Senate role could bring help for Eli Lilly corporation

The majority leader, a doctor, wrote bill that shields vaccine makers from preservative suits.

December 24, 2002

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Bill Frist's official ascension Monday as Senate majority leader could end up helping pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co.

Frist, R-Tenn., is the author of a controversial bill that contained a provision that protects Indianapolis-based Lilly and other companies from lawsuits over vaccine preservatives.

That provision mysteriously ended up in the homeland security bill passed by Congress in November, angering some lawmakers because of the protection given to vaccine makers.

Frist says he didn't insert the language in the legislation and has pledged to honor a promise made by his predecessor, Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., to modify the liability protection as soon as Congress returns in January.

"I don't expect any change with respect to this commitment, and I will be working to ensure it is carried out," said Sen. Olympia Snowe. She and fellow Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins were among those who voiced the most objections to the protection.

Frist's spokesman, Nick Smith, said the senator has begun talking to colleagues about making the changes many lawmakers want.

But Frist, who now holds the most powerful position in the Senate, has said that he hopes to get his original bill passed after modifying the provision in the homeland security bill. The new legislation would include the liability protection and other measures aimed at securing a sufficient supply of vaccines.

Specifically, the provision would stop pending and future lawsuits against Lilly by families who believe their children were harmed by the mercury-based preservative thimerosal. Some people -- including U.S. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind. -- believe thimerosal can cause the debilitating neurological condition of autism.

In 1999, the Food and Drug Administration asked manufacturers to take thimerosal out of vaccines. Research has not proved thimerosal causes autism.

In addition to the vaccine legislation, Lilly has other ties to Frist, the Senate's only physician.

Lilly boosted the sales of Frist's book on bioterrorism, published after Sept. 11, 2001, by buying 5,000 copies and distributing them to doctors.

Smith, Frist's spokesman, said Lilly's promotion of the book did not affect the company's relationship with the senator.

"All of the book sales were handled by the publisher," Smith said. "I don't know that Senator Frist knew who was buying how many copies at what time."

As the head of the political committee to elect Republican senators, Frist was heavily involved in fund raising.

The pharmaceutical and health products industry gave the Republican campaign committee nearly $4 million, the largest amount from a corporate contributor, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

posted 12-27-2002 12:09 PM            

President's uncle shares Bush family ties to China

By Debbie Howlett, USA TODAY

CHICAGO — When President Bush arrives in Beijing on Thursday, he'll embrace a policy that's something of a family tradition.

Bush's approach centers on promoting U.S.-China economic ties. That's a course favored not only by his father, the first President Bush, but also by his uncle, Prescott Bush Jr., a longtime acquaintance of Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

The Bush family's ties to China go back to 1974, when President Nixon named George Bush ambassador to China. The college-age George W. Bush spent two months in China visiting his parents during his father's two-year stint.

Seven years after his brother left the ambassadorial post, Prescott Bush made his first trip to China. He later joined with Japanese partners in 1988 to build a golf course in Shanghai, the first in China. He met Jiang, who was then the mayor of Shanghai.

The Prescott Bush file

• Age: 79. Born Aug. 10, 1922.

• Education: Yale University.

• Background: Chairman, U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce; president, Prescott Bush Resources.

• Politics: Unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Sen. Lowell Weicker in Connecticut's Republican primary election in 1982 for the seat once held by his father.

• Family: The oldest of five children of Sen. Prescott Bush and Dorothy Walker Bush. Lives with wife, Beth, in Greenwich, Conn. Two grown children.

Source: USA TODAY research

Prescott Bush, now 79, also developed a close working relationship with Rong Yiren, a former trade minister and vice president, who in 1993 introduced Bush to a group of Chinese business leaders as "an old friend." In 2000, Forbes publications reported that Rong, who has retired from government, was the richest man in China.

The president's uncle concedes that he sometimes relied on his name to open doors, but he says any deals he made were the result of his own hard work.

"You can get a meeting because of it, you can meet a lot of people because of it," he said in a recent interview in Chicago, where the U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce has its headquarters. "But I don't get a lot of business because my nephew is president or my brother was president."

Some experts argue otherwise. A name is not just helpful, it's essential, says Nick Larty, a professor of international relations at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.: "Who you get access to in China is pretty much a function of how important you are."

Along with access, the family name has also brought scrutiny to Prescott Bush's deals:

* He was criticized in 1989 for visiting China to meet with business and government leaders just three months after the Tiananmen Square massacre, in which army troops fired at pro-democracy demonstrators.
* His Shanghai partnership with the Japanese firm Aoki in 1988 proved embarrassing when revelations surfaced that Aoki at the same time was allegedly trying to get business contracts by bribing Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega, whom the first President Bush later ousted from power.
* His connections to an American firm, Asset Management, came into question in 1989, when the company was the only U.S. firm able to skirt U.S. sanctions and import communications satellites into China.
* When Asset Management went bankrupt later that year, Bush's deal to arrange a buyout through West Tsusho, a Japanese investment firm, raised eyebrows. Newspapers reported that Japanese police were investigating West Tsusho's alleged ties to organized crime.

Bush declines to discuss those controversies. "That's old news. It's in the past," he says.

Last year, he opened the U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce offices in Chicago. The membership roster includes United Airlines, American Express, McDonald's, Ford and Arthur Andersen, the beleaguered company that audited Enron's books.

Bush says opportunities abound now that the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis is in the past: "The Chinese are very much interested in getting foreign capital in. They desperately need the jobs."

Last fall, Bush hosted a well-attended trade conference in Chicago at which U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick gave the keynote address. At a dinner he sponsored last month at the Yale Club in New York, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, was guest of honor.

Perhaps the most intriguing question about Bush's China connections is whether he played a role in ending a U.S.-China standoff in April, when a Chinese fighter jet collided with a U.S. Navy surveillance plane over the South China Sea. The Chinese pilot was killed, and the U.S. plane made an emergency landing on Hainan island, where 24 U.S. crewmembers were held for 11 days.

The president's uncle traveled to China just hours after news of the incident broke. He flew aboard United's inaugural flight from Chicago to Beijing. Other dignitaries on the largely ceremonial flight stayed a few days, but Bush didn't return home for two weeks. Moreover, U.S. Ambassador Joseph Prueher met Bush — but not the rest of the group.

Prueher says their meeting was simply a social call.

"I might have joined him for a cup of tea or a Coke — maybe we had a beer, I don't recall," says Prueher, who left his post in June. "We spent an hour chatting."

Bush denies any involvement in the diplomatic settlement that ended the crisis.

"I couldn't possibly do something like that," he says. "It would be very embarrassing for the president if it was found out that I was going to see my friends when he was trying to work things out."

The standoff ended when Prueher sent Jiang a carefully worded letter of regret over the incident. The next day, the U.S. crew was permitted to leave. Bush left a day later.

BUSH IS A SELLOUT TRAITOR. HE HAS REVEALED HIM TO BE THE TRUE GLOBALIST SHILL THAT HE IS.

posted 12-27-2002 12:21 PM            

BYE BYE CONSTITUTION.........

Montgomery Draws On Civilians Looking to Help Police
Program Tipsters Asked to Look Out for, Even Follow Possible Alcohol Violators

Washington Post 12/27/02: Phuong Ly

Original Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38393-2002Dec25.html

Sitting in the dark parking lot of a Gaithersburg beer and wine store just before midnight recently, James Helton and Don Carswell watched a young passenger in a black Honda hand a bottle of Corona beer to the driver.

Suspecting a violation of Maryland's prohibition on imbibing behind the wheel, the two trailed the car as it merged onto Route 355. After less than a mile, they lost sight of the vehicle.

"Damn, I'd like to have gotten that," said Helton, 40, banging his steering wheel in frustration.

Helton and Carswell are not undercover police or county liquor enforcement officers. They are among a handful of volunteers participating in Operation Eagle Eyes, a fledgling Montgomery County program that employs civilians in an effort to catch drunken drivers and other alcohol law violators.

They have been deployed outside bars and liquor stores -- watching for people selling to underage buyers, drinking in public or driving while impaired. When they see suspicious activity, they alert nearby officers over a police-issued radio.

They are allowed to follow people if instructed to do so by a police officer, but they are not permitted to confront anyone.

"They're merely an extra set of eyes for us," said Lt. David Falcinelli of the alcohol enforcement unit. "Their observations are the starting part for officers to develop a probable cause for a stop."

As 911 calls have increased in the growing county, Falcinelli said, officers have had less time to pursue people for violating alcohol laws. The number of arrests for impaired driving has decreased by more than 20 percent, but Falcinelli said he believes there are as many drunken drivers as ever on county roads.

So, the county came up with Operation Extra Eyes. Falcinelli said 15 people have completed six hours of training on alcohol laws and how to recognize drunks. About seven have participated in observations.

The volunteers were selected based on the recommendations of friends and relatives who are police officers, he said, or they are people who have gone through the citizens academy, a program that teaches civilians about police work.

The program is extremely uncommon, criminal justice officials said, and it's too early to tell whether it will make a significant difference. Montgomery police said that last year, the volunteers aided in 12 impaired driving arrests and two drug-related arrests. Their tips led to 200 citations for alcohol violations.

None of the volunteers has yet testified in court, but State's Attorney Douglas F. Gansler said their observations could be used like that of any other witness.

The volunteers are covered under Montgomery County's insurance policy and against liability. If they are injured on duty, they can apply for compensation. Falcinelli said volunteers have had no safety problems and that no one has filed a claim. Volunteers are told to drive with care when tailing people they consider suspicious and to stay within the law, he said.

County Council members praised Operation Extra Eyes as an innovative approach, but some questioned whether volunteers should follow people.

"That's just a recipe for disaster," said council member Tom Perez (D-Silver Spring), a civil rights lawyer, who was unaware of the program until contacted by The Washington Post. "If there had been an accident while they had been doing that, I'm quite confident the county would have been on the hook."

Council President Michael L. Subin (D-At Large) said that on occasions when he has called Maryland State Police to report an aggressive driver, dispatchers always warn him against following the person.

Police Chief Charles A. Moose said concern that the actions of volunteers might result in lawsuits is unfounded.

"Maybe, under that thinking, we shouldn't have any volunteers," Moose said. "I've got volunteers coming to clip newspaper articles. I guess if they come up the stairs and they fall. . . ."

The use of volunteers by law enforcement agencies is common -- D.C. and Fairfax County police train volunteers to provide uniformed security at large public events -- but allowing them to tail suspicious people occasionally is unusual.

"Surveillance is a pretty tricky business," Fairfax Lt. Mark Payton said.

Peter Manning, a criminal justice expert who teaches at Northeastern University, agreed.

"They can get caught in situations they don't anticipate," Manning said. "That's something that police are trained for and cope with better."

The Saturday night that Helton and Carswell spent on the lookout for alcohol law violators provided a window into the volunteer operation. They spent three chilly hours parked outside 7 Express Beer & Wine in Gaitherstowne Plaza.

Helton, a husky federal printing office employee who said he wants to be a police officer in his "next life," signed up after a police officer friend told him about the program.

Carswell, 38, an Olney father of four who owns party rental stores, said he became interested in public safety after the sniper attacks. Carswell was allowed to participate although he had not been trained.

At one point during the evening, Helton grabbed a flashlight and jumped out of his truck when he saw an officer scuffling with a man. Helton watched as the officer handcuffed and charged the man with disorderly conduct, but he said he would have been ready to do more.

"If you're everyday Joe Citizen and you're seeing a police officer getting beat up by two people, wouldn't you get out and do something?" Helton asked.

At another point, Helton radioed police that he had "definitely" seen a drug transaction. Two young men had come out of the store with 12-packs of beer. The curly haired one grabbed the hand of a chatty man who had been approaching patrons.

But when Falcinelli arrived to pull over the two men's Chevy Cavalier, using its cracked windshield as the probable cause for the stop, he said he didn't see any drugs.

Helton reconsidered his judgment of the man outside the store whom they had suspected was a drug dealer.

"The more I look at this guy, it may be that he's just bumming money. I may have just given you bad information," he told police.

Helton redeemed himself later. Around 12:30 a.m., a man in a hooded sweat shirt held a case of beer in one hand and motioned to a young man in a car. The two then started walking to the end of the parking lot.

Helton told police that it looked like the sweat shirted man was buying for someone underage. Police said Helton was right; they arrested both men.

That night, Helton and Carswell were asked by police to follow two cars whose drivers were suspected of impaired driving. They lost the the black Honda in traffic. The other driver, whose BMW the volunteers followed from Joe's Crab Shack in Gaithersburg, was pulled over by a police officer after Helton trailed him for a few minutes. The driver was charged with driving under the influence. The officer showed them the results of the driver's breath test: .13, far above the legal limit of .08.

"If we took one drunk driver off the road, and it was the result of something we did, I'd be pretty proud," Carswell said.

EIN FUHRER

EIN HOMELAND

EIN REICHLAND

EIN SECURITY

posted 12-27-2002 12:29 PM            

NYTIMES INTERNATIOAL

Not Everyone Is Rushing to Accept European Union's Invitation
By PETER S. GREEN

PRAGUE, Dec. 24 — They returned from the European Union meeting in Copenhagen this month as their nations' heroes, hailed in newspaper headlines as skilled diplomats who had successfully negotiated the entry of their 10 Eastern European and Mediterranean countries into the wealthy 15-member club.

Now the 10 leaders face a task almost as difficult: persuading skeptical populations to accept that invitation and join the European Union when each country votes next year in separate referendums on entry.

"So far, in terms of selling it, we are on the defensive," said Pavel Telicka, the Czechs' chief negotiator in union talks. He was criticized in the Czech news media for not bringing home enough money from Brussels. But, he said, "it's not just about money but about other issues that will have to be communicated."

Czechs are among the most Euro-skeptic candidates, with only 43 percent of respondents supporting membership in a recent poll.

In smaller countries like Estonia, with 1.4 million citizens, polls show many voters fear being swallowed up in a union of almost 450 million.

Foreign Minister Kristiina Ojuland said: "The most important questions will be questions of employment, salaries, social care. These kind of things should be explained by the government as simply as possible."

Pro-union campaigners face an uphill battle with Easterners, who fear they will simply end up with West European prices on the same old East European salaries.

"People are starting to realize that this is going to be very costly for them, that prices are going to rise, that foreigners will be able to buy property, which will send home prices higher," said Michael Shafir, a senior analyst at Radio Free Europe in Prague.

Hungary's rightist opposition leader and former prime minister, Viktor Orban, plays an openly nationalist card. He recently called the Socialist government that pushed him from office last summer "Brusselites," the same way, he said, that the country's longtime Communist rulers were "Muscovites."

"The same people who used to lecture us about Socialist internationalism now tell us how to be true Europeans," Mr. Orban said.

To which Miklos Haraszti, a prominent political commentator in Budapest, responds: "Orban, while preaching yes, is doing his best to ruin the people's appetite for the E.U. He wants to win the next election riding the difficulties that will predictably come in the first years after accession."

While polls generally show that union supporters can expect at least a small margin of victory, European Union officials say their main priority is to get out the vote. "Our fear is a low turnout, which can help the parties which are populist and anti-European," said Jean-Christophe Filori, spokesman for enlargement for the European Commission.

In Poland, farmers and workers fear that their land and factories will be bought up cheaply by the neighboring Germans, relegating the Poles forever to second-class status. While surveys show that 70 percent of Poles will turn out for the referendum, on June 8, with a 55 percent yes vote, pro-union activists say their greatest enemy is complacence.

Krzysztof Bobinski, publisher of the pro-union magazine "Unie & Polska," said opponents of union entry are highly motivated. "They will turn out and vote," he said. "The pro campaigners are not very motivated; they just feel that somehow it is going to happen. If we don't work hard, the referendum will be lost."

posted 12-27-2002 12:40 PM            

TARGETING THE ELDERLY.........

SORRY....THIS IS NOT A "CONSPIRACY THEORY"

CBN News 12/27/02: Dale Hurd

Original Link: http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/news/020131a.asp

PALM BEACH, FL — Imagine having a microchip inside your body that would store your identity and important medical information, and might even tell people where you are. Is it a sign of the end times or simply a sign of progress?

Microchip technology is no longer just for Palm Pilots and cell phones, now people can store important information about themselves right beneath their skin. A chip about the size of a Tic Tac can carry up to six lines of text, readable with a scanner.

Science fiction has become reality. A Florida company plans to bring their new VeriChip to the market this year. It's a product that excites a lot of people, but worries many others.

"The VeriChip is an advanced, digital identification technology," explained Doctor Keith Bolton, the vice president and chief technology officer at Applied Digital Systems in Palm Beach, Florida. It will be the first company in the world to offer the microchip for insertion into humans.

"The first component is a very small microchip. The other component is a proprietary, patented, handheld scanner, that reads the information from the chip," Bolton said.

The initial use of the VeriChip will be to store personal identification or medical information, such as details about any implanted medical devices like pacemakers or artificial limbs, or any allergies to medication. In an emergency, it could save a life. Dr. Richard Seelig, medical advisor at Applied Digital, implanted a chip in his arm and his hip area a few months ago.

"Yes, it’s in my right forearm and there is no bump or anything that you can really see, and if you just gently pass your finger over it it's right in this area right here," Seelig demonstrated. "The technique just involves a little bit of local anesthetic into the skin, and just a slight amount of pressure... it takes about seven seconds to do, and that was that — wear a band-aid, that was the end of it."

The Jacobs family in Coral Springs, Florida would like to be the first family to receive the VeriChip. "I was watching the news with Derrick and there was a segment on the VeriChip, and he was so intrigued with the VeriChip. After it was over he stood up and said, ‘I want to be the first kid to have that chip implanted in me,’" said Leslie Jacobs.

"Everybody uses computers in their everyday life, and as people get more and more close to computers, people can't even live without computers for one day," Derrick said. "So I think it’s just another step closer in the evolution of man and technology."

But for Derrick’s dad, Jeff, who suffers from a number of medical challenges, the VeriChip could be a lifesaver. "They would know who to contact, they would know what medications I'm on, and it’s quite a few. They would know what I'm allergic to, what kind of operations I've had and where there might be problems. I can't wait to get it because it will make me feel so much more secure," Jeff said.

Future versions of embedded microchips could carry a person's full identification in place of I.D. cards that can be lost or stolen. That could put a dent in the growing problem of identity theft, and make the world a little safer.

"We would like to know for sure as best we can that the people in that cockpit of that airplane belong there and they are the right people, that people who work at nuclear power plants are the right people and they should be there," Seelig said.

Still more advanced versions of the microchip someday might be able to track a person’s location through a global positioning system [GPS].

Right now Applied Digital Solutions sells a separate system for tracking and monitoring called Digital Angel, which consists of a device similar to a wrist-watch and a module worn on the belt. It is marketed to the families of Alzheimer's patients because, as Bolton demonstrates, it can locate loved ones anywhere in the world, from any P.C. in the world.

"Pete is outside and he has the Digital Angel monitor on, and we're going to monitor his position from this Internet access P.C.," Bolton illustrated. "What we're showing here is he is on the corner of Coconut Grove and Royal Palm Way." And that is exactly where Pete was.

A GPS tracking device is currently too large to fit into the tiny VeriChip, but miniaturization is probably only a matter of time. Some believe a tracking device inside the body could deter kidnapping. "We've had six Latin American countries in here in just the last two weeks, and they are begging us to create an embedded integrated technology," Bolton said.

But the thought of being tracked and carrying vital information in the body makes a lot of people’s skin crawl. And it reminds some of a frightening prophecy in the Bible about the mark of the Beast.

Revelation 13 says the Beast will force everyone "to receive a mark on his right hand or forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the Beast or the number of his name... His number is 666."

Applied Digital has been attacked by some Christians for making what some fear is a prototype mark of the Beast. So does this chip, as it is now, have any relationship to the prophecy in the book of Revelation? CBN News asked Regent University professor Doctor Joseph Kickasola.

"My judgement is, no they do not," Kickasola said. "I think it's both illogical and unfair to make that assertion, and let me tell you why. I think the Bible clearly says the mark of the Beast is for buying and selling and that it is also coerced, it's government enforced. On the face of it, these microchips are for good purposes, like for medical records, like for lost children. They're not for buying or selling, as is described in the book of Revelation."

And Bolton stresses the VeriChip is voluntary. "We live in a free society," he said. "You can either elect to smoke [or not]. You can elect to have the VeriChip. So it’s a freedom of choice technology."

But what about a future in which everyone must take an embedded chip if they want to drive or work in secure environments? Kickasola stresses that any government coercion would collide with the First Amendment.

"Government cannot coerce us to speak," he said. "And a microchip speaks a lot, it has a lot of information in it. The one threshold in the Bible we must not pass is the threshold of coercion, whereby we have a state or federally enforced form of identification in our body."

The tiny VeriChip would seem to contain more than electronics: hope, fear, opportunity, some politics and perhaps a dash of theology. But it is another piece of technology that will likely become a part of everyday life.

Since we first published this story in late January, the controversy over this microchip has only increased. Applied Digital wants government permission to market the chip to be used for ID purposes in airports, nuclear power plants and other high security facilities.

The idea of such an ID chip has many supporters. But it also has its critics, especially among privacy advocates. One attorney for a privacy group pointed out that new technologies are always used for good purposes at first. But he warned, "The problem is that you always have to think about what the device will be used for tomorrow."

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!!!! TURN OFF THE DAMN T.V.

posted 12-27-2002 01:01 PM            

Why 'biased' BBC news team stands accused of selling its soul to Euroland

London Telegraph 12/27/02: Damian Thompson

Original Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/12/27/nmed27.xml&sSheet=/
news/2002/12/27/ixhome.html

A retired research scientist from Cambridge is refusing to pay his television licence fee in protest at the BBC's uncritical coverage of the European Union. "We are moving towards an oppressive super-state yet the BBC gives us very little real information about it," he says. "It reminds me of Soviet propaganda. It really does."

On the face of it, the comparison sounds a little excessive. But this particular licence refusenik, Vladimir Bukovsky, has actually spent 12 years of his life in Soviet psychiatric hospitals and prison camps. As a civil rights campaigner, he did more than anyone else to expose the persecution of dissidents during the Brezhnev era.

Earlier this month, Bukovsky stood outside the reception of Broadcasting House and took a pair of scissors to a giant facsimile of his licence. Needless to say, there were no BBC television cameras present to record the event but it will have acutely embarrassed the corporation at a time when the Eurosceptic campaign against BBC bias is gathering pace.

For the past year or two, sarcastic paragraphs have been appearing in diary columns, offering miniature illustrations of the corporation's Europhile mindset - reporting, for example, that production staff were seen applauding pro-federalist speakers during a televised debate on the EU or that Martha Kearney, Newsnight's political editor, had agreed to judge an essay competition entitled: "Why are we afraid of the European Union?"

Minotaur, an independent monitoring unit run by a former head of publicity for BBC News, is currently analysing every reference to Europe on the Today programme. Previous Minotaur surveys have covered the 2001 general election and the launch of the euro notes and coins.

Each has come to the same conclusion: that the corporation's European coverage is slanted in favour of the single currency and presents the case for withdrawal from the EU as, in the words of one BBC correspondent, "flat-earth politics".

So far, the BBC has found it easy to shrug off the Minotaur reports. It points out that they have been commissioned by the arch-Eurosceptic Lord Pearson of Rannoch and are therefore not quite as independent as they might seem.

There are signs, however, that corporation executives are more worried than they are prepared to admit. Anne Sloman, the corporation's political adviser, has been spotted lunching with Pearson. The meeting was cordial but it is hard to imagine anyone less likely to win over the corporation's critics.

According to a BBC current affairs presenter who understandably refuses to be named, she once told him: "Don't you realise that these people [hard-line opponents of the EU] are mad?"

Pearson's organisation, Global Britain, has posted several hundred pages of Minotaur findings on its website, www.globalbritain.org. Although in places the reports do seem one-sided, reading too much into slips of the tongue or hurried editorial decisions, taken as a whole they point to a subliminal BBC "line" on Europe that is difficult to reconcile with the obligation of impartiality set down in its charter.

In the five years up to 2002, Eurosceptics became increasingly convinced that the BBC was acting as an unofficial cheerleader for the single currency. Several programmes employed the device of inviting pro and anti-euro lobbyists to change the minds of a target audience but, on closer inspection, seemed designed to produce a particular outcome.

A 1997 Panorama studio debate achieved an 18 per cent swing to the euro in less than an hour. In 2001, Referendum Street subjected residents of a north London street to the arguments of both sides.

But, not long before filming began, the Eurosceptic Zac Goldsmith withdrew from the project because of the producers' insistence that their anti-euro team should be led by the unappealing David Mellor.

This time, the swing was 23 per cent in two days, though viewers were given no evidence about how the polls were conducted. When Panorama repeated its debate this May, there was another swing to the euro but only after 40 voting machines were switched off "to refine the sample".

By this stage, many Eurosceptics were convinced that the BBC would try to nudge the electorate in a referendum, just as it has admitted doing in the 1975 Common Market vote, when Today disseminated pro-EEC information supplied by the Foreign Office.

Public opposition to the euro fell during 2001; Minotaur speculated that the BBC's positive coverage "could well have contributed to this significant change".

The high-water mark of euro-enthusiasm was reached this January when the euro notes and coins were launched. "Euphoria in Euroland," was the opening line on the Ten O'Clock News. "Euphoria at the BBC" might have been a better description.

This was how Paul Mason of Newsnight reported the scenes in Maastricht: "As the midnight hour approached, a giant inflatable euro tree blossomed into life. For once, the Ode to Joy seemed exactly the right tune."

Jim Naughtie, in Paris for Today, struck an almost Biblical note: "The arrival of the currency that the fathers of modern Europe dreamed about are [sic] all symbols made flesh."

As it turned out, it was the last good news about the EU the BBC could report for nearly a year, until the agreement on enlargement. The value of the euro dropped as the Germany economy went into seizure; allegations of corruption were levelled against the European Commission by Marta Andreasen, its sacked chief accountant. Blair argued with Chirac.

Some BBC programmes reported these developments impartially. Others seemed intent on acting as a buffer between the bad news from Europe and the public.

The Six O'Clock News, after reporting Andreasen's charges, went over to a BBC correspondent in Brussels who simply repeated the EU's rubbishing of Andreasen; the Commission's press officer couldn't have done better.

The latest Minotaur report focuses on Today's handling of the last European Council summit. The Franco-German deal to cap farm subsidies caught the programme by surprise, says Minotaur, and its review of the press on Oct 25 played down its significance. Listeners were told that the agreement was opposed by "those European conspiracy theorists" the Sun and the Daily Mail.

The next day, it emerged that Tony Blair had made a scathing attack on the deal. On Oct 29, his stand-up row with Chirac dominated the newspaper headlines.

Today reported it briefly but a crucial part of the story, the cancellation of an Anglo-French summit, was ignored until Oct 30 when, bizarrely, the Rev Leslie Griffiths announced it on Thought for the Day with the comment: "What a to-do!" Throughout all this, only two out of 13 interviewees expressed negative sentiments about Brussels.

The case for withdrawal from the EU was not heard. But then, as Minotaur says, it almost never is. Thirty per cent of the electorate want to leave the EU but you would never guess that from the BBC's output, which treats the pro-withdrawal lobby as an eccentric or malevolent force.

A television news report during the election showed a UKIP candidate hammering at a campaign board. He was shot from a low angle, the sky throwing his face into shadow: pure Hitchcock.

"Steve Reed wants to smash the European Union to pieces," said the commentary. Why is there such antipathy to anti-EU campaigners? According to one senior BBC journalist, it is because their opinions fall outside "the fairly thin band of ideology that gets the stamp of approval".

In August, the BBC accepted a £25 million EU loan to make programmes, tying its commercial future into the success of the EU project. For the BBC's Labour-supporting chairman and director-general, support for the EU makes ideological and commercial sense.

Yet there is no evidence that the management dictates a pro-euro line to its senior journalists, most of whom would scream blue murder if it tried to.

But, in a sense it does not have to because, outside a small circle of independent-minded correspondents, there is a vast army of junior reporters, script editors and researchers whose right-on prejudices - on Europe, hunting, immigration and abortion - are so instinctive that they are not even aware of them. This is hardly surprising, given that they are recruited mainly though the media pages of the Guardian.

If, over the next few years, the strain of enlargement begins to pull Europe apart, it will be interesting to see if the BBC will allow a national debate over Britain's membership - or, to put it another way, whether million of licence payers who oppose membership will get their money's worth.

At the moment, the signals are mixed. Richard Sambrook, head of news, has warned his journalists that they need to be more concerned about impartiality. On the other hand, no public institution is quite so resistant to criticism as the BBC.

A few months ago Andrew Turner, the Tory MP, wrote to Gayvn Davies, the BBC chairman, asking about the Minotaur reports - documents that contain the most detailed allegations of bias ever levelled against the corporation. Davies's reply was positively Olympian in its condescension.

"BBC management have not so far alerted us [the Governors] through the normal reporting channels of any issues raised by the Minotaur reports of bias in our coverage," he wrote. "I therefore have no reason to believe that these reports give grounds for concern."

posted 12-27-2002 02:30 PM            

This new fascism is friendly, as opposed to classic fascism. Smirking Bush and Thumbs Up Clinton. Perhaps that's why we don't see much of Cheney and AssCrack. They snarl too much. Here's a few exerpts from "Friendly Fascism", by Betram Gross 1980.

"CLASSIC FASCISM: A tight Government-Big Business oligarchy with charismatic dictator or figurehead, and expansionist, scapegoating, and nationalistic ideologies.

FRIENDLY FASCISM: An integrated Big business—Big Government power structure with new technocratic ideologies and more advanced arts of ruling and fooling the public.

CLASSIC FASCISM: Liquidation or minimalization of multiparty conflict and open subversion, with little use of democratic machinery and human rights.

FRIENDLY FASCISM: Subtle subversion, through manipulative use and control of democratic machinery, parties, and human rights.

CLASSIC FASCISM: Negative sanctions through ruthless, widespread, and high-cost terror; direct action against selected scapegoats.

FRIENDLY FASCISM: Direct terror applie through low-level violence and professionalized, low-cost escalation, with indirect terror through ethnic conflicts, multiple scapegoats, and organized disorder.

CLASSIC FASCISM: Ceaseless propaganda, backed up by spies and informers, to consolidate elite support and mobilize masses.

FRIENDLY FASCISM: Informational offensives backed by high-technology monitoring, to manage minds of elites and immobilize masses.

CLASSIC FASCISM: Widespread benefits through more jobs, stabilized prices, domestic spoils, foreign booty, and upward mobility for the most faithful.

FRIENDLY FASCISM: Rationed rewards of power and money for elites, extended professionalism, accelerated consumerism for some, and social services, conditional on the recipients' good behavior.

CLASSIC FASCISM: Anxiety relief through participatory spectacles, mass action, and genuine bloodletting.

FRIENDLY FASCISM: More varied relief through sex, drugs, madness, and cults, as well as alcolholism, gambling, sports, and ultraviolent drama. *

CLASSIC FASCISM: Internal viability based on sustained, frantic, and eventually self-destructive expansion.

FRIENDLY FASCISM: Internal viability based on careful expansion, system-strengthening reforms, multilevel co-optation, and mass apathy."

http://users.forthnet.gr/ath/soutsi/fasc.htm

posted 12-27-2002 03:48 PM            

KILINTON,BUSH,CARTER,REAGAN.....THEY ARE ALL THE SAME. NWO GLOBALIST APOLOGISTS.

posted 12-27-2002 03:50 PM            

KILINTON,BUSH,CARTER,REAGAN.....THEY ARE ALL THE SAME. NWO GLOBALIST APOLOGISTS. THEY WANT US TO ARGUE OVER "BUSH vs. KLINTON"...SEE THROUGH THE BULL$#!+ THEY ARE PLAYING YOU!!!

IT IS A PERFECT WIN WIN SITUATION FOR THE GLOBALISTS AND 100% LOSS FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS AND NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY.

posted 12-27-2002 04:04 PM            

2003 IS THE YEAR OF THE SHEEP!!! LET'S BECOME THE RAM INSTEAD.

posted 12-27-2002 04:13 PM            

IT'S MUCH MORE IMPORTANT TO WORRY ABOUT THE FOOTBALL GAME, CELEBRITY ICONS, MANUFACTURED POP TRENDS, ELIAN GONZALES, TRENT LOTT,A NEW CAR AND WHAT'S ON PRIME TIME THAN UNDERSTANDING HOW WE ARE ALL HAVING THE SHACKLE BEING FITTED AROUND OUR ANKLE BY THE NEW WORLD ORDER.

posted 12-28-2002 01:07 PM            

Study: Homeland Security to Spur Biometrics Growth

DC Internet 12/20/02: Ryan Naraine

Original Link: http://dc.internet.com/news/article.php/1559671

A technology research think-thank believes increased government spending by the newly-formed Department of Homeland Security will push growth in the biometric sector in the second half of 2003.

Oyster Bay, N.Y.-based research firm Allied Business Intelligence (ABI) said the use of biometrics -- authentication technology that uses biological characteristics -- by government agencies like the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) will lend credibility to the burgeoning industry.

The INS plans to spend big to integrate biometrics into its systems to monitor U.S. borders, technology that will include fingerprint scanning, face-recognition and other biological characteristics to identify felons within a database.

This increased dependence on the technology to enhance U.S. homeland security operations is expected to serve as the "catalyst" for the biometric industry, according to the study.

"The U.S. government remains the largest potential buyer of biometric technology...Deployments of biometric technology can occur earlier in 2003, depending on how quickly biometric vendors can integrate biometric technology into legacy security systems," said John Chang, the ABI analyst who wrote the report.

The ABI study found that government agencies garnered 15 percent of the total biometric industry revenue for 2002 and the sector is expected to generate $153 million in total revenue by the end of 2003.

Between 2000 and 2007, ABI is projecting total biometric revenue will grow almost 50 percent, ABI said.

Biometrics is generally used to describe the study of measurable biological characteristics. In computer security, biometrics refers to authentication techniques that rely on measurable physical characteristics that can be automatically checked. Examples include computer analysis of fingerprints or speech.

posted 12-28-2002 01:25 PM            

YOUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS ARE BEING STEPPED ON...WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?

FORGETTING EVERYTHING OUR VETERANS FOUGHT AND DIED FOR.

YAHOO NEWS DEC.28/02

Before you leave, you may want to tell your friends, and while you're at it, let them know what you've been doing lately. Depending on where you are, and whether what you do sounds suspicious, the government may read that e-mail.

If you go to the town square to wave down a taxi to the airport, you may also be waving to a camera housed in what looks like a street lamp. If you look like a wanted criminal, you may draw the attention of a security guard watching a monitor, or the guard across the street.

You can bypass all that by driving to the airport. But if you keep your mobile phone on, the carrier will always know where you are by triangulation using the phone's signal.

At the airport, you may have your face scanned again. This may actually speed your rush to freedom, because if you're a frequent flyer who's volunteered to be prescreened, you'll probably face less scrutiny before you get on the plane.

Finally, you'll reach the gambling mecca. The management there likes people-watching, too. If you've been there before and they suspected you were cheating, your face may set off an alarm. Or if you're just a high-roller who volunteered to be identified automatically, they'll welcome you by name. Then you'll be free.

If it feels like Big Brother is watching you, it may really be your boss, or a big bank... or your own big brother.
Under Surveillance

On one hand, you're onto something: Use of surveillance tools is growing, and new technology is making them more powerful all the time. On the other, there's a big difference between surveillance in George Orwell's novel 1984 and in the real world (news - Y! TV) of the 21st century. In Orwell's book, the government planted listening devices and two-way televisions called "telescreens" in homes, offices, and public places. These days, the government doesn't have a monopoly on ways to watch, listen to, or find you.

Some such technologies remain in the hands of a few powerful entities(the NWO globalists) and are shrouded in mystery. However, today the spy kits of private companies may contain tools that a potential target might not even know exist. By the same token, some supposed surveillance capabilities are less science than fiction.

Privacy laws vary widely around the world, but the technology trends creating new ways to invade privacy are pretty much universal. Devices are getting smaller and cheaper, networks to access the collected data are getting faster, the Internet is getting bigger, and software for data analysis is getting smarter.

Although different surveillance technologies may be used together, they fit into a few broad categories: tools for watching or listening in the physical world, monitoring activity in cyberspace, locating people or things, and interpreting the information that's collected.
Miniature Machines

Cameras and audio recording devices are getting smaller and their wireless communication capabilities are growing, warns Richard Hunter, a Gartner analyst and author of World Without Secrets: Business, Crime, and Privacy in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing. Combined with powerful back-end systems on the other end of those wireless links, they are becoming virtual eyes and ears for just about anyone.

"The miniaturized aware machines... will not only see and hear what's going on around them, but they will be able to understand it in ways similar to the ways humans understand it," Hunter said.

Wireless digital cameras with microphones and radios, now about the size of a golf ball, within two or three technology generations could be the size of a shirt button and cost $25, Hunter said.

"When you walked down the street, anyone might have multiple such devices on their person," Hunter said. Likewise, "If you have a surveillance device the size of a button, you could have hundreds of them in a room without anyone being aware," he said.

Meanwhile, wireless network connections at speeds of 5 to 20 gigabits per second eventually will allow those devices to constantly send large amounts of data, he added.

Digital video cameras already have slashed the cost of surveillance in public spaces and private buildings in the past few years, putting unsuspecting people in the gaze of a lot more cameras. Digital cameras can be made much smaller than analog ones, said Mihir Kshirsagar, a policy analyst at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a watchdog group in Washington, D.C. They also produce clearer images, which can be transmitted over long distances in the same ways as any data.
Your Face Looks Familiar

Increasingly, digital surveillance cameras are being used with face-recognition software that links what a camera sees with a database of pictures and facial measurements, which in turn are linked to criminal records or other information.

When a face appears that matches a suspicious person's to a set degree of sensitivity, an alarm goes off in a control center and a human operator looks at other factors--height, sex, hair color, and so on--to see if they match, according to Joseph Atick, president and chief executive officer of Indentix, in Minnetonka, Minnesota, a maker of face-recognition systems.

Set to high sensitivity, a system can identify 90 out of 100 people sought, with 2 percent to 3 percent false positives, Atick said. A lower setting cuts the number of false positives, but also the detection rate. Meanwhile, the systems are getting better: They can now identify 40 characteristics of a face in real time, up from 20 a few years ago, he said.

The technology poses little danger to most people who walk through a public place, Atick said. False positives can be cleared up easily by a human operator monitoring the video stream or visiting the site in person, he said.
Public Safety

Face recognition has been deployed with surveillance cameras in public areas of several cities in the U.S. and the U.K., as well as in casinos, where files are sometimes kept on suspected cheaters, according to Gartner's Hunter. It's also beginning to be used at checkpoints, such as for airport security.

Atick and some other experts say face recognition can be used only to detect certain people and not to identify everyone. That may be all it can ever be used for, because lighting conditions change and pedestrians don't always face the camera.

"Over the next ten years or so, you're not going to be able to build a system that would be able to identify every person who walks by a camera in a natural outdoor environment," said Larry Davis, a professor of computer science at the University of Maryland in College Park.
At the Office

Researchers at the University of California at San Diego are developing "intelligent rooms" where hidden cameras and microphones are linked to software for analyzing someone's face, voice, and walk. The system is intended to compare the combination of those characteristics against a database of personal characteristics to identify people, said Mohan Trivedi, professor of electrical and computer engineering. It could even identify a person's mood from facial expressions.

Trivedi sees the technology as making it easier to hold a videoconference. Cameras could focus in on the person talking at any given time, and the session could be recorded and later searched by subject, speaker, and other factors. His group is now experimenting with a new, smaller generation of gear. The team has outfitted a laboratory with 50 cameras built into the walls and furniture.

"We would like to make all the sensors invisible and absolutely unobtrusive," he said.
Watching Over You

A critical hurdle for such systems is the capability to analyze images and spoken conversations, Hunter said. Winston Smith, Orwell's protagonist in 1984, never knew whether government agents were watching him through the telescreen. He thought there weren't enough of them to watch all the time.

But this kind of data analysis could let software, not humans, filter the incoming data. That could mean a lot more monitoring, according to Gartner's Hunter. By 2010, large-scale analysis of images and spoken words will be possible, but probably only in specialized domains with their own key words, such as health care or finance, Hunter predicted.

Trivedi's team has seen progress in this area.

"We are further along than what I used to think," he said. In UCSD's intelligent room, a computer now can identify two people shaking hands in real time.
Tracking Device

The growing power of microprocessors and software also is making it easier for others to know where you are. For that matter, the lowly cell phone has been a fairly effective tracking device for years.

"It's basically a vast surveillance network that half of us are now tied into, that follows us around," said Richard M. Smith, an independent security consultant in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The network needs to keep track of where the handset is so it can be handed off to the next cell. That means it's possible to pinpoint a person's location to within less than a mile, according to Jim Southworth, chief technical officer of East By North, a broadband consulting company in Reston, Virginia. Government agencies can tap into that information in real time if necessary, or check carrier records, he said.

Location detection takes a big step forward with Global Positioning System (news - web sites), in which devices on the ground or in the air determine their own locations using signals received from a network of satellites. This system can pinpoint the location of any GPS device to within feet, Southworth said. The devices are quickly growing smaller and are being pitched as add-ons for mobile phones and cars.
Doing a Little Digital Eavesdropping

There is a wide range of technologies for eavesdropping on what people send over data networks and even what they do on their own computers. They break down roughly into consumer tools, ones made for companies with IT specialists, government capabilities, and the murky area of methods used by hackers and other rogue agents, according to Erik Laykin, president of consulting company Online Security, in Los Angeles.

Surveillance software is available off the shelf and on the Internet for consumers, such as parents keeping an eye on children's computer activity. Vero Beach, Florida-based SpectorSoft's EBlaster can copy all Web sites visited, keystrokes typed, and e-mail messages sent and received from the computer on which it is running. That information can then be forwarded to someone else's e-mail address, such as that of a parent at work. Programs like this could also be installed surreptitiously, for example on a PC at a competing company, through a virus or other means, according to Gartner's Hunter.

In addition to software for keystroke recording, there is at least one stealthy hardware device that does the same thing. KeyGhost, in Christchurch, New Zealand, sells a small cylindrical device that can be plugged into a keyboard cable and looks like an electrical adapter. It can capture about eight months' worth of keystrokes in flash memory.
Invisible Surveillance

Corporations can do something similar on a larger scale using Raytheon's Silent Runner, a "watered-down" version of a tool originally developed by the U.S. National Security Agency, Online Security's Laykin said. His company is a reseller of the software.

"Once the tool has been placed on a network, the tool is actually invisible to everyone on the network, including the network administrators, and it will capture and view all the data and traffic flowing on that network," Laykin said. Using keywords and rules, Silent Runner can detect improper activity, such as sending e-mail messages with information about a secret new product.

Because it could be dangerous in the wrong hands, Silent Runner is tightly controlled. If Silent Runner is watching you, you probably know it, he said.

"Generally speaking, employers have an obligation to tell employees there's a surveillance program," Laykin said.
Government Tools

However, regulations on private surveillance vary around the world. Meanwhile, little is known about some systems used by governments.

One of the most controversial tools is the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's Carnivore system. Carnivore is a "packet sniffer" that the FBI (news - web sites) installs at ISPs to capture traffic associated with a customer under suspicion, according to Smith. Despite fears of agents reading every Internet user's e-mail, the system officially can be used on specific suspects only, Smith said. But some privacy advocates worry that there is too little oversight of agents carrying out a Carnivore probe.

More wide-reaching is Echelon, a system many experts believe has been deployed by governments in the U.S. and Europe to monitor international voice and data traffic over both land lines and satellites. Echelon is used like a net, capturing a large portion of the world's communications so authorities can later sift through it and find what they are looking for, Gartner's Hunter said.

Chinese sources say police in that country have been known to monitor e-mail as well as message board activity at major Chinese portals (news - web sites). If the police find messages with political or other content the government finds objectionable, they may work with the portal operator to try to find those who created the messages.
Dangerous Deliveries

Perhaps the most frightening prospect for surveillance comes from outside the realm of legal tools. A custom "Trojan horse" designed to go into a specific targeted system couldn't even be detected, Laykin said.

"The virus scanners, like McAfee and Norton, will not have a signature for a custom-written virus," he said.

Some advances in technology also have made computer users more vulnerable to unscrupulous electronic surveillance. DSL Internet connections are always on, unlike dial-up accounts, so there may be more opportunity for intrusion. Wireless LANs also open up the possibility of snooping. The encryption system built into the popular IEEE 802.11b wireless LAN standard can be cracked just by examining a brief sample of packets, according to Peter Shipley, a security consultant in Berkeley, California. Shipley said he has intercepted wireless LAN traffic from 20 miles away, with an inexpensive antenna at the top of a hill.
Putting It All Together

As much as you may worry about being watched or having information gathered from you, what may be most scary is what can happen when all that information is pulled together.

Already, data mining systems can analyze 15 terabytes of data in one day, roughly as much information as is gathered by the U.S. national discount chain Wal-Mart Stores in one day, according to Gartner's Hunter. The power of this kind of software is growing, and systems that can analyze 125 terabytes per day are now under development and are likely to be deployed within five years, he said.

Storage and database technology now allows the companies with which you do business to keep more information about you. Civil rights protections may be able to keep government away from that data, but companies face an inherent risk if they keep it, said Lee Tien, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in San Francisco.

"You can't disclose what you don't have, but if you have it, you may be compelled to give it up," Tien said. "Data retention seems to be getting a foothold around the world. We're already seeing undeliberate retention being used for surveillance purposes."
Within Reach

Meanwhile, the Internet does for data transmission and sharing what microprocessors do for data gathering: put it within reach of anyone. It can take a snooper's photo, such as digital pictures that have been taken of women entering family-planning clinics in the U.S., and put that in the hands of any Web surfer, Hunter pointed out.

"We're talking about a world where most human activity is recorded... and most of what is recorded will be available to anyone who wants it badly enough," Hunter said.

WELCOME TO 1984

DO YOU FEEL THE LOVE YET? IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD....IT'S FOR THE 'HOMELAND'

IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT YOU MUST BE WITH THE "TERRORISTS"

posted 12-28-2002 01:52 PM            

THEIR KEY TO YOUR SOUL.............

In the excepts of the Exegesis reworked into the "Tractates Crytptica Scriptura" that close the novel VALIS, Dick expresses the MIT computer scientist Edward Fredkin's view that the universe is composed of information. The world we experience is a hologram, "a hypostasis of information" that we, as nodes in the true Mind, process. "We hypostasize information into objects. Rearrangement of objects is change in the content of information. This is the language we have lost the ability to read." With this Adamic code scrambled, both ourselves and the world as we know it are "occluded," cut off from the brimming "Matrix" of cosmic information.

Instead, we are under the sway of the "Black Iron Prison," Dick's terms for the demiurgic worldly forces of political tyranny and oppressive social control. Rome is the eternal paragon of this "Empire," whose archetypal lineaments the feverish Dick recognized in the Nixon administration.

Demonstrating that prisons, mental institutions, schools, and military establishments all share similar organizations of space and time, Foucault argued that a "technology of power" was distributed throughout social space, enmeshing human subjects at every turn. Foucault argued that liberal social reforms are only cosmetic brush-ups of an underlying mechanism of control. As Dick put it, "The Empire never ended."

I would like to assert the possibility that the prison has always been under construction, and it gets closer to view as it nears completion.

While the current administration continues to play "The Grand Chessboard" under the Orwellian facade of peace through war and freedom through slavery, we must ask ourselves: to what end? While some have compared Bush's tactics to those of Adolf Hitler, others feverishly argue that this is necessary to protect America's self interests. The prison-builders have always strived to coerce the citizenry into sacrificing LIBERTY for PSUEDO-SECURITY. As H.L. Mencken observed:

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

So now as we embark on a lifelong irrational "War against Terrorism", which comedian David Cross concluded is as feasible to win as a "War against Jealousy", and the CIA-ridden oil-soaked media monopoly continues to parrot the current Administration's macro-management of reality, some of the true prison-builders begin to emerge.

Prison-building with fear

We, as humans, are scared of the unknown. The media frenzy of kidnappings a few months back, which served as a well-timed distraction to events that were conveniently sidelined, also served the prison guards and their prerogative: subdermal microchips.

Shortly after 9-11, in the wake of irrational reactionism, Applied Digital Solutions, parent company of Verichip, went on a flurry of an advertising campaign, asking everyone the Simpson's tagline: "Won't somebody please think about the children?". Andy Rooney came out on 60 Minutes proclaiming; "I wouldn't mind having something planted permanently in my arm that would identify me.''

This market tactic was paired with their "Get Chipped!" promotion, and the "Chipmobile", which is touring Florida Senior centers, prowling for Alzheimers patients who must get chipped "for their own safety". Soon deals were made with China, Mexico, and South Korea to perpetuate the meme that global slavery equals global safety.

Just before the FDA ruled that Verichip is not a regulated medical device, Microsoft MapPoint announced a partnership with Verichip to "pinpoint the location of almost anything you want to track—in real time. You can even receive critical information about body temperature, pulse, and more." The FDA then charged: "ADS's conduct flagrantly disregards FDA's prior comprehensive advice."

Then in November the tune changed, from a medical device back to a location and tracking device, as a Washington forum debated the benefits and hazards posed by a new way of identifying people with a microchip implanted under their skin to replace conventional paper identification. Privacy advocates argued the microchip could spell the end of anonymity in the United States, particularly if authorities began requiring people to wear them to meet conditions of parole, employment or border crossings.

As the prison is beginning to emerge and the thoughts and nightmares of writers of the past are birthed into existence, we embark on a new millennium, a new day in America.

"This is not a dress rehearsal for the apocalypse. This is not a pseudo-millenium. This is the real thing folks. This is not a test. This is the last chance before things become so dissipated that there is no chance for cohesiveness." -Terence McKenna (1946-2000)

I would agree that at the time of this quote, we may have had a few more options. I believe that we have surpassed that now and there may be no turning back, no changing the direction of the ball once it has been thrown, and individually we must decide, Das Experiment-style, as Americans:

Do we want to be the prison guards, the prisoners, or do we want to find a way off of the island?

It's not a prison if you never try the door.

RESIST!!!!!!!!!!!

WAKE-UP NOW.......

THIS IS NO TIME FOR WISHING THIS WILL GO AWAY.

posted 12-29-2002 05:11 AM               

http://www.bushwatch.net/bushfuhrer.htm

The Indiscreet Charm of the Bush-Nazi Web Conspiranoids - Beating around the Bushes
http://members.tripod.com/~reno4governor/index-8.html

Chilling Deja Vu: Hitler and Bush; Stalin and Bush's Conservative Reform Movement; The GOP of 1936 and Today's Dirty Politics

posted 12-29-2002 05:24 AM               

New Vaccine Clause Angers Parent of the Autistic
Amendment Buried in Homeland Security Law Restricts Right to Sue Makers of Drug Preservative

from the article:

"Thomas has autism, a condition his parents believe was caused by a simple childhood immunization. "We're waiting for his first normal moment." said his mother, Donna Brinker of Glen Mills, Pa.

It was Donna Brinker's temper that flared when she learned that Congress had quietly restricted her right to sue Eli Lilly and Co., and other manufacturers of Thimerosal, the mercury-based vaccine preservative she believes caused her son's condition. The change came in two paragraphs tacked onto the massive Homeland Security Act just days before Congress approved the legislation in November.

The Brinkers are among 800 families in more than a dozen states that have filed similar cases seeking compensation for the costs of their children's autism. Under the new law, signed by President Bush Nov. 25, the parents are required to file claims with a special administrative court under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program before they can take their cases to civil court.

posted 12-29-2002 10:45 AM            

And The Consequent Rise of the Fourth Reich

From Christos Lightweaver, www.heartcom.org/bio.htm

"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men." -Abraham Lincoln

Everyone likes to say, "Hitler did this," and "Hitler did that." But the truth is Hitler did very little. He was a world class tyrant, but the evil actually done by the Third Reich, from the death camps to WWII, was all done by German citizens who were afraid to question if what they were told by their government was the truth or not, and who, because they did not want to admit to themselves that they were afraid to question the government, refused to see the truth behind the Reichstag Fire, refused to see the invasion by Poland was a staged fake, and followed Hitler into national disaster.

The German people of the late 1930s imagined themselves to be brave. They saw themselves as the heroic Germans depicted by the Wagnerian Operas, the descendants of the fierce Germanic warriors who had hunted wild boar with nothing but spears and who had defeated three of Rome's mightiest legions in the Tuetenberg Forest.

But in truth, by the 1930s, the German people had become civilized and tamed, culturally obsessed with fine details in both science and society. Their self-image of bravery was both salve and slavery. Germans were required to behave as if they were brave, even when they were not.

It's easy to look back and realize what a jerk Hitler was. But at the time, Hitler looked pretty good to the German people, with the help of the media. He was TIME Magazine's Man of the Year in 1938. The German people assumed they were safe from a tyrant. They lived in a Republic, after all, with strict laws regarding what the government could, and more importantly, could not do.

Their leader was a devoutly religious man, and had even sung with the boy's choir of a monastery in his youth.

The reality was that the German people, as individuals, had lost their courage. The German government preferred it that way as a fearful people are easier to rule than a courageous one. But the German people didn't wish to lose their self-image of courage.

So, when confronted with a situation demanding individual courage in the form of a government gone wrong, the German people simply pretended that the situation did not exist.

And in that simple self-deception
lay the ruin of an entire nation
and the coming of the Second World War.

When the Reichstag burned down, most Germans simply refused to believe suggestions that the fire had been staged by Hitler himself. They were afraid to. But so trapped were the Germans by their belief in their own bravery that they willed themselves to be blind to the evidence before their eyes so that they could nod in agreement with Der Fuhrer while still imagining themselves to have courage, even as they avoided the one situation which most required real courage; to stand up to Hitler's lies and deceptions.

When Hitler requested temporary extraordinary powers, powers specifically banned under German law, but powers Hitler claimed he needed to have to deal with the "terrorists", the German people, having already sold their souls to their self-delusions, agreed. The temporary powers were conferred, and once conferred lasted until Germany itself was destroyed.

When Hitler staged a phony invasion from Poland, the vast majority of the German people, their own self-image dependant on continuing blindness to Hitler's deceptions, did not question why Poland would have done something so stupid, and found themselves in a war.

But Hitler knew he ruled a nation of cowards, and knew he had to spend the money to make the new war something cowards could fight and win. He decorated his troops with regalia to make them proud of themselves, further trapping them in their self-image. Hitler copied the parade regalia of ancient Rome to remind the Germans of the defeat of the legions at the Tuetenberg Forest. Talismans were added from orthodox religions and the occult to fill the soldiers with delusions of mystical strengths and an afterlife if they fell in battle. Finally, knowing that it takes courage to kill the enemy face to face, Hitler spent vast sums of money on his wonder weapons, airplanes, submarines, ultra-long range artillery, the world's first cruise missile and the world's first guided missile, weapons that could be used to kill at a distance so that those doing the killing need not have to face the reality of what they were doing.

The German people were lured into WWII not because they were brave, but because they were cowards who wanted to be seen as brave, and found that shooting long range weapons at people they could not see took less courage than standing up to Hitler.

Sent into battle by that false image of courage, the Germans were dependent on their wonder-weapons. When the wonder-weapons stopped working, the Germans lost the war.

I remember as a child listening to the stories of WWII from my grandfather and my uncles who had served in Europe. I wondered how the German people could have been so stupid as to have ever elected Hitler dog catcher, let alone leader of the nation. Such is the clarity of historical hindsight.

And with that clarity,
I see the exact same mechanism that Hitler used
at work here in this nation.

The American people imagine themselves to be brave. They see themselves as the heroic Americans depicted by Western movies, the descendants of the fierce patriot warriors who had tamed the frontier and defeated the might of the British Empire.

But in truth, by the dawn of the third millennium, the American people have become civilized and tamed, culturally obsessed with fine details in both science and society. Their self-image of bravery is both salve and slavery. Americans are required to behave as if they are brave, even when they are not. The American people assume they are safe. They live in a Republic, after all, with strict laws regarding what the government can, and more importantly, cannot do. Their leader is a devoutly religious man.

The reality is that the American people, as individuals, have lost their courage. The government prefers it that way, as a fearful people are easier to rule than a courageous one. But Americans don't wish to lose their self-image of courage. So, when confronted with a situation demanding courage to challenge a government gone wrong, the American people simply pretend that the situation does not exist. Cherished illusions supercede hard reality.

When the World Trade Towers collapsed, most Americans simply refused to believe suggestions that the attacks had been staged by parties working for the U.S. Government itself. Americans were afraid to, even as news reports surfaced proving that the U.S. Government had announced plans for the invasion of Afghanistan early in the year, plans into which the attacks on the World Trade Towers which angered the American people into support of the already-planned war fit entirely too conveniently. But so trapped are Americans by their belief in their own bravery that they will themselves to be blind to the evidence before their eyes so that they can nod in agreement with the government while still imagining themselves to have courage, even as they avoid the one situation which most requires real courage; to stand up to the government's lies and deceptions.

The vast majority of the American people, their own self-image dependant on continuing blindness to the government's deceptions, never question why Afghanistan would have done something so stupid as to attack the United States, and as a result, Americans find themselves in a war.

Now the U.S. Government has requested temporary extraordinary powers, powers specifically banned under Constitutional law, but powers the government is claiming they need to have to deal with the "terrorists". The American people, having already sold their souls to their self-delusions, are agreeing. The temporary powers recently conferred will be no more temporary in America than they were in Germany.

The U.S. Government knows they rule a nation of cowards. The government has had to spend the money to make the new war something cowards can fight. The government has decorated the troops with regalia to make them proud of themselves, further trapping them in their self-image. Talismans are added from orthodox religions and the occult to fill the soldiers with delusions of mystical strengths and an afterlife if they fall in battle.

Finally, knowing that it takes courage to kill the enemy face to face, the United States government has spent vast sums of money on wonder weapons, airplanes, submarines, ultra-long range artillery, cruise missiles, and guided missiles, weapons that kill at a distance so that those doing the killing need not have to face the reality of what they are doing.

As I mentioned above, Hitler was TIME Magazine's Man of the Year in 1938. Stalin was TIME Magazine's Man of the Year for 1939 and 1942. Both of these men, and many others also celebrated by the media, were unimaginable monsters. The lesson from these facts is that it isn't easy to spot a genocidal tyrant when you live with one, especially one whom the press supports and promotes. Tyrants become obvious only when looking back - after what they have done becomes known.

The German people did not stand up to Hitler because their media betrayed them, just as the American media is betraying the American people by willingly, voluntarily, even proudly, abandoning its traditional role as watchdog against government abuse.

It is the very nature of power that it attracts the sort of people who should not have it. The United States, as the world's last superpower, is a prize that attracts men and women willing to do absolutely anything to win that power, and hence are also willing to do absolutely anything with that power once they have it. If one thinks about it long enough, one will realize that all tyrants, past and most especially present, MUST use deception on their population to initiate a war. No citizen of a modern industrialized nation will send their children off to die in a war to grab another nation's resources and assets, yet resources and assets are what all wars are fought over.

The nation that wishes to initiate a war of conquest must create the illusion of an attack or a threat to start a war, and must always give their population of cowards an excuse never to question that carefully crafted illusion.

It is naive, not to mention racist, to assume that tyrants appear only in other nations and that somehow America is immune simply because we're Americans. America has escaped the clutches of a dictatorship thus far only through the efforts of those citizens who, unlike the Germans of the 1930s, have the moral courage to stand up and point out where the government is lying to the people.

And unless more Americans are willing to have that kind of individual courage, then future generations may well look back on the American people with the same harshness of judgment with which we look back on the 1930s Germans.

###

PS -- With this understanding, consider the 4 generations of the Bush Family and the repeating pattern of behavior that the American people, in their striving to be brave, completely deny, ignore, and by default, embrace.

* George Bush Jr. stands to make billions from the Bush Family oil investments and military-industrial stocks of the Carlisle Group (WWIII).
* George Bush Sr. (son of Prescott), made billions on kickbacks from Sadaam's sale of oil to U.S.
* Prescott Bush made millions doing the financing and banking for Hitler's military-industrial complex (WWII).
* Prescott's Father made millions selling Remington Arms to both sides during WWI.

With all the above in mind, consider the mass psychology in the following statements by Bush Jr. Since 9/11

November 10, 2001 - President "Bushwacker" Bush Speaks THE BIG LIE to United Nations

"We must speak the truth about terror. Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th; malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty. To inflame ethnic hatred is to advance the cause of terror."

http//www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011110-3.html

NOTE This is the same Machievellian provocateur who made several 9/11 speeches saying first, "If you're not with us, you're against us"... and later saying, "If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists." And while whipping up patriotic frenzy for total compliance with their war agenda on one hand, the other hand slipped in stealth legislation under guise of the "Patriot Act" and Executive Orders that could arrest any dissidents, suspending their Constitutional rights as "potential terrorists" or "enemy combatants". In short, the fast-tract for tyranny and war has been expedited in the name of peace and security; it's a 4th Reich replay of massive 3rd Reich war collaboration of Grandaddy Prescott Bush and John.D. Rockefeller with the Nazi war machine. -CR

And here's Bush Jr. at a recent Address to the Nation at the World Congress Center, Atlanta, Georgia

"I recently received a letter from a 4th-grade girl that seemed to say it all "I don't know how to feel,' she said, 'sad, mad, angry. It has been different lately. I know the people in New York are scared because of the World Trade Center and all, but if we're scared, we are giving the terrorists all the power.' In the face of this great tragedy, Americans are refusing to give terrorists the power. (Applause.) Our people have responded with courage and compassion, calm and reason, resolve and fierce determination. We have refused to live in a state of panic -- or a state of denial. There is a difference between being alert and being intimidated -- and this great nation will never be intimidated." (Applause.)

Adolph couldn't have "emotionally blackmailed" our subservience better!

Or as the scripture says,
"They believed the lie and their damnation was just."

BOTTOM LINE QUOTABLES

"A theory floating through the media these days has it that Son Bush is making war on Iraq to "finish the job" left undone by Father Bush. This is utterly preposterous. Father Bush left the job "undone" to perpetuate the division the world government totalitarians always want. The men running the show now are motivated by the same thing that motivates Father Bush the goal of world government. Turning the country into a police state to "protect" us from terrorism is part of the process, in which criticism can be quelled by calling it disloyalty." --by Alan Stang, stangfeedback@hotmail.com, from an excellent article published originally at www.EtherZone.com

As for the Common Sense that the Big Lie makes uncommon...

"We have a duty to look after each other. If we lose control of our government, then we lose our ability to dispense justice and human kindness. Our first priority today, then, is to defeat utterly those forces of greed and corruption that have come between us and our self-governance."
- Doris Haddock - Taken from her website at www.grannyd.com

"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
--Albert Einstein

"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time, no one was left to speak up."
--Pastor Martin Neimoeller

"Evil will succeed only if enough good people do nothing."
-Edmund Burke

posted 12-29-2002 02:10 PM            

Sorry, I haven't been around lately. Great job on reporting on TPTS everybody. Another resource on the new feudalism.. http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/

BTW Mech, I just stumbled upon http://www.thememoryhole.org myself recently, from a link on infowars. Great site concept. Even bought a SW BayGen so I could listen to Alex's full program.

posted 12-29-2002 05:21 PM            

I have an awsome digital scanning shortwave radio that I bought overseas while I was in the Mil but unfortunately I live in a very hilly area so the wave pattern gets scrambled...The only way I can listen to Alex Jones program is over the internet through http://www.infowars.com or http://www.prisonplanet.com That comes in crystal clear.

Found two other forums to post news and shortly will be starting my own news/info/media site.Time to further the information war and subvert mainstream media. Have other plans besides the internet to get the word out but that won't be revealed here.

Be sure to check out GNN http://www.guerrillanews.com/.

Glad to see that there is another constitutionalist around here!

We can disagree on trivial matters but what is important is both of us are throwing the wrench in the same machine.

The New World Order

posted 12-29-2002 06:08 PM            

ZMAG.COM

The president has decreed dictatorial powers, setting up anonymous military tribunals to try “suspicious” immigrants and overseas “suspects” who can be kidnapped and tried in the U.S.

Habeas corpus has been suspended.

School children have been forced to sing quasi-religious anthems and pledge allegiance to the flag.

Many employees who voice criticism of the war or U.S. support of Israel or denounce Israeli massacres of Palestinians have been suspended or fired.

All letters, emails, and phone calls are subject to control without any judicial review.

The mass media spews government propaganda, churns out chauvinist stories, and is relatively silent on overseas massacres and domestic repression.

Mutual Suspicion

One of the hallmarks of a totalitarian regime is the creation of a state of mutual suspicion in which civil society is turned into a network of secret police informers.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) soon after September 11 exhorted every U.S. citizen to report any suspicious behavior by friends, neighbors, relatives, acquaintances, and strangers.

Between September and the end of November almost 700,000 denunciations were registered. Thousands of Middle Eastern neighbors, local shop owners, and employees were denounced, as were numerous other U.S. citizens.

None of these denunciations led to any arrests or even information related to September 11. Yet hundreds and thousands of innocent persons were investigated and harassed by the federal police. Tens of millions of Americans have become paranoid—fearing “terrorism” in their everyday work, shopping, and leisure activities.

People refrain from the mildest criticism of the war or the government for fear they will be labeled terrorist sympathizers, reported to the government, investigated, and lose their job.

Scapegoating

Friendly fascism scapegoats Arabs—arresting, investigating, accusing, targeting—while its public discourse proclaims the virtues of tolerance and pluralism. Racial doctrines are not in evidence, but racial profiling of “Middle-Eastern” people is an established and accepted operating procedure of federal, state, and local police.

Large concentrations of Arab communities, such as in Dearborn, Michigan, feel like they are living in a ghetto, waiting for a pogrom to happen. The head of the FBI considers all Arab civic, charity, and other associations suspect of aiding terrorism and subject to investigation and its members targets for arrest. The massive “razzias,” police sweeps into houses, stores, and offices of civic groups, have created a siege mentality. The police campaign has aroused the racist instincts and fomented a rash of civilian insults and hostility.

Executive Dictatorial Powers

In totalitarian states, the supreme leader seizes dictatorial powers, suspends constitutional guarantees (citing “emergency powers”) empowers the secret police, and handpicks tribunals to arbitrarily arrest, judge, and condemn the accused to prison or execution.

On November 13, President Bush took the fatal step toward assuming dictatorial powers. Without consulting Congress, Bush decreed an emergency order. The order permits the government to arrest non-citizens who they have “reason to believe” are terrorists to be tried by military tribunal. The trials are secret and the prosecutors do not have to present evidence if it is “in the interests of national security.”

The condemned can be executed even if one-third of the military judges disagree. Dictatorial powers to jail or execute suspects without due process is the essence of totalitarian rulers.

In mid-November, the Department of Justice refused to disclose the identities and status of more than 1,100 persons arrested since September 11. As in totalitarian regimes, political prisoners are constantly interrogated without lawyers and without charges by the FBI in the hope of forcing confessions.

On October 26 Bush signed the USA/Patriot Act, which vastly strengthened the powers of the police over civil society. The extension of secret police powers was approved almost unanimously by Congress (most of whose members never read the law).

EVERY clause of this law VIOLATES the U.S. CONSTITUTION. Under this law: (a) any federal law enforcement agency may secretly enter any home or business, collect evidence, not inform the citizen of the entry, and then use the evidence (seized or planted) to convict the occupant of a crime; (b) any police agency has the power to monitor all Internet traffic and emails, intercept cell phones without warrant of millions of “suspects”; (c) any Federal police agency can invade any business premises and seize all records on the basis that it is “connected” with a terrorist investigation.

Citizens who publicly protest these arbitrary, invasive police actions can be arrested.

The USA/Patriot Act, like its totalitarian counterparts, has a vague, loose definition of “terrorism” that allows it to repress any dissident organization and protest activity. According to section 802 of the Act, terrorism is defined as “activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States…(and) appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population (or)...to influence the policy of the government by intimidation or coercion.”

Any anti-globalization protest, such as occurred in Seattle, can now be labeled “terrorist,” its leaders and participants arrested, their homes and offices searched, documents seized, and, if they are not citizens, shipped to military tribunals.

These “emergency” decrees and laws are in place until 2005 and beyond if the investigations began prior to the terminal year.

Perhaps, when the country has been re-democratized and the chauvinist fever has ebbed and a fair and pluralistic media has replaced the current state propaganda machines, we may discover harsh truths. When the secret police files are opened we may discover that many honorable and respectable people denounced their neighbors and friends because of personal vendettas; that professionals secretly informed on their colleagues who were critical of Israel; that the FBI spied on millions of law-abiding progressive American citizens because ideologues sought to eliminate them.

In studying the recordings, transcripts, and videos of the messages of the mass media, we will be able to see how easily, quickly, and completely they became propaganda arms of the friendly fascist state.

Researchers will marvel or be shocked by the corruption of political language: massive bombings of large cities in the name of “anti-terrorism”; euphemisms to justify massacres; mass killings of prisoners of war described as “killed during a prisoner revolt.” Historians will also note the absent voices of critics; the absence of any reports of civilian casualties.

Future scholars watching videos of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s jocular pronouncements to “kill all terrorists,” will not join the laughing audience of journalists, remembering the mountains of corpses executed in cold blood by Rumsfeld’s surrogate mercenaries.

Historians will debate whether the mass acquiescence by the U.S. public to the bombings and executions was a reflection of the incessant and all-encompassing propaganda or whether they were willing accomplices of the slaughter. The philosophers and psychologists will debate whether the flag waving celebrants of the New World Order were motivated by the smiling faces and bellicose rhetoric of their leaders or embraced friendly fascism because of their paranoia, fear, and anxiety induced by the voices of authority and amplified by the media.

This view presumes that critical voices will survive the current period of friendly fascism and build a movement to challenge its power. One can hope and believe it will happen because, otherwise, the lies and murders of the present will go unanswered.