Opposing Digits

For many Americans, the 1950s were a docile decade. In U.S. history books, the period is mostly portrayed as a mellow, orderly one, especially in light of the social upheavals that followed in the 1960s. But for the CIA, the I Like Ike years were packed with adventure and action, much of it conducted outside of the public's view. Few programs were sheltered with more secrecy than the Agency's mind control experiments, identified together with the code-name MKULTRA.

Concerned about rumors of communist brainwashing of POWs during the Korean war, in April 1953 CIA Director Allen Dulles authorized the MKULTRA program, which would later become notorious for the unusual and sometimes inhumane tests that the CIA financed. Reviewing the experiments five years later, one secrecy-conscious CIA auditor wrote: "Precautions must be taken not only to protect operations from exposure to enemy forces but also to conceal these activities from the American public in general. The knowledge that the agency is engaging in unethical and illicit activities would have serious repercussions in political and diplomatic circles."

# posted by madthumbs @ 3:01 PM 0 comments

The first report into the extent to which genetically engineered organisms have 'leaked' into the environment - released today - reveals a disturbing picture of widespread contamination, illegal planting and negative agricultural side effects.

The report is a summary of incidents uncovered by the on-line Contamination Register (1) set up by Greenpeace and GeneWatch UK. It reveals a catalogue of highly disturbing incidents right across the world, including:

- Pork meat from genetically engineered pigs being sold to consumers
- Ordinary crops being contaminated with GE crops containing pharmaceuticals
- Growing and international distribution of illegal antibiotic resistant Maize seeds
- Planting of outlawed GE crops which have been smuggled into countries
- Mixing of unapproved GE crops in food, including shipments of food aid
- Inadvertent mixing of different GE strains even in high profile scientific field trials

# posted by madthumbs @ 2:57 PM 0 comments

Supreme Court justices keep many opinions private but Sandra Day O’Connor no longer faces that obligation. Yesterday, the retired justice criticized Republicans who criticized the courts. She said they challenge the independence of judges and the freedoms of all Americans. O’Connor’s speech at Georgetown University was not available for broadcast but NPR’s legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg was there.

# posted by madthumbs @ 2:39 PM 0 comments

US President George W Bush has nominated a former Rhodes scholar and top Justice Department attorney to be the United States' ambassador to Australia.

Robert D McCallum, Associate Attorney-General at the Justice Department in Washington, has been selected to fill the post in Canberra.

Mr McCallum and Mr Bush were classmates at Yale University, from where they graduated in 1968.

Both men were part of the Skull and Bones fraternity, a Yale club that has nurtured several other Bush appointees.

Mr McCallum went on to become a Rhodes scholar at England's Oxford University.

He also worked as a lawyer for tobacco giant RJ Reynolds.

That job contributed to controversy later in Mr McCallum's career when he found himself on the other side of the court.

In a landmark civil racketeering case last year, Mr McCallum was on a US Government team seeking sanctions against the tobacco industry.

Witnesses said Mr McCallum asked his own witnesses to tone down their testimony to go easy on the tobacco industry.

# posted by madthumbs @ 9:54 AM 0 comments

Letterman And Olberman Criticize O'Reilly And Hannity, saying half of their reports are outright lies. While journalists argue, Russia sides with Iran, placing U.S. in dangerous position.
10 Mar 2006

The winds of war and political dissent are heating up as the media lap dogs from FOX News whipping up Bush propaganda are getting 20 lashes of their own from prime time critics like David Letterman and Keith Olbermann.

Letterman recently said half of what comes out of the mouths of neo con commentators Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity are outright lies and Bush propaganda. And MSNBC host Keith Olbermann agreed, saying O'Reilly is the "worst of the worst."

# posted by madthumbs @ 9:26 PM 0 comments

MADRID, Spain - A two-year probe into the Madrid train bombings concludes the Islamic terrorists who carried out the blasts were homegrown radicals acting on their own rather than at the behest of
Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, two senior intelligence officials said.

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:59 PM 0 comments

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department asked a federal court on Monday to dismiss a lawsuit charging that Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld bears responsibility for the torture of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In its first substantive response to the lawsuit filed by two rights groups, the Justice Department said the suit against Rumsfeld should be dismissed based on the "absolute immunity" granted federal officials under 1988 legislation on civil lawsuits.

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:52 PM 0 comments

IT may seem that the United States government has declared all-out war against illegal immigration. During the last decade, the budget dedicated to enforcement of immigration laws has grown by leaps and bounds. The Border Patrol has about three times as many agents as it did in the early 1990's, and the southern border has been laced with high-tech surveillance gadgetry.

Yet a closer look reveals a very different portrait of immigration policy. It seems designed for failure. Most experts agree that a vast majority of illegal immigrants who make it across the border every year are seeking work. But the workplace is the one spot that is virtually unpoliced.

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:49 PM 0 comments

WHITE HOUSE President Bush is extending his faith-based initiative into the Department of Homeland Security.

On the eve of his latest visit to hurricane-ravaged Louisiana and Mississippi, Bush has ordered the department which includes FEMA to remove barriers to funding religious relief efforts.

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:34 PM 0 comments

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said Friday night that Rumsfeld has a shard of metal from the jetliner that struck the Pentagon on a table in his office and shows it to people as a reminder of the tragedy Pentagon workers shared on Sept. 11, 2001.

” He doesn’t consider it his own,” Di Rita said, adding the piece is on display for the Pentagon. “We are mindful of the fact that if somebody has an evidentiary requirement to have this shard of metal, we will provide it to them ”

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:28 PM 0 comments

Failure to recognize what's really happening and who is really behind current events is going to cost us our lives, our country and our planet.


Although the thought has been in my mind for decades, it took a trailer from the controversial new Turkish movie "Valley of the Wolves" to jar my consciousness into really recognizing what is happening.

America is being set up to take the fall for everything that's wrong with the world.

In the movie, Americans are portrayed as heartless killers, reminding me of the way Germans were portrayed as the evil perpetrators of World War II. And I sensed at that moment that very soon, if not already, Americans are going to be the targets of a worldwide backlash that will be far worse than anything the Germans ever experienced.

And rightly so, because what Americans have done to Iraq, Afghanistan and so many other countries is far worse than anything the Germans ever did to anyone.

But have you ever thought about the common factor that links Americans and Germans in their tragic fall from grace in the eyes of the world?

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:16 PM 1 comments

A reading of the stories in today's section on the bird flu scare will put the entire media spectacle in a different light. It is, in many ways, a microcosm of the lies and manipulations that are part and parcel of life in this world, ranging from mundane drives such as greed to the deepest of plans by the powers that be to eliminate large portions of the world's people.

Let's start with the mundane element of greed.

Greed: Rumsfeld

Where there's corruption in the US, you'll find high ranking members of the Bush Reich. Dick Cheney's close association with Halliburton, the US corporation now making billions off the the US imposed, organised, and sanctioned suffering of the Iraqi people, is well known. Did you know that Donald Rumsfeld is closely associated with the California biotech firm that originally developed Tamiflu? You remember Tamiflu. It is the one drug that is being promoted as the cure-all for avian flu.

Coincidence? We think not.

# posted by madthumbs @ 7:33 PM 0 comments

More than 250 medical experts have signed a letter condemning the US for force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The experts, from seven nations, said physicians at the prison had to respect inmates' right to refuse treatment.

The letter, in the medical journal The Lancet said doctors who used restraints and force-feeding should be punished by their professional bodies.

Some 500 terror suspects are being held without trial at Guantanamo Bay.

The US has argued that the Geneva Convention does not apply to prisoners at the camp, who, it says, are enemy combatants who continue to pose a threat to national security.

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:10 AM 0 comments

Have you ever heard of building biology? It's "old news" in Europe, says Building Biology Environmental Inspector Bruce Rundlett. However, in the United States, we're just beginning to realize that there are eco-safe, cost-effective ways to prevent "sick building syndrome" and its impact on human health. Asthma, multiple chemical sensitivity, allergies, cancer and many more illnesses can be traced to unsafe building conditions. Moreover, we can prevent them by looking at home and work environments from a holistic perspective -- in other words, by incorporating building biology into our national building codes.

Building biology has its roots in the unhealthy aftereffects of war. After World War II, Germany tried to reconstruct its buildings as quickly and cheaply as possible, leading to widespread disease and additional financial burden on its already fragile healthcare system. Soon, Germany realized that using more expensive but safer building materials results in long-term healthcare savings, thus creating the field of Bau-biologie, or building biology.

# posted by madthumbs @ 7:04 PM 0 comments

Doug Thompson reported how he was sent a letter by the FBI to turn over records about his popular Capitol Hill Blue web site. Thompson's response was short and to the point, as Slats Grobnik from Chicago says his deer rifle is locked and loaded if they come after him.
9 Mar 2006

Slats Grobnik looked at the newspaper, threw it into the dog pile and said:

"Screw every last one of the them. Not a damn bit a truth to any of it."

Slats, an old time Chi-Town reader new to cyberspace, then turned to his PC.

"Some real news now."

Within a matter of minutes, he threw his size13 hard-soled shoe through the monitor screen, breaking it into a million pieces. Slat's grand father, Otto, used to be a shoemaker before the chain stores took over so the heel was solid as a rock and stuck in the computer screen like a dart hitting a bulls-eye.

This time, however, Slats, known for speaking his mind, wasn't angered over the news at the Capitol Hill Blue web site, the oldest political blurb on the internet, but at what the Bush Boys were doing to the freedom-minded journalist who ran the site, Doug Thompson, as well as other journalists who write stories contrary to the Bush party line

"The son's a bitches are clampin' down on everybody just like the Commie's and the Nazi's. Hell, if the Commies think they can come walking down these Chicago streets, there are 200,000 licensed deer hunters in Wisconsin and Illinois waitin' for 'em," said Slats, who once told former Congressman Dan Rostenkowski to "go to hell" at a Polish street dance near Wrigley Field.

# posted by madthumbs @ 6:59 PM 0 comments

Contributing to the greatest number of RECOVERED autistic children (when coupled with good nutrition), metal detoxification appears to be a major piece of the puzzle for autism. Since autistic individuals seem to lack the ability to rid themselves of heavy metal toxins (such as mercury), they may not even test positive for those toxins. Chelation therapy (to eliminate heavy metals) shows that many of these children have a toxic load, because these metals appear to "spike" during subsequent toxicology tests.

Chelation should be investigated with a health professional familiar with the quirks of mercury toxicity. Defeat Autism Now doctors, or "DAN" doctors, are proficient in treating autistic individuals safely.

# posted by madthumbs @ 2:22 PM 0 comments

Ion Sancho may be a hero in California, where grateful election officials have verified the ''serious security vulnerabilities'' in Diebold voting machines that the Leon County election supervisor uncovered last year.

Sancho is regarded a little differently in Florida.

Florida's secretary of state's office disparaged Sancho's finding, demonstrating considerably more interest in propping up vendors than protecting elections.

# posted by madthumbs @ 12:31 PM 0 comments

The United States has always boasted itself as the "model of democracy" and hawked its mode of democracy to the rest of the world, but in fact, American "democracy" is always one for the wealthy and a "game for the rich," according to a report released on Thursday in Beijing.

The report, titled the Human Rights Record of the United States in 2005 and released by the Information Office of China's State Council, says that "the democratic elections in the United States, to a great extent, are driven by money."

# posted by madthumbs @ 12:30 PM 0 comments

The Treasury Department has started drawing from the civil service pension fund to avoid hitting the $8.2 trillion national debt limit. The move to tap the pension fund follows last month's decision to suspend investments in a retirement savings plan held by government employees.

In a letter to Congress this week, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said he would rely on the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund to avoid bumping up against the statutory debt limit. He said the Treasury is suspending investments and will redeem a portion of the money credited to the fund.

# posted by madthumbs @ 12:28 PM 0 comments

"Before the Appleton Wisconsin high school replaced their cafeteria's processed foods with wholesome, nutritious food, the school was described as out-of-control. There were weapons violations, student disruptions, and a cop on duty full-time. After the change in school meals, the students were calm, focused, and orderly. There were no more weapons violations, and no suicides, expulsions, dropouts, or drug violations. The new diet and improved behavior has lasted for seven years, and now other schools are changing their meal programs with similar results."

# posted by madthumbs @ 12:26 PM 0 comments

A senior US official has called for continued international pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear programme.

UN Ambassador John Bolton said there was a sense of urgency given Tehran's defiance of the world community.

His remarks came after the UN nuclear agency, the IAEA, decided to send a report on Iran's nuclear activity to the UN Security Council.

Iran said it had done all it could to reach a peaceful settlement but the US had "hijacked" the diplomatic process.

# posted by madthumbs @ 12:12 PM 0 comments

I want to call to the attention of the House the juxtaposition of two news stories. One [..] relating to 9/11. It says 'Federal officials where repeatedly warned in the months before the September 11, 2001 terror attacks that Osama bin Laden and Al-Queda were planning aircraft hijacking suicide attempts according to a new report that the Bush administration had been repressing'. And this from the front page of the Washington post, 'a newly leaked video recording the high level government deliberation the day before Katrina hit shows disaster officials infatically warning President bush that the storm posed a catastrophic threat to new Orleans and the gulf coast, and a grim faced bush personally assuring state leaders that his administration was fully prepared [..] to help'.

Do we see a pattern here? 9/11? Katrina? They knew something was going to happen and they didn't act. They knew that if they went into Iraq that we were looking at a disaster, that there was no way we were going to be able to run that country. They know that global climate change poses a threat to the entire planet, nothing is being done, a pattern of recklessness, indifference, callousness. The implications are deadly for the people of the United States.

# posted by madthumbs @ 12:01 PM 0 comments

Growing frustrated with little to no progress following conventional approaches, Jillian began seeking out alternatives. “After being frustrated with the hospital experience, I decided to look into herbal remedies, and found some that worked great for me: an herbal aloe drink and probiotic.”

“I honestly don't have IBS symptoms anymore. I haven't had a stomachache or sharp pains in about 6 months now. It took me about 3 weeks – taking the aloe and probiotic twice a day to feel better. I actually feel 'normal' now, which is nothing short of a miracle after how sick I was. For the first time in about 10 years, I've been able to eat cheese, ice cream – things that normally would send me in a tailspin.”

# posted by madthumbs @ 4:54 PM 0 comments

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham began his first day in prison after being sentenced to eight years and four months for taking $2.4 million in homes, yachts and other bribes in a corruption scheme unmatched in the annals of Congress.

# posted by madthumbs @ 3:57 PM 0 comments

But the 45-year-old Suffield woman wasn't hauling nuclear waste. She had been injected with a radioactive substance for a common medical test.

# posted by madthumbs @ 3:55 PM 0 comments

NEW ORLEANS (NNPA)—On Sept. 12, Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan was in Charlotte, N.C., as part of a 23-city tour to promote the Millions More Movement mass assembly in Washington, D.C., then mere weeks away, when he made a statement that has stirred ripples of reaction in the public pool.

“I heard from a very reliable source who saw a 25-foot-deep crater under the levee breach,” Minister Farrakhan said. “It may have been blown up to destroy the Black part of town and keep the White part dry.”

He is not alone in believing that the poor and Black of New Orleans were somehow targeted to sustain the worse of Katrina.

“Mother Nature is one thing but this goes beyond Mother Nature,” said Raynold Fenelon, a New Orleans cabdriver. “They blew that levee. I believe the Canal Street levee broke, but they blew that one by the Ninth Ward. Then, they were talking about a barge hit the levee,” he said.

There is no question that the Ninth Ward was an unsightly scene. Black bodies floated in the poisonous stew of gasoline and sewage; Black men, women and children were marooned on roofs and ignored by passing helicopters; Black people were crammed into a putrid Superdome by the thousands, going for days without food or water; and Black homes sustained the worst of the damage.

Many believe it was planned.

# posted by madthumbs @ 3:19 PM 0 comments

In November 2001, just two months after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, two high-profile U.S. journalists Chris Hedges of the New York Times and Christopher Buchanan of PBS' "Frontline" were ushered to a meeting in a Beirut hotel with a man identified as Jamal al-Ghurairy, an Iraqi lieutenant general who had fled Saddam Hussein.

The high-ranking Iraqi military officer claimed he had witnessed terrorist training camps in Iraq where Islamic militants learned how to hijack airplanes. About 40 foreign nationals were based there at any given time, he said.

"We were training these people to attack installations important to the United States," he told the journalists at the meeting arranged by the Iraqi National Congress.

Reporter Hedges and producer Buchanan found Ghurairy to be very convincing, worried for his life and very insistent that his face couldn't be shown on camera. He was accompanied by a well-organized entourage.

A story appeared a couple of days later on the front page of the Times and then "Frontline" followed with a report on public television. The stories generated numerous editorials and op-ed pieces and, of course, became the topic of the week on cable talk shows.

Now, the liberal investigative magazine Mother Jones has exposed the "general" as a fake.

# posted by madthumbs @ 3:16 PM 0 comments

Iran will continue its controversial nuclear research programme no matter what action the UN takes against it, an Iranian nuclear delegation has said.

It also composed a statement to the UN nuclear watchdog warning that the US could face unspecified "harm and pain" for its opposition to the programme.

Watchdog members are debating a report from its head on Iran's programme.

The US said Iran had enough nuclear material for 10 atomic bombs and it was time for the Security Council to act.

# posted by madthumbs @ 3:10 PM 0 comments

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) -- The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Dublin published a report Wednesday that says 102 of its priests -- more than 3.5 percent of the total -- are suspected of sexually or physically abusing at least 350 children since 1940, the biggest such admission to date in Ireland.

The office of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said it was publishing its findings ahead of the expected formation later this month of a government-appointed commission to investigate the history and handling of such abuse throughout Ireland. This predominantly Catholic nation has been rocked by waves of church sex-abuse scandals since 1994.

The office said the numbers were based on a two-year review of the personnel files of more than 2,800 priests who have worked in the Dublin archdiocese, either as parish priests or in religious orders, during the past 66 years.

# posted by madthumbs @ 12:01 PM 0 comments

Slow metabolizers who drank two to three 250-millilitre cups of coffee each day were 36% more likely to have suffered a heart attack than single-cup drinkers. And those who drank four or more cups were 64% more likely to have been struck. The risk was greatest in those below the age of 60.

# posted by madthumbs @ 10:15 AM 0 comments

BAR HARBOR, Maine (AP) -- When it comes to the price of mice, you pay extra for defects.

A mouse with arthritis runs close to $200; two pairs of epileptic mice can cost 10 times that. You want three blind mice? That'll run you about $250. And for your own custom mouse, with the genetic modification of your choosing, expect to pay as much as $100,000.

Always a mainstay of scientific research, mice have become a critical tool in the quest for new drugs and medical treatments because their genes are remarkably similar to a person's.

With proper manipulation -- either by man or nature -- a set of mouse genes can produce an animal with just about any human ailment, or a reasonable facsimile of it. Strains of mice that succumb to Alzheimer's disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer and countless other conditions are being used to study both the illnesses themselves and potential treatments. As many as 25 million mice are now used in experiments each year.

# posted by madthumbs @ 9:31 AM 0 comments

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. aims to be the mass-market provider
of organic food, and will have doubled its organic offerings over the next
couple of weeks, Wal-Mart's head of dry grocery told Reuters on Monday.

DeDe Priest, who was promoted to senior vice president of dry grocery in
December, said the retailer has no intention of becoming a health food
store, but wants to make organic food accessible to all.

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:54 AM 0 comments

"The concentration camps were used as a huge laboratory for human experimentation," says Wolfgang Eckhart, professor of Historical Medicine at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. During the Holocaust, Bayer, Hoechst, BASF and other German pharmaceutical and chemical companies combined into a powerful cartel known as Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie Aktiengesellschaft (IG Farben). As well as manufacturing everything from the deadly gas used to kill Holocaust victims, the gasoline used to move war vehicles and the explosives used to bomb enemies and conquer Europe, IG Farben was also trying its best to put a large number of highly profitable new drugs on the market and used concentration camp prisoners as human guinea pigs to do so.

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:51 AM 0 comments

March 7, 2006 -- Bush's "other numbers." As George Bush's poll numbers plummet to depths not seen in presidential polling since Watergate, it is noteworthy to point out Bush's other "numbers:"

Number of U.S. military combat, combat-related deaths in Iraq: 2300.

Number of U.S. military desertions since Iraq War: at least 8,000 (Army: 4387; Navy: 3454; Marine Corps: 1455; Air Force: 82).

Number of internees held in Iraq without trial: 14,000.

Number of prisoners held at Guantanamo: 490.

Number of Guantanamo prisoners charged with a crime: 10.

Katrina deaths: 1100 and increasing in Louisiana, more than 200 in Mississippi and Alabama, 1900 unaccounted for in Louisiana.

Bush projected ten-year deficit: $3.3 trillion.

Rate of Antarctic ice pack melting: 36 cubic miles per year.

Annual global warming sea level increase on Funafuti, Tuvalu: 5.7 mm/year; Tarawa, Kiribati: 6.2 mm/year; Nauru, 7.1 mm/year; Tongatapu, Tonga: 6.4 mm/year.

Deaths in Darfur genocide: 400,000.

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:46 AM 0 comments

Ramona Lopez tried to get the kids in her community off drugs, back into school and leading a productive life. However, she stumbled across a drug ring which involved local authorities, leading to her becoming a target of harassment and physical abuse.

Ramona Lopez thought she was doing the right thing when she tried to help kids in her neighborhood get off drugs, trying to put them on the straight and narrow toward a productive life.

But instead of being recognized as a community hero and praised for her charitable work, authorities in Camarillo, California, slammed "the hammer down hard" on Lopez, a simple housewife with nothing but good in her heart and soul.

They came down hard on Lopez and wanted absolutely nothing to do with her "Miss Goody Two Shoes" attitude since she unknowingly in the early 1990's stumbling across how police officers and federal drug agents were working together with drug dealers to push drugs, not stop illegal drug sales.

And through her good deeds and efforts to help children, Lopez uncovered the "dirty little secret" that officials in her community with the help of federal agents actually were pushing drugs on in the high schools, assisting gangs and turning a blind eye on drug sales.

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:42 AM 0 comments

(AP) BALTIMORE University of Maryland researchers will begin testing a bird flu vaccine combined with a common additive later this month to see if it will prompt an immune response with a single smaller dose.

"it's an immune enhancer that can help the immune system to respond better," Dr. James Campbell, a principal investigator in the studytells WJZ's Alex DeMetrick. "It may help us give fewer doses or lower doses and get the same response."

Previous tests have found the vaccine is safe, but requires at least two large doses to prompt a moderate immune response, Campbell said .

The researchers hope the addition of aluminum hydroxide, which is currently added to the tetanus vaccine and others, will improve the immune response enough that one smaller dose will be needed, Campbell said.

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:09 AM 0 comments

Today, the national media has picked up the story of two students heckling President Clinton. This is a press release from the two students with their side of the story.

Lauren Giaccone and Brian Kelly are students at the Pace University Downtown campus and participated in the action against President Bill Clinton on March 5th, 2006.

Lauren Giaccone and Brian Kelly are part of a larger group, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) as well as Campus Anti-War Network (CAN). Both are leftist groups. SDS is a relatively new group. It was a radical group in the 60’s but has recently reformed. CAN has been active in protesting the war for several years now. Both students originally had formed a picket outside of the event on Sunday but were met with resistance by Pace University officials.

The students were then allowed to go inside to the event after their banners were confiscated. Inside the event, Lauren Giaccone and Brian Kelly stood up and called President Clinton a war criminal and cited the atrocities he committed during his time in office (i.e. Rwanda, Sudan, Iraq, Bosnia) It was at this time that the two students were forcibly removed by Westchester police and brought to a room within the campus where Secret Service was waiting.

The students were harassed by police and Secret Service agents who called them “clowns” and threatened to send them to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation that one officer promised “would take atleast 72 hours.” The students were searched and had their photos taken several times by both police and Secret Service. The students were detained for about 40 minutes and questioned about their ties to SDS. When the students refused to give information like their Social Security numbers, the officers would threaten them with statements such as “We can keep you here for 3 days.”

# posted by madthumbs @ 1:03 PM 0 comments

No alien polity has so successfully penetrated the British government and British institutions during the past ninety years as the Zionist movement and its manifestation as the state of Israel. From the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, in which the British Foreign Secretary said his government “view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people,” (before Britain had taken possession of Palestine from the Ottomans), through the twenty-six year history of Zionist exploitation of the British Mandate at Arab (and British) expense, to Britain's scuttle from Palestine in 1948 and the creation of Israel and the catastrophe for the Palestinians, and up to present-day connivance by the United Kingdom government with America's unremitting political and media support for Israel and its daily violation of international laws and conventions on Palestinian lands, the Zionists have manipulated British systems as expertly as maestros, here a massive major chord, there a minor refrain, the audience, for the most part, spellbound.

# posted by madthumbs @ 12:46 PM 0 comments

WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' written answers to questions about the Bush administration's eavesdropping program may require him to testify a second time before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the panel's Republican chairman said Monday.

"There is a suggestion in his letter there are other classified intelligence programs that are currently under way," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told reporters.

The comments from the moderate Republican come as the Bush administration is trying to quell criticism of its surveillance operations and work with the Senate on legislation that would write the program into law.

# posted by madthumbs @ 12:36 PM 0 comments

· Government breaks silence on CIA flights
· Aircraft landed at Brize Norton and Northholt

The government last night admitted for the first time that aircraft suspected of being used by the CIA to transport detainees to secret interrogation centres had landed at British military airfields.

After months of refusing to answer questions from MPs or the media, it disclosed that two aircraft known to have been chartered by the CIA landed 14 times at RAF Northholt, west London, and RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire between October 2003 and May 2004.

# posted by madthumbs @ 12:33 PM 0 comments

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - In a memorandum written 91 days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, an FBI agent warned that Americans would die as a result of the bureau's failure to adequately pursue investigations of terrorists living in the country.

# posted by madthumbs @ 12:07 PM 0 comments

Iraq has huge oil reserves and the world's cheapest lifting costs. That's why a war against Saddam could change everything.
Charting a military outcome in Iraq is dicey, and some say a bad turn of events could mean $100-a-barrel oil. But after any brief disruption, the oil-market effects of a neutralized or pro-Western successor to Saddam Hussein are unmistakably positive. Iraq sits on 120 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia's 260 billion.

# posted by madthumbs @ 10:23 AM 0 comments

Two national environmental organizations, Environmental Working Group and Beyond Pesticides, joined today with the Fluoride Action Network in challenging the safety of new food tolerances issued by the EPA for the fluoride based pesticide, sulfuryl fluoride. This action marks growing concern among mainstream scientists and environmental organizations that total exposure to fluoride, from water, food, and dental uses like toothpaste and rinses, is not safe for vulnerable populations, particularly young children.

The challenge was directed at the maximum legal limits for the fluoride-based pesticide in foods, which have been set at levels that dwarf the amount allowed in tap water. In just one case, the EPA is allowing 900 parts per million (ppm) of fluoride in dried eggs, as opposed to the maximum 4 ppm allowed in tap water. One third of the nation's eggs are sold and consumed in dried, reconstituted form.

# posted by madthumbs @ 9:57 AM 0 comments

Introduction by the Health Ranger: The United States claims to be the world leader in medicine. But there's a dark side to western medicine that few want to acknowledge: The horrifying medical experiments performed on impoverished people and their children all in the name of scientific progress. Many of these medical experiments were conducted on people without their knowledge, and most were conducted as part of an effort to seek profits from newly approved drugs or medical technologies.

Today, the medical experiments continue on the U.S. population and its children. From the mass drugging of children diagnosed with fictitious behavioral disorders invented by psychiatry to the FDA's approval of mass-marketed drugs that have undergone no legitimate clinical trials, our population is right now being subjected to medical experiments on a staggering scale. Today, nearly 50% of Americans are on a least one prescription drug, and nearly 20% of schoolchildren are on mind-altering amphetamines like Ritalin or antidepressants like Prozac. This mass medication of our nation is, in every way, a grand medical experiment taking place right now.

# posted by madthumbs @ 9:53 AM 0 comments

A shocking new scientific study by British scientists Dr. Chris Busby and Saoirse Morgan asks: “Did the use of uranium weapons in Gulf War II result
in the contamination of Europe?”

High levels of depleted uranium (DU) have been measured in the atmosphere in Britain, transported on air currents from the Middle East and Central Asia. Scientists cited the U.S. bombing of Tora Bora, Afghanistan in 2001 and the “Shock and Awe” bombing during Gulf War II in Iraq in 2003 as one of the main reasons.

In the 1950s the British government had established an air monitoring facility at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Aldermaston to measure radioactive emissions from British nuclear power plants and atomic weapons facilities.

Ironically, AWE was taken over three years ago by Halliburton, which at first refused to release key data as required by law to Busby.

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:29 AM 0 comments

VESTAL, New York - There are dire consequences to the current direction of the U.S. foreign policy, said Noam Chomsky in a speech Saturday at Binghamton University. Among those consequences, he said, is a nuclear Armageddon.

"Under the current U.S. policies, a nuclear exchange is inevitable," the 77-year-old MIT professor said in his presentation, "Imminent Crises: Paths Toward Solutions." He spoke to an over-capacity crowd in BU's Osterhout Concert Theater.

Chomsky cited nuclear proliferation and environmental collapse as the two greatest crises that "literally threaten survival."

Since the 1960s Chomsky, a widely acclaimed professor of linguistics, has crusaded against political contradiction, nuclear proliferation and Israel's treatment of Palestinians. Regarded by many as the greatest intellectual alive today and dismissed by others as a radical, Chomsky has voiced harsh criticism against the foreign policy of the United States since World War II.

About 1,500 people crammed into the main theater, while a television broadcast the speech to a room of about 500 next door. Ushers were forced to turn hundreds of people away as the building filled beyond its capacity.

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:57 PM 0 comments

Sunday, March 5th, 2006
The Secretary General of The United Nations appears to in fact be leading the United Necromancers or United Nepotism if one counts his son Kojo’s involvement with the Oil-for-fraud corruption. This article will attempt to delineate for the reader the occult background surrounding Kofi Annan , a man at times described as the “Secular Pope” but whose religious beliefs are largely a mystery. This will be done in a connect the dot manner using main stream media to the extent possible.

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:01 PM 0 comments

March, 6 2006

LONDON — Detainees in Iraq are still being tortured, receiving electric shocks and beatings with plastic cables, a report by Amnesty International said today.

The U.S. military responded that all detainees were being treated according to international conventions and Iraqi law.

# posted by madthumbs @ 6:45 PM 0 comments

Low-fat, low-cal, low-carb. Atkins, South Beach, The Zone. Food fads may be distracting attention from something more insidiously piling on pounds: beverages.

One of every five calories in the American diet is liquid. The nation's single biggest "food" is soda, and nutrition experts have long demonized it.

Now they are escalating the fight.

In reports to be published in science journals this week, two groups of researchers hope to add evidence to the theory that soda and other sugar-sweetened drinks don't just go hand-in-hand with obesity, but actually cause it. Not that these drinks are the only cause - genetics, exercise and other factors are involved - but that they are one cause, perhaps the leading cause.

# posted by madthumbs @ 11:00 AM 0 comments

March 4, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Despite the Sixth Amendment's guarantee of public trials, nearly all records are being kept secret for more than 5,000 defendants who completed their journey through the federal courts over the last three years. Instances of such secrecy more than doubled from 2003 to 2005.

An Associated Press investigation found, and court observers agree, that most of these defendants are cooperating government witnesses, but the secrecy surrounding their records prevents the public from knowing details of their plea bargains with the government.

# posted by madthumbs @ 10:34 AM 0 comments

If you've ever used one of the half-dozen websites that allow you to control the phone number that appears on someone's Caller ID display when you phone them, the U.S. government would like to know who you are.

Last week the FCC opened an investigation into the caller-ID spoofing sites -- services that began popping up late 2004, and have since become a useful tool for private investigators, pranksters and more than a few fraud artists.

# posted by madthumbs @ 10:27 AM 0 comments

MARCH 3, 2006 - White House Delays Release of Study Showing Toxic Rocket Fuel in Most Americans

WASHINGTON - March 3 - Following a published report that the Bush Administration is holding up a study that shows most Americans carry a toxic rocket fuel chemical in their bodies at levels close to federal safety limits, Environmental Working Group (EWG) is calling for the immediate release of the study so EPA and state agencies can take steps to protect the public.

Risk Policy Report, an independent newsletter, reported Feb. 28 that the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy is pressuring the Centers for Disease Control to delay the release of a study that tested for perchlorate in human blood samples from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). An EPA source told the newsletter that CDC has found levels of perchlorate that "leave no margin of safety" for the public, compared to EPA's current risk limit.

Perchlorate, the explosive ingredient in solid rocket fuel, has contaminated drinking water and soil in at least 35 states, with most of the known contamination coming from military bases and defense contractors. Tests by EWG, academic scientists in Texas and Arizona, state officials in California and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have found perchlorate in milk, produce and many other foods and animal feed crops from coast to coast. Perchlorate is a thyroid toxin, and animal tests show that even small amounts can disrupt normal growth and development in fetuses, infants and children.

# posted by madthumbs @ 9:45 AM 0 comments

3/3/2006 - The Sugar Association has filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requesting the establishment of a clear definition for the use of the term ‘natural’ on food and beverage product labels.

The petition claims that the current lack of a formal definition for the term has resulted in misleading claims and consumer confusion.

It requests the adoption of the definition of ‘natural' currently used by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for meat and poultry products. This states that products can only carry a ‘natural' claim if they contain no artificial or synthetic ingredients, and if they are minimally processed.

Indeed, such a ruling would bring significant benefits to the sugar industry, which currently faces stiff competition from artificial and synthetic sweeteners.

# posted by madthumbs @ 9:43 AM 0 comments

March 5, 2006 -- Bush trip to South Asia a disaster. The corporate media won't tell you this -- but the Bush trip to South Asia was nothing less than a disaster, according to direct and uncensored reports from India and Pakistan. Street protests against Bush in India were not in the "thousands," as reported by the media, but in the "hundreds of thousands." And they involved more than Muslims, but included protestors from left-wing and regional parties, as well as labor unions and student organizations.

The safest place Indian authorities could find for Bush to give his keynote speech was the New Delhi zoo and boat club Purana Quila complex. Indian legislators threatened a noisy reception for Bush if he address parliament.

# posted by madthumbs @ 9:38 AM 0 comments

Genetically modified(GM) crops were introduced 10 years ago, but 2005 saw plenty of evidence that the technology was introduced long before the science was ready. Here are some of last year’s highlights, so to speak.

At a conference in October, a leading scientist from the Russian Academy of Sciences reported that more than half (55.6%) of the offspring of rats fed GM soy died within three weeks. By contrast, only 9% of rats died whose mothers were fed non-GM soy. The study is preliminary, but the American Academy of Environmental Medicine asked the NIH to immediately repeat it.[1]

In June, a German court ordered Monsanto to make a study public, in which rats fed GM corn developed kidney inflammation, altered blood cell counts and organ lesions. These and other changes suggested possible allergies, infections, toxins, anemia or blood pressure problems. The rats were fed corn genetically engineered to produce a pesticide called Bt-toxin. A French expert who reviews GM safety assessments for the government says that these and other studies indicate that Bt crops create reactions similar to chemical pesticides. Monsanto, however, was able to convince regulators to overlook the findings using arguments that were widely criticized as unscientific.[2]

In November, a 10-year, $2 million GM pea project in Australia was abandoned when the peas were found to create immune responses in mice. The results, which indicate that the peas might create serious allergic reactions in people, were discovered only after scientists employed advanced tests that have never been used for evaluating GM food. If those peas had been studied in the normal way, they could have been approved. The findings suggest that undetected problems may be common in GM crops on the market.[3]

Medical reports from India say that farm workers handling Monsanto’s GM cotton developed moderate to serious allergic reactions, forcing some to the hospital. There were also reports that numerous animals died after eating the Bt cottonseed.[4]

The Indian government confirmed that Bt cotton’s disastrous yields cost millions. One state even kicked out Monsanto, after they refused to compensate farmers’ losses. Tragically, hundreds of debt-ridden cotton farmers committed suicide.[5]

Monsanto was fined by the US Justice Department for bribing up to 140 Indonesian officials over several years, trying to get Bt cotton approved.[6] But widespread crop failure had left farmers in ruins there too, so even the bribes didn’t work.[7]

A three-year UK study showed that GM crops damage biodiversity and threaten birds and bees.[8] Another study surprised scientists when GM crops cross pollinated with a distant relative.[9] And some Indian farmers found that after planting GM cotton, their fields became sterile and could not support subsequent crops.[10]

According to USDA statistics, much more Roundup herbicide is used due to Monsanto’s Roundup Ready GM plants. Roundup was found to be far more toxic to humans and animals than previously thought.[11] Furthermore, its over use has resulted in the proliferation of herbicide-tolerant weeds in the US.[12]

# posted by madthumbs @ 7:57 AM 0 comments

A lot of powerful interests use “energy shortage” scares to manipulate not only public opinion (particularly in regard to U.S. foreign policy toward oil producing nations) but also the price of oil itself.

However, the truth is that oil is not a limited resource, according to one of the world’s most prestigious scientists, whose views on the subject have not received the publicity they deserve. Dr. Thomas Gold contends, based on long study, that oil, natural gas and coal are not so-called “fossil fuels.”

Instead, according to Dr. Gold, these resources are constantly being manufactured within the Earth by natural processes that are little understood and which point toward new, relatively unexplored realms in science.

# posted by madthumbs @ 10:18 PM 0 comments

BELIEF may be more important than medication in treating pain, according to a study which found migraine sufferers who get fake acupuncture treatment recover as quickly as people who take painkillers.

A German study of more than 1200 people found medication, real acupuncture and fake acupuncture were equally successfully in reducing the number of days in which patients suffered from migraine.

Researchers from the University of Essen were at a loss to explain why the fake treatment was so effective.

Lead researcher Hans-Christoph Diener said it was unclear whether the bogus treatment - which involved inserting needles into non-acupuncture points - had a physical or psychological effect.

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:31 PM 0 comments

Texas. In February 2005, a girl aged 2 years who was tested for blood lead during routine health surveillance had a capillary BLL of 47 µg/dL. A venous BLL of 48 µg/dL obtained 12 days later confirmed the elevated BLL. A complete blood count and iron study conducted concurrently revealed low serum iron levels and borderline anemia. On February 28, 2005, the girl was admitted to a local medical center for combined oral and IV chelation therapy.

The patient's blood electrolytes at admission were within normal limits. Initial medication orders included IV Na2EDTA and oral succimer (an agent primarily used for treatment of lead poisoning). The medication order subsequently was corrected by the pediatric resident to IV CaEDTA. At 4:00 p.m. on the day of admission, the patient received her first dose of IV CaEDTA (300 mg in 100 mL normal saline at 25 mL/hr). At 4:35 p.m., she was administered 200 mg of oral succimer. Her vital signs remained normal throughout the night. At 4:00 a.m. the next day, a dose of IV Na2EDTA (instead of IV CaEDTA) was administered. An hour later, the patient's serum calcium had decreased to 5.2 mg/dL (normal value for pediatric patients: 8.5--10.5 mg/dL). At 7:05 a.m., the child's mother noticed that the child was limp and not breathing. Bedside procedures did not restore a normal cardiac rhythm, and a cardiac resuscitation code was called at 7:25 a.m. The child had no palpable pulse or audible heartbeat. Repeat laboratory values for serum drawn at 7:55 a.m. indicated that the serum calcium level was <5.0 mg/dL despite repeated doses of calcium chloride. All attempts at resuscitation failed, and the girl was pronounced dead at 8:12 a.m.

# posted by madthumbs @ 12:51 PM 0 comments

Cele Castillo made headlines in the 1980's for exposing illegal government-sponsored cocaine trafficking. Although the responsible parties were never brought to justice, Castillo is still speaking out loud and strong in order to save his country.
5 Mar 2006

Cele Castillo played it tough with the "Big Boys" for a long time until the former DEA agent couldn't take it any more.

For 12 long years he fought hard against the drug lords in South America, finally realizing in the late 1980's his fight was essentially for nothing.

After raiding jungle cocaine labs in the Amazon, conducting aerial eradication operations in Guatemala and assembling and training anti-narcotics units in several countries, Castillo finally went public and blew the whistle after realizing the real kingpin drug dealers worked in the White House, not in the jungles of Central and South America.

# posted by madthumbs @ 8:32 AM 0 comments

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Years of radioactive waste water spills from Illinois nuclear power plants have fueled suspicions the industry covers up safety problems and sparked debate about the risks from exposure to low-level radiation.

The recent, belated disclosures of leaks of the fission byproduct tritium from Exelon Corp.'s Braidwood, Dresden, and Byron twin-reactor nuclear plants -- one as long ago as 1996 -- triggered worries among neighbors about whether it was safe to drink their water, or even stay.

# posted by madthumbs @ 7:38 AM 0 comments

Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, has dismissed claims of torture by Guantanamo Bay terrorist suspects, describing them as a calculated attempt to manipulate the western media.

Mr Rumsfeld spoke just before the BBC broadcast claims by a suspect who said that he had been tortured by guards who force-fed him to end a hunger strike.

A second hunger striker has taken his case to the American courts, asking a judge to block the force-feeding regime which had caused him "unbearable pain".

# posted by madthumbs @ 12:40 AM 0 comments

All British and United States troops serving in Iraq will be withdrawn within a year in an effort to bring peace and stability to the country.

The news came as defence chiefs admitted privately that the British troop commitment in Afghanistan may last for up to 10 years.

The planned pull-out from Iraq follows the acceptance by London and Washington that the presence of the coalition, mainly composed of British and US troops, is now seen as the main obstacle to peace.

# posted by madthumbs @ 12:05 AM 0 comments