Peeking into the memory hole

The memory hole is deep, dark and quiet. With our short attention span and constant need of being stimulated by something new, story after story has been cast into this hole, rarely discussed even on fringe sources of commentary or research. Save for bloggers, a few devoted online researchers who maintain specialized websites and the occasional reference in non-fiction books we lose the story and no one seems to question the timing or the effect of these stories. Time marches on, as the old saying went.

Here are three stories that have fallen into the memory hole but have been on my mind in recent weeks. These stories were like the month of March – in like a lion, out like a lamb.

The al-Qaeda chemical weapon test video.

Soon after the invasion of Afghanistan and just in time for the holiday get together with your family, the government released video excerpts of a supposed chemical weapon test that was performed by members of al-Qaeda. The tape showed a small dog enclosed in a room where a chemical weapon was released. Of all the somber and serious things being discussed at that time, the contents and inherent threat of this tape was very chilling.

So, have there been any more tapes like this discovered over the last 6 years of war? We have seen neither hide nor hair of a new tape. Considering the absolute fear this tape struck at the heart of every American and the speed in which it was found in Afghanistan, one would assume that if new tapes were found the intelligence agencies and the White House would want them declassified and released ASAP.

The ever changing terror alert levels.

You know the drill. All through 2002, 2003 and 2004 we had to live through various and vague warnings from the government that chatter was high or a specific threat had alarmed them sufficiently to raise the terror alert level. Every time it happened we had the living shit scared out of us, and the ominous feeling of the other shoe about to drop was on everyone’s mind.

Keith Olbermann of MSNBC has done one of the greatest services to this country that we can ever imagine by piecing together his “Nexus of Politics and Terror” pieces for his show. Unlike every Bush apologist in the country, I am not going to make a cause and effect correlation between the abrupt ceasing of these raised terror alerts and Olbermann’s work but it is interesting that once his story made it into popular culture of America the terror alert tweaking, stopped.

The kidnapping and beheading videos.

Daniel Perl and contractors galore were kidnapped and their executions videotaped in the early stages of the Iraq occupation. While the mainstream media refused to show the actual executions, the unedited tapes could be found for download online at various mayhem sites. The violence in Iraq has been dynamic. It has gone from being focused on the occupying forces to a Sunni on Shiite/Shiite on Sunni massacre. The number of contractors who are kidnapped and murdered has decreased but it’s not a sign that it’s safe for contractors or anyone in Iraq.

What is curious about these videos is how they solidified an idea into the collective minds of Americans that the invasion of Iraq was just and necessary at a time immediately after major combat operations had ended and it was obvious that there was absolutely no plan for “what next?” in Iraq by the White House. Instead of the media probing the coalition plan for rebuilding the nation the media could not stop talking about the kidnappings and brutal executions.

It is very interesting to me that these instances and other like them, have come and gone so quickly and considering the level of discussion they provided the American public, no one seems to wonder why they stopped. In the case of the chemical weapon tape it is curious to note that there has been no other instances of similar tapes being discovered. I’m quite sure that if tapes like this had been found we would have seen them as the fear and worry they produce is effective beyond belief in advancing the White House agenda and justifying their occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

What is the real mechanism of a story jumping into and off our radar? Our memory has always been short and with few exceptions even the worst of tragedies are forgotten and life goes on. Military disasters are forgotten; no one remembers or talks about the Forrestal flight deck fire even though Sen. John McCain was involved. Two nuclear powered American submarines lie at the bottom of the Atlantic, the only references to these sinking’s are related to the threat of radioactive materials. When was the last time you read or heard a reference to the hundreds of soldiers who died in the Gander air disaster?

Do these stories have a valid connection to current events? In the case of the chemical weapon test video, yes, that does have a connection with current events. The continual wolf cry of the neo-con operatives allude to the threat of CBR (Chemical, Biological and Radiological) attacks on American soil. So why has there not been another video of these types of tests released?

Over the years I have found it interesting to go back and look at my personal journals and see what newsworthy events of the day were noted. It is not often that a story that is not directly affecting my daily life is mentioned. The three stories I have mentioned in this posting were stories of the day that prompted an entry in my daily journal. It all leads me to wonder what other people think about their own memory hole.

Paging Upton Sinclair.

Keep your eyes open for the name of author Upton Sinclair to come up in an article or two as the year progresses. The recent food safety issues that have cropped up in the US and the release of director PT Anderson’s film “There Will Be Blood” should be enough to bring Sinclair’s work back into the national consciousness, even if it’s a fleeting mention. Have we really changed at all since his day and time?

Sinclair was the type of person we are sorely lacking in today’s political and social scene. An intellectual who’s interest seemed to lay far more with the common working man and the impoverished than with the academic, political and economic elitists of his time. He was a pure leftist, who brought his populist ideas to his work and even ran in several gubernatorial races in California, and is still a decisive figure to the far right-wing nearly 40 years after his death.

While the full scope of Sinclair’s novel “The Jungle” doesn’t seem to be on the radar of the country one facet of the story, our food safety, is beginning to gain attention once again. It seems we have a weekly food recall. E-Coli, salmonella or some other bacterial contamination of our food keeps rising to our attention. Now we have the melamine controversy where it appears that the government is spending more time keeping the full extent of the problem out of sight than they are keeping us informed of what they are doing and what we need to be aware of. Has the government, or any health agency for that matter, told us what could be the symptoms and risks of melamine to the human body? I haven't seen a mention from the feds on the effects or symptoms from day 1.

The main problem with the melamine story is this. The CDC, USDA and FDA have said over and over that they can find no indications that there has been a risk to the health of the public from this event. They have also released statement after statement that the risk has been minimal and “no problems have been detected to date.” The problem with those statements is that very little is actually known about the effects of melamine on the human body. The subject is understudied and what we do know is that the permissible level of melamine in human food that is mandated by the government is zero. None.

So how can the government, in good consciousness, tell us to not worry when they themselves know very little about how this triazine compound effects us? We are getting a much more clear picture from China, where this originated, that the profit eager and safety absent industrialists of that country are spiking their foods with high levels of melamine. Perhaps this is all a larger, global version of the Tuskegee Experiment? I’m also sure that the US Intelligence Community will be as eager to see what the long-term effects are just as they were interested in US cancer rates during and after the period of atmospheric nuclear tests.

News - A quick roundup

Here are some of the news stories that are being overshadowed today by the VaTech massacre:

AG Gonzales testimony. You can stream the C-SPAN coverage from this URL:

http://www.c-span.org/watch/cs_cspan3_wm.asp?Cat=TV&Code=CS3

The missing White House emails (and Rove's violation of the Presidential Records Act) is still a serious story. The Washington Post has the latest developments here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/17/AR2007041701984.html?nav=rss_politics

More than 200 dead in Iraq over the last 24 hours following a car bomb spree. 198 were killed yesterday, SecDef is on the ground in Iraq and 3 more US soldiers were killed yesterday:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/19/iraq.main/index.html

Wolfowitz's scandal at the World Bank deepens as a senior deputy tells him to resign:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/imf/story/0,,2060755,00.html

The US Supreme Court opens the door for a serious Roe v. Wade challenge (guess those SCOTUS hearings shouldn't have been pooh-pooh'd by the media and the Democrats, but hey, we all told you so):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18195406/

and to lighten the doom and gloom for a moment, Lawrence Fishburne signed to provide the voice of the Silver Surfer:

http://movies.ign.com/articles/781/781876p1.html

News - Leaving the bubble

Tragedy does not stop the world from revolving. Too many stories drop into the memory hole during times of breaking, high profile news and here is something for all Americans to think about.

The Marine Corps Times has posted a strongly worded article about bringing back the draft.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2007/04/military_groundforces_draft_070417w/

Some points from the article:

“If the United States is going to have a significant component of its ground forces in Iraq over the next five, 10, 15 or 30 years, then the responsible course is for the president and those supporting this open-ended and escalated presence in Iraq to call for reinstating the draft.”

“For the first time since Vietnam, we are caught with no strategic reserve. We simply do not have a strategic fallback position for the crisis that will come inevitably,” McCaffrey warned.

There is subtle but definite "s*** or get off the pot" tone to the article.

Random thoughts this morning

As I alluded to in an earlier post, my personal list of questions continues to grow. Some of my answers are beginning to be answered but only the general questions. Along with the list of questions I also have a list of random thoughts that is more of a small journal. These cases are dynamic in the way they are reported by the mainstream media and the media has a somewhat predictable MO in these cases.

Now that there is enough general information and some detailed information of the shooter in the public arena and the police are apparently gathering clues away from the crime scene, the media will now focus on the victims and begin the exploitation of the "personal stories" from the massacre. This is the time when researchers should be working with their notes and begin connecting the dots. Vetting the data, asking the deeper questions and categorizing their findings. The real work of conspiracy theory research begins now.

This morning some things are sticking out as random, odd and oblique to the story that I thought I would throw out here on the blog.

1) The mainstream media hasn't identified a single wounded victim who is in the hospital. Who are they, what are their injuries and why the absence of reporting on these people?

2) Ismael Ax - Ignore this "factoid", all of you. If the shooter is a Manchurian Agent, the scrawled words are a planted distraction to take away effort and thought into the larger picture. If the shooter was not a Manchurian Agent then the words are nothing more than a sign of his deteriorated mental state.

3) No one seems to be working the gun, serial number and receipt angle. Why would the shooter have the receipt for the gun in his possession at the time of the killings? Why would the shooter file off the serial numbers if he was going to carry a receipt that would link him to the gun? How many clips did the shooter have? How much ammo did he have left? What were the other items in his backpack?

4) Why the discrepancy in witness reports of the shooters clothing? The earliest reports were that it was an Asian male, wearing a maroon cap and black leather jacket. Later reports state an Asian male, wearing a short sleeved tan shirt and an "ammunition vest". Why would both reports miss the backpack? Why would a shooters vest be mistaken for a leather jacket? Two different physical descriptions leads me to think there was a second shooter and the police have still not said with certainty that there was not a second shooter.

5) After checking out Google Earth last night I learned that the shooter's listed home is a long walk or a 5 minute drive from the Headquarters of the National Rifle Association and the National Reconnaissance Office.

6) This shooter was calm, cool, quiet and methodical. In the midst of absolute chaos and terror he kept his head and shot at least 41 people with amazing efficiency. This would be a minimum of 41 shots, with possibly as many as 123 shots within minutes and with a stunning kill ratio. All the while these victims were running and attempting to escape but he still hit the targets with kill shots. The shooter was well trained and well prepared, even prepared to chain and lock(?) the front entrances closed to keep potential victims from escaping.

The "he learned tactics from a video game" defense doesn't hold water. That excuse was used on Harris and Klebold but when you looked more closely at Columbine you realize that they bungled the job on many levels. The video game training defense doesn't hold up, especially in light of the shooters dorm roommate stating that the shooter was rarely in the room and the roommate didn't mention video games being an interest of the shooter, only downloading music.

The shooter had skills beyond compare for a "civilian".

I have many more random thoughts going right now but these 6 thoughts are the ideas that are floating in my mind most prominently this morning. Do you, as someone who is interested in this story from a conspiracy theory angle, have your own list?

Heads up to the researchers.

Conspiracy theory researchers need to keep an eye out for the autopsy results of the victims at VaTech. The medical examiner in Roanoke has today released two bodies to their respective families. Remember the issues with the autopsy reports in the Columbine case?

In light of the revelation of an attending Doctor who treated victims at one of the hospitals, who stated that every gunshot victim they saw had three gunshot wounds each, it will be of interest to know how many gunshot wounds were inflicted, the gun that the bullets came from and the location and position of each victim at the scene of the crime. Those pieces of information were critical in the CT research of Columbine.

On deck, copycats

The Copycat Effect can't be far behind as an unwelcome effect of the VaTech massacre. Loren Coleman, the Cryptozoology researcher and author, has written a book about this phenomenon and has a blog about the subject. Required reading.

http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/

Link to his book at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743482239/cryptozoologi-20/

News- Don't forget what else is happening in the world

While the mainstream media four walls the VaTech shooting tragedy, don’t forget the other news stories that slip between the cracks in times like this. Remember that on the day of the Columbine shooting that NATO forces dropped more bombs than any other day of it’s action in Bosnia.

News stories to not forget and news stories that fall off the radar:

The Attorney General testimony before Congress has been delayed - http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704160329apr17,1,7950509.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

US Casualties mount as Sadr quits Iraqi government - http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2007/April/focusoniraq_April121.xml&section=focusoniraq

French Intelligence officials admit that they warned the US government of al-Qaeda plot for 911 well before the attack - http://www.bitsofnews.com/content/view/5568/2/

Italy tries US intelligence agent in absentia - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1665561.ece
Don’t forget the ongoing White House email scandal, the emergency funding bill for the war and the first deployment of the Osprey aircraft to a combat theater.

News - Will the floodgates open?

Now that the Don Imus storm has peaked will the floodgates open on right wing media personalities? The idea is beginning to float with Rush Limbaugh even telling his listeners that he's next. MediaMatters.org has posted a large data dump of the most notable examples of right wing pundits crossing the line:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200704120010

I'm waiting for the "PC" backlash to brew from the political right if this keeps rolling down the tracks and picks up steam. We need a good moral panic these days, with right and left wingers throwing the pity party for themselves complete with the good old-fashioned First Amendment finger jab to the chest.

The memory hole goodie bag - Pons and Fleischman 18 years later

Exactly eighteen years ago this week the debate began to escalate over the claims of Drs. Pons and Fleischman of achieving cold fusion at room temperature in their Utah laboratory. Imagine for a moment that this claim were to be made today. With steadily rising energy costs, a mainstream acceptance and discussion of global warming and a war being waged in the midst of the worlds main oil suppliers the feedback over such an announcement would be deafening.

The findings of Pons and Fleischman were discredited but they have continued their work non-stop since then. Other alternative energy devices have been developed in obscure workshops worldwide as well as being studied and tested at respected laboratories and research facilities of major Universities and organizations such as NASA and TVA. Even the Griggs Device has found a niche in the pulp wood industry and is in production by Hydro-Dynamics today. Of course the words "over unity" and it's much debated history are not seen in any of their literature or on their web site but this is beside the point and a distraction from what is really important. The point is that an energy efficient, functional and creative device is in production.

We will not wake one sunny morning to news of a breakthrough technology which makes oil, coal and nuclear energy obsolete and worthless. But we are slowly rising with a hangover to a number of technologies which will address our energy and transportation needs. Oil companies are raking in record profits but their added wealth is not trickling down to their own customers. All businesses rely one way or another on the availability of cheap, abundant energy and their bottom line is weakened across the board due to the rising energy costs. They will, one day, implement the devices being developed in the labs because simple economics demand that they be implemented.

There is a long lived and much repeated conspiracy theory which relates to this subject. Since the 1930's there have been urban legends regarding the existence of an engine that runs on water, the classic Water Engine story. The legend promotes the idea that the oil companies took control of this technology and have suppressed it to maintain their control over the energy sector. Variations on this legend also maintain that the oil companies destroyed all records of this technology therefore, it is not just suppressed it is a lost technology and cannot be recreated. David Mamet even wrote a play about this mysterious subject in the 1970's.

In times of heavy handed corporate power reigning over the public, such as what we see today with "Big Oil" and others; feelings of being powerless manifests itself in our consciousness as a society. Even though we haven't seen an uptick in rumors and conspiracy theories regarding a water engine or other groundbreaking alternative energy devices it would not surprise me if we do in the near future. Our urban legends and conspiracy theories are sometimes a comforting way of explaining why things are the way they are.