I'll be busy over the next few days and I really won't have time to post until Monday or Tuesday of next week. Keep those emails coming, I really enjoy them, but don't expect a new posting until early eek. Have a great weekend!
One unfortunate trait that Americans share is our lack of ability to think more than one step ahead. We may think we have foresight but in reality we can’t think beyond what is directly in front of our faces. The issue of melamine-tainted feed is one of those issues. While we worry about the safety of the chicken and pork we eat, as well as the ingredients of the food we feed our pets, we aren’t thinking about the secondary and tertiary uses of the animal processing business.
Modern agricultural methods squeeze profit from it’s products using every possible source. The old joke that no one really wants to know what goes into sausage isn’t entirely what I am referring to, although that does play a major part. The byproduct of animal farming and processing is precisely what I mean in this case.
Let’s take the recent announcement that the feds were looking into the effect that melamine tainted feed being fed to farmed fish could have on our health and safety. While our initial response is to worry about the fish filets and canned fish that are bought at the grocery store, there is another aspect to this process. The meat of the fish is only one part of the animal that is used in other dietary and food products. Fish oil and fish livers are used in dietary supplements of many varieties, not just dietary supplements such as vitamins. Protein shake mix is one use, recycling fish livers into other fish and animal feeds is another.
We know that the melamine found in the pet foods that were tainted affected the renal and endocrine systems of those animals. While the sensitivity they showed may not have been identical to how a human body reacts, it does bring up the question of how the melamine and cyanuric acids found in those feeds would react in a concentrated form in the body of animals and humans. The processing of contaminated fish livers could increase the concentration of those products and in turn increase the concentration in humans and livestock due to the consumption of those products in the form of dietary supplements or processed food ingredients.
By the same token, processing contaminated fish into other animal feeds would re-introduce the contaminants into the food chain, effectively increasing the chances of human exposure. With so many products and chemicals that have been banned from use in America due to their long-term effects on the human body, we have to look at this seriously. Are we forgetting DDT or PCBs? Yes, we are forgetting them. There are no studies available which document the effects of long-term human exposure to melamine or cyanuric acid. In other words, the government and our health officials have no idea how these chemical compounds will effect our health 20, 10 or even 5 years down the road.
Waste products from fish farming are also a factor. The offal or bodily waste of farmed fish, is also processed for other uses. Offal is used in the making of other animal feeds, including fish feed. Fallen stock from fish farming is even used biogas production in Europe. There is literally nothing left behind in this industry. Anti-bacterial drugs are also used in the fish farming industry just as it’s done in the cattle, pork and poultry industries. Chemicals are given to farm raised salmon to improve their color and the residue from these chemicals is ingested when you consume them.
The point is that this is closed loop system and the introduction of a new chemical compound into one part of the equation introduces the chemical into the remaining parts. When the government allows fish, chicken, pork or beef that has been fed tainted food, no matter how small in quantity, to be introduced to our food chain, it will affect all areas of the food chain, not just the end product. The contaminants that are present will be processed and concentrated in the various bodily systems of these animals and be combined in the processing of those organs in a factory. The concentrated contaminants are then passed on to you and I in some other form. There may be little if any melamine in the salmon croquettes you serve tonight or next month, but the vitamin pills you take with that meal may have much higher levels of contaminants because of the ingredients of that supliment. The long-term effects are unknown and you and I are the guinea pigs.
The recent revelation that the mother of the VaTech shooter, Cho Hyang-in, requested assistance from the One Mind Church to remove from her son what the church’s head pastor called a “demonic power”, is stunning. Serious researchers of MKULTRA and it’s associated projects such as Project MONARCH, and those familiar with victims of mind control projects sooner or later come to the subject of demonic possession in their research. To the members of an evangelist church the signs of mind control that Cho may have displayed could have easily been misinterpreted as demonic possession. It is also known that aspects of the MKULTRA program included the use of Voodoo, mainstream religion and the occult in conjunction with mind-altering drugs. Is this revelation a “smoking gun” of Cho being a mind control victim and that the VaTach massacre was indeed a BlackOp?
In their book, The Illuminati Formula to Create an Undetectable Total Mind Control Slave, Fritz Springmeier and Cisco Wheeler wrote, “If we understand programming from the Programmers point of view, they believe in both MPD and demonic possession.” If we look at the known comments made by Cho’s roommates and few acquaintances at Virginia Tech it is easy to see aspects of their memories of him, which hint at the possibility of Multiple Personality Disorder as well. MPD was also a subject of great interest to the Intelligence Community during MKULTRA and techniques were developed which utilized information gleamed from the psychiatric research community.
One event that has been reported quite a bit involved Cho identifying himself in class with a question mark. The symbolic connotations of a person who identifies their name as “?” is chilling when the subjects of MPD and demonic possession are brought up. Can a person with MPD really identify who they really are? Would a person who believes, or has been told, that they are possessed by demons have self-awareness associated with their given name, or would they not be able to name what they believe is their true identity?
Other comments by Cho’s roommates and classmates about his behavior are equally ominous. His roommates say they did not know what classes he took. They claim that he was rarely in his room. It’s been reported that he was a video gamer, but no one in the VaTech gaming community was familiar with him. Cho seems on the surface as a persona non grata. It is as though he was invisible, yet we know that his presence was well known in the faculty of the English department of the University. How can a person operate in their environment as both an unseen being and a notorious person?
It is known that mind control techniques are understood in which the subject is told or programmed to “edit out” certain subjects, objects or memories. Yet those closest to Cho seem to show signs of this very same control. While I believe it may be possible that those people have also been programmed, I believe it is not likely in this case. My belief is that some technique unknown to the public was used on Cho in which his personality was altered in a way to lessen the impact and memory he had on other people. In effect he was an “invisible man”.
One way to look at this idea of being programmed as an invisible man is to think of the basis of religion for an analogy. Worshipers believe in an unseen being(s) for which they shape their beliefs, actions and life to please this unseen being(s). Is it possible that an individual can be trained/brainwashed to display their body language, speak words and have an overall presence which triggers the sub-conscious mind of those around them to “ignore” their presence rather than accept their presence based on faith that they “exist”? Can a person passively or covertly hypnotize others into not seeing them?
If this were possible it would explain many of the inconsistencies and contradictions about Cho’s life and academic work at Virginia Tech. It would also lead to the questions of who did this to him? Why was this done? What was the reason for the massacre? I posted a comment soon after the attacks where I stated that a BlackOp of this nature would be green lighted for one or more of the following 4 reasons:
1) A real world test of some mind control technique.
2) To create a ruse which takes attention away from something else.
3) To act as a part of a larger operation or to change the public view via a moral panic episode.
4) To provide cover for the targeting of an individual (whether they were a part of the massacre or not).
Let’s look at some possible answers to those 4 questions in the context of this posting:
1) If this was a test of a new technique, what are the components of this system of mind control? It’s possible that the invisible man hypothesis I presented is an aspect of this technique, but it’s also possible that the testing was more centered on a scripted plan to see how first responders reacted within a controlled environment with multiple points of concern. Another facet of what could be learned after the fact of this event is how information spreads from a central event within a controlled environment. We know that the students who were killed had virtually no knowledge of what had happened across campus less than 2 hours earlier.
2) The ruse theory looked very promising at the time of the shootings. Attorney General Gonzales’ testimony before the Senate was delayed because of this event, but there was little lost attention on this event. By time Gonzales sat before the Senate Judicial Committee the urgency of the shootings had waned, and in fact NBC News had already begun apologizing for airing the footage sent to them by Cho on the morning of the shootings.
3) The moral panic fallout from VaTech is minimal to say the least. It is almost too minimal when you begin to really think about it in hindsight. For weeks after the Columbine shootings the debate over gun control, school bullying and the effect of entertainment and mass media were raging. Those same subjects have been all but ignored in this case. Only a minor movement gained ground over gun laws and there has been a minor discussion about mental illness treatment. If this was a part of a larger operation, it is now apparent that this was simply the opening event in such an operation. The recent disclosure that Presidential candidate Barack Obama now has the protection of the Secret Service is troubling in this light. The threat of a return to the political assassinations of the 60’s and early 70’s is a frightening prospect.
4) There has been no disclosure of persons from the shooting having connections to projects, agencies or organizations that should be looked into and there have been no reports of strange deaths of foreign nationals that can be questioned because of the timing. So I think this point is now moot.
What is obvious about this event is that Cho wasn’t a “lone nut” whose actions can’t be explained. The peripheral facts that are still emerging slowly all point to a much more nefarious source. Continued research is needed but very slowly and under the radar of most Americans, the facts are emerging.
This will make your head spin. Verizon is claiming that the lawsuit filed against the company for helping the government spy on it's citizens, should be dropped because they were merely exercising their first amendment rights. The gravamen of plaintiffs records claims is that defendants allegedly communicated information about them to the government namely, that a call was
placed from a certain telephone number to another number. Communicating such
factual information to the government would be speech that is fully protected by the First Amendment.
When the country is engaged in an armed conflict with foreign enemies, that right applies to communicating information that may be useful in defending the country from expected attacks. Based on plaintiffs own allegations, defendants right to communicate such information to the government is fully protected by the Free Speech and Petition Clauses of the First Amendment, and is a privilege and immunity that arises directly under the federal Constitution.
Villeneuve with Enzo Ferrari
25 years ago today we lost Gilles Villeneuve in a tragic crash while qualifying at Zolder. It was difficult for Americans to follow Formula 1 until ESPN took over the television rights in the late 80's and ABC's Wide World of Sports was our only option. Even then we only got the races a week later on tape delay and heavily edited. But it was difficult to miss Villeneuve's tragic death that year.
Villeneuve had a reputation for grabbing a car by the scruff of it's neck and wringing it for all it was worth. Seeing him race in anger was a true pleasure to behold for this, then teenager. Villeneuve would push the car to it's absolute edge and he would either win, crash or break the little Ferraris with style and courage.
The age of the Internet has been extremely kind to Villeneuve. His greatest and worst moments can be found on YouTube and other video sharing sites. His reputation seems to grow with each passing year as a wildman with no fear and a true legend has grown up around this man.
Villeneuve's legendary run back to the pits at Zandvoort.
His legacy can be seen in video and photographic footage. The manic race back to the pits in Zandvoort, first with a flat tire, then on 3 tires and a rim and finally a wobbling Ferrari with sparks trailing. The amazing final laps of Dijon, where he and Rene Arnoux swapped places and went wheel to wheel as though their lives depended on the outcome, even though they were racing for a 2nd place finish. The almost spooky practice at the Glen in '79, when Villeneuve ran all out in a downpour so heavy that only 6 tried to record a lap time.
The year of 1982 was a true "annus horribilus" for racing fans. The FISA-FOCA war raged in Formula 1, Villeneuve died at Zolder, Paletti died on live television in Montreal before the race could even start, and just weeks later Pironi neary died in a horrific crash at Spa. In CART, Jim Hickman died at Milwaukee and Gordon Smiley was killed in one of the most sickening crashes ever seen at Indianapolis. That was the first year I understood what Robert Daley meant when he called racing the "cruel sport". A huge amount of my interest in racing left that year. It was too much for a 16 year old kid to handle. The racing bug didn't return until I attended the French Grand Prix, almost by accident, in 1989.
Typical Villeneuve
I'd like to look back at Villeneuve's career not thinking of it's tragic end or asking the mind numbing question of what could have been. I'd prefer to think of him wringing the neck of that little Ferrari, taking corners too deep and too fast, only to pull it off with flair, style and bravery.
WASHINGTON - Farmed fish were fed meal spiked with an industrial chemical linked to the ongoing recall of pet foods, though the contamination level was probably too low to pose a danger to anyone who may have eaten the fish, federal health officials said Tuesday.
We've had pet food, feed given to pigs, feed given to chickens and now feed given to farmed fish in this scandal. What's next? Only two more areas in the human food chain are left, feed given to cattle and used in processed human foods. Once we get to cattle the other area of concern would be milk.
For prior postings on the melamine scandal click here.
Once again we are seeing that when the ability of a state to provide disaster recovery to it's own citizens has been reduced and the blame for that decreased ability is placed squarely where it should be, on the current administration in the White House, the response is denying responsibility and questioning the competence of your local and state government officials.
Katrina should have been a wake-up call to most Americans as to the true nature of the powers that be.
White House spokesman Tony Snow responded curtly to questions today regarding the state of the Kansas National Guard's ability to provide disaster relief following this past weekend's tornado outbreak. "We are eager to provide what Kansas needs," Snow said. "But again there are also -- you also have to go through the process of making the request first." The translation to what Snow said in his complete response is, "You have incompetent leaders in Kansas."
The problem, in a nutshell, is that the Kansas National Guard, like every other state, no longer has the equipment it once had. 60% of the Kansas National Guard's equipment is no longer in Kansas, it's in Iraq, where it has either been destroyed or left in theater because of the Army's logistics orders which keeps them there instead of being shipped back when the units rotate home. Kansas, like the other 49 states, is left to provide disaster relief with far less equipment and personnel than they are required to have due to the war in Iraq.
When the White House deflects the root cause of this lack of equipment by calling into question the capabilities of local officials they are following the same path they took following the Katrina debacle. I'm not in the least bit surprised by their response to the Governor's comments about their National Guard equipment issues. I'm planning on writing a longish piece on this phenomenon at some point in the near future. What I can say now is to not be surprised by the White House's response. If you don't know already, all of us are on our own. When a mass of people die in this world, it pleases those who hold true power in America and the world at large. This is the subject of the future post.
Here is an interesting little news tidbit from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:Faced with a funding shortfall, the state's public defender agency has
eliminated 41 full-time jobs — about a 12 percent reduction in its workforce.
Among those losing their jobs are 14 lawyers across Georgia. The layoffs are
expected to increase the caseloads of the remaining defenders. The statewide
system was created in 2003 to replace underfunded county-run programs that
provided legal representation for indigent defendants in criminal cases.
Lawsuits alleging constitutional violations were filed against a number of
county systems before the statewide system was established. Registration
(free) is required to read the rest
of the article.
I'm sure you have read various articles or heard news reports on the ever-skyrocketing rates of incarceration in this country. Here in Georgia we are faced with an ever growing prison population and an attitude that every citizen is simply a criminal waiting to be caught. Based on 2004 numbers provided by the Department of Justice, Georgia has a higher crime rate, prison population, incarceration rate, number of people on probation and parolees than the national average. We are also paying less per capita for prison expenses than the national average. And yet there are still constant demands to cut the cost of maintaining the prison system while there are still more new laws being passed and the ever present "get tougher on crime!" screams are heard daily. What the hell is wrong with us?
What we need in Georgia, and a lot of other states, is to get more people like Loretta Nall from Alabama involved in the political process in their states. Nall, who parlayed an overzealous pot bust into a serious run for the state gubernatorial seat last year, has stayed active in educating her fellow state residents in the fallacies and faults in their state's criminal justice system. Nall is bringing the common sense of the common man and woman to a higher level of recognition in her state, much to the chagrin of the front line elite of Alabama politics.
With this new round of budget cuts to Georgia Public Defenders office, what we see is the state attempting to stack the deck even more against the poor and defenseless among it's citizens to ensure that the prisons are stocked with fresh new faces. Georgians will only realize the false safety and failure to properly govern in this manner once one of our own can come to the forefront and stick the truths of this matter back into our faces.
I'm having a great deal of trouble focusing this morning. I have a ringing, roaring wave in my ears. The tinnitus is back in spades. I'm an apartment dweller, which means that if the mood strikes me to crank it up at 1:00 AM, the headphones have to come out. Otherwise I'd be looking for a new place to live every few months. I'm too old for that.
There are still a lot of albums and CDs in my collection that aren't safe to play at any volume, any time of the day. Most people don't share my continuing love of Fear or the Dead Kennedys even though their heyday has been over for close to two decades now. Even Fugazi can elicit funny looks from the neighbors unless you live in the bohemian enclave of your city.
I've been having insomnia problems of late so at 1:00 AM last night I had one of those needs to put on The Who. You can't play The Who at moderate levels, regardless of the time of day or your age. Out came the newer, deluxe editions of Live at Leeds and Who's Next. I felt better, was able to fall asleep and now my ears are roaring.
Of course years of doing this as well as going to shows where my goal was to get as close to the big full stacks of Marshalls, and listening to my own guitar "skills" through headphones have not exactly helped the cause. The damage was done years ago, I'm only exasperating them. Where the hearing loss is most apparent is when I am eating out with someone and I can't hear through the mid-range background noise that is common in a restaurant, or even a bar. "Eh?" "What?" "I Can't hear what your saying." I am not a lot of fun on a dinner date.
With The Who still in my head this morning I've started to wonder about an aspect of R&R that's been missing for a long time, one that I miss. Are there any bands left who just drip in danger and possibility like The Who and others did in their day? I can distinctly remember skinheads causing a near riot at The Fox here in Atlanta when they showed up on Peachtree as the fans were leaving after seeing The Clash. That, was real danger and the Clash's fans weren't dumb thugs. The thugs dropped by to have a go and the Clash fans wouldn't abide. This wasn't just an adrenaline pumping addiction the fans had, there was a sense that anything was possible at some concerts. I once left a Replacements show in the mid-80's, one where they were "on" and felt like anything was possible in this world. I still miss Bob Stinson.
Do they even make music like that anymore?
Here is a strange coincidence for you. I did a Google search with a few random words and phrases that are related to infamous mind control or Manchurian Agents with the name of the VaTech shooter. Look what came up, a portion of Cho's statements in the videos that were sent to NBC News which were randomly picked with a list of JD Salinger quotes.
Reports are surfacing that the VaTech shooter had yet another tie to extreme right-wing fundamentalist churches. It’s being reported that the mother of the shooter had sought the assistance of the members and pastor of the One Mind Church of Woodbridge Virginia before the shootings occurred. The pastor of the church, Rev. Dong Cheol Lee, described a “Demonic power” that had taken hold of Cho.
News reports are calling the One World Church a Presbyterian congregation. Deeper research into the church finds that it is associated with Darakbang evangelism within the Remnant Movement (Restoring the Evangelism Movement Needed in All Nations Today) which is also associated with the Seventh Day Adventists. In total, there are 5 of such churches in the Washington DC area.
One can only wonder how visions of the apocalypse and the Book of Revelations would have had an effect on a mind control subject. For more news and postings about the VaTech shooter, click HERE.
The feds waited for the Friday data dump schedule to announce major news that 20 million chickens have now been effected by the growing scandal surrounding melamine tainted gluten being introduced into the human food chain. Waiting until late Friday afternoon to announce things is an old tactic, the news is overshadowed and little recognized because most Americans are just waiting to enjoy their weekends. In this case withholding information that involves the health and safety of the American public is inexcusable.
The federal agencies tasked with protecting our food supplies and health are still parroting the line that this issue is not a threat to the health of Americans, yet there is enough concern to hold USDA certification for these 20 million chickens until more can be learned. As I have discussed in an earlier post, the actual effects of melamine on the health of humans is vastly understudied and is basically an unknown factor.
What is equally concerning to me is how this has grown exponentially from the contamination of pet food, to an isolated case of tainted feed given to pigs, to a wide net of tainted feed for chickens. Yet every step of the way, the federal government tells us the same story. "Don't worry." "It's an isolated case." "There is no risk to the public's health and safety." And in each case we find the contamination has expanded, even to the point where 3 million effected chickens were sold and eaten by an unsuspecting public. And still, they trot out the same response, "Don't worry." only for us to learn days later that this scandal is ever growing.
I understand that the government doesn't want panic in the streets but at the rate this story has grown a panic in the near future is becoming more and more possible as it continues to worsen. They still cannot guarantee that the effected gluten has lept from simply being present in livestock feed, to use in processed foods. At first they claimed there was no evidence and no possibility that the effected wheat gluten had been used in any product but pet food, but we soon found that to be untrue.
Will we next learn that the same gluten was used to make the pasta that is sitting in our pantries?
I'm spending a little time this afternoon doing some maintenance to the blog and I've added links to a few blogs and websites belonging to musicians. Some of you may wonder what connection they have to conspiracy theory? They short answer is that they don't, but they share common traits with the typical CT enthusiast. Free thinking, alternate views of reality and tapping into creative expression; those are the traits shared with the typical CT enthusiast.
I'm very big on supporting artists of all art forms, these are people who I believe deserve all the web traffic, financial support and recognition that can be given. If you have any recommendations, or requests to have a link removed, please feel free to send them to me at theconspiratorsnest@gmail.com and I'll certainly respond. More will be added as time goes along.
In the meantime, click those links and if you aren't already familiar with the works of artist Mack White or musicians Henry Rollins, Mike Watt and Bob Mould, enjoy the trip and check out their work.
Back in my wilder, younger days a group of buddies and I made a road trip to the Kentucky Derby to see the infamous infield crowd first hand (WARNING: link NSFW). Like Mardi Gras, the Derby infield crowd is something to behold. Hunter Thompson's legendary article about the race and the crowd was what sparked that road trip and Thompson's description was dead on accurate.
Since the Queen is going to be at the running of the roses this weekend, my greatest wish is that she could be brought out into that mass of unwashed, drunken and depraved bodies. A good stiff Julep could brace her for what she sees, and she would be guaranteed to see a lot. It'll never happen but one can wish. I'm sure her pressence at the Downs will encourage the infield animals to be on their absolute best behavior this weekend.
In last night's Republican debate, three of the hopefuls (Brownback, Tancredo and Huckabee) admitted that they do not believe in evolution. This admission will go down well in Preacher Cletus' church, I'm not so sure about the rest of us.
Watching dangerous fools fight for power is entertaining as well as terrifying, especially when not a one of them has an original idea between them. After more than an hour of watching these power brokers slavishly worship at the alter of Reagan I came to the conclusion that only Ron Paul is sucking from a different bottle than the others.
I also have one question. Do the 3 who sheepishly raised their hands to the evolution question, really and truly not believe in evolution or did they raise their hands simply to get the whack-o religious freak vote? To be honest, I'm not sure of the answer to that question. It not beneath a politician to lie, but this bunch of Republicans strike me as being intellectually burnt stubs.
(July 10, 2007 - For updated posts on this story please click here.)
The Navy Times is reporting that an instructor at the Naval Academy worked as an "independent contractor" for accused DC Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey. This is actually a major revelation for two reasons:
1) The background check that is required for such a position should and would have found this little nugget of her life. The reason why this is important is because her background would leave her open for blackmail and the possible coerced use as an intelligence agent.
2) It's possible that her background as a prostitute and position at the Naval Academy could make a powerful intelligence and counter-intelligence agent for our own Intelligence Community.
Palfrey has also placed a partial list of her clients in the form of one of her phone bills online at her website in .PDF format. Click the link here for a copy. The partial list does not name names, but the phone numbers and the locations listed are interesting reading, especially the multiple callers. What is even more enlightening is when you discover that the list covers 5 days in 1996. I wonder if Dick "Toe Sucker" Morris was a client?
ABC plans to air the Palfrey interview tomorrow night on their show 20/20. I may catch it just to see the "tone" of the story. For an earlier post I wrote about a possible CIA role in this story, please click here.
There was a time when the opinion about this city in the national consciousness was that it is a progressive city with jobs and hope and prosperity, a place where a person can redefine themselves and make a good, decent, honest living. Now the opinion is tainted by the police force murdering an elderly woman and planting pot at the scene to hide their crime. Other longstanding "image" issues about the police force have been coming to the forefront of late.
I'm not going to bash the police simply because it's an easy thing to do or a rebellious act or even because its the type of thing that an outsider simply does. But we do have a major problem with the quality of our law enforcement in this city and it's been festering for a long time. It would be easy to dismiss this as just a handful of bad cops, every police force has them, and it would be easy to minimize the problems by comparing them to the historic problems that Philadelphia and Chicago had in the 60's and 70's.
I'll admit that I have a great deal of respect and admiration for our current Mayor. She has taken on the financial and operational problems left behind by her predecessors and has begun the process of getting the ship back on course. Her biggest mistake however, was hiring Chief Pennington. I've been to New Orleans many times in my life. I *know* how rough that city is and how the cops have a certain reputation there. When I first heard that the Police Chief from New Orleans was in the running for the job all I could think was that this was a bad idea.
What are we dealing with now? Other than the horrible situation that the police created when they shot and killed poor Kathryn Johnson we still have the issue of suspicious killings in several other cases. Most notably the killing of Jamal Smith in Buckhead. Not to mention the fact that the Dekalb police seem to have a shoot first ask questions later attitude when it comes to criminals, I mean citizens. Now, Creative Loafing's John Sugg has written about problems within the department related to several notable cases of lying by police officials and ethics violations.
I know there are rotten eggs in any organization, especially large organizations where power is concentrated. But to be honest I can hardly believe or trust what is said down on Ponce. City Hall East needs to stop circling the wagons and boot the rotten eggs, otherwise we are going to wind up with a scandal that would make Frank Rizzo blush. If the leadership in this city doesn't get on the ball and make some hard choices we are going to look as bad as Dekalb County did when Derwin Brown was assassinated. Do we really want that to happen?
Last week I posted that the VaTech shooter's use of a prostitute was a similar behavioral pattern shared with other possible mind control subjects. This has made me think a bit more seriously about the still simmering "DC Madam" scandal. Is it possible that some of the remaining veteran spooks at Langley are using the oldest trick in the book (no pun intended) to get back at the neocon hypocrites?
For those unfamiliar with the DC Madam story the short explanation is that a woman by the name of Deborah Jeane Palfrey was recently arrested for running an escort service in the DC area. Her clientele is rumored to consist of high level government officials. Among the first to be stung for their dalliances is Deputy of Secretary of State Randall Tobias. Tobias, the Presidential appointed "AIDS Czar", who was quoted as saying that being "faithful" is a way to prevent AIDS, seems to not know the meaning of the word hypocrite.
On Thursday of last week, Tobias admitted he did use the escort service run by Palfrey and would call up "to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage." He claimed there was "no sex" in these massage encounters. Yeah...right...Ted Haggard already tried that one when the gay prostitute and crystal meth story first broke last year. It didn't work too well for him either.
Palfrey was pretty smart, apparently she maintained detailed lists of her clients. I don't know if this will be the equivalent of a "Get out of jail free" card but at the least she can have the pleasure of bringing down the hypocrites with her if she gets the heat over this. ABC news has possession of a copy of her list. Why they do no not provide a true service to this country by naming names I can only guess.
So, is this an example of Operation Midnight Climax being carried out in 2007? So far nothing leads me to believe that it is an agency job. The curious thing is that the rank and file career minded spooks are among the walking wounded from the Christian Coalition drones and Neocon lovers of the Bush administration. Would it be beneath them to pull out the oldest trick in their little black book of dirty tricks? Of course not. Whether the agency set this in motion or it just happened as so many criminal enterprises eventually lead to is possibly a side story in what could be the best Washington sex scandal in many years.
At least this one isn't as dark and disturbing as some others. Even the Minnesota Monitor is pondering the possibility that the emerging scandal is being smokescreened to take away its attention by giving us some al-Qaeda capture stories.
If you spend enough time browsing CT themed message boards sooner or later you are bound to be checking one out at the same time another CT message board is down. The comments are always guaranteed to have at least one poster questioning whether or not the feds have shut down the site, or more ominously, taken it over. CT forums go down for maintenance, hack attacks or simply failing to pay the bills but one site that stays on the radar for a lot of people, myself included, has gone dark.
Cryptome is the site John Young has operated for a number of years that has really pushed boundaries of the type of information you can post and get away with it. He doesn't post conspiracy theories but his documents can often lead the CT researcher down some interesting side alleys of the Intelligence Community. He's had many threats from alphabet agencies over the years but it looks like someone finally got his hosting company, Verio, to pull the plug and the site is sitting in timeout limbo right now.
I'm hoping Cryptome returns, anyone who raises the scorn of the FBI *and* Readers Digest is okay in my book.
The USS Phoenix (later ARA General Belgrano) seen as it steams past Battleship Row, Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941.
25 years ago today the British fast attack submarine HMS Conqueror made history when it became the first nuclear powered submarine to sink a surface vessel with torpedoes on a combat patrol. The sunken ship, ARA General Belgrano, began life as the USS Phoenix (CL-46) and ended it by taking 323 men with her. The controversies that rose from this action are well documented, as are details of the combat patrol made by the crew of the Conqueror.
Since the war cheerleaders rarely think beyond the "Top Gun" style of military knowledge and history, it's always good to bring out a historical tragedy from war. The hawks who parrot, like Ed Rogers, never appreciate it when you "wave that bloody rag" in their face.
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.
