Monday, July 25, 2005

The world as seen from around the kitchen table

In their latest podcast, editors Henry See, Scott Ogrin, and Joe Quinn discuss 9/11 in an exclusive interview with Darren Williams, creator of the Pentagon Strike flash animation.
Some of the articles cited so that you can read the material yourselves can be found here.

Next show they'll be discussing the latest news, including an update on the second round of London bombings.
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Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Bush picks conservative judge (big surprise!)

Bush picks conservative judge for US Supreme Court
AFP
July 20, 2005
WASHINGTON
- President George W. Bush nominated conservative judge John Roberts to the US Supreme Court, a move that could shape the outcome of battles over volatile issues like abortion for decades.

Republicans welcomed the choice of a candidate with a reputation as a brilliant lawyer with right wing credentials. But senior Democrats expressed doubts, setting the scene for a Senate battle over Roberts' confirmation.

"The decisions of the Supreme Court affect the life of every American," the president said in a televised address from the White House, with the 50-year-old federal appeals court judge at his side.

"A nominee to that court must be a person of superb credentials and the highest integrity, a person who will faithfully apply the constitution and keep our founding promise of equal justice under law. I have found such a person in Judge John Roberts," said Bush.

Bush shrugged off pressure to pick a woman to replace Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor, a moderate conservative who was the first woman to serve on the court and often cast the deciding vote in controversial decisions.

The president urged the Senate, where his Republican party has 55 of the 100 seats, to confirm Roberts by the first week of October, when the Supreme Court opens a new session.

"This confirmation can be done in a timely manner," said Bush. "So I have full confidence that the Senate will rise to the occasion and act promptly on this nomination."

But the nomination immediately opened a new partisan divide. "We know Judge Roberts is no Sandra Day O'Connor, and the White House has sent a clear signal," said John Kerry, the Democratic senator who fought Bush for the presidency last year.

"There are serious questions that must be answered involving Judge Roberts' judicial philosophy as demonstrated over his short time on the appellate court."

Other Democrats promised intense scrutiny of Roberts stand on issues such as abortion.

The top Democrat in the Senate, Harry Reid, set the stage for tough questioning by saying the nominee had "suitable legal credentials" but required more scrutiny.

Leading US dailies said Wednesday Bush's nomination should be carefully vetted by the Senate to determine exactly what if any ideological leaning he might have.

"If he is a mainstream conservative ... he should be confirmed. But if on closer inspection he turns out to be an extreme ideologue with an agenda of stripping away important rights, he should not be," said The New York Times.

While The Washington Post considers Roberts "a man of substance and seriousness" whose nomination "is not a provocation to Democrats," it cautions that "nobody really knows what (he) believes, because he has been unusually careful about not discussing his views."

"So sphinx-like has he been," added the Post editorial, "that some conservatives have suggested he might ... not be a real conservative at all."

Comment: Dream on... Bush nominated him.

Roberts "has a thin record on controversial subjects ... (that) gives the other side so little to work with," said the Times, while USA Today said that "while certainly conservative," Roberts' legal record "is largely opaque."

For this reason, the three newspapers agree that Roberts deserves a careful confirmation hearing by the Senate.

Of special concern, said the Post, are Roberts' views on abortion rights and "the balance of power between the federal government and the states."

"If extremists take control of the Supreme Court," warned the Times, "we will end up with an America in which the federal government is powerless to protect against air pollution, unsafe working conditions and child labor."

Comment: Well, golly! By all means, give the federal government whatever powers they want! The last thing America needs is a Supreme Court that dares to disagree with the fuhrer! Extremists will take over the Supreme Court, but not to prevent the Bush Reich from exercising their power... After all, Bush is the one who chose Roberts.

For this reason, said the Post, "such a substantial picture of a nominee will require a serious and dignified confirmation process."

"He should be asked in detail his views of how the Constitution should be interpreted," said USA Today.

The nomination was Bush's first chance to reshape the ideological balance of the court, which has immense influence over the lives of Americans as the final arbiter of the constitution and court of last resort.

Because justices serve for life or until they retire, they regularly decide critical and controversial political and legal issues long after the president who picked them is gone.

Roberts' last notable decision came only last week when his appeals court overturned a lower court decision that the special military tribunals for suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo detention camp in Cuba were illegal.

The decision was a victory for the Bush administration in its handling of the "war on terrorism" detainees. But a new appeal is now expected to go to the Supreme Court.

Comment: And here we have our answer as to where Roberts stands. No wonder Bush is pushing for a quick confirmation...

Roberts graduated from Harvard Law School in 1979, was a clerk to arch-conservative US Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, served in president Ronald Reagan's White House, and was a senior federal prosecutor under Bush's father, former president George Bush.

"He is regarded by many people as the best supreme court litigator of his generation," said James Lindgren, a professor of law at Northwestern University in Illinois, who added that Roberts conservative creed could lead to a "nasty fight" in the Senate.

O'Connor's retirement opened the first vacancy on the Supreme Court in 11 years. The last justice appointed was the liberal Justice
Stephen Breyer, who was named by president Bill Clinton.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is now the sole woman on the nine justice Supreme Court bench.

Comment: First we read this:

Roberts "has a thin record on controversial subjects ... (that) gives the other side so little to work with," said the Times

And then this:

Roberts' last notable decision came only last week when his appeals court overturned a lower court decision that the special military tribunals for suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo detention camp in Cuba were illegal.

The editors at the Times obviously didn't bother to do their homework.
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Sunday, July 17, 2005

PODCAST July 16, 2005

The world as seen from around the kitchen table

In their latest podcast, editors Henry See, Scott Ogrin, and Joe Quinn discuss the latest on the Bush regime and give an update on the recent bombings in London.

Some of the articles cited can be found here so that you can read the material yourselves.

Next show they’lll be discussing the events of 9/11, complete with an exclusive interview with Darren Williams. Darren is the creator of the Pentagon Strike video that has been seen by over 300 million people around the world. If you haven’t seen it, check it out at the Pentagon Strike web site.
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Thursday, July 14, 2005

Look Ma! A Terrorist!

CIA-backed tech can instantly spot terrorists in a crowd
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
WASHINGTON
- The U.S. intelligence community is investing in new technology meant to provide instant recognition of insurgency fugitives in such crowded facilities as airports and subways.

A Los Altos, Calif. company, Pixlogic, has been developing technology meant to search for fugitives and insurgency suspects in a crowd.

Pixlogic has employed new software based on visual pattern recognition and search technologies to match archived still or video images with those gathered from security cameras or other sources, Middle East Newsline reported.

Executives said the CIA has been an investor in the development of technology by Pixlogic and other U.S. companies.

"It does a reasonable job of matching people that sort of look alike," Pixlogic chief executive officer Joseph Santucci said.

Comment: Well, that's certainly reassuring...

"Most [competing] software tools only work under constrained circumstances."

Executives said the company's software could also detect and alert investigators to anomalies in video footage provided by closed-circuit television systems. Such anomalies could include an individual carrying a large box, or a truck that returns to the same spot. They said such technology has not yet been employed in either Britain or the United States.

Comment: With the London bombings, this new technology will surely be rushed into use. Just think about how the "terrorists" could have been identified by London's numerous security cameras if this fabulous new software had been installed... Oh, and don't carry large boxes around or drive to the same spot twice, because you'll probably be arrested and indefinitely detained as a terrorist threat to society.

Industry sources said the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement community was also expected to increase investment in counter-terrorism technology. They said the technology would include instant translations, particularly from Arabic to English, as well as search and text mining.

"We have put a little over 100 technologies into the intelligence community that are actively being used," In-Q-Tel chief executive officer Gilman Louie said. "Some of them you know, while other technologies we don't broadly advertise."

U.S. companies have been wooed by their counterparts in Israel for joint marketing and development projects in counter-insurgency. Several Israeli firms have been developing software and sensors to track insurgency suspects and detect bombs.

Comment: Can you see it coming? Cameras everywhere, in every country, using US and Israeli software to track everyone, everywhere, all the time
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Saturday, July 09, 2005

Signs of the Times Podcast

On their first podcast, editors Henry See, Scott Ogrin, and Joe Quinn discuss the recent bombings in London and the connections between the Valerie Plame case and certain shadowy intelligence organisations in Italy that appear to be connected to the Gladio network.
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Friday, July 08, 2005

Officials: Timing Devices Discovered in London

Officials: Timing Devices Discovered in London
ABC News
July 7, 2005

In what appears to be the first major break in the London terrorist attacks, U.S. authorities tell ABC News that police in London have recovered key parts of the timing devices that set off the bombs, suggesting they were planted in packages or bags and left behind.

There also are reports that police may have discovered two unexploded bombs as they sifted through the wreckage of the four bombs that did go off. At least several dozen people were killed in the attacks, and hundreds of others were injured while traveling on subways and a double-decker bus. Scotland Yard has denied finding undetonated explosive devices in the wreckage.

The bomb parts and timing mechanisms should provide important evidence that could help determine who was behind the attacks, sources told ABC News.

Officials now believe that all the bombs were detonated by timing devices. Earlier today, British investigators had believed that the bomb on the bus was the work of a suicide bomber, sources said.

Who Is Responsible?

The London bombings are similar in many ways to the coordinated blasts on Spanish trains in Madrid 16 months ago that killed 200 people.

The most important piece of evidence in Madrid was the discovery of a backpack in the rubble. A cell phone inside had been wired as a bomb detonator, and the phone led police to the terrorists. They were able to track where it had been sold, who had sold it and who had bought it.

Police say twice in the last three years they have disrupted plans to attack the London subway system. High on the list of suspects in today's attack is the same man who has been terrorizing Iraq - Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Officials say he and Osama bin Laden have talked of expanding attacks to Europe and the United States and have been recruiting people in the Islamic world and western Europe to carry out the attacks.

The only claim of responsibility came today on an Islamist Web site, posted by a previously-unknown group. The site claimed the attacks on London were carried out because of the presence of British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but there was no way to determine the authenticity of the claim or the group.

Comment: That Zarqawi is a busy man, much like the elusive CIA asset Osama Bin Laden.
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Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Protest Song

You Lied

Sung by Away with the Fairys
Words and Music by Signs of the Times

Prior to the Live8 concerts of July 2, 2005, Bob Geldolf announced that participating artists should stay away from criticizing President Bush.

Hmmm.

In a moment of fantasy, we wondered what kind of song we'd want to sing in those circumstances, the gauntlet having been thrown down as it were. They're a few things we'd like to say to Mr. Bush and his colleagues in Washington, not that he'd listen to us -- the Washington Post article about our Pentagon Strike flash didn't change anything, and we're certain it caught the eye of the White House -- and to Mr. Geldolf who seems to be living in a lala land where mass demonstrations have an effect on the Bush administration. Didn't the millions of people in the streets prior to the illegal invasion of Iraq demonstrate clearly enough that Bush gets his orders elsewhere?

Well, the news immediately after Live8 showed there ain't no hope for Geldolf's wishful thinking as Bush declared he's going to put the US first (would we expect anything else?), but we have never been enamoured with wishful thinking, preferring to look the world in the face and see it as objectively as possible.

Hence, this song.

Not having the forum of a world-wide TV broadcast, we turned to what we do have, the Internet. With the help of our friends at Away With the Fairys, we offer you this song as our little gift to those who see how quickly things are careening out of control. Fortunately, we don't think the song will change anything except maybe get a few people tapping their feet.

Let us know what you think. If you like it, pass it around. And once you've heard it, check out our Pentagon Strike flash if you still haven't seen it.

There are French, German, Spanish, and Italian translations at the bottom of the page sent in by readers. If you want to do a translation, send it in, and we'll add it to the list.

And, of course, to keep up with more lies by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Sharon, as well as politicians and rock stars around the world, read Signs of the Times.

You lied words & music by Signs of the Times

D A6
You told the world Saddam had chemical bombs
Em A6
To kill us all in our homes, on our farms
D A6
You said he sent his men into the heavens
Em A6
big planes crashing down, September 11

D A6
You lied, You lied,
Em A6
People died, When Bush lied

I've got some questions, wipe that smirk off your face
Betraying your people, that's a real disgrace
See I'm having a hard time finding that plane
you said hit the Pentagon, bursting into flames
Vapourising the aircraft, didn't leave no remains
But the bodies appear not to burn quite the same

More lies Yeah, yeah, more lies
America died, When Bush lied

And talk about mir'cles, did you see how they fell,
the three towers in New York, those charges worked well
Flattened out in a straight line, just like it was planned
Did you think we were so stupid that we wouldn't understand
And it's a pity about the folks there on Flight 93,
Just as they took back control, you blew them to smithereens

You lied, You lied
Heroes died, when Bush lied

You say Osama is living in a place you have traced
But you don't go and get him, it seems such a waste
Could it be it's because he's still one of your men
A C-I-A asset just like he was then
He endorsed your campaign in a last minute pitch
Is he just one more man who has gotten quite rich

From your lies, Your lies
Freedom died, from your lies

How about those Israelis dancing to their success,
On the rooftops of Jersey, they created a mess
So you sent them back home with a slap on the wrist
Told the cops not to bother, 'cause they don't exist

It's a lie, You lied
Justice died, when you lied

Now people are dying through your crimes in Iraq
You've killed more than Saddam, though you don't care to keep track
Cause they're only some Arabs in a faraway land
That Yahweh has promised to his chosen band
While Sharon and his cronies pull on your strings
When he opens his mouth your whole government sings

His lies, His lies
Palestinians die, With Bush lies

Next time you talk to your God, I've got a question for him
What side is he on or does it change on a whim'
There's a whole lot of people, suff'rin here in his name
What kind of pyscho is he that he's playing this game
It sounds more like the devil is guiding your hand
Destruction and death are the plagues of the land

of your lies, your lies
Children die, When Bush lies

You see, Mr President, there's something amiss
Two elections you lost, but you overcame this
By rigging the vote, not counting the blacks
You've ensured two full terms, the dry drunk is back
And now they're changing the laws to get you a third
The brown shirts are charging at the front of the herd

of your lies, your lies
Democracy dies, When Bush lies

The question remains what can we do about this
Most people refuse to consider this list
They're lost in illusion, can't recognise proof
so we offer this song to all who stand for the truth

No more lies, No more lies
Must we all die, Because of your lies

No more lies, No more lies
Must we all die, Because of your lies

Your lies...

copyright 2005 Signs of the Times
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Saturday, July 02, 2005

The Official 9/11 Story is False

Two Former US Government Officials and an ex-MI5 agent say:

"The Official 9/11 Story Is False"
SOTT
01/07/2005

Given the wonderfully free nature of the US mainstream press, readers may have missed the fact that, over the past few weeks, no less than three government and intelligence agency officials from the US and Britain have openly called into question the US government's version of events on September 11th 2001.

The first authority figure to state the glaringly obvious was former chief economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush's first term, Morgan Reynolds. Reynolds stated that he believes that the official story about the collapse of the WTC is "bogus" and that it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7.

Reynolds, who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas and is now professor emeritus at Texas A&M University said:

"If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would be compelling." Reynolds commented from his Texas A&M office, "It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government's collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings."

Next up to blow away the faltering smokescreen around 9/11 was former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Reagan, Paul Craig Roberts, who is listed by 'Who's Who in America' as one of the 1,000 most influential political thinkers in the world. While Roberts still holds on to his Republican/Conservative ideology, he has become severely disillusioned with the present gang of ultra-right NeoCons running the show in Washington, he states: "I just can't respect a party leadership who doesn't respect the truth."

According to Roberts, 9/11 is "only a part of a mysterious but deadly Neo-Con puzzle" and the NeoCons are "making such fatalistic mistakes and are about as insane as Hitler and the Nazi Party when they invaded Russia in the dead of the winter."

Although professing to know "a little about engineering" from his undergraduate days at Georgia Tech, Roberts deferred formulating any serious conclusions about the fall of the WTC, but expressed doubt as to the credibility of the entire official version based on past government lies uncovered at Waco, Ruby Ridge and the threat of WMD in Iraq.

Referring to Reynolds' comments on the WTC collapse, Roberts suggests that they reveal just how flimsy and unbelievable the government story comes across. He states:

"This is not some kind of conspiracy nut or kook talking. He is a man with extremely qualified credentials, whose opinions I respect," said Roberts referring to Reynolds’ comments.

The third and most recent authority to debunk the 9/11 official story fantasy was former MI5 agent David Shayler who spoke to Alex Jones of Prison Planet. Shayler hit the headlines in the UK a few years ago when he was sentenced to 6 months in prison for disclosing documents to the media obtained during his time as an MI5 officer.

Shayler had become disgusted by the duplicity and deceit that was rife within the British intelligence community and, after resigning, decided to go public with his claim that both MI6 and MI5 (UK equivalent to the CIA and the FBI) had been involved in a failed coup attempt whereby £100,000 ($180,000) was paid to known al-Qaeda operatives to kill Libyan leader Mummar Gadaffi in late 1995. One of the hit men, Anas al-Liby, who was known to the British government as an al-Qaeda "terrorist", was even given political asylum in Britain and lived in Manchester until May of 2000. Shayler claims that, at the time of the plot, MI6 knew the location of Bin Laden and had an excellent opportunity to arrest him but chose to allow him to remain at large.

During Shayler's trial, the judge required him to disclose in advance the questions he planned to ask prosecution witnesses in cross-examination. Shayler was also denied the right to question the credibility of the five prosecution witnesses, four of whom remained anonymous at the behest of the British Home Secretary and was prevented from calling two witnesses who overheard a conversation in which an MI6 agent confirmed British intelligence involvement in the coup attempt.

During the trial, Home Secretary David Blunkett and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw signed Public Interest Immunity certificates to protect national security.

These restrictions led to a row between the Attorney General and the so-called D-Notice Committee, which advises the press on national security issues.

The committee, officially known as the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee, has objected to demands by the prosecution to apply the Official Secrets Act retrospectively to cover information already published or broadcast as a result of Shayler's disclosures. Members of the committee, who include senior national newspaper executives, are said to be horrified at the unprecedented attempt to censor the media during the trial.

Given the efforts made by the Blair government to gag Mr. Shayler and the fact that his claims have since been verified as true by French Intelligence, it would appear the Mr Shayler is not just a bitter ex-spook out to damage his former employer with spurious allegations. As mentioned, last week, Shayler spoke to Alex Jones about the 9/11 attacks, despite a gag imposed by the British government preventing him from speaking about his work as an MI5 agent. During the interview, Shayler made clear his conviction that 9/11 was an inside job meant to bring about a permanent state of emergency in America and pave the way for the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq and ultimately Iran and Syria.

Shayler said that his suspicions were first aroused about 9/11 when the usual route of crime scene investigation was impeded when the debris was immediately seized and shipped off to China.

"It is in fact a criminal offence to interfere with a crime scene and yet in the case of 9/11 all the metal from the buildings is shipped out to China, there are no forensications done on that metal. Now that to me suggests they never wanted anybody to look at that metal because it was not going to provide the evidence they wanted to show people that it was Al-Qaeda."

Shayler then went on to dismiss the incompetence theory.

"The more I look at it, you realize that it’s not incompetence. There were FBI officers all over the country, Colleen Rowley is obviously the one who managed to get a congressional hearing, but there was plenty of evidence certainly."

"There are so many questions that need to be answered, protocols being overridden within national defense, people actively being stopped from carrying out investigations. This wasn’t an accident, they were aware there was intelligence indicating those kind of attacks, there were FBI intercepts saying it in the days before the attacks. When you look at it all, that is a big big intelligence picture and yet these people were crucially stopped from doing their jobs, stopped from trying to protect the American people."

Shayler elaborated by saying the evidence suggests the attack was originally meant to be much wider in scope and was an attempt at a violent coup intended to decapitate the entire government as a pretext for martial law.

"So you’re looking at a situation in which you almost have a coup de’tat because you’ve got to bear in mind that there were weapons discovered on planes that didn’t take off on 9/11. Now people have obviously postulated that they were going perhaps to attack the White House, Capitol Hill. That looks to me like an attempt to destroy American government and declare a state of emergency, in fact a coup de’tat, a violent coup de’tat."

"There are so very many questions about this and you realize again that none of the enquiries ever get to the bottom of any of these things, they don’t take all the evidence, they don’t often take any evidence under oath when they should be taking it under oath."

Shayler was forthright in his assertion that the attack was planned and executed within the jurisdiction of the military-industrial complex.

"They let it happen, they made it happen to create a trigger to be able to allow the invasion of Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq and of course what they’re trying to do now is the same thing with the invasion of Iran and Syria."

Shayler ended by questioning the highly suspicious nature of the collapse of the twin towers and Building 7, the first buildings in history, all in the same day, to collapse from so-called fire damage alone.

"I’ve seen the results of terroristic explosions and so on and no terrorist explosion has ever brought down a building. When the IRA put something like a thousands tonnes of home-made explosives in front of the Baltic Exchange building in Bishopsgate and let off the bomb, all the glass came out, the building shook a bit but there was no question about the building falling down and it doesn’t obey the laws of physics for buildings to fall down in the way the World Trade Center came down. So you have the comparison of the two, Building 7 compared with the north and south towers coming down and those two things are exactly the same, they were demolished."

The former MI5 agent also mentioned the proclivity of Israeli intelligence to carry out 'False Flag' operations, stating that in the july 1994 bombing of the Israeli embassy in London, some within MI5 believed that the Israelis themselves bombed the embassy and that they then framed two Palestinians who remain in jail to this day.

"The same thing has happened with two Palestinians who were convicted of conspiracy to cause the attack on the Israeli Embassy in Britain in 1994 but MI5 didn’t disclose two documents which indicated their innocence. One document indicated another group had carried out the attack and the other document was the belief of an MI5 officer that the Israelis had actually bombed their own embassy and allowed a controlled explosion to try and get better security and these documents were never shown to the trial judge let alone the defense."

So there it is folks. No longer are allegations that the US government was complicit in the 9/11 attacks the domain of "fringe conspiracy kooks" alone but now also include internationally respected economists, former Bush administration officials and vindicated ex-British government intelligence agents.
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