Monday, October 31, 2005

Vietnam War Also Based On a Lie [excerpt] 

WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 - The National Security Agency has kept secret since 2001 a finding by an agency historian that during the Tonkin Gulf episode, which helped precipitate the Vietnam War, N.S.A. officers deliberately distorted critical intelligence to cover up their mistakes, two people familiar with the historian's work say.

The historian's conclusion is the first serious accusation that communications intercepted by the N.S.A., the secretive eavesdropping and code-breaking agency, were falsified so that they made it look as if North Vietnam had attacked American destroyers on Aug. 4, 1964, two days after a previous clash. President Lyndon B. Johnson cited the supposed attack to persuade Congress to authorize broad military action in Vietnam, but most historians have concluded in recent years that there was no second attack.

The N.S.A. historian, Robert J. Hanyok, found a pattern of translation mistakes that went uncorrected, altered intercept times and selective citation of intelligence that persuaded him that midlevel agency officers had deliberately skewed the evidence. - Scott Shane Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company [See the Fair Use Notice, below.] (via Information Clearing House)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 4:20 PM

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Why Flu Epidemics Occur in Winter 

Knowledge of Health Inc., Blog for October 30, 2005- This is the best medical investigative work I’ve ever read (below), issued by John Cannell MD of the Vitamin D Council. The cure for flu epidemics right under the noses of all the bacteriologists and epidemiologists all along. Read every word. Stock your home with vitamin D3 capsules. Dismiss any and all claims that high-dose vitamin D is potentially toxic. Side effects don’t begin till 40,000 units are consumed for many months.

The Vitamin D Newsletter
11/01/05
As we wait for this year’s influenza epidemic, keep in mind we are also waiting for the big one, the pandemic (pan: all, demic: people). A severe pandemic will kill many more Americans than died in the World Trade Centers, the Iraq war, the Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina combined. Perhaps a million or two in the USA alone. Such a disaster would tear the fabric of our society. Our entire country would resemble New Orleans after Katrina.

Also, it’s only a question of when it will come, not if it will come. Pandemics come every 25 years or so, severe ones every hundred years or so. The last pandemic, the Hong Kong flu, occurred in 1968, killing 34,000 Americans. In 1918, the Spanish flu killed more than 500,000 Americans. So many millions died in other countries, they couldn’t bury the bodies.

The Influenza Pandemic of 1918Young healthy adults, in the prime of their lives in the morning, drowning in their own inflammation by noon, grossly discolored by sunset, were dead at midnight. An overwhelming immune response to the influenza virus - macrophages releasing large amounts of inflammatory agents called cytokines and chemokines into the lung of the afflicted - resulted in millions of deaths in 1918. Nature. 2004 Oct 7;431(7009):703-7.

Keep in mind, that the Germans recently discovered that vitamin D is intimately involved in reining in the macrophages, holding their cytokine production back, so they don’t overshoot, and kill their owner along with the invader. Blood. 2005 Aug 23; [Epub ahead of print]

Your annual flu shot won’t help when the big one hits, the antigenic shift one. Once the pandemic starts, a new vaccine, specific to the new virus must be manufactured and that takes time. You can and should get some antiviral drugs from your doctor in advance. Once the pandemic starts –this year, or ten years from now - the supply of antivirals may be limited and the lines will be long.

It may surprise you that influenza remains an enigma. Current theory holds that influenza infects like measles, one person gets it, gives it to others, in a chain of infectious events. That theory has some problems. For example, Dr. Carolyn Buxton Bridges, of the CDC, recently published a review paper on the transmission of influenza. She noted, "Our review found no human experimental studies published in the English-language literature delineating person-to-person transmission of influenza." Clin Infect Dis. 2003 Oct 15;37(8):1094-101.

Most experts also think pandemic strains originate in birds or other animals. Dr. Ann Reid and Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger, of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology recently wrote, "it is important to recognize that the mechanisms by which pandemic strains originate have not been explained yet." Furthermore, there is a persistent theory that influenza lies dormant in humans, not birds or swine, where it mutates into a killer strain. J Gen Virol. 2003 Sep;84(Pt 9):2285-92.Vaccine. 2002 Aug 19;20(25-26):3068-87.

So, get your flu shot for this year’s flu, stock up on some antivirals, and let’s go looking for some ignored facts that might improve your family’s chances when the pandemic comes. Last month we saw that aggressive treatment of vitamin D deficiency prevented children from getting infections. Dr. Rehman didn’t differentiate between viral and bacterial infections but most of the illnesses vitamin D prevented were probably viral. J Trop Pediatr. 1994 Feb;40(1):58.

When looking for ignored facts, one should always start with epidemiology, the detective branch of medicine. Epidemiologists look for clues, clues that lead to theories, theories that can be tested, and, if true, save your family’s lives. One of the world’s pioneering epidemiologists died recently, R. Edward Hope-Simpson. He used meticulous, and solitary, detective work to discover that the chickenpox virus was reactivated in adults, causing shingles. Dr. Hope-Simpson became famous. Proc R Soc Med. 1965 Jan;58:9-20.

In 1979, he turned his attention to influenza A. He studied two remote populations, one in Wales and the other in England. He found that most affected households had only one case of influenza. Furthermore, no serial time intervals could be identified in cumulative household outbreaks, that is, different families didn’t get sick one after another, but around the same time. He discovered other facts that just didn’t fit with the theory that influenza A is primarily spread by person-to-person transmission of this year’s virus. J Hyg (Lond). 1979 Aug;83(1):11-26.

Then he spent the rest of his life trying to alert us to one of the basic facts of influenza. It is distinctly seasonal. All theories about its transmission must take into account its seasonality. Hope-Simpson reminded us what Davenport said, "Epidemiological hypotheses must provide satisfactory explanations for all the known findings – not just for a convenient subset of them."

Going back to 1945, he discovered that influenza epidemics above 30 degrees latitude in both hemispheres occurred during the six months of least solar radiation. Outbreaks in the tropics almost always occur during the rainy season. Hope-Simpson concluded, "Latitude alone broadly determines the timing of the epidemics in the annual cycle, a relationship that suggests a rather direct effect of some component of solar radiation acting positively or negatively upon the virus, the humans host or their interaction." That is, something may be regularly reducing our immunity every fall and winter. J Hyg (Lond). 1981 Feb;86(1):35-47.

In 2003, researchers confirmed that influenza epidemics in the tropics occur, with few exceptions, during the rainy season - when vitamin D levels should be falling. Paediatr Respir Rev. 2003 Jun;4(2):105-11.

Furthermore, in his 1981 paper, Hope-Simpson wondered how the same virus could cause influenza outbreaks at exactly the same time (middle of winter) over a six-year period (1969 - 1974) in two widely separated areas (Prague, Czechoslovakia, and Cirencester, England). Surely, during the middle of the Cold War, infected people did not arrive at two locations hundreds of miles apart, in the middle of winter, for five years in a row to infect the well people. On thing Prague and Cirencester do have in common, they are both at 50 degrees latitude.

In 1990, researchers confirmed a relative lack of country-to-country transmission, by looking at two countries with heavy tourist traffic between them. J Hyg Epidemiol Microbiol Immunol. 1990;34(3):283-8.

Hope-Simpson rejected the theory that this year’s virus is only transmitted from actively infected persons to well persons, concluding instead the facts were more consistent with transmission by symptomless carriers who become contagious when the sun is either in the other hemisphere or obscured by the rainy season. He theorized that annual movement of the sun caused a "seasonal stimulus that reactivates latent virus in the innumerable carriers who are everywhere present, so creating the opportunity for epidemics to occur in the wake of its passage." And thus the celebrated scientist committed heresy. Everyone knows influenza transmission is direct; the ill people infect the well people. The accepted theory of pandemics is that the virus first spreads in birds, perhaps jumps to a mammal (pigs in 1918), then jumps to humans already infected with a common influenza strain. There it combines and mutates (reassortment) to a hybrid virus in the index case and that single person spreads it to others who spread it to others, etc. No, said Hope-Simpson, the epidemiology just does not fit that theory. Heresy, said the experts.

Hope-Simpson practiced medicine in a small village in southwest England, Cirencester. He went back and looked at 16 years of his medical records and found evidence of 20 influenza outbreaks, spaced over those 16 years. In every outbreak, he found young children were the most frequently affected but in none of the 20 outbreaks did the children appear to be major disseminators of the influenza virus. Furthermore, all ages seemed to get sick around the same time. He concluded, "Such age-patterns are not those caused by a highly infectious immunizing virus surviving by means of direct transmissions from the sick, whose prompt development of the disease continues endless chains of transmissions." J Hyg (Lond). 1984 Jun;92(3):303-36.

No one listened. Everyone knew, and still knows: influenza only occurs when sick people infect well people, who in turn infect other well people. I don’t think so, said Hope-Simpson. In search of more evidence, he went to all the parishes in Gloucestershire, separated by many miles. He looked at burial records for the last 500 years and found evidence of repeated influenza epidemics. He concluded, "In each century, influenzal excess mortalities in Gloucestershire parishes coincided with the date of the relevant influenza epidemic as recorded from widely different parts of Britain." That is, long before modern rapid transit, everyone in Britain got the flu around the same time! How could one person come down with the flu, infect others, etc, when everyone in Britain got sick at the same time, long before modern rapid transit? J Hyg (Lond). 1983 Oct;91(2):293-308.

In fact, after studying influenza epidemics in schools, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe also decided that direct spread by infected children could not explain what was happening. They theorized that influenza viral precursors were reaching earth from outer space! Nature. 1987 Jun 25-Jul 1;327(6124):664.

Content to stay on earth, Hope-Simpson published a detailed theory of influenza’s infectivity in 1987, based on the facts he observed. Right or wrong, Hope-Simpson’s paper is wonderful reading for anyone interested in influenza. Here is a great mind at work. He noted any theory of influenza must explain a number of facts:"Vast explosions of disease which may attack 15% or more of a large community within six weeks and then cease," "Successive outbreaks of type A influenza in small relatively remote communities often coincide closely season after season with those of the country as a whole and, although the virus changes, the identical strains of virus appear contemporaneously in the two situations," "Cessation of epidemics despite abundant available non-immune subjects," household outbreaks occur all at once, not one after another, "Low secondary attack rates within households," "epidemic patterns of influenza have not changed in four centuries . . . and does not seem to have altered with the increasing speed and complexity of human communications." Epidemiol Infect. 1987 Aug;99(1):5-54.

Hope Simpson proposed that symptomless carriers became infective in response to a seasonal stimulus and then infect others causing simultaneous explosions of disease in widely different areas. Furthermore, he concluded that those who got sick were not particularly contagious. He proposed that the stimulus for infection "is dependent on variations in solar radiation, an extraterrestrial influence unaffected by the rapidity of human travel. The rapidity of influenza spread was as rapid in previous centuries as it is at present because it does not depend on case-to-case transfer." He added, "The primary agency mediating seasonal control remains unidentified." That is, something is weakening our immune system, every year, as regularly as changing of the leaves and declining vitamin D levels, but he didn’t know what it was. Hope-Simpson’s 1987 paper was his last. In 1992, he compiled all his work on influenza into a book. He died in 2003, at the age of 95.

The Transmission of Epidemic Influenza (The Language of Science)I wish Hope-Simpson could have lived a while longer, to read Dr. Colleen Hayes and her colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is one of the brightest vitamin D researchers out there. In 2003, she reviewed the profound effect vitamin D has on the immune system, including the role vitamin D plays in fighting infections. Cell Mol Biol (Noisy-le-grand). 2003 Mar;49(2):277-300.

Yes, as regularly as the flu season, vitamin D levels plummet in the fall and winter. Yes, vitamin D has profound effects on the immune system. Yes vitamin D may be involved in the epidemiology of influenza. But is there any direct evidence?Two animal studies showed vitamin D prevents the flu and one showed it does not. Nothing after 1956. If you obtain and read the first citation below, you’ll see the very first animal paper indicting vitamin D protected rats from influenza was published in Japan during World War II, apparently part of Japan’s biological weapons research. The CIA confiscated the paper after the war. Proc Soc Exp Biol Med. 1949 Dec;72(3):695-7.Virology. 1956 Jun;2(3):415-29.

One last thing, when you give flu shots to hemodialysis patients, those taking activated vitamin D develop significantly better immunity. Nephron. 2000 Sep;86(1):56-61.

Will normal vitamin D levels protect your family against the flu? No one knows. It would be nice if we had a report from a big hospital, were some patients were on vitamin D and some who weren’t and see what happened when the flu struck the hospital. Were the patients on vitamin D less likely to get the flu?

In the meantime, it seems to me the smart thing to do is to take enough real vitamin D (cholecalciferol) or get enough UVB light to get and keep your 25-hydroxy-vitamin D level at about 50 ng/ml. Of course, it is a good idea to keep your level around 50 ng/ml year around even if you don’t fear the coming influenza pandemic. 50 ng/ml is the normal human level and protects the owner from a myriad of chronic diseases. J Nutr. 2005 Feb;135(2):317-22.Eur J Clin Invest. 2005 May;35(5):290-304.

Also, don’t depend on high levels in the summer being stored and used in the winter. Vieth believes that the intracellular kinetics of vitamin D metabolism means that declining vitamin D blood levels may cause rapidly declining intracellular levels. That is, declining levels in the autumn may be as dangerous as low levels in the winter. Int J Cancer. 2004 Sep 1;111(3):468.

Professor Robert Heaney believes healthy blood levels may require up to 4,000 units a day for those with no sun exposure. Most people need to take more in the winter than the summer. Big people need more than little people. African Americans need more than whites. Sunphobes need more than those who enjoy God’s invention. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2005 Jul 15.

Children over 50 pounds need up to 2,000 units a day. Under 50 pounds, about 1,000 units a day. There is no way to know for sure how much you need without a blood test, called a 25-hydroxy-vitamin D. That test should be conducted in the late winter, when your levels are the lowest, and at the beginning of fall, when your levels are the highest. Then you can figure out how much you need to take to keep stable levels. Or adults can simply take 4,000 units a day, every day, except for those late spring, summer, and early fall days when you go into the sun.

It might be a good idea to keep pharmacological doses (50,000 units) of vitamin D next to your antivirals and take a 50,000 unit capsule at the first sign of the flu, although there is not one study to support such a practice. It might help tame those unchained macrophages and save your life or it might not help at all. You can buy 50,000 unit capsules from Bio-Tech-Pharm . Single administrations of ten times that amount have repeatedly been found to be safe and are routinely used in Europe as stoss therapy.

So, maybe vitamin D will help your family survive the coming influenza pandemic, maybe not. Let’s gamble. Ever heard of the vitamin D variation of Pascal’s wager?

"If you erroneously believe vitamin D helps influenza, you lose nothing, whereas if you correctly believe vitamin D helps influenza, your family may live. But if you correctly disbelieve in vitamin D, you gain nothing, whereas if you erroneously disbelieve in vitamin D, your family may die."

John Cannell, MD The Vitamin D Council 9100 San Gregorio Road, Atascadero, CA 93422.

This is a periodic newsletter from the Vitamin D Council, a non-profit trying to end the epidemic of vitamin D deficiency. This newsletter is not copyrighted. Please reproduce it and post it on Internet sites. www.cholecalciferol-council.com (via email from Bill Sardi)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:47 PM

There goes my world domination theory. 

Lately I've come to realize that my world domination theory is not going to work.
We're not going to take over the world by planting our moles—Filipino nannies and maids—in millions of households overseas. I was wrong.

I still think my plan is sound, but it was based on certain assumptions. Like a shared sense of national identity. Like a concern for the wellbeing of our countrymen outside our immediate family or tribe. Like a sense of pride that goes beyond beauty pageant titles and boxing championship belts. Like an environment that emphasizes self-reliance instead of martyrdom and dependence. Like the will to power. Like aspirations that go beyond basic survival (It appears survival is still the peak of our aspirations). Like a government that actually does its job instead of just depending on the money overseas workers send home.

I thought we were going to achieve world domination through our maids and nannies. It turns out we're not really interested in world domination; we just want to be maids and nannies so we can get out of here.

While I prepare the essay in which I eat my words—it will at least will be tastier and more filling that that Eastwood buffet-rumble I've been hearing about—here's what Newsweek thinks. - Jessica

posted by George Thomas Kysor 3:51 PM

Saturday, October 29, 2005

FBI translator suit dismissed [excerpt] 

In the lawsuit, originally filed in July 2002, Sibel Edmonds alleged that her rights under the Privacy Act and her First and Fifth amendment rights had been violated by the government.

Edmonds, who worked as a contract linguist, claimed she was fired after she alerted authorities about purported security and management problems in the bureau's language branch.

The Justice Department and the FBI both argued to the court that her lawsuit should be dismissed because much of the information needed to be considered for it was protected by the "state secrets privilege," which is meant to protect classified national security information from being disclosed.

U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton agreed with the government's position.

"The Court finds that the plaintiff is unable to establish her First Amendment, Fifth Amendment and Privacy Act claims without the disclosure of privileged information, nor would the defendants be able to defend against these claims without the same disclosures ... the plaintiff's case must be dismissed, albeit with great consternation, in the interests of national security," Walton wrote in the opinion...

...Edmonds' lawyer, Mark Zaid, said in a statement that the government has gone too far.

"The decision today represents another example of the Executive Branch's abusive nature of using secrecy as a weapon against whistleblowers," Zaid's statement said.
- Kevin Bohn © 2005 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. [See the Fair Use Notice, below.] (via What Really Happened)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:17 PM

No comment 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 5:29 PM

Consider this: President Bush has already beat out Lyndon
Johnson as the biggest spender of all time. The Cato Institute reports:

"The increase in discretionary spending — that is, all non-entitlement programs — in Bush's first term was 48.5% in nominal terms. That's more than twice as large as the
increase in discretionary spending during Clinton's entire two terms (21.6%), and just higher than Lyndon Johnson's entire discretionary spending spree (48.3%)."
Rude Awakening

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:07 PM

Lottery 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:59 AM

The Ringworm Children 

On August 14, at 9 PM, Israel's Channel Ten television screened a documentary film which exposes the ugliest secret of Israel's Labor party founders: the deliberate mass radiation poisoning of nearly all Sephardi youths of a generation.

"The Ringworm Children" (translated in Hebrew as "100,000 Rays"), directed by David Belhassen and Asher Hemias, recently won the prize for "best documentary" at the Haifa International film festival, and in the past year has made the rounds of Jewish and Israeli film festivals around the world. But it had yet to come to Israeli television screens. The subject is the mass irradiation of hundreds of thousands of young Israeli immigrants from Middle Eastern countries -- Sephardim, as they are called today. The story goes like this:

In 1951, the director general of the Israeli Health Ministry, Dr. Chaim Sheba, flew to America and returned with seven x-ray machines, supplied to him by the American army.

They were to be used in a mass atomic experiment with an entire generation of Sephardi youths to be used as guinea pigs. Every Sephardi child was to be given 35,000 times the maximum dose of x-rays through his head. For doing so, the American government paid the Israeli government 300 million Israeli liras a year. The entire Health budget was 60 million liras. The money paid by the Americans is equivalent to billions of dollars today.

To fool the parents of the victims, the children were taken away on "school trips" and their parents were later told the x-rays were a treatment for the scourge of scalpal ringworm. 6,000 of the children died shortly after their doses were given, while many of the rest developed cancers that killed thousands over time and are still killing them now. While living, the victims suffered from disorders such as epilepsy, amnesia, Alzheimer's disease, chronic headaches and psychosis.

That is the subject of the documentary in cold terms. It is another matter to see the victims on the screen.

To watch the Moroccan lady describe what getting 35,000 times the dose of allowable x-rays in her head feels like. "I screamed make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. Make the headache go away. But it never went away."

To watch the bearded man walk hunched down the street. "I'm in my fifties and everyone thinks I'm in my seventies. I have to stoop when I walk so I won't fall over. They took my youth away with those x-rays."

To watch the old lady who administered the doses to thousands of children: "They brought them in lines. First their heads were shaved and smeared in burning gel. Then a ball was put between their legs and the children were ordered not to drop it, so they wouldn't move. The children weren't protected over the rest of their bodies. There were no lead vests for them. I was told I was doing good by helping to remove ringworm. If I knew what dangers the children were facing, I would never have cooperated. Never!"

Because the whole body was exposed to the rays, the genetic makeup of the children was often altered, affecting the next generation. We watch the woman with the distorted face explain, "All three of my children have the same cancers my family suffered. Are you going to tell me that's a coincidence?"

The majority of the victims were Moroccan because they were the most numerous of the Sephardi immigrants. The generation that was poisoned became the country's perpetual poor and criminal class. It didn't make sense. The Moroccans who fled to France became prosperous and highly educated. The common explanation was that France got the rich, thus smart ones. The real explanation is that every French Moroccan child didn't have his brain cells fried with gamma rays.

The film made it perfectly plain that this operation was no accident. The dangers of x-rays had been known for over forty years. We read the official guidelines for x-ray treatment in 1952. The maximum dose to be given a child in Israel was .5 rad. There was no mistake made. The children were deliberately poisoned.

David Deri makes the point that only Sephardi children received the x-rays: "I was in class and the men came to take us on a tour. They asked our names. The Ashkenazi children were told to return to their seats. The dark children were put on the bus."

The film presents a historian who first gives a potted history of the eugenics movement. In a later sound bite, he declares that the ringworm operation was a eugenics program aimed at weeding out the perceived weak strains of society. The Moroccan lady is back on the screen. "It was a Holocaust, a Sephardi Holocaust. And what I want to know is why no one stood up to stop it."

David Deri, on film and then as a panel member, relates the frustration he encountered when trying to find his childhood medical records. "All I wanted to know was what they did to me. I wanted to know who authorized it. I wanted to trace the chain of command. But the Health Ministry told me my records were missing." Boaz Lev, the Health Ministry's spokesman chimes in: "Almost all the records were burned in a fire."

We are told that a US law in the late '40s put a stop to the human radiation experiments conducted on prisoners, the mentally feeble and the like. The American atomic program needed a new source of human lab rats and the Israeli government supplied it. Here was the government cabinet at the time of the ringworm atrocities:

Prime Minister - David Ben Gurion; Finance Minister - Eliezer Kaplan; Settlement Minister - Levi Eshkol; Foreign Minister - Moshe Sharrett; Health Minister - Yosef Burg;
Labor Minister - Golda Meir; Police Minister - Amos Ben Gurion.

The highest ranking non-cabinet post belonged to the Director General of the Defence Ministry, Shimon Peres.

That a program involving the equivalent of billions of dollars of American government funds should be unknown to the Prime Minister of cash-strapped Israel is ridiculous. Ben Gurion had to have been in on the horrors and undoubtedly chose his son to be Police Minister in case anyone interfered with them.

Finance Minister Eliezer Kaplan was rewarded for eternity with a hospital named after him near Rehovot. But he's not alone in this honor. Chaim Sheba, who ran Ringworm Incorporated, had a whole medical complex named after him. Needless to say, if there is an ounce of decency in the local medical profession, those hospital names will have to change.

After the film ended, there was a panel discussion which included a Moroccan singer, David Edri, head of the Compensation Committee for Ringworm X-Ray Victims, and Boaz Lev, a spokesman for the Ministry Of Health.

TV host Dan Margalit tried to put a better face on what he'd witnessed. He explained meekly that "the state was poor. It was a matter of day to day survival." Then he stopped. He knew there was no excusing the atrocities which the Sephardi children endured.

But it was the Moroccan singer who summed up the experience best. "It's going to hurt, but the truth has to be told. If not, the wounds will never heal."

There is one person alive who knows the truth: Shimon Peres. The only way to get to the truth and start the healing is to investigate him for his role in the mass poisoning of over 100,000 Sephardi children and youth.

But here is why that won't happen. The film was aired at the same time as the highest-rated TV show of the year, the finale of Israel's talent-hunt show: "A Star Is Born." The next day, the newly-born star's photo took up half the front pages. There was not a word about "The Ringworm Children" in any paper, nor on the Internet. Until now. - Israel Insider/Barry Chamish | October 28 2005 Copyright © 2002-2005 Alex Jones [See the Fair Use Notice, below.] (via What Really Happened)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:36 AM

Gene Found In Black Death Survivors Stops HIV 

"According to research done by Dr. Stephen O'Brien, a mutated gene known as delta 32 found in Black Death survivor descendants, stops HIV in its tracks. In order to be immune both parents have to have the delta 32 gene. From the Article: 'In 1996, research showed that delta 32 prevents HIV from entering human cells and infecting the body. O'Brien thought this principle could be applied to the plague bacteria, which affects the body in a similar manner. To determine whether the Eyam plague survivors may have carried delta 32, O'Brien tested the DNA of their modern-day descendents...'" - WindozeSux

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:11 AM

On the Use of SMS In Preparation for Emergencies 

Taran Rampersad urges someone to set up an SMS (cell-phone Short Messaging System) server to collect emergency text-messages from people otherwise incommunicado--and set it up ahead of time.

"What do you need? An Asterisk Server, running Linux, a mobile phone number (or a number that can receive SMS), and some scripts to get the information to email lists, a website and RSS. There are many ways to do this, and if a few different groups explored different possibilities, the progress could really be worthwhile."

(Link.)Rampersad has been trying to get people to experiment with such symptoms since before the Tsunami, when I first came across his work. Check it out and spread the word, especially if you know any Linux geeks. - Saheli

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:29 AM

Friday, October 28, 2005

Why It's Great To Be Female!! 

We got off the Titanic first. We can scare male bosses with mysterious gynecological disorder excuses.We never ejaculate prematurely. We get to flirt with systems support men who always return our calls and are nice to us when we blow up our computers. Our boyfriend's clothes make us look elfin and gorgeous--guys look like complete idiots in ours. We can be groupies. Male groupies are stalkers. We can cry and get out of speeding fines. And taxis stop for us.Men die earlier, so we get to cash in on the life insurance. We don't look like a frog in a blender when we dance.Free drinks. Free dinners. Free movies (you get the point). We can hug our friends without wondering if she thinks we're gay. We can hug our friends without wondering if WE'RE gay.New lipstick gives us a whole new lease on life.Nothing crucial can be cut off with one clean sweep. It's possible to live our whole lives without ever taking a group shower. No fashion faux pas we make could rival The Speedo. We don't have to fart to amuse ourselves. WE never have to wonder if his orgasm was real. If we forget to shave, no one has to know. We can congratulate our teammate without ever touching her ass. If we have a zit, we know how to conceal it. If we're dumb, some people will find it cute. We don't have to memorize Caddyshack or Fletch to fit in. We have the ability to dress ourselves. We have an excuse to be a total bitch at least once a month. Our friends won't think we're weird if we ask whether there's spinach in our teeth. There are times when chocolate really can solve all your problems. Gay waiters don't make us uncomfortable. We'll never regret piercing our ears. We can fully assess a person just by looking at their shoes. We never have to reach down every so often to make sure our privates are still there. We're NOT men. - Hailey Baker

posted by George Thomas Kysor 2:51 PM

Who is "Official A?" 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:58 PM

21 Steps To Become A Successful Movie Producer Quickly and Easily 

Ready to launch your career? Then take 18-minutes and learn these twenty-one steps.

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:32 AM

The Real Indictment of Dick Cheney 

The Vice President of the United States is actively lobbying for torture right now. Not in the 1800's. Not in the 1950's. Right now. And the sick thing is -- he has an excellent chance of winning.

We look back at things like the McCarthy Hearings or Japanese internment camps and shake our heads in disbelief.

Can you believe what happened in America back then? After seeing what's happening right now, the answer is -- absolutely, I see exactly how it happened.

There is a defense spending bill that is in conference committee right now with an amendment attached to it that says the US must follow the Army Field Manual when dealing with detainees and must not treat people it captures with "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Can you imagine anything less debatable?

Of course, we are now debating it. And we might lose. The Vice President went down personally to the Senate to try to kill this amendment earlier in the process. The Senate showed rare courage and independence by voting against him 90-9. The nine Senators who voted in favor of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" should never be allowed to walk into our Congress again. They soil the ground they walk on. That is hallowed ground. All those patriots didn't die so these men could say America stands for darkness.

These men are traitors to the idea and principles of America. And now one of them is leading the conference committee that will decide whether the amendment will be in the final bill. Ted "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens (R-Alaska) is one of the Republicans who voted for torture and he is charged with representing the Senate on this bill. Of course, the House has already voiced their opinion in favor of torture (there was no formal vote in the House, but their representatives are lobbying to kill the amendment in conference).

As I write this, I think, what kind of a world do we live in? What have we become?

I still can't believe this is the America I love and cherish. The America that was supposed to bring freedom and enlightenment to the rest of the world. The beacon of light.

I continue ... the President has threatened to veto the entire defense spending bill if he is not allowed to continue torturing people. Just yesterday there was another report of at least 21 homicides of detainees under our supervision. We beat and strangled some of these people to death. I guess this is the type of thing Rush Limbaugh would call a frat house prank.

What have we become?

The House and the Senate are trying to decide whether we should continue to torture people or leave bad enough alone. The thought of holding the people who ordered and condoned these actions accountable hasn't even crossed anyone's mind yet.

How can this administration argue that it was a few rogue soldiers who committed the abuses at Abu Ghraib (and all of the other prisons all over Iraq and Afghanistan), when they are arguing for the right to treat detainees with "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment" right now?

These are the people who said they were going to bring dignity and morality back into the White House. I know a lot of people voted for this President because they thought he is a good Christian, just like them. Let me ask you, is this what Christianity is all about? Do good Christians argue for cruelty, degradation and inhumanity?

Either Christianity is twisted or Bush has twisted Christianity. Either way, if you claim to be a moral person proud of being a Christian, stand up against this barbarity or never speak of morality again.

This is not some long past error that is too late to correct. The final vote on this bill still hasn't taken place. We can make a difference. We can stand up for the real America.

Or we can admit to ourselves that we have become a country of cruel and degrading inhumanity -- a country of torturers. Jesus, what have we become? - Cenk Uygur (via What Really Happened)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:48 AM

Thursday, October 27, 2005

WELDON TESTIFIES BEFORE SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE ON ABLE DANGER [excerpt] 

Fundamental questions need to be answered:

1. Why was Able Danger a historically insignificant event even though we knew that Al Qaeda was responsible for

1993 Bombing on World Trade Center

Khobar Towers

Embassy Bombings in Africa

USS COLE

2. Who ordered the destruction of 2.5 terabytes of data about Al Qaeda and why?

3. Any why wasn`t the customer at SOCOM ever consulted or briefed?

4. Who stopped the meetings between the FBI and Able Danger personnel in September 2000 and why?

5. What was the extent of the 3 hour brief provided to General Shelton in January 2001 regarding Able Danger?

6. Why did the 9/11 Commission change their response several times when queried about Able Danger and attempt to spin Able Danger based on misinformation?

7. Why have threats been made to Able Danger witnesses who were simply telling their stories?

As it stands now, the 9/11 story has not been fully examined and told. The families of the victims and the American people deserve answers and we must not stop until we get them." Rep. Curt Weldon (R - PA) Sep. 21, 2005

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:22 PM

GUNTHER RUSSBACHER DIED AUGUST 8th, 2005 

Gunther and Rayelan Allan Russbacher Founded Rumor Mill News in 1996 as a Print Magazine. After Gunther disappeared, in December of 1996, Rayelan discontinued it as a magazine. She started Rumor Mill News again in 1998 as an internet newsletter. In 1999 she launched it as a webpage. It has become one of the Internet's most popular webpages.

Gunther Russbacher was a CIA operative. Rayelan was a lecturer and investigator who worked with Barbara Honegger, the author of the first book on the October Surprise scandal. When Gunther and Rayelan married in 1989, the Bush Administration panicked. As a result, Gunther became the most famous political prisoner of the George H.W. Bush administration. Russbacher was the pilot who flew Bush back from the negotiations in Paris that finalized the October Surprise. Rayelan was an investigator who was working to expose the October Surprise!

From 1989 to late 1996, when he disappeared, Gunther spent all but 9 months of their marriage in prison! During that time, there were numerous attempts to kill both of them. Their lawyer and friend Paul Wilcher WAS murdered! Gunther's sons were beaten and jailed, he was told they would be gang raped if he talked. Rayelan was charged with trespassing on a military base and faced prison. To keep her out of prison, where he was told she would be murdered, Gunther pled guilty!

The story of what they went through is compelling! They loved each other and they fought to stay together. Only the CIA and Mind Control separated them! To understand what they went through, please read "Journey Into Hell" and "The Amazing Rayelan Allan". These two articles are short and give a concise overview of the first two years of their marriage. Little has been written about either of them since that time! The article, "Gunther Russbacher, Prisoner of the New World Order" was the last article written about them. Their story ends in late 1996 with Gunther's disappearance. He re-appeared in early 1997, with a new wife and NO memory of every being married to Rayelan.

Rayelan's first husband, Dr. John N. Dyer, was the Dean of Science and Engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey California. In 1976, Rayelan and her husband, John attended a cocktail party for visiting dignitaries. One of the visitors was a Naval officer named Robert Andrew Walker. Many years later, Rayelan found out that Bob Walker and Gunther Russbacher were one and the same! - Rayelan

posted by George Thomas Kysor 7:08 PM

MAKE THE MOST OF TODAY 

Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every evening deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do?

Draw out every cent, of course!!!!

Each of us has such a bank. Its name is TIME.

Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose. It carries over no balance. It allows no overdraft.

Each day it opens a new account for you. Each night it burns the remains of the day. If you fail to use the day's deposits, the loss is yours.

There is no going back. There is no drawing against the "tomorrow".

You must live in the present on today's deposits. Invest it so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success! The clock is running. Make the most of today. As time waits for no one. - Ymir

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:26 PM

The state is an organization of falsely legitimized coercion. 

There is a prominent subspecies of libertarian that places much emphasis on the technicalities in Constitutional and statutory law, often at the cost of understanding the true nature of the state and its mechanisms of power.

The most pervasive technicalitarian arguments concern the income tax. We learn that the 16th amendment was never properly ratified, or that the tax is only supposed to apply to foreigners or citizens who make money in foreign exchange, or that the tax is really a corporate tax, or that the web of IRS regulations serves to obscure the fact that no statute actually mandates that you pay a tax. Refusing to file for income tax, or writing your name in all capital letters, or refraining from using Zip Codes in your outgoing mail, or referring to yourself as a "Citizen" as opposed to a "citizen" is supposed to keep the tax hounds away. They cannot touch you if you know the law.

Libertarians certainly have good reasons to know the law, especially the parts of it that will help shield liberty against the government. Furthermore, it is important to understand the real story behind various frauds, hoaxes and coups in American history. When we know that a certain Constitutional amendment, or, indeed, the entire Constitution, was conjured up in a smoky room filled with special interests and unscrupulous politicians, we better recognize that the state does not really have the sacred legitimacy often spoken of it in the popular mythology. We come to realize that constitutions are mere pieces of paper and governments mere groups of people empowered in ways the rest of us are not. We see that, even by its own terms, the state is illegitimate. Knowing the workings of the state has many uses in the intellectual battle for freedom.

Drawing on the technicalities of law as the chief tactic of fighting the state has its severe limitations and drawbacks, however. Instead of helping to expose the naked emperor or the man behind the curtain, it can lead us to grant undeserved legitimacy to the state. To obsess over the income tax as a supposed violation of statutory law is to give far too much credence to statutory law. The reason income tax is wrong is that it’s theft, not because some legislator back in 1913 failed to dot his i's and cross his t’s. Moreover, if enough Americans began calling the IRS’s alleged bluff, and stopped filing, the state would simply make the income tax "official" and "properly ratified" in any ways it had presumably failed to do so.

When we stop for a minute to think about it, nearly every single thing the federal government does is unconstitutional, blatantly, clearly, and unabashedly. Article I, Section 8 makes no mention of a federal department of education, energy, agriculture, or transportation; a CIA, an FBI, or an alcohol, tobacco and firearms bureau; a national war on drugs, crusade on guns or struggle against illiteracy; a central bank, a retirement plan, or even a standing army. The number of constitutional – that is to say, legal – practices of the federal government would likely correspond to less than one percent of its current activity. So we already know that almost everything the feds do violates the so-called Supreme Law of the Land. It is useful to reflect on this to understand how far removed the government is from the document that supposedly gives it its authority. It is helpful to consider this in understanding the way the state operates in the real world. But we should also recognize that a government that is constantly and nakedly at odds with its Constitution is not going to let itself be deprived of one of its major sources of revenue upon being shown that the IRS is not following its own regulations to the letter. Liberty is not a mere technicality away.

The state is not about laws on pieces of paper. It is about looting and violence. Its principal methods of funding are theft and counterfeiting, its regular modus operandi is extortion and its most conspicuous projects are assault and murder. Ultimately, finding a technicality that saves Americans from income taxation will prove as effective as finding one that saves foreigners from incoming U.S. missiles. (Can you imagine an Iraqi screaming at the bombing of Baghdad that since the war had not been declared properly, the explosions cannot legally hurt him?) A loophole might save you money in the short term, but it will likely do you no good if the IRS has it in for you, and it will certainly do little in the long term to help in the eternal clash with the state.

Instead of searching for the magic loophole that will swallow up the state and all its oppression, we should devote our time to learning about how the state actually works, its historical and modern relationships with the private and semi-private sectors, and the effects of its domestic and foreign interventions. We should not fool ourselves. The state does not steal our incomes because we have overlooked a confusing regulation or fail to know our case law. The reason we have an income tax is because the politicians in power want an income tax, and have bamboozled the public into believing that taxation is acceptable in the first place. The tax code is confusing and contradictory for all sorts of historical and operational reasons, but it certainly does not contain the final key to our freedom from taxation.

The state is an organization of coercion, a monopoly on aggression, falsely legitimized by its own fiat and sanctified in idolatrous mythology and through lying propaganda. There is no technicality that can curb its inherent conflict with the natural law and individual liberty. It draws actual blood, bankrupts actual companies, bombs actual cities and taxes actual wealth. Its soldiers shoot to kill, its taxmen are equally ruthless. In principle, it is no more bound by a subsection of its tax code than a mobster is bound by his vague promise to protect you. It is for all these reasons that the state must be understood and eventually dismantled wherever and whenever possible. Don’t get too distracted by the fine print and neglect the big picture. - Anthony Gregory is a writer and musician who lives in Berkeley, California. He is a research analyst at the Independent Institute. See his webpage for more articles and personal information. Copyright © 2005 LewRockwell.com [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:05 PM

Investing in Ourselves 

Since the Reagan years, the reigning orthodoxy is that economies succeed when the wealthy and corporations are free from taxes, government is virtually nonexistent except to subsidize favored corporations, and businesses cut costs by shedding jobs to countries where living standards are poor and labor is therefore cheap, and by forcing employees in western nations to work harder and longer for less pay and smaller pensions and health care support that can be disappeared at any time, while businesses spend freely on lobbyists, legal and illicit graft, and executive pay and perks, all in response not to the longterm health of a company, an industry or a polity, but to keep stock prices going higher by means of favorable quarterly reports.

This philosophy, considered radical everywhere but in the U.S., is increasingly been forced on other nations by the U.S. and its puppet international institutions. But necessary to that philosophy's success is that economies that pursue other courses of action be less successful, and even fail, so that this particular approach doesn't look like a convenient mask on the greed and avarice of a few already wealthy and powerful cabals.

So the U.S. economy must constantly be inflated as the most successful in the world, and other economies, particularly those of European nations that have evolved a philosophy mixing market capitalism with social supports, be seen as failures.

Unfortunately the only way that strategy can succeed is if Americans are ignorant of what's going on in Europe, and why. So far, we are.

But European economies are successful. Despite having the most extensive and expensive social supports for workers in the world, Germany has the strongest industrial export economy in the world. And it's getting better.

German economy at Forbes :

The Ifo Institute announced this morning that its business climate index rose to 98.7 in October from 96.0 in September, the highest reading since October 2000 and well above forecasts for a very slim rise to just 96.1. The news suggests that Europe's largest economy is holding up much better than many had hoped.

'The outcome came as a surprise and reflects improving prospects for the German economy, with both the current and expectations components registering solid gains,' he added.

Bloomberg on Italy:

Business confidence in Italy, Europe's fourth-largest economy, rose to the highest in 11 months in October ...``It's still not a given that there's a sustainable recovery under way in Italy, but there are comforting signs,'' said Paolo Pizzoli, a senior economist at ING Bank NV in Milan. ``These signs are being reflected in France and Germany too, which is always good for Italy, considering they are our biggest trading partners.''

Today's report is at least the sixth in a week to suggest faster growth in the dozen nations sharing the euro. French and German executives, as well as Italian consumers also became more optimistic this month.

But perhaps the most impressive news comes from Finland.

Reuters on Finland :

Fifty years ago, Finland was known for little more than the wood pulp from its endless forests. A poverty-stricken land of poorly educated loggers and farmers on the edge of the Arctic Circle, few paid it any attention.

Today, this small Nordic nation boasts a thriving hi-tech economy ranked the most competitive in the world, the best educated citizenry of all the industrialized countries, and a welfare state that has created one of the globe's most egalitarian societies.

The article points out that Finland's success is due in part to it being a small, homogeneous country, which once were its major drawbacks. But any nation can decide to invest in itself by investing, for example, in education and related social services.

Mr. Nygard and his partner, Minna Sirelius, have certainly enjoyed the fruits of Finland's exceptionalism. Neither of them paid a cent for their university education, though they took seven years to complete their respective degrees in history and psychology. Ms. Sirelius enjoyed free healthcare throughout her pregnancy and the birth of their daughter, Emilia, and she plans to stay on leave from her job in IBM's human resources department for 11 months.

She can afford to: The government is paying her 60 percent of her salary to look after her baby. Next year Nygard and Sirelius will choose among the Finnish-, Swedish-, English-, or Spanish-language day-care centers in their neighborhood, and the state will pick up four-fifths of the cost.

If either of them loses their job, they will be able to count on unemployment benefits that range up to 70 percent of their salaries for 18 months. And when they retire they can look forward to generous pensions that amount, for the average Finn, to 60 percent of their last salary.
These benefits come at a cost, of course: Finland levies some of the highest taxes in the world, and if Ms. Sirelius does well in her career, she will pay more than 45 percent of her personal income toward taxes. But she does not object. "I feel that is what keeps our society and country running," she explains. "We can't keep the welfare state running unless everyone pitches in and helps with the costs."

But what Mikko Kautto, a researcher at the government's Welfare Research Center, calls "universalist thinking," goes further. Finns do not regard social spending as a drag on economic growth and job creation, he says, but as a positive force.

"The merit of thinking socially," he argues, "is that having everybody involved, with all our human capital working for the benefit of society, is part of the reason for our [economic] competitiveness."

The World Economic Forum'which runs annual business summits in Davos, Switzerland, has ranked Finland the most competitive economy in the world, ahead of the United States, for four of the past five years.

Nowhere is this approach clearer than in Finland's schools, which at the end of World War II turned out some of the worst educated young people in the industrialized world, and now graduate the best, according to comparative studies by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Making sure that every Finnish child, wherever he lived and whatever his background, could get a decent education had a very deliberate goal, says Riita Lampola, head of international relations for the Finnish Board of Education, which oversees schooling.

High level education is the key to what Pekka Himanen, a brilliant young philosopher who advises the Finnish government, calls his country's "virtuous circle."

"When people can fulfill their potential they become innovators," Dr. Himanen argues. "The innovative economy is competitive and makes it possible to finance the welfare state, which is not just a cost, but a sustainable basis for the economy, producing new innovators with social protection."

Other European countries could copy Finland's efforts to improve its education system, Himanen insists, just as they could emulate Finland's heavy investment in research and development.

Finland is still recovering from years of economic crisis, so its services are not yet on par with neighboring Scandinavian countries. But this model is widely supported in Finland, especially in a changing world economy.

Indeed, says Mr. Rouvinen, the challenges of globalization mean that "we specifically need our social model. As a small country on the edge of the world we will have steep ups and downs. We have to have mechanisms so that individuals won't suffer from that."

In the end, says Jorma Sipila, the Chancellor of Tampere University, Finland's inclusive social model is its best guarantee for the future. "The conditions for a flourishing economy are so demanding that the state has to make social investments to raise competent people and take care of dropouts so that they carry their share of the burden," he argues. "Marrying prosperity and social protection is the only sustainable future."

As Jerome a Paris puts it, "wealth capture is not wealth creation. " Yet businesses are captive of their own mythologies of cost-cutting and short-term profits.

Even on their own terms, business people talk about investment but so few seem to believe in it or understand it on a larger scale. Consider the publishing business in the U.S., which has gotten increasingly enslaved to short-term, high-profit margin thinking. Then you go into a huge Barnes & Noble and see portraits ringing the wall of famous writers who now are the brand names that give these stores their identity, and few if any of them made anybody any money for a long time. And today they just wouldn't be published by commercial trade publishers.

Quality is future-oriented. Decently paid workers with health care and cared-for families return investment in many, many ways, for generations. Europe is years ahead, perhaps light years ahead, in the sometimes difficult enterprise of dealing with all realities: those of world economics, the common good, the greater good, the ecological and energy and design practices for long-term prosperity.

Economics is health. The soul of a nation is as important as its wealth. It is the better part of its wealth. - William

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:18 AM

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Go, ACLU! (or not) [excerpt] 

In the spirit of Halloween, I guess, the ACLU has found a very creative way to scare the living France out of us. They've created this really high-tech interactive Web adfommercial that actually is pretty scary. It involves a fictional chump simply trying to order a pizza over the phone, and—well, let's just say it goes downhill from there. You might call it invasion-of-privacy hell, 21st century-style. This is a real must-visit. - Stephen Adams

posted by George Thomas Kysor 3:45 PM

A few questions about 9/11 

A woman who read my book called me with the suggestion that I make a Macromedia flash movie about 9-11. I never made a flash movie before, but she offered to write the text and together we selected accompanying images. A friend of hers then brought his professional flash skills to the final product. She hopes to inspire other people to get the book and DVD and learn about the 9-11 attack. - Eric Hufschmid

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:58 AM

9-11 Activists Without a Clue? 

What Have The JFK Investigators Accomplished?

Every year some Kennedy investigators get together in Dallas to discuss the crime, and some investigators are still searching for evidence to prove that Oswald was a patsy. But what effect have those people had? Every nation's government is still committing crimes, and our history books still teach children that Oswald killed Kennedy.
Many people try to cheer me up by telling me that information about the 9-11 attack is spreading quickly. They point out that the Kennedy assassination and other scams were too small to interest many people, but the 9-11 attack was so big that the entire world is getting involved. I am also told that the phone/fax campaign that occurred in March of 2004 had a tremendous effect on our government. And I am told that the MoveOn organization is growing rapidly.

MoveOn ... Our Knight in Shining Armor?

MoveOn claims to be a network of 1.7 million activists. An organization that size could bring significant changes to the nation. But what is this organization doing to make the world a better place?
I don't know much about MoveOn or George Soros, but the group is not saying anything about 9-11 that we cannot find on the CNN headline news. All they do is complain about Bush, in which case they should change their name to the Kerry For President committee.

There are certainly a few individuals within the MoveOn organization who are trying to spread information about 9-11, but the leaders of that organization are not educating those 1.7 million members about 9-11. The people in the MoveOn group that I personally met did not even know what Building 7 was, let alone that it collapsed.

Are the leaders of MoveOn afraid to talk about the 9-11 issue? Are they worried that they may end up in mysterious plane crashes like Paul Wellstone?

Or is the situation even more diabolical? For example, is George Soros actually a part of group who committed the 9-11 attack? Is he trying to convince us to join his organization so that he can get the troublesome 9-11 activists under his influence? Or is Soros part of a rival gang of criminals who are trying to get control while Bush appears vulnerable?

Why the Secrecy, MoveOn?

I don't see any harm in asking questions about Soros or the MoveOn organization, but I was shocked to find 9-11 activists reprimand me with such remarks as, "Soros is spending a lot of his money to help us get rid of Bush."
My response is, so what? I don't owe blind obedience to Soros just because he is spending money. Besides, some of us are spending our time and money on this 9-11 activity, so why not tell Soros that he owes us something?

Furthermore, how did Soros get so much money? Did he earn that incredible amount of money by doing an incredible amount of useful work for the world? Or did he merely exploit weaknesses in our laws and take advantage of our trust? For all we know, if the governments of the world were more respectable, Soros never would have been allowed to acquire so much money in the first place. For all we know, his moral standards are lower than those of George Bush.

The MoveOn and 9-11 activists demand honesty from the Bush administration, but some of them try to stop me from asking questions about Soros, MoveOn, and other self-appointed leaders of this 9-11 movement.

The people who reprimand me for asking about the 9-11 movement should take the hypocrisy to such an extreme that it becomes amusing. For example, why not tell me,


"you are either with us or against us."
Or how about,


"let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories in regards to the motives of the 9-11 movement"
Or, why not accuse me of being part of the Axis Of Evil?

How is the 9-11 movement going to attract respectable people when they are as secretive as the Bush administration? How is this movement going to make a better nation when so many of the people involved cannot tolerate questions about their own leaders? I'm not afraid of people asking questions about me; why are some people in these 9-11 and MoveOn movements so afraid of questions?

Some people want to file lawsuits to get information about the September 11th attack. Do we have to file lawsuits to learn about Soros and other mysterious 9-11 leaders?

President Bush Aint Our Problem!

Removing George Bush from office seems to be the primary focus of both the MoveOn group and this 9-11 movement. And some people are demanding trials for the people involved in the 9-11 attack.
But what good does it do to impeach George Bush? How do we know John Kerry will be better? Joseph Stalin was the replacement for Lenin, but was that an improvement?

How will impeaching George Bush give us a better tax system? Or better cities? Or a better educational system? How will electing John Kerry reduce the number of orphans, or improve television news reports, or make our legal system more honest?

If George Bush truly is the problem with America, then impeaching Bush would solve all our problems. We would then be able to hold hands, sing songs, and live happily ever after.

But what if George Bush is not the problem with America? What if America's problem is actually a bunch of problems?

For example, what if part of the reason we have a corrupt government is that our system of anonymous voting with touchscreens is being manipulated? And what if part of the reason our candidates are crummy is that the method of running for office and begging for millions of dollars is so unpleasant that the majority of people would never even consider becoming a candidate.

If America's problem is actually a combination of hundreds of complex problems, then removing Bush from office will not do anything to help us because another crummy government will be put in its place. What do we do then? Start the process over and hate that new President? How many times do we have to suffer through a crummy government before it occurs to us that maybe the imbecile who gets elected President is not the problem; that maybe we need to experiment with changes in our election system, our legal system, and other government systems? How much corruption, inefficiency, chaos, and traffic jams do we have to suffer through before it occurs to us that maybe Bush is not our problem; that maybe we need to take our nation to the repair shop and give it an overhaul?

Bush: Raw Meat For Wild Dogs?

Sometimes I wonder if the reason George Bush was selected to be President is because the CIA wanted somebody that the public could easily hate just in case there was an outrage over the 9-11 attack. While you are busy hating George Bush, you don't notice that there are other people in our government manipulating elections, running more scams, and deceiving you with false news reports. This is similar to what a magician does; he fools you into watching one of his hands while the other hand is setting up a trick.
George Bush may be equivalent to Osama. Maybe he is just a patsy who is provided to us so that we waste our time complaining about him rather than doing something useful. It is equivalent to tossing raw meat to wild dogs to keep the dogs away from you.

The Anti-War Hoax

I think the anti-war movement was taken over many years ago by the people who run these scams. As an example, do you recall the 1991 bombing of Iraq? There were numerous anti-war leaders, many from Hollywood, who claimed to oppose the war but support the troops. To understand how deceptive that is, imagine China decides to attack America and Canada.
Imagine as nuclear bombs are destroying our cities, you notice that millions of Chinese citizens are complaining to stop the war. You are hopeful that the war will soon stop. But then a large group of Chinese actors, professors, and government officials appear on television and convince the Chinese citizens that the war is indeed wrong, but they do not have to support the war, they only have to support the troops.

I never noticed any anti-war movement in 1991. I only saw a propaganda campaign to deceive us into letting the war continue on the grounds that we were supporting the troops, not the war.

What Is Wrong With The 9-11 Movement?

I think this 9-11 movement is becoming the same farce as the anti-war movement. I think these 9-11 groups have been dominated in an attempt to make sure we have no effect on the world.
For example, I've been complaining for a long time that we have enough evidence that the attack was a scam and that we can stop wasting time looking for more evidence. Every hour we spend searching for more evidence is an hour that we could have spent on something productive, such as spreading the information to other people or discussing what to do to make the nation better.

For more than a year I have been listening to complaints that we don't have enough information, or that nobody yet has a book or video about 9-11 that is good enough to release to the public. I am told that we must wait, but wait for what? Wait for a perfect book or video to come along? Wait until we have every possible bit of evidence about the scam?

These are nothing more than attempts to manipulate us into doing nothing. If we wait for the perfect book or video, we will be waiting forever. How can any book or video be perfect? And how can we wait for all the evidence about the scam? No matter how much evidence we have, someone could complain we don't have enough.

The people who commit these scams are not getting away with them because we lack evidence. And they're not getting away with them because our books and videos are too crummy to present to the public.

I am not advocating that everybody stop looking for evidence. Rather, I am saying that while some people look for evidence, the rest of us have more than enough evidence to prove the attack was a scam, and we should start getting this information out to the public.

"Painful Questions" Book and Kennedy

At the end of my book I have two chapters about the Kennedy assassination. I need to rewrite parts of it because nobody seems to understand why I included it. What I was trying to point out is that the offical explanation of the assassination is so obviously a scam that a person only has to read a small portion of the Warren Report to realize it. Nobody has to do any investigations. Nobody has to travel to the crime scene, or interview witnesses. There is more than enough evidence in the Warren Report. The government inadvertently put all the information we need right in front of our faces. All we have to do is open our eyes.
There is nothing wrong with investigating the Kennedy assassination even further, but the rest of us should not wait for all details to be discovered. There is more than enough information in the Warren report to prove the US Government was involved in the killing. Further investigations only provide additional details on who was involved and what their motives were.

By the way, I think our government has learned from that mistake because if you look at the reports about the Oklahoma City and 9-11 attack, the reports do not have much information about the attack. I think our government has realized that the more they say, the more they hurt themselves. The best policy for a corrupt government is to ignore the issues, and to fake ignorance and stupidity.

How Do They Get Away With The Scams?

So, if we have enough evidence to prove the 9-11 attack was a scam, how could they possibly get away with it? The same reasons they got away with the Kennedy assassination, and the Oklahoma City bombing, and all the other scams. One technique is to infiltrate the groups who try to expose the scams and either dominate them or encourage them to waste their time and money on useless activities. A more important technique is to get control over the media and provide deceptive news to the public.
Watching people's reaction to my book has shown me that there is one other very important reason they get away with these scams. Specifically, lots of people are so upset by these scams that they try to ignore the issue.

We can see this with the Kennedy assassination also. In 1964 only a few people realized that the US Government was involved in the Kennedy assassination. If we could travel back in time and talk to some of the activists in the 1960's, we would hear some of the same remarks that we hear from the 9-11 activists. Specifically, they would tell us they are optimistic about America because every day more people realize that the Warren Report was a scam. They would tell us that soon the situation will improve.

By the 1970's, millions of Americans were wondering if something was wrong with the official story.

During the 1980's, Oliver Stone made a movie about it, and there were many books to explain suspicious aspects of the assassination.

And look at the situation today. It is possible that the majority of the world's population suspects that Oswald had assistance.

But what good has that knowledge done the world? Has that knowledge made any government more honest?

Info About Scams Causes Apathy

As information about the Kennedy scam spread throughout America, a few people became stimulated to help make a better world. Carol Brouillet is an example; she told me that Oliver Stone's movie caused her to get involved in political issues.
But I think that most people reacted to the information by becoming disillusioned with America. The information upset them, and it reduced their morale, created a distrust of government, and increased their apathy. This large group of disillusioned people made the nation worse, not better. Look at American history from 1963 to today and tell me, as information about the US Government's involvement in the Kennedy killing spread throughout the population, can you see any improvements because of it? I see attitudes towards government becoming worse, not better. I see apathy increasing, not decreasing.

Discovering that our government killed Kennedy is like discovering our father is robbing banks. Some people might react by trying to make the situation better, but most people become upset and try to ignore the information.

Today the majority of Americans may suspect that Oswald had help in the killing of President Kennedy, but the lies persist in our history books and encyclopedias that Oswald was the only person responsible. The Kennedy investigators achieved their goal of exposing the scam, but what good has it done? Children are still being raised on the official government lies, and governments are still committing crimes. For those of you who know about the Paul Wellstone airplane accident, consider that if he was murdered, that means our government is still murdering government officials. In which case, what good have the Kennedy investigators done?

The knowledge that Oswald was a patsy will not by itself correct our history books. Nor will that knowledge give us a better tax system, a better legal system, or better government officials. If we want a better nation, we must do something to make the nation better. The world's problems will not magically disappear just because we realize the Kennedy killing was a scam.

And consider the Oklahoma City bombing. It has been almost 10 years since that scam. Every day a few more people discover that it was a scam. But is that knowledge making the nation a better place? For all we know, as knowledge of that scam spreads, its main effect on the nation is to increase apathy and reduce morale.

Now consider the 9-11 scam. Every day perhaps hundreds of people discover that the attack was a scam. Information is traveling much faster with this scam because of the Internet, and because people in foreign nations are talking about it. It's possible that by next year a few billion people will realize the attack was a scam. But will this realization make the world a better place? Will this realization cause somebody to correct the lies in our history books? Will it cause television reporters to give us honest news? Will it prevent the Al-Qaeda Navy from attacking us with nuclear bombs? Will it give us a respectable President in 2004?

The information about the 9-11 attack will not by itself make the world a better place. Information is an intangible entity. But an intangible entity cannot build better cities for us, nor can it give us better governments. Information is of value only if we do something with it.

If all we do is gather information about the 9-11 attack, we will never improve anything. We must do something with this information, but do what? And how can we figure out what to do if the 9-11 activists focus their attention on hating George Bush? Or if they focus their attention on finding every detail about the scam?

9-11 Car Mechanics

Imagine that your car breaks down. You take it to an auto repair shop where the mechanics behave exactly like 9-11 activists. The mechanics begin a thorough inspection of your car in order to determine what the problem is. They produce report after report, and video after video that documents every detail about the car's problems. You find yourself impressed with their meticulous work. They uncover problems you didn't even know about.
A week later you drop by the shop and ask if your car is ready, but they tell you they're still investigating. This goes on week after week. A year later you ask for your car, but they tell you they still have not finished the investigation. You point out that they've got so many books and videos already, but they respond that none of them are conclusive; that they need a better book, and they need more details.

Imagine this goes on for decades. At what point would you tell them that they've got enough information and that they should take what they've got and do something with it.

Wouldn't it occur to you that the car is never going to get fixed if all they do is investigate? Wouldn't it occur to you that they must take the information they've got, propose repairs for the car, and then let you decide which of those proposals to implement?

"No Opinions! No Speculation!"

When I complain that we're wasting our time by hating Bush and trying to dig up every detail about the attack, some people respond that if we discuss how to fix the nation, we will be discussing our opinions, and that will cause arguments and turn people away from the 9-11 movement. Therefore, we should keep our discussions to the scientific evidence about the attack.
What would you think if your car mechanics told you that they did not want to discuss possible repairs for your car because every time they tried to discuss the issue, they disagreed with one another and got into arguments.

During 2002 I would see remarks from 9-11 investigators that we should not discuss such controversial issues as explosives in the towers. We should keep the discussion to the possibility that Bush knew the attack was going to take place. Their reasoning was that nobody can prove that the towers were brought down by explosives, so if we discuss such speculative issues, we will create controversy and arguments. This in turn would cause people to avoid the 9-11 movement, rather than join it. Therefore, in order to attract people to this movement, we should keep the meetings focused on George Bush.

Fortunately, some of us refused to believe that nonsense. The PowerHour radio show, for example, brought me on their radio show a few days before my book became available. They were not concerned that discussing explosives in the towers were going to turn people away from the 9-11 movement. Instead, their attitude was to get this information out, and now. Some people in Austin, Texas also discussed this information on their access television shows. So why are some of these 9-11 activists trying to focus us on George Bush?

What Are They Afraid Of?

Do they worry that if we discuss other issues we might eventually realize that our CIA, FBI, and other government agencies are more involved with these scams than George Bush? Are they worried that we might realize that George Bush is a puppet?
Are they worried that we might switch from complaining about Bush to complaining about the CIA? Are they worried we might realize that these secret agencies are the primary problem in the world, and that the founders of America would never approve of secret agencies that have no accountability?

If the CIA provided information to the government, then it could be a valuable agency. But they have already proven that they are not merely an information gathering agency. For example, in November 2002 a Predator drone fired a missile at a man in Afghanistan. The news reports told us that the Predator came from the CIA. The US military also had Predators, but only for surveillance. They did not have any drones that were capable of firing missiles. If we can believe the US Military, that means the CIA had secretly taken surveillance aircraft and modified them to fire missiles, creating a new weapon system.

The firing of that missile proves the CIA is lying to us. They are not merely an information gathering agency. They have been secretly developing advanced military weapons. This should lead you to wonder... what other weapons have they developed that we don't know about?

How many times does somebody have to lie to you before you start questioning everything he says? How many times does the government have to lie before you start thinking that maybe there are more to America's problems than George Bush?

Is The CIA Helping The USA?

I've heard a lot of people defend the CIA as necessary for our security, but for all we know, the management of the CIA is so incompetent that they are more like a fungus that is destroying this nation. They may be destroying their own employees also. Consider that the rumors are true that some CIA employees are paid to maintain the government scams by writing deceptive news reports, bribery, lies, and deception. If there are such people, how would such a job affect their attitude towards life? Is it possible for them to enjoy life? Or does the endless lying and deception bother them?
Life is most enjoyable when we never lie. Lying is unpleasant because it requires you to remember everything you said to every person. It puts stress on you. You cannot relax and say what you want; instead, you have to think about what to say in order to maintain the network of lies. The more lies you create, the greater the stress will be on you to remember and maintain those lies.

If our government is paying people to deceive us, I think it would be interesting to see what effect it has on their attitudes and their life. Can they maintain stable relationships? After many years of lies, do they sometimes lose track of what is real and what is a lie? Do they slowly become emotionally defective zombies who lose interest in life?

I don't have answers to those questions, but if it turns out that our government is paying people to lie to us, and if it turns out that those people are emotionally damaged from the lying, then we would be doing the CIA employees a favor by getting rid of the CIA. We would be liberating them from their miserable existence.

What Is The Motive For 9-11?

One of the reasons some people refuse to believe that our government is involved in 9-11 is because they cannot see any sensible motive. These people point out that America lost billions of dollars in the attack, and billions more were spent fixing the subways and buildings, and billions more are being spent on these wars. This is a very large investment of money and human life. Why would so many government employees be willing to invest so much money and so many lives unless the benefit is equally large? But who is benefiting to such an extent that it would justify such a large crime?
Some people suggest that a few rich families or corporations are doing this for money, but why would our military attack its own headquarters and spend tens of billions of dollars just so some rich people could make a few more million dollars? Other people suggest that the motive was to get oil, but what oil have we gotten? And who is getting it?

Some people think maybe the attack was to kill Arabs, but just look at the photos of the traffic jams in Iraq. Only a tiny percentage of the Iraqi population had been killed. So if the purpose was to kill Arabs, they failed miserably.

It's difficult to find a motive for this attack. The attack seems to be hurting America, not helping us. This has caused some people to come to the conclusion that perhaps the purpose of the attack was to destroy America, not help it. There are lots of theories that a small group of rich families or some secret society is trying to destroy all nations so that they can take control of the world. David Icke suggests that some reptilian race is trying to destroy the planet so that they can take control. A man I personally know has come to a conclusion that some type of alien force has gotten inside people's minds and is causing them to behave in a destructive manner so that it can eventually take control of the planet.

While it is possible that some secret society or alien force is trying to get control of the planet, it is also possible that the CIA and other agencies are dominated by people with mental problems. They may have truly believed that killing President Kennedy would make America a better nation, and they may have truly believed that 9-11 would help America. When their scams fail, perhaps they convince themselves that they actually achieved partial success, or perhaps they come to the conclusion that another scam will correct the mistake.

In other words, perhaps our government is full of lunatics who are taking us on a wild ride in a misguided attempt to help us. I find this possibility amusing -- to a certain extent.

Imagine that you just graduated from cooking school and you are starting a job as a chef in a fancy restaurant. You do your best to make wonderful dinners that evening. How would you feel if, at the end of the evening, a waitress mentions that some customers were wondering if the reason the food was so bad was because the chef was part of a secret society that was trying to take control of world, or that some alien force had gotten into the chef's brain in order to destroy the planet?

While a secret society may be trying to destroy the world, I suspect that a lot of the people who joined in on the Kennedy killing and the 9-11 attack were just ordinary citizens who thought they were helping America. Perhaps the secret society is deceiving government officials into thinking they are helping the world.

Most People Resist Unpleasant Information

Investigating the 9-11 attack is a merely the first step in making a better world. The second step is to spread the information that the investigation uncovers. The third step would be to use this information to propose possible repairs to our nation. And the fourth step is to start experimenting with the nation by implementing some of those proposals.
I say we already completed the first step. In fact, we investigated more than we needed to.

The second step is to spread information but that is not as easy as it seems. The biggest problem with spreading information about 9-11 is that the majority of people do not want to learn about it because it upsets them. Information about Janet Jackson and Harry Potter spread around the world in a matter of hours because people enjoy those issues, but 9-11 information is not spreading quickly. Based on the people that I personally know, the majority of people simply cannot handle this information.

For example, my mother reluctantly watched my video, but she still has not told her brother or sister about 9-11 on the grounds that it would upset them because they are Bush supporters.

Compare my mother to Carol Brouillet. Carol reacted to Oliver Stone's movie by becoming politically active, and today she spends a lot of her time spreading information about 9-11 to other people. She also arranges meetings for us to get together. By comparison, my mother reacted to my video by pretending she never saw it.

Most people are like my mother. When the information reaches them, it stops traveling because they don't like the information, and they don't want to upset other people with it.

My mother wants to be a good girl who does what she's supposed to do. She believes that we should follow our government, not rebel against it.

People Follow Each Other

As I tried to explain at the end of my video, humans follow one another. Some of us are more independent than others, but none of us will stray too far from the acceptable path. This is why there is so little deviation in our clothing styles, especially men's clothing.
There are some people who appear to be extremely independent, such as the people who split their tongues or cut off their fingertips, but a lot of those "independent" activities are due to anger or self pity, not independence. Nobody can seriously describe himself as 100% independent. All of us alter our behavior in order to get the approval of other people.

This is not a characteristic that we should be ashamed of. If we had respectable leaders, then it would be OK for the majority of people to follow the leader. This characteristic is a problem only when our leaders are crummy.

My mother is so concerned about following the leader that there was a time when my sister was deviating from a recipe, and my mother complained, "Stop it! The recipe does not call for that!"

How can we expect a woman who has trouble deviating from a recipe to deal with something like the 9-11 attack?

Trying to educate people about 9-11 is difficult because most people are like my mother. Most people want somebody else to make decisions for them. Most people want to follow recipes, not create their own. Most people want to know what the latest clothing styles are -- they don't want to start a new style.

If you wander away from the crowd, you risk criticism for being different. By comparison, if you remain with the crowd and mimic other people, if somebody criticizes your clothing or opinions, they are criticizing the entire crowd, not just you.

Praise/Criticism ... Good Cop/Bad Cop

When farmers want to put their sheep into a pen, they can use dogs to chase the sheep. People can be herded into pens also, but not with dogs. Instead, people can be manipulated with criticism. The people who wander away from the crowd, rather than do as they are told, are criticized, and most of them respond by rushing back to the crowd.
People are also easily manipulated with praise, smiles, and entertainment. This technique is often used in politics and business. The successful businessmen and politicians praise people and make them feel good.

For example, at the supermarkets in my city the cashiers usually say hello to the customers and ask if we found what we were looking for. Your first reaction to these friendly cashiers is that the cashier really cares about us.

There are certainly times when a cashier is in a talkative mood, but most of the time when the cashiers talk to us it is because the corporate executives ordered them to fake friendship.

Next time you get off an airplane, notice that the crew members stand near the door and say goodbye to you. Certainly some of them are occasionally in a talkative mood, but most of the time when they say goodbye to you it is because the corporate executives are demanding they fake friendship.

The successful businessmen have noticed that they can attract customers by faking friendship. Some people care more about money than the society they live in, so they don't care that they are making life awkward for the employees who are forced to fake friendship.

How absurd does this situation have to get before you complain about this behavior? What if airline stewardesses were told to fake a romantic interest in us? What if the stewardesses were told to wink at the passengers and create the impression that if we fly a few more times we might get a date?

Or what if the supermarket cashiers were ordered to occasionally fake orgasms as we go past their checkout counter?

How absurd does this situation have to get before you complain that employees are not tools for businesses to use to manipulate us? When will we consider the possibility that there is something wrong with America's attitudes towards money, life, and people? When do we stop complaining about George Bush and start realizing that this nation is seriously messed up?

I bring this subject up to point out that people are suckers for praise and friendship, even if it is fake friendship. Also, I want to point out that people avoid criticism. These qualities allow us to be manipulated. For example, the government will praise the people who follow the official theories and criticize the others as conspiracy nuts.

Spreading information about the 9-11 attack is difficult because people such as my mother have a low tolerance for criticism. She even complained that she was insulted by the image in my video of the sheep with a human face.

The information about the 9-11 attack is more upsetting than my mother can handle, so she wants to forget that she learned about it. How are we going to spread information about this attack when so many people are like my mother?

We Must Experiment With Our Nation

To summarize this so far, the first step is to investigate the attack and the second step is to spread information about it. This brings us to the third step, which nobody wants to talk about. Specifically, what are we going to do with this information?
Are we just going to get together once in a while to discuss the scam, as the Kennedy investigators do? Is this 9-11 movement going to become nothing but a social club?

I have nothing against forming a social club. In fact, it may be a lot of fun to get together to socialize. But I was hoping that we could have a beneficial effect on the world.

Talking to each other about the scam will never cause our crummy train systems to vanish and be replaced by trains that are as nice as European trains. Nor will creating more 9-11 web sites reduce corporate corruption, reduce car theft or rapes, or give us more intelligent television news.

We must do something with this knowledge in order to make the world better. We must analyze the problems we face and propose repairs to our society. Then we have to be brave enough to implement some of those proposals and watch the nation to see if those changes are making our situation better or if they are making it worse. We have to be willing to experiment with our tax system, our educational system, and election system in order to make it better. This is what engineers do when they design products, so why are we afraid to do this with our nation?

Quit Pouting; We Aint Helpless!!!

When I complain that we can make our nation better, some people respond that we are helpless. They complain that we are under the control of some secret society, the CIA, the military establishment, or some rich families. It may be true that lots of people are trying to control America, but that doesn't mean we are helpless.
The voters are responsible for their crummy government, but humans do not like taking responsibility for our problems. Whenever something goes wrong in our lives, we look for an excuse. We might blame some intangible entity, such as society or poverty, or we might blame some mysterious groups of people, such as rich families or the CIA.

Many people respond to me that the voters have no choice during the elections because the elections are controlled by the CIA or the secret societies. They tell me that in the 2000 election, these mysterious people forced us to select between Al Gore and George Bush, and in the 2004 election, these mysterious people are forcing us to select between John Kerry and George Bush. But this is nonsense. It may be true that a few rich families selected Al Gore and George Bush to be candidates in the 2000 election, and it may be true that some small group has manipulated the 2004 elections to get John Kerry nominated, but those rich families cannot force you to vote for their candidates.

Just because some secret society put Bush and Gore on the ballot doesn't mean you had to vote for either candidate. In fact, I remember some people advocating new elections with new candidates. But those people were a very small percentage of the population. Millions of people truly believed that Gore and Bush were qualified to be President. My mother, her brother, her sister, and many of my neighbors were certain that Bush was an intelligent, responsible man who could lead this nation. Some of my other relatives were certain that Al Gore was a qualified leader. There were only a few people scattered around the nation who were complaining that neither of those guys was suitable for President.

The voters are not helpless. The voters even have the freedom to write a person's name on the ballot. The voters could have elected you as President simply by writing your name on the ballot.

No matter what I say, most people come back with an excuse to prove that they are indeed helpless. Some of them bring up the dispute over the votes in Florida and point out that Bush stole the election. They imply that it makes no difference who we vote for because the entire process is controlled.

But how does anybody know what sort of cheating was going on during that election? I suspect that both sides were cheating, and the cheating was occurring in many different states, not just Florida. Al Gore supposedly got more votes overall than Bush, but how many of Al Gore's votes were illegal? If we could subtract the illegal votes from both candidates, we might find that Bush actually had more votes than Gore. When two candidates are cheating, how can we seriously accuse the winner of stealing the election?

Even if the Gore team was honest, and even if Bush cheated his way to the presidency, the voters could have refused to accept Bush. The voters are not helpless. Rather, most of them have no desire to put serious thought into the election. They want to follow the crowd, not do their own research or thinking.

When Do We Complain About The Voters?

Imagine an extreme example. Imagine that instead of John Kerry as the alternative to Bush in the upcoming election, imagine the CIA manipulates the elections and gets Jeff Dahmer nominated as the Democratic candidate. During the campaign the Republicans complain that Dahmer is a cannibal and a murderer. But the Democrats fight back by complaining that George Bush is an alcoholic, rich kid of low intelligence and that he may have murdered a woman he got pregnant.
Now imagine that Dahmer gets elected President. And during his presidency he kills and eats some of the interns at the White House. But despite the rumors that he is eating government employees, about 50 percent of the nation continues to support him.

Now comes the issue for you to think about. Would you be complaining that President Dahmer should be arrested? Would you complain that the elections are a farce and that the voters are helpless?

Or would you be staring at your fellow citizens and asking yourself, what is wrong with these people for tolerating an election between Bush and Dahmer?

During the 2000 elections I was wondering how my mother, my neighbors, and other seemingly intelligent people could vote for Bush or Gore rather than demand new elections with new candidates. Today I wonder how most voters can continue to regard Bush as a great leader.

Can We Stop The Manipulation Of Voters?

The majority of voters behave as if they have absolutely no ability to think. The elections remind me of the news reports about teenage boys who have been arrested for having sex with a retarded girl in their neighborhood. Most voters behave like a retarded girl, and the boys who rape her are analogous to the political candidates, the CIA, and other people who deceive the girl.
When boys use a retarded girl for sex, most people would say the girl is a victim and the boys are committing a crime. But what do we say when millions of voters are deceived? Is a crime being committed? If so, by whom? Are the candidates committing a crime when they lie to the voters? Are the voters helpless victims of dishonest candidates or the CIA?

Most voters are deceived on a routine basis by political candidates. Every election we hear the same promises, such as no more taxes and reducing the size of government. But every year the government gets larger and taxes increase.

What do we do to stop this abuse in the future elections? The first time a voter falls for this deception we could say it is because he is naive, but what happens when he believes the same lies over and over and over? Do we set up a committee to watch over the elections and make decisions on when the voters are being manipulated? If so, who watches that committee to ensure they are honest?

It's possible that this problem would be reduced dramatically if our schools would teach children about voting, deception, and what to look for in a candidate. However, the attitude in America, and I suppose in other nations also, is that people inherently know how to vote. Supposedly, voting is as natural as breathing. Supposedly, there is no way to help people become better voters.

Compare our attitudes towards voting to the attitude a personnel department of a corporation has when it must hire managers. A personnel department will look at the past performance of a job applicant and try to determine if he has shown signs of having leadership abilities. They also interview him.

If George Bush had been born into an ordinary family and applied for a management position in a corporation, the personnel department would have dismissed him as soon as they glanced at his resume because they would notice that he never did anything during his life. They would not even bother to call him for an interview. By comparison, most voters don't care about the past performance of a candidate, nor do they have any desire to hold in-depth interviews with candidates.

Is there really a difference between citizens who are voting for government leaders and corporations that are hiring people for management positions? I don't think so. In both situations a group of people are trying to select leaders.

Why Should People Be Pressured To Vote?

The widespread attitude is that everybody should vote regardless of whether they want to. We are taught that it is our duty to vote. People who don't want to vote are often ridiculed, but why should someone be pressured into selecting government officials when they have no desire to do so? This seems as stupid as pressuring a woman into having babies when she has no desire to care for them.
If you were in control of a corporation, would you demand every one of your employees vote on which job applicant gets selected for top management positions? And if some employees resisted voting, would you tell them that is their duty to vote?

Some people have proposed fines for people who don't vote. But pressuring people into voting makes our situation worse because it helps incompetent candidates get elected. The reason is that the people who are forced to vote are not likely to pay much attention to the election. They are more likely to select a candidate according to what he looks like, or what sort of promises he makes, or whose name appears first on the list.

Some 9-11 activists complain that this subject is not part of the 9-11 movement, but I say the reason the scams occur year after year is because our governments are crummy. I say the 9-11 activists are fooling themselves if they think that analyzing more photographs of the Pentagon attack or electing John Kerry is going to improve our situation. I say we need to spend time discussing how to get voters to do a better job.

This 9-11 movement has done a good job investigating the scam, and it is doing OK with the dispersal of information. But the 9-11 movement is not learning anything about why these scams occur, nor does it discuss what we can do to prevent future scams. All we are doing is showing that the attack was a scam. This is equivalent to a car mechanic who tells you that your car has problems but who refuses to discuss how to fix the car.

We ought to be proposing changes to our nation, such as teaching children about voting. Children should also be taught to stop feeling sorry for themselves and that they are not helpless victims of a few rich families or secret societies. Children should be taught that they are responsible for themselves and their nation, and that their life and our nation is what they make it.

A Society Is A Reflection Of Its People

The laws in a society are a reflection of how the people behave, and the cities are a reflection of what the people want from life. The products for sale and the treatment of customers by businesses are also a reflection of the people.
A good way to understand this concept is to a imagine that a billion copies of you were manufactured and put on a separate planet. Of course, since your duplicates would be the same age and sex, you would all die together and you could not have children, but ignore the unrealistic aspects of this scenario. I bring this up only to let you think about what life would be like on a planet that is full of people exactly like you. What sort of laws would you need? Would there be car thefts? Would you build any gambling casinos? How many fistfights would be on that planet? How many wars? What would the television shows be like? How much corruption would there be in business? How many of you would be struggling desperately to become billionaires? Would airline crews be forced to stand by the door and say goodbye to people as they walked off the airplane?

If each of us were put on our own planet and a billion duplicates of us were created, we would find that each planet is slightly different. The reason is that each planet would be a reflection of the person who was duplicated.

After you've thought about what a planet would be like full of people exactly like you, compare that to America. Corruption has always been widespread in both business and government, and slavery reached extremes that no nation has ever seen. There have also been tremendous problems with alcohol and other drugs. Gambling is a very large industry. The books in most bookstores are at the twelve-year-old intellectual level. And there is a tremendous craving for money and fame. Businessmen manipulate their employees and customers on a routine basis, and they try to find ways to exploit our laws.

Would a planet with a billion duplicates of you be better or worse than America?

The American people make America what it is. If the American people truly were better than all other people on the planet, then this nation would reflect their superiority.

No nation is a helpless victim of a few rich families or secret societies. Rather, most people don't want to accept responsibility for themselves. We want to blame some small group of people or some mysterious force. I'll explain this concept with television news.

"But Jews Control Us! We're Helpless!"

Some people say the reason our television news is crummy is because a small number of Jews have control over the media and their goal is to destroy our society. It certainly seems true that lots of Jews have executive positions in our news organizations, and it is entirely possible that some of those Jews are fantasizing about taking control of America. However, those Jews are not forcing you or me to watch their news shows, nor are those Jews forcing you or me to subscribe to Newsweek.
Some people complain that the Jews are not giving us any alternatives, but we have lots of alternatives. First of all, we can chose to avoid their products. Second, there are alternative radio stations and television shows. We have options. We are not helpless victims of a few executives.

We also have the freedom to start our own newspapers, television shows, and radio shows. Many large cities have special channels set aside for the public to produce their own television shows at no cost. How much better can our situation become?

Unfortunately, the people who have produced serious television shows have discovered that only a few people will watch them. When given the choice between watching serious news or CBS news, most people prefer the sexual titillation and intellectual simplicity of the CBS news. It's like giving children the option to eat cookies or vegetables.

CBS, NBC, and ABC are gigantic, highly profitable businesses with an enormous audience simply because they provide television shows that millions of people want to watch.

The television companies are always experimenting with their shows in an attempt to attract more viewers. The experiments have shown that most people do not want to think. Rather, they want to be entertained, praised, and sexually titillated.

Our television executives are analogous to a doctor who has discovered that he can make a lot of money by offering his patients prescriptions for codeine or Vicodin.

We have laws to stop doctors from behaving in this manner, but we do not have laws to stop television executives from behaving in a similar manner.

How Many People Can Handle Freedom?

Should we create laws to regulate television news? If we create such laws, we are classifying the majority of Americans as second-class citizens who need government supervision in selecting their television shows. This brings up the question, if the majority of people need the government to regulate television news, why are we letting them vote?
By not having laws to regulate television news, we end up with immoral businessmen fighting with each other to provide the public with entertainment and sexual titillation rather than news. That in turn results in children who are raised in homes where CNN and Newsweek are the source of knowledge.

Also, because these television executives have such low moral standards, they are more likely to support government scams by mixing CIA propaganda into the news. The end result is that millions of children are raised on entertainment, sexual titillation, and government propaganda. And because school textbooks also contain government propaganda about Kennedy, Oklahoma City, and other issues, schools are also deceiving children.

Allowing the government to regulate the news and school textbooks might seem to be a solution, but our government is so incompetent they would make the situation worse. Before we consider allowing the government to regulate school books or the news, we must provide ourselves with a respectable government. But how can we get a respectable government when the voters are so incompetent and ignorant?

American television news is a reflection of the American people. Our news is idiotic because this is the type of news that most Americans prefer. Some people believe that the disgusting aspects of our television news is due to a few Jews who are deliberately trying to destroy America. However, the people who blame Jews simply do not want to face the possibility that the American people are incapable of handling the freedom to select their own television shows. Rather than describe the American people as irresponsible and immature, the Jews are blamed for forcing us to watch idiotic television shows.

Most American simply do not want to take responsibility for the problems in this nation, so they look for somebody to blame. The drug problem is one of the more obvious examples. Throughout my entire life I've been listening to Americans complain that foreign drug dealers are making Americans take drugs. When I was a child, the Afghans and Turks were frequently blamed for making Americans abuse drugs. Today most Americans blame Mexicans and South Americans. The American people simply refuse to take responsibility for their drug use.

Each of us is responsible for our behavior. Nobody is making us do anything. There are no magic drug dealers to make us abuse drugs, there are no magic Jews to make us watch CBS news, and there are no magic Skull and Bones members who can make us vote for George Bush or John Kerry.

Ignore The Secrect Societies!

It may be true that a small handful of Jews, Masons, Illuminatati, or Skull and Bones members are trying to destroy America, but if any of those groups succeed, it will not be because they have magic powers. Rather, it will be because tens of millions of Americans are too incompetent to take care of their nation.
I would say the main lesson we should be learning from 9-11 and other scams is that we can do something to make the world better if we stop feeling sorry for ourselves, stop blaming small groups for controlling us, and start discussing this issue of what do we do with this nation.

If you want an MP3 audio file of this speech, click your right mouse button here and download it (it is 56 megabytes).

I have videos for you to watch (for free) at: HugeQuestions.com - Eric Hufschmid

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:28 AM

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

THE CAR THAT MAKES ITS OWN FUEL [excerpt] 

A unique system that can produce Hydrogen inside a car using common metals such as Magnesium and Aluminum was developed by an Israeli company. The system solves all of the obstacles associated with the manufacturing, transporting and storing of hydrogen to be used in cars. When it becomes commercial in a few years time, the system will be incorporated into cars that will cost about the same as existing conventional cars to run, and will be completely emission free. - IsraCast © 2005 IsraCast Jerusalem. [See the Fair Use Notice, below.] (via Slashdot)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:49 AM

NO WAY OUT [excerpt] 

Richebacher: Yah, that's right...The thing to realize, of course, is that the housing bubble is many times more dangerous than the stock market bubble, because it involves the whole banking system. Greenspan has replaced one bubble
with an even bigger and more dangerous bubble. It's insane.

American monetary policy is out of control. Greenspan has created a debt Colossus. This debt Colossus needs permanent new credit. In an economy that needs four dollars in credit to produce one dollar of GDP, simply reducing credit could
be disastrous. Even a slight reduction of credit could create enormous negative repercussions in the asset markets and financial markets.

The level of credit excess in America has reached such a level of absurdity that no return to normalcy is possible without a disastrous effect on the economy.

...From a fundamental point of view, the American economy is in incomparably worst condition today than in 2000. Income growth for the individual is stagnating. It is negative. And there is no savings. America has no reserves to protect itself against the next recession. - Eric J. Fry Copyright © 2000-2005 Agora Financial LLC. [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:37 AM

letter to Barbara Felker, the responsible counsel in the Treasury Department for handling Section 861 positions. 

The June 26, 2003 letter that follows* this brief overview was sent by me, Tom Clayton, MD (Larken Rose's partner), as yet another attempt (now going on for FIVE years) to COMPEL the Treasury Department's government designated "expert" regulation writing lawyers for Subchapter N, Section 861 and following to answer specific questions about the regulations under this section of the law that say what is almost exactly the opposite of what the public has been "led to believe" in regards to who has "taxable income" and who does not.

The written law is (and must be) constitutional, which means that it is not only written correctly but that it tells the truth. And tell the truth it does, provided the reader knows where to look and what to look for. For over 80 years, the law (primarily the regulations) is where the irrefutable PROOF is found that the income tax is imposed only on those engaged in INTERNATIONAL and possessions commerce.

Generations of government lawyers and politicians have knowingly written and arranged the law to DECEIVE the public into paying money not owed by law. They were able to CONCEAL the fact that the domestically earned incomes of residents of the United States (whether Americans or resident aliens) are EXEMPT from federal taxation under the Constitution.

In other words, the Constitution does NOT give Congress the power to impose a broad income tax on domestic commerce; only foreign (international) and possessions commerce can be taxed in this manner, and that is EXACTLY what the law shows, provided the reader knows WHAT to look for and WHERE to look. How they did it is the purpose of these websites; to show the public what the law says and has always said. The written proof is found on this website in the written report "Taxable Income,"and the video form is entitled "Theft By Deception."

Government lawyers are NOT at liberty to ignore the written law. Although this FRAUD started many years ago, for the current Treasury Department lawyers to refuse to acknowledge the truth in the regulations (which were last revised in 1978) is CRIMINAL, because (consistent with over 80 years of prior law) they do NOT show that the incomes of most Americans are taxed.

The public deserves to know the correct application of the law. They deserve to NOT be deceived by the Treasury Department and DOJ (who continues to attack the private sector KNOWING that most do not owe federal income taxes and never have).

Treasury Department lawyers wrote the regulations correctly that prove the severely limited scope of the tax (and where it has lain hidden "in plain sight" since 1921). The truth is found in Subchapter N, Section 861, the (previously) almost universally misunderstood (therefore misapplied) section of the law that proves that most of the public has NEVER owed federal income taxes.

The pubic deserves to NOT be deceived by government law-writing lawyers, who knew that there was no legal "requirement" for them to make the severely limited scope of the income tax law easy to find. Over the years, these government lawyers took full advantage of the public's ignorance of the law (as well as tax professionals who made "assumptions" and did not read the law carefully) making it progressively harder to find the truth in the law that only incomes from international and possessions commerce were taxed.

Thanks to the Internet and computer search engines, as well as the dedication of Larken Rose, we have found all the pieces of the "puzzle" that the Treasury Department "hoped" nobody would ever find (in widely separated parts of the law that should have been placed together).

The law does NOT lie and the evidence that the public has been defrauded for over 80 years will not go away. The insurmountable problem for the federal government is that the purely domestically earned incomes of Americans are NOT SHOWN TO BE TAXABLE (and never have been) in the regulations under Section 861. In other words, the income taxation that the Treasury Department has been enforcing and misrepresenting to the public is MISSING FROM THE WRITTEN LAW.

The income tax statute 26 USC § 861(b) [Taxable Income from sources within United States] and the related regulations beginning at 26 CFR § 1.861-8 are those sections of the law that tell the reader WHEN income from sources within the United States (domestic commerce) is taxable. These are also the regulations that show the reader WHEN income from sources outside the United States is taxable (international commerce) and the regulations under 26 USC § 862 [Taxable Income from sources without United States] refer back to it.

The reader finds that the ONLY U.S. citizens with "taxable income" are those engaged in certain types of international and possessions commerce, which corresponds exactly with the areas over which Congress has jurisdiction granted by the Constitution. The reader finds NOTHING that talks about the income taxation of U.S. citizens enaged in purely domestic commerce (commerce within the 50 states). Deceiving the public about what the law says is THEFT. Theft by deception.

Everyone is required to obey the law as written, including government lawyers. If YOU are a person that the law shows has "taxable income" from sources within or without the United States, then you are required to pay taxes on it (after allowable deductions), whether you like it or not. But if your income is NOT shown to be taxable, then you have to do nothing, just like any other part of the law that does not apply to your circumstances. There is no such thing as a "voluntary" tax of any kind. People have not been "volunteering" to pay the tax, they have been deceived into thinking that the law required them to pay the tax, when in most (but not all) cases it did not do so.

The questions to the government designated "experts" were specifically designed to be answered yes or no using the exact words of those regulations in order to CONFIRM what the regulations say (that the only incomes derived from domestic commerce that are shown to be taxable are when they are received by foreigners). Those questions, with explanations of why they are so relevant (and showing how they must be answered), can be seen here.

As you will see, the severely limited scope of the income tax law is directly related to the fact that the Constitution did NOT grant Congress indirect income taxing jurisdiction over domestic commerce. Congress cannot (and Section 861 shows that they did not) impose an indirect (excise) tax on the incomes of Americans derived from domestic commerce. Congress can (and Section 861 shows that they did) impose an indirect income tax on the incomes of Americans derived from INTERNATIONAL commerce. [Congress does have the ability to impose a one time direct tax, but it must be apportioned].

The prior law (www.861evidence.com) proves that the regulations under Subchapter N come to the same conclusions for over 80 years. The income taxation that the public has been led to believe exists is MISSING; the law has NEVER talked about the taxation of the exclusively domestically earned incomes of U.S. citizens because the taxation of DOMESTIC COMMERCE with an indirect income tax is prohibited by the Constitution. This is why Congress cannot just change the law.

The law was deliberately arranged and written to mislead the reader so they they would get the "impression" that the income tax is a direct tax on incomes and all incomes are taxed, while the truth was buried in Section 861. The law taxes incomes from domestic commerce only when that income crosses country borders (of the United States) and is received by foreigners (which places it under foreign commerce, over which Congress has been given indirect income taxing jurisdiction). The makes the commerce part of commerce with foreign nations (the terms that the Constitution uses).

Once the structure of the deception is realized, the cumulative evidence in the law itself that the public has been deceived is simply overwhelming. There are many people from all walks of life that are realizing on their own (by looking at the specific words of the law) that the law is SEVERELY limited in scope (who it applies to and under what circumstances) and that most of them do NOT owe federal income taxes.

The Internet cannot be stopped from spreading the truth, but the DOJ lawyers are illegally trying to do so. At www.861.info, they can see for themselves how the government is actively trying to stop the public from learning that Subchapter N IS the CRITICAL section of the law that EVERYONE must use to determine whether or not their income is taxable.

This federal abuse of power that has for so many years enabled them to steal from the public is outrageous and must end, and the Internet is making that happen. The Internet has made the exact wording of the law available to anyone with a computer and Internet connection, free of charge. The Internet has dramatically changed the standards of proof. To be fair, this deception could only suceed because of widespread ignorance, but with the Internet this is no longer possible.

This is why I did NOT just ask them if my income earned exclusively within the 50 states was taxable or not, as so many poor souls have done over the years, "trusting" the federal government and Treasury Department to tell the truth. It would have been too easy to lie and tell me YES it was taxable, but that is not good enough anymore; the public is now DEMANDING to see where the law taxes them (just like they would demand to see proof if somebody came up to them and claimed that money was owed).

By having to answer the specifics of each STEP that exists in the law itself for the reader to determine whether he has "taxable income" or not, the regulation writing lawyers who know the law better than anyone else had three choices:

1. Answer correctly, which would "admit" that the regulations show that most Americans have been deceived into paying income taxes that most of them never owed (which is what they have showed for over 80 years), or

2. Answer incorrectly, which CONTRADICTS what the regulations show.

3. Refuse to answer to "avoid" having to tell the truth.

It is one thing to be ignorant of the law and make a mistake. But these government designated Subchapter N, Section 861-865 "experts" CANNOT claim to not know the regulations that they are supposed to be expert about.

But they have refused to answer the questions on multiple occasions. They have refused to even talk about the 861 regulations, proving that they are determined to continue MISREPRESENTING the severely limited scope of the federal income tax law to the public—as well as to the average IRS employee, in order to steal money not owed by law.
Knowingly deceiving even ONE member of the public is criminal misconduct, and a sad commentary on the state of the federal government, who could care less about the written law, meanwhile they are attacking the private sector for "fraud," when they are running the biggest fraud of them all. As you will see for yourself below, these conclusions are NOT a misinterpretation of the regulations. Once the structure of the deception is understood (diberately made to be difficult to understand) these regulations make sense, particularly when compared with prior law.

Furthermore, if this was wrong, then it would have been very EASY for them to "correct" me by simply showing where the law taxes my income. But they cannot do so because it does not exist in the law and they know it. Amazingly, there is proof that the lawyers at the DOJ ("Department of Justice") have known about the fraud for many years. For example, in 1985, in an argument submitted by Bruce Hinshelwood, Assistant United States Attorney in Orlando, Florida, he admitted:

"The government is unable, therefore, to offer case authority for the universally accepted proposition that a citizen of the United States, working and residing in the United States, subject to federal law, earning wages, and responsible for filing an income tax return, is liable for taxation." [Ward v. US, 11 th Cir.]

THE FAILURE TO SEE WHAT WAS MISSING:

There is a basic principle that the law must CLEARLY STATE who is taxed and under what circumstances, and that is exactly what the regulations do under Section 861. The regulations do NOT show that incomes from domestic sources (commerce within the 50 states, meaning most incomes) are taxed if the income is received by US citizens, but those regulations do show that incomes derived from domestic commerce ARE taxed if the income is received by foreigners.

But for over 80 years this section of the law has been misunderstood and misapplied by nearly everyone because it shows that the ONLY taxable sources of income for U.S. citizens are related to certain specific types of foreign and international (not domestic) commerce. The law DOES mean what the words say.

I have worked with Larken Rose for over six years behind the scenes for the sole purpose of educating the public about the correct application of Subchapter N, Section 861 and following and the regulations thereunder. These actions are completely protected by the First Amendment, which the DOJ and IRS ignore, along with other basic rights of citizens and many other parts of the law that they are REQUIRED to obey, just like the public. We have been doing this solely because the public deserves to know the truth of what the law says.

The public is not stupid and the law does not lie. I was behind the scenes before my house was raided with no basis in law to do so. The DOJ knowingly violated my 1st Amendment rights to freedom of speech by stealing over 150 videos and other educational material. So, these thug tactics and gross violations of constitutional rights and criminal statutes have had the OPPOSITE effect that they "hoped" would happen; I am now on the front line with Larken. The DOJ may not give a damn about obeying the law, but we WANT publicity; the law does not lie and the evidence of this massive theft will not go away.

The bottom line is this: For the government (which is supposed to be by and for the people) to be deceiving the public into paying an income tax that most of them do not owe by keeping them ignorant of what the law specifically says is ethically, morally, and legally WRONG.

It is a bizarre situation indeed where members of the public are trying to COMPEL the government to obey the law that THEY WROTE. The DOJ lawyers knowingly disobeying the law and violating constitutionally protected rights cannot be and will not be tolerated.

But the fact of the matter is that we ARE a nation of the written rule of law and honest members of the public have no choice but to work to STOP this theft by deception. STEALING MONEY with no basis in law by deceiving the public about what the law specifically states cannot be tolerated now that the truth in the law is understood.

Can YOU just stand by while you and your neighbors are being robbed, now that you know what the law says? - Tom Clayton, MD [*The June 26, 2003 letter can be seen by scrolling down here.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:50 AM

Monday, October 24, 2005

Jurisdiction of the courts 

Well, I asked lots of questions and boxed the judges into a corner where they had to give me victory or admit what they didn't want to admit. I won the case, and on the way out I had to stop by the clerk's office to get some papers. One judge stopped and said, "You're an interesting man, Mr. Freeman. If you're ever in town, stop by, and if I'm not sitting on a case we will visit."
America is Bankrupt
Later, when I went to visit the judge, I told him of my problem with the Supreme Court cases dealing with Public Policy rather than Public Law. He said, "In 1938, all the higher judges, the top attorneys, and the U.S. Attorneys were called into a secret meeting and this is what we were told: 'America is a bankrupt nation. It is owned completely by its creditors. The creditors own the Congress, they own the Executive, they own the Judiciary and they own all the State Governments. Take silent judicial notice of this fact, but never reveal it openly. Your court is operating under Admiralty Jurisdiction - call it anything you want, but do not call it "Admiralty."'
Admiralty Courts
The reason they cannot call it Admiralty Jurisdiction is that your defense would be different in Admiralty Jurisdiction from your defense under the Common Law. In Admiralty, there is no court that has jurisdiction unless there is a valid international contract in dispute. If you know it is Admiralty Jurisdiction, and they have admitted on the record that you are in an Admiralty Court, you can demand that the international maritime contract, to which you are supposedly a party, and, which you supposedly have breached, be placed in evidence.
No court has Admiralty or Maritime Jurisdiction unless there is a valid International Maritime Contract that was breached.
So you say, innocent like a lamb, "Well, I never knew that I got involved with an international maritime contract, so I deny that such a contract exists. If this court is taking jurisdiction in Admiralty, then place the contract in evidence, so that I may challenge the validity of it. What they would have to do is place the national debt into evidence. They would have to admit that the International Bankers own the whole nation, and that we are their slaves!
Not Expedient
The bankers said it is not expedient at this time to admit that they own everything and could foreclose on every nation of the world. The reason they don't want to tell everyone that they own everything is that there are still too many privately owned guns. There are uncooperative armies and other military forces. So until they can gradually consolidate all armies into a WORLD ARMY and all courts into a single WORLD COURT, it is not politic to admit the jurisdiction under which the courts are operating.
When we understand these things, we realize that there are certain secrets they don't want to admit and we can use this to our benefit.
Jurisdiction
The Constitution of the United States mentions three jurisdictions in which the courts may operate: Common Law, Equity Law, and Admiralty or Maritime Law.
Common Law
Common Law (Natural or Constitutional Law) is based on [the Creator's] Laws as originally presented by Moses. Anytime someone is charged under the Common Law, there must be a damaged party. You are free under the Common Law to do anything you please, as long as you do not infringe on the life, liberty, or property of someone else. You have a right to make a fool of yourself provided you do not infringe on the life, liberty, or property of someone else. The Common Law does not allow for any governmental action that prevents a man from making a fool of himself. For instance, when you cross state line 5, you will probably see a sign that says, "BUCKLE YOUR SEAT BELTS - IT'S THE LAW." This cannot be Common Law because who would you injure if you did not buckle up? Nobody. This would be compelled performance. But Common Law cannot compel performance. Any violation of Common Law is a CRIMINAL ACT, and is punishable.
Equity is law that compels performance. It compels you to perform to the exact letter of any contract that you are a party too. So, if you have compelled performance, there must be a contract somewhere, and you are being compelled to perform under the obligation of that contract. Now this can only be a civil action -- not criminal. In Equity Jurisdiction you cannot be tried criminally, but you can be compelled to perform to the letter of a contract. If you then refuse to perform as directed by the court, you can be charged with contempt of court, which is a criminal action. Are our seat belt laws Equity Laws? No, they are not, because you cannot be penalized (imprisoned) or punished for not keeping to the letter of a contract.
Admiralty or Maritime Law
This is a civil jurisdiction of Compelled Performance that also has Criminal Penalties for not adhering to the letter of a contract, but this only applies to International Contracts. Now we can see what jurisdiction the seat belt laws (and all traffic laws, building codes, ordinances, tax codes, etc.) are under. Whenever there is a penalty for failure to perform (such as willful failure to file), that is Admiralty or Maritime Law and there must be a valid international contract in force.
However, the courts don't want to admit that they are operating under Admiralty or Maritime Jurisdiction, so they took international law or Law Merchant and adopted it into our codes. This is what the Supreme Court decided in the Erie Railroad case, that the decisions from then on will be based on commercial law or business law and that it will have criminal penalties associated with it. Since they were instructed not to call it Admiralty Jurisdiction, they now call it Statutory Jurisdiction.
Courts of Contract
You may ask how we got into a situation where we can be charged with failure to wear seat belts and be fined for it. Isn't the judge sworn to uphold the Constitution? Yes, he is. But you must understand that the Constitution in Article I, Section 10, gives us the unlimited right to contract, as long as we do not infringe on the life, liberty, or property of someone else. Contracts are enforceable, and the Constitution gives two jurisdictions where contracts can be enforced: Equity and Admiralty. But we find them being enforced in Statutory Jurisdiction. This is the embarrassing part for the courts, but we can use this to box the judges into a corner in their own courts. We will cover this later.
Contracts Must be Voluntary
Under the Common Law (Natural Law), both parties must enter into every contract knowingly, voluntarily, and intentionally or it is void and unenforceable. These are characteristics of a Common Law contract.
There is another characteristic. It must be based on substance. For example, contracts used to read: "For one dollar and other valuable considerations, I will paint your house, etc." That was a valid contract; the dollar was a genuine, silver dollar. Now, suppose you wrote a contract that said: "For one Federal Reserve Note and other considerations, I will paint your house, etc." and suppose, for example, I painted your house the wrong color. Could you go into a Common Law court and get justice? No, you could not. You see, a Federal Reserve Note is a "colorable" dollar as it has no substance, and in a Common Law jurisdiction that contract would be unenforceable because the Federal Reserve Note is not substance.
"Colorable: That which is in appearance only, and not in reality, what it purports to be; hence counterfeit, feigned, having the appearance of truth." Black's Law Dictionary, 5th ed.
Colorable Money and Colorable Courts
The word "colorable" means something that appears to be genuine, but is not. Maybe it looks like a dollar, and maybe it spends like a dollar, but if it is not redeemable for lawful money (silver and gold) it is colorable. If a Federal Reserve Note is used in a contract, then the contract becomes a colorable contract, and colorable contracts must be enforced under a colorable jurisdiction. So by creating Federal Reserve Notes, the government had to create a jurisdiction to cover the kinds of contracts that use them. We now have what is called Statutory Jurisdiction, which is not a genuine Admiralty Jurisdiction. It is colorable because we are using colorable money. Colorable Admiralty is now known as Statutory Jurisdiction. Let's see how we came under this Statutory Jurisdiction.
Uniform Commercial Code
The government set up a colorable law system to fit the colorable currency. It used to be called the Law Merchant or the Law of Redeemable Instruments, because it dealt with paper that was redeemable in something of substance. But, once Federal Reserve Notes had become unredeemable, there had to be a system of law that was completely colorable from start to finish. This system of law was codified as the Uniform Commercial Code, and has been adopted in every state. This is colorable law, and is used in all the courts.
I explained one of the keys to this mess earlier, which is that the country is bankrupt and we have no rights. If the master says, "Jump!" then the slave had better jump (compelled performance) because the master has the right to cut off his head. As slaves (we are compelled to perform), we have no rights. But the creditors or masters had to cover that up, so they created a system of law called the Uniform Commercial Code. This colorable jurisdiction under the Uniform Commercial Code is the next key to understanding what has happened.
Contract or Agreement
One difference between Common Law and the Uniform Commercial Code is that in Common Law, contracts must be entered into: (1) Knowingly; (2) Voluntarily; and (3) Intentionally. Under the U.C.C., this is not so. First of all, written contracts are unnecessary. Under this new law, "agreements" can be binding and if you only exercise the benefits of an "agreement" it is presumed or implied that you intend to meet the obligations associated with those benefits. If you accept a benefit offered by government, then you are, obligated to follow, to the letter, each and every statute involved with that benefit. The method has been to get everybody exercising a benefit and they don't even have to tell the people what the benefit is. Some people think it is the drivers' license, the marriage license, or the birth certificate, etc. I believe it is none of these.
Compelled Benefit
I believe the benefit being used is that we have been given the privilege of discharging debt with limited liability, instead of actually paying off debt en toto with substance. When we pay a debt, we give substance for substance. If I buy a quart of milk with a silver dollar, that dollar bought the milk, and the milk bought the dollar; substance for substance. But if I use a Federal Reserve Note to buy the milk, I have not paid for it. I still owe for the milk. I have incurred debt. There is no substance in the Federal Reserve Note. It is worthless paper (because it cannot be reasonably used for anything else) given in exchange for something of substantive value. We have been "given" a way to escape this endless accrual of debt albeit with plenty of strings. Congress offers us this escape in the form of a benefit; debt money, created by the Federal United States, can be spent all over the continental United States; it will be legal tender for all debts, public and private, and the limited liability is that you cannot be sued for not paying your debts when you "pay" a debt using this colorable money.
So now they have said, "We're going to help you out, and you can just discharge your debts instead of paying your debts." When we use this "colorable" money to discharge our debts, we cannot use a Common Law court. We can only use a colorable court. We are completely under the jurisdiction of the Uniform Commercial Code -- we are using non-redeemable negotiable instruments and we are discharging debt rather than paying debts.
Courtroom Technique
Question: How did you "box in" the Judge? This is easy to do if you don't know too much. I didn't know too much, but I boxed him in. You must play a little dumb. If you are arrested and you go into court, just remember that in a criminal action, you have to understand the law or it is a reversible error for the court to try you. If you don't understand the law, they can't try you. (5 UCC Y3-415). "Accommodation Party." One who signs commercial paper in any capacity for purpose lending his name to another party to instrument. Such a party is a surety. Surety is, "One who undertakes to pay money or do other act in the event that his principal fails therein." In any traffic case or tax case you are called into court and the judge reads the law and then asks, "Do you understand the charges?"
Defendant: No, your Honor, I do not. Judge: "Well, what's so difficult about that charge? Either you drove the wrong-way on a one-way street or you didn't. You can only go one way on that street, and if you go the other way it's a fifty dollar fine. What's so difficult about this that you don't understand?" Defendant: Well, You Honor, it's not the letter of the law, but rather the nature of the law that I don't understand. The Sixth Amendment of the Constitution gives me the right to request the court to explain the nature of any action against me, and upon my request, the court has the duty to answer. I have a question about the nature of this action.
Judge: Well, what is that? What do you want to know? Always ask some easy questions first, as this establishes the fact that they are answering. You ask: Defendant: Well, your Honor, is this a Civil or a Criminal Action? Judge: It is a criminal. (If it were a civil action there could be no fine, so it has to be criminal.) Defendant: Thank you, your Honor, for telling me that. Then the record will show that this action against (your name) is a criminal action, is that right? Judge: Yes.
Defendant: I would like to ask another question about this criminal action. There are two criminal jurisdictions mentioned in the Constitution: one is under the Common Law, and the other deals with International Maritime Contracts, under Admiralty Jurisdiction. Equity is Civil, and you said this is a Criminal action, so it seems it would have to be under either the Common Law, or Maritime Law. But what puzzles me, your Honor, is that there is no corpus delecti here that gives the court a jurisdiction over my person and property under the Common Law. Therefore, it doesn't appear to me that this court is moving under the Common Law.
Judge: No, I can assure this court is not moving under the Common Law. Defendant: Well, thank you, your Honor, but now you make the charge against me even more difficult to understand. The only other criminal jurisdiction would apply only if there was an International Maritime Contract involved. I would have to a party to it, and it would have to be breached. Too, the court would have to be operating in an Admiralty Jurisdiction.
I don't believe I have ever been under any International Maritime contract, so I would deny that one exists. I would have to demand that such a contract, if it does exist, be placed in evidence, so that I would have the chance to contest it. But surely, this court is not operating under an Admiralty Jurisdiction.
You just put the words in the judges’ mouth.
Judge: No, I can assure you, we're not operating under an Admiralty Jurisdiction. We're not out in the ocean somewhere. We're right here in the middle of the State of (any state). No, this is not an Admiralty Jurisdiction. Defendant: Thank you your Honor, but now I am more puzzled that ever. If this charge is not under the Common Law, or under Admiralty -- and those are the only two criminal jurisdictions mentioned in the constitution -- what kind of jurisdiction could this court be operating under? Judge: It's Statutory Jurisdiction.
Defendant: Oh, thank you, your Honor. I'm glad you told me that. But I have never heard of that jurisdiction. So, if I have to defend under that jurisdiction, I would need to have the Rules of Criminal Procedure for Statutory Jurisdiction. Can you tell me where I might find those rules?
There are no rules for Statutory Jurisdiction; so the judge will get very angry at this point and say: Judge: If you want the answers to questions like that, you get yourself a licensed attorney. I'm not allowed to practice law from the bench.
Defendant: Oh, your Honor, I don't think anyone would accuse you of practicing law from the bench if you just answered a few questions to explain to me the nature of this action, so that I might defend myself. Judge: I told you before, I am not going to answer any more questions. Do you understand that? If you ask any more questions in regards to this, I'm going to find you in contempt of court! Now if you can't afford a licensed attorney, the court will provide you one. But if you want those questions answered, you must get yourself a licensed attorney.
Defendant: Thank you, your Honor, but let me just see if I got this straight. This court has made a legal determination that it has authority to conduct a criminal action against me, the accused, under a secret jurisdiction, the rules of which are known only to this court and licensed attorneys, thereby denying me the right to defend in my own person?
He has no answer for that. The judge will probably postpone the case and eventually just let it go. In this way, you can be as "wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove, but you mustn't go into court with a chip on your shoulder and as a wolf in "black sheep" country. Remember [the Savior's] words, "I send you out as sheep in wolf country, be wise as a serpent, and harmless as a dove." Sheep do not attack wolves directly. Just be an innocent little lamb who just can't understand the charge. Remember, too, they can't try you criminally if you don't understand the charge. That would automatically be a reversible error on appeal. - R, seventh comment, 10/24/2005 3:20 PM. [R mentioned that the above was derived from a 6-page paper s/he found here.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 3:07 PM

How staged sex crime fooled Supreme Court [excerpt] 

Was the U.S. Supreme Court fooled by a make-believe sodomy case in Lawrence v. Texas – one manufactured by homosexual activists to entrap police and ensnare the judicial system in a conspiracy to change the law of the land?

That is the compelling verdict of a new book, "Sex Appealed: Was the U.S. Supreme Court Fooled?" by Judge Janice Law. - Joseph Farah © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc. [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:34 AM

Sunday, October 23, 2005

A. You are a beautiful and unique snowflake
B. After you are gone and without you, life will go on relatively unchanged; much as it did before you arrived
C. There is something wonderfully amazing about that fact - Frisbee Girl Copyright © 2004-2005 by Frisbee Girl [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:01 PM

Sun's Up 

Image taken Wednesday October 19, 2005 at Mount Upton, New York. - mike

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:41 PM

Kubrick2001: the space odyssey explained 

A New Media Giants Presentation (via sarchi)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 5:55 PM

Iraq Is Bush's Tar Baby 

In commenting on Saddam Hussein's trial, President Bush should have steered away from the subject of international law. Under international law, Saddam is right – he's still the legal president of Iraq.

Don't misinterpret any of this as a defense of Saddam. He deserves to be hanged, shot, chopped into little pieces, etc. His abuses of the Iraqi people are too well-known to be repeated.

Nevertheless, it is important for us to keep our facts straight. Saddam was not overthrown by the Iraqi people. He was overthrown by the U.S. Army. Furthermore, the invasion of Iraq, which resulted in his overthrow, was, under international law, illegal as heck.

Iraq was not at war with us. Iraq had not invaded us or even threatened us. It had not attacked us. Furthermore, it was in compliance with United Nations resolutions. That's why President Bush could not persuade the U.N. Security Council to endorse his invasion. That's why practically the whole world opposed our invasion.

It would have been better if Saddam had been kept on ice until a permanent government was elected in Iraq and we were on the way out. No matter what we say, this trial will be viewed by many in the Muslim world as a show trial staged by the Americans through their puppets in order to justify America's invasion of Iraq. President Bush said publicly two years ago that Saddam should be hanged, so there is not much point in pretending that he's going to get a fair trial. Americans are holding Saddam and his cohorts, and American lawyers trained the judges who will try him.

In fact, a fair trial could be embarrassing. When they try him for gassing the Kurds, his lawyers should certainly produce the U.S. Defense Department investigation that blamed the gassing on the Iranians. When he is tried for crushing the Shiite and Kurdish rebellions in 1991, his lawyers should point out that the U.S. government incited them to rebel and then stood by while Saddam's forces crushed them.

And, of course, they can point to American assistance given to Saddam's government through most of the 1980s.

Saddam's trial, coupled with the constitution just passed – though there are clouds concerning the vote – will probably aggravate the divisions in Iraq rather than heal them. As bad as he was when he had power, some Iraqis will inevitably take the position that while he is a blankety-blank, he is our blankety-blank, and Americans should butt out of Iraq's business.

At any rate, the president should not point to this trial as an example of international law. His administration has flouted international law too often. Saddam is not being tried by an international-war-crimes tribunal. He's being tried by an Iraqi court essentially set up under our direction.

One final point to remember is that the Iraqi people who hate Saddam are not asking for justice. They want revenge. They would like nothing more than for us to physically hand him over to the survivors of atrocities so they could tear him to pieces and drag his body parts through the streets. At the same time, the old Baathist remnants are demonstrating in favor of him and calling him a hero. International law is no more popular in Baghdad than it is in Washington, D.C.

It's too bad the Uncle Remus stories have been banned for political incorrectness. Somebody should have read the president the story of Br'er Rabbit and the tar baby. Like Br'er Rabbit, the president's anger caused him to strike out and kick Iraq, and now he's stuck fast, like the rabbit was stuck to the tar baby.

I don't remember who said it, but it is certainly true that it is always easier to go into a country than to get out of it. - Charley Reese © 2005 by King Features Syndicate, Inc. [See the Fair Use Notice, below.] (via Lew Rockwell)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:30 AM

Saturday, October 22, 2005

The #1 Most Buried Story: Halliburton pumping the oil that’s not even metered 

No it’s not the Downing Street Memo, or the $9 Billion lost in Iraq, or the 52 warnings before 9/11 (info that was suppressed before the election, which should nullify the election)…

The #1 buried story is the fact that Halliburton has been pumping the oil in Iraq since 2003, and it hasn’t been metered. This was revealed by the Inspector General’s report on the missing $9 billion, and highlighted by Galloway’s awesome testimony before the Senate this May

Have a look at the oil that you didn’t even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where?

Gee, and oil prices have been at all time highs… coincidence? - ben (via What Really Happened)

Davol White Says:
October 22nd, 2005 at 2:21 am
Galloway was great before the Senete. That made my year. Something else not being told about Halliburtons unmetered oil is that they haven’t repaired the equipment that maintainst the pressure in these oil fields by pushing water in the other side of where the water is being pumped. This will soon make the wells fail to operate at all. Iraq would have rebuilt their country by now if the money wasn’t going to Halliburton to not get the job done. You just can’t win a war with incompetance. Now we know.

anon Says:
October 22nd, 2005 at 3:09 am
“Throughout the entire period of CPA rule, there was no metering of the oil passing through Iraq’s pipelines, which means that there was no way of telling how much of the country’s wealth the authority was extracting, or whether it was paying a fair price for it. The CPA, according to the international monitoring body charged with auditing it, was also “unable to estimate the amount of petroleum … that was smuggled”.” - http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1408187,00.html

maghrebi Says:
October 22nd, 2005 at 5:48 pm
doesnt this all explain the reason behind US invasion of Iraq…

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:41 PM

Karen's desk abutted that of Israeli spy Larry Franklin 

Daryl Bradford Smith interviews Dr. Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col, ret

Pentagon insider, Lt. Col. Kwiatkowski, speaks about the terrible state of our republic and the criminal activity within the Pentagon

Click the link below for the MP3 audio files
30 minutes, from July 28, 2005
30 minutes, from Oct 21, 2005

Click your right mouse and select download/Save Target As. Then play them, post them on your site, or burn them to CD and share with everyone who has ears. - Daryl Bradford Smith (via What Really Happened)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 5:10 PM

The jury is still out in Irwin Shiff's trial 

Very Important: On July 5th 2005 I filed a motion calling for dismissal of my current criminal prosecution, because there are no laws establishing income tax "crimes". To be thoroughly convinced of that, and also thoroughly convinced that if there are criminals involved in income tax prosecutions, it can only be the federal judges and the justice department lawyers conducting such trials.

My motion also provides the legal basis for filing criminal charges (either pursuant to a criminal complaint or trying to get before a grand jury and seeking indictments)against judges and US attorneys who participate in such prosecutions, since indoing so they are actually engaged in criminal activity punishable by law.

The information in here is simple and irrefutable and reveals that the government extraction of income taxes which has not only destroyed practically the Nation's entire industrial base, (3rd world status, here we come!), but it was done pursuant to a tax that has been extracted illegally and criminally - without practically anyone realizing it.

These 12 pages explain it all. Disseminate the information to as many people as possible, and try and get it before your local newspaper. [This latest motion is posted below.]

Be sure to read the government's response. Note that the government's response to all these issues is "frivolous" however the government's response is criminal for the reasons given in my motion. Notice the government makes no attempt to address the fact that they can't produce any delegation of authority from the secretary of the treasury delegating to the IRS the authority to collect income taxes or it's publication in the federal register. This of course demonstrates that the motto of the justice department which is "not to gain a conviction, but to see justice done" is so much BS. In reality they represent a greater collection of criminals than the people they prosecute.

Here are the Exhibits from that go with my latest motion above, "Motion to Dismiss since this court cannot have jurisdiction since the indictment fails to charge an offense" filed July 5, 2005. - Irwin Shiff UPDATE: Irwin Schiff found guilty on all counts.

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:51 PM

Regarding "crimes" that do not exist: 

IRWIN A. SCHIFF, IN PRO PER

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF LAS VEGAS

COMES NOW this Defendant and asks this Court to dismiss the charges against me as
contained in the instant indictment, since I have been charged with committing “offenses against the laws of the United States” that do not exist, and the law itself has sought to protect me from such prosecution; however this Court is apparently prepared to disregard both the law and the protection it was designed to provide.
On April 1, 2004, or approximately 15 months ago, I filed a motion claiming that this Court had no subject matter jurisdiction to hear this case, because Section 7402(f) of Title 26 only provides for civil jurisdiction (it does not provide for criminal jurisdiction[1]). For comparison purposes, I cited § 1329 of Title 8 where Congress specifically provided for both criminal and civil jurisdiction in connection with that Title. Therefore, I pointed out, if Congress intended federal courts to have both criminal and civil jurisdiction in connection with Title 26, Congress certainly knew how to do it.

[1 Therefore, this motion does not directly apply to Count 1, which charged me (and the other two defendants) with an alleged Title 18 violation. However, my other three jurisdictional challenges do apply to Count 1. In addition, the court’s lack of jurisdiction as to all counts involving Title 26, would automatically establish the fraudulent character of the alleged Title 18 violation, and thus deny the court jurisdiction on that Count, as well.]

I reminded this Court of a fundamental legal principal dating back to Roman law:
Expressio unius exclusio alterius (The express mention of one thing implies the exclusion of
others.). I quoted from Murphy v. Lanier, 204 F.3rd 911(2000) where the 9th Circuit clearly
reiterated and affirmed this principal in a case involving a statute that only conferred jurisdiction on state courts, not on federal courts. The Murphy Court stated (quoting from other appellatedecisions), that since Federal courts are courts of “limited jurisdiction” jurisdiction can only be acquired by “a specific grant …authorized by Congress” and since “Federal courts may hear only those cases specifically authorized by Congress and because the statute does not specifically state that a Federal district court may hear a claim under TCPA, the 4th Circuit concluded that the language of the statute showed that…Congress…without mentioning Federal courts did not intend to grant jurisdiction over TCPA claims to Federal district courts.” Then, quoting from another 9th Circuit decision, the Murphy court went on to add: “The express reference to state court jurisdiction does not mean that Federal jurisdiction also exists: instead, the failure toprovide for Federal jurisdiction indicates there is none.” (Emphasis added) Obviously, the exact same principal applies here. The failure of 26 USC 7402(f) to provide for criminaljurisdiction indicates there is none.
In opposing my motion based on these grounds, the government did not even mention§ 7402(f) in its Response, let alone seek to explain why, if federal courts have criminal jurisdiction over alleged Title 26 violation, this jurisdictional grant was omitted from 26 USC 7402(f). Instead, the government sought to “conjure up” the missing jurisdictional grant by claiming that “Section 3231 of Title 18 of the United States Code gives United States District Courts original jurisdiction over ‘all offenses against the laws of the United States’ and the Internal Revenue Code defines offenses against the laws of the United States.” The utterly contrived nature of such a claim is obvious. If Congress intended district courts to have criminal jurisdiction pursuant to that statute, Section 7402(f) would have said so, as follows: “For general jurisdiction of the district courts of United States in civil actions involving internal revenue, see Section 1340 of Title 28 of the United States Code; for criminal actions see Section 3231 of Title 18 of the United States Code.” However, Section 7402(f) does not say that. It specifically refers only to Section 1340 of Title 28 and does not mention either Title 18 or Section 3231. However, the attempt by the government (if agreed to by this Court) to fabricate a jurisdiction that clearlydoes not appear in any law passed by Congress, does not merely represent clear error, it is also criminal.[2]

In addition, the claim by the government that “the Internal Revenue Code defines offenses against the laws of the United States” as implying that there are such laws in the Internal Revenue Code with respect to income taxes is also a total fabrication because there are no laws in either Title 26 or Title 18 establishing “offenses against the United States” in connection with income taxes. As proof of this, I have attached Exhibits taken from the Index of the IR Code as published by the Research Institute of America. Exhibit A pertains to federal alcohol taxes, B to firearms taxes, C to tobacco taxes, and D to income taxes. As you can see, Exhibits A, B, and C. contain entries for such things as: “failure to file or pay tax,” “penalties,” “record keeping” and references to either “liability,” “payment,” or “tax on making.” However, the Index entry for income taxes shows no such entries. The “income tax” section contains no entry for: “penalties”; no entry for “failure to file or pay tax”; no entry for “liability” or “payment”; and no entry involving “recordkeeping” indicating that there are no statutes in the IR Code that provide for such things in connection with income taxes. When we check the Index entry specifically covering “penalties,” we are directed to statutes providing penalties for such taxes as: beer, diesel fuel, dyed fuel, firearms, gasoline, liquor, occupational taxes, stamp tax, tobacco products, and wagering taxes. However, the Index fails to direct us any statute that provides penalties in connection with income taxes. Therefore, no matter where we look in the Index to the IR Code, we can find no entry indicating that there are any laws creating “offenses,” either civil or criminal, for income taxes. What can be clearer than that? So the attempt on the part of the government to claim that such “offenses” exist in Title 26 in order to support its jurisdictional claim reveals the total speciousness and illegality of that entire claim.

[2 The government attempted to fabricate this non-existent jurisdiction by citing erroneous lower court decisions, as if such decisions have the “force and effect” of “law.” However, (unlike 26 U.S.C. 1340) lower court decisions are not “law.” For one thing, Congress never passed a law binding Americans to lower court decisions - even the IRS states it is not bound by them, so how can they bind me? Part 4, Chapter 10, of IRS Manual 4.10.7 states: (in paragraphs
4.10.7.2.9.8. & 8.1(4)) “Accordingly, the Service may acquiesce or nonacquiese in the holding of memorandum Tax Court opinions, as well as those of the United States District Courts, Claims Court, and Circuit Courts of Appeal…Nonacquiescence signifies that…the Service does not agree with the holding of the court and generally, will not follow the decision in disposing of cases involving other taxpayers … the Service will recognize the precedential impact of the opinion on cases arising within the venue of the deciding circuit.” (Emphasis added). So the IRS has such a low regard of Appellate Court decisions, it states it can disregard them in applying tax “law” in
other circuits. This, of course, illustrates the “lunacy of the law” in America. If Congress cannot pass laws that apply differently in different states, how can federal courts apply the laws they pass on this basis?]

To demonstrate, even further, the illegal character of the government’s jurisdictional claim, I have included as Exhibit E the Index Entry for “Crimes” as listed in the U.S. Criminal Code. Note that sections 921-930 apply to firearms; sections 1261-1265 to liquor taxes; and sections 2341-2346 to tobacco taxes. Obviously if there were “offenses” involving income taxes, such “offenses” would have been included in Title 18 along with “offenses” for alcohol, tobacco, and firearms taxes. However nowhere in Title 18 is there any mention of “income taxes,” let alone the listing of “offenses” in connection with that tax. In addition, if anyone were charged with “offenses” involving liquor, tobacco, and firearms taxes, they would be charged with violating statutes contained in Title 18 (where criminal jurisdiction clearly exists), and would not be charged with violating statutes in Title 26 where no such jurisdiction exists, as is the case here.

Exhibit F is from the Index of the Code of Federal Regulation that indicates where to find the regulations that implement the various statutes contained in Title 18. The regulations that apply to liquor, tobacco, and firearms taxes are shown as being in CFR 27; the regulations that
apply to income taxes are, of course, in CFR 26. Attached as Exhibit G are Regulations from
CFR 27 that apply to alcohol, tobacco, and firearms taxes. Regulation 72.11 specifically confers
enforcement authority on ATF agents; however, the government will not be able to produce any
regulation that similarly confers enforcement authority on IRS agents. Also note that the
statutory authority for these regulations are shown as coming from no less than seven Title 26
statutes, as well as two statutes from Title 18, and statutes from various other titles. Therefore,
there is no question that these regulations have the “force and effect” of law since they show
that they derive their authority from statutes. However, the government will not be able to
produce ONE REGULATION (that applies to income taxes) that shows that its authority is
derived from some statute. If the government in its Response produces any such regulation, I will immediately plead guilty to all charges. The fact is there are no regulations involving income
taxes that show their authority as being is derived from some statute—which is why all such
regulations do not have the “force and effect of law,” and are actually benign. However, since
the public does not know that, the courts are able to enforce them as if they had such force and
authority.

Exhibit G is an Excerpt from the Index of the Code of Federal Regulations that provides even more proof of this. It shows where to find the regulations that apply to the statutes appearing in the IR Code. Note that all such regulations that apply to the enforcement provisions of the Code are shown as appearing only in CFR 27, and not one of them is shown as appearing in CFR 26. The regulations covering assessments are shown as appearing in 27 CFR Part 70; levy authority, in 27 CFR Part 70; seizure authority, in CFR 27 Parts 70,170, and 296; and summons authority, in 27 CFR Part 70. So, all of the enforcement provisions in the Internal Revenue Code only apply to liquor, tobacco, and firearms taxes, and to such other taxes that
might be enforced by CFR 27 regulations. There are no implementing regulations shown for
income taxes in connection with any enforcement provision of the Internal Revenue Code.[3]
Therefore, no matter where we look, either in the Internal Revenue Code, the U.S. Criminal Code, or in the Code of Federal Regulations, we can not find: (1) one statute ;or (2) one regulation (having the “force and effect” of law) or; (3) any penalty provisions (either civil
or criminal of civil) that apply to income taxes.

What does this mean? It obviously means that this Court, in conspiracy with the Justice
Department, is seeking to prosecute me (and the other defendants) for “crimes” that do not exist, pursuant to a jurisdiction it does not have. Proof of this conspiracy (in violation of 18 USC 241) abounds in all manner of actions and inaction taken by this Court. On April 28, 2005 (Doc. 136) I asked the government to produce, in accordance with the provisions of 26 USC 7701(11), the Delegation Order from the Secretary of the Treasury delegating to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue the authority to collect income taxes and, as required by 44 USC 1505, a copy of its publication in the Federal Register. It is Defendant’s contention that no such documents exist and, if they do not exist, all 33 Counts of the instant indictment would have to be dismissed for fraud, since the indictment is based on numerous representations to the grand jury (as reflected in every count in the indictment) that the law authorizes the IRS to assess and forcibly collect income taxes, and that the defendants conspired to “obstruct and defeat” the “lawful functions of the Internal Revenue Service in ascertaining, computing, assessing, and collecting taxes.” However, as I pointed out in my Motion, the IRS is nowhere authorized in the Internal Revenue Code to do any of these things. All such authority is given only to the Secretary of the Treasury who can, if he chooses, delegate such authority to the IRS. However, if the Secretary does make such a delegation of authority (by delegating such authority to the Commissioner of the IRS) such Delegation Order must be published in the Federal Register if it is to have any legal effect. If the government cannot produce these two documents – then the IRS HAS NO LEGAL AUTHORITY TO ENFORCE THE PAYMENT OF INCOME TAXES – and all charges against me HAVE TO BE DISMISSED AS A MATTER OF LAW.

[3 While there are regulations in CFR 26 that apply to income taxes, none of them have any legal force for the reason already given, nor will they apply to an enforcement statute – i.e. they might apply to obtaining a deduction. .]

After waiting approximately 4 weeks to respond to my motion, the government refused to
produce the two documents and provided frivolous excuses for not doing so. The government
claimed the motion was filed “out of time.” However since this motion went to the jurisdiction of
this court, there is no such thing as a jurisdictional challenge being filed “out of time.” And
secondly, since this Court has not even ruled that it has jurisdiction to even hear this case, since
it has not yet denied any one of my four motions that claims it does not have any such
jurisdiction that I filed over 15 month ago, how can it claim to have the jurisdiction to set up
“scheduling orders” or even a trial date (now set for August 29, 2005) when it has not yet ruled
that it has jurisdiction to even hear this case? In any case, the government represented to the
Court that “If the Court wishes” the government “would file “a more detailed response.” The
Court did not request neither a more “detailed response” nor did it order the government to
produce the two documents as requested – which, if they can not be produced, all of the charges
against me would have to be dismissed. So what kind of judicial objectivity does this Court
reflect when it does not require the government to produce two documents, which, if they can not be produced, would immediately establish my innocence to all of the charges at issue?

This raises another, related question. WHY HASN’T THIS COURT RULED ON THE JURISDICTIONAL CHALLENGES I FILED OVER 15 MONTHS AGO?
On March 30, 2004, or two weeks before my arraignment, I raised four issues which I
claimed denied this court subject matter jurisdiction. I claimed the court lacked subject matter
jurisdiction because, as covered above:
1) No statute confers criminal jurisdiction on federal courts to conduct criminal trials
involving income taxes, and in addition, I claimed this court lacked subject matter
jurisdiction because: and, in addition,
2) The income tax is not “directly traceable” to Congress’ constitutional power to “lay and collect taxes; 3) No law made me “liable for income taxes; and
4) The government misled the grand jury concerning the legal meaning of “income” as
that term is used in the Internal Revenue Code.

A fundamental principal of American jurisprudence is that the issue of jurisdiction must be addressed and decided before a court can move “one step further.” So why would this Court
disregard such a fundamental issue for over 15 months? There can only be one reason. The Court is convinced I am right with respect to each of those four issues, so it is obviously waiting to arbitrarily deny my four motions just prior to trial in order to prevent me from: 1) moving for
“findings of fact and conclusions of law” (2) being able to file a motion for reconsideration in
which I would obviously discredit and demolish any adverse ruling the Court might make; and
(3) to prevent me from filing an interim appeal on any such adverse ruling. In addition:

WHY HAS THE COURT AVOIDED RULING ON MY MOTION TO SUPPRESS ALL OF THE “EVIDENCE” SEIZED AS A RESULT OF THE IRS’S ILLEGAL SEARCH AND SEIZURE OF FREEDOM BOOKS?

On June 15, 2004 I submitted a motion to suppress all of the evidence derived from the
14,000 documents seized by the IRS in its February 11, 2003 raid on Freedom Books, an
unincorporated business owned by me. Documents I provided the court, which went
unchallenged by the government, proved the raid was illegal on a variety of grounds. In addition,
Magistrate-Judge Leavitt’s observation, as contained in his Report and Recommendation of
12/21/2004, also proved the raid illegal as a matter of law. For one thing, the law provides that
only law enforcement officers can apply for search warrants, and this warrant was applied for by Special Agent David W. Holland. However, documents I supplied the Court proved that Mr.
Holland was not a law enforcement officer, and therefore he had no authority to apply for the
search warrant. In addition, I supplied the Court with the official job description of special agents. It showed that they are only authorized to enforce tax laws “involving United States
citizens residing in foreign countries and nonresident aliens subject to Federal income tax filing
requirements.” Neither the government nor Magistrate-Judge Leavitt challenged my claim that
the official job description of special agents ALONE precluded any of the 15 gun-carrying
special agents from participating in that raid. In addition, Magistrate-Judge Lawrence Leavitt in
his Report and Recommendation of 12/21/2004 claimed that whatever authority special agents
had, was derived from 26 USC 7608(a). However, that Code Section specifically limits agents
who fall within it, to the enforcement of subtitle E taxes, such as alcohol, tobacco, and firearms
taxes, and “commodities subject to tax” — assuming they have additional authorization derived
from the Secretary, which IRS agents do not have. Therefore, even according to Magistrate-
Judge Leavitt, none of the 15 gun-carrying, special agents who took part in that raid had any
legal authority to do so (Report and Recommendation of 12/21/2004). In addition, the
government could not produce one regulation that authorized special agents to carry firearms,
and apply for and execute search warrants in connection with income taxes. So, despite my
giving this Court all manner of evidence that the search and seizure carried out against Freedom
Books was illegal on a variety of grounds, the Court has still not made a ruling on my Motion
to Suppress, which I filed over a year ago. Why? The answer is simple. Since the evidence is so
overwhelming and irrefutable that the raid on Freedom Books was illegal, if the Court were to
grant my motion all of the criminal charges against all of the defendants would have to be
dismissed, since the government would have almost no evidence it could misrepresent to a jury.
On the other hand, if the Court denied my motion, I could easily discredit it on the basis of a
motion for reconsideration or by filing an interim appeal So, obviously, the court is planning to
arbitrarily deny my motion just prior to trial, to deny me the opportunity to do either.

In addition, the fact that the government cannot produce the two documents as described
above is further proof that none of the IRS agents who initiated and participated in that search
and seizure had any legal authority to do so—so all that “evidence” was illegally acquired and,
by law, should be suppressed.

Further proof of this can be found in the government’s Response of May 10, 2005. I had
asked the government to provide me with the names of the expert witnesses it intended to use at trial and a “written summary” of their testimony, as required by Rule 16(a)(1)(G). In its
Response, the government stated it intended to use as its “expert” Internal Revenue Service
Agent Clinton Lowder, who is identified “as an expert in tax computations.” What is an expert in
“tax computations”? Does that mean he knows how to use an adding machine, and so can
accurately total up the alleged tax liabilities and penalties determined by others who are actually knowledgeable in the law itself? Why didn’t the government identify him as an expert in taxlaw? The indictment repeatedly accuses me of filing documents and encouraging others to file documents that are both “false and fraudulent.” How can one who the government only claims is an “expert” in “tax computations” but not in the law itself, testify that documents I filed based on what I believed the law to be (and even citing laws and court decisions to support those document) are both “false and fraudulent” if the party is not qualified as an “expert” in the lawitself? And, in addition, this alleged “expert” is supposedly going to be used as a
“summary/expert.” Doesn’t the government intend to prove these charges during its case-in-chief before calling a “summary” witness?[4] In any case, the government stated in its Response:

“Through discovery, the defendants have been provided access to the books and records seized at the search and seizure warrant of Freedom Book’s office, bank records relating to each
defendant, and other documents. These records are being utilized by Mr. Lowder as the basis for his summary computations.” So, here the government claims it will be using at trial documents whose very legal character has still not been decided by this Court – though I challenged their legal character over a year ago. So how can the government anticipate using such documents until it knows how the Court will rule? Obviously the government already knows how the Court will rule. It knows that this Court will allow the government to use as evidence against all of the defendants, documents which Magistrate-Judge Leavitt has already ruled were illegally acquired and which I proved were illegally acquired on at least six different
grounds. Apparently, in this case, the Court has no interest in what the government acquires
legally or illegally.

Besides filing five motions challenging the jurisdiction of this court (which this Court has
not yet ruled upon) I have filed five or six motions to dismiss on grounds that are not
jurisdictional. For example, I filed a motion to dismiss all charges charging me with allegedly
filing fraudulent returns, in violation of 26 USC 7206. I pointed out that, in order to prosecute me for those charges, the government would have to use against me the very returns the government compelled me to file. All those returns stated right on them that they were not filed “voluntarily,” but were filed so I wouldn’t be prosecuted for “failing to file” for which I had twice been prosecuted in the past. I supported my claim with both statute and Supreme Court decisions (which were not refuted by the government) and, though this Motion to Dismiss was filed on 6/15/2004 (or over a year ago) the Court has still not ruled on it. This, I suppose, is another motion the Court intends to arbitrarily rule on just before trial, so I could not challenge its Ruling with a Motion for Reconsideration.

[4 In addition, even though I am not a lawyer and thus not entirely familiar with all the rules of court procedure, I cannot find anywhere in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure a provision allowing for “summary witnesses” whose function is to summarize for the jury the testimony given by other witnesses.]

In addition on 11/1/2004 (eight months ago) I filed a Motion to Dismiss all the charges
against me based primarily on the Supreme Court case of United States v. Bishop, 412 U.S. 346,
361 (1973) In that decision the Supreme Court held: “The requirement of an offense committed
‘willfully’ is not met, therefore, if a taxpayer has relied in good faith on a prior decision of this
Court...” I showed in an accompanying Declaration, how I have relied in good faith on no less
than eleven Supreme Court decisions, such as: Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 240
U.S. 1 (1916); Pollock v. Farmers Loan & Trust, 157 U.S. 429 (1894); Stanton v. Baltic Mining,
240 US 103 (1915); Eisner v. Macomber 252 US 189 (1920); Merchant’s Loan & Trust Co v.
Smietanka, 255 U.S. 509; Stratton’s Independence v. Howbert, 231 U.S. 399; Southern Pacific v. Lowe, 247 U.S. 330 (1918); Bowers v. Kerbaugh-Empire Co., 271 U.S. 170 (1926); Burnet v.
Harmel, 287 U.S.103 (1932); and Doyle v. Mitchell Bros., 247 U.S. 179 (1918).

In addition, I explained how I relied on such government documents as: the Report of the
Congressional Research Service, by Howard M. Zaritsky, which explained that the Brushaber
Court held that an income tax to be an “excise tax,” (however it was not being imposed on this
basis), as well as House Report 1337 and Senate Report 1622, that explained that “gross income” as used in Section 61 of the 1954 Code “is based upon the 16th Amendment and the word ‘income’ is used in its constitutional sense.” It was my claim that I reported my “income” in all the tax returns at issue in accordance with these Reports. In addition, I explained how I relied on the Disclosure Statement that appears in a 1040 booklet that advises you that you only need to file and pay taxes for such taxes as you are “liable for.” And since I could not find a statute that made me “liable” for income tax, I regarded this as the government’s way of notifying me that I did not have to pay income taxes.

The point is, I specifically asked for oral argument in connection with this Motion so
both the government and the Court could challenge and question me at length to determine if I
relied on these eleven Supreme Court decisions and other government documents in “good
faith,” since if I did, all of the charges against me would have to be dismissed, since they are all
based on the government’s claim that I know all of my representations with respect to income
taxes to be false, and thus they are not only false, but also fraudulent. What better way to prove
this than to confront me with my false and fraudulent claims at oral argument? And all my
statements at oral argument could also be used against me at trial? So why should the
government have opposed my requests for oral argument as it did? And in over a dozen motions that I have filed requesting Oral argument, this Court has yet to grant me even one such request.

Why? If this Court were interested in uncovering the truth in connection with this prosecution,
what better way to do it than at oral argument? It is, therefore, clear that this criminal prosecution will not be based on a search for “truth,” nor on an adversarial relationship between the government and myself as criminal trials are supposed to be conducted in America. It is clear that the court itself is my actual adversary with the government’s prosecutors playing a
diversionary and supporting role. However, such conduct on the part of the Court is not only
immoral unethical, and a violation of the Court’s oath of office, it is also illegal.

18 USC 241 makes it a crime for “Two or more persons [to] conspire to injure, oppress,
or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to
him by the Constitution or laws of the United States…” It is clear that I have a right “secured to
[me] by the Constitution” not to be compelled to pay a federal tax that is not imposed either as an apportioned direct tax nor as a geographically uniform excise tax since these are the only two
classes of taxes authorized by the Constitution.[5] Since the income tax does not fall into either
class, and is not imposed pursuant to either rule, for this Court, in conjunction with Justice
Department lawyers, to “injure and oppress” me by subjecting me to prosecution pursuant to a
tax which is not authorized by the Constitution, obviously deprives me of a right secured to me
by the Constitution, as criminalized by 18 USC 241.[6]

In addition, Section 26 USC 7402(f) secures to me my right not to be criminally prosecuted in connection with alleged violations of Title 26. Therefore, for this court, in conjunction with Justice Department lawyers, to prosecute me on this basis, also deprives me of a right “secured to (me)… by the laws of the United States,” section 26 USC 7402(f), as criminalized by 18 USC 241.

[5 And these provisions were not changed one wit by the passage of the 16th Amendment as my Motion to Dismiss on this ground, which this Court has yet to rule on, proved.]
[6 As I have already shown, Congress wrote the income tax laws, so as not to deprive me of that right. It is only because this Court and the Justice Department lawyers who brought this action ignore and violate those laws that I am being deprived of that right.]

In addition, sections 26 USC 7701(12) and 44 USC 1505 secure to me my right to be free
from harassment and intimidation from federal employees claiming to be federal tax collectors,
unless the Secretary of the Treasury has delegated such authority to them, and published that fact (so I would know about it) in the Federal Register. Therefore, for this Court to allow my
prosecution for allegedly interfering with the alleged duties of alleged federal tax collectors,
without requiring the government to produce the documents required by 26 USC 7701(12) and
44 USC 1505 that would verify such a claim, is to deny me, in collusion with Justice Department
lawyers, the right and protection “secured to [me]… by the laws of the United States,” sections
26 USC 7701(12) and 44 USC 1505, as criminalized by 18 USC 241.

In addition, the provisions of Section 7608 clearly bar IRS special agents from conducting search and seizures of any kind in connection with income taxes, and therefore secures to me my right not to be harassed, bothered or interfered with by illegally armed IRS special agents claiming to have enforcement authority with respect to income taxes. Therefore, for this Court to allow the government to use against me documents secured by IRS special agents in CLEAR VIOLATION of section 7608, denies me the right and protection “secured to [me]… by the laws of the United States,” Section 7608, as criminalized by 18 USC 241. In addition, this Court is fully aware (since I supplied the Court with the Congressional Reports) that in adopting the 1954 Code, Congress declared in House Report No. 1337 and in Senate Report No. 1622 (83rd Congress 2d Session) that “the word ‘income’” as used in Section 61(a) of the IR Code “is used in its constitutional sense.” However, this Court is allowing the government to prosecute me based on its use of the term “income” in the “ordinary sense,” not in its “constitutional sense.” However, section 61(a) of the IR Code secures to me my right of only having “income” received in the “constitutional sense” regarded as “income” for tax purposes.

Therefore, this Court in collusion with Justice Department lawyers, is attempting to deny me the right and protection “secured to (me) …by the laws of the United States,” section 61(a), as
criminalized by 18 USC 241.

Therefore, it is clear from all of the above that my prosecution is being conducted illegally (on numerous grounds) and in a manner that should subject all of those responsible to criminal prosecution if law in America were applied equally to federal judges and Justice Department lawyers. However, I am bound by the provisions of 18 USC 4 to “make known to some judge or other person” such felonious activity or I would be guilty of misprision of felonyif I did not do so.

Therefore, based upon all of the above, I ask the Court to dismiss all of the charges
against me, since:
1) I have committed no offense against the laws of the United States as contained
in either Title 18 or Title 26;
2) This court clearly has no subject matter jurisdiction to conduct a criminal trial
in connection with alleged Title 26 violations, and where no “offenses against
the United States” exist; and where
3) My continued prosecution clearly represents criminal behavior on the part of
this Court in conspiracy with Department of Justice attorneys in obvious
violation of 18 USC 241.
Dated: July 5, 2005
____________________
Irwin A. Schiff, Pro Per
ORAL ARGUMENT REQUESTED

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:28 AM

Friday, October 21, 2005

Do you believe her story on Nightline? 

LAS VEGAS (AP) - A federal court hearing was postponed Thursday for an accused armored car thief who surrendered this month after more than a decade as a fugitive.

Heather Tallchief agreed to a delay, said Robert Axelrod, her Meriden, Conn.-based lawyer. No new date was immediately set for her preliminary hearing in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.

Tallchief, 33, surrendered to federal authorities in Las Vegas on Sept. 15, saying she was tired of hiding and wanted her 10-year-old son to have a normal life.

She has not denied she drove an armored car with at least $2.5 million dollars away from the Circus Circus hotel-casino in October 1993. She faces nine felony charges that could result in at least 30 years in federal prison. - All contents © 1996 - 2005 Las Vegas Sun, Inc. [See the Fair Use Notice, below.] Transcipt of Nightline, 10/21/2005. MSNBC-TV photo.

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:06 PM

Software glitch reveals private data for thousands of state's students [excerpt] 

The personal information of tens of thousands of California children -- including their names, state achievement test scores, identification numbers and status in gifted or special-needs programs -- is open to public view through a security loophole in dozens of school districts statewide that use a popular education software system. - Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer ©2005 San Francisco Chronicle [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:51 AM

Thursday, October 20, 2005

“National Service” And Involuntary Servitude 

Here in and around the Beltway, a local talk-radio host started the day with a bright idea: Let’s put welfare recipients to work. This brainstorm was inspired, as you might guess, by the news footage of rioting and looting in New Orleans.

The idea of nonmilitary “national service” has a stubborn charm for many Americans who should know better. Even William Buckley has endorsed it. So do some of my liberal friends. If the government is paying people money, shouldn’t it be able to require something of them in return? Even rich people occasionally speak of “giving something back to the community.”

What we are talking about here, of course, is slavery, more delicately called “involuntary servitude” — not giving something back, but taking something that isn’t yours. Military conscription, or the draft, falls under the same heading, a violation of the unalienable right to life and liberty.

American courts have always exempted the draft from the Thirteenth Amendment prohibition against slavery. The courts do the same for taxes. If the government owns you and your labor, including your property, the thinking seems to run, it isn’t really slavery.

But the essence of slavery doesn’t lie in who owns you; it lies in the mere fact of your being owned at all. The key term is involuntary. Private chattel slavery has been replaced by state slavery, disguised by the genial rhetoric of democracy. Slavery becomes giving something back, everyone doing his part, and so on. One writer speaks loftily of “an ethic of common provision.”

All such talk obscures the essential element of force — organized state coercion under the forms of law.

One caller to the talk show got it right: “national service,” he pointed out, is unconstitutional; and so are welfare programs, which the government has no authority to create.

The U.S. Constitution was an ingenious but unsuccessful attempt to specify and thereby limit the powers of the Federal Government. By listing those powers in Article I, it implicitly (and, in the Tenth Amendment, explicitly) forbade the exercise of other, unlisted powers. This was supposed to guarantee lawful government.

But the Federal Government has been trying to circumvent its own Constitution ever since. One essential method has been to make its own courts the final judge of how broadly its powers are to be construed. This allows the courts, in effect, to rewrite the contract without the consent of anyone else, making the Constitution, as Jefferson put it, “a blank paper by construction.”

And of course if the Constitution means whatever the Federal Government wants it to mean, it’s not going to inhibit the Federal Government. Its whole purpose is defeated. That government will be free to claim all the powers it wants — which is exactly what has happened.

The Thirteenth Amendment forbids slavery and “involuntary servitude.” But if Federal courts rule that the draft and confiscatory taxes don’t fall under that prohibition, then the amendment will be almost useless in protecting our freedom from the Federal Government itself.

In this way the government has been able to get away with claiming thousands of powers never constitutionally granted to it, and with ignoring most limits expressly placed on it. The Constitution has virtually ceased to exist, and the government can pass laws that are themselves lawless.

If the Federal Government violates the Constitution, there is an obvious remedy: The people should be free to defend themselves by declaring that it has forfeited its lawful authority and refusing to obey it. This simple solution is called “secession.”

But of course this is forbidden. The government claims an unconditional right to our obedience, no matter what it does or demands. In principle, we are its slaves. Yet it tells us not only that we’re free, but also that it’s defending our freedom when it wages wars and drafts us to fight those wars.

These are the simple, bare bones of the situation. Most Americans are content to be government slaves and parrot the slogans we’re taught. But a growing number, fortunately, want to think the whole business through again.

The Constitution isn’t the solution to the whole problem; it may be part of the problem itself. But it does lay down the principles the government purports to be observing, and we can begin to address the real problem by studying it closely. - Joseph Sobran Copyright © 2005 by the Griffin Internet Syndicate, [See the Fair Use Notice, below.] (via Lew Rockwell)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:55 PM

Build a real business in a virtual world 

Second Life is a virtual world - a 3D online persistent space totally created and evolved by its users. Within this vast and rapidly expanding place, you can do, create or become just about anything you can imagine. Built-in content creation tools let you make almost anything you can imagine, in real time and in collaboration with others. An incredibly detailed digital body ('Avatar') allows a rich and customizable identity. A powerful physics simulation running on a backbone of hundreds of connected computers and growing with the population allows you to be immersed in a visceral, interactive world that as of April 2005 covers more than 12,000 acres and 20,000 owned plots of land. The ability to design and resell 3D content, combined with the ability to own and develop land and a microcurrency, which can be exchanged to real money means that you can build a real business entirely within Second Life. - Second Life (via Rocketboom)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:47 PM

Eric Fry: Body in his Wall Street office, mind back on the French Riviera [excerpt] 

"I would never live anywhere else," a self-satisfied Dr.
Richebacher declared from his balcony one evening. At 87
years of age, the Doctor may be delighted to be living
anywhere at all. "Look at this view. Where else do you have
this? And you know, from here in Cannes, I am only two
hours away from many of the most amazing places in the
world – Rome, Paris, Vienna. And the thing I love about Europe is the history. Everywhere you go, you encounter souvenirs of Europe's rich history. You have nothing like this in America."

I had to agree...In more recent times, of course, we Americans have made history – some of it good, some of it not so good. We led an historic victory in World War II,
for example, which has enabled folks like Dr. Richebacher to gaze out over the Mediterranean from their apartments.

But today, we are creating a different sort of history: "An economic disaster unlike anything the world has ever known," as Dr. Richebacher describes it. The first step
toward this disaster may be a recession that will seem to appear out of nowhere. - Rude Awakening Copyright © 2000-2005 Agora Financial LLC. [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:16 PM

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

The Ringing 

A Covad voip TV commercial. (via Oct. 3 eWeek, page 19)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:03 PM

2005 DivX & MVWire Music Video Contest 

Best Narrative Video: “Jackson United’s Long Shadow”[Scroll down, right click "Download Now" & select "Save Target As..."] directed by Dean DeBlois. Download the free DivX Player here. (via email from DivX)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 4:51 PM

If creating a buzz is rule No. 1 in advertising, then an anonymous high school sophomore has a bright future. 

A full-page ad in October's The Survey, Warwick Valley High School's monthly student-run newspaper, reads: "You can't BE ALL YOU CAN BE if you're dead. There are other ways to serve your country. There are other ways to get money for college. There are other ways to be all you can be. THINK ABOUT IT. Before you sign your life away." - Mike Dawson, Times Herald-Record (via Rational Review News)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:18 AM

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Remember when the USSR would make people register a sample of type from their typewritrers? 

San Francisco – A research team led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently broke the code behind tiny tracking dots that some color laser printers secretly hide in every document.

The U.S. Secret Service admitted that the tracking information is part of a deal struck with selected color laser printer manufacturers, ostensibly to identify counterfeiters. However, the nature of the private information encoded in each document was not previously known.

"We've found that the dots from at least one line of printers encode the date and time your document was printed, as well as the serial number of the printer," said EFF Staff Technologist Seth David Schoen.

You can see the dots on color prints from machines made by Xerox, Canon, and other manufacturers (for a list of the printers we investigated so far). The dots are yellow, less than one millimeter in diameter, and are typically repeated over each page of a document. In order to see the pattern, you need a blue light, a magnifying glass, or a microscope (for instructions on how to see the dots).

EFF and its partners began its project to break the printer code with the Xerox DocuColor line. Researchers Schoen, EFF intern Robert Lee, and volunteers Patrick Murphy and Joel Alwen compared dots from test pages sent in by EFF supporters, noting similarities and differences in their arrangement, and then found a simple way to read the pattern.

"So far, we've only broken the code for Xerox DocuColor printers," said Schoen. "But we believe that other models from other manufacturers include the same personally identifiable information in their tracking dots."

You can decode your own Xerox DocuColor prints using EFF's automated program.

Xerox previously admitted that it provided these tracking dots to the government, but indicated that only the Secret Service had the ability to read the code. The Secret Service maintains that it only uses the information for criminal counterfeit investigations. However, there are no laws to prevent the government from abusing this information.

"Underground democracy movements that produce political or religious pamphlets and flyers, like the Russian samizdat of the 1980s, will always need the anonymity of simple paper documents, but this technology makes it easier for governments to find dissenters," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Lee Tien. "Even worse, it shows how the government and private industry make backroom deals to weaken our privacy by compromising everyday equipment like printers. The logical next question is: what other deals have been or are being made to ensure that our technology rats on us?"

EFF is still working on cracking the codes from other printers and we need the public's help. Find out how you can make your own test pages to be included in our research. - Linux Electrons.com (via What Really Happened)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:12 PM

Monday, October 17, 2005

An Index of Logical Fallacies 

Fallacies of Distraction

False Dilemma: two choices are given when in fact there are three options
From Ignorance: because something is not known to be true, it is assumed to be false
Slippery Slope: a series of increasingly unacceptable consequences is drawn
Complex Question: two unrelated points are conjoined as a single proposition

Appeals to Motives in Place of Support

Appeal to Force: the reader is persuaded to agree by force
Appeal to Pity: the reader is persuaded to agree by sympathy
Consequences: the reader is warned of unacceptable consequences
Prejudicial Language: value or moral goodness is attached to believing the author
Popularity: a proposition is argued to be true because it is widely held to be true

Changing the Subject

Attacking the Person:
(1) the person's character is attacked
(2) the person's circumstances are noted
(3) the person does not practise what is preached
Appeal to Authority:
(1) the authority is not an expert in the field
(2) experts in the field disagree
(3) the authority was joking, drunk, or in some other way not being serious
Anonymous Authority: the authority in question is not named
Style Over Substance: the manner in which an argument (or arguer) is presented is felt to affect the truth of the conclusion

Inductive Fallacies

Hasty Generalization: the sample is too small to support an inductive generalization about a population
Unrepresentative Sample: the sample is unrepresentative of the sample as a whole
False Analogy: the two objects or events being compared are relevantly dissimilar
Slothful Induction: the conclusion of a strong inductive argument is denied despite the evidence to the contrary
Fallacy of Exclusion: evidence which would change the outcome of an inductive argument is excluded from consideration

Fallacies Involving Statistical Syllogisms

Accident: a generalization is applied when circumstances suggest that there should be an exception
Converse Accident : an exception is applied in circumstances where a generalization should apply

Causal Fallacies

Post Hoc: because one thing follows another, it is held to cause the other
Joint effect: one thing is held to cause another when in fact they are both the joint effects of an underlying cause
Insignificant: one thing is held to cause another, and it does, but it is insignificant compared to other causes of the effect
Wrong Direction: the direction between cause and effect is reversed
Complex Cause: the cause identified is only a part of the entire cause of the effect

Missing the Point

Begging the Question: the truth of the conclusion is assumed by the premises
Irrelevant Conclusion: an argument in defense of one conclusion instead proves a different conclusion
Straw Man: the author attacks an argument different from (and weaker than) the opposition's best argument

Fallacies of Ambiguity

Equivocation: the same term is used with two different meanings
Amphiboly: the structure of a sentence allows two different interpretations
Accent: the emphasis on a word or phrase suggests a meaning contrary to what the sentence actually says

Category Errors

Composition: because the attributes of the parts of a whole have a certain property, it is argued that the whole has that property
Division: because the whole has a certain property, it is argued that the parts have that property

Non Sequitur

Affirming the Consequent: any argument of the form: If A then B, B, therefore A
Denying the Antecedent: any argument of the form: If A then B, Not A, thus Not B
Inconsistency: asserting that contrary or contradictory statements are both true

Syllogistic Errors

Fallacy of Four Terms: a syllogism has four terms
Undistributed Middle: two separate categories are said to be connected because they share a common property
Illicit Major: the predicate of the conclusion talks about all of something, but the premises only mention some cases of the term in the predicate
Illicit Minor: the subject of the conclusion talks about all of something, but the premises only mention some cases of the term in the subject
Fallacy of Exclusive Premises: a syllogism has two negative premises
Fallacy of Drawing an Affirmative Conclusion From a Negative Premise: as the name implies
Existential Fallacy: a particular conclusion is drawn from universal premises

Fallacies of Explanation

Subverted Support (The phenomenon being explained doesn't exist)
Non-support (Evidence for the phenomenon being explained is biased)
Untestability (The theory which explains cannot be tested)
Limited Scope (The theory which explains can only explain one thing)
Limited Depth (The theory which explains does not appeal to underlying causes)

Fallacies of Definition

Too Broad (The definition includes items which should not be included)
Too Narrow (The definition does not include all the items which shouls be included)
Failure to Elucidate (The definition is more difficult to understand than the word or concept being defined)
Circular Definition (The definition includes the term being defined as a part of the definition)
Conflicting Conditions (The definition is self-contradictory)

References - Datanation (via Lew Rockwell)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:16 PM

Sci-fi Ezine 

$2.50 per issue.
Want to read more free/cheap sci-fi and fantasy?
Strange Horizons - a weekly e-magazine, donation-supported.
Futurismic - a monthly e-magazine (focused on futuristic stories and articles about future technology), also donation-supported. - Anitra (via Slashdot)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 7:58 PM

Background sounds for your goodbyes 

Q. How do I get this to play over the phone?
A. Turn up your PC's speaker volume so it can be overheard over the phone. Be sure your computer's speaker volume is not set on "mute". A volume of 2/3 to 3/4 of maximum works best. Then, play, and be ready to say "sorry, gotta go!"


Q. Can I repeat a sound more than once?
A. Yes, just click the "play" button on your media player and the sound will repeat. In many cases you will want to do so. For instance, repeat "My ride is here (honking horn)" to tell your caller you've got an impatient driver. "Sorry, gotta go!"

Q. Should I practice first?
A. We recommend playing through the sounds first. That way you'll have a clear idea of what is about to be played and when during your conversation it works best to play it. - Sorry Gotta Go.com (via Rocketboom)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:53 PM

Sunday, October 16, 2005

The million dollar girl 

Lauren is in her 3rd year at the University of British Columbia majoring in General Science, and minoring in commerce. She has found the financial burden of her schooling fraying her nerves lately so she has decided to do something about it.

Lauren has set up a website called 'a million dollar website' and she is asking for donations to help bail her out of her financial nightmare. This is how it works: Lauren is selling advertising space on her website - in pixels! You can buy a pixel on her site for $1.00 US. She is selling them in blocks of 10x10. You pay Lauren, and send her your image, then she places it on the block you have chosen. The image links to your site.

During the first twenty days 8,300 pixels were sold. (via email from Bravenet)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:02 PM

Around Like A Shot 

Going to bed the other night, I noticed people in my shed stealing things.

I phoned the police but was told no one was in the area to help. They said they would send someone over as soon as possible.

I hung up. A minute later I rang again. “Hello,” I said, “I called you a minute ago because there were people in my shed. You don’t have to hurry now, because I’ve shot them”.

Within minutes there were half a dozen police cars in the area, plus helicopters and an armed response unit. They caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the officers said: “I though you said you’d shot them”.

To which I replied: “I thought you said there was no one available”.

Taken from the letters column of a national newspaper. - Frodo

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:56 AM

85-Year-Old Seattle Woman Recruited By Marines 

  Script & video. (via What Really Happened)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:59 AM

AGONY [excerpt] 

The Associated Press reported on October 5, “New Chief Justice John Roberts stepped forward Wednesday as an aggressive defender of federal authority to block doctor-assisted suicide, as the Supreme Court clashed over an Oregon law that lets doctors help terminally ill patients end their lives.”

Roberts’ explicit objection to the Oregon statute is that, “It creates the potential for a patchwork of laws across the nation regarding the matter.” In other words, the states rights advocate claims that he opposes assisted suicide based on the inherently pernicious nature of states rights. This argument was rejected as pretzel logic by none other than William Rehnquist. - David Podvin (via What Really Happened)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:31 AM

Saturday, October 15, 2005

The Referendum... 

So the referendum is tomorrow- well, technically speaking, today.

We’ve been having more than the usual power outages. Government officials were saying ‘power problems’, ‘overload’, etc. for the last two days and then suddenly changed their minds today and claimed it was ‘sabotage’. It’s difficult to tell. All we know is that large parts of Baghdad are literally in the dark. We’re currently on generator electricity. Water has been cut off for the last two days with the exception of an occasional dribble that lasts for ten to fifteen minutes from a faucet in the garden. We have a nice big pot under it to catch as much water as possible.

Private cars haven’t been allowed to drive in the streets since Thursday- this will last until Sunday. It’s been declared a ‘holiday’ of sorts. Everyone is at home. In spite of these security measures, there were several explosions today.

The referendum promises to be somewhat confusing. People are saying it should be postponed. Now is not the right time. More changes were made a few days ago to the supposed ‘final’ draft of the constitution- the one that was submitted to the UN. It was allegedly done to appease Sunnis.

The trouble is that it didn’t address the actual problems Iraqis have with the constitution (Sunnis and Shia alike). The focus of negotiations by ‘Sunni representatives’ seemed to revolve around Iraq’s Arab identity and de-Ba’athification. A clause has also been added which says that the constitution will be subject to change (quelle surprise! Yet again!) with the new government after the next elections. That doesn’t make me feel better because changes can work both ways: if the next ‘elected’ government is, again, non-secular, pro-Iran, the amendments made to what is supposed to be a permanent constitution will be appalling.

Iraq’s Arab identity, due to its Arab majority, won’t be reduced just because it isn’t stated over and over again in a constitution. It’s as if the people negotiating the constitution chose to focus on the minute, leaving the more important issues aside. Issues like guaranteeing Iraq’s unity and guaranteeing that it won’t be turned into an Islamic state modeled on Iran.

The referendum is only hours away and the final version of the constitution still hasn’t reached many people. Areas with a Sunni majority are complaining that there aren’t polling stations for kilometers around- many of these people don’t have cars and even if they did, what good would it do while there’s a curfew until Sunday? Polling stations should be easily accessible in every area.

This is like déjà vu from January when people in Mosul and other Sunni areas complained that they didn’t have centers to vote in or that their ballot boxes never made it to the counting stations.

American media is trying to make it sound like Sunnis have suddenly been mollified with the changes made in a flurry of covert meetings these last few days, but the reality is that the only Sunni party openly supporting the constitution is the Iraqi Islamic Party which represents a very, very small percentage of Sunnis.

Most educated Iraqis want to vote against the constitution. This makes the fact that Iraqis abroad aren’t being allowed to vote this time around worrisome. Why was it vital for them to vote for a temporary government back in January but it’s not necessary for them to contribute to this referendum which will presumably decide a permanent constitution for generations and generations of Iraqis? Could it be that the current Iranian inclined government knew that many Iraqis abroad didn’t like the constitution because of federalism, women’s rights, and the mention of no laws to be placed which contradict Islam?

Iraqis are going to be voting according to religious clerics and, in some areas, tribal sheikhs. They aren’t going to be voting according to their convictions or their understanding of what is supposed to be a document that will set the stage for Iraqi laws and regulations. Juan Cole wrote about an example of this with Muqtada Al-Sadr’s followers:

The young Shiite nationalist, Muqtada al-Sadr, advised his followers to consult the ruling of Ayatollah Kadhim al-Haeri (resident in Qom, Iran) concerning how to deal with the constitution. He said that this was an issue that required independent juridical reasoning (ijtihad).

That’s all we need- it’s not enough that Zalmay Khalilzad is gushing over the constitution- all we need now is another cleric (stationed in Iran this time) to influence the masses.

Ok- it’s almost dawn and I’m exhausted. I wasn't able to connect all day to post this. - Riverbend

posted by George Thomas Kysor 3:00 PM

Colon Cancer 

The over-reliance upon prescription antibiotics is displayed in the problem of colon cancer. Recently researchers found that Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium that infects up to 50 percent of the US adult population, is responsible for colon cancer. [32] If physicians screen their patients for H pylori infection and treat all of them with antibiotics they may induce antibiotic resistant forms of this bacterium. So antibiotic treatment is not prescribed unless gastric ulcers occur, another disease caused by this bacterium. But humanity could eradicate colon cancer if modern medicine would utilize natural antibiotic compounds such as those found in garlic, olive leaf or oil of oregano. [33] - Bill Sardi in his paper, The Collapse of Conventional Medicine.

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:32 AM

Cat naps 

Ding and Dang display sibling love. - voctir

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:40 AM

Smiling Faces? 

January 4, 1975...there is a wedding...ours. We are young, 18 and 19 years old. The final picture in our wedding album is a picture from the car. In it, I am smiling...my husband has this look on his face that says..."What the hell did I just do?"

Fast Forward 30 years. My husband is now 50, I am soon to be 49. We have been blessed with two lovely daughters and four grandchildren.

While the faces have aged over the last thirty years, I can't help but to notice something....you can see it in this picture. There I am with the biggest smile you could see...and there he is... with a face that looks as if he would rather be anywhere else but here.

Can anyone tell me.... "What's up with that?"

Has both our tenuous beginnings and our life together been such a burden? Does he really just hate cameras that bad? I can't say I love cameras that much...but how can you not smile when you are in the midst of such a beautiful family?

Sometimes I feel a million miles away from him and I wonder if that is the way it began and if that is the way it will always be. - Debbie

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:28 AM

Friday, October 14, 2005

The Deadliest Flu Virus in the World: Made in USA 

Army helicopters fly over a small American town as a voice barks harshly: "No one is allowed to leave this town!"

~ A line from the 1995 movie entitled Outbreak

In the latest version of "art precedes reality," Hollywood predicted a viral outbreak that would require quarantine of an entire town in America in the 1995 movie Outbreak starring Dustin Hoffman. In that movie the virus came from a monkey being smuggled in from Zaire. The movie was more about the possibility of a virus like Ebola than the dreaded H5N1 influenza virus that now has the world in the grip of hysteria. But Outbreak dealt with the mutation of the virus, which makes it more appropriate for today’s latest viral health threat – a mutated influenza virus, probably from bird flu.

The world is being warned a flu virus might mutate at any moment and render the planet helpless against its spread. Americans don’t need to wait for a flu virus to mutate. Infectious disease specialists, working in a semi-secure laboratory at a Midwestern university have already done it ahead of nature. These American researchers obtained the viral particles from the H5N1 Spanish flu virus that killed millions worldwide and altered one of its ten genes, making it far more dangerous and virulent than any influenza virus in nature. The idea was to figure out how to make a vaccine against it. But the very idea such a virus even exists gives most people the shivers.

New Scientist magazine notes that the lab where the super flu virus is located has a lower biosecurity level – BLS – than a few other labs that have the highest possible levels of containment. The highest level is BSL-4. The lab in question is BSL-3Ag, or 3-plus. The main difference between BSL-4 and BSL-3Ag is that precautions to ensure laboratory workers do not get infected are less stringent: While BSL-4 involves wearing fully enclosed body suits, those working at BSL-3Ag labs typically have half-suits. New Scientist magazine notes that "the recent SARS virus outbreak in Asia was from BSL-3 labs."

What if one of the lab workers inadvertently takes the virus home with him or her? The human population of the world would be wiped out. An infectious disease specialist at the lab where the super virus is located, says: "If H5N1 spreads on a massive scale, it's going to wreak havoc." It will overwhelm almost any country's health-care system. . . . It will be biblical plague." I’m holding my breath. I’m staggered by the possibility. There is obviously greater danger this super virus would escape from a laboratory than mutate and spread around the globe.

Heightening the panic

It appears as if someone is attempting to heighten the panic surrounding the predicted influenza epidemic. Researchers at Hokkaido University in Japan began to wonder how birds in nearby farms acquired the bird flu. They checked on the genetic makeup of the virus and it is "strikingly similar to that of a bird flu virus found in South America, too far for migrating birds to carry into Japan." This led investigators to surmise somebody brought a vaccine into Japan and injected it into some birds, infecting the animals around them. [Japan Times Sept. 3, 2005] The mysterious appearance of avian flu in birds around the world could be explained by contaminated avian vaccines!

There is still no explanation for the mutated human influenza virus found in a pig in South Korea. Somebody intentionally placed this human virus inside this animal. (For more about this, see previous report entitled Influenza Intrigue at LR archives.) If it infected a human, it would make it appear the virus "jumped" from animals to humans.

Wandering far from his field of expertise, Charlene Porter of the Washington File, a publication of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State, writes that a species of flu virus once thought to be unique to horses has now infected dogs and could jump from animals to humans. [Sept. 30, 2005] Horrors, we may be culling populations of pet dogs in America as they are birds in Asia. Better hide Fido. There are approximately 50 million pet dogs in the US. This is sheer propaganda and the news media has re-printed it widely without question. The orchestrated terror is coming from all quarters of government.

Julie Gerberding, Centers for Disease Control chief, says her agency is getting ready for a possible pandemic next year. [Associated Press, Feb. 22, 2005] Public health authorities and politicians are so committed to the inevitability of a flu pandemic, it’s as if there is no way they won’t let this event happen.

Here is another segment of script from the movie, Outbreak………

Maj. Casey Schuler: I hate this bug.
Lt. Col. Sam Daniels: Come on, Casey. You've got to love its simplicity.
It's one billionth our size, and it's beating us.
Maj. Casey Schuler: So, what do you want to do, take it to dinner?
Lt. Col. Sam Daniels: No.
Maj. Casey Schuler: What then?
Lt. Col. Sam Daniels: Kill it. –

The problem is, the virus is being harbored by the people. To kill the virus, like culling infected birds, you have to wipe them out. That is what the movie considered. The military people in the movie planned to use a fuel-air bomb to wipe out the infected city. The movie certainly sets the scenario. A frightened American public looks to federal instead of local officials to save the world. Is there a better way to usher in marshal law while gaining consent of the people?

Only ineffective therapies offered

Notice how public health authorities only offer vaccines which are in short supply, don’t often work because they don’t address the specific strain of virus in circulation, and which viruses now resist. One flu vaccine, the flu mist, actually uses live flu viruses that can shed from vaccinees to their family, friends and co-workers. Or they offer anti-flu medications which flu viruses already exhibit resistance towards and which are also in short supply. (Special note: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will likely profit handsomely from the announcement the government is purchasing $3 billion of Tamiflu, the drug developed by Gilead Sciences when Rumsfeld was president of the company. He is reported to hold major portions of stock in Gilead.)

Public given no options beyond vaccines and medicines

There is no attempt to boost innate immunity, which can be accomplished with high doses of vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium and zinc. Selenium even blocks the mutations that cause the most mortal form of the flu. [J American College Nutrition 20: 384–88S, 2001; FASEB Journal 15: 1846–48, 2001; Journal Nutrition 133: 1463–67S, 2003] Sambucus simpsonii, the botanical name for elderberry capsules and syrup, is well documented in the medical literature to be an effective remedy against the flu. [J International Med Research 32:132–40, 2004; Israeli Medical Assoc Journal 4:919–22, 2002; European Cytokine Network 12:290–6, 2001; J Alternative Complement Medicine 1:361–9, 1995] In a pinch, there isn’t a virus that has been able to withstand allicin, the active ingredient produced when a fresh clove of garlic is crushed. [Planta Medica 58:417–23, 1992]

Finale

The Council on Foreign Relations, in its recent journal report says, if a global flu pandemic ensues: "In short order, the global economy would shut down. Vaccines would have no impact on the course of the virus in the first months and would likely play an extremely limited role worldwide during the following 12 to 18 months of the pandemic. With today's limited production capacity, that means that less than 500 million people – about 14 percent of the world's population – would be vaccinated within a year of the pandemic." [Foreign Affairs, July/August 2005]

Are they scripting a movie, or is this reality? - Bill Sardi Copyright © 2005 Bill Sardi Word of Knowledge Agency, San Dimas, California. [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

Bill Sardi is a consumer advocate and health journalist, writing from San Dimas, California. He offers a free downloadable book, The Collapse of Conventional Medicine, at his website.

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:11 AM

Yes, Virginia, there are government conspiracies! 

Dear Editor--I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there are no government conspiracies.
Papa says, 'If you see it in What Really Happened, it's so.'
Please tell me the truth, are there government conspiracies?
Virginia

Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the induced blindness of the mainstream media. They do not believe except they see it on television or hear it over the radio. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds.
Yes, Virginia, there are government conspiracies. They exist as certainly as greed and ambition and lust for power exist. At the present time and for all to see, some of the highest officials of this land have agreed upon the telling of a lie. That agreement is a conspiracy by any definition or interpretation of the word. The Secretary of State told the lie to the United Nations. The Vice President pressured the CIA to go along with the lie. The President spoke the lie to the world. Others participated as well, particularly in that same mainstream media that blinds and deafens your little friends. They participated willingly, taking part in the conspiracy in exchange for favors from those same officials.

Nobody lies without reason. Nobody conspires with others to lie without reason. And the purpose of this particular conspiracy to lie was to start a war that nobody but a few rich and powerful leaders wanted, to spend our money and to send forth our children to invade an impoverished and helpless nation whose only worth was that it was, as a Defense Official described it, "swimming in oil". There can be be no more vile a lie than that used to send a nation to war, nor no more dark a war than that waged for profit. This conspiracy committed both crimes.

Yes, Virginia, there are government conspiracies. And the biggest government conspiracy of all is the claim that there are no government conspiracies. Because government conspiracies are creatures of the dark places. They function best when invisible and deniable. But not this time. This time the conspiracy is in the light for all to see. The lie is known, the tellers of that lie identified, their cooperation and collusion plain for the world to see. The lie is beyond question. So too is the conspiracy to lie.

So for all those times you wondered if there was a government conspiracy and your friends shouted you down saying that there were no government conspiracies, now you know they were wrong. You know that if the claim that there are no government conspiracies was their sole argument, that they did not have any real argument at all. Knowing that government conspiracies unquestionable exist, your little-minded friends can no longer claim that there was no government conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy because government conspiracies don't exist. Your little-minded friends can no longer claim that there was no government conspiracy to kill Robert F. Kennedy because government conspiracies don't exist. Your little-minded friends can no longer claim that there was no government conspiracy to kill Martin Luther King, or Vince Foster or Ron Brown because government conspiracies don't exist. Your little-minded friends can no longer claim that there was no government conspiracy to cover-up the real cause of the TWA 800 crash because government conspiracies don't exist. Your little-minded friends can no longer claim that there was no government conspiracy to blame Arabs for 9-11 because government conspiracies don't exist.

Because government conspiracies DO exist. Bush, Powell, Cheney, Blair, Rumsfeld, etc. et. al. have proved that reality before the world. And with that new awareness, every controversy that was ever dismissed solely on the claim that there are no government conspiracies can be, indeed must be, re-examined in the light of the knowledge that government conspiracies are a very real part of everyday life.

Yes, Virginia, there are government conspiracies. - What Really Happened

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:30 AM

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Seeking a princess 

Auditions for the role of Princess Kaiulani:
When: 9 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2005.
Place: Robert Louis Stevenson Room, Princess Kaiulani Hotel.
Details: Applicants should be about 5-foot-7, 120 pounds, of Hawaiian and Caucasian descent, able to act, speak with a British accent. Bring a photograph.
E-mail: assistant@trailblazerfilms.com

The life story of Hawaii's Princess Kaiulani -- one of unfulfilled promise and dashed dreams -- will be made into a $7 million independent film set for release in 2007.

Trailblazer Films and Matador Pictures, co-producers of the movie, will begin two weeks of filming on Oahu in late spring or summer of 2006. Another four weeks of shooting will be done in England.

Veteran filmmaker Marc Forby, owner of Trailblazer Films, has taken two years to write and research the script. He will also direct what is being called the "Untitled Princess Kaiulani Project."

"I have never really done a movie that I really cared about," Forby said by phone from Los Angeles. "This is one (film) where I can apply 10 years of learning the craft and skills and raising money to be used for something really good."

Forby also produced "29 Palms" (2002), "Zebra Lounge" and "Protection" (2001), and the woman-in-jeopardy story "The Fall" (1997). While making "The Fall," Forby met Nigel Thomas, who will serve as the film's executive producer, along with Forby's wife, Leilani Estioko Forby.

Co-producer Matador Pictures has just wrapped Ken Loach's "The Wind that Shakes the Barley," about the Irish Civil War.

Producers already have about $5 million of the $7-million budget, with most coming from England, where Kaiulani spent much of her life.

"Kaiulani" tells of the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom from the princess' view. A Hawaiian rebellion will be filmed, as well as the siege of Iolani Place. Forby will meet with Iolani Palace officials this weekend to discuss whether he will be allowed to film on palace grounds, which he describes as "sacred."

"There is a mythology about this princess and her untimely death (at age 23)," Forby said. "The film will not point fingers, but it does acknowledge what was done in Hawaii. It's about documented historical events."
Young local actress Cheyenne Kanani Pohuehue Murray has been cast to portray the princess at age 12. Next week, Forby will audition actresses to portray Kaiulani as a young woman.

Several principal roles, including Queen Liliuokalani and hundreds of extras, will be cast later. Forby said the casting of some Hollywood stars will be announced in the spring.

The search for Kaiulani is beginning months in advance because Forby, keenly aware of the sensitivity of the subject matter, wants to make sure he finds the right actor, one of part-Hawaiian, part-Caucasian descent. "There is no circumstance that would make me give this part to a non part-Hawaiian actor."

Forby said he has met with Hawaiian historians and researched Kaiulani's letters, historical files and books. "The script has been read by Hawaiian professors ... those with precise knowledge of this specific time in Hawaiian history."

The film cannot be compared to Sony's film about Kamehemeha I, starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Forby said. "This is not a studio movie, so we're not beholden to any board. We're an independent film so we can do this film right."

Victoria Kaiulani Kalaninuiahilapalapa Kawekiui Lunalilo was born Oct. 16, 1875, during King Kalakaua's reign. Her mother was Kalakaua's sister, Princess Miriam Likelike. Her father was Scottish-born Archibald Cleghorn, one-time governor of Oahu.

Kaiulani was sent to school in England in her early teens and it was during her absence that the Hawaiian monarchy fell on troubled times, including the unexpected death of Kalakaua in 1891. His sister, Liliuokalani, ascended the throne and named Kaiulani as heir apparent.

By the time the princess returned to Hawaii in 1897, Liliuokalani had been forced to abdicate, the monarchy was abolished and Hawaii was about to be named a republic by United States President McKinley.

Months later, while horseback riding on the Big Island, Kaiulani was caught in a rainstorm and fell ill. She died on March 6, 1899. - Tim Ryan
© Honolulu Star-Bulletin [See the Fair Use Notice, below.] (via Hawaii Film Office)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 7:11 PM

For all things Google: 

GoogleCity! News, tips and insights on everything that has to deal with Google will make it to this Blog. Updated regularly, you can expect the latest news, projects, programs and more that have to do with Google! - Marvellan Hinton

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:14 PM

Snow White's Stepmother Faces Hearing 

Yesterday evening Snow White was found by 19 year old, Prince Charming. He was able to awaken her from an everlasting sleep with Love’s First Kiss. After an intense investigation they found that Snow Whites wicked stepmother had sent a huntsman into the forest with Snow White to kill her. The huntsman was unable to commit to the horrible deed, so he is only being questioned. Show White was able to find refuge in a home of seven dwarfs, and that’s where she has been staying for the past two months. On Thursday 26, the wicked stepmother found out where Snow White was staying, she disguised herself as an old woman and went to the dwarf’s home. When Snow White answered the door, she gave her a poisonous apple that would have put Snow White into an everlasting sleep if it weren’t for Prince Charming. Snow Whites stepmother has a court hearing this Friday where we will find out if Snow Whites stepmother will be convicted of attempted murder. - Valerie

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:28 PM

Hello Kitty Diddy 

An air guitar demonstration. (via Rocketboom)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:47 AM

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

A LewRockwell.com Shindig 

Friday and Saturday, November 18–19, 2005
The Radisson Villa Hotel
4000 El Camino Real
San Mateo, California
Register!
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2005
1:00pm: Registration
1:30pm: Burton S. Blumert, Camino Co.
2:00pm: Butler Shaffer, Southwestern Law School
2:30pm: Discussion and Break
3:00pm: Gary North, Remnant Review
3:30pm: Doug French, Las Vegas banker
4:00pm: Discussion and Break
4:30pm: Robert Blumen, investor
5:00pm: Bruce Ramsey, Seattle Times
5:30pm: Break
6:30pm: Cindy Sheehan, Camp Casey Peace Foundation, reception following
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2005
8:30am: Coffee
9:00am: Anthony Gregory, Independent Institute
9:30am: David Gordon, Mises Review
10:00am: Discussion and Break
10:30am: Eric Garris, LewRockwell.com
11:00am: Justin Raimondo, Antiwar.com
11:30am: Adjourn
Noon: Luncheon With Ron Paul, US Congress
2:00pm: John Brimelow, Le Metropole Café
2:30pm: Chris Leithner, Leithner Co., Australia
3:00pm: Discussion and Break
3:30pm: Financial Panel: Brimelow, Blumen, Blumert, French, Leithner, North, Paul
5:00pm: Break
6:00pm: Lew Rockwell, reception following
Make your reservation now. The conference price is $200 per person. Our special room price at the Villa is $79 a night, single or double. Call Cathy at 800-348-8001 to charge your fee, and she can make your hotel reservation too. - Copyright © 2005 LewRockwell.com [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:42 AM

Digital Camera Failures 

"In the past week, four major camera makers have quietly published service advisories admitting their digital cameras are dying. In each case, the flaw appears to involve Sony CCD sensors using epoxy packaging that eventually lets in moisture. Sony's own cameras are among those affected, and the company also has dozens of affected camcorder models. Sony is believed to be picking up the tab for the repairs for the other camera makers as well, regardless of warranty status. (If true, a laudable approach.) Given the large numbers of cameras that are potentially involved, this can't be good news for Sony, who apparently already is expecting losses, and who has also recently announced major layoffs." - Slashdot

posted by George Thomas Kysor 10:09 AM

Was a "Bomber" Superimposed onto Metropolitan Police Surveillance Camera Photo? 

This is the CCTV image circulated by the London Metropolitan Police.

As Peter Kofod wrote,"Take a look at this photo of the four alleged London bombers.
At first, (almost) everything looks fine, but look closer... look at the guy with the white hat... check out his left arm (HIS left arm).... the lower of the rails of the railing is IN FRONT of his left arm... where of course it shouldn't be! I'm NO image specialist, but this sure looks ridiculous. I'd say it´s a fake." - Citizens for Legitimate Government

posted by George Thomas Kysor 12:01 AM

Monday, October 10, 2005

Taxing Your Beliefs [excerpt] 

All your life, you’ve been taught about the honesty and value of our tax system, including income taxes. You’ve been told that every patriotic American must pay their “fair share” of the services we each consume; such as maintaining the roads, providing for Social Security benefits and funding civil defense, to name just a few. That paying your “fair share” is as much a part of the American fabric as baseball and apple pie.

Even though for generations we’ve grumbled that the amount we pay is too high, surely if our very obligation to pay were in doubt, this would have been questioned and publicly debated decades ago. Well, I hope you’re sitting down, because the truths I am about to reveal hold powerful consequences for the future well being of Americans everywhere.

The truth is that every American since 1913 has been defrauded in what may be the largest swindle in recorded history. Now, as I said earlier, this sounds totally unbelievable. Actually, “unbelievable” isn’t even the word for it. Impossible is more like it. That’s what I first thought, too, when I was first exposed to this information. I remember saying: “This is impossible! Frankly, it’s ridiculous! Besides, we would have been told this long ago in the newspapers and on television.

How could my parents and their parents before them possibly not have known this?”

However, I grudgingly agreed to listen with an open mind and judge the facts for myself. And I’m simply asking you to do the same. Maintain your objectivity and try to absorb and analyze what I’m about to share with you. I encourage you to then conduct your own research to confirm these facts for yourself. We can actually prove that what we are going to show you applies to you personally.

I can guarantee you this: those who see this material will never view their government in the same light again. So, if you’re up for the challenge, let’s get started.

If you’ve ever seen the movie “The Sting”, you may remember how unwitting victims were lured into a scam. Long after the trap had been sprung, they still didn’t quite understand what had happened to them. This is exactly the case with the IRS. Perhaps you, too, have been taken in by this ruse. The scheme begins by leading you to believe that you have a legal requirement to have and use a Social Security Number. Believing in this, you apply for a number or your parents apply for one for you. You then enter that number on your very first tax return and file it, perhaps right out of high school or college, believing once again that filing is required by law. Without realizing the legal significance of your actions, you just voluntarily created the presumption of being a “taxpayer.” But are you? You see, the one-word legal term “taxpayer”—with no space between “tax” and “payer”— is defined at section 7701(a) (14) of the Internal Revenue Code as “any person subject to any internal revenue tax.”

But who is made subject? Only those whom Congress has made liable to pay a particular tax—in this case, the “income” tax. So who then is made liable? Search the entire code and the only liability statute you’ll find for “income” tax is section 1461, which applies solely to the withholding of tax from foreigners, not from citizens. Yet over a hundred million working adult Americans pay billions of dollars annually in income taxes, or have them withheld from their paychecks, with absolutely no legal requirement anyone can locate!

You can confirm this for yourself—and take your tax preparer with you! Go to a local law library, purchase a CD-ROM from the Government Printing Office or conduct your own research on the Internet. Look in Title 26 of the United States Code—which is the Internal Revenue Code—in subtitle A, chapters 1 through 6, under “income tax.” It only says, “You must file IF you are liable.” We will show who is liable shortly…but you won’t find a single statute authorizing the withholding of income tax from citizens living and working within the 50 States of the Union. It simply does not exist. Seen in this light, these taxes are really just voluntary donations to the government, and very generous ones at that! To be fair, the IRS has always referred to this phenomenon as “voluntary compliance” and they’re absolutely correct.

I stated earlier that by entering a Social Security Number on your first tax return and filing it, you created the legal presumption of being a lifetime “taxpayer”. But who is actually required by law to have a Social Security Number in the first place? If you search for any statute or regulation that requires an American citizen to obtain and use a Social Security Number, again, you will not find one. It simply does not exist. Because you are repeatedly asked for your number when you attempt to open a bank account, buy or sell property, invest or even rent a video today, most Americans assume there must be a legal requirement to have one. But look up section 405 of Title 42 and you’ll discover that Social Security Numbers are never assigned automatically to citizens, only to foreigners upon their admission into the United States. American citizens who want a number must apply for one. However, there can be no legal requirement to apply, since submitting any application for anything is always by definition a voluntary act. Most people believe that newborns automatically receive a Social Security Number while still in the hospital. But look closer and you’ll discover that parents unwittingly sign release paperwork authorizing hospital administrators to apply for a number for their newborn. If the parents legally refuse to sign—and they can—no application process is initiated and no number is assigned.

As for the requirement to file a tax return, if you do the research, you’ll discover that it applies only to citizens with qualified foreign sources of income. Once a citizen does file, however, regardless of whether or not he actually owed the tax by law in the first place, he will be presumed by the IRS to have a requirement to continue filing. Without realizing it, by his own voluntary act he has transformed himself into a “taxpayer,” and that’s exactly how the IRS then treats him.

It may surprise you to learn that many Americans, who never volunteered to apply for a Social Security Number or to file a tax return, never hear from the IRS their entire lives. I know several such people personally.

The framers of the Constitution were wise men, indeed. They were very aware of the abuses of taxation from England. That’s why they severely limited the powers of the federal government. Article 1 Sec. 9, Par. 4 states “no capitation or other direct tax shall be laid unless in proportion to the Census.” Now, some erroneously believe the 16th amendment provided for a brand new form of taxation. It, in fact, never repealed any of the above taxing clauses, which remain in full force and effect today. The amendment, as correctly read by the supreme court in the Brushaber vs. Pacific Railroad Co. (1916) and Stanton vs. Baltic mining, simply prohibited Congress from removing the income tax from the class of indirect excise taxes to which it inherently belonged from the beginning, and attempted to place it in the category of direct taxes (which to be constitutional would require apportionment to the States). An example of excise taxable activity within the 50 states would be the manufacture of alcohol, tobacco or firearms or other regulated industries within the territories. To keep government small, they provided that its day-to-day operations would be funded by excise taxes in the form of import tariffs collected from foreigners who would pay their “fair share” for the privilege of selling into our vast marketplace. Under the Internal Revenue Code there are no excise taxes imposed on the domestic earnings of the American citizens living and working within the 50 States who make an equal exchange of their labor (property) for compensation since no gain (profit) results from the transaction. This would not only protect American jobs and industry, it would leave every citizen free of all internal taxation. And when you read the Internal Revenue Code, you discover that you actually are! So what happened to change this? Nothing. The simple truth is that the IRS, all in the name of tax revenues to keep the welfare state humming and expanding, is deliberately ignoring the written law. In 1920 the average American family paid (in today’s dollars) $20 dollars a year in taxes – today it is at about $10,000 a year.

At this point you might well ask, “OK, if what you say is true, then why have I heard of famous people going to jail for not paying income tax?” The answer, quite frankly, is because they probably received poor legal advice. It may astonish you to learn that well-prepared individuals are winning in court when they stay on-point with the written law, and receive a fair trial. Most defendants in tax trials are convicted by juries of their peers due to lawyers less interested in the written law than in being sanctioned by the judge for raising politically incorrect arguments in the courtroom. Another reason is that today’s law school graduates are conditioned to rely on so-called “case law” and rarely bother consulting—or reading—the actual, written law itself. This practice has distorted the original intent of our laws, which were written to be perfectly clear in their application to citizens. And they are; all you have to do is read them! Another reason is that jury members are usually ignorant of the fact that they can legally ignore the instructions given to them by the trial judge and can instead consider the facts, the circumstances and the law itself, and acquit based on their conscience. And finally, there are many freedom-loving and patriotic Americans who keep losing in court because they rely on many false legal arguments based on mistaken theories and interpretations, and not on the written law itself.

The IRS keeps dozens of secretly coded files on anyone who has ever filed any type of return. I made a request for my records under Freedom of Information Act and The Privacy Act. I saw to my utter amazement that the IRS had actually filed returns for me! Unbelievably, they had taken blank 1040’s and hand-written my name, address and Social Security Number at the top, but left both sides of the return totally blank with no dollar amounts entered. Plus, there was no signature!

The IRS Employee Manual calls this a “dummy return with a zero amount”, yet their computer had reported me as having filed! I was unable to understand the coded format of the document, which had dozens of specific codes and letters that were all encrypted in the IRS’s own language. My search to decipher the meanings led me to a group of several individuals that were legal researchers that had been dedicated to this field for a number of years who had access to specific “For OFFICIAL USE ONLY” IRS manuals. They discovered that amongst dozens of other codes, the IRS had posted a “TC-150” transaction code in my Individual Master File, or “IMF,” which is the computer record maintained on each taxpayer. “TC-150” identified me as an alleged “Virgin Islands filer.” I had never even visited the place! I also saw on my IMF further evidence of the most blatant computer fraud. Using their decoding manuals, they pointed out that the IRS had me listed under Excise Activity Code 530 as a seller of foreign insurance policies, an excise taxable business activity that I had never even been involved in. This is where I became liable for an indirect excise tax masqueraded as an income tax liability.

This is why they win and collect in 95% of the tax cases. They use this “Prima Facie” evidence, which means any presumptive evidence in your file left unrebutted by other evidence stands as truth. So, it’s our responsibility to get your file, decode it, and rebut it with specific exhibits that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt there have been due process violations. This manipulation of my file was almost unbelievable if I hadn’t seen it myself! But could it have been due to simple computer error?

I started pulling IMFs for all my friends and saw that these same types of phony Business Master File activity codes were on all of their Individual Master Files as well, except that most of them were listed as manufacturers of bus and truck chassis, pistols and revolvers, coal mining, or selling diesel fuels. As incredible as this sounds, I learned that the IRS is forced to do this on every citizen’s file nationwide or it couldn’t tax anyone. Why? Because their computer is programmed according to the law exactly as it is written. Since the law does not tax citizens who have no foreign sources of income, the IRS just makes it up! Trust me when I tell you that you’ve got to do your own Freedom of Information Act requests and see this for yourself. Seeing is believing and, trust me, you’ll be stunned.

Here’s a small sample of one of the files you may get. The following printout [see original article] is exactly what was received from the IRS (with the name and SS redacted for privacy). See the arrow pointing to “ACTY-CD> 530”?

That’s code 530.

Here’s what the IRS sent us. You’ll see Activity Code 530 next to the arrow. Note codes 532 and 533 as well.

You are almost certainly listed under one of these types of codes. There is also a page of Document Locator Numbers that should be broken down (decoded) into their respective tax class, blocking numbers, series and document codes. Additional F.O.I.A. requests should be made on these. I also included a sample IMF at the bottom. They may even place Transaction Codes that indicate you may be a “tax protestor” or “high level drug importer” “armed and dangerous” and to approach with caution on your IMF. It turns out that all of these “industry activity codes and entries” that “IMF DECODER” have helped people decode are always light years from the truth!

Can you spell “F-R-A-U-D”?

This is nothing short of computer fraud on a scale that would cause a nationwide riot were the truth to be known by all Americans. The shocking realization I came to was that not only is the IRS faking due process assessment procedures, they are totally ignoring what Congress has written and are simply following their own agenda, just to “get the money.” It is as if the written Law does not even exist. So am I a “tax law protester?” No, emphatically I am not. What is there to protest when the law does not tax the domestic source income of American citizens? By Law, we’re all income tax free! Who would want to change that?

Here’s another shocker for you. In 1998, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue admitted in a public speech that 1 out of 4 Americans had stopped filing tax returns. That’s an epidemic of at least 35 million nonfilers by the IRS’ own admission! That was five years ago and a whole lot more Americans have chosen to stop filing recently due to the deafening silence as a response to some basic questions to their government. Why isn’t this being covered on “20/20” or “60 Minutes?”

Here’s another wake-up call. Many American workers no longer sign a W-4. Instead, they’ve submitted the proper paperwork that we have available under the tax regulations to take home 100% of their paychecks. You can imagine the affect this has had on their standard of living. Why isn’t this front-page news in The Wall Street Journal? Are you starting to think twice about the so-called “watchdog” media?

Here’s another big eye-opener. The Social Security Administration readily admits that no American is required to have a Social Security Number in order to live and work in the United States. Just write and ask them.

Are these questions starting to trouble you? Did you know that legions of Americans have already quit Social Security—quietly and 100% legally—and started saving for their own retirement, not yours and everyone else’s? What will happen to your retirement check if this groundswell continues? Are you starting to feel like you’re not being let in on a big secret?

Here’s another good question. Why, in spite of recent legislation supposedly intended to protect taxpayer, does Congress still allow the IRS to place levies on private property without a court order as required by law, with performance bonuses paid to those agents who collect the most?

I think you’ll come to discover, as millions already have, that your tax chains are just imaginary. The truth is that the average American is sitting in a mental jail cell with the door wide open.

Shoulder to shoulder in freedom,
IMF DECODER (via What Really Happened)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:20 AM

From Despair to Hope 

There were many nights after Casey was killed, and we buried him, that I had to restrain myself from swallowing my entire bottle of sleeping pills. The pain and the deep pit of despair were almost too much to cope with. I would think to myself: "It would be so easy to take these pills and go to sleep and never wake up in this awful world again."

The only thing that restrained me from committing the cowardly and selfish act of killing myself was my other three children. How could I put them through something so horrible after what they had already been through? I knew that I had to live. However, I know why some people kill themselves: it is the lack of hope. For me it was the black pit of knowing that I had to wake up everyday for the rest of my life with the same pain of knowing that I would never see Casey again: that I had to exist in a world without him and just existing is no way to live.

One day, about three weeks after Casey was killed, my daughter Carly hit me with the reason for living. It was in her poem: A Nation Rocked to Sleep. One stanza reads:

Have you ever heard the sounds of a mother screaming for her son?
The torrential weeping of a mother will never be done,
They call him a hero, you should be glad he's one, but,
Have you ever heard the sound of a mother weeping for her son?

The first stanza reminded me that I was not the only one in the universe who had such excruciating grief, but the verse that helped me claw my way out of the pit of despair, was the last stanza:

Have you ever heard the sound of a nation being rocked to sleep?
The leaders want to keep you numb so the pain won't be so deep.
But if we the people let them continue, another mother will weep.
Have you ever heard the sounds of a nation being rocked to sleep?

I knew when she recited those lines to me that I would have to spend my time, my money, my energy to try to bring the troops home before more mothers would have to weep. I was ashamed that I hadn’t tried to stop the war before Casey died. I had foolishly thought: "What can one person do?"

Well, I now felt that if I couldn't make a difference, I would at least try. If I failed, I vowed that I would go to my grave knowing that I gave it my best shot.

I started to gradually get my hope back. I had a marvelous time in Florida during the campaign against George Bush. I founded Gold Star Families for Peace. I was a main speaker at the Peace Rally in Fayetteville, SC. Casey and I were on the cover of The Nation magazine. I testified at Congressman John Conyer's Downing Street Memo hearings in June 2005. I felt that I was, one heart at a time, eroding public support for the occupation of Iraq.

Then in August 2005, I was sitting at home watching TV (a very rare occurrence) and I saw that 14 Marines from Ohio had been killed in one incident. If that weren't heartbreaking and sickening enough, George Bush came on the TV and said that the loved ones of fallen soldiers can rest assured that their loved ones died for "a noble cause." That enraged me, and inflamed my sense of failure. I did not believe before Casey was killed, after he was killed, nor on August 3, 2005, that invading a country that was about as much threat to the USA as Switzerland, killing tens of thousands of innocent people all for greed for power and money is a noble cause. I decided to go to Crawford to ask him what the "noble cause" is.

Then George had the temerity to say something that has enraged me for months. He said we had to: "complete the mission to honor the sacrifices of the fallen." I have been publicly calling for him to stop for months. I don't want one more mother to have her heart and soul ripped out of her for no good reason. I wanted to go to Crawford to demand that George stop using my son's honorable and courageous sacrifice to continue his dishonorable and cowardly killing.

The rest is history. The more that people came to Camp Casey; the more letters, cards, emails, phone calls, and packages of support we received; the happier we were.

At Camp Casey we remembered something after almost 5 years of virtual dictatorship in America: the people still have the power. We the people must exercise our rights and responsibilities as Americans to dissent from an irresponsible, reckless, ignorant, and arrogant government. We realized, a little late, but not too late, that when George said: "If you're not for us, you’re against us," we all should have risen in angry, righteous, and patriotic unison and said: "You are right, you lying, out of control madman. We are against you and your insane rush to invade Iraq."

We didn't rise up then, but Camp Casey taught us that it is okay to raise your voices against the government. Not only is it "okay," but it is mandatory if your government is responsible for killing innocents. It is mandatory if there are no other checks and balances. The people will be the checks and balances on the media and government.

I thought all my hope was KIA on the same day Casey was KIA. Carly's poem gave me a reason to live. Camp Casey, with its wonderful feelings of love, acceptance, peace, community, joy, and yes, optimism for our future, gave me back my desire to live. I can now smile and laugh, and even mean it most of the time. These things I used to take for granted, but I never will again.

I live with the hope that we will one day exist in a nation of peace. I love being alive now, and will devote my life to peace with justice, so that the day may come when our children will never be misused by the war machine again. - Cindy Sheehan Copyright © 2005 LewRockwell.com [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:25 AM

Saturday, October 08, 2005

Greensboro = Blogsboro 

What led Greensboro to become the bellwether city of the blogosphere?
Some say it's simply because Greensboro is a creative community that's ahead of the curve. - ConvergeSouth

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:54 AM

Friday, October 07, 2005

Oil Shale Resources 

You'd never guess that the whole stretch of brown, red, and orange land contains enough recoverable oil and gas to make you forget about the Middle East for the rest of time. Extracting oil from shale is no simple task, which is why the reserves remain almost completely undeveloped. But an emerging new technology promises to unlock the awesome potential of the oil shale.

"The technical groundwork may be in place for a fundamental shift in oil shale economics," the Rand Corporation recently declared. "Advances in thermally conductive in-situ conversion may enable shale-derived oil to be competitive with crude oil at prices below $40 per barrel. If this becomes the case, oil shale development may soon occupy a very prominent position in the national energy agenda."

Estimated U.S. oil shale reserves total an astonishing 1.5 trillion barrels of oil – or more than five times the stated reserves of Saudi Arabia. This energy bounty
is simply too large to ignore any longer, assuming that the reserves are economically viable. - The Rude Awakening

posted by George Thomas Kysor 1:33 PM

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Design your own postage stamps 

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:43 PM

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

USDC To Hear 16th Amendment Fraud Issue 

In summary: Bill Benson, a former tax investigator, discovered that the 16th Amendment, on which the income tax is based, was not actually ratified according to the Constitution. Indeed, looking back at Secretary of State Philander Knox's letter of transmittal to Congress, he pointedly avoided using the word "ratified" and declared the amendment "in effect".
For years, tax activists have demanded that the government prove that the 16th Amendment was ratified properly. The government has refused to do so, and the courts have refused to examine the facts of the matter claiming that it is really out of their jurisdiction, opting instead to (as Knox did) simply declare it to be so from the bench (a power NOT granted judges under the Constitution). The bias of the judges is easily explained. They are, after all, employees of the government that levies the taxes, and of course are paid from tax funds.
The Department of Justice sued Benson in 2004 saying that his claims are false. Benson's lawyer argued that since the courts denied prior jurisdiction on the matter of the 16th Amendment, the lawsuit must be dismissed. The court rejected the motion to dismiss ... and walked right into a trap. Now they HAVE to allow Benson to present his evidence in court, and the judge WILL have to rule on it on its merits.
If, as Benson claims, the 16th amendment was not properly ratified, the entire income tax system collapses. More to the point, the taxpayers are owed refunds for every income tax dollar they have ever paid. - WE THE PEOPLE summarized by What Really Happened

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:42 PM

Katrina's 25 Biggest Questions 

We recently spent a week in New Orleans and Southern Louisiana interviewing relief workers, community activists, urban planners, artists, and neighborhood folks.

Even as the latest flood waters from Hurricane Rita recede, the city remains submerged in anger and frustration. Indeed, the most toxic debris in New Orleans isn't the sinister gray sludge that coats the streets of the historic Creole neighborhood of Treme or the Lower Ninth Ward, but all the unanswered questions that have accumulated in the wake of so much official betrayal and hypocrisy.

Where outsiders see simple "incompetence" or "failure of leadership," locals are more inclined to discern deliberate design and planned neglect -- the murder, not the accidental death, of a great city. In almost random order, here are twenty-five of the urgent questions that deeply trouble the local people we spoke with.

Until a grand jury or congressional committee begins to uncover the answers, the moral (as opposed to simply physical) reconstruction of the New Orleans region will remain impossible.

1. Why did the floodwalls along the 17th Street Canal only break on the New Orleans side and not on the Metairie side? Was this the result of neglect and poor maintenance by New Orleans authorities?

2. Who owned the huge barge that was catapulted through the wall of the Industrial Canal, killing hundreds in the Lower Ninth Ward -- the most deadly hit-and-run accident in U.S. history?

3. All of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish east of the Industrial Canal were drowned, except for the Almonaster-Michoud Industrial District along Chef Menteur Highway. Why was industrial land apparently protected by stronger levees than nearby residential neighborhoods?

4. Why did Mayor Ray Nagin, in defiance of his own official disaster plan, delay twelve to twenty-four hours in ordering a mandatory evacuation of the city?

5. Why did Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff not declare Katrina an "Incident of National Significance" until August 31 -- thus preventing the full deployment of urgently needed federal resources?

6. Why wasn't the nearby U.S.S. Bataan immediately sent to the aid of New Orleans? The huge amphibious-landing ship had a state-of-the-art, 600-bed hospital, water and power plants, helicopters, food supplies, and 1,200 sailors eager to join the rescue effort.

7. Similarly, why wasn't the Baltimore-based hospital ship USS Comfort ordered to sea until August 31, or the 82nd Airborne Division deployed in New Orleans until September 5?

8. Why does Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld balk at making public his "severe weather execution order" that established the ground rules for the military response to Katrina? Did the Pentagon, as a recent report by the Congressional Research Service suggests, fail to take initiatives within already authorized powers, then attempt to transfer the blame to state and local governments?

9. Why were the more than 350 buses of the New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority -- eventually flooded where they were parked -- not mobilized to evacuate infirm, poor, and car-less residents?

10. What significance attaches to the fact that the chair of the Transportation Authority, appointed by Mayor Nagin, is Jimmy Reiss, the wealthy leader of the New Orleans Business Council which has long advocated a thorough redevelopment of (and cleanup of crime in) the city?

11. Under what authority did Mayor Nagin meet confidentially in Dallas with the "forty thieves" -- white business leaders led by Reiss -- reportedly to discuss the triaging of poorer Black areas and a corporate-led master plan for rebuilding the city?

12. Everyone knows about a famous train called "the City of New Orleans." Why was there no evacuation by rail? Was Amtrak part of the disaster planning? If not, why not?

13. Why were patients at private hospitals like Tulane evacuated by helicopter while their counterparts at the Charity Hospital were left to suffer and die?

14. Was the failure to adequately stock food, water, portable toilets, cots, and medicine at the Louisiana Superdome a deliberate decision -- as many believe -- to force poorer residents to leave the city?

15. The French Quarter has one of the highest densities of restaurants in the nation. Once the acute shortages of food and water at the Superdome and the Convention Center were known, why didn't officials requisition supplies from hotels and restaurants located just a few blocks away? (As it happened, vast quantities of food were simply left to spoil.)

16. City Hall's emergency command center had to be abandoned early in the crisis because its generator supposedly ran out of diesel fuel. Likewise many critical-care patients died from heat or equipment failure after hospital backup generators failed. Why were supplies of diesel fuel so inadequate? Why were so many hospital generators located in basements that would obviously flood?

17. Why didn't the Navy or Coast Guard immediately airdrop life preservers and rubber rafts in flooded districts? Why wasn't such life-saving equipment stocked in schools and hospitals?

18. Why weren't evacuee centers established in Audubon Park and other unflooded parts of Uptown, where locals could be employed as cleanup crews?

19. Is the Justice Department investigating the Jim Crow-like response of the suburban Gretna police who turned back hundreds of desperate New Orleans citizens trying to walk across the Mississippi River bridge -- an image reminiscent of Selma in 1965? New Orleans, meanwhile, abounds in eyewitness accounts of police looting and illegal shootings: Will any of this ever be investigated?

20. Who is responsible for the suspicious fires that have swept the city? Why have so many fires occurred in blue-collar areas that have long been targets of proposed gentrification, such as the Section 8 homes on Constance Street in the Lower Garden District or the wharfs along the river in Bywater?

21. Where were FEMA's several dozen vaunted urban search-and-rescue teams? Aside from some courageous work by Coast Guard helicopter crews, the early rescue effort was largely mounted by volunteers who towed their own boats into the city after hearing an appeal on television.

22. We found a massive Red Cross presence in Baton Rouge but none in some of the smaller Louisiana towns that have mounted the most impressive relief efforts. The poor Cajun community of Ville Platte, for instance, has at one time or another fed and housed more than 5,000 evacuees; but the Red Cross, along with FEMA, has refused almost daily appeals by local volunteers to send professional personnel and aid. Why then give money to the Red Cross?

23. Why isn't FEMA scrambling to create a central registry of everyone evacuated from the greater New Orleans region? Will evacuees receive absentee ballots and be allowed to vote in the crucial February municipal elections that will partly decide the fate of the city?

24. As politicians talk about "disaster czars" and elite-appointed reconstruction commissions, and as architects and developers advance utopian designs for an ethnically cleansed "new urbanism" in New Orleans, where is any plan for the substantive participation of the city's ordinary citizens in their own future?

25. Indeed, on the fortieth anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, what has happened to democracy? - Mike Davis & Anthony Fontenot, Tomdispatch.com. Posted October 4, 2005.

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:59 PM

Constitution Conversations... 

I went to sit in the garden to peruse two different versions of the draft constitution. It was 7 pm and the electricity had just gone out for the sixth time that day. There was no generator because people usually allow their generators to rest during the evenings- the sun is on its way to setting so while it’s still light outside, the heat is bearable.

In the yards of most Iraqi houses, there is often an old, rusting swing large enough for three adults (or five children). The swing is usually iron with white, peeling paint, and its seat is covered with dusty mats or cushions so that one doesn’t rise from it with a grid-like pattern on ones backside from the crisscross of the thin iron bars.

Our summers and springs in Iraq revolve around those sofa-like swings or ‘marjuha’. As the summer comes to an end, Iraqis often have their evening tea outside in the garden, in the waning afternoon light, with plastic chairs gathered around the swing and a folding table in the center. At night, when the electricity goes out and the generator can’t be turned on, we gather outside and sit on the swing, careful to keep bare legs and feet high enough to avoid insects lurking in the grass.

When adults want to have a confidential conversation far from curious ears- you can find them out on the swing. During family gatherings, when the cousins want to hang out and gossip away from the prying eyes of their parents, they’ll be on the swing. Every family member has a photo on the swing- and every child has at some point fallen off of it.

So four weeks ago, I went out to the swing carrying two different versions of the draft constitution. Though the electricity had gone out, it was still too early to light the kerosene lamps indoors. After beating the dust out of the striped cushions and making myself comfortable, I began with the Arabic version of the constitution.

I had been reading for five minutes when a rustling sound in one of the trees caught my attention. It was coming from the ‘tooki’ tree near the wall separating our garden from our neighbor’s driveway. The tree is on our side of the wall, but more than half of its branches extend over to Abu F.’s side.

I don’t know the name for tooki in English, but it can best be described as a berry-like fruit. It’s either deep purple in color- bordering on black- or red or white. The fruit, when ripe, is both sweet and sour all at once. Our tooki tree is the red tooki type and while the fruit is lovely, it also stains everything it touches. Umm F. (Abu F.’s wife) constantly complains of it staining their driveway. Every once in a while, she revolts against the tree and attacks it, armed with a large pair of rusting hedge clippers.

This thought occurred to me as I focused on the rustling leaves and sure enough- a moment later- I saw the hedge clippers rise ominously from behind the wall clutched in a pair of hands. Snap, snap, crunch… and a medium sized branch fell towards their driveway.

“Umm F.!!!” I called out exasperated from my seat on the swing, “Again??? I thought we agreed last week you’d stop cutting the branches!!!”

The clippers paused in mid-air, like some exotic, mechanical bird with its beak open. They lowered slowly and a head took their place. Since the wall is about 180 cm high, I could tell Umm F. was standing on the pile of bricks she stacked adjacent to the wall. We had a similar pile of bricks under the tree, and we used our respective brick piles when we needed to communicate with each other over the wall.

“My driveway is a mess!” She called back to me, “You know we haven’t had proper water for a week… how am I supposed to clean it? This cursed tooki tree…” She waved her clippers in the air to emphasize her frustration.

“Well it wasn’t cursed when you made tooki jam last month!” I got up and walked to the wall to face her. In one hand, I had the Arabic version of the draft constitution (Version 2.0) and in the other I was clutching the New York Times English version and fanning myself with it furiously.

“So Umm F., did you have a look at the constitution yet?” I asked casually, trying to change the subject.

“Well, Abu F. read me some of it from one of the newspapers last week or the week before…” Came the disinterested reply. She raised the clippers and furtively snapped away at a couple of branches.

“And what do you think?” I was curious. I had my own ideas about the constitution back then but I wanted to hear hers.

“I don’t care. They’ve written it and they’ll ratify it- what does it matter what I think? Is it my father’s constitution (qabil distoor bayt abooyeh?)?”

I frowned and tried to hand her the Arabic version. “But you should read it. READ IT. Look- I even highlighted the good parts… the yellow is about Islam and the pink is about federalism and here in green- that’s the stuff I didn’t really understand.” She looked at it suspiciously and then took it from me.

I watched as she split the pile of 20 papers in two- she began sweeping the top edge of the wall with one pile, and using the other pile like a dustpan, she started to gather the wilted, drying tooki scattered on the wall. “I don’t have time or patience to read it. We’re not getting water- the electricity has been terrible and Abu F. hasn’t been able to get gasoline for three days… And you want me to read a constitution?”

“But what will you vote?” I asked, watching the papers as they became streaked with the crimson, blood-like tooki stains.

“You’ll actually vote?” She scoffed. “It will be a joke like the elections… They want this constitution and the Americans want it- do you think it will make a difference if you vote against it?” She had finished clearing the top edge of the wall of the wilting tooki and she dumped it all on our side. She put the now dusty, took- stained sheets of paper back together and smiled as she handed them back, “In any case, let no one tell you it wasn’t a useful constitution- look how clean the wall is now! I’ll vote for it!” And Umm F. and the hedge clippers disappeared.

It occurred to me then that not everyone was as fascinated with the constitution as I was, or as some of my acquaintances both abroad and inside of the country were. People are so preoccupied trying to stay alive and safe and just get to work and send their children off to school in the morning, that the constitution is a minor thing.

The trouble is that as the referendum gets nearer, interest seems to diminish. We see the billboards and the commercials on various channels all about the ‘distoor’ and we hear the radio programs and the debates on channels like Arabiya and Jazeera, but there isn’t real public involvement.

In August, there was more enthusiasm about the referendum. It was taken for granted that the Kurds, and Shia affiliated with SCIRI or Da’awa, would vote in the referendum. It was surprising, however, when the Association of Muslim Scholars (influential Sunni group) started what could almost be called a campaign encouraging Sunnis (and Shia) to vote against the constitution. The reasons they gave were that federalism, at this time and under the circumstances, would contribute to the division of Iraq, and also that the constitution encouraged secular and ethnic friction.

For a few weeks, there was actual interest on the part of Sunnis, especially in rural areas, to take part in the referendum. There were arguments about whether the referendum should be boycotted like the elections or whether it was the duty of Iraqis in general to vote it down.

And then the military operations on Sunni areas like Tel Afar, Ramadi, Qaim and Samarra began once again. The feeling has been that Sunni areas are being intentionally targeted prior to the referendum to keep Sunnis from voting. When your city is under fire, and you’ve been displaced with your family to some Red Crescent tent in the middle of the desert, the last thing you worry about is a constitution.

Sunnis are being openly threatened by Badir’s Brigade people and the National Guard. Two days ago, in ‘Ras il Hawash’ in the area of A’adhamiya in Baghdad, National Guard raided homes as an act of revenge because prior to the raid, they were attacked in A’adhamiya. People from the area complain that every home they raided, windows were broken, doors kicked in, tables overturned, people abused and money and valuables looted.

In places like Tel Afar and Qaim, dozens of civilians have been killed or wounded and conveniently labeled ‘insurgents’ so that people in the US and UK can sleep better at night. Residents of Tel Afar who left the town returned to their homes to find many of them only rubble and to find family and friends dead or wounded. I read one report that said all civilians were evacuated before the military operation. That isn’t true. Many residents didn’t have cars or transport to leave the city and were forced to stay behind. Some weren’t allowed out of it.

Now, as the US troops attack a little village on the Syrian border, we hear reports that the civilians are heading towards Syria. Not Arab fighters, nor insurgents- ordinary men, women and children who feel that the Iraqi government cannot shelter them or give them refuge from the onslaught of occupation forces.

What is more disturbing is the fact that most of the people who do want to vote, will vote for or against the constitution based not on personal convictions, but on the fatwas and urgings of both Sunni and Shia clerics. The Association of Muslim Scholars is encouraging people to vote against it, and SCIRI and Da’awa are declaring a vote for the constitution every Muslim’s duty. It’s hardly shocking that Sistani is now approving it and encouraging his followers to vote for it. (If I were an Iranian cleric living in south Iraq, I’d vote for it too!)

It is utterly frustrating to talk to someone about the referendum- whether they are Sunni or Shia or Kurd- and know that even before they’ve read the constitution properly, they’ve decided what they are going to vote.

Women’s rights aren’t a primary concern for anyone, anymore. People actually laugh when someone brings up the topic. “Let’s keep Iraq united first…” is often the response when I comment about the prospect of Iranian-style Sharia.

Rights and freedoms have become minor concerns compared to the possibility of civil war, the reality of ethnic displacement and cleansing, and the daily certainty of bloodshed and death. - Riverbend

posted by George Thomas Kysor 5:58 PM

Monday, October 03, 2005

Ike Was Right About War Machine 

I'm not really clear how much a billion dollars is but the United States — our United States — is spending $5.6 billion a month fighting this war in Iraq that we never should have gotten into.

We still have 139,000 soldiers in Iraq today.

Almost 2,000 Americans have died there. For what?

Now we have the hurricanes to pay for. One way our government pays for a lot of things is by borrowing from countries like China.

Another way the government is planning to pay for the war and the hurricane damage is by cutting spending for things like Medicare prescriptions, highway construction, farm payments, AMTRAK, National Public Radio and loans to graduate students. Do these sound like the things you'd like to cut back on to pay for Iraq?

I'll tell you where we ought to start saving: on our bloated military establishment.

We're paying for weapons we'll never use.

No other Country spends the kind of money we spend on our military. Last year Japan spent $42 billion. Italy spent $28 billion, Russia spent only $19 billion. The United States spent $455 billion.

We have 8,000 tanks for example. One Abrams tank costs 150 times as much as a Ford station wagon.

We have more than 10,000 nuclear weapons — enough to destroy all of mankind.

We're spending $200 million a year on bullets alone. That's a lot of target practice. We have 1,155,000 enlisted men and women and 225,000 officers. One officer to tell every five enlisted soldier what to do. We have 40,000 colonels alone and 870 generals.

We had a great commander in WWII, Dwight Eisenhower. He became President and on leaving the White House in 1961, he said this: “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. …"

Well, Ike was right. That's just what’s happened. - Andy Rooney © MMV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 11:19 PM

Last One to Leave, Please Turn On the Lights 

Recently, our top commander in Iraq, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., was brought back to the United States, officially to consult with George Bush on what the President still calls "our strategy for victory." Along with retiring Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, Centcom Commander Gen. John Abizaid, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Casey then testified before Congress on military "progress" in Iraq. As Rumsfeld confidently told the Armed Services Committee, "Every single week that goes by, the number of [Iraqi] security forces goes up, the total.'' In a statement from the White House Rose Garden after meeting with his generals, the President made the same point: "The growing size and increasing capability of the Iraqi security forces are helping our coalition address a challenge we have faced since the beginning of the war. And General Casey discussed this with us in the Oval Office… Now, the increasing number of more capable Iraqi troops has allowed us to better hold on to the cities we have taken from the terrorists… We're on the offense. We have a plan to win."

Before Congress, however, Casey painted a rather different picture of the Iraqi national-army-that-isn't. In fact, on a crucial point, his testimony bore little relation to the assessments that either George Bush or Donald Rumsfeld claimed they had heard. Last June, the Pentagon informed Congress that three Iraqi battalions were finally at "Level 1" of preparedness – that is, "fully trained, equipped, and capable of operating independently" of U.S. forces. On Thursday, Casey lowered this estimate to one battalion (evidently not even one of the previous three), calling it a "step backward." In other words, of the 100-plus battalions in the American-created Iraqi army, only one – perhaps 1,000 soldiers – is capable of heading off on its own to fight, out of sight of its American protectors. Donald Rumsfeld has often talked about the "metrics" of success. Well, here's perhaps the most significant metric we have on the Iraqi military – the essence of what passes for a Bush administration plan for the pacification of Iraq – and it speaks the world.

When queried on this dismal statistic, after at least a year of an intensive American focus on "standing up" the Iraqi army, the general said defensively, "It's not going to be like throwing a switch, where all of a sudden, one day, the Iraqis are in charge." This was perhaps an ill-chosen image in a country in which the Bush administration and its crony corporations have been unable to deliver electricity with any regularity to the inhabitants of that country. (During a blistering summer, parts of the capital got less than eight hours of electricity a day.)

To put all this in perspective, remember that Saddam Hussein's military was disbanded in May 2003 by L. Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority and a new Iraqi military officially reconstituted in August of that same year. The first units of the new army didn't even finish basic training (and it was evidently basic indeed) until early 2004. Ever since, they have been woefully equipped and poorly led. The earliest units (with the exception of borrowed Kurdish militiamen) broke and fled in battle. The record since hasn't been much better. (And who knows, as Juan Cole points out at his Informed Comment website, what happened to those three battalions that are no longer at Level 1 status. "Did some melt away at Tal Afar?" he asks of a recent U.S. campaign near the Syrian border. There, Iraqi troops, fighting with Americans, were asked to take the lead. The newest round of that campaign, launched in the area just days ago, seems to lack Iraqi troops altogether.)

As the Bush administration became more desperate about developments in Iraq, the Pentagon began placing ever greater emphasis on training the Iraqi military to replace American troops. Thousands of American military advisors under the command of Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who was put in charge of the Multinational Security Transition Command in Iraq, were assigned to Iraqi units in "military transition teams." For a while, Petraeus got much good press here from pundits like David Ignatius of the Washington Post as our possible military savior in Iraq, and many relatively hopeful stories were written about the always "slow" development of the Iraqi forces. Money for the new army and its equipment poured in (striking amounts of which, $1–2 billion or more, have evidently simply been stolen at the Defense Ministry in Baghdad). In addition, the new Iraqi troops are lightly armed, partially out of American fears of what they might do with more powerful weaponry.

By this summer, about the time Cindy Sheehan first landed on the Presidential vacation doorstep, the "Iraqification" effort had been turned into a jingle-style slogan for George Bush. It was the President's only real response to calls, not only from war critics, newspaper editorial pages, and a growing few in Congress, but from within the top ranks of the military, for a withdrawal plan and a timetable of some sort for getting American forces out of the country. He intoned it again and again: "Our strategy is straightforward: As Iraqis stand up, Americans will stand down. And when Iraqi forces can defend their freedom by taking more and more of the fight to the enemy, our troops will come home with the honor they have earned."

The truth of the matter, however, is plain enough for all to see. There is no Iraqi national army. "The only really effective units of the new security forces," as Time magazine's Tony Karon pointed out at his blog recently, "are essentially militias of the Kurdish and Shiite parties loyal to their party leaders rather than to a new state." (Little wonder, by the way, that they are so hated and feared in largely Sunni areas of Iraq.)

When it comes to the rest of the Iraqi military: The Iraqi Air Force essentially doesn't exist – or rather, the assumption clearly is that, for the foreseeable future, the Iraqi "Air Force" will be the U.S. Air Force. As for the Iraqi Navy, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently visited the port of Umm Qasr in "safe" southern Iraq. He had to be "outfitted in body armor" for the crossing of the Kuwaiti border, because IEDs have begun to be planted along the road to the port. With a kind of perverse admiration, he adds, "The enemy just keeps getting smarter. After the coalition forces introduced jamming devices to block roadside bombs detonated with cell phones, the insurgents started using infrared devices from garage door openers. So much ingenuity for so much malevolence."

His visit to the exceedingly modest 1,000-man Iraqi Navy, being trained at the port by the Brits, led to the observation (regularly made by Americans about every aspect of the Iraqi military) that "progress is slow. One day last week a boatload of Iraqi sailors decided to take a long lunch break and blew off the afternoon training. Too hot." The problem is that "middle-management Iraqis" won't "take the initiative." To correct this, it seems, would require "a huge cultural shift. Saddam's tyrannical rule over nearly three decades conditioned people here never to assume responsibility."

That certainly explains it; and it's pretty typical of American explanations, all of which might make sense, if those fiendishly clever insurgents weren't just down that road, exercising their ingenuity, taking the initiative like mad, upgrading their skills constantly, and fighting fiercely without the help of American trainers. I guess they just underwent a huge cultural shift that our reporters and pundits have somehow missed.

This stuff would, of course, be priceless and completely comic, if it weren't quite so tragic; if it weren't leading down desperate roads; if so many weren't dying in Iraq;, if the possibility of civil war, driven by a very minority "Sunni death cult," weren't growing; and if that country hadn't turned into a terrorist training ground. Or, as Gen. Casey put it in his testimony, in perfect militarese: "I'll tell you that levels of violence are a lagging indicator of success."

The question, of course, is: How come we can't find that switch the general spoke of, and "they" can? Or to propose a novel theory, what if the "huge cultural shift" Friedman mentions was us? What if we turned out the lights and smashed the switch. What if we invaded a country under false pretenses; occupied it; began building huge, permanent military bases on its territory; let its capital and provincial cities be looted; disbanded its military; provided no services essential to modern life; couldn't even produce oil for gas tanks in an oil-rich land; bombed some of its cities, destroyed parts or all of others; put tens of thousands of its inhabitants in U.S. military-controlled jails (where prisoners would be subjected to barbaric tortures and humiliations); provided next to no jobs; opened the economy to every kind of depredation; set foreign corporations to loot the country; invited in tens of thousands of private "security contractors," heavily armed and under no legal constraints; and then asked large numbers of Iraqis, desperate for jobs that could be found nowhere else, to join a new "Iraqi" military force meant to defend a "government" that could hardly leave an American fortified enclave in its own capital. After that, our military trainers, our generals, our politicians, our reporters, and our pundits all began fretting about this force for not fighting fiercely, being independent, taking the initiative, or "standing up." The question should be, but isn't: Standing up for what? (Not dissimilarly, as corporate looters move in to get their "relief riches," what will those evacuees driven off by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, now homeless, car-less, and job-less, be standing up for when they sign on the dotted line for military recruiters who seem to have had less trouble getting to them with offers of help than most of the rest of our government?)

This phenomenon – two sides that seem to come from different planets: our natives who just don't or can't or won't fight, who need years and vast sums of money and equipment, and then hardly stand up without an American "backbone" nearby; and theirs, who fight willingly, eagerly, fiercely, bravely, and with initiative – was also a phenomenon of the Vietnam War era. Then, American officers regularly spoke admiringly of the other side, the Vietcong, the NVA, "Charlie," as brave, resourceful fighters and had scorn for "our" Vietnamese. But generally, even when, as in Friedman's piece, the descriptions of Iraqis who fight and those who don't can be found side by side, no comparisons are made, and the farce of attempting to "stand up" an Iraqi Army simply goes on.

If you set aside, for a moment, what is believed in, it obviously helps to believe in something if you plan to "stand up" and fight. At the most basic level in our age, it helps if you feel your country has been violated and occupied by foreigners. In the last two centuries, no emotion has mobilized more people in arms than the one we call "nationalism" when other people take up arms and "patriotism" when we do so. Call it love of country. Add religion to that – or the belief that your country or region has been taken over by unbelievers – and you have a powerful combination. The issue here is not years of training, it's motivation. And our Iraqis have next to none – with the exception of Kurdish and Shiite militiamen who want to take out those Sunnis they think of as their enemies and a potential peril to their existence.

Experiencing Withdrawal Symptoms

So let's return for a moment to the President's "plan." "As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." But what about some contingency planning? This administration has been notoriously weak on planning for lesser alternative futures. Despite having Colin Powell for Secretary of State, for instance, Bush officials never had an exit strategy for Iraq, not just because they had no urge to leave, but because they didn't believe they would ever have to. So if you reverse the President's little jingle, there's no there there. "As Iraqis stand down, we will…" Well, what?

The options are increasingly limited, and yet, even for this administration, the need is increasingly obvious and pressing. The President could not be more isolated internationally when it comes to his war. Most of the Europeans are now simply doing their best to look the other way. The Chinese leadership undoubtedly dances in the streets of the Forbidden City every morning, because the Iraqi quagmire ensures that, for another day, China will not be the next enemy of enemies. The newly elected Norwegian government has announced that it will withdraw its few trainers from Iraq. The Poles and Italians are on their way out along with the Ukrainians. A Dane was just killed by a roadside bomb in the Basra area and the keeping of a Danish contingent in the country, never popular, has grown less so. The Japanese troops are locked into their "base" in the south, doing nothing; and, while Tony Blair swears fealty to Bush Iraq policy for another 1,000 Arabian nights, the British have, in fact, been hemming and hawing about withdrawal as their situation grows ever hotter in the Basra area (where Shiite militias have taken over and, as Robert Dreyfuss of Tompaine.com points out, former Baathists are being assassinated in startling numbers). Meanwhile, the Bush administration was just rebuffed by NATO on a Rumsfeld proposal that NATO troops take over parts of the American counter-guerrilla war in southern Afghanistan, freeing up our hard-pressed troops for duty elsewhere.

So what's left in Iraq – other than the stood-down Iraqi Army and the embattled Iraqi police (both forces evidently well-infiltrated by insurgents)? Well, there are always those 25,000 or so private mercenaries with the run of the country; there's a nearly non-functional Iraqi government in disarray over the constitution the Bush administration has been shoving down its throat on an unpalatable schedule; and, of course, there's the U.S. military, which is losing not quite two soldiers a day in the country (and many more wounded). Fifty-one American troops died in September along with several American "contractors" and a diplomatic official. As has been true for the last two years, the insurgents remain capable mainly of picking off Americans as they travel from one place to another on Iraq's embattled roads and highways. But a suicide car bomber was caught recently inside the well-guarded Green Zone in Baghdad before his vehicle could explode. That is, perhaps, an omen of what's likely to come. Sooner or later, catastrophic events are a near certainly if the war goes on.

In the meantime, our military in Iraq is fraying in all sorts of ways; while, back home, the publicity attendant on the war has been terrible and recruitment continues to prove a problem, despite heightened resources going into the effort. Publicity. Ah, there's an issue. Karen Hughes, presidential confident and America's newest public diplomat, was hoofing it around the Middle East last week on a disastrous public diplomacy tour for the administration, highlighting her ya-gotta-love-me qualifications as a "mom" and Americans' qualifications as a people "of faith." (As Fred Kaplan of Slate writes, "Put the shoe on the other foot. Let's say some Muslim leader wanted to improve Americans' image of Islam. It's doubtful that he would send as his emissary a woman in a black chador who had spent no time in the United States, possessed no knowledge of our history or movies or pop music, and spoke no English beyond a heavily accented ‘Good morning.'")

In the meantime, the real "public diplomacy" work is being done elsewhere by an administration that, from the first moments of its global war on terror, was intent on mayhem, destruction, and torture; that wanted, in Donald Rumsfeld's words, to "take the gloves off." All evidence continues to indicate that, in behavioral terms, this spirit spread like a pandemic throughout the imperium and into the deepest reaches of the U.S. military, the CIA, and even American embassies abroad. Just in the last couple of weeks, such "public diplomacy" has consisted of an actual porn website that has been posting military "war porn" for all to see – photos of American troops exulting in blistered and mutilated Iraqi and Afghani corpses; and the news that an Army captain who reported ongoing military abuses against Iraqi prisoners, both before and after Abu Ghraib (including the use of those tell-tale human pyramids), found himself and two sergeants from his unit, who supported his testimony, the only ones under investigation by our military. ("Everyone in camp knew if you wanted to work out your frustration, you show up at the PUC [prisoner] tent. In a way it was sport.") Or try this one on for publicity size: This week, the global managing editor of Reuters sent a letter off to Senator John Warner claiming that "American forces' conduct towards journalists in Iraq is ‘spiraling out of control' and preventing full coverage of the war reaching the public… The Reuters news service chief referred to ‘a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by US forces in Iraq.'" (I can't think of another example of such a letter being written from a mainstream news outlet to the U.S. government.)

Believe me, you can't buy negative publicity like this on the street. And then, just for good measure, consider the anti-publicity value of the latest ad from the joint team of Boeing and Bell Helicopter for their vertical-lift Osprey aircraft – a shot of U.S. Special Forces rappelling onto a smoking mosque with the tag line: "It descends from the heavens. Ironically it unleashes hell... Consider it a gift from above." The ad caused another little storm, and there's an awesome shock!

Put it all together and it adds up to a tsunami of unsustainable reality. So somebody answer me this question: Based on the evidence, what favor exactly have we been doing the Iraqis these last two disastrous years by occupying their country? I suspect a lot of military people have been asking similar questions as they worry (as their predecessors did in the later Vietnam years) about the future viability of the Army.

Withdrawal from Iraq, one way or another, is now probably unstoppable, no matter how many times generals, administration officials, and politicians may step back or create "withdrawal plans" that are intent on keeping us in Iraq. President Bush continues to speak of how the terrorists will not "break the will" of the American people. But all evidence indicates that support for his war has all but collapsed here in the United States, even increasingly among his own base of support. And it's almost as clear that the military leadership knows the score. The Army high command, after all, never wanted to be in Iraq in the first place and can see not only that the "war" is unwinnable, or even salvageable, but that it threatens the cohesion and future of the Army itself.

Gen. Casey, for instance, has been floating supposedly unauthorized withdrawal balloons for a couple of months now, despite being officially chastised for doing so by Washington (or so the story goes, anyway). Recently, in Washington, he began more publicly counseling for, if not a full-scale withdrawal, at least a "gradual" draw-down of U.S. forces in Iraq. As Mark Mazzetti of the Los Angeles Times wrote, he based his thinking on the novel thesis (for this administration) that "the presence of U.S. forces was fueling the insurgency, fostering an undesirable dependency on American troops among the nascent Iraqi armed forces and energizing terrorists across the Middle East." Sound familiar, any of you war critics out there?

Unfortunately, this is likely to prove too little too late, Iraqi dependence having long been fostered because it was exactly what was wanted. It's now late in the game to – as administration officials used to love to say – put "an Iraqi face" on "our" Iraq.

Oh, by the way, when someone actually starts developing those withdrawal plans for real, the mercenaries shouldn't be forgotten. The Iraqis don't deserve them, although evidence seems to indicate that some of them are already coming home. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman pointed out recently, "In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is awash in soldiers and police. Nonetheless, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has hired Blackwater USA, a private security firm with strong political connections, to provide armed guards." The North Carolina-based Blackwater Consulting, with its strong private security presence in Iraq, has just hired former Director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center and former ambassador Cofer Black as its vice-chairman and Joseph E. Schmitz, former Inspector General of the Department of Defense, as its Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel; while, its website listings for "overseas opportunities," assumedly in Iraq, is still looking include open positions for explosive- detection dog handlers, designated defensive marksmen, and protective-security specialists. So batten down the hatches, there's surely more killing and chaos to come. Lots more. - Tom Engelhardt Copyright © 2005 Tom Engelhardt [See the Fair Use Notice, below.]

posted by George Thomas Kysor 8:02 AM

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Source to Stephanopoulos: President Bush Directly Involved In Leak Scandal 

Near the end of a round table discussion on ABC’s This Week, George Stephanopoulos dropped this bomb:
Definitely a political problem but I wonder, George Will, do you think it’s a manageable one for the White House especially if we don’t know whether Fitzgerald is going to write a report or have indictments but if he is able to show as a source close to this told me this week, that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of these discussions.
Video-WMP
Video-QT
George said it so calmly. Clearly he knows what the ramifications are to this tidbit of information. - Crooks and Liars (via Think Progress, & Information Clearing House)

posted by George Thomas Kysor 9:47 PM